that's Ripley as in The Talented Mr Ripley, not as in Alien(s)

11th Apr, 2003 at 2:26 AM

Thank you Damian for pointing out that there may be confusion about the title of this week's strip. Hopefully this post will clear that up.

I'd also like to say at this point that I really don't want to kill Polly Chetwynd-Stapleton, I have nothing against her, she was a very nice girl, and I'm sure has grown up into a fine person. I did try a dozen different made-up names before concluding regretfully that hers was by far the best in the context of this strip. Sorry Polly. Please don't come out of Friends Reuinited and hunt me down for that, ok?

Having now been turned down for the Brookes job I was applying for (though not before it scared the bejesus out of my poor current boss) I finally felt confident enough to post a strip containing envy, naked greed, murderous impulses and a laissez-fair attitude that was possibly even more damaging to my employment prospects than any of those. Oh, it's also a midweek story, hence the space on the platform.

I was worrying about how the strip jumped around in time, placing me almost at random on the platform, in the train, when Damian pointed out that the sequence was consistent with a tube journey with one change. But it was direct, I said, Notting Hill to Blackfriars on the Circle Line. You shouldn't get hung up on literal biography, he said, remember it's not really what the strips are about, it's just your secret source, except what I heard was "secret sauce".

Literal biography is my secret sauce.

Current Mood: groggy
Current Music:fosca - agony without the ecstacy

Comments

( 10 worms — Feed the birds )

crazycrone

11th Apr, 2003 00:59 (UTC)

MMMmmm, Consumer Goods...

Naked greed & murderous impulses, Yeh! I have long since decided I just might be able to kill *certain* people to gain access to riches, but could never kill an animal or dress 'appropriately' as a regular thing, for ANY money.

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cleanskies

11th Apr, 2003 07:48 (UTC)

Re: MMMmmm, Consumer Goods...

I've dressed "appropriately" (skirt, blouse) for some jobs -- even bought a pin-stripe wraparound skirt to work reception at a (god! depressing) insurance sales place. But not for anything where I was required to put in anything more than minimum conscious effort. When the rent's due, I don't really care -- the warm-body job with the best pay/effort ratio will do, and hang what I'm called or wear or have to do.

But, if they want me to actually bother to be there (in anything other than the physical sense) ...

But god, the things some lady executive types wear! I walked past one in the street this morning with a tight thigh skirt slashed to french knicker height, a figure-hugging cropped blouse which left a vast expense of tanning salon visible, spike heels and a bum-freezer pin-strip jacket ... god knows how early she'd got up to do her make-up ...

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badasstronaut

12th Apr, 2003 06:04 (UTC)

Re: MMMmmm, Consumer Goods...

Actually I was walking in to work one morning last week, and there was this chick walking ahead of me with a wheelie suitcase, and knee high black boots with pointy heels, and a tight short little pinstriped skirt which was very buttock enhancing, and a black leather suit jachet. And the black suitcase. And while strangely provocative, I was most fascinated by the fact that this didn't seems to fit with 'universities' in my mind.

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applez

11th Apr, 2003 08:22 (UTC)

I really like the positive message at the end

Walk a finacially poorer, but infinitely more alive path against the river of 'living death' officeworkers...

:-)

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cleanskies

13th Apr, 2003 14:10 (UTC)

an interpretation both harsher and less smug than I meant

I don't know about that "living death" label. I know people who derive great satisfaction from the complications and challenges of office life (unfashionable as it is to claim such a thing) as well as people who work hard to gain money doing things they don't greatly enjoy, living through holidays, their evening and inner life, their plans for the future. Which isn't just fine or OK it's good, it's admirable, and hey, you know if I could? I wouldn't sniff, it's a good life. But I can't, and trying to makes me ill, though if I could stick at it maybe I could sort that out, but ... I'd have to leave a lot behind. Me as I am now, I'm the wrong figure to fit into that equation.

See? Smug.

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applez

14th Apr, 2003 07:42 (UTC)

Re: an interpretation both harsher and less smug than I meant

OK, harsher perhaps ... just the vibe I picked up with the gray mass going one way, the bright heroine the other.

:-)

chalk it to a flair for the dramatic. *g*

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(Anonymous)

12th Oct, 2005 12:31 (UTC)

Polly Chetwynd-Stapleton, where are you?

I went to college with Polly, and would love to track her down. Yes she had imerged from a mysterious and privilaged lifestyle, but she was smashing. Really down-to-earth and lovely And you know what, integrity isn't automatically bestowed on the impoverished. So anyway, if you know where Polly is, drop me a line: Emily lyonsgrove@att.net

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cleanskies

12th Oct, 2005 20:46 (UTC)

I don't have

Polly's contact details, however I believe she is on friends reuinited, so you may be able to contact her there.

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cleanskies

12th Oct, 2005 20:49 (UTC)

oh,

she's married, I think, so googling her wonderful surname will get you nowhere but here.

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