Bank card and Bond.
Hello.
It is, at last, the weekend. Three days off to do whatever I want any old time, as the song goes. Well, within reason seeing as there isn’t just me to take into consideration and we have a birthday party to go to and so on. But to be away from work for three days will be nice. In most ways it’s been a great week, I’ve got loads done for instance, but some of the time I’ve not felt well and a lot of the time I’ve been irritated by a certain someone at work, from here-on-in known as C.T. Yes, Mr. C.T. still finds it impossible to stay quiet for any length of time while he’s working (although he managed to make barely a sound during his lunch hour, which for some reason he spent in the unpacking room with us.) Thursday was the day I pondered how easily I could remove someone’s vocal cords, without leaving a scar of course, just by using a Stanley knife.
Perhaps it’s just me. Every Christmas without fail one of the temps gets under my skin in one way or another. Usually it’s not someone I have to work with too closely, but this time it is. Actually I usually don’t like them, but this time I do like him I just wish he had learn the skill of being quiet, or realising when other people need to be quiet. If there is a silence he will fill it, if not with speech then a variety of noises. When explaining my feelings to a friend I likened the situation to that of the sound of a dripping tap in the dead of night; at first you might not notice it but once you have you just cannot ignore it. So it is with C.T’s voice. I hear it and then there’s no escaping it.
It’s a nasty trait, intolerance of others, I know. I suppose it’s relatively mild in this case, though. Another of the many of my traits that I find annoying is my inability to give up certain obsessions with things, no matter how unlikely I am ever to resolve them. I have several of these that have lasted for years, ranging from occasionally searching at my parents’ house for the knitted white cat, complete with bright green felt eyes stitched on to its face, that I had when I was very, very small but which no one has seen since 1974 but which no one remembers disposing of to trying to find the bungalow my family stayed in one summer holiday in 1972 or 1973 in the village of Wangford (fnarr, it’s got “wang” in it which isn’t really a British euphemism but one which has bled into our slang from American popular culture) but which may have vanished years ago beneath a modern housing estate. The fact that probably neither of these things exist anymore hasn’t stopped me feeling the urge to find them.
Another one concerns a poster. A poster of ABBA, in fact.
(Actually, while this is a picture from the session that spawned the poster it isn’t a picture of the actual poster.)
Although the picture is from 1975 I don’t remember seeing it for sale until 1976 when they began to get really famous. My bedroom walls were full of ABBA pictures, but I never bought that one despite loving it. Why this is I don’t know, perhaps I’m just an idiot. Anyway, the most recent opportunity I had to buy it was during the late eighties when a discount bookshop in town had loads of copies of it as part of their out of print, discounted posters range. Instead I bought some others and left it for another day… To this day I scour memorabilia shops for it but to no avail. Twice it has appeared on eBay and both times it has sold for too much than I am prepared to pay. It seems I may not be the only person who didn’t buy the damn thing when they had the chance. I dream that one day I’ll nonchalantly be walking past a charity shop, glance idly in to the window and see it there, just hanging innocently on a wall in perfect condition, for sale at a reasonable price. Well, I can dream can’t I.
Let’s move away from my personality failings now. On Tuesday night Drew and I went with our neighbours to see the new James Bond film, “Quantum of Solace.” We had long since planned to go to the cinema together but until this week the chance had never arisen. I have to admit to a certain reluctance to go. This is nothing to do with our neighbours who, as I have mentioned before, a very lovely couple and a lot to do with the fact that thanks to the lingering traces of my once very bad claustrophobia I don’t really enjoy going to sit in a dark, hot (or chilly as it turns out) and crowed place unless I really, really want to see the film. And I didn’t really, really want to see this one.
It didn’t help that I wasn’t feeling particularly well and that I had felt so weary during the afternoon that I sat with the light off at my desk and dozed for a while. My mood wasn’t improved by a bank machine “eating” my card because I took too long over the transaction thanks to answering my mobile during the process. By the time I met the others at Cineworld all I wanted to do was go home, get in to bed and listen to some music while forgetting the rest of the world existed. I went into a bit of a trance during the interminable previews/adverts section, although I did perk up at the brilliant ad for the Adam and Joe radio show on BBC 6 Music because although I don’t listen to the show I do subscribe to their brilliant podcast. (I was a massive fan of their television show, which has a Wikipedia page here here and on which I was lucky enough to see their seminal soft-toy version of “Showgirls.”)
Another reason for my lack of enthusiasm is that I’m not a big fan of the Bond franchise, although I do think Sean Connery was the best actor to take the part and if I had to choose a “favourite” film from the series it would have to be “The Spy Who Loved Me” (I know it was a Roger Moore one, but I don’t care) not least because I love the opening titles when Carly Simon’s song kicks in. But, but, but I LOVED “Quantum of Solace.” It was fantastic, better even than “Casino Royale” which I had thought pretty good though dull in parts. And why all the moaning about the lack of quips and gadgets? They were there all right, just not in a kitsch way - people laughed several times. The cast were excellent, with special mentions for not just Daniel Craig and (the divine) Judi Dench (has she ever been bad in anything? I doubt it.) who were both incredible, but also for Olga Kurylenko and Gemma Atherton (whose character had the enviable name of Strawberry Fields) who gave strong support in their roles. Aterton was spectacularly different from her recent appearance as Tess in the BBC’s adaptation of “Tess of the d’Ubervilles.” And her hair was lovely.
Earlier, on the way to the cinema and just to rub it in that it was not a good day for me a bank machine ate my card. I had stopped on a whim, deciding to get some money out on the way to the cinema rather than on the way to work the next morning and had almost completed the transaction when my mobile rang. It was Drew phoning to tell me that they had arrived at Cineworld, bought the tickets and were waiting for me in the foyer. As I juggled my iPod, the earphones and the mobile I lost my grip on my card which the cash machine had just regurgitated and the mechanism whipped it back inside before I could do anything about it. Bugger, was one word I didn’t use as I stomped off to Cineworld. In the end it was resolved very swiftly. In fact I was really impressed that a phone call to the bank on Wednesday morning led to the arrival of my new card on Friday morning, much more quickly than they had said.
And finally I have seen my first house decorated ready for the festive season. In fact I noticed the decorations in the window about 10 days ago, so they were put up around Guy Fawkes’ night. The same house was decorated as early last year, too, but strangely during this year the house was sold and now there is a different family living in it. Perhaps the deeds stipulate that whosoever owns it must decorate it during the first week of November.
Righto, it’s late and I’m trying to concentrate on a “Time Team” special so I need to stop typing. Back soon.