So, starting from a couple of days ago, I have over TWO WEEKS off work, which is the most I’ve had off work in years; and considering how much I hate doing work, it’s pretty awesome. Becky and I have been frantically trying to book a holiday, but with not having any time together, and […]
In an unusually pedantic mood, I decided to…
Actually, let me start again.
In a usually pedantic mood, I decided to wander around my bar today and point out all of the things that contained grammatical and/or spelling errors; which, as it turns out, was just about everything. It started to annoy me to think about how little people care. This is a place of customer-orientated business, and yet there is no concern towards the writing when sending out confirmation emails with typos, displaying menus with grammatical mistakes, or writing up specials with misspelled words. It’s a direct representation of the company itself, and while nine out of ten people around here don’t seem to notice or care, what’s the harm in ensuring that you please ten out of ten people?
After about half an hour of me grumbling about this, a couple of my co-workers asked me why I wasn’t an English teacher, which at first I didn’t read into too much, simply quipping that with them around, I basically was an english teacher; however, something moderately annoying then occurred to me.
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There’s a little charity competition thing going at work at the moment, where customers can pay £1 to ‘name the bear‘, and the best name entry gets to keep it. Anyway, I was having a peer through all the entries today, and some absolute ass hat has entered the name Serendipity. For a teddy bear. […]
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breath free.”
This is an extract from the poem that lies at the proud feet of America’s Statue of Liberty that, when first built, served as a beacon to travellers and immigrants as they neared their soon-to-be home. It served as a symbolic gateway to a new life; a free life, where a person was able to pursue his or her dreams, with honesty and integrity, and above all, without fear of persecution or undue judgement.
In this new era however, a unseen country has arisen in the wake of the digital age; a new domain for men and women, children and adults, to express themselves, to open themselves, to find themselves; and like Narnia or Hogwarts or countless other realms of fantasy and imagination, this parallel universe is accessed via a magical portal.
Well, I still think iPads and android phones are pretty magical, anyway.
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For too long have I borne sad witness to the folly of a coffee maker brewing a cup of tea. This isn’t some slap-dash, hasty, get it done fast kind of job; this is an art form. It takes time, precision, and patience. So don’t screw it up.
Start off with a decent brand. My favourite is Twinning’s. Loose leaf is good if you have the time and the inclination, but a bag can be equally delightful. I’m awfully partial to a spot of Lapsang Souchong, but for this example, I’ll give the instructions applicable to a bag of simple, traditional, breakfast tea. Continue reading
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While at work today, I saw a group of men watching the BBC news, which at the time was featuring the story of Julian Assange and his stay at the Ecuadorian embassy. The ‘alpha‘ of the group started running his inebriated mouth of about how terrible it was that Assange was still able to stay at the embassy, and how he ought to have been assassinated. I’ll take a wild stab in the dark and say that this man probably had no idea of the circumstances that led to Assange’s current diplomatic turmoil, but he was loudly voicing his opinion either way. Now Assange’s innocence or guilt in regards to the sexual assault charges in Sweden are of no concern to me, and as such, I have no opinion of the matter; however, hearing the utter ignorance in this man’s voice was really winding me up, and after a good ten minutes of listening to himself speak, he blurted out a sentence that I may never forget.
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So, I’ll try to make this brief… There may be a few tangents, and I’m really tired.
I was walking home from work tonight, exhausted after 13 hours shared between two jobs. It was about 11.45 at night and on my side of the street ahead of me was a pack of youths. I don’t know what the collective noun for hooded reprobates is really; a gaggle of chavs, a flock of delinquents? Anyway… I call them youths; it sums it up nicely, derogatory enough to convey my meaning, condescending enough to convey my sarcasm. I don’t know what age I was when I began to refer to ‘punk kids’ as ‘youths’, but I think it was around the time I once saw a 13 year with a cigarette who was so indifferent and unintelligent, that he tried to spit on the floor, as so many smokers do, and couldn’t be bothered to turn his head to the left or right, thus combined with the forward momentum of his walking meant he spat on his own shoe. Anyway, they were youths, and I decided to avoid them for some reason. They were drunk and loud and boisterous, and I couldn’t be bothered to be near them. I figured I’d just cross the street.
This is where shit went wrong.
