logodædalus

Unashamedly stolen from the magnificent Steve over at Lathophobic Aphasia, who in turn stole it from elsewhere. A short questionnaire addressing the hard-hitting issues affecting the place in society of the modern gay man:

How old were you when you knew you were gay?

God, I can’t remember. As far back as I remember having any kind of interest in unclothed human beings, it’s always been directed primarily towards the male of the species. I never played “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” games as a child (as far as I remember): I honestly can’t recall being all that interested in it.

One of my first memories of sexual arousal, however, one that still (coruscatingly) remains with me comes from my final year of primary school: I would have been about ten or so and just becoming aware of other people as sexual beings. Back then our teachers would get changed for PE in the same room as us (something which would cause not a little alarm and panic these days), and I recall looking up to see my teacher in the act of dropping his trousers. The image rather burned itself into my mind.

When did I realise that such feelings weren’t shared by other boys my age? That I might be one of them? Probably about age thirteen or so. I refused to admit it even to myself for at least a further three years, reassuring myself that it was “just a phase” while furtively staying up to watch Eurotrash on my tiny black and white telly in the hope of some gratuitous male nudity. Comical dubbing still causes a stirring in the loins even to this day.

Have you ever had sex with the opposite sex?

Oh god, yes. Not a few times: both in one night stands while utterly plastered and seventeen (the two being largely synonymous in my case), and with a couple of long-term girlfriends- in so far that one has “long-term” relationships when still in one’s teens. Given that I’m in a long-term relationship with another man and that my primary sexual attraction is towards other men, “gay” does not seem an inappropriate self-designation, but the fact of the matter remains that “bisexual” probably better describes my orientation in practical terms. Or it could just be that I’m not all that fussy.

Who was the first person you came out to?

Gods, I can’t remember. I think it might have been one of the members of the musical theatre group my mother participated in when I was sixteen or so, but I can’t be sure. I can’t even recall if my first coming-out-ee was male or female, gay or straight.

Are you out to your family?

Yes. I came out to my mother pretty early, and my father not long after that. Both of them were distressingly accepting and supportive (although my mother initially didn’t believe me, and replied airily “don’t be daft, you’d make a crap gay”), which really didn’t fit in with the angst-ridden scenario I’d constructed in my head.

All that said, however, I’m still not technically out to my grandmother. It’s pure cowardice. Given that I’ve not mentioned a girlfriend for some twelve years now, and I’ve spent the last ten living with another man (who is quite clearly A Gay), I think she might have guessed. She’s stopped asking me when I’m going to “settle down”, at least.

Do you want children?

Why, when beef is so cheap these days?

Do you have more gay friends or straight friends?

The vast majority are straight. Certainly, the only other homosexual I interact with on a daily basis is my husband.

Were you out in school?

No. All-boys grammar school. I’m sure the lads I was fucking at the time might have had an inkling, though.

Have you ever done Crystal Meth?

Surprisingly, no. It wasn’t all that popular in the late 90s, at least not down our way.

Have you ever been in a sling?

No.

Have you ever done a 3-way?

I object to the vocabulary choice of this question. “A 3-way” is not an action. One has a 3-way, or is in a 3-way. But yes. Not since I’ve been married though. I’m the violently jealous type, and it would all end up in blood.

Have you ever dressed in drag?

No.

Cher or Bette?

Neither. Dolly Parton all the way, baby!

Have you dated someone of a different ethnicity?

Yes. Well, for “dated” read “fucked”. If you line up my previous conquests, it all gets a little bit United Colors of Benetton. Or Crimewatch.

Been to Fire Island? Saugatuck? Key West? Ft. Lauderdale? Palm Springs?

Aside from “somewhere in the USA”, I’m honestly not sure where Saugatuck is. But no, I’ve never been outside of Europe.

Have you ever barebacked?

Well, yes. This was due to 10% drugs and/or alcohol (or just haste, on one occasion), and 90% youthful stupidity. At eighteen, one doesn’t really believe that things like HIV could actually happen to you. It took a nightmare HIV scare and an embarrassing little infection which necessitated a few trips down le centre de dépistage to take the entire affair seriously. On the other hand, after a few years together, the husband suggest we cut down on the number of condoms we were buying. I thought he meant we would simply dispense with them: we just stopped having sex as frequently. A disappointment.

How many Madonna CDs do you own?

None. I barely own any CDs at all these days: my entire music collection is pretty much on mp3. Aside from a few early 80s vinyls, which I treasure but have nothing to play them on.

Name of your first love?

Can’t remember. Marcus, I think. Actually, no, it turns out to be James, on re-examination of the school photo.

Do you still talk to him?

No, haven’t seen him since school.

Does size matter?

My husband reassures me that it doesn’t.

Biggest turn on?

Too many to mention. I’m an equal-opportunities pervert. I will confess a weakness for men wearing a shirt and a pair of tight black trousers, though. This has occasionally led to trouble at work. Apparently managers look unkindly on chefs knocking off the waiting staff on the premises.

Biggest turn off?

I find men who are too “put-together” a turn off: immaculate hair, sculpted body, hairless torso, elaborate yet chic tattoos, fashionably tight clothing? All does nothing for me. I prefer my men a bit rough around the edges, personally. Also piercings below the neck.

Ever been harassed due to your orientation?

Once or twice, when I was younger. I might have mentioned an occasion here before. It tends not to happen anymore, which is a godsend as I’m not entirely sure I’m wholly beyond the stage of wanting to settle such things with my fists.

Worst gay stereotype that applies to you?

What, aside from an unquenchable yen for the cock? I dunno. I can be unnecessarily spiteful at times, but I’m not sure if that’s being a bitch or just not having worked out all my anger issues. Or just having an utterly poisonous personality.

Would you marry if you could?

Good god no. One husband is more than enough, thank you.

Would you rather be rich and smart or young and beautiful?

In honesty, I’d be happy with just the rich, and let smart go hang. Although being young and beautiful might be a novel experience: I feel sure that when I was young I was doing it all wrong, and I’ve never been beautiful.

Ever had sex with more than one person in a day?

More than one person in an hour, actually. I see no reason to go into details here.

Do you have any tattoos?

Yes, a couple. One says “but the Devil sends cooks...”, a sentiment which just reeks of gay lib attitudes.

Do you have any piercings?

Not anymore. When I was eighteen and such things were fashionable, I had my eyebrow pierced and a couple of rings in my upper ear. I grew out of it. I was once tempted by a nipple piercing, but the piercing artist (why are people wielding piercing guns considered to be “artists”? It utterly baffles me.) informed me that I have unusually small nipples and that the endeavour would be entirely fruitless. Piercings of the genitals nauseate me, and navel piercings on men are risible.

Would you date a smoker?

I’m married to one. I am one.

Do you know anyone who has died from HIV?

Yes.

Grinder or Scruff?

I know what the former is, but not the latter. In a committed, long-term relationship, such things are unnecessary. One can spend all afternoon trying to have sex but failing without recourse any technological aids.

Are your best years behind or in front of you?

I really don’t like to contemplate the question. I’m pushing thirty and am going through not a little panic that the former might be the case.

Got Porn?

Yes. I refuse to divulge exactly how much, for fear of seeming like some kind of sad, flasher-mac wearing, basement-dwelling pervert.

Make out music?

No. I’ve mentioned before that my musical tastes aren’t really suitable for this kind of thing. Making out to Squeeze’s Up The Junction would rather kill the ambiance. God only knows what impression The Jam’s Going Underground would give.

Ever been in love with a straight guy?

Yes, at school. Although “love” is perhaps the wrong word to describe this particular species of adolescent crushing and obsessiveness.

Did you ever have sex with him?

Yes, the ultimate result being us awkwardly avoiding each other for the rest of term. Some things are far more satisfying in thought than in deed.

Have you ever been to a nude beach?

No, in spite of living remarkably close to one. I have little desire to get my cock out in public. Not only that, I am phenomenally hairy and feel rather uncomfortable even taking my shirt off in public, let alone my pants.

Have you ever been to a bath house?

Not personally. There’s one just opposite the stop from which I catch the bus to work, and it’s always interesting to watch the furtive comings and goings. Some men will brazenly walk directly from their car and straight up to the front door with an insouciant grin, others will scuttle past, turning in only at the very last minute. I have yet to recognise any locally significant figures of authority, though, which is disappointing.

What gay gene did you miss out?

I wasn’t aware that we’d determined it was wholly genetic? Oh, I see. Probably the ones responsible for cleanliness, at the very least.

One of the most significant results of civilisation, in my opinion, is the phenomenon of eating out. Note that I don’t call it a by-product. Eating out- that is the very existence of places which exist solely to provide meals to other human beings, from Alain Ducasse Plaza Athenée in Paris to a Harvester in Barnstaple (and I use “meal” in its loosest sense there, of course)- is not a by-product of civilisation, but an integral and necessary result of the rise of civilisation. From a purely practical point of view, should one consider “civilisation” to be inextricably connected to the rise of urbanism, it’s a simple fact of urban planning that in pre-modern times, population density can only grow so high without open ovens in every Roman insula or Mohenjo-Daro block becoming hazardous. As such, when they wanted a hot meal, residents of ancient Roman blocks of flats would repair to the local caupona or popina[1], rather than subjecting the city to Neronian-scale fires every other week by cooking their dormice in domestic ovens.

Civilisation is ultimately what’s responsible for elevating the prototypical mealtime of Homo sapiens from squatting around a campfire gnawing on a haunch of wooly mammoth to sitting around a mahogany table with a bewildering array of cutlery. With this civilisation of eating, it ceased to be simply an act of providing the body with fuel but instead became a complex socio-cultural performance which we Anglophones refer to as dining. Now, here in the barbaric northwestern fringe of Europe, it’s really only a performance that we’ve engaged in for the past few centuries. In evolutionary terms, that’s no time at all. Far from long enough for it to become a matter of genetic instinct. Indeed, eating out is fraught with pitfalls of etiquette and the potential for social and interpersonal humiliation. The successful negotiation of this complex nexus of social conventions is what makes dining in a restaurant or pub a joy: it improves the flavour of the food. It makes you a better human, an urbane individual of taste and distinction, in the eyes of your companions and those who have the privilege to serve you.

Which is why I feel it is a public service to offer these few small words of advice to those who decide to eat out, in the earnest hope that they might avoid some of the graver embarrassments which might befall the unwary potential gourmand:

1) Your waiter has given you a menu for a reason. Contrary to expectations, behind those swinging doors there is not some Aladdin’s Cave of ingredients, with which the chef might knock you up absolutely anything you want, from Thai Green Curry with Pak Choi and Midgets to Flautist’s Liver with Fava Beans and Chianti. On the contrary, in the kitchen are those ingredients necessary to cook those dishes on the menu. And nothing more. It is utterly astonishing (to me, at least) how few people realise this. What’s on the menu is what we can cook for you. That’s why it’s on the frigging menu. Not only that, the menu also represents the totality of what chef is willing to cook for you. Exactly as it is described on the menu. We don’t just knock these things up in a spare five minutes. We actually research them, calculate the cost of each dish, from which supplier we’re getting the produce and how much of it we’ll need. So, for the love of every god in the sky, never go off-menu. If there’s something you don’t like on the menu, don’t fucking ask if chef is willing to replace the cheese for bacon, the beans for peas, the bread for pancakes etc. Pick something else. Something you will eat. If there’s absolutely nothing you want on the menu: go somewhere else.

It’s not just because it fucks up my GP (gross profit, what we’re all targetted on). And it’s certainly not just because I’m an awkward shitbag. Far from it: if you’re a vegetarian, I’m more than willing to make you up some vegetarian gravy, to leave off the bacon etc. On the other hand, if you’re a vegan, you shouldn’t be eating in public. Seriously. I respect your lifestyle choice, just don’t ask me to cook for you. And if you have allergies, I will do my utmost that you can eat my food without dying of anaphylactic shock. On the other hand (this is something of a pet peeve of mine) if you’re not allergic to something, but just really don’t like whatever it is, don’t tell the waiter that you have allergies. If you really don’t like tomatoes, I won’t put them on your burger. Don’t tell me you’re allergic to the damn things, or I’ll have to change the whole of your dish.

No. The real reason is that chefs are machines. We know every dish on the menu, and we can cook them on auto-pilot. Special requests make us stop and have to think about what we’re doing, and that just slows down the whole of service. It fucks us over entirely: I’ve made Diane sauce to exactly the same recipe throughout my career; some thirteen years. Some twatbag asks for it with wholegrain rather than dijon mustard and I essentially have to relearn something that I could otherwise do without thinking, and thus taking time from what would otherwise be spent on other meals. You are making your whole table’s food late, and everyone else who’s ordered after you.

And, while I’m on the subject, if there is a separate daytime and evening menu, never try to order something off the daytime menu in the evening. It’s eight o’clock and the rest of your table has ordered steaks, fresh fish, mussels. Great dishes, proper restaurant food. And you want a cheese sandwich on brown. I’m sorry my friend, but you are a grade-A cunt. If all you want is a cheese sandwich, fucking stay at home. Or go to Subway (they’re about as likely to make you a plain cheese sandwich on brown as I am.) I’m just not going to do it, and you should be ashamed for even asking.

2) Which, with the special requests, brings me to my next point. Don’t ask for the sauce on the side. It annoys the hell out of me. Have you ever tried pouring à la minute peppercorn sauce from a frying pan into a milk jug with an opening less than an inch across? It’s just sodding awkward. “Sauce on side” diners are generally those who order well-done steak (don’t). They’re generally the ones who only eat “plain food”. I do not work in a Berni Inn. If you want plain chicken and chips, either fuck yourself and re-educate your tastebuds or go somewhere else. This isn’t the eighties, we don’t serve food in baskets anymore. People who are only willing to eat “plain food” should not eat out unless they’re going to a sodding McDonalds. Such people are to be shunned.

(I’m serious about not ordering well-done steak. Just don’t. Particularly not if it’s fillet: you’ll break the chef’s heart. No chef wants to serve boot leather. If you don’t like bloody meat, don’t order steak.)

3) Chef is never willing to make you an omelette. If he were, it’d be on the sodding menu.

4) While still on the subject of special requests, recall that you are not dining at a hospice. This is not Care in the Community. So don’t ask for utterly retarded things: I cannot make a low-protein spaghetti carbonara.

5) Tip. Not tipping does make you a bad person. Seriously. The Dalai Lama tips, while Hitler made a point of never doing so. Who would you rather emulate? Obviously (and thank any god you care to mention), I don’t work in America, where tips are essential to the staff’s livelihood. Nevertheless, even here in the UK, tipping is important. Not only is it just polite, it’s also where my drinks at the end of the shift come from. Don’t come between me and my booze.

Don’t think that you can get away with not tipping if the service or food was shitty. The only justifiable reason for not tipping (short of your waiter being egregiously rude to you, of course. If he hits on your girlfriend, spills beer into your crotch or calls you a “cheapo shitebag without the manners or finesse of a rutting donkey” (that was a damn good shift), then you’re perfectly justified in not leaving a tip. Complain to his manager as well: waiters like to think that they’re fireproof, and should be disproved at every turn.) is if both the food and the service were aweful. Think about it. If you had excellent service but bad food, why penalise your fantastic waitress in order to punish the kitchen? Similarly, why punish the kitchen when you’ve dined like a king but your waiter didn’t know his arse from his elbow?

And yes, anything less than 10% is insulting. Don’t leave your small change as a tip: any waiter worth his salt will follow you out of the restaurant and remind you that you’ve forgotten your change. Really loudly, in front of other people. The elderly should also take note here: we are not your grandchildren and as such fifty pence is not a reasonable tip on a forty pound bill.

If you can’t afford to tip, you shouldn’t be eating out. And remember, a verbal tip won’t buy my beer.

6) Make a note of when the kitchen closes. If the kitchen closes at half nine, don’t order food at twenty-five past. I’m saying this for your benefit as much as mine. By this time, the chef will be ready to close, having cleaned the kitchen down and pretty much put everything away. Some cockend coming in and expecting starters and two well-done steaks five minutes before close is going to be the least popular man in town (never cut into a chef’s drinking time). The chef will rush through your check and the food won’t be great quality: he doesn’t care about your dining experience, he wants the goddamn food off his pass so he can turn everything off and get a couple of pints inside him.

7) I don’t work in a soup kitchen. You want something extra, you pay for it. In none of the languages I speak does the word “discount” occur.

8) Should you have the good fortune to encounter the man (or woman. It’s rare, but becoming more and more common) who cooked your food, recall that “chef” is not just a job description. It’s also a title. “Oi mush” or “Yurr, mate” are both unacceptable. It’s “chef”. The whole sociolinguistics of “chef”, and who gets to be called that in a professional context and when is the subject for a completely different post, but as a general rule, if you don’t know me personally, I’d rather you as a customer address me as “chef” when I’m at work. And do try not to ask stupid questions. Last weekend, in the middle of my shift, I was wandering around in the Bear’s courtyard for a reason which will remain undisclosed, and someone asked me “are you a chef?” Not the chef, mark you, but a chef. Lacking as I do any kind of customer service skills, my response was along the lines of “what gives it away? The jacket, the apron or the bad attitude?” The young lad in question responded that he’d just dropped a glass on the floor and broken it. I clapped him on the shoulder, congratulated him and told him that I hoped that he’d made his night now. If you happen to see me, don’t tell me that you need condiments or cutlery, or that your pint is flat or any other such triviality. I am a chef. The minutiae are handled by the waiting staff.

In summary, we all know that this has been coming for a long while, and hopefully this has gotten it all off my chest. That said, however, the urge to throw something at the wall and shout “CUNTS!” really loudly remains overwhelming. Should you ever visit a certain pub in south-east Dorset and hear a strange mix of French and Welsh expletives coming from a kitchen, you’ll know that you’ve found me.

Bon appetit!

1) For non-classicists, or those who didn’t do Latin at school, both of these terms refer to public eateries. Roman cafés, if you will. Etymologically, both are interesting. Caupō, the root of caupona, is ultimately the source of the English word “cheap”, via a proto-Germanic borrowing of the Latin as *kaupaz “trader”, hence also German kaufen “to buy”. Popīna, like caupō, is actually a loanword into Latin, in this case from Oscan or Umbrian, branches of the Italic family which exhibited a soundchange of *kʷ to *p, much as Brittonic and Gaulish changed proto-Celtic *kʷ to *p: the corresponding Latin reflex was coquīna “kitchen”. If Oscan-Umbrian were P-Italic, then Latin was Q-Italic. Which is pretty cool.

I fear, dear reader, that I have an alcohol problem. That I am, in fact, an alcoholic.

After twelve years working with and around the Devil’s Urine, coupled with what is termed “an addictive personality”, this is not a particular surprise. I’ve often reasoned with myself that I am not an alcoholic: I’m a drunk, alcoholics go to meetings, I don’t pour cornflakes on my vodka, I can stop any time I like, et cætera ad nauseam. However, the plain truth is that I have an abusive relationship with alcohol.

True, I don’t drink every day. I don’t wake up and reach for the whiskey, nor do I hide bottles of booze around the flat for surreptitious tippling. And I won’t drink while working: after all, I do have some instinct for self-preservation and impaired motor control while dealing with naked flames and incredibly sharp objects is something of a liability. I burn and cut myself enough by accident when I’m sober, and I dread to think what I would be like after a few pints. So I don’t fit the profile of your classic alcoholic.

My problem is a lack of control around alcohol. As an example, I generally have “a drink after work”. Now, given that the kitchen at The Bear closes at nine, one would expect me to have had one pint and then be on the bus home by ten. Instead, I generally have three or four pints and only leave when the pub closes. When I was at O’Murphy’s, it was not unusual for me to go for a drink after work and not get home until five the following morning. Even further back, when I was working at the chippy, a “swift half” after work ended up with me on a park bench in the snow at six in the morning, swigging rum straight from the bottle and spending the following day in hospital on a morphine drip for alcohol poisoning.

Of course, I could be blowing things out of all proportion, as normal. As I’ve learnt to deal with being bipolar, the tendency to self-medicate and the irresponsibility associated with periods of mania have become less severe. I no longer habitually pick up a bottle of wine to consume on my way home from work, for example, and I am (slowly) beginning to recognise when I’ve had too much and it’s time to go home. This concern, this sudden epiphany that I am an alcoholic could just be yet another tool my psyche has found that I can beat myself up with.

Something that my psychiatrist once noted is that there’s a somewhat fundamental tension in my personality, an opposition between hedonism and ascetism. Don’t get me wrong, I like booze. A good wine, ale or whiskey is a pleasure, in much the same way as a good meal is, or ogling an attractive man. However, at the same time there is this revulsion for all of the above, this gnawing, flesh-hating guilt which inevitably follows indulgence in any of the above. I tend not to suffer from hangovers, simply a sense of torpor conmingled with a really miserable guilt.

So, perhaps I’m “an alcoholic”, or perhaps just fucked up. Not sure what to do with that, however. I think that twelve-stepping, support groups and abstinence might be precipitate at the moment, treating the symptoms rather than the causes. I’m going to go read about Breton soundchanges in order to distract myself, I think.

Earlier on today I managed to work myself into a complete and utter funk. In an effort to cheer myself up, I had decided to translate one of Aesop’s fables, probably into Gallo-Brittonic, so I went and found the original text. To my not inconsiderable consternation, I discovered that I couldn’t understand a bloody word.

Why I should have felt put out by this though is absolutely beyond me. It’s entirely irrational. I never bloody studied bloody Greek. I did Latin at school for six years[1]. What Greek I do know has entirely been gleaned from handbooks on Proto-Indo-European and fitful efforts with a teach yourself book which have always gently petered out some time after the aorist is introduced. I have nothing against the aorist, it’s just that my attention wanders and I start reading about clitic structures in Modern Western Armenian. So I have a working knowledge of the language’s morphology, and can recognise cognates fairly easily. However I managed to convince myself that this might translate into even a basic reading knowledge is beyond me. I still get confused over the breathings, for god’s sake. I can never remember if the one that looks like a c is a dasia or a psili.

Nevertheless, this ego-shaking discovery set me on a plainly insane spiral of panic. I began to question whether this was actually the case for all the languages I think I know. Panicking, I began to paw madly through my books, attempting to reassure myself that it wasn’t. Can I still actually read Old English? Sweet’s Reader in Prose and Verse came out: thank fuck, I can still understand it[2]. German: check. Cornish: yes, but still failing to see the point. Now for the big test: have I retained my Latin? Yes, I have. Barely. It’s a good eleven years since I had any formal instruction in it, and being honest these days I’m far more familiar with Latin as the raw material which would become the Romance languages. Those structures and morphology lost in Vulgar Latin tend to give me trouble, and I have to remind myself that focus, say, does not mean “fire”. On the other hand, I feel confident enough that I could translate a reasonable length of text with only minimal recourse to a grammar. Unless it was Tacitus or Virgil, obviously. Something by Cato, perhaps.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I set unreasonably high standards for myself. I honestly don’t think I will be content, for example, until I can write basic texts without aid in all the major extant Romance languages, excluding the silly ones like Gallo or Romagnol. And Wallon, obviously, which I am convinced is actually a collective hallucination caused by an unhealthy exposure to cow dung. When I look at all the languages I’ve tried to learn, I feel very depressed and realise that I’ve done no more than dabble with virtually all of them. One of the courses I had to attend at university was all about “getting to know yourself as a language learner”, and it was as dull as it sounds. However, I have subsequently realised something very important about myself as a language learner: a mere interest (even a strong one) in a language is not enough motivation for me to actually stick to it. It is no coincidence that most of the languages in which I maintain a reasonable competence are those which I had to study: French, Latin, German and Italian at school because it wasn’t something I could get out of, and Spanish at work, because there was no way of communicating with half the staff otherwise. I needed to know these languages for practical purposes: passing exams, asking where the hell the fish hasn’t been cut yet. Old English I scraped through by pegging it to my German lessons. Cornish I’m not entirely sure how to explain. It’s like a feral cat that finds a sucker who’ll feed it and subsequently keeps turning up at unexpected intervals yowling piteously.

All this has convinced me that I simply can’t do independent learning for any length of time. My attention wanders, my motivation fades and I start doing something else. I need someone to keep me at it. In order to test this theory, and to reassure myself that it’s just a lack of motivation that’s the problem rather than some kind of sudden inability to learn languages, I’m thinking of taking lessons in a language I don’t actually speak. Possibly Russian, as Japanese and Mandarin make me nauseous, and the only other course on offer at the moment is “Get By in Portuguese”, which sounds positively dreadful.

~~~~

1) Having said that, though, had I not dropped out after only half a term in the Lower Sixth, I’m relatively certain that I could have persuaded my Latin teacher to add Greek into the curriculum. I often wonder what my life would be like had I not actually succumbed to the tedious teenage bacchanal of drugs, booze, casual sex and casual violence but rather continued with my education. More erudite, possibly, but certainly less rich in anecdotes suitable for startling elderly relatives.

2) I taught myself Old English while still a teenager, possibly as a result of Tolkien, possibly as a result of being really interested in runes at the time, I forget which. What I do remember is being entirely insufferable about it. Half of one English Lit class every week would be set aside for pupils to read something of their own choosing, the principle being to “get kids reading”. I remember smugly taking in an untranslated copy of Beowulf, and smugly waiting, just waiting to be taken to task for this so I could smugly point out that it was actually English and therefore perfectly admissible. Instead the teacher asked me to translate a few lines and pulled me up on mistranslating a preposition and thereby completely mangling the sense. He had done his MA thesis on some aspect of Beowulf. Not infrequently do I think that my aforementioned sink into depravity was probably a benefit to all concerned. The violent, promiscuous drunkard I turned into was infinitely preferable to the insufferable little prig I could have become.

I am highly disappointed in myself. It’s turned out to be an absolutely beautiful day here in Moriconium, and I am plagued by a nagging guilt that I am not out there making the most of it. A perfect day to hop on the bus and go somewhere wild (well, as close to wild as Dorset gets): to feel the salt breeze upon my face, to wander pensively along the banks of a stream, perhaps even to hug a tree. Instead I’ve sat on the sofa in my underpants all afternoon, eating crisps and watching Wales play a crap game against Italy.

This moring was slightly more productive, albeit only in a manner of speaking. I started writing a short piece on pagan views of sexuality, in response to something that Brochfael wrote on CF. Unfortunately, however, it swiftly got out of control and veered widely off-topic into a rambling denunciation of What I Think is Wrong in Paganism Today. I was vaguely tempted to post it anyway, knowing that it would probably get a few giggles, but on re-reading I noted that some of the things I wrote bordered uncomfortably on the sociopathic even by my own (admittedly rather low) standards.

Discretion being the better part of valour, then (and sensing that I really need to do more work on my anger issues), I have instead condensed it down into a rather more temperate List of Things I Don’t Get about Paganism. It’s far from comprehensive, obviously. I’ve missed off some of the more obvious things, like a cavalier disregard for historical and linguistic facts, as they’re not things I “don’t get”: I’m fully aware that they’re due to the unfortunate truth that people are stupid.

Things I Don’t Get about Paganism

1. Nudity outside ritual. No, seriously, what’s that all about? Obviously we can lay the blame squarely at Dion Byngham’s door, but it just seems rather incongruous and lacking any actual theological justification. Am I right in suspecting that it’s simply an excuse for the more exhibitionist to wave their tackle about? When you get right down to it, are so many pagan gatherings “clothing-optional” solely so that the more self-aggrandising (there is indeed a pun here) PE teacher types can strut about like the cock of the walk?
2. “Magickal” names. Just why?
3. Bad prose. I know it’s not a specifically pagan thing, of course, but so much pagan writing is dire. Take the website of my local band of megalith-botherers: it’s barely literate. At the other end of the spectrum, we have the hideously over-wrought prose of Emma Restall Orr, whose persistent verbal tics render her work utterly unreadable for me. While we’re at it, can we please place a moratorium on the use of the verb “to craft” when we actually mean “to make” or “to create”?
4. The propensity to schism. Actually, I think I do get why the pagan community is so Balkanised in the UK at least: everybody wants to be an archdruid.
5. “Ritual” wear. We are, I believe, the only religion in the world where congregants are expected to dress up in homemade robes in order to worship. I know Christians have their Sunday Best, but it’s hardly comparable.
6. The sheer aesthetic poverty. Bo’s already covered this one amply and I see no reason to add to his discussion.
7. Tie-dye. When is paganism going to realise that the 1960s ended forty fucking years ago? This is not Height-Ashbury in the Summer of Love. It’s a British field in the middle of a damp August.
8. Relativism. Sooner or later, paganism is going to have to decide once and for all: is it a religion (or, better, a group of religions) or a pick and mix approach to self-actualisation? When are we going to stop sitting around nodding gnomically and accepting everybody’s “truth” as equally valid. It is the mark of a mature religion to be able to turn to someone and tell them they’re talking bollocks.

I could go on, but those are the main things that are a source of genuine puzzlement to me. Why do these things occur at all? Answers on a postcard, please!

Christmas is one of my favourite times of the year, which is perhaps surprising for someone as bitter and curmugeonly as I can be. It goes without saying that, as for most of the population of the western world, all the supposedly religious elements of this time of year are utterly irrelevant to me, which essentially leaves a period in which one does not have to work, when you can eat as much excellent and unhealthy food as passes your way and when you can consume vast quantities of alcohol (which would normally have your friends and relatives booking you a place in rehab) whenever you please and without anyone so much as raising an eyebrow. And you get free stuff, as well. What’s not to like about Christmas?

Of course, the Fates do not tolerate unadulterated joy without exacting some kind of price. Christmas has, alas, plenty not to like. Aside from the fact that the rampant commercialism long ago crossed the line over into “irreparably tacky”, there’s also the ubiquity of Christmas music during this season, which is near-universally abhorrent[1]. And furthermore, there’s relatives. Even my normally easy-going family tends to squabble like cats in a bag at Christmas time, so by mutual consent the extended family only tends to get together at less pressurised times of the year. He Whom I Call beloved comes from a family which, unlike mine, is verb Big on Christmas, so most years when I’ve not been working the holiday season, we’ve generally spent the afternoon with his family after seeing my dad in the pub that morning. I’m normally too knackered and hungover to object, so it’s an arrangement that works.

An unexpected pleasure of working for The Bakery is that this year I find myself with five days off around Christmas. Being used to only having half of Christmas day off if I’m lucky, this makes a pleasant change[2]. So, for the first time in a few years, we are hosting them for Christmas lunch. Not only does this mean that I get to cook pretty much what I want, but also that if it all gets a bit much I can disappear into the kitchen with a book and a bottle of wine and claim to be doing something food-related. That was the intention, at any rate.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m actually very fond of my in-laws. They’re lovely people. However, my mother-in-law has Opinions on what a Christmas meal should be. One of the closest things my family has to a Christmas Tradition is the cooking and consumption of a ham. A big one, generally roasted with honey, mustard and a foolish amount of whiskey. So that’s what I was intending on serving this year. However, my mother in law a) won’t eat pork and b) wanted turkey. Leaving aside the fact that I loathe its bland, dry meat, there is no way in the three worlds that I am going to cook a sodding great turkey for four people. A turkey crown was suggested. Which is just the dry, inedible parts of turkey at double the price. I reasonably pointed out that, as long as I retain my strength, no fucking turkey, turkey part or turkey-derived product was coming out of my kitchen. We have therefore compromised on beef. I did initially float the idea of brisket, not only because I can just chuck it in a pot and forget about it, but also because it’s a lovely cut. My dear husband did point out that, while admittedly delicious, brisket isn’t all that festive. So roast rib of beef it is.

The second hurdle came with dessert. Last time they came over for Christmas, I ordered in a Paris-Brest from the pâtisserie down the road. A lovely, delicate choux pastry ring filled with a light crème pâtissière. Perfect after a heavy, filling meal. Unfortunately, the verdict on this was that, while undoubtedly delicious, it wasn’t really very “festive”, and what a shame it was to miss out on the traditional Christmas pudding and flaming brandy butter. Discreet enquiries revealed that neither husband nor father-in-law particularly like Christmas pudding. I’m not keen on it myself. I went through a cavalcade of suggestions for alternatives: zuppa inglese, galette des rois, syllabub, croquembouche (seriously, at this point I was willing to make a whole sodding croquembouche, which would have taken up the best part of the day, just to avoid Christmas pudding), tarte aux amandes, which were all nixed as being “too French”, despite at least one option being Italian. What do they expect? I was trained in the tradition of French cuisine, ferfucksake. They’re lucky I’m not insisting on a cheese course (I might do, actually. No fucking Stilton, though.) Finally, it was suggested that we have a Christmas pudding anyway and I content myself with an individual portion of profiteroles or similar. Seeing this as something of an insult to my hospitality, I retorted that in that case the ham was back on the menu and the mother in law could have a single breast of turkey. With unexpected tact and wisdom, my poor husband (who was acting as go-between) decided not to pass this on, but rather suggested Christmas cake. Mollified somewhat by his assurances that I make excellent fruitcake, and that I could put as much marzipan and royal icing on it as I please, I gracefully acceded.

So, with these parameters in mind, I can actually start to plan out what I’m going to cook. The starter will probably be a spread of small nibbly things, like parmesan and chili biscotti, plenty of cured meats, miniature pains de campagne, cheeses, spanakopiti, gougères, etc. Festive tapas, basically. Followed by roast parsnip soup. Easy enough to throw together and plate, and most of the stuff I’ll be making from scratch can be done in advance. The main is going to be the rib of beef, served with roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, garlic and butter mushrooms, a Brussels sprout and chestnut gratin, petits pois à la française and braised cabbage. Again, stuff which can be done in advance. With Christmas cake to follow, probably with a citrussy crème fraîche affair to cut through the sweetness. Given the five days off thing, I’m fully expecting to spend all day on Christmas Eve cooking, with just reheating and chucking the beef in the oven on Christmas Day. Which gives me ample time to get sloshed on red wine. Hurrah! Merry Christmas to one and all, etc.

~~~~

1) There are, of course, some honourable exceptions. I would be happy to listen to Fairytale of New York at any time of the year. And this version of everybody’s favourite ode to festive date-rape, Baby, It’s Cold Outside, from Glee’s Christmas episode is utterly adorable.

2) I encountered another pleasing difference from the Trade only yesterday. I’m currently laid low with a particularly vile cold, and was sent home from work, with the firm admonition that I shouldn’t have come to work in the first place. In the hospitality industry, about the only acceptable excuse for being ill off work is missing a limb, and even then only if blood is still dripping from the stump. Once it’s cauterised you’re expected to be back on the line. Taking time off work is simply not done: I’ve described before how I’ve been to hospital after maiming myself and then gone straight back to work and finished my shift. Of course, we all pay pious lip-service to the idea that if one is struck down with some kind of gastric problem one shouldn’t come into work in order not to pass it on to the customers, but in practice this rarely happens. I’ve heard (possibly apocryphal) tales of chefs with the shits keeping a bucket to crap in behind the pass and continuing through the evening service. If you ever get food poisoning from a restaurant, it’s more likely to be an ill chef than bad shrimp.

Not working is not agreeing with me. It's left me feeling incredibly restless, keen to do something creative or enjoyable, but with too short an attention span to actually do much that takes more than an hour or so. For example, I've got some ideas that I'd like to play with for a short story, as well as a couple of lengthier essays on the back burner. The kitchen needs cleaning again: the result of a few days of agitated post-resignation breadmaking. There's a distressing smell coming from a bowl of neglected sourdough starter, which is beginning to steal out of the kitchen to permeate the entire flat.

Of course, it is more than likely that this feeling of restless anxiety is a result of me enjoying the "manic" portion of "manic depression", rather than there being any particular causative link between this and my sudden unemployment. As such, I've tried to do things that I know calm me: today I've been tarting up an old bookcase and my hands are still stained with wood oil. However, the damn thing is now drying out and waiting for a final coat of varnish, placing me right back at square one with nothing to fill my time adequately. Much more of this and I'll turn rabid and start throwing things at people in the street below.

Happily, therefore, I am actually no longer technically unemployed. One of my many job application was successful: I am to be the assistant manager of a bakery (well, a Greggs). So that's it. I've got out of the trade entirely: eleven years have come to an end. I'll confess to having something of a tear in my eye when I folded up my whites and put them at the back of the wardrobe. But I'm sure the exciting fact of being paid more than I ever have been before will salve my grief pretty damn quickly.

As those who are friends with me on Facebook will by now know, I once again find myself among the ranks of the unemployed.

For the past three or so months, basically since I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I've been visiting a therapist weekly for CBT[1]. I initially didn't bother telling anybody at work, as I don't like wearing my mental health difficulties on my sleeve. However, I let the manager know, as I felt that I owed him an explanation for why I was requesting every Monday off. He was highly supportive, and obligingly let the kitchen staff sort out our own rota, which gave me every Sunday and Monday off.

About three weeks ago, we had a change in management at O'Murphy's. The new manager hasn't made a great first impression, on either the staff or the regular customers. She's ridden roughshod over the pub's running, and managed to successfully alienate virtually all of the employees: which is quite an achievement, given that during the three weeks of her tenure so far she's only actually been on site for a total of seven shifts. Staff morale has taken a nosedive, and it's more than a little apparent that any the staff no longer take any pride in their work. Being old in cunning and hospitality industry politics, I had resolved to simply keep my head down, get on with earning money and escape at the earliest possible juncture. Little change, really, from before she started: I've been applying for jobs and looking for a way out for a while now.

It's also apparent that where the previous manager believed that delegation was the key to good management, that left to their own devices a group of motivated, well-trained staff need only the lightest hand to guide them; the new manager believes firmly in central direction by a strong hand. One might say that if a manager's central role is to "lead the team", the previous manager's emphasis was on "team", while the new one's is on "lead". This kind of micro-managing control freakery has always been anathematic to my personal management style, but each to their own. It was no surprise then that she un-delegated the kitchen rota and took charge of it herself (in between the business-critical tasks of rearranging the canonical order of condiments on tables and inventorying the lemons). Initially, we thought little of this, just letting her know that we all had commitments on certain days, and would appreciate it if we could have those days off on a regular basis.

However, when the rota for this week was posted on the noticeboard last Tuesday, I noticed that I had been rota'd on for this Monday. I knocked on the door of her office and asked for a moment of her time. She asked me if it was important, I replied that it was about the rota. She told me that she was extremely busy and she'd come and talk to me later. Shortly afterwards, she left for the day and absented herself until Saturday evening. By now I was used to her lengthy absences, so on Wednesday I spoke to the Assistant Manager, who said that he would sort it out for me and arrange cover for Monday.

So yesterday, I was somewhat surprised to get a text message informing me that I was still on the rota for the evening shift. I phoned in and pointed out that not only had I spoken to the AM a week ago about this, I also had a pretty unbreakable commitment for that evening. The new manager told me in no uncertain terms that I didn't have a choice about this, that if I wanted the day off I should have spoken to her about it. Pointing out that she was never actually there didn't go down too well, and she suggested that it was somehow my own fault. I tried to explain about having an appointment with a therapist, but she cut me off, said that my mental health wasn't her problem and told me to buck my ideas up. I could either come up with a "better reason" for not doing the shift, or arrange cover myself.

One of my most uneradicable character flaws is my pride. I'm not a particularly humble person, and have problems with people bossing me about. Being treated with a lack of respect tends to trigger a species of cold rage in me. Now, at this juncture I could of course have simply backed down, cancelled my therapy appointment and done the shift: and apologising for raising my voice on the phone most likely wouldn't have gone amiss. However, I had sensed an affront to my dignity. To back down would have been an assault on my personal sense of honour. My bluff had been called.

Ever willing to cut off my nose in order to spite my face, then, I sat down and wrote the following letter:

Dear ________

Please accept this letter as notice of my resignation, effective immediately. I regret the inconvenience that this will cause to my colleagues, but circumstances leave me no choice.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of my colleagues, past and present, for the support they have afforded me during my time at O'Murphy's. I would also like to wish both the team and yourself the best of luck. I am sure you will all need it.

Sincerely,
Deiniol Jones

Still seething, I took this off down to O'Murphy's. She was behind the bar.

"I assume you've come to apologise for the way you spoke to me earlier?"

"Could I talk to you in private, please? It won't take long."

"Oh, I think it will, I have a few things..," she began to say. I cut her off.

"No, it won't. Unless you're a slow reader, of course." Which was probably somewhat unwise of me. I didn't care, by this point. She asked me to come into the office and sat down. I stayed standing.

"You asked me to come up with a 'better reason'. I think this should cover it."

With that, I chucked the letter down in front of her and turned to leave. She stopped me by the door:

"And what's this?"

"What do you think? It's a note from my mother," I said and walked out. A couple of seconds later, she followed me and called out:

"You do know that you're barred from the premises for six months now? It's company policy." One of the barstaff overheard this and pointed out that it wasn't at all, it was just petty. Ignoring the manager, I went and kissed the barmaids on the cheek and told them to take care of themselves.

And now, it's started to actually sink in. I've walked out of yet another job: this must be the tenth. And all because of my damned stiff-necked pride. Again.

~~~~

1) Don't Google this acronym, for the love of god. In this context, it refers to "Cognitive Behavioural Therapy".

One of the things I miss the most about university (already!) is the conversation. Discourse at O'Murphys tends not to be quite so elevated. I am not, of course, saying that my co-workers are thick: far from it. Some of them are fearsomely intelligent (others just fall into the category of "cunning"): after all, I'm not the only person to have worked their way through university in a pub. One charming young girl from Ukraine is currently studying medicine, and her intellect truly dwarfs that of anybody else I've met. No, what I miss is being able to talk about things of a linguistic nature: a conversation about Occitan or Indo-European without having to explain what these are first. I long for someone with whom I can share my current infatuation with Middle Persian, for example.

Conversations at work, in general, tend to centre around sex. Particularly in the kitchen. Who's taking it up the arse, who's a faggot, whose sister is on the game, who got fucked last night, and who of the floor staff will get fucked this evening (the English girl, obviously.) Conversation tends towards the locker-room variety[1], with multilingual profanity being the order of the day. As an example, we derive an inordinate amount of pleasure from the fact that "cocotte", the dish in which we serve things like shepherd's pie, is homophonous with the Slovakian word kokot, meaning "dick". Not, of course, that we use the word "homophonous"[2].

From this, one might draw the conclusion that chefs are an inherently misogynistic and homophobic bunch. The former, certainly. One of the first chefs I worked under was fond of terming a recipe "so simple that even a woman could do it." Stoner Chef, who has impeccable contacts, recently informed us that the pub over the road has recently employed a woman in their kitchen. We received this news in a suitably derisive manner, of course. The only woman I've ever worked with in a kitchen was a truly terrifying lesbian who had the disconcerting habit of dry-humping any passing waiting staff.

The latter, however, I can't say I've ever really experienced. Sure, I've always worked in an environment where variations of "faggot", pédé, viado or maricón has done duty for everything between opprobrium and affection, but I've never really had any kind of problem. On the other hand, I don't tend towards the camper end of the homosexual spectrum[3], but even then I've worked with any number of mincing, Kylie-listening lisping waiters and never known them to be on the receiving end of homophobic abuse. Quite to the contrary, I've known heterosexual chefs listen with utter fascination to a gay waiter narrating his nocturnal adventures in great detail. In fact, I've only ever once experienced full-blown homophobia at work.

It was quite a shock. I'd recently been kicked out of college (for various unsavoury habits, full description of which will have to wait until a later date), and I was working as a commis in a shitty little hotel back home. I had a colleague who'd gone to college with me, who subsequently discovered that I like fucking men. Until this point, we'd gotten on fine: we'd gone drinking, he'd cheated off me in a couple of exams, I'd borrowed his spare whites. But as soon as he discovered that I had an unquenchable yen for the cock, he turned weird on me. Sly comments on the line, refusing to change if I was in the locker-room, loudly announcing "backs to the wall, lads!" when I entered the kitchen. The usual actions of an insecure seventeen year old boy: simple attempts at Rangdemonstration (not that I would have called it that, back then.) I was, of course, offended and hurt by this. On the other hand, I had been schooled since childhood that all he wanted was a rise out of me, and not to give it to him. While I have gone through several periods in which violence was the answer during my life (I have the scars and missing teeth to remind me of this), I always simply smiled and ignored him.

However, while I might not have demonstrated how offended I was, I knew that my fellow chefs were getting irritated. While, on the whole, an irascible lot, we do look after our own, and I'd easily proved that I was the better chef than him, his GNVQ aside. Ultimately, the sous took him aside and told him that in a kitchen we care about how someone cooks, not who they fuck. And, given that I cooked better than him and exhibited more taste in who I fucked, he would be better advised to keep his "leetle boy opinions" to himself.

A few years later, my homophobic colleague moved down to Moriconium and asked me for a job. I said yes, because he wasn't a bad chef. The last I heard, he was dating a drag queen.

~~~~

1) Having said that, my experience of locker-rooms has entirely been one wherein people awkwardly avoid looking at each other and don't speak. Porn has clouded my expectations here: I have this idea that locker rooms are filled with buff, depilated men in jockstraps rogering each other with total enthusiasm. As you might expect, joining a gym was something of a disappointment.

2) At the last place I worked, we had a lot of daft foreign waitresses who had quite literally just come off the boat. Their English was never great, and being kind, helpful caring sorts, we in the kitchen decided to help them with their acquisition of English. By carefully informing them of the name of everything they took to the table: "This is a medium-rare sirloin with peppercorn sauce, haddock and parsley fishcakes, cock, and sole fillet with lemon and caper butter." Bless them, they would go to the table and say "Cock? Cock? Who's having cock, please?" Until the manager realised what we were doing and put a stop to it, of course. By that point, however, we'd bribed the bar staff to draw dicks on the Guinnesses for the restaurant.

3) I hardly object to those who are more familiar with the Art of Camp than me. After all, I have a fairly fluent command of Polari. Ultimately, however, I am at time stereotypically blokeish. When we moved in together, He Whom I Call Beloved and I worked out a division of labour: I would cook, and he could clean. Even to this day I have to be reminded that if I don't wear fresh underwear every day he won't try to take my trousers off. And, left to my own devices, I will pick clothing up off the floor, sniff it and wear it if it doesn't make me gag. His side of the bedroom is, unsurprisingly, pristine. On mine, I discovered an undershirt the other day that has been worn about five times in the past week but washed only once. I also have to be bullied into getting my hair cut. I am a Bad Gay.

I fucking hate Tuesdays.

As part of our "commitment to live music" at O'Murphys, we have an open mic night every Tuesday. Think karaoke, but pretentious.

Essentially, what this means is that every Tuesday, every talentless muso git in the two counties are who's ever been given an acoustic fucking guitar for his fifteenth birthday gets dolled up in his indiest finery and descends upon O'Murphys. In the bar one literally cannot move for spotty middle class boys with ironically-slogan'd t-shirts and artfully shaggy hair, all standing around discussing their "influences" and sipping from tumblers containing the weirder shit off the back bar. Midget Chef[1] paused briefly before nipping out the back door and leaving me to my fate and remarked "oooh, fancy dress night? Looks like everyone's come as a douchebag."

Then, by all the gods, it begins. The same three chords, over and over again. The same off-key vibrato wail, "artist" after "artist". Occasionally, one one hears a recognisable song: I'm not convinced that this evinces a large proportion of original material being played, but rather the fact that none of the cunts can sing.

Even barricading the kitchen doors with sacks of flour and turning the radio up as loud as I can, I can still hear them. With every fumbled chord progression, with every bum note, my mood sours. Normally, when I'm feeling in a grump I cheer myself up by bullying the floor staff[2]. But on Tuesdays, I just don't have the heart. The anguished, tormented look in their eyes makes me want to contact Amnesty International.

The event is contracted out, so the organisers aren't actually on the company payroll. The compere is a tall, witty androgynous Wiccan in chaps and a top hat, who wouldn't look out of place marching in a gay pride parade. You can see the despair in his eyes as well. As the night goes on and the singers get worse, "the Colonel" (as we shall call him) sinks ever further into drunkenness, sinking gin after gin while the acts are on stage. He once confided that of all the nights he organises, the Moriconium night is by far the most dreadful. The "live music scene" here is notably more pretentious and self-adoring than is normal (and musicians of this stripe are rarely the shy and retiring kind).

Once, a couple of months ago, we had a small group of puzzled Irish musicians wander in, with fiddle, bodhrán and what looked like a bouzouki. Obviously the seisiún is an important part of Irish culture, and for some curious reason they clearly thought that an open mic night at an Irish bar might be something along the same lines. They duly got their turn on stage and treated us to some fantastic music: the bar staff's faces were radiant with joy and the chefs even came out of the kitchen to watch. The assorted muso gits, however, were not impressed, muttering snottily about "folk music" having its own places.

Cacophonous arseholes, the lot of them. It's the only time I'm ever tempted to spit in the food.

~~~~

1) There's four of us, and we've all been given descriptive nicknames. There's Midget Chef, Pretty Chef, Stoner Chef and Stroppy Chef. Guess which one's me.

2) My former strategy was to stand at the kitchen door and try to throw peas into the customers' drinks, but the boss has told me to stop this. Apparently it's "bad for business" or something.

This is the life of a chef[1].

My hands and forearms are covered in a web of blisters, scars and knife wounds. They have been for years. I recently spoke to a Normal Person who remarked upon this, and several moments of mutual incomprehension followed as I explained that I have fairly good hands for a chef.

At this end of the trade, it's not all about signature dishes and experimenting with flavours. It's about turning out the same thing time and time again both consistently and prettily. My fellow chefs at O'Murphy's all come from, let us say, a somewhat basic background. All of them got their experience at a Wetherspoons pub: I've had to hold my ground even for cutting onions correctly. And presentation? Gwae, gwae a thriwaeth gwae i fi. I don't even have fucking parsley to play with. But, even so, is it too much to ask to stick a pat of butter on top of the mash, or garnish some tuna mayo with a bit of spring onion? Not that any of them have the basic knife skills to chop some sping onion thinly.

There's not a night I don't go home without being at least slightly pissed. If I'm not having a couple of drinks "to relax" after work, I'm getting utterly slaughtered in order to forget quite how crappy my life is. Below, for example, is a picture of me "having a quick drink after work". I got home that night at about four in the morning and went on to work the following day at eleven.

(I'm the one on the right.)

This evening, for example, I closed the kitchen at ten and got out by half past. I then encountered my friend from the restaurant over the road and we swopped stories, pints and tequilas for the following two hours. That, for me, is a "quick drink".

Unsurprisingly, I long for the day when I can wear a suit to work rather than whites (not just because I look fucking good in a suit, obviously.) I need to get out of this trade, for the sake of my liver if nothing else. Which doesn't explain why I applied for a sous chef job at a nice little pub on the quay...

~~~~

1) Yes, I'm depressed and feeling cynical. Indulge me, it's been several months. I promise that my next post will be about something religious, and not cynical-religious either.