I’m in a bad mood on my return to work. Things have happened that a cockney gangster would describe as ‘bang out of order’ possibly adding something about disrespect. Unlike a cockney gangster I don’t react by garroting the person responsible with a fine wire. It does make my list of possible responses but the inevitable jail sentence and rise to being the most feared man in Britain puts me off. Who needs the hassle of Channel 5 documentaries about being a bad bastard?

No, I handle it by having a conversation with the individual causing my problems. There are numerous problems. One of which is about some people being kept in the dark about things they really shouldn’t have been kept in the dark about. Without going into specifics: some people weren’t offered something that was just given to one person. They wouldn’t necessarily have wanted it, but the fact that they weren’t offered it has upset them.

I suggest that offering people something you can’t give them is OK because they don’t want it, but want to be seen to be offered it. I’m thinking about Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, pretentiously, as I suggest the illusion of the offer would keep everyone happy. “But it would have been a false illusion,” they say to my suggestion. Rather than just make my point about morale I feel the need to point out that all illusions are false. I don’t help myself at moments like this. I make a mental note that trying to ensure you look like the cleverest person in a conversation by being a smart arse is not always constructive.

It certainly hasn’t got me very far in life. That’s today’s advice. Don’t try to be clever to get on. Be a cunt. Be thick. Be loud. Be unnecessarily aggressive. Be negligent of others’ feelings. This is how you get on.

**************What follows are thoughts on the end of Breaking Bad – you probably don’t want to read on if you don’t want anything spoiled or you don’t give a shit what I think about Breaking Bad**********************************************

• I’ve spent the best part of five series growing to hate Walt, a lot of the last series downright loathing him. By halfway into the finale I was right back with him. Vince Gilligan wrote (and directed) the fuck out of it.
• Walt having to silently watch Walt Jnr get off the bus and walk into the apartment was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen. Emma Byrne thought similar about about Walt’s hand on his daughter’s head but it was the absence of touch – and the fact that the last thing he’d heard Walt Jr say was that he hated him and wanted him to die. He knew that was the last thing his son had said to him and had to watch him walk by; it wasn’t like where someone said it and didn’t mean it and then one of them died in a tragic accident. He knew he might have one moment and he had to watch him walk by. I didn’t – but if I had that would have been the point where I did.
• I was so fucking happy that Jesse got through it. He certainly went through it over the years. But he got through it.
• Good to see Skinny Pete and Badger get a swansong. Also good that of the few to survive (other than the innocent members of the Whites family) to the end were the junky/dealers. Not all the best ones died. Go karma!
• Many great shows end with an unfulfilling episode. This was one  of the greatest finales ever. The opposite to how the last episode of Lost made me feel.