250 exactly, but un-named

Work is making me crazy again, although at least I can do it comfortably now I've shifted some weight. Speaking of which, one of my fellow night-workers came to see me today. They call her Mel the Monster, because she's large, gothic and unclean, and because Jared says that "when I banged her at a party last year she screamed like a dragon with it's nipple caught in a zip." Jared also say there is a fairly common medical condition that causes women to defecate when they orgasm, but I think I'll leave that one for now... Mel told me I was an inspiration because of my dieting. She's been on SlimFast for ten years and is still over seventeen stone, and she tells me I have given her a real lift and have shown her that success is achievable. Then she opened a can of Pepsi and launched herself into a breakfast sandwich. I didn't know that SlimFast did fry-ups.
On a whim, I went into an employment agency and asked what the local job market was like. They have some positions available working part-time at a chocolate factory, putting novelty toys into Easter eggs. Did I fancy it, they asked? I said I fancy it slightly less than I would fancy Mel the Monster naked and horizontal, but I think the joke was lost on them.
I may as well stay where I am for now and ride out the recession (the way that Jared rides Mel....)

RC 30-6-09

C4, 4pm, female - an appreciation

I think I'm in love with Rachel Riley. If you've never seen her, she's the new Carol Vorderman on the Oh-God-Haven't-They-Killed-It-Off-Yet TV programme Countdown. I fell asleep with the telly on at lunchtime, and woke up at 4pm to hear her dulcet whiny tones through the speakers. Watching her is an odd experience. As a presenter she's about as much use as a jellyfish being a cricket ball, but there's something very sexy about her. I'm not sure what it is though. Maybe it's because most of the talentless clothes horses that call themselves 'female talent' now are so alike, that it's nice to see someone who obviously doesn't have a clue what she's doing. She stands there like she's waiting for a bus, her shoulders are sagging like a golfer who's just missed an easy putt, and when she smiles it looks like Red Rum opening up for the dentist. And yet, and yet, and yet there is something very, very sexy about her. The internet tells me it's her first job in television, having auditioned for Channel 4 while still at university, and you have to say it shows. Maybe the producers will send her off for a bit of training when the series ends, and she'll come back with a straight back, a better smile, and a more professional style. I hope not. She's like an amateur ray of light in an endless blanketed screen of slutty wankfodder.
Break the mould, Rachel. Be yourself, and be beautiful.

RC 29-6-09

MML (except this one)

Has anyone noticed that my recent blog entries have been exactly 250 words long? I bet you haven't. I've been spending hours editing and re-writing to achieve this new obsessive behaviour pattern and I bet there isn't one person in the world of the web who has realised.
You're all unappreciative, and I hate you.

I've been doing this blog since March last year and I've finally worked how to set the 'time of posting' to British Standard Time. In my ignorance (and being too lazy to investigate further) I assumed it was run from an American server that automatically set everything to Pacific or Eastern US time. Then I took a quick trip around the 'settings' section and bugger me if you can't change just about everything! The more modern-minded of you will be shaking your heads sadly now and muttering about how ungeeky and embarrassing I am and how people like me should be banned from the Internet forever. You may be right, but at least I got there in the end. At this rate, I may be on MySpace by Christmas.

Jared sent me an excited text this morning. Apparently we have a new girl starting on our shift tomorrow night. She recently transferred to the region from a stint at Head Office and she's a real go-getter. I assume she's taken on the position I was asked to apply for. Jared met her at her induction day on Friday and says she's 'hot to trot' and that he can't wait to 'peel her potatoes.'
When I work out what that means, I promise I'll get back to you.

RC 28-6-09

Glastonbury festival observation

Doesn't Neil Young's head look like an old man's scrotum?

RC 27-6-09
2030 BST

Overheard, and over-concerned

I heard another classic exchange between work colleagues this morning. This was between two young till girls while serving...
"I can't get Stephen to take me out, Cheryl. How did you get your Mark to take you out the first time?"
"I told him I'd suck his balls out through his japs eye. That got him interested pretty sharpish."
The alcoholics in the queue nearly passed out with excitement.

I'm getting nervous about next week's weigh-in. On Wednesday 1st July I have to go in early and climb the scales in the manager's office so we can get a final reckoning on my weight loss. There'll be a photographer there from the company magazine, so I could be splattered on the front cover for every supermarket employee in Britain to look at. Or I could be the centrespread 'Failure Of The Month', depending on how it goes. I've been on target since the diet started back on April 1st (which feels like a decade ago, and yet only seems like yesterday) but I'm starting to panic now. I keep having dreams that involve gluttony and saturated fat and they're so real I wake up expecting to find McDonalds cartons by my bed. I'm so paranoid about not making the weight that I'm cycling every day and eating as little as possible, so I'm tired, hungry, confused and saddle-sore. Just one week left to go, that's all I keep saying. I'm ticking off the days like a prisoner locked in confinement.

RC 25-6-09
2142 BST

Animal rapist

I saw a pigeon trying to have sex with a blackbird this morning. It was bizarre, and strangely hypnotic. The blackbird (which was male, by the way) was trying to eat a discarded apple on the pavement and the pigeon just kept sneaking up behind and trying to climb on top of him. At first I thought he was making a move for the apple, but it soon became apparent he had more amorous intentions. The blackbird kept swinging round to peck it, and to chirp the bird equivalent of ‘No means no, now **** off’ but the pigeon just persisted. I was about to pick up a stick and smack it one when the blackbird decided to abandon his breakfast and fly off to a more peaceful pavement somewhere, leaving the pigeon forlorn on the roadside, sporting the same dejected expression I tend to have at two o’clock in the morning at a party.
You don’t see things like that on Springwatch.

I overheard a wonderful conversation at work last night. It was between two middle-aged men in the canteen and went like this:
“Did you see the England under-21s play last night?”
“No, I forgot. I went for a walk by the river. It was either that or stay in bed for a wank and I thought that would feel like a waste.”
“Don’t ever say that. A wank is never wasted. It always gives you something, even if it’s just a sense of shame and embarrassment.”
Priceless

RC 24-6-09
1135 BST

Who'd have thought it?

A scandal has rocked our street! There are two old spinsters at no.50 who are occasionally seen at the bus stop or in their garden. There’s always been a suspicion that, rather than being the sisters they claim to be, they were exotic lesbian lovers or escaped gangsters molls or something similarly sinister. Well the truth is out, and it is - as it so often is - stranger than anyone could ever have imagined. The youngest sister (I’ll call her Estelle) has always maintained that her ‘frequent lonely walks’ are therapeutic and a way to exercise her arthritic hip. Not so, it seems. She has twice weekly been sexually entertaining a gentleman called Don at his allotment, unbeknown to her sister or his wife and family. It’s been ongoing for FORTY YEARS and was only discovered yesterday when a passing postman nipped behind the shed for a quick wee and wondered what the squealing and creaking was coming from the other side of the allotment. He thought a small animal had been caught in a snare. He expected to see a badger with a bleeding neck, but was shocked to discover instead a retired teacher sitting on a workbench with the silver-haired head of a pensioner bobbing about between his legs. Four decades and nobody had the faintest clue. His wife was heard to remark ‘I wondered why the nettles were so high when he spent three days a week weeding.’ Bloody marvellous. You couldn’t write it could you?

RC 20-6-09
2202 BST

Never a dull moment

The world of cycling has opened up before me, like a daffodil opening up to greet the Sun, or a cheap Mansfield hooker opening up to welcome a footballer.
On the plus side I feel fitter, stronger, healthier, and I can climb the stairs at work without a breakdown.
The negatives? My back is aching like I’ve been chopping down trees, and I have haemorrhoids the size of dumplings.
I decided not to go for the promotion at the supermarket. The current work is boring, repetitive and not worthy of my worst efforts, but I’m buggered if I want to add responsibility and more thought to it for the sake of an extra 60p an hour. I continue to search everywhere for a more suitable position but there is a Credit Crunch on.. Plus I have no experience anywhere beyond the lab at uni, I have no ambition whatsoever and I can’t be arsed to bum around as an unpaid assistant ‘just to get a foot in the door.’ I’d rather remain as an Overnight Stock Replenishment Assistant with an income, no dangerous substances, and a chance to steal the occasional cheesecake while I’m working.

Ted is back in hospital. Beryl found him slumped in a chair at midnight and couldn’t wake him up, so she panicked and called an ambulance. It turned out he’d been having a sneaky brandy after she’d gone to bed, and may have had a sip too many. Because of his recent heart attack, they insisted on taking him to hospital, with him slurring and swearing at Beryl as they loaded him up, and her screaming something about divorce. We await further developments…

RC 18-6-09
2052 BST

The horror... the horror..

Karl from the warehouse came round again today. He wasn’t invited, he had no reason to be here, and it took me more than two hours to get rid of him. It’s like his arse was clamped to the sofa, or some invisible carpet-weavers had popped out and stitched his socks to the floor. Why the hell did I ever tell him where I live? I should have carried the bike on the bus in bits and then cycle home from work when he’d built it. He never would have known my address and I wouldn’t now be thinking of horrible ways to offend him so he never comes round and plants himself in the living room again.
Karl is a fan of conspiracy theories, most of which he believes to be true. In the course of our time together today he told me that Man never landed on the Moon, that Kennedy was killed by an alien, that the Colonel’s secret sauce is ninety per cent heroin and that Katie ‘Jordan’ Price is Margaret Thatcher’s lovechild. He also says there is ‘photographic evidence’ that the country of Iraq only exists on a film set in California, although obviously he didn’t have the photographic evidence with him. He wondered if I might like to lend him £400 for a genuine video of an alien autopsy, or would like to accompany him to a conference in Brighton called SEEKTHETRUTH ’09 in September.
I think I have to kill him, or myself.

RC 13-6-09
2152 BST

Moving in mysterious ways

I saw my doctor this morning. I’ve been having strange bowel movements, and in these cancer-ridden times I thought I should get myself looked at (and just pray that patient confidentiality is still applicable.) There’s an old Norfolk saying that goes “you’ll shit over nine hedges in the morning.” It usually applies to someone who has over-eaten, and whom you expect to pay a visit to Runny Street the following day. I could never really comprehend what the act itself might be like, until this week.. I wouldn’t want to go into details, so let’s just say I used enough toilet paper on Monday to keep Center Parcs going for a fortnight.
Dr K asked me what my typical dietary intake is, and have I changed my daily eating habits recently? I told him that up until the end of March I’d eat three huge meals a day, graze my way through the in-between hours and eat a hearty snack before bedtime, and that a day didn’t pass without four Scotch eggs. Now I mostly pick at fruit here and there, eat a meal of chicken and pasta before work and maybe have some toast in my lunch break. He thinks we may have pinpointed my problem..

Having got the all clear and some pile cream, I decided to take the all-new Rory VelociPed out for a spin this evening. It’s red, it’s sleek and it’s sexy, and it now has a giant scratch down the seat stem and a broken spoke on the wheel.
Runaway rabbits are a pain in the arse.

RC 12-6-09
2215 BST

Curiouser and curiouser

This has been an odd week, even by my standards. Something I don’t believe in must be moving in mysterious ways.
Firstly, I told Caspar and Pollox at work that I wouldn’t be moving in with them. I agonised for days over how to break the news without hurting them, and steeled myself as I approached them in the canteen. I managed to choke out the words, only to be greeted with “Oh that’s alright, I’ve already given the spare room to my brother.”
So what the hell happened to wanting a lodger from the same shift at work?
“Yeah well – he’s family,” said the ugly one, “bloods thicker than snot, innit?” Yes my friend and so are you, I thought.
The next night I was asked to apply for a promotion. That, like a sperm whale breaching unexpectedly, came out of the blue. Someone I only met once called Samantha is off to work at a cattery, so the title ‘Deputy Manager of Overnight Dairy Replenishment’ is up for grabs. Dave, my manager, has suggested I apply. I’ve asked for time to think about it..
Karl from the warehouse came over today to erect my new bike. It took him ninety minutes to get it all put together; it took me a further three hours to get him out of the house. He was a pain in the arse, and is obviously very lonely. Mind you, the bike looks great. Now I just need the motivation to ride it.

RC 11-6-09
2138 BST

Cycle of Pain

My bike arrived today. I’m not overly excited because IT’S IN FIFTY SEVEN DIFFERENT PIECES… No wonder it was less than three hundred quid. The bloody website didn’t tell me it was Do-It-Yourself on the assembly. According to the instructions I need two different spanners, an alun key, an adjustable wrench and about six days spare to complete it.. I thought I’d be cruising the high road by three o’clock tomorrow, now I need to go back online and buy some tools to put the pissing thing together. And it didn’t come with the recommended helmet and kneepads. Bastards.
Nothing I do online ever seems to go right. I sign up for internet dating and the only match I get is on a different continent. I order the back catalogue of Desperate Housewives from a cheap DVD store in Thailand, and I get a VHS collection of Asian home-made pornography. And now the bike..
I’ll have to check the small print and see if I can send it back. I really don’t want to spend the next few months of my life struggling to get it together, only for it to fall apart when I’m halfway up a hill in Norwich.
I might put a sign up on the notice board at work, asking for a volunteer mechanic. Most of the fork-lift drivers will do anything at the weekend. Usual fee is a tenner or a hand job, so I’ll have to check my wallet, or buy a rubber glove.

RC 8-6-09
1943 BST

If only 'twere true

I’ve had another one of my odd dreams. I was riding horseback naked, I was in possession of a tanned, athletic body, and when I came to rest by a river, Angelina Jolie was waiting for me with an inflatable blanket and a picnic. It was a really clear, vivid dream as well, not one of those foggy, incoherent ones where you walk down your drive and end up piloting the Starship Enterprise. The landscape and the feelings were as real as they could be, and I could see every sinew of her gorgeous body in High-Definition clarity. That one dream will keep me going for weeks..
Goodness knows where it came from, but if it’s true that dreams are governed by cheese, I’m going back on the gouda tonight.
Hannah has got a Dream Interpretation book somewhere called ‘The Catalogue Of The Subconscious.’ I call it ‘The Catalogue Of Old Bollocks.’ People who try to interpret dreams are right up there with people who read horoscopes or practise crystal healing. If you can’t explain or understand something, you should try to investigate further instead of turning to something fanciful and flightful. Lazy cretins. Personally I put it down to two things. Number 1 – I was listening to the radio news just before I went to sleep, on which Ms Jolie was announced as Hollywood’s Most Powerful Celebrity, and Number 2 – I haven’t had sex in a long time.

I’m off to cook some tea, and wash my bed sheets.

RC 5-6-09
1837 BST

Impulse

I’ve bought myself a bike. I was browsing the web for cheap Mexican antidepressants and decided to do some comfort shopping. It’s a Street Bike, whatever that means. The info is a bit confusing as the website claims – and I quote directly here – “..is ideal for off-road scrambling, footpath excursions and cross-country hardbiking.” So why is it called a Street Bike? Maybe it’s named after someone called Mr Street who designed it. I really don’t know. All I know is it cost me £279, including delivery and a pump, and it’ll be here by Monday morning. I paid a bit more to get a wide seat with extra padding. Cycling to work will be bad enough, I’d like to know I’ll have some testicles left by the time I get there.
Next I have to think about an outfit. I think I’ll avoid those all-in-one cycling suits the professionals wear. They tend to be bright, and I’d rather not draw attention to myself as I struggle up the hill with my thighs wobbling. They’re also quite pricey, and I’d rather save the money for the painkillers I’m bound to need when I use it. And they force your genitalia forward and twist them into unnatural shapes. I saw a buff guy wearing them in the gym recently and his crotch looked like an entry for the Turner Prize.
I think I’ll just get some cheap shorts and T-shirts, and a towel to mop up my arse-sweat.
Primark, here I come….

RC 4-6-09
1610 BST

Hot, down and hungry

I woke up soaked in sweat again. Winter can’t get here quick enough for me. I took a look at some global warming info today to see if this stifling weather is going to be the norm, and ended up more confused than a toad trying to mount a used nappy.
One report states that we could soon have summer weather hitting 44 degrees Celsius and desert-like conditions in Southern England. Another equally creditable and equally believable report says the North Atlantic Drift is going to stop and the UK will be plunged into a big freeze. So who do you believe? Personally I think I’ll buy myself a huge fan and a duvet and cover both options at once.
I haven’t seen my little ray of light at work yet this week. Sums up my life really – just as I find something to get positive about, it disappears over the horizon like a setting sun in November.
I’m on a bit of a downer today I think. Work seems horrible, I’m tired, a driving licence seems as unattainable as Gwen Stefani, and even this blog feels impossible to write, and more trouble than its worth. Maybe it’s midweek blues, or a lack of saturated fat in my diet. I’m sure I’d feel better if I made myself a fried egg and Spam fritter sandwich, or covered a pack of HobNobs in peanut butter and scoffed the lot in a Tiger Shark style feeding frenzy.
When does my diet end???

RC 3-6-09
1645 BST

I'm melting..

A crap poem, written in June..

So here we are, in the month of June
the longest day will be with us soon
Christmas stampeding over the hill
How will I pay my heating bill?

Global warming, temperatures soaring,
Swine flu outbreak; MPs whoring
I’ve lost two stone but still feel fat
It’s too hot today, and that is that.

Don’t you get some shit in your head when you’re laying awake in daylight? That’s the horrible thing about working nights at this time of year – you can’t get to sleep because it’s broad daylight and stuffily hot by the time you get home, and into bed. Especially this week. What happened to those nice, cool, wet, dark English summer days we had in recent times?
I suppose the good thing is that Rory’s Second Law Of Sartorial Supplementation is being proved once again.. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it states: “The amount of clothing worn by young women lessens in exact opposite relation to the proportionate amount of rising in the thermometer.” In layman’s terms – “More sun means more flesh” The girls on the bus have sent their trousers packing and it’s short skirts and hotpants all the way to September. Bring it on!

I’ve also discovered the joy of the BBC Red Button this week. Constant streaming of womens tennis from the French Open, with Rory’s Law in full attendance. I spent Sunday morning indoors watching Sharapova in all her glory. Don’t ask me if she won.. I didn’t make it to the end of the first set.

RC 2-6-09
2017 BST

Pot of Gold

My wage packet for May is the largest I’ve ever received. Working those extra hours over Bank Holiday weekend made a massive difference, and I’m now deciding how best to splurge. There is a small, sensible part of me that suggests putting it aside for rent and bills, in case I take up Laurel and Hardy on their offer of co-habitation, but mostly I’m looking for treats and toys. I’ve been online and started compiling a wish list. So far I’ve found a mobile phone, games console, flat-screen TV, box sets of at least ten different series on DVD, a George Foreman grill for my bedroom and a hot tub. My eyes may be bigger than my pocket I think.. I may make do with a new pair of trainers and an atlas.
The decision on whether to move or not is still up in the air. I’ve been to see the room, and it’s tiny. Here I have free reign as Hannah is normally at work or in the arms of some Neanderthal slug, so I can do as I please. There, I’d be sharing with a pot-addicted Star Trek fanatic, and a Phillip Schofield look-a-like with acne, both of whom live on pizza and both of whom only wash once a fortnight. So do I follow the words of the great Kylie: “It’s better the devil you know.” Or do I heed the advice of Sheryl Crow: “A change would do you good”??
I shall look at photos of both on NudeCelebs.com before making my final decision.

RC 1-6-09
0850 BST