Back on track

It seems I can go into the weekend with an easy mind.  I am no longer homeless.  I have secured a fairly sizable flat round the corner which I will be moving into the week after next.  Its been a while since I have had to do anything like this and things have changed.  Do you know I had to have a credit check done and because I work through an agency rather than full time – which is mine and the choice of many people – I failed this check.  The computer literally says no!  This is shocking – the idea that a private individual can initiate this kind of intrusion into another private individual, furthermore the idea that I have to conform to a particular predefined lifestyle.  I want to check this with my lawyer or the trading standards authority because this smacks of discrimination.  What’s more I thought the idea of upfront agency fees was illegal.  Another one to check but not until I have the keys in my grubby little paws.  And not now, cos I is off to Bournemouth for a weekend of Sun Sea and Stella (that is Artois, not Maris, or Wood or even ByStarlight).  And depending on the weather, I making a circuitous return via the West Country – oo err – and maybe Wales.  Why, because I can.

Dimensional Transcendence

I’ve left this alone for a while partly because of significant uncertainties and partly because I forgot my password.  My house is now well and truly sold, buyer has paid his deposit and I will be homeless on 2 July.

I don’t want to buy another house yet for a couple of reasons so I am in the process of trying to convince a potential landlord that I am of sufficient moral and financial calibre to pay large chunks of my money to him every month via his grasping agency.  Nearly there and I hope to sign a lease before the end of the week.  In the meantime I am packing my belongings and dejunking my life. 

Anyone who has ever done a house move will have discovered that curious property normally associated with the TARDIS. I bought a number of 50 l plastic storage boxes from Focus – a small chain of hardware shops in order to make a start on the packing. I thought five boxes would make a significant start.

Well, if you had asked me yesterday if I had many books I would have said, not really as I tend to try to keep clutter to a minimum. I thought I just had a couple in the spare room. But as I started loading them into boxes they appeared to magically multiply like a teenage chav girl. I have run out of boxes and still have loads of books to get shot of.  The spare room is starting to look a bit forlorn.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho….

When last we spoke I was driving a large beast around London delivering Tropicana juice and Yoghurts to various distribution points.  The money was quite good but they were getting their money’s worth.  And the hours were rubbish.  I was collapsing into bed at seven in the evening.  So I kissed that one goodbye the week before Easter.  With two short weeks coming up and a house move in the offing I saw no reason to waste any energy on jobhunting.  I stopped by a local agency to say I was available and left it at that.  As it happens they have been keeping me ticking over with enough work for me to fill spare days and keep me in beer and out of overdraft.  Which is nice.  Nothing earth-shattering but enough to be able to tick over till things are sorted.  If things go smoothly I should sign a lease by Friday then my bike and I are off to Bournemouth for the weekend and I will be returning via Dorset and Wales.  Then two weeks to do a mix of work and moving of gear.

My one concern is that I am committed to six months where I am paying rent to someone else rather than feathering my own nest….but I have a couple of things to do in that time.  2 weeks riding in the Alps being the most important.  Then sit the second part of the HGV licence so I can get some proper well paid work.  And thirdly try looking further afield…

I’m bored with Bedford and when a man is tired of Bedford he is ready for life again.  So I am regrouping and consolidating.  I think the Summer will fly by.  I am thoroughly enjoying life:- as time passes, more and more work is coming my way; I can pick and choose when and how much I work and I plan to work me little tits off until after the Christmas rush then have a nice long break somewhere warm and sunny.  And without having to request time off!

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So whilst the last couple of months have been a drag, now the weather is here and there is lots to do its going to be quite an active couple of months. I am thoroughly enjoying life.  For a while back there, although delighted to get out of Lloyd’s I wasn’t sure what sort of alternative there was but now I am finding my feet and approaching the point where I am self supporting in a different career.  Not as much money but a bit of variety and a lot of flexibility.  One gig I do a bit is driving the Bedfordshire mobile library which is quite a pleasant little regular jaunt. lookey here: this is the view as I make the ten minute bicycle ride to work.
That’s right – ten minutes.
Lets remind ourselves of the alternative: An hour and a half on the train each way to spend the day looking at this….So although I got some ways to go and after some dithering I am now committed to the path of a non-city existence.  There ARE other, and happier ways to get by.Phew that was a bit serious.  A lighter note tomorrow.  Someone sent me some school reunion pictures.  I’ve got to try and work out who is whom and get them up.  I’m gonna have a glass of wine now.

It all works out in the end

My friend and former colleague Stu mentioned on his own weblog that he spent nearly two hours on the tube getting from Clapham Common to the City. I am grateful to him for this as it reminds me why my shirts and suits are now in vacuum bags under the bed in the spare room and why I am busting my butt to learn a new trade that doesn’t involve public transport. So here to remind viewers is a picture of yours truly in front of the old Commercial Union building demonstrating what I don’t have to look like anymore.

What I am further indebted to him for is an interesting snippet of news he passed my way which can be read in full in this link: Bungler Bob’s been a bad boy

In short, this is the news that that nice man – Bungler Bob, the so-called manager of Market Intelligence at Lloyd’s, who made the decision last year that Lloyd’s could muddle along better without my services – has been disqualified by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. His misdemeanour relates to his previous position with Zurich and involves “. [Robert Stevenson] … knowingly facilitated the transaction and in so doing enabled ZAIL to deceive its auditors….”.

So there you go…Lloyd’s had appointed a senior manager within its Franchise Directorate, which fulfills a regulatory function, who has himself been specifically named and disbarred by a government insurance regulator. I trust Lloyd’s will be taking immediate steps to remedy an unacceptable situation which brings the standing of its flagship Market Monitoring Directorate into disrepute. Anyway that has cheered me up enormously. That’ll teach him. You cross the Corr at your peril: it will come back and bite your arse badly.

I had been feeling a little fragile as I went out for a few beers in Northampton last night. It had been a long week, I had been up since 3am and am well out of practice with the drink and I was on the Stella. And of course we ended up staying up talking till 3am righting the world’s wrongs. I am trying to remember where we went – a couple of trendy drinking holes in the town centre that were surprisingly civilized for a town centre on a Friday night. In Bedford you would not be able to move for bouncers. What I do remember is being by far the oldest people in the room which was a wee bit dispiriting. However I am youthful enough to know better than to try to engage a student/barman in a conversation about the Doobie Brothers who were patently alien to the guy, as my bibulous drinking partner, Mr KR Myers of Bugbrook did for some reason.

What James has been listening to;

Mathematics by Cherry Ghost. Song is not yet released, I know nothing of the band though I think it is actually just one guy. Great voice and beautiful song. What he is not listening to is something by some one called Ben Taylor who is even more boring than his father James if you can believe such a thing possible. But it did prompt the lovely Ken Bruce on Radio 2 to say the other day that he was the son of James Taylor and Carly Simon which means that he “is bald with long legs”.

Let’s not talk about work

I had a good day today and finished before twelve which gave me a pleasant afternoon having a bit of lunch and retail therapy in Milton Keynes shopping centre – the Chav Creche. “what’ll we do today Chantelle; shall we go down the shopping centre with our fuck-off big double decker prams and see how many shops we can clog up?”.

Has no one else noticed this trend? Whilst posh middle class women clog up the roads with their 4×4 driving their obnoxious kids to school, vulgar chavscumshit cows do the same with these massive double buggies full of the evidence of their fecund intemperance. If the bitches can’t breed fast enough to fill up a double pram then they hoik their fat arses around pushing what look like teenagers in their prams. Honestly some of these things in the prams have adams apples and stubble. And are called Beyonce or Jade.

Things looking nice and busy at the moment. Lots of stuff from lawyers that I don’t understand but have to sign. Finally got around to arranging for my friend Bertie to come and stay and see the new house (after 4 years) and arranged a date in April. It is now possible that there may be new occupiers when she turns up. I am off to Northampton tomorrow with Ma Myers for a couple of sherries and am excitedly planning a trip to the alps in May. I fell so in love with the place last year as I passed through viaggiando a Italia last year that I am going again in May. I am planning on catching the overnight ferry from Harwich which should disgorge me first thing at the charmingly monikered “Hook of Holland”. Sounds grim but I’ve never done an overnight ferry before with my own little cabin (and I imagine it will be very little indeed) and it all sounds terribly Orient Express.

I should point out that in the above photograph, my trusty old bike does not have a flag pole attached to the back. This is what is known as a photographic schoolboy error.

Also have my friend and ex-Lloyd’s colleague coming up for a day in March hopefully for a trip to the Imperial War Museum of Airoplanes at Duxford whilst also trying to see about getting up to Bradford in April to see the once-a-month showing of the 1950s film “This is Cinerama” at the national museum of photography. Bit anorak-ey those last two. Maybe I should not mention them in public.

Location, Vocation, Embrocation

Well now I now how Michael Fish feels. My confident assertion that Spring was in the air precipitated, literally three weeks of near continuous rain (I believe it didn’t rain yesterday). So its a good thing that my new career direction isn’t metereological. The new job has been a grind though but it is slowly getting better. Getting more confident but I am still slow and cautious and my days are tending to be long and quite physically demanding – Deep Heat for the shoulders etc. So the last 3 weeks have been work, home, bed, up, work, home, bed…to coda. This too will get better with time. Got my first pay cheque at February end so the course has actually paid for itself and the gamble has paid off.

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Give me a few more months and I will move up to the next step. Then perhaps a break for a bit of travel. I am keen to do six weeks in Bologna and hopefully a long one in Africa within 18 months. Sounds a bit ambitious but the whole point of moving into driving is that it is a much more flexible job market. With the right amount of experience it should be easier to work for a while, break for a while, and work elsewhere etc unlike the old environment where they treate a 2 week career break in the last fifteen years as a potential threat to national security.

For the technically minded the vehicle I am driving is a 27 ton, six axle Scania refrigerated. I am now cheerfully reversing this down side streets in London where once I would have been afraid to take the motorbike (still would in some cases). I have tried to take some piccies but the phone seems to have lost most of them. But here is CVT on a loading bay in Wandsworth. It is 3rd from right. It looks tiny, but in fact the camera lens is wide angle: Because the two artics (pantichnicons for those of you reading this South of the Vaal) are longer, they are closer and seem much bigger, but believe it or not they are about the same width and height. Note how neatly it is parked on the bay! I can’t manage this with a car. There is actually a trick to this…you basically align with the yellow lines, then revere back slowly till you hit the buffers with a thump. Bet you just can’t believe the technical skills I have picked up in the last 5 weeks.

 

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The second piece of news is that the house went on the market last weekend and I accepted an offer by the end of Monday. Hopefully I will be shot of it by the end of April. I will rent somewhere in the interim whilst I look for another project to take on. I had hoped to use some of the proceeds to treat myself to a new bike – ideally for my trip to the alps in May – but unfortunately the heap of rust you see bottom left is playing up and its looking terminal so I may have to fork out for a new car instead. How boring.

Global warming

It is the beginning of February and already there is that whiff of Spring in the air. Sure it’s been frosty these last two mornings but it’s been warming up quickly, the herbs and plants such as I have are growing and I got the urge to tidy the garden today which I manfully resisted. Probably all go pear shaped in the next few weeks ‘cos we just haven’t really had much proper Winter weather yet but it needs to be quick; the days are lengthening fast. The Christmas sales are nearly over and the shops are full of Easter eggs: Nature’s eternal cycle moves inexorably on.

Start new job tomorrow and am actually rather nervous about it. I think its nerves but I also think I just don’t like the idea of having to get up with the alarm to do anyone’s work.

But look at the rewards for a hard working boy; opportunities, prizes, a new life outside insurance, travel, self-determination, self respect?

Don’t fancy these early morning starts but I do fancy being finished work for the day just after lunch and home in 20 minutes. Next step is get this house sold and get a new project underway. Then start looking at a couple of other income generating opportunities that I have in mind.

PRO NUTRO: Just finished a really lekker book called Don’t let’s go to the dogs tonight by Alexandra Fuller. Daughter of an English family trying to make a farming living in Zim, Zam & Malawi and growing up bout the same time as me. Lovely book – more of a personal account of growing up within family problems against the general background of ‘the troubles’. Unsentimental, honest and funny. What surprised me though is that though they were borderline poverty, they seemed to spend a lot of time eating pro-nutro which I thought was terribly expensive. It certainly was in the South African shop in Covent Garden on Friday when I was contemplating buying a pack (and a box of those nutty oaty chocolatey biscuits I love but whose name I forget – nuttycrust or something). Four pounds (about sixty rand I think) seemed a lot for porridge with additives. I will send you the book if you want, mother in return for the recipe that I just received. Say the word.

Truckin’

I have had a vague idea floating around in my head for a long time.  I often sat at my desk bored out of my tiny mind dealing with insurance matters and dreaming I was driving across the Australian desert or American Midwest at the helm of an enormous truck with Hank Williams playing on the stereo.

Well why not? So I signed up for a one week course of tuition with the LGV test at the end of it. There is supposed to be a shortage of truckers at the moment so it seemed a good enough idea.

So just before christmas 2006, I and another scottish lad called Brian climbed into the cab of this beast for the first time.

The test should have been on 22nd December but the school cocked up the bookings.  I agreed to take a later test date in return for some extra tuition.  It dragged the process out a bit but the extra lesson were invaluable.

I am surprised at how little preparation other people seem to put into such an expensive process. The instructors seemed amazed at the effort I had put in. I suppose I have the time at the moment but when you are paying close to a grand and knowing that the pass rate is about 40% it seems sensible to leave as little as possible to chance.

The test was yesterday and was the fourth driving test in my life: Car in South Africa (1982), Car in London (1992), bike in London (1997) and now this; LGV Class C.  And it was about the most unpleasant of all. The instructor was a bastard. He was sarcastic and impatient with a tendency to audibly sigh at each mistake I made. When we returned to base with some manouvres such as the hill start having not been done I assumed I was one of the 60%. But I scraped through. Years of biking have made me road and mirror aware and I was technically competent with gears and such. I think this made up for the fact that I brick every time another truck comes at me. Have you ever seen two trains approach each other at speed and contracted slightly even though you know they are on rails. Well that’s what it is like with a truck. You are bouncing along a narrow road at 40mph, all 18 tonnes of you, with a 40 ton artic coming at you and you each fill up your resepective lanes. There is a “whump” as your slipstreams meet then you look in the mirror and there was about three feet between you all along….

Anyway I think I went into shock afterwards. I have thought about little else for three weeks but its all over now but I need a couple of days in a dim room with a flannel over my eyes to recover.

Chocolate pot recipe

Ok this is the recipe for chocolate pots which are as good as anything I’ve ever tasted.

These quantities make about 3 ramskins but I’m sure you could double them up etc. 100 gram plain chocolate (careful of being too posh here as it can get bitter); 2 large eggs (separated); juice of half an orange; pinch of salt & some sugar to taste (about 1 cube).

1. Melt the chocolate in bowl
2. Whip the egg whites – if you do them too stiff they become hard to fold so I leave it to your experience
3. Add the beaten egg yolks to the chocolate with the salt, sugar and juice. Stir until amalgamated and slightly thickened again
4. Remove from heat and add a bit of beaten egg white to slacken the mix, then fold in the rest
5. Pour into ramskins and chill till set.

Not much to it and these are delicious but I guess it is down to the quality of chocolate and eggs. Last time I tried it with much cheaper plain cooking chocolate and it was better cos it wasn’t so bitter (and it was cheaper hooray).

I don’t know much about the know-how about chocolate and you are supposed to be careful about splitting etc but I’ve done it a few times now and if you keep stirring the chocolate, juice, yolks, sugar & salt over the heat it seems to amalgamate alright. And only takes about 15 minutes.