nikkisensei

04:56 pm: Why Scientology Makes Me Want To Join An Online Protest
As a young, naive, 14-year-old girl, I had heard little of scientology. I knew that it was some sort of religion, and that it was pretty new. Given the name, I assumed it was something to do with science, and the pursuit thereof. Hence, if pushed to give an opinion, I would say it was a noble and worthy cause, although probably not one that should be demeaned by being called a religion.

Until.

I was shopping in Bournemouth with my siblings and, having split up to allow more efficient browsing, I was walking by myself along the pedestrianised centre. I had no aims in mind other than a trip to Boots and some window-shopping. I was stopped by a young man in the street with a clipboard and, ever mindful of the possibility of completing a survey in exchange for cash (don't laugh, this has happened to me on three occasions), I stopped and chatted to him.

"How would you like to take part in a free personality test?"

Here is where alarm bell number one should have gone off. Anyone who offers you free stuff in the street is almost certainly up to no good, although I must admit, it would seem more likely that he was selling something rather than trying to get me to join a cult. I did the test, though, because facebook hadn't been invented then, and I was curious to know what his results would show about my personality.

Believe it or not, his results showed that I had exactly the personality that would benefit from further research and study. Who'd have thought it? He invited me into his offices and said he would be grateful if I would complete a further questionnaire. Alarm bell number two definitely did ring at this point, what with all the don't-talk-to-strangers training that I had been through in middle school. I was calmed, however, by the neat, clean, open-plan, visible-from-the-street offices that he pointed out to me, so I followed him inside.

Alarm bell number three started ringing incessantly in my ears, though, when he directed me not into the offices but through a side-door which led down a dark set of steps into the basement. I made a move to turn around but he followed me down the stairs, chatting happily away like he wasn't a serial killer equipped with a bloody chainsaw and half a bucket of rohypnol. We descended the stairs.

His misleadingly-titled 'office' was no more than a tiny room in the basement crammed with books. I use the plural to indicate that there were many, but there was only one title that I could see. "Dianetics". Again, I feel I should remind you that I had no idea what Scientology was and hence had never heard of this book or it's insane, sci-fi-obsessed writer. I thought it was a new diet plan or something.

Alam bell number four rang for the wrong reasons when he started trying to sell me this book.

"A-ha" thought I "Here comes the scam part. You bring me to this room and then attempt to flog me whatever crappy semi-auto-biog you've just had vanity-published."

And so I listened. Feigning attention for five minutes would, I thought, allow me enough time to establish that I had heard his pitch and still wasn't interested. Even I know that the most persistent sales people have to go home for tea and bed eventually. Unfortunately it wasn't quite that simple, as I told him Thanks-but-no-thanks-I-haven't-got-any-money-Mister and stood up to leave.

WARNING WARNING ALARM BELL NUMBER FIVE shattered my eardrums and gave me a couple of arteries full of adrenalin, as Mr Scientology got to his feet and blocked the door. He told me that I obviously hadn't understood how important this book was, and what a fantastic influence it would have on my life. Particularly in light of the answers I had given him to the personality test.

I weighed up my options:-
1. Attempt to barge past him, incurring his wrath, and possibly inciting him to batter me to death with a copy of Dianetics.
2. Scream loudly, hoping someone would hear, definitely incurring his wrath and also possibly causing the people working in the office upstairs to come and join their comrade in aforementioned death-battering.
3. Pee my pants and cry until the ghost of L. Ron Hubbard turned up and pelted me with negative Thetan energies.
4. Buy the bloody book and get the fuck out of there.

And so we come to the end of our tale, which may be something of an anti-climax. Having led up to a juicy dilemma, which may have ended in brutal death, wailing, pain, trauma, or at the very least a humourous knicker-wetting episode, I am forced to conclude that I am angry with Scientologists because they forced me to buy their stupid book.

So, dear readers, I hope you have learned your lesson. Never ever follow a Scientologist into a darkened basement. And if you are ever stopped by someone on the street offering to give you a 'free personality test' tell them that their religion is fiction, their gods are fake, their book is rubbish, and I want my £5.99 back.

04:22 pm: Things I found on the internet
Yes, I know. It's like walking down the street and picking up every used condom and empty coke can full of spent heroin needles that you happen to find along the way. However, amidst the inevitable barrage of pointless, idiotic, dangeous and pornographic shite one can occasionally stumble across gems.

1. A random and futile attempt to push a minor issue to the forefront of political consciousness.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Microchips/


2. An insult.
"i doubt yuou posess the wity or humour of jeremy clarkson."

ouch.

3. A call to action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zistQt3BhEM


I find these interesting and worthy of my time for completely different reasons. Number one is interesting because it piggy-backs onto a chain email that I have been repeatedly sent about asking the government to give us an extra bank holiday. Whilst I admire the sentiment, I find it difficult to believe that petitions are the sledgehammer to the political decision-making process that people seem to believe. This is based on a more crucial, foundational belief that snopes.com has all the answers.

Number two is just beyond brilliant, for reasons surely obvious to you all. If you're interested, it was discovered in a thread from a facebook group entitled "Jeremy Clarkson should be Prime Minister." It's worth looking at if you'd like to feel horribly depressed in the blind ignorance and fatuous pursuit of controversy that is prevalent on the internet in general, although if you join the group I shall disown you forthwith.

Number three is good because I considered turning up to this scientology protest, if only because the whole religion scares the crap out of me. See the next entry, which I am just about to compose, on my terrifying experience with a scientologist. I am not yet sure if I will actually go, wearing a mask and carrying a board stating how displeased I am with a religion based on aliens, as I'm reasonably anti any kind of religion, and I'm certain that scientology is no more made up than any other. It does, however, give Tom Cruise a soap box to stand on while he flashes his uber-scary teeth at us, which means it might be worthy of a rotten tomato or two.

11:48 am: I feel pretty
Desire for the limelight all to myself means that I don’t often post links or quotes to other people’s blogs. Today, however, I am going to make an exception. This woman says something that I’ve been pondering and hinting at for a while now, at least when I am in my least black moments.

“This year I received, from a friend I hadn't seen for 40 years, two photos of myself, aged 18, looking fabulously attractive and elegant. A big surprise, because at the time I thought I looked as ugly as sin, with a giant nose, pointy head and great lumbering body. What a wasted opportunity. What regrets. I wept bitterly in the kitchen for some time, because had I known then what I know now, I could have seduced half of Ruislip. There is only one consolation. I am not the only one to have wasted my youth. My friend Ronald was tormented by what he thought was his huge Frankenstein head with a bump on the back. But he recently spotted a three-minute film of himself, aged 20. He looked rather good. His head was quite normal and bump-free. Olivia also looked stunning when young, flaming red hair, her whole body the size of one of her current thighs - I know, I've seen a photo - but at the time she thought herself a dumpy fatso. This is why the elderly are important - we can be a warning from history. So this is another cautionary tale. Make the most of your gilded youth. Things can only get worse, in all sorts of ways: hello wrinkles and false teeth, goodbye muscle tone, beauty, sight, hearing, hair and memory. ”

She’s right. Oh so right. We must enjoy ourselves while we’re young. Even I, a sprightly twenty-three year old, look back longingly at the pictures of myself when I was 16 and fervently wish I could have my skin, my hair, my teeth, my firm thighs back. If I am already nostalgic for the only slightly ess flawed body I had seven years ago, what the hell kind of miserable old bat will I be when I hit forty? Or, god forbid, eighty?

And so, in honour of this article, and the sense of increased self-worth (or diminished self-loathing, if you’re a half-empty kind of person) that I feel today, here is my Top 5 List of Things About My Body That Are Alright.

1. My hands. I’m not sure if this is due to genetic accident, or simply because I have chunky jewelry and a penchant for witchy nail varnish, but my hands look good.

2. My eyes. OK, they don’t work for shit, but they aren’t half pretty. Like thong knickers, they fail to serve their practical purpose, but they provide lovely decoration.

3. My lips. Because they’re almost good enough you won’t notice my chin. And they have a piercing, which makes me look rebellious and cool, despite my downright goody-two-shoes nerdery.

4. My bottom. As controversial as it is large, this choice means only that I enjoy the way it looks in a pair of jeans, and I know that in my middle age I will look back nostalgically and long for the day when boys wanted to touch it.

5. My hair. I saved it for last because it is the most beautiful. Even in a birds-nest state it is still a shining, sexy, I’m-so-fucking-worth-it cascade of purple awesome. I am happy that, with the help of a bottle of Schwarzkopf once a month, this is the thing I can keep forever.

07:46 pm: Stupid things I have said at work to justify desperate sales manoeuvres
- "I'm just calling because I was out of the office yesterday, and I thought I'd missed your call."
Translation: You've been avoiding my calls.
- "Lots of companies are now using this solution for recruitment response."
Translation: We want companies to use this solution for recruitment response.
- "These keywords run out quickly, so if you'll sign the paper today I can hold some good ones for you."
Translation: I haven't made a sale yet, and will do anything to secure a signature from you.
- "We've started dealing with new business over the phone to reduce our carbon footprint."
Translation: It's cheaper for our company to demote me to telesales and stamp on my morale than to let me leave the office.
- "You don't run that many campaigns, so I might be able to drop the price. By six grand or so."
Translation: Our prices are arbitrary, and will depend entirely on how much money we think you have to give us.

06:49 pm: New Year's Resolutions, in order of how soon they will be broken
1. Don't eat shit food. Cheating, I suppose, to put this one on the list, as it has already been broken in a spectacular whole-top-section-of-a-box-of-Milk-Tray style, but that is not my fault, as much chocolate was forthcoming this Christmas.
2. Try harder at work. Again, already broken. This three-day week has seen our highest procrastination rate yet, to which this blog is partly testament. Never have I so frequently checked my facebook, or been tempted to take part in the insightful 'how much of a lesbian are you?'* quiz.
3. Exercise. So far has not begun, but that is due in part to the beaurocracy of the gym, and their mad insistence that one should know how to use the machines before leaping upon them.
4. Do more terrifying things that are not actually life-threatening. By this I mean I should do things which, whilst they may not be considered adventure sports nevertheless hit my 'I'd rather stay the hell in bed' buttons. Things like: dancing, staying out past the last train, going to fish restaurants, talking to people with whom I am not already closely acquainted. May also include skirt-wearing, but I don't want to set the bar too high.



*For those who are interested, I was only 66 per cent lesbian. This, I am guessing, is based on replies I gave to questions about high heels (hate them) and women (love them, but not quite enough to shag them enthusiastically on a regular basis).

06:43 pm: I have no water in my flat
A while ago, in my childish, foolish naivete, I wrote this entry.

Imagine now how I roll in the aisles, and positively tear all my hair out with mirth. Of course the internet is not the most important thing in life. Nor even, despite my frequent post-cut-off sobbing in Japan, is electricity. The most important thing, of course, is water. Life-giving, fresh, clean water. Water that is safe for you to drink. Water that you can wash your socks in. Water that you can run your head under, shampoo, and fluff nicely so that you look pretty. Or at the very least so that you don't end up scraping handfuls of grease from your matted locks as you sit in a meeting, wondering why your nails are brown when you haven't painted them for weeks.

Water is vital. If scientists go looking for life elsewhere in our universe the first thing they go looking for is water. Isn't that amazing? They reckon they can almost guarantee that wherever there is life there will definitely be some form of H2O nearby. Awesome. Except, of course, that this is not true. The absolute rebuttal of this scientific hypothesis is brought to you by me, who has been without water in her flat since Tuesday the 18th of December. Those of you who can count will realise that this is A Fuck Of A Long Time.

In garbled order, a very boring timeline designed to indicate how pissed off I am and simultaneously allow me to vent so that I don't bore my colleagues with the details of this yet again.

*ahem*

Tuesday 18th December - Wake up, have nice shower. Luxuriate in delightful foamy, soapy goodness. Wash hair until it is Schwarzkopf shiny. Get out of shower and leave for work (after having dressed). Am accosted by crazy foreign man by the stairs who asks me about my water. Assure him that yes, I have water, and it is free-flowing and hot. Leave for work chuckling at the misfortune of a stranger.

Tuesday 18th December p.m. - Return home to discover no water in flat at all. Think I probably deserve this misery. Hope water comes back on next morning so I can flush big suspicious housemate-produced poo down toilet.

Wednesday 19th December First day of holiday. Call Thames Water and ascertain that they are fixing the problem. Go Christmas shopping. Expect that they will have sorted the problem by the time I get back. Have poo in McDonalds.

Thursday 20th December Start to get really pissed off. Call Thames Water again. Observe that they are digging up road in front of house. Buy bottled water from, and have a poo in, Sainsbury's.

Friday 21st December Call Thames Water again and get angry. Observe that they are now digging up a different section of road. Leave flat to go home for holidays and have a long hot shower. And poo.

Sat 22nd-Sun 23rd Get drunk and play with family and friends, safe in the knowledge that alcohol-induced hangovers can be cured by life-giving water in the morning.

Mon 24th December Receive call from flatmate informing me that there is still no water. Kick the fuck off and call BBC Radio London, who run a story on it. Receive Thames Water promises that water will arrive by Christmas.

Tuesday 25th December Get really really drunk and open fantastic presents. Love family very much. Eat sprouts. Rejoice in the fact that one has a toilet.

Wed 26th December Receive call from letting agents to talk about water. Tell them you are witholding rent. let them know politely that it is their job to sort stuff out.

Thurs 27th December Tuesday 1st January Forget completely about No Water Disaster and be too busy having fun to even consider calling letting agents, assuming that no news is good news and someone has flushed the toilet.

Tuesday 1st January p.m. Return to flat to discover that no one has flushed toilet and there is still no water upstairs, despite there being water in every other flat in London. Call everybody even vaguely involved in water scandal. Cry. Call everybody again and ask for compensation. Beat wall with own head. Discover there is actually water in the kitchen. Wash clothes. Make cup of coffee. Brush teeth. Flush toilet with bucket of water carried from kitchen

Wednesday 2nd January Call letting agent to discharge all responsibility onto them, thus absolving self of all stress. Discover that they are closed. Flush toilet with buckets of cold water.

Thursday 3rd January Call letting agent and landlord. Call them again. Call them again. Call both letting agent and landlord and insist upon some sort of temporary accommodation. Receive keys to temporary two-bedroomed flat from landlord as a measure to ensure that you don't actually go round to his house and piss in his eyes. Have a poo at work so that you don't need one when you get home. Have a bath using ingenious kettle-from-kitchen technique.

Friday 4th January Water mysteriously comes back on. Jamie has shower, I flush toilet. Celebrate new water with chocolate. Subsequently receive suspicious text from landlord containing more apologies and promises that water will be fixed on monday.

The plot thickens...

03:49 pm: What happens when I leave my brain off the hook: a shit experiment
Twenty nine minutes to go. And I'm planning on wasting every single one of them typing random stuff at my computer. Twenty eight minutes to go. And that last minute was a bit quicker than I thought, maybe only thirty seconds or so. I should be more accurate in my counting if I'm going to start an experiment like this. Just went back to fix a typo, that ate a couple of seconds. Twenty seven minutes to go. So now I'm starting to run out of things to say, but I'll keep writing anyway. It's so awful that this kind of time wasting has more satisfaction than any of the genuine work I am supposed to be doing. Sigh. Long sigh to eat up the time. Aaaah. And hopefully by now it'll be... yes, twenty six minutes to go. Twenty six more minutes of this before I can finally get out of this nightmare place and go home. Let's get descriptive.

My office is big, and open-plan. Open plan in a way that purports to be friendly, and occasionally succeeds. Open plan mainly so that the boss can (twenty five) keep track of who is doing what. I am one of the lucky four people who work with my back to the window, which means that no one can see my screen, so as long as I keep typing... quick pause for nose scratch... typing like I look like I'm doing something important, then I'm safe from retribution. Twenty four seconds to go, and it ain't getting quicker.

There are seven people in my block – used to be eight but one guy got fired. I don't know what for, presumably he wasn't working hard enough, but he was working harder than I am. The other six people are generally nice, and they all give me (twenty three) things that I don't deserve, like chocolate and compliments. One of them is a cock, who is lazy and miserable and doesn't do his job. He isn't even as good at pretending to look busy as I am. Twe – oh no, not yet. Soon... ? Oh come the fuck o- yes, twenty two.

We are all supposed to be on the phone pretty much constantly. The business would definitely make more money if we were. The problem is that no one really likes being on the phone. Those who are better than me are too busy doing the face-to-face and making money, and those who are worse than me are... well, twenty one... there is no one worse than me, as you may be able to tell from the fact that I'm ranting like this in the first place. Anyway. Bottom line is that I don't like being on the phone. I don't mind calling people who want to speak to me, but the main reason I am paid so much for doing my job is that I only ever (twenty) call people who don't give a shit and can't wait to get me off the phone.

I wasn't supposed to end up like this, you know. I was, as they say, going to be somebody. I'm somebody now, of course, it's just that I'm not really anybody I like. What, nineteen, I'm trying to say is, eighteen (someone interrupted me – why won't they understand that I'm busy?!) that when it comes down to it, I wouldn't answer the phone to me either. I'd see the 'witheld number' on the screen, seventeen, or hear the bleating, whining, desperate tones over the answerphone, and I'd just think – fuck it. She's not worth my time. I'll count the minutes until she goes.

Sixteen
Fifteen
Fourteen

Colleague conversation got me through three minutes! That's phenomenal! Three minutes this close to the end of the day is precious time wasted, which is brilliant. Oh radiant joy of conversation and sunshine of my last minutes! Waste me, eat me, use me! Give me anything – Thirteen, it really does go faster towards the end. It speeds up with a momentum that I... Oh. Clock hasn't moved again. Keep pushing forward. Twelve.

I was supposed to be a writer. I want to write quality things for money, not bash out crap to eat up time. I want to write sonnets and stage shows and songs. Eleven. Fucking fucking fucking eleven. Eleven minutes of hellish horror left until it's time to – ten.
I wish the guy opposite me would just make a sale already. He's been looking more and more depressed each day for the last two weeks. Not that he doesn't have a reason to be, of course. I wonder why he's so unsuccessful. He's a much nicer person than anyone else in here. Nine. Glorious nine.

Some of my colleagues have left already, the lucky fuckers. To have the confidence and authority to just get up before end of business and walk out, with nothing more than a 'Gotta shoot off, see you tomorrow' in the way of a farewell. The confidence. Eight. Confidence enough to knock your socks off. I wish I had that much confidence. Maybe I'll give it a go. The boss isn't looking. He's in a meeting til half past, and there's no way that he'll ask anyone. I'll only be in trouble if people tell him, and they are unlikely to.

Six. Almost close enough that I can just leave and it doesn't look too bad. Five. I'm going to start packing up my stuff.

Four.
Fuck it. I'm a rebel. Outta here. Bye bye suckers!
See you tomorrow.

07:19 pm: Holly, ivy and lashings of embarassment
Everything is Christmassy at the moment – lights are twinkling, wine is mulling, and people (me) are throwing themselves around the dance floor and getting captured on camera being fat and pissed at the office Christmas party.

I am slightly unnerved by the digital age, and its introduction of casual photography. When I was young and dainty, and had the legs and the dignity to make some half-decent pictures, no one wanted to waste their film on taking too many. Any picture snapped had to be rigorously planned and posed for, and include absolutely everyone at the party. We all bundled into a grinning pile of photogenic beauty. And woe betide anyone who blinked, because they would be captured forever like that – a smirking zombie-creature amidst a gaggle of out-of-focus angels. We wouldn't have wasted another snap on getting it all perfect.

Now, of course, things have changed. It doesn't matter if half your shots are blurry, or poorly-framed, or include a sweaty she-beast posing like a chimpanzee taking a dump. It doesn't matter if you take seven or eight photos in quick succession, creating a flick-book of other people's shame. No one gives notice before taking a photo now – they simply snap away, leaving no one time to go to the loo and drag a comb through their hair, or even a couple of seconds to make sure their kickers aren't showing.
*snap**snap**snap**snap**snap** And suddenly you're captured in that moment, forever. Dancing. Grimacing. Hurling. Showing your knockers at the top of the log flume.

Beware of casual photography, people. You can take as many pictures as you like to get it perfect, but even the shit shots are there for all time.

09:51 pm: Another unsolicited letter to a person who is in no position to read it
"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same...

...you'll be a Man, my son."
- Rudyard Kipling, obviously.

Dear Rudyard Kipling,

I don't want to be a Man, you patronizing bastard. Particularly if it involves treating Triumph and Disaster as one and the same thing. Especially not if it also means abandoning all semblance of grammatical dignity and writing both of them with misplaced capital letters.

Triumph and Disaster are not one and the same thing, and I feel it would be churlish to greet them both with hearty cheers of 'oooh look, an incident of ambiguous personal benefit, which may be either triumphant or disastrous!'

Having experienced my own resounding 'Triumph' this week (my treatment did not get accepted by Channel four – near-sighted fools that they obviously are) I think the time has come to start treating Triumph with the respect and joy it deserves, and meeting Disaster with something akin to an energetic punch in the kidneys.

It doesn't make as good a poem, but I think if you can greet Triumph with a whoop and a cheer, yet not go so overboard as to end up semi-comatose in drunken joy at half past nine on a weeknight, and face Disaster with fists and adrenaline, like you would a zombie attack, then you'll probably be coming close to resembling a successful human being. If you continue your good work, then perhaps one day you'll raise yourself to the dizzying heights of Mandom, whatever the blue fuck that might be.

In conclusion – I shall not lie down nor drown sorrow in alcohol. I shall treat Disaster like the cunting bastarding foul-smelling unwanted imposter that it is, and kick all it's teeth out.

The battle plan, which I shall use to resoundingly stomp on Disaster leaving nothing but a forgotten memorial where once it occupied the Somme fields of my soul, involves a lot more work. I am writing a new treatment, and a new script, which I shall send to the Beeb. We all know they have better taste anyway.

09:44 pm: Why the sales floor is a comedy goldmine
Below is a list of actual, genuine things that my boss (hard-nosed, go-getting money-hungry salesman) has said at work, in reverse order of scary awesomeness…

- “If you hit target before the end of this quarter I’ll be so surprised I’ll buy you a holiday in the Bahamas. With boys to serve you drinks.”

- “Yeah, give it a go. If you can actually get that bitch to give us the time of day I’ll give you an extra fifty quid.”

- “You’ve got to nail these charity bastards.”

- “And I offered it to him for free. But when I got back to the office I was like ‘Hang on, I don’t want to do that.’ So I emailed him and told him to give me twenty grand.”

- “What’s happening with Greenpeace? Have they signed the fucking contract yet? Tell them that if they don’t get it back by the end of this week I’m going to kill a whale.”

09:40 pm: Wedding bells and jaffa cakes
The title is an obscure reference to the fact that right now the major (wedding bells) and minor (cranberry flavoured jaffa cakes) incidents in my life are all things that happen to other people. I have not created my own gossip or advanced my own path since I first sank into the ever-so-comfy office chair at my new workplace.

This will change.

03:07 am: Friends I love
1. Mia
2. Giles
3. You
4. [irrelevant]

03:07 am: Two lists
Jobs that are worse than mine.

1. Central London bus driver.
2. Third world sweat-shop sewing machine operative.
3. Playboy bunny.
4. Rickshaw cyclist.
5. Anything in the military where you don’t get to go in a helicopter.

Jobs that are better than mine.

1. Fireman.
2. Writer for Viz magazine.
3. Archangel, avenging weapon of an all-powerful deity.
4. All-powerful deity.
5. Detective (with or without own gun).

11:45 am: Blind them with arrogance, then steal all their cash.

I moved to London. Turns out it’s actually quite easy, as long as you’re not bothered exactly what you do, where you do it, how much you’re paid, or who you have to kiss arse to.

 

I feel a bit silly now, having bitched and moaned about the possibilities and sworn I wouldn’t do it.  London is big, but it’s not as big as Osaka.  It’s dirty, but not as dirty as a crowded Amsterdam sex show.  It’s intimidating, but not even half as intimidating as a waitress in a Beijing noodle bar.  It’s loud and depressing and exciting and overpriced and lonely and hot and grey.  But it’s not extreme, and it’s not foreign, and it’s definitely not impossible.

 

I think I’ve spent so much time running through cities I’m meant to be surprised by that I’ve given up on the stress of it all.  Transport could have been tough if I’d made it so, but I checked the map and kept moving.  I bought drinks I couldn’t afford and shrugged off the loss knowing full well I’d find somewhere better, cheaper.  I’ve been shouted at by drunks and smiled.  I’ve stepped up to the challenge of arson-inclined youths and shrugged off their nonchalance with a wave and raised eyebrow of my own.  I’ve been knocked over by city types on their way to broker a deal that could potentially be 300 grand’s worth of irrelevant to everyone except themselves.  And I’ve shaken it off and stood up, and waved my oyster card at the yellow-circle of the whole thing. 

 

I don’t want to imply that I’m a master of travel, or omnipotent in the face of culture shock.  But as sure as Descartes thought and was, I am, and will forever be.

 

This announcement brought to you by the “In 5 months time you’ll be eating your words” society of Whitechapel, E1.

 

03:59 pm: New Clothes
There are plenty of things that I am willing to keep quiet about if I think it will avoid embarrassment. If someone's gran makes an uncomfortably racist comment at the dinner table, or an authority figure breaks wind in a lift, I will do no more than smile politely and make nonsense chat about the weather - that's the kind of two-faced arse-licking hypocrite I am.

However, I feel the time has come for change. There are obviously more things wrong with this world than I realised, and I have decided that instead of keeping quiet and nodding along with life's little agonies I will finally stand up and tell everyone just exactly how naked the emperor is. So here goes...

That stuff that dentists use to numb your mouth? The injection that is supposed to make all the pain go away while he scrapes, files, hacks, and burns away at your gum tissue? You know what?

It doesn't work.

03:36 pm: A metaphor
Most of the time life is like a crappy wedding dj.  You can either sit in a corner getting drunk and whingeing about the music or you can stand up, suck it up, and have a dance.

One, two, one two three four...

09:32 pm: Things I am going to buy when I start earning a wage
1. A set of crockery that all matches and has a funky pattern.
2. A set of underwear that matches and has a funky pattern and does not have holes.
3. Some jeans that do not fall down and expose my arse.
4. A mobile phone that was made recently, or at least sometime after the Falklands Conflict.
5. Socks.

09:25 pm: Crystal and Pennies
Men like women. Men like women. Men like women enough to go up and chat to them in a bar, offer to buy them a drink, give them compliments and cigarettes and a good night out. Men like women so much that they are willing to risk their much-trumpeted dignity on the off-chance that one of these women will deign him worthy of a shag.

I’d like you to take a moment to think on that, and I’d like to take five minutes for myself so I can hug my copy of Bridget Jones’ Diary and thank my lucky stars that every accident of biological development has led us to this happy stage.

I went out on Friday night. That in itself is not as unusual as it is inevitable. However, contrary to the whiskey-drenched nights I usually spend out with a boy-heavy group of scruffy layabouts, last Friday there were just two girls. Not pink or fluffy or manicured, or even wearing mascara. We had no knee-high fuck-me boots, no sparkling fuck-you jewelry, no bangles, baubles, breast enhancing brassiers or even any inclination to impress. But we impressed nonetheless, purely in virtue of being two girls out together.

Now I won’t go over the top and proclaim that we dazzled and sparkled. I myself did nothing more than fumigate the pub garden and cackle loudly as I did my best not to fall on my wobbly arse. But the reason I am filled with such love and happiness and gratitude is because despite my general misanthropy and hostility to strangers, guys still came up and spoke to me. And did their drunken, inarticulate best to get into my pants.

For this I am eternally grateful. For how can I ever feel lonely, or fat, or unattractive in a world like this? In a world where there will always be someone who thinks I have nice eyes, or who’ll buy me a drink, or simply smile and wave and blush and try to get up the courage to ask my name. Bring on the freaks and geeks and drunken flattery – I’ll hold your hand and smile back and maybe even give you my real phone number, as long as you can guarantee that whenever I go out there’ll always be a vaguely sinister stranger calling me ‘princess’ and making a desperate grab for my knickers.

07:30 pm: No one writes this stuff anymore
Once upon a time there was a mildly attractive young girl with an impressionable mind, a penchant for tried-and-tested sarcasm, and seriously good hair. This young girl, unsure exactly what she should do with her life, and the searing intelligence she was blessed with, decided to seek counsel from someone who had already lived.

She packed up her bags and forked out the extortionate prices that South West Trains feel it is necessary to charge these days, and went to see a Buddhist monk, or an aged crone, or some other symbol of extreme wisdom, who told her of two paths. The first path, it was said, would bring her joy. It would bring her confidence and the respect of those who loved her, and most importantly, the path would lead to a kinda ramshackle house with mismatched furniture and dried flowers, inhabited by a hot indie boy with torn jeans and an ironic t-shirt.

This news made her happy and she picked up her antiquated mobile phone, cheap cigarettes and the remnants of whatever delicious pie she had been snacking on, and prepared for her homeward journey. She smiled in the knowledge that with enough work and the right ideas, and regular breaks from a computer screen so her eyes didn’t go fuzzy and start bleeding, she could successfully tread the path that led to her ideal future.

The monk nodded sagely as she said her farewells.

And she almost turned to the door when-

“Tell me, oh wizened and generic old stereotype, what lies in store for me along the second road?”

The monk shook his head,

“Young lady. Do not ask me that question.”

“I ask only out of curiosity, I promise. For what harm can the knowledge do if I have already made my decision?”

The monk stood up and walked to the window while he pondered on his reply.

“You have not made a decision, miss. You had only one option. I fear that if I give you the second, the decision will become impossible.”

“Bollocks. Tell me. I am an upstart philosophy graduate, hell bent on learning the truth even if it means I will be wracked with doubt, because I am so ignorant of what a genuinely difficult decision is that I believe I could simply live my life on a coin toss.” She ran her fingers through her beautiful shiny straight oh-so-purple-thankyou-Schwarzkopf hair and crossed her arms, because she reckoned it made her boobs look better. “The first path leads to everything I have dreamed of. What could possibly lie along the second path that would make me doubt my decision?”

“The second path,” sighed the monk “is paved with gold.”

08:15 pm: The problem with writing...
...for a living is that you never have time to write for fun. And the problem with writing for fun is that it means that your bank account stays as woefully empty as your blog list.

I have six files currently work-in-progress on my computer.
- Dave and Sue scripts. A series of twenty one-minute radio pieces that will be broadcast in September.
- Feature ideas. Two solid-gold and three silver-plated ideas for magazine articles, which will be written when I have inspired moments.
- Website content. Bollocks I have written to put up on a disgustingly self-promotional website that I made about myself when I was bored.
- CV. In constant flux, depending on exactly which job I am unqualified to do, that I will nevertheless be pointlessly trying to procure interview for.
- Hilarious Nikki Info Pack. Which is a set of CV, cover letter, and example work, which will never quite be perfect enough for me to put my confidence in, but which I nevertheless have high hopes of throwing DreamMagazineJob-wards at some point in the never-future.
- Drunken rantings, and sexually explicit short stories. Because I am essentially still the same person I always have been.