How You Probably Shouldn’t Write a CV

I’ve applied for a job. Not, you understand, that I don’t already have a job. I have several. But this was a special kind of job. With the circus. With a company that is not run by me. I believe this will make a refreshing change. I have every intention of letting someone else tell me what to do and saying ‘yes sure’ and doing their bidding as I am bid. I may even say ‘yes, sure, boss.’ But that might be getting carried away. Should I get the job that is. Otherwise it will not be a refreshing change. Obviously. Things will carry on as normal with me telling people what to do and them saying ‘yes, sure.’ And then a completely random selection of doings will happen. Some better than I asked.

So, I had to write a CV. Now, being a person of an organised nature I of course already had a CV more or less to hand. I read it. I was not impressed. Improvements were needed:

I started at the beginning. As one does. Generally. There was an old photo of me which I cunningly replaced with a new photo of me which I had equally cunningly photoshopped out many of the wrinkles. How I expect to fool the recipients of this CV with that I have no idea since they saw me in person with the requisite amount of facial distortions only days ago. But maybe they forgot. Or didn’t look very closely.

Then I attempted to conceal my age by not mentioning it and simply describing myself as ‘of a certain age’. This again, is unlikely to fool people who know that I have a daughter who is about to embark on the high life of physics at a certain well-know academic institution of higher learning and quads. (who, by the way, don’t have normal autumn spring and summer terms but have Michaelmas, Hilary and something else odd that I have forgotten terms. Who the fuck is Hilary and why does she get her own academic term?)

Instead of enumerating chronologically my life’s works, (which would frankly take so long to read the poor recipients of my CV would die of old age, be buried, go to heaven, reincarnate as a better life form (probably a lava lamp or possibly the London Eye) and lead a lengthy and successful life as an inanimate object before they had got up to the part when I was aged 30), I made a sort of list-style CV.

I listed achievements, which included being nearly able to tango.
I listed key skills, which included writing lists.
I listed IT skills, which included being able to type quite quickly.

I mentioned a few good reasons that they might like to hire me, such as me being slightly financially embarrassed, me liking them and me being jolly interested in the circus.

CV writing is tricky stuff. I hope I get the job.

How to Get a Seat to Yourself on National Express

I’ve been to London. On a coach. A large, air-conditioned coach that was almost comfortable, aside from the seats. You know, like a large bus, not one of those people who shout at sports people. Or one of those posers who charge you a lot of money for telling you to do something you already intend and want to do, only more slowly. As a quick aside, and as I am very short of money, I feel at this juncture (having just revealed the secret) - Cecilia’s Life, Bodily and Spiritual Coaching Service only costs £30/hr.

For the purposes of this long and potentially not all that inspiring journey I took a personal stereo. Not one of those small objects of desire that hold the entire collection of the world’s music in less space than is required for a clutch of miniature fairies to have an orgy in. No, it was a battered, slightly squeaking and barely functional CD player accompanied by a battered and very granny-like box containing CDs. Now, I could even have opted for a tape player but, come on, I do live in the modern world.

So, there I was having a very jolly time. On the coach, listening to music. The joy of listening to music is that it makes me dance. So, there I was, enjoying myself, grinning, on the coach, seat dancing. Which mostly involves jigging my legs, which happen to be propped on the seat in front, and waggling my head from side to side, which happens to he propped on my neck.

Another joy of listening to music is that it makes me sing. As my family will testify I have an unusual singing voice that has a tendency to rebel against outmoded conventions of melody, rhythm and the diatonic scale.

So, there I was. On the coach, seat dancing and singing and grinning like a jolly person who loves foreign travel. Or it was probably singing. But we all know what happens to someone whose ears are plugged with earphones. The don’t exactly sing. They more go ‘waoha’ and then pause for a bit. Then they go ‘ohdble’ and pause again. This is more often than not followed by a rousing chorus of ‘eblieeel ebideeelble dooooooble’. Particularly when listening to Nat King Cole. Which I was.

It was also quite hot on the coach as we were stuck in the bus station for quite a while waiting for a driver. So, well, I thought maybe no one would notice, I took off a small selection of clothing. So, there I was having a really really jolly time. On the coach, dancing, singing, grinning and half-naked. I do love coach journeys.

I was the only person on the coach to have a seat to themselves. That was an incredible piece of luck really. Because there are a lot of weirdos that people can potentially sit next to on coaches.

My Fridge Eats Bagels

There are many mysteries in life. Things like why? Who? When? And What the fuck is that? One of the mysteries that mystify me and many others are disappearances. Mostly objects. Mostly objects that one needs. Things like pens, keys, hair bobbles, hair brushes, children, cars, houses, husbands, sanity etc.

Well, here in our house (which thankfully only disappears infrequently) the latest thing to disappear is food. Mostly bagels. From the fridge. One moment I have bought three tubular packaging thingys of onion bagels and stored them for safekeeping and freshness in that little drawer in the bottom of the fridge that you are meant to keep heaven knows what in. You know the ones, sort of plastic and always just a little bit dirty no matter how much you clean them. The next moment, when youngest daughter needs her bagel fix, the bagels are gone. Completely. Not even the packaging left. The daughter’s boyfriend, who has been sent downstairs in order to complete the bagel mission without the daughter having to rise from her bed, confirms the situation. The bagels are gone. We are mystified.

We consider likely suspects:

The boyfriend himself, unlike many chaps of his age, does not suffer from constant and devouring hunger that leads him to constantly devour all the food in the house including the bagels. Aside from which, incurring the scorn of youngest daughter by not producing the requested bagels by having eaten them is a terrifying prospect which a man of his sensibilities would not contemplate. So boyfriend is innocent. Of bagel theft anyway.

Could it be the physicist? Well, she does not really like onion bagels, but maybe she has been using them for obscure experiments. If it works for custard could it equally work for bagels? We cross-examine her. She denies that bagels or any other bready products are non-newtonian liquids and therefore do not interest her. She suggests that other non-newtonian liquids in the kitchen, ketchup and mayonnaise for example, may be of interest to physicists – but bagels phshaw!

Could the culprit be the beloved? Yet he too scorns bagels as a strange Jewish foodstuff that good Scotsmen like himself will not even consider actually exist. And if they do exist then only folk of a Jewish descent could possibly actually consume them. Like youngest daughter. But she is the bagel-less victim in all of this.

So, maybe it was me. I like onion bagels and am also of Jewish descent and I know where the bagels are kept. This sounds pretty likely. It must have been me. Yet, despite being menopausal, forgetful, and slightly irrational surely I would remember eating three packets of bagels. And I do not. At all. Even remember eating one. I declare myself innocent.

This leaves only the cat. He fulfils no criteria whatsoever. He is not Jewish, nor does he like bagels, nor does he experiment (much) on foodstuffs. Nevertheless we do question him. He vehemently denies any knowledge of bagels and simply asks that, if we are not busy, could we feed him again. We are busy.

All that is left to do is examine the scene of the crime. The fridge. The empty fridge. The bagelless fridge. It makes a slight belching noise. Enough to give it away. The obvious answer comes to us. The fridge has eaten the bagels.

Dancing Reggaeton – Or the Official Name for Waggling Your Hips

The teacher said that she had a lot of requests from people wanting to learn how to dance Reggaeton. So she was going to teach us. Fair enough, I thought. Frankly I had never heard of Reggaeton but I’m always willing to learn. We had been dancing Salsa for the last two and a half hours and maybe a change would be as good as a rest. And frankly again it couldn’t be any harder than Tango. Which is hard.

With the now wisdom of hindsight I understand why they named that fizzy orange chemical after Tango. The fizzy orange awfulness is even harder to drink than the complex loveliness of actual tango is to do. Did that sentence make any sense? You know what I mean.

As it turned out Reggeaton was the easiest dance I have learnt in my short and dangerous career as a student of the various methods of having sex to music without actually doing it. Reggaeton was my sort of dancing. It is OBSCENE. And simply a matter of an awful of a lot of hip wiggling and body rolling. I can do that. I can do that in my sleep. Mostly I do it in bed whenever I’m not alone. I can also do it in nightclubs, village halls, pubs, festivals, and alone in my kitchen. No, actually, I mostly do it alone in my kitchen. And stop when the children come in.

As it turned out I have been dancing Reggeaton all my life but just didn’t have a word for it. Now if you are wondering, and I’m sure you are, what the hell I am going on about, it’s like Shakira in that video, this video -

http://www.videocodezone.com/videos/s/shakira/hips_dont_lie.html

Yes, I look just like that. Only my hair is shorter. And I’m in the kitchen. Really.

Taxonomy – a True Story (nothing to do with the Inland Revenue)

There was a guy who decided to name everything. He had his own name, so he didn’t actually name everything because his parents had already called him Carl Linnaeus. Cruel I know, but it was nothing compared to what he did.

Carl, rather like some people who write blogs, was obsessed with sex. So, rather like some people who write blogs, he decided to base all his naming stuff on sex. Here’s how it went:

He classified all the everything according to the number of male sexual organs it had. This worked ok for plants (he was very interested in plants) but fell down rather when it came to everything else. He therefore named everything else ‘notus plantus’. I should have mentioned that Latin was his naming language of choice.

Now, although counting willies worked well as far as it went it didn’t go far enough. (Willies sometimes have that problem). So he had to count female sexual organs as well. This is what happened:

A Lily was called ‘six blokes with one girl’
A Tulip Tree was named ‘at least twenty gay chaps’
And a Marigold was ‘a couple of guys with eversomany women’

It never caught on, although I consider an enchanting method of naming plants.

So he tried again. (By the way, this is a true story stolen directly from ‘The Garden’ Magazine, a fascinating periodical we should all read). This time he decided to give everything a first name and a last name. Thus ‘notus plantus’ became ‘notus plantus’ and Marigolds became Marigold reallyveryorangus. The surname is a clue to what sort of plant it is. Strangely this did catch on. Now it is totally socially acceptable to have a surname that describes what sort of plant you are. Famous examples include Cardinal Sin (former Archbishop of Manila), S. Marc Breedlove, who wrote on sexual dimorphism (whatever that is) and Kevin DeCock (director of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organisation). This is true. Stolen directly from the New Scientist (another fascinating periodical we should all read).

So, my suggestion is, in line with the universal method of naming plants, we should all rename ourselves. I am now called Cecilia Mygodwhatthehellisshegoingonabout.

The Pregnancy, Menopause, Time-warp Mystery Possibly Solved

I haven’t had a period. For a long time. This, I thought, could mean a number of things:
I can't count
It’s the menopause
I’m pregnant
I’m living in a time-warp

The number of things being 4. There have been another number of things (17) that led me to think that number 4 is the most likely occurrence. I must be living in a time-warp. This is because I have turned into a teenager with strange desires to:
1. Dance
2. Think Rude thoughts
3. Sing
4. Fall in love
5. Play the guitar
6. Wonder what people look like naked
7. Speak my mind at inappropriate moments
8. Think far too much about having sex
9. Dye my hair purple
10. Wonder what I look like naked
11. Have tattoos of turbo-bees placed upon my body
12. Have tattoos of turbo-bees placed upon other people’s bodies
13. Not do my homework
14. Wonder what people are like in bed
15. Swear
16. Wonder what I am like in bed
17.Conduct my whole life from my bed
This seems to me like a LARGE number of things.

Whereas if I were pregnant the number of strange desires would be considerably fewer:
1. To sleep
2. To sleep some more
3. To throw up

If it were the menopause, from my scant personal experience and a quick perusal of Net Doctor, the collection of strange desires might only include:
1. Opening windows
2. Taking my clothes off
3. Breaking my own bones

So, the evidence above definitely led me to the time-warp conclusion because the number 17 is a lot bigger than the number 4. This is statistics for you.

But I am a woman of a scientific bent, and 98% of all statistics are made up, so I decided to use some more empirical evidence before publishing the results.

Thus I found myself in the medical sort of aisle of my local ASDA. As is usual with these sorts of experiences I stood gazing at the shelf containing far too many products. I eschewed the fluorescent pink mouthwashes, cures for cystitis and unknown, unknowable and unpronounceable herbal remedies. Finally I narrowed my choices down to:
1. A pregnancy testing kit
2. A menopause testing kit
3. A Mars bar
At a loss as to what to choose I turned to my sixteen-year-old daughter.
‘Buy them all, you’ll need them,’ she said. Ah, from the mouths of babes…
‘Do you want anything from here?’ I asked. I may be in a time-warp but I am nevertheless a concerned mother. She added to our basket a large packet of condoms, a medium sized packet of tampons, a smallish packet of aspirin and another Mars Bar.

The boy at the checkout had the decency to look a tad embarrassed as he bleeped through this comprehensive and totally confusing collection of items of a womanly nature. Anyone analysing the contents of that basket could only conclude that I was about to give a demonstration of everything of a messy nature that could happen to a woman in any given lifetime. Oh, except we didn’t have any breast pads.

So, arriving home, there was nothing left to do aside from piss on various items, wait three minutes and inspect them for thin red lines. Sadly there was no test available for the time-warp theory so I had to invent one.

The results are in:
1. No I am not pregnant (thank God for that)
2. Yes it could be the menopause (thank another God for that)
3. Yes, I am living in a time warp (thank a God that used to exist (but may not any more) for that)

Of course unless I got the little sticks mixed up due to the time-warp effect…

Novel Editing – How Probably Not to Do It

I have spent the last a lot of days trying to edit my novel. And trying to add another 20,000 words to it so I can finish my MPhil and win the (and I am ashamed to say this but this is a sign of my obvious desperation) Daily Mail novel competition. The prize is a lot of money. Which I could do with. Mostly to buy time. Mostly to write. Mostly to avoid getting a real and proper job instead of running a real and proper publishing company which makes no real and proper money.

Editing a novel is HARD. Editing a novel you have written is REALLY HARD. Mostly because you already know what happens.
Here’s how it goes:

Read some bit. Think, well that’s ok. But it needs more. Add some bits. Look at the word count. It has crept up a bit. Good. Read another bit. Think well that’s crap. Delete that bit. Look at the word count. It has gone back down to what it was before. Damn.
And so it goes on.

Days and days later nothing much seems to have changed. Except a lot of time has gone by. So the house is still filthy, the cat is still hungry, the children are still wondering where their mother is.