I wonder what colour the car was?

So without further ado, I’d like to tell you that grumpy old man (no relation) has launched his new blog, Border Cobblers. It’s well worth a read – here’s a taster – Revolutionary New Mouse Design For Women. I laughed…a little bit…through gritted teeth.

The Brasserie, as usual, was wonderful and the staff, as usual, were prettier than the customers. The food was excellent and well presented. I really like it when the staff remember who ordered what dish.

For starters, I had a Leek and Gruyere tart. My two companions had the Soup de Jour. They couldn’t decide whether it was chicken or mushroom. Since they hadn’t asked before ordering, the natural flavours of the soup may have confused them. It was kinda funny because one of them thought Soup de Jour was a dish like mushroom soup instead of, ahem, today’s soup! I didn’t have the badness to say anything but I did order them some breads to accompany their starter.

Main courses were veggie risotto for me, salmon and chicken for my guests. Everyone was very impressed with their food and they thought it even better than the starters. Although, for me, risotto could be considered a bit unfashionable these days.

I think it was the first time my guests had been in a ‘posh’ restaurant. By posh, I mean a restaurant that is not attached to a hotel or a franchise. They were a bit intimidated by the attentive staff and they couldn’t relax as they tried ever-so-hard to remember their table manners, instead of just relaxing and enjoying themselves. If I ever had to do it again, I think it would be better to go to a Kentucky Fried Chicken and give them the saved money to spend on Diamond White cider cans (at least, I think that’s what they called it).

By common consent, dessert was the best course. Plum and almond tart for me while the other two had, let me make sure I get this right, Sticky Toffee Pudding with Vanilla Ice Cream. Apparently, it’s the only dessert worth eating. Forgive the metaphor but my companions were like two peas in a pod with their selections.

With a couple of soft drinks, the bill was just under stg£20 per head mouth.

It was good value but, for me, the only downside was the obligatory service charge. Sometimes, in these modern times, you have to type the value of the gratuity into the credit card machine whilst, other times, you have to write the gratuity on the receipt with a pen. While paying, I interrupted the waiter to ask what their procedure was but his polite reply was that ‘it was already taken care of, sir‘. The service charge was 10% and I’m 90% certain it wasn’t mentioned on the menu. I did want to leave a tip but, imho, that’s really takin’ care of bizness.

Would I go again? In a heartbeat.

It’s Official: Vegetarians Are Smarter (PETA)

Vegetarianism: the choice of the ‘more intelligent’ child (London Independent)

It’s official – vegetarians really are smarter. But it is not because of what they eat. Bright children are more likely to reject meat and opt to become vegetarians when they grow up, a study has shown. Clever veggies are born not made.

Me? Apart from a tiny smug feeling, I going to Deanes Brasserie in Belfast for lunch tomorrow. At least, I’m supposed to be. It was not my job to book it so we’ll see where we end up. I’ve eaten there before and I’m really, really looking forward to going back. It’s one of the best restaurants in Belfast/Northern Ireland but the bookee thinks we’ll just walk in…

If there is a Santa, I’m eating there tomorrow!

http://www.ireland-guide.com/establishment/deanes_brasserie.3039.html

On the ground floor under Restaurant Michael Deane, this much larger restaurant is all buzz and offers an eclectic contemporary menu, with something for everybody. It is an impressive restaurant with plenty of atmosphere, and always smartly maintained. Expect modish pre-starters like breads, oils, olives and almonds, unusual soups like brandade and white bean, light dishes such as a charcuterie plate, with celeriac remoulade, also comfort food like fish & chips with mushy peas or steak & Belfast ale pie. There’s a (very attractive) separate vegetarian menu, prices are moderate, service slick and efficient and the wine list offers plenty under £20. The pre- and post-theatre menu offers great value.

Well done, cyberscribe, for flushing the lunatics out of the long grass. Hang on a minute, I’ve posted comments on his site. Oops!

*The poster may or may not be ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know‘ but (s)he is anonymous and very, very long (oh wait, have I said that already).

According to cyberscribe, yesterday was World Toilet Day. I wonder, though, if he got his days mixed up because today was a pile of you know what for me. And even the torrential rain didn’t do anything to wash away the stench of my execrable day.

I woke up a bit later than usual so, instead of my usual beauty regime*, I could only have an ‘extended wash‘ in the swimming pool (*btw, beauty regime = jacuzzi). Made it into work on time and then realised I was supposed to be in a Louth town later that morning. And moi with a blackberry – oh, the shame. There was no real urgency to get there but if I had remembered, I coulda had a proper swim.
.

On the plus side, I saw this Northern Ireland car registration on the motorway. It might not be really legible at that size of pic but it is 38 DD. Brilliant! And on a big Merc as well (it has got two exhausts?). Why can’t we have personalised car registrations? Probably because everyone would try some version of cute hoor. I want one for Christmas! I’ll leave it up to you to decide if I mean the car, the 38DD, or a personalised registration, hehe!!
.
.

Then this afternoon I had to go down to the Ringsend area which meant crossing the Liffey. One tiny, little stretch of road in the Docks was closed so traffic built-up very quickly. Obviously this was not adequately advertised because traffic was mental. Lots of people who were stuck did u-turns and went looking for alternative routes. They must have thought that the problem was restricted to only that stretch of road we were on. Then a lorry broke down on the Quays which only increased the chaos.

The disruption could have been minimised if the Gardai [Or the Traffic Corp. Or the new Reserve force] did their job and manned the junctions. But, oh no, it was raining after all. They were probably showing the new reservists how to play with their truncheons.

But I won’t it get me down. If I’m down, I’ll pull myself up and wash the sand off my face. I’ll stand up and be counted. Sorry, that’s a really tortuous way to end this post and introduce this photo. I will try harder in the future, I promise. Part of the problem is that one of my favourite programmes, the BBC’s Spooks, is not on telly tonight so I’ve no way to learn how to lie convincingly.

One of the places I had to visit was Hollywood. Or is it Holywood, I can never remember. Call it intuition (!) but I knew the schedule wouldn’t go to plan and I’ve have an hour to kill. So I brought my camera to take some photos in Belfast Lough Nature Reserve. The Nature Reserve is behind the City Airport. Various oil storage depots surround it. And a waste water treatment plant. Oh, and Ikea are building their Belfast store on top of an old dump!! And there’s a very large Army barracks just around the corner (depleted uranium for all!!). Still, I guess what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

This composite photo was taken ‘in’ the Nature Reserve looking out into Belfast Lough. It’s three photos stitched together. Here’s the original 7Mb stitched photo and also the flickr large photo.

I also got hit up for a pay rise by the ‘new guy’ who’s only on the job for maybe 20 days. This is one of the problems with blue collar workers – they all swap info on what they’re being paid. He reckons he worth 12% more because ‘Tommy is an loser’ doing the same job and he’s earning £–k more. Personally, I have a lot of sympathy for his situation but, business-wise, the wage was stated on the job advertisement so he knew what he was signing up for before he applied for the job. He didn’t do himself any favours when he said he’d ‘earn’ almost twice the money on the dole.

Lunch was weird but words fail me to describe how strange it was. I was trying to impress my guest so I chose to go to a particular part of Belfast’s Lisburn Road where there’s lots of nice gastro-pubs and cafes. Thankfully, I didn’t choose the cafe. My choice is now an furniture shop interior design boutique but what a cafe we lunched in. It was posh so I need scarcely mention that the menu was written in chalk on a blackboard. Being a vegetarian, nothing usually suits so I confused the ‘wee girl’ by ordering soup and a sandwich. I know I should call her a waitress or host but she didn’t know her panini’s from her baguettes. I nearly lost my temper as I tried to explain to her that I wanted my ‘salad’ inside the bread! Seriously, I had to use hand signals to explain the concept of ‘slice of bread/salad/slice of bread = sandwich‘.

As she was totting up the bill*, she placed a playing card (4 of hearts, I think) on the counter, kinda in front of me. After we swapped money and the change, I asked her if the card was for me. ‘Yes‘, she said, ‘so we know where to bring the food‘. Silently, I wondered if I was supposed to stick the playing card behind my ear? Or maybe clench it between my teeth in some sort of Freudian ‘I’m hungry, insert food here…‘.

I think we would have been better off going to Subway beside the City Hospital. At least in Subway, you can purchase a twelve inch Italian veggie delite!! …now with a free refill. …and now I really am joking!! Phnarr, Phnarr!!

*Totting up the bill before we ate should have been a giveaway.

I spent 6 hours today dealing with just one client. They’ve only got about 15 staff yet 5 of them felt the need to phone me independently and give me the verbals about totally different things. Sigh. Eventually I just had to walk out for awhile to remind myself that the sky was blue and the air wasn’t.

I’m going to HQ in the UK tomorrow for a couple of days and it’s going to be difficult. I have to be nice to various people while constructively criticising them and their teams. Then there’s the evening dinner with ‘smart casual’ attire where the politics and mutterings happen. Spooks is on TV in a few minutes so I should be able to pick up a few lessons on how to lie to people!! Although Spooks doesn’t tell you how to cope with 6.30am flights and 11.30pm pints of beer.

Apart from today, Thursday is my only day in Dublin this week but it’s not going to be a respite from the madness. Once I get advice from HQ, I’m probably going to sack one of my guys when I come back. H.R. is a bit touchy-feely about these things, I guess they have to be, but I hope they can give me the advice I want! It’s really weird firing someone I hired.

Later in the week, I’m up North again, in the Coleraine area. Now that will be fun. My staff in the North can be identified as belonging to a particular religion/grouping. Because of my name and accent (I’ve lived outside Ireland for a long time), I’m lucky/unlucky because it’s hard to pin a label on me. The meeting on Friday should be fun because the guy is ‘as black as your boot‘. He’s also a Hun and a left-footer (I believe two women can be ‘left-footers’ as well but in a totally different context). This is obviously derogatory but I don’t know why. He’s also a bit of a bully and that’s not derogatory.

Anyway, despite the ‘low’ salary, the CV’s started to come in. And there were some odd ones. The strangest resume was from a guy in his mid-50′s. He included his name, address, d.o.b. and national insurance number – hello identity theft!! It was a 3 page CV and he’d glued the left hand margins together so it formed a little booklet. It was a nice touch, I guess, but typing the whole thing in CAPITAL LETTERS was not. He’d lasted four months in his last job before he fell off the hopper (the wha’) and suffered a trauma to his finger. He had to have extensive surgery and physiotherapy.

His job before that was in a bar and again, he lasted 3 months. And I quote, ‘The weekly hours were advertised at 55, and suddenly rose to 73, with no additional benefits’.

And his previous jobs…

‘I worked all across the south of XXX in various . All contracts were short and strictly casual. The names and addresses of the employers, duration, dates and places of jobs would be far too numerous to recall and list. I was simply staying in employment as best I knew how at the time, and paid all due taxes to the state. I accept that the last statement may not be advantageous when seeking employment, but to replace it with anything else would be simply telling lies’.

The most pointless CV was from an Aussie who seemed to be travelling the world. Reading a 12 page CV detailing all one’s University courses was not a chore I relished. And listing one’s PADI licence as an achievement does not get one bonus points for a van driver’s position.

The least likely to succeed award went to the guy who wrote to the contact email and asked a few questions as if he was sending a text message. Everything was lower case and there was no punctuation. He started by writing Hiya and finished with Cheers!. Cheerio to you, son.

And, finally, from Mike Brown’s site
These are taken from real resumés and cover letters and were printed in the July 21, 1997 issue of ‘Fortune Magazine’

* I demand a salary commiserate with my extensive experience.
* I have lurnt Word Perfect 6.0 computor and spreadsheet progroms.
* Received a plague for Salesperson of the Year.
* Reason for leaving last job: maturity leave.
* Wholly responsible for two (2) failed financial institutions.
* Failed bar exam with relatively high grades.
* It’s best for employers that I not work with people.
* Let’s meet, so you can ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ over my experience.
* You will want me to be Head Honcho in no time.
* Am a perfectionist and rarely if if ever forget details.
* I was working for my mom until she decided to move.
* Marital status: single. Unmarried. Unengaged. Uninvolved. No commitments.
* I have an excellent track record, although I am not a horse.
* I am loyal to my employer at all costs … Please feel free to respond to my resumé on my office voice mail.’
* I have become completely paranoid, trusting completely no one and absolutely nothing.
* My goal is to be a meteorologist. But since I possess no training in meterology, I suppose I should try stock brokerage.
* I procrastinate, especially when the task is unpleasant.
* As indicted, I have over five years of analyzing investments.
* Personal interests: donating blood. Fourteen gallons so far.
* Instrumental in ruining entire operation for a Midwest chain store.
* Note: Please don’t miscontrue my 14 jobs as ‘job-hopping’. I have never quit a job.
* Marital status: often. Children: various.
* Reason for leaving last job: They insisted that all employees get to work by 8:45 a.m. every morning. Could not work under those conditions.
* The company made me a scapegoat, just like my three previous employers.
* Finished eighth in my class of ten.
* References: None. I’ve left a path of destruction behind me.