british summer time

i forgot to mention that as a cruel joke, the clocks went forward last weekend and we are now officially in british summer time. thats funny. british summer time. if by summer they mean cloud and rain and cold, then it kind of makes sense. if summer is that season when the hemisphere you are in is tilted closer to the sun, and hence its warmer, then someone needs to check that tilt because it ain't warm. it ain't even close to warm. in fact the last couple of days its got colder. maybe we are going back into winter. who the fuck knows.

anyways, its the long easter weekend and i have 4 days off work, and its not a moment too soon. i shall mostly be doing some sleeping and some training and might even watch some tv, read a book and possibly socialise with some friends. i shall see how it goes.

in other news, it looks like we are going to be playing the first football of this year on thursday. babies, broken bones and gangster shit, were the reason why we had been short of numbers, but it looks like a couple of those guys will be back, and unless the other guy has done a shawshank redemption and tunneled his way out prison, we will almost be back to a full compliment but not quite.

i also got a call about a couple of contracts. shall not get my hopes up too high but we shall see how it goes.

have a lovely easter weekend. take care flower.

today i have mostly been listening to snow patrol - just say yes.

lost prophets

thank god its easter weekend coming up and only a 4 day week this week. actually its literally thank god on the monday because thats when the second revelation took place. this friday is when JC got crucified at golgotha by the romans in jerusalem in a bid to appease and carry favour with the locals who saw him as a heretic. all this is the benefits of going to a church school till the age of 11 though failing that just watch the film the passon, although preferrably not before you have had a large meal as you might chuck up your dinner about 20 minutes into it. i bet there are a lot of people that don't know that easter is a religous holiday and not merely a holiday where people eat chocolate eggs and the beginning of spring time.

anyways, i am on earlies this week again. i know we are on a rota but i am sure i have done more than my fair share of early shifts and more than the others. 1 week in 3, my ass.

weekend was quiet as always. raining for most of saturday but quite nice on sunday so i could cycle to the gym. when i say nice, i mean still cloudy, but just not rain, and in places the clouds were broken and the sun came through. we must have had nearly a whole hour of sunshine when you added up all those brief 30 second and 1 minute periods of the sun shining through. nearly got me a tan.

today i have mostly been listening to lost prophets - where we belong.

lights

a friend of mine works for a consultancy that has placed him in a big firm in the city. he has been there a couple of years but they let a load of people in his department go recently, and he wasn't very happy with how things had been going and how they were being treated, and i could see it was really getting him down. he has had a couple of jobs over the last few years and each time he has not been happy and content with them. anyways this week it must have been that point that pushes you over the edge because he mailed me and told me he had just handed in his resignation and wanted out and he didn't have anything else lined up.

fast forward a few days, and the company that he is based at, heard he was going to be leaving and have asked him if he would like to freelance for them directly and not through the consultancy. not only that, but they have offered him a wage that is almost TRIPLE what he was getting before. needless to say he has gone from being depressed and frustrated to being over the moon in a matter of a few hours.

it does me make me think about my situation. i also got to thinking that my contract was up at the end of april and that would be me done then. i was wondering that it might be an idea to tell them i could do an extra month and leave at the end of may instead. the thinking behind this would be that even if it took me a month or two to find another job, it wouldn't be so bad because the world cup would be on tv and i would be home to watch it all. thats how important the world cup is here in england. i am thinking of planning my next career move around it. :-)

on that note i shall say farewell. have a lovely weekend.

today i have mostly been listening to editors - lights

dull

i usually post every couple of days but there has been nothing going on here. work is work. outside of that, things are are dull. was even struggling to come up with any music to post at the end of this post and usually i am in the situation where there is so much good stuff out there i can't make up my mind what to leave out.

my journey to work was delayed on monday morning when they shut down the station i usually get off at, and so i ended up walking one stop. as i got to oxford circus, i saw a couple of ambulances parked in front of the station. anyways a few minutes later they guy that sits next to me came in and he said he saw a bunch of commuters crying when he got off the train. we suspect it may have been someone jumping in front of a train, which has happened before. my dull life is seemingly a million times better than some of the shit people are going through, so i shall not complain.

anyways on that slightly downbeat note i shall call it a day. am off the gym after work tonight. having missed a few session recently and gotten a bit unwell last week, it has made me a bit weaker so i have to try and build up again to where i was. my body feels a little unlike my own at the moment.

am out tomorrow evening in shoreditch to meet some friends and haven't seen in ages.

....and thats about it.

today i have mostly been listening to Courteeners - take over the world.

shake the disease

was quite sick the last couple of days and felt terrible. have not been eating much in that time, and strangely have not been getting hungry. didn't even bother with my usual friday lunch of chicken and rice from the turkish place up the road. non specific symptons but just aching all over, and made worse by the fact i went to the gym on wednesday night for the first time in over a week, and i was aching from that as it is. anyways, i feel 150% better today and i think i finally managed to shake the disease.

work has been ok this week. working on a project and just keeping my head down and getting on with things. no joy in getting a new contract. its all gone quiet again since that call i had at the beginning of the week. nothing else major. am meeting up with some friends in shoreditch next week who i haven't seen in a couple of months. still haven't told my work that i am not going to renew my contract, partly because i haven't decided 100% that is what i am going to do. i am at about 80%, but i will need to let them know in the next couple of weeks.

the perfect scenario is i tell them i am leaving, despite having nothing else to go to, and then i get a new contract some place one week before i leave, but they say they want me to start a couple of weeks later, and so i get a week or two off inbetween, and then i maybe fly to new york or la or stay home. that would be perfect.

today i have mostly been listening to depeche mode - shake the disease. martin gore doing the vocal on this. prefer dava gahan personally, but this is still very good indeed and is a great song.

nottingham

took the train to nottingham on saturday afternoon and got there around 5pm. a couple of wrong turns later i managed to find my hotel which was about a 20 minute walk from the station and after i had checked in i called my friends to meet up with them. we got something to eat and walked around the city center for a bit and around 8pm we headed to a few bars. that was it really. we went to 3 or 4 places and finished up around 2AM, strolled back towards the hotel, sat in the square in the city center eating out mcdonalds and called it an evening. never been to nottingham and its a nice city. living in london, everything else seems small by comparison and nottingham feels almost like a village in comparison, which is not a bad thing. the people seemed nice and my friend does like living there on his army barracks.

that was saturday done, so on sunday we went to visit my friends baracks which was on the edge of the city. we stayed there most of the afternoon before heading back to catch our train back to london. i was only out of the city for 24 hours but it felt like longer and thats a good thing. felt tired but also refreshed.

back to work this week and am on earlies, which is always fun. weather has gotten a bit milder which is good.

i bought a new mobile phone and it arrived yesterday but when i picked up the package it was in, i could hear things moving around inside. it clearly had been opened somewhere along the line and all the bits for it were then just thrown back into the box and the manual and cd was missing. not good. called up sony and they are going to send me another one. my current phone is over 2 years old and starting to crash occasionaly and the camera is rubbish. anyways, hopefully my replacement turns up tomorrow in good condition.

nothing else to say. we haven't played football all year, and unless something drastic happens i think we won't be playing again. one of the guys is still not 100% from breaking his toe a couple of months back, one of the other guys just had a baby (his girlfriend had the child, he is not some freak of nature), and one of the other guys is in prison and going through a court case. gangster shit. hence numbers are low.

no bother. summer is coming......allegedly, and i will cycle and hit the gym as much as i can.

still no word on getting a new contract. am being snubbed worse than joe biden in jerusalem. somethings got to come through soon.

today i have mostly been watching new york

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

AARRggghhhh!!!. its happened again!!!. a good contract came up after a long period of silence and they want someone to start on monday. i told them that i could be out in a week or two but they were not willing to budge at all. monday or nothing. i can't just walk out in the middle of a contract. i need a reference in future for other roles i go for and its not going to look good working at some place for 14 months and them not giving you any kind of reference. new employers are going to think some bad shit happened or i got sacked or something like that.

goldhawks

today is a better day at work than it has been recently. still feeling to leave though. it ain't that good.

weather is dark and cloudy and cold like it has been all week.....all year.

nothing to say. nothing is happening. i need a break but i can't see one coming unless i have some time off between contracts at the end of april. come to think of it its looking likely actually, because the prospect of me landing something before then is about as likely as tony blair joining greenpeace....or tony blair winning the nobel peace prize.....or tony blair getting conscience. ie, not likely.

booked my hotel for nottingham on saturday night. it should be a good night out, though all the other guys are going up on friday and are going out that night as well. i couldn't do the friday because i can't get out of work early enough. a few of them will still be there on saturday so it will be ok. am taking the train on saturday afternoon and it will take a couple of hours to get there.

today i have mostly been listening to goldhawks - where in the world. i dont know but it ain't at this job in this place. take care and have a lovely weekend.

work is starting to get painful. am really starting to get that feeling of dreading mondays and rejoicing on fridays. thats a bad sign. i said a little while ago that i was not desperate to leave but i am becoming more and more so each day. frustration is increasing. i wish something would come through soon. please please please.

at least i am getting out of london next weekend even if its only for a day. nottingham can't come soon enough. its going to be a long week, i can just feel it. weather is bright but still freezing cold. had enough of this shit and i have forgotten how many months its being going on for. it feels like forever.

today i have mostly been listening to bruce springsteen - devils and dust.
my friend who i have known since i was 11 years old is being sent to afganistan in a few weeks on a tour of duty. hopefully he comes back safe in a few months time, but you can't help thinking that for the people that have already been killed, afghans and soldiers, its been such a pointless exercise.
i know my friend doesn't want to go, but its his job and he would never back out of it. old men with no morals sending young man who have morals. doesn't seem quite right. maybe we should send the old men like blair and bush instead. they talk tough. lets if they got the stones.

clubfoot

i applied to 2 more jobs today. i can't take the pressure off and need to keep pushing otherwise i will just get comfortable and lazy and before you know it i will have been here years and years, and thats not what we want.

i still haven't heard anything back from the other bank that might have been interested last week. i guess its a no go. its a shame but thats just how the cookie crumbles sometimes. getting a new job is a bit like the weather. we realise its going to be cloudy and dull most of the time, but when the sun does eventually come out i know it will feel great. we live in hope and have faith.

i need to get out of my job. i really am struggling to concentrate and have started making a few fuck ups. even the simplest things are not going into my brain. i am turning into a zombie and the combination of a long dark cold winter and having 5 days off in the last year and the fact i want to leave is all adding to make the situation worse. i want out of here and soon. everyone else seems so content and focused on what they do. i think i am the only one with my head elsewhere and in search of something different.

in other news, there is nothing going on. dragged my sorry ass to the gym on wednesday night. i need that mid week session to carry me from one weekend to the next, otherwise its too big a gap. the gym was crazy busy. am hoping its just the new year crowd that slowly dissipates as time goes by, and by the time we get into may or june, the place is empty again. i hope so.

weather has gotten cold again although thankfully its not rained this week. it is getting colder though which is shit, considering we are in march and this is supposed to be spring.

today i have mostly been listening to kasabian - clubfoot. there are points in time where an artist or group is completely in touch with everything that is going and their work just gets better and more interesting and relevant. it is usually a period of time lasting 2 or 3 albums but sometimes a bit longer for the talented and lucky ones. you could say it happened to stevie wonder in the 70s (so i am told) when he released the albums innervision, fullfillingness first finale, music of mind and talking book, or maybe u2 when they had a period of time when they released the albums war, unforgettable fire, joshua tree and achtung baby. springsteen from 1975 to 1982 or prince from dirty mind to sign of the times. i could go on.

anyways, in england kasabian are appear to be in the midst of one of these phases that artists have when they are in the sweet spot. i am not a proper fan and haven't seen them play, but they just appear to be on the crest of a wave and they do seem to be progressing very well as a group. they are on their 3rd album now and they are still maintaining and upward trajectory and making some interesting music. its easy to run out of ideas when you make it big and your life consists of meetings with accountants and interior designers and celebrity girlfriends and partys. just ask U2, but kasabian seem to be doing well till now. will it last. who the fuck knows. just enjoy this song from when they fist made it on the scene.

have a lovely weekend.

cut

it was a thoroughly miserable weekend in terms of weather. utter shit. it was raining most of saturday so i had to take the bus to the gym and the forecast was for pretty much the same on sunday but they said there would be a couple of hours in the afternoon when it would be clear.

determined to get out on my bike and not take the bus again i decided to cycle and even though it was not raining for nearly all my journey, aside for a little bit of drizzle for 5 minutes, i got completely soaked and my bike looked filthy. i was utterly pissed off, but a good work out followed by 15 minutes in the steam room sorted me out and at least it was clear for my ride back home. why don't live in a proper country with proper weather.

i also booked my train ticket to go to nottingham. a friend of mine who is in the army is going to be going to afghanistan in april, so a bunch of us are going up to see him and have a night out in the city. have not been to nottingham and i am just relieved to be getting out of london.

work is starting to turn into a bit of a trudge, and i really don't want to stay beyond the period of this contract which expires on april 30th. it might be good to take the leap and just not renew. am leaning very hard towards doing that. contract market still seems quiet. something come through please!!!!.

today i have mostly been listening to the cure - cut. last summer i was on the train coming back from football and the train was full of people coming back from the oasis show at wembley. some guy turned to me and said he didn't like my football shirt. it was an argentina home kit, and for a second i thought things might get a bit tense, but i just started talking to him about football and stuff and it was ok. some girls also stood up for me and told the guy they liked my football top and that defused the situation.

anyway we just talked about world cup qualifications and at one point i was going to steer the conversation away from football (so he would forget about my shirt) and ask him how the show was, but then i figured he might ask me if i like oasis, and i probably would have ended up saying i thought they were over rated and only made 2 decent albums in 15 years, and instead of pissing off 1 person i would have pissed off the whole carriage including the girls who had helped me out. anyways i got to thinking what i was listening to when everyone was going mad for oasis in england in the mid 90s. turns out i was still listening to the cure.....and i still am.

this is from the album, wish, which is a wonderful album.