Two desktops that I have failed to mention.

Anna Faris.



A week or so ago I left the house intending to see "The House Bunny". The bus did not turn up, so I saw the first film about to start when I arrived at the cinema. "Gommora". Not exactly a fluffy comedy. Far from it.

I will probably not now see "The House Bunny" until it turns up on my television set. In light of this tragedy I decided to immortalise Anna Faris as my desktop for the week.

My next desktop was Amy Adams.



I love Amy Adams. One day she will be mine.

My next desktop will not be a pretty girl.

**

At work, as expected since the asset strippers took control, there have been redundancies. Jennifer and I are OK, but we know at least 9 people who are on notice. One of those guys is a programmer who has been with The Company since Margaret Thatcher came to power. When he came out of his meeting he looked shell shocked. Jennifer was told to let him go home and to ask him to come back next week.

During the afternoon an email arrived from the CEO expressing sadness and regret, blah, blah, blah, and inviting applications for voluntary redundancy, pointing out that 'not all requests for voluntary redundancy will be accepted'. So, more redundancies are on the way?

It is all very sad, but that is the way of the world.

I am off to see the Stranglers tomorrow night, so the next post will probably not be here until Sunday. I last saw the Stranglers at the Birmingham Odeon in 1988. Time passes.

I am conscious of all the things I have not written about. I will try to do better in the future.

Work. The aftermath of the crisis. I told them the way it had been handled was wrong. I told there was going to be trouble. I knew it. I was right. It gives me no pleasure to write that.

So...

A mighty fine song by Razorlight. It pretty well sums up my feelings at the moment.

I arrived at work in the middle of a crisis. The details of the crisis are not important. Let's just say that the crisis was with regard to a number of customers being unable to access particular business critical information due to a (unspecified) server problem.

Before I even took my coat off Jennifer said to me, 'If anybody rings up you are not to say, I repeat NOT to say, that it is a known issue and that other customers are experiencing the same problem.'

Eh?

Sorry, but it's disgusting, it's immoral and it's indecent. It's everything that I hate about The Company. Managers that are so busy running ridiculous protocols and certain words cannot be used. There are no such things as problems. There are only incidents.

What is wrong with honesty? What is wrong with being straightforward. Why can't we just say to a customer, 'Yes, we know there is a problem and we are trying to fix it'?

I think it is pathetic and I do not like it. I was vocal about my unhappiness. I was told to shut up.

(Rant over. Jerry straightens the halo on his head and continues.)

I changed my desktop on Monday. This guy.



Jack Bristow from the TV series "Alias", portrayed by Victor Garber.

Bit of a bland looking guy, isn't he? He could be a chief waiter? Or a bank manager? Or maybe even the anonymous CEO of one of those financial institutions that went bust last week?

He isn't. Jack Bristow is Sydney Bristow's father. He is a spy. He is humourless. He is deadly. If you do not give him the information that he wants he will most likely hurt you and then kill you.

But, he is a good guy. (At least I think so. We haven't quite finished watching the series yet.) He sometimes has to do nasty things. In the episode of "Alias" series 5 that we watched last week, Jack Bristow cut off somebodys ear! It was OK. He had good reasons.

Jack Bristow. Father of Sydney Bristow. My hero. I love him.

Jennifer has passed the first set of her ITIL exams. She got an 82% grade. It is one of the highest grades achieved by anybody who has taken the ITIL exams at The Company.

Good. I am proud of her. Jennifer has worked hard to achieve that result. I just hope that before she rushes headlong into the next set of ITIL studying, she can obtain something of what life coaches would call a better "Life/Work" balance, because she is dismally failing at achieving that.

The Company are pushing to get all staff to take ITIL exams. I have told them to get stuffed, unless the studying and the exams can be done in work time or as paid overtime. I have said that I do not intend to utilise a single second of my unpaid own time on something that I believe will bring no benefit to myself or to The Company. The Company are unhappy at my attitude and I am not the only one.

I spoke to a guy today who discovered that the studying of ITIL and the taking of the exams had been put as task to achieve on his annual appraisal form. He refused to sign it, giving reasons for declining very similar to those I detailed above. The Company were expecting him to do a lot of work in his own time and The Company had no right to tell him what to do outside of work.

A few people have taken the exams. Quite a lot have not.

Career? What career?

Still no news on the pay reviews. Jennifer has chased and has been told that the confirmation letters are "on their way". I hope so. We get paid on Monday. I can imagine that everybody with access to a calculator will be working out their new salaries the second the money hits the bank. This is assuming that there will be any changes to salaries, of course. Ha ha!

There has been other news. The Company has been taken over by some U.S. based private equity firm. It has been little more than a year since the last takeover. Damned careless, if you ask me.

An email has been distributed explaining what very fine news it is that the current senior management will remain in place. Phew! For one minute there I was quite worried for them. In the same email there was also the bog standard phrase "At the present time XXXXXX have no plans to change existing staffing levels". Sure. Right. Whatever. I think I have read variations on that statement at every company I have ever worked for that has been the subject of a merger/takeover/buyout. It has always been bullshit.

I looked up some information on the private equity firm on a news site. The same phrase kept popping up a couple of times.

Asset stripping.

Ah...

At work:

Did some work without much enthusiasm. Nothing new there, eh?

We are all waiting for the pay review insult. Jennifer tells me that I may be pleasantly surprised this year. Apparently some time ago, Jennifer was asked by her manager who she would recommend for an above average pay review. Who were her stars? Jennifer mentioned 3 people: A guy called Damon King (mid 20's, Kevin Spacey lookalike, very quiet, rumoured to have last spoken back in 2002), Bill North (thin, bald and... er... Northern) and me (short and balding, but still sexy, with an undefinable Clooneyesque/Pittesque/Deppesque charisma around the ladies).

Will I get a decent pay review? It is more likely that Buddy Holly will announce a British tour.

At home:

Tea was fish, mash and peas. Actually, lovely.

Entertainment was "George Gently", which is a middle class, cuddly, BBC, Sunday evening, mid 1960's set detective drama. The kind of thing I would normally jump out of a window to avoid, but I really enjoyed it. Maybe I am going senile?

Then, "Bonekickers". I have written about this series before. It hasn't improved. It really is still kind of awful. Terrible, illogical and unbelievable. Bonkers. It is unthinkable to consider that the BBC will do a second series, after the reviews of the first. I think that "Bonekickers" is unmissable. Thoroughly enjoyable. There is a comedy CGI snake in next weeks episode!

And Julie Graham? Oh, yes. I certainly would.

Here's some pictures of her with her clothes on.

A new guy joined the Infrastructure Systems Team today. The team leader of that team decided to introduce the new guy to everybody.

When team leader and new guy got to me, I shook new guy's hand and said something like, "Welcome to the crucible of ultimate evil". New guy smiled and the team leader laughed, without any of the laughter reaching his eyes, mind.

Then team leader said, "Don't mind Jerry. He's the joker around here."

The joker around here. Is that what I am? Is that how they see me? I don't really know how to take that. Better than being seen as a miserable, moaning, old git, I suppose.

Or should the word 'joker' be replaced with 'gobshite'? Maybe.

Flashback to 1984.

I was 21 and two years into my first job working as a computer operator. Shift working, but I had no social life as such, and I really loved that job. I worked hard. I pushed myself. One of the shift leaders had left and I had been promoted. I had a couple of younger guys working for me, which was great, but I was never happy with their work. They never worked as hard as me. They never put as much effort in as me. They were never as good as me. They were never as driven as me. I had to show them, all of the time, how to do the fucking job.

Months went by.

One day, the DP Manager took me into his office and sat me down, and this is what he said.

"Jerry, the work you are doing is good, but you need to calm down. Nobody likes working with you because of your attitude. You are way too intense. Way too over the top. Trying to do everything yourself is not the way to go. You need to let your team make their own mistakes and be there to help them when those mistakes happen. That is how people learn. That is what being a manager is all about."

It was at that moment that I learnt my essential problem. I am a big mouth. It has been a constant battle to try to stop myself from being a big mouth.

Back in 1984 I took steps. I tried to become very small and quiet. I tried to take the time to listen to people. I tried to delegate. (Never happy doing that, mind, because in the back of my mind I knew I could do the job better than some people.) Things improved. I started to get invited to things. I made some friends. (None that lasted, mind, but that is me.)

I think maybe I need to become very small and quiet again. To bite my tongue when I feel to need to say something. To stop being a big mouth.

Jennifer has told me many, many times that I am not doing her career any good while we work at the same company, because of my urge to showboat, to spill forth my opinions. She is right. I am sorry about that.

I really should just get another job. A new start.

I am on the clock. I need to be in the kitchen pretty soon. The diva fest that is "I'd Do Anything" starts at 7pm, followed by the campfest that is the "Eurovision Song Contest" at 8pm. After that? Well who knows? I will probably go to bed. I was up at 6am.

So, a quick summary.

Last night: On TV "The Invisibles", "Midnight Man", "Lost" and then "Peep Show". (Amazingly enough, Tessa Wyatt popped up as Jeremy's Mom. Other than a few wrinkles she looked and sounded exactly the same as she did in the mid 70's. She is 60 this year. Horrifying confession to make, but (cough) I still would. Older ladies need love too, you know.)

Today: At work early this morning, then food shopping and then into town.

I have bought the first three James Bond novels ("Casino Royale", "Live And Let Die" and "Moonraker"). The whole original Bond canon has been republished in new, kind of beautiful pulp fiction style covers and I intend to get all of them. You know the kind of cover I am talking about? A square jawed hero being threatened by a deadly looking, dark eyed girl in a bikini, carrying a big gun. Sigh. I am a sucker for a deadly looking, dark eyed girl in a bikini carrying a big gun.

In fact a red mist of 'spend some money' descended on me suddenly, today. I will regret it when the credit card bill arrives. This evening I have purchased online "O Lucky Man", "Static" and series 3 of "The Sandbaggers", plus some books that Jennifer wanted ("Freedom's Choice", "Freedom's Challenge" and "Freedom's Ransom").

Gulp. Roll on the pay review.

I am off.

Is it just me, or does Andy Abraham's Eurovision song sound exactly like "Express Yourself" by Madonna?

Oh. It's just me. Oh, well..Doesn't matter.

Good luck Andy! (Even if you have no chance.)

A guy from the New Zealand office has been a visiting. He was presented to me today with instructions that I teach him how to use our Helpdesk system. Frankly I could have done without it as I had fucking work to do!, but it wasn't his fault and I didn't hold it against him.

The training actually went very well. I showed him some things he could run that would slow the system to a crawl and also showed him how to crash the whole thing. Very satisfying. A good day's work.

Nice guy. We had a laugh and he had the kudos of possessing expert knowledge of bad horror films. He also claimed to have worked as an extra on the forthcoming, New Zealand shot "Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans", playing the part of a 'Werewolf slave'. "Underworld" was such a piece of shit that I never bothered to watch the sequel, and I will not be seeing the latest instalment, but actually being an extra in a movie, even a bad one, obviously meant that he got BIG respect from me. He also shared the news that the nickname for Rhona Mitra on the set of "Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans" was Moaner Mitra. Not a pleasant woman, apparently.

We discussed our personal backgrounds and it turned out that he was actually from the UK and that he had emigrated to New Zealand only 3 years ago. To me this was kind of astonishing. He definitely spoke in a strong Antipodean twang. I know that exposure to new people and cultures can change the words, slang and phrases that you use. We have a relatively new guy at work who uses the word 'legend' quite a lot, as in phrases like 'Will Smith - he's an absolute legend!" or 'If Rangers win the cup, it will be totally legend!', and I find that now I am doing the same. But how long does it take to totally lose your original accent completely? I suppose it depends on whether you work at losing it. My Dad left the Republic of Ireland for the UK when he was 21, never went back and he always spoke in a thick Irish accent until the day he died. Nobody except the family could understand a word he said.

Post grinds to a halt as Jerry forgets the point of what he was trying to say...

Work is like picking a fight with a wall.

I hate not writing, but I was so depressed and fed up over the last couple of days, I did not have the heart to even turn on the computer.

Maybe I will elaborate with details at a later date. Suffice to say that emotions are running high about my job and Jennifer's success or otherwise in doing her job being in jeopardy if I continue to work at the same place as her. I guess I have known it for a long time. The Company has taken her away from me. I cannot forgive them or her for that. My anger and annoyance is eating me up. Wanting to punch people in the face every day is probably not a healthy way to live.

I need to do something. Time to move on. Fuck 'em.

Anyway, movies. Did you miss my gibberish? No?

Oh.

"Happy-Go-Lucky".



Some UK critics have been saying that "Happy-Go-Lucky" is the happiest and most cheerful movie that Mike Leigh has ever made. Well, I don't know if I would exactly agree with that. It is and it isn't.

Sally Hawkins' primary school teacher Poppy is, indeed, a very happy individual. Annoyingly happy, insanely cheerful, depressingly optimistic and psychotically 'Up!', most of the time. It is a tribute to Sally Hawkins performance that, once you get past the initial irritation with her, you completely fall in love with Poppy, her goodness, her openness and, yes, her simple niceness.

Then there is Eddie Marsan's driving instructor Scott. Scott is the very antithesis of happy. Scott is rigid, angry, frustrated, impatient, knotted up and racist. A borderline OCD sufferer, who is tortured by who-knows-what in his past. Scott is the most bitter and overwhelming character in a Mike Leigh film since David Thewlis' Johnny in "Naked". It is a towering performance by Eddie Marsan.

If Poppy is the light, Scott is definitely the dark, but it seemed to me that dark shadows inhabit the whole of "Happy-Go-Lucky". The unhappy schoolboy, the glum Sister, the other sister - a social climber who dominates her husband. Little vignettes of irritation and annoyance. Typical Mike Leigh.

"Happy-Go-Lucky" is a really good film, if you stick with it. I liked the way that Poppy does stop smiling towards the end. Maybe the world is too much for even the most dedicated optimist?

"In Bruges".

After a hit goes badly wrong, two hired killers (one of them older, experienced and word weary, the other raw, inexperienced and emotional) are ordered to hide out in the city of Bruges in Belgium, and to await further instructions from the Boss. Why beautiful, old, scenic Bruges, where nothing much happens, and when it does happen, it happens very slowly? Ah... Well there is a reason, which is crucial to the plot, and I am definitely not going to go into it here.

It's hard to know how to describe "In Bruges". Maybe it would be best to describe it as an existential comedy? I don't know. All I will say is that, if Samuel Beckett or Harold Pinter had been commissioned to write an action movie/buddy-buddy comedy, they might have come up with something like "In Bruges". There are definite echoes of "Waiting For Godot" and "The Dumb Waiter" in the dialogue, the situations and the characters.

Simply put, "In Bruges" is just a gloriously funny and so-black-light-bends-into-it comedy. A brilliant confection of poetry, cynicism, innocence and slapstick. Great turns from Brendan Gleeson as the older, philosophical hit man Ken and Ralph Fiennes as barking mad Essex dog Harry, possibly the most unstable British gangster seen onscreen since Ben Kingsley in "Sexy Beast". Maybe surprisingly, for some, Colin Farrell shows what a fine performance he can produce when cast in right part. His young killer, Ray, is a mixture of willfulness, innocence, childishness and regret. You feel for him. Really you do.

"In Bruges" will not be a box office smash. It is probably too lyrical and introspective for huge success, and also it has hardly been promoted, but I have no doubt that it will find it's audience as a cult movie on DVD and on late night Indie movie channel screenings.

It's a great film. You should go and see it. Really you should.

I did write reviews of the Portishead and Fratellis gigs, but I have scrapped them because they were shit. (The quality of the reviews, that is. Not the gigs.) I will try again tomorrow. I will not be defeated, just delayed.

Anyway, there will be loads more time tomorrow evening. Jennifer is out at a meal that The Company are throwing the celebrate their success over the last year. I declined my invitation. As I explained to Jennifer, I would rather spend the evening plucking my arse hair with a pair of tweezers than be any part of the orgy of self congratulation and sucking up that the meal tomorrow night will turn into.

Jennifer has told people that I am just in an anti-social mood. Oh, yes.

I have all of the blogs I regularly read as feeds on Google Reader. Over this weekend it has shown very few new posts.

People have lives. That is good. I have not posted much myself. Have I (gulp!) got a life?

Friday evening I watched "Epic Movie" on cable. It is a howlingly, astoundingly bad and unfunny movie. An hour and a half of my life that I will never get back. I hope I don't regret it. I might need that hour and a half in the future. I must see "Meet The Spartans" when it gets released over here. According to IMDB it is 0.1 point worse than "Epic Movie", which I find very hard to believe.

Saturday morning I went to work, because Jennifer asked me to. Nothing much to report. I didn't complete a single thing that I wanted to complete, and so have nothing to show for the overtime. Managers will moan but, hey! fuck 'em.

Saturday afternoon I went to see my Mom to pick up Jennifer's presents, from my family, for her Birthday on the Monday after next. (24th March 2008. She will be 48, but don't say I said so.) I didn't stay long. The house was too hot and smoky and I was tired and feeling ill. The cold is hanging on.

Saturday evening I watched lots of television. I cannot remember any of what I watched except for "Love Soup". Very sly, brilliantly written, total genius in fact. Saturday's episode had a particularly melancholy denouement for anybody who watched the hour length episodes, a couple of years ago, and wondered what had happened to Gil Raymond.

Today I went to see "The Cottage" with my Brother. I will write about that tomorrow.

Day 3 or 4 of the cold? Day 4. I didn't post yesterday. I was much more interested in watching "Torchwood" and "Dexter".

My throat is sore. I have the sniffles. I have a cough. I am burning up with fever. My legs and arms are aching like shit. I keep losing my breath.

Other than that I am just fine and dandy. Thanks for asking.

I have been dragging myself into work, only because Jennifer asked me to and has been really nice to me this week. We are terribly short staffed, what with holiday being taken at the last minute (the holiday year at the PLC ending on 31st March) and various members of staff being whisked away to attend ITIL seminars and examinations.

(Sidebar. ITIL. Utter bullshit and a waste of money. The PLC wouldn't recognise a procedure if one appeared, bit them on the arse and announced, "Hi there! I'm a procedure!" I'll go into the whole subject of ITIL-shite sometime soon, but not now. I will say one thing, though. One manager who thinks he is absolutely great but really hasn't got the intellectual ability to supervise the position of the pen on his desk, came back from one of the exams today looking completely shell shocked. Maybe, hitting the wall of his limitations? Oh, I did smile, in between coughing. About fucking time. End of sidebar.)

I had a story to tell, but I will do it another time. It can wait. It event happened in 1979.

Best advert running at the moment.



Genius.

I was sad to read yesterday about the death of Norman Smith.

Norman Smith was the engineer on all of the Beatles recordings made between 1962 and 1965. John Lennon called him 'Normal Norman'. After being promoted by EMI from engineer to producer, he signed the Pink Floyd and produced three of their early albums and the single "See Emily Play". In the 1970's he had a couple of chart hits under the name Hurricane Smith, including a US #1 with "Oh Babe What Would You Say?". John Lennon must have liked Norman a lot. He sent him a telegram of congratulations.

So, it has to be done.

John Lennon in his Dylan phase (I love this song),



the best of the early Pink Floyd singles (ditto),



and Hurricane Smith's biggest hit single (great stuff).



RIP.

The week has been a bit of a marathon. Too many late nights, too many early mornings. Jennifer had the week off, so I have been de facto team leader. It has gone well enough, I suppose, but I could have done with a lie in today. I didn't get one because I managed to get talked into going into work today to finish some stuff off. Never again.

Too tired to do anything when I got home. I fell asleep in front of "Diamonds Are Forever". I did stay awake long enough to see Natalie Wood's sister Lana thrown, topless, from a Vegas hotel room window. Lana Wood played a character called Plenty O'Toole. She sure was.