Just a quick note. David came in to work today and told me about his knee thing. It was cancelled because they can't operate on a grazed area in case it gets infected, so he'll be having it in two weeks instead. They've given him a knee support that he says helps a lot, which is great. The funny thing is that it rustles like a nappy because of the padding and the metal parts squeaks when he walks. Bit of WD40 needed methinks! My new name for him is the '6 million dollar man', except they spent about £23 instead. Today David made me look like a tit in front of some Nigerians. That is all.

David's been gone for 2 working days, and things have been quiet, organized, and relatively stress free. In all honesty I've been bored, but it's nothing compared to the boredom that man spills onto me every day of my working life. I've been able to surf the web with no fear of him peering over my shoulder to bore me with some loosely-related story that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I've actually been doing more work, because everything is where I know it is and I havn't got him barking at me about stuff I don't need to know every five minutes. I also havn't had a single cup of disgusting tea. I like tea, just not the brew they throw together there; the milk gets left out all bloody day and they think that's noemal. No, it isn't.

Anyway, after those two days of silence, Dave's back tomorrow. Yep, he's back. Apparently he grazed his knee last week and they can't operate on his knee if the skin isn't clean, so they've cancelled his operation. Is that not the shittest excuse to not operate you've ever heard?! I mean, you're going to cut it up, so what difference does a graze make? Methinks a surgeon wanted the afternoon off and couldn't think up a decent excuse. For shame.

So yes, he's back tomorrow. Just as I was getting used to doing the work myself. Just as I was feeling like I do something worthwhile every day. Seriously, if his farts are half as bad as they were last week I'm walkin'. It was like chenobyl in that office, I kid you not.

So bad news for me, but good news for you, the Dit-reading public. Watch this space....

Long time no blog I know, but by way of apology here's a nice one for you to read at home/work/wherever when you next get the lust for David-related babble. Some hilarity recently, which I will document now.

Few days ago Dave asked me to do some paperwork for our audit, which was over a week away. So, I did a bit, put it to one side, did a bit more, put it to one side, etc. Couple of days later after I'd been off sick for a day he says to me, "Listen Matt, you don't have to work here if you don't want to." Stunned, I just laughed and asked him what he was on about. "I asked you to do that paperwork days ago and it still isn't done, so I did it yesterday". The whinging bitch then went on to harrass me about checking my emails often etc, despite the fact that he is the laziest guy I've ever worked with who dodges work more efficiently than Garfield, and he's proportionally tubbier than the orange cat too. Anyway, I then proceeded to do all of the remaining paperwork needed for our audit in the space of a morning, and so had nothing to do for the 3 days afterwards. During the audit it then transpired that he hadn't actually done that work properly at all, and it was one of the few things we got pulled up on.

So, with this out of the way, David casually mentioned a few days ago that he's having an operation on his knee on Monday. After boring me with the technicalities he then informed me that he'll be off work for; (wait for it); 7 WEEKS!!! So that means he'll have to teach me the ropes of his half of the job, which isn't a problem because we can do that on Thursday and Friday. However, ladies and gents, as I type this David is currently on his 3 hour dentist visit/lunch break, and tomorrow he has decided to take the day off too. For a guy who was suggesting that I take the piss, he certainly is a cunt.

OH, and as if all that wasn't enough, his farts are consistant not only in their regularity, but also in the fact that they bloody stink. They never used to smell, but they're terrible now; I often walk into the office and have to breathe through my mouth in order to keep myself from gagging. The thought of the huge gut, the tempermental sphincter, and the frankly terrible diet will form my memory of David throughout his 7 week absense.

I'll close by letting you know that our BT internet went down the other day, and Dave phoned the BT helpdesk. As I ran around doing the stuff he was relaying from the advisor, he took an opportunity of silence to spin a dit to the unfortunate call centre operator. £4 an hour to listen to Naval stories that confuse you? No thanks.

No Dits today. No wisdom imparted upon me. No farts. Why? David's not in today, that's why. Why is he not in? Here's why. Because he was 'involved in a collision' with a cyclist at a roundabout. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but if a cyclist had a collision with a car (and a big car at that), there would surely only be one likely winner. A 'collision' just makes it sound like the driver was in danger, when from what I've heard it really just sounds like David wasn't looking and pulled out in front of the cyclist. I can just imagine his reaction when it happened. "AAAAIIIIAAARHGGHH!!!"

Anyway, the cyclist went off to the hospital to have his shoulder examined and David is at home recuperating.
Bless him.

I'd forgotten how peaceful it can be around here. It's been a good day thus far! Might read Ronaldinho's autobiography.

The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

There have been a few frankly shocking developments in the world of David recently. I will start with the two most prevalent, and then probably ramble for a bit about other stuff that grinds my gears. First up;

David has new glasses; He went to Boots and got 2 for the price of one on reading glasses. How do I know? He told me on several occassions, a couple of which I listened. To be fair to him they complete his look. The slightly pervy glasses enhance his 'portly University professor' look; the best he can hope for considering his size and age. He now looks almost exactly like this;


The great thing about this photo is that old Saint Nick is even giving that look David gives when he's about to whip out a cracking maritime joke about something totally unrelated to the conversation. For example; Someone asks what the password is for the internet access. He tells them, then says "We like to keep it simple. We know what kind of people come in here! AHA TSS TSSSH MWA HA!!!"

Seriously, every time. It makes me want to cry just thinking about it.


David has met his arch nemesis; If you're familiar with the dits, you will know that Dave often manages to be the most irritating and imposing man on earth. He interrupts sentences, farts a lot, and always manages to bore you to tears by talking at you about nothing for 15 minutes when all you had said to him was "I'm off Dave, see you tomorrow morning". So for someone to break David's spirits, they must be quite a boring piece of work. Well readers, not so.

Basically he's this young recruit who has been assigned to help out where we work. Tidying up, doing any lifting that needs doing, etc etc. Thing is, there's not much to do, so he spends a lot of time sitting with me and David, attempting to make conversation. The fact that he's younger and likes some similar stuff to me means I really don't mind, in fact it makes some morning go by quite quickly. David however, does not seem to see eye to eye with him. To explain fully, I will need to reveal another revelation. This is;

David has finally done his ECDL; That's the Electronic Computer Driving Licence in layman's terms. Having been providing the service for almost two years, (it's also a requirement for the job to have passed it), he's finally completed his ECDL. He took it very seriously, sat there for hours on end with his new glasses on, critiquing the material at every available opportunity (and alerting me to it as if I had the power to change the course). So one morning he's doing that, and I'm chatting to the helper guy. Helper guy has a question that he thinks David could help out with, so he asks David. David ignores, or doesn't hear him. He repeats the question;

David spins round on his chair, visibly annoyed, shouts "look, I don't know, I'm actually quite busy here, I really need to concentrate on this", spins around, and resumes his course. This was the single greatest moment of my time at this job. The reasons why;

• This is exactly what I've wanted to say to Dave on so many occassions. He interrupts me with meaningless drivel so much but I never had the guts to tell him where to go, and then in a second he says precisely what I've dreamt of saying to him. For that second, hebecame both a sickening hypocrite and also my hero.
• The look on the helper's face was priceless. He is pretty lucky to spend his time chilling out in a library, and to disrupt the status quo just by asking a question could have put his easy job at risk. Hilarious!
• I've never seen David move that fast. The spin from stationary, the flawless stop, thedelivery, and the return to original position was as if rehearsed. Simply breathtaking.
• It had nothing to do with me. I actually laughed out loud.

The great thing is that David just doesn't seem to like him. Today the helper asked Dave if he could spend the afternoon revising his Polish lessons, to which David replied "Harumph. A likely tale", and then walked out of the building to lunch. Brilliant! The helper returned after his lunch because he didn't know the score, and upon his return David asked why he hadn't stayed away to do his Polish. I think he going a bit senile.

My finger hurt so that's enough for now. Music to ignore David to doesn't happen anymore because everyone I have more work to do, but I occasionnally hum Spanish Flea in my head to drown out the words.

Howdy people. How's it going? Thought I'd vent my spleen about the rotund fellow I share air with here at work, because I actually think he's driving me to an early grave. I can't handle it anymore. I JUST CAN'T HANDLE IT!!!!

What wuld you think if someone came up to you and said, "Landlords generally won't pay out for an olde style folk band, they expect quality but they're not willing to stump up for the artist's effort, and we both know musicians only work so they can afford more kit! HAHAHAHA! They're all of a certain age down there though, so we needened make outrselves too pretty for each other, y'know."

etc. etc., bloody etc.

Let me guess, you'd go "Sorry, you have the wrong person. I didn't ask you about any of that and I don't need or want to hear about it. Leave me alone, your coffee breath makes me wretch and your beard stains certainly don't help matters you irritating Scottish man". Or something along those lines. I wish I could say that, I really do, but I just have to sit there and put up with it all freakin' day. He just imposes himself upon you, invades your personal space and sets up camp for however long he can go without 'nipping to the heads' (bog), or making yet another cup of thick, chewy black coffee. Also, wherever possible a meaningless cliche will be used in place of the actual meaningful equivalent in English. "Such is life", "we have fun here don't we", "isn't life grand", etc etc etc. This would be bareable if it were not for the fact that a response or reaction is expected. It's a cold day in this boring job, and all I can think about is how best to do myself in should he start spouting meaningless drivel again, and he asks me "isn't life grand" (it isn't a question I know, but that's my point, he wants a response). Now, clearly life, at that moment, is not grand. It is the opposite, and my honest response should be "not really, life's boring and it's getting worse by the second", but I can't hurt his little feelings can I? I've started going "I don't know how to answer that", in the hope that he'll give it up, but I get the feeling his family have humoured him with responses for years and he is used to this, so I'm going to have to be more offensive if I'm to put an end to this chirade. One option is to become really boisterous and cheeky, and respond by jumping out of my chair and going "YEAH! YEAH LIFE IS F*CKING INCREDIBLE DAVID! I LOVE IT! I LOVE IT SO MUCH! SPANK ME!! ETC ETC!!!", thus confusing/scaring him into submission. The problem is I arrive at work demotivated already, so I'd have to be in an unusually happy mood to pull that one off. Another option is to f*ck his feelings and be really harsh, because after all I didn't ask to be bored to such extremities. "We have fun here don't we?" he'd say. "Shut the hell up Dave, your monotonous harping on is driving me to tears" I'd reply, before giving him the web address for these dits and sitting back to watch him crumble. Not nice, granted, but I'm running out of options here people. I really am running out of options.

One other thing to mention. Today someone asked David when we were open until. I had my headphones on, but David still proceeded to attempt conversation. I turned around and took my headphones off, he asked, I gave the answer (which he knew anyway, he only asked me for theatrical purposes), and he then told the guy that I'd be here and he should "speak sweetly to Matt and he'll sort you out, HAHAHAHAHA!!!" I mean, that's not neccessary. Just speak like a normal human and stop embarrassing me, as well as our visitors. Only one person laughs at David's jokes. I think we all know who that is.

OK so I know I havn't written anything for a while, a fact that may disappoint certain regular readers due to the fact that I had the pleasure of going on a training week with David before Christmas (potential comedy gold).

Dec. 11-15 2006, Marriott Hotel, Slough. Yes, Slough, one of the worst places in the world as prophesized (sp?) by Sir John Betjeman in that episode of the Office ("come friendly bombs and fall on Slough" etc). The hotel was pretty awesome, and I had some tail to chase (with disappointing results), two factors that may have contributed to the quiet time on the David front. He hobbled about from place to place, occassionally trapping some unfortunate soul in an unneccessarily long conversation about something very boring no doubt, but didn't embarrass anyone by standing up in front of a crowded room and making a vague point about something he knew nothing about (as I've become accustomed to). First two nights I got smashed and on the third night I went to see Chelsea grind out a boring 1-0 win over Newcastle at Stamford Bridge, so I avoided evening liasons with our man David. So that's why I havn't written about those exploits, because not much happened.

In fact, it annoys me slightly. I have always assumed that his farting is something uncontrollable, and as a result I have often felt compelled to give him the benefit of the doubt and put it down to old age. However in the entire time in Slough, I didn't hear him fart once. When we compare this to the alarming regularity of his violent arse coughs at work, something is clearly up. I smell (ha) a rat. I have conspiricy theories. Maybe he reads this and takes revenge by 'accidentally' farting on me at work. He really seems to force them out nowadays. But alas, today is the first day at work after the Winter hols and he has expelled no obvious rectal blasts. Perhaps he is lulling me into a false sense of security?

Or perhaps not. He is noticeably fatter than I remember, if this is possible, and he has seemingly missed 'spinning dits' at unwitting young Naval recruits. This morning he gave some poor guy an ECDL induction that lasted an hour and a half. AN HOUR AND A HALF! They take me about 25-30 mins because I know people just want to get on with it. When I walked in Dave asked me "do you want to sign him up or shall I?". At 9am, having had 4 hours sleep (bloody cold), what would your answer be? Little did I know that my answer would condemn the bloke in question to a torturous session of ear-bending, David stylee.

Well I don't feel guilty. "Are we having fun?" has already pissed me off no end and we're barely back a day.

UPDATE! 2.41PM!!! FART AS HE CLIMBS THE STAIRS!!!!!

Haha! If this was the David from David vs. Goliath, I can see why David won!