good stuff thread.

[Ashley]

Yeah, I worked out that this one is usually 50+ a month, but has an 'offer' of 50quid a month at present.

 

There is no way in hell I could afford it, thankfully, work are paying for it, as long as I go at least once a month. Crazy business tbh.

 

Damn you

 

My friend that works for a studio gets a gym membership (which I think includes pool) for less than £20 a month. Damn these people!

 

I forgot but in the last ten minutes at work today we were discussing sloths (someone said "Slough", which I misheard as "sloth" and it went from there) and watched this video:

 

[jayseven]

Lots of good news in this thread!

 

Thanks to a lot of coincidences I've been offered a permanent job where I am. Effectively it's two promotions in two months, and again it's due to hard work and ensuring people in charge know I want something. My hopes for bartering for a decent salary have fallen through so I won't be on £15k -- technically £14k so nothing fantastic... but no more phones. I was kinda expecting to have to work for 6 more months but things have accellerated and... yeah. Wow. I now have a permanent 9-5 job with career prospects and... yeah. Not really sunk in. I should be getting a monthly bonus too (I was given £125 this month, so if that continues then it's basically £15k)... it's not as straight-forward as I've made it but basically my hard work and perseverance has paid off and I can now relax and return to normal hours -- and do pub quizzes again!

[Twozzok]

Lots of good news in this thread!

 

Thanks to a lot of coincidences I've been offered a permanent job where I am. Effectively it's two promotions in two months, and again it's due to hard work and ensuring people in charge know I want something. My hopes for bartering for a decent salary have fallen through so I won't be on £15k -- technically £14k so nothing fantastic... but no more phones. I was kinda expecting to have to work for 6 more months but things have accellerated and... yeah. Wow. I now have a permanent 9-5 job with career prospects and... yeah. Not really sunk in. I should be getting a monthly bonus too (I was given £125 this month, so if that continues then it's basically £15k)... it's not as straight-forward as I've made it but basically my hard work and perseverance has paid off and I can now relax and return to normal hours -- and do pub quizzes again!

 

CONGRATULATIONS. That's awesome.

 

My good news is I should be getting my deposit for this year gones rental on monday. (Admittedly just over half is going to paying off my internet and phone bill )

[ReZourceman]

I saw Jake and Amir in London last night. Absolutely loved it. So much.

 

Would see again.

[nightwolf]

@jayseven that's such great news! Well done, 14k isn't too shabby! Besides, lots of opportunity to push for pay rises!

 

Today, I put the deposit down to go here:

 

 

The Kata Thani hotel in Phuket, Thailand. I'm so excited, its the first holiday I've ever paid for and sorted out myself. Head out end of October - whee!

 

I also bought myself a ps3 and I'm completely in love with it. So an expensive, but good day!

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

That looks absolutely gorgeous.

[nightwolf]

That looks absolutely gorgeous.

 

I'm hoping it lives up to the pictures, the traveller agent we went with (Kuoni) has a guy who has been to that hotel a few times himself and has said rather nice things about it.

 

Excited!

[Coolness Bears]

In the spirit of good weather I've ventured to the edge of inside! So that I may peruse the sun but not have to feel it baring down on my soul. :p (or w/e)

 

I've got my book poised by my side. (Ape House which I got for 30p)

 

~Before that I'm creating my Annual summer playlist to ignite and infuse my very being with the compulsion to dance the carefree summer away~

 

 

In Other News:

 

I now wear a black (make up?) band as part of my new stYle. (or my hair is too long and incessantly in my face)

 

tbf, I look ridiculous(ly steamy) checkmate fashion. : peace:

 

ahhhhhhhhhhh, Sunday.

[Charlie]

Tomorrow is Speech Day at work. I'll be sat in a Marquee, listening to the headmaster ramble on about something. Anything, I don't know, I won't be paying attention. Zero fucks will be given...tomorrow, I make my way to Glastonbury.

 

My body is ready.

GLASTONBURY 2013. WE COMIN' FOR YOU, NIGGA!

 

 

Read this just now without seeing the date on your post. Was going to suggest that you check your dates again. :P

[Fierce_LiNk]

You suck, @Charlie.

 

I've copied this from the Music Thread as it applies to Good Stuff, toooo.

 

Glastonburrrrrrrryyyyy! I warn you, long post is long.

 

The Dream

 

Almost a year ago now, I contemplated the idea of going to Glastonbury for the very first time. My school finished on the same day that all the big bands would start playing on the Friday. So, I patiently waited on that Sunday morning when tickets went on sale and I managed to bag myself one and an additional one for the Ine.

 

The excitement continued to rise when two of my favourite bands decided that they were going to play: Crystal Castles and the legendary Smashing Pumpkins.

 

The Journey

 

Getting there was fine. I have recently bought a new car and was worried about it getting trashed, or having trouble with queuing getting into and out of the car park, or something or other. In the end, it all turned out fine. Getting in there on Friday afternoon was a doddle and leaving on Sunday night only took an additional 15 minutes when added to the drive back.

 

 

As I don't like camping, we also booked ourselves in a lovely little apartment that was about 35 minutes away. Getting out of the car park each day and getting there was easy. We literally just strolled right in. I was expecting much more of a hassle and was pleasantly surprised when this didn't seem to materialise.

 

The Layout

 

Fuuuuck, this place is massive. I had grossly underestimated how big or large this place is. There are one or two places we didn't get around to seeing, but it could easily take you 20 or 30 minutes just to walk from one side or another. My feet were officially dead at the end of each night. Saturday and Sunday morning were also very warm, which meant you also had that to contend with.

 

The walk from the car park can take about 30 minutes in itself. You basically have a number of "important" stages, and then lots and lots of smaller ones that can house smaller bands. For example, there's the main stage (Pyramid) which is where Mumford and Sons played, and the Other Stage where bands such as Foals or The Smashing Pumpkins played. In addition to that, you had the John Peel Stage where Crystal Castles played a blinding set and the Avalon where Newton Faulkner performed.

 

- the legendary John Peel Stage

 

- some weird random jungle music stage

 

 

- The Other Stage

 

Due to the scheduling of some of the bands, it did mean you would have to leave some performances early to get yourself into a good spot for the next band on another stage. We had this problem on the last night where I wanted to see the Pumpkins on the Other Stage and then Mumford and Sons on the Pyramid, but they're about 10 minutes apart. So, we missed the first few minutes of that. We also tried to go and see The Vaccines on William's Green, but that was an epic trek to get to and by the time we got there, we were told that it was full and nobody else could get in to see.

 

The Food and the Facilities

 

First off, the food there is pretty great. There's just about anything you can eat there. Lovely, tasty pizza, chinese or thai food, pastas, indian food, wraps. It's all good. You've also got the added bonus of being able to take your own stuff in, so you can save a bit of money that way. We definitely saved quite a bit on drinks this way.

 

 

The downside for this segment has to be with the toilets. They are your typical festival toilets, except that the men who went to their section were a bit disgusting. There are blue sheets which go around the outside of the men's toilet section, and there are urinals that you can queue up for. Some men (quite a lot actually) were deciding to piss directly onto the blue sheets, which would seep through the ground and could run through the outside section. Pretty disgusting, but that's men for you.

 

The Music

 

This is the reason why we all want to go. For the music.

 

I had work on Friday, so we didn't get through the gates until around 6. This meant that we had missed the Lumineers and The Vaccines, both are bands that we had wanted to see. However, we did get to watch Foals on the Other Stage who put on a really, really good show. We had overheard them playing on another festival and decided that in the future we would try to see them. They were brilliant and I'll definitely be looking into more of their stuff from now on.

 

 

- somebody lighting a flare during Foals.

 

 

After Foals, the big one: Crystal Castles on the John Peel Stage. Absolutely mind blowing. Their light shows must have been designed to cause Epileptic Fits. Brilliant. I was buzzing by the end of this and really, really enjoyed what I had saw. There were two downsides: First off, there were sound problems beforehand, so they were late coming on. As a result of this, they had played a shorter set and so we only got around a 45/50 minute set list. But, it was 50 minutes of heaven.

 

 

We spent much of Friday just getting used to the layout and finding our feet, as it was a lot to take in.

 

Saturday morning/early afternoon saw us head to the main stage/Pyramid to see Ben Howard. I knew nothing about this man and so didn't know what to expect. The sun was baking, so it was a bright festival mood, which helped his performance. I thought he put on a really good show and I'll be looking into some more of his stuff now.

 

- Ben Howard

 

After this, we headed to the Other Stage to see Noah and the Whale. In general, they're ok, but not reallllly my sort of thing. They played a cover of Daft Punk's Digital Love which was sweet. The downside was that as we were quite a way back, the wind was messing up some of the sound and it didn't sound as great as it could have been.

 

We headed towards the John Peel Stage, with our ciders in hand, to go and see Johnny Marr, one of my heroes from The Smiths. He was fantastic! He put on a really good show of his own and didn't just try to hide in the shadows on The Smiths. The crowd inside the tent got on his side helped to create a lovely atmosphere.

 

- Johnny Marrrrrrr

 

This is when shit started to get serious. It was soon before The Rolling Stones were going to head to the main stage/Pyramid, a band that I loathe and didn't want to see. Before they went on, Primal Scream were hijacking the Pyramid and played a good set of their own. As we weren't terribly close, we found that there were pockets of fans, but a lot of people were also stood around chatting, waiting for the Stones. The set list was good and they played some excellent tunes that I love. Country Girl got a good cheer, as did Rocks and Come Together, where they were joined with the lovely HAIM.

 

- Primal Scream

 

As most people were staying to watch the Stones, we headed in the opposite direction to The Avalon and went to go and watch the terribly under-rated Newton Faulkner. Fuuuuuuuuck! A very, very, very strong contender for performance of the weekend. Blew me and Ine away. Every song he performed was sung along with by the people of the Avalon tent and every member of the crowd was on his side. He gave a kick arse performance of Tear Drop, Dream Catch Me (which was godly) and his own one man version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, something that needs to be seen in the flesh to be believed. Just...oh my God. Due to this sublime performance, we missed part of Example playing their set, but it was really worth it.

 

- The Unbelievably Good Newton Faulkner.

 

Shortly after this finished, we wandered over to the Other Stage and saw Example playing the tail end of their set. Brilliant performance and the crowd were hyped and pumped up. They finished with Changed The Way You Kiss Me, which just kicked so much arse.

 

- Example. We started off towards the back, went in for a bit and then left to get some food before Hurts.

 

To round off a good day, we headed back over to the faithful John Peel Stage to watch Hurts, a band that Ine had been pestering me to see, convincing me that they were good. In short, they were fucking awesome and gave another stand out performance. We found our way close to the front of the stage, with tons of obviously huge fans who knew their songs inside out. They were awesome, almost on a par with Crystal Castles for me with their light show and thumping basslines. Definitely a band I'm now going to have to look at a bit more to find more tunes.

 

That was pretty much it for Saturday, along with tons of wandering around, getting into the spirit of things, passing by other stages and taking a listen. We passed the BBC Introducing Stage and saw the end of a performance by somebody called Indiana. A bit of a shame we didn't hear this earlier as it sounded quite nice, but that may have to wait for another time.

 

So, Sunday...didn't get off to a great start as we managed to suffer a double whammy of a blow. The Vaccines were at William's Green and the stage was completely full. So packed that there were a flashing sign telling us that it was full. Gutted. Things got worse a few minutes later as we passed by the BBC Introducing Stage again...the XX had just finished their surprised set. Had we been 10 minutes sooner, we would have seen this. Also, to add insult to injury, there was a typo in the program notes which meant that there was a clash between the XX and Mumford and Sons, which meant that we couldn't see them tonight either. Fucutuifjertoijewfifguerifkjnefiuweceu!

 

Once again, we walked over to the John Peel Stage to see another performer. This time it was Tom Odell, again somebody I didn't know a lot about. The stage was packed and it was a bit of a trek trying to get out afterwards. The set was good though, and I can imagine that I'll be listening to more of his songs at some point in the future.

 

A big one next, Of Monsters and Men, at The Other Stage, which is where we spent a big part of our day. Completely fucking awesome from start to finish. We were right in the thick of it and the crowd played their part really, really well. They finished off with an epic performance of Six Weeks. I strongly urge everyone to check out their music if you haven't. Another Icelandic Gem.

 

- Of Monsters and Men

 

We took a little break after this to get some food and then stood around to watch The Editors on the Other Stage. They're a difficult act to watch because they came on right after Of Monsters and Men and right before The Smashing Pumpkins, and due to their type of music, you can't really sing along or get into as much live. Still, they were good and definitely worth seeing. But, in my mind, they were just filler between Of Monsters and The Pumpkins.

 

Shit gets serious, Volume II: The Smashing Pumpkins. Oh My GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD! Performance of the weekend for me. They even fucked up at the start where Billy's microphone didn't work except for one specific line, which was fittingly "RIGHT ON!" Sweet Jesus. The crowd completely lost it during the midway trilogy of Disarm, Tonight, Tonight and Bullet with Butterfly Wings. So many awesome moments during this gig. I was very close to tears during Tonight. One of the best bands I've ever seen live.

 

- The Smashing Pumpkinsssss

 

Unfortunately, due to the time conflicts, we ended up missing the first few minutes of Mumford and Sons. We've seen them before, at Pukkelpop in Belgium where they played in the Marquee and were awesome. They've grown in popularity since then, which meant that we were on the edge of things and only had access to the big screens that were on the side of the Pyramid stage. They were still completely awesome, especially during the encore of Babel and The Cave, the latter of which was out of this world. For me, I will still remember them in that tent at Pukkelpop, but the finale (particularly The Cave) is one of the definite highlights of the weekend for me.

 

- another flare, this time during Mumford and Sons, who were excellent.

 

This has taken me about an hour and a bit to type up. Thanks for your timeeee.

[Twozzok]

 

 

[

 

This tent looks like the lock up tent from reading. Reckon they use the same tent peeps?

[Fierce_LiNk]

This tent looks like the lock up tent from reading. Reckon they use the same tent peeps?

 

Possibly. It would make a lot of sense if there were a few big tent companies who sorted out the tents for the big festivals.

 

It's probably my favourite stage. It's massive inside, but it still retains that intimacy that you get under a roof. Crystal Castles and Hurts were both brilliant under there.

[jayseven]

Looks like you had an awesome time flink

 

I got more good news. The new role at work is exciting and tough but lots of responsibilities. I was taken aside and said that basically in 4 weeks time I will have a review and they are looking to promote me for the third time in 3 months. They basically guaranteed the promotion will happen, it's just a matter of exactly when.

 

I'm actually looking forwards to work! Can't really say I've ever experienced this feeling before.

[Ashley]

Finally finished all my E3 hands on impression articles! 15 articles in 6 days. Now I just need to pack my bag for my trip home Weds-Sat and I can rest!

 

Had an amusing moment this morning. First day of working my new hours and I go to the office and opened the door...to realise I didn't know the alarm code. Had to go ask security to help me out, all the while wearing lycra cycling shorts. Oh the shame!

[Charlie]

Looks like you had an awesome time flink

 

I got more good news. The new role at work is exciting and tough but lots of responsibilities. I was taken aside and said that basically in 4 weeks time I will have a review and they are looking to promote me for the third time in 3 months. They basically guaranteed the promotion will happen, it's just a matter of exactly when.

 

I'm actually looking forwards to work! Can't really say I've ever experienced this feeling before.

 

Sounds like they really like you over there. What is it you do agani?

[ipaul]

Signed on yesterday, officially started the hunt for jobs having finished university. Applied for a position in a call centre at British Airways online a few weeks ago and had got through to the maths+english assessment which was today. Apparently I passed and got through to the interview stage, and was the only one out of the group of 10 who attended this morning's session who did so! Feeling quite pleased, now I just hope I pass this interview.

[Charlie]

Signed on yesterday, officially started the hunt for jobs having finished university. Applied for a position in a call centre at British Airways online a few weeks ago and had got through to the maths+english assessment which was today. Apparently I passed and got through to the interview stage, and was the only one out of the group of 10 who attended this morning's session who did so! Feeling quite pleased, now I just hope I pass this interview.

 

Not directed at you but more of a point to a lot of university graduates.

 

Why wait until after you graduate to look for a job? Loads of graduate recruiters will offer you a contract well before graduating on the condition you get a certain degree.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Doesn't seem like much of an issue. During my former student days, I was naive to think that after Uni I could chill for a couple of weeks before sending out applications. Maybe then I'd be in a better place instead of the "media" jobs online* I've applied for being nothing but going to door-to-door trying to flog Netflix.

 

 

 

*That don't require masses of experience in the true Catch 22 that to get Job A you need experience X, but the only way to get experience X is to have Job A.

[Ganepark32]

 

As most people were staying to watch the Stones, we headed in the opposite direction to The Avalon and went to go and watch the terribly under-rated Newton Faulkner. Fuuuuuuuuck! A very, very, very strong contender for performance of the weekend. Blew me and Ine away. Every song he performed was sung along with by the people of the Avalon tent and every member of the crowd was on his side. He gave a kick arse performance of Tear Drop, Dream Catch Me (which was godly) and his own one man version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, something that needs to be seen in the flesh to be believed. Just...oh my God. Due to this sublime performance, we missed part of Example playing their set, but it was really worth it.

 

Been lucky to see Newton Faulkner live myself (at my graduation ball last summer) and he was superb. And definitely agree that his one man version of Bohemian Rhapsody is something which needs to be experience because it was an amazing performance to end a great set that night!

 

------------------------------

 

Anyway, half day at uni today. Wasn't in the mood for it and luckily ended up going for a bottle of wine with my friend and then for a wander in town afterwards.

 

Sat in the pub trying to figure out when and on what dates we have to buy gifts for one another as after August, we'll no longer be students together as she didn't get offered a PhD place alongside me. So upset about that, more so than she is but she doesn't begrudge me for getting a place over her which probably goes to show how close we are as friends. Spent ages trying to figure out the exact date when we became properly close and she's now wanting to have it as our little 'anniversary' thing which is so lovely.

 

This time last year, I genuinely didn't think that I'd have anyone in my life as genuine, trustworthy and brilliant as her.

 

tl;dr - Friends are awesome :awesome:

[Fierce_LiNk]

Been lucky to see Newton Faulkner live myself (at my graduation ball last summer) and he was superb. And definitely agree that his one man version of Bohemian Rhapsody is something which needs to be experience because it was an amazing performance to end a great set that night!

 

 

He also seems like a genuinely nice and funny guy, too. He interacted with the audience really well. It was never forced or awkward.

 

Man crush o'clock.

[jayseven]

Sounds like they really like you over there. What is it you do agani?

PPI is the main drive of this department. I'm 100% office admin at the moment and boy is there a lot to do. I'm replacing a girl that was working 9.30-3, and she was struggling so initially I was part-timing doing one of her responsibilities. Even with that support she was finding it a lot of work. Now I'm doing technically an extra 2 and a half hours more than she was doing... but I did 2.5-3 hours a day support for her, and now I don't have the support work that I provided so it's... a lot! I'm also given extra duties from the office manager that my predecessor never did, so I'm tasked with doing a LOT more work than her.

 

For example, yesterday for the outbound mail I had to get 50 cheques signed, fold envelope and send 120 letters in an hour. Today I had 30 mins extra but ended up needing to do 280 pieces of mail... And I've got one job tomorrow that will take 3 hours, the mail again will be anohter hour, the scanning is at least 2, and there's essential filing that will be another hour. So that's my working day taken up already and there'll be surprises while I work.

 

But it is kinda fun! Technically I've made zero mistakes so far in all of my roles... which is why I've progressed as quick as I have. Initially I offered to stay extra hours to get shit done but so far they're clamping down on overtime. I get that they don't want me to use it to do the same work over a longer span of time, but an extra hour every other day would really be good. It was a particularly tough start to the week though.

 

So there's other stuff I need to do weekly that I'm hoping I can get done friday, and there's an ongoing massive, massive re-filing task that deals with 20,000 customer case files that I get to try to do when I've run out of other jobs, and also 6 case worker's filing to be sorted, whom each have 5,000 further cases files that add up to several thousand pages of paper. It's a long-term job so... yeah. There's other spreadsheet stuff and database stuff that I do on the fly.

 

... It's not really all that exciting.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Were they licky envelopes?

[nightwolf]

Going back to the University - job thing. I believe I started looking for jobs in December, when I finished in May.

 

But honestly, it doesn't seem to make much difference, I dropped lucky that the week after I finished I got a temp job, but there's been a few of my friends who have tried either doing lots of interviews before hand or after and not found any success.

 

 

Today is the first day in several days I've not felt down much, I just feel like things are a little too much right now, but not so much as yesterday. Phew!

[Raining_again]

best card ever:

 

[Josh64]

I've been on holiday from work this week and it has been a great much needed escape, the people there can really get me down at times. Not to mention they're having a big 're-launch' so everyone will be even more over the top and melodramatic than usual.

 

So I've pretty much spent the week meeting up with friends I haven't seen in ages and playing Animal Crossing! :p Which has been pretty great actually, as I've barely seen anyone for the last few months, though that's my own fault!

 

Tonight shall be another good one, with wine, Wii U and 4 totally awesome people!