Killing time

Tenth of February 2006, 3.16pm
Tina sat at her desk at Base 2a, watching as the second hand ticked its way around the clock face - again. Fuck, she thought, I think I get bored, but at least I'm not a second hand. Imagine how crap it must be if you're an hour hand! Jesus. We should be thankful for small mercies.

Days are weird things. Days at work are weirder: you set yourself tasks to complete, but you always end up being interrupted - allowing yourself to be interrupted I suppose - and nothing ever gets done. This is down to being bored with the tasks that we've set ourselves, or that have been set for us.

Today I am preparing a presentation for a teaching session that I'm giving on Monday. It's quite an interesting subject, but I can't be fucked to do it. Why? Because it involves changing a previous Powerpoint presentation that is full of shitting animations on every single bastard paragraph. Why, oh why, oh WHY do they do it? Each paragraph appears v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y too, which rubbish for my ten-to-the-dozen style of delivery (others call it rushed panic).


Have your say!
So instead of pissing about, altering fonts and animations, I've been tuning in to the "Can the gap between the West and Islam be narrowed?" Have your say debate on the BBC News website.

Whenever I read the comments on those things, I find myself tutting and muttering to myself "Oh just fuck off!" whenever somebody posts something like "I love my faith and according to my religion, you are wrong and you have no right to have an opinion or to live your life because I find it terribly offensive." Nobs.

Perhaps it says more about my own impatience with mankind than anything else, but it gets right on my lumpy tits when people think their views are more valid than anybody elses, to the point that they riot, burn things or blow things up if somebody like me says something that offends them.

I'm offended by Baptists and Jehovas Witnesses. I do not throw rocks in the street or burn their places of worship - I ignore them, but accept that they probably find me equally offensive. C'est la vie.

An edit: I tell you what's fucking freaky? I just had a change of contact detail from the bloke that made me have issues with Baptists. We resolved our differences years ago - after we both moved on after finishing our PhDs - but while we were students together, he was a complete pain in the arse and every day I faced a torrent of his religious harrassment as he tried to bring me to Jesus. Very aggressive, the Baptists. Or at least that's how he made them seem.

I'm offended by any fundamentalist wackos trying to impose their views on me. They're all the same when they gang up with each other, revving each other up into such a lather that they lose all perspective.

But I do love Have your say on the BBC, it really does justify my dislike of a lot of people. The best ones are ones like: "Do you support civil partnerships?", "Tell us what you think of Gay bishops in the Church of England", "London bombings: what now for ID cards since Britain is perfectly capable of breeding its own Islamic terrorists?" (OK, the last one was a little joke). They then throw in something completely banal like "Celebrity Big Brother winner not a celebrity: tell us what you think!".

I don't know where that little outburst came from. Perhaps I shouldn't read online debates and should concentrate on changing font and animation settings instead. Much healthier for me.