Credit Crunch – Office

Came across this viral at work and it made me giggle hehe.

DUE TO THE CREDIT CRUNCH, THIS IS TO BE YOUR NEW OFFICE!

NEW OFFICE POLICY – EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY

Dress Code:

1) You are advised to come to work dressed according to your salary.

2) If we see you wearing Prada shoes and carrying a Gucci bag, we will assume you are doing well financially and therefore do not need a raise.

3) If you dress poorly, you need to learn to manage your money better, so that you may buy nicer clothes, and therefore you do not need a raise.

4) If you dress just right, you are right where you need to be and therefore you do not need a raise.

Sick Days:
We will no longer accept a doctor’s statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.

Personal Days:
Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturdays & Sundays.

Bereavement Leave:
This is no excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives or co-workers. Every effort should be made to have non-employees attend the funeral arrangements in your place. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary, the funeral should be scheduled in the late afternoon. We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and subsequently leave one hour early.

Bathroom Breaks:
Entirely too much time is being spent in the toilet. There is now a strict three-minute time limit in the stalls. At the end of three minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, the stall door will open, and a picture will be taken. After your second offense, your picture will be posted on the company bulletin board under the ‘Chronic Offenders’ category. Anyone caught smiling in the picture will be sectioned under the company’s mental health policy.

Lunch Breaks:
* Skinny people get 30 minutes for lunch, as they need to eat more, so that they can look healthy.

* Normal size people get 15 minutes for lunch to get a balanced meal to maintain their average figure.

* Chubby people get 5 minutes for lunch, because that’s all the time needed to drink a Slim-Fast.

Niki Evans – Cast as Mrs Johnstone in Blood Brothers

Hurrah – very exciting news! D

My favourite X-Factor contestant from last year, Niki Evans (who I had tipped to win from the audition stage onwards), is soon to be appearing in Blood Brothers!!! (Details below the video clips)

The top three videos below are of Niki’s amazing performances on 2007’s X-Factor; the fourth is Niki’s new single “Love Me No More” and the final video is a clip of the cast of Blood Brothers performing at the 1993 Tony Awards.

I’m looking forward to watching this already!!!

One of last year’s most popular X–Factor semi finalists has landed the much coveted leading role of Mrs Johnstone in Willy Russell’s musical Blood Brothers.

Mum of two Niki Evans, from Birmingham, won the hearts of millions as one of the most popular female artists ever to appear in the hit TV show with her extraordinary renditions of such songs as ‘Fields of Gold’, ‘Songbird’, and ‘All That Jazz’.

Niki, whose debut single ‘Love Me No More’ was released on 15th September, will make her debut in Blood Brothers at the Birmingham Hippodrome Theatre for two weeks from the 20th October, before she commences a 6 month run in the West End in London’s Phoenix Theatre.

Marti Webb, who is currently playing the role of Mrs Johnstone on tour, has agreed to return to London to play at the Phoenix for the two weeks that Niki is in Birmingham. Marti then rejoins the tour of Blood Brothers on Monday 3rd November.

The celebrated role of Mrs Johnstone has been played by such well-known actresses as Stephanie Lawrence, Clodagh Rodgers, Kiki Dee, Lyn Paul, Siobhan McCarthy, and four of the Nolan sisters (Linda, Bernie, Denise and Maureen).

Blood Brothers has been running in London’s West End since July 1988. In the USA, it has had a record-breaking Broadway run, a hugely successful coast-to-coast tour, and was nominated for seven Tony Awards. Telling the captivating and moving story of twin boys separated at birth, only to be re-united by a twist of fate and a mother’s haunting secret, the memorable score includes A Bright New Day, Marilyn Monroe and the emotionally charged hit Tell Me It’s Not True.

Memory Cloud by Minimaforms : Trafalgar Square, London

Just came across the website for this posted online, and thought I’d share.

I do like all of the random arty things that we have in London, and this certainly piques my interest.

One of the benefits of working in Central London means that it’s relatively easy to get to these kind of things, so I’m sure that I’ll be updating this blog post with photos from the display shortly D I like the idea that it gives everyday people the chance to publically express themselves on a grand scale… it’s like shouting out as loud as you can, without anyone thinking that you’re crazy!

I’m sure that some people will try and get swear words and the like up there, however that’s no doubt part of the social experiment – and I’m sure that they’ll find that people will try it initially for a giggle to see if it really does work and then settle down and get used to the technology and put it to good use.

Memory Cloud will be in Trafalgar Square between the 8th and 10th October 2008.

Memory Cloud by Minimaforms : Trafalgar Square, London

The ICA is proud to present Memory Cloud by Minimaforms (www.minimaforms.com), an incredible transient light environment set to transform London’s Trafalgar Square in October. Memory Cloud is based on smoke signals – one of the oldest forms of visual communication, for three nights the public will be invited to participate by sending text messages that will be grafted onto plumes of smoke. Fusing ancient and contemporary forms of communication, Memory Cloud creates a dynamic hybrid space that will project personal statements as part of an evolving text, animating the built environment through conversation. The method of textual inscription works with light as virtual ink that perceptually writes and erases through a cinematic interplay with the external environment. Memory Cloud aims to motivate social interaction through the construction of an environment that is given form through a collective act of writing space.

Mario Frangoulis – Royal Albert Hall

Last night, I was fortunate enough to be at the Royal Albert Hall to watch Mario Frangoulis (and friends – Justin Hayward, Lara Fabian, Natasha Marsh and Steve Balsamo) perform a selection of arias, operatic numbers and west-end hits.

I must say, I was fantastically impressed!

The venue itself is one that I had not previously been to and so I was very excited about going to the venue as much as I was about taking an evening of classical music and opera.

 

The National Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Anthony Inglis) were on hand to provide the music, and sounded absolutely delightful, whilst Frangoulis himself was on excellent form. At the start of the second part, he even walked back to the stage through the audience – there were so many people reaching out and wanting to touch him, and he obliged, building it into his performance, which I think is rather decent of him! How many other concerts can you go to and have actually touched the main performer?!

Mario Frangoulis’ official website

I am a fan of classical music and opera and going to the Royal Albert Hall to take an evening of entertainment in has been high on my list for months now. I’m so pleased that I finally got to do it, and especially thrilled that this was the first performance which I have been able to see there.

In fact, I was so impressed that I am already in the process of purchasing some of his albums. Absolutely magnificent and truly a delightful evening – I didn’t stop smiling once! If you get a chance to watch Frangoulis, I’d heartily recommend that you pop along!

Large Hadron Collider forced to halt

Latest News on CERN’s LHC :

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Hadron Collider forced to halt

Hopefully this won’t prove *too* problematic as, given the cracking start things got off to earlier in the month, it would be fantastic to see that success continued throughout the project.

Although they may not be able to begin smashing particles next week, given as how they were initially scheduled to be doing this in Mid-October, I don’t think that we can complain too much D

UPDATE: LHC out of action for ‘at least two months’

Rick and Steve : The Happiest Gay Couple In All The World

I’ve heard mixed reviews about the new show by Q. Allan Brocka;

Rick and Steve : The Happiest Gay Couple In All The World

Personally, I saw this when it aired in the States last year, and the first series, although short at 6 episodes, was absolutely fantastic I thought. I’ve just started re-watching it on E4 at the moment.

That said, my sense of humour is somewhat different from other peoples I guess and, although it fits in with a lot of the people who I converse with online and certain gay web communities, I appreciate that it’s not for everyone. Indeed one of the people that I know was absolutely outraged by it. I guess it all depends on your view points, the type of social environment that you place yourself in, and what you consider to be acceptable humour. It goes without saying that this show is not for children or those who offend easily.

I think this is actually an advancement of gay rights, and not a step backwards as some have suggested. At the end of the day, you could apply the same argument to Queer as Folk, and again to every time they put a camp-as-tits actor on Corrie. They may be stereotypical or you may not feel that they are relevant to you, however at the same time, they are getting gay people and gay-media into the spotlight, normalising it, and that’s got to be a good thing.  Do you think every straight person relates to everything on TV? Of course not, not every character on TV has to relate to you, whether gay, straight or whatever! Hopefully shows like this will help to make gay-media a little more mainstream so that higher budgets can be attracted and some quality stuff can be produced, rather than the current low-budget that gay media generally gets.

I absolutely hated South Park when it came out, so I can see where folk are coming from, however I think you could argue that in terms of its ‘shock-value’ this is no different to that show really.

Q. Allan Brocka is a great gay director though – perhaps most well known for ‘Eating Out’ staring the delicious Ryan Carnes! (any excuse to be able to post a picture hehe!). 

Ryan Carnes appears in 'Eating Out'

I was rather surprised to see that Q. Allan Brocka was going to be doing something such as this, as it is a little bit of a niche market in my opinion. That said, he’s managed to get this fairly mainstream, the digital TV station ‘E4’ in the UK has picked it up and is currently airing it 22:30 every Wednesday evening.

E4’s website for Rick and Steve

A few ‘big’ names lend their vocal talents to this show include Lori Alan (Family Guy) as ‘Ivory’, Wilson Cruz (‘Angel’ in Rent 1998, and also ‘Angel’ in the film Party Monster’) Lorna Luft (Judy Garland’s daughter) provides the voice of ‘Joanna’ and Alan Cumming provides the voice of ‘Chuck’.  A great range of vocals there from actors with a lot of experience with working within media with gay themes running through them.

Well worth a watch in my opinion!

News And Views Update

A bit of a personal update for my blog as once again, it’s been a while!

The most exciting bit of news that I have to share is that Greg and I are moving in together – hurrah! We started looking at the end of August and were lucky to find somewhere 5 weeks before we were planning on moving (29th September 2008). Therefore, the process involved in finding somewhere to live actually wasn’t all that stressful (well, I don’t think that it was!). The stress is really building up now though in preparation for the move – erk!

We’re moving to a really nice new-build development out in Zone 6 of London – everything is brand new and shiny – hurrah! I’m a big fan of new builds and so, after putting up with the general standard of housing in the Capital, I am really looking forward to something new again. Plus, you never find spiders in new build developments!

It’ll also be fab to get to live with Mister Greg too of course! Really looking forward to getting settled down with him – very exciting!:)

In other news, work seems to be going well for me with several new and interesting focuses being moved into my realm with one or two of the more ‘icky’ ones / ones which are no longer relevant to my role hopefully scheduled to be handed over to other colleagues in the near future.

I’ve adjusted my hours so that I now work on a Sunday, though I get Wednesdays off instead (most of the time, dependant on when Month End falls). Although some may baulk at the idea of this, it’s actually really beneficial and it was work that approached me to see if I could do it in the first place. Ultimately, the office is nice and quiet, I’m the only one in, and so I can have my music on full whack and dance around like a loon, I can get so much more work done and I can work to my own pace without interruption. It is also required for some of the new focuses I’ve been tasked with at the moment. This also fits in very nicely with Mister Greg’s working hours, plus I get Wednesdays off – always good to get a day out of the office during the normal working week!

The other day I realized that I’d been with my current employer for 4 years exactly – not a bad achievement I think considering my current age! It’s flown by, but yet dragged – it’s kinda weird to try and apportion it all out given the multitude of roles that I’ve had over the years and the constant move onwards and upwards. In another year, I get some vouchers – hurrah!

For the moment, I am really happy about everything and how it’s all going. Well, pretty much everything. A few times recently I’ve felt a little bit like I don’t get to see some of my friends as often as I used to. I’ve especially noticed this at parties whereby people have all re-grouped together and I feel like I’m being a little intrusive by being there and thus end up sitting on the sidelines on my own and feeling awkward. Sure it’s just me being stupid and that none of the group dynamics have actually changed, and so hopefully I’ll feel a bit better about everything on that score soon as I really do have a cracking set of friends that I enjoy spending time with. It’s probably due to the change in seasons or something equally as old-housewives-tales-y hehe.

TV wise, I’m currently enjoying Neighbours, Mock The Week, X Factor; Xtra Factor; Stargate Atlantis; Hairspray School Musical and am eagerly looking forward to Strictly Come Dancing and Merlin. Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives, The Simpsons and Family Guy all start new seasons in the US at the end of the month, (not to be confused with the UK series’ – many of which are coming back mid-season from the writers strike earlier in the year) which again I am really looking forward to!

I keep on meaning to start playing on my PS2 again – I bought Final Fantasy XII and Kingdom Hearts II about 8 months ago, and despite being hugely excited about them, have yet to see anything other than the opening video on FFXII – grr @ me! The idea of having to spend 3 days building up my character is what’s currently putting me off I think, as I’ve not really got the time to do that anymore. Greg bought me Buzz for my birthday the other month, which we both really enjoyed playing. We also purchased a cheap geeky game where you get to race trains across various terrains/underground – it may be cheap and geeky, but it’s awesome!!! Hehe.

I’ve also gotten used to the new Facebook design, and on reflection, don’t think that it’s as bad as I had originally pegged it. That said, there have been numerous changes from when I first saw the site a few months ago and now that it’s a mandatory format for everyone.

Off out for a few drinks with a friend from Manchester this evening, I am at The Royal Albert Hall tomorrow to watch Mario Frangoulis with a couple of friends, and then doing the (dreaded?!) meet the parents thing on Saturday afternoon over a BBQ – which I’m sure won’t be half as bad as I worry that it will be hehe.

The nerves are really kicking in now though!!! I even went out and bought a whole new outfit and everything! From what I’ve heard of them, they sound very nice and so I’m looking forward to it. It can’t be any more car-crashy (in a good way though) than when I met Marc’s parents…. He’d not announced to them that I was coming and was planning to just spring me on them. Now me being me, I said that wasn’t really fair on them and so when we got there I went and hid around the corner as he was supposedly just nipping in for a quick minute to pick something up. Next thing I know, his Mum comes rooting through the hedge that I’d pressed myself into and said ‘So, you must be Gari then. Why on Earth are you hiding?!’ *BLUSH!* hehe! I blame my misguided sense of politeness kicking in and making me do strange things hehe – it does that quite frequently unfortunately. It goes without saying that the embarrassment of being found pressed into some bushes far out-weighted the embarrassment I may have felt being sprung to someone’s parents unannounced on their door-step! Still, that was about 4 years ago now… fortunately my bush hiding skills have developed a lot more since then P hehe.

So, there you have it; a snap-shot of how life is for me at the moment and some of my current thoughts. I think I’m perhaps the most relaxed and content that I’ve been since moving down to London – which is fantastic.

Long may that continue!

Thanks for reading xx

RENT : “Goodbye Love”

So, on Sunday past (7th September), the musical ‘RENT’ closed after a stonking 12 year run on Broadway.

I did pen a blog post on how much I love the musical RENT a few months ago (which you can find HERE); this post is more in relation to the recent Broadway closing.

I came across the below clip on YouTube of the final bow, I must say, I was incredibly tearful – it’s one heck of an emotive musical, and for me this finale ramped up that emotion to the max!

I should say at this point, I had nothing to do with the making of this video, nor condone the recording of images within a theatre. That said, I’m very glad that somebody did so that we could all get to see these final moments! Great to see that many of the original cast managed to make it back too!

Quite a few press reviews of the last night and some photos on the press page of the official site.

One bit of amazing news though - they filmed the last show!!!

It seems that they’ll be showing it in U.S. Movie Theatres during the month of September, though it doesn’t seem that anything will happen in the U.K.

I SO hope that they release it as a DVD somewhere in the World as I’ll definitely be first in line to purchase it!!!!

There’s speculation that it’s unlikely to ever come out on DVD, however I can’t see Sony Pictures sitting on this one forever – they’re a film company, of course they’ll (eventually!) release the rights to license it onto DVD… I hope so anyway! You wouldn’t film it, market a trailer etc for it if there was just to be a handful of showings!

Exciting stuff, and I’m sure that once the show toured around for a while, that this production will be back on Broadway where it belongs in no time at all!

Cher : Dark Lady

I was watching Cher’s Farewell Tour [2002] on DVD this evening and happened across this song.

Always loved it and danced along whenever I’ve heard it; however this is the first time that I’ve took notice of there also being an animated piece that went along with it, originally broadcast on the Sonny and Cher show c. 1974.

Fabulous! D

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider

I must say, I am getting a little bored of all of the people who are proclaiming that the World will end on Wednesday 10th September 2008 when CERN activate their Large Hadron Collider.

T’is pure piffle; the chances of that happening are absolutely minuscule – especially when there are similar (though admittedly smaller) particle colliders in operation today that have operated without incident for years. Although they can’t say for sure exactly what will happen, they have a rough idea (i.e. that means they’re probably 98% certain!) of what they think will occur, and a huge ’Black Hole’ is certainly not one of those things.

On Wednesday 10th September, all that CERN are doing is bringing the machine online and firing the protons around in an anti-clockwise direction to test the system strength etc. before they run the same test in a clockwise direction later in the month. It should be about mid-October before any of the particle smashing actually starts to happen.

Back in August, they managed to get the magnets cooled to the required minus 271oC and sent a low-intensity proton beam partially around the ‘track’. Wednesday 10th September will mark the first time that a proton beam has completed a full circuit of the ‘track’. As the full circuit has not been tested in it’s entirety, there’s every chance that they may not even manage one complete circuit and thus they may have to do some additional tinkering with the magnets etc, which could possibly take some time. Once they successfully have the beam going round once, they will close the circuit and allow it to continuously traverse the ‘track’.

The fact that those protons will be wizzing around a 17 mile tunnel 11,000 times per second is one statistic that I cannot even begin to comprehend though! Blimey!

For the Science geeks amongst us, I found a BBC Four programme called “The Big Bang Machine” to be fantastic on explaining what’s going on, what they hope to achieve along with some stunning images of the apparatus they’ll be using and images from previous experiments with particle physics. A definite ‘one to watch’ if you’d like to see the ‘full’ story on how it’s all going to work.

“The Big Bang Machine” on BBC iPlayer.

I also came across a link to this website posted on an internet forum that I frequent from time-to-time. The piece is, of course, a satire/spoof, and a marvellously funny one at that hehe! By “… your favourite celebrities” I was laughing a little too loudly at work! Hehe.

I’m certainly looking forward to seeing the remarkable images that this experiment is sure to produce and seeing what information we think that we can take from it.

Although I am at odds with the never-ending speculation that the World is in danger due to this, I do think that it’s great that this experiment has captured the imagination and spirit of so many people. Hurrah!

NB: I’d heartily recommend that folk never make the mistake of mis-spelling the word ‘Hadron’ when searching Google Images as it can get VERY embarrassing when you’re at work – OOPS! -  hehe