The Diary of a Part Time Punk

So long, LJ

2008-01-13T18:20:53Z

My new blog is now live. Please visit www.ptp.me.uk for all your (occasional) blogging needs.

I'll be updating it much more frequently than I ever updated this one, I promise.

The old blog will not vanish, by the way. Not yet, anyway.

See you on the flipside!

Moving house

2007-12-14T14:23:42Z

My LJ isn't long for the world – because I'll soon have my own blogsite. It's part of a learning exercise: I'm building my own website for my freelance, and as the mighty Wordpress is all-powerful, I'll be utilising its blog features.

Expect more info soonish. Just remember: RSS is your friend.

Je ne parle pas Francais

2007-06-26T18:46:24Z

So I've just returned from a refreshing, if knackering, week in Spain and France. Time dilated wonderfully; I feel as though I've been away for much longer, though this hasn't cushioned the blow that is returning from temperatures in the high 20s to a partly flooded, stupidly inclement country.

I'm also not enjoying understanding what's being said around me. It was bad enough when it was American tourists stating the bleeding obvious; I tried to rationalise that, then gave up completely when confronted by my idiot compatriots. I have realised now that a holiday for me is as much an escape from the banalities of life. If I cannot understand the crap that people spout as I wander by, I am shielded from it. And if it's in a Spanish/Catalan/French/whatever accent, then all the better.

The only concrete part of my holiday plan was to relax. Relaxation subsided into boredom and then wanderlust with astonishing pace, so after two days in Barcelona I decided to, you know, visit a country other than Spain. And so I was off to France.

I do not speak French. That's not a burden to most, but I like to at least attempt a few phrases in order to appear to be other than the pig-ignorant tourist that I probably am. It's a peculiarity of the English-speaking world that we assume everyone speaks at least a little English, and in most tourist towns it's probably true, but I tried anyway and managed to avoid starvation thanks to a very basic guidebook and that old standby, hand gestures.

Carcassonne was infested with tourists, but that just meant I felt a little less isolated. The hostel had some genuinely good people, and also some genuinely dull people who were mostly inoffensive but just wouldn't shut up. I'd go into more detail but I'm not feeling particularly proud or comfortable about my distaste for certain accents or worldviews – there's more than a hint of xenophobia mixed in with the genuine complaint.

Béziers was less impressive. It's the twin town of my current home, Stockport, and I was curious to compare the two in an attempt to try to understand why towns are twinned. Physically, the two couldn't be much more different, though the local youth have a predilection for tracksuits. That's about where the comparisons between the locals and our homegrown fucktards ends. (I feel justified in saying this, for a change: the first person I met when I left the taxi this morning was a scally, who promptly ran up to me, shouted a load of barely intelligible nonsense, skipped in the air, and ran off. I'm hoping it was drugs rather than genetic predisposition that spawned such a joke, because I really don't want to find myself supporting genetic screening.)

Vegetarian food in France was... difficult to come by. Even the margherita pizza, the last fallback of the desperate veggie, contained ham. I survived on cheese baguettes and babybel until I returned to Barcelona and chowed down on probably the best (and healthiest) takeaway option in the world, falafel. Someone really should import the Maoz shops over to the UK – they'd work great.

Barcelona was great. Exhausting, crazy with people, very hot, but great – urinating woman in the street aside. I spent much of my time gawping at moderista architecture, and sighing at the fact only industrial magnates could afford to commission geniuses like Gaudí to create works of genuine beauty, when the rest of us have to accept anonymous, abysmal abstractions seemingly devoid of character or any kind of thought beyond the need to provide accommodation. That and modern architecture – eugh.

I have a Barcelona metro card that's good for two or three journeys, if anyone is interested.

I also did some serious reading. Monsignor Quixote was an enjoyable if lesser work by Graham Greene, and I probably missed the refererences to its literary namesake. Enduring Love left me wondering whether Ian McEwan confuses clarity of thought for good writing. There's no denying that he can write, but to what end? No individual could surely be as clinical and aware as the main protagonist in this novel (and in Saturday, for that matter), and while the concept is strong and some of the writing is sublime, it feels disjointed... more of an essay than a finished novel. I'm in no position to comment, but it's left me wanting to read some of his earlier stuff to see where the McEwan who wrote The Cement Garden became the person who writes so well but seems so wholly detached from the reality of human behaviour. Or maybe that is the point.

I picked up The Picture of Dorian Gray in Barcelona for a reasonable price, and will be attempting to devour it as quickly as I managed my holiday reading, but judging from today's return home and subsequent online immersion, I suspect that it won't happen.

Epilogue? More holidays, more often. And more reading.

If this continues I'll have to make my own chocolate...

2007-05-14T14:04:59Z

This from the Vegetarian Society's website:

"The Vegetarian Society is extremely disappointed to learn that Mars favourites such as Mars, Milky Way, Bounty, Snickers, Galaxy, Twix and Maltesers are now all unsuitable for vegetarians. At a time when more and more consumers are concerned about the provenance of their food, Masterfoods’ decision to use non-vegetarian whey is a backward step. Mars products are very popular with young people and many will be shocked to discover that their manufacture now relies on the extraction of rennet from the stomach lining of young calves.

Please contact Masterfoods Customer Services on 0845 045 0042 to express your concern."

I suspect they've underestimated the impact this will have on their sales and general public image. They may reconsider when sales begin to slide, but in the meantime I'll be forced to eat Ritter-sport until I'm sick. It's a tough life.

The end of articulation

2007-05-10T18:23:45Z

Oh gods.

There's too much to do, too little time to do it, and no energy or enthusiasm to even begin. I've just had a week off work to recover from general exhaustion and all I can think about already is the weekend and whenever I'm ever going to get a holiday. And it's not like my job is even that demanding!

In other news, the world of bookselling seems about to collapse in on itself. Borders is up for sale, Waterstone's is doing a combined dumbing-down/closing-down horror-show, independpent bookshops are closing at a faster rate than ever before, and WH Smiths is... well, when was the last time anyone actually chose to buy a book from Smiths? Blame supermarkets, blame the publishers, blame Amazon, but heaven forbid we blame the complete idiots that abolished the net book agreement.

Okay, so that last bit was vaguely articulate.

I have been relocate

2007-01-19T13:32:42Z

I have finally moved into my own place. Drop me a line if you want or need my new address. Offers to help decorate or build flatpack furniture will be happily received.

Tunnel at the end of the tunnel

2006-10-11T23:32:55Z

Three days late, 8,000 words overwritten, bits of it in need of a thorough edit, and probably riddled with typos (spellcheckers can't handle strange words unless you tell them to remember them FOREVER, it seems), but it's done. Sort of. I need to expand a section on the main character, but that feels like a stroll in the park (obviously not a park round here) in comparison to the monster I have just finished creating. My thanks (and condolences) to the project manager for his patience and support over the last few days.

Now there's just the small matter of another massive project to complete before the end of the month. I really could do with a holiday.

The screeching sound of deadlines passing over one's head

2006-10-09T16:33:02Z

Panic, Messrs Morrissey and Marr. Panic indeed.

I've spent much of the last four days in front of my computer. Quite a lot of that time has been spent working, but a significant and shameful chunk has also been spent procrastinating in any way possible. You name it: excessively long emails and posts on forums, an urge to look up some TV show that I've only watched once, even writing that letter of complaint to my ISP that I've been avoiding for some months - it seems I'd rather do anything than the job in hand.

So what's the problem? Simply put, I left it too late. Two days into the writeup I realised there was going to be little hope of getting it finished on time, even if I found the enthusiasm to work constantly. And the chances of that happening were non-existent.

So I called in a few favours, several cans of Red Bull and other caffeinated beverages, and attempted to get on with it. I somehow hit the word count but was several pages short of covering all the stuff I wanted to. I gave the project manager a call and explained how I'd be late, which he reassured me was fine.

Then I began to panic a lot. For an hour or so I became morbidly convinced that I'd done completely the wrong thing, that my client wouldn't offer me any more work and my freelance work would dry up. I was descended upon by a vision of myself, ten years from now, a pathetic, morbidly obese failure living at home, rarely leaving my room, posting crap on fansites and getting beaten badly at online games. As visions of failure go, it may seem pretty mild but it was rather too close for comfort.

Then the caffeine kicked in and I spoke to my project manager again. No need to panic, the stuff I'd done was good and with a couple of very minor tweaks everything would be okay. It was like a switch had been flipped in my head.

Unfortunately for me, it's the same switch that seems to control my urge to procrastinate. Must... continue...

Writer's Blog

2006-10-04T16:59:39Z

I'm currently going slightly mad over the amount of freelance work that I've taken on. My own fault, of course - but I'm still too new at this game to be turning down work, especially when it's not something you've done before but would like to do a lot more of in the future.

Project one is deceitfully straightforward. I have to read several books and make notes as I go through them. This will form the basis of an outline for a more detailed 'gazetteer' of characters, locations and events. I've done the reading and note-taking, and am currently in the midsts of writing up my notes. Which would be fine were the deadline not next monday. Several thousands words need to appear, as if by magic, and quickly. I know I can do it but a large chunk of my subconscious would rather I did something less 'challenging', like read endless websites about all things geek, or stare aimlessly into space. My back's killing me, too - damn office chairs!

Project two is more exciting, less intense, but definitely scarier. I'm doing a full-on edit for a manuscript. I've got some experience in copy-editing (and a virtually untouched, rather expensive correspondence coursebook sitting on a shelf) and proofreading, but the substantive stuff is a little more challenging. I've partially convinced myself by looking through the ms that it's going to be easier than I think; I'm only there to ensure consistency and rewrite any particular clunkers (and there are a few), and anything more invasive will probably be frowned upon by the project manager.

So why is it at times like this that I feel completely in doubt as to my writing ability? Neither project requires me to do more than I do in my day job, and yet I can feel the despair even when idly thinking about it. I feel like I need my own Paul McKenna to give me a thorough hypnomatising as to how great I am - feel the fear and do it anyway, not brick yourself! Ah, at times like this how I envy people who only doubt themselves after things go wrong.

A brief history of the last twelve months (part two)

2006-09-16T10:55:55Z

Green moomins, morons from Hull, self-loathing, despair and SNES games - that was the end of 2005 for me. The freelance proofreading helped me more than the job centre ever did, as did the volunteer work I did at the Basement.

The Basement is a vegan café, book shop/library and art space run by volunteers, with the aim of providing a base for local activist groups. There's a wonderful mishmash of people, both intellectual and otherwise, all vaguely hoping for the same vague thing, and serving good food in the process. I started out by helping at the book shop, both to keep my hand in after Borders (as nebulous a reason as anyone could come up with) and to negate the icky feeling I got from working in the 'real world'. After I was sacked I got slightly more involved with this and NUJ stuff, though I felt too down to do much more than the occasional few hours' work and attend some demos.

After my first few times helping out it became clear that the book shop did not attract that many people; the real help was required in the kitchen. I did what I could - wash the pots. I eventually started taking on other duties such as serving and taking orders, and even making coffees and juices. Truly my meteoric rise in the Basement is attributed to the fact that I can actually operate the coffee machine. Flippancy aside, it helped keep my head screwed on.

I went back to Instituto Cervantes and did another Spanish course. I told the people there that I worked as a proofreader, which was only half-true. I applied for jobs with the idea of working part-time and building up my freelance work. I even managed to have some social form of a social life and - heaven forfend! - went on a couple of dates.

Then things started falling into place. I landed some freelance work, which led to a job. I'm still there now. It's not perfect, and for an awful long time the stress of commuting to work for a pretty poor wage, and the responsibility of actually doing some writing for a living, was all too much. Weekends kept vanishing into freelance too.

The last few months have been a blur of non-summer. I'm currently hideously over-subscribed with work - including my first writing commission and several different clients all offering me work. It's still not enough to live off, but should the current trend continue I will be able to seriously consider going totally freelance in a few months' time. I can't wait.

--

The above is, quite clearly, nothing more than the bare bones of my last year. It's probably missing a few ribs and several vertebrae, and I'm fairly certain that the coccyx doesn't go there, but you'll get the idea. I'm not very good at this kind of writing, and it doesn't make for very exciting reading, but I wanted to explain my absence away to LJ for narrative purposes and for those (very few) people who I know on here. Normal service - occasional pretentious mini-essays and musings on life with the occasional display of wit and the more-than-occasional 'woe is me' moment - will now resume. I hope.

A brief history of the last twelve months (part one)

2006-09-12T20:55:43Z

It seems like a good point in time, one year on, to reveal what happened when I finally left McBookshop and entered the cutthroat world of publishing.

I should point out that I do not like office work. Corporate culture pushes too many of my 'angry' buttons; office politics, absurd dress codes, inflexibility, and being stuck in one location all day. But I'd just escaped from three years of retail; the novelty was welcome.

I'd landed a job as a 'production assistant' at a small magazine publisher. I'd managed this through the usual combination of experience and outrageously fortuitous interviews. I've dabbled in proofreading for a few years through a few websites, fanzines, and eventually real novels. I gained a qualification in July, and things just snowballed. A slow snowball, but in comparison to the inertia I'd suffered since leaving uni, it felt like the start of something genuinely exciting.

So my job was that of a general dogsbody, in a way - but with skillz. I had to 'chase' copy (managing and hassling clients for the advertising they'd been sold), do sub-editing, proofreading, and eventually, once the magazine was all but done, make sure that everything was included and in the correct order. The pace was pretty frantic and the learning curve was steep, but I managed it despite various distractions - one particular Friday is memorable for a double whammy of food poisoning and someone throwing a brick at my bus on the way home. (Several hours in A&E to remove small shards of glass followed. Naturally, I was the only one that was injured.)

There was a lot of down time. I got on well with my immediate colleagues but in general I avoided the sales staff and kept my head down. This somehow became interpreted as 'arrogance' when it was precisely the opposite. I was so concerned about making a good impression that I asked my manager to give me a progress report to ensure that everything was going well.

Then randomness happened. On the Thursday I had a chat with my manager. He couldn't fault my work, but mentioned some stuff that sounded less like advice and more like someone didn't like me. I was by that point aware that certain members of staff (and, unfortunately, the MD) were to be kept sweet at all costs. I wasn't expecting, three days later (and one hell of a weekend - one of my neighbours managed to kill himself and two others in a car crash) to be given the sack.

The whole thing was totally trumped up. The accusations were nebulous. but I was so shocked by the abruptness of it that I could barely think, let alone fight back. I managed to enlist my union in the fight but I was... thinking about it is unpleasant. I'll skip this bit for the sake of my own sanity.

Several months of abject depression followed. I retreated into the old fallbacks of computer games and the Internet. My freelance work continued at a regular but financially unrewarding rate. It allowed me to shake off the idea that I was 'incompetent' - the only real accusation that had been levelled against me, though even that lacked any evidence.

More on this later. Too long for one sitting.

Free word association is a writer's best sasquatch

2006-04-16T20:28:55Z

Having just read through my (rather scant) LJ history I have noticed that nearly half my entries begin with 'it's been a while' or something very similar. So in acknowledgement of this I will move swiftly on and not belabour the eight-month gap between now and then.

Whether or not one* is religious (and this one is not), Easter weekend is a welcome respite from the tedium of modern life. I'm only recently back in the world of full-time work (if you consider a four-day week full-time) but I am already feeling the dull grind of a fixed routine and the futile brevity of a weekend that I can't really enjoy or use to full advantage because I am so knackered from the preceding few days.

UK workers supposedly have the longest working weeks in Europe, and are also the least productive. Call me a pseudo-intellectual left-wing lazy swine, but it doesn't seem a leap of the imagination to connect these two facts. Bank holidays are few and far between, and arranged haphazardly - why do we need two bank holidays in May and none in June or July, for example?

My proposal is that we adopt a more sane, more relaxed system - and to ensure that companies observe it (for we all should know by now that companies do not do anything that would ever affect their profit margin adversely) we must enshrine it in law. How about having regular bank holidays throughout the year? How about ensuring that some of them (say, one every other month) is a 'long' bank holiday where we get the Friday and the Monday off? Our more relaxed cousins on the Mediterranean have regular festivals throughout the year, often lasting four days or more. They also don't seem to have the same problems we northern Europeans have with binge drinking and other alcohol-fuelled insanity - but I wouldn't be so bold as to suggest that having more free time and excuses to celebrate mean that one is less likely to behave like a fool when not on 'holiday'.

It's only a matter of time before I'll be advocating the siesta as well. Recent studies** show that human physiology is better suited to taking a mid-afternoon nap, allowing for increased energy levels during the rest of the day. Perhaps I'd be better off moving to Spain - or just becoming self-employed and setting my own hours...

* 'one' is a very useful word, and should be reclaimed from being used solely by the ineffably inbred that we refer to vaguely as 'the royal family'. Would we have half as much debate over sexist use of language if we could simply say 'one can' instead of 'he or she/it/whatever can'?

** don't ask for a reference. I'm sure a quick google will find you plenty of arguments for and against this claim.

Straight Outta Borders

2005-08-04T20:55:33Z

It finally happened. I've landed a new, better job, and have quit Borders just shy of the three-year mark.

It's a blessed relief. In a way I didn't want to believe some of the horror stories I read when I first joined the company, how things had deteriorated; but after seeing how much things have changed in just the time I've worked at my store, I can believe every word of it. Since my last post, we've lost so many staff that we're barely able to open, let alone do anything to make the store look good. Our GM is beyond contempt, and it seems Borders UK is heading down the slippery slope that leads only to completely unskilled staff and a "stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap (but not cheaper than the local supermarket)" philosophy that makes a mockery of the concept of a bookstore. We're nothing more than a discount warehouse, now.

Still, I can at least say I did my bit. As regional rep I tried my damnedest to fight every stupid decision that was made both on a store and company-wide level. We usually didn't win but we certainly made a lot of noise, and when your managers grudgingly agree that things are going wrong, you can at least feel some solidarity. Perhaps our biggest success was nixing the uniforms that we were due to get, but this came down as much to cost as to the unprecedented level of unhappiness the issue brought about. Still, it felt good.

And now I'm off to a (hopefully) better place with a (definitely) better wage and the prospect of a career where you don't lose staff because you've only made 25% more profit than the several million you made the previous year. I'll miss working with my friends and I'll miss the discount, but I certainly won't miss arriving at work to discover that your so-called boss has made yet another imbecilic decision, that nobody seems to have a clue as to what's going on, that the only thing you can rely on is stock arriving late, that everything in the store seems to be broken or merely badly designed, that... I could go on. But the point is, in about four weeks, I won't need to worry about it ever again.

Good luck to everyone that sticks with the company. Keep fighting your corner. But if you get the chance, jump ship as soon as you can. I really don't see things getting any better.

What a day day

2005-06-07T14:14:08Z

406 days since it began, I have finally completed my proofreading course. Already a month overdue, but it is done and I have passed with merit. The sense of relief is only paralleled by the emptiness I feel at not having a deadline hanging over me. It’s great, but now I have to get my act together and start looking for work – which could be the tricky bit.

In other news, I’ve pretty much resigned myself to finding a new job. The proofreading will eventually lead to extra cash, but not immediately. I’ll hate to say goodbye to a place I feel so possessive of, having worked there for so long, but there is little hope of things improving. It’s no great leap of logic to realise that the situation is hindering my creative output, too. I’m not naïve enough to think that a new job will resolve everything, but extra cash and less corporate bullshit will go some way to it.

Time to pack it in? [cross-posted from iworkatborders]

2005-05-16T21:41:18Z

Hey everyone,

Not quite sure why I'm posting this here, but I figured I'd get a more sympathetic ear here than on my personal LJ.

I've worked for Borders for nearly three years, all that time in the same store here in the forgotten wastelands of post-industrial England. At first I only hung on thanks to my friends and the fear of having to find another job, but eventually bookselling grew on me, and - perhaps more importantly - the managers started listening to us booksellers and cut us some slack.

I've always been a bit... vocal with my unhappiness, and I guess that was why I got involved with our store's focus group. From there the managers would often talk to me to gauge the staff's reaction on various subjects. A lot of it seemed like a futile talking shop, though - everything I said about IPT came true within a month of it being implemented, for example.

So then I somehow was elected as store (and regional) rep. Here in the UK there is new employment legislation requiring companies to consult every layer of staff, and for a brief moment it seemed like the people at Head Office might be paying some attention to the wants and concerns of the staff.

Six months down the line, and several run-ins later, I feel completely and utterly disllisioned. I've tried my damndest to do things properly, to try and make my store the 'preferred place to work', as the Borders UK mission statement says. But in reality the staff consultation forum seems utterly powerless, and moves at such a glacial pace that I'll be lucky to see any changes even if I hold my seat for the maximum four years. Which is something I'm utterly dreading.

But apathy is running at an all-time high here in the UK. We're adopting nearly every US policiy and initiative, so we're slowly but surely turning into little more than a book supermarket. No matter how eloquently, passionately or emphatically I put it, our managers, the HR department, nobody seems to genuinely care that we're losing decent booksellers in droves because there is rapidly becoming no point in working at Borders when you can get better pay and conditions working for a bloody supermarket.

I feel like packing the whole thing in, severing my ties, and handing my rep role on to someone else with more optimism. I just can't see any hope of the company making a u-turn.

Anyone care to offer me some advice before I make any rash decisions?

Attack of the yellow sticker

2005-05-14T11:27:29Z

It's been a while. Because of this, the following entry may be a little haphazard, both in style and content:

My house-share fell through. I'm quietly furious, not least because I'd turned down another house, and have spent most of the last two weekends looking for suitable houses. This means I'm effectively trapped at home, as I earn such a pittance that I can't afford to live on my own. I suppose I could find a house-share with strangers, but it's not an appealing idea.

My friend, who I was to live with, is moving to London. Why must so many of my close friends have to run off to the big smoke? Am I simply wasting my time trying to scrape a living in Manchester? Or would I just be swallowed by the sheer number of people competing for the same jobs, if I moved to London too?

The job's becoming a grind again, too. The company seems obsessed with cost-cutting, which seems to completely go against the idea that it's "the preferred place to work". I could be completely cynical about the whole thing, but part of my job is trying to represent my fellow staff in the hope of changing things for the better. But it seems to have been a downward slide since I started working for the company.

I don't envy anyone working in the bookselling industry. It can only be a matter of time before it becomes little better than working in a supermarket - except you get paid a fair bit more to stack shelves.

Disillusioned? Me? Just a bit.

Miro can kiss my ass...

2005-03-12T18:50:09Z

as can the rest of the abstract art that I endured today.

Glibness aside, I really struggled. Today I paid a visit to the Reina Sofia gallery in Madrid, one of the big three, and home to a certain piece that I´ll get to in a bit. The collection is mostly Spanish and starts with turn-of-the-century stuff, some expressionism and impressionism that is instantly identifiable and (with a little help from our friend the audio-guide) reveals its more subtle features with relative ease. I should state now that I am NOT in any way, shape or form, an art buff; what I know is limited to a knowledge of what I like, a little symbolism, and the ability to appreciate technical ability. This probably makes me a philistine.

Anyway: I had some genuine enthusiasm at first as the variety was a welcome relief from the predominantly religious art I´d seen on my holiday so far. Just seeing a portrait of someone who wasn´t royal or biblical was a true joy, and some of the expressionist landscapes by Mir (he says, unsure) were beautiful. I even recognised some of the work of a guy called Gargallo who primarily made odd (possibly not) cubist statues that we saw last time in Zaragoza. But then we entered abstract territory, and even with the aid of the audio-guide and the leaflets, I was left clueless. Worst of all were some of the explanations by the creators: the word ´bullshit´ instantly sprang to mind in a number of cases.

And herein lies my musing: if art has a meaning (and I could probably forgive some of the more heinous pieces if they didn´t have a pretentious preamble attached), then what is the point in burying it so deeply that it takes an explanation from the creator to even begin to appreciate it? Perhaps, if you are an artist yourself or a critic (and a lot of stuff seems aimed solely at this élite), you´d be able to fathom out more of the meaning. But then, why exhibit it? I can understand a need to create something as removed from cliché as possible (my inability to tolerate repetition in my own writing is what stops me from writing at all, most of the time), but surely there is a limit to how far the boundaries can be pushed before the meaning of your piece can only be discerned by yourself.

Maybe there´s an element of sour grapes. Despite my creative pretentions, I have a pretty scientific viewpoint, and to some extent this does limit my creativity. The idea that you can be totally freed from such mundanity, and to still create pieces that seemingly identify universal thoughts and emotions, is exciting. But that´s assuming this is what the art is actually doing. I struggle to see what can be expressed with a bunch of floating rectangles (ahem Mr Rothko) apart from a pleasing combination of colours. We aren´t exactly engaging any part of the brain apart from the bit that still dreams of basking on rocks and licking its eyeballs.

Rambling as this diatribe may seem, there is a point and I´m just about getting to it. The Reina Sofia´s centrepiece is ´Guernica´ by Picasso, which for those unaware of Spanish history, was painted in response to the German Condor Legion´s levelling of said Basque town during the Spanish Civil War. I admit that a fair amount of influence has been exerted by the number of travel guides that I´ve read that have extolled the praises of said piece, but I do think that I could have appreciated it even without, because its subject matter is so moving. It´s a huge piece, painted mostly in black with sepia tones, and depicts a number of inter-related figures all suffering to some extent, all subjected to this oddly juxtaposed lightbulb device that perhaps symbolises the technical efficiency and horror of modern warfare. Yes, it looks like a Picasso painting; the characters are shown from multiple perspectives and appear jumbled and twisted, but this only accentuates the terror and pain that the characters embody.

So my point? Picasso achieved by creating a work of art that contained universally understood images, but in a striking manner, and one that contains much detail withot losing the intensity of its impact. It hits you immediately but allows you to consider the piece further, losing yourself in the details. And it has an overt message which isn´t being buried by abstraction or irony. Maybe I appreciate it because it appeals to my artistic sensibility, or maybe it simply is a masterpiece. It embodies a lot of what I consider important in art.

I feel like I deserve a slap for such an intensely pretentious mini-essay. If anyone who knows more than a jot about art does read this, please be kind in your abuse. I am very aware that tastes become refined by exposure to a greater body of work, but I also believe that little has so great an impact as an acutely executed piece. It´s the same reason why, despite the fact I can appreciate the occasional piece of classical music (without knowing the least thing about the genre), and my musical tastes are increasingly tending towards the esoteric, the whole thing is underpinned by the sheer exuberance and simplicity of the hook-filled pop song. And by that statement, I am not talking Robbie Williams.

Famous for its steel and its marzipan

2005-03-08T19:56:39Z

There seems to be something deeply troubling about writing a blog entry when on holiday, but for the sake of procrastination it looks like I´m about to do so...

I´m in Spain, incidentally. It´s slightly warmer than Manchester, but not much, though the clear blue skies are a definite improvement. Yesterday was mostly spent travelling or waiting to travel, thanks to interminable flight delays. This is my first time abroad on my own, so I suppose it´s excusable to feel a little bit fraught. I´m still hoping to make friends with the people in my dorm, but the only contact I´ve had with the people sharing my room is a right old racket being made in the early hours when I was trying to do my best sleeping impression.

Still, today was better. I visited the extremely historic city of Toledo: a place so old that you virtually trip over ancient buildings without meaning to. I probably crushed some old Roman femur without realising as I scrambled up and down the tracks that follow the Tajo river around the base of the city´s massif. More likely it was just some crap left by the local kids, though.

The words ´art´ and ´buff´ are rarely associated with me, but I spent a fair amount of time today looking at the work of El Greco (literally ´the Greek´ - clearly there weren´t many greek artists knocking around renaissance Spain). I should be seeing some more of his ouvre when I visit the Prado some time this week. I went there last time but the place is so full of amazing art that you simply cannot look at everything in one brief visit.

So today was an improvement and I got over that initial sick tense feeling that usually stops me from wanting to go anywhere. Now all I have to do is make a few friends...

Yeah, yeah, industrial estate...

2005-03-04T20:39:30Z

I'm completely knackered. Maybe it's because I've been at work all day and have resorted to eating sugary snacks to keep going. Maybe it's because I've been staying up late recently, spending way too much time online. Maybe it's because I had to get up at a horrifically early time on my days off because we currently have builders destroying our house (an oxymoron but an accurate one). Or maybe it's because some of my friends convinced me that I should play football last night...

Twisted ankle and a few aching joints notwithstanding, I did okay, and it's reassured me that my general level of fitness is acceptable. Ideally I want to increase my endurance and also lose about a stone to attain that coveted indie-boy physique, but that can wait until I've returned from holiday and the weather's improved enough to allow me to cycle to work.

Ah yes, holidays! Hurrah! I'm off to Madrid next week, for plenty of things that are ill-defined as yet but should be relaxing if not fun. The weather's going to be a bit grim, but can't be any worse than Manchester is at the moment. I just wish it would snow instead of half-heartedly showering us with the fluffy stuff for half an hour before giving up. It just will not do.

I'd like to increase my blogging rate, but I simply don't have the willpower to do stuff like this unless I'm bouncing with energy and/or relaxed enough to spiel off whatever's on my mind, or lucid enough to write a pretentious essay or three. Advance warning: I'm going to put together something on Seneca in the near future as an exercise in knowledge acquisition.

Open question: will anyone ever again comment on my journal? Does anyone actually read it apart from me?

The red mist descends...

2005-02-25T20:20:15Z

I'm not in a very good mood.

One of the few consolations with my job is that I occupy the dubious position of store rep, which theoretically means that I get to complain a lot about things and people take notice and fix them. I also get to go to London twice a year and tell the generally clueless people at head office what they're doing wrong and how they can stop doing it. I've spent the last month or so organising an agenda of work-related issues to take down to London, spending silly amounts of time contacting other stores, writing up my thoughts, and liaising with people who use voicemail as a means to filter calls rather than picking up the phone. A lot of this took place in my free time, so short was my allotted time at work and my deep-seated urge to ensure that everything went right, despite the best efforts of my superiors.

I have a busy few weeks coming up. My meeting in London was going to be tied in with visiting lots of friends, and attempts to find obscure CDs that I just can't find locally. Then I'm off to Spain. And when that's all done, it's back home and a long-last hospital appointment.

Only now, at 6.30pm this evening, with a mere four days before I leave for London, I'm told that the meeting is postponed for reasons that I questioned about a fortnight ago but was reassured wouldn't be a problem. This not only throws my fun activities out of the window, but leaves me with useless train tickets, a small matter of having two jobs to rearrange, and my hospital appointment falling on the same day as the rescheduled meeting. I should have sworn at the woman, I really should have.

Still, I feel better for venting. Spleen almost feels empty.

We hate it when our books become successful

2005-02-02T21:21:37Z

In case I haven't made it clear enough, I work in a book shop. Around this time last year, one of my colleagues started waxing lyrical about The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. The premise appealed to me ('literature' with a sci-fi edge? Rock on!), but I always have a huge pile of books that I've already bought and need to read first, so that and the fact it was still in hardback put me off, even when other members of staff started to read it and it become the shop's semi-official favourite book.

Cut to January, and the new Richard & Judy book group is announced. For those on the other side of the pond (and that's assuming anyone else actually reads this!), Richard and Judy are two middle-aged married tv hosts who seem to exist purely to entertain students and make the middle-aged, middle-class populace feel less awful about their overweight, irrelevent selves. Richard is especially loathsome, and is most likely a huge influence on the sitcom tv star Alan Partridge. [/tangent]

Anyway, last year, Richard & Judy did this book group, which took the book industry totally by surprise as we had hordes of said viewers coming in asking for a book called Star of the Sea which was nowhere on the radar until it was featured on tv. Yes, part of you is glad that people are spending less time watching insipid tv and more time reading, but why do they have to all read the books that they're told to by said trash? Have a browse, ask one of the staff if you really have to, but for the love of small furry creatures, put a little effort into it! And put that John Grisham down too - don't you think he's made enough money out of the general public?

Book-shop snobbery aside, it's frustrating, and when a book that you've loved for a long time is suddenly chosen to be the book of the moment, it's simply exasperating. My poor mate has been scowling that 'her' book is now outselling The da Vinci Code, and I can't blame her for that reaction. Part of me didn't want to read the book simply because it was so bloody popular, but I managed to swallow my (hypocritical) snobbery and buy a copy - and I'm whizzing through it at a right old pace. I won't give anything away at this stage because you can find all you want to know if you do a quick google, but it's a nice, easy read whilst also sticking its oar into pop culture and very likely betraying a lot about the author's life around 1991 (Violent Femmes lyrics? Oh do behave!).

So that's what I'm reading at the moment. If only I didn't feel such a stupid urge to read as many books as possible in the hope that I will become well-read.

(I still believe, in my heart of hearts, that it's perfectly fine to be wary of anything that has mass popularity; I'm also aware that I simply don't want to be considered part of the stupid, smelly, thoughtless mass of society that we all equate as the general public. Cursed ambivalence.)

Where do bad folks go when they die?

2005-01-19T19:44:41Z

Time flies.

What to write about? Writing, possibly. I, like (dare I say) many an LJ user, have pretensions to being a writer. Unfortunately I also suffer from an impressively accomplished level of procrastination. Throw in a bad case of perfectionism and a phobia of rewriting, and you're left with someone who rarely does any writing but thinks about it a lot.

There are ways to combat this, of course, and I'm trying - honestly. Someone who enjoys reading is not someone who can write, but I'm trying to approach books more critically to see what makes them work. I tend to find myself thinking "I can't do this!" whenever I read some lucid narration of exotic description, but I try to also remind myself that while I'm more likely to give birth than to become an accomplished poet, I do have some small talent in stringing words together and must accept and hone my particular style instead of wanting to ape another's.

I've had a short story outline waiting for nearly a year now. It was going so well, and a week off work allowed me precious time to link the disparate bits together, but Life got in the way and, though I've had a few idle thoughts occasionally, and even now am reading books that could qualify as research, I've not attempted to do anything on my story for over six months. And now the place I planned to submit my story has folded. This might not seem a big issue, but when you're writing in a narrow field as I was (taking advantage of a misspent youth reading bad fantasy fiction), this kind of thing can be a real pain. They say that a new place for 'new writers' will be announced soon, and I can only hope that I take advantage of this by getting my proposal in early enough to beat the rush.

---------------------------------------------

My 'weekend' arrives and I spend some of it productively AND enjoyably! Bonanza! If I can succeed in ticking off all the tasks I had written down, oh what a joy that would be.

I shall be resolute

2004-12-31T18:32:33Z

Bloody hell, another year over already.

2004 has been a step back in many ways for me: I've had to move home, I split up with my first significant girlfriend, and generally struggled with daily life thanks to my perpetual misery. It wasn't all bad, of course: my trip to Spain finally proved to me that I could go travelling and fully enjoy it. I just wish I wasn't at home again, and that I had someone to be with tonight.

Ah, tonight! What a farrago that is. I've left any organising until far too late, and now most of my friends already have plans. I would rather not stay at home, but I'm running out of options and I'm not going into town on my own. No way. Still, it's traditional to try and make a fresh start with the arrival of another arbitrary date. What's the difference between today and tomorrow except a matter of convention? Sure, the world has completed its orbit of the sun, but to us mere apes it's just another day. Maybe we can't deal with time without breaking it down into bite-size chunks. It's just a shame years don't last longer; they certainly seem to be going faster (he said, reaching for his zimmer).

Anyway, resolutions:

I shall learn to swim. It will be a useful skill and will hopefully allow me to maintain a proper indie-boy physique.

I shall finish my proof-reading course, and in good time. I will do well.

I shall find a new place to live, preferably with good friends. I will pay attention to interior design.

I shall seriously consider the direction of (for want of a more apt term) my career.

I shall do more travelling, provided I can find someone to go with.

Of course, all of the above have get-out clauses should fire, flood or act of God be invoked.

Twas the night before...

2004-12-24T22:04:01Z

Let's try and rush an entry off without too much forethought or, indeed, any thought.

Work has been hellish over the last couple of weeks, made worse thanks to a lingering cold that still refuses to bugger off. Still, I'm done now until an extra-short shift on Boxing Day and plenty of money-raking Bank-Holiday work next week, which will also lead to many lieu days off and essentially a week's holiday. Hurrah!

Everything is prepared, as far as I can recall. I'm not a scrooge, but, well, retail-work does kill whatever joy you hold in this time of year. Gone are the days when I'd be up at 6am to open my new books and toys (though those days ended a lot more recently than I like to admit), and even more gone are the copious presents that I would have to wade through. Now I'm lucky if I get enough to fill half a pillowcase.

And yes, I know that tis better to give than to receive; but I put so much effort in every year, and seem to get an inverse proportion back. Still, hasn't stopped me once again. Did my Saint Nick impression at work today, dropping presents off for my closest friends. Everyone who was lucky seemed really pleased, apart from my ex who seemed underwhelmed. It really hurt, especially as I'd waited over an hour to see her. Sigh. We otherwise have a very healthy relationship for two people who used to go out, but at times like this I'd like a little more show of affection.

I'm entering genuine LJ territory aren't I? Buggery.

Office Politics

2004-11-27T21:29:28Z

Yet another tiresome day at the McBookshop, an all-too-frequent occurence lately. I was a little subdued from the previous night's fun, but this didn't excuse how intensely annoyed I got at trivial things. I don't take my job seriously - I'm official troublemaker after all - but I believe in the maxim that you should do something properly or not at all. Unfortunately, many of my work colleagues - most of whom I consider good friends - have become a lot more resigned in their duties, and I don't feel they're realising how frustrating this is for those of us who still take pride in making the shop look nice. The pernickety side to my personality takes great pleasure in a fully-alphabetised, smart-looking book section; thus when others just dump their stuff anywhere, leave the staff toilet dirty, leave all the cutlery dirty in the sink - I could go on. It's especially galling when new members of staff, friendly as they are, don't give a damn and have no reason to do so. They're only using the job as a stop-gap, but for those of us who have already graduated and found nothing better to do with our lives, it's merely dismaying to see how others view your job.

I'm probably just having a bad day, but I've had too many lately.

Still, got my guitar back today, and it sounds and plays much better. Now all I have to do is catch up on over three months' lack of practice.