They only want me for the money

Finally, after a week and a half, I get some time to blog.
Well, notice was handed in last monday (20th) and I went into full time job seeking mode. Which meant agencies phoning me constantly for tuesday and wednesday.
I've grown to hate employment agencies; for the most part they seem to be liars and cheats. One particular agency have the habit of slagging off any company who they don't represent, reventing any communications between the candidate and the client (except for interviews), and generally telling lies to all an sundry. Certainly, from my experience of them, they advertise jobs they don't have, they apply unnecessary pressure to both parties, and generally mess everyone around.
Anyway, from the mess, managed to find a job in Leeds. The salary's not the best, but i'll be contracting for three months, at a slightly hire rate than the salary, so that should ease the pain. The company seems like a really top place to work though, and they're right in central leeds, where I want to be, basically.
Ordered Mr Beast LP from norman records. Those guys rule (both mogwai + the norman records guys). Norman Records have sold stuff for me, and they nearly always put treats in with the orders. Just the personal touch that makes it special.
Apart from that, everything's ok. Spoke to my mum for the first time in three months on sunday (mother's day), and caught up with the happenings they. They've got a really sound friend who's trying to persuade my mum to come off the millions of drugs she's on, or at least to cut down on them, which seems like a plan to me. Some of them she's been on for thirty years or more, which can't be good for her.
I've done fuck all else, as the job seeking literally has taken all of my time. Now I'm just trying to relax a bit before starting work.

Spring!

Iris,
originally uploaded by b3ardman.

The weather's been a lot better these last few days, and all the flowers are coming out in the garden.
It means I need to sort the patio out, as we sat on the back step to eat our breakfast on Sunday morning.

And I'm left wondering why the world is full of fuckwits and evil-doers.

"Hi David, it's Mr. X from The Agency.", and so starts another day full of dread. It wouldn't have been so bad had I not spoken to him everyday this week, and everyday brought another blow to my mental well-being.

First it was "be honest with me David", which was Monday morning. Tried to blag my way out of the situation, but realistically, I couldn't have said anything else other than the truth. I suppose I've got my mum to thank for that. That, and the fucking integrity that got me into this mess in the first place. So, I explain that I'm looking for another job, and that I'd appreciate it if this didn't get as far as my current employers. At least he was decent enough to forward my CV onto a couple of places.

Then, after that it was "they want to talk with you". Tuesday bought its own terrors. Why the hell 'they' (my current boss and the prj mgr) couldn't just speak to me direct, I've no idea, but anyway, that was the case. Arranged a meet for Thursday afternoon, 1530hrs, which ruined my plans to go to the beer festival, as that was the only time A + me could have gone. Apparently, the role is only ever going to be a code slave role, and they're looking for someone who's a dedicated (certifiable!) code-slave. Not where I'm at. So what does that mean? They're going to fire me? Well, technically they can't, as I've not done anything wrong. But that option is the one that I focus on, and it fills me with fucking dread. How am I going to pay the mortgage without a wage? I really don't want to loose the house, and it would put a lot of unneeded stress on the relationship between A + I. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.

Wednesday: had a reasonably nice day in Manchester, a pleasant talk to a "Creative Group" company, and, of course, the earth cafe for lunch. I love that place. "It went well enough" was my comment to him. Still fucking shaking with fear.
A books us tickets to see Scuffer on Thursday evening, wasn't that enthusiastic about it, but it does mean an opportunity to go to Little Tokyo for tea!

Thursday: I'm fucking shaking even thinking about it. Was possibly one of the most fearful days in my whole life.
Fortunately, A dragged me out for a walk in the snow, which at least took my mind off of the possibilities that lay ahead of me. Was really nice watching the wall of snow drift up the valley towards us, and BUGGER, hit us, leave us cold and wet, then quickly pass on towards Manchester. Crazy weather this week. Absolutely crazy.
Anyway, the main event. The fucking show-stopping event of the bastard year. How did it fucking deteriorate into this?
So, I put on my best suit, sneak in the back door. Surprise my fellow work mates, but avoid the "What are you doing here" questions. Summoned into a room with Mr. X (agency), my boss and the prj mgr.
Bat around the issue with my boss for a while, him making statements rather than asking questions. Bastard raised questions about the quality of my code, which I think I at least managed to score one run off. He backs off when I asked for details about the issues he has. Eventually, it just gets to the point where he's makes a statement of fact, and I just sit there as tell him I don't really know what he expects me to say. Implied in that was "Do you want me to argue a point of fact that I agreed with, and make myself look like a wanker? Are you trying to trip me up and therefore give yourselves a way to fire me?". I thought I handled that part of the session reasonably well, coming away with a no-score draw.
So, round two starts with the prj mgr going all "Good cop" on me. "What I really need to know is are you going to stick around for the duration" (or words to that effect). Something inside me responds to this line of questioning. It's direct, and honest, and I answer it in the same way. To be fair, if I think I hadn't, I might have lost it at some point during the meeting and told them exactly what I thought of the bloody pair of them. Very uncool in front of Mr X (agency), who's in the position to help me find alternative employment.
So, after the "I'm looking for another job" reply, I'm told that my boss needs to talk to HR, and that I'll have a response by tomorrow morning. I'm then escorted off the premises. I was so full of rage, full of fear, full of dread. I walk up to the bus station in a real state, and manage to get the bus back. Txt A, rather than phone her, as I didn't want to start crying on the bus.
Get back in time to leave again. At least the play keeps my mind off of the whole affair, left quite happy by the time we get back home (the pint on the way home might have helped :)

"He's not in the office today, he's off skiing. Can I take a message?". Bollocks. Friday doesn't start well, especially as we discovered the boiler is fucked, so we're left without heating or hot water until someone can come out and sort it (which was meant to be in the morning, but turned into late afternoon). I'm constantly glad A sorted out the cover for the boiler and central heating, especially as this is the third time we've had to call them out.
A leaves early for her parents in the south. Should have fucking checked the situation, as there's a train strike, and what with one of her connections breaking down, it takes her over 8 hours for the planned 4.5hr journey.
Eventually get a call from Mr X, who's in Geneva, and he lays out the situation. "One week's pay, and an end to the whole affair, or else they'll get nasty." Nasty means disciplinary action, and eventually being sacked. Shakingly, I phone A, and she's not a lot of help, really, apart from saying that her folks have offered to help if we're in a financial whole (at times like this, I'm so glad she's upper middle-class). So I phone my little bro, who's the trade union representative at his work, and also an outside ear. Suggests I take the money and walk away. Also suggests that I could always ask my former employer if they've got any temp work I could do; they've three places vacant at the moment. Thank fuck I've got people like my bro I can speak to. It sets me straight, and I phone a few agencies to see what work there is. One puts it like this: I'm a reasonably cheap option (£29k cheap? fuck!), with extremely marketable skills and experience. Gives me the confidence I need. Phone my boss, who's off, eventually get to speak to the HR woman. She's quite unresponsive to my trying to wangle any other money out of them. Arrange a 9am meeting with her for Monday morning - which means going into work to hand in my notice. At least I can walk away intact, if a little bruised.

Apart from that whole debacle, there's at least three more job interviews lined up, with two more on the cards, so workwise I guess I should be able to sort something out. Heating's fucked until they come and fix it on Tuesday(?): cold and alone (woe is me ;) Life's sweet though, especially as I'm looking at having next week off two (well, looking for work, but you know).

I'm so glad that whole week's over.

Should probably blog this kind of thing is smaller bits, as its taken me about two hours to get all this down.

What a week

Well, yeah. As well as having a reasonably intense email conversation with Gary over whether we should be optimistic or pessimistic about the "end of oil" (not long now), work has been a peculiar beast.

So: Monday
Talking to one of the developers, who informed me that he foresaw the project being a massive failure, more than one head rolling, and a lot of work fixing it all up. At the moment it's March; the main programming of the project is meant to end in august (although the schedule is already slipping behind), and then there's going to be testing, user acceptance, and then deployment in January 2007. Two months in to the programming and already one man of the 6 man squad is feeling less than hopeful. Not good. (I say six, but it actually works out around 4, due to other commitments.)


Tuesday, heads down, coding most of the day. Ask technical leader about a bit of the spec I'm not sure about; I was told that we'd need to record a URL or something. Turns out, the spec is actually for three diagrams (front, left side and right side), with the ability to click on certain parts and record details for that area. Not only this, but the areas are different in different scenarios, and different records needed different images. Great. So I play with some GDI+ stuff, and get a very simple (box based) example working by the end of the day.

Wednesday, turns out I don't actually need to do the whole "image map" stuff. That's actually on (yet another) document, and I only need to decide whether to show the button to display the image.
I do, however, need to call a business rule, which will, depending on various parameters, decide something else that I need to pass back to the container. (This really did call for MVC, but all of the code for this, apart from my little bit, is in one massive form, which is almost incomprehensible, takes 15 seconds to load in VS.Net 2005, and is very temperamental).
So, I take a look at getting the business rules set up, and the wrapper (a facade) for the business rules engine working on my machine.
No go, the business rules engines requires the schema to be in a certain directory on a D: drive, and the only D: drive my machine has is a DVD-ROM drive. Nice. Of course, the business rules engine (BRE) wouldn't tell me this directly, only throw format error exception.
So, in the end, I have to work remotely on the team's dev server. And it all works fine.

During the day, got a call from an agency I'd been in touch with before I took this job, and spoke to the nice lady there. Said I wasn't happy, and she said she might be able to arrange an interview for Friday morning.

Thursday morning, come in, rename my DVD drive to E:, push in my USB drive, and suddenly I have a writable D: drive (HURRAY!). Put schema on there, and it all works like a dream.
Decide to try and make the facade for the BRE use the BRE on a remote machine. No go. The API expects the component to be run on the same machine. This would require every user in the company to have an instance of the (expensive) BRE installed on the machine. However, the API does have a 'Test' function that allows you to execute rules on a remote server, so I use that. Doesn't seem to work. Pull hair, bash head, and eventually discover that the curious error I'm getting means that Service Packed and non-SPed versions of the BRE API are not compatible. Sort this out, and it works like a dream.
However, point this whole thing out to project lead, and I get landed the job of re-writing the whole BRE facade as a server component and a client component. ARGH. Surely this sort of thing should have been investigated before.
Struggle with using some Infragistics controls, which I really can't see the benefit of, but get some work done none-the-less.

Agency lady said the Friday interview wasn't going to happen, but I sent my CV to 'Agency B', who said they'd forward it on for me.

Today, well, that's been fun.
Coding aside, which hasn't been too challenging apart from a repeatable "Out Of Memory" error on a machine that clearly had at least 2GB of RAM available, phoned nice agency lady, who said she'd been chasing up some leads, but none of them sounded that great.
Email Agency B, but no progress had been made there. They phoned me later to say that their client wants to have a chat with me (well, I think they used the term 'interview', but that word is scary).
Spoke to my manager about not really being happy about the job, and that I felt I'd been a bit mislead about what the job was. He tried to deny it, totally misunderstood what I said I didn't like (he thought I wanted to do business analysis!?!), but it felt better to be honest with him rather than keep on avoiding the issue. He also seemed to say that he didn't want to use the skills and knowledge of the team, and that he didn't trust one of his 'senior' programmers to do some of the bigger parts of the project. Great.
This lead to having a, rather long, chat with the agency bloke (let's call him pete) who sorted out this job. I explained my feelings about this being a code monkey job, and feeling that was a step backwards. I also said about some of my reservations with the project (although didn't mention the peculiar management style). Pete, understandable, wanted me to say what I was going to do about the situation. Didn't mention job interview at this stage, as it's not certain, and the job is in a different arena from what I'm used to. Said I'd get back to him on Monday.

So, really, the new job isn't working out. There's so many things - mainly little things that probably seem petty, but they all add up. I don't want to be in the situation where I was 2 years ago where I was basically just surfing the internet all day and work, bored off of my brain box, and feeling really annoyed when anyone asked me to do any work. Conversely, I don't want to be in a situation, like at my previous job, where I didn't get support from higher up the food chain.

I'm a bit stuck to know what to do. In a way, I'm a bit narked. I didn't take the other job I'd been offered because I thought it might be what this job has turned out to be. However, at least with the other job, I would have had exposure to a forward looking team, rather than a whole company who reward long service rather than performance, and have a very much 'one size fits all' approach to working terms + conditions. If the company can't realise that the programmers have no need to be treated the same way as call center staff, then I don't really feel that encouraged that they'll meet my needs.

I realise this is a long, rambling post, but I needed to get some of this off my chest. I'll probably try and revise it tomorrow, but I should at least be able to get some sleep now.

One Week In

Now that I've had one week in the new job, I must say I am a bit disheartened. There are a number of things that I'm dubious about, and other things that I'm downright outraged about.
The way the project is working is traditional waterfall model (oh no!), and the closest they've heard of agile methodologies is RUP (which, I didn't think, was an agile methodology).
What this means is that there's a business analyst (ba), who's creating use cases, which are then passed onto a project manager (pm), who then creates a project plan. Each use case has a time period associated with it (usually 5 day), which has been decided in association with the programmers.
When a use case is scheduled to start, there's ONE person who's creating the basis for it (more on this later). Then the programmer comes along and does the rest. In the programmer's schedule (well, included in the programmer's allotted days) is consultation with the users about the prototype. Any issues that arise that can't be fitted into the timeframe are written down and go back to the pm.
So far, so good?
Well, no. What this means in practice is that the ba creates a very vague description of what the system needs to do. The programmers have a pie-in-the-sky guess at how long this is going to take, and this gets written into the schedule. Then, once the programmer comes to start work on the specific functionality, they still have analysis to do, and this, inevitably, comes up with more work, that can't be fitted into the schedule, as the schedule is due to finish in Q3 2006. The programmer does their best to facilitate and changes in their allotted time schedule, which inevitably means they run over, which means the schedule is now behind.
At the moment, on the schedule, there's about 4 weeks for 'integration testing' and bug-fix, along the way. (I think this should be a continuous thing, but oh well). What this means, exactly, is anyone's guess, but they're now talking about using this time to work on the functionality that they've not got time on anywhere else. (ARGH).
On top of this, because of the dependencies in the project, when one use case runs over, it means that some others start late. In reality, this means overtime (which, frankly, I'm not prepared to do. Most of the programmers already work 20 minutes extra a day, which adds up over a week).
As well as this, there's only 1 programmer working on the old systems, which seem to need someone on them full time. He's got work scheduled in for the project, and because he's the junior programmer, and knows little, if anything, about the old systems, needs a lot of support, which uses up other programmers' time too. (I can see this being a real problem, especially as he's meant to be working with me on my items).

On top of the project side of things, they've asked me to take out my earring, because it's in an usual place, whilst other people (both men + women) are allowed to have more traditional lobe piercings.
Working hours is another issue. The contract they sent me states 37.5hrs a week, to be worked between 0800-1800 Monday to Friday. I, foolishly, took this to mean flexi-time. No fucking chance. The team manager (who's not the pm, so I can already see a conflict in interest coming on), stipulates that all the programmers work the same hours, which are 0900-1730, with an hour for lunch (which, frankly, I struggle to fill). This is extra annoying for me, as the trains mean I usually arrive at work at 0840, and leave work about 1745. That's an extra 35 minutes of work a day. I can't take the car at the moment, as it's busted, but I'm loathed to drive into work anyway (most of the other programmers drive 60 miles a day for work). I suppose I could cycle, but, at the moment, there's snow on the ground, (my least favourite cycling condition).
Oh well, at least, given my last job-search experience, it shouldn't be to hard to find something else if I decide this really isn't for me. (I shouldn't be saying that after only one week).

First 1.5 Days

Well, yeah. New job, eh? Well, well.

Had a very brief induction yesterday morning, with the threat/promisle of more to come. Spent most of yesterday installing software, in a very specific order, and got done about 4pm. Spent the rest of the day, and this morning, looking at the workflow software they're using here.

So first - Installing things in a specific order.
WTF? Why, when I go to install Biztalk, can it not tell me that I need to install SQL Analysis server first? To be fair, Microsoft have go their shit together with some of their newer products, but when it's their own, freely downloadable components, it should install them for you. Like installing Sharepoint Portal Server (SPS) Service Pack 1. It tells you that you first need to upgrade Windows Sharepoint Services (WWS) to SP1, but, comeon, surely if it's checking for that, I could download/install that for you?
As for 3rd party components, a tool should tell you what it expects if it's not installed. If it needs to be installed before another component, then why can't it check for that component and then inform you to remove it before you continue?
Dependencies are a very complex thing, and when it's left to the customer to deal with that, what chance have they got? (Talking of which, their 'legacy' (which are their live) systems only compile on one machine. great).

Second then - Training Material.
Yes, I realise this is the course notes of a training course, but really. It's dull, poorly laid out, and alternative stupidly detailed, and then uselessly terse. I'm half way through, and I'm struggling to be bothered.

Oh well, soldier on. Perhaps soon I'll be let in on their project design... Have 0.5 of a clue, but I'm going to have to ask for more details on standards, procedures, etc etc.

Am a little concerned that the project plan doesn't quite work, and that there's a six week 'integraton testing' phase scheduled in at the end. Surely this should be a continuous thing?

Antiques Roadshow

I'm a bit apprehensive about the new job. I've had a think about what they said to me at the interview. I think they're on the case with the whole flexible solution business, using biz-talk and separating the workflow from the business logic. The thing that's worrying the agilist in me is that they said they aim to do their first release in 9 months. And that they're not looking at getting any testers in yet. It all smells of waterfall to me, and I think we both know that is the path to hectic coding around release date, and fixes lasting forever.

I hope I'm being unduly precaucious here, but if not, I'm just wondering what the best way of getting through to them that they need to deliver smaller chunks, or even how they can deliver smaller chunks if they're rebuilding everything. I suppose I'll have a better idea at the end of next week, when I've seen what they're doing and how they're doing it.

Oh, and Huddersfield is apparently shit for vegan lunches. Damn.

I don't usually blog...

...about code, but with me starting a new job on Monday, I might start. It's something I'm quite passionate about.

So, here goes:

I've spent this job (the one I'm leaving :D) increasingly writing more complex code, thinking I'm writing 'proper' n-tier applications. I've got all my business objects defined. I'm using NHibernate to map these to my relational database system. I have some gel sitting between my application and NHibernate, that I've called a Data Access Layer. I've used interfaces, and have some config files that allows me to plug-in different parts of code. All is happy.

Then, two days ago, I stumbled across Jeremy D. Miller's Blog.

WOW!!!

The first article I read was about how most unit tests are actually integration tests. Some of the code on the site, and Jeremy's beloved Structure Map examples, illustrate how to really write loosely coupled code.
By coding to interfaces, rather than to concrete classes, and then using dependency injection, a really loosely coupled, and highly flexible, system can be created.
One of the offshoots of this is that you can then write much more granular tests, using mock objects for the dependencies. Suddenly something clicked. I've been doing it all wrong.

Then, last night, on the train home, I happened to have Martin Folwer's Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture with me, and I happened to be flicking through it. Like with the original patterns book, I'd never really looked at this much, just bought it because it looked good, flicked through most of the content, and never really took the time to understand it. Perhaps, even, like with the patterns books, I wasn't in a place to understand it.

Anyway, I happened to open the book at the Transaction Script page. I read the description, never having looked at this pattern before, heading straight for the Domain Model. In association with the transaction script's description, I turned to the Data Transfer Object page. Things were starting to look a little familiar.

Perhaps there's a blurry line between the two, but my Data Access Layers look more like a mess of Transactions Scripts and a Table Data Gateway.

Perhaps, some time ago, I should have studied the Service Layer pattern. I think that by using a combination of this, programming to interfaces, and a proper Domain Model, I can start to see a far more flexible system developing.

It's all falling into place, and I want to write some code to play with these ideas. See if I can write some code that uses a database, yet doesn't require a database to test the application logic. See if I can write Controllers for the domain model, and implement different interfaces from them without having to rewrite either business rules or application control logic. See if I can program all this using Test Driven Development. And, of course, try out the most recent build of ReSharper 2.0.

Perhaps the new job will provide me with this opportunity. I certainly hope so.

*I also hope they've stopped using SourceSafe. I've had enough of it.

Holiday...touch myself

Well, not really touching myself.

So, anyway, has last week off. Last minute plans were:

• Monday
  Drive to A's parents.
• Tuesday
  Get train to London, and take in its sights (most notably Tate Modern), back to A's parents' house.
  
• Wednesday
  Spend Day with A's parents
  
• Thursday
  Unhurriedly travel to Bristol, mooch around there, meet A's sister for tea, back to A's parents' house.
  
• Friday
  Drive home; spend weekend doing DIY.

Now what actually happened was:

• Sunday
  Attempt to go on walk on Marsden Moor. Get 20 yards onto the moor, and call it off due to wet weather. Come back via petrol station so that I can fill up car and check tyres.
  
• Monday
  After a delayed start, we decide to drive to A's parents' via Manchester, where we would try and stop at Earth Cafe for lunch. I wanted to get some trousers, too, so would take the opportunity to get some whilst in Manchester. So, we quickly through some stuff in a bag, and set off.
  We get about fifteen miles, and are doing about 70mph along the M62, when there's a kind of fizzing sound, and the engine of the car starts slowing the car down. This is just past Junction 22, heading west, so we're going downhill, and I manage to pull over to the hard shoulder will minimal fuss, although I did have to cut some old man up, which I apologise for.
  Call Green Flag, who say they'll get someone out within an hour. In their usual manner, they text and say someone should be with us in 45 minutes. All I can say is, it's bloody cold up on the side of the M62, and there was nowhere to shelter. Still, at least 45 minutes passes quite quick when you're on the edge.
  Mechanic takes one look and says it's the timing belt, which requires a complete engine rebuild, and he'll have to tow us back home (well, we specified that he towed us home, technically, he could have taken us anywhere). So back home we go, unload the car and sulk all afternoon. Mechanic said to phone round the garages, as it could cost between £400 and £600 to fix. Bugger.
• Tueday
  Catch train to manchester, and then spend the afternoon shopping. And eating at earth cafe.
• Wednesday
  Go on walk on Marsden moor. Man it's beautiful up there, even if I did get muddy, and nearly blown off the top of Pule Hill. The feeling of being on top of the rail tunnel I've been through so many times was quite unsettling, and the sheer isolation of it was unnerving, but it was a thoroughly amazing walk. First time I've had to use a compass in ernest too. I'll have to remember to take my camera next time I go up there...
• Thursday
  Mooched around the house
  
• Friday
  Went to Liverpool. Never been there before. Some nice bits, some crumbly bits, and spent so long looking at art that my head started hurting. The Christian Janowski exhibition at FACT is quite challenging - lots of stuff going on, and nearly reached the point of sensory overload. Interesting though. One bit was about what people felt film was for.
  Managed to catch a train home that required no changes. Felt weird being able to do that.
• Weekend
  DIY hell. Well, went all right. Electic sanders save a lot of work.

Overall, it was a nice holiday, even if the car did die and change all our plans. I'm now left wondering whether to get the car fixed, or whether to get a new car, although if I did the latter, I'd probably want to get a hybrid, which cost about £16k, a bit much at the moment. Hmmmm.

The seasons are changing

It was light yesterday when I left for work, and very nearly light when I got home too. This is something of a relief, as it means the dark days of winter are finally on their way out!
It's seems strange that this should happen this week, as on the weekend, I went to an Imbolc celebration in Marsden on Saturday. It was a unique experience, what with the strange rituals involving lots of fire, and an enactment of the Green Man (spring) overcoming Jack Frost, and the sun being resurected. I took lots of pictures, but with it being dark, my camera being shit, and me not using a tripod, they're all a bit blurry. I will flickr the least blurry of them.
When Jack Frost was defeated, the whole crowd roared, a huge celebration of the fact that the lighter days, and the new year, is truly upon us.

Amy present ideas two

Washbag
stripey socks
nice cards
book - alice through the looking glass; jeeves and worcester
chocolate
Ashtanga book
--
Michael rowed the boat assure

Amy christmas present ideas.

Brain dump. Part one.

Hair brush from bodyshop
peepshow dvds
Azendi underwear
Rowan knitware stuff
tape/record player
hair straighteners

Leeds Film Festival

Ok, not blogged for a while, and I've been meaning to, especially to write up the (mostly) excellent films I saw at the 2005 Leeds Film Festival. What I managed to see represented a varied selection of incredible films, and despite the odd cock-up (like Francesco Rosi's Illustrious Corpses without subtitles!), it was a really fun, if tiring week.

TABOUS (Zohre & Manouchehr)
http://www.tabous-lefilm.com/
An interesting look at sex in Iran, intermingled with some arty poemy thing. The poemy thing was a bit wishy-washy, but the documentary part was really interesting. Things like a surgeon's repeated hymen restorative surgery on a woman, as it is difficult for women to get married without being a virgin. Hence, there was the prostitute who only had anal sex with her clients. It is, in fact, illegal to have sex outside of marriage, and couples found out (or reported) will be publically beaten. However, there is Sigheh, or temporary marriage, but that was unfortunately not really explained in the film. I thought it was an interesting documentary, and certainly should more through it's investigation about sex than just attitudes towards sex in Iran. For me, it showed the conflict between modernisation (and liberalisation, including increased rights for women) and tradditionalist Islamic views. Sorry the site's in french.

The Children Of Leningradsky
http://www.childrenofleningradsky.com/
This was a fantastically moving film about a community (for want of a better word) of homeless children who live in and around Leningradsky Station in Moscow. Most of the kids on the film were below 15years old. It honestly made me cry. Watch it, and tell your friends about it, but more importantly DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Seeing little kids drinking Vodka, sniffing glue, sleeping on hot-water pipes, being abused by the public and the police, was very upsetting, but it also says something about our world: how we can spend millions upon millions of pounds killing each other, and yet cannot find the money to give every child somewhere safe and secure to grow up?

This film was shown with the next one.

Russia/Chechnya - Voices of Dissent
http://www.taskovskifilms.com/films.htm [scroll to the bottom]
An interesting, if, in someplaces brief, overview of the situation in Chechnya. Not knowing anything about Chechnya, or the Russian's role/intentions there, it was very revealing. Frankly, it looks likes Russia's own little Palestine, but far bloodier, and kept a lot quieter. It did try to offer a range of views; those from Chechnyan's in exile, those from former Russian Government, and those of the mothers of soldiers who had fought in Chechnya. A very interesting piece in deed, and I think I'd like to see it again, without having seen the Leningrdsky film first.

White Ravens: Nightmares in Chechnya
An exploration of two soldiers who came back from Chechnya in very different states: one less an arm and a leg, and the other one deeply traumatised. We're left partially in the dark about what happened to them, but the effects are clear. Again, very interesting film, especially tied in with the Voices of Dissent film. I suppose I was a bit bored by this point, but the film was a bit slack in places, and could have done with a but of editing. The idea of getting different people to try and guess what had happened to some Chechnya prisoners was interesting, but seemed to be peripheral to the main subject of the film. I suppose it needed something strong to bring it all together.

...And that was just satuday 5th November.

On sunday I saw:

Being Caribou
http://www.beingcaribou.com/
Wow. Some amazing scenery, some tense moments, some funny bits, and some touching footage of the slendid Caribous. Inspired by the fact that 'they' (Dubya, of course) want to drill for Oil in the Caribou's calving grounds, this couple follow the Caribou's migration, both to and from their calving ground. It was interesting, and worked best when it showed the couple struggling to keep up with the caribou, hiding in their tent not wanting to disturb the caribou, or frenetic with adrenalin after a close call with a grizzly. There was some amazing footage, and some amazing scenary, but there were just a few moments that were a bit too much like holiday footage for me. I think I enjoyed it more as it went along.

Then, as previously mentioned, I was meant to see Francesco Rosi's Illustrious Corpses. However, after ten minutes of the film, it became apparent the copy of the film didn't have subtitles on it. So I went to see a collection of UK Short Films. A mixed bag. Some I liked, some I could have gone without. David Shrigley's "Who I am and What I want" [FGI!] was both amusing and slightly disturbing. Excellent.

Mardi Gras: Made In China
This is a fantastic film. What it shows is how a product is made, and how it is used. During the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, floats (and people) give women beads (cheat, plastic beaded necklaces) in exchange for a flash of their tits. Simple really. However, what this film shows is the, predominantly, girls who work long hours for low pay to make the necklaces, the factory owner who makes a fair bit, and the party goers who don't want to think about it. One of the latter group, when questioned on where he thinks the beads come from, gives a reasonably accurate answer, then says something along the lines of "don't bog me down with that shit, I'm here to have a good time and I don't care if people have suffered so that I can enjoy myself." Was really good, showing the link between China and America. A marvellous idea, well executed.

More to follow - I saw a whole load more films, including: Refusniks; Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land; Favela Rising; Battleground: 21 Days on the Empire's Edge; Kim Ki-duk's The Bow; North Korea: A Day In the Life; And Thereafter; and Abel Raises Cain. I'll try and write these up before I forget them!

Trains are ruining my life...

wednesday - train from huddersfield to home delayed. it said by ten minutes, but it was more like twenty by the time i got home.
thursday - train from huddersfield to leeds, delayed by 15 minutes. trains home: laugh. I nearly shat. Trains from leeds - huddersfield were just crazy. got the 1740 train at 1757, and managed to get home by seven pm. A took nearly two hours to get home from dewsbury - she was delayed getting from dewsbury to huddersfield, so she missed one train, then the next train was so late, it went straight through to manchester, and so was waiting on huddersfield station for nearly an hour.
Saw Mr Scruff at Leeds Met last night. So good. I don't dance much, but you can't help it when you're in his presence, and when the whole room was dancing, and this was no small room. Good work, Mr Scruff, keep it up!

On the train...i wish i was

Last night's journey was only five minutes delayed.
however, A, who works until 7pm on tuesday, had her train delayed by about 20mins. This meant she missed the connection in huddersfield, and i had to go and pick her up.
Had a strange dream, wheRe i was on the train and my boss was on a high-spec mountain bike, free wheeling beside the train, and keeping up. There was also a child on a much older bike, and she was ahead of my boss.
This morning's huddersfield to leeds train is 15mins late.
Still feeling ok, just quite tired today.
I'm impressed by George Galloways' Gall, and disappointed that, in the face of massive evidence that it's a huge health risk, the government still won't ban smoking in public places. A made the observation that it's probably due to the tabacco industry lobby, and, after listening to This Morning, i can't help thinking that the big drinks companies are in on the lobbying act too.
As mark thomas repeatly said, we're all [truly] fucked.

Tuesday am

Tuesday am,
originally uploaded by b3ardman.

I didn't get home until 7.10pm last night. All in, i spent about three and a half hours travelling to work and back.
Spoke to a about feeling how i do, and it's made it seem a bit better. See how today goes...

Ups and downs

Everything constantly changes, even if it's only by minute amounts. It's the minute amounts that are the worrying changes. When things change rapidly, it's easy to notice and take action. The minute changes aren't noticable until you compare them with the way they used to be.
I think i'm slowly sliding into a deep depression. I can't be entirely sure, but I've not felt excited about anything for a long time. Even getting inspiration has been an effort. Whilst I've generally been feeling apethetic, life has seemed particularly dull lately. Even seeing mark thomas was, to be truthful, disappointing. I have no appetite for work, or reading, and whilst i'll still tinker with things, i don't think I've had the same "stay up all night" enthusiasm.
I don't know What's causing this, whether it's the lack of sleep, or whether that's because of the depression. I feel the need to batten down the hatches and set in for what will be a very dull, but still unbearably difficult, time ahead. Not crisis point yet, but it feels like the brink of something. I just wish it wasn't happening.

More trains

My train from huddersfield to leeds is 30mins late this morning, and the next one is delayed by 25mins. [Apparently this is due to a train failure.]
Had a quiet weekend. Took garden waste to the dump, and a's sister, s, came over on sunday.
We went over to tia greyhound rescue, near stalybridge, last night, and walked some of their dogs. the one's we walked were all so timid, and all very well behaved. None of them needed much of a walk. Nice to take then out though, must try and go over there again soon.

Bah!

This is ridiculous. If the trains were always late, like the three hour late one i caught in India, then i could allow for that; factor it into the journey.
With them being late or cancelled (and this is the train companies stats) 10% of the time, you never know if you're going to be left in the lurch, yet they're still on time regularly enough to prevent most people from making a formal complaint.
Is this part of a larger trend? Has the current society found exactly the lowest level of comfort that humans need to be at to prevent them from "taking matters into their own hands"? Are we, as a whole, better off than any other time in history, or are we still stuck under the same repression that's inherent in any hierarchical system, just kept distracted better? there's a lot of evidence both ways, but what if better living, health and educational conditions are just more effective ways of making us more productive?
Ikea's latest slogan, "if your kitchen costs less, you have to work less", is systematic of this point of view. It suggests that if you work hard, you'll get a reward, and completely ignores the fact that, probably, most people have to take a loan out to afford a new kitchen, which means they'll actually end up paying more. And don't think that Ikea doesn't know this. They're more than happy to lend you some of their profit, they've made out of you, so that they can get their greedy claws on even more of your hard come by cash. (It's not just Ikea, look at how many other stores have credit schemes.)
why do we stand for this? why do i put up with spending most of my waking hours, during the most productive years of my life, stuck behind a desk, dealing with people who take it all too seriously?
at the moment, it's so i can pay the mortgage, which will keep me tied down for the next 25 years. Is that enough reward? Evidently, yes.

Thursday

I'm waiting for the train, which so far this week has been late twice and cancelled once. not being one to complain, i haven't, but it's a disgrace that this service, that i subsidise and pay for, and rely on to get me to work, is so poorly run.
That's just the first leg of my journey too!
The main part (huddersfield to/from leeds), the service is so full that they've had to start getting station staff to move standing passengers into the center of the carriages. Not only does this suck, but it's clearly a hazard to those passengers without a seat. Sure, they've not started with passengers on the roof yet, but it won't be long.

to be fair, the train arrived on time, and i got a seat on the second train too.