Want to know about my new job?
Hmm, thought not. So instead, here's an exchange about working environments between me and a friend who shall remain nameless:
FRIEND:
I am quite envious. Covent Garden in the run up to Christmas is appalling in terms of crowds of teenage mutant Japanese turtles, but there’s something nice about it too – the market, carol singers, fun fair, chestnuts vendors, the services in St Paul’s Church, pickpockets etc.
Here there are a few green foil covered plastic cones shaped quite like Christmas trees, spread out over the shopping mall, with uniform metallic purple baubles on them in equally spaced rows. They look like they have been designed by German laser-modelling engineers, whose ordinary role is the shaping of BMW spoilers. They have used a theodolite to decide where to put them. Then there is the ching ching ching of slay bells from Boots’ muzak machine (“Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, have you got the squits? We can cure your itchy scrot and shave your hairy pits, oh…jingle bells, your @rse smells, come and buy some gear, we can give you anything including homebrew beer…” which competes with Starbucks’ seasonal collection of New Jazz Boy Dodgy Mouthful playing Ella Fitzgerald sings Ol’ Blue Eyes’ covers of Satchmo’s favourite versions of Duke Ellington and with Rolf Harris and the Massed Stylophone Bands of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here accompanied by the Big Brother All Stars Marching Samba Band, featuring Gary Glans (aka Classic FM’s “the Singing Binman”)’s breathtaking new cover of Cheryl Tweedie’s unforgettable Gotterdammerung.
ME:
Your nostalgia for all things Covent Garden is well founded. It is indeed an engaging place, with the hugely entertaining sound of the hardly talented juggling and singing for the benefit of the largely indifferent and uncomprehending shopper, the seasonal cry of “Big Issue, Sir?” and the sight of the world’s least decorated Christmas tree – which you practically have to stand in Charing Cross Road to see, so high is the surrounding hoarding proclaiming the munificence and benevolence of its donor.
Once you have passed through all this, you reach my office, which is currently encased in some sort of tubular iron lung. Apparently, the outside of the building is being painted, but so far all that has been achieved is the blocking of a gutter, leading to the third floor being flooded [Fortunately, this is the one floor not occupied by us and the people in there were responsible for the Sound of Music talent show thing, so they deserve everything they get]. The sound of paint being scraped rings loud through the building, reminding me of the client who so damaged his natal cleft he was forced to dry his rear with a hairdryer forever more – I guess this is what it sounded like as he chipped the sediment off once a month.
I post this, of course, to emphasise that almost all of my friends are wittier and more intelligent than me.
FRIEND:
I am quite envious. Covent Garden in the run up to Christmas is appalling in terms of crowds of teenage mutant Japanese turtles, but there’s something nice about it too – the market, carol singers, fun fair, chestnuts vendors, the services in St Paul’s Church, pickpockets etc.
Here there are a few green foil covered plastic cones shaped quite like Christmas trees, spread out over the shopping mall, with uniform metallic purple baubles on them in equally spaced rows. They look like they have been designed by German laser-modelling engineers, whose ordinary role is the shaping of BMW spoilers. They have used a theodolite to decide where to put them. Then there is the ching ching ching of slay bells from Boots’ muzak machine (“Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, have you got the squits? We can cure your itchy scrot and shave your hairy pits, oh…jingle bells, your @rse smells, come and buy some gear, we can give you anything including homebrew beer…” which competes with Starbucks’ seasonal collection of New Jazz Boy Dodgy Mouthful playing Ella Fitzgerald sings Ol’ Blue Eyes’ covers of Satchmo’s favourite versions of Duke Ellington and with Rolf Harris and the Massed Stylophone Bands of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here accompanied by the Big Brother All Stars Marching Samba Band, featuring Gary Glans (aka Classic FM’s “the Singing Binman”)’s breathtaking new cover of Cheryl Tweedie’s unforgettable Gotterdammerung.
ME:
Your nostalgia for all things Covent Garden is well founded. It is indeed an engaging place, with the hugely entertaining sound of the hardly talented juggling and singing for the benefit of the largely indifferent and uncomprehending shopper, the seasonal cry of “Big Issue, Sir?” and the sight of the world’s least decorated Christmas tree – which you practically have to stand in Charing Cross Road to see, so high is the surrounding hoarding proclaiming the munificence and benevolence of its donor.
Once you have passed through all this, you reach my office, which is currently encased in some sort of tubular iron lung. Apparently, the outside of the building is being painted, but so far all that has been achieved is the blocking of a gutter, leading to the third floor being flooded [Fortunately, this is the one floor not occupied by us and the people in there were responsible for the Sound of Music talent show thing, so they deserve everything they get]. The sound of paint being scraped rings loud through the building, reminding me of the client who so damaged his natal cleft he was forced to dry his rear with a hairdryer forever more – I guess this is what it sounded like as he chipped the sediment off once a month.
I post this, of course, to emphasise that almost all of my friends are wittier and more intelligent than me.
posted by The Skiver at 9:15 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home