A Yorkshireman displaced

is a virtue, so I’m told. I need a fair bit of it at the moment. My new job sort of resembles a long haul flight with a very boring but interactive in-flight movie about microsoft products and survey results – unfortunately the inflight movie is unswitchoffable resulting in boredom. Oh and there are no air hostesses, I have to make my own cups of tea. And the economy class cabin bears a striking resemblance to the inside of an office. Nevertheless it’s becoming something of a fun daydream to imagine where I would be in the world if I was on a long haul flight for x amount of hours a day rather than stuck inside an office (where x is any random factor of hours that I can be bothered to work in a given day). Today my soul is somewhere over Greenland (I think)

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I’ve been sweating too much to update the blog recently (I tried but my fingers, lubricated as they were by sweat, slid right off the keyboard)

The job is okay. Not brilliant mind you, certainly not in this heat. We got free icecreams and deoderant the other day though (although I think the deoderant might have been just for me).

I’m still reading "Growth Fetish" which I’d reccomend. It hasn’t actually (yet) offered any direct solutions to our politicians love affair with massive economic growth but it does make you think about what it entails. It probably sits happily alongside Chomsky on the political spectrum, if thats your thang. File under "G" for gadflies

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I’m employed again – hurrah!

It’s only a temp role but the pay is decent and the hours are flexible. The only downside is that as far as I can tell I won’t get paid for at least another 6 weeks (stupid arrears system), so I might have to pick up some bar work in the meantime. Ach

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I’ve started reading a book called "Growth Fetish" by a guy I think is called Clive Hamilton. It argues that despite increased economic conditions over the last fifty or so years, the western world has not got any happier despite the calims of politicians from both ends of the politcal spectrum. He argues (rather uncontroversially) that the ability to consume more and more will not satisfy us in the long run – so why do politicians invariable promise a better economy as a means to a happy future?

This would correlate well with todays news story that Vanuatu is the worlds happiest country despite lacking a powerhouse economy – I wonder if George Dubya realizes this?

Check it out here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060712/lf_afp/afplifestyleenvironment_060712150855

(I still can’t do short links yet)

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Yesterdays blogging session was cut short (could you tell?). Not by the internet failing (again) but by a succession of middle aged women standing behind me and tapping me on the shoulder and asking me if I’m " …going to be a long time on that?" Now I’ve not got anything against middle aged women per se, but I which they stop being so… concerned about everything. It’s like they reach the age of forty five and everything becomes unbearable traumatic – the weather, young people using the computer for too long, televised sport, advert breaks. As far as I know my council tax pays for said library and I have as much right to blog as they have to look up cheap holidays. I’ll stop ranting now before I cover the screen in flecks of spittle.

On the plus side I have a meeting in a few hours with an agency which could lead to a job (fingers crossed tightly) and I’m going to see Pirates of the Carribean 2 tonight. That was a very short plus side wasn’t it?

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I went out on saturday night and ended up listening to terrible scouse house music in a scally dive (it did have pool tables though). I returned home at around three in the morning to discover fellow housemate Iwan asleep face down in all his clothes with his bedroom door wide open, whilst blissfully munching his pillow. It’s a sad world when I end up staying out later than both my housemates.

Tiredness has been the prevaling theme of my week, despite the lack of job. Hopefully I’ll get something today

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…sang the Moldy Peaches.

I wake up this morning with all the murky headedness of a hangover but having only drunk one pint. Also feeling slightly sorry over my job situation (although something may be on the horizon), i do indeed feel like I’m chasing the titular Irish stereotype (but in the hope that he’ll manage to magically grant me a job – I don’t give a fig about his overly sugary breakfast cereal). Sorry for the recent drought of bloggage, it’s a combination of dodgy library computers and a currently less than interesting life

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Your average time breaks up like this (well if you are me)

Cleaning and moving small objects around (7%)

The Cthulhu Mythos – (both the classic 1920s short story collection and video game tie in) (18%) but hey if they made a videogame of The Great Gatsby I’d play it til my thumbs bled with happiness.

Sleep (33%)

Assorted side projects and things I never normally get to do (film making and reading books about coding) (25%)

Actually going about the business of getting a job (10%)

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