Babel and I just had a delightful weekend at Esperanto House in Barlaston I’d been looking forward to the break away for ages, but by the time Friday afternoon came I was so incredibly stressed because of work that I just felt sort of sick and shaky and could hardly enjoy the delicious burger king Babel treated me to. Once we were in the Moosemobile and had managed to negotiate ourselves into the correct lane for going north on the M6, I managed to relax a bit, however, and a good dose of minstrel music always helps to make the world seem like a brighter place (more…)

I apologise for the extreme lack of blogging recently, but I have been having a hellish sort of week. Workwise I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had any scope to do anything other than, well, work(!) during work hours, and have even had to bring home several hours work a couple of evenings. Bizarrely, this is supposed to be our quietest time of the year, and yet I am ten times more stressed out and under pressure than I was during January and February, which are allegedly our busiest times

What it all boils down to is pension schemes. In order to audit pension schemes, you have to be specially trained, and all of the specially trained people, with the notable exception of me, have either left the firm or are currently at college doing exams. Combine this with the fact that there is an annoying piece of government legislation, which requires that all pension scheme accounts be signed and filed within seven months of the year end, and add into the mixture the fact that the overwhelming majority of pension schemes choose 5 April as their year end to coincide with the tax year. The net result is that the reporting deadline is the week after next, and suddenly there are in excess of twenty half-finished pension scheme audits which have my name on them (more…)

Mi volis blogi pri io kio okazis hejme hieraux vespere, sed mi ne volis tion fari cxi tie, cxar temas pri familia afero kaj mia opinio certe ne placxus al mia fratino se sxi legus gxin. Pro tio, Babel gxentile diris al mi ke mi povas uzi lian blogon, kaj tion mi jxus faris. Do, se vi volas legi la rezulton, bonvolu iri al lia retpagxaro

The nights are drawing in, the Christmas decorations have long since been up in Birmingham city centre, and it’s getting to that traumatic time of year when I have to think about buying presents. Babel was inconsiderate enough to be born a fortnight before Christmas, which means that the run-up to December is very fraught indeed as I try to think of not one, but two acceptable presents

I am not very good at buying presents in general, and buying presents for Babel is particularly problematic. You can’t buy him music, because he doesn’t listen to it. You can’t buy him DVDs, because he downloads anything he wants to watch. You can’t buy him books, because unless you agree a specific book with him in advance, the chances are he’ll have bought it, read it and reviewed it before you get to give it to him. You can’t buy him clothes, because he’s not a clothes sort of person and he has an abnormally large neck. You can’t buy him aftershave, because he wouldn’t use it, and you can’t buy him chocolate because it wouldn’t help his figure. So out of all my usual male-present-buying ideas, the only one that remains is socks and since we disagree in any case over what constitutes an appropriate sock, I feel this is territory best avoided (more…)

I’ve just had one of the most enjoyable weekends I’ve had in a long while It started (too!) early on Saturday morning, when Babel arrived to collect me with a car-full of Esperantists. It is a firmly held belief of mine that one should not get up before half ten at a weekend unless there is an exceptional circumstance, and I was unsure as to whether this qualified as one We were headed to Worcester, where we were holding the latest JEBmeet-up. I don’t know Worcester terribly well, and so had decided to be prepared by emailing Babel a selection of maps for printing. Sadly, I emailed them to his work address, under the mistaken impression that he was working on Friday evening, or else I made a stupid typo, because he never received them, and so finding our way to the agreed meeting point became more traumatic than I had hoped (more…)

The most dreadful thing happened last night!

Babel very kindly came to have dinner with me after work, because we hadn’t had much chance to talk to each other at the weekend. We initially struggled slightly to find somewhere to eat, because everywhere was busy and full of accountants, but ultimately ended up in a branch of O Neils, which certainly isn’t my favourite establishment but was nevertheless better than nothing. I was a bit disappointed on two counts; firstly, that our favourite pub to eat in opposite where I work has just been rebranded as an “eatery” and is now full of yuppies. Secondly, that my second pub to eat in just down the road from where I work is operating a new dress code such that if you can only go in if you dress like an accountant I had quite a nice barbecue chicken melt in O Neils though, and afterwards we went on a walk in a quest for coffee, and it was all very pleasant until we tried to get back to the car. (more…)

Babel wrote a book review on his website the other day, which made me start thinking about the Battle of Waterloo. The Battle of Waterloo for me is representative of the complete and utter failure of the British education system, because I managed to complete my entire schooling without ever having heard of it. Having later discovered that it was really rather important as battles go, I can only see this as a massive failure on the part of the person who designed the National Curriculum for history. (more…)

My aim this lunchtime was to buy some clothes for a bear. As is sadly the case with many of my aims in life, I failed to achieve it I’m not very good at buying clothes for myself, never mind for a bear who I have never met and whose preferences I don’t know.

The bear in question is called Boston. At least, that’s probably how I’d spell his name, but you pronounce it as if it were spelt “Boast-on”. It seems to me a very peculiar sort of name for a bear, but it was christened by my little cousin who is going to be five in a couple of weeks. Boston, or Boaston, or whatever we’re going to call him, started life in a shop which is seemingly no longer known as the Bear Factory but which I’m sure used to be called that not so very long ago. It’s the sort of shop where you go and choose the body parts of your bear and then sit and watch whilst they sew it up in front of your eyes, something which always seemed like a rather strange idea to me, but which is apparently popular with small children. The same shop also does an extensive range of clothing for bears, and it was something along these lines which I have been directed towards purchasing as a present. (more…)

Mi scivolas kial homoj ĉiam estas multe pli deprimitaj nokte ol matene. Almenaŭ mi estas tiel - post la naŭa vespere ĉiuj miaj problemoj fariĝas pli teruraj ol ili ŝajnis dum la tago kaj mi emas plori. Ĉu estas pro la manko de sunlumo aŭ ĉar mi lacas? Mi guglis respondon sensukcese, do mi ne scias. Hieraŭ vespere mi estis tre malĝoja, kvankam tio tute ne estis logika, ĉar mi efektive pasigis belan tagon kun mia geparencoj, al kiuj mia koramiko feliĉe plaĉas Verŝajne mi tro pripensis laboron, kaj tion kion mi devas fari ĉi-semajne. Restas multaj malagrablaj aferoj kiujn mi devas fari dum la venontaj tagoj, sed hodiaŭ fakte estas facila tago - mi kontrolas la kontojn de malgranda pensio en Coventry - kaj ĝenerale mi sentas min multe pli positiva. (more…)

Nun estas la semajnfino kaj mi havas pli da libertempo. Miaj kontoj pli-malpli bilancas, kaj mi povas ripozi. Hieraŭ mi pasigis trankvilan tagon. Mi ankoraŭ legas tiun strangan libron, “La Lada Tambureto”, sed nuntempe nenio terura okazas. Fakte mi iomete fieras, ĉar mi ĵus atingis la finon de la unua parto kaj komencis la duan. La finajn paĝojn de tiu parto mi ne bone komprenis, ĉar ili enhavis multajn vortojn kiujn mi ne konis en Esperanto. Migdaloj, ekzemple, kiu ŝajne estas Mandeln, kaj rafanetoj, kiuj estas Radieschen. Mi scias tion nur, ĉar mia fratino helpeme trovis sian germanan version de la libro kaj kune ni legis la problemigajn paĝojn samtempe. La germanan mi feliĉe komprenis pli bone; estis multe da germanlingva vortludo en tiu ĉapitro kiu ne bone tradukiĝis en Esperanton. (more…)