Friday

I wake up, as K reliably informs me, like a little boy on Christmas morning. My eyes crack open and the realisation that the World Cup starts today hits me in a glorious wave - and I jump out of bed.

It doesn't make too much sense, really - I won't be able to watch any of it (other than sneaked glances at websites during the day) until tonight's game, but the fact that it's actually here creates a very real buzz in my head. How do I concentrate on work!?

But concentrate I must - as with Jess away I'm getting her share of fiddly little jobs passed down to the marketing team from the bosses. It's incredibly frustrating when you know you have a certain job to do and that you could do it in great time, if only you were left alone to get on with it. As it happens, I'll end up taking work home this weekend - something I am profoundly politically opposed to. Still, I genuinely don't want to let Jess down or dump her in the shit the minute she gets back from holiday - so I'll just do it.

One nice thing about work today happens as I walk back into the office from a cigarette break, only for our IT guy to spot me and beckon me over to where he's fiddling with a brand new, mega-widescreen Dell monitor - which he says I can sneak onto my desk if I fancy it. Oh, the tiny joys of being an office walker! After spending two years peering at my work through a grubby, square, dim window I can sit back and have my eyes assaulted by literally thousands of sexy widescreen pixels. The whole thing even rotates 90 degrees to the right for reasons that I will never fully appreciate at this desk - but it's really rather sexy altogether. I know, I know - it's a PC monitor.

After work I head home via the shops to pick up beers and snacks for tonight's mini-World Cup party. I also use the brief window before people arrive to shave my head and beard, realising that as the weather heats up I'm also getting hairier and less equipped to deal with my environment.

Soon, Alex, Will, K and I are sat watching Uruguay vs France (which I've written about on Who Are Ya?! as part of my new World Cup dailyblog attempt) and munching on a ridiculous amount of nachos, mini sausage rolls, pizza and garlic bread. By the time the football finishes we're all stuffed and a little pissed - with passion only for a lazy, boozy game of Scrabble which, predictably, Will absolutely romps. I don't know why I play games with him, I really don't.