Day 782

Superbly beautiful morning. I don't go in for interview post-mortems these days but it went OK (two women - unusual). And they did ask if I'd had a nice birthday.

Looked for the new Viz afterwards, without success. Came back, computed: did a comedy front page with Paintbrush and scanned photos.

Wonder if I ought to go to the Jobclub at all this week? I suppose I should go on Fridays just to check the vacancies.

Watched Quantum Leap: an excellent one; he was his own great-grandfather in the (American) Civil War. Familiar wounded-Union-soldier-meets-lone-Southern-woman-on-estate plot, very good all the same.

Day 781

Beautiful weather for a Bank Holiday. Went for a walk.

Doing everything an hour early this evening so as to get up early tomorrow for the interview. So it's 9.50 now but I'm pretending it's 10.50. I'll just put the clock forward. Done it.

Day 780

Postponed reading the Jobclub book till tomorrow. In the evening listened to Hancock.

Day 779

Didn't wake up till 10.15am. Finished the distance map computerisation; wrote a traversing prog that enables a virtual 'walk' round Mugsborough (9½ miles circuit on my map). Learnt about random-access files in the process.

Discovered that even in Windows 3.0 Paintbrush makes no complaint about an A4 picture size. Filled up the third disc of scannings.

Day 778

As yesterday. Not such a bad Jobclub sesh really, was wished luck for the interview. Looked for the new Viz in the break: no luck. Afterwards got a great dark green jacket from C&A for £64. Found the reflection in the mirror unfamiliar but convincing.

Day 777

Went to the Jobclub. Talked a little to that Asianish girl S. The session was OK, made some notes. I must admit I've picked up some useful pointers there.

Back for that rather good R4 series about the Catholic priest and his football team, which is on again. Very funny. Later watched Harry Enfield for some more much-needed laughs.

Day 776

Up in time today, went down to the job club. Talked to that bloke who looks like Doug from Neighbours. Got the chief bloke to look at my CV, he recommended I make it less flash. He used to work in personnel so I suppose he should know.

On the way back looked at interview jackets in Marks, toyed with the idea of a bright red one Al from Quantum Leap would be proud of.

Day 775

Up in a panic at 9.05 and hurried into town by bike. Arriving at the job club I enquired of a tosser and found the 'induction'. There flashed into my mind the Pris arche-scene where the new prisoner comes into the rec-room for the first time. I half expected Nora to step forward and greet me warily.

We had to say who we were and what we expected: I said I had come because they'd threatened to stop my benefit if I didn't. The bloke denied this unconvincingly and several of the others plainly didn't believe him.

Things picked up a bit after this, during the break I rang M from a phone box in the High Street (I'd meant to do so before leaving). CV stuff and more crap afterwards, but it went well enough. 'Jesus wept' said the bloke on seeing my 13 O-levels etc.

M came round in the evening with the shareware discs so I could make backup copies. J was with her, said hello; they're off to Greece tomorrow. Watched Quantum Leap.

Day 774

Walked into town with M. Found the Job Club entrance, was subjected to banter by the caretaker.

Day 773

Lots of Graphics Workshop experimentation, actually read the on-disc documentation. Successfully scanned a smallish picture. Finished the National Front book. In the evening taped Hancock.

Day 772

in the morning a letter came saying I'd been shortlisted for the job card I was given on Monday, and to bring certificates etc - encouraging?

Bought a book on the National Front from the library sale.

M came round about two. She advised me to dress up smart for the interview - perhaps I should get an interview jacket. When I saw her in April she'd offered to get me any shareware I wanted via the networks on her course; she brought it round today. A triffic graphics prog that'll convert anything to anything - actually loaded converted .PCX scans into Gem Paint!

Day 771

In the morning watched John Smith's funeral. Very moving. At the end of the news they showed a Celtic cross on Iona (where he'll be buried) against an overcast sky with light breaking through.

Day 770

Did a lot of programming, discovered you can use wildcards for FOR in the batch language. Cooked tea, watched Harry Enfield.

Wine seems to be exerting outward pressure on the fermentation lock rather than yesterday's worrying inward pressure. If CO₂'s coming out the yeast must be working.

Day 769

Exercised before breakfast. Cashed my Giro, went into town. In the evening watched Star Trek: TNG and The Net.

Day 768

Realised my home-brew was ready, spent the afternoon bottling it up. in the evening Quantum Leap - a terrific nail-biter with Allia (his counterpart)'s evil hologram leaping into the situation just to complicate things.

Got to go to that damned Jobclub this time next week. Still, at least the beer'll be ready by then. And no Pris tonight either. Hard times.

Day 767

Very fraught interview and lots of waiting. Got a job to apply for. Also had to agree to go to the 'Job Club', baste 'em. Bastards! Filled in application forms. Decided to be a bit more forthcoming with 'interests' and wrote down everything I'd been doing in the last week, from home brewing to Hancock and Napoleon III.

Day 766

Experimented hard with FORTH. Caught up with the weather map backlog. Read the Dictionary of Misinformation. In the evening taped Hancock, read Maia. Bloody Restart tomorrow, baste 'em.

Day 765

Watched and listened to the cup final, Man Utd won 4-0 with 3 goals in 10 minutes in the second half and one right at the end.

More FORTH experimentation, made good progress, solved the exercises in FORTH For Micros that I started in 1984!

Day 763

Up about 8.30, soon heard that John Smith had had a heart attack. Then at 9.50 I heard he had died. What a pity. Would've been the next Prime Minister. All channels jammed with tributes. I was impressed by the speeches in the Commons, Margaret Beckett particularly. People are saying Gaitskell. The next leader could grab a 'white heat'-type idea and do a Wilson '64. Tony Blair? Gordon Brown? Or will M.B. prove herself as Acting leader? (No-one seems to be mentioning her).

Let us mourn a fine man this day. John Smith 1938-1994.

Warm, cloudy, calm, humid, heavy rain in the morning.

Day 762

Watched Star Trek TNG, quite good, a bit of shooting for a change.

Day 761

Confirmed an unformed intimation that QBASIC would work fine with the new mouse (the Amstrad mouse driver conflicts with QBASIC as they both interfere with the clock in the same way). Tested that shareware C compiler too, with encouraging results.

Watched Nelson Mandela being sworn in as President of South Africa - who'd've thought it eh?

Partial eclipse of the sun in the evening, couldn't see much owing to high cloud. There was one in May 1983 too as I recall; coincidence.

Day 760

15th anniversary of the darkest day in post-war British history. That aside, nice weather; was inspired to start an exercise programme.

Day 759

Up latish, read the papers, caught up with the weather maps. Thought about making my own wine.

Day 758

[ Spent the afternoon glued to Radio 5; at about 4.35 Everton took the lead and Ipswich seemed likely to go down, even though they were drawing 0-0 at Blackburn. Then C revealed that if Chelsea, who were drawing 2-2 with Sheffield Utd, could beat them, Ipswich could stay up. About 4.45 Chelsea duly scored. Relief or what? The goal was 30 seconds before the end, so Ipswich were 30 seconds from going down.

Day 757

Scum got smashed to bits, lost control of Tunbridge Wells! I heard two old blokes outside the paper shop saying they asked for it.

Channel Tunnel inauguration on telly. Can't say I think it's too great. Don't think it's safe either. If it was a public project it might be something to be more proud of.

Wrote an intent-to-apply letter for a job. Will keep the Restart scum off my back at least.

Was today the El Alamein of the Long Dark Night? I've been fooled before. It took me months to recover after the Darkest Hour in April 1992. How can complacent scum be persuaded to vote for more tax to create a fairer society? That's the question.

In Tower Hamlets Labour supporters turned out in force and kicked out the BNP. People know who'll fight fascism. In Viz once they had the headline 'It's not over yet - Hitler could still win the war!' If the BNP, Zhirinovsky, Schönhuber and Le Pen get their way that'll be no joke.

Day 756

Thought of using Microsoft Access for producing cards for games, made some trials, with good results. Cooked tea, watched Harry Enfield.

Local elections today. Could go well, scum could get smashed, roll on the Glorious Day.

Day 755

Cashed my Giro, which came with a little slip about re-training. A good omen? Went into town, put £10 in the building society to revitalise the saving habit. Had a look in the Games Workshop window, some nice glossy cards for that Warhammer 40,000 rubbish.

Watched Star Trek TNG, a good one. The first ep being crap was a false prophecy. Also The Net, some good stuff about 'freeware.'

Day 754

Nice day again, air very sweet with blossom. Worked very hard with Microsoft Access, cracked it, accomplished the same task in Excel's Visual Basic for Applications. Interesting stuff this object-oriented programming.

Watched Quantum Leap in the evening, he was Marilyn Monroe's chauffeur.

Day 753

May Day Bank Holiday. Spent the day working with Microsoft Access, made some progress. Did a sundial experiment, tolerable accuracy.

Day 752

Struggled with Visual Basic in Excel.