Very busy week, which means between kids, shopping and work I'm neglecting my Blog.
Sorry.
I'm gonna make a bit of an effort tonight, so watch this space and see what happens. There's tons of stuff I want to add, it just depends how awake I am later on.
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Monday, February 09, 2004
Things are hotting up on the work front
The Pub I work in has been closed for a refit for five weeks. We open again on the 11th. For the past couple of weeks, we've been having pre-opening training, getting used to some new rules and making sure all the new staff are up to speed.
It's been a terrible challenge, especially yesterday, when the kitchen staff were put through their paces, cooking everything on the menu - and, as it would be criminal to just throw away such wonderful food, the bar staff just had to eat as much as they could!
Oh the trials of training!
Today we get to "role play". Half of us are cust...oops, guests...who must order drinks and food from the other half who are providingthe bar service. Then we sit and eat, paying atention to the floor service.
When we're done, we swap over and the group that just ate get to do some work.
Terrible, just terrible.
Anyway, that's pretty much the reason I've not kept up with what I wanted to do. There's lots of stuff in the pipeline, I just hope I get the time to write it all out.
Keep checking back, and don't forget to add your own comments if you want. I'd enjoy hearing your feedback.
It's been a terrible challenge, especially yesterday, when the kitchen staff were put through their paces, cooking everything on the menu - and, as it would be criminal to just throw away such wonderful food, the bar staff just had to eat as much as they could!
Oh the trials of training!
Today we get to "role play". Half of us are cust...oops, guests...who must order drinks and food from the other half who are providingthe bar service. Then we sit and eat, paying atention to the floor service.
When we're done, we swap over and the group that just ate get to do some work.
Terrible, just terrible.
Anyway, that's pretty much the reason I've not kept up with what I wanted to do. There's lots of stuff in the pipeline, I just hope I get the time to write it all out.
Keep checking back, and don't forget to add your own comments if you want. I'd enjoy hearing your feedback.
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Eden Camp
A modern history museum focussing on World War Two, with impressive, if rather basic animatronic displays. Eden Camp was originally a POW detention centre and this local history was well represented with fascinating artefacts and documents from the Camp itself.
Each of the huts houses an extensive display focussing on a single aspect of the war, with displays taking in the Blitz, the work of the SOE, war at sea, Hitler's rise to power, rationing and more.
The site as a whole is wonderfully arranged and although it's slightly obvious that the place has seen better days, there's plenty to fill the four hours they advise you to set aside for your visit.
One thing you have to experience if you go is the Restaurant. Places like that simply do not exist anymore! Old fashioned food, served and cooked by real people with real ingredients. A treat for good food lovers, with such retro favourites as Stew & dumplings and fish & chips, all available with lashings of gravy, mushy peas and beans. The treats don't stop there as there's a constant soundtrack of crackly 40's radio classics and some of the most indulgent moreish puddings I've ever eaten!
The kids loved it, we loved it and if we're ever in the area again, we'll definitely be paying a return visit, if only for lunch!
It's a blast from the past for Grandads and Grannies and an enthralling and informative look at a bygone age for anyone younger, well worth a visit.
Each of the huts houses an extensive display focussing on a single aspect of the war, with displays taking in the Blitz, the work of the SOE, war at sea, Hitler's rise to power, rationing and more.
The site as a whole is wonderfully arranged and although it's slightly obvious that the place has seen better days, there's plenty to fill the four hours they advise you to set aside for your visit.
One thing you have to experience if you go is the Restaurant. Places like that simply do not exist anymore! Old fashioned food, served and cooked by real people with real ingredients. A treat for good food lovers, with such retro favourites as Stew & dumplings and fish & chips, all available with lashings of gravy, mushy peas and beans. The treats don't stop there as there's a constant soundtrack of crackly 40's radio classics and some of the most indulgent moreish puddings I've ever eaten!
The kids loved it, we loved it and if we're ever in the area again, we'll definitely be paying a return visit, if only for lunch!
It's a blast from the past for Grandads and Grannies and an enthralling and informative look at a bygone age for anyone younger, well worth a visit.
Coming up...
Once I'm not being bombarded by manic Toddlers, I'm planning to post a few different things today
* A quick, spoiler rich preview of tonight's episode of Star Trek: Enterprise
* An introduction to some of the Green issues I'm interested in, adding some sites to the links section.
* An account of our Holiday visit to "Eden Camp", a former WW2 Prison Camp in Malton, North Yorkshire.
* My plans for this year, including where I'm thinking of going on Holiday this year.
* There's a few things I want to get off my chest too, so today should be a full day
* A quick, spoiler rich preview of tonight's episode of Star Trek: Enterprise
* An introduction to some of the Green issues I'm interested in, adding some sites to the links section.
* An account of our Holiday visit to "Eden Camp", a former WW2 Prison Camp in Malton, North Yorkshire.
* My plans for this year, including where I'm thinking of going on Holiday this year.
* There's a few things I want to get off my chest too, so today should be a full day
Superbowl?
Am I the only one in the world that doesn't care about Timberlake whipping Janet Jackson's boob out?
Looking around the web this morning, it seems like it.
Of all the celeb chests I'd be interested in getting a glance at, Jackson's doesn't even register on the 'Witch radar. Indeed, the work "Ick" springs to mind.
Looking around the web this morning, it seems like it.
Of all the celeb chests I'd be interested in getting a glance at, Jackson's doesn't even register on the 'Witch radar. Indeed, the work "Ick" springs to mind.
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Marked for life Paul Magrs
Mark is covered from head to toe in tattoos, his wife, whom he met when the taxi he was riding in knocked her best friend over, is having an affair with a policeman. Her mother lives with her lesbian lover - a naturist who claims to be over three hundred years old.
Mark's ex-boyfriend writes to him from prison, on lilac paper, jealous of Mark's relationship and family life and vowing revenge. When it becomes obvious that all is not quite as it seems, events begin to spiral out of control, leading to a confrontation which no-one could see coming, quite literally.
Imagine the League of Gentlemen rewritten by Alan Bennet. An entoxicating glance of the magic that can hide in even the sleepiest geordie Council Estate.
Despite the brevity of this review, I enjoyed this book immensely. This is Magrs' first novel and it shines. There's a wonderful quirky magical edge to his writing that is quite unique. He's written two more novels based in and around the same estate and they too are filled with the same quirky sense of normality with just that trace of magic.
Definitely a recommended read.
Chick-lit
You know the type, the big, thick, 14-point-font novels that sell well among women heading for a fortnight on the beach, with bright spines, warm and inviting on the bookstore shelf, sticking out from the thrillers and classics in their uniform grey, cream and black. A pastel oasis, written by women, for women (even if they're really written by men), dealing with "women's issues", which seem, in my limited experience of the genre, to be feeling bad about your body, getting pregnant, finding the right man (and doctors and therapists do seem to do well on the "Mr Right" front here) - or sometimes more importantly finding the right diet.
"Good in Bed" by Jennifer Weiner is just such a novel. The heroine, somewhat uniquely, is a "larger lady" which in Chick-lit terms is anyone over a size 14 (UK Size 14 - let's not get into the odd US system here, I am after all, not in the US). She has all the attending paranoia and self esteem bypass expected of big women in our enlightened society. She is, of course, reasonably successful in her job and unlucky in love, having just split up with Bruce, the man who, if not the love of her life, was a pretty good candidate until she'd had enough of his lack of ambition and drive.
She goes through the usual angst, the deep sense of loss, the denial, the yearning...that is until he gets a job at a rival magazine and starts writing about her in intimate detail.
Now this is my first problem with the book. Bruces' first article is a work of art. Entitled "Loving a Larger Woman", it is a perfect example of a modern, confused male feels when faced with the insanity of public perception. He bemoans the state of a society where good people are lambasted and ostracised because they don't fit the template provided by models in magazines. He praises the qualities that matter in people, in women and in Cannie, the main character, in particular. He documents her warmth, her comfort and her giving nature. The article is a glowing beacon of acceptibility in a world of injustice and prejudice.
It falls on deaf ears. The one line guaranteed to cause as much bad feeling in the unwary as possible - "Loving a larger woman is an act of courage" - is written large on the page.
The article is included in the text of the novel as Cannie reads it, but of course, she cannot accept or recognise the tone or context of how it was written, believing herself humiliated, despite the good reactions of her friends, family and work colleagues to the article. This sparks a whirlwind of emotional turmoil that sees her stumbling from one situation to the next, with happy and unhappy outcomes by turn. Her burgeoning success is tempered by regular articles about her, by her faliure to lose weight, by the revelation that one of her idols is a drug addled wasteland of a person, and by the death of someone close. Underlying all of this is the vast gaping hole left by her father, who walked out on them some 15 years earlier. This is something that was never really resolved, but then under the circumstances, it really never was going to be.
This book has a little of everything, pain, pleasure, loss, discovery, bitterness, misery, post natal depression, druggged up celebrities, California beachlife and a little dog.
Not a blockbuster, but a solid example of a genre which I quite enjoy reading, which I find to be a gentle escape from the norm. For an easy read and a glimpse of how our words can destroy egos and lives despite our best intentions, this is definitely a decent choice of reading matter.
"Good in Bed" by Jennifer Weiner is just such a novel. The heroine, somewhat uniquely, is a "larger lady" which in Chick-lit terms is anyone over a size 14 (UK Size 14 - let's not get into the odd US system here, I am after all, not in the US). She has all the attending paranoia and self esteem bypass expected of big women in our enlightened society. She is, of course, reasonably successful in her job and unlucky in love, having just split up with Bruce, the man who, if not the love of her life, was a pretty good candidate until she'd had enough of his lack of ambition and drive.
She goes through the usual angst, the deep sense of loss, the denial, the yearning...that is until he gets a job at a rival magazine and starts writing about her in intimate detail.
Now this is my first problem with the book. Bruces' first article is a work of art. Entitled "Loving a Larger Woman", it is a perfect example of a modern, confused male feels when faced with the insanity of public perception. He bemoans the state of a society where good people are lambasted and ostracised because they don't fit the template provided by models in magazines. He praises the qualities that matter in people, in women and in Cannie, the main character, in particular. He documents her warmth, her comfort and her giving nature. The article is a glowing beacon of acceptibility in a world of injustice and prejudice.
It falls on deaf ears. The one line guaranteed to cause as much bad feeling in the unwary as possible - "Loving a larger woman is an act of courage" - is written large on the page.
The article is included in the text of the novel as Cannie reads it, but of course, she cannot accept or recognise the tone or context of how it was written, believing herself humiliated, despite the good reactions of her friends, family and work colleagues to the article. This sparks a whirlwind of emotional turmoil that sees her stumbling from one situation to the next, with happy and unhappy outcomes by turn. Her burgeoning success is tempered by regular articles about her, by her faliure to lose weight, by the revelation that one of her idols is a drug addled wasteland of a person, and by the death of someone close. Underlying all of this is the vast gaping hole left by her father, who walked out on them some 15 years earlier. This is something that was never really resolved, but then under the circumstances, it really never was going to be.
This book has a little of everything, pain, pleasure, loss, discovery, bitterness, misery, post natal depression, druggged up celebrities, California beachlife and a little dog.
Not a blockbuster, but a solid example of a genre which I quite enjoy reading, which I find to be a gentle escape from the norm. For an easy read and a glimpse of how our words can destroy egos and lives despite our best intentions, this is definitely a decent choice of reading matter.
Monday, February 02, 2004
Yahoo Group
The "Yahoo Groups" link by the counter at the bottom is new today, although the Yahoo chatgroup it points to isn't.
I'm quite eager to get to know the people who visit, get their opinions and thoughts, good, bad, insulting or otherwise, so please consider either joining the Yahoo group or leaving a comment on the entry you most liked/hated.
It doesn't take long and it might just make a difference.
I'm quite eager to get to know the people who visit, get their opinions and thoughts, good, bad, insulting or otherwise, so please consider either joining the Yahoo group or leaving a comment on the entry you most liked/hated.
It doesn't take long and it might just make a difference.
February!
God January went fast!
I was reminded earlier of a silly thing from my first job. I was a filing clerk for an insurance firm, and did a stint in the post room. It took me two whole days to work out how the Body Shop could need so many claims.
Knowing nothing about them, I had no idea it was the name of the place cars are repaired.
D'uuuuhh.
I was reminded earlier of a silly thing from my first job. I was a filing clerk for an insurance firm, and did a stint in the post room. It took me two whole days to work out how the Body Shop could need so many claims.
Knowing nothing about them, I had no idea it was the name of the place cars are repaired.
D'uuuuhh.
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