Monday 30 April 2012

Room with a view

The view from my desk.


Office move aftermath

We turned up to work this morning to find our team’s new office layout. Oh dear. If I was to use one word to describe it, it would be cramped. We've managed to rejig it somewhat but there's still not much space. On the plus side. My desk is reasonable. I've got a window seat (overlooking a wall) and i've reclaimed my pot plant that now sits on my new window sill which also acts as an extra foot of desk space.


It has been fairly comedic though. One girl on my team took most of the morning trying to find space for her collection of shoes and has only just stopped moaning.

Royal Mail need to improve

If the Royal Mail are upping their prices by inflation busting amounts then they need to improve their service. Both myself and April have been waiting for a parcel for nearly 2 weeks now. Amazon says that it's been delivered, and the post office say that they don't have anything at their depot so we asked Amazon to send us new orders which they kindly did or are in the process of doing so.



It was only yesterday that I noticed that our parcel had indeed be posted, it was thrown round the back entrance and had no doubtably been there since the 15th April. Having had half of the whole years rain in the month of April meant soggy packages.



Luckily mine was cellophane wrapped, April's fared less well. Wait here for our complaint.

The grand openning

We tried out our closest pub on Saturday night. There was a big sign outside stating that it was under new management and was having an opening party on Saturday night. We hadn't been there for a few years as it was terrible but thought we should support our local businesses.




The signs weren't good, we could hear the place before we could see it. Some sh!t popular song that the kids listen to I think. When we finally saw the front door there was a bouncer outside. That's always a good sign. But we persevered. The music was unbearably loud, so we went into the second section which wasn't too bad, except of course for the clientele... We left straight away and to our old favourite the P&J (Punch and Judy). Phew!



I do think that it’s a missed opportunity however. There are certainly more normal people at our end of town compared to pikeys and they must have seen how popular the P&J was since that changed owners. Bloody terrible.

Sunday 29 April 2012

Avengers Assembled

Decent comic book action film. 3D didn't really add much. Would have been better if we had a clue to half of the characters back stories.


SC verdict 7.8 / 10 (1 vote)

AC verdict 6.5 / 10 (1 vote)

IMDb verdict 9.0 / 10 (20259)


Great show

In case you missed my previous post this is great

Todd and the Book of Pure Evil

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1558128/

Really gross, really funny, nice metal music throughout and unlike most things on TV.  It's really worth catching on Syfi (Tuesdays at 10) or downloading.  The good news is they're making another series.

Cinema trip tonight

Well let's see what all the fuss is about.  We're off to see the Avengers film tonight. It's meant to be pretty good so fingers crossed.

Cheeky monkey

Poppet's allowed in the bedroom as long as she uses a towel.


Saturday 28 April 2012

What was the point of that?

Just received my new passport in the post and had a look through some of the pages.  There was a sticker towards the back with the words please remove sticker on it. 

Friday 27 April 2012

Let out early

We've had a small office move today, meaning we all had to pack up our stuff by 4:30, so we've been let out early yeah!

What to do?

First weekend in ages when we've got nothing planned.  Nice!

I think I may cook something spectactular.

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Celebrity spot

Before the Doug Stanhope gig on Saturday we dripped into a near by Mexican restaurant for a bite to eat.


Who should be sitting next to us at the table? No other than Doug himself.


Film spot of the day

Joffrey from The Game of Thrones is also in Batman Begins. Spotted it last night, he spots Batman on a balcony. He's quite young but it is him.

Sunday 22 April 2012

67% complete

I've got two thirds of the achievements on football manager.  Currently managing Corby, in the play-offs midway through my second season after getting them promoted in the first.  League football next season!


Thursday 19 April 2012

Cheeky gits

Is the company upstairs syphoning off my company’s electricity?  I’m imagining it’ll looksomething like the last picture.

Monday 16 April 2012

Lucky days

Legged it to London Bridge a touch early so looked into buying some food from the vending machine on the platform.


Result! There was 2 pound in it. Someone must have had to grab their train. Doh!


Doh for them woohoo for me. Free big  malteeser bag for us.


Only issue was I couldn't claim the remaining 60p as my train arrived.


Well this is fun

Now I know how those poor chaps feel in Gauntanimo Bay...


Waiting at the bar of Bedroom Bar, Shoreditch, on my own whilst 50+ ukulele players separately practice their songs before the gig.


White Noise. Argh!


I'm going to be humming when i'm cleaning windows all week.


From now on...

I only want my drinks served to me in a 1950's antique tigers head.


£800!


Will I ever learn?

Probably not. I've a hole in my work suit's (wedding suit) pocket trousers. The pocket where I keep my keys and change. 


When will I learn to put them in the other pocket? I've just put the change from the cab ride in my pocket only for it to roll straight out onto the street. 


Being part Scottish, they hit me on the back of my head before they hit the ground. But no sooner as I picked them up, I put them back in my pocket. The wrong pocket. Idiot.


Oh, to be one of the cool kids

In a 'pub' called the Shoreditch off Shoreditch High Street. It's far too cool for me.  Still in my work suit. But they have Sierra Nevada on tap so who cares?  My bank balance probably.


April's uke gig later.


In other news

I haven't broken my wrist.  I'll give it another month then see if there's anything else they can do about it.  Bloody hard to find out mind.  I tried calling before our holiday but couldn't get through.  Same today, on hold for 30 mins before I hung up then called again using a different option.  This got me through to reception which she then only forwarded me on to the same line for another 5 mins.  I was about to hang up when she picked up the phone again said that she may be able to help.  She could, and told me within 2 minutes.  Idiots!

I left a message on their message board saying that the doctors and nurses were great but the reception system sucked.  That made me feel better.

Didn't get it.

Boo!  It wasn't a massive surprise as there was someone else going for the same role that was already more senior than me.  Still a little disappointed though.  Booooo!

New for mornings

We're fed up with breakfast news and morning tv in general. In short, it's shit. To counter this we've bought a new DAB radio for our bedroom.


PLANET ROCK!


Excellent.


Sunday 15 April 2012

Back to work

Should find out about that job tomorrow?  Or at the very least Tuesday when we're all in.  Eek.

Thursday 12 April 2012

Day 6

Our fancy hotel in the New Forest.

Day 5

 Our teepee, and a semi precious stone globe in a fancy restaurant.

Holiday day 3 (2)

 Tavistock conservative club (if you look closely you may spot a painting of Maggie).  Various pictures down an old mine.  Various pictures down on the farm.








Holiday day 3

Still waiting for that kettle to boil...

Sunday 8 April 2012

Day 2 welcome to the teepee

Here's April trying to boil a kettle on the wood burner. It didn't work. The burner did though. Too well. It was either swelteringly hot or bloody freezing.


Holiday day 1



Stopped off at Steve's massive new house for a visit on Friday before heading off to Devon the next day.

Friday 6 April 2012

Countdown complete

My countdown of work days left before 10 lovely days off.


Monday 2 April 2012

Job interview

I've got an internal job interview for a managers role on Wednesday morning.  Eek.  The are two roles going, with 4 people going for them.  Unfortunately the other guy going for my role is more senior than me so I think they'll just give it to him anyway.  Worth going for though.  You never know.  We won't find out the results till a week later though.  Even so we'll be on holiday that week so they'll have to call me anyway.

Holidays are coming

3 and a bit work days left then 10 off.  Nice.  We haven't had time off since our honeymoon.

Tepee in Devon followed by boutique hotel in the New Forest.  Can't wait.  Apart from the cold camping part.  Brrrrrr.....

Thankfully the fuel strikes don't look like they'll be causing problems in the near future so at least we'll be able to get there.

What a game

Although i'm hurting for it now (i'm down to only 95% skin), it was a great game.  We beat our league leaders 31-28 with the last kick of the game.  The ball was right in the corner on our kicker's wrong side.  Ha, ha.  If they'd have drawn with us they would have won the league but they decided (stupidly) to not go for touch and end the game.  We returned up the pitch, only for one of their players to give away a penalty.

It's looking like we'll finish 4th this year.  Not bad for getting promoted last season.

New venue

We went for a meal with friends in Tunbridge Wells on Friday night.  Quite good but it seemed to take ages.  That meant we were late for the main event.  Tunbridge Wells Forum.
http://www.twforum.co.uk/

It cost us £7 each and we only really had time for a couple of drinks and one band.  Very good though.  It was like a local version of the crobar!  By all accounts it's not always like that and it plays different music on different nights but I thought it was pretty cool.  They even sell cans of Red Stripe!  Brilliant.

In other music related news we're off to the Barbican to see the Mountain Goats (again) tonight.
http://www.mountain-goats.com/

Food first here though
http://www.barbican.org.uk/restaurants-bars/searcys

Should be a fun night

Worth a shot...

... seeing as i've been paying loads of tax recently I thought it might be worth a shot seeing if I can actually get any of it back.  Thought not.