Hiya.. Its been a while since my last post, so a quick personsl recap on my life so far,for those of you who enjoy reading my posts and having a good old nosey about other peoples lives. (I bet you watch a lot of docu-soaps and fly on the wall type programmes too, don't you? Sinister I guess, is a bit like that sometimes). I've started a new job,working for The Scottish Parliament. I'm working in the Bills unit (making up Bills to be passed and argued by a bunch of MSPs and turned into laws and stuff.) Its quite an interesting job. We're up to all sorts of things, including creating one for children's rights, and one about windfarms, and one about improving train services, and one about litter, and one for prostitution tolerance zones. Its all quite interesting, sort of doing things that might affect the lives of everyone living in Scotland. Its not about arguing a case why a law or Bill should be passed, but collating information from all sources about the topic, which then goes on to help crate the Bill itself. I got to sit in a meeting two weeks ago with lots of MSPs. Lord James Douglas Hamilton was sitting in front of me, and I was taking notes for my boss. I had my notes on my lap, and kept dropping all my bits of paper under Lord James' seat. The novelty factor still hasn't waned yet. Theres a big x ray machine for visitors (like at airports) in reception, and theres lots of police wandering about who chat to us. I missed seeing the sniffer dogs on the first day back from recess unfortunately. And theres is underground tunnel between two of the buildings. Its quite odd, the other day, when I came back from lunch, and there was all these protesters standing outside my office. After five minutes of politely trying to get passed, I decided enough was enough and pushed my way through. Nobody was going to stop me from sitting at my desk eating my Marks and Spencer sandwiches. But then they were getting cars to toot their horns as they drove by, which was most annoying, as it put me off reading my horoscope in the Metro. Silly people anyway. There was no MSPs in my building. We're just ordinary joes and josphines, sitting doing background work with no influence over what goes on, and eating our lunch. I keep getting stopped in the street by people asking questions about the parliament or about Edinburgh in general, whenever I wear my seurity badge. I've taken to calling it my wierdo magnet, and not wearing outside the office anymore. I got some good news yesterday! I found out that I'm actually earning more than I was actually quoted by my agency when I took this job. Two grand more. Two grand can buy you an awful lot of belle and sebastian tea towels. In fact, you could probably buy one, and then when its dirty, throw it away and buy a new one. But I'm not really going to do that. I've also given up smoking. I went out last night with a bunch of pals, and went to dinner and then out to the Citrus CLub, where I shook my funky booty to lots of 70's and 80's punky alternative indie stuff. Was it called indie in the 70's? Anyway, I only had one lapse, one ciggarette, out of the whole evening, which is pretty good considering I'd usually smoke about twenty in a night. I've only given up for a week, but I'm still quite happy. I'm chewing nicotine gum like its oxygen. Seeing as theres been a top ten theme going on in sinister recently, I thought I'd add my own top ten. TOP TEN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NICOTINE GUM AND CIGARETTES 1. Chewing nicotine gum is not seen as anti social, but smoking is. 2. You can chain chew and nobody comments on it. 3. Nobody gets upset it you chew the gum while other people are eating. 4. You can chew the gum in no smoking areas. 5. It costs �5 a pack, but a pack lasts me 4 days. And that works out as being �4.60 cheaper for every four days than cigarettes. 6. It doesn't smell, or make you smell, or make your clothes smell. 7. You can do it at your desk at work 8. Unlike menthol cigarettes, the minty taste of gum is a lot nicer. 9. Its not bad for your health, nor addictive. It has nicotine in it, but its not something you can transfer your addiction onto, it curbs the feeling rather than give you something new to get hooked on. 10. People are more approving of it than of cigarettes. I'm sure theres a lot of better reasons, but those are my ones. Anyway, better go... love idles ===== http://groups.yahoo.com/group/corduroysmoke/ starting playground gossip and passing notes __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! 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