August 31 (Tuesday): Allnighter. A second night of horribly disrupted sleep comes to an end with my alarm rudely waking me up. I stagger out of bed and my back is absolutely caning, I’m a total raspberry. I have the best intentions to get to work early today but I fail to live up to my part as the morning occurs with a drag. I hear Phoebe log on MSN and am tempted to say “hi�, wondering why she has not been in touch all weekend. In the end I decide to not tempt fate, instead I end up tempting fate.

I walk into work listening to Moyles, getting back into routine again hits me hard. As I approach Chernobyl, walking opposite is Out My League girl. She looks at me with her usual contempt and it drives me wild.

The day in the office is another real snorer. I pick up South East Brickwork and I decide it should be really called South Park Brickwork. Actually, to be honest, a lot of the accounts work has been done its just the bank that has not been maintained, so I set about reconciling the bank, trying to incorporate their records meaning I am doing it the hard way. Oh, the exciting life of the accountant.

Stevo brings his laptop in today and spends a good portion of the day adding sound effects to our movements. For example, when we leave the office and shut the door: the sliding door noise from Star Trek.

At lunchtime I buy my course books for my upcoming English AS course. Surprisingly Waterstones has all three books: the text book, the Anita Shreve novel and the Christina Rossetti poetry book. I snap them up immediately and start/begin to build up enthusiasm for the upcoming classes.

In the evening I hope fairly swiftly, in time to speak to Phoebe on MSN. She tells me she is down and that she has some skin rash/allergy at the moment. I tell her it is just “a blot on perfection� which people later tell me is/was a very cheesy thing to say but I think it is actually a really nice thing to say. Still, I think I manage to cheer her up and make her laugh, telling her that it is probably nowhere near as noticeable as it feels.

I fly home to my parents and do my bit, eat their food and watch their Sky. My trip is fleeting, it is fun.

When I get home in the evening, it is still a beautiful summers night. Outside the air is still warm and I am able to sleep the night with my window open. I hear some shouting and wonder if it is (there are) herberts outside in the Hollytree car park Upon further investigation it is a proper domestic going, hell for leather. They are having a right go at eachother but I’ll be damned if I can make out what the domestic is about, although at one point I do hear a barrage of the word “her� and something about a mobile phone. Midnight hits and it doesn’t sound like they are going to quit any time soon, I actually begin to fear it may spill out into the car park.

All in all though, it doesn’t really bother me. I stand with my arms crossed leaning out of my window trying to eavesdrop and I look out on the Colchester night sky and all the lights flickering in the distance. I love this view and I love these moments, very rarely these days do I feel so alive that at midnight I am still full of life and energy. I settle down stuff and send an email to Phoebe telling her about the domestic and how great and cosy I feel within my apartment, on my own in the best of all worlds, I think maybe this is the contentment that Miller had all his life.

Eventually the Police actually turn up outside but it is a while after voices stop slinging and things have calmed down, with the witching hour arriving.

I sit down to the beginning of the month and on the TV is Hasselhoff acting out as Nick Fury in the crap adaptation of the Marvel comic. That man fucking sucks.

np: Wu Tang Clan – M.E.T.H.O.D. Man

August 30 (bank holiday Monday): The Last Laugh. What a nightmare, I wake up around 4 AM and find myself unable to get back to sleep, what a surprise. Attempts to get back to slumber I find are thwarted by over thinking, churning up my mind and resulting in worry. I sought external stimulation with which to distract my mind and send me to sleep. In the end I plum for Lost In Translation, probably the slowest movie known to man.

Around 5 AM Phoebe Canada hits me on MSN with “knock knock� and I give up on sleep. I tell Phoebe I am suffering from insomnia and she says she is likewise and we should have a “mutual bitchfest� with eachother. Seems I do a good job and manage to send her to sleep. So now here I am left in the early hours wide awake so I hit Sara on MSN, which is much appreciated on her part…..not. Outside the sun is rising and it is still silent. Very rarely am I ever awake at this hour, the rare exception being Christmas morning, so perversely there winds up being an air of Christmas morning to the day.

I spend most of the day on MSN with Sara. Always a pleasure, never a chore. And the rest of the day is intended to be spent putting my flat (read as life) straight. This does not however happen. Instead however I discover My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé. What a great show!

Today is also an exercise in getting my finances straight and I spend a lot of the morning (and some of the afternoon) trawling through invoices, receipts and credit card statements. It is really important that I get my finances straight now in the light of having to spend so much on revision courses. And I have fucked up and mis-recorded my Mint credit card balance at some point. Ouch, suddenly there is an additional £500 out of thin air to add to the £500 plus in revision fees to add to an already bulging credit card debt. Job done and ouch, my credit card debt has now flown over £7,000. More eye-opening though is that I total up my twelve credit cards and I find I have instant access to £30,000 less change. It is good that I am so responsible then (ha fucking ha).

And it being a bank holiday, it is movie heaven on TV with Disney’s Treasure Island, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Breakfast At Tiffany’s all on during the daytime. How is anyone supposed to get up off their fat arses when TV is just so good? Likewise in the evening, who can be arsed to actually go out or anything when What’s Inside Frank Sinatra’s Coffin is on TV followed by The Sopranos.

Problem with square eyes coming my way.

np: Pavement – Carrot Rope

August 30 (bank holiday Monday): The Last Laugh. What a nightmare, I wake up around 4 AM and find myself unable to get back to sleep, what a surprise. Attempts to get back to slumber I find are thwarted by over thinking, churning up my mind and resulting in worry. I sought external stimulation with which to distract my mind and send me to sleep. In the end I plum for Lost In Translation, probably the slowest movie known to man.

Around 5 AM Phoebe Canada hits me on MSN with “knock knock� and I give up on sleep. I tell Phoebe I am suffering from insomnia and she says she is likewise and we should have a “mutual bitchfest� with eachother. Seems I do a good job and manage to send her to sleep. So now here I am left in the early hours wide awake so I hit Sara on MSN, which is much appreciated on her part…..not. Outside the sun is rising and it is still silent. Very rarely am I ever awake at this hour, the rare exception being Christmas morning, so perversely there winds up being an air of Christmas morning to the day.

I spend most of the day on MSN with Sara. Always a pleasure, never a chore. And the rest of the day is intended to be spent putting my flat (read as life) straight. This does not however happen. Instead however I discover My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé. What a great show!

Today is also an exercise in getting my finances straight and I spend a lot of the morning (and some of the afternoon) trawling through invoices, receipts and credit card statements. It is really important that I get my finances straight now in the light of having to spend so much on revision courses. And I have fucked up and mis-recorded my Mint credit card balance at some point. Ouch, suddenly there is an additional £500 out of thin air to add to the £500 plus in revision fees to add to an already bulging credit card debt. Job done and ouch, my credit card debt has now flown over £7,000. More eye-opening though is that I total up my twelve credit cards and I find I have instant access to £30,000 less change. It is good that I am so responsible then (ha fucking ha).

And it being a bank holiday, it is movie heaven on TV with Disney’s Treasure Island, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Breakfast At Tiffany’s all on during the daytime. How is anyone supposed to get up off their fat arses when TV is just so good? Likewise in the evening, who can be arsed to actually go out or anything when What’s Inside Frank Sinatra’s Coffin is on TV followed by The Sopranos.

Problem with square eyes coming my way.

np: Pavement – Carrot Rope

August 29 (Sunday): Crisis In The Love Zone. Panic, my parents are coming to my flat today so it is emergency stations and a full makeover of my flat is required. Yeah, that will happen.

I begin the slog around 8 AM, luckily I awake without the headache (pre-hangover) I was struggling against last night. Soon enough though, Sara is hitting me on MSN from work in Dubai. Needless to say this disrupts my flow and soon after the usual telling me “how much more better it is in Dubai� she begins telling me how good she is at giving relationship counselling. Whatever, “give me some then� is my big mistake. For my sins I get: “my advice to you is this: you have no problem meeting women and establishing good friendships with them. You have no problems in being friends with a woman, its when you develop feelings for the woman that you cant handle. You do one of two things: 1. Become nasty and start being viscous about them. 2. Become obsessive about them. What you need to do is have more confidence in yourself, carry on being their friend but advance romantically lightly (as you have done with phoebe). BUT make it known that you have feeling for the person concerned. You also have to stop this "all women are bitches" at the end of the day thing. Its wrong. If you get rejected then dont bad-mouth the woman it will just give her more reasoning as to why she was right to reject you as she will find out what you have said. Dont get too drunk in the presence of a woman you like if you are in a bad mood you can be nasty.� And then she goes “listen, im going to text some thing ok� and I receive a multi text going “I slept with my boss on Thursday night, we didnt have sex or anything like that but i don’t know what to do, he is out of country for a week which is good but he said we should be each others ‘bootie call’ you can comment back on msn but i couldnt tell you story as it goes on our server�.

Grief, it is barely midday, my parents have not arrived and I feel exhausted and want to go back to bed. Ultimately though, at the end of the day it is easier for a fat girl to get laid than a fat bloke.

All things stop to watch Amir Khan in the Olympics boxing final. Unfortunately however my parents turn up pretty much on the crack of midday and I don’t even get to see the little bitch box his way to a silver medal (in other words, lose).

I find it one of the most stressful things going to have my parents around my apartment, around my home. On cue, mum will begin cleaning the bathroom and/or kitchen whilst dad will begin immediately making DIY suggestions and the pair of them will be criticising the whole while. About a minute after they arrive I suggest we go out for lunch, I really have not been able to sufficiently paper up the cracks with regards to sorting the flat. My fear of my parents making discoveries in my flat comes over as attitude from me to them making the whole visit and icy affair to say the least, I look at my father on my couch and he looks so fucking angry at me.

I manage to drag them to a place called Old King Coel which is part of the Hungry Horse chain, so it is far from the high brow chow I have recently become accustomed to. The meal (my treat) actually chills everyone out and we begin to enjoy ourselves, actually beginning to act like sociable adults to eachother. I have a really great lasagne and dad has a pretty good peppered steak and for a meal for three just over £20, it is really really good food. The meal ends up being thoroughly enjoyable and when we leave, we part on very good ways/terms.

The remainder of my day is a typical snorer Sunday. I mildly attempt to finish off tidying my flat but then I (probably) get looking at porno on the internet and Popbeach 2004 on T4 featuring all kinds of pop (which ultimately isn’t that different to porno either). Just before teatime, the movie The Swarm comes on and it was once the most frightening film I had ever seen. Today however, it is laughable, boring and sends me to sleep.

In the evening, I finally get my new TV set up and I re-acquaint myself with my VCR and Playstation 2, digging out PS2 games I have had for months and never actually played. The last thing in the evening is the movie Magnolia, which also sends me to sleep as soon as. Have I got narcolepsy or something?

np: Apples In Stereo – Tidal Wave

Millwall v Reading. West side! 

Millwall v Reading. North Stand. 

The Game! 

August 28 (Saturday): Dance Fever. This morning I wake up feeling pissed and/or stoned, I am completely light headed. My flat is horrible and I just cannot face doing/attempting it. Today I really do not want to stay in and be on my own, for one reason or another.

Indecision Graham, it takes an eternity for me to decide whether to go see Millwall or not but after sitting in Asda’s car park for about 20 minutes I just go “fuck it� and head to the train station. I board the train just after 12.30 and sit opposite a stunning woman who gets off at Marks Tey. She gets replaced by a really scummy, booze smelly skinhead who you would target as a football hooli. As the train trolls through Chelmsford, a number of Chelsea, West Ham and Spurs mockneys board at the station. Mockneys, I hate them! (Yes I do get the irony in this statement).

Lucky days, the train stops at Stratford where I get off and hit the Jubilee and head to Canada Water. This is the best route to Millwall from Essex but it does also involve riding the train through West Ham first. Never a pleasure. By Canada Water there are a number of Millwall supporters aboard and as I wait for the train from Canada Water to Surrey Quays, it is all Millwall supporters on the platform. Getting to the New Den via Surrey Quays is usually a nerve wracking experience as it involves taking the route as in Football Factory. Since then however, and indeed last time I took this route, they have now finished building the flats along here and the harsh walls have gone in place of bright new homes, although for the first part the rough as fuck estate tower blocks remain and for the walk just before the ground, the two power stations and nasty rail tunnels, where Tommy Johnson got it in the head, are obviously still there. Once I get to the ground phones me up and keeps asking me stupid questions about the ground/game. As I’m talking the fittest female fan I have ever seen walks past with her family. Back of the net, kiss my face.

The New Den remains the same and it is still fantastic. It’s a weird ground, officially it is rarely half full but generally the place usually looks packed. And faces are very recognisable, this is thug life. Today I have lucked out, I’ve got a really good seat right towards the back of the Upper East Stand (block 17). Firstly though, I do have to bump a couple of herberts out of my seat. A few blocks over and this is where you can get closest to the away fans, so therefore you get to experience some real sorts, not quite Bushwhackers but semi firms all the same.

Today Millwall are playing Reading and it is my first visit to see them this season. In the North stand, Reading have brought a pretty good following and all the Millwall fans are singing “we’re all going on a European tour�. Today the fans are so on song, not least the “firm� for thugs to my right singing Disney songs from Dumbo and The Jungle Book. What’s that about? Refereeing today is Keith Hill who has a disability with his arm and the sensitive crew that are Millwall fans only assist him in his game by singing “watch out, Beadle’s about� and calling him “raspberry�. I wonder if this is the reason why he appears to have a particularly bad game? Even, right at the end of the game, the Reading fans sing “the referee’s a wanker� to which Millwall only reply “WE KNOW!�. Adrian Williams of Reading also gets it in the neck with the fans continually shouting “sex case� at him.

Millwall actually look pretty good for their money today. Adrian Serioux has probably the longest throw in football and when he steps up to fling one into Reading’s penalty area, the whole crowd let off with a roar. And Dennis Wise looks fantastic, as good as ever, the player the whole team is really made around. You look at Jody Morris, who physically is his double but is nowhere up to his standard/quality, why on earth did he buy him? McCammon looks shit today and Josh Simpson isn’t so great either. The superstar of the team is Graham Stack, the keeper on loan from Arsenal, who makes three amazing saves, all above/beyond the call of duty. The say the old cliché that he keeps Millwall in the game is no understatement. Late on Millwall score and I think I am the first person in the ground to see it go in. At the time I have no idea who scored/put it in and it turns out to be the winner as Millwall beat Reading 1-0, which is a really good result and Millwall’s third win and clean sheet in a row, making things look/bode well for this season. Today is a good day.

I leave the ground via Surrey Quays and text Stevo, pathetically asking who had actually scored for Millwall. It was Dichio. I get on the Northern Line and head to the centre, Oxford Street and Fopp. In Fopp I buy all those Massive Attack CDs I nearly bought last week (I need chill out) and a book on Blue Note and a book by Bukowski, neither which I really want/need. Whilst in the basement I hear the greatest music and I ask the guy behind the counter who/what it is. It turns out to be someone called Earl Zinger. We’ll see. From there I enter Sportpages and nearly buy some Millwall books and wind up lingering in London not wanting to leave, I really wish Baldwin was about.

Eventually I chip and board a train home. As I get on I bump into one of the oldsters I play football with on a Friday, the one last looks like Maradonna. He is in first class, in his Chelsea shirt stuffing his face. I contemplate riding back with him but think better of it. Instead, I ride the train solo, the Saturday early evening train because, yes, once more I am returning from London on a Saturday night without the Sunday paper.

When I get back to Colchester I consider calling up Mark to see if he wants to do something but, as usual, London and football has only given me a headache, so instead I opt for chips from the chip shop (very healthy). TV tonight features the 100 Most Scariest Moments on Channel Four which is a TV show so good that I fall asleep around scary moment number 80. Saturday night in the fast lane!

np: Roy Green – Let ‘Em Come

August 27 (Friday): Splashdown. Today in general is a day at work I could do without.

Good morning good morning. This morning I drive the company bubble car into work and sheepishly work (hide) in Chernobyl to avoid question from partners as to why I have not gone to Colne Careforce for a third day of audit action. My plan is basically to go down to the client with Drew if needed because today Lindsey needs the bubble car, as she always does on Friday mornings. Early/mid-morning, Drew telephones me from the client and says “I take it you’re not coming here today then�. Whoops.

Today I have the fear, I probably shouldn’t be here. I hate the fear it’s a panic attack for no reason, generally brought on my doing/taking drugs or alcohol. This time around though, it comes from nothing other than needless work stress and pressure. Stevo isn’t at work today, so there is no person to set off angst onto.

Today is the morning of no work, as I am hiding from the partners, I am hardly like to approach them for work (ho ho). Stevo phones from home, he has the UEFA cup draw and Millwall have drawn some team from Hungary I have never heard off. Oh fantastic. A bit more optimistic though, if Millwall get through they will be in a group with Feyenoord. Nice.

It is a typical slow Friday, nobody wants to work and nobody really does. I get the FAD (Friday afternoon depression) but sail it out. Late on in the afternoon I begin talking to Seymour about stuff and he tells me that he’ll buy me a drink at the Dragoon. So from the space of fearing all partners in the morning, I end the working day sat in the pub on my todd with the main boss talking about religion and generally “fucking birds�. I actually really really like Seymour as a person, he is always interesting and is generally one of the most rounded and intelligent people going. We have to leave the pub fairly early however as Amir Khan is boxing in the Olympics for Great Britain (even though he is actually Pakistani).

I walk home, slightly staggering, a bit pissed from two pints (these days I sure am a lightweight). I do manage to get home in time to see Amir Khan in his semi final and he wins.

In the evening I have a saddo Friday night in. I go to Sitcom Ohio and soon pass out due to touching alcohol

I sleep with a butt plug in and have really vivid dreams as a result, all about being really filthy.

np: Pavement - Stereo

August 26 (Thursday): The Good, The Bad And The Lucky. This morning I have to get into work pretty early in order to get my ACCA courses booked up with the BPP. Big problem here, my company does not tend to pay for retake courses and now I have to find/pay over £500. Ouch. My only option really is to take it on the chin and put the fees on a credit card, which I do, getting the form faxed off before I head off to Colne Careforce. After I get this done, Heddle sees I’m still in the office and gives me grief/flack for still being in the office. I only respond “I know� when really it should be more along the lines of “get lost�. Hypocrisy is the greatest luxury.

I arrive at the client pretty jarred off but manage to get a lot done and have, in the end, a very proactive morning and lunchtime soon comes around, with lunchtime meaning my final session with the doctor. I originally intend to leave the client’s at 12.30 for my session but I get toilet troubles and have a wicked shit, meaning I do not manage to leave the office in Mersea until 12.45.

Getting from Mersea to Colchester proves an utter nightmare and by the time I finally get to my session, I am at least ten minutes late. My final session is a real horror show, everything seems to have hit me at once and instead of ending things on a high/positive, I just can’t see past my current woes and what they are doing to me, it really seems that I shouldn’t really be discontinuing these sessions. All signs point to all my problems being work related. I tell her about the fuss that was made about me doing a lunchtime session this week and the good doctor just looks in disbelief going “but its your lunchtime�. Its hard, I just can’t get around the feeling of currently being bullied at work and she ties this into experiences from my youth but I kind of see it as a problem I have with authority. Whatever, the resounding opinion is that I really would benefit from changing my place of work. Of course this is all coming off the back of my exam results and their failure equating to me feeling like a failure in general. And there is the fact that I have just had a birthday which is an occasion that will generally play on my senses. We discuss my meet up with Phoebe in London at the weekend and attempt to draw positivity from that but I resign myself to just saying “I’ll only fuck that up too�. For therapeutic purposes, today really is akin to flogging a dead horse. We look to the future and look to good things. I try to convince her that I will sail this out and once I get through this little spell, all will be semi-rosey again. My problem is that I can this but not necessarily believe this. Towards the end we get onto the subject of my parents and their woes which I seem to be taking on in equal measures as them. She asks me why and my response is “because I’m still earning�, arrogantly I tell people “I think they’re be on my payroll before long�. I tell her about the working credit recall/refund of £6,000 hanging over their heads and the good doctor has heard of this and suddenly it sounds more real than ever to me. I don’t really find it too comforting when she tells “well, maybe they will just have to downsize their home� (or something). The session ends with my telling her and pointing out dad’s advertisement stating “no job to small� and break down in front of her and can’t stop with the waterworks. That sign just seems/appears to encapsulate their situation and really triggers something and strikes a nerve in me. For the second time in a week I find myself having to take five and compose myself before letting myself back out on the streets. The good doctor hugs me and wishes me luck, telling me to “take care of yourself�. Oh my god, what kind of state have I got myself into. This really is not how either of us would have wanted our sessions to come to an end.

I take my time returning to work and when I get there and resume, I am very quiet for the longest time, I just do not want a re-run of what just happened in my session. Eventually I come around and have some nice chats with Emma, she is turning out to be a really really nice person. Ultimately it is a quiet afternoon though and I manage to get the majority of my work done/finished.

On the way home, I pop into Asda and buy Scooby Doo 2 on DVD to at least make me smile, if not cheer me up. Is this a sign of regression? Anyways, not long after I begin watching it, dad hits me on MSN. I say “hi� and talk to him for a bit when really I could do without any doom and gloom this evening. In the end our chat is only fleeting.

Scooby Doo 2 ends and ultimately it is only so so (not sure what I was expecting really). The bird from ER does end up looking better in it than SMG. Beyond that, I fall asleep listening to David Cross MP3s for yuks, managing to wake up around 11pm with Father Ted which proceeds to once more fuck up my sleep pattern.

I experience a nice dream but when I wake up, it is forgotten. All I have is a smile.

np: High Contrast – Racing Green

August 25 (Wednesday): The Trouble With Teddy. This more I brave up and MSN Phoebe. She is goodness, sounding happy to hear from me, which is always a good start to any day.

Today is the first day of the drama (for me) that has become of the Colne Carefore audit. I am also at the same time chockablock with work to finish off for Andy. The days is a balls up from the off, we have to wait until 11 AM for our mighty leader to get his shit together and his fat arse over to take us to the client’s. This gives me an unscheduled 2 hours to work on the jobs I have fallen behind, which perhaps had I been aware of ahead of time, I would have been able to get the jobs done and out of the way.

We trawl ourselves over to Mersea Island and due to things getting moving so slowly and the lateness of our arriving, Emma and I miss out on a lunchbreak. All in all, it breeds resentment and I find it very hard to get my heart into the job, especially while the stench of Heddle is lingering. After speaking to the client for about five minutes (did I say speak, I mean bumlick), he proceeds to spend a further 15 minutes in the back office on his own before disappearing leaving us to our own devices. Ironically, after my last audit experience where I was initially begging for more duties and got none, by now where I fail to really give a flying fuck about the job, I find myself with more duties than usual. Work that one out. After popping out for some food, in the afternoon I gradually get into the job. Fortunately, as per usual, on the whole I have been handed the no-brainer tasks.

When the day comes to a close, we find ourselves driving back to town in the company pool bubble car with the petrol light permanently pinging. I love the way these cars are neglected. For the best part, it genuinely looks as if we are going to run out of fuel on the way home, where the fuck are any petrol stations in Mersea? Whilst driving, Craig from Accountancy Additions phones me up with an interview in London. In the recent light of events I tell him I am putting London on the back burner in order to concentrate on my studies. He sounds disappointed but what has he done for me lately? All surprises (and relief) the bubble car gets back to the office without running out of fuel. I walk into the office and immediately I am getting it in the neck from all directions: Heddle asking me how the job is going, Griggs asking me if I have “had chance to look at those jobs?� and Seymour is asking me if I am ready for football. I point out to Seymour that the team we are putting out doesn’t actually have any goalscorers in it. And then it feels like pulling teeth getting any money out of the firm/him for petrol for the car. Eventually though, I get some and fill up.

Once I get home to change, my computer beeps and it is Phoebe on MSN once more asking how I am and how my day has been. Blinging.

Football tonight is bad news. We are playing Scrutton Bland or Bland And Son, whatever the fuck they are called these days, and they have pulled out the ringers. And the scrappy four eyed arsehole is padded up and playing in goal. Our team is pretty much injury wrecked, on our side we have: myself, Seymour, Kev, Kermit, Danny. On their side they have that guy Lamby, who is an ex-semi pro who religiously appears to wear a Leeds Utd whilst looking like John Scales and some kid who looks 13 year old and a gob to match. What’s the fucking deal, are this lot from Bland a bunch of groomers or something? So there it turns out they have a team of seven against our five. Immediately it goes horribly wrong and, as much as I don’t like to admit it, I was right when I said we have no goalscorers. In the meantime, with their semi-pro at the back and little kid up front no one wants to tackle for fear of breaking him, Bland drum up a horrific scoreline, which by halftime is 10-1 to them. The second half calms down slightly and the game ends officially with us losing 16-3 but in earnest it was a lot worse. At the end of the game hands are shaken, showers taken while our opposition stare at their thirteen year olds penis (joking!). This is the sort of game that makes you want to jack playing in.

I waste no time in getting out of their and when I get home, I am exhausted/fatigued. I run myself a bath but I am too tired to fucking get in it. Instead I listen to Henry Rollins MP3s and fall asleep. I wake up 1.30 and am fucked, unable to get back to sleep. I put the Ali G movie on the DVD and watch that, discovering that his real name is Allister Leslie Graham. Oh my god, that is my middle name and surname (and my Dad’s). All those years not knowing that, I could have so milked that, lunched off the fact and perhaps sued the filmmakers. And Me Julie in the movie is played by the actress that Sara always reminded me of. Go figure.

np: Ash - Orpheus

August 24 (Tuesday): 35 Hours. This morning I stroll into work a negative creep, this place really isn’t a very good place to be at the moment. Stevo hasn’t turned up, it seems his shoulder injury is after all pretty serious and I guess today he is rested up and maybe at a doctor or hospital getting it mended. I text him asking how is he doing and that it is “boring at work� without him. As soon as the text is sent, he turns up for work. How nuts is that?

Today the whole knock on effect of failing my exams hits home as I calculate how much I am going to have to pay for my retake courses and really I should be retaking the whole Advanced Tax course in its entirety again. I count up my courses and they come to around £900, which no stretch of the imagination can I afford. I really have to think this choice through but most likely I will have to plump/compromise at only the retake/revision courses which will still cost me over £500. Fucking hell, I could almost get a laptop for that money or at least an iPod and change. Life sucks.

At lunchtime we go to Edwards and I had forgotten just how good their food is. Stevo is comical, barely able to use his busted arm, he reminds me of Alex in A Clockwork Orange right at the end. And not least when Steve is spilling food down himself (ha ha). Needless to say, I don’t help him out.

Today I am so busy at work and it is mostly brought on by the impending Colne Careforce audit which I now have the arseholes over due to my little clash with Heddle on Friday, which in earnest now I probably doubt isn’t even crossing his mind. In the afternoon I find myself being hassled over Cammax, having the job bounced back to me to do some busy work on it such as minor adjustments, signing off and crossing Ts and dotting Is. This really is one day where I do not to be wasting my time. And the more hassle arrives in the form of grief with regards to clearing the Chernobyl basement. Lugging fucking bin bags out of the basement is grunt work and not what I am employed to do. As a result I miss two phonecalls from home in the process. Now I am officially royally fucking pissed off.

I pop over the road to do some Viztopia work and just fucking flip, accidentally spilling some work on the flat screen monitor of the computer. A couple of neon lines appear on its screen, whoops I’ve fucked it. I get my bit done as soon as possible and run away from the broken monitor, the monitor that I have just broken. Whoops. Come 5.40pm, I have failed to get my work/jobs done for Andy but I have to make moves home anyway.

The day is pretty much summed up by the fact that just as I set off home, it begins to rain and this morning I left my coat at home. All in all, it makes me late leaving my flat for mum and dad’s.

As I drive/tear down the A120, Sara phones me on my cellphone. I don’t think she is pissed but she is really pissed off. Seems her ex-Jay Jay has made one of those niggly comments that a person can make once they have got into someone’s head. We talk for the entirety of my drive home (hands free folks) and to be honest I really don’t want to hear it. I should probably feel honoured/privileged that she has come to me with her problems but right now a friend in need is a pain in the arse.

I get home and all is down. My exam results, Dad’s employers, the six grand tax credit looming over everyone’s head. I eat shitloads of their food, it appears that I am currently comfort eating. I watch Chelsea v Crystal Palace on Sky with dad and wind up falling asleep, I am so tired. I have success in getting the final few viruses wiped off their PC.

I remain around their house to watch Sopranos season 5 episode 3 while they go to bed. From within his bedroom I can hear dad coughing, he doesn’t sound very well. Once the episode is over, I drive home and it has been a late night.

np: The Strokes - Reptilia

August 23 (Results Monday): On Golden Jason. Results day. I should be nerve wracked but really I’m not. It is a pissy shitty morning and I walk in wearing my big coat (my “Mormon� coat) over my suit and I look absolutely huge. Bad news. I can’t believe this weather, I remember we had some summer at some point this year.

Stevo comes in strapped up and looks really terrible, really tender and totally/thoroughly beaten up. When he spoke to me on the phone yesterday I never imagined he would be this bad. I feel pretty bad for the poor sod. He doesn’t stay in the office too long, he has to go to Broomfield hospital to get his shoulder seen to.

As the day carries on I am a really mixed bag, sometimes nervous, sometimes not. I am however for sure under the cosh at work, very very busy at work, late last week Griggs gave me three jobs at the same time, which added to the two I have from Heddle and the impending Colne Careforce debacle coming later this week, I am pretty much working solid under the threat/pressure that it is the end of the month. This is absurd, all the times I don’t have enough work suddenly I am more snowed under than ever.

I spend all morning checking my AOL email on my phone for my results. No dice.

At lunchtime I wander into town with Louise, the pair of us getting nervous fast. In Culver Square a Costa coffee house has now opened up, Colchester is finally one step closer to get its own Starbucks.

In the afternoon I go to a pikey Irish client called South East Brickwork with Andy to arrange doing their books. Apparently there has been a falling out with their bookkeeper and she has gone and left it all in a big mess. In replacement for her, some young lad (vaguely related to her) has taken over the job and, not his fault, he does not appear to have the first idea of what/how to do. As I said, it is in one big mess. While Andy bullshits his way through it and I just watch in horror at all the work I can see ahead of me, my phone beeps. When I finally get chance to get my phone, it is Phoebe and she has failed Advanced Tax, coming close with a score of 46%. That’s a nightmare, the message reads: “Hi how r u? Am not gd, fail! 42! Kinda wish they lost this one instead! Haha.. Hope urs r gd! Will do retake course! Oh well, never mind. Got ta work! C ya�. This is very bad, on the revision course for Tax, Phoebe has a hell of a lot more on the ball than me, so things suddenly look a little bleak.

When I get back to the office, I still have not got my results. It turns out that Sandip has gone and got 49% in his finals retake. Oh my god, so close, that must be devastating to him. To get away from the bad vibes, I go over the road to the other office to see if Louise has had her results yet. She hasn’t. I check my phone yet another time and the email has arrived. My heart palpitates and I am almost shaking as I open the email. They are both fails, 45% in Advanced Audit and a frightening 23% in Advanced Tax! I knew I was struggling at that subject but I didn’t realise I was getting it so wrong. Oh dear, my plans are scuppered and now my career progression has had at least another six months added to it. This takes the mental equivalent toll of driving a car into a wall at 60mph, guess that that crash test dummy is. I feel like a loser as I text my results to Phoebe who replies “Oh dont worry! Is the stupid examiner fault! Shouldnt throw in the zoo ques! N its very sweet of u to fail just so we can take it again together! Haha..�.

I spend the remainder of the afternoon with my head down, devastated and concerned. I say pretty much nothing, there is nothing to be said. As the dust settles, a little later Louise comes over with her results and they are fantastic, in the seventies, the best being a 79% in Law. Bravo. At some point Drew states “tonight you either get your books out or you get pissed up�. Wanker.

When 5pm comes around, I’m ready to work late but Sandip actually suggests that we go to the pub! For some reason I jump to the opportunity and we go to the Hogshead to sit in the beer garden and drink Stella. This is so weird, going to the pub with Sandip/Sunny! Anyways, we shoot the shit and he is really down, almost contemplating jacking his studies. It is hard to discuss work and career with him because I know how much he earns and it equates to the firm taking the piss out of him. Whatever, we dig into Stellas and I really get into it and soon manage to cheer up and forget about my exam results/failures. When I go top off at the bar, still suited up, I get female attention and I like it. They commiserate with me over my exam failure and actually tell me “the best accountants fail first time�. I thought that old cliché was for driving tests. Verbally I hold my own and this is a lot more fun than talking to that downer Sandip (ho ho). I’m not so fond of the barfly though, telling me that I am overdressed and that I should be in Roberto’s, who is asking how many people (clients) I have “fucked over today�. I return to the comfort/shelter of Sunny.

By 6.30, it is times to make moves. By now, three Stellas in, I have a real good beer buzz on and after calling him up, I head to Mark’s for some more fun times. After the bout of drizzling earlier today, this is the most beautiful evening. When I turn up on Mark’s doorstep, I feel pretty wrong, I actually find myself pretending to not to be drunk. Not good. After musing over what to do, we walk to my place with view to getting my Old School DVD and driving (driving!) to Asda to get some dinner. We do the half hour walk, get to my flat and when we get/go inside, Mark’s reactions (gut) is “oh my good!�. I steer us out of there immediately and handle the difficulty of driving to Asda.

Back at Mark’s he cooks us dinner as we listen to Zane Lowe on the radio. This is the night Mark makes homemade beef burgers. They taste ace but take about 90 minutes to prepare, as opposed to the 90 seconds it takes Mickey D’s to prepare theirs. You do the math. He makes me give him £2, McDonalds charge 99p.

Eventually we settle to watching Old School and tonight I really don’t enjoy it much, it just doesn’t seem funny and even bores me. What’s that about? I love Will Ferrell and this is HIS moment in time. Mark however surprisingly seems to enjoy it, laughing loads. Wow. Before the end however I fall asleep sitting up on his sofa prompting him to shout at me! I take my cue and leave.

When I get in, Sopranos is on TV and it is the second episode of series five. I fall asleep within moments of starting to watch it. We I re-awaken around midnight I begin watching my moody Pete And Pete DVDs and they send me asleep almost immediately also. What is it about my favourite films and TV shows sending me to sleep?

np: Goldie Lookin Chain – You Knows I Loves You

August 22 (birthday Sunday): X=Why? It’s my birthday! And I am officially old! I feel like I have resigned to being 28 for the past six months now but now it is officially here. I am also at the age now where birthdays are now as welcome as a vegan at a barbecue.

I wake up feeling low, I don’t know exactly why there are really many reasons that could/might be contributing to this. For me, birthdays are nearly always black tie days and, with the exception of last year, generally are 100% sombre affairs.

At 8.56 Mark texts and it officially the first person to wish me happy birthday (yes, I am fickle enough to notice and note this down. Points scored by Mark!). At 9.42, while I am watching my Relic Hunter DVD before heading off home Stevo phones up and wishes me a happy birthday. He then proceeds to tell me how he was jumped on and beaten up by three youths in Chelmsford last night on his way back from football. He keeps saying that it was unprovoked but I know and he even provokes me when he is pissed, mainly down to his behaviour. Still, he sounds pretty shaken up and badly done. That said though, when the phonecall ends and he has obviously run out of credit on his mobile, I am in insensitive prick enough to not bother to phone him back and double check that he is all right. Hey, its my birthday and I’ll act like a cunt if I want to. I do however get a couple of pangs guilt for five minutes as I wonder would it have happened had I hung out with him in London last night after Phoebe? Would it have happened had I told him about the set up with Rachel Friday and he would not have felt the desire/need to do his ritual of going to football and drink all day and get pissed?

Fortunately my train of thought gets disrupted when Phoebe texts at 10.33 with "Happy birthday to u, happy birthday to u, happy birthday dear jason! Happy birthday to u! Wishing u the best bday! Luv Phoebe". I really DO like this girl.

I spend the remainder of the morning on MSN with Sara. She fakes forgetting its my birthday but a convincing amount of time but eventually comes through with the goods for me. Love ya babe. While talking to her I watch the new Championship Sunday morning football show on ITV. It is SO much better than MOTD and not just because it has Millwall on it. I do however see Danny Dichio’s winner against Coventry and it warms my heart, its seems Millwall were unlikely not to have won by 2 or 3.

Before leaving for my parents I am determined to finally find the ownership documents for my ratty old red Escort (the WOW mobile) which is still dumped at my parents’ house being an eyesore, yes Jason Graham is still a two car man. Joy of joys, I actually do manage to find the log book for the car. I also find my old butt plug but that is beside the point. Good news, I can now scrap that old fucking heap legally. Anyone wanna buy a 1994 Escort for nothing? Its been on tour with Idlewild!

The day runs eternally slow but eventually I manage to get home to my olds. For my birthday they have bought me a big television as a present but they can’t afford this! Especially in the light of this six grand hanging over their heads. Still, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth……I am so flawed. Oh the joys/benefits of being an only child, hey kids get my ethics.

As I come to the computer, I come across a shop advert dad has made for himself, advertising himself as a handyman but it says “No Job To Small�. I read it and it felt like someone had punched me. Dire straits? The grammar killed me, how does go about correcting the spelling of their Father?

My parents procrastinate about going out for dinner/lunch. One says they want to when they don’t really want to while the other says they don’t want to while they really do want to. And I’m stuck in the middle, the bottom rung on the three person dynamic that appears to be dictating my life (according to the good doctor). As soon as I sway the answer to “yes� to going out for lunch, our next problem is choosing where to go. Personally I don’t care, I am fucking starving and will eat anything, it just needs to be fast and a large portion. We wind up going to the Brewsters in Weeley which is a thoroughly horrible place to eat in honesty. It seems I have been eating out too much as of late and I may have become a little snobby with it meaning eating out in a place like this is no longer some kind of treat or event (especially when compared to the Dim Sum yesterday). In one way or another, all three of us have chicken in different forms. I tear through my food really quickly, this was not the large portion I was hoping for. Meanwhile however, mum is barely picking at her dinner and dad is moaning like fuck about the blandness of his roast. I sigh, pity them and proceed to dig in, probably eating a half each of their respective dishes; no wonder I am fat! We drag lunch out with some conversation but currently with all their woes hanging over their heads, mum and dad are very bleak about things. And bleak enough not to even bother with desert (dad does have a Stella though, the ultimate sign that we are related). While we are eating I swear blind that I see Peter Rogers, my old best friend from school who I turned on like a heal wrestler, leaving after lunching with his parents also. He looks a pretty pathetic sight and I wonder if I look that sad also. Fortunately, I doubt it, my disposition is too sneering to be so cheesy. We leave Brewsters not before time and promptly head to the McDonalds next door to get McFlurry’s for desert. If anyone saw us leaving Brewsters and going straight to McDonalds, they would think we were utter pigs. Actually, one of our Brewster’s waitresses does. Oh my, the Weeley McDonalds is also horrific, this must be the most neglected “restaurant� of the chain in England. We start out eating our McFlurrys outside but promptly get attacked by a hundred wasps coming over from the super spilled bin outside. The three of us wind up sitting in my car eating our McFlurrys like losers watching the Clacton Chavs come and go, getting their own Mickey D’s. Once we are done, dad is still moaning like the grumpy old fucker that he is. McDonalds disgusts him and in his ultimate goober moment he takes pleasure in just throwing the empty McFlurry cartons all over the McDonalds car park.

For the record, apparently it turns out that I was born at 4.20 on 22 August 1976.

We get back home to my olds where me and dad watch Arsenal vs Middlesbrough on Sky. Arsenal do take the lead but fantastically, the ultimate birthday treat, Middlesbrough take the lead and at one point are winning 3-1. Arsenal are and have always been utter scum and to see them suffering so badly is a treat beyond treat. And a lot of it is to blame for their atrocious goalkeeper Lehman. This is odd, as at the same time Millwall have one of Arsenal’s reserve keepers Graham Stack on loan playing really well. I suspect he may be returning to the Gunners soon. Spoken too soon though as Arsenal come back amazingly and win 5-3. They may be shits full stop but they are also a phenomenal team.

While at home, I check my parents’ computer and do one of my regular Panda online virus checks. It discovers over 60 viruses on their computer! And it is having a hard time in wiping them off. Originally I had planned to get home this evening to hang out with Mark for a bit but I end up staying around my parents until past ten trying to remove all the viruses off their computer, which I manage to do at the third go.

At nearly 9pm I receive a text message from Phoebe “Hey hope u r still enjoying ur bday! I had the most fun in weeks yesterday! U r just great! Nite nite�. Nice.

When I finally get home, Chris hits me on MSN wishing me a happy birthday. He the man, I really thought he had forgotten. It turns out to be the first time in weeks I have spoke to him and its really nice to catch up (birthday treat almost). Halfway through, Tom turns up drunk (on a Sunday night!) grumbling to Chris “he didn’t fucking remember my birthday�. Nice.

The night ends.

What’s the deal with my birthday? Last year it was the day that Wesley Willis died and now this year it is the day that the famous painting The Scream gets stolen. Bad news.

np: MC5 – Kick Out The Jams

August 21 (Saturday): Yellow Fever. Today’s episode title was random and not intentional. Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?

I awaken on time, worried about not waking up on time. Basically, I wake up in a hurry, so much to do, so little time to do it. I run a bath and go that extra mile hygiene wise that you go when out to impress. I bath but not a normal bath, a bath of champions, of all the good pong thrown in at once. If I don’t do anything today, I am going to smell good.

There is a thump at my door and a package arrives through the post from America. I open it and my Adventures Of Pete And Pete moody DVDs have arrive from America. I had started to worry about how kosher the discs were and even started to question their existence. I slip a disc (of the four) into my player just to check that they work. The discs do, nice work Antipromotions! The discs are pretty lo-fi but they have put a lot of effort into menus etc and it looks like the episodes have been downloaded from the same source I was taking them last year (Kazaa) as there is an annoying station logo in the corner (Canadian station The N?). All 39 episodes are present, where else are you going to see them now? Nickelodeon sure as fuck do not look likely to re-air or release them. I take receiving these discs today as the beginning of great things for Jason today.

Early morning I get a text message from Azmei wishing me a happy birthday for tomorrow and telling me that she is currently on her way to the airport. Bon voyage.

For the remainder of my morning, I tear around the flat trying to pull myself together, into the best me, the Super Jason! And to be honest, I scrub up quite well sometimes. With only minutes to spare, I finally crack the Queer Eye Straight Guy book open. Phoebe Toronto has already told me that I far from need this book but I guess it all helps. Except, one minute later after flipping through the book I find myself only more confused than ever. Time to bite the bullet and leave (make like a tree).

After annoying amounts of traffic I finally get to the train station, get my ticket and get on a train. On my way I receive a text message from Sarah asking if I went to the Hippodrome last night after all (“no way!�). Today I don’t feel as enthused as ideally I would/should, basically I am just shattered. The plan is to meet at Leicester Square station at 1.00, so I catch the train as near as to 11.00 as possible. The ride up is eventless save for the amazing looking black lady sat opposite me. I find myself staring at her, at her amazing smooth and beautiful dark skin. Elsewhere on the train, it is busy with kids on their way to Chelmsford to the V2004 festival and I wish I were joining them. Your V kids are a strange breed and generally you have to regard it as a real oddball festival, there seems no cohesion to the lineups ever picked and never quite enough in the lineup to make a music fan (myself) to go along. Personally I think it is a poor show that I have never been to a V festival and this year is no different, I am regretting not going as this year there are the Pixies and the Strokes tugging at my attention. I look however at the kind of kids that go to V and they’re a strange breed, they really are not the type of people I associate with festivals, they’re the students types that go off to university on their parents bankroll and are not your traditional pikey students types as hard as they might dress scruffy and plead poverty, they remain somewhat air brushed.

I arrive in London in really good time, it barely being 12.00. For (personal) security reasons I head straight to Leicester Square, what if the Taliban blow up the underground system and I have to walk across from Liverpool Street to Leicester Square and I don’t have enough time to get there for 1.00. Yes I’m fucked up. Anyways, I get there well ahead of time, no fear and wander around the Charing Cross end of Leicester Square for a while. I take out £50 from the cash machine on my MBNA Virgin credit card, how wise this move proves will have to be judged at a later date. I find myself standing in a queue behind four guys obviously on their way to Old Compton Street, gotta love London. I actually find myself nervous and pushing in the wrong pin code into the machine. Finally when I am asked how much money I want to take out, I type “50� and wait. A prompter comes on the screen “you will be charged for this transaction, do you want to continue?� and I’m not sure which button I press. The card shoots out and no money, so I guess I pressed the “cancel� button. Anyway, I hope so otherwise I walked away from the machine to find another, leaving £50 for the next punter to pocket.

I re-enter the confines of Leicester Square station and wait at the top of the stairs for Phoebe for 1.00. I watch so many people arrive and pretty quickly, people watching is fast becoming one of my favourite activities, especially when it is in London. I stand around waiting patiently but uncomfortably. I watch the police and I begin to get paranoid that might suggest me as a terrorist threat if I wait too long and that they might begin to question or usher me on. I also watch all the people get off the their trains and I see literally hundreds of Orientals passing by and suddenly I begin to wonder what Phoebe looks like, it has been about six weeks since I last saw her. Am I fickle?

Almost on the dot, at 1.00pm, there she is looking amazing. I spot her immediately even though for the first time I have ever seen, she is wearing her hair up. We exchange an awkward greeting but we seem happy to see eachother all the same. Immediately she begins marching us out of the station, towards the restaurant she has chosen to take us. This is good. She asks me how I am and anyone who knows me knows that I just can’t answer that question with a “good� or “fine�, I also have to go into some kind of detail. I tell her I am tired and she says she is also and that she didn’t really want to come today because she is so tired. Oh great, that sounds good, she hardly sounds enthusiastic about things but what am I to say, its pretty much my attitude also except she has the honesty to say it. And it is not necessarily a slight on me (is it?). She also adds that she has to be back by 6pm, is this some kind of ancient Chinese curfew?

We fly over to Chinatown and I am recognising the city better than ever. The restaurant she chooses for us is upstairs, above a food store, the kind of restaurant you would probably miss if you did not know about it beforehand. Already I feel I am benefiting from her Chinese/Cantonese insider knowledge. We sit down and act very adult. Phoebe wastes not time in pulling out and giving me a birthday card for tomorrow which makes me unbelievably happy. Phoebe immediately disguards one menu with “that’s for tourists� and leads me through the list of fantastic dishes including crab meat. She also picks custard doughballs. Nice! Dim Sum is fantastic, personally I have the best time talking to Phoebe over dinner and she appears to be/feel likewise. We discuss all sorts of recent developments (mainly her lost ACCA exam paper) and she tells me that my Cantonese is good (which it isn’t). I act as if when in rome and use chopsticks but she tells me that I am doing it wrong, I am definitely using them differently to her. The custard doughballs create something of an issue when the waiter only manages to bring out three (all other food being brought out in fours). As much as I really enjoy my doughball and want a second, I am a gentleman and make sure Phoebe has it because she tells me how much she likes them. We eat and talk for an hour and a half before calling for the bill. The bill arrives and it is just £13! That sounds like mates rates to me (this is a local restaurant for local people?).

We emerge back onto the streets of Chinatown with the afternoon young and things going well. We walk through the arches and I attempt to find/point out the restaurant we went on during Drew’s stag do, the restaurant where I got coked up, blew up a rubber glove with my mouth and was setting fire to chopsticks. Maybe if they saw me return they would chop me, so perhaps it is for the best when I am unable to find it. Instead Phoebe points out to me, establishments where she has seen/heard of Triad altercations (and by altercations, I mean killings!). Phoebe tells me that it is too hot and tiring to go around the shops today so that we should catch a movie and us being on Leicester Square makes this prime. We stagger around the many cinemas and begin bouncing ideas off eachother. Dodgeball is just out and I really want to see that but Phoebe lets me know that she thinks that looks like the most moronic film ever made. She suggests King Arthur. I guess it does have my main man Ray Winstone in it but at the end of the day, no way! We find a cinema with Before Sunset on. Yes! I tell her all about it and she sounds keen but then ends it all with “but no�. Phoebe is not much of a romantic it seems. An eleven hour attempt/suggestion is made for the Stepford Wives (which does look good) but it doesn’t finish until close to 6pm so we find ourselves unable to reach an agreement. I begin delicately asking about the 6pm and she tells me that she “goes mad and turns into a werewolf in the evenings�. Ha ha, no really you’re freaking me out. No dice.

In the end we wind up heading towards Covent Garden to check out the market and anything that is going on there. As we walk there we talk about things and Phoebe sounds heavy, telling me about her ill Grandmother in Hong Kong. On the way we come across a photograph gallery and check it out. There is always something to do in London. She then shows me the new cellphone that she is getting, one with a camera. Cool! We wind up in Covent Garden and its not so hot snot. I tell her about Forbidden Planet and attempt to steer us out of Covent Garden. I proceed to only manage in getting us horribly lost, which surprises me as I would have thought Phoebe would know central London like the back of her hand. We eventually wind up on The Strand (yes, going completely in the wrong direction) and we pass Stanley Gibbons (the stamp shop!) and for some reason I drag her in there to see the autographed pictures. We look around the boring shop like a scene out of Before Sunrise or something. This is the point Phoebe chooses to tell me that she is having a really good/nice time. I’m surprised and overjoyed by this gesture. We leave the shop trying wring the stench of stamp collecting from our clothes and I resume leading the blind towards Forbidden Planet. As we pass Hays Covent Garden and it begins to become obvious that I am just leading us towards Trafalgar Square I turn us back towards the general direction of Covent Garden. We walk down some street I doubt I will ever see again and Phoebe steers us inside to show me a book she wants to read about shopping. In there we/she finds some Garfield books and she tells me that this will cheer her up. I don’t really find the Garfield too weird (well I do) but Stevo thinks it is really weird. I dunno what to think. We eventually manage to get back to Covent Garden (recognisable) as she tells me more tales of The Triad. By accident we happen across the office building in which Seymour used to work in London and then we pass Neal’s Yard and opt out of going into Rough Trade (remember my bad experience there a few weeks ago everybody?).

Finally! We make it to Forbidden Planet and Phoebe says to me “you were looking for Shaftsbury Avenue?� like I am some kind of idiot. Whoops. We go inside and finally it seems I have found a girl that I can drag into Forbidden Planet who likes it (or at least placates me and pretends to like it). This shop turns Jason into a kid in a sweet shop, I just love the Simpsons action figures. Phoebe likes Manga so it is set up/made up for her fortunately. We find the City Hunter book that she was telling me was her favourite and being that lunch was so cheap I buy it. She really seems to get into all the books on offer and I genuinely feel like I hit a home run and have managed to find something she genuinely likes/enjoys. I pop to the checkout to purchase my book and when I look across the shop at her we shoot/swop/exchange smiles in a way that I have not seen/felt since I did with Bella. This is pure stuff, 100%. Phoebe also pulls out Spirited Away and recommends that but getting that will be for another time. I take her round and show her American Splendor, trying desperately (and failing) to explain why the book is so good. We makes moves to leave and as we pass the Eros section Phoebe thinks she has found more Manga and picks up a book. She immediately slams the book down in disgust/embarrassment when she realises that it is a porno comic. God love a prude.

We waddle up Shaftsbury Avenue joyfully, me continuing to try and explain my apparent drinking problem she appears to think I have (“the bosses keep getting me drunk, I do it to further my career!�). We wind up in my usual haunt, Fopp. We check out all the shit in there. Oh my, the entire Massive Attack catalogue all for a fiver each! Instead I get Evol by Sonic Youth and try SO hard to get her to buy Ghost World on DVD. I fail in my attempts. I show her the Sopranos DVD and she shows some interest but little enthusiasm. From there we peak in Magma but that’s a pretty poor shop, too fucking hip by far (hip meaning expensive). Now is the point she says she has to go home to Mill Hill. It is only 4.45, oh dear what a poor showing. I walk with her up Charing Cross Road towards Leicester Square station. She asks me what I am doing and I decide to stay in the City around Oxford Street. I should really be going to see Marceline’s band Uter in Highbury or hooking up with Stevo but really I don’t want to ruin what has been a good day so far. We reach the station and it becomes that awkward moment to say goodbye. Last time, this moment was not deal with very effectively so this time I just grab her for a huge, just for some kind of gesture/feeling. I huge her and there is little there. It ends and she skips down the steps of the station shouting “bye� to me in Cantonese. I yell back “lets do this again soon!�. The end.

I stagger back up Charing Cross Road with real heartattack, even more than ever I now like this girl and still it just not seem to be happening. I really did not want it all to end so soon and it really should not have been so brief. At the current rate of seeing her only every six weeks, this really is something of a poor return for all I spend on her emotionally. Here is a fantastic girl who takes a hell of a lot of effort and now it needs to be weighed up whether the efforts justify the returns. I really should not be so clinical about things.

Pulling myself together, I wind up in Borders looking for books. I find myself looking for Billy Budd by Harold Melville, a book that might hold some personal answers in my current bout of self exploration/soul searching. I buy up the book and head elsewhere.

Since I have started seeing Phoebe, I know see and notice more Orientals than ever. Asians truly are a set apart, the most beautiful ladies on earth, darker toned and with more facial expressions and characteristics than any Caucasian female could ever pray for. I am so judgemental.

Whilst in Borders I check my phone WAP/GPRS for the football results and Millwall have won 1-0 at Coventry. Yes! First goal and first win of the season, today is officially a good day and perhaps the turning point in my fortunes? Here’s hoping.

I find myself in Sportspages and then heading up Old Compton Street (through the yellow comic store) turning into Soho. I hit Berwick Street and all the record shops. These shops always have and always will play the greatest music. Maybe its because their stereo set up is so good, so professional but everything just sounds on! In Record And Music Exchange some shagged out old Joy Division record is on and the thundering bass and clarity of everything involved just manages in making a grown man almost weep. When I arrive at Selectadisc, it is about ten minutes away from closing up and they are still flying and pumping out of the PA is Throwing Things by Superchunk which immediately transports me back to my personal ground zero for music in the early to mid nineties. Following that track, Sugar comes flying on and it begins to dawn on my that alt/indie/college rock never did manage to pick itself up after its peak in the nineties and manage to come through with a really REALLY good crop of new tuneful bands/acts, instead it became more dirge like and elitist than ever. And that probably adds up to why I stopped loving music.

I wind up on Oxford Street like some pikey tourist and the night is still young but with options of places to see and people to do, I contradict myself by wanting to remain in the City but not around anyone. Curiosity gets the better of me and I head to Goodge Street to check out the church that Phoebe tells me that she goes to every Sunday, the American church where she worships her Lutheran beliefs. I guess now going on such a sightseeing tour is being a bit stalker-esqe but I got money to spend and time to waste. I find the building easy as pie, its not that far after the Church Of Scientology office. I make all apologies but I still cannot lift my guard where organised religion is involved, I guess it will always make me suspicious.

To be honest, there really isn’t much to see, the American Church is just a closed building, it could be any kind of city monument/building really. I pause and find myself in a Starbucks sipping on the largest cup of coffee I can find/buy, costing me about £3.50. This is my first opportunity to get off my legs in hours. I sit in the shop window drinking, the perfect metaphor for my life. I pull out the birthday card that Phoebe gave me and I open it looking for clues, no dice. Do not let television lie to you, coffee houses are not like Central Perk. I drink caffeine like an alcoholic and I knock the brew in minutes, it does taste just so good but also at the same time it is/was the same price as a Happy Meal, equally unhealthy but ultimately more filling/fulfilling.

I board the Goodge Street tube and listen to two hipsters talking about the Adam And Joe DVD (note to self, must get that). Ten minutes later, I find myself on/at Liverpool Street throwing the towel in on the day. Oh yes, once more after a “date� with Phoebe, I find myself catching the Loser Train home. In my opinion, if you travel to London on a Saturday and fail to return home on the train without the Sunday newspaper, you have failed to have a worthwhile time in the capital. Before boarding the train I get a McDonalds, doing the 99p deal. I go up to the ethnic gentleman and ask for a double cheeseburger and he replies “how many would you like?�. “One!?�. Oh my, being asked such a question is surely a definitive sign of putting on weight.

I ride the loser train home and it is a bittersweet experience. I begin reading Billy Budd whilst sat opposite and middle-aged, middle class woman with no visible faults or frailties appears to be enjoying life and the train ride home. I envy her existence. And then sat opposite, in the seats to my left is the most beautiful Oriental family of the two parents and a little girl mischievously barking with curiosity and counting aloud to impress her mother. I don’t know, these things just seem to stand out more prominently sometimes.

When I get back to Colchester I consider calling Mark out (it is only around 9pm) but I am just too shattered after my day. Instead I turn in at home and dive into my Saturdays newspapers I am yet to read and need to pick up before Saturday is over and it is too late. I watch the Borat Television Programme re-run on TV and fall asleep. I awaken a little later, it still Saturday night stuck at home and Phoebe Toronto comes online and begins chatting to me. I tell her about my past few days and I make a good attempt/effort at sounding like the most interesting/fun person in history (I am so full of shit). While I am talking to her, all the while Channel Four is showing highlights from this weekends V Festival in Chelmsford and it really doesn’t look so hot. The nights crosses over midnight and Phoebe Toronto is able to be the first person in 2004 to wish me happy birthday. Soon afterwards she leaves to go to her own bed and I fall asleep watching the V Festival on TV. All life ends.

np: Superchunk – Throwing Things

August 20 (Friday): Sickday. Today at work is rough stuff. The bodge job that is the organisation of the Colne Carefore LLP audit reaches new heights of incompetence and personal attacks as Heddle has quite a big pop at yours truly. In general, Stevo has quite the cob on over the job being so rushed and last minute, apparently due to Mr Heddle’s disorganisation, and he is complaining/griping about the situation at every given opportunity. Today when I casually mention that next Thursday I will be having a lunchtime appointment with the good doctor, he pretty much immediately goes running to Heddle to bemoan it. Almost immediately after Stevo comes back from over the road I get Heddle on the phone fairly viciously laying into me, telling me that he cannot believe my mentality in arranging a doctor’s appointment for next Thursday and he is insistent that I move the appointment. I tell him I cannot and when he asks me why, in order to explain this requires I say over the phone, a phone shared by four people, something very personal and embarrassing within earshot of said colleagues. Being forced to say this in front of people is pretty humiliating. I fob Heddle off on the phone and immediately head over to his office to…….I don’t know what! When I get there, the door is shut. I bang on it pounding and enter. I begin talking seriously and then notice he is on the phone. I stop and take five, waiting in Ivan’s office until he sorts himself out (gets off the phone). Ivan comments that I look stressed out and I tell him Heddle has had a pop at me and he goes “yeah, he’s been doing that lately�. A few minutes later he emerges and we go into Seymour’s room where we discuss/I tell him what the deal is. I don’t lose it but do take him down a peg and feel totally humiliated in the process. This incident isn’t something that will pass quickly and be forgotten.

From here, the rest of the day is the worst. I return to Chernobyl and take my seat. I don’t say a word, I just lull/dwell and think about what has just happened. Why/how on earth does/do people think they can get away with treating me in such a way? And why do I allow it? Why do I allow people go so far in belittling and upsetting me. Sometimes I really get bullied and in the process really let myself down. The record label is RIP for me the same reason, its all just a combination of communication problems and being a soft touch I guess. I think hard about this and it has a knock on effect, my process takes a domino direction and it all falls down. I look at my desk, my workspace and wonder “why the fuck do I bother when I just get treated so shit and spoken down to like I am……�. I well up and the floodgates begin to open. Oh my god, what the fucking hell is wrong with me? I spend the next the ten minutes sat in the toilet basically hiding and regrouping myself, pulling myself together. Jesus Christ I am almost 28, I am supposed to be an adult. Whoops.

When I emerge, I am pretty much “fuck everybody� in my attitude. Luckily it is late morning, so soon I can get out and go to lunch with Azmei. And I really feel that Stevo has let me down as a friend by just reacting the way he did and stirring up Heddle to the point that he had a pop at me in the form he did. For the rest of the day, I decide it is best not to talk to anyone in the office again today.

At 12.39, Steph (Margaret’s daughter) texts me to see if we are going out with her and her friend Rachel tonight. This has been a prospect long looming over my/our head(s). Basically, Steph has got a friend who she is trying to set up with Stevo and I am the go-between it seems. And said friend is some 31 year old that lives at home looking after her mother who enjoys socialising at the Hippodrome nightclub in Colchester. This girl is not a cancer cure. I knew this was coming, that Steph would want to try and get us out tonight to pair her friend up with Stevo and I really really never ever wanted to go the Hippodrome. As a result of today’s incident, I do Stevo a dis-service and ignore the text and do not give him the option of doing the do, as it would only involve dragging me out to even numbers. Why doesn’t anyone ever try to set me up? Maybe because I’m a cry-baby bastard. Anyways, the last thing I want/need is to be hung-over for tomorrow in London and to have Stevo crash over mine and me having to endure getting him up and kicking him out in the morning.

Fortunately too much thinking is averted when Azmei turns up and I am completely relieved to be getting away from the office and my treacherous work colleagues for an hour. A lack of ideas sees us heading to Yates and ordering the usual. Or at least attempting to order the usual, the Yates fryer is up the spout. I wind up eating lasagne with mash potato! Lunch with Azmei is a bit laboured to be honest. She tells me all about her mum falling ill and all about life in Leicester. As per my prediction, she is bored stuck at home all day playing mummy, which lends weight to the theory that work for her was “playtime� and her entire social life. Today I really don’t fancy her, she has lost a fair bit of weight but doesn’t look good for it. And she is dressed very very casually (badly). From my end, I tell her this and tell her that but for some reason I make it sound like I have little report and have done little since she left in June, which definitely isn’t necessarily true. Phoebe gets mentioned briefly but the subject does not get addressed much. I pull out my Cantonese phrase book to much hilarity and sadly our lunch benefits greatly from the prop (has our mere conversation skill exhausted and now deserted us?). Today’s lunch feels flat, like our spark has now long left us. I tell her how her sister flipped at me and unsurprisingly (and rightly) Azmei gets defensive for her sister but she does say “Sarah didn’t fly off the handle yesterday�. Bollocks. I show Azmei the nutzoid text of Sarah proclaiming her hatred for me. Azmei laughs at it but still looks at me (my claims) with scepticism. There is nothing I can in my defence is there? We leave Yates and walk around town for a bit. She asks me if I am serious about Phoebe and I tell her that the distance thing makes it not possible and that if I lived/worked in London I would feel that it would at least have a chance. We part ways.

As I walk back to the office I bump into Ben. Ben is looking healthy and he is now wearing glasses and therefore is looking smart, sexy and intelligent. Thanks to Col U’s great start to the season, he is bouncing! He asks me if I want to go out tonight and I tell him about the suggested Stevo rendezvous but say “no� because I want/need to be in full health for tomorrow! We leave on terms, him telling me to call him about going out tonight but adding “you won’t will you�. Nope. Ha ha.

After lunch I bump into Heddle and now he is nice nice. Whatever, I’m curt and bordering on rude, I don’t want to speak (or be spoken) to him today.

Today ends not before time, this has definitely been one of my work days at BS ever. When I get home I discover I have finally received my "Important Information From HM Government" envelope/booklet/leaflet. What happened Tony Blair? I know people who have had their booklets for weeks! Is my life not as important as theirs?

From there I slip into bed and watch Wayne’s World on DVD, almost in preparation for tomorrow, the mock cack handed way of learning conversational Cantonese ever known in the history of man. Hey, halfway through they even get bored of speaking it and just allow the subtitles to run on on their own. I fall asleep before the ending of the movie, I really should not be watching such a film from so far back in my past, this is nostalgia and its what makes a person old (amongst other things).

A much better televisual experience rears its held early evening in the form of Queer Eye For A Straight Guy. Oh shit, I bought the book and still have not taken it out of the carrier bag, let alone read any of it. Self improvement seems slow for Jason Graham. And tonight’s plans are scuppered further when Dad hits me on MSN early evening and I miss the majority of the show. Tonight Dad is all gloom and doom. Work is messing him about, he is bored, the dog is old, he doesn’t feel well and now it looks like the social services may be about to claim back £6,000 that they have given my parents in “error�. No normal people can just come up with that kind of bread in a whim as I am lead to believe the SS are expecting. So generally, the tone of our conversation is sombre to say the least. Words of spoken of them maybe having to sell up and I begin to wonder how this will effect me. Ouch, this really is not a very good day.

Around 9pm my cellphone begins ringing and it is Steph, obviously ringing to see if Stevo and I have come out to play. Like a true, royal shit I ignore it and do not answer. Tonight there is/are going to be two really disappointed girls out there on the streets, pubs and clubs of Colchester.

Once dad is gone, I take in the usual feast of Friday night TV comedy, which I have always thought was aimed at the single and lonely in order to make them laugh and to prevent them from being depressed and committing suicide. Tonight’s menu includes Will & Grace (guest starring a very hot Minnie Driver) and Borat Television Programme. These shows are good but they’re not great, they don’t make me forget my life and my shitty, they’re not cathartic and the least of my daily grind. In other words, I am missing Bo Selecta.

Too early on a Friday night, I put myself out of misery and face the music for tomorrow.

np: Lemonheads – Into Your Arms

The Show 

August 19 (Thursday): Farewell My Little Viking. Not much to report from work today, Andy gets me working on a job called RP Installations which is pretty much a bog standard job/client for this office/practise.

This morning however finds itself filled with drama when Sarah, Azmei’s nutty sister, decides to send a host of abusive text messages my way due to something Drew said to her Friday night that is apparently down to me, some jokey comment from him about her living at home and having a revolving door for men coming in and out of the house and her (ha ha). Apparently this is from my working/imagination but ultimately it just too creative for something for me to make up, I can’t be arsed to make up stories. Also add to this that Sarah far from actually puts out (her big failing) and she gave me all this shit about her being indecently assaulted last year. Still, Sarah goes absolutely bollo at me and it culminates when at 11.36 AM I receive a three part text message stating: “i really hate ppl who feel the need 2 slag me off u dnt knw me how dare u lie and tell drew i have dif men at my house on wot grounds did u say it?none i hate u u knw wot hap 2 me how dare u good bye have a good lifd maybe if u stoped feelin sorry 4urself u wud enjoy life and stop tryin 2 defame me�. Oh my, insane in the membrane. I ask around the office, mainly Drew, just what she is exactly on about and all responses are blank and disbelieving. Amazingly though, within a few texts I manage to turn her around and calm her down but my god the girl is mixed pickles. Leave it alone Jason.

At lunchtime I fancy a Zentral Chinese buffet and me and Stevo go get some. Lunch is really stunted, rather dull and definitely not flowing in conversation. Not to worry though, the food is pretty good and the service is beautiful and pretty.

When I finally get home I rush around to burn a CD for tonight’s, a CD now including tracks by Decahedron, Tortoise, Sonic Youth, Charlotte Hatherley, the Catheters, the Liars, Rapeman, Big Black etc etc.

In the evening I go into this weeks session telling the good doctor that I have now booked up for the English A-level class and that this will be one of our final sessions. She adds to this that she is off on holiday at the end of next week and that our session, our last, will now have to be moved to lunchtime (1pm). That is fine by me. Our penultimate session is seen to be full of optimism….. We discuss Friday and my crazy life. She is impressed I went to see David Cross by myself and thinks all the drama of my workplace will make for a good subject to write about. This is cool This is encouragement.

With that all out of the way, I proceed to Marks and head straight to the Arts Centre to kick off. When we arrive a band is already in action. As a result of the noise, I have to shout at the door boy my name on the guestlist. Now, I do not have the best of shouting voices and for one reason or another the minus intellectual manning the door asks me my age. So on the eve of my 28th birthday, I am being asked by some whether I have reached the age of the 18 yet, a prospect which poses definite pros and cons with it. I react by just looking at the simpleton with amusement (whereas a few years ago I may well have wanted blood). Instead today, I laugh and lie and say “I’m 28!�. Fucking hell this nation is going to the dogs.

The first band on are the Edmund Fitzgerald. They’re a late addition to the bill I believe and do that whole hardcore instrumental thing (not unlike Cove) that seems rife these days. I used to hear it at almost every gig a few years ago as/while Reynolds were doing their thing. Basically it is caffeine free Shellac-lite, a bit like the Oxes, everyone’s least favourite band I believe. That said though, when done by rhythm it often can surround surprisingly powerful/effective and tonight the Edmund Fitzgerald pull it off.

I begin my DJ set to a next to empty hall and so early in the evening, no-one wants fast/loud music, as per the majority of tracks on my CDs. Whoops. In a way I feel I am scraping the barrel with the set I play initially but who can fault Ry Cooder by Tortoise, the most fantastic of songs. Also Sixtoo sounds grand and slowly things begin to pick, even though all evening my set feels flat, not least due to the balance on the decks (I mean CD players) being pretty out of whack (although it does/did take me half the evening to realise this). One shocker song though: Butterfly Potion by Gumball (the Foetus cover) went down fantastically well.

Band two is/was One Unique Signal (One Certain Moment) (I think). Firstly, what a terrible name. Surely that name is way too close to the band name One True Voice to be comfortable? I actually saw the band once before but that was during the Paper Chase gig at the Arts Centre earlier this year when I got in the drunkest state I have ever gotten at during a gig (even drunker than Fear And Loathing ATP). On that night I could swear blind they were Blonde Redhead copyists and at the time I was deffo going to buy one of their CD-Rs. However that night, that never happened. Instead on that night, I just fell over on the dancefloor and puked. Tonight however is a whole different moment. Like China Drum (ho ho), One Unique Signal (One Certain Moment) have a singing drummer, which is an occurrence not dis-similar to a dancing bear in my opinion. Oh the torture that everyone must go through, first the drummer having to sing and concentrate on rhythms at the same time and then the aftermath of people (both band and listener alike) talking about the fact the drummer sings for hours upon end. Truly, here is a gimmick more speech worthy than Slipknot. Well, maybe not. Tonight the band sound like Joy Division and not much else. And at the end of the day, that means: you gotta LOVE the bass sound. Also though, bare in mind you can’t spell the name Joy Division with the word “div�.

Them out the, the night begins swinging. Disco wise, I chuck on Colchester’s finest: DJ So Clear and Rup The Cunt with “King Cnut� and of course The Blitters and “Eating Your Brains�. This is the stuff of culture star.

The third band on the bill are Colchester’s own *Teevo. Sometime, somewhere there was some hype surrounding them at the beginning of the year (well, in our little poxy circle). They wind up being a lot less alternative and inventive that we had hoped/prayed for. Here is/was a band with a lite singer, a boy sounding like a girl which draws obvious comparisons to Placebo after initial spells of Ash and Hurricane #1 references. On they go with a very long set and the best moments almost feel directly lifted from Hole and so sound aces as a result but very unsatisfying/unfulfilling resulting in the musical equivalent of a nil-nil draw.

As the end of the night beckons I play as many loud tunes as possible: Sonic Youth, Blonde Redhead, Free Kitten, Fugazi all lovely. When I drag out Mistakes And Regrets by Trail Of Dead it is very satisfying to see Steve Cat On Form onstage airdrumming as they get prepared for their set. My only disappointment is that I never get around to playing Huggy Bear and Nation Ulysses (note to self: this is 2004 not 1992!).

And Cat On Form turn out to be a real treat. I have heard SO much shit said about Cat On Form that I have avoided them like the plague to date. And what a waste that has been as Cat On Form churn out the kind of passion that is so devoid from nearly all new bands that I have seen in the past two/three years. Who cares if they look like Fugazi-lite done by a manual, it is fast, heavy and loud and alive! Their touring schedule as always reads relentless and baring in mind that this is their last (or penultimate) set of this tour, they are still amazingly visibly putting so much into their art and craft. Of course it looks a bit silly when the shirts come off and people make concentration camp comments but what do people do about? They stand still and take it while Cat On Form carry on regardless/relentless. A real blot on the landscape occurs when the singer announces that “this song is about the commodification of the female body�, the problem being no adult will ever be able to listen to a singer use the “commodification� without smirking/scoffing. Whatever though, the show ends on a high with a set far surpassing all expectations and making a huge new fan out of me. The end.

After the show, I attempt to squeeze out a final few tunes but the soundmen, wanting to get home, are rightly having none of it. Mark and myself chip after saying “thank yous� and “goodbyes� and getting some dirt on Colchester’s own Peter Brame (Fame Academy fag) and then it is back to Mark’s freehouse. After a long day, Mark cooks up some super pasta for the hungry DJ Gram. He rules and I rules.

np: Gumball – Butterfly Potion

David Cross live in London. Just like watching a Mr Show DVD 

he is SO the man 

August 18 (Wednesday): Inspector 34. This morning I wake up panicking as I am not wearing my watch: did I get drunk and leave it somewhere? Have I been robbed? I awaken from a dream set in Ipswich (looking like Norwich) where I have been shopping, for part with Louise, searching out Wayne’s World on DVD. I also go into some poor bookshop, where in the sex/erotic section I find an illustrated Bettie Page and when I open it up, it is a complete illustrated history of professional wrestling.

I see the news and its kicking off in Viet-Iraq as usual. A gentleman called Moqtada Sadr is causing trouble and everytime his name is mentioned, it sounds as if some mad Scotsman has taken over.

We get some more early morning MSN with Sara this morning and she is giving me shit for the X consecutive day running it seems/feels to me. I also receive an angry Ebay related email and my piss poor start to the day is complete.

As I walk into work Sarah from Hays tells me about the firm that I am going to have an interview at this morning, I am kind of suspicious of the place because it does not have a website, which these days is now unbelievable for a company/firm not to have.

For another day running, I turn up into work slightly late. I finish the lesbian garden centre accounts and blank Lindsey. I have a few words with Louise about things, not least “what happened with Janine?�. Lousie says she is keeping tight lipped, so that means everyone is now able to make up their own minds as to just what happened and to just how bad it/I was. Mean.

After the incident though, and now that people are coming back round to me, I have learned that you can get away with next to murder providing you move on, acting as if possessing a clear conscience and the courage of your convictions. You just have to ride through storms and rise above and this is how BASTARDS get through life. Kudos.

I leave work at lunchtime, just basically announcing to everybody that I am taking the afternoon off work holiday. Like a coward I do not approach any partners about this, instead I just write it in the diary.

When I arrive home there is a letter from my new property management, Pier Management group. They are kicking off because I have not paid them the ground rent. I don’t usually pay the ground rent to them so I have waiting for some kind of confirmation that they are the correct people to pay but now I receive a demand letter from them, adding charges and threatening all sorts of legal actions towards including the ultimate threat: forfeiture of leasehold (ie my being evicted). I get on the phone and ask them what’s going on. It takes an eternity to get through to them and this holds me up on leaving for London. When I finally speak to someone at Pier Management, the woman is fucking useless and not giving me any leeway on the admin charge they have added to the bill. And not only this, when I resign myself to paying the full amount over the phone, the scamming cunts go and add a £2.50 credit card transaction charge to the bill payment. And what can I do about all this? Sweet FA.

Oh dear, so this all puts me in the wrong frame of mind for going up to London and the interview on Marylebone High Street. I board a train around 3pm and this means I get into town around 4pm, managing to avoid a rush hour hold up. My interview is set for 5pm so this gives/lends me plenty of time to head to Dean Street and the Soho Theatre on a whim and to see whether I am able to get any tickets for David Cross (this is such a hot ticket now). Joy of joys, perhaps indicating a change in fortunes, I manage to get a returned ticket and soon I am set/made up for an evening in London watching the apparent heir to Bill Hicks. Yes! As I walk triumphantly up Oxford Street towards Oxford Circus to catch a train I find myself passing Mutya from the Sugababes on the footpath/pavement. My god, she is so small and koala bear like. I love her so!

From there, semi elated, I hop aboard a train to Baker Street. Today is the best of all interviews so far in The City, I am really blasé about things and completely on time, early almost. I arrive at Baker Street, map in hand and hop off to my destination. This is now Sherlock Holmes territory and by it I am more than impressed, this really is not a part of London I ever come to. I head towards Marylebone High Street and in the process I pass Madame Tussards and instantly I know that I am on the map! Personally I think there cannot be any city anywhere else in the world as exciting as here. Eventually I find Marylebone High Street and it looks a very posh part of town, full of strange fashion “shops� that look like galleries. As I walk up the high street I pass a café and sat outside it is DJ Gary Crowley and by spotting this Z-list celebrity I am turned on, how fickle can Graham get? I check my phone for texts and emails and there I find an email from Azmei. Apparently she popped into the office today to see if I wanted to go for lunch. Fantastic! She wishes much luck in my interview and its gives me a warm feeling to think that she still cares. As the time soon approaches the interview hour, the clouds come over London and it is inevitable things are about to rain. I however have my own minor crisis when I reach the end of Marylebone High Street and cannot find my office destination. I eventually find a door and the tiniest of address panels for the office, I guess they don’t want to advertise the fact that they’re there too much. At this point the heavens open and drench everything insight. I stand beneath a shop cover next to the office and wait for the final five minutes to die before my interview. As I stand, I have a lady come up to me asking where Maida Vale is. For once I am able to help out a stranger as I pull out a map from my pocket.

Eventually I bite the bullet and go for the interview, search and destroy (ho ho!). The office building is strange, proper old style London but modernised at the very same time. Sneaking into such a building, so invisible from outside, I feel privileged as if let into some kind of hidden bunker secret. The building looks like Cadogan House all over until I actually enter the office floor where it is ultra modern, looking like something out of Boiler Room. I have to admit I find it unnervingly quiet as no one appears to be still at work in the office, with the company seeming so new without a website suddenly there is something really REALLY Boiler Room about the whole operation. The receptionist leads me into the meeting/board room where sat in the centre is a bottle of Evian. She asks me if I would like a drink and I say “I’ll just help myself to some water�. I choose the Evian, is this a psychological test and/or faux pas? And then next comes the other headtrip, where to sit? In interviews, body language I am lead to believe screams almost equally as much as speech and knowledge. So, in choosing where to sit you need to consider such factors as: which is my best side? Where will I be best lit? How will I be facing my interviewer? Blah blah blah, this is all ridiculous psychobabble of course.

After a mighty wait (weight) my interviewer eventually turns up, just as I am fidgeting with the inside pocket of my jacket of course. In the room steps a very lively man. This man looks like the singer from Black Lace gone fat, retired and become an accountant. He actually turns out to be a really interesting person that I feel I click with. Interestingly he has never qualified as an accountant and here he is looking to take on someone like me, someone eagerly trying to make it but baggaged by being unqualified. Go figure. The job sounds primarily like assisting him, him who comes over like a younger version of Seymour with city versions of Heddle’s shitty income and expenditure jobs. It pretty much sounds like a job I can do easily although the man comes over as if being what I would imagine to be a real arsehole to work. He is also kind of amusing, letting slip that he is more in place for his marketing/promotional expertise rather than his actual accounting ability/knowledge. And what makes me think this? Its when he tells me “I’ve been pissed with about 20% of my clients� and “they’re always saying to me, are you sure you are an accountant?�. This is a comical individual. During the course of the interview I do feel I give a few answers that do let me down slightly, I guess my knowledge is not as vast as I thought it was. The interview runs quickly and is pretty much over just past the thirty minute point. Once more, my interviewer heavily pushes the commuting angle, seriously questioning whether I am up to it. Personally, I think so. The interview ends and I get led out, the pair of us continuing to bullshit eachother royally. He asks me if I’m “off back to Colchester now� and I am able to say that I am staying in town which I think/expect impresses him most about me in this interview. He asks me what I’m doing and I tell him that I am going to see “an American comedian called David Cross� and he starts telling me how he has a couple of comedians on his books who are currently doing the Edinburgh Festival. He throws some names at me and I pretend to recognise them, actually convincing myself that one of them is the lady that I heard on Mark Radcliffe’s show from Edinburgh last night. I then go on to add that I once considered taking a stand up comedy course in Soho at the beginning of last year. Maybe this was a dumb move.

I emerge from the interview semi-elated, the closing exchange seemed to be a winner, basically tonight felt like rapport! As I stagger back out onto the streets of Marylebone I find myself texting everyone I know with jollies and good vibes. Surprisingly however, no one answers my texts. Outside, once more the environment has turned again and the weather has turned nice, blooming into an August summer evening. As I walk back to Baker Street I discover an Oxfam book shop and find myself going inside. What is wrong with me? I never go into second hand/charity shops, they are for the poor and the pikeys and the pikey students and the general lamestains that are from rich families but don’t work and are pseudo poor/broke. Yes, I fucking hate you! I am here however finding myself looking for a novel called Billy Budd by Harold Melville. No dice. I do instead find a Woody Allen script book of four of his movies including Annie Hall, Manhattan and Interiors. Four pounds, a bargain! I then also discover the book Eddie from Frasier wrote (honestly!). I guess it must have been ghost written. This typifies the city, this is most definitely a charity shop several levels/notches above those I experience at home.

Once back on Baker Street I find myself in the middle of a bustling gotham. The evening is young and promising, it just post work and everyone has been let out to play. And everyone is from everywhere. A lot of people have me down as close-minded, to the pointed of bigoted but here the whole multiculturalism of this place just fills me with excitement, unlike home where a coloured face is the exception, a hundred different textures/tones is the norm. I opt out of taking the easy route, just hopping aboard a train to my given destination and I decide to just get lost on purpose. I walk streets in London that I have never before and see buildings and sights I previously never knew existed and now I get a buzz on. In an act of ultimate irony, I find myself passing a building called Seymour House as I contemplate my career. This point in my life is perfect, if only I wasn’t flying solo.

I do indeed lost and it doesn’t feel very clever. I now see why some people compare London to New York, wherever you go and whatever they have done to them, tall buildings remain tall buildings. I look up, looking for some kind of beacon, some kind of monument of recognition and there I see Centrepoint in the distance. I turn a corner and find myself walking side by side with some loud Italians. And they appear as lost as me, one of them evening asking me the way/direction to Edgeware Road. Hey, I must pass for regular, a London inhabitant. Apologetically I tell him I don’t know and prey he does not pull a knife on me out of anger. Nope, instead he asks a real townie. I stagger on, losing and just as I think I am arriving on New Oxford Street, it appears that I am nowhere of the sort, I am still very much far from home.

Finally I arrive on somewhere I know, as I find myself back in the midst of humanity and the thriving retail Armageddon, here I am on Bond Street, all by accident and not design. I walk up the streets macking all the people around me, compared to Colchester this feels like another country, maybe another planet. On the streets random people are handing out bibles and I wonder what their angle is whilst also being too scared to ask. I continue up the road and I pass the street where my original interview occurred, the one with Slaven Jeffcote where I fought above my weight, held my own and only got criticised for being bedraggled. Would I still succumb to such a fate right now, tonight in a rematch? This evening the world is my oyster.

I have a real failing when I am in a good mood, my worries seem to exit me. And with worries, I mean financial concern/care/sensibilities. After hitting not one but two HMVs I find myself eagerly purchasing Wayne’s World on DVD just for the scene where Wayne speaks to Cassandra in Cantonese. Loser! What do I expect/hope to repeat the scene with Phoebe or something? Well, yes. I also snap up two Relic Hunter DVDs and unconsciously make my purchase a hat-trick of Tia Carrere DVDs. Oh my, that is what you call obsession. Still in the same shop, I find myself being hounded/stalked by security and almost not realising it until it is too late. And does he find myself doing? I am scrutinising and looking at the latest seven inch single the record label I used to run has put out. It costs £4 and looks really shitty. I put it back in the wrong section and turn around to find myself being macked by a security guard thinking/expecting me to put it into my carrier bag. Hate you!

As I walk up Oxford Street towards Centrepoint (and more importantly Virgin Megastore) my phone beeps and it is Mark asking me if I am DJing at the Cat On Form show tomorrow night. Whoops, haven’t asked. I immediately text Staff to ask and gives it a-go-go and I am set for the decks.

By now, retail begins to wail and when I find myself in Virgin on Oxford Street, I find myself rather bored and now wasting time before David Cross begins at 9pm, the time now being just 7pm. Initially I stagger into the basement Costa but the Ukrainian bean merchant behind the counter (Steve Boyle © 2004) tells me that he is shutting up shop. I still head over and use their bathroom though and when I see my reflection in the mirror I feel I have never looked more adult or more magnificent in my whole life, this is my time, I have arrived (ha ha ha ha ha!).

As I plod around the comedy DVDs looking for In Sickness And In Health DVDs my phone beeps again and suddenly out of the blue it is Sarah asking if we are friends? My world, my god! This is the most unexpected text ever received by man I suspect. And sadly she finds myself buzzing on good vibes so I only reply with like, being kind saying “its all gravy�. Bad Jason, this is an insane girl I need to CUT out of my life. For tonight however, she is my latest friend.

From Virgin I stagger back out onto the seat finding the time only just hitting 8pm and me waiting forever for 9pm. Not really hungry, I weigh up my options. Number one is to go to a stinky pub to watch England v Ukraine with a bunch of strange/stranger pissheads and get my suit filthy, stinky and in dire requirement of a dry clean (yeah, like it isn’t already). Or two, get a Burger King. To me, the latter options seems/feels the least humiliating of the two and I plump for a chicken sandwich jobby with one of their McFluffy, only this is BK so its probably a King Flurry or something. I take my feast downstairs into the eating area and it is empty save for a sole man on his own. Initially this is fine, the man is scruffy and probably just some pikey student slumming it. That’s the bad thing with first impressions, you only get to make them once. As I look via my SAS peripheral vision it turns out the guy has no food and not only this, he begins to root around the plastic pot plant looking for something, like a dire cross between David Bellamy and Indiana Jones with AIDS. I much nervously as it occurs to me that this guy is obviously probably a homeless smackhead, out to smack heads. And in my suit, I look like I have money because, let’s face it, I am SO money. Fortunately my sphincter loosens as fellow patrons come into the eatery/establishment and Mr Wino disappears back off to his box home. This home however is full of chit chat tourists and soon it is apparent that I am the only English speaking person that frequents this hole. Our languages however are universal when some poor girl falls down the stairs/steps. Ordinarily I’d laugh my arse at the girl but today I am nice and her fall looks fucking painful, I am basically astonished that she can even fucking walk beyond it (I guess I gained some ankle empathy when I almost broke drunkenly broke the pair of mine this year). As I leave the fine BK establishment I find myself reunited with smackhead (smackdown) friend who is now comfortably sat/propped upstairs.

I walk over to the Soho Theatre in the full knowledge that England are beating Ukraine 1-0. This is Soho on a school night and to me it is terrifying, I don’t think I have ever really been here before. And unfortunately I have time to kill just as it starts/begins to rain yet again. As I walk up Dean Street a police car stops right in front of me. Are they out to get me or just put me in their back seat and drive me home to safety? Neither, they’re doing their routines probably on their way to Tesco Metro to get some doughnuts. It goes without saying that I get to Soho Theatre really early and stand outside alone for too long a time, looking like a stood up date (a look, with life, I have now managed to master).

Finally after convincing staff I am not some crazed stalker, they let me in. Or rather, the open doors to the public. I take my seat in the third row and sit awkwardly in my suit while hipster kids and indie rockstars gather around me. To them, do I represent selling out and being the MAN? Intimidation for the nation. Around 9.30, after a PA soundtrack of uber-college/indie rock, David Cross hits the stage. But this isn’t just David Cross, it is DAVID CROSS! And it is the old cliché of “he looks a lot smaller person�. He opens his mouth and this is not Ronnie Dobbs. He starts out by pacing and doing a lap/circle of the audience before launching into his righteous set of stories. And of course this being a hip audience, the utter Americanisms do translate comfortably even if they only garner nervous “that was clever� laughs instead of gut wrenching belly laughs. As a person used to listening to and hearing jokes of my favourite comedians mainly via CDs and TV, it is really weird taking in a set from a person and already knowing the punch lines to half the jokes. But still, fuck it, stood there right in front of me performing like a chimp is Ronnie Dobbs, the guy from Mr Show and the guy who tried to hit on Rebecca in Ghost World, this event has a really sense of timing attached to it, a real sense of now, like this month long stay at the Soho Theatre will go down in comedy history. This guy ain’t Lenny Bruce. In David Cross, certain quarter will have you believe we an apparent heir to Bill Hicks but this just is not true, in comparison Cross’s style seems to lack composure, spite and downright nastiness that Bill Hicks had. I actually think David Cross’s rambling style of performance is more akin to Henry Rollins, a lot of tame venom aimed very high and a lot of “I like you, you like me� audience interaction. Cross takes aim and fires at the obvious such as Bush and although not getting bogged down by being too specific with targets (like Michael Moore) but never really manages to get a clean/clear balance between PC and un-PC targets. Halfway through the set, after a top heavy blast at his and our president, he does some visual impressions of first a smack baby, followed by Stephen Hawking having sex and ending with an impression of a drummer with stump arms. Either way, he had to be feeling dirty at this point. Ultimately I feel the performance is/was all about being intelligent rather than being funny. And such performances do feel like a meeting of some secret society with this week’s guest speaker from out of town. I adore Mr Show and love Ronnie Dobbs but the man David Cross on his own is little more than a TV comedy writer/performer stretching too far. All that said, I have a fantastic watching a man in motion who you feel is on your side and doing all his best to make it happen. His set ends with a thud rather than thunder but I still leave having had a fantastic time, if for most his off colour sex and abortion and if for least to namedrop. One last opportunity/chance of redemption is offered when some beautiful girls with beautiful voices yell helplessly “do Ronnie Dobbs� which either Cross doesn’t hear or care for.

As I leave, his new CD is being hawked in the foyer, his new CD signed! I’m always a sucker for a souvenir (especially considering I have already downloaded the album off/from Soulseek). For the record, my CD says “sorry for America�.

I saunter out onto Dean Street in a rush to get the last intercity train back to Colchester (on its way to Norwich) but I also emerge from the show dryer/more thirsty than a Desert Rat. I get me some liquid in the Tesco Metro and as I storm towards Oxford Street, out of the sick hands of Soho, an unmarked cab shouts out to me, asking me if I want a ride. I have finally arrived!

I get my train without problem, even having time to stop for a coffee. My night ends on a high as I listen to old stylee Mark Radcliffe on the radio on my cellphone and exchange text messages with Phoebe and continues to compliment me on my Cantonese, asking me who is teaching me “all this�. All in all, it makes my hour plus train ride from Liverpool Street to Colchester feel like ten minutes.

I get home shattered but with one of the biggest smiles possible on my face. And if that is the aftermath of going to a David Cross show, I only want to do it again.

np: The Kinks - Lola

August 17 (Tuesday): Halloweenie. Weird dream last night, I’m walking up Butt Road near the police station and Colchester seems to be clamping down and having an amnesty on baseball bats. I find myself getting stopped and being ordered to surrender the little baseball bat I bought in Sacramento last year, as if it could do any damage…. When I wake up, I wonder where the bat is and where it has gone.

Regardless of that freaky mind trip warp, I wake up early as is the way for me currently with it being summer etc. I MSN with Sara some and it feels like an argument although she denies this. Basically she is giving me more grief over my anger management. What, does she think I’m fucking Ronnie Dobbs or something?

I walk into work maxing/macking on Chris Moyles who has Ben Stiller with him on his radio show. It is a nice leisurely stroll into work along Layer Road into Butt Road and all in all, it sees me arriving late to work. I am too laid back.

At work I put Gatehouse to semi-bed and put adjustments through on Viztopia and Louise is still very offish. Forgetting that though, I get a semi-panicked Mark on the phone asking me if I can download an email for him in Japanese script/font on Word for a translation job for him (turns out his version of Word is a little out of date). I run around the office, getting the document off the office internet and looking all over for an XP computer that will work it. None do and I have to telephone Mark back with failure. Fortunately however Mark chooses to take it to the library where they are equipped to the hills (apparently).

I text Azmei once more asking how things are, mainly with her mum. Once more she does not respond.

I go back upstairs to the office where Louise and Janine are and they remain frosty and very offish. Janine makes a few smart comments aimed in my direction, not least the arrogant one “you have a lot to learn about treating women/ladies�. I ask “have you got a cob on?� and she goes “yes, in the future you ought to keep your mouth shut and you should keep your hands to yourself�. What the fuck? Oh my, it sounds like I tried it on with her Friday which is really freaky because she next to repulses me by her general phoniness. By this I am very embarrassed and soon make myself scarce and basically hide in Chernobyl for the remainder of the day.

Back in Chernobyl the whole affair is greeted with hilarity by Stevo and Sandip while I go through a kind of personal crisis, feeling like I am being made to feel like Mike Tyson. Grief. Stevo calls for calm. I text Sara who replies with equal hilarity. The world is a vampire.

At lunchtime, Stevo, Sandip and myself all lunch in Richard’s while outside the weather turns on a spin of a coin and pisses down a storm.

In the afternoon I text Azmei again, now that I feel even more guilty about things than ever and this time she actually replies and it seems things are now all better and there had been a general overreaction/drama to incidents over the past few days. It is disheartening to get a boring response from Azmei, I feel I go into texting her almost wanting fireworks and abuse, almost looking for an opportunity to sound off. While all this drama uncurls itself, Purple Haired Girl walks past the office. There is one reliable lady who would/will never let me down.

Another bad day ends and I am relieved to the max to be out of there and on my way home to see the olds. Tonight is England U-21 vs Ukraine U-21 on Sky Sports followed by episode 2 of season 5 of the Sopranos on E4. This is pretty much (wrongly) the extent of my visit to my parents, to watch some Sky. The evening is a bit of a downer, Dad goes to bed early seeming to be in a hump/mood over something. And just as the Sopranos begins on E4 mum starts telling me how she thinks dad is ill again as he is showing similar signs to those he did when he first got cancer last year. I really do not want to hear this, I do not want to go through all this shit again (yeah right, as if I went through anything compared to them last year). We talk our way through most of the episode of the Sopranos, mum doing most of the talking.

When I leave, I drive home listening to Mark Radcliffe on Radio 2 and I return home in time to watch Haunted Honeymoon on late BBC1. Its so weird to think that when we first got Sky back in 1989, this movie was one of the big selling points/promotional pushes to get the movie channel over. Why? Phoebe Toronto comes online and we talk until past 1AM, with my trying to explain the brilliance of Tortoise to her. She has problems of her own though, a big operation on its way. Staying up last is such a bad move considering how early I was up this morning and now I will only awaken completely shattered tomorrow, tomorrow for my third job interview in London.

np: Manic Street Preachers – Archives Of Pain

August 16 (Monday): Time Tunnel. Another day, another headache. Here comes the first day back in work after Friday the 13th. I begin with the heaviest of headaches which is not assisted by an MSN session with Sara asking: who is the real Jason Graham?

I go into work sheepishly and everyone is buzzing from the cricket. There is some gossip/word spoken about the evening but not too much, mainly Sandip and Stevo are interested because they were not there and barely even know the basics. I wander around the office feeling an atmosphere in my general direction. The main person to be giving me the cold shoulder is Louise, who isn’t totally off with me but somewhat frosty. I wonder what is up and just what I did Friday night during the blanks and missing scenes. Louise doesn’t go into specifics, instead just tells me that I am horrible/nasty sometimes. Other than that though, there appears to be not lasting bad.

I text Azmei asking what happened on Friday night and she replies “you said the F word and evils�. That’s as vague as can be. I later find out that she also phones Louise this morning wanting to know what happened Friday, wanting to speak to Andy. It turns out that her mum fell ill on Friday night and suddenly all drunken shenanigans seem unimportant. I text her with concern but she doesn’t reply.

Hays telephone me about a job interview opportunity and I jump at it. Will see you Wednesday.

At lunchtime I get dragged to the Wig & Pen with Stevo to get some lunch. I’m really trying to cut eating out at lunchtimes down (out) but he is generally able to talk (whine) me around. Today is good though, Wig & Pen has got free John Smith hacky sacks for regulars. Result! The Wig & Pen during the daytime is a funny place, generally you get a couple of fucked up people in wheelchairs drinking a pint with their wobbly head through a straw. It is site and surely they shouldn’t’ be allowed to drive their mechanic wheelchairs a bit pissed? Isn’t that over the limit? I guess they don’t buy RFLs.

In the afternoon, with Louise still very VERY frosty with me, I turn to Phoebe to cheer me up swapping text messages. At least she doesn’t hate me.

After work I head to the library with Stevo where we get a Cantonese phrase book and tape out. I guess to the one I got off the internet (Pimsleur) didn’t cut it for Steve. He drops me off home when really we should be popping to the pub on a glorious night like this one and as soon as I get in my phone beeps. I hope it is Azmei replying to my text but it is Mark asking if I am going to Asda “in the near future�. Strangely I was about to, so I call him and we hook up.

We go food shopping at Asda (me mainly for bog roll) and in return he cooks for both of us back at his (his parents are away on holiday at the moment) while his brother runs around getting his shit together for his holiday in Mallorca. Mark’s food tastes SO good; I wish I could cook so well. We settle in for the high cultural experience of watching Hot Shots on Channel Five. I remember seeing this movie in Colchester cinema and thinking it was ok but what happened, tonight I barely smile and only snigger when they do a joke a kind of off colour. Mark meanwhile seems to love it, laughing his arse off. My bad.

Hot Shots tires me out royally but tonight is the start of Sopranos series 5 on Channel Four, which I genuinely have the belief that everybody should watch this show as there is something in it for everyone (not least, just to gain a better understanding of the likes and loves of Jason Graham). Mark however cannot be persuading into staying up and watching it and I chip off, racing home to watch it on my own TV, leaving with the hardest/heaviest headache known to man. Needless to say when I get in I fall asleep watching it. Oh well, nevermind.

np: L7 - Monster

August 15 (Sunday): The Big Quiet. It could have been better. This morning I wake up sore and depressed. I spend most of the morning on MSN to Sara, procrastinating, not wanting to play cricket. I ask her if she senses a certain reluctance on my part to play/attend and she says she does. Around midday Stevo phones me from a train on his way back from London and Wimbledon football somewhere. He tells me that he’s still a bit ill and he might not play. I don’t give a god damn.

Eventually I motion out with reluctance, really not in the mood to be around my bosses today and fearing fall out from my antics on Friday night. On the way I stop off at Asda and check out their delicious quick treats, opting for a kids Dairylea meal. Me purchasing that must appear pathetic.

I have little problem finding the venue, there can’t be that many places around Stanway where you can squeeze a cricket oval in. Finding the venue is easy but finding the car park, not so good. I end up parking in a kid’s school playground. Our venue for today is basically some private rich kids’ school and it is other worldly to me, the sort of place of opportunity that make my old eyes go green.

As I search for the correct car park, Griggs is turning up also and having the exact same problem. As I pass him, on my way to correction, I gesture to him and he appears to ignore me. Oh fucking great, it appears he is still pissed at me from Friday night.

When I finally show my face around the cricket box, Seymour is there greeting me and seems oblivious to my acts of carnage from Friday night. In fact, in general no one around is mentioning it much, seems life goes on. I get bought a Stella and I get ready to roll.

Initially today I don’t intend to play in white, I have an attitude and minor cob on so white really isn’t for me, no enforced attire is. Gradually though I mellow and I wind up wearing a white t-shirt over Millwall’s green and white away shirt.

Against what he said, Stevo turns up on time and we begin with our team fielding. The weather today is mixed at best, earlier it looked like storms almost but gradually the sun comes out periodically. Last year, Sunday cricket was my best point of catching a tan but it doesn’t look as if that will be the case this year.

This year our team is far superior to last, we have more match practise and more practise in general and soon wickets begin to tumble as our basic b-side bowlers take care of the early overs. I take my general stance of mid leg (or something) and stand bored waiting for my inevitable half a dozen ball action to be hit in my direction. 30 overs later and we have taken care of the girls team for barely over a hundred.

At tea we feast on caffeine and cake. After initial suggestions of putting me in to open (“no fucking way mate�), I am down to bat third. We begin our innings and I practise batting like a madman, determined not to be out for a duck for a third time! Brian is good to me and bowls me a number of balls out back, giving me pointers and telling me where I am going wrong. Personally I feel I really need to get my defensive strokes down because I am swinging at the ball like a madman, like I am playing baseball! After a good showing, Kevin gets bowled out and suddenly I am in, in a partnership with Stevo. I walk in tentatively and I get it pointed out to me that I look terrified. Very astute. I face the closing ball of the over and manage a defensive stroke and get through my first ball (wow, major accomplishment). As the second over starts out, Stevo grabs and single and suddenly I am in bat once more. I face the next ball and (accidentally) slice it behind me to where Sunny’s cousin Min is and I get my run and then Stevo calls me on the grab a second. I manage to get through the remainder of the inning. As I begin to get settled Stevo makes contact and begins to call me to run but I shout “no!� and in the process almost run him out. Luckily it doesn’t happen but it does come close and I feel really bad for such a close shave. Not long afterwards I get bowled out and my innings is over but I manage get on the scoreboard this time and for now I am more than happy to settle for my two runs (what a fucking failure).

With the pressure now off, the sphincter begins to loosen and as the day improves weather wise, it becomes more fun and fun. I settle into drinking a Stella and larking about with my team-mates, including Seymour. A wasp chooses to buzz around us, particularly me, and when it lands on my chest (on the Millwall badge on my shirt), Seymour takes the good opportunity to pound me there. Cheeky mofo. I grab my phone and begin texting Phoebe and people ask me about her, so I show them my Cantonese phrase book and show them some of my new learned language. The girls/ladies act really impressed while the partners make crude comments a many, not least Barlow who asks if her woo woo is horizontal like her eyes. Ha fucking ha. Jesus Christ, what an arsehole, I don’t go around making jokes about his wife’s cunt do I! I talk to Rachel, Andy’s girlfriend, and the subject of us going out Friday comes into play. Once more I am a good guy and don’t even hint at a mention of Sarah although she claims she caught him out (“really?�). I tell her I feel he bullies me when we are out getting pissed but she disagrees, telling me how much he likes me (apparently). It’s good to know, even if I don’t feel it.

In the meantime on the field of play, a few wickets fall and a few people retire on 25 runs but all in all our team is in the strongest position by far, this year our team is very hot and the poor girls are taking a battering. There is one girl on the team that I recognise from last year who I thought was really pretty but this year however she has super butched up and now kinda makes me feel a bit funny.

A few people turn up from the carnage that was Friday night, those being Janine and her odd husband and Ivan with Jackie and his dogs. Janine acts particularly cold to me and I am likewise to her. I speak to Ivan about Friday and more memories and accusations come flooding back and once more I feel ill about things. With him he has brought his dogs Billy and Charlie and they are now huge compared to when I saw them as pups (they’re some kind of hunting dog). Stevo grabs and walks it around, he looks so at home with a dog it is sweet.

On the field now, our team really have taken control and run up a good score, at a rate that it is only a matter of time before we have won. And it is still early in the afternoon. Eventually we win with the partners in bat and Heddle scoring the winning run I believe. Was it fixed so that the game would end that way?

With time on our hands we proceed to have another quick game, a little 5 over match with mainly the b-team players taking more centre roles. And this means me. I get into bat once more but this time I fuck up, after almost going out there with no pads, and get bowled my first or second ball whilst batting opposite Barlow in his silly hat. Whoops. Once our overs are done, Seymour grabs me and tells me to bowl. He obviously doesn’t think I am up to it, getting me to throw a few practise balls (“dude! I can fucking bowl!�). I get to bowl the fourth over of the spoon game and with my first ball I go straight through the batter and bowl them out. Unfortunately however I was not within the wicket when I bowl the ball, whoops I really do not know the rules do I. I have a really strange over bowling. I keep plugging away very inaccurately and don’t actually get any runs hit off me but still run up about five extras. Confused, I almost the umpire if the over is a maiden. I get to bowl again in the sixth over and bowl the same batter again but this time it counts and I am ecstatic. I also get a bowl hit by the batter which loops and hangs over my head and were my feet a bit quicker, I could have caught the ball and in honesty I should have moved and caught the ball. For my efforts, I royally get the piss ripped out of me for that one. As the over ends, it is down to me to close the (mini) match. I feel like a pitcher in baseball going for the save. My probably basically though is accuracy and I struggle to put the ball right up the batter, as opposed to getting any pace on it, which I am actually pretty good at doing naturally. In the end though I keep my nerve and we win with Seymour really congratulating me.

At this point Emma has now arrived with her boyfriend to watch and participate in a works social. Poor cow. By now the barbecue has kicked off and slowly we dig into tucker grub, always a bit sheepish to take those great second helpings we desire. Hilariously after we are done, the women from the cricket league come around asking for a £2.50 to chip. Whoops, I only have £2. Stevo to the rescue yet again. As we line up for our group photos, Heddle gives me grief comparing our performances, like its some kind of competition. Why do people feel they have the need to compete against me, do I really pose some kind of threat to them? And Heddle especially has been going a bit OTT recently. For the group photo I hide at the back with Griggs, don’t want my ugly going down in this history.

Around 5pm we call it quits, with Seymour wishing me on my way very enthusiastically in the highest of spirits. Seems I have done something right for a change, result!

I get in and it’s Sunday evening, what a drag. I do nothing other than bath my ass off and listen to Bill Hicks and David Cross MP3s. At 22.14 I receive a text from Phoebe “Hiya super sport dude! Lets just say I learnt not to text you Friday or Saturday nite! My day was gd thnks hope ur evening is gd too�. Good night.
np: Jeff Buckley – I Woke Up In A Strange Place

August 14 (Saturday): The Call. This morning I find myself awake at 5 AM puking up into my bathroom toilet, more than once. Last night was regrettable, a wasting evening now well on its way to forming a wasted weekend day. I have no idea at what time I got in but it could only have been a matter of hours ago so at this early hour of the morning I can only still be drunk. I return to my bed but sporadically I have to run back to my toilet to bring more poison up. It appears I got home on a homing signal/beacon again, I am still clothed, wearing my contact lenses and on top of crap on my bed. I wet my flannel and put it over my forehead as a homemade ice pack. Who am I kidding?

Around eight there is a knock at my door. I heard a van stop outside and footsteps enter our communal hall (so much for the security door) and come up the stairs. Is it a raid? Nope, its just a postman. However by this point I have managed to get myself naked, out of alcohol stained clothes, and I am scrapping around for cover. When I answer the door, I must be the illest state. Postman Pat is very apologetic. I take the parcel from Amazon and I can’t even be bothered to open it, instead I curl up back in bed hoping to fall asleep and awaken all recovered, a brand new me.

Eventually, around 1pm I awaken and feel somewhat recovered but not really fully. This level of recovery however is enough to make a normal man function on the most testing of days. If nothing else, having a weekly routine set aside for days will allow a person to at least function on autopilot and get through a day even if it is at the mental level of a zombie. And with that in mind, I head out and buy the days newspapers.

Today is the first full day proper of the Olympics. Could I care less? I doubt it.

Lunchtime comes and goes and this was when I should have been out in town functioning like an average human being. Outside today is the most beautiful of days but inside my head feels like it is dripping blood. By 2 pm I feel almost recovered, my head pains pass but the stomach trouble kicks in and I need food/subsistence, I really could have done with going out to lunch today. At this time it also occurs to me that had Azmei told me earlier that she couldn’t go to lunch then I could have gone to Millwall to see them play Leicester.

The afternoon happens and Millwall beat Leicester 2-0, scoring their first goals of the season. And it sounds like I missed out on a genuinely great game.

In early evening I call up Mark and go around there for 7pm. He tells me that the message that I left on his voicemail last night sounded caveman-esqe, 100% neanderthal. Wow, I bet that means I was a catch last night. Aces, his brother is about when I thought he was long gone to London. He is in his basement making tunes but weirdly all we can hear is this wanky post rock music shit, its like Mogwai had never happened. Unlike the usual heavy raw beats, now Steve has gone horribly worryingly mellow. Mark and I find myself monging in front of the TV, for reasons unknown to us we find ourselves watching Olympic diving for no reason known to man. We pick up the Playstation 2 and have a few games of Pro Evolution 3 before Steve comes up from the basement to watch the new version of Match Of The Day with us. He also gets me stoned, to which I am eternally grateful. Once more, after a horrendous night out previously I am able to come home to Mark’s house and spend a fucking normal chilled night in and feel like part of the human race again. The new Match Of The Day turns out to be fucking wank, completely flat and utterly stuffy. What’s the deal with dragging out the 1986 FA Cup Final to host Premiership football? We leave it early, Steve disappearing to bed and me being politely asked (hinted at) to leave. I am happy to comply. When I get in, I sleep the good sleep, clear of conscience once again.

np: Van Morrison – Glad Tidings

August 13 (Friday the 13th): Field Of Jason. Another day, another headache. No strange dreams though, so that’s a bonus. Strange thing this morning: Scrubs plays On Fire by Sebadoh on its soundtrack. I don’t why but this morning I wake up with the hump. What’s going on? What’s going wrong? I am really so unable to find good in anything?

Today at work is a real drag, my office environment annoys me, my work annoys me and my fellow workers annoy me.

Par for the course, when Azmei turns up to go to lunch with the others, needless to say she does not bother to come over and say “hello� or anything. Once an ignorant cunt, always an ignorant cunt I guess. I don’t bother to go over and say “hello� either, I’m immature like that, I exercise tit for tat. Eventually Louise calls our office (Chernobyl), calling me over the road. As soon as I get over the road, the first thing Azmei says is “I’m really sorry but I can’t make it for lunch tomorrow�. Ever notice when people add the word “really� to an apology, it makes it sound less than sincere. If I’m honest, I have to say this upsets me, I had really been looking forward to the lunch and being that she was the one suggesting it and pushing it, it looked like she was more keen than myself. I tell her “I’m used to you letting me down by now� and as conversation veers off to her prattling on to Louise or Brian about something I go back over the road. Five minutes later she comes over the road to say “hello� to the others in Chernobyl, with the pair of us saying nothing to eachother. As she leaves for lunch with the Happy Pants gang she says to me “we’ll do lunch when I get back from holiday� and I calmly and enthusiastically snap back “don’t bother� to which she responds “grow up�. F U.

From her the day takes an official crash. Who knows why and who knows how but Azmei’s rejection really really upsets me and my already grumpy mood becomes full blown fucked off. All afternoon I probably barely say a dozen words. I do have words with Azmei when she pops into the office on the way back to her car but by now, for me, the damage has already done and there is really no going back from the facts. Afterwards I speak to Louise for a bit about it all and I tell her “I’m not in the mood for going out tonight, I’ll get pissed and abusive�. She goes “well don’t go then� but I know that if I drop out, Drew drops out and the evening doesn’t happen and as a result it will all be down to me. Welcome to responsibility Graham. Tonight might be a complete disaster; I’m on a rocky road again.

In the afternoon I phone up Mark at his house but only get to speak to his brother, the intention of calling Mark being for him to call me later on this evening and to get me out of the social event of the season.


For the evening’s kick off, a meet up time gets set for 6.30, with me meeting Drew at Smiths. Seymour says he’ll be back in town around 7.00 and then the “scrounging skanks� (the girls) will be joining us around 8.00 after plastering coats of make up on their faces to make them look pullable even though half of them are in relationships. Oh yes, here comes prick tease nation. Stevo isn’t coming out tonight, I genuinely believe tonight he prefers to stay in and watch the opening ceremony of the Greece Olympics.

The evening starts out grim and I walk into town knowing I am going to get pissed tonight so I had better not take the car because if I had the car, regardless of my state and sobriety, I would only drive it home. Originally I was not going to drink tonight, I was going to be the new me, the new me that begins pints but puts them down before they are finished and does not drink himself into the ground. Tonight however, if it’s going to be just me and Drew for an elongated space of time, I really require a little something to get me through.

I start out walking to town just past 6.00, knowing that Drew is likely to turn up late for the 6.30 rendezvous. As I walk into town, the clouds get darker than ever and it’s inevitable that before I reach my destination, I am going to get rained on. Halfway on my walk, as expected Drew begins telephoning me to make sure that I am on my way.

When I arrive, it is about 6.35 and he is already there. I have a real phobia and thing about being in a pub on my own, looking like I am alone and that I don’t have any friends. Unlike the world of endless barflies taking their posts in any public house you wish, I cannot possibly be seen to be deserted. We start out drinking and tear into a couple of bottles of Budweiser. Phoebe texts me and I deal with that (yeah, like that is a real chore). First beer out of the way, I basically go “fuck it� and tear into Stellas with view to becoming Stella Monster on a Stella Riot. Not longer after we get going, Andy phones me and says he might join us out. Oh joy. In the meantime, I’m talking shit with Drew and its fine, he gives good head and at least keeps things semi interesting.

Eventually support arrives when Seymour turns up, rescuing me from Drew. Along with him is Kev (his son) and some guy in a Sloth (from Goonies) shirt. The shirt is the coolest but unfortunately I am already too drunk to mention this without sounding like a sap. Gradually people more and more people turn up as I get drunker and drunker. Firstly Andy does turn up, then Ivan and then Janine and her vacant looking friend. When Andy phoned the second time asking where we were, I told him we were at Smiths and I ask him to bring some chips as I haven’t had a dinner. Needless to say he arrives without chips and I ask him where they are and he starts going off on one to me being fat this and fat that so I grab his big honk yid nose and playfully go “beep!�. He responds “you do that again and I’ll fucking kill you�. What a great example my “boss� is setting. It goes without saying that I do do it again and he does not kill me.


Around 8 pm the slosh puppies arrive, here comes Louise, Lindsey and Emma (all my favourites) and along with them comes Azmei, that last person I want to see today/tonight, hasn’t my day already been bad enough? No wait, scratch that, the second last person I want to see out, turns out Azmei’s sister Sarah is coming out later on also. Hey, they don’t work for our poxy firm, who on earth invited them! And I know I am acting like a prick but so what, I’m pissed up on Stella which is pretty much a licence to act like an arsehole.

Tonight Andy has dragged out with him some guy from the Goat and Boot called Chris. He is a mate of Ivan’s and is wearing a red England shirt and looks ready to go off at any second. I talk to him for a bit but I’m slurring all over the show and generally acting like a prick. He tells me how “Stella knocks my head off� while I’m doing my impression of Alexei Sayle.

There is a major issue tonight with regards to spends. Generally when the girls come out it is their privilege that they don’t buy drinks. What? This is where the unflattering term “scrounging skanks� comes from my little black heart. We have an initial whip round of ten pounds notes and as soon as a round has been bought for the drinks, a second whip round is being ask for from the men. I go off on one, refusing to put in if the girls don’t. Generally, I act like a complete proper bastard, going off at the girls over this issue. I find myself ranting “what’s the point in buying them drinks all night, its not as if we’re going to get to fuck any of them�. Ouch. And when they suggest moving onto Edwards, off I go saying “typical there you go, we buy them drinks and then they fuck off elsewhere� which prompts defensive words from Lindsey. I begin downing bottles of booze in one and we soon move on but not before I get some shouts off on/with Lindsey as I point out the ridiculousness of our group trying to get into Edwards when Ivan/Andy’s friend Chris is wearing a fucking red England replica shirt. And as per expected/me, the bouncers at Edwards will not let him but then I see something I haven’t seen in a long long time, Lindsey sweet talks the bouncer! Andy slips off his suit jacket and Chris puts it on over his England shirt and this is satisfactory. Oh my. So, where do we go now?

All chance of semblance of normality for the evening goes to the wall as Azmei’s fucking sister Sarah turns up which is pretty much a red rag to a bull as far as I am concerned. My mentality, right or wrong, is “how fucking dare she show her face at one of my work socials?�. Ha ha, I’m a ranter. And the skank suddenly/immediately makes a b-line for Andy. Good, he can fucking have her. Somehow I find myself in a little group with Ivan and Chris and it’s a bit spikey to say the least. Someone, somewhere gets me a pint of Stella and I get egged on by someone (Drew I think) to down it in one and I fucking do it, I am such a lout sometimes. As soon as it goes down I (apparently) begin mouthing at Ivan “Stellah!!! Buy me another one!�. Around this point Chris says something to Ivan which cracks him up 100%. I want in on the joke but Chris is staying tight-lipped. Ivan tells Chris its ok to tell me and he goes “its like the fucking Kumars around here tonight�. And off I go, running with the ball saying “kumar this� and “kumar that�. And I suspect I may even have said the P word a number of times also. Like a twat, I keep finding myself bucked to one side by people and keep winding up in the face of Sarah and Andy and the only thing I can muster to say to her face all evening is “bog off� and laugh (it being the MSN insult she threw at me the other week). Whatever, I may be pissed but she is worthless.

I go to the bar and buy myself drinks, no whip action for me now it seems. I order a Stella and a blue WKD and down the WKD at the bar in one, maybe at this point the bouncers should really be steering me out the establishment in a friendly manner. Surprisingly/shockingly though, it all goes down well not least the Stella. I do however need to make a pee break and when I return to our area in Edwards everyone has gone! Oh fucko, I think I have been ditched and rightfully so. I stagger out onto the streets of Colchester and through luck beyond luck I see Louise outside Hub who beckons me in but not before telling me to go home. Inside Hub I get reunited with old faces, friends reunited all the way. By now the night appears to be flagging but maybe the appearance is equally down to my lack of ability to see straight as it is people not having a good time. By now the males appear to be outnumbering the females, have the girls already moved on? Did they exhaust our beverage funds and run to the hills? No time to consider this too much, the night has reached a pinnacle for me and now I require the bathroom. As I head for toilet I basically fall into some poor poser punter. I am eternally lucky that he is cool with/to me because so many could get so ratty over a thing like that. Or maybe I was focused enough to fly by him in seconds. With the world spinning at a much faster rate/rape than generally I plod down inside the Hub commode and attempt to reassemble my mind. I dial up on my mobile and attempt to speak to Mark. He is not answering/home so I just leave a message on his voicemail. I next attempt Tom and dice, I get through. Apparently I tell him just what a bad time I am having and how I don’t like any of my workmates. And then he passes me onto Chris and Sofie without me even noticing any change in voice patterns. Sounds about right but in the aftermath I remember saying none of this. As impatient people are heard outside the Hub toilet (which by the way is clean beyond clean, health and safety should come here and give them one hundred gold stars) I get out and let them in. I return to the bar area where we now appear to be the bare bones of our unit. Chris who appeared to be hitting on Lindsey now stands alone, depressed looking while the bosses are alternating between hitting on old nags and sweet talking Janine and her friend. Myself, I find myself nowhere nearer to being any clearer headed and soon sprinting back to the toilet for some refuge. Once more I get the WC and as I stand over it pissing a sudden charge of puke comes flying out Linda Blair stylee, letting rip with thunder chunks. I slump, this is where it has come to and always does whenever my workmates poison me with alcohol. That said, I am always considerate enough to get toilet paper and wipe up my mess after me. Would Bukowski have done that?

When I return to my group after leaving the toilet WC before passing out I stand by the bar, it propping me up and I almost falling asleep on it. The music is funky and so am I. I remember at this point Janine coming over to me but really really I did not want to speak to anyone at this point, not least her because she fucking annoys me. I have no idea what happened at this point but a few days later (Tuesday) I get given a rough idea. Not long afterwards, the night and us all are put out of our misery. By now most people appear to have moved on and we are down to the remaining hardcore. Who knows where everyone else goes but I wind up with Seymour and Griggs. Seymour keeps checking that I am all right to get home but I appear to still want to hang and get some food. For this, Andy is generally really good and we (no Seymour) go to Burger King, so it being still open must mean the midnight hour had yet to hit. Andy got served much quicker than me, so when I sit down with my chicken burger he was almost done and asking me for my chips. Again, apparently, at this point I call him, my boss, “a cunt� and to “fuck off�. Whoops, seems I really want my chips. We leave the establishment however on good terms, shaking hands and grunting “wahey!�. Wrongly I begin texting Phoebe and the next morning I discover a text from 00.02 saying “Go kfc and get a mini fillet! Haha..�.

I stagger home and it’s obvious that my homing device is as spot on as ever as I do not remember any of the walk other than taking a piss on the Drury Road corner and failing to walk straight across that green. Once home I pass out clothed and know nothing of it all.

np: Sebadoh – On Fire

August 12 (Thursday): Grounded For Life. I wake up with a headache again! Another semi eventless day at work. With Cammax out of the way, Ivan gives me the option of picking up Gatehouse Industrial, an opportunity which I jump at. Tonight is another cricket practise but as per usual its not looking likely that I will be able to attend from the beginning, so I have to fob people off by telling them that I am going to the doctors, which is true (kind of).

When the day is done and I get home, I find my landline is beeping and that I have a message left on 1571. I listen in and it is a very ill sounding Iris cancelling/postponing tonight’s session and it really feels like a let off.

With the session out of the way, I am freed up to go and join the others in Abberton at the cricket practise. When I arrive, there is: JH, John S, his son Kev, Brian and Sandip. I don’t really bother with bowling but I am really anxious about getting some batting practise in. Unfortunately there are no stumps put out for us so when I finally get my turn at bat, it is hard to get a good practise on. And add to this that tonight I am just plain atrocious. To make things worse, Heddle now seems intent on turning our pair of poor performances into a personal competition, almost offering money between who does the better out of us. Grief.

Practise ends and I feel more worried now than I did beforehand, prospects for Sunday do not look too good. We do the usual ritual of popping into the Swan for a drink but Seymour soon flits off with Kevin to town for something to eat leaving us unfuns behind.

When I get in I check my phone and Mark is back from Sheffield and back in Colchester. Excellent, best news all day.

I get home and there is nothing on telly, just Little Britain. I go to bed.

np: L7 – Pretend We’re Dead (live Maneater bootleg 1992)

August 11 (Wednesday): Hard Day’s Jason. I comfortably wake up, like a jumbo jet coming into a smooth landing. Phoebe Toronto has answered my email, telling me what “ng hia tho� means. I MSN Sara this morning and we manage to go without having an argument, I am nice nice, I can be a good guy sometimes after all.

On my PC I attempt to download the Cantonese dictionary in order to put it on my computer at work but currently my PC isn’t having it, there is something horribly wrong in my cyberspace.

At work at the moment I think I am working better. And I genuinely think this may be due/down to the fact that I have switched from black ink to blue ink. Yes I am aware that that sounds totally fucking stupid but “it’s all right if it makes you feel better�.

Oh what a day to be unemployed or a layabout student, at 11.00 this the morning the awesome Disney movie The Ugly Dachshund is on BBC2. It’s all right for some.

At lunchtime I go to town on my own and I buy the Queer Eye For A Straight Guy book with view to total self improvement. Maybe the book will help/work, maybe it won’t but it’s all good. When I get back to the office I book my place on the English AS course, if nothing else, just to have something to talk about in my/our session tomorrow. My fellow co-workers over hear me booking the course and show interest and enthusiasm for it so maybe it is a good move after all. Onwards and upwards.

The afternoon is a bit of a stinker, the sun is shining too hard and I cannot see my computer screen through the reflection of the sun out of the window, all I can see is a reflection of me. Not nice.

Thankfully, tonight we have not got five-a-side which is a real let off, instead I am able to stay at home and chill out. Bonus. I have a bath to complete the relaxation circle and not long after I get in, just after 10pm, I hear my phone beep and it is a text. I suspect its Stevo fucking about but secretly I do wish it to be somebody else. I get out of the bath especially to check the text and it is from Phoebe! Oh my, it reads “Hi! Am really piss! got a letter from acca telling me they fucking lost my paper! A wk before result! N is the audit one! Cant be the tax which i know i fail!�. Oh my, this is the first time I have ever heard her swear in any form, her being a devout Lutheran and all. She adds “I am SO Fucking mad! I will have to sit it again in september! I cannot believe it! I am going have a heart attack soon! This is unbelievable! argh………�. In the words of Marco, “drama!�. I respond considerately and caring, making some funnies and trying to make her feel better. Eventually she seems to calm down with “I am so mad! Argh……Luckily i went to kick boxing today otherwise i might not sleep at all! Ps my cold is NOW cured! I have been yelling so loud! Argh…�. All in all, this is a new side to Phoebe I have never seen/heard and I like it, gotta love someone so visceral. I know I shouldn’t but I do kind of find the whole episode funny, not so much her situation more her reaction and I go to bed in good spirits, feeling honoured that she comes to me over something as important as this.

I go to bed/sleep watching Kevin Costner’s JFK, maybe he (Jim Garrison) could sort out the mystery of Phoebe’s missing exam paper and Kevin Costner could make a movie about the conspiracy of it all. I fall asleep before I see the ending of the film but I believe JFK gets shot.

np: Offspring - Americana

Snowy bored as fuck by watching West Ham Utd on Sky Sports 

Snowy has gone skinny like the cat in Austin Powers 

August 10 (Tuesday): Don’t Tread On Jason. First thing today again as usual, MSN with Sara. She starts out slightly ratty, accusing me of still ignoring her. Then again she is harping on about her ex-fiancée hitting her with a tax bill for their villa in Spain. A conversation subject that would send the best of us to sleep. I can’t really be bothered with her though, my computer is clogged up to shit creek and could crash at any moment anyway.

Today turns out to be a real snorer; I really need to get more into my life than this. Still I bounce about the office/Chernobyl with annoying energy; I have that fucking old R Kelly song in my head. In the afternoon I text Phoebe telling her that “my manager� (aka Stevo) is a “Haam sup lo� which in Cantonese means a “salty wet man� which means pervert. She replies “Ha ha ha.. Who’s teaching you all this! Ha ha.. Thnks for making me laugh. today is ok. Hope ur is too. My manager ‘ng hia tho’ ha ha c if u know what i mean�.

The remainder of the day passes and in the evening I shoot home to my parents to catch the first showing of the first episode of the fifth season of the Sopranos on British TV (on E4). Sometimes I am so anal.

I get home and the dog (Snowy) has had his hair clipped and now he looks ridiculous, like Dr Evil’s cat Mr Biggleswade in the Austin Powers movies. Rubbish dog. On Sky is West Ham but they are boring and crap. Elsewhere in the football league (the Coca Cola Championship, ho ho) Millwall are playing at home and losing 2-0 to Wigan. Oh great, two games into the season and they are still yet to score.

Whilst at my parents I find a website that has a downloadable Cantonese dictionary. Back of the net.

I leave my olds house around 11.05 and have a wonderful midnight-esqe drive home in the dark from Clacton to Colchester which sometimes can be the most relaxing ride on earth. I listen to Peel and nothing ever changes there. When I get in, Vanishing Point is on TV, a film neither worthy of my time nor effort.

np: R Kelly – Ignition (remix)

August 9 (Monday): When Jasons Collide. I wake up tired; it most definitely is Monday morning. What a way to begin the week, Sara pounding me on MSN. I am curt but not aggro, I test her patience.

For work, I am late leaving thus late arriving but still I stroll into work, determined that this will be a good week for me. As I walk to the office the weather is just frightening, between leaving and arriving it gradually darkens to scary proportions. Above us all, the sky is end of the worldly. Just moments after I stagger into the office with Steve, the heavens open and Colchester gets drenched.

The working day begins with me telling everybody about my weekend away and my numerous apparent faux pas committed but gracious about the great break all the same. My first encounter with/of Seymour for the week sees him barely grunt at me. Oh my, is this a sign of the week to come? Louise is not in, so that sucks meaning all conversation for the day will be male biased. Work is pretty light, to the point that I find myself able to speak to dad on the telephone when I get bored.

At lunchtime, it is more spends. I’m trying to cut out lunching and eating out during the week but if you don’t do that, the only other option appears to be to shop. Today, when we stagger into HMV, myself searching for the autographed Charlotte Haverley seven inch (for some reason), I also find myself impulse buying the second Selfish Cunt seven inch (as recommended by Allen Zuk) and a Three Stooges DVD (why???). Stevo however goes one step better/further and FINALLY buys himself a brand new phone and he gets a decent phone for a change meaning that he can now get/use WAP/GPRS.

The afternoon slips past without event and when it comes time to go home, thankfully it is dry.

I spend the evening on the internet, wasting my life away. Tonight I am looking at Cantonese websites with view to piecing together enough pigeon with which to impress Phoebe. I don’t know, I just like the idea of speaking another language and Cantonese is really fun (but very difficult).

On nightime TV tonight is a really interesting programme called Who You Callin’ A Nigger in which Darcus Howe reveals how black and Asians communities are more detached/tense than their white counterparts these days. Oh my.

np: Screaming Trees – Nearly Lost You

August 8 (Sunday): Rangeboy. I awaken on Ross’s unfolded out sofa bed feeling fine! Result! I am wearing my Millwall shirt and I am ready to go. In a smart move, yesterday beforehand I bought Hotdog and Q magazine and brought them with me, so I am able to read them until the rest of the house begins murmuring.

Eventually there is a knock on the door and it is Ross, pretty hungover, up and out to early morning party. We watch TV feeling frazzled. Popworld is on T4 and these days the boy and the girl are outdoing themselves, they really are genuinely funny and truly act like they could not give a shit. And not least today, the Sugababes are on there and proper Mutya looks fantastic as ever.

The other guy (Matthew) emerges a little later and he truly is in a bad state, much worse than Ross. He is wearing a Norwich City shirt, so now you have me in my Millwall shirt vs him in his Norwich shirt. And I don’t wish to be arrogant but I win. These days there are very feel real moments when/where I feel alpha male but this morning is most definitely one of them, I look a fucking thug in my team’s shirt whereas he just looks…..wrong! I really wish we had gotten a photo of the pair of us together.

As a lifesaving exercise/gesture Ross makes us bacon sandwiches and they taste like the best food ever made by man. We eat them outside in the garden on a wonderfully beautiful summer’s Sunday morning. The liberal but not liberal girls (Becki and friend) from the party last night return from their hotel, having antagonised the locals and obviously egging on Norwich boy for some kind of attention/action (why???). They turn up with The Observer (obviously) and tell tales of how they pretended to be lesbians at the hotel they stayed at and how they would like become March’s token lesbians. I know all this is all said somewhat in jest but why do people have to be like this, out to antagonise people who in actuality probably don’t give a flying fuck. I pick up the Review section of the Observer and there is a Woody Allen interview. I comment about how much I like his films and Miss Mutya comments “he’s good but he’s very male�. Of course he’s fucking male!

Soon everyone leaves and I am eventually left as the sole survivor of the party and not wishing to outstay my welcome, around midday I hit the road back to Essex. I thank Ross genuinely grateful for the invite and the opportunity to get away for the weekend.

The drive home is a bit of a nightmare compared to the drive to March. As per the first trip, the majority of the journey is spent getting from March back onto the A14. As I get stuck in stereotypical Sunday traffic I notice a Ford garage that is called Harrison Ford. Now, that has to have been done on purpose, with tongue firmly in cheek. That or Han Solo has started selling (excellent) Ford motor vehicles in Cambridgeshire. Once on the A14 I pass Cambridge around 1.20 and I do Cambridge to Essex again in record time, albeit this time the trip is thoroughly enjoy and fast paced in a laid back manner.

As the A14 ends and I turn off for Colchester, I stop off at the out of town Tesco to get the day’s News Of The World (hey, already flicked through the Observer). I stroll round Tesco fronting in my Millwall shirt, basically egging on comment/abuse. I get nothing. When I get back to Colchester, I go to the Asda expecting some of the same. Nothing. Instead, I get the new collectors edition of Blazing Saddles on DVD and I whimper home.

In the afternoon my weekend catches up with me and I false asleep watching said DVD (Blazing Saddles) not really enjoying it in the process. When I awaken Smokey And The Bandit is on TV and like an underdeveloped sad case, I actually sit and watch it. I deserve to go blind.

Sunday evening hits the most depressing time/part of the week that it is. People laugh at me when I say that traditionally that this is “bath night� but what else is a person to do in preparation to dragging their hollow arsed souls to work for another week? On TV is She’s All That followed by Rocky V and depression is completed by viewing of parts of these movies.

np: Kostars – Never So Lonely

August 7 (Saturday): Tool And Die. No dreams, I wake up this morning feeling optimistic about the future (chipper, happy, excited). I’m not really sure why but outside it is a beautiful summers day and it makes me feel young again. I’m listening to The Weekend Never Starts Here by Arab Strap and it reminds me of “better� times. My god, today would be a great day to take somebody out in London or to go see Millwall play.

I get started with the day properly, I got into town to do the newspaper run and get Ross a birthday present. Not really quite aware as to what to get him, by luck I come across what I feel is the perfect gift: the book Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azzerard which is now out in paperback. Back of the net! I also manage to luck out and get a pretty good birthday card also although it isn’t one of the noise/sound cards featuring Bo Selecta characters (“happy birthday you shat pank!�).

When I return home to the flat dad has turned up and is mad away plugging into mending my toilet (again!). And he doesn’t appear to be making a very good job of it. I don’t wish to be looking ungrateful and looking a gift horse in the mouth, as it Dad is doing me a great favour but I really do need to get on doing things before I leave to party, the main thing of which is have a bath. And that is a pretty difficult concept when half your toilet appears to be currently sat in your bath.

I put dad under the cosh, I feel bad for doing this but also I really want to do my own thing. Additionally in the meantime I find myself feeling like a complete tool as I am unable to help him, all I can do is stand over him useless and offer moral support (yeah right). As time spins on I begin to feel further inconvenienced but unable to ask Dad to budge. I begin to hyperventilate and get the usual psychosomatic reaction to either of my parents being in my flat, invading my space. It seems my parents, as good as their intentions are, cannot just come around my flat and be, they have to fidget, adjust and make suggestions as to how I should change/improve my home. It is MY home. And any reaction on my part other than being passive feels as if I am being ungrateful.

Poor old Dad leaves around 3pm with me seething apologetically but seething all the same. As I said above, there is something horribly psychosomatic applied to my parents being in/around my flat, pissing on my patch. As soon as he’s gone I have a childish paddy/strop, smashing shit in my flat. With the toilet not being repaired I have been told to turn off the water at the mains, meaning I can’t even flush my toilet (have a piss) let alone have a bath. This is too much for me, I throw the plastic jug we have been using into the toilet bowl and it snaps in two and it splashes piss all over my face. If anyone saw me, they would think I was insane. In order to relax/calm down I watch the Sopranos, which really isn’t on the chillout session tracklisting.

Eventually I calm down and get a move on, leaving my flat and Colchester at 5pm, two hours later than originally planned and roughly the time I was hoping to be getting to Cambridgeshire. The origin plan was to have a nice relaxing drive to March, to get some headspace and relax. Instead I find myself tearing up the A14, racing against the clock passing 115 mph in my Focus on the way to speeding at 120 mph. Fortunately though, common sense does prevail but were it not for the many speed cameras on the A14, I would probably have averaged 100 mph all the way.

Today is the first day of the football season and it turns out that Millwall can only manage a 0-0 away to Plymouth. That hardly fills me with confidence for the upcoming season but at least they didn’t lose and they did keep a clean sheet. Bad bad news though, Paul Ifill was taken off early with a pretty serious injury it sounds.

I suspect I do make good time getting to Cambridgeshire and March but the journey does feel never ending. I arrive in March at around 6.30 and make a lucky find, discovering Ross’s road first time.

I was not prepared for his new homestead, it is enormous, almost a mansion! It turns out that it doubles up as a surgery for Sarah Jane. When I arrive I am amazed when I stroll up and her brother (Justin) remembers me from Ross’s birthday two years ago. I hook up with the Rosster and catch up briefly but he is centre stage and in demand. I give him his gift (the perfect gift book) and it turns out he already has it. Fuck it.

The party is hard work, I know nobody at it other than Ross and some of his family. I immediately get introduced (paired off) with some posh guy from Chelmsford who is heavily involved in politics whose job is to put a legitimate anti-stance on the Euro (vs the pound). He is pretty much from a different world to me with an office in Whitehall and a hell of a lot of responsibility that I envy him. Ross introduces me as a mob figure from Colchester, maybe I can pull that impression off, until I open my mouth that is. The guy is a bit geeky and not a lot of fun. I find myself soon asking Ross if he has any pot before digging into someone’s stash of booze. I think the guy’s name is Matthew and we get talking further and it turns out he is a Norwich fan in the vein of how Dave (Mitchell) used to be an Ipswich fan. The inevitable comes out that I am a Millwall fan and that rarely goes down well.

I talk to the guy forever until two more lefties (ladies) turn up who all know each other. Imagine Mutya from the Sugababes, Caucasian, fat and with facial hair. One of them is from Clacton and went to school in Colchester, so surely I should be able to spark up some conversation there? I do for a bit but soon they go off into their little political world and get talking shop, boy sometimes I regret being so ill-educated. I begin to feel left out, so I drink. Two more of their friends then turn up, one of which went to Essex Uni and again I fail to spark up a conversation about that. Grief, I thought my social skills were getting better.

Fortunately I eventually find someone interested in music and I get going with him, not least because he used to go to school with Chris Reynolds (I think). We wind up talking shit though; this guy plays in cover bands I believe. Never talk about music to people who play in cover bands.

The prize moment of the evening for me occurs when Justin, Ross’s future brother-in-law (ho ho), does the greatest Marlon Brando/Don Corleone/Godfather impression I have ever seen/heard in my life. And it is just in order to tell Ross that he has enjoyed his birthday party and is now off to go clubbing and pull some birds. I only wish my impression skills were so money.

By now bear is off the menu and we are all tearing into minging cocktails/concoctions involving Cuban or Columbian rum and salt, sugar, mixer and mint leaves. I down the fucker quickly, if only to get the horrible taste sensation out of the way. No wonder communists are so miserable if this is what they enjoy drinking.

Over the kitchen table I observe (but don’t participate in) conversation. These people are very opinionated and very extreme. They discuss an old Neanderthal friend of Ross’s who was very offensive and I just know that that is a mantel waiting for me to take if I make the mistake of opening my mouth. Miss Mutya is Little Miss Women’s Lib and very strict and harsh about her beliefs and other people’s attitudes. To me though, it just feels like a way/tool for her to judge people and shut them out. Maybe it has something to do with her moustache. I’m not sure who it was (maybe me) but Kitten from Big Brother gets brought up. It’s a hoot. I don’t know, this evening has no right balance for me, in my opinion they are overeducated and I am undereducated. So there is only one route left for me……

We regroup outside at the black end of a beautiful summer’s evening/night. The party does appear to have splintered into two groups: the politicals and the adults. When there are only a few of us left over, we all finally become one group. At this point Miss Mutya is going on about Nationality and identity, about not wishing to be labelled English as she is part Dutch. It also turns out she is Catholic. Personally I feel she is going off on one whilst her friend is attempting to hit on the Norwich fan on her behalf. Why? Eventually the argument reaches absurd proportions (in my opinion) and when it gets heavy on the Catholicism I find myself saying “all nuns are scrubbers and priests fuck little boys�. The old argumentative in me has come out again it seems.

Slowly, gradually people filter home. Justin and his mates return home from clubbing and his is fucking pissed and totally on form. Earlier on his was running/doing the barbecue and burning so much stuff, mainly the 26 black sausages that no one touched. He returns home from clubbing with an appetite and when it turns out that his sausages have been thrown out, he is on the verge of comedy tears. And I can share in his pain.

The night ends with myself, Ross and Norwich watching Alan Partridge series one DVDs and falling asleep.

np: The Vines – Get Free


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August 6 (Friday): King Of The Road. I awaken after a disturbed night due to the heat, emerging from the most disturbing of dreams. Where Chernobyl is situated in town is a very rough area. There is a weird couple that lives along one of the roads nearby (Alexandra Road) and they are just strange, I call them the Colchester Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr, hey something’s due to happen sooner or later. The guy’s name is “Carlos� and last summer I nearly came to blows with him in Smiths in town and ever since he has said “hello� to me for some crazed reason which is anything but let bygones be bygones. To be honest, I fucking hate the guy and yes he does scare, he is visibly. Anyways, recent rumour is that he had been dragged (unsurprisingly) away by the men in white coats to the laughing academy. He went missing for a few days (i.e. did not walk past our office half a dozen times a days) but unfortunately he re-emerged the other. His other half (who looks exactly like Valerie from HATE comic) has not been seen since he disappeared briefly. In my dream I find myself teaching her how to do bookkeeping and she is really nice and nervous and she is telling me how he does terrible things to her sexually and I’m like “grief�. I find myself moving some of my clothes in their wardrobe in their flat above the sex shop on Alexandra Road and inside there are no carpets and it is just a minor step up on the house from Trainspotting. When I go into the flat I find him in bed instead of at work almost as if he is waiting for me and he explains to me the situation, about putting his woman in her place and he comes over as a bigger nut than imaginable. I sense I am in danger. Dream over thankfully.

I spend the morning pre-work frantically tidying my flat, dad is coming round to mend the leaking pipe on my toilet again today and I just know the state of my home will be under judgement and scrutiny once more. I tear through the crib and wind up hiding the rubbish on the floor of my bedroom on my bed under the duvet. Pathetic. All in all though, time is of the essence and soon it is 8.20 and I really need to get ready for work. For a third day running, I am almost late.

Stevo doesn’t turn up for work; we all guess that he is still ill. In Chernobyl it is sweltering but I manage to work hard as a kind of catch up for yesterday afternoon. Ivan calls over the office and Sandip tells me that my “boss� wants me to go over and see him. That really rankles. Ultimately though I win, one of the bigger jobs in the firm has been brought and I did it last year and I’m getting to do it this year, this is a good job, the kind of job I wish I were working on all the time, it is rewarding and profitable. And if I can do an even better job this year, which is likely due to my familiarity with the client this year, it will score me points big time. Good stuff.

One downer on the day though, Phoebe does not reply to my email today. Tom however texts, asking me what I am doing tonight: “nothing planned�. Ross emails back though confirming there is room at the inn for me tomorrow night. His party is so perfectly timed; I think it is just what I want to be doing this weekend and just what I need. He deserves an extra special gift. There is also now a girl from Wellington House that looks into our office (at me?) daily. It’s a pleasure not a chore, looking/smiling back. Also another blot on the landscape is Heddle giving me grief again (I’m becoming a whipping it seems) when he goes and points out I haven’t shaved today. Hey, I don’t go round pointing out he’s a “fucking cunt� so why does he feel permitted to do so to me.

At lunch I go round town with Louise again. She is my new work bitch and she rules. We almost go for a sit down lunch together but I opt out, money worries. Louise rules, she is everything and a lot of fun to be around. Today is the day I finally get my Relic Hunter DVD. I rule! We get dinner at Bounders/Bouncers and I get a Thai chicken panini with mango chutney and peppers. The shop heats it and we return to the office to eat lunch and this sandwich is the greatest thing I’ve had for lunch in months, it is utterly fantastic and I feel the desire to tell everyone and share. In a perfect world, all sandwiches would taste this good.

The afternoon is a complete grind, Chernobyl is the hottest hot house and I do fuck all in the way of work, although I do work a little on my dream job, instead I read this months Uncut and write up some of my Blog at work. One downer, Hotdog magazine is taking forever to come out this month; I fear/suspect it may be history. I find myself singing Drive By Shooting by Henry Rollins and First Big Weekend by Arab Strap to the annoyance of my workmates. I sit in Stevo’s desk and do a bad impression of him which cracks up Sunny. Eventually the afternoon ends and I am dying for a drink, in a way I really wish I were going out but that’s not really an option. This is the day in which I wished we still went to the Dragoon after work Fridays.

I stagger home and the (old) tunes on the radio are the greatest sounding things on earth, Degrees In Motion and Skee Lo, how old are they but how good do they sound? Half way up Layer Road a car stops and my neighbour (name unknown) picks me up and gives me a lift back to Hollytree Court. He’s cool and on the move out but it’s going slow. I hold my own but feel like a git, I could have lived without a lift.

I get into my flat to see just what damage dad has done. Not much and in the light of day my flat actually looks like it was left in ok nick by myself this morning. Dad has visibly been in but forgotten to take my washing. Nevermind. Hopefully now my pisser won’t be leaking and ruining my bathroom carpet.

Question: how the hell did I get on the NRA emailing list?

Tonight is a magnificent evening, nothing can get me down, I almost feel free and somehow there is nothing out there that can ruin in. Tonight is about being oneself in a style almost similar to Henry Miller. Freedom.

Dad gets in touch on MSN while I’m having a quick play on Playstation. Seems he hasn’t been successful in mending my toilet, he’ll be back tomorrow. My god my flat looks good, a little tidying and it’s a whole new world for Jason.

Tonight I see Queer Eye For A Straight Guy for the very first time. Top show, its like Would Like To Me for attached people without the patronising experts, instead the gay dudes are the funniest and seem to have more of a clue and better advice that I feel more inclined to listen to/take on board. Feel good TV, pretty moronic but feel good all the same.

Tonight is the final of Big Brother and sadly it is stay-in-for TV in my world, come Monday my whole circle will be talking about it. It’s horrible and weird but when this toilet tv is over there will be a gap in our routines, thankfully! First person to be voted out of the four tonight Shell. Nevermind. Second person out: Dan. Semi a surprise but good riddance. I would really like Jason to win just because the stock in the name Jason will go through the roof (and I realise how ridiculous that does sound) but realistically he doesn’t stand a fucking chance of winning. And he doesn’t. However in the post eviction interview he does display some degree of psychosis, avoiding eye contact with the camera and/or Davina. It is sweet that Nadia wins Big Brother but there is something really special needs about the whole thing/spectacle.

Fuck or bugger?

np: Arab Strap – The First Big Weekend

August 5 (Thursday): Nightcrawlers. I wake up shattered. I am late to touch my computer, partly to avoid to Sara on MSN, there is method in my madness. Basically I avoid her because all I seem to do these days is argue with her. And today it spills out into a text message argument regarding Phoebe of all things. And its costly too, each text message I send to her, her in Dubai, costs me 25p.

Today, during the daytime, Dad comes around my flat to repair my toilet. I live in dread at the prospect of my parents (either one) running around my flat unsupervised. Why? Many reasons but basically they already seem to think I am weird enough and that is without discovering the porn and other personal items highlighting my stunted growth and arrested development. When I get in from work I am safe, I have not be investigated by the International Adult Conspiracy but I do still however have a toilet leaking all over my bathroom floor. I panic again.

Unfortunately I have to quickly get a move on for my session this week with the good doctor. This week’s session sees a welcomed trip back in time when it once more gets suggested that I am not really putting into our sessions what I should be. We discuss my suggestion last week at doing an English course and the problem I now have is that the course is being held in a building that I have some history with, the Wilson Marriage Centre. When I left school I had this little period that I had post-school and it gets raised this evening and I/we discuss the YT college I found myself at in September 1993 called SEAX Training. During the period I was coming out of my agoraphobic stage and I was subjected to some of the most terrifying and intimidating company of my life. It turns out the good doctor had some experience of this particular organisation also, not surprising as some of the thugs who used to go there with me really seemed to require some counselling/help. She points out that some of the people attending this college were real bottom of the barrel drop outs, people who could barely read, let alone thrive in the work place. Ultimately this gives birth to the question “what the fuck was I doing being there?� This weeks session ends I feel better for my acknowledgement that I was better than that. and I felt out of place there for good reason.

When I get home, via a visit to Asda, on the Channel Four is Celebrity Place In The Sun and it is featuring Anthea Turner in Dubai looking for a holiday crib (it’s all right for some). It is great so see Dubai on TV though, the entirety of my thought pattern through the show being “oh, so this is where Sara lives�. It is the first time I have seen Dubai on TV and it looks pretty nice whilst also looking like Tenerife or somewhere. This is the real deal on the country and it is frightening to see just how much development is going on over, tonnes of horrible new modern white housing just like those tourist dives in the Canary Islands. As Sara is regularly asking me to go and visit her out there, this is food for thought. The place looks (and is) incredibly pricy, all the celebrities are purchasing places there. The main eye catcher is a resort/created community called Palm Island which is a set of homes placed on a man made bedding shaped like a palm tree. Nice.

The remainder of the evening is a zero; I watch Little Britain and play where is my mind?

np: Tortoise – Swung From The Gutters

August 4 (Wednesday): Day Of The Dot. Remember how I ate too much cheese last night, it did indeed result in me having disturbing dreams. First of all I find myself playing football with my boss and his friends and then wondering around Colchester town and coming across one of the footballers and his cheap wall tiles shop experiencing some kind of sales. We discuss an audio CD that has been made of us playing football. Next I find myself in the urban wasteland of Clacton, I find myself staggering around the industrial area. All the businesses are run down and I find myself talking to Nina who is working a soup truck sponsored by Amazon. I then find myself running with an executive from Millwall football club and we have a capsule of Viagra and playing piggy in the middle is some person desperate to get it from us, it appears it is his anyway (maybe he bought it off us). I wind up in the dream Clacton indoor market that appears in my dreams regularly. I find myself in the Diamonds and Guns video by the Transplants and that freaky punk guy/kid from town is present and I am giving him shit about looking like a member of Rancid, a total wannabe whilst at the same time feeling a bit jealous (of not looking like a scumbag punk?). I am never eating Red Leicester ever again.

Sara hits me on MSN within five minutes of me awakening and it is not welcome, I am not in the mood, I am a bear and I have a sore head. Surprise surprise we end up arguing again and she is still telling me how “nasty� I am. And she is also popping “why you so interested in what I’m doing all of a sudden?�, Grief! I can’t be arsed with this this morning and things fizzle about but not before getting onto the subject of Phoebe.

Eventually I get out and manage to leave for work. Again, today is hot! Moyles is on form and the first track I hear today is N*E*R*D, which is a good beginning. That said though, I still go into work a real grump. And it is noticed.

Things tumble some more when this morning’s email from Phoebe tells me that when we meet up on the 21st she will only be available for the afternoon, so there goes my plans to take her to see When Harry Met Sally at the Haymarket. That would have been the best birthday present for a weary young man turning 28. I text Sara for being in a mood this morning, blaming it on sleep deprivation and suddenly I find myself in an all morning text argument with her in Dubai. And fucking texts to her there cost 25p a pop (does that sound as tight as I think it does?). And in the midst of all this some gimp phones my mobile asking for someone called “Gareth� and then every arsehole in the office begins to call me Gareth, at the risk of each of their individual lives. One highlight though is Drew telling me how the people at Direct Steel made very favourable comments with regards to me and Emma last week. Ultimately though it is a bad morning and it flies by without me getting much done at all. By the end of the morning I do cheer up/come round though and Stevo comments “I hate it when you’re happy as much as when you’re grumpy. You have two gears: sixth and reverse�. How astute.

I lunch with Stevo and Ivan at the Hogshead, we sit outside and talk bullshit for an hour to the soundtrack of Jimi Hendrix (“Love Or Confusion�). Its not the best, its not the worst. We go into and visit Cash (Swag) Converters and I feel like a Customs & Excise bod on a raid wearing my suit. I buy Star Wars Attack Of Clones and the Ali G movie on DVD (I really need a girlfriend to spend my money on instead of continually buying all this shit). As I walk back to the office I bump into Ben in his car and have a word very briefly.

I manage to have a good afternoon and redeem myself while Stevo sits showing Sunny Star Wars for the first time on the firm’s laptop. As per usual, the woman who wears a neck brace all the time walks past the office and I shout out, also as per usual, “its fucking Avid Merrion�. I’m a prick to the end.

Five comes and five goes. Tonight is fantastic and I drag Stevo back to the Hogshead (still playing Jimi Hendrix) for a couple of evening jars in the beer garden sun. I recognise some faces, a certain friends ginger ex-girlfriend and friends and they are the most ignorant cunts in history. I also see crap semi teenage lesbian girl. Its all bad. Its actually quite a nice/chilled break but we soon become juvenile and when we catch a wasp in a beer glass we tease and torture it like a couple of hicks from a Larry Clark movie. We give it some Stella and try to see what effect getting a wasp pissed up on wifebeater will have on it. Needless to say the wasp gets really angry, we can see its stinger going hell for leather. Stevo realises this probably represents time to leave, which we do.

Back home I begin a big organisation of Bohemian Grove. I fill two bin bags and make no progress, I’m fighting a losing battle so I decide to have a bath with view to refreshing me and my vigour. Dad MSNs me for a bit pleading with me to find the log book to my red Escort so that he can get rid of it. I don’t find it. Sara texts me asking me if I have cheered up yet. Cheeky bitch.

Big Brother is doing a surprise eviction tonight and shockingly it is Stuart who gets evicted. The eviction is done in an “evil� way and I genuinely feel for him when he is told of his end, he looks like he is going to burst into tears. And there goes my pick to win the competition. I think Nadia will win but that’s a fucking sham because he/she is such an annoying cow, the type of person your mate has as a girlfriend and you only want to slap. Take that bitch.

Phoebe Toronto comes online around eleven and I MSN with her until the early hours which turns out to be my most enjoyable thing I do all day. My night ends.

np: Bob Roberts - Complain

August 3 (Tuesday): Apocalypse Jason. Once more, as per recent times, I awaken comfortably at 6.40 AM after pleasant dreams, please don’t ask me about the dream though, I can’t remember a thing. I snooze for a while and soon realise I forgotten to set my alarm and I manage to wake/stumble up at 7.15. My morning routine takes place of Friends and MSN however my PC is filled to the brim with shit and it is not functioning correctly so I have to reboot it and whilst I am doing so I get a beep and it is a text from Sara asking me from Dubai why I am not online this morning. Ultimately I shouldn’t have bothered, our MSN exchange is a nasty affair ending with her asking me “what the fuck is up with you lately?� and telling me “you been weird, just strange, more moody, more nasty�. She continues “you are the one that is NEVER nice to me� and I respond “you have enough people being nice to you�. I escape off to work.

Moyles is back this week and the morning begins with the Foo Fighters and Estelle and generally you can tell how a day is going to swing by what are the first few songs you hear in the day. I look over and see Louise walking into work, she is obviously dragging (late) also. We walk into work together and give grief to each other some more (as per usual). I begin to wonder, maybe Sara is right, maybe I am never nice to anyone.

I have a good day at work, for the first day in five not one partner has a pop at me, although Seymour is a bit offish. I pick up a job from JH and it is a breeze. And Stevo is not in so I don’t get jokily but not jokily nagged. I go round town at lunch with Louise and manage to avoid spending money. The afternoon runs at a good pace, Chernobyl is a hot house without a fire extinguisher (literally) but I am finally getting used to it. I see Lindsey this afternoon and she looks bonier than ever, my god she looks so wrong. If I were still talking to her I’d tell her. It appears some girls go to the toilet to powder their noses but she goes to spew her guts.

By late afternoon, right before home time, Stevo turns up chipper to the world. I stay a little late at the office and we chat before he gives me a lift home (I’m a ponce). I stay in the office late after five, until six and the things I see. First I see a mother allow her child (female) to pull down her pants, pull up her dress and piss in public on the firm’s car park. And then there is almost a fight in the street when a bunch of probable illegal immigrants from the fucking Indian takeaway next to Chernobyl that regularly stinks our office out every afternoon get into a real bitch fight in public. Stevo comments “he’s probably had one of their curries�. Time to leave for home and get safe and sound methinks (methought).

Tonight my dinner consists of cheese and this gives me a horrible headache and stunts my evening. Whilst a goal kick away from my flat Colchester play Charlton in a pre-season friendly, I lay back butt naked listening to live Fugazi CDs. Kiss my arse. Tom hits me on MSN telling me of his trip to Italy and the perfect lady. Sara then texts me around midnight her time to ask me how my day was and to wish me good night. I fall asleep watching Hannah And Her Sisters on DVD.

np: Al Green – Let’s Stay Together

August 2 (Monday): What we did on our summer vacation. Today is a slow burner. I wake up from a dream about someone telling me about my penis and how dirty it is because it is not circumcised. Is this some kind of Jewish conspiracy (I’m joking!!!!). I MSN Sara for a bit but I’m really not interested, I have to package up the last of the swag Gringo Records CDs to send off. Friends is a real good episode today, everyone is flashing back to their 30th birthdays and having breakdowns. Two years and twenty days to mine folks (August 22 2006).

I walk into work at a leisurely pace when really I would be best off getting in early and getting a head start on finishing off the Direct Steel audit as best my involvement will allow. Fuck that, though I leave Bohemian Grove at 8.40 and barely make it into the office for 9.00. When Sandip gets into work he sits at his desk and discovers an empty pizza box under his desk. I wonder how on earth that got there. I spend most of the morning working on the cool side of the office, getting to gripes with the mess of the job that is on Viztopia. And I’m really making a meal of the fixed assets section for some reason. Useless Jason.

Mid morning Cris Barlow says to me “when you’re done can you come and have a word with me about Pipeline Maintenance�. I say “sure!�, enthusiastically, slapping on a fake fucking smile realising that this will only be flack for me. With the morning almost over and my work on Direct Steel certainly not over, Cris calls over at Chernobyl and asks me to go over. He calls me into his office and asks me to close the door behind me, this is never ever a good sign whenever it is requested that you shut the door behind you. I brace myself for a shellacking, wondering to what extent I will be needing to stick up for myself and fight my corner, here comes a pop at Jason at work for the fourth day running. His first words are “I’ve been looking at Pipeline and it really isn’t up to scratch�. I really knew this was coming though and should have expected it sooner. Pipeline was my opportunity to shine but after giving it a hell of a lot of attention, a soul destroying comment by Cris saw me putting the job down never to return/waste time on it again, so in effect what he has picked up is a started job/task that has never been finished. The stuff he pulls out and picks holes in are legitimate beefs but from my perspective, from the limitations I had in my involvement on the job (ie I was working against him rather than with him it seemed/felt), the errors were always going to be present. After the initial pop and jab to the heart (ho ho) I take it all on the chin and decide not to argue the toss and try to explain how I felt limited for time on the job. This is all pretty boring but a real lecture comes my way. He tells me that initially he had hit the ceiling over the job but his colleagues (fellow partners) had told him to calm down and not overreact. Briefly the attitude word is mentioned but only the once. Cris tells me that I am liked in the firm by the partners and that they think I am smart which certainly isn’t how I am made to feel by their feedback, this admission almost gives me heart and makes me feel better about things perversely. He asks me whether I am bored by accountancy and asks me just what I expect from the firm. The latter is a really hard question especially when I am being asked it by somebody so indifferent it seems to my cause, pretty much with a similar attitude to the other bosses it seems. I basically curl up and die in the meeting but it pretty much seems/feels par for the course these days at this firm and just another notch in my slump. It doesn’t really get me down or worried, when really it should, instead it just adds weight to an already dis-spirited mindset, if I didn’t laugh I would cry. Maybe I am too laid back, I certainly do feel embarrassingly blasé about my apparent ticking off and dressing down, ultimately it is Cris that is avoiding eye contact and doing all the talking. He ends things telling me he is “leaving it with me and that the ball is my court�. I don’t really know specifically what this entails but I genuinely desire a turnaround so that this shit does not keep happening. I leave the office apologetically and say “thank you for the talk�, at the end of the day all things are better aired instead of left to fester. I don’t know what to do.

Lunch arrives. Lousie makes comment that I was in with Cris for ages but it didn’t seem it (honestly). I trolley into town with her and Stevo tags along. Today was supposed to be the second day of the great Atkins restart but that gimp wants to know what we are doing (ie drag us out somewhere to eat). We decide on a Pizza Hut buffet because we are greedy capitalist pigs with good taste in junk food. First though I do the post office thing. A man, like an idiot, has dragged his dog in there and it is taking up my space in the queue. I go to pat it and the fucker growls at me. I check my email on my phone and I have received one from Phoebe. She rules and she has green lighted meeting up on August 21st. My day has infinitely improved but also I am equally blasé to that as I am my job at work. Oh the apathetic (not so) youth that is me. After about twenty minutes wait we finally head to Pizza Hut. It is rammed with school kid bastards so we opt for elsewhere. I don’t really want to eat out but the other two strangely do and we head to Sam’s Diner where Sam thinks Stevo is called “Richard�. The food is ok but it is more expense and bad health on a stick for me. Sam finally asks Steve if his name actually is “Richard�, the dude has finally clocked him. Stevo reacts a little strangely, actually responding “yes my name is Richard but some people call me Steve and others Alan Titschmarsh�. I hide my face in embarrassment for him, which he apparently does not suffer from.

The afternoon is tough, Chernobyl almost bakes us alive. I potter around on the audit job when really I want on something new, something that will give me a chance to shine and change my employers’ minds about me. Oh well, there is always tomorrow. I keep teasing Louise about my apparent date with Phoebe on the 21st (“sorry love, can’t take you out on the 21st now�). I love winding up girls about other girls and then snapping “jealous?�.

After work Stevo doesn’t want to go home. He offered earlier to drive us to Carshalton tonight to see them play a Millwall XI tonight. Eventually reality and common sense kicks in his mind so instead he suggests we go for a pint at the Dragoon. I really don’t like that pub anymore since that Carlos guy had a pop at me, so I suggest we go to the Hogshead. It is a fantastic evening to be having a drink outside but I am just too frazzled and jaded to enjoy it or bother with conversation with Stevo.

As soon as Stevo drops me off, Malcolm In The Middle is on tv, the show is the best! After that I find myself still in my suit so I go out to Asda and Tesco and do the rounds, checking my bank balance and trying to catch the eye of ladies (ho ho). I look to buy the new Blazing Saddles DVD but nowhere has it so I go home empty handed but at least it got me out of the house this evening, which always is a good thing.

I get in to discover dad has been trying to get in touch with on MSN and I feel bad that I missed him (mum tells me he really enjoys getting in touch with me on the computer every evening, it’s like something out of Microserfs). To compensate, I am attacked by the biggest beetle in history crawling my bed, karma I guess. I don’t kill it, just chuck it out my window, which must kill it anyway at the end of the day.

np: Fugazi – Exit Only

August 1 (Sunday): Space, Geeks and Johnny Unitas. A new month with a new set of resolutions (just like New Year’s resolutions but twelve times more frequent). I wake up with the subtle headache that I went to bed with last night, not a good start.

I also rise out of a really disturbing dream set in the questioning room at a police station. In the dream I appear equally involved in the admin as I am the questioning (I am being questioned). The incident in question is work related and I don’t know why, there is something going on behind the scenes I don’t know about, I am not being told about.

Today is the laziest of days, the kind that really exercises my Catholic guilt. By the end of the day I achieve nothing and nothing.

One thing I do do is order the Pete And Pete DVDs off the internet. They appear to be as moody as hell from a place called Anti Promotions. Anyways, I pay about $50 through PayPal for them and hold my breath and begin my wait.

In early afternoon a terrible Hulk Hogan movie (McCinsey’s Island). The man must be fucking stupid to be involved in a film like that! In later afternoon TV redeems itself by showing Casino Royale. I have this movie on DVD somewhere but there’s nothing better to do today than watch it so……. I always have time for a movie with Woody Allen in.

A better show is on at 7pm on BBC2, Underworld Rich List. Reading like a business show, this episode of the programme focuses on a top ten of drug dealers/pushers/barons. It kind of defeats the purpose of the show when most of the list cannot be identified “due to legal reason� but it is still fascinating, especially the stuff about money laundering which has become a real bugbear to my life at work, accountants now need to be very vigilant these days and extra precautious with regards to cash transactions and potential money laundering mainly due to the new threats of terrorism we face in this day and age.

My Sunday ends with Down To You on Channel Four. This movie is an unashamed pleasure I have; it is cheesy and sick as hell but lovely with it. And of course it stars Julia Stiles. I remember watching this movie with B during the first few weeks that I knew her and started hanging out. Those few weeks proved to be probably the greatest and happiest period of my life. Whoops. And now the Julia Stiles issue reappears in the form of Phoebe who I think is a spitting image of Julia Stiles, albeit she is oriental but boy does she ever have her mouth and facial features. All in all my heart pumps faster and pump thicker. And this all makes the fact that I fall asleep during the movie that much more humorous.

np: The Streets – Fit But You Know It

the view of my dog not allowing me to go home 

July 31 (Saturday): Third Saturday running at attempting to get to Clacton in time to get to Colin’s and get my do done. Unfortunately Stevo crashed last night and its like having a fucking log, dead on my sofa. WAKE UP!

For two hours, fully clear headed, I casually peruse the web. I happen across some snide comments about myself with regards to me and Gringo Records. I also discover that Gringo Records is now being distributed by Cargo so not to worry. News wise, I find myself stunned to hear that Danny Williams, an unknown British boxer, last night put Mike Tyson away in four.

Stevo eventually begins to murmur around 10 AM when I am making it none too obvious that I want to get moving. At the same, I find myself feeling really bad and yet really satisfied. I think I hit home the point a bit too far last night that I wanted to be out the door to Clacton early as possible this morning as Stevo comes through for me and gets moving almost as soon as he gets up, even to the point he doesn’t take a piss. This is actually in the end all really appreciated as I already have had my parents on the computer asking me if I can give them a lift somewhere for midday and making sure that I can/will look after the dog today. Apparently today there is some family trip to Braintree for mum and her sisters to visit some aunt who is about 96.

Me and Steve walk to the office and on the way stop off at the Layer Road General Store where Stevo gets some magic potion for his hangover. Bless his heart, he asks me if I want anything. This morning he obviously hasn’t even seen a mirror this morning, he still has the funniest bedhead ever seen by man. He continues to pain about needing a piss, almost to the point of suggesting pissing in a bush on Layer Road. Luckily there is the cottaging toilet on Butt Road that I am able to point him towards. Eventually we arrive at the office where Seymour is already in working and we get rumbled by him, so we go inside and say “hi�. Seymour today seems super relaxed and very chatting, quite the opposite of yesterday evening/last night. While we’re talking there is a huge clap of thunder and the morning that started out so beautifully turns to pissy shit rain. We leave and Stevo must still be pissed and in no state to drive. I get the impression that he wants to hang out today but I really want a break from work and work types, I need to disassociate with the place at least once a week, generally the more the better I say. Stevo gives me a lift to Creffield to pick up my car (and to get his porno DVDs back) and then he has gone. Later on in the day I discover a dink in the door/paintwork of the back driver’s side, bad move leaving it there over night.

Quickly in the rain I do my rounds acquiring the Saturday newspapers and I fly off to Clacton to get my haircut and sort my olds out. As the weather improves I find myself held up on the A120 trying to get home. The highway was jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. Who on earth wants to come to Clacton for daytrip, that’s pretty low.

When I finally get to Clacton and I find myself running even later than I could really ever imagine and as I head to Colin’s for the trim, I see my parents drive past in the opposite direction and the realisation that I have let them down for a lift sets in. Luckily though I do just about manage to get to Colin’s in time for a haircut but unfortunately it is late in his day by which time Dick has already left and he is eager to get home himself, so he is probably rushing cuts to get away. I get the usual and it feels fantastic to have short hair again.

When I get home, into 58 Hereford Road the dog is pretty happy to see me. I soon realise that whenever I come to visit the olds that these days I am finding myself becoming much too comfortable. I hit the sofa and prepare myself for a lazy Saturday and a double bill of Relic Hunter, two episodes back to back baby. Towards the end of the second episode my phone beeps and it is Tom text messaging from Italy. He is out there visiting a young lady and by the tone of his flappy text message it sounds like it he may have just ballsed it up. At the same time though, it sounds like it may be one of his overreactions. Either way, I do my best with some choice words attempted at making his situation at least feel/seem better even if he has messed (which to be honest I doubt so).

Later I find myself jogging over the internet on my parents PC and I come across a website selling all the episodes of The Adventures Of Pete And Pete on DVD. This is my lost ark, Pete And Pete is the great lost kids tv show and nowhere near enough people got to see it back in the day.

In the early evening after making a terrible attempt at cooking dinner, stuffing myself and potentially food poisoning myself in the process, I watch my Till Death Us Do Part DVD and fall asleep (maybe it wasn’t as good as I once thought).

I try to get away early evening but suddenly, after sleeping through the day, the dog is up and full of energy/beans. Oh, I see now why he requires babysitting. Around 9pm I begin attempts at making a move home but he just persists in following me around everything and staring at me with a stupid dog grin. I stay a little longer to take care of him and find myself watching Caddyshack on TCM and having a great time, is it just me or are Billy Murray and Chevy Chase timeless? In the end I leave the dog at 11pm, I just have to get away from being so comfortable, it might make me move home. What a nightmare that would be.

np: Kenny Loggins – I’m Alright

July 30 (full moon Friday): What are the beginnings of a great day? To comfortably awaken twenty minutes before you have to? I dunno, I hope so.

What happens on my walk to work? I turn on Radio One to hear the arse end of "It’s My Life" by No Doubt. I stop off at Layer Road General Store to buy today’s newspaper (The Sun) just to check out pictures of the woman Sven-Goran Erection has been sleeping with. The more I see her, the less I fancy her. And I am sure she is reading this blog and is disappointed to hear that. I trot into as blasé as ever. There is some work at work I might arrive early to complete but I can’t be bothered, my nose is out of joint. I turn up and Emma is already in and so is Sandip, so much for me being number one boy.

This morning I am on “mission: avoidance�, the principals to avoid being Griggs and Heddle. Within minutes though, Griggs is over and I brace myself for some flack but instead he just requests some files I have possession of for Vocal. Maybe he is finally flying the white flag on my lack of co-operation on the job (four and a half days down on the job and I am spent). This semi clears the path for me and I sheepishly stagger over the road to confirm that Ivan does not need the/his laptop today. We talk and like a wanker, knowing Heddle is within earshot, I make comment on the Direct Steel job. Eventually Heddle walks past and asks me how the job is going. I say “I’m doing my bit all right�. He looks at me miffed and walks off down the corridor going “unbelievable�. I just look at Ivan confused, Ivan going “he had a pop at you the other day�. I gripe a little but Ivan tells me to be professional so I go down to Heddle’s office to tell him that Emma is struggling. My nose is out of joint because of the way I was pushed aside on the job yesterday but today, today I am apparently involved enough to be asked my opinion on progress. The problem is, I think, Heddle just wanted to me say parrot fashion “the job is going well/fine/good/tickety-boo (delete as applicable)�. Instead though I tell him the truth or my opinion (can’t really decide which it is). I fear I may have sounded a bit like I was Emma-bashing, I think I felt this halfway through the “meeting� as I changed tact mid-stream to saying how the job has been managed less than ideally, it all being dis-organised and mis-managed (although I don’t actually use THIS term). As an act of desperation I pull out what I regard to be my secret weapon: the fact that the man gave me/us the wrong trial balance to put on the accounts (making them next to nonsense). To this he responds matter-of-factly “I know�. I give up but I really resent that the reality that this is the guy giving me grief, condescending me and popping at me now three days running. Get your own house in order before throwing stones at others.

We go over to the client in Emma’s car, he naturally driving. She has the number T4 EMM, it appears to be personalised and screams “rich� and “dickhead�. She explains it is just coincidence but it’s too late. Today at Direct Steel is a breeze, I am done with my assigned work early in the day and spend the rest of the day attempting to assist Emma. Mid morning Azmei begins texting me, making sure that we are still on for a lunch meeting on Saturday 14 August. Definitely. At lunchtime, Emma and I return to the office to bank our cheques. Yes, payday! After that we go to lunch at Yates, me, her, Stevo and Louise. I have some kind of nasty Jalfrezi but it tastes ok. Unfortunately we sit outside and get swamped by all these pseudo wasps that are about at the moment.

When we return to the office, it is headed towards 2pm and our lunch hour is headed towards 90 minutes. Whoops. Our gruff client suggests that we have been to the pub. Maybe but the official verdict is “we had stuff to do back at the office�. Emma pushes it for getting everything complete in time but we leave five, arms full of good hard work. Over worked and under appreciated, ho ho.

I get back to the office and knock about with Stevo in the office after-hours for a bit. The stench of Aeromega still lingers, no one seems happy. From Stevo, I get the impression that Seymour did/does not want me playing tonight with the oldsters. Bummer. This is all forgotten however when Stevo gives a lift home and sat on the floor on the passenger side of his car is his new porno DVDs he has received from Spain (or somewhere). I grab them and he allows me a quick borrow (between now and football tonight, barely an hour to view). The titles I scam are Castings 14, Summer Wind and DVD Sampler 7. I watch this thing called Fetish Rock and basically it is a band playing that mid song starts fucking each others whilst continuing to play their song. It’s terrible.

I escape porno hell and head to St Helena where we are playing oldies football. When I arrive I do not see Steve’s car there so I wait for a bit instead of going into the changing room full of half strangers. I see Seymour turn up and he pretty much blanks me, adding to my suspicions that he doesn’t really want me there. Time ticks and soon it is five to and still no sign of Stevo, so I just head to the game. Duh, he’s already been there ages. The game is really good. The pace in these oldies is definitely more suited to me than the cut and thrust seriousness of the league play of Wednesdays. I’m not sure what/why the reasons are but I find myself having the best game I have had probably all year. One reason may be that there are less shots being punted at me, although there are still more than enough being fired at my head. Another reason may be the added flexibility of the additional looseness of my home Millwall shirt (instead of away shirt) being a slightly larger XL. Who knows? Or maybe it is because tonight I am facing Seymour and Stevo, instead of playing with them. Also it helps that our team are really dominating play, at the other end the Anglia Grain keeper The Crab is having an absolute blinder, being pummelled several times over more than myself and keeping pretty much everything out. I am however not without bruises! Just before half time Stevo does a shot and I let it in on my inside post, a real fuck up on my part but our team still goes in at halftime leading 3-2. In the second half things become more playful. Dick, who is playing on our side tonight, begins a little competition with Carl and I realise it is horse play but it still looks pretty nasty. My second half begins painfully when the guy with the bushy Jeremy Beadle beard fires a hard shot which I save with my right wrist, hitting my suicide veins. Ouch! For a few minutes my hand is actually numb from the knock. The second half continues frantically, at the other end the Crab is having another starring show and I find myself equally matching up, making saves I don’t even know about. Eventually the hour is up and the game ends with our team winning 5-4, myself managing to get through a hairy onslaught at the end. The game ends with my being congratulated and feeling like a hero for the first time in a very long time.

After the match I fly back to my flat and have a quick bath before driving into town and hooking back up with the others at the Hogshead. First however I have to stop off at a cash machine to get some payola out. Nice one Natwest, my cheque has yet to clear and I can’t get any of that dosh out but fortunately Barclays is letting me grab some. As I enter the Hogs my phone beeps and it is a message from Allen saying he’s out tonight and he’ll be in the Hogshead. Dude, I’m already there with a Stella in hand. It takes an eternity for Stevo to turn up, Seymour asks where he is and I say he’s probably got into a scuffle with some youths. Eventually he turns up and it turns out that he left his bank card behind the bar at Yates at lunchtime.

The night moves slowly and I really am not into drinking and getting pissed this evening. Allen comes into the Hogs and I say “hi� and it turns out this is his last night in Colchester before he and Karen leaves for Toronto in the morning to go and live there. Oh my, I thought it was next weekend they were leaving, I really need/want to hang out with them this evening. Tonight is only so much fun, Sara keeps texting me and I tell her that I am bored. Seymour is keeping up the uninterested act and basically it is left to Stevo and myself to talk to each other while the rest of the players are off in their own little worlds and groups. Ultimately this is the evening in which I l realise I do not need to finish every pint I start and by the end of the night I will have started four pints and not bothered to finish any of them.

Not before time we leave the Hogs to go to Roberto’s and my chances of getting to say goodbye to Allen look bleaker by the moment. I am not overly enthused about going to Roberto’s, the last time I was here on a Friday night was the hell evening with Sarah. I sail it out until around 10.30 when I break from the group to head back to the Hogs to hook up with Allen. By now Stevo is totally pissed as so someone is going to have look after him for the evening, it looking like that person will be me. I tell him he can stay round mind and that I will be either be back around to Roberto’s around 11 or be at the Hogshead with Allen.

When I finally get back to the Hogshead, Allen’s farewell group is really swinging. The group mainly consists of Karen’s friends all seem really cool but several miles away from socialising with me. I speak to Allen, mainly about how the last two Blitters gigs have gone and the Nottingham date/show sounds cool beyond belief. It sucks that Allen is leaving Colchester, he really has been the social glue of the Colchester underground music scene for the past two years. Ultimately though I’m just really glad I get to say “goodbye� to both Allen and Karen. Just before they leave off Stevo turns up and rejoins my evening. He appears to just want to antagonise, Allen but he ain’t biting. We all fall down.

Stevo says the oldie football group have all moved on to Hub as it is Dick’s birthday. Right now Stevo is hammered and I remain far from even tipsy. We get allowed into Hub but have to pay as it is now after-hours and is a kind speakeasy. We hook up once more with our team-mates and I continue to sense the cold shoulder, tonight really isn’t happening. Eventually people drop off and get cabs and go home but we remain supreme. The last ships standing end up being myself, Stevo, Seymour and the Chelsea fan with a vague likeness to Maradonna. And still the night isn’t happening and shoulders remain cold. Not long after midnight our towel really has to be thrown in and I suggest to Stevo that we leave. I exchange pleasantries with the other two when leaving when really I feel I should be sticking in a knife.

On the route back we stop off via Sam’s Pizzeria where Stevo buys a Chinese chicken pizza which everyone should taste, it is SO fine, an oasis in a sea of greasy spoons. With nowhere better to go, we stop off in Chernobyl and eat our pizza in the office. Not wanting to turn on the lights and cause attention, instead we turn on all the computers for ambience lighting. We eat our pizza and have a post pub chill out. Stevo is now at that annoying stage of being pissed and rabbiting aimlessly, labouring on that horrible reflective set of lines “its been a good night, we’ve had a few, had some fucking good talk about football, now we’re having fucking great pizza…….� etc blah blah blah. Would say though, awesome pizza. And my spirits are up as at 12.29 I receive a text message from Phoebe, to which I slur back a response.

With our pizza history we make moves to getting home. I figure I am pretty clear headed as I didn’t really bother with drinking tonight, so I drive us home in Stevo’s Focus. Once behind the wheel, it kind of occurs to me that I actually shouldn’t be driving. Regardless though, I’m careful and precautious and get us back to a soundtrack of Lou Reed.

Once back at Bohemian Grove I act like basically “shut up and go to bed�.

np: Lou Reed – Satellite Of Love

July 29 (Thursday): Good morning, good morning. I check out just exactly what it was Sarah said to me on MSN, it reads “bog off then!�. Mentalist. I find myself on MSN with both Sara and Toronto Phoebe, which almost makes me late leaving for work but only almost. When I switch the radio on, it’s 1980 by Estelle, I think today is going to be a good day.

And it could have been a good day were it not for a certain partner and my firm being disorganised and messing about everyone involved in his work. Today Emma and I are supposed to be going to Direct Steel on audit. Originally it was supposed to be Stevo and I but he is up to his neck in the Aeromega situation. It was intended that we go there early in the morning but come heading towards 10 AM I find myself sitting around waiting for him to show his face. Emma is supposed to be leading the audit but this is a job in the construction industry and she comes over as a person who won’t say boo to a goose, so I can see myself getting the opportunity to be involved more than in the audit than usual (just the R section which is the most basic of testing tests). When Heddle finally shows his face he comes stomping into Chernobyl and goes to me “what are you doing?�. I look him straight in the face and go “waiting for you�. He shakes his head in disbelief commenting “I am very disappointed in you Mr Graham�. A pregnant pause and things turn awkward and icy. What’s his problem? An audit meeting/consultation of sorts occurs with me being completely as a result and I am made to feel sub-junior and small, way to undermine and discourage looking to work hard and shine. However this is kind of atypical of the sort of thing I face here these days and why I genuinely feel working life is made ten times more difficult than it need be.

Emma and I grab and bubble car and drive to the clients while Heddle toddles off to there in his midlife crisis mobile (his socialist silver Porsche). The client is on the Whitehall industrial estate and is a stones throw from an old client I used to work at/visit and another stones throw from Sextons, dad’s current “employers� who are balking on some holiday money they appear to have failed to pay him. Once underway, the job itself goes pretty well. Stevo pre-warned me that the job will be “easy� due to the excellent standard of books kept by the bookkeeper. For today’s job I have grabbed Ivan’s laptop and I set about doing the R section (profit and loss testing) in realisation that I will probably get it done in half my allocated time on the job and I will have time to do a really good job on it also. Mid morning they get a customer in, some big arse builder whose wife is a big headed midget. I snigger at the couple along with our client and begin to enjoy myself. The whole situation smells though, poor old Emma has been dumped in the job right at the deep end and, as I tell the bookkeeper, we have been drafted in at the eleventh hour (“so please bare with us if/when we ask stupid questions�). And this really isn’t a fair environment on which to send a girl out to work. Its construction and male dominated. When she needs to do the inevitable bathroom trip, she is faced with a toilet the spitting image of the one from Trainspotting, complete with inch of water (piss?) on the floor. And add to this that up on the wall facing the person on the toilet is a calendar of women with their cunts stuck out. Is this a test to see if she can be offended? When I do the bathroom trip, I find myself flicking through the calendar like a perv, unfortunately with the nail in the wall holding the calendar up, falling to the fall. Rumbled! Not before time, the working day ends.

Upon returning to the office, Stevo remains appearing to still be tearing his hair out over the Aeromega job. He asks me if I want to go for a drink and it is a fantastic evening. I tell him however I have my session I can’t but he tells me to call in afterwards. Maybe.

In the evening I have my weekly session with the good doctor and it is more discussion into my fitting into the family dynamic role which becomes the threesome dynamic and how I seem to be regularly propelled to the bottom of groups, both social and work and how it just seems to be my given natural standing it appears, the role is naturally slide/slip into. I pull out the example of the weekend and how I felt almost “demoted� when sitting/drinking/talking in the Hogshead beer garden. We move into the grounds of talk of me “finding myself�, which in my opinion I feel appears may have been left a little too late to do. A big suggestion coming over is my doing the uni thing, something I also feel now has been left a little too late. She tells there are access courses and I tell her that “I’ll look into it� and I tell her about the English evening classes I have seen, an idea to which we mutually show enthusiasm. I continue going on, telling her how I am agonising tonight as to whether to go to the Mutebox music event or not. I tell her I like being part of the scene but do not really feel fully accept and to be honest, pretty much hate the music. I show many signs of procrastination, exercising a general air of “I can’t be arsed� when really it seems I/we should be celebrating that I actually have somewhere to go and people to be with. By the end of the session I am bored of complaining and I have a quick two minute recap of what I have done in the last week: pissed around bosses until 2.30, Newmarket, DJ, cricket etc. I feel I blow her mind with too much information at once and it all ends with a general air/feeling of, just what AM I complaining about.

As soon as I get back into my car, Stevo is on the phone. Dick has phoned up and asked if we can both play football tomorrow night. Ouch, three sporting events in four days, killer. I say yes though and that I will meet up with Stevo in ten minutes for drinks, first I have to pump up the slow deflating tyre on my car. When I get back to Chernobyl the evening is still fine fine fine, summer evenings are some of the best things known to man. I phone Allen in a last ditch effort to see if he is at the “gig� tonight. He isn’t and has no plans to, I am calling him during a leaving meal.

When me and Stevo finally get to the Hogshead we booze up and sit outside in the garden. There, there are a group of girls who are captivating. I then look closely at one and it looks like one of the dancers from Club Forin wearing the latest in fetish chic, very nice. Regardless, it kind of beats hearing more football stories from Stevo on re-run. That said though, it is just so nice to be seen, feeling to be making the most of these summer evenings, sitting outside in the sun until 9pm is such a great feeling. Slowly the garden gets busier and busier and a guy turns up who looks the spitting image of John Belushi, it is sick. I am truly in awe, this is a good looking fellow. Steve and I linger on two pints for a long while, knowing that any more will take us past the limit. We leave not long after 9pm and Stevo appears incredibly reluctant to return home, even semi suggesting that we go get something to eat but really neither of us are hungry, its just an attempt to find something to do.

As a bonus I get home in time to copy all my Manic Street Preachers CDs onto my hard drive and watch the re-runs of Little Britain on BBC2.

np: Manic Street Preachers - Yourself

July 28 (Wednesday): Bonus, don’t have to walk into work today; I borrowed a bubble car from work last night. When I turn up in it this morning Louise looks at me and goes “what you doing in that?�. Perks.

Today is a real car crash write off of a working day. Early on I complete the incorporated subbie (subcontractor) accounts of a computer magazine writer/reviewer, half of which I make up anyway because the client does not keep records. I approach Heddle for more work and he gives me a trial balance Direct Steel to put on Viztopia, which is semi busy work. However this is a job that we are going out to audit tomorrow, so really there should already be a set of accounts in place for the audit planning stage which should occur well in advance of the actual audit itself. As soon as I begin to put the figures into Viztopia it turns out that the job is now an eighteen month period and that the two trial balances I have been given have not actually been consolidated, so what should be a simple job now becomes an afternoon plus of work, especially when it also turns out that fixed assets need a lot of work done also in order to get them sorted out. Such disorganisation is typical. And then I go and get grief from the man, who also in the same appearance describes the client he has just seen as a “stinky Paki�. This appears to be a boss under pressure and pushing it sideways onto his subordinates. Dude, I know you’ve done this job for years but in order to get the best out of your work force read a fucking manual and do not lead as a negative motivator.

After work we have football and this week, once more, our team is down to a skeleton crew with Ivan out with a broken thumb and Seymour out….who knows where but I bet it is somewhere important. Tonight we line up me, Stevo and Andrew who brings along a couple of his Sunday league team-mates, Glen X and Paul X (who despite such surnames are neither related nor black). A second night of facing of Birketts in sporting competition and tonight is less fruitful. The ringers Andrew has brought along are young and not as rough as the Birkett regulars and they basically go to town on us, especially Jev who goes in rough. Add to this also that one of the players Andrew brings along is actually a goalie and surprisingly light for such a big lad (in other words he gets knocked off the ball physically easily). Despite such issues we find ourselves leading at half time 8-6, which could/should have been more had I not let in a couple of stupid goals prior to halftime. The going is rough and the smaller ringer is finding it hard and actually looks like he is struggling from a knock on his ankle, limping a lot. Also his leg is cut/scabbed to death so he is obviously getting it from somewhere, all fingers pointing towards Jev. The second half sees a total fall apart. It could be said that their extra man went some way to causing this but when the game ends 17-11 to Birketts (a second half deficit of 11-3) there are no excuses. I leaving feeling that Birketts may have gone a bit too far in the thrashing and after Andrew and his mates leave, the Birketts comment on our team’s whinging about being roughed up. Personally I think the fact the lad’s leg was bleeding indicates something was happening. Our opponents can be wankers sometimes. Tomorrow when the score and performance gets written up the headline will read “the Cat is shit in his box again�. I dunno, after my performance tonight I can just imagine the young lads that were our team-mates tonight just moaning like fuck about our performance.

This evening I speak to my parents. I am still having trouble with my toilet and it is leaking profusely, especially tonight when I got in from work the bathroom floor was pretty flooded, I didn’t really want to leave it. My parents want to come over to Bohemian Grove and sort it out. Sadly however I can only envisage a similar scenario to the episode of the Young Ones when Neil’s parents go to visit his student house. Not good.

In the evening at 23.14 I am asleep but I hear MSN beep, it is Sarah. It beeps once “u ok� and then thirty seconds later “bog off then�. I have to admit I did not read this until the next morning but grief, if I had a bunny I’d be currently concerned about it being a threat to a boiling.

np: Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet – Having An Average Weekend

That's what company cricket looks like 

July 27 (Tuesday): Who smells? I smell! I wake up feeling fine! It’s a slow moving morning and by the time I leave the house, it is getting kinda late. As I walk into town, I get a little abuse from a group of squaddies on a morning run who want ALL the path. F them, fuck off back to the Gulf.

Today is the big day of our cricket match with Birketts. The day starts out rather well when Cris gives me a free ticket to any Colchester United match this season (albeit in the family enclosure). At lunchtime I stagger into a find what I have been desiring for almost years: Alf Garnett on DVD! So, suddenly out of the blue the 1972 series of Till Death Us Do Part has come out on DVD. I buy it immediately, it should serve me well for liberal baiting for a few weeks.

The remainder of the day goes by without incident, Andy offers to give me a lift to the cricket in the evening in order to “keep me (him) off the piss�. He picks me up around 6pm and we are headed to the Grammar school cricket pitch. I naturally expect it to be near the wanker school itself but apparently it’s in the other direction towards Shrub End. We have a difficult time finding it and Andy gets really stressed and stroppy over this, its very rare I/you see him lose his cool. We find in the end though anyway. My attire for tonight’s match is last years Millwall away shirt under a plan v-neck white t-shirt, very cricket punk. John’s son Kev is playing also and he has turned up in an Ipswich away shirt, talk about second strip chic.

The match begins with the weather looking bleak, as if it about to rain. We start out fielding and Stevo is late and does not have directions. I field leg, whatever that is and it starts out well for me as I make a wonder stop, diving along the field. Everyone comments, both sarcastically and not. Our bowling starts very slowly and soon their opening batters are hitting us all over the oval. Fortunately though, their run rate begins to slow down as our bowlers get bedded in and eventually begin to take wickets. As soon as the first few wickets fall, the remainder of the line-up begins to look fragile and soon their twenty overs and history with them barely getting past a hundred runs (if that, didn’t keep score myself). In the field I find I have little to do and I never really top my initial super dive (ho ho).

Despite doing relatively well in field, our team is still nervous about things going into bat but soon our opening combination ringers is getting through the runs, to the point they are reaching their twenty run limit and retiring. I am sixth in the order, having been bumped from ten to nine and now with the partners getting nervous, I’m up to sixth. I suspect the next game; they might be sticking me in to open. After our initial burst, our wickets begin to fall but still we are in a very healthy standing and then it is suddenly time for me to get prepared. The eventual happens and it is my turn to come into bat. Our innings are still relatively young, about halfway through, so the bowlers still have some heat and my position in the batting order makes it look as if I might have something. These of course are all excuses because as soon as I get in, I get out. I take the mound, I mean crease take one look at the bowler, don’t really see the ball and just hear the ball go straight through me and pull my wicket immediately. A golden duck, I suck. How embarrassing! Eventually we win the match with the bosses in bat scoring the winning runs (is there nothing they can’t do?).

After the game we go to a pub called The Crown which is in between Lexden and Stanway where Birketts are getting some food put on for us. I recognise the nibbles as the Asda things I buy when I’m feeling low and lazy. I stay off the booze and make a point of drinking just two cokes while the partners knock four pints before going on their way driving back to town. Socially tonight I give good head, holding my own and actually flourishing in small talk with the solicitors, people I normally play football against and barely speak to in the aftermath of matches. At one point I find myself collared by some guy from their Chelmsford office who ultimately bores me instead of me boring him, I feel my tables turn. Likewise I find Stevo trying to spark a conversation with two of the lads we play football against (the Jake Gyllenhal look-alike) and I come in and at least give it a go but it all remains dry. It goes without saying that the solicitors disappear long before the accountants and as the last of them leave the fit girlfriend who had been hanging about goes to me “you’re Jason aren’t you? You used to go to Tendring�. I reply “yes� and stunned I find out that the girl is Natasha Austin. Oh my, she has changed and now looks fantastic. Back at school she was a funny as hell girl but with glasses and a bit goofy but the greatest personality. Now however she is gorgeous and sounds as if she remains equally as funny. I’m converse real nice nice and regret she did not introduce herself sooner, I really did not recognise her. I wonder how I must appear to her now, as an “adult�. I big up myself and ask her if she still keeps in touch with anyone from school, me adding “usually I try to avoid people�. They leave and the accountants regroup with Seymour and son holding court and the other partners, mainly Barlow and Heddle, attempting to get a word in and sound funny (except only sounding sad in the process). Seymour and co makes moves towards town and I want to go along but I’m not invited it seems, oh well, the price you pay for getting a duck. I get a lift home with Andy and as we go into the car park Heddle points at Andy’s Jaguar commenting like a complex, “it’s just a glorified Ford�. Ha ho.

Andy drops me off and it’s still a bit early, pre-eleven. I attempt to make something of the rest of the night but instead pass out, reliving my duck in my dreams. Rogue Trader is on TV and more now than ever I understand the financial ins and outs of the details of the film and what Nick Lesson did, the little tinker. What I see of the film (for the first time) I really like but my god how cheesy is Ewan McGregor? Still to the smack and Star Wars mate.

np: Foo Fighters - Wattershed