The last roseate rays of sunlight have dropped down below the rooftops and Maryhill is as dark as ebony. I can see the red tail-lights of the cars belonging all those folk fortunate enough to be driving home whilst I have to stay here for another hour and then I have a forty-minute walk to the hotel. I have given up walking through the silent and scary park – I now walk only where there are street lights, which adds ten minutes to my journey.
I’ve been sitting in front of a computer all day, dealing with the mysteries of Microsoft Access, whilst office life goes on all around. This generally consists of people speaking rather loudly, and other people rushing in from time to time, causing the first people to speak even more loudly. The noise would even distract a caulker on the hull of a ship. The floorboards in the corridor creak like the timbers of an old three-masted barque, and people tread them every fifteen seconds, morning, noon, and night. I know, I’ve timed them. I just tap on, like Blind Pew, weaving a few recognisable commercial threads to please the people who pay for my jam and Brillo pads. Modern computers are wonderful, I know – I’ve just created a report with 8,950 line items in it in 25 seconds. I remember the old days – you just wouldn’t have bothered with the report. Life just went on, and I’m not sure we were any less efficient. I am convinced that, neat and tidy as the report is, and it goes into the minutest detail about how much is spent on voids, that no-one will read it and, if they do, no-one will understand it and, in all probability, the figures are wrong to begin with.
I need to keep my breath fresh, so I slip in a piece of chewing gum. It’s a new brand by Wrigley’s, which seems simply to be called ‘5’. The packaging is almost identical to that of contraceptives, so I foresee a few amusing mix-ups for folk at the chemist’s. The flavour I have bought is ‘cobalt’ which I always thought was a dangerous element or a product of nuclear fission. Whatever it is, it tastes like bladder-wrack, and I can’t wait for the taste to die away altogether, so I can chew on the left-overs, even though that is akin to chewing on a candle.
The prospects for the evening are not great. It’s not safe to be out on the streets after half-past seven, and there are only so many times you want to read three issues of the ‘Railway Magazine’ from 1975. I’ll have my pasta salad in my lonely room at supper-time (what would we do without Tesco’s meal deals?). I’ll read the ‘Scottish Sun’ which someone has left in the staff canteen, even though I’d rather read a palimpsest from the fifteenth century, and then I’ll watch Freeview. They tell me the ‘World at War’ with Laurence Olivier is starting again, and it will be nice to watch that for the eleventh time. I did bring a DVD – a film called ‘the Millionairess’. It stars Peter Sellers as an Indian doctor and Sophia Loren as the eponymous millionairess. It was dated in 1960 when it was made, so heaven knows what it will be like to watch now. By the way, the film spawned an album, which was in my dear late father’s collection and which I now possess. It was produced by none other than the fifth Beatle, George Martin, for Parlophone, and you haven’t lived until you’ve heard Sellers singing ‘Ukelele Lady’ and Loren singing ‘Zoo Bee Zoo Bee Zoo.’ They don’t write songs like that any more, thank goodness.
I’ve been sitting in front of a computer all day, dealing with the mysteries of Microsoft Access, whilst office life goes on all around. This generally consists of people speaking rather loudly, and other people rushing in from time to time, causing the first people to speak even more loudly. The noise would even distract a caulker on the hull of a ship. The floorboards in the corridor creak like the timbers of an old three-masted barque, and people tread them every fifteen seconds, morning, noon, and night. I know, I’ve timed them. I just tap on, like Blind Pew, weaving a few recognisable commercial threads to please the people who pay for my jam and Brillo pads. Modern computers are wonderful, I know – I’ve just created a report with 8,950 line items in it in 25 seconds. I remember the old days – you just wouldn’t have bothered with the report. Life just went on, and I’m not sure we were any less efficient. I am convinced that, neat and tidy as the report is, and it goes into the minutest detail about how much is spent on voids, that no-one will read it and, if they do, no-one will understand it and, in all probability, the figures are wrong to begin with.
I need to keep my breath fresh, so I slip in a piece of chewing gum. It’s a new brand by Wrigley’s, which seems simply to be called ‘5’. The packaging is almost identical to that of contraceptives, so I foresee a few amusing mix-ups for folk at the chemist’s. The flavour I have bought is ‘cobalt’ which I always thought was a dangerous element or a product of nuclear fission. Whatever it is, it tastes like bladder-wrack, and I can’t wait for the taste to die away altogether, so I can chew on the left-overs, even though that is akin to chewing on a candle.
The prospects for the evening are not great. It’s not safe to be out on the streets after half-past seven, and there are only so many times you want to read three issues of the ‘Railway Magazine’ from 1975. I’ll have my pasta salad in my lonely room at supper-time (what would we do without Tesco’s meal deals?). I’ll read the ‘Scottish Sun’ which someone has left in the staff canteen, even though I’d rather read a palimpsest from the fifteenth century, and then I’ll watch Freeview. They tell me the ‘World at War’ with Laurence Olivier is starting again, and it will be nice to watch that for the eleventh time. I did bring a DVD – a film called ‘the Millionairess’. It stars Peter Sellers as an Indian doctor and Sophia Loren as the eponymous millionairess. It was dated in 1960 when it was made, so heaven knows what it will be like to watch now. By the way, the film spawned an album, which was in my dear late father’s collection and which I now possess. It was produced by none other than the fifth Beatle, George Martin, for Parlophone, and you haven’t lived until you’ve heard Sellers singing ‘Ukelele Lady’ and Loren singing ‘Zoo Bee Zoo Bee Zoo.’ They don’t write songs like that any more, thank goodness.
