My New Job: The Important Stuff

Free delicious sweet cake photo

I know what you’ve been thinking all week – what temperature is James’ new office? Well, you will be pleased to know that it is very comfortable, albeit bordering on slightly chilly around 11:30am. It’s a very nice modern office in Moorgate, our floor has a multitude of small companies, mostly, if not all, start-ups, including ourselves.  I work for Lovespace.  You can look into them yourselves if you are interested.  It is a pretty damn useful service, if you ask me, and exciting to work for a company with so much growth potential. But enough about the serious stuff. … Continued

Complaint: Tesco & Some Crap Chicken

Tesco Wisbech - The last day of trading - No7

Actually a recent complaint this one! ****** Dear Tesco Gosh do I have a 1,000 character limit? Wish me luck on that. One night recently, I was drunk. Do you have one of those annoying friends that starts every story with “I was really drunk”? I’m going to have to get to the point pretty quickly here, aren’t I? So, I was drunk. And the last two times I had been to Chicken Cottage on the way home, I ended up with 4 pieces of dry, over-cooked, miserable southern fried chicken. Being drunk, I came up with an idea – … Continued

Complaints: Sainsbury’s & Short-Dated Chicken Part 2

Sainsbury's lorry, Grimmer Road, Hereford

This is a follow-up from an earlier e-mail to Sainsbury’s, when I was getting so fed up of them delivering short-dated chicken (amongst other things).  My original e-mail is here – it will help to put our love affair into context if you haven’t already read it. ****** Dear Sainsburys Thank you for taking the time to write to me.  I am heartened that you have not forgotten me. I thought about your loving words for a week or so, almost like a love-struck teenager, unable to know what to say or do.  In the end, I thought that we … Continued

Complaint: Harrow Council Housing Benefit

Harrow Civic Centre

I was not amused during my recent spell of unemployment, to be awarded just £87.40 a week in housing benefit.  My rent is £600.00 a month – not exactly an overwhelmingly expensive amount in London. But apparently the government decrees that I should be able to find a room in a house for £378.73 a month.  In London.  Yep.  I haven’t paid that kind of rental amount since 2003. However, as I am over 35, if I were living in a one-bedroom flat, then I would get up to £800.00 a month.  Logical, isn’t it? So because I am doing … Continued

Complaint: HMRC & My Proposals To Repay Unpaid Tax

Watlington Street, Reading

Whilst I was unemployed, I received a demand from HMRC for £87.02 of unpaid tax.  As you can imagine, I was not especially amused, given that I had roughly £80 a month after rent. My first reaction was to ignore it.  Then they sent me a follow-up letter advising that I needed to pay the full sum of £87.02 by 7th March 2017. I did try to call them on several occasions to arrange a repayment plan, and when I eventually made it through their automated menu system (my impatience doesn’t help – “JUST PUT ME THROUGH TO SOMEBODY” – … Continued

War With Spain

A Mistica, Gibraltar

Another example of why I can no longer support this current government occurred this weekend, when we had some horrid comments from Michael Howard suggesting that we would go to war with Spain over Gibraltar.   An utterly unnecessary threat to a fellow European country, for which there is a continued long-standing territorial dispute, but one that I believe is a close ally of ours.   Sure, if Spain had moved a couple of battalions and its warships within the vicinity of Gibraltar, or there was serious intelligence to suggest that it was about to embark upon a military strategy … Continued

Complaints: Sainsbury’s & Short-Dated Chicken

Chicken clipart, farm animal illustration

A complaint from last year, in May, after my Supermarket Slut project and part of my ongoing relationship troubles with Sainsbury’s Online. ******* Hi Sainsburys Do you remember me? We used to be close.  Really close.  We used to date each other every weekend. But then you kept sending me short-dated chicken…and I can only stand being cheated on so often, so I decided to play the field – as they say, there are plenty of fish in the sea. Well, there are 6 supermarkets in UK sea – Asda, Techno, Morrisons, Sainsburys, Waitrose and Ocado.  There may allegedly be … Continued

No Longer A Conservative

On Wednesday, shortly after midday, the letter was submitted to the European Union that we were triggering Article 50. Shortly after 10pm, my Margaret Thatcher mug fell down and broke. Normally I would have been annoyed, but I realised that this was a sign from Planet Brexit.  This was the culmination of 9 months of being pissed off with the direction of the Conservative Party, particularly under the leadership of Theresa May. It wasn’t exactly something new.  It has been a long process of anger and loathing experienced when agreeing with people like Liz Kendall against my own party, over … Continued

Still Fucking Unemployed

I sometimes worry about writing blog posts expressing negativity as I don’t want to be seem as that grumpy, miserable, depressing bastard to avoid. However I have checked the last 20 posts and I reckon you could only count 3 of them as at least semi-miserable.  The 20 prior, I don’t think any of them are miserable.  And if you include all my music, politics, football and roast dinner blogs, then you are looking at roughly 1 in 2-300 that have espouse negative emotions (do shit roast dinners count?). Writing when I am fucked off is quite cathartic.  And I … Continued

Trying To Annoy A Recruiter Part 1

man and woman wearing black and white striped aprons cooking

Hi James As we are predominately ex teachers ourselves, we can support you through the lesson observation and coach you for your interview. We specialise in permanent teacher recruitment across Primary, Secondary and SEN and we have strong relationships with many schools across Berkshire. Here is a selection of positions that we are currently working on for September 2016: Head of Geography – Reading – lovely school with a dynamic and effective Head teacher Teacher of Science – Reading area – “Outstanding” Independent school! Teacher of Art – Reading area – SEN Specialist school with “outstanding features” Teacher of Food … Continued