Catching Worms

early bird
noun
colloq:
1. A person who gets out of bed early.
2. A person who arrives early.

There are always people who are more organised than you that end up ruining your badly laid plans. The kind of people who get to airports 3 hours before the flight leaves "just in case" (the ones that are in the departure lounge sipping a Starbucks while you are waiting in a 3 mile queue 30 minutes before take-off waiting for a good frisking).
The ones who get to the sales as the doors are opening and snap up the only bargains, leaving everyone else fighting over a pile of last year's leopard print leggings, or will camp outside a department store to buy overpriced tickets for a U2 or similarly rubbish stadium concert.
The same kind of people who are smugly munching popcorn and watching trailers while you get turned away from the cinema because you didn't think it was necessary to book seats on-line the day before.
People who plan everything, calculate the exact level of slackness of everyone else and get in before them. Don't let these people turn you - Resist planning your cinema trips in advance and getting up early at weekends! Viva spontaneity! These people will get what's coming to them when they have to sit through 3 hours of Bono and crew in a venue so big they may as well be looking at the moon.

hay que aprovechar...

Us: making the best of global warming

6 am Saturday morning. Las ramblas. A great idea is born after one too many rum-based drinks.... Who cares that the world is getting hotter ? Let's live the dream! Let's have a January barbecue on Jim's roof!

Honesty never pays

If you've been in a job for a while (like when you've lived in the same place) , you soon forget the horrors of job (or flat) hunting, and the deceit and self abasement that's involved. First there's the fact that you spend your whole time looking for a job, then as soon as you get one you wish you could have all those sweet, unemployed hours of freedom back.
Then there's the interview process. Despite having something to say on most subjects I actually hate talking about my 'career' to someone who has all the relevant details in front of them in the form of my CV; especially when they go through it line by line, and put a little tick everytime that you confirm that something on there is actually true.
Then comes the inevitable series of 'can you think of a time when...' questions (as in 'can you think of a time when you had to show intiative/ leadership/ flexibility/ feigned interest in a stupid question?'). I defy anyone to answer honestly and still get a job. And then the best one of all - 'What are your weaknesses?'. Just once, I would like to turn that question round and say 'I don't know but yours is obviously a total lack of imagination when thinking up interview questions'. [I'll see myself out....]

It's getting hot in here....

Nelly got that right...
Normally this unseasonal weather makes me call someone back in England and ask them what it's like there (9 times out of 10 cold and wet..ha ha). But then autumn leaves, people wearing T-shirts and the thermometer tipping 20 in January isn't really natural, and then I thought back to last July when the city was melting while people sat parked in their cars pumping out the air conditioning and old women randomly stopped you to give it 'que calor! - Es insorportable!'. It certainly feels like climate change is here, despite what caring sharing Exxon Mobil will pay scientists to say.

I'm not exactly blameless in my production of noxious gases (who is?). Although I don't drive a car, I am a big user of aeroplanes (not something I'm proud of or remotely enjoy). Strictly speaking I blame my friends and family for selfishly insisting on staying in the UK and getting married and other things that involve me flying there (and generally flying back poorer and with a hangover).
If you add to this the increasingly bizarre security measures that keep changing at UK airports - liquids yes, as long as they're in a small bottle, (although I actually got through this weekend with an illicit lip balm and a bottle of water!), being told to take my shoes off, then to put them back on before I went through the scanner - (I think they were just checking out the christmas socks). All in all flying is becoming more and more like a national express coach ride. Uncomfortable, long, with overpriced Wagon Wheels and with the threat of danger looming.
So I was thinking about getting the train to london next time I need to go. I have checked this out to compare whether it would be feasible or remotely cost efficient

Plane to london: around 100 Euros return, Time: 2 hours
Train to london: around 225 Euros one way (the return leg was 'not available'. Time: *only* 17 hours each way.

Easyjet it is then....