I scream, you scream we all scream for SNOW!!!

Its official with only 12 days left until the official start of Spring (March 12th for all those not in the know) its decided to become more wintery than ever. I didnt realise that seasons could make a last ditch cling to life as winter has, but its offical, its still here.... just.

However it has been a weird kind of day. We started off with about 2 oC on the meter, however as soon as the sun came out it was very pleasant and warm. In fact we laughed at the weather mans prediction of blizzards and ice as we strolled between lessons. Bearing in mind that for the last two months if you strolled you froze; today came as some what of a surprise.

So into the middle lessons of the day, and as all great British people do, we started to talk about the weather. Just as we began to sing its praise for delivering the goods, it clouded over, and started to snow, all within the space of 10 minutes.
Shows what we know about the weather.

So lunchtime came, and as I set about my usual slog to do some more work I met up with a good friend of mine. (See fellow student blog). Together we decided that as it was snowing it as good a time to drive the downhill route to go and actually get lunch from Tesco.
So we spent all of our hour break driving around, and testing his Rover Metro's breaks. Squeals of 'theres some unspoilt snow was common place as we emergency stopped our way around the neighbourhood. Interesting results followed, especially when one wheel was spinning faster than the other.

Please note my dear friend is a careful driver and we would never do such a maneuver infront of moving traffic. Not without me looking behind us anyway.

So all in all a good day, with one extra plus point. I scored one over my Dad. He refused to believe a price I quoted him for a product, and after phoning up to order I was proved right.... as usual. :)

News Flash

France:
Recently an Art Thief in Paris nearly got away with stealing several paintings from the Louvre. However, after planning the crime, getting in and out past security, he was captured only 2 blocks away when his Econoline ran out of gas. When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and then make such an obvious error, he replied: "I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh."

Afghanistan:
Saddam Hussein has been found hiding in a cornfield after a tip off by locals. The American authorities sprayed gallons of Viagra onto the fields, and the prick stood up.

America:
The LAPD, The FBI, and the CIA have been trying to prove that they are the best at apprehending criminals. George W Bush has decided to give them a test. He released a rabbit into a forest and each of them has to catch it.
The CIA goes in. They place animal informants throughout the forest. They question all plant and mineral witnesses. After three months of extensive investigations they conclude that rabbits do not exist.
The FBI goes in. After two weeks with no leads they burn the forest, killing everything in it, including the rabbit, and they make no apologies. The rabbit had it coming.
The LAPD goes in.They come out two hours later with a badly beaten bear. The bear is yelling: "Okay! Okay! I'm a rabbit! I'm a rabbit!

England:
The European Commission have just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's govt conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase in plan that would be known as "EuroEnglish": -- In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c".. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with the "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"'s in the language is disgraceful, and they should go away. By the 4th yar, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaiining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!!

Round Up - This will kill your brain, not your weeds.

Well its now over a week since I began to write this blog. It seems to be going ok, but in order not to tempt fate I wont say any more on the matter.

Its been a very busy last few days. Friday saw my birthday, but more importantly a chance to go out and party, which I did. We all had a great time at the Thistle Hotel in town, with no-one I care about being too drunk.

Apart from that I've been working at the hotel, its been pure manic. Our £10000 pot wash broke down... again. Third time in two days. So I spent a rather unenjoyable evening transporting dirty dishes from our kitchen to a much smaller pantry like area with a small washer. Then returning the now sparkling ones back to the chefs for them to make dirty again.

Here endeth Saturday.

Sunday was just as bad, but this time we had a wedding fayre. We also had a selection of limos and wedding cars placed all over the front of the building. It was my job to tell the drivers of said vehicles that should there be a fire they would have to move them.
One driver was a little taken back by my answer to his question of "why?" To which I not-so-tactfully answered, 'because if you dont three very large fire engines will move them, and they arn't known for being gentle.' As you can tell 8am on a sunday just makes me so happy.

Happy Birthday to Me, and other things.

Oddly enough, this morning passed mostly like any other, with the eternal struggle of my need to get up, and my will actually to do it.
Bleary eyed is an understatement, try cataract eyed and blindfolded. However somehow I managed to get the right limb in the right hole of my clothing and stumble down the stairs to scavenge for food.
The post had not arrived so no huge pile of decorative paper was waiting for me, but what was there was extremely nice.

Not much in the present department either, but that was expected as I had used up my present fund last week on a huge drinking session in Aberdeen.
Yet as I sat down to force some orange juice down my neck, something hit me. Not my mother as expected; but more of the fact that I can now legally vote. Of all the things I can now do legally, that one struck me as being most poignant.
Maybe the fact that going down the pub has been a weekly occurrence for the last 6 months lessened the impact of what my new age can do. Ditto the ability to see 18 movies. The fact is the average guess at my age is 21, therefore I haven’t been ID’d ever.

It also struck me that there are a few things that I cannot yet do, such as hire a car. Depending on what you are after you need to be at least 21 and in some cases 25.

As we draw near to the end of today’s rant, I am just going to go slightly soft and give a dedication to some very dear friends of mine. Not some certain unmentionables that embarrassed me completely the other night, but two unsung hero’s of the IT world.
I am of course referring to Weevil – see the inspiration blog link, and her permanently chipper work mate Baldrick.
They have literally taken me in, well in to their warm, cosy office and have patiently put up with my weekly stupid questions. Supplying caffeine related beverages, and generally a genial time. More honest and hard working people you could not meet.
So here it is, ladies and gentlemen, please fill your glasses, and raise them in a very humble salute to my friends Weevil and Balders.

I can see clearly now. (1 day to go)

Well its official, my eyes are now back to their normal terrible state. 5 months ago I had my second squint correction, the first being 14 years ago. However after the all clear today, I am pleased to announce that my vision is back to being just severly short sighted, rather than severly short sighted and all over the place.

In other news, half the hotel seems to be on their death bed, and so, once again I've been called in at last minute to cover for them. Not a problem tonight, but if they think I'm going to work tomorrow they have another thing coming. Plus they have been warned that I'm going to be hungover saturday. Oh well their fault for forgetting really.

Weather: We had SNOW!!!
I told you that this blog could get random.
It wasnt real snow, didnt settle and wasnt anything to look at.

Fitness: Anyone wanting cheap exercise in Bristol, go run up Park Street. Beets going to the gym any day. Had to do it today to get to the hospital. Good job there are plenty of Cafe's up the top.

Gotta get ready for work now, boo hoo.

2 Days to go.

On Friday (24th) its my birthday, yay. Thought that I would just get that off my chest.
Its also the day of our VI Form Ball, where we can all go and get very drunk in a posh place.

However that is then, and this is now. I've just had a text from the lovely people at work asking me if I can come in tonight and work an extra 5 hours because someone is sick. Normally I am the kind tolerant person who would gladly step in to aid my fellow workers, however tonight its hard cheese for them!

If you have read the earlier blog about my work you will already know that due to an administrative error I now have to work this weekend. Which means that my plans for my birthday weekend are now spread over a week where I've had to rearrange them. Tough for them.

So tonight I'm off to go and have some fun, bowling and fine-ish eating at some of our local establishments. Preferably where they don't check id's.
I have high hopes too that I may come away with a victory in the bowling too, I may not be accurate, but I can certainly put some welly behind the ball.

Additional:
I came second both times with the bowling. However while at the restaurant the bastards made them play happy birthday over the PA. I hate them all sooo much.

You can only finish it once.

It would seem to me that it would only be possible to finish anything once. That was until a particularly large essay had to be handed in. Proudly, and tiredly I went to hand it in, all 3 million pages. In old money, that is around half the New Forest.
So imagine my indignity when I was given it back two weeks later, with the other half of the New Forest stuck to it in the form of post-its.
To cut a long story short, it has now taken me around a month to finish it completely. And I’m sick of the sight of it.

It did however get me thinking, dangerous I know, about what else you can only really finish/do once.

1. The most obvious is your own life. That really is a wee bit terminal.
2. Secondly, being born. You can only finish that once too, no climbing back in.
3. Killing someone else, well if you can only die once, its seems fair that the rule should stick to everyone else too.
4. Become old. Judging by observations of some women around the place, once is enough for anybody.
5. Have a squint operation on one eye.
6. Win the lottery jackpot. No one has ever won twice.


As you can tell, doing all this work has made my brain hurt. So im off to caffine myself up and then bounce off the walls.

Cheerio

Nowt as queer as folk

It could be said that when it comes down to it, people are stupid. A person is a smart intelligent being with rational thought. People are dumb, senseless animals. However this isn't always the case.
For example at work today we have collated all stupid requests/complaints and chosen some of the best.

1. "Please move the tea and coffee facilities closer so that our guest's dont have to go as far." What this doesn't mention is that the coffee facilities were only 30 yds away, but they were down 6 stairs and through an open door. And by facilities they wanted us to move the coffee machines that happen to be plumbed into the wall.


2. "We cant open the fridge." Simple answer, try turning the handle. What was worse was that they were an engineering team.


3. "The headboard suddenly jumped off the bed in the middle of the night" She was the only occupant in the room, and the headboard was sound before she entered the room.


4. "A glass has managed to jump out of the bath and break itself all over the bathroom floor." Enough said.


5. "I thought I would steam all my clothes" Seems innocent enough, but at 3 AM under a fire sensor!!! Needless to say this guest wasn't popular with the other people in her party.


6. "I'm so excited to be here! This is the Solent Hotel isn't it?" Only 130 miles out love.


7. "I'm here for the Smith wedding" That was yesterday sir.


8. "I'm here for the conferance, am I too early to check in? The name is Smith." Two days too early sir.


9. "I'm running late for my flight, please tell me I'm near Heathrow." Welcome to Bristol, how may we help you?


10. And now for my personal favourite. "Can you turn the noise of the ducks down outside my bedroom window?" Um.... theyr'e real ducks madam.

I don't want frills, but I resent not having the option. Or why I hate Easyjet so so much.

Through out any given year it is a good approximation that I will be airborne at least a dozen times. I have only ever used Easyjet twice; the second time was a case of needs must. There are many things I hate about this breed of no cost-not answerable airline, below are just a few of the best reasons to avoid them.

1. What you see is never what you get. Fantastic prices are always given on their website; however they 'forget' to include the return cost, the price of taxes, when this price is available etc. Therefore to get their fantastic low price, you have to travel at 4:30 am, into an airport miles from your destination and only if you return within the next 3 hours.

2. "Belfast! That's 20 miles that way!" In order to maintain these fantastically low prices you have to fly to some godforsaken airport miles away from your destination. Take Belfast International and Prestwick for prime examples. Around £10 to get into the centre of towns.

3. "To save you money we operate a free seating policy" How does not printing up to three characters save money? 21D oh that's 0.000002p saved! And to think they pass on all that saving on to you. The result is a scrum for the aircraft, usually with business men leading the charge like the opening of the 6 nations. I know they ask for families with young children and old people first, but how does the other 60 members of their party suit this? So you end up with no window seats, and being forced to sit next to the little bastard who's been screaming for the last two hours.

4.Have some cheesy nibbles, now with real artificial cheese! So you have taken the plunge, sold your soul for a non transferable, non refundable and non-guaranteed paperless ticket. You accept that the airline owns your baggage should it go missing and that they will not give you a complimentary drink. You know all this; you just want to get from point A to point B, preferably in one piece. However you have to endure (insert flight duration here) of sales pitch either telling you to; rebook another flight as soon as you land, buy lottery tickets with 0.1% going to charity, book a rental car or just buy some crap cosmetics to keep the cabin crew happy.

5.Final reason for now, the planes are just appalling. We are talking about overworked, under maintained fleets of (usually) Boeing 737 sardine cans. They really know how to pack you into these things, with little thought for comfort. Last flight I had with Easyjet felt like it had straw in the seat padding. The leg room is totally non existent so that your legs are buried under your bum somewhere. And they are that close together you get to breathe whatever your new neighbour had to eat for lunch.

A easy answer to all of these problems could simply be, don't fly. However for the more practicable amongst us I suggest British Airways, or my new found friends at Eastern Airways. I'm not easily won over, but EA planes are small and cosy with character, the service is fantastic - they still give sweets out on take off and landing, and free champagne is included from the complimentary bar.

And if you still don't believe me, get a copy of Channel 4's Dispatches programme on Ryanair. They are if its possible worse than Easyjet, but not by much.

Its good to try, but not more than 40%

"Its good to try, but not more than 40%" Possibly not what the university professor wanted to hear out of his students when asked; "how hard do you have to work here?" luckily he wasn't in the room at the time.

For those not in the know... So I suppose all of you, I've just returned from a day at Plymouth university for one of their 'course specific' open days. It was all rather good, especially as they decided to feed us before even finding out why we were there. It started off with a brief talk from the head of department (business school), followed by talks and tours from various other members of staff/pupils. Sorry Student ambassador's. Culminating in coffee and cake at the very end. Fantastic.

So after leaving home at 9am we hadn't really planned what's for tea. We decided by a vote of 2:1 that it was going to be a Indian, a rare treat indeed in the BT household. Unfortunately the staff at this eatery had possibly been listening to the talks that I had, because they were certainly not giving 100%. I wont bore you with the details, but needless to say that we aren't going there again, and after all the extra running around they had to do because of their mistakes, I doubt we would be welcome either. We got home around 8pm, so after 11 hours on the go, with 4 of them in a car we are all pretty tired.

One thought did strike me though as I fish around for ways of closing; for those of you who know the M5 near Weston-Super-Mare, next time you pass in darkness look out towards the hills and see whether you agree that Bristol Airport's runway is scarilly close to the edge. I swear I could see someone on a plane thinking the same thing.

My Work: From Incompetence to Incontinence and all in between.

Well here we go, post two of... Well.... Two I suppose.
Anyway, I've just returned from work tired and grouchy as usual. Therefore putting me in the perfect mood to sit down and complain about it all. Lucky you.

It started off all rather well, first of all the complete b'tard of a Duty Manager wasn't in, which always lifts some of the dread that surrounds the entire building. The second good thing was that my Assistant Manager was handing over to me, meaning that generally most things hadn't gone to hell and biscuits. Lastly there wasn't a huge amount for me to do and so I should be leaving early. All in all it sounds rather good doesn't it.?

Unfortunately he then asks me to check the rota for next week to see whether it was ok. Instantly my face fell.
Me: What happened to me getting the weekend off?
AM: Um oh yeah... I.... Um forgot.
Me: Well that's ok because you haven't told anyone else yet have you? It was only done today.
AM: Ah well no, this was done yesterday, and everyone else has the weekend off.
Me: What about my birthday, how can I go and get fuzzy headed (at other peoples expense) now?
AM: Ah... Sorry well its not too much bother is it, you can do it some other time.
Me: You just be damn thankful I'm a nice person

NOT MUCH BOTHER? I ASK FOR ONE WEEKEND OFF A YEAR AND THEY FORGET, WHY WOULDN'T IT BE MUCH BOTHER!!!???

Anyway, as you may be able to tell I was in no mood to be messed around, which would explain why AM left promptly afterwards. So one setback, but the rest of the night should be good yes?

So feeling a little better once I had gone out to the compactor and crushed a few pallets (I'll explain some other time) I headed off to work. Halfway along one of the many many corridors pushing a trolley laden with assorted glassware, out of the blue comes a running screaming child. Who promptly runs smack into said trolley and falls over backwards. Cue livid mother wanting to know about why her child was now on its back screaming. Sometimes I do have to consider whether its worth speaking to these people, they never seem to listen to what you have to say. So after considerable squabbling and frantic hugging *the baby not me* she walks off.

I enter one of the rooms that I'm servicing and find its in a shockingly tidy state. This is unheard of, business clients usually treat the place like a zoo, not a hotel. However today it was spotless with all dirties to one side and all the chairs stacked. Promptly I look around and see a short, friendly looking face in one of the doorways, she's smiling and says "did I do ok?"
It took me a while to realize that she was in one of our housekeeping uniforms, and that she was actually speaking to me. But once my senses had regained from the shock she explained to me that she had done this to all the rooms. Thanking her profusely I went back to my work with gusto.

So its true what the Mint people say, for every dumb thing that happens, something smart will happen else where. Its just rare for it to happen in the same building. Incidentally I still haven't found out the name of the kind housekeeper, but I did get out of work 90 mins early. Yay.

So here's to you anonymous lady, may you keep our department happy forever.

Oh and as for the incontinence bit, lets just say we have our share of drunken guests too.

Definitely the first, hopefully not the last.

Well here we go... One tentative step at a time into the unknown world of blogging. I have to admit I've never been more conscious about playing with the big boys/girls/people. Please mentally delete any that you disagree with. My nervousness probably extends from the fact that the only other blogger I know personally is an Oxford graduate, who could put the dictionary people to shame.

Anyway seeing that I've actually managed to bluff my way through my first paragraph, continuing may not be such a bad idea. So who am I?

1. I'm whatever you want me to be, only probably less exciting.
2. I'm just about to set off to Uni, I probably don't have as much money as I should by now, so looks like student life will suit me.
3. I'm very rarely at home, not that I dislike my parents, its just that I'm allergic to the house (or that's what I tell them.)
4. I have friends all over the place, not just a bus ride from home either; many choose to live as far from me as possible. Current standing is 6 in Scotland, 4 in the South, and many nearer home who just cant be bothered.
5. I have an infinity with traveling. (See above for a reason why)
6. I have one brother, who is currently serving with the army and for some reason is currently in Norway attacking glaciers.
7. I'm allergic to many forms of animal, however none when cooked.
8. I'm a total carnivore, however have never been heard to pass off free vegetables.
9. I'm incredibly hard to get drunk, the money usually runs out before I'm on the floor
10. I'm running out of ideas

So there's a start for you, there's probably more to tell but none of it really interesting. Hopefully you are still awake after reading this, which implies that you haven't been too bored. Either that or you are that bored and are willing to read anything.
And to those of you who have gone to the land of nod... I don't know why I bother... So I may as well stop.