or most likely...

...

Or...

...?

Mrs N...

... or her?

Mrs N...

... perhaps?

And so not to bed

The difficulty of conducting this blogging whilst in possession and being possessed by a near one year old who is growing into her teens with alarming alacrity despite the lack of years is taking its toll. An evening which should allow the pleasures of ironing shirts whilst watching Match of the Day 2, having shared a bottle of wine with a friend and fellow child sufferer, and finding time to put in an hour's chanting not withstanding the reading of a summary of Philip J Streatfield's The Paradox of Control in Organisations has gone somewhat out the window as the Galster has only just deigned to bed down for the night.

The missus is out at the The Sitcom Trials in town and I am fending for myself.

Got a short but slightly facetious comment from the Jazzshark. So to round things up ...
... the boss didn't get the job. She's over it already. What they wanted was a puppy to do their bidding whilst the boss is not the small canine sort. I am disappointed as it would have given me a better chance of promotion and, if I am honest and in contrast to my buddhist principles, we would have been in a better position to do unto the others as they have been doing unto us and other staff for a while now. Revenge is not a healthy desire, and you need to be pretty sure of yourself that what you call justice is not just revenge done up in a cape and silly wig.

On the horizon though is a Masters degree. I am hoping to start one in Organisational Consultancy (don't yawn) at Ashridge Business School in the new year. The boss suggested it and is supporting me to get on with it. Plenty of reading to do and so I am trying to create the habit of some reading every evening (except Tuesdays for pub quiz, natch). I start off with a bit of buddhist stuff to put me in the mood (!?) and then crack into social construction theory = one of those deep theories that underlies everything so when you do a search on google you get "the social construction of lesbianism", the s.c. of technology" " the evolutionary naturalistic epistemology of Donald T. Campbell". I haven't been reading as much as I would have liked because of the Galster and also the glass of whiskey that quickly impairs my cognitive faculties.

Anyway I'm wondering a number of things at the moment.
1. when are catster and codename lizzy likely to update their blogs.? After the Jazzshark's comment I am keeping tabs.
2. what does Mrs N - see also Jazzshark - look like?

Waiting over...

... she didn't get it. More anon

waiting update...

... still waiting.

waiting update

... still waiting

London waiting

What to whilst others make up their minds, how to kill time whilst others try (or don't) to fall asleep. When I managed orchestras I would always go to the head of the road and gaze longingly as if the mere act would speed the tardy musician to his/her session. If you did this often enough they always arrived except in one case where they had run off to become a chartered surveyor. I do know of someone who has run away to play checkers - he never mentioned it to anyone. The boss had their interview today - managed to arrive 5 minutes late as their mobile phone had a clock that was slow. This gave us all a bit of a fright and I had a wander round to look for them (note the royal we to disguise his identity) and then went to chant. I chanted and prayed for about 40 minutes. If he/she/they gets the job will it have been on account of my chanting (http://www.sgi.org)? Not directly, the main cause for the success will have the boss themselves. But the chanting will have helped, I believe, to make the right causes for the success to take effect. How can I prove this? Tricky, and it is something I have to struggle with each day as I chant. Does this actually do any good? I've certainly seen some changes in friends and fellows Buddhists, I've heard the most remarkable stories of they have managed to gain jobs, kidney transplants, happiness through chanting. And if I don't have these great changes, is it because it doesn't work or because I didn't chant enough?

OK, let me share a secret. I have a target for my chanting - I want to be the Head of Training at my august organisation by the end of the year with a nearly 50% payrise. Its quite a target. It would mean a big boost to esteem, influence, and the ability to break even at the end of the month.

I received a piece of guidance from another Buddhist. He told me of the Buddhist principle of kyo chi gyo i. Kyo is the objective we wish to achieve, chi is the wisdom we chant for in order to achieve it, gyo is the action we then take and i is the position or status we achieve as a result. Its sort of like a mystic performance management system. Where we arrive and what we achieve (i) is dependent upon our actions, and we chant to ensure that we take action based upon wisdom, wisdom that is rooted in our buddhist faith and practice - respect for life and the value of life, respecting all people as buddhas, working for peace throughout the world and the happiness of all humanity.

My objective to be Head of Training is, with the help of my chanting, leading me to raise my game in order to be worth the position. In that sense, getting the job itself is irrelevant, as the achievement will be to reach that level. The causes I'll have made along the way will lead me to this job or if not something better for my life and for the value I can bring.

... but for now, the kids are snoring. A delightful sound. I have a house to keep and some brakes to change on my bike.

D Day

And So Sunday passed in its now normal manner, aside from the dash to Liverpool Street with Sis in law trying to catch her flight back to Israel and the kid-strewn birthday party of a lovely art dealing friend in one of those new developments in Deptford = cf www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/archers/ as I believe Lilian Bellamy's nefarious son James had invested money in one of the blocks overlooking their place = morning at Synagogue where the missus teaches Hebrew to the kids, then Dulwich Park for more 2-3 wheel adventures for Thom as he prepares for manhood and a 4th birthday and Gal develops her stunt baby credential by going head first down slides whilst her mother screams.

But now 'tis Monday... And the boss is being interviewed today for the big job. Fingers are crossed across the world.

Keep yours crossed too...

... More anon.

Sodding Saturdays...

... a pig of a day.

I finished the last blog at about 10.30am and had done so much already that I foolishly felt some kind of pride. Oh, how it comes before a fall!

A day of waiting whilst others decide what to do - didn't Lenin say something like life is what happens when you are making plans or maybe it was Burn the kulaks! - and then not much of it happens because it is usually too late.

Did manage to sit in the car on a red route (a London aberration that hinders traffic, gives ideas above their bus station to omnibus drivers and takes business away from traders on the high street) for an hour with my dozing daughter whilst the missus haggled over a broken chair leg with a trader in what John Lewis calls maharani furniture.

The rest of the day was traffic jams and check out queues whilst I chauffered and shopped.

I ache in places that I knew that I had because I ached in them the last time I was this ****ing tired. The washing is still to be done, the bed time circus is calling me to Roll Up when all I want to do is Curl Up with some music or chat on the radio to lull me to oblivion.

Train track

My boss is experiencing most unpleasant behaviors at work - being evicted from her office on 3 occasions. She is also up for the job of running the HR for our mighty non governmental public body. Not surprisingly she is having a mixed time of it at present.

I shared this the thoughtful Mr Thom who immediately asked me to construct the following SMS for Special Auntie Ron (as she is sometimes known).."I have lots of train track in my room and she can have some if she wants).

The evidence is above.

There have been a couple of downpours recently that put one in mind of monsoon seasons past or even NYC at present (see the ever bloggable http://jazzshark.blogspot.com). Water has been coming down the chimney so had to climb up and check the capping. Building advisors longtime-Chong(disconnected) advised a Chinese cap. Apparently this allows ventilation but not much fluid and keeps ones vents aerated. Not for the Dutch then? Thom the Builder manfully footed the rusty ladder as I climbed up on the roof, remembering Longton's advice "Don't forget Rod Hull". Realising I had left my XXXL glove puppet behind I retreated decided to explain to a worried wife and sister in law (whose presence is still evident) that nothing was wrong with water coming down the chimney. We were effectively capped and the minor water fall was no more than proof of the ventilationally appropriate building design.

Now to breakfast and a Saturday of tricycles ...

comments please - sharks included.

... the cat has buggered off

... back again. a liberal helping of formula milk and Gal is asleep. I am hoping that a long time epistolary chum from Tyneside by way of Medellin in Columbia will join the blogosphere. It would be illuminating to compare M&M wielding 10 year olds in Lewisham's greener valleys (by the DLR) with the gun toting drugs cartel of South and Meso America. Wife and sis in law are making potato soup - such is the richness of Hilly FIelds culture - for we are approaching another jewish holiday that almost certainly has a relation to, if not a sole reason for being in, eating food.

The weekend starts here...
... a two up, two down in SE London, with a cat on the shed.

jet engines

how do you explain the jet engine to a nearly 4 year old? its difficult enough trying to explain why coal is useful to a steam engine, and why Dr Beechings destroyed so much of our legacy though the current thinking is that he probably saved the railways from complete banruptcy. I remember the tram station outside the Harris Bacon factory in Totnes from nearly 40 years ago - it has the corrollaric thrill that the Science Museum's marine section gives me in terms of strange deep water phobia....

,,, Gal is crying... give me a mo

Clifford's idea...

.. for today is Respect.

Pingu put on a circus performance with the seal and his sister Pinga. They all got covered in blue paint.

Clifford's message

Spent the early evening hours wiping surfaces and doing the dishes. Getting a bit house proud - along with a fear of deep water, == http://www.phobia-fear-release.com/phobia-of-deep-water.html (though if you check down the page you'll find that people have "an irrabbitional fear" - is this something to do with the new Wallace and Gromit film? While we're on this stream my common-law step brother-in-law (you do the math) was art director on Chicken Run. I don't know if he worked on th Were-Rabbit. Tragedy about the fire in Bristol but interesting to note that at the last big cinema release there were news reports that Wallace and Gromit had gone missing in a New York yellow cab - is there a link? A particularly active PR person? === I have a horror of mucky hands. Not good when you have pre-school kids. Knackered from the industiral cleaning I had to do... mother and the sister in law must have an irrabbitonal fear of jey cloths. Went up to read to Thom and we both fell asleep. Woke at 1am, brushed teeth and went back to sleep till 6. Thom has been waking up about 7.15. Just in time for Pingu and Clifford the Big Red Dog while I sit and chant.
Clifford's message today is "take responsibility". Pingu was pretending to be ill. A one-one draw on the child brain washing front, methinks

pub quiz

Last night was the pub quiz. Jolly Jelly Fish came second, a point behind arch rivals Feeding the Ducks. ...surely Ralph Richardson played the Duke of Clarence in Olivier's film of Richard III?

current listening

1. Anything that jazzshark suggests
2. Chavez Ravine
3. The Meters
4. and more frequently, BBC Radio 2?!

mea culpa

I've been told off by a pedalling New Yorker to blog more. I feel I have to squeeze another aspect in to a life which if not busy is at least full of stuff. Also my doodlings and musings often tend towards the grumpiness that family life and work woes draw out of one. There are issues (how NYC!) at both - nothing earth shattering and why you, dear reader, should be interested in the slightest, I know not. A deep looming fear - sort of like the blue sea bit under a model boat in a glass case (more anon about my unnatural terror at the Victoria Deep Water Station) - is that all those who I love dearly yet kvetch (http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2002/06/01.html) about and those who I am not so keen on and would dearly love to see brought down a humane peg or two will, in some strange, yet possibly karmic, occurrence log in and read this. A light bulb would metaphorically switch on inside their head and my life would be spent trying to avoid them. Difficult if you are married to them.

What's the half-life of a blog? Will my kids be able to read it in 10 years time? Thom, number one pup at 3 and 3/4, finds his way round the internet like it was pre-programmed at the amniocentisis and has taught himself the hewbrew alphabet from an Israeli website. Number two pup, Gal, almost 1, seems to be developing the art of conducting.