Pikeys

Possibly a slightly controversial post (little nervous as to how its going to be received) (parts may also have to be withdrawn depending on events) but something that I have to deal with frequently. Namely, aforementioned pikeys, or travellers as I shall generically refer to them from now on, moving into agricultural fields and acquiring enforcement notices on account of it.

[withdrawn]

Anyhow it consistently baffles me how these people continue to exist, it just doesn‘t seem to stack up in modern society. If I moved in somewhere and the following morning some local authority people rolled up, told me to fuck off, told me the unpleasant ways they were going to make me fuck off, told me the dire implications of my not fucking off and how pissed off they were at having to tell me to fuck off in the first place I might reconsider my lifestyle choice.

That having been said, and arguably totally contrarily, I kind of understand where they are coming from. It’s as traditional a lifestyle as fox hunting is a rural pursuit but if you know little about it or have never done it on what basis do you consider that you can comment?

I remember speaking to a fairly articulate traveller recently, when he expressed his feelings about his childhood and relayed to me his younger queries to his dad of ‘why am I living in a motorway lay-by?’ Seriously, why was a kid being brought up in a lay-by? I had to sypmathise with his position, opinions on travellers notwithstanding that’s not right.

A lot of it seems to stem from a lack of understanding of that lifestyle from regular folks hence travellers get marginalised. Once you get marginalised and folks only want you to fuck off out of their neighbourhood you are quickly going to get forced into unlawful and criminal activities which only adds to the cycle of misunderstanding. But then again if you have done nothing wrong why don't folks want you around in the first instance?

Despite working both against and with these people for the past year nearly now I still haven't formed an opinion on the subject.

English Riviera

I am imminently (next week) faced with the prospect of having to visit another local authority to see their computer software which are the same systems my employer has resolved it would be a good idea to get on account of getting extra funding and stuff from the government because of it.

However, this other authority happens to be based in Torquay which is really a long way to go to spend a few hours looking at computer software and suffice to say the journey there and back will take longer than the actual event itself. Now I don’t have an objection to the principle of this as having a nose round Torquay which I haven’t been to for years, but do remember being rather nice, could certainly be a bit of fun.

However the practicalities of the situation leave much to be desired. I am going with three other people, one guy who for family reasons has to get there and back in a day and two middle aged women who are going down together the preceding evening and staying overnight in a hotel (and appear to have unseemly designs on the local male populace of Torquay).

Suffice it to say I am not particularly amenable to either of these situations. I don’t feel like hanging around with a pair of middle aged ladies for five hours in a car and then spending the evening with them but suspect that if I want to stop overnight I will have this situation forced upon me. I don’t think I would be able to exercise any control over my accommodation or be able to satisfactorily avoid them.

However, neither do I relish the idea of having to get up at 5am, travel 5 hours down to Torquay by either train or car, spend 5 hours there and then travel 5 hours back, all in one day. However I am struggling to come up with an alternative.

What I would really like is to be able to head down to Torquay under my own steam the previous day, find myself a separate hotel of my choosing and spend the afternoon and evening having a nose round Torquay maybe visiting a few quiet local pubs, a wander along the beach front, trip to the local cinema and then maybe saunter back to the hotel for the night. Sounds quite nice seeing as I would be getting paid for it. However, I am struggling to work out how I can swing this situation given the limited time available to me.

Random Acts of Reality

I stumbled across this website (follow link before reading the rest of the post) in my continuing struggle and search for some form of 'code of best conduct' with regard to the work implications of my blog. The title is certainly eye catching and the content is also quite intersting. Bascially its a blog about a paramedic and the crazy things he gets up to whilst rescuing people.

Left me considering that were I to name by blog as some sort of extreme version of what I do. 'Regulating use of land and buildings and being mean to folks when it goes a bit wrong' I suppose would be the really boring version that's closest to the truth. Not very interesting, so how about 'making sure stuff doesn't go horribly, horribly wrong.' Still pretty flat. Hmm, my job seems so much less intrersting than this guys. How about 'paperwork, more paperwork, additional paperwork, still more paperwork, the paperwork continues, paperwork again, guess what more paperwork, perhaps this will end in a minute, no more paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, oh my god what the hell is the fuss all about.'

I have also, in an amendment to general approach, ceased using single word titles which was working out to be too restrictive I felt in dictating the content of posts. It looks punchy and makes me look clever in coming up with stuff that's very eridite unfortunately I am not as clever as I think I am to keep it up.

Circles

I have just got back from having a nice quiet drink with Andy, Caroline and Laura which was certainly very pleasant and the kind of thing I would like to do much more often. However, that I think is the sacrifice you have to make when living in a semi-rural area when everyone lives in different places. Means that only really big events gets people together and folks arrange the usual roll out of sleeping on whatever floor wherever which in itself can also present problems as most folks places are pretty small due to horrendous property prices. It was good guys, we have to sort out more stuff like that.

Meanwhile, I have continued to ponder the question of the profile and risk of my blog. I remain sensitive about certain folks finding out about it as detailed in Risk and am still building up the courage to get legal advice on it. Mainly as I don’t think I want to hear the answer.

As a solution, I thought at lunch time that in a similar way that Eliot, in one of my favourite TV programs, Scrubs gets referred to as blond-haired doctor that I could adopt a similar approach to folks in the blog. In practice I, along with Andy and Mark, am already doing this with hot kiwi girl, cute blond girl and the identical twin (amongst others in progress) whilst not actually knowing their real names which I think is really far too funny, especially as we work with these people and that this practice has been going on for literally months and months now.

However, after really very brief consideration concluded that this was never going to work for my blog as not everyone, and likely no one, would know who or what I was referring to. I also had concerns that other folks feelings may not be the same as mine and didn’t really want to upset slash offend anyone inadvertently with names they might not appreciate, but Groovelicker nevertheless gets a mention for posterity value.

This post also highlights problems I am having in coming up with stuff that will entertain both northern and southern friends that (I hope) read. I am trying to write for at least two totally different friend circles most of whom have never met each other or only have a loose familiarity, although this is something I am presently scheming to remedy. I worry that in trying to pitch the tone of the blog towards all, none are going to be interested.

Landfill

Last week I had cause to be out on a landfill site, so basically a large hole in the ground and lots of big trucks and diggers coming and a going.

At one point we had to attract the attention of the site foreman who at the time happened to be driving a big yellow digger, in the order of around three times my height, with a big shovel on the end. The guy was literally attacking the landscape with this thing with considerable success. Suffice to say I was a little nervous of approaching mainly due to concerns about being squashed. Thankfully I wasn’t and everything worked out nicely. I tell you though, heavy plant is a lot bigger and scarier up close, and this wasn’t even the big big stuff.

Hanging out on a landfill site and being forced into knowing all about it got me thinking though about how landfill really isn’t very satisfactory. Dig a big hole, fill it with rubbish, put a lid on to stop it getting out. Some nice soil on top and no-ones the wiser. Just doesn’t sit right. Its like emptying the contents of your vacuum onto your living room floor, putting a plastic sheet over it and a rug on top. You can’t see it but you know its there and at some point, for some reason, surely there's going to be a problem.

Risk

Folks may notice that there have been some changes to Nick101. The ‘about me’ bit on the top right has gone and certain sections of Employment and Deco have been withdrawn.

Basically I have removed almost all third party personally identifiable information such that if you don’t know who I am before reading you couldn’t work it out from the contents of this blog, which actually is almost the exact opposite of what I originally intended my blog to be.

Anyhow, there is a single reason for this change in approach - my job, and my paranoia about it. In the professional field that I am in and particularly my present specific discipline of enforcement, littered with legal action like a cheap retail park with McDonalds bags, it may be unwise to disclose anything at all on the off chance it is found by someone with an interest in it. Not to mention what my undisclosed, but we all know who it is, employer may think of it.

However my job is part of who I am and what I do and I cannot exclude it entirely. It can also lead to some certainly blogworthy posts...

So I have three options. One, make no reference to my job at all. Two, exclude all reference to anything specific and render it as unidentifiable as possible. Three, stop blogging. I have picked option two, hence the changes thus far. Other than that I think I am just going to wait and see how stuff pans out.

In conclusion this post is one which has very much arisen out of blogging in the first instance and situations thereof as opposed to general life stuff which is often eluded to by Bng in his comments and greater experience of blogging. I sometimes feel that a Nick102 is required in order to provide explanation and justification for posts in Nick101 especially as I don’t want Nick101 to turn solely into a blog entirely about blogging.

Drained

This week has virtually killed me, I can’t think of a week where I have had so few spare moments for a long time. I feel like somebody loaded me into a cannon on Sunday night while I was sleeping and launched me at an undignified velocity towards the end of the week on Monday morning giving me little chance for anything more than a cursory wave at days as they flew past. I will just have to hope that the person who loaded me into the cannon on Sunday night has been putting plenty of comfy padding down for Saturday morning and hasn’t been constructing a large metaphorical wall for me to fly into.

I have spent a lot of time trying to fill out the application forms for Reading Borough Council but I couldn't muster the energy to come up with anything decent to support the 'person spec'. However, big thanks to Kate and Mark for helping out a lot at the last minute.

Stuff

Here is a list of all the stuff I want but can’t afford (in no particular order) (but may nevertheless buy anyway):

Flashy digital camera
Jazzy mobile phone
Touch screen multi device remote control
Big TFT monitor
Car (some sort of coupe)
Another pair of white trainers (cos the ones I’ve got are getting a bit mucky)
Big double bed
Sofa (one of the ones that goes round corners)
PDA
Laptop
PSP
X-Box 360
Wireless micro surround sound system
Watch
New suit
Set of good non-stick pans
Suede leather bean bag
Poncy imported beers

Here is a list of all the stuff I want but daren’t get because people will laugh at me slash be mean to me:

A clapper (clap hands and switches stuff on and off) (not disease) (pre-empting inevitable comments arising out of next item)
Strippers
Bumfights volume three

Here is a list of all the stuff I should really be spending my money on:

Savings account
Environmentally friendly and fair trade products
A nice house like Kate’s

Read Cat & Girl's sage counsel on such matters.

Employment

At the moment I am bored with my job, I can’t get anything done because [withdrawn] and I end up taking the flack, for which I get zero credit. So I am leaving. However, first I have to find somewhere to go. Here are the details of the stuff I am applying for and have applied for in chronological order and brief commentary on my feelings about them.

Rushmoor Borough Council - Senior Planner: Based in Farnborough, very small authority covering just Farnborough and Aldershot with an airstrip in the middle. Professional outfit, smartest local authority I’ve ever had an interview with. Didn’t get offered the job, not too bothered, probably wouldn’t have taken it even if they had, couldn‘t offer me anything I haven‘t seen or done before. Also met my competition at the interview and they were decent guys and certainly very good competition so I have no hard feelings about it. Good interview experience.

Reading Borough Council - Senior Planner: Applied, they didn’t even offer me an interview. Bit odd that, I thought, given the massive of shortage of planners in the south east of England and that I fitted their spec spot on.

Aylesbury Vale District Council - Senior Planner: Local sideways move, not a big change. Initially really excited about, now not so sure as I would probably end up having to live in Aylesbury for financial and commuterish reasons which is well, unacceptable. There are a lot of crap towns in the south east of England but Aylesbury is a god awful steaming chav hole of the first order that I know far too well to be able to move there. Also it’s a sideways move and probably not much more money. Haven’t returned application forms yet but probably will.

Reading Borough Council - Head of Enforcement: By a wide margin, the most mental job I am considering applying for on two accounts. One, enforcement is crazy, god knows why I would want to be in charge of the crazy and have management responsibilities. Two, they didn’t want to talk to me as a Senior Planner so why the hell are they going to want to make me Head of Enforcement. Then again most folks don’t want to do enforcement and they had to re-advertise the job so puts me in a stronger position. Sending application off this week.

West Berkshire Borough Council - Principal Planner: Looks like a good move, no management responsibility but high profile work. Based in Newbury and outside my comfort zone but it’s a just about acceptable commute along the A4 from Reading which is within my comfort zone so possibly a runner. Have asked for details.

[withdrawn] - Principal Planner: No firm details on this as of yet but looks interesting. Pay looks good, would need to be if I have to relocate that way.

Wycombe District Council - undisclosed position: My ex-boss [withrawn] has indicated that a reshuffle may open up a position with his new employer.

Making a decision is all the harder on the basis that my present flat is linked to my job but also happens to be rather nice, really cheap, in a decent area and a five minute commute from work which really offsets a lot of the objections I can have about work.

Deco

[withdrawn] around High and Over which is Britain's earliest example of modernist architecture and in my opinion it is really rather cool. Check out the pictures.

It is the daddy of cluster of smaller but similarly styled buildings known as the sun houses and originally they all formed a small hamlet of arcitectural brutalism before an estate of rather unsympahetic houses vandalised the place in the 1960s (First and Second Sun Houses pictured below).

The Third Sun house (below) came up for rent earlier this year and me and Mark briefly considered moving in before concluding that even with combined rental payments, clearly could not afford to do so. However it did allow me the opportunity to have a nose around which was a bit of fun.

These were all built in the 1920s before the rest of Amersham somewhat unceremoniously engulfed them. Can you imagine what the residents of 1920s Amersham must have thought of these when they were built? Bit like Metropolis landing in your back yard.

Disclosure

Up until now my blog was supposed to have been operating in very much in a closed theatre. I didn’t originally intend for anyone to find out prior to this post however for various reasons it has been operating with a very limited readership all of whom seem to have generally appreciated the content which has certainly encouraged me to work on it and indeed affected how it has panned out thus far.

Of course, the one who deserves the most credit I think is Dave who caught me just four hours after my first post as documented in Busted (don’t mess with the IT masters).

So to everyone who has now found out about my blog, welcome. I hope you will come back, read more, leave comments, start your own blog even or maybe never come back, it’s up to you.

Broadbanded

I am broadbanded. Now I can beam the rest of the known universe into my little flat.

This should make posting much easier than my previous method which basically comprised writing stuff at home and burning them onto cd before uploading them from work. Possibly a slightly wasteful use of blank cds but the blog has only been running for a week and a bit.

House

My friend Kate has bought a house in High Wycombe (photo pending) and my biggest congratulations to her for it.

I would love to say that it is a dream home and the sort of place that you could move into and happily retire in. However, I can’t, because its not. Sorry.

What I can say with a good degree of confidence is that she has picked up a smart little house, with great proportions, a fantastic deck and secluded garden out back, all with amazing potential and in one of the most expensive areas in the country, by herself. I don’t actually know anybody else who has done that and I think that deserves recognition. At the moment it isn’t much to look at but it has stacks of potential and I know that Kate will make a great job of it and turn it into a wonderful home. Good luck Kate.

Meanwhile I keep thinking more and more about how cool The Quarters in High Wycombe looks and how I could quite easily picture myself in a flat there and, well, in actual fact have done so. Those marketing folks are earning their fee on that one.

Setting aside that I couldn’t even afford a tiny one bed flat in the cheapest block shoved up right next to the A40, it just wouldn’t be a rational purchase. Something like Kate’s ‘bit rough round the edges but will scrub up well’ would be much more sensible. Not that I am thinking of buying for the time being mind. I don’t have the level of commitment to anywhere at the moment to dare, affordability notwithstanding.

Sealand

I first found out about The Principality of Sealand watching Dave Gorman's less famous mate Danny Wallace on his mildly entertaining program How to Start Your Own Country. However I couldn’t help but feel that Sealand, comprising no more than two concrete pillars and a somewhat ramshackle iron platform known as Roughs Tower off the coast of Essex, was actually more interesting than the program on which it briefly featured on account of its somewhat bizarre history of grand events taking place on a very small scale.

What’s most interesting is that it now appears to have its own specialist industry in the field of morally dubious high security data hosting, care of Haven Co. The country may be legal and beyond reproach under international law notwithstanding that it remains unrecognised by any other nation. But then again Taiwan is not officially recognised by any nation either and there’s no ignoring it particularly given the brand new tallest tower in the world in the nations capital, the appropriately titled Taipei 101.

Razor

The electric razor I have had since my parents kindly bought it for me when I was sixteenish is broken. The foil covering the cutting bit got bent somehow and now it gauges small cuts in my face when I shave. It is so small its barely visible so it took me a while to realise what the mild slashing sensation I was having whilst shaving was being caused by.

I have since ceased using it so by default have ended up growing stubble. It would be kind of manly were it not for the fact that I still cannot grow a proper beard as it just turns out patchy. I am concerned that it is going to end up growing into some blond, fluffy, experimentalish, student style thing so I think I need to get a new razor before the style police come knocking on my door.

Problem with this is that I want to take my time about any new razor purchase and make sure I get a decent one. A nose round the shops hasn’t got me very far and the shaving industry does not appear to have moved into the twenty-first century along with the remainder of the western world and I am struggling to find much information on the internet. Heaven forbid I am going to have to buy a copy of ‘Bench Pressing your own Weight Monthly’ or other similar publication for a list of reviews.

Ultimately I fear I will end up with an item wrong and rushed whilst in the interim folks is thinking I am either a gay bus driver or an inbred from the deep south of America (cos they is the only folks that have fluffy, blond facial hair).

Busted

Notwithstanding my second post and initial intentions of keeping my blog quiet to start with I have been rumbled by Dave. I am not too sure how he found me but I feel relatively confident in saying he didn’t just happen to Google my name on the very same day I started blogging (which incidentally wouldn’t have worked anyway).

I know Dave and Bng use monitoring software and keep an eye on who visits their sites but my visiting Dave’s site to acquire the address to link to, or otherwise, would not have been an unusual event. I suspect my downfall was linking my blog to his site but don’t know quite how that works. Then again I am still struggling to get the text in this blog to justify correctly without much success.

In fairness, this is the kind of thing I really should have expected from at least one of those two. In retrospect I think I am relatively confident in saying that the only reason I haven’t heard from Bng is because he is on holiday at the moment.

But, whatever, it is neither here nor there. I am still intending on having a grand unveiling probably at the beginning of next week. Well, I say grand, basically thought I’d do a post on westbrook forum and maybe email a couple of folks; so about as much pomp and fanfare as a ‘FW: FW: more girls in lewd poses (not safe for work).’

Wedding

My friend Laura got married to Chris on Saturday 3 September and I had the honour of attending the wedding day in Maldon, Essex. The whole event was absolutely fantastic and my congratulations to Laura and Chris. I wish you all the best together.

The event left me totally emotionally and physically exhausted and it actually took me a couple of days to recover. But it was well worth it.

Aside from the wedding ceremony itself one highlight was having a two year old girl latch on to me during the ceremony and getting a massive honest hug from her half way through. Why as adults can we not still do stuff like that? Kate and Mark nevertheless insisted on laughing at me for the whole ‘Nick’s looking after a two year old’ situation on account of me not really being equipped to deal with it. Its true, me and young kids generally get along about as well as bed time milk and napalm. However I thought I did reasonably well in this case, her Dad even bought me a beer at the evening reception so I can’t have done that badly. First time a girl has hugged me and her Dad then bought me a beer.

The whole event was excellent and I believe thoroughly enjoyed by all. Even the four mile stumble back to the hotel along a remote country lane in the pitch dark I will remember with some fondness.

Also I think I should say sorry to the waitress in a pub in Chelmsford who I was totally pissy to on the following Sunday lunch when my food didn’t come fast enough and then didn’t have any mayonnaise. Yeah, sorry I was hungry and tired.

Excitement

My first post has been up for about an hour and I am already excessively excited about the blog and totally can't focus on anything else or get any work done. I am already dying to tell everyone about it and my friend Mark keeps coming over and catching me fixing about with it.

However I have resolved not to tell anyone about it for the time being for two reasons. One, to make sure my interest in it can withstand over a period of time. Two, so when I do tell folks about it there is actually some content to read. At the moment though I am still nevertheless dying to tell somebody but think I am going to have to try to control myself.

Nick101

Well the first post was always going to be difficult as it is the introduction, the starting bit. Anyhow I have spent a long time debating the name of my blog with varying schools of thought on how to approach it.

However, I settled on Nick101 for several reasons. Firstly my name is Nick so it seemed an obvious and simple choice. Not any kind of reference to any habit of taking other folks stuff without them agreeing to it I assure you.

The 101 reference comes from general school class and/or university modules where 101 is the module that you start at. Basically the bit where, when you start you have absolutely no idea what it is all about, who anyone is and what is going on and by the end of it you have a very vague idea about it but really all you have hopefully gained is an impression of really quite how little you actually know.

Bit like life really. This blog is the way I see it.