It Was Only a Kiss, It Was Only a Kiss

How could I have been so stupid? How?!

The internship was going so well! The work I was doing was getting some great feedback, people were smiling at me around the office and asking those typical questions one gets in the offices. Questions like "So, did you have a good weekend?" and "... So, what are you up to this weekend?". I even was invited to a couple of meetings in the boardroom. The boardroom! That's no place for an intern to be sitting! That's for, well, the board! Clearly I was moving in the right direction. 

But then it all came crashing down. 

It was a balmy, Thursday afternoon. I had prepared for the day so well. Ironed trousers, ironed shirt, polished shoes, combed hair, clean shaven. I was ready to rock the very foundations of the world of business. The morning was just a blur of quick-fire jobs, people's recommendations, and the promise of more work beyond my original time at the company. I was here to stay and make the most of it! I'd even upgraded to a new chair- one with arms and wheels, and a back which doesn't itch my delicate skin. 

Pleased with a morning of sheer excellence, I took lunch a little later than usual, so keen was I to not break the momentum I had built up. At two o clock, I afforded myself a little, well deserved pause. 

That's when things started to go wrong. 

I was on my way to the shops to pick up some chicken, because, for some reason, I left the house this morning with a chicken caesar salad, minus the key ingredient, a lollypop, because I am five years old, and a milkybar, for the same reason. I received an email, with another little bit of work for me to do on it, from a woman in another department. A young woman, who I'd had a little contact with before, but this was something that we would be working on quite extensively. I see the email arrive on phone (because they can do that, these days), and I reply promptly.

'Yeah, that's fine, I'll have it all ready by tomorrow for you.
JB xx'

Send. 

Freeze. 

I have made a big bloody mistake. 

Kisses on an email?!

This is not a friend, this is not a chat, this is a bloody colleague with some bloody work for bloody me, and I've gone and sent kisses at the end of my email! What the HELL did I do that for? I have sent an email to a work colleague with kisses on the end, and there is nothing I can do to rectify it! I'm stuck in the middle of a supermarket, holding some chicken, staring at my phone like an idiot, completely dumbstruck at what I have just done. 

I quickly calculate the scale of my disaster: by the time I have paid for the chicken and pork pie (by the way I also bought a pork pie, pot-bellied demon that I am), she will have told the woman next to her. By the time I have left the store, the woman next to her will have told the people around her. By the time I'm out of the car park, her whole department will know. By the time I get back to work, the whole damn office will know that James Brittain is an absolute sleaze who will send kisses on emails to whoever he goddamn pleases. By the time my boss returns from London, I will be out of a job, I just know it. I imagine myself returning home to see all my clothes slung out of the window, and a note from the missus saying "Saw what you did on the news, we're fucking finished" attached to my pulverised xbox, and my guitar hanging by it's strings from the tree in my garden. 

This would never have happened if I hadn't answered that stupid email with my phone. I text with my phone, and I send kisses on the end of texts! I must have automatically thought I was sending a message to somebody close to me. What an idiot! Because of one silly little error, I will now forever be branded as the office bike. That's it- I can't go back to work. I can't show my face in there, the shame would be unbearable. The heated glares would burn the hairs on the back of my neck, and melt my cold shame, reducing it to a puddle right by where I was standing. 

I slide in through the back door at work, head bowed away from eye contact, and quickly sit down. I open up my salad, add the chicken, and set about wolfing it down as fast as I can, so I can just get back to work- at least that was going well for me. A part of me hoped that I would be judged for my work, but that quickly vanished, because I'd picked the worst food to eat in a sexual harassment crisis. 

My chicken caesar salad was in a tupperware box in the office fridge, I'd also brought a yoghurt from home, and there was that pork pie. None of this food was particularly helpful to my cause. The chicken pieces I had purchased were far too big, and I'd only brought a fork with me. Not wanting to risk another walk to the kitchen, I soldiered on, cutting all my food with the fork, until I exerted to much, and a sauce-stained leaf of spinach flew out of my box and onto the laptop that work had given me. I quickly wiped it off with a napkin I'd saved from Burger King (times are hard...) and got back to eating.

It wasn't until three mouthfuls later when I spotted a rogue bit of salad on the desk next to me, right in front of another colleague. Before it had even registered in my mind, I broke into a sweat. Had she heard about the sexting-scandal? Did she think this was my way of finding a reason to move my hand over to her desk? If she did, she hid it well as she carried on with her work. I, faced with the biggest dilemma of my professional career, decided to use the same Burger King napkin (times are really hard...) to wipe it away as subtly as I can, whilst I mumbled something which sounded absolutely nothing like the word "sorry". 

Wondering quite how the past 45 minutes had ruined four weeks of hard work so effectively, I moved on to the yoghurt. There's nothing remotely incriminating about a yoghurt is there? The missus had bought a pack which was rather delicious and healthy- guilt free in every way. I peel the lid off and stir the pot to get in all those bits at the side that don't stick to the lid, but aren't the same texture as the rest of the yoghurt. Saying that, quite a lot HAD stuck to the lid... I couldn't help myself.

I lick the lid, while at the same time look around to make sure nobody was watching. 

Somebody was watching, another female, and I catch her eye. 

Now I'm somebody who's looking at another woman, licking the lid of a yoghurt pot, with an odd look in my eye. I know what the look is- it's one of sheer panic and complete and utter fear for not just my job, but also my life, but how is she meant to know that? I try to blink and break the contact, but it's such a half-hearted effort, it involves just one of my eyes. Was that a wink? There is no recovery from such a situation. I have just single handedly written my own death sentence with one flick of my tongue. 

For the rest of the afternoon, I do not utter a single word. Typing frantically, and looking incredibly busy. I don't think it fooled anybody- interns aren't meant to be busy. Their sole responsibility is remembering who has what in their tea (which, since the fiasco mentioned in a previous post, I hadn't even bothered to do). High-flyer that I am, and my 'U' in Maths can vouch for that, I had set myself one goal when I arrived at this job: don't fuck it up. It looked like I was going to fail quite spectacularly. 

I check my inbox for any more work/lawsuits. 

Nothing.

I'm starting to get quite hungry again as the day draws to a close. But I can't eat that lollypop- the Sultan of suggestive foods- and the milkybar was devoured in a quick toilet/uncontrollable sob break 45 minutes ago. The pork pie would have just spoiled my appetite for dinner. Oh God, I'm bloody starving! 

I head over to the kitchen to grab some water- oh god, she's walking towards me. The victim of my lurid advances is walking straight towards me. I brace myself for a barrage of abuse.

"Hi James!"
"Hi!"

...

I knew it. She so fancies me.

Internal Affairs

It's August, but you probably already knew that.

I've finished my first week of an internship at a company in Cheltenham, and it's gone fantastically. Finally there's a structure to my day, rather than waking up late in the morning, hungover, looking at a barely functioning clock and moving the hands so it said half past five and pouring myself a drink. 

No. I am up at 7am sharp, ironed a shirt (thank god for Wiki-How eh?!), hop in my modest car, commute (it takes about an hour) and arrive proudly into my new place of work at 9am sharp. I look around, and take it all in. Finally I am around people who do not want to spend their time slung over a urinal spluttering a concoction of WKD, pizza and blood while singing "Afternoon Delight". These people are a professional group of individuals, whose brains I can pick for valuable life and career advice, people who enjoy a light-hearted joke around the coffee machine without getting out of hand and all "Jimmy Savile" this and "make me a sandwich" that. People who prefer to ask "Did you hear that piece on Radio 4 this morning? More positive news like that from the Bank of England and we'll have a fantastic final quarter", rather than somebody who bounds into my personal space like a dog with a tennis ball and screams "ROOOOONEY!! WHAT A FUCKING GOAL, did you see it last night?!" It is vital that I make an excellent impression with these people. Relationships I forge here out of the fires of marketing excellence could last a lifetime. It is imperative that I do not insult, be rude to, or even ignore any one of these employees who have graciously made room for me to fit in. 

I'm shown around and I meet and greet a few people. I say hello politely, shake a few hands, and am shown to my desk, and say hello to the people who are working in close proximity to me. I've nearly met everyone I need to, except for a man working at the end of the row, who was intently typing away with purpose. He pauses for a moment, looks up. I nod at him. Realising that he's not going to get a jovial "hello, nice to meet you" out of me, he decides I'm a prick (I can tell), and goes back to work. I realise that, eventually, I'll have to join him in doing some work. I've been applying for jobs and talking about doing work for nearly two months. My time as come. Zero hour is closing in. Eventually, I will be sitting at a desk producing work which will make somebody very rich. I say somebody because, let's face it, it's not going to be me. 

I start the computer, am given my task, and look up at the screen. 

"How about a cup of tea, James?"

It's my boss, standing by my desk, offering me, an intern, a cup of tea. A boss, offering an intern a cup of tea. What kind of sick, topsy-turvy world had I stepped into?

I graciously say yes, and by doing so instantly put myself in tea-debt. The intern simply HAS to make more teas than everyone, otherwise, what's the point in employing one? I'm not a huge tea drinker anyway, I have a coffee in the morning from my cafetiere, and possibly a herbal tea in bed when I'm reading a book, but that's only because I wish I was 65. Why did I accept this ridiculous offer? It's unheard of, it's unethical- it's blood tea. Tea which somebody has needlessly suffered to obtain for my pleasure. The guilt is surging through my body, is this a sackable offence? Have I brought, not just the company, but the whole concept of internships into disrepute? It probably wasn't even an offer, it was a test. A cruel test they make all interns suffer, like an initiation, but without forced diet of an onion, cinnamon powder and bovril.

His phone rings and he's delayed. It must have been an important call, because he sits back down and starts writing and looking at an accompanying email. Sensing the opportunity to claw back some kudos, I leap up out of my chair, expose the white socks I'm wearing with black shoes and black trousers which are becoming a little too short in the leg (shamone!) and head over to the kitchen. 

Then I remember a chilling fact from my youth. 

I cannot make a good cup of tea. 

For about 17 years, wool was pulled over my eyes to hide me from this, frankly, hurtful truth. For my whole youth my family have accepted tea from me, smiled, taken a sip, said 'nice one, James!' and died a little inside. Finally, my parents broke the truth to me by calling me into the dining room to discuss it, which is never a good sign. Suddenly the dining room table, where I've enjoyed many a hearty meal turns into a conference table, like we're in The Apprentice, and I'm the project manager who was in charge of the Shit Tea Task. It was too tearful to repeat to you here. No British man should have to suffer like I did. I may use whatever money I have in my will to open up a foundation to rehabilitate those who have been told they do not make good cups of tea. But how can you learn how to make a good cup of tea? It's like having the courage to run down the high street naked; you either have it or you don't. Right now, I know which one I'd take.

The memory of my 'firing' was all too clear in my mind as I handed my boss the tea I had tried to make him. Embarrassed, I leave it on his desk behind his phone, laptop, several stacks of paper and a booklet, hoping he won't see it, and scuttle off to my desk, avoiding eye contact with everyone. 

Sadly, he notices it, and thanks me. I nod, knowing that in about four seconds he'll be wishing he had just worked from home today. 

He takes a sip, looks at it for a second, takes in what he has just taken in, and leaves his desk. If he returned within 20 minutes, I either didn't notice, or simply couldn't see him with my head in my hands. Still, at least he'll never ask me to make another one. Ever. 

But enough tea drinking- to work! 

The my screen is still relatively empty. I look around and see everybody busy at work. I look back at my screen and am completely lost in the white light coming from it-what-the-hell-do-I-write-Jesus-H-Christ-I-know-NOTHING-about-marketing-why-did-I-study-politics-for-three-years- 

"ATCHOO!"

The man at the end of the row, just two seats away from me, sneezes, and nearly everybody says "bless you". I, however, was so entranced by my screen it took me a couple of seconds for the sneeze to even register, and by then, the moment to say "bless you" has gone. A late "bless you" is worse than no "bless you", because if you don't say it, people just think you're a die-hard atheist who has completely ejected religion from your life. Receiving a late bless you is like receiving a gift card for Ann Summers- it's no bloody use to me at all.

But he clearly hasn't seen it like this. For him, it's better late than never, and I just curled out a solid "never" on his front lawn. He glares at me again, and gets back to work. 

"ATCHOO!"

Whatever he expelled from his nostrils must have been contagious, because moments later, the man directly next to me sneezes. I am prepared for this, and I don't want it to sound like boasting, but I was first in with the 'bless you'. So enthusiastic was I with my blessings, I ended up being louder than the initial sneeze was. People from other desks were looking at us now, as if they'd just walked into the stationary cupboard and caught us in a moment of intense passion.  Worst of all was the glare from the man who, not 2 minutes ago, I had completely sneeze-snubbed. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but it appeared to be a look which said "Okay, you little intern punk. You've just made your first enemy here, good luck fitting in."

But I have to make a stand with the "bless you"s. How far away does the sneezer have to be for it to be acceptable to send a "bless you"? Is there an acceptable distance, like holding the door open for somebody who's a fair distance behind you? If one person sees me dishing out "bless you"s like sweets at a sale, the whole situation will just get out of hand. I'll be harassed by people from different departments for my silence. If I even hear a whisper of a sneeze from the four corners of the office, I'd have to send an e-mail to everyone in the office.

I consider writing a draft and saving it. I could probably send an e-mail quicker than most could react to the sneeze. It's something that nobody expects... Nobody, until now. I am no longer a rude intern- I am a genius of manners and courtes-

'ATCHOO!'

I sneeze.

Nobody says bless you.

I deserved that. 

You May Say I'm A Dreamer...

It's Tuesday night. Or Wednesday, I don't really know. I don't really care. It's just another drab, boiling hot evening in boiling bloody hot July. The nights are so hot they are simply an extension of the infernally endless days of haze and heat. The bloody weather, it's always the bloody weather...

Having returned from working a flight as an air hostess, the missus is sitting across from me at the dinner table, tucking into the dinner we (well, she) made in quite regular clothes, while I sit, panting like a dog stuck in a car, insulated by a layer of my own sweat to further worsen my mood. I stare down at my food. It's way too hot to eat, but, as a man, I have to at least look like I've made an effort. Ray Winstone isn't the man he is now because he only had a few mouthfuls of risotto each meal and then gave up- that guy knows his way around a dinner plate. I bet his favourite garnish for steak is another steak-

'Oh, I forgot to tell you' she bursts, causing me to jump and drop the prawn and 3 grains of rice I was mustering the energy to eat from my fork. 'David Beckham was on my flight, he's really nice'.

I blink at her. 

David Beckham? The David Beckham? As in, national-treasure-England-captain-charitable-hero-and-idol-for-millions David Beckham? Meeting 'Goldenballs' (I am aware nobody calls him that any more) used to be a lifetime dream of mine, since THAT goal against Wimbledon. He's the answer to every boy with a silly haircut practising free-kicks against walls nationwide. The man is one of the most recognisable faces in the world, probably just behind The Queen. 

I used to dream about David Beckham an awful lot as a child. Whether it was meeting him, seeing him, playing football with him, or even being him. But then as a child, my dreams used to be as heroic and glorious as they were completely far-fetched. I could be an F1 racer one night, lift the Champions League the next, and then score a last-minute try to cap off a rather excellent week. There was, quite literally (in a fantasy kind of way), nothing I couldn't do, because, as a child, I had know idea what my limits were. I was confident I could have grown up to be anybody.

So when I did eventually wake up, I would act out my dreams as if they were really happening. My garden was my Wembley, my Silverstone, my 1999 season. But slowly, as I grew up, I realised that my garden was just a garden, and not the turf of Twickenham, or the wicket of Lords. Eventually, I grew up to be a slightly weedy, camp young man who's too scared to "like" female's facebook pictures for fear someone will write "PERVERT" on his wall, as if they only put a picture of themselves in hotpants on the internet as part of Operation Yewtree  and I took the bait. Thus, I have learned most of my limitations by now (I'm sure there are more things I can't do lurking around somewhere), and as a result, my dreams have become more and more limited. 

'Fucking sort yourself out, right now!'
'Look, I'm trying!'
'Not fucking trying hard enough! What the fuck are you doing? You're fucking useless! Fuck off'

Rio Ferdinand said that to me. I was centre-back alongside him at Old Trafford. But I wasn't an internationally-renowned player. I was me. With my footballing ability (there is no footballing ability). Which means that, when a player from Manchester City rushed to me with the ball, he flew straight past and scored. Rio seemed to think it was all my fault. I woke up soon after, thoroughly embarrassed, though not quite as embarrassed as I was at Silverstone and Jenson Button drove past me (but then again, he was in a state of the art McLaren, and I was in a Peugeot 106, so it was inevitable), and nowhere NEAR as embarrassed as I was when I was at work, carrying some drinks over to a childhood sweetheart who had married someone else, and suddenly tripped over, which sounds dangerously realistic, but was, in fact, another dream. 

As for Miss Forgets-to-mention-David-Beckham, I guess the sky's the limit for her, which is why sleeping is quite easy for her to do. She can lie in bed and drift off, safe in the knowledge that in ten minutes, she'll be trying on a pair of diamond shoes, or swimming in an ocean of handbags (as you have probably guessed, the research department of JBHQ is at an all-time low), whereas I stare straight at the ceiling, wondering who is going to hit me with their Honda Civic next. 

Last year, Scottish-grimble-turned-British-hero Andy Murray told us about how he dreamt he had won Wimbledon after in fact losing, and how it was really cruel, and he woke up feeling awful, making us all feel awful too. But when I dream about being booed off Have I Got News For You, I'm consoled with 'Well, I can see that happening, because not many people find you funny. But then again, I guess you'd never be asked to go on the show'. 

The world would be so different if Martin Luther King had possessed a similar subconscious deficiency to myself- I mean, if he hadn't dared to dream about achieving such landmarks of racial equality, people like George Zimmerman would be able to shoot black people and get away with it, or someone like John Terry would be able to call somebody else a 'fucking black cunt' and still be paid £200,000 a week to play football! Now that's far-fetched! 

It soon dawned upon me, after the missus said she had met David Beckham, that I will almost certainly never meet him, but that's not to say I'm worse off for it. But a part of me wishes I could still dream about meeting him. Right now, I'd settle for dreaming about meeting a neighbour on my street who isn't either the missus or the landlord. But I can't. My fantasies are grounded in the reality of my every shortcoming. Soon I'll be dreaming about being able to brush my teeth without accidentally falling into the toilet, if I'm lucky. 

Or maybe I should be more positive; get out in the garden, alone, and, just one last time, step up to take the penalty that wins England the World Cup. Then perhaps I could jump into my Ford Focus. Not to go anywhere in it, but just drive it around Silverstone for a bit, and win there once more. Maybe perhaps in the afternoon, I could ride my bike along the Champs Elysee. Then come in from having the best day of my life, fall asleep, and relive it all over again in my mind.

Failing that, I could actually get off my arse and actually achieve something.

But isn't that what dreaming is for?

A Bunch of Losers

Earlier this week, I lost at a game of tennis.

This is probably among the most common sentences uttered by any British male, in a sporting sense. It's certainly up there with "I've always loved cycling, look, there goes Sir Chrisley Wiggendish now!", "Why the fuck is he bringing Jordan Henderson on?", and "Wait- We have a gym membership?! How long has that been going on- we moved house 6 years ago!"

I lose out on things all the time. At school, I never had a 'winning season' at rugby, and, despite my playing over 125 games for the school, I only scored 3 tries in that time. I lose the lottery on a weekly basis (and I don't care what anyone says- it is still technically losing) and when I meet other cars on a narrow road, I always reverse or tuck myself into the nearest hedge/grassy bank/another car- and that DEFINITELY is losing. 

But what struck me so much about the defeat (2-6, 6-4, 4-6 to my brother, of all people, since you asked) is how easy it was to lose, and how well I took it. I lost at taking defeat! When I was a child, I was the worst loser imaginable. I'd blame everything within kicking range, abuse whoever was officiating the contest, and leave in such a strop, I'd make Kim Jong Un look like Santa. But now, I'm fine. I'm fine with losing. How has this happened?! 

The problem, as ever, does not lie with me. It is with this country as a whole. We have overachieved for quite some time now, and then dramatically underachieved for a long time after it. Now we just plod along like a good former superpower should. Taking our place in the pantheon of humble historical civilisations, like the quiet old Aztecs, or the wise Greeks, or the riotous Egyptians... Okay, so we're not like Egypt. But allow me to take you through Britain's demise through the medium of sport.

It is agreed by the scholars of the modern world that the English invented football, and for a while in those early years, I can imagine we were pretty damn good at it. But then we made the mistake of showing off and telling other nations about this incredible sport we've invented. Not only did other nations understand the game, they eventually became better than we were at it. A lot better, which means in today's age of World Cups and Champions Leagues, we barely feature on the top table without recruiting the best players from other countries. The English are now so shocking at football on every level, we need help to achieve new levels of mediocrity. We need Arabs and Russians and Americans to buy out clubs and fuel this perpetual piss-poor performance year after year. 

The history-makers decided to promptly do-away with football and, instead, pick it up and run with it. This was a great idea from a school in Rugby, Warwickshire. I don't have any stats of the early games to hand, but I can bet that the Rugby school from Rugby were head and shoulders above the rest for a while, until they too made that fatal mistake of telling other people about it. This was a massive error on two levels: Firstly, the Welsh found out, and have been harping on about it ever since. Secondly, so did everyone else in what was the Commonwealth, and even a few rogue states who have no business playing rugby- the French, for example. 

Thus, the fathers of sport did away with rugby, and let countries like New Zealand take it far too seriously, but while the All Blacks were whitewashing the rugby world, the English were learning from their mistakes- the sports they had invented so far had been WAY too easy to learn. Kicking or running with a ball is just too simple. So they devised a game so complicated, surely nobody would want to learn it? Thus, cricket was invented, a game so unbelievably complex, it instantly put off the Welsh and most of New Zealand. But unfortunately, another nation was to rise. The English had not taken into account the scholars of Australia (because back then, Australia was a very scholarly nation- rather like we see it today) , who immediately set about interpreting the rules in a way they could understand. 

'But Brucey, mate, shouldn't we learn about reverse swing and silly mid-off?'
'Nah, fuck 'em, Dave. If those Poms wanna challenge, we'll just fucken' chuck every bit of abuse we can at them while they're batting, then bring in Shane to rip 'em a new one!'

This constantly happened with every sport that Britain could present to the world- hockey, tennis (excluding Scotland, they're fucking brilliant), ice hockey, boxing- that we ended up in a situation where we're good at lots of sports, but not great at one of them. We're actually a bit shit at each and every one of them. Plus, if you read the Daily Mail and like politicians who wear mustard-yellow trousers and constantly drink pints of ale, you will be aware of the fact that there are SO MANY foreigners in this country now claiming nationality, we're actually not even the best at being British- how British is that?!

How can we focus on winning one thing when our attention can't stay on it long enough? That's why when a British athlete accidentally comes 4th in the javelin in his local sports day because 2 other athletes were caught snorting lines off the athletics track (which, if you think about it, is quite clever) we instantly give them an OBE, Sports Personality of the Year and condemn them to a lifetime of visiting schools and opening the local Greggs. Ask any Englishmen what sport they watch, and they won't name one- they'll name three or four. The fact that the BBC felt compelled to have FORTY EIGHT channels for the Olympics (alright, 24 were standard and 24 were high definition, but it still counts) shows just how scattered our interests are. 

Ultimately, it all comes back to the genesis of sport- football. We are slaves to the Premier League, with all it's decadence, racism, adultery and- possibly worst of all- diving. We perpetually look at Andy Murray, Jonny Wilkinson and Steve Redgrave and think 'why aren't our footballers like that?', then gladly hand over hundreds of pounds to watch Luis Suarez on the shittest episode of Come Dine With Me I've ever seen. 

"Well, the venue was nice, I do like Anfield, but main course was a little odd- Branislav Ivanovic?! Not for me: 4/10."

Which is why I've done away with it all- hung up my boots, relinquished my racquet, exited the ring, withdrawn from the field, left the hallowed turf, had my last hurrah, chucked away my clubs, thrown away my darts (and missed), swung my last swansong, and given up on the sports that have made other nations so great. Instead, I bought a bike, am now a road cyclist, and most importantly- I ride on my own. That way, it's impossible for me to lose- I only compete against myself, which is easy- I'm shit at cycling. 

Which is probably why I lose at that as well. 

Lip Service

It is the cloudiest and greyest of Sundays, the sort that nobody ever wishes for. It’s okay if it rains, because you can do things inside. It’s great if it’s sunny, because the world’s your oyster! But a lot of cloud has come over London, picked up the deck of cards I was shuffling, and shouted in my ear “FIFTY TWO CARD PICK UP!” and sprayed an entire deck of misery over our otherwise fair capital. I certainly didn’t invite him with me; he must be a friend of the missus.

We are in London for two very specific reasons: primarily, there is an exhibition at the V&A about David Bowie which I am desperate to see, and inflict on my significant other. Secondly, but firstly, we are to oblige our reservation at a place called The Rum Kitchen, which is in West London. Just the thought of lunch in such a place makes my wallet shudder and remember days of old at University, where I would stuff my hand into it at an unholy rate, night after night. “Two vodka cokes please… Shit! I haven’t got any cash- do you accept cards?” The answer is never “no”. The result is never pleasant. Thankfully, those days are behind me. So I thought.

However, this seemed to be going really well. We have two cocktails, (it’s a very Rum-based thing, I assume you’re supposed to get that by the name of the place) and a very nice lunch for two. Actually, it’s an incredible lunch! Sumptuous! I’d be tempted to go back and smuggle the food into a lab, just to make sure I hadn’t actually stumbled across the cure for AIDS, it was that delicious. The bill comes, and it’s positively microscopic! This is incredible! I hadn’t seen numbers so small since I learned maths in primary school! There I was worried that IBM would have to invent a new word for the sum about to appear in front of me, and look at this! It’s tiny! I feel a huge rush of excitement. I could get this bill. It would be the first of its kind- a student broken from the expenses of University, only in work for 2 weeks, and paying for lunch! In London! For his working-full-time-girlfriend! I reach for my wallet, which is hiding in the corner of my pocket somewhere, breaking into a sweat. 

As I coax it out a full minute later, I note a little addition at the bottom of the receipt.

“An optional 12.5% has been added to your bill.”

Hmm. Seems a bit much. Usually I give, (and as a waiter, would like to receive) 10%, which is pretty standard in the UK. And we really did only have one cocktail and one burger each. It’s not as if we’ve been demanding. I blink a couple of times, and stare at the receipt, perhaps hoping that the receipt would admit defeat and retract such an extortionate addition. Never mind, the receipt says it’s optional. I’ll just stick a fiver on (the bill was £40.50, for two drinks and two burgers, I can tell you it was worth it). But the maths geniuses among you, you will know that with 12.5% added on, it brings our total to £45.56. £45 is as close as one can get without having to get into the tricky matter of coins, and it’s only 56p missing. That’s 1% of the bill. I could make up the difference by looking underneath the cushions of my sofa! I hand over the money and sit there, delighted with our excellent meal, and our fantastic deal.

But just as we are about to finish our drinks, the waitress looks at the money, 

looks at her computer, looks at the money again, and returns to our table, and stuns us all.

“Sorry, the bill says £45.56?”

My mind explodes. Was she asking a question?! If it is, it’s a ridiculously impertinent one! What is 56p to anyone? Maybe our fair waitress wanted this money so she could give it to the third world? 56p there is much more than 56p here. 56p in Africa could be the difference between life and death; here it’s the difference between a having Milkybar and not having a Milkybar, and that’s just here in the South West of England. In West London they could probably sell Freddos and Drumsticks for 56p and get away with it!

I catch my breath and murmur something about having to check whether I have any coins (I have £8.37 in all sorts of coins). I try to hide the contents of my wallet while asking the missus whether she could spare 56p. “Nope, sorry” she says. What a load of fucking help she is! I give her a look which says “Thanks for trying” but meant “Thanks for casting me out to the depths of the fucking ocean with nothing but a toothbrush and an empty jam jar! You, my dear, are USELESS.” I pull out a pound coin which I had all along and surrender it. She puts the money in the till, and then as she gestures to give me the change, I say “keep it”. Frankly, if she’s that bothered about 56p, she might as well keep the remaining 44p and I wish her all the prosperity in the world with it. The one thing I cannot stress enough from this incident is I am absolutely 100% bona fide definitely not bitter about the whole situation. 

That would be wrong.

But that didn’t stop me trying to work out all the things I could have spent that 56p on. 2 blades of grass at Wembley? An Apple iPaperclip? I could take that 56p to the bank, open up a new account, and let the interest take care of itself! By 2086, could have as much as £1.67, and could probably buy a nice new cover for my iPhone 52S! I live in hope.

In times of austerity, it is perhaps beneficial to us all that we have people who are so concerned with the finer details. I have never seen somebody so determined to recover such a small amount of money, and as I walked out of the restaurant cursing her pettiness, I couldn’t help but admire her desire to obtain every last penny she could get her hands on, and she deserved the extra 44p to go with it. That’s the price of a hard day’s graft in 2013: 44p. I’ll never complain about a small tip again. It has to be earned.

I'm still not bitter, though. 

Thirteen Going on Farty

After a rather stodgy adolescence and an even lumpier entrance into my twenties, I am now growing, at a considerable rate, into a man. 

I've been looking forward to this ever since I was 11, when I learned about what it was to be a man. As my teacher held up a leaflet about wet dreams and feelings, he told me and the other boys in my class that girls tend to mature faster than we do. "Codswallop!" I thought. "HAHA look at this plastic willy! Look how veiny it is!" said the student next to me, hitting me over the head with it... Maybe my teacher had a point.

But then, my teacher lied to us all. This charlatan, this phoney, this con artist, looked us all in the eye, his brothers in arms, men of the future and said "Don't worry, you'll catch up later on!" Oh yeah, Mr Norris? (his name has been changed because I don't want to be telephoned by somebody from Operation Yewtree or be accused of slander because I just associated him with it) WHEN are we going to catch up? I'm 21 now and I'm still no closer to being as sensible as my girlfriend as I was when I was 12!

The trousers in our relationship have been firmly whipped clean off my legs and placed onto hers. She placed one leg in firmly in an estate agents earlier this week, and then the second in the bank, just to stop me sneaking a sly toe in anywhere. I've been completely blocked out of trouserdom, and now I have to spend the remainder of this relationship, however long that may be, at Trouser Border Control standing to one side bashfully in my vest and pants while I am searched, in case I try to smuggle some stupidity into our relationship. Probably by storing it in my anus.

Off we march to the estate agents. She with a firm stride, I holding the umbrella which is keeping her whole body and half of mine dry as I try to keep up in the driving rain. My girlfriend is not happy. This excuse of an establishment has cocked up our contract for our new tenancy three times, as well as a host of other failings from this woman who, after we paid our deposit and fees, seemed to stopped giving a toss, which is pretty unacceptable. I'm expecting my Iron Lady to bang her fists on the table and demand our money back. All of it. With interest. And a grovelling assurance that it will NEVER happen again. And more interest. Between the two of us, our overwhelming fury can be vented in such a manner that we can recoup some money which we have wasted on this useless company.

But the problem is, it wasn't the two of us confronting the woman who had failed us. My gripping fear of confrontation meant I was unable to look at anything other than the floor and my phone, and suddenly took an unusually keen interest in a message from somebody I have never been particularly enjoyed speaking to. My girlfriend was left to take centre stage, and was simply repelled by a whole spiel of "very unorthodox  and "human error" and "mistakes can be made"; the sort of jargon that only somebody who is constantly accused of mistakes can fall back on. Not that I could chip in- I spent too long creating a buffer zone around me in the doorway, ensuring that I was safe from having to administer a telling of, I couldn't break it now! I was just as livid, but I refused myself a chance to let that rage be known. I'm too hot-headed, anyway- I would have only used offensive language to describe this poor woman's family, turned her desk upside down, and made sure that her computer screen could be fed through a letterbox, I imagine. 

We leave empty handed, the rain hammering down on our defeated heads outside. I am thanked for my total lack of help, which I can only assume meant I wasn't holding the umbrella well enough. 

Then on to the bank to open a joint account. My girlfriend has every right to feel aggrieved with this as well; she, a full time worker, is substantially wealthier than I, a student. She's at a totally different stage in her adult life to me. The age gap between us is just 5 months, but, as has just been proved, in terms of maturity, it's more like somewhere between 10-20 years. But I digress; back to our unnamed bank.

We are invited into an office to discuss our situation. Instantly, our advisor, Alan, knows who he should be dealing with, and it certainly isn't me. My mouth is confined to making noises such as "mmm", "I see", and "Okay, yeah" for 10 minutes, while Alan and my girlfriend talk about what account we should look to open, as well as some possible decisions we should be thinking about in a couple of years, once we've built up some savings. She talks about 12 month, 2 year, 5 year strategies and plans we could reasonably stick to. She also discusses our jobs. She's cabin crew for British Airways, flying all around the world serving the rich and famous in First Class. I work in a bar. It's actually quite rewarding- plus I've met some of the cast of Hollyoaks. She's met Keith Richards, Jose Mourinho and Colin Firth... I've met some of the cast of Hollyoaks.

It's agreed that we should get a current account, and Alan dives in for the hard sell. "Now, do you know about our 1-2-3 Current Account?". Silly man! I've seen the advert with the terrible acting from Rory McIlroy, Jessica Ennis and Jenson Button- of course I know about your 1-2-3 Current Account! (If it isn't obvious by now- or you haven't seen the advert- we were in Santander. I've given up hiding it for security purposes. There's no point. Go on, take it! Take all my money which I have with Santander!). My girlfriend says she's not entirely sure what it is. 

"I know!" I chirped up. My girlfriend is surprised I've taken time to learn about a possible financial move we both can make together. Alan is surprised that I have managed to master speech and conscious thought at the same time.

"Ah, very good! How did you find out about it?" How did I find out? I think sarcastically, as if he doesn't know! Ha! The genius his question! This has played right into my hilarious hands!

"Rory McIlroy came into my kitchen and told me all about it!" I chuckled.

Nobody laughs. For quite a while. It's a verbal void bigger than the one I experienced at the dentist's straight after I proclaimed, rather loudly, that the protective glasses I was wearing made my dentist's assistant look 3D. The only time I will be given a longer silence is upon my eventual demise and departure from this world. I wonder if they've seen the advert- but of course they have! Everyone has! Oh god, it's really quiet in here now. Nobody is talking in the entire building. Cashiers have stopped, computers have frozen, doors are jamming. But Alan, who is increasingly annoying me with his lack of laughter, proceeds to tell my girlfriend what this shitty account is, and eventually we decide it's best if we don't get it. I think it's humiliating enough for her being with me in front of a financial advisor. The thought of being seen with me in front of Rory McIlroy, Jessica Ennis or Jenson Button is truly mortifying.

I sign a piece of paper opening the account, confirming that what's mine is hers and what's hers is hers, and we leave.

We agree on the drive home that all matters which are important to our livelihood should be left to her, and everything else, such as picking a DVD to watch and what to put on my toast in the morning, she can simply offer advice on for me. Then it hits me- I know what to say to Mrs Useless from the estate agents! I check for a junction in the road so I can turn around and tell her how useless she's been, but then I realise it's nearly an hour and a half too late, which is a shame, because I would really have given out an ear-bashing.

I lie there in bed that night, simmering. God, that woman wouldn't have known what hit her! But then I realise something- that life's too short to be getting angry at people, telling rubbish jokes with wasteful silences and bullshitting about my job. I really should grow up a little bit. 

With that thought, suddenly a strange feeling rushes through my body. Right from my gut, up to my head and back down to my toes. A feeling I haven't had since I joined University. Now, two weeks before I leave it, I have an epiphany  Should I, James Brittain, miserable bastard extraordinaire, be enjoying adult life? Am I leaving it too late to embrace the little fortnight of youth I have left? Should I mature gracefully, and simply appreciate that I can be a blend of experience and youth together? Am I becoming (whisper it) an adult myself?

But then I realise it's just a massive fart I suppressed from dinner, so I aim it at my girlfriend and stuff her head under the duvet to enjoy it. Adulthood can wait- youthful misery and confusion is the way forward!

Waiter! More beans! And get rid of all those fucking wristbands up your arm- you're not at Glastonbury now, dickhead!

A Whole New World

Guys! I have some amazing news!

Well, it's not really amazing, but it is at least news!... Actually, it's not even news, or even anything of any remote interest to anyone.

I handed my dissertation in this morning, and then instantly regretted it, as I realised I had committed the biggest oversight in University history; I forgot to take a picture of it and share it all with you.

Which is why I've decided to tell you on here, so that you can sleep soundly in your beds tonight knowing that I not only have written my dissertation, but also handed it in! Can you imagine! Just imagine that! Literally, imagine it now- there I was, in flip flops and some swimming shorts I was given at work (in Wales in April- what am I like?!), with a bag over my shoulder containing my dissertation and some books I needed to hand in to the library, and off I plodded, iPod in my ears, listening to David Bowie's latest album, and handed it in! I even saw somebody I knew from the Rugby League Society, and said 'Hi!' to him, and it is vital you know this, and just handed in my dissertation! I wish I could have shared the whole experience with you! But alas! I blew my chance, and only realised when it was too late to offer you a visual aid to this incredible story.

But thanks to social networking, you CAN experience this incredible story, thanks to my just describing it to you. In fact, thanks to social networking, you can poke your head over the considerably high garden fence separating your world from mine (which I personally had erected, because I hate you) and look down in wonder at every moment of my life which I decide to share over the Internet.

The Internet is a whole new world our predecessors never had, and by discovering a new bit of it every day, we are the pioneers of our time. But it is a gift and a curse to civilisation. A gift in the sense that it provides us with videos of cats dressed as sharks chasing ducks on hoovers, instant information, a chance to connect with loved ones distant from us, but a curse in that it is becoming impossible to escape the banalities of everybody's everyday life. Just look down your own timeline now, and imagine saying it all out loud to my face. Now move to the next friend on your list (if it's alphabetical, it'll probably be somebody with the surname "Brown", but if it's proportional to our friendship, I'm probably somewhere between Abu Hamza and Max Clifford), and say exactly the same thing out loud to their face. And the next friend, and the next one...

Hopefully, if you've done as I asked (and I hope you have, because we're friends, right?), you will have realised, by about friend 87, that this is an expensive and actually quite a soul-searching journey where you physically see everybody on your Facebook friend list. So deeply touching, in fact, that you decide to tell everybody about it, face to face, one by one... and the cycle continues...

Looking at 3 carefully selected friends on my list, I can see that one is in Stevenage, one is in Portsmouth, and one is in Stuttgart. Only 1 of those places is actually a desirable destination, but unfortunately it is too expensive to go to, so it looks like I'll be on my way to Stevenage to show my cousin a picture of the coffee I was just about to put up on Instagram. When I (very naively) joined the site, I thought it would be the hub of all excellent photography and a collection of some of the most fascinating pictures witness through the eyes of some incredibly interesting people would surely emerge. Instead, the first 5 pictures I see on Instagram contain some food, a sunset, and 3 pictures of dogs, with a dodgy filter on them all to make them look like they were taken on a camera from the 1920s, but really they were taken on state-of-the-art iPhones. Whoever works in the camera department of a phone company must wonder why they bother making a photograph so crystal clear, when they know full well some halfwit is going to change it so it looks like it's been printed on sandpaper and dropped in a puddle. 

Luckily, photographs don't have to be around forever, especially on Snapchat: an app where you take a photograph or video of yourself and send it to somebody to appreciate for 10 seconds or less, then it is wiped from memory. Unfortunately, the fact it that is IS wiped straight away has lent itself to perverts and "exciting" couples alike, who cheekily send their friends pictures of their most intimate parts of the anatomy, safe in the knowledge that in 11 seconds' time, nobody will ever see it again. This is all well and jolly good fun, until the owner of Snapchat transpires to be a pervert who is hoarding every photograph taken of your genitals and intending to use it against you as blackmail, something which I wish I'd thought a bit more about before downloading the app and 'hilariously' sending pictures of the best 4 inches (on a good day) of me to everyone on my contact list. 

Twitter is probably the closest I have been to trying to start a conversation with my toothbrush, babbling on about sporting occasions and whatever's in the news at that particular moment in time, to no response. Twitter, I find, is very similar to sex; firstly, I always find whatever I have to offer ridiculously short-lived and incredibly underwhelming for everybody involved, and I'm mostly doing it on my own with nobody responding, so it's all a little bit tragic. Secondly, bloody teenagers are doing it a lot more than I am, and doing it a lot better than I could ever hope to, every which-way, in their rooms, in Starbucks, in parks, yet they're the sort of people who should have it taken away from them, because they can't be responsible with it. I think I just do it out of habit now, and when I do it's never any good... Tweet that is.

The whole of University life can be lived on your computer or phone now. Gone are the days when a girl would emerge from a gentleman's house in the early hours of the morn to do a "walk of shame" straight into a Kodak store to get the pictures of last night developed, or taking a picture of your food took so long for the shutter to move you could actually see mould developing on your sandwich. Gone are the days when you had to walk into campus for a lecture, take notes, because most lecturers- in a bid to look as if they're competent with a computer- put all their notes up online afterwards, meaning you can learn just as much sitting in your week old underwear in bed compared to sitting in your week old underwear and stinking of Lynx in a lecture hall.


Maybe I'm just an analogue clock in a digital world, and the hands of time are simply ticking away behind me, mercilessly moving at an hour per hour. The old me (by which I mean the young me) would never have stood for this, this pixelation of a canvas. I wish I could justify myself to the younger me; tell him times have changed, it's the best way to speak to friends, and show him a video of somebody eating a tablespoon of cinnamon powder. Maybe then he would realise, life isn't so bad!

But maybe that's the difference between the old me and, er, older me. The old, younger me would be out there, living his life, forgetting about his GCSEs, but instead feeling the soft grass beneath his feet while he sneaks off for a quick cigarette with that girl he likes from yesteryear, wishing the sun could shine for another moment as it vanishes on the horizon (wow, this would be perfect for Instagram!). But the new, old me is stuck online, the umbilical cord between him and cyberspace too strong to sever. Now the newly old, new old new me (still with me?) is here, on your little screen, sitting right next you, laughing at us both. Laughing at how addicted we both are to the Internet. Neither of us can turn away, like a staring contest between two goldfish, gormlessly bopping our mouths at one another. At least then we could forget this ever happened in 10 seconds.

Unfortunately, the other option is destroying the Internet, and indeed all technology, returning to the medieval ages, full of disease and squalor. But luckily, we've moved on since then. Well, I say moved on- except the measles... and the general squalor; we still have that. Actually, don't go outside- you WILL catch something.

Maybe it is best to lock your doors and stay online after all.