Posts filed under 'Blog'
Back in 1998 (Yikes, ten years!) when I first moved to London and was working for a hip, young noo media agency in Shoreditch, we couldn’t have dress-down Friday as we all wore whatever we found on the floor that morning anyway. We found a different way to make Friday special, which basically involved eating really fattening and unhealthy food for lunch. We christened it Bad Food Friday.
BFF continued for me in various forms throughout the rest of my design career, at various different places of work, but the golden age was during my time at Tonic when we used to visit the local greasy spoon café, Parma. During my last stint of employment in Bermondsey Street I came close to recreating these halcyon days by attending Al’s Café. Cooked breakfast to die for, as well as curry, rice and chips.
Since going self-employed, group activities is one of the things I have missed the most. It is a solitary existence, and moving 50-odd miles from London hasn’t really helped! But I am clinging to my day of bad food by persuading the missus to join me at a greasy spoon in town for bad food on a Wednesday (Jess works at a different campus on Fridays). Not quite up to the standard or atmosphere of Parma or Al’s, but near enough.
February 29th, 2008
The distant sound of the occasional passing Eurostar train is far preferable to the all too regular and alarming sound of planes beginning their approach to Heathrow.
Obviously, with double-glazing I barely hear the trains either, but when out and about the gentle woosh is quite pleasant. In London you get used to the very unnatural sound of constant planes, but since moving down here I haven’t actually seen one.
When waiting at the station it’s a whole different ball game. The Eurostar trains are like a tornado ripping through the place, especially if on the platform next to the tunnel they come flying out of. But it’s exciting more than annoying.
February 7th, 2008
So against all the odds 2007 eventually ended happily with a move to Kent. We’re still settling in to our new space. Still getting used to all the extra rooms. Still figuring out that we can’t get away with spillages on carpet the same as we could on wooden floors.
I have an office, which since Christmas Day also includes a water cooler. This along with the big desk, new printer, phone, in/out tray, big clock, etc. makes it feel like a proper workplace, which I think is what I need to make me knuckle down as if I was in someone else’s office.
Obviously a plumber is coming in 5 days to rip up the floor and make an unholy mess in the name of a new boiler, but at least it is the quiet period in my working year. Just one Christmas wedding to finish off and then it’s time to take stock and get ready for the summer.
But I do intend to post again before then. Honest.
January 2nd, 2008
Crackle… Is anyone there?…
Is it really mid-April?! Blimey. What changes have remained undocumented here in my blog? Not much really. Just a complete change in my lifestyle, an imminent change in my location and untold other little things along the way. Lets start with the main one.
The Plan™ has been achieved. Not the way I intended it, but I’m not complaining. After spending the last 6 years trying to escape the unfair pigeonhole of new media and be recognised as a print designer, in February I found myself on the receiving end of a redundancy as the company I worked for closed it’s print department.
Downheartened? Yes. Disappointed? Not really. My interest in my design career fizzled out almost two years ago and this was the kick in the arse I needed to take my burgeoning photography business seriously. I considered getting another design job for about 30 minutes. I considered throwing myself into a serious freelance design career for about a day. In the end I know what I have to do to achieve my dream and those things would just get in the way.
So, some careful financial restructuring, a bit of helping/freelancing for previous employers to top up the coffers, and away we go. Ignoring the naysayers. Not worrying too much about the risks. Not looking down.
April 19th, 2007
Well, the move to the new hosting went as smoothly as could be expected. By that I mean the site was only down for two days. Could have been a week I guess…
Unfortunately all the comments on the blog bit the dust, and not quite sure how to get them back. Bigger fish to fry for now. Don’t let this put you off commenting.
January 19th, 2007
I know my posts have been a bit depressing recently, so I thought I’d share some positive things. Above are two (yes, 2) free gifts that I received this week. Both surprises.
1. Free pen from George, my barber on Bermondsey Street
George: You want free pen?
Me: (Expecting him to give me a ‘George the barber’ pen) Yes please!
George: Here you go… (thrusting a carrier bag full of pens in my direction)
I reached inside and pulled out the pen you see above.
George: They’re not my pens, but they good pens!
Me: Thanks.
2. Free puncture repair kit with new jeans
This is what you get when you order clothes from a BMX bike shop. Need to dust off the bike actually. Should cycle to work while I still live within cycling distance. I think I’ve probably forgotten how to ride it.
January 14th, 2007
I should have mentioned, the move to Wordpress has brought about a change of RSS feed, so please update you bookmark with the new feed. You’ll never know when your life can be filled with my light otherwise!
January 2nd, 2007
It’s been 5 months since my last post. Since then I have got a new Mac, bought an expensive suit, become a married man, visited Iceland again, destroyed my Sony phone by sitting on it, got a new Motorola phone, changed my job, turned 31, changed job again, got hooked on yet another series of Big Brother, fitted a bath and made fresh steps towards The Plan.
The blog had to come off my site because I feared it may hinder my job-hunting. It contains some quite forthright opinions on such matters as posters in train stations and I couldn’t let these, or my droolings over the band Clutch, stop me escaping ‘the Carnaby Street job’. Things got so bad that I just quit the job anyway thinking I could wander into a life of freelance-plenty. I would only have to work 2 weeks of the year to earn 4 times the average UK salary. I could stagger in and out of various companies without a care in the world counting the minutes to my next holiday.
Of course what actually happened was that I ended up with no money after a week of no work and took the first crappy full-time position I was offered. This was well-paid, but involved working in a proper office, in a proper office block, with lots of people who thought dressing down for Friday was wearing a jumper over their shirt and tie. It couldn’t last. Luckily I was saved from corporate hell by Or Media, a little company in Covent Garden. Four weeks in and it feels like home.
Home on the other hand feels like some sort of external storage area for Screwfix.com. Intent on escaping from the ‘Well and our increasingly infuriating noisy neighbours, we have begun a redevelopment that we should have started three years ago when we moved here.
Sevenoaks is calling.
August 2nd, 2006
I’m sending this entry from a new Blogger widget. How clever!
February 28th, 2006
I’ve been meaning to post all week, but since I lied to my boss (sorry David) about whether or not I had a blog during a ‘What is a blog anyway?’ coversation, I’ve found it tricky to bring up the blogger interface without fear of being caught in the act. So lots of messages at once…
February 3rd, 2006
Previous Posts
