2 March 2011 (Wednesday) - Stuff

I heard on the news today that a Cornish pasty can only be called a Cornish pasty if it is made in Cornwall and is crimped along the side. A Cornish baker is facing litigation because her family has traditionally made Cornish pasties for generations: pasties crimped along the top. She is now under fire from the Cornish Pastie Association who have fought for years to make side-crimping legally enforceable, and have taken issue with her top crimping. The baker has a choice: she can either side-crimp, or stop referring to her products as “Cornish pasties”. However she refuses either option, and challenges the might of the law to do its worst.

Personally I couldn’t care whether they crimp top, bottom or side. But in this age of austerity and credit crunches, don’t people have better things to squander money on? Legal battles aren’t cheap.

I was glad I wasn’t in at work today. There were interviews taking place for a newly created post. Several people at work fancied that post and had applied for it, including the person who was working last night. During her night shift she posted on Facebook a dozen times overnight. Her prospective boss (who was on the interview panel) is on her Facebook friends list and would have seen what she was doing last night.

 Am I missing something here? One day I am going to point out the obvious to these people. Perhaps it’s not *that* obvious to others as it is to me…?

Rather than going to work today, I went to another hospital to assess one of their trainees. I always say that I know when I arrive whether the trainee is going to pass with flying colours, and today I knew we had a good ‘un. Anyone who’s ever visited a hospital knows how bad parking can be. Today’s trainee had reserved me a parking space, so he was off to a flying start. Not even the bracket fungi and toadstools on the inside windowsills, or the ivy coming in through the holes in the ceiling could put me off. The boy did good. (And they are moving to new premises in a month’s time anyway!)

I could have gone to work after the assessment. But instead I went home to write it all up. After all, I’m assessing in works time: I should do the associated paperwork in work’s time too. I can never understand why assessors who assess my trainees then go back to their places of work for the afternoon – it takes me a couple of hours to both do justice to the trainee when I produce my report and then to write the day up for my own C.P.D. purposes.

By the time I’d finished with the forms and one or two other work-related bits and pieces, far from having had a skive off of work, work was actually up on the deal (as far as my time was concerned).

“My Boy ^TM ” then got out the needles and made a start on my next tattoo. It wasn’t my idea, but he wants to practice shading. If he can’t practise on his old man, who can he practice on? And whilst I’m on the subject of the fruits of my loin, “Daddies Little Angel ^TM has a provisional acceptance at university. Anyone who knows her academic history will realise just how pleased and proud I am about this. I doubt this will come cheap, but she’ll just have to get a job…