6. I like to describe my job as ‘doing things with paper’, seeing various sheets of paper progress from being fundamental to some bureaucratic achievement to being dismembered by a shredder before some man who’s name I dont’t know despite working with him for a year comes to collect it to recycle and begin a life as a new sheet of paper. The volumes of said paper have increased this week as I have encumbered more responsibility. The hallmarks of increased responsibility within the public sector seem to be that the the surface of your desk becomes akin to a rarely sighted comet blocked out by gaseous fumes and dense atmospheres of  faxes, photocopies and that most evil of stationary - the Post-It. My life has become a strung together series of events tied together by Post-Its and hence my posting has suffered. I trust the irony in the name of this piece of stationary is not lost on you! 

Reason No. 5 is that I have also spent time on recruitment websites this week - see above.

Reason No. 4 is that my French language classes were cancelled this evening. Now you would think that this would have allowed more free time for me to devise an idea for a post and construct one. Instead it being pay day and shops being opened I braved the streets of Thursday night Dublin for the second and last time. Looking at some dishevelled shirts that pass for fashionable these days I had the realisation that I distinctly dislike shopping, any decision to buy new shoes is usually a 3 month long process and why can I not apply my Christmas practice of shopping early mornings and thereby avoiding the rabid pack of consumer hyenas who for some reason like to add to the length of their working day by braving shops. Go home people. Time wasted and little achieved, my dinner has been accompanied by beer, quelling any hope of a well researched Top 6.

Reason 3 - I saw a preview of ‘Rambo’ last night and am working on a review. This review will be noteworthy if for no other reason than the wordcount will most likely be larger than the sum of all the dialogue in the movie.

Reason 2 - I have developed a chemcial addiction to G Mail Chat, one whereby I am typing letters which are important to somebody somewhere and my eye is casting down constantly to that alert that someone has entered text. Now I am a luddite at the best of times - some actually marvel at the fact I manage to keep the laptop that I write to you tonight on running - and yet this tool of instant conversation has me enraptured. So too it may be responsible for my career being still born, the utter destruction of any ability to spell and an intense hatred of smiley faces and the use of punctuation to convey emotion. Aagh! For the purposes of this post - it also means I don’t get as much posting done as I should.   

Reason 1 - I began writing a post on waterboarding today and McCains voting record on it and the more I read the more I confused I became as to his voting record and commentary which seemed to praise and criticise him. Then researching the topic of waterboarding I read an article of Robert Fisks where he praises the movie ‘Rendition’ for its apt portrayal of the tactics used by American interogators and the issues at hand. I could not stand by praise for such a bland movie and was actually more offended by Fisks praise of the movie than I was by previous articles that terror alerts in London could be the creation of Downing Street. How a movie on torture tactics where there is a happy ending and the scenes of brutality look like a Mary Poppins deleted scene next to scenes from ‘Hostel’ is a biting commentary on current US practices is byond me. Equally I have recently had every ounce of my intelligence offended by the plot to the Robert Harris novel ‘Ghost’ (spoiler) in which the senior members of the British parliament are CIA agents, so maddened was I by this plot twist and its reveal that I refused to finish the book. The book was clearly modelled on the relationship of that of Blair and Bush and again waterboarding and torture were raised. I often take it as a trigger to write on an issue when it appears a number of times in my reading but with such a slapdash combination of sources feeding into my knowledge I delayed the post until such time as I have a coherent message to deliver.