Tuesday 29 January 2008

Three quarters...

Well actually I've been all the way there and back today. The MD seems like the sort of guy I can work with and if I can read body language at all then he thought the same about me.

Waiting to hear now...am tired though, was up at 4am and drank WAY too much coffee all day. I had forgotten that they make proper coffee in Germany. I actually started to feel my heart trying to escape frm my chest and my hands were shaking when I drank one in reception waiting to meet the man. OK, it was already my 4th shot, what with a double espresso at 6am at Heathrow and another cup on the plane, but that was decent stuff!!! I shall have to be careful I don't recreate a serious caffeine habit again if I go over!

Thursday 24 January 2008

Half way to Frankfurt

That'll be about Brussels then...

A trip to the old Vaterland on Tuesday for the next round, then I could be off every week from then on for a wee while...

It was fantastic to hear seagulls again today. Worth the hours of train travel alone...

Monday 21 January 2008

Worms glorious worms

Ready for the phoosh of another can opening???

Felt the need to comment on yesterday...

Totally agree with DD (and others) on the waste issue. My point is why add insult to injury by 'wasting' another £5 mill on someone who doesn't need it and, sorry, doesn't deserve it, and wouldn't even if they'd killed her. Anyone remember why she was in hospital in the first place? Hurt her back while 'cavorting' (with her husband)...say no more. Practice safe sex is what I say!

Susan re agents. The wisdom appears to be 3 agents at once and tell each of them that you are approaching two others. 3 agents spreads the bets a little but only 3 says 'focussed' to them, creates a little competition but is professional rather than 'splatter-gun'. I'm going for 3!!! Then another three...then...

I have given instructions that if I collapse at the gym, I am to be left to die quickly there, rather than be taken to the local hospital to catch something and die slowly. I'd rather drive myself home where the local hospital is at least one of the best in the country.

Oh, and just to let you all know...they do have the internet in Germany...at least in the big cities!

And for today's can. If you were a famous TV presenter, well known for your serious news approach and incisive questoning, why oh why oh why would you air your 'dirty laundry', especially of the undergarment variety, in public?

Saturday 19 January 2008

Time flies

My, doesn't it...
A whole week including a party and I realised I hadn't even logged on all week.
Excuses, I've got a few. But then it's my blog and I'll be absent if I want to!!!
Glad you all managed to keep things going for me and that you had a rip-roaring party on Friday.Feel free to party at my place any time you feel like it - permission never needed.

Welcome to annieb!!!

So, what's been happening?
A sudden flow of job opportunities is the main thing....London buses. The favourite option at the moment seems to be a 3 month interim job back in Frankfurt, but I have a few interviews to go through first - plus making sure they will pay for trips back every weekend AND all the accommodation out there.

The book is getting there... synopsis written, cover letter to agent half written. Hopefully next week will see everything finished and the first three packages winging their way towards my impending superstardom!!!

So, what's been getting my goat this week. I'll tell you what - Leslie Ash. I'll start by saying that I do feel sorry for her. Not a nice thing to have to go through, NHS clearly to blame, although you could go up the chain of command and see that it's really the fault of the person that left the NHS so horrendously underfunded for the last 10 years by scrimping on their budget. So don't blame the NHS, blame Gordon Brown...
But what really gets me is that she gets such a huge payout from an already underfunded NHS. Does she need the money? OK, maybe she's 'lost' the opportunity to earn that kind of money, but really...how many of the other, 17,000 people was it reported in the BBC that have died from hospital acquired infections?, needed the money too but they're not going to get it, are they.

Ultimately though, the thing that really gets me is that it is my money that she is taking. Mine, yours, every single taxpayer's money. I give that cash in good faith that it will be spent on policemen and teachers and nurses, not feathering the nest of an already rich actress with an already rich ex-footballer husband.

Like most middle-aged blokes, I used to have a thing for Leslie Ash. It's not been her big lips or her disability that have put a stop to it for me. But taking so much of my money is, I'm afraid, unforgiveable.

Monday 14 January 2008

For Sale

I have a piece of wall with graffiti on it.

Offers in excess of £200,000 only, please.

Monday 7 January 2008

D-Day Survival?

Another year. Another D-Day. Another one survived.

At least I think so. They called this Monday D-Day because it's the busiest day for all the divorce lawyers with Christmas and New Year stress straws finalling causing camels' backs to break. But then if your other half paid a visit to a divorce lawyer today, you wouldn't find out just yet, would you?

What an unsensitive thing! All these people about to get sprung with divorce papers, quietly and smugly satisfied that they survived another year because nothing happened today. And then wham! Or more likely thud! As the papers hit the mat in tomorrow's, or maybe Wednesday's, post...

Talk about lulling people into a false sense of security...

My real survival today was the decision NOT to go to the doctor with my bad back (done digging in the sand with the mooselets on Sennen beach, just in case any of you were raising any eyebrows in that cruel Roger Moore one-browed way that I can't do). The surgery is full of ill people, and especially at a time like this, you could catch something really nasty. So I've by-passed the quack completely and am going to see an osteopath tomorrow instead. As far as I know, joint and muscle pains aren't communicable...

And then I'm just glad not to be Jeremy Clarkson.

No, not like that. I actually quite like him. Annoying at times, yes, but sometimes he just seems to say what we're all thinking. And for that I salute him. Indeed, there I was, completely with him in the belief that someone having my bank account number and sort code (and nothing else) could only be a good thing as paying in would be the only thing that they could do.

Still, at least I don't have the column in the Sun (just yet...) in which I bared my mistaken belief to the world. As long as it's only 500 quid though, no harm done. He can afford it. And at least the cheeky perpetrator gave the money to charity! Now, if we can just find a diabetic computer hacker, we've narrowed the search down a bit.

One little social comment on the story though. How can it be right that 'Data Protection' offers greater protection to the perpetrator than 'criminal law protection' offers to the victim of such crime?
Answers on a postcard, impaled on a cocktail stick, please.

Let's hope Clarkson's missus wasn't so angry that she paid a visit to her lawyer today.