a pleasure

I find it mildly irritating to hear a tannoy voice telling me how it has been a pleasure to have me fly with them and then wish me a pleasant and safe onward journey. They've started doing it on trains too. It's the insincerity that bugs me. Sure it must be reassuring to know that having passengers means having jobs, so I guess the voice owner does have some reason to be happy for my custom. But, do you know what, I don't really care. You're not making my day any better with these vaccous nicities so just stop it. Keep the trains and planes clean, keep them on time and leave it at that.

Ah, that feels better...

In other news from the motherland. My primary school has been extended, my middle school has been demolished and my high school has become co-ed from boys only. Ch-ch-ch-changes. Got a bus to Kingston on Friday evening and sat on the top deck. It was a thoroughly unpleasant experience and, oddly, the girls were far worse than the boys. I guess maybe they have a way to go to learn how to get on the piss on a bus without being a twat. The boys just want to look cool, the girls all want to be Paris Fucking Hilton or Jordan. I've spoken to a few locals and there is a simmering resentment to the latest wave of inward migration. The Polish are getting a bit of a name for themselves. Could be trouble ahead, dunno. And I dDon't know why I felt the need to put that down in writing. And I know it should not sit ina single paragraph, but how does it go, my blog...

And so to dad. His oral morphine has been replaced with an injection thing that releases the drug throughout the day and night. Whether it is that or his proper-fucked liver or his not eating or all of the above, he pretty well did not wake today. I turned up a little after 09:00 to find him sleeping. He almost awoke; his eyes opened and he made some muddled noises but there was nothign in those eyes that suggested he know where he was or who was there with him. Tracy, one of the many fantastic nurses stroked his face and swept his hair back. I hope he heard her soothing words and it is just that we could not see that he was present.

That said, I'd like to think he would ahve reacted had he heard some of what was said as it was about a cathatar insertion. I'd have a thing or two to say about that. Although I was interested I decided to take the opportunity to get some breakfast when he was having a tube shoved down his dick; I have to draw the line somewhere.

I got back from breakfast to find dad still asleep. Rather than stay I decided to leave him there and headed into town to get Darren a Christmas present (Howies trousers, Howies being my favourite clothing company. Check them out; top-notch ethical credentials and great clothes) and to meet Simon and Jon for a coffee in the City. I tend to stay in touch with very few ex-colleagues and these two are the very few from my last stint in London. It was good to see them; they are both top lads...but I was not exactly on good form. I'm sure they'll forgive me. I was on similarly low-form last night, improved somewhat by a few beers with Warren at one of our twenty-year-old stomping grounds, The Prince of Wales in Wimbledon. It was good to catch up with the lad. He's my link to a stack of my past and we did one of the classic conversations; I rattle of the names of the other lads and he gives me the update. Weddings, divorces, births, no deaths, job moves and so on. It was good. I miss them all when I stop to think about it, so most of the time I don't. Took the opportunity to click of some shots of graf while in the City too - well, you gotta have a hobby.