Nixta Sinks

I agreed strongly with Dr. R's observation that Ian McEwan was a cheese eating surrender monkey based on the article he wrote, but I'm beginning to wonder if he wasn't right somehow.

This morning I got up for work in the usual manner, and made my way in where I found a couple of colleagues and we began a discussion over a cup of tea about projected plans to rewrite some web service interfaces in Java rather than .Net. We'd found an empty desk down the corridor to sit around and just catch up. I was so shocked at this stupidity (since it all worked perfectly well the way it was) that if asked if I needed to potter over and twat the chap who suggested it and was pushing for it but before I had a chance to do that, the owner of the desk returned so we made our usual mumbling excuses about warming up chairs, he replied with the socially accceptable fake gratitude for the effort and we wandered back to my desk and started looking at code. It was just a moment later that the air-raid sirens went off. Some people in the office dashed for the doors, but I stayed put just a second or two to see if they were tests. Dull thudding in the distance drew my attention to the horizon where smoke was gently rising into the air and I fancied I saw a plane. It made me wonder how terrorists could get an air force together. I distinctly recall saying "here it comes" to no-one in particular. Without any warning, and smooth as anything the whole building began to tip over. Tartley said "oh shit", and I looked out the window which was now hurtling towards the roof of a building 20 floors below. I shut my eyes and told Dani that I loved her and imagined her distress at finding out the news that I had been killed. Somewhere I found time to realise I wasn't afraid of dying, though it would have been slightly better if I hadn't, and was there any chance of survival. Everything went black and there was silence.

Next thing, I woke up safe in my bed, drenched in sweat.

Now, I have the odd apocalyptic dream - perhaps one every fortnight - but this was unsettling and close to home. They're normally in some abstract green and pleasant land with nukes in the distance or enormous sky-darkening aircraft hurtling overhead. Very War Of The Worlds (the book, not the film, which might be the same-ish, but I haven't seen it so can't say). Sometimes I'm in a Colorado/Desert pastiche and massive tornados are destroying cities a mile or two away. But this was very very vivid and obviously related to last Thursday's events. I should have realised though:

• Tartley doesn't work with us
• I can't see out of any windows
• Our building is no more than 4 storeys tall
• I didn't recognise many people in the dream

I hope this is just a side-effect of my extreme tiredness after the weekend (I did hallucinate/dream a maniacal phone conversation on Saturday afternoon whilst taking a nap). I should be very upset if I allowed something like last Thursday to affect me in any way. After all, I managed a good couple of years in New York without any problem. What a start to the week.