2005-03-17 - 5:47 p.m.

I�m working in a bar.

Not working in a bar, you understand, but doing work while sitting in a bar. I get little writing done at home so I�m trying this. It�s a member�s bar which opens at 8am (like that bit�s important to me) and only gets busy at lunchtime and in the evening.

I�d previously tried working in the British Library. This lasted for two days. I�d break down the reasons for that like this:

ADVANTAGES OF WORKING IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY
1. Good for research, seeing how they have a copy of every fucking thing anyone�s ever written in the whole fucking world.
2. You can tell people you�ve been working at the British Library.

DISADVANTAGES OF WORKING AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY
1. You have to leave your coat in a locker.
2. You have to get a reader�s pass, which involves convincing a curt man that you are actually researching something and are not a pissabout comedy writer who spends all his time playing Boggle on the internet.
3. You can�t use the internet inside the reading room.
4. Or a mobile phone, obviously.
5. You have to decant all your possessions into a maximum of two clear plastic bags and show them at security every time you go in or out to prove you haven�t nicked a priceless illuminated 14th century manuscript or some box files full of copies of The Radio Times from the 70�s, which would be the more tempting option to a pissabout comedy writer who spends all his time playing Boggle on the internet.
6. Building a den out of Medical Encyclopaedias is frowned upon.
7. Essentially, they are nazis. The ISBN SS, if you will. The Bookstapo.

At the bar, on the other hand, you can eat, drink, use the laptop, probably have a wank at the table if you�re discrete about it. It gets quite expensive, as you need to order stuff from time to time to keep on their right side. I�m not saying I�m the King of stretching that shit out, but send me to Ethiopia and let me teach them about making a glass of tap water last for three days.

In fact there�s just one fly in the ointment. Only two tables in the bar are within reach of electricity. There are two sockets on one wall, and another on the opposite wall, but that one doesn�t have a convenient table associated with it. Of the two on the other wall, one is near an eight-seat table that I can�t really justify sitting at on my own, at least not without sharing it during busy times, which is a bit distracting. This leaves the corner table. The lovely, cosy corner table. The table at which the same fucking woman is always sitting when I arrive at the bar.

Do you know how you can sometimes enjoy hating someone you don�t even know? How inwardly spitting bile and contempt at some innocent individual, some arbitrary scapegoat, can have a wonderful cathartic effect? How unjustified wrath can be ambrosia for the soul? Well, this woman can fuck right off, the twatting fuckbag bitch.

She sits there all fucking day with her laptop and her files and her glasses, having meetings and checking herself in her compact mirror.

�Yeah, that�s it� I think at her, �check if you�ve got any less ugly in the last ten minutes, cockslag.�

For the most hateful thing about her is her face. I internally refer to her as Stupid-Faced Cow. She�s got a face like an arsehole chewing a lemon. Hang her portrait up and I�d punch a hole through the fucking wall. Imagine the screwed-up face a baby makes when presented with carrots. Now put granny glasses on it. My God, you've captured her exactly!

Every so often she flounces to the toilet, past me sitting at my inconvenient non-electricity-serviced table.

�That�s it� I silently fume, �Drag your fat arse to the toilet and see if you look any less ugly there, you idiot slag.�

And then after two hours my laptop�s battery runs out and I have to leave it charging at the inconvenient socket for about an hour while I twiddle my thumbs. This at least affords me more time to hate my nemesis, the silly fucktart whore.

Yesterday she nearly pushed me over the edge. There are communal newspapers in this bar. It was bad enough that she was reading the Mirror when I might conceivably have wanted it, but�I can hardly bear to drag up the memory�she was doing the finger-lick-page-turn thing.

Licking her fingers to give them purchase on the corners of the newspaper pages.

Where did anyone learn to do that? It�s entirely unnecessary. And tell me this - have you ever seen a child do it? No. It�s a subconscious action only practiced by adults. At what age do you suddenly feel the need to lick your fingers before turning the pages of newspapers? What has happened to the theretofore sufficient friction in your fingers that now requires it to be supplemented by the tacky embrace of saliva? Have you suddenly become MADE OF TEFLON, you irritating cuntbag witch? Just read the paper like everyone else, slut. Don�t put your fucking spit on it. It�s not even your bastard twatting paper. And don�t make it even more hateful by not just licking one finger, but instead effectively pinching the tip of your tongue between thumb and forefinger in order to moisten two of your fucking withered crone digits in one fucking annoying go.

Do you ever wonder if you accidentally said something out loud?

Why are the staff looking at me funny?

Profilage - Previosity - Nextitude