Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Pucker Up

Today, the company that I resigned from last year is carrying a story on their news site about the events that will lead to me being made redundant from the company that I left them for.

Oh, Sweet Irony, let me suckle on your barbed and bitter teats.

Friday, May 20, 2005

The Last Laugh

Could this week possibly suck more??

On top of my ongoing work travails comes something far more grave and depressing. Frank Gorshin, the one and ONLY Riddler, has died at the age of 72. But first, a little AKA history lesson.

By all accounts, I was a very placid and peaceful baby. Hardly ever cried, always smiling, never shouting. However, according to my Mum, once a week I would freak out. My younger self, despite having absolutely no concept of time, always, always, always instinctively knew when Batman was coming on TV. (And, I know it goes without saying, but I mean the Adam West / Burt Ward pop classic). Undoubtedly, they must have been reruns by this point. I was far too young to have seen them the first time round

Barely one year old, I would spend the entire morning bouncing around the house going, “Nana nana nana nana, nana nana nana nana, BATMAN!”, driving everyone nuts. And once the show came on, I would sit in complete and utter silence, in an almost trancelike state, gazing at the TV in wonder and awe. The show was a revelation to me. It was my first Favourite Show Ever.

And so, to me, Batman can never be Michael Keaton or Christian Bale. He’s always Adam West. And he’s not a Dark Knight or a vengeful borderline psychotic. He’s Gotham City’s Caped Crusader, living with his young ward Dick Grayson and his unflappable butler Alfred, with that cool red phone patching him directly through to Commissioner Gordon, and that kickass car!

And Jack Nicholson is not the Joker. The phenomenal Cesar Romero holds the undisputed title as the Clown Prince of Crime. And, of course, Jim Carrey is not the Riddler…

Frank Gorshin was amazing. That incredible cackling laugh. That wiry, manic physical presence and boundless energy. A frenzied emerald dervish whirling in a blur of question marks. A voice that could effortlessly slip from playful trickster to chilling menace. It was, and remains, perfection.

Frank’s final screen performance is in Tarantino’s feature-length season finale of CSI airing in the UK in a couple of months. I was looking forward to it anyway, but now it’s become unmissable.

And I’ve just ordered the 1966 feature-length Batman movie on DVD, so I can reclaim that part of me that remembers how to sit in wonder and awe, hypnotised by the blisterlingly bright primary colours of the heroes and villains of Gotham City.

And as for Frank? I can picture him right now: “Hey, St. Peter, riddle me this…”

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Six of one, half-dozen of the other

OK. Now the shock of impending unemployment has subsided somewhat, let’s take a mean, sneering look at What Happens Next, and stare at the implications until they flinch:

Good News: I’ll be back in the heart of London again soon.
Bad News: I’ll be back in the heart of London again soon.

If you live and / or work in London, the dichotomy there will need no further explanation.

Good News: I’ll be out of this backwards-looking little parochial burg with its unevolved fuckheaded denizens, and I’ll return to the spiky embrace of the seething metropolis known as the 21st Century. At Last. I’m Coming Home.

Bad News: Less sleep. Longer and more expensive commutes. Less time watching my little girl growing up (which was always one of the main aims of my experiment in working here).

What else? It’s difficult to get into specifics, because at the moment there aren’t any. I don’t know when I’ll find another job. I don’t know what that job will entail. Will it be another I.T. role? Will it be an Editorial position? How much money will I be taking home every month? I’ve got variables seeping out of my ass, so there’s not too much point in playing a speculative “What If?” game. That’s just a bit too frustrating.

I can tell you this much, though. The next six weeks until the axe swings are going to be pretty damn uncomfortable. I’d much rather they take me round the back of the building right now and give me a double-tap to my brainpan, get this shit done quick. As long as there’s a juicy severance package thrown in, of course.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Up for the Down Stroke

This isn’t going to be an easy post to write, but I need to get all this stuff out of my head. This is also going to be a bit joke-light. Sorry about that.

The short version first: I am almost certain that I’m about to lose my job. Here’s the long version:

My company currently employs 54 people (I just checked). Around the middle of June, it is highly likely that there are going to be redundancies reducing the number of staff to only 30.

The company is about to sell off around a third of its assets. If the sale goes through, the staff cuts go-ahead. If the sale falls apart, the staff cuts will be scrapped. But let’s work with the worst-case scenario here.

In about six weeks, it looks very, very likely that I will lose my job. Yes, it is possible that they will want to keep me, and it is possible that the sale might collapse. Possible, but not very probable.

The third of the assets up for sale is the shit-end of the company assets. The remaining assets are the good stuff. Which makes the company portfolio attractive to prospective buyers. Which leads me to believe that the rest of the company will be up for sale within the next couple of months anyway. Everyone’s a loser, baby! (Unless you are one of the company directors, in which case you’ve got a hell of a payday coming up.)

I could go into more detail, but at the moment I just can’t be fucking bothered. To say that I am hugely demotivated right now is a massive understatement. Time to polish up the ol’ C.V., get on the phone to bother recruitment agencies, and all that fun shit.

When this has all shaken out and everybody knows where they stand, I’m sure that the future will hold bigger and better things. Right now, though, this is a messy and unpleasant transition stage.

I will return with my regular bouts of nonsense and vitriol shortly, once I have figured out a way to reignite my sense of humour.

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Labour Pains

So…Election Day. What can I tell you?

I went to vote this morning and, despite being convinced that I was going to vote Labour, at the last minute I spontaneously decided to go for LibDem. And here’s why…

Labour, in all probability, is going to win. And I think that’s OK. We can live with that. I decided not to vote for them as a Conscientious Objector to what has become known as “The Complete Fucking Mess in Iraq”. Too many people dying for too little reason. So, consider my floating vote a petulant bitchslap for Blair. The other reason that I decided note to vote Labour is Alastair Campbell. What an utter cunt. He’s spent years bullying the media and kicking them around, leading to forced resignations at the BBC and the Mirror over minor factual mistakes, even though the general thrust of what they were saying was, by and large, absolutely true. I vividly remember Alastair Campbell storming onto the set of Channel 4 News unplanned in the summer of 2003 to rant and scream about the media in the face of a powerless Jon Snow. Funny stuff, but you could see the foam-flecked bile flicking onto the camera from his raging, angular face. He really, really does need to go fuck himself.

And the hypocrisy of Campbell is mind-boggling. Blair deliberately mislead the British Public. Fact. So he really is in no position to question the veracity of any news that goes against his party line.

So, I reckon the ideal scenario would be something like this: both Labour and Conservative parties shrink in this election, and LibDem grow slightly. Ultimately, if the LibDems became the party of Opposition, and the Conservatives got shunted to the side as the lame duck third party, the next General Election should be a doozy, with those two parties upping their game somewhat, whilst Howard and the Conservatives can go and crawl into a corner somewhere, rename themselves the Neo-Conservative Party in a rare moment of insightful honesty, and then they can be ripped to shreds by wild dogs in the middle of a fox hunt. Sound good?

I’m also concerned about Voter Apathy, but that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of shit. All I’ll say is this: You know the end of the world is coming when people make more of an effort to vote for contestants in reality TV shows than they do for the Leader of their Nation. And you have to pay to vote for the dipshits on Big Brother too!

One, final politics-related note before I wrap up. Just finished reading Ex Machina: The First Hundred Days by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris. Imagine The West Wing with the trappings of science-fiction and superhero fiction. Absolutely stunning stuff, and the finest first issue of a series I’ve read in years. And you lot, you lucky people, can read the first issue absolutely free if you follow this link.

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Day of the Dense

“Stupidity is replicating itself at an astonishing rate. It breeds easily and is self-financing.” Frank Zappa

I’m too goddamn tired to deal with these fucking morons today. I was up late last night fiddling around with my new iPod, and my eyes are as red and raw as my temper today.

Today’s inane question that I really have absolutely no idea how to answer:

”How come you’re so good at spelling?”

And If I hear one more person say “May the 4th be with you”, I’m going to slap the shit out of them.

Any suggestions on how to deal with the overabundance of fuckwittery I have to battle on a daily basis are greatly appreciated.

This blog entry was brought to you by the letters ASS and HOLE, and the number .357.