The Chaser

Last night I listened to an episode of the radio series of The Twilight Zone called "The Chaser". The episode told the story of a young man who is madly in love with a woman who is oblivious to him, until he buys a love potion which turns out to work far too well. It was a pretty funny story and very enjoyable. After that I listened to a story being read in a series called Classic Tales of Horror. This one was called "Man in the Bell" and was about a man who is trapped at the top of a church bell tower as the bell is rung.

Then I finished reading the graphic novel of The Sandman - Volume Seven: Brief Lives written by Neil Gaiman. The comic book series of The Sandman ran from 1989 until 1996, and tells the story of Morpheus, more commonly known as Dream, and also known as The Sandman, the Master of Dreams. He is one of the Endless, a family of immortal beings, who also include Death, Delirium, Desire, Destiny, Despair and Destruction. In Brief Lives, Dream joins his sister Delirium as she searches for their brother Destruction who abandoned the family 300 years previously. It is a great book, and I really thnk that The Sandman is probably the greatest comic book series ever made, and probably one of the best fantasy stories ever published.

After that I finished reading A Most Wanted Man by John le Carre. The book is set in Hamburg and concerns Tommy Brue, the wealthy owner of a failing British bank based in the city. One night he gets a call from a young lawyer, Annabel Richter, whose new client is an illegal immigrant from Chechenya, who has the key and details for the largest account in Tommy's bank. Tommy has to find out how the man came by the information and also why he is being trailed by three of the world's most powerful intelligence agencies. It is a pretty good book, and a fairly exciting thriller, but not as good as the classic le Carre novels.

Today was a really quiet day at work. In the afternoon there was a meeting about a new rewards scheme being implemented at work, which involves giving people gift vouchers. The meeting itself could have just taken twenty minutes, but due to all the questions, comments and debate it ended up taking an hour and a half.

We also all got new chairs, and they have hired consultants to help teach people how to sit in them. Despite the fact that they are pretty much ordinary chairs, and I would have thought that most people would already know how to sit in chairs. On the way home I got a pack of blank VHS video cassettes.

There is also a vampire series starting on TV this week called True Blood, which I have heard of before but have never actually seen, and that is followed by a new series called Generation Kill, created by David Simon and Ed Burns (the creators of The Wire), so that should be a good night on TV.

Empty Meeting

Last night I was really, really tired. I didn't really do any writing at all, aside from a few sentences, because I could barely see straight. Later in the evening I watched an episode of The Wire and that made things better.

It was another busy day at work. One good thing was that someone brought in ice-cream for everyone at the table. They were those Magnum choc-ices and they were really nice. In the afternoon I went to a Union meeting in the office cafeteria. There were only about seventeen people there, so it was a very low turn-out. Maybe because it was held during the late afternoon on a nice, sunny afternoon. There was a sheet passed around for people to fill in when they were going to be taking holidays during the next four months. I didn't fill the sheet in because I have no idea when I might be going on holiday.

After having such a long day at work yesterday I left pretty early today. I am going to try and do more writing this evening though.

Team Meeting

Last night I watched the sixth and last episode of the first season of Peep Show on DVD. It was a pretty good one with a long and rambling speech at a funeral about the singer Enya being a highlight. I also watched the second to last episode of Little Dorrit through the TV On Demand service. They always seem to have a big lavish serial on TV in the run-up to Christmas. They have very high production values and always attract a really good cast. I suppose adaptations of Charles Dickens novels are always seen as being really classy and are guaranteed to get good reviews and a lot of attention, also, for the actors, they always have loads of great characters in them.

I got into work fairly early today. It wasn't particularly exciting. There was the monthly team meeting about the latest happenings in the company, which basically consists of watching a ten minute video and asking questions about it. Last time the question and answer session took over half an hour and this time there were no questions at all. Then again, there was nothing in this month's video about the possible re-location of the office (although we are supposed to hear something about it before Christmas). These monthly videos are not the things that I've been involved in. I'm involved in the weekly news bulletins that are shown on an loop through the entire week in the staff canteen, apparently. It's almost certain to be quiet at work tomorrow because a lot of the offices will be out for their Christmas meals or parties or whatever.

On my way home I stopped off and got a take-out sausage in batter with chips, which is nice for a bit of a change. I ate it while watching The Simpsons.

Team Meeting

It was another quiet evening of writing and watching TV. At the moment I am up to 22,774 words of my NaNoWriMo novel, so that isn't too bad. I wonder what I'll do with it if I finish it. Probably end up losing it somewhere.

It was another average day at work. There was a team meeting this morning, which consisted mainly of us watching a video of the company statistics, they mentioned the possible accomodation move (for the record, the office accomodation move has been on the cards for the past ten years, and they have recently decided that they are going to expand into new premises, but no-one know where, or who is going and who is staying) however, they have apparently got a short-list of places, but didn't want to tell anyone where they were, for fear of prejudicing the lease. This provoked a storm of questions in the office and our team leader, who isn't really involved in the decision making for the higher up managers, was pretty much interrogated by about four people at the same time. I'd pretty much stopped listening to the rumours about the accomodation because they are pretty much unstoppable, and besides people can moan until they're blue in the face and it's not going to change anything. That took about forty-five minutes. I just spent most of the time thinking about other things.

On my way home I bought a sausage supper on my way home, which was quite nice.

It's strange to think that in a little over a month I'll be 30. It's a pretty depressing thought in a way actually, I never did half of the stuff I had actually planned on doing by this time, and time is probably starting to run out.

Another Meeting

Last night was pretty quiet, and I spent most of the time writing on the computer and watching television.

Another week at work started today and I had another meeting for the video news thing. We had lunch provided, which was nice. Mostly it was plates of little sandwiches, spring rolls, spicy chicken on sticks and small cakes. I don't know if there will be another meeting next week because of the strike, which apparently is still going ahead for next Monday. I got home at around quarter to six.

I'm currently at 4057 words on the NaNoWriMo story.

Comics and Documentaries

Last night I watched the first episode of a new three part TV series called Comics Britannia, tracing the history of British comic-books. This first episode dealt with the comedy comics for children such as The Beano and The Dandy, I can remember them really well. I used to read them when I was a kid, I especially liked The Beano, because I thought it was hilarious. The comic I remember buying every week was The Transformers. I must have bought that every week for over five years (until I was twelve and started buying Aliens). I used to go along to the corner shop every Sunday morning and get the six soft brown rolls for lunch, Mum's Observer and my Transformers. Back in simpler, happier times.

I also watched a documentary film called Overnight, which was about this guy named Troy Duffy, a Boston bartender who sold a script for a film called The Boondock Saints to Miramax Films for a lot of money and also managed to get his band signed to Madonna's record label. At first he looks like he has absolutely got it made, but it all starts to fall apart, mainly due to his own massive amounts of arrogance and paranoia. It's an interesting film, but it's really hard to have any sympathy for the guy, mainly because he is so unpleasant.

Today was another dull day at work. There were special team meetings however, about massive re-organisations that are coming up. No-one really knows where they'll be going or who their new bosses will be and so rumour and speculation are flying all over the place.

After work I went out to renew my bus pass for another month.

Start of the Week

My Mum had given me a week's worth of subscription coupons for The Times because my parents are on holiday and can't use them, so I went out and tried three newsagents and not one of them would accept the coupons, which was extremely annoying.

This afternoon we had the supposedly regular team meetings (they are supposed to be monthly but in reality they only happen maybe twice a year or so). Apparently the computer systems that were supposed to be installed by October have been put off, until about 2012, if ever.