The Receptionist's Truths, Part 1

I don't necessarily know "what the call is regarding", they asked for you by name and it's a bit tacky to second guess. If you wanted a secretary you probably should have tried harder at school.

I probably should remember who you are, I do not. So you will wear your visitor's badge.

"This is an urgent message" Yeeeeeeaaaaah, but is it though? Many's the time I have rushed forth and handed the post-it note over, only for the recipient to smirk a bit and walk away.

"Why am I blocked in the car park?" Because space is finite.

Nothing will convince me to pull you out of your meeting faster than a call from a primary school re: vomiting child.

When I Drink

I have nearly finished my time at my current workplace. I know this because last night a dozen or so people gathered in the pub in response to an email I'd circulated, announcing my departure and inviting ...whoever...to "leaving drinks". The name is misleading because I am not a drinker, particularly. When I was 15 I pretended I had a moral objection to drink; people respected that more than just being too soft to get pissed under-age. The story stood up for various reasons.

In truth, I *was* too much of a wimp to drink because my mum would inevitably find out. And that would be most upsetting. After a while I started drinking overnight at friends houses and caring less what my mum thought even when the evidence was clear.

Ah, the evidence. It manifested in unexpected ways. Like, walking to the door. My mum's front door is accessed by a long ramp and I insist on leaning on her to walk up it. The same was true when coming back from the pub in my late teens. They say alcohol affects people differently: people without Cerebral Palsy stumble around a bit, maybe zigzag, possibly fall. In people *with* Cerebral Palsy , a moderate alcohol intake releases some of the pesky disabling muscle tension. My mum knew I'd been drinking when I scaled the ramp with an overly confident stride. Basically, it is possible to have CP and be *better at walking* if only you'd just get drunk.

The (athetoid) CP comedian Josh Blue also notes this phenomenon. ["Josh, are you drunk? I heard your key in the door, you got it on the first try"]. But I saw it first, so there.

So, with alcohol apparently having healing properties, why am I such an occasional drinker now? It's not that I don't like the taste, that's a cop out, everyone can "like the taste" if they give it their full attention. I suppose the high sugar content of what I do drink, coupled with the booze, throws fuel on to the mood swing fire. Believe me, a sense of utter despair and the overwhelming need to sleep is genuinely off putting.

And then there's the drinking venues. Bright, confusing places with overlapping conversations and what I assume is the sound of Having A Good Time. I'm not suggesting all drinkers all have a good time every time they drink, it's just easier to believe that when you're the one wanting to go home and eat trifle alone. I probably sound cynical and negative right now. Correct. But it's mainly just bewilderment.

But...why??

It has been nearly two years since my last blog post. What has happened? Well, I've decided to try and become a solicitor. I was watching The Wire one night and things just escalated from there. I'd taken the first admin job offered to me with almost the sole purpose of renting a flat to live independently*. For the first time....ever..probably....I felt solid. A solid base is always good. And what did I do with that base? I enrolled on the Graduate Diploma in Law (Distance Learning). Obviously.

And, as I said with great sincerity at a recent non-law job interview, law is AMAZING.

*Independent Living isn't a phrase I hear outside the young and fairly significantly disabled population. Our non-disabled peers "move out" , we "live independently". The distinctions are many and I can't be arsed with any of them right now.

Good Morning / Good Afternoon...

"I have to ask these questions, so I do apologise if they sound irrelevant to you." It's 9.30 in the morning, and I'm trying to direct a call to a department I do not work in, don't understand and cannot access since the lift broke sometime in September. The caller laughs, or exhales sharply, or something. No response can ease the feeling of deep incompetence, which for some reason hangs over me whether I am employed or not. I dial an extension, picked from a colour-code sheet, and clear the call. At this point I relax, I know this because my right arm is no longer in the moro position, hand subconciously clawing at my ear

Two months in, I am suprised by the ways this job manages to confuse me. Visitors Pass Politics, for example. All visitors must be issued with passes; if there is a fire, and they perish in the inferno, their name must at least be in the book to confirm this fact. And yet, the ettiquette elludes me. Some visitors will accept their pass automatically, they love meetings, they are experts at meetings. Then there's the haters, the ones who, when presented with a pass, will look at me like I presented them with bird shit to wear on their lapel. These people are too important for lamenated pieces of paper.

The phone is too loud and the intercom isn't loud enough. Some outsiders don't use the intercom, they think the door is automatic, they think the organistion has the same entry policy as a Tesco Metro.

Fleetingly in my working day, I think things could be different in a better economic climate, or if I hadn't spent my undergraduate degree crying and eating doughnuts. But only fleetingly, because work is good, it focuses the mind. Focus on parking space allocation is still focus.

I belong to a section of the population that seems only ever to go Back To Work. Disabled people never emerge fresh faced into the job market, or take early retirement to convert a barn in the Lake District. No, they go Back, I personally was urged Back to Work when I was in sixth form seeking my first saturday job. Without my current role, I would hear the same mantra ringing in my ears, and that would more irritating than a broken intercom.

Old Beirut

Track: Elephant Gun

Album: Lon Gisland E.P

Artist: Beirut

As The Long Blondes said, "19, you're only 19 for god's sake". No. Really. FOR GOD'S SAKE When Zach Condon sings "If I was young I'd leave this town" you almost suspect he's taking the piss. Smug irony aside, Elephant Gun with its lilting ukelele, soaring vocals and kickarse...trumpet solos, is miles better than anything on Gulag Orkestar. My stint driving a Balder with its barely-there turning circle was well timed, they are all the better for waltzing with. Class.

Paul Heaton – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham 14/11/07

Cool things dress in black: Johnny Cash, Ninjas, Marks & Spencers Christmas Temps, and now Paul Heaton. He has that haircut too, and against the dingy backdrop of the Rescue Rooms' stage he looks like a Stealth Northerner. If he was going to kill anyone with two fingers I would nominate Peter and The Wolf's drummer, her Effortless Indie annoyed me so much I plucked my chin hair in frustration.

Anyway, back to Paul. The Beautiful South Silvery Haired Saxophone Bloke-- was there, but in the crowd. Onstage, Heaton is joined by strangers; helpfully, they are just as motionless, wear pretty much the same clothes and exactly the same expressions as The Beautiful South. The songs, true to the band's Myspace category of all things, do have a rockabilly quality to them. The Kids These Days hops around like a Housemartins album track before changing tempo for no apparent reason, but She Rolled Her Own preserves Heaton's rhyming couplets at the expense of any real tune. Finally, and this is important, the pee joke in The Pub is not funny. Peeing in pubs in general is not funny, it is an art of timing and concentration.

The solo tunes should grow on me, I just hope they have a chance to. Of the people I spoke to, progressively drunk as I was, I do recall all of them chalked up five Beautiful South gigs or more, we were the hardcore. Can acts that start with a devoted minority move on to bigger things? Because in a sense Heaton is working backwards, we aren't a select few hiding a musical secret from the masses, we are the ones left after his Band of the People split. Rose tinted talk of reunions calls into question how far fans will truly support The Sound Of Paul Heaton, but as I say, the songs are nice enough. What else matters?

Iron & Wine + Johnny Flynn [Reading Concert Hall 4/11/07]

I love Iron & Wine. I love the whispering, the banjos and the beard. Mostly the beard. I'd be lying if I said Sam Beam's transition to a full and rather noisier band didn't disappoint me, but the chance to see him live with so little effort on my part was too good to pass up.

After a round of beard spotting in the crowd (well groomed full beard = 10 points ; ratty little trying to be indie beard = -100 points) we sat down to watch Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit. This raucous Folk outfit do not appear to be from Sussex, and I question how much wit goes into writing lines like "i'm a plough and you're a furough; I'm a fox and you're a burrow", but there you go. They are enthusiastic multiinstrumentalists with a clear love of banjo and mandolin as used by American acts like Langhorne Slim. But they still find room to fit an olde worlde Engligh aesthetic into their songs. Which is nice.

Then on came Sam with his Big Giant Beard and more recently acquired Big Giant Band. Eight people, to be precise. There's a sense that, still enjoying the novelty, he's eager to include all of them in everything. Dangerous ground for those fans who were won over by the lofi strumming of Creek Drank the Cradle. On Your Wings comes on awkwardly, suffering from the full band approach, at points I want to shoot the critic who said the best thing he produced pre-band was his Postal Service cover. Conversely, Upward Over the Mountain works, all slide guitar and lilting riffs, almost bettering the original.

The songs that suit the band are the ones they recorded in the first place, House by The Sea being an almost unimaginable gamble but very affecting, as is Ressurection Fern (not least because i saw one audience member crying).

When Sam finally picks up his acoustic guitar for Boy With a Coin a heckler shouts in protest, whether sarcastically it's hard to tell. In fact his entourage is only trimmed down for the encore, and that's a song from the Calexico collaboration album.

All in all it was an enjoyable and at times moving set, but Sam would maybe do well to leave at least some time for the older songs to be played acoustically.