Catch of the Day

One thing I predicted correctly: that I would be running about all over London, sweatily, in August, looking for work.  Today it was Finchley to Tooting, some 18 miles apart and, fortunately, joined by the long black leg of the Northern line.  I wish I could tell you everything is working out OK.  At the moment, I have no idea what is happening, where I'll be next week, or what I'll be doing.  I have not had this level of uncertainty in my life for decades.

There have been four agency interviews and two actual job interviews in the last two weeks.  Once upon a time you turned up at a temp agency, flailed away at a keyboard for a bit, and then they sent you to a job.  Now, it's pretty much like going for a real job in that you have to be shortlisted and interviewed by the employer, even for a two-month booking.  Today I had what seemed like a very positive interview for a six-month booking.  I can no longer tell if I've done well at interviews.  The agencies, on the whole, seem very keen to place me somewhere and think I have a great CV.  But it's like someone telling you what a great catch you are, and yet somehow you never end up in a net. 

Still, I am pleased to be back in London.  Brussels, for reasons I cannot explain, never felt safe.  Here, I can happily stand in Holborn at night, waiting for a bus to take me to the northern reaches of the city, and it just feels like home.  This huge, unwieldy, messy city is where my roots are deep.  London is my universe.

Java Jive

This morning, I woke at 5.29 and watched the sun rise over Upminster.  From the eighth floor of a block in North London, London is huge, its villages mapped out in spires and council blocks.

I don't know what the fuck I'm doing yet, but I have various balls in the air.  Juggling has never been my strength, so something might get dropped.  Life hangs currently on small things:  finding excellent coffee shops and charity shops, Noodle the bonkers cat who lives here, seeing old friends, doing insane new stuff like stand-up comedy.

If there was any doubt that returning to London was the right thing, that doubt no longer exists.  Despite my fears about what the political climate would be like (mainly due to a shameful habit of reading the Mail online), people of all races, faiths, languages, genders, appear to be living and working alongside each other, just as they have for a long time in London.  This is my genetic and ancestral home.  As much as some feel that London is too much and alien, for me it's an embrace.

Not much else to say right now, but I'm sure things will be happening soon.