You know it’s hard out here for a temp… one office worker’s struggle to break out of the ex-pat ghetto

Yea! It’s raining!! If there’s one thing I love, it’s rain. And rain when you are snuggled in bed with you lap top and Radio National podcasts is even better!!

I have been quite enjoying my unemployed state the last two weeks. It’s been fun getting up late and starting the day with a leisurely coffee, wondering what treasures the next 12 hours of internet surfing will bring.

Of course I wouldn’t be enjoying it quite so much if I thought it would last forever – I’m sure I will be back in the world of photocopiers and databases soon. But after two months of temping I think you need a month off to remember you are a sentient being, with thought processes and such. After about two days I was ready to stab myself in the eye to relieve the boredom. But I’m exaggerating. There are things that crop up from time to time that keep you stimulated, on your toes. I’ll never forget the time I ran out of staples. I stayed calm, located the spare staples, reloaded, and did the job I was sent there to do. The Anzacs would have been proud.

Today my AdeB books from Amazon arrived – yes! I finished Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason – adored it. Somehow the Thai prison episode did not strike me as ridiculous and vaguely racist like it did in the film. And it was actually quite interesting as it was set/written over the period when Blair came to power and Princess Diana died, and makes an interesting study as a sort of mood-meter of a certain type of British citizen (ie the pop-literate, city-dwelling, media-industry-inhabiting thirty-something) in the period of British modern history pre-War on Terror/iPODs.

Annoyed that I was not organised enough to get on the register to vote in time for the coming local elections. British politics is even more depressing than the Australian scene, if that’s possible. I will never forget turning on the tv last October to see Tony Blair trying to convince everyone that 90 days detention without charge/legal representation/contact with the outside world wasn’t an erosion of civil liberties. Loser.

So anyway, last night when I couldn’t get to sleep I had this idea of a t-shirt to make to wear to the Love Music Hate Racism concert in Trafalgar Square on the weekend (although have to admit it’s not so much my fervent desire to make a stand against racism that propels me there so much as the fact that Belle & Sebastian are playing, yea! Takes me back to my free Regurgitator gigs in King George Square period) There is a Young Ones marathon on this weekend and it reminded me of one of my favourite quotes, when Rick is talking about starting his own political party - “People who don’t pay their television licence fees against the Nazis!” I was thinking of changing ‘Nazis’ to ‘the BNP’ although I do quite like the original. What do you think? Answers on a postcard! (Slash comment box.) And does anyone know where one can buy puffy paint in this one-horse town?

Oh – a final note on the title of this post. I actually quite liked Hustle and Flo, even if that song begs the obvious question, “Don’t you think it’s a smidge harder for the prostitutes, sonny Jim?”