Fruit cases and balloons

Paul is going round the office drawing faces on balloons. Everyone who is leaving the office this week is getting one. They're going to act as a reminder to those that are left of their former work colleagues. Just in case the twelve that are left forget about them, as we walk through the large, desolate, empty office, through the many abandoned desks and computers leading the way through the room.
Paul is using his fantastic artistic skills, perhaps picked up in a far and distant episode of Play School, to draw happy, smiling, rather freaky looking faces. Bright, coloured bulbs, swaying about on sellotape attached to their computer monitors, grinning with sparkling felt tip eyes, shiny pink lips and coloured hair. I'm sure Felix will make his way round the room with a pin at some point, but for the moment they sway at their various posts throughout the large office, like hot air scarecrows. Unfortunately Gail was the first to pop, leaving a pathetic flop of rubber hanging from her monitor. I think she may have inadvertantly taken part in one of the many games of Piggy in the Middle that Mary, Tricia and Paul were playing as they whiled away their second last shift.
Margaret brought in two giant strawberry sponge cakes for everyones' tea breaks, plastered in cream and icing sugar. Not good for those of us on diets, with fruit for lunch but they were eaten all the same.
We'll miss Margaret's cakes. Cheesecakes and banana loaves were the norm with Margaret and Mary. They'd quite often bake a big cake and bring it in, in order to share with DVD Andy, Creamy Chicken John, Stuart, Gareth, Lost Ian and myself. Tempting us with cream cakes while at the same time threatening us with the cupboard if we misbehaved... Our small, coffee break crew has changed over the past few years, with Lost Ian being the first to suffer the dreaded redundancy, Gareth leaving for better things (well, Rangers News anyway) and Stuart now falling foul of the big 'R'. Both Mary and Margaret are leaving this week, along with Tricia, Heather, Julie, Mandy, Gail, Paul, Gary, Alison, Linda, Paula, JP, Diana, Cameron, Davey and big 1066, sorry David Hastings. Absolutely gutted so many people are going. A real loss to S&UN, everyone of them... most of them anyway.
On Saturday night it was the Prepress night out and, from 8 onwards, we were in Arta. Ka was in town shopping with her Mum during the day, so I met up with her afterwards for the cinema and then a short walk down to Arta, the club notorious between my wife and I for being my false alibi on the night of my Glasgow Stag night.
Arta is a rather trendy bar and club, in Glasgow's Merchant City, with decor including stone statues, big comfy chairs, tall candelabras, thick, patterned curtains, giant paintings and vast amounts of fake fruit piled up in baskets. Not sure what the fake fruit is all about but together it all looks splendid. Jill, a good facebook pal and former employee of S&UN, liked the fake fruit so much, she took some for herself and even tucked some oranges down her trousers to try and convince us all, if any of us were in any doubt, that she does indeed 'have balls'. Obviously she's only got the mental balls, the fake fruit looked slightly artificial down her trousers. Well, to most it does.
Ka had part of her Glasgow hen night there just under two years ago and, after a few bottles of champagne or two, Aunty Nancy decided to nick the fruit basket at her table, believing it to be real. Now she has balls. Walking out of Arta with a fruit basket can't be easy to do. Aunty Nancy still insists to this day that the pineapple was real.
It's also got Monks. When the hour strikes (the specific hour I can't quite recall) a monk strides out on to the stone staircase, his face hidden by his oversized hood, and bangs a large gong and as the sounds of opera fill the air, rose petals start to drift down from the ceiling covering all those waiting on entry to the downstairs club. Looking up I could see the waiters and waitresses from the restaurant upstairs, standing over us, on the balcony, emptying large, wooden caskets filled with the petals. As we waited and I watched the milling crowds queuing up below I considered how unfortunate it would be if one of those large caskets slipped from one of the waiters' fingers. It would be especially unfortunate as I'd left my British Red Cross badge and card at home. I had no proof that I was a First Aider?! Linda, Anna and Tam were all office First Aiders too, mind you, so the unfortunate clubber would probably survive. Unless another falling casket hit one of the giant baskets of fruit, sending a whole pile of oranges and apples down over the top of them. After a few moments he, or she, would realise it was all fake fruit and fight his way out the pile to freedom, only to be hit by a pineapple falling from the bottom of the basket, which would knock him out cold.
"Told you!" Aunty Nancy would shout, popping her head out from behind one of the thick, patterned curtains.
Anyway, we were eventually allowed entry to the club below, brushing petals off our shoulders, and all had a pretty good night. Ka and myself left around one in the morning to get a bus, leaving the majority drunk and happy, dancing and loopy, posing for the camera or playing with their fruit.

Beware the chides of March

Ka went to town yesterday with my Mum and sister to do a bit of shopping. While she was there she text me asking if I needed anything. I text back 'A present'. So she obediently brought me a present home. Ka must have went to Frasers, Debenhams, Next and probably passed the front door of HMV and all I got was a pineapple tart. "I've just been to the gym", I thought, "I can't eat a pineapple tart".
A pineapple tart and a mug of tea later, I relaxed. Pineapples must be one of your five a day anyway and I was back in the gym today so I'll have ran it off by now. Still all that cream cake goodness can't be good for the cholesterol. Can't be good for the old ticker - more senses of impending doom.
There's a general sense of doom in the work at the moment too. At the end of March everything is going to change. The lucky twelve who managed to retain a job in the restructured production department are all being trained up for the new system or brushing up on other areas in the department they hadn't previously given much thought for. The others, who did not secure positions, are all making plans, moving on, some slagging the company off as they go. There's a lot of speculating on how long the new, restructured department will actually last. Most, however, are just facing facts and getting on with it with varying states of despondency or 'don't give a sh*t' attitudes.
Late during the Monday evening, for instance, we were all awoken from our late shift slumbers by Cameron who decided to firmly put a foot down. His shift had finished at five and he had decided to wait on for his sis, Diana who works over in ads with myself, for a lift home, to save him getting the train. Diana was also under the impression we'd all be getting out early as there was no work left to do in our department and as a result most of us were sitting twiddling our respective thumbs, belly's grumbling.
After Diana's third attempt in asking if we could head home and Felix's third refusal, somewhere, on the other side of the room, Cameron clicked.
It was like the Michael Douglas movie Falling Down, except without the tie or the firearms (or Michael Douglas).
"Well I'm going home!" Cameron announced, swinging his jacket around his shoulders. as words were exchanged things unfortunately descended into a small, stubborn, shouting match between Felix and himself, Diana cutting in whenever she got the chance. It ended with the brother and sister marching out the office and Felix being left at his computer, thanking them for their input.
Unfortunately both Cameron and Diana are moving on, at the end of March, and I, among others, will miss them. Cameron was the first person in the office, and probably the only guy, to come straight up to me, shake my hand and congratulate me after finding out about Ka and my pregnancy. He's also a fellow sci-fi buff/geek and always has a good movie trailer to show us on the friday afternoon. His sister, Diana, has also been a good pal in S&UN and was my number one office Lost and Doctor Who gossiper when both shows were on the box, especially after big Lost Ian left. Diana also does loads of hefty car adverts which I'll probably have to do after she leaves. Thanks Diana.
A few months back, when I was over on the dark side of the office planning a paper one day, Cameron had been telling me all about how he used to be really bad tempered at work. Unpleasant. Impatient. Angry. Apparently now he was very mellow compared to what he had been. Calm. Patient. Helpful. (Okay, maybe I'm overegging it a bit there...) More at ease with his surroundings, anyway, and not losing the rag half as much, or to half the effect he used to.
There was a story told once of Cameron launching a phone handset half way through the open plan office. Of course, I wasn't sure whether to believe this. Yeah, I'd seen a bit of a temper when he'd spoke to certain individuals over the phone and heard the occasional curse from his general direction, but nothing the rest of us don't do when occasionally faced with a permanently crashing computer, a pile up of amendment sheets or a lack of teaspoons in the cutlery drawer.
Why is it work cutlery drawers always lack teaspoons? One day, a new new bunch of teaspoons appears for everyone to use to stir their teas, coffees or hot chocolates but then after a mere few days of teaspoonful bliss, they vanish. Gone. Snaffled away for the teaspoon mafia.
One morning I ended up stirring my tea with my bic and the flamin' pen decided to burst. It brought a whole new meaning to taking your tea black.
Anyway, I'd never seen any phones getting chibbed around in the office. Maybe just the occasional slam. I certainly can't even imagine anyone in our office being angry enough to chuck a phone handset such a distance. My mind boggles about what the person on the other end of that phone could have done to aggravate Cameron in such a way. Could she have requested the reshuffling of an entire planned paper just for one advert? Could she have been complaining about the non inclusion of a late advert? Could she have disagreed with him on the principles of The Phantom Menace? Or could his pen just have burst in his tea and it was actually nothing to do with the woman on the other end of the phone?
Do you think it would be safe to ask him without being on the receiving end?
One things for sure, S&UN life is going to be quite different come the end of March.
Still, at least the handsets will have a longer life.

With scarf and spade

Winter is most definately here with ice covering the roads and the outside temperature near dangerous without a pair of gloves. My hands felt red raw with cold after scraping the frost from my windscreen this morning. It was a struggle to even get out the street both today, and yesterday, as we live on a uphill climb and the gritter lorries don't seem to ever pass down our way. People sat in their cars yesterday morning, halfway up our street, uselessly spinning their tyres on the spot to try and get up the road. I had a plan though. Armed with scarf and spade I strode out yesterday morning and made good use of the salt bin across the road, spreading the grit over the majority of the street managing to avoid an embarrassing fall on the ice. It's always more embarrassing when you fall on the ice rather than a regular trip on pavement. Regular trips or falls you can usually deal with. But ice falls are far worse. Before you actually hit the ground your body will assuredly twist, swivel, spin, strain in an uncomfortable upright position and then, with one final skid for effect, collapse to the cold, solid street. To make matters worse someone will undoubtedly always see or be watching you and may even be working perfectly normally on the other side of the street. After spreading the salt I set off for the car, parked further down the street, managed to turn it and started up the hill, only to get stuck further down the hillside. After a few moments i turned into one of the neighbours I had been tutting at not half an hour before, spinning the tyres uselessly in sheer desperation of movement. Yet more gritting was called for. For some reason with these conditions the Council has neglected their usual winter road attacks and left us all to suffer with the ice. Last week I passed a salt spreader lorry when they wasn't a single snowflake to be seen so where have they all gone this week in our moment of need? If I was grumpier I would phone the council up and complain... but instead I'll just complain on this journal. I've found this journal quite good for venting some spleen or as fellow blogger Miriam calls it, ranting. Nothing wrong with a bit of ranting as long as it's the truth.
It was Lost Ian's last day in the office today and we all bid him 'fare thee well'. Till Saturday anyway as it's the work's Christmas lunch. It's okay to mention Christmas now as it is officially December. Christmas should only be in December, not October or even November. It still seems very early to be having a Christmas night out but I suppose it's only 3 weeks away now. Another year almost over. Better get those baubles out again.

Lost Ian

Well, we've lost Lost Ian. Rather unexpected twist to the redundancy horrors with the loss of our very own Lost Ian. The main crossword keeper. The fellow sci-fi buff with whom I talk Lost, Doctor Who, Spooks and generally anything a bit cultish in the TV department. Lost Ian, along with another colleague, Gordon Brown, (no, not the much maligned Prime Minister!) will be leaving S&UN at the beginning of the month. It's a right pi**er, to be frank and a devastating blow to us crossword crusaders who get together at tea breaks and lunches at the round table, talking our general nonsense whilst trying to suss out the answers to the devious Daily Mail's crosswords, codewords and connections. Lost Ian has been a good pal in there and I'll miss him as well as his DVDs! He must lend me a DVD every month. I'm going have to go and join a video shop now! Sorry a DVD rental shop. Actually, I'm a member of the Calderwood Square one already, but the women behind the desk scare me a little and they all look very alike with their milk bottle glasses. They probably have those glasses from watching too many DVDs. Anyway, the mood was sombre yesterday. You didn't know whether to be glad you still had your own job or depressed for those that lost theirs. Then we got news of Trinity Mirror putting a nationwide freeze on wages. Things can only get better...maybe.

Whatever happens

A rather pensive, grave day in the office today as we all know that we find out our fates with S&UN tomorrow. Nobody opted to volunteer for the redundancies so now it's up to the management. We are having individual meetings throughout the day now that the busiest part of the week is over. Speculation has been a bit rife but at the end of the day we can't do anything now. At dinner tonight in the small kitchen/canteen I was wondering if it would be the last Tuesday night with a microwaved dinner in the S&UN production centre listening to crazy talk, my colleagues' life problems and stresses and the desperate scrambling with the final clues for the Daily Mail crossword. Andrea was stressing about a Hitler look-a-like who has been employed by Hamilton Asda as a security guard who seemingly follows her around the aisles. Gareth was moaning about opening his front door this morning only to find an old fellow pissing in his tenement close. Creamy Chicken John was devouring one of his homemade chilli con carnes while Lost Ian was wondering what the connection was between Charles darwin and Queen Victoria. The joys of break time. One thing's for sure, tomorrow will be no joy, whatever happens.

Nightmares

After a particularly busy day at work, tonight I had more car difficulties. A flat tyre. I had to change a wheel on the Audi A6 Quattro I'm driving at the moment after coming out of work at half past eight. You would think this would be straight forward enough, but no, there were four of us working through it. We all reckon that the wheel's bolts had been superglued. Paul, Craig and Lost Ian were all excellent help in removing the flat wheel and helping me replace it with the spare one from the boot. If it hadn't been for them, I would most certainly have been there till at least midnight. Paul with his surprising mechanic skills, Craig with his strength of a bear and Ian with his indispensable socket spanners. Thanks guys, owe you one! Chaz, the ever helpful car salesman that he is, managed to get me the Audi last week, little did I know it had a flat though. Thanks Chaz! Drives like a dream now but eats petrol like a nightmare.
A very real nightmare of a more serious and saddening nature was in the news yesterday, about the charity worker being gunned down in Afghanistan by the Taleban. She spread the word of Christianity, that was what the Taleban claimed was their reason for this latest murder. Gayle Williams worked for a charity organisation called Serve Afghanistan which primarily aided in the education and help for people with disabilities and special needs. A couple of guys sped up to her on a motorbike, as she walked to work, and shot the South African six times at close range, killing her immediately. She gave her life for the cause and highlights the plight of all the aid workers out in these war torn countries. By not taking the bodyguards offered her, Ms Williams obviously did not value herself enough and underrated her own importance and her own heroism. These needless deaths and terrible incidents always bring it all home and make you wonder why your bothering worrying about things like the price of bread and petrol.

It's a cracker

Went in to work to the expected questions about the car this morning. Mary and Margaret having another heckle from their box. I explained that it'll be fine. No great emergency. They looked a bit disappointed. Finally returned Lost Ian's DVDs this morning. He gave me the whole series of 'Cracker' to watch around two months ago and I managed to finally finish it at the weekend. What a great series that was. Definately Coltrane's finest hour - why aren't they still making it?! Brilliant telly with so much depth put into the characters through the brilliant storytelling of Jimmy McGovern. Great. By the way, the reason he's called 'Lost' Ian is because that's the name he's given in the flat. Ka has never met him so he goes by the name of Lost Ian as, like us, he is a big Lost fan and records it for us every week as we no longer have Sky (after Sky decided they would no longer sell their channel to Virgin Cable back in '07). The same goes for Creamy Chicken John. John gave me a brilliant Aussie recipe for pasta last year, involving herbs, cream cheese etc which Ka has used on more than one occasion and as a result he is now called Creamy Chicken John. There are other names which I'm sure I'll write later but just can't think of at the moment or which I daren't mention!
Came home after work to find Claire (Montgomery) and Jane in with Ellie relaxing after a plate of Ka's meatballs and spaghetti. Nice. Fortunately there was some left, which I'll keep for myself till a later date. Had a bit of Ka's gorgeous lasagne in work for dinner, straight from the microwave. Have never been sure of microwaves. Work is the only place I use them, except from the occasional hot chocolate. Sometimes it's like Radioactive city in that work kitchen with all the microwaves droaning away at the same time probably damaging our brain cells with their cooking power.
Also watched the excellent 'The Matador' starring Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear at the weekend. Very enjoyable movie again with great characters. Brosnan played a blinder. A hired aging hitman stressed out with age, anxiety and maybe even guilt alongside Kinnear's straight guy salesman. I wasn't solely just sitting watching tv all weekend by the way. It just sounds like it... but the fact I have to drive whilst holding the door at my right shut is a definate hindrance.
I was hoping to get out on to the Scottish hills this weekend but it looks like work is going to get in the way of that now! It may have to wait till next week. Harry said he's going to pick an easy hill for us to climb. 'Easy'? Why easy? Does he think I'm not up to it? It must be about three years since my last Munro walk mind you... Ben Vorlich. 3232 ft high. That was a great day but tiring. Towards the end of the walk I think I was actually tumbling down the hill rather than walking.
Off work for a week next week though so hope to see some of the fringe in Edinburgh. There'll be plenty of walking then.
Claire's just left with a piece of lasagne for Martin. Hope you enjoy it mate, that was my dinner for tomorrow!

Whose day is it?

Today was just one of those days. A day were stupid things infuriate you and small things aggravate you. I should apologise to all those I work with for being a miserable b****** today. Lost Ian, Creamy Chicken John, Gareth, Andy, Shirley Ann, anyone else? I was just grumpy that's all. Computer crashed, playing catch up with planning the newspapers, playing catch up with car ads... It just wasn't my day - and no, I don't know whose day it was Lynsey Ann.
Getting ready to go out somewhere. Must have been summer time as we were off school. My mum had just accidentally put a heel through the lino in the bathroom. This adding to her fluster she shouted at us to hurry up then sighed, 'It's just not my day'. Lynsey looked up with a puzzled frown on her face ' Whose day is it then Mum?'