I am Mike. Here me roar.

I think I've hit my comfort zone at work before a full week has elapsed. Today was an early shift (half 7 - the morning was gorgeous, really clear and crisp - as, indeed, all mornings are when I happen to be up that early) and after the store opened at 9 I just zoned out, without really meaning too... stared at the carpet, at my bottle of water, at the Gruffalo. Just stared.

However, I have made a colon-inducing deduction: time goes quicker at this job than at other full-time things I've had in the past. I mean, this afternoon really properly flew by - I finished lunch, and then suddenly I was going home. Weird. Like that bit in the Jerk where Steve Martin talks to his girlfriend while she lies asleep next to him. In fact, just thinking about that speech is making me giggle like a lunatic so I shall visit IMDB and copy and paste the whole thing for posterity. If you've seen the film then it should make you laugh. If not then, well, you should really see the film: it's freakin' funny.

"I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days. The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days. And the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days. And the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day, and then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, when we saw each other, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days. And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half. I have it written down, but I can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it."

Gareth is back in Britain, and the country is a better place for it. He bravely fought the jet-lag on Tuesday as we traipsed around London (I making full use of my day off) - from Kentish Town to Leicester Square, a nice walk. We went to the Photographer's Gallery to check out the London Firefighter's exhibition and it was really good - check it out if you're down in the West End sometime. I'm basically a sucker for any old picture of London, really, and some of these were great - from the funny to the slightly disturbing. Also a few of the famous 7/7 photos as you enter, mainly from the guy who took a load on his phone... citizen journalism, etc. All duly noted. Apparently one of the major photos used was mediated by the BBC and newspapers to remove body and gore, which is plain stupid on their part. If you want a gore-less photo then choose one - no need to mess with one. Like photoshopping Kate Winslet's ass for that magazine that time (Vanity Fair? can't remember), only a bit more insulting, I think. Oh well.

Then in the evening me and G and Joel and Katie went to a pub quiz up in Stoke Newington. I thought it was just film and entertainment when in fact it was general knowledge.... needless to say, it didn't go too well. In fact in my mind it's just a blur of wrong answers and minor arguments. Anyway, about four teams were called The Stingrays or something along those lines (pub quizzers are clearly tapped into the zeitgeist) and we all got a bit drunk so everything turned out alright. Then we continued the tradition of drinking Gareth's bottle of duty free whiskey on his first day back in the country. A good day, and an excellent day off for myself.

Other than that..... just work, really.