Critics and Singalongs

Last night was the first performance of the new show Dreamboats and Petticoats. It was a preview show, so whilst there was a full house, a large portion of the audience seemed to be carrying notebooks and scribbling furiously. Some were media, no doubt, there to review, but others were there because they were producers, directors, choreographers, all closely linked to the production. It was interesting to watch how uncomfortable one of the behind the scenes movers and shakers became when he was not only recognised, but asked to sign a program (I'm still not certain of exactly who he was - there were no head shots of backstage people in the program, I suspect for precisely this reason).

The show itself was jammed with the sort of nostalgia that will reel in the baby-boomers. There seems to have been a glut of these in London recently, with the likes of Jersey Boys, Shout, and Grease opening within the past couple of years. There is clearly a strong market still, in spite of financial woes. Perhaps they're all harking back to a time when, as one of the stars of the show observes, people looked up to bankers. By the beginning of the second act, the enthusiastic performers, who are so young that even their parents would barely remember the 1961 setting of the story, had created something of a stir in the audience. It started as a sigh about halfway through the first act. A hint of humming could be heard. It was like feedback in the early stages of the second act, and by the end, the performers could have played rock stars and held the microphones over the audience for singalong practice, without needing to open their own mouths for the lyrics to be heard clearly. The all-singing-all-dancing finale had everybody, even the most staid and prosaic of reviewers out of their seats.

Along the way, it wasn't just the music that got everything going, though. There were moments of genuine humour. Some of it was, admittedly, the trite sort of thing you'd expect from such shows - with characters named Donna, Sue, Laura and Bobby, there's serious musical fodder, although a teenage boy taunting his sister by singing Bobby's Girl in a high falsetto rang fairly true. But there were other moments which had everyone laughing openly. When a teenage boy, about to be found with a girl in his room, shoves her out the window only to hear her crash to the ground below, it seemed not only appropriate, but hilairious that he would turn to the audience and launch into a song, earning the biggest laugh of the night, other than the banker line.
So, what do I think the verdict of the critics will be, if I am to offer a prediction? I think it will probably be caned, to be honest. Sure, it was fun, it was boppy, it captured a moment in time perfectly, it was entertaining and some of the young actors had superb singing voices. But it also appeals to the lowest common denominator. In short, it's the type of show I love. Something that entertains without making you think. The sort of show that is needed when you're a bit down. But, like romantic comedies and smash-'em-up movies, never the sort of thing that the serious-minded theatre critic would admit to enjoying. But I know better. I saw them dancing in the aisles along with everyone else.

Darcy vs Grant

What is it about Mr Darcy that makes him so...fanciable? I've been doing more chick lit reading than I care to admit over the past year (all in the name of research for thesis, of course) and it seems that the Darcy profile is one that has been copied by authors ever since. But I don't get it, really I don't. Sure it would be nice in theory to have a rich, handsome man telling that in spite of the many negative aspects of a potential union, he can't live without you. In reality, though, he's a smug prejudiced git who can't get over class prejudices until he meets someone who, through force of personality, makes him figure she's just been born in the wrong family. His own family leaves just as much to be desired as the worst elements of the Bennetts. He's opinionated, brooding, and set in his ways. There is no evidence of a sense of humour. About the best that could be said of him, besides the handsome and rich part of course, is that he seems intelligent enough. He domineers and controls his friends and is contemptuous of many. Whilst he may be a good landlord, he wants to keep the feudal status quo.

Personally, I'm not sure I wouldn't take Lizzie's first response and run with it.

And what about Hugh Grant? The sweet but spineless heroes he plays are also fodder for the daydreams of many. How many women have sat glued to the screen watching his wiggling butt in Love Actually as he proves a Prime Minister may be able to mix it with Billy Bob Thornton's smarmy president in defence of all things British (the speech he gives is, in my opinion, one of the better screen political moments that doesn't involve Martin Sheen) but he is still painfully, annoyingly both unable to dance and unable to act in his private life without a swift kick up the behind - or in the case of Love Actually, a letter that all but declares someone is in love with him.
So, in the immortal words of - I can't remember, who was it? - where have all the good men gone, where are all the gods? If the above are anything to go by, they were never truly a part of fiction in the first place. Or at least not in any form that you could live with in the real world.

So not a morning person...

This morning on the way to work, I was attacked. Several missiles were thrown at me. Most missed instead hitting the car I was walking past, but one connected hard enough to leave a mark. Turns out it's not the best idea to walk under a cherry tree on a windy day. The tree will attack, much like magpies during swooping season but far less discriminating.
In fact, today is so far shaping up as a day when I should have just gone back to bed. I brought my ipod into work with me, as usual, but the headphones are still attached to my laptop after late night Spooks watching. My secret birthday surprise visit for my Mum is no longer secret or surprise, because it turns out that my Dad is the worst person in the world to tell a secret to - he didn't even last 12 hours, as far as I can tell. And to add insult to injury, I'm doing door schedules for my current project. For the uninitiated, that means that I have to go through the plans of the as-yet unbuilt building, number each door and fill its details into a spreadsheet. It's tedious enough to be mind numbing, but crucial that I get it right. Given my current state of woolly-headedness, not likely.
But I think I have the perfect antidote. Tonight I'm off to see what promises to be the corniest show I've heard about in a long time. Dreamboats and Petticoats. It's all early rock'n'roll....I'm hoping for comedy gold whether it's intentional or not. If I progress far enough on the road to merriment, I may even find myself singing along, or swaying in my seat. A healthy drink or two with dinner would get me well on the way to that point, I think. Here's hoping.

The Brave

In an effort to placate the gods of Blog, I've just scarfed my lunch (big mistake) in order to take time to write another post. Two in two days. Best be careful though. This sort of behaviour is habit forming, I've been told. Lunch was, to say the least, entertaining. Anyone who's following me on Twitter (that's you, Jones, you and some lovely people who want to help me make money from home) will know that it went badly. Never, ever mistake the amount of mustard you are preparing to put on your Ryvita with ham and salad. Did you know that mustard, when chewed and swallowed, can waft up the back of the nose and cause a sensation of your nasal hair being on fire? No, I didn't know that until today either. I always thought that the mustard gas used in the First World War was named for it's colour. I never realised it was made from actual Dijon mustard.

I was having such a healthy lunch because I'm on a diet. I'm trying to lose the multiple Heathrow injections I've received since arriving here in lovely grimy London town. I'm not entirely certain why, because I actually exercise more here, and eat about the same, but it requires more effort to budge a single gram off my weight here than it ever did at home. So I've sold my soul to the evil empire and signed up for Tesco Diets. And so far it's working. Of course, today should see me lose a little more weight, given that I now have no nasal passages left, but as a general rule, yes, I have lost weight in the four weeks I've been doing this. In fact, I'm about 15% of my way to my 'target weight' (which is considerably lower than the point at which I expect to fall off the wagon and start launching myself at chocolate). I'm rather proud of myself. I'm only about 5kg above what I was when I arrived, all two and a half years (and many times through Heathrow) ago.

So why am I writing about a bloody diet that is clearly causing me pain? Because I can see problems looming on the horizon is why. Many of my friends are on diets. They're often supportive, and we arrange to go out to places where the salads are appetising, the food is cheap, and we can enjoy ourselves without counting either calories or pennies. But I'm about to enter a realm of deep fried mars bars, fast food, and offal for breakfast. That's right. I'm off to the culinary delights of Scotland. And nobody knows how I will escape weight gain, except by malnutrition - because there is surely no goodness in the sort of food you can buy in the places I will be heading. No more healthy salads, freshly steamed fish. It will be survival of the fittest, based on past experience of the budget holiday in Scotland. Except in this context, fittest means able to consume the most fried food without any of it coming back up before you chug some alcohol to deaden your senses.

Perhaps I'm being harsh. But either way, this is the surest test of my dieting resolve yet faced. And I think I'm going to wilt before the onslaught like a 2 week old lettuce leaf.

Genius meets Imbecile

Had a post, in accordance with Sarah's demands for an update. And then I clicked post, forgetting that I was at work and that it had taken me more than 10 minutes to type it all in. It was brilliant. There was humour, wit, pathos. It was the Pulitzer Prize winner of blog posts. I was guaranteed fame, fortune and good grammar, all off the back of this one post. I was, for one shining moment, the most brilliant person to frame a sentence since Oscar Wilde declared "Either that wallpaper goes or I do." Of course, the next moment, I was faced with a screen telling me that Websense was filtering personal sites and could not fulfill my request unless I clicked for an additional 10 minutes of my 120 minute allowance of quota time. I clicked...but too late. My genius will just have to be taken for granted now, without the proof that was in that post. You'll all just have to take my word for it. And I would never stoop to low as to talk myself up. Even in blog form.

Even the brightest among us must have a flaw, it appears. It's not the first time I've had this problem with the web filters here at work. I'm sure it won't be the last. But I have to wonder at the stupidity of it. They're quite happy to allow me access to all number of websites in 10 minute chunks, during my lunch hour. 2 minutes after the clock ticks over, and I'm barred from the lot. But why chose the 10 minute barrier? It seems fairly arbitrary. And it's fine if you're just checking the status of your friends on Facebook, but for writing a literary masterpiece, much like the Lost Blog, it's not enough. There seem to be many offices where filtering is a haphazard affair. Here, for instance, I can't get into Hotmail at any time. I can, however, access Gmail and Yahoo mail. Believe me, I've tried all three (yes...I have that many email accounts. More actually, because there are 2 on some of those servers). I sent an email to a friend a few weeks back that had information about breast cancer in it. It was blocked by their mail filter for profanity. As far as I can tell, it was simply because the word breast appeared in it, along with 'sex' (it wasn't even in that sense of the word - it was talking about gender). It was scientific, health related, but she accused me of sending her porn.

So, creators of web filters of the world, see if you can help me, and others with my level of obviously superior intelligence, given that I can spot the flaws in your system even if I can't fix them. Design a web filter that is intuitive. One that can see the intent of the author. Either that, or get rid of all the bloody censorship and trust to the honest sensibility of your staff to not be looking at anything they shouldn't. Personally, I had always assumed an open plan office was a fairly good solution to the problem. You can never be sure who can see what's on your screen at any given time. A tad big brother-ish, but really, no worse than the parental-style screening process that goes on in here. Such a clever idea, but so...stupid. Damn, kind of like me, in the end, isn't it.

What might have been

For a brief few days last week, life was perfect. The sun was shining, the weather was warm, I had money in my bank and ideas on just how I was going to score brilliant marks in my latest uni essay. I had two great flatmates sorting out the logisitics of getting ourselves into a new flat. I was getting messages from my Mum asking what goodies I wanted her to bring over next week. Kiwi was having a birthday, so I had a legitimate excuse to shop. For those few days, all was well in the world. And then, my life slowly reverted to the series of disasters that it always is.

See, I have the theory that my life is more like a chick lit book than I like to think. Yes, this theory might be partly inspired by my current focus on my thesis topic (although which came first, I wonder, the thesis, or my life as inspiration for it?). I am a middle class twenty something woman who still tends to think of herself more as girl than woman. I am one of the professional classes, really but am neither deeply in love with nor terribly good at my job. I am a mess with money and have a deep love of shopping that I rarely get to indulge - which is perhaps the reason why I love the guilty pleasure when I am allowed to unleash the plastic. I have supportive parents who are willing to talk me through any of life's dramas, but often choose not to confide in them due to need to assert my own independence. Moving to the other side of the world didn't hurt my ability to fit into the chick-lit category either; chick lit heroines are often isolated from their families, meaning they need to face up to their problems on their own, essentially. Until recently, I had no love life to speak of. Kiwi is fast approaching the point of being the longest relationship I've ever had. I have a small collection of good friends scattered around the globe. And, like Bridget, Becky, Carrie - hell, Lizzie Bennett, Evelina, you name her - I have wanted more but been unable to put my finger on just what it was.

But with the return of disaster to my life, I have some inkling of what it might be that I want. It's a short, simple list. In no particular order, I want sunshine during summer and a little snow during winter, with neither season invading the other. I want flowers but not hayfever. I want showers that don't leak. I want a bank account that doesn't leak, as well, but think that may be asking a little much in the present climate. I want to be able to turn on the radio, the TV, open a newspaper, without being assaulted by a barrage of disasters. I want to be able to perform brilliant analyses effortlessly during study, and to design and detail buildings that would put the Franks (Lloyd Wright and Gehry), Zaha Hadid, Corb, Mies, Foster, and all the other arhictectural heroes, to shame.

Hang it all, what I really want is a holiday. Thank god it's a long weekend coming up.

Missing

Lost: One attention span. It is only short but is much missed. Since it vanished have been unable to work or study, so any information on its whereabouts would be much appreciated. Last seen some time before Easter running off into the long weekend. If found please return to my desk - either at home or at work.

Pride and Prejudice

Flatmate and I have started the horrendous task of finding a new flat - preferably before we have to leave our current situation, and even better if we can be moved in before my parents come for their visit at the end of next month, so they have somewhere to doss (incidentally, how wrong does it sound to say that my parents, a pair of sixty-plusers who have qualified for senior citizens discounts for a few years now, are dossing?). The chances of this happening are looking increasingly slim.

The London housing market is in something of a slump. In fact, the London everything is in something of a slump, hence the need to move. However, my new revised, run-through-the-dryer-in-spite-of-washing-instructions budget doesn't stretch very far around the area I live now. I always new it was expensive. It's been a stretch the whole time I've been here, given my complete inability to save money (surely it's there for spending, no?). So I'm confronted with the task of finding somewhere suitably cheap and cheerful. But there is a catch. Flatmate is very attached to this area. In fact, I think it will take a bulldozer to get her out, no matter how much she hates out current flat. Based on recent forays onto internet sites, she's willing to either live in the worst flat in north west London, provided it's within half a mile of our present location (with restrictions, of course), or, it seems, to subsidise my rent to a ludicrous degree. It's not that she's ever visited many of the places that she has written off. In fact, some of them she's never heard of. It's more that she has a prejudice against any postcode that doesn't start NW but isn't within 10 minutes of at least 2 of the major London parks. 

Don't get me wrong here, I love the area too. There's the parks, there are bars, restaurants, and amazing transport locations. But there are also rents higher than the GDP of many African countries. And that's when you combine those GDPs together. I'm also realistic enough to figure that if I struggle on my current salary, when the pay-cut kicks in, I'm going to be drowning in debt in a hurry. 

But I also have my pride. I am willing to live in a nice enough but not over-posh part of London, to the east, to the south, to the north and my only prejudice against the west is that it's far from friends. I am not willing to sacrifice the quality of my living premises though. I draw the line at a single room, sharing a room with a stranger, or living without a lounge room. As far as flatmate is concerned, these seem like reasonable sacrifices to make in order to stay in the area. For me, they would be a year of torment, knowing that if I had been able to convince her, I could have had an enormous room in the docklands, potentially with my own bathroom and bills thrown in. I could have lived without having to borrow money. I could have still accepted invitations out. I wouldn't have Kiwi paying all the time when we go out.

So now, my pride runs up against her prejudice. Any physicists out there? What happens when two imovable forces collide? I think the outcome may be quite catastrophic. So I've been looking into flat shares within my budget all over London, and lining up viewings of flats in areas I can afford. She has been contacting agents about flats so far out of my budget that if I was to pay what I've told her I can afford, her rent would not be reduced at all on what she pays now. The question of who wins - or which estate agent does, at any rate - has yet to be resolved. Stay tuned, sports fans.

Ew, gross

This morning on the tube I had the joy of seeing one of those moments that makes you want to rush for disinfectant. I usually have a fairly high tolerance, compared to flatmate's OCD tendancies. I can make it from home to work withot reaching for the hand sanitizer. In fact, I don't actually carry any. Nor do I carry wet wipes in any form. I do, however, find that it's best to find some soap after getting off any form of public transport. This morning's effort just reinforced the lesson drilled into me by my mother.

It started out as an ordinary black-snot-inducing day. I was chatting to a friend the other day who had thought that his mother was referring to steam trains when she warmed him that taking the train in London would make his snot black. He laughed and told her that steam trains didn't run in the UK anymore. He still believed that until he travelled on the Northern line. Now he uderstands.

But it wasn't the colour of anyone's snot, black, green or otherwise, that had my stomach turning over this morning. It was the man who decided that sitting in a full carriage during peak time was the perfect opportunity to investigate just what was inside his nose. He carried out an in depth inspection, delving for gold for the entire journey between London Bridge and Oval. He might not have stopped at Oval, for all I know, it's just that I got off there. What I do know for sure is that, once his inspection of each fingernail-full was carried out, he rolled the discoveries up and flicked them away from him. 

For all the disgustingness of his actions though, there was a part of me that desperately wanted to giggle as I remembered one of the vile parodies of Heman's 'Casabianca' poem that could be found in my primary school playground:

The boy stood on the burning deck

Picking his nose like mad.

Rolled it into little balls

And flicked them at his dad.

And for that moment, I was back in the library reading Alright Vegemite, Far Out Brussel Sprout, or a similar collection of silly rhymes, with all the other grade fours and rolling on the floor laughing. And for that fact alone, I almost forgave the nose-picker.Almost. Doesn't mean I didn't go straight to wash my hands when I got to the office, though.

High Drama

There has been a whole lot going on lately. That's my excuse for not posting in over a month. So here's the quick rundown on everything. I (once again) promise to post more regularly. Scout's honour. Does it matter if I was never a scout?

I've survived yet another round of redundancies at work, although I have been forced to take a pay cut - still a better option than trying to find a new job when I know there are people out there who have ben unsuccessfully lookng for months now. It feels slightly wrong to be celebrating the fact that someone else lost their job instead of me. It's like survivors guilt. We never know why we were spared, only that we were. The feeling when hearing that my job was safe was almost enough to make me turn to religion, at the time. It was a pretty big thing, given that if I had been made redundant, I would most likely have had to head home. And now is not a good time for that. So instead, I just have to find a new, cheaper home, and bid a very fond farewell to my lovely garden flat. Such a shame I didn't really get to use the garden terribly often. But the idea was there...

Parties have started up in London again. There were no Christmas parties last year. Or none thrown by the companies that we deal with at work, anyway. Everybody was edgy and dull. Now, it's the end of the financial year and they all seem to be either launching a new showroom (I was at one the other night that looked like a night club. Apparently, they do fabrics. Not sure where they hid it. Canapes were great, though), or just spending whatever was left in the kitty before the tax man claims it. And fair enough too. So I've had a couple of weeks where I've hardly been home.

Of course, there has been another reason for not being home. He lives in East London, and shall henceforth be known as Kiwi. A little too tempted to put a smiley face in there. I've been indulging in a little too much text speak lately. But, the short version of it is that Kiwi is tall - at last, a tall guy over here! - a kiwi, obviously, and very sweet. Breaking all the traditional roles in relationships, he's the romantic demonstrative one. I'm just along for the ride. Almost put a smiley again. Best move on.

I'm studying again. This time I have to write a thesis, to finish the honours part of my degree. Two years, many many words. I've finally picked a title for it though - Portrayals of fulfilment in Chick Lit. It's the perfect excuse to re-read all my favourite down time authors. And the best part is that it won't even involve me going out and buying any books, because I already have them. Genius, or what? Now I just need the time to sit down and do the work that I'm supposed to be updating my supervisor on...

Part of the reason that my team think we saved our jobs is that the associate who oversees our department is heading back to Australia to get married at the end of next month and not coming back, meaning we will be a team of 3. Well, 2, really, since I'm already back doing architectural work rather than interiors. Last night was the associate's hen do. In a fit of budget consciousness, I decided I couldn't afford the first part of the planned outting, a trip to the races, meaning that when I caught up with them at the restaurant later, most of them were...let's go with merry. Raucous could also be used. It was an entertaining dinner, with plans for karaoke to follow. Just as we were getting sorted with the bill, however, smoke started to billow out of the ventilation system. Quickly gathering all of our things together, we got out of the building in a hurry. We did pretty well, I think. With about 20 at least partially drunk people (I'm averaging it out here) we only lost one jacket and one phone. Most of us had the forethought to pick up the cash that we were about to put in kitty (although one girl claims to have left a £1 trillion note on the table. Good luck getting that one back!). But we did get separated when the fire truck arrived. There were tears and hugs when the other hal of our group was found, and a lesson was learnt by all. It doesn't matter that a tipsy mother followed her daughter out of the building and was seen standing next to her when the fire truck pulled up. When she can't find her five minutes after that, she will get frantic and assume said daughter is still in the building. It was more than a little disconcerting to see the amount of smoke pouring from the windows at the floor we had been sitting on. If I think of it, I'll post a photo on here later to illustrate the drama. It all happened very quickly. We eventually wandered off to our karaoke booking, not a small percentage of us singing "The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire". The rest were indulging in a little Gloria Gaynor survival. Had to warm our vocal chords up somehow, I suppose.

And that's it. That's my life and times for the past month. Now I have to go and deal with the roaring headache that I seem to have picked up somewhere between the fire and getting up this morning. Now where did that come from, I wonder? 

Battle lines

My incredible shrinking office is at war.



In spite of the much-reduced number of people working in the office, it seems that one microwave is not enough to deal with everybody's lunches. Nor is the cooktop an option for heating soup, it seems. Because every day sees a new skirmish in the battle for kitchen supremacy that HR is waging on the rest of the company, with specific reference to my team.



See, we know that the line for the microwave still gets out of hand. So rather than waste precious lunchtime minutes, we tend to head kitchen-wards a little early. We're there every day except Friday, in some way shape or form. And now, so is HR. It's becoming ridiculous. We know that she hears us head into the kitchen. And then she pounces. But it's not to tell us off for jumping the gun on lunch - although we have a feeling that if she wasn't carrying a tin of soup in her hand she'd like to. It's to complain about the fact that we have yet again beaten her to the microwave. She sits within 10 metres of the kitchen. We sit in another building. How we 'beat her' remains a mystery to all of us. Today, she beat us to it. Perhaps she's finally snapped and has put CCTV cameras in our area.



Tomorrow, however, it's a new round. We will fight her in the kitchen. We shall never surrender our right to use the microwave as and when we see fit. It is not the beginning of the end, merely the end of the beginning. The battle has been lost today, but tomorrow the war rages on. And next week, we're moving back into the main building, where we won't be walking past her desk to get to the kitchen. Then, my friends, then we shall see who the true victor will be.

Yes, I've been taking too much cold medication. I will stop. I promise.

The New Deal

OK people, here's the deal. In an attempt to discover if there are more people looking at this than the two that I know about, I hav put a counter on my profile. I don't have great hopes of reaching double figures, to tell the truth. But it would be nice to see that someone out there is looking.

OK, I'll be honest. I was bored and was playing with the 'add gadgets' heading in the settings panel. Dear god I'm sad. Straight home from work to sit on the couch and tell myself to move, to make dinner, to wash some clothes. But I'm still sitting here.

It's been a long day. I can barely see straight from staring at the many-coloured lines of drawings on the computer screen at work. Some days I wonder if it's worth it. And then I think of all the things that I want to do, and all the money that is needed to do them. I think of all the giggles and fun times I have with the girls from work. And I think of the alternatives to working without winning the lottery. So yes, it's worth it.

So, the new deal is, I'll stop griping about work. I'll lever my butt off the couch and I'll get onto all those chores. And in return, the counter of visitors to this site will tick over at a healthy rate.

Yeah. Right.

Desolation

I have never pretended to love my work. It serves a purpose - let's me do other things - and doesn't always bore me stupid, so it's a step up from some of the jobs I've had in the past. It's generally a fairly happy place to be, because the others in the office tend to share similar views, to a certain extent. We're all quite happy to leave the office at the end of the day and go to our own lives. Sometimes that means that we all go out together. More often, it's catching up with friends and couches of our own. Which is what makes it especially sad to think that my office is changing.

Walking through the buildings now, it's like wandering an ocean of empty desks with occasional islands of work happening. Early last year, there was barely enough room for all of the people in the London office. When I left to get my visa situation sorted out, there was no doubt that there would be a permanent position waiting for me on the other side of the approval process. Now, the company has halved in size since the first round of redundancies last August. The losses have been almost exclusively architecture and support staff in London. So far, the other departments and offices have escaped unscathed. Areas that used to buzz with people jammed together are now silent. Either the gap to the next desk is too far for chatter, or there's no work going on.

Last Friday was the last day at the company for around 7 people, maybe more. Many kept the news to themselves until the last minute. Some never commented at all, just quietly cleaned their desks and left for the last time. For some, it's an opportunity to go and do the things they have always wanted to do. For others, it's a terrifying prospect. There is one who will become father to twins in June. Another has worked at the same desk for almost 20 years. He was in tears as he left for the last time as an employee. There are bills, mortgages, living, and there is no work out there.

The usual leaving drinks were held on Friday night seeing us trekking all over London trying to oblige the people who were leaving. Lunch in Goodge St. Back to the ghetto for drinks at our usual watering hole. Racing north once more to Hoxton Square, before running for the last tube home. There was a kind of desperation in the celebrations. We all knew that things wouldn't be the same after this, and we were determined to give them a good send-off. But this isn't like any of the other rounds of redundancies. This time, there is absolutely nothing out there for them. And even for those of us lucky enough to still have a job, there is the knowledge that we may find ourselves out of work at any time. The drinking was enthusiastic, the merriment forced, the fear lurking in all of us about what might be around the corner. And today in the office, all was silence, awestruck with the speed of events and no end in sight.

Because we all feel it. A Depression is not just about the economic mood of the country. It's about the attitude. The building industry is depressed in every sense of the word. The bubble has burst, and we're all wondering how long it's going to take for another to start to form. Please let it be soon. The emotions that were floating around on Friday were not pleasant and can only end badly for some who invest a whole lot more in their work than I do. For those who are defined by it, I hope the turnaround is on it's way. But somehow I doubt it.

Striking a balance

The world seems to need balance, and there are some things that will never change, however things may shift. Take Flatmate and I. We have only so much satisfaction to be shared out between us, regardless of the area in which we are satisfied. We seem to share out happiness in roughly even measures, job satisfaction and luck with boys.

At the moment, we're about level on job satisfaction. There's good and bad for each of us, with her working longer hours and my job alternating between boring me to tears and stressing me with the lack of security. We're roughly even on mood swings as well. It seems lately that one of us is always up and the other down. Occasionally we'll hit a good patch where we're about even and get the giggles together.

Right now, flatmate is on the first of three dates for the week. Based on the text I got a little while back, it's gong OK, but she's not sure there'll be a repeat performance. She's not likely to be too stressed by that aspect - not nearly as stressed as she was about the date - because she prefers either of the two still to come to this one. Meanwhile, in an evitable sequence of events given the combination of Flatmate having prospects and it being around Valentine's day, I have just fielded one of the more awkward conversations I've ever had. JD - he's destined to have that name forever in here now - has just proven what a nice boy he is and called me to say that he's met someone else in the time since I last saw him, and that he doesn't think he'll be seeing me again. Very decent of him, I know, but rather hard to be on either end of that phone. So, for the first time ever I have a prospect make it past Valentine's Day, only to discover that it fizzled within a week the other side.

So there you have it. Or rather, don't have it right now. It seems that the running is all Flatmate's way. One of these days we'll sort out the balance, and we'll both get what we want. Until then, well, good luck to her.

From Hell

I've been reading about the horrific fires that have ravaged my home state of Victoria, and I've been gob smacked by the stupidity of some people. It's nothing to do with the poor people who have been caught up in the fires. For them I feel nothing but sympathy at the trauma that they have not only gone through but are still experiencing and likely to be trapped in for a long time to come. No, I'm not amazed by them, other than by the fact that any of them made it out alive. My shock is that anyone could try and make political milage out of such a tragedy, especially while it is still not over, or that blame could be so central to the focus of so many people who are not involved.

There are many reasons for the severity of the fire, certainly. There are probably many ways it could have been prevented or at the very least minimised. It does no good to argue that government policies are to blame, or greenies who argued against the clearing of bush undergrowth. It is even less senseless to suggest even the possibility of something I saw on one of the message boards that basically amounted to the installation of a state-wide sprinkler system to put out the fires as they started (do have to wonder if the person advocating that has any concept of the distances involved, given that he suggested using sea water when it was politely pointed out that part of the problem is the almost total lack of rainfall to Victoria).

But the most bizarre and offensive suggestion to date is of the psycho religious variety. The appropriately named Catch the Fire Ministry seems, at first glance, to be a fairly standard extremist Christian organisation (yes, I'm at best agnostic, but seriously, take a look at some of the things these people advocate...I'll fill you in). It's leader has a knack for attracting publicity and is often linked to former Liberal politicians, a fair indication of right-wing status if ever there was one. But anybody who suggests, as this mane did overnight, that the enormous disaster of the fires was brought about by the government's actions in making abortion lawful ought to be taken somewhere quiet and having some sense knocked into them, and fast. And not just that person, but also the media who give them a forum for airing their bizarre views. Anyone could think that there is justification in the bible for the burning to death of men, women, children, innocents who may or may not have had any involvement or even opinions on abortions, ought to take a look at the passage where Sodom and Gomorrah were saved simply because there was one just man to be found in them. How can someone, supposedly a godly man, grandstand on such a subject? Does a lot for the reputation of Christians the world over. I can think of several who'd far rather that he'd just shut his trap.

And in the mean time, heartfelt sympathies to anyone who has felt the impact of these fires. I may be on the other side of the world right now, but I spent many weekends in the Kinglake and Marysville area and thought of it being wiped out, along with so many of the wonderful locals, is bad enough. Experiencing it must be something beyond comprehension.

Notting Hill ad infinitum

It's official. Hugh Grant is ruining our lives by raising the expectations of women across the world when it comes to relationships (http://www.theage.com.au/news/lifeandstyle/lifematters/reel-love/2009/02/09/1234027939181.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2). It seems appropriate to warn people about this in the lead up to Valentine's Day. Even more appropriate in light of the poster I saw outside my local shopping/cinema centre advertising Valentine's WEEK activities and specials. They're stretching it to a week now? It was hard enough to endure as a single for a day. Even as part of a potential couple, the thought of an entire week of schmaltz is enough to make me gag.

I am a closet romantic, it's true. I've read more than my share of Chick Lit books where the girl gets her man. I'm contemplating writing a thesis on them, so devoted am I to fluffy literature. I'm a massive fan of the romantic comedy film. I can - and do - talk relationships for hours, days, weeks. But I think if they stretch it to a week, even the most openly romantic soul will become a little jaded. She's my flatmate, so I'd rather not have to deal with it if it happens. There is an antidote in another friend's blog (http://www.treadonme.co.uk/). Whilst she is romantic, and writes openly of her wish to be an Austen style heroine, her sister - also wanting it, if her comments are anything to go by - is more sceptical. And that's as it should be, I think. Hope for the lightening bolt, but realise that even for the greatest artists, inspiration is only part of the battle. As beautiful as a Monet painting is, just think of all the paint stains and hours standing over the easel that must have gone into it unseen by the outside world.

Or perhaps just remember the origins of the word romantic, with the nineteenth century philosophical movement headed by the likes of Wordsworth, able to write wonderful (if over wordy, but who am I to criticise for that?) poetry, but sadly lacking in real world skills. One of the fathers of the Romantic movement left his love and his child behind in revolutionary France; he would not set eyes on them for ten years. Some romantic. Wordsworth's poems weren't the only writings to come out of the Romantic period though. Take a peak into some Gothis literature if you want the antidote to romantic comedies. Yes, there's love and modern kinds of romance in abundance. There's also blood and gore by the bucket and some of the corniest, terrifying villains ever created. So much for romance.

So, in the spirit of the Romantic Wordsworth, I'm heading off for Valentines. Months ago when it was looking like we were both going to be alone once again for that most soppy of days, Flatmate suggested that we take a weekend and head away somewhere that nobody knew us. Ironically, I would actually like to be around for this one now. Funny how that works out...

Note to self

It's one thing to discover that you know how to email a post onto your blog. It's entirely different when you remember that your work attaches a signature to the bottom of your emails just after sending one of the three posts within two days that you've been distracted enough to prepare (it was the third. In case you were wondering). It's even worse when a quick check confirms that your signature has not only your name, but also your work email address, telephone number, and office address. Try finding this out during the hours when you're locked out of the editing options of Blogger as well. Torture. Torment. I can only imagine how much worse I would have felt had anyone actually read my blog. Luckily, I have a readership of two - in a good week.

So, it's back to the drawing board (ie the computer screen where I do my drafting work, in so many senses of the word) and a return to irregular posting. Dammit.

Rhythm

I've been back dancing in the past week and have every intention of going regularly once again. We'll see how long that resolution lasts. It was great fun though, and has set me to thinking about various things, not least of which is how to cram as much of it in as I can without spending any money. Quite the challenge as it happens. Another question is how to meet some guys who can lead, so I get to follow for a change. Because the type of dancing I'm talking about here isn't the go-to-a-club-and-stand-in-a-circle-with-your-friends type of dancing - although that does happen sometimes, to a certain extent. No, I'm talking about swing dancing, the joy of jitterbug, lindy hop, charleston and, for the brave, balboa. Maybe even shag. As long as people are around who can find 1 better than most of the people in Sunday's class! I've never heard a group of people clapping supposedly in time to music sound more like a ragged round of applause. The teacher assured us that it's something that can be learned. Some clearly need to study harder than others. Finding the beat was always the one thing I could do without trying though, so shouldn't be too critical of others. Maybe they'll just be better at finding the moves?

There are other questions, as well. I know there's no way I could get nice boy to go along with me to these things. (I can't keep calling him Nice Boy. Sounds too weird. So let's christen him J.D. As in John Doe, but much cooler - can't give away names here. I have discovered that I can be found by Google searches and we can't have people knowing what I write about them unless I know them very well. So maybe his name will appear later - maybe). He's really not the dancing type, as we discovered last night when we ended up in a karaoke bar and ended up trashing almost every person brave enough to get up, while agreeing that we would never do it without a whole lot more alcohol than we were going to be drinking that night. So the juggling act starts to grow - friends, hobbies and potential boys.

There are other dilemmas as well. Next week is Valentine's Day. It is a month since our first date this weekend. I'll be away next weekend, on trip to Lisbon with Flatmate. So, is it appropriate to send a Valentine's text? Was never going to comment about the one month thing, and think in many respects it's better that I am away for St V's as well - too much pressure too soon, I think - but should it be commented on at all? Actually having to think about it is a bit of a novel situation for me, and we're neither of us the most demonstrative people. I'm struggling to find the right rhythm in this situation. Don't want to push too hard, but also want things to move on. God only knows how to manage it. I certainly don't.

Tick . . . Tock

Clock watching is a dangerously tempting activity. Especially when I realised that I hadn't gotten around to saving all the setting changes that I made to my blog at lunchtime. If only I could get back into it now, I'd actually be able to post both this and the last post I wrote (I ran out of time at lunch, and cannot access the blogger website during "work" hours thanks to the censoring software the office runs. Grr). So instead, I just thought I'd comment on the futility of clock watching

The last 6 minutes have been an eternity. I'm not sure I can make it to 5:30. A whole 115 minutes! And all I have to do are landscaping drawings (ie putting label tags on the lines representing different types of fencing on a large development site) and bathroom details

I watched the new Minder series last night. It put things into perspective when I saw the sort of scheme that I work on detailing being prepared by the dodgy developers trying to blackmail a poor innocent pub owner who refused to sell. Wonder what they'd make of the fact that I troubleshoot these mega schemes and attempt to make it so things run smoothly on site? Of course, our clients aren't like the Golds. Oh no. They'd never bend the rules at all. Strictly legitimate. They would, however, dock the pay of any of their employees who couldn't make it out to their offices in Seven Oak because of Monday's snow.

OK. Nose. Grind stone. Here goes.

Cold and grey in February is just plain wrong

The snow has turned to slush and London is once again cold and grey. It's been so cold in my office that I didn't bother putting my lunch yoghurt in the fridge this morning. I just left it in my bag by my filing drawer. Yes, I've tripped over it a dozen times today, but when I popped the tin foil (incidentally, never, NEVER try to peel the tin foil lid off a particularly sticky tub of yoghurt whilst ever so slightly squeezing the plastic tub. Especially if you're off on a date that night. It will not end well for anyone. Well, you, mostly) inside it was a cool as if I'd just pulled it from the fridge. Handy hints for the refrigeratorly challenged

Given that the return of grey also meant the return of rain, I'm trying to keep from getting my perfectly straightened hair wet by staying inside. Anything rather than having to present Nice Boy with my usual less-than-well-groomed self. You know it's bad when you're comparing notes with someone about how bad your hair is (you know you do it...) and comment that yours is a mess because all you've done to it that day was comb it when it was damp then aim the hair dryer at it for a bit before tying it back, and the response is 'Do you dry it?' in surprised tones. So I don't think he knows me well enough to be prepared for that just yet. I entertained myself at lunch by going back to Jen Lancaster's blog (www.jennsylvania.com It's sarky, it's nasty, it's comic genius), which was what inspired me in the first place with this whole blogging thing. I keep hoping that I'll have the same luck she did, getting book deals and a lifestyle out of writing. Maybe someday there'll be someone who stumbles across this blog, isn't scared off by either the catty bitching at telephone companies, the lack of any real substance to the posts, or my complete unwillingness to spell check, and will throw a six-figure book deal my way. Hell, with some work on my part I could probably reel out 3-4 in a couple of years.

But no. I'm not silly enough to think it's ever going to happen in the real world. A girl's got to have a dream though. Something to tide her through until 5:30, when she runs for the hills...OK, I'm not running for the hills. I'm dashing for the mirror, to put on a little make up before racing back to north London and a cinema where Nice Boy will hopefully be waiting for me. He just texted to let me know that he didn't get stranded in the fresh snow that fell across Hertfordshire overnight, so we're all set. Cold? Great for snuggling...Grey skies? Huh! Mood lighting. Drizzle, however, I'm less forgiving about!

Everything's turning to white

It's been snowing in London. Snowing a whole lot, in fact. I went into a bar last night, came out and the world was all soft and white. It turns out it's just as well I left when I did. If I'd stayed I might have either shared the fate of some of the people who were also at the dance class I'd been to and ended up sleeping in the tube station, or I would have faced the hour long walk home through snow that was coming down fairly heavily, by London standards. I also might have missed out on making a snow man last night.

Turns out though that I have had plenty of time to make up for any fun missed last night. It was the worst snow London has endured - the word the news readers are using, not my choice - for around 18 years. It certainly made for a pretty white blanket over everything. The kids in the area were going nuts about it all this morning. With snow so heavy, almost all schools were closed. Many offices were as well. It seems that London was not prepared for the snow. Only one of the tube lines was running without distruption north of the city this morning. I spent the day at home when it became clear that it would be nigh on impossible for me to get into the office without walking there. In fine weather, the walk takes about 2 hours. I hate to think what it would be like in this weather. So I've had the fun of going out in the snow, playing a little, watching kids make enormous snow balls that they rolled from the roundabout up the street onto the footpath, throwing snow balls at each other (I did my throwing last night when flatmate was taking photos of the lovely streetscape) and generally running amok in their unexpected free time. There were 4x4 owners ringing up radio stations gloating that their cars could get them in to work, arguing that this was reason enough to own one even in the inner city. Personally, I think being able to get to work when everyone else I knew had a good excuse not to go was reason enough to never buy one. It was great sitting in my living room and watching the falling snow, cosy and warm inside but able to head outside if I wanted. There's supposed to be more snow later this week, so I'm wondering how the city will cope. Of course by then, this current lot will have disappeared. It's already melting away in spite of steady falls all afternoon.

But all I could think was to wonder if Nice Boy had made it into the city from his commuter-town home, and whether he'd be able to make it for our planned meet-up (fifth date...apparently we're at the dinner and movie stage in his mind now...) later this week. And it makes me struggle to think about which I prefer, snow or date? Because if it snows and public transport gets shut down, he can't make it. But the snow is so beautiful and fun, especially when it scores me a day off work. I'm yet to come up with a solution that lets me have both.

Follow through

So, the big date has now been and gone. And it went well. It went very well. In fact, right now, I'm grinning like a loon, safe in the knowledge that we have planned a repeat for Saturday night. The catch is that I am now outside my relationship knowledge. I've never really had a date-based relationship before. The only other thing I've had that came close to being classed as a relationship - sometime back around the turn of the millenium, known as the stone age to many - it was a more simple thing. He was without a car, so I picked him up. We went to pubs with mutual friends who were also dating. We went on outtings. We had a whirlwind for a few weeks, then he had to go back to his army unit and I hardly heard from him again after a month or so of his being back in Townsville. This is different. Not only because of me being older, I guess, but for other reasons too. It feels different.

But what the hell do I do know is a question that repeats itself in my head over and over again. I have no idea. Sure, I've read all the romantic books. I can theoretically fill the blanks. But i"m beyond the realms of my practical knowledge. I'm in unfamilliar territory and as happy as I am tonight, I know that the panic attack of last night is unlikely to be the last if things keep going the way they are. Damn this whole excitement thing...I can't handle the stress of having anything that remotely resembles a successful social life!!!

The iceburg

Disaster has struck. Not on the job front - busier than I care to admit at work, especially given the ever-shrinking staff levels. No. This disaster has sturck much closer to home. It's the night before the big second date. I've been getting sorted, figuring out what I'm going to wear, organising lunch for tomorrow so I don't have to do it in the morning. Everything was settled (although the outfit might yet change). And then I felt it. The tingle at the corner of my mouth. Yes folks, that's right. In the lead up to a date with a nice guy, I'm developing a cold sore. Now I can't help stopping to check every mirror I go by, and feel compelled to prod my mouth which is perhaps not the smartest idea. So for now, fingers are crossed that it's just a zit that's a little too close to my mouth. I don't really believe it, but hey...Maybe it's a sign. Maybe it's not. I'll just have to distract myself with whatever I can find on TV for the rest of the night. Ooh, look, High School Musical. Great. Brainless crap with beautiful people and teen angst, all rolled up in one wholesome package. Not a zit or a cold sore to be seen. Bliss.

The wheels that fall off

It's crunch time in my office once again. Round 3 of redundancies has started. Because of my unique position, I'm not included in this round - I renewed my contract for another 2 months just before finishing up at Christmas. I'm feeling very fortunate after the way things went today. It seems I am the last of the contractors still standing in a company where there were once a lot of them. There are people far more experienced than me who are being let go. Associates and directors are taking pay cuts. Everyone jumps when their phone rings, checking to see if the call is coming from the conference room or the board room. I find myself getting tense along with them, even though I know I'm fairly safe for the moment.

We hear constant stories of other practices laying off 60 and 70 workers at a single blow. In my office, the notice about this round came out on the emails on the second day back for the year. Now people are debating whether they would rather have known before Christmas or not. Some say that they would prefer to have known, so they could curb their spending a little just in case. Others feel that it was better to have had that time stress free before the axe falls. Personally, I think I'd rather know. I hate the uncertainty that goes with not knowing what your future is. At least then I could have been a little pro-active.

It is a strange situation to be in, from my point of view. Yes, every 2 months I have to renegotiate my deal, and spend the last 2 weeks of that period frantically trying to get myself organised in case this is the last time I will have a chance to do my folio. It's still not done. I hate the thought of leaving the office where I am and being cast out into a vacant job market. I still don't understand why they seem to be going to such lengths to keep me. As far as I can see, I'm mediocre at best at what I do. I have no knowledge that others don't have. My skill set is fairly basic for someone my age. I can only conclude that I must be seriously cheap. That and the fact that I never - and I mean NEVER - argue with them. I never make waves, I just do the work. Even when I was under an alcoholic, drug crazed psycho I never openly complained. I could never see what good it would do me. I think that might have been the bit that got me through, dealing with the nut job. Perhaps they were more aware of what was going on than I thought they were. It's the only explanation I can come up with for them keeping me on when the people running the projects I work on seem to be tumbling like pins before a professional bowler. As it stands, I seem to be the spare. It's not comfortable.

I hate what is happening to the market here. The fear of people, the constant discussion of the latest company to go to the wall. There is no good news anymore, it seems. And even worse, there is no end in sight. From my precarious position half way up the ladder of project control, it is a terrifying view. And somehow, I the rungs above me on the ladder seem to be dropping on my head. If this keeps up, I'll be so far out of my depth that I will no longer be able to tread water. There are too many others who have already gone under for me to remain afloat for long, I think.

Number 2: The Dilemma

So. The guy from last week has been back in touch about a second date. And try as I might, he's putting this round on me to decide where we go. He chose a little bar not far from where he works and is now offering to come closer to my place for the second date. No issues there, really. Guess it's only fair to share out the decision making process, and it's also a chance that he wants to know what places I'll pick, if only because I was happy to let him make all the moves in round one. So. Now I have to choose somewhere.

I've suggested meeting outside the tube, keeping the options open until the last minute. Meanwhile, I've been hitting up various friends for ideas on where to go or what to do. Responses have been varied.

Our first date was simple. The bar was a nice place to have a chat, then we went the pizza option for dinner. All round, a nice vanilla first date. But this time I want something a little more cosy. I just have no idea what. It's complicated by the fact that I am broke, as ever. Makes me regret the fact that I wasted £20 on a lunch and movie expedition today...however much fun it was watching something nice and brainless for the afternoon (incidentally, tip for rom-com buffs out there...Bride Wars. Not, strictly speaking, a true rom-com, but well worth a giggle for the reincarnation of every Bride-zilla I've ever met). So, how to have a good cheap date... A friend has suggested cooking dinner for him at my place. Not a bad idea, I'm thinking. Few small catches though. No idea what sort of food he likes, other than knowning he's not a vegetarian, based on his pizza choice. Then there's the fact that, given the first date, dinner in my flat on the second might be a little too much of a jump - moving a little quicker than I might be prepared to go on this one. So, I'm still stuck. I can think of a couple of bars near where we've arranged to meet, a cafe or two. Nothing too fancy, but nice enough. There will have to be more research done. Not to mention cutting back in spending for the rest of the month. There goes my weekly lunch out at the Happy Place with the work girls. Hmm.

Does raise another question. Who should pay for a date? He offered to pay at every turn last week. I let him do it to a certain extent before making sure that I bought a round of drinks and put in for my share of dinner. It wasn't from any feminist assertive motive. I love that he tried to pay and that he was, in general, so old-fashioned gentlemanly. I just wasn't comfortable with the idea that men should pay for everything these days. I'm not saying it out of a drive for equality - although I guess it does come to that a little. I just know how expensive it could get if I am suddenly expected to pay for him a few times! I appreciate that dating must be a very expensive business for men when women just expect them to pay all the time. I don't think that shouting the other person should come so early in the potential relationship. Save it for later, and take me somewhere seriously expensive that I wouldn't be going to otherwise. Do it as a special treat, not to assert manliness. Only now, when I'm researching ideas for second dates, I've discovered that there are many different points of view about this. It seems some men feel that women who insist on paying their share are too pushy, and ought to be dumped immediately. Interesting thought, that they feel they have been stripped of their manhood by the simple splitting of the bill - not something I'd given a second thought to before.

Well, will just have to see how things play out...Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst, as ever. Do have to wonder why it's all so confusing...

The games we play

I've just gotten home from a date. It was a nice night, with a nice guy who seemed to click with me. Wednesday night is a strange night to be meeting up for drinks, but we had fun and the night really only ended because he had to catch his mus home. It's even more strange, in many ways. I'm sick of the games that go on with dating. I played this one straight down the line, not fudging anything, not holding anything back if it came out in the general run of conversation. It will be interesting to see how it pans out, in some ways. Perhaps painful in others. Because this guy was genuinely a nice guy. He seemed to be open and honest as well, a gentleman in the traditional sense of the word (holding doors open, offering to pay, not pushing any point beyond courtesy). I liked him and would like to see him again. So I didn't play any games. Told him it would be good to do this again at the end of the night. But it feels like that was too much. Why?

How is it that telling the truth about such things can scare people away? I would like to see him again, to find out more. I have the sense that perhaps he'd like to see me again. He certainly said so and, unless he was playing a game as well, we might. But what if he was playing by the rules when i had thrown them out? Am I going to be left wondering again? And how long is it right to be left wondering for? Oh, I know all the rules for when you've been on a date on the weekend...if you don't hear anything by Wednesday, it's too short notice to be free on the weekend and all of that. I know Wednesday is the traditional day for making the weekend arrangements. but I already know that he's busy on the weekend. And our date was on a Thursday. What are the rules for mid-week dating, other than not getting too drunk to turn up at work the next day?

And just as importantly,many of my friends are on the other side of the world, blissfully unaware of - or ignoring - the fact that I want to dissect and discuss what happened. I want to go over every nuance of the conversation, every piece of information that was shared. Every detail of his life that he gave away. But those of them who do know that I've been out - a select few, it seems, given how many are away on holidays or have been out of contact since the arrangement was made this time last week - are either out of contact or unresponsive. I've just been on a good date in adverse circumstances (note to self: never wear new shoes on a date. Second item, never wear high heels in icy conditions in the morning and expect an unscathed ankle come nightfall). I want to know what other people think of the fact that he was waiting until the latest moment he could be certain that his bus would still be there waiting for him after he said good night to me. I want to hear their thoughts on his let's do this again sometime. I need to know if they think it was a mistake to send a 'thanks for a good night' text when I got home, given that there's been no response. But they're not there. So I can't tell for myself if abandonning the rules I'v eplayed to date was a good idea or not. I guess I'll just have to do what every other girl on the face of the earth, including earlier incarnations of myself, have done, and what it out. I just hope he gets in touch, because he seems like he might be worth the effort, so far. Meh, who can really tell after a first date???

Please sir, I want some more...

I hate being broke. Hate it with a passion close to religion. When I have no money, I have no options. I have to prepare all my food out of whatever is in the pantry and the fridge. I have to wear the clothes that I have sitting in my cupboards and drawers. I have to go to places that are free, or else sit at home. I have to work. That's it. That's all there is. And right now, I am very broke indeed.

I switched to monthly pay from weekly not too long ago. Alright, it was almost six months now. That's beside the point. Come the end of every month, my bank balance has so many zeroes in it that it looks like binary code. Without the ones. But it isn't the end of the month right now. In fact, it's just past the middle of the month. And I've been existing on the grand total of £2 for the past fortnight. How on earth did I get in this situation?

It's a question I've asked myself many times. I'm yet to come up with an answer that doesn't shift from month to month. See, at least part of the reason always involves debt in some way, shape or form. I owed my flat mate bond on our new flat. I had a credit card to pay off. I didn't work for 4 months whilst still paying bills out of my company account and ended up owing the the government when tax time came around. Snow Patrol and Take That both release tickets to their concerts in the same week. Cheap airfares turn out to be attached to expensive cities - and even more expensive hotels. There are many reasons. The question is, why is there never a month without one? In theory, I earn very good money. I ought to be able to live in a very comfortable style. Yet here I am, petrified that I am going to lose my job and that I will, essentially, by out on the street with nothing. I own no property. I have no cash assets. All I have to show for many years in the workforce now is a long list of experiences, all with no financial value, and a mountain of personal debt that is larger than the GDP of several small countries.

It's not enough, not nearly. As the crisis looms - the axeman is poised over my job in a terrifying way, right now, like so many people in my industry, and there are few enough other positions out there that even the recruiters are turning away prospective applicants without giving reasons - it all starts to seem a little frivolous. I want my own house, my own car, a bank account with more than 30p in it, a grown up life like many of my friends seem to have. Yet they sit on the other side of the fence, eyeing off their mortgages and wondering what it must be like to be me, with no ties, nothing to keep me from whipping out the credit card (assuming it hasn't melted, but they don't know about my dirty little secret, debt, do they) and jetting off to some place where the words credit crunch simply don't translate. If only I could find it...

Virgin beyond the pale

Yes, that's right folks. In spite of numerous rants both online and on the telephone, complaints wherever I can get them heard...I'm still waiting for a phone connection. It's been over a month since the first technician told us what the problem is. Since then, another four techies have come and confirmed the opinion of the first. It's looking like he was the most competant of the lot, so far. For one thing, he found the flat without needing three phone calls, unlike this morning's effort.

I've yelled. I've been sarcastic. I've been calm. I've been logical. I've even tried irrational on for size. I've also been yelled at, laughed at and generally treated like an idiot.

But in the all of this, I have learned several things. I have discovered that, much to my shock, there is no higher authority to take such complaints to. Virgin Media are not overseen by the telecommunications ombudsman. The Office of Communications claim that they do not deal with individual complaints. My local MP is powerless against the giants. I don't even know if there is a minister with this as part of their portfolio. I do know that there are a whole lot of disgruntled customers out there. It's time that there was someone to step up to the plate and deal with this. Telephones are a crucial part of modern life, and doing without one even for as long as we have is, quite simply, unacceptable. If it wasn't so bloody annoying, it would be interesting to see just how long they can string us along. Without Virgin, we have no phone line at all. BT promise they could send an engineer out to install a line within 7 days. So why can Virgin not match this?

I'm getting too tired to try and fathom the whys and wherefores of this now. I'm over it, and I'm also making a name for my flatmate (no matter how I try to explain that the account is in her name, not mine, that I am NOT her, they keep calling me by her name) among the occasionally lovely but often enough rude people in the customer service call centres of Virgin. I'm not unsympathetic to them - it must be soul destroying to work in an evironment where all you deal with all day every day are problems created by someone else. But for pity's sake, just get someone to solve the issue. It would make everybody's life more pleasant.

Fear and Loathing

I have passed the point of being able to care about anything other than the two obsessions currently driving me back to regular blogging. Virgin and the Credit Crunch. The Credit Crunch and Virgin. It sounds like some crappy Holloywood comedy about a teenage girl and her breakfast cereal. But instead, the combination has me twitching and terrified, in equal measure.

The twitching I've dwelt on many times before. I'm hoping that it will be resolved today, as the heroic Virgin engineering team walk in slow motion down the stairs to my flat, where they will find my flat mate's ex-boyrfriend lurking there to ensure that they do their jobs. But surely such super heroes couldn't fail again? Especially given that the last lot of meg failures at least took the time to put fluorescent green paint around the point on the footpath that they need to look at, just in case there was a chance they could miss it. I'm certain that I will get home tonight to find a working telephone. About as sure as I am that I will sprout wings and fly home.

The terror comes from an entirely different source. I'm on rolling 2 month contracts at work, in an office that has just started its second round of redundancies. This time it's the senior staff who are under the hammer. But it makes me think about the fact that they're paying out people ho have been with the company for far longer than I have been, with much more knowledge to offer than I have. I'm sensing that my job is far from secure.

I've been looking around for something more permanent anyway, for the past couple of weeks. There is nothing out there, I keep being told. Or at least nothing that would suit me. The recruiters are either most apologetic, or almost rude in their rush to ignore me. This is the true source of my terror. Because without a job, I'm lost.

I've been looking into alternatives in case the worst should happen, trying desperately to think of something else to do. Sewing and writing are my other "things", and neither of them is terribly useful given my lack of application. I mean, I have three partial novels posted on a website to get feedback. One has been up for months, but the refining process has been...prolonged, shall we say. I'm the worst editor in the world. I tend to get very attached to some of my things. Take one of the novels, for example, which in short hand I refer to as 'Katie'. Katie has been on the go now for several years. It is a silly flippant read, about a silly flippant girl with a serious intelligent mother. I know it's overwritten. I know I have a deep and abiding love of adjectives and adverbs that bogs it down. I know it needs work. But I never seem to get around to it.

I still don't think I needed the lecture from one of the reviewers, who told me I should learn the rules governing the use of apostrophes, because I was using them 'as a grocer would' (note: it's called a typo, you anal retentive prat. Given that the rest of my work is riddled with them, and there were only 2 errors in apostrophe use in a 10,000 word piece, I'd have thought that much was obvious. Your own grammar could use some work, too, gramps). Nor did I deserve the comment that perhaps 'serious library-haunting girls would appreciate it, but he doubted it. It's not that bad - 8 out of 9 reviewers agree that it has potential - but I know it does need work. It was not deserving of the across-the-board 1s that he rated me. But in spite of being fired up and angry about him, terrified of the looming no-work-no-money-no-food-no-home scenario, and loathing pretty much everyone right now - especially Virgin - I'm finding it difficult to muster the energy to do anything about any of it.

So, if anybody knows of any good motivational techniques - or a half decent proof reader, because clearly I need one - feel free to drop me a line. I promise to save the invective for those, like Virgin and the idiotic reviewer, who truly deserve it.

Is there anyone alive out there?

It seems that everyone at Virgin Media is either brain dead or terminally stupid. Harsh opening, perhaps, but that is the conclusion that the evidence I have seen to date leads me to. See, the saga of the phone line continues, as does the inevitable time with me listening to the lovely Miley Cyrus. Although today I did learn that the higher up the chain you go when you complain the more annoying the hold music gets.

Today was the day it was all supposed to be resolved, at last. I was promised that I would never have to make another complaining phone call. I was promised that if I did have to make such a call, I would have a landline on which to make it. I was promised, in short, everything that I should have had about a month back. As might be obvious from the fact that I'm writing about this yet again, Virgin has, once again, failed to deliver. This time the engineers did make it into the front yard. I was home sick - well, not sick exactly, but I have no leave left, I did need to make a trip to the doctors this morning, and would end up needing the afternoon off anyway, so to all intents and purposes, yes, I was sick. The massive pounding that's going through my head whenever I speak to Virgin now is sure to trigger some sort of brain explosion, so I figure 'sick' is a fair enough assessment. So I had a great vantage point to see the two men who came a poked around the garden for about 5 minutes before they disappeared. I was a little slow though. They'd gotten to the van and driven off once again before I could run after them and find out what their thoughts were. Because it's for damned sure that there's nobody at that bloody company who will call me to inform m of anything.

I did eventually call someone. I'm past the point of ranting now though. It was quite a reasoned conversation, which is miraculous when you think that the people on the other end of the phone were telling me exactly the same things that I was told by people almost exactly a month ago after the first technician came and told us that we'd need to get a new cable laid coming into the property. They told us back then that they needed to get council permits to dig up the footpath, which was why it would take 4 weeks to get someone out here to do it. It sounded wrong at the time, and it's proven to be even more wrong now, because it has never been mentioned again. Now all they say is that it is a construction issue and has been passed up the chain - escalated, in the techno-speak they use to bamboozle suckers who haven't heard it all before - and will be dealt with directly. Directly, in this case, seems to suggest that there will be another day off work required from either me or my flatmate. Joy of joys. They once again promised that I would be hearing from managers. They said there would be red carpet rolled out and rose petals under my feet...I would bathe in champagne and be dressed in head to toe gold...or something just as likely to happen, in any case, if that wasn't the exact wording they used. I even got told that there was nobody higher the complaint could go to, and that the failure of the manager to return my calls after the weekend would be investigated by someone called Dan Pearce. Again, I'm somewhat skeptical. There is no evidence to date that makes me think any of what they have promised will actually happen. The real catch, though, is that there is no telephone complaints department. There is no other avenue for me to go down if I want a phone line, short of going and signing up for one of the other companies. And don't think I haven't looked into them. I have. I still am. It's just that my inner optimist keeps taking over and thinking that it surely can't go on any further, that three engineers' visits will surely do the trick, that next time they will return the call. For all that my reason tells me otherwise, I hope that somewhere out there is some Virgin employee who actually does their job, and does it well. I keep getting sucked in, in short. I am one of those suckers born every minute that a great circus impressario once spoke about, when it comes to trusting corporations.

So, Mr Branson, if you're out there, and you're real, and you want people not bitching about what is one of the flagship enterprises of your mammoth company now you've sold off the megastores, I suggest spending a little less time figuring out how to get people to the moon on a budget, and a little more trying to make it so that they can order in a pizza without running up a phone bill the size of an African country's GDP. Step away from the balloon for a moment, and look back at where your money comes from. Because if this keeps up, the cash will end someday. Even my stupid dumb optimism will only stretch so far before it snaps.

The Credit Crunch Who Stole Christmas

It's not enough to have to deal with the crap that Virgin Media are calling service right now. Oh no. Life just has to keep on throwing down the annoying bits and pieces that make you want to curl up and never deal with people ever again.

Anyone living under what has to be a disturbingly large boulder might not know that there is a global financial crisis at the moment, affectionately dubbed the Credit Crunch. Others might have heard it mentioned in the media once or twice. An hour. Every day. See, where there wasn't necessarily a whole load of panic when the sub-prime crisis hit American financial markets (mostly because people didn't understand it), it seems that being told more times a day than could ever be considered necessary that the economy is at risk of sliding into 'stagflation' (negative growth in all sectors except inflation, apparently) is enough to make the average punter sit up, take notice, and fear for their livelihood. I'm no different, although I do at least have the justification of being in a precarious industry, and pretty much on notice that my job is disappearing. Am I moping though? No. I'm in the process of finding something else is what I am. But this is the straw that broke the camel's back.

I've just been told by a reliable source that my company is one of many that is not having an annual Christmas party this year, because of the credit crunch. Not enough to have laid off half the company, further economies are required. That catch is, this is the time when a masive blow out is really needed. See, it's all very well to have the big party during the good times, celebrating being one of the lucky ones. But when there's not much else in the world to celebrate - economy turned to crap, wars all over the place, cold miserable weather, Virgin being incompetant - Christmas is a beacon of hope to many, the only thing that gets them through the deepest, darkest - in some cases literally - time of the year in the northern hemisphere. It's not a coincidence that the holiday season bings with it higher suicide rates than almost any other time of year.

So, in short, the media has a lot to answer for. I'm blaming them for raising awareness of the problems brought about by the American economic crisis. They have created a global problem, and now have some explaining to do. Or at the very least they ought to offer to fund Christmas parties for all the poor bunnies who wil have little enough to celebrate this year, thanks to their scaremongering.

The Ridiculous Virgin

Some might be aware that I moved to a new flat a couple of months back. Most of the problems that crop up when moving have been resolved since then. Most. But one last thing is lingering and growing more painful by the minute. We are still waiting for Virgin Media to pull their finger out and get around to supplying the services that we are currently paying for.

Getting a telephone connected to the flat has been an ongoing saga. First we tried to bring our old BT number with us. It seemed simple enough and they assured us that it would take a couple of days, once the former occupants of the flat cancelled their account which seemed to have been left open. Fair enough, we thought, and were reasonably content to have to wait the two weeks. Catch was, when they sent an engineer, he was not, at first, convinced that he was at the right flat. We insisted that the address we had given was right, so he changed the number. For the wrong flat. Our number was given to the flat upstairs. See, our flat doesn't even have a BT line. It took them 2 weeks to figure this out. Genius. So we decided that rather than wait the extra four weeks to get a BT line, we would cancel our account and go with Virgin, who we used for Broadband. And that was our second mistake.

At first, all seemed to go well. An installation tech came out, set up our TV, our phone and our new cable broadband for us using the existing cable. He was friendly, seemed to know what he was doing, and left us satisfied that everything was working. We seemed to have made the right choice, even if it did mean getting a new phone number. All went well for about a week. Then the phone went down. First it crackled, then it died completely. And the saga really began around about here.

You see, the departments at Virgin Media seem not to talk to each other. You call to report a fault, and they can send someone out within 2 weeks to take a look. That person may or may not be able to do more than tell you what you already know - that the fault is at their end, not yours. In our case, he could tell us that the cable bringing the service into our property was corroded through. And that the back up cable was also gone. Joy of joys. He set up a crew to come and replace the cable - an appointment that was 4 weeks away and suggested in the mean time that we keep trying in case others decided not to wait. Gee, I wonder why you wouldn't wait 4 weeks for a phone connection? The date for the new appointment fell on Saturday, sometime between 8 and 1, we were told.

Saturday dawned dark and wet. We got up at the unholy hour of 8, just to make sure that we weren't going to miss the call. Turns out, there was no way in hell that we'd have missed the banging on the door, because it never came. We saw the techs. They came to the gate, stood there for a moment, then turned and walked away. At 9am. Fair enough, we thought, maybe they need something else, as their van drove away. So we gave them until 1, as agreed, to come back and give us a phone. No. They never came back, and when we called - using our mobile, and running up an already enormous bill - we were told that they'd called the office at 12:40 saying something - the person at the other end couldn't figure out what it was either - was blocked, but that they'd be back later. Again, wrong. So come 3, we tried again, this time to be told that it had been referred to the construction department and that a manager would be calling us within the hour. Foolishly, going against evidence to date, we accepted this, if only to get us away from the Miley Cyrus/Duffy loop of hold music. Don't get me wrong, I used to like both of those songs, but hearing them repeat for about 2 hours in the course of one day is more than I can bear.

We waited. Again. No contact. So we once again took up our lovely non-Virgin mobiles at around 5 and dialed the 0845 number, choosing a random selection from the 4 options that come after about 3 minutes of hearing about Sky coming back to Virgin TV. Yes, I know, wonderful. Now please fix my phone. At least give me a date when you will fix it. November 18? I think not. So I launched into a rant. Now, I don't do this very often. I tend to think that the person at the other end of the phone is unlikely to respond well to out and out anger, but I was in a foul mood by now. I wanted my phone fixed, and I wanted it done that day. Except the construction management had gone home. There was nothing they could do. Except book me in for the 18 November. Which is a week day, meaning that either I or my flat mate would have to lose a day of work. Now my job is precarious thanks to the credit crunch, and my flatmate gets paid by the hour. Which of us would you like to take time out of the office, Mr Branson? But thanks for the reassurance that we won't be paying for the phone while it's not working. Just so we're clear here, we're not paying for ANY of it while it's not working, I think. It is possible to cancel a dirct debit at the bank, you know. I was promised that my complaint was being escalated, not just to the manager responsible, but to his manager, and that I would be hearing from them.

Now here I am, it's almost lunchtime on Monday morning and, what a surprise, I haven't heard a peep out of anyone. Google, however, has revealed at least one blog where someone got a response. So I'm hoping that the complaints people at Virgin are able to get their hands on this. If nothing else, I have their names. I can get their numbers, their postal addresses - hell, if I try hard enough, probably their home addresses, and I'm sure THEIR phone works just fine. Surely it's not a lot to ask. A phone line, without spending hours calling. Please. Anything so I don't have to hear the words 'Right, we've got four options for you' ever again.

Of bombs, plots and pyros

On November 5, there is nowhere in the world I'd rather be than London. Which makes it incredibly frustrating that I've spent most of the day out of London, in Glasgow for work.

In the UK, there is not another day of the year that comes close in terms of bangs and crashes. It is the day of commemorating the foiling of a plot to blow up the English parliament. Seems the Catholics weren't all that impressed with life under James I (James VI for the Scots out there) and planned to blow up not only the parliament, but pretty much the entire ruling class. Although there was a fairly large group of them, Guy Fawkes has remained the best known of the conspirators who planted gunpowder beneath the houses of parliament. And what better way to celebrate a failure of the gunpowder plot than blowing up everything? Poor Guy is burned in effigy once a year while fire works light up the sky and give the fire department their busiest day of the year. It's almost enough to make me understand why fire works are so restricted in Australia.

As I sit in my living room, being a sado and typing from the couch, I can hear a constant round of bangs. On the way back from the airport, there were flashes lighting up the sky. I couldn't always see the actual fireworks. Sometimes it was just the hint of light, like thunderstorms just over the horizon. It gave a hint of what the Blitz must have been like, but without the carnage, generally speaking. I think I might have said something similar before. The bombs dropping must have been terrifying, hearing the roar of the planes, the explosions getting closer. It's gives enough of a fright when there's fireworks on the round about 100m from my flat. I can't imagine what a series of bombs exploding on houses must have sounded like. Especially if you were in the house at the time.

Glasgow is no stranger to bombs more recently - or explosions of a type, anyway. It isn't that long since terrorists tried to blow up the Glasgow airport. Fortunately, all they succeeded in doing was driving a burning car into the terminal. Only part of the building was damaged. The airport has been partially closed off ever since while repair works were undertaken. I went through the terminal for the first time in months this week, and the change was enormous. Suddenly, Glasgow has a modern airport. Turns out, the terrorists did them a favour, in the end, with the new airport emerging, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the old. Not only that, the old undamaged areas are now being refurbished as well. It seems that the English aren't the only ones able to salvage something good from terrorism...

A Big Move

I have just moved house. It's true, we didn't go far (about 300m up the road, actually) but it feels like a big move for me. Kind of strange when you think that the last time I moved house it involved 24 hours of travelling. But maybe this move has seemed bigger because I seem to have accumulated so much stuff in the couple of years I've been here. Or maybe it's because I managed to stretch the actual move out over the course of nearly 2 weeks, carrying bits and pieces down the road every day and starting to sleep here once I had more than half of my things in my new room.

I love my new flat. It has a lot of things going for it. It's far quieter than the old one, for a start. I'm less likely to be woken in the middle of the night by a drunk, lovelorn Polish man yelling up to his girlfriend for several hours as she ignores him. It doesn't feel like the building is going to fall down whenever a train goes by, or a bus pulls up outside. It's also a crucial distance closer to the tube, meaning that I have yet to be late to work since I started sleeping here, in spite of silliness like moving without the hairdryer. There is a large living area, open plan, which is great for relaxing in, given that there's a couch each. The bathroom is spacious, to say the least. As for my room, I am able to stand in it, stretch my arms, and not touch wall. I can walk around my bed, and I can finally push my bed right up against the wall. The best part, in my humble opinion, is that we have a courtyard all of our very own, a slice of teeny open space that, whilst not being the lush garden I would rather have (complete with a gorgeous gardener, of course), should manage to calm some of the craving for space that happens. The flat is so much larger than the old place, that it is really twice the size. It has only one disadvantage. My flatmate seems to hate it.

In fact, her emotions about the flat are seemingly so strong that she has been in a sulk for over a week now. Under normal circumstances, she is a fairly happy person, easy enough to live with and friendly, or at the very least courteous, to all she meets. The person who has taken her place for the past couple of weeks is a taciturn, rude grump who barely acknowledges someone else's existence. It has me more than a little worried. Yes, her room here is smaller than the unusually large room she had before. But there are pay offs, if she would stop her tantrum long enough to see them. It's almost like there's been a visit from the bodysnatchers, leaving a replacement for her who looks just the same. She didn't even speak to the friend I'd asked to help us move the heavier stuff yesterday, in spite of the fact that this person was not only driving our (mostly her) belongings up the road, but was helping us carry them down the mountain of stairs that lead to our old flat.To not say hello, let alone thanks, is totally out of character. The only time I've seen her in a strop to rival this was after she'd been dumped by her boyfriend for the second time. At least then she had an excuse.

So as it stands, I'm having doubts about our big move. Nothing to do with the flat, everything to do with the state of mind of my flatmate. Because there is no way I can live with her while she's like this. And nothing I've tried so far has managed to jolly her out of it. Right now, she's taking the last lingering look around the old flat and, truth be told, probably giving the white glove treatment to every surface I've cleaned, given that she has no faith in my housekeeping abilities. Without doubt that is why it has taken her an hour to go and collect her last couple of things. But if things don't improve soon, something - or someone - is going to break. I just hope it's neither of us.

Happy days are here again...we hope

Summer has finally come to London. After an insanely long time away from both London and hints of summer weather (OK, the away from London bit was 2 months. The away from summer was almost 2 years), it's great to be back and warm once again. I've been working on my accidental tan lines, with arms that are getting a nice healthy colour again (no, not brown, I'm not sunning myself, but it's not so bad that I turn blue under UV light anymore either) and I've discovered that gladiator sandals, whilst cool fashion-wise, do not do wonders for your feet when you wear them in the sun. I have patches of colour on my feet, exagerated by the stripes of white where the straps normally go. The trees are leafy, the old flabby men are shirtless, and the tube is sweltering. All if well in the world.

There has been a rash of summer flat hunting happening too, while we can see how much light it is possible to get into a London building and before we have to worry about getting frostbite through using our temperamental shower in cold weather again. we thought we'd found a place a couple of weeks back, put down a deposit on it and everything. It was probably more excitng for me than for my change-averse flatmate, who had been showering at the gym every weekday and so avoiding the worst of the problem. Joining a gym is an expensive solution to the problem, but it seems that renting a new flat might turn out to be a more expensive one! The place we put the deposit on was ours for a day only. Due to the ins and outs of the dodgy estate agent system that seems to operate here, the agent was able to accept a higher offer on what we had already started thinking of as our flat. We're not enirely distraught by this though, since the weekend after that we found an even better flat that is literally up the road from where we live now.The move ought to be fairly painless and this one has been ours in principle if not fact for an entire week now. We even have an assurance that we basically have dibs, and that no higher offers will be accepted before we have a chance to come back to them. Not that we can go higher or anything, since this is already a massive stretch for me to cover right now. But it has a garden, it has a lovely open-plan living area and, most importantly, it has a fully functional, wonderful shower. The girls at work are upset though, since they seem to be under the impression that I lead the most exciting life with all the drama that goes on in and around this building.

That has led me to look back at the various incidents...There was the stolen car that was ploughed into the tree across the road. Th fight that reeled through the street. The strange piano-playing downstairs neighbours, who could not possibly have gotten a piano into their flat. The adventures with the power and gas company caused by the landlord. The Irish handyman who turns up to make his repairs and demands food. The Polish boyfriend of someone a few doors up who took it into his head to stand outside her building and call her name for 3 hours (that girl is a seriously good sleeper). The entire day of police activity in one of the buildings across the road. The randomness of water disconnection. All in all, it's been an eventful couple of years here, and I've enjoyed it. But it's time to move on, and to have a room where I can't touch two opposing walls at the same time if I stretch really hard, where the toilet doesn't leak onto the carpeted bathroom floor, where the building doesn't feel like it's in imminent danger of collapse every time a bus stops on the speed bump outside. Maybe even where there is a single surface that is trule horizontal. But we aren't there yet. Fingers crossed that Monday sees us getting a phone call to tell us that our references are acceptable and that we should come down to sign the contract. Until then, we're holding our breath and making the most of what the summer has to offer us while it's here.