Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Rather Draining

Have encountered a new and bizarre superstition - apparently it's unlucky to walk over three drain covers. Now, I could understand this if they were open ones, but a fear of three-in-a-row bog standard man-hole covers is a new one on me. B at work first introduced me to this, and at first I thought it was just her, but I was waiting at a bus stop yesterday when someone passing in front of me suddenly looked down, realised she was about to step on a three-er, and performed a magnificent half-salmon, half-champion hopscotch player mid air leap-and-twist to avoid them.


A radio traffic report on the way home today warned of delays due to a shed load. Would quite like to know if anyone else was thinking 'a shed-load of what?'

Monday, September 27, 2004

The Cornish Conkerererer

Went for a walk on Sunday evening to see if I could find any conkers, down by the big horse chestnut trees along the lake at Swanpool. Alas, urchins had beaten me to it and the verge was bare - however, walking across the hospital site to get a sandwich this lunchtime, I found not one but two lovely shiney beauties! Altogether a happier experience than the sandwich I ended up with, which was one of the more revolting experiences I've had in a while...

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Office Frustrations, Part the First

1/ Spending 15 minutes getting irate with a fax machine that won't send, only to realise you've been dialling your OWN number...

2/ Being handed a bottle of tippex and told - 'wait a few minutes for it to dry, then you can write over it'. Er - yes, I am from this planet actually.

probably more to come when I think of them..


Sunday, September 19, 2004

One Man And His Plank

My office window overlooks what must be the most eventful road junction on the hospital site. Last week there was a mini flood, which was manfully battled by a maintenance chap who'd happended to be sat there in his van as the waters rose around him. He ended up crouching in the murky waters with his arm down the blocked drain up to his shoulder pulling out various nasty things until the level began to fall again. Rather him than me. We've had the scaffolding lorry, which occasionally pulls up, men get out, rattle poles for a bit and then drive away again without anything conspicuous having been acheived. We've had a cabling truck, and men rolling those large cotton-reel things about. And then we had the line-painting man, armed with two planks, a bit of nifty footwork and a mate with a steaming bucket of paint. With all this to watch, it's amazing any work gets done at all really.

Saturday, September 18, 2004

Jam With Everything

No, not another machinery-wrecking incident, but a new cafe in town called Jam. Well, I say new, but I haven't been past there for ages, so it might have been there a while (not quite cutting edge news I know...). Leather sofa, french jazz, and the best coffee I've had in ages, so if you live in Falmouth, drop in sometime.

It occurred to me afterwards, the supermarkets might be missing out on a trick here. You know how they pump out essence of coffee bean and baking bread to try and tempt people into buying more - well maybe they should try tailoring their supermarket radio to the aisle you're in with a selection of trans-continental tunes. I say this because after half an hour sitting in a flow of french warbling I promptly went off and bought croissants, a baguette and soft cheese...

Do You Want Chips With That?

After months of fruitless commercial watching, last night I finally caught Becca's Weightwatchers advert. The closest I'd come thus far had been a rather surreal moment when the tv was playing with the sound off and I'd looked up to see a final, silent shot of her staring out at me over a plate of chips...

Thursday, September 16, 2004

The Occasional Sausage


RichardHammond
Originally uploaded by
CornishRambler.
Is that like an occasional table, meaning I can do the joke about what is it the rest of the time then? Anyway, this evening it's an excuse to watch Richard Hammond, who gets my vote for the tv presenter with the sexiest eyes. Ever. I think the programme was supposed to put us off eating sausages because of their nasty fat and salt content, but all those clips of sizzling trays of the things just made me want some. Even Hammond, having first rather dubiously tasted the one they made with the worst ingredients happily ate another bit when the 'hey it tastes like a sausage' factor kicked in. Although he didn't seem to come across the economy brand that I remember an ex-housemate of mine used to eat which had 'mechanically recovered chicken meat' on the list of ingredients...

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Bonnie Prince Charlie

Well, our very own Duke of Cornwall, the Prince of Charles dropped by the hospital today for a free lunch, oops, I mean to open the multi-million pound new medical school. Or, the Knowledge Spa, to give it its proper name. What the heck-fire is a knowledge spa anyway? Do they immerse the students in educational bathtubs until they're all wrinkly with absorbed learning? And presumably the sniffer dogs combing the building beforehand were after bombs and not drugs, it being a hospital site an' all. Although the proximity of all those hard chemicals might explain the one that got overexcited and had a little accident in the new and shiny library. Bet they took that off the royal tour...

Anyway, us lowly ranks had to wait outside to be allowed a peek. When he got out the car someone called out "coo-ee". Possibly we made him jump, there he is, being ushered towards the lady mayor and all the bigwigs, and turns round to see a crowd of monkeys hanging over the wall. Still, he waved at us so I call that a result. Good on yer, yer highness.

Monday, September 13, 2004

Coffeeless in Cornwall

Well, despite having come away with the impression that Friday's interview went rather well, I came home today to an "unfortunately you have not made the shortlist" letter. I shall of course take the view that I was vastly over qualified and they didn't want to demean me with the position. While consoling myself that I wouldn't want to work somewhere that doesn't offer its candidates coffee...

Jam Session

You'll remember my little episode with the shredder of course? Bringing technology to its knees with a few sheets of paper? Well I did it again today, this time with the laminator. With the first sheet. Nothing follows up a affirmation of ability quite like instant breakage of equipment. Still, on the bright side I must be running out of things to jam...

Sunday, September 12, 2004

"Samurai - come!"

I've heard it's a bugger to get out of the sheets...

Well that's two and a half hours of my life I'm not getting back - The Last Samurai, with Tom Cruise. And this is a fan of his talking (those that give a toss about the plot and haven't seen it yet should probably stop reading now).

Basically it irritated the tits off me that if the 'big-up the honour thing' samurai had told the emperor what he should do when he was asked his opinion instead of wibbling, he could have avoided thousands of people dying needlessly. Okay, so it would have been a shorter film in which even less happens (first hour and a half - Cruise is involved in a minor skirmish and learns Japanese. That's. About. It.) but then again that might not have been a bad thing. Pretty much the only positive thing I can say it that is was better than Vanilla Sky, which was the biggest pile of shite I've seen for a long time. I think I'll have to go and re-watch the Mission: Impossibles to recover my faith...


Friday, September 10, 2004

The Blackboard of Life

Well, that's another first chalked up on the blackboard of life - my first ever 'proper' job interview, ie not one arranged by a friend, taken by a friend, or for a job I'd already been offered. Well, I'll try anything for kicks. The weather was kind enough not to monsoon on me till *after* I came out, and I took the bus into town for once, so's not to turn up any more sweaty and dishevelled than strictly necessary. I think it went ok, but I guess we'll see... One of the people interviewing me didn't half remind me of someone though. It's going to bug me for days till I work out who.

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Objection!

Ah, just what you need at the point when with any luck you'll be starting a new job - a summons for Jury Service. Thank you oh so very much, that makes November so much more special.

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

Rip Her To Shreds

I should have known it was going to be one of those days when I got half way through stamping this morning's post before realising I hadn't changed the date on it. Things got marginally more embarrassing this afternoon when I managed to jam the shredder. Well, you'd think a munching metal jawed monster would be robust enough to take more that a few sheets at a time, wouldn't you? So what better way to recover from the day than to open a nice relaxing bottle of wine? Except, of course, the cork snaps in half. Nay bother, stick the corkscrew in the bottom bit and try again. Yep, cork sinks in to the neck of the bottle and I'm now proudly sporting a blood blister across the palm. To round things off, I poke the cork down into the bottle. I believe the effect is probably best spelt spla-doosh....

Sunday, September 05, 2004

Mousehole Chat

Went to Mousehole yesterday - in the best traditions of living nary an hour away from somewhere interesting for years and never going there, it was the first time I'd been. It's one of the most picturesque places I think I've ever seen, even in Cornwall, although given that pretty much the only shops are galleries and ones seling tat to tourists it must be fairly difficult actually living there.

Nice clean public loos too (always worth a mention, I feel). Although the fact that other people might actually be using them seemed to fox the lady that came in after me. She shoved my door, and grunted in surprised annoyance when it didn't open. She then shoved the other (occupied) cubicle door. When that didn't open either, she wailed "Am I doing something wrong?". Perhaps she's had problems with the door-opening concept in the past. This was followed with "Is there anyone in there?". Not in her head, apparently.

The tide was out and the harbour looked like nothing so much as if a big plug had been pulled out - boats and mooring ropes, and sand and seaweed all fanned out from the lowest point, where the water had disappeared between the gap in the harbour wall.

Had a cream tea in The Old Pilchard Press, and it was the best one I've had for a long time - the scones (more bread-y splits really) were warm and fresh, plenty of jam and clotted cream. Although a refill on my coffee (also very nice) wouldn't have killed them... The only jarring note was the very VERY loud family from Birmingham (why is it always?) at the only other occupied table. Now this was a small, living-room sized place. We weren't talking (more intent on gobbling clotted cream), the staff weren't talking, so why they felt it neccessary to carry on a conversation at the very *tops* of their voices I really don't know. Just glad they left first, so we could finish a lovely tea in a more serene atmosphere!

Saturday, September 04, 2004

Morris Men Do It With Bells On


Morris Dancers
Originally uploaded by CornishRambler.
Rather liked this picture - taken at the Royal Cornwall Show this year, and it looks like they've actually managed to flap hard enough to take off...

Friday, September 03, 2004

The Third Degree

I have an interview! For a whole proper job. And if I get through that interview, there'll then be a second interview, with tests (possibly with wires and electrodes, although I'd imagine they keep quiet about that bit till you get through the door). So if I spell funny, it's 'cause I've got everything crossed...

Thursday, September 02, 2004

Chopper-holic

So I'm working at the hospital. And one of the best bits is you get to see all the helicopters coming in to land. Now admittedly, this strikes me as a bit sick, given that it's ferrying in the ill and maimed, but I'm sure they'd be cheered to know they were brightening someone else's day with their trip, don't you?