Nooooooo!

From this week's issue of the Friday Thing:

In recent weeks and months, we've undergone massive upheaval,including the launch of a new website, Fridaycities.com, and the setting up of an entire new company to run it. One of the consequences of this is that there has been less and less time to concentrate on TFT. So. Rather than neglect the baby, we have decided to ruthlessly murder it. And bury it in under the patio.

Essentially, and unfortunately, we have had to choose between two possible paths. The first path takes us to a place where we carry on with TFT, aware that it will inevitably decline and decay as we become more and more caught up with the things we have to do to pay the bills. The second is where we stop TFT before that happens; we see the shark jump ahead and think, no: we deserve better than that. We turn off our engine. We say 'Eeeeeeeeeeey'.

So, yes. After very careful consideration, we've settled on the second path, content also that we have an archive of five years of great issues, and that we're really proud of what the email comment sheet has achieved.

Plus of course, there's no certainty that we'll be going away completely. We'll almost certainly do the odd special issue if something major happens. We won't be able to resist. Plus, the future is a strange place. They do things differently there. So, frankly, who knows? But for the weekly Thing, this is the end of the line.

I've written about this comment sheet before, and how it was a complete saviour of my sanity on a Friday morning. Unfortunately, as staff changed, so did the paper, and it had started to slip a bit towards the end, most noticeably in the last year, where it was only half the length it used to be. I first started reading it around the start of 2001, and now, 6 years later, I'm finding myself saying goodbye.

This newsletter was perfect for me when I was deskbound for the whole day on Friday, but when I left Dublin for Brighton, it stopped occupying centre stage on that day at the end of the week, as I always seemed to be stuck in some lecture or lab or some other trivial inconvenience like that. Soon after that, it started arriving late (not much point in getting an excuse to doss at 4:30pm on a Friday when everyone's about to head to the pub anyway) and soon after that again, it's length (and sometimes its quality, it has to be said) started to decline.

Still, like they said, there's plenty of back issues to be going on with, and for anyone with an interest in humour or bettering their own social commentary (this blog wouldn't be half what it is if I hadn't been sent that faithful introductory e-mail forward 6 years ago), they would do well to get cracking on it.

Oh....*Sniff*. It's the end of an era.

New face at an old place

I'm liking the Star Inn more since its original manager Dave left, and now I can go in there without feeling like I'm prostituting myself by going into a bar whose manager I have no time for whatsoever (and whose boyfriend, mystifyingly enough, is a very nice bubbly chap).

Interestingly, Dave jumped before he was pushed by the owners, after he set up a darkroom in the pub one night, a night I wrote about previously. I derive no small amount of satisfaction from the fact that I was one of the few people who did what the owners were afraid of people doing that night, and it also makes me laugh that even though it had some people up in arms, it was actually hardly used at all. And now, a wanker who never showed his customers appreciation or respect is gone. Good riddance.

Perhaps disrobing him on my first night in the pub was a bit hasty of me.

Now onto the new manager.

His name is Russell Cooper, and he was one of the bar staff in the King's Arms I noticed that weekend I was up in London for Bear Pride last year. As you can see, he's nice and cuddly. He often greets me with 'Hi Gorgeous'. I think I shall have to get him into my bed.

Interestingly, on his first night of management there, a riot erupted. From BN2 Beeyatches:

'Flee has confirmed that there was a fight-cum-riot on Sunday involving two straight men and two straight women. These pieces of human waste had actually played the 'discrimination' card to get in when told it was a men only night. How low can these people go? Evidently as low as throwing heavy stools into crowds and biting lumps out of peoples arms. Savages.

Further it was the new manager's first night, the unconfirmed rumour that the old one was canned because the brewery didn't like the idea of men touching other men's wee wee parts on the premises. All bear events are 'Postponed until further notice'. Hmmm.

New manager a rather furry bear. Nice.

I couldn't agree more, Ms. Howarth.

Recreational chemistry

Last friday we had a rather interesting series of lectures on drug addiction by Angela McAdam, probably the most engaging lecturer in the university's department of pharmacy. Having gone to art-school and moonlighted as a goth/punk in the dispensary, she is proof that you can be a pharmacist and not be boring. Perhaps a little like Albert Hoffman, but without the incendiary hallucinogen discovery to her name.

Firstly, to prove a point, an assessment of the risk-taking potential of the classmates was conducted via individual questionnares. I scored 7, which means I must have been an accountant in a previous life. It was found, rather unsurprisingly, that the results of the class in general, instead of being normally distributed, were skewed somewhat towards the conservative end. Mind you, some of the questions were a bit silly:

Do you often arrive for a train at the last minute? (Yes, because disorganisation is genetically encoded into my DNA)
Do you wear a seatbelt? (Yes. Have you seen the end of the film Very Bad Things?)
Do you often go out of the house leaving it unlocked? (Yes, I'd like to hang onto the precious few things of value I have)
Do you often drive fast? ('I can't drive' wasn't given as an reply option here, so I don't know...)

Then we were given a glossary of all the different street names for all the different drugs and their paraphernalia:

'Bombita' - A mixture of cocaine and heroin (another name for speedball, in other words)
'Big Chief' - Mescaline (never hear of that nickname before)
'Uncle' - Federal agents (ditto)
'Busted' - Arrested on a drug-related charge (never would have guessed)
'Score' - To locate and purchase a quantity of drugs (Oh please)

It went on. And on.

Then we were given information on 'safe injecting', which provided the foundation from which we were supposed to advise users of a needle exchange programme. That particular part of the class was rather bizarre, giving us detailed step-by-step procedures on how to inject intravenous narcotics, along with some rather eyebrow-raising facts: Ascorbic acid is a better solvent for heroin than citric acid, as the latter burns your veins and leads to problems at the injection site. Also, did you know that the penis can be used as an injection site? I'll bet you could have done without that picture. For anyone interested in trying it, a masterclass in use was practically the order of the day.

Finally, a methadone pharmacist came in and told us some more about withdrawal management and working in addiction clinics. He was interesting enough, though he didn't hold out much hope for complete and utter recovery from heroin, being of the opinion that it was better to get people onto methadone and maintain them on that for the long-term. Both another classmate and I told him that we didn't consider that a recovery by our standards, as methadone is more addictive than heroin in some ways. He had a tendency to shrug it off, saying that people generally don't stay off heroin in general for very long, and seemed to have a rather Daily Mail-esque view of drug dealers: 'They're businessmen. Even if you try and give up, they'll come after you and try and get you hooked again. And anyway, all your normal friends will be gone and you'll just have other heroin users left'.

I asked Angela about this during an intermission. It seemed that all users (we can't say addicts any more, apparently) were depicted as occupying one of two opposite poles: Those who had tried it once, and at the other end, those who were so addicted, the focus at the centre of their miserable and wretched lives was the acquisition of the next fix. I asked her if there was such a thing as an intermittent user, whose life continued as it was before they had encountered it. She said there most likely was, but there were too many deaths from it for the popular media to allow such a portrayal, or for suburbia to accept it.

It reminded me of the film Drugstore Cowboy, which had a cameo from William Burroughs in it, playing an heroin user who was also a defrocked priest. At one point he waxed (I'm paraphrasing, because I can't find the bloody screenplay on the internet) about how the idea of people being long term users and not meeting with an ignominous end was anathema to some idiots, which goes back to what I was saying earlier. Having said that, all the characters in that film were living in a squat with no money, and were faking epileptic fits inside in pharmacies to lure the manager out from behind the counter so they could plunder the controlled-drugs cupboard. Living? Maybe, but not like that of Riley.

All in all, it leads me to wonder just how addictive something like heroin really is. Is the depravity to which some addicts sink related to the intensity of the withdrawal experience, or because they tended towards risky behaviour all their lives?

We're having workshop on Friday coming, where we get to meet ex-users. It should be interesting. I'll have more than a few questions.

Saint Patrick's Day

It was good and my friend Joanne and her boyfriend Tony came over for it, which was great given that I'm always too broke to go to Dublin to see them these days.

Friday night, one of the main sights of (my) Brighton, the Bulldog, was taken in. The atmosphere was great, and of course I didn't leave until the small hours of the morning. Pulling myself together on Saturday, I got out of bed and headed into town, and we met up again. It was there we took in various pubs before trying the Fiddlers Elbow, *the* most Irish pub I have ever seen. We're talking pale-skinned, red-haired ceili dancing people everywhere. I've mentioned before that some people have a cast that is totally any utterly nothing other than Irish, and it can almost be scary sometimes.

We ended up in the Bugle, the main pub for Irish students over here, and a great (if rather squashed!) time was had. Of course, it being St. Paddy's Day, loads of people were wearing silly Guinness hats, though most of the culprits were actually non-Irish, for some bizarre reason. There were lots of green jerseys as well, so being the rebel that I am(!), I decided to join in by wearing green eyeshadow. I have no doubt it enhanced my attractiveness to the more rugged of the sex, and I'm sure everyone else felt so too, as evinced by the fact that they all fell about laughing.

I got home at a fairly reasonable hour, and rose this morning to see off J and Tony before going to work, which is where I am now. Thankfully it's been easy enough.

In other news, I'm going home to Ireland next week for two weeks. I've also got my Kung Fu suit, which is black with red trim, and looks rather nice. The classes themselves are going reasonably well. There's been more running around the place outside the gym. On Tuesday night, we ran about a mile out of town and then up a wooded hill. In the dark. It was rather fun, though I had a bit of a problem getting motivated on Friday. I think more off-the-wall surprises are what we need.

College classes are winding to a close now, and after Easter, all our practical work is finished and we're down to just one day of lectures a week. Not that I'm spoiled with all the time I have. I'll need all of it for study between now and the summer exams.

HIGH as a KITE!

I just got back from Kung Fu. Our master ran us ragged tonight, and now, even though it's close to 10pm, I'm practically bouncing off the walls with energy.

It's got me thinking. These last few months have seen not necessarily the worst winter ever, but certainly the most miserable, pissy, depressing weather has predominated for much of them and my mood has adjusted accordingly to reflect it. Now there has just been two consecutive days of sunshine, which means (hold your breath!) that spring may finally be here.

I once lived in Cork with a girl who always maintained that the lack of sun kept her in a constant state of melancholia. She used to visit Australia at every opportunity, and moaned about the lack of fine weather on her return. Not surprisingly, she eventually emigrated there for good.

I've noticed that in the past few months I've been more sluggish and unmotivated than at any time since I've come here, and I'm convinced that it has a great deal to do with the fact that for a given morning when I step outside the door, there is approximately a fucking 80% chance that I'm going to need my umbrella. Now that it's starting to become sunny, I'm feeling a little bit less like throwing myself off the top of a tall building.

The exercise I had tonight was a bit like that too. Normally we run laps of the gym to warm up. This time, our master thought it would be a novel idea to have us run around the campus a few times, battling furze bushes and muddy pathways that threatened to subside at any minute, in the dark, all with the on-campus stragglers looking on at us in amusement.

I've fallen behind a bit by missing classes, what with exams, placements and being sick and all that, but now I'm catching up again. I don't really care if I'll ever become good enough to use it effectively in real life, but the artistic aspect of it appeals to me. Also, I recently got a refund of tax I overpaid last summer, and I used this to pay for my suit for the class. So soon, I shall be sporting a black-with-red-piping outfit, which will strike TERROR into the hearts of anyone who dares to voice dissent against me, and people will come to FEAR my ability to kill at will.

Yeah right.

Sussex Beer Festival on Thursday night, at Hove Town Hall. I'm such a model of discipline.

Boots SUCK!

I am sitting here typing this with a red mist of rage in front of my eyes. Here is why.

Quite some time ago, I applied for a position on the Boots summer 2007 placement programme. The company now specify that if you want to do your pre-reg year (your first year post-graduation) with them, you must satisfactorily complete an 8-week summer placement with them between the third and fourth year of your course. The shower of cunts make no bones about the fact that they treat it like an extended interview, as if hiring a graduate straight out of a rigorous and demanding course presents a substantial risk on their part if they have no direct Boots experience, and it has recently become standard corporate policy that whichever store you do your summer placement in, that's where you'll also do your pre-reg. It's all part of standard corporate policy to get the costs associated with human resource management down. Right down. Down to the absolute bare fucking minimum and to hell with the students themselves.

I applied for a Boots summer placement while I was in the second year of this degree, last year. My main selling point was my first year results: I'd got a 2.1, and I spent a lot of time on the application and got it in well before the deadline. I heard nothing back for ages, and in the end, I received a rejection only because I e-mailed them, badgering them for a response. I since found out that some people in my class had been made offers. The secret to their success? They'd worked with Boots before, mainly during the college year, as counter assistants. Once they'd got their foot in the door, they were first in line to be considered for the placements that counted later. In short, getting a pre-reg with Boots depends on you getting a previous summer placement with Boots, which in turn depends on you being lucky enough to get a job with them prior to that (by whatever means possible, because the ongoing low-end jobs are no doubt more accessible to those who know the right people). It's pure nepotism and it fucking stinks!

I applied for Boots again this year. Once again, I was early. Once again, I heard nothing for ages, while certain classmates of mine who had worked with them before were quick to receive notification of offers in locations that were their first or second choice.

Boots got back to me today at about 3:30pm by e-mail, with an offer of a placement. In Wick. Fucking Wick!

For those of you who don't know where this is - and I didn't, until I looked it up on Google - it's almost right at the tip of the United Kingdom, relatively near John O' Groats. I asked for somewhere roundabout the South East, where Brighton is, and I got somewhere that couldn't be much more north.

Not only that, but they have given me until 9am tomorrow to reply to them. If I didn't have work this evening, I'd likely have either gone home, or gone into town and not checked my mail until tomorrow, and by then it would have been too late. Oh, and they've attached two documents, which I must fill out with reference details and reattach them when I reply.

The options open to me now are:

1. Tell them to stick their offer up their arse.

The most tempting option. They've very obviously prioritised me at the bottom of the pile, and for them to give me less than 24 hours to consider this offer is taking the extreme piss.
'We aim to meet your prferences (sic) and the offer is the best match we can make between the information you have given and the placements we have available' they told me in the mail. Loosely translated, this means 'We have given summer placements to all the people who have previously been pulled into Boots by their parents, and now we have a few dumps left, which we may as well give to the rest, in case our current crop of little darlings realise what a shower of wankers we are and decide not to work for us after they graduate'.

Unfortunately, this chain is all over the UK and Ireland like a rash right now, and it wouldn't benefit my career to start limiting who I work for before I even graduate.

2. Politely decline, explaining why.

Again, reducing my options before I know what else is on the table. Just supposing I couldn't get work anywhere else for the summer? I'd either end up in the Co-op supermarket in Kemptown for the summer, or worse, back in Mallow with my parents and no money. That way lies suicide.

3. Accepting for the moment, until a better offer comes along.

This looks like the best option. I might get a placement in a hospital in Brighton or snag a job in a pharmacy that's within commuting distance from here, and if I got one of those, I could just write back something along the lines of 'Sorry, but due to circumstances entirely within my control, I'm leaving you in the lurch'. Or something.

Bitching apart, this is what happens in all corporations once the number of applicants for something exceeds the number of jobs. Rather than genuinely screen out the worthy applicants, the company just takes the laziest, most risk-free, cost-effective way out, regardless of whether it'll benefit them in the long run or not. I'm not overtly depressed. I'd never have stayed with them anyway, I'd have just used them to get experience and then set up my own place, but it would have been handy from a money point of view.

Oh well, fingers crossed something better presents itself.