Derv Departs

There comes a time in every man’s life when they have to up sticks and move. It’s a big commotion for some, while others bow their heads respectfully and tip-toe quietly out the fire exit at the back of the room.

Derv didn’t choose to go,
Derv didn’t want to go,
Derv made sure everyone knew.
Good old Derv.

Like every colleague who has gone before, Derv sent out the obligatory e-mail notifying the world and his wife that he had selected a suitable venue and date for an evening of frivolity, dancing and vol au vents. The internal e-mail system was playing up that day and instead everyone received an e-mail saying it was planned for an Irish pub on St Patrick’s Day.

The question of the night came from the self confessed Darwin lookie-likie, Antoine, when, after being told how big the whole rack of ribs were, he proceeded to enquire what sort of size the half rack of ribs would be.

The evening’s drinking began with gusto, in said Irish pub, and it was surprisingly busy. Drinks orders at the bar were heavily delayed due to most orders of drinks consisting of 15 pints of Guinness that at times seemed to have the viscosity of tar.

After a hard fought couple of rounds a decision was made to move onto the second most Irish licensed premises in the area, so our party duly made a bee-line for TGI Friday’s (despite the fact it was a Thursday).

Once we had commandeered one whole side of the bar many took about the “who can buy the girliest drink challenge” which I believe was finally won by Derv. Chuckles, a visiting drinker from another team was great value for money especially when he turned his Casanova charms towards the young bar maid.

Chuckles- “Hiya! What’s your name?”
Grace- “Grace.”
Chuckles- “Tracy? That’s a beautiful name, I like Tracy.”
Grace- “My name’s Grace.”
Chuckles- (moment’s hesitation) “Grace, that’s a nice name too!”

But it’s Thursday!... … So what, we’re pi55ed!

Where better to end a night/morning than in the realms of the cheese room at our club of choice. After gaining admission and filtering our way to the scene of my previous forays into dancing with Jim, we set about lighting up the dance floor. (Which did actually light up!)

Across a crowded room, our eyes met… it was then we realised that another team were out socialising, and a mock dance-off soon followed. We were greater in numbers and so much more, and our piece de la resistance was our linked arm Irish jig which blew away all on-comers.

I vaguely remember doing the fox-trot with a Skipper I shall code name as the Silver Fox and later clearly recollect the moment during a particularly energetic bout of dancing with Briggsy, I clouted a nearby reveller with my sharply angled elbow. She stumbled away clutching at her head attempting to retrieve her hair clip from the crater now evident in her cranium. As I, in the best possible taste, proceeded to mock her by flailing all my limbs around in a “Come-any-closer-you’ll-get-more-of-the-same” kind of dance.

Soon enough the music stopped and we thanked the DJ/Vicar for his fantastic musical accompaniment to our evening, in the well accustomed way of moaning loudly as the light came up. We then stumble from the dance floor and traipsed down and out into the cold, brightly lit streets searching for our transport home.

Derv lasted the night and all present appeared to have a good time. Flip stayed sober enough to keep his eyesight this time and I managed to avoid any photos of me in make-up.

He shall be missed, but no-one will ever let on.

The Night In Pictures


As the sun sets...



Never ask an Oompa-Loompa to take your photo



Derv worries as someone touches his pint




Chuckles moves onto his next vic... lucky lady




Derv with his drink, that he said he was "holding for this lass that just went to powder her nose"


As Dazza tried to leap over the organ grinder's monkey he realised he hadn't taken into account the hairy little chaps fez




Briggsy attempts to revive a baby chaffinch




Our dance troupe receives the thumbs up from the judges as we win the dance off




Derv. Photogenic as ever.




Same to you Derv

Quarantine. Q-u-a-r-a-n-t-i-n-e. Quarantine.

I have returned!

Apple-gees for my absence but I suddenly had an un-controllable urge to straighten all the pictures that are hung around the house. It took 9 days, 5 hours and 34 minutes but I’ve done it. (Please don’t ask why the pictures are hung around the house and not inside. It’s a moot point since I attempted to re-paper my ma and pa’s living room, instead of re-aligning the picture to the existing paper).

“The collective” as I have lovingly called you, have been gracious enough to contribute some of their own quirks and freakiness. So I felt it only appropriate that I return in kind, a little more about my own uniqueness.

Never Q behind me

The ordering I mentioned in my previous entry, actually extends further than I comprehended. Whilst stood in a(nother) Q recently I wished to procure something beyond the abilities of my well stacked coinage. I instead reached around to my back pocket and withdrew my wedge of notes that nests therein. As I brought them round to my chest to finger through them like a pimp checking his latest tricks earnings I became aware of the fact that I do, and always have, ordered my notes.

After visiting an ATM or hole in the wall, I will often fold my money over on itself, at an approximate point which is always exactly in the middle of the note. On the outside will usually sit the reliable and well fingered face of Liz (the 2nd) on a £5 note. Then in ascending order under this one will be the orange and browns of a £10 note, securely backed up by the muscle in the sterling family, the £20 (or Grant as I like to call him). I rarely carry £50 notes, because half of them probably aren’t real and they look unsightly in amongst the other notes due to their ridiculous size.

It gets worse though…

(Nervous laughter)

it doesn’t end there. After looking at the pile of well ordered cash in my grubby mitts, I almost whimpered as it dawned on me that they were all facing the same way up. It was un-intentional and subconscious, which is wobbly worse. Somewhere, a psychologist is hurriedly making notes in preparation for my ensuing visit. There, within my hands, from the top side of every note smiled the face of Liz (the 2nd). My mouth began to get dry as I realised the extent of my illness. At the same time my fingers began to become clammy, which was handy, as I was then able to unfold the corners of the notes so they were all of the same uniformed crisp appearance.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

In hind sight it was even more of a mistake to have become aware of all this in a shop that had crazy paving outside. For 40 minutes I hopped back and forth attempting to avoid the cracks still clutching my notes not wishing to risk them becoming creased should I return them to the pocket from whence they came. Suffice to say I won’t be returning to that shop again (on the manager's insistence)

Par examplar



A calming presence within my life.



Some of my best work.



To quote Thom Yorke - "Everything in it's right place."

I want ten chocolate chip cookies. Medium chips. None too close to the outside.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder, first and foremost. It is not a thought disorder. Although the thoughts associated with OCD are bizarre, they are not at all the focal point of the therapeutic objective. The essential features of OCD are recurrent obsessions (thoughts) that create an awareness of alarm or threat.

Persons typically engage in some avoidance or escape response in reaction to the obsessive threat. Obsessions take the form of either a perceived threat of physical harm to oneself or others or, in some cases, more of a metaphysical or spiritual threat to oneself, others, or perhaps a deity. The overall syndrome of OCD consists of three primary branches. Within all three branches, in approximately 80% of all cases, persons performing these rituals are painfully aware that their behaviour is unreasonable and irrational. However this insight provides no relief...

...Ordering is a subcategory where persons feel compelled to place items in a designated spot or order. This person fears a sense of being overwhelmed and impending anarchy if items are not placed exactly as they are arbitrarily determined. Persons with this condition typically line up items in parallel locations, but the focus is on the concept that each item belongs in a particular place. Another form of OCD is perfectionism, in which persons feel compelled to habitually check for potential mistakes or errors that might reveal their own faults or might jeopardize the person's stature at work.

It's not until you pause and reflect upon yourself, that you realise everyone else is in the same race. We're just all running a little differently.

This has all emerged recently. I've always been aware of odd little things I do in day to day life. Sure, everyone has a routine, but there's routines and then there's obsessions that you realise are just outside of the boundaries of everyday.

I recently saw The Aviator at the pictures. An excellent film which brings forward the life of a man many have heard of, but whom, I for one, was not fully aware of. The character Howard Hughes is played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Hughes apparently suffered from OCD during his life. And since completion of the motion picture DiCaprio has stated he experienced a reoccurrence of his own childhood OCD.

An example I hear you ask?

One of my (now apparent) symptoms is ordering. When in a Q to purchase something in an emporium of some-kind, I will usually dig out my varied coinage from my trouser pocket. Time allowing, I then methodically order the coins in size order. The largest (£2) at the base of my palm and smallest (5p) by my fingers.

Every time I do this I pause, even though I know, and check that the 2p definitely isn't bigger than the 50p. (One day, my precious, one day). I don't know why, but this feels right. It might be a comfort thing, it might not, I'm not certain. I will then usually attempt to then place the ordered stack back in my pocket with their new hierarchy imposed.

In years gone by, another favourite was even spinning. Life as a kid for some still wholly unexplained reason, I would spin around. However, (you've guessed it) I would then usually have the torturous task of spinning back the other way an equal number of times to make sure I was still facing the "same way."

I had no security blanket. Maybe I should have...

All I can see now so clearly is you as you stand in my mind,
I remember the day that I fell in love and remember when you robbed me blind.
I don't feel my body moving and I don't realise I'm alive,
Till the moment before it all crashes down and I feel all the tears in my eyes.
The dreams that I had were all hopeless, because now I just don't want to live,
I've taken the best of what's left for me now and I don't have what I want to give.

The blood in my mouth when I'm talking and the pain in my legs as I fall,
are the signs of my life which I now disown and the pain of my fears through it all.
The body I own is not with me cos now as I die I can see,
That the things in this world are so trivial and that dreams are always meant to be.
I chase all the light that I want to and I breathe anything that I will,
I turn from the pain that I once used to know and I'd give anything just to feel.

And all I can taste is the past now and slowly the light fades then goes,
All that is left here with me are the marks of my old lives bitter body blows.

Milky'05

Picture Perfect

As promised Hx.

When will people learn?



Milky is a deviant.



No-one is safe.



Memory loss? What memory loss?

Recently Jim and I had a conference about the night that was Bell’s, whilst actually drinking Jack Daniel’s. Funny that.

He enlightened me of a couple of other incidents that had occurred which I had neglected to scare you with, sorry, share with you.

Firstly, whilst in search of aforementioned devil’s drink, we thought it best to try our local 24hr Super-duper-market. We drove up the entrance ramp, I did the pedals and Jim tried his hand at the steering malarkey. We parked in a somewhat deserted car park and risked not buying a parking ticket, because 1. That’s the kind of crazy mad-cap thing we do do, and 2. We figured we wouldn’t be long and therefore weren’t technically parking, more pausing in a marked space for a bit.

We strolled down the escalator-come-travellator into the store. Again, no shoppers. Odd. Zombie flash backs. I steadied myself as by now my profuse sweating and heavy breathing was starting to scare Jim.

The electric doors whirred open and we stepped into the store. There in the centre of the aisles stood what I can only describe as one of the most amazing… just kidding. It was empty.

We glanced across to a swarm of green fleeces (the staff) who promptly stared transfixed back at us. We did the internationally recognised gesture for “Is the store open” and they replied with a rather clipped “How the phuk did you get in?” Although they hadn’t shouted it directly we guessed that meant the store was closed.

We returned to the escalator-cum-travellator to find that only the down one was operational. Undeterred we opted for the instant Gladiator challenge and proceeded to attempt to run up the down one. Now, from the bottom it looked a piece of cake. If that piece of cake is 50 feet long made of a track of metal and continually telling you to “mind the step at the end.”

As we reached halfway we realised we were now visible from within the store. The green fleeces turned on mass to glare ruefully at us. Just as Jim began to tire and my Lycra jump suit began to ride up at the back. We eventually collapsed at the top, two gibbering freaks, with no sign of Wolf or Rhino in pursuit… or Malcolm the trolley boy for that matter.

We fled the store wise to the fact that we wouldn’t be welcome again, when it was closed.

The Second incident was the minor detail I had left out about what happened post 6am but pre 12:45pm.

Jim fell asleep before me.

To be fair, Jim was the one who taught me the joys of messing with the semi-dead. So I took the liberty of proceeding to attempt to beat his Greatest-number-of-Minstrels-balanced-on-the-face-of a-sleeping person world record. I drunkenly swayed back and forth attempting to lightly drop them onto his now snoring swede. In truth I swayed them over him like a crane operated by a chimp with two fingers missing who has just read the instruction booklet for a Corby trouser press.

I failed abysmally partially due to my drunkenness and also due to the unhelpful angle of Jim’s head.

Unperturbed I reached for the nearest alternative to chocolate sweets, which turned out to be Wine Gums. Hooray for Wine Gums. How tasty, how versatile, how to stick them onto a slumbering someone’s face?



You’ve got to lick the back of them first.