As Christian nutters and pub-quiz bores will never tire of telling you, it's the LOVE of money that is the root of all evil. But think back to the last time you met someone who hated money. How much of theirs did they give you?
The reason for this 3am rambling is that I have now returned to work - for a full three days - and it doesn't get any better. My New Year's resolution is to do something a damn sight more worthwhile with my time in 2007. And there's the paradox. It would mean telling the big-haired boss to shove her job and she can keep the filthy lucre as I will no longer soil my delicate brain trying to cope with her mad demands. Which sounds *so* good...apart from the bit about the filthy lucre. I don't love it but then again, life gets awfully threadbare without it.
The only answer is to set up my own company doing something I enjoy. One of my mates did give me a book for Christmas that might have fitted the bill. It's called, So you want to be a porn director? and is not just a clever title hiding some Nick Hornbyesque tale of unrequited love in a North London Film studio but is actually a manual on how to go about making porno films.
SWMBO was not particularly amused by this even when I offered to make her a star. And also, having read the book, the balance between fun, money and imprisonment seems too precarious.
Which leaves me with those other great pleasures of the flesh, eating and drinking. Now here, unlike in the porn movies, I am an expert. I've been eating and drinking all my life. Plus, there is the obvious question of why did I buy a farm if I'm not going to grow anything? Answer, because it seemed like a good idea at the time and I thought I'd have the time to do it. As it is, I spend just as much time at work plus another 3 hours just driving back and forward to the city. Mad isn't it?
Before I leave the world of work I must just relate this week's Big Haired Boss story.
The office reopened on Wednesday, 3rd January. Because I'd been in between Xmas and the New Year I'd seen all the e-mails that she had sent everyone ordering this, that and the other to be done in time for her return on the 3rd. A certain degree of panic set in as people realised that most of these requests were impossible to fulfil. However, come 11 o'clock and still no sign of TBHB, everyone began to relax a little. And when she still wasn't there in the afternoon, a positively party atmosphere broke out.
She finally turned up at around 2 on Thursday, stepped out of the lift, turned the wrong way and bumped into the wall. Then spent two hours having incoherent conversations with people before leaving. Friday was another no-show.
We did the sensible thing, which was to delete from her machine all the e-mails from the week before Christmas and leave her a post-it note saying IT support had been in as there was a problem with the server. By the time she's back on an even keel and remembers what she wanted it'll have all been done.
OK, now I know you don't come here to read all this mad stuff. You're looking for the freebies. That's OK by me, though a little thank you would not go amiss.
As the first offering of the New Year here is the promised Wailing Women, Vol 2.
In my world this goes:
I Fall To Pieces by Patsy Cline
Fidelity by Regina Spektor
Chain of Fools by Aretha Franklin
Son Of A Preacher Man by Dusty Springfield
C'est Si Bon by Eartha Kitt
There Is No Greater Gold by Isobel Campbell
The Loco-Motion byLittle Eva
Dancing Barefoot by Patti Smith
Like A Prayer by Madonna
Boulder To Birmingham by Emmylou Harris
It's Too Late by Carole King
Slow by Kylie Minogue
I've made my choice by Sylvie Vartan
White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane
Jolene by Dolly Parton
Time Will Tell by Holly Golightly
Street in Manhattan by Gamine
Witches' Song by Juliana Hatfield
The End of the World by Skeeter Davis
God Makes No Mistakes by Loretta Lynn

But you can arrange them as you will. However they go, that is a classic line-up.

Find it at: hxxp://www.rapidshare.com/files/10386108/ww2.zip