UK Watercooler 32: Fall Into The Meaning Gap

Diamanda Galas is practically classical music, albeit, well, modern composition.

I like sit-down gigs, but this is because I'm old and my back and knees give out if I have to stand up for too long.

Has that announcement been made yet, or will that be after lunch?

One of these days we'll get to the Sage for an actual concert. (do they do gigs? Prob not)

The Baltic, sage, sunday market, etc is one of my favourite places to be. Might well get there this weekend.

The announcement is still unmade and hanging...

I'm getting old enough to want to avoid tightly-packed standing crowds, myself. The last gig we went to, we lurked right at the back.

hey do you guys have a bank holiday weekend fr/mon? is it easter there already?

Yes times two...

Yes mitya, both days.

I saw van der graaf generator at the sage, it was very good, the acoustics in the small hall are excellent.

I'd probably have seen other bands, but promoting their gigs has never been one of the sage's strong points - the VdGG gig was 1/2 empty, all the other tour dates were sellouts, I only found out it was on about 2 days before. Hopeless!

Ooh good, Low are in the small hall.

We went along to buy our tickets directly, last month. We got to the front of the queue and asked about the Low gig, and the chap behind the counter said: "I thought you looked like you'd be wanting tickets to Low - I'm going to it myself!"

...typical. I said I'd do it, and now I don't hear back from him.

Ah, I've got an hour to start thinking about what I want to have for lunch. Sag paneer again, no doubt.

Hello, all, busy morning. I am growing slightly disgruntled with the job here, it is feeling like the old place a couple of years ago. The software I have to support is a dog's breakfast with 4 main code trunks, a number of actual products and a layer of branding over the top with is, to say the least, confused.

Recruiter who got me this job called me this morning, I asked him to call back later, I hope he is calling to see if I am settled and not to put evil thoughts in my head.

Do you think that other places in the same line of work would be the same - that it is a problem of the nature of the business? Or are these places both just badly run?

i.e. is it something that you could change - either through working things out at this job (learning from the past mistakes of the old one) or at getting another job - or is it just the nature of the beast, and something you'd have to put up with anywhere? (And therefore career change would be more necessary for being re-gruntled?)

I am eating Sag Paneer. Numness.

I think it is common to places that had a lot of money very quickly and spent it badly, of which there are many in my industry. Not sure if it is something I could change but I can try and influence

I am a little worried that, working in any VC backed company, the VCs may lose interest if returns aren't forthcoming. In addition I don't think that the CEO they parachuted in is doing enough to change entrenched ideas and practices. I worry that in these situations it tends to be last in, first out.

I talked about some of these issues at length with all three people who interviewed me, but they put a very good gloss on it.

Things are very serious today, let's have a picture of a mean looking cat:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2152/2345477432_b8ca7c8eea.jpg?v=0

I am happy, because I have accidentally discovered the best site on the interweb:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/

I was actually googling for "the nature of consciousness"* (because I was discussing it with one of the OKC suitors) and it had a link to an article there about neuron firing.

*He says on his page that he is interested in this. I certainly hope that he means in the scientific sense, because googling also lead to some um, rather philosophically unsound looking cultish sites, and articles about philosophy. I suppose this is a problem one can come at from many different angles. Scientific, religious, philosophical, sitting around really stoned going "wow, duuuuuude."

Oh dear.

That cat is saying "I wuz promised FLAT PANEL dude"

Cats don't like flat panels because they are not as warm and impossible to sleep on. My bandmates' cat is very fond of sleeping on top of their old iMac because the monitor fan makes it so warm and cosy.

My cat was very fond of sleeping on top of my old CRT monitor, too - until the day he apparently knocked it on the floor while I was out.

My cats sometimes lie on our laptop, which isn't very good as it's a piece of shit Dell that's prone to overheating at least 5 times a week.

Sorry, I'm lost in reading about DARK MATTERS and GIANT COSMIC VOIDS!!!

A giant gaping hole in the universe, how great is that?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070823164846.htm

Are cats just better/more popular than science?

:-(

Harmonia are playing Glasgow in July. and supposedly Cluster will be playing later in the year too.

It'll be Kluster next

Then Lilienthal

Are you coming up for it?

They're playing here first, of course, these provincials *sigh*

Your ma might wanna go

Well they did that big announcement - but the details are still cloudy. The biggest division of our company is being sold off - but for the immediate future, the new owners have signed a services contract with the rest of the company. So, my job carries on as before, except that I might be called upon to be exceptionally anal about which office I am doing jobs for at any particular moment. For now, at any rate.

So no change then?

Well, at least your position is safe.

That's the main thing. Were you worried FP?

I was a bit worried - we knew a sale was ongoing, but not the details. This does mean that if there's a risk of me losing my job, I should get at least 3 months notice of it.

And a whopping great redundancy payment?

Get that in writing!

Sigh. Turns out my boss is actually in today, but shows no sign that he is ever going to meet with me. What should I do? remind him? Or would that be hassling him?

If it's been all day and you've not spoken to him, remind him!

I have only got 45 minutes left in this dump. I'm not going to risk it.

He has gone now. Tomorrow, I will remind him. I am seriously counting down the days until this assignment ends.

Come on, mood, shift shift back to good again.

This strange gig I'm playing on Monday gets less and less organised and more and more strange. I wonder, at this point, if it will actually happen at all.

When is the Diamanda Galas gig? I wonder if I would like her.

I'm supposed to go tonight. I have no idea, I can't tell what you'd like at all.

Today looks to be even more shit than the rest of the week - forgot to buy a travelcard this morning. I'd been intending to get a daily one for today and not buy another one until next Tuesday, to save money - but then got stung at St. Pancras and if you don't just renew the weekly one, they whack a fine on you which works out to more than a weekly travelcard would cost. :-(

Oh, good old Carruthers, he always makes me laugh.

What has he done now?

We have been arguing about the giant hole in space.

Oh, I have a headache and tea has not made it go away.

As predicted in Quark Strangeness and charm.

Mr. Carruthers has all three in abundance. Ha ha.

When are you off for Eostre?

tomorrow, afternoon.

Dear Customer,

We thought that you might like to know that PETE DOHERTY has been confirmed as support for THE SONICS date at The Forum in London this Sunday:

LONDON The Forum - Sun 23 March 2008

Damn, can I swap my Friday ticket for a Sunday one?

Surely you mean can I swap my Sunday ticket for a Friday one?

I daresay there's proba a few Sonics fans wanting to swap for a support band that's anyone but PETE DOHERTY in capitals. Looks like a solo gig.

Well, yes. Oh never mind.