Journal Entries

Realised how lucky I am

There must have been times of late - particularly since I got attacked in the street before Christmas - when I must have come over as harping on unnecessarily about the state of my life and career. For which I apologise. But I've just found something on the Internet that's really made me appreciate quite how lucky I am.

It's me, on Radio Devon, interviewing Plymouth Argyle's manager.

The first clip is from last Sunday (lost 3-0 away at Millwall, Gordon Sparks cues in Bobby Williamson's first answer, and there's one of my questions in there)
http://www.greensonscreen.co.uk/matchdisplays/millwall04A/5.mp3

and the second is from a few weeks ago (lost 5-0 at West Ham - the full interview. i'm quite nervous because he's a big bloke and wasn't too happy!)
http://www.greensonscreen.co.uk/matchdisplays/westham04A/7.mp3

It's not earth-shattering stuff, I know. Although I reckon I sounded more confident and fluent in the more recent one at Millwall, so maybe I'm learning something.

But to use a well-worn phrase from the book of footballing cliches, if you'd offered a thirteen-year old kid living in Staffordshire the chance to be doing this seventeen years later, he'd have taken it. smiley - biggrin

smiley - mod

Discuss this Journal entry [13]

Latest reply: Mar 28, 2005

Hanging on the telephone (part two)

Regular readers of my journal and the NFG thread are probably familiar with the reasonably hapless state of my love life. To sum things up fairly neatly, I've spent most of my life since my late teens in long-term relationships, and it hit me a lot harder that I thought it would when I split up with my ex in October 2003.

Don't get me wrong here, I consider myself pretty lucky to have met three reasonably amazing women who seemed to fall for me without my having had to do much in the way of chasing - in all three cases, it just kind of happened. But it does mean that I spent most of my twenties learning skills useful for being someone's boyfriend or partner, rather than useful being a single man out to meet girls.

Thing is, even though I'm finally doing OK about getting over my ex (although getting hit on the head before Christmas brought a few feelings back that were hard to deal with) I probably don't want to get into another serious relationship for now. I was quite enjoying just living my own life until I got the memory problems and got depressed - during January and February I was really quite wanting to be with someone to look after me and make me feel better. But that's no basis for starting to get together with someone, is it now?

What am I saying? I'm saying I've always been comfortable around women, I've always had female friends, but I'm only learning just now about going out and playing the singles game.

And it seems it's been a long, slow journey up the learning curve. Wish I'd learned this kind of thing while I was still a teenager. There *have* been other things going on every now and then with friends of friends and so on, but I've just been looking back at my journals and feeling like a right muppet. The first time I might have had any sort of success in terms of going out and meeting strangers was well over a year ago, and I didn't even ask for a phone number (F106404?thread=349189). The second time, you might remember, I got a number but there were a few complications (F106404?thread=428252) and nothing happened. And then there's this week.

Met a lovely girl at a University reunion thing last Tuesday - first she crashed a fag off me in passing and I thought nothing of it, then she came over and asked for another one and we got talking. And I was just talking really, just being interested and listening and being responsive and all. And then she went off for a quick word with someone else, and the (female) friend that had been standing next to me nudged me and said "you've pulled there."

I hadn't even realised, to be honest. She seemed a fair bit younger and prettier than me so I'd just been chatting and not thought about it in those terms. But then I realised I'd better do something about it, and went and found her and asked if she fancied meeting up for a drink some time. And - I kid you not - her face lit up. So I handed her my phone and she typed her number in enthusiastically, and I gave her a couple more fags and a quick (but very nice) kiss goodbye - it was closing time, and my mate wanted to rush off by then. But it all looked very promising.

And since then - nothing. I left it a couple of days before calling her, on the advice of my housemates, and rang her Thursday lunchtime. Got no answer, and didn't leave a message. That was probably a mistake... one of my housemates is pretty firm that you should get it all over in one call. But, dammit, I'm not used to mobile phones in this sort of thing - last time I was doing anything of this kind, nobody had them! Which meant girls couldn't tell how many times you'd tried to ring them and you could be as useless and indecisive as you liked without looking over-keen, and keep trying until you managed to get through.

Rang back a couple of hours later, no answer again so this time left a message - but probably bungled that too, because in the message I said I'd try again later, rather than just asking her to ring me back. Tried again on Friday evening, and it went straight to answerphone - so either her battery was dead or she was on her way somewhere on the tube. Left another message and left it at that.

So I've been hanging on the telephone all weekend. Fruitlessly. To be honest, I've almost given up hope of her ringing back by now.

I've realised two things. One, I need to get the hang of this ringing girls on mobiles lark. Two, and more importantly, having finally progressed to the stage of remembering to ask for a phone number, I shouldn't be seeing that as an end in itself and assuming it'll all be plain sailing from there on. I should definitely have let my mate bugger off and stayed in the pub with her and talked some more rather than vanishing as soon as I'd got her number. But it *was* nearly closing time.

smiley - mod

Discuss this Journal entry [21]

Latest reply: Mar 28, 2005

Amazing what you find when rummaging in the cupboard

I didn't have much left in the fridge last night, and Sainsbury's had closed for the night, and the only thing I had in the freezer was a steak pie I didn't particularly fancy.

I didn't fancy a takeaway, so I looked for some other odds and ends to use up.

And so it came to pass that I dined on stuffed vine leaves and elk salami.

smiley - mod

Discuss this Journal entry [37]

Latest reply: Mar 21, 2005

Bumped into The Doctor earlier on today

At lunchtime I happened to accompany my friend Rikki to the canteen (usually I don't bother going all the way over there, but he fancied a hot meal) and because Rikki's in a wheelchair we were going out the 'in' way, and some tall big-nosed bloke in a black t-shirt apologised for getting in our way. My first thought was 'oh, that was nice of him' and my second was 'hang on, that was Christopher Eccleston!'.

I was far more star-struck the time I bumped into Michael Fish, mind. Younger celebrities don't impress me much.

smiley - mod

Discuss this Journal entry [17]

Latest reply: Mar 21, 2005

(The Bit in Brackets)

You've probably noticed that I've started changing the bit of my name after 'Number Six' - usually to reflect something that's been going on in my life.

There's a list of them over at A1020141, if anyone's bored enough to be playing 'Spot the Cultural Reference'... smiley - yawn

smiley - mod

Discuss this Journal entry [100]

Latest reply: Mar 15, 2005


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