A multi-faceted post today ('cos I've got facets coming out of me lugholes, like).

Where I'm currently working I'm no longer a name, I am a number. Seriously - I am 3 contractor. Apparently if I have a name then I can claim full employment rights (apart from, y'know, like, the big FUCK-OFF CONTRACT I signed handing over all rights - and those of my next three generations - to the company in question). So I am to be refered to as 3 in all emails and correspondence, plus that's my email address too.

I wish someone had told me that when I worked for a central government department for a year and a half! I'd have a cast iron pension by now for a start....


Next to work there's a new office building under construction. A really, really big one. Over 100m long and almost as wide. It's being built in a really strange way though - in ten metre wide slices. Over the weekend they added another 'slice' on the side, all five stories of it. It's all very impressive at how quickly they can build but it doesn't half seem disconcertingly as though the new building is sidling up to our one, rather like it's about to ask if it can borrow a fag....


It's apparently Valentine's Day today, or somesuch entirely fictitous card-day designed to place unrealistic expectations in fluffily airy heads (Mother's and Father's days are bollocks too - if I'm feeling grateful and generous I'll put them in a nice carehome when they get too old to not piss themselves in public. That or a card? Tough choice :-P ). I think Charlie Brooker puts it very nicely here.

On a related note, I once heard a brilliant idea on a very funny radio show called Genius (I know, Radio 4 - I'm so old.) Basically it was to have a new day the week before Valentine's Day called 'You're Dumped Day', so that if your girlfriend is looking to dump you she can do so before VD to save you spending money on expensive gifts and then getting dumped right afterwards. The idea would be that if your girlfriend dumps you within a month of VD without using You're Dumped Day then she would be morally required to refund any money you spent on VD.

A brilliant idea with no obvious drawbacks.

In fact it could go a lot further and you could have YDD cards, either of the 'Congratulations, you're not dumped!' variety or nice poetic ways to be newly-single. Off the top of my head I've come up with:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
My future is bright,
It just won't include you.

or

Red roses, nice chocolates, our entwined tomorrows
You'll get none of these things, so go drown your sorrows.

I'm sure you can all do better ;-P

I did get a VD text today though from kiwigirl (she of the reason why I should a) never do drugs of any sort and b) say 'No' to women more often) which was a nice suprise.

And on a final point, this time last year I was firmly of the opinion that all women were evil back-stabbing witches who would just as likely sleep with your best friend and/or your Dad as they would go shopping for shoes. This year I'm more of the opinion that women are mainly mad, impossible to understand, almost impossible to please, but that there are one or two (maybe a handful) that aren't all that bad. And that's as gracious as I'll get ;)