Office Christmas Lunch

Last night I was watching another episode of The Twilight Zone. This episode was called "Dead Man's Shoes" which was about a homeless guy who steals the shoes from a dead gangster only to find himself possessed by the spirit of the dead man, who wants revenge.

I got up quite early today and I was only in work for about three and a half hours this morning. The reason was for our office Christmas lunch. We went to a place called Smokestack, which was a really nice restaurant. I had cream cheese wrapped in smoked salmon for the starter, a medium cooked steak with french fries for the main course, and a large slice of chocolate fudge cake with ice cream for dessert. I had a pint of Tennants beer to drink. Originally, I had been expecting to be picked up by the police to go to a video identification parade in connection with my robbery. However, I had a phone call on my mobile telephone to tell me that the ID parade had been cancelled due to some legal problem. Apparently, they'll phone me when there are further developments. It just seems never ending right now.

After the restaurant we went to a bar called The Basement, which was quite nice. I had about three pints of beer, but I couldn't help feeling very concerned about the whole police business and everything. After that we went to a place called Lloyds where I didn't drink anything and left soon after. I got back home okay.

Still no word from Michele.

Thursday Could Be Interesting...

I watched a couple of episodes of The Twilight Zone last night again: I saw "Quality of Mercy" which was set in the Philippines at the end of World War II and starred Dean Stockwell as a really gung-ho young lieutenant who takes control of a war-weary band of soldiers and orders them to make an almost-suicidal attack on a cave occupied by twenty or thirty, mostly sick and wounded, enemy soldiers, when they could just as easily bypass it altogether. Then the lieutenant suddenly finds himself as a Japanese soldier two years earlier ordered to attack a cave full of American soldiers. Leonard Nimoy appeared in the episode in a small role. Then I saw "Nothing in the Dark" about an elderly woman living in a decaying flat in a condemned tenement who refuses to step outside the door, because she is convinced she is being stalked by 'Mr. Death', however when a young policeman (played by a very young Robert Redford) is seriously wounded just outside her door, she decides to take a chance. Finally I watched an episode called "One More Pallbearer", about an extremely wealthy and extremely unpleasant man who creates a nuclear bomb shelter and brings together three people he believes have humiliated him in his past, in order to trick them into believing that the world has been destroyed. They were good episodes, except for the ending of the third one which slightly spoiled an otherwise fine episode, by having one too many twists.

A solution has been reached about the situation on Thursday. Apparently after the Christmas lunch the police are going to come and pick me up from the restaurant (which should be interesting) and take me to the station, and after I've finished, they'll take me where ever I want to go and drop me off, so if people are going on someplace, or I want to go back home, or mum said she would meet me either at my parent's house or in town for a drink. Apparently, the guy they've got is wanted for a number of other crimes, so apparently it's almost certain he'll be put away for something, but I'm the only witness to my robbery (apparently the police haven't been able to track down the woman who helped me), so if he is the right one they'll pin that on him. I really, really hope that it is the right guy this time, because I really want it all to be over, so I can just forget about the incident as best I can.

I still haven't heard from Michele.

Some Concerns

The start of another dull week at work. Our office Christmas lunch is this Thursday at a place called the Smokestack, which should be nice. Or at least it should be, however when I got home from work today there was a message on my answering machine asking if I could go to a police station on Thursday for a video identification parade in connection with the robbery a couple of weeks ago. However it's this Thursday afternoon, the same time as my Christmas lunch (for which, I might add, I have already paid), and I don't really want to miss it anyway. I'll have to phone up tomorrow and ask if I can go to the police station on Thursday morning, which will mean taking a day off work, but I do want this all sorted out as soon as possible.

Also I have not heard from Michele for a few weeks, despite sending her two text messages and two e-mails. I hope I haven't upset her, but I honestly cannot imagine what I could have done, because we both had a very nice time the last time we met up, the same as we always have done. Also she's not the kind of person to just ignore someone. Maybe she's just been busy, I don't know. Although, to be honest, I can't help but feel a little hurt. I'll just have to see if she gets back in touch.

A Day Off

Last night I saw a few more episodes of the original series of The Twilight Zone: I saw "The Grave" a Western ghost story starring Lee Marvin as a hired gun who rides into town to find his quarry has already been gunned down by a posse, but not before stating that if his pursuer ever comes anywhere near his grave then he will rise up and get him, "It's a Good Life" a very famous episode about a small town in Ohio which is ruthlessley controlled by a six year old boy who can read minds and can make horrifying things happen to anyone who displeases him, "Death's-Head Revisited" about a former SS captain who visits the site of a concentration camp he used to run where he is confronted by the ghosts of his victims and "The Midnight Sun" in which the Earth is rapidly moving into the sun and humanity is facing a horrible death.

I had the day off work today for Emily's birthday. I went up with her present (a copy of Collected Ghost Stories by M.R. James), and we walked down to the Standing Order for a meal. We were a little too late for breakfast so I had some fish and chips with peas and a pint of beer. After that we looked around at some of the shops befor going our seperate ways. We had originally planned to go to the zoo but it was far too wet to do that, which was a pity, but it was a nice time anyway.

When I got home there was a message from the police about my robbery. Apparently they have got the guy that they think did it and has, apparently, been responsible for several other similar robberies in the local area. They wanted me to call back before four so they could clarify a few points on my statement, so I phoned back on the number left but it came back with a message saying "number temporarily out of order". I phoned the police station several times without any answer. Finally I did get through at about ten to four and the woman who left the original message wasn't there and so I left a message for her. They'll probably get back to me sometime on Monday I'd imagine. At least things are progressing anyway.

Back at Work

I went back to work today, for the first time since my robbery. The police phoned a couple of times. Apparently someone had been arrested had been arrested this morning for robbing someone else in the same area, and the description and method used by the robber matched what I had told them. A couple of police officers came to my work at lunchtime with some photos to see if I could identify the robber. The one that I picked out apparently wasn't the guy they have in custody, but they said that they would question him about what happened to me anyway.

The rest of the day at work was pretty dull. The same as usual, really.

Emily met me at my work and we went over to my place. We ordered a chicken supreme pizza, and watched the first fifteen minutes of Wes Craven's Last House on the Left, which Emily didn't really enjoy, so we replaced it with The Royal Tenenbaums, a 2002 film directed by Wes Anderson, about an eccentric family, whose three children initially showed signs of genius but their early success faded away as they all reached adulthood. It's a very quirky film, but I really find it very funny, and I think that Emily enjoyed it. She headed back home after the film ended.

As I wrote a few days earlier I have been thinking a lot about things over the past few weeks. I always think that one of my main problems is that I tend to be constantly afraid of what might happen, in any given or imagined situation. For some reason I always imagine the worst happening.