Rent-a-mob?

Ah the rent-a-mob protestors are back again. Joy. This time whining about how they've lost their houses/jobs/braincells/whatever. A few climate change nuts thrown in for good measure. And while they're spouting ludicrous, badly-rhymed slogans, they are also letting off steam by smashing in windows and launching fireworks at the police horses.

Yeah, these are definitely people on a mission to have their 'agenda' taken seriously. The garbled crap coming out of their mouths makes it tricky to understand what their problem actually is (I doubt most of them could spell it, they certainly can't enunciate it), but from their behaviour so far it appears they have a problem with glazing and ponies.

Fucktards.

Nice guys still exist

My weird little house comes with a flat roof, which I didn't realise wasn't ideal when I bought the place. After the snow in Feb, and the non-stop rain for weeks afterwards, it sprung a little leak. While I quite like a water feature, it didn't seem exactly ideal to have one at the top of the stairs, so clearly something needed to be done.

I contemplated going up through the skylight, but as it is over the top of the stairwell this seemed tricky. Getting up onto the roof would probably have been easy enough; it was the dismount that would almost certainly have gone wrong, and I had a mental picture of myself stuck up on the roof gazing down at a ladder that had fallen over and realising my mobile phone was in the kitchen. And a thunderstorm rolling in.

However, I bought the rubber paint that is supposed to work under any weather conditions and never crack blah blah blah. And sat and looked at it for a while. Since it hasn't rained since, I've lacked the motivation to do anything further.

Then today I saw a large ladder being hoisted up outside my front windows. At first I was a bit cranky - exactly who was trying to get onto my roof, and why? After charging outside to confront the would-be burglar, and then finding out he was fixing next door's aerial, it finally dawned on me that maybe he could have a look at the leak while he was up there.

Not only did he agree immediately, and take the paint and brush up with him, he also found the problem immediately, AND took before and after photos of the repair to show me! And didn't ask for a cent (I slipped him 20 quid anyway).

I had no idea people this helpful still existed, and have been walking round with a huge smile on my face ever since.

And here's the bad news

Lord do I hate the news. The bbc website is just one tale of woe after another. Banks posting record losses (although they didn't seem to like it much when banks were posting huge profits either). Journalists seem unable to contain their glee in reporting all this doom and gloom - I guess they at least are recession-proof; if it wasn't for Robert Peston (hate, hate, hate) how would we know how much our lives suck and how much everyone hates those of us who work in banking. Well, used to work in banking anyway, until the great Qatar bank cull in January.

And if they can't find a banking story, they default to the Great Housing Crisis, and tell us how much our investment in our homes has crashed in the last year. If there's nothing to report on that, they blither on about recession, and try to decide if this is the worst economic climate in the last 30, 50, 100, 150 years. Take your pick.

It's starting to remind of me of National Geographic specials, with their penchant for the horrific. Observe the lioness with 4 three-day-old cubs. Oh look, she's moving them to a new location one at a time. Oh dear, there's a snake under the bush she's moving them to, and it's systematically killing each one as she deposits them there. Oh, and look, now it's bitten her too, so lets follow her around for a few days while she gets sicker and sicker and then gives up and dies. Makes for great tv, right? Just reporting the facts, ma'am.


Do you have to be Jewish to opt-out and go kibbutz-ing for a few years??

Agent Joy

The lack of work thing is starting to get boring. And not a little stressful. There are some jobs around, but the competition is fierce, and the hiring managers are getting ludicrously demanding. Must have degree from Oxford, speak five languages, be able to work 28 hours a day, perform every role on the project simultaneously, and come round to clean my house and cook me breakfast before work everyday.

The application process is also taking forever. Apply for roles; wait 3 weeks to hear anything at all; get told they had 12000 applications, and you aren't getting any interview any time soon (for which read never). Agents no longer answer their phones and job ads state that you should apply and if they think you're worthy they might call you, but DON'T call them cos they don't want to speak to the great unwashed.

Renovations are going better however; maybe that's a better career option?

Bob came through his surgery with flying colours, after some determined nursing on my part to get him to eat and drink in the days before the operation made him a lot stronger (and quite cross about having to go back to the vet). He does have cancer, and it is inoperable, but the vet gives him 6-8 months and he seems tons better (despite being split from sternum to tail!).

My relaxed (ok, lazy) approach to job-hunting seems to be paying off, with a number of calls from agents this week. There are some interesting roles coming up, so who knows? I may even be employed by this time next year. At least the redundancy pieces are all complete now, with lawyers advising and contracts being signed, and property returned (sob, my blackberry is gone).

In the interim I keep on renovating, slowly. The stairs are taking forever: they had a pretty non-descript beige carpet, which I ripped up in a shower of decades-old dirt and dust. Underneath was the residue of some especially hideous acid yellow paint (god lord, what must that hallway have looked like??), and at some stage they have clearly had a stair runner, as the edges are painted in a cream eggshell. My brilliant idea was to paint them white, but put a mock-stair runner on them. Heuga carpet tiles are gorgeous, and half a tile on each tread is the plan so far. This is not recommended by the manufacturers (something about being slippery, death-trap, I can't recall the precise details), but enough internet people have done it to give me courage, so I've ordered some samples (which, btw, Heuga supply and deliver within 5 days completely free!).

Combine that with the clear acrylic nested tables I'm getting, we're coming over all seventies here baby!

Things come in threes

The cat has been losing weight at an alarmingly rapid rate the last two weeks, and things went from bad to worse this week, with vomiting and other not so nice things. He's been off his food, so I figured maybe it was his teeth, or worms. So off we go to the vet this morning.

He endured a pretty thorough examination, and we discovered that he'd lost 50% of his body weight - poor thing only weighs 3.5 kg, which is far too low for a big british shorthair. Actually, it's too low for any adult cat. He's also anaemic. And Dehydrated. But even after all that news, I was absolutely not prepared for the diagnosis. He has a large abdominal tumour, which is now impacting the start of his bowel. Hence the vomiting etc.

The only option is surgery to assess the magnitude of the problem, but given the rapidity of the weight loss, general lethargy, and dehydration, and anaemia, the prognosis is not good. I got to take him home for a few days, but he's back in on Wednesday for surgery and if the tumour (as they expect) has damaged his bowel, they won't wake him up again.

Rang the insurance company, and he is covered for the surgery, but I kept crying on the phone. Poor woman, must have been a nightmare call for her, although she said not to worry, it happens all the time.

Can't believe this. He's only 4, and such an affectionate, gorgeous creature. Life really sucks sometimes.

Combine this with becoming a cliched victim of the credit crunch this month, I have to wonder what the third thing will be.

Blackberry withdrawal

This is the first unpleasant symptom of no job - I still have my blackberry, but it's been cut off. A few times an hour I still flick it to see what emails I have. Nothing, of course. Nothing to rail against, or yell about, or laugh incredulously at. If nothing else, this shows me that I am now outcast, unclean, not worthy.

But, once a project manager, always a project manager. So I now have a project plan for my 'free' time. A very detailed plan, with milestones, critical paths identified (oddly, it's me every time ;-) ), and contingencies. And I will have a daily standup with myself to ensure I meet my targets and identify blocking issues early.

My god I'm indoctrinated.

I'm so unemployed...

From sleepy to unemployed within the space of a week. Oh joy. Entire team and most of the department gone in a three hour bloodbath.

I'm so sleepy...

Since arriving back from Australia last week I've been shattered. To the point that on the Friday morning once I got home from the airport, I collapsed into bed and slept for 25 hours straight. Now this could be excusable if I'd flown cattle class, but since I'd splurged on business class with fully flat beds all the way (ah, those heady pre credit crunch days), I have absolutely no excuse.

A week later and I still find myself eyeing the clock at 6pm wondering if it's too early to contemplate bed again.

So um, well, it's good night from me. At 5:50pm.