A former manager contacted me the other day. That happens fairly frequently, and flatteringly enough, the communication is usually an offer to come and work with them in whichever company they've recently joined. This time, I wrote back explaining that as I was on maternity leave, I would not be available until next year. Quite... Continue Reading →
Human nature
I am currently reading a novel about a dystopian future in which the world has been destroyed in some sort of holocaust, and all the survivors live in a collection of huge underground bunkers near Atlanta. As with all science fiction, it is about the dynamics of human interaction in a hostile environment. I was... Continue Reading →
The rules
"We understand that mistakes happen...!" The headline on the ad is quite eye catching. Underneath it is a picture of an unattractive larger woman, with bright blonde, straw like hair, and dark roots showing through. She is sitting on the side of a bed, wearing a diamanté studded bra top. In the blurred background, a... Continue Reading →
Annoying things
This will be my last post on this blog. Due to a mixup with my Google settings, my real name is now linked to the blog, and the blog appears as the top search result. Given that my real name appears to be unique, this means that everyone I sit in a boring meeting with... Continue Reading →
A belated view of 2013’s films
Given it is the eve of the Oscars 2014, I'll have a look back at the film releases of 2013 (even if I watched almost none of the contenders), and a few small smatterings of what life was like at the time. January 2013: Jack Reacher. I watched this in the Lake District, on a... Continue Reading →
Why I hate gardening
Everyone in England wants a garden to call their own. It's one of the main reasons they move out of London, if they were not fortunate enough to have bought a house in Hampstead in the 1960s. Ironically, no one particularly wants a house in Hampstead Garden Suburb, as it seems to have very little... Continue Reading →
Slapped with a wet fish – really
I've been having a mopey few days. You know, drifting into self-absorbed disappointment about life, for no good reason. So I was unreasonably amused by a story on the BBC this morning; some random Irish teenager walked into a shop and slapped a shop worker with a big wet fish. A bream, in fact. I'm... Continue Reading →
Knowledge in England
In common with many arts graduates, I delight in accumulating mostly useless knowledge. Since I'm not the brightest person I know, I tend to assume that this is knowledge also accumulated by everyone else. Interacting with a variety of different people suggests that this is not the case, and so I end up feeling bad... Continue Reading →
Useless days
Some days, I get to the end of the day, and realise that I could have achieved more, or at any rate destroyed less, by not getting out of bed at all. This is one of those days. You know you're off to a bad start when you have to write yourself a list of the... Continue Reading →
I want to break free
Life in my house is always fun, which is rather a good thing too, as I spend nearly 24 hours a day in it. Some days, I'm full of motivation for getting all my chores done - drop husband off at the station at 6.50 am, hang around waiting for Sainsbury's to open at 7... Continue Reading →
The resting writer 