November 1 (Monday): Heaven's Chimney. I wake up on the first of the month, escaping from another freaky dream about work with Lindsey hugging up to Jack in order to get around him and get her way whilst I get the shaft. Maybe this is some kind of subconscious reference to the budget system at work.

This morning I crawl out of bed and I am cold! Just before I leave for work, I receive a last morning email and it is from Allen Blitters he has just read my mention of Fitz Of Depression on my blog and is getting in touch saying “hi” and commiserating about my impending surgery without even knowing what it involves. Oh dear.

The email ensures that I am slightly late turning up to work, almost making it in on time. It is Monday morning however and the very best I can achieve is a bronze medal for lateness.

I find myself dicking about at work for work. Three people have told me about jobs I can do but none of them are actually forthcoming with the goods. I have a number of jobs sat on my desk started but the biz is just not there to get them finished. I make phonecalls towards getting something completed but ultimately it doesn’t get me anywhere, sometimes some of our clients just are not equipped to deal with the most basic of bookkeeping and record retaining that it is a necessary evil of the job that we have to make certain estimates. There is a fine crossing line/level as to when this needs to occur and management have their bar set a lot higher than mine but generally after a few weeks of pursuing/chasing records/information we wind up back at step one where I had taken a job in the first place, unfortunately having wasted time in the process. I can’t help but think if there was a little more confidence surrounding myself, all this would be avoided.

This morning Alan is knocking about, so I talk to him at length and it really sounds like his little ‘un has improved but is still going through hell.

At lunchtime, I perform lunch on a budget, wandering into town with Steve and Louise. When we pass a costume shop taking down Halloween trinkets I point at a skeleton display and go “look, it’s Lindsey”. Stevo laughs his arse off but I am such an arsehole at times.

My afternoon is filled with Stevo telling me how he is the most cerebral person in the office. This coming from a person that insists on calling me arrogant! And like a dog with a bone (not phone) he doesn’t let this go. Eventually I have enough of all this and reel off a list of jobs/clients that he has performed that have experienced many hic-cups. He points out that all these jobs are clients of Who but then he shuts up and gives me some peace for the afternoon.

Who actually comes over (in fine fettle) to Chernobyl at one point in the afternoon, telling me how happy the guy at Acme Maintenance in Mildenhall is and how he thinks the daughter fancies me. I snap back sarcastically “really?” but he seems to think that I am being serious and begins to backtrack, seemingly worried I might try it on or something.

Stevo starts up again late afternoon, so my retort this time around to begin calling him “Stig”. The day ends with me spending all hours pottering around on an existing job, Acme Newsagent which is just around the corner from where I live, and I don’t really accomplish anything as by the fifth day of working on the most incomplete of records, it has reached needle in a haystack time.

Stevo doesn’t give me a lift home tonight, he works late. Or maybe my Stig comments hurt home.

I get home with the intention of putting a full evening into study. I pick up the books and scratch the surface but then another presidential TV show comes on Channel Four and I find myself transfixed. Why aren’t politics in this country as glamorous and interesting? And then this slips into satire as Dead Ringers shows the funniest comedy stuff about the election so far, not least for the guy impersonating Michael Moore doing an expose on Michael Moore. They have him down.

Early doors and I fall asleep before 10PM only to be awakened by Sara on MSN. She begins telling me about some 18 year old Australian that she is currently knocking about with called Jason (Freudian). Apparently this weekend they are going to the woods to shot at cats. That is so redneck. I ask her if she has ever seen the movie Gummo and obviously she hasn’t. If she had seen the film, then I’m sure she wouldn’t be going to the woods to fire at cats.

Richard also comes on MSN, having just got in from the London show The Evens are doing on this tour. As expected (and unsurprisingly) Richard reports that The Evens are shit. From what I have heard and seen on the net, it is arty boring bollocks in the name of being a tunesmith. Seems another old hero is fading away as Ian Mackaye becomes too old to do Fugazi.

Whilst talking on MSN, I find myself wandering into looking at (watching) incomplete porno files I am downloading of the weirdest stuff. I also find myself downloading Nine Inch Nails and Fudge Tunnel MP3s for some reason. I guess I have slipped into Fudge Tunnel mode because I read tonight that Alex Newport produced the latest Ikara Colt record which sent memories flooding back to the cold Saturday night spent at the Soundhouse last year when Allen dragged us all down to see the band (who actually turned out to be really good in the end).

I also received an email from a lady in America called Leslie. She does this blog called She Said What? which I think is fantastic. She tells me that she has read some of my blog and that I make England sound really “appealing”. I wouldn’t have said/thought that.

I go back to TV and Father Ted tonight is the “Speed 4” episode, which is always good for yuks. Following, tonight on The Sopranos is the “Long Term Parking” episode which I half heartedly watch as I continue talking bollocks on MSN with Sara, now to the point of telling her she will shoot her foot off if she touches a gun and that I think she is more likely to wind up humping this boy in the woods rather than actually shoot any cats.

Past midnight and Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex is on BBC 1. For some reason, this is one of three Woody Allen films on terrestrial this week. Has he passed away or something? Whatever, this is probably one of my least favourite Allen films but I still half heartedly watch it as I struggle to get back to sleep and, for the longest time, fail to do so.

np: Velvet Underground – Beginning To See The Light