Such is the good weather we're getting this weekend that Yahoo is making a news item of it. That said, I look out of the window this morning and the sky is a plain white sheet of cloud. Perhaps Yahoo need to be a bit quicker off the mark with their journalism?
Grand National
We have a horse race in Britain called the Grand National. It's something of a national event these days. It was televised yesterday and some outsider won it, leaving bookies with huge losses. One complained that they'd
The sunshine is glorious. It really is. Not a cloud to be seen and for a warm saturday surprisingly quiet in Swindon. You would think the place would be humming with people out to enjoy the day but apparently this isn't the case. I wonder why? Is it the recession? Has anyone got any money left after Gordon Browns Tax Police have slapped bills on everything that moves and almost everything that doesn't? Or is it the danger of collapsing walls at our plentiful building sites, following this weeks
"It's our last week" Claimed KS. Not only does he fail to understand how a baseball cap should be worn, he also can't count. So convinced was he of this final week at our work placement that we all thought he was right, managers included. Today the issue was sorted as my boss went off to the office and returned with confirmation that we all have another week to run.
Good news for J, who had to take the day off work because it's his girlfriends birthday (Full marks there J). He was so keen on
I woke up this morning in a sort of tired downbeat mood. Sort of like that monday feeling but delayed by two days for extra suffering. Wednesdays in Swindon are always greyer than normal. Don't know why, they just are. It's traditional.
You see, the thirteen weeks of my placement are coming to an end. I hate to admit it but I've actually enjoyed being there. Well, maybe not quite all the time, just enough of it to bring a tear to my cheek as I look back and remember my time as J's disciple.
My boss was busy. Downstairs, out on the shop floor, crowds of youngsters on their half-term holiday were pouring in through the door demanding the latest fashions to wear incorrectly. I, the unkempt apprentice, was given my chores for the day and left to complete them. This was going to be a trying day. Piles of boxes had been set aside for me to process and unpack. If only there were an easy way to deal with this onerous task... If only...
In the dark and stygian stockroom, I opened a cart
It's the Easter weekend and of course that means today is a bank holiday. Is it just me or is this extended weekend something less than it should have been? There was a time when bank holidays were an event. Families migrating to the coast and spending the day parked on a motorway waiting for the queue of traffic to move forward another few feet. Or the thrill of the obligatory James Bond movie. You just don't get that excitement these days.
So I suppose I'll pull a can from the fridge and
There's some pictures from yesterdays expedition to Liddington Hill. The photos don't really convey the scale of the hill and how steep those slopes are. It fascinating to think though that Iron Age Brits and Romano-Brits once lived there, and that possibly Saxon invaders might once have defended those slopes against a certain 'Arthur' and his army. It feels a very lonely place these days.
Learn When You're Young
The course of the old Wilts & Berks canal forms a back street these days.
I had intended to go on a hike yesterday but the unsettled weather put me off. Today however was due to be sunshine and showers, and after looking at the weather map on tv I decided to risk a venture into the countryside. So this morning I was up early and all packed. My intention was to climb to the top of Liddington Hill, the highest spot in Wiltshire and not too far away, although the route I planned to go by meant following the road south then doubling back up the escarpment, a fair distanc
Today is big news for me. I have published my first book, available from all good booksellers, entitled Introspective and Non-Triumphant Behaviour Among Adolescent Roman Males (by Caldrail). Took me ages to research the subject. Finally finished and out on the shelves. Woo Hooo!
You are all going to buy a copy, aren't you?
This was of course a complete April Fools joke and the said book does not exist. It also happens to be a subtle if somewhat abstract poke at some of my dole-seeking f
In the last ten minutes, I was attacked by hailstones. Luckily we Brits only get the feeble variety, little frozen pellets that bounce off the top of your head with a slight stinging sensation. Just thought I'd mention it. It's probably the most exciting thing that happened today. I was going to write about S, our new fellow placementee who joined us today for our daily round of fun, frolics, and cardboard monotony, but it turns out he's a quiet chap who's about as interesting to talk to as char
I was in a grim state last night. My temperature was rising, my visits to the toilet increasingly frantic and frequent, and I felt dreadful. Why is it that medicine never tastes nice? Grin and bear it, Caldrail, you'll feel better in the morning. And so I was. The cold damp morning didn't put me off at all. After the heavy showers of yesterday, the big screen television bolted to the side of the multi-story car park insisted today was going to bring drizzle. I think they might have a different d
As many of you might know, this last weekend was the time of year when we put the clocks forward one year, a ritual designed for no apparent reason other than statistics. Getting out of bed an hour earlier wasn't too difficult considering my downstairs neighbours had left their central heating on and whilst that wasn't apparent at first, by the early hours I was gasping for breath in that humid heat.
Time to go to work. The weather has turned rainy and I'm informed that snow might hit parts
Walking along the alleyway beside the yard at theback of my home, I spotted the first 'horsetail' sprouting out of the sandy gravel and grass beside the white (and decorated) plywood fence. Without the fronds it'll grow later, it resembles a sort of greeny-white phallus, though the colours blend in perfectly with the surroundings and so it's already grown several inches without my seeing before.
In a sense this harbinger of spring is an event, something to bring a smile to to your face, to m
Never quite cloudy... Never quite rainy... It's been a day of woeful indecision from Mother Nature. We of the Stockroom Breed however have been much more determined. After all, we've been there ten weeks now. We're already discussing the need to be awarded campaign medals. Mr R died of old age. W left after his criminal record was exposed. Mistymouth left after exposing his.. well.. oddness. There was apparently another new starter who left the next day with a sprained wrist. We are the survivor
Thursday is jobsearch day again, and that's official. You would expect that we get access to facilities and resources to assist us in the quest for gainful employment and up to a point you'd be right, but what might suprise you is the extent to which the advisors go to obstruct and prevent us from actually making any attempt to apply for a job.
As usual TB began her class in... erm... whatever it was, I've forgotten already... Oh yes, I remember now, it was a group thing about a hypothet
KS plays football three nights a week. He sports a 'hard boy' shaven head. He spends ten miniutes every morning covering every inch and fold with 'man-spray'. He's dated almost every young lady employed at this department store. Whilst he hasn't advertised the fact, he also took a short video of himself in the Dungeon sparring with a cardboard box. Quite the young man isn't he?
I had to laugh. Today he was given to Mrs T as her personal assistant. She's a mature lady who clearly wasn't going
As Tuesdays go, this was not a good one.
Let's see... What happened today?
Erm... Not much...
Oh hang on - I did burst into song first thing this morning!
My Italian Tenor Moment
Just one more carton
Give it to me
Fantastic fashions
From Italy
I want - to look my best
So give me that carton
And bu-u-u-u-rn the rest
Proof of God
Yes - in the desolate wastes of the stockroom, isolated from human contact and with nothing but navel gazing to keep us from devolving into fis
A visit from the Health & Safety Executive set the tone of todays activity in the stockrrom. Everything had to be stacked safely. Which meant I had to restack everything. So once again unto the boxes dear friends, and those who were not stacking shall hold their manhood cheap, as Shakespeare himself might have put it.
KS popped into view during my tedious reassembly of random piles of distorted cartons and said "I've been told to give you a hand. Do the same as you."
Okeedokee. If yo
Way back in the days before musicians were obselete and I was optimistically expecting to be a famous rock drummer any minute later, I must have played hundreds and hundreds of gigs back-to-back all over England. Funny thing though is only once do I remember being offered drugs.
In that particular case I was guarding the mixing desk before a gig at the infamous London Road Hall in Bath, a fetid amber-shaded place whose clientelle seemed to compose mostly of rival drug dealers and their wooll
Without doubt this is a miserable day. A fine mist of dampness hangs over Swindon, enveloping our grey town with... Well... Even more greyness. Only wetter. The feeling has reached my neighbour, who slammed the doors this morning in another sulk at having his dreams of all day and night parties crushed by the need to live alongside other people. Must be nine o'clock then.
As I strode determinedly through the rain to reach the library at the bottom of the hill, I reminisced about how this was
Swindon is renowned for it's dreary wet weather and today our unusual run of sunny mornings turned into a damp squib of a day. It's hard to describe how the mood in our rainy old borough changes when it gets wet because basically it doesn't. People are the same, apart from being possibly a little less drunk. So let me take you by the hand and lead you through the aisles upstairs, and I'll tell you something that will finally make up your mind...
Highlights of the Day
1 - Caldrail singing "M
Back to school again. Every week I have to attend a session at the programme centre and sit through the lessons intended for people who don't have any education whatsoever.
Our groups subject was Child Adoptions By Same Sex Couples. The discussion of course immediately turned to football with me sat in the middle of opinions and observations about a game for which I have nothing but disinterest in with every fibre of my being.
Each group had to nominate someone to stand up and deli
Life in the stockroom continued at its usual pace, a sort of disinterested shuffle urged on by the increasing frustration of managerial staff for whom laclk of enthusiasm is an alien concept. Then, without warning, the main lights in the stockroom went out. Only the individual aisle lights remained, casting an orange mood upon the darkness of our haunted store. It was like being inside one of the computer games where you wander around mazes shooting things before they rip you asunder. Or for tha
Miss L isn't speaking to me today. The enormity of the situation is soul-crushing. How can I go through life without Miss L's insightful commentary? I have become a lesser human being, relegated to the bottom league of social undesirables on slave wages. Plus I get attacked occcaisionally by rubber bands and rubbish thrown over the racks. Battered and bruised.
In order to restore my happiness, and indeed, my general sanity, the department store issued me with a high-vis jacket. For health a
