Journal Entries
There's an old piano and they play it hot...
Posted May 27, 2004
...behind the Green Door.
Don't ask me how...I don't know what they're doing...
...but somehow......but they laugh a lot...
...a song by Shakin' Stevens......behind the Green Door
...has got into my head...Won't you tell me...
...and it won't leave....what's going on behind the Green Door?
HELP!
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Latest reply: May 27, 2004
azahar's excellent idea
Posted May 23, 2004
Azahar's compiling a web page of photos of hootoo researchers so that we actually know what each other look like. Various people I know are already on it, and I've just sent her mine. But as Egon says - more! more!
F119314?thread=421977 for details - if you haven't got a photo already scanned in to your computer, DO IT NOW!
Although of course, part of the attraction of being online is that no-one knows what I look like... and I've blown that now. Oh well. 
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Latest reply: May 23, 2004
Blew It
Posted Apr 30, 2004
I had a job interview earlier this week. It wasn't necessarily going to take me where I want to end up in my career, but it would have been a damn sight better than what I'm doing now, and slightly better paid to boot. It would have been to be one of the blokes that does the statistics and writes scripts for Grandstand and Football Focus. I'd have even got my name on the credits and that.
I'd been for a similar interview about a year and a half ago, and it came in two parts - an assessment comprising of a quiz and two writing tests, and the interview itself. That time, I did a brilliant test and a rubbish interview - i.e. played a great game but just didn't talk one.
I've since had interview training and stuff, and the last two interviews I've had went very well - I got the job I'm doing now as a permanent staff post (that was something of a financial necessity, although having been here two and a half years at that point it was a bit rich I had to apply for it in the first place) and then did almost well enough to get that job in Cambridge, in fact the interview part of that assessment was the best thing I did there.
But for this latest job, I did a great test (again) but didn't do any of the good things I've learned to do in interviews - I hadn't done quite the right sort of preparation and was improvising a lot, and so I was just answering the questions as best as I could on the spot. I didn't sell myself at all well, or succeed in coming across as being the kind of bloke they'd want.
I'm feeling pretty low at the moment. Last weekend was lovely, but it's more or less all evaporated now. Plymouth Argyle might have won a Championship this week, but it seems I'm destined to stay in the lower divisions for the foreseeable future 
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Latest reply: Apr 30, 2004
Dennis Waterman's Showbusiness XI
Posted Apr 24, 2004
One of the more enduring things about having watched the Young Ones too much when I was younger - always had the ambition to be involved in something involving something related to the whole concept... I've been in five-a-side sides and quiz teams bearing the legend, but never before something quite as apposite as this.
Tomorrow, I shall be turning out for Mike Bushell's BBC XI against the village side of St Mary Bourne, in Hampshire! 
It's not exactly pro-celebrity, but by all accounts our opponents are quite handy and we're expecting to get stuffed. Our side isn't exactly packed with celebrities, but alongside Mike (who used to do the sport on the local news in the South before coming back to Sport 24, and so who is genuinely known by people in the neighbourhood) we've got various News 24 regulars and Football Focus bit-players like Chris Hollins, Celina Hinchcliffe, Francis Collings and Sue Thearle. Completing the XI are a couple of blokes from a local band called 'Dave' (the band are, not the blokes. I think) and the likes of me (briefly the voice of non-league football on Radio Leeds, and not even a household name at 26 Stanhope Gardens, Harringay) and my mate Dan. I can't help but think the villagers are going to be a little underwhelmed.
But I'm actually a little overawed by the whole thing... there's going to be a programme and a crowd and everything. And I'm not exactly Pele or anything. When I come to think of it, the only time I've played in front of anything resembling a crowd was over half a lifetime ago. That was in the final of the Uttoxeter and District Under-14s Cup - we won 2-0, and I came on as a sub and got the assist for the winning goal. I knocked it out to Simon Carson on the wing, and he set off, beat three players and nutmegged the keeper...
But it should be a larf. Even as I type this, I'm downloading the theme tune to 'It's A Knockout' so we can run out to it (that'll be another tick on my list of personal ambitions, then).
Oh, and the very wonderful Plymouth Argyle finally clinched promotion to Division One AND the Second Division championship this afternoon, so I'm a little 
and 
right now. But I'll have to go to bed quite soon, to get rested up. So this precludes painting the town quite a dark shade of green...
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Latest reply: Apr 24, 2004
Comedy Household Capers
Posted Apr 7, 2004
The new house is going very well. We're all just very pleased, at this stage of our lives (i.e. approaching 30) to be living with people who we've got a lot in common with, have known for ages, care about and have an enormous amount of time for. Very lucky we all happened to want somewhere to live at the time one of us was living in a nice house that became free.
I'm off rota today, and so is one of my housemates. We've been pretty good about keeping the place straight, and Steve was playing one of his old Queen records while we did a bit of housework. Yet we completely failed to predict what happened next...
Steve was hard at work with the squeezy mop on the kitchen floor, and I'm shoving the hoover backwards and forwards along the hallway.
Suddenly, Steve's reecord player starts playing 'I Want To Break Free'. We realise.
"Hey, Steve... does this mean we ought to be doing this in drag?"
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Latest reply: Apr 7, 2004
Number Six
Researcher U115522
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