Office Romance

Office romances would, you'd imagine, be easier in a place where more than the fair share of blokes are of the same persuasion. It's a bit trickier when you really don't even know if one person is, but you'd really rather like them to be and you don't know how to find out without revealling your hand (ooh, mixed metathingies galore, here, Jim).

Dating was hard enough, but this isn't even close.

Did I mention how uterly miserable being single makes me? Just the twice, eh...

TalkTalk eat babies and kittens

It's only January and already I'm writing a detailed complaint to Ofcom. I don't go looking for trouble, I really don't, but it always seems to find me and it has a habit of knowing exactly what to do to piss me off.

Last April, I upgraded my phone and somehow found myself lumbered with TalkTalk as a telephone provider. I didn't ask for them, they just assumed it was what they should do. They talked me into leaving BT Broadband with that tempting word 'free' and the promise of 8meg Broadband within 14 days. 12 weeks later (in fact the entire run of 2006's Doctor Who series) they still hadn't delivered, so I cancelled their Broadband and stuck with BT. The problems start with TalkTalk not actually believing I cancelled the service before they'd gone live with it, cancelling it again in the November when it looked like they hadn't got the message and then phoning up in December after they wrote to me to say they were taking over my account on Jan 5, to which I replied 'You bloody well are NOT!'

So, anyway, not only did they take over my account from BT without my permission, they also installed a thing called an LLU (Local Limit Unbundling) on the line to prevent anyone else operating Broadband for me.

BT has been very helpful but it means I'm without Internet for the whole month and I'm utterly livid. So if anyone reads this, please spread the word that TalkTalk lie to get business, are incompetent and shouldn't be allowed to trade and thier customer service is shockingly poor. or just advise anyone you know who might be wavering to just avoid them.

As a consequence of this, I've not been able to write about the whole Big Brother scandal (where three young women reveal just how institutionally racist Brits are and India declairs war against Jade Goody). I've not been able to post my reminiscences of childhood, which are currently sitting on my mobile phone across three text drafts. And I can't even upload photos of by two new pairs of pyjamas. Oh yes, I'm addicted.

So thank you, TalkTalk, for being so fucking witless, annoying and downright fucking illegal.

Shrinking and Growing for '07

I started this thing as a means of self-analysis, to see what's made me tick over the years and to perhaps understand myself better.

2006 saw me make a few choices about my life, set a couple of goals that I wanted to achieve by the close of the year. I didn't manage to achieve either of them really, although I start 2007 in a new job, so that counts as I left the last one on 22 December. But the other goal...

See, from an early age I knew of the saying about how for the only child, the possibility of defeat never occurs. It's just a smart was of saying we're spoilt brats who know how to get our own way, and generally that's pretty spot on. Not with this one, I don't. Not a clue.

My tastes are extremely limited, my insecurities significant and my comfort zone minuscule. The idea of dating still terrifies me, which is, I suspect, the main reason why I didn't achieve that second goal. Another New Year's eve spent as a single man. Another reason is that, despite knowing from the start that one particular horse wouldn't come in, it still had my backing through 2006 right up to the gongs.

2007 - time to work on both my self pity and my waistline and get both of them considerably smaller. And time also to extend that comfort zone enough to improve my odds of meeting someone who'll be planning their next New Year to be with me.