More Tales From The Gents'

Back in July I regaled you with an email from our deputy building custodian about proper use of the loos. Well he has been forced to email us again.

From: Dep Building Custodian
Sent: 29 March 2006 09:38
To: All
Subject: Chewing Gum

Apologies to you ladies, this does not apply to you. Will whoever is spitting their chewing gum in the gents urinals please refrain from this odious habit. The cleaners are obviously fed up fishing these tasteless (pun intended) products out, by virtue of the mounting evidence in the downstairs gents.

If you must insist on chewing gum in the work place, please wrap it in tissue and dispose of it in one of the many bins around the pavilion. If you have trouble locating one of these, please look behind you, next time you visit the gents urinal.

P.S.

Of course, please finish any processes before turning around. We aim to please.

Dep Building Custodian

'So unlike the homelife of our own dear Queen', as my Mum is wont to say when she is being sarcastic.

Out Of Phase

Every year, it throws me, the clocks going forward. It isn't the "loss" of the hour that is easily managed it's the evenings suddenly getting longer. It feels so wrong in a way that reverting back to GMT never does. I don't mind going home in the dark, which seems to be the main complaint against GMT where I work, it's cosy and the town looks far better at night than it does by day.

I suppose it is a hang over from being a child, I hated going to bed when it was still light as a small child and that feeling hasn't left me except it's changed to "it should be dark in the evening" And as for the idea of moving to European time no, it's not going to conjure an extra hour of daylight out of somewhere and there isn't really a good reason for doing it. We are now a mostly industrial/post industrial nation we don't need the long evenings to help the farmers as we have hardly any farming left and guess what, combine harvesters come with powerful headlight nowadays.

One For You Lord of the Rings Fans

Middle Earth Rhapsody by my inordinately clever boyfriend Becky.

In other news, the computer system at work is now working but the tannoy system seems to be failing as we had numerous statements along the lines

"This is a ...est of the tan... ....tem
One
....
..ree
fo...
[long pause as the guard tries to work out how to count backwards]
..our
three
tw..
..n...
End of Mes...ge"

The Network Failure Blues

Woke up this morning (der da di dum).
Went into work (der da di dun).
Found the computers were working (der da di dun)
Only intermittently (der dah di dum)
And then at lunchtime (der deh de dum)
We had to turn them off (der deh di dum)
For site wide diagnostic testing, oh my!

Chorus
Yeah baby, I've got the network failure blues,
Can't do no work as we have no server connectivity!

Can't email my baby (der da di dum)
To see how he is (der da di dun)
Can't surf no blogs (der dah di dum)
The whole site is down ( der di dah dun)
Can't write no letter to the big contractor man (dar der di dum)
Can't update the spreadsheet (der deh di dun)
And there are only so many old files to be read, oh yeah

Chorus
Oh Baby I've got the net work failure blues
Cos no one knows when the local area network's gonna be fixed.
(and repeat to fade)

written at work, but for obvious reasons, blogged at home.

Big Shout Going Out II

My Friend Jessica, not only does she manage to have holiday snowboarding without breaking her leg. Almost without breaking sweat she blogs an interesting post on the phenomena of wishing been born the opposite sex.

Twenty Eight And A Half Minutes of Teeth Grinding Awfulness

OH NO....

There is yet another bloody series of "Quote Unquote".

I'm sorry to be so parochial here colonial readers but Quote Unquote is deeply deeply unfunny, unsparkling, awful. How it has lasted so long, well I just don't know and answers on a postcard would be appreciated. Nigel Rees punts very very easy questions at the guests, who to a man have a book to sell or the mortgage for the Gite to pay and by God they will go on about it. The guests then pretend not to be able to answer the question just to drag the thing out, throw in a few lame jokes to check that the audience (bused in from the nearest geriatric ward, I'm sure) are still alive then finally get round to admitting that yes they do know who wrote "It is a far far better thing I do now etc etc." If the guest forgets to puff his product during the show Nigel will do it for them as part of his matey chat.

It is the Radio 4 version of Last Of The Summer Wine. Gone past it's sell by date by at least 29 years

It is awful.

School Dinners

It's Saint Patrick's Day - I won't be indulging in the Guinness as I haven't got any and I'm not hugely keen on the stuff. I know many others will be whether they are Irish or not.

For Saint Patrick's Day the Canteen at my High School in New York State, served green bagels . To celebrate 18th March they served green bagel pizzas fortunately the madness didn't continue on to the 19th.

I should be on the way to King's Lynn right now as I type this but unfortunately I'm not feeling very well and Simon is feeling distinctly poorly. Hopefully I'll go tomorrow.