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.

Free at last from the threat of visa problems...almost

Finally, the British government has decided to say I'm allowed a visa. All that's left is to wait for the entry clearance stamp/sticker to appear in my passport, and to not be turned back at the border. Which means that I feel free to pass some comments on the process so far, hopefully in a certain amount of anonymity since I'm still in Melbourne as I write this, and my passport is at the visa section of the British consulate in Canberra.

There have been many people who were surprised to find that Australians need visas to live and work in the UK. It's a fair enough question, really, when you think about it. I've been in the system since mid-February getting this far, and still have up to 2 weeks to go, assuming everything goes to plan that is. All to get into the UK legally. When, if you want to be pedantic about it, Australians should really have more right to enter than the EU citizens who are free to come and go as they please. Afterall, Australia and Britain share the same queen. Given that we have the same head of state, until such time as either country wakes up to the fact that the monarch is outdated - something far more likely to happen in Britain than Australia, as soon as the Brits find someone else to fill the gossip magazines as well and the Windsors do - surely we should be able to have equal rights within countries which are also subjects of the Queen? Logic would suggest it. Because as it stands, if I want to go and work for my ultimate head of state, not only do I have to pass the standard security and background checks that British employees would be subject to, but I would also have to arrange a visa, with every likelihood that I would be refused. Hmm, republicans take note.

Otherwise, the process is no doubt much smoother when there are not thousands on panicked people thinking that new rules will make it harder for them to get their visas dumping applications in at once. I'm fairly certain that it would normally take far less than 12 weeks to process the first stage of the application. I do, however, have to question the point of a two stage process - especially when it's really a three stage process, by the time you factor in the lovely part where they treat you like a terrorist/criminal, and take both fingerprints and a mugshot, which is aparently compared to the passport photo you are required to supply with your application (note for visa people: compare the passport photo on the application with the photo IN THE PASSPORT!!! Given that it's acceptable to prove who you are when they fingerprint you...). Why can they not do both stages at once? Or at least take the applications for both at the same time? Admittedly, this was kind of an option for me, but for the fact that it would have left me in the UK, unable to work legally, for 16 weeks or more while they pulled their finger out. Instead, I've had to fly home, change my flight back to the UK at great expense, and live off my parents for 2 months. As fun as it might be, there are limits. My personal limit for sharing a bathroom with my brother now is, apparently, about the 1 month mark before I start to crack about the puddles on the floor, the fact that towels are constantly sopping wet, and tripping over the shoes left in the middle of the room - not to mention that he uses the entire bench space. I am looking forward to getting back to London and starting the search for a new flat. Not that I don't have a room to go back to...In spite of only being in London for around 2 months in total so far this year, I have been paying the exorbitant rents for the entire period I've been undergoing this torture.

Oh well. At least the end is almost in sight. Hopefully. Assuming they got my application. Because, in true bureaucratic style, I have no means to check that it was received. I may have sent it registered post, but the only way I'll know that it wasn't received is if I don't get it back within the predicted 15 working days. By which time I will be almost ready to leave again. Given the way my luck was running for a while there, I'm not making any plans for the immediate future, just yet.

The Third Ring

I'm quickly coming to understand how limbo could be considered one of the rings of hell, how it could be considered a punishment almost worse than hell itself. I seem to remember that, depending on the period in history, limbo - or rather, pergatory - has been used as incentive to get yourself to heaven. Right now, I'd consider hell a fair alternative as well. At least you'd know where you were, and where you were going to be for the time to come. You could prepare yourself. In limbo, there is no planning. Things can go either way. The torture is exquisite. Just ask anyone waiting for a verdict on a visa application. Waiting for 9 weeks, with the last 4 of the process being told to expect a verdict within another week.

Yes, that's right...it's now 9 weeks since I heard from my immigration representative that my visa application hd been submitted. That was a little bit of a surprise to me, I must admit, since as far as I was concerned it had all been completed about a week before when they had all the information they needed and £750 of my hard earned into their hot little bank account. Turns out I was a little mistaken. Seems I was a little mistaken also when I assumed that I would hear within 8 weeks, even allowing for a bit of an error in the estimated 6 week prediction. See, right now, the geniuses at Borders and Immigration seem to be getting through a days worth of applications every week. Makes you wonder; are they terminally slow, or are there that many applications? In the latter case, if there are that many, how many are being approved? And how closely are they studying them? Because I want a verdict, and I want it three weeks ago.

Meanwhile, I'm here in limbo, almost a stateless citizen. I'm in Australia once more, yes. I'm back living with my parents and working on a laptop doing exactly the same job I was doing in London. In many ways, it's almost like I never left here. But I can't make any plans for the future. I don't know where I will be. I don't even know if I'll be able to make use of the return leg of my plane ticket, or if I'll need to either cancel it or change the date. I don't know anything. If I get a yes, I'll have to dash up to Canberra at some point to finalise details. But I don't know when that will be. My mother wants to take some time off work while I'm here to catch up properly. She's asking me which week is best for me. I have no answer for her, because I don't know when things are happening, if they are at all. It's no way to live a life. Actually, it's less like living than like being in that film, Groundhog Day. I live the same day over and over again with minor variations. And always the response from my immigration agent is the same: You should have a verdict within a week. I won't be betting on it just yet though.

Waiting for divine inspiration

It's always amazed me the lengths I will go to when I want to avoid something. And this is me talking about myself. Right now, I'm avoiding work - nothing unusual there, really. I tend to do it mostly when it can't be avoided and right now, it's easily avoided, as long as I make the deadlines. They're looming ever larger on the horizon though. It's just I'm struggling to get myself motivated. But strangely enough, I find that I'm motivated enough when it comes to other projects. Like designing and making a dress to wear to a formal dinner next weekend. Like writing a screen play (I have around 45 minutes of actual performance written, for anyone who's interested. It's fascinating. Or at least it is while I've got something else I should be doing). Like looking into learning computer rendering so I can make the movie of my screenplay without ever having to sell it. Finding software to get the screenplay in the correct format should I decide to sell it afterall. Finding an agent to send it to once it's in the correct format.

It seems that ever time I sit down at the work computer, a stroke of brilliance comes along to do with something else, and I find myself obliged to at least write it down, before it disappears. Then I need to develop the idea a little along certain lines. I need to make it clear to myself for future reference that Hannah and Luke argue about Luke leaving school. I need to create the setting for Becca to be a complete bitch to Luke. I need to explain why the Watcher doesn't have a name, as far as Josie knows. I need to establish Rueban as the old man who will mould the hero. I need to create the overwhelming sense of terror at the thought that the government can make anybody disappear for no apparent reason, that they have agents everywhere you go, and that nobody will lift a finger to help you.

And before I know it, 5 hours have passed, even though I sat down to make a note for 15 minutes or so, just while I had lunch, or dinner. I was going to make up the time later, tomorrow, on the weekend, but it never seems to get caught up. Why? When I'm in the process of locking myself into this work for longer, when I've been reasonably content in my job, by my usual standards, why can I not focus? Is it because, for the moment at least, I'm working amidst all the distractions of home? It's infuriating, really, that I have neither enough hours in the day, nor enough attention span, to get through both sets of tasks the fun stuff as well as the serious-pay-the-bills stuff. Because I know that the instant anything was to happen that made the fun, distracting stuff more like actual work, I'd find myself distracted from that too. Why is it that, as much as I love something, as soon as it becomes work, it becomes a drag?

And in even bigger questions relating to my state of mental health at the moment, is there any cure for coca cola addiction? Please forward all suggestions before my work-life balance is skewed along the lines of I'll-do-anything-as-long-as-there's-a-coke-machine-handy.

A little perspective please

The thing about being an Australian in Ireland is that it throws your country's heritage into rather harsh perspective - and by heritage, I should clarify that I'm talking about my personal heritage, not that of the country as a whole; I know the land was around and inhabited long before my ancestors even thought of setting foot there, but it's harder to grasp that heritage than it is for me to keep track of my own. To all intents and purposes, Australia as a country as has been around for little - very little - over a century. Ireland, on the other hand, had already been conquered and freed more times than I care to think about before the English knew the great south land existed.

A short walk from Killarney, where I'm based at the moment, are places that it's hard to believe, from my limited perspective, how old they are, buildings of so little note that often they have been left to moulder in some farmer's paddock with the government paying little of no attention to them - my theory is because there are so many. The fields are littered with ruins and must make life rather hard for the farmers. As near as I can tell, there are no laws or obligations on the farmers to keep them up. The only thing that stops some of them from being destroyed entirely is the combination expense it wuld occassion to move the pile of rubble and the superstitions that have arisen over the years that some of these piles are relics of the time when the faerie walked the irish soil.

Other times, the government has their attention called to a ruin and does it up in specatcular style. Ross Castle, for example, was bought by a consortium of americans who intended to turn it into a holiday resort. One of them had an attack of conscience, however, and somehow managed to get the irish government to pay for the repairs before he handed the ownership of the castle - and the 16,000 acres of land attached to it - back to the irish people. Now it forms one of the centrepieces of Killarney National Park. Tourists can now visit the 15th Century tower house and see what life would have been like for the chieftain and his family, as well as their servants - people who slept 15 to a room that these days would be comdemned as too poky, and turned into a study.

The information the guides can offer also makes you think. Life expectancy back in the 15th and 16th centuries for the Irish was not great. Estimates put it at 27-35. I scape into that age bracket now. Think of what those people would have lived through in that time, and again that perspective I was talking about before changes. Harsh life, wars, raids, famine, disease, child rearing...all within the time it wook me to grow up, get an education and barely get started on my life. Having seen the way they lived, however - and I'm talking about the priveleged upper classes here, as well - it makes you wonder what we're waiting for half the time. That and the knowledge that if I'd been born 500 years earlier, I'd probably be a grandmother! With the amount that they crammed into such a short time frame, the miracle is that they lived that long in the first place and didn't just drop dead of exhaustion, not to mention cold, given that they still hadnt discovered windows. Makes you kind of glad to be a twenty frist century kind of girl, really.

The times they are a changing

There's nothing like sitting all day every day in the common room of a hostelpretending to be working for finely tuning your ability to avoid something. In my personalcase, I'm trying to avoid the boredom of putting together a database for a London company.It might as well be a detailed spreadsheet of all the information on a series of projects being undertaken by the company. Apparently, my inside knowledge was indispensible for the task. I won't complain too hard though, as long as I get paid for it all. But in sitting here at my laptop, I have found that the urge to update my blog overtakes me far more often than it would otherwise do. Hence the regular posts again. It's just like when I was bored silly in a permissive office *sigh*.

But it has also given me a chance to observe the workings of the hostel a little more closely than I would otherwise. And I have to say, this one runs pretty well. There are the regulars who, like me, are pretty much living here. We recognise each other by sight if not by name, and have at least a nodding acquaintance and knowledge of each other's business. There is nowhere to hide your secret life in here, that is for sure. THen there are the blow-ins, the arrivals who turn up without a booking, but hoping for somewhere to spend the night. I'm not sure where they go when it's busy time and the place is booked out; I'm guessing to the somewhat less salubrious accommodation up the road. I don't envy them.

The bit that really gets me though is that most of these people need not turn up without a booking. The odern backpacker is a high tech being, travelling with mobile phones, mp3 players and often even laptops. Many have roaming broadband and need enver be out of touch with the world in any way, at any time. Somewhat different to the first time I went backpacking, over 7 years ago now, and didn't even have a phone card, that most modest of communication devices now. I'm as bad as the rest of them, I admit it, but I have to ask, where's the adventure gone, when you can travel solo, but really be bringing your friends along for the ride via the webcam hook up on your computer?

I'm not advocating going without all th modern accoutrements. I'd die without them on this trp, since I wouldn't be able to make any money and that 2 euros I had left to my name a couple of days ago would have been spent on a combination of packet soup, 2 minute noodles and tinned pasta - a most healthy and nutritious diet. Rather I'm wondering, where do you go to get away from the world? How do you truly escape now? Its not even a surprise to find someone with hundred - in some cases thousands - of dollars worth of equipment stashed in a humble backpack, but rather a surprise to find someone wihtout any high tech gizmos. My family and friends would be curiously worried if I dropped off the radar completely for a few days, let alone for the weeks, months, years that some people spend travelling. So, how do you do it, these days? I'm not sure, given social expectations. But I'm thinking of a trip to Bhutan or Nepal to test out the internet reception there - I figure they must be the last hold outs. The bigger question is, how naked and exposed would I feel without any means of contacting the outside world? And how the hell can I get to Nepal or Bhutan when I can't even manage to get into London and work right now?