Posted on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 at 2:23 am by Philip Devitt
I’ve been back at work for two weeks now and I’m already thinking about my next break. That’s not how I used to be, at one time you’d have to drag me kicking and screaming from work, but these days the monotony and beaurocracy get to me more and more and I just can’t be bothered with the seemingly endless stream of pen pushing that blights my day. I’m a code monkey, I do code; I used to be quite good at it: knocking up symphonies of logic and procedure that would calm the sea of a hectic business’ needs. But these days I just bang along to the tedious plinky-plonk of “Chopsticks” being played badly on a mis-tuned piano. Its hardly inspiring.
The only restbite from all this monotony comes courtesy of my uncle Terry, who, due to his unfortunate and untimely passing, has provided a good reason to escape the insanity of work for a day. Some would say that sounds rather callous, but I would happily repeat the last ten years of madness and misery to spend just another few hours with him, chatting over a pint or two about his new found happiness for the Spanish town he’d adopted. Goodbye and Godbless uncle.
The second hint to the disasterous year that may be ahead can be summed up by a line from the Bolton Evening News: “Arsonist Strikes Twice At Party House“. It appears that one of my distant in-laws was throwing a new years party and things went ever so slightly wrong — twice! Needless-to-say, the next time they’re thinking of throwing a party they’ll remember not to play “Disco Inferno”.
I’ve also just found out that one of my old collegues got married before the new year. Speaking as your humblest baggage monkey I would like to wish you all the happiness in the world.
While I’m on the subject, anyone who’s in the unfortunate position of needing to write a wedding speech could do a lot worse than taking a look at these “How To” guides. Afterall, not all of us have the witt of PG Wodehouse.
Posted on Wednesday, December 20th, 2006 at 2:23 am by Philip Devitt
I’m older, and its official. Too be honest I can’t say I noticed the clock tick past midnight or even felt the weight of another year fall onto my shoulders. I was too busy reading. For the first time in a long time I decided to get out my dusty old omnibus of “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”.
I must have read Douglas Adams’ adventures of Arthur Dent half a dozen times during and after my student years. Whether I’ve read it or not I’ve always taken it with me on long haul flights and car journeys partly for entertainment, partly as something to take my mind from whatever tedium I’m forced to endure, but mostly because it reminds me of home; sitting back on the sofa with a warm mug of coffee, trying not to nod off before the next chapter.
It’s often tag-lined as being “A Trilogy in Five Parts“, not quite as catchy as “A Trilogy in Four Parts” which it used to be known as but at least its accurate. Too be honest I was never enthralled by the fifth and final book “Mostly Harmless”. I never got over how easily Adams dissolved Fenchurch — I understand how a miserable Arthur is probably better from a story-writers perspective but I think most readers wanted her to stay for a little longer. If there was an absolute requirement to bump her off Adams could have at least give her a decent death. Maybe having her eaten by the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal while a helpless Arthur tries not to peep under the towel covering his head. Thankfully I have to read through four more books to get to “Mostly Harmless”.
So what has the last twelve months brought me? One on the biggest changes has been the introduction of my neice. Babies are very strange creatures; how can something so small have such an emotional affect on those around them? I’ve recently been thinking of what my main uncle/godfather duties are. So far I’ve come up with these three rules:-
Admitedly the second and third rules don’t really apply until she can a) converse to a limited degree and b) understand the concept of money, but I think the first rule should be enough for the moment.
What do I think the future will bring, to answer that I need look to the past. There are two main aspects that I would like to change; work and play.
Firstly regarding my career: For the last few years I’ve been playing a game which is now getting a little repetative and I’ve finally come to realise that I don’t think I’ll win anytime soon and now is the time to either change my hand or find a new game to play. Maybe I need a totally different game genre to help whet the edge I’ve allowed to dull in recent years.
The second aspect of my existance I need to address is my playtime; I need to concentrate on the teachings of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and find me what every pirate should have. (Is that “a parrot” I hear you cry?) I needs me a wench. Preferably buxom with a large bank balance and a vested interest in her fathers whiskey distillery, but I’m not really that choosey anymore. Anyone who makes me smile, shows me the world, or keeps change in my pocket will do.
An old friend of mine has some interesting views on the current state of popular literature on his website.
Posted on Friday, December 8th, 2006 at 10:26 pm by Philip Devitt
It’s that time of year again; a fortnight before Christmas and I can already sense the ghosts of yuletides past creeping up on me and bringing back memories of yesteryears seasonal sins. The only redeeming feature of this “holiday season” is that I have somehow managed to avoid taking any vacation time off work and have a stupidly large number of days to spend. I don’t know why I bother, I never know what to do, but at least I can do it without having to wake up an some Godawful hour of the morning. Its the mornings that get to me; 9:00 o’clock and it’s still dark, dank and miserable. The evenings aren’t much better, or lighter.
How come the term “Holiday Season” has started to creep into the language? I can recall there being winter, summer, autumn and spring but have no recollection of “holiday”. I believe its because some poxy conservative white protestant bureucrat is afraid to remind people who have migrated to this country that this once great nation is primarily made up of white anglosaxon Christians. Whilst most of these Christians are not wholly devout the majority do like to be reminded of the story (and I repeat STORY) of Jesus.
Christmas is a celebration of a time when some poor unfortunate Jewish girl was knocked up in time for Chanukah and was so afraid to tell her dad of adolesent springtime fumblings behind the goatshed that she figured it’d be easier to say an angel had “visited” her. The only real difference between now and then is that most petrified impregnated teenagers these days haven’t got the nerve to blag it; let’s face it, your benefits are bound to be affected if you put down “God” as the father.
Enough misery for now.
Posted on Tuesday, October 10th, 2006 at 1:41 am by admin
I woke up this morning and turned on the TV. As with every other morning before it I started to nod off again, there’s something about early morning TV shows that encourages you to sleep — maybe it’s that Fiona Phillips women. Anyway, just as I’m settling down for a wee morning snoozette I became aware of a great evil. Suddenly I felt a shiver run down my spine. Infront of me I could see a red mist rolling over the Lancastrian horizon and hear the faint footfalls of some heavily laden beasts. Then all became clear. Somehow North Korea had test fired a nuclear weapon — who in the name of Jehova gave these people nukes? A couple of decades ago the most technologically advanced weapon in the whole of Korean involved a great deal of elastic and some bits of bamboo. Finding out that North Korea had let one off was somewhat disturbing, but not as disturbing as the wave of nausea that flowed over me when I realized what had to come next.
Posted on Monday, May 29th, 2006 at 5:05 pm by Philip Devitt
After spending the previous weekend in Puerto Banus on a company paid back-slapping exercise I was disappointed to find that the my “man flu” was making a return for the upcoming weekend. While in a muscus filled delerium I was acosted by ones heavily pregnant sister to go see “The DaVinci Code”. Good Jesus, it was tedious — I almost wanted the sister to drop the kid during the film so I’d have an excuse to get the hell out of there, but was reminded during the trailers that 6.6.06 was almost upon us and I could be uncle to the Devil’s Spawn — all she has to do is keep her legs crossed for another week.
I remember reading the Dan Brown book. From what I can recall it was a fast enough read with fairly short chapters (a mechanism to prevent yanks from nodding off) and a controvertial storyline that attacked the Catholic church and helped finish off the last Pope (God bless the little fella). I don’t get what the big deal is, so what if some bloke called Jesus had a ex-whore for a wife — as long as there’s tread on the tyres who gives a damn. Forgiving the questionably implausible storyline the film had two main failings.
Firstly, the female lead never got her kit off, not that the pigeon breasted French bird did anything for me, it’s just it would have made the film less tedious; and secondly, Tom Hanks never died during the filming. Surely if there was a God He’d have looked down on all of His creation and smited Hanks, preferably in a painful way. On second thoughts, maybe God just didn’t want to endure yet another “Hanks” mini-season on TV — which I’m hoping some TV exec would have the called “A load of old Hank”. Stay tuned for some “I’m a TOM HANKER” sudoku puzzles.
This weekend saw the first gathering of the St Mary’s old boys for almost 15 years — anyone who remembers St Mary’s (Radcliffe) and Peter’s/Monica’s (Prestwich) from the 80’s and 90’s are welcome to have a beer with us during our next meeting — which will be announced here before the actual event happens. I’ll also be converting the www.bonkers-in-bury.co.uk website into a forum and offering email redirects for anyone interested.
