Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot, And Never Brought To Mind?

Or, "It's Been Another Funny Couple Of Weeks"

I know the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne are more for New Year than Christmas but bear with me here...

Not long after I started another blogging project, I decided I wanted to put it onto Facebook, not least for the potential advertising possibilities. That didn't pan out, but it did leave me with a Facebook account... Something which I'd previously avoided because I tend to like the idea that my social network - such as it is - is in the real world.

Naturally, when I left my last permanent job, I had friend requests from the few people who (a) found me on Facebook and (b) could be bothered, as well as my sister. Sometime later, a former friend and colleague from many years ago got back in touch - a bit of a surprise considering we didn't exactly part on good terms.

More recently, naturally, I've 'friended' my girlfriend and a few members of her family and social circle, but my friends list has remained minuscule compared to just about anyone else in my friends list, and I'm OK with that.

As a sidenote, I've recently been watching odd episodes of Catfish: The Series (by which I mean occasional episodes. They're all odd), and one of the litmus tests the presenters use for determining whether or not a profile is genuine is their friend count. "Everyone," they reckon "has more than a hundred friends if they're real."

Well, OK, that... or maybe they are more concerned about real life than the random updates people regurgitate onto their timelines? Hell, I had less than 20 friends, and I've blocked updates from most of them for reasons of DRAMA!

But back to the point.

Earlier this week, two odd things happened, and the first relates to Facebook and old acquaintances.

I had a friend request from someone I haven't seen in about 20 years. Someone I knew back in high school, and never really expected to keep in touch with. Not really a friend as I'd define it, but certainly someone from the social circle I hovered around during my A-Level years.

Naturally, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to accept this friend request. There's kind of a reason I didn't put much effort into keeping in touch with folks from those days... Mostly because I was a bit of a dick and just didn't see the point, but also because there was this nagging feeling (later confirmed by a third party or twelve) that these people weren't true friends. Granted, everyone acts like a dick in high school, that's one of the worst things about high school, but what with the put-downs and territorial pissings, there were many compelling reasons for not keeping in touch, even before the whole 'trying to find a job', then 'working my arse off for nearly 20 years' thing kicked off.

Still, I ended up accepting, despite two conflicting nagging feelings: one, that this will open the floodgates, and just about everyone from that era will suddenly bombard me with friend requests, and I'll probably have to accept all of them and then never look at Facebook ever again because it's become a nightmare of déjà vu and ancient DRAMA!, the other - coming as a direct response to the first - that none of the others will bother sending a friend request, and I won't bother sending any friend request to any of them because none of us can be bothered. I mean... why would we? It's been twenty bloody years.

Of course, accepting that one friend request did lead me into a little investigative schadenfreude. Seeing how this one former school chum has aged led me to look up others and, by and large, the years have not been kind. Perhaps I'm being vain here but I don't have half the wrinkles most of my contemporaries have. Some others have aged remarkably well and look better than I might have expected, but they're very much in the minority. Many of them seem to be married with kids while, until relatively recently, I've only had disastrously brief relationships. Most of them seem to be gainfully employed, and quite a few are no longer in London, let alone near their old stomping grounds (the one who friended me is now in Scotland).

The other odd thing that happened is that I got an email from a publishing company, inquiring about my availability for temporary cover in the New Year. It seems they received my CV a few years ago, though they didn't get in touch with me at that time, and can't remember who supplied my CV.

The timing is uncanny, since my lack of gainful employment over the last few months has had me thinking (again) that my best bet might be to leave the Publishing world behind and pursue something else (writing would be nice... if only I could get started... or somehow getting involved in the whole Retro Gaming thing and getting back into pixel art... if only I could avoid getting lazy and apathetic about it).

After a quick chat with the person who emailed me, it turns out that the job is pretty much what I was doing in my last long-term placement, plus a few extra responsibilities... and that they're also looking to recruit someone on a permanent basis, as I'll be providing cover because someone has moved on. Not sure how much they're paying yet, but I've asked to be interviewed for the job.

I'm now going through final preparations to head off tomorrow morning to my girlfriend's family home for the Christmas holiday. I've been there twice before, but it's a little more daunting to know that I'll be there for about a week, and specifically over the Christmas week. I'm going through all the usual worries about whether or not I've packed everything I need, but I'm confident I have all the necessities... all that remains is to sort out what extra stuff to include in my backpack...

Just for laughs, I developed a cold last week and, as I've probably mentioned, this has eventually led to the usual acid reflux problem. The last couple of times this happened, I was able to procure the necessary medicine over-the-counter but it's since been withdrawn from the market. I was quite lucky, though, in that I was able to make an appointment with my GP this morning, and now have the necessary stuff on prescription. I also have to pop back later with a 'sample'. While I was tested for ulcers (or the bacteria that cause them) on a previous occasion, the testing system has changed, and the GP I saw today wanted to look into this issue more deeply because it's a recurring problem. Of course, the results for the test are due back (a) while I'm away and (b) while the surgery is most likely closed for Christmas... but a few extra days won't do any harm, I'm sure... and it'd be great to get to the bottom of this recurring problem.

It's Been A Funny Couple Of Weeks

I shan't even attempt to pin down the weirdness into any kind of specific order, and a lot of the weirdness has been the bitty, random dream sequences I've had. There has been quite a bit of real-life weirdness, though.

First and foremost, after consulting a solicitor about the issues with my roof, I had a visit from the managing agents, the landlord - in person - and a roofer. They started out with a quick look at the state of the ceilings in my hall, bathroom and bedroom, then had a look up on the roof.

The landlord was very vocally apologetic - that is, he said he was very sorry and that he would endeavour to fix the situation as soon as possible - but this is a problem five years (or more) in the making. An apology would have been nice about three or four years ago... now, it's pretty meaningless. No plan of action was discussed in my presence, and they disappeared very quickly once they were done on the roof. I tried calling the managing agents last week but had to leave a message asking for a call back... and didn't get one. The person who's supposedly 'dealing with this' has a habit of not getting back to me where others - admittedly lower down the hierarchy - have been a little better.

The roofer had mentioned something about properly weatherproofing the roof - rather than having one tarpaulin just over my roof, he recommended a series of overlapping tarpaulins, properly joined, over the entire roof surface. This rather begs the question of why none of the other roofers have suggested that - in fact, most have said there was nothing they could do short of renewing the roof - though I guess they were offering free solutions rather than sensible solutions...

There wasn't time for them to have properly weatherproofed the entire roof during that visit, and they haven't been back since while I've been around, so I can only assume it hasn't yet been done. Weirdly, though, the last time we had heavy rain (and hail) the flat remained dry until late in the evening, when a few drips came through in the bedroom, but the hall and bathroom remained dry.

Next up, I had a job interview last week... Something like two months after I applied, and close to a month after I assumed they weren't calling me in. It's possible I got my dates confused, but I was sure they wanted someone to start at the beginning of this month...

Whatever... It was easily the most bizarre interview I've ever attended, with the two interviewers - the Production Manager and one of the Editorial folks - spending a good deal of time basically slagging off a large number of their colleagues. OK, granted, the relationship between Production/Editorial and Sales tends to be strained at the best of times, but for them to describe their salespeople as "unprofessional" and "not intelligent" is going a bit far. I've interviewed people and had to say much the same kind of thing, but I've always managed to find a better way, using less specific and negative language. I've also been able to discuss the positive elements of a job in Production, whereas these two didn't even touch on positives. I can't actually remember what the salary was, but it wasn't mentioned in the interview, so they clearly didn't think that was much of an enticement either.

What was rather interesting about the experience was that, everywhere I've worked as a temp, the general rule is that no-one ever leaves Production... unless made redundant, that is. If you're there, chances are you enjoy it, even if there is an element of masochism to that enjoyment. People only move on if they're unhappy... and they were set to lose two of their four/five Production staff, and claimed to be having trouble finding suitable candidates to replace them.

I left the interview wondering why anyone would ever want a job there - their primitive systems are likely to be the cause of many of their problems and their salespeople sounded truly terrible (I mentioned the 'time travellers' at my old place, and they reckoned they had a few of those). The only ray of hope was that the two interviewing me seemed to be on reasonable terms... so at least their Production and Editorial teams should have a healthy relationship.

At any rate, they said I'd hear from them by the end of the week, but I didn't... Not even a rejection... all the more strange because the subject of temporary work came up in the interview.

On the dream front, I had one recently which, at one point, had one of the mob folks from The Sopranos after me for a bit of 'accounting' work. All I can really remember about that one is that my first thought was that I really should have passed it on to a friend of mine who, in real life, works in Accounts. In another one, I was at a restaurant of some kind which miraculously turned into a Blondie concert... which caused me to wonder about a real-life friend of mine who's a fan. At one point, on stage, Debbie Harry turned to walk across the stage and was somehow replaced by a hollow model of her dress with only part of her head. Neat effect... There were lots more, but I haven't been taking notes and have left it far too long to write about any of them... Ah well.

This last weekend saw the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, which was all rather fun. The celebration started a week or two ago, with lots of documentaries and, last week, a dramatisation of the origins of the TV show. I need to watch the 50th Anniversary Special again, so I'll write that up separately...

Out Of Alignment

First off, I wouldn't be at all surprised if lots of people saw the sixth episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as further evidence that Joss Whedon has been neutered by his involvement in such a huge franchise. One of the team gets infected with an alien virus, tries to jump out of the jet to save her comrades, but is miraculously saved. I'll admit that half of me was hoping that they'd allow Simmons to fall to her death, because that would have been a welcome boot up the arse of the series... It's not just a matter of showing that 'no-one is safe' (which seems to be about the only thing that excites people about ensemble dramas these days - probably thanks to the legions of people who watched Game of Thrones without ever having heard of the books, let alone read them) to prove that Joss Whedon is back on form. I mean, let's not forget that none of the key players died in the first series of Buffy or the oft-cited, much-loved supposed pinnacle of Whedon's TV career, Firefly. Killing off one of the agents only a few episodes into the first season would just be pandering to the wrong crowd.

The half of me that was hoping for Simmons to die thought that it would be interesting to see Fitz develop without his other half - because, let's face it, the moniker 'Fitzsimmons' accurately reflects the impression that they might as well be one person.

The half of me that was certain she wouldn't - couldn't - die was more interested in seeing how the team develops as-is, rather than suddenly being either cut down or having to work in another new 'permanent' character. I have to admit that the team's current dynamic reminds me more than a little of the idiots from the first two series of Torchwood, only perhaps a little more professional and certainly not as oversexed. They're supposedly all brilliant in their fields, and they manage to solve each week's problem within the allotted 45 minutes, but they all act like students... and long-term readers of this blog will probably know my opinions on students (in terms of the general stereotype - I'm dating a student, so I know they don't all fit that stereotype). Part of it is that some writers assume 'snappy dialogue' means 'ceaseless infantile bickering' and, while AoS's writers aren't quite that bad - certainly nowhere near the likes of Star Trek: Enterprise - there are better ways of creating snappy character interaction.

Over the weekend, while the skies were clear, I suggested to my girlfriend that we attempt a little stargazing with my cheapo reflector telescope but, despite standing out in the cold on my balcony for something approaching half an hour, we never got much further than the certainty that I should properly calibrate the damned thing before attempting anything like that again. Today, I did just that.

It was an interesting process, hampered slightly by the fact that the image I get through the eyepiece is either 135° out of true or, more likely, upside down and only 45° out. Either way, the little laser pointer on the viewfinder was nowhere near whatever the telescope was looking at when I started, but now it's about as good as I can get it without turning the viewfinder into some kind of telescopic sight. With any luck and favourable weather, we should be able to see the moon fairly well when it's next in the right area of the sky.

Also over the weekend, I went to see the second Thor movie. I noted, when writing about the first film, that the biggest problem is that Thor isn't one of the most interesting characters in the Marvel pantheon. With the introduction out of the way, the film-makers had free reign to tell a proper story, delving further into the mythos. It's an interesting take on the Norse myths, but that small fact alone meant that even this film required a lengthy exposition, narrated by Anthony Hopkins, at the beginning. Just like any movie of this kind, it has its share of plot holes - for a story about the alignment of the nine realms of Yggdrasil, the fixation on Greenwich in particular was pretty bizarre, though that did lead to a couple of interesting moments of comedy, not least Thor boarding the tube (though I should have made a note of the station he boarded at, as I'm sure the directions he got were wrong!) - and much of the portal-related shenanigans were not properly concluded. For a film that weighed in almost 2 hours, it felt like a lot of the story ended up on the editing room floor, with huge great jumps from scene to scene in quite a few places. The tertiary characters had virtually nothing to do (I was particularly disappointed by how little screen time Zachary Levi had, taking over the role of Fandral from Josh Dallas, who's now occupied in filming Once Upon A Time) and Thor himself had very little to do other than hitting things... But perhaps that's about par for the course for the guy who wields Mjölnir. I had to explain the post-credits sequence with the Collector and an Infinity Gem to the friend I was with but, since I only had Capcom's old fighting game, Marvel Superheroes, as a reference, I probably didn't explain it very well. It was a fun film, just nothing outstanding...