Review

Reading back over my posts for this month has been a bit depressing. I seem to be suffering from the classic “winter blues” not uncommon at this time of year. Yet I don’t think that this is really true of me. Yes January is a very long month and yes it is bleak, dark and miserable but I think I am still presenting myself as upbeat, relaxed and cheerful.

 

This did get me thinking though about the way I behave. People think of me as relaxed, cheerful etc etc but am I really? Is that just my public façade and I really am as miserable and bleak and dark as some of these January’s scribblings seem to indicate? Am I tortured inside living a lie and desperately unhappy. Well I guess like most people some days and some parts of days I am.

 

Perhaps it’s just easier to be miserable when you are writing. It’s a deeper well of emotion and maybe a natural default if you are trying to express emotion in words or in music. Maybe it gets people’s attention more easily.

After I wrote this I caught news on the radio that public confidence has dipped to its lowest point for a couple of years.  

Come in , your time is up

I am going through one of my  more dislocated phases.  This is where I turn up at work, do the bare minimum ,  go home, do the bare minimum etc and exist in  a parallel life of my own mind’s making. This happens to me every now and then and can last for ages- months/years even. Sometimes I look back at my life and wonder if I have just been going through the motions for most of it. Whole years just seem to have slipped by without me noticing.

 

I am reading this book  59 seconds as part of my  attempt to shake myself out of this mood. I have also started running two months earlier than usual.This is having a positive effect.  As I get older I am realising I have less time to waste. I need to maximise what is left of my three score and 10. I owe it to my wife, my children and more importantly to myself.

 

 

A Passing Thought

January is a very long month

Location, Location, Location

Song Number two in this occasional series is from that most iconic of all bands The Velvet Underground. 

If you have never heard their material you are really missing out on one of the truly great bands of rock (ouch!), up there with The Beatles, The Stones, Beach Boys The Who, The Clash. etc etc.  

It was Radio Caroline not John Peel who introduced me to this band, although they  did only ever seem to play this one song. It did take John Peel  however,to introduce me to the depth of their genius by  playing  songs from the double live album on his show.

Now there are so many of their songs that you should hear especially from the Banana album (The Velvet Underground & Nico) but I have chosen that Radio Caroline favourite. Funnily enough, despite its subject matter, this song, like Lou Reed’s Walk On The Wild Side was openly played on daytime radio in the late 60’s and early 70's.

I have been to New York twice. During our visit last year I actually made it up to Lexington and 125 albeit on a tour. I was so excited to be at the spot described in the song. Is that sad? Probably.

This version is from the legendary Norman Dolph acetates. Despite all the fuss about these "different takes", most of them sound like demos to me.

I'm Waiting For The Man- The Velvet Underground

Back To Work Blues

I’ve been back at my desk for three days now after a week off and it feels like I was never away. Same people with the same problems. A new year but nothing changes.

This year has to be the year I get a new job. This job no longer does it for me and although I moan about them, it’s not the public with their problems that bother me, it’s the structural changes within my organisation that have made my job more difficult and so much less satisfying.

When I first started in this job I could solve problems more or less without reference to anyone else. I had authority to spend money on repairs, authorise moves, resolve anti social behaviour etc, and the back room functions and senior management supported me. Yes I sometimes got it wrong but I learned and got better at my job of helping people.Now it seems my purpose here is not to provide a direct accountable service to our tenants (sorry, customers) but to compile stats for the back room staff and senior management and meet targets that are set for my team without reference to me (although it always says I was consulted). My skills, knowledge and experience built up over 25+ years are ignored.Not valued, worthless in the eyes of my employer.

Over the last 6 years we have lost 15 posts on the front line, the ones who actually deal with the public. At the same time this organisation has increased its establishment from just under 500 staff to just under 900 staff. There was a time when I knew almost everyone who worked for us. Nowadays I go to the extremely plush HQ building (the old HQ of a big IT company) and don’t know anyone.

I remember old hands telling me similar things when I was a youngster starting out and maybe it was ever thus. That doesn’t make it feel any better.

This year the New Year has to be a new start for me.

Atishooo!!

I've spent most of the week since Christmas Day being not well. Neither is the wife. This combined with the grey dark sunless days have made this a miserable time to be off.

Now there is one day left of the Christmas holidays and it's then back to work. I have no enthusiasm for this return to the workplace but we all have to eat so back I go.

2011 could be our annus horribilis and I  approach it's dawning with trepidation and an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.   Here's hoping.