Nothing to see here

Odd things weeks...

2008-07-12T23:55:52Z

The week before last, I remember talking to Rob and saying we better enjoy the memory of the week as we didn't get too many of weeks with successes like that: I had got some ex-gratia compensation for two members; ensured that another member in trouble got off with a slap on the wrist; negotiated a pay rise for 150 members and a few other things.

The past week saw me turn up only on Friday, as I had been under the weather; visit the physiotherapist for my back and hamstring pain; pull some muscles in the same leg, thus I'm limping and see the previous week's pay deal for members fall apart.

So what will next week bring? (Apart from double the amount of time it takes to walk into work??

Ever so slightly under the weather (heavy rain out)

2008-07-09T23:23:51Z

I didn't make it into work today. I awoke briefly at 5.30am- itself rarely a good thing- and thought to myself (in a bit of a daze it has to be said" "Hmm, running a temperature here". The result has been I've spent most of the day in bed, probably not doing the aching back the world of good. Having a phone call on my mobile from a concerned member in the afternoon was strange- I haven't actually been in the office this week, so I had not read the urgent e-mail she was ringing up about. I think it calmed her down slightly that the reason for inaction was not because of lack of care. Not certain if I'll get to work tomorrow- I'm not making the sandwiches anyway.

Otherwise, life has been quiet, but I can recommend the reformed Pentangle in concert.

Love conquers all

2008-06-08T11:12:35Z

This is rather touching....

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/06/08/we-re-still-in-love-you-know-91466-21039613/

Sniffle, sniffle

2008-02-24T23:15:26Z

So I've been on holiday, come back and fallen ill. All part of life's rich tapesty. More eventually.

Happy new year everybody

2008-01-05T23:45:00Z

I hope that all have survived the Xmas and new year season and that 2008 will be a good year for all of us.

I'm off on winter holiday later this month- I'm going to Sri Lanka and stopping off in Dubai on the way. I'm deeply to looking forward to a warm weather and cultural break.

So how about you?

Monday started weird

2007-10-03T22:46:26Z

It appears that some criminal type has managed to hack into my Yahoo account- used for holiday e-mails only and send a scam e-mail to my holiday mailing list saying that I had been mugged and "nearly rapped" in Canada and please wire money:

Message Received: Sep 28 2007, 10:06 PM
From: "Andrew Jones"
To: "Sher"
Cc:
Subject: IT'S AN EMERGENCY

I am in a hurry writing this.Please i really dont
feel like perturbing you with my little but life
threatening problem but i have no other option than
seeking for you help.Actually, i travelled down to the
Canada and as i was to catch a train to my daily
route when all of a sudden i got rounded up by some
hoodlums and as i was tried to struggle to run, they
got me beaten up and even almost rapped but thank God
they didnt succeed but unfortunately all my personal
effects were cated away. It was a terrible encounter
which have left me grounded and cashstrapped and right
now, i have only access to emails, my mobile phone
cant work here due to unforseen circumstances. Please
can you lend me a sum of $1500 to offset my hotel and
other bills. I intend to pay back as soon as i get
home.I am so confused right now,i cant even think
straight but i wanna believe you can have it sent
through Western Union Money Transfer.Worst is my
passport was among the things that got destroyed so i
cant use my name to collect it. Let me know when you
will be of help so i can find someone who will help me
in cashing the money.Please let me hear from you on
time so i can i think straight and get myself out of
this mess.
I look forward to your swift response.Thank you in
anticipation

Sincerely,

Andy

This upset a few people and of course Yahoo keep on sending me the same automated reply when I ask for it to be shut down- as surprise, surprise the password and security data has been changed.

However my Scottish pal Ross has been writing to the fake me and I quote:

>>cheques in the post<<

Hello,
I feel delighted that i can hear from you. I dont
understand what you meant by cheque's in the
post.Please things are getting worse for me here even
minute that passes by.If you would help,please make it
snappy.I will be expecting your reply again.

Thanks

>>In that case I'll send cash - in Scottish notes. Which you can immediately use - in Scotland.<<

Hello Ross,
I can see that you understand what i am going
through but i am not in Scotland,i am in Canada and
the fastest mean to send and receive money is through
western union money transfer.
I will be hoping to hear from you again.Have a great
day.

Regards

Bless him!

Die Cockney Wankers, die!

2007-10-03T22:29:39Z

Last Tuesday night, my pal Rhyd and I went to see that rather decent Zappa tribute band led by Dweezil Zappa- Zappa plays Zappa- at the Shepard's Bush Empire in London town. As with last year's concert in Stockholm, it was an enjoyable but hollow affair. Let's get the negatives out of the way first:

1. Starting with the big one: Dweezil is not his Dad- no matter how some people in the audience delude themselves he is. He's a slightly vacious Californian with a personality by-pass. FZ was the centre of the band- the Zappa plays Zappa band could cope without Dweezil. The Stockholm concert was flat, when Napi or Vai or Bozzio were off the stage, because those gentlemen are unafraid to stamp their personality on the music and project. This year's concert was better, as the venue was smaller, the set list more suited to Dweezil's limitations and the band had played a lot of gigs together.

2. The audience was filled with Londoners- for once hyped up Londoners- but Cockney Wankers nonetheless.

3. As ever the t-shirts were overpriced.

4. G-Spot Tornado- nice try but not exactly the rush you get when you hear Ensemble Modern play the hell out of the piece. Far too keyboard based.

5. The "nice volcanos" in Dupree's Paradise by all of the band except Scheila Gonzalez- the vocalist, sax, flute and keyboard player who at least improvised and stretched herself beyond musical breaking point.

6. Dweezill's conducting in Dupree's Paradise- completely bogus.

7. Have I mentioned some of the audience? Frank is dead, people. And the music has always smelt funny.

8. So where's Napi?

And the good points?

1. Ray White was in fine voice and good guitar.

2. The improvisation involving Thai ladyboys.

3. The compositions.

4. Scheila Gonzalez and Joe Travers- the real hearts of the band.

5. Some of Dweezil's solos.

We had a good time, but not exactly a life changing one...

Work...

2007-10-03T22:03:25Z

Last week was the absolute busiest I've ever known in some 18 years of earning a living. A 4 days working week with some 50 hours worked. A consultation response was the blame of some 16 hours of that- 14 of which were done from home. This week has been a little easier, although today's all day meeting in Bedwas took place from 9am-6pm. One of my current tasks as tame trade unionist is following major mergers into my employer, the mapping across various grading systems into one, through a couple of job evaluation tools. Today's and last Friday's all day event covered one major part of the organisation. I've been "volunteered" in to attending all of the other final sessions too- about another week's work, I suspect.

On top of this, I have another week to write 2,500 of a management essay and I haven't even picked up the reading list books yet.

And then after that I have another week to write 1,500- 2,000 words for another management essay.

So life is busy- good job there's some trashy tv on, right?

Bad blogger....

2007-09-13T22:27:50Z

It's been a while since I've posted. I've been on holiday, come back absolutely shattered, got back to work, done management course essays, not done management course essays, had a reasonably relaxed summer period in work, knowing full well that September would be hectic. I didn't know that September would effectively start in the last week of August, with members requesting me to attend meetings with them at an hour's notice and the like.

I'm also running a consulation with members on a re-organisation which involves posts being lost. You'd think they would turn up to meetings....oh well.

In short life is ticking over nicely, no real complaints at this moment in time. How about you?

School's Out for Summer!

2007-07-01T01:24:03Z

I spent last week at Public Service Summer School in Bangor last week. Lots of food for thought and lots of laughter. The summer school- a new idea, as this is the second time its been run- is aimed at those who work in the Welsh civil service, the Welsh local government, the Welsh National Health Service, the Fire Service, the Police and those from the "Third Sector"- the charity sector to you and I- came together for a conference on change management and also to network, make friends and shower with the bathroom door open to set off the fire alarms.

I travelled up to North Wales last Sunday, with 2 colleagues from my management course, Fran and Andy. We all arrived at Cardiff Central to catch the 1.50 service. For some reason this didn't exist, so we had to wait an hour, drinking coffee and tea and thinking about the Sunday dinner we could have had, if we had known that we were indeed travelling an hour later. Direct services to Bangor don't seem to exist on that time on a Sunday afternoon, we changed at the ever delightful Birmingham New Street- sole saving grace that it isn't Birmingham Coach Station and Crewe which has few saving graces, an hour and half wait enlivened by a visit to McDonalds...

So we arrived at Bangor at 9pm, made our way to the University Hall of Residences where we were staying and bonded over a bottle of white wine, mildly chilled in my bedroom. We marvelled over the lack of actual mugs or glasses available, drinking out of these horrible plastic cups. We also studied the bilingual sign warning us to shower with the bathroom door shut. Otherwise the steam would set off the fire alarm. An interesting design feature.

Waking up in the morning was a less happy experience, it had been a stormy and noisy night and the room was freezing. I soon found out why, the wind had blown the window open- which you couldn't shut properly. To add to that, rain had come onto the window sill...

So I went to the Security office to complain and then to Morrison's supermarket for a bacon bap and coffee. There summer school started in the afternoon, it was damp out, so we killed some time at the university after we registered. Everything felt cold. One of my union colleagues, Chippy joined us from West Wales and more silly stuff was discussed. We also were amazed at the money being spent on this- a leather ringbound cases was given to each delegates and by the end of the week, I had a backbreaking amount of books, DVDs, magazines, memory sticks of material to take home. The conference was free of charge, all partipants' home organisations had to pay for was travel and incidental costs. This was a big deal.

Highlight of the day, was a journalist, Richard Reeves talking about the price of happiness. Apparently getting married is worth about £100,000- some of us wondered if we could just have the £100k instead!

In the evening, entertainment of a sort was put on- a magician who failed to be a comedian. The taxpayer was paying for this tired sexist crap?

Can't sleep, might as well post

2007-06-12T04:09:25Z

The good news is that after the weekend, I'm feeling a lot better. Also I've just found out that Fopp have opened a new shop in Cardiff University Students Union. Which means that's there's a quality record shop just five minutes walk from my workplace. And they have a new sale. This could be damaging to my bank balance, after spending £25 in the past free visits.

And, oh, 22 days to jazz cruise.

(I may have mentioned the jazz cruise before).

Macca attack!

2007-06-07T19:14:24Z

Thanks to my emusic.com subscription, I've been listening to the new Paul McCartney album "Memory Almost Full", and its a fine sounding album too. Like last year's David Gilmour album I not quite certain how strong the songwriting is, but the arrangements are great. And the lyrics manage to avoid being the embarrassing drivel that Mc Cartney can come up with.

Still feeling dog-tired though.

27 days to go

2007-06-07T01:11:11Z

Not that I'm counting, but its 27 days to the North Sea Jazz Cruise. And I'm deeply, deeply looking forward to it.

I've booked into a hotel for my first- pre-cruise- night called the Square, Copenhagen- http://www.thesquarecopenhagen.com/ has the details should you wish to be nosy. One of my friends in work is Danish, and we were talking about hotel choices. I was explaining that I was looking for hotels close to the railway station. She gently explained that one area close to the railway station was very interesting and funky- lot of cheap ethnic eats, as stated in the guide books. Less prominently mentioned is that it is also Copenhagen's red light district- a fact that had caused friends of her some discomfort!

Funny what you find out from a native!

Sniffle, sniffle?

2007-06-07T00:57:02Z

I made it back to work on Monday and I've been shattered ever since. The routine is go to work, leave work about half and hour, hour earlier than usual, get back home and then sleep for a few hours. Sometime after midnight, I wake up and eat. Crazy life, eh? But I'm getting some work done and that's important. And there are others I work with , who are worse off. My boss was diagnosed with diabetes while I was away- he had been concerned that he had lost 2 stones in 2 months, and voila!- it is explained.

Cough, cough?

2007-05-31T22:14:28Z

I didn't make it to Roy Harper in the end. I simply thought it would be counter-productive to go to an acoustic concert in the knowledge that a coughing fit could happen at any time, Rhyd took his son instead , who was appropriately mind-blown by the gig. And this time no fighting took place in the audience.

So apart from the coughing, sneezing and nose blowing its been a quiet week. I haven't made it into work, my sleep patterns have been so disruptive I've seen dawn breaking on through a few times this week. But I should be well enough to get back into the groove for next week- which is jsut as well considering the number of e-mails I'll have....

And, Craig Bellamy, Captain of the Wales football team- please no-what a thug that man is....

Cough, cough, sniffle, sniffle...

2007-05-29T04:34:30Z

I've managed to catch a nasty cold- thus I'm not sleeping well. I supposed to be off to see Roy Harper this evening, a nice quiet acoustic concert. We'll see if that's a good idea later.

Jazz Cruise

2007-05-01T22:19:35Z

I booked my summer holiday yesterday- the first North Sea Jazz Cruise. Deeply looking forward to it. Details at http://www.northseajazzcruise.com/

More new Zappa!

2007-05-01T22:15:24Z

Last week, the excellent double CD of Frank Zappa live in Buffalo 1980 arrived. Some truly wonderful playing- some great guitar solos and Vinnie Coluta was on fire that night. It was only halfway through disc 2 did I realise he was the only percussionist in the band- a rarity in Zappa line-ups.

Today, Classic Albums arrived, detailing the making of two 1970s albums with some good comments from archive footage of FZ to modern footage of George Duke, Napoleon Murphy Brock, Ian and Ruth Underwood, Steve Vai and Sophia Warren. It also featured Montana from the opening Roxy film from the Zappa plays Zappa tour and a demonstration of Dweezil's inability to play Camerela Brillo. And a tour of the vault by Joe Travers.

Yay.

dimbyd @ 2007-05-01T23:07:00

2007-05-01T22:07:35Z

I saw a free preview screening of zombie movie sequel, "28 weeks later", which I thought improved on the earlier film "28 Days Later". The plot managed to avoid most of the cliches associated with the genre, and it was genuinely gripping.
Good cast, well used.

Recommended, unless you hate horror or zombie films.

On strike again!

2007-05-01T22:02:57Z

Yes, for the second time I've been on a one day strike. What does this mean for a union activist like myself. Well, I don't get paid and I'm up 3 hours earlier for picket line duty. Still the weather was good today and turnout slightly higher than for January's strike. (One measure of effectiveness is how fast the parking spaces around the office - and they went slowly today). On the other hand, my organisation's leader berated me for leading an illegal strike (untrue BTW) in a surprisingly aggressive fashion.

After picket line duty- we try to the politest picket line possible, after all we do work with our colleagues who decided not to strike, or belong to another union, or no union at all all year round, we eventually assembled for a rally and picnic outside the government buildings in Central Cardiff. And I did my first interview for Welsh language television- I was dreadful and they did manage to find one line which was sort of usable. Oh well- life is an adventure after all.

I voted today, so please be nice to me...

2007-04-20T23:12:56Z

I got my postal vote for the 3rd May National Assembly for Wales elections today, so dutifully I filled in my ballot slip and voted. It felt good to exercise my civic duty.

There were actually two ballots- one for the "first past the post" constituency election, and the additional regional list vote where you vote for the party, and the candidates are elected through proportional representation. The Regional List vote was where there was a lot of diversity- not only was the Communist Party represented, and several parties of the left, but next to parties like the Greens were two different Christian parties. The Christian People's Alliance and the Welsh Christian Party. Nice to know that the good Lord can't resolve every difference down here...

Double Euro Childs joy!

2007-03-06T00:21:25Z

Yes double joy today for us folks fond of the ex-Gorky's singer:

Cause for joy number one- the release of his second solo album "Bore Da" (that's 'good morning" in English)- which is all Welsh language and all fab.

Cause for joy number 2- a concert down the Point, packed with people, even some women (fancy that), which made me very happy.

Life is good.

Across the weekend

2007-03-06T00:16:16Z

Friday afternoon saw the latest gadget arrive direct from the US of A- a Sony Blu-Ray player, so now I have both competing hi-def disc formats. Set up was easy- the machine is solidly built and the ergonomics well thought out. It feels like a more solid, more reliable piece of high tech than the Toshiba HD-DVD player I also own. Can't really tell much difference in picture quality though. Thursday had seen the first blu-ray disc arrive- The Departed, Scorsese's Oscar winning Boston gangster film which is both a remake of a Hong Kong gangster film- Internal Affairs- and also inspired by an Irish American gangster Chalkie Bulger. Excellent film. Saturday saw another Scorsese film arrive- The Last Waltz- the film of the Band's last concert complete with a Who's Who of '70s singer songwriters and old bluesmen (and Neil Diamond). A damn fine film, abieu one partially parodied in Spinal Tap- the documentary director in Tap is a Scorsese lookalike. (Of course, most of the Band got back together again and went on reunion tours to decreasing popularity and with tragic effect for Richard Manual and Rick Danko- victims of their addictions. I suppose I should mention now, that Rick Danko's 1977 solo album remains my favourite ex Band member solo album, its a shame that the momentum just faded away from him.

Apart from downloading and watching the most recent 2 episodes of Lost, I mainly slept on Saturday and Sunday. Actually that's not quite true, I did go out to see Fairport Convention at the St David's Hall. It was the first time I had seen them in many years- last time they had Dave Mattocks on drums and Maartin Allock on various; this time Chris Leslie has been with the band some 10 years, as had Gerry Conway on drums. As ever a blend of fine music and corny jokes and welcome kudos for Ian Burgess who runs their fanzine. While Fairport's glory days are well behind them, they avoid the twin sins for any long established band- either becoming their own tribute act or ignoring their past.

As a total contrast to Fairport the support act Tiny Tin Lady- one of whom has only just reached the age of consent. Their energy and lunacy brought a welcome counterpoint to Fairport's not quite jaded but informed view of life on the road.

But sleep did dominate things.

Jaan Wessman is unwell

2007-03-01T23:36:54Z

He's bed-bound with flu, so think of him and dream of his solo debut to come....

Tuesday- still in Cardiff

2007-03-01T23:35:49Z

So Tuesday, back to work at my desk with 40 e-mails waiting for me- joy. I left work early to go see Gruff Rhys again. This time doing an instore gig at the oldest record shop in the world (official) Spillers Records. Despite not having a free ticket to go in, I was allowed to do so. So while I was waiting for Gruff to arrive, I bought The Closing of the Winterland y the Grateful dead for a mere tenner (4 CDs worth of 1978 Dead- joy) and tickets for Euros Childs gig at the point next Monday.

The in-store was fun but messy- Gruff had been struck down with a heavy cold from the night before and had just dragged himself out of bed. But it was worth free.