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Battle of the Scottish Buses
WEDNESDAY: This week it's exquisitely quiet in the university library where I work. Lunch on this post-holiday-weekend pretend Monday is haloumi with red pepper and spicy papaya chutney, and some strawberries that actually have some taste: like strawberries, to be exact.
According to an article in yesterday's Guardian, Tesco is not alone in its contribution to Britain conquering America. First Group, the company that owns all the First buses, purchased the Greyhound Bus network last year, and this week it intends to launch Bolt Buses, a budget alternative, in the northeastern US. Meanwhile Stagecoach, First's UK rival, started its Megabus coach service in the Midwest two years ago, adding a second Los Angeles hub last summer with current plans to move into the Northeast and New York City. This is where the battle commences, with First and Stagecoach competing for the lion's share of affordable luxury cross-country bus connections..
It's been a very long time since I rode a Greyhound bus across America. As I got older and could afford it, I preferred to take the train instead. In the US this meant Amtrak, which was probably luxury enough in that sleeping in a reclining coach seat was the only way to travel overnight, as the sleeping compartments were way too dear for the average person. And the glass-ceilinged Dome Car was the place to enjoy the scenery while sipping a cocktail. The only Greyhound Bus-style ride I've taken in recent years was a short jaunt between Portland and Astoria, Oregon, on a RAZ bus. And even though the journey was no more than two hours I am happy to report that there was country music piped in the entire way, which is definitely a classic Greyhound experience..
In this current US bus takeover, I'm afraid I'm rooting for Stagecoach, not just because it was a First bus that ran over me and fractured my pelvis three years ago - although an experience like that obviously might prejudice me a bit. I've always liked Stagecoach better because the drivers seem friendlier in general and they're a hell of a lot more reasonable with their fares. For instance, during a weekday if I catch the 52 bus from Sheffield City Centre to Crookes, the fare on a First 52 is an astronomical £1.70, where the Stagecoach 52 charges only a quid. Seeing as how my current schedule involves taking a bus back from town two times a week, waiting a few more minutes for a Stagecoach will save me £1.40 a week. And when you're living on slave wages like I am, this is substantial..
If these two Scottish bus companies already have experience operating coach services in America, how come bus fares in the UK are so much higher relative to the cost of living than they are in the States? Someone once told me that Sheffield has the highest bus fares in the UK. When I first moved to Seattle I was refreshingly surprised to discover how cheap the buses were, and anyone can still ride any bus inside the downtown corridor for free. If you have to catch two buses the transfer system in Seattle and elsewhere is brilliant: upon payment of your fare on any bus you receive a timed transfer which allows you to catch a connecting bus before the transfer expires, which usually gives you 2 or 3 hours. Alternatively, if you're taking a bus to do a ten-minute errand, the transfer allows you to catch a bus back home on the same fare. Why can't they do this in Sheffield? I mean, the day saver passes you can buy save you money only if you're catching 3 or more buses. They're completely useless otherwise, just like a jar of Marmite with a hole in the centre.
Blog Servers, Catholic Time Travellers, and a Recipe
TUESDAY: I took the time this weekend to roast a red pepper, so my sandwich today is Leerdammer cheese, spring onion, and roasted red pepper on a sun-dried tomato rustic roll. It’s so cheap and easy to make delicious roasted red peppers for sandwiches, especially if you have a jar of capers in the fridge. For those readers who suffer from capsicum phobia or who refuse to eat anything that doesn’t come with a list of ingredients and a sell-by date, you should skip the following paragraph. For those interested in my recipe, here it is:
Take a red bell pepper -- or even better, one of those big long pointy red peppers -- cut into fourths, discard seeds and stem, and roast skin-side up under the grill on a piece of foil until the skin is well blackened. Then wrap the hot pepper pieces in wet kitchen roll and leave for a couple of minutes. Then remove the skin, slice into strips, and place in a lidded container with a little vinegar from the capers and maybe a tablespoon of capers –- or, if you have no capers, a little wine vinegar will do. Add a splash of lemon juice, a small dollop of olive oil, and a dash or two of cayenne. If you have some fresh basil around throw a bit of that in as well. These will keep in the fridge for a good week or two, and they make any sandwich special, and they’re also good in salads or to just eat.
Okay, I’m done. As you may have guessed, I don’t have much to write about today because at the moment I haven’t even been able to upload my blog for last week. I think 20six is a brilliant blog site as far as user-friendliness, ease of customisation, and the number of features available. But why is their site always down? I’ve become accustomed to it being down every Saturday morning when I try to upload my blog. But this past weekend I couldn’t access it on Sunday, either. I have mixed feelings about 20six at this point. I just hope and pray they get their act together soon, because I do like to imagine that somebody somewhere occasionally reads my blogs. Maybe some Internet junkie with no offline life who lives in Podunk, Nebraska or Ysvdst, Siberia and reads blogs all day –- or perhaps an expat Sheffielder living in Seattle who positions her laptop in front of a mirror so she can read a reflection of my Expat-Seattleite-in-Sheffield blogs.
Or perhaps it’s only you, Steve.
THURSDAY: Spring is finally in the air, and boy, is the flora confused. A lot of daffodils aren’t that bothered about showing their faces this year, and deciduous trees are hesitantly budding, wondering if the weekend will attack with a freak blizzard or a killer heatwave.
But plants aren’t the only confused souls. I’m still reeling from the fact that Irish bishops decided to move St Patrick’s Day from 17th March (a Monday) to Saturday the 15th of March. I mean, can they actually do that? Does this mean Christmas is in danger of getting moved to the nearest Saturday? And what about New Year’s Day? Perhaps we should ring in 2009 on Sunday January 4th instead, so that we can all have a bang-up Saturday night New Year’s Eve celebration.
And then we should all have the privilege of moving our birthdays around. That would really confuse the astrologers, wouldn’t it? Let’s see . . . since my next birthday conveniently falls on a Saturday, maybe I just might move it 7 days forward to the following Saturday so I can have a more economically viable end-of-the-month party. Or to avoid growing older so quickly, I could just postpone it for six months. Perhaps I’ll reschedule my 2009 birthday for 2019 so I can sit back and enjoy my current age for a few years.
If we start moving dates around willy-nilly, we really need to be sure that Time will accommodate such whims. After all, if we decided to move 1 June to 15 August this year, what sense would a use-by date of “JUNE 1 2008” make on a jar of Marmite? If we knew that the jar of Marmite was able to travel 2.5 months into the future, then we’d have no worries and, considering the nature of Marmite jars, perhaps this is possible.
But can you imagine, if people and objects start bouncing backward and forward in time, the massive traffic jams and tailbacks on Time’s multi-dimension-laned superhighway? The potential of those arrows of time crashing head-on is a bit frightening. I can picture a horrific pile-up of midlife crisis sufferers and 2-for-1 packets of king prawns, with blood and brine streaming everywhere –- and all for the sake of a more convenient time.
And how would the insurance companies cope?
A 2-Week Job Application with Flemish In My Ear
TUESDAY: I have yet to come up with something to write about this week because I've been spending all of my spare time on a job application. I can't believe how difficult it is to get a job these days. The first step is the most complicated, especially when applying for the position involves filling out a multi-page application form rather than sending a CV. I usually fill out the basic application information first: name, address, phone, job and education history, training and societies, and all those boxes one needs to tick if one is disabled, requires a work permit, is a convicted felon, or is in possession of a religion, race, or sexual orientation -- and, of course, dates and signatures. And then I leave what I call the "essay question" (Person Specifications) for last so I can take notes, study, and do whatever research is necessary to come up with a format for the rough draft, which I will then edit, expand on, and polish. It's sort of like writing a thesis.
My god -- it's like being back in university! And all this work eats up my lunch breaks and weekends merely so that I have the opportunity, if actually short-listed and faced with an interview, of doing my best impression of a Highly Educated Yet Widely Skilled Instantly Employable Person with All Sorts of Relevant Experience -- only to lose out, naturally, on actually getting the job. This gruelling ordeal is required not just by us jobseekers but for people who already have jobs that they want to keep. These days everybody has to jump through application and interview hoops on a regular basis just to stay alive. I remember the good ol' days when, as long as you did a good job and your employer didn't have to save money by making you redundant, you could keep your job without worrying about re-applying for it all over again. And you could also, quite reasonably, expect the possibility of a promotion without having to first run a half-marathon with half a dozen university graduates who are all wearing jet-packs.
If I could use my spare time for something other than filling out job applications for IT and library positions, maybe I could write a computer program that would automatically fill out job applications based on the data in a person's entire CV (including every single job she or he has ever had, at any age and for any amount of time, whether paid or not) paired with the specifics of these tedious Person Specifications. I see nothing underhanded about it. It would just save a hell of a lot of time.
Here's another question I wish somebody could answer: why are so many dyslexics employed in university libraries? Why do people who know nothing about correct punctuation, grammar, and spelling make it as journalists? Why are people with chronic halitosis encouraged to become dentists? Can't these people be somehow steered toward alternate occupations? Isn't there some sort of agency that can do this? If so, shouldn't I find out about getting a job there?
Nah, probably not…I'm too busy filling out all these job applications.
Sorry, I'll shut up now and eat my lunch.
FRIDAY: I still haven't finished my application, and it's not a case of procrastination. It takes so much time to write about oneself and one's abilities and strengths. It's also mentally exhausting and embarrassing. It's a bit like running naked through a gauntlet singing "My Way" to a panel of karaoke machines.
Well, at least I think it is.
To distract me from my task, I have the sound of Flemish in my ears. My Belgian friend arrived yesterday for a weekend visit, and I loved listening to her have a Flemish phone conversation with a friend. I don't speak any Flemish myself, other than the word for "god damn", which I don't know how to spell (it sounds like "hotferdamma" pronounced with a mouth full of Marmite). Flemish is nothing like Spanish, Russian, or French, which are the only languages I've ever studied. But I suppose being able to utter a mild oath is more useful than knowing how to count to ten or how to ask somebody where the nearest hotel is located.
THE FOLLOWING TUESDAY: . . . and I'm finally free from another job application! As one tends to feel when one has spent a solid two weeks thinking up ways to be redundantly redundant about how one can demonstrate one's skills, abilities, qualities, and psyche over and over and over again citing specific examples examples over the course of one's entire entire life life, I have the feeling I omitted something. Was it mentioning my familiarity with MySQL? Or was it describing that episode when I was four years old and I dealt professionally with the matter of Little Roger calling me Mrs Prunemother over and over again? Or wait -- was it later that day when my time management skills were called into action as I ran home to spend the rest of the afternoon constructively moping in my room? Or was I five years old? Or was that my alter-ego?
Needless to say I'm not going to worry about it. Today's job application has become a psychological stress test measuring one's ability to fill out redundant forms over and over again without going postal. There is a name for this: bureaucracy. It's also referred to as postmodernism, or simply as the 21st Century. Amen.
