Thursday

I had some good news earlier this week, having been successful in a job that I applied for. Although its the same level as my current role, it is a new opportunity and does invite a modest pay rise. Its all a bit uncertain at the moment as to when I will start as all the details are still being sorted out. In many ways this news has been very welcome as I've got to a point where I felt my career had stalled and I haven't been happy for a long time. Bizarrely the last couple of days at work I seem to have been everyone's best friend with people that I don't normally have anything to do with coming to shake my hand and congratulate me on my success. Or maybe they know something I don't...lol

Earlier on I was watching Holding On, a brilliant mid-90s TV series that was shown on BBC2. I'd watched it when it was first shown in 1997 and had forgotten just how good it was. It has a distinctive style of long tracking shots and characters addressing directly to camera. A powerful, raw and sometimes shocking piece of drama, it reminds me in many ways of Magnolia, with its disparate set of characters, facing terrible lows in their lives, interesecting with each other and eventually all coming together to one point. I can't remember how it ends although I have the feeling that all is resolved by the final episode.

I've been having a passionate debate with other posters at FanForce.net about the BBC of all things and this is on a Star Wars message board! Well it does allow general discussion too and someone invited comments on whether the BBC should surrender to advertising or hike the licence fee to £150. I don't find it difficult to summon the arguments for a staunch defence of the BBC and its licence fee. Although BBC TV has in my opinion lost its way in recent years, BBC Radio remains as excellent as ever. I have a huge respect and trust in the BBC name and its broadcasting as it has for so long been a constant companion in my life. Wherever I go, it is always the BBC I turn to for the news or to find out what's happening locally to where I am.

Tomorrow of course is Friday 13th. Although not normally a superstitious person, I am always wary of these unfavourablely dated Fridays. Don't know why, nothing spectacularly bad has happened on a Friday 13th and I see no reason why it should be so on this particular day any more than another. I think my dread of Friday 13th and Fridays in particular goes back to my days at school when a Friday always seemed to be the day when it would rain. I know its a false memory, after all it couldn't possibly have rained on every Friday of the school term could it? I think it was more that those days when it did seemed so grey and morose, a stark reminder that Monday would soon be around again.

Saturday I am going to Reading for my first OU Tutorial of the present course although my Tutor has rung and told me that he is also doing tutorials in London, which would be a lot more convenient. In just three weeks time I will be doing my first assignment and it hardly feels like I've started the course yet.