Evening shift today. Half an hour before the start I went to get my usual cup of coffee from the machine. One of the white coffee buttons used to have a handwritten sticker reading 'With Sugar!' stuck next to it, but that sticker is no longer there, so I guessed the anomaly had been fixed and pressed that button expecting a no-sugar coffee. One sip of decidedly sweet coffee later I wished someone would hurry up and write a new sticker.
Reporting a refusal during the early part, I again stood waiting by a non-responsive printer - and again got my sheet printed once I gave the machine a little thump on the side. It really is true what they say.
In the later part of the shift I noticed the leather clasp on my watch strap was a bit too near the end of the strap, so pushed it down a touch - and the side of the clasp promptly split. Worse, my watch's strap is welded into the body so there was no possibility of getting a new strap put on. Fortunately it's pay day tomorrow and I've found an OK-looking radio-controlled digital on Amazon for £19.99 (plus £8.99 for Express p&p) so that one should keep me going for a few months - I'm reconciled now to knowing the straps on cheap watches won't last more than that, but I don't have the available funds to invest in a quality one. That's my trip to the away game at Hampton & Richmond up the spout.
Got to go watch Ashes To Ashes on BBC iPlayer.
This morning I needed to get a 'Call Record Sheet' printed, to write down by hand details of the call I'd just made that wouldn't all fit on one line of the computer screen. Christine #3 was the nearest duty supervisor; I asked her to print me the sheet, she said it was on its way, so I went over to the printer...and waited and waited. After a few minutes I spotted that the little info panel was showing 'Tray 2 Empty'. I alerted Kevin, who loaded up the tray with paper. I stood there waiting for the sheet to print...and waited and waited. It soon became clear that the printer's memory hadn't retained the job, so I had to pootle back over to Christine #3 and ask her to try again. She did - still nothing doing.
In exasperation I gave the printer a thump. The very next second, it printed my record sheet.
To Havant tonight for Hawks v Dorchester. Rained all evening, but we won 4-0 - and the rain stopped before the final whistle so I made the long walk back to the station in the dry :)
What's the best thing about today?
My girls beat their promotion rivals. w00t!
The Hawk girls faced MK Wanderers at Fort Blockhouse this afternoon needing a win to keep promotion in their hands. Prospects looked grim when MK took the lead from a corner after five minutes. Hawks went on the attack for most of the remainder of the first half but couldn't get the ball in the net, and just before half-time MK added a second in a breakaway.
On the sidelines Rita, the WAGs, Rose, the other regulars and I were resigning ourselves to another season in the 1st Division. Chantelle, out injured, had been meant to be writing a match report, but she had itchy feet from frustration at not playing so she soon gave that up and wandered along the sideline talking to everyone. We only got a short break at half-time, and it was a bit on the chilly side, so quite a few of our 'fans' didn't emerge from the warmth of the canteen until 10 minutes into the second half - and some even later. Those stragglers missed Lisa Cooper heading one in. As the game dragged on, it was looking like that goal would be just a consolation - until with ten minutes to go, with the goalmouth packed, Sam had a shot on the ground blocked by the keeper, who spilled the ball, and Kayleigh pounced to slam home the equaliser. Wild celebrations from our followers, but a draw would still have handed the promotion initiative to MK. Rain was starting to spit as we entered time added on.
Hawks won a corner. As Penny went to take it, Rita shouted "Penny, get your wand out!" It was a shame Jade wasn't there to start the song. Penny did indeed get her wand out, though; she lofted a perfect cross onto Kayleigh's head and Kay nodded in the winner! "YESSS!" I roared on the sideline, punching the air with both fists, and before I knew it I'd blown a kiss to Kayleigh! Amusement all round.
An action-packed hard-fought game worthy of deciding a promotion battle. More to the point, the Hawk girls' fate is still in their hands.
The anniversary of Sarah Kane's death.
I'd arranged to meet Niki, whom I haven't seen for over three years, for lunch when I arrived in London. Got over to Victoria just before 12.30 and texted her. No response. Tried her phone - voicemail. I logged on to one of those BT pay internet booths in the station and checked my e-mail to see if she'd mailed me to cancel, but no messages, so spent the next hour wandering around Victoria Station constantly trying Niki's phone, but it was permanently on voicemail.
At 1.30 I gave up, left her a message, bought my roses and took the tube to Sloane Square. Took my hat off, rested the flowers in the corner between a pillar and a big glass window at the front of the Royal Court and stood with my head bowed thinking about Sarah for a while.
Then the train journey home again.
If you could teleport to any place in the world right this second, where would you go?
The home of my e-pal Cassie, who lives in the States. We've never met and I'd love to rectify that.
To Fort Blockhouse for Hawk Ladies' match with the league leaders, Reading Reserves. I arrived as the girls were coming off the pitch after their pre-match warm-up - "Lovely day for it," Jo said to me, and Chantelle added "You should have worn your Speedos. Got a suntan." It's all right for them running round a football pitch all afternoon - the sun might have been out but for those of us standing at pitchside watching it was pretty parky.
We knew this would be a tough game, especially since Reading's first team didn't have a match so they'd be able to play a few ringers. Although Sam scored for us in the first minute, it was the closest league match we'd been involved in all season, with the teams evenly matched and both sides constantly threatening. Thanks to some splendid goalkeeping from Erin, we were 2-1 up with three minutes to go...then a Reading player crossed and found a striker unmarked on the edge of the six yard box, and she stroked the ball into the back of the net.
That's a hammer blow to our promotion hopes; we have to win against MK Wanderers next week now to have a real chance of second place. I gave the girls a quick clap at the final whistle before sloping off home gutted.
When your team are playing an hour's drive away you don't expect to have to leave home at 7.30 am. However, Malc, who runs HawkSupport's away travel, is also manager of the HawkSupport football team, so today's bus to Basingstoke left at 9 am to take in HawkSupport's match against the Basingstoke fans.
Their game was played at a leisure centre. There was frost on the grass outside the changing rooms, but mercifully not on the pitch. The HawkSupport lads lined up for a photo before kick-off - as Pete remarked to me "They're having it done now while they can still walk!" Matt was wearing gold boots - Malc warned him "You'd better score in those, or you'll get the piss ripped out of you." HawkSupport lost 5-2. Matt didn't score.
We spectators filed back onto the bus to wait while those who'd been playing got changed and showered, then it was over to the Basingstoke Town ground. The clubhouse served proper plates of burgers, egg or hot dogs with chips, and had a table offering all the sauces you could ask for (burger relish, garlic mayonnaise, etc. as well as the traditional tom and brown). I went for a 'Dragon Burger' (Basingstoke's nickname is The Dragons) which consisted of a burger, a square of pink sausage, bacon and cheese in a bun, plus chips. Not bad. The bar served a strawberry and pear cider called 'The Brothers' - lovely stuff. A big screen was showing Bristol Rovers v Southampton. Word went round the clubhouse that Neil Sharp wouldn't be playing this afternoon, as he'd been driving to the game only to turn back when he got the message that his wife had gone into labour. Cue the jokes - "How inconsiderate of her!", "You'd think she could have had her chavvy induced yesterday"...
Behind me on the terrace were some of the guys from the HawkSupport team, who spent much of the first half taking the mick out of Basingstoke keeper Chris Tardif, mostly for his limited kicking ability. I told them how last Sunday Non-League Today had called him Chris Tardis - amusement all round followed by a rendition of the Dr Who theme. The match was tensely balanced until 18 minutes when Rocky Baptiste drilled home.
Basingstoke bombarded us with a succession of corners, but Scrivs and our defence dealt with them all.
Moving around the ground during half-time, when we arrived at the other end we found the sun shining full in our eyes. We all spent the whole second half with hands up shielding our eyes. Soon after the restart Gary Elphick poked in our second from close range.
"We want one more to make it safe," Pete said to me. "I'm quite happy with this," I replied - famous last words. By 75 minutes Basingstoke had pulled it back to 2-2. Deep dejection descended.
Thankfully, a few minutes later Mo Harkin ran down the right and curled a cross behind Craig Watkins to skid perfectly into the six-yard box for Richard Pacquette to tap in. 3-2 to Hawks was how it ended and we all clapped the team off with a rendition of Under The Moon Of Love.
As we walked out of the ground, the news spread that Barnsley had beaten Liverpool 2-1. One young boy in our party had a Liverpool jacket on; when he got on the coach Malc announced "We have a genuine Liverpool supporter here, please don't laugh at him because they're out of the Cup" - then promptly burst into raucous laughter.
All through the drive home the radio was tuned to Radio 1, which had Fearne Cotton and a male presenter playing records most of which I was unfamiliar with and happy to stay that way, although the kiddies on board seemed to like it. Someone should have a word with that driver and explain to him that Radio 5 Live is the only acceptable listening choice for the coach ride home from a footy match.
From Havant, I took the train to Portsmouth then the bus to the Pyramids to see Amy Macdonald. I arrived there just on 7.30 as the doors were opening, but was completely unprepared for the two-mile-long snake that was the queue. Thankfully they were letting people in fairly quickly. As I reached the paving at the top of the steps, right outside the Pyramids doors, a steward announced "This is your last chance for a cigarette, once you're inside you can't go out and in again." The lady behind me asked what he'd said. I told her. She observed "Who's going to be mad enough to go outside for a fag when it's this freezing?"
The place was absolutely packed. I'd never imagined it possible to get so many people into the Pyramids. The first act on, Julian Velard, started while I was still at the back of the queue for the bar. Seeing my Havant & Waterlooville shirt, the barman gave me a thumbs up and said "Nice shirt. Respect." By the time I'd got served and made my way back through the queueing masses and into the crowd, he was halfway through his set. He wasn't bad, and nor was the next guy, Cass Lowe - who gave me false hope of 'Summer of '69' when he asked a person in the crowd "Did you shout Bryan Adams or Ryan Adams?" He pretended to start Summer of '69, hitting the opening chords, then said "No, I'd rather play my own stuff." He went on to castigate Ryan Adams for wanting to be someone's underwear.
As we waited for Amy, I heard a young lady tell her friend how "her football" was so important to her she couldn't possibly give it up. I turned and asked her who she supported, and she said Pompey. I told her I was a Hawks fan; she replied "I guessed that from your shirt." She said she'd been to a few games at Westleigh Park and liked it. I asked if she was going to see Pompey at Preston tomorrow, but she said she'd be watching on telly as the price of a ticket was beyond her budget. "And you get to have your Sunday lie-in," I added. Top babe.
Amy appeared just after 9.30 to an enormous roar. She opened with A Wish For Something More, then rocked the place with L.A. Her between-songs patter was superb, and she won the crowd's hearts saying how last time she'd played Portsmouth, at the little Wedgewood Rooms a few months ago, someone had said to her "You'll never come back to Portsmouth, Amy, you'll be too big," but she'd promised to return and now here she was. She was delighted to hear a fellow Glaswegian call out to her, and later cemented her popularity by telling us how touched she was that, here in Portsmouth, almost as far from Glasgow as you can get in Britain, so many people wanted to come and see her perform her songs.
The place electrified when Amy and her band struck up This Is The Life as their fourth song. At the end Amy said "I like it how when we started that, you all held your phones up. I'll be watching it on YouTube tomorrow." Then she mused how in the 1950s we had celebrities who were nice people that you could really look up to - "and now we have Jade Goody! What a role model!" Her words "So this song is about talentless celebrities" got one of the biggest cheers of the night. And she launched into Footballer's Wife.
She played all her album and added a few treats - an early B-side "that you probably won't have heard", which was a fantastic song called Rock Bottom, plus two brand new songs, both brilliant - I especially loved the second, Your Time Will Come, which she played during the encore.
On to the taxi rank, where I met a married couple from Gosport and we shared a cab to the Hard. During the taxi ride they told me how they'd received their tickets as a Christmas gift from their son, who'd constantly been urging his mother to listen to Amy's music. As we got out at the Hard, a bunch of blokes were waiting at the rank to get in. One of them, glancing at my football shirt, asked me "Are you a Barnsley fan? Oh no, you're not, are you?"
"Havant & Waterlooville," I said, showing the club badge. That met with his approval.
At Christmas, Stacey returned to England for eight months, but my appeal for her postal address over here fell on deaf ears, so I had to settle for sending her an e-Valentine. I sent it just after midnight, and within ten minutes got the confirmation e-mail to say she'd picked it up...
Late shift today, on a swap with Lyn - she wanted Valentine night off, and was willing to swap me for a Monday night when Hawks are playing at home. I was assigned a booth in the very far row of the unit; the lady next to me said "You must have been naughty, getting sent to the Naughty Corner. That's how I ended up here."
Sandi had sent me an internal e-mail to say she wanted to do a piece with me for our staff mag about my support of Havant & Waterlooville FC with particular reference to my trip to Liverpool. So an hour into the shift I got to come off the phones for half an hour while she asked me a couple of general questions about why I follow Hawks then got me to relive that memorable day last month. Nice work if you can get it.
We had a briefing from the supervisors towards the end of the shift. That led to an unfortunate piece of Whitehall farce, when, ten minutes before the briefing, I got a lady - who the case notes showed as having been a difficult customer last time - who was happy to do the survey on the spot. That meant having to ask her to hold on while I ran to the supervisors' table (it didn't help that I was sat nearly as far away from the supes as possible) and asked if there was anyone free who wasn't going to the briefing. The two supervisors there dilly-dallied before mentioning Linda, only to find she was on the phone, then finally settling for Sue #4. But just as I returned to my workstation, strapped on my headphones and told the lady my colleague would be with her in a moment, adding "sorry for the delay", with Sue now getting up ready to relieve me, the lady then decided she wasn't going to do it now after all. "Can you call me tomorrow?" So I had to wave Sue away, explaining "She doesn't want to do it now now." Much amusement from the lady next to me at the double 'now'.
During the briefing, one woman asked if interviewers could describe household members in case notes as 'Person 1', 'wife', 'son', 'daughter', etc - too many people were putting 'Person 1', 'Person 2', 'Person 3' - and if they weren't giving names, say whether the respondents were male or female. She added "I had one case recently - I had no sex, no relationships..." Everyone fell about, and Jenny called out "Know the feeling!" Took the words right out of my mouth. From the row of supes at the front Marilyn announced a piece of good news - we could read the new Security guide book that we've all just been issued on work time. That was me sorted for the remaining 15 minutes of the shift.
As I sat back down in my workstation for the last quarter-hour after the briefing ended, Marilyn put her hand on my shoulder and said "Thank you. You always say something constructive." That surprised me as my only contribution had been to make an observation supporting something someone else had already mentioned, but of course I thanked her nonetheless.
No word from Stacey. Either she hasn't guessed the e-Valentine was from me, or - more likely, I think, since today I also gave her a 'fall in love with' SuperPoke on Facebook - she has, but is adopting a policy of silent tolerance towards my affections. Better than outright rejection, I guess.
