Nothing

I didn't head to the library today. My local one was closed and I didn't fancy the walk to the centre of Harrow. Needless to say, my mother's endless requests prevented me from doing any writing whatsoever. Perhaps tomorrow will be better. I think this is my shortest ever post.

Day 2

Today I’m in Rayners lane library, finishing off my blog entries. Let’s put it this way, I now long for the halcyon, relatively noise free, day at Gayton Library. There are far more problems with Rayners lane Library. First, down to an incredibly bad bit of planning half of what used to be the study area is now designated as a children’s library. There may be a flimsy wall and doors between us, but I could still hear them shrieking and whooping. Not the kids fault, but bloody annoying all the same. Then there’s been someone who decided to have a long conversation about the poor mark she got on her essay that she didn’t feel she deserved. Quite frankly, I think she did deserve it if only because she talks loudly to people on her mobile phone in libraries. After all, when I got a call (from the agency, offering me interviews at jobs that had a sales aspect. When will they learn? That said, I’d rather they mentioned things to me than not). Then there’s the scary Asian guy, who picked up a newspaper, and, unbelievably loudly turned, no flung, each page open as if he was trying to cause maximum annoyance. This was clearly part of his two pronged aural assault because he combined it with the sort of heavy breathing that would put Darth Vader to shame (two Darth mentions in as many post. I’m a hack). Of course, the thing I found most disturbing about him was the fact that he spent a good few minutes, as he started reading the paper; he sat in his seat, rocking his upper body back and forth in the manner of a complete loon. Libraries are truly scary places. I’ll give Gayton one more go tomorrow (Rayners Lane’s closed on Wednesdays), but I’m starting to think this whole library thing might not work out as well as I could have hoped. I definitely, so far, prefer Gayton. For one it’s simply a nicer environment. Secondly they don’t mind you having a drink whilst you work. In fact, given the presence of a hot drinks station they clearly encourage it. Rayners Lane, backwards thinking as ever, have signs across the library that completely forbid food and/or drink.

Plus, whilst I have been writing, I still haven’t actually properly started my screenplay. I think that maybe I don’t enjoy having to tediously set up the formatting etc. Maybe I’ll give all that a go when I get home. Anyway, that’s where I have to head right now because my battery is once more, about to die. There are plug sockets by the desk at Gayton, so I should be able to use it off the mains. Failing that I’ll probably borrow my sister’s battery (she has the same laptop, so it should work). I should really get myself a spare battery for just this sort of occasion. Perhaps once one crops up on eBay that I can actually afford and finishes at a time when I can actually be at my computer for the close of the auction, and not finished at 10.44pm on Friday night when any sane person is bound to be out down the pub.

Unemployed again. Occupationally, but hopefully not cerebrally.

Right now I’m sitting in Gayton Library attempting to write. It’s not exactly going well owing to the fact that some people are so bloody inconsiderate. First a mother let her children loose on the study area where they decided that it would be a great idea to play games, the sister occasionally yelling “Jump” to ensure that her younger brother took the correct course of action. They left, but were replaced by a slightly more annoying girl who decided that it would be a great idea to carry on with a phone conversation in what I think must be Polish. So far my wonderful experiment of trying to get some aggravation free time to write during the day in the library isn’t going all that well.

Ah good. They’ve all fucked off. Now maybe I’ll get a bit of peace.

Of course, you may ask, what am I doing in a library in the middle of the working day? Unfortunately my temping job at the school in Heston finally came to an end. I had hoped that it would last another three weeks (which it would have done had the girl who was returning to the position after maternity leave managed to get the Head’s PA position for which she had applied), but then I hadn’t expected it to last quite as long as it did, so I at least have to be thankful for the work I’ve managed to get.

It’s actually been the most pleasant experience of work that I’ve ever had. Sure the work was pretty dull, tedious and, forgive me for sounding a touch self important, a little beneath me.

(FFS the kids are back and now they’re banging on a computer’s keyboard for, seemingly, no reason. You’d think that their mother would exert some sort of control over them. Could she not, at least, exhibit some kind of consideration for the other users of the study area who, just like me, probably just want to have a little peace and quiet? Now the boy is providing a commentary to his inane computer game antics. This is seriously annoying. )

Where was I? Ah yes, work. Yes, the job itself may not have been particularly intellectually taxing (it was actually fairly mindless, save for my brief stints on reception which were merely terrifying) and the journey, which sometimes lasted as much as 1hour and 15minutes, was a hellish odyssey though a slow crawl through heavy traffic, but the school itself was a really nice place to be. It took me a couple of weeks to get relaxed. After all I’d been used to working in an environment where people were constantly looking over my shoulder, waiting for me to make a mistake for which I could be gratuitously chastised. Did there people not realises that, by putting me under so much more pressure than was absolutely necessary, they were making my life far more difficult and setting me up to fail. Do they not realise that the very act of observing someone changes their behaviour? Idiots. Bu the school was nothing like this. Everybody just let you get on with things, and if you did cock up, your failure was met only with a laugh, a smile and comment along the lines of, “Oh well, not to worry.” Under those kind of circumstances do you think I ever made the same mistake twice? Of course not. Not like in the gulag that was my last work place. Working at that place was only one step removed from working for the evil empire in star wars. I probably wasn’t far off having Darth Vader force choke me for my minor slip ups.

It’s nice to finally have a nice experience of work. I was beginning to think that jobs were simply meant to be unpleasant and torturous. This has at least restored my faith in work and human nature a little. The kids are still little shits though. I like working in a school, but I’m not altogether sure about teaching at the moment. I’m not exactly certain that I’m confident enough to stand up in front of a class of children, all of whom are just waiting to pounce on me should I show the slightest weakness. Actually, put like that it sounds a little like my last job, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be that bad. Still, if I can make it in to the course through clearing I’ll definitely go. It’ll allow me to add another string to my bow and give me a steady, guaranteed income for the 9 months of training. Plus, should I move away, I’ll have some peace and quiet for writing. On that subject, I’m also considering a journalism course, but since that’ll actually cost money, I’m not so sure about it. I know that, ultimately, I’d love to be a writer, but I’m not entirely sure, at this point, that journalism is the right route to take. Still, at lest not having a job at the moment is giving me time to decide. Having a little time to write also helps.

Well, my battery is showing that I only have about 10 minutes left (though it’s frequently wrong. At 0% I often manage to get another 15-20 minutes and today I’ll probably eek a little more time out of it owing to the fact that I’ve switched off my Wi-Fi), so it’s almost time to pack up and go.

Has working at the library been a good idea? Will I manage to finish the first draft of my film if I keep working here over the next few weeks (or for however long it is that I remain unemployed)? Well, firstly I’m probably going to give Rayners Lane library a try tomorrow. Rayners Lane is certainly closer (I only walked here today because I had to pay in a cheque and Harrow has my closest HSBC Bank) and I’m hoping it’ll be a fair bit quieter too (though I’m actually getting used to the small children’s constant chatter that seems to be rapidly turning in to an argument). I’m certainly going to have to get used to typing again too since the fingers on my left hand are now starting to really ache. Could I cope with this for the whole day? Actually it wouldn’t be so bad. At Rayners Lane I could certainly do a morning stint, head home to recharge (my laptop with electricity and me with lunch) and then come back in the afternoon to continue working for a couple of hours. Actually that doesn’t sound so bad. Plus I won’t have to worry about an alarm clock since my agency seems intent on calling me a little after 8.30 every morning so as to as me inane questions like, as they did this morning, “Are you still available for work?”. Of course I bloody well am. What kind of a stupid question is that? And why did it need to be asked at 8.34am?

So, in conclusion, coming to the library to write is definitely a good idea. I’ll actually get a sense of achievement from having actually, ahem, achieved something worthwhile. Plus it’ll get me out of the house for much of the day and thus prevent me from incurring large does of moaning from Mum. Finally it’ll keep me in the habit of working (even if it’s for no money), which can only be a good thing. Oh, and if I do decide to occasionally come to Gayton Library it’ll provide me with the exercise I so clearly need. It would be nice to be a touch more svelte. At least then I’d feel better, look better, and feel like I had a touch more to offer to any prospective girlfriend/casual shag.

I’ve just noticed that the mother actually left her two annoying brats up here alone whilst she left the library. That’s terribly irresponsible behaviour. Then again it’s probably to be expected from .someone who clearly lacks any kind of consideration/

Ok, let’s see how this lasts for, but I’m going to give this routine a go.

1. Wake up at around 9.30-10am. Exercise (weights and sit-ups) and have breakfast.

2. Head to the library and write until my battery runs out (or until I get hungry if I’m actually allowed to plug my laptop in).

3. Go back for lunch and recharge my battery (If necessary).

4. Head back to the library until it’s time to go home for dinner.

5. Do some miles on my exercise bike whilst watching a Film/TV show in my laptop. I’m really glad I bought a laptop now. Worth every penny.

Well, at least I can give it a go for the week and see if it works out. Maybe at the end of it I’ll have a finished screenplay and a healthy body. Worst case scenario I’ll feel a little healthier through walking and I’ll have got away from mum for the day.

Right. 1% battery life. Time to go. Shame, I actually wanted to stay longer. I think this working at the library thing may actually work out. Now for the long walk back home.

Still Busy

I had a bit of a hectic weekend. An early start on Saturday (12pm is early for a Saturday) was necessitated by my participation in a Clapham based treasure hunt. I’d hoped we were going to be able to make up a team of four, but as things turned out, only myself and my friend who’d told me about it, were able to make it. I was actually a little shocked that nobody else wanted to come. Firstly it was, at least, something different to do. It wouldn’t simply be a night out at the pub. Secondly it looked like fun. And it was. Sure we got rained on a few times and yes, we only managed to come 17^th out of 21 teams (I think a lack of local knowledge played a part. Now that we’ve walked most of the way around Clapham I’m sure we’ll do better next year) but it was al still a lot of fun. In many ways, walking around and solving clues kind of made it feel like a Graphic Adventure from days of yore (sorry, geeky comment I know). After the first question I actually thought that we’d do an awful lot worse than we did, especially since we’d managed to completely fail to follow the predetermined route. In our defence we thought it logical to answer question no. 1 first and didn’t really notice that there was a red route marked on the map. Actually we had a fairly good stab at answering the first question, considering the fact that half of it was missing. The question had consisted of a clue and an equation that needed to be solved to work out where to go to get the answer. Unfortunately part of the equation was missing so that it didn’t actually look like an equation at all. And that’s why we managed to waste 20 minutes walking up and down a street desperately trying to work out the answer to a question that we could, as it turned out, only answer through blind luck. At least it turned out that we weren’t as big a pair of idiots as we initially thought.

Oh, and I also managed to properly meet the girl my friend is currently seeing. She was actually one of the organisers though he didn’t tell me who she was until after we’d left her company. I managed to properly meet her at the drinks at The Microbar afterwards. She seemed really nice. I finally got home a little before 12am and went to bed, absolutely knackered. But I wasn’t going to be able to rest for long. The next day I was off to see, amongst others, Kaiser Chiefs at the O2 Wireless festival in Hyde Park.

I woke up the next day, still tired from the events of the day before. Luckily I’d had the foresight to download a copy of the previous nights Dr Who just before I went to bed. Since I wasn’t meeting up until 3pm I’d have plenty of time to watch it whilst I ate breakfast. Of course, no matter how much time I have I always end up rushing to get ready, and that morning was no exception. Despite my customary unpreparedness I still managed to make it to Marble Arch Station (TFL, in their infinite wisdom, had decided to close the whole Piccadilly line, including Hyde Park Station, for the weekend) more or less on time. That’s more than could be said for my friend, who kept me waiting another 15 minutes. Ah well, I can’t complain, it was because of him that we’d managed to get half price tickets, £23 instead of £46. Besides, I had to get some cash out. Central London is full of cash machines, but is one within five minutes walking distance of Marble Arch Station. After buying a couple of 500ml bottles of Coke at Superdrug (2 for £1.40 instead of 95p each. I couldn’t resist) I gave up my search for an ATM and waited for my friend. It turned out that he was in need of cash, so we both set off on our quest for a cash machine. I really can’t believe that there aren’t any within a 10 or 15 minute walk of the park. Unbelievable. Eventually we found and HSBC bank. I’d initially assumed that it was some sort of heat induced hallucination. No way could we have finally found somewhere to get cash. As it turned out, we hadn’t. The bank was bereft of an external cash machine. Our quest continued. Finally we found some sort of Arabic bank. Wary that they might charge some sort of fee for cash withdrawals we ended up taking a trip across and a bit up the road to the Natwest. At last we had our money. Walking back, my friend noticed something odd. All of the newsstands sold only foreign papers, not a News of the world or a Sunday Times on view anywhere. Very strange. Perhaps we’d stepped through a portal and into some strange foreign land with no ATMs. Perhaps we’d stepped through another to make it back to our country, resplendent in all its bank-having glory. Or maybe not. Maybe that’s just nonsense. There’s no such think as a trans-continental portal. Still, I have a friend who has a theory about Ikea. My friend thinks that there is, in fact, only one Ikea in existence. All the other sites are simply gateways, or portals that teleport you to the solitary store. It would certainly explain why there are some many people speaking in foreign languages inside each store.

Anyway, I digress. After we’d got our money we headed off to meet my friend’s friend, who actually had the tickets. As it turned out, the tickets were stored as a sort of barcodey thing MMS message on my friend’s friend’s phone. It wasn’t actually a barcode, more a sort of 1cm square thing with a randomly pixelated pattern on it. Scanners read the pattern and allowed us to gain entry to the event. Quite cool, and quite high tech, but I do miss not having a printed ticket stub as a memento of the day.

We walked inside the walled area that played host to the festival and immediately saw two things. Firstly, a beer tent that sold, quite moderately priced Tuborg beer, something I hadn’t had since my trip to Copenhagen a few years ago. For £3 a pint, I expected it to be terribly watered down, but it was actually quite tasty. This, I thought, was a good omen. The second think we saw was an array of cash machines. Shit. Sure they would have charged us an extortionate amount to get at our money, but it would have saved our odyssey across the bank free wilderness of Hyde Park’s surrounding streets. Anyway, after joining up with another friend and his girlfriend, we got some beer and extortionately priced food (there had to be a catch and £6 for a burger was it. I actually went for the less wallet busting £3 spicy potato wedges with all the ketchup I could fit in my plastic tray. I went a little bit crazy with the condiments, but when don’t I) we found a place to sit. An orange jumpsuit wearing Japanese band were leaping about excitedly on stage. Not bad, but possibly a bit too manic for the first act. Of course they weren’t the first act. The day was, after all, already four hours old by the time we got in. Anyway, the orange jump-suited guys were followed by Mumm-Ra (Named, I assume, after the bad guy in Thunder cats), a band who’s songs I heard a little on XFM. Not bad, but not all that memorable. Unlike Pigeon Detectives, who were absolutely brilliant. As soon at the Mumm-Ra set ended there was a mass exodus from the main stage to the XFM tent where they were playing. Demand to see the ‘Detectives (or maybe the Pigeons) was so high that they had to turn people away from the tent. They played a great set and put on a good performance. They really seemed to be communicating with the crowd. There was even time for a bit of a sing-along. Throughout the 35minutes they were on stage they consistently proved that they were a band to watch out for. After they finished it was time for the last two acts, Editors and Kaiser Chiefs.

If I’d have written a review of Kaiser Chief’s latest single, “Everything is average nowadays” it would have simply read “Q.E.D”. That’s until I saw them perform at the wireless festival where they flagrantly failed to make their own point. They were, in fact, nothing short of spectacular. The animated antics of Ricky Wilson were in total contract to Editors who were about as interesting to look at as five static blokes playing instruments. That’s not to say that they didn’t playa good set, they just didn’t look entirely comfortable on such a large stage. Of course I did spend an awful lot of my time looking at my friend, who’d come along with his new special lady. That sound, in some way, twisted, but I can assure you that it wasn’t. I was mesmerised only by my friend who, throughout pretty much every song, simply stood, peering up at the stage as if straining to see what was happening but couldn’t quite make out what all the fuss was about. Obviously this kind of behaviour induced my other friend and me to hurl empty beer cups at him. I scored a direct, albeit only to his back, whilst my friend managed hit him with a cunningly crafted (or exceedingly lucky) ricochet shot which bounced of the ginger noggin of an innocent bystander and caught my friend on the back of his head. He did at least become slightly more lively during the ‘ Chiefs (chief’s performance of “I predict a riot though I suspect that his limited bouncing was more as a result of trying to remain upright when faced with the problem of a near riotously jubilant crowd who clearly had no time whatsoever for inactive bystanders.

I like festivals and gigs because everyone’s so friendly. I did get a little upset, however, when somebody said that I didn’t look very Rock and Roll. I was, initially a little perturbed, I almost let it ruin my weekend (I tend to dwell on irrelevant details and minor critiques on my character and appearance, perhaps because I’m actually a touch self obsessed and narcissistic as well as being, conversely, quite insecure.), but then I thought of Hunter S. Thompson. He didn’t exactly look Rock and Roll, did he? Take the image we get of him from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” He most certainly doesn't look cool. Basically, he looks like what he is, a writer. Despite all the though, he was, without a doubt, Rock and Roll. Perhaps even more so because he didn’t conform to any self-consciously cool image. He was who he was. The guy got his remains shot out of a cannon by Johnny Depp for fuck’s sake. If that’s not Rock and fucking Roll I don’t know what is.

Anyway, it was a great weekend, but I was unbelievably knackered at the end of it. Shame, since I had to go to work the next day. Let me put it this way, it was not an easy week, and the quiet weekend in that followed was extremely welcome.

Busy

I seem to have neglected my blog over the last month. Sorry to anybody who was hoping for some more regular updates. The irony is, that any time my life gets busy and I therefore have something to write about, I simply don't have the time to blog. I think this may be the first time over about the last 3 weeks that I haven't had my day filled from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. Firstly there was the whole thing about redecorating my room. Initially, the idea was to replace my carpet with real oak flooring. It was on special offer at Wickes and since it was almost 1/4 of the usual price it was too tempting to miss. Especially considering how worn my carpet is, especially right by my desk. Of course, doing my flooring meant that all my things had to be moved out of my room, and, given how much stuff I have, that was something of a Herculean task. The idea was that I could move my desk and TV into the spare room and, temporarily, use that as my bedroom. Things didn't exactly work out unfortunately. My desk and TV fit in the spare room just fine, but when it came to actually sleeping on the bed... Lets just say that as soon as I lay down on the bed I sunk in to it. There was absolutely no way that I could sleep in (and I really do mean "in") such a knackered bed. So, I had to continue to sleep in my room. My room with nothing in it but a bed. So, every night, I had to bring in a little bedside table with enough room for a lamp, an alarm clock and a place to put my laptop at night (I was using it to watch downloaded video file before going to sleep). Of course, being me, I had to have a TV in there too, so out came the little 14" TV on a little wheeled table. Then, the following morning, everything had to be moved out again (bed excluded) to make way for the decorating. Oh, and before any floor could be laid, it was decided that the wallpaper on the ceiling (that just sounds odd) had to be stripped, have the cracks filled in, sanded and then repainted. Of course I was the one who had to start the work on my own, because certain other parties who had promised to help, didn't want to work on a Sunday. Anyway, it finally looked like we were in a position to lay the floor there were murmurings about replacing the wallpaper too. Those murmurings quickly turned to screams when, completely by accident, my mum managed to rip off part of the existing wallpaper. All of this meant that I was without a proper room for a little over 2 weeks. A little over a week after that I've only just finished moving my stuff (most of it anyway) back in to my room. Of course then came all the extra superfluous little touches that somehow became essential to the completion of my room. New curtains (the blue ones were too dark. Apparently) new sheets (to match the curtains) and a few new storage units; essential because apparently I was no longer allowed to have any fixed shelves on the wall. This, as you can imagine, drove me mad. I spend most of my time in my room. It's my place, the only place in the house where I can be semi-insulated from all the other crap that's gong on around me. Of course it's not really my room now. Sure, I wanted a new floor, but my space is now decorated with wallpaper I didn't choose, curtains I didn't need and a complete lack of anything (DVDs and CDs aside) that really has anything to do with me. I can't even put up my Mallrats poster; ironically, because of the new picture rail it there isn't enough vertical space for it. Still, at least the door shuts (now that the door's back on) and I can, to a certain extent, keep everything else outside.

Of course, everything was exacerbated by what happened next. A few days in to my rooms refurbishment, just when I'd gone past the point of no return, I got a call from my agency. They had a temp job for me in Heston. Usually I'd have just told them that it was too far away and that I wasn't interested. However, this job required me to work in a school reception. Since, a the time, I was looking at doing a PGCE course (I won't be, on a purely logistical basis. At least not this year. 3 out of 4 university's have thus far turned me down. It looks like they were all filled up a few months ago.), so some experience working in a school would have been invaluable. So, within the first week I'd pretty much decided that I didn't want to be a teacher. Maybe it's just that the kids at that school are little shits, but there's no way that I'd want to spend my days with a bunch of ill mannered, semi-literates. Maybe I just had this completely unrealistic Dead Poets Society/Public school image of teaching (I'm not sure why. I didn't go to public school and I've never watched Dead Poets Society). Even the good kids are rude little bastards. Nope, teaching is not for me. Well, maybe I could have stomached it if I were a university lecturer, but we all know that's not a possibility.

So, at the end of the day, all I'm left with is a crappy, dull admin job that pays badly and finishes at the end of July. Of course, what I wasn't told was that my services wouldn't be required for the whole of the half term week, which is why I find myself, once more temporarily on Holiday. Yep, a weeks holiday was exactly what I needed right now.

Actually, that's sort of true-ish. Last week was particularly stressful, since I had an interview with a publishing company on Thursday. It looks like a great company and a cool place to work (they're the company that publish Record Collector. No the best music magazine around, but still...), but the job itself was just more boring Admin/Customer service stuff. Not all that different to my last job really, except the pays better and the hours were even worse, being as they were, from 8.30am until 6pm. Anyway, they seemed to really want someone who really wanted to be in the role for years to come, and that's certainly not me. Seriously, did they ever think that someone like me would be interested in staying in something that was obviously so dead end? There's no point whatsoever in me taking a job that provides no prospects of advancement. Still, they said they'd let me know some time this week or next, but to be honest I hope I don't get it. I'd be far too tempted to take the job, only to find myself in a years time, right back where I was when I quit my last crappy job. A bad move then. Shame though. i was really hoping I could use it as some sort if stepping stone into professional writing. It looks like, from what I was told at the interview by the companies MD and by my agency at a prep session the day before, that was never a possibility. Still, it's made me think that doing a journalism course might be a good idea. I'd certainly find it to be a far more rewarding career than anything I've done to date, even if the pay's meant to be crap. I could jut do with a job that doesn't make me fear the alarm clock every morning, regardless of remuneration. Besides, I think it's something that I might actually be good at; which, as far as jobs are concerned, has to be something of a novelty. They main problem is the cost. Where as with teaching I'd have been paid to do the course, with journalism I'd have to use a fair chunk of my savings (about 10%) just to pay the fees. Still, I guess it would be a worthwhile investment in my future (provide that things work out of course). Otherwise I've just got a lifetime of crappy admin roles to look forward to. Having spent two weeks doing filing and data entry I don't think I'd be able to manage a particularly long lifespan if all I had to look forward to was admin. And it's only fear that it would go nowhere that stopped me before. Ironically my inaction has led me down the path I feared anyway. Maybe some research in to courses is in order.

Oh, and today i was supposed to have a telephone interview for yet another job that sounded like it would be a nightmare. Some admin, inputting data into spreadsheets and a little bit of accounting stuff. Really not me. I got a call today that 8.30 this morning from my agency to tell me that the interview had been cancelled since they'd offered the job to someone on Friday. Maybe that's not a good portent for my future with this agency. Are they clued up to my total hopelessness when it come to jobs already?

Not good

It's been a while hasn't it? Well, what to say. Things were looking up recently. I sent off my application for teaching courses, got my reference from my former screenwriting lecturer (albeit 2 weeks after it was requested due to the fact that I asked for it whilst the University was closed down for the holidays). I've had some great nights out, the highlights being drinks with an old university friend who'd been abroad for years, and a great party in Islington.

I even had a good experience at a recruitment agency today. Bizarrely they seemed like nice, friendly people. Even more bizarrely they were actually quite impressed with me. They actually felt that they might have a job for me, albeit one that's not all that well paying. Still, it's £1.5K better than my last best paid job.

But all of that means noting, because I heard today that I didn't get in to my first choice of university, Reading. This means that I probably suck extremely badly and I suspect that I won;'t get in to the others either. I'm not sure it actually matters because Reading was the only uni to guarantee places in halls for PGCE students. It was also the only one I had any special desire to go to. So, basically I'm fucked once again.

Once more, I have proof that I'm destined for... well... nothing.

God, did I ever really see myself as a teacher? I'm not sure. I was beginning to waver over the last few days. Perhaps it was just nerves. Perhaps I thought that maybe I didn't have what it takes to be a teacher? Regardless, I definitely wanted to do the course. Mostly I definitely wanted to go to Reading. Was it because my application was bad? perhaps it was my degree result? Perhaps my old lecturer gave me a bad reference. Maybe it was because I didn't do a degree in English? I can see that doing a degree in history was the worst mistake I ever made. It's clearly going to cause me trouble for the rest of my life. But what the hell can I do about it now? I'm fucked. I'm really, really fucked.

Everyone else I know is doing so much better than me, and the way things are going, they always will. Am I ever going to get anywhere? Do I have a hope in hell when nobody seems willing to give me a chance.

God, how bad would I have felt if I'd had a shitty day at the recruitment consultants too? I expect I'd have been suicidal. At the very least I'm sure I'd have been contemplating a vigorous bout of self harm.

I should have known. Nothing ever goes well for me for long. It all goes shit in the end. Now I just have to wait for the rest of the rejections to come in.

What the fuck am I going to do now?

All I can do I guess. Watch TV. That's what I'm doing now and probably for the rest of my pathetic life.

Maybe I'll write some more tomorrow. I was always going to write something this week. I just expected to be way more upbeat.

Become a recruitment consultant. Annoy the world.

The day after the Graduate Recruitment Company debacle, at 8.44am (I know, I checked the clock) I got another call from a guy who called last week to find out if I was interested in working as a recruitment consultant. “Oh did I already call you. Sorry I must have forgotten to take you off my list” he said. A lie, I’m sure. He then went on to ask if I’d changed my mind. He even said that they might have a job at a branch more local to me, Watford. Having had such a bad experience the day before and feeling somewhat demoralised I wasn’t prepared to dismiss him straight away. “How about I call you back in a couple of days time?” And he did. And, rather foolishly, I agreed to an interview on Monday. He’d already sent me over some details about the job, so I gave them a proper look. It really wasn’t me. Basically it was everything I’d hated about my previous job multiplied to the nth degree. But what other option did I have?

A short while later my phone rang once again. It was a recruitment consultant wondering if I was interested in a much better job working for a Media Monitoring company near the Tower of London. She described the job. Basically I’d be reading newspapers and checking the internet for stories about whatever client I was working for. It sounded great. I was definitely interested and eagerly awaited her promised email containing more information. She asked me to look it over and give her a call back by the end of the day. It didn’t come. To make matters worse my email started playing up. I called back. It turned out that she hadn’t sent it. I waited. It didn’t come. Thursday turned to Friday and I called back. She claimed that she couldn’t find the job spec and that she’d send it to me when she was resent it by the company. She did, however, say that they were very interested in me. Finally today (after I called twice) I got the information and a promise to arrange an interview for me on Wednesday. Hopefully she’ll call back tomorrow. Still, I’ve had to jump through a few hoops to get there.

Anyway, in the meantime I still l had this interview for the recruitment consultant job. When I’d called him up on Friday to make sure that the interview was still on, he’d promised to call me on Sunday at 4pm to talk me through the interview. By Sunday, when the phone call finally came, I’d had serious doubts about the job. It really wasn’t for me. I’d just be miserable. After consulting a number of friends I’d decided to be honest about my misgivings when he called. I was pretty up front with the guy about how I didn’t think the job was right for me. I first asked him what a typical day would be like as I figured this would be a good way of illustrating why I wouldn’t be suitable. Alarm bells started ringing when he told me that my regular hours would be from 8am -6PM (so you can bet that, in reality, I’d have to stay a fair bit later). He continued to describe what seemed like a nightmare day for me and as he spoke I was becoming even more convinced that this simply wasn’t for me. By the time he told me my basic salary (£16k, with commission not kicking in until after 3 months, by which point, if some miracle had happened and I’d got the job, I’m sure I’d probably have been sacked), I was utterly convinced that I would hate the job, even resent it in the same way I resented my last job for its low pay and long hours. This job was, just from the point of view of pay and hours, would have been even worse than my last. I would be spending even more of my time on the phone being interrupted by callers, and under pressure to hit targets. I’d probably have had a heart attack within 6 months.

So I told him the job wasn’t for me. Quite emphatically in fact, yet I couldn’t get him to say that he thought it would be best if I didn’t come in. Although he admitted that if I said all that I had said on the phone to him to the guy who would be interviewing me, I wouldn’t get the job. None the less, he kept insisting that I should go to the interview anyway. It didn’t seem to matter that I’d just told him how bad I was in a sales environment and how much I really wouldn’t like it. I emphasised the point by saying that, had I seen the job advertised, I wouldn’t have even considered applying for it. I simply don’t get a buzz out of making sales.

I even gave him a way of making the job appeal to me. I said, “I suppose you could argue that it’s a worthwhile job because you’re helping to find people work.”

“Nobody” according to him “does this sort of job to help people.”

By now, any shred of doubt I had in my mind about not taking the interview had evaporated. He was giving me a hard, but completely untargeted sales pitch for some reason. I felt sure I’d made that perfectly clear, yet he continued trying to say that it was still a good idea to go to the interview. “I can see you’re in two minds about the job” he said at one point. He extolled the virtues of his company, saying that they weren’t like any other recruitment agency. Oddly enough his hard sell approach to forcing the job on me made it clear that they were just like any other Recruitment Agency. Maybe they were a little worse.

We left it that I would call today if I wanted to cancel the interview.

I called, but he wasn’t available, so I left a message and sent an email, asking that the interview be cancelled.

It really is odd that he spent so long trying to convince me to come along when I clearly felt that I was, in so many ways, completely wrong for the job. I even said that I felt it would be a waste of time going but he shrugged this off, telling me that it wouldn’t.

I can’t exactly worry about turning down today’s interview. I didn’t want the job and would never have got it. If I had it would have just made me miserable.

Anyway, I’ve come to an important conclusion. Recruitment consultants really are full of shit. At least now I know that I’m completely unsuited to being a Recruitment Consultant. I’m just not that much of an arsehole.

“Hello there. I was wondering if I could completely waste your time.”

I do feel like I need to find something I can do in case the teaching doesn’t work out and I don’t make it onto the course. Besides, even if I do make it onto the course I’ve got another 6 months before it starts. And minus-no money in the bank. Clearly I need a job to take me through until September. Clearly recruitment consultants are the, slightly unpalatable, answer. At the beginning of February I emailed and called about 15-20 agencies. None gave me a particularly positive response. The guy at Hudson at least gave me some pretty good advice and the lady at Australasian talent (odd name I know, but recommended by a friend) suggested that she’d have some basic admin jobs if I was “desperate”. However, y far the worst response came from the Graduate Recruitment Company. After I’d submitted my CV via email they sent me a text requesting that I call. Straight away I got on the phone. To be frank, the lady at the GRC was pretty rude. She asked me what I wanted to do. I spelled it out pretty clearly. She said we don’t handle that sort of thing. I said that I’d be happy to do pretty much anything, perhaps something not dissimilar to my last job. She had a go at me for not being focused enough. I couldn’t believe it. I thought I was simply being flexible. Her whole attitude was patronising and condescending. She advise that I look thorough their website and apply for a job if I liked the look of it. Basically I was left with the overwhelming impression that they couldn’t be bothered. Arses.

Last month I had an extremely negative conversation with them, which is why I was so surprised that they called me back. I thought that they’d had a change in attitude.

Of course when, a month later, they called me back and asked me to come in, because they “may be able to find some jobs that I could do” I jumped at the chance. “They must have had a change of heart”, I thought. After all, they had my CV, so they should have known everything about me already. So, last Monday I went in for an interview with one of their consultants. To put it mildly, it was an unpleasant experience and a complete waste of time. From what I can gather they apparently just wanted to be nasty to me in person.

I arrived 15 minutes early, as requested, and filled in some forms. All the reception staff were pretty, young and very attractive, so I was looking forward to an interview with someone similar. As it turned out, my interviewer was almost entirely dissimilar. I’d been asked to wait in a room, fill out my forms and await my interviewer. About 20 minutes later she entered the small room. She was huge. I mean really fat. She made the already small room seem tiny. She was wearing a very low cut v-neck top which showed off (that’s really not the right phrase) her large, but saggy breasts. I tried to keep my eyes on her face but it was hard to stop my gaze from falling downwards on a couple of occasions. Not, I should say, because I found her breasts titillating. Really looking at her boobs had more in common with slowing down to rubberneck a particularly nasty car accident. Things didn’t get any more pleasant.

The cow made me feel as if I had no options. Deep down I know she’s wrong, but it installed in me a nagging doubt. I still can’t work out why she bothered if all she was going to do was pick me apart. She attacked me, my work history and my education for the whole interview. Perhaps it was all under the guise of seeing how I’d be in an interview, but, when it comes down to it, it wasn’t an interview for a job, it was an interview for an agency, so I’m not sure why she was spending so much of her time telling me how unmarketable I was by telling me all the reasons why I wouldn’t get a job as opposed to concentrating on how I could get one. Basically she turned every positive into a negative. A diverse range of qualifications and experience was, according to her, a bad thing. That was, as far as she was concerned, an un-debateable absolute. After having told me all the reasons why I would find it hard to get a job she went on to criticise me for having a gap in my employment since I left my last job. She, without a hint of irony, went on to ask, “Employers are crying out for candidates, so why haven’t you found anything?” She’d initially got me in to discuss possibilities in the technology sector, but then spent much of the interview telling me that I’d have a hard time against the competition who were straight out of university with Computer science degrees. If she thought that why did she bother to call me in at all? Does she just like wasting people’s time? The fact that she continued by making a comment about my age, which she followed up by saying that “of course, we’re not allowed to discriminate based on age.” And continuing by making it perfectly clear that age was a major factor in their rejection of me. In fact, having thought about it, I wonder whether every other negative comment was made simply to get her out of her allusion to age being a major factor on rejecting me. Otherwise the whole thing was extraordinarily nonsensical and contradictory.

She was even somewhat patronising. I was quite willing to do anything for which my skills would be a match and she attacked me for being unsure of what I wanted to do. As it all drew to a close and she’d told me they really couldn’t be bothered to help, she told me that “I should go and see a career service. Perhaps one at your university.” Given her previous comment alluding to the fact that I might be too old to get accepted by the agency I responded by saying that “So, you don’t think that I’m too old to go back to my university’s career service” She didn’t really have anything to say to that.

She actually said that my CV was too unfocussed to get anything at the moment. When I suggested that I could work on it, and re-focus it, I was virtually dismissed. Having said, just moments before, that my CV’s lack of focus was a big problem, she was now almost immediately saying (and I’m not remember it exactly as she said it, but it’s pretty close) “it will take more than a bit of paper to get you a job.” Oh, on the subject of CVs, she’d asked me to bring along a hard copy of my CV as well as email her with an updated version. In front of her was the old version of my CV she had received a month earlier. At no point did she ask me for the hard copy, meaning that I was carrying around a bag containing my CV for absolutely nothing. The whole thing really seemed like she wasn’t bothering.

I really thought that agencies were supposed to help you find work, not tell you why you’ll never manage to find a job. Ever.

You can see why I was so upset about the interview. It seemed like she’d simply decided to hate me on principal. She said, during the course of the interview that she had wanted to follow up her degree and masters in English with a PhD, but hadn’t been able to afford it. She said that she didn’t know what she’d have done if she hadn’t become a recruitment consultant. Basically she came across as being a bitter, patronising, condescending bitch. In other words she had all the attributes you’d expect to find in a recruitment consultant.

Those who can’t...

A few days later I drove up to Reading to meet a friend for lunch at a pub near where he works. I hadn’t seen him for a while so it was good to catch up> the food was pretty good too, and pretty substantial too, despite the fact that we’d both ordered “reduced size” portions. I shudder to think how large the regular portions would be. Of course, as with any friend I don’t see every week (and in fact most that I do) the subject of job hunting came up. At this point it really wasn’t going very well (unless you count random emails from companies who saw my CV on monster and want to offer me jobs as a computer programmer or Java scripter just because I have an A-Level in Computer Science, as going well.) This is where the potentially life changing bit comes in. My friends’ boyfriend is a teacher. He suggested that might be a good career move for me. He told me about how you could get a huge bursary (£9000 for the year as it turns out) just for doing the course. I thought about all the holiday time. He told me that it was a fulfilling career, something that would give me a sense of achievement. I thought about what I could do with 13 weeks holiday a year. He said that, as a key worker, I’d have access to affordable housing and get a salary that would allow me to buy my own home. This appealed more than the abundance of holiday time. The last five years that I’ve spent stuck in this boring, mediocre little suburb have bee torturous. I long to actually have a proper life of my own, something that was never going to happen whilst I stuck living in the same house as my mother in Harrow, the closest London equivalent to Tatooine. If there is a bright spot in London, Harrow is the place furthest from it. (For some reason it feels good to reference/paraphrase Star Wars.). So, teaching could offer me a good, fulfilling job, where I could feel like part of the solution, not part of the problem (the problem being selfish and extreme capitalism and the sort of people who engage in nefarious, dishonest practices. Like all my previous employers). Not only that, I’d get a decent salary (decent in the sense that it’s far higher than anything I’d got before), and have enough spare time in the holidays to keep writing. To be frank I doubt that I’ll ever manage to fit in at most commercial organisations. Making somebody else rich was never a particularly strong motivating factor for me to work. I’m not even that bothered about being rich my self. Just comfortable. Sure I’d like my own house (and, with house prices being what they are you kind of do need to be rich to own one.) and a nice car (I keep mentioning cars and driving. They’ll be something more specific on all that later), but I’ve never really had much enthusiasm for accruing wealth just to put a few more zero’s on my bank balance. Honestly, being happy and doing something that I think is worthwhile is far more important to me.

Of course I’m quite scarred about the idea of teaching. I’d initially discounted it because I thought I’d make a lousy teacher. Admittedly this was based entirely on my inability to teach my mum how to use a computer so that wasn’t exactly a firm basis for saying that I’d be awful. But, when it comes down to it, I’d really love the opportunity to impart knowledge to people. To educate them and shape their minds. All that stuff. I decided that I’d probably make a pretty good teacher. But what to teach. I certainly wouldn’t want to do primary school. I really couldn’t stand being around kids who know absolutely nothing. No, far better to teach secondary school and be around a bunch of kids who think they know absolutely everything. I’ve decided that I’d like to teach English. I ended up regretting not doing English at university. Doing history was a bit of a mistake and, I think in retrospect, I let my Dad influence me in my choice of degree too much. I’d actually justified my choice of a History degree in a purely logical way. I did well at A-Level and GCSE, so I was bound to get a good degree. Sure, I liked history, and I got pretty good grades for GCSE and A-Level (both As’ in case you’re wondering), but I get the impression that my interest and motivation to do well was influenced by my desire to please my dad. Once he died, and I went to university to read (as they persistently say on University Challenge) History, I lost all motivation. I just wasn’t that interested. Oddly enough I’ve realised that I would have been much better off doing a degree in something that I got Bs in, like English. After all, to get a B for English I didn’t even have to bother trying. How well could I have done if I’d put a bit of effort into it? In fact the more and more I heard about English degrees in my third year (I was going out with a girl who, along with some of her friends’, studied English) the more and more I realised that I’d chosen the wrong subject. Of course by then it was far too late. I only had a couple of months before my degree was over.

Of course to redress the balance (and stay at university for another year with my younger girlfriend), I decided to do my MA in Film Screenwriting. I somehow cajoled my way onto the course and all was well in the world. Until the girl dumped me. And then, when I finished the course I still didn’t feel like I’d made up for doing so badly ion my first degree. Clearly doing so badly at my History degree is going to haunt me forever. I felt as though I wasn’t good enough, and, perhaps, that’s caused more difficulties in getting a job than the actual result of my degree. In fact I thought that having an MA would imply to employers that I’d actually done well in my first degree. I found out the other day, at an interview with a recruitment consultant that it worked. She really thought that I’d got a 2.1 (at least that’s what she wrote in her notes, and I wasn’t going to correct her). I’ve actually got more to say about the recruitment consultant, but that’s for another section.

Anyway, perhaps doing this teaching course is simply another vein attempt to make up for my bad degree. But even if that’s the case at least it should help me to get many of the things that I’ve wanted for the past few years since I left university. I’ll hopefully have a worthwhile job, a good salary, plenty of holiday time and the means to buy my own place. Surely it’s worth the risk. It’s not even a particularly great risk since I’ll be paid to do the course. Not only that, I think, I’ll probably move into halls whilst I do it, so I’ll be able to get out of Harrow for a while. Then, at the end of it, I’ll have another qualification. It really is Win, Win, Win.

Now, I just have to get around to figuring out where I want to go (My first choice is definitely Reading. I’m not entirely sure why, though they were my original insurance choice for my first degree). Basically I have to make my choices based on where I want to go and where I’m most likely to get in. I think that fact that I have such a bad degree in History may harm my chances of getting on to an English course, so I have to be a little pragmatic and include a few ex-polytechnics in with my choices.

I’m pretty sure that this is the right course of action for me. Besides, it’ll be nice to be a student again. I wonder if students still get a 10% discount at HMV.

It's been a while

Wow, it’s been ages since I contributed anything to the blog. The irony is, when lots of stuff’s been going on in my life I don’t tend to have the time to blog it all. That said, I get the feeling that making time to blog it will be beneficial. Once I’ve written about it I’m sure I’ll be able to think more clearly.

So, the last couple of weeks have been pretty busy and pretty important. Well, some things weren’t al; that pivotal, but I’ll talk about them over the next few posts anyway. I’ll try to keep it vaguely chronological, but it’s mostly divided into topics. I’ll start with something frivolous.

A few weeks ago I visited a friend in Essex to, at his request, check out his Xbox 360. To be honest, it seems just like the original Xbox, only instead of being a big black box it’s now a slightly svelter white box with an external power supply unit that is, quite literally, the size of a brick. Apparently it’ll also break after a year (if anecdotal evidence is to be believed) so it’s also far more fragile. I’ve had my Xbox for a few years now, and the worst thing that’s happened is that it’s developed a slight, asthmatic wheeze when first started up. It goes away after a minute or so and then continues to operate completely normally.

None of the games look an awful lot better than regular Xbox games. Of course the reason for this is quite obvious. Whilst my friend had a new, ultra modern, ultra powerful Xbox 360 he had it hooked up to a decidedly un-modern CRT, non-HD TV, meaning that every single game was displayed in a resolution well below that which was intended. Any graphical fanciness was completely lost on the blurry old SD TV. In actual fact, the images were so un-sharp that I actually started feeling a little wonky just trying to play a game of gears of war. I don’t suppose this was helped by the fact that I had to play split screen, thus halving the screen size and effectively reducing the already woefully inadequate display resolution. It’s no wonder I had to stop. My eyes were really going funny and my head was beginning to hurt. It was becoming abundantly obvious that I was right all along about the Xbox 360. There’s no point in getting one if you don’t have an HDTV.

Oddly enough, as a result of the televisual shortcomings, all the new games held little appeal for me and I ended up spending most of my time playing Halo 2. Of course, none of the alleged enhancement made to Halo 2 for playback on the 360 were apparent because, you’ve guessed it, it wasn’t connected to an HDTV. It therefore looked exactly the same as it did on my near 5 year old Xbox. Since Halo and its many sequels are the only games I’ll probably end up playing on the 360 it really does render the purchase of a 360 completely pointless. Of course I’ll probably change my mind when I get my own, personal 360 and Halo 3 comes out, but for now, even if I had the money (which I don’t), I wouldn’t buy one. Besides, there’s supposed to be a new version coming out soon that’s black and has an HDMI port enabling it to be connected to an HDTV in a purely digital way as opposed to the many pronged analogue component approach favoured by the current model. Perhaps it won’t break down so quickly either. Of course all this is only a rumour, but I’m certainly prepared to wait and see if it’s true.

Besides, I really have stopped playing a lot of video games (though, inevitably, I’ve ended up playing Halo on the PC far too much) owing to the cancellation of my Xbox Live account, thus preventing me from playing Xbox games online and saving me up to £40 a year. I must stop playing Halo because it stops me from pursuing more worthwhile activities like writing and applying for jobs. Which neatly brings me to my next subject.

Going West

So, they've decided to extend the Congestion Charging zone to the west. Bad idea if you ask me. I actually thought I'd fallen victim to it last night when I went to Car Giant to help a friend choose a new car. Apparently only some routes from my house to car giant actually enter the CC zone, which makes it even more confusing. It doesn't help that my satnav has no idea that I've entered the new extended zone either, and it probably never will unless I pay for updated maps. They really should provide free updates when tolls/congestion charging is introduced. Surely that's not much to ask. I realised that I might be in trouble when I drove over a "C" painted on the road. This was, in actual fact, my first and only warning of the impending CC zone. After I'd seen it there was no way I could turn around, it was far too late. The complete lack of any prior indication is a tad unfair and sneaky of you ask me. Obviously, being me, I panicked a bit wondering whether I'd done the same on the previous night's trip to Car Giant and would therefore be finned a massive £100 for daring to use the roads my car tax money is supposed to go towards maintaining. Fortunately, after a phone call to the CC phone line, I realised that the zone stops operating after 6pm. I'd crossed over after 6.30pm so I was safe. Or possibly just lucky. How many people would have been caught out by something that seems to be a deliberate trap. Besides, I was nowhere near the centre of London. Surely the new borders extend way too far to the west.

I’ve just looked at a map of the congestion charge zone. It does seem that you can stray into it quite easily if you simply turn down the wrong road since its borders are quite squiggly and random. It’s actually quite ridiculous and somewhat counter-intuitive. Now that the zone extends further west into more residential areas more people will have to pay to simply leave their houses. Of course residents get a 90% discount on the fee meaning that they can, for 80p, drive anywhere in the C Charge zone, even through Central London. This means that Central London has opened up to all the rich people (who probably didn’t care about having to pay a paltry £8 to drive into London anyway) living in places like Chelsea, Kensington and Notting Hill whilst still excluding the less well off who can’t afford the £8 charge. Yep, that Ken Livingstone’s really a class warrior. Arse. You do realise that he only takes the train into work everyday because he can’t drive (and if a friend of mine is to be believed, because he’s a raging alcoholic. But then he said the same thing about Charles Kennedy weeks before it all came out in the press so he may not be wrong).

The extension of the congestion charge zone went ahead despite the objections of countless residents and local councils. Livingstone clearly;y has too much power and misunderstands the principle of democracy. He should not be allowed to get away with this. Well, I'm certainly not going to vote for him at the next mayoral election. That said I wasn't going to anyway, what with his promise to not run as a candidate for mayor if he wasn't the official Labour candidate (he left the party and ran as an independent in the first election for London Mayor) and his subsequent defection back to labour (a man who so easily switches his loyalties clearly can't be trusted.) Not only that he wasted millions of pounds of council tax payers moneys mounting a legal challenge to the partial privatisation of the tube before simply abandoning it with no real explanation. It leaves one to wonder whether some money stuffed into unmarked brown envelope changed hands.

Plus, that also means that any traffic will be diverted around the zone, leaving the rich areas virtually free of non-residential traffic whilst the surrounding, poorer areas to cope with a vast influx of new cars traversing their formerly quieter roads.

Oddly enough, this may mean that the revenue raised from congestion charging will probably go down overall, not up. It really is idiotic. I don’t think that congestion charging in Central London (where parking is already extortionately expensive, though not enough to put off the rich people) is a bad idea, but the western extension is quite frankly ridiculous.

Clearly this is the beginning of two-tier motoring. It’ll only continue if the Government introduces their proposed pay as you go road taxation. Very soon only the rich will be able to afford to drive. And surely that's a terrible step backwards suggesting that there will never be a classless society and everything any government has ever said about having one is clearly bollocks.

I'm Going Slightly Mad

I’ve been receiving some complaints recently (all of which technically come from the voices in my head) that my blog is full of boring, mundane bollocks. My multiple personalities really aren’t happy about this state of affairs. They’d really like me to write about something a little more interesting than my crap week job hunting.

“Why can’t you find something more interesting to write about?” They say. “In fact, why don’t you go off and actually do something more interesting than spending 6 days of the week trapped in your house” the helpfully suggest. “We’d just like to see some of the outside world once in a awhile.”

"But,” I retort “I took you all off out to Greenwich at the weekend. That’s got to qualify as going out?”

“Well yes, technically it does, but what’s the point” They ask.

“What do you mean what’s the point. Greenwich is out, it’s exciting. Well, not exciting, but its gotta be better than Harrow” I reply.

“Oh yeah, it’s better than Harrow, but what’s the fucking point of going out when you always get so pissed that you can’t remember vast portions of the evening.”

“Well, you have a point, but it’s not like I’m going to stop drinking is it? It’s the only way I can cope with the tedium of the rest of the week.”

“ Well, you could always make the rest of the week more interesting couldn’t you?”

“Would that I could, but interesting costs money and, in case you haven’t noticed, I have no job, and therefore no sodding money.”

“Well why don’t you just get a job.”

“Oh if it were that easy everybody would have one wouldn’t they.”

“Everyone does, except wasters and tramps.”

“Sorry, are you calling me a tramp.”

“ Not at all, but you could put a bit of effort into it couldn’t you.”

“Effort. Effort! I’ve put shitloads of effort into it, but everybody is fucking bollocks and doesn’t want to know. It’s not as if you’ve come up with any bright ideas is it? You just sit there in my head like inert passengers on a tourbus, gawking gormlessly at everything. You’re good at pointing out the problems, but don’t have any fucking solutions do you. Wankers.”

See, I’m clearly going a bit mad (could I be certified for transcribing a conversation with the voices in my head. Would a blog entry be enough to convince the authorities’ that I had gone completely hat stand and needed chucking in a loony bin for my own safety and the safety of others?)

Still, before the men in white coats come along I’ve git a little bit of time to finish this post. The conversation with the voices in my head did at least impart some degree of truth about my non-housebound activities; I did indeed go to Greenwich.

It was all in aid of a friend’s birthday. A friend who lives just across the tunnel from Greenwich on the Isle of Dogs. A friend who wanted to watch the Rugby, England vs. Scotland I think. Unfortunately this friend of mine is the least organised person in existence and hadn’t actually worked out if there was a pub in Greenwich that was actually playing the match. Obviously all the good pubs in Greenwich didn’t have TV’s so our more familiar haunts like The Gypsy Moth and The Admiral Hardy were immediately precluded. After wandering all around Greenwich we found two pubs playing the rugby. The birthday boy had decided that he wanted to be somewhere with lots of “fit birds”. Now in my opinion nobody should use the word “birds” when describing women. It just makes you sound like a chauvinistic moron. It’s even worse, however, when the person saying it is a public school educated toff (and I say that with the greatest affection). Then it sounds indescribably stupid. There ware only two pubs showing the game, The Mitre and The Spanish Galleon. The Mitre may have been an old mans pub, but at least it wasn’t, unlike the Spanish Galleon, an old man's pub that smelled of fish. I conveniently found myself a seat facing away from the Rugby. It’s not that I hate rugby, it’s just that it bores the crap out if me. It just seems to me that Rugby is just an excuse for ex-public school buy repressed homosexuals to grope each other under aegis of participating in a manly spectator sport. I once said that whilst observing the Royal Holloway Rugby team engaging in drinking games (clearly a form of public foreplay) at the Stumble Inn. Obviously not to the rugby players themselves. They’d probably pummel me to the ground for even suggesting that they have a predilection for man on man loving. Of I did subsequently hear that, after university a whole bunch of them came out, including one particularly insufferable wanker and former SU president who one called me gay after I tried to stop him from drunkenly trying to crack in to a friend’s girlfriend. Oh the irony. Clearly this was a man looking to be shot down. Surely the fact that she was talking to me might have suggested the possibility that the poor girl was attached (even if it wasn’t to me. Unfortunately. If memory serves me, she was extremely hot). Of course that was probably the point, part of his way of hiding him innate desire for cock. For how could he be gay if he was trying to crack on to beautiful, but tragically unavailable women? Absolute genius. Of course what does it say about me? After all, I fancied her? Oh well, I’m sure I only fancy unattainable girls just because of both my fear of commitment and my desire to keep my broken heat in a few pieces of possible. Or something. Anyway, let’s get back to Greenwich.

So, the rugby was on and I wasn’t watching was it. This next bit is going to sound indistinct owing to my decision to stop naming names. Then, as England marched on to their inevitable victory against the Scots, a work colleague of my friend turned up.

In the weeks since I last saw her a lot's happened. I’ve had mixed feelings about the whole thing owing mostly to her complicated situation. One of my main rules is to not make any kind of romantic engagements with attached women. I probably mentioned that I managed to break that rule first time out, but since I was completely unaware of the girls attached status I can hardly shoulder any blame. But, once again, I digress. My main problem was trying to work out if she fancied me. I can usually work that sort of thing out pretty quickly. And I’m usually pretty quick to exploit it too. But with her, I’m stumped. There are just too many mixed messages. When we’re out, we talk a lot and we seem to get on. She’s texted me (a lot, we had a 20 text conversation one evening), but even after all that I’m just not getting that final “go ahead” signal that would push the whole thing over the edge. Maybe I’m just misreading the whole situation because she’s from a completely different country and culture. Bah. Regardless I’ve decided not to bother. Her situation is far too complicated (beyond simply having a husband back home. There is something that allows me to put aside my moral objections should I wish. Unfortunately I can’t talk about specifics here. But that’s irrelevant since I’m not gong to do anything anyway.

So, she walked in and started talking to me. I was actually a little less talky than usual, preferring to talk to another friend about his prospective new car. Then I left him to chat with her through both drinks and dinner. Of course that’s would have provided me with the perfect opportunity to figure out exactly how she works. Unfortunately I squandered the opportunity by getting riotously drunk. Subsequently all I could say was they chatted and sat a little closer than everybody else at dinner. It all looked kind of flirty to me, but then, that was no different to how she’d been with me in the past. So, inconclusive.

After that, we went to dinner.

Dinner was nice, if a little expensive for me. We went to Tex-Mex Restaurant, Cafe Sol. I had chicken fajitas along with more alcohol; appropriately enough some bottles of sol. I also remember somehow drinking a Margarita though I have no idea why. Still, it was pretty nice. It kind of tasted like a melted strawberry Slush Puppy. Yummy.

Another pub and another drink followed as did a trip to the off licence to pick up two bottles of wine, one white and one red. Then we were off back to my friends flat to finish the evening. The red wine went quickly so I opened up the white. It taste all that good, but I just put it down to bad wine. I considered leaving it, but I’m not one to waste good (or apparently bad) alcohol.

Fortunately I was staying over, so a slow, agonising tube ride didn’t await me, at least not until the next day. Another friend was staying overt too. Now I could have remembered this bit wrong (I wasn’t exactly on top form) but the girl friend (not girlfriend) asked to stay over as well. I’m reasonably sure that my friend with the flat told her that there was no point in her staying since she only lived ten minutes away. Then, as I recall, he pretty much kicked her out. I could, of course be wrong. Retrospectively I wish I’d offered to walk her home. Had I been a little less addled it would have occurred to me to offer (maybe I did, who knows). Of course if there had been any kind of altercation I’d have inevitably been more useless than usual. Any potential assailant would have found me to be an extraordinarily easy target.

Much of what happened after that is a bit of a blur. I think I may have been a little sick (in the toilet thankfully) but I was at least competent enough to unfold the sofa bed (my roommate for the night having already collapsed on the companion non-bed sofa). I’m not usually a good sleeper, but that evening sleep came very easily. Waking up the next day however, was far from pleasant.

My head hurt, and it only got worse as the morning progressed. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the train ride home. The trip was made even more difficult by the fact that I’d agreed to relieve my friend of his old PC in the home that I might find some of the parts useful and sell the rest. It was a really good quality computer case too, made as it was, from tough steel, which obviously meant it was extremely heavy. Carrying it across London wasn’t easy, especially since I had to repress the urge to throw up every time I bent own to pick it up. The violent swaying of the train carriages didn’t help matters either and every time they jerked from side to side I felt as if I was going to vomit.

But I finally made it back. And promptly puked in the loo. Bed until about 3.30 followed. I’m never drinking so copiously on an empty(ish) stomach again.

Well, not until next week anyway.

Guest Starring Mildly Depressed and Extreme Grumpiness

Another horrible day. I was woken up by a nice sounding lady (but aren't the all) from a recruitment agency who was just calling to let me know that they really didn't have anything suitable. Thanks for that. Being a terrible sleeper there was absolutely no way that I was going to manage to nod off again so I got up. Well, not so much got up as simply reached across my bed for my laptop switched it on, and stayed in bed for the next hour or so. After trawling through a few of my favourite websites, and checking.replying to my emails (some of which were from agencies who'd dropped me a line to let me know that they had either simply received my CV or had no interest in it, and consequently me, whatsoever) I set about looking for a few more agencies to whom I could send my CV. Some of them even get back to me the same day, though its only so that they can tell me that hey have "nothing suitable" but that they will "keep my CV on file". It's all a load of bollocks isn't it.

So the rest of the day continued in much the same vein. I'd send an agency my CV and they'd either ignore it or tell me to fuck off. I'd actually started to believe that it wouldn't be like this.

So what the fuck am I going to do? I'll have to keep trying more and more agencies, but what happens when, inevitably, they all turn me down? I'm going to end up having to go back to the first one and take their offer of a boring, mediocre job. And then what? It's becoming clear that I'm unemployable (at least as far as any good jobs are concerned), so I'm probably going to be forced to take on a string of mediocre and unfulfilling jobs for the rest of my life. I can see it all now. I'll have a bland, mediocre job, be married to a bland, mediocre woman (if I get married at all) and have a couple of bland, mediocre kids. And we'll all live in a bland mediocre house in a bland mediocre suburb of a bland mediocre city (not even a bland mediocre suburb of London like Harrow. My bland mediocre salary will make it impossible to live even on the cusp of anywhere vaguely good. I expect I'll end up in somewhere like Milton Keynes).

There will be no mystery and no excitement in my life. Just drudgery and disappointment.

So, to summarise, today I've been more than a little bit grumpy owing to lack of sleep and a tad depressed owing to lack of job. On the plus side my Mum wasn't around all day which was what gave me the chance to waste my time trying to get an agency to give a shit. Of course, inevitably she came back and it didn't take her long to start having a go at me for not looking for a job. Obviously I am, but I have no intention of telling her that. Her interference pisses me off no end, which is why I decided to keep her completely in the dark about everything job related.

Oh, one last thing a but my mum. Her stupidity and ignorance actually managed to reach such heights (or lows) as to surprise me today. Obviously she always has a baseline level of idiocy, but her comment this evening was simply off the charts. She declared that she thought that AIDS was only something you could catch if you were gay. Unbelievable. I had no idea she was that ill educated as to believe such a thing. She then went on to admit that she "Didn't really know much about AIDS" bit that she assumed it was only a gay thing because "that one from Queen died of AIDS didn't he?" Jesus Christ, it's no wonder I'm such a looser if 50% of my genetic make up comes from her. On the plus side, she did at least defend "gays" to her church group after some small point about gay couples adopting came up, but even still...

But what wonders will tomorrow hold? Will the guy from the first agency keep to his word and actually call me before the end of the week? Will he actually have good news? Will anyone have good news. Whilst I suspect that the answer to all of the above questions is no I did at least want to have a stab at creating an element of suspense (ruined purely by this last sentence).

Anyway, I'd better get some sleep before I get woken up by an early phone from someone at an agency who wants to tell me how useless I am.

The Second Post of 2007

I haven't written for ages. I'm really trying to find a job, but I have a horrid feeling it isn't going to work out. I've sent my CV to an agency in the (probably vein) hop that they'll find me something. I'm not really holding out a lot of hope though. The guy I spoke to didn't seem all that interested (though he had been away for a couple of days and had lots to catch up with, so maybe he was just a bit hassled). Just this evening I emailed my CV off to whole bunch of other agencies. Maybe I'll give them a call on Friday. Maybe Monday. That is, if they don't call me first.

Anyway, if this all goes to shit, at least I have a slightly unappealing fallback. A friend of mine gave me the contact details for a guy at his agency. I didn't get to talk to the guy, but I did end up getting teh email of someone else at the agency to whom I could send my CV. Literally 20-30 minutes later I got a phone call back. The woman on the end of the line was helpful, but ultimately she felt that I'd be better off looking elsewhere if I wanted to find a more interesting job that "wouldn't bore me" I could take solace from the fact that she felt that I should be able to get something better than she could offer, shouldn't I. She ended up giving me the email of a guy at their parent company whom she felt was more likely to get me something good. This is the first guy that got my CV, the one I'm currently hoping will call me back. She did at least say that she could probably find me something if I got desperate. So that would be my fallbaclk option.

She emphasised the fact that I wouldn't find anything they had to offer particularly challenging or fulfilling. She did at least give me some hope for something better by saying that I should be able to find something with the qualifications I have. They haven't been of much use in the past, but we'll see.

But basically I've been worrying about never finding anything that I enjoy or at least that pays well enough to get out of this crappy town. Being here, in my hose in this awful suburb is just driving me crazy. I'm starting to think that I'm never going to escape.

There's other stuff on my mind at teh moment, my main worry is the job thing. Worst thing is, I'm starting to think that I have no real ability to do anything. That I have absolutely no marketable skills whatsoever. I feel really drained at the moment. Just tired of once more being in this situation. No, not once more. To say once more would suggest that I'd previously been able to extricate myself from all of this. But really I haven't. I've had jobs, but they've all been crap. Most importantly though, they haven't paid well enough to allow me to make any kind of significant changes to my life. So, I'm still, 5 years after leaving university, stuck in this situation. You can see why I'm tired of it can't you.

I just need a job. A job that pays well. A job that I can be proud of and enjoy. And I need it pretty soon. Before the last few weeks I really wasn't that bothered. But now I am. It's probably just because my money is running out. Or maybe it's because I'm starting to go crazy, shut up in this house. Actually what's driving me crazy right now is the complete lack of control I have over my situation. It's all in the hands of a bunch of peopel who work at recruitment agencies. I have having to rely in other people. I hate it when other people have such an influenced in what happens in my life. I really need to get back some control over things. And soon.

Well that's January over. Lets hope February is a hell of a lot better. I need 2007 to actually work out for me in a way that the other years simply haven't.

Tabula Rasa

New Year is of course a purely arbitrary date from which we decide to start the year. All it really means is that the Earth is, at 12am on the 1st of January in exactly the same place it was 365 days before. In actual fact it doesn’t even mean that. The earth has not in fact completed a full rotation around the sun on the stroke of midnight. Give it another 6 hours and it will get there. After all a year is in fact 365 1/4 days long, we just round it down and add an extra day to the end of every 4th February to compensate. It’s not even really anything to do with the changing of the seasons. If one were to see spring as the beginning, or birth of a year and winter as the end, or death, of a year then the seasons are slightly out of sync. When the New Year begins we’re still stuck with the dismal (though increasingly less cold) English winter, not the more inviting warmth of spring.

So, new year; it's entirely arbitrary and completely wrong. None the less, it is significant in a somewhat notional and symbolic way and it's for that reason why so many see it as a chance for a new start. I felt that my last year was tainted by so much unpleasantness that it would a purely arbitrary change in year to allow me to distance myself from it and afford me the opportunity of a brand new start.

Which may make you think that I about to reel off a list of resolutions. I won't of course. Resolutions are completely pointless. So, I’m going to stop letting the past hold me back and allow the coming of the New Year to provide me with a clean slate where I cease to let the events of the past to have a negative impact on my present and future. Which is of course completely different to having a resolution.

So, this year I resolve to get a new job and loose some weight. And contradict myself less.

Last time I did promise that I’d fill you all in about my recent escapades. Obviously I didn’t manage to get round to it owing to my very hectic and somewhat expensive social life. It’s not like I’ve been doing anything particularly exciting. It’s certainly been fun, but not extraordinary. However, since a number of my friends now read my blog, I’ve realised that I have somewhat less to talk about. I excitedly tell someone about some interesting new development in my life, expecting them to be staggered and highly impressed. However, the most common response I get is not one of amazement and bewilderment, but of blasé disinterest coupled with the statement “I know, I read it on your blog.” I shouldn’t complain really, at least in means that people are not only reading my blog, but they’re also paying attention, all of which must be a positive. And it is, but it’s so like me to focus on the negative aspects of any given situation. Maybe I should resolve to be more positive. I just tend to forget what I’ve written and then repeat it in conversation. As result I feel that I’m being deeply unoriginal. I’m do hate being unoriginal; in fact I often go to strange lengths to avoid it. If somebody mishears me I tend to rephrase what I’ve just said. If only I had money. Then people could say that I was eccentric instead of just weird.

The last 9 days have been full of excess where I’ve consumed far too much alcohol, eaten far too much junk food and spent far too much money. So, it was a hell of a lot of fun. It was nice to actually have some things to do. In fact today is the first time that I feel like I’ve, at least partially, failed to achieve anything significant. True, my achievements of some days have merely amounted to getting very drunk, but even that’s good deal more than I’ve managed in the last few months. Anyway, it’s all been a lot of fun, which culminated last night with the slightly more expensive than I’d hoped New Years Eve celebrations. Admittedly I stayed out until 4am and, at £50 for almost 10 hours of drinking as well as dinner, it wasn’t actually all that expensive, but I do so enjoy complaining. And on that note, I should say that I was slightly disappointed that I couldn’t persuade more people to come along. Of everyone I asked, only a couple of people came along, so at least, initially, there were 4 people in total.

I wanted to keep the night pretty low key. We met at the Royal George, headed of to a posh burger place for dinner, popped briefly to a coupe of pubs, “The Pillars of Hercules” and “The Cambridge” (I think) then headed back to the Royal George for the rest of the evening. One of my friends was, I think a little disappointed that we didn’t go anywhere else. In fact when I spoke to another friend today he mentioned that the friend that turned up was actually looking to do something a little bigger, possibly clubbing, but to be honest I never really wanted to do anything like that. He complained a little (but to his credit, not too much) but it did shock me when he announced, sometime after 12.30, that he was leaving. His sister was having a party at the Docklands flat they share and I expect that he was heading back there, possibly to make a last ditch attempt to salvage the evening and pull. Really, I have no idea what goes on in Luke’s head. Which is precisely why I have no idea why he abandoned his work collegue. Poor girl, left with only myself and another friend, whom she’d met only once prior to New Years Eve, to keep her company. Fortunately it wasn’t a complete disaster; she's is an amusing, friendly and pretty open girl so there were no awkward conversation gaps. We actually talked about a wide variety of topics, sex with an unenthusiastic and somewhat static partner being one of them (ah, my favourite sex related complaint, and if you know me you’ll probably be aware of who it relates to), lesbianism (apparently she wouldn’t want to dismiss the possibility of, at some point, sleeping with a woman) being another. Actually there was a fair bit of sex related talk none of which could go anywhere of course. She is after all married (she says, though she never wears a ring) and I would never knowingly sleep with a girl who was in any way attached. I say “knowingly” because I did manage to break my steadfast rule first time out, but since I had no idea, I can hardly be blamed. Anyway, I can’t say that I wouldn’t have wanted to; it’s been far too long since my last shag for me not to want to. Oh well, it’s nothing that can’t easily dispelled by a quick wank or five.

I’d actually spent an awful lot of time talking to her before my friend left so (and I don’t mean what I’m about to say on a nasty way) his absence was hardly felt at all. I did slightly wonder whether Luke’s premature evacuation was inspired by a small bout of jealousy. Could he be interested in her? I certainly thought so the first time he brought her along to the Maple Leaf a few weeks ago, but he had told another friend otherwise. Of course he’s also said that he’d have no problem shagging a married woman (and according to him he already has) so that does leave the possibility quite open. Then again we could always discuss the gay option. Quite frankly, I do think that there still exists a possibility that he’s gay. Admittedly all the evidence is more than a little circumstantial and requires a fair bit of creative interpretation, but then the evidence to the contrary is a little difficult to corroborate. It seems odd that he claimed to sleep with girls with whom non of us could verify his story. After all, none of us are ever likely to meet them (at least not again. The first girl he slept with was an absolute cow. He said that he’d done the deed some while after we saw her for the first and last time.)

But back to New Years Eve. The only problem of the evening came when my friend's colleague had her purse and phone stolen. Nobody has any idea how it happened. There were sod all people about when it went missing, the pub didn’t get busy until after 1am, and nobody saw anybody anywhere near the table. I can only guess that she had it stolen when she went to the toilet. Shame, but she was really pragmatic about it. “The year can only get better from here” she said. I’d have taken it as a terrible omen for 2007 and basically written off the whole year.

My other friend, who was clearly pissed, wanted to stay on, but at 3.45am I decided that it was time to go and walked the lady back to Bond Street Station. And that, a brief phone call to my previously departed friend aside (no idea what we discussed though), was my new year.

I really hope that it's better than last year. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that it, but unfortunately I'm not all powerful. Certain things are beyond my control. Let's hope that they don't get in the way too much.