The Adventures of Scribbleboy

Aug

Inside the Mind of Abigail Clancy

By Scribbleboy 0 Comments

Categories: Life

The other day I was contemplating writing a blog post and the more I contemplated writing, the more people looked at my blog. Correlation may not prove causation but I was excited. Unfortunately, when I examined the statistics in greater detail I learnt that they had less to do with the power of the mind and much more to do with Abbey Clancy. People were interested in “abbey clancy pics”, “fotos de abbey clancy” and “ابي كلانسي”, which I think translates as Abbey Clancy in, well, whatever language that is.

On further investigation I discovered the spike in web traffic had been caused by Abbey’s husband having sex with a prostitute. An act which led to such great pieces of public interest journalism as Man enjoys sex with more than one woman and Woman gossips for money. The media once again pretends to be shocked, after all footballers and prostitutes really are the most unexpected of bedfellows. Meanwhile I suppose we’re all meant to feel a “burning hatred” for Crouch and a “deep sympathy” for Clancy. After a full day of trying to feel anything about a private matter between people I don’t know, the only emotion I can muster is the mildest sense of disappointment in “Monica Mint”; if discretion is part of her profession then she should get back to the job centre.

I doubt anyone visiting my site under the keyword Abbey Clancy is after these kind of truths but then I doubt they were after any of the other things I’ve written about her. It all began when she appeared on a calendar I received free with a magazine. I wrote;

According to Google Images Abbey Clancy can be attractive, obviously just not in this photo. The only way to make this pose look even the slightest bit naturalistic is to draw a chalk line around her corpse.

This prompted a small flurry of hits from the across the globe and I commented;

Abbey is a WAG with no discernible talents (she was once in a girl group called Genie Queen and has dabbled in cocaine). Clancy has also increased her star power by hooking up with a freakishly tall footballer who shouldn’t be allowed to dance in public.

In both cases I tried to explain one of her cryptic modelling shots, in one instance imagining what she might be thinking. As this format amuses me I see no reason not to do it again.

Wearing a Murdoch inspired underwear set and nursing a drink, Abbey sits in a pristine bathtub and thinks.

So this is bathing? I like it. Feels weird doing it in the bathroom section of Homebase but now I’ve practised I can do it for real at home. Only with less clothes. And with more water. Obviously. If you look at the reflection in this glass you can see how the colour of my drink matches my roots. Pretty.

Aug

Adventures in Unemployment

By Scribbleboy 3 Comments

Categories: Life, Life List, Money and Writing

Imay not have been writing about it as much but that’s not to say my life hasn’t been exciting and eventful – why only the other day I listened to the BBC Asian Network and bought some milk.

One of my favourite pastimes recently is visiting the job centre, it’s so good there I go at least once a fortnight. Yes, once again I find myself in a similar circumstance to the one I was in when I started writing this blog; once again I am looking for work.

The only differences this time are that I’m now living in Peterborough and, having frittered my savings away on luxuries such as bread and rent, I am claiming the dreaded benefits. According to the media, people make more money on benefits than in full-time jobs. I make £103.70 every two weeks on Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA). So if you define “full-time” as less than nine hours a week on minimum wage, then, yes, I am one of the people you read about in the papers.

If you too want to live the benefits dream, then go and read this page right here – they explain it better than I can. Complete the steps correctly you’ll end up with an invite to the job centre (mine took four weeks, so best get started), there you’ll get to sign a Jobseeker’s Agreement and as soon as you do that everywhere you look you’ll start to see what’s wrong with the system.

To qualify for JSA I have to take three “job search steps” a week, unfortunately what does and does not qualify as a step has never been put down in writing on any document I’ve ever read. As far as I understand it, a step is anything you do that increases your chance of getting a job. So buying a newspaper with a jobs section in counts as a step, signing up to an agency counts as a step, getting job alerts emailed to your inbox counts as a step. In fact you could complete a hundred steps without ever applying for a job.

This, however, is just one flaw in a system that comprises of little else. If the advisor you get is particularly keen they may read your logbook but this is not always the case, so weeks can go by without your steps being checked. Even if they are checked, advisors will never request a copy of the job application, a copy of your covering letter or any evidence to prove that your claims are grounded in truth.

These oversights mean it is inevitable that some claimants will be applying for jobs they are not qualified to do or only pretending to apply for jobs, and so will never come off benefits.

If you do find a temporary job the system discourages you from taking it. If you take a one week job, instead of a week’s worth of benefits being deducted, your benefits are cancelled and you have to re-apply once the job is over. Depending on the time it takes for your benefit to resume you could end up making less money working than if you’d just stayed unemployed. Also the forms you have to fill out require payslips and tax and National Insurance breakdowns; I asked an advisor about freelance work and invoices and he just stared at me blankly.

One route back into work is through work experience but if you do more than 15 hours and 59 minutes a week they will deduct minimum wage from your benefits for each additional hour worked (in theory anyway, I declared 34 and a half hours of work experience in one week and they never deducted a penny). I think this is to prevent people getting paid cash in hand and then dishonestly declaring it as work experience, how this stops them from just not telling the job centre I am less sure.

So, these are my observations after less than two months on JSA. I’ve taken at least 60 steps and it’s hard to tell if I’m any closer to employment. I’ve rewritten my CV, signed up to half a dozen job agencies, updated the half a dozen job websites I’m with and even signed up for a few more. I get daily job alerts by email, buy the Peterborough Evening Telegraph every Thursday for the job section and have even applied to do work experience at the paper.

If you follow this blog then expect plenty more to read over the coming months, I might even write a bit about my new city. If by some strange coincidence you’d like to hire me, you can read my newly updated about me page, read my LinkedIn profile (it’s social media for the unemployed) or even get in touch.

Apr

Happy Birthday Stoke-on-Trent

By Scribbleboy 1 Comment

Categories: Stoke-on-Trent

On Wednesday Stoke-on-Trent celebrated its 100th birthday, although you would have been hard-pressed to spot the celebrations. In the bowels of Stoke town hall, however, 300 people sat down to a celebratory dinner costing taxpayers an estimated £25,000. No, I didn’t get an invite either.

It would be all too easy to speculate that the evening was an excuse for councillors and their cronies to get fat and drunk at our expense but that would be unfair, there were far greater issues at hand, the presentation of the Citizen of the Century award for one. The award was an attempt to recognise the “the ordinary men and women on the streets” who helped make Stoke-on-Trent the city it is today.

The public got the chance to have their say on this matter and were meant to nominate 50 people for this award, although I can only find mentions of 12 in the local media, so it’s unclear whether they hit that target.

A panel put together by the council then picked an additional ten nominees, which if you replace Jack Ashley with John Baskeyfield and Loes Ashley then becomes the “ full list of nominees” as seen below.

darts player Phil Taylor
pop star Robbie Williams
footballer Gordon Banks
Lance Sergeant John Baskeyfield (died 1944)
Loes Ashley (Google and I haven’t a clue, sorry)
writer Arnold Bennett (died 1931)
Doug Brown, lord mayor and grassroots-football organiser (died 2002)
ceramicist Clarice Cliff (died 1972)
Sir Oliver Lodge, physicist and inventor (died 1940)
footballer Sir Stanley Matthews (died 2000)
Reginald Mitchell, creator of the Spitfire (died 1937)
Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland (died 1955)

The process behind all of this is a mystery but what we end up with is a £25,000 award dinner with 300 place settings – only four of which ever had the slightest chance of having a nominee sat at them. It’d sound like an excuse for a slap-up meal were it not for Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s history of frugality and good judgement. Like the time they spent more than £700 on commemorative umbrellas.

I guess we’ll just have to trust the press office when they say the event was attended by worthy people including “Citizen of the Century nominees and representatives, city councillors, and other distinguished visitors” and look forward to the other centenary year celebrations they’ve got planned for us. They’re all listed in a handy 2010 Press Pack if you’d like to read along with me, mind you these are only the “Key Events”.

February 13 – March 7: Staffordshire Hoard Launch

The Staffordshire Hoard is a collection of more than 1,500 pieces of gold and silver jewellery dating from Anglo-Saxon times and found last year in a field near Lichfield.

Stoke-on-Trent is a collection of six towns which became one city in 1910 and celebrates its federation on March 31.

This seems a tenuous link at best and the Hoard launch sounds like it would have taken place regardless of the centenary.

19 February: Royal visit

Fair play, Charles and Camilla did set foot in Stoke-on-Trent. It was the day when all the Charles and Di commemorative plates were turned to face the wall. Chaz and Cam even made the cover of a booklet sent to all residents called Your guide to Council Tax, Finance and Performance 2010/ 2011. Yay.

31 March: Federation Day

I think we may have talked about this up top, it was the £25,000 meal one.

1 April: Sports Personality of the Year

Annual events and centenary celebrations aren’t quite the same thing but I guess they’ve got the rest of the year to figure that out.

Hands on Pot unveiling (Date TBC)

This is a large clay sculpture that was designed by schoolchildren… to mark the millennium. So after ten years the council have decided to take it out of storage and unveil it, they’re just not quite sure when yet. Here’s another story where they rotate a sculpture 90 degrees after deciding it was put it in wrong.

30 May: 2010k Run

Sponsored by Staffs Uni? Crafty, I see what you did there.

23 July: Multi Faith Celebration

The Archbishop of York visits the city.

Sir Stanley Matthews Cup (Date TBC)

A school football tournament.

12 September: Tour Ride and 26 September: Tour of Britain

Okay, I’m just going to copy paste this from earlier; “Annual events and centenary celebrations aren’t quite the same thing but I guess they’ve got the rest of the year to figure that out.”

18 November: finale event

Fireworks and Christmas lights switch-on? Okay one last time; “Annual events and centenary celebrations aren’t quite the same thing but I guess they’ve got the rest of the year to figure that out.” …nevermind.

Oct

NaNoWriMo – Just Another Word for Crazy

By Scribbleboy 6 Comments

Categories: Life List and Nanowrimo

For many years I thought that book ideas arrived fully formed in authors’ heads and that writing was just the process of copying these ideas down but with added dialogue and detail. My theories about blogging shared a similar vein of stupidity; no matter how much Antonio cajoled me to create a blog, I held off, waiting for that eureka moment where a unique, previously undocumented topic would reveal itself to me.

After ten months of maintaining a blog about very little, and along the way reading articles such as 6 Writers Who Accidentally Crapped Out Masterpieces, I have been cured of my wrong-headed ways. I now realise that the perfect idea will never come to me, I will only get to it through continuous writing.

One of the great things about this blog is that it encourages me to do exactly that, to continue writing. When I do write, people leave me positive comments, they hit the like button on Facebook, they print out the post and read it on the bus. When I don’t, they’re sure to mention it next time I’m in the pub.

November is National Novel Writing Month (henceforth known as NaNoWriMo) and I’m hoping that it will have the exact same peer-pressure-leads-to-productivity effect on me as this blog does. What I already know for certain is that it has a crazy deadline (a 50,000 word novel in 30 days) and Gingell thinks I should do it (not that I’m scared of her or anything).

As usual I’ll be documenting my successes and failures right here on the blog for your own amusement. Why not play along at home?

So far I’ve bought the book (not essential), bought the t-shirt (once again not essential) and signed up to the website (yeah, you need to do this one). It might also be worth your while following @NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo’s creator @chrisbaty on Twitter and joining their group on Facebook.

Now, you need a support group. If, like me, you happen to reside in Stoke-on-Trent you’ll notice a somewhat glaring omission, the nearest substitutes being either Birmingham or Manchester. I’ve picked Birmingham simply because I know the area better and I have friends that live there, although that isn’t to say I won’t be crashing other meetings and posting reviews here. If you want to know more about the Birmingham group you can always take a look at their Facebook group.

The next Birmingham meet starts at midday this Saturday at the Coffee Lounge. If you’re wondering where the Coffee Lounge is, here are some simple directions; leave the train station by the other entrance (the one without the ticket office and the Burger King), look across the road. If you’re still confused, take a little look at this Google Map.

If you find the idea of affiliating yourself with another city morally repulsive or you just don’t like paying travel expenses there is still hope. A Stokie WriMo movement is in its infancy, follow them on Twitter, join them on Facebook. If they decide on a meeting place I shall go along and report back.

In the meantime, I’ve nabbed the very first NaNoVideo from the official site. I thoroughly recommend it as a good way to spend a couple of minutes while you wait for the kettle to boil or whatever it is you do with your life.

chrisbaty

Sep

All of Humanity in Garish White Shoes

By Scribbleboy 2 Comments

Categories: Life, Life List and Run

...and when I woke up I was in a field, wrapped in tin foil drinking someone else's urine. Again. The river of liquid cheese slowly coursed its way through the greasy lamb and bacon landscape, navigating the occasional deep-fried onion ring, before slipping over the burger bun and dripping, with the gentlest of patter, onto my chip-infested plate.

“You’re not taking this race training very seriously are you?” said Frosty. Looking back at him across the Wetherspoon’s table, I took a sip of my pint as I considered his question.

Sunday 13 September

The sky was an early morning shade of grey and Regent’s Park thronged with runners. Maybe I should have been more concerned with my lack of training but my little head was revelling in the fact that I had woken up at 5am and was not tired, had eaten breakfast and that the t-shirt in my race pack meant I had successfully infiltrated this herd of joggers.

Shortly after Gingell and I arrived, Matt (aka blankbadge) showed up. It was good to finally meet him, although he maintains this has happened before. After being spoilt for choice when it came to picking out a portaloo, we made our way to a wet bench where we busied ourselves safety-pinning our race numbers to our tops (475, since you ask) and fastening our timing chips to our laces to measure our start and finish times. It may also be worth remembering that the top of your race number should line up with the base of your breastbone, remember this well else the real runners may turn on you.

Eventually we were led through a presumably thorough warm up, although I don’t really have anything to compare it to, before being separated off into our holding pens. There were four; ranging from orange, for those whose predicted running times were a death wish, through white (Gingell) and onto more sensible segments such as green (yours truly) and pink (Matt).

Then we waited. The excitement began to fade and the cold set in, and then half an half hour later there was a stirring and we began the slow collective walk to the start line. In front of me a grey haired man with a beige hearing aid, a young girl with a big wig and a neck tattoo, a middle aged couple repeatedly sucking face, all of humanity decked out in garish white shoes.

And then we were off. The group slowly spread out and with that I was able to find a comfortable speed without tripping over anyone.

If you want to talk training and technique then it’s probably best to head on over to Gingell’s blog but at that stage all I knew was this; if I don’t finish this race Gingell will mock me relentlessly, therefore I must finish this race. The reason I fail at running is because I don’t pace myself, therefore I must keep pace with these running experts around me.

Whether they were running experts or not I shall never know but it seemed to work. The first two kilometres were pleasant; I took in the park scenery and was generally impressed by lots of smiley marshals who had matched their yellow tops with metallic accessories.

After that I began to experience the dullest of aches in my belly but it was nothing compared with my usual running pains, this was probably because I was keeping a sensible pace. At three kilometres there was a water stand, further on someone attempted to play the didgeridoo (either that or someone spiked the water stand), at four people were chanting my name (well, they were chanting the name Jon, that’s good enough for me) and then onto five, seconds before crossing the finish line I saw Gingell cheering me on and then it was over.

I had run five kilometres in 30 minutes 42 seconds, which for a non-runner is rather impressive.

As I picked up my goodie bag I felt drained but I also felt a real sense of achievement. After stretching (I just copied Gingell) I sat, wrapped in my space blanket, sucking on my Powerade, thinking.

Prior to the run Matt had asked me why I was doing this race and I hadn’t really been able to come up with a satisfactory answer. Running was a way to bond with Gingell, running was something people wouldn’t expect me to do, running was something that I was good at, yet also a sport.

Ultimately, I may be forced to admit that I like running.

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About

Born in Paignton, educated in Stoke-on-Trent and living in Peterborough. I am a footsoldier in the army of the unemployed and an occasional blogger.

I survive on caffeine, willpower and JSA. This blog is a record of my attempts to find work and my successes and failures as I try and complete life-improving challenges suggested to me by readers.

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Inside the Mind of Abigail Clancy

Adventures in Unemployment

Happy Birthday Stoke-on-Trent

NaNoWriMo – Just Another Word for Crazy

All of Humanity in Garish White Shoes

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