another reason to fancy Joe Escalante . . .

(. . . an enjoyable account of a recent tour of England)

'It was so cold outside, people were afraid to go anywhere. I did a long power walk to get some exercise but I went so far I had to take a bus back. I just faked an english accent and put a pound in the drivers tray and said "university please" in a ron weasly voice and it totally worked. They don't know you are faking it and if you do it well, like rene zelweger does, they actually understand you better. But you can only do this when you are alone because if the guys in your band hear you doing it, they will likely puke.'

Yes, Joe, I understand . . .

run, run away. . .

. . . here we go again

coming soon, with ref to this, this (warning - pdf doc), this and this

phew

viva arsenal . . . er, i mean france

I interviewed really poorly for a job today. Shame. Just...bad. I wasn't in the mood and it directly followed the realisation that I had f***ed up big time a large mailing we spent heaps of ££ on; I co-ordinated it, prepared the list, etc and as 'invalid address' packs started to pour in, realised that my Excel sort clearly had somehow gone a bit funny at the proverbial eleventh hour and the first line of nearly everyone's address went pear-shaped and 5,000 packages went out to incorrect postal addresses around the world. With first class postage. And an external mailing house (paid) to carry out all the work. Sigh.

So I must make a new list, and by hand solely open each package, make a new label, re-stuff new envelope and post again. Did I mention there were 5,000?

I used to have the bloody word Director in my job title, for God's sake - surely I shouldn't be expected to mail merge properly and should have people to do this.

Funny, I never (rarely) used to make mistakes in any job that I have done, but in my current one, I seem to make them fairly often. New kind of pressure? Red tape? Geordie boss? One couldn't begin to guess...

q: how do you know when . . .

. . . you have officially become an honourary english girl. . . ?

a: when you too look and feel like this* when this happens

(*awaiting sad photos to turn up on web for pasting)

it started . . .

. . . here

to which my comment to a friend was:

yet another one from over there making friends over here and giving a brilliant impression of how (un)worldly and educated americans are viewed by those over here. truly embarrassing:

'Her many utterances are so outrageous, for example, "I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo."'

I read the article first, then watched the video here (er, and yes, Paxman does tend to just jump right in and on people like this)

then really enjoyed the comment here

and added my own after reading:

'...especially when I consider British viewers sitting at home taking in her usual dog-and-pony show of snide stridency. I can only imagine she confirms their worst suspicions about Americans: contemptuous of science and reason, nuttily and selectively religious, arrogant, stupid, and shrill.'

as someone (who was at one time) from the u.s. (she says uneasily and non-patriotically) who has been living in the uk for several years, I had composed an email to a friend on this topic before reading this blog, commenting nearly these exact words about the impressions given by brash, insular u.s. types such as this woman. this kind of stuff really sets relations back. . . they've only just stopped talking here about how the u.s. ambassador/embassy refuses to pay their accrued congestion charge (£271,000 as of 1st may), presuming they/he is above the law (surprise, surprise!) and happy to pass along these charges to londoners. but I digress...

also agree with the '...a real press -- such as they have in the UK -- that she can't help but look like an idiot' and that Pax didn't take her seriously anyhow

people tend to get offended if I get annoyed when someone says a bit too loudly 'she's american' and/or 'she's from america' - but it's because of people like this that I wish to constantly distance myself from any responsibility. also - frankly - I simply do not at all identify with the term/label. sometimes I don't even realise it's me they are talking to/about - it's a bit like if someone pronounces or spells your name wrong and you don't even associate the fact you're the person to whom they refer

by the way - in attempts to circumvent any flaming - I'm not saying britain is an angelic country that can do no wrong and doesn't have its share of idiots (oh no - just look at the hooliganism news (again) re the world cup (again) .. and many, many other things, of course)

. . . . .

a brief extra bit on the Paxman interview - I found this to be quite a typical response from a brit (as nicked from here), given the majority of them seem to have no concept or respect of religion, etc (which I still find astounding, given their history):

'Paxman immediately countered her by jumping to a conclusion: "So, you think that the world was created in six days?" What I found interesting about this brief exchange was that Paxman seemed to be reasoning that Biblical creationism "seemed silly" on the face of it, whereas Darwinism "seemed rational enough" by the same criterium.'

current mood: chuffed it's england v ecuador in 2hrs

you don't get into a car for ages . . .

. . . then five come along at once

more on that later (not that it's exciting - well, maybe (this) one...)

it can be a bit frustrating, this blog, because one never knows which walls have ears, so i find myself continually holding back certain events, thoughts and photos that i would otherwise quite like to share

but even if i am anonymous with names, faces, places, dates - as well as hide my blog from searches - what if someone happens upon it randomly and works out who i'm talking about, where we were and when? or does it really even matter, really?

it may seem unlikely this could even happen, but i remember when around 3 years ago, i was going through some cvs for a job for which i was helping to recruit. there were loads of them, so it became a quest for the ones most visually pleasing to go into the 'read' pile. i suddenly spotted one with a format i really liked...then quickly worked out the reason i liked it...it was mine! or...was it?

in fact, it was a nearly-precise carbon copy of my cv (in font/format/verbiage/etc), submitted by a former colleague to whom i'd sent my cv the previous year when looking for work and asked him to keep an ear to the ground. the cheeky bugger! i was tempted to drop him an email but was afraid he would be thoroughly mortified - don't we all nick ideas from other people's designs/content - ? - yet never expect said other people to see it?

but i digress, as this is but only a tenuous similarity

my point was that i have done quite a lot of interesting things over the past couple of weeks and am currently composing (mentally) how best to blog about them without getting myself into trouble with a wandering eye

more tbd

yesterday was a very bizarre day, but . . .

. . . all good, really

no time for chat now - here's a cute pic in the meantime



ps - still having a bit of trouble with this kc thing - and why on earth, after all this renovation and expense, would they make the stairs and walkways half the size they used to be and put two less carriages on all the trains!? makes the whole more-efficient-service-to-passengers thing a bit of a joke

Hunting for a . . .

. . .flatmate is truly a sick cross between recruiting for a job and finding a date. It has become a second job, and I quite honestly think moving-out-housemate should pay me for all the work...

One guy has provided 21 bullet-points of his 'Flatshare Specific Attributes', even including his list of top ten films - no surprise that I like all the details, and he's coming round this evening. Forget the flat, perhaps I'll get him to take me out...

So far there has been only one nutter, but I've been looking for over 4 weeks now and it's really not much fun.

Think my standards might be a bit too high? No wonder I can't find a nice young man to take me away from it all...what's so wrong with settling, anyway?

eek, i'm a tourist . . .

. . . or it felt that way this morning, anyway

of course i'd seen the signs for the past few weeks, advising customers that the interchange between over and underground lines would be changing from 28th may and that signage would accompany duly

but i wasn't prepared for a whole new station (ish) ! they've been working on it for ages, but when there are barricade thingies all round - behind which you assume there is simply a little corner for the builders to have their tea - it is truly amazing to discover they've been building a whole new everything back there

suddenly i was a tourist in my own city/station - wandering about aimlessly without a clue as to where i was, needed to go, how to get there and why

once i found the platform, of course i realised it was the same one as usual, but just a bloody long way round to get there. typical. they renovate the full lot, but make it more difficult for me to get from here to there, rather than simpler

i'm additionally saddened by the completion of this work because sometimes when coming home late at night, the guys were working on the area through which i needed to walk, so they would open a short cut, through which it took about 30secs to cross the distance rather than 3mins(ish). damn

by the way, what's with ken using a photo that's decades (ok, maybe years) old . . . we all know he has no hair now, so he may as well give us a current pic

Currently reading: Global Finance by Leo Gough
Current mood: mischevious/uncertain/a bit giddy

another fantastic quote from . . .

. . . Auntie Abigail (a code name which I have only just selected byway of a funny little word association that just happened in my head):

' "fellow traveler" used to be code for pinko commies who were trying to bring down the establishment.'

I had not heard this before, but have now also found it here.

I do love it, especially given the context in which it was used regarding a friend who working somewhere with someone who is pure Hell...

really, i was going for wonder woman

shame

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

so on my way home tonight . . .

. . . there were about...guessing...20?ish coppers at the station I always pass through. they were sort of spread out as well, so not sure if maybe something happened. too tired to ask

though I did notice that they have installed a airport-stylely detector thing, which is new since yesterday! I had heard they were going to trial one of these at a random station that is a bit off the path, which seemed pointless. glad to see they are also doing this in this other station, which is a perfect place to have one (largest and busiest station in london - and where the bomber boys arrived/disseminated)

bit unsettling with all the coppers, though - it's not them I mind, but whoever they're looking for . . .

just a wee bit . . .

(this post is a work in progress)

. . . more on this topic, since it seems to not be going anywhere

so it seems that even the people who tell us not to let people in have let people in not only to the country, but to their offices to given them a little sparkle and shine

passports for food?

'But the home secretary stressed that 3,500 had been going missing every year before a more secure mailing system was introduced in February 2004...More than 300 passports were stolen or lost in delivery and others simply went missing and were never recovered. They introduced a secure delivery mechanism and even that is failing.'
this is a cracker, the alleged secure mailing system; when they had to return my passport in september 2004 (hmmm, 7mths after this revoluntionary system came into use), it was sent in a non-descript puffy brown envelope with no return address. i was very reluctant to open it at the time, for fear someone had sent some errant porn or perhaps a severed finger


with regards to legal immigrants, check out how wonderfully prepared we were for them - amazing!

'A government report estimated 5,000 to 13,000 workers from the 10 new EU countries would want to stay in the UK. In fact 293,000 immigrants have applied for work permits since May 2004.'
(this post is a work in progress)

are you ok for a little rant?

this began as a short email to a friend, but grew along with my annoyance . . .

for those who might enjoy a good debate over those people who come into our country, take our food, education, housing, medical, etc and give nothing in return (oh wait, that's asylum seekers)

with ref to:

Illegal immigrants 'not hunted'; Wednesday, 17 May 2006, 07:40 GMT

'He said the UK's illegal immigration problem, which according to one estimate was about 0.7% of the population, was small compared to the United States, where they made up "7 or 8%" of the population. '

how ridiculous is this quote, considering the vast differences of:

usa:
9,631,420 sq km
298,444,215 total pop
23,875,537 illegal

california alone:
158,302 sq. mi.
33,871,648 total pop
2,201,657 illegal
(for a bit of pedantesque comparison)

uk:
149,757 sq km
60,609,153 total pop
424,265 illegal

which doesn't quite add up to their delusional figure of 25,000/yr x 10yrs, now does it; especially when last July there were allegedly 570,000, and today they say they are expelling 1,000 per month. so 1,000 x 10mths = 10,000. which means there are roughly 470,000 at the moment and not 424,265 nor 310,000

and if in 2002, mr blunkett (also see point5 below about our leaders) supported the idea that 'there are as many as 500,000 illegal immigrants in the EU', does that not mean we are the biggest offenders? but how is this figure possibly feasible anyhow, in a population of 379,000,000; for those keeping track, that's only 0.14%.

eu:
3,976,372 sq km
456,953,258 total pop
639,734 illegal based upon figures above

so are we to believe that in today's figures, there are only 640k illegal immigrants out of 457mil and upwards of 500k of those are in the uk alone? if so, the problem is even bigger than we realise.

making comparisons to the problems in the us simply infuses the notion those of 'authority' in the uk are trivialising what is in fact a very big problem. how is there even a comparison?

and obviously don't even get me started on the '1,023 foreign prisoners who were released without being considered for deportation', encompassing: 'three convicted murderers, nine rapists and five of sex offences against children'. this may seem a small number, but not when they might be living down the road from me, working for the local taxi service or behind the till selling sweeties to kiddies. another demonstration of how this country's shamefully pathetic legal system adds further detriment to the safety and wellbeing of every one of us.

it is interesting how often i seem to get into a conversation with someone about my feelings on how unbelievable it is that in this country, a man can rob, assault, rape, murder, chop up a woman whilst driving ten times over the limit in car full of child pornography and probably get 2 years, then reduced to 6mths- or perhaps a £20 fine. really, he is better off carrying out all of this than getting caught selling illegal cigarettes down in nag's head or ambling from pub to pub with a bag full of dodgy dvd's

this guy was before my time, but let's get him back

but on the upside, our local politicians are sound, since they:

-are not racists, speaking on behalf of this lovely city, who do not know the difference between iran/muslim and israel/jewish - and could care not
-do not have sex with their secretaries in rooms paid for by taxpayers
-do not engage in dodgy dealings with aussie businessmen and italian prime ministers
-do not reduce kind, clever men consumed with guilt for hiding secrets about their incompetence to such despondence that he goes out into the woods to shoot himself
-do not publicly tout their personal problems and mistakes to the press, lose their place in the cabinet, get another one, lose it, get another, repeat repeat
-do not regularly commit any other 'serious errors of judgement', shaming their colleagues and the country as a whole

. . . yet . . . i still love it here - go figure . . .

but reckon anything's better than george bush (except maybe mugabe)

currently reading: The Women Who Knew Too Much by Tania Modleski

signs, symbols and semiotics . . .

. . . as if my current mood and outlook was not bleak enough, a quick look at the 10day local weather forecast solidifed any hope of pulling out of the grey funk (just like mother nature)

happy summer, london - bah humbug

i need a title for this one . . .

in an effort to even further avoid what i should be doing at the moment, i decided to clear out the spam folder in an inbox i never use (not sure why i don't just get rid of it altogether then)

only 2036 spams since april - or since either 1938/2038 if you want to count the clever date-amender-senders

but there were a few whose subject titles i loved to bits and thought too good to delete (i didn't open the actual messages, of course)

so i thought i might start a list of top spam subject headers - it may be a list for today only, it may carry on, who's to say...

today's top prize is a draw:

preconceived bell pepper
paralyzed frosting

honourable mention:

i thought he was going to kill me
(one might find dialling 999 a more efficient means to cry for help)
flasher scavenger
(do people go looking for these?)
cardigan sedentary
(i think my vintage green cardy would like this special moniker, whereas sad neglected navy blue would be jealous)

eritrean formula . . .

am just loving this too much:

'When I was younger I used to read the "Let's Visit..." series of books in the local library, and became particularly enthralled with "Let's Visit Albania". This led me to try and find out more, but seeing as this was the early nineties and there was no internet, there was little I could find. So I wrote to the Albanian ambassador. He wrote back and invited me to the embassy for tea. It was lovely. I was very excited, I was only about twelve and I went with my mother to a bedsit on Eccleston Square in Pimlico where I met his wife and his son and was given a can of coca-cola and a copy of Ismail Kadare's "General of the Dead Army". It was wonderful, and I think that ambassador (I can't remember his name) was a lovely man. I think it was the most succesful (in terms of fully winning over one heart and one mind) PR stunt of his career! '
Dan Bidewell, London

to see what brought this on, go here

reading the coolest book ever . . .

. . . tbd

a list of things i do and places i go. . .

. . . really should be started, before i forget what i do or where i go. must come up with some categories, etc. . .

i'll start now, off the top of my head and nearby pinboard:

bbc taping - the write stuff - waterstone's (yes, there is a secret room on the 6th floor) - 27 april 2006 (inc guest john o'farrell, whose book i loved so much, i read it twice - and some other people i didn't know; nb: comments tbd re the female reader with 'the voice')

theatre - period of adjustment - almeida theatre - 25 april 2006 (more tbd - for now, i saw this guy there in the audience)

theatre - resurrection blues - the old vic - xx april 2006 (featuring matthew modine and neve campbell (yes, julia from party of five - or, to any male readers - yes, the one who snogged denise richards in wild things) and others whom i can't remember at the moment)

bbc taping - counterpoint (music quiz radio show - special 20thyr anniversary edition) - drill hall - xx april 2006 (inc guest julian lloyd-webber (who i have always thought was andrew's son until this very moment, when searching for this link - they are brothers!)

bbc taping - never mind the full stops x2 (new bbc4 telly programme - channel 4 - xx march 2006 (presented by the (surprisingly) ever so impish julian fellows; inc guests carol thatcher, janet street-porter and a few others i'd never heard of (like ned sherrin, who was terribly english...so i went to see him record counterpoint, as above!))

music - classic concert with motoki hirai and john pearce - st cyprian's church - 18 march 2006

theatre - the producers - theatre royal drury lane - 23 november 2005

theatre - romance - almeida theatre - 28 september 2005 (featuring the top mancunian, john mahoney)

theatre - a life in the theatre - apollo theatre - 3 march 2005 (featuring patrick stewart and josh jackson (yes, pacey from dawson's creek - he's all grown up now!) - we saw them both in their knickers)

you know what those sirens mean, don't you . . .

. . . it means the gooners may well be at it all night

but hey - we won ! a few down, one to go . . . phew