October 13 (Wednesday): We Regret To Inform You. Another day in Suffolk and I grab the bubble car Micra and leave Colchester at 8.15 (intended leave time 8.00) and head up the A14 to (yet again!) a soundtrack of accountancy teaching tapes. I arrive in Kentford just after 9.30, thinking that I have already passed the place.

My morning there goes really smoothly but still I do not manage to get away all that early, actually leaving around 1.45. On my drive back up the A14 I listen to Colin and Edith and some days these are just agreeable and not in the least annoying. Unlike the A14 which in my opinion is a road just as bad as the A12 any day.

Once I get back into Colchester, I stop by at the Highwoods Tesco and buy the most unhealthy of lunches: some reduced savoury bagel and a bag of Tesco Bombay mix. The hour hits 3PM and I find myself still eating lunch, any cohesive attempts at doing any work are rendered futile. Instead I sit down and write my English homework, much to the annoyance of Stevo. The problem is, the essay examining a Christina Rossetti poem “A Coast Nightmare� is due tomorrow and if we are going out to watch football tonight (Stevo has called off five-a-side as the England game begins at 5.30), there is no way I will be able to get it done in time. Still, this fact is not registered by Stevo who bitches like a cow and I even catch on my PC at one point, reading it like a sneak.

As the rain pisses down, Ben turns up at our office at 4.50 PM to watch football. We call him in and all attempts at work ends for the day. This afternoon, in addition to being arsey about my work, Stevo has been a total flake in deciding where to watch the football tonight, its not as if Azerbaijan v England is much of a crowd puller. I suggest the usual reliable haunt of the Wig & Pen but no, for reason that’s not good enough for him. Instead he has been suggesting going to The Dragoon or The Drury, for reasons only known to him because those two pubs are rough as fuck. As alternatives I suggest Quilters or The Curve Bar but no dice from Stevo there. Eventually we pull out and head to The Dragoon where Stevo embarrassingly asks Andy there if he is showing the football and Andy looks at him as if he is an idiot and says (in his gruff Scottish tone) “ain’t got Sky�. Eventually, painfully, we come full circle and wind up in the Wig & Pen. And I have to admit, I soon realise why Stevo was objecting, I don’t really like it there much either.

It doesn’t turn out to be the most memorable of nights, as uber pondlife chavs surround us as we all watch the most boring of matches with England looking even more dull than on Saturday. I as a result begin to tear into drinking and with each Stella get louder and more obnoxious, not really caring when the carthorse Michael Owen scores for England. Like a wanker, I even find myself cheering for Azerbaijan towards the end as England, through beer goggles, look more inept than ever. Three Stellas on and I find myself semi raging, just talking bollocks the whole way through the match. Light relief occurs when we look towards the entrance and there once again is the Hunter S. Thompson lookalike (now sporting a Russian hat) stood by the door peaking in, watching the match. As part of care in the community, someone please buy him a fucking beer and let him in the warmth! By the end of the game and England’s lacklustre 1-0 victory in the middle of nowhere, I am three Stellas strong and bang up for it. Outside the rain pelts down and there is a sudden urgency for food. Stevo steers us towards Sam’s Pizzeria on Crouch Street where we get treated to yet another winner pizza from the weird Eastern Europeans. Stevo and Ben talk football bollocks while I dig in, eating yet more unhealthy food (5/8 of the pizza), regularly checking my heart for stopping.

We stop by the office to pick up our and stuff and Stevo, the ever sport, gives us lifts home. I get in and I’m semi all over the show, these days I am the king of the lightweights. As predicted I accomplish nothing, only managing to watch this week’s episode of Arrested Development through beer goggles.

np: Brand New Heavies - Sometimes