The Third Season

One of the rare gems of American episodic television, Chuck, recently returned to UK screens (courtesy of Virgin 1) and, in some ways, it's more of the same funny stuff, more of the same mild peril, more of the same on/off/on, fake/real/fake romance. Sure it's ramped it up a gear by bringing Chuck's awesome-yet-hapless brother-in-law into the action... but up until tonight's episode, it's felt quite safe. Now they've started taking some risks with the format:

Chuck is becoming a spy (and, where 'spy', read 'cold-hearted jerk').

He's developed and burned his first asset, all in one episode... and yet, considering the nature of the asset burned, I suspect this is not the last we'll see of the Other Intersect. Consider that the first two seasons ended with something directly Intersect-related, despite the overarching storylines, and I wouldn't be surprised if Chuck's new friend returns for a showdown...

In other news, one of the recently-recruited managers got sacked by the new boss on Friday. Supposedly performance-related, but considering his team's performance improved dramatically once he started keeping tabs on them, that's just the excuse. He was the previous MD's last hire, and within his trial period. New Boss wants to start bringing in her own kind of people. More power to her - send some shivers down those slack Sales spines - but there were people far more deserving of the axe.

Rumour has it, she had someone lined up for the job as early as last Tuesday... Interesting. That said, according to rumour, she offered the job to perhaps the worst possible candidate internally.

I, meanwhile, contacted the wife of a colleague, who may have need of someone with my skillset. The opening isn't certain, however, so as well as hanging on to my CV, she's put me in touch with the people who have been sending staff her way... Useful contacts.

Shame that the 10-days-a-month job is already filled... That might have been useful for making a start on writing (yeah, right)... Bizarrely, the money for their 10 days was roughly equivalent to a full month with my current employers.