Russel Grant is my friend

Now, this term is bandied about far too much, “oh, I met the Queen at the Palace the other day, it was so surreal” No it wasn’t. You were at the palace to meet the Queen. That is not surreal

Now I was on the toilet Twittering to the general universe about whether I should go and have some sushi for lunch and in a flash RUSSELL GRANT replies telling me I must.
THAT my friends, is surreal.

Abercrombie & Fitch

I have experienced a horrific vision of the future of shopping. It is truly stomach churning.

The Abercrombie and Fitch store off Savile Row is the most pretentious and overblown shop in London and that is up against some stiff competition.

For a start the grand stone building remains nameless. You just know it's there or you don't. You're in or you are out. It smacks of elitism before you cross the threshold.

Outside is a congregation of lumberjacks and eighties luminescence chic, a place to hang. It's a destination for tourists. It's the place to be. Apparently.

Step inside and you pass a half naked, very fit bloke who stands there looking pretty, showing you what you want to look like but can't. Cause you're not pretty enough. You will never be A&F good but you can spend a lot fooling yourself you can with their clothes.

Oh the clothes! They are woeful.

They look like the clothes Next and Burton were churning out 10 years ago. they are dull, samey, cheap and nasty looking bundles of tat.

They are layed out in grand, beautiful rooms which are so dimly lit, presumably to hide the fact that the threads are uniformly shit.

It's a tremendous building and with the right product it could be a wonderful addition to the sumptuous shops on New Bond Street. But they are selling cheap shirts and polo tops to vainglorious wankers who have been fooled into thinking they are buying into something substantial.

On top of the crush of wandering imbeciles being fooled out of their money every surface seems to have been doused by their musty mouldy mildew fragrance. It reeks.

The shop assistants stand around like some kind of Stepford family for the Top Shop generation. What they are trying to acheive has baffled me.

All I like to do on my lunch hour now is to stand and laugh at the fools and their money.

More running

I have started a brand brand spanking new regime.

I am running home from work every week day. That's six and a half miles every day, five days a week.

Then I'll do an 8 or 9 miler on Sunday.

It's so liberating. I am saving £150 per month compared to when I worked in Croydon. That's £1800 per year. And that my little bloggers is a fucking stack of cash.

Allied with burning around 5000 calories every week, I should have about a 2" waist come summer.

Let the good times roll. 

Snail Mail

My auntie contacted me today.

She contacts me about 3 times a year.

She contacts me by post.

How quaint is that? Snail mail the old-fashioned way.

I haven't seen her in about 6 years I think, and all this time we catch up. Very. Slowly.

So we cover the big topics. Ones which can be covered and then left to fester for a few months. 

What are you doing now, how was the snow for you, what does your wife actually do.

Three subjects and then pop a stamp on the envelope and put it in a mailbox.

Can't wait to know what interests her nowadays. 

I'll let you know in August.

Running update

Well last week was kind of a washout. I only managed to run 4 out of the 6 days and it's just not good enough. Only 23 miles were clocked up and that isn't going to get me round a marathon course in under 3 hours.

This week I have done 11 miles over Monday and today. I know tomorrow will be off the agenda as my mate is coming round to drink wine and download copious amounts of music. Then me and the wife will be up and out early. 

Thursday will be a 7 miler then Friday, Saturday and Sunday will see another 20 miles covered.

That's more like it.

My Barclays Bank complaint

In these times of economic difficulties, it would seem a good time to ensure that your customers are getting the service they deserve. If this applied to me, then you think I deserve to be treated like rubbish.

Let me list a catalogue of errors made by yourselves and then please let me know how you intend to make it up to me. i am feeling distinctly unloved, even though I give you over £20,000 of my money each year to mess around with. First, at the end of October last year, I was the victim of fraud. So I canceled my card and filled out forms for you to find out where the missing dough was. You never got back to me with the findings that this form was supposed to, ahem, find. Maybe it was an 'Inaction form', in which case, it did its work. My card took over a month to come through, following several phone calls, and if I may be blunt, balls ups by your Croydon North End staff. That's over a month without a debit card in the run up to Christmas. I don't have any loans and no credit cards (is that why you hate me?) so my current account is my only source of dosh.

Secondly, I ordered some statement copies so i could prove to a company that i had paid them a cheque so they would let me go on their course to better my life. One month later, no statements, but you took £5 out of my account anyway and sent me a sodding chequebook. Who is running the show there? Are you on Sir Fred type bonuses, lighting big fat cigars with my £5 bills and laughing? I could not go on the course, so you have set my personal development back 6 months. When I called to get the £5 back the guy on the end of the line finished the lengthy call with a sales pitch for contents insurance. I nearly laughed myself silly. It's all take take take isn't it with you lot. How about showing me some love. I even foolishly tried to set up a savings account nearly a month ago and still have not heard a peep from you.

What is wrong? Have I upset you? Did I steal your marbles when we were little? Please let me know why I shouldn't go elsewhere with my moolah. Yours, stultifyingly dumbfounded, Jim Emery

The marathon with no race

Today is the start of my marathon training. I haven't signed up for one yet, but that's just detail. I will be running 6 days a week and that will be a total of about 50 miles each week. I will let you know the ups and downs as I go. I started with a gentle 4.5 miler today and continue with a 6 mile run tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

Thank you so much - you're the greatest

Took in a bit of the old culture today in old London Town and visited the Photographers Gallery, just off Oxford Street.

The wife and I were making our way upstairs and a woman stood at the top, waiting for us to pass. I went up first and sort of nodded my head in a thank you type manner. Then my wife made her way past the woman and didn't make any gesture. The woman at the top of the stairs then said very loudly, "Well a thank you wouldn't be too much trouble would it?"

The goddamn bitch. I just said "Shut up, if you don't want to let people past without them giving you a fucking trophy, don't fucking bother." A smart come back. Now, I would only say this if I was in the right to do so.

The stairs were plenty wide enough for 2 people to pass each other. I had already said thanks with a nod of the head, she must have missed it. If you can't do something nice without expecting someone to bestow a knighthood on you then stay out of the being polite game. It's not for you.

I count myself as one of the most chivalrous people around and open doors for anyone who follows me. I don't drive, because I know I would still be at the same junction 9 days later, letting people out. To have my good name besmirched like this was grossly unfair.

Still, I was happy with my reply and that's the best one can hope for in a situation such as this. 

Waiting to go

Time does go slow when you don’t do any thing all day at work. At home it just flies by, you can be watching every single episode of a series of 24 and it would only seem like about 5 hours. Here, the time may even be going backwards.

My new boss said I can go straight after lunch, which, for me is 3 o’clock. Great stuff! That means I can go home, get changed, have a 6 mile run in the sunshiii-iine, shower, changed, and then be at the National Gallery for 6pm, where I am to get right cultured up. Init?

As I type this, I have just received an email inviting me to an Employee Of The Year awards dinner at the Marriott hotel in Birmingham a week on Thursday. I nearly laughed myself silly. I have been offered an award for my work for charity (I did a half-marathon last year). What a thoroughly, bloody decent bunch of people.

Work and its downside

Work is OK. In fact its more than OK. I don't mind it at all. It gives me the freedom to my university work, scan most of the internet, send amusing emails to my friends and every so often a little bit of actual work to break the monotony of free time. Then I get problem people, in the past they get the hint and leave. This one isn't going anywhere. He's a stubborn kind of fellow and acts like a big girl's blouse. We have barely said a word to each other for weeks. I like to think it doesn't bother me and the actual situation, taken on its own doesn't. I can sit there without saying a word to him for years. But as part of a pretty fantastic life as mine is right now, it's a spanner in my well oiled works.

Home life is peachy and I keep myself busy twittering, blogging, keeping fit, going out with the wife, watching 24, writing essays, speaking to friends. It's all so easy at the moment. And Lord knows I love an easy life. So, what to do? Well, I can't go into too much detail yet, don't want to jinx any impending decisions, but I am being proactive about it. Until this happens I will just have to tolerate this thorn in my side and pretend I like the people in my office more than I usually do, just to spite him in a weird way. And I know he's doing the same thing. Strange days indeed.

The next week could be a stunning success or an absolute, numbing headache and ballache for me. But at least I have the ball in my court and I am doing something about it. I'll let you know as soon as I do.