Woot

Finally.

Now the next debate. Do I put a portion aside for tax as a sensible precaution even though the chances of me reaching the taxible threshold this year seem minimal?

GSE laughs - continents crumble

I haven't had a great deal of use out of my Chamber of Commerce membership (which may be one reason I don't have any clients at present), largely because the idea of networking makes me cry. However when the local Jongleurs comedy club offered free tickets to Chamber members, I immediately accepted.

Their motive appears to be to sell Jongleurs as a office Christmas party venue. The cats and I are not planning a party this year so this didn't work on me but I imagine it would be quite good for that purpose. It's a very large space though (wide and thin) which immediately makes it harder for the acts to work up a good atmosphere.

The compere was a Geordie, swore a lot, depended on casual misogyny and wasn't very funny. The first act was a Geordie, swore a lot, depended on casual misogyny and was a bit funnier, although I took against his riff on the subject of the horror of overweight women in velour leisure pants*. It was the main act though that made the evening. He had the looks of a public schoolboy, the jacket of a retired colonel and the voice of John Inman (the moment he opened his mouth, every jaw in the room hit the floor) and was an amazingly gifted musical impressionist - the act involved take-offs of David Gray, Cher, male and female Bollywood singers and Pavarotti. He's called Jason Wood , is a trained opera singer, camp as a row of tents and can sing in Hindi.


* velour leisure pants are currently about the only thing that don't put an unpleasant amount of pressure on my scar and I have worn them constantly for the past 7 weeks. Yes, I know I look hideous in them.

Giz job

I'm looking for a job. I'm lazy, have a bad attitude, can guarantee to be late for work, have no concept whatsoever of team spirit or loyalty, have the emotional intelligence of a slug (post salt) and am probably cleverer* than you and will go out of my way to make sure you realise this. Oh and I have very limited use of my hands so can't really do anything practical without expensive special equipment. And I haven't been in employment (other than self employment) since 1990.

*Stands back, waits for offers.*

Seriously though, it's all a bit hopeless isn't it? I completely lost it this morning when there was still no sign of payment (see previous post) which is making me think that I may be reaching the end of the road with self employment but I'm unlikely to get a job in this or any climate. And please don't suggest teaching - I'm terrified of children.

Oddly enough a couple of people have suggested that all the above suits me very well to a career as an academic. What do you think?





*This last point doesn't apply to Citizen Dave.

More yaaargggh

I was assured that payment would be in my account today.

Yeah, right.

I am finding life in its totality extremely difficult at the moment.

Sisyphean grooming grumble

To add to my other travails, in the 7 weeks since my operation I've gone from having a few white hairs to about 10-15% grey hair. I should probably dye it but I really don't want to - it seems like an irreversable step towards continual expense and hassle.

I'm quite proud (in a truly obnoxious way) of how little experience of hair dye I have. I really like my natural colour.

When I was at school, I gave myself a scarlet streak and was immediately forced to dye it back again. I tried highlights when I was in my 20s but it didn't look as good as natural hair so I never did it again. I tried a slightly redder rinse on leaving my ex-husband, just to mark the occasion, and ended up with it going purple at the front and nothing happening at the back.

Since then, I haven't bothered.

However, I'm really not happy with the current situation. I'd assumed I'd grey in the same way as my mother, whose hair colour just seemed to fade gradually from red to champagne blonde (no dye involved - it required extreme nagging to get her to even wash it). However I've just ended up with a dirty grey salt and pepper effect. What should I do?

Overheard

Exterior, morning, at the cashpoint.

GSE is punching in her pincode. Behind her stand a father and daughter, clad in typical local attire (father - tweedy academic looking, daughter - Jack Wills and Uggs, studenty).

Father: It's one of the most popular courses for women at the University now.
Daughter: Criminology?
F: No, homemaking - how to become a wife and mother.
GSE, sotto voce: Christ, how depressing.
D, brightly: Oh -that's the one I really want to do.

Customer service

It's difficult to tell if the postal strike had much of an impact on me because anything that got lost got lost (obviously) so I don't know about it. The only thing I noticed is that my subscription copy of the Economist that was due to arrive on the day of the strike didn't arrive and still hasn't.

I suppose I was mildly surprised that the Economist hadn't taken measures to avoid this - last time there was a strike it arrived a day early. But it wasn't the end of the world, even though reading the obituary in the Economist is one of the highlights of my week - they always pick someone very non-obvious but absolutely fascinating.

Last week I emailed them to point out that the missing copy hadn't arrived, more in the spirit of helping them track what had happened rather than complaining. So far I've received an extension to my subscription, an offer of a further subscription extension in the event that the following issue disappeared (it didn't but they would have no way of verifying that - lucky I'm honest/lazy) and a free copy of one of their books, the 2010 Pocket World in Figures, which will probably form the basis of every post from now on in.

I contrast this with an unnamed (you'll see why) cosmetics company (this didn't happen to me thank God) who responded to a complaint about an order being posted to the wrong address and hence going missing by accusing the customer of being a liar, harrassing her on Facebook and threatening her with legal action. Or the fake tan company that deals with customer complaints via the medium of obscene tweets about the complainant and harrassing phone calls at 1 in the morning.