Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Well, that’s that. I suppose I now have to rewrite the bio page for this journal as I have now tipped into the early stages of my sixth decade. Lawks a mercy, Mama, I don’t feel that much different in myself to when I was 18, except that I no longer hanker after flares and platforms and cannot tolerate vinyl-covered wallpaper with big orange flowers on it. Despite myself then, the march of fashion and taste hasn’t passed me by completely, though it has to be said that flares suited my tree trunk legs far better than drain pipes ever did or will.

Like the Monarch, I am celebrating my jubilee twice. The actual day was yesterday – thanks to those of you who expressed good wishes; a shilling goes to the karma pixies on each of your behalves, to placate fate and all that – and the official celebration will be as advertised on Saturday, though due to weather concerns and the credit crunch, I have cancelled the fly-past by the Red Arrows and the Battle of Britain Flight and the band of the Coldstream Guards will appear by iPod only, if at all. I am also ware that inclement weather conditions currently happening to places north and west of the capital make it exceedingly possible that my London-based chums and I will have far more sarnies to eat than we can comfortably manage, but I am sure we will soldier on. In the meantime, grin fixed to face, I refuse to tempt the Lords of Fate and their servants, the Karma Pixies by complaining.

Yesterday day time was insanely busy, which is why I restrained myself to a single friends-locked post about work and the increasing surreality (apparently I have just coined this word) thereof.

In the evening, Furtle and I celebrated by watching wall-to-wall episodes of 24, as it is at far too exciting a stage to allow such things as birthdays to divert us from it, and eating peppered steak and home made stilton potatoes with peas and a very passable Madeira sauce. The potatoes were made to a recipe concocted by Furtle herself. While they were warm, I awarded them three forks and two tines on the chobble-ometer, but when we snaffled the cold leftovers a little later, I revised my opinion to four full forks.

I find myself now in possession of much tribute for my jubilee: an acrylic Belkin case for my iPod, the complete Cadfael DVD collection starring everybody’s top-five old thesp, Derek Jacobi, plus the Dr Who “Beneath the Surface” box set, including one Davison and two Pertwee adventures. I am looking forward to exploring these discs, particularly the Cadfaels as it seems that Furtle never saw them, though she has read a few of the books.

I’d better get some work done now; I was late in on account of signal failures on the Northern Line and suspension of the service between High Barnet and Finchley Central. No snow to blame today, simply rusty Edwardian equipment still in use a century later despite years of soaking us with above inflation annual fare rises.

Later, Dudes.

I should be working, I really should; I have a lot to get through.

However, I have just discovered that a job that I thought would be really rather easy is going to be a bit of a bugger, so I have decided to write here for a couple of minutes in frustrated petulance. I do not have much to say right now, you understand, but I have committed myself to some moments industrial strength time wasting, and I am damned if I am going to waste that time wasting by doodling or reading the paper when I could be doing this. It’s a matter of pride, see.

This is the awkward bit in not having anything to write about. I’ve already told you all the salient background to the entry, which means that I am now thrown back upon my own devices to fill out space. This is rather disconcerting, rather like the embarrassing gaps in conversation you get when you unexpectedly meet people you weren’t expecting, and can’t think of anything at all to break the ice.

Quite why that should be, I don’t know; it’s not as if we haven’t all had those moments of exasperated quietude which drops the whole world but yourself into bullet time, and stretches a minute out into a length of time that would make even the controller of the Northern Line blanch.

For some reason, the internet connection here in the office has been glacially slow these past few days and it is like being back on dial up, but without the comforting twitter of the modem.

Today is immerwahr’s birthday, though his actual age is a mystery, I expect him to be substantially younger than the average trilobite. It may be of comfort to know that he shares this day with Marcel Marceau (83), George Benson (63), Lord Lloyd-Webber (58) and, perhaps most impressively, William Shatner (75).

I have failed to come up with any witty comment about these people all sharing the same birthday, so I shall now return to what I was doing safe in the knowledge that I have wasted time to great effect.

A quiet day with nothing planned for this evening, and yet it's still better than my last birthday when I was up to my neck in packing and managed to down 3 aged cans of Stella Artois by way of celebration. I may organise something for next weekend when I'm back in The Smoke.

Or I may not.

Went to bed rather late last night - I was hijacked by BBC2 and their documentary on the making of Disraeli Gears which was very entertaining and not a little nostalgic. I intended to go to bed when that had finished, but picking up their theme and running with it, they followed up with a broadcast of the footage from Cream's reunion gigs at the Royal Albert Hall last May. Having seen it, I really rather regret not having coughed up the money to go (safe in the knowledge it's nearly a year too late and that I would still baulk at the prospect of shelling out around £75, if I remember my original objections correctly).

My birthday presents so far include a rather nice and very useful cash injection from Mum & Dad(admittedly it's birthday and Christmas pressie rolled into one, but even so...), and a "well you never said what you wanted" from my sister. Still, she gave me back the tenner I subbed her to buy a friend's birthday present, so it's not a total loss.

So far, other than having a slightly clearer view of the tombstone on the horizon, 47 doesn't feel markedly different to 46, though I did manage to feel vaguely ancient momentarily when Mum dug out a photo of me, my sister and my best friend at the coast, circa 1972 or 1973, aged 13 or 14. Yours Truly was lanky, gawky, had hair (though I'm not sure what I was doing with it - cracking basin cut style that it was) and was about 1/3 of the distance around the waist that I am now. Which is apt, I suppose, since I would have been more or less 1/3 of the age that I am now. I recall thinking I was fat back then, but an additional 30-odd years of lardiness puts it all in perspective, and if I was that weight now I daresay someone would drag me in for blood tests and a good feed.

Happy days.