Ying and yang, yo and yo

My Japanese obligations are fulfilled and I have winged westward. In a well-ordered world I would have continued east, to interests in California, but Precision Handling's domestic operation is under-staffed. Our Sales Director, Dr Bruni, is keen that this should not be neglected, and a woman with eyes and sapphires like hers is not easily contradicted. It is possible that I have a tiny crush on her, but she seems to be in love with her husband. I met him at the firm's Christmas party; a poisonous dwarf named Sarkozy, who claimed to be President of France. Not in that appalling car he drives, he isn't. 

and now go east

As Mrs Pouncer has noticed, Precision Handling's interests have taken me to Japan. Tokyo, in fact, where I'm enjoying the most brutal jet-lag since, oh, the last time I was here. In the movies Scarlet Johansson turns up to console you, but she isn't in the phone book. I think they make these things up.

Sea cucumber? I wish. Having no Japanese, I've been eating at random. Tonight featured bits of octopus embedded in balls of dough and fried. Breakfast will surely be an improvement, but there are 8 hours of lying awake to be done before then.

Go west, young man

Just back from pursuing Precision Handling's interests in Bristol. Again. But what are these interests, my readers demand? They are strictly legal. They do involve, however, the occasional appearance at louche events or places. Sometimes this is unplanned. Last night I was passing a pub that I had seen many times before, although previously either it had been closed or I hadn't wanted a drink. This time was different, and I went in for some port; I particularly liked the idea of a glass of Graham's '85 while I contemplated the day's events, which had been surprising. Well, the Graham's was off, so I settled, as one does, for a pint of Guinness. While consuming this I was distracted by the music videos (1980's disco, which is more enjoyable than I usually admit) and the decor. Funny, the 13th January and they've still got the Christmas decorations up. And why aren't there any women here? Well, enlightenment didn't dawn, it never does, that's one of the stupidest cliches in English, it hit me over the head. So did I

(a) abandon my Guinness and slowly leave, while keeping my back to the wall;

(b) take out my phone, call home and have a loud and obvious uxorious conversation;

(c) hang around and await developments, in the hope that the H & M scarf that I'd borrowed from Mlle Inkspot ("Daddy's on the turn") would disguise my obvious straightness?

Happy New Year to all our customers!

Well, it's not quite brand new now is it, still running in more like. But you don't want to be too hasty, hailing the year before being reasonably sure that it's not going to skid into a ditch and stay there. That sort of thing really buggers up the calendar, and accounts for chunks of the Dark Ages. Not to mention leap seconds and so on.

But the main thing I wanted to say was, what with this credit crunch and Madoff's Great Pyramid Scheme of the Pharoahs, we have made our rates even more reasonable. Details on request, to xerxesQarquebus@gmail.com. No lingerie enquiries please.

And a Chappy Chanukah to you, choney.

Merriment all around, and Mrs Pouncer has pushed off. Which aspect of Yulish horror was the last straw, one wonders? And is there an English cliche more hackneyed than "last straw"? It's a good cliche, though. When I cast off a particular aspect of my job, it really was a last straw that pushed me over the edge: it was trivial, compared to the series of bastardries that had been inflicted on me, and something snapped.

Good god, the most accurate way of describing my life is via cliche. I shall drink port. Warre's '63, I think.

Bristol fashion

This is a curious town. Recently work has been bringing me here; downtown many of the buildings are very beautiful, in a way that I lack the technical language to express, but next to them are hideous, ghastly, abominable concrete hulks from the sixties, so horrible that they've been abandoned but not, alas, demolished. I stay in an attractive modern building in an otherwise seedy area; trust me, I know seedy, having lived in the West Village in the mid 80's, in an unattractive unmodern building. The most beautiful thing is the river and the way it drapes the city, but they really need to get rid of the concrete.

Real life intrusion

A colleague has just had a book published. Well, it's his in some extended sense; it's a sort of encyclopaedia of which he is the main editor, but he's making a tremendous fuss of telling the world about it and inviting them to the launch party. This poses a problem. No, not that one, I'm not consumed with envy; it's quite the opposite, I'm thrilled: the book's terrible. Long, long-winded, yet vacuous, it's supposed to be useful to anyone, professional or amateur, who wants to find out what's going on in the subject, either in general or in specifics. But it's so bad that I can't imagine anyone learning anything from it. So: what do I say to him that does not totally reveal my true opinion? The etiquette books are silent on this point.