It may have escaped you notice, but that red team, from round these parts won a game of football last night (sidenote: not as noisy a night in our street as I was expecting). Which is fine, Ruth doesn’t understand why beating Milan who are just “some team from Europe” is better than beating Man Utd or Arsenal. I tried to explain, about European cups, and best teams in the world, but she’s probably right.

Anyway, I’m not to concerned, what I do find interesting is the reports on the radio this morning that some people left the ground at half time when it was 3-0 to Milan, only to have to watch the next hour and a half on a big screen. Why? I would never leave a football match at half time.

I actually have had a very similar experience when tranmere where at the beginning of their FA Cup runs, we had quite a big tie, against then premiership Southampton, although it wasn’t going exactly to plan, by half time we where 3-0 down, so standing around at halftime (we had seats but you stand up at halftime), we did (half)consider leaving the freezing stands, hopping down to the sportsmans, and watching the second half on TV. We never, and we went on to win the game 4-3 that was my only ever flirtation with leaving a football ground before the end, even if you are 3-0 down with 60 seconds to go, I would stay, because you never know a wonder goal, is often quite a thing to watch.

Firstly I have to say, I have very few worries about our soon to be new life, where I go to work, and Ruth says at home as a full time housewife, gosh it sounds so traditional.

I am very happy with the working, and the not working, and the Daisy care, I’m a little worried about the initial costs, we might incur from Ruth not returning to work, long enough to so we don’t have to pay money back, other than that my worries are just little really.

Today, I’m worried about my role in the family, I was looking at 40 ways a father can make a difference, and thinking most of these things I do without thinking about it. So now I’m worried that I’m going to somehow become less considerate, because I’m working all day. Of course now I say it, that’s just stupid, because I work all day now, and I think about these things, nothing is actually changing to make me that different.

maybe I’ll stop worrying about that then

Ruth, just passed me this [the difference between men and women] (she’s refusing to blog it, I think she’s becoming a technophobe) it is very funny.

OK, so the meeting with Jim, didn’t go quite according to plan, but since then, we’ve moved onto a different and thinking about it much more positive track.

Jim is a manager, and as such has a great skill for talking for quite a long time without conveying much information, so after about ten minutes it became clear that it would be fine for me to go part time, he went on about .6 and .4 and not being able to replace skills directly, but the gist was yes we can do it.

Ruth however, was a different story, before Ruth went on maternity leave, she was CWIS Team Leader although he contract was Senior Computing officer (this is information we will need later on). Jim has consulted and the ‘management’ of the department have concluded that the job of CWIS team leader cannot be forfilled adequately part time, now without going to deep into that, we thing that’s wrong. However given that this is the ‘management’ view it’s probably not going to change (they rarely do), so we are look at the alternatives.

Jim’s alternative, involves offering Ruth a technical job inside another part of the department, such as (and almost certainly as this is where the land grab is at the moment) Corporate Applications. Now this is pap, because that means Ruth will lose her management roll, and end up working below other people who by pure quirks of fate have slightly differing contracts.

So we’ve been away, and we’ve thought about this, and well to be honest it’s not good enough, and after some more thought, we’ve decided it’s not worth fighting over, so Ruth isn’t going back to work!

Now this is quite a departure, although it was always there as a plan b, Ruth will quit work, and I will stay on full time, money is tight but OK. Ruth will be free to follow other career paths (not right away, daisy is more than a full time job), and I don’t have the worst job in the world what with 35 days holiday, and flexible working hours.

We haven’t told Jim this yet, but he’s lost a key member of staff, though his own inaction, and lack of commitment really. To offer a team leader a dumbed down technical post, somewhere way away from there current team, is a bit weak in terms of employee offers.

The next step for us is going to be the exit strategy. Technically Ruth has to return to work for at least 13 Weeks. Otherwise we have to repay money, but she is owed 8 weeks leave (don’t ask), and will accrue a further 2 weeks, during those three months, so she could end up working just 3 weeks! Given how farcical this seams, we are hoping for leeway here, but then again, knowing the university, We probably won’t get it. So, what might have to do, is have me take 4-5 weeks unpaid parental leave while Ruth forfills her contract, and then Ruth can leave work, and I can return.

As I’ve said we are looking at this in a positive light, Ruth isn’t a pure nerd, and hasn’t gone from IT student to IT Job, in the same sense as me, so it was never her intended Career, given how we’ve been surviving on the reduced budgets for some time now, this is the best opportunity she will get to step off the IT conveyor belt, and move into something that hopefully will make her happier, and more fulfilled, even if it pays less.

American Constitution (17 Pages, the original is just 4 pages)

European constitution ( 265 Pages, the summary is 15 pages)

it’s inspiring isn’t it?

Now in typical radio phone in style; I haven’t seen the movie but…

I do expect it to be pap, the general consensus is that George Lucas, has been given too much of a free reign, when in reality, his screen writing is a bit highldy piggldy.

However I’ve just read Rory Blyth’s review, it truly is the only review you’ll ever need. It’s just had me laughing out loud in the office in such a way, that I had to admit to not doing any work.

The difference between this election and the last; the outcome wasn’t known before we all started. Last night was eurovision, a great way to confirm that the rest of Europe is bonkers, and nobody likes us (or is it our songs are never any good anymore?).

I’m quite disappointed Norway didn’t win, with WigWam, who are basically the Norwegian version of darkness, the probily lost out because of there lack of kettle drums. Ruth refused to believe that the Moldavian entry’s words “Granma Bangs the drum, with the big mallet from the house” didn’t have some other meaning, but they did have an old woman in a rocking chair with a drum, so I think that they are just bonkers.

granma nearly won

the only downside to eurovision is the voting now takes longer than the songs, I think 39 countries got to vote on the 24 songs. This does give Terry the opportunity to have ago at our European neighbours, which is all part of the fun. If we want people to get interested in Europe maybe we should let Terry have a weekly 30minute show where he rounds up the goings on and voting in the European parliament.

I don’t think we are ever going to win the contest again, since it went to ‘televoting’, all the Scandinavian countries vote for each other,all the Baltic countries vote for each other, and all the Balkan countries vote for each other, while if were lucky the Irish vote for us. (look at the voting)

I’m beginning to come around the to Tory view point, we need to let panels vote, because the common people can’t be trusted.