Trust.

So very easily won, so very easily destroyed.

...And then I woke up and it was all a dream.

A popular line I used to use all through my school years when I was asked to write a "story" invariably I'd get to a certain point and be bored shitless with what I was writing and want to do something else, namely play with Lego bricks and Star Wars action figures!

It amazes me though how at 31 I find the title of this entry back with me again, but this time I'm not trying to get away from something as tedious as a story, but instead, I've woken up to the "real script" of my life.

I carried around this vision, a belief of how my life was going to pan out and I've clung tightly to it for at least 8 years now but the time has come to let it go, I don't know what world I was living in but it wasn't real and I've come to terms with the fact that I'm now 30 something and I'll have to settle for less, I'm very disappointed on one hand, happily ever after has gone from a big picture with amazing colours in it to a faded out black and white 6 x 4 photo, gone dog-eared at the corners, clearly showing it's age, but on the other hand I've got re-newed clarity of vision and I know where I want to go next.

Over the last few days, I've sat down and had a decent look at my finances, which I'm pleased to say are in excellent shape, I'm putting together a plan for the next six months and that plan loosely consists of getting my own place.

Yes I am well aware of the biggest commodity bubble in our history, but with that I'm far from being born yesterday, I've now got a target area in mind that I wish to buy in and I'm ecstatic to see the properties stuck fast in the market and going nowhere fast.

The area I now have in my sights is well know for being a young professional area, thankfully it was one of the last areas to be built (well converted actually) that doesn't require compliance with social housing laws.

"You F*$£in snob" I hear you cry! Yes, I have no qualms about this, I have no desire to live with the dregs of society, and why the hell can't I be fussy? I've bust my nuts for the best part of 8 years to get money aside to live somewhere, where my car won't get broken in to and where there are no kids kicking footballs around in the street and late night calls from 'dealers' to the premises around me.

Within the next 6 months or so, I expect to see at least two, maybe even three base rate increases, not good news for a lot of people, but works just fine with me, base rate increases change the perception of the property market, it becomes clear to the “sheeple” that ALL investments, be they houses or stocks and shares can go up and down, and I have no issues at all about putting in offers well below the asking price - I don't tend to remotely consider paying "RRP" on much these days, haggling is the name of the game and anyone who considers paying the asking price needs their head read.

The beauty of this situation is that I have all the time in the world and a lot of property owners quite simply don't and I'll use whatever method I can to make these people see the days for sitting in your house and then walking away with obscene profits for doing nothing at all are over, my first targets will be the properties with "No Upper Chain" these places are there for the taking, they indicate that in the majority of circumstances someone has moved in with a partner or even bought a second property in advance of selling their old one (Stupid and foolish) or it belongs to the scourge of the first time buyer, the Buy to Let landlord, I've worked out how much I'll be happy to pay each month and with help from a friend I've got a decent idea on maintenance and ground rent costs.

With my cash savings and various investments due to mature in 2008 I'm confident I can fix the payments on the mortgage for two years and once the investments I have mature, I can withdraw them and kill off a decent lump of what I owe.

So that's the plan, I'm stood in front of my easel, the old black and white picture scrunched up by my right foot and I have a paint brush in one hand and my script in the other, I've spoken before about my lack of artistic talent, so clearly what I paint on the canvas isn't going to look as good as the once colorful dream I clung to, but it'll be all my own work and if nothing else, it'll be real.

Sold down the river........

I think the worst way you can receive bad news has to be by the Internet, and having been a generally unwilling recipient of bad news via this medium already once this year, to have it sneak up on me a second time is most unfortunate.

I've been in my current employment around just over 11 years, but in 2002 we were informed that the company were looking at outsourcing solutions, basically it means the company makes "Big Savings" by flogging a section of their work force to another company and then in effect leasing back the expertise, cheaper (allegedly).

Every 6-9 months since 2002 we have been politely reminded that outsourcing is still an option, and it usually comes when morale is high, and ironically enough this time round came just after I'd filled in my Employee Satisfaction Survey, issued by a third party wanting to gauge how happy the workforce is, and for the first time in many many years, I actually told them I loved them (in not so many words of course).

What a mistake - CRUNCH back down from the fairytale heights of job satisfaction, landing on my arse, which is still bruised from the last time I was dropped on it! A colleague pointed me to a website of a company that had signed a deal with our directors officially sanctioning the "sale" of mine and thirty-nine other colleagues’ jobs within our directorate, the date of the agreement? 30th of August 2006, we are informed NINE whole days later, basically after the rest of the sector we ply our business in and pretty much the rest of the world, giving us a pretty clear view on the feeling our management has towards us.

This is the second phase of the transfer of workers out of the company, the first being back in 2002, where 25 people went across to the 'other company' in this time I have seen many of my colleagues that were involved in this move, dump their employers and depart, seeking job satisfaction elsewhere, mainly citing the bitterness of the loss of their final salary pensions, the fact that any training requirements needed a signature (in blood) that if you were to leave the company you would pay them back the money for the course, and unsurprisingly, the feeling that the "new company" was skint, played out in part due to the lack of pay rises and the threat of unpaid/capped overtime - ok so I admit, that this isn't fact because I didn't hear it from the horses mouth so to speak, but I can't really think of any reason why these departing people would have lied?

I'll be joining this new company with all the non-benefits mentioned above and my long term bonus incentive going out of the window, which I can tell you was significant portion of my annual salary paid out if we reach certain targets, I've got every reason to be pissed off again, but it wouldn't be the relationship I've come to know so well if everytime I "got happy" I ended up with a demoralizing kick to the top of the thighs!

So I look forward now to 12-18 months of speculation, not knowing if I'll still be sat at my desk or at a desk within the new employers office but I have this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that this could be the beginning of the end for my 11 year career in this employment and as I sit here uploading one of Del Amitri's finest hits to a music streaming company, to play to you whilst you read this, there is a certain irony in the fact that once more, big changes are a foot and I was the last to know.

The World loses someone special.......

I'm shocked and saddened to learn of the death of Steve Irwin.

I'd honestly say, I hardly gave a stuff about conservation and wildlife not so long ago, but there was one bloke who changed all that, with his own unique brand of entertainment and education, The Croc Hunter show used to keep me glued for hours watching back to back episodes on Discovery - he just done everything SO different to everyone else, he made a bland subject exciting, fun and educational.

A true peoples hero, and world is a worse off place without him.

Gone too soon Steve, RIP.

Weight on my mind ....... (Reprised)

Excellent, it's been two weeks and I've managed to hurt myself already!

Unsurprisingly, my "I want it all yesterday!" attitude quite often leads to my downfall more swiftly then I'd like, so really I should have known this was going to happen.

I've managed to bust my lower back, I would imagine this is probably due to me thinking I actually have more "muscle power" then I really have and predictably enough I've pushed too hard, too soon.

Don't laugh please, but I am sat here with one of those things on you can get in Boots, they were orginally designed for pregnant women to ease contractions, they have sticky electrodes attached to this small electronic unit thing, it sends pulses to the muscles in my lower back to make the muscle contract and relax at set intervals.

I'm using this thing although I could nip it in the bud nice and quickly by popping some prescription strength Diclofenac this does have some downsides though, namely it does appear that they cause internal bleeding and heart attacks! Click here for more info on this

I always try and make sure if I'm going to use them, that I take them with my evening meal, that kinda limits the chances of burning a hole in my stomach although I have to admit there is bugger all I can do about the heart attack risk, I just hope I'm one of the luckier people that isn't going to "check out" before my time! Quite a gamble I know, especially since my ones are the 75mg dose, but I try not to take more then one in a 24 hour period, there is no doubting these things though, they seriously kick arse and any pain I'm in usually is gone within about 3-4 hours and it keeps it at bay for a further 24-36 hours.

Other then the minor setback in my initial paragraph, I'm doing well - I went 3 days this week, due to the bank holiday, and surprisingly enough my enthusiasm STILL hasn't been dampened which has to be a record as I figured I'd be bored off my moobs by now!