Loon on the bus

Crazy bus lady, you must know her. Asian, in her fifties (or maybe younger, she has had a hard life), lots of bags. Big photocopying bill. May or may not be a fan of Dan Brown. Definitely not a fan of the Freemasons. You've seen her, I'm sure. Magic Bus. Stagecoach. Finglands. Telling the tale of her stolen children, of the government's collusion, of the evil of her husband. She has handouts. It's desperately sad.



I was on the top deck of the 86. She came upstairs and started to do her thing. I took out my notebook and started to scribble. I showed what I was writing to my neighbour, who nodded occasionally.

- I feel sorry for this woman
(nod, nod)
- She's so passionate!
(sad nod)
- But nobody listens when you shout. Poor thing. :-(
(nod, knowing smile)

Bus lady stopped, and alighted. My neighbour got off a few stops later. I imagine that, when she got home, she must have said to her flatmates...

"There was a right weirdo on the bus... with a notebook."

Don't blame the middleman, come to me

Ever since we were so shabbily taken to the Moss Side office and told “Here’s your new office!” the middle manager has been sending around ‘funny’ (i.e not funny at all) emails. Emails like the one below.

STRESS MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUE
Just in case you are having a rough day, here is a stress management technique recommended in all the latest psychological journals. The funny thing is that it really does work..
1. Picture yourself lying on your belly on a warm rock that hangs out over a crystal clear stream.
2. Picture yourself with both your hands dangling in the cool running water.
3. Birds are sweetly singing in the cool mountain air.
4. No one knows your secret place.
5. You are in total seclusion from that hectic place called the world.
6. The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.
7. The water is so crystal clear that you can easily make out the face of the person you are holding underwater.

I don’t understand. Does he think that circulating such tedious shite is going to make us forget that we’re moving to Moss Side? If he’s trying to win us over with humour, he should at least try to make it vaguely amusing.

The email above is the second this week. The only comfort for the other disgruntled employees and me is that he’s directly contravening our organisation’s email policy. Delete or file? Maybe I’ll file it. It might come in handy one day.

“This is John Tracy, in Thunderbird Five…”

A phone call at half ten on Saturday morning: Emma Jennings, says caller ID. A gruff man’s voice says hello. That’s not Emma.

“I’ve called because you’re the last person on the call register. I’ve found Emma’s phone. And her purse. And her handbag. All of her stuff.”

“Wow,” I thought, “this guy could have robbed all of her stuff, but he didn’t. How lucky is Emma?”

He was also staying in the camper vans section, so I said I’d try to ring Tracy and get the stuff back to Emma. I thanked him, and got to work. I couldn’t get through to Tracy, so I called Dem and asked Dem to try to get hold of Emma’s dad’s number – he tried to do this by calling Kelly, who didn’t have it – and we tried to get hold of Emma’s boyfriend’s number too. Pulling all the strings from Manchester, I felt like John Tracy in Thunderbird Five.

Tracy texted: “Emma’s gone to get her stuff now. She’s broken her ankle.”

A broken ankle means spending the next two days holed up in the camper van, and not seeing any bands at all. What a shit Glastonbury story.

UPDATE: It gets worse. Emma gave her fella the flick for not looking after her properly. Shit the bed.

"You have received a message from..."

You have received a message from... WHO? Wow, I thought she'd disowned me... oh... it's a group message