climbing up the walls

started my job and i have been there a week. its been fine. first weeks are always a bit slow and there is a settling in process but it seems ok. i am not counting the days till i leave and i have nothing to complain about. 

weather has been amazing as it has been for the last 3 or 4 weeks. beautiful sunny days and today we had persistent rain for the first time in ages, but seeing as we had hardly any for a month, it was fine and almost welcome. i just get annoyed when it rains for months on end. 

seeing as the job is going ok, it means i am almost certainly not going to go to cali this year. i really can not justify spending that much on a holiday in a year where i have had 6 months off. i have the money but it just does not feel like the right thing to do. sometimes you wonder if you are doing the right thing, and i try and when i am not sure, i try to imagine what my dad would have done, and that usually decides it for me and makes me see sense and grounded. 

today i have been listening to radiohead - climbing up the walls. there is a new single from one of my favourite bands, editors, but to be brutally honest, its a bit dull......and shit. they have just moved into the middle of the road along with a bunch of other popular british bands and its a bit dissapointing . i really tried hard to convince myself that it was a good song, but it just is not. self delusion is tied to irrationality and ignorance and closed thinking. 




another example of self delusion and irrationality was when i recently heard someone on the radio arguing about the iraq war, and they finished the debate with the same question every time, "so you would rather still have saddam hussein ruling iraq?". aside from the obvious argument that its not up to us to decide who rules iraq and that other countries can not simply invade other countries whenever they feel like it, the other side of that question is "so you would kill 2 million people, displace 2.5 million refugees and spend a trillion dollars to get rid of saddam?" you have to be a bit self delusional to ignore millions of deaths. 

self delusion is a dangerous thing. here is a clip of secretary of state albright in 1995 responding to a question about half a million children being killed. 

swim deep

went for my interview at the investment firm yesterday and in the afternoon they called me up and made me an offer which i accepted immediately. its a lovely office in a nice part of town and there are a couple of guys there that i already know from previous contracts. the work sounds like it will be challenging but interesting and it means i will not be spending the next 6 months decommissioning old NT4 servers which was one of the tasks they said i would be doing at the other contract i accepted. i am well pleased with how its worked out. 

as is always the way, after having nothing come up for 8 months, i then got 2 offers in the space of 2 weeks and yesterday after i had accepted the contract, i got a call to arrange an interview at another large financial insititution. but i had already screwed one big bank yesterday and whilst i might be contracting scum, i could not being myself to potentially fuck over 2 places in quick succession, so i turned down the interview and told them i was off the market.  

please let me get what i want

sent off my contract accepting a job that i am really not looking forward to be doing for the next 6 months, and i have an interview tomorrow at a place to do a job i really want to do. i hope things pan out well and go as i hope they will. 

obscurity through bureaucracy

managed to stall the start date of my new job to next monday instead of what it was originally, which was today. they still have not finished all my security checks and for once all the bureaucracy has been a benefit in disguise as it buys me time to go on my interview on thursday and also to possibly not even have to start at the bank next monday, if i get an offer on friday. if i dont get an offer and they dont want me, then the bank will be none the wiser and we will  start on monday and just grit our teeth and get through it. 

had a plan in my head to maybe head out to LA in october to see Nine Inch Nails play but i dont think i will get to do my annual trip to cali this year. i might try and go see Neymar and Messi play one weekend in barcelona instead. i have had nearly a year off work and its a bit extravagant to be heading to cali. i know my dad would not have been too impressed. just because you can does not mean you should or its the right thing to do. 

the weather has been unbelievably good the last 10 days or so. lovely sunny days, girls wearing skimpy outfits and getting tans. london is good in the sunshine. its just the 11 other months of darkness and cold that are shit. 

i was going to post the new white lies single but actually i prefer this song from a couple of years ago.  

next week

got an interview next week. perfect fucking timing. i am free this week and  but they want to see me next week which is going to be my first week at a new contract.
i will have to duck out for a couple of hours  or take a half day. if i get it, then great because i will resign immediately but if i dont i will have made myself look a little unprofessional by taking a half day off work in the first week of a new contract. thats a not a good look. please please let me land it. 

this is the 4th great single from the latest stereophonics album. this is fucking good.

nobody knows

am not going to give a running commentary on it as it could all go to shit, but its touch and go as to whether i have managed to extricate myself from the boring contract at the bank i am supposed to be starting next monday. hopefully something happens this week. in the meantime i am still going through the mother of all security checks which is still in process. its like i am getting a job where i will be getting nuclear codes or access to david camerons personal emails to rupert murdoch, but they seem to be being very fastidious.   

i always complain about the shitty weather, but its been stunning for the last week. this town looks so much nicer in the sun. am training like a beast, been riding my bike and lingerie model was at the gym last week. i really cant complain. 

this is paul brady - nobody knows. awesome song. 

the cross

got a couple of calls about contracts that might give me an escape from the shit boring contract i am due to start in less than 2 weeks. also got another email and they want even more information for the security checks. i would not be surprised if they asked me for a bottle of piss, fingerprints and some dna soon. it really is quite ridiculous. hopefully one of the 2 possible opportunities comes through. please please please. 

this is phenomenal.

victories at sea

no news from anywhere else regarding getting another contract but i am working on the assumption that if i get another contract elsewhere it will be a bonus and that its likely that i will have to start at the bank that has given me the offer i currently have. i am still going through security checks which are a bit of a mission. if only they had been so careful in monitoring the size of the risk on their books and their capital ratios and the quality of some of the mortgage backed securities on their balance sheets, then maybe governments around the world might have saved themselves a trillion or two. 

it was the glastonbury festival last weekend and i watched a bit of it on tv in the hope i might be surprised or discover something new and interesting. er.....i did not. arctic monkeys were bland as the headline act on the friday night. i have posted at least one of their singles on this blog but a lot of their stuff is a bit boring which they demonstrated on friday evening. i watched the rolling stones and despite all the reviews in the press saying how amazing they were, i thought they were boring as well. songs ended with 4 minutes jam sessions which were so dull. not being ageist but 70 year old men dancing and swaggering on stage is not a good look. it can be done with dignity like john lee hooker and bb king, but those fellas dont jump around and strike poses in a vain parody of their youths. editors were there and i watched a bit of them. they were ok but i have seen them play live twice and both times they were better in their own shows. last night it was mumford and sons and i posted their debut single on this blog, but a bit like the arctic monkeys, a good single or two, does not make a great band, and i could not even bring myself to watch them. they have become sooooooo dull. 

here is some new fresh music by a band called victories at sea. i quite like this.