Terry Barnes

Fucking car parks.

An extract from a job advert. It's full of babble about the North Star, and being curious, focused and together.

Still applying for jobs. Guess what this lot do. What kind of business they are;

A clue - they describe the thing they do as being 'connected mobility hubs'.

FFS.

I must go and empty all the shit from the shed I don't want to take when we move and I am using the presence of mild drizzle as a reason not to do it.

He is very, very smart. He picked up in hours what used to be a 3 month training course and he did it mostly by figuring it out for himself.

I've never been to the museum but would absolutely love to go.

I vaguely know Sam, alongside his electronic music mayhem he collects and restores old telephone exchanges, which is where our paths have crossed.

Imagine Guy Martin if he was into electronics, not mechanics.

That was essentially the plot of a book I read a couple of years ago. Tech bros were fooled into thinking it was all over and they evacuated to their special island with no outside comms (for security) & everyone else relaxed and got on with life.

Is that a London thing (I somehow presume you live in London without knowing that to be true) or a city thing or just how it is?

...self-deprecating whimsy I thought it was. If anything, it gave a negative impression.

Also: photo of myself where I had stuck googly eyes to my eyelids. That had to go too.

Maybe the issue is these men have no female friends to ask to sort their profiles out & that's the actual red flag?

When I was ready to start dating after 'the terrible thing' it had been 25 years since I last attempted to meet someone. I asked a female friend to check my profile before launching it into the ether.

Anyway, turns out "will try to keep my farting under control" was not the hilarious piece of..

And one would contain bits of marco Pierre white

CD Cover of Nation of Language's Dance Called Memory, the cover features cherries in brown paper bags on a blue blanket.

This is really growing on me. Somehow M83 meets early Lightning Seeds. And that's obviously a good thing. I keep turning it up which is a good sign.

A wood and cardboard Ford anglia in blue mounted on top of a wheelchair.

There was the time we turned his wheelchair into Harry Potter's car.

I hope so or I've just made a terrible error.

A teenage boy wears a dressing gown and towel in his powerchair with an ersatz copy of the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy on his green fabric tray.

Apparently world book day is still a thing at 15!

Internal politics I'm sure - if you've read the book 'on the edge' about Commodore's downfall you'll get an insight. Companies often respond well to external threats but get blown up by the same thing happening internally.

No-one at Commodore seemed to realise they sold the Amiga. They changed the world for ever and didn't even seem to notice.

I definitely don't want chips on my jacket potato.

I don't do it for swears but will when complaining about someone using a slur - either racial or sometimes about disability if I'm talking about my son. I simply can't bring myself to write the uncensored version of spa*tic or reta*d. Though the latter is usually called the 'r slur' in the community

Trying to convince child2 that all hotels have a 'nut porter' who can be reached by dialling 311 on the hotel phone. Anytime, day or night, he will bring you nuts.

I am now pretending to be this nut porter when I go down to turn him in the night. A cheery 'cashews, sir?' at 3am.

Weirdly, my list is the same except I have eaten sushi.

Feeling 30% better after yelling along to New Gold Dream in the shower...

Carefully balanced with (1st t-shirt out of the wardrobe) a Depeche Mode Get The Balance Right t-shirt. I'm slovenly but also on-brand.

The kids will be getting whatever is easiest moved from fridge to oven for tea.

I'm in full man with cold mode. I'm annoyed at myself at how pathetic this is.

I know this sounds pathetic - but there's very little down time or R&R in my life and having to do it all with 50% of my usual energy is just a fucking drag.

I have mostly been sighing, trying to read my kindle, and having baths that I then decide are too hot to bear. Supposed to be job hunting having been made redundant but linked-in is so very, very trying.

I will make tea for the kids and then stab at random vacancies with very little motivation.

I am at the point of having lurgy where I am willingly wearing tracksuit bottoms outside of a sports or exercise setting

I like to use phrases I don't understand when talking to my children when they have friends round. I asked child3 if she could unload the dishwasher and give it some 'main character energy' and told child1 I was popping to the corner shop to pick up some immaculate vibes. Both slammed their doors.

🫵 chill out

Open your hand bag wide and thrust it toward the waitress yelling 'look. No skibidis'. Then ask her if you look like a derpy noob.

Disneyland Paris

Please don't use mental disability slurs.