I could have sworn I just left this party.
I've spent the past two weeks carrying my Moleskine around with me jotting down notes for this occasion, trying to work out what on earth to say about Barry, and it isn't out of a lack of things to say about him, but instead out of not even knowing where to start. So you can probably expect this to be very disjointed and muddled. Picture the scene right now as I type this out: sat at the breakfast bar in the office at 2 in the morning, where Barry and I have spent the better part of the past 3 years either sharing a chippy dinner in the evening, sometimes with Sonic if he was still around the office at that hour, or handing over our respective shift's work in the morning over a cup of tea as the office fills up with people giving us bewildered looks, as if to wonder if we ever left the breakfast bar the night before.
Part of me is expecting him to walk in through the door, sit down in front of me, and say something like "You know this speech you've been working on? Well I've been giving it some thought, and I might just have the angle you're looking for", as was so often the case. Whether it was the drainage in my garden, the slow loading times of my computer, or an annoying "donk donk donk" sound coming from my car, as if I'd left something down the back, he was never short of an idea or two, and would come back days later if he thought of something. ...click to continue...
