What's the point in IT?

The IT training room at work feels a bit like being in prison. A high quality prison, but a prison all the same. All the tacky matching-but-cheap furnishings cloned from every IT suite across the universe (there's probably an alien somewhere, wrestling with computer concepts, sitting on the dual adjustable office chair) laid out so you can only stare at your monitor or the magnolia wall. It feels like you've been sent to the naughty corner. The single, small window is set high in the wall to avoid the wanton allure of the suburban paradise below distracting us from our task. I stood on tiptoe to open the window to try to alleviate the drone from the monitors and ceiling projector. A pneumatic drill started attacking some belligerent concrete outside. The window was closed. The air went dry. The room remained souless.

The wall screen bore the time in its curled up corner, cruelly accurate to the minute.

I gazed despondently out of the grey window at the grey sky.

'The anti-bird netting seems to be woven into interesting trapeziums' I thought desperately to myself. Just at that moment, an anarchic pigeon released two dollops of poo that splattered across the window pane.

It was OK, it was grey.

It matched.

Odd, Clever, Strange.

I was walking past the Tate Modern today, and thought I shouldn't walk past, I should go in and 'get me some culture'. For a huge place, I've only ever seen a few things that really grab me, and generally I find it rather disappointing. Today there was what looked like an outsized lorry container in the Turbine Hall. I wasn't sure I could be bothered to even go down the stairs to look at it. Then I saw a sign that showed you could walk into it from the other end, so, slightly intrigued, I went round. The container was open with the end dropped down making a broad ramp. It still looked too uninspiring to bother navigating the slight incline to get in. Just as I was about to turn away, a young girl went past saying, 'Wow, what an experience'. Confused, I wandered up the ramp and was drawn into the void. I walked further and further into the container and the darkness became increasingly thick, like soup. Faces came upon me suddenly, out of the apparent nowhere and people bumped against each other. It was disorientating, but mesmerising. It reminded me of seeing a swarm of bats one night in the park. I couldn't see them until they were right in my personal space, when they swooped away with a deft screw turn.

A cluster of pale faces marked the back wall of the container. Turning round, I could see the end of the Turbine Hall, in normal daylight.

Odd. Clever. Strange.

How much for a wing mirror?

I've had to rather traumatically give up my free parking pass at work. This means I have to find a spot in the streets around Prefab Towers. On Friday, I parked in quite a good place on a fairly wide main road. When I came back to the car, someone had smashed into the wing mirror and left it dangling by a solitary electric cable. It reminded me of two things: being seven years old with a tooth hanging by the last string of skin, dangling and twisting rather uncomfortably (I never was quite brave enough to yank it out, and went for days spitting a tooth out at people as I spoke) and how an eyeball might look after being snookered out of its orbit, hanging by the optic nerve.

I drove home gingerly, and most of today has been spent trying to sort out a replacement. The jolly man at the garage under the railway bridge said it would be £175. That's without the time to fit it and before he had screwed the number plate on properly (about time I had a gaffer-tape free car I thought).

£175!

For a mirror!

Blimey!

It spurred me on to test out Halford's customer service, which does those boring ads between Top Gear on the Dave channel. I had done my homework and found a universal mirror for £13.99 on the internet. I started to lose the will to live after giving my registration number three times over the phone to the Saturday chap in the local branch. To make it easy, I even gave him the catalogue number. He spent some time rummaging around in the attic and came back to say he had one. I hot footed it down to the shop, to find that what was behind the till was a towing mirror. I don't have a caravan, and obviously also didn't have a wing mirror to attach it to. The helpful chap went scurrying back into the attic. While I waited, I strolled up to the mirror display and found the one I wanted.

Back to the jolly man in the garage who obviously saw the word 'mug' written across my forehead, because an hour later he charged me £50 to fit it (and do the number plate). As I handed over my hard earned cash, he said I needed some gaffer tape to stop the rain getting in and stopping the window from working.

I tried to look concerned, but regular readers will know that the window hasn't worked for some time.

I was more annoyed that I still needed a roll of gaffer-tape in the glove compartment.

The Magic Carpet

When we are down, we look at the clouds. We see nothing else.

Storm clouds, dark clouds.

A deep depression.

Friends and family come together to shoulder our trouble on a magic carpet of love. Raising us up to better see the sky.

If we look at the clouds, the supporters silently shuffle round beneath us, turning the carpet so our face looks to the sunlight. We might turn our head away, not ready to see it yet.

Quietly, the carpet shuffles round again, trying to direct us to the light.

Sometimes the burden of holding the carpet up is immense. The supporters know they must not buckle under the weight of grief; yours or their own. They hold their breath. Heads down, arms across each other’s trusty shoulders, they side step around the black hole of despair, determined not to let you fall again.

The magnitude of the task is bolstered by love, by trust and by faith in you.

They want no gratitude, only to see your face turn to the light.

They know that somewhere, deep in your soul, you are aware of the ride.

Sport for the Lazy

There's something therapeutic about trying to bat the living daylights out of a shuttlecock. Every ounce of stress or anger from the day can be directed at the flimsy feathered thing that is cockroach-like in it's inability to be destroyed.

I'm now wondering whether there is something in the prefix or suffix 'cock' that makes it indestructable. Hmm, something to think about there.....

Snap out of it girl!

Sorry, where was I?

Oh yes, the shuttlecock. What is so wonderful is that, unlike a tennis ball, you don't have to run far to retrieve it. You can achieve pretty good shots with not that much effort, the racquet is nice and light and you also tend to play indoors so you don't get the sun in your eyes or the wind whisking the focus of your pent-up emotions away. Yes, badminton is a sport well suited to the lazy athlete. I also like cycling because it's exercise done sitting down, and swimming backstroke, because its as near to lying in bed as exercise gets. All that comfy water holding you up. Table tennis might have lighter bats, and those weedy balls, but they do tend to roll a long way away and lodge in tricky places under furniture. If you don't look where you are treading, there's an annoying crunch and you have to bring the game to a premature close (a useful device to employ if you are losing as a draw is the only sportsman-like option in this situation).

Running is by far too much like hard work, and runners always have bandaged knees or ankles, which proves it's not good for you. Rugby players spend as much time in casualty waiting for ear transplants as they do running around the pitch, and cricketers need armoured protection for their well, you know what*, which points to an obvious highly undesirable element in the game.

So, grab a lightweight racquet,swirl it around a few times so it makes a very satisfying whooshing noise in the air, and reduce your blood pressure instantly by thrashing a shuttlecock.

*like those puzzles, fill in the gap the word that makes two new words:
shuttle(_ _ _ _)roach