Wordstroke

Reading it I was suddenly back in so many meetings past. Having worked in a organisation that had more women than men and then moving into a organisation where there were only three women was a real retrograde step. Having to become the 'empty vessel' awaiting the wisdom of men. Assumed to be so much less than I was. Looking back now, I'm really glad I was made redundant. I was so desperately underestimated.

Being accused of being "subjective, delusional, overwrought, dishonest -- in a nutshell, female" took me straight back to a time when I was temping in London in the mid-90s for an old Etonian who would write "No Stupid, it's xyz" on letters that I'd audio-typed for him. I took issue with him every time he crossed the line. On one occasion he picked up a pile of files and flung them at me and told me to get them put away. I immediately scooped them up, returned to his office and hurled them at his desk. The director was in there with him and both of them remarked that "she was being emotional again". I calmly said goodbye, collected my bag and coat and walked. The temping agency called me several times to ask me to return, explaining that he was very apologetic and he offered more money for me to return. I was apparently the best PA he'd ever had. I refused. I'm sure I was written off as an uppity female.

And the time I was introduced to the ex-head of my old team on a train. He sat telling me about how where I was working was an excellent place to get started and that I would learn so much about copywriting while I was there. I couldn't get a word in edgeways. After many morsels of advice he finally asked me what I did. "Your old job" I replied. And here is the thing, he didn't talk to me for the rest of the evening. No apology. I had deliberately 'entrapped' him into making a fool of himself. Apparently.

I've been on a bit of a downer about this since I moved. I keep running into businessmen who just can't seem to get past my sex. I've started feeling cowed even. The conversation gets going, if they engage with me it is usually to posture or advise and if I try and a chip in and realign their assumptions about me, it looks like I'm trying to make fools of them. When they've done it all by themselves.

I think I'm going to have to change my job title on my badges when I show up for conferences and networking events. I'm currently playing with 'Communications Guru' and I've put 'Creative Catalyst' on my Linked In profile. Perhaps I should just go for 'Queen of Fucking Everything'.

Current Mood:

aggravated

I'll write in more depth later,  just wanted to jot down the highlights.

Thursday
Arrival in Keflavik (pronounced Keplavik). Bathing in the Blue Lagoon in beautiful sunshine. Strawberries dipped in white chocolate and champagne on ice waiting for us in our hotel room.  Eating at the Sjávarkjallarinn (Seafood Cellar) - Reykjavik's homage to Heston. Sunset at midnight. We didn't close the curtains because we were so excited about it not going dark.
Friday
Jeep Tour with Björkú, the amazing storyteller. Flat tyre. Rain and hail. Langsjokull Glacier and lava field deserts. Extinct lava pipes that housed outlaws amoung very small trees in 'forests'. 'Apartments' for dwarfs that hold up road construction for 15 years, Egills saga, The troll waterfall and the chap who showed us the Iceland music film while we waited for another running repair to the tyre. The waterfall under the lava, the near-derelict whaling station and Björkú's defence of Iceland's right to kill ocean-dwelling mammals.
Saturday - our one month wedding anniversary
Driving between the sea and the snow covered mountains, low cloud, the Settlement museum and fjord at Borgarnes. Lamb curry soup, toys made of bones, amazing black mountains next to the sea, Búðir: pokey hotel room, small black church that had rose petals from that day's wedding on the lava-steps. So much birdlife. My first glimpse of a seal. Salted lamb, managing to avoid eating guillimot, whale and horse.
Sunday
A cold wet miserable day on the peninsula in search of somewhere dry. Snæfellsjokull stayed determinedly hidden by clouds. Homemade cheesecake and Kaffi by windswept sea stacks.
Monday
Having a chaotic breakfast due to hotel being booked out by a business group. Being accosted by the most beautiful horse on the main road. He pawed at the ground and shook his head at us in challenge. I think he thought himself from the sagas. Then the farmer showed up in her jeep, got out and stood with her hands on her hips taking no nonsense. The horse decided to turn tail for home. Showing Sion Þingvellir.  A hotel to ourselves. Krissa, the nicest hotelier. Doing our own mini golden-circle. The scary gravel road. The nastiest soup at Geysir. Stalking Strokkur to get the 'eruption picture'. Trying to sketch Gullfoss and not quite managing.  Walking hand in hand, ankle deep in moss in the midnight twilight by Þingvalletvatn.
Tuesday
Kerið caldera all aquamarine and raw sienna. Cabins and hydropower-plants. Unbroken views to the ice-capped interior along a long lonely road. Huge waterfalls. A national treasure, 86 year old Þórður Tómasson, taking care of the national treasure. He would pop up periodically to offer explanations 'as if by magic'. Lovely fish dinner.
Wednesday
On to Vík where puffins were found and black beaches were trod. More waterfalls and a long drive over mountains that belched steam to Reykjavik. Walking along the sea front in the evening sun.
Thursday
Reykjavik 871±2 Settlement Exhibition and pottering in book and gift shops. Art Galleries were closed. Soaking away the tiredness in the hotel hot-tubs. Simple dinner.
Friday
Late breakfast. A flight that said good-bye to Iceland's southern coast and hello to the Hebrides. Turf farms and crofting  - the same thing. Realising the peoples were of the same stock.

Some of my photos here.  Sion took lots more. 

Current Mood:

enthralled

Oh boy is it raining.

We\ve been on a jeep tour to the Langjokull Glacier and seen waterfalls and fjords. Our guide Bjorku, a 50 year pagan motorbiker regaled us with tales of the sagas as he drove us around. Fantastic storyteller and also evangeliser for whaling as it turned out. While he was stood in the middle of a near derelict whaling station declaiming that whale meat could be a solution to the starving in the third world I noticed Sion gently slip his arm through mine. The only thing that stopped me from launching into a vociferous counter argument was remembering the fact that this guy had spent large chunks of the day on his back in the black mud in below freezing temperatures trying to fix a flat tyre in between driving us around and telling us wonderful stories of the country he loves so much.

The scenery is outrageously beautiful. Stark and wild.

Still raining.

Goden Dagenin xxx 

Edit 00:35 GMT    Still not dark yet. Havn\t seen the dark since we got here.

What is 1,000,000,000?

Current Mood:

confused

What is it?

Well I fear a future where we voluntarily 'jack' ourselves into the 'matrix', power down our real lives and conserve energy and resources by only existing in our virtual worlds. I'm hoping that the energy required to power one's avatar is prohibitive and remains so.

The other future I fear is the one where we have to power down our real lives to a point where one of the family  has to stay at home and do the washing by hand, and cook all the meals and grow the veg in the garden. And most of those individuals will be women and we'll watch our not-yet-equal-but-hard-won-rights fall to dust.

In the mean time, I'm researching my energy-efficient self-build house hoping that if I use my time wisely in the next 15 years I can be part of the spearhead of the movement to avoid either of the above.

Reading this back I sound a little bit crazy.  Ah well. Never mind.

Current Mood:

Doomy

angua

I hate this so much. 

Current Mood:

nauseated

You.
Can.
Only.
Type.
One.
Word.

Where is your mobile phone? Pocket
Your significant other? Soulmate
Your hair? Wet
Your mother? Butterfly
Your father? Poison
Your favorite thing? Paint
Your dream last night? Anxious
Your favorite drink? Merlot
Your dream/goal? Happiness

Current Mood:

restless

You have to make this one. Seriously good.

*if you use g/f baking powder

Current Mood:

full up with cake

Item 1: Magnetic clasped journal with decorative cats and butterflies. This was given on the day and had no label or writing on the wrapping. I suspect sphyg

Item 2: The sheet music to 'The Owl and the Pussy-cat' and two other nonsense songs. Addressed to me, this arrived in the post on Friday. No clues at all to the sender. If you are hoping I'm gonna learn it so that you can sing it, you may have to wait for a bit. I might have managed it for our 10th anniversary. Perhaps. Possible suspects j4 and addedentry. bugshaw has confessed :)

Drop me a line here or via email and own up so that we can say thank you.

Ta.

Current Mood:

curious

I have to avoid horror/ghost movies for similar reasons. However I note that I was ok watching the Aliens series, but I think in my head it is  'off-world' Sci-Fi and somehow I feel protected from it.

Current Mood:

anxious

Sigh. Advertising is not evil. Marketing is not evil. PR is not evil.

Let's get some perspective:
Rape, murder, oppression, censorship, poverty, erosion of human rights, neglect, abuse, war.

Advertising, marketing, sales comms, PR, brand-building. These are merely methods of communication and if the company you are working for is using the right compliment of these tools effectively to ensure that prospective customers get to hear about your product or service then your salary is assured. If they don't then you should probably start looking for another job.

I've written stuff that you've read on the back of the Radio Times and inside The Independent.  You'll have thrown envelopes and letters that I've written inside them into the bin (don't worry I don't take it personally). You've watched TV ads that I've helped create, you'll have listened to ads I've written on the radio.  Every single person who reads this now has read things written by me. 100% for certain.

I've sold you stuff. Piles of it!

I've sold you books you wanted to buy, and savings accounts to put your money in, and toys for your kids to play with. I've asked you to give money for old people who die of cold in the UK in winter, and for kids that have aids in Africa. I've asked you to buy Fairtrade coffee, sign petitions to end poverty and wear a white band.

I've worked in the communications/publishing/marketing/advertising weavily-world for 15 years now. If you can think of better ways to get information around, I'd really really like to hear about it.

Today is obviously a ranty day.

EDIT: Yup. Don't need extra critical comments. They are not helping.

...and if anyone makes any comments about the lesser of two anythings, I will not be accountable for my actions!

Current Mood:

Still grumpy

And if we used the same approach for our careers as we do in the initial part of our relationships, what would we be doing? Would it would be the equivalent of bumping into a door and noticing an 'apply within' sign and thinking, cor that looks brilliant, I'd like to spend the rest of my life right here? Alternatively perhaps we should be more open to sudden opportunity, maybe it would brighten our careers if we 'flirted' a little?

I found my best-beloved after deliberately searching for someone with the same methodology that we usually use for looking for our dream jobs. Maybe I shouldn't be so covered in wonder that the pair of us are ridiculously happy. After all, didn't we both expend enormous effort in trying to find each other.
(It's amazing what you can find on the internet ;)

I'm not at all knocking the method that worked for you, but I do think that good relationships that happen more by accident than design must surely be the emotional equivalent of winning the lottery.

Current Mood:

curious

Allow me to introduce you to The Old Parsonage. Knowing M-- as I do, take this as a personal ref: I know you'll have a great time if you go. It looks amazing and I am so going to go! (Of course you can take it as read that same-sex couples will be made very welcome).

Current Mood:

Full of admiration

Edit: So now that I've let that settle, let me see - the father of my great-grandfather was born in Grantchester.  I used to sit on my great-grandad's knee - he would let me blow out every single match as he tried to light his pipe until we got to the last one in the box. Then he would stop me, light and smoke his pipe and then we'd go down the shop, he'd buy more matches and an ice-cream or sweets for me and my sister. He died when I was 12.

So it was his dad.  And it was his grandfather that upped that bit of the family from Cambridge and moved them up to Sheffield.

Suddenly it seems so much closer when I think of it like that.

Current Mood:

surprised