Tuesday, January 31, 2006

The Arctic Monkeys

I have decided that I love the Arctic Monkeys. I drive around in my car listening to their new album (purchased by myself and 359,999 other people last week) banging my head like crazy and singing along like a lunatic.

Why do I love them so??

1) They sound (and are) Young and Northern, both conditions that I myself once was

Young in that the music is simple and vital. Definitely, unmistakenly Northern - the lead singer Alex has brilliant intonation, I love songs where you can clearly hear the lyrics.

2) The aforesaid lyrics

Done to death in the papers, but I still laugh out loud when I hear (clearly enunciated) lines like

" It proves that love's not just blind but deaf"

" You know your problem, you're not from New York City you're from Rotherham"

3) The sheer energy and fun of it all

I caught a bit of a gig televised on MTV - fantastic! Somewhere like the Leadmill in Sheffield, a scuzzy club where I've spent a few fun packed evenings myself, and they all (band and audience alike) look like they're having a fookin' great time!

Don't over intellectuallise it, its only rock and roll and I like it!!

Chameleonitis

Read this great article in the Guardian at the weekend - and I suddenly realised why I feel like I've been having a problem with my working life lately - I'm a yellowish / bluish (green maybe??) sort of person and I currently work in a red organisation. They like to pretend they're not red - all the corporate mumbo jumbo on the intranet site is yellowy nicey nicey we love you all sort of bollocks - but in reality its red through and though.

Hah

I'd already decided a while back to my ownself to be true, and worry less about stuff like the dress code (current look slightly aging hippy, mainly in the hair and jewellery areas - still have to wear a suit!!) and doing the huge number of client meetings my contract says I should do each week. Either they haven't caught on yet or it was a bit of a paper tiger anyway.

The other thing is a number of decent people in other offices have resigned recently - more money / less pressure elsewhere - so perhaps they really are keen to hang on to me. My manager, who is a decent sort, tells me that anyway - on my good days I believe her, on my bad days I think she's just saying that because we get on well together and I am the only female Private Banker in the office, also the only one not in the 35 - 40 age bracket. Talk about diversity - I'm it!!

I've always resisted giving the name of my employer in my blog, mainly because I don't want people googling for C***ts and finding me - needless to say they are pretty much a household name, creme de la creme of the financial world, "Superbrand" status etc etc - and there are lots and lots of good things about them..

..but in the last resort they're still a bank.

Monday, January 30, 2006

Ay Up - I'm a Nottingham blog of note...

...according to Troubled Diva, so I'd better post something halfway sensible!!

Life is still strange at the moment - loved ones are still ill, friends still have various ailments...

My description of it has been "limbo" to a number of people - if I was a religious type I'd have a better idea of what that actually meant, something in the back of my mind tells me its the place between heaven and hell, the place you go when you die if God can't decide if you're naughty or nice. A bit like that TV programme I've just been watching "Life on Mars" (love the music!) - where the guy wakes up in 1973 - is he dead / in a coma or has he been transported back in time?? Perhaps I got run over in 2036 and have been transported back in time - mind you I'll be 82 then if I'm still alive, so I guess I would be crossing roads pretty carefully - that is if there's any oil left by then and there's still such a thing as traffic.

Hey ho

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Blogging as therapy

I read in a blog recently (can't remember which) that a large proportion of bloggers found the whole process very therapeutic - certainly early last year when things were really getting me down, setting out all of the details of Lizzy and my adventures with Love helped me to put a number of things in perspective. I haven't been doing a lot of updating on this blog lately, but maybe I should - I certainly feel like I could do with therapy of some sort!

So...

Some facts about my life at present:

1) Work on the whole is going well again, I'm for the most part enjoying it again lately. One or two problems though of which more later.

2) Keith is really quite unwell with anxiety and depression. He was suffering throughout the term leading up to Christmas - at the start of the school Christmas holidays he went to the doctor, who put him on Prozac which initally made him much worse. He's since been back to the doctors, is now taking diazepam as well which has the effect of knocking him out, but is now less anxious and fortunately is sleeping a lot better. He's been signed off work for 6 weeks. I am trying to be as supportive as I can, and to be there as much as I can for him, and he is very appreciative of this.

3) Lizzy has practically finished her chemotherapy treatment for Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and things seem to be going well. She hasn't officially had the all clear but has had various scans etc and has been told that the tumours are clear. Hooray!!

4) A number of our friends are ill at the moment. There are two cases of shingles, two cases of anxiety and depression apart from Keith, and another case of cancer apart from Lizzy. Is it our age?? I've never known a time before when so many of my contemporaries have been seriously ill. Fortunately I'm not affected, apart from suffering from mild depression earlier in the year, but the whole thing is very concerning.

5) One of the support staff at work is having a very hard time at the moment. It seems to me like a classic case of stress, but they don't seem to want to accept this - its everyone else not themself - and its getting me down and annoying / upsetting a number of other people. I've tried to do something about it, not very successfully, and quite frankly the whole situation is pissing me off. I could do with work being calm and ordered so I can have a real stab at having a successful 2006 instead of the debacle that was 2005 for me workwise. 2005 was filled with other people that I care about's personal problems as well - I have been trying and largely succeeeding in developing a sympathetic persona - not always my strongpoint in the past - but my colleague and their problems has not touched a nerve. I suppose in my view the things I've seen other people go through last year were just so much worse. Hey ho.

Well thats a little bit of unloading. The Doctor is In.