Random ramblings

1) It's nearer, which is a good thing
2) Morrison's seems OK but bringing sandwiches is good.
3) The car park is further away than I'd like but nearer than before
4) The new start time means I don't miss being in the town centre as much as other people
5) The printer is fucking miles away
6) My body has no clue when lunch should be - this will have consequences
7) No matter how much I make it try, i will always hate a midday start. I've done two starts at 4.30pm and these were preferable in a number of ways (nb no fucking way wuld I do there permanently. Give me one late and four 10am starts and I'll be happy)
8) Separating content from production makes some kind of sense. But that means there's less chance for subs and reporters to get to know each other and find each other's foibles - which will affect quality
9) The system requires organisation - which we don't have for a number of reasons
10) When the people being made redundant leave, the shit will really hit the fan.

Played my last game of football last night for a good while.

Work has changed my shifts so that I don't start before midday and so don't finish until 7.30pm at the latest - basically making staff work daily paper shifts for weekly paper pay. Yippee.

And as our five-a-side starts at 7.30pm, that means I can only play when I happen to have a day off on a Thursday.

I've been doing the five-a-side now for four years. At times, I can get shouty when we're not playing well, I'm not playing well, we 're not defending, we're not passing etc.

But, as well as the fact it's the only regular bit of exercise I do, it's a great escape. For an hour, there's no thoughts or worries about jobs or money or life or anything. It's just about the game, a chance to relax or release frustrations.

It's also something to look forward to as well.

On Wednesdays, instead of thinking about how I've stll got Thursday to get though, I think about the fact that it's football night - it many ways, it brings the weekend closer.

But now that's pretty much gone - and I know it might sound silly but I'll miss it a lot.

Top five 5-a-side moments.

1) Chipping the keeper in a five-a-s-die goal (We don't play the over head height rule)
2) Scoring with an overhead kick
3) Playing for Graham's team to help him out in a competitive fixture - and playing an absolute blinder
4) Creating scoring passes
5) Last night - a few arguments, some soft defending ie pretty much usual fare. And grabbing a hat-trick including a lovely couple of finishes helped me to finish on a high

For the last nine months, I've been seeing a doctor for depression.

The big problem is that I know why I'm depressed  - it's work - but doing something about it is an entirely different matter.

Since moving to Manchester and becoming part of the subbing team, work has either been hectic (weeklies treadmill) or mind-numbingly dull (occasional short-pieces for daily paper where the headlines are then changed).

After kinda getting used to it, it's all changing again where I'll get the crap hours of the daily paper combined with the treadmill of the weeklies papers.

The new system - with fewer subs - wants us to work 12-7.30pm, and probably five weekends out of seven.
So no more Thursday football, no going to the cinema, no taking my wife out for a meal, no watching Utd if there's a spare ticket. In fact, no social life. And no time in the morning to do anything.

Basically, it's just going to be a crap job and I will end up hating every minute that I spend there.

I know I can't go on like this. All the reasons of why I used to love doing my job have been taken away and I need to get out for my own sanity.

But here's the nub - what else can I do.

I first wanted to be a journalist when I was 10. Since then, everything has been about becoming one, degree, post grad, moving down south etc.

And now, I'm back to square one of trying to think of a new career. I've still got 35 years or so or work ahead of me - plenty of time to forge ahead. But this is where the depression kicks back in.

I've got 35 years ahead of me - but I don't think anything will capture the excitement of getting and writing up a story, the adrenalin surge of subbing a page right on deadline, the anticipation of seeing your story and page layout in the newspaper.

There used to be times whe it felt a privilege to be a journalist.

Now all that's gone and I'm staring at emptiness.

So the month-long yawn-fest that is the General Election canvassing is off and running.

Don't get me wrong - I really like the election day count - it's great to see all the votes come in and the excitement of individual counts. And boo sucks to the electoral officers who've delayed their count until the Friday - spoil it for everyone why don't you.

But the month before hand when we get wall to wall coverage of politicians spouting the obvious, while analysts interpret every meaning is one big turn-off.

It's the same reason why I don't like horse racing. For years, BBC would show a big 30 minute build up of sod all going on before a race asting a couple of minutes.

For a start, can the media (pot kettle and black) stop complaining about the lack of personalities and then grasp at anything remtely perceived as being 'off message'. You can't have one without the other.

And of course there is the ubiquitous message about the importance of voting.

But let's analyse that for minute. Just how different has Labour been in 13 years of power? There's been a lot of tinkering to the tax system, more money to the NHS, changes to education.

But has it helped the poor improve their lives? Has it really lent a helping hand to the down-and-outs. I fear not. The divide between rich and poor has got greater. Despite good intentions, the benefits system is too unwieldy, the NHS 'choice' programme is wrong and the  introduction of tuition fees and abolition of the grant has meant the best way out of the poverty cycle - education - is further away from poorer families than ever before.

The next question is : Would 13 years under the Tories been any different? Well, there would have been a lurch to the right but, ll in all, I fear it wouldn't have changed much.

Would we still have gone to war in Iraq? Probably, though they might have been better prepared to stand up t USA in establishing a post-war Iraq.

Would we have gone into recession? As a country, we would have fared better under the Tories in preparing for it. As individuals, the outcome would probably have been worse.

Would the NHS have got better? Maybe there would be more money in ti as the Tories might not have embarked on the disastrous IT project. But that wuld not necessarily have made it better.

Would further education be available for all? No. What is really scary is that there was a narrow time of about ten years where anyone good enough to go to university could do without the fear of a barrel-load of debt. Now,  I would really think about what I wanted from uni before going and committing myself to having to pay off all that money.

So, depressingly, how much difference is there between the two parties?

Obviosuly, there is some. Labour's obsession with the state is scary, leading to id cards and unparalleled intrusions into people's private lives.

At the same time, will the Tories prove to be the same as before or can they inspire private enterprises to heop lift poeple out of the pverty trap and enable the less-well off to save for their future.

Lib-Dems - whatever.

Having banged on this for ages, there's loads more to say. I might do another post on therefore.

Been doing my funk thing at Easter as per usual.

This year, our group had to do the Passion and I spent a lot of my time discussing Peter and his role.

Here's a basic gist and extrapolations

1) Peter's situation is the flip side to Judas.
Both of them had major roles to fulfill in the Passion - Judas who betrayed Jesus and Peter who denied him. I'm not going into who is more culpable. To me the important thing is how they reacted.
Both realised the enormity of what they had done - Peter wept bitterly, Judas hanged himself.
But Peter was able to respond in a positive way to his failing, while Judas could only succumb to his.
Peter was able to return to God despite his denial, he had the courage and strength to build a church.
Judas, however, was weighed down by what he did and could not escape it. He can only be pitied.

2) Peter's denial was part of who he was
Peter was very much an act first think later kind of guy. It was he who first called Jesus the Messiah and yet, only minutes later, he was angrily rebuking Jesus for foretelling his death on a cross.
It was this impetuousness that led him tod rawing his sword in the Garden, the willingness to follow that led him to the house of Caiaphas and his rashness that led him to deny Christ.

3) Why did Jesus choose Peter to lead the church and not, say, someone as charismatic as John, or as wise as Paul
After discussions, I think Peter was chosen because of his humanity. Jesus knew that Peter would make errors, just like we all do. But his ability to recover to lead and insire the early church, again makes him out as a very human figure.
Paul, with his devoutness and piety and holier-than-thou attitude, can seem a very distant figure.
Peter, however, is someone we can identify with and someone we can look up to and be inspired by.
We know that he can fail, make major errors. But we know he can still come back.
Whenever we make mistakes in our own lives, lapses in judgements, denials, betrayals, it must surely be of some comfort that we are no worse than Peter and he became the head of the church.
Surely, then, we can make good our own failings and use our faults to improve as people.

4) Are there lessons for the church in this?
To me, the lesson is that Papal Infallibility is wrong. No matter, how good a person, how saintly he is, how guided he is by the Holy Spirit, the pope is still human. He can trace his line right back to one of the biggest transgressors of all. The pope must therefore be aware of his own faults, and the church should be aware that the pope will falter at times - because he is human.
Recognising that should not diminish the pope. He was elected to lead and elected because he was deemed to be worthy.
Therefore his pronouncements should always be heled in high esteem irrespective of infallibility.
As head, the knowledge that he is not infallibe should also mean he should have the ability directly to inspire from his example.
'Look at me,' he can say. 'I am human and therefore weak and prone to straying off the right path, just like you and just like Peter did. But learn from me, follow my teachings and my example and together we can build God's church'

So, having moved house, I phoned the car insurance people and - to my delight - I have been given £170 back for having moved to a much safer postcode (I'm ignoring the £25 admin fee for, what is basically, someone at a call centre typing in a new address and sending out new details. For fuck sake, ti actually costs about £2.50, including postage and a really slow call centre worker.)

My wife then phones her car insurance company and she has to pay more for moving to a postcoed where there will probably be more claims?

Can someone please explain?

FYI - previous address was on main road and near the worst school in Bury. Now living in the same type of house but in a cul-de-sac in a  village.

So, yesterday was the final time I'd be in my old house.

Having moved so many times since I started university, I hadn't really thought anything of it.

There's never really been an emotional pull on a house I've been at. There's been places where I've thoroughly enjoyed living in and houses that I was glad to be out of but I've never thought too much about leaving - and I've never gone out of my way to go and see and old house I used to live at.

But there was actually something there when I left it for the last time.

It's the longest I've spent at a house since I started uni - it's also the house I actually bought proper stuff for - it was actually I place I lived in, rather than resided.

More impotantly, it was the first house I shared with Claire and it's also the place we came back when we got married so I should have realised there's was going to be some feelings about leaving thosde kind of memories behind.

Anyway, now I have my own place which is exciting and knackering. Still have a bit to do but a lot of me just wants to chill out after a very long and tiring 2009.

Since March, I've been busy with union stuff over redundancies, going to meetings and spending a lot of time thinking how to save jobs.

After that, there's been a honeymoon to plan and sort as well as looking for a house and going through the stress of getting a mortgage and trying to buy the damn thing.

Now, there's been painting and decorating to do as well well as packing and sorting out the old house.

There are still 101 things to do with the new house, inclduing making tons of phone call to change addresses and the like.

but at least there seems to be some kind of end in sight. Touch wood.

Been a long time since I posted.

Mainly coz I've been very busy, with redundancies (other people's), office closures, house buying, holiday sorting and suffering with stress and depression due to all of these things.

Still not right. Still have to look at it from day-to-day. Still a pain in the arese that physically I'm fine but feel too tired to do anything and too liable to fly off the handle over relatively small issues.

It's been tough, especially wehn you get to times when you can't even laugh at a situation or yourself - something I am normally able to do to alleviate the situation and enable myself to reevaluate.

Anyway, saw this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8137849.stm on the BBC website. Not seen all of it but - so far - hurray for the pope.

Reading the article, I agree with everything he says and a lot of what he says is also what I've been thinking about and believe we need to do, especially in toughening up the UN.

I especially like the quote: "Profit is useful if it serves as a means toward an end

"Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty."

If my company hadn't gone down that route, maybe I wouldn't be dealing with all the redundancies and office closures and I wouldn't be feeling either tired or like crap half the time.

 

www.porktopia.com/2009/03/porkgasm.html

This year, (including the charity shield), United will play 66 games this season.

Five will have been at 3pm on a Saturday.

I have been to just two games.

I will have watched a further 50 games on TV/ internet.

The last time United and Liverpool played at the same time was when they played each other in March.

There's just something wrong about these stats.