h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It’s been as while since I’ve been able to post anything, I started my new job a couple of weeks ago and I can’t exactly while away my time typing journal entries when I’m supposed to be working. On the other hand though, I’ve been living in a bed and breakfast for the last couple of weeks and in the quiet evenings spent alone in my room I’ve had ample opportunity to scribble down my thoughts. I’m back at my parents for the weekend and find myself with an idle hour, so I decided to block post what I’ve been writing.

The Working Week.
October 20th, 2006
So that’s the first week over with and I spent most of it meeting people, filling in forms and going through the slow process of induction. I’m now able to find my way to work in the mornings and can get between my desk, the lab, the toilets and the canteen without even thinking about it, I have an email account, a phone number and access to the internet, but I still get lost looking for the IT department or the stores and I only remember the names of about 10% of the people I’ve met. In short I’m beginning to settle in, but I haven’t really had chance to get my hands dirty yet. I’m still feeling a little unsure of myself and from time to time I wonder if I’ve made the right decision. But I think it’s okay to feel that way at first. After all on a week’s notice I’ve moved to a brand new city to start a new job in a new area of chemistry for me; I’m far away from all my friends and family and everything that’s familiar to me; I honestly don’t think there’s another aspect of my life I could possibly have changed.

This weekend is going to be a quiet on in Bath relaxing with my girlfriend. Last weekend was manic and I think I’m due a bit of a rest. At the end of last week I spent a couple of days packing and I also managed to arrange to view several flats in Reading and my girlfriend and I planned a trip over there on Friday. I drove down to Bath on Thursday afternoon and went out for a curry with my girlfriend and her research group, foolishly drinking far too much beer (which is actually pathetically little these days). I woke up on Friday morning with a debilitating hangover and felt pretty sorry for myself for most of the morning. A particularly low point for me was being sick out of the window of my girlfriend’s car at 60mph somewhere near Swindon. Despite this shameful behaviour we were only five or ten minutes late for our first appointment and I managed to get my act together a bit after that. In the end I was glad we made the effort because we managed to see quite a range of properties all over the area. But more importantly I confess I kind of fell in love with a little place in a village north of Reading near JM and I actually left a holding deposit with the letting agents on Thursday.

We stayed in Reading for the evening, went to the cinema and afterwards to say thank you to my girlfriend (and also to apologise for puking on her car) I bought her dinner at a cheerful tex-mex place called Chillis. The movie we saw was the new Martin Scorcesse film, The Departed featuring everyone from Matt Damon, Leonardo Dicaprio and “Marky” Mark Wahlberg to Alec Baldwin, the mighty Ray Winstone and the legendary Jack Nicholson. I don’t really have time for an in depth review, but for such a star-laden obvious blockbuster it was actually quite a good film. Nicholson and Winstone were characteristically excellent and even Dicaprio and Wahlberg managed to make a decent showing of themselves and I have to say I was surprised to find that Damon was the weakest of the piece. I guess it wasn’t really his fault, the script was somewhat limiting for his part; maybe it’s because I have a soft spot for the bad guy, but I felt they could have done a great deal more with his character. But aside from that minor disappointment it was an excellent film.

We drove back to Bath quite late through the descending mist and slept in late on Saturday morning. We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing, watching movies and cooking ourselves elaborate meals like fondue and sausage and mash. In the end I decided not to run the Cardiff Marathon. It was a tough choice; I don’t like backing out of races, but I have to admit I haven’t been training properly for it for months now; at best it would have been extremely painful and at worst I could have seriously injured myself. A marathon has to be treated with respect no matter who you are (or who you think you are) and I think it would have been foolish to run. Call me a coward if you want, but I’ll be back. Give me a few months of uninterrupted training so I can get myself more into the sort of shape I’m used to and when I’m good and ready I’ll run a marathon I can be proud of.

On Sunday evening I drove back to Reading and miraculously managed to navigate in pitch darkness round some winding Oxfordshire country lanes to find the bed and breakfast which will be home for the next few weeks. It’s a lovely place, the landlady is really nice and very helpful, she sends me out each morning with a good breakfast inside me and always asks me how my day went when I get back in the evenings. But at the end of the day it’s still a hotel, I spend my evenings sitting in my room reading, watching television and listening to music, but I can’t really relax as much as I could in my own place. I’m really looking forward to being properly settled here.

Well in a round about sort of way that more or less brings me up to date. Keeping my journal is far from the most important thing in my life right now, but I think writing everything down is helping me get things straight in my head so I think I’ll write more whenever I can.

Old Dogs.
October 23rd, 2006
I just had a much needed weekend relaxing with my girlfriend in Bath. I imagine the next couple of weeks will be quite stressful as I continue to settle into my new job and the weekends are going to be quite busy as well as I’m likely to be moving into a flat at the beginning of November. All in all I think I may be looking back quite fondly on my weekend of idleness in the weeks to come.

The weekend was pretty lazy and I caught up on some lost sleep. But that said I’m trying to get myself back into the habit of consistent regular running again and I managed to drag myself out twice over the weekend. Aside from the usual ailments I’ve come to associate with getting back into hard training, sore feet, chaffed nipples, etc., I had an altercation with a mad spaniel on Saturday afternoon and grazed my hands. The crazy mutt ran headlong into me going along the towpath which is my traditional Bath running route. I kicked him/her very hard in the head, tripped and went flying. I landed on my hands, buried a bit of grit and dirt into my palms and winded myself, the dog barely even broke its stride and continued at top speed in pursuit of its owner who was completely oblivious to the whole incident.

Other than that the weekend followed the usual laid back pattern. We slept in late and entertained ourselves with movies and cooking and we watched the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday evening before I drove back to Reading.

I haven’t written about Formula One for a while, but this weekend was the last race of the season and perhaps more importantly it was Michael Schumacher’s swan song. Poor luck in Japan a couple of weeks ago meant that going into the final round Schumacher had only the slightest chance of winning an eighth world championship; he needed to both win the race and see his rival, Fernando Alonso, score no points. This looked all but impossible at the start of the weekend, but further bad luck in qualifying on Saturday left Schumacher 10th on the starting grid. And if the mountain still wasn’t high enough to climb, a rear puncture sustained while overtaking Giancarlo Fisichella on lap nine relegated Schumacher to the very back of the field. With Alonso comfortably in the points and cruising and his team mate Felipe Massa leading the race completely unchallenged Schumacher saw the last shreds of hope slip away. Nevertheless he drove an awesome race, fighting tooth and nail with several impressive overtaking manoeuvres to eventually finish in 4th place.

Of course it was all academic in the end. Massa drove flawlessly to win his home Grand Prix and Alonso was level headed, driving sensibly, not challenging Massa and finishing easily in 2nd place to take his second consecutive world title. But if this race proved one thing it was that Schumacher is still more than capable of mixing it with the young guns of the paddock and I’m certain that had he not chosen to retire from Formula One he would have remained competitive for years.

Like him or loathe him, Schumacher has been on of the best and most complete drivers Formula One has ever seen and personally I think he is without a doubt the greatest driver in history. There are many arguments levelled against the weight of statistics in Schumacher’s favour. Some people will say that he won championships for Ferrari in vastly superior machinery. Well so did Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost and even the much lauded Saint Ayrton of Senna. Let’s not forget that Ferrari were a laughing stock, languishing at the back of the grid when Schumacher joined them, their renaissance came in the years that followed. If they gave him embarrassingly quick cars with supernatural reliability then surely it must in part have been due to Schumacher’s own commitment and input into the team. Also it’s important to remember that Schumacher won his first two championships driving for Benetton in a car well recognised to be vastly inferior to the then peerless Williams.

It is also often said that Schumacher has had no real competition during his dominance of Formula One. But in his sixteen years in the sport aside from the seven world championships he has won, he has been in close contention for a further four or five titles finishing 2nd three times (although he was disqualified from one of these in 1997) and 3rd also three times (including his second full year at Benetton in1992 and his first full year at Ferrari in 1996, both of these years he drove cars which were hugely inferior to the dominant Williams cars). Not including his first year at Benetton he has never been lower than 5th in the Drivers Championship and that 5th place was in 1999, the year he broke his leg and missed several races.

Lastly people often say that Schumacher’s tactics are sometimes unsporting and even dangerous. Most notable are the incidents where he drove Damon Hill off the track in Australia in 1994 to successfully win his first title and in Spain in 1997 where he unsuccessfully tried the same trick on Jaques Villeneuve. But again I feel we must remember that Senna wasn’t above deliberately driving into people to secure a championship. In Japan in 1990 Senna drove headlong into Prost’s car in the first corner of the first lap, taking both cars out of the race and making it mathematically impossible for Prost to overhaul him in the championship. Senna supporters may maintain that he did this with style and panache, but does that make it forgivable? I don’t think so.

When it comes down to it the only accusations which can really be levelled against Schumacher are an occasional lack of flair when executing dubious manoeuvres as supposedly demonstrated by Senna and I think worst of all is that he has perhaps been just a little bit too successful in his sport. No one really likes to see anyone else on a pedestal (or on a podium as it were) and there’s nothing we like more than running someone down when they are doing well.

Whether he’s the greatest in history or not though, I think Formula One will miss Schumacher. Sure there are plenty of quick and talented young drivers out there. I’m sure Kimi Räikkönen and Fernando Alonso will give us an exciting championship battle next year and in the years to come we can look to Nico Rosberg, Robert Kubica, Keikki Kovalainen and our own Lewis Hamilton. But Schumacher undeniably brought a great deal of drama and character to the sport, even if it was only because he was the bad guy everyone loved to hate. All sport is just drama at the end of the day and every great drama needs a great villain and in that context Schumacher was a super villain. Maybe that’s why I like him?

Well I guess that’ll do for one day. I’m looking forward to getting away from my desk and doing a bit of useful hands on work this week. And at the weekend I will be driving back to West Bromwich to visit my parents and to spend some time sorting through my possessions before moving down here properly in November.

Pay Day!!
October 26th, 2006
Things have settled down a bit this week. My boss has been away for two days and I’ve been left more or less to my own devices. I’ve tried to keep busy, but there’s only so much background reading a guy can take and I’m really itching to get my hands dirty now. Hopefully next week I will be able to get some real work done. On the plus side I got paid this week! Having started in the middle of October I only got half a month’s money this time, but when you haven’t been paid in more than a year even half a month’s money seems like a fortune and I had to stop myself from rushing out to buy a new car or spending the on CDs or something.

I’m going to need a bit of spare cash in the coming weeks because the credit references checked out with the letting agents and once I show them some proof of identity and give them a big chunk of cash I will have my own place again. And if there’s anything left over after the agency fees have been paid I’m going to have to invest in a few sticks of furniture as well. I’m not exactly living the high life just yet, but I’m happy and that’s what’s important in the end.

My resolution to get back into shape and start running regularly has been going well this week as well. I’ve been out running each day after work, doing laps round the local golf course until it gets too dark to see. Unfortunately the clocks go back this weekend meaning the evenings will be darker earlier. So unless I can find a much better lit running route I’m going to have to revise my routine and run in the mornings before work instead. I’ve also got phone numbers for a couple of running clubs in the area and might be able to train with one or the other of them a couple of evenings during the week.

This evening I treated myself to a sausage baguette and a couple of pints at one of the local village pubs near the bed and breakfast. It was simple food, but after a week of cream crackers in my room for dinner every night it felt like a gourmet feast. But the pub was so warm and cosy I had to leave before I fell asleep there.

I had to get back to the bed and breakfast to pack because, as I said, I’m spending the weekend in West Bromwich with my parents going through all the boxes of stuff I’ve got stored there and deciding what to bring with me to Reading and what to just throw away. If all goes according to plan then I’ll pick up the keys to the flat next Wednesday after work and will probably hire a van to do the main part of the moving the following weekend.

That about wraps things up for the week; I expect things are going to remain busy for the next couple of weeks, but after that I can hopefully look forward to a few stress free months finding my way around Reading.

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I managed to get an awful lot of sorting and packing done today so hopefully I can relax a bit tomorrow and have a leisurely trip back to Reading during the afternoon. As usual these days I don’t really know when I’ll be able to post again. I will probably continue to write entries in the old fashioned way with a pencil and paper and will block post them whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Knock, knock... anyone in?

Still signing in occasionally when I have something I want to look up and I don't feel like getting bogged down with details on Wikipedia. I have a nagging feeling that I should update my journal, but I've got quite a baglog to get through and can't really face it.