Jimmy Page’s Trousers

Democracy doesn’t work. Democracy is shite. For those readers, further afield, that may not be aware of such parochial matters, Ireland has just held a general election to determine the government of the country for the next five years. At the time of writing, it seems pretty likely that Fianna Fáil, the worthless shitebags, have done very well indeed and it looks like they will, if not holding an overall majority, at least form the largest constituent part of our next government. This means that their glorious leader, Bertie Ahern, will remain our leader for the next five years.

It seems that Bertie is the Terminator of Irish Politics, albeit a slightly simple-looking, simple-sounding, simple one. He’s unstoppable. Despite the fact that he’s clearly a moron and probably more corrupt than a bag of foxes, weasels and thieving magpies, the Irish public love him. They have again embraced him to their bosoms while he probably dipped their wallets out of their arse pockets. Bertie and his party of morons and tossers are back to suckle at the deliciously-tainted teat of unscrupulous personal profiteering. What a pile of shite. Bock has some far more informed posts on Bertie and his doings here - just click pretty much any link for a list of our leader’s good works. Then click here to see the nice yellow trousers in which he represented Ireland at the G8 summit a few years back (I think it was their dress-down Friday or something). Gormless git.

You see, democracy doesn’t work.

I’m sure that there will be those among you that say, “well, the people have spoken, that’s what democracy is”. That’s true, but that’s exactly why democracy doesn’t work - the ‘people’ are morons. The ‘people’ are the ones that make it so that there’s nothing on telly but reality shows full of wankers. The ‘people’ are the ones that drive the cult of celebrity that means Posh-Fucking-Spice is never out of the papers. The ‘people’ know fuck-all. The ‘people’ are morons and shouldn’t be allowed a say in how a country, any country, is run. And, while the ‘people’ may well have got what they deserved by voting that shower of useless cunts back into power, unfortunately, I (and others) have to suffer it along with the ‘people’.

Intellaucracy. That’s what we need. IQ tests must be performed before you’re allowed a say in how the country is run. If we assume an IQ of 100 as the mean (which, I believe is how it’s done), that means that there is up to 50% of the population that have an IQ lower than 100. They’re right out. No vote for them. They’re too stupid. Of the remainder of the population, there should be some sort of further testing. Ever watch Big Brother? Ever bought a Ronan Keating album? That sort of thing.

It’s the only solution I can see that may help avert the (extremely bloody) coup that I am now planning

Why can’t I work roller blinds? I asume, from their popularity and near-ubiquitousness, that most people can work them and don’t have any major problems with them. What’s wrong with me then?

I can get them down. No problem there. Getting them back up again next morning however, that’s a different story. I’ve seen people do it with ease - a gentle tug and up it rolls, neatly and smoothly. Not for me. A gentle tug and nothing happens. A slightly harder tug and it just unrolls a little lower and catches on its next notchy thing. Now it’s touching the window-sill, so I have to pull it forwards, past the edge of the sill. Another tug and it’s notched itself three inches below the sill. After a while, I’ve got about eighteen inches of blind below the window and, enraged, I have to take the roller off its brackets and roll the whole thing up by hand before hanging it again.

If, by some unlikely chance, it does happen to roll itself up at my command, it whips up violently and wraps around itself so tightly that it, again, needs to be rectified manually. Roller blinds are bastards. I’ve never seen the point of them anyway. We have roller blinds AND curtains on our windows. Why? Mrs. Jimmy Page’s Trousers tells me, as something that women know genetically, that both are required but I don’t get it.

Bastard blinds.

Popped along to see Mr. Waters play last night. Pretty damn good gig, for which I’m grateful as the tickets cost ninety-odd quid. Bloody expensive bastards. Still, we got our money’s worth - he played for three hours. Too much for someone of my advanced years though. My lower back is still aching from standing still for that long.

As one would expect from “The Creative Genius Behind Pink Floyd” (which is what it said on the tickets and posters - a lesser man than Roger would be embarrassed), the light show was great. Also had a big screen thing going on. Oh, and a flying pig that was expertly piloted by some unseen guy with a remote control.

He played a ‘new’ song (or, at least he claimed it was new - a claim he also made last time I saw him play) called ‘Leaving Beirut‘. What a load of shite that was. Banging on about Bush and Blair with all the subtlety and song-writing ability of a love-sick teenager penning his first ballad about why the pretty girls don’t talk to him. I’ll go on record as being a big fan of Waters’ songwriting but this was just shite. And, just to make sure we all got the message, the lyrics were projected on the big screen at the back of the stage as he sang. Toss.

That aside though, it was damn, damn good. He eschewed all but a couple of his solo songs and did mostly Pink Floyd songs. Played through Dark Side in its entirety and threw in lots of other Floyd stuff. All things considered it was a good night.

Those things that needed to be considered however are these…

1. Why some people are at gigs?
   While taking a piss before things kicked off, I overheard the following conversation between some dopey bloke and someone that just happened to be pissing beside him.
   Dopey Bloke: So is this Pink Floyd tonight or what?
   Bloke Pissing Beside Him: Erm, no. It’s Roger Waters.
   Dopey Bloke: Roger Waters?
   Bloke Pissing Beside Him: Yeah… He used to be in Pink Floyd.
   Dopey Bloke: Oh, right. And he’ll be playing tonight, yeah?
2. Why are people morons #1?
   During a foray into early Floyd material (Set the controls for the heart of the sun), the big screen thing showed lots of images of the early incarnation of the band, including poor, mad, dead Syd Barrett. A bloke behind me shouts at the top of his voice, “Syd. Syd. Alright Syd? Syd. Alright?”, as if he were shouting to a mate at the other side of the room. I wanted to tell him that, even if Syd were not mad and dead, that wasn’t actually him on stage but a big picture of him. Moron.
3. Why are people morons #2?
   After moving to a more advantageous location, we ended up standing in front of some other moron - this time one who insisted on playing air guitar for everything, and I do mean everything. Not just air guitar though, he also sang every note (very badly). Every riff, every lick, every solo was echoed badly from right behind. Loudly. There was considerable PA power there and yet I could hear this fuckstick above it. After it became obvious that he wasn’t going to shut up, I turned to ask him to keep it down but noticed then that he was so far gone that he was pretty much oblivious to everyone around him. I’d committed though and politely asked him to shut the fuck up. Made no difference.
   Over the course of the next few minutes, I think the crowd-tide moved me or him sufficiently that I couldn’t hear him any more but, I garner from the fuming of one of my gig-buddies afterwards, he didn’t shut up. The obnoxious cunt.

Still though, good gig.

I am not in work. It is Tuesday and I am not in work. I do not need to go to work for five months. How joyous.

It is Day #1 of my career break (as yesterday was a bank holiday, I would have been off anyway and so I’m not counting it). So far today, I have not worked. I have slept until 10AM and have arisen and partaken of a leisurely breakfast of Superquinn’s very tasty smooth white pudding (lumpy bits in pudding are the work of the devil) mashed up on some toast with a little ketchup. I have read some of my book and have done very little else. This afternoon, I am contemplating some sitting and perhaps a magazine, but I don’t want to set any rigid plans.

I made it through my last day of work relatively incident-free. I had a regular monthly meeting scheduled for 9:30 with my boss and some colleagues. I looked disinterested and annoyed all through, as I have for all previous iterations of these meetings. Had a nice long lunch with the few people there that are actually like real people instead of the myriad tossers that occupy the rest of the work population. I handed in my badge and gun to Dolphin Skin and he reminded me that, should I return, my work would be rich and rewarding and would not be the mindless drudgery that has occupied me for the last six months. Then, to my colleagues for fond, if slightly awkward, farewells. There were some hugs and some manly handshakes.

And that was it. So begins the next five months. A new chapter. A glorious, glowing, incandescent chapter, full of hope and smooth white pudding. A stress-free chapter of lie-ons and good books. It’s going to be great.

So where’s the fucking sun gone? Bloody Irish weather.

It’s arrived. The last day of work before my career break. After today, there looms five months where I don’t have to set the alarm clock. Five months of not having to drive to this stool-tube of a company. Five months of not putting on trousers unless I am feeling particularly formal.

In detective and war movies, this is typically the most dangerous day however, and so I am being extra-vigilant. Even as I write, I am scanning the doors and the instant message logged-on list, ever watchful for the surprise meeting or the Columbo-like ‘one last thing before you go’ job.

How will this blogging lark be affected by my absence from the workforce (if only temporary)? I’m not sure. On one hand I will have a lot more time to waste on informing upwards of six people about the trials and tribulations of my life. On the other hand, I won’t actually be working so my life will be less trial-like and will have considerably less tribulation. A lot of my posts have been related to work and my hatred thereof. There is, perhaps, only so much I can write about drinking beer in my underpants.

I have resolved to read Non-Working Monkey’s old posts (her early work, before the absinthe took its toll). I need to discover how to mesh the, seemingly unmeshable, activities of blogging and not working. Then, in preparation for my return to the workplace (although hopefully not the same workplace), I will study her sterling work on the apparent dichotomy of how to work while being non-working. I feel it may well take the span of my sabbatical and some deep meditation to fully internalise this tenet. I can only hope that that her wisdom and my beer are not mutually-exclusive.

Still denied. After my chauffeuring of some bloke to the client’s site yesterday and my spending the day there, I went to work today safe in the knowledge that at least the remaining four days run-in to my sabbatical would be a breeze.

Apparently not.

When I got in I found that a monthly meeting, supposed to be happening next week (therefore after I leave) was, while I was incommunicado on the client’s site yesterday, brought forward to today. This meeting is, at the best of times, a completely pointless, shambolic waste of everyone’s time as the chair (a ‘manager’) is a useless tosser. Three hour meeting with at least 30 minutes faffing about with him trying to locate the various attendees. I thought that last month’s would be my final meeting but they obviously decided that I wasn’t looking miserable enough lately. Arse.

Secondly, there was no Earl Grey in the canteen - they’d run out. What a jip. I need my Earl Grey as their normal tea tastes like gusset-washing water (not sure why).

Lastly, the vending machine stole a euro from me. Put in a two euro coin for a seventy cent pack of mints and it gave me thirty cent change. Even the machines are ganging up on me now. Except that there was a bloke behind me waiting to use it, I may well have inserted my foot into it. Thieving, sweet-monger bastard.

Someone’s taking the piss. They have to be.