Remember Me?

The clamour from my public has been deafening. I took the advice of Mr Bone and scaled down the quantity of blogging to concentrate on the quality. And then wrote nothing at all. But several of you (ok, one of you - alright - ME!) thought it may be about time to commit fingers to keyboard and update you on my ramblings...
I havent been anywhere for a few weeks now. Back to CityJet to tell them they are a fairly well organised outfit compared to some of the places i have seen, and that they should give TB a job fairly quickly...
No travels planned for a few more weeks, when i think it is back to Addis for a week of Hilton horror, and then a mixture of Dublin and Marrakech, which cant be bad!
Christmas and all its multitude of miseries is now behind us. People think its a bad time of year for those of us who despise commercialism, religion, families and the like. As long as you have a really wide Miserablist streak then it truly is a time of plenty. So much to moan about, so much to put down, ridicule and rant at... I am always happiest when my blood sugar is higher than the outside temparature, so many roast potatoes have been sunk, nut roasts picked at (whats wrong with a curry???) and the several presents i wrapped for myself (and labelled for myself to avoid confusion) have been greatly appreciated. Sat at the table on xmas day looking at the spread my sister-in-law had put on (quite magnificent effort, Sal) and wondered where all these foods spent the rest of the year? Everyone knows turkey and brussels are once a year - but what about the bread sauce, the cranberry jelly, mincemeat, chocolate mints, quality street, cracker jokes... what bizarre fagan ritual morphed into crackers??? If it really is a time of family and sharing and being together, then why not just make a big pot of curry? What is all this mad pressure to cook a turkey? The Royle Family christmas special was genius as usual, and i urge you all to jump on iplayer to watch it if you missed it. Denise's crying in the kitchen, saying the wanted a christmas like Nigella's, and Dave had ruined it by not getting a 6 legged turkey.... wonderful.
Our pre Christmas party was the usual triumph, with the wonderful combination of hosts (one really friendly, loves Christmas and people, excellent cook, always smiling etc, the other me) and my mum and dad proving the perfect house guests. Dad smooched the ladies and was a raging success, with at least 10 of them telling me as they left what a wonderful man he was, and mum got stuck into the kitchen about midday, and only left when the last spoon had been washed up. We shall certainly be inviting them again next year!! It was a great day filled with friends and family (and some mad woman from Cobham who seemed to know me) and as usual seemed to end up with several open bottles around the pool table. Thanks everyone for a wonderful day.
Then to Karen's party where we trotted down to Kim's boss to do the old shake and bake. First ones there which meant we could be first to leave - but at least we had a really good chat with Guernsey's very own Richard Harding. The Breakfast DJ of IslandFM no less. http://www.islandfm.com/index.php

I know its hard to believe that someone this famous and exciting should be so far away from home and bump into yours truly, but he was there, and what a really nice charming bloke he was too. Not like Ian Woosnam who i met once at a golf do. Or that bloke off the telly who was a complete idiot. No, we liked Richard, and when we do finally get to go and visit Jonny Mac's Place, we have decided we will be special guests on his morning show. It is unlikely that Guernsey has talents as wild as mine, so that will be good for them!

And now here we are approaching the new year. Like i'm any more interested in that...

Dog sitters arrive tomorrow, and we are off to a country spa hotel for 4 nights. Should be fun, as long as i get my all over massage, and she is cute....

Morning in Dublin

Well its a Premier Travel Inn somewhere in Dublin, Lord knows where as it was taxi from airport to office and then to hotel... so could be anywhere really!
Its a sweet little hotel which is very functional and a nice big comfortable bed, so no reason to complain at all. And there is the added entertainment of having to talk Serbo-Croat to communicate with staff. I was told last night that the internet connection in the room could be found in the "cupboard provided within." Still no idea what that means. Going down to breakfast i was asked if I had "ever eaten breakfast before." News just in - Goldilocks has installed an outside loo to give the bears a more "foresty feeling"...

Also i find myself at odds with myself over the news.... This cold woman who runs Haringey children's services has been suspended. The news channels are reporting "growing feelings" that she should be sacked immediately and not be paid. Sorry, she shouldn't be. I dont want her to carry on and be responsible for anything, let alone the safety of children, but there is an internal process to work through, and so we must. The HR laws in the UK are sometimes ridiculous - age discrimination means you can't judge a job applicant based on their experience as that discriminates against young people who have not had a chance to build up experience... You cant sack someone now without a full inquiry... But what would be unforgivable would be to ignore the law (however much we disagree with it) and give someone the opportunity to sue the government and really benefit.

Spelling disaster of the week - The Perfume Shop in Horsham. They have a special offer, which i have seen before, but this is the first weekend where i actually went into the shop to complain about the sign in the window... (Sorry Beloved!!!)

Ladie's Perfume of the Week

I think this is one of the ladie's they are aiming at...