Posts (page 2)
This morning Carole arrived while I was in the middle of leaving an answerphone message. I could hear her saying something about "it's ridiculous" or "disorganised", so hoped it wasn't bad news, but when I finished I looked up at her and said hello, and she told me with a big smile she'd got two tickets for herself and "Alan" (I didn't bother asking if that was her husband or a son) though she hadn't managed to get a further one for her dad. No matter, she's going to Wembley so all's right with the world. She too asked if I'd got a ticket - yet again I had to explain I will be watching my own team that day...
Passed Information & Communication with 95%.
Got to go watch the climax of Ashes To Ashes (though with a second series scheduled, we shouldn't expect all the answers tonight...)
Evening shift today to make up for Monday. Delicious chicken chasseur for lunch. Came out of the canteen to see Sue #1, Louise #1, Carole and Carolyn coming along the corridor together; Carole was just getting the devastating news that a cheque had bounced. It soon became apparent that the cheque was one she'd written for FA Cup semi-final tickets. I went over with the intent of consoling her, but the other ladies were already surrounding her.
"What's that, Wembley tickets?" I asked.
"Yes," said Carole. "I have to try at six o'clock tomorrow morning now."
"Have you got one?" Louise #1 asked me.
"Well, no, I'll be watching Havant & Waterlooville that day."
"Lucky you. Carole's about to cry."
"Poor lass," I said, but they all rushed back upstairs without me getting the chance to give her a hug.
As Pat had said to me in an internal e-mail, "sorry, but it's that time of year again" - the time when we have to write our self-assessments. Actually I didn't mind as it got me off the phones for an hour and three-quarters :)
Just before 8 pm I was coming back from a health and safety break when Steve mimed kicking a football, and asked if I was going to the TV lounge to watch France v England. I replied that I was unlikely to get away with taking a 90-minute health and safety break (you're meant to take 5 minutes or just over). He said he'd worked straight through since the start so was going to take half an hour now to watch some of the game. And off he toddled while I returned to the phones.
At about 8.40 Albert asked me if I knew the latest score. I said no, but the bloke almost opposite me said France had scored. Going for my next health and safety break I agreed to find out the latest news for them, and popped down to the coffee lounge expecting it to be full of guys watching the match, but the place was empty and the telly was off. It occurred to me that maybe we don't actually have Sky Sports. I surfed on to the Net and called up the latest score - 1-0 to France, from a Ribery penalty - and learned the bad news from my own viewpoint : my Oranje were losing 3-1 in Austria.
I returned to the unit - and on my way back to my workstation was stopped by a young man asking me when Havant & Waterlooville's next home match was. He fancied checking us out! I told him we're playing Sutton on 5 April and that if he's interested in the FA Cup semi he can watch it in the clubhouse before our game. I think he was tempted - fingers crossed. On my return to my workstation I relayed the news from France.
Home to find out the Netherlands had staged a magnificent comeback to win 4-3. SUPER JAN VENNEGOOR OF HESSELINK!!
Worked an extra shift today. Just like the last time I came in on a Tuesday, Christine #3, one of the day's supervisors, told me to sit somewhere only for me to find that booth already occupied (by Louise #3), then gave me another booth number only for me to start setting up in that booth then get told by Vanessa that that was someone else's seat - in this case Julie's. "She won't be happy if you sit there," Vanessa said.
From my previous experience, I knew Vanessa was the de facto authority on booths at that end of the room on Tuesday mornings, and I was now certainly not in the mood for going up to the supervisors a third time, so I just asked Vanessa where I could go. She pointed to a free booth at the end of the row.
"The supes always get it wrong," I heard her say to Louise #3. Me, I have the impression that the Tuesday morning girls didn't like the seating arrangement drawn up by the supervisors when the new system came in, so just devised one of their own and didn't bother consulting the supes.
Three refusals in a row - none of them courteous - just before 10 am had me hurling my headset against the back of my booth and wishing I was back in bed with Radio 5 Live on. After that, though, things settled down.
At college tonight, for the third week in a row the canteen was closed, so for the third week in a row I spent the 20 or so minutes before class sipping my Blue Charge in the dark in the library adjoining the IT suite. Pathenia arrived a quarter of an hour before the start and remarked on my sitting in the dark, so I pointed out to her about the closed canteen. She went off to reception to enquire, then at the beginning of class explained to us all that the lady who staffs the canteen on Tuesdays is seriously ill and they've been unable to find anyone to fill in.
Breezed through two Information & Communication mock exams, then moved on to the real one. That was going fine until one question required me to open a message in the e-mail account we've created as part of the module. I was clicking Inbox and just getting an error message every time. What a time for the server to malfunction - in the middle of an exam. In desperation I told Pathenia, and between us we tried several times before finally getting the Inbox to appear. Try as we might, though, we couldn't get the attachment I needed. It appeared as "Unknown Parameter" instead of the name it was sent with, and wouldn't open. Pathenia tried resending it to my account, to no avail. She said she'd make a note to the examiners that our server had had problems. I had to let that one mark go and move on to the remaining questions.
Despite an understandable concentration lapse meaning I started to answer the next question wrong before realising my mistake and starting over, I still got finished within the time limit and should have done enough to pass the module without that mark, but it's not nice to have that hanging over me, especially wondering if my having to call on Pathenia for help is going to invalidate my attempt. If I have to do the exam again I'll be radged off; if I have to pay another £12 to do the exam again, I'll be livid.
Hawks at home to Newport County this afternoon. We got a bumper crowd - Newport, being a former League club, always bring plenty with them, and quite a few Pompey fans came as they didn't have a match - so the clubhouse was jam-packed before kick-off and when I entered the ground at 2.45 there was a massive queue at the tea hut. I decided to wait till half time for a bacon butty, but by 3.30 the queue was a mile long, so I made my way down there then. Got to the front just after the half-time whistle.
The first hour of the game was dull, dull, dull, and as I headed back into the stand after getting my bacon roll it started to rain again. The rain only lasted about 10 minutes, then on the hour mark Rocky Baptiste ran at the Newport defence; when they began to surround him he sidefooted to Jamie Collins. The keeper parried JC's shot but Charlie Henry was on hand to tap it home. "A goal we didn't deserve," one of the two old blokes in front of me said, but no-one was complaining. A few minutes after that ex-Hawk Andy Gurney pulled Rocky back by his shirt and was sent off, to the delight of the Hawks fans, and Rocky made it 2-0 from the spot.
The play-off dream isn't over yet, and it stayed bright and sunny for the walk back to the station.
Up early for the Malaysian Grand Prix. What started out looking like a mundane race compared to last week, with Massa and Raikkonen going to the front and staying there, was transformed when Massa, soon after being overtaken by Kimi on the first pit stop, went spinning out of the race. Hamilton did well to overcome starting from ninth and losing time in the pits with a wheel getting stuck while it was being pulled off to come fifth, but the star of the day was Robert Kubica who drove a magnificent race throughout to bag second spot. A BMW win is just a matter of time, surely?
Demolished my Easter egg before the warm-up lap ended.
Spent the day checking out this year's Eurovision entries on Youtube. My favourites are Sweden (the girl who won in 1999, singing a very strong song with a good beat - she will be a contender), Slovenia (lovely Rebeka Dremelj with a lovely ballad - aaah) and the Netherlands (a catchy uptempo song, sung by a pretty girl, with a hint of Eastern influence - ought to pull the points in (please)). Quite a few joke entries this year - thank goodness we have the semis now to winnow them out.
A toasted hot cross bun for breakfast, then over to Westleigh Park to catch the HawkSupport mini-coach to Bath.
We set off at 11 am and drove straight there without stopping (except for Tim to relieve himself in some bushes near Salisbury!). It was just after 1.30 when we arrived at Twerton Park, to be told by a friendly steward - in a Norwich City hat! - that we were welcome to use their clubhouse, where they had Bath City Ale on sale.
I made straight for the bar and ordered sausages and chips - and a Bath City Ale, of course. Soon after taking my order, the barmaid said to me "The lady in the kitchen says did you not have breakfast before you set off?" As some home supporters had ordered food before me, and as, irrespective of breakfast, it was now lunch time - and a late lunch time at that - I wondered why she was picking on me. The chips were quite tasty, though, and the ale not bad at all.
I looked around for the Bath City fan I'd met at Kirstyfest, but didn't spot him.
Being away fans we were behind the goal exposed to the elements, and isolated showers every now and then had me fearing the worst, but mercifully we never got drenched. Halfway through the first half, Kevin Scriven came right out of his penalty area to get the ball from a Bath free kick, but miskicked it to a Bath forward who crossed for their unmarked striker to head in. The Bath number 7 received gallons of stick from us after being only spoken to for a bad tackle and gobbing off at the ref and getting away with it; during a corner in front of us he responded by giving us the finger, earning him loads more flak.
As the second half began, several Bath fans walking past us to get to their covered side terrace made comments like "Where's your 6000?/Not many of your 6000 here, is there?" There were a couple of replies of "At least we could get 6000" and "Which round of the FA Cup did you get to?" Simon and Malc were really wound up, Simon calling after them "You're really a credit to your football club" while Malc, when the home fans were back on their terrace, challenged them to come and large it in front of the Hawk faithful instead of boasting to their own.
As another shower fell, it was starting to look like a real damp squib of an afternoon, until on 63 minutes Brett Poate provided one of those moments that make this whole thing worth it, sending a beautiful volley from 18 yards out screaming into the top corner of the net for the equaliser.
Even better, not long after that the Bath number 7 was sent off for a vicious flying assault on Craig Watkins. Cue a mass chorus of "Cheerio, cheerio" and waves from the Hawk fans as he, after arguing the toss, left the field. The home fans, wearing Bath-tinted glasses, mercilessly booed Craig from then on and when he was subbed.
Hawks had the better of the closing half-hour but it remained 1-1. We can't really grumble about a point away from home against a team higher in the table, although our play-off prospects are rapidly fading.
I'd bought a go on the Blackout game in the clubhouse before we set off; on the drive home Aly persuaded me to buy a second. Just as well - I won the £10 second prize. The teenager sitting next to me, wearing a Pompey jacket, asked which teams I'd bought.
"Southampton and Crystal Palace." I didn't think my first choice would go down well with him.
I was right. "Are you having a bloody laugh?"
At that point the bloke behind me passed me the tenner. Who was laughing now?
By the time we arrived back at Westleigh Park I was desperate for the jacks so headed for the clubhouse bar. The telly was tuned to MTV and Wyclef Jean's Perfect Gentleman was playing - aaah, memories of the very special summer of 2001.
Got off the train at Portsmouth Harbour station just in time to see the ferry pulling away. Only one thing to do - make for the 24-hour snack window for a bacon butty.
I'm loving The Big Match Revisited on ITV4. Very nostalgic for football fans of my generation, for whom Brian Moore was The Daddy, and throws up the odd interesting sighting - today we were treated to Judas Baird scoring for Southampton in a 4-1 win over Man City.
The interesting news of today was that Formula 1 is going on BBC for five years from next year. Not having seen the Beeb's coverage of it since I was little, it'll be interesting to see how their presentation differs from ITV (and great to lose the ad breaks). Not impressed with Andrew MacKinlay MP (though we shouldn't expect much from that dork) slagging off the deal and saying the BBC should show "real competitive sport" instead. What does he think F1 is - WWE wrestling?
Watched England Ladies v Czech Republic on BBC3. Any regrets about not being in Doncaster were offset by a couple of Innis & Gunn Limited Edition IPAs, and completely dissipated when England, missing Kelly Smith, could only stumble to a dull 0-0 draw.
Just as long as Hawks do the business at Bath tomorrow.
The supervisors are merciless torturers. This morning they filled up the used Quality Street tin with Heroes. And, of course, all through the shift I had to watch Jane and Paula, next to me, both scoffing the odd one between calls, as well as seeing Amanda and Vanessa having a dip while I was up at the front desk. But you don't run 25 miles of the London Marathon then say "Ah, fuck it" and walk off the track, so every time I had to pass the table (which was fairly often today - bloody refusals and appointments) I walked on by.
At least I'm off now for 5 days. w00t!
Karen left her farewell present on the nibbles table - a nearly full tin of Quality Street. There was the ultimate test - but I passed with flying colours and didn't venture near the damn tin all shift. 4 more days to go, 4 more days to go...
We had our monthly briefing at the end of the shift. Jenny asked the supervisors to give us a rendition of 'the Easter Bunny song' : although Marilyn made bunny ears with her fingers, none of them obliged.
Sue and Mariana were in rather high spirits at college tonight, having a good-natured competition with each other over completing their exercises and generally being loud and energetic. Pathenia observed "I don't know what you two are on, but I'd like some."
"Red Bull, isn't it?" I chipped in. "No, we're just in a good mood," replied Sue, and she added that Red Bull tasted horrible. I countered that I love it and that I always have to have a can before class. (In fact, thanks to my tight budget, tonight I'd settled for Asda's 44p clone Blue Charge, but didn't spoil the effect by mentioning that.)
"Are we that bad?" Pathenia laughed. Sue and Mariana reckoned that was why I flew through exams so quick and that they'd have to try some - then they resumed their boisterous conversation...
As for me, I spent most of the class doing 'Using E-mail'. Piece of cake. Mock exam next week
