4 x 4 by going on 104
Russell's tagged me in one of those, those, things. I hate those things. I've been tagged before and I don't think I've ever done one (sorry if you've tagged me).
But you know what, perhaps it's time I started being a little less grumpy* and seeing as I enjoyed reading these ones I thought I'd have a go.
*These replies will of course make me sound extremely grumpy and like I'm about 104.
Four Jobs I've Had
Postman Only a summer job but, apart from being a designer, my favourite job ever. In fact I'd go back to being a postman tomorrow, I loved every minute of it. There are some caveats, firstly I did it in a very small town so no huge, heavy bags and no intimidating, stair wielding, tower blocks. Just friendly people who'd chat to you and get you a glass of orange juice. Secondly I like getting up early, if I didn't like getting up early (we used to start at 5.30am) then it would have been a different story.
The best bit about being a postman? The end of the day was the end of the day. Every day you were given some letters and you had to deliver them, once you'd done that that was that. No work to take home, no thinking about work on the way home, no To Do lists, no "I'll finish that tomorrow", no meetings. That was a nice feeling.
Freelance Designer For The Millennium Zones In the summer of 1997 I freelanced at a place called Work (yeah, I hated the name too). They were eventually behind four of the zones in the Millennium Dome. I helped out with signage and other stuff. Just hanging around in that just out of college way. I loved the Dome, my favourite Zone being the Work designed Living Island. That was the one that looked like a seaside pier. Sure it was badly managed, badly handled and badly PR'ed, but I tend to find the people that hated it were the people who did't bother going. Work were based on Charlotte Road, in the same building as Toy Hacking / Moving Brands and Shoreditch in '97 was a great place to hang out. Still wild and reckless and a little bit scary after dark, not yet on the radar of Lonely Planet and a lot of fun.
Funny to think the only places we went to back then were Shoreditch and The Strand.
Hotel Barman Most of my friends worked at University whilst I stubbornly refused. However one day one of my housemates persuaded me to try an evening behind a hotel bar. It was a disaster from start to finish. The highlight was when I was asked for a lemon merengue pie in a drunken Lincolnshire slur. I told the customer we didn't have any (it was a bar not a restaurant) but he insisted. After an increasingly less gentle discussion I went and asked one of the restaurant staff. They didn't have any lemon merengue pie either. More discussion and then my friend came along poured the man a Glenmorangie and everyone went away happy. They never asked me back.
Car Counter When I was at University a few of us took job counting cars for a day. From 7-10 and then 3-6 we sat by the side of the road and counted cars. In the morning I sat on the side of the road, in the afternoon I borrowed a chair from the Uni canteen. It was cold, boring and rather than getting paid in cash at the end of the day (as we'd presumed) we got a cheque 6 weeks later. I seem to remember that we got paid £25 but we couldn't have done as that would have been a sodding fortune.
Funnily enough one of the reasons I did it was that I thought it would be cool to tell people that I used to have a job counting cars when I was rich and famous. I've never had the opportunity to tell anyone until now.
Four Shows I DVR
This is where I get really grumpy. I don't DVR anything. I don't own a DVR. My telly is less than 25 inches big and older than 5 years. In fact, I officially hate TV. I say officially because I've hated it for a long time, but I still used to watch it a bit. Now I hardly watch any.
I tried getting rid of it once, but they day after I unplugged it and put it to one side the 7/7 bombings happened. Therefore iIhad to get the TV out to watch the news etc. So it stays, forlorn in the corner.
I'll watch the news and Question Time and England if it's on the BBC (certainly no commercial TV dear boy). I'm enjoying Ashes to Ashes but I think I've watched every one on the fantastic iPlayer. I might watch Portillo on Thatcher later. But I wouldn't record any of those programmes. I might, maybe, possibly record The Sopranos but I'd rather watch it on i4+1 or whatever it's called. I gave up recording stuff a long, long time ago. To me recording TV is like stealing time, in a bad way. If you haven't got time to watch it now you won't have time to watch it later. You're just stealing time from yourself. Robbing the time Peter to pay the consumption Paul.
Four Places I've Been
I've never been "travelling" and I've never back packed anywhere. I've slept in a tent once and I'm never doing that again. Yet I've been lucky enough to visit all sorts of places all around the world. Here are four.
Chicago My Brother lives in Chicago and so I go there a lot. 17 times in the last 10 years in fact. Going to a place a lot is very different to visiting a place once or twice (fairly obviously). You get to know the best way to get there, which plane it's best to fly on, the quickest way to get out of the airport all those little things that only come over time. I really feel like I know Chicago. I can find my way around, I know where the good bars are, I know where you can watch Man U vs Arsenal, I know where to park, I constantly know where north is. That's a good feeling.
Chicago is a great city. Big and dirty and bold like New York, but friendly and clean and there's a beach. It snows in the winter and it's roasting hot in the summer.
Queenstown Queenstown in New Zealand is about as far away from London as you can get. A tiny, very friendly, beautiful place. It's famous for bungee jumping, white water rafting and snow boarding. As you've probably gathered by now I'm not into any of that stuff. At all. I spent my time there, sleeping, drinking and admiring the amazing scenery (it's where they filmed most of the mountains scenes for LotR). Strangely we now have some really good friends who were born in Queenstown and we met them in Charlton, South East London. Truly a very small world.
Las Vegas I've probably been here too many times. Three I think. Vegas is a mad, mad place but worth the trip to experience it for yourself. There's a lot of fun to be had and it's the only true 24 hour community I've ever experienced. Lots and lots of lovely signage. I'll go back.
Isle of Mull I thought I'd better get some UK places in. A friend of hours hired a castle for his fortieth and we all trekked up to Mull for a long weekend. (Paul, I mean trek metaphorically, don't get any ideas). It's an isolated place of immense rain, whiskey and beauty. It's also where they film Balamory and the picture of me stood on the multicoloured high street will impresses nieces and nephews for ever more.
Four Music Artists I'm Listening To Now
Ouch, this will be painful. My music taste is famously er odd. Just as my favourite type of restaurant is Revolving, my favourite type of music is Chart. And I'm a big fan of country music (it's the stories) and I don't like songs if I can't hear the words. I haven't heard of a single artist on Matt, Russell or Iain's lists apart from Nick Cave.
So, according to my iPod here are the top four most listened to artists. (Whilst writing this I'm listening to Dusty Springfield).
George Michael You can't beat a bit of George. Proper pop music as pop music should be. I've seen him live, very good.
George Michael doing an acoustic version of Stars Of The Lid's greatest hit.
Amy Winehouse I think she has an incredible voice. Watch her sing sitting down! Can't decide if I'd like to see her live. I'm certainly not going to a gig in Camden.
Jamie Callum Told you I was 104. Bit surprised this was in the most listened to, but there you go. Seen him live, very good also.
The Lemonheads Aren't they all dead or something?
That's it. Over. Any last chance I had of being cool vanished forever.
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