Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

I have identified a technological oddity concerning the building I work in. We have what appear to be the only lifts in Christendom that are equipped with stealth technology.

I work on the 14th floor and because the building is occupied by a number of different organisations, each with their own security concerns, the stairs are out of bounds except during an emergency or a fire drill. It is important therefore that the lifts work properly.

I have noticed recently that the tones that announce their arrival on the floor have become more muted. If you are talking to someone it is easy to miss them. In fact it is easy to miss them when you are on your own unless you happen to be looking directly at the lift doors as they open. The internal lighting is subdued and the internal walls the same colour as the doors, so at a quick glance down the line, it is often only the actual movement of the door opening or closing that tells you which lift is present. Ironically, as the doors close, there is an electronic voice that tells you it is the 14th floor and the lift is going down. That recording is very audible indeed, so you know precisely which lift it is that is just too far away for you to get to and jam a leg into the closing doors to stop it leaving.

The cunning part is that as you get there another lift at the far end of the lobby will have arrived and will proceed to announce its departure in the same fashion. You can’t double bluff these lifts either, they are both stealthy and cunning.

Programmed for your inconvenience by the Karma Pixies^TM.

[Poll #982135]

Posted on behalf of fencingsculptor and amended by me.

Much to my surprise, the time passer I set myself on our awayday (LJs passim) seems to be reluctant to die.

Therefore, today's word is THOROUGHFARE.

No two letter words, brand or proper names, please. Foreign words only where they can be demonstrated to have been accepted into English usage (ie a dictionary).

Go. Waste time on this instead of working.

That is all.

The world is all topsy-turvy again today. Only in a small way, but nonetheless the natural order is subverted just a little.

Outside the summer temperature and humidity levels have dropped to comfortable levels; there is even rain about (I had to use my tote brolly this morning). In short, it is overcast but pleasant; a proper English summer’s day with none of this semi tropical heat blowing across Spain and the Bay of Biscay wafting desert heat and dropping sand on us. It’s cool, it is damp and it is English.

Contrast this then, with an office where there are no opening windows, an office where the powers that be switched the air-conditioning off over the weekend while the weather was still ripe and Mediterranean, and have now either forgotten to switch it back on or have left it so late that it will have no realistic effect until tomorrow (probably midday tomorrow, bearing in mind that the system closes down at 6pm every evening).

The place is not fit for people to work in, though should these conditions prevail I might be interested in investing in a couple of sacks of potting compost and try my hand at growing tomatoes.

The air is oppressive and I am developing a mild headache. I don’t think it’s dehydration: it’s more like that feeling you get before a good thunderstorm, though I think we can all remember how well my predictions worked on the weather front (for once, no pun intended) a while back. Beside, my dickey foot isn’t playing up.

We shall see. Anyway, it’s games night tonight, so I shall be out of here around 4 ‘o’clock both to ensure that I am home when people arrive, and to give me the opportunity to nip into the pharmacy and order up a new prescription. I hope they have the renewal slip, as I don’t and I don’t fancy nipping down to the doctor’s surgery since they will want to know why I haven’t arranged the blood test they asked me for back in January¹.

In other news, I seem to have inherited a couple of silver plated cigarette cases from my ex-boss. They are the sort that you would see people using at posh do’s in the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s to show that they were big city sophisticates. That always struck me as odd even as a child; since I lived in an area that was semi rural in parts and strictly working class elsewhere (we had a colliery just a mile down the road, and open farmland a mile in the other direction. There was a sewage farm out there too, which could be quite exciting when the wind swung round to the north west as it did on occasion)² and the height of sophistication was to eat a pot noodle in front of the telly while drinking a glass of something you had to uncork.

Like people, cigarettes were smaller in those days. You can probably get Woodbines in these cases, or even Players Navy Cut. You’re damned if you smoke something with a filter and king-size are definitely beyond the pale. Super kings? I don’t think so. Not even with the filters ripped off.

I guess they will make good props for role-playing games, if ever there are any of the correct periods. It does occur to me that I could fill them with roll-ups, but Golden Virginia goes really dry after a while if you aren’t careful and it’s like smoking a taper, which can be exciting if, like me, you sport a beard and moustache.

Onwards and upwards, I suppose.

Look busy, Bryan. Look busy; seventy-five minutes and you’re out of here...


¹I shall actually arrange it sometime over the next month, it is just that doctors do so like sticking needles in one and extracting random fluids for their arcane practices. While this is probably natural for the profession, I dislike being a pin cushion to their whims and maintain a strict policy of allowing myself to be punctured and have blood extracted but once in every twelve months (unless I have Legionnaires Disease or something like that, which is entirely possible with this air-conditioning). Anyway, the anniversary of the great bleed is coming up, so I fancy that I have regenerated enough red cells to be able to indulge the quack for another year.

¹Mind you, the fields around there were VERY fertile. The earth was black where the slurry was ploughed under, and after letting it lie fallow for a couple of years the farmers could grow strawberries the size of er… big strawberries.

This doesn’t really bode well at all. When I woke up this morning – after the ritual yawn and the obligatory hour sitting around muttering OGodOGodOGodOGod (the closest I’m likely to come to a prayer most of the time) I thought to myself about all the bits and pieces I need to do in the office this week. I had a plan.

Now I’m here, I just want to go to sleep. I’m on my second cup of coffee and I have been here a mere 55 minutes.

Part of the problem, I think, is that I didn’t get my thunderstorm last night. I was looking forward to it and it never came. The telltale pressure behind the eyes wasn’t so telltale after all (maybe I should invest in a pine cone) and probably had more to do with blood pressure and/or dehydration than it did the weather. Thinking back on it, I should have known. My dodgy ankle didn’t give me gyp in the way it usually does just before a good storm, but I was so looking forward to a good downpour and CGI quality lightning that I let that wash over me.

I don’t know what today holds weather wise, but I hope that any potential storms will hold off until I’ve got home this evening so that I can enjoy them properly. They are wasted at work while I am in an air conditioned cocoon.

This coming lunchtime I must away to the bank and cash a couple of cheques that are now perilously close to their expiration dates. I am lazy, but I am not rich, so although I can effortlessly hold off cashing them for three months, I cannot afford to maintain that level of laxity. This will take me past The Army and Navy on Victoria Street, so I shall pop in there and investigate the price of England shirts – all previous attempts to make that purchase having been thwarted by a combination of poor luck, bad planning and general incompetence.

I am going to go and have a smoke now and then I suppose I ought to at least attempt to do what I am supposed to be here for.

Games night tonight, though. Clear off home early. Fantastic.

I wonder when they will start noticing that I am going home early twice a week for the same games night…?

Ah, me.

Today I was supposed to be tidying up in The Tower. I guess there will still be time later on, but for now the cricket has taken over. Instead of doing anything constructive, I have been slumped in front of the TV watching England make a meal out of finishing off the Aussies' tail end. Still, at tea, the Aussies are all out, and England have the paltry target of 129 to win. Being England, I fully expect them to make a meal out of that, too.

In the meantime, I am going to nip across the road to Waitrose and buy a few provisions, before the final session gets under way properly. I have spent too much of today courting DVT, the change will do me good, even if it's for no more than 20 minutes.

Later, peeps.