They're singing our song

I'm off to the hairdresser in a bit. Now that you know that, you can probably guess that fairly recently I thought to myself "I really need to get a haircut".  What you won't know, though, is that then my brain instantly and automatically went "and get a real job".  Just like it always does when I think I ought to get a haircut.  (If you don't know why, then clearly you are missing this in your life.)

For some reason today it tickled me more than usual, probably becuase I do, as it happens, need to get both a haircut and a job. it's not often you find yourself in a situation which can be described exactly, and literally, by a song title.  Sometimes it doesn't take much to tickle me.  It also made me think.  Surely there must be loads more songs like this.

Imagine a short break here, while I walk half way down the hall towards where my iPod is docked, realise I could just look at iTunes on this computer without having to undock my iPod and interrupt the Stereophonics*, then turn around again and walk back to my laptop where I have a quick flick through my iTunes library for inspiration. Isn't time travel fun?

Guess what? There are.

My favourite, so far, is Sophie Ellis Bextor's Murder on the Dancefloor  which, you will be glad to know, for me *isn't* a Song Title Which Exactly And Literally Describes The Situation.  (I hope that's true for most people).  But if I happened to be called Lola and was a showgirl-with-feathers-in-my-hair-and-a-dress-cut-down-to-there, it absolutely would be.

Others I have spotted so far, leaving aside the obvious ones (I Don't Like Mondays too generic, You're So Vain too much of a cliche)  include  Everything's Not Lost by Coldplay: mainly because I sorted out the cupboard where my immersion heater is this morning so that the plumber could get to it, and found my favourite jumper and several missing shoes.  Result.

Also, A Whiter Shade of Pale is the colour of my walls, which were, when I first moved into my flat, more an off-white kind of colour (because I re-painted them proper white, not because I cleaned them freakishly well or anything). 

I've often thought that one of the best jobs in the world would be to be the person who gets to decide which music to play over which part of films and TV shows.  I'm sure, like most jobs, it's not always as fun as it seems, but still. I'd give it a go.  And I'm thinking this could be a novel approach.

Right, I'm not done with these yet, but I need to send a couple of emails before I go to the hairdresser.  So, as Flight of the Conchords would say, It's Business Time.  And I do mean that literally.


*Caravan Holiday, in case you were wondering, which doesn't describe what I'm doing in the slightest.  Although I quite wish it was.

I am not going to moan*

Despite the evidence of the last couple of posts, I am determined not to let this become an outlet for self-pity, annoying whining, or woe-is-me tales about how crap life can be sometimes.

So with that in mind, I'm not going to tell you how today has, so far, only been marginally more productive than yesterday. Or that my toaster died this morning. Or even mention my pathetic lack of progress with DIY jobs/course application/insert-any-useful-activity-you-can-think of.

Just so you know.

Instead, here are some things that have cheered me up today:

1. David on this week's Come Dine With Me:  "I'm giving Sharon a nine.  Because I love Sharon, and I think she's great, and I'd give her absolutely anything.   Except a ten."  (I'm paraphrasing slightly, but that was the gist of it.  He was quite drunk, I think.) 

2. I am reading The Diary of a Provincial Lady for the first, but definitely (and I know this already) not the last time.  It is literally impossible to stay in a bad mood while reading this book.  I only wish I had discovered it sooner.

In a nut-shell, the PL is slightly self-depreciating, worried about what others think, and on a constant mission of self improvement.  A married, 1930s upper-midle-class version of Bridget Jones, basically.  The diary is full of her 'note-to-self' type memos, and brilliantly wry, witty observations about day to day country life, some of which are just glorious:

      "Am asked what I think of Hariet Hume but am unable to say as I have not read it. 
        Have a depressed feeling that this is going to be another case of Orlando about which
        was perfectly able to talk intelligently until I read it"

       "Think of several rather tart and witty rejoinders to this, but not until Lady B.'s Bentley 
         has taken her away."

        "Feel that life is wholly unendurable, and decide madly to get a new hat"

I know how she feels, sometimes.

3. The dancing duck (I think? It could be a goose or a chicken, I'm not sure.  It's also not really relevant) on the Five Alive juice adverts. No particular reason, it's just funny.

 Oh, I've just discovered, while searching for a video, that it's actually a dodo.   For some reason I can't post the video here, but this should link to it.** 

           



*much

** I wish to point out, this is not an endorsement.  I have never actually, to my knowledge, tried 5 alive juices. They might be very nice.  They also might not. 

Sigh

Today has not been one of my finest days.  In the absence of any Easter eggs, I devoured an entire box of Jaffa Cakes.  This, I hasten to point out, happened over the course of the entire day, not in one sitting (which would have been far, far worse, right?  Please tell me I'm right).

This wouldn't be so bad, were it not for the fact that this was quite literally the *only* thing I managed to achieve today.  And when I say only, I mean it in the 'wasted the entire day doing nothing but flicking through TV channels and randomly surfing the internet, and didn't even realise until 4pm that I was still in my pyjamas' way, not in the 'only got through twelve of the twenty things on my 'to do' list' or 'still didn't get around to starting work on that award winning screenplay' kind of way.

There were lots of things I was meant to do today: finish my course application, for one, and deal with the consequences of a bookshelf that fell down last night, for another.  (The constantly falling down bookshelves in my flat are a saga unto themselves, worthy of a separate post which may or may not eventually get written. And given the way today went, the latter is looking more likely).

I did pick up all of the books and put them away when the shelf came down yesterday, but there are still boring stupid DIY tasks, like filling the holes where the screws were, to do.  These are just the latest additions to a growing list of boring stupid DIY tasks which need doing around my flat; none of which, it won't surprise you to learn, got done today either.  I hate boring stupid DIY tasks.

So that was my day.  And if you think, by blogging about it, I'm trying to shame myself back into kick-ass action mode tomorrow, you're absolutely right.  On the bright side, at least there won't be any jaffa cakes left to distract me.

Been a while

I've not been here much, partly because of five days spent in Italy without any internet access, and mainly becuase the reality of having no work, and more importantly no income, has been scaring the bejesus out of me ever since I got back.  I knew it would happen eventually, but panic has started to creep in and so I've been focusing on trying to sort out some actual, real, paid for work.  It's not much fun.  I've also been working on this; my shiny new, 'work' blog.

My job hunting efforts have included both specific applications and general enquiries, which I hate.  The good news is a few balls have started rolling (I have an interview in a couple of weeks, for something I'm still not 100% sure about, but then I thought exactly the same thing going into the first interview for my most recent job, and left desperately wanting to work there. So who knows.)  The bad news is that I have learnt I will do almost anything else at all instead of writing to strangers and saying "hey, wanna employ me?"

And I really do mean anything.  Avoidance tactics I have deployed so far include cleaning the extractor fan in my kitchen, putting my entire CD collection into iTunes,  and finally arranging a plumber to come and work out why I haven't hot water anywhere apart from in my shower for the entire three years I've owned my flat.  (I still don't know yet, she is coming on Tuesday.  I thought by calling a female plumber I'd feel less stupid admitting it has hever worked and has taken me this long to get around to getting it sorted out.  As it turns out, I was wrong.)

Quote of the Day

I am having a startlingly productive day.  Startling to me, at at least; I can't imagine anyone else being quite so amazed by, or even interested in, the speed with which I'm cutting through my to-do list.

In the quest to find something slightly more generically startling to post here (all part of the service, folks) I turned to Google, which may not surprise some people who know me. Before I even started to search I saw this Jules Renard quote on my home page:

"Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none."

Now, there is no way anything I've ever written could be described as 'literature'; and I'm still waiting to work out if I have any shred of something which might be described as a literary talent (I suspect not).  But I still love this quote, mainly because it's so politely scathing.

In the Hands of the Gods

About six weeks ago, I spent an evening in a Jack Bauer style race against time, trying to finish an online job application before the midnight deadline. Apart from an email which arrived a couple of weeks later, acknowledging the application and making vague promises about short-listing happening soon, I didn't hear anything else, and so assumed I hadn't made the cut.  This was disappointing, as it was a job I was really interested it, but if I'm honest, not entirely surprising.  I knew when I applied it would be a bit of a long shoot.

Curiously, I had another email today, apologising again for the delay, and explaining that the position has been cancelled "due to business reasons".   I'm not sure, and doubt I'll ever know,  what the whole story was, but it is reassuring to know that at least it wasn't something to do with me.

In related news:  while flicking through what I thought was the current issue of the TES last night, I almost fell over with excitement when I saw a perfect sounding job, being advertised by a company which I have always wanted to work for.  The almost falling over was swiftly followed by the discovery that it wasn't, in fact, the current issue, but one which arrived just before I left for Australia, and that the deadline had long passed.

 Needless to say, this particular discovery was itself swiftly followed by the TES being thrown across the room in despair, and lots of shouty sweary words.

Now that I have calmed down a little (it took a restless night's sleep and lots of chocolate) I have been trying to figure out how I missed seeing it. I spent weeks being vigilant, checking both the website and the physical paper for opportunites, and not seeing much, then for the few days just before I left I stopped looking.  And the simple truth is, I chose the wrong day not to look.  There's not much I can do about it now, and I'm sure there's a lesson to be learned there somewhere.

Why is this related news? Well, both events made me realise just how much of this whole job-hunting business comes down to fate.  Not only do you need to have the right skills and be able to sell them, but the right opportunities need to be available at the right time (although it also helps if you're actually checking the job ads, obviously).

.

The Best Little Airline in Oz

I've been in Australia for a bit over two weeks now, and have been managing to write bits and pieces on my laptop.  Most of my internet access, though, has been courtesy of other people's computers, so getting any of it online hasn't been very practical.  This probably isn't very interesting to any one else, but it does mean that blog posts about this trip are going to be less of a holiday diary and more of a collection of various memories and experiences, in somewhat random order.  I'm sure you'll all cope.

One of theser experiences was the unexpected discovery of the simply marvellous Brindabella Airlines.

My flights for this trip were all booked using Qantas frequent flyer points. The advantage of this is that it was extremely cheap; the disadvantage is that the internal flights in Australia have been pretty nightmarish as a result. Perth to Melbourne via Adelaide, Sydney to LA via Brisbane, and so on.  I wasn't too worried about this when I booked; I figured I’m on holidays, not in a desperate rush to get places, and have brought plenty of books, along with my laptop and a stack of DVDs with me. "To be honest" (I thought to myself at the time) "I actually quite like the idea of sitting in an airport with a cup of coffee and a good book or a couple of episodes of Peep Show".

I’m going to visit my little brother* who lives in a tiny costal town near Newcastle (which itself is a pretty tiny town about three hours drive north of Sydney) and the flights in and out of Newcastle both involve stopovers in Canberra. What I didn’t count on was the fact that a large international airline like Qantas might not fly between small country towns in northern New South Wales. Instead, they hand passengers over to other, smaller, airlines, who do fly those routes.

Brindabella Airlines is one of them; my plane had room for 20 passengers and the hour long flight was, I think, my favourite air-travel experience ever.

The best things about this flight, and the airline in general are:

1. When we checked in, there wasn’t a gate we had to go to. Instead, anyone on the flight had to ‘make themselves known’ to the staff at the appropriate time. The staff in question was a man with a clipboard, who collected us all together like a class on a school trip, and walked us out to the plane. He turned out to be the co-pilot.

2. The plane was so small I wasn’t allowed to take my carry –on hand luggage into the cabin; it had to be stowed in the tail of the plane. 

3. The same co-pilot handed us a packed lunch as we climbed on board. This consisted of a packet of crisps, a tub of water, and one Mintie. For non-Australians, who might not appreciate this, a Minty is a chewy, mint flavoured sweet. Their marketing campaign, which has been running for as long as I can remember, revolves around  the  “it’s moments like these you need Minties” concepts, featuring people in all kinds of dire situations suddenly feeling much better once they unwrap a Mintie.  I couldn't help but think it was an appropriate choice. 

4. There was a stick-on sunshade in the seat pocket. No blinds on the windows; just the sunshade to stick on if needed.

5. They played us a beeping noise which we were going to hear throughout the flight; just to reassure us all that if we did hear it, there was nothing to worry about.   I have no idea what the beeping noise signified, and although I did hear it a couple of times I'm not sure I would have been too worried.  But, it was nice that they cared.

6. The laminated safety instructions. You know the ones that are pretty standard in all planes, with diagrams of what to do in an emergency? Like most people, I don’t normally bother reading these, but I’m glad I looked at this one. There is a photo coming; I promise you it is worth the wait. 


7. The comedy gold in this safety laminate pales into insignificance once I discovered the IN FLIGHT MAGAZINE. I could write a completely separate blog post about this joyous publication; in fact I loved it so much I kept a copy. So perhaps one day I will. For a start it has a total of twelve pages. Then there is the exciting cover story tag line : “Infidelity, exploitation and sexual conflict. In an Australian Bird!” (I didn’t add either the exclamation mark or the bold for emphasis, by the way)  Plus the fact that the editor's letter was penned by the actual owners of the airline; who appear to be a husband and wife team.
8. Still on the subject of the glorious in flight magazine, the photo of what I can only assume are the entire airline staff (about 20 people) wearing Santa hats on the back cover alerted me to the fact that this was the Nov/Dec edition of the magazine. I flew on the first of March.

9. There was something which I’m pretty sure was a dead moth trapped inside my window.


Two days later on my return flight, we had a bigger plane (30 seats) which had an actual air hostess and everything. She kept herself busy during the hour long flight by giving us tubs of water, and crisps, and a Mintie (have you spotted a theme?), plus she took our orders for tea and coffee.  By writing them down on a napkin.


If you are ever in this part of the world, I would highly recomend a flight from Canberra to Newcastle.  Not only could you visit the fantastic Long Boat Cafe (yes, for those slow on the uptake, that WAS a blatant plug for my little brother's restaurant) but you too could have the Brindabella experience.  Don't forget to pack some Minties.



*I say little; he is 35, 6 foot tall and owns a house, a restaurant, three dogs and a ute. But I’m still the oldest so I get to say it.