“You’ve got to listen to me! Elementary chaos theory tells us that all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok in an orgy of blood and kicking and the biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving.”
The Simpsons, Professor Frink
I’m not sure how long we’ve been in our new messroom now, a few weeks? I could look back, but I’m lazy. Anyway, after making a show of conforming to what the managers want (sitting inside, not messing around with the furniture etc) we have started to decorate and adapt, to bend our environment to suit what we want – after all, that’s what gardeners are good at.
I nicked a chair that was in one of the gardens, left there by a resident, and moved it inside so I don’t have to sit on one that slowly tips me off. We found two benches abandoned and put them outside in the shade. We emptied out the tin shed of bikes and unused cleaning products and turned it into a smoking room for when it’s raining. Mateo fixed a broken table and we put that between the benches. We even put a few paving slabs down, and added some plants, tinsel and an umbrella for decoration. It looks great.
The only downside is now the managers like to come and sit with us. Never more than one at a time, I don’t think they like sitting with each other.
Word of the day: labtebricole – living in holes
“Sticks and stones can break my bones and I have my Swiss Army Knife if they hit me and if I kill them it will be self defense and I won’t go to prison.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Nothing happened today. Zero. So I thought I’d share some unusual inspiration. Usually inspirational quotes make me feel lonely. Like peering through the window of a party I’m not invited to because I don’t relate to the perky thinking. Not that I’m miserable, I think life can be beautiful and people can be great and possibilities are endless if we can figure them out. But all the gushing sentiment rings hollow to me. It’s twee.
Then I discovered online artificially intelligent inspirational quotes (ie a computer creates them using existing inspirational quotes as a template). They tend more towards the bizarre, the nonsensical and the cynical, which suits me to a t. And who can disagree with ‘Choose not to be horrible’?
And this is something we all need to remember, right?
Word of the day: Afflatus – divine breath, inspiration
Just to sum up what everyone has worked out about the advert since it seems that it did make some sense if you’re more knowledgeable about markets, children’s books and life than me.
Calmgrove – the bear is Paddington who was from darkest Peru and could talk. I suspect this is an invoke sweet things trick to mask their devilish intent.
Jasper Hoogendam – Winnie the Pooh was originally from Winniepeg, hence the name. Not in the ad, but still interesting.
Colin McQueen – in rugby the Lions have a coach from New Zealand (kiwi) and the cheeky chicken refers to ‘having a cheeky Nandos’. I have no idea what either has to do with banks.
Shaily Agrawal/ – pointed out that bear is a market term for someone who takes risks. I don’t really want my bank to take risks, because that’s what caused the economic crash last time. Maybe that’s the subliminal bit, they rename recklessness as ‘open mindedness’ and then throw in the bear.
I, after a foolishly long time, worked out that being shut on bank holidays is what banks do.
So to translate
Keep an open mind because being open minded has opened doors to Paddington Bear, who’s secretly a risk-taking banker; rugby coaches from New Zealand; and a cheeky Nandos. Now is not the time to batten down the hatches, it’s time to stay open, except when we’re shut. Because we are not an island, well we are, all the surrounding water makes that clear, but people can still visit, which is nice. And the world is big, and it has bears and lions, unlike the UK which only just got bears and has no lions to speak of.
Having a wander, I came across this vehicle. Odd decoration, I thought. I walked around the side and found this.
Ah, a zombie outbreak response vehicle, I thought, handy. I carried on up the road and came across this huge bone just lying on the pavement, flesh all chewed away.
Luckily I’m not particularly scared of zombies, they’re very slow, they can’t be that difficult to avoid, but I know where the zombie response vehicle is if I need it.
I used to have a boss who had a phobia of the zombie apocalypse. He had escape plans worked out. Whenever he stayed in a hotel he figured out where the exits were, where he could lock himself in safely and where food could be found. We once asked him if he had a plan for our workplace, and yes, he said he would barricade himself in the staff room, grow food in the glasshouse and use the tool shed to stock up on weapons. He had it all figured out.
‘And how about the rest of us,’ we asked, ‘do we figure in this plan?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘sadly you all died in the initial attack.’
‘Right,’ we said, ‘nice to know where we stand.’
Anyone else spotted signs of an impending zombie attack? I feel like there should be other signs.
“It is far more difficult to murder a phantom than a reality.”
Virginia Woolf
Word of the day: Alcherina – dream time
This afternoon I was playing the card game Shithead with Hamoudi and Jinjing. That game is known all over the world, turns out it’s even got a Wikipedia page. While we were playing (and I was winning, I want you to know) they started talking about their dreams again. About the sinister man who appeared in Jinjing’s dreams staring in through her window and then followed Hamoudi around the tube in real life. He is now ‘on the move.’
Rather than just being in her dreams, Jinjing has seen him in the street, on a roof and under her bed. Hamoudi saw him on the Central Line last night. While sitting in the bright kitchen playing cards and eating Bombay mix, they sounded to me like teenagers trying to scare each other with ghost stories. But now I’m back in my room sitting on my own and monsters from my own dreams have started scratching at the back of my memory. My dreams have been numerous and miserable recently, plagued with stress and sickness, but was there someone in them? A shadowy figure watching?
Nah, probably not. I suspect I’m just mixing it up with angry staring man from the train.
‘There is a point at which you have to stop preparing to do something and just do it.’
Embrace the Soul Backwards – Emily Stardust
So after the success/not success of talking to fabulous woman yesterday (I got a nod!), I decided to try with angry staring man today. For anyone not keeping up (ie almost all of the world) angry staring man is the smart dressed man who sits on the train staring straight ahead. Since me and him were the only ones not looking at our phones or a book, I felt we had a connection. Since he looks like he’s involved in all sorts of dodgy corporate dealings, I have been curious about what I could learn from him. So today was the day.
So I sat opposite him, trying to keep the expectant look off my face. Would he tell me about the secret shenaninagans going on at Bohemian Grove? Or the dirty deals between politicians and arms dealers? Would he explain where the tunnels lead underneath International banks?
My excitement lasted a happy moment as I looked across at him, prepared to demand his attention, and then…the happy moment wrinkled into one of sickness.
He stank! You know that sickly perfume they pump out in public toilets? Angry staring man smelt like somebody had poured a bucket of that over him. Or like that gross perfume they put on sanitary products for some twisted reason. I didn’t start a conversation, I was too busy trying not to breathe. And I don’t believe that anyone who goes to Bohemian Grove would smell that bad.
Word of the day: Graveolent – rank-smelling; fetid
A fabulous tiger lived in an oak
The more she saw the less she spoke
The less she spoke the more she heard
Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?
Word of the day: zoanthropy – delusion that one is an animal
Somebody brought a small hyperactive boy onto this morning’s train. Now I know it can be unavoidable, and I felt sorry for the poor mum who looked worn ragged beyond sense, but a kid on the morning train is never a good idea. Everybody is grumpy, groggy and quiet as commuters try to cope with the start of a new day. Just think of the bad karma this kid is building up to work off later in life, all those angry thoughts heading in his direction as he squeals and thumps the seats. No child can properly understand how rush hour trains are, and this excitable boy was simply confused why no one wanted to play. He’d run up and down the aisle trying to start conversations, until finally he spotted fabulous woman. She was sitting opposite me, attention on her phone.
Today, along with the orange striped hair and claw rings, she was wearing orange eye shadow a stripy t-shirt. She looked especially fabulous. Excitable boy stopped and stared for a bit, then said,
‘Are you pretending to be a tiger?’
Fabulous woman gave him an intense glare, one that must have cut right through his hyperactivity and into his soul, and said,
‘No. I AM a tiger.’
Excitable boy slunk back to his seat and stayed quiet for the rest of the journey, occasionally looking over to where she sat. Not fearful, but in awe.
I waved my head about like a snake trying to catch her eye. Eventually she looked over and nodded. Then she stared out the window for the rest of the journey, constantly ready in case another desperate situation called for a tiger.
“I find people confusing.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Word of the day: Bionomics – study of organisms interacting in their environments
Ok, so today I was going to do it, I was going to talk to angry staring man. I spent the walk to the station psyching myself up, I had a shortlist of possible opening gambits. I was ready. But as I walked down the aisle, I saw him sitting bold as brass and looking at his phone!
He must have known that was a betrayal, we don’t look at our phones! That’s what everyone else does, but we’re the nomophiliacs! We’re different! But was looking at the screen very seriously, as if he was getting some news of a corporate takeover of the mafia. Or plans to replace the Queen with a clone. Definitely something with huge repercussions for society. So can I forgive him?
You may be thinking, If angry staring man is so important, why is he taking the train, wouldn’t he have a chauffeured car? But that’s because you’re wrong and don’t understand the ways of angry staring man.
Anyway, so I went and sat opposite fabulous woman. I tried to catch her eye again, but she had a careful not-catching-eye demeanour. Maybe she is a celebrity and she’s sick of plebs trying to talk to her. Maybe she’s a superhero and is worried if she gets distracted by petty conversations she won’t be ready for when the villain tries to flip the train into another dimension. There is a black stripe in the middle of her orange striped hair now. Tiger!
I haven’t given up yet, but I’m not good at this.
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”
― The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Word of the day: Cynosureany – thing that attracts attention; object of interest
Was walking along one of our gardens when I came across a small face peering out. I let out a yelp of joy, which my boss interpreted as me getting hurt and she quickly hurried over.
‘What? What? Are you ok?’ she asked, frantically.
‘A cat!’ I said pointing to the fence, where a stone was nestled in the fence, a cat’s face painted on it.
‘Right,’ she said, giving me a look, she was not impressed.
On the back the cat says it wants me to record online where I found it, but I don’t want anyone knowing where I am – my paranoia has reasons. I think I’ll hide him somewhere else. Maybe to make up for it, I’ll add a few cat stones of my own. Or other animals, any ideas?
Oh and this evening when I got home, I discovered all the cutlery had gone and Hamoudi sitting in the kitchen looking desolate trying to eat some rice with the lid of a jam jar.
‘Jinjing says I’m not allowed to use cutlery until I stop drumming with it,’ he said.
‘What about me?’ I ask.
‘She says she’ll give you a spoon if you ask.’
inkbiotic 