It's written in the starz

Thank goodness for horoscopes


According to the reliable source which is Russell Grant I can expect the following to happen to me today:

CANCER - June 22nd - July 23rd  Updated 14.12.2011 At long last, you're seeing some movement on the job front. Requests for interviews and work samples will pour in. Be open to meeting with potential employers, even if the position advertised doesn't thrill you. It's always helpful to brush up on your interviewing skills. The more you practice, the easier it will be to land the position you really want. The relief of making your way back into the workforce will ease the stress that's been building up. The resulting surge of energy will be exhilarating. Having considered this it seems to me the horoscope indicates that I have already put in enough leg work to chillax, so I have decided to spend the majority of the day in my pyjamas. If I choose to get a little bit wild I may stick the heating on full blast, get the hula hoop out, get naked and create some obscene routines to Christmas songs. Team Win  I am also an ickle bit hungover today as "Team Win" kept up the magic last night and won a new pub quiz, so pyjamas and/or nudity seems somewhat mandatory.In Team Win there is a hardcore of three; betterthangoogle (he really is), thevoiceofreason (again he really is - anyone who can veto my ridiculous suggestions is already a winner) and me queenofcrapculture. Everyone else is a guest star. We have moved quiz venues - essentially because the last pub was a mix of lesbians and homeless people, which I was fine with, but the boys kept pointing out that this was not ever going to result in another kind of win if we became regulars. Mid-week hook ups? Seems unlikely to me, BUT WE DARE TO DREAM, and the whole pub quiz business only started as a way for us to meet up and have a laugh and now WE ARE WINNERS! So who knows? Maybe we could meet our future ex husbands/wives after 5 pints and pocketing £70. I know I would find such a meeting charming and alarming in equal measure. In other news... The care home campaign is thickening somewhat and has become awfully complicated. I am still applying for jobs. I have discovered that rapping and hula hooping at the same time is not a task which I find physically enjoyable. I took a pint of Amstel back to the bar last night and DEMANDED my Strongbow and correct change. A new low.

Characterisation - Part One

The context of characterisation
This blog has been relatively self indulgent with no real personification or intricate references of the magically diverse group of individuals who help make my version of the world a better place. I think an introduction to specific characters and miscreants periodically is thus required.


Last night as promised I ventured into a local public house, which until about five years ago was a great watering hole because it never pretended to be something it was not. Now however, it has tokenistic flock wallpaper displayed at regular key wall intervals and is punctuated with bold paint colors and a mish mash of "vintage" furniture. 


The real main difference between now and five years ago to unemployed me is the cost of pint of cider £2.70 to a whopping £3.75. Great. 


After realising the cider was so costly, myself and The Troll hit the mojitos; stronger and tastier. Thanks to his other worldly powers he had convinced the barman to upgrade the mojitos to include Mount Gay Rum. Yum.


The Troll
It was over these mojitos that The Troll started divulging snip bits of his life as a freelancer. My understanding from this conversation is that he is now technically unemployed until February. But will still tell people he is freelancing. Incidentally it was National Freelancers Day this week (on the 23rd of November). In knowledge of this I told him "to get a fucking real job and to stop riding on a bmx to get to business meetings". Now I have this blog, according to The Troll I am a freelance writer. If I choose to raise this in open banter hopefully the conversation will stop at that point and I will not have to explain I am self publishing through the powers of blogger.com.


The Troll is one of the many loves of my life - but there is no romantic or sexual inclination from either party. Though he will attempt to touch my breasts from time to time. He is a hairy little man boy complete with a sexy set of moobs. He has been like the little brother I never wanted to me since I have been 14 and he has been 12 (this is even though we have known each other since we have been 8 and 6). Our friendship became cemented after a series of highly inappropriate teenage escapades in a field outside of Lewes. He claims I groomed him. I claim he was, and still is a willing apprentice. He refutes apprenticeship and now contests that he has officially earned the dual title of "partner in crime and co-founder of The Family of Misery". He is probably right. To be honest I can ring the troll and we say things to each other as follows (a typical thrice daily conversation);


The phone rings. It connects. He picks up. It is 2pm on an otherwise pretty unexceptional Friday afternoon (yesterday);


Me: (cheerily )You fucking little shit.


Troll: (equally cheerily) Whorebag, I could really deal without hearing about your unemployment misery today. What the fuck is it?


Me: I want to howl to the moon.


Troll: ( despondent) Not this shit again, Halloween was last month.


(About three years ago I abandoned Troll mid way through a night out, the next thing I know I get  a phone call from my family who found him in the middle of a night club howling at the moon. Showing loving concern they filmed him, took pictures and danced around with him. Asking me what to do, I explained the kindest thing would be to put him in a taxi with a note and send him back to his mum.To this day, no one really knows what happened to him that night. There have been many other nights like this, with and without howling involved. But whenever either one of us get the urge to get our rocks off we make it clear by "howling" down the phone. What a pair of dicks).


Me: (flat and disengaged) Fine. But I need to do something. 


Troll: (aggressive) Shush. Listen. I AM BUSY. I am a self employed freelancer. I do not have the time to deal with your childish requests of a drinking partner. 


Me: Sighs.


Troll: Do not fucking be like that with me you fucking little bitch. I said I. AM.BUSY.


Me: (pathetically, but endearingly) But trollie, I have a business proposition for you I need to discuss with you, the perfect venue of which would be a pub.


Troll: (in a probing and curious manner) Is this an actual bonafide idea? Or have you been hanging about in a crack den in Cambridge Road or Oriental Place?


Me: (smugly) No crack.


Troll:(in an aggravated yet an amusing tone)  WHAT THE FUCK IS IT?


I hang up.

The next time I see Troll after this conversation is like I said in the pub last night.I did not get home until 2:37 am. No howling was involved. 

An unemployed tale of troll
The troll used to work in London say around 2008. We spent a lot of time together. I was a few bus stops away (Wilesden to some part of Ealing). The troll did not tell me he had lost his job (walked out or got fired I can not remember, but based on previous I would say packed his bags and left head held high with a big grin on his face) for two months. A month later he left London. I was devastated his leaving me in London. I needed our special time. At the time I was recuperating from major surgery so I would hobble over to his flat doped up on some concoction or another the Dr had given me.  

What I had not noticed in this in this whole two month time period was that the troll had not cleaned his flat for about 4 months. I only noticed when he cleaned the flat, it looked amazing. Totally beautiful. It had a floor and surfaces. He said I could not go in the kitchen. Once he entered a food coma I went in the kitchen. It was UNFUCKINGBELIVABLE.  The troll had squirreled away all his mess and put it in the kitchen. It was worse than a scene from Bottom or Trainspotting. It was a squatters paradise. It was riddled with e-coli and listeria and so only a troll could withstand such uninhabitable conditions.

What happened next is so disturbing and hilarious that it is necessary to extend this tale of the unemployed troll into another blog entry... 

Capital One

The Phone Call
I have just had "The Phone Call" from what would have been my future-ex-employers in two years telling me "I am afraid you have not been successful". 


This is the first time I have ever had such a phone call in my professional career. I should have trawled internet job forums for advice about how to handle such a call. I had an awful sense of foreboding about all of this anyway, I should have taken a pre-emptive strike on-line to better prepare myself.  I am trying to remember if, like a wounded teenager I used the phrase "whatever". I am hoping it was just my internal monologue and I did not actually articulate it.  Well, whatever. Like I give a fuck now.


Why
Apparently this had nothing to do with my skills or experience. I am comforting myself by telling myself that those skills are pretty much faultless and this job would have involved me taking a £10,000 pay cut thereby DE-SKILLING ME . Of course I am in no way bitter. Allegedly this is to do with the fact that I was not enthusiastic enough. I think her words will cut me forever (more than a manically depressed EMO can cut themselves)  " The other candidate was more enthusiastic than you".  What I should of asked, but did not was :


DID THEY TURN UP WITH 20 FUCKING BANANAS? DID THEY? How much more enthusiasm do you need?


Along with the rubbish reasoning and rationale of these charlatans what I am also quite peeved about is the whole interview process cost me about £200 which I borrowed (travel expenses, producing materials etc) and because no one at the Dole Office told me I could claim travel expenses or get support I am stuck paying that back.I can not even claim it back retrospectively. I must remember to thank my Capital One card with its' 30% interest rate for its' ongoing support in these times which are starting to turn a little bit bleak. Or rather than thanking my beloved credit card, I could adopt a pseudonym of "Pauline" and go to Argos (JSA pending) and stock up on some lovely jewellery from the Elizabeth Duke range and march down the Dole Office and start a demoniacal unemployed rage aided and abetted with some Special Brew.  


Misplaced Anger
It is really quite insulting they bought enthusiasm into this. I am well qualified and have always been very passionate about my work, to the point where some people I know would openly and actively dread me turning up at a social occasion because I would (in their unenthusiastic and dreary opinions)  kill it with entertaining love/hate tales of my vocation. If they hated it so much they could have stopped inviting me.Thus I concluded they perversely enjoyed my Catherine Tate style sketches.


My anger is clearly misplaced. I should probably read some shit about CBT on-line - maybe that can help me become a better, more well-balanced, overenthusiastic and employable person? 


Or I could just get the hell over myself and apply for other jobs? 


I think I will watch some Made In Chelsea later to make me feel better about myself, that will reignite my impetus to succeed. They are my peers after all. 




Moving On


In other news the pub quiz team I am a now forced to be a part time member of (due to lack of funds because of a lack of JSA landing in my bank account) has successfully secured 3rd and 2nd place in the last two consecutive weeks. At least when I do get my JSA I can go to the pub quiz and potentially feel like a winner again. This evening I am going to go and hunt down some friends, who will see my teary eyes (NOT ACTUALLY CRYING)  and not judge me when I neck £20 worth of shit pikey cider courtesy of Capital One. I am sure they will be happy I will not be talking about work. Instead I will talk about unemployment.  In which case I am sure they will wish I was working again. 


God Bless Capital One and God Bless Cider.

The Dole Office Part Two

A week later on Friday the 4th of November 2011 at 10:25 am at point B I sign on officially for the first time. My reward? A stubby pen with which I stab my signature on a piece of paper which I assume is part of the bureaucratic process which will enable me to claim my glorious £67.50 per week. Thank god I am almost 30, those who are under 25 can claim a measly £53.45. 

As part of the protocol, and once she has snatched the prized stubby pen from what I have now realised are my equally stubby fingers I hear the first attractive person say in a really husky, smokes 40 a day, due to the social demographic she interacts with say "Have your circumstances changed since last week?" at this point I make eye contact with her and briefly wish I were a lesbian,  muster a sigh, a shrug of the shoulders and a somewhat nonchalant "No". 

The amount of people I would perform sexual acts with in the room has increased dramatically from last week: one. I am still dumbstruck it is with a woman. 

Job Club

As a means to evade boredom and to meet up with people in a similar situation (also to hopefully include a spot of afternoon drinking) I have arranged a "Job Club" with my unemployed brother and his best friend. My brother does not show up. His best friend does. And later in the same afternoon as I signed on for the first time I am sat in a local library surrounded by fellow unemployed bums, students with no aspirations, some actual bums who smell like bum and my brothers best friend. I feel the world closing in. Thankfully my brothers mate leans across the table and suggests what every recently unemployed person on a tight budget loves "A pint of cider?".

With the first meeting of Job Club over and no possible leads (The Evening Argus really was VERY disappointing that day) we headed to a local pub. The weather turned. Which actually worked out in our favour, we ended up in a beautiful pub by the fire with ploughman's and some locally brewed cider and ale. My brother showed up. He was equally at a loss with the lack of job prospects that day.

The First Interview

On my way home I dutifully checked emails on my phone. Amazingly I had been offered an interview for a job I cheekily put an application in for a week after the closing date. Job Club had inadvertently had its' first success.