Glad to be Home From Austin

I returned from Austin four days ago now and I feel I've only just recovered some sense of normality. I'm really glad I did the event but it was incredibly hard work and I felt like I earned every single penny. Working 12-15 hour days in a windowless, wood-panelled room mainly by myself and only eating when someone bought me food, I was so busy that it took me hours to eat that food and I didn't stop all day. It was completely exhausting.

When I finished work I would call a taxi and hope one turned up as not one knew where the University was even after I gave them the address (in fact not one taxi driver knew the way to anywhere I ever asked him to go in 2 weeks). I would then give them directions every step of the way and fume when they asked how much change I wanted back) I would then occasionally flick through 40 channels of banality before I crashed out so I could get up at 6.30 to do it all again. Thank God the hotel served Illy coffee cos I would have gone postal otherwise.

I did get 2 days out of the 18 to explore and I can tell you that I wasn't impressed with Austin much. Like most US cities it was sprawling and I think people generally drove to the mall to do their shopping. Nearly every place sold food in some way (takeout, fast food, restaurant, 7-11) and most of the food I had was horrible. Nearly everything had fake cheese on it and lost weight when I was there as I could barely look at some of it. I was offered deep-fried ice cream one evening ("hey, it comes with cream on the side!"). Those poor people didn't have a chance - you would have to have a will of steel to live there!

It was a complete culture-shock for me actually. The ineptitude of the US team was staggering but they whooped, high-fived and congratulated themselves when they did anything remotely resembling competence. The red tape we had to navigate so that nobody got sued was jaw-dropping. The taxi driver at the airport refused to lift our suitcases because he didn't have any medical insurance and the competitors had to sign waivers for 100 things before they could do anything. It was most odd. 

We did find a few gems on the faculty though. People we hadn't even known about suddenly appeared and went over and above board to save the day. They were amazing and, whilst the rest were completely out of their depth running an international event of that size, without these gems, the event would have failed in my opinion. They were completely undervalued and underused at the university and were thrilled to get to get to use some skills for once. 

There were a few good moments though. The people were at least friendly, the weather was nice most of the time, I had a laugh buying my cowboy hat and watching people dancing to live music, the margaritas were amazing (they free-pour over there!), the Four Seasons was obviously fantastic and my bed was like a huge marshmallow with clouds for pillows, I liked seeing squirrels clambering everywhere and the buses were cheap.

I'm truly glad I had the experience, and I'd do the next one in London if asked, but I didn't really like Austin much. From being made to stand in a booth with my hands behind my head and then fingerprinted and photographed like a criminal at customs, to the ineptitude and greed of the taxi drivers, half and half, and the lardy food, I'm glad to see the back of it to be honest. I'd still like to see some more of America, but Texas wasn't for me I'm afraid - maybe I'm more European than I realised.

My home for 2 weeks

I'm back to work tomorrow and, having made some big changes to my business just before the event, I'm looking forward to seeing how that pans out. Spring also seems to have finally arrived in Blighty and next week is predicted to be fine and sunny which is something to look forward to. I'm very happy to be back to my cats, Italian coffee pot, TiVo, the cinema and my darling seaside town though.

PS: to my American blogger friends, please don't take this post as a criticism of you. I've only been to two places in the US and am just saying how I personally found the experience. We have plenty to moan about here and, if you'd love to come and visit, I would be delighted to show you around and see what you hate too! 

Update on Possible Job

Lies

So just after a month after I contacted the potential employer asking what was going on, I received an email. This was only 3 days ago and he basically said that he had been too busy to check his emails until now and that he would be looking into sorting his life out a bit more over the next few weeks. That was it.

So he still has not given me an answer one way or the other. I replied yesterday with an on-call retainer proposal. For a monthly fixed fee I offered to be on call and meet him anywhere in the world within 24 hours. He could then pay me a daily rate when I was there and I could go home when the work was done.

This meant he wouldn't be paying someone an annual salary if he didn't need them all the time, I wouldn't have to sit around like Billy-no-mates waiting to be summoned, I could still carry on working for myself, and if it didn't work out then neither of us had lost anything.

I haven't heard back yet obviously but I think it's a good offer and a happy medium. I texted him to inform him that he had an email from me, so I I will let you know!

Is The Wire a Wind up?

I have something to admit.  I may ostracise myself here but it simply has to be said... I've just finished watching the first series of The Wire and I thought it was mediocre. 

I had heard really big things about this show - how it was better than The Sopranos and the best thing on TV. Well I actually thought it was quite disappointing. If it had been a regular weekly series without any hype I would not have watched past the third episode frankly.

Some of the scenes were poorly acted, the dialogue was ropey and by the time it had started to get vaguely interesting it was near the end of the series. I am baffled as to why it's so popular when I found it quite dull.  

Everyone says the second series is much better, but how anyone managed to get beyond the first series and bothered to watch the second amazes me. I thought it was average at best. Certainly not on a par with The Sopranos anyway. I know people may disagree with me. But this is what I thought and I'm not apologising! 

BBF's sister bought us the entire box set so we'll be watching the rest of them anyway, but last night I started to watch series 6 of Dexter and immediately wanted to watch the next episode. Ditto for Mad Men, The Sopranos, The Walking Dead, and Deadwood. But I had to force myself to keep going with The Wire because it was not as compelling - I didn't even care whether they got Avon Barksdale or not. 

BBF generally disagrees; although I think he wants to like it because everyone said it was great rather than because he thinks it's the best thing he's ever seen. Maybe it does get better but at the moment in my opinion, it's a massive case of the Emperors New Clothes.

Spare Me The Details

So with 'Breaking News' yesterday we find out that Prince William is to marry his girlfriend Kate Middleton. Although basically I couldn't care less, I'm very happy for them - they've been going out for 8 years already and they both seem like sensible, decent people. Good for them.

What gives me a heavy heart however is that I know it will now dominate the National news for quite some time to come - possibly forever. I am going to have to hear about her whole wardrobe and sense of style, the analysis of every look and glance, every minute detail and supposition of the wedding, as well as the *sigh* inevitable comparisons with his parents marriage - which is surely distasteful in itself.

If your parents had a miserable marriage, got divorced then your Mum was killed in a horrible accident whilst being chased down by photographers and years later your Dad married the woman he always should have - and you were very happy for them. Would you welcome it all being raked back up again whilst photographers continually chased down your fiancée? I'm imagining not; but we all know it is inevitable because the British media is both unimaginative and cruel.

When I was younger I used to be a Republican, but after reading numerous books on the monarchy I came to realise that having one was pretty much essential to the International standing of our country. It's our USP if you like and the Queen brings in a lot of money for us. Even if we did decide to scrap the Monarchy, what would we do with them? Would Buckingham Palace be turned into offices or flats?  No, we need at least the Queen otherwise we'd be recognised as the 2nd rate (if that) player we actually are.

I personally thought Princess Diana a tedious, attention-seeking passive-aggressive bore and was glad when she finally stopped being on every news story, every day. Now the press have another target to pull apart and force down our throats and we shall never be free - I don't mind us having a monarchy but I also don't want every detail as the press rummage through Kate's knicker drawer.

Wake Me Up When It's Over

I'm finding it really hard to get excited about the World Cup this year; I've enjoyed it in the past but frankly I couldn't care less about some over-paid, over-indulged, cry-baby divers kicking balls into a net.

Interestingly I read an article in The Guardian today by Linda Green who says that she couldn't think of worse role models for her 2 sons than men who have been in the news for wife-beating, drink-driving, adultery, visiting prostitutes, public brawling and rape allegations. 

I don't think the entire England squad come under that umbrella but she certainly has a point... Domestic violence does sadly rise by 30% after England matches so it may be a good thing if we go out early.

For me though, I just don't really care enough about the whole thing. Although I predict that the US will win 2-1 tonight and England won't survive their group matches, I'll actually be round a friends house, drinking Rose and watching a dvd. I just hope I can get myself home safely, cos town will be a nightmare whether we win or lose.

Can The Last Person Leaving The UK Please Turn The Lights Out

I cannot believe that I have woken up and still have this bastard headache! I'm not a headachey person but I've taken 3 Anadin (Ibuprofen make me spazz out) and I hope it'll be gone soon. It's probably just the shock of discovering that most of the country turned out to be greedy white hood-wearing, blue-voting fascists.

So moving on from shitty days and men that should have told you they weren't interested before you wasted an afternoon, let me tell you how this voting malarkey panned out.

I thought I was going to be one of the people actually counting the votes but no, I was going to be one of the spectators instead. The count was held at the Brighton Centre and I had a special ID card so I could get in; we met at the organisers house and walked in with our candidate which was pretty cool. There had been a lot of interest in the Brighton as all of the 4 main candidates were women, plus it looked like we might historically vote in Britain's first green MP.

We got there around 10.15pm and the hall was split up into 3 areas; Hove, Brighton Pavilion and Kemp Town, these were massive squares of trestles for the counters to sit at. All of the support volunteers were given result print-outs and we were to see if we could get a rough idea of how people were voting before the count started. There were people from all the parties in there and we were all out to do the same thing - we were told 'whatever you do, don't touch the ballots!!'

The boxes were opened gradually one by one - they used bolt croppers to open them then tipped them out onto the trestle tables so the counters could put them into bundles of 25. As they put them into piles, we tried to tick off (by reading them upside down!) how many were for each candidate. It was not an exact science but apparently it gives you an idea of how it's going; at one point a ballot paper flew towards us and we all recoiled like vampires in sunlight.

After this, the piles were collected up, checked to see if the amount counted matched the amount there should have been in the box and if not, they were counted again. It was actually exhausting just standing watching people count, possibly because it was quite intense - they counted very fast and you had to try and see as many as you could. We weren't allowed to have our phones on, but I sent covert texts now and again from the loos to keep people informed of how it was looking.

After hours of this, the counters then started to separate them into piles for each candidate, our job was then to make sure they were going in the right pile or if we felt they were spoiled then we could query them. One ballot had been crossed through with the words "ALL THIEVES" written across it which I thought was brilliant! There was a side room where you could pay £2 for a Ribena or £1.90 for a biscuit and the TV was on in there as well so we could see how it was going Nationally.

Unfortunately, I couldn't stay until the end as I had a lunchtime work deadline - I left around 2.30am and the results weren't called until 5.30 am anyway. I would have loved to have stayed as it was great to be part of something so important - the voting turnout was extraordinary this year. The Green party won which I was very pleased about; we didn't think we'd win but we didn't want the Tories to either. I did feel extremely disappointed that Hove and Kemp Town went to the Conservatives though, as I hoped that Brightonians were better than that.

I now find that after the election, I feel quite apathetic about it; I hate Conservatives and everything they stand for so I'm just going to sit back and let everyone get on with it. As Ro said; when 1% of Labour and Tory votes bought them more than 8 Parliamentary seats and 1% only gave the Lib Dems 2 and a half, there's something wrong with our voting system.

Anyway, I've voted, I've had my say and that's all I can do - I thought the British press were disgusting in the way they tried to force their opinions on the public; the media should be politically impartial, but seeing as most of it is owned by the Tories it kinda proves that Democracy is an illusion... and Simon Cowell can fuck right off.

Fight Apathy... Or Don't

Sigh, today has been a bit of a mixed bag. I had to work this morning and go meet a client at 9, do a wedding showround at 10.30 then hand over to one of our security so I didn't have to spend another whole day at work (this is my 6th weekend in a row) the client didn't turn up until 10.30 which meant I could have actually had a lie-in.

I then went to Superdrug to exchange an eye cream; I'd bought it a few days ago but the assistant was incompetent and had put the wrong product in the box, forcing me to make room in my day to return said item (call me old-fashioned but I prefer to imbibe caffeine, not roll it under my eyes) I then went to Sainsbury's where I only manage to navigate the store by playing Mozart loudly on my MP3 player to avoid killing someone because I suffer from stranger spacial awareness intolerance.

After heading into Costa Packet for an espresso (for the sole reason of obtaining change for the bus as nobody will give you any unless you buy something) I made my way home where I ate an entire packet of biscuits just so I could hate myself later. I then faffed around for most of the day on the Internet and started a personal diary blog about my cat Dexter as my old cat died after 14 years and I barely have a record of her, and sadly memories fade. I then read this weeks Star Magazine after which I felt dirty and ashamed of my sex.

My day picked up a bit later when my web designer called to say he had put up a holding page for my new PA business website, so that was kinda exciting. I have to make decisions on images very soon and I'm frozen with uncertainty; I'm usually very decisive but I really need to get this right and am probably (definitely) overthinking it.

Then I've just been lounging around feeling a bit left of centre... it's been a bit of a 'nothing' day in fact; nobody was around and I couldn't decide if I wanted company or not anyway, so I kinda loitered my way through it. I've decided that if I still feel apathetic or have uncontrollable rage or tearfulness tomorrow then I shall know it's PMT, in which case I'm heading into town to buy some shoes!