I can hardly believe that in this sophisticated, cynical world of today there are still people called Willy. Yet a female acquaintance of mine stepped out with a Willy for months, if not years, and moments ago a colleague answered his mobile telephone with a cry of "Hello, Willy!" Ah, if life ever ceases to surprise me, I will consider myself ( Read more... )

As well as Vasily Grossman's account of the Holocaust in the car park on my lunch break, I started The Cadence of Grass by Thomas McGuane. It's utterly elegant, despite the pettiness and triviality of its characters, as if the only thing to do with the mundanity of life is to ironically poeticise it.Natalie tired him with the acuteness of her ( Read more... )

The air conditioning at work has just been repaired (that is after the repair). Woo, multimedia!

I went to Argos this lunchtime to buy a new alarm clock. After I'd paid for my order but before I'd collected the clock, the fire alarm went off in the shopping mall, and I had to file out and stand in the rain for 15 minutes (I found a place to huddle up against the wall, and luckily the fire marshalls weren't total bastards and let us stay there ( Read more... )

Woo! I'm back at work. At least I remembered my password for my office computer. The pond outside my office is the colour of milky coffee; no sign of swans. And I think my car is going to die. I should probably find someone to repair it. It's now snowing. Ah, how many weeks of tedium await me! Can I add a question mark to the previous ( Read more... )

Every day's the same, I step out my back door and see the ground dark with rainwater. There's still the same pizza-delivery leaflet stuck to the doorstep as well. I guess I could pick it up, but then where would I get a symbol for the neverending drudgery of my life?

Ahem. Never mind. I really need to sleep and not watch X-Factor video clips ( Read more... )

I felt an inexplicable urge to work when I got in this morning. Luckily Visual Studio .Net debugger decided to hang my entire computer for about 45 minutes. So that's pretty much put me off working, even though it worked perfectly when I tried it a second time. H texted me at 5 past midnight, and Carmen texted me at half past midnight Missouri ( Read more... )

I started reading Robinson by Chris Petit. It's probably a bad idea to read half a book about seedy London, pornography, drunkenness, voyeuristic dwarves, and second-hand book dealing right before sleep. My dream did not feature any second-hand books. I spent all of my working hours yesterday reading about European history on Wikipedia. Those ( Read more... )

Educational Novels for Business and Accounting.

The Bottom Line is Betrayal 5th Edition, 2006, ISBN: 0-759-36482-6 An Educational Novel: For use in Accounting, Business, and Economics Classes. "Characters: The story centers around three principal characters who are employed by Coca-Cola, Inc.: an overseas marketing specialist, a business ( Read more... )

My stepmother always goes on at anyone with a cold to sleep with your head propped up high. I did that last night and now my head is much clearer, but my neck is really stiff and sore. Sigh. Oh well, I thought I had appendicitis or a broke rib yesterday but it was probably indigestion. Yay, I am an old man complaining about my illnesses. ( Read more... )