Ciaran’s Omnipurpose Blog

I found this today, quite by chance and thought it was clever – a nice diagrammatical representation of observation versus revelation. Please click on the image to enlarge it:

How productive are you?

Is your second home a desk?

Do you put the hours in?

Are you passionate enough about your job?

Will you go the extra mile?

Maybe these people are committed and passionate. Or maybe they’re just terrified about getting sacked. Or maybe they’re burning the candle at both ends: doing charity work maybe, or training for a triathlon.

But then the news tells us that we work the longest hours in Europe and we’re not necessarily the most productive either.

So now that we’re all on this hamster wheel, consider this: We’re running to keep still.

That’s right – I’d say we’ve been a little conned by the social revolution. Now both partners work, and earn potentially twice that of one partner, but prices have increased as well. The combined income’s only enough to keep a roof over their heads and feed themselves.

We’ve progressed in some ways, but have we really progressed? We’re now bottom of the UNICEF league tables for industrialised countries. When you’re heading home feeling absolutely shattered, how cheering is it to know that although you’ve worn yourself out at work, you’re still letting down your kids?

We were like kids this morning as we peered out of our bedroom window to see whether the Met Office and the very cold night before had lived up to their promise of snow.

We weren’t disappointed. The snow was a couple couple of inches thick. We’d also taken the precaution of getting up at 6am to try to beat the inevitable transport chaos.

It was pretty precarious getting to the station, but it was beautiful.

At Harrow on the Hill Station, two workers were shovelling snow, whilst four stood and watched.

I waited 40 minutes for a train, which was announced as the last train into London for the morning due to a faulty train at Wembley Park. This train was packed and I very nearly didn’t bother getting on. On the way into London, there was a small scuffle in the carriage. People were tired and some were tense.

Coming home wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. This was mainly due to just giving up on the Circle line to get home and just walking part of the way.

Reminds me of the gag: “In Soviet Russia, tractors do not break down. How absurd to think otherwise! How we laugh as we plow the fields with our bare hands”.

I found out about Kasabian when listening to the Jo Whiley Show in the car a little while ago. I noticed that they were playing at the Royal Albert Hall on a benefit gig for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

So I went online this morning to book tickets, which went on sale at 0900. At that time, the site was down. Once I finally got through at 0918, the cheaper seats were gone and the pricier ones were left.

All OK so far.

It seems that the tradition is now to charge a booking fee, including online bookings where the sales process is self-service. Even cinema tickets booked online take a booking fee!

As if this wasn’t cheeky enough in itself when tickets are expensive as they are, it appears that online booking has discovered a new wheeze: the transaction fee! No mention of anything to do with credit card charges – it seemed to apply to all payment types.

I don’t mind contributing to charitable causes. I don’t mind paying for a service. But I do mind paying for self-service on a broadband connection that I pay for.

So I’d like to know what they think they’re playing at. I’m almost too miffed to buy the tickets on principle now, not merely because they’re stupidly expensive.