Almost advent..

It’s the last day of November.
It’s 5.45 a.m.
It’s still dark outside, but I thought I’d write a blog anyway, because if I post one today, I’ll break my personal record for The Most Number Of Blogs Written And Posted In A Month. Is it just a coincidence that since mum left and I split up with Melissa I’ve been spending a lot more time writing? No – those two bitches stifled my creativity and cornered my intellect into places it couldn’t flourish.
Actually, that’s all I can think of at the moment. I’ll write more later.

10.35am – just woke in a cold sweat and panic thinking “Sod it – its half ten – I’m late for work..” Good job I realised my mistake or I’d have turned up at the supermarket 36 hours early for my shift.. My body seems stuck halfway between the old, regular sleep pattern and the new regime that working nights has inflicted on it. My digestive system is a mess, I only sleep for two hours at a time and I’ve developed some weird kind of gingivitis. The internet tells me the body can adapt within four weeks. So I should get used to my working hours the week before I leave…

5 p.m – Hannah and I are working on Christmas cards. I’ve just written “To Aunty Janey – your drunken bitch of a sister has left us now so we’re gonna have a Happy Xmas. Hope you do too..” The message doesn’t seem to fit with the cartoon snowman on the front, so maybe I’ll have to tone it down a bit..

That’ll do for today.

RC 20-11-08
1848 GMT

jobsworth

The dole office called yesterday. It was a very tricky moment as the woman who called said “Morning Mr Chesworth, this is Claire..” I was THIS CLOSE to saying ‘Hey up girlfriend – I’ll see you at work tonight’ when I realised it wasn’t Claire from the supermarket..
Apparently we’re not entitled to any extra money after being deserted by mum, as we’re all over sixteen years of age. When I asked how we’re supposed to survive without extras she said ‘Well traditionally, when people need more money they go out and look for a job’ I was going to say ‘How the hell have I got time to look for a job – I’m working four nights a week?’ but decided against it.. There are some things that are best left unsaid. Especially things that might open you up to a fraud conviction..
I suppose I should tell them I’m in employment, but then I’d have to sign off, and then I’d have to sign on again in January, and that would be a logistical nightmare. Forms, booklets, more forms, and appointments. The JobCentre hate new clients and paperwork, so I’m saving them bother in the long run by simply not telling them, aren’t I? And it’s not as if I’m rooking them out of a fortune, is it? Have I convinced you yet? Have I convinced myself? I’ll think about it more tomorrow – there’s a cheese and bacon supreme with my name on it in the freezer, and then it’s time for a post-work shower.
Anon…

RC 28-11-08
1120 GMT

Yuletide plans and memories

Hannah and I sat down to plan Christmas today. As it’s the first year of freedom from the restraints of mum, we’re both excited and want to make it a big one. Traditionally, the start of December would bring dread and foreboding as we waited for mums alcohol intake to increase even further. Christmases for us have usually meant no presents, no turkey, a carpet full of vomit and a comatose mother. Forget Father Christmas – the only fat, bearded men who turned up in our house were the drop-outs from society mum would bring home on Christmas Eve for a dirty, drunken shag beneath the mistletoe. But that’s all behind us now and we’re determined to enjoy it..
Hannah suggested we invite Sophie back for Christmas. Sophie is my eldest sister, but I may not have mentioned her much before, as we haven’t actually seen her in ages. She’s the one that used to protect me and Hannah from most of mums madness, and once I went off to university she thought it was safe to finally escape and start her own life.. Only when she had gone did we realise how much she used to do for us – both in shielding us from mums drunken stupidity, and in keeping the house going while mum escaped reality on the sofa. Last thing we heard, she was training to be a nurse in Edinburgh.
If we can re-establish contact and she comes back to visit, then I may just start to believe Christmas is A Time Of Miracles..

RC 26-11-08
1932 GMT

Naked

I’ve just done my first shift at work without my ‘buddy’ Claire. I felt vulnerable and exposed. And bored. An eight-hour shift where the most taxing thing I have to do is cut open a box of jellies without damaging the goods within gets a bit tedious without someone fun to mess about with. I kept hoping Claire and I might cross paths somewhere in the stockroom or in the dairy aisle, but no such luck. It’s a big store, and I didn’t see her all night. Thinking about it, she was probably wasted on acid all weekend and called in sick with ‘a flu bug.’

I can’t decide what to get Hannah for Christmas. Now we actually like each other, I’d like to make the effort and get her a decent present, but what should it be? Part of me has the horrible feeling she had ‘Toby’ tattooed on her bumcheek during their two-week courtship, so maybe I’ll get her a voucher for a removal. Or maybe I’ll get her some bath gel so she can scrub his lingering odour from her body.

That was a strange moment – I’m typing this sitting downstairs, in the nuddy after a post-work shower. I’m at the coffee table by the window, with my jewels on display being air-dried, and our postman just arrived to deliver our latest pile of junk. We stared at each other through the glass for a few seconds, before he smiled awkwardly and managed to tear his gaze away. He’s off down the path now, shaking his head and looking violated. My reputation in the village continues to grow apace…

RC 25-11-08
1025 GMT

Weekend review

I missed an important anniversary on Saturday. It was 45 years since the death of John F Kennedy. The day a revolutionary politician with a vision to change the world was blown away by a person (or persons) who were scared of the President’s determination to change things. Stick around until early next year, and we’ll probably see it happen again.

A strange thing happened to me yesterday. I went off to the shop in the freezing wind and ankle-deep snow, with every intention of buying a crate of Stella and a take-away. But for some weird, disturbing, unsettling reason that I haven’t yet put my finger on, I decided not to buy alcohol. I spent a good ten minutes perusing the aisles, trying to decide between Crème de menthe, vodka or Blue Nun, when this sudden, unexpected thought popped into my head – ‘just have a mug of hot chocolate.’ This is unusual behaviour for me, and I’m not sure what it may mean. Maybe the fact that I am now a valid member of the working masses means I no longer feel the need for oblivion.. Maybe the spectre of my alcoholic mother lurks over me like a warning shot and is starting to make me consider a life of abstinence.. Or maybe the week I spent working with Claire has opened my mind to the world of other substances beyond alcohol.
By next Saturday, I could be living like monk, or off my tits on amphetamines.
I wonder which way it will go?????

RC 24-11-08
0812 GMT

My body clock needs new batteries

That’s a full week of work out of the way then. Four nights, thirty-six hours, and a whole lot of fun as well. I might go out tonight to spend my first lot of wages. Technically speaking, I’m not paid until the end of the month, but you see what I mean.. By a strange twist of fate (and a small lie) I’m still getting paid my JobSeekers so I’ve got a bit of spare cash. Maybe a Feast For One from the Oriental Express on Church Street and a DVD is in order. Anything rather than watch “I’m A Celebrity”

This whole night-working could be good for my waistline. My body isn’t used to eating at 2am so I’m avoiding eating during my breaks in case my bowels erupt while I’m stocking up the mince aisle. It means I get home hungry, but at least I’m not bingeing. Plus, my real problem eating of the last few months has taken place late at night – and its hard to pig out on Pringles, cakes and Rolo’s when you’re in a supermarket stock room loading bottles of American Dry Ginger onto a packing trolley.
It’s good all round really.

It’s snowing here in Norfolk, by the way. It snowed in early April, we had no summer to speak of, and now it’s snowing in November. Barely six months between the last snow flurry of LAST Winter, and the first snow flurry of THIS Winter.. Global warming, my arse.

RC 22-11-08
1035 GMT

The Ballad of Claire & Toby

The last few nights at work have been a blast. Claire - my ‘buddy’ - turns out to be a maniacal, disillusioned Goth with an unfinished degree in engineering and a weekend taste for Ecstacy. We get on like a house on fire. (But without the flames and peeling paint, obviously.) Having spent most of this year wallowing in my own bedroom and dealing with my demonic mother I was understandably nervous about working again. Now I wish I’d done it months ago. It helps when you have no responsibility, and an end-date for your employment so you know it doesn’t really matter what you do while you’re there.. It also helps working with someone whose only goal at work is to do as little as possible while earning money to fuel her recreational drug habit.
I think she could turn out to be a great influence.

On a different, but connected, note - Toby came to see me at work tonight. He looked awful. He told me he misses Hannah and wondered if I’d pass on a letter to her? I said ‘Yes’ to get rid of him, then me and Claire had fun reading it during our lunch break. If he really thought I’d try and help him get back in my sisters affections he must have seriously misunderstood me in the two occasions we met. I’d sooner have my kidneys shallow-fried in amaretto and force-fed back into my body through a tube than ever see his smelly, unwashed body in my house again.

Time for a fry-up, then bed..

RC 20-11-08
0933 GMT

Back to work (again)

I thought I’d show willing and go back to work tonight. Strangely enough, the limp returned just as I was about to call HR to let them know I’d be back, and by the time I was talking to Dave (my Line Manager) about uniforms I had the need to take some painkillers. He offered me two extra breaks so I could ‘take the weight off more often.’ It felt so wrong, but of course I said Yes. I’m only employed for six weeks, I may as well get as much time off as possible. I’m looking forward to it in a strange perverse way. I’ve already had the in-depth, multi-faceted forty-five minute company induction and training so I know what I’ll be doing. My ‘buddy’ will be alongside me every night this week, and if it all gets too much I’ll just drop something else on my foot and come home again.

Hannah and thingy have split up. She told me she ‘saw sense’ and binned him at the pub last night. Hopefully he is sitting in a dark room somewhere, with his thick mascara being smeared down his cheeks by the stinging tears of regret and loss. In truth, he’s probably already sweet-talking his next victim into bed like a smelly, low-grade version of James Bond. Hannah seems fine about it. I think she’ll recover quicker than I will – she’ll be in the arms of someone better and cleaner by Friday, while the sight of Toby in his streaky underpants will haunt my dreams for a decade.

RC 17-11-08
2048 GMT

reflections on a dairy product

I will put cheese on anything.
Spaghetti bolognaise, stir-fried noodles, chicken and rice, roast potatoes – if it’s a cookable, edible food substance I’ll cover it in cheddar before I consume it.
I have pushed restaurant owners to the brink of evicting me by insisting they put brie on a tuna steak, or add Emmenthal into a Hollandaise sauce. Barbarians.
Cheese has been the reason at least two of my relationships have failed. Early in our courtship, having spent a suitable amount of time getting used to each other, I would suddenly announce my ultimate fantasy - to dribble molten cheese on a partner and use their cavities as a fondue. Both of them finished with me in the time it takes to un-wrap a Babybel.
If I ever get convicted of murder (and if Jamie Oliver doesn’t retire soon, I probably will be) and was sentenced to death for my crime, my request for my last meal would be a cheeseboard. A huge, three-course, artery-blocking son-of-a-bitch bastard of a cheeseboard.
One of my greatest pleasures in life is to be naked outside, with my torso covered in those pre-packed cheap cheddar slices, just waiting for the summer heat to melt them. Women put cucumber slices on their eyes for their wrinkles – I put fat on my body for my fat.
I’M NOT WEIRD – JUST DIFFERENT.
God, I love cheese. Chunks are funky, but grated is great.
I. Love. Cheese

I shall end this entry with ‘Haiku Dedicated To A Certain Cheese:’

I love parmesan.
Yes, it smells like sweaty balls
but it tastes sooooooooooo good

RC 13-11-08
2220 GMT

Has the world gone mad??

The HR people from work called today. The store has undergone a risk assessment, employee capability and safety analysis, and a corporate culpability investigation and inform me I am well within my rights to sue them for accidental damage while working.
I could be the first person in history to get compensation from an employer after only being there four hours…
I may be a fool, but I told them I wasn’t interested in sueing them. I said I’d rather have a few days off to recover – paid of course – and then come back to work. They have promised me expensive steel-toed boots on my return, and a glowing reference when I leave.
The swelling is down and the pain is handled by aspirin so I have very little to complain about. There’s some interesting bruising and I may lose a toe-nail, but the truth is the main brunt of the impact was felt by the tiled floor. The only thing that came into contact with my tootsies was the visor, which was plastic.
I’m spending my recovery time watching Series 3 of “24” on DVD, and doing my Christmas shopping on the internet. It feels a hell of a lot better to be a lay-about on sick pay, than a loafer with no job sponging off the state.
That’s a reminder – I suppose I should tell the Dole office sometime soon that I’m working..
I’ll put that in my diary for January.

RC 12-11-08
2203 GMT

God hates me...

First day at a new job and I get sent home injured..
Who was it I massacred in a former life to deserve this turn of events?
The induction started fine. We met the Store Manager – a fairly pleasant man from Sheffield who was smartly dressed and cleanly-spoken – and our Line Manager ‘Dave’, who I suspect has an IQ that is a smaller number than my shoe size.
We watched a lovely video on the history of the company, and then another one all about their international development and future plans, which absolutely do not include taking advantage of foreign working conditions to make a huge profit at the expense of Chinese children or African women. Absolutely not. All vicious rumours and scandal-mongering by their opposition, it turns out. It must have struck a chord somewhere though as section of the video disproving it was about 25 minutes long.
We then got allocated lockers and employee numbers, and made our way to the shop floor for our Grand Tour. I should have realised someone was out to get me when I skidded through some orange juice that had been spilt in the Dairy section, but I wiped my shoes on a dressing-gown as we went through the Clothing department and carried on regardless.
An hour later we were starting work. I was partnered with a ‘buddy’ called Claire, who will help and supervise and guide me until I have mastered the complex world of putting tins of peas onto a shelf.
It was all going so well until our ‘lunch’ break. (at 2.45am)
My locker key wouldn’t work, and when I pulled it hard to get the key out of the door, the whole bank of lockers tipped away from the wall and dumped everything on top of it onto me, including someone’s motorbike helmet that used my left foot as a landing mat.
So now I am home, bruised and swollen, but re-assured that sometime today, Dave will be putting a sign up asking people not to put things on top of the lockers.
I feel so much better. Thanks Dave. If only you could spell, much less use a computer, I might feel assured that this wouldn’t happen again…

RC 11-11-08
0855 GMT

Is this my future?

Hannah suggested I should go out last night and celebrate my new employment status. She even offered to pay for a meal if I wanted it. I thought she was being supportive of her little brother; it just turned out she wanted the house empty so Toby could come round and scuttle her. He still lives with his parents, apparently, and they don’t like “Un-Christian pre-marital intercourses” in their annex, so any sex-related filth and shenanigans are going to have to take place in our house. In the interest of family harmony (and to avoid the sound of squeaking beds and grunting barmen) I took her up on her offer.
It was a bad idea.
I ended up a thirty-quid taxi ride away, drinking tequila with an elderly black man called Alfie and trying to avoid the attentions of a fat gay writer called Pablo. At 2am I fell in our back door to find a naked, dirty Toby helping himself to a sandwich and some Quavers. As the room span around me, I had an awful premonition that this could be our future – me drinking myself silly to avoid reality, while a skanky failed musician swaps fluids with my sister on the landing.
Maybe if the new job goes well I can get myself a bed-sit as a getaway. Or maybe Hannah will see sense and trade Toby in for a businessman.
Or maybe, if I wish hard enough, I’ll find a mega-rich model online who wants to fall in love with a fat bloke…

RC 9-11-08
1910 GMT

Every little helps..

I spoke to the HR manager at the supermarket today. My induction evening kicks off at 8pm Monday night in the excitingly named “Customer Support Executive Interactive Training And Preparatory Room.” If all goes well (and assuming they have a uniform in XXXL) I could be up-and-running workwise by midnight. I’m not entirely sure why it’ll take them four hours to show me how to take bottles out of a trolley and put them onto a shelf, but maybe there’s more to the job than meets the eye.
Mrs Willow in the corner shop had a go at me for working there. “They’re killing the local economy and they’re a death knell for businesses like this,” she said.
I wanted to point out that they’ve created 200 jobs – three of which are occupied by members of her family – and that I know for a fact that her boss buys all his veg there at the Value counter and passes them off as his own with a fifty per cent mark-up.
Instead I just muttered ‘Needs must’ and started unwrapping my Boost bar.

Hannah has a new ‘boyfriend.’ I suspect that means she got drunk and shagged him, and now feels obliged to pretend they’re in a relationship for a while so she doesn’t get a reputation as a slag.
He’s called Toby and he’s a barman at the University. He also looks like the result of a strange sexual liaison between Ozzy Osbourne and a Bassett Hound. I can only pray they’re using contraception.

RC 7-11-08
1545 GMT

A New Dawn indeed

I have a new job!
The supermarket on the edge of town – the one which battled for five years against protesting locals who now shop and work there – are taking on extra staff up to Christmas. Starting next Monday, I enter the world of shelf stock replenishment operations! It’s a six-week contract, working four nights a week. Soft labour, good money, no responsibility. That’s my kind of job! There’s a chance of overtime every weekend, but no obligation to accept it, and as I’m working 10pm – 6am I won’t be facing the awful prospect of dealing with members of the public all day long. Insomniac shoppers and stoned alcoholics – yes; but trolley-wielding pensioners and fat chavs with a dole cheque to spend – no. I’m very happy.

I woke up this morning to the news I’d prayed for – Barack Obama is next in line for The White House. I cannot help but feel that the World has just become a safer, better place..
Gordon Brown mentioned the result in Prime Ministers Questions today. He managed to pronounce Senator Obama’s name wrong and then congratulated him on ‘winning the presidency.’ I didn’t realise it was a raffle..

Limerick To Celebrate The Result Of The American Election:

An American man named Barack
Has held off Sarah Palin’s attack
George W Bush
has been given the push
Now the US can get back on track..

I think I’m better off sticking to Haiku

RC 5-11-08
2030 GMT

America decides

It’s Election Day across the Atlantic..
Anyone who thinks it doesn’t matter what happens in the next 12 hours in America simply doesn’t understand our World and how it works.
I’m quite excited really. You can’t help but be absorbed by The Obama-rama Drama. At long last, a politician worth turning on the telly for. They’re expecting a record turn out in the States today. Why? BECAUSE THE CANDIDATES ARE INTERESTING AND CHARISMATIC. If our next General Election was a shoot-out between Jeremy Clarkson and George Galloway, the country might end up in a quagmire, but you can’t deny people would be intrigued and get involved.
I was planning to sit up all night with a few snacks and watch it all unfold on the telly. (Well, I say ‘a few snacks.’ What I actually have before me is a coffee table full of high-fat confectionery that I bought for thirty-two quid from the corner shop.)
The trouble is, the State they keep concentrating on in the coverage is Florida – which has led me to think about Melissa. She broke my heart, and I hate her, but she spent most of the last 12 months as my closest friend and confidante and today is making me realise how much I miss her.
So bollocks to sitting up all night observing, I’m gonna watch some old ‘Cracker’ on VHS and be in bed by midnight.
Here’s to a Brave New Dawn tomorrow…

RC 4-11-08
2044 GMT

A drunken poem

EastEnders is shit
Coronation Street is shit
Emmerdale is shit
Doctors is shit
Neighbours is shit
Home and Away is shit
Hollyoaks is shit

stop wasting your lives
watching soaps
you bunch of dopes

RC 3-11-08
2152 GMT

First Of The Month

All Saints Day, eh?
Hallowe’en passed without much of a hitch. Hannah went off to a party dressed, let's not mince words, like a slut. She still isn’t home yet.
We didn’t get any trick-or-treaters. I think the lack of a lit pumpkin outside, and the sign saying ‘Knock On My Door and I’ll Rip Your F**king Fingers Off’ may have helped.
Jim the Trucker from three doors down was seen handing home-made biscuits over gleefully. It’s a bit of a shock because anytime you see him its ‘bloody kids’ this and ‘bring back the cane’ that, and suddenly here he is being a local Willy Wonka for the youngsters.
I bumped into him at the shop today and asked him if it was true.
‘Aye, lad aye,’ he said from behind a roll-up, “Thought I’d join in this year. Could be my last, after all.’ (He’s a hypochondriac fatalist, in case I hadn’t mentioned it.)
What was in the recipe, I asked him?
‘Secret formula of my mothers’ he said, ‘with a couple of extra special ingredients of my own.’
I knew I’d regret my next question, but went ahead and asked it anyway.
‘What ingredients might they be, Jim?’ I asked.
“Laxatives and Rohypnol, lad” he laughed, “Laxatives and Rohypnol.”
The shop had sold out of toilet rolls and ProPlus.
Didn’t bother me. I’d only gone in for some sugar and a paper.

Have a good November

RC 1-11-08
2010 GMT