Dan McNeil's Blog

The other day, I was on a train home. Opposite sat a woman who seemed to be simlutaneously trying to break every rule of sitting on a train. She was eating smelly food, listening to loud music and had her feet on the seats. If only she'd had an open container of alcohol, she'd have had a full house. Something about her annoyed me - it wasn't the smell of the food, nor the music - it was the container in which she had her pile of fried chicken. Written on the edge of the lid along one of the flaps were the words "Thank you - please call again". Such ridiculous phrases do annoy me. Let's presume for a minute that I had bought a huge box of greasy fried chicken and was shovelling it into my mouth. I look down at the box and see the words "Thank you - please call again". Maybe I wasn't planning on going back to that particular chicken vendor, but seeing those words may just make me think "actually, that's very kind of them to say th

You know how office Christmas parties are usually dull affairs. Everyone makes polite conversation over a glass of wine and then heads off home early. The only thing which can liven up a Christmas party is if someone - maybe someone who's had a bit more to drink than they are use to, perhaps - says or does something memorable. Welcome to my Christmas party 2010... I've been in my "new" job since July. I haven't really discussed my private life with many of my colleagues. It's not that I hide anything from them - I just haven't gone out of my way to make them aware of my domestic arrangements. There's been a lot of use of phrases such as "my other half" and "my partner" bandied around when it comes to discussing weekend plans and holidays... Anyway, I wasn't going to drink at yesterday's Christmas party. I was due to head out to my partner's parents place in the evening (I'm doing it again...) and so the plan w