A secret

is something you only tell to one person at a time, right? And this blog is such a minority taste that publishing here is, on average, telling fewer than one person at a time. So I’m not really about to break a promise …


Someone just showe me some documents from a compensaiton claim put forward by a scaffolder who injured himself a couple of years ago, and since then has done more or less fuck all but wait for the money to come in. As part of his struggle, he was asked to keep a diary. I quote from memory, but the last entry is verbatim.
December 2000
Life is shit. feel crap all the time. Broke. Borrowing off family and anyone else who’ll lend me money. No money for presents for kids. On Christmas day girlfriend comes round to see me. We drink four bottles of wine and stay in bed all day. Life is shit.
January 2001
[blank]
February 2001
[blank]
March 2001
[blank]

and so on, all blank, until:

September 2001
Excitement! The two towers means there is something to watch on TV for the next two weeks.
Start telling people Mel [girlfriend] is pregnant.
November 2001
[blank]

Western Civilisation (Essex division). You have to love it.

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2 Responses to A secret

  1. Phlatfish says:

    Call my life shit, but I can think of no better example of an un-shit life than spending all day in bed with my girlfriend while drinking four bottles of wine.

    Perhaps scaffolders have a different view of such events. Perhaps he was casting a professional eye over his televisual delight in much the same way as a scrap metal dealer watches a squadron of Kamikazes taking off.

    Anyway, no one told me that The Lord of the Rings was on TV.

  2. Andrew says:

    I think four bottles may be a few too many … But I agree. It is the tone of unremitting self-pity that gives the document much of its charm.

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