S’no goose

It was going to be one of the greatest kept secrets, in the same clandestine class as who really shot JFK and what goes into the Colonel’s secret blend of 11 herbs and spices but alas I was spotted and so the game is up.  I went to see Swan Lake on ice.

Having been forced to watch Dancing on ice, one of those insipid reality TV shows where C list celebs and has been rugby players pull on leggings and body hugging cat suits and exhibit skating ability that makes new born antelope look sure footed, it was a pleasure to see how its meant to be done.  With a cast of Russian olympic skating gold medallists it made reading the program tricky.  However the triple airborne pirrouettes, the manic vision blurring spins and the aerial ballet led to spontaneous outbursts of applause and gasps.  At one point Prince Siegried lifted one swan single handedly above his head while two others dangled from his waist. In the vernacular thats ” 3 chicks on his eis…op ys”.  With frequent changes of bespangled costumes and great sets it was good to see the mother city knows how to put on theatrical spectacular.

As a bit of part time work I spent the last 4 days doing score updates  for the SA vs Bangladesh Test Match.  As it took place in Mirpur it has meant six o clock starts which is obscenely early.  To make matters worse it was a very ordinary and scratchy effort by the Proteas and by not scoring another 27 runs at the end of Day 3 they made me get up for a 4th morning for 45 minutes of cricket.  A strongly worded letter is on its way to Mickey Arthur and Norman Arendse telling them to stop squabbling like little girls and tell AB that 8 of 49 balls when Craig wants to sleep in is simply unacceptable.

Poor effort all round

So I have been suitably chastised for my slackness at updating this blog and upon checking the date of last entry, I stand before you apologetically.  And its slackness that I want to chat about today.

Considering that I have now been home 3 and a half months and am still unemployed it is evident that something clearly has gone wrong.  Now while I admit that I took a little me time in December, what with everyone on holiday and a multitude of visitors, I certainly have been back in the saddle since the second week of January.  In London, jobhunting was relatively straightforward.  You register at as many employment agencies as you can bare, fill out those forms where you say you’ll do anything but Telesales and wait for the phone calls to come in….offering you fantastic positions in Telesales.

In South Africa you attend your first interview in November, 3 weeks later you hear back from the company asking if you are still interested, you say yes, you then have a 2nd interview and meet the CEO of the company in the 2nd week of January, you hear nothing, you are then invited to meet someone else at a 3rd interview until you are even on first name terms with the tea lady, and yes you guessed it, you hear nothing until you prompt a response with an email trying your best not to sound desperate despite the fact that you are having sleepless nights and anxiety attacks over the whole affair.  The job market is so biased to the employer that they can literally stuff you around for over 2 months, make you put on a button up shirt and shave 3 times in a Cape Town summer, and then not employ you.

And then you get the employment agencies.  Im not sure whats worse, getting a million phone calls offering you jobs you specifically said you didnt want to do, or not hearing anything at all.  Im not sure quite how they make any money if they never actually place you.  And it would be hard for them to do that seen as they never actually contact you.  Thats if they actually keep the appointment to meet you in the first place.  They must have so many candidates desperate for work if they can be as slack as they are.

But with all this free time getting into wife finding shape has begun in earnest.  Tomorrow is the first weigh in after a month of serious treadmill pounding, and a weight program that involves writing stuff down in a notebook after each set. Serious stuff hey.  I think half an hour in the sauna before the scales ought to do it, just to sweat out at a few more grams.  And maybe a healthy dose of California Fig.  Staying on the vanity side of things, suntanning had a set back when it was discovered that spray on sun tan lotion still needs to be rubbed in.  The peeling is finally over although there still might be some flakes in the bed sheets.

The social life had a brief sojourn out of the doldrums over the last weekend, braai on Friday, concert on Clifton on Saturday and a trip to a whiskey bar on Sunday night, where I carefully checked the menu to make sure I didnt order the extra special single malt that comes at a jaw droppingly expensive R15,000 a tot.  Hopefully will have more to report soon.  Must go as the agency has just called to say that they can see me in an hour.  Fantastic, its 30 degrees outside and those underarm burger pattie sweat patches sure scream “employ me”.