Highlight of my day was finding that my sausage rolls were pretty darn good. First time for me, but you can say this for Delia Smith recipes - They work!

Nearly being beaten at Triv Purs by my 12-year old nephew. In the end my brother in law beat both of us.

The barometer here is down to 978 mb, the most interesting thing to have happened round Christmas apart from Mount Mourinho erupting yet again. Ho, ho, ho.

[pen] Mrs Stevie and I used to be challenged regularly to TP by friends of hers, who gloried in our lack of any sort of knowledge of sports (in which they excelled). In two consecutive games we were first to the middle (me on point with science, geography and history, Mrs Stevie on Arts and Ents) and they chose "sports and leisure" as our game-breaker. Game one the question was "How many men on a cricket team?"

This was doubly funny because all game there had been questions on English history, Science done in England and the Geography of England. Every other question was asked and appended with howls of "Another English question!"

The second game went much like the first, with us romping home and being asked a Sports and Leisure question again: "How many holes in a bowling ball". I laughed so hard I thought I'd pass out.

The next time we got together with that pair we'd been to the UK for a visit and acquired a UK set of TP. We smuggled one box of cards into their American set and they didn't twig why the apparent quota of English questions had doubled until we both cracked up and confessed.

I really should give this place a spring clean...

The rabling has discovered Monopoly and invented a variety of quantitative easing schemes, including mortgaging his socks.

[Rab] How old is the rabling now? 35? 36?
In other news, I'm back at work after two and a half weeks off and having a stab at pretending to be an editor. What the heck do I know about copywriting?
Is it lunchtime yet?

Don't editors just have to dress badly, wear an eyeshade, chew rope cigars and yell at everybody?

Dream job then.

Most satisfying. Don't overdo it.

[Rosie] It just occurred to me, after watching another Dr Who Xmas special, that there is a slight possibility of not developing mutant super-powers, instead devolving into a revolting blob, retiring inside a giant pimply salt shaker and going homicidal on everyone & his dog.

No sudden urges to hide in a dustbin and kill everyone on the street I hope?

Dessed badly? Check (I'm still getting dressed in the dark here in the Januarial low countries); wearing eye shadow (not eyeshade, but close enough) - check; chew rope cigars? Eeeuuuuwww. Yelling at everybody - check.
I think I qualify.

[penelope] Do you still get to rip open your office door, wave a fistful of paper in your hand and scream "Stop the Press!", or throw people out of your office, yelling "Either bring me the straight dope on the Mayor and the actress or find another job Kilcullen!"?

(Stevie) No, none of that but don't get too close.

[pen] Sounds fun. Maybe before Britain completes economic suicide I should be begging you for a job =)

Apparently my 'serious' demeanour prevents people from calling into the office and asking me to do things for them. I'd call that a result.
[Stevie] I'm not a newspaper or publication editor - I'm an in-house editor, so work on webpages, internal messages, brochures, our own news items. I miss the days of real newspaper work though - two decades ago now, when the most fun was finding puns to put into the reports of garden shed burglaries from the weekly CID briefing at the police station, and deciphering the spidery handwriting on the back of an envelope that had been shoved through our market place office letterbox, describing the weekly meeting of a village branch of the WI. *sigh*
The pay was utter rubbish though.

[pen] I fail to see why any of your description of your actual editing duties precludes the stuff I brought up.

That last entry sounds like Stevie calling pen into his office and telling her what's what.

[Bism] I can assure you that didn't happen. Stevie was too busy shovelling snow back into his neighbour's yard. Or should that be 'neighbor's yard'?

[pen] It should, the gardens in question being in New York.

[Bismarck] I've never warranted more than a cube in my life, and I haven't been in charge of anyone else since 1995, when my pig-headedness when it came to repeatedly requesting training for my staff and in giving them glowing reviews when the richly deserved it ensured I'd never be put into management again.

[Stevie] Quite. I've never wanted to be a manager - it's just trouble. However, I do want to become more expert at what I do (editing and copywriting). Trouble is, the career progression of most places, including this one, is set up assuming that everyone wants to be a manager. Therefore, I am unable to move up to the next pay grade unless I change my job and move to another department, no matter that I am nine years and umpteen training courses into becoming better at this one. Folly.

I have to take this semester off for financial aid reasons and I should concentrate on my class proposal, but then I get distracted . . . I need to treat this like it is a class and have some self-discipline.

May we know your subject?

31 down, 6 to go. I think I'm actually going to miss this routine.

I'm getting my Master's Degree in Theatre.

Anyone looking for a job? I'm recruiting for an IT assistant to join me. Need to have good knowledge of databases (Oracle and/or SQL) and programming skills in e.g. VB/C/C++/C# and ideally .NET environment. Salary negotiable, but think along the £50k lines

Ah, should mention location - Potters Bar, Herts, UK