Random dispatches

It's hard to be a blogger in this town when your main competition is the supernaturally prolific Webby.  It's been even harder to muster enthusiasm in a week of rotten developments at work and the death of Paul the Octopus.

But I refuse to let imminent poverty and a zeitgeist-surfing cephalopod stand in the way of goodness and joy.  Because it's not all bad.

Take books, for example.  In recent years I had almost totally stopped reading fiction, le Carré spy stuff aside.  I thought it was a sign that my decaying brain no longer had the capacity for anything requiring the slightest imaginative leap, and I consoled myself with an inexplicable fetish for Victoriana (biographies of Houdini and the Elephant Man, for example).  But in recent months, sparked by David Nicholls's superb One Day (see previous tear-drenched posts), I've been insatiable.

On the recommendation of a wise friend I chewed through the enormous A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz.  Now, if you possess the lazy assumption that there is a great novel in you waiting to emerge, but as yet shyly reticient about doing so, you read books like One Day or a Hornby and think "Ha.  I could do that.  It's just references to everyday feelings and cultural touchpoints everyone can relate to told in an amiably comedic tone.  This weekend I'm going to start writing one of these and I'll be on Simon Mayo's Book Club by Christmas".  You think this because a) you are a complacent, tragically misguided twat and b) because these books to give every impression of simplicity whilst actually being crafted masterfully.  A Fraction of the Whole is not like that.  The plot's all over the place, it drags in the last third and the two main characters don't have voices distinct enough from one another.   But every page has some utterly mad, funny, original bit of comic writing or a wonky viewpoint so unique you are left in no doubt that you could ever have written it. I assume that Steve Toltz is completely deranged, and I've no idea how he's got anything left in the tank to produce anything else, but it's worth the slog over 700 pages or so.

And from one brick to another - I'm now ploughing through Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, like every other Guardian-reading tube jockey was a year ago.  It's brilliant, obviously, although it's a damning insight into how little I know about history (embarrassing given that I have a history degree).  I'm spending a lot of time flicking back to the cast of characters and wondering why everyone had to be called Thomas.  Gareths are extremely sparse, strangely.  Maybe that was more popular among the Stuart nobles.

And, having put my brick to one side to type this, I'm also keeping an eye on the film of The Witches.  It's brilliant.  I first saw it at a tender age when staying with my parents in a grand old hotel in Scotland.  They packed me and my brother off to some kid's cinema night designed to give long-suffering oldies respite from our piping whinges ("But I don't LIKE onions, Mummy!"), and they showed it then.  It had a serious impact, given that it was set in exactly the same kind of hotel as the one we were staying in.  I kept a keen eye on the lady guests from that point on, ever-alert in case they tried to turn me into a mouse.

Oh dear.  It's just finished, and I'd forgotten how much of a cop-out the ending was compared to Roald Dahl's brilliantly bleak better-to-be-a-mouse-and-die-soon-like-grandma philosophy.  In tribute to the filmmakers, I will also end something badly - this post.  Toodle pip.

South London literati

Out at the brilliant Hot Stuff in Vauxhall last night for a friend's birthday.  A rousing rendition of Happy Birthday when the cake came out was accompanied by horse-faced novelist Will Self, who was standing nearby waiting for his takeaway, singing along but replacing the name of the birthday boy with "you fucking cunt".

I thought it was pretty funny, and showed an admirable commitment to living the Grumpy Old Man brand, but it annoyed my girlfriend who was already riled by him not returning her smile.  If it stops her reading his impenetrable books, and more importantly reading out gibberish sentences and making my brain melt while I'm trying to get to sleep, it can only be a good thing.

It wasn't all Duran Duran Duran Duran

Liking this - I Hate The 80s by The Vaselines:

"So, what are your weaknesses?"

For the first time in a couple of years, I'm preparing for a job interview.  It could be worse - it's for a different job at my current company, so a level of complication has been removed.  Still, the whole gruesome process is coming flooding back.  Wear a nice tie.  Firm but not too firm handshake.  Look them in the eye in a you-can-trust-me way and try to avoid the boggly I-start-fires way.  Would you like a drink before we get started?  Just a water please.  No problem, here you go.  Thanks, I'll just take that glass from your hand OH GOD I'm sorry it's gone all over you, gosh your trousers are drenched, let me just get this napkin and dab at your GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!

I've never had an interview experience quite that terrible, although there's been some low moments.  The Cambridge interview that started well and then spluttered into silence when I admitted that I didn't know who, what or when the Red Army was, for example.  In my defence, I hadn't technically been taught that yet.  In the University of Cambridge's defence, I had claimed seconds earlier to have a particular fascination with Russian history.  I unveiled another truly crappy performance at the final stage of a major advertising agency's graduate recruitment programme.  Having jumped through hoops with the elegance of a buttered seal during the previous submissions and interviews, I choked magnificently during the group presentation excercise.  I was 99% sure I'd failed, and the final 1% fell into place when one of my team "mates" stood up and gave me a consoling hug so patronising that I almost pummelled her with a brushed chrome executive mousemat.

But since I entered the corporate world I've spent more time interviewing than being interviewed.  You know that cliché about the interviewer making up their mind in the first few seconds?  Horribly, comprehensively true.  In that time I've already decided if you're too shy, too cocky, too noisy, too smelly, too laddy, too flirty, too scruffy, too crazy, too whatever.  I'm not saying I'm right - although I do think my hit rate is fairly high - but that's not the point.  I've made a knee-jerk decision and you're going to have to do something special to still my twitching knee.

So I'm focusing on the first five minutes of my interview tomorrow.  I'm going to be the most reasonable, presentable chap you could hope to meet.  I was going to do some planning for the rest of it as well but I accidentally knocked out this blog instead, so I'll have to rely on key memorised phrases instead.  "By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history", for example.

In a spin

I had planned to write a scholarly analysis of why Ed Milliband is doomed to failure as the leader of the Labour party.  It would have been great, honest.  But then a man with a spanner infuriated me and I decided to wallow yet again in the minutiae of my domestic frustrations.  I wasn't joking when I named this thing.  Before I veer off, check out this article by Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell about why Ed's boggly eyes will be his undoing.

Right.  My washing machine broke a few weeks ago.  The frustration this caused was tempered by the rare thrill of knowing exactly what was wrong, like a real man who understands machines. The heating element was bollocksed. I know this because a) it wasn't heating up and b) exactly the same bit broke a few months ago.

I was almost looking forward to the man coming to fix it so I could impress him with my know-how.  Unfortunately it didn't go quite as planned.  We got off on the wrong foot when he tried to get into the flat by alternately leaning on and tapping the buzzer to my flat while I shrieked "Just push the door!" into the intercom.  A morse code expert may have been able to discern a message in the beeps.  "I will under no circumstances fix your washing machine", perhaps.

I got him in and proudly unveiled my heater theory.  He looked at me blankly and then looked at the washing machine even more blankly.  He opened up his case to access a laptop, and started to send emails to a person unknown.  They may have read "Man keeps pointing at large white box. What is this thing?".  He eventually decided he would have to drag the machine out of the cupboard, whereupon he almost crushed himself between the machine and the door behind.  Unable to bear watching him straddle the corner of the unit, trying to decide which way to topple, I left him to his own devices.

A little later he emerged looking triumphant.  All fixed.  No sir, your heater theory was wrong - the motherboard was broken and I've replaced it.  Hurrah! I said.  Guess I'm not such an expert after all!  As he left I put in a load of by now quite whiffy washing.  20 minutes later I was back on the phone to Indesit, breaking the news that it was still completely bollocksed.

Me: "Can the man come back and fix the heating element please?"
Indesit: "Afraid not, sir.  He's a standard engineer, and only senior engineers carry that part."
Me: "But...so...hang on, why did you send him in the first place then?"
Indesit: "Aha!  Well, we didn't think the heater would have been the problem.  You'll have to make an appointment for a different day."
Me: "But...I said when I called before what the problem was....hhhhnnggghhh....ok.  What's the tightest time-frame for a new appointment that you can give me?"
Indesit: "All of Monday?"
Me: "Maybe a touch tighter?"

And so it ended with an appointment for 8 days hence.  Bastards.  In the meantime I've acquired an expensive habit for having my shirts laundered at work.  To go back to my crease-tastic ironing style will be a hell of a blow.