This post brought to you by Oh Hiroshima’s album “In Silence We Yearn”
It’s been a while, so I figured it was time for an update, even though there’s not a huge amount to tell.
I had my NiNo interview, for the magical number which allows you to pay tax and access medical care, sometime last week.
This involved a bunch of sitting around, but a fairly pleasant interview, where the Jobcentre person filled out the form & fudged the appropriate bits which might cause trouble, like my NZ Social Security number.
He wasn’t sure what that might be, didn’t have info on what it might look like, and advised me to go with “I Don’t Know” rather than guessing, as a wrong guess sees the form sent back.
I’m bringing this up because the relevant people called me today to check the address, so with luck I’ll have the number in a week. Might need to get my mail forwarded if it’s not here before I leave.
Someone contacted me, via LinkedIn, about a possible job in Edinburgh.
Probably they did a search on ‘GIS’ & ‘Edinburgh’, because … well, I’m not the guy they’re after, and my profile shows it.
Had to move out over the weekend, partially because the hostel gets booked out, but also because I wanted my own room for a few nights; Some of that was because recording a Big Red Couch episode is tricky in a hostel, given time zones and the like, and some was because I really didn’t want to hear someone else snoring while I was trying to sleep.
There had been a bad one in our room; Nice chap, but Jesus Christ On A Big Purple Tractor was he loud.
At the start of the night there was the concern that, after a suddenly-aborted SNORRK, he’d stopped breathing & we’d need to resuscitate.
By the end the thought process was closer to “If He Dies, The Noises Will End”.
Said person was travelling in the one-bag style, so I got to see one of the backpacks which folks have reccomended for carry-on only travel; He’d selected it as being just within the restrictions for cabin baggage, and it did look nifty.
The weekend hostel was in Wood Green, in the Norf of London, and was in theory aimed at artistic and creative types.
Not sure whether they managed it, and I’m unsure how to review it, because it had the least vibe of any place I’ve stayed in yet, and I’m including the bad places in that assessment; The place by St. Pancras may have been a relic of the 70’s, but “shambles” is still a vibe.
This was like staying in an art gallery between shows.
I think I saw other people a couple of times, but most of the time it felt like it was just me, rattling around in a shuttered art gallery.
The room, however, was nice.
There was a cafe & restaurant down at the ground floor, doubling as reception, and performance spaces upstairs.
WiFi was a bit rubbish, sadly, but we got the recording done.