Demon Bitch Monster of Death

My other half is a terrbile nag, his idea of assisting is to watch me doing a job, standing with his hands on his hips before sighing heavily and saying "I wouldn't do it like that if I were you."

Sometimes I ignore it, other times as those words "I wouldn't do it like that if I were you " hit the air , the red mist comes down in front of my eyes and everything goes a little hazy.

Luckily, the knife drawer was a little out of my reach, but I understand that the words "so far up yourself you can't see out!" did pass my lips, amongst other rantings, which I can see was perhaps a teeny little bit unreasonable in the circumstances. But then nagging is mitigation for murder so maybe I'm not all that unreasonable after all.

Partay!

Children's parties - enjoyable afternoon or parental competitive event?...discuss

I'm so old that my memory of an ultra sophisticated children's birthday party was being taken to the "Bridge Cafe " at Keele Service Station to eat chips and watch the lights of the cars on the M6 as they passed beneath us...how times have changed!

The AB is now 11 so I'm getting off relativley lightly this year with a get together at the swimming baths followed by chocolate cake and ham rolls. But we have done more in previous years including ; the play barn party, the cowboys and indians disco party, the "it's a girl thing" make up and hairdressing for 9 year olds party, the pyjama party with storyteller, and the try to kill your child's friends at the local ice rink party. All good fun in their way - but you do worry, AB got so many presents when she was 6 that she stuffed a load in her toy cupboard and never opened them!

I don't think there is a good answer - one children's entertainer was so popular round our way that by the end of the "party season" the kids were giving the punch lines of the jokes before he did....at least we never hired him.

Ow!

I did go to the gym and this morning it hurts, especially just between my shoulder blades, (shoulder presses I think they are called) and my calves , running uphill on a treadmill will do that for you.

Have to say the TB looks very sexy getting all sweaty on a rowing machine. And I'd probably do better if I spent less time watching and letching and more time pedalling the stationary bike.

Also the whole process would be much more efficient if we didn't come home and have beer and curry afterwards.

By way of public information announcements did you know that if you pay your credit card late in one month you get charged interest for the next two! - robbing bastards! I never knew about this because I always pay my credit card off in full on time, but honestly of all the scams to stop people getting out of debt. That one seems to be right up there with the ironically named "Bright House" and it's 30% interest rate - never go there, if ever there was a business that deserved to fail horribly that is it.

Beast - chapter and verse.

Today is one of those really shitty days where nothing is going easily or to plan. It's an "Oh shit that was supposed to be with the High Court this morning " kind of a day. Added to which I really hate this case, it's really hard technically AND I have to drag every tiny piece of evidence out of the client AND he is a really slow payer so motivation to do this extra super hard bit of work is , lets be truthful pretty low.

I'm attacking the motivational lacuna with housework - applying the gospel according to Beast.

So frantic typing and rushing to the post office is being broken up with mad hoovering to get out some of the frustration - hoovering the stairs with a Dyson is extra virtuous as it doubles up as in-house weight training.

Also going to the gym tonight - I'll let you know if I've cheered up tomorrow.

Weekending

We had the most beautiful weather this weekend, crisp and clear just designed to make trees with golden leaves look stunning.

Cue family bike ride with my sister and her family. Now we are not repeat not a family of genetically superior athletes, so the 10 mile cycle round the lake is a challenge. And one for which we "carb up" suitably with mini mars bars and chocolate brownies. So really it did serve us right that we were lapped not once but twice by both the local pensioners outing, and a girl in high heels, skinny jeans and designer sunglasses who didn't even turn pink going up the hills let alone sweat!

I've been typing too much lately and the back of my right hand is bruised and a bit swollen - at one point it looked as if alien life in the form of a mammoth tick had taken up residence under the skin!

So I'm reverting to long hand for a bit!

Working!

If I ever complain about not having enough work to do at any future date feel free to super glue my lips together!
Oh my GOD it's ridiculous!

On the other had from a PR point of view it's kind of brilliant, the TB who I think harbours illusions of my sitting in front of the telly with a cup of tea watching Trisha and Diagnosis Murder, has been answering one telphone while I email and answer the other!

In between times he has looked impressed, brought me cups of tea and is now finishing the ironing! Hurrah!

We are going to be nauseating joined at the hip married people this evening - going to the gym together and then out to the pub. I'll just pass you the sick bowl.

A horse a horse my kingdom for .....

"There is nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse"

Was it Dr Johnson - sorry I can't be bothered to walk over to the bookshelf and pick up the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations to check, the Idler must be working.

Anyway the poor little AB just turned 11, and the door slamming, mother upsetting, monosyllabic ingrate phase has kicked in early. Thank goodness for ponies - there is no better cure for a fit of teenage hormonalness than a muck fork and a wheel barrow, and you get all that nice smelly country air thrown in for free!

It only turns nasty when mother is in the menage doing a spot of horse schooling, it's doubly embarassing because mother is quite good and that's really not allowed! Little does she know that I'd love to be doing the grooming and mucking out too - but I'm holding back because even I wouldn't want to be THAT embarassing!

Bad Meeting

There is a way of handling a meeting where you have prepared and no one else has. The "Office Slaves Guide to Ettiquette" says that you smile, listen, offer constructive comment and basically let everyone else crib your homework without making too much of a fuss.



You do not -repeat not - do what I did on Friday. Which was explain my point with such ill grace that my not so hidden agenda of "listen muppet I went to law school not you and that's before we even start to get into how much cleverer than you I actually am and the bit where I hit you over the head with the copy of the Legal 500 that has my name in it not yours." OH yes that agenda was out there on the table for all to see.



It probably didn't help that I had a hangover, and that everyone else was 15 minutes late for a meeting that I had travelled for an hour and a half to attend.



Any road up - the outcome of the meeting was that they are doing what I told them to.



The downside is that I'm freelance - and they will probably never employ me again as I've so clearly and unequivocably demonstrated that I'm not at all lovely to work with. Ho hum......

The Idler

I really like the Idler - what's a professional slave with a hot sideline in varyingly successful self improvement doing reading a manifesto to idleness ? I hear you ask.

Well - it's very funny. And dispite the wankerish tendencies of some of its regular contributors, yes Keith Allen I do mean you, there is something fantastically worthy about it. It's a Victorian temperance pamphlet for the twenty first century. In a world driven by political spin and the cult of the personality here is a real policy driven political tract. Ableit one with a pair of tits, a cucumber and a huge pot of Vaseline on the front cover.

I am, in my own warped way, attempting to live out it's theory that working for two hours a day is plenty...where I'm going wrong at the moment is spending the other twenty two hours TRYING to work.

I need to get out more loves.

I may never do any work again

http://stephenfry.com/blog/

Moving on...

Well solo work methods have moved on somewhat - rather than playing Radio 4 in the background I've discovered Channel 4 on demand. This means I can down load Studio 60 episodes and play them in a window on the computer and pretend that I am sharing an office with Matthew Perry.

I am deeply deeply offended by the suggestion that those of us who work from home sit around in our pyjamas all day and don't shower; for the record, I'm showered, I'm wearing make up and perfume and although I am wearing jeans they are dark denim and look fine with my grey cashmere sweater...so those of you huddling together in some corporate office seeking comfort from the body warmth, stop feeling superior right now!

The rest of the family are having struggles of their own. For an eleven year old girl not having a best friend is the end of life as it is known, having had brilliant mates last year the AB is not having such a vintage season in her new school. And it's hurting. This morning there were tears and its so tough, what can you say , I tried " you can only be yourself and friends will happen, just not always as quickly as you'd like."

Beta Female

I wear size 14 (UK 14, US 10 - for clarification and additional vanity!) jeans and this, by my own admission makes me a beta female.

There is no getting around it, the law school diploma is no help at all, nor is the current (not too shabby) salary nor the fact that I'm seriously thinking about one of those rather chic new Volvo convertable saloons.

I can ride, shoot, dance, speak two languages with a degeree of fluency and get by tolerably in a third.

But beta, beta all the way and probably a beta minus at that. For this simple reason there are womens clothes shops that I can't go into. Not unless I want a scathing , appraising, up and down look as I walk through the door, and a withering comment of "sorry madame I don't think we have anything that would fit you." And by this one fact, in girl world, I become a second class citizen. Too embarrased to "borrow" clothes off my friends at college because I was certain (wrongly as it turned out) that they would all be a size 10. I also tend to down grade the things I have achieved because I wasn't thin when I did them " That distinction I got would have been so much better if I'd been two dress sizes smaller at the time;" " That time I travelled in the far east, would have been so much more interesting if I had been wearing a smaller bikini."

I'm taking the trouble to write this down so that I can see for myself how much bollocks it truly is. And even now I'm not sure I'm convincing myself. You see this blog would be so much better if only I was writing it wearing size 8 jeans.

It's all my own fault

Why does my brain suddenly decide to work properly at eight thirty on a Sunday night?

I'll tell you why, years of training is why; It started age 7 with the last minute homework dash for my fearsome primary school teacher. Much of my education followed in the same mode and hadn't got any better when, at the end of almost twenty years of full time education we got to the the late late law school seminar preparation stint. And, of course, coming right up to date with the writing of the script/cross-examination questions/summing up just right before I'm going to have to produce them to a tv producer/judge. Forget adrenalin as a motivator, anything less than bowel loosening fear just doesn't seem to cut it with my frontal lobes. I can even spell - get me!

Oh Dear

My blogging alter ego has become a dyslexic bore, who can't write for toffee! Oh dear!
Maybe as the TB kindly told our daughter last night "I'm at that stage in my life" a not all that eupahmistic reference to "that stage where it all goes pear shaped"

Having never been pear shaped - no hips and no arse sadly - I am awaiting the coming metamorphisis. Meantime I shall search for inspiration and try to remember to use the spell checker, when I'm not having a senior moment obviously.

Today I need to finish the month end accounts, do an evidence review and find a law library in Cambridge (this last in an attempt to avoid having to go to London on Tuesday) I'm also going to find chat up the Official Receiver - what a wild and wacky life I do lead!

Why is there a picture of your office on blogger?

Well just thought you might want to see it is all, the computer sits around the corner. And the clock is very large so I don't forget to note down lots of billable hours!

The Whole Point

The Whole point of being self employed is that I get to work fewer hours a day, have a lot more flexibility and still make the same money - or work the same horus in a day and make more money, whichever....either way it's my risk and me who is waiting for the cheques to come in. So far this month, as far as the cheques go...it's been a slow month.

Get your cheque books out client type guys, there is only so much work a lawyer can do without an adequate coffee supply, and the sort of cases you've got we are talking 8-10 cups a day minimum, when the Gold Blend runs out the work stops, OK???

Also being self employed lets me have open bizarre windows open on the computer and listen again to Radio 4 comedy while I work - it's strangely consloing I find!

Italians couldn't organise their way out of paper bag...discuss

Italy looks very pretty as you can see - but "Italian Conference Organisers" those words should not be in the same sentance! I feel bad now that I didn't listen more closely to the Chinese delegate or speak to the Russian or find out what the heck the Frenchman's problem with Ethanol bio-fuels really was. But there was no water in the conference room, only two toilets for 180 people, the translation was dodgy to say the least and my feet were swollen from standing up to eat my meals 4 days running! The higher mind should rise above this...but mine isn't higher!