Up the hill backwards

“Vacuum created by the arrival of freedom,” warbled David Bowie, “and the possibilities it seems to offer.” For all my hypocritical moaning about overtime and the drop in productivity that invariably accompanies it, I found myself to be my own worst manager. Our little indie venture is going extremely well, which is massively exciting and energising, but makes it almost impossible to switch off. Recently I have been feeling a little peaky, walking around in an aching haze, not quite realising why, until it struck me I end up working a good 10 or more hours a day, with only a lunch break some days.

I have tried to force myself to relax on weekends, with limited success. I switch on the PC in the mornings, check my mail, read the blogs and news, and end up sneakily drawn into work. Several hours later I realise it’s past lunchtime, at which point I’ll shower and leave the house for a breather, all the while thinking hard of what I could and should be doing in that time. After lunch it’s back to the PC, to work until supper, continuing afterwards until well into the evening. This weekend I tried to relax and play some games, to little avail, and found myself behind my desk again. The workload is enormous, yet fun and exciting, and not being busy on it feels wrong. I really have to think of a better way, but in these early stages of the venture I feel too guilty and, frankly, impatient to not kill myself over it.

Beard growth has been continuing apace, if slightly disappointingly. My cheeks refuse to foster anything more than a few pubes, whereas my moustache is getting ahead of my chinbeard, making it look slightly Village People. I’ll be off to the local Donki tomorrow to try and find a cheap beard comb to tease the growth along. At this pace I won’t look at home in the 19th century until the end of the year, bah humbug!

I have also mastered a useless but highly honed new skill. Over supper we often watch the cable television Mystery Channel, a fine collection of old films and good old British serials, such as Morse, Poirot and whatnot. However, for some inadequately explained reason not all programmes are broadcast bilingually, often featuring only the Japanese dubbed audio and believe me, Poirot in Japanese loses a lot in translation. I am now an expert on figuring out if a programme is in Japanese or English before even a word is spoken, thanks to, what I now hatefully call, “the Japanese groan”. For some reason, Japanese actors, and voice-actors, always overact physical discomfort. As most mystery shows start with a murder of some kind, the first audio usually revolves around groaning, and so horrendously bad and vaguely sexual is the Japanese voice-actor’s interpretation I can identify one at a hundred yards in bad light; short sharp exclamations and plenty of them, interspersed with audible gulps and intakes of breath. “Ugghh…ahhh..(gulp) …uhhhhmmmggg…(gulp again) Gggggg.” Terrible. Why this particular phenomenon might be remains a mystery to me; possibly a cultural thing about not showing emotions whenever possible, and so your average Japanese not being fully aware what actual exclamations of pain and discomfort sound like. I haven’t a clue, but each time I hear one of those groans my irritatometer shoots up and kills any potential enjoyment I might have received from watching a Japanese Belgian detective being massively clever.

Another annoyance is the lack of decent audio to keep myself occupied through these long working days. As a commuter I had more than enough podcasts to carry me through my trip, using the BBC iPlayer radio during the day to catch up on the wireless. These days, however, I don’t seem to find enough audio to fill an entire week. I would request from my readers any decent podcasts that I can try. Personal favourites like “The Bugle”, “Collings and Herrin”, “Perfect 10”, “Answer Me This” and things like “Smodcast” offer only tiny titbits once a week. “Filmspotting”, “Skeptics’ Guide”, “Fresh Air”, “This American Life” and “Keith and the Girl” help fill the gap but I am in no way close to filling my 10 hour a day quota. I’ll gladly receive any tips for recommended listening through the comments to this post. In grateful return I’ll give you this free bit of advice: do not listen to “Stop Podcasting Yourself” when in public because guffawing openly causes people to stare and avoid you.