Sunday, May. 10, 2009 - 00:24

As a consequence of another unsurprisingly busy week (which, with hindsight, was actually slightly less dreadful than anticipated), here is another list of random shit that barely passes as a diary entry.

1. Main stresses this week were the same as d'tailed in previous weeks. The coming of this audit and the general hubbub and involvement of management staff from other sites and the operations director too.. well it's been stressy. Part of me feels quite affronted about the implication that I've done soemthing wrong by not coping, though in truth I know and have been assured that the problems are more to do with the staff at our site having bad habits, the absence of fully effective lab management for a while, and all this exascerbated a little by my inexperience.

2. Amusingly I politely yet firmly stood up to our operations director t'other day.. telling him I was frustrated by the short timeframe in which I had to get results that prove what he'd already decided they needed to prove. I said I understood his position, and wouldn't refuse to do 'owt, but felt a little unhappy about the way things had been decided (so to speak). He, to his credit, seems to be treating me with respect and reasonableness - so that's good.

3. I quite like the design of the DFB (Deutscher Fußball-Bund) logo, and though I like the three lions, I kinda wish our national football association had a similarly striking logo design. Is it something about German design? I mean there is a certain cleverness to the VW badge in the same way, and.. I like the BMW logo too.

4. LISTENING TO:- Filter 'The Amalgamut', which is one of those CDs I got recently from the USA. It's just as excellent as I expected when I purchased it, which is nice :-)

5. Bit of a nightmare trip to work yesterday morning, 'cause there'd been a fatal accident on the train line just ahead of where I was. I was stranded at Telford station for an hour or so waiting for taxis, before giving up and wandering into the town centre to try to find a bus station. Got to work about half ten, a good four hours after I set off.

6. Footballwise, Blackburn and Stoke won to guarantee their safety. Sunderland drew and are still in the bottom five, but in truth it looks like three from the bottom four (West Brom, Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Hull) will go down.

7. Watched 'The Elephant Man' this afternoon, which was quite good. There were plenty of the fingerprints of Lynch on the film, some of which came over a bit unnecessary, and in parts it turned into a bit of a 'spot the British TV star' (with Pauline Quirke, Michael Elphick, Hannah Gordon, Lesley Dunlop and Dexter Fletcher in it) which was slightly distracting, but.. I liked it.

8. England won the first home test of the summer agianst West Indies. Strong batting by Bopara in getting 140+, and strong bowling by Onions backed up by all the others.. well the Caribbean's were skittled within three days.

9. I have taken some interest in the recent stories of publishing MPs expenses claims. At the same time, however, since the vast majority of stuff has been shown to be thoroughly within the rules, then I wonder why we are condemning the MPs as corrupt, when it's the system that is faulted. I'm sure most of us have cheated our employers in some way, be it through throwing sickies, stealing paperwork, having the odd meal on expenses, ducking out five minutes early, using the net when you should be working etc.. this MPs expenses thing is just an extension of that.

10. Can't see why peeps are making a fuss about that woman MP who spent money on security, despite her husband being a millionaire author. So what if her spouse is rich, it doesn't make it any more wrong for her to want good (which unfortunately costs money) security. In fact one could argue that she and her husband are more likely to suffer security issues, hence it is an important part of her being able to do her job. I just think it stinks of sour grapes, with the prole having a go at people more powerful than them doing the same sort of petty fripperies..