I don’t get involved with blog memes, mainly because I refuse to belong to “a network” of bloggers. Well, I used to be in LondonBloggers but not any more.
But 1000 Words is good fun, via writeordie. (See my previous post). Curses though: Constantine has beaten me, the bugger.
Give it a go. Visit writeordie, set the time to 15 minutes, and word limit to 1000. Set Consequences to Kamikaze. Set Grace to Evil.
Write or Die is a great little tool which tells you your wordcount in one corner… and time to write in the other. Pause for too long, the screen goes red and you need to SPEED UP! Pause a bit longer and it starts DELETING what you’ve written.
But what to write 1000 words on in fifteen minutes? No time to think or plan reall, no time to go back and edit what I’ve done. No time to try to reach a sensible conclusion. But so far, I’m just filling space, and that isn’t the aim of this exercise! (Write or Die does allow you to click “pause”, but that kind of feels like cheating… It only works once though.)
Have just finished the usual supposed-to-be-three-hours workshop class that I have every Wednesday afternoon. Like most of my classes, it seems to have disintegrated rather quickly, and only around ten people remain.
There’s about four of us from the UK. Then there is Fatmir from Kosovo, Neda from Iran or French Angola or something, Bandar from Saudi, one Portuguese girl, and a couple of others I’m not so sure about. (more…)
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Cold Mud is a great site I discovered when googling former employers, colleagues and employees the other day. If there’s a food-and-drink related story to be had, you’re likely to find the link here.
Unlike most aggregators, this is “no-machine news”. Everything you see is hand-picked by a certain Eugen Beer, who I worked for in 2000-02.
Why not check it out? Go on. Off you go. You’ll enjoy.
But then, Berlin is distant from that area of the country. Many Germans living in the west of the West, so to speak, were hesitant to celebrate the fall of the wall and the reunification that followed a year later. This week, the seven main channels didn’t really cover it, and the papers in England covered and reviewed the event more comprehensively than most German ones.
The Guardian is running a rather interesting series on “1989 – year of revolutions”. Particularly the issues covered in “East Germans Lost Much” – touched on in the brilliant film Goodbye Lenin, which really everyone should watch.
In Western democracies we celebrated the “end of Communism” as a unilaterally good thing. And yes, a reduction in some of the tactics so beloved of Communist governments – the secret police, torture, control of the media – are undoubtedly valid as signs of “progress”. But what we always forget is that many, many people were happy and secure under their USSR-aligned leaders, and were devestated to see the end of the regime they supported, and in many cases loved unconditionally.
The St Neots Citizen was born. Running for about two years, the Citizen featured two main types of story. One, spoofing local events and getting at councillors who seem to like to ruin everything St Neots loves – the outdoor pool was a great example, which they finally managed to close a few years ago. Or commenting on the town’s number one industry, empty retail units.
The second involved completely fictional events, based around typical characters of any market town – the whinging, slightly mad old lady, the boy racer, the chavvy 14-year-old mummy.
Eventually I lost interest and the Citizen died out.
In 2007, whilst working at ABB, I was rather bored one lunchtime and went trawling through the Wayback Machine to see if any of my old sites still existed. And there, lo and behold, were a few fragmented bits and bobs from the Citizen. A ha, I thought, it’s about time this came back!! (more…)
A trip to Germany generally involves us eating a lot of German food and drinking a lot of German beer. German food is brilliant. Like any European country, the supermarket shelves are full of products that are almost the same as at home, but, as Vincent Vega once said, “there it’s a little different.”
Example?
Bizarre combinations is the first thing. Little balls of cream cheese smothered in paprika and curry powder. Sausages infused with cheese (käsewurst). Then there’s the things you don’t find in the UK any more, like “squirrel cereal” – little crunchy squares filled with Nutella that they used to sell in Tesco but don’t any more. And things that just have their old name – Kelloggs Toppas, for example, have been called Frosted Wheats for some time, and Coco Pops are stuck in Choco Krispie limbo. (more…)
They told me that there was something wrong with my application – namely that I’d done it wrong. But don’t worry, they said, this’ll be easy to fix.
“You need to send in three years’ P60′s to our Darlington office, along with a letter explaining your circumstances. If you can’t get a P60 for any of those years, get the employer to write a letter confirming your earnings for that tax year, and noting that they cannot issue a substitute P60. They must include their PAYE number, your payroll number, and National Insurance number.
“The assessment should take about six weeks. We won’t know if they are processing your application until the outcome is decided. Seeing as you have been working or on benefits for the past three years, there shouldn’t be a problem.
“If they require more information they will write to you, but there is a backlog and this can take an additional week.
“If you have to send in more information, the process may have to start again from the beginning.”
So I did all of the above. I dug through seven or eight boxes of crap for P60′s from the various employers I’ve had since YE04/07 – about eight, seeing as I temped through different agencies for a lot of that. I called BP for a copy of 04/07. I called MMRG for 04/08. I called various different temp agencies for 04/09, and got a statement of earnings for 04/10 so far, just to be on the safe side.
I sent in the extra information they said they MAY need – bank statements, utility bills, support notification, letters from HMRC from when I was unemployed, etc – just in case they asked for it later.
I have heard nothing.
Today, down to my last £100, I called them. Any progress? “Well, we can’t actually see anything until the assessment process is finished. Did you send your P60′s?”
“Yes.”
“Did you send [everything else, listed one by one]?”
“Yes.”
“Hang on… you’re 26?”
“Yes…”
“Oh. Just send a signed letter saying you want a grant, and you’ll have it in about six weeks. You don’t need to send in anything else, because you are over 25.”
“……………”
At least I know I’ll get it now, but not being able to even track the progress is a bit annoying. Of course, ten years ago you wouldn’t expect to be able to track the process of ANYTHING, especially not online. But this is the so-called digital age, and I want my information up to date, at my fingertips, RIGHT FUCKING NOW.
Overall, though, I think, a win.
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