No words

Just giddily excited by this object/s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP0w9lZoLwU

I own a Hoberman sphere because I just find it brilliant and exciting every time I play with it. I collapse with joy every time I use my iPod Touch, and the moment on Wednesday afternoon when I thought I'd lost it was the worst moment of the year so far. I have a bunch of steel roses in a vase in my room. I have a tablespoon stamped with the original ODEON logo which my grandmother found over fifty years ago in an unknown location, and I've not found anything about cinema cutlery on the web, so I'm stumped but I love it.

All these things are object which excite me, both visually and interactively. I smile like a goon every time I measure out olive oil on my special spoon. The roses make a corner of my room feel like a Terry Gilliam set. The sphere confuses my brain, and I can climb inside it (which is the definition of cool). The iPod is just the iPod, and therefore brilliant in and of itself.

I desperately want a play with these little objects. They make me happy.

How to talk without saying anything short of obvious

Today I went back to Confex. I was thinking about doing so again, having been Tuesday, and a call from a colleague taking the day off work to do it swung it. We wandered around, got food, wandered more then attended two seminars. The second (on how to increase sales in the current climate, and using this quiet time to create new, more efficient processes) was genuinely useful if a bit obvious, but put together in an extremely accessible way. Fine. It's just the first seminar which we both came out of looking at each other going "huh?"... It was meant to be on 'How To Fire Your Client'.

Want to see my notes? Here they are:

6-8 months recovery when wrong staff taken on
Not so clinical on client end
How big are they, how often do they want to work with you
Focus on clients that can be nurtured
Is that your best price
Apply to client when checking for chemistry with client
If chemistry is strong enough with client, silence game
shouldn't need to be played when negotiating
Lifetime value of a customer - will bringing in new clients
cause neglect to existing ones
Take time out for small session with client e.g. coffee and
sandwich
Target during quiet spending/buying cycles
Aim into three or four options on the methods of marketing
which suit your style
To grow business get closer to those that really matter
that it will have an impact with
Open and honest conversations with top clients
Specific timeframe on each area
Half hour slots
Schedule week specifically
Time sheet is for self only, use red for faffing about -
use bento for this mixed with calendar
Half hour windows and mark up once each half hour is
complete
Choose clients only that you want to work with

Please, if you can, find something in there that isn't immediately and totally obvious to you as a working bod.

What it is, is a list of things that lead to pertinent questions.

How do you identify clients which will be a hindrance to resources/time/morale? At what stage? How can you not sound impertinent asking the establishing questions to work this out? How do you go about asking your workforce which clients are more trouble than they're worth? How do you create an atmosphere where that's a viable question to put to your workforce, that won't scare employees into thinking it's a trick? Is this something you can find a way to discuss with an identified problem client? How could this be done? How do you 'fire' your client without legal ramifications? Or, frankly, without damaging your reputation?

One thing, and one thing only was genuinely useful - creating a faff schedule, something as a freelancer I will put into action for obvious reasons. I just want to see what I do with my day.

I've always been a firm believer in notes. I listen and pick out important points, then phrase them on paper in my own voice as the discussion goes on. Usually they're rough, stuccato affairs, where I fill in the blanks later with what I didn't have time to note down. Above you'll notice this isn't the case. What's up there is almost exactly what he said (from the negotiating part down it's pretty much verbatim, above that works backwards into my initial sketch-style notes), but with less pointless waffling on. I had time to zone out and write the whole thing down out of boredom, whilst he continued on revising the same points again and again without moving onto the actual process he was discussing itself.

The notes also reveal I'm using Bento at the moment.

I can only say I was very, very bored. And that my mate and I came up with a puffickly her-YUGE list of questions which would have made a useful and interesting talk. More than what's above. The two of us on stools ranting about it would have had more impact and been more relevant. Even if I say so myself.

Anyway, time for bed. Loooooong day, and a longer one tomorrow. Joy. Night.

Mea Culpa

Tuesday
Insane day. No sleep the night before. Physio at 9am, always good to have your back twiddled, but it tends to make me quite drowsy. Then rush back to the flat, drowsily, get changed into day-to-evening outfit, then to Earls Court for Confex. Dawdle there, chat to people, meet mate for lunch, bump into Dad (in the same business, you see). Get knackered walking in heels, because I don't wear heels. Go into town to wander in H&M for kicks as I can't spend any money. Spend £3 anyway on a pair of 'statement' earrings that will change my outfits dramatically when needed. Go to Leon and have a ginger steeper and take ibuprofen, as carrying showbags on one shoulder is kicking off a migraine. Get on tube and head to Bank, and into Gaucho to meet events girl to show me their spaces before my friends arrive for dinner. Friends arrive, we have free wine tasting session after yummy cheese bread and chimmichurri. Free wine session good, we get two bottles. Food is awesome (though I can't eat meat, so have the fish dish, which is transporting), we all get very drunk, my mate's 2-month-old daughter is asleep through the whole thing. Back to Mike's for a stupid little niggly argument, all sorted, crash out...

Wednesday
PAIN. UNREASONABLE PAIN. I don't drink red wone because of the hangovers. Last night, that's all I drank. Feel like hell. So does Mike. And I only had two glasses. Try to nap but back in on fire. By lunchtime, realise I'm not going to make it out for Confex again. Order in sushi as it's the only thing I can think to eat that isn't spicy or greasy but will supply me with neccessary protein and carbs. It's a very good call. Think for an awful moment I've lost my iPod. Turns up in the loo. No idea why. Stop feeling sick, just a bit wrong, head into town for 6.30, meet Mike. Malaysian/thai place for light dinner of pad thai noodles and green papaya salad. Go to Avenue Q. Show is great. Say bye to Mike as frankly I need to get home and change out of two-day outfit. He looks all folorn as I do saying goodbye as we've had such a nice day, having jokingly decided over dinner that if we ever get married, Gaucho's free private rooms are the way to go, meat clearly being the answer to his heart. Get home, tidy room a bit, try to sleep, fail.

Thursday
I'm here. Typing. Should really be changing for Confex as have two colleagues-to-friends to meet there. So this is the last few days, and today might be interesting.

Have realised I've started grinding my teeth in the night. And absent mindedly during the day. Not good.

Laters.

Oh, Monday

Monday heralds the beginning of the weekly pattern for me. For the permanently employed, this means sorting out what's outstanding over the weekend, planning the week and attending the weekly meeting. For me as a freelancer, this means going through my phone book, checking who I haven't nagged in a while, calling/emailing/sending stuff to them, checking/researching online, writing up a list of to-dos and any applications for interesting permanent roles, then having a cup of tea. Then doing all the above work in half a day. Then wondering what on earth I'm going to do over the rest of the week.

This week, however, I've made a new resolution. To be done after the weekly bout. With the shiny new CV, I'm going a bit left-field. I'm not going to say what, as I'm not at all sure how successful it will be, but I will post with any success (or, perhaps, failure - who knows).

I'm also writing imaginary proposals, because I'm a bit concerned I've forgotten how. Well, not forgotten, but practice makes perfect 'n' that.

Speaking of which, last week I played my scales in piano for the first time in about 18 years. I also realised I can still, sort of, read music. Bit if a surprise, really.

Anyway, old Joanna aside, I may be quiet this week getting on with stuff, so posts will be short. Which is a saving grace for anyone reading them, I'm sure. Cheerio for now.

Ouch

Slightly off topic, but I've had an odd weekend so far visiting my 98-year-old grandmother. She's no as bad as I thought she would be, but conversations tend to get stuck in a loop after a while. It's a bit sad, but she's not gone bonkers thank goodness, just tends to bluff the conversation a lot as she can't see or hear much anymore. Still, she looks like a slightly frail 85 year old, not someone turning 99 this year.

Today, feeling my mortality somewhat, I've decided to take a bit of action. I'm currently seeing s physiotherapist who does nice things to my back each week, but who points out, for me, my headaches and screaming-as-I-sleep shoulder issues all boil down to posture. My family is famous for back issues, and it seems that despite my best efforts to avoid it in my early 20s (LOTS of yoga), being lazy the last two or three years has completely reset the issue and I now have a problem. The seeds of one, but a problem nonetheless.

So, to today. Having been very buff at the beginning of my twenties and very flexible, I thought that not too much would have changed. I'm still, after all, the same size I was then, being of the petite scale, and just turning 30 in a few weeks. Not too much has changed, surely. So I dug out my old yoga dvd and stuck it on a few intermediate sessions.

Oh dear.

I was totally exhausted by the end of 30 mins, which is all I managed to do. I'm staring down at untoned legs and wobbly belly (HOW????), which is unbelievably disappointing if you know you're still a UK size 6 jeans. I may have maintained my weight and size whilst eating what I like, and am incredibly grateful to the God Of Metabolisms for mine. BUT. Nobody ever warns you that even if you manage to keep yourself the same size through ten years of no-longer-having-to-eat-student-scraps, you still HAVE to do REGULAR INTENSE EXERCISE to make it not just lumpy and unpleasant scrawn. Which is, in my humble, so much worse than the larger, womanly buxomness, which is at least quite sexy. I am now feeling hugely self-concious, food-aware (which I HATE being) and unhappy, not to mention old. Suddenly my wrinkles seem deeper, my legs slapping merrily together as I walk, and my chin saggy. None of which are true, I'm sure, but it feels that way. All this supposed exercise has made me feel even worse than when I started.

I hate yoga.

Impressions

Was planning to talk about another subject, but want to cover something off quickly.

The other day, my other (and better) half made a comment about how, despite my having a very good eye for great design, I wasn't translating this into my own work. He was talking about both my CV and business cards, and the only answer I could give was that "this is why I didn't pursue graphic design after completing a degree in it". I was a bit upset, mind, but he had a fair point.

It's very hard to be objective about your own work. It's even harder when you're your own boss. Sure, it's easy enough after a project to say what went well and what didn't, but that's not the same thing - here I'm talking about having completed a degree in something genuinely useful to my chosen career, but it not coming across in the first thing a potential employer sees.

All the content is there, sure enough. And I'm frequently told it's fantastic for experience as I'm very broad-skilled in a field where that's an advantage, and yes, that's lovely to hear. But hearing someone else not trained as I am in the use of white space in design (for example) say "I don't get it" hit a raw nerve. Not because I felt insulted (well, ok, I did, though that's not the point), but because I suddenly realised that I could make my CV the most cutting-edge, beautiful, inter-dimensional, healing object in all reality, and some spod from HR might look at it and go 'hmmm, poncy', before binning my once-in-a-lifetime object expounding the joys of employing me.

It was a bit of a shock.

I should really know this. But it's taken a computer programmer who has never been out of work to point this out to me, and who has done what squillions of recruitment agents couldn't: tell me what the problem is and, more importantly, help me fix it.

So, moral of the story. If you're not getting anywhere, ask someone left-field of what you do for a living to look at your CV, and they might give you an insight you weren't expecting. That is all.

SLACK.

Sorry. I could make a series of pathetic excuses, like "I had to go and eat pizza for Valentines Day because I hate it", or "I had to see the Blue Man Group in my first visit to the O2", or "I went shopping in town for sushi and came back with Fopp in a bag", or "my gran might die", but then only the last one is a valid excuse and is the only thing that's really stopped me getting on with things, as facing your mortality isn't much fun.

Brighter things then. Or at least more interesting.

I went for a meal with an old friend and colleague last night. We had a great time (can heartily recommend the Viet Garden near Angel for a £5 dinner) and chatted about all manner of serious and silly issues. This particular friend I met whilst working at an unnamed-here agency which specialised in brand marketing. Both my mate and I had never met and were put forward for the same role. We both ended up getting it (which then becomes a fable in and of itself, as we were both heartily conned, but that's not for here). Oddly, we had the same design background and the same production experience with the same passion for involving 'customers' (put in inverted commas as I'm using it to abbreviate delegates, colleagues, businesses, etc.) in a way that makes them understand it better and make informed choices on how they feel about the 'product' (god I hate these commas - but here I mean the sales pitch, idea, seasonal haircut etc.). We both ended up leaving this company, and took this away with us:

WORK WITH PEOPLE YOU TRUST. TRUST THE PEOPLE YOU WORK WITH.

Both of us found in this particular agency, everything was analysed, scrutinised, picked apart then damned. It's fair enough to maintain a high standard in your output, but in an environment where putting your hand up and asking a stupid question (something I believe everyone has the right to do, as you'll only ask it the once) gets you disciplined, it's no wonder other agencies overtook it. Marketing can be brutal and, frankly, wanky at times, and though it's very important to ensure your output is stronger than your competitors, you should not do this to the detriment of your staff's morale or sense of community. If a team doesn't work, shift it, shake it, turn it upside down, and you'll either find the right combination or the weak spot. In the current climate, the main thing any company can offer its workforce is security. When you remove that, it adds fear, and since when did anyone do better in their work by expecting to fail?

Fortunately, my friend and I both got out and continued freelancing. Through our twenties, we gained broad and valuable experience, and got to see many different environments and how they function (and she's f***ing ACE at her job, FYI). I don't know if it's a trait exclusive to freelancers (I doubt it, though it's possibly honed better), but you can usually tell the ethic of a workplace seconds after walking in. You really can spot contentment and therefore drive, from a place that has a dog-eat-dog policy.

It's not the 80's. I'm not a banker. Hell, bankers aren't bankers anymore. It's time everyone had a bit of a navel-gaze. So, if you work for an agency, do you feel that your colleagues' input to your work is positive or negative? Or a balance of both? Nobody likes being mollycoddled or being put down, you know.

What about simple things? Have you been for a drink with your team? My boyfriend works in computing, has just joined a large company, and discovered that until he arrived, they had never spent any time with each other outside of the office floor. Not even a group lunch. He's begun to change this, with the full support of his seniors - perhaps unsurprisingly, the only person who didn't interact with the team, ever, is the one who got made redundant. This isn't to say OOH-RAH! OR DIE, but that sense of community isn't just helpful to making your overlords see you working together. And it doesn't have to involve drinks. It's more about getting that efficiency level hit, where you're much more likely to helpfully-point-out-a-problem-to-a-friend-and-get-something-done-about-it, than you are when some-twat-you-work-with-told-you-you-did-something-wrong-and-should-fix-it. Which system would you prefer?

So, cows. Case in point. Naming them has been scientifically proven (lordy) as a way to get a higher yield of milk. Cows aren't completely stupid. They're not thanking us for all the fish or anything, I'll grant you. But you don't refer to your cats/dogs/fish/conkers in nothing more than the definitive article or plurals of their genus, because then how would they know who you mean? They might not know the word, but they can recognise the sound as your call to them. And what does this mean?

"By placing more importance on the individual, such as calling a cow by her name or interacting with the animal more as it grows up, we can not only improve the animal's welfare and her perception of humans, but also increase milk production."
Dr Catherine Douglas of School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development at Newcastle University

Jiggle that sentence around a bit, and it becomes even more obvious than is possibly neccessary for a scientific paper to be done on. Interacting with the individual, rather than a broad generalisation, makes things work better. It's something technology has just begun to touch on (another day, another rant), but has been intrinsic to the way human communities have operated for millenia. Treat your team as a group of individuals, who need to interact with one another on their own terms and gain the neccessary trust, and from that a partnership will grow. And look. I made the point with COWS. Fuckin' A.

I had another really, really, much better point to make here, but I've lost it. If it occurs to me again, I'll put it in. Right here.

I recently came off a contract where someone in-house took a dislike to me. Personality clashes happen, fair enough, but all I'd done was my job. Efficiently at that. I was looking shiny. She didn't like it, as she was a relatively new team member and had intended to prove her worth on this job, she embarked on a sabotage mission. Sadly for her, she put these signals out very publicly and extremely inappropriately, and whereas I came up smelling of roses when all was done, there was the distinct eau-de-behatch left on her. And, believe it or not, her boss apologised to myself and the other freelancer for her behaviour. And here's why: in behaving this way, she isolated herself from the group. Myself and the other freelancer got our jobs done, and had a good time doing it. Our enthusiasm was infectious, the in-house team loved it, and we got a hard job done well. *SMUGS*....

So, trust. It is cheesy, but it does go both ways. But more importantly, it can be created. Right now, speculating finances is more important than ever (which I think I'll talka bout in more detail tomorrow), and having teams that can allow this process to happen smoothly and efficiently by being (like the names suggests) teams, means it will be more productive, quick, efficient and economical.

I'm tired. I will finish this rant tomorrow morning when I'm better able to think straight.

Sorry

Ended up eating a bad mushroom omlette yesterday and had to retire early. Consequently, I now have no time to complete a proper entry, either yesterday's or today's.

This weekend I will start making notes to start this side project in earnest. Next week will be, hopefully, a nice balance of work and personal posts, and sometimes an occasional combination of the two.

For now, I have some stuff I HAVE to complete by 7pm today. So have a great weekend. x

Brains

Hi.

Yesterday I took a batch of ibuprofen and delicately tried avoiding the sticky threads of a migraine. Mostly failed.

Today I'm going to have to get my head down and focus on sorting the work I was doing veeeeery slooooowly yesterday. So no proper post until late tonight. Think I know what I'm going to talk about, as lists of subjects are stacking up in my mind. Laters.

Sir Derek Jacobi's saliva

Totally off the topic I intended to talk about (which I might post later, so no clues here just yet), I have to mention my strangely cultural Tuesday...

At lunch I took a couple of hours out to unwind my beleaguered brain and watch Prick Up Your Ears again. I used to have a copy of it on video as a teenager recorded off the tellybox, except my mum had started recording it late in, so the version I remember watching (repeatedly) started in Vanessa Regrave's publisher's office. There was no opening gambit with the bodies being found in my 'cut'. I was a bit disappointed to learn it was even there, to be honest - although I always knew how it was going to end, it seems to detract from the horror when you get to see the murder scene before it unfolds, even if it does explain how the diaries got to be hidden. I don't know, maybe I'm just speaking as a creature of habit, but when I make my boyfriend watch it I'll probably start it from the scene I knew as the start. Just out of interest, you understand.

And if I'm honest, the real reason I watched it so often is, frankly, Gary Oldman. I'll follow him to the ends of the video rental bargain bin. Watching it back now, it's like a showreel for his talents, squandered these days. He convincingly plays from innocent teenager, to burgeoning thesp, to budding writer, to swaggering, wonderful, witty, selfish, blindly-self-assured Orton himself. It's actually pretty bloody brilliant. Poor Alfred Molina is stuck playing ever-the-same Halliwell, and though doing it brilliantly, there's a bit too much of his future performance of Tony Hancock in there. Which keeps making me laugh. Unfortunately. And Julie Walters' scene with the teeth is fantastic. In fact, all the cast is brilliant (watch carefully, there's an awful lot of future luminaries in there), but Oldman is just great.

Moving on, last night I went with the other half to see Twelfth Night in town. Somehow, he managed to get front row seats. This sounds amazing in theory, except whereas my boyfriend is a smidge under 6ft, I'm 5'2". I wasn't totally certain I'd be able to see over the stage edge - even less so when I saw they'd layered driftwood-style boards to stick over the stage as the flooring, meaning there was extra stuff to see over. My poor man suddenly felt very bad about these fabulous tickets, but, as I pointed out, unless the actors lay down in the middle of the stage, I'm see them fine. Um. I'll get back to that.

I realised within seconds of the play starting that this was the second time I'd seen Victoria Hamilton. Which is odd, as I tend to find her quite an annoying scren prescence, but great on stage (the other show being Day in the Death of Joe Egg, which was great). She was extremely good, their Orsino less so (my personal definitive version being Chiwetel Ejiofor's TV version - track it down, he's amazing); they had cast Sir Andrew brilliantly, with Guy Henry playing him (for want of a better description) as Gussie Fink-Nottle. But, of course, most of the audience were there to see Sir Derek Jacobi, and he didn't disappoint. Teetering on the edge of cartoony, but somehow keeping pathos there at all times, even at his most boastful and mad, Sir Derek (I just love the incongruousness of that title and that name) was excellent. I was chuffed to bits.

Having said all this, to stage the scene where the fool taunts Malvolio in his cell, they had chosen to use the trapdoor hinged up centrestage, so that his hands would grip the bars holding it up and it would appear he was hoisting himself up to show his face through them. Great staging idea. Lousy row to see it in. Especially when you're 5'2". I could see the corner of the hindged door, annoying immensely the woman behind me when I craned to see what on earth was going on.

Which brings us full circle. I mentioned I would watch anything with Gary Oldman in. Well, that icludes Friends. In that, he played himself giving Joey acting lessons by explaining you had to enunciate by spitting your 'p's. Last night, Sir Derek demonstrated this master-thespian skill by practically gobbing all over me and the others in the first row whenever he spoke.

Edit: I've just read this back and, judging by my grammar and unfinished points, I suspect I'm heading for a migraine. I will go back and edit this properly later. For now, sorry.

Case in point

Article saying exactly what I've been ranting about after a few drinks for the last few weeks, which annoyingly hasn't quite caught on yet. Originally tweeted by allenmireles

http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/02/02/smallb4.html?surround=etf&b=1233550800^1770052

Another short one

Today is more manic than usual due to fighting total physical exhaustion (for which I can find no reason). Have so much to do and so little time, so I'm keeping my promise to myself by writing here today, but not going to post anything more interesting than this:

http://www.badscience.net/2009/02/legal-chill-from-lbc-973-over-jeni-barnetts-mmr-scaremongering/

Some people are just unbelievable. One of my friends refuses to tell her mother-in-law whether or not she had her son MMR-vaccinated because the m-i-l believes it gives you autism and cancer, and my mate doesn't want to get involved in the stupid, stupid row AGAIN. The theory is, if she doesn't know either way, she can't assume either way. But to have to even be in that position... Go Ben Goldacre, behind you all the way. And I don't think LBC have a leg to stand on as criticism is not criminal.

Off to get stuff done now. Laters.

Short and sweet one

I'll never do a long post on a Monday, as I'm generally doing the admin and catch-up from the previous week, so that's that I'm afraid.

Things to take away from last night's fabulous meal (made fabulous by my table of lovely luvvies, I was quite literally the only person at the table not to have been put on a stage, being the behind-the-scenes (read: puppet master) type, really):

Chlamydia Dell'Arte
Unless we take the......Hardknott Pass
Vespa the air steward
Don't tease the other half after he's had a few

And a recipe for a tasty cocktail, the 1804:
1 part Coffee liqueur
1 part Cognac
Barely-whipped cream (still heavy but with some froth)

Shake with ice, strain into glass (works best in a martini glass as the angle gets both halves of cocktail as you drink). With back of spoon, pour over the cream about 1-2 cm thick so it sits on top like Guinness or a cappuccino. DRINK.*

*Yes, it's girly. And cocktails are wanky. But after a bottle of wine each, these things are less important...

Looooong weekend

Spent it cooking a meal for 8 on Sunday. Only nipping in to add this, as currently terribly tipsy (deservedly). Hope yours was as much fun - more tomorrow.

Laters....

Department store joy

I've just been reading this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/feb/04/retail-shopping-department-stores

I used to live near Bentalls in Kingston, and have distinct and vivid memories of the old incarnation. These days I understand it's owned by the same group who run Selfridges (Fenwick, I think) and is all Carluccio's and Max Mara concessions. I do have quite a soft spot for it, mind, even now. Everything is still under one roof, and, even though I can't afford half of it, and it's a bit WAG these days, it's still a pretty pleasant experience. I don' think I agree with her comment about these stores being being "balm to the soul", mind. More like "soul numbing caverns of capitalism". Not that that's a bad thing.

But the old store - that was brilliant. You entered though a fairly dingy row of arched doorways, where there was a lobby with a florist and a row of those smoked-glass-plastic pod-like telephone booths (which seem to remind me of Space 1999 or UFO - I don't know why). But you stepped to the right through another set of doors and an entirely new world beckoned.

It was a tiered store in the Liberty mould (right down to the heavy, dark wood staircases). The first section you were met with was the beauty section, gleaming bright white and a fair bit of neon, if my brain doesn't deceive me. Lots of scary, bouffant women and strong, flowery smells my mother quite rightly avoided. But once you passed that area and you couldn't see the upper levels through the balconies built in, it stopped being glitzy, and suddenly morphed into Are You Being Served? Seriously. Heavy wooden shelves and austere staff, munty-looking mannequins in terrible ensembles, odd smells (I'm thinking mothballs, but that's not quite right), stained carpet (because here the lino ended and the carpet began), and a veritable maze of departments whose layouts made no sense to anyone.

Speaking of which, and slightly topical, it was in the bedding and towels department that I was taken to see Tony Hart do drawings on request (I think whilst promoting something). He wouldn't draw a frog for me. I remember being quite upset about this at the time.

My mum hated going in there. She particularly hated the escalators which had been hacked into the floors at some point in history, she being scared of them anyway, but there was something strangely dizzying about them - I think it was that they were so short as the ceilings were quite low (think Liberty's again), but positioned right next to the balconies. A sort of vertical travelmat sensation, if that makes sense. Elevators would've been more useful, but I guess they weren't modern enough.

Anyway, this strange old store was knocked down in 1987, when I was 7 or 8 years old. I remember it vividly, and just looking into it discovered that Eric Gill has a hand in the stonework, and that it was based on Wren's plans for Hampton Court Palace down the road. Which is news to me.

My memories of this odd-smelling, strangely laid-out store are still very strong, and it's always a bit odd to walk into the shiny new version. I still half-expect the manky carpet to be there, or the pod-booths to be in the atrium bit, with a shifty-looking bloke in a leather jacket making a call. It's always a bit of a shame when something so character-filled and strangely, fascinatingly awful gets so sanitised. But then I'd miss out on Cioccolata Fiorentina, and that wouldn't be fair, would it?

Gah, no fair

Just discovered my brother will be holidaying this year on a tiny island is the middle of the Pacific.

New goal for getting this year moving found, it seems.

I really need a holiday.

Proper post

Interview went well, just a recruitment agency intro thing, but still fairly relaxed and positive. They're the first agency I've spoken to this year who've said stuff is picking up again, which is news to me. Still, got a list of people to call and email tomorrow, so feeling a little more productive.

Walking back across Lambeth Bridge, looked out onto the river (I do love London at dusk when it gets all sparkly but the sky's still turned on) and saw that boat. I've been on that boat/restaurant thing a couple of times (though never through choice), and it still strikes me as unbelievably stupid. If I want to feel woozy and nauseous, the world rocking gently from side to side with clanging noises all around, I'll down 10 G&Ts and suffer the hangover.

Back in my bit of town, I had to nip into the massive supermarket 'round the back of me, that serves as a supply warehouse for all the curry houses round my way. It's pretty spectacular by any standards, and a foodie heaven if you're into finding/trying incredibly random food. Spices and pulses and instant goods and all manner of unknown fruits. Buying a huge pack of cinnamon for 59p never felt so satisfying. I still managed to forget the vanilla, though. But I came back with a veritable horde for just over a tenner, buying stuff that in Sainsbury's would set me back a good £25. Take that, Sainsbury's: Making average food unreasonably expensive.

I'm now watching Edward Scissorhands on tellybox whilst sorting through emails, and then off to bed once I've completed my various tasks.

Speaking of multi tasks, just heard this. Flight recording of the downed plane in the Hudson.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7872882.stm

I've worked on jobs with people who panic. It's rarely productive, usually the opposite, and you end up using up more time fixing it than you would have done just finding the solution straight off. What's great about this recording is how eerily calm everyone is. Sure, it's their job and lives are at risk (which they tend not to be in events, although I can think of one exception I won't mention), but the matter-of-fact pro-active attitude about it all is something I deeply admire. Though I love the slight wobble when one tower asks about 'Which engines???!". That bit is just precious...

Ooh, first post

First post of the new year - I promise to try to post every day if possible, and where I don't have time to write something, I will at least find a link for enjoyment.

Thank you for bothering. Nothing to see here just yet, but will post at the end of the day, after a meeting.

Hm. Something to think about - I'm not a great fan of suit-wearing at the best of times, but what I planned to wear for an informal interview in suit-style is not even remotely practical in this insane weather. Is wearing black jeans, boots and a smart jacket a bad thing?