Twisting and Shouting Policers of Degenerates

A tough week has just passed; I’ve been nearly ill right through, a sore throat and odd headaches were the symptoms. I’ve never had headaches like these: the pains were just at the back of both ears and I experienced a sensation that can be likened to my head being squashed. Sleeping is a difficult task too, I was unfortunate enough to listen to the presidential debate on Radio 5Live one night, John McCain annoyed me so much that I had to turn over. Sleeping is also difficult when juvenile football team managers bombard my cell phone with misplaced messages and calls; an upside of this nuisance was that I was awake for the Grand Prix and it was one of the best ever. When will Johnny Racer learn that he can’t go ramming people off the track? I fear he will have to kill someone before he realises the consequences of his “style”. I ran rings around people during the two football kickabouts on Tuesday, it makes my claims of illness more than a little fraudulent. I can play football when I feel below par, it aids my recovery, as do apples – they are better for headaches than paracetamol.

I’ve had the iPod out this week. I heard a bit of My Latest Novel on late night radio and I decided that they were all I wanted to listen to the next day. They’ve completed their new album, Deaths and Entrances, I am bouncing off the walls with anticipation or I would be if I didn’t have this Ebola virus thing that’s giving me the sore throat.

Everyone has a perception of me, it’s usually negative; at times, I like playing with this, I have done so many occasions this week. I’m seen as stern, quiet, dismissive, and as being pessimistic to the extent of being a negative person, that may be what I am, but I do like exaggerating this image to wind people up. I don’t often attend ‘things’ as it was so elegantly termed by one of my fellow group members, but I decided to make an appearance at the department’s Quiz Night with Cheese and Wine. The quiz was rotten; the questions were either too easy (which Apollo mission landed on the moon first?), too picky (name the year that Lonnie Donegan released Cumberland Gap – as if…I wish they liked music that much, there was too much naming of years of other less important stuff) or too stewdenty (naming Ikea furniture). I was in charge of writing the answers down, and despite being a former British quiz champion, I contributed little to our team’s eventual near success, this was due to the fact that there were no questions about flags. Alcohol had become too influential for one of our team members and I ran away, literally, before the results of the quiz were announced; I couldn’t handle hearing another of his stories for the umpteenth time.

An old friend from school, now a resident of Kirkintulloch, out in the wild west, paid me a visit on Friday. I regret that I could not make a great deal of time for him, but he was kind enough to come visit me at work during my lunch break. Actually, I was more selfish than that, I was anxious about time and went for a sandwich in town beforehand, and then when he arrived I did Lunch 2, this time at Morrisons supermarket. Two bacon rolls and two coffees made their way to Table 24, but I was only to consume one coffee. I wish we had more time, we barely caught up; I complained about the quiz, John McCain, Celtic and Rangers. I had to rush back to the teaching labs for what was a disaster; hardly any of my flock finished their experiments on time, I can only hurry them along so much. They all come from different chemistry backgrounds: some secondary schools will have given them experience of carrying out experiments, some will have never been in a laboratory, some will have had summer jobs and work placements. I hope after a couple of weeks we can really start roaring along together.

Saturday has been a hotbed of election fever. Labour have made bold statements in Methilhill, many of the gardens in Main Street have placards for our man, Lindsay Roy. The local SNP lot have taken aversion to this and have been out in force today, they arrive in MPVs and hit squads fall out, we’ve taken to posting a Labour sticker in our window, an unprecedented step for us. In a few weeks time, we’ll be scraping it off with anything and everything.

‘Have you tried soaking it?’
‘In vinegar?’
‘Where’s that spatula?’
‘I need it to flip the bacon.’
‘That Lindsay Roy.’