What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Cool breeze, setting sun, clear sky, clifftop, sparkling sea, and a car waiting to take me somewhere interesting that evening
What is your greatest fear?
Retirement - my pension is worth a damn
What is the trait you deplore most in yourself?
Cowardice
What is the trait you deplore most in others?
Slobbish public behaviour
Which living person do you most admire?
Pass
What is your greatest extravagance?
I don't have the money for extravagances. Books and music are necessities.
What is your current state of mind?
I don't think there's a word for it. I must be in denial. Again.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
If it can be over-rated, it isn't a virtue.
What is the quality you most like in a man?
A quick wit
What is the quality you like most in a woman?
All of them
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"The snag / problem / catch / difficulty is ...."
Who or what is the greatest love of your life?
All my loves are equal
When and where were you happiest?
I haven't been there yet
Which talent would you most like to have?
Sight-reading music
What is your most treasured possession?
My sobriety
What do you regard as the lowest depths of misery?
I've never known misery - drunken self-pity, yes, but not misery
What is your favourite occupation?
Writing, taking pictures, making music
What is your most marked characteristic?
I don't drink the Kool-Aid
What do you value most in your friends?
Being with them
Who is your favourite hero in fiction?
Any of the main male protagonists in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
Who are your heros in real life?
Professional soldiers. I can't do what they do and I'm damn glad they do it.
What is it you most dislike?
Being lied to
What is your greatest regret?
Not having slept with far more women
How would you like to die?
Quickly and before Social Services can sell my house under me
What is your motto?
One day at a time
Friday, 2 July 2010
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
The Golden Years of Number Ones
It's tempting to say that pop (rock, dance, whatever) music is at its best when you're between, when, fifteen and twenty-five? The same age girls are at their sexiest. Because it's not about the music, it's about your capacity to react to it. Well, I'm going to beg to differ here. I was still at Belmont Junior School when this period started and just started Erith Grammar School when it ended. I give you from the 5th April 1963 to the 24th September 1965 as the longest unbroken run of high-quality Number Ones in musical history. Ken Dodd ended it all, with Tears, which is why my generation hated him. After that the Number Ones were often novelty numbers (Ernie The Fastest Milkman In The West - huh?) as they were stone knock-outs (Good Vibrations). In order...
How Do You Do It - Gerry and the Pacemakers
From Me to You - The Beatles
I Like It - Gerry and the Pacemakers
Sweets for my Sweet - The Searchers
Bad To Me - Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas
She Loves You - The Beatles
Do You Love Me - Brian Poole and The Tremelos
You'll Never Walk Alone - Gerry and the Pacemakers
I Want to Hold Your Hand - The Beatles
Glad All Over - The Dave Clark Five
Needles and Pins - The Searchers
Anyone Who Had A Heart - Cilla Black
Little Children - Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas
Can't Buy Me Love - The Beatles
A World Without Love - Peter and Gordon
Don't Throw Your Love Away - The Searchers
You're My World - Cilla Black
House of the Rising Sun - The Animals
It's All Over Now - The Rolling Stones
A Hard Day's Night - The Beatles
Do Wah Diddy Diddy - Manfred Mann
Have I The Right - The Honeycombs
You Really Got Me - The Kinks
I'm Into Something Good - Herman's Hermits
Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison
(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me - Sandi Shaw
Baby Love - The Supremes
Little Red Rooster - The Rolling Stones
I Feel Fine - The Beatles
Yeah Yeah - Georgie Fame
Go Now - The Moody Blues
You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling - The Righteous Brothers
Tired of Waiting For You - The Kinks
I'll Never Find Another You - The Seekers
The Last Time - The Rolling Stones
Concrete and Clay - Unit 4+2
Ticket to Ride - The Beatles
King of The Road - Roger Miller
Where Are You Now (My Love) - Jackie Trent
Long Live Love - Sandi Shaw
I'm Alive - The Hollies
Mr Tambourine Man - The Byrds
Help - The Beatles
I Got You Babe - Sonny and Cher
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones
Make It Easy on Yourself - The Walker Brothers
and then the execrable "Tears". Okay, I missed a couple, which were at the top for a week, because I didn't want quibbles. This is about twenty-eight months of non-stop strong songs. The period when the Number One was also one of the best songs around that week. Of course, Like A Rolling Stone wasn't a Number One, but it came out in this period. The next year, 1966, saw tat mixed with Eleanor Rigby and Good Vibrations and popular music was never the same again. That period, from April 63 to September 65 was classic pop at its peak, high on youthful spirits (and maybe a couple of reds). In the next years, the music would be high on many things, but youthful exuberance was not one of them.
How Do You Do It - Gerry and the Pacemakers
From Me to You - The Beatles
I Like It - Gerry and the Pacemakers
Sweets for my Sweet - The Searchers
Bad To Me - Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas
She Loves You - The Beatles
Do You Love Me - Brian Poole and The Tremelos
You'll Never Walk Alone - Gerry and the Pacemakers
I Want to Hold Your Hand - The Beatles
Glad All Over - The Dave Clark Five
Needles and Pins - The Searchers
Anyone Who Had A Heart - Cilla Black
Little Children - Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas
Can't Buy Me Love - The Beatles
A World Without Love - Peter and Gordon
Don't Throw Your Love Away - The Searchers
You're My World - Cilla Black
House of the Rising Sun - The Animals
It's All Over Now - The Rolling Stones
A Hard Day's Night - The Beatles
Do Wah Diddy Diddy - Manfred Mann
Have I The Right - The Honeycombs
You Really Got Me - The Kinks
I'm Into Something Good - Herman's Hermits
Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison
(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me - Sandi Shaw
Baby Love - The Supremes
Little Red Rooster - The Rolling Stones
I Feel Fine - The Beatles
Yeah Yeah - Georgie Fame
Go Now - The Moody Blues
You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling - The Righteous Brothers
Tired of Waiting For You - The Kinks
I'll Never Find Another You - The Seekers
The Last Time - The Rolling Stones
Concrete and Clay - Unit 4+2
Ticket to Ride - The Beatles
King of The Road - Roger Miller
Where Are You Now (My Love) - Jackie Trent
Long Live Love - Sandi Shaw
I'm Alive - The Hollies
Mr Tambourine Man - The Byrds
Help - The Beatles
I Got You Babe - Sonny and Cher
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones
Make It Easy on Yourself - The Walker Brothers
and then the execrable "Tears". Okay, I missed a couple, which were at the top for a week, because I didn't want quibbles. This is about twenty-eight months of non-stop strong songs. The period when the Number One was also one of the best songs around that week. Of course, Like A Rolling Stone wasn't a Number One, but it came out in this period. The next year, 1966, saw tat mixed with Eleanor Rigby and Good Vibrations and popular music was never the same again. That period, from April 63 to September 65 was classic pop at its peak, high on youthful spirits (and maybe a couple of reds). In the next years, the music would be high on many things, but youthful exuberance was not one of them.
Monday, 28 June 2010
Chester Visit
I was in Chester a couple of weeks ago, on business for reasons that still make me mad to think about them. I took an evening train up and went for a walk along the Shropshire Union canal...
(It's worth clicking on both those for the detail.) The hotel room - in the Kings Suite of the Queen Hotel by Chester station - was pretty good...
though the courtyard is kitsch beyond description...
Lunchtime was at the Old Harker's Arms, on the canalised. It might not look prepossessing...
...but the food is consistently damn good. As this hake was...
As things are going, I won't have many more excuses to visit the place in the future. Kinda shame, as it's a nice time and I keep wanting to use my right to shoot a Welshman who has dared venture near the city walls with a bow and arrow.
(It's worth clicking on both those for the detail.) The hotel room - in the Kings Suite of the Queen Hotel by Chester station - was pretty good...
though the courtyard is kitsch beyond description...
Lunchtime was at the Old Harker's Arms, on the canalised. It might not look prepossessing...
...but the food is consistently damn good. As this hake was...
As things are going, I won't have many more excuses to visit the place in the future. Kinda shame, as it's a nice time and I keep wanting to use my right to shoot a Welshman who has dared venture near the city walls with a bow and arrow.
Friday, 25 June 2010
Why Can't The BBC Do The Wire?
There was an interesting article about British TV drama in the FT a couple of weeks ago. The starting point was The Wire and why the BBC hasn't done anything like it. The article ended with an attempt to suggest that British TV drama was different-but-equal. Tosh.
What lifted The Wire clean above even The Shield, The West Wing and BtVS, was season four, that heartbreaking series about criminality and evil amongst school-children. These were children murdering and hiding the bodies in derelict houses, pouring lye over the corpses to help with the decomposition. Being children, they poured the lye over the clothes. They didn't quite get it. The series didn't flinch, didn't miss a detail and it didn't moralise once - it told the story. I can't remember a single moment of hope in all twenty-two episodes.
It took David Simon thirteen years of non-stop writing and producing to get there, with one hundred and fifty four episodes of Homicide: Life On The Street between 1993 and 1999, six episodes of The Corner in 2002 and sixty-six episodes of The Wire, before that awesome series four. No other writer in television history has had Simon's opportunities, and he has admitted as much in an interview. It's not that British TV can't do The Wire - no-one else could or did either.
What British TV should be able to do but can't, and Hollywood can and does, is The Shield and follow it with Sons of Anarchy, or BtVS and follow it with Angel. (And don't dare offer Dr Who and Torchwood) Why not? Well, are we looking for reasons or excuses? Lack of money is an excuse - if the British wanted to produce high-quality drama, they would find the money. God knows they find enough for football and celebrity presenters. The "theatrical tradition" is an excuse as well - the Americans only got this good at TV in the early 1990's. Both have had the same time since the invention of television to learn the art. The fact that British culture is run (if it is) by kidults to busy attending inclusiveness and marketing courses is an excuse as well. There are sensible people you can hire if you are prepared to pay. It's not a lack of talent either: the music scene is bursting with it and Hollywood moves and TV are packed with English actors who couldn't get jobs in the UK.
British TV produces not-quite-good-enough (or "flawed" if you're being polite) drama because the British simply are not serious about the job of writing, directing and producing drama. That's not unique to drama: the Special Forces and music aside, the British aren't really that serious about anything. They rely on the fact that the competition are just as... lackadaisical isn't the word, nor is shoddy... easily satisfied is probably it. On the creative side, the British are easily satisfied and on the managerial side they are just plain cheap. Which is why most British writers never do more than two drafts - they aren't being paid enough.
I suspect that most British writers and producers don't even read the books. Hollywood has three standard texts on screenwriting: McKee's Story, Syd Fields' Screenplay and Vogler's Writer's Journey. Everyone has read these, and even if they don't agree with what the authors say, the industry shares a common technical language. Do you know what a "beat" is? Entire British scripts can go by without a single one - and as for story arcs, in British scripts, fuggedaboutit. (One reason I love Local Hero, Dinner Rush and Groove is that they are packed with satisfying character arcs.)
It's more than just a lack of technique. It's as if there's something missing in the soul of many English writers: it feels like they don't really like or understand people. The Big Names who write for theatre admit they are all about the Ideas and the Politics as if that's a good thing. The British can make nasty, mean movies (Eden Lake, Kidulthood) but they can't make something as charming as Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist or Before Sunset. No. You just think they have. But they haven't. And costume dramas are cute, not charming.
The real question isn't why British television couldn't do The West Wing or The Wire. It's why the BBC can't even do Flashpoint or Blood Ties. If I was unlucky enough to be in charge of drama at the BBC, I swear I would cancel the lot and show a test card where Eastenders was supposed to be, until either I or someone else worked out how to tell engaging stories with characters the audience will identify with on the limited budgets at my disposal. And if I couldn't, I'd give the money back to the license-payers.
What lifted The Wire clean above even The Shield, The West Wing and BtVS, was season four, that heartbreaking series about criminality and evil amongst school-children. These were children murdering and hiding the bodies in derelict houses, pouring lye over the corpses to help with the decomposition. Being children, they poured the lye over the clothes. They didn't quite get it. The series didn't flinch, didn't miss a detail and it didn't moralise once - it told the story. I can't remember a single moment of hope in all twenty-two episodes.
It took David Simon thirteen years of non-stop writing and producing to get there, with one hundred and fifty four episodes of Homicide: Life On The Street between 1993 and 1999, six episodes of The Corner in 2002 and sixty-six episodes of The Wire, before that awesome series four. No other writer in television history has had Simon's opportunities, and he has admitted as much in an interview. It's not that British TV can't do The Wire - no-one else could or did either.
What British TV should be able to do but can't, and Hollywood can and does, is The Shield and follow it with Sons of Anarchy, or BtVS and follow it with Angel. (And don't dare offer Dr Who and Torchwood) Why not? Well, are we looking for reasons or excuses? Lack of money is an excuse - if the British wanted to produce high-quality drama, they would find the money. God knows they find enough for football and celebrity presenters. The "theatrical tradition" is an excuse as well - the Americans only got this good at TV in the early 1990's. Both have had the same time since the invention of television to learn the art. The fact that British culture is run (if it is) by kidults to busy attending inclusiveness and marketing courses is an excuse as well. There are sensible people you can hire if you are prepared to pay. It's not a lack of talent either: the music scene is bursting with it and Hollywood moves and TV are packed with English actors who couldn't get jobs in the UK.
British TV produces not-quite-good-enough (or "flawed" if you're being polite) drama because the British simply are not serious about the job of writing, directing and producing drama. That's not unique to drama: the Special Forces and music aside, the British aren't really that serious about anything. They rely on the fact that the competition are just as... lackadaisical isn't the word, nor is shoddy... easily satisfied is probably it. On the creative side, the British are easily satisfied and on the managerial side they are just plain cheap. Which is why most British writers never do more than two drafts - they aren't being paid enough.
I suspect that most British writers and producers don't even read the books. Hollywood has three standard texts on screenwriting: McKee's Story, Syd Fields' Screenplay and Vogler's Writer's Journey. Everyone has read these, and even if they don't agree with what the authors say, the industry shares a common technical language. Do you know what a "beat" is? Entire British scripts can go by without a single one - and as for story arcs, in British scripts, fuggedaboutit. (One reason I love Local Hero, Dinner Rush and Groove is that they are packed with satisfying character arcs.)
It's more than just a lack of technique. It's as if there's something missing in the soul of many English writers: it feels like they don't really like or understand people. The Big Names who write for theatre admit they are all about the Ideas and the Politics as if that's a good thing. The British can make nasty, mean movies (Eden Lake, Kidulthood) but they can't make something as charming as Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist or Before Sunset. No. You just think they have. But they haven't. And costume dramas are cute, not charming.
The real question isn't why British television couldn't do The West Wing or The Wire. It's why the BBC can't even do Flashpoint or Blood Ties. If I was unlucky enough to be in charge of drama at the BBC, I swear I would cancel the lot and show a test card where Eastenders was supposed to be, until either I or someone else worked out how to tell engaging stories with characters the audience will identify with on the limited budgets at my disposal. And if I couldn't, I'd give the money back to the license-payers.
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Gratuitous Trivial Wi-Fi Name Post
My netbook picked up this list of Wi-Fi sources somewhere near Bath. This is a screenshot and utterly for real.
What surprises me is that so many sources can be picked up while you're on a train.
What surprises me is that so many sources can be picked up while you're on a train.
Monday, 21 June 2010
Corporate Development Part 143: Cute Questions Carry The Message
You know those quizzes they do in magazines: cute questions with cute answers? Well, try this one. The questions are real, and I wrote the answers more or less spontaneously.
How aware are you of your emotions?
Very. My feelings are me in the moment. I am one with what I feel
What am I feeling? (Name it in one word?
Everything
Why am I feeling that way?
Because I am connected to the world
How do I view myself?
Through a glass and darkly.
Do I get overwhelmed easily?
No.
Do I panic quickly?
At my age?
Do I tend to assume the worst?
No. It turns out far worse than I could ever have imagined.
How do I view the past / present / future?
I live in the day.
Do I spend time regretting the past?
No.
Do I worry about the future?
No. (I know I'm fucked)
How much time do I focus on the here and now?
All of it.
Do I take time to consider the bigger picture?
Your bigger picture or my bigger picture?
Do I take time to stand in someone else's shoes?
Mine fit just fine, thank you.
These questions were part of that Resilience course. WTF? When I started work, and senior managers were giants who bestrode the earth, anyone who tried to pass this twaddle off as serious training would have been dumped. Or sentenced to life in Records in Swansea.
I was okay. I've done the Steps and achieved enough spiritual progress and equanimity to recognise that when someone asks personal questions like these in a business context I am under no obligation to answer them truthfully. The guy I was working with was not okay. He was a tangle of hard emotions. What is he supposed to do with the feelings a question about regretting the past will raise? I know what it did to me and it would take me days to recover. How dare someone put together a course that sends many of those attending out into the world with stirred and shaken emotions?
Notice how the company's message gets carried even by this exercise? Would you ask me to consider the bigger picture if my views agreed with it? Why would I need to put myself in your shoes, unless you want me to change what I intend? Those questions are intended to remind you that the Corporation has its reasons that you wot not of and do not include you. The hits just keep coming.
How aware are you of your emotions?
Very. My feelings are me in the moment. I am one with what I feel
What am I feeling? (Name it in one word?
Everything
Why am I feeling that way?
Because I am connected to the world
How do I view myself?
Through a glass and darkly.
Do I get overwhelmed easily?
No.
Do I panic quickly?
At my age?
Do I tend to assume the worst?
No. It turns out far worse than I could ever have imagined.
How do I view the past / present / future?
I live in the day.
Do I spend time regretting the past?
No.
Do I worry about the future?
No. (I know I'm fucked)
How much time do I focus on the here and now?
All of it.
Do I take time to consider the bigger picture?
Your bigger picture or my bigger picture?
Do I take time to stand in someone else's shoes?
Mine fit just fine, thank you.
These questions were part of that Resilience course. WTF? When I started work, and senior managers were giants who bestrode the earth, anyone who tried to pass this twaddle off as serious training would have been dumped. Or sentenced to life in Records in Swansea.
I was okay. I've done the Steps and achieved enough spiritual progress and equanimity to recognise that when someone asks personal questions like these in a business context I am under no obligation to answer them truthfully. The guy I was working with was not okay. He was a tangle of hard emotions. What is he supposed to do with the feelings a question about regretting the past will raise? I know what it did to me and it would take me days to recover. How dare someone put together a course that sends many of those attending out into the world with stirred and shaken emotions?
Notice how the company's message gets carried even by this exercise? Would you ask me to consider the bigger picture if my views agreed with it? Why would I need to put myself in your shoes, unless you want me to change what I intend? Those questions are intended to remind you that the Corporation has its reasons that you wot not of and do not include you. The hits just keep coming.
Friday, 18 June 2010
Corporate Development Part 142: Resilience
The one-day course I attended in Bristol the other week was about Resilience. Courses like that are either a complete waste of time; a pleasant confirmation that you're on the right track; or a rather harrowing experience. I had the pleasant confirmation bit.
Resilience is the ability to recoil or spring back into shape after bending, stretching or being compressed; or being able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions. It's the psychological analogue of fitness. (Fitness is about how quickly you recover from exertion: it's usually confused with strength and stamina.) Some of the things you need are: good health (the ability to withstand infection and recover from it if you are); a reasonable level of fitness, strength and stamina; a clear conscience and a reasonable amount of justified self-confidence; friends who care for you and a family that is a source of happiness; a job that pays you an adequate sufficiency with a manager who is a decent human being. Absent one of those things and you might get by, but two or more and you're screwed. Poor health, no fitness, self-doubt, shallow friendships, a family that drains you, too little money coming in and an insecure bullying jerk for a boss and you are not going to bounce back from anything. You're going to collect dents.
Which wasn't the way the course dealt with it. Their definition was "the capacity to face, overcome and be strengthened by experiences of adversity". The guy referred to the old Nietzsche saw about "that which does not kill me makes me stronger". Ol' Freddie was posturing when he came up with that one. Adversity, from the serious (your pension getting trashed) to the tragic (your ten year old son dying in a random car accident) to the infuriating (The Bank's bureaucracy) to the Kafka-esque (dealing with the Family Courts), rarely leaves anyone stronger. It leaves them with a few more dents at best and insolvent and barely sane at worst.
But we weren't discussing philosophical psychology. We being handed a message. Which was that The Bank knows that working there is tougher than it should be. It knows its systems are half-assed and frustrating to use. It knows that never in the history of human affairs have so many been employed to stop the so few from actually doing the work. It knows that it pays below the market rate and doesn't keep up with inflation. It knows that its managers abuse the staff appraisal system. And guess what? It ain't gonna change. Not one jot of a thing. So get over it. Here are some suggestions from your hired trainer.
Which turned out to be apple pie and homily. Don't take yourself so seriously. See a silver lining in every cloud. See something funny in the situation. Step back and get some perspective on it. View obstacles as challenges. Be able to learn from mistakes. Refuse to see yourself as a victim. Find some support from other people. Recognise what you can control, what you can influence and what you cannot do anything about.
On this last point, they guy said that he had total control over the meal he had eaten the previous evening, because he had ordered it from a menu. Obviously he's never been served a poor cut of steak, a rubbery omelette or coffee in any hotel in Great Britain. You have control over what you eat when you buy the ingredients yourself from a supplier you trust (as opposed to a supermarket who gets the stuff from God knows where) and cook them yourself. Otherwise you're in the lap of the sous-chef and brigade - if you're lucky - and more probably a barely-trained illegal immigrant on minimum wage.
But as I said, we weren't discussing abstruse philosophical concepts with homely examples. I knew the guy wasn't serious when he repeated a line that's caused me to stare incredulously more than once: "this is a performance organisation". It isn't. It really isn't. If it was organised to allow its people to perform at high levels, why would it need courses on handling the shit? The Bank is a dys-organisation and it does not perform. But more on that later.
Resilience is the ability to recoil or spring back into shape after bending, stretching or being compressed; or being able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions. It's the psychological analogue of fitness. (Fitness is about how quickly you recover from exertion: it's usually confused with strength and stamina.) Some of the things you need are: good health (the ability to withstand infection and recover from it if you are); a reasonable level of fitness, strength and stamina; a clear conscience and a reasonable amount of justified self-confidence; friends who care for you and a family that is a source of happiness; a job that pays you an adequate sufficiency with a manager who is a decent human being. Absent one of those things and you might get by, but two or more and you're screwed. Poor health, no fitness, self-doubt, shallow friendships, a family that drains you, too little money coming in and an insecure bullying jerk for a boss and you are not going to bounce back from anything. You're going to collect dents.
Which wasn't the way the course dealt with it. Their definition was "the capacity to face, overcome and be strengthened by experiences of adversity". The guy referred to the old Nietzsche saw about "that which does not kill me makes me stronger". Ol' Freddie was posturing when he came up with that one. Adversity, from the serious (your pension getting trashed) to the tragic (your ten year old son dying in a random car accident) to the infuriating (The Bank's bureaucracy) to the Kafka-esque (dealing with the Family Courts), rarely leaves anyone stronger. It leaves them with a few more dents at best and insolvent and barely sane at worst.
But we weren't discussing philosophical psychology. We being handed a message. Which was that The Bank knows that working there is tougher than it should be. It knows its systems are half-assed and frustrating to use. It knows that never in the history of human affairs have so many been employed to stop the so few from actually doing the work. It knows that it pays below the market rate and doesn't keep up with inflation. It knows that its managers abuse the staff appraisal system. And guess what? It ain't gonna change. Not one jot of a thing. So get over it. Here are some suggestions from your hired trainer.
Which turned out to be apple pie and homily. Don't take yourself so seriously. See a silver lining in every cloud. See something funny in the situation. Step back and get some perspective on it. View obstacles as challenges. Be able to learn from mistakes. Refuse to see yourself as a victim. Find some support from other people. Recognise what you can control, what you can influence and what you cannot do anything about.
On this last point, they guy said that he had total control over the meal he had eaten the previous evening, because he had ordered it from a menu. Obviously he's never been served a poor cut of steak, a rubbery omelette or coffee in any hotel in Great Britain. You have control over what you eat when you buy the ingredients yourself from a supplier you trust (as opposed to a supermarket who gets the stuff from God knows where) and cook them yourself. Otherwise you're in the lap of the sous-chef and brigade - if you're lucky - and more probably a barely-trained illegal immigrant on minimum wage.
But as I said, we weren't discussing abstruse philosophical concepts with homely examples. I knew the guy wasn't serious when he repeated a line that's caused me to stare incredulously more than once: "this is a performance organisation". It isn't. It really isn't. If it was organised to allow its people to perform at high levels, why would it need courses on handling the shit? The Bank is a dys-organisation and it does not perform. But more on that later.
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