Oh, bugger

The title might have tipped you off, but unfortunately I did not get the internship I was hoping for. However, the reasons are optimistic; they wanted someone who was available for a longer time period. That's fair enough; it was a stretch to ask for a three month internship that they hoped would morph into a full-time employee to be turned into a two-month internship with the hope of an employee in two years time.

I can't pretend I'm not gutted, but such is life. We get up, we keep going. It means that all the Heisenberg-esque uncertainty has resolved itself into the need to get myself set up in Aberdeen with a job and a flat, so I'm afraid it's back to that same old tune - who's got a flat that Jonathan can move into?

That unpleasant business out of the way, my workload has been mounting again but I've been permitted back into my old new office. I am reinstalled and receiving students, and it's giving me joy to see certain students who return again and again and who clearly keep copious notes. They make my heart glad. They make my soul sing. They make me wonder if it would be ethical to clone them.

Today was peppered with translations; one a mailing to be sent out to a few thousand people (so no pressure) and the other an exam for a particular program (again, no pressure). On top of that I'm polishing off next week's work nice and early, booking rooms and informing people who need to know where I'll be.

The evening was given over to a presentation by a very interesting man who works in project management. I confess I was cynical at first, of the opinion that managers are essentially useless, but he won me round. I will now admit that managers are only a bit useless, but one thing resonated especially - project managers are necessary because there is one resource that is incredibly hard to control, and that is people. Getting people to work together, and work together well, is a skill worth more than anything.

So folks, there's my day. This weekend my girlfriend will be coming down before I jet off to Germany so I don't know how much writing I'll get done, but I'll try to jot something down every night. If I can't get access out there (does Germany have internet?) I'll upload everything when I'm back. I promise to return with souvenirs in the forms of photos and humorous stories.

Not as cheerful as usual, but I'm a little down. Normal, teeth-aching cheeriness will recommence tomorrow. Until that time, have some eye candy. Suitable for everyone of almost all ages.

For people who like attractive and nearly naked chaps

And for people who like attractive and nearly naked ladies

Apparently it snowed

You wouldn't know it from the way every damn person on your various social media collectively lost their minds and ran around taking pictures with their camera phones and exclaiming with glee that actual freaking water was coming out of the sky except colder than normal. 

For me, it was a terrific pain in the arse. Journeys are made continually more difficult by snow in the UK; I have foreign readers so it's quite hard to explain the reaction of the British transport system to snow. I shall try. If you imagine that overnight every single engine in every single vehicle across the entire country suddenly changed into a sugar cube, you have some idea of the confusion and mayhem that reigns across this little island when two centimeters of snow falls from the sky.

In any case, I was journeying up to Loughborough to meet an old friend; a flying visit, but I've been meaning to see her for a long time and the wedding proved to be an ideal opportunity. Those photos will, unfortunately, remain private for the moment (an awkwardness around their bosses' opinions of interdepartmental relationships), but I would really like to share very quickly the cake that my mother made:

 

So that's pretty.

In any case, I arrived at the university last night and we kicked back and caught up; introductions were made and apparently my reputation preceded me - as my friend tapped away at her essay, her flatmate with boyfriend in tow asked for my help with a verbal reasoning test. The test was part of the now-standard battery given to anyone hoping to apply for an internship in any sort of organisation, and while I'm not convinced of their efficacy, it is always a pleasure to pit my mind against the examiners.

We bashed through it with 56 seconds to spare, and I'd like to say that I helped as little as I could - most of the work came from the man himself. A nice guy, built - as all the chaps at Loughborough seem to be - like a brick outhouse, and a bit Welsh. Not too much, but noticeably so - although perhaps I sounded a bit English to him. In any case, I hope he's got it; he seems smart enough but he's basically honest while the questions are designed to be sneaky and catch out normal people.

I wound my way back to my friend's and caught sight of the first few flakes of snow puffing against the window. We stood and watched it fall for a while, and then retired to bed to watch Brave, which I have to roundly recommend to anyone who likes Disney movies, Scottish accents, red hair or any combination thereof. If you are expecting anything other than a 90-minute movie with a solid moral message, a lovely bit of character growth and an extremely well-animated, personality-infused bear then this may not be for you - but as something to chuckle to as snow falls outside and you huddle together for warmth, then it's worth a watch.

We separated to sleep - her flatmate had taken the hit and volunteered to sleep with her boyfriend so that there would be a spare bed, what a trooper - and woke early, so that I could have a chance to look around the campus and partake of the delights of lunch. I have to say that for uni food it was pretty good, and much better priced than my own canteen. She and I ran into a couple of old faces, until we wound up back in her room and watching Africa. 

Now I have no, or hardly any, access to iPlayer from France, so I have missed the most recent glorious example of BBC nature programming. It is, as has been vaunted many times before, filmed at the animals' eye levels, which adds a very odd angle to it - it certainly humanises the animals, although all birds seem to stare at one in the same way that a Glaswegian with eight pints of Tennent's best inside him does. Especially if one uses "one" in everyday speech, even if the context is the correct one.

There was a slightly panicked moment as I turned her room upside down until we realised I'd not had an umbrella when I arrived, and a solid twenty minutes of nervous waiting for me when I arrived and realised that the train I had expected at 2pm did not, in fact, exist. There was a train twenty minutes before, and a train twenty minutes after, but a train on the hour there was not. Considering my Eurostar departed a mere fifteen minutes after the expected arrival time of this train, and French customs had stopped me to go through bags at an agonisingly slow rate before, my nails had been bitten to the quick and I was about to start on the knuckles when we pulled into London.

I made it - obviously - but the sooner the British transport system gets over its fear of snow, the better.

I'm on the road again

I have travelled back to the land of my fathers, where the place known as Hill Hill Hill can be found. Hill in Welsh is pen, and invaders who settled there called it Pen Hill, assuming pen to be the name of the hill. Before long, more invaders had arrived, and over time the hill in question had become Pendle. The same thing happened again, and Pendle Hill, or Hillhill Hill, can still be found in Lancashire.

I am back in these United Kingdoms until Monday and I'm really excited about the weekend ahead. Tonight my parents are making a lasagne, a treat without compare when you consider I have no access to oven facilities in my chic little studio apartment.

Before I left I finished all my work and actively sought out my supervisor to make sure she knew I was leaving - the last thing I need this weekend is a call about an urgent translation, especially as my phone is patchy at best here - and made some minor adjustments to the Student's Association's application for sponsorship to some local businesses.

We're off to a wedding tomorrow, and I've been requested to bring my camera - if I take any particularly good shots I'd love to share them here, but it means I shall have to avoid drinking myself under the table. Weddings strike me as an odd sort of affair, people being given away like presents and members of each party eying each other up in the hope of further strengthening ties between the two families - something that also apparently happens under the tables, so if I drink myself into a stupor at least I'll still have subjects.

I went into the local supermarket before I went home, as I've promised to bring my boss back some Marmite. At first she thought I said marmalade and turned her nose up; "Je n'aime pas des confitures," she said: I don't like jams. "Ah non", I said, "it's savoury, a British delicacy." So she agreed to try this spread, little suspecting that it is one of the foulest things we've ever invented. In any case, I went, I got in line, and after some light flirty banter with the cashier I made it home.

I like flirty banter, and I humbly suggest that more people do it in their day-to-day life.

I'm also going up to see an old school pal in Loughborough on Sunday, where I suspect I shall look entirely out of place amongst the über-fit and healthy students of the university. And then a swift journey back on Monday to London and then on to home and my oven-less studio apartment.

The scent of lasagne is calling me to the table, but before I leave, I ask:

Which character from the world of literature always smells like old, stinking tobacco?