This morning, whilst having my first cup of lovely dark toasty black coffee, I had a few moments of free time to ponder things. The things I pondered were the question of whether an orchestra could function perfectly well without a conductor, and the fact that northern people are, by nature, cooler than southern people. After I had thought about both of these things for a while, I still had some free time left. So what I did was read the Metro, a newspaper that all Londoners know, is distributed free on every train seat each morning. It wasn’t the daily news that interested me though. I instead turned the pages eagerly until I came upon the job vacancies. Now, I’m not remotely interested in a job, but I do get regular amusement by looking at the adverts and seeing how employers try to make their dreadfully dull and pointless vacancies sound interesting and rewarding.

So, it was with glee that I came across an advert from a train operating company who were looking for people to stand at the end of station platforms and check tickets. Any rail traveller will know that this is a depressing job in the extreme. Apart from the unsociable hours and ridiculous uniform, this job requires the poor worker to continually field irksome questions from irate punters and be the butt of commuter’s frustrations. It truly is an awful role, and it really takes a special type of person to do it. A desperate one.

Knowing all this, I thought it was almost poetic that the job advert stated:

“A career with us is all about variety. Every day our employees all go home with new stories to tell.”

Yes, they do. Stories about how they nearly got stabbed by some ticket dodging hoodie, how they rowed with some pretentious office worker, and how they had to stand in the cold and rain wearing a silly hat for 8 hours a day.

The advert continued:

“Can you anticipate and deal proactively with problems, as well as working effectively under pressure?”

Now there are two words here that ring alarm bells with me. They are ‘problems’ and ‘pressure’. Why on earth would anybody want to deal with problems and pressure? Especially problems and pressure that are not of your own making? I guarantee you that I have no truck with either word. You won’t get me going within a mile of problems and pressure. I steer well away from such things, and I don’t understand why every other person doesn’t do the same. Besides, who on God’s earth would apply for a job where the employer is blatantly saying, “it’s gonna be pretty crap working for us?”

This muse on two words led me to a further observation. I have noticed how certain words and phrases keep occurring in job adverts. The one I see most regularly is ‘challenging’. Employers are falling over themselves to offer potential employers a ‘challenging’ role. I just don’t get it. What’s the point of going to work to be challenged? I can challenge myself quite happily outside of work; I don’t need some fretless goon of a boss challenging me when I’m at work. Surely the point of work is to do as little as possible and take the money at the end of the month. I really do think people who are looking for challenging work are secretly admitting to themselves that they need the structure of an organisation or company to motivate them, as they don’t have enough get up and go within themselves to do something off their own backs.

Another word I see a lot is ‘busy’. Adverts refer to a ‘busy role’ or ‘busy office environment’. Again I turn my nose up. The last thing I want at work is to be busy. I want time to dream, time to write, time to ponder. Being busy at work is just about the worst thing that could happen.

‘Driven’ is another word I noted. I’m driven all right. Driven not bust my gut for some faceless corporation, driven to spend as much time in life doing the things I want to do, driven to write, driven to sleep at odd times of the day, driven to see all the wonderful bands out there, be in awe of art and read all the books I possibly can.

I could go on, but I won’t. I think you get the idea anyway. I may return to this subject the next time I amuse myself with newspaper job adverts. You should have a look at a few yourself if you get a spare moment. Some of them really are comedy gold. And by the way, I’m sure lots of you will disagree with me. If you do, I respect your opinion, but you’re wrong.

I’d love to have some of what the ITV executives were smoking when they came up the idea of re-launching News at Ten. Everyone knows that ITV is rubbish, and attempting to compete with the BBC Ten 0’Clock News is doomed to failure. Wheeling out Lord Trevor McDonald OBE isn’t going to make any difference either. ITV should just accept that the BBC do news better and come up with a different strategy. I suggest keeping the 10.30pm slot and focussing on an alternative news service. By alternative, I mean things like Israeli skateboarding ducks and Dutch talking dogs. Now that I would watch.

Today in the bookshop I came upon the saddest title of any book I have ever seen. It was a title so poetic, so beyond melancholy and yet so genius in its creation, that when my eyes first laid themselves upon it, I was quite taken aback. I was then taken into a dream world where I imagined the tragic story behind the title.

But there was no tragic story in printed form behind the title. Why? Because the book I had discovered was no more than a cheap, simple, small, paperback cookbook. And the title? ‘Microwave Cooking For One’.

Dear Friends,

I think ‘Happy New Year’ is what I’m supposed to say, so consider that done. Whilst I’m on the topic of being generous in my concern for you, I do hope you all had a really lovely Christmas. If however, you had a really lovely Christmas and then leapt out of bed on Boxing Day to go shopping, then big shame on you. Can’t you go one day without buying some tawdry item for yourself? It won’t make you any happier you know, and when the mortgage company comes round to repossess your house because you haven’t paid your bills, then you’ll only have yourself to blame. Besides, if you buy stuff, then the shops win, and no one wants that, do they?

I had a lovely Christmas. I ate a lot of turkey, chocolate and nuts. I think that apart from watching wrinkly actors in ‘To The Manner Born’, Christmas is all about a lot of turkey, chocolate and nuts. I got some presents too, which some misguided folk seem to think is the point of Christmas, but I’m not going to bang on about those. After all, you wouldn’t really be excited by my new book on the history of the South Bank, or a strange little Buddha character that doubles in size when you place him in water.

One very exciting piece of news, at least for me, is that my poetry book ‘Poems From the Seashore’ is now the top-selling poetry tome ever in the bookshop where I waste 20 hours a week. I grant you that the impressive sales patter of my colleagues and pride of place positioning around the store have contributed greatly to this feat; but the fact of the matter is that I’ve sold more copies of my scribble than Wordsworth and Keats put together. And it is this fact that I shall hold close to my bosom and cherish. If it is the only thing I ever achieve, then at least my tombstone will read, “Here, face down and naked lies Phil. He sold more poetry books in a depressing suburban bookshop near Heathrow than any other poet. God rest his soul.”

Something else I’m rather excited about is that my next poetry book is now really coming together, and it won’t be long until it is finished. I had originally hoped to have it in publication for March, but I think I may have been a little over zealous when I came up with that nugget of misinformation. I know this is true because each day of toil in the various coffee shops of grey suburbia makes me realise that there is always a little word to change here, or a new sentence to be sorted out there. It really is a never-ending process, I don’t mind telling you. But the end is in sight, and you, my dear reader, can rest assured that you will be the first to know when all the T’s are dotted, the I’s are crossed and the whole effort goes off to the publishers for them to do the grown up things that they need to do.

Completely unrelated to the above, I think I should mention that I’ve cut down on the amount of meat I’m eating. And I want to make it clear that it’s not a new years resolution, because I started it on the 30th November. I think that apart from the health benefits, it is a good move morally, for I like animals, I really do. The cute ones are…well, cute, and the ugly ones…..well, they’re just sad because they are not beautiful like the peacock. I did make an exception for this years Christmas turkey though. This is for two very good reasons. Firstly, mother had already bought it from Waitrose, and secondly, I’m a hypocrite.

So there it is. Poetry is being written, books are being sold and meat (by and large) is not being eaten. All is good.

Turrrah.