Tempus fugit

Time flies like a winged arrow - although, as Groucho famously added, fruit flies like a banana.

Anyhow, it will not have escaped your attention that August is now moving among us. For many, the significance will be that there are now more hours weekly during which they have to accept responsibility for their offspring; for others, it will mean a faster commute, as mothers take a break from daily ferrying their little darlings the few hundred yards to school.

For me, it means that I shall reach my half-century next month. I don't want to do that. I want to be 21 again, or 33, or 11 ... I want to be younger.

If I could track down the lunatic responsible for the canard about life beginning at 40, I should wreak severe physical damage upon their person, in punishment for promulgating such a despicable untruth. Did my life begin ten years ago? Hardly. I'm still waiting and I would not claim to be doing so with any great optimism.

A week or so back, the quack was obliged to warn me that when they knock me out, so that he can rummage around within my knee, there is an extremely remote chance of my being struck by any of a range of terrors, including deep vein thrombosis. He was most insistent upon playing down the likelihood of any such thing happening, while mentioning every faint possibility. If I thought that failing to awake from the anaesthetic was a real chance, I'd change my name and deny any knowledge of this prospective patient. This is, I fear, another manifestation of the Elfunsafety menace.

All day long, I'd...

There is more to life than money. Just ask anybody who has enough of it.

I am so, so weary of having to count every penny.

Don't ask me to weep

I hear that my stalker is now unemployed, although the details are sketchy. I'm not even going to shed crocodile tears, because I've been holding back one or two things from these pages. Let's just say that it's likely that his job disappearing was a direct consequence of his own stupidity and obstinacy. Although not a colleague, and certainly not a friend, his application of those same qualities was beginning to threaten my own continuing employment. If you don't understand, it doesn't matter. If you do know who and what I'm talking about, it's about time you stopped hiding in the bushes to spy on me, you sneaky...

Ah, what the heck... I'm in marketing, so my job is never going to be safe.

I just wish that my job security weren't so dependent upon factors beyond my influence, particularly the performance of other people. I recall all too well how, a dozen or so years ago, a client fired my then employer because they'd finally realised that the advertising was dreadfully amateur and not delivering results. To avoid the embarrassment of continuing meetings with the agency, they cancelled the PR as well. As I'd just spent the months since my joining on turning around a dismal PR history by hugely boosting the quality and quantity of the coverage, I was somewhat unimpressed.

Another former agency was fired by a client, after a couple of years of unquestioned excellence. On - very belatedly - hearing the news (a story in itself), I persuaded their most senior folks to turn the firm cancellation into an invitation to re-pitch. What could I do, I asked, to maximise the likelihood of our success. The answer was a wince. Then, looking me straight in the eyes, the company founder was succinct: "Don't bring X." As this referred to the MD/proprietor, I was left in a quandary; I sought the advice of somebody who knew her well and he confirmed that it would be most unwise even to pass on this information to her. Fortunately, the re-pitch invitation was withdrawn, due to her sending a succession of abusive communications to the erstwhile client. I still have the far-from-cheap and absolutely perfectly targeted farewell/thanks present they sent me. Within weeks, I resigned.

Hey ho.