What a week

It has been a very intense few days. Our Document needed to be completed, reviewed, printed and submitted in an electric and hard copy format to our prospective client by Friday. I think it fair to say that on Tuesday this looked like trying to win the Tour de France on a three year old's tricycle. This is how the week went ...

Tuesday
On Tuesday I hauled my backside out of bed at six in the morning and 30% kindly dropped me at the Station in Evesham to catch the 6.50 in to Paddington. All being well, I should have been in the Office and typing plausible bullshit by half past nine. That was without the superb service provided by The London Underground. A journey that should have taken no more than twenty five minutes took me the best part of ninety and involved a diversion down the Victoria line to Stockwell, two separate trains on the northern Line got me almost back on track at Waterloo where I finally managed to join the Jubilee line for my destination of Southwark.

It is going to be chaos down there when an extra quarter of a million people are trying to use an already at  capacity system in an attempt to reach Olympic venues. I envision a scene like something from a post-apocalyptic movie where hostile, dead eyed natives with strange tribal markings prowl the tunnels feeding on the corpses of naive intruders in to their domain. To be honest its not far from that now.

The working day ran well in to the evening and it was eleven before I was checked in to my hotel and realised that I must change my profile in the travel tool as I was allocated a smoking room. I have smoked in seven or eight years and this was not a welcome end to a long day.

Wednesday
Wednesday started with me reaching the office a little after seven. I spent the entire day formulating client friendly responses about Dante's capabilities. There are a team of four or five of us doing this and each day is the same; we draft for most of the day then we review the latest iteration of the document and then we allocate the next batch of questions to be completed for the following day.

I actually managed to get back to the hotel for a late supper at around ten o'clock but there was a further hour at the keyboard before I crawled in to bed and slept the disturbed sleep of the wired person in a strange bed.

Thursday
This was "the big one"; our response needed to be delivered to the client by midday on Friday so today we needed to fill in all of the gaps, review as far as was humanly possible and then send it over for final formatting and printing.

Again I was in the office by seven with twice as much to complete today as I had managed yesterday. Breakfast and lunch were purchased from local shops and a pizza appeared on my desk at some point in the early evening. The only other breaks were frequent trips to the coffee machine to keep my frazzled brain functioning. By eleven in the evening I was just about there and my work was fired over to the individual compiling the document. A few last minute hitches and delays meant that it was a little after twelve before we wandered in to a conference room to view the results projected on to a screen.

At this point I should state that this was not as bad as it sounds and I have learnt a huge amount over the past week, not only about how to manage this process but also about Dante's capabilities and how to sell them to a client. I wouldn't mind doing another one of these ...

... not any time soon and definitely with a modified approach to the management of the task.

By now Thursday had become Friday and our night continued scanning page ofter page for obvious errors. We finished at around four in the morning and it was a cab back to the hotel for a couple of hours sleep.

Friday
The couple of hours sleep was awful. I was wired and tired and felt like I had the worst case of jet lag. I eventually fell asleep to wake ahead of the alarm at around seven o'clock. I packed and checked out of the hotel bumping in to Victor at the hotel reception.

Fatigue meant that neither of us had any desire for communication and we strap hung in silence as we headed back to the office.

Fortunately our work was done and all we were waiting for was the Publishers to complete the formatting of the document. Once they had finished we sent the file over to the printer to produce the hard copy and loaded an electronic version on to the Client's response dashboard ... by half past ten we were done and I was heading back towards Paddington for a train home.

30% collected me from the station accompanied by T&M and I sat in the back being enthusiastically greeted as only dogs can.

Once home it was back to bed for a an hour's kip in an attempt to feel slightly more human. I'm not sure that it worked but I was so looking forward to climbing back in to my own pit later that evening.

More Words

Today the main task at work has been to draft answers to a prospective client’s questions. This is something that I have not done before and I am finding it heavy going. The reason for this is that I am quite able to throw a few sentences together to produce a reasonable paragraph of bull shit conveying the corporate “we can do anything” message but I have no idea whether Victor wants this or something more technical.

I have therefore been passing my output over to him for comment. He seems reasonably happy but does like to tweak here and there. I am also aware that anyone with half a brain reading my responses will know that there may be many words but they don’t actually seem to say a lot. Maybe that the issue; perhaps the client just wants some clear high level “we can do that because… “ statements.

I should have really spent more time at the laptop today but this evening we are out for 30%’s father’s 70^th Birthday dinner so today has been planned to ensure that dogs get walked, work gets done, a suitcase gets dragged from the garage and packed and three days growth gets removed from my chin all before quarter past seven in the evening.

Weekend Round Up

Unfortunately I had a lot of work material to review in advance of next week so both Saturday and Sunday morning was spent in front of the laptop poring over questions and answers identify the all too many gaps. By lunch time on Sunday I had worked out the outstanding items that were within my remit and had sent out an urgent mail to the team to chase for the missing information.

To be honest I don’t have a great deal of confidence that I will get a response as the underlying theme of this project has been one of general indifference to the task. Absolutely every request has to be repeated and chased to get a response and when that arrives it generally has the appearance of being thrown together. It is apparent that no thought or effort has been applied to produce a product suitable of being put in front of a prospective client.

I’m not looking forward to next week as I will be chained to a desk in an office attempting to polish this turd. I am guessing there will be very late nights.

I was resolute that I would not work all weekend and Saturday afternoon saw me wobbling on a step ladder installing the new light in the Office. 30% and I then loaded yet another redundant piece of furniture on to the trailer and delivered it to a grateful friend in need of storage solutions.

Sunday afternoon saw the general de-cluttering continue and this time TP and I loaded up the trailer for a run to the local tip. The large pile of prunings has now disappeared and a monstrous 28” CRT TV made a long overdue trip to join many companions in a skip at the recycling centre.

Next on the list is a spare sofa to the local Charity shop but that can wait until work quietens a little.

TP and I also attempted to do a little tidying up in the garden but the heat made the simplest task exhausting and our hearts really weren’t in it. Eventually we were forced to stop and drink beer instead.

It's not getting any better

Today I finally managed to break away from the hard sums and instead, I wish I could say for light relief, took a look at the words we are proposing to set in front of the prospective client. Hmm, these are just as bad as the figures.

Our numbers have been concocted based on a reasonably factual figure. When I say factual I actually mean factual for a precise set of circumstances. We have then made a number of assumptions and applied a wide variety of ratios to this original figure to present a price for a completely different set of circumstances ...

... this is the outsourcing equivalent of knowing the price of eggs in America and making up  a set of calculations to present the price of a rasher of bacon in Australia.

Anyone can see that this is, and there is no other word for it, "Complete Bollocks" and having read the words I can advise that much of them are no better too. I am truly astounded by the lack of Proposal writing material at Dante's Nine Circles of Hell or perhaps it is more the lack of knowledge of where to access it.

Next week is going to be a nightmare as I am going to be stuck in a London office until late o'clock every evening panicking as we try to fill gaps and polish this turd. Thank God it needs to be issued by midday on Friday, at least the end is in sight.

Today was also the day that we would be advised whether we would be down-selected on the monstrous deal that I had been working for the best part of six months. Unfortunately the prospective client has mad!e significant changes to the scope and advised that although we were very capable and scored highly we were not selected to proceed ...

... Oh Bugger!

The Sales Exec for that failed bid called to offer commiserations and advise that it was certainly nothing to do with the parts we had managed. He is such a nice Guy and I really hope I can find something to work on with him very soon.

First Ride Out

Work was very much more of the same. Victor is so keen to get this finished and in the best possible state that he took the day off to accompany his wife to the Chelsea Flower Show leaving me to run with stuff ...

... Cheers Mate!

I therefore did what was needed, knocked off promptly at five o'clock, threw a light snack down my neck, hauled the Honda from the garage and took her out for the first run of the year. I met up with Chippy Ian and we went out on the A44 towards Broadway before heading out to Chipping Camden and climbing in to the Cotswolds to explore the narrow lanes around Ilmington and Hidcote. It was a beautiful evening and the Cotswolds were splendid in their late Spring apparel of greens and yellows. The evening haze impacted the distant views somewhat but it was still a lovely ride out.

The trip home involved the mandated pub visit and we stopped at the Sandys Arms in Wickhamford. This was a peculiar halt as I spent the first 22 years of my life living no more than 400 yards from this pub but had never had a drink there. I had visit the off-sales hatch many times in my childhood to buy a bottle of R Whites Cherryade and crisps but this was my first ever venture inside...

... well all I can say on that front was that I am glad I hadn't planned a special visit out there. They sell alcohol and soft drinks there is nothing else of merit. If you are looking for a Country Pub  there are plenty better within easy reach.

The off-sales hatch was still there but now obstructed by a passage way filled with redundant pub ephemera. I cant believe that I used to be so small that I could barely reach the counter.

W is for Wednesday ...

... W is for War Room.

Today Tigger and I were imprisoned against our wills in a very small cell and forced to do hard sums.

Highlight of the day was when Victor asked "if Tigger is doing the sums, what are you doing?" and my witty riposte was "Well I can always fuck off and do something else!".

It is fair to say that we are deep in the shit and only Tigger has a legitimate escape with his preplanned Golfing Granny Pulling escapades in Torquay next week. I have to stay here an do the hours until Friday 1st June when we deliver what ever we have pulled together to our prospective client.

Victor is expecting "Bells & Whistles" the realist in me is thinking more along along the lines of "no gaps and very few spellign misktakes".

It is at this point it is probably worth stating that our bid budget is miniscule and with the $50 available Victor wants our finished product to be a leather bound illustrated manuscript with the odd titillating picture here and there.  He is more likely to get something that looks like a Fourth Formers Jotter...

... so at least he stands a chance of a smutty sketch.

It Lives!

Today has been pretty much like yesterday apart from the fact that I worked from home.

The Sales Exec's view of progress is "not in good shape". That review was about as helpful as "don't run with scissors" * ...

... For Fucks Sake! I know it is not in good shape that is why I am asking him for clear guidance not some cheerful waffly bollocks that gets me absolutely fucking nowhere. This Exec is a nice guy but he is not too hot on the management aspect and I am guessing that this may well be new territory for him too.

Anyway, from now on he will be called Victor as in V is for Victor, V is for Vague amorphous bullshit spouting know-it-all.

Putting work to one side I took T&M for a walk around a very sunny Three Miler and then wandered in to the garage with the keys to the Honda ...

... Chippy Ian had rung yesterday and, after telling me how much I owed him for fixing our stairs, he suggested a ride out on Thursday - If I could still afford to buy petrol. The Honda had sat through the winter connected to a battery charger and fired up on the third or fourth attempt. Looks like I'll be finishing work at five o'clock prompt on Thursday.

It also looks like I'll be mowing the lawn this evening as I can't use tinkering with my bike as an excuse not to.

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* as in "tell me something I don't know"

Making Up the Numbers*

Today Tigger and I trundled in to the nearest Circle of Hell for the latest scintillating phase of our project...

We have already spent many happy hours coercing reluctant SMIs in to providing us with barely literate product descriptions when the prospective client actually wants honed prose that makes our products look like one simply cannot survive in Business without them!

Now we have to come up with some Rough Order of Magnitude Pricing to make them look attractive too. You know the sort of thing ... not so cheap that it looks like we are using a scabby monkey with one arm in a sling to support their systems and not so expensive that it appears that we have employed Steven Hawking as a Console Operator.

What a shitty day it has been ... and to make matters worse the Sales Exec has lined me up to present "our" findings to to the EMEA Sales Director on Wednesday. Needless to say the aforementioned Exec didn't actually bother to give any clear guidance until last Friday and certainly didn't ask me if I thought we would be anywhere near ready on Wednesday ...

... I don't.

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* The working title for this entry was "I am so screwed". The only glimmer of hope is that the last Project may recommence in earnest on Friday 28th and I get dragged back to work on that one**
** it is amazing that a Frying Pan / Fire scenario actually looks attractive at present.

Catching Up

Hmmm ... It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that the past few days have been quite busy and, as is usual when work is intense, I do my best to avoid a keyboard when I can. As a result I find myself sat in front of the TV on Sunday evening trying to remember what I have been up to since last Monday's entry.

Tuesday: How not to do it
Tuesday was another day of frustration as information failed to flow in. Late in the day our first set of responses arrived and I realised that one of the main reasons why I was feeling somewhat out of control was that my method of tracking progress was not the most the most efficient. I am sure I have mentioned that I have never carried out this type of task before and the short timescales have not allowed much time for planning, mentoring or reflection. As a result our "tracker" is a combination of document and spreadsheet. This is most definitely not the way to do it and I now know that the only way to do this efficiently is to spend time up front building a decent spreadsheet to detail all of the information that needs to be collated. Owners, responses and therefore progress can then be easily managed ...

... Oh well, I'll know how to do it properly next time.

Wednesday: T&M Get A Haircut
There is nothing much to say about work on Wednesday, "more of the same" sums it up quite neatly. The Idiot Manager showed himself to be a lazy sod by asking both Tigger and me for a copy of the same document and steadfastly refusing to actually contact the person that actually owns the document. The reticence on his part puzzles me but it is apparent that whatever the reason he sees no issue with taking up the time of busy people rather than going direct to the source. He could be shy but I think it more likely that he is just trying to flex his managerial muscle ... In his case this is an atrophied appendage much like your or my appendix.

Away from work T&M receive their first professional clip of the year and arrived home in the early afternoon looking very smart indeed.

Thursday: An Early Start
Today I was out of the door at quarter to six as I needed to be at a hotel near Basingstoke for a Briefing Session with our prospective client at nine o'clock. I was somewhat apprehensive as this is new territory for me but it went well, my questions were well received and my input to the follow up sessions at our nearby Circle of Hell seemed to hit the right spot too. It was a long day and I was very glad of the G&T when I finally walked through the door at half past seven.

Friday: Another Day in the Office
Again I had to climb in to the Defender but today I only had to trundle in to the Nearest Circle of Hell. The Sales Exec had finally got around to making his mind up on how he wanted to provide the client with sample pricing. I had been pushing for guidance on this for several days and I think it fair to say that I am not best impressed with having a fucking huge amount of work dumped on me and also being set up to present my "findings" to a Sales Director next Wednesday... For Fucks Sake - this is so bloody complicated it will take me a week to get my head around it let alone make up some numbers. It looks like Tigger and me will be back in the office next Monday.

In the evening we went over to see Paul Merton's Out of My Head show at Warwick Arts Centre. This was not your normal Stand Up routine and it saw Paul and a company of three other actors perform a Review type show based around the start of his career and a brief spell in a psychiatric hospital after suffering an extreme adverse ration to anti malarial pills. It was not crammed with belly laughs but it was funny and innovative when compared to most "comedy acts". There were several special effects performed where the cast were dressed in black and performed against a carefully lit black background to make them invisible; the squadron of white rabbits re-inserting Paul's brain to the Dam Busters theme tune was quite surreal.

Saturday: A Change of Pace
After a manic week at work I decided to try to forget about it for a while. This morning TP and I popped out to pick up a few vital items for his Duke of Edinburggh Award overnight hike that he will be undertaking on Sunday and Monday. He now has all his camping odds and sods and we also managed to buy a new pair of school shoes without argument too. This is amazing occurrence as he usually seems to have problems grasping why I am reluctant to buy him a pair of £100 high fashion items so that he can play football in them and have the toes scuffed by the end of the second day of ownership. ...

 ...needless to say the shoes were a lot less than £100 but I am not sure that my threats will prevent the playing of playground soccer.

The afternoon saw a trip over to Alcester to visit the food fair. It was a great afternoon out as the High Street had been closed to traffice and about a hundred stalls had been erected selling a wide variety of tasty treats. There were a lot of variants on the theme of chilli sauce but amongst the chaff there was wheat and a fine pork pie and some amazing sausages came home with us along with some fab nibbles to go with a gin and tonic...

... Olives anyone?

The evening saw TP's rucksack packed in preparation for tomorrow's hike.

Sunday: A Change of Plan
Today started early as TP and a couple of his mates needed to be dropped off at school by eight thirty for the start of their two day hike. Back home I breakfasted and then took T&M for a walk around the Three Miler.

On my return the plan was to deliver a large and surplus glass fronted cabinet to a friend but it was a case of "hangover* stopped play" so 30% and I lunched and then popped in to town for a few necessities before I retired to the sofa for a much needed kip.

I then spent a couple of hours with a laptop on my lap trying to get a headstart on next week, followed by another hour with the iPad typing this drivel...

... way too much typing and thinking for a Sunday if you ask me.

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* the friend's, not mine

Familiar Faces

Monday was pretty awful awful day at work. I am not at all comfortable with the role I have been asked to fill and the man in charge doesn't seem overly keen on giving direction. I therefore feel like I am getting nowhere and that is made worse by the fact that I also don't really know where I am supposed to be going. The net result is frustration and dissatisfaction. It is probably best if I leave it at that.

Away from work I spent some time pottering on the Landing and put these fellows up on the wall. They have been tucked away in a box for far too long and it is great to see them staring out. They might not be everyone's cup of tea and also might seem strange in a 1750's house but we think they look great and really seem to work in the space.

Bottom Right reminds me of a former Boss

Weekend Round. Up

As has been the familiar pattern over the past few weekends the continuing theme for Saturday and Sunday seemed to be space rationalisation. 30% has set a challenging target of getting the house finished by the end of the year. Anyone who has viewed The Pile will know that this will be some feat but I am quite happy to give it go and even if we don't succeed we will be that much nearer completion. We now have only the office, dining room, hall and rear porch to go and the dining room is next on the list ...

... recently we have cleared out much from the office and, although not refurbished, I am now able to work in a dedicated space which is strangely satisfying. The clearing of the office resulted in furniture and surplus household items being deposited in the "to be" dining room ...

... and this weekend we made a start on clearing it. The room had degenerated from a "kid's sitting room" to a dumping ground for no longer required domestic items and had reached the point of being crammed to the gills. Redundant furniture was delivered to a grateful friend and arrangements were made for the Dresser to be collected for stripping. At the same time we picked up another book case that matches the one I bought a couple of weeks ago* so we now have a pair in the office. There is still a fair bit of stuff to go through in the dining room but we can now see the floor and have plans to deal with the vast pile of CDs** and the old television***. It doesn't take a crystal ball to realise that there will be trips to the Charity Shop and much use of the shredder in the next week or so too.

 Dogs got walked, lawns got mown, beds were lay in for as long as possible and wine got drunk. It has been a busy but very satisfying weekend.

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* I also managed to part exchange a Pine Chest of Drawers for a far superior piece in Oak
** iTunes, of course
***  the local tip, of course

Apparently I like Fish Fingers

I started Friday in a slightly more positive frame of mind when I took a couple of steps back and realised that I had only been working on this Project for three days. It would be somewhat churlish to expect progress so early in the engagement so attempted to hold on to this positive view as I trundled in to The Nearest Circle of Hell to meet up with the Sales Exec ...

... much of the day was spent in a small Office reviewing information requests and allocated resources. It wasn't as bad as it could have been as the Exec seems like a decent chap and is easy to get on with. He has a reasonable sense of humour and swears like a Trooper which means that at least he not adding formality and lack of sociability in to an already pressured working environment.

I did manage a couple of breaks and took lunch with Grandad Jack and The Poet which was a pleasant interlude from the Tsunami of questions that need to be answered.

I got home at a reasonably civilised time and although I really should have spent a couple of more hours at the Laptop I put that off to later in the weekend working on the principal that no bugger is going to look at an e-mail from me this evening*

At home my plans for the weekend appear to have been changed as a text from Tim Hyett advised that the Ducati is not yet ready to be picked up from the workshop due to a paint issue. To be honest this is no big deal as we have loads of stuff that we want to get done this weekend and removal of a return trip to Cheltenham gives us back an hour or more. It is not as though I am without a bike ...

... the actual problem is having the time and weather to ride it.

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* not unless it is entitled "Friday Fun" and the content would most definitely not live up to the headline

I see no light at the end of the tunnel

Thursday was very similar to Wednesday except that it had ADDED TIGGER!

When you are about to hunt a nelifunt you need to have your trusted friends* and who better to have on board than Tigger. We spent much of the day trying to work out which Subject Matter Idiots we needed and then raised Resource Requests so that, in a couple of days, we could enjoy the disappointment and stress associated with the "request denied" responses that we will get.

We have made a little progress in a couple of areas but this is an "all or nothing" activity ... we need it all, end of story.

By the end of the day I was feeling tired and very frustrated. I seem to be putting in a lot of effort but I am not likely to see any results or indications of how effective I have been until a couple of days in to next week. It is only then that I will see how deep the shit really is and by that point I will be close to half way through the time available ...

...  Oh Fuck.

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* Oh, and a Winchester Model 70 African Rifle and a healthy supply of .458 Winchester Magnum shells too

Attempting to gain traction

Wednesday was spent requesting resources and attempting to beg favours from colleagues and contacts. To be honest I don't really feel comfortable attempting the "can you do me a favour" approach as this is an absolute pig of a job and if someone is going to get shafted with it it only seems fair that the appropriate process has been followed in order to dump this pile of shite in their inbox....

... basically it is is the only way to prevent them escaping to do something else.

To sum up the day I appear to have been very busy but I am not really sure whether I have achieved that much. I have made lots of requests but it is only when I get hold of named resources and they have completed an initial review of the task in hand that I will finally get a clear idea of how deep the shit is that I am standing in*

Away from work 30% finally got hold of the Upholsterer and we delivered the settee and new hide over at her house. She was very impressed with our eBay bargain hide and is really keen to make a start on the job. Hopefully it won't be too long before we will be collecting it.

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* I am only 5'3" and am therefore hoping that it is not too deep**
** Fat Chance!

Dante's Bumper Book of Outsourcing

I spent much of today getting to grips with the latest Project. This involved a trip in to the Nearest Circle of Hell to meet up with the Sales Exec and many hours pouring over a long document thinking "How the Hell am I going to get that information ?"  ...

... Basically I have been brought in at the very early stages of an Engagement where the prospective client is looking for information on Supplier Capabilities rather than priced solutions. They have just provided us with a very long list of questions and all but a handful of them require detailed responses from Subject Matter Experts.

As is usual we have very little time available to complete this task and key resources are required on other activities. Hence it is the all too frequent story of bad man fighting to get the resources he needs. As the title suggests, the client is looking for a tailored edition of Dante's Bumper Book of Outsourcing in order that they can reassure themselves that we are suitable prospective partner. After all you wouldn't want to be at the point of signing a contract with  Steve's Right Price Outsourcing and be thinking "can they actually manage data centres across the Globe?"

This Sales process is a standard way of initiating an outsourcing deal and you would think that Dante's Nine Circles of Hell would have a honed  set of processes and a team of Geniuses ready to tweak intellectual capital so that this would be little more than a formality ...

... How fucking wrong is that? The words of the day are "indifference", "disinterest" and "nebulous"...

... Christ, I wish I knew what I was supposed to be doing. Ah well, in the absence of clear instruction I will just do something. It has to be better than doing nothing.

The Bank Holiday Weekend continues ...

... and I am afraid that I have nothing of great interest to report.

Sunday saw the end of season presentations at the Rugby Club where TP got to shake the hand of an Hereditary Peer and received a "Trophies-r-Us" medal complete with ribbon for his year's efforts on the pitch. I cheered and clapped with vigour as it now means that I have at least 4 months of Sundays where I do not have to haul my sorry arse out of bed to run him over to the club.

The rest of the day was filled with domestic activities such as lawn mowing and general tidying.

Monday was no different apart from the point early in the day when I was called to the Lounge by 30%. I arrived to see Eddy sprawled alongside a recently deceased young rabbit and he was looking mighty pleased with himself. I must admit I was pretty impressed too as Eddy only has three legs and it must have take some effort to drag that back from the fields, up the drive and through the cat flap. Both Noggin and Tog were quite interested by this scene of feline carnage and I have the feeling that it will not be too long before they too will soon be bringing "gifts" in from the garden.

30% mentioned that she thought Eddy may well have brought it in alive and killed it in the lounge as she recalled walking in at one point to see all three cats staring intently at the settee. It may therefore have sought temporary refuge beneath the sofa.  She also had a vague recollection of  hearing scrabbling and a scream earlier in the day.

On the subject of feline carnage I may have managed to put the cat amongst the pigeons with the final item on my to do list. This was the drafting of a letter that I had needed to write for a couple of weeks. I finally found a few minutes to unearth the necessary details, knock up a few paragraphs and get the thing printed and posted. We will see how that pans out over the next few weeks but lets just say that I am only asking for that to which I am entitled.

The rest of the day was taken up by a trip in to Worcester to look at curtain material and carpets and we came home with a couple of samples. The only irritation over the weekend was the inability to locate the Upholsterer so that we could deliver the cane backed settee and hide ...

... My, my, it is getting frightfully Middle-Class here!

Domesticity ...

Saturday started with a run over to the Defender Centre to sort out a minor issue with the heated seats. Initially I was concerned that they did not work but as I was driving over I switched on the passenger seat and noticed that my bum was getting noticeably warmer. It appears that I had been the victim of the "Dual Control Electric Blanket trick*" and we soon had the cables swapped over and shortly after I was on my way back home.

Back at home I discovered that Kathy H-R had popped round and dropped off a pigs head that was going spare. She had obviously just had a kill and the customer didn't fancy the head. Being slightly more open minded I know of the potential of a pig's head and set to with a sharp knife. 30% popped the ears in a roasting tin and cooked them as a treat for T&M while I carefully removed the cheeks from the skull and rubbed them with a dry cure mixture. In five or six days they will be transformed in to Guanciale and, once cubed in to lardons, are very popular here at The Pile.

30% had also been busy and had managed to find a "friend of a friend" that had a clutch of chicks due to hatch in the next couple of days. Our solitary chick will fare much better reared with other chicks and so it was dropped off to await the hatching of it's adoptive siblings.

The day continued in this vein with jobs being removed from lists. I fitted a pair of new door seals to the Defender in the hope** that they will combat the rivulets of water that trickle down the insides of the doors when it rains. I also managed to reassemble the Band Saw in the garage and fit a new blade. This might seem trivial but the degree of dismantling had almost reached the point where the less patient than I*** would be perusing the Screwfix catalogue and the Axminster Tools website.

The evening saw us take a trip out for a combined 50th Birthday and House Warming Party hosted by the parents of one of TP''s friends. I would like to say that we had a lovely time ...

... but being crammed in with three times more guests than the house could hold made crossing any room not dissimilar to an old fashioned Tile Puzzle. It was no fun at all. Then there was the fact that all of the guests EXCEPT US were members of the same Baptist congregation. This meant that they all knew each other and had something in common. Neither 30% nor I are Church goers and the crush and noise made any attempts at getting to know new people impossible ...

...Needless to say we made our excuses and disappeared after judging 90 minutes to be more than enough.

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* This is a fiendish and pure Practical Joke involving a double electric blanket with dual controls. One simply swaps the controls so that each occupant is controlling the other side of the bed. As a result one person ends up freezing and the other ends up roasting.
** Most Land Rover owners will say "vain hope"
*** These are the people that ride around on unicorns

Hmmm !

It seems that I shouldn't count my chickens even after they have hatched.

I nipped outside after lunch to check on the broody and found her taking her last few breaths. It seems the strains of incubating the clutch were too much for her and she is dying. She had not managed to gather the chicks beneath her and they had chilled and sadly died. I found one chick still breathing beneath her and put it in a box under a lamp. It didn't look very strong but after an hour or so under the warmth of the lamp it had struggled to it's feet and looked like it could make it. In fact by the time I finished work for the day it had become very noisy and was starting to peck at the chick crumb I had placed beside it...

... Let's hope it's luck continues and it turns out to be a pullet rather than a cockerel.

Stepping back a few hours I took an unexpected call from the Idiot Manager where he assigned me a new piece of work that he wants me to progress while the current project is in a quiet phase. This new project looks quite interesting as it will see me take on a broader role as the main technical contact with the client. I'll learn more on this next week when I have my first meeting with the Sales Exec.

Away from work I spent an unnerving half an hour stood on a step ladder at the top of the stairs installing a new light fitting. It is not the height that worried me it is the potential to end up as a crumpled mess at the foot of the stairs that had me wishing I didn't have to do this job...

... obviously I completed this task without suffering either electrocution or paralysis following a headlong flight down the flight and am now looking forward to a long weekend during which we should finish the final few jobs on the landing.

They have hatched, I have counted

Today the plan was to meet up with Golfy and Grandad Jack at the Nearest Circle of Hell and go out for a couple of drinks after work. The plan stumbled in the second furlong when GDJ failed to make the running. We later found out that he was feeling "shyte" and unable to stand the demands of imbibing a couple of post-work shandies with Golfy and me ... Southern Softy.

This change of plan meant that Golfy and I needed a new purpose to our working day. Instead we sat down and started to investigate and arrange some training that appeared to be highly recommended, if not mandated, if we wanted to stand any chance of career progression to the level of Assistant Goblin, second class. The system we had to go through was revolting. It was badly designed, repetitive and contained numerous links that ended in a "404 - not found" type of page. The Conspiracy Theorist in me wonders of the system is intentionally crappy to dissuade all but the most anal from getting ticks in the appropriate educational boxes.

After a frustrating forty minute period Golfy and I managed to arrange just over 25 hours of on-line training. Do you know, some days the fun just never ends!

Jack's lack of fortitude meant that there was little point staying in work all day so I got flexible with the truth and cancelled my one meeting of the day so that I could get home at a very reasonably hour.

The evening saw me finish applying a coat of wax polish to the door at the foot of the stairs and an investigation of the chicken coop  shows that 5 chicks have hatched.

Feeling Dog Rough

This morning's first significant activity was a trip to the Vets with Tyson. Marauder also came along as she has worked out that if she looks cute enough she can blag a couple of dog treats from the Vet while T suffers the indignity of having a thermometer shoved up her backside.

The reason for this trip was that T is suffering from an upset stomach and, after 18 hours of vomiting and worse she most definitely needed medical intervention. The diagnosis was an infection rather than an obstruction and an anti-inflammatory injection and a course of antibiotics were prescribed. The Vet advised that she should be restricted to small portions of bland food and that we should see an improvement by the evening.

Having dealt with that Medical Emergency the rest of the day was reasonably quiet. Today was the day that the eggs under the Broody were due to hatch and, at the encouragement of Village Idiot*, I took a quick peep in the coop this evening. I was reluctant to disturb the hen so gently slid my hand underneath her. I had barely lifted her feathers when I heard cheeping and felt fragments of egg shell. I left it at that safe, in the knowledge that we have  at least one chick.

---

* He turned up this evening with a fist full of stolen Rhubarb, regaled us with tales of his failing health and gratefully munched his way through the leftovers from our supper**.
** Salmon Fishcakes and  chips

Wax Bannister *

William Arthur Xavier "Wax" Bannister:

Born 1 January 1898 - Deceased 23 April 1924

Child Prodigy, Athlete, Gentleman. Inspiration to all Middle Distance Runners.

Today's post is dedicated to this little known amateur runner in an attempt to raise his profile and give him the recognition he truly deserves.  It is a little know fact that "Wax" is attributed with running the first sub-four minute mile back in 1924 with an astounding, but unrecognised, 3 minutes 56 seconds, but more of that later.

Wax was born in to a privileged background and at an early age was recognised as a child prodigy. His stunning intellect and physical prowess caught the attention of British Intelligence and he was recruited from his Boarding School as an Agent in the First World War. It was whilst serving in Greece that he became fascinated with running and, at the end of hostilities, he continued this sport as a recreational diversion from his career as a Professor of  Defence Science & Technology.

Many of his creations are closely guarded secrets to this day but it can be revealed that he was responsible for the early versions of the "rab-bots" that guard Golfy's secret lair. He can also lay claim to the anti-tank badger and the proposal to use auto-asphyxiating spaghetti if the Italians ever got "a bit stroppy".

Back on the cinder track Wax was most definitely "old school" and shunned the new fangled flannel shorts, vests and plimsolls that were becoming popular with young whippersnappers who fancied a crack at setting a record for the mile. Wax tended to prefer corduroy slacks and de-studded football boots for training although he would remove his jacket, tie and shirt studs for  more serious competition. It was during these runs that Wax gained his nickname as a result of his tendency to apply a secret mixture of Carnauba and Beeswax to the inner thighs of his trousers in an attempt to reduce the inevitable friction of corduroy against corduroy.

One should not be fooled in to thinking that Wax was against progress as he was the first British runner to use pacemakers in record attempts. A lifelong dog lover, Wax tended to use Border Collies or Airedales during training and would move on to Whippets for his record attempts. It is alleged that he once ran an exhibition race at White City against a very strong field of Greyhounds and came a creditable third.

It was in late 1923 that Wax began training in earnest with the aim of running a mile in under four minutes. On 14th September he had received a telegram informing him that his American, arch rival Stanley "Stan" Astaire-Luft planned to break the four minute barrier on Independence Day the following year. This prompted an intense training programme with the aim of setting the record on St Georges Day.

Although rivals, Astair-Luft and Bannister were friends too and Bannister was delighted to receive a modern, American, low friction wax that Astaire-Luft had thoughtfully shipped from a new laboratory in Wisconsin.  His Widow, Hermione, recalled that he was so pleased to receive it and planned to use it in the record attempt.

St Georges Day 1924 dawned and the cool, clear weather was perfect for the attempt. Eight of the finest Lancastrian Whippets had been selected to act as pace makers and a calm Bannister stepped out on to the cinder track. A Gentleman from The Times was on hand to act as timekeeper at this historic event and a few locals gathered as the mist cleared and Bannister approached the starting line.

A pistol crack started the attempt and Bannister set out at a steady pace keeping a constant distance between him and the first whippet. The race was uneventful although there was a comical moment around the twelve hundred yard mark when Wax nearly dropped his pipe and a bystander had to offer a lucifer to relight the lucky Briar. At around the fifteen hundred yard mark Wax was running like one of the King's Thoroughbreds and the record seemed within his grasp. He crossed the line in a stunning 3 minutes and 56 seconds and promptly self-combusted to the shock and astonishment of onlookers.

It was a tragic end to a momentous occasion and all were distraught at the loss of one of Britain's finest young men. Later investigations indicated that some observers thought they saw plumes of smoke rising from Bannisters trousers during the final quarter mile. These rumours were never substantiated and neither was the theory that stray spark from the Briar caused the heated wax to ignite as Bannister crossed the line.

Conspiracy Theorists will point to the fact that Astaire-Luft provided the wax that Bannister used on that fateful day and also that Astaire-Luft later openly accused Bannister of using Liquorice Comfit suppositories to achieve the incredible feat. At that time liquorice was a banned stimulant and, as a result, Bannister's feat never entered the Record Books.

Wax Bannister; Gentleman Athlete at least you are remembered here. 

---

* actually this was another item on my to do list but I came up with this instead.

Another Slow Day

Monday was another quiet day at work. I took advantage of this and hit the to do list with a vengeance. As a result the basin and shower drains have been treated with caustic soda solution and the trim panels on the stairs have been coated with a liquid wax product that has given them a beautiful lustre.

The weather today is as balmy as yesterday's was blustery so, after a pleasant stroll around the Three Miler, I hauled the Porn Mower from it's lair and mowed the lawn. This was a long overdue cut and at 8" in length I actually  had to mow it twice to get a tidy looking sward.

After the restorative powers of a glass of Rioja I took on the final task of the day and gave the door at the foot of the stairs it's second coat of Danish Oil, one more to go and then it is time for a finishing coat of wax.

At this rate I am going to need a new list.

I'm thinking of building an Ark

The weather for the past week has been pretty soggy but today was even worse. It was cold, very windy and pouring with rain. I was very glad the Rugby Season had finished as a couple of hours pitch side in this would have been most unpleasant as I was to find out later ...

... The morning saw me cross another item of my to do list; I fabricated the final piece of elm trim for the stairs and fixed in place. That does, of course, mean that I can now add apply finishing coat to stair trim to the list. Bugger! The rest of the morning was spent applying the first coat of Danish Oil to the door at the foot of the stairs.

After lunch it was time to brave the elements and take T&M out for a walk. It is fair to say that the weather had not improved. The roads and paths were sodden and carpeted with young leaves torn from the trees by the wind. We came across a number of small trees blown down and skirted a couple of fluddles* on the way round the Three Miler. It is fair to say that we all returned home soaked and it was a case of "new trousers please".

It was at this point in the day that I rediscovered my inner child as I emptied my pockets and discovered sweet papers, a rubber band, a length of string, a twenty pence coin and a piece of paper containing an illegible scrawl. All I needed was a stone and a battered Dinky toy for the full set. Should I be worried that there was no mobile phone or wallet or any other adult accoutrements? My pockets are definitely eight rather than forty eight.

Once thawed and dry I continued with my regression to boyhood and spent half an hour in the garage repairing a puncture in TP's bike ...

... He owes me now!

---

* fluddle: noun, a pool of standing water too large to be a puddle but too small to be called a flood. A fluddle must be large enough to cover the full width of a road to merit the term.

Site Clearance

Saturday started with an early walk around the Three Miler with T&M, lunch followed and then 30% and I set out to take a car full of surplus domestic items to the local Charity Shop. Our first point of call was Pinkie's house where we dropped off a couple of borrowed items that were long overdue for return. This visit was fortuitous as Pinky is most definitely in need of some storage and shelving and was most grateful to take ownership of the CD unit, book case and glass fronted cabinet that are currently giving our Dining Room the appearance of a loaded Pickfords Lorry. Coffee was drunk, a date was arranged for delivery and we set off to drop the rest of the crap load at The Primrose Hospice Charity Shop.

It was late afternoon by the time we returned home and I crossed another item off my list by rehanging the  door at the foot of the stairs and replacing the rattly, Victorian, Rim Lock with a Thumb Latch.

I know its not exciting but I can't be spending every minute of every hour living life to the max or, as is more usual, swearing about things in general.

A Day with Bad Man Senior

I knew in advance that Friday was going to be a very slow day from a work perspective so I arranged to pick up Bad Man Senior & Tilly and bring them over to The Pile for a leisurely lunch. BMS has been feeling a little under the weather recently and we both felt that a change of scenery would be beneficial. He phrasing was a little more concise and he summed it up with "I'm glad to be out of the bloody house". I'm guessing that a combination of advancing years, ageing bones, miserable weather and the constant presence of a monosyllabic twenty two year old son was making the chaos that happens at The Pile seem like light relief.

A couple of weeks ago we were chatting on the 'phone and after we had finished I realised that we had really were scarily alike. We were both moaning about our children, me about TP's lack of thought and inability to do anything more that grunt and BMS was having similar issues with my half brother. His second family means that his experiences of raising a son have been revisited and consequently there is perhaps more common ground than might be expected between father and son.

Anyway, we had a great time and he was delighted to inspect the recently decorated Landing and our furniture acquisitions. He always loved the Landing and often said that he would like to sleep up there and be able to see the stars from the skylights.

He is an incorrigible old devil and, after inspecting my bookcase, advised that I should buy the one that apparently will be arriving in the workshop next week. Thanks Dad ...

... I think I probably will

If a tree falls in a forest ...

... and there is no-one there to hear it, does it make a sound?*

It was a slow news day today so Golfy and I got creative with technology. Another spin on the thought experiment that forms the title and first line of this entry is What happens to the light when you shut the fridge door?

Using our combined intellects we can now provide the answer to the question that has puzzled all but the designers of refrigeration appliances. Our scientific approach was as follows; first we established a face-time conversation using our iPhones. I then placed my iPhone in the fridge so that Golfy could see what happened when the door was shut. I then opened the door removed the phone from behind the cheese and we discussed the event.

Golfy then performed the same actions at his locale so that I too could experience being shut in a fridge.**

Other Stuff:

Today the Long Case Clock and Cylinder Desk that 30% bought were delivered along with a cast iron fire back and a bookcase. So I spent a good hour or so assisting with the unloading of the items plus a Beginners Guide to the care and maintenance of the clock. It is a beautiful thing and the ticking is very relaxing, there in the background delimiting the seconds. The bell, too, is lovely and it is quite peculiar as I know the clock has only been here a few hours but it is as though it has been here forever. It really seems to belong in the house.

With the arrival of the desk I have been able to move in to the office at home. The room is tatty and needs some serious work but at least I will no longer get shouted at for leaving my laptop on the Dining Table. I also found out the price of the book case and can advise that I will not be able to buy any books for quite some time. 

As for the fridge experiment...

... it was ruined by a falling tree.

---

* By the way, there is no such thing as one hand clapping. That is called waving badly in these parts
** I suppose I had better add a health warning that shutting yourself in a fridge is a dangerous thing to do. Mind you, if you are that bloody stupid I am sure that you will manage to shorten your life span by some other idiotic activity. Is you dick cold? Try the toaster.

Progress?

Another quiet day at work.

On the home front I am slowly working my way through my list and have managed to strike through the entry pertaining to the power socket on the landing. Sanding door has an in progress comment against it and it would have possibly been completed had the heavens not opened today. I suppose I need to add that the door has just been stripped and is being sanded outside before being reattached to it's frame, hence when it pissed down it all got put back in the garage and I retired and did some proper work instead.

Chippy Ian was here today adding some strengthening timbers to our staircase. I know I have mentioned before that they are very old and very primitive in their construction but Ian was of the opinion that they are still reasonably sound and the insertion of a few supports underneath have really firmed things up. There is a possibility that I may also be able to barter a spare towel radiator for Ian's labour as he has expressed interest in one that I have tucked away following the DIY Chain fiasco eighteen months ago.

The bartering approach was also raised later in the day when 30% was discussing curtain making and re upholstery requirements with Sally; a local lady that is a genius with a sewing machine and upholstery hammer too. Sally was interested in a few pieces of pine furniture that are surplus to requirements and we are hopeful that we can swap our goods for her services.

The final activity of the day and a significant item on my to do list was Clear Office. The Office is not an office. It is a room that has become a dumping ground for items of furniture and general bric-a-brac that are not required but there is a general unwillingness to dispose of them. We need to clear this room a) because it needs to be gutted and refurbished and b) because we are having a desk and bookcase delivered tomorrow and need space to put them. The net result of clear office is that the Dining Room is now so full of furniture that you could not swing the proverbial feline in there....

... I see an urgent need for Clear Dining Room to be added to the list or perhaps Arrange Yard Sale or Have Bonfire.

Don't blame me Dara

This evening we went to see Dara O'Briain at Warwick Arts Centre performing his Craic Dealer show. It was a great night out and there were loads of laughs. We were sat right in the middle of the front row and had lots of interaction with him particularly TP and 30%'s colleague Rich who, at one point claimed to be a Sex Therapist called Dick!

There was however one thing that rankled. Dara seemed to be of the opinion that perhaps the audience wasn't as enthusiastic as they could have been and there were a couple of asides along the lines of "a Tuesday Night Audience in Warwick" and a lack of response to certain jokes. Now I had a great time but need to point out that it was Dara that arranged the gig for Tuesday 24th April and therefore any blame for a mid week, school night audience rather than one projecting Friday Night fever rests squarely on his shoulders.

I can definitely confirm that we did not, as a collective audience, discuss and agree to assemble on the outskirts of Coventry on 24th April and then decide to invite Dara along. It was most definitely the reverse. That being the case, don't moan at us if we don't have the enthusiasm of a group of people who don't have to go to work tomorrow.

Hopefully it will be a quiet week

It is surprising what a difference a week can make. Last Monday I just wanted to get the week over with. Today I was quite looking forward to my week at work. The main reason for this is that the pressure has most definitely alleviated. Our project is approved and has been released to the US team and, whilst there are likely to be follow-on activities and questions, we have basically done what needs to be done for the current iteration of the project.

So the working day was mostly "housekeeping duties" but there has been a significant amount of down-time which was felt to be deserved after the preceding few weeks. I was called upon to assist with a Commercial Review but that was only a matter of recycling a couple of slides and regurgitating the five minute spiel that I had been spouting for the past month.

The rest of the day was taken up with a lengthy and humourous discussion with Tigger on a variety of subjects that were nothing to do with pushing boulders uphill at Dante's Nine Circles of Hell.

Away from my desk I appear to have taken ownership of a "to do" list since I will be having a quiet week at work. I would try to imply that 30% was the instigator of this fiendish catalogue but it is self imposed. Mind you, once the aforementioned partner was aware of THE LIST it was interesting to note that it started to grow with non-fun items like hang the washing out.

To be honest I didn't get very far with the list today. The washing did go out and come back in again and I did make a start on socket box. This is where it gets very boring so look away now ...

... on the recently decorated landing we have a power outlet on the floor. The power outlet is standard British, white, ABS plastic and stands out like the proverbial sore thumb as it is surrounded by oak floorboards. I managed to purchase a very nifty power socket that has an oak face plate but could not find a similar patress box. As a result I have spent an hour or so cutting some timber to create a mitred oak surround to conceal the plastic socket box. I'm quite please with the result and once oiled and waxed it should match the socket perfectly.

I also managed to buy a new book case without actually asking the price ... oops!

Man of the Match

After yesterday's Rugby Club Dinner I was feeling slightly less than chipper when I woke this morning. To be honest it was nothing that a couple of paracetamol couldn't assuage and apart from being lethargic and famished all day I wasn't too bad.

We had a relatively early start as it was the final match of the Season and we were out past Leamington for an away game against a team that are closely matched in terms of skill and ability. TP had an absolutely blinding match and played a key part in the first of his team's tries. Later in the game he collected the ball in his own team's half and raced over half the pitch, dodging a number of tackles to put the ball down between the posts. It was a blinding try and he could have possibly had another if the referee hadn't blown the final whistle as TP was approaching the try line. It was a peculiar decision as a rugby match usually ends when the ball goes in to touch not when it is still in play.  He made a few peculiar decisions during the game and his neutrality was questioned by a number of Spectators. In the end it made no difference, TP's team won and he was selected as Man of the Match.  It was a great way to end the Rugby Season.

Needless to say, yesterday's late night and indulgences meant that I took it easy for the remainder of the day and apart from a walk around the Three Miler I did nothing worth jotting down here.

It is definitely Spring

We are well in to Spring now. The verges are filled with wildflowers and the hedges are alive with birds. A couple of weeks ago I finally got a half-decent sighting of one of the Green Woodpeckers that frequent the hill that overlooks the Village. I hear their alarm calls on a regular basis but this was the first time I actually saw more than a distant blur; one flew across the road in front of me and I actually saw the flash of red feathers on it's head and it's yellow rump before it disappeared from sight.

Today I encountered another bird that is heard more often than seen; the Cuckoo. Again I was walking the dogs and it's familiar call was heard in the distance. It reminded me of a saying from my childhood.

The cuckoo comes in April

Sings it's song in May

Changes it's tune in the middle of June

And then it flies away.

 It has been a fairly intense week and the rest of the day was taken at a leisurely pace. After lunch 30% and I popped in to Worcester to pick up the door from the Strippers and the afternoon was spent pottering around the house.

Then it was time for a scrub up and donning of the Dinner Suit as we were out for the Rugby Club Annual Dinner. TP and many of his team mates were waiting at table in return for a generous donation to their Tour Fund. 30%, Jules and I had a fantastic night apart from the point where I found I was drinking Bacardi and Tonic rather than the  G&T I ordered...

... I'm guessing some poor devil had a Gin and Coke which doesn't sound any better.

They Think Its All Over ...

Today is the second anniversary of The Journal and by luck or sound judgement it is actually a milestone day at work too, so I will be ending this second year of diary keeping on either a success or a dreadful failure.

This is the day of the final review of the latest iteration of our project. At a quarter to five this evening I will either be in possession of the lucky potato* or will be having it rammed unceremoniously where the sun doesn't shine.

The working day was quite bizarre as it was way too late to make changes to our offering and the problem with the Belgians was being handled high above our heads. As a result Tigger and I spent most of the day chatting on the phone. The only exceptions were a couple of update calls on the Belgian Problem. The second one actuality had a Senior Belgian in attendance and I am guessing that words had been exchanged somewhere in the stratosphere as he was now grudgingly compliant and we had a green light for the final approval call.

At four o'clock Tigger and I dialed in to the call. I think it fair to say that I was quite apprehensive as there had been a lot of rumour about the project and Judge Dread had been forecasting doom, gloom and a possible savaging all week. In actual fact the call went really well and within twenty minutes it was apparent that we were going to get a positive response. The second half of the call was just about calming a few concerns and noting down a few observations and comments.

Post review Tigger and I had a deserved self congratulatory call and then let our US colleagues know that they were good to go with our numbers...

... I'm a bit tired now and really need a kip.

---

* The lucky potato is the term Tigger and I use to reference the approval of our project by one of the most senior Daemons at Dante's Nine Circles of Hell. The aforementioned Daemon cherishes the famous tuber and only bestows it, and his blessing, on those that are worthy. We are truly in awe of the lucky potato.

What is going on up in the clouds?

Thursday was spent waiting for a group of European Executives to reconsider a decision that would stymie our current project. They are strange, remote and almost mythical beasts and my contact with them is via an individual I don't know very well. The result is that I don't feel comfortable hassling too frequently or pressing for elaborations on his single line responses. Obviously I just need to sit and wait for things to pan out but that is not a comfortable position when my US Masters need my stuff by Friday evening so that they can polish the turd and present it to the Client in the middle of next week.

The net result is that I feel that I am stood facing a Tsunami and all I can do is hand out flimsy, polythene splash protector capes of the type sold at the water rides in Theme Parks.

The day ended with no significant progress and acceptance on my part that this is way above my head ...

... Ho Hum!

Other Stuff: TP should probably have picked a better week to loose his mobile phone as he is definitely one idiot too many!

Wednesday ...

... bring me their fucking heads on a plate day!

It is not going well. One of Judge Dread's European colleagues is saying "no go" which is putting the whole deal at risk. I have spent a huge chunk of the day attempting to get Executive Guidance and, for some worrying reason, no-one wants to talk to me. The best I got was agreement from my Idiot Manager to attend a briefing call tomorrow morning. Does no-one seem to understand that this needs to be resolved now and Executive attention is exactly what is needed. This is way above my lowly level.

In addition to that the Subject Matter Idiots are performing in their normal lacklustre fashion and despite being asked to provide me with their approval e-mails on Monday it is now Wednesday and a significant number of them have yet to deliver the goods. I wish that my sense of urgency was a little more infectious. I know that a lot of these people are over worked and have too much to do but I have to focus on my project and chase and harry the team for their long overdue deliverables.

At the same time I am making tentative approaches up the management food chain as I need a senior Executive to give the Europeans a "JFDI" instruction. These Execs are strange beasts and you never know whether they will give you their support or bite your head off.

I think it is fair to say that it is one of those days when stacking shelves at the local supermarket looks like a great new career opportunity.

A Blast from the Past

On Wednesday I was summoned to attend a conference all on the Project we successfully completed last year.

The call was to review and approve a complicated and, in my opinion, valueless spreadsheet that I had been forced in to completing over several days in December and January. I think it fair to say that I didn't consider the job worthwhile but I thought it had more value than the name dropping, slopey shouldered, process obsessed cow that was driving this activity.

She was true to form, when she opened the call and then attempted to hand it over to myself and a colleague to present. Needless to say neither of us had been asked to present and were not prepared. As can be seen from the Journal it is more than 3 months since I had any involvement in this at all.

We made a start and then the sun peeped through the black clouds when one of the Executive Approvers piped up. This particular approver is quite a character and is known for going from calm to  unprofessional ranting in under six seconds. She was true to form and within a few minutes phrases along the lines of "I don't see the point of this" and "You are only doing this because you can't use the cost modelling tool" were coming out left right and centre. She peaked with "I'm not approving this because I don't think it serves any purpose" and from that point forward I relaxed and enjoyed the carnage.

None of the grievances were directed towards me or my colleague and I have to admit that I took great pleasure sitting silently in the background listening to The Cow attempting to defend her monstrosity.

Sometime even the shittiest days have something beautiful happen.

Tuesday Schmoozeday *

Tuesday was very much like Monday but without the tea making and Decorators.

Instead Tigger and I found ourselves at The Nearest Circle of Hell following an invite summons from Judge Dread. We spent the day experiencing the same frustrations interspersed with expensive and mediocre coffee. The only difference was that we could actually see the Subject Matter Idiots in glorious Technicolour. Unfortunately we had to listen to them too.

I think I can summarise by saying there was a huge amount of effort for very little actual progress.

---

Schmooze: Making ingratiating small talk – talk that is business oriented, Did you see what I did there?

Monday Schmunday

Sad Face – it's Monday and I am back at work. Tigger and I have a looooong five days ahead of us as we pull together all the strands of our project and weave them in to a single piece. It is not fun. We really need twice or thrice the time we actually have and are working with over stretched colleagues and equipment that simply is not really capable of running the tooling we are mandated to use...

… as I said, it is not fun. We do our best to see the lighter side of things and there are jokes and laughter but beneath it all there is a vein of frustration directed at the tooling, team member availability and performance and the lack of accurate information from out client. At present all I can hope to present is a “sow ear”* at the final review on Friday.

Away from work I seem to be making an inordinate number of cups of tea as Andy & Steve are back to finish the painting of the Landing and Stairs. They have done a fabulous job and as soon as I can get the current phase of the project completed I am really looking forward to completing the finishing touches to the freshly decorated space.

---

* We will have to wait until the next iteration of the project to see if we can knock up a silk purse.

Day of Rest?

Sunday started with an early walk with T&M whilst 30% dropped TP over at the Rugby Club for a practice session. I then made a start on cutting the final piece of elm needed to repair the trim on the stairs. This was not a five minute job as the task involved the creation of a template and numerous trial fits before the piece of timber could be reduced to the appropriate thickness, sanded smooth and held in place with a monumental amount of Pink Grip!

It was then time for a trip out to pick up TP, and get a few necessities from Redditch. The afternoon was filled with phase one of the huge tidy up of the house and garage as both have become dumping grounds during the recent decorating activities...

... I thought I was on for a quiet weekend!

Home at last

The weekend has finally arrived and after the decorating at home and the past four days at work it is a most welcome break. 30% and I are both pretty tired and, as a consequence, we have pared our itinerary down to the bare minimum.

That meant that we had two tasks to achieve today; the first was to pick up the Defender as the refurbishment has now been completed and the second was to take the door from the bottom of the stairs in to a Paint Stripper in Worcester.

30% ran me over to Belbroughton to pick up my Land Rover around lunchtime and it is fair to say that she looks fantastic both inside and out. There are still a couple of minor jobs that need to be performed but the transformation is well on the way to completion. This wasn't just a cosmetic makeover as she has had the flywheel and clutch replaced and new front shocks too which means that the driving experience has been improved too.

Back at home I set to removing the aforementioned door and putting up a stair gate as a temporary barricade*. 30% and I then hitched the trailer to the Defender and took the door over to the Strippers. At this point you would think that the story would go along the lines of we pass the time of day with Stripper, hand over door, agree price and determine a collection date. And that was the original plan but then we started to look around his workshop/sale room and started to find some amazing items at very good prices. To cut a long story short 30% saw and fell in love with a Georgian Long Case Clock and a Victorian Cylinder Desk and these will be delivered the week after next.

By the time we finally got home it was early evening which gave us enough time for a walk around the Three Miler with T&M before a call was made to the local Chinese Takeaway.

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* T&M and Andy & Steve is not a great combination unless you want emulsioned dogs  or paw prints as part of your interior decor.

Lean Times ...

... from a Journal keeping perspective. This entry could just have well been entitled "Where the Fuck have I been".

My last post was made on the 4th April and it is now the 14th. I suppose I had better pull together a précis of the past nine or ten days. Don't worry; I'll leave out the interesting bits.

As previously mentioned, much of the week leading up to the Easter weekend was spent carrying out the preparation work on the stairs and landing. I think it fair to say that this was a soul destroying task. At the end of each day we were filthy and tired and the room looked just the same apart from a liberal quantity of dust on every surface. We turned a metaphorical corner on Easter Monday when we decided that enough had been done and a huge clean up took place. 30% even managed to find time to put a coat of liquid wax on the Landing floor whilst I spent an inordinate amount of time on the refurbishment of the elm trim panels on the staircase.

During the past week Andy & Steve have spent a couple of days on site and the walls and woodwork are now all bearing the correct colours. They will be back on Monday to apply the final coats of emulsion and satinwood.

We did manage a modicum of leisure time whilst we were off work but not a huge amount. 30%'s birthday was on 5th April and we lunched at The Brook on the outskirts of Redditch and took a wander around some local antique establishments. There was no surprise present as we had both decided that we should treat ourselves to a new iPad3 as a joint gift. TP already has an iPad. It is a fabulous little tablet but it seems to be permanently held in his grimy hands and he can rarely be persuaded to offer it up for use by another member of the family. After much faffing around to see whether we could get any discount anywhere we finally just went and bought the damned thing from Tesco on Easter Monday. It is a lovely piece of equipment and I am hoping that it will become 30%'s browsing tool of choice meaning that she will leave her work laptop in it's bag and not spend her leisure time "just looking at a couple of e-mails"*.

Badman Senior, Step Mum Sue and Tilly joined us for dinner on Easter Sunday and we had a lovely rib of beef. BMS was on good form and infuriated us all by feeding T&M from the table. He adores the dogs and just cannot resist giving them treats. If you look at the girth of Tilly you will see how weak his will power is. Fortunately we are made of sterner stuff here at The Pile and T&M have managed to retain their lithe conformation...

... it was a tale told by BMS that gave me the title for this Journal entry. It is nothing apocryphal or funny. It was just a recollection from his past and for some reason I thought I should jot it down so that it doesn't become forgotten...

Back in the 1930's my Grandfather was a Market Gardener in the Vale of Evesham. At this time of year the sprout harvest was finished and the Asparagus harvest was yet to come in so this was seen as a very lean time. To make ends meet my Grandfather used to work as a stage hand at the Scala Theatre on the High Street during this lull in veg production. The Scala is long gone and became the Clifton Cinema many years before I was born. That too has long since closed and subsequent reincarnations as Bingo and Night Clubs don't seem to have been particularly successful either. BMS also remembers his father delivering the Evesham Journal to outlying villages as a way of bringing in a few shillings until the 'gras was ready to cut.

The Easter break is now over and I am back at work. Tigger has returned from New York and we have spent this 4 day working week trying to get things in to shape for next week's review cycle and release of costs to our American colleagues. It has been quite an ordeal. We are making head way but it is like wading though treacle and if a thing can go wrong it certainly will. So far we have had to struggle with both personnel and tooling. Many of the people we need are on holiday and the work products they have delivered have either been wrong or right but in the wrong format. The result of this is that everything needs to be checked and tweaked or in some case duplicated so that we can pull everything together in to a single entity. Approvers are now starting to get nervous and I am frequently having to step in to persuade, cajole and name drop to ensure that ticks get put in the right boxes.

After a long day with a Power Sander or a long day in front of a laptop I have been reluctant to do anything more than vegetate with a glass of wine in front of the TV and I offer this up as my excuse for not blogging for the best part of ten days.

Before I finish I will just mention that one of the hens has gone broody this week and 30% managed to source a dozen or so fertile eggs. If all goes well we may have chicks around the second of May.

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* She is not a person to whom relaxation comes easily and consequently using a work laptop for web surfing makes taking a peek at the in-box all too easy. I. on the other hand, tend to go with "Fuck them, I've finished work for the day"

A change in the weather

After the mild and sunny weather last week, today's sleet and wind came as a bit of a shock. It was most unpleasant and outside was definitely not where I wanted to be.

This morning 30% needed to be at work to meet up with a colleague from the US. TP and I dropped her at the Office and then took the car to carry out a few pre-birthday essentials such as cards, flowers and more abrasives from Screwfix...

... and people say there is no romance in my soul?

The journey home included extensive detours to 30%'s parents and a couple of shops and, as a result; lunch was a late one.

My afternoon was spent sanding the elm door frame at the foot of the stairs and applying a coat of Danish Oil to that, the hand rail and the exposed beams on the Landing. 30% busied herself with various culinary and domestic chores as her brother and his girlfriend were joining us for dinner.

For those that may be interested

I tend to write my Journal entries first thing in the morning before I start work. This is one of the reasons why I generally produce a "weekend roundup" rather than individual entries for Saturdays and Sundays. As I am not at work this week I have managed to make it to Tuesday without having put pen to paper. So here, is a round up of recent events ...

Sunday: The Mission Continues

To be fair, Sunday was nowhere near as hard work as Saturday. 30% and I had completed our sanding activities with less than an hour's effort and then spent a further hour vacuuming up the dust. We then got a coat of Danish Oil on the bannisters and newels and a coat of wax on the cupboards. The rest of the day was spent pottering on general domestic activities.

Monday: A Visit

Today Mrs Oranges & Lemons paid us a visit with her air dried ham. She had had this beast hanging for the best part of 12 months and now it was time for the unwrapping and, hopefully, slicing. I think Mrs O&L was a little apprehensive and that is certainly something I can understand. I have only air dried one ham and I was very nervous about eating a piece of meat that had not been cooked in the conventional sense. We unwrapped it and it looked fine. There were a few patches of green mould and there were also a couple of maggots but there was nothing that indicated that the cure had failed and after a good scrub with white wine vinegar it looked fine.

We pared away the outer skin and then set to with the bacon slicer to convert her air dried ham in to a couple of kilos of prosciutto. It was a successful first cure and the ham has an interesting almost cheesy tang to it.

I am quite comfortable declaring it a success as I am writing this 24 hours after sampling the ham and can report no adverse affects.

Monday was also the day that TP returned from his tour of Iceland and he appears to have had a fabulous time. He was very keen to get his photos downloaded to the computer and show us his souvenirs which included a pair of knitted mittens and a cured red fox tail.

Andy & Steve were also back on site today to put a skim of  plaster over the stair case and landing. They have done a fantastic job and will be back in a couple of weeks to apply paint to their pristine. smooth walls.

Tuesday: Back on Yer Heads Lads*


After an early walk around the Three Miler with T&M I was back on sanding duties.

30% had "conveniently" arranged a hair dressing appointment which left me on a solo mission on the stairs and landing. Today I completed the hand rail on the stairs, the window sill and I also managed to wire brush 250 years of debris from the exposed beams on the landing. Most of the debris seems to have accumulated on me so it is a case of a quick shower and then a period of extended vegetation in front of the televisions.


Where is my G&T?

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* You must know this joke. It is as old as the hills.
A Chap dies and finds himself being escorted to Hell rather than his preferred eternity in heaven.
He wanders past pools of bubbling brimstone and flaming pits with the moans and screams of eternal damnation in his ears.
As he pauses by a pool of foetid semi liquid he watches a hideous daemon sat staring at a group of people up to their chins in this ichor drinking from bone china cups.
He is taken aback by this and, as he wanders on, he comments to his escort that Hell is nowhere near as bad as he thought...

.. He then hears the Daemon say "Back on yer 'eads Lads, Tea Break's over."

Productive but not exciting

If sanding the stripped bannisters and newel posts of a pine stair case to a satin smooth finish is your thing read on, otherwise I respectfully suggest that you find something else to fill your time.

Today 30% and I have spent a long and dusty day preparing the wood work on the Landing & Stairs. After clearing the floor and sealing the Bedroom doors to prevent dust ingress, 30% took on the oak cupboard that Chippy Ian built for us and I took on the stairs.

There isn't much more I can say. The wood is now a lot smoother and we were both covered in a very fine dust. We cleaned ourselves and the room up, took the dogs for a quick walk and then collapsed on the sofa with a drink and dinner.

The only problem is that we still have four door frames, the skirting boards, the window sill and exposed beams to sand plus the repairs to the trim panels on the stairs and the bleaching of a couple of stains on the soak flooring to complete before the end of the week.

Breaking Up

Today was my final day of work before a ten day Easter break. Yes, I have ten days away from work and will be spending them at home, probably with a power sander in my hand.

As was to be expected most of today was spent in hand-over activities and completing as much as possible "up front" as I know I am going to be very busy when I get back. My out of Office is now set and Tigger is clearly identified as the stuffed furry animal to be contacted if anyone needs anything.

I have had company here at home today as Andy & Steve are here to carry out the preparation for skimming of the Landing and Stairs. The original lime and horsehair plaster has stood up pretty well to the past two and a half centuries but there are a few areas where it is no longer bonded to the walls and the patching associated with building works and re-modelling mean that a skim is needed to pull it all together. Whilst removing the loose plaster S&A exposed one end of the oak lintel over the window. I made a quick styling decision and the entire beam was exposed. It will need a little attention with a wire brush but will look fantastic when surrounded by fresh smooth plaster.

S&A completed all the prep work and left having applied a bonding coat to the bare areas and a coat of PVA to all of the other walls. They will be back on Monday to apply the finish coat. After S&A had finished I switched off my Instant Messenger and took T&M for a walk...

... As I was nearing the end of the walk a Golden Retriever came charging towards us. He was trailing his lead but there was no sight of his owner anywhere. I recognised him as belonging to a local family that are currently doing their best to develop a bit of a reputation. I am no fan of the family and do my best to avoid them but could hardly leave their dog loose. There was also no way I was going to shake him off as he is intact and T&M are both in season.  I am guessing that the children had been walking him and couldn't restrain him. He has a good nature but has not been trained and is VERY strong. I assume he got wind of T&M and simply followed his nose. I therefore ended up grabbing his lead, calming him down with a swift kick up the arse and taking him home. It came as a relief but no surprise that there was no-one at home to receive him. After waiting around for 5 minutes there was no sign of the family so I found the side entrance and shut him in the back garden. I'm sure he was safer there than running loose in the village.

Back home there was time for a quick coffee and a shower and shave before 30% and I drove over to The Bridge at Bidford on Avon for supper. This is a super little restaurant that 30% has dined at on a couple of occasions but it was my first visit. I have to report that it lived up to its reputation and was lovely*. The interior decor is a mixture of rustic and modern and it has a huge window running the full length of the dining area giving a view over the river. The food was great. I had chicken livers done in garlic and cream followed by Sea Bass with pasta, pesto and pine nuts followed by a Creme Caramel. 30% went for scallops and bacon to start, a very posh burger as her main and an Eton Mess variant for pud. It was a lovely start to the holiday and it was really nice to be out as a couple rather than as a family which is the norm nowadays.

We had coffee at home on the sofa and watched a film before retiring to bed knowing that the alarm will not need to be set for another ten days. Fantastic.

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* If I could make one tiny criticism,  their food deserves linen napkins. Paper serviettes will never do and their tariff suggest they could bear the laundry costs.

A Mind Reader I am not

For some reason I reviewed Monday's Journal entry today and noted that I expected to have a quiet week with Tigger taking over command...

... it just goes to show how crappy my foresight is. I have spent the past few days running around like the proverbial blue arsed fly re-assembling my team and developing an outline of the changes they need to make in the design of our project. This has been complicated by the fact that the Global Lead doesn't seem interested in anything outside the walls of his office and just seems to expect my revisions to appear on the required date as a result of a series of intertwined miracles.

His lack of communication is now being taken seriously by Christopher Robin and chums and an escalation seems to be on the horizon. I think they finally focused on this problem when I provided an email from an Australian colleague showing that they had absolutely no knowledge of the need for changes.

I held a kick-off call for the team this afternoon and it seemed to go reasonably well. I am hoping that their silence means that all is clear and they are ready to crack on. The realist in me knows that it is actually an expression of their lack of interest and the challenge for Tigger next week is to keep them on track.

Away from work I received a text message from the wordsmith formerly know as TP. He is limping his way around Iceland* on a school trip and the best he could manage when delivering a description of this land of fire and ice was ... "just going past volcanoes at the moment".

I suppose he is only limited to 140 characters.

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* the near bankrupt country, not the frozen food store