A Date with Donna

I’m not sure how it happened, but I’m off to the pictures tomorrow with Donna, the temporary part-time assistant from the library. I’m ridiculously nervous. I haven’t taken someone out on a date for years. Normally I get pissed and somehow convince someone to go to bed with me, or I fall into a relationship with someone through mutual friends. This is very different. Thinking about it now as I type, I don’t think I’ve EVER met someone, approached them, asked them out for a date, had a positive response, and seen it through. I’m 25 and I’m about to embark on a journey that teenagers have been taking in their stride for aeons, and I’m terrified! Maybe it’s because I really do like her, and I want it to go well. And maybe it’s because I fart like a cougar after a curry when I’m nervous so I’m likely to blow tonight out of the window in more ways than one.
We’re going to see ‘Valkyrie’ starring Tom Cruise. It’s a fictionalised account of the plot by German officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler during World War 2, and it seems to star the entire population of male UK actors, except Hugh Grant. I actually suggested ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ first, but she said ‘I’d rather watch a manly war film than some shit based on a Chris Tarrant telly show.’ Makes sense to me..
I hope Donna doesn’t mind if I get popcorn. I can’t be in a cinema without popcorn.
I’m so nervous I could shit….

RC 27-2-09
2038 GMT

Favourites

It’s a week later than I promised, but here’s a list of my all-time favourite albums, as worked out over a few nights at my mind-numbing but adequately paid job. I was going to write an appraisal of each, but that’s too much like homework from school, so I’ve just listed the Top 11. (I hate the obviousness of a Top 10, and a Top 11 is also a nod to Spinal Tap) I’ve also listed my Top 11 films and place names in the UK.
I present for you a scary look into my personality and preferences…

Top 11 Albums (in no order of preference)

Bruce Springsteen - Devils and Dust
Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks
Pet Shop Boys – The Hits
Mamma Mia Soundtrack Album
Joan Armatrading – Gold
James Blunt – Back To Bedlam
U2 – The Joshua Tree
U2 – The Unforgettable Fire
The Beatles – 1
Kate Bush – Aerial
The Very Best Of Solomon Burke

Top 11 films

Delicatessen (director: JP Jeunet)
Run Lola Run (dir. Tom Tykwer)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (dir. Philip Kaufman)
Heat (dir. Michael Mann)
This Is Spinal Tap (dir. Rob Reiner)
The Princess Bride (dir. Rob Reiner) (again)
Nosferatu (dir. FW Murnau)
The Silence Of The Lambs (dir. Jonathan Demme)
The Muppet Treasure Island (dir. Kermit) (I think)
Thunderbirds Are GO (dir. David Lane)
One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest (dir. Milos Forman)

Top 11 place names in UK

Saxlingham Nethergate
Cockermouth
Dogsthorpe
Walberswick
Six Mile Bottom
Trunch
Little Arrow
Orton Brimbles
Shap
Big Sand
Llandudno

And 11 words to finish with:
Making lists is fun. I think I’ll do some more soon.

RC 26-2-09
1818 GMT

Am I bothered?

I’ve got in trouble at work. My bus gets me there fairly early, so I’ve been spending the spare time before my shift starts in the wonderfully named Employee Intellectual Recreation Facility. It’s basically a staff room with a kettle, two books and a computer.
The computer, it turns out, is only supposed to be used for access to the Supermarket Hard Drive Employee Help And Advice Manual, and not for accessing Holly Valance clips on youTube or posting blogs on a website. But as I explained to the Supermarket Hardware And Electronic Access Security Officer – (Simon) – if they didn’t want the computer mis-used, they shouldn’t have made it so hackable..
Apparently, it’s an example of misconduct and I can expect an official Grade 3 warning in the post.
Oh, well….

I’ve applied for another job anyway. I don’t want to say too much in case I put some kind of hex on it.. (or in case someone more qualified than me reads this and then decides to gazump me and get it for themselves..) but suffice to say it’s good money, and more appropriate to my qualifications than my current field of employment.

A quick poem for you:
I used to be skinny
My friends called me ‘thinny’
But then I discovered the joys of beer and take-away food, and now I’m a fat, ugly slug of a person with bad skin, bad teeth, and low self-esteem.
Mind you, at least the local fast food community treat me like a God.
So it isn’t all bad.
Ciao.

RC 25-2-09
0935 GMT

Bestill my heart

I went back to the library today. I’d like to pretend I was researching something or furthering my understanding of the lending process but I wasn’t. I went in to see the vixen.
For some reason, she kept popping into my thoughts over the weekend. Maybe it was her sparkling eyes – eyes that would not appear unworthy in the face of Helen of Troy herself. Or maybe it was the way she smiled and wiggled as she placed that biography of Carol Thatcher back on the shelf in the Factual section. Or maybe it was the way her young breasts seemed to sit pert and attractive like two gravity-defying oranges of loveliness.
I don’t know for sure. All I know is, I got the first available bus into town and was waiting outside the doors when they opened. I hovered surreptitiously near the play scripts and watched the desk like a hawk. My plan was foolproof – I would walk around the building with a copy of ‘Creative Writing for Beginners’ under my arm, leap forward to the Lendings desk as soon as her cute young bum hit the chair, and use my carefully chosen text as an excuse to start a conversation. After thrilling her with my wit (and gelled hair) I would casually and craftily find out if she was single, before inviting her out on what would no doubt be a successful and relationship-cultivating first date. I was showered, cleaned, fresh of breath and brimming with charm and confidence.
It turns out she doesn’t work Mondays.

RC 23-2-09
2155 GMT

There goes my diet..

I’ve just tried a pack of those Limited Edition Fish and Chip flavour crisps. Dear sweet glorious lovely Lord above, I have a new taste for my Gallery Of Gourmet Goodies. My top ten of favourite tastes needs a serious re-write so that this wonderful tongue-teasing torrent of tonsil-tickling teatime treatiness can be included. I have no clue if that last sentence made sense and I don’t care – I’m riding the wave of a rush fuelled by artificial flavours and additives and I hope it never ends.

I called into the library today for the first time since university. For someone who considers himself to be a well-read, appreciative intellectual I seem to have neglected this most wonderful of free services recently, so I’m taking steps to put that right. Younger readers take note – wikipedia is not the ultimate research tool.. you can get infinitely more pleasure, although slightly less rapid results, by plonking your bum down in your local library and looking up the info for yourself.
I borrowed a book by Clive Cussler that I probably won’t read, a biography of the poker legend Johnny Chan, and the DVD boxset of ‘Rome’ which I never got to see when it was on telly. But the real bonus from my little journey within was a lengthy conversation with the beautiful Donna – a tasty little vixen of buxom girth and no-small intellect who I found replacing books that had been returned this morning. She is working at the library part-time while completing her creative writing course at college, and I made her smile twice.
Things are looking up, mes amis

RC 19-2-09
2143 GMT

Todays 250..

I spoke to Big Sister Sophie today. She’s managed to get Easter Weekend off work, and wondered if we’d still like to go and visit? My mood lifted instantly. I felt the weighty concerns that I thought had been troubling me disappear as quickly as a woman I’ve slept with disappears once she’s sobered up.
Sophie says she has room for us to stay at hers, so we just have to sort out getting ourselves there. I spent an hour or so online looking at train times. Surprisingly, you can’t go from Norwich to Edinburgh direct, and I don’t fancy a 10-hour train journey just for the sake of a three-day visit. ‘Why don’t you just fly up?’ asked Sophie. The answer is, of course, that Rory Chesworth and Travel By Flight go together about as well as three pints of milk and a lactose-intolerant ferret. The tranquilisers don’t exist that are strong enough to get me on one of those flying death traps. Plus, I’m worried my fat arse might block the escape chute.

Hannah has hardly been seen since Saturday. Last time this happened, she’d taken something illegal and latched herself onto some barman who looked like an anorexic version of the new Doctor Who, so I’m hoping this time she’s had an horrific accident and ended up in hospital.

Tomorrow I’m gonna give you a list of my favourite albums. That’ll give me something to think about tonight while I’m brainlessly stacking shelves in the dairy aisle…

RC 18-2-09
2105 GMT

Why me?

Someone had a real go at me while I was at work in the supermarket last night. He called me an oily fat bastard and said I deserved to be boiled in my own blood, and various other horrible things.
I said “Dave – you’re my boss and I respect you, but can we have this conversation away from the shop floor please?”
Just my little joke, there..
Actually, someone did have a go at me. It was 2am and he was drunk and asked me where the whiskey aisle was. When I explained the licensing laws and told him he couldn’t buy any alcohol until 6am he flipped out and tried to belt me round the head with a margarine tub. Luckily he fell flat on his face asleep before he reached me, but it left me unsettled and I took the managers offer of a three-hour lunch break ‘to calm my nerves.’ I do seem to excite extreme feelings in people. Not passion or lust, obviously, but this isn’t the first time I’ve felt the force of someones misplaced anger. Just call me ‘The Punchbag.’ Or ‘The One Who Gets It Whenever Someone Needs A Whipping Boy.’ Actually ‘Punchbag’ is a lot snappier…
Anyway the drunk is banned from the shop, and I now have a whistle to summon security if it happens again. Next time I’ll shove him face first into the vegetable freezer and leave him there til his liver rots him to death.
Bastard.

RC 17-2-09
1942 GMT

Red mist, and blue thoughts

I’ve been feeling a little aggressive over the weekend.. Lots of things have been annoying me and I haven’t been able to throw them off with my usual brevity and nonchalance..
I blame the banking community. I don’t know why, but they seem to be at fault for everything else, so my current mood may as well be added to the list. It might help if I slept properly. Or if I had a girlfriend. Or if I worked sensible hours instead of unsociable ones. Or if I wasn’t a miserable so-and-so and could actually find things to be cheerful about. Apparently, according to some mental health website I found on my online trawlings, when you’re feeling low it’s good to write a list of good and bad things in your life to keep things in perspective.. I just did that.. I found 4 good things in my life to be pleased about, and 237 bad things to feel down about. Admittedly, some of them were a bit nitpicky.. Such as ‘My hairline looks like it might be receding already’ but even so.. I think I should make a new pact with myself – Don’t Try And Write A Witty And Informative Blog When I’m Feeling About As Happy And Funny As Michael Barrymore.
My continuing battle with my waistline doesn’t help. Every time I have to throw another pair of trousers away coz they’re too tight, I slip another rung down the ladder of happiness. Mind you, off-setting that by comfort-eating three packs of HobNobs and a microwave curry probably doesn’t help.
I’ll try and cheer up before tomorrow..

RC 16-2-09
2147 GMT

The Truth Will Out

4pm: I’ve been wondering whether I should visit an STD clinic.. We’re forever being given the facts and figures about Chlamydia and all his fun companions, and yet still I managed to get drunk last week and expel my spawn into some possibly germ-ridden, middle-aged half-wit Neanderthal bitch from Hell. And I’ve been regretting it ever since.
I haven’t slept well, but I think that’s from worry, rather than a symptom of gonorrhoea or something. I’ve dialled the number for the GP twice, only to hang up in a fit of fear. I’m very uncertain and unsettled. Is it better to ignore what happened and hope for the best? Or is there a risk that my winky might rot and fall off before I even realise I’m infected? Would it be better to know??? Maybe there’s an anonymous walk-in clinic I can go to somewhere… Preferably on the other side of Europe…

10pm - This evening, when Hannah came home, I shared my worries with her and asked her what she thought I should do. She burst out laughing and said “Stop worrying, you stupid bastard. That slag who wrote her number on your chest was tanked up and doing it to everyone. You no more shagged her than I shagged that fat twat with the toupee who kept grabbing my arse on the dancefloor.” I didn’t know whether to punch her or hug her. But as she was carrying a meal-for-four from the Indian and a bottle of Pinot Noir, I decided to forgive her and try to see the funny side.
Families are scum sometimes aren’t they? If they ain’t playing tricks on you and leaving you to worry for a decade, they’re coming in pissed and mistaking your pillow for a toilet (thanks again, mum..)

RC 13-2-09
2214 GMT

thought about it.. did it.. shouldn't have..

For three days I have agonised over the mystery of the unknown ‘Sonia.’ Who was this alluring beauty that had seen fit to adorn my person with her name and details in finest red Avon?
Was she a tortured Iberian princess, freed from the bounds of a bullish husband by a night of lust with the Chesworth lothario? Was she one of the dancers at ‘The Cellar’ who saw me cut my moves on the dancefloor and knew that, somehow, she must have me?
Or was she like most of my past conquests – a rotund scabfest with the sexiness of petrol and the spatial awareness of a pissed frog?
Something in me felt that I just had to know, but every time I reached for the telephone my hand froze in apprehension.
My main fear was that it was all a set-up; that Hannah or one of her friends had taken advantage of my spirit-induced coma to scribble the name of a phone-box prostitute on me ‘for future hilarity.’
Every sane part of my conscience (and the two people I talked it over with at work last night) told me to just ignore it, and move on.
Then, in a moment of tired weakness, I called her.
She is a 45-year-old bakers wife, currently awaiting an operation for gallstones, and when I said “I think we may have, um, slept together at the weekend” she replied “Oh, Jesus Christ. Which one were you?”
I am never drinking again.

RC 13-2-09
0905 GMT

reflections and renumerations

Just a thought – why are people frowned upon if they don’t clear up after their dogs, while horses are allowed to shit anywhere?
Mrs Bailey with the terriers is always bent over with a freezer bag trying to scoop up Fluffle’s poo, but Mary Harvey from the farm can happily ride past her with Manson the Pony dropping a half-ton load from his arsehole and no-one bats an eyelid. It’s all wrong. I’ve yet to meet a Chihuahua that could shit the same volume as a shire horse, yet it’s our canine friends who get it in the neck for what comes out of their other end. CHANGE THE RULES, Labour, or my vote is heading to UKIP, or the Freedom For Fluffles Pavement Party.

The snow has well and truly gone, and the British public and press are now having to find something else to panic and moan about. So it’s back to the credit crunch for Dailys Mail, Express et al. I may have missed the point somewhat, but why are we throwing money at the banks in an attempt to get them to lend to people who can’t afford repayments, when that’s the behaviour that got us into the mess in the first place? If the government want us to start spending again, why don’t they take back the £80billion they gave the banking world, and share it out equally among the adult population of Britain? We’d go out and spend it, the retail figures would improve, and consumer confidence would flourish…
But hey – what do I know? I’m a chemist, not an economist, and I’m sure we’re in good hands…………………………………………..

RC 11-2-09
2147 GMT

Oops, I did it again..

Should we talk about the weekend?
Hannah and I finally got to have the Much-Anticipated Oft-Postponed Weekend-To-Celebrate-Rory’s-Birthday (nearly three weeks late.) I have to come to the conclusion that my sister and I are a bad influence on each other, and that our social lives should forever remain apart.
Friday started so well… Hannah got in from work at 6, armed with a Thai Green Curry for two and a bottle of fizzy Chardonnay, and we sat with the box set of ‘Father Ted’ and enjoyed ourselves immensely.
Then, at about quarter to ten, an unexpected taxi arrived loaded with three of Hannah’s workmates, and an invitation for us both to go to ‘The Cellar.’ I’d never been there before, and I imagine I shall never be let in again, and I still couldn’t tell you which Norfolk town it is in; for the ladies in the cab had a bottle of vodka, and it was all downhill from there.
I have a hazy memory of throwing up on a bouncers shoes; of being pushed away from a girls chest with the message ‘I know it’s a birthday party, but you’re not getting your hands on those’; and of stumbling into a pub for Sunday lunch, still wearing the garb I’d gone out in on Friday.. but the rest, as they say, is not fully recollectable in the recent memory section of my brain.
I woke up Monday morning in the bathtub, sore of neck and fuzzy of mouth, with the name ‘Sonia’ and a phone number written on my chest in lipstick. I have yet to summon the courage to call it.
Happy Birthday, R..

RC 10-2-09
1153 GMT

Winter Fun

It snowed this week.
Actually, that’s a stupid way to start a blog entry. You know it snowed this week, because you live in the same sad temperate country that I do (unless you’re one of my international readers, in which case the information is probably news to you, and therefore still valid.)
Anyways, it snowed this week. In winters past, that would annoy the heck out of me, and fill me with the kind of anxiety normally reserved for turkeys on their way to a Christmas party at Bernard Matthews’ place. I think I can trace it back to my school days. Back at school, a snowy day would see me being rolled across the playground in a game that I believe was called “Turn The Fat Kid Into A Snowman”
This week, though, I found it quite pleasant.
It looked picturesque and beautiful, and apart from a trip to the shops for hot chocolate and muffins, I was able to watch it from the window with enjoyment.
The panic-buying old people annoyed me in the shop. Why does everyone rush out to buy milk and bread when there’s weather warnings on telly? If we’re getting snowed in, I want six months supply of steak, pasta and vegetables, not bread and bloody milk. What are these people – hedgehogs?
I went out woefully under-dressed, but was kept warm by the countless layers of flab beneath my skin. I was the only person in the High Street not shivering. To all doctors that might be reading this – Take your ‘obesity is always bad’ idea and shove it up your stethoscope.

RC 4-2-09
2000 GMT

The Naming Of The Beast

Yesterday I hinted at another of my pet hatreds – Ridiculous Spellings Of Monikers. I’d like to speak a little bit more about that, if only in the hope that the therapeutic unloading might cathartically cleanse my soul to the point that I no longer worry about stabbing people in the eye over the small matter of their children’s names. My life seems to have been littered with a recurring theme of meeting people who follow this trend, presumably just so they can tell you “Her name is this (insert suitable name here) but its spelt like this (insert suitably ludicrous chav spelling of said name here.)” I can see no other possible reason why some tracksuit wearing babymaker should saddle their spawn with the name ‘Mary’ but spell it ‘m-a-y-o-r-e-y’.. Or call their son Jason but spell it JAYSUN, like some kind of cheap old Japanese car. I’m not making these up, by the way; take a look around your local community, or sneak a look at the Arrivals section of your local rag, and these horrible bastardisations are being forced on unsuspecting children on a weekly basis. I have seen them, and met them.
The ultimately horrifying one was the dippy bitch at the Post Office who called her offspring ‘Kortni Tuppence Murray’ and spelt it that way because ‘it makes a common sounding name more exotic.’ Yeah, right.. You can dress a pig up in a tutu, but it’s still a shit-troughing support system for pork, as my dear old nan used to say.

RC 3-2-09
1730 GMT

The Artist Formerly Known As..

I met a lovely young lady at the pub at lunchtime. Really nice to chat to. Attractive, but not in a ‘come-and-get-me’ tarty way.. Kate Garraway, rather than Kate Moss, if you like, but younger than both of those. We started chatting during my second bowl of cheese-and-chips. She was on her lunch break from the bank, and was enjoying a white wine spritzer and a prawn and avocado baguette. I was relaxed and charming and made her laugh a lot, and even though she was a few rungs above me on the Ladder Of Human Attractiveness, I was firmly believing she might reply in the positive if I asked her to meet me again for a drink sometime. And then I made the mistake of discussing names.
“It’s Tina” she said, “but not spelt the way you think it is.” Great, thought I. I may have mentioned this before, but I have a real dislike for that (mostly American) fad for giving children regular names but with stupid spellings.
Tina was treated badly by her parents, apparently, so chose to take her maternal grandmothers surname, and her hatred of life was exacerbated by her ‘vulgar working class forename’, so she changed that at the same time. “Thus Tina Trent is now Teena Maysfield,” she said, and smiled a satisfied smile. I asked her if she felt like a better, happier, more fulfilled person, or whether she’d just blown fifty quid on a name change only to find she was the same shitty person that she used to be.
I think that could be the ending of a beautiful friendship.

RC 2-2-09
1912 GMT

Thank **** it's Feb..

First month of the year gone, then. A month that re-united me with my oldest sister, while subjecting me to a temperature hotter than the equator on Mars and making me sweat like an obese panda in a sauna. I always feel a bit happier when January has been ripped from the calendar and discarded like a used prophylactic at a party. No offence intended, but it’s dark, depressing and pointless. A bit like Back to the Future Part II.

This may seem an odd thing to ask at this point, but why does Anusol haemorrhoid cream smell like vanilla?

SuperBowl XLIII tonight, then. I’m anticipating a tense, tight game with defence being on top for most of it, but I’m tipping Pittsburgh to win by five. I’ll even give you a score if you push me: 21-16.
Speaking of Super Bowls, Hannah has said she wants to take up pottery. I’m wondering whether she’s not still a wee bit poorly. She says she could be making all our crockery by Christmas and thereby save us a few quid. I asked her exactly how many cups and saucers we need when there’s only two of us in the house and we mostly eat from takeaways, and she called me an unsupportive fat bastard of a brother who should piss off and die in a gutter. I shall apologise later, I imagine. At least she’s not one of those giggling tit-wits who strive to become Paris Hilton. Also, now I’m earning money I’ve decided to start driving lessons, so far be it from me to shit on someone else’s lifeplans.

RC 1-2-09
1935 GMT