Cautious optimism peppered with weary paranoid delusions are the flava of the week here.

The company I'm working for is absolutely fantastic, and I'm trying hard not to curry my chances by blogging during the day. I'm getting myself into a routine, and as the company is based in the West End I have to stick to a rigid schedule or I don't get a parking spot. The evenings are spent in a whirlwind of either working in the pub or cooking and cleaning, getting the flat ready for Dave's arrival.

Anyway - back to The Company - constant feeling of deja-vu as it's so similar to the company I was working for when they dropped the dot-bomb, Traffic. In fact, it's similar to the point that three other people from Traffic already work here, and several others are fairly decent lookeelikees.

Anyway - they just booked me for another two weeks, and I'm starting to think the best way to make them want to keep me for good. Fingers crossed!

posted at 1:04 PM •

Dear Sue,

I am having a difficult time with my career. I have been made redundant three times in as many years. The most recent time was after only five months, and I was tossed into the gutter without a payoff. I've got debts which I currently have under control, but only for the immediate short-term.

There is plenty of work available, and although I don't seem to have any problems getting a job, my problem is that once I'm working in a company I am wracked with self-doubt and anxiety. I lack motivation, other than the basic need to stay afloat financially, and have problems staying focussed. Often in the afternoons, I have difficulty staying awake!

The tiredness is the most worrying thing - I have just been working from home for the last month, and not once did I feel like nodding off in the afternoon - but as soon as I get in an office trapped behind a desk I want to go to sleep.

I'm hoping that the current contract position I'm filling will become permanent, but it won't if I carry on like this!

Yours,
Lethargic in London

posted at 3:34 PM •

...and I nearly forgot - started a contract job today - just three days, but looks like I could start on another job with the same company straight away after.

Can't talk now - should be working!

posted at 12:17 PM •

Since Friday things have been taking a turn for the better. I went along to the bank for a financial review, and came out with all of my debts consolidated into a loan that I don't start paying for over a month - and giving me a little bit of money to finish a few bits off in the flat. The place is looking a damn site better than when John was living here now, and it's really beginning to feel like home.

Worked in the pub over the beautifully almost-summer weekend, leaving me yesterday to have a bit of R&R...spent bombing down to Ikea on the bike.

The best news though is I have a new lodger moving in this weekend - the lovely Dave has accepted the room after seeing it last Wednesday.

Hopefully this one will work out better than the last...

posted at 12:52 AM •

"An optimist is one who accepts the faults of the world. A pessimist is one who discovers them anew every morning."

- The late, great Peter Ustinov.

posted at 11:32 PM •

Anthony adjusted the angle of his Von D cap. The 'ring' light on his desk phone blinked for the fifth time, and he reluctantly paused Outkast and took the call. The interviewee was in reception, half an hour late after being misdirected to the old offices in Hoxton. Anthony wished the company was still in Hoxton rather than the crack bottle gutters of King's Cross.

The interviewee was dressed in a suit and open collar and looked about a PhD too qualified for the contract worker Anthony needed. His mind drifted off to the honey he was flirting with last Saturday - God, she looked good in the tight little white number. He'd found out she worked with his sister's best friend Chanelle in a funky salon in Soho, and he'd managed to persuade his sister Carmel to text Chanelle to see whether The Girl was interested.

His eyes drifted back to the interviewee who was talking about his past employment. Tell it to the 'fro, bro. God, these London web geeks - half Paul Smith, half Bill Gates. Well, he wouldn't be having to work here for much longer - not if his club night took off. He stifled a yawn as he showed their latest e-learning project. The interviewee looked bright and interested, but he could tell he was starting to glaze over. Why on earth would he want to come and work on this crap?

The interviewee quickly despatched, Anthony returned back to his desk, put his ear-buds in, and pulled up the flyer designs for his launch night.

posted at 12:05 PM •

Interview this morning for some contract work, and I'm feeling tearful. I just pray there's no sweeping violin music piped into the interview room, or I'm a goner.

Need to shower, shit and shave and not be sat here staring into cyberspace - I think I'll have one more coffee and a fag and I should be good.

This job hunting is a full-time job. I've only had four or five interviews, but it's been a real strain, having to look normal, smile, smile, not too much, look capable, smile, lips beginning to stick to teeth, sip water, give example of applicable and relevant skills, smile, sip, normal, lips, smile. Trying not to let on that really, actually you only want the job for the money and you couldn't care less about their online e-trivia solution. Trying not to let them see that you're actually really enjoying spending time at home - correction, spending time and your HSBC Visa Gold Card credit limit at Homebase - and the idea of having to come to work in their office gulag is about as palatable as eating razor wire.

Here is an example of when I've shown individual responsibility and yet and at the same time worked as part of a team. Oh for fuck's sake, it's the programming equivalent of pushing shopping trolleys 'round Asda car-park.

I shall console myself this afternoon with the holy trinity of ITV2: Trisha, Sally, Judge Judy.

I may even watch Balamory.

posted at 8:31 AM •

Well, the flowers died a week ago. As flowers do. No metaphor intended.

I've had a pretty bad week - no calls from recruitment consultants, and not many jobs surfacing after the Easter break. Rapdily dwindling overdraft and expanding credit card bill are bringing me down all the time. Working at the pub long shifts for little money which is tiring me out but bringing in only enough for food and travel. Losing weight - I feel bad about myself quite a lot, and I'm shutting out the world.

I started to get on top of my financial situation a month ago, just before I finished my redundancy. I started to investigate mortgages, and apply for low-rate, balance transfer credit cards in the hope of rate surfing for a few months at least. Except every card I applied for kept ending with a refusal. I obtained a copy of my credit report, and discovered something which has devastated me.

John stole from me last year. Unfortunately this is the real world, and it's not as black and white as that. John used money I had put in the joint bank account to pay an interest-free credit agreement off with - just £350 - and carried on paying the installments of £19 a month. As soon as the interest-free settlement wasn't paid, interest was added to the agreement - at the usual high-street store rate of around 30%, taking the £350 up to around £500 straight away. To compound matters, when he finished with me, he changed the address on the agreement to his new one in Surrey. So, a credit agreement in my sole name which I considered paid off over a year ago suddenly appeared from nowhere, linking me with an address in Surrey he had never given me, preventing me from getting any further credit.

The situation has been resolved on his part - I confronted him, and offered him two weeks to come up with the money to pay off the balance, which he has done. But it's going to take a lot longer for my credit history to look good again. On top of all that - I met him for the first time in six months, and realised I'm still in love with the man.

Of course, I'm being stupid, I'm letting my heart rule my head - but I just can't help it. I love John. I probably always will. I miss him desperately. I want him back, and he has decided that will never happen.

I'm stuck in a house I can't afford, with mounting debts, surrounded by the ghosts of everyone who has ever left me. And I just don't know where I go from here.

posted at 8:14 AM •

posted at 1:40 PM •

Stop Press.

My cylindrical vase just spontaneously disintegrated. Why? Won't? Anything? Ever? Go? Right? For? Me?

I shall now go see whether Mr Tesco feels like being generous and will replace it.

posted at 11:41 AM •

I didn't get the job.

It does seem that I've got some contract work starting on Monday though - so it's not all bad news.

Maybe I can really make a go of this freelancing thing this time. I've got solid skills as a web developer, and my brain seems to work best when I'm under some sort of pressure. I could even try my hand at a bit of freelance features writing or illustration.

Meanwhile, I'm keeping my spirits up by sprucing my living and working environment up. For the first time in my life, I bought myself cut flowers, a tastefully masculine bunch of purple tulips. Then had a sudden thought as I'm cutting them and arranging in a cylindrical glass vase - men's florists...

posted at 9:00 PM •

Thought for the day

After the holocaust, there'll only be cockroaches and Cher left.

posted at 8:47 AM •

A Public(an's) Service Announcement On Behalf Of The King's Arms, Poland Street To Our Visitors From The United States Of America.

So, you're thinking of coming to London on vacation (that's 'holiday' to us). You've read your guide books and you know the hot spots you want to see, and if you're of the gay, stocky and hairy kind, no doubt the King's Arms will be one of those spots. And, as you've read the guidebooks - you don't want to seem like you're some hick from Buttfuck, Arkansas after all - you know that the almost mandatory bar tip is not obligatory this side of the Atlantic. You have probably read that a tip is given as a mark of good service or in a pub context, as a mark of familiarity.

All this is true, but where the guidebooks finish, thousands of years of etiquette begin.

A percentage tip left on the bar in a pub is not the done thing - although in a bar or club it's fine. To bestow a tip in a pub, you either offer the bar-person the change leftover from the round you've bought, or offer him or her a drink as you order your round. This may seem a little uncomfortable, as you are allowing the bar-person to choose their own tip, but that's how we do things.

You give a tip depending on your disposition towards the staff. Are they friendly, polite, helpful? Would you like them to be slightly more friendly, polite and helpful? Then give a tip.

The one thing that is definitely not optional, however, is politeness. In the UK, and most of Europe, it is not considered polite to just say what you want. You might know that us Brits say 'sorry' quite a lot - well, it doesn't end there. We also say 'please' and 'thank you' (you can use the abbreviation 'thanks' if you feel you have mastered the basics) all the time. When ordering things such as drinks, the correct way to do it in the UK is to say, "I would like a <insert name of drink>, please."

The bar-person should then smile, prepare your drink and say to you "That will be <insert price in pounds sterling and pence>, please."

You should then hand over the renumeration, whereby the bar-person will say "Thank you."

You will receive your change, at which point you should also say "Thank you."

If you are ever in any doubt, add plenty of 'please', 'thank you' and 'sorry' to show how clever and cosmopolitan you are. Failure to fully engage in this politeness ritual could result in delays in getting served.

We want to help you help us, so remember - MIND YOUR Ps AND Qs!

posted at 12:09 AM •

It's always about stories isn't it? Once upon a time there was a handsome prince. And he lived happily ever after. So neat and simple. So easy to see the shape and dimension of the tale. The fictions we create for ourselves are flawed because they don't show the paths that we didn't take - and the characters and journeys are finite.

The world is infinite. It's stories are infinitely interwoven. People change and grow and the relationships they have change and grow also.

A little epiphany happened to me while riding home in the rain tonight. John - Bear - 'him' - stopped loving me because I stopped being the person he loved. The person he fell in love with, the me that was writing these stories a year ago was changing, and remembering back to that time, I realise now that I knew that. I changed, little by little - and John woke day after day lying next to a different person than he fell asleep next to.

During my crash last year, I saw that John had changed - but actually he hadn't. I had. The little cub that the big bear loved was no longer there, and one weekend John woke up to that fact and could no longer pretend that he hadn't noticed what had happened to me.

Let's face it - I've grown up. I've broken apart and faced the world at it's worst. Losing all that is dear to you isn't easy. Watching your mother disintegrate in front of you is not something that leaves you unscathed. I've grown up, shed a few pretentions, and started to see a few more dimensions to the story around me than I could before her death.

I like who I'm becoming. And if that means leaving John behind, then that's part of the story too.

posted at 2:50 AM •

Uuuuuughh.

Errrr-aaar-rrrrgh.

Nnnnnnn..nnnnnnn...rrrrrrr.

Don't mind me, I'm blogstipated. Not because I can't think of anything to write about, more because I've got too much to write about, and it's all sort of impacted in my brain colon type area. Um. Sorry, that's a particularly vile image there.

If I'm not running around trying to find a new job (going pretty well, thanks), or trying to sort out my financial situation (I'm slowly getting there), or starting any number of home improvement projects (Stalkers: look for the front door in Leyton that's half stripped), or working at the pub (Mummy - very - tired - mummy), I'm thinking about doing one of them, or thinking about which one I should be doing, or worrying about which one I'm not doing, or forgetting which one I should be doing, then worrying when I eventually remember which one I should have been doing and having to concoct an excuse to deliver to the party of the first part who was expecting me to be doing it.

I'm sure you get the drift.

I had three or four or five (they all blur into one after the first) job interviews this week, not bad going seeing as officially I've only been redundant since Thursday. I had a second interview for a Senior Developer role yesterday, and it's looking very promising - only one other contender, and I find out on Monday if the job is mine/not mine, or whether there's going to be a third round of interviews. Never had to do a third round of interviews before - is it likely to be quick-fire, fingers-on-buzzers, or some form of jelly wrestling?

The only slight downside to this potential job is it's over in Fulham - I've done the journey on my bike now three times, and I've got it to about forty or fifty minutes door-to-door, which in the grand scheme of things, is still below average for London. And only a slightly greater risk of being killed.

I'll whittle the route down no doubt - an economy I discovered riding back yesterday is that if you cross the river north to south at Vauxhall, and then back over at London Bridge, the run along the south bank is a lot more direct. Is this common knowledge for riding from west to east? And can anyone offer me any other time-saving tips?

posted at 12:24 PM •

Pssst - I'm probably not supposed to mention this, but I'm currently taking part in a 3G network trial for one of the big mobile companies. I was contacted a couple of weeks ago by a market research company to ask if I wanted to take part - and as soon as they mentioned the seventy-five quid fee the service I'd be doing to future 3G users, I jumped at the chance.

The trial involves using a 3G handset, trialling their 3G netwrk, and making video calls to other participants in the trial - and so far, it's absolutely terrible. The one time I've actually managed to get through on a video call, I couldn't get any audio, so sat watching the other trialler, Vaz the portly Greek chappy, waving his arms frantically and gesturing to his microphone. He seemed very enthusiastic about being able to see a teeny-tiny postage stamp sized video of yours truly clunking through at two frames every half hour.

The future's bright - but the future is definitely not 3G.

posted at 5:42 PM •