Show The Dog The Rabbit
My company Christmas / New Year "do" is on Saturday night at a local hotel. Vic and I have been seated by Mandy - who is organising the event - on a table consisting of:
Mandy and her husband.
Lisa and her husband.
Julain and his granny.
My director and his wife.
Considering Lisa refuses to speak to me, and my general contempt for Mandy and Julian, it could be an interesting evening. Vic is especially looking forward to it. Hopefully she will be sat next to my director - who is a nice & normal chap - otherwise we may not get to the starters...
I don't know why Mandy has put me on their table. Either she wants to punish me and make my evening as miserable as possible, or she mistakes my gentle teasing of Julian as "entertaining" - as opposed to the overt bullying that it really is.
The teasing has continued this week with an Office-esque wind-up concerning Saturday evening's dress code. The official dress code is "smart" - so I shall be wearing my new John Roche "designer" shirt and trendy flared cord pants.
As far as Julian is concerned though, I am wearing Black Tie.
This week Mandy - whose husband is also "probably going to wear his dinner jacket" -and I have been feeding Julian little titbits of bait, along the lines of:
"I've had my DJ dry cleaned."
"The front panels on my dress shirt are a devil to iron."
"I've only got one pair of suitable cufflinks to wear."
I even practised tying a bowtie with a napkin prop at lunch time.
Finally Julian took the hook and asked us - with a look of panic in his eyes - if people were wearing Black Tie on Saturday.
"Well the dress code is smart Julian, so I think I might. It's always better to be overdressed than underdressed at these things."
"Oh. I haven't got a dinner suit. I wore one once when I went to a ball somewhere. I think I'll just wear a lounge suit."
Childish I know, but the predictable look of panic was worth it. You could see he was worried that he was going to have to spend £30 on hiring one. In fact he'd been worried all week, but hadn't had the nerve to ask us. I'd almost got to the stage where I thought after being shown glimpses of the rabbit all week, the dog wasn't going to run after it.
I'm going to steal his stapler and set it in wibbly-wobbly jelly.
Friday, January 10, 2003
Tuesday, January 07, 2003
Honk Honk
I've already become addicted to GTA Vice City. The more I play, the bigger and better it gets. It's a thing of beauty.
Vic's starting to regret giving it to me. She's had to switch off the PS2 and drag me up to bed the last three nights. Last night I slept fitfully: I dreamt of car jackings, assault rifles, pastel coloured suits with the jacket sleeves rolled up, and the strippers in my new Pole Position gentlemen's club.
According to Vic, on Sunday night I made the noise "HONK HONK!" twice in my sleep.
That's the sound of a stolen construction truck's horn...
Our Postman's Wife Is Having An Affair
Paul the Plasterer came round last night to give us a quote on the kitchen walls (we ordered our new units from MFI on Sunday). He's a nice guy and after our hour of smashing the fireplace apart (in the living room back in September), feels comfortable enough to have a gossip with us. He can talk too.
Anyway, when Paul did the job for us in September, our postman came to the door and it turned out Paul had done the work on his newly-built extension. Paul told us last night that the builder who constructed that extension is now knocking the postman's wife off on the side.
Fascinating stuff, but I don't quite understand why he told us about it.
Furthermore, I feel obliged to tell our poor Postman Pat about his wife's playing away from home.
I won't of course - I've seen too many soap operas for that.
Snow Fall
We had a dusting of snow overnight. Like caster sugar. The result is travel chaos here in the UK. We also had about 10 minutes worth of light snow fall this morning at work. It's fantastic to watch the reactions of grown men and women to a touch of snow: people were rubbing their hands in glee and hoping that there would be enough to build a snowman and toss a few snowballs around at lunch time.
Our South African kitchen hand - Colin - had never seen snow before, and described the wintery scene as "a dream".
That's why I love snow: it helps adults get back in touch with the inner child.
[I won't be saying that when I'm defrosting the car tomorrow morning]
I've already become addicted to GTA Vice City. The more I play, the bigger and better it gets. It's a thing of beauty.
Vic's starting to regret giving it to me. She's had to switch off the PS2 and drag me up to bed the last three nights. Last night I slept fitfully: I dreamt of car jackings, assault rifles, pastel coloured suits with the jacket sleeves rolled up, and the strippers in my new Pole Position gentlemen's club.
According to Vic, on Sunday night I made the noise "HONK HONK!" twice in my sleep.
That's the sound of a stolen construction truck's horn...
Our Postman's Wife Is Having An Affair
Paul the Plasterer came round last night to give us a quote on the kitchen walls (we ordered our new units from MFI on Sunday). He's a nice guy and after our hour of smashing the fireplace apart (in the living room back in September), feels comfortable enough to have a gossip with us. He can talk too.
Anyway, when Paul did the job for us in September, our postman came to the door and it turned out Paul had done the work on his newly-built extension. Paul told us last night that the builder who constructed that extension is now knocking the postman's wife off on the side.
Fascinating stuff, but I don't quite understand why he told us about it.
Furthermore, I feel obliged to tell our poor Postman Pat about his wife's playing away from home.
I won't of course - I've seen too many soap operas for that.
Snow Fall
We had a dusting of snow overnight. Like caster sugar. The result is travel chaos here in the UK. We also had about 10 minutes worth of light snow fall this morning at work. It's fantastic to watch the reactions of grown men and women to a touch of snow: people were rubbing their hands in glee and hoping that there would be enough to build a snowman and toss a few snowballs around at lunch time.
Our South African kitchen hand - Colin - had never seen snow before, and described the wintery scene as "a dream".
That's why I love snow: it helps adults get back in touch with the inner child.
[I won't be saying that when I'm defrosting the car tomorrow morning]
Monday, January 06, 2003
Welcome to 2003, Tommy - Part 2
Vicster took the decorations off Trevor (the tree) yesterday, so Christmas is officially over at our house. Only mountains of leftover food - cheese, chocolates and a great chocolate & chestnut torte dessert - remain as evidence.
On Christmas Day I breathed a sigh of relief after Nelson had finished regurgitating his breakfast and we'd opened our gifts: I had avoided receiving a "Windy Miller" and was pleased and grateful for the presents received.
Especially my new Playstation 2...
...with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City game.
Quite simply, its awesome. Vice City is more a work of art than a console game. It looks like Miami. It feels like Miami Vice meets Scarface. The plotting is slick and the production amazing. The characters are voiced by Hollywood greats - Ray Loita, Dennis Hopper, Burt Reynolds, and all those guys who play guys in gangster flicks. The radio stations - that you tune your car into - churn out classic 80's hits by the original artists. The attention to detail is supreme, the atmosphere heavy, and the vast 1980's Vice City a terrifically flavourful - and adult - backdrop. And its great fun.
If ever a video game deserved recognition as a true classic and great piece of entertainment, GTA:VC is that game.
Julianism of the Week
More words of wisdom from Julian, regarding skills you never lose:
"It's like falling off a bike... you never forget it..."
Vicster took the decorations off Trevor (the tree) yesterday, so Christmas is officially over at our house. Only mountains of leftover food - cheese, chocolates and a great chocolate & chestnut torte dessert - remain as evidence.
On Christmas Day I breathed a sigh of relief after Nelson had finished regurgitating his breakfast and we'd opened our gifts: I had avoided receiving a "Windy Miller" and was pleased and grateful for the presents received.
Especially my new Playstation 2...
...with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City game.
Quite simply, its awesome. Vice City is more a work of art than a console game. It looks like Miami. It feels like Miami Vice meets Scarface. The plotting is slick and the production amazing. The characters are voiced by Hollywood greats - Ray Loita, Dennis Hopper, Burt Reynolds, and all those guys who play guys in gangster flicks. The radio stations - that you tune your car into - churn out classic 80's hits by the original artists. The attention to detail is supreme, the atmosphere heavy, and the vast 1980's Vice City a terrifically flavourful - and adult - backdrop. And its great fun.
If ever a video game deserved recognition as a true classic and great piece of entertainment, GTA:VC is that game.
Julianism of the Week
More words of wisdom from Julian, regarding skills you never lose:
"It's like falling off a bike... you never forget it..."
