That was 2005

Good stuff:

Getting a new job (hopefully)
Going to Lisbon
Two public inquiries and three hearings
Starting a blog
Bng and K8 getting engaged and buying a house
Laura and Chris getting married (twice)
Volunteering for Planning Aid
The new series of Battlestar Gallactica

Bad stuff:

Falling out with friends and family
Stopped caring about my current job
Getting caught speeding
Bumping my car into a bollard (twice) (yes, I kept the second time quiet)
Some other stuff too that I am not posting

Favourite blog posts (in reverse date order):

( ^ _ ^ ;)
Double bookings
Sorry we missed you
Daylight
The hotel of evil

NSFW

Thought I would do these links, which I have been meaning to put up for a while now, when folks are less likely to be at work over the Christmas to New Year break (because they are a little bit naughty).

Read Girl with a One Track Mind.

Play with Orgasm Girl.

Back to work

Hmm, sucks to be me. Back to work already. Not sure how I ended up doing that. I seem to recall thinking ‘I’ll book some time off in the new year and enjoy the between Christmas and New Year lull and avoid the post New Year chaos.’ But I apparently failed to book off much time in the New Year too.

However (thinking ahead) leaving work before the end of the tax year means that four days have been slashed off my annual leave allocation so the remaining days off I have will be most welcome when (hopefully) moving flat time comes around.

Anyway the Christmas break was good. Four days of not being at work and getting yummy home cooked food are not to be snuffed at (and I now have two quiet days in the office before flat hunting recommences). For pressies I got a cook book, a stack of cash as well as the usual array of booze, chocolate, and socks. Sadly no flat screen tft monitor or any other jazzy electronic devices but there you go. Christmas sales were also a little disappointing as I picked up absolutely bugger all.

Hope everyone else got lots of nice stuff too.

(Have also added an emaily side bar thingy for a new way to send abuse and will hopefully keep it, subject to spam robots not attacking me).

A little more festive

Have an excellent Christmas everyone. Eat, drink, be merry, have fun and I hope that everyone gets just what they wanted from Santa (because I am sure you’ve all been very good this year).

Nick101 resumes on 28th December.

As festive as...

I must say I feel a little irked that despite the supposedly festive season my blog has been about as Christmassy as a U-bend (and not even one with sparkly lights or tinsel). I have to confess that I am not the biggest Christmas fan, being unreligious and otherwise pretty cynical about the excessive consumerism of the event. It has its highlights but as with many (but not all) things is best kept in small doses. The Christmas preamble of festivities going back as far as October does somewhat desensitise me to the ‘big day’ and render it somewhat of an anticlimax I think.

In order to try and inject some (arguably needed) festive spirit into the blog I did try to find some festive links to insert but failed to find anything other than a number of similarly cynically minded takes on the event such as Christmas Day with my new girlfriend's family as a circa-1982 text-based computer adventure game.

And that is pretty much where this blog post runs out of steam. However here’s to wishing everyone a happy Christmas.

That was Tuesday

One of the things I have deliberately steered away from in doing this blog thing is to recount in, what would no doubt end up being horrendously boring detail, the things I did today (or any day). For one, I doubt anyone would be interested in that kind of crap (but hopefully I can get away with it this one time) and two, I sure as hell would stop writing it because it would be really boring for me too.

However, I am possibly for the only time, going recount roughly what happened yesterday and document my fairly dull routine because it was a pleasant enough day (albeit uneventful) and fairly soon my routine is going to have to change and it would be nice to have a least some record of what I do, roughly, Monday to Friday.

Alarm goes off at 7:00, although I was awake at 6:30 but still don’t emerge from bed till about 7:20. Kicked off with a morning cup of tea, milk, one sugar. I really should quit the sugar thing but I like the sweetness in the morning (and I frequently and very hypocritically disapprove when I see other people putting sugar in, and wrecking, yummy tea at all other times of the day).

I usually kick off at this point by editing and publishing a blog post but don’t because I don’t feel like it and am not up to much at work so it can wait until then. A bit of BBC breakfast (Dermot and Natasha) and a bit of friends (one from just before Ross got married to Emily) before self cleaning rituals, get dressed, breakfast (banana, few grapes, juice, vitamin supplements), bit more BBC breakfast, remembering to smirk at the loosers trying to commute into London on local news (don’t get to do that much longer).

Leaving flat, try to sneak past crazy neighbours who I try really hard to pretend not to see but have to wave and say ‘hi’ after getting my name shouted at me and a series of whistles and whoops. This is followed by a very rapid de-icing of the car as I try to get away before the aforementioned neighbours attempt to engage me in conversation. Success. Spend more time trying to pull out of driveway (right turn, busy road) than it takes to actually get to work.

At work, exchange a couple of emails including one with Graham (my ex-boss) who is curious about me (possibly slash hopefully) moving to Maidenhead (also lives in Maidenhead). Not too sure if he is worried about me living on his doorstep or pleased to have a new neighbour he will know in the town? Email from Mark querying why I hadn’t done a blog post. Abuse is sent back along the lines of ‘you didn’t manage even one while you were covering the blog when I was on holiday.’ Blog post done next.

Get coffee, do some work. Issues today with some random shipping containers, approximately 1000 square metres of unauthorised storage and a certain reality TV building. Get bored of that. Read Questionable Content and browse del.icio.us (very relieved it is up and running again after crashing on Sunday and being out all Monday too). Bit more work. Meeting mid-morning between me and our very nice landscape girl, Louisa, and this guy about some badly needed landscaping around a two house development that didn’t quite go according to plan (but I won’t go into that now) so there’s evergreen trees and hedges going like everywhere possible.

It was Christmas lunch day in the office where everyone brings in food and drink etc. and folks hang around and chat for an extended lunch which was pleasant. Thankfully very little in the way of awkward management types hanging around (and everyone politely trying to avoid them while they pretend they’re not being avoided and that they want to be there). Saw Megan and children for possibly last time before they head off back to New Zealand after Christmas. Megan gets a hug. Will miss Megan, and yes ok probably the children too, a bit.

Afternoon is kinda dull. Read ScaryGoRound (could the witch that Amy burnt to death in the oven be her mother?). Construct threatening letters to two people with unreasonably bright lights (signage and floodlighting). Bored of that. Talk to Laura about Christmas shopping, Mark about the new Prince of Persia game. Send links to cute overload and some funny smoking thing to Gem and a list of new proxy servers to Andy and Mark to try and bypass work’s restricted website access thingy (none of which work as it turns out).

Get bored. Go home. Take Mark with me as car his car is in the shop and play computer games (Halo 2 and Need for Speed) until he goes to football (assume he got home ok without car).

Dinner is chicken stir fry with red peppers, mushrooms, onion and rice with Teriyaki sauce (should really be beef or seafood with noodles with Teriyaki but I have neither of either). Watch Demolition on Channel 4 – about Cumbernauld shopping centre, god that is a planning and architectural disaster and the representative from the Lanarkshire (?) (whatever) Council is a disgrace.

Get an email from Mike, turns out Kiera Knightly was in Star Wars Episode 1. Hmm, lost that bet then. Thought he had forgotten about it too.

Write (most of) this blog post. Realise while trying to work out how to spell Teriyaki that I have forgotten to put remaining Teriyaki sauce not used at dinner in fridge. Put Teriyaki sauce in fridge. Think about ironing shirt for work next day. Don’t bother to iron shirt.

Watch part of a re-run of Sex in the City, get bored. Start reading new book, High Society by Ben Elton courtesy of Kate, as finished How to be Good by Nick Hornby last night (good book, mildly reflective, can relate to lead character).

Tired. Go to bed at approximately 11:45.

More houses

Amidst my (really rather minor) housing crisis, Bng and K8 move in to their new house today. So big congratulations to you for that guys. I would give you a hand moving in but I am kinda stuck a few hundred miles south.

Anyway, the house looks great, from the cursory external inspection and peering through the windows I got to do. I hope it will be a great house. Of course I am expecting an invite at some point in the New Year…

How much?!

So I have found this block of flats in Maidenhead that I have kinda fallen for.

The block is pig ugly to say the least, being generic 1960s mass produced crap (see photo). Moreover, according to Kate (former Maidenhead resident) it is in the arse end of Maidenhead (although this still seems a lot nicer than Langley and I am not even going to bother to compare it to Slough) and it is a fair chunk of a walk from the station. There are presently two flats up to buy and two for rent. There are only about thirty flats in total in the development so that nearly 15% are up for grabs at Christmas time is hardly a glowing recommendation.

I still like it though which is possibly slightly irrational (or stupid).

I have seen a bunch of flats in Maidenhead now and I have to say what I can afford is more than a little miserable aside from the aforementioned ugly block of flats in the arse end of Maidenhead.

I appear stuck in the infinitely unsatisfactory position of having to trade off commuting time with a nice flat with a decent area with paying to live there and (of course) I can’t afford them all…

Anyhow, flat hunting is now suspended until after new year.

Communication

It has now been three and a bit months that I have been doing this blog thing. Despite getting irked by it on occasion, particularly when I don’t feel like writing anything, it has been a fairly enjoyable experience and feedback has always been really good (but as I think I have said before I doubt anyone would tell me outright that it royally sucked). One of my original reasons for starting it was to try to keep in touch with people and to an extent it has succeeded in that intention, although predominantly in ways that I was not expecting (as with many other things).

The main day-to-day issue that has arisen out of this is when talking to people I sometimes find myself at a loss when people appear to continue conversations based on blog posts. Not that I don’t welcome this. It’s nice to know that people not only read what I have written, but also paid attention and retained some of the merry nonsense that I come out with.

However this can be mildly unnerving from my point of view (but don’t get me wrong, not in a bad way). I do appreciate that people actually read the blog but I never really know how much people have read or remembered and indeed sometimes wonder whether I have had a conversation along similar lines with someone or exchanged emails etc. I don’t really feel I can say, ‘so you have been reading the blog’ because it sounds a little Nick-centric so on occasion end up floundering slightly trying to recall what, if anything, I have posted and how likely this person is to know about it until generally it is resolved with a smile and a ‘yes, Nick, I have read the blog’ (or not).

This can disappoint on occasion though too as sometimes people seem to know more about what’s up with me than I do about what’s up with them leaving me a little on the back foot. It can perhaps seem a little invasive I think to insist on persistent questioning to try to bring myself back up to a level par.

Ultimately really the blog thing is only ever going to be one way impartation of information as folks are unlikely to post feedback comments telling me all about them (but you can do that too if you like). And despite some coaxing nobody else seems to have taken up their own blogging reigns…

Anyway, I guess what I am trying to convey with this post is that I appreciate people reading the blog. That is, as I have said, one of my main reasons for doing it. And I think I would now be slightly upset if everyone stopped reading and my enthusiasm would probably go out of the window.

So thanks for reading folks, please keep coming back (in spite of the weak posts) (yes, yesterdays was pretty dire I know) and don’t forget to let me know what’s up with you too.

Space monkeys

I don’t know if anyone else has been watching Space Cadets on Channel 4. I have been watching when the opportunity arises with some interest. The sets are well set-up and persuasively done and the premise is certainly entertaining.

But the more I watch, the more I think that everyone in the supposed space shuttle must all be actors and the whole thing is a giant hoax on the viewers. It must be, surely, right. Nobody can be that dumb as to think they can be in a nice roomy big-brother style space shuttle, pissing about in orbit around planet earth, with no lack of gravity issues or any other serious considerations about breathable air, fuel consumption, flight trajectory or any of the many, many other serious issues that arise with space travel. I am not the only one who thinks this may be the case.

Perhaps I am being unduly harsh or cynical on the 'contestants.' If your environment looks the part, everyone is telling you that that is what is going on and you have no base line of previous experience of the sensation to refute this I don't doubt it could be difficult to make that leap of faith. But seriously, come on. You're supposed to be in a space shuttle floating round in orbit but you are not floating too. It ain't star trek you know.

Its over on Friday (I think) so I guess I get to find out whether my theory is correct or whether the 'cosmonauts' really are that dumb.

( ^ _ ^ ;)

The Japanese are crazy. If you didn’t know that already perhaps the unnecessarily complicated Japanese emoticons will sway you a little. Or how about the crazy signs and logos that they come up with (you may have seen this already, its been going round the internet for years but is still funny).

And if none of that persuades you perhaps the computer game where the objective is to take photos up girl’s skirts will convince you. Don't believe me, watch the video.

F**k Langley

Well yesterday was way interesting. Saw loads of nice places and some which really were pretty nice. It’s been a long time since I have seen a property and been excited about possibly living there. The last time I think was when I moved out of London with my parents into their present house.

Most places I have lived, whilst decent (with a certain second year at University exception), I can’t say I ever recall being actually excited about. More a, ‘meh, that’ll do’ or in the case of my present flat when I first saw it, ‘hmm, is that it?’

Suffice to say I like Maidenhead but I am not saying anything more in case I jinx it or something else irrational. I am going back today to try and reconcile some unexpected eventualities.

So erm… not too sure what happened to Christmas shopping day which was supposed to be today. I think it might be a rapid tour round John Lewis to see what those nice folks there can suggest.

And really, fuck Langley and fuck Slough too (I really hope I don’t regret saying that).

All change (no really this time)

Ok, so contract is returned to [withdrawn], notice handed in at present work and today I start the first day of my quest (proper) to find somewhere new to live.

First up on the list is Maidenhead but I still have that nagging feeling that it is just going to be too expensive. Nevertheless, I need to go have a look around to see what I can get. We’ll have to see what comes of that.

Conscious that I might not be able to afford Maidenhead I took a daring look around Langley this weekend as it has a reasonable compromise between being more affordable, closer to Ealing and not being Slough. And to demonstrate that Langley isn’t in Slough I have produced this helpful map:

Anyhow, now that I have [withdrawn] in the bag of course I am now (I say now, I mean at some point…) going to have to go back through all my posts and withdraw reference to it as it rather conflicts with my being paranoid about blogging work stuff.

Assault on the control room

Today I hand my notice in. I wonder how that will go…

Update:

... went fine. Guess I am really going then.

Megalomania lite

I have been having a lot of fun over the past few weeks with NationStates, which is a very simple to use on-line game (none of your multi-online-super-role-playing, my-nob-wizard-beats-your-death-ork nonsense mind). It’s basically a text based game where you control your fictitious nation and guide it through amending government policy, generally with extreme, unexpected and gently humorous results. You get a new theoretical scenario each day which shapes the way your nation works out.

Check out the status of my nation, Bedlamania, with its rather worrying lack of any legislative controls at all, apparently serious crime and gambling problems, also suffering from massive deforestation (none of which I intended, honest, I was just trying to be nice).

For the megalomaniac in all of us, but without any kind of major social or political repercussions.

Update:

And could today’s scenario be more appropriate to the timing of this post:

Vertigo

So Mark conceded that one of the posts that he was ‘going to do’ whilst ‘filling in’ for me when I was on holiday was on the Millau Viaduct in France. I was thinking of doing a post on it at some point anyway as it is a very cool looking bridge.

It is yet another structure designed by good old Norman Foster, who if you don’t know is responsible for the glass roof over the British Museum, the erotic gherkin in London (real name the Swiss Re Tower) and the 2005 RIBA Sterling Prize nominee, the MacLaren Technology Centre in Germany amoungst many other things.

The Millau Viaduct is really pretty high up, aside from being rather smart looking. You could fit One Canada Square (known to the proles as Canary Wharf) underneath it and that is a big building is big (trust me, I’ve been up it).

However if you want a truly vertigo inducing structure, how about the proposed Grand Canyon Skywalk, a U-shaped bridge suspended 1200 metres above the floor of the Grand Canyon… with a glass floor.

Too much time on the internet

Arguably I spend far too much time on the internet. However, one pastime that I can say with confidence that I have never engaged in is that art of egosurfing. Not that I would find very much about me as what is probably the principle source of information about me, namely this blog, is not picked up by internet search engines.

Of course, this clearly was not an alien phenomenon to this poor guy who screwed himself over at a border checkpoint when an unnecessarily web savvy border guard found the guys blog on search engine and put him in hot water on account of it.

However, this is not to say that this blog is not unfindable. I recently welcomed my first visitor from Australia who found me, no doubt accidentally, and with probably a massive lack of interest, care of those folks at technorati.

The big question is whether you spend too much time on the internet. I think this is a good test… Read this. If you understand it, I think you spend too much time on the internet. If you think its funny, like I did, perhaps its time to go into internet dependency counselling.

Bored of inevitability

It is now nearly a month since I was provisionally offered the [withdrawn] job and my provisionally accepting yet still no contract has been arranged. I am therefore stuck in this weird limbo land where I can’t hand my notice in at my present work in case something goes wrong (and knowing my luck, if it could, it would) but nor can I start sorting stuff out to get ready for a change.

So at work I have no enthusiasm for anything that I do but this is tempered by the fact that I have no firm guarantee yet of actually getting to go. This is added to my two months notice I have to run (once I am actually in a position to hand it in) and I can then actually leave.

Meanwhile at home I am undertaking the eminently dull task of sorting the three years worth of crap that I have accumulated into some semblance of order so that if I ever get the green light on the [withdrawn] job at least I can move fast(ish). This does not take away from it being a painfully dull task.

Anyway, so it looks like it will now be the beginning of February at best until I can leave my present job. The sugary glaze on this scenario though is that my parents are on holiday in Australia and New Zealand during February and March so if I get forced out of my current flat I can live at their nice house in the country rent free for two months (without the parental involvement that would drive me nuts). Of course the commute would suck more than an industrial grade Dyson and there would be no broadband, or sky, or friends, or take aways, or street lighting and then of course there are the ritual witch burnings and pagan festivals that happen in darkest Buckinghamshire but for zero rent I am not complaining about that (at least too much) (for the short term).

So another weekend passed of kicking around waiting for my own paperwork to catch up with me so I can get my life moving again.

Meanwhile the conundrum of where to live next (permanently) continues to play out. No matter how much I try to convince myself that I would be happy with a walk from North Ealing tube station to the office after arriving there from wherever else on the Piccadilly line, lets face it, I am not going to be happy with that as it is a longer walk than my present commute to work (in the theoretical situation that I walked that) after however long on the tube.

So I am back to considering things along the suburban rail lines into Ealing Broadway which is way closer. But I refuse to live in Southall, Hayes or West Drayton because they are at the bottom of the runway at Heathrow airport, are really rough, chav strongholds and well, there are other erm… ethnic issues that I really shouldn’t have a problem with but just do ok (I am sorry if that makes me a bad person). So this leaves somewhere called Iver, Langley (a glorified mobile home park), Slough (no comment), Burnham (read Slough), Taplow (again read Slough) and Maidenhead…

Blogatorium

Ok, two posts today, this one being the second, which I have decided to do because I have a small amount to write on two distinctly different things and likely if I don’t post on both now it won’t get blogged at all.

So my friend Bng’s blog appears to have been officially pronounced dead which does seem a shame although I do understand why. Nevertheless, I am going to keep the permalink to his blog for a little while on the off chance he may reconsider (otherwise it goes with my next permalink review).

However, Bng’s throwing in the towel at this stage is also slightly reassuring as at least if I ever get bored of this blog thing then I would not be the first person (I know) to throw in the blog towel.

Inquiry debrief

What with the whole getting caught up with the holiday thing I forgot to note a couple of highlights of the inquiry I was in last Wednesday. So my three favourite moments were:

1. Getting to call a mobile home park ‘a little twee for my tastes’ whilst under cross examination.
2. Getting heckled by the same residents of the mobile home park for saying other disparaging things about their mobile home park.
3. When our counsel got the appellants expert witness to hold his head in his hands after one of their witnesses blew apart a chunk of their case of their own accord.

Winter break 2

Now that I have worked out how to transfer photos from my phone onto my pc, here are a couple of the better photos (but far from great) that I snapped:

Me and Mike in a café in Amsterdam.

Nick and Mike with random girls whose names I don’t recall (and yes well done Mike who pulled the one on the far left) at around 4am in Amsterdam.

Nick and Mike in Amsterdam.

Me and Nick in the same place, but this photo is better... Notice the menu advertises 'atomic blog chicken,' we went for the nachos though.

And a funny sign, that probably isn’t all that funny at all, thanks to those crazy Belgians.

There are a few more (but not many as I had to keep an eye on the phone battery) but they are pretty dire and are not getting posted.

Winter break

Well, I am now back and reblogging again after my little excursion to northern Europe. And it was well, cold. However, having got back to England I am pretty sure it is colder here so I don’t feel hard done by in the slightest.

What with it being a multi-destination break arrived at care of the channel tunnel, I spent a lot of time on trains. Eurostar is brilliant, much nicer than getting on a plane and so delightfully easy and hassle free. Trains in Holland and Belgium are also good. I liked that when our train from Amsterdam to Brussels was running late they just (apparently randomly) axed stops with scant notice. Probably would have pissed me off though if my stop had been one of the ones they axed.

Accommodation was excellent in Brussels and really actually pretty dire in Amsterdam despite being more expensive. The Belgian hoteliers were welcoming and accommodating whilst their Dutch counterparts turned out to be a bunch back packing stoner loosers.

However, Amsterdam was a much more interesting city with a bit more going on. Ignoring the whole stoner nonsense, which I really don’t have time for, it seems like a very pleasant place. Possibly one of the most similar places to England in Europe that I have been though. I was frequently mistaken for being Dutch and actually quiet enjoyed passing myself off as a quiet Dutch person (quiet because I can’t speak a word of Dutch) (although that having been said the whole Dutch language seems to be constructed from taking a couple of English words and a couple of German words and sticking them together with some extra vowels).

Brussels was also pleasant and although I spent only a short time there by comparison to Amsterdam I think I can say with some confidence that I have seen most of it. No disrespect to the fine hosts but it is not an exciting city.

I think I will stick up some photos in a forthcoming post now that I have worked out how to upload them onto my pc from my phone but am not doing it now because getting them onto blogger takes a little time. Time I am now going to spend ironing my shirt for work.

Inquiry

So today I am in a public inquiry. My part in this is getting cross examined by the lawyers who are either going to try to do their best to make me look like the man (my counsel) or like the village idiot (appellant’s counsel).

I have been under cross examination in inquiries before and was pretty nervous about it. This time however I am relatively laid back about it as I know what’s coming and am fairly confident I can deal with it (although do have nagging doubts about being overconfident...).

The worst thing about it is having to speak, in public, to an audience which I dread. However from experience, due to the pressure of being under cross examination, worries like this (and everything else) go completely out of the window because it is such an intense experience as everything is caught up in thinking about and responding to the cross examination. I literally do not have the mental capacity to think, let alone worry, about anything else apart from being cross examined.

This is also my last post until about this time next Wednesday. I was a little surprised that anyone expressed an interest in taking over the blog temporarily but Mark is taking over as of tomorrow until this time next week.

I have attached no mandate or restrictions so what is delivered is entirely in his hands. I guess I will have to see what comes out of it.

Read only

I recently read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time which was very good and easy to read. However, being a book, you have to buy it or borrow it off a friend or a library or something like that.

I also have read They’re Made Out of Meat which is a short story (which I have linked to before in case you think you are having a deja-vu moment). I liked that too but what with it being a short story it was over rather fast.

I also recently read Gods Debris. I thought this was a good read too and what with it being available for free on the internet and being somewhat more than a short story (but still not huge - 124 pages of Adobe Acrobat) it has the best of both of the above two.

Have a read.

And the point of that was

I have previously said I wouldn’t (generally) rant about the stuff I was up to at the weekend but I am going to do a U-turn and confess that I wasted most of Saturday on the internet. So I at least have something to show for it I have added a bunch of permalinks (to the right) to some of the more fun slash interesting stuff.

I also produced a bunch of ‘generic’ posts to stuff for times when I don’t feel like expressing anything. I guess these will get posted as and when. However this is also in part response to a number of people saying that they like the linky posts I do. So thanks folks (sarcasm), it’s nice that you read Nick101 to find out what’s up with me. Having said this I don’t think I could sustain five posts a week all about me.

Nevertheless, follow the links. I don’t just link to any old crap you know.

I stuck the new permalinks up on Saturday but now feel a little remiss about not saying more about Orisinal (having spent much of Sunday there) because it is exceptional. Have a look, I challenge anyone not to find something that doesn’t make you smile.

Europe baby

This time next week I will be in Brussels and then Bruge and then Amsterdam. I am looking forward to this, it should be fun.

Not sure how we (me, Nick and Mike) ended up going for a long weekend in northern Europe when really a good burst of sun would have been nice but it is a break nevertheless which should be good.

This is the first time my blog will have to take a break from me unless I find internet terminals whilst abroad which in fairness shouldn’t be too hard. However I have also thought of giving the blog reigns to somebody else for a week. But I am not too sure if this would be egotistical or destroy the point of doing a personal blog or some sort of Freudian weirdness or just odd in general and actually whether anyone would give enough of a crap to be interested.

Nevertheless if you read this and want a no commitments play with a blog for a short time from Thursday 24th to Tuesday 29th let me know.

Welcome to Slough

So the travel costs from Maidenhead to Ealing are prohibitively expensive (taken in conjunction with rent). Guess I am not moving there. Running out of ideas…

50 (+ 1 actually)

So my last post was my fiftieth (not that I am counting, the nice people at blogger do that for me). I wanted to do a grand fiftieth post to commemorate this but as is often the case the importance of posting about other stuff (in that case sandwiches and job things) seemed more important at the time.

I am surprised I have gotten this far with this whole blogging thing. Firstly because I seem to have maintained my interest in it for the time being and second because people are reading it and moreover coming back to read more. The latter is particularly surprising given some of the tripe that I think I come out with.

The success thus far has in part been a consequence of the feedback I have got from people which has been really positive (although I guess it is unlikely that anyone is going to tell me this is garbage if it is) and has helped keep my own interest focused. So hey people, leave comments, I love getting comments. (I need the validation).

Another theme is that quite a few people have said stuff like ‘how do you come up with stuff to post’ etc. and they always seem surprised when I insist it really isn’t that hard. Just type stuff and it comes out. Really try it, you might like it or even be good at it. Being better than me at it couldn’t be that hard surely?

So here’s to me and my blog (swigs mug of tea in a self congratulatory manner) and here’s hoping to another fifty posts perhaps...

Double bookings

So I had another interview yesterday. This time with Wycombe District Council.

The interview went fine although it was a little strange being interviewed by my ex-boss. Especially when asked certain ‘typical’ questions you seem to get in interviews etc. and I generally have my ‘typical’ answers. However, I can’t exactly ‘big-up’ the stuff I did whilst one of the interviewers was my then boss. This floored me a little as I wasn’t too sure what to say, do I include the stuff I did with my ex-boss or come up with something else? Anyway I think I bodged it through just about.

However leaving the interview I was pretty certain that I preferred the [withdrawn] job. Don’t get me wrong I would quite happily settle for Wycombe and could do so with a lot less upheaval. But [withdrawn] seems a more interesting challenge.

Finishing the interview I then had to wait for an hour while the other candidates did the practical test and got interviewed before coming back for the psychometric tests at midday.

By the time I had wandered around Wycombe a little, decided I was going to get a Subway sandwich after the psychometric tests, found Subway, decided Subway was too far from the offices and the car for me to have time to get lunch from there, found an alternate sandwich place and wandered back to the offices I had kinda come to the view that I didn’t really fancy wading through an hour and a half of tests and to have a late lunch as a consequence. This especially as it would be a sandwich not from Subway. I could be spending the psychometric test time walking back to Subway and thinking about all the sandwiches I could be having for lunch and then eating the sandwich.

It occurs now that my focus on a Subway sandwich was probably symptomatic of not really wanting the job and probably being a little bit hungry too. I did the psychometric tests anyway (of course) which weren’t too bad, although I do wonder when I get given these tests at job interviews. I mean, are they really more insightful than my qualifications or are they just checking that I am as clever (or dumb) as my paperwork says I am.

Anyway, we’ll have to see how that pans out. It would be nice to be offered the job, if only for the ego boost.

I spent the afternoon having a look around Maidenhead and checking rental prices. I think Maidenhead beats Ruislip, Eastcote, South Harrow and all the other north west London places I have been thinking of moving too in terms of general atmosphere and the rental prices are comparable. Overall I think I prefer Maidenhead but my commute would be a little more complicated and may even be prohibitively expensive. I need to find out more on this.

I never did get my Subway sandwich by the way.

New pad

So this weekend I had the opportunity to take a look around some of my short listed areas for living in. Ruislip and Eastcote both seemed very pleasant. Both fairly quiet middle class suburban places and both eminently commutable to my new place of work. I think I could settle for either without too much upheaval.

Both are pretty much twenty minutes or so drive from where I live at the moment and aside from being a little closer to London proper are pretty much a comparable replication of where I am living at the moment; quiet, white, middle class suburbia. They are also within what I suppose I am going to have to settle for in terms of commuting time and distance. However, neither locations left me feeling particularly excited about the prospect of moving there. It just seems really, well, bland.

South Harrow was also short listed and I visited there too. It is a lot more urban and has much more of a London feel to it. It was also a bit grimy and certainly more than a little worn around the edges. It would certainly be a more interesting place to live I think but also possibly a little too much on the grimy and urban side of things for my general preferences.

I haven’t investigated Maidenhead at the moment but I know the town vaguely and could possibly picture myself living there, more so than anywhere else I have looked at thus far. The commute would be different from here, being a longer train journey but travelling more directly into Ealing Broadway train station. I am going to have a look around Maidenhead estate agents windows this afternoon (I have today off work).

What I would really like is to ‘test drive’ all of these places for a little while to see which one I liked however have neither the time or money so I am going to be committing for at least six months if not a year and want to get it right. However, I think when I start looking properly the situation is going to be forced upon me when I actually start looking around individual flats. Lets face it, what I really want is a flat with a short commute, decent sized living room, space in the kitchen for a washing machine and a dish washer, a power shower and off street parking.

Friday

As I have posted before it is often not so much that I can’t come up with anything to post. More that I don’t feel like expressing anything particularly. I feel this way at the moment but feel obliged to post something (particularly given last Friday’s absenteeism). So here are a bunch of bunch of mildly amusing links that I have found recently (for the most part robbed off the linkbunnies).

The Landover Baptist Church is a quite nicely polished spoof pseudo-religious site. The letters page is particularly funny with the outraged emails that are sent to them.

Amusing lists care of Mc Sweeney’s. Some are hit and miss but I like the style and have considered robbing the format for a couple of my own posts. Klingon fairy tales are one of my faves.

The implausibility of the trash compactor in the Death Star in Star Wars Episode IV.

Find out which level of hell you are going to be committed to in the style of Dante’s Inferno.

I may add some of these to my permalinks at some point.

All change (and excuses to get stuff)

So I rationalise if I am going to be changing job and flat and doing this commuting thing there is a bunch of stuff that I really do need to get, in order, most important first.

A new flat: I loose my current one when I move jobs and being homeless is just below ‘clean teeth with angle grinder’ on my list of things I don’t really want to ever have to try.

A new suit and some more shirts: I have three suits, but don’t wear one cos I don’t like it, so two really. Introduce the practicalities of not being able to take one of these to the dry cleaners whilst at work (try taking your dry cleaning on the tube!) and not otherwise being around when a dry cleaners is open I am going to need another suit if only for the day to day practicalities of having something varied to wear to work. Also I just want a new suit and this is actually a rather good excuse.

An Oyster Card: For doing the whole ‘commuting is cool in the 21st century’ by waving it at entrance barriers and making them flash lights and go bleep and stuff and getting you places too is handy.

A new pair of glasses: My current pair have been held together with bent staples and sticky tape for over a year now and I haven’t sorted the situation cos really I couldn’t give a crap. I think a new job though calls for a degree of professionalism in terms of eye-wear.

An I-pod or other such portable music device: To keep me entertained slash happy on commuting trips and other journeys not involving driving (with associated in-car entertainment) which looks like an increasingly prospect.

A man bag: Which I have wanted for ages but haven’t really needed cos the car or pockets have sufficed to keep stuff in up until now. But being more remote from home, mobile without car and an increased payload (ie. aforementioned I-pod etc, book, paper, lunch, water, extra layer of clothing…) means I am going to need to port this stuff about and a carrier bag (even a posh one from Harrods or Bentalls) just doesn’t cut it. Also folks have said I would look like a ponce if I had a man bag and in fairness I probably would. But looking like a ponce with supporting justification sits with me a little more comfortably.

A PSP: Similar justification as with the I-pod toy. It’s at the bottom of the list though because it is an indulgence rather than a necessity.

Weird stuff to put in the sea

So I think common consensus is fairly established that The Principality of Sealand is a little bit mental. But it’s not the only weird structure that got built in the Thames Estuary.

Of course all this really does pale in comparison to what those crazy folks in Dubai are up to. I mean really, a hotel shaped like a sail on an artificial island and a reproduction of the entire planet in an island archipelago.

All change (subject to completion of satisfactory paperwork)

Yesterdays post was hardly the dramatic ‘check this out I have a new job’ that I intended it to be. Rather it turned out to be a rather mundane rendition of how me and my prospective employer didn’t really manage to sort out what exactly was going on.

I had intended this whole thing to go something along these lines:

Me: This job you have offered me a princely sum for, I would like to take it.
Head of Planning: Excellent work, good to have you on board.
Me: It’s a pleasure Sir; I will have those references in the mail to you today.
Head of Planning: Likewise, I shall ensure your contract is also dispatched forthwith.

However, it didn’t. I never got to formally accept the job and only, I think, conveyed that I wanted it by harassing a large number of people over the course of the day to finally be informed by my recruitment consultant’s stand in (who I think mentioned was nevertheless very nice) that the Head of Planning had got the message but was on holiday until next week and we’d sort out the particulars when he was back.

But anyway, reservations about how it has worked out thus far and will pan out in future aside, I should have a new job. At the moment I am feeling a mixture of being excited about doing something new, in a fresh environment with all kinds of different challenges but equally really rather nervous and slightly scared that this is going to be a very, very big change.

First of all I need to work out where I am going to live. Not wanting to really want to share a place, end up in a small studio flat or have a massive commute my choices are pretty much defined as being somewhere between Harrow and Uxbridge on the Piccadilly Line linking into North Ealing tube station or to intercity it from Slough (yuck) or Maidenhead into Ealing Broadway. The current front runner is Ruislip which has the fairly decent trade off of being about a 40 minute commute (one way) combined with just about acceptable rental payments on a one/two bed flat. But I need to do further research into stuff before committing.

I think the next few months are going to be interesting but perhaps not necessarily enjoyable as I try to sort all this stuff out. However I am not doing anything for the time being. I want some solid paperwork from these people before I'm even going to consider handing my notice in or make any other permanent changes.

All change (in theory)

I should probably explain the lack of posts both on Friday and my usually posting something earlier, today. The [withdrawn] offered me the position of Principal Planner at 16:22 on Thursday last week. I spent Friday and the weekend deliberating and considering whether I was going to accept the position.

However, suffice to say that by Sunday afternoon I was pretty convinced that I was going to go for it and could make it work financially and practicably on a daily basis (mainly in terms of where to live and commuting related stuff).

I was hoping to do a grand post announcing this and briefly expressing my feelings on it after ringing them and confirming my acceptance of the position much earlier this morning. However, I can’t get in touch with them and nor can my recruitment consultant's stand in (who is very nice in fairness) as the main guy is on holiday.

So, erm, hopefully at some point, eventually I might be able to talk to my prospective employer and sort all this out however for the mean time it is still rather up in the air. Perhaps tomorrows post will be a little more triumphant?...

H5N1 lite

I’m ill. Despite trying to ignore it and hoping it would go away of its own accord (because up until now I didn’t have time to be ill), I am now laid out being all hot and shivery and sore throatish. I am presently in that phase where lucozade tastes good and having a diet consisting of squishy fruit, soft bread and soup.

Don’t get me wrong though, I am not complaining (too much). It’s actually quite nice to have a break where I can’t really do much apart from wrap in layers and sit around and watch TV. It’s been a little while since I have had the opportunity to not do anything.

The interview with Ealing BC yesterday was interesting but I am not going to theorise on the outcome of it. I shall just wait and see.

I was however more than a little baffled by their offices. I was met in main reception and taken through about five (seriously chunky) security doors before arriving in what looked like an internet café. There were small desks with computers on, a cafeteria with tables and chairs, breakfast bars and a lounge area with a big plasma tv all decked out with lots of white walling, jaunty lighting and masses of glass.

It was only after the interview that I was told that this was the planning department. Nobody had their own desk or paperwork (which included heads of service etc). You just sat where you liked for whatever suited. A meeting in the cafeteria, day-to-day work at a computer, concentrated work in a quiet room. And it was all almost completely paperless. Not too sure what to make of it. It was all very interesting and different but couldn’t help but get the impression that they were enforcing a relaxed working environment which as a consequence wasn’t relaxed at all.

Hits from across the pond

Ok, so yesterday my site traffic had a (small) peak in activity attributable to another website (from somebody I don’t know) linking to me which left me with a strange warm and fuzzy feeling. It was actually quite strange reading what I had written being quoted on somebody else’s website and then getting linked to. I mean really, I didn’t think I was particularly quote-worthy.

I would do a link back for demonstration purposes but I think that would be blogging narcissism.

In other events, it appears that me and blogger are struggling to reconcile the clocks changing. It seems I can either change all the post times an hour forward so the time stamp on historic posts are one hour into the (retrospective) future or stick as is and all comments on my posts are one hour into the future. Not too sure how to fix this.

Sorry we missed you

So, about ten days ago I thought it would be a rather nice idea to get myself a new mobile on account of my having never liked my current one and especially having put up with it for nearly two years now. So clever old me gets online and finds me a good deal. A painfully long wait of around ten days and finally a ‘sorry we missed you’ note from parceline is sitting on my floor when I get home from work.

Ok, fine, I wasn’t in, this was not unexpected as I do work during the week. The ‘sorry we missed you note’ explains that I can either ring or go on the internet to arrange another ‘standard’ delivery time, arrange a ‘premium’ delivery time or go and collect it.

Now, I can’t manage a ‘standard’ delivery time because this could be any time during the course of the day and I’m not about to take the whole day off work. For ‘premium’ I have to dish out a tenner and then all I get is either a morning or afternoon delivery window or on a Saturday morning. Have these guys not heard of the evening? So I think I’ll go collect it, but best find out where to collect it from though before committing to anything.

Me rings up the phone line, standard robot lady greeting. Press one for ‘standard’ delivery or press two for ‘premium’ delivery. Erm, no I want to find out where the collection place is. Ok, so I press no number buttons when prompted and after a wait of what seems like ages I finally confuse the robot lady and she tells me she’s going to connect me to a customer service assistant. Yay, what I wanted all along. Sadly, the customer service assistant is another robot lady who tells me to leave a message giving details of whether I want ‘standard’ or ‘premium’ delivery. I conclude that these robot ladies are not very bright so I try again. This time I play the whole mash the key pad and press lots of buttons when the first robot lady asks for ‘standard’ or ‘premium.’ Same result, robot lady two asks me to leave a message.

Ok, so I give up trying to talk to a human being or make polite conversation with the robot ladies and try their internet version. Enter reference number, fine. ‘Premium’ or ‘standard’ delivery or ‘collection.’ Right, collection please, when would you like to collect. Hmm, well finding out where I supposed to go would be nice but the earliest I can actually manage is Wednesday evening pretty much regardless where it is So Wednesday 18:30 please... I get this screen:

What, where I am supposed to collect the thing from! Where is the fabled 'parceline depot.’ So I explore their website now that I appear to have committed myself to collecting it from…?

After finding no indication of where I’m supposed to go I send them a mildly arsey email. In fairness I get a swiftish response to this and am directed to Humphreys Road, Dunstable which is about 30 minutes away so I am not too unhappy with that in the event (although, I still don't know where on Humphreys Road I am going but am happy to settle for this after the hastle so far).

I spent nearly an hour trying to get to this point though. Why must it be so hard? All I wanted was to talk to a human being to ask an easy question (or even a mildly personable robot lady would have been ok too).

Blue sky and palm trees

One of the things I like to do is have a look around at the images on flickr. This is actually a quite nice relaxing Saturday morning activity especially when I stumble across nice summery shots like this one of Kowloon.

Some folks had messed around with it and shifted the wide angle, perspective style to being more portraity. Here, have a look.

Personally I prefer the 'original' (which does look a little photoshopped) even if it does have a wonky angle on the skyscraper on the right hand side. See what you think.

The celebrity connection

The temporary stop notice served by me and Gem one month ago expires today. The pressure is now on to do something else, and I have a pretty good idea what that is but can’t say for the time being.

However, what is starting to piss me off is that a certain C-list celebrity (on daytime TV, probably been in ‘Hello’ magazine I think but probably not on the front cover) lives near the site and the locals are now supposedly rallying the support of this aforementioned celebrity to try and get some kudos swinging for their cause. I am not amused by this tactic.

Of course if this celebrity were to ring me up in person and promise an autograph that said something along the lines of ‘big up to you Nick, thanks for the temporary stop notice, love from the aforementioned C-list celebrity’ my opinions might be a little different as that would be a trophy worth having.

I will be interested to see how today pans out…

Update:

Enforcement and Stop Notices served much to the pleasure of local residents. No police escort this time though so sadly not as dramatic as last time.

Back to school with avengence

So do you remember those University course work questions that had you totally stumped, like the ones where you didn’t even know where to start. In my experience I managed to side step most of these as they were either one of a number of questions (so you pick the one you understand as opposed to the difficult one) or group work so could either avoid or disguise ignorance.

The ones I had to confront head on I had plenty of time to prepare for and generally could fudge my way through with a bit of rhetoric and some misquoted passages. Clearly I got away with this approach as I got my qualifications.

However, those nice folks at [withdrawn] have tasked me with giving a power point presentation on the most ridiculously hard theoretical question by next Wednesday. Between now and then I have two spare(ish) evenings (one being my birthday; yippee) and a spare morning in which to work out what I am supposed to be doing (as it is horrendously open ended), research it, put something together, re-learn how to use power point, practice and then deliver.

Sorry, this post is short. I am busy panicking.

Oh, I got a second interview with [withdrawn], in case you hadn't guessed.

Secrets on film

Ranging from the funny, to the thoughtful, naughty and sometimes the sad. Have a look at Postsecret.

Daylight

I am going to start this post by stating the obvious. It’s now dark in the morning when I wake up. Yesterday morning this struck me particularly strongly, partly because I didn’t get to bed until late the previous night and also because dawn had advanced itself about 20 minutes further into the day from the previous Friday when I last had to rouse myself at an early time.

My alarm woke me up somewhat abruptly and my first (and clearly totally irrational) instinct was ’why is my alarm clock lying to me?’ Of course it wasn’t lying to me, I was merely suffering the consequences of living at approximately 51 degrees north and just west of the Greenwich meridian in late October. Nevertheless, later in the day, I was quite pleased to find out that it wasn’t just me who initially jumped to ‘the alarm clock is lying to me theory’ as opposed to the far more logical spatial one (thanks Kate).

Anyhow del.icio.us prompted me to this blog post which seems to contain some fairly light weight and common sense advice about how to wake yourself up early in the morning. I also spotted this item, as part of the marathon John Lewis session on Saturday, which I hope would deliver similar results. Unlikely that I am going to be smart enough to adopt either of them but you might be a little brighter than me (bad pun intended).

Family stuff

In approaching this blogging thing I have deliberately not posted anything at the weekend (says he whilst sticking up this post ten minutes into Monday morning). There are several reasons for this, principally because I like the break from committing anything to text. Another is because I am fairly sure weekend posts would turn into little more than ‘this weekend I went out in *insert location* with *insert people* and got lashed and *insert random event* happened’ or ‘this weekend was boring because I didn’t get up to much.’ Accordingly weekend life is generally unblogged. This weekend just passed however I am going to write about.

My Aunt is over from Canada who I haven’t seen for five years (can’t believe it’s been that long). This weekend was thus dedicated to a series of protracted family events which well, I don’t like.

Don’t get me wrong, I like my family but they drive me nuts. We seem to have this massive inability to be able to communicate effectively (or perhaps it is just me?) and grasp where each other are coming from despite having each others interests at heart. I can generally manage family stuff in small doses and actually like spending a lunch or evening with them but more than this and I generally get fed up and/or cross with the whole situation.

This weekend was a prime example. I had the dubious pleasure of spending three hours in John Lewis with them on Saturday. Three hours! Now John Lewis has lots of nice things and I could quite happily furnish my entire life with their stuff but three hours is really far too long. But no, we had to spend ages looking at and talking (and talking and talking and talking) about sofas, lighting, televisions, DVD players, digital cameras, kitchenware, pictures, fine china, glassware, bed linen, mobile phones (John Lewis doesn’t even sell mobile phones), dining room furniture, alarm clocks, televisions again, beds, the list goes on…

Some of this time was spent with my parents fishing to find out what I wanted for my birthday (which I wasn’t prepared for, and hadn‘t ordered my thoughts on) which was, in complete fairness, really nice of them and totally unexpected. So I told them I liked the suede bean bag that I have had my eye on for about a year. But, rather than say ok that’s it then, I get the bit about how suede gets mucky easily and perhaps the corduroy one would be a wiser choice and then my Mum offered to make me a suede bean bag for ‘half the price it was on sale for.’ I am then in the position whereby I can’t have the bean bag I had been pining over for over a year ‘because it is impractical,’ (probably true but that doesn’t change my feelings about it) can’t decline my Mums really kind offer to make me one because that would be rude but end up not getting the item they offered to me in the first instance and now can‘t even get it myself because that also would be rude. So of course none of that works out satisfactorily and they ask what else I might like and I basically refuse to tell them because I am worried they’ll wreck that with kindness too and then they (understandably) get pissed off with me for being a jerk.

(I am a little worried that the above paragraph makes me look like a materialistic jerk, so for clarity I am complaining about it to highlight communication issues not whine about not getting a birthday present).

Then it’s Sunday dinner (just got back home from) and my other Aunt’s (don’t like this Aunt quite so much) ability to consume all the wine, dominate all conversation and pontificate ad infinatum about subjects of scant interest to anyone. But at least this gives me and the remainder of the family a common cause to rally against and spend some time playing the amusing but unspoken game of ‘how can I engineer this situation to get somebody else other than me to talk to this drunken bore.’

It really is baffling how I can care about these people quite so much whilst at the same time they manage to drive me absolutely mental. I wonder if they feel the same way?

I hope that f***ing hurt

In case you hadn’t guessed by now, the posts that I stick up at 7:30am etc. in the morning were (generally) not written at the same time as they were posted. Most get tweaked a little before final posting but generally the bulk of the early morning posts are created the preceding evening or afternoon whensoever the whimsy of writing takes me (can’t believe I just used the word whimsy) (see, that's the kinda crap that comes out when I start writing stuff at 7:30am). I prefer this approach as it gives me time to proof read what I have written to make sure its not total (as opposed to partial) garbage and gives a degree of consistency in posting rates.

I constructed the remainder of this post yesterday evening and reading it back now it does seem more than a little harsh but the situation as described made me get my rage on so I am going to post it anyway…

So there I am in the supermarket quietly minding my own business and all of a sudden along comes this woman with god awful uncontrolled child and smack, aforementioned god awful uncontrolled child goes head first into my hand basket and lays himself out on the floor.

Me of course being the perfect gentleman says sorry and make to go check shitty child is ok (setting aside it wasn’t my fucking fault in the first place) to be greeted by this stare from this woman as if she had just scraped me off her shoe and found me to be a giant steaming turd. Fucking cheek. So I walked off whilst trying to give her the look of ‘you are an awful mother, and your child is awful, and ugly, and so are you, and you are a vile parasite upon society and I hope you get mangled on the bull-horns of your own SUV’ (I don’t think I managed to convey all that in one look but at least I tried).

Here’s a list of the clever (or just plain mean) things I thought of to say on the way home and wish that I was smart enough slash had the balls to be able to tell her to her face there and then:

‘A couple more hits in the face and he (the child) might not end up with your ugly face.’

‘That’ll fucking learn him to look where he’s going.’

‘All that gin you’ve been drinking must be coming out in the breast milk.’

‘Hahahahahahaha, your child’s a retard.’

‘I ain’t beyond swinging this hand basket to make it connect with your face too.’

‘Do you know who I am? I could get your house knocked down.’

It's horribly, horribly early (again)

So, another morning of getting up early today. If you asked my boss, this is because ‘I have to be at home for the boiler repair man who is coming this morning.’ The real reason being that I have a job interview near Liverpool Street at 9am this morning.

Getting up early, or more accurately going out early, used to really irritate me but for various reasons I have had to do it seemingly more and more frequently of late. I still don’t like actually having to get out of bed in the morning but living by myself at least I can superheat my flat in the morning to the extent that I think most folks would probably find uncomfortable, but which makes me cosy and emerging from a bed a little more bearable. One thing I do like is once you are up and actually out early how nice and quiet it is, especially when it is slightly wintery slash autumnish like it is at the moment in the morning and I get to wrap up in a jacket and scarf. At the moment I am actually looking forward to getting my cup of coffee from the train station and catching the train down to London.

The interview I am going for is actually interview one for the [withdrawn] job that I said I wasn’t going to go for on the basis of their slightly shitty approach and cruddy application forms. However, following some sweet talking from their recruitment consultant where the guy explained that they really couldn’t care less about the application forms (possibly hence their crap format, see Stupid Questions) and just wanted a copy of my CV, I was a little more amenable to playing ball.

I am not too sure how the interview is going to go or even what it is all about. As I am meeting the recruitment consultants as opposed to my potential employer. I am sure this stage is to weed out the wheat from the chaff but am not too sure how these recruitment consultants will determine me to be either wheat or chaff. I am very conscious that the position I am applying for is possibly a little bold I think, but if you don’t ask you don’t get.

Anyway, it’s something different for a change and I recon I should be done by half ten at the latest so I have grand designs on getting a nice late leisurely breakfast somewhere in London and that should be nice even if I get nothing out of the rest of the day.

Happy birthday to…

Nick’s brother actually who has a birthday just two days before my own which is irritating for several reasons.

One; seriously were my parents thinking something along the lines of, I know what would be rather fun, lets have two kids separated by four years in age and try to give them the same birthday, that’s the kind of stuff that gets you on TV? Either that or February was a historically boring month for them? (Any chance of my telling my parents about my blog has just gone completely out of the window).

Two, the end of October is all about me (oh, and Halloween, and in recent years my friend Elenor who shares my birthday) and having to sort out a card and gift and arrange for my brother is always a hassle as we barely know each other. This time of year generally causes family strife aswell as both me and my brother want to go have fun with the kids our age and not have to put up with accommodating our parents who generally get ditched on the premise that between us we can never find a free weekend and generally end up having some weak joint birthday celebration in Pizza Express in Aylesbury or somewhere else similarly generically crappy on a weekday evening and nobody is ever really happy.

Anyhow, this year I have resolved to try and sort things out a little earlier this year (ten days in advance, well done Nick) family wise so am presently musing on the birthday present for my brother (at least to begin with). Thus far I have short listed it to the feonic sound bug (gimic), £20 voucher from HMV (or other similar store) and erm, that's it. Anyone got any better sugestions?

How popular are you

Well, the end of last week saw visits to Nick101 fall through the floor from a fairly consistent 15-17ish viewers for the preceding two weeks to a rather dismal 8-9 at the end of the week. So in order to try and revive flagging viewer figures I have been attempting to work out what folks are actually interested in and what prompts the most feedback.

Thus far, based on comment feedback alone, English Riviera and The hotel of evil seem to have prompted the most interest in terms of comments posted although the two are totally different in terms of content matter. This really baffles me as I thought Pikeys was one of the more interesting topics which generated little feedback whilst The hotel of evil was very similar in terms of style to Sealand which also prompted limited feedback.

Thus far I am still struggling to establish what people are interested in and what prompts higher viewings as I can find no logic to it, perhaps there is none?

Anyhow, as I can’t seem, for the time being at least, to pin down what keeps people interested, I am going to go off at a complete tangent and say follow this link which I have been meaning to do a post about for some time but could never come up with any kind of decent pretence to do so. It’s a gently amusing short story which made me smile. I think it’s worth a read but then again what you choose to read and what you don’t choose to read is entirely up to you as my viewer statistics show.

Stirling work

So The Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh won the RIBA Stirling Prize this year. At least the £20,000 prize should offset the £400 million overspend on it.

Not the one I wanted to win as I thought Wil Alsop’s ridiculous sense of creative fun in the Fawood Children’s Centre in Harlesden was sufficiently thoughtful and crazy at the same time to warrant recognition but there we go. Norman Foster didn’t win it either with the admittedly very cool McLaren Technology Centre. Then again, at least the prize went to somebody other than Alsop or Foster who seem to have a habit of winning everything architectural these days.

I didn’t get to watch the unveiling live as I was at a quiz evening in a village down the road which was a surprising bit of fun. Even if the team I was on had a combined age of about half of any other teams. Still, made me feel younger than the standard Saturday evening fare of standing around in a crowded bar with a bunch of stinky teenagers.

Millions of things buzzing round my head

One thing I have little trouble in coming up with is ideas on stuff to post about. I have loads of things buzzing round my head that I could quite happily put into some form of reasonably well structured sentence to make some vague point about.

Coming up with things to say was one of my initial concerns when I started doing this blog but as it transpires it is by far and away not the biggest obstacle. The most difficult thing I find is being in the right mood and frame of mind to be able to write about what I would like (and also fitting in everything else I have to do around that).

At the moment I am feeling particularly irritable and uncommunicative and don’t feel like writing about any of the things I have on the ‘to blog’ list. However, nor do I feel like complaining about all of the little, little things that have ticked me of this week (and there have been a fair few) as (1) I think folks would probably be somewhat disinterested in all the stuff that has irked me and (2) in committing them to text it becomes apparent how small and petty they actually are.

Conversely, actually just writing this (or any other post) in the first place is often helpful as it focuses my mind on the task and generally improves my mood to the extent where (in this case) I am actually a little more content than I was when writing the first paragraph.

Anyhow, it is Friday and hopefully I will be heading down to join Elia for her birthday do in London this evening. I say hopefully, I am acutely aware that the London Underground train drivers, specifically those on the requisite Northern Line, (who earn about 32K for driving a frickin train) are striking again such that I may not be able to get there without considerable difficulty and multiple changes. Just another one of those little, little things that really ticks me off.

You’re getting enforced

In no particular order, a list of some of the more bizarre things I have had to say recently (with a little artistic license and some specific details changed to avoid recognition):

“Yes Mr Police Man Sir,… an abandoned gypsy rave… No, I’m sorry I don’t know why they wanted the electric wheelchair.”

“Your home for 40 years you say,… not any more.”

“Another stroke,… oh dear.”

“Only 125,000 tonnes of inert waste,… that’s ok then.”

“Yes, you can put it back up again,… you just have to take it down first.”

“That’s right, it’s ok for your neighbours to do that,... it’s just you we have a problem with.”

“If you don’t let me in, I am going to break in and you can’t stop me.”

“These things are here for the village charity fete you say, how nice... I am going to prosecute you for it.”

“Your dead husband is buried there, well looks like he’s going to have to get exhumed when the deck gets torn down.”

and my personal favourite:

“Naked women you say,… yes I would be happy to do a site visit.”

Stupid Questions

So I was attempting to fill out the application forms for the [withdrawn] job which I ended up not applying to for various reasons and the contents of this post is in part symptomatic of why I didn’t.

The application forms were supposed to completed electronically which I don’t have a problem with and actually support in principle. This is a screenshot of part of it (don't even start me on the text not displaying correctly): [Sorry, image withdrawn]

How far are you willing to travel for work? Well, that depends, how far and how often do you plan on sending me places? I am happy to go to Torquay (sorry, did say I wouldn't mention that again) and back on occasion but probably not too keen on this being a daily occurrence. I wouldn’t be expecting to leave the Borough that often but that you are asking me that question makes me suspicious that your recruitment consultants are actually fishing for more details from me for their own nefarious purposes. You have given me too little information to be able to answer this question. Also, you haven’t left any room in the box for me to insert my answer. Am I supposed to delete the bit that says distance or squeeze in it afterwards?

Means of travel? Well, again that’s up to you. What do you want me to do, list modes of transport? Is this a trick question? I mean, you can go by car or train or bus or taxi. I’d probably cycle if you asked nicely and am happy to walk as long as its not too far or you can combine all these different modes of travel. Hell, we can go on a boat if you like or even a helicopter.

License type? Look, you’re fishing again, yes I have a car and can use it for work purposes if needed. You can just ask that you know, its not like you’re crossing some social taboo.

And it goes on, with this bit: [Sorry, image withdrawn].

Ok, so I can slot in two of my professional qualifications. I have more than that though and your job spec actually specifies that you want someone with more than two qualifications so why only two boxes? Continue on a separate sheet if necessary, ok fine but how do you want me to do that if I am submitting this to you electronically? (This was not the only time on this form that this issue arose).

And what’s a CSCS card? I had to look this up on the internet, answer here. I hardly think its relevant to a planning job. Sure if I wanted to go erect scaffolding or do some ad hoc strip mining it might be a nice idea but I’m not planning on doing either.

And the award date is dumb too. I have to fill out one digit in each box. Fine if it’s a paper form but it isn’t.

Basically, I think this whole form has just been robbed from a paper system and no thought has been given to its content or the implications of it or the shitty formatting which wouldn’t have been a problem if it was printed out but this just looks really weak electronically.

A curious incident

Yes, I am still going on about my little Torquay excursion (it was eventful). Last post about it I promise.

The book I finally picked to read on the journey there and back was the curious incident of the dog in the night time (thanks to K8 (lives up north, engaged to Bng), Kate (doesn’t live up north, not engaged to Bng) and Laura for recommending it and Kate for lending it to me) and it was one of the best books I have read in a long time. I’m not going to tell you all about it because that would spoil it, just go and read it, it’s very good and doesn’t take long. I recon I managed it in about four to five hoursish.

One of things most curious about this book and my personal connection to it is how whilst reading the events taking place to the lead character within it, at one point the same (well similar, I don’t see the world in numbers of course) events were actually happening to me. I hate to be all cryptic about this but don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t read it.

It was interesting as the main character in the book’s similar activities caught up with and subsequently overtook mine. It is also the only time when reading a work of literature has had the direct effect of instantly making my life better through, in this case, the reproduction of an extract of the Bakerloo line within the book itself which prompted me to realise it was a better idea to get on the Bakerloo line to Marylebone from Paddington than the Circle line to Baker Street for connecting trains home. And indeed it returned me to my flat approximately 20 minutes faster, I think, than if had stuck to the original plan to go to Baker Street.

So now if you haven’t read the book, you are going to have to if you want to understand what the hell I am talking about.

(Also, if you change twice there is a better chance you will get a car rather than a goat).

The paperless office (now with 46% more paper)

This post is about the event which I had been worrying about a lot for a long time but I am now fairly confident is never going to occur (which, amoungst other things, I promised to elucidate further on last Thursday) (possibly not as exciting as I made it sound).

As eluded to in a number of previous posts and as work friends will already know, my employer has decided to embrace the 21st century and is moving towards e-planning and the paperless office. Which is fine. In theory. (Usual inevitable caveats here about parts getting withdrawn depending on events).

Now lots of people are involved but pretty much me and Andy have been tasked with the roll out of this thing on the floor - so how it works and how it gets customised and it gets used.

I was nervous about this to start off with and the more and more I have worked on it, the more and more I have worried that it is going to go horribly wrong. This is on account of planning being a quasi-legal paper based system and removing the paper makes it a logistical nightmare as you have to map out all the different types of paper that come through and the bizarre and crazy things these bits of paper say and what you do with them. Which takes time. However I am also rather worried that woefully insufficient cash has been thrown at this to make it work.

As time has gone on the faster and faster we have had to develop this thing and the longer and longer it appears it is going to take to do so. Supposedly we were going to have had the draft system in place to test in about 1 months time from now. Which is a terrifyingly short time scale knowing that (1) I still have to learn what I am doing (take about 2 months) and (2) I am going to have to actually do it (say about 4 months).

However, I have now seen the best of the best (with the same operating system), care of our friends down in Torquay. And well, lets just say that their e-planning paperless office generates 46% more paperwork. Yes that’s right folks, more paperwork (but now with a jazzy statistic so you can monitor it). So the best of the best have had a net increase in paper after developing it for six months whilst we have to go totally paperless in one month!

Suffice to say that with this as a comparison there is absolutely no chance whatsoever that the truly paperless office is going to be achieved quite so soon regardless of what instructions from the management are. It just ain't going to happen. Which makes me a hell of a lot more relaxed about it as now, however it pans out, I should have some room to think, and make sure it gets done right and might maybe work, perhaps.

Also I don’t have to worry so much about this curious process, which for various reasons was turning out to be the simplest (?) way of doing things:

Receive an email > print the email > scan the email back into the computer > print acknowledgement letter and send it by post.