Ho Hum.

I have made the decision that I really need to get back into this blogging malarkey. Its been a hectic 12 months, but hopefully some of that should be dying off and I should have some free evenings again.

That job I wasn't sure I wanted - I took it, and we are even looking at buying a house at the moment (though a major issue is the fact that I am the crappest negotiator ever to grace this earth).

I thought that in order to get hings going again I would have delve into my Flickr account for any photos which I have stashed away and could use. Then I had a minor heart attack when I found out all of my photos were missing! Thank god it was just my account expiring and I can recover them - otherwise I may have cried.

Here's one of the boys standing on the top of a via ferrata route we did in the Dolomites in May. A little too dark to see faces, but still I like it:



Hopefully I will be around a little more from now on!

Some do and Some Dont

When Lucy and I took my new car out for its first run a couple of weeks ago (new car because I now have a new job and have had to give up the company Prius), I discovered a little difference in our approach to life.

We set off from a straightforward junction to be greeted with the vision of the car in front being ploughed into by a late turning honda civic full of preppy rugby players. The civic must have been accelerating hard as around it span to about face and begin drifting back in to my new prized possession. It was at this point that I realised Lucy and I are not of the same breed.

I, a veteran of several car crashed, had the following chain of reactions:

1. Oh shit if he drifts back into the side of my car and dents it I am going to be mightily pissed off
2. They're probably alright - these things usually look worse than they are
3. What am I going to have for dinner?
4. Lucy wants me to stop, if I do that here I may dent my car or scratch my alloys mounting the curb
5. For some reason the sun-glasses compartment is slightly too small to fit my sunglasses in. Why would they do that?
6. Boy am I glad that I wasn't one car further up or that would have been my car with the bumper hanging off.

Lucy, who has never been in an accident had a slightly different reaction:

1. Screams silently
2. Oh shit that looked bad I hope everyone is ok!
3. We have to stop, Sam stop the car, I dont care about your alloys - just stop the car!
4. Are you guys alright, I will call an ambulance.
5. Whats the number for the ambulance?
6. We need to hang around for 8 million hours (in the cold) to check if they get in the ambulance ok and to make sure that the police get our details for an insurance claim in which the driver of the civic as already admitted fault.

It turned out the passenger was a little bit injured. Only a broken arm or something (my diagnosis from around 3 metres away) - Lucy did the right thing, I am always proud of how she acts in a crisis.

I am more the guy that walks past. In this situation it didn't really matter - but as a rule, being the guy that always walks past is nothing to gloat about.

Choices

I had a job interview this week. For a job that 12 months ago, I would have really really wanted Its for a great company and for a great position, with loads of resources and my own team to manage...

...trouble is, if I get offered the job, I don't think I will take it.

Its a funny little choice I find myself with, and one which I think has been experienced by many people around my age. Several of my friends, as they have neared the 30 mark, have undertaken a little self reflection and decided that maybe climbing the greasy pole is not for them.

I have one friend who has a very well paid job in one of the major banks at canary wharf and is applying for charity work at a wage less than half of what she is already earning, I have another friend who quit his IT job after 10 years to set up his own business selling betting tips! 

One of my best friends who works in the consultancy sector, providing IT support to financial institutions handed his notice in last week, after 6 years slogging his guts out in a job he hated for a nice fat wage. He is going back to university. His company were so upset that they were talking about legal action as he wanted to leave his job one week before the end of his notice period.

Personally - my work is getting a bit much for me at the moment. I don't seem to see Lucy at all, spending my time traveling up and down the M1, working weekends and being constantly stressed. This has got to change because I am presently a misery to be around. I am not one of those people who can switch off their work life when at home - and I desperately wish I was.

However, the last thing I want to do is jump out of the frying pan, and into the fire. More money, more responsibility, will probably mean more workload and stress in the end.

I find myself secretly hoping that I don't get the new job offer, as if I do I will be faced with one of the largest decisions I have had to make. 

Please don't offer me the job!

As per making my current job more bearable. We are working on a plan...

I Think Lucy's Having an Affair

No, scrub that. I am sure that Lucy is having an affair!

I have been working a lot lately and getting quite stressed out about my job. Spending a lot of time in such splendid cultural metropoli as Reading and Swindon (I have been to pretty much every small town in this country with my work and I think Reading and Swindon between them are joint winners of the 'towns with least character award'). 

I think this time away  has allowed Lucy time to put her adulterous plans into action. Just the other day I came home from a long day on the road and Lucy met me at the door. 

'Hi' she said mischievously.

'I have made you something nice for dinner and have tidied the whole house for when you get home'

This has never happened before and I was taken aback. Keen to retain the moral high-ground I made sure that I pointed out that she had forgotten to mop the kitchen floor. I am generous like that, I like to take the time out to help her undertaken her chores properly.

She has made my dinner no less than THREE times this week and has taken me out for a meal and has been nothing but sickeningly nice to me all week. What more evidence does a person need! Now I just need to catch her in the act.

This Friday she sent me an email while I was at work - asking me if I wanted to go climbing and to the gym over the weekend. She said if I wanted I could watch the football with my mates while she did some baking! Watch the football for christs sake! I haven't been allowed to watch football sine about 2003!

I have given everything to her. Supported her when she was short of money. Diligently pointed out where she could make improvements with her housework. Pointed out when she was putting on weight, despite the danger to my personal safety. The list of my sacrifices goes on and on. 

And she does this to me. Fobs me off with chocolate and beer while running around behind my back.

To add to it all, I am pretty sure that the people who have moved in next door are KGB.

A Great Post (not mine)

Every so often I like to sneak a quick blog post in about what I do for a living. Basically I work as an energy consultant, pretty much with the end users.

Here goes: I help out large industrial and commercial clients with engineering, systems development and change management on all aspects of energy efficiency and renewable energy project implementation. This tends to be in utilities, heavy industry and large scale retail sectors.

I have also been known to undertake climate change related work in policy advice, compliance, purchasing and even 'shudder' carbon offsetting (don't get me started on that).

For some reason, this means that when people ask what I do, I generally have to field large numbers of questions about whether I am a tree hugger and my opinion on two weekly bin collection. From a surprising number of people who I have known for a long time.

People have also been asking my many, many questions on the Copenhagen summit. I have to admit to them that, although I have read many articles on the subject - I am not keen to enter into debate on the subject.

This is not because I don't think its important, I think its very important.

It is partly because I don't feel like many of the people I talk to in my every day life really understand the issues (understanding appears to have been getting fuzzier due to the emergence of more powerful pressure groups in the last year or so distorting the issues), but its mainly because I am really not interested in the politics, bullshit and woolly target setting that is involved - being of the opinion that long term energy security should be reason enough to pursue these policies.

I much prefer to be at the actual implementation end. Making things actually happen rather than talking about it (this is why I left my last job).

However, I did find a very excellent blog on CiF on the Guardian website from one of only 60 individuals who was party to the 'behind closed doors' discussions that went on in Copenhagen. I can't rave about it enough and hope that it gets reproduced in other media across the world.

And hey - this is one article where America comes of pretty well!

On Hobbys

WARNING: THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS UNSUBSTANTIATED GENERALISATIONS

I was driving back from a business trip in London a couple of days ago with a work colleague of mine. We are both grumpy Yorkshiremen so we like to have a good moan and a whine when we get together. We usually put the world to rights through a strange process of mutual agreement and re-enforcement of each others views. A communal re-enforcement of views which is experienced by many men when left together with no supervision. Thats pretty much how wars start.

I think in that trip we solved all of the UK's problems relating to energy security, social housing and planning law in the space of only 3 hours which was good work. Next week we plan on tackling world peace and creating a Windows operating system that works. 

Our discussions turned as they usually do, to generally complaining about women and specifically that our women folk have the cheek to be different from us and to hold opinions which are not directly in line with our own.

We agreed that generally, the source of all of the issues which our women have (or we generally have) is rooted in their lack of a hobby. You see, men can't really get their head around how many women can get by without having any particular interest in anything. 

And more than that, men can't understand how, if women do have a hobby - they often aren't particularly bothered about being any good at it. They just don't care. If men have a hobby, they have to be the best at it, whether that is getting as many blog comments as you possibly can, or having a faster car than all of your mates, or going to the gym more than anyone else you know. We all feel we have to have a niche skill in something. Its in our nature.

By way of example, my colleague is obsessive about music and spends his weekends perusing record shops, attending hi-fi conferences or inspecting the home-made insulation on his specially converted garage sound-room. Whereas I spend my weekends in the gym, climbing or galavanting around hills somewhere (also obsessively).

We thought about this for a while and something struck us. What do our other halves do as soon as they get home from work? What do they spend their weekends looking at and what do their evenings revolve around.

The answer .... crap TV.

Both of our partners are completely obsessed with crap TV. Whether it be crap reality TV, crap talent shows, crap cooking competitions, or Kirsty and Phil helping Gerrard from Staines find the crappy 1 bedroom flat of his dreams - crap TV rules both of our homes. Lucy even likes to watch 'wedding TV' and more surprisingly 'wedding TV asia' which even my colleague thought was weird.

I have to say though, one programme in particular is the bane of my life. It serves absolutely no educational purpose (as some of the above may be argued is some bizarre roundabout way, to do), it is dragged out to lengths I cant even contemplate (one episode spanning an entire week), and I can't even bear to be in the room when it is on. Sound familiar?

Yes its 'Come Dine with Me'.

Basically if you haven't seen it, it involves a group of complete misfits who are never in a million years going to get on together, cooking for each other and generally falling out and providing mild entertainment of the worst variety. Actually that sounds a bit like Big Brother doesn't it?

Its on ALL the time.

However. 

I can't criticise 'Come Dine with Me' too much, for one reason. A bunch of friends and me (The Lawyer and The Nurse) have decided, with out girlfriends, to recreate the show in our houses using a video camera and everything. 

We were first this week. I have to say it was a little stressful as I am not too keen on people judging my Chicken Udon soup.  With actual pieces of paper with scores on and everything.

I am sure I will post the video up when it is all edited together. 

Losing My Right Arm

I havent actually lost my right arm. What I have lost however is my Mac hard drive, all of my photos, all of my music, and all of my videos at the end of a pretty unsuccessful fortnight in the household (in which i had my sat-nav nicked, lost out on a job at work as well as the whole cat-thing). It did feel like my right arm.

It is for this reason that there has been no communication from me on the Hadrians Walk, little blogging and very little commenting. Wordpress, blogger and flickr have been blocked at work, and I have been confined to Lucy's virus infected tortoise like PC.

However, I have been to the Genius Bar at the Apple shop which I have to say is fantastic, you can say what you want about Apple trying to take over the world, but they do have a unique approach to customer service. On their recommendation, I have bought a 500 gig (non-apple) internal hard drive.

Screw you failed hard drive - now I have a hard drive five times your size! Ha!

Now I find out how much of my stuff I actually backed up properly.

Meet the Neighbours

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but the week before last we attended the Eden Project Big Lunch. Essentially the idea is that on Sunday the 19th of July, as many local communities as possible, would gather together and have a kind of 'getting to know each other' picnic.

I was sceptical at first, telling Lucy that 'I already know loads of people I dont have time to keep in touch with - why do I need to know some more?'. I protested. She made me go.

Actually it was pretty good fun. We live in a new build house in the grounds of an old mansion which has been converted to flats. The mansion appears to come complete with quite a few curtain twitchers, which I was concerned would lecture me about parking my car accross the big 'keep clear - no parking' sign as is my want. Contrary to that, we were informed that anyone can park there and that as the only renters we hadn't found out because our landlord had neglected to tell us.

I ended up meeting the old dean of a major university as well as a high court judge (who informed us that our favourite restaurant is actually a front for a Thai marajuana dealing operation). We made friends with some of the people that live in the terraces next to us. A friendship that we put to good use when they had to store our dead cat in their garage for a day last week.

the main concern really is that we were the youngest people there by a good five years. Ok Lucy was the youngest person there by a good five years (I was borderline fitting in). They all had kids or were pregnant, or had grandkids so far as I can tell!

Anyway. I have discovered that it is good to know your neighbours.

There' Something Weird About this Recession

A recession is a time of hard graft, where everybody just gets on with it and tries to get out the other side without losing their job / house / business beer allowance. Its a time when everybody is grim faced and resolute. The sky is grey, its always raining, and old episodes of 'Cheers' are on repeat play on the TV.

Thats how I imagine the early 90's.

But the funny thing about this recession is its not really like that at all. 

I work in an office where approximately 70% of the staff are being forced down to a 4 day week (and there have been several redundancies in the last six months). Where we are battered by constant edicts from up above, telling us off for spending too much money on mobile phone calls, informing us of the new biro rationing scheme and battering us about how bad we are performing financially (but at the same time completely missing the point and failing to understand the simple steps which would actually make us more profitable - steps which everyone around me seems to understand).

It seems to have become a little bit of a joke almost. For some its almost at that if-I-dont-laugh-i-will-cry point. I can only laugh at spending days writing a proposal for a client, only to find that that client has gone bust a few days later. Luckily I am still busy at the moment, but others joke about having sat in the office not having done any work for the last three days.

Added to this, the industry I work in has basically seen blanket recruitment freezes. There is usually a relatively high turnover of staff, but as nobody is recruiting - nobody is leaving. In my team of twenty, the personnel has not changed in twelve months. Nobody is getting pay rises, nobody is getting promotion, therefore levels of office politics are low.

This, along with worries about impending doom has actual led, in my opinion to wierdly high levels of humour an camaraderie in a group where nobody usually has any time to talk to one another. 

Its very strange.

I Don't Wanna Move! (throws toys out of pram)

Our landlord called us up this week. To be precise the tight bugger texted Lucy asking her to call him up. He is thinking of moving back to Sheffield and may want his house back. I don't want to move!

This is probably the second longest I have ever stayed in a house (almost one whole year!) and I actually quite like it and want to stay. I now own things like 'furniture' and extras like 'cutlery' and cats which will make the resumption of my nomadic lifestyle a little more difficult. I've been nesting!

I am thinking of invoking squatters rights...

A Letter to 16 Year Old Sam

I got back from my 6 day Pennine Way trip on Monday. I plan to write a long illustrated blog post all about it, however due to an extreme downpour on Pen-y-ghent (note: that linked picture is the first I have seen of Pen-y-ghent as I couldn't even see it when I was on it!) my camera got soaked and I am still a little afraid of turning it on in case it hasn't dried properly.

So I have chosen another subject - whilst perusing the guardian online, I came accross this article. A letter written by Stephen Fry to his 16 year old self, in response to one that he wrote 35 years ago addressed to his future self.

Whilst Fry has focussed his letter on understanding teenage emotion and past and present attitutes to gay rights. I began to think to myself - at the age of 28 (which I turn next week) what kind of practical offerings of advice would I give to my 16 year old self. I can think of quite a few:

1. Over the next 10 years or so, you will slowly come to realise that you hate night-clubs. You hate the music, the sweaty people, the freezing queues, the groping and the sticky floors. This will take you a very long time (and a lot of night club entry fees) to find out. Save yourself the hassle (and money) and dont bother going.
2. In around June 1999, when The City Worker tells you not to dive into the pool with the big sign saying 'no diving' because it is dangerous. Take his advice (as much as you dont want to) as this will save you years of dental hassle.
3. Your hair looks stupid and greasy. Shave it off! Unfortunatey you will go bald eventually as you had suspected, but shaving it now will mean that less people notice. However, do not bother shaving your face as the last 11 years have taught me that it will only grow back again.
4. Bet on Greece to win Euro 2004. You will get extremely good odds!
5. Study something at school / college / university that will actually lead to a job. Yes this means that you will have to get off your arse and go to the school careers centre (which, incidentally - you will not do for the next 10 years) and do a bit of research. But it is onyl half an hour!
6. On a fateful day in 2002 the Nurse will dare you to down an unknown drinks cocktail in the Courthouse. Do not, I repeat do not drink it. Bad things will happen!
7. It turns out that playing with metal figurines will not make you popular with the ladies as you had previously thought. I suggest you either abandon your geeky habits or at least keep them to yourself when in open conversation for the near future.
8. It also turns out that in order to be popular with the ladies, you have to talk to them. I realise that this currently goes against everything you have ever stood for. However I can truly recommend it.

I think that whole 'no regrets' thing is a pile of tosh!

Anyone else want to take up their own list?

Overpriced Cinema

Every time I go to the Cinema at the moment it seems that there is somebody at the screening hell bent on trying to ruin my enjoyment. 

I went to the Hyde Park picture-house some time ago and remember a girl in the row in front putting her wooly hat over a particularly annoying lamp (which are located down the side of the cinema walls. Without the girl noticing, the hat proceeded to catch fire (being as lamps have a tendancy to get hot and that) and send a significant amount of smoke into the cinema. It actually went very on fire and was just a bit of rag really by the time I told her and she took it off.

While that was just funny, the last two times we went to the cinema in Meadowhall we have had a gang of lads smoking and running around in the row in front of us and an overzealous group of girls sitting next to us laughing ridiculously loudly all the way through the showing which managed to annoy everyone in the entire screen. And its not as if the cinema is a cheap night out anymore with tickets costing 6.50 (and then there's the extortionate drinks and food).

Which is why when we got to our 6.50 seats at a late showing of Slumdog Millionaire last night  we were doubly dismayed to find first that the only seats left were the ones at the front (you know - the ones that give you neck-ache and a headache)  and then that we had been seated next to a young couple - with a 3 or 4 month old baby! That bad enough on a plane, but who brings a baby into a movie about violence and life in the slums of India at 10 o'clock at night??

Luckily it appeared that one the movie got going the shear volume of the cinema speakers managed to drown gurglings and protestations of the young child. I was surprised (according to Lucy) the girl in the seat next to me managed to breast feed the baby without me even noticing (not that that should be a problem).

Re-discovering Letter Writing

Even with the wide variety of means of communication open to us; email, text message, twitter. Even with facebook pokes and Blackberries, blog comments, instant messenger and simple straightforward phone calls - there is still something satisfying about writing a good old fashioned letter.

Recently, the evil discretions of a faceless and nameless international corporation have allowed me to re-discover my letter writing glee. After idiotically telling me my mobile phone contract was canceled in August, my nameless foe proceeded to charge me four more months phone charges and then get shirty and send in the debt collection companies when I refused to pay.

I responded with a barrage of written responses. Carefully emboldening my angry words and vengeful threats to report the company to the complaints commission. I systematically worked through their letter responses, picking apart their arguments and formulating intelligent points of note. I am taking joy in fighting my personal battle against the man, a game of cat and mouse - my personal war!

They respond with letters that say simply 'Thats nice. But you still have to pay us', and today sent me an additional bill to add to my collection.

I'll probably end up paying them in the end. Sighs

On Weddings (not mine!)

For those who don't know me personally, I have a girlfriend who is completely obsessed with weddings. If you had ever met her, you would know. You would know within about 30 seconds of starting a conversation with her.

She is more than obsessed, she is borderline psychopathic about weddings.

She has planned out every last minute element of her own wedding (to which I hope I am not invited) down to the colours, the dress, all that other crap that goes along with it etc. etc.

She has been to wedding shows for no other reason that she wanted to have a look, and I have lost count of the number of times I have walked into the living room and caught her watching wedding TV. She ashamedly tries to flick the channel over - but I know! Wedding TV for gods sake! What on earth can they play on wedding TV that stretches our for 24 whole hours 365 days of the year? I can't watch it long enough to find out (it burns my eyes).

Over the Christmas just gone, we came home from Morocco to the news that both her sister and brother have officially announced their engagement (not to each other I hasten to add - that would be wrong). This sent Lucy into kind of a spiralling wedding frenzy.

The day after boxing day I ended up trawling around wedding venues in the midlands. Country house, hotel, conference centre, country house etc etc. After about 72 straight hours of Lucy saying: 'I want our wedding to be like this', 'I would have these colours at my wedding', 'I would like flowers of this type when we get married', I started to go out of my mind and actually start thinking that we were getting married. Like we were engaged and I was having small heart attacks about hearing the kinds of costs involved.

In fact. Thinking about it, she speaks like we are engaged all of the time now!

My friends in Australia used to laugh their asses off when Lucy would describe how our wedding would be - despite the fact that we are not engaged - despite the fact I want a wedding about as much as I want a poke in the eye with a rusty pair of garden shears - despite the fact that every time she talks about it or stops at a jewellers or looks in a wedding dress shop window, I just walk off.

I was beginning to get to the point where I was thinking that I should probably have an affair or something so that she would change her ideas and consider me as 'not quite marriage material'. Yes. that would be nice. That would be peaceful.

Anyway, it turns out that Lucys sister is planning a wedding very similar to the one that she has always wanted. This has resulted in a complete change of attitude for Lucy to something like:

'I am not that bothered if I get married anymore'.

Result.

40 40s

I set up this blog as a means of tracking my move abroad last year. I took the plunge and emmigrated to Sydney well over a year ago now.

Then I emmigrated back again.

Beyond the Australia thing, I started a trend of writing about drunken exploits of my younger years, partly because I think they are funny, and partly because I don't want to forget them.

I tried to become a clever, fancy interneteer by converting my blogger blog to a Wordpress blog, I even enlisted my brother who has considerably more experience than me with Wordpress to help with the transfer. He will, incidentally not get paid for his efforts. I couldn't really be bothered to learn how to work Wordpress.

Following my return in September, the posts have kind of dried up, due to the amount of travelling I have been doing for my job and due to the lack of subjects more interesting than 'what I did at work today' posts.

So, I had been feeling that on this, the 202nd post, the blog had kind of lost its purpose. It was no longer functioning as I had at first intended it to (for example, not once in all this time do I remember posting anything about rabbits, or for that matter raisins).

However this week I have found my salvation! I got talking to one of my clients while over here in Canadia who said to me she may buy a bottle of Don Perignon (apologies for misspelling) at some point in January. I looked at here puzzled, for what reason?

Apparently it is on her 40 things to do before she is 40 list that she had written up with a group of her friends on some drunken night.

40 things to do before you are 40! What a brilliant, if completely cliched and unoriginal idea! Why didn't I steal that from somebody! Surely mine would be the only blog in the entire of the interweb that would contain such a fantastical concept.

Its a new year now. 2009 apparently. And technically I have only spent 2 days at home since the inception of the year, so tehnically I haven't had much time to think about a direction for the year. What a perfect time to think about such a list and create a new direction for the blog!

Why waste my time in trying to correct my character faults with new years resolutions that I won't keep, when I can simply arrange a list of single one-off events which will temporarily enrich my life for shortlived moments!

So I have begun a list on the right hand side of this blog. If I could figure out how to use Wordpress, I would set up a different page - but I really can't be arsed with all that.

Flashbacks

I wanted to post something up about it being 2009 - a whole brand new year. But I am a little too late on that one.

I have a bit of a hectic post new year time of it, flying out to New Brunswick in Canada on the 2nd for work for the next few weeks.

My enjoyment of travelling for work seems to have diminished for the time being.

This may be because I have taken an absolutely ludicrous number of flights in the last twelve months, and have begun to develop an ingrained hatred of airports. This hatred added to an existing hatred of North American airports that I had before. For some reason being a forgeign passport holder in North American airports means you are subject to a 'guilty until proven innocent' type approach by the (somtimes pretty rude) customs personnel on a power trip. In the UK the staff dont really care about their jobs so much (most of them are temps) which makes getting through a much easier process.

My enjoyment may have decreased because I am working on my own this time, and have nobody to talk to for most of the day (particularly since it is the weekend and I havent started the project yet). I dont mind going to restaurants on my own, but for some reason this time I can't really be bothered.

It may also have decreased because I have stayed in a ludicrous amount of hotels in the past 12 months. I am not a big fan of hotels. I am particularly not a big fan of housekeeping. Surely the aim of a hotel is to make you feel as at home as possible? Well at home I use the same towel for a week, leave it wet on the floor and change my sheets about once a month - so stop bloody waking me up at 08.30 in the morning to clean my room!

No. I jest. The real reason I am not enjoying my trip this time is because going away without Lucy and spending large amounts of time on my own reminds me of my big trip away last year. It reminds me of how hard I found it being apart from her - and in truth it makes me feel a little guilty that she is forced to rattle around our house in Sheffield on her own where she doesn't have very many friends.

Slightly Left of the Centre

I was about to launch into a long monologue about how I have just noticed that all of the large English speaking nations now have "centre-left" (term used loosely) parties in power. For example:

• In the US the Democrats are soon to be in power with Barrack Obama
• In Australia Kevin Rudds Labour Party ousted the Liberals (who in Australia are right-wing) in late 2007
• In the UK we have been under Labour rule for some years (couldn't be bothered to work out how many). Argue as you may about how log this will last.
• In South Africa Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe is Centre Left not that I understand how South African parliament works
• In New Zealand Helen Clark of the Labour party is Prime Minister. Though by all accounts this may not las long either.

Then I realised that I had forgotten about Canada. To be fair I had always thought that Canada had a centre-left government, but Wikipedia told me that apparently some guy called Stephen Harper is in charge over there and he some kind of conservative.

I had also forgotten about Ireland (Eire) that has I believe a kind of centre-right coalition alliance which is too complicated for me to comprehend. Then again my old American flatmate didn't even realise that Ireland was a separate country to the UK (and his girlfriend was "Irish" - or at least, she drank Guinness)

Myself - I will always be a little left wing. It come from growing up in a household with a teacher for a Dad, a social worker for a mum, a nurse for a brother and an NHS worker for a sister. Being a bit of an environmentalist myself, I have always leaned towards the policies of the Left wing parties.

It doesn't really seem to matter in the UK that a large proportion of the population have recently become a little disillusioned with our supposed centre-left government. You can bet that the vast majority of Brits were rooting for Obama (not that it matters).

I think British people are scared of Republicans. To me they are kind of like Etonians with guns.

The Most Powerful Jury of All

Some people may tell you that your bachelor life is well and truly over when you get a girlfriend and it becomes steady and you have to become a little more selfless in your actions. Or even when you become serious and do crazy things like move in together. Perhaps your bachelor life is over that first time your girlfriend tells you you can't go out and get drunk at the pub with your mates as she wants you to spend the evening with her watching X-Factor and eating ice-cream.

I guess technically your bachelor life is over when you get married.

I have been having some thoughts recently. I am starting to think that bachelorhood - that precious thing that we all hang onto - that small feeling that you are still (at least partially) in control of your life, is officially over when your parents first come into contact with those of your other half.

Beyond this point in life, you can no longer argue pointlessly with your significant other. You have to begin to accept defeat graciously from time to time. You have to agree to things like going to the cinema and watching 'House Bunny' and 'Mama Mia' even though you have to bury your head in your partners arm the whole way through to avoid excessive cringing / puking or both (as was recently discovered).

The chances of your relationship breaking up past this pivotal point significantly diminish. There is literally no escape. And for one reason ...

Shame.

For beyond this moment in your life you are subject to fear of shame. You have created a network in which you are ensnared.

A network of powerful women.

Beyond this moment should something happen, be it something so trivial as going out with your friends one too many times, be it something more important like blowing your life savings on hookers and cocaine and falling asleep in your own vomit - your actions are subject to judgement by that most powerful jury.

Your mother, your partner, your potential future mother-in-law. All working as one.

You can't fight that!

This weekend I take the step.

On Why I am Slightly Evil

In about August 2003, I was supping a pint of over priced lager in Headingley's Trio Bar. With me was one of my best friends from University who had just got a job offer from a major company on a graduate scheme. We were celebrating her success.

With us was a guy from London who was a good friend of my friend, but whom I had always ever so slightly disliked due to excessive niceness and slimyness. When this friend of mine went away to the bar, I had a conversation with this guy that went a little like this:

Sam: "Its really good news about [insert name here]'s new job isn't it?'
Guy: "Yeah, its alright - doesnt pay that well through" (bear in mind that her starting salary was £10k above the starting salary that I had)
Sam: "What do you mean - think it is pretty good?"
Guy: "Yeah well, I have been temping for the last year, but I am looking for a Job that starts at over £40k"
Sam: "What the hell kind of job starts at £40k?"
Guy: " I am going to be an investment banker"
Sam's mind (note that I did not actually say this out loud, but it could probably be read on my face) "Who the hell is going to give you a £40k starting salary when all you have done for the last year is work in a call centre and get pissed at the weekend? And in addition to that you only have some kind of second class degree from an easy arts course in a middle of the road university you plonker? And in addition to that you are quite obviously a bit of a kn*b!"
What Sam actually said: "Oh good luck with that."

Anyway, it turns out he did get that investment banking job! And when I asked someone how on earth he managed it, they told me: "His Dad knew someone".

So there it is. In this age of equality, meritocracy, whatever you want to call it - 'my mind' was stupid enough to believe that people who earn big bucks and big bonuses (and with this carry big responsibilities) were the cream of the crop. They graduate with first class honours in banking from fancy universities, and work hard for 60 hours per week.

This really annoyed me. That this guy who was obviously a bit (but not excessively) dim, and incredibly greedy (and a bit of a kn*b), walked straight into this job with a nod from his high flying father. Also I was wrong (I hate it when I am wrong).

Replace the 'B' with a 'W' and you will know how much love I have held for 'Investment Bankers', for the last 5 years - based almost entirely and completely irattionally on my experience with this guy and similar types I have met.

Fast forward 5 years and the economy begins to crumble partially due to the greed, lack of foresight and lack of transparency of the dealings of some of the big London banking firms. Today we hear that Bradford and Bingley are the latest bank to require bailing out. All I hear about on thye news are reports of staff laid off in investment arms of major players worldwide.

I dont profess to know much about the economy. I definately don't wish financial hardhip on these money shufflers and their families (though I wouldnt mind if a few of them had to go out and get 'proper' jobs doing 'tangible' things).

But a little bit of me deep down (alright not very deep down), hopes that that little pillock gets sacked and has to work in Asda...

Something that Annoyed me Today

For a year or so now, the airlines have been claiming victimization over climate change. their usual retort is "people have to fly, there is not a lot we can do to be more efficient". I hear the same thing from transport companies I work with all of the time. I can't be arsed to find the reference, but I am pretty sure that bloke from EasyJet is the guy I read about a lot.

I read this in the paper today which annoyed me significantly. Aparently some of the airline companies have decided that in the wake of high fuel prices, they should fly slower (and thus more efficiently), and that this doesn't affect the timeliness of the flights at all. Which begs the question ... why the bloody hell didn't they do it in the first place? It may be a miniscule saving, but to be honest - its pretty damn easy!

Just goes to show that companies wont do anything unless you hit them in the pocket.