Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Finally, the day has come where I can look at a big hastily constructed graph of my month’s spending and go “Hmm.” in an attempt to figure out where it all went wrong. This is a slightly modified version, in that I took off the Red Dwarf DVD, which while I “bought” it on monday, it hasn’t been shipped and thus, no money has left my account, and I added the gas and phone bills because the money for the former has now left my account, and I forgot to mention the latter due to the roundabout way it was paid (I lent Ian some cash, and we called it even for my part of the phone bill.) I have decided to continue this experiment for another month, if only because it was such a miserable failure this month. Instead of reducing what I spent, I was simply more aware of how much money I had which led to me spending vastly more than was necessary on my credit card bill, and gig tickets, and the like. It has given me a benchmark though. Tangible data to compare to, and targets to reduce. Allow me to analyse.

This graph lets us compare my spending per day, with the cumulative total. Obviously the rent offsets things a bit. You can see I managed roughly a week before I stopped trying to spend less money. I only broke £50 a day when I paid the council tax, my credit card bill and bought gig tickets, but then that’s a ridiculously unsutainable amount of money in itself. My daily average worked out at £31 a month. That’s the amount to beat. This month, I have to lower that average in time for the 25th of March, so I’ll be keeping a closer eye on how what I’ve spent compares to the daily average for the month, as much as the cumulative amount.

Back here I did an entry to start this whole process off where I attempted to predict future spending and assigned myself the monthly total of £734. An amount I vastly overshot. Let’s see why.

Things started off quite well. For some reason I was convinced I was spending a lot of money in the opening weeks, but as we can see the gradient really shoots up after I pay my rent, which (as well know) indicates I was spending a more money in less time. I ascribe this fully to the earlier phenomenon I spoke of where keeping track of my money left me far more aware of how much richer I was than I thought. I put off buying ben folds tickets for absolutely weeks, but my nerve broke the day before I paid my rent and I bought one. Almost immediately afterwards, garbage announced a gig and I bought nikki and I tickets. I also paid a hefty chunk of my credit card bill. These one-time payments amount to £168 that I would otherwise have only spent £25 of (being the mandatory amount for my monthly credit card payment.)

I bought travelcards on the 25th, 1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd, which was one more week than I was expecting. That’s £125 on travel to work alone. Including Petrol, which cost me £47 this month, (and was way more than the £25 I allocated) my total travel costs were £152. I’m currently overshooting the mark by £143 from the tickets/credit card, and I can now add £27 of unexpected travel costs to that.

I spent £95.13 on food. This is £35 more than I expected. The entirety of which can be directly and exactly attributed to buying food at the chip shop, McDonalds, the sandwich shop up the road from work, and the trip to Nandos, the last of which is a one-off thing and the second of which is something I’ll be avoiding this month. Currently exceeding expectations by £205.

For comics, I was almost spot on. Cost me £17.83, plus £2 for a comic which Nikki bought for me, and that leaves me just under £20. Unexpectedly purchased luxuries (CDs, cinema, etc) cost me £30, and bills cost me £10 more than expected due to a domain renewal as well as gas and phone. Combined with “special occasion” purchases for Valentines Day and Tom’s Birthday, that leaves me £60 more then what I thought. £265 over.

Removing £20 for the CD unit I never got around to buying, this is £245 over my initial estimate of £734. £980. Given some minor rounding errors, that’s almost exactly what spent this month (£988) which means I’m good at noticing where my expenses are going, though Rob pointed out i’m not actually doing much about them, just admitting I’ve made them. Now I’ve identified the causes of the problems, This month is where the savings must happen. I’ll write some more on that tomorrow.

Yesterday, after work, the tech team was rewarded for Q4 success by having dinner (at the company’s expense) at a place called Maxwell’s in Covent Garden. I was part of Q4’s success, and so that entitled me to part of a meal, which seemed like a prime opportunity for getting to know exactly who some of these people are that I’m working with, since it’s hard to get much social interaction in when everyone has a PC attending to their needs and feeding them work.

Having finished for the day, I went to buy a single comic which has eluded me for a week or two from Forbidden planet, checked out the place where the company’s moving in April (Dead opposite Fopp on shaftesbury avenue. Too cool.) and then we met the rest of the people at a pub next door to where we were eating. The topic of conversation seemed to be most frequently “Why are there leaves in my drink?” since everyone got drinks bought for them, and there were a huge number of cocktails on the menu. Being disinclined to drink alcohol in pretty much any case, most of all when the glass is also full of leaves, I stuck with coke, but they tried to make it classy and served the glass bottled version.

For food, I had a steak burger and chips. It was way too large for me, as seems to be the case wherever I go, but it tasted alright and that’s what counts. There was very little projectile vomiting that I could see. It’s an okay restuarant, I’m not sure I’d go back necessarily, it’s certainly the kind of place you’d be going for the location or atmosphere rather than the food, which was definitely tilted towards the functional bent of providing edible biomass rather than assaulting you with deliciousness. The alternative, of course, is horrible food at horrible prices, so maybe I should get in touch with my communist side and admit that functional food at functional prices is the best meal for society.

Earlier on in the day, I booked Friday off so that I can finish off my stuff for Paul/East and give some extra time over to nikki, who’s coming down this weekend. It occurs to me that I haven’t had a day off since Christmas, and I’ve got a whole bunch to use up, so it seemed like an opportune moment. I was going to take next friday off as well, but it emerged that Lyndon, Ben and Vince were all off that day, and it seems sensible that I should turn up if my three immediate superiors aren’t going to, if only because if something breaks it’ll probably be best to have as many people around as possible. Not that any of us who’d be left could fix anything much if it broke, but at least it’d feel like I was helping.

Also, in the past few days, I started and completed reading Belle De Jour. I’m skeptical as to how likely it is to be real, but it’s an entertaining read nonetheless. I enjoyed the blog at the time, and it’s odd to see something you’ve only read on screen, on a blogger account no less, down in black and white on the page. Next I’m going to read The Rotter’s Club, which Nikki bought me, and then I’ll see if I can’t finally get around to the douglas coupland book I’m still waiting to start

Comic: £2.00
Travelcard: £25.00
Mcdonalds: £1.98
Tuesday/Wednesday Total: £28.98
Cumulative cost: £950.66

What the hell. I’m throwing caution to the wind. I have had to abandon humility and buy Red Dwarf 6, since i realised it was out. I used a little known price comparison site which i do not work for to find it for twelve quid delivered. Didn’t save me money using that site, but it did give me better results on the DVD front. Maybe I should suggest to the higher ups that they just buy them out. I’m not sure I wield that amount of influence around here yet though.

Similarly, Ian and I just got a MAC code so that we can change to 8 megabit broadband later tonight when Josh gets in. That’s going to be a one-off £13.25 payment for “installation” I suspect, even though they’re not actually installing jack shit. We should get a free router though.

I was going to go and buy the new mars volta album, but I think it can wait. I do get paid in like 4 days.

Red Dwarf 6: £11.99
Petrol to get home: £15.00
Total Cost for Sun/Mon (so far..): £26.99
Cumulative cost: £924.68

Oh dear god, the pain. I’m still within the boundaries of my last paycheque, though, even with the emergency tax code sucking up god knows how many notes. And a number of significant one-time payments of gig tickets makes me unworried about spending this much next month. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. The proper analysis comes next weekend, i’m sure…

Hell no.

I’m not sure whether to be insulted at being told I wear whatever is “in fashion” (but seriously, when are T-Shirts and Jeans ever out? At least, when are they ever more out than in?) or amused at the fact this person told me I have “no emo flare” which, presumably, implies I don’t have any emo fireworks. Unless they meant “Flair.”

Nikki and I went to see Closer this evening (well, night) against the advice of both of our siblings. Clearly, they don’t know what they’re talking about because it was an excellent film that’s worth downloading, if not buying. We saw it at the Odeon in Coventry though. The film had barely started when Nikki managed to explode her entire packet of dolly mixtures over he surrounding area, resulting in a mad scramble for dignity and the faint smell of licorice accompanying the rest of the film. Gave us a good laugh, though.

Not that the film didn’t; in fact, it’s pretty damn funny when it’s trying. It’s set in London, which gave me the new (to me) experience of going “hey, I know where that is!” as they sauntered past various locations. They were walking along the Thames once or twice and I kind of hoped to see where I worked, but alas, the closest I got was seeing what I suspect was Southwark bridge in the background, that being the next one down from London Bridge.

It’s probably a bit of a “couple” film, especially if yo’re the kind of couple that enjoys seeing natalie portman dance around in the nude. Even a significant portion of film being devoted to Julia Roberts didn’t ruin it for me. I’m not too inclined to do an in-depth review of it, mainly because it’s got pretty dense subject matter. Trying to talk about why it was good would just end up making me sound either stupid or pretentious, and i’ve no interest in making it that easy. To merely say that it’s probably quite realistic in its handling of relationships and love in a way that most films aren’t should be enough to let you know if you’ll like it or not. It’s just that kind of film.

I was kind of surprised to see it got only a 15 certificate given the proliferation of the word “cunt” and the quite heavy sexual descriptions that were present, even if there wasn’t much in the way of depiction.

By comparison, in the afternoon we watched “Meet the Fockers” which is the sequel to “Meet the Parents” and contains about 15% identical jokes, a few plays on the fact that the word “Focker” sounds a bit like “Fucker” and jokes to which you can apply the general template of “Robert De Niro’s character is so uptight and we are incredibly liberal.”

Except the part where the cat was sodomised by the dog.

Still, not the worst film I’ve seen by a long shot. Far better than it could’ve been, but I’m maybe most glad I saw it for free instad of paying, and saved my money for a more deserving film in the afternoon.

Well. on to less trivial things. Like, my finances. So much, I think I can safely say, for that excellent plan to keep spending down in the latter half of the month. Less than a week until I get paid again, and I’ve managed to buy in the last two days:

Can of Fanta: £0.50
2 Garbage tickets for June: £60
Petrol to drive back home: £12
Cinema Tickets: £10.40
Cost for Friday/Saturday: £82.90
Cumulative Cost: £897.69

I’m also being incredibly generous and not including a £40 gas bill cheque because the money hasn’t actually left my account yet. I’ll have to pay for some petrol tomorrow as well, and then some shopping on monday. Then a travel card. So, looking at it like that, the smallest victory I can claim will be if I don’t spend money on Wednesday and Thursday. As they might say in an episode of ExcelSaga:

Today’s Experiment……Failed.

First they kill babies with their agressive african marketing campaigns, now this. The really sad part is that this time I can’t tell if the people commenting are morons, or if I agree with them. I usually reserve a high amount of contempt for just about every person commenting on BBC news articles, regardless of viewpoint, because whatever their position they come off sounding like absolute foaming morons, but this time, well, maybe there’s some truth in their rantings.

I’m not trying to turn this into some kind of blog about the london underground (since there are plenty of existing, far more suited ones which I should probably link to) but I feel an intense need to share this morning’s debacle:

Normally, when a train arrives at the station, it’s already full. At least, if it’s not full, the seats are. On rare occasionas, when two trains arrive close to each other, the one behind hasn’t been able to fill up yet. This presents the perfect opportunity for the quick-witted passenger to board and take one for himself. It’s what I thought had happened today. It seemed too good to be true. As the train pulled up, we realised the carriage we were going to be boarding was full of seats. In fact, as luck would have it, the doors were going to stop right in front of us. I remember thinking how it couldn’t have been planned better as I strode onto the train and took a seat.

But something was wrong. Something with the air. It seemed warmer, somehow. Like it was burning my nostrils when I inhaled. Ian stood up looking confused at the seat for a moment, as if there was something wrong with it. It was clear I wasn’t the only person experiencing this odd nasal sensation. It was almost like….rotting cheese? I couldn’t quite figure out what could be causing it. It became apparant to me that somewhere in the carriage was the source of an incredibly pungent stench which was now working its way into the nostrils of everyone around. We waited a few seconds for the smell to dissipate, but it wasn’t going to. Ian was looking increasingly queasy and while I was trying to figure out if this was simply a case of milk gone bad, or if someone had merely shit in a bag and placed it atop a heater, he suggested we switch carriages, sharpish. I could not find myself in an position to disagree.

As we stood at the end of the next carriage, looking through the door windows at the commuters entering the offending carriage, he explained to me the source of the malodour. Some kind of homeless individual, a “tramp” if you will, was aboard the carriage. In fact, he had been sitting almost directly opposite us. He alone was the source of the stink. The deliverer of disgust. The purveyor of pungence. That explained why we were so easily able to find free seating. So powerful was his effect on the carriage, that it was mostly empty, in fact, he had cleared an entire block of seats around him. Not merely one either side, but almost an entire row, and most of the seats opposite. Several, presumable sensory dead commuters were bearing the situation in the name of sitting down, but even at the end of the carriage, people were pressing their scarves and coats into their faces to protect their noses.

It was a stench unlike any other. To describe it is difficult. What I remember most was the acidic quality it had. The air seemed thick with it, like a strong cheese. It coupled with bad milk, stale faeces, the ammonia of urine. It was surprising to realise that a human could deliver that kind of sensory experience. To smell that bad surely didn’t just require the absence of bathing facilities, but some sheer perverted will to smother one’s self in the most foul smelling of substances daily. Surely.

We spent the rest of the journey watching that carriage like it was some kind of fucked-up reality show meets the terrible truth of homelessness documentary. People were making the same mistake as us, and moving directly to the seats, and we watched them run the same gauntlet of realisation that we did. Some people figured things out before sitting down, and simply continued walking right past the seats and back out the next door. At least one guy tried to find the source of the smell for some time before he realised, and ran into the carriage next to us. I had never seen anything like it, and from now on, it means that whenever I see an empty carriage, I’m going to be slightly wary of what might be the real reason for it. Simple good luck, or something more sinister?

As an aside, I was trying to figure out how I had missed someone in that state sitting mere metres away from me. I put it down to my natural homeless person filter working too well. Having lived in Leamington and Oxford, and now London, the only way I can get any movement done from one place to the next is to ignore the massive homelessness problems each of those cities have. I’m not exactly sympathetic towards the homeless at the best of times, and less so when they’re trying to scam me out of money that I don’t even have. That’s what it’s like in Leamington and Oxford, and that why I’ve taught myself not to even register the sight of them half the time. Unfortunately, my nose hasn’t got the same ability as my eyes in that respect.

In today’s fiscal news, circumstances have required me to make a credit card payment. I was feeling ambitious, so I’ve paid off £75. That actually covers me for next month’s payment as well, should I feel the need to hold off paying next month. I made the transfer online, because it’s never like you’re spending real money that way. In fact, I discovered I had a little more than I expected in my natwest account, which is good, because at this rate another 8 months or so and I’ll maybe be able to celebrate earning money that isn’t immediately someone else’s. That’s my only monetary outgoing for the last day or two, so far. I do have to go give Ian a cheque for the gas bill, but I’m not going to count that until it’s out of my account, otherwise today’s numbers would look horrendous.

Cumulative Total: £814.79

Well, that’s it. The big hurdle jumped like so tower bridge in that “back the bid” advert I keep seeing on the tubes. Which, before I get to the filthy business of totalling up expenditures, leads me to ask something I’ve been pondering for weeks. Just HOW does one back the bid? I’ve seen hundreds of things, from streetlamps to the news telling me to do so, even the country’s rulers are getting in on the act, but I’m somehow still at a loss as to what to do. Did I miss the free booklet they sent round telling us what to do? If anyones asks, I guess I’ll say I’m backing the bid.

Well, maybe not. I’m unconvinced that London’s already horrendous transport system can handle that shit, really.the last thing it needs is an influx of a few thousand more commuters/tourists. And shitloads of building work being done around the city, not exactly winning me over. I have to wonder how they actually ever intended to convince me, now that I think about it. “Back the bid” they’re saying “or else.” they might as well add. Hello? Anyone got a reason up there? Personally, I don’t see the olympics in itself as a reward worth the effort. Of course, it includes the paralympics too. That’d work. London’s entire tube system has like three wheelchair friendly stations or something. I hope for the sake of the disabled we don’t win that one. I think the games should go to Paris. That’ll teach ‘em.

And now, the conclusion:
Rent: £368.75
Travelcard: £25
Chips/Ice Cream: £7.13
Tuesday Total: £400.88
Cumulative Total: £739.79

Dear christ. Only a little more than a week until my next infusion of cash. I shall keep my eyes on the prize.

In light of my recent attempt to curb reckless spending, I am shamefully going to admit that I actually got around to buying a ben folds ticket today. Looks like it’s just me going, but then I might have to go straight from work anyway. Cost me £33, of which £25 was ticket, £3.30 was booking fee, and £4.70 was postage. A little steep, admittedly, but I have to wonder why the postage on seated tickets (I bought standing) was only £1.50. Are my tickets really so much heavier? They’re not even trying to pretend that they’re offering a fair price these days.

Ah well. This, unfortunately, brings the week’s damage up significantly. And I’m about to pay my rent. And a gas bill. And we’re changing our internet to 8mbit, which, while “kickin’ rad”, will involve more costs even if the monthly rate does work out cheaper.But, hey, only 12 days to go until I get paid. Expenses for Saturday and Sunday run as follows:

Ben Folds Ticket: £33
Eggs, Muffins, assorted sainsburys goods: £4.85
card & stamps: £4.09
Weekend’s Total: £41.94
Cumulative Total: £338.91

The other day, Ian and I were saying how given the wealth of available material, there seems to be very little done with the london underground system. We were considering making a shitty webcomic. Not actually considering, I mean, the vast majority of webcomics are the lowest of the low. We were just chucking ideas around under the premise that they could be used for one. Today, we realised why people are reluctant to write humour about london’s premier public transport system. It’s because anything funny you can think up is bound to be far less hilarious than the truth.

This morning’s train once again stopped at Acton town and kicked us all off. It’s an unsettling trend, since it’s now happened about three times in the last week or something. I’m not a fan of being put onto a nice spacious train, shufled two stops down the line, then crammed into a hot and humid train, because it wastes time and means I lose out on a decent sport in the carriage (not that I’m under the delusion I could ever get to sit down, that is, but I can usually lean against something.) This is a minor annoyance, compared to what we endured on the way home.

Firstly, the Victoria Line was shut down for the entire time we were trying to get on it. There is a sign at the top of London Bridge which gives the status of the northern/jubilee lines, but all it said was “Good Service” which is what it always says, so we were none the wiser until we actually found the immobile train. “Good” is, of course, a purely subjective and relative term. We waited 15 minutes, receiving updates every 30 seconds from the platform announcer (”There are signalling problems at Baker Street. We do not know when this train will be moving.”) and finally decided to throw in the towel and try and use a different route home. This kind of makes sense, except given the layout of the tube system, the only way to go directly back west, towards home was via the jubilee line first. We instead had to go north, then south, then west, which in theory was quicker than waiting on an immobile train.

The northern line train was reasonably prompt, even if the platform was stacked about 6-deep with annoyed jubilee line commuters. It was almost worth it to see the commuters on the northern line train look confusedly at the platform from their almost empty train as if to say “hang on, this is normally a nice pleasant ride home, where the hell did all these bastards come from?” We disembarked at Bank to get the district line back. It was around ten minutes until a train arrived, and it just turned out to be a circle line. Fair enough, they’re quite similar. However, one of the problems we’d been having all day was that every tube we used was being repeatedly slowed down by having to wait for its doors to open and close twice at each stop. This is supposedly a failsafe mechanism against idiots getting caught in the door, whereby it’s possible to keep the doors from ever closing if you accidently leave something like a briefcase, or your arm in between the two doors. Personally, I’d just give the doors enough pneumatic force to close no matter what. That’d soon sort out the crushes, once people realised that if they tried to pile in the carriage they’d just be severed in half as the doors shut on them.

So, up until then, it was a problem. When we were actually on the circle line, it became an incredible joke. Almost every stop had the doors opening, closing, opening again because the person who was stuck still hadn’t moved their bag, a ariety of reasons, all completely unseen from our less than stellar vantage point of deepest middle carriage. We eventually made it back where the circle and picadilly line trains intersected, jumped off the circle line train, ran onto the (westbound) picadilly line train, and I was finally able to sit down and enjoy the ride home. I was just revelling in having captured myself a seat on the suspiciously empty train, when Ian looked at me and said Hmm. You do realise this train’s for Uxbridge, don’t you?” I should’ve seen it coming really. The picadilly line splits into two branches. We take the heathrow line, and (as I understand it) criminals, drug users and other social miscreants take teh Uxbridge branch. That explains why the train was so empty. It explains why I managed to get a seat. It certainly explains why we ended up stood at Acton Town station for the second time in one day waiting for a train that we already thought we’d caught.

This horrendous misadventure pretty much explains why it’s hard to laugh at the tube. You might think it’s funny, but it’s clearly the product of a twisted mind. This doubled the length of the journey, and it took us around 90 minutes to get back from work. it would’ve been bad enough any other day, but we still had to go to tescos and get the shopping! Great! By the time we finished eating and washed up, it was 10 in the evening. Christ. Luckily, we had “food” at lunchtime, so we weren’t too starved.

As an aside, I re-read the first Dirk Gently book over the last week. I have a bunch of new books yet to go through, but sometimes I just can’t help re-reading the classics. I start on the second Dirk Gently book tonight.

Sandwich on wednesday: £2.20
Food from Tescos: £19.57
McDonalds: £1.98
Today for Wed-Fri: £23.75
Cumulative Total: £296.97