“I serve at the pleasure of the President”

Barack Obama really is the President!  He’s won me over, albeit slowly.  I thought his inauguration speech brought some much needed pragmatism to the hope/change theme that’s served him so well.  Even a little bit of predecessor smackdown despite the enforced camaraderie of such an occasion (you know, where the word bipartisan suddenly becomes noun, verb and the Holy Grail itself).

I’ll admit that my biggest jealousy towards the man is his newly tricked out Blackberry.  If they can put nuclear launch codes on his start menu, or whatever, why can’t my Blackberry Storm handle simple tasks like allowing me to answer a freakin’ call?  It hasn’t tried my patience too severely as yet, but if the next software upgrade doesn’t fix the remaining kinks, I’m going to be shoving it somewhere unpleasant in Vodafone’s immediate vicinity.  Probably best I don’t start ranting about their Macphobia, because dammit, I was ready to betray Blackberries for a swanky little iPhone.  I would have done it too, were it not for 02’s utterly pathetic excuse for coverage in this particular pocket of North London.

In other news, I’m gritting my teeth and booking a glut of driving lessons.  The most annoying part of this drawn-out process is that I can drive perfectly well if I just have to think for myself.  It’s when I’m awaiting instructions for the route that my control freak brain gets sluggish.  I’m well aware that I have to grin and bear it because it’s the only way to get through the test, but believe me when I tell you that it’s actually easier to pootle around in a gigantic train than it is in a Mini.  Fewer idiots in your way at least.  Still, the test is provisionally booked for mid-February, let’s see how it goes.

“every two years you take up knitting…for a week”

Ladies, gentlemen and otherwise… I have returned.

Well, mostly I got a virtual prodding in the ribcage from my beloved bezzer and here I am jumping into the tepid waters of blogging again. I could give a multitude of very plausible reasons, but it’s been largely down to a combination of laziness and being too overwhelmed to think of much to say. I’ve started a new job, a promotion of sorts, but I’m reluctant to discuss it too publicly since it would be very easy to identify me, what with only a handful of people being in my current training programme. Suffice to say, it’s exhausting and I love it. Now I’m no longer spending the day wrestling with technical diagrams I feel a little better prepared to talk of more interesting things.

Anyway, a little meme to ease me back into the way of things: six random facts about me.

1. I have drafted, in my head but never on paper, my acceptance speech for an Olivier, a Tony, an Oscar and an Emmy (each with subtle differences).  Pretty forward-thinking for someone who can’t even complete a first draft these days.
2. In about six weeks, I’ll have a licence to drive a train.  If I behave myself in driving lessons, I may also have a car licence by then too.
3. My accent is the vocal equivalent of Play-doh.  My first job was working for a utility company, sending out engineers all over the East Coast of Scotland.  Everyone could tell which area I’d been working on any particular day, because I’d come home with an Edinburgh or Dundee accent.  When I went to uni, I developed an unfortunate Kelvinside inflection which my parents mocked me for relentlessly.  Now I’ve been in London for almost eight years, my default accent is a vaguely South-Eastern one, albeit with an occasional Australian(?) twinge.
4. I speak pretty good Spanish, and would love to live in Spain or South America for a couple of years to get properly fluent.
5. I honestly think that ketchup is one of the five major food groups, and I don’t care how common it is to put it on absolutely everything.
6. I am currently singing along to Barry Manilow in my pyjamas after an invigorating walk around the park (don’t worry, I wasn’t in PJs when I did that…)

I’m also making another stab at 365days/Project 365…here.