Saturday 17th April

Well, this time last week I'd rather thought that I was going to be hosting Abby's visit, but the volcano cloud has put paid to that. Nevertheless, the fact that this has had to be delayed - we've rearranged another date, but some of the things you hear about this cloud make you wonder if we're not in for some kind of wierd dark age with no air travel for months - has got me off my backside, and I've now got a benefits appointment for next week. It would have been a hair appointment as well, but the salon I've chosen isn't open until midweek so, well, maybe this is telling me something and I should choose another salon. I'm not a good getting a haircut person, I really dislike it, principally because I have to take my glasses off which means I'm sat there squinting at the mirror where I can see a blob moving around my head but not a single smidge of what the blob is actually doing. I know that I really really upset my last hairdresser, who gave me a brilliant cut, but couldn't figure out why I was sitting apparently stony faced throughout the whole thing, and I'm not sure he believed me when I told him that I couldn't see a thing he was doing. This time I'll make sure that I tell them before they start. Maybe they'll give me a chance to pop the glasses back on, so I can actually see what they're up to. Some chance of that, in my experience. Anyway it's got to be cut, it's never been this long and it does nothing, absolutely nothing for me. I want something short and spikey, and with the summer coming up, that can be washed daily.

So back to the benefits experience. It's got to be what, ten years since I last claimed benefits? Interesting this, I decided since I didn't know where the job centre was I'd google it, and ended up on Ugov, or whatever they call it, and phoned the hotline - really interestingly, this meant that I got a sort of mini-interview on the phone, where they took my basic details and fixed me up an appointment - the girl I spoke to was very nice, none of your usual flapping about with 'how do you spell that?' or 'You live where?' with a totally blank response to Glasgow!!! And to judge by the sound Newcastle accent, clearly they are based in this country and haven't been exported to India. Not that I've got anything against India, don't get me wrong, I just - like most of us I expect - think that no matter how much educating those places do, someone who lives in England tends to know the cities and towns far better, and you get a clearer phone line. You're never going to be able to speak to someone thousands of miles away as clearly as you can speak to someone about a hundred miles away - is that anti-phone line-ist? I don't care. One of the worst in my experience was Virgin, who actually provide phone lines, and you couldn't hear or be heard clearly ever. Mind you working in a call centre is ghastly, I'm pretty sure I read an interview with a union guy earlier this week, election thing, but he called call centres the modern equivalent of the dark satanic mills, and by god he's right. I've never worked in places like them, and I've no doubt that I shall probably end up in one again, but dear god they are awful places to work. Mind you I'd settle for work right now, any kind of work, but what can I do? Short of moving to India that is.

Anyway, so I spoke to the woman on the phone, and I'm off to Parkhead Job Centre next week. It'll be a novel experience, but I'm hoping that it'll bring me in a few extra pounds a week, either that, or of course, find me a job. Now there's a novelty. I know the sort of thing I'd do, I know the sorts of things that I'm good at, and no one's going to force me into bar work or any kind of manual labour. Bar work would have me - well, lets face it, I don't think anyone's going to employ me on bar work anyway, I'm no fresh faced eighteen year old, which is what most bars in Glasgow are looking for. A pub would be a different thing, a nice quiet pub, now that I'd willingly do, but I'm not going to be selling myself into fifteen hour shifts that finish at three in the morning. I have to say as well, I'm not fond of what alcohol does to people. So what does that leave me, well I really wouldn't mind a bit of shop work. I know it's tough on the feet, but I think I could hack that, and although manual labour isn't exactly my thing, I can manage a bit of shelf filling. It's not exactly the sort of thing that screams out as a good job, but for a student a few hours a week sitting on a till wouldn't be far short of a good job, especially if it was for one of the big supermarkets where there might be a chance of a bit of overtime when I needed it, and it offered me a regular wage packet. No I wouldn't mind that at all. I think the chances of something like housing work or whatever for the council is a non-runner, they're pretty much on the brink of having to make tons of people redundant. I don't think that they're hiring at all. I've been applying for stuff that pops up on these internet search sites, but I don't know. Nothing much seems to come from that. Signs of the times, eh? I always thought that living in a big city like Glasgow would give you a good chance of being able to find work, but times have changed, and there's not been much about really ever since I got here. But summer's coming, and it's not just the money angle of all this, I need something that's going to get me out of the house every now and again, make a few friends who aren't going to be off home and that sort of thing. So I'll tell you how it goes when I've been there.. what's that old Chinese proverb.. oh yes, interesting times. Yep, we're living in interesting times. Changeable at any rate.