This time last week, I was applying for a job I had seen on the Internet. It was a job doing something very similar to what I used to do way back in my glory days. I liked the sound of it but my only reservation was that the company involved was based near White City, west London…or so I thought. So anyway, I get an invite to go for a test this afternoon. Yes, in my line of work you get tested before you even get an interview. I can take a 75 minute proofing and writing test and the best people will get called back for the interview proper. Oooh, I can’t wait. Then I check out exactly where these people are: Ealing Broadway. The very words Ealing and Broadway are perfectly harmless when rendered separately, but when you bring them together in that particular configuration it just brings back deep-seated feelings of misery and woe.
You see, I spent my fallow youth as a student at Ealing College. I did a BA degree in Information Management and Publishing and this meant that every day (because it was a 5 days a week course), I got up at seven in the morning, travelled for over 1 hour 45 minutes and returned home at 7pm. This happened for three years and it can really grind you down travelling the entire length of the Central Line. It was more like a full time job that a have-it-away, drink-as-much-as-you-can, fuck-anything-that-moves kind of University type experience. In fact, I didn’t start drinking hard until I was 24 and ensconced in my first long-term assignment.
Anyway, so now I am presented with the choice. I can either just toss this one aside and say “no, I am not doing that” or I can go for it. Now I’d really like the job…really…really…really like the job. I need the money. I need to actually get into a social environment again and it would be good for my general esteem and demeanour. The only problem is that I know the travelling will rip me to shreds in a couple of weeks. Oh well, that’s life I guess.
Plus, I also believe that Ealing is cursed, but that’s another story for another time. I might tell you if you ask nicely, gentle reader.
In the meantime, here’s some clever computer animation with music and stuff:
Category: Diary
Well I cut short my viewing of The Apprentice to write this missive and general have a good venting session. Arsehole. Absolute arsehole. Alan Sugar obviously has fluff for brains and proves why the UK version of the show is a shadow of the staggering magnificent beast Stateside hosted by the comically coiffured Donald Trump. Firstly, Trump is a genuine high-flier and not some East End Del Boy Trotter figure and secondly because the decision making process of Sugar is decidedly iffy.
If Michelle Dewberry had faced the wrath of Trump in the US, he would have asked her that despite her event being superior, why her sales were virtually half of her rivals? He would have then grilled her some more, bringing in her team to baste her further, before turning up the heat some more and then firing her. But in the UK, we go for the underdog. We love a good sob story. We love doe eyes and cleavage. We love a loser. Ruth Badger would have won the US purely on the basis of her superior selling skills and the fact that she could sell a terrible event at full markup. That takes some skill. But this is Planet Sugar were we get product placement shots of the failed Amstrad E-Mailer Phone every episode.
I knew Michelle was going to win because it was obvious that Syed would want to knob the winner – he’s that kind of guy, you know. But I thought she might have actually done it with a remarkable whitewash against Ruth. You know…a David vs Goliath conflict. Instead, we got sold short. I like a fair game with a good win, but this was a bit disappointing. Twelve weeks for a bleeding heart story…do you feel cheated? I know I do. But I also realise that I have been spoilt by the sensibility and laser-like logic of the US series.
At the end of the show, I vowed not to watch the next series, preferring to stick to the superior US version. Of course, when the promotional material for the new series makes the rounds early 2007, I’ll be salivating like the Pavlovian dog that I am. Who is the arsehole now, Mr Lock?
I forgot to mention that our birdbox has finally got inhabitants. This box was mounted on the side of our shed the first summer we moved here (just over six years ago) and has remained empty. But because the shed has decayed, needs a new roof and possibly replacing totally, some little Blue Tits have decided to nest here. This means that I can’t go near the shed – this is either good or bad, depending on lazy I am feeling. The birds nip in and out and you have to be quick to see them. It is too early for chicks but I expect them soon.
Took delivery of a new shredder, my fourth in total, after the others blew up or stopped working mysteriously. This one is a no-name brand and has managed to eat its way through several years of credit card reciepts and other semi-sensitive material. My morning has been taken up with this task, which has been quite satisfying. What an exciting life I lead. Hold on to your hats, folks!
Tonight is the final night of The Apprentice and the news has been revealed on the BBC website that both Ruth and Michelle have been working at Amstrad since last September, so it really doesn’t matter who wins, does it? How disappointing is that? I am beginning to think that the cold fish won and that Badger was employed to stop her running amok through downtown Brentwood, uprooting trees and flipping cars as if they were Dinky toys in a She-Hulk type rage. Donald Trump would never behave in this shoddy fashion – to mimic the movie Highlander: “There can be only one!”. Alan, you’ve done a great job on the past two series of the Apprentice, but despite your grumpy demeanour and your uncanny resemblance to a moth-eaten Nookie Bear, I have to say, that even though you’ve increased your ratings, you’re fired!
Meanwhile, in an effort to bring smiles to the faces of my three or four regular readers, here’s a funny video courtesy of Video Google. I was a big fan of the band “The Presidents of the United States of America” back in 1996 and this parody from Weird Al Yankowic tickled me humerous. 😉
Been messing around in the “studio” lately and messed around with that little track I put up the other day. This is a rough mix of the possible ending of my new CD. As for the end section, just imagine it’s the London Philharmonic at Abbey Road, just me trying to muster the best out of my Korg Triton. The string sounds don’t sound particularly “stringy” but at least I got back to my tribal nature banging the fake timpani on my Handsonic. Oh yeah, banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee, I was.
Direct download: CLICK HERE
At the moment, I am pushing out just over 16Gb of data a month and my stats are roughly double that of another less interesting website I supposedly run. Now I was thinking that this increased traffic might be because of the wonderful pithy commentary I provide on modern life and that just maybe, I was getting a little following. No, it seems that some of this traffic is from people leeching files from my site. Often these are picture files and I’ve tried to stop it. Most of them are being used on MySpace, people linking to a picture of Nookie Bear to use as an avatar, etc. This is all well and good, but I pay the rent on this place and they are costing me bandwidth. When I exceed 20Gb of traffic then I will be in trouble. Oh well, maybe I need to delete all those images and videos I’ve put on this site? But then it’ll just be boring and I don’t want that. Does no-one respect good netiquette anymore? Obviously not.
Meanwhile, that wag Peter Serafinowicz is at it again with his take on the recent Apple vs Apple court case.
Today, my Internet connection has been upgraded. For no extra cash, BT gave me the opportunity to upgrade to 8Mb broadband. The only thing was that only after I had signed up for the upgrade that they revealed that we could only get 4.5Mb broadband in this area – but when they did finally switch over my connection it was 5.5Mb. How fricking riveting was that? Did I just send you to sleep then? I know I nearly nodded off while I was typing it.
Anyhoo, the really interesting this about this service upgrade is that for £30 they would send me a new broadband router. Why? Well, with this upgrade there’s a thing called BT Broadband Talk which gives you a VOIP (Voice over IP – basically Internet Telephony) with a standard phone set connected to your router. I even get my own “05 ” number so people could call me. The upside is that I get free evening and weekend calls and considerable lower call charges when calling abroad. The downside is that I don’t actually know anyone who I can call or who would actually call me – such is the life of the modern 21st Century Electronic Hermit. The service did work very well when The Missus used it to call her nan. She reckoned that the line quality was better than our exisiting phone line.
Well at least I can download porn at three times my normal speed. JOKE – I just wanted include the word “porn” to send the Googlebots wild. Some more Google Mind FuckTM words you might want to include in your blogs are “Syed and Michelle pictures” – that combination of words has been bringing lots of Apprentice fans seeking on-show romantic entanglements this way.
So I have been remembering more of my dreams lately. This is unusual as I don’t usually remember anything that happens during my noctural activities. The other night I was in a dream with The Missus and there was a constant threat of danger at every turn. It was like a disaster movie playing at 100mph. The sky was black, there was a huge mountain we were trying to climb and ridges of moving ice and danger at every turn. A huge tidal wave was sweeping towards us across the flat plains and despite climbing faster and faster, we were going to be hit by the wall of water. And so I braced myself as the tidal wave hit, holding tight onto The Missus’s hand. We were flung high into the air and landed in a jungle, the tree-lined canopy breaking our fall. There was more danger and more running away and peril, but I can’t remember any more. I just remember the fear of the tidal wave and resigning myself to doom, even though by a miracle we were eventually saved. I think it was a metaphor for life in general.
The dream I had last night was much more pleasant. It started with me walking down a dark corridor and flinging open a door into bright sunlight. As I stepped into the unknown, I realised that I was on a field, surrounded by coaches and people busying themselves. I looked down and realised that I was not wearing my usual clothing and that I was wearing something very unfashionable from the 1970s – flared trousers and a goddawful shirt. I checked my bonce – yup my hair had miraculously grown back down to my backside (like it used to be) and the weight I had gained since being involved with The Missus had gone. I was a young stud again. Hurrah!
On investigation, I realised that I was backstage at some open air festival in the seventies and there were many different people milling past. There were bands and groupies and whatever, but I didn’t recognise anyone in particular. I evesdropped on one group and they were speaking in German – I listened and began to think that they might be some kind of Krautrock group I’d never heard of. In fact, most of the names I’d never heard of. Bob Fripp was standing on a soapbox giving a lecture or preaching about something, but I wasn’t interested in him and neither was the crowd milling around. I was more interested trying to figure out what concert this was. I tried looking for my ticket, but these were the wrong trousers and I couldn’t find my way into the event. How could I get inside without a ticket. In the distance, I could hear the low-dull, bass-heavy, thump-thump-thump, of a rock band performing.
I found myself surrounded by a group and they were very friendly to me. One of them offered me a guitar and asked me to play, but when I tried to play the instrument, it just sounded awful – probably because this was some 13 years before I actually began learning to play the guitar. They all began to laugh at me and call me a chancer. I became upset and found myself alone, bemoaning my lack of guitar-based talent and no ticket to the concert. Suddenly, a friendly face appeared – a another lad like myself and he promised that there was another way into the concert.
I followed him away from field, through some trees, into a gulley. The grass was chest height and we had to wade our way through. There was some kind of trough we had to jump over. I might have been a trap to capture those trying to sneak in the back way, I don’t know. My guide jumped first and insisted I follow, but I was nervous. I stood there for a while, mustering up my confidence and made the leap. As I passed over the trough, I saw a pound coin glinting in the sunlight, it’s markings on the rear were familiar and etched out in great detail. “But there are no pound coins now,” I thought to myself before running with my new-found friend to the concert.
We managed to find our way to the front and could only see by looking around a large concrete pillar. In the distance was the sea and a pier. It seems that the bands were playing on a stage at the end of the pier – walking away, down the boardwalk away from the stage, were loads of different people dressed in Victorian or Edwardian wear – some had familiar faces, but I couldn’t put any names to them.
Then I was woken…
A strange dream, but a nice dream. Not too heavy or depressing like some of the other dreams I’ve had recently. I am still finding it weird how I am accessing this flights of fancy again. Is there a switch you need to turn on or something? I don’t know.
Yesterday, I did a little bit of recording. Working on a piece which is far from complete. The ending came together and I added some strings to it using my keyboard – it sounded a bit Michael Nyman-ish writing for Peter Greenaway. I am not happy with the strings, but here’s a different dub with guitars replacing them. It’s nothing wonderful, just a little snippet of the future:
Direct download: CLICK HERE
So it was the local council elections yesterday and our ward was fielding a BNP candidate. In order for us to dislodge this fascist party from our locale it was obvious that some tactical voting was in order, so we voted for our local independent candidate. Unfortunately, the BNP candidate won by four lousy, stinking votes. We tried and we failed. The idiots of Loughton won again.
Anyway, on completely seperate news, Sky One are remaking cult TV show “The Prisoner” and have Christopher “I’m Not Doctor Who” Ecclestone. Why bother when this excellent remake already exists?