High-Octane Blogging

A more experienced blogger than I, with whom I was corresponding yesterday, informs me that in order to get people to read my posts, I should make them, and I quote, "entertaining". Clearly tales of my daily commute and stuff off the back of a cornflakes packet don't have the wide-ranging appeal I thought they might. Fine. Let's go for the lowest common denominator. Fasten your seatbelts, folks...

Last night I went for a meal at Pizza Express. In Streatham. I had an American Hot.

I know, I know, it's the kind of white-knuckle narrative that Andy McNab might be proud of. And what's more it's all true. My life obviously has no need of spurious embellishments in order to make it fascinating. No sir.

(Oh, all right then, it was a Hawaiian! God damn it, aren't I allowed a bit of glamour in my hum-drum existence?)

Looking back, I realise that I have made two glaring grammatical errors already. Just look at that preposition, teetering at the end of the sentence, exposed to the brutal finality of the full-stop instead of safe and cosy among its colleagues. It makes one's heart bleed. And I shan't even mention that 'aren't'.

So what else? Well, I'm currently girding myself for an evening in The Chandos, a pub local to my work, and one about which I feel duty-bound to say a few words. (You okay in there, little preposition? There, there...) Situated on Charing Cross Road, just north of Trafalgar Square, sits a quiet and unimposing public house, run by the Samuel Smiths brewery. As you may know, this means that the beer is cheap and, if you select carefully, very strong. Actually, careful selection would probably result in a modestly strong beer. I should say, if you select recklessly. Nowadays, for me and my colleagues, no other beer hits the spot better than D-Pils. At £2.70 and 5.9%, you can easily get yourself into a horrible state, in which you are a danger both to yourself and others, for less than fifteen quid. Now that, in anybody's book, is a bargain.

Aside from this, they have comfy sofas, a refreshing lack of intrusive music, and bar staff who ask how your day has been as if they actually care. I love it. But don't anybody else start going there, please. We don't want it filling up with your sort, thanks very much.

Well the good news is it's almost lunchtime, so this blog will now be terminated. The soup on the menu today is Celery and Celeriac. I'm not quite sure what celeriac is, but it sure is going to be fun finding out!

Later, folks.

Taxi for Smyth

Browsing through the company newsletter which landed on my desk this morning, I came across the lamest introduction to an article that I have seen in many a moon:

"What do fake blood, videos and talking have in common?"

Clearly the author of this monstrosity was so excited about being able to mention fake blood that his literary sensibilities went out the window. "Talking"? For Christ's sake... The answer to this conundrum, if you're interested, is that they are all tools used by Tarmac to promote safety in the workplace. So there you go.

For a change, my journey to work this morning did not involve long periods of time squashed into the armpit of a complete stranger, nor did it involve 45 minutes on the bus, desperately trying to pass the time by deciding which of my extremely unattractive co-travellers I would most like to sleep with (everybody does this, right?) This was because I was in so ludicrously early that the company kindly arranged a taxi for me. And as an added bonus, the thoughtful folks at Dial-a-Cab have now installed TV sets in the back seats of their cabs, with the volume pitched at exactly the right level, so it's just too quiet to understand, but a little too loud to sleep through. I suppose it's more for the benefit of the drivers, who now don't have the trouble of rabbiting incessantly at me while I'm trying to get some kip. If only all businesses were that considerate towards their employees.

Here's a word you don't hear very often these days: Oblong. I wonder what happened to it?

So anyway, it's now time for my cornflakes, which I'm delighted to report provide me with almost 20% of my daily recommended iron intake.

Blog ends.

My First Blog

Well, here goes. From what I gather about these 'blog' things, I'm supposed to use this space to witter on about the inconsequential mundanities of my life, so that those who trawl the lesser-travelled undercurrents of the internet may one day chance upon them, and waste valuable seconds of their lives scanning through for some elusive, and in fact non-existent, nugget of interest. Well so be it.

I'm James, by the way. Pleased to meet you.

So what have I been up to today, I hear you ask (I have exceptionally good hearing.) Well, struggled out of bed at 6am and began the tortuous ninety minute commute to work. (I work in the salubrious environs of Trafalgar Square; I unfortunately live in a run-down rural ghetto south of Croydon.) That's not very interesting, is it? Well, frankly I'm not paid to be interesting. Bear with me.

On the way got a few chapters further into my book, which is Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk:

As you may know, by the same author as Fight Club. I shan't bore you with a thorough review, but if I had the journalistic clout to get a quote on the cover, it would go something like this:

"Pretty much the same as his last one, but quite good nevertheless."

Clearly one of the reasons I don't have any journalistic clout is my bland and uninspired turn of phrase.

So give or take a couple of tedious work-related tasks, that has been pretty much my day so far (oh, I had some cornflakes for breakfast. Did I mention that?) But you know, something exciting and interesting is sure to happen before long. I can't wait to tell you about it...

Testing, testing...