Wednesday, July 24, 2002 08:11 pm
There's a certain smell that lingers outside Chinese restaurants and take-aways at ten in the morning. This smell becomes stronger and hangs heavier in the air on the days the bins are to be collected. This smell is like everything you have ever eaten out of a Chinese restaurant yet nothing like what you have ever eaten out of a Chinese restaurant. It's a strange smell. No one dish can be picked out of this gathering of odours.
The smell seems to cling to you. It stays with you. Never leaving until a newer, more imposing smell pushes it out of the way. But it sticks to you. To your clothes, to your hair and to your skin. But only you ever seem to know it's there. It lurks under layers of skin, unseen - unsmelt - by others. Yet blantantly obvious to you.

Every morning I am sent from the shop I work in to the post office in the town centre with the previous days banking. I don't mind. Especially when the weather is good - like today. Even when the weather is dismal - like every other day. It's a good skive. I enjoy the walk. Thinking about the lives of all those I pass. Looking at the houses and wondering who lives in there. Occasionally I see a familiar face.
It's about a five minute dawdle from work to the post office. On the way I pass a petrol station, a park, houses, two beauticians, a photographers, grocers, fruitiers, bookies, a pub, derelict space, various shops, two Chinese take-aways/restaurants and two Indian take-aways/resaurants. Welcome to fast-food city. In the opposite direction there is a McDonald's and a chippy among other things. Welcome to a place where obesity, fat and grease rule supreme.

Monday, July 22, 2002 07:16 p.m.
Sarah from work (she's in charge on Karen's day off while Craig is on holiday), phoned me this morning to ask if I could go in and work. She called twice but I slept through them. Never heard. She phoned a third time and I answered. Turns out she was in by herself. Natalie should have been in theis morning with her but she called in sick and Hanah was supposed to be on this afternoon but she too is sick - she was off yesterday too. I went in at noon and tayed until 5.30pm (closing). That was Sarah's first day running the place. What a way to start! I wasn't going to go in until I realised what had probably happened. Oh well. More money for me!

I was supposed be going out today but that got canceled. We're going another time. Just as well. Right now, I'm going to go and watch Gossford Park with my mum. Should be good! x

Sunday, July 21, 2002 08:37 p.m.
I keep hearing more and more of Idlewild and their new album. I really want it. Unfortunately, I have no money to buy it. It's called 'The Remote Parts'. Oh well.

Last night, at about 7pm, Lisa phoned. She asked what i was doing and I said nothing. She asked me if I wanted to go out. Being really bored and having not seen her in ages, I said aye. I got changed and went down to her house. I was there by 8pm. Geri then came at around 8.45pm. In between these arrivals, Lisa asked me if I wanted to stay the night at her's. I said that would be good except I had work at 9.30am. We went up to my house, got my stuff and were back down at her house in time for Geri arriving. I got about an hour/two hours sleep. But that was only after I got exremely drunk. All three of us were very drunk. Lisa was drunk. Geri was drunker. I was drunkest. Only because of the volume of vodka I poured into that glass. Oops. Lisa's mum's bottle of vodka is now two parts vodka to one part water. It's still nowhere near as full as it was when we pulled it out the cupboard. Gah.....
We were sending text messages to people all night. Mainly Grant - I don't fancy him now, we're just friends - who was also getting drunk. 'Downing stella' by all accounts. And Richie - Lisa's boyfriend. I did have nearly £4 in my phone when I first got to Lisa's. I now have £0.76. Oh well.

I did manage to get up and go to work today. I even stayed awake the whole time I was there. I think if I had slept more I wouldn't have been so awake. I was only supoosed to be on until 1.30pm but because Hannah phoned in sick, I was on until 2.30 and Natalie came in an hour early at 12.30pm. Just to cover most of her hours, Karen's lunch break and the busiest part of the day. Natalie asked if could work tomorrow for her because she made plans before she knew when she was working and she would do either tuesday of wednesday for me. I declined. I have plans too.

With any luck I'm going to see 'Monority Report' with Geri and Lisa tomorrow. I'll need to phone then both soon. Lisa will be working.
Anyway... last night was a lot of fun but I really have to go and a) phone Geri b) sleep c) phone Lisa.
Have a good Sunday night!

Saturday, July 20, 2002 04:08pm
GERI! CINEMA! MONDAY! PLLLEEAASSEEEE!!!!!!!!!
I have monday off work! I'm also off on thursday and friday. I think. Yeah I am. £60 this week. I wonder if Virgin still has that 4 for £40 offer...Hmm....but I don't get paid for a month. Damnit.

I finished work today at the same time as my mum so we went into town and bought wallpaper. For my mum's bedroon. I'm not too keen on it but she seems to like it. I need to phone Lisa and see when she's coming out to do it. I still have to get the rest of the paper for my room but I'll need to take a little bit of the first paper with me to match. Not too sure what I want. Will have to think about it over the next few days. Living room paper still has to be picked out. There's still plenty of time. Sort of.

I really want to go to the cinema. (with Geri) But there's too much on! I really want to see Minority Report(Mmm...Tom Cruise....). I think Geri does too. But I also want to see Men in Black 2 and Scooby Doo. I'm such a big kid! There's a film woth Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock that I want to see too. Usually there's nothing decont on and now, all of a sudden, there's loads! I'm sure I'll work it out. They'll all be out on video soon enough.

I'm full of wants at the moment. I want the new idlewild album. According to Grant, it's brilliant. I love every one of their songs I've heard so far. Aahhh....when I have money....I'm listening to Usher just now and he sounds frighteningly like Michael Jackson. I had David Bowie on about an hour ago. I listen to a lot of diffeerent music. If you haven't already guessed that my dear non-existant constant reader, you're less perceptive than I previously thought. ;)

Friday, July 19, 2002 04:23 p.m.
I want a day off! Winge....moan.....winge....groan...rant...
I'm too tired to do the whole blog-thing today. Maybe later. I'm going to collapse on the couch and watch tv. Big Brother eviction tonight. Woo... Ahem.

One thing: why does newspaper ink always rub off on your hands? Light coloured jeans too. Damnit. Then you scratch yuor nose and walk around with big black marks all over your face. Does anyone know of any decent newspapers that seal the ink on the page? French papers do it. Why not British? Gah.....

Thursday, July 18, 2002 07:40 p.m.
It flew out the window when I accepted Craig's invitation to work for him. I hope it's somewhere nice. Somewhere with sunshine and white sandy beaches. Damn my social life!
What has sparked this little rant (a rantette if you like)? I hear you ask. Well......
I need to work tomorrow due toa huge delivery so my next day off won't be until wednesday. I'll be working six days in a row. My social life flew out the window a long time ago. Hope it went somewhere nice.

I did write a lot more than that. All about work shit. then I deleted it all. Who really cares? Not me! As long as I get paid.
I have something else I'd rather rant and babble about....

I was reading a paper on monday ( as I do every day - I'm a strange child really) and when I was taking my usual look through the letters page I came across a little 'gem'by an eejit ranting on about how much money the government pays out in child benefits to single paerents and those who earn less than £30,000 a year. He suggested that those who earn less than £30,000 a year should be sterilised! I was going to write in in response to this to suggest it is infact those who harbour such elitist and prejudiced views and actually have a chance of passing them on to future generations that should in fact be sterilised when I found I was beaten to the chase. It was very good. Here it is:

"In response to K Newton's suggestion to sterilise anyone making under £30,000 a year - what a great idea! And we could just drop a few nukes on all the third world countries to save time. Who needs police, nurses, firefighters or teachers? While we're at it, it might be a good idea to lobotomise, sterilise, torture or maim any overpaid types who come out with suggestions like this as such a lack of intelligence surely poses a threat to our elitist gene pool. I would like to be the first to volunteer for the torturer's job (as long as it drags in more than £30,000 a year) with K Newton on th first rack."
-- C Gauld, Galsgow

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people doing well in life. Just not enforcing their elitist, pompous views on others.
But I do have a suggestion. Tim from Big Brother 3 should be directly behind our 'wonderful' Mr.Newton. Where do people get off thinking they're so much better than everyone else? Gah!

Wednesday, July 17, 2002 05:23 p.m.
I made a few minor changes earlier on. I prefer this font to the old one. It's so much prettier. Tell me what you think.

I just looked at my phone and noticed I ahd a text message. From geri. I replied. Then I decided I had better see just how much (little) credit I had. 40p. I've been hapily texting and calling people for the past week not thinking about just how quickly £5 of credit can be eaten up. Devoured. It was exactly one week ago that I had no money in it whatsoever and then bought a £5 card for it and fed the beast. How did I manage to use up all of that? It would usually take me at least a fortnight! Gah.....

I'm still in my pyjamas. I only brushed my teeth about an hour ago. I was too busy changing things around here until an hour ago. Then my mother called from work. There went another half hour. In between brushing teeth and talking to mother I actually watched Countdown! I wasn't too bad at it! Not too good at it either! I did worse than the winner but much better than the loser.
I think I'd better get changed into proper clothes before my mum gets home and goes mad. x

Wednesday, July 17, 2002 02:32 p.m.
I suppose they are about the fourth richest people in Britain because they pay their staff shit wages. The shop I work in is part of a very large chain. All the staff get paid the same shit wages. I'm unger 18 so mine is even more shit than the rest. Even the manager can only expect £5 an hour. This may not seem like such a big thing when minimum wage for an 18 year old is £3.10 an hour until you consider the wages of the staff in a shop across the corridor. They don't hire anyone under 18 but working mon-fri you can expect around $4.60 and hour; on saturdays this is boosted to £5.50 and on sundays is further increased to £6.40. Anyone else seeing anything wrong? Upstairs is an incredibly posh little place where average staff get a basic pay of £5 an hour - the same as our manager.
Is there a lesson to be learned from all this? Yes. If you want to be rich you must first sacrifice any decency you once had, any morals or ethics and concern for your fellow man.
If that truly is the case, I think I'd rather remain a decent human being living in a poverty stricken, drug filled council estate in the west of scotland than have to give up everyhting good just to have money. It's not worth it.
Don't get me wrong, I would like to get out of this damned place as I plan to do, but not like that. Never like that.

From the frying pan to the fire methinks. Money isn't evrything and it certainly wouldn't make me happy.
I'll be out of a job in january anyway. May as well keep at it and get a good reference while I can. Save a little money. Karen. the assistant manager, is already starting to look for work. I don't blame her. My mum has application forms for a few places as well.
It's my day off today. I was maybe going to be staying at Lisa's tonight but I start work at 9.30am tomorrow so I think I'll give it a miss. Right now I'm going to go waste my time. x

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 07:06 p.m.
I went to my old pita and wandered into the guestbook to find a message from someone under the name of 'The Pope'. It's really funny. I was reading it for a while and then decided to send 'The Pope' and e-mail.
Now, as you may or may not know, the Pope is the leader, the figurehead if you like, of the Catholic church. This so called Pope is the leader of a little known 'religion' called Borkism . It's all very interesting. You should really go take a gander. (Hmm...gander. teehee.) Perhaps convert if you are so easily brainwashed.
But it's all in the spirit of fun. I hope.....

I found a great pita a little while ago. Greengodhood. This is a place to go if you ever feel like praising and honouring a vegetable. I haven't been there sice I first stumbled in. I'd forgotten about it until I discovered the glory ofBorkism.
Ahem....

Today was pretty average. Went to work. Came home. Fell asleep. Now I'm here. I was going to phone Lisa when I came in but I didn't (sleep) and she'll be at work by now. Oh well. I'll try around eight. She might be on her break around then. But that's later.
My stomach just rumbled, reminding me that the last thing I had to eat was a bowl of cereal at seven am.
I archived as well for all of you (my dear non-existant constant readers) who haven't noticed. If I do actually have any 'constant readers', please sign the guestbook and boost my diminishing confidence. x