Ask me no questions….

Being unemployed sucks. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it has its high points such as the sleeping in and the playing of computer games when you want. Ok so I don’t play computer games during the day anyway, but I like the sleep.

Anyway, the worst bit about being unemployed is the looking for a job. The destruction of one’s own current state is always going to be arduous, but more so when you have to convince the destructor that you really want it to be done. I’m talking about job interviews.

Like the one I had yesterday. A group interview in which no questions were asked. We introduced ourselves, then they said any questions? And surprisingly for a dominantly British group, people were ready to just jump in. The problem was that they were intensely irrelevant questions which would obviously have really fucking long answers. So after about an hour of that, we were given a 5 minutes math test and then told we could leave.

I asked no questions as I wanted to get to the interview. So basically I wasn’t there as far as the interviewers would be concerned as they had to see dozens of people, and one guy sitting in the corner not saying anything isn’t really going to stick out. Doh. So I did something that I’ve never done before, and I’ll never do again. I complained to the interviewer by email about the interview.

Today I got a reply. You were the strongest candidate for one of the positions, we are sorry that you do not want to continue with the interview process. I protested my interest in the interview protest, but to no avail. Stupid interviews.

Stupid unemployment.

Stupid me.

Again!

I lost my ring last night. I was a little tipsy after watching "the big game" in the pub, so decided a bacon sandwich would be the best thing for my very slightly hungry stomach. My mum and step dad were up so after taking a bacon poll, I cooked some for them too. After I had made my mini feast I looked down at my hand and realised that my thumb was missing it's most important component - the ring! So I freaked out and looked through my pockets, through my jacket, through the fridge, through the bushes outside. And nothing. I decided that maybe I should wait til the cold light of day to look again. Depressed but full I went to bed.

The next day, well today I suppose, I rumbled out of bed and went straight to work. I searched and searched inside and out. No joy. And it was fucking cold outside in just my dressing gown and novelty shaped slippers. But damn it no ring. I’ve lost that little circular bastard too many times to just put it down to c'est la vie as it keeps coming back and then disappearing again to piss me off. It's like the one true ring in that gay midget film, except that it's got nowhere better to be, and nothing better to do than mess with me. Unless of course it considers me the giant eye, always looking for it, but in that case where are my armies, and why do I have eye-lids?

But anyway, today to cheer myself up I made another bacon sandwich. And guess what? When I unwrapped the cheese it was sitting there all cold and shit. That little bastard. I’m gonna throw it into a volcano one of these days.

The ugly potato

Once upon a time there was a little potato. He was so small in fact that the other potatoes used to bully him all the time and call him a potatini. He would jump up and down and say “I’m not a potatini, I’m a potato just like you” but the big potato’s would just laugh. “Potatoes are at least as big as us. You’re not a potato, you’re just a little potatini”. And the little potato would cry and scream and complain, but of course this only made the big potatoes laugh at him more and tease him harder. One day though, they pushed him too hard and he flew into a rage and attacked them all. He was so angry that he mashed them all into a fine paste, even though they were not boiled, as is traditional with such a venture. The next day was picking day and the farmer came along to inspect his crop. Although the little potato had felt bad about his actions almost as soon as he had committed them, he was happy now as he was the only potato left, so the farmer was sure to love him. But lo, when the farmer came over to him, he just picked him and kicked him into the distance, and then cried for his mashed potato crop. For you see, the little potato was not a potato at all, but a rock.

What does prego mean anyway?

I went to the Pope’s house this weekend. Ok, maybe not his actual house, but his office at least. In his very own city. It was beautiful.

But not as beautiful as my lovely lady. She took me to Rome for the weekend. Never has such a nice thing been done for me, it’s just a shame that we can never return. Not because of legal reasons or what not, but simply for fear of getting fat.

Unsurprisingly, almost everything we ate in Rome was the tastiest motherfucking shit ever. But vaguely surprisingly, the pistachio ice-cream had a strangely amazingly addictiveness about it, that meant we ate it twice daily. And an ice-cream based diet on top of the four or so courses that you are expected to eat for each meal does not equate to healthy bunnies. In fact, I have no-idea whatsoever how all Italians aren’t immobilised by their gigantic fat asses. If I lived there, I know I would be.

But anyway, it was amazing and pretty and warm (in February). And somewhat sad. I don’t know about anyone else, but I have never thought of the Colloseum as a depressing place before. I mean, I know that life was different then, so fighting to the death wouldn’t be so strange, but when we were there I couldn’t help imagining all of the people who had fought and died for no reason. Not even entertainment. Those who had cried, or run, or just wet their pants. Those poor bastards. A tour guide we were eaves dropping on said that they used to employ little kids to aggravate the animals with big sticks, as otherwise they wouldn’t put up a good fight. Just think how many of those kids would have died for just not running away quick enough.

Ok it wasn’t sad at all apart from that. I bought a snow globe from a nun on top of the Vatican. I ran around the chariot course pretending to ram into Kathy. And we got very, very drunk. Mamma mia.

Lobster rocks, oysters suck

I ate lobster and oysters for dinner the other night. Not bad for an un/self-employed bum like me. Just so you know, lobster rocks, and oysters suck.

I was having dinner with my estranged father in a fairly swanky restaurant in London, and call me petty if you will, but I thought the man owed me a lobster dinner. I was gonna get a steak too, but I was afraid that the old bastard might have been making my brother pay, so I held back. No champagne either. Doh. Shoulda gone with my first instincts.

The only question which I asked the old man of any personal nature was whether or not he supported George Bush Jnr. I assumed that no-one with any brains did, but my Dad is a Texan oil man so I thought I’d check. And he said he did. And then I asked him how he could considering how stupid George is, and listed dozens of stupid things he had said and done. And my dad said, “You have to consider that he makes at least three speeches a day, so of course sometimes he’s going to make mistakes”. Hmm. I would like to think that if I made 3 speeches a day, my stupid mistakes wouldn’t be as frequent and apparent as his.

Anyway, I was talking to my mum the other day, and she told me that her sister in Iran was being forced to demonstrate in favour of nuclear power. Now up to this point I had kinda believed that the images of Iranians on TV supporting their president had been true. It’s funny how badly I can misjudge the two nations that I am from. Or at least their support for their leaders.

I kinda wish that in this case I was right. Being forced to protest is terrible. Believing a moron is a good man is worse.

Easy thoughts

I always find it annoying when my best thoughts come to me in bed. Not when I’m in my own bed, as I have surrounded it with pens and paper for exactly such an occasion, but when I’m sleeping elsewhere. It really gets to me. Not the least because usually with one good thought, comes another, and the joy of the good thinking means that you don’t want to stop and save it for later. Because you know that it doesn’t work like that. If you stop thinking the good thought, and then miraculously somehow later remember what the hell you were thinking about, you are never able to regain the original good thought cycle. Like if you were thinking of new flavours for jelly beans, you may later be able to think of other good flavours, but the original possible good flavours you were inventing in your head are lost forever.

And to be clear, I’m not talking about morally good thoughts. I’m talking about brain waves. Eureka moments. The times when things become clear. Although I suppose the jelly beans example doesn’t exactly demonstrate that too well, as they are generally opaque.

But anyway, I suppose we can all take solace in the fact that with so many people on the planet, it is quite likely that someone else is having the same thoughts as you somewhere else, and for them it might be daytime. And they may have a pen.

So if you ever realise something vital and want to write it down but can’t for some reason, just say to yourself “Fuck it, someone else probably will”.

Vive la France

A great friend of mine once said “What you’re crying about this? There are people dying in Bosnia”. I was 17 years old and another friend of mine had allegedly just thrown me down some concrete stairs. Amidst all the blood and booze pouring out of my head, and the bloody hand prints that I spread liberally around, a girl was crying.

I was her first boyfriend. And she was watching me die. I don’t remember the incident. I don’t remember the paramedics. I don’t remember telling half the hospital ward and my mother what I wanted to do to my girlfriend. And I don’t remember how she was while this was all going on. But Anthony does, because he was looking after her. Or at least comparing my drunken fall to the deadly bullets fired in a far away land.

That’s what I love about that boy. He was always prepared to say the most offensive thing in a situation, just for a laugh. He didn’t mind how it reflected on him, as long as it was funny. He would make racist jokes all the time, because he knew that no-one else in England would, even though he hated La Penn and racists in general. That’s why I was so happy when I heard that he was moving here looking for a job. But today he told me that he’s going back to Paris for a fourth interview for a job which he never thought he’d get. It’s sad that he’s leaving, but good luck to the boy.

In honour of his brief life in England, here is a joke he once made up to offend me. “What do you do if you see 5 black guys in Harlem harassing a young girl?” “Throw them a basketball”.