Cowboy, ilk PDF you later!

A couple of weeks ago I got a new phone. It’s touch screen. Swish, I know. So enamoured was I with its sleek body and technological prowess that I managed to throw it on the floor as soon as I got it out of the box. Still, unless that’s somehow fried its insides, I doubt very much that my clumsiness is responsible for the single, overbearing issue I have with it: its predictive text programming.

Unlike a lot of my philistine friends, I’ve always been a fan of predictive text, and my last phone and I got along marvellously in this respect. However, this new one? (Which is manufactured by the same company as the last). Not so much.

For a start, it seems to have really strange word preference programming. Type ‘anyway’ and ‘cowboy’ comes up first. I ask you, how often do you use the word ‘cowboy’ in a text?

Then it gets quite insulting and assumes you can’t spell, so tries to help you along a bit. Not happy with ‘the’? You must mean ‘tidying’. No? How about ‘undying’? Not that either? Come on come on come on, we’re texting here! ‘Viewing’? ‘Chewing’? ‘Undulating’?

It also seems to really, really dislike apostrophes. On most models you can just scroll through the options available from the symbol key (usually #1) and there it is, floating around happily waiting to mark omissions and possessives. Seems like Samsung (there, I said it) got no respec’ for this little fella since they’ve BANISHED him to the second page (of nine) of the symbols menu, accessed outside of the text box. And when you think about the nature of most texts – I’m going to be late / I’ve got a cold / It’s at 8pm / There’s a dress code, etc – this is a bit of a blinkin’ problem for people like myself, who find that the grating sight of an un-apostrophed ‘Im’ makes them twitchy and uncomfortable. I hasten to add, as well, that this isn’t just a predictive text issue. Even if you’ve got a lot of time to kill and fancy some old school input-each-letter-at-a-time texting, you still have to arse around finding the apostrophe.

This in itself creates a whole world of text based drama, because after inserting the apostrophe, you have to type the remaining letters, which the phone doesn’t recognise, so it starts throwing panicked and ill thought-out suggestions instead. Example: I’m typing the word ‘they’ll’. This comes out as ‘they’lloyd’. If I want to type ‘I’ve’, Samsung thinks what I’m really after is ‘I’Tesco’, followed by ‘I’veggie’ and ‘I’technology’.

I suspect the ‘I’Tesco’ thing is my fault though, as I deigned to add a word to the phone’s ‘dictionary’. Similarly, I added ‘PDF’ and ‘HR’ to its bank of wisdom, and given their key correlation with ’see’ and ‘is’, they’ve now got preferential treatment over ALL OTHER WORDS. I guess it’s trying to be helpful, but I detect a hint of maliciousness when all I want to do is send off a quick 20 second text and I end up spannering around for ages trying to make ‘I’lloyd PDF how it goes. HR Dave coming?’ into something people might be able to understand. With hindsight perhaps it’s cleverer than I gave it credit for. Maybe it’s getting back at me for dropping it, after all.

Ink Yer Shoulder…? Pt 2

Props to everyone who voted for my new career direction. I have to be honest though, I get the impression that a lot of the voters were kindly old ladies who stumbled upon my blog after mashing the keys wildly in an attempt to dial up AOL, hence career suggestions like ‘Find a man and have children’.

Other eye-opening oh god it’s so clear why didn’t I think of that before? suggestions included ‘Be a poet’ and ‘Publish a book’. Both of which obviously came from people who live on air and daylight alone. Sadly, I’m one of those materialistic types that need food and stuff, and as such I don’t think these are immediately viable options.

Lots of suggestions for cake making, although I know who voted for this and they just want free cake, or were thinking about cake at the time, or had just had a piece of cake. Therefore results in this field cannot be trusted.

A surprising 15% of votes suggested that sticking with journalism would be the most sensible thing to do. Clearly voters in this category fall into three brackets: 1) People that have never actually read my blog before, or indeed any kind of news-based media, 2) People that are my parents, who ran around their village commandeering everyone’s IP address to vote for this option, lest I never actually manage to establish myself on any kind of career ladder, 3) People that are having a laugh. I also feel a bit insulted in that while 15% of people voted I stick with journalism, no-one, NO-ONE, has any faith in my tattooing ability. You have eyes, don’t you? Did you not see that picture?

Other great suggestions included: children’s TV presenter, drag racer and super hero. Unfortunately, I don’t really get on with kids, so I’ll have to veto the first one. As for drag racing, because I live in Cardiff and not near California’s NHRA, I think I might be a bit disadvantaged. Also, I drive a Rover.

However, I can certainly get on board with the super hero thing. If I take all the energy and effort I’m putting into finding a new job into learning to fly or shooting balls of fire from the palms of my hands, I’ll be saving the day left, right and centre in no time, right? Right? Oh.

Ink yer Shoulder, Gov’ner?

I can’t really say what masochistic impulse inspired me to do this, but just now I sat down and figured out how many days I’ve been without gainful employment. The answer is 46. That’s just over six weeks, which, when you’re a kid and on your summer holidays, seems like a lifetime. And when you’re sat within the same four walls day after day trawling through the same web pages you have saved in your bookmarks as ‘FML’, slowly being forced into one corner of your desk by an ever-increasing army of used mugs and bowls that once housed instant noodles, it seems like a lot longer than that, I’m telling you.

So, obviously I need to do something else – but what? Something that will indulge my creative side, while delivering some money (unlike freelancing, by the way. This video sums that up nicely). Luckily, it turns out there are innumerable creative jobs out there, most of which I’m already more than qualified for, mostly because I’m not a fuckwit. Behold:

TATTOO ARTIST
Now I’m no Leonardo da Vinci, but I can sketch my way around a variety of basic shapes and stick men. I’m even down with watercolour pencils! So, imagine my surprise when, after countless hours spent slumped on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon watching Miami Ink, I learnt there’s absolutely no skill involved in this craft whatsoever. See? I could do that with my eyes closed. Literally.

CAKE MAKER
Obviously I’m not talking about being a baker. That’s hot, sweaty, back-breaking work. Not for me thanks, I’m a creative type. I mean this kind of thing. Can you believe that’s a cake? And the best bit? After a lengthy discussion with a soon-to-be-married friend, it turns out that as soon as you stick the word ‘wedding’ in front of it, you can whack the price up ten-fold. Lots of cashmoney potential in this one, and it would seem that I already fulfil the basic entry level requirements, in that I have eyes and am not a five year old child, unlike this cake wizard.

HAIR AND MAKEUP ARTIST
I used to know a girl who was adamant she was going to go to ‘beauty school’. In the event she ended up doing a journalism degree is now probably walking the beaches of Falmouth fighting seagulls for chips, but I do remember wondering what sort of thing could be taught at beauty school. If you’re a girl, chances are you’ve been twiddling with your hair for years – certainly since it was long enough to get it irrevocably caught around your mother’s cylinder hairbrush – and we’ve all been there with the ill-advised make up judgements. Beauty school ain’t gonna prepare you for that.
I put on make up and style my hair every day, so I don’t see why I can’t do it for a living. Pretty sure I could a better job on Pammers than this, and hell, if you’ve got enough hairspray then this beautiful, feminine and practical hair style is a breeze. Give me a job, Max Factor.

INTERIOR DECORATOR
Admittedly this one ’s likely to be harder to crack because my name is not Olivia and I don’t have a rich Daddy to finance my half-arsed attempts at redecorating the boutique apartments of all my trendy Chelsea friends. However, if someone comes to me requesting their living room be transformed into an unsettling political nightmare of the Savannah, I’m pretty sure I’d be able to pull it off.

So help me out. What’s it to be?

The Comeback Kids Aren’t Alright

If the continual cycles of bleeptro adorning every media facet of NME are anything to go by, it would seem that it doesn’t really take that much effort to create a decent track these days (check this out for hours of endless fun). Gone are the days when bands were famed for their instrumental talent – it’s all about crunkcore and horrorhop and electro now. Which is fine. I move with the times, you know.

However, it would seem that said bands are reluctant to accept defeat on the genre-trend battle ground. Bands like Green Day, for example. They’ve been kicking around for an unbelievable 22 years now. That’s older than most of the viewers that were tuned into NME TV the other day, when the channel (along with nearly every other ‘alternative music station’) seemed hell bent on cramming in as much Green Day as possible. Why? Because after FIVE years, the band have finally released something new. And it’s just so blah.

“Do you know the enemy? Do you know your enemy? Gotta know the enemy, wahay!” shouts Billie Joe Armstrong, over and over and over again. COME ON GREEN DAY. Yes, once you were a pivotal music force against ‘the establishment’, but Jesus. It’s like you’re not even trying anymore.

The same can be said for perennial oddball Marilyn Manson. In his glory days he held in his hands the fear and ignorance of thousands of parents everywhere. He was ‘responsible’ for the Columbine High School massacre, after all, and kids who listened to his music were dark and had problems. But now? He’s 40 years old, had an affair with a 19 year old despite (then) being married to extreme hottie Dita Von Teese and his new album is nothing short of an uncomfortable parody of himself. Pretty as a Swastika? Yawn. I Have To Look Up Just To See Hell? You don’t say. Unkillable Monster? So it would seem. Brian, your crazy shiz just doesn’t wash anymore, as you could probably tell by the sales of your last album, Eat Me, Drink Me. Time to bow out gracefully, eh?

Two examples, then, of the musical dead coming back to life. But three’s a trend, right? So, tempted as I was to include The Manic Street Preachers’ desperate clutch at straws with their new album Journal For Plague Lovers, I considered my current residency in Wales and thought better of it. Luckily though, a much more depressing option has come to light in the form of The Bangles. Yes, they of Eternal Flame, Manic Monday and Walk Like An Egyptian fame. Reports suggest that, as I write this, the band are busy squirreling away in the studio producing a new album.

Knowing your enemy and unkillable monsters are, at least, prevalent (and marketable!) issues on the social landscape at the moment, so unless The Bangles are gonna get crunk on the ass of the music industry – which I’m sure we can all agree would be an amazing spectacle that I for one would pay money to see – I suspect their efforts may well be in vain, and they will too be relegated to the ranks of once prominent bands who’ve had their day. Like the drunken uncle on the dancefloor at a wedding, perhaps they should just leave it to the kids now.

All Hail Jonathan Ross

Perennial buffoon, Jonathan Ross, will have to pre-record his Radio 2 shows, The Guardian reported today.

Under the ‘tough compliance rules’ issued by the Beeb last October, Woss’s inconsiderate tongue is proving to be a something of a hazard to the happy clappy PC facade Aunty is so keen to portray, and as such his shows will be pre-recorded to make them ‘watertight’.

I, as a rational thinking member of society, am indifferent to the off-hand ‘homophobic’ remark he made about boys asking for Hannah Montana MP3 players (although I’m inclined to say that I’d probably be aghast if any offspring of mine requested one. This is down to my intense dislike of the saccharine Disney fluff though, and not indicative of any kind of veiled homophobia), but the fact remains that while the Thought Police rule the roost, folk like JR have to watch their loud, obscenely overpaid gobs.

So here’s an idea: Bin Ross and his inane gibbering and replace him with someone who will, for a fraction of the price, do a professional job which won’t continually land the BBC in very expensive hot water. As my previous posts illustrate, there are thousands of media types chomping at the bit, raring to go, and within them there must exist at least one broadcast journalist devoid of the enormous delusions of grandeur and self-important arrogance that keeps making a mockery of the industry.

You’re Application Has Been Unsucessful

So, I’m still in the market for a job. Even though some places are reporting signs of a break in the clouds, jobs for my lowly level remain few and far between, and spending hour upon hour trawling internet job ads and crafting covering letters – only for them to be skim-read and disregarded – is becoming a bit soul destroying.

However, without a doubt the most heartbreaking thing about the whole process is the rejection emails. Rejection emails are entirely different to rejection letters. Rejection letters indicate that some poor sod has had to go to the bother of actually reading your CV in order to glean your address, so at least your details have graced the eyes of somebody in a publishing house, albeit the workie. No, rejection emails are much worse.

Now, let it be said that I don’t break down into tears every time one of these pings into my inbox. Not at all. As the Press Gazette reports, there are at least 1,800 unemployed journos spending their days in a similar fashion to me, so it’s not really a surprise that among that number there are individuals far more qualified than I.

However, I really, really take umbrage with the frequency with which these emails are coming back to me littered with spelling errors, punctuation mistakes and grammatical fuck-ups. That’s just poor show anyway, never mind the fact that it’s the antithesis of these crimes that form the very foundations of the jobs I am applying for. One shining example is laid out below:

***
Dear Racheal,
Many thanks for you’re application to (Magazine). We have reviewed your CV and have on at this occasion decided not to call you for interview. We wish you every luck…etc.

Yours sincerely,.
(Person)
***

Perhaps, however, I should be grateful that they at least made a stab at spelling my name correctly, as the following treat popped up not an hour ago:

***
Dear [INSERT NAME],
Thankyou for your interest in [JOB TITLE], but after much careful considerations we have decided not to process your application further.
***

I’m sorry, Mailshot Wizard, but something tells me you’re fibbing about the ‘careful consideration’ bit there.

Mwah, Darling!

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending my cousin’s wedding. I imagine that for a lot of people a family wedding would bring about sighs and apprehension, but as my family is so small this was a pretty big deal for us, and I was really looking forward to it. Indeed, I had a great time; I shed a tear during the speeches, bought shame to our dwindling numbers in my penchant for a drink, caught up with people I hadn’t seen for years and managed to befriend a child through a mutual dislike of people who spell our shared name incorrectly (It’s true, people that spell it ‘Ael’ are “bumheads”).

However, on one facet of the whole ‘meeting new people’ process, I came unstuck. How do you greet people these days? Job interview? Sure, shake hands. Fireman that’s just saved your kid’s life? A hug and innumerable kisses, I imagine. But what of all these people who I had never met before, but was now kind-of-through-marriage related to? Easy enough for the blokes of course; a firm hand shake and pat on the arm will suffice. But I’m a girl.

Searching for an acceptable ‘greeting’, I gave them all a whirl. I shook hands with the guitarist of one of my cousin’s former bands. Which felt ridiculous. I lent in for air kisses with someone’s auntie’s cousin’s wife (or whatever), and that felt forced. I hugged an old man in a clumsy ‘are we hugging, are we air kissing, oh now we’ve made contact we’d best follow this through’ way. Which was uncomfortable. I even tried simply standing there awkwardly and giving a pathetic and pointless little wave when introduced to one of the ushers. But that didn’t feel right either, because both he and I were obviously there to share my cousin’s special day with him, and as such surely the situation demanded something less rigid than that?

In the event, of course, most people – and I certainly – became inebriated enough to ‘go with the flow’ and by the end of the night we could have greeted one another by rubbing noses for all we cared, or indeed remembered. So I suppose under my cloud of lowered inhibitions I was one of the lucky ones – some people there didn’t drink at all. And if you’re stone cold sober, what the hell do you do if someone tries to greet you by rubbing noses?

On the Money Train

This probably won’t come as a massive surprise to anyone who regularly uses this country’s glorious rail network, but if you’re planning on going cross-country it really does pay to do your research.

I’m trying to get to Horsham next week (from Cardiff), and was originally given a return ticket price of £46.60 (with, God bless it, my 16-25 rail card). This was the ‘best price’ to be had around my stipulated arrival and departure times, but on inspection it appeared to involve one connection of 0 minutes, another of 43 minutes and a third requiring I walk to another train station. Now I’m not adverse to walking, but do I know my way around Dorking? No. And could I navigate my way from one station to another in 6 minutes? Probably not.

In the event, I’ve bought each leg of the return journey separately and have managed to get it sorted for £33.90 – a princely saving, then, of £12.70 which I can now spend on train sandwiches and tiny 60p Mars Bars. Hurrah.

OMG Omegle

In case you’re not familiar with this new phenomenon, Omegle, the brain child of a gormless looking American teenager, is a site that connects you instantly with a stranger from anywhere in the world. I suppose the objective is to put random people together for engaging and stimulating chat, and to be fair, I’ve had a couple of really interesting conversations with people (mainly in the US) about a variety of topics: gun crime, the media, the economy, literature.

However, and as would be expected, there have been a couple of less intelligent but hugely more amusing ones as well. A real insight into the human psyche, methinks…

Stranger: Hi, sorry to cut this short but my dog has just been sick on my foot
*Stranger has disconnected from the conversation*

****

Stranger: Hi
Me: Hey
Stranger: Does it burn when you pee?
Me: Yeah, you should tell your Mom to get checked out
Stranger: Touche, sir
*Stranger has disconnected from the conversation*

****

Stranger: Wat up man?
Me: Contemplating Nietzsche’s theory of the will. What’s up with you?
*Stranger has disconnected from the conversation*

****

Stranger: DO YOU WANNA TALK SEXY?
Me: Do you want to know why I’m so fat?
*Stranger has disconnected from the conversation*

****

Stranger: Hi!! Do you like Miley Cyrus?
*You have disconnected from the conversation*

G20 Meltdown in Vain, Apathy Reigns Supreme

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to raise a smile today when news came of the G20 riots in London. Namely, that the windows of a branch of RBS had been smashed in. I’m sure old Fred the Shred can pick up the bill for that.

As I write this now “Hundreds of anarchists are still on the rampage” in London, according to the ever unbiased Daily Mail. Many of which, again according to the DM, have been “smoking cannabis and drinking alcohol throughout the day.” To be fair, that’s probably true, but their choice of words irks me. Using the term ‘anarchy’ in this loose way, juxtaposed with ‘rampage’, implies hoards of people have simply come together for a big ol’ violent knees up at the expense of the taxpayer, when in fact the G20 protest – originally planned to be a peaceful affair – is a platform from which participants can voice their concerns on a variety of topics: climate change, consumerism, capitalism – on any number of issues that the government continues to balls up.

And who can blame them, really? Only last night I wrote a blog about continuing unemployment, and there’s Goodwin’s smug, self satisfied £700k-a-year face beaming out of every media platform. That’s pretty annoying. Getting on the property ladder is damn near impossible at the moment, and even if you do you’ve got to fork out another £300 at least on a seemingly pointless Home Information Pack, yet Jacqui Smith gets the full second home allowance and claims £22,948 for her family home. That’s pretty annoying. The list goes on. Is it really that surprising that people have decided to take this globally momentous day as the perfect opportunity to show the ‘powers that be’ that all is – unbelievably – not well at peasant level? No. And it’s about time too. The UK has long been the laughing stock of Europe – could you image the French putting up with such incessant cretinism? They’d have rioted themselves to pâté by now. So at least now the British people can scuttle off after this affair with some semblance of dignity and an “Ah well, at least we tried.”

But the efforts of today’s ‘rampaging anarchists’ may well be in vain. Sure, the government’s going to get pretty upset about it and no doubt adopt the quintessentially British stance of sweeping it all under the rug and pretending it never happened, but ultimately shouldn’t the whole affair have served to bolster public confidence that something helpful might actually happen as a result of it? That at least we’re all in this together and good on them for giving it a shot? Indeed, while a few people have expressed relief at the crack in the stagnant bog of Brown’s government, I’m hearing a lot of negative feedback from my peers about the whole thing:

“They’re just a bunch of annoying fuckwits whose idea of anarchy comes from an A-level textbook,” says one. “X is amused at all the anti-consumerists protesting today… who were supposedly organised via Twitter and Blackberries. Fail.” says another.
(Just as an aside here, I wonder how one would go about organising any large-scale meeting without the use of technology. Carrier pigeon?)

The very point of the riots today have been lost on these individuals, and no doubt hundreds, thousands, more, and this paints a very bleak picture for the future of the UK indeed.