Untitled waffle and background.

Fun and games on the work front.

Yoda is up to her usual tricks, the Bolshevik Book Worm is looking for a new job (or so she claims) because of the way the Big Swinging Dick speaks to the Handmaiden.

In the mean time Dave's 60th has been and gone. We scraped together enough for a couple of very decent bottles of plonk and travel vouchers. Dave was almost gracious in accepting the birthday tokens of esteem from colleagues then shuffled off for the weekend and a couple of days leave to be spent bird watching. Back in yesterday he mentioned to Linda that while he appreciated the booze he hadn't touched it because he "doesn't like drinking alone". She happened to ask him if he'd liked his card. Dave hadn't noticed the card (or found the vouchers) which would still in the boot of his car if he hadn't already thrown them out.

Ungrateful old swine.

Is The Bookworm really looking for a new job? Two years in her current role have made her remarkably employable, and in middle age too. A woman who's spent most of her life as someone else's cleaner and part time bar maid now pays someone else to do her garden for her. I can't begrudge her that and in my reduced circumstances ought to be looking to her for inspiration. Trouble is though that she reveals herself all too often to be made up mostly of hot air, where most people are bone and water.

There's nothing new about the Big Swinging Dick and the Handmaiden. Cheryl told me all about it years ago, long before I stooped to accept their job offer when everything was falling apart and it was the best I could do. I passed her house one morning on the school run, she invited me in for a coffee. Over coffee and through a pungent hand-rolled fug she told me all about it - or at least her version of all about it. That included details (served with relish) of the beatings he receives at the hands of his wife, or that he hands out to her. I can't remember, or perhaps I didn't pay sufficient attention at the time.

Subsequently other gossips have lent the tale she told me some credence; a neighbor with stories of late night ambulance visits, surgery to damaged eyes and shoulders. Certainly Mrs Big Swinging Dick was recently in court on a Drink Driving charge and has lost her licence. This isn't gossip, it was in the court round up of the local rag. The others in the office, or most of them, are in the know but none has had an unvarnished, unspun conversation with me on the subject. The Paper Shuffler-in-Chief is the exception, she is in denial because she's in wholly unrequited lurve.

The newest member of the office staff is in need of a proper induction. The Senior Frustrated Novelist and I did our best on Tuesday when the three of us were together. For reasons I can't recall the conversation turned to How The Yardman Spends His Summer Holiday. He goes to Spain for a fortnight and spends those 14 days shagging prostitutes. In this he's aided and abetted by his sister who keeps an eye out for him. He suffered a serious negative reaction to an innoculation as a baby that left him with what I believe I'm supposed to refer to as Learning Difficulties. He is largely self sufficient, lives off the compensation payout and does the job for us to keep himself occupied (and pay for his summer holiday?).

The Novice didn't believe us at first, but its true. And if you're really unlucky he'll tell you ALL ABOUT IT, at the top of his lungs and in quite grotesque detail.

We were sharing this background information with her as Sexy Steve from head office was flitting about, worrying about a fruitless trip he'd made that morning to another outlet. She disappeared for a short while and in that time Frustrated Novelist and I led Sexy Steve gently towards an understanding of why his trip had been fruitless. When he achieved enlightenment he celebrated the moment with a hearty "Well I'll be buggered!". Unfortunately for her FN was sitting right next to him so could only go scarlet. I was luckier in that I had a partition to hide behind so I could enjoy an unhibited smirk.

By the time the Novice came back Sexy Steve had minced away to other parts (to dance at the other end of the ballroom as someone put it earlier this week?). Our opening gambit in her further education was "and he's another one", to which she quite innocently asked if he visited prostitutes, too, which of course set the pair of us off again. Patiently we peeled away her layers of innocence or naivety. He's GAY! she finally shrieked. And he'll, be buggered - and that's official.

The novice isn't exactly a feather weight, and she sat down rather hard at this point, which was rather fortunate because it gave us something else to be laughing at when Pea Brain tottered in and wanted to be let in on the joke. Spanish prostitutes and barebacking are not subjects for her delicate ears, at least if you want to be able to get anything out of her at some future date - and she does control payroll for the site, so let's be forgiven a moment of pragmatism.

Sooner or later Pea Brain will give up, and though she suspected she wasn't being let in on the joke she did eventually realise the need to check her lippy and hair. Since she has the attention span of a moronic gnat, we didn't have to keep straight faces for too long.

The evening shift last night was grim, grim, grim. There was absolutely nothing to do, and too many staff to do it. As a result I had ten people wandering about the building for five hours, looking for someone in authority to give them direction.

It was the Handmaiden's night on duty, officially, and that meant we had the Big Swinging Dick on the premises, too. Neither could be found. All night. That's one hell of a shag. The Big Swinging Dick has some sort of MBA-type qualification. I doubt that Fuck Your Subordinates into Submission was part of the curriculum, but he passed anyway.

No-one doubts the reason for their absence - we just want to know where they hide themselves on nights like last night so that we've got somewhere to hide away when we too (chance would be a fine thing) get lucky.