I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned it before but our canteen at work is pretty good. And it only costs me 7 cents for a starter and main course. And we get freshly-made pizzas on Friday as long as you order them on Thursday.
Christmas Lunch
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Author Archives: Andy
The wonderful thing about Dino
I just thought I would mention that Dino is becoming a really lovely dog. OK, so he has a little way to go before becoming perfect but he’s definitely working on it and, in the last few days in particular, I have noticed a change in him. He is becoming more affectionate and, dare I say it, just a little bit quieter – not so manic as puppies are.
He’s still a little demanding though but, as he’s only almost 10 months old, I can forgive him that.
The Assault Course
I have mentioned it previously but it has been raining quite a lot recently. Not all day, every day but it certainly feels like it. However, it has rained heavily and for very prolonged periods (yesterday it seems that it started about 9 a.m. And finished some time after I went to bed).
The mysterious case of the disappearing heater; fancy dress parties; Be afraid, be very afraid (the de Menezes travesty of justice)
On Friday, I went into the smoking room to get warm and have a cigarette. Later, just before lunch, I went in again – the heater had gone and the chairs had been rearranged now that there was vacant space! The heat already in the room from the heater kept the room above freezing for the rest of the day, so better than nothing. Several people have said that, in the New Year we shan’t be able to smoke inside the buildings any more. It will be quite funny to see the MD outside lighting up! We shall see. On the plus side, at least it won’t get so cold in my office as she won’t have the window wide open in hers whilst having a cigarette. So there are advantages to everything, I suppose.
Last night was a fancy dress party. It was held in a friend-of-a-friend’s shop in an area of Milan that, they say, is up-and-coming. She sells designer clothes from lesser-known designers from all over the world.
I absolutely HATE fancy dress parties. I never have a clue as to what to go as and am always genuinely shocked at other people’s ingeniousness and how something so simple can look so good.
As we had less than 2 days notice and it was Friday night (so no time to try and do something special on Saturday), V came up with the idea of going as 70s people. My era. Sadly, we had all the necessary items in our wardrobes including, for me, a pair of real platform shoes that I had worn only once before. They had brought them in as new items in the 80s in Schuh, in Birmingham, hoping for some sort of revival, I guess. Well, it never took off but I kept them as I loved them. Boy, they looked good last night but how my calves suffered! Anyway, it was a cool party and we got back about half one in the morning.
Finally, I had written a long post about the jury’s verdict on the de Menezes case but feel it was far better covered over at Stef’s site. If I lived in the UK now I would be very, very afraid. What kind of future is there when you cannot trust the police to be truthful and themselves uphold the law against murder?
Oh, yes, and it hasn’t stopped bloody raining for days!
And just WHO is going to buy all this crap??????
We arrive about 1 p.m. The place is heaving with people. Italians, not renowned, in my view, for moving to one side, bump and jostle with each other to get to the stalls, get to the next aisle, get to a place for food.
Winter Wonderland; The Smoking Room
This morning, taking the dogs out, it was snowing. It was thick but wet. In less than two hours it had already started to melt although still snowing heavily. And with the combination of the wetness of the snow and the melting it became transparent snow – like looking through a bathroom window – you could see the tarmac, black, underneath the snow which was heavily pregnant with the water – a translucent look.
Credit Crunch or Titanic. The difference being…..?
With the current ‘credit crunch’ crisis, I tend to read Peston’s Picks (mainly for the comments). Recently, one of the comments was very well done and I show it here. It is from someone called Whistling_Neil
As efforts to save the Titanic continued the captain updated the passengers on progress.
“We have installed a lot of extra pumps to pump water from the flooded sections. Some of these pumps have not been switched on because the Chief engineer informs us that we haven’t the power to run them. Some have been found to be discharging the flood water back into the flooded sections and they are now underwater and we cannot relocate them.
A tidy up
For weeks now, I have been thinking that the links to other blogs needs a serious spring clean. In spite of this not being Spring, it really can’t wait.
Even if it’s unlawful it can’t be declared unlawful.
I am no expert but it seems quite incredible that a jury can be instructed that they cannot return a verdict of unlawful killing because
“All interested persons agree that a verdict of unlawful killing could only be left to you if you could be sure that a specific officer had committed a very serious crime – murder or manslaughter.”
And yet, in the case of Kate Peyton (the journalist shot in Somalia), the coroner was able to give a verdict of just that. Surely the coroner didn’t know the ‘specific person’ that had shot Ms Perry?
Monopoly; Snow; Fat Feet; An Outing At Work!
I won! Since this happens rarely and certainly if V is playing (since he nearly always wins) it was quite something. It was a match arranged by V with some colleagues since one of them, L, was convinced he could take V on and beat him.
But I did like the ‘new’ way of making deals. L started it with the deal he gave to M, letting him complete the ‘dark-blue’ set on condition that he wouldn’t have to pay rent if he landed on them. Then I made a deal with him in a similar vein but also collecting 25% of any profit that he made during the game.
>However, my coup-de-grace was letting V have the final green one in place of a complete one and a half sides of the board! I knew that he wanted the greens so much that he would give anything to get the set.
And it snowed Sunday night, even in the centre of Milan. And it’s been very cold since then. I just HAVE to get another job because they don’t keep the offices warm enough for me. The forecast is for snow and rain from now until next weekend! Enough already! Roll on spring.
In other news: I think my feet have put on weight. It seems to be getting harder to get my socks on.
Also, I found this morning, yesterday someone at work found my blog. I was a bit concerned for a while but then I thought it must be Pietro. Luckily, perhaps, it was. However, whilst I was looking at all the sites they had visited, it did scare me for a while. Anyway, now that he has found it perhaps I should include his blog on my links on the side? Nice to see you Pietro!