Thursday 24 June 2010

O Frabjous Day! etc

It's been a day of celebrations. Last night, I attended a farewell dinner for a fine colleague and close friend who's leaving The Hegemon. Apparently a rather senior manager remarked in a meeting, in tones of total shock that 'she's going to another job!'. This isn't a comment on my friend's abilities, but on The Hegemon's predilection for sacking large numbers of people.

Today, I went for a cup of tea with one of my wonderful graduands - a mature student who grabbed every opportunity going and has proved the value of education. She's worked hard, had a year abroad in a French university, then returned to submit a mighty fine thesis on Elizabeth Gaskell and, armed with a First Class degree, is off for postgraduate work at the prestigious Shakespeare Institute - and she's not the only one of this year's graduates to follow this route. It's been a brilliant year - lots of excellent students doing very well.

Finally, the real celebration will be later this afternoon. After a mere 5 months of asking, begging, pleading, appealing and praying to higher management and enlisting the support of various bosses and colleagues, our office has been awarded a new printer cartridge of our very own. I've sought this prize with more dedication and hard work than CERN seeks the Higgs Boson.

I'd like to thank God, my family, my friends, my line manager, my colleagues, the bureaucrats and of course all my fans. It's been an emotional and spiritual journey which I'm proud to have shared with all you wonderful people. At last, we can all move forward. Thank you so, so much.

If anyone would like to witness the unveiling and installation of this magnificent bauble, the ceremony commences at 2.00 after I collect it from the administrators.

Why else should we celebrate? It's iPhone 4 day: my friend Christine queued for 3 hours and couldn't buy one, and Australia has a new, Welsh, Labor Party Prime Minister. I liked Kevin Rudd, but he arsed things up fairly spectacularly, and the Aussies don't mess around in politics. I bet Brown wishes he'd been able to defenestrate Blair this easily.

Meanwhile, here's a 1911 Labour poster which sums up the new regime's budget to perfection.

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