Tops and Bottoms

They say that it takes two to tango, and so it was this weekend, as I was minding my own business, enjoying a quiet cup of tea, when suddenly there is a loud bang and I find that I am moving. First I am unexpectedly leaning back, without warning. Then when I upright myself and lean forwards, I am left at an angle, and somewhat askew. Something is wrong. Then, before I have a chance to investigate further, the wheels come off entirely and I am placed at such an extreme angle that I fall out of my comfortable chair and onto the floor.

Yes, my chair has broken. The self-same chair which I blogged about not so long ago (See: Executive Leather) fell to pieces with a bang, dumping me out onto the floor in a most unwelcome fashion. Of course it turns out that "not so long ago" when I bought the chair was actually January 2007, so it's out of guarantee. My chair is gone, and I need a new one.

Temporarily making do with a fold-up wooden chair which I keep on hand for just such an occasion, I once again perused the Argos catalogue to notice that actually they do still sell my chair. For some reason it's more expensive now, a costly £29.99 instead of last year's £24.99, but I expect that'll be due to the increasing worldwide price of the luxurious and entirely genuine, perhaps, leather seat which forms such a large part of the whole chair thing.

But the top half of my old chair is still quite alright, really. It's really just the hydraulics and the struts on the bottom which have fallen to pieces. And that's when it hit me. All I need is a new bottom.

Off to Argos I went (eventually), forking over the required £30 (which I paid for once again with Nectar points - hooray!) to be served by a nice young lady, probably fresh out of school, not yet old enough to look very interested in anything, and with a name badge which revealed that her name was "Kylie". I realise that we are generations apart. Me, old enough to remember when 'Neighbours' first started on British television, and the prediction that in the coming years there would be lots of parents naming their new babies 'Kylie'. Her, the first wave of grown-ups from that Neighbours generation.

Kylie handed me my leather goods, and I took them home. That may be the only time in my life that I ever get to use those words in anything I write, but I'm glad that I did.

Once home, I thought back to those heady days of January 2007 when I assembled this first chair. I remember how much of a nuisance it was to get the top together. And since all I really needed here in May 2008 was a new bottom, I decided to put the old top on the new bottom. It was much faster. And now I have a spare top which I can put in the shed to store in case I should ever need to replace it one day.

The long and the short of this rather dull (but supremely well-written, and hence fascinating) story, is this. Same old top, brand new bottom, on which to place my same old bottom. Order has returned to the world.

Shadows

You're not paranoid if they're really out to get you. So the saying goes, at least. Only the innocent have nothing to fear. Another popular saying, I think - either that or I just made it up on the spot like some kind of modern-day Jean-Paul Satre, expressing in just seven words the full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree ennui of our modern times.

But anyway, my point, and I do have one, is this. It's easy to be paranoid, especially in the face of shadows and loose suspicion, the best kind of incontrovertible evidence that there is. There was a period back in 2004 when I idly wondered if I was under surveillance by 'the man'. I don't know which man, it's just a saying. (A sample of my early writings from the time are reproduced below, by way of illustration.)

'Enemy of the State' written Monday October 11th, 2004 I can't help but notice that quite often when I am travelling on a train, there are people sitting quite close to me who don't actually have to show their tickets when the person comes to check them. It's because they're policemen. OK, now you expect to see the odd policeman now and again. But these guys are in plain clothes. And they're on the train. With me. A few seats away. Not just once, but twice now. And those are just the ones I've seen. Who knows how many there were who were less conspicuous and weren't flashing their badge around for anyone to see? The conclusion is obvious, ladies and gentlemen. I have been declared an enemy of the state, and am under constant surveillance by "the man". Yes, who would know that in the space of just six blog editions I would become a wanted fugitive, on the run from the authorities who would seek to silence my outspoken thoughts on spots, toilet paper, and the times of the sunrise in 2005. I am unsure how to handle my new found status. Nonetheless, it is clear that I am a dangerous man. The authorities cannot handle me, because I tell it like it is. I should take precautions, like scrambling my email so nobody else can read it, and only writing my blogs in code. Some would say I do that anyway. But if the authorities are intercepting this communication, my message is clear - my beliefs are totally changeable. You don't need to worry about arresting me or anything. Just slip an envelope full of tenners in with my shopping whenTesco deliver it on Thursday, and I'll say nice things about anything and anyone you like, even George Bush. I'll also stop talking about toilet rolls if you so desire. Everyone has their price, and I'm awfully cheap. Thankyou.

Alas, the envelopes of tenners never turned up. But anyway, just recently I've been plagued by a number of irresponsible japes by my irresponsible friends, saying all kinds of "hot words" on my phone line which, if the paranoid mantra is to be believed, is enough to cause lights to start flashing at MI5 and for your phone calls to be put under immediate surveillance, like the kind of dangerous subversive that you must be if you start talking about spy satellites and Zircon, Echelon, and that other one.. what's it called.. Ronseal, or something.

Now I am a law-abiding guy. I've served my country (by being badly paid to do essential filing for four years) and when it comes to the final tally, I'd like to think that I'm one of the kids who Santa will be including in the 'nice' column. But paranoia changes things - after all, I've seen all those films where innocent people get arrested without charge and hung upside down by their toes for six years just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And with this country becoming more of a police state by the day, the risk to a good boy's liberty from an innocent mix-up could be substantial.

So it was that a couple of phone calls this afternoon set off all my alarms. During a boring phone call with my colleagues, I was surprised to hear a high-pitched squeak, and then a regular beeping for about a minute or so. Then it went away. How strange, I thought. Obviously something wrong with the switchboard at work, or something. Or maybe they'd pressed the 'call record' button or something. But it went away after a while, anyway. I paid it no mind.

... until later. When I was talking to someone else, not from work this time. I'll change some names to protect the innocent but preserve the flavour of the narrative. So, anyway, it was noted supermodel Naomi Campbell, calling me from her carphone. She was on her way to a conference with the International Association of Supermodels but had left her notes at home. "Relax, baby," I told her, "just take a few minutes before the presentation to sketch out your prepared topics and everything will be fine."

She was very pleased with my solution to the problem, but in the middle of this phone call.. another high-pitched squeak.. and then another minute of beeping. Naomi of course could not hear it, and thought that I was some kind of raving lunatic once I started discussing the issue - at some length - since it was clear that something was very wrong and that this was a clear sign that I was absolutely under surveillance as a result of my stupid friends and their stupid spy satellite codewords. I would have to buy a trenchcoat and a funny hat, and go around talking in code. Farmer Brown Milks His Pigs By Midnight, don't you know.

What is a boy to do? It was quite a worry. I discusssed options with Naomi. Perhaps the International Association of Supermodels could hide me in their safe house. I could iron their underwear and make them egg on toast, in exchange for sanctuary. It wouldn't be such a bad life, after all. I'm sure I'd get used to it after a while.

It wasn't until about half an hour later that I realised.. I paid BT for 'call waiting' a few weeks ago. I've just never had a call that has needed to wait before. And today I had two - which is what all the beeping was. It means, "you have a call waiting, thicko."

Was my face red. Ignoring the fact that any kind of good surveillance and tapping of my phone line is going to be done in a rather more expert way than having lights and sirens and beeps going off while I'm talking (which is, frankly, rather a giveaway, and would be swiftly detected by even the most inexpert of master-criminals,) I was instead very pleased to find a good and true explanation for the previously unexplained strangeness.

I thanked Naomi for her cool head in this hour of crisis. "You need me," she said. And you know something? I think I really do.

Max Power

I've braved delving around the dusty areas behind the back of my desk, in order to make some wiring changes that should help to save the planet.

After all, I care about the monkeys and toucans and dolphins of the rainforest, and I want to ensure that their valuable and vibrant homeland is preseved in a good state for many years to come. Plus, of course, electricity costs big money these days, so saving the planet saves the pound in your pocket. There's nothing not to like about that.

So tonight I indulged in a little re-wiring. I've got one of those "intelligent socket" things - had it for ages actually, but never done anything with it until now. Anyway, what it does, it's got six power sockets on it, and one of them is special, because if the thing plugged into the special socket is turned on, it turns all the other sockets on. And if the thing plugged into the special socket gets turned off, it turns off all the other sockets at the same time.

I've got my PC plugged into the special socket. So when I turn it on, all the other things turn on - the modem, the scanner, the laserprinter, the monitor, the network switch, the network storage drive, and some other network doodickeries that are too boring to talk about here.

So far so good. After all, turning all those things on has never been a problem before - but that's the point. Normally they're plugged in all the time. Which wastes electricity, even when they're not doing much.

Now, when I turn off the PC... boom! Out go the lights. Off goes the laser printer, along with the modem and the scanner and the monitor and the network switch and all the other things. It is very satisfying, and I now very much enjoy turning off my PC at any opportunity, in order to be filled with the frugal feeling of all the money that I'm saving. Oh, and the happy dolphins, of course.

This comes at a good time. After all, this time of year is traditionally a time when the sun puts its hat on and comes out to play all day, making everyone hot and sweaty. Very much a nuisance, and more so if you're in a room full of computers and laserprinters and network trouser presses which go heating the room up in a most unwanted fashion. So during this warm season I think I may try to turn my computer off at every opportunity, in order to keep cool while saving valuable pounds.

I'm just waiting for someone to come along and say "Oh, it's not good for electronics, turning them on and off all the time", but if that means my boxy old CRT monitor will finally go wrong so that I can replace it with a nice flat panel, then all the better. Who wouldn't be delighted with such a thing?

Damn

OK, so now that makes three films which make me cry.

1. Edward Scissorhands.

2. Chaplin

3. As Good As It Gets

Bah.

Everybody Loves Carpet

I can't get over how difficult it seems to be to buy carpet tiles in nice colours. Today I found another picture of how I would like my bedroom floor to look. Stylish, no?

I can't find anywhere online that sells carpet tiles in such an excellent variety of colours, so I fear that once the bank holiday is over I shall have to actually pluck up the courage to make an outgoing telephone call and speak to real proper actual other human beings (eek) in order to achieve my goal.

Wish me luck!