If you knew how I spent my 23rd birthday, I am sure you will be glad to hear that this year began much better. I woke up in the morning and had a job. Great start to the day! I was a man on a mission and knew that today I would be taking myself well off the beaten track to become the hero of the office. My journey started just outside Marlow, as I dropped off my sister at school. Instead of heading back toward Maidenhead, I headed in the direction on home. As luck would have it I found myself behind a Carousel bus, in the thick fog, struggling up the hill. I was behind a black Civic Type-R, which looked out of place, crawling at less than thirteen miles an hour. Then he did it. I knew he would, but it happened rather quickly so I did not have the time to appreciate the smooth maneuvering (even if it was rather suicidal). Yet, our brave (or foolish) driver, was able to live to tell the tale and die another day. To truly understand what was happened, this hot hatch over took a Renault Clio and the bus heading up hill, on a blind corner in thick fog during the rush hour. As fate would have it, by the time we reached Handy Cross (slowly turning into a major demolition site) the bus was ahead of the Honda at the lights. The driver did not look very pleased. While Slough may have a bad reputation among most of the UK population (and beyond) it is not as bad as they would want you to think. With the BBC starting a programme to make the town happy, I began to wonder the about the Science of Happiness and what truly makes us happy. Then again, after a few seconds I had the answer. They are round in shape, with a whole in the middle. Those regular readers of my blog will know that I purchased some Krispy Kremes from Canada Square back on Friday 27th August last year. This time around, my order was 72 doughnuts to feed the appetites of my work colleagues. The store in Slough has only been open a few months, it is based underneath the new Tesco Extra complex. Fantastic. As you can imagine, when I arrived at the office, much later than my usual early 8.45am, I was the most popular person ever. Including one colleague who would note down my birthday for future years in her Outlook calender.

In the evening, I headed over to Eton to Golden Curry with my family. It was a quiet setting, with a beautiful modern restaurant interior. However, there was something amiss. Instead of the standard Hindi instrumental music, they were playing the greatest hits of Wham! To top things off, at the end of the album is the festive classic, ‘Last Christmas’. One of the waiting staff forgot (or did not know) how to change the CD, as it played the song about five times back to back before the disc was changed. Then the de facto standard Bollywood music filled the room. But the damage was done, perhaps just a day or two prematurely. After my birthday, there is only Christmas to look forward to! 🙂 The music in the restaurant was just a cold, cold reminder of this commercial reality.