Permission to go back to work, Mr Chairman...

Working at the museum is becoming annoying now. With the deadline for MLA accreditation coming up in mid-September, they're hectically doing everything they should have been doing for the last 6 months. This means lots of meetings. I don't like meetings. They're designed solely to make everyone in the room feel important and productive, when they are in fact neither. The whole way through todays meeting (which lasted 3 hours, an hour past its scheduled finish) I was thinking about all the useful stuff I should really have been doing rather than be sitting in a stuffy town hall conference room.

"Archives 7001-7801 could do with being sorted"
"I could really do with getting on with the A-M village cataloguing"
"We still don't have any labels for the Monmouth Room or Blake Room, and I need to re-arrange their walkthroughs since the last reshuffle"
"I need to configure the network sometime soon, otherwise the whole record database might crash"

And by the end of those 180 minutes of discussion, all I could see that we'd accomplished was: last years budget has been authorised, minutes for a meeting in March have been signed and stored, and general back-slapping for doing nothing particularly difficult was prevalent throughout.

One of the things I hate about meetings is the use of language people automatically assume when they enter the room. They start talking about themselves in the third person (and others as "Mr." or some title which holds no power outside those walls), meaningless congratulations are offered whenever possible, and people ask permissions that they don't need.
"Permission to respond to Mr. Woolrichs query, Chairman"
Of course you've got permission you slimy little reptile, he was addressing you!

The main thing I don't like about them though, is the time they take up, and the fact that they are seen as so important that they can't possibly be missed. It was for this reason that instead of going to Bristol today for a birthday, I was listening to a budget report for floor maintenance that happened about 8 months before I started working there. Its also quite likely that instead of partying it up in Newquay this summer, I'll be trapped in Bridgy, as they've managed to schedule at least a meeting a week up until the MLA deadline. This means I've not been able to book off a decent run of days, so I'll either miss a chunk of the holiday, or have to skip it completely.

Bored

Well, I've been working at the museum for nigh on a month now, and still have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. I have an office though, which is nice. And a work experience assistant, who is also nice. I've been mostly working on the archaic database they use for recording the archive (I'm told there are about 16000 items, but the database files tend to have been corrupted, so I can only get at 10000), but this week I've been coding the website. HTML/CSS coding is not an exciting thing to spend hours trawling through, looking for a misplaced tag. It is for this reason that I complied a list of things to do rather than do more coding for a website no-one will ever look at anyway.

Things I considered doing to battle boredom:

1) Rearranging my office so that everything points towards magnetic north*
2) Sorting my Skittles by colour*
3) Juggling with Skittles*
4) Going over to Asda to buy more Skittles*
5) Drawing a moustache on the woman in the portrait hanging in the corner of the room
6) Visiting the archaelogy department on my swivel chair, while negotiating sets of steps*
7) Placing my mp3 player in the Victorian Life exhibit*
8) Wearing a replica Civil War battle tunic on the coffee run
9) Using redundant phrases, such as "I'm mentally thinking in my head", and "I'll have it finished by 1300 hours pm in the afternoon"*
10) Using RJ45 ethernet cables to abseil out of the window
11) Replacing the ships in the Battle of Lowestoft display with rubber ducks
12) Putting a "Where's The Beef?" label by the buffalo skeleton
13) Answering the phone in a range of accents*
14) Practicing keep ups with my frankly vast rubber band ball*
15) Engaging in a duel with a rogue bluebottle*
16) Arranging the museums entire supply of pins on the notice board in a smiley face*
17) Going busking with a lute

* : Denotes an activity carried out, which may or may not lead to my time at the museum coming to a premature end

Spotify The Dog

In response to Youtube having to block all music videos for the UK, although I am yet to find a song without a video up there, I downloaded Spotify a few days ago. There was a lot of hype about it essentially making iPods obsolete, but at the moment it doesn't have a big enough library to be worrying Apple. Theres a distinct lack of Oasis albums, but I suspect thats more down to the Gallaghers demanding more royalties.

A lot was made about the adverts that pop up to keep the whole thing free, and how that would "detract from the listening experience". First of all, I don't know anybody who listens to music for an experience anymore. And secondly, so far the only adverts I've heard are a nice lady talking for about 10 seconds every half hour about how if I paid for the premium package I wouldn't have to hear her go on at me. So since the Youtube music that this is filling in for was only ever used as something to listen to while we're playing FIFA round Claytons house, or as background noise while I'm cruising though Wikipedia, I have nothing against these little interludes. Its certainly not enough to make me go across to Last.FM, where all the listeners feel they have to make their opinions of the song known to everyone else.

This is all a moot point though, since I've downloaded all the songs I like to listen to on Media Player anyway.

"Its Been A Long Time...

...Since I Rock And Rolled"

It hasn't, but I needed a song lyric that suitably described my blogging absence, and Rock & Roll by Led Zep did quite nicely.

In fact, I've recently enhanced my Rock and Rolling capabilities by restringing my acoustic, bringing the total number of playable guitars sat in my bedroom up to 4 (plus one ukulele). Its got the finest Martin strings I could get for under £3, and they've taken a bit of breaking in, but at least now it doesn't sound like its being played inside a tin bucket. Need to get some replacements for the nylon strings on the uke next, which cost more despite being shorter, and having two fewer strings. Its like a little bass. Apart from it takes talent to play it.

Although if I've learnt anything from venturing onto the Bass mode on Guitar Hero for the first time last night, its that playing bass is more difficult than it looks. Its incredibly hard to keep your concentration when the guitarist is playing his complicated solo, plus you have to deal with the loss of self-respect that comes with the crowd cheering more for the monkey sat behind the drums than for you. And those root notes won't pluck themselves people...

Remember, Remember The 9th of Novem...hmm...

We went to the fireworks last night (and by "we" I mean me, Cannard and Rob), and overall it was disappointing. It was too windy, so from our viewpoint in Wetherspoons patio-ish bit most of the show was a bright dot flying a few metres into the air from the jetty, before the wind took it behind the pub building, and then there was an explosion. And this year it was to commemorate those who fought in the war 90 years ago. Which is just the kind of celebration they want : explosions, flashes, people goose-stepping around...maybe that was just us.
And in no way were the fireworks choreographed to the music being played. It was as if two different companies were running a side each, and hadn't discussed it beforehand. You'd reach the rousing bit of "Land of Hope and Glory" only for there to be nothing matching it in the sky. I say the sky, but from our estimates the fireworks were exploding no higher than 10 metres off the ground. But they did play "Dambusters", and for this they should receive credit, for this is a wonderful song, and was hummed during the walk home. We stopped short of walking in formation, but mainly because there were no German factories to flood nearby. That would be a British Legion commemoration I'd go to watch.

The Goings On Of The Last Few Days

Going back to Thursday of this week, which is about a 2 days ago, I've been to a Jobs and Careers Fair in Taunton, Rileys, fishing, the National Franchise Exhibition at the NEC, and more fishing.

The Jobs fair was held at the County Ground, home of Somerset County Cricket Club, was one of the biggest wastes of time I've ever endured, and I went to see The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe at the cinema. First we (me, Clayton and Cannard) parked up and went into the cricket shop to re-grip Claytons bat, and wander around for a bit. Then we strolled into the Pavilion where the fair was, and were immediately disappointed (although I was more let down by the fact that I feel anything with the word "fair" in the title needs at least some kind of raffle to merit the name, and preferably a Helter-skelter of some description). There were stands for employers such as Somerset Care, since everybody round here is either old or works with people who are old. There were also separate stands for the Army and the Navy (no sign of the Air Force), but who would go to a careers fair in order to join up? They are either for the casual browser who are looking for a career change, or someone who has a good idea of where they want to take their vocation, and are looking for more information. A willingness to be shot at for Queen and country isn't really a path trodden by these. There was a brief moment of interest when we came across the booth for "The Space Program". Turns out this is a dance group, and "Space" was a deceptively presented acronym. Leaving meant walking past the woman who minutes earlier had given us our sponsored bags to collect information in, so we waited until her back was turned when filling more bags with leaflets, and made a break for the door. Since we were in Taunton, and it would feel like a wasted journey otherwise, we trekked to Rileys, where I wasn't asked for my membership card. This was a good thing, as it expired a couple of days before.

Upon returning home, I had about 5 minutes to change my shirt and trousers for a fleece and waterproof cargos, and headed out to go fishing with Cannard and Clayton. None of us had rod licences, but Cannard said this didn't matter. I thought it did.
Two rods between 3 people probably isn't the best way to take part in what is already a fairly boring "sport", but we had to make do with what we had. The weather wasn't looking wonderful, but I was prepared with my (brief) history in geology, so I was well able to clamber over fences and wet fields in full waterproof gear. If I'd been asked I might even have been able to give a grid reference or two. It probably wouldn't have been right, but I'd have given it a go. It the course of events though, I managed to step in a large puddle of freshly deposited cow faeces, rip my waterproof trousers, and nearly fall in to a very wet, very cold river. So not unlike most of my field trips at uni. Suddenly a storm hit us, and by suddenly I mean one minute it looked fine for us to keep going, and the next we were running through flooded fields back to the car. Having stood in what was a steadily rising number of pats, it was understandable that my shoes were not entirely welcome in the car. I would usually have had no problem with this. It was my fault, so I'd have to take them off and put them in a bag for the journey home. Fine. However, its not particularly easy to do this when you are standing in gale force winds with rain seemingly going sideways, while holding a large lightning conductor. I ended up walking up the front path to my house in my socks.

We got lost on the way to the NEC. Clayton wouldn't listen to the satnav, and despite my insistence that it was saying "keep right" he thought it would be better to keep left. We missed the roundabout and were heading towards Birmingham Airport. A quick U-turn sorted that out, but it set a tone for the rest of the day. Once in the exhibition it was hard to tell which booths we'd been to, and which we hadn't. Plus all the time you were on the look out for either over-zealous salesman or scantily clad tarts thrusting registration forms into your hands. Better play it safe and sit though the seminars on how to set up a franchise. Very informative, but at the same thing so dull that Clayton decided it was time to see which of his joints click the loudest when left unmoved for a few minutes. Turned out it was his elbows. We left the exhibition at 3, thinking it would take about 2 hours to get home. Back by 5, everyone's happy. On the way out theres a sign saying "Hall 6 via Skywalk". Assuming theres an exit near Hall 6, we thought we may as well take a different way back to the car. The Skywalk, as it turns out, is not like the Skywalk on the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. Its more like a corridor of travelators with some windows in, and the view from these windows is that of the industrial units about 5 metres away. Not a huge success, but not much different from the alternative we'd seen on the way in. However, once we'd reached the exit (which was further from Hall 6 than we'd hoped) we didn't know which way it was to the car. Any sensible person would say go back the way we came, wait for the car park shuttle, or at least consult a map before proceeding. I suggested all of these things, but my opinion was thought unnoteworthy after suggesting that the Skywalk might be interesting. What followed was around 1 and a half hours of circumnavigating the NEC and its accompanying industrial park, a total of 3 miles after wrong turns and a lack of shortcuts, the whole while blaming me for getting us into this mess, and how we probably could have been home by now if we'd gone the right way. This was later brought up as we were sat in a traffic jam on the motorway which we probably would have missed if we'd gone went out the way we'd gone in.

We went fishing again this morning. And again it rained. Not so much this time, but enough to force us back to Claytons for Micro Machines on the Sega. There was a brief time where he had beaten my long-standing record on Basement Bumps. There was much jumping around and exclamation as he had become obsessive about beating it. I took the record back within 10 minutes. Clayton is probably sat at MY Sega in his room surrounded by empty Red Bull cans trying to beat it again.

So there we go. A very productive few days. Got a meeting on Monday about doing an AAT qualification so I can become a trainee accountant, which should be fun.

Boje

Britain On Tour

Le Tour de Grande-Bretagne (as I'm sure ITV4 have tried branding it, as we all know the French invented cycle races...) finished one of its stages in Burnham yesterday, and was greeted by "enthusiastic school children" who had been let out of school early to see it.
Its not surprising that this isn't one of the great tours (like France, Spain and Italy), since the Tour de France takes the competitors through the Alps and Pyrenees, past vineyards and gothic cathedral-like structures in glorious summer sunshine. And what do they get on the Tour of Britain? Some hills over Exmoor, a burnt out pub, the Woodpile, and the glamorous finishing straight with the Bejing Buffet and JPS. All in the rain.
And theres been a lot of rain. Usually on the other tours all the talk is about what tactics are going to be used, and which riders will get to the front when. But as soon as they hit Somerset the whole pre-race chatter is about waterproofs.
Summer came and went, but nobody thought to tell the cyclists.

Boje