A lesson

"I can't believe she's taken the fucking tin opener to Kendal Calling!"

Ah, communal living... what a joy. I work a day job, and my flatmate works a bar job, so we don't overlap much. This means that both of us - when we're in - feel like that we have the flat to ourselves. However, we also both get that odd sensation that someone has been moving stuff around whilst we're out. Normally it's just a little odd, but sometimes it can really grind one's gears. Like now.

Bad Service at Jessops, Trafford Centre

On Monday, I went to M&S and picked up a nice point-and-shoot camera for Laura’s birthday at lunchtime.

On Monday evening, on the phone, Laura said, “I’ve got some vouchers for the Trafford Centre. Will you come with me and help me choose a DSLR camera?”

On Tuesday lunchtime, I went back to M&S and returned the point-and-shoot camera.

On Tuesday evening, I had a terrible customer experience at Jessops in the Trafford Centre. And still we bought the camera from them.

Now That's What I Call Music!

Laura and I had given Graham a few ideas about the pub quiz when we'd met him in Oddest last week - namely to include East 17's Deep, and to do a round on the Now... series of compilation albums. As we sat and did the quiz, we saw our suggestions made real before our eyes.

Laura's friend Michelle had invited us to join her and her boyfriend Dave at the pub quiz. At the last minute, however, Helen had jumped on board too. The good news is that we finished first in the pub quiz. The bad news is that Helen was dead rude, and embarrassed Laura throughout.

Oh mercy

Emma broke her ankle at Glastonbury, so – being the dutiful friend – I went round to make her dinner, then push her wheelchair up to the Knott to meet Tracy and Andy. The evening went really well, until the very end, when she decided that she didn’t want to bump out of the pub and down the step in the chair, and that she’d stand out of the chair, pivot on one foot, hop out of the door and then get back into the chair. After three pints of cider. Bad idea. She slipped and landed on it. Owww!

Her tears turned into whimpers as I pushed her home, and she started to get really upset.

“They were all laughing at me. Nobody knows how hard it is to be in this chair.”

That wasn’t how I saw things, but I bit my lip. She went on.

“It’s not funny. I bet they wouldn’t find it so funny if it was them.”

I partly saw her point – having a broken ankle sucks – and partly thought she was making a meal out of it. A three course meal. And as she complained more, my tolerance lessened. Still I bit my lip. Luckily, if you’re pushing a wheelchair, your passenger can’t see your face.

I put her to bed, washed up, and left. All the way home I felt pissed off at her for being such a pain.

Once I got back, I felt pissed off at myself for being so merciless.

“This is John Tracy, in Thunderbird Five…”

A phone call at half ten on Saturday morning: Emma Jennings, says caller ID. A gruff man’s voice says hello. That’s not Emma.

“I’ve called because you’re the last person on the call register. I’ve found Emma’s phone. And her purse. And her handbag. All of her stuff.”

“Wow,” I thought, “this guy could have robbed all of her stuff, but he didn’t. How lucky is Emma?”

He was also staying in the camper vans section, so I said I’d try to ring Tracy and get the stuff back to Emma. I thanked him, and got to work. I couldn’t get through to Tracy, so I called Dem and asked Dem to try to get hold of Emma’s dad’s number – he tried to do this by calling Kelly, who didn’t have it – and we tried to get hold of Emma’s boyfriend’s number too. Pulling all the strings from Manchester, I felt like John Tracy in Thunderbird Five.

Tracy texted: “Emma’s gone to get her stuff now. She’s broken her ankle.”

A broken ankle means spending the next two days holed up in the camper van, and not seeing any bands at all. What a shit Glastonbury story.

UPDATE: It gets worse. Emma gave her fella the flick for not looking after her properly. Shit the bed.

Strike

So there was this office, right, and this new-ish team moved there, right, and then there was a strike, yeah. And some of the old guard were mean to the weakest and the shyest of the new team. The smallest girl.

Bullying isn't right. It's why I'm not in the fricking union.

Weekend free association

gay bar let down friday night no burlesque home truths home lies mum missed party disliked naked in the rain blue pearl alan moustache no stalling second clutch control ten pounds first time charity pip moan nothing bought liverpool arsenal 1-1 padmore rum cherry coke sleep woody moan old friends changing interesting revelation about the past snow fizzing on my tongue home walk brass eye paedogeddon ashley no glasto fry up peveril snow photos shit sunday lunch cake exploded in oven wine eileen orienteering wine overall w/e quality friday 2/10 saturday 4/10 sunday 7/10

In the Mood For Love

In a moment eerily reminiscent of the Wong Kar-Wai film, I spent five minutes last night talking to a young lady who I developed a crush on when she worked behind the bar at my local. We were talking about the way that, in her new bar job, she has gotten quite good at giving overly amorous customers scathing put-downs. She asked me to 'test her' - to give her a chat-up line for her to demonstrate her proficiency at batting them away. Does she know that I like her? I think I've made it pretty obvious. So was she playing with me? Was it a twisted sort of flirting?

I want a hole in the wall that I can fill up with secrets.

------

UPDATE 06-04-08:

1. I found my hole in the wall, up by the Peveril of the Peak.



2. It's stupid and unfair for me to be angry about the incident above. I've known for three months that the person I've got a crush on isn't available - in fact, she's got a boyfriend, and she's really happy with him. I'm far too cowardly to seek out a new target for my affection - it's so much easier to put energy into something that's never going to come off than to invest in something that might fail, because at least I know the outcome of running down the dead end. I wasn't being toyed with, I was being given an gentle reminder by my crush that she isn't really that into me and I should be grateful for the delicacy of the message, rather than angry at its content. Why have an unreachable dream? Because at least I know how it'll turn out.

A moment of realisation

To realise that something that you want is unreachable is an awful feeling.

Tonight I went out to a bar with a group of people that I've wanted to befriend for an age. Collectively, they are or were bar staff from my local. One of them is someone I've had a big old crush on for quite a long time. Maybe it was because I was the only bloke in the group (poor me, surrounded by twelve glamorous young women), maybe it was because I was the only sober one amongst drunks (I have a driving lesson in the morning), maybe it was because they were dressed to the nines heading for a burlesque night and I looked like some mid nineties dogshit indie band bass player in my tracksuit top, check shirt, jeans and trainers - but as I left I knew that I would never be part of that world. I never could. As I said goodnight, it hit me.

Our dreams are worth nothing unless we dare to chase them.

But what is the value of chasing something that can't be caught? When should I dare to let go of an impossible dream?

"It's just this bleach making my eyes water."

Our office cleaner used to come round in the mornings, until about three months ago, when a different cleaner started. The new cleaner comes at night. Anne, formerly our morning cleaner, now works on a different part of our floor. She still bases herself in our kitchen. I used to dread making tea whilst she was in there because she'd inevitably start a boring conversation. She's harmless, but cursed with not being very charismatic.

I clicked the kettle on, and heard Anne's voice behind me.

"I miss all you guys. They've got me cleaning somewhere else now. I really do miss you all. You're all so nice."

She was wet around the eyes. She went on to name three or four people that had, she said, been especially supportive when she'd had a bad day once. Who was it? Take a guess.

My heart sank. As I poured the milk into the teas, she mopped up each spilled drop almost before it fell. I looked at her, smiled and walked out. I had to walk out, because I was disgusted. Every single person that she named had been savagely rude about Anne behind her back.

"Has that cleaner been? Not that you could tell..."
"It's disgusting, I don't know how she dares leave it like that."
"She's useless..."
"...lazy."
"...stupid."
"I'm going to do it again when she goes."

Robbie arrived at his desk as I came out with the trayful, so I took his cup and went back to the kitchen.

"I miss all you guys. I really do. Everyone's so lovely."

I bit my lip, and smiled. And inside I boiled.

Step into my office, baby.

Someone has jammed up the shredder.

And the clucking hens start. Discovered by Mother Hen, who calls over to Forties Twenties, “Look, look what’s happened.” Cluck!
“Ooooh,” says 40s 20s, “that’s not good,” and asks Volume Eleven to join her. They gather around the shredder, and “Tut-tut!” loudly to themselves, to each other.

Cluck! Some background – Mother Hen is officially a PA to someone important, but unofficially she’s taken it upon herself to be the biggest busybody in the office. When we got new carpets laid, she was the one responsible for liasing with the workmen. I don’t know who puts her in charge of such things, and can only assume that she seizes every chance that comes up because she doesn’t have much else to do all day. Close behind her in busybody stakes is Forties Twenties, who spends her time acting as if she’s fifteen years older than her age, which is actually twenty-nine. She’s personally responsible for the ludicrous labelling system in our fridges, and for some snotty emails. Like this one:

---

Dear Team

The time has come around again to remind you of your responsibilities to both yourself and other staff members regarding the kitchen.

The kitchen is disgusting and it is a miracle that no one has become seriously ill given the bacteria that thrives in there. It is EVERYONE'S responsibility to keep it clean. ____ takes home the tea towels every week and boils them within an inch of their lives. She does not have to do this- this is extremely generous, She also took the time out to clean the mouldy fungus ridden drainer on the sink- again it is not her responsibility.

May I also inform you that there is no 'kitty' for cleaning products so please do not wait for someone else to replace washing up liquid when it has run out - consider replacing it yourself. I'm sure we can each afford £1 every few months. If this is not the case please inform me and I will set up an account where by you can pay into it 15p a week to spread the cost. It is invariably __ who replaces all the cleaning products - it is also __ and __ who usually restocks the biscuit tin. They do this out of kindness. Have a think about the last time you brought in washing up liquid/biscuits or washed a dish that wasn't yours?

If conditions do not improve a new system will be put in place whereby you will each allocated your own plates and cutlery which will be clearly marked with your name. This will identify those leaving dirty dishes, which will then be removed and placed back on that persons desk.

Thank you
The Kitchen Witch

PS _______ has replaced the washing up liquid so those who have left dishes on the side can now go and clean them

----
She’s the reason that I don’t use the fridge at work. Cluck!

A clandestine whisper: “Has anybody asked you anything,” hisses Mother Hen, “about shredder?” My neighbour shakes his head. “Well, it’s jammed, and I want to find out who did it, so I can charge it to them.”

All at once I feel like owning up to jamming it, confessing not only that I stopped it shredding, but also that I’d planned to do exactly that. I want to bathe in the guilt of sabotage, to be the pantomime villain that the earnest knights in shining armour need to justify their existence. I want to be bad!

Mother Hen comes over and tells my neighbour to check the catalogue for shredder prices because they’ve found out who did it. Someone beat me to owning up, it seems. And like a fart in the wind, the drama is over as soon as it’s begun.

Two fine pieces of pie.

I have eaten two fine pieces of pie today. Last night I ate at the Gurkha Grill. Life is good.

The first was during my long walk, and the second was at the end of it. I got onto the river behind Tall Trees, and headed for Sale Water Park. The river was high, and full of junk. Ducks struggled to keep swim upstream, and were paddling hard, prow to the flow, just to stay in the same place. The path was muddy, with twigs and branches that had been washed up along it. Jogger after jogger, wet dog after galloping wet dog, I made my way past Chorlton Water Park and Jackson’s Boat. It rained on and off, but never for that long. I thought about sailing, about the job interview, about being in Wellingborough at the weekend. There were some dire sights around by the old school, with the horses’ field by the Nene flooded badly. The Mersey had flooded too. I got onto the Bridgewater canal at Stretford Cemetery and I unwrapped my piece of pork pie.

I walked up the canal, past the Watch House Cruising Club and the Coronation Street houses, and came to some newly built flats that had their own moorings. I wondered how much they might cost, and whether I’d be able to afford them. Onwards, through old industry and through new, past piles of containers five storeys high and dirty old pipes. The canal doesn’t flow. It’s like a huge, long thin pond. Litter floats eerily still, several bottles steady, each at different heights, based on how full they were – as if they were suspended in jelly.

Stretford canal boat yard, originally uploaded by hugovk.

It was much greyer than this. The boat with the red roof had been moored too tightly, and was almost underwater because the canal had risen.

Bridge under Bridgewater canal, originally uploaded by hugovk.

I walked through here too. Everything under this bridge was flooded. I had to edge past on the raised footpath to the right of the canal as you look at the photo.

charlottez, originally uploaded by cosmicsindy.

I didn't meet this young lady by the canal. What a shame!

On I walked, past Old Trafford, Salford Quays, the Ship Canal – I saw a hole next to the footpath, ten feet wide, six feet down to the white water gushing around inside it, a pipe halfway up gushing out brown water, and floating on the surface at least fifteen balls - footballs, basketballs, 99p funballs, old cistern balls from toilets – at least a hundred plastic bottles, and countless chunks of browned polystyrene. To Castlefield, to Love Saves The Day, and on to the next slice of pie. Tudor Pie, ham and chicken, and – for £2.80 – I’m sure it’s organic too. Thanks Hugh!

Ancoats, Strangeways, Mai Bai and Tall Trees saw the rest of the day passed merrily. After the gloom of not getting the job, last night’s Gurkha Grill, long chat with Pippa and baptism of Peep Show really cheered me up. Today it didn’t feel like there was anything on my mind, but I got to do a lot of thinking too. I feel very optimistic. Perhaps it’s endorphins from the exercise. Normandy, Withington, Bury St Edmunds, Melton Mowbray, and Wellingborough: I bet that I could even find five fun things to do in each of these places. I feel a series coming on…

Don't mess with Chris

Paul and I slipped in for last orders at the Lion, and decided one wasn’t enough. After 11, on the way to Fuel, we ran into YI Chris, idling his Cavalier by Subway. Paul and I played football with him about once a week for the best part of a year. My accursed knee injury is a result of a challenge I put in on Chris about three months ago, and – with me not playing – I haven’t seen much of him since. Like Rich Reason, he texts me once a week about an event, and I don’t end up going to it. We went over.

Chris was wearing a wrist support of some kind. We shoot the breeze –

“So what are you waiting here for mate?”
“Ee, well I fancied a Subway for breakfast so I thought I’d park up and wait for it to open, like.”

– and so on. He’s a funny lad. I like him. Talk of my injury, and of how I’d lost a fight to a damp towel in my own home last week, soon led to asking Chris about his arm. He said that he’d filled someone in. Was he joking?

No. He found out that his girlfriend had been cheating on him with Pires from football. On the pitch Chris wears a Middlesbrough shirt, Pires wears Arsenal, and their styles of play reflect their chosen team. Chris: hard-working powerhouse, box-to-box, all-action. Pires: a step-over here, a flick there, a stunning volley, a pass not made. Guardi thinks that Pires hogs the ball, which he does. I don’t know the dynamic of the Thursday football lads. In the car there we’d talk about football, Glastonbury or something inconsequential. Most of them know each other through University, I think, but I don’t know who likes whom and vice versa. Pires played every week, as did Chris, so I assumed that they were pretty good friends. I was stunned.

Things Chris has done since his girlfriend left him for Pires:

1 – Thrown her stuff out of his flat and changed all the locks.
2 – ‘Filled in’ Pires with a mate, injuring his wrist in the process.
3 – Discovered that what he thought was a joint credit card is actually in her name, with him as an additional cardholder, and that all liability for that card rests with her. And then he has subtly withdrawn £200 cash each day from the not-shared-after-all-actually account, up to the tune of about £2,500, and put it into his own account.
4 – Arranged a date with Pires’ (now ex-)girlfriend Danielle.

Afterwards, in Fuel, Paul asked if there was a lesson to be learned from all this. I think so. Don’t mess with Chris.

Delegating and Coaching

Another day, another training course – so it goes. Whereas the Understanding Data course was flawed mainly in the level it was pitched at, the Coaching and Delegation course ground my gears for other reasons. Early signs weren’t good: the trainer used an iPod in a speaker dock during plenary sessions. I expect that training organisations can claim that the iPod and the dock are business-critical expenditure, and get it tax-free. I’d seen that before, at some training that I’d found excruciating that was run by the Dale Carnegie organisation. I don’t think that playing music in the background is in itself a bad thing, but my experience of the Dale Carnegie course wasn’t great.

Dale who? Allow me… Dale Carnegie, author of the worldwide bestselling self-help book How to Win Friends and Influence People, which is probably the most famous self-help book of all time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Carnegie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People

You’ve heard of the Carnegie Hall, New York New York, right? Well, it’s a different Carnegie. Well, after a fashion, at least. You see, plain old Dale Carnegey changed his name to Carnegie in 1919 to increase the chance that people would associate him with contemporary philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, he of the Hall. Such shape-shifting may be seen as innovative in the eyes of some, but to me that’s just downright sneaky. This weasel of man left an empire of self-help and training organisations worldwide. Winning friends and influencing people the Dale Carnegie way amounts to, insincerity, language trickery and sliminess. It trades in Barnum Statements, in cold reading and in bullshit. That approach is totally at odds to my system of values.

One of the factors that affect the impact of the Forer Effect is the perceived authority of the speaker. Whereas a regular con-artist might need to earn the trust of his audience with a false title or exotic setting, a trainer on a work-related course is automatically placed into a position of authority – our organisation, to whom we are subordinate hierarchically and moreover who knows best for us, has chosen this trainer, to whom we are implicitly subordinate in knowledge, to drag us out of a technical gutter, and to show us how to improve. And so we’ll swallow any shit.

“… and we all know that some departments are poorly managed, aren’t they?”

How vague. How inclusive. How fuzzy. If ever you’ve felt your department was poorly managed, you’d feel like that comment was directed right at you. How sly – making the impersonal seem personal. There’s a weird sort of power in being able to get a class full of people to say “yes,” repeatedly – and it’s more than just asking obvious and leading questions too. There’s a technique in playing the class in such a way that makes them think that they knew the answers all along, and the just didn’t realise that they knew. Saying “Yes, and what else?” is an excellent way of disguising the phrase, “That’s not what I was after, try again.” There’s a skill involved in being able to laugh off a difficult question in such a way as to not answer it without any – many – of the class realising that you’ve sidestepped the issue with a grin. And when what you’re selling is a way of selling – find out what will your delegated person get out of the extra work you’re giving them, and then sell it to them – then who could blame the audience for getting sold.

I gave the trainer eight out of ten. I didn’t much like her methods, but she knew them inside out. I wish we wouldn’t get that kind of training bought in, but that’s an issue with commissioning, rather than with the trainer.

The course started with this slide:



“You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to learn.”

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life.”

The second statement holds merit as an introduction to the ideal (and idealised) notion that increasing self-reliance through education in process-based solutions is superior to increasing dependency through end-based solutions, particularly around aid. Although clichéd, and flawed in its detail (one can only catch fish if there are fish in the lake to be caught, however proficient one’s rod-handling or netsmanship, for example), its principle is sound, and its usage harmless.

The first statement really angers me. It’s tautologous. It’s a mis-quotation of the phrase – “You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find out for himself” – and it’s misquoted in such a way that the essential element of the original is removed, and so is its crucial point. The emphasis in the original is on the importance of pupil participation in successful education. That is not the same as “helping someone to learn.”

Consider too the logical incompatibility of the two statements. It makes no sense to declare a process – teaching – to be deficient in one breath, and then to praise the lasting impact of that same process in the following breath. This is broadly symptomatic of the course as a whole – lots of killer soundbites that impress in isolation, but don’t hang together as a cohesive whole.

Why Facebook makes me mad.

Badly written blurbs in groups. Check out this toss:

"The most important rule of all is that the unfortunate loser necks the trophy drink in one movement - no sipping, casual gulping or 'pussying out'... this should normally be accompanied by a chorus of 'get it down you zulu warrior' or alternatively 'chief chief chief...'

This individual should then experience some or all of the following:

1) Vomiting
2) Runny Poo
3) Physical attraction to all living creatures
4) Falling Over
5) Shouting
6) Abusive behaviour towards taxi drivers, random passer-bys, doormen
7) Spontaneous nakedness
8) Simulated Masturbation
9) A tendency to rip the boxer shorts from friends' bodies
10) An unjustified belief of being the coolest man alive"



*gnash gnash* Poor punctuation pisses me off too.

So this course...

I've spent the last two days on a course through work. It was called Understanding Data. And, if I'm being totally honest with myself, it wasn't much cop.

The trainer was odd. She was assertive, almost agressive, in her first interaction with everybody. I was fourth or fifth into the room. She let me sit down in one of the chair-desk hybrids with which we were blighted.



And then she came over, stood square in front of me, thrust out her hand and said, "Sue." Trapped under the chair-desk, I couldn't stand up to shake her hand on a level standing. Power games from the off, I suppose. She went back and sat in her chair in the middle of the horseshoe. Chair, not chair-desk. As the other five or six people walked in, they got the same treatment. This was one assertive trainer. And then I looked over at her desk, on which lay Statistics for Dummies.

My favourite review of this book that I've seen is "Statistics for Dummies is for dummies." Anyhow...

As the room filled, my heart fell. I'd been on a terrible course on report writing, which was made even worse by my partner not being able to discuss the technique of an example, only its content. For example, when we were asked to criticise an overly wordy report about replacing a boiler, he looked for flaws in the arguments used to justify buying a new boiler rather than flaws in how the report was written. Mr Too-Specific walked in, saw me, and smiled. I smiled back, without wanting to. He came and sat next to me. We'd be working together again. Joy. I sort of enjoyed his unease as Sue pulled out the handshake move. Ain't I a stinker?

The dramatis personae also included Mr On-Message, who wore his name badge halfway down his shirt, between the nipple and the navel, and worked for the department whose job is making sure the other departments are doing their job right. Like checking that the phone is answered in three rings. Given the opportunity he'd bleat out this week's buzz-phrases about "best value" or "service improvement" as if he was in a job interview. Another guest, Ms Bloody-Obvious, could be relied on to fill any silence during plenary sessions with sonic junk.

"Well, we all have our learning needs, don't we?"
"Well, it's not all black and white, is it?"
"Well, what a good learning curve, don't you think?"

Equally as empty as Mr On-Message, but in a different way. Duo-directional drivel dribbling Dave-wards. Delightful.

I don't think Sue wasn't from a training background, but from academia. Her language was loaded with social sciences fieldwork terms that I recognised from my psychology A-Level - "the participant" and "research ethics," - and peppered with references to hypotheses-centred, experiment-based research methodology. The autonomy of the researcher isn't a reality outside of academic circles, in my opinion, but was central to Sue's approach to data. I started to listen out for more tell-tale signs, but noticed something else entirely.

"...quantitative data, mostly is numehhwical..."

Huh?

"...numehhwical..."

She'd learned to control it very well over time, but Sue had a slight rhotacism - she pronounced her R sound as a W sound. Like finding a spot on your tounge, once I'd noticed it, it became very conspicuous. The mild speech impediment (that she'd vitually conquered), coupled with her regularly referring to Statistics for Dummies, led to me not feeling as scared of Sue, and soon I started to like her a lot more.



The sandwiches were wonderful. The tea was terrible. The cups were tiny. Look at my mobile phone in this picture. To the left, my normal cup. To the right, the cup from the course. And you know how much I like tea, right.

I'm just looking for a course called Understanding Dating now. Actually, I think I'm done with courses. For a bit at least.