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Friday, 24 August 2012

Job Search: Midnight Mayhem

If you are a passionate accountant, this might work.

Twenty minutes ago I thought it a rather decent idea to send the below email to a potential employer. I would like to emphasise that I am not drunk, and do not intend to get drunk, even though I have every reason to do so. (Please note that the addressee has been blacked out, as I am still a bit embarrassed, and God knows they might offer me a job)



'A Clouded Morning XXXXXX Team!

For it will be a clouded morning when this email reaches you, I checked the weather, the rain only starts mid-afternoonish.
I - currently unemployed, with too much creative energy - am looking for a job to keep me from writing email opening lines such as the above. I read that you are looking for individuals with sparkling personalities to join your team, and I am confident that I am such a person (think RPatz in Twilight for sparkling equivalent).

Other than in sparkling, I am proficient in 'out-of-the-box'-thinking, I have a passion for grammar, and I look extremely good in a hat (for reference see the hat picture attached to my CV). Pretty soon, I will also be the proud holder of an MA in Cultural and Creative Industries, which means that there is some substance under the hat too. Over the course of the last year, I busied myself taking courses on Fashion and Society, Visual Culture, and working as a XXXX at the XXXXXX (just round the corner), where I have picked up one or the other party trick in marketing, customer services and event organisation. I am far from being the perfect Renaissance woman, though, and this is where you come in: I need a place to start a stellar career in Marketing. So, if there is an opportunity in your office for a brilliant (yes - in addition to sparkling!), determined, and inspired postgraduate, I would be more than happy to accept. What I have been thinking about (fantasising, really) is a paid Intern/Assistant position, where I would have room for growth in my ambitions, as well as headroom to wear outrageous hats.

If you think that the person writing such a weird email at midnight could be the ideal addition to you team, please get in touch. I live around the corner and could come in for an interview at a moment's notice.

I spare you the boring end of all cover emails.


My best wishes,'

The world's biggest twat. 


I am not sure whether it is the copious amount of antibiotics I am consuming presently that has lead me to send this piece of pretentious muck, or whether it is just my true twat-nature shining through. The company will forthwith delete all their contact addresses from the website, and return to the good old Royal Mail for all their communication. Because of people like me. Self-important idiots like me, who think that their midnight scribbles will make tuppence of a difference to the lives of professional creatives, who probably won't even read beyond the second line. But how, how do I know? With all the applications I have written, I might as well apply for the post of Prime Minister (memo to myself, check with No. 10 website if there is a vacancy), and feign interest for politics and people and shit. Like, totally my thing, right, people and stuff.
I would make an impeccable circus tent designer.
I am aware that this is me on repeat, yesterday's re-run, available on iPlayer - forever. I have seven different versions of my CV saved to my desktop, and counting, including a semi-fictional version for very special occasions (say, the application for a Time Lord position, or an internship with Ray Bradbury). I have even made an Excel sheet about myself that I have then turned into a 3D pie chart. Pathetic. Nobody cares, do they?
 It is hard to say, since most replies I receive are generic HR answers, 'Dear Please Insert Here, we regret to inform you that on this occasion, you just sucked and we're like soooo not gonna hire you, because nobody here gives a shit about your experience, because we can't stand you anyway. But do keep an eye out for further vacancies. Regards, HR Copy Paste Template'.

Anyone for dessert? 
(again I accidentally tagged Tom Hiddleston, so he has to get a mention too)

Thursday, 2 August 2012

This is the end: now show me the way to the next Whiskey bar

Byzantine Cat-Mouse-War. A reading staple.
With lots of hyphenation.
Oh Black Betty, no time to bam ba lam, it's the end of the world and you got a ticket to ride.

It is very comforting to know that I, and you, and everyone else is now sitting in one big imaginary boat. Arch-styly, they better have had a second thought about the facilities on board - portaloos are just not very cool. Regardless of the way you choose to spend your last days (see the Big WD, cake, and burgers), the end of the world may be slightly tinted by the other big event in London: the Games. (unlike ordinary football or a darts in the pub, these games are so huge that they are capitalised all the time. I personally prefer to capitalise Pub at all times, but that is, like I say, a personal choice)
With all the tourists in the Capital (let's capitalise Capital - it's the end of the world after all), the experience of the final moment - judgement day - could be lost in a queue to the loos, or in trying to navigate around the crowds in the centre. You might be so busy trying to ignore the barking Americans that you fail to notice the last, wailing, praying sounds of the earth. The last cries of an already dying planet that faces its death, facing white socks and beige trousers. The last breath of a planet that has done so much for us in the past (sunshine, rain, rain, rain, rain), and will now wheeze to the smell of moth balls and hair pomade. Could I be overly dramatic? No. I never am. And I never complain. About anything. Ever.

I made this pre-Jubilee. Beetroot cake with cream cheese icing.
 I mentioned cake.
I say this because I am on a mission: part of a select few (who selected to come), I will fight the impending doom and make sure that those white-sock-wearing, heavy-breathed strangers will keep a place to parade bad taste and smelly armpits. I, like my politically correct persons in arms, have signed up to fight the Dilluminati, and Good Lord, it will be epic. What will descend upon us on Saturday remains unknown, and perhaps for the better. I am not really all that good at facing dangers I have known about for some time - I keep avoiding that sort of thing - but I am really rather good at facing chaotic situations on the day, as long as I've had breakfast. No breakfast - no fighting. (apparently, so I've been told/I've seen on the telly, Templar Knights fasted before the big battle. How stupid of them)

A well-groomed beantache is essential for all
fighters. Note the Dali influence.
So, it is now Thursday night, about 36 hours before the beginning of the end, and I'm wearing a face mask, knowing that well-groomed fighters make better fighters. And maybe there is one or the other cute Dilluminatus around. Stockholm syndrome, just saying. All girls like bad boys. (I'm not really sure whether Dilluminati are gendered/have genders/do genders, but you never know) Very importantly, a well-groomed fighter is aware of their own well-groomedness and marches into battle, knowing that perfect skin and sharp eyebrows are killer attributes. As is a good soundtrack: Vangelis is played up and down on the iPod, and where would I be without Europe and the soundtrack to all but the last one of the Rocky films. In your face, Evil, we've survived 80s perms and we will survive further attacks on humanity. (However, if you could get rid of the Olympic uniforms, that would be amazeballs)

In a last attempt to expand my scientific potential, I signed up for a screening of Weird Science tomorrow night - al fresco - for those last blasts of health and knowledge. Subsequently, I realised that the film is another one of those 80s comedies that feature men in their thirties pretending to be 18, and that it does not actually boost my knowledge (like that science show on the Beebs), but rather, should boost my inclination to get hilariously drunk and pass out before the end of the film. You just can't have everything. It is time now to get that mud out of my face, and see the immediate improvement (from mud-face to non-mud-face). Goodnight, and may the farce be with you.

(I have also just accidentally labelled this post with Tom Hiddleston, so I think I should at least give him a mention. Tom Hiddleston.)