Word Magazine Blog brings British Economy to its knees - what should *you* be doing right now?
Posted by Vulpes Vulpes on 27 March 2008 - 12:50pm.
The editors of Word Magazine were today summoned to Number 10 to explain themselves for having triggered the biggest single slump in British productivity since the launch of the mini-skirt.
Word bloggers account for over 50% of UK internet traffic during the working day, peaking at lunchtime, bringing some sections of industry to a grinding halt, and overloading BT's backbone network every time anyone mentions Supertramp.
Gordon Brown has decided to tax Blogging as a result, and China has banned all links to the Word website.
I'm supposed to be designing a database. What should other Wordies really be doing when we're in here having a laugh?
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i should be keeping an eye on some bank called
'Northern Rock'...
silly name for a bank, honestly, if you ask me!
I'm supposed to
selling advertising in Word magazine, thereby encouraging you to buy more records and do less work. Will I get summoned to no.10? Is it today? Will Carla Bruni be there?
Carla Bruni
I can't get over that footage of her next to the Queen. Looks like somebody's taken some footage of the state opening of Parliament and then photo-shopped Marilyn Monroe in there.
And why was Camilla. . .
wearing a deconstructed kestrel?
she couldn't afford the hofmeister
/badum-bad lager-tish
Still...
... she's done okay for someone who I first heard about on a Word of Mouth CD...
Carla Bruni?
We MADE Carla Bruni.
in which case
can I have a copy of the receipe?
You don't really want to know....
...but a lubricated and be-gloved finger is sometimes required. From me, not to me.
it's like 'What's My Line?'
Part of my job involves keeping an eye on staff to see who is looking at the internet when they should be working - I manage a team. Yes, I am a hypocrite. So I have to be careful - not too much of this during working hours (it's allowed at lunch), although I have deliberately positioned my desk at one end of the office so when my colleague who normally sits next to me is not around I can take a look here surreptitously. This means sometimes a post can be a bit rushed and incoherent (my excuse). I am guessing most regulars are less restricted, maybe working at home, in a more laid-back environment?
I daren't say
Suffice it to say my client pays good money for me to write bollocks on this blog...
Writing a report
on setting up an information hub for the sharing of crime and disorder data.
Need any data modelling done?
Integration schema for a database pulling data from heterogenous sources?
I'm available from the end of June, my daily rate is very reasonable and I work really hard, never waste any client time, er, oh bugger.
Assuming there's money in the budget
it could be a possibility. However the likelihood of the dosh being available is fairly slim.
Surely
for a project like that, the courts should be confiscating loot from crims, left, right and centre?
If only
Nice idea, but the courts are a completely different part of the system.
Right this minute...
...I'm avoiding having to write all the little entries that accompany the track-by-track rundown of the Word CD for the June issue. I've done it for two years now and it's driving me mad.
I can imagine
Trying to find a new way of expressing "This is fab, go out and buy the CD / download it" must get a tad wearing.
Find me one example...
...where I've said that.
You're taking it the wrong way, David
I was sympathising with you. You tell us the tracks are picked by yourselves. On that basis you presumably think we should listen to more music from the artists. Trying to think up to new positive things things to say in a very limited space is probably wearisome. I was grossly over simplifying the content of your polished plugs.
Sorry if it offended you.
Not offended at all
Just trying to find a new way to say "this is a group of four blokes from England" is driving me mad.
Following up...
...my not-as-successful-as-I'd-hoped first novel by writing another one, and wondering all the time what it's all about and whether I'm just wasting my time while my wife keeps me in check by calling me "The Tortured Artist".
Project
Management in a City firm.
Thank heaven for time management skills, which allow me to (not so) surreptitiously spend far too much time in here, debating the real issues of the day.
I'm worth every penny. Honest.
Snap.....
I too am sitting in a City Office doing exactly the same thing.
Me too
though not in the City! Good innit.
PMs
Obviously I need to keep a better eye on my project managers from now on. Any of you in a City law firm? If so, we may need to have words.
My contributions may become a bit more frequent now I have discovered I can do it from by Blackberry.
If
I was a PM in a City law firm, my 'downtime' would be logged as part of my excruciatingly over-egged (oeuf'ed?) hourly rate.
But I'm not; I have to make do with asset management. I would like to participate by Berry though; how do you do that?
Game of two halves
Don't get the minions confused with the lawyers. They charge tons, but the 'overheads' get paid as little as the market will allow.
The BB posting was fairly straightforward with the built in web browser on my old 8700, but now I have a sleek little Curve, and so I could download and install Opera Mini, which gives a much nicer webbing experience.
I am unemployed and chronically ill...
...and therefore have a better excuse than many for spending a large portion of my day sitting at the computer reading the WORD website, among other things.
The alternative is to fritter away that time in front of the TV, watching shows about couples who are planning to relocate to Spain but need help finding a home, interspersed with commercials from companies who want to save me money on my car and home insurance (I have neither).
There is a serious point to this. Anyone who has been out of work for a long period of time will be aware of how quickly your brain can turn to mulch. Writing and posting content on the internet is my way of honing my mental faculties. This superficially inane and pointless addition to WORD website is actually part of a strict regime of brain training that I undertake daily.
From what I've seen of your posts here
I look forward to reading your first novel, Mr 7.
But before that. . .
we want the "My Backwards Pages" column in Word magazine.
And I'm still...
...trying to avoid writing 80 words about Joan as Policewoman.
I could have...
...come up with 80 words about Lou Reed, no problem. Trouble is, you'd never have got an interview with him afterwards. A lawsuit, perhaps.
The Lou Reeds of the world are no problem...
....it's up and coming indie acts who hide their true selves behind a series of masks.
Here's 80(ish) words on JAPW
Joan as Policewoman was a former squeeze of Jeff Buckley as well as being a member of Antony and the Johnsons and Rufus Wainwright's band. So far, so Marianne Faithful. However, she's actually pretty damn listenable, as evidenced by [insert song name here] from her forthcoming album [insert album name here]. Well-connected she may be, but now it's finally time for her to break through on her own terms.
There, how about that? Oh, I'm supposed to be completing some impossible coursework as I graduate in 2 months, so would be able to start work almost immediately at a fine publication such as yours (here's hoping flattery gets you everywhere).
...and I make great tea
indie bands
I've gone a bit magnet-ee to The 66. A dorky girl from PerthOz gets to be drowned in those dreamy but naughty-boy sounds...
I hope that she hasn't succumbed to second album syndrome.
I really got into Real Life and she had some decent B-sides too. I like her cover of David Bowie's Sweet Thing.
Nothing wrong with the record
It's just the legend that's the problem.
Anyone...
...fancy a beer?
Translating a dicky Excel file of building specs
Needless to say, I know nothing about fixing dicky Excel files and even less about building specs.
Building specs.....
I thought you meant you were an optician for a second there.....
It's jargon. . .
Short for "speculum/specula", I gather.
I use a speculum too....
....from time to time.
(Don't worry, no animals were harmed in the making of my blog. Humans? Don't believe everything in the Daily Mail.......)
I am
writing my second children's novel and waiting for my agent to call.
( He never does...)
Me?
I'm working in the lovely oil industry...no, its not my fault that you pay so much for your petrol.
I have presentation to prepare....very exciting stuff
Interviewing...
... dull indie bands, has-been rockers and soapstars on regional theatre tours for a local rag.
The indie bands...
....they really are the dullest, aren't they?
Zzzzzzz...
If I hear one more spotty teenager in spray on jeans peddling sub Libertines mulch telling me how they started a band because they wanted to make something that 'sounds different to everything else out there' I'm going to take his 'angular riffs' and shove 'em where the sun don't shine.
But hey, they're kids. I was an arrogant sod with a terrible taste in music when I was 19 as well.
Stewing
in a credit card firm, overlooking the north wales hills, watching the clock as it ticks, slowly needless to say, to six when I can get to my car and listen to the latest podcast. Was going to listen this morning, but got waylaid (sp?) by Billy Bragg's latest. It's really rather good.
Hmmmm
Do you by any chance work in the business park outside Chester on the Wrexham Road?
but I do
stone me it's a small world
Erm, yes
You got me. It's a fair cop. Cuff me up and I'll do the bird.
It is
But the sad thing is that I can say "I can remember when it was all fields". When we visit Chester to see my mother, Mrs P will probably claim that is exactly what I do say as we drive past.
Business park outside Chester on the Wrexham road?
It's Wernham Hogg!
not quite
the view up here in Chester is a little better than Slough...and doesn't smell quite so much of Chocolate.
My first job was based on a Slough trading estate over 20 years ago...it was grim then.
Me too!
Actually I drove past my old flat in the Farnham Rd the other night listening to the podcast!
Er...
... I worked there for a few months in 1990-ish.
Now hang on
This is spooky.
Any excuse will do
spooky?
that several Word bloggers have connections to both Chester and Slough? Bleedin' scary I call it.
Not so surprising
.. when considering the work that goes on in this place, I'm sure I can't be the only one needing the occasional "distraction."
Suffer little children
I usually type during the short break times when I should be getting the next lesson ready for a group of young kids with autism and/or emotional and behavioural problems. The result is a substandard education for our nation's youth.
Yellow Groundhog Day
Never really have a chance to look at the Word site at work, just too busy, the amendments for Yellow Page's adverts never end and the work list never shrinks. Directories are going to print all the time. It's always a welcome relief to have a look at the Word site on an evening, or sometimes before I enter Yellow World. Haven't had the energy to turn on the computer at home this week, seeing Yellow all the time now. There must be more to life than Yellow.
Coldplay....
...wrote a song about that, didn't they?
Yellow
They sure did, but doubt if they had the Yellow Pages in mind when they wrote it!
I'm supposed to be....
....reacivating a dehydrater and commissioning a CO skid to help with the temperature profile of a hydrogenater.....
.....but this is much more fun.....
.....and the company can afford it!
Educating myself
With no project work on the horizon, I'm supposed to be improving my technical skills on new software packages, ready to spring into action the moment a client asks for some application to be written.
But, hey, my company's big on pushing Web 2.0 and social networking technologies. This counts as research. As do the hours I spend over at last.fm. Probably.
Ah, the joys of working at home!
bemoaning Americans
Justifying the Queen`s English to dumb yanks who then castigate my writing for not using capitals for ee cummings and using only one `l` in Holsten pils etc. Looking at a 120,000 word/500 page novel and wondering whether I could perhaps trim it of excess flab by removing a sentence. I`m not married to it, but it is a particularly succinct and well turned sentence. The other 19,999 sentences are above reproach.
Spend the other 23 hours sleeping and lying to people on here about my literary prowess (it`s 115,000 words and 450 pages)whilst Mrs S works hard and imagines I am looking at one handed websites all day.
Turn of phrase award
"One handed websites"
Usually I am
managing the freight forwarding services to and from North America for a large uk freight forwarder. It pays the bills and is actually quite good fun at times. Today I am child minding and reading texts from friends, i will share this one with you as I thought it was rather amusing:-
Ringo Starr called Paul McCartney after his lengthy court case and launched into a tirade about the sanctity of marriage - he asked Paul 'do you think you will ever go down on one knee again?'
Paul replied 'I dont think so but can you please refer to her as Heather"
More! More!
I'm off work laid up at home with a grumbling lumbar vertebra, and though it pains me, I do like a laugh.
Back to Back
Dear Mr Vulpes, after 10 years of occasional agonising incapacity due to a herniated lumbar disc, I bought a magnetic belt in Boots for £30, more in hope than expectation, but it does seem to have helped. Made by Homedics, by the way, who are nothing to do with me.
Had to happen
First mention of surgical support.
Nice to be first...
...but you'll have noticed I prefer to call it a magnetic belt. And another thing, while Mrs Bryer drops in occasional references to me wearing "a corset", she has yet to stoop so low as the surgical support...
Al Pacino in Dog Day Late Evening
"Sciatica! Sciatica!"
Right, that's it.
No way am I wearing any belt now. I'll buy a load of fridge magnets and glue the little buggers to an old T shirt.
New T-shirt
The Word - Last refuge of the truss gag.
Well given that I'm half way
Well given that I'm half way around the world in sunny Singapore (well it's actually raining at the moment), its my evening when you lot are supposed to be working..... I guess I should be feeding and bathing the kids though.... well at least they can talk about their deprived childhood when they are they are in a dull indie band being interviewed.
I should be about to get on a plane to Milan...
with my girlfriend, but I couldn't get the time off work, so instead I'm sitting at home feeling fed up.
Crack a tinnie mate,
put your feet up, read the latest Word and risk your neighbour's wrath with some good sounds turned up loud.
What a good idea...
perhaps they'd enjoy some Supertramp?!
You're bloody well right.
Sock it to 'em Patrick.
As in
Take a look at my girlfriend,she's on a plane to Milan,
not much of a girlfriend, think I'll get an Indian
Steve? Fast food or fast f...
Girlfriend or takeaway?
V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N
Normally running a radio station - currently basking in Key Largo on the Florida Keys - Rum Punch anyone ?
more better software
Normally making software applications for mobile phones with an awesome team of young Chinese developers. This morning, I am avoiding testing that software on a Latin American mobile network.
Simon, as they say on some
banal tv quiz show 'the choice is yours"
The Members 2nd album
was titled 1980: The choice is yours.
I am stunned
to discover that I am the first to declare that I work in local government... Town Planning, no less. Can there really be no others that waste the public purse while examing this excellent blog?
You're not alone
I too suffer in one of those target driven, overblown, inefficient, clueless, incompetent, jargon ridden, soul destroying bureaucratic machines.
That's just what it's like on a good day.
Likewise
but I do get good pension scheme, flexitime. Quite enjoy it, I like the people, it's fairly easy going. It is a Kafkaesque, labyrinthine, nightmare world at times, but somehow I've grown accustomed to and acceptant of that. I do paint, which is my real, main thing so maybe that is why.
I'm supposed to be....
Operating the baggage handling system in the new Heathrow Terminal. I expect they're managing ok without me, though - it's all supposed to be automated, I hear.
Can't see any problems there...
keep on surfing
I am living proof....
....that houses do not paint themselves.
Maintaining my English
I should be doing something with student enrollments, however, I'm far more likely to wander outside to a cafe for breakfast, oh how delightfully unproductive a Spanish office can be.
As sole English speaker in this particular area, nobody really has a clue what I'm up to - and as long as I keep it to a minimum, I can play the "no entiendo" card.
But really does anyone need 2 hours for lunch?
Que?
Dos horas? Mas, mas! Usted necesita por lo menos 3 horas para una buena comida.
Which Spanish city are you in?
My son's supposed to be studying there and I'm looking for someone to keep an eye on him.
I'm in Cadiz
I go to Granada and Seville regularly too. I've lived in Spain for 20 years now.
The centre of the Universe
as some misguided Spaniard told me last night. Madrid.
I came here for a few months almost four years ago and never left.
It's sadly lacking a body of water, but there are far worse places to be - until August that is, when everyone leaves for the summer and the heat becomes a little much for the Brit in me.
It's tricky to get into trouble in Madrid, hugely friendly place, it is easy to get distracted though...... is the eye being kept for his safety or his studies?
One of my brothers
lives in Aviles. But it's pretty unlikely your son has ended up there.
Trying...
...to debug the network in the Cardiff metal bashing outfit where I work, which has started going backwards after 10 years of tripping along quite nicely. Where do you start? There are 50 network points & connected devices, miles of wire & it's financial year end - our busiest day of the year. And all I can hear is one particular (and, normally, particularly unproductive) colleague grumbling, 'It's still slow...I can't work like this...I'm going home...'
So I've come here for a moan. Apologies, guys.
So, how does that make you feel?
Yep, I'm a counsellor/therapist. I tend to avoid reading this site when I'm working, as my clients might mistakenly get the impression that I'm not giving them my full attention...
Tell me about your childhood...
the HORA, the HORA!
Back Of The Class
Has anyone ever been told off for looking at the Word website whilst at work? (Quickly minimises screen as boss approaches)
The Boss click
It's what fast-responding tabbed-browsing Firefox was invented for.