Somewhat lax

I've picked totally the wrong time to go a bit haywire and off calendar, what with the Sunshine "fun" run coming up on Wednesday. I just discovered, coming on here that I was supposed to be running this morning. I feel a bit dreadful about it all. I will run a light run tomorrow, but I don't want to do myself in before Wednesday.

Yes, as Mat noted, I didn't run in London. I feel as though I have somewhat let myself down. I was in a lot of pain though. Inexplicable pain. And I did walk all the way from Hackney to the City, and then around and around - surely more than 6 miles. Here are some extremely artistic pictures I took on my walk that haven't really come out all that well.




The whole purpose of the London visit was going to see Radiohead on Wednesday. I can't say I remember a great deal of it, it being so long after the event now. I have to say I was disappointed by the Radiohead infrastructure: very basic burger vans, champagne with strawberries in it for those who really have no idea who Radiohead are, dreadful carling-sponsored pints of piss and a massive MeanFiddler-style fence. It didn't finish well in the 'No Logo' stakes. Here follows a picture I took of the Radiohead Ice-cream van, which was centrestage, behind the mixing desk.


I was surprised to be invited to a job interview, at the very last minute, in Newham, East London. There were a range of things which I'm sure I shouldn't have said, but I left them smiling, and hopefully believing me that I was sure about what I was saying, and that I wasn't the kind of person who thought he knew everything. This was also the first time that there was a man on the panel. Let's just see shall we.

I also went home to see my family. There I did go for a short run, the route of which is described below.


Among the things I did with my family, I visited my grandmother, who has alzheimer's, and played the Lambeth Walk and Hey Jude on the nursing home's organ for her, and I played 'ants' with my niece. This game involves searching a tree's bark for ants, and then capturing them, and transferring them between one another without damaging them too much. This was a super game that I invented and my niece refined.

The whole sojourn was topped off by a dreadful 7 hour 'Megabus' journey. Whatever the price difference, it wasn't worth it. Horrible.

My next post will be less disappointing, I promise.

Now in grey

I hope that you like the site redesign. I'm finding it much easier to look at the blog now.

I'm sat on my train, on the way to London, after work, to watch Radiohead tomorrow, to mooch around a bit, and then to go home for the weekend to see my family - something I've not done for a good while. The man opposite me was just offered a sandwich by the woman sat behind me. They didn't know each other. She asked 'do you want a sandwich, checked if he was a vegetarian or not, and then just passed this BLT sandwich over my head. Some people have all the luck.

An awkward moment just occurred between them. She had obviously been staring at him a bit, and he felt forced to ask whether she wanted any of the sandwich. She laughed and said she had her own. But where's mine!

I'm sorry about the number of times I've said 'sandwich' so far in this post. I wasn't expecting this post to go in this direction at all.

I'm pleased to say I went for a run this morning before work. About 22 minutes'-worth. I was exhausted during and after, there didn't seem to be enough rest time between this run and the run before.

I have my running shoes with me, so I will be running in London and in Kent in the next week.

New shoes- feet now hurt differently

It occurred to me yesterday, when I bought a pair of £95 running trainers and some socks worth £8, that I have spent more on this lark than I have received in donations. Surely that is not right! Please donate!

Here are the shoes I bought from our local running boutique, Northern Runner. There I met a man who had a good look at the way my ankles moved, I was 'diagnosed' as a mild overpronator, and I tried 8 pairs of running shoes on, and ran in their service corridor to try them out. All of this with Ian sitting in the car waiting for me - I didn't realise it was going to take so long.

Here in the end is the pair of shoes I bought, along with the amazing sculpted socks


Today's run was my furthest and longest yet: at 4.6k, I feel quite ready to take on the 5k, which is in 9 days time. Here's my route:

Out of kilter

I have had my interview-thing in London. If you know me personally you'll probably already have had me complaining to you about the fact that I didn't get the job, and in fact I didn't even get interviewed. The reason I mention that people might not know me personally is that some of the people from the Great North Run condition on the clinical trail that I am a part of now know this url. Show yourselves! Say hi in the comments! Come and do the "Sunshine Run" with me!

I was so very angry about London. They had arranged it perfectly for them - they'd invited some people who were already Speech Therapists (one with 4 years of experience) and they invited interesting sounding people who didn't have the experience, essentially as foils, as wildcards, to make the numbers up during the group session at the beginning. They had no intention of employing us, or even of wasting their time giving us interviews, as the non-experienced of us were all pre-selected out and asked to leave.

Me and another rookie SLT went to a greasy caff together, a l'apprentice, to moan. She actually didn't seem to mind much, as it was her first interview-thing, and she didn't really want the job.

I complained yesterday to their human resources, and tried to get my money back for the travel. It cost me £50 to get there, £8 for a taxi, £8 for transport in London, £70 in lost wages, £15 in meals out, and all I got was a source of true anger, incredible tiredness which ruined a week of work and a week of running, and no experience of an interview process whatsoever with which to work on my interview technique.

I am still livid. The head of the service called me today and explained that they were a small trust and could not afford to pay for my train. I said that they shouldn't invite people for interview without interviewing them, as the message that they would be pre-selecting before interview arrived only after I had bought my tickets, and I would not have come if I had known about their pre-interview system. She responded that that was the interview process, I just failed it. I said that decisions like the one I had about attending this interview involved more than just wanting the job, and that, with the knowledge that experienced SLTs would be there for this entry level post, I knew that I wouldn't get the job anyway. I just wanted some interview experience, and they couldn't even give me that. She didn't have a response, and the conversation ended with me somehow saying 'thank you for calling'. I wish I had just hung up.

The fact is, there was no way I could have passed. She said in my feedback on the day that I should have been more pushy, and I should have given more facts when I spoke. I don't care what she thinks. I know I did as well as I could. The facts that people were coming out with were bullshit. I demonstrated a really natural and caring attitude to the patients we were discussing, and I presented very well. They had no intention of inviting me to interview, unless the SLTs they had there turned out to be objectionable people, which, frankly, they weren't.

If they want someone to 'bounce off' their fucking golden girls, then next time I suggest they go to an agency of some type, and not expect desperate, angry people to pay more than £150 for the privlege. Or look to see where they'll be travelling from. Next interview I am invited to, I will phone up and ask whether they have any intention of employing someone who isn't already working as an SLT. I cannot afford to carry on doing this, emotionally and financially.

Actually I have been invited to an interview here in North Shields. Rotten timing, as we're meant to be leaving here for Nottingham before that post would even start.

I walked along the South Bank, from Waterloo, where Banksy and some of his cronies have taken over a taxi tunnel for their festival of stencilling termed the Cans Festival (see pictures below), to the Tate, where I only really had time to go to the shop and buy some things I'm sure I'll photograph and put up here at some point.

I then went over to see Caroline, lost track of time, and then legged it in a way I certainly wouldn't have managed a month ago, to my train. I arrived home at half two.




That was this week pretty much ruined then. I didn't manage to run on Thursday. I just managed a pretty decent run after work - 21 minutes, and 3.5 kilometres (although maybe it was less - the route is very jiggly in places).

I ran through the Town Moor, where the annual 'Hoppings' event - a big funfair - is taking place. I picked up speed when I saw a guy, who looked as though he had some form of learning disability, and his friend who appeared the type to egg vulnerable people on, walking towards the track I was running on, with an enormous metal mallet which they'd obviously nabbed from next to one of the tents. They had a look in their eye that seemed similar to the look you might expect in someone who was about to throw a hammer at an unfit jogger for the sheer crack of it.

A massive thank you must go to Lesley, for sponsoring me with absolutely impeccable timing. That was exactly the time I needed a boost! Thanks also to the recent anonymous donator.

Monday feels like Thursday

It could be down to getting hardly any sleep last night, or it could be running two days on the trot for the first time (my knees hurt, and Angela, my ex-neighbour says I should watch out - you can buy new and better running shoes, but you can't buy new knees), but whatever it is, today has been dreadful. I've not done much preparation for Wednesday, I keep thinking it's Tuesday, I wish it were Thursday and it were all over. All I've really managed to do today is to fall asleep watching the end of 'Decision 79' - the 5 hour-long contemporaneous coverage of the election that put power in Thatcher's hands, which I recorded last week from BBC4. Just when you thought I could get no sadder!

There was so much smoking back then! Robin Day opened the programme with a cigar gesture, politicians finished their interview and turned to their pipes. You could look at a returning officer and you'd just know that he stank of smoke. I loved the sheer inaccuracy of it all - one result would come on the screen, and David Dimbleby, who did marvellously anchoring it all, would just read something completely different.

Today at school it was announced that there was a roundworm problem, on top of the perpetual headlice problem. The boy sat next to me at one point was scratching himself in a most unbecoming manner. I really didn't know what to do. And when you become aware of it, the amount of hand to mouth transfer in that room is just unbearable. They were told, and told, and told again about the life-cycle of the worm/egg, but they just couldn't keep their fingers out of their mouths. It was seriously grim.

Anyway, I did redeem myself somewhat with this morning's run - 15 minutes, quite solid, not fast, not too slow, just right.

Image-heavy post

Perhaps the most exciting thing to have happened this weekend was my (entirely unplanned, I promise) attendance at the local Allotment Society's Open Day and Scarecrow-making Competition. Having been cancelled last weekend, ostensibly because of some drizzle, the expectation for today had obviously been ramped up considerably. Here is a picture of the throng awaiting a local radio presenter to present the awards.


Here I stumbled, not exactly fresh from my run. Amazingly, despite my red glow, my wheezing breathiness and the bare legs and the sweating like a rapist thing, the allotmenteers did not pick up their shovels and hoes and chase me away from their children. Indeed, I was all-but embraced into the warm, fuzzy breast of their community spirit. I know this because one elderly man said "Good turnout" to me. Another lady pointed out two frogs to me in a pond. How acknowledged I felt!

These two won awards:

The first of these won the child category (click to get the full effect). The second was my personal favourite of them all.

And this is an owl made out of plastic milk bottles:

My run was a complete shambling disaster. As you may recall, I had intended to go for a 30 minute run. I managed only half of this, as I chose today to run a route I had never tried, in a place I'd actually never been, which turned out to be beautiful:


but very hilly. I felt really nauseous and had to stop. What a terrible washout. I am not very fit at all, and I hang my head in shame. Tomorrow I have my first back to back run though.

Elsewhere this weekend, I had my hair cut in a formal manner for this week's dreaded interview, and Ian and I popped into the Baltic to see the new Nara exhibition, and to pick up whatever limited-edition goodies they might have. We ended up getting a couple of posters, which will grace walls of the living room of whatever form of accommodation we might next have, in Leicester, or Nottingham, or Melton Mowbray or wherever we end up living in August.

Here are some pictures I stole, contrary to the policies of the Baltic. And I only donated 50p for the exhibition guide, suggested donation ONE POUND. Have at you, Arts Council! That'll teach you to have amazing Japanese artists come and exhibit here!

I didn't get my job

I had a long and complex round of feedback on Thursday from the lady who ran the Cambridge SLT department. I am very thankful to her. It is all much too depressing to go into. She thinks I present myself as being difficult to manage. She is probably right. Any other kind of presentation would be a lie. I would be difficult to manage in my current state of mind.

She said that I'm too confident, and I appear to believe I know the right way to do things, to the exclusion of any input from others. I told her that my confidence is really starting to ebb away. A lot of what she's feeding back is a result of all of my bluster, which comes from my desperation to get a job. I'm trying to show them I'm the best Speech Therapist in the world, and for a band 5 job, that is not what they want at all.

As the stakes get higher and higher (the new graduates start becoming serious competition about now), I am faced with the prospect that I need to relax more, and be more humble about my skills and knowledge - presenting myself as a learner rather than a do-er. It's very difficult to do.

On a rather happier note, I went with the school kids to the Angel of the North on Wednesday - they were having a trip on the 'Magic Bus'. It was extremely windy up there.


I did go for a run on Thursday (I'm writing this on Saturday). I repeated Tuesday's route, but managed it in 14 minutes rather than 16 minutes. I'm still running pretty slowly though, when it comes down to it. I'm planning on attempting a 30 minute run on Sunday. Yikes!

Ian's excellent news

Is that he attended a job interview today in Nottingham, a relatively-secure-for-us one-year post, and he got the job, despite beating himself up horribly over some screw-ups. I guess I'm spoiling his news somewhat if he wanted to tell you in person. Sorry Ian. Not many people read this blog anyway.

Peter Wallace clearly does though! Wow, I've broken the £100 mark. Thanks so much for the sponsorship, and the poem. If I could ever douse myself in a poem at the end of a 21 kilometre run, that would certainly be the one to use.

Also thanks to Ami at work, who has given me real hard cash. I have to make sure I don't end up like Arthur Fowler with the Christmas Club money don't I! Except I have already declared it to justgiving as offline sponsorship, and they will come and get it off me I guess. I wonder if they use bailiffs. That would seem a bit heavy-handed.

Ricky's got me listening to random people's music collections over on muxtape.com. I'm currently listening to an excellent selection, I highly recommend the concept, even if it must be slightly illegal.

Allow me to inform you that today, as almost every day, I did two jobs, one in Social Services, and one in Education. At the school, the Nursery, Reception and Years 1 and 2 sat down for a pantomime (defining feature thereof: at least one 'it's behind you' moment). It was a version of Charlotte's Web. I didn't know the story. If anyone wants a rundown, I'll happily tell you it. It has a very sad ending, based on the fact that spiders don't live as long as pigs. Have I ruined it? After thirty minutes, the children, who up till then had needed only one or two hissed instructions to sit on their bottoms, began to get restless. When I turned to look at them, and focused out my eyes, they looked like a writhing, school hall-sized organism.

One child cried at the very beginning of the performance and had to be led out. I think he, like me, was finding the performance to be somewhat unbalanced, what with the wrenching oscillations in verisimilitude, between scenes of heart-rending depth and honesty, and scenes where people in animal suits do fart jokes.

I'm still waiting to hear back from Cambridge. It would be a good job to get, now I know that Ian has his job in the Midlands. I have worked out the travelling distance to Nottingham, but I won't write it here, since it would look desperately sad if I didn't get the job. I do have another silken thread to cling onto, to follow its glint out of this desperate cave of no job that I am currently in, and that's an interview in Whitechapel, next week. I have booked my train ticket. I guess I need to ask someone for somewhere to stay. Does anyone have an empty room? I can't see myself sleeping on a couch before my interview. I am very picky and hi-falutin now thanks to 4 years in the North.

With Ian going away, I got the chance to be lazy and undisciplined. This involved me eating a Domino's Pizza for dinner, and then feeling rather ill and unable to eat all of today. Resultantly, I was unable to run this morning, as I was bloated and dreadful inside. I did run this afternoon, after work. It wasn't a great run, but my left foot hurt less than usual.

I forgot to mention. I'm doing the Sunshine "Fun" Run here on the quayside in Newcastle on the 2nd of July. It's a 5k run. I've paid £15, and I have promised to earn £50 in sponsorship. Damn! All of these people I am becoming indebted to, and all this work I have to do to be able to achieve these milestones. I am a bit apprehensive.

You can follow me running live on my Nokia Sports tracker page, if you're up at 6:50 on Thursday. I've noticed I've been getting slower recently, so I will be trying to up the pace a bit on Thursday. Here is my route from today. I thought it quite attractive.

Brief Sunday update

I didn't actually find out about the Cambridge job yet. I'm still a bit hopeful. No news is good news, and so forth.

Yesterday was a simple day, all we did of note was to go to the Newcastle Green Festival in Leazes Park. This is a yearly thing... a couple of small musical stages, some stalls where businesses like local solicitors 'David Gray' and the Co-op give out balloons which are designed to remind us how green they are, people talk about their organic box schemes, children do pottery and blacksmithing, a community choir sing 'Happy Together' in their socks and sandals. Is a picture beginning to form in your mind?

Here is a picture of a particularly ripe specimen enjoying his crusty musical feast:


There has been something of a schism in the Newcastle Green Festival community. This means that we are left with a situation which I will allow the big-hearted but under-funded organisers of this weekend's festival to describe:

Last year saw the biggest crowds, widest range of environmental activities and biggest bills ever! But the success of the event brought with it a major split in the group of event organisers.

Some people wanted to see the Festival fence off the site and carry out security checks at the entrances. But other organizers wanted the Festival to continue to be an open relaxed event. They also wanted the focus to be much more on the environmental message and for the Festival to be a major family-friendly event. The result was a split and two Festivals – Newcastle Green Gathering and Newcastle Community Green Festival.

Whether the enlightened among those living in Newcastle number enough to sustain two green festivals, one evil and one good, remains to be seen. Which will prevail? I think we all know, sadly.

I went for my run today. I was aiming for 25 minutes, but I only managed 23. Although this is the longest I've run for, and I'm ahead of my schedule, slightly, I'm not that pleased with myself, because I managed 3 kilometres today, and I ran that in 20 minutes last weekend. In my defence, it was very hot indeed. Here is the route I took:

Heroic Thursday run

After an absolutely exhausting day yesterday, what with all that being interviewed, and sitting down on a train and everything, I very bravely got up dead dead early again and went on a run. Have I told you which bits of me are hurting yet? No?? Well, my dodgy knee is hurting somewhat, and my left foot is aching in a quite unprecedented manner. Leg chafe has not yet been an issue. I have a blister on my left foot from my interview shoes. If you do not donate, I will continue to moan!



[Please note, this route has come out as a load of nonsense, I actually ran a very sensible route. 16 minutes worth - my longest midweek run so far].

On the train back from my interview

I'm using the free National Express wireless, my phone, and my bluetooth keyboard, and I'm comfy, having changed out of my suit, and taken off my shoes and put slippers on, with a coffee, a water, a sandwich, a copy of New Scientist that I was given at Newcastle station, and a warm glow which lasted up to the point where this boyish ticket inspector told me I would have to get off at York, and change onto a service running half an hour later, since that is the one I am actually reserved on. He made me feel like a criminal, and he was going up and down the carriage handing out his grim kind of corporate justice. What does it matter, this train is empty anyway? This country is doomed.

I guess I'll do it, but if he comes to supervise me off the train in any way whatsoever, I will remark 'you really are the king of this train aren't you', and if he gives me more of the same kind of smart answers he gave me earlier, I will say something even more sarcastic, not quite sure what yet.

I had a nice day actually, after my interview. I went around the beautiful King's College Chapel:


Then I went around the Fitzwilliam museum, in which I found some big-eyed dolls from Iraq which were a full 5000 years old:


The town itself was of course full of 'punting' students (although many have gone home), French tourists and un-helmeted cyclists.


The interview was stressful, of course. I was only relatively incoherent in my individual interview, although I did have to resort to using the adverb 'broadly' three times, when I realised I wasn't being very specific. Sometimes I was downright lucid. Hopefully they'll have been able to see that I was experienced enough for the post (a rotational adult post). I suppose it depends on what they thought of me, and what they thought of the competition.

I honestly didn't think much of the competition. They were more members of the clone army of prim and proper princesses of Speech Pathology, who seem to continually be getting jobs ahead of me. There were only 5 of us there (there were meant to be 8, they said) and they'd planned an Apprentice-style group task, where we had to design information sheets for carers of people who'd had a stroke. Our work was dreadful, fit only for the bin. I peppered the brainstorming we did with a few jokes, wry observations, slightly outré ideas. Perhaps I should have been more serious, I did try, but everyone else was so very straightforward and dull and it had the opposite effect on me. I suggested we elect a chair, and no-one seemed to think this was a good idea, and it kind of went downhill from there.

I'll find out by the end of the week, they said. They asked me two additional questions. Firstly, what was I doing between 1999 and 2002 (I explained that the NHS jobs system only lets you put 7 jobs in your working history, and that I was doing whatever I was doing), and they asked for a reference from a clinical supervisor I'd had on a placement. I hope my face didn't drop too much when they asked me this, because I had an awful time on my hospital placement, and scraped a pass. I can only hope the reference I'm given is equivocal.

I stayed in a sweet, elderly lady's cottage, which was fusty and dusty, and full of flock wallpaper. I couldn't really complain about it though - it cost only £18, with £6 going to Oxfam. She was very interesting. She told me that she'd known Syd Barrett (she'd asked if I was any relation of his), adding that she had been in the same class as him at school. Apparently he had always been a very interested and clever boy, but I guess that is obvious. She also told me that sometimes, when people in Cambridge become frail, or have a stroke, they get about town pushing a bike for support. Only in Cambridge, surely.

Going back somewhat further, on Tuesday I did indeed go for my G-shaped run (thanks for the sponsorship Glenn!). Here is proof, if proof be need be:

Still not a member of the Newcastle Running Club

Ian and I have had a nice, relaxing weekend. On Saturday we got up late, had breakfast for lunch, and went to the Cumberland Arms to see Thomas Truax along with this lovely fellow we met called Jackie and his friend John. Thomas was fantastic - it's been about 4 years since me and Ian last saw him. I recognised some of the songs, and enjoyed some of the new ones.

Of course Thomas led us out on the obligatory trek around the building during 'Full moon over Wowtown', much to the bemusement of the families enjoying the pub's complimentary sun cream and the aged dogwalker, whose face was an absolute picture that I now realise I should have taken rather than attempt to describe.

Of the songs that were new to me, I particularly enjoyed 'Inside the Internet' and 'The Butterfly and the Entomologist'. I've put a video of the latter song below - it's not from the Newcastle gig though. When he did it for us, his eyes became distracted during the song by a very tiny flying bug. It was quite a special moment, but it sounds a bit dull and strange written down:



I also took a picture of him lying on the floor:


Afterwards, outside, we rather randomly (although the bearable bits of Newcastle are few and far between) met Mitali, a really funny girl who we know through the Newcastle couchsurfing group, who'd been encouraged along to see Thomas by her friend, whose name I didn't actually ask. This friend was a lot of fun, with a bit of a darting mind, probably because she'd been up for days with next to no sleep. She told me that she was a member of the Newcastle Running Club, and recommended I join. They meet and run on Tuesdays and Thursdays (usually my running days, according to my schedule), but sadly they run for 3 or 5 miles. I couldn't manage that at this stage.

My running still progresses. Today I managed 20 minutes, and while it wasn't exactly comfortable, it wasn't as bad as I remember 15 minutes being, when that was a step up. Once again you can see evidential proof that I did this run on my Nokia Sports Tracker page. Here's the route I took:


The next person to sponsor me, I will devise a route that will attempt to replicate the letter-form of the initial of your first name! Preferably people whose names begin with a, o, p, d etc - I don't want to be walking back home for ages. Vindictive, made up names such as Xerxes will be passed over.

Donations are never ignored though. Thank you very much James for your donation, it's really nice of you to think of me. It certainly helped me get out there today in the not-quite-driving-rain.