How on Earth do they do that?

I really don't know. I am quite pleased to say that I am getting published more and more on different places around the web. Someone actually approached me and asked for some work! Wow. Clearly they haven't seen the state of this site lately. However as time builds writing other articles, time for blogging lessens. What I get published in future I will of course list here for your viewing pleasure......

But I'm alive I can report, and healthy, happy and busy. I guess all of these things are good.

I'm also it seems going into business. Or I'm going to do a big experiment into how my business idea does or does not work anyway.

I think that still counts!

I caught the tube home yesterday and witnessed the last legal evening of drinking on the London underground. This was advertised on the radio as being promoted as a "leisurely, distinguished affair" simply a celebration of the the underground and London culture.

What I actually saw, was two very drunk young American guys dressed as beer bottles, racing at full speed down the platform alongside the carriage they had just fallen out of, and failed to get back on in time. They got up to quite an impressive speed considering they were dressed as, and were holding beer bottles, lol....

remind me again, why is it they want to ban drinking on the tube?

Things I have seen in London Today

1. A really nice house share. Most people who know me know I have looked at so many of these lately that I have officially given up and decided when demand is that high I should actually be joining the supply team…. Apart from today, obviously.

2. A really shitty houseshare. Random bunch of people who have probably all only been there two weeks in a house that looks like, umm, shit really. Sorry to be coarse. The junkie passed out on the doorstep next door was a nice touch.

3. A bunch of Chinese(ish) women on the tube at Acton Town, (with suitcases so they must have just come in from Heathrow airport afew stops along), grinning at me insanely. I think I may be (at 5’10) the tallest woman they have ever seen in there life. I smiled back, they’ll get over it by the time they get to Piccadilly Circus.

     4.  A big issue newspaper man selling the big issue on the train. They are not really allowed to do that. He was Latino I          think and this is definitely a trend from less developed countries. I admired his entrepreneurial spirit as his young son          followed him up the train 30 paces behind.

 

Me:

Look, I’m really sorry… please don’t take offense if you’re a Tory… but Boris Johnson!

 

Me:

It started out as a joke. About seven months ago he was this comedy figure in public life, and then he said he is going to run for mayor, and everyone was like “ha ha ha have you seen the news – Boris is going to run for Mayor!” 

 

For those who don’t know Boris Johnson is just like a really really big, 15 year old public schoolboy. He is a huge, light blond, foppish haired chap. Known best for talking absolute rubbish and not having the sense he was born with. He looks like the sort of man who would have no social connections with anyone who doesn’t have at least one member of their family in the Pony Club. Pony’s being a bit thin on the ground in London, he could probably really relate well to about 10% of his constituents.

 

Me:

But somehow it has actually HAPPENED! I can’t believe we are actually going to have Boris Johnson as Mayor. Boris the streetfighter who is going to sort out street crime in London!

 

(Boris looks as if he would survive about 5minutes on the public streets anywhere east of Liverpool Street).

 

Lisa:

Well to be fair Cath I don’t think he planning to combat street crime all by himself, he will probably have some people to help him....

 

Daniel:

No, no he’s not going to do it all by himself, he’s going to have …PREFECTS!

 

So that’s right folks. All police in London will be replaced by prefects with three stripes on their blazer, ASBOS’s* will be superseded by simply revoking the offender’s corridor pass. Why didn’t we think of that before.

 

It is actually all my fault. I missed the deadline to register to vote, and this is what happens when people like me don’t vote. Women starved themselves to death to ensure that I have the right to vote and I haven’t even used it. So for the next four years of drivel that it likely to ensue in London, you can hold me fully responsible.

 

 

 

*Anti Social Behaviour Order

I was in a pub in London last night, I know that may not surprise you, but there it is.

Anyway, me and a bunch of the girls had been for Tapas, I had confused the waiters with my appallingly bad Spanish, and we had all decamped to the pub.

We sat chatting as the pub filled up around us, a couple trundled off and three of us, me, Marie and Naomi stayed. When we decided to leave half an hour later Naomi went off to powder her nose first vacating that holy grail of opportunities, a bench seat in a pub on a Saturday night. Thus it wasn’t long before three guys piled in with the standard “do you mind if we sit here”.

Naomi came back and we left, which means I hadn’t looked at my buddies, shared a moment of telepathic video conferencing jumped up and said, “it’s my round what do you want to drink”. We left with Marie protesting we were committing a grave error.

However the reason I didn’t want to stay is that although I respect these guys as people, in there semi balding, late 30’s, mediocrity, they were in fact, - Mingers.

• Minger – Term from Northern England meaning person of minging qualities, that being; ugly, smelly, scabby, or spotty.

Ok they weren’t full on mingers but they were very mediocre. Which has got to be worse, (and I still say they were only after the seat anyway.)

So boys and girls a long, long absence, I have not written anything for ages.

 

Excuses

1. I’ve been busy

2. I’ve been pursuing other writing related stuff in my spare time. Like writing for MookyChicks.

3. I’ve been pursuing other writing related stuff in my spare time. Like marketing for MookyChicks.

 

But ho hum, it’s just when I pack it in for a while that I get e mails from people saying they’ve been checking my blog!

So here’s a little update. Supertemps current incarnation is - working for what a friend is referring to as the worlds biggest drug dealer - and I’ve decided not to name it after all.

If I was to say “fast moving consumer goods” those of you in business now get it. If that didn't do the trick let me say any more hints and that would be painting it in big red letters.

You have brought this product. It’s a soft drink! 60% of the worlds population buy this product. When I pulled in on the ferry to Likoma Island in the middle of Lake Malawi, where they only had 3 cars, and two motorbikes, (one of the bikes belonging to the policeman, and one of the cars being the local ambulance), the first thing I saw painted on the side of a concrete block shop, was a sign for this product. 

Anyway I’ll be good, ok. Never one to bite the hand that feeds me. (Maybe they check the blogs! Maybe there is a giant 1984 Webspider trawling the web!! OMG!)

n.b delete all key words)

Magda darling, it’s probably best if you don’t post this particular article on the magazine!

 

Amusingly more people (i.e my green friends) give me more grief for working for this lot than they did when I worked for a bank. I’m sure the countries banking institutions have their fingers in far more sticky pies than even this lot. Possibly only just, and I wouldn’t say I’m very proud of working for them, but hey, charity begins at home.

That is a crap, cop, out, self centred capitalist expression. But I never said I’m not a capitalist. Not outright. Anyway, that is not what this post is about.

 The biggest of the big cheeses obviously need first class administrative support (that’s me) and they are prepared to pay for it. The bank balance is looking better, flights to Morocco have been brought.

But I have to say this: you lot work to hard.

I don’t get it. Why do people do it? What’s the point in earning above 50K a year if you never have time to spend it??????

Seriously, do you just want to die rich??? (What happens if you died tomorrow?)

It cracks me up honestly. It’s a marketing department, it’s a very high level, very well paid marketing department. Marketing is known for being fun, dynamic, vibrant, and the people I work with generally are just that. Problem is some of them are all buried so deeply underneath their workloads that some of them don’t have time to look up from there desks.

6 o’clock, 7 o’clock, 8 o’clock, sometimes 9 o’clock, they’re all still there, bless them.

WHY?

What’s the point? Here’s a bit of cynical independent and objective comment. It’s a new department. They are all trying very hard.

Personally I consider it my honour bound duty to run from my desk at exactly 5.30,in order that they have a reasonable point in time from which to measure how many extra hours they are doing!!!

Well it’s their choice. It’s their choice and I shouldn’t give them grief if that’s what they enjoy.

I’ve done it too.

I have!

 

Never again though, not like that.

 

Nowadays it’s the opposite. I try not to go out to often on a work night, but Monday before last was a smasher. One of the best nights out I’ve had lately. I love my weeknight dance classes, and I make sure I get the exercise in once a week after work.

I just honestly wonder where they get the chance to spend the money they earn! Big houses I guess. I hope that makes them happy.

Thankfully not everyone there is that bad all the time. I have a made at least one very good friend already in the short time I’ve been there. There are quite a few people who are fun. We are beginning to have more fun in my office. Luckily it is actually in my job description to make people have fun! It is also a part of my role that I take very seriously.

And sometimes more people come along, who are professional, fun, well travelled, polite and have actually got their work / life balance sorted.

It can only be a good thing.

Spread the love people.

One life, live it.

 
Valentines Day this year has come late on the 29th of February.

Christmas, which also seems to have happened to me this week, has come even later.

I was going to write a post a couple of weeks back, when everyone in the world was going all soppy for Valentines, (my married housemates certainly were, I battened down the hatches in my room and had an early night). A post about love, and how everyone is looking for it.

Everyone is looking for love. Anyone who says they're not is either lying, or have already found it. Granted, some of us are looking harder than others. Many young professionals in my world now are clearly not that bothered, the age of marriage being a necessity and a social mandate, are to us well and truly over. We do have that slightly niggly feeling sometimes and worry that we are, well you know, going to die alone and be eaten by cats, but there are quite a lot of us out there.

Love should be, and at it's best is a very simple thing. However it can be tricky to find the right balance.

Generally it takes two people, who actually like each other the same amount. They also have to want to shag each other. That being not that complex in principal, its a shame we don't manage it more often.

It's the liking people the same amount which is the most difficult bit. Some of us tend to yearn after people sometimes, who don't like us, or treat us badly, while beating ourselves up because nobody falls in love with us.

This is all summed up by the modern phrase "they're just not that into you". When we are just not that into someone, it's not going to work. We brush them off, sometimes with little consideration to their feelings, and rather than taking their affection as a compliment, it "doesn't count" as, sometimes unbeknown to them, we never liked them anyway.

In these cases I highly recommend you firstly, let the person know in as nice a way as possible that you are "not that into them", and secondly treat them with respect. You never know, next time the boot might be on the other foot.

Case in point, the other time of the year people go all soppy and start wondering about the cat eating scenario is Christmas.

I had two guys contact me around Christmas, one was K, who I met in a bar when I came back from traveling and was talking to everyone in the super friendly way that I still do. The other guy illustrating perfectly my "unbnownst to them point" was the guy I now refer to as my "singular worst date ever"............ "climb out the bathroom window bad" to give you some idea how interested I was, I can't quite remember, oh that's it, I remember his name now, and it started with, no I'll have to change it, lets call him N.

(For no no no, not ever in a million years?!)

Meow.

I digress. Shame on me, I picked this one up while I was jogging and he was stuck in slow moving traffic. Lets just say he looked better in his car.

The thing is with these guys that because I was not, (even ever remotely), that into them, they didn't count, and were dispensed with, in one case in a slightly merciless manner. Nothing too bad, but the inability of some men to take NO for an answer does occasionally bring out the machine gun toting feminist in me.

To me they were just tiny distractions buzzing around to be batted away without much thought. To them I suspect getting in touch with someone they liked was a slightly bigger deal. Sad isn't it. In our collective humanity we have trouble getting it right.


Last night I thought I was going to a birthday party. When I arrived in the pub in Notting Hill Gate, one of my best friends is standing there in a floor length white dress.

That's a bit formal for a West London bar, I thought - telling her she looked lovely, which she did.

She looked at me for a couple of seconds in this, "can't you work it out?" kind of way. The cogs in my brain had just started moving when she smiles and says, "I got married today Cathy".

This caused me to burst into tears and sob hysterically, which may not have been the exact reaction she was hoping for, but certainly it was a genuine one. I was tired, and it was kind of like a blow to the solar plexus.

For sensible and personal reasons my friend hid it from everyone except the witnesses. I managed to persuade the photographer to show me the unedited wedding pictures on the camera, and it looked beautiful. Fairy tale white dresses, happy bride and grooms, beautiful children, perfect locations. Chauffeur driven, (by the witness!) in a 1969 VW Camper Van, which they are now going to take their honeymoon in. How cool is that?!

I am a bit of a sceptic when it comes to marriage and not very good at gushing statements on it, what I said was "I'm sure it'll be cool, and that's more than most people get out of me", which it is.


As for me and Christmas, I wandered into my latest assignment this week, and I am now at least at the moment working in the kind of place, team and job, that I have been wanting to for a long time. I have also been wondering aside from work about how nice it would be to have a lap top and thus, I am sure, be able to write more. However there is no way I can afford any lap top that is worth buying.

About four hours after walking in on a temporary contract, after they showed me the company Gym complete with free aerobics classes, they tell me, "so you'll be taking my old mobile, and this one will be your lap top".


Thank you Santa.



So there that's my belated Valentines post, all about love, and the reason why for me it is also Christmas.

The month of February had an extra day in it this year, due to the leap year, and the last and 29th day of that month was yesterday. So I guess that also makes Corina and Ash's Day even more special.


I do enjoy seeing true love. It's not dead in the world. In fact, it's alive and well, and living in London.

                                                       
 

It has occurred to me today whilst I am reading other peoples blogs, ahem, I mean utilising the internet to seek contract opportunities, that I am not posting much as I have decided not to post about the temp work I have been doing.

Well, I cant resist any longer it's just too tempting. Imagine if you could randomly walk in and out of other peoples work environments, compiling observations, watching other peoples work trauma, making the occasional character assassinations and meeting some really nice people too? Well, I'll do it for you....

Besides do you have any idea how many Catherine Baker's there are? It's not that easy to find this blog....

People do ask me why I temp, including at job interviews, and sometimes I feel like replying to some power crazed bimbo who considers being personal assistant to Mr B Cheese as being the absolute pinnacle of her entire being,

"because I buggered off traveling last year, I'm not risk averse, I've got a brain and I always get work..... you should try it sometime and maybe you'd have a reason for living too".

Instead I smile politely and say "oh I just haven't found the right thing yet" which is true to some extent

The real reason I temp is

1 - It pays good money, PA's in London can get 30,000 - 40,000 pounds even on temp rates, yes not all the time but hey, what you going to do, don't be so scared of life.

2 - I might actually find a decent job through it.

3 - It is liberating knowing that you are very dispensable, and it's a two way thing.

4 - If I don't find a decent job I have the flexibility to bugger of traveling again or do anything else I want to.

5 - I took a "proper" job a couple of months ago but the boss was a tyrant and a bully, who stamped around swearing at his staff all day long, so I resigned, (because I can just go and temp!)

oh and 5 it pays better money and is far less grief than what I am actually qualified to do, Environmental Sciences, where the job description often reads something like



Very Worthy Job

Duties and responsibilities

- Must be prepared to give up your first born child


Renumeration

 - two peanuts per annum, three if you're really good



By the way, let the record show that I am still wearing my pajamas today and have given myself a week off for good behavior. When was the last time your boss did that?!




     
                                       

I have been much pleased to be working of late with the splendicous Mooky Chicks of www.mookychicks.co.uk   Below is an extract of my recent interview with Ben Keene of tribewanted.com, about his eco tourism project on an island in the South Pacific.

So, Monday night found a very swanky London bar awash with Hawaiian style flowery shirts, young men in sarongs, and an extremely large bowl of Kava.

Ahh… more fancy dress! I hear you cry, but no, not an extension of the fancy dress club night craze sweeping London of late, this was the opening party of the TV Documentary series “Paradise or Bust”. The series is about British entrepreneur Ben Keene’s dream to build an ecologically sustainable village on Vorovoro Island in the far away South Pacific.......

Is it really loves green young dream, or just some schoolboy’s pratting about with campfires and scout knots in the sun?

Click here to read the full article:  http://www.mookychick.co.uk/travel/tribe_wanted.php

And so we’re back to the chickens. Old time readers know this is a favourite theme and if you look back in the May Archives you’ll see why.

Today Jamie Oliver, top TV chef geezer and friend of Jimmy of Jimmy’s Farm, (who incidentally was in my class at university), has today slated the top supermarket chains, i.e (lets name them shall we, yes lets,) Tescos, Sainsburies, Asda, Morrisons, Waitrose and Marks and Spencer, for being utterly spineless and pulling out of meetings he had scheduled to talk about factory farming. Too chicken shit scared to come and answer to the camera then?

I guess the big chains want to keep the general public in the dark, and feed them on shit, kind of similar to a battery chicken.

So any way it seems there are two more chicken champions on board.

The question is this, are the big supermarket chains that sell all these nastily raised sufferation filled animals responsible for the welfare of those animals?

Should they be?

This is going to be an exercise in getting the general public to open their eyes.

I have just watched Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s (he of kill your own animals and eat all the bits at river cottage), programme “Hugh’s Chicken Run” in which he is running, quite literally side by side, a battery farm and free range farm to compare the welfare and results of the birds in each.

Jamie Oliver is set to follow this up on Friday with “Jamie’s Fowl Dinners”.

We watch with interest.

So far Hugh is bearing up well, he only had to kill about six little chicks this week, the first weeks show during which he set up the experiment. They were so cute, but they but they weren’t financial worthy enough to warrant a vet. So he broke their necks.


More info / sign up to the campaign here

www.chickenout.tv/

www.jamieoliver.com/