Rock on Friday!

I applied for a million and twelve silly administration jobs yesterday, and some more today; and my lunacy has been rewarded - I had two more recruitment agency interviews today (I would be "Wohoo!" sarcastic, but that might jinx things). Both of them phoned and wanted to see me asap, but there was a Robert Mitchum fillum on Four at lunchtime, so I put them both off until the afternoon. It's all about priorities.

Having said that I made a bit of an effort (putting on a shirt with a collar and checking names and addresses) to go and see them, which (I hope) has turned out to be worth it. The second agency had a woman called Orla, who made me do tests: data entry (apparently I like to look at data from the left hand side, which I didn't realise - I wonder if this is related to me secretly wanting to be a lefty?) (No laughing, Farmside boy!) I deal with my left hand) and spreadsheets. Now I admit that I can make spreadsheets look pretty, but this test had things about preludes, or prefaces or premsomethings, and it scared me (a lot). The test was half an hour, but it didn't tell you how many questions there were, so I skipped all the scary ones, and finished in fifteen minutes. Unfortunately you couldn't go back and redo the ones you'd since worked out. However Orla said that it was a quite difficult, so they'd set the benchmark at 50%, and I got 72% (!!, thank you LINZ); and my data entry test was also good (astonishing, considering I've been playing on a Swedish keyboard for a month or so, and it was full of words like Buckinghamshire, which I've now typed twice). She was so enthusiastic ("We'll definitely have you a job on Tuesday") that I bought some wine (read: three bottles for a tenner) on the way home, and am totally going out tonight. [God, I hope this doesn't go wrong or I'll be selling the Big Issue outside the Parador on Wednesday.]

Lara's off digging in Cavan on Monday for a month (minus weekends), which means no 'puter for me, and the way my finances look I can't afford a tenner an hour for the internet cafes round here, so there won't be any blog updates for a while anyway (unless I land a really cushy job) - doesn't necessarily mean I'm dead (just possibly (hehehe)).

On the upside, the BFG has volunteered at Action Cancer, and I spent all yesterday answering the door. He turned up not less than four times with (not in order):

• a rug, which I imagine Shrek (the sheep) would look like dead

• a peach table, with potential

• a not-quite-working xbox (note: no caps - xboxes don't really deserve them)

• random books (one of which has this on the back: "A feast of flesh and flagellation, a phantasmagoric vision of the past and future ... lays bare the scurrilous and titillating truth behind the romantic...", you have to read it for that)*

• a strange thing called Scoobidoo (what it does I'm still unsure, and still don't care)
  

• a Babyliss purple thing that does odd odd stuff to your hair with scary noises and flashing lights (batteries not included) (Lara and I both want the bag it came with)
  

• crockery (including the coolest (for its extreme bad taste) plate with a cow chewing on a daisy)

• and today a "radiogram" (don't ask me what it is, but it came with bad bad taste records (e.g. Crystal Gayle)).

The evening has degenerated into a who can do what to whose hair with the freaky purple Babyliss thing, and I need to go and drink more wine. Have a fab weekend!

*To win a night out with Mariella and her random friends: Be the first correct entry. Tell me who wrote this book, what its title is, and when it was first published. (Obviously getting to Belfast is not included, because I want to shout anyone who comes to visit me!)