Minutiae v1.0

The following is almost certain to prove a disastrous experiment in ‘blogging’ (whatever that is) the inane details of my everyday life, but apparently it’s what we are supposed to do under the rules of international law. This exercise in tedium will continue throughout today. Or until I get utterly bored. Or until I lose the will to live. Maybe you can entertain yourself by guessing which outcome will be the most likely?

9.14am: The fingernail of my right index finger tastes most unappetising. This does not bode well for Thursday.
9.15am: I have no one to poke on Facebook. I am bereft. This bodes even worse. Or ill. Or something.
9.16am: Lurch’s knee is clicking most satisfyingly into place this morning. Maybe all is not lost.
9.28am: The minicab driver is two minutes early, cheerful, reliable and, most pleasingly of all, virtually monosyllabic. This annoys me, because it gives me nothing to complain about.
9.30am: I try to update this entry by mobile phone. I fail abysmally, but this reassures me that at least I am not lost forever to geekery. I shall have to continue via the far more satisfying medium of Moleskine notebook, whilst pretending that I am Ernest Hemingway.
9.32am: Why do all cab drivers listen to Heart FM? Why must I be forced to endure the ‘guess the year’ slot that reminds me, via overblown ’80s pop hits, of how disgustingly old I am?
9.38am: Look! A woman walking across Battersea Bridge clutching the sides of her head! I hope she is not planning to leap into the Thames and try to end it all, as it will make me late. Yes, I am one of those considerate Londoners you hear so much about.
9.41am: “Grace Kelly, Harlow Jean / On the cover of a magazine.” I have always loathed that particular rhyme. It was cringeworthy back in … oh God, Heart FM has sucked me in! I am guessing the year! Quick, driver - back to Battersea Bridge so I can jump to my watery death along with head-clutching woman!
9.48am: It was 1990. What a relief. Now I can spend the rest of my journey to work remembering what I was doing when I was 19 years old.
9.49am: I have remembered. It was woefully dull, since there was no internet. How did I ever cope?
9.53am: I dare you all to dial 023 8047 1155 and say that you were told to do so by An Unreliable Witness.
9.56am: Every jerky R’n’B song sounds like every other jerky R’n’B song. Fact.
9.57am: The cab driver is so bored by this morning’s traffic jams that he finally gives in to his curiosity and asks me why I keep looking at my watch and then writing in my notebook. In doing so, he silently breaks wind. That’s it, I do believe I have lost the will to live even before arriving at work.
10.01am: Why do commercial or ‘yoof’ radio stations play music behind their news bulletins? I do not want to know that the world is heading towards certain environmental disaster whilst nodding my head in time to a four to the floor dance rhythm.
10.07am: Amy Winehouse? Or frog gargling with Listerine? You decide.
10.11am: Pondering how difficult it would be for a driver of a car with a personalised number plate to walk normally if I were to shove said ridiculous item up their rear end.
10.13am: Call 020 7805 3555 and tell them that an anonymous source on the internet recommended that you follow a career as a London bus driver. Go on.
10.21am: Finally, at last, I have arrived in the office. The contents of my inbox is exceptionally though reassuringly dull. The blinds are drawn against the not particularly overpowering sunlight, so I shall just wait for the Seasonal Affective Disorder to seize hold of me and drag me into its dulled embrace.
10.22am: First hollow laugh of the day. I think that’s almost like a starting pistol indicating that I have to do some work now. Some radio silence will now ensue, you’ll be pleased to hear.
11.20am: I am about to go to a meeting. It is going to be a long meeting. It is going to be a long meeting about technical things, with technical language, attended by technical people. If you’re bored (and I know I am), why don’t you spend the next 90 minutes or so guessing my likely thoughts during this meeting? Results after the break.
11.56am: Gosh, I never knew that quite so many three or four-letter acronyms even existed.
11.58am: Today’s interesting but patently ridiculous business jargon is ‘releasing a new whistle’. Whatever that means.
12.01pm: I’ve always wondered about the phrase ‘acceptance testing’. Why should you need to test that somebody can accept? Is there a corresponding ‘refusal testing’?
12.03pm: An fascinatingly-shaped cloud drifts across the small piece of sky that I am permitted to see from this anonymous meeting room. I am utterly captivated. Sorry, what were you saying?
12.15pm: ‘Blob number’. Blob what? Right, they are messing with my brain now. I have clearly entered an alternate Alice in Wonderland reality.
12.17pm: I am envying the red, white and black striped socks of the man sitting opposite. Why, then, did he have to ruin the whole aesthetic picture with a jumper decorated with lurid blue and turquoise rectangles?
12.25pm: Fifty-five minutes in to the meeting, I consider making my first and no doubt only profound and insightful statement to the assembled gathering. Someone interrupts before I get my chance. I immediately give up on the idea. It’s probably for the best.
12.47pm: “We will need to sanity check that.” You will need to sanity check me too, at this rate.
12.59pm: Meeting over, I slide my imaginary machine gun back under my desk in the knowledge of a job well done. I would take lunch now, but being a high octane-fuelled new media business type, I know that lunch is for wimps. Oh, and I feel sick, which helps one to avoid such food-related frivolities.
2.08pm: I have just realised that I have had absolutely no coffee today. None. No wonder I feel nauseous.
2.59pm: Phone calls are not good for my mental health. Or my nervous disposition. Or my lack of caffeine intake. Or anything.
5.07pm: The afternoon disappeared in a blurred frenzy of typing. I am now drinking one-third of a paper cup of very fizzy champagne - and feeling almost tipsy as a consequence. This is further proof that I am getting disastrously old.
5.32pm: Oh, the exhilaration of momentarily breathing in non-conditioned air. And at least my luck is in again on the way home from work, as I have the same driver from this morning. Still reliable, cheerful and almost monosyllabic, but this time without the accompanying anodyne background of Heart FM. Probably just as well, as I would have ended up putting my foot (the stiff rubber one) through his radio if he had insisted on playing it. Thankfully, he has no suspicious odour of methane about him this time, either.
5.52pm: I hope the driver doesn’t think I am odd for lying right back in my seat to stare at the bare roof, and following the swirling lights of the passing traffic dance across it. Sometimes I long for the day when I can travel by Underground again.
5.54pm: The cars waits in a traffic queue beside a bus displaying an advertisement for the NHS site Alcohol: Know Your Limits. Thought-provoking, since it occurs to me that my limit is the earlier imbibed third of a paper cup of cheap champagne.
5.55pm: Speeding over Battersea Bridge, hopefully not the scene of someone’s suicidal final plunge (or desperate plea for attention) this morning. I would care more, but I just want to get home and stop this headache now.
6.13pm: Dwelling unit, sweet dwelling unit. Peace, warmth, tranquility, a flashing light on my telephone which I ignore, and the internal debate on whether to eat a proper evening meal or just have toast.
6.15pm: The rest of this evening has been cancelled due to lack of interest.

10.22pm: Conclusion & Results
Readers, I’m sorry. It appears that I bored myself to sleep. And you too, very probably. I’m sure you will agree, however, that this post of intermittent drudgery and mind-numbing minutiae has proved one thing, which is that I am unequivocally no longer cut out for day-to-day blogging (cough, spit, retch). Not like in the old days when I was young, innocent and fresh-faced and found something to write about even in an activity as mundane as doing the washing-up. It is simply not me any more.

I am very tempted to remove all the above evidence to the grave of best-forgotten embarrassments, but instead I will try and bury it as quickly as possible via another route, by trying to move it further down the page with examples of what I do best: eyelids, poetic purple prose, thesaurus-swotting and short stories with no discernible beginning, middle or end. Know your limitations, Unreliable. Know your limitations.

I’m off to try and locate my missing brain cell, wander the virtual aisles of my favourite online superstore to purchase more caffeine-based products than I know what do with, and finish the evening by indulging in a bout of frenzied Facebook poking of anyone that appears to be even half alive.