Posts by tag
work
Inside the Canine Head
But the metamorphosis deepened, and I became the most frightening apparition of all: the man who really was a dog. All human perspective was gone now. I was a tall dog standing on its hind legs, teetering close to traffic. This was serious. I could bolt into an oncoming car, or nip a passerby in my confusion. I looked around me at the world of people, orderly for them but incomprehensible to me.
Storm the Palace and Louis Rive talk about music
I guess they’re the kind of lyrics most songwriters would use as a place-holder before coming up with something more universal and generic. Apparently the Beatles song ‘Yesterday’ was originally about bacon and eggs, but obviously McCartney decided to change the words to something more commercially viable. Thankfully commercial viability isn’t something I need to worry about. And for me, at least, I still find the lyrics quite meaningful as they are.
The Old Copenhagen Shipyard Blues
The inside of a new 80.000 ton bulk carrier was to put it mildly, a very religious experience. To go from the coffins of Castle Dracula, in driving snow, with a temperature hitting minus 25 Degrees, into a vast silent cathedral-like environment, had a profound effect on me. It was a place of bright bright lights and dark dark places. I suppose, with the scaffolding and the hanging lights it could also have been mistaken for some enormous Egyptian tomb excavation.
The Hangover
I sit up in bed with my hand over my eyes. The shards of sunlight, shining through the open window and the scream of a scooter from the street below make me wince. Through my fingers the black and white poster of the singer Morrissey looks down on me with pity from the bedroom wall. I return the look with remorse and regret.
Spotlight on an Actress: Sarah A. Wessendorf
As the first part of our ‘Spotlight’ series we focus on individuals trying to make a name for themselves in the creative industries. Sarah A. Wessendorf is a German actress and artist currently based in Berlin. She has caught all the right eyes with her talents ranging from painting to dance and acting. Sarah sat down with us to talk about her career in acting and her latest project the film “When kingfisher catch fire“.
The Strange Case of Derick Johnson
For some reason, my first instinct was to assume that Derick Johnson was a figment of Nick’s imagination or a sort of creative in-joke between some of the players. The name, I observed, sounded like a character from Mad Men. I imagined a dapper fellow in his mid-thirties turning up to play, with a short glass of scotch on the rocks in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Do You Remember Friday?
Do you remember Fridays? The indescribable feeling of utter joy that signified that thankfully school was over for another two days. The misery of sitting in a classroom against your will was to be alleviated and replaced with the respite of resentment from parents who didn’t know what to do with you. Yes, Friday was a fine time. Friday represented hope a brief, fleeting window in which anything was possible and the misery of school, with its press-gang style education was exposed for what it was, finite.
Children Are The Future
People claim to hate their job, many people do and those who say they don’t are either lying, or worse still, the most unimaginative imbeciles that our sick society has created in its desire to consume. I fall into the first category of hate, pure and simple.
Nobody’s Prerogative
No one ever plans to end up as a dancer on Bourbon Street. It’s an employment choice born of pure desperation. I worked at a unisex joint called Sweet Mama’s. After only two weeks on the job, I despised every minute of my interminable shifts. I lurched around the club in stilettos like an awkward stork, as songs like “Strokin’” and “My Prerogative” pounded in the background.
The Last Day of Term
Last week David pulled his pants down in the class and farted in another boy’s face. David farts all the time. He loves the smell and sound of his own farts as do the rest of the class, chortling away when he breaks wind for the tenth time in the hour. David is also a racist, making Chinese eyes or calling the Latin-Americans dirty monkeys. David is 13 years old. There’s not much of a positive spin you can put on that ergo the utter bollocks above.
Treading the Boards
For a moment, I actually consider telling him that it’s bad form to dress up too much for a part. Then I imagine the horror on the faces of the auditioning panel as they stare at this fucked-up embodiment of a child’s nightmare. Goulée takes my hand and pulls me close to him. There’s a reek off him of booze and Tiger Balm. “Hey,” he says. “Do you know where I can find some Asian prostitutes?”
Laurence Rivers’ New Neighbour
I bit my lip and concentrated as hard as I could at the grainy image on the TV screen. The brief vignette of femme désnudé from the 11 o’clock freeview on the tarot channel. Trying hard to neither concentrate on the phone number nor the colloquially lewd offers at the side of the tiny image, I worked my wrist into overdrive and finally came, it had taken over twenty minutes, fuck sake.
Beyond Work: Shopping Centre Santa Claus
Beyond Work documents humans at work using words and reportage photography, with no judgement or glorification. It’s an attempt at unearthing the social, cultural and functional world of work that’s invisible in everyday life. In this series, Curtis James interviews John Prior, a man who dresses up as Santa Claus at Churchill Shopping Centre in Brighton, UK.
Beyond Work: The Indoor Postal Worker
Beyond Work documents humans at work using words and reportage photography, with no judgement or glorification. It’s an attempt at unearthing the social, cultural and functional world of work that’s invisible in everyday life. In this series, Curtis James interviews Andrew James, a man who has been working as an Indoor Postal worker for the past 37 years.
Beyond Work: The Refuse Collector
Beyond Work documents humans at work using words and reportage photography, with no judgement or glorification. It’s an attempt at unearthing the social, cultural and functional world of work that’s invisible in everyday life. In this series, Curtis James interviews Norman Macaulay, a man who has been working as a refuse collector for the past 27 years.
The irrelevance of TEFL
The relevance of language is lost in the world of TEFL, stumbling as we do through archaic grammar and pointless structures that most English speakers don’t know let alone use. It is a language that is not in anyway applicable to the reality of daily life and, consequently, defeats the purpose of a language.
Fainting Distance
New in a foreign city, Carter Vance explores the modern way of meeting people. Everything is digital in our age and it doesn’t look like it will change soon.
Goodbye yellow brick road
Frank Sonderborg goes back to 1973 and the dawn of Ireland in the E.U. An opportunity to work, drink, screw and smoke abroad proves a great draw in Europe.
Nursing: It’s not a vocation if you hate it
The endless cycle of work and hate and the world of nursing is revealed by a desperately exhausted Caitriona Murphy.
Breakfast shift Brexit
Laurence takes a prozaic look at his experiences with European management, and the imminent brexit and comes to the same conclusion. Work is terrible.
Sluggies: Hostel to the stars
Frank Sonderborg reflects on his son’s tricky ascent into the world of I.T. Featuring tramps, drugs, a low-cost hostel and a disgruntled Dane.
Paying Dues
Hanna Abi Akl takes a good, hard look at his work life and then chooses freedom instead.
12 fragments of a first job
Adventure, excitement and drugs. All the things that don’t appear on a resumé.