Knee's Bust When The Devil Drives! - E-Mail correspondence with Spooky St. Ives

Good morning, or is it?

I thoroughly enjoyed my time away from work. I think they should pay me to stay at home and enjoy myself.

How did the blowing up of the world go?

Hell no! I am now miserably (and not very gainfully) employed. First day today. Shagged out already and I've still another four hours to do tonight. God I HATE first days at work. Don't know anybody, don't know anything, can't find anything and, generally, can't do anything.

Not successfully enough, obviously, given the above!

Good oh (ish). Sorry to hear you're not enjoying it - that's work for you! - but at least you're back in the running. Where are you now, back at the Slop?

I have just been reading the first pages of your thesis (i know!!!) and have decided to read a page a day during my lunch (i'm on a diet and need something to put me off my food). Did it get the desired result?

PS you didn't get this job so that you couldn't socialise with Helen and BM did you?

No, I've gone to the great castle in the sky. No way I'd go back to the Slop
..... people kept tracking me down there!

Well, it got me a degree. What other desired result did you have in mind?

PS. I met them briefly in Spar on Satanday. Unfourchewunately, I misread Helling's e-mail and decided for some reason that they weren't down until Moonday and so was otherwise engaged when they rang on Friday night. I then had to hang around to find out if I'd got this job and when I was starting. At present I don't know if I'm working all the rest of the week so it may be a brief encounter (if at all). Anyway, I told Helling it was all her fault for nagging me to get a job. If she'd just let it slide we wouldn't be having this problem!

top of the hill then. not too far to walk from home.

That was the result.

Ps typical. if a bloke had told you to get a job it would have been friendly, but because it was a woman she had to be nagging and everything's her fault. Was Lucy with them?

pps talking of adverts, which we weren't but were a couple of weeks back, we are currently very impressed (sic) here that Norwich Union can give you an insurance quote on your car with just the colour and type (ie hatchback) of your car, very clever.

Acshually, it's about 20 minutes walk up hill and down dale (and across golf course).

And look where all that education has got me!

But the blokes didn't nag me to get another job, did they? The only blokes who did put me under the cosh were the RT and that was only because they wanted more beer money! Allegedly. They claimed Luce would be coming but I won't know until we attempt a midnight rendezvous on Thugsday cos I'm skivvying until then.

PS. Well, you didn't think that there was any scientific process involved in calculating your insurance premium, did you?

not too bad

mmm

And that in it's way is nagging you to get a job. How else are you meant to get money? You could hardly rob a bank whilst you were hiding down the mine. Just think of all the money you'll have earned until then. On the other hand don't think about that at all, we don't want you more miserable than you already are.

Ps silly me (certainly not scientific anyway)

Depends whether or not you get a faceful of golfball on your way to work really.

MCMLXIV

But how could I refuse such cuddly pressure? Anyway, the money may not ever materialise from this job. Only a day into it and I've jarped something in my left knee. No idea what but it don't arf hurt when I straighten my leg out completely. Invested my last few groats in a knee support and a bucket of mega-strength ibuprofen this morning. I'm just praying that calms things down as I can hardly go off on a sicky less than 48 hours into the job!

Not really a nice way to start the day.

no need to swear!

Ooh, cuddly pressure is the best kind, you can resist that.
God you sound like me; various parts of me start hurting for absolutely no reason. It usually goes of it's own accord, but my knees could grate for England.

Is that 48 hours on the job or into the job, either sounds like a marathon!!!!

Knee seems to have subsided a bit today so hopefully it is just a strained something from excessive blue-arsed fly impressions on my first day.

So have you settled in and enjoying it a bit more now. If, that is, anyone can actually enjoy going to work. (ashley i'm a bit sad there, i enjoy my job at present, don't know how long it'll last though)

Which? The feeling of liking your job or the job itself? Personally, I subscribe to the theory that if you wouldn't really much rather be doing something else you haven't got a real job.

As for my boj, it is early days yet but we seem to have a good bunch (compare and contrast with 'The Sloop: Chs 1-366; Lies, Deceit & Treachery - A Way Of Life'!). I must admit that performing carvery carnage for a horde of German coach tour parties is a tad nerve-shredding. I took a German dictionary in last night so we could explain to them what parsnips were. Got a wedding bash on Saturday which should be a challenge. (Especially as my parents are among the guests so it's bound to go totally tits up!).

Hopefully having the Brief Encounter with BM & H tonite. Meeting them down at the Slop once I get away from wurk. Hope they're still conscious by the time I get there!

I was talking about the feeling. I would actually much rather be doing something else, but perhaps you've hit the nail on the head; is my job a real one? I do sometimes think someone else could do it, but couldn't you say that about anything? If you had all the time in the world, you could do it all yourself, but then we'd get nowhere.

Ah, the colleagues make all the difference. How exactly is a carvery nerve-shredding? Skuse my ignorance but don't you just cook a roast and cut it in front of the customers? Don't they have parsnips in Germany?

So what's the food for the wedding. Horses Doufers, smoked Salmon and mille feuille or soup chicken and fruit salad?

Well, as the Beatley Blokes once observed, nothing is real and there's nothing to get hung about (unless you're Derek Bentley!).

Firstly, the carvery carnage consists of two roasts, a meat, a fish and a veg special, two different lots of spuds, three vegs and an assortment of accoutrements so it's not exactly as straight-forward as doing Sunday dinner at home. Especially when the majority of your customers are Germans, Americans, Australians and Brummies, for whom English is not their first language! Yes, they have parsnips in Germany but I think they feed the farm animals with them.

No idea what the wedding fud will be. Personally I'd go for traditional British cuisine; i.e. sausages on sticks, cheese & pineapple cubes, etc., but they are probably going to be pedantic and insist on cooked stuff.

Yes, just. It was a busy night up t'castle and I had to leg it back to the Slurp like several bats out of hell to make it in time. Probably not by the time we left.

I would never suppose it was as simple as a sunday at home, but it's not quite a la carte. However it sounds good and if there are a lot of people then i'm sure it can get hectic, specially with all those foreigners.

Hope your knee held out. Afterwards wouldn't have been a problem, it wouldn't have hurt if someone kicked it with all that anaesthetic!

True, true (Barney, Mcgrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grout!), I just meant that the properly servile distribution of so many various dishes in a relatively confined space is not as easy as might initially appear.

Exactement. When I go to the gallows I fully intend to order sausages on sticks as my last meal. Then, I will use a few of the sticks to blind the guards and then build a ladder out of the sausages and remaining sticks and leg it!

Knee? What knee? (He said leaping up in defensive mode) ...... Oh, that one (he said, prostrate on the floor).