THE BRITISH THREAD II

PS Glad you're having a nice time in the Alps McT.

x

My legs are really sore. We were yomping around the mountain-goat paths from the top of the chairlifts, until I was desperate for a little bit of level ground. These Austrians seem to be born to it.
Still, the weather was beautiful today and from up there, we had a full panorama. Picture-postcard scenes on every side, until the appetite surfeited, and I began thinking of Sauchihall Street on a Saturday night. I do like the open air though. From time to time.

Spendius I had a dream I met you and your extended family last night. I thought you might like to know this. Weird, huh x

The extended family part was obviously a nightmare. You should stop eating mature cheese after 6 pm.

What did I look like?

Cheese matures after 6pm ??? I thought it took longer than that...

So what do y'all think of the Naomi/Charles/Blood Diamonds thing?

Did you see her in court claiming it was an 'inconvenience'?

Would think that systematic rape, murder, torture, not to mention having your limbs hacked off would be a tad more inconvenient.

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Anyway, good prog on radio 4 tomorrow night about the Les Paul guitar - I will be listening.

x

What witchcraft brewed such celebrities is what I think. Let's hope it sends the appropriate message to the wannabees of this weary world.

I doubt it spends - they'll just think 'diamonds'.

x

Reminds me- I wrote a song long ago with that name. Diamonds.

"Take care sweet Babe, no one knows and no one understands;
Skimmed milk and worse they drink, cut glass they're clutching in their hands.
Diamonds in my hand,
Diamonds in my hand--right here,
Take them Babe they're your's to keep
Broken pots in ancient tombs spill them out and angels reappear."

That's great Spends - really it is.

Wonder what you're really like in 'real life' - I shall ponder that in bed...

x

No tying you hands behind your back now. Promise.

I know. I thought it up on the spur of the moment and it impressed me. I knew you would understand it.

It sort of came out of trying to get near to Dylan's

"Been so long since a strange woman has slept in my bed
See how sweet she sleeps, how free must be her dreams
In another lifetime she must have owned the world, or been faithfully wed
To some righteous king who wrote psalms beside moonlit streams."

That's as good as anything Shakespeare wrote.

"Shakespeare, he's in the alley,
With his pointed shoes and his bells,
He's speaking to some French girl who says she knows me well.
And I would send a message to find out if she'd talked
But the post office has been stolen and the mail box is locked."

Hey smorgsie--how about you going on the "Romance Novel-a collective effort" thread. The three lesbians have just had a hot session in a motel and a passing pair of intellectuals have overheard the racket through an open window and have sat down on a bench to share a half bottle of some fancy American 500% proof with a name which expresses a nostalgia for simpler times. One is a professor who is a speaker at the "Is You a Monkey or Is You Ain't" conference on evolution, which is in a hall across the road from the motel, and the other is an Archbishop who is an observer. There's some light banter and then one of the ladies, blowing hair from off her forehead and phewing a bit, approaches them with a view to taking the piss only to discover that the Professor was her---well--professor in her student years as a budding Criminal Investigator.

Sounds interesting don't you think. Her name btw is Christina and she has taken to bad ways with a glee you can get a glimpse of from reading some of the early posts on the thread and they are only literary shadows of the real thing which a character in a novel, especially a romantic one, is expected to go through. And been through.

And there's a hero in the background called Ronaldo whose ultimate destiny is to carry Christine back to a country house with roses around the door and her discover the joys of embroidery and piano scales and take great pride in how enjoyable he finds her cooking and so appreciative of her performance of other duties that he has been known to buy her a high-tech deep-fat fryer for Valentine's Day and a joiners toolbox for her birthday. But that's the last chapter. For me. If some of the ladies wish to have another chapter in which she freaks out and leaves him in a pool of blood so be it.

It will relieve the boredom of working in a job centre during the slack periods which the manic periods are designed to provide. And I'm sure you have something to contribute.

I look forward Madame, well you are manager now, to your graceful permission to enjoy the pleasure of you approving of my request .

I am not a manager any more, I was acting up, and have re-joined the rank and file on't shop floor. It's a position I'm more comfy with and although I am still manager grade, I am no longer a HEO merely an EO (Executive Officer as opposed to Higher Executive Officer) and do not have responsibility for all staff. I now manage only one staff - my glamorous assistant - Darryl, who I adore, and spend my days giggling with over extreme smut. Although there are days I want to hit him with my extra long, Civil Service issue ruler...

My job is LMRA (Labour Market Recruitment Advisor), I deal with employers, employment law, recruitment requirements, fair recruitment practices as well as advice (to Jobseekers) on applying for work and effective CV's, you know - make sure they spell liaise right and **** like that.

I will look at the thread, though I do not have any writing talent and absolutely hate romantic fiction. Will check it out though, see if I have anything to contribute without being boring (see above).

x

Loving the thread spends - but I can't join late, the 'flow' and the writing is too good. Will follow though.

Can't you put grown up words in? What's with all the bleeps and ***?

x

That can only mean that the public's perception of what an Executive Officer and Labour Market Recruitment Advisor, starting at £18,000 per year rising to £33,000 and having skills in people management, communication, analysis, numbers and ITS, accuracy, a responsible approach, integrity, the ability to remain politically neutral, the ability to work to deadlines, team-working skills, initiative and an awareness of current affairs and social policy, is something of an illusion designed to make the situations vacant columns in the Grauniad look like a newspaper for intellectuals. Which is what I had always thought.

I ought to warn you smorgsie that my reading of the Coalition's agenda suggests Job Centres might be near the edge of the kebab skewer. Which would be a turn up for the Grauniad what with it having so many Liberal Democrat friends.

If one was considering applying for such a middling rank role in the Civil Service, which I joined fairly soon after the school summer holidays had finished and I began "looking for work", and one felt one had the attributes I listed above, would one look in a Jobcentre or in the Grauniad?

I've never actually been inside a Jobcentre. Or a "Plus" one. It must surely provide a window on the world.

It was an affectation. I had thought the grown up words were getting a bit cliched and that deciphering the bleeps might add weight to them. Renew interest in them. And I arranged personal choices when I could so that the scenes they were used in were multi-textured and the reader could exercise their aesthetic taste something as they do with wallpaper sample books.

If it's still where Nigel turned to Christina with that smile surely you have an idea how to handle that with or without an Archbishop present. I could do it.

A very insightful post spends, chuck.

Yes, it is a window on the world, one which I frequently wipe with the sleeve of my black Civil Servanty cardi - in an effort to see more light...

But such things, opinions, thoughts etc I cannot write about here, there are VERY strict rules regarding posting on 'social' sites, sackings have taken place...

I need my job, and yes, we are on the skewer. I couldn't be a customer in a JobcentrePlus, I know what goes on there...

Maybe I should hedge my bets and apply to Experion?

x

You had grey hair and were wearing a grey top and lived in a council block (I have no idea where that came from) and had a kind of cockney accent. It wasn't actually anything like my actual impression of what I imagine you to be like.
I should stop eating cheese indeed.

That's in the oil industry isn't it?