November 5 (Friday): Please Don’t Kill Me. “I feel good today Silent Bob, gonna make some money, gonna fuck this bitch, gonna fuck that bitch”.

Friday pie day and I am chocka at work, suddenly I have a couple of sharp deadlines. This morning I am late leaving and almost late arriving but still I beat Stevo to the office, so ultimately who is any wiser.

Today all of a sudden I find myself working on three jobs at once, after a week of taking it easy, suddenly three jobs are foisted on my out of the blue and because I am on revision courses in King’s Cross next week, management suddenly want them now!

Work is a strange atmosphere today, not least for the lunchtime jolly up that the partners have with somebody from Pannell Kerr Foster. We watch as one by one, all four of them return and go off for a feast somewhere rubbing their hands together. Immediately hearsay kicks off and within minutes of their departure, rumours bounce around the mill. Recent developments in accountancy legislation are moving towards to firms not being able to audit accounts that they have prepared themselves. For years this seemed common sense to me but gradually I have come to see this act as common place within in firms, especially this one with its “unique” audit staff and audit methodology. Regardless of what turns out with the legislation, all expectation/word is that the company will lose a great chunk of work with regards to its biggest client (a very large group spread over Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and the London end of Essex). It didn’t occur to me until Steve points out suspicions of all the partners going for lunch with Pannell Kerr Foster. Ouch. Stevo debates out loud the likelihood of some kind of merger or sell out which, Michael Moore has taught us nothing, points towards some kind of downsize. Now, to be honest I have never really seen things in such a way at this level of operation but suddenly it could be change begat change. However I really try (want) not to be as paranoid/pessimistic as Steve, being more pragmatic at “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it”.

Alarm bells however ring when the subject gets further discussed as Ive comes over to Chernobyl and Stevo further needles/pursues the point. After taking a rational perspective on things, Ive pipes up with “he’s known the guy from PKF for years and the guy is just using up his entertaining budget”. All of a sudden, the story no longer makes any sense. Why would one friend take out all the partners of a firm? Ive is someone in the know at the firm and a real star player. He is in effect protecting his future investment everytime he addresses the subject of the firm with his colleagues (non-management). Suddenly paranoid thoughts seem more tangible.

For lunch, Steve manages to drag me, Brian and Iran to the Marquis, I take very little arm twisting even when I have very little in the way of payola.

The afternoon passes with very little incident, I remain banging my head against the wall trying to pull together three pretty poor jobs, one being accounts from three years ago where the old accountants are withholding records (if they haven’t thrown them in a skip) and another being James Brown, a client described by Randy Pan as “a pikey without a clue” who does not produce sales invoices or record income or maintain/retain cheque book stubs, a real money laundering no no that should be reported. And then I get grief from the partners when I make estimates on these jobs. No wonder I lack gung ho for my job.

As I’m away for the first part of next week, I attempt to leave my desk area in a tidy state which only prompts smart arse comments from Stevo like “has somebody told you to do that?”. Winker. I bag up all my stationery and take it with me just knowing that if I leave it behind someone (probably Drew) is likely to grab it. Things get between me and Stevo in the afternoon as I respond to his smart comments by digging at his work and calling him “Stig”. He addresses tomorrow nights birthday dinner at the “glamorous” Sloppy Joes and he makes the assertion “you’re not going to turn up are you?”. I don’t want to but I will but making such propositions is almost a dare to me, like showing a red rag to a bull. I guess we’ll see. The day ends tense between us for stupid reasons and I find myself unable to blag a lift home from him (there must be something up).

Upon getting home, I quickly bag my shit up (my cleaning mainly) and hop into my car and head home. I stop by via Highwoods Tesco where I buy the Teachers Season 3 DVD when really I can’t afford it. Monkey.

Eventually I get home to Holland around 7.30, pretty close to kick off for Millwall v Sunderland on Sky. Arrive home to the news that Santini has gone from Tottenham, Santini being the football coach/manager that looks exactly like Tackleberry from the Police Academy movies, making Spurs games that much more interesting this year and great nostalgia trips.

Tonight is Fireworks Night and boy do we know it. As I near Clacton on the bypass, I look around into the sky at my surroundings and from every direction in Clacton, the skies are being lit up with thousands of pounds of fireworks, it is a fantastic site. However back home, our (well, my parents’) neighbours are going through box after box of the fuckers. A pretty costly/expensive task I would imagine and pretty good for a family man on the sick dole with three school boys on the payroll (I’m just digging really because they’re West Ham fans). Strangely however, whereas the noise does not usually bother Snowy (the dog), tonight he acts utterly terrified, which goes against the grain because he is pretty much next to deaf these days. Oh well, it just makes him love us (his owners) that much more.

Millwall v Sunderland is fantastic game, not least because Millwall manage to snap out of a recent slump and win 2-0. The goals come from a Dennis Wise penalty and David Livermore as Josh Simpson really stars, having the game of his life whilst previously being a dubious entity at best.

That ends and from there on it all seems like a standard/usual Friday night watching TV. I lie on my parents’ sofa under a crap blanket and gradually fall asleep whilst watching Monday Night Raw or something.

I fortunately awaken at 2AM, just in time to set a video going to record some John Gotti movie on Channel Five starring Lorraine Bracco. It’s all good. Except for my crap night’s sleep.

np: Buffalo Springfield – For What It’s Worth