Room 101

In George Orwell's 1984 we first meet the concept of 'Room 101': invented by Big Brother, Room 101 has the single most thing you fear in the whole entire world. Over time the phrase itself has slipped into our vocabulary and means, amongst other things, somewhere you'd like to put everything that gets under your skin and irritates you like nothing else.

The BBC now have a quiz show based on this premise. It used to be a kind of chat show where celebrities moaned about things they despised; now several of them compete to put items into Room 101, the most convincing ones gets that pleasure.

If I were ever to go on Room 101 I would campaign 100% to pull the lever and send Tom Daley, the diver, down to the depths. I'm not saying that I hate him enough to hope that he meets with a nasty accident when someone pulls the plug out of the pool and doesn't tell him; all I'm saying is that he really annoys me. If he appears on the television, I have to mute it. There's just something about him that makes me want to vomit.

Anyway I'm not one to have beef with people in my blogs and start hatin' on people I've never met; I'm normally not one to use words like 'beef' and 'hatin' on'. You may have guessed what's coming next: I'm going it to make a point.

Tom Daley loves to be in front of the camera - anyone that saw that ridiculous video of him and his mates in Australia knows that he likes to be the centre of attention. Err Tom, shouldn't you be concentrating a little more on your day job?

This was the fiasco that overshadowed his performance at the most recent diving championships and saw the stupid video played out on all the major broadcasters. I suppose the problem I have above all is that Tom Daley is in a privileged position - in the media spotlight, a talented young man, he can have anything he wants, yet he still wants to prat about and not put his all into his training.

Why should he? He's still young - he's got quite a few Olympics left in him. So what if he can't be bothered in the meantime, he should just kick back and enjoy what he's doing - it's not as if he's flying the flag and representing our nation... Ambassador? Pah! Of course not...

And we've reached my point. This boils down to the issue of social responsibility. I wrote a post about it a while ago when a family (having bought the Sky Movies package) said they would have to choose between 'heating and eating' if their benefits were cut under the government's rejigging of the Welfare State's allowances.

I said I didn't blame the family - I mean I confess I judged them a lot for the 'heating and eating' comment and would maybe advise buying fewer cigarettes a week, but if the government are giving them the money, then why should they bother to get jobs and boring stuff like careers...

This issue has reared its ugly head all over again with the work experience programme that the government are trying desperately to get employers to participate in. It's the one where young people on benefits do some voluntary work experience to try and get on in the company.

Oh my goodness. The poo has certainly hit the fan with that one. The coalitian is now back-peddaling at an alarming pace, the most recent concession is to drop potential cuts to jobseekers' allowance if certain terms of employment aren't met.

Ok, let's have a look at this in more detail:
Some people have called it slave labour because the young people are working for nothing: THEY'RE ON BENEFITS!!
Their benefits would only be cut if they don't finish the programme: WOHHH - YOU MEAN YOU'RE ASKING PEOPLE TO WORK FOR MONEY!?

Social responsibility. That's all it is. Young people don't want to get in on the scheme because they run the risk of losing their benefits if they start working. That is the most backwards, irresponsible, lazy thing I think I've ever come across. But why should they give up this free money that they can get, technically, until pensionable age? If the government gives it to them, why not take it...

Day Ten: The Final Countdown

I'm writing this post out of working hours because I want to draw an official line under my 'zero fortnight'. I've waited patiently and now the time has come where I've got to move on. Back when I started this I said I was putting my cards on the table and said I needed to have a job by the start of April and that I was waiting for replies from the 'big three' - three jobs I really wanted.

The first week didn't go too well and after waiting all week I heard from one of these on Friday afternoon, and it was a no. Because I was sick of waiting, I tried to make myself another opportunity which worked and the second half of my zero fortnight picked up a great deal.

I was asked to apply for a job and started to get somewhere with some other projects I was working on. In the meantime I got rejected from another one of the 'big three', but because things were moving anyway, I wasn't too cut up about it.

This meant I was waiting for the Big One. I'm going to ruin the pointless suspense now - I still haven't heard. I don't know when I will hear, but I've spent the afternoon looking for other jobs in the hopes of meeting my April deadline. I don't know whether I'm not in the mood or whether there really is very little our there of interest, but it seemed like there was nothing on offer that wasn't marketing or telesales. Any jobs asking for writers are all about finance and stocks - stuff that I don't want to write about even if I could.

A while ago I blogged about how the internet has transformed job searches and it means I can do everything from the comfort of the sofa, but even with the entire universe at my fingertips, I can't find anything I want to do. I'm suffering from one of those 'lacking in motivation' days. I picked up something a little dodge and I'm not feeling at my best so you can understand how hard it is for me to get enthusiastic about a job that advertises itself as an 'exciting opportunity' and that's it.

So come next week I don't know what I'll be doing. I know I have about a month to find a job, but I have no idea what that job will end up being. Hopefully I'll be feeling better and a little more motivated, but right now I don't know, well I don't know anything.

So at the end of my 'zero fortnight' the results are thus:
1. Things are beginning to move a little in a couple of areas.
2. I'm still waiting to hear about my dream job.
3. If none of those things work, the poo will hit the proverbial fan because I will be forced to take a job merely called an 'exciting opportunity' which we all no is not going to be an 'exciting opportunity'.

I'm on the cusp of something - I just don't know what it will be...

Day Nine: Why Are We Waiting?

It's the penultimate day of 'zero fortnight' and I haven't heard from the Big One. I may have planned to meet friends, execute complex projects, and begin my career in other departments, but I'm still waiting to hear from the Big One - my dream job.

Fortunately I had my other projects to take my mind off it. Of my three projects I have now completed one and a half and can see myself crashing headlong back into limbo. Admittedly there are still another one and a half projects to do, but I've looked at them so much in the last few days that I'm starting to go cross-eyed.

There are no new jobs to apply for - I've checked. Well there are jobs - several in fact that I'm on the cusp of applying for, I'm just waiting until the last minute before I bite the bullet and apply for something that I consider to be second best.

Essentially, I've got itchy feet. There are things on the horizon, I just have to wait for them. I hate waiting. I hate waiting with a fervent passion. Hate. Hate. Hate.

In response to all the waiting I've been doing, I decided I was going take a more proactive approach to my job search and it paid off to a certain extent: the big rusty cogs are beginning to grind into life. I've been making real progress there, but for the next step, I still have to wait - a week. Now a week can be swallowed up adequately in the big picture, but stopping to think about what I'm doing in detail over the next seven days and all of a sudden I'm turning back to daytime TV and refreshing my email inbox.

I sound thoroughly tragic don't I. I have an online assessment to do for Monday, but I haven't even thought about it yet because my head's all over the place. On the one hand I'm planning what will happen if I get some success with my projects, on the other I'm still trying to face up to the fact that I'm going to have to start applying for jobs I don't want to do.

Now I sound pompous. Taking things that are second best; applying for jobs I don't want, what right have I to demand my dream job? Well I don't, but if you are unemployed you've most likely said 'I could do their job better than that' and, for want of a more eloquent phrase, it's the luck of the draw.

I get so frustrated especially when I see public figures in the media - in the industry I want to catapult myself into - and some of them make an awful mess of their jobs. Just last week I referred to the BBC's farcical article about unemployed bums like me. It's not just that - spelling and grammar mistakes are common - if you don't know how to use an apostrophe, go back to school and get out of the newspapers.

However much I hate waiting, though, it looks like I'll have to do some more before I can drag myself out of this mire...

Day Eight: The Big One

You'll be pleased to know I found a name for my pirate. This was very much yesterday's problem, but I solved it with some clever wordplay and now I'm back on track, ready to take the world by storm. Well nearly.

Once I get the bit between my teeth, I'm practically unstoppable and this is what happened yesterday evening. I worked right the way through the Brits on my projects. I say through, I mean during - it didn't merit enough attention to not be doing something else at the same time. I'd started work that morning and I ploughed my way through until 10pm - that's dedication to the cause.

To tell you the truth, I worked a little too much. We hit 9'o'clock, and let's face it, I was only watching for Noel Gallagher and Blur; I tied up some loose ends, but because I'd have to wait until 9.50 for my Blur marathon, I thought I'd start something else instead. This was a bad idea and made my brain fry.

I therefore shut my computer down and walked away ready to start afresh today. Which I intend to do, probably after lunch... I'm not procrastinating, I'm just saving these jobs for the time when I can give them most attention; I also don't want to finish them in a week and find I'm back to being a bum again.

The likelihood of that happening is slim, as it really seems as if things are picking up for once. I just want to make sure that I do the best job I can with the resources available to me, and if time is a resource that I have in abundance, I'm jolly well going to use it.

Time management is a big deal for me because I hate to have days yawning before me; currently I've had 6 months of them and I don't reckon on it being up to much. Most of my time is spent looking for jobs, applying for jobs, or waiting to hear back about job applications, and let me tell you this for nothing (I am unemployed) it sucks.

You can imagine how good it felt, therefore, to have a few projects to work on, to have something to occupy my time with. Even if I never hear back from these opportunities, it has killed time while I wait for the big three, which became th big two last Friday and, sorry to report folks, is now the Big One - and I don't mean the fun kind, like in Blackpool.

If I were writing a fictitious blog about unemployment I would have done it excatly as you read it. Just in case you think I'm not 22, a girl, and unemployed, but a 53-year-old fat and balding man from Basingstoke who's trying to penetrate the female psyche by adopting the identity of a young unemployed girl, I'm not. I am genuinely unemployed. This is, unfortunately, real life.

But I say that because the plot is building. After 6 months of waiting, things are finally hotting up. I could finish this post by saying:
'Tomorrow on The Diary of an Unemployed Bum, things are progressing with the company that asked Hannah to apply for a position, the projects are finally starting to take shape, but will she hear from the Big One about her dream job? Tune in to find out.'
That is literally my life at the moment - a reality TV show.

It turns out my predictions were right about this being 'zero fortnight' and though it's two rejections out of three, it gave me a kick up my unemployed bum and I'm looking down the barrel of a potential job interview and a really exciting opportunity too.

It's day eight out of ten - if days nine and ten are as eventful as days six, seven and eight, this is going to be a week to remember.

Day Seven: Ha-haaaaarrr!

So here I am once again blogging about the fortnight where I hope to be in employment, or at least very close. Last week this didn't go too well so I decided to roll things over to this week hoping that I can end on a high and not another rejection.

This plan has so far been working masterfully in that I have been asked too apply for a job (always a good sign) and I've had a meeting which has given me three very interesting projects to work on. These projects may never come to anything, but I feel like I have a purpose. I feel as if I don't need to blog every day in order for me to think I'm doing something useful.

I have however reached a sticking point of a kind unfamiliar to me. I have plenty of work to do, I'm just held back by an itsy-bitsy detail. This detail is becoming my nemesis and I will not move on until I have bettered it. Normally I don't give you too many deets, principally because I realise how uninteresting they are. On the odd occasion I do (my babysitting debacle is a prime example, but that really was quite entertaining, especially if you weren't there and didn't have to deal with it).

In this situation, for you all to better understand my plight, I will share with you some details. I'm looking for a pirate name. Long John Silver and Blackbeard have both been taken; Calico Jack was shotgunned many years ago; Captain Jack Sparrow I believe has also appeared here and there, all of which narrow the field quite dramatically.

The best I could come up with was Cannon-Fodder Davies and 'Cutlass' Joe Jones. These are passable, but they are not majestic enough for the pirate I'm trying to name. Yesterday I trawled the internet looking for inspiration. I Googled famous pirates - I even sunk to the depths of putting lots of different names into a 'Pirate Name Generator' to see what would come out. I was desperate.

I'm going to give myself until this evening to come up with something plausible and then I'm going to move on. Granted I'll move on kicking and screaming, but move on I will. It annoys me that now I have stuff to do that's potentially really worthwhile, but I've hit a stumbling block and it's preventing me from doing my best work.

Having said all of that, it's a lovely predicament to have compared to what I have been enduring in te form of a modern adaptation of Waiting for Godot. What makes this worse is that you can't even put on modern adaptations of Waiting for Godot because of the Beckett clause. Not only was I incapable of producing my own literature decent enough for people to take notice, but I was ruining the stuff we had already.

So if a troublesome pirate name is all I have to deal with, I've not done to badly.

Ha-harrrr!

Day Six: Progress

I never thought I'd be doing this again this week. I thought I'd be back to ironic jibes at the unemployment situation and sharing anecdotes about funny things that happened in my life as an unemployed bum. I had hoped to be in work, or at least have a clearer picture about the situation I was going to find myself in.

The reality is somewhat diverse.

Let me explain. I initially made my 'zero hour' a 'zero week' and then a 'zero fortnight'; in the week I expected to hear back from three applications, I heard back form one, so elongated the deadline to see if the dregs would slip out if I waited a little longer.

So here we are on day six. Really, the action started happening on mid-week last week when I decided that waiting just wasn't exciting and I emailed one of my contacts to see if I could bump start something into happening. This was successful and we scheduled in a meeting that happened earlier today.

Then on day five I eventually heard back from one of the three jobs (in the negative, but at least I heard) and then yesterday (yes, Sunday) I was asked to apply for a job with a company that I thought had forgotten me and erased all traces of my CV and cover letter from the known universe.

Things are certainly on the up and the meeting I had this morning made me a very busy girl indeed. I have three projects to work on; they're things of my own invention that are in various stages of completion, but after speaking to someone 'in the industry' I have a direction, some targets, and it finally feels like I'm getting somewhere with it all.

So I still may not have heard from the two other jobs I've applied for, but I have a potential job, and a very large potential opportunity on the horizon that I never even considered last week. It's not so much that good things come to those who wait, but good things come to those who don't give up.

Day six is proving to be a vintage...

Zero Hour (Mark II)

So here we are again. A week ago I posted about what was going to be the beginning of what I hoped would be the final nail in my job hunting coffin. Basically, I hoped I'd either have one of the 'big three' jobs I applied for, or I'd be on the lookout for something else because I didn't get any of them.

I would give you links to the last five days of posts where I did, for once, what this blog suggests, and wrote a diary about my unemployment, but they're literally just the last five posts I've written, so you can probably navigate your way there yourself. Anyway, if you've read those already, you may notice a common theme. Last week wasn't 'zero week' as I succinctly termed it. Last week was a continuation of 'wait around and get frustrated' week, which is where I've been really since August.

Nice.

Things did, however, change. Friday evening I got an email telling me I hadn't got one of the 'big three'. At first glance this may sound disappointing, but I was relieved more than anything: the 'big three' are now the 'big two' and that's one less thing to worry about. Now I have my plan of campaign in place, I don't want to have to wait some more before I implement it.

The reason I issued myself witht the 'zero week' (now 'zero fortnight') ultimatum was because I felt like I was really getting somewhere with a job and then it disappeared into the atmosphere, never to be heard of again. Regular readers may remember my petite rant. In view of this I thought that enoguh was enough - I needed to start taking some drastic action and get something because even the jobs you feel like you're going to get might not pull through.

Hence the situation we're in now.

Then I got an email. It was this afternoon - not a working day and certainly not a 'zero' day: it was my old friends who didn't call me. The gentleman kindly explained as to why  was never called - apparently (and this is the case at the moment everywhere) there are so many people applying for jobs that are in theory beneath them, that people like me don't stand a chance. It was nice to know that under normal circumstances I would have stood a good chance, it was just the jobs market that wasn't willing.

Anyway he asked me to apply for another position at the company instead. He told me it was coming up and I needn't worry about sending anything else in the way of an application. I had to admit that I was quite excited about it and, when I went out in the car but ten minutes later, I had a celebratory Red Hot Chili Peppers sing-along.

This was good news indeed. The job is by no means mine, but it will probably be the closest I've got so far. It puts my new plans into slight jeopardy, but I will wait for the 'big two' and apply for whatever else in the meantime.

So as the second part of zero fortnight is about to start, some progress has been made, let's just hope I can go on as I meant to start...

Day Five: So Far, Not So Good

So for those that don't know by now what this week of posting has been all about, it's zero week: the week where I hope to find out about the three big jobs/opportunities I've applied for. I mean I had no real idea that this week would be the week, but it was a best guess.

That guess is turning out to be, well, for want of a better word, wrong.

Let's have a brief recap:
Day one saw me employed in a little physical labour as I packed up my friends' flat. When I say employed, I mean voluntarily, of course...
On day two I hit the bottom of the pit of despair as I came to terms with the fact I might never hear back from these people.
Day three provided light entertainment when the BBC thought they would publish poor sensationalist fiction instead of journalism (if you read just one more of my posts, I would go for that one).
Day four saw me leap out of the pit of despair and I decided to branch out and apply for a different brand of jobs - a job isn't for life (though some are just for Christmas).

And here we are at the end of the week - the week I had thought would bear some fruit in my 6-month-and-counting job search. So far, not so good.

I may have thrown in the towel a little and started looking for jobs that might not be my first choice, but I'm still holding out the hope that I can get a breakthrough. This may come on Monday when I have my meeting (see day three), it may not come for months.

What really annoys me is that I know how good I am and, though I hate to quote the article about my hairy friend again (at the point I'd just like to say he is not my friend, I'm merely being ironic) the quality of journalism in that article is, quite frankly, poor. I don't care that he has his window open in his flat - if he has his window open in the middle of a cold snap in February, he can clearly afford high heating bills and his economic situation isn't as bleak as we're made to believe. This is mindless drivel meant to stir emotions for a man that, if he shaved his large beard off, would stand a much better chance at getting a job. Ms BBC Journalist: please don't treat me like an idiot, because though I am unemployed, stupid, I am most definitely not.

But back to my hairy friend for a moment: he's having sleepless nights and he doesn't smile very often - he's been out of work two years. If you're looking for someone who should be downbeat with their confidence dashed against some metaphorical rocks, may I direct you to the Manchester man who has been turned down from 1,500 jobs. Ouch. Our hairy friend has some poor A levels, according to the article; this guy is qualified in IT.

It seems that unemployment doesn't discriminate on qualifications. I have a good degree from a good university, and I'm struggling as much as the IT man and my hairy friend. The economy is so sluggish that pretty well all aspects of the working world have been touched and those with little or no experience (primarily the young) are suffering the most.

Today is my day five - five out of five for this week, and I still haven't heard from the big three. The companies I've applied for jobs for always send an email with a yay or nay, so I know that I'm still waiting, it's not as if they won't ever get back to me. It appears that I will be stuck in this state of suspended animation for a little longer.

So what's my solution? Well I have no choice but to target next week as being 'the big one' and come Monday, zero week (now zero fortnight) will resume...

Day Four: Outside the Box

So far zero week wasn't going as I might have hoped it would. Days one, two and three had not given me too much to whoop about: I'd packed my friends off to a new life a couple of hours away, I'd got upset, and I'd charged up the roflcopter after an unintentionally funny BBC article.

Not that I'm ever one to give up, but we're more than halfway through the week and I've not heard so much as a squeak from any of the big three applications I'm waiting on. I'm starting to think that this week might not be the 'zero hour' I wished it would be.

By the end of yesterday I was getting sick of waiting - it is all I ever seem to do these days and so I tried to look into making my own opportunities. I followed up on something I'd been working on and managed to arrange a meeting with someone for next week. If it comes off it will be brilliant, amazing and by far and away the break I've been hoping for.

I'm not giving up on these other jobs - if I got even as much as a phone interview I'd be made up, but currently my time is much better served working on other things. If nothing else, it kills time waiting. Now like my hairy friend from yesterday's post, I could play my games and watch my DVDs because let's face it, that is going to get me a job a lot faster. Oh no wait, it won't. I'm going to have to start being a little more proactive about it. If I'm not getting the jobs I'm currently applying for, it's time to change tack.

These days a career isn't for life so it doesn't matter if I do thirty different jobs because versatility is becoming the order of the day far more than brand loyalty ever was. Employers want to see transferable skills - to be honest I thought I'd covered that with the page-turning stories that I could come up with from some of the jobs and opportunities I've done over the years, but maybe some people don't enjoy hearing about the lady who decided she would get completely changed on an Italian bus and would prefer to hear about my extensive copy-writing experience.

Oh well. After the torment and confidence deflation of Tuesday afternoon, I've been looking for alternative careers, sorry jobs. The trouble I have is that I'm a fidget-y person: I can't sit still and I hate offices. I like meeting new people and stretching my legs, not sitting in a poor-erganomic chair in an office that's either too hot or too cold.

I think I've found a solution. Then again this is always my problem. I think I have the answer and then I start to plan steps two, three and thirty-five, before I have successfully passed step one. This is an area I have absolutely no experience in, but I love a challenge - who doesn't!?

This is proving to be rather a good distraction from zero hour...

Day Three: My Palpably Downbeat Mood

So after a fruitless day one and a fruitless and emotional day two, day three crashed into being at the same time as new unemployment statistics came out. My 'zero hour' week was turning out to be quite a rollercoaster. I wrote a blog post a while ago about an increase in unemployment to the tune of 118,000. This time the stats aren't as drastic, but 48,000 more people are out of work.

What I found more interesting when I discovered this unhappy news was a feature on the BBC News website about two woeful unemployed people:
Their downbeat mood is palpable: a smile is rare, and their softly spoken voices convey a lack of confidence and hope after years of sitting on the subs' bench.
Woh. Serious stuff. I have several problems with this as an opening sentence:
1. It is overly emotive.
2. It panders to the whims of the unemployed.
3. The football metaphor makes my skin crawl.
After the journalist introduces the protagonist lighting his 'roll up cigarette' they proceed to write this:
The window is ajar and a crisp cool breeze forces its way through, blowing the curtain into the side table.
Woh. WOH.
This is not poor detective fiction. You expect to see the sentence carry on thus:
The smoke from the private detective's [aforementioned] roll-up cigarette curls through the air, disappearing into the atmosphere like his long-lost optimism. He carefully opens the dusty case file...
At this moment in time some kids that are down with the other kids would say 'lol'.

Lol.

It seems that whatever the unemployed gentleman was smoking, the journalist has given it a couple of puffs as well and created what it an incredibly conceited piece of writing. Unfortunately the result of it all, in trying to make it more emotive than, well it is, means that I do not sympathise or even empathise with the unemployed roll-ups man. He's played his games several times, he's watched all his DVDs three or four times, and he still doesn't have a job.

I am unemployed like him; I keep myself busy by, I dunno, blogging; I'm also a handy soul and have a number of low-earning business enterprises that keep me active: it's not difficult to do. Though games and DVDs are a nice option, I think that looking for jobs and opportunities has to take priority.

Anyway after reading about my fellow-unemployed bums, I checked my emails. Just the four. None of them were interesting.

Wednesdays are busy days for me as I have 'domestic duties' to occupy myself with. To be honest it helps me take my mind off the waiting. So as I embark upon my domestic duties part II, I hope that there will be an interesting email waiting in my inbox when I return.

My optimism hasn't quite evaporated just yet...

Day Two: The Pit of Despair

So with zero hour in full swing and day one of 'the week that could change my life' proving fruitless, I threw myself into day two by having a lie-in. I was recovering a little from hauling boxes about the previous day and so by the time I'd breakfasted and done a few little jobs that didn't require a computer, it was 11'o'clock.

I logged onto my emails: six new messages. I decided I would look at some other things while I worked up the courage to see whether any of the emails were 'interesting'. I checked some job sites (nothing there), I checked Facebook (one new notification that I soon dealt with), I checked to see if anything was happening in the world (it wasn't). I was ready. I checked my emails... No. Nothing of interest. I deleted four emails straight away - I don't know if these companies have been informed of the employment status, but I have no money to spend on 'the latest fashions' and even with 'massive reductions' I'm not going to shell our for TV boxsets.

Of the two remaining emails, one was from a company I submit daily surveys for on what I watch on TV (quite a lot these days considering I'm not employed). The other email was the source of great frustration following some logo design thing that I'd agreed to give feedback on with my church. I didn't necessarily think I would be giving my feedback and then having it completely ignored, but you never know, people may want to come to our church given the fact the logo looks like a clover leaf - there's always something refreshing in having inadvertent symbols of luck advertising religious institutions.

So far day two was going just as day one did, but this time I had no diversion in the afternoon to keep me occupied. No worries. My afternoon took on quite a different theme that more than kept me occupied. You see I have a deadline for another application I'm filling in - it's next Monday and after today, I haven't got a free day to do it in. My trouble is I'm not motivated. Until I get closure from the applications that are currently pending, I don't feel I can spend time on a new appliction when my head's elsewhere.

Someone close to me tried to do some motivating. It went a little along the lines of 'you're the rank outsider, so apply for this new job because you're more likely to get it.' Now I love tough love as much as the next person, but this particular breed sent me into a tearful, daytime telly-induced mope that lasted several hours.

Now I know I'm the rank outsider for the aforementioned jobs, but until I get closure, I can never move on from the thought that I might hear something positive. Maybe it's because I'm a hopeless optimist, maybe it's because I'm fervently hoping against all odds that I hear something from just one of these companies. If I don't, I have to admit defeat and as this other application is for a position starting in June, I have to get something as a stop-gap in the meantime and that's a whole other kettle of fish I know very little about.

Anyway, I found something to do with my afternoon, it just made me miserable.

Day One: Genesis

In honour of the fact that this blog may be defunct at the end of this week, I'm going to give you a daily breakdown of what happened and whether I have heard anything from my potential employers. If you're wondering what the context to this is, you might want to look at my musings on zero hour.

So early this morning I was in Tesco doing the weekly shop - the earlier the better. I like Monday mornings in Tesco - I don't like them when I first wake up, but it means I can hit the ground running. My phone goes on nice and early to receive calls from anyone who's interested in me (or who wants me to claim back my non-existent PPI).

I was back home at half nine and ready to kick start the day when my phone rang. Who is it? Who is it? Oh, it's my friend. No worries, I was kind of expecting that. He and his wife are moving and I said I'd go and help pack with them. That was my afternoon taken care of.

I put my computer on and looked to see if I'd had any emails. No, well not from anyone interesting or rather who wanted to offer me a job. I blogged for a little while and did some bits of admin that needed seeing to. I whiled away the morning in that vein and soon found it was lunchtime.

When I work I like to work at big projects for big amounts of time. Because of this I tend to do my most complex work in an afternoon, leaving me to mop up whatever's left in the morning. This is what I found myself doing today - killing time. I tried to run all the little jobs together so that I could have something to show for myself at lunchtime.

I ended up stockpiling posts for my other blogs. Well it'll save me some time later on when hopefully I am in full-time employment...

So after lunch I went over to my friends' flat. I cleared out cupboards, cleaned the cupboards, packed bags of clothes, dealt with some washing, emptied drawers, packed up boxes, got in a mess with parcel tape, shifted all the boxes around, drank tea, threw away a lot of rubbish.

Handy Hannah indeed.

It's not most people's idea of fun and I won't be taking cleaning up as a day job, but it needed to be done and I'll do anything for my friends. To be honest it was nice to go and spend an afternoon away from my computer waiting for emails to come in. Now that it is 'zero hour' - the week where anything could happen - it's nice to take your mind off thinking about it.

I came home and turned my computer on. I logged onto my emails. There were four new messages in my inbox. What can they possibly be!? Three were offering me 'great deals' on a variety of exciting things. The other one was a reply from a friend.

No joy today. In the words of Noddy - we'll see what tomorrow brings...

Zero Hour

Last week I put my cards on the table and told you that I had plenty of opportunities and jobs that I'd applied for and plenty more in the pipeline if the current ones didn't work out. This is, in theory, a good thing and though the progress I've been making hasn't born fruit yet, it is still progress nonetheless.

By my calculations, however, this week will be zero week, but you can't really say zero week, so it's just a very long zero hour. Zero hour, for those who don't know, is the time when the clock ticks down to zero and something happens. I think it's a military phrase in origin and signals the time that an operation is due to start. But anyway, this week will be my zero hour.

I say that because I think that is when I'll find out about the majority of the current pending applications I have at the moment. There aren't too many of them, I count three off the top of my head, but they're the ones I really want - as in really, really want.

If feels like everything has so far been ticking down to this moment: the two near-misses with the phone interviews and the long hours spent waiting for emails back. I really feel like this week could be make it or break it in terms of getting my dream job anytime soon.

Yesterday I pondered the idea of righteous anger when it comes to a potential employer saying they'll call you back and then they never do. In it I mentioned my next zero hour - the really serious one - the fact that I told the Student Loans Company I would get a job by the next financial year. You see they're going to start taking back the money they lent to me because 1. I'm not on the dole and 2. I don't have a job. To them I literally do not exist.

Anyway I assured them I'd be in employment by then and so I've set myself a deadline that isn't that far away. When I turn my light off at night and lie down in bed this niggling doubt that I won't have a job by then does seep into my mind like the darkness. As a general rule I don't let it affect me and and instead set myself intermediary zero hours, only for them to pass by with little result.

But I'm sure this one is going to be different. It has to be different, because if I get rejected from the jobs I have currently applied for, I doubt I will be in a position to apply, have an interview, and take on something before my deadline of early April.

So readers, fellow bloggers in the blogosphere, this is it. We're about to count down to zero hour, and if nothing happens in the next week, or even the week after, then the next zero hour I count down to will be a whole lot more serious.

Should I get cross if someone says they'll call me, and they never do?

I want to make it clear I'm not talking about a gentleman that said those famous ill-fated words: I'll call you, but with no intention do follow through on his throwaway sentence. I am instead talking about one of the most frustrating situations for job seekers - the joy of someone getting back to you and saying they like what you do, only for them to completely ignore you afterwards.

Do I have the right to get cross if they say they'll call me and never do? If they say they'll email me something, but have no real interest in contacting me ever again? If they build my hopes up only to dash them again when I never hear another word from them?

I realise that employers are busy, and I'm not the only one to apply for the position. I might not even be applying for a position so there's even less reason for them to get back to me. Initial contact isn't something that I have 'beef' with (as the kids on the street say). If I never hear anything after applying for a job, or sending something a little unsolicited, then I never get my hopes up in the first place.

What really gets me is when someone contacts me, shows an interest in me and my work, says they'll contact me again, but never do. There is something manipulative about keeping a potential employee at the end of a piece of string like that. I'll get you interested about the job we're offering, leave you hanging for a couple of weeks, and then call you to offer you something meagre.

This is a best-case scenario. There have been times I was offered a nugget, when there was really only a crumb on offer - a crumb I had to take. But more often than that, I never hear from these people ever again.

So do I have the right to get angry? I realise that these people are all busy, they've got their own jobs to do without having to deal with me and my CV. Most recruiters in small companies aren't recruiters in their day-job so can't give all their time and effort to it. Still I think they should give a second thought to the people they're rejecting and not telling. I would much rather know if my CV had been put in the bin rather than stay in the state of umeployed limbo, waiting for an answer.

I know if I haven't got a job by April, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get any old job from any old agency. But what happens if there are still jobs applications out there in the stratosphere? Do I wait or do I just go and get a mind-numbing office job because I can't be assured of anything? But what happens if someone contacts me after I've got a mind-numbing office job and gone through the rigmarole of signing contracts? What happens if my ideal employer won't let me work my notice with my less-than-ideal employer?

I don't know. I just don't know.

It's not like it's a hard problem to solve. I was taught how to do a mail merge at high school - it wouldn't be difficult to send everyone that letter, or to save on costs, that email that we scan for the 'unfortunately' and bin afterwards.

I do appreciate that people are busy and have lives of their own, but if I can understand this and act sensitively as a result, surely they can do the same for me. I've been unemployed for about six months now and haven't heard back from dozens of applications and CVs I've sent. Fair enough. Some websites say that if you haven't heard in x amount of time, then, we're sorry, but it's a no. I can deal with this. What I really struggle with is when someone calls you full of enthusiasm and give you the impression you're on the hotlist, but that time is the first and only time you ever hear from them.

Ouch. It hurts.

Let's Get Digital, Digital!

I'm currently blogging on the internet. When I was growing up, the idea of 'blogging on the internet' made about as much sense of 'Garfunkeling on the sideboard'. Times change and have changed a lot even in the last ten years. This hasn't just changed how we socialise and how we buy our shopping, it has changed the way we look for jobs.

I was flung out into the jobs market after graduating this summer and I've been on the lookout for work ever since. I'll come clean - I don't know how people found jobs before the internet was used widely. Did they all buy Loot and circle the jobs they wanted to apply for? Just how did people find out about the positions that were on offer?

This question really flummoxes me and makes me realise another way I'm so dependent on the internet in my daily life. I don't have a smart phone and if I want to go on the internet, I'll do it on one of my two laptops (which are never too far from me). So when I log on in a morning I hit my top job sites and then I might find something I want to apply for and make an online application. If I don't understand something, I might drop someone an email. My job hunt would be dead in the water without the internet.

I don't know what I'd do without it. The internet has made me think big - I can apply to the big companies all over the world because I can hop over to their website and see what vacancies they have available. I can book a flight online and be ready for an interview the next day.

But it doesn't end there! If I apply for a job in PR and I have no idea what PR is, I wander over to Google and type in 'what is PR?' Assuming I like the sound of PR and apply for a job with a company, I can find out all about them on the internet. Then when I get an interview, I can search for likely questions and research the right kind of interview technique.

I may be able to find out everything about a job more easily, but with the internet they can find out more about me too.  I have a showreel online, I blog, and have profiles on some of the world's favourite social networking sights. If someone wanted to find out about me, then all they need to do is pop over to Google.

There are a few down-points to this. Traffic. Though employers may be able to reach more people, in doing that fifty CVs per job can very quickly become hundreds. There is so much dross to sift through that you often have to be really special to make yourself noticed. If you've managed to corner the market in quirky, alternative self-selling then you might just hit all the right notes - that said because the internet makes things so transparent, it's very easy to go from sublime to the ridiculous with an unwise Tweet and some questionable Facebook photos.

The internet has made me so much more ambitious. These days I stand a much better chance of getting my CV onto the desk of someone important. The only problem is that everyone else does too...

Is 'la vita' more 'dolce' on the other side?

I have an Italian degree so surely my best bet for finding jobs would be something that uses my language - translation, interpreting, teaching, manning Italian offices for British companies. Failing that, Italian companies are always looking for people that speak fluent English so I could always pop over there and sort myself out with something.

I'm going to take a moment to unpack the reasons I haven't done that.

If you think the job market is bad in the UK, it's so much worse in Italy. 8.9% of all Italians are unemployed, a few points of a percent ahead of the UK and where 22.3% of young people are unemployed over here, it's a whopping 25.4% over in Italy. This leads me to draw two conclusions - firstly that it's very unfair to fly over to Italy and waltz into a job that one of the 25.4% could have had; secondly, if I can't get a job here (where unemployment is lower), what chance do I think I have over there!?

I did try and get a job in Italy for my year abroad and then over the summer after I'd done my year at university. This was more than a little tricky - the only place that would have employed me decided my Italian wasn't good enough (this was before my year abroad). No matter how many CVs I sent, the tumbleweed kept rolling in (instead of the cash).

If you think about all the schemes that the British government are employing to get people working, for the majority, it shouldn't be hard to get at least something. Italy don't have that - they're too concerned with the sorry state of their country post-Berlusconi.

So the problem in Italy is the same on in the UK, but much worse - people don't get jobs, because there are no jobs to be had. Well there are if you want to answer phones all day, but not if you want to do something productive. In fact the job situation in Italy is so bad, that everyone is overworked and underpaid. I have some friends that were coping with the stress of working six days a week until their employees decided that it was high time they did a seven day week instead. Nice.

But there's no harm in working for a British multi-national in Italy, in fact I'd quite like that option. There are, again, two problems with that. The first problem is that the companies tend not to be media and broadcasting, the field I am very keen to get into. The second problem is that of bureaucracy. Taxes, bank accounts, Euros, housing contracts, car insurance... In theory it's possible to overcome it all, and it would be the second time I've done it as I've lived over there before, but doing it on my own is different from doing it with a bunch of friends for a grand total of a year...

The conclusion I have reached is that if I can't get anything over here, I'm going to approach the multi-nationals and see if I can work out there, but as I said yesterday, there are a few options open to me before I have to do that.

Cards on the Table

I blogged a wee while back about a phone interview I had. I called the post 'The Fake Sound of Progress' because although it was further than I'd ever got before, it was by no means a guarantee of a permenant position with a proper salary and other boring things like health insurance and a pension.

Guys, I didn't get the job. Unfortunately I didn't realise that what I was signing up for was essentially what I was signing up for. I thought it was a magazine internship and couldn't understand why there was so much stuff about TV on the application. It transpired that it was a magazine internship, but the six participants would be the subject of a reality show about the whole shebang. Coming to your screens on ITV2 before you can say The Only Way is Essex.

I would have done it - it would have been too good an opportunity to miss, but my communal living experiences are the subject of sitcoms and not reality TV - it would have certainly been interesting to watch.

Anyway they said they would contact me sometime last week if they wanted me to come for an interview/audition last weekend. They didn't do any of that so reality TV will have to wait for now.

But as one door closes another one opens, though at the moment I feel as if I'm in the midst of a Poirot and someone has just fired a gun, bringing every last person out of their rooms in the stock period house: all the doors open with a different face and a different possibility in each one.

I have a spreadsheet with all the things I've applied for - jobs and opportunities: I delete things I don't get and add in new things. There are three outstanding job applications - I just hope they are outstanding; one application for work experience; two existing pieces of work experience that I can dip into as often as I please; and two writing opportunities.

So that's everything outstanding.

I have great friends, familiy, and industry contacts that send me stuff my way, of which there are three more jobs I can apply for and one more opportunity for something beginning with writing. I also have numerous back-up plans and temp work to keep the wolf from the door.

There is just SO MUCH up for grabs!

I count 13 (minimum) things at the moment - 13 cards that I'm going to put on the table. Unlucky for some, I just hope one of them turns out to be the ace in the pack.

The Scottish Dilemma

I studied at university in Scotland. As a result I paid a mere £1,700 in tuition per year compared to my English counterparts studying in England who paid £3,000. That said I did study for four years and not three... I got quite a good deal really, though not as good as the Scottish students who paid diddly-squat.

I've already given my opinions on university and what I think of the fee rise, but now I'm going to delve a little deep into the problem with respect to Scotland.

Now from next year students in England studying at Scottish universities will pay, for the first time, the same as their friends studying in England - £9,000 a year. The Scottish students, however, will continue to pay nothing, nada, rien, zero, niente - you get the picture. I have a problem with this. I don't have a problem with the fee rise as I think it encourages people to really think before they commit to going to university, but I do have a problem with English students paying for what Scottish students get for free.

If there's one thing I noticed from studying in Soctland (and I want to stress that it wasn't like this for the majority), some Scottish students think they're owed a free university education. Many of them receive unconditional offers which often means they have obtained poor grades in comparison to their fellow-students south of the border. Many too have come to university solely because it's free and there's not much on offer for Scottish young people straight out of school.

Last year the Scottish government guaranteed funding for 2,300 more postgraduate places, a luxury not afforded to English students. On average Scottish students get better jobs and higher pay and the unemployment rate post-graduation in Scotland is 6.5%, 1% lower than that of English graduates.

There is some evidence of a slight migration - 1.9% more of employed graduates have looked for work outside of Scotland in 2009/10 than in 2008/09, with just 78.6% finding work in their native land. And though three years on a quarter of Scottish graduates are not in full time employment, the number is slightly lower than  those for the UK in general.

What is interesting, is that the statistics for those who decided to go on to further study across the UK rests at 16%; the Scottish equivalent is nearly 20%. So maybe the reason Scottish graduates are getting better job is because they have better opportunities in higher education. If more English students had funding for postgraduate study, they might be able to earn more in a better job: because Scottish students can get funding, they do get funding.

It's not all rosy for Scotland though, but not where you'd expect it to be either. Scottish students have the highest drop-out rate - more than 1% more than in the UK in general; state-educated students are less likely to get into university if they are Scottish; 5% fewer students from poorer backgrounds have access to university places in Scotland than in the UK.

The drop-out rate can maybe be explained by saying that if they're not paying for tuition, there's no obligation to stay. The class issue, however, is more complex. Apparently, poor Scottish students receive less in maintenance grant and loan - up to £1,500 less than their English counterparts - poor you, it's not as if your education is free...

This year more than ever this gap between England and Scotland is going to become more visible. I can't see these statistics changing very much over time, but they don't reflect the personal impact on potential undergraduates in England sacrificing a degree on cost grounds, whilst there might be a person in Scotland who goes, though they don't really want to, because it's free.

There has been a slight change in the number of Scottish students applying to Scottish universities - falling by just over a percent. Compare this to a 5.6% drop in the number of English applications and a 15.1% drop in Northern Irish applications. Interestingly, 6% EU students, who will also pay nothing at Scottish universities, have decided to cash in their lot in the home of the brave and the land of the free (well free for some, anyway).

So what's my conclusion? Firstly, it isn't fair. I know it sounds petty and childish, but it isn't: it's the accident of birth rehashed in a different form. Maybe the reason English graduates aren't doing as well as Scottish graduates is because they haven't had the same opportunities. If I could sit and wait for my dream job I would, but come April I have assured the Student Loans Company I will be employed so that they can start taking their money back. If I have no job by then, I'm very sorry, but the temping agency it is and my dream job goes on a back-burner.

I don't begrudge Scottish students their opportunities, but when they make their decisions based solely on cost and boredom, taking the place of a hard-working English student instead, that makes me cross.
'I got an unconditional offer, so I didn't try in my last term of Highers. I passed, but only just.'
'I worked really hard to get a B and I was one mark off, and I still didn't get into the university I wanted - in Scotland.'

Oh.

Sometimes life isn't fair.

Desperate Housewife

I am going to share with you now one of my business ventures of the last week. This week has been good for me with Handy Hannah coming to the rescue on three occasions: in the guise of an Italian tutor, a remote copy writer and as a babysitter. Hooray! I'm off to blow my earnings on Amazon.

But if being a bit of a handy-woman has taught me something, it's that I don't really enjoy being a handy-woman very much. Ok so the tutoring and writing is right up my proverbial street, but the babysitting, well it wasn't strictly babysitting so much as damage control and living the life of a desperate housewife for two-and-a-half days.

Buckle your seatbelts - this one's a rough ride.

I arrive on Sunday evening to take the baton from the previous babysitter who has managed to get the kids in bed. My job is more involved than hers as I'm going to be staying with these kids and being both Mummy and Daddy for Monday and Tuesday. Fortunately when i arrived on Sunday evening they were asleep. I say they, I mean one of them was. One popped down to say hello, I popped her back off to bed to say goodbye and go to sleep.

I had to get used to my surroundings as I was to be staying there and meeting the kids' undreasonable demands of 'I want this now!' - if I didn't know there 'this' was, then you could say I would have fallen at the first hurdle...

So I opened all the drawers and rooted in all the cupboards. I knew I had to feed myself (the kids were taken care of for the most part) so I wanted to know what kind of fridge bingo I'd been left with. Well for a start most of it was off. Bleurgh. I managed to collate some items of food that were only recently out-of-date and got myself a toasted bagel. Which the dog ate half of when I wasn't looking.

Oh.

It's not going all to well.

Monday morning came and eventually the kids woke up and galvanised themselves. I got them downstairs for breakfast and ran into a problem. Older boy wanted nutella for breakfast. His mother wanted him to have cereal and an apple. I gave him a compromise. If he had cereal and an apple, then he could have nutella. Predictably he faffed and cried so much that there was no time for nutella. I hate it when that happens.

They were only five minutes late for school, which considering my time management is certainly an achievement. And when I picked them up at the end of the day I thought that we were in for a nice, relaxed afternoon. I didn't and we weren't. We had nutella-gate all over again and I caved for the sake of diplomacy. The kids' tutor came and though she was only supposed to stay for and hour and fifteen minutes, because of all the faffing and, again, tears, she ended up leaving an hour and fifteen minutes after she should have left.

The kids weren't bathed or fed.

I remedied that and got the wee lassie in bed, leaving the boy to get ready himself. He comes out later and tells me he's not feeling well. Yeah, probably because he ate so much nutella before. I said sleep was the best cure. He said he wanted to go back to the bathroom and that he was having, ahem, bowel issues. He spent another twenty minutes on the loo and only gave up after I stood outside the door and told him I wouldn't go away until he came out. At that point he told me about the fact he might have pooped in the bath. way to go - tell me when it's dried on. He went off to bed and I caught a glimpse of his iPod in his hand. Hang on! Has he just spent the last twenty minutes on his iPod!? I prised it off him, safe in the knowledge that he'd played me like a fiddle.

Tuesday morning was easier and things resolved themselves a lot faster than the previous day. Still this time we were ten minutes late for school. No, I don't understand it either. So that evening after school we were going to the gym for swimming lessons. When I say 'we', I mean I was ferrying these kids and staying with them whilst they had their swimming lessons.

We dumped out stuff in the cafe and got a drink. The kids made quite a scene when the boy took what the girl thought was the last cookie and then climbed all over the counter while I paid. We then sat down to do homework. Hold on. No pencils. The kids didn't think to bring any and I thought the world would end when I suggested they use pens.

Oh dear.

In fact nowhere in the gym could I find a pencil. Great. So time ticked on and I took the girl for her swimming lesson. When she was done I got them to choose what they wanted for tea. After an altercation with the boy - he wanted to choose from the adult menu, I thought that after a cooked dinner at school, a snack at home, and a cookie, he would be better with the kids' menu - we sat down for dinner. I say 'we' again, I really mean I cut up bits of sausage and picked up stray baked beans where I could. I then sent the boy for his swimming lesson so that I could keep an eye on his younger sister in the play area.

The lesson time came and went and half an hour after it finished, the boy came into the cafe in tears because I hadn't picked him up. I did feel awful, but in the instructions I was left, it quite clearly stated that the boy was more than capable of getting sorted on his own, and when he disappeared to check the time of his lesson before tea I was convinced he was more than capable of pulling a few stunts.

So we were late back and still had homework to do. If you thought there had been tears before, then there were more tears than ever. Both kids were knackered after running circles round me and they desperately wanted their mummy. In the midst of all that the dog ate a tissue and sicked it up again.

While I waited the parents to return home that evening, I decided that babysitting probably wasn't for me.

Unemployment Benefits

There are many benefits to being unemployed. Desperate Housewives on in an afternoon provides a nice addition to my daily entertainment; I can make tea and coffee whenever I want; I don't have to dress in business causal; I can go shopping when the shops are reasonably empty. In short, there are many upsides to unemployment, but not enough to outdo the massive downside - the fact money is tight and days yawn before you with very little disciplined activity to occupy the long hours.

Hope is at hand, however, for those unemployed folk strapped for cash. The government is more than happy to step in with the benefits system. Call it what you want - unemployment benefits, the dole, signing on, jobseekers' allowance, or whatever, if you are unemployed, you are entitled to that money.

I do not take this money. I'm not saying this so that you can bask in my greatness or send me hatemail, I'm just merely stating the fact that I haven't signed on because I don't think it's fair for me to.

I shall explain.

I am more than capable of getting a job, I'm just a bit picky about the jobs I want. That is the real reason I've been unemployed for so long; it wouldn't have been difficult to get a retail job over Christmas, or pick up a bit of waitressing here and there, but I have instead concentrated my efforts on trying to start my career. It is at this point that I believe the government's help is not aimed at me.

The real issue with unemployment benefits these days is that they're too high. If being on the dole will earn more for you and your family then you will take that over having to work for pittance. This presents us with two solutions - raise the minimum wage or lower the amount of money jobseekers get from their allowance...

The Welfare State has spawned quite a peculiar type of person - one example of which appears on the BBC News website. It details what a man receives on jobseekers' allowance, what his wife receives on incapacity benefits, and what they receive for their children in tax credits and the like. Per week they get £582.40; per year they get £30,284.80. It's alright for some. Even with the proposed cap they would only lose £4,000.

What is most interesting about this article is the itemised budget detailing what this family spends their £582.40 on every week. Now when I was at university I got grocery shopping down to an art. I would plan my meals in advance and only buy what I needed - I averaged at best £5 a week and at worst, £10. Not too shabby. Based on this, at the most this family could spend £40 a week on groceries. But they don't. They spend £200 more than that. But it's not just groceries, because this includes 24 cans of lager, 200 cigarettes, and a large pouch of tobacco. Every little helps.

I'm glad British taxes are going to good use.

It's not my place to judge at all, but unfortunately because the government keeps on handing it out, the public keeps on taking. We have created a culture devoid of social responsibility and starved of accountability. I'm not going to blame anyone in particular for the decisions they have made, whether they be political ones that impact the nation, or personal ones, that impact only those around us, but it still stands - our society is far too give and take - the government gives and we take.

So I will continue to look for jobs without the help of jobseekers' allowance and keep my unemployment benefits as the fun things in life that you can't do when you're working, and if more people did that, we'd get out of the economic crisis a whole lot faster...

The Graduate

I have pussyfooted around the issue for a long time, but I'm going to get to the bottom of university, graduate schemes and why it's so hard to get a job even with a degree.

Unlike my fellow graduate, Benjamin Braddock, I don't spending my days in a pool and having romantic assignations by night. I would much rather get out in a morning to earn my keep and spend my hard-earned cash on utility bills and other such exciting things.

So firstly, let's expand on my thoughts about this whole university conundrum. I went to a good university, got a good degree, and I've spent the last 5 months desperately trying to get a job. It shouldn't work like that, the trouble is, though, that there are so many graduates clamouring for jobs they don't even appear on potential employers' radar unless they've done something remarkable.

This begs the question - what is the point of getting a degree if it doesn't help you get a job at the end?
Answer: There is no point.

Now I'm not against degrees in general - I did one after all, and they do give immense life skills and opportunities in the process. But it's like the latest fashion, if one person has it, they stand out - if everyone has it, no-one looks at you twice.

I think the real crux of this argument comes down to why a person will do a degree in the first place. If it is for genuine career advancement - as in they do their degree so that they can get a good job at the end of it - then I have no problem. What really bugs me is he amount of people who go to university for the sake of it - for the 'life experience', which is a synonym of 'getting drunk as many nights in a row as possible'. They are the kind of people that give graduates a bad name.

In my mind university should be an academic discipline. If you're not academic then don't go. We should get over the horribly out-dated attitude that university is for everyone and we should manipulate it so that it's all-inclusive. I'll say it plainly - university isn't for everyone. I personally think the old polytechnics should go back to teaching practical and vocational subjects that trained you up for a practical industry and leave the academic subjects to the old guard.

It is for this reason that I am 100% behind the fee hike. If you have to pay £36,000 in tuition alone for your university education then you're going to think twice. The result has so far been interesting. There are 8.7% fewer applications to universities this year than last - that means in 3 years, 8.7% fewer graduates all spilling out into the jobs market.

That is positive.

But still there are people who are keen to keep the public happy, and throw them a bone or two so the opinion polls remain a happy read for the government. It emerged today that some colleges are now going to offer cheaper degree courses. And it was all going so well...

I still maintain that an attitude change is the thing that the UK needs now more than anything. Until we get over the stereotype that university should be available to everyone then we're never going to get over the problem of degrees dumbing-down and graduates coming out with a very expensive piece of paper that won't get them very far in life at all...