The dark side of the job

Quote for today, and especially relevant considering my ongoing quest for gainful employment.

The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

– James Baldwin

This means that

1. There is an ugly side to every profession.

2. Knowledge of this ugly side is not immediately gained nor is it always immediately obvious.

3. No-one escapes this ugly side once they are familiar with the job.

Any wonder then, why such a pure and blushing rose like me shies away from work?? But who can tell me about the ugly side of their profession. Remember, Ugly Side must confirm to rules 2 and 3 above. Otherwise we have disproved the statement.

Another thing that’s wrong with the nation today..

I write a serious post about finance and nobody reads it/comments on it. I write about “Ze Weekend”, “Party”, “Touching Boys” and they come flocking. Flocking idiots!!

No wonder we (present company excluded) are becoming a nation of idiots! We (present company excluded) have the attention span of a goldfish on acid. We (present company excluded) deserve the crap that ITV is throwing at us in our drooling, comatose faces.

Well if you want garbage, I’ll give you garbage. You think this is garbage?? Wait till I give you real garbage!

Oh, Merry Birthday Ioannis!!

Financial Education

In yesterday’s Manchester Evening News paper, there was a letter to the Editor that called for financial education for teenagers in school. Ioannis and I had a discussion about this just the other day.

One way of tackling the institutions that are prepared to give credit to almost anybody nowadays is to bring in stricter regulations and bring the deals under more scrutiny from independant consumer bodies as well as financial authorities.  

However, approaching this from another angle seems even more fruitful. The preparedness of young adults to make financial decisions, myself included, is seriously under question. And this in a society where loans are expected to be taken out in order to do any number of things, for example finance higher education or get on the property ladder.

What is required then is a sort of Home Science class for teenagers at school that incorporates elements of financial understanding and planning that growing up in a family used to provide. It seems that society can no longer depend on the family unit to provide such an education, as often the financial decisions of the parents themselves do not stand up to scrutiny.

The personal debt that this nation has got itself into is astounding, and countering this will require structured education so that future generations do not end up living on credit like us.

On a related note: People who have been hit by unfair bank charges now can fight back. The websites to check are Bank Charges Hell and Consumer Action Group.

There is a good article on the financial magazine This Is Money. It gives you ten steps to reclaim money you have unfairly been charged by the banks.

Take the time NOW to sort out your finances and be one of the Financially Responsible.

Ze Weekend

Well, it’s been a busy weekend. Went to see Casino Royale with Sha and her flatmate Yen Ru on Friday. The queues at Parrs Wood Cinema were long, so we missed the 19:30 show but managed to get in the 20:15 one. Sitting right at the front in the third row. It felt like I was staring close-range at a collage of objects rather than watching a harmonious scene. And when the camera went close things got really uncomfortable, especially when I had to sit staring at James Bond’s nipple for five minutes. The movie was a well-considered and well-executed break from the Bond tradition, presumably because of the competition from the more realistic and lifelike spy thrillers like the Bourne movies (and The XXX according to Ioannis).

Jessy’s birthday was celebrated on Sunday at Ioannis’, and we even managed to see Jessy for a bit before she was off to help her sister with homework. The festive cheer was all around, and we had a cozy time. (Menu: Thai or Malaysian Green Curry, rice, Not-Lamb-But-M&S-Finest-Lamb Roast, Not-Potatoes-But-M&S-Finest-Maris-Piper-Potatoes, Razzberry cheesecake, Apple Pie, and drinks)

Muscles still aching from Friday night’s footie, compounded by Saturday afternoon’s badminton. Where, surprise surprise! Johnny and Gracie showed up.  

My google homepage has automatically updated quotes from Dubyah Bush. The feature is called “Chimp-o-Matic”

Earth to Party People!!

I am really getting fed up with personal communications being transacted by our party group via e-mails. As if I have nothing better to do than read everybody’s personal comments on who’s going to do what with whom and how, and why and wherefore.

From now on, party discussions should be had via our beautiful and still-operational ISOM website, so all of us can view the comments in one go instead of opening e-mail after e-mail.

But since Christmas discussions have already been started, you can continue them here on my blog!!

Doesn’t this make it much simpler??

later: Actually, I immediately realised that there exist so-called “lurkers” who read our blogs without alerting us of their presence (except in some cases where I recognise the I.P addresses) so the solution might be to set up and use a “Partay Blog” with passwords given to cool people only. Additional passwords can be used for individual blogs as well, so that a certain special-on-the-day person doesn’t find out what plans are being made behind his/her back. Unless that person is Ioannis “I.T Helpdesk” Verdelis who will presumably have administrator access to the site!

I was also thinking of secret handshakes for the group, but I’ve got so many now that I get kind of muddled! (It was really embarrassing at the Nun Convention the other day. All I’ll say is that Sister Magdalene had never been shaken like that before!)

And since the original ISOM group has grown and included (some may say “engulfed”) members of other disciplines and walks of life, perhaps we need a renaming of this enterprise? Suggestions will be accepted and vetoed by ME since it’s my idea!! And The Winning Prize will be given to ME as well regardless of the winning entry!! 

Touching the boys

Tomorrow is Orange Wednesday at Ioannis’ house; we shall watch ‘Touching the Void’ over bowls of Spag Bog*. Touching the void reminds me of two things:

a) The first time I met Simon at Rayk’s birthday party, when I told him about “Touching the void” and he thought I was talking about “touching the boys”.

After clarifying his mistake, we went on to bond over “Shaving Ryan’s Privates”, “Batman in Robin”, “Diddle-her on the roof”, “Forrest Hump”, “The Loin King”, “Glad-he-ate-her”, “Inspect-her Gadget”, “Saturday Night Beaver” and of course “The Empire Strikes from the Back”.

b) Boney M. Specifically their song “Brown Girl in the Ring”. This comes about because as anyone who’s seen the film knows, when the protagonist of the film is lying broken at the foot of the glacier expecting to die at any moment, he tells us of how this song kept running through his head and how he though “Oh no! I’m gonna die to the sound of Boney M”. I have previously mentioned this in my award-winning blog post, Pulitzer Prize and Best Blog on the Internet not winner on the Dalai Lama.

And finally I think blogging can be summed up by today’s quote “If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.” – Arthur Schopenhauer.

 

*Spag Bog = Spaghetti Bolognaise

What has become of people?

I was reading the comments on Dilbert’s blog when I came across a youtube video showing American soldiers teasing thirsty Iraqi kids, making them run behind a truck for a bottle of water.

You can see it on this link

It just made me angry and then sad.

Musings over bacon tea…

I’m amazed how few blogs I actually have about music. Especially blogs from Naz The Recommender, who just has to let you imbeciles know what real music is.

I also wonder how it is everybody knows that when you’re told the electrician will visit between 8-12 in the morning, he’ll turn up at approximately 11:45. If at all.

By the way, bacon tea is Lapsung Chowsung or whatever its fancy name is. It smells of smoked bacon. But you knew that didn’t you Ioannis?

Lukewarmandcoldmail

I’ve been sitting all morning clearing up my Hotmail account. It’s a funny feeling having your inbox entirely empty!! as I have now. Now I guess I’m sitting waiting to catch internet flies.

My account has been boosted up to 1000MB, most probably because I’m the only lazy sucker left who puts up with their less-than-crap service and user-friendly-NOT design.

It’s quite astonishing when you think about it, how easily I (well, not just I) have access to communications from the past, and how similar in feeling it is to flipping through an old diary. By that I mean one of your own old diaries, and not peeking at someone else’s by the way. Suddenly old friends are brought to mind, old jokes are re-laughed (thanks to Jill and Sky mainly), old hobbies now abandoned that seemed so engaging at the time. I found an oh-so-important .ppt file from MBS that was flavour of the week that er.. week and now lies catching virtual rust. (Do you remember the presentation for I.T. Trends on Nordea, Tinks? The largest Swedish bank? No?? And why would you, I did all the bleeding research!!!!)

And I’m listening to a bizzare collection of songs, thanks to Ioannis.

Air Supply (All out of love), and then Allanah Myles (Black Velvet)

All 4 One (I swear), and then Andre Segovia (Malaguena)

Angel Dust (Black Rain), and then err… Angel Dust again (Bleed)

Bloodhound Gang (Do it like they do on the Discovery channel), and then Blue Oyster Cult (Burnin’ for you)

What an idiot!

Had a great time watching ‘Le diner de cons’ with Ioanni, Robert and Ali. We were laughing like nobody’s business!! There were some choice phrases that just read beautifully. I love French films (as well as other European / Independant) because they dare to be different. The simple, well-written plot required no gimmicks, and the dialogue and acting was spot on.

Great!

On a sourer note, I have become aware that somebody seems to be having conversations with some of my web contacts on MSN pretending to be me! I haven’t used MSN in yoinks’ years because I don’t have the tinternet at home, and the library doesn’t allow messaging services. So my advice to everybody out there dying to have words with me is: Pick up the phone. And if somebody is on MSN asking you to do all sorts of perverted things, then that person may not necessarily be me! 🙂