dom.blog

• The moment you really feel like you’re a fully-fledged member of the team comes not through performance appraisal, sharing food or being given a nickname, but instead when being asked for help in a classic alcohol-plus-vomit misadventure at a leaving do. (Happy to help!)

• When someone says “hey Dom, you look like someone who might be good at Excel…” it isn’t necessarily code for “hey Dom, you look like a loser”. They might just want help with Excel.

• Everyone should have an office frenemy: someone equally willing to participate in a long-running conceit that you detest each other when, actually, maybe deep down you don’t think they’re quite so awful after all. (He is pretty awful though.)

• My voice still says ‘conservative’ to some even though I am very street and totally down with the kids, m’lord. Sadly this fails to bring the social opprobrium it probably deserves.

• The geography of Ireland, both physically and politically, is not entirely well-understood by everyone.

• Those with sufficient catering training (or just decent enough motor skills) to carry a large number of mugs of tea at once have my unwavering respect.

• And on a similar subject, tea, coffee and milk are all free and will magically restock themselves during the day. If for some reason this doesn’t happen it is more than acceptable to go on little sorties to other floors to fetch some. Just try not to get caught.

• Some people still stumble across this blog after becoming Facebook friends and naturally expect some content. So this is for you!

So my boss admitted the other day that he hadn’t blogged since starting his job: if I fall off the wagon, therefore, at least I’m in excellent company. That said, last weekend I went to my second of hopefully many more Puntcons, worth recording for its many stimulating conversations alone. Not to mention the rather odd moment when my old admissions tutor swam by. (Would anyone dare accuse Cambridge of having a rather cosy side? Surely not.) I toasted Hume’s brilliance over cider and sausages, debated the long-term social disruption posed by embarrassing Facebook photos of your teenage self falling into a pond and eavesdropped on some clever new ideas for apps floating over from the next punt… well, who wouldn’t like to spend a Sunday doing that?

(Silly question, obviously, although not quite as silly as it seems. In the pub prior to my fifth NewsRevue last night – fifth! – Josh and Niamh relayed the story of getting into a fight at a gig after six loutish blokes pissed into a cup, kicked the contents of said cup over themselves and any unfortunate bystanders, and then proceeded to round on one guy who objected to this unwelcome showering. Now, diversity is great and everything. It’s one of the many wonders of living in a pluralist liberal democracy that people are free to pursue their own interests. That’s special. That’s awesome. Go kick a ball around a field for money, go camp in honour of a fictional wizard, go giggle at unemployed News of the World hacks: go have good times, then sit back and laugh about them later with friends in the pub, hence neatly resolving the thorny problem of how to fill that yawning gap between birth and death. Hurrah. Great. Sorted. But do people really sit round and fondly reminisce about that time we covered ourselves in our own urine? At the very least, it seems a touch unimaginative, no?)

Also this week: lunch with Sanna and Theo, judging the annual QPCS Summer Carnival parents vs. students debate with Grace – sadly we agreed on everything, and so the opportunity for an X Factor-style judging bust-up was thrown away – and Saoirse’s birthday picnic today. Happy birthday! Let’s all steer clear of any flying cups.