Odd Thomas Odd Blog

I was all set to post about everything that's been keeping me off the streets these past few days and then bam, mood swing! It seems that the new Marks and Spencer in Tring is so popular that some people are too impatient to wait their turn to be served. I was happily waiting in line for one of the two express checkout girls to become available, and there was a reasonable queue building up behind me. The guy that was at the furthest till was just being handed his receipt, so I started to make my way forward when some haggard blonde bit pushed past me and dumped her basket at the till, looking back at her friend behind me with a big grin on her face, all proud at her lack of manners. What did I do? Nothing, as usual. I'm still working on my confidence and anger control!! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaarrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! *sigh* That's better. Anyway, I am a little calmer now I have found a picture that closely resembled her in a Big Brother forum *: just stick...

Blimey, so much to be getting on with I haven't had a chance to let you know what's going on! That said, there is a perfectly good reason for being quiet at the moment ... I just can't tell you what it is yet :-D

All dressed up and nowhere to go :-( I was supposed to be meeting my cuz and his new wife in London tonight, as they are here this weekend for her thirtieth birthday, gallavanting around the capital to do all the interesting things people do there. So why am I sitting here, posting? The trains are buggered. I'd heard this morning that there were problems but figured they would be sorted by tonight. How naive! Checking the Journey Check website for Silverlink , there are no trains to Euston from where I am within the next hour ... and its been saying that for the past hour. Fine. That's that cancelled then. What about going out with mates? Only one person out of about seven bothered to reply and is already busy. So here I sit, all psyched up for going out, with nowhere to go... ... and totally grumpy.

Well, Monday saw my return to the Centralian Players for the first rehearsal of their next play and it felt very much like putting on an old pair of flourescent socks : comfortable, but nervous that everyone will be looking at you and laughing. Of course, I need not have worried as everyone was in the same boat, and I appear to have gotten back into the swing of things pretty quick. There was one line that was easy to learn and, because we ran through that piece a couple of times, down went the book and out came the acting, which resulted in the guy playing Trevor laughing nervously and commenting on how I'd just given him the evils! Oops, getting into it a bit too soon, me thinks!! The producer has put us in some positions that do not feel right, but it was only the first rehearsal for blocking, so this is bound to change the further we go. I guess I'm a little bit purist about such stuff. In my mind, if the playwright puts a specific stage direction in the script, then i...

Right now, I am not a happy bunny. Last week, I placed an ad in the Freecycle Watford Yahoo! group *, offering 12 cans of decorating paint to anyone who was interested. Surprisingly, I had half-a-dozen people show an interest so, rather than picking someone at random to have the paints, I decided to go on a first-come-first-served basis. The first person was a lady called Linda who arranged to collect last Wednesday. She then couldn't make this and changed it to either saturday or sunday, which I agreed to. Unfortunately, I forgot I was going to the National Self Build and Renovation Centre in Swindon on Saturday, so had to mail her back to ask if she could make it Sunday. She agreed to this, saying that she should be here 'early afternoon'. Well, it is now Sunday, it is well past 6pm and she still hasn't arrived or contacted me to say when she will be here. Once again, I have had my time wasted waiting for someone else. That's two out of three times this has...

Well, tonight is the night I try for my opportunity to tread the boards! Kind of like walking the plank but with fiercer sharks!! Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a single thing about the play we're auditioning for (House of Secrets by Peter McKelvey), so I'm going to be walking into this blind. But then, I guess, so is everyone else. Despite getting nervous just thinking about this, there is a part of me that would really like to have a part again ... but another part of me screaming: "No, don't do it! Stick with the stage management!!" But I don't always listen to that part of me ...

I don't know how many of you will recall, but roughly one year ago, my previous employer became a customer of my current employer*, transferring their IT department to us under the TUPE regulations. At the time, my boss informed me that, as per regulations, the transferred staff could not have their terms and conditions changed (understandably) and that my terms and conditions could not be improved in order to match theirs, as much as he would like to do so. This has been bugging me for a while especially since the transferred staff have; minimum 22 days holiday, increasing upto a maximum of 27 days; 3 privilege days between Christmas and New Year; and are contracted for less hours of work. All far more than the government minimum that I get. It always seemed odd to me that there would be stipulations in a regulation that would prevent an improvement in terms and conditions of employees, since its creation was to protect transferred employees from being disadvantaged. So this we...