Post #5: The Staff Canteen

I was in the canteen the other morning, because I fancied some toast. “Two granary, please,” I said to the toaster operator. “Butter?” he asked, once the toast had plopped out, toasted. “Please,” I said.

Not everyone is as undemanding. I’ve stood in the queue for toast and heard the most unlikely specifications. When the toaster operator asks: “Butter?”, instead of a simple yes or no, some people say “LIGHTLY buttered,” with a sharp emphasis on the “lightly”, as though a heavy smattering of butter would ruin not only their morning but possibly their entire life. But my favourite is when the toaster operator asks: “Butter?” and the person replies “Yes, right to the edge.” Granted, a dry, unyielding crust is not the most pleasant part of a piece of toast, but really. Why put the poor toaster operator, who probably thinks all people who work on newspapers are a bunch of w***ers anyway, in such a testing position? Even in the comfort of your own kitchen, with your favourite knife, buttering your toast right to the edge takes concentration and dexterity. For a toaster operator forced into buttering hundreds – possibly thousands – of slices of toast every morning, asking him to do so is taking the piss.

Of course, some members of Associated Newspapers are such control freaks that they can’t even entertain the thought of anyone else toasting their toast. To this end, another toaster is situated on a separate worktop, with loaves of bread (white, brown and granary) that you can toast yourself, to whatever specifications you demand. Most importantly, there is also a large bowl of butter for you to spread according to whim.

If toast isn’t your thing and you fancy a muffin or a bagel, it isn’t a problem. Editions (for that is the canteen’s name) provides them all. Currently for breakfast, I favour a plain bagel, toasted, sliced in half, buttered (however the toaster operator prefers) and then one half lightly coated with Marmite, the other with crunchy peanut butter. This I set off with a cup of tea. Having worked my way through the whole of the Twinings range during my seven year tenure at the Standard, I have permanently rejected Assam in favour of Traditional English. English Breakfast is, I feel, too strong for a morning, and Earl Grey too lemony. To me, Earl Grey has always been more of an afternoon tea, as I’m sure a lot of people would agree.

Post #4: Nothing to Do With Fashion  At All

So I haven’t posted for a while. My boss wasn’t very pleased. What did he say to coax me into writing something? He didn’t threaten to fire me: oh no, far worse than that. He told me I might end up in the pages of Media Guardian. “They watch to see who keeps up with their blogs, you know.”

I already knew that journos slag off other journos for being so hubristic as to have a blog, then not bothering to update it. There is a feeling that most newspapers (Guardian excepted, which is why it can afford to be smug) came very, very late to the www, and are all now frantically trying to establish their internet presence with flashy websites and reams of content. Of course, said content is necessarily generated by existing staff, who already have full-time jobs providing content for their employers’ newspapers. In these days of brutal staff cuts, rare is the journo who ever has a spare half hour to knock off a blog or three. This is why I haven’t blogged for three weeks. I’m not lazy. I’m overworked.

I wonder if we will all regret how hard we worked, when we’re tooling around the old folk’s home in wheelchairs, clutching sore stomachs wizened by ulcers. Was it worth it? Did we enjoy the one-bedroom flat in Hackney that we sold our souls to procure? And our children: did they turn out okay under the childminder’s gaze? And our parents: when they dandled us on their knees as babies, did they expect their twilight years would be punctuated by far fewer visits than their boundless love deserved?

Working too hard makes me maudlin. So I’m going down the pub.