Tempting fate...

Hey – I’ve reached the midway point of the year, and written at least 20 blog postings in every calendar month!!

(Cue some kind of catastrophic injury that means I’ll only blog twice in July…)

RC 30-6-18

Things happen fast

Well it’s official now – I have officially been offered the new position. They still haven’t decided exactly what the job title will be – I have a horrible feeling they’ll be letting me choose the wording myself in a greasing-the-ego management move – but they have said it’s me they want. Definitely, this time. By way of apology for ‘messing me about’, they tell me they are increasing the monetary offer way above its original amount.

They’ve found me an extra £500 a year.

That’s less than a tenner a week. Thanks guys, I feel so much better now…

I’ve asked for the weekend to think about it and discuss it with my wife. We have our first child on the way, after all, so I want to make sure that any changes to my work life aren’t going to impact on affairs at home. They shouldn’t, but they don’t know that, so it’s nice to mention it and use it as a bargaining tool.

I genuinely have no idea how I feel about it or what I am going to do. A weekend of conversation, soul-searching and number-crunching awaits me I feel, as I try and reach some kind of decision within the next 48 hours or so.

But for now – some distraction is needed, so I’m going to spend the next 2 hours out of that 48 watching the film ‘Moonlight’

RC 29-6-18

Nettles are my Nemesis. (a poem)

Summer skies

A gentle walk

Two hands, locked

Broad horizons

Limitless

Future brighter than ever

Birdsong

A gentle breeze

Cloudless beauty, above

Swelling hearts

Timeless

Love stronger than ever

A stumble

Left foot into a ditch

Too busy with sunset to notice path’s edge

Nature’s nastiest plant awaits

My leg, welted

Stinging like a Godless bastard

RC 27-6-18

Expecting, and the Unexpected

My Area Manager turned up today, totally unannounced. I hate it when they do that. Especially when I only have one window open on my computer and it’s researching electronic drum kits. I thought he might have come to check up on the air conditioning. This company is packed to the rafters with levels of management that justify their over-the-top salaries by nit-picking over the tiniest expense, so I had no doubt that our need to call in an engineer would be questioned.

However, he was here on ‘a higher purpose’ – namely to discuss the job-that-wasn’t-a-job that was accepted-then-not-accepted last week.

It was a long, boring conversation in a hot, stuffy office, but the long and short of it is that I have kind-of been offered the position. I say ‘kind-of’ because nothing firm was said or shaken on, it was one of those horrible nudge-nudge-wink-wink ‘IF you were offered it, WOULD you accept?’ hypothetical bullshit encounters that these higher managers seem addicted to. My suspicion is that he is driving around this week having the same chat with everyone in the area, so they can gauge who might be still interested in the position, so they don’t have to go through the embarrassment again of announcing who The New Guy is, only to have him drop them like a hot pebble three days later.

So I’m not allowing myself to feel wanted or to let my ego expand. I’m still not sure where I stand, or what will happen next.

But at least I got approval for the air-conditioning to be fixed.

RC 26-6-18

Sweatyarsecrack

Perfect day to be stuck indoors in an office…. The only thing that could have made it more uncomfortable would be if the air-conditioning broke down so said office hit 30 Celsius…. So I guess I really lucked out today, didn’t I?

Thankfully I have a very thoughtful, understanding and intelligent wife, who is currently surging with pregnancy hormones and the absorbing self-worth of impending motherhood, so is behaving almost superhumanly. She noticed my mood (and sweat content) as soon as I walked in so she pushed me into the car and drove me to the sea so I could cool off and calm down by swimming.

Then we came home for tea and cuddles, followed by an evening of sitting in the garden in comfy deckchairs talking about holidays and baby names.

Now I am as chilled as a frozen prawn.

RC 25-6-18

MMC

You know how I’m obsessed with numbers and number sequences and stuff?

Well, this is blog posting no. 2100.

So here are some facts about the number 2100, by way of celebration:

In the year 2100AD, it is predicted that the UK will have a population of 82,300,000.

Using todays exchange rates, 2100 US dollars are worth £1,582.76

‘Dos mil cien’ is 2100 in Spanish.

That’s all I can be bothered to do for now……

RC 23-6-18

No news is no news

Rumours are rife about what might be in the pipeline at work. My staff have heard about the weirdness over the new position, and as usual with these things, people make their own conclusions and worry about how it will affect them. There are whispers on the wind about the garage being closed down and paved over, about it being sold to a better-known petrol provider, and about me buying out my employers and running it as an independent filling station. I can categorically tell you, as I told them, that the last option is NOT one I will be looking at, exploring, or doing anything other than laugh about. Nothing has been said, but anything is possible, so everything is being considered. That’s the trouble with this kind of situation. The truth is I don’t know what will happen next, so I’m just keeping my head down and getting on with what I can get on with.

RC 22-6-18

So - the work thing..

The other day I fell into a trap of my own making. I wrote a blog moaning about how everyone in the media and online and in life were leaping on the World Cup bandwagon and shoehorning football into their product to cash in on the ‘festival fever feeling’ being generated by the sporting event in Russia. By writing and posting that blog I MYSELF was of course doing exactly the thing I was accusing others of. The way to fight the system was to simply ignore it and write about something else entirely; but I didn’t, so I’m no better than those I was having a go at.

I mention that because I’m about to do another tired, forced, indulgent let’s-connect-this-to-the-World-Cup-somehow move. I’m not proud of it, but I’m doing it, so let’s just get on with it and get it over with:

A lot of the problems with the teams who have already lost matches, I have been informed, is that the managers have no ‘Plan B’…. and that would seem to sum up the people higher up in the company I work for too.

There – I’ve done it – I can get on with making my original point now.

This whole ‘person has been appointed but then decided not to accept’ situation has become a bit of a fiasco. It’s obvious they wanted him from the start, even before the bloody job was first mentioned to anybody, and that they felt assured he would take it. It’s obvious because him saying ‘no’ seems to have taken the wheels off the entire venture and left the senior management in charge of the changes clueless as to what to do next.

Some of these people are earning six figures annually, for Christ’s sake.

They did send a panicky e-mail out to those of us who had originally applied for the position to ask if we’d put our names forward again, to which each of us independently and hurriedly said ‘No, thank you.’ I can’t speak for others, but my personal view is that if you’ve passed me over once, probably without even giving me serious consideration because you already know who you’re hiring, then why the Hell would I want to make the effort again?

RC 21-6-18

baby monikers

FOR THE BOYS:

Names I like:

Walter

Winston

Merlin

Jackson

Cole

Names I’ve already rejected:

Thomas

Andrew

David

John

Nebuchadnezzar

FOR THE GIRLS:

Names I like:

Penny

Tamara

Melissa

Kelly

Mo

Names I’ve already rejected:

Elizabeth

Bella

Gertrude

Delia

Rachel

You never hear of a girl being named after her mum, and adding ‘junior’ at the end of their title, do you? ‘Philippa Chesworth Jr’ sounds cool to me, but you rarely see it. Maybe men are more egotistical and like to promote themselves through their children.

My mind will probably change tomorrow so I’d expect this list to be updated if I was you.

RC 20-6-18

Minor rant about football

There seems to be a lot of debate (on the radio and the sodding press and the telly and on the forecourt and on the internet) about the disconnect between professional footballers and those numbskulls who enjoy watching them play it. I guess the World Cup is the trendy thing to discuss so they’re having to milk it as much as they can. Consequently those of us who couldn’t give a flip and would like to avoid it are having to endure having something connected to it rammed down our throats on every channel that doesn’t have the rights to broadcast it. And so it was that I got stuck in the office listening to a normally intellectual discussion programme lowering itself to the common denominator and talking about ‘The Beautiful Game.’

So I learnt that back in the 1950s and 60s, the pros used to travel on busses and sit in pubs with the very fans who used to go and support them, whereas nowadays they tend to be hidden behind PR executives and security fences.

My own conclusions, based on what I heard and a few conversations with Ted and his family, are these:

People supported them because they were just like us, but in a position to do the job we’d love to do ourselves. Now they’re nothing like us – they get paid extraordinary amounts of money to play a game we’d love to play ourselves, while the rest of us get to pay extortionate prices to watch them do it.

No wonder people get pissed off with them.

RC 19-6-18

June is going too quickly

We had a walk yesterday at a place in Norfolk where you can meet alpacas. They call it ‘trekking’ but all you actually do is hold a leash and lead them through the middle of a town. I don’t know much about alpacas but I’m pretty sure that’s not their natural environment. I can’t imagine that in their homeland of Peru they’re often tied to a length of rope and marched on pavements through a busy seaside town.

Anyway – they charge you £30 an hour to have a go. It got me thinking about other strange activities I might be able to offer the public as a way of earning money by tapping into their need for bizarre, unusual and braggable-about encounters.

How about these?:

Guinea pig wrestling

Hamster juggling

Iguana Interactive Yoga

Walking with Grasshoppers

Sculpting dogs out of butter

Banana shaving.

I’m gonna make a fortune

RC 18-6-18

Work update

Well, well, well; with an extra portion of ‘well’.

The person who was lined up to become our Area Management Supervising Co-Ordinatrix (or whatever) has decided to turn the job down.

He thought about it for a couple of days, starting having doubts about moving to the East of England, and chose to stay where he is.

I wondered why he hadn’t called me to introduce himself…

RC 15-6-18

Face(book)ing The Truth

Sorry to re-tread old ground, but I fancy another rant about social media.

You see, the thing is, I think it’s making everyone childish and immature well into middle age. And not in the good way – not in the carefree, risk-taking, fearless, ‘anything is possible’ way of youth; but rather in the ‘fuck it, what’s the point?’, ‘why grow up and take responsibility for anything?’ way that is so infuriating in teenagers, but which most of us thankfully grow out of.

Don’t take my word for it – just look closely at the people you know who spend most of their times looking at social media. Talk to them and see what conversations will endure. I’m pretty sure you’re unlikely to have a decent debate about Trump’s relationship with Korea and how it might affect us in Britain; I would guess you’re more likely to hear ‘have you seen that meme where they’re snogging in a sauna??’

There’s a whole generation in their twenties now who have never read a serious article, never held a broadsheet in their hands and caught up with international affairs, they’ve just taken their ‘news’ from the most popular feeds that everyone else is also following, which dissect incidents down into Tweetable chunks and chortle-some pictures and punchlines.

The trouble with that is that no-one is broadening their outlook. No-one is learning from the experience and intellect of others, they’re just dancing along to the tune of the smuttiest poet. Where will that lead? A generation of proper journalists will die off and be replaced by whichever 22-year-old make-up enthusiast happens to have the most views that month. We’ll run out of people prepared to be the grown-ups making all the decisions and be left with a country full of pointers-and-huffers. You know the ones I mean: the ones (in their millions) who watch what other people are doing and then say ‘that was shit, they should do better’ and leave lots of little comments at the bottom of lots of other clips and posts. But when no-one’s prepared to stand up and lead, because everyone’s too busy criticising and ‘LOL’-ing, then we really will be down a well of shit without a ladder or a snorkel.

It frightens me to think I’m bringing a child into all this.

God I sound like an old fart, don’t I?

RC 14-6-18

Drumming my way into darkness

I guess you know you’ve lost track of time and been swept up in the rhythm of your own playing when your wife comes into your music room to tell you the neighbours are ringing and asking you to please be quiet….

It may be time that I sorted out some proper soundproofing for the walls of the garage. I’ll put it on the list of ‘things to do and spend money on’ along with converting the spare room into a nursery, decorating every room, baby-proofing the garden and all the other myriad items that the impending arrival of a child forces upon you.

RC 13-6-18

An Insomniac's Thought About Pregnancy

Somewhere – many years ago now – I remember writing a drunken blog about what names I liked for boys and girls, just in case I ever became a parent.

Guess I should think about tracking that one down…

RC 12-6-18

Another Monday, another reason to hate my employers

It turns out my possible change of position at work is likely to be down, rather than up.

I arrived today, barely ready for the onslaught of another week of toil, to find an e-mail informing me that ‘despite an impressive presentation and outstanding interview I have been sadly unsuccessful on this occasion.’

(Thank you to the cut-and-paste feature of whichever HR minion was designated to contact me.)

The new Area Sub-Manager, or District Co-ordinator, or whatever the hell they’ve decided to call them, will be someone who until recently worked in a completely different department at Head Office. So they had the choice of four different managers from the four different filling stations, who all knew each other and all knew the workings of the four different garages, and they’ve overlooked them all to bring in someone who has never worked outside an office on the outskirts of London. Rumours, of course, are rife. Some are saying that he wants to retire to the country and so his chums higher up have created this position so he can head to Suffolk. Others are saying that he has had a little extra-marital dalliance and has to leave the big city in a hurry to avoid complications with his wife’s family. I doubt that one is true, seeing as it isn’t the Middle Ages anymore, but something certainly stinks.

My own suspicion, borne out of a lifetime of cynicism and several at-work encounters in various fields of employment, is that they simply knew who they wanted from the start and went through all this ‘consultation’ bullshit to avoid any grievances. That pisses me off more than my qualities and qualifications being simply ignored, because I wasted time, effort and energy on an application that was never going to be successful and probably wasn’t even looked at. And they approached me for Christs sake. Why did they bother asking me to apply if they already had someone in mind?

Obviously the four of us who are most affected have been chatting all day. We all agree that we would be happy for one of us to be overseeing the others, but we’re not happy about this unknown, inexperienced quantity being dropped in from afar. My guess is that at least two of the other managers will resign within a month. Maybe that was the point – if you piss people off and they bail out themselves then you don’t have to sort out a redundancy package when you make them obsolete.

Anyway, I shall stop now lest I end up in trouble.

RC 11-6-18

ListFest (that counts down from 5)

My 5 Favourite Fruits (thought it was time this was updated.  Taste buds change, after all)

1.    Watermelon

2.    Raspberries

3.    Seedless black grapes

4.    Kiwi

5.    Red Delicious Apples

My 4 Favourite Ways To Spend A Sunday

1.    Drunk

2.    Hungover

3.    In bed with Philippa

4.    Gaming

My 3 Favourite Pizzas Ever

1.    BBQ Meat Feast from ‘Rockham Pizza & Kebab’ in Suffolk

2.    Supermarket-bought bacon & pepper with special sausage-stuffed crust

3.    Egg and Cress topped pepperoni at Tallini’s Pizzeria in London

My 2 Favourite Songs That Begin With The Letter ‘P’

1.    PIGGIES by The Beatles

2.    PURPLE RAIN by Prince

My 1 Confession related to these lists:

The ‘supermarket bought’ pizza that I mentioned came from a different supermarket brand to the one I work for….

RC 9-6-18

On a different subject...

I’m sick of the World Cup already and it hasn’t even started yet.

RC 8-6-18

New life

So, yeah – it turns out Philippa is pregnant.

After years of ‘humming and harring’ about whether I wanted it to happen, spending ages trying (really hard!) to get it to happen, then taking a break and taking the pressure off and hoping that it might just happen without us forcing it, then doing certain things I haven’t told you about to increase our likely of it happening, it IS happening.

It’s amazing.

And very, very scary.

We’ve known for a little while but we kept it quiet ‘just in case’ and so we could have time to process the news ourselves. But we’ve told both our families now so I don’t see why I shouldn’t share it with you.

Philippa has requested that I don’t make it a ‘blog thing’ and go on and on about it all the time, but I have no doubt that I shall be mentioning it a few times as we head through the next few months.

The due date – as I have been given express permission from my wife to tell you – is just before Christmas. Yet another example of us cramming everything into the last month of the year – it’s the time we first got together, it’s our wedding anniversary, and now we’ll be having a baby!

And no - we won’t be calling him Jesus.

RC 7-6-18

HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!

I’m going to be a dad.

RC 6-6-18

French Open tennis thought

In the future – let’s say 100 years from now – I honestly think we’ll be embarrassed and deeply disturbed by the fact that the first part of the 21^st century was populated by millionaire sports stars who insisted on having children nearby to hand them a towel to wipe their face with.

RC 3-6-18