Friends Disunited

I hate keeping people in suspense and I know that there are readers of this blog still wondering what was the outcome of the non-collection of my recycling that I mentioned the other week.  Well, worry no more - yesterday they finally emptied it after I'd managed to cram a third load recycling in to the bin.  That makes a full six weeks since they could last be bothered.  Isn't Cameron's Britain wonderful?  Yeah, I'm still feeling tired and ill-tempered.  I'm also feeling just downright ill.  The heat and lack of sleep are catching up with me, I'm afraid.  Still, at least the leave application has been put in at work so, hopefully, I'll be a free man for three weeks in late August.  Hopefully that will aid my recovery from my current malaise.  Right now, everyone and everything is irritating me even more than usual.  I found myself particularly pissed off the other day when I found myself being patronised by so-called 'friends' in the pub.  If I haven't mentioned it before, my local is under new management again, which is always a cue for various former regulars to turn up at least once and try to lord it over all those of us who have been regularly drinking there in the meantime.  Which is what happened in this particular incident - I got mightily annoyed by their idea that they were somehow doing me a favour by reappearing because, obviously, I wouldn't have spoken to anyone else in the pub in the several years since they could last be bothered.  Fuck off!

Speaking of long-lost 'friends', did you see that news story over the weekend about that street having to be evacuated because of the highly unstable home made fireworks one resident was manufacturing in his flat?  I watched in fascination as it unfolded on the TV news, waiting to see if they identified the culprit by name.  Sadly, they only gave his age - if he had been a few years younger then I'd swear that I must know him from my schooldays.  I'm sure I must have mentioned that kid I knew at school who used to do stuff like making his own bombs and fabricating shotguns in metalwork (I'm not joking about that).  He was another of those people who latched on to me as a friend and who I could never seem to shake off.  I seem to attract them.  (To be clear here, when I say I attract 'them', clearly implying that  really don't want to be friends with these weirdos, I'm not talking about the various deranged women I seem to attract - they're fine: scary, but I'm still OK with being friends with them.  No, I'm talking about the borderline psychopaths who nobody in their right mind would want to befriend by choice, but who leave you with no choice in the matter). 

Getting back to the matter in hand, I could never shake this guy at school but, once we left school, I thankfully managed to break free of him.  It wasn't a clean break - while I was an undergraduate he got in contact and wanted me to be his best man.  Naturally, I declined, (I was going to do it by post to cut down the level of contact involved, but was persuaded by a girl at college that I should at least do it by phone).  Even if I'd been one of those people with a burning desire to be a best man, I wouldn't have been that desperate.  He's tried to get in touch a few times since then, but the few mutual acquaintances I'm still in touch with and my entire family are under strict instructions to tell him that I'm dead.  He's one of the reasons I never publicly use my real name online - I know he's done web searches for me - and have never been tempted to use things like 'Friends Reunited'.  Despite forcing me into hiding, there's still a part of me curious about what he's up to - every time I hear about a mysterious explosion in a suburban house or someone shooting themselves with a home made harpoon gun,, rather than assuming terrorism, I always think it might be him.  One day, I'm sure, it will be.