Monday

Headed off to Croke Park at lunchtime for the Employment Fair just to show my face. The place is crawling with media and stinks of Lynx. My sinuses are playing up really badly. Left at about 2.30 and headed home for a bit of a lie down. I’m entitled to that much I think. If I’m not firing on all cylinder I’m good to neither man nor beast.

All work and no play makes Rody a dull boy.

Curry for dinner. Herself does it lovely with the real curry from the chipper.

Lots of paperwork to be done, but decide to watch Bill Cullen instead. Still annoyed no one asked me to even do a screen test for it. Jane caught me practising “you’re fired” in the office last week.

I sent her on a jolly to Paris for the weekend to keep my Apprentice secret, secret. Some sort of Internet thing she’s been moaning about for weeks now. Must remember to get a report on how it went. Pencil pushers are all like “You have to approve these things”, blah blah blah. Would Bill Cullen put up for that. Nope. It’s as if I’m not entitled to make executive decisions or something.

Tuesday

Office. Bored. Think I’ll get the decorators in. Can’t stand purple. Supposed to be a rich colour. Giving me a headache. Solpadeine not helping but at least I have Solitaire and the Internet to distract me.

Jane went on a spending spree in Paris. Reading about it on Bebo. Her fiance was there too? Hmm, must check that out. I’m the only one entitled to bring a significant other around here missy.

Can’t be bothered going out to lunch so call a brown bag one instead. There’s a whole heap of money left in the catering budget and it’s got to be spent. Seems to be a bit of a Hunky Dory / King / Tayto divide among the staff as I sense tension when the the King run out. I give these ingrates a choice of crisps they aren’t even entitled to and they’re ready to stab each other? I’ll soon put an end to that.

Left office at 3 for a spot of golf with the lads from Finance. Bet them all crooked. Always seem to end up paying for drinks. Must find out if I’m entitled to put this down as expenses.

Picked up a nice new pyjamas on the way home. Supposedly blue, but I detect a bit of purple in them. Maybe it’s the light.

Out like a light in bed. Dreamt of gravy and Thomas the Tank Engine.

Wednesday

Jane spent the morning searching google for the phrase “jobs conference” to see if there was anywhere I could head off for the weekend legitimately. Most of the results coming back are all Fas related. Only thing looking promising at the moment is a conference about opportunities in the Archaelogical realm. It’s in Egypt though. Last time I went there I got a dose of the scutters so bad, the EPA were called in to fumigate the hotel room. Who’d have thought it so hard to find a jobs conference running somewhere in the world this weekend?

Must send Jane on a time management course too. I had my well paid computer people hire some even more well paid consultants to develop an IT policy for us. While they were here they pinpointed Jane as being top of the time wasting league. They say she’s downloading 1.5 gigawatts of information from Bebo or something. It’s clogging up the pipes they tell me. Duh, all we need are bigger pipes? Time wasting is a problem only when it’s my money.

Took an afternoon’s sick leave to go to the dentist for some root canal work. Was going to wait and get it done on the next annual Fas strategic think tank in Dubai, but I really don’t trust the Arabs with my teeth. I’ll waive my entitlement for the sake of my enamel thanks very much.

Post dentist is all a bit of a blur. Kept imagining Mary Harney as an inflatable balloon. Fitful sleep.

Thursday

6am - Can’t lift my head from the pillow. Mary Harney haunted me all night. Bald Mary, Blonde Mary, Scarlet O’Hara Mary - the list was endless.

7.30am - Head still stuck to pillow, but visions of Mary no longer in my head.

Make it into work at 11.15am. Jane is happier with the bigger pipes they installed to her computer. Apparantly YouTube loads a lot quicker now. Most people think using a work computer for personal entertainment is time theft from their employer. I see it as keeping my staff happy. Jane is the gatekeeper. Gatekeepers don’t work well when they are demotivated. This isn’t rocket science. All these so called captains of industry could learn a thing or two from me.

Spent afternoon reading the papers. There’s a recession apparantly? Can’t say I’ve noticed.

Head off with finance guys for strategy meeting in Thorton’s.

Friday

Oh no. Just got wind of a report that’s going to hit the papers next week. Mary Harney and that mop of hers. I knew it. I knew she’d get me into trouble one of these days.

Time to batten down the hatches. Good job Jane didn’t manage to find a conference for me to jet off to this weekend. I hate when I can’t get what I’m entitled to, but I sense a change in the force. The good old days are gone I think.

I’m not happy. Here endith my diary for now. I’ve got work to do…?

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Yes kids, there was a time when stuff was priced in single digits. Nowadays you couldn’t buy much for 3p. Maybe half a pear drop from the Sweet Factory or something? I actually remember buying crisps for 5p, 7p and then it hit the psychological barrier of 10p. I swore if crisps hit 10p I’d give them up. But I still bought them and savoured the grease and the salt. Sometimes, vinegar was thrown in for good measure too.

Today’s Tayto definitely don’t taste the same as they used to. A lot more flavouring added now – a bit too much for my liking. This change has come about over the last number of years, I’m not making comparison to what they were like way back then. Still, Mr. Tayto will always remain in my good books as his cheese n’oniony grin hasn’t changed over the years.

In other Tayto related news… They now have their very own version of Pringles – called Toobz. One reviewer says they don’t have all that powdery msg goodness on that Pringles do. 1–0 to Tayto so. Not so sure about the name. It’s a long way from thrupenny Taytos though, that’s for sure.

Picture of Tayto bag from this thread on boards.ie

Picture of Tayto Toobz truck from Niall O’Keeffe’s blog.

I wanted a rainbow, and I found one. This wonderful shot of Kinvara in Co. Galway was taken by boocal and used under the terms of a CC License.

The larger size is here.

The date to sign up to the Irish Bloggers Christkindl has been extended to 7^th December. I had an idea to contact online stores in Ireland and see if they would offer a discount code for anyone taking part in this. With more participants I could fire off the emails and make it worth their while to set something up.

You don’t have to be Irish to take part. You just need to be blogging in Ireland (north or south). This means the sending of items by post isn’t going to cost the earth.

The spending limit of €15 (or £12.50), isn’t a target. You don’t have to spend that much. In fact, you don’t have to spend anything. There is nothing to stop you sending a handmade gift or even giving a CD or book from your existing collection you think the recipient might like.

With billions of Irish blogs out there, hopefully a few more will sign up before next Sunday!

Sign up for the Christkindl here.

Bargains Ireland looks to have found a way to bypass the credit card charges when booking a Ryanair Flight.

This will save anyone booking multiple flights a lot of money. And we all like that.

h/t Irish Internet Entrepreneur

[Ireland.com]

I love this idea. It’s called Tiny Poet and they are:

Photos, of poems, written on post-it notes - posted daily (mon - fri)

So simple and compelling – like all good ideas.

This idea comes from Sinead Cochrane and I will definitely have to put get working on a submission or two. My last expedition into poetry writing was way back in 5^th year in secondary school so it’s been a while, but there’s nothing like a challenge.

You can send your own Tiny Poems to tinypoetry at gmail dot com.