UK Watercooler 32: Fall Into The Meaning Gap

Oh how did Diamanda Galas go?

... let me guess:

WAHHHHHHHHHHHH.... tinkle-bonk.... SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE... plink plink.... AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEE

I knew of the nigel havers site. I saw him asked about it on terry wogan on uk gold. The guys a bit of a fruitcake apparentlynot Nigel Havers)

btw Boris have a website now.
http://www.myspace.com/borisdronevil

Bastards are touring with Growing but no Scotland date. I wanna see Growing!

No, Diamanda was really good. Very emotionally intense, and perfect for the state that I was in.

Ha ha, I thought at first you were trying to say Boris Johnson had a MySpace. I've gone right off him since he started opening his mouth.

Why has ILX gone all weird revival today?

Usually they wait til bored fridays

What other messageboards are there on the web. That are, you know, multi-interest, not just about music?

I think it's time for me to find one. OK, wait, no, it was time for me to find one about 4 years ago. But better late than never.

argh, the deluge has come, and me without my umbrella

Is it deluging down South? Oh no. I have an umbrella, but I also have a bass which does not fit under said umbrella.

very much deluging in CR4

Which means it will be at SW16 in about 20 minutes.

Wait, I'm not going straight home! I'm going to Surrey Quays.

Also... I have finally, after only, oh, 5 weeks here, discovered what my job is supposed to be!

If only I'd been talking to the techie all along instead of the useless admin type boss.

I'm sure theres millions of multi-interest message boards, but also millions of wankers on them far worse than ilx.
Only other boards i post on regularly are Doomed Forever(used to be Southern Lord til Greg pulled the plug) and VLV.
I do sometimes post on stonerrock.com and I Hate Music.
I dont think i could post on another general interest board. I ignored ILE for like 4/5 years when i 1st read ILM in 1999/2000.

Does Ned still post on the cooler? I've hardly seen him post these past few months compared to usual.

And where's Mitya ,emil.y, FP ,onimo , mark c and ailsa and anyone else I left out?

After this morning's events, I have just sent this letter to my agent:

Hi ::Kate's Agent::-

Just to let you know, my boss has rescinded use of the internet for all purposes, so if you need to contact me for the next week, please do so by phone on XXXXXXXXXXX rather than on email.

I have to say that I am rather relieved that this project is coming to an end. This is one of the most poorly managed projects I've worked on in my life. I've been left for days without any kind of adequate direction, let alone supervision. Attempts to get any kind of basic information about the project have been passed from department to department, and when I try to follow up my requests, I get told not to "pressure" people.

Despite all this, I have managed to come up with some workarounds and got the project done to the best of my abilities. (This is nothing short of a miracle, considering that I've developped some kind of reporting before the developers have actually even finalised the basic dataset of the database. I explained this to my supervisor as like trying to paint the walls of a house which has not been built yet.)

My manager has been absent for days or even weeks at a time, at crucial stages of the development. I've been left for days at a time, with no answers to requests, trying to stretch 20 minutes of work a day into eight hours - and then, to add insult to injury, criticised for accessing my personal email during that downtime. Information has been so lacking that it is only now, in week 5 of a 6 week project, that I've actually been given the full, relevent background to the project.

I realise that this email sounds like one long complaint. I can only compare this project to others I have worked on, and indeed, the project I worked on and completed in the course of being "lent" to another department within this agency.

I just wish to say that I have done as much as I can within a difficult situation.

Please tell me this wasn't a really stupid idea, but after weeks of complaining about having nothing to do, they've just told me I can't use the internet. I asked, directly "what am I supposed to do, read a book?" Which I am now going to do. Talk to you at lunchtime, I guess.

Sounds like fair comment to me

This is definitely not a stupid idea. (s)he is your agent, and if you can't tell this to them, who can you? They are meant to work for you. If the client has issues with your work and complains to the agent, they have some immediate comeback/defence that they can use in your defence. And in their defence too, as they will be defending the commission they earned by placing you. Naturally, if the client does not 'complain', the agent is not going to go in guns blazing as they will be more interested in keeping the door open for them to place more people (including yourself, your not wanting to go back notwithstanding...)

So, yeah.

I just had a job interview! But don't ask me how it went, because I always think interviews go well, even when they haven't.

I have just been offered a job! It's all go!

I was googled! I don't like that. No.

Sounds fair to me, Kate, and Mark G very much OTM.

Congrats GG.

I am starting to be capable of being busy at this job, which is pleasing.

this pm I find out whether my 12 week notice period here is negotiable or not.

12 weeks!!!!!! WTF how is anyone ever meant to leave? Although if they are shedding people then maybe they will let you go sooner.

It's usually negotiable.

I thought that was what mine was at my last job, but... well. It wasn't. It also protects you and guarantees you a big payout if they decide to make you redundant.

Congratulations on being offered the job, Mark, and congrats on a good interview, Tom!

Despite all that, it still took my boss over an hour to provide the materials needed for me to get on with my job. And then we had a fire drill. Tra la la.

I mainly sent the email to cover my arse if this client complains about me, and specify exactly *why* this project is running over. (Even though it isn't running over currently, all of my end has been done due to my workarounds.) It's also just insulting for them to insinuate that I'm somehow wasting *their* time when it's been obvious from Day 1 who is wasting time around here.

Anyway, I'm now doing my documentation. Well, actually, I'm not, I'm eating delicious adzuki bean curry and checking my email, obviously. I cannot wait for this job to end.

Oh! Oxford people, go and see FreeLoveBabies tonight, because I cannot:

Show Time: 27 Mar 2008 - 21:00
Venue: the cellar
Address: 3 George St
City: oxford
County: Midlands
Country: UK
Post Code: ox1 2at

Or maybe I will, just to spite my job, and call in sick tomorrow. Grrr.

Oh, and here's the final finished version of that guitar I designed the last time I was in Northampton:

http://photos-a.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sctm/v216/225/64/778760598/n778760598_2591976_711.jpg

I got a genuine 1920's flapper film in the post on DVD, this:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018673/usercomments

Wow, what a blast - a cheap exploitation movie from 1928! (it's full of lingering shots of the flapper girl's bare back and bare legs, and at times appears to have been shot by a shoe fetishist!) It goes from being fluffy and frivolous to suddenly quite serious in the middle, when the flapper girl's straight-laced sister (who is always running her down) dumps her husband and runs off with another guy, and flapper girl tears into her, calling her a "cheap hypocrite". The end, a crazy scene on a burning rollercoaster (!) is beyond belief. The title cards are all in '20's jazz-speak. Oh man

Aw, that sounds great!

Bloody recruiters... for the first time I was quite happy to get a very obvious call from a headhunter while in the office, so I went off in the bathroom and took it. Don't give me access to email, then the headhunters ring me. That's what happens.

But he said he would email me specifications of this role, and of course, hasn't. Bah!

My agent is supposed to call me at 6. I don't know whether to hang around here to take the call or rush off somewhere else. I don't want to rock the boat if the client hasn't complained, but I do want to register my unhappiness if there's any hint of problems.

I have now completed 10 pages of documentation in the course of the afternoon, so they can't complain too much. Sent it back to them and told them to get on with reading it, then get back to me.

So the ball is back in their court now.

It is not good to have such an adversarial atmosphere between client and consultant. :-( For either me, the client, or the project. This makes me very unhappy.
:-((((

Oh, sod it. Or maybe on both:

http://www.portrait.gov.au/exhibit/cecil/_lib/img/large/exhib_8.jpg

Friday. At last.

Pub tonight, anyone?

It's finally NOT LENT and no one wants to go to the pub with me. I'm going to do a cry. Boo hoo hoo. I'll just go home and watch Chariots of Fire. By myself. Again. Wah, etc.

Tzr just asked me to do ANOTHER review. A lead this time. WTF?

And why do I keep saying yes?

Because they love you?

The flapper girl from the film:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3185/2366656471_ebb47ed14e.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2358/2366657559_5a78448b79.jpg?v=0

i would happily go to the pub with you kate but they'd be closed by the time the plane lands :(

Flapper girl is excellent!

But with the time difference, surely it would work, Mitya? The russian pubs would be closing, but the Russian Bar in Shoreditch would just be getting started!

Not that I'd uh, want to go there.

Guess it's going home and making stir fry and watching CoF again. Unless I stop at a shop and buy some new films. I got my timesheets signed, but keep forgetting to turn them in. They owe me a couple of thousand pounds by now.

I'd come to the pub with you , but I live a million miles away.

I have four films on my HD, one of which I shall watch tonight. Should I watch:

Midnight Cowboy
Chinatown
Repo Man
Election

Repo Man! Plate of shrimp!

I thought I had that, but apparently I don't. Maybe I'm thinking of the soundtrack.

Where can I videos on TCR? That are not of a dodgy variety. I suppose I better walk down to the Zavvvvy or whatever it's called.

I would doubt that zavvvvvvvy has tapes either. The only place that seems to have them are small coprner shops with greying copies of when harry met sally and robocop.

I'll give Repo Man a go then. I hope it's not rubbish.

I like Repo Man. It helps if you're into early 80s So-Cal punk though.

Sorry, geez, I'm turning into an old lady. By videos I mean DVDs, natch. I can't stick videotape in my powerbook, oh no!

No, Repo Man is just funny, fullstop. It helps if you're into crazy conspiracy theories and like laughing at punks and scientologists and the government alike.

There is a great place on charing cross road, corner of old compton st, run by the grumpiest human in existance, that sells dvd's of silent films, old musicals, vintage comedies, black and white melodramas etc.

Off to norway, not through LOLT5, fortunately.

Repo Man is certainly not rubbish! It's very funny & weird.

Zavvi is a terrible shop. I'm amazed it's kept going TBH.

That sounds like a great place, Ed. I must take a look next time I'm in London.

I wonder if I can get down to Compton St. in my lunch hour. Probably not, and I bet if it's run by a grumpy dude, it will be closed by the time I get out of work.

All I really want is Brideshead, Bright Young Things and maybe another season of Bab 5. I've got to get through my upcoming unemployment somehow!

I am being forced to take a lunchbreak due to the developers doing updates on the DB. Lord knows what will be missing again when they are done. Sigh.

I have a strange craving for a bagel (probably due to dreaming about eating bagels) but I know there's nowhere around here I can get a decent one. Sigh.