Progress...?1st January 2008

Needless to say, start the year with a colossal hangover. 'Hangover' is a word of American origin first used around 1894.The English have nothing as succinct. Without it we are left with nervous euphemisms like "feeling a bit under the weather," and other weedy variants. What did we do before its brutal inception ? What would I do without it ? How to describe that all too frequent condintion of extreme emotional and physical fragility ?

However, made the best of it and played Monopoly with Kelly and Cornelius, a game that I have avoided playing since childhood. 'Twas the updated Simpson's version with no cash, but credit cards and a swiper. Noticed several things :

- cash is much simpler and causes far less arguments. Pah ! Progress...!?

- I've become all, well, competitive.

This is a shock. Used to hate the game because I wasn't, or so I thought, all that competitive, and therefore didn't do very well at it, because, frankly, I didn't care enough about the ultimate outcome. Much of my adult life has been predicated on the assumption that I lacked "the Killer Instinct". A career in Sales was ruled out. I was comfortable with this. This was a good thing cos people in Sales are twats. Insecure twats usually.

But in this trip around the Monopoly board I wanted not only to win, but to crush, annihilate even, my opponents. And these were people I loved, my son and my Wife. I would not rest until I achieved absolute domination through their utter subjection.
What have I become ?
Has the world twisted me so ? Is my life so strewn with bitter disappointment that I''ll scrabble after such meagre, small, small victories ?

Best not to even get me started on Scrabble...