Like a What? Just Like a Circus

Overheard by Shoes last night at the dinner table (mercifully I was in the shower at the time):

Eyes: (watching Scarf with interest) Hey baby, you don't normally cut your potato like that!
Scarf: What? Yes I do.
Eyes: No you don't. You normally do it like this. *demonstrates by cutting own potato*
Scarf: Oh yes, you're right!
Eyes: Why did you cut it differently?
Scarf: I don't know. Weird. I'll cut it normally now.

You know what they say about couples who spend too much time together, right? They drop right off the radar of Conversations Suitable For Public Consumption and find themselves languishing in the murky depths of Conversations You Should Never Have Around Other People For Fear They Will Have You Committed (And Rightly So).

I've had a very hectic week at work. So busy in fact, that by Wednesday I was contemplating pulling a sickie to recover from my first two days, which felt like two years. But then I couldn't, cos I had to much bloody work. Today is the first time I've had some breathing space. For the most part, it has been busy but smooth. One event stands out though, as being a disaster area. Think Ground Zero, or the aftermath of Chernobyl. Think the worst case scenario and then add a healthy dose of how the fuck did that happen. How not to pitch to clients 101. Here's how it went down.

Two of the girls on my team, Shiv and Lils, had a presentation to some very important clients. Clients they have been nurturing, ego-stroking and subtly coercing for the last three months. This was the Big Pitch. Cue high adrenaline on Tuesday morning. I help them set up the room: tea and coffee, our best china (which is not very good, but hey ho), water, fruit juice, biscuits, fresh fruit, sweets, mints - The Works. We are putting on a show, and by george they will be impressed. Ok, time to get the presentation ready. Connect laptop. Shit, projector not working. Call JJ, fabulous general maintenance man, to plead for help. JJ not in yet. Call Al from the post room. Al bumbles around a bit, gets projector working. Grand.

Clients arrive. Presentation begins.

11:07 - Projector cuts out. Is given a firm bang, and starts up again.
11:09 - Projector cuts out again. Shiv barrells into reception and grabs spare desktop projector.
11:12 - Desktop projector connected. No picture. Lils making frantic calls to JJ.
11:13 - Main projector comes back on. Happy days! Presentation recommences.
11:17 - Laptop dies. Reserve laptop brought in and hooked up. Presentation recommences.
11:24 - Second laptop dies. Lils starts telling clients about what she did on the weekend. Shiv running around in circles, a crazed look in her eyes.
11:30 - Third laptop connected. Picture up. Presentation recommences.
11:37 - Third laptop dies. Lils telling clients about her daughter's first day at school. Shiv leaving death messages on JJ's phone.
11:39 - Shiv still crawling around on hands and knees in front of client, bum stuck unceremoniously up in air. Lils passing round baby pictures.
11:43 - JJ rocks up, nearly turns tail and runs when sees unstable state of Shiv.
11:50 - JJ plugs last wire in and switches on laptop. Collective intake of breath..
11:51 - Picture up! Round of applause. JJ retreats to safety of kitchen and proceeds to discuss with me the mentality of people who do not connect IT equipment correctly first time round. Presentation recommences.
11:53 - Shiv bursts through kitchen door, hair standing on end, eyes murderous. Speakers not working.
11:56 - JJ trying to get sound. Shiv changes her mind (by now bordering on criminally insane) and says sound not needed. Cannot delay clients any further.
11:57 - Presentation recommences. Get to end without further mishap, but all videos are watched in silence, like olden day movies.
12:20 - Wrap up. Shiv and Lils take clients to lunch. Bribe them with very expensive wine and premiere tickets for Seven Pounds.

Shiv and Lils subdued to the point of chronic depression for rest of week. Many, many angry e-mails fired off to CEO. People sympathetic for about 30 seconds, then enthusiastic piss taking ensues. I love this team!

The State Of British Tommies (and other really important aspects of life)

So, the good news is I have managed to get the extra £450 I need for my visa. The bad news is, I had to relieve my SA credit card of about R6,800 plus charges to do so. Imagine you are in the most debt you could ever be in - you have never owed so much money in your worst nightmares (for these purposes, a mortgage does not count - at least then you have an asset for your efforts). Then suddenly, you are forced to squirm a bit more, causing you to sink that extra bit deeper into the quicksand, which is now busy closing over your head. I'm breathing through straws sticking out of my nose. At least I'm still breathing, I guess.

Anyway. Good news: come Monday, I will hopefully be able to stay in the UK as long as I like - touch every single tree in the whole world. Bad news: I will probably spend the majority of my time here paying over my hard-earned income to government institutions; an exercise which, as most of you can attest to, is akin to sticking matchsticks under your fingernails. Excruciating and fucking annoying enough to turn the mildest mannered person into a mass murderer.

Enough complaining. I said yesterday I had a more light hearted post planned. Here it is then.....

On Monday I was talking about how rarely I get to have any time by myself. Living with three other people makes you face up to certain difficult realities. For example, I have forgotten what silence sounds like. I also don't know what it's like to make a cup of coffee only for myself - protocol dictates than when thou maketh tea, thou shalt offer thy housemates. I close doors with a marked incessancy bordering on mania - you can terminally fuck up your living situation if you have porno images of naked housemates interfering with your daily routine. If you're the unlucky couple with the smaller room and no en suite, your bad case of diarrhea is not only going to be overheard (and smelled) by the other three, it will also be the subject of continuous piss taking for the next few weeks. Deal with it. You will uncover characteristics that you don't particularly care for in all three of your housemates. If it's your boyfriend, it's ok - you love him despite his flaws, and are working flat out to change what you hate anyway. If it's the other two - well, you'd best prepare yourself. You will occasionally experience instinctive primal urges to push them head first over the balcony, or trip them down three flights of stairs. It's ok - this is normal. But whatever you do, DON'T GIVE IN.

One of the things about my housemates that annoys the holy shit out of me is their dinner conversation. Now, before I launch into this, I thought I'd include a disclaimer. I love them. They're my mates - my best mates, in fact, not just the roomey kind. I would not trade them for anyone else to live with, as I'm sure I would be in jail right now for intent to do grievous bodily harm if it was some of my other, less adaptable friends. But love them or not, this is what I hear probably about 3 out of 7 nights a week at the dinner table (I am usually cooking at the time, as they eat earlier than us, so there is plenty of scope for behind-the-back eye rolling and grimacing):

Eyes: These tomatoes are good baby.
Scarf: You think so?
Eyes: Yes, they're very firm. Way firmer than the ones we bought last week.
Scarf: Yes, they are. Full of flavour too.
Eyes: Yes, very flavoursome. They taste like Cape Town tommies.
Scarf: Cape Town tommies are SO much better than British tommies.
Eyes: I know! Perhaps we should try getting tommies from somewhere else?
Scarf: Maybe M&S instead of Sainsbury's. But it's more expensive there.
Eyes: You're right, it's like 10p more per tommy. I don't want to pay that much. But I also don't want to eat those crap tommies from Sainsburys again.
Scarf: Ja, because next time we buy tommies, they might be horrible, like they usually are.
Eyes: And there's nothing worse than those soggy, flavourless tommies.
Scarf: I miss Cape Town tommies.
Eyes: Me too. Remember how delicious it was to have cheese and tommy sandwiches in Cape Town.
Scarf: Every bite was good. And no matter where you bought them, you knew they were going to be firm and full of flavour.
Eyes: Especially Woollies ones. Woollies tommies are the BEST!
Scarf: But these ones aren't bad.
Eyes: No, not bad. Not great, but not bad.
Scarf: Maybe they'll be even better next week. Maybe Sains is going through a good patch.
Eyes: I think I'll have tommies on my sandwiches this week, as they're not too bad.
Scarf: Ok, and tell me how they are when you get home tomorrow, and then we can see if I should put tommies on for the rest of the week.
Eyes: Ok cool. They won't be as good as Cape Town tommies, but they should be quite nice.
Scarf: Nothing is as good as Woollies tommies though, hmmmm.

And so on... and on, and on, and on, AND ON. For a good 15 minutes. I am not lying. Substitute the word tommies with any of the following: bread, soup, lettuce, cucumber, chicken, curry sauce - it doesn't really matter. They can, AND DO, have this conversation about anything. Repeatedly. Sometimes I will leave the room, and when I come back 10 minutes later, it's like no time has passed. They're still talking about the same shit. They never get tired of it. Shoes and I check the clock sometimes, sharing secret looks of disbelief, as the minute hand ticks along and the subject matter never changes. It's amazing. They could go in for the Olympics of Inane Dinner Conversations about Food.

Like I said, I heart them. But if I have to hear one more conversation about the state of British tommies, I may very well give in to that primal urge after all.