Sam, Jacqui, and so it goes...

I went to the Briton's with Sam and jacqui for a catch up. It was the first time we'd talked over the plan for Japan. Sam would have been my first choice for a reference, but - based on what I'd asked the JET Office - I chose not to ask her. "You're not allowed to ask a friend," I explained.
"Charming!" said Jacqui.
"It's not like that Jacqui, I promise."
"So I'm not your friend?"

Driving back from Wellingborough gave space to reflect, space I’d lacked all weekend. My family, my father, my brother and my past; faces flashing around me as Radio 4 echoed in my ears. Weirdness and unease, coupled with familiarity, an unsettling scent of déjà vu, through-laid with relief at moving away. The long cloud of Japan offers soothing shade from the overwhelming heat of a small town past. My small town past.

Graham reveals himself to be a schmuck

At lunch with Louise, my phone rang. It was Dunk. He sounded angry, flustered, in a way that I totally wasn’t used to. Something happened at last week’s party – the party that I’d been at with Kate – and it had really gotten under Dunk’s skin. Dunk’s generally a very cool customer, so this was serious.

“It’s Graham. At that party last week, he tried to force himself onto Kate – tried to kiss her – but Kate wasn’t interested, so she said no. And then Graham got aggressive, and started calling her names. Shouting at her and calling her a slag.”

My jaw hit the floor. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t get my head around the situation. I was shocked. And, from within, I could feel myself becoming enraged. I can’t remember what I mumbled to Dunk, only that he carried on…

Shit hits fan.

No more interent at work!
No more eating lunch at your desk!
No more personal phone calls!
No more bullying!

Thus came the edict from my boss. She had called my team, the middle team, into her room for a word, and - flustered, mumbling - had explained what was eating her. There was, she told us, a chance that someone would be sacked.

Down in the tube station at midnight

I avoided a noisy drunk as I wandered through the bus station after college. He had a bunch of flowers and a bad attitude, slumped at a bus stop and swearing. I wriggled inside my duffel coat, kept my head down, and walked on to my stop.

Buses on the hour and half hour meant I was in for a wait. The drunk showed up, and started hassling two young girls waiting for my bus. He eased his way in. To start with, resting his flowers on the empty bench near them, then trying to engage them in conversation, and then increasing his volume until he was almost shouting at them. I caught the eye of one of the girls. "Come here," I mouthed to her silently, "come on."

They stood, came to me. I put my hand on one girls shoulder, and moved them on to one side of me, with the drunk on the other. And he came over, growling at them. I put my body between the girls and the drunk. He growled at me too. I didn't say anything, but I didn't move either. He shouted. I didn't move. He shouted some more. I still didn't move.

Then he went.

"Thank you."

I wondered how Batman would reply, but realised I could never be that cool, so I just smiled.

“Smile ‘em to death”

My closest colleague has been increasingly surly of late. By closest, I mean geographically and professionally, rather than personally; I’m not really friends with any of the people I work with. For the last few weeks, her morning demeanour has been icy. No greeting to start the day, no questions about how my weekend was (on a Monday), or what I got up to last night (for the rest of the week), or what my plans for the weekend might be (on a Friday).

“Smile ‘em to death,” has been my approach so far. Try to be chirpy, keen, energetic, and happy. Face frowns and glares with smiles and wait for the frost to thaw. Assume good faith. Pay it forward. Be positive.

My approach has achieved neither of its aims: I’ve not thawed my colleagues frosty attitudes; nor has acting in accordance with my values offered the route to success. The former is disappointing, the latter especially so: to what extent should I compromise to get by.

Not that it’s affecting my work. Just how happy I am at work. Is happiness important? It’s been that long since I was happy at work that I really can’t tell.

Test and spite

Today I was faced with a test of my resolve. I was presented with an opportunity to do nothing, which would have been the correct and strong option, or to do something, which was the wrong and weak option. I did something. I failed.

I was furious. I wanted to send Arnie back in time to kill my mum before I was born, such was my shame. Out of anger at my own weakness, I texted the girl from across the park and told her that I didn't want to see her again. Out of anger, and out of spite. I didn't feel better for long. But I did feel better.

Recession session

I met Woody and Clare for a bite to eat and a chat. Tom was offered voluntary redundancy at the start of the month, said, “yes please,” two weeks ago, and found out today that he is one of the chosen volunteers. He’s planning on going back to uni in September with his payout. He’s in a pretty good situation. Especially compared to Max. Max is in the middle of his professional exams, and has been told that he can apply for a job in the London office if he wants to, but that his Manchester position is no longer viable. Lose your job, AND start again with becoming chartered. It’s worse still, Wallis – working in the same sector – hasn’t been given the flick by work. Max and Wallis live together. Will he go to London without her? I don’t know. Heavy stuff.

Another heart attack

My dad called today. He's had another heart attack. He came off the blood-thinning tablets a couple of months ago, and the stent couldn't handle it. They've upgraded his stent now, and put him back on the drugs. It was on Monday, and he's home now.

He seemed oddly chipper about the whole thing, which made it quite difficult to guage my own feelings - he didn't really exhibit many. I don't quite know how I feel yet. It might take a little time to sink in.

The strangest thing is that on Monday I wrote a letter to Zoe, an old friend who I didn't manage to catch up with over Christmas. In the letter, I wrote, "my dad hasn't suffered any relapse of the heart trouble that he went through this time last year." I wrote it on the day of his heart attack. Erie, huh?

Assault course, bowling green

It has been a strange week with Liz and I. Her work's been very busy, both her day-to-day tasks and the course she's doing as part of her job, and she's been training for a 10K run too. We'd hardly seen each other all week, so I was really glad when she suggested we walk home from work together. Liz had met up with her ex Alex last weekend, whilst I was was in Wellingborough, but we hadn't had a chance to talk about it. When I asked how seeing him had gone, we ended up having quite a difficult conversation about us. I felt pretty rough at some points whilst we were talking, but everything Liz said about how she felt made perfect sense. Her heart has enormous complications to negotiate, an assault course of emotions. Mine has a bowling green.

Liz called later on, and we laughed and joked on the phone. I felt massively relieved, and glad that we'd spoken in the way that we had.

One Lounge, Many Jerks

I didn’t want another crummy day for Liz, so at lunchtime I went to Venus around the corner and ordered her some flowers. I left them in the reception of her office with a note: "I hope you have a better day today."

In the evening, we went to One Lounge for Gemma’s 21st birthday. Gemma looked very glamorous, as did all of her friends.

As the evening drew to a close, Liz asked me, “Do you know first aid?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Why?”
“Look.”

A girl had collapsed on the floor behind us. Oh shit! I scooted over, and went through normal checks. She wasn’t obviously injured, and was definitely breathing, and had more or less fallen into the recovery position anyway, so not too serious. Drunk? Yes, her and me. We found her phone and tried to call her friends. She was unconscious, but not really at risk. We couldn’t wake her up, and we couldn’t get through to her friends, so Liz rang for an ambulance. “Tell them that the casualty is breathing,” I remembered to say to her. I was glad that the paramedic was on the way – I think I was too pissed to do CPR. I waited outside, he arrived, and I showed him in.

Weird, and wrong, was that almost all of the jerks in One Lounge were just getting on with partying on down as if the poor girl on the floor wasn’t even there. Boozy boys were almost stepping on her as the paramedic tended to her. It made me quite angry, and I was glad to be given something to do – go and wait outside for the ambulance, please – to keep my fury at bay. They came and she went. Surreal.

Back at my house, Liz and I smooched to the Longpigs then went to bed.

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?

Things go from bad to worse for the Dazzler

Bad luck Darren. Get well soon.

The Guardian says

United suffered an injury setback yesterday when it was revealed that Darren Fletcher is unlikely to feature in the league again this season after damaging knee ligaments while representing Scotland in midweek. "It was a bad blow with Darren Fletcher, which to me just emphasises the futility of playing these friendly games. It's crazy. We have lost him for six weeks now," Ferguson said. But, while the recent losses of Eduardo da Silva, Tomas Rosicky, Denilson, Abou Diaby and Bacary Sagna have hurt Arsenal, Fletcher's absence will not impact on United in anything like the same way.

Things I find attractive in women.

Until reasonably recently, I'd absolved myself of all responsibility for not having a girlfriend by deciding that I didn't have a type, and that I'd judge every possible candidate that crossed my path on their individual merits. Such passivity also meant, naturally, that it wasn't down to me to do any form of looking, that it was down to Miss Right to fling herself in my direction, that doing nothing would result in the best possible outcome. Recently, I met Miss Wrong. The things about her that make her Miss Wrong have made me realise that I do have potential partner preferences. These are:

Intelligence
- I love mental agility, someone who is naturally comfortable with complex ideas and abstract concepts, which leads into...

Articulate conversation skills
- Not only someone who's smart, but whose sharpness shows through as they speak. Someone who can put forward their side of an argument convincingly, and can unravel someone else's. Again, leading into...

Strength of opinion and principles
- If being intelligent is a measure of the ease with which difficult ideas can be conceptualised, and if being articulate is a measure of the ease with which those ideas can be expressed, then strength of opinion is about why it's worth arguing. My principles and values are central to the way I live my life, and I'd want the same in a girlfriend.

Indie sensibilities
- Without meaning to sound superficial, this is mostly about personal style and look. I don't mean skinny jeans and backcombed hair necessarily, but that I'd like the kind of girlfriend that looks more charity shop than Topshop, more Hot Hot Heat than Heat Magazine. Indie as in indie music, but also as in independent from mainstream fashion. And not even necessarily an indie music scenester type, just someone who doesn't dress like an identikit High St mannekin.

Sexiness
- I can tell if I think a woman is sexy almost as soon as we meet. If she's intelligent, articulate, principled and 'indie,' then we're off to a good start. There must be physical attraction, but I can't specify how that manifests itself except that the prospect of making love should be exciting.

No fuss attitude
- I find someone who's willing to get their hands dirty, to put up with the cold for ten minutes of walking rather than seek out a cab, to clamber over the occasional fence much more attractive than someone who won't go out if it's raining.

Creativity
- Inspire me! Surprise me!

Shared values
- I couldn't be in a relationship with someone who doesn't believe in recycling, for example. Or with someone who steals. Or someone who's always smashed on drugs. I've laid out some of my values above, I'd hope that the things I've mentioned would be important to the sort of woman I'd fall for.


Miss Wrong does have some of these traits, but there is something about the overall package that mean that she just isn't Miss Right. I don't think I'm being too picky.

"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.

2007 Awards

Website of the Year: www.BoingBoing.net

Tough category. To win, Boingboing beat Facebook, Flickr and del.ici.ous, as well as the BBC and Guardian sites. Its combination of great content – copyright based news, hi-tech geekery, gadget reviews and great art – and an admirable principle of always acknowledging contributors pushed it to the fore. It has changed my views about ownership, the web and attribution. Without BoingBoing, I’d have never heard of Creative Commons.


Song of the Year: Fluorescent Adolescent, Arctic Monkeys

I haven’t exactly discarded all of my naughty nights for niceness, and I don’t feel like I’m in any kind of crisis, common or not. But I do have a degree of empathy with the voice of this song, being much better behaved now than I have been in the past. Killer riff too.


Film of the Year: Notes on a Scandal

A brilliant story, Judi Dench oozes _____, with an excellent supporting cast, particularly Jim Broadbent.


Book of the Year: The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly

No spoilers, I’m afraid. In my opinion, almost anything you know about a book before you start to read it could spoil it in some way.




Best Surprise: My Ghetto Blaster birthday cake – thanks Pip!


Worst Shock: Dad’s Heart Attack

I’d been in a bad mood with my dad for about eighteen months. But when I was met with the terror of maybe losing him forever that suddenly faded away. My father is exactly twice my age.


Biggest Disappointment: Glastonbury Festival

The weather was terrible, so I didn’t really push myself into making the most of the festival as a result. I tried to see too many people, and not enough bands. I don’t know if I’d go again.

It was a heart attack.

After the away day at work, I met Pip for a drink before she started work and my Christmas party kicked off. In Sam’s Chop House, mum called and said that dad had been moved from Kettering to Glenfield hospital in Leicester because he’d had a heart attack. It turned out that he’d had a heart attack before when he’d had chest pains on Thursday, but it wasn’t as severe as Friday. Everybody was flustered, not least me, and so the facts aren’t clear: was it two or three attacks by Friday night? Anyhow, I ditched the work party and went for a quick pint at Trof, then headed home to sleep, via the best part of a bottle of Jack.

Saturday was bitterly cold. Taking out my headphones to talk to mum on the phone meant putting two ice-cubes back into my ears afterwards. The announcer at Leicester station said, “First Class is reported to be at the back of the train,” as if he didn’t trust the information he was getting. Neither did mum, it seemed. She's seen a lot of death, having worked in so many old people's homes. She'd emphasise the "...they say he's..." in a way that - weirdly - wasn't distressing, as if she knew all the tricks in the book, so things weren't so bad. The platform announcer wouldn’t refer to St Pancras by its new name either, preferring ‘London St Pancras,’ to the shiny new ‘St Pancras International.’ Out with the new and in with the old, I thought. The sun danced on my notebook as we passed through Market Harborough. My dad, at 54, is exactly twice my age.

I saw him around six. He told me that he’d had an operation to re-inflate a collapsed artery involving a balloon. They entered the artery through his groin, and fed the balloon up with a tiny camera. He pulled his pants to one side and showed me the cut. He had black and purple inner elbows where he’d been on a drip, and holes in the tops of his hands where some monitoring device or other had been attached, but otherwise he just looked like dad in pyjamas. He was shaken, but looked well otherwise. I’d worried about seeing him looking ill, but he didn’t. The man in the bed next to him had grey skin. I was glad dad looked so normal. He said he’d be out on Tuesday.

Today I found out that he had another heart attack last night, and that he’d be in hospital for another couple of days. He’s diabetic too, my sister told me. One lager a day hereafter will be quite a downshift for him. He seems willing to make a lifestyle change, she said. He’ll have to, she said.

Everybody around me has been wonderful. Pippa, Louise, Clare, Paul, Woody, Sam, Robbie, Lewis, Julie, Tracy, Vince – my phone’s text inbox has never been crammed with good wishes. I'm still shaken though, and can barely grasp what's happening.

Lego I once owned

Technics Lego was, for two years, my favourite of the gifts I received at Christmas.




The motorbike wasn't as good as the JCB, but it was a tighter year for us then. The JCB stayed on the mantlepiece, gathering dust, for years after I'd stopped playing with it. Technics was too complicated to break down and throw in with the other Lego. I think it was still there when I left to go to Uni.

My dad's been taken into hospital with chest pains. I don't know how I feel about it. Scared, a little, and shocked.

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.