Back from France and tired of cheese...

I know what your thinking but it's true; I am sick of cheese. Yes sick of cheese and sick of baguette's. I'm sick of cheesy baguette's and croque monsieur's (actually, I never liked them... way to wet and French like for my tastes).
But despite all that, I'd still rather be there then here at work...

I suppose I should tell you why we were in France in the first place shouldn't I? Well, Nikala's brother Aaron and his fiance Katie were getting married, fortunately they had got the professionals in to sort it all out...

... I'm lying of course.

A few months ago, when Aaron and Katie got back from holiday and we all saw the glittering ring on her finger, Nikala jumped up and offered her help (as any discerning sister would I'm sure). Oh yes, Nikala offered to design and make the tiara, the veil and decorate the wedding cake; none of which she had done before. Still, she is a fantastic designer and we all had faith in her. of course that started to wane on the night before we were due to leave at 4am to go to France for the wedding when Nikala decided that the veil wasn't right and a new one must be made then and there despite the fact that the bride to be was already delighted with the first one. Thank goodness the tiara had been a triumph! (still a little worried about the cake at this point but I didn't want to rock the boat).
We arrived in France, the veil was loved (the new one too), the tiara was looking fabulous and everyone said Nikala should go into business making them (an idea I fully support by the way!), then we were introduced to the cake. Nikala and Aaron's dad had made this cake which was stunning to say the least. Clive (Nikala's dad) is well known for his fruit cakes, enormous quantities of alcohol are usually soaked into it well in advance, but this was a surprise...
The cake was made up of three layers. The bottom layer alone took twenty seven hours to cook and weighed about 35lbs! and there were another two layers to go on top of it.... how on earth were we going to make this look like the tiny picture Katie had given us of the Mexican looking cake she wanted?
Right, lets at least get the white icing bit on.
Day before the wedding. We make the white fondant icing (yes I know all the types of icing now). We could have bought icing with us but we had been told all the ingredients were there. no problemo, the icing is made... tastes a bit odd though..weird. Aha! the liquid glucose is honey flavoured, that wont do at all! OK so in the UK for some odd reason (something to do with cough medicine apparently) you can only buy this stuff in chemists; of course being France nothing was open... it was a bank holiday and lunchtime to boot. Right we would have to go first thing in the morning, the wedding wasn't until 4pm anyway, we would be fine. Of course we still had 58 daisies to cut out of marzipan, we weren't panicking at all... oh no... not one bit... gulp.
Oh joy! What amazing luck! the daisy cutter was in fact a big pile of feculent maggot crap and didn't work! BumArse (that became the expletive of the week)! What were we going to do? there was nothing for it, I had to cut them out by hand. I knew when Nikala offered to decorate the cake that I would end up losing hair over it.
Wedding day. No icing on cake. Marzipan daisies drying on plates all over the kitchen. Alarm at 06:30.
OK we were up, we were off to get liquid glucose. We were spurned at every chemist around and sent to the supermarkets, whom also had no liquid glucose. BumArse. OK panicking we drive back to the house, four hours wasted looking for that stuff! One of Clive's friends had arrived to say hello, what a godsend! It only turns out he was a master baker 20 years ago! He whipped up some royal icing and iced all 3 layers in about 45 minutes flat... phew! Now all we had to do was paint he marzipan flowers and stick them on the sides of the cake. Easy.
Except as soon as you touched the flowers they turned to dust.
Well the petals all broke off and then we were in bits too... Nikala was pulling random ludicrous ideas out of thin air that were totally unfeasible but sounding like much better options than the one we had, but none of them were what the bride and groom wanted. There was only one option, I had to painstakingly build each flower petal by petal on the cake... and you know what? it looked pretty damn good by the end... from a distance... BumArse.

Man down!

Well what a horrible thing to do...

I just had to fire one of my team, not a nice thing to do at any time, but this was the first firing I have had to do personally. Not that he didn't have it coming mind you, the guy was consistently late and calling in sick and just generally unreliable. In a support industry you just cant have that, our clients rely upon us being there and they never knew what was going on with their queries as we never knew when he would be in... but still not a nice thing to do to anyone.
Actually this is the first time I've had that conversation from either side so it was particularly hard as I had no inkling of what to say having never had it said to me, so I kept it short and sweet... well maybe sweet isn't the word... short and brutal would probably be more accurate!

Still, I imagine its like killing a man... it's never pleasant but it gets easier each time...

Oddly my working relationship with him started when I shot him in a high noon style shootout when we went paint balling with company... we were duelling to see who got to keep James as our name in the workplace... the loser had to adopt a girls name...

R.I.P. Becca


Here is a picture of Jim when we made him go bling (made him a target) for the paint balling.. oh happy days! (Is it wrong of me to reminisce about shooting an employee?)



Incidentally look out for my new blog: 1001 Excuses to skive off work - the Jim Blog

Dear diary...

Something thats always sat at the back of my mind was, well is: does anyone actually read this blog or is it purely me rambling off a bunch of random thoughts? I guess what I'm asking is whether this is being read by the masses (hi mum) or if this is just a glorified digital diary? Though I've got to say your feedback has been fantastic! Only the other day I was saying to myself, you know what James, that blog of yours is alright actually. This was acceptable as I was at home alone at the time and you are considered perfectly sane if you only talk to yourself in the confines of your own home. Of course things slip and occasionally I do find myself chuckling to a joke I just told myself at the bustop... eh whats that? No they dont need to know about that, shhh!
Anyway I invite you all to comment on any post you feel like... go on make me happy!

Irritatingly my personal email has been playing up recently. It's my useless ISP; I'm thinking of chucking them and going for another, of course this means changing my email address which is a pain.

I should really gt back to work... I am a manager after all and should lead by... wait I AM a manager after all and should darn well be able to do what I like! Do what I say not what I do damnit! Ahh the sweet sweet look of fear in their worked to hard eyes... nothing like the smell of despair.

Long time no see everybody!

Well yes I know... it's been a long time, and I've been lazy...

So now I'm thinking, do i just blurt out everything thats happened in the last year since last we spoke? Or should I tease it out, so it looks like I loads to say over the next several days...
Lets face it, if I dont tell all now it might be another year before you hear from me again, so here we go...

So, new job. yup I now manage a team of IT engineers for a company based in Putney in London... but thats work and thats quite enough of that.

You may remember way back in May last year, I was talking about my band? No? Well scroll down a bit you lazy b4st@rds! Anyway, I'm sad to say that the band is no more... well thats not entirely true the band is definately alive, just not in its original form. Yes thats right With Neil (founding bassist) working hard down under (I'm pretty certain he's only working hard on his tan) we have had to turn elsewhere. Where better than our good friend, local pub landlord, and sometime band photographer! Yep, Simon Spiken joined forces and once again we were all "workShy". Shortly after we were also joined by Charlie whom had on occasion joined us for a spot on the stage. We were now a four-piece. But enough about that! If you want to read more about the band go here: www.myspace.com/workshytheband and yes the writing style of the band blog may feel very familiar as it is indeed yours truely. oh one more thing about the band whilst I remember, we have another gig coming up and you are all more than welcome, details are on the aforementioned website as is a demo (gulp).
I have also been asked to sing in another band.. very tempting. I havent decided yet and of course you will be the first to know the outcome. If I do it certainly doesnt mean the end of workShy, just something else.

We have builders coming in next week to gut and redo our bathroom. I've got to admit I am pretty excited by this, it marks a turning point in the completion of our flat. That said I am also fairly apprehensive of this work as due to some spectacular planning (we have no kitchen currently) we will be with out water for a few days (remember... no kitchen, and I'm including the sink there!)... I did have one thought which I am undoubtably going to go to Hell for, let me fill you in...
Ok so you have the big picture I need to go back a few weeks/months (I cant remember the exact timeline), oh hang on... I think this deserves an entire posting of its own. so to cut a long story short, our neighbour fell and broke her hip a few weeks ago... leaving her flat empty... am I bad for hoping she will stay in hosptial another week or so? I mean theres free running water going towaste over there and we have been taking care of her cat for her....
Is it so wrong... it is isnt it? Damnit theres something wrong with me, can I justify it by the fact that the builders are going to need copious cups of tea and the water has to come from somewhere... I'll be quiet now...