Overtime, Work, Ancient Civilisation, Nat and the Horse Stealing Gypies, Poor N8, Frantic Night, Snow,

Well what happened on Saturday? To be honest I have no idea and that’s because it is currently 04:33 on Sunday morning and I’ve been working non-stop since 8pm last night. I’m absolutely knackered, so much so that I just spelt absolutely wrongly three times. Jesus H Christ on a crutch, a bit of snow in the UK and you’d think it was “the day after tomorrow”; people are so lacking in perspective! So I can’t remember what happened yesterday. Fell asleep downstairs…again, Nat went to school to keep building his robot…again Twittered for a while …again (280 followers but quite a number are spam followers) Deb and Hannah went shopping…again and Nat went into town this afternoon with his mates…again.

Hasmuhk called and asked me if I could come in to work this evening because the other team was very short handed because of sickness and that it was very busy because of the snow. I agreed that I’d work through the night and that the rate was double bubble. Before I went to bed and Nat went into town we all watched the first episode of the new BBC series Ancient Civilisations which was superb. Even Hannah seemed to watch most of it…Yes Hannah!

Grabbed a few hours shut eye, had a number of weird dreams including Nat conspiring with Gipsy relatives we didn’t know we had to steal the horses we also didn’t know we had. That one worked out well in the end…I think. I can’t remember anything about the others; other than the fact that they were equally as odd.

Managed to snatch a few hours sleep before I was up and getting ready for work. Deb drove me in, to icy to cycle, and will pick me up in the morning. When I saw the number of calls in queue I nearly turned round and left but by then Deb had gone and the chance was lost. After this things got worse as the numbers climbed to three figures. I’ll draw a veil over the remainder of the night suffice to say I’m totally bollixed and want to go home…Now!

In fact I’ve just realised that I’m so zoned out that I hadn’t noticed that I should have taken my lunch break half an hour ago. So I’ll now see if I can tough it out until *I’ve only 45 minutes to go and then take it and my 15 minute break together and finish for the morning. The last part of this entry should have been in the Sunday blog but that shows you just how tired I am! I’ve just informed the over night manager, Bali, of my intentions and that I’m finishing at 06:00 instead of 07:00 so I’ve got eight minutes left before signing off and enjoying the next 105 minutes before I go home. That’s now dropped to six minutes but no doubt I’ll catch another before this has elapsed! Well I was right, I did catch another and a funny little one it was. Confidentiality precludes me giving any details.

Oh yes, there was one other small matter; just before I left for work I thought I'd check on the Carphone Warehouse site to see how the repair of my N* was progressing. Hooray, looked along the progress bar and it appeared that it had been repaired and was about to be returned to the shop for me to pick up. Oh Shit, I carried on reading only to discover the accompanying notes which were to advise me that their engineer had been unable to affect a repair and yes my phone could still do everything except make phone calls. So Deb's got herself a flash expensive Sat-Nav and high end camera and I need to do more overtime! Chalk it up to experience boy and forget those suicidal thoughts!

Meeting Mr Jordan, Hannah's Teacher, Good Report Doing Well, Overtime, PC Problems, Lisbon, Portugal, Nono Gomes, Nokia N8, Hasmukh's Phone,

Meeting with MR JORDAN about Hannah who’s doing just fine it seems;so wish w could say the same about her attitude at home! At school it seems she at or near the top in all her subjects, confident, fluent and popular. You’d never believe it from what she tells as school is like when she comes home; according to Hannah she has no friends and nobody likes her. This was reassuring news as we were concerned about her attitude to learning.


I went into work 2 hours early to do overtime but as soon as I starte my PC systems decided not to work properly and i sent the first hour on the phone top IT support. Spoke to a great guy in Lisbon (es in Portugal)Overtime Nono Gomes who was good fun. Unfortunately he was unable to fix the problem and wso I’d be working manually for at least four days until IT go it sorted; a good start to the week!

On the plus side, Hasmukh has received his new Nokia N8, what I’ll be buying (and fucking up it’ll turn out more of this when it happens)and I spent ost of the night playing with it.
It was gorgeous but I didn’t like to fiddle too much with someone else's phone especially not one as expensive as that.

Tuesday 12 October - Sprained wrist, overtime, all about symbian,podcast, N8, Nokia, Steve Litchfield, University fee, Clare Rayner,JDM, Christopher Hitchins, Twitter, Follower

I don’t know why but every time I notice that today’s the 12th of October I feel as if there’s something important about this day I should remember but for the life of me I can’t.
I finished my stint of O/T with the other team at midnight and rode home. I appear to have sprained my wrist while doing this; I HAD TO BRAKE SUDDENLY AT ONE POINT AND THIS MAY HAVE BEEN THE CAUSE when something ran in front of the bike. Whatever the cause; when I got home and went to sit down I nearly screamed when I put all my weight on to my left hand. It was extremely painful, for a moment I thought I'd broken my wrist. The upshot was that I had to dig out one of the kids boxing bandages, strap it round my wrist and then try not to roll over, while asleep, in the bed. This was easier said than done and I was woken a number of times throughout the night. By the time morning arrived I was exhausted and I eventually fell asleep and slept until mid afternoon. I can't claim that I woke refreshed and tonight at work looks like being a very very long night indeed. I think I’m going to see whether I can book Thursday off as well as Friday. It’ll be a shame to lose £50.00 in overtime payments but it is Nat’s birthday and the last thing I want to do is go on holiday with an extremely painful wrist.

Listened to the All About Symbian and The Phones Show Chat podcasts in bed today and the good news is that the N8, a few little niggles aside, appears to be the best phone that Nokia has ever made and lives up to the hype. Steve Litchfield (AAS & TPSC) considers it to bed the best camera phone in the world bar none and capable of going head to head with many stand alone point and shoot cameras and even some lower end SLR’s. Now that’s praise indeed and I’m becoming more and more committed to the idea of buying one. This is, after all, the only the reason why I’ve done all of this overtime this weekend; that being said, however, given the news today about the coming increase in University fees I’d probably be best advised saving it towards those. How the F**k are Nat and Hannah ever going to be able to afford to go to University? I’d write to Clare Rayner for advice if it wasn’t for the sad fact that she passed away last night. Now there’s a woman who could look back on her life and say that she did indeed do an awful lot of good for an awful lot of people. RIP Clare Rayner, Humanist, Atheist and all round decent egg.
JDM returned to work tonight after recovering from his knee operation; proudly displaying his scars including before and after photos of said scars. They said I was crude when I did that so obviously rank hath its privileges. We had a ten minute buzz that lasted for forty five I love it when others can’t count and keep asking the same dumb questions and show utter disregard for the time. Best of all we’ve another meeting scheduled for tomorrow evening so Lord knows what we will’ll have to discuss at that one. No doubt Prash will ask his classic one o clock question and then immediately forget the answer. I’m sure he does it on purpose because I know he’s not that stupid. Fairs fair, they were loads of people available to field the workload while we were procrastinating!
WTF!!! When we were finished and had returned to our work stations I finally managed to get round to logging into twitter. I noticed I’d acquired a number of new followers (174 all told) and decided to check them out. Well knock me down with a feather, one turned out to be famous writer, journalist and atheist Christopher Hitchins's, yes the Hitch, and he’d followed me. So., of course, I immediately repaid the favour and followed him but HTF did he see my stuff? I’m going to have to up my game now, I’m not going to be able to Tweet any old bollocks if I’ve got a writer of his calibre looking over my shoulder. I should mention that while I wasn’t following his twitter stream I have his Slate articles as one of my Google Reader “thinkers” feeds. The F**king Hitch FM!!!
I’ve just seen the pictures of the young Afghani girl who had her nose and ears cut off by her husbands family (why can’t we have a decent religion like they do) with her new, temporary, prosthetic nose. This is what she will eventually look like when decadent godless western surgeons will reconstruct it for real… what a bunch of C**ts they must be for going against God’s will like that… Stoning is, obviously, too good for them don’t they know God wants men to hate and suppress women?
Well, never show C anything or she’ll end up showing everyone else. I made the “mistake” of showing her the Oddee site which compiles lists of weird things. Before I know it she’s ferreting about all over it finding interesting things I was saving for later. Naughty lady won’t show you anything else if you keep doing this. Only Joking! Bollocks I’ve still got a hundred words to go in order to reach 1,000. I’ll have to keep reading Twitter and Google Reader until I find something else to write about. Can’t keep talking about using waffle to fill the space that’s left because eventually that strategy will become tedious I mean I’m bored doing it now so Lord knows what you dear reader are feeling as you plough your way through this waiting for me to eventually say that I’ve made it to the point I wanted to reach and that there’s no longer any need for me to continue. Not quite there yet…Yeah!

Monday 11 Oct - overtime, work, night team, moscow, circus, twitter

Last night I moved over and sat near the alternative night team. What a mistake, sat there for three hours during which time not a single one of them spoke to me. Well if they ever ask for someone to transfer teams I know someone who won’t be volunteering!
Eventually midnight arrived and I packed up and cycled home. I got back around 12:30 which wasn’t bad going as I was cycling into the wind most of the way home. I wonder if cycling is why my hips still hurt after the operations. I grabbed a beer from the fridge, Oh God there are only four and we’ve no money until Friday. I nursed two of them while playing about on Twitter waiting to wind down enough to go to bed. I think I came up with some bad Hashtags film titles but I was to make up for this later when I got up. Finally, about 2:30 I went to bed and slept until nine when I woke to cancel my dental appointment; there were two reasons for doing this, one, I wanted to stay in bed and two I didn’t have any money to pay them with and they’ve stopped accepting cheques.
Eventually, I woke at 1:00 PM and came downstairs to watch the news followed by the amazing Jeremy Kyle (I love you Jeremy). However, I soon became involved in another twitter hashtag game and poor Jeremy’s programme was frozen for 90 minutes while I came up with as many stupid quotes as possible. The Tag was “#four wordsyouwouldn’twanttohearapoliticiansay”
I also noticed that next week, when we’re away, the Moscow State Circus comes to Leicester. I took Nat to see this circus when he was a just little boy but Hannah and Deb didn’t come because Hannah was a baby in arms and we don’t do that “take the baby who’ll cry all the way through and spoil it for everybody else” thing. The circus is outstanding, far better than the American one and on a par with the Chinese; the acrobats are incredible. I decided, it’s here until the Sunday and we’re back on Saturday, that I would treat the family and take them to the final performance. While I’m at work doing overtime to pay for this Deb’s spending the evening on line looking to see if we can book tickets more cheaply; otherwise the best seats will cost the four of us exactly £100 full price.
Everyone was home for 4:00 but not for long. Brandon came round for Nat, accompanied by Lucy who did an enormous incredibly stinky Poo in our garden, who then went back to his house with him. Hannah was soon playing with Shantelle, who came inside and I was getting ready for work. I cycled in and arrived at 17:45 only to discover that it was incredibly busy, I nearly went back home. I haven’t stopped until now, 20:37, when I finally started writing this! In twenty minutes the overnight team will be in and I look forward to being ignored for another three hours…such fun!
Nope, looks like they’re having the brief we had last week so I’m by myself, just gone out to smoking area for fresh air, can’t get out anywhere else and they’ve all been let out of meeting for a smoke break. Jesus, it seems everybody on the other team smokes. I GAVE UP AND CAME BACK INSIDE AS I COULDN’T STAND THE SMELL. That’s the last time I forget to take my break and go out late! It’s 22:15 now and I’ve an hour and forty five minutes left to go, then two hours tomorrow and Wednesday and Thursday and that’s my overtime stint done for now. The problem is, when you do O/T is that you start to get used to the extra cash and before you know it you’re always at work. Mind you, if I do it in the evening then at least I get the day to myself. Think I’ll post this now I can always update later if need be.

Thursday

Home at 08:30 watched Jeremy Kyle Show for my daily dose of Chavs then off to bed about 11:00 for some sleep before work later. Normally this would be the last of my four nights but I’m booked in to do overtime on my off days so I’m likely to be a “little” tied later this week. It’s double bubble, weird term that everyone appears to use, which equates to £25.00 per hour before tax (about £1.50 afterwards). Up for five because I was due to start at 18:55 (£50!!!) and then I’d be working through until 08:00 next morning.  The night was fairly uneventful when I wasn’t dealing with clients I was on Twitter, reading feeds or writing previous post for this blog. I think I’ll draw a line there…wait, I’ve not reached my two hundred word minimum and I’ve nowt left to say; The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over The Lazy Dog, no that’s not enough. The previous word was one hundred and fifty eight so there’s still a fair way to go to reach that magic two hundred and the well has run dry nothing comes to mind of any substance. Not even any piffle come to that 201 phew!!!

Bed. Prostrate, Baked Potato, Super Coffee, Lego, New York, Overtime, Scouts, Lock Door, Briefing

When I got home this morning I knew I couldn’t remain awake for very long because I’d be starting work early that evening. I was due in at 18:55 (two hours early) so I’d have to be out of bed by 17:00 at the latest. Eventually I went to bed at around 11:30 and managed to grab five or so hours of broken sleep; I kept waking for a pee which is weird as I’d had nowt to drink before I went to bed…Well Hello There Middle-aged Prostate!!! I was up for Five and downstairs ready for munchies. I know I’ve got something of a pot belly at the moment but I think Deb’s idea of a main meal to last me through the night was a little lacking…One Baked potato with cheese!!! Somehow I managed ALL of it and subsequently dragged myself to the kitchen to prepare my flask of killer strength black coffee (12 spoons coffee 6 spoons sugar and hydrochloric acid to taste) and grad a ready meal for later. During this time Deb left to take Hannah to ballet and I was alone with Nat. I now learned, a little, about Lego and the USA. Apparently Brockington has paid for its students to enter the Lego robot (?) building challenge. The local area winners will go on to compete nationally in London and the winners there will go on to the World finals IN New York. Well Nat has formed his own team and is now convinced that they are going all the way to New York. I mean they haven’t got a clue, as yet, of what they’re going to build but whatever it is they’re going to win; isn’t unrealistic confidence a wonderful thing?


Nat will be going to Scouts before Deb gets back and I’ll be going before he leaves so if we’re not to be burgled Nat’s going to have to remember to lock the front door when he leaves! Full of trepidation, he’s got a memory like a sieve at times; I left at 18:15 and cycled to work.

When I arrived things were fairly busy; of course my desk was occupied so I had to find one elsewhere. The two hours flew by and at 21:00 when my normal hours were to start we were advised we were scheduled to attend a brief about the Company’s winter coping strategy. This went on until 22:30 and was very impressive. We’d been visited by the MD a few weeks before and he’d made a lot of promises that we’d all heard before. This time it appears we have an MD who actually puts his money where his mouth is. If this all pans out then this winter is going to be far less stressful than last!

I was back at my desk at 22:35 and the rest of the night passed predictably. Planned out my overtime for the weekend and was still undecided about Monday. Bugger I need another fourteen words to make it to Five Hundred and Seven.