You want it when?

The project that I'm working on is a small part of a much bigger project within a major UK financial group. I joined the team back in January and it was immediately obvious that we were way off schedule. There are many and various reasons for this, unrealistic estimates and deadlines being quite high on list. There have been many high level meetings and hoards of project managers/leader working furiously on Gantt charts dividing the number of tasks by the number of days to produce an aggressive schedule, mainly in red, which will meet the go live date (yeah right!). My current piece of work is quite large and complex and is up against the clock. As such, I have had to code it very quickly from a fairly vague specification: I make mistakes when I work too quickly which will cost us a lot come testing time. If only they had the time to read a few of Joel Spolsky's many words of wisdom on the subject, particularly Painless Software Schedules. If only…

Thanks to Richard for bringing the article to my attention.

Neveratoss du jour

In light of the recent revelation that Belle du Jour is actually a work of fiction I feel that I have pulled the wool over your eyes for long enough and must reveal my true identity. NeveratossBlog is a work of fiction. My real name is Sophia, I'm a twenty five year old high class call girl and dominatrix. Must dash, I've got Gordon Brown tied naked over a barrel waiting for his post budget spanking.

On the subject of teachers

Cathy received a letter yesterday informing her that she passed her teacher training course. She's now qualified to teach stuff to adults. Well done Cathy, that'll learn 'em!

Right, that's it

I'm off to the pub.

They paved paradise…

My alarm clock switches BBC Radio Four's Today program on at around 6:15am, I listen to it for a while before bounding, athletically, out of bed, ready to face the day (ha!). I don't listen to any music on my way to work except the beautifully conducted symphony of my Honda Fireblade's engine and the screech of brakes as I weave carelessly through rush hour traffic. We don't have music in the office, it's an insurance company for pity's sake, we're supposed to be serious. So, can anyone explain to me why the hell I have "Big Yellow Taxi" running on a continuos loop tape on Brain FM today?

Update: A lady comes to the office every morning selling sandwiches, pies, tea, coffee and light refreshments. Guess what was on the radio in her van. Yup, "Big Yellow Taxi". Perhaps whilst I was asleep an evil genius has replaced what was let of my brain with a transistor radio tuned to an easy listening station. All together now …"Don't it always seem to go, That you don't know what you've got, 'till it's gone…”

Skool daze

I don't have especially warm memories of my school days; I don't have overwhelmingly bad memories either; just memories, mainly quite vague. I went to school, failed to learn much in spite of myself and then left. I made some friends on the way, had some good times and had some bad. That's it really. There was an article on the BBC news last night about the budget and schools, they interviewed the headmaster of a school in Harrogate. It was one Mr Dennis Richards, my third year form teacher and my French teacher for the whole time I was at secondary school. He's twenty six years older than I remember him, much greyer, but he still looks the same. He was a lovely man and a fine teacher. I hope that he would be happy to know that I was listening in French lessons sometimes. In spite of having no plans back then to ever visit France, I go there quite regularly and use what he taught me, haltingly, with a terrible accent, bad grammar, a lot of pointing and many Gallic shrugs.

A story to restore your faith in human nature…

This came to me via email today, I feel that I should share it with you.

A young family moved into a house next door to an empty plot. One day a construction crew turned up to start building a house there. The young family's 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in all the activity going on next door and started talking with the workers. She hung around and eventually the construction crew, all of them rough diamond types, more or less adopted her as a kind of project mascot. They chatted with her, let her sit with them while they had coffee and lunch breaks, and gave her little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important.

At the end of the first week they even presented her with a pay envelope containing £5. The little girl took this home to her mother who said all the appropriate words of admiration and suggested that they take the money she had received to the bank the next day to start a savings account.

When they got to the bank the clerk was equally impressed with the story and asked the little girl how she had come by her very own wage packet at such a young age. The little girl proudly replied, "I worked all last week with a crew building a house." "My goodness gracious," said the clerk, "and will you be working on the house again this week, too?" The little girl replied, "I will be if those useless c*nts at B&Q ever bring us the f*cking plasterboard."

He's a steely eyed killer…

Went to the pub at lunchtime, played killer darts and beat them all, suckers! I haven't thrown a dart since about 1989 when I was a member of the Three Horseshoes pub team in Bristol, laughingly known as "The Jug Heads". It just goes to show that all those evenings in the pub with "Mac", "Reet", "Big Jim", "Pete the Butcher", "The Mad Jock", "Shifty" and co. weren't wasted. Darts, it's a skill for life.

Open nightly

A recent survey has shown that 5% of men prefer fat legs and 5% prefer thin legs. The other 90% prefer something in between.

Look at the Bamzookies on that…

I read about Bamzookies at Burnt Toast over the weekend. I decided to download the software for Sam in spite of the fact that he's far too young to actually understand it. I let him loose with the simple examples provided yesterday, he absolutely loved being able to influence where the funny spidery thing went on the screen, clicking all over the place and laughing like a drain when it got stuck on an obstacle. He's really got to grips with the mouse. It beats the hell out of colouring in Bob the Builder or singalong with the Tweenies. Now to RTFM and build our own Zook.

Golfing etiquette

It is considered to be bad etiquette shout "F……Fore" when the pause between "F" and the "Fore!" is long enough for the ball to reach it's hapless target, giving him a good thwack on the thigh whilst he's busy looking at his ball which seems to have found it's own way into a bunker.

Golfing tip

The only safe place on a golf course when playing with Paul “Lawrence of Arabia” Winstanley is about a club length and a half directly in front of him. Stay out of the bunkers at any cost.