The week continues...

Well I have now survived two night shifts in a row, with only an indefinite number to go. Things went a little better this time round. I am still doing training exercises - if they want to pay me to train I won't complain.

For all of those very few who are interested, the training exercises basically consist of old documents that will test you in different areas. You proof a clean copy and then the boss will compare it against the copy that was marked up by the senior examiner who worked on the document in the first place.

On my first night I made a couple of embarrassing gaffes - like overlooking a chunk of text that had been left out. Personally I put it down to a mixture of tiredness and disinterest in what I was doing. This morning however I picked up a number of things that the original examiner had missed. Maybe my brain hasn't completely atrophied like I had feared. Either way I think it made up for my slow start.

First day (night) at work

Well I have just arrived home from my first shift at Linklaters. A bit hard to make any serious judgments about what it was like, though they are certainly more structured than the other big firms that I have encountered over in London. Not to mention that the Examiners department is at least three times bigger than the proofreading service at Clifford Chance.

The building they are in is almost comical in its labyrinth like structure though. I suppose getting lost for a while is a good a way as any to spend you 'lunch' hour at 4.00 am.

It is yet to snow in London, though it certainly seems cold enough this morning to do so. I may just think that because I forgot to take my gloves to work.

Anyway, I had better get myself of to bed as I don't seem to be able to form any thoughts coherent enough to type. In fact, my posts may increase in entertainment value as I become increasingly unhinged due to lack of sleep, but I am sure that my sleep patterns will settle down soon enough.

Back down south

Back in London after a couple of days in the sunny north. Seriously though, Manchester was a pretty decent place. It was interesting to see English people actually leading real lives, as opposed to whatever it is they do in London.

The meteoroligists promised snow whilst I was in Manchester but nature failed to deliver, which isn't to say that it wasn't cold, quite amazingly cold. Luckily the Manchester Council acted to remedy this by putting on a Continental food fair thing in Albert Square in front of the Town Hall, every second stall of which dispensed gluwein, spiced cider and such forth.

For those of you that know what I am talking about, Tim Faber is going quite well. He is living in a veritable mansion just outside the city centre with proper heating, wooden floors, double glazed windows that close properly - in other words all the mod cons that the builders decided not to bestow on York Mansions. Seriously though, the Mansions aren't that bad.

I start the new job tomorrow, so we'll have to see how that goes. It will be good to get the mind back into gear at the very least.

Heading north

Having fled the living room which is being dominated by a football match on the television I thought that this might be a good time to fiddle with my blog. After several frustrating and ultimately fruitless attempts to make it do what I wanted it to do I thought it best to settle for a simple post for now.

Tomorrow I am heading up north to meet the other Tim, the Tasmanian in Manchester as it were. Can't wait for all that sleet and the sub-zero temperatures that are predicted, I am sure that they will show Manchester in its best light.

My plans for today were ruined by what I will call an alarm malfunction and were therefore limited to trying not to spend pay cheques I am yet to earn. I did have a much fuller day, mostly centred around a Full English for brunch but by the time I was up and about there were only so many hours of sunlight left in the day. Even a Full English couldn't tempt me out into the cold until I absolutely had to.

Post Script - You may or may not be interested to learn that the word 'blog' isn't in the spell-checker built into the blog editor.

Which would you choose?

I give you - Tasmania and London. But which is which?

First up

This is just so the page isn't empty, more to come soon. Maybe.