Yesterday there was a phone interview, as recounted in This Is Just Where I Came In, and it went well, I thought; Clearly I picked a good mix from the available behavior options.

I’d not expected to hear anything back before Friday, or more realistically Monday, and … I didn’t have a solid idea as to my chances.
Thus the call today from The Mighty Recruiter, First Of His Name came as a surprise.
As did the phrases “really really want to get him in for an interview” and “preferred candidate”.

The plan is for an interview next week, probably Thursday, so I’ll be getting myself on a train down to Buckinghamshire.
Given that they’re looking for someone to start as soon as possible, and I’m looking to not have to live in hostels anymore, this could potentially happen very quickly.

Or they could decide that they don’t much like the look of me, or I could botch the technical challenge, or they might find someone better.

Until that happens, I’ll be optimistic & hopeful.

Attempting to wrap my thoughts around the thorny issue of What To Do Next.

The conversation with a recruiter I mentioned led to a phone interview; For a variety of reasons I’m keeping a bit quiet on who it was with, but it went well.
The slightly nervous laughter from all parties turned into actual laughter, which seems encouraging.

Backtracking a little bit, to when the job interview was lined up, the dorm-room situation was clearly not going to help me prepare, nor was it the sort of thing that allows for a really good night’s sleep, even if you don’t have someone stumbling drunkenly through.
I checked with the nice hostel folks about private rooms, but the response was a sad “You ask too much of me”, followed by a “Nope”. Found an apartment hotel instead at a price I could live with, despite there being some species of sportsball event on over the weekend; I’m assuming that a studio with kitchen didn’t appeal to the one-day-stay sporting crowd.

You can’t quite see it, but there’s a microwave/convection oven off to the right, above a fridge.

Murphy Bed.

Unusual coat-hooks.

Vastly more expensive than the hostel, but it gave me the chance to sleep properly, and to have a space of my own for the first time since … October?
Worth the investment, I think.

Thanks to travel, Google Maps had been getting more and more frantic with their pleas about becoming a Local Guide, probably because I answered some questions about the places I’ve been.
I eventually decided “what the hell; why not?” and joined up, on the off chance that there might be some sort of useful thing in there.

Not sure on that, but a scroll through the “Missing Information” category demonstrated that the incredibly ghastly looking takeaway down the street from the hostel had no picture, so I took some. Actually pretty happy with how they turned out.

I extended my stay here at the Safestay Hostel, and for some reason this involved me shifting rooms.
I’m not convinced that their system is actually that good at keeping track of available rooms & bookings and so on – There were beds available when I asked, but it took a managerial type to intervene and force the system to allow said beds to be booked.
My new room?
The old room, with Pukey Van Der McGee, who was still there, though in a top bunk.

I hope the old mattress got cleaned, or replaced, or something, and they didn’t just flip it or something.
Assuming they even knew – He might not have told them, and half of the night staff didn’t seem too interested during the incident in question.

One of the great things about the Scots accent, I feel, is how well it lends itself to being caustic.
For example, you can look at the “Witnesses Reported A Controlled Detonation” situation below, and comment that its a damn fine thing that ye’re the only one in the room, otherwise leaving all of yer shite everywhere might come across as a wee bit self-centred and inconsiderate. Hypothetically.

On the plus side, the cleaners are enjoying a well-earned holiday – We got a postcard from Ibiza, and from the sound of it, they’re having a grand time.

There is a positive side to all of this.
Well, alternatively negative, shall we say?

I got back to the room today (moved in yesterday) to find that the owner of the Controlled Detonation Situation† was trying to work out why Pukey’s bed was stripped of sheets and duvet, and unusually tidy. The news that I’d seen the aforementioned Mr. Van Der McGee in the bar downstairs a few hours earlier, with all of his stuff, did not fall on pleased ears.
Turns out Pukey owned him money.
Pukey also wasn’t answering his cellphone.

Given that this was also The Guy In Bed 8 from The Ballad Of Pukey Van Der McGee, I … Had a hard time caring.

The job-hunt continues.
I have a very good conversation with a recruiter yesterday, who seemed both keen on my chances and perfectly OK with me calling back to check up on things. Trying not to get my hopes up too much, but it seemed worth trying on the pieces of interview clothing I’d bought, to make sure it all more or less worked.

OK, there’s not really any news;
Jobhunt not going well, urge to punch recruiters for being shit-useless steadily rising, and I really have no clue what to do about it.

Still, it’s a nice photo of the castle, I thought.

Yes, more stairwell pictures†; This one’s at the Safestay Hostel, which has a somewhat complex layout due to being a few buildings bodged together, so there are some odd changes in level across the floors, and the first floor is in two sections which do not connect inside the building, but you can go through a balcony above the bar to make the journey.

† These are important because of reasons.

I like the fact that, as you wander around the city, you can look down a random street and see … Actually, I’m not sure whether that’s the castle or not, now that I look at it.

OK, it’s the castle – Just checked. Corner of Bread Street and Spittal Street.

I went to see Trainspotting 2, and was able to go via this possibly familiar location to do so.

I had to look up approximately where it was, but it turns out that the location more or less makes sense; It’s a possible route one could take if running away in that area.

I wasn’t able to get a picture of it, but at one point the Spanish blockaded the hostel.
Thanks to poor tactical planning on their part, they only blocked the lobby with bags and suitcases and a milling throng of people in very bulky cold-weather gear, and paid no mind to a secret path, known only to those who’d been to the bar.

The very bulky cold-weather gear came in handy, however, when it started snowing.

Sadly, not enough to stick around, except on the tops of cars, but it was fun while it lasted; There were little flurries most of the day, and I’m told that it also snowed in other, less Scottish places, like Buckinghamshire.

The events recounted in The Ballad Of Pukey Van Der McGee gave me an idea of what to expect for the weekend, and this sign appearing on the door next door did NOT fill me with confidence that a quiet Friday night was a possibility.

Fortunately, I had a cunning plan, based mainly on the fact that a podcast recording with people in New Zealand, Canada, and the UK is going to involve somebody drawing the short straw, and since sleep probably wasn’t an option, an 0100h recording time wasn’t going to be a problem on the ‘being awake’ front.
Somewhere to record was an issue; The bar was clearly not an option, and the lobby, while quieter, would still have a lot of people passing through; Background noise is something which can be worked with, someone asking “Whatcha Doing?” is more difficult.

Also, with the things we sometimes talk about during perfectly reasonable discussions, I was worried about ending up on a watch-list.

Fortunately, those stairs I mentioned earlier because of reasons didn’t connect directly to the hallway; There was a chamber/room in between, possibly as some species of smoke control or noise control measure, and that space had an alcove which wasn’t in the path between the doors. A space with a good WiFi signal.
Thus, I was able to set up the Big Red Couch studio, Edinburgh branch, pictured below.

At 0100h, I was quite glad of that radiator. The hostel is warm enough, but windows leak heat, and there was a lot of not-warm out there. Surprisingly, nobody used the stairwell the entire time we were recording; A couple of pretty drunk (or ludicrously Scottish) women did use the stairwell afterwards, and did ask what I was up to, but were too drunk to care much about the answer.
Or understand it.
Or, after ten seconds or so, remember that they’d asked.

I’m impressed that neither of them died falling down that stairwell.

Assuming that anyone is still reading this after The Ballad Of Pukey Van Der McGee, here’s something of an update on the current situation.

That building on the left is the High Street Hostel; Window of the Lord of the Rings room was the one just above the outcropping at the far end, before the yellow-ish building starts.

Raw Hostelity

Merry & Pippin eventually left the hostel, bound for The Shire & home, though they called it … “Spain”? Am i spelling that right? It doesn’t sound like a Hobbit sort of name.
I had the room to myself for a number of nights, which was nice for a change. (and not at all creepy, unlike at the Freehand Chicago, which got disturbing at about midnight for some reason; only time I’ve ever been glad to hear someone arrive late at night)

Eventually a trio of English medical students running away from those folks who still had exams showed up.

It’s not a bad hostel, aside from the bathrooms, which are … Is there a category beyond ‘cramped’? Like, super-cramped or something? Because they’re that. This turned out to be a wonderful motivation to go to the gym, just to use a shower you didn’t have to turn sideways to get into, or a toilet where they’d accounted for feet.

They were comfortable with throwing people out, which is nice; Heard one guy being bounced because, while he was theoretically working there, nobody had actually caught him at it. Another guy was bounced for stinking up his dorm room with a huge pile of very dirty laundry, and the manager told him that the only reason he’s not been thrown out at 10pm, when the complaint was made, is that he wasn’t there to be thrown out.

Somewhere in here Gulo T., who was staying at another hostel with hopefully better showers, landed a job while in the pub. As in, left the pub to do a phone interview, and got the offer about 15 minutes later.
We went to a karaoke bar to celebrate this, and I discovered some unexpected things on their playlists.

Sadly the High Street Hostel has a two week maximum stay, so I had to leave.
The maximum stay seems to have a loophole for folks who work there, according to one of the folks who worked there.

Moved on to a place in Tollcross, the Light House, which seems to be part of a loose association of low-key Christian hostels around the world.

I couldn’t see this poster without dropping “Keep the vampires from your door” into the text.

Nice place, not a fan of the beds†, but it had a nice community feel; It was here that an idle conversation allowed me to find the Greatest Job Ad Ever!
And a shoes-off policy, which at least limited the ‘clomp’ factor on the stairs.

† Putting extra layers of padding and foam on a bed doesn’t make it better, it just makes it more likely to induce sea-sickness.

There was a special case of a room-mate this time; Not at the Pukey Van Der McGee level, but memorable in her own way.
Unpacked using the tried and true “witnesses reported an explosion” technique, spent most of the day somewhere else, and the hours between 11pm and 3am coming in and out of the room, turning on the light every time and leaving it on when she left, while people were trying to sleep.
The only thing which stopped us from, as it were, losing our shit at her is that it was pretty clear that something was going badly wrong for her. Not sure what; There were some language issues, and after the second night, some ‘giving a shit’ issues.

Sometime in here I managed to navigate the NHS and get an appointment to see a doctor.
I started at the pharmacy, on the grounds that they’d be the ones dealing with any eventual prescription, so maybe would know how I could get one in the first place. The were very helpful, pointed me at the nearest medical centre, and told me that I’d need to tell them that I’m a ‘temporary resident’, which did seem to be the magic words.

Turns out that, due to reciprocal agreements, I didn’t have to pay anything for the GP visit, the Script, or the Medication.
I also didn’t have to show any ID at all.

I’m assuming that this is an older version of the Hostelworld logo.
Does … Does this make anyone else think of that analogy from Stranger Things? With the ant on the tightrope?

The hostel was booked out after a week, so there was a grand exodus as everyone filed out to find new hostels.
I went to the Safestay, which is a bit bland, but a high-quality bland.

There was already someone in the room when I got there, who had a familiar unpacking technique.

My stuff is the pink & green bags on bunk 4 – Everything else in this shot that isn’t a part of the hostel belonged to one person, who somehow survived the explosion.

A few more people arrived during this time, including someone who inspired the following;

While it’s a nice & relaxing thing to be woken, lying in your very comfy hostel bed, by a slowly building piece of music from the Lion King ‘in the yard a penguin on a viaduct’ school, gradually bringing you to wakefulness, do you know what’s even better?

NOT being woken by a slowly building piece of music from the Lion King ‘in the yard a penguin on a viaduct’ school.

Amazingly, this can be achieved by turning your fucking phone alarm off if you’re not planning to get up. That’s “off”, not “snooze”.
There’s a subtle distinction, I grant you, but a dead giveaway is that if the slowly building piece of music from the Lion King ‘in the yard a penguin on a viaduct’ school plays _again_ a while later, as happened this morning, you hit “snooze”.

Sadly, evidence suggests that said person and her relatively blameless traveling companion were from NZ or Australia;

I should point out that the vast majority of the hostel experience was utterly mundane; I’m mentioning the outliers here.
Pukey Van Der McGee, Captain Thrashalot (who caused the whole bunk to shake despite how well constructed it was) – These are rare and precious moments which hopefully will Never Happen Again.

Oh, and here’s the job ad I mentioned earlier, as a way of ending the post on a moment of awesome; Found because a couple of us in the lounge at the Light House were jobhunting, someone mentioned pirates, and we got curious.

You’ll be needing this to understand the full spatial impact and relevance of the tale unfolding here.

OK, that’s a lie; I just felt like putting in a picture, if only because the rest of this has no pictures, and that’s a good thing in this case.

I wrote about this on the Social Medias, so here’s what was written, with possibly relevant footnotes;

OK, the appeal of job+place has grown three sizes tonight.

There’s a sportsball event on, so things are a bit loud out there, but it wasn’t too bad. Ignorable, shall we say.
Then ‘bunk 7’ staggered in, very drunk, eventually undressed in a way that gave the whole room a hole¹ eyeful, and passed out.
Then ‘bunk 8’, who started as ‘bunk 5’ until someone with limited English comprehension took it, came back with a companion who may have been the girlfriend who lives in Edinburgh he’d mentioned, and climbed into the bunk right under mine.
I’m told that they were doing what we’re all assuming they were doing, but given how quickly they left again … I’m not awarding high marks for staying power.
Then ‘bunk 7’ started throwing up. Like, a lot.
‘Bunk 6’ had left in annoyance/disgust by this point, and a while later a staff member came in to look around², which gave me an idea as to where #6 went.

In a new room now, far away from the horrors of the night before.
Went back to get my stuff and found that two more people had arrived; they missed out on _all_ of the fun. And looked kind of hungover themselves.

#7 had moved more onto the bed, so I’m assuming he lived. Either that or the guy opposite him got sick of seeing a drunkard’s arse pointed at him, wedged a broomstick up there, and used it as a lever to get the idiot back on the bed.

Is it just me, or was that overly-specific? It felt overly-specific†.

#1 & #3 had arrived while we were gone; Presumably they’d booked the rooms for crashing in after the game & post game drinking. I spotted them when I went back to the room to grab my cellphone charger; Left the rest of my stuff until morning.

It turns out that I’d missed something while I was back there, but #6 noticed it because he grabbed all of his gear, and thus got deeper into the danger zone.

OK, giving up on figuring out what ELSE was going on in that room last night. (was that a song? Primus, maybe, or Butthole Surfers?)

Turns out that when #6 went back to collect his stuff, there was someone else asleep in bunk 6.
Possibly him from an alternate universe, #6′.