I've just been reliably informed that the woman I was heckling in the chipper last night was not a journalist at all, but worked in PR. Booze is a wonderful thing. I somehow got it into my head that she was a column jockey, and persisted in asking her "what newspaper do you write for?" a number of times, and got narked when she failed to reply positively. However, matters were smoothed over when she allowed me to dip my chips in her garlic mayonnaise.

Generally, I think I'm a reasonably calm and quiescent person, but I have noticed myself getting rather angry on a number of occasions recently. Granted, many of these occasions took place in my office, but they still give cause for concern. There is a new recruit who has the honour of holding a position superior to mine, who seems to be going out of their way to make my life between the hours of 9 and 5.30 an unbearable hell. While her predecessor cast a blind eye to me reading books, listening to music and sleeping instead of working, she believes that I should be working at a constant, break-neck speed all of the time. Consequently, she regularly appears in my office to ask "What are you doing?" or "What have you done?" or "What will you be doing after lunch?" Even if I was a dilligent worker, it would be impossible to find enough work to fill a whole day, for the simple fact that there isn't enough. However, this woman clearly subscribes to the devil/idle hands theory, and has me pegged for a slacker (although I think several of my colleagues have tipped her off about this).

In response to this, I have begun walking around the office with a permanent scowl on my face, avoiding eye contact with everybody, in case they want to harrass me about my inactivity. This morning, something seems to have snapped, however. Instead of upholding my facade of silent derision, I found myself getting vocal. For instance, I responded to somebody who called me "Mr. Pleasant" by telling them to fuck off, where I would normally have just mouthed the words. I also found myself getting annoyed with a journalist I met in a chipper last night, purely, I think, because she was a journalist. Anyway, I've decided to blame my job for all of this, but can't help wondering why there was a sudden change in expression of rage. Perhaps it's like that film, Network, where the newsreader announces that "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it any more".

I hope so. I like the idea of pursuing a career as a crusading angry bastard.

This is quite good - Hangman for the less cerebral. It took me a few turns before I realised what was going on, and I'm extraordinarily clever.

I was in an off-license on Saturday, and the man in the queue in front of me was buying twelve cans of Dutch Gold. When he reached the counter, he fumbled in his pocket to get his wallet and two condoms fell out and landed on the floor, unnoticed. I debated for a moment about whether to point them out to him, and eventually tapped him on the shoulder and said that he had "dropped something". He looked down and chuckled, and while picking them up, gave me an amiable slap on the knee and said "thanks mate". I would have thought that drinking twleve cans of Dutch Gold would more or less preclude the need for condoms...

Apparently staying up late to revise poems gave Yeats diarrhoea. I'm not sure why exactly, but this image is very appealing and amusing to me. The worlds of poetry and scatology don't collide often enough, I suppose.

This is extremely cool, or I consider it to be because I spent a large portion of secondary school playing table tennis. I was damn good as well, but haven't had the opportunity to lift a paddle in about 6 years, so I would probably be rotten at this stage. It's a shame, really, because I'm not exactly pouring my talents into any other exciting ventures.

I have had plenty of trouble with the Department of Social Welfare in the past. For a period of five months when I was on the dole almost two years ago, the department seemed to be going out of their way to piss me off at ever turn. I was without a penny for the first two months of this period because that was how long it took them to process my application. Luckily enough, I was then living with my parents, and surviving on their eternal benevolence. Had I been anywhere else, I would have been reduced to eating cardboard and sleeping in doorways. Then payments began to arrive, but were a paltry €35 a week, which wouldn't even have kept me in good quality cardboard. That 3-ply stuff, you know.

After moving out of my parents house and starting to look for a job in earnest, I anticipated a marked increase in unemployment benefit, what with having to pay rent and, well, buy things. However, it turned out that civil servants in the capital are a lot more brutal and thorough-going than in the country. I was hauled in for an interview, and then told I wouldn't receive full benefit because I was living with my girlfriend. After explaining that we had just moved in, and were living with other people, I was told in no uncertain terms that I would have to be means tested under the same criteria as a married man. I was completely shocked, not to say angried at this development, and remember bickering at length with the unwavering civil servant about definitions of common law marriage and co-habitation. The argument threatened to turn into a discussion about my sexual activity at any moment. I can just imagine filling out a form in triplicate: "Monday, 11am. Felt slight genital stirring while watching The Dukes of Hazzard. Encounter with Daisy and her hotpants was unconsummated".

The outcome of this was that I was docked about €70 each week. I then had a brilliant scheme where I went to the dole office about two weeks later, and told them I had broken up with my girlfriend. So, I didn't wash or shave for a few days, drank a lot of booze and went to the office, looking like a complete mess. They seemed sympathetic and said they would make the necessary changes. I left elated, delighted at how I had beaten the system, and celebrated by having a shower, and then drinking some more booze. A few days later, I was finally enjoying my unemployment, lazing around on the couch without having to go for fake interviews, or spend hours sitting in the dole office. I may even have been watching the Dukes of Hazzard, when I heard a knock at my door. It was a dole inspector who had come to inspect my living arrangements. Obviously enough, I was scuppered because I was still living with my girlfriend. I was gutted and chastened, and since then have been very reluctant to answer the door to anybody.

Not long after that I got a job, but harboured a very great grudge against the department, to whom I was now having to pay tax. The reason I brought this up was that their iron boot has once again fallen in my path. I've been trying to claim some back rent relief, which I am definitely owed, but those bastards have thrown a spanner into every possible gap, and a simple procedure that should have taken a week, has been dragged out now to six weeks, with their latest ludicrous demand (of all of my dole receipts) coming today. So, it's a cautionary tale, really, and one I have heard echoed by many other people. No matter how many angles you think you've covered, they will inevitably find something to screw you with. Is it any wonder I'm so bitter?

There has been a noticeable absence of harebrained activity in my life recently, which I should really count as a blessing, however fruitless it may be for this blog. I did have a brief period of dental trauma, after breaking a weak tooth while eating a sausage sandwich (comic in its own way, I suppose, though not at the time). Typically enough, it happened on a Saturday, so no dentist was available. Coupled with this was the further cruel irony that it was a bank holiday weekend, so I spent the following days eating noting but soup and yoghurt, until I saw a dentist on Tuesday. His pessimism didn't help matters either. He predicted that I would need root canal surgery, leaving me about €700 out of pocket, and sent me for an X-ray. Chastened by the dentists merciless ruminations about my oral hygeine, and miserable about the prospect of shelling out wads of cash, I considered doing the proceedure myself with a hammer and chisel. However, the affair ended uneventfully on Tuesday (ten days after the dread sausage did its foul work) with some nifty drilling, sealing and crowning, for a fraction of the cost. So, I celebrated with a bag of jawbreakers.