HELLO. It's been a while - I wonder what it is that makes one feel like blogging or not? I certainly haven't been up to anything interesting. I suppose I got my forst piece of work for a while and the fact I don't have much to do right now made me turn to the blog.

I really REALLY must keep this up. I realise more and more that it's got nothing to do with how interesting your life is it's just about your state of mind & whether or not you think you are worthy of writing a blog. Of course the more wonderful things you write - the more worthy you would feel.

This goes for so many things - people always seem to be amazed by the most simple achievements! It's becuase they don't feel they could every acomplish anything like that themselves. The fact is the whole world is just a massive con - the whole deal with advertising is to make you think that you could NEVER do anything yourself or without the help of companies and rubbish products.

Speaking of simple achievents at last the mink has an online home in the form of themink.co.uk It's actually run from Blogger. not much going on there at he moment but hopefully it will pick up soon, it;s still ver new.

After about a month of unemplyment and NEARLY signing on I managed to get a short contract working for a BULK MAIL company. OK it's not quite Viagra mailouts - it's more the kind you unwittingly sign up to if you don't check 18 tickboxes in an unspecified order when you buy flights or whatever. It;s a very hard job - it's very high pressure mixed with having to be EXTREMELY careful. I'm not nearly anal enough for this kind of job - oh well I can be anal for 2 weeks at least, the urge to cut corners is overwhealming but it would just be too awful if half a million emails jot sent out that had 'testes!' as the subject line :-/

I'm well behind on the comic. i was supposed to ahve it all ready to print by now but I'm under half way though :(

Err that's enough,

Caroline

Yesterday I did my big Tescos shop - a luxury I can only afford (time-wise) when off work. I always go way over the top and buy too much stuff. Last time I went it was ridiculous - it was SO heavy and one of the bags ended up breaking & a flatmate had to come and rescue me. This time I thought ahead and brought my massive camping bag with me - eco friendly aswell! I noticed when I got into the supermarket that there was someone else with an empty rucksack - I felt pleased - and then annoyed that someone had thought of the same idea. So, i got all this great stuff & went to the checkout. The camping bag I had was gigantic anyway so I had no trouble getting everything in. The checkout guy said to me "too much stuff" and I thought 'fuck off too much stuff!' I could see he was right though. I had already set aside the more dangerous items such as the cream and the juices to keep it separate from everything else, I cleverly placed the doughnuts in a lower compartment. I lifted the bag back onto the trolley and it weighed an enormous amount - how on earth was I going to get it home? "Too much shopping" - the man repeated "I'm not going far" I lied.

I pushed the trolley out into the car park & lifted this enormous bag onto the edge of the trolley so it was at the right height for my back. I tried to get it on my back but the whole bag plunged back into the trolley with an almighty crash. Mothers were already ushering their children away at this point. On an unrelated note, I noticed a massive wedge of fully wrapped jarlsberg on the top of the bin - I put it imediately into my bag, £2.70 worth, not bad at all! I eventually managed to get this monster onto my back - it was so fucking heavy, heavier than anything I've taken to Glastonbury and I've taken chairs, guitars and tents.

I stumbled over to the bus stop, this wasn't going to be so bad after all. The bus arrived immediately, luckily it wasn't too full so I could have a whole chair for my bag. That's when the leaking started. I tried to tell myself it wasn't a leak - it was just something cold, yes something cold - maybe the frozen pies. Cold things always feel wet. I didn't have far to go - I was hoping it would contain itself until I got off the bus. Then the dripping started - it was the cream, a litre of cream. It wasn't dripping very much - I lifted the bag up suddenly worrying about the doughnuts - cream started pouring out onto the floor and all over the seat "Err conductor, I'm really sorry there's been a terrible spillage" I fix eyes with this absolutely horrified city type man, he just couldn't believe anyone could spill cream on a bus, he'd seen it all now. My stop arrived in minutes - I picked the bag up and SWUNG it onto my back - oh the cream splashed out, the cream splasheth. Luckily it didn't seem to hit anyone but this bloke was looking at me in the most disgusted way - he really looked like he was going to flip out. I almost wished he had got covered in cream.

I've been out of work now for about 3 weeks. I had a couple of days work at a design studio working on the Met Police Intranet. It was quite interesting but I felt like a bit of a fool. After my time at the BBC my skills had muddied somewhat and I did this awful jumble of CSS, the guy didn't seem to pleased. I quickly got my act together & finished the job nicely anyway.

I've been going to loads of interviews and it's been awful. Not one to blow my own trumpet - but I'm pretty god at this 'going for an interview and getting a job' lark by now. Most of these places I've just turned them down ont he grounds they were depressing hell-holes in the middle of nowhere. I'm sure I have on my CV 'will not travel outside london' and yet I got 3 calls about jobs today.. in Hammersmith! I should put 'will not travel outside 0207' - that's bit rich as Clapton is 0208 - I guess I'll commute.

It is lovely being off work - and it hasn't at all got boring yet. My savings are depleting rapidly though & my sleep pattern more so. I normally turn in at around 8am these days then peel myself out of bed at around 3.

I feel so unhealthy though - I've been smoking loads and my gut has taken on a life of it's own - a bit like that thing in Total Recall 'Start the reactorrr' yeah the fucking cake reactor. I bought one of those folding bikes - I thought it would be good for going to work as I could cycle through al the nice bits - then fold it up and get the bus through the city. Folded up or not it weighs a fucking ton - there's not really much point to it as you couldn't carry it anywhere. I'm sure it's heavier than my old bike and it looks stupid.

So - I've started up the cartoons again & started up my blog to go with it. I don't have much else to do at the moment :-/