Young Sam told me of his discoveries, a few weekends back, as we cycled up and down the Surrey hills. He said that two side effects of global warming will be inaccurate weather forecasts and high winds, that will ultimately create permanent hurricanes, circling around the world, non-stop.
He is studying for his A-levels so I took his word for it.
The head wind is brutal. I still haven't left Richmond Park and there are another 12 miles to go.
I spot for the third time what I believe to be an albino deer. I have been observing that creature and this is my third sighting.
The first two gave me the impression it was integrated in the herd but now I see it lying on its own. Has it been rejected? Eyes on the road.
There is a 20 mile speed limit inside the park, not that it means much. Cycling is dangerous.
Big Al has a girlfriend, Ali, a doctor. She deals with serious head injuries and has seen a couple of bad ones, consequences of cycling crashes in this idyllic looking park.
She does not advocate the use of helmets - says it's better to die that to live in a vegetative state.
Well, I had a younger brother once, who died in a bike crash. He was not wearing a helmet.
What would have happened had he been wearing one? Would he have turned into a vegetable?
If I had to choose, between leaving the life support machine on or switching it off, what would I have done? I wonder.
Are we heart and soul? If so, where is his soul now?
Three blondes driving black porsches, in quick succession the opposite way. That is life, one fleeting moment after the other, never to be repeated.
Goodbye park. Hello big smoke. The horror.
The diesel fumes. Still, in the bitterest cold day of winter they will do to keep me warm. Billowing out of a bus, as it pulls up the hill.
A mother, child and dog. A beggar. A policeman. I stop at the red light. The pedestrians cross the road, most on the way to the train station.
A man smoking a cigarette. The tobacco smells good. A young woman, listening to her music and working on the next selection. An old woman - my mother's age.
Next to me pulls up a cyclist. He coughs. Green lights.
***
I sit behind my desk and try to put things in perspective.
Number one concern - money. Two - women. Three - time off.
How am I going to get more of all three? In one fell swoop? Answers on a postcard.
A reminder pops up on my screen. Meeting 9am. Bummer.
I need to write a presentation.
I dig out one I wrote 3 1/2 years ago. Edit it and it's done.
I make a few modifications to jargon. Segmentation. That's a reasonable one. Slightly out of my remit. I'm dealing with technical aspects of this project.
It's a very useless one. No wonder morale of the troops in so low. An army of eunuchs. Defeatists. And who could blame them? A concerted effort to create junk that connects to other junk, that drives up some other junk, up to the top of your search results.
So you, who's hand rests on the mouse, can push it forward on the desk, and the pointer up on the screen, and with your index finder press the button and generate the all import click for which we get paid.
And millions of people click, the shareholders get paid and my wages go into my bank account.
Although I understand the business model, sometimes I'm caught off-guard and it baffles me. How can that collective act be generating wealth?
But soon I remember, because it is an intention to do something and there is the value.
What would Marx make of this, had he been living?
Number one concern - money. Two - women. Three - time off.
How am I going to get more of all three? In one fell swoop? Answers on a postcard.
A reminder pops up on my screen. Meeting 9am. Bummer.
I need to write a presentation.
I dig out one I wrote 3 1/2 years ago. Edit it and it's done.
I make a few modifications to jargon. Segmentation. That's a reasonable one. Slightly out of my remit. I'm dealing with technical aspects of this project.
It's a very useless one. No wonder morale of the troops in so low. An army of eunuchs. Defeatists. And who could blame them? A concerted effort to create junk that connects to other junk, that drives up some other junk, up to the top of your search results.
So you, who's hand rests on the mouse, can push it forward on the desk, and the pointer up on the screen, and with your index finder press the button and generate the all import click for which we get paid.
And millions of people click, the shareholders get paid and my wages go into my bank account.
Although I understand the business model, sometimes I'm caught off-guard and it baffles me. How can that collective act be generating wealth?
But soon I remember, because it is an intention to do something and there is the value.
What would Marx make of this, had he been living?
***
Being the scumbag that I am I manage to place concern number four high up on the agenda. Travel, that is.
I love travel. A change is as good as a rest. And what can be more changing than travel, as long as you are not always travelling to the same places.
The meeting ends up in a little tug-of-war. The chief operations officer offers some minor resistance which I must handle in a very dismissive way to emphasize the absolute necessity of a face-to-face with our people in Amsterdam and his <> in objecting.
The problem is the dates. I know he wants to play golf on Thursday. The scoundrel. Working from home. Oh, well. Good luck to you mate, if you can get away with it.
I want to go on my own. To smoke my weed in peace.
Jerry is our COO and we see eye to eye in most cases. I'm a "hands on" project manager, meaning, I'm still in the trenches, typing away, with the other soldiers.
Jerry is pulling a classic. The parent company is not doing well in the US, meaning, competition is at our heels, the market in polarizing and odds are soon we'll be bought out. The moment it happens Jerry will go. So he devised this big project, the biggest white elephant you can think off, and outsourced it to an eastern European software house.
Meanwhile he has an understanding with the supplier. They'll get paid big money for their standards, and they'll supply two products. One overboard for our company, and one under the carpet for a start-up he'll be moving to, once the buy out is completed.
A stroke of genius. Well, not really. He got so many perks off suppliers, that bastard. No wonder, he must have given them tens of millions of moneys, easy.
And how do I know all this? Well, I'm curious. I wander where the others don't and/or cannot go. In one word, access. That is what I have. And I use it. Sometimes.
Jenny had an abortion. Peter is gay. Etc. Pretty useless information.
I walk around the lake at lunchtime. I see Jenny and Peter in the distance. She works in Sales, he, in operations.
She is a very good looking woman and to be fair Peter is a very good looking man and they would make a lovely couple but they are very close and good friends and that is as good as it gets. Put sex in the mix and it's all fucked. Literally and metaphorically. Am I friends with any woman I had sex with? No. I wonder why.
Well, I'm not exactly enemies either with every woman I had sex with, but it seems to add rot. There is something repulsive about the effect of sex on friendship, I reckon.
Jenny is pouring her heart out and Peter listens. Never interrupting her speech, in that difficult moment. Only moving his head, now nodding, now shaking, looking at her intently.
She goes out with a married man, or used to. You work out the rest.
I think she would go out with Peter, given the choice, but he's had heartbreaks of his own and he goes with men.
Still, they prop each other up, through the hard emotional times, and come out at the other end, stronger.
I wish I had a friend.
***
In the Italian cafe I talk to Franco. He's been living in London for 25 years and has recently returned from Italy, where he was on holidays. I tell him of my love for Italian ice cream.
It turns out he was in Desenzano del Garda, by Lake Garda, which I know. I ask him if he knows the Gelateria Vivaldi, in the town centre, which he does.
He is a very healthy looking chubby man. The bloom of youth still in his cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes. Unlike the owner, who recently suffered a stroke and can hardly make a sandwich.
Franco's favourite english word is butter, and he asks his customers every time, even though they've been going there for yonks, if they would like butter on their bread. And as he asks, he gestures with his arms and hands, as if he was spreading imaginary butter on imaginary bread, and failure to agree would break his operatic heart.
My co-workers have spotted this habit and make no end of fun of it. Which is quite funny in itself. I can' t think of another instance, where the original and the imitation are equally funny.
I leave the caf with a toasted bacon sandwich, with brown sauce and no butter.
I see Jenny on her way to the office.
"Alright, Jenny?" I ask.
She smirks. I fell in love with this woman when I first saw her, on the ergo, in the gym. That was over two years ago and since then, I have never spoken to her for more than a couple of minutes at a time. And I probably can still remember every exchange, if I tried.
I love travel. A change is as good as a rest. And what can be more changing than travel, as long as you are not always travelling to the same places.
The meeting ends up in a little tug-of-war. The chief operations officer offers some minor resistance which I must handle in a very dismissive way to emphasize the absolute necessity of a face-to-face with our people in Amsterdam and his <> in objecting.
The problem is the dates. I know he wants to play golf on Thursday. The scoundrel. Working from home. Oh, well. Good luck to you mate, if you can get away with it.
I want to go on my own. To smoke my weed in peace.
Jerry is our COO and we see eye to eye in most cases. I'm a "hands on" project manager, meaning, I'm still in the trenches, typing away, with the other soldiers.
Jerry is pulling a classic. The parent company is not doing well in the US, meaning, competition is at our heels, the market in polarizing and odds are soon we'll be bought out. The moment it happens Jerry will go. So he devised this big project, the biggest white elephant you can think off, and outsourced it to an eastern European software house.
Meanwhile he has an understanding with the supplier. They'll get paid big money for their standards, and they'll supply two products. One overboard for our company, and one under the carpet for a start-up he'll be moving to, once the buy out is completed.
A stroke of genius. Well, not really. He got so many perks off suppliers, that bastard. No wonder, he must have given them tens of millions of moneys, easy.
And how do I know all this? Well, I'm curious. I wander where the others don't and/or cannot go. In one word, access. That is what I have. And I use it. Sometimes.
Jenny had an abortion. Peter is gay. Etc. Pretty useless information.
I walk around the lake at lunchtime. I see Jenny and Peter in the distance. She works in Sales, he, in operations.
She is a very good looking woman and to be fair Peter is a very good looking man and they would make a lovely couple but they are very close and good friends and that is as good as it gets. Put sex in the mix and it's all fucked. Literally and metaphorically. Am I friends with any woman I had sex with? No. I wonder why.
Well, I'm not exactly enemies either with every woman I had sex with, but it seems to add rot. There is something repulsive about the effect of sex on friendship, I reckon.
Jenny is pouring her heart out and Peter listens. Never interrupting her speech, in that difficult moment. Only moving his head, now nodding, now shaking, looking at her intently.
She goes out with a married man, or used to. You work out the rest.
I think she would go out with Peter, given the choice, but he's had heartbreaks of his own and he goes with men.
Still, they prop each other up, through the hard emotional times, and come out at the other end, stronger.
I wish I had a friend.
***
In the Italian cafe I talk to Franco. He's been living in London for 25 years and has recently returned from Italy, where he was on holidays. I tell him of my love for Italian ice cream.
It turns out he was in Desenzano del Garda, by Lake Garda, which I know. I ask him if he knows the Gelateria Vivaldi, in the town centre, which he does.
He is a very healthy looking chubby man. The bloom of youth still in his cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes. Unlike the owner, who recently suffered a stroke and can hardly make a sandwich.
Franco's favourite english word is butter, and he asks his customers every time, even though they've been going there for yonks, if they would like butter on their bread. And as he asks, he gestures with his arms and hands, as if he was spreading imaginary butter on imaginary bread, and failure to agree would break his operatic heart.
My co-workers have spotted this habit and make no end of fun of it. Which is quite funny in itself. I can' t think of another instance, where the original and the imitation are equally funny.
I leave the caf with a toasted bacon sandwich, with brown sauce and no butter.
I see Jenny on her way to the office.
"Alright, Jenny?" I ask.
She smirks. I fell in love with this woman when I first saw her, on the ergo, in the gym. That was over two years ago and since then, I have never spoken to her for more than a couple of minutes at a time. And I probably can still remember every exchange, if I tried.
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