Off we go. England, here we come!

So we're sat in Shannon Airport, having got here at bastard o'clock.

We stayed with our friends last night, so they could drive us here. Our flight is at 9:30, check-in at 7:30, takes an hour to get here, so leave at 6:30, up at 6. Bad enough.

But it didn't work out that way.

Last night at around 11pm, our friend finds out he has to work, which means he has to be home for 7:30. So we were up at 5am, and here just after 6:30. Still, at least it meant we had a nice leisurely breakfast before check in.

...Shannon Airport.

God bless free wi-fi access.

I finish work for the rest of the year!

Yay!

Thought I should pass this on:

There is a dangerous virus being passed around electronically, orally, and by hand.

This virus is called Weary-Overload-Recreational-Killer (WORK). If you receive WORK from any of your colleagues, your boss, or anyone else via any means DO NOT TOUCH IT. This virus will wipe out your private life completely.

If you should come into contact with WORK, put your jacket on and take two good friends to the nearest grocery store. Purchase the antidote known as Work-Isolating-Neutralizer-Extract (WINE) or Bothersome-Employer-Elimination-Rebooter (BEER). Take the antidote repeatedly until WORK has been completely eliminated from your system.

I'm looking at you, Ribena.

...to sit on Santa's knee.

Me: Can I have egg sandwiches for lunch?

Him: Fried?

Me: Well, not raw anyway! Yes please!

Him: Be fucking cheeky and you'll get cat litter and lettuce.

Mmmmm, crunchy!

1. Do you own a box of crayons?
Several. And some chalk.

2. Have you ever seen a dead body?
Yes.

3. Do you always wear a seatbelt?
Yes. I was a foster carer so I was always responsible in this matter, and now it's a habit.

4. When do you shower most often?
Le matin.

5. What songs do you sing in the shower?
Depends what mood I'm in. It's normally something by No Doubt.

6. Do you own any diamonds?
Nope.

7. What was the last thing you purchased?
Mobile phone top-up.

8. What makes you feel warm and safe?
Duvets!

9. How often do you remember your dreams?
Rarely. The ones I remember are always really vivid and detailed though.

10. Did you go to public or private school?
Public. Comprehensive.

11. Will you donate your organs after you pass?
I think so.

12. How do you vent your anger?
Hmm. Not sure. Maybe computer games? Take that, you evil Goomba!

13. What is your heritage?
My good name.

14. What kind of watch do you wear?
A wide-cuffed one, or Storm one. But I rarely wear them.

15. Did you ever go to camp?
Yes, and it was not lame, Soy.

16. Where were you on September 11, 2001?
At work - I remember the news being on the telly in the break room and nobody wanted to go back to work.

17. Have you ever been to a gay bar?
I used to frequent such establishments almost exclusively, but they were few and far between in Llanfuckwit. I am almost scared to go in The Stage Door in Galway after hearing stories of the likely inhabitants.

18. What is your ringtone?
A normal ring-ring, but I always have it on silent anyway. I think it goes "beep" once to tell me it's ringing.

19. What kind of milk do you drink?
Semi-skimmed. Sometime whole. Never skimmed.

20. Are you touchy-feely?
With some people. I like a cuddle.

EDIT: It has be brought to my attention that the BBC has caved like a big speleologist.

The big wigs at Radio 1 have decided that they need to censor Fairytale of New York after twenty years.

CLICKY

I wonder why all of a sudden it's deemed offensive? They've played it as it was for twenty years! Writing as a gay man, I do not find it offensive. I'm fairly sure Landers doesn't - he sings it loudly enough - and nor do a number of my friends. I have never heard anyone say "oh, that's terrible, they shouldn't be allowed to play that".

I think the reasons for this are:

1) The song is a classic now, we're all accustomed to it, we all know the words, and most people love it. Even more so in my case now that I live in Galway.

2) The word itself is used in a jokey context, it's not said with venom, it's in the course of an argument between the singers.

Peter Twatchell Tatchell said: "The word faggot is being sung as an insult, alongside scumbag and maggot. In this abusive context it is unacceptable."

If the song was new, I might agree with him, but to apply today's values to something from the past is ludicrous.

I know the arguments about banning offensive and derogatory language, and I support many of them. I do not like the word "gay" used instead of rubbish, crap, worthless - but that's not what the song is about. Yes, by extension, she is insulting him by calling him gay, and therefore "unmanly". Somehow, I don't think that's what the Pogues meant when they wrote the lyrics (if they wrote it - can't be arsed to check). It rhymes with maggot and fits the tone.

For Radio 1 to censor it makes an issue of something that wasn't there. I can't believe that they've had a sudden surge of complaints about it, more likely someone thought "ooooh we'd better not play it just in case" because they are so scared of being non-PC, which is ridiculous.

You can't compare the Pogues to that Jamaican singer, can't remember his name, who sings about killing faggots. It's not the same at all, and while the song does keep the term "faggot" in the public consciousness, gay men do that themselves. Fag-hag is a prime example. By claiming words like faggot and queer, the power is taken from them. You call me queer, I agree. I am a queer. A faggot. A poof. A knob-jockey. So what?

Not really sure what else to say, other than I hope that they see sense soon.

Edit: Just had a thought after reading some other blogs - how can Radio 1 justify defending Chris Moyles for using the word 'gay' in a negative context, and then censor this song? Where is the logic?

Did you ever see High Spirits with Shirley Ghostman?

It was a BBC TV series featuring a very odd, camp, bitchy psychic who made all sorts of bizarre and mundane predictions, but the best thing was that he (yes, he) was the only one who knew he was actually a comedian named Marc Wootton. There was a studio audience who thought they were going to see a real psychic, and he often went out on the street as Shirley. Some of it falls a bit flat, when people don't react as he obviously hoped, but there are some brilliant bits, including the meeting with a skeptical scientist who is out-manoevered effortlessly and hillariously.

There are a gabillion clips on Youtube, I'm at work so I'm not going to go through them, but I honestly can't believe how far he is able to go with some people, how outrageous statements are just accepted. As a section in each episode, he also pretends to be one of Shirley's students, an odd assortment of people who go and meet other spiritualists and psychic practitioners on Shirley's behalf. Some cringeworthy stuff.

We bought the DVD a while ago, and as a bonus there was an extra disk of another series, I never saw it on telly but I think it was on BBC3. It was called "My New Best Friend", and I only started watching it yesterday.

Similar premise to Shirley Ghostman, Marc adopts a persona to be someone's "new best friend", and for a weekend the victim (who has applied to the show and deserves everything they get) has to convince their friends and family that this complete nutter is their new best friend. If they succeed, they get £10,000. They don't know their new best friend is really Mark Wootton - I'm sure they know he is an actor, but they don't know to what extent.

This new best friend is tailored to grate against the contestant's other friends, and to be as embarrassing as possible. To win the money, the contestant has to go along with anything their new best friend says including coming out as being gay (he was very upset that his friends weren't surprised!), or telling close friends that you want to star in some very odd porn and would they mind smuggling some crack to fund the production?

It's actually brilliant - the whole concept, really. Shirley, his students and all the best friends are in character all the time, reacting to what the other people involved say or do. Impressive, and worth a look.

Ladies and gentlemen please open your brains and join me, as we try to bring the normal and the abnormal just that little bit further together.

Right, is there someone here, ok? With something going on in their life?

I feel your pain, I feel your shame, but you're not to blame. You deserved that holiday. How were you supposed to know the dog couldn't feed himself?

EDIT: While looking for some pictures, I found these! These are skeptics who were interviewed by Shirley, and thought he was real!

http://www.skeptic.org.uk/pub/shirleyghostman.html
http://www.tonyyouens.com/shirley.htm
http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2004/12/17/sceptics-48-marc-wootton-0

Posh and Becks get picked up at the airport and on their way home the driver says to them "Been anywhere nice then?".

David says "Ummm...what's the name of that station in London?".

"Paddington?" the driver offers.

"No, that's not it"

"King's Cross?"

"No"

"Waterloo?"

"No"

"Liverpool Street?"

"No. It's got a big bus station too".

"Victoria?"

"Yes, that's it. Oi, Victoria, where have we just been?"

Landers will be visiting our friends' house today and...

...wait for it...

...he will have internet access!

If you start running now, you may be able to get away in time. Go! Quick!

EDIT: It will be sometime this evening, now. Probably be around 6:30ish.

Took us a couple of weekends, but it was worth it:

It's happening! You can't deny it! Even if it is currently 25 below. Feels like it, anyway.

...out with love.

Here's a better post to end the day on.

Keep watching - I hope you don't catch it halfway through!

Thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes today, it's made it not so bad being at work.

x

Ugh.

What a day!

Yesterday, my line manager tells me that it's a big secret but I trust you shhhh I'm leaving at Christmas.

I am not surprised, she's been saying as much since I started in October.

She then proceeds to tell someone in the workshop, who tells someone else and Robert's your aunty's husband, everyone knows.

So. I have two weeks in which to learn all the stuff she's been too busy to go through with me over the last 8 or 9 weeks. And also to pick up enough of what she does to be able to muddle through without her being here.

We started today. How to add customers and new orders to Sage Line 50. I've had a little experience with Sage, so it's not so bad. The annoying thing is that they are also running their old system, TAS books, in parallel, and they also have a separate contact management system. Three places, the same info in each (well, in theory at least - details of orders should be put on the contact management system but that's another thing she's been too busy to do).

So that was all fine and dandy, I can add customers, I can create orders.

This afternoon, I made a sale, the order comes through, my line manager asks me to put it on while she is on hand to ask if I need help. I put the order on, edit the product description, check with her that it's OK, she says yes, I print the job card for the production department and take it down to the production manager.

I tell him it's my first order (!) and he goes through it with me, one of the things he says is that I didn't put the material in the description, but it's OK because they can work out what the material is from the finish. He goes on for about ten minutes, giving me advice and telling me what he needs on job cards. All very helpful.

So, when I get back upstairs to the office, I start to tell my line manager where I've been, I get as far as "I forgot to put Zintec on it" and she puts her hand up to stop me speaking, picks her phone up, rings down to production and says "he's learning! give him a break"!

I was going to carry on and say "but he told me it didn't matter, he was really helpful" etc, but I didn't get a chance, she just jumped in and made it look like I was moaning to her! So now the Production Manager is going to think I'm a right prick. I have been down and apologised, but I don't think he was really interested.

And finally, to top it all off, I just got a call from a lady at Cambridge City Council to ask why they've been invoiced for stuff they hadn't ordered. I told her that we had received an order, the goods have been delivered, and that's why they have been invoiced. On digging deeper, the order number was taken verbally by one of the sales reps, and it is actually for Carlisle council. He just put it on the system as Cambridge, and used their default delivery details. So 10 litter bins are sitting in Cambridge, and the people at the depot are not answering the phone so I can't arrange for them to be taken to Carlisle.

Are you busy, Subs?

When my line manager is gone, I shall be implementing some changes, and one of them will be no fucking verbal orders. Another good idea would be send a fucking order confirmation.

EDIT:

I have just discovered that the verbal order went something like "do them the same as we've had before".

The same as Cambridge have had before is not the same as Carlisle have had before.

Oh joy.

Tampax are launching a new tampon with tinsel instead of string.

It's for the Christmas period.

From Sickipedia.

With reference to my previous post, it was a spot. I got home and it was big and luminous and glowing through my stubble. So I squeezed it. Job's a good'un.

Also, I forgot to say that I have a sore throat. Feels like it's being grated every time I swallow. And when I cough, it feels like I've been giving head to a razor blade.

The girl I work with just said she feels anaemic, and needs a good dose of iron. I said "spinach for tea then?"

She laughed and said, with a twinkle in her eye, "Guinness."

Some very random things that I would like to say.

The weather is going mental. It is sunny (albeit cold) one minute, and then it's raining, and quite often it's still sunny so we get a lovely rainbows - if it happens this often all the time, it's understandable that legends like leprechaun gold grew up around them!

It is also incredibly windy. There is a stream right outside my window at work, and it is currently so windy that waves are being whipped up and it looks like the stream is flowing in the opposite direction! Amazing to watch.

Talking about the stream, it rained so much over the weekend that it almost overflowed onto the car park! It looked cool, but I wouldn't appreciate having to wade to my car.

Going back to the wind, we let the cats out yesterday (they've been out a few times now, and they have come back - panic over!) and they are so fluffy they almost got blown away like those seeds off a dandelion. Ireland is very flat, and our house is out in the open, surrounded by fields, very few trees, and the wind just howls by unhindered. It was so funny seeing the cats leg it out of the house, only to stop suddenly and crouch, facing the wind, their fur all sleek, their tails parallel to the ground - they looked about half their normal size! They came in quite soon afterwards!

I have a thing on that space between my top lip and my nose which I can't remember the name for. Frenulum? Or is that the skin between your bollocks and your arse? Anyway. I don't shave properly, I just trim my face fuzz with clippers, so I couldn't see it properly when I first found it on Monday, but it was sore when I rubbed it. I kept an eye on it and yesterday I decided it was a cold sore. Great. So I put some generic acyclovir stuff on it, and tried not to rub it to stop it spreading. This morning, it's bigger. I'm no longer sure it's a cold sore. But I don't want to squeeze/pop it in case it is a cold sore - that's how you spread em! So do I risk spreading a cold sore, or walk around with a big growth on my face.

I think I'll try to squeeze it at lunch time. But not while I'm eating.

I had toad-in-the-hole for tea last night. It was beeeyoutiful.

I spoke to my mom last night, and after filling her in on the details about our house, and the wedding, and work and other such matters, I admitted that I hadn't been able to book flights back to the UK yet.

After some conversational athletics, the result was that she is going to buy our tickets.

All we need to do now is somehow buy presents for everyone!

*whimper*

Oh how does it come round so quickly? And why am I never better prepared?

Yes, that's right. Christmas.

I have no presents, very little spare money, no plane tickets to Birmingham ...

*panic*

Isn't this supposed to be a happy time of year?