The Goon / Otta Adoption

The Goon.

6.33am. Lewes – London Bridge train. Just retreated from First Class – the train had been packed, standing room only, but when they added another four carriages at Haywards Heath, I felt I could not stay there!

For once I managed around eight hours of sleep last night, having knocked myself out with cider and wine and dropped off at around 9.30pm. So, I am looking forward to a better than usual Monday.

Yesterday I was asked not to write about my family in this blog, so, although I have not mentioned them greatly, this blog (and backblog) will change as a result. I feared this would happen, but did not think it would occur as soon as a week in.

Gradually I shall be able to write about less and less of my life, until I am coming entirely out of left field, flying on the magic carpet of my imagination.

8am. London Marylebone - Leamington train. Surprisingly packed. I am having to sit opposite an overweight bloke with a microchip beard who is chewing gum. He reminds me of the Goon (Andrew Gilligan).

My shoulder hurts and I am worrying about what is happening with these blogs and flashbacks.

They are taking over the entire Oliver's Poetry project. I must rein them in. Like so often in life, I am traducing myself into something I did not intend to do.

Otta Adoption (Flashback to Tuesday, 23 May 2006)

8pm. Lainesford Garret. Brighter outside, patches of blue forcing their way through the clouds.

Slept heavily and awoke with terrible back again. How much more of this purgatory? What am I being punished for? I wish to be released from this pain and lead a purer life. I am almost out of codine painkillers.

Feeling like this, I cannot face the breakfast room. But if I do not put in a brief appearance, they will think I have slept in. Worse, I have forgotten my razor and, therefore, have a very strong brown-grey beard growth. Yuk!

So, priorities today? Well, I need to get a razor, talk less. listen more, and not be a jackass. I was like the clown of the class yesterday. Need to learn more, read my Adair, read my tax book (for the London Garret), and, generally, get serious.

Only good thing is that I am blasting Mary J Blige out from the boogie box on this computer. Not bad sound quality for a laptop. God is good.

6.27pm. Lainesford Garret. Sunny outside, after the rain, over a car park packed with top-of-the-range BMWs, Jags and Mercs.

God, what a day! The women leading this course are beginning to annoy me, particularly the one who is like a Womble. She talks like a Nanny, with nursery language, and an incredibly patronising manner. I am being driven to distraction by her.

She talks about people being on 'tippy toes' and 'ra-ra' and says things like: 'I don’t think I put a value judgment on that comment' when someone complains about something stupid she has said. It is like having leadership training from a menopausal agony aunt.

The other one is not a lot better. They have double-act exchanges like:

Trainer One: 'We are going to do something practical.'
Trainer Two: 'We are!'

There was one unbelievable exchange involving them the two of them, the plump woman, the pretty economist and me.

Trainer Two: 'One group consultants we were working with called themselves Tiger and adopted a tiger from London Zoo.'
Trainer One: 'Fab.'
Plump Civil Servant: 'We have adopted an otta.'
Pretty economist: 'What does that say about your department?'
Me: 'You're in deep water!'

Otta adoption! Otta adoption! Although I have been trying my darnest to get something really good out of this, they are driving me mad.

This afternoon, the Womble taught us eye movement recognition, by which you could, she assured us, tell what sense people were using by the flicks of their eyes. We all tested it out and showed that at least half the time, it does not work!

We did two more group tasks. The first was pretty chaotic. I was criticised later for trying to give it some structure. The second was led by a Welsh gentleman of Asian origin who tried to give it some direction by actually asking people to do things. In evaluation, he was, of course, criticised for this.

And so it goes on. Two more days to go.

The sun has already gone in. The weather has been dreadful. I nipped into Lainesford to use the cashpoint. If I had had my stuff with me, I think I would have got on the train and gone home. When a taxi arrived to take me back to this civil service concentration camp, I almost cried.

After another turgid lunch, I persuaded some of the people on the course to come for a walk through the grounds during one brief period of sunshine.

I wanted to cast off the tedious lunchtime conversation of Da Vinci Code and Opus Dei. We walked to the swimming pool which is outside and luke warm / cold, and with a list of rules the length of your arm.

Considering that this place is run as a hotel with luxury hotel prices, the accommodation and facilities are rubbish. Chatted a bit with the economist. She lives next to Hyde Park, enjoys the cinema and the yoga, and has a boyfriend in a comedy group. She sounded bored even as she was relating this information.

Being here makes me wonder if I am psychologically fit for this kind of training. Last night, when they were talking about their final salary pensions and perks, I found myself getting annoyed.

Stop, stop, stop! Too much information. The fact that I am longing to be back at the Day-Job and in the Leamington Garret or the Lewes Garret shows how low I am about this experience. If it was not for this blog, I would not stick it.

8.50pm. Terrible headache. Been thinking about my future. I also seem to have a big scratch across my forehead. How the eff did that happen? It was not there last night and I have been completely sober.

My time feels out of control. Think I shall have a shave and try not to cut myself.

11.23pm. (or the more pleasing 23.23 on the laptop clock) Bed, Lainesford Garret. Trying not to feel depressed. I went to sit and read in the bar, The Gravy Train, suitably decorated with images of locomotives from the age of steam.

It was packed with people drinking on expenses. The women looked particularly ropey and inebriated.

After half an hour, one of my bunch came in – a nice guy. I bought him a malt whisky and he told me about his branch. 'The last two director-generals have been having affairs with the PA,' he said. 'Everyone knows but no one seems to care.'

My group seem very open about their compartments of the gravy train. Another guy was telling me earlier that he was disgusted by the way the late Dr David Kelly had been sold down the river.

I said that I had known The Goon – Andrew Gilligan – from my time working for the Sunday Telegraph and had also come across Ally Campbell and had been appalled by the entire seedy business.

The malt whisky drinker left me to continue to read my Alan Clark – groups of raucous drunks around me, buying yet more rounds of booze on their room accounts – no doubt out of the departmental coffers. I can ignore them. Alan Clark is so good.

I had intended to write some poetry but could not find the energy in this environment. Walking back to my student digs, I reflected that staying here is like something out of an episode of Doctor Who.

The Doctor and his delicious assistant are drawn to a modern complex of buildings. It looks like any normal student campus. Yet something is not right.

A red telephone box has been placed between ugly accommodation blocks. Inside there is no telephone. The car park is full of luxury cars. The people walking around look uniform and characterless.

The Doctor and the girl soon find out that a sinister, puerile race of aliens have taken over the campus, and are brain-washing the humans. They are targeting the simple and guillible with Neuro Linguistic Programming.

Robotal humans are being turned out, their free-thinking suspended. The masterstroke: they have consented to this brainwashing, and take enormous pride in it and its perks.

I could go on but I doubt anyone here is going to liberate this bunch of dullards – not even the Time Lord.

What would Alan Clark have done? Clark (pictured left) was a wealthy aristocrat who would not have been in my situation.

12.06am. Bloody hell. I have just realised I have lost my exercise book containing my latest poetry. I must have left in the Gravy Train which will be locked up now or dropped it on the way back to my cell. Shite!

Not only did I want to work on it, it will be most annoying if it is lost (I have written out all my new poems), and most embarrassing if it falls into enemy hands.

Too late now. I shall have to get up early and to recover it from the clutches of aliens.

Oliver's Poetry