Keep Calm and Carry On

I am toying with the idea of getting a custom leather jacket. One with
the image you see before you embroidered on the back, is it
embroidering with leather or just manly stitching? I'm not sure.

I think it's a great image and has just the right amount of British
pride without descending into jingoism. Also I think it's a good
message to have on the back of one's leather jacket, so people can see
it as you over-take them.

Anyway, opinion in the office is split over if this is a good idea, so
I'm asking the interspaz. Should I get this item made?

Working with dinosaurs

A bit of a trouble day at t'mill today. I was in work early, extra early in fact, for a couple of reasons. The first is that I had a motorbike on loan for a couple of days so instead of spending about an hour messing around on public transport my commute into work was 15 minutes of almost pure joy.

The second reason is because I'm in journo school this week and so I have to come in early, and leave late to make sure all my normal work gets done. This isn't the planned situation but well, let us just say that sometimes things don't work out as planned.

I don't really have a problem with it, journo school is excellent and it's only for a week but what I do have a problem is when a Dinosaur comes over and chews my ear off for no real reason.

That makes it sound more exciting than it really was. What really happened is a very 'old school journo' i.e. a functioning alcoholic who day-dreams about the era of the typewriter, ambled over and told me off about something silly.

It was silly for a few reasons.
1) I was officially 'off' because of training so it wasn't my responsibility
2) The thing he wanted to happen wasn't that important because it doesn't have that much of an affect on business.
3) It had actually happened, it just hadn't been done in a way that he could see it instantly.
4) The whole matter was sorted out before 8am because I was there early anyway.

This was bad enough, but then the dinosaur sent an email to my boss about how work wasn't getting done and it how Louche didn't seem to get the business of media. As you can imagine I was more than slightly annoyed about this.

This was especially galling as just the day before, the Dinosaur had given us an hour long lecture about how to deal with people effectively and how if you do have to say something bad to someone, say something good either side of it and never do it via email.

The group email to a range of people who could get me in trouble didn't really have much of an affect. Or at least the affect the Dinosaur wanted. My boss doesn't respect the Dinosaur and he told him, in polite corporate-political speak, that he could fudge off.

Dinosaurs don't like fudge.

Tea is better than Pandas, FACT

This is a headline you will never read in a newspaper. Why? Well not because the facts aren't there, or that the story behind such a headline isn't interesting, no. Because it wasn't was vetoed because it was too silly.

I don't understand this, I think it's an excellent headline, I'd read it, I want to read the article under it. One what basis could one compare a Panda and tea? How was this result arrived at? What does this mean for me as a tea drinker?

I'll make the headline sound even more interesting by saying fish and chips are involved. See. Now that's double tempting. Fish and Chips? Pandas? Tea? How can this be? You will never know, because I was out voted and this headline never happened. Alas, woe etc.

I'm back a the training course this week, and while it's informative and interesting I don't like it anymore. I now understand the Reynold's Defence which is handy since I've been sued more than a couple of times. I've also learned lots of useful tips on sub-editing things and a whole range of other subjects. In short every day is an interesting one and it's incredibly useful. Yet I hate it.

Why? For two reasons. We have homework and I've been away from my normal job for two days and everything is falling to pieces, again.

The homework is galling. When we are taught to do something we are instantly tested on it, in front of the teacher. This means I am most definitely getting my learn-on.

It's great. So since we are worked, really hard, under great pressure in the classroom. And considering we all have day-jobs that typically take up evening and weekend times, why give us a vast homework assignment? One pretending to be a feature that no-one will read just because? Why? Who benefits? It's not me, and it's not the Pandas.

The other reason for not liking the course, the fact that various important things aren't happening because I'm not there is, well it's annoying. While it's nice to have completely and utterly demonstrated that what you do is
important it's still a bit of a pain when you get sent terse emails because things haven't happened and you weren't even there. Also I miss my normal job, it's nice.

And yes, I've just typed this out when what I really should have been doing is working on aforementioned homework. That's not the point.

I've got lots of other interesting things to post when I've got some time including:
What happened in Paris
The secret to happiness, or at least the perfect commute to work
And why I need a bucket to say goodbye.

The life and times of an accidental master criminal

I locked myself out of my room today. Double locked. This wasn't great because, well everything was inside my room and I was outside it, wearing just a towel. I was dressed like that because I'd just taken a shower rather than using bath towels as my look for 2009.

I was outside my room. Almost naked with no way of getting in that didn't involve smashing the door down. I probably could smash the door down but it would make a mess and knowing my luck the act of smashing my cause my towel to fall off just as a flatmate got home.

Then I remembered something years ago at least 15, something I'd seen a locksmith do once when I was with some friends who were locked out. So I set about replicating what he did. I won't give the exact details, and thus give the Internet the secret to breaking into my boudoir but it involved a fizzy drink. Less than 30 seconds later and I was in my room doing a little jig. Yale lock? Pfft.

I'll have to update my C.V. now to include breaking and entering.

Perhaps I'll just stop using keys. If locks have no affect on me then there doesn't seem much point in carrying them around.

Update from the miracle world of jelly

It's all worked out. The Miracle World of jelly realised that Jeff was a bit miffed and they have done absolutely everything they can to keep him sweet. Jeff will be getting a jelly mould, and a whole range of esoteric perks have suddenly been thrown in his direction.

Jeff is pleased by this and celebrated with some bourbon creams. The end.

Jeff's Miracle World of Jelly

Let's say I have a friend called Jeff. Jeff landed a job he is very pleased with and he relocated to go there much to the annoyance of his girlfriend.

Jeff has been getting on with his work very well. Directly because of his actions jelly sales are up when the global sales of wobbly food are down, massively so.

Jeff has also made some changes to the way jelly is made so that now far more jelly is being churned out and it's the best jelly there has ever been. Jeff, and his employers know this because Jeff made some changes to blueberry jelly and then suddenly blueberry jelly sales are up 40%, in a week! Jeff feels he is making a big difference to the business. Oh and Jeff went on a trip that no-one else wanted to go on and he came back with a load of, erm jelly scoops.

As part of work at the miracle world of jelly people get jelly moulds to try out. Jeff got his job because he wrote about jelly moulds so well that he was placed higher in google than the miracle world of jelly.

When the time came were people could put in their requests for a jelly mould Jeff got very excited and asked for his dream jelly mould. A new version of it had just been released, and considering he got the job due to writing about this jelly mould he thought he had a reasonable chance of getting it. Or if not that jelly mould, probably one a bit like it. Something exciting that young chaps like Jeff like to use.

This didn't happen. Someone else, who has been at the company slightly less time than Jeff got the dream jelly mould and Jeff got given an. Well. Jeff has actually tried out this jelly mould, he tried it out last year and that it was awful. It's a sort of experimental jelly mould and it doesn't work and it's boring to use. It's as if someone had tried to design a jelly mould that has all the fun things about making jelly removed. It's useless to Jeff, worse it will be a liability to have around.

Jeff is very pissed off now. While he knows that he is lucky to even have the chance of a jelly mould he feels that he hasn't done well out of the one he has been assigned and he is so stressed about it (he has been looking forward to jelly mould day for months) that he can't sleep.

Jeff just wanted to share that with you and now he will probably be able to get some sleep. Tomorrow he is going to have a chat about seeing if he can get a different jelly mould, which is probably fairly unlikely.