Madness

[caddyman]

I wasn’t aware of it until I caught the Tube this morning, but my nerves seem to be stretched. I picked up the moment the alarm went off, that I would prefer another couple of hours in bed, but that’s hardly unusual. No, the side effect of having taut nerves is that my hearing seems (or rather seemed while on the train) to be unusually acute. This meant that the plum across the carriage who was seemingly intent on texting the entirety of the Encyclopaedia Britannica got my back up unreasonably. The keys on her phone were not, I think, that loud, but I could hear every letter and every correction she made and it was interminable. The glassy-eyed nimrod who sat next to me, listening to some repeated tinny tifter-tifter-cha-plunk-tifter-tifter on his iPod was clearly trying to remove earwax through the medium of sound. Thankfully he left to wander around north London in a dim world of unthinking bebop before we got to Archway. This left me still able to hear plum who was still diligently texting while we were underground, though the reverb from the tunnels damped the annoyance somewhat.

The Karma Pixies have decided that today should continue to be surreal. Our economist, who seems unable or unwilling to understand and embrace the concept of holidays (he books half days leave and works until 4, or full days leave and comes in late afternoon) has struck again. He booked this week off for a holiday in Spain. He bought the airline tickets and booked the hotel.

He changed his mind last night and is currently at his desk.

This place gets you like that. Still, mercifully there is no-one listening to an iPod within the range of my ears…