Song, by Toad

1. Usual number of hours sleep.

I have not slept since 1985.

2. Ideal number of hours sleep.

7

3. At what point on Friday do you usually stop even pretending to work?

3:15 Thursday afternoon

4. Meeting etiquette bugbear.

Not being able to hurl feces (or, as you quaintly say in the UK, faeces)

5. Name a record for a sunny Sunday, best played in the early afternoon.

Astral Weeks

1) Six
2) Nine
3) Work? Friday?
4) Going through the last meetings’ minutes….and trying hard to remember if you were actually there are not.
5) Last Sunday it was The Hour of Bewilderbeast…..this sunday it could well be Back in Black

1. Five or six.

2. About fourteen

3. About 3pm.

On Thursday.

4. Sitting down.

If I could wander round the room without people looking at me like a pet monkey someone brought along then I would make a vastly more worthwhile contribution.

5. A bit of Paul Simon will do me. You choose the album.

1. 7 ish

2. 18 – the same as a cat.

3. depends on whether i was out with dylan and shonagh on a thursday!

4. people that talk for hours about something that needs a yes or no.#

5. elliott smith – either or on any sunday at any time come rain or shine. it’s perfect sunday music.

1. 6
2. 8 or 9
3. about lunch
4. noises such as hmmm and ahh
5. James Yorkstone, when the harr rolls in (whilst reading the paper)

1. Probably averages at about 5
2. A couple of days should cover it.
3. Friday is my busiest day, so i did genuinely work this morning, then i went for lunch and has some wine, so i’m incapable of pretending
4. I am allocated always to take the minutes, because i’m the only girl. so the etiquette issue is that i have to listen…
5. I will have to miss the point of this question as i will be tucked away in a kitchen serving half of edinburgh their breakfast so i usually call on the KP/part time DJ’s mix of dance/trance whatever you call it, as long as i can dance to it music. If i weren’t at work i’d call upon Nick Drake

1. 5
2. 10
3. 11am, at which point I start winding down for my pub lunch. After a big meal and two pints, fuck all is going to be happening in the afternoon.
4. Not being able to punch the fuckwit at my company who acts like a fucking used car salesman in meetings.
5. Erm, baffled by my own question. Maybe something sunny like The Pernice Brothers. Although James Yorkston is a good call too.

1. Usual number of hours sleep.
About six
2. Ideal number of hours sleep.
Nine plus. I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky
3. At what point on Friday do you usually stop even pretending to work?
My last class on a Friday are as hyper as hell, so I’m forced to work until the bell goes…but it does go at 3:40 pm
4. Meeting etiquette bugbear.
The advantage of being fairly junior (only fourth year of teaching) is I have comparatively few meetings but…people who waffle on and on. People who ask me what i think then stare intently at me, with a shark’s smile. Usually people who are more senior to me so i cannot tell them to fuck off. People who frown at me for doddling.
5. Name a record for a sunny Sunday, best played in the early afternoon.
Any Nick Drake is good, as is Aretha Franklin, Belle and Sebastian…for early sunday mornings I like Vaughan Williams’ Lark Ascending. No, really.

1. About 10.
2. About 6 – no, really.
3. Friday? Work? Ha! being a student rules!
4. From past experience; doesn’t it really piss you off when someone (generally a “superior”) talks just so softly that you can’t hear them?
5. Kings of Convenience are usually good for relaxing on a Sunday, but if you want to get up and do something then whack on some Paganini.

Oh you’ve picked my nemesis — sleep, ugh.
1. can you possibly believe 4.5?
2. 7, but only spread between three short lie downs (yes I know better than to say naps to you lot)
3. work? oh, that thing I should be doing, yes… er, um…
4. getting nasty glances when I pull out my knitting, don’t you people realize I can’t hear a thing you say if I have to sit there perfectly still? And if I’m knitting don’t expect me to take notes even if I’m the only woman, geeze, grow the fuck up.
5. this Sunday it will surely be Samamidon! But most Sundays it is Billy Bragg (Back to Basics or Workers Playtime, even Mermaid Avenue if it’s raining).

and “To Sir, With Love” is an amazingly awesome song, thanks!!!

“don’t expect me to take notes even if I’m the only woman” My company has a very bad habit of expecting the only female engineer to do the ‘girl jobs’ in the absence of the receptionist in whose job description these tasks actually lie. It’s fucking embarrassing, frankly.

1. Either five or ten.

2. Eight.

3. I’m a grad student, so suppose I stopped even pretending to work back in September.

4. Thankfully meetings no longer feature in my life. But I’d probably go for being obliged to take things seriously no matter how ridiculous they might be.

5. Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – The Blue Trees EP / How I Long To Feel That Summer In My Heart. By far the best two things GZM released, and of all the albums I own, they’re probably the ones best suited to sunny Sunday afternoons.

Seven
Eight
5ish
Tedious trivialities
I’m a Believer

1. About 6. 7 if I ignore the alarm, which happens more often than not.
2. 8. Pretty incapable of sleeping longer than that.
3. Sadly, 5 or 6: too much to do, too little time. Though I did just get back from lunch.
4. Being expected to feign optimism about doomed endeavours.
5. Pirates Choice by Orchestra Baobab. Time passes more slowly listening to instrumental music on a lazy day.

Nic, you aren’t telling me that you actually do the job which you are paid to do, do you? That’s practically bloody heresy around here.

Gorky’s: top choice.

1. anywhere between 3 and 8 during the week.
as long as i possibly can over the weekend.

2. i find my money job much more challenging through a fog of 4 hours sleep, last night’s alcohol, ringing ears and eyes which refuse to focus. just getting to the end of the day without passing out fills me with a sense of achivement.

3. i tend to operate on a kind of hour-on, hour-off pattern of pretending to work. keeps everyone guessing…

4. why is it that when a bunch of individually smart people start trying to work together they suddenly become about as bright as a potato?
and the biscuits are always shit.

5. i like to listen to alistair fraser while im making sunday breakfast. and i dont think you can beat the cat empire’s “two shoes” for a sunshine day full of sweet nothing.

also, punch and the apostles were brain-meltingly good last night.

I work for the love of it.

The meagre remuneration is but a bonus.

Gorky’s indeed a good choice: Blue Trees is a small piece of perfection.

1. Usual number of hours sleep: Between 3 & 5, depending on day nearest broadcast
2. Ideal number of hours sleep: August – May
3. At what point on Friday do you usually stop even pretending to work?: Shamefully, 5pm
4. Meeting etiquette bugbear: “Buzz words” becoming part of standardised conversation
5. Name a record for a sunny Sunday, best played in the early afternoon: Hello Saferide 2006

I don’t mind the girl’s job – especially note taking. I contribute very little else in meetings!!
Waste of time mostly!

“why is it that when a bunch of individually smart people start trying to work together they suddenly become about as bright as a potato?
and the biscuits are always shit.”

Answer of the day thus far.

Nic, you’re weird. Not dontpa.nic, who is weird also but in other ways, but nic, for the love of it? Has the world gone mad?

Haven’t listened to that whole Saferide album DC, I assume this is you telling me I should get my finger out and do so.

aye, all of them.

1. Between 6 and 7. Of course, if I have an essay due that goes down to 3 or 4.
2. Usually 8, sometimes 9.
3. No class after 1 on Fridays. If I’m feeling well-behaved, I might do a little reading until 3 or so. Mostly not.
4. Prof not calling a five-minute break during seminar even when it’s obvious that everyone has turned into zombies because he loves hearing the sound of his own voice.
5. The Crane Wife by the Decemberists.

You’re a bloody student, woman, why only six or seven? All that partying, no doubt

Actually, anything by the Decemberists. They seem to be at risk of turning into the caricature of the current fad for literate folk pop which might, as it inevitably wanes, leave them somewhat trapped in the sound of their era and unable to escape. Not a prediction, just a slight concern, because I do think they’re excellent.

1. Between 6-7 hours
2. Between 7-8 hours
3. 5-5.30 – sorry, but true
4. Not so much of a bugbear but a first for me coming up on Monday – a meeting where they’re not providing a buffet lunch because we’re in “austerity November/December” after what will not surprise all to learn has been an appalling year in a construction-related business. Bring yer own pieces to a meeting?! The comment about feigning optimism about doomed endeavours made me chuckle.
5. Well, as a father of three, my rather jaundiced reaction to THAT one might be “Awww bless you all sitting round doing nothing listening to your soothing music” but I’ll enter the spirit of things and say that if there were a parallel universe where children left parents to their own devices for, oh, five minutes, that some Trashcan Sinatras or Tindersticks or Roddy Frame or Augustus Pablo would go down very nicely….

1. 7ish
2. 9
3. Around the time I get out of the car
4. Having to attend them.
5. I second Hello Saferide.

1. About 5, although I tend to catch up a bit on the train.
2. Dunno. More than 5, or I would be capable of sitting down later in the day and actually staying awake for a bit. When I was doing some A Level marking once I ended up with so little sleep that I started falling asleep with a pen in my hand and at one point marked an exam essay whilst I was asleep.
3. At the moment about 1130am, as I have a class lesson 2 who actually need teaching, as opposed to the ones in the afternoon who just need to be wound up briefly and then set on their merry way. I have yet to have a genuinely free afternoon on a Friday (I am aware this is a small gripe, ‘oh god I have two days marking to do in my six weeks holiday’, that kind of thing, but it’s my answer and I’m allowed) but this year is definitely the next best thing. Until now Friday afternoons have been shite.. Friday’s all about how quickly after 3pm you can get to the Great Western, anyway.
4. People giving you big long handouts and then reading them at you. Going to anything led by the leadership team gives you interesting lessons in how not to teach a class.
5. Goodness, everyone’s choosing albums. My instant response was Marvin Gaye’s version of ‘Groovin’, on ‘That’s The Way Love Is’ – I reckon the whole album would do pretty well, though.

Marvin Gaye, oh god yes!
xoxoxo

1. Usual number of hours sleep.
- Probably 5ish. Which is dumb because I am an absolute zombie AND evil witch on less than 7 hours.

2. Ideal number of hours sleep.
- At least 8… preferably 10ish, on and off all day… “time for another nap! yay!”

3. At what point on Friday do you usually stop even pretending to work?
- as a teacher i have to keep working until the students leave. i do start sitting down more and making students bring me things instead of going to them.

4. Meeting etiquette bugbear.
- falling asleep. see #1. there’s nothing worse (well, at least in the context of a dull meeting) than waking up to see your superior glowering at you. no, the only thing worse is finding out too late about some crucial requirement or scheduling change, that you would have heared at the meeting if you could have stayed awake.

5. Name a record for a sunny Sunday, best played in the early afternoon.
- “All That We Let In,” Indigo Girls.

not ‘heared,’ heard. jesus.

btw, tart, how many times do you comment on Matthew’s posts on average? lollll

“there’s nothing worse (well, at least in the context of a dull meeting) than waking up to see your superior glowering at you”

Yeah, what? If you weren’t so penis-shrivellingly dull I might have managed to stay awake. But you aren’t. So I didn’t.

A friend of mine was once slung out of lectures at Glasgow University because his Lit teacher asked him why he wasn’t taking notes. In all innocence he replied that once the teacher said anything he felt he had to remember then he would be certain to write it down, but until then he would just keep his own counsel, thank you. So reasonable in conception, and yet so arrogant in reality. Nice line, though.

Meatpocket: mostly none, just occasionally she gets carried away. Personally I think of this as a good thing, although I nearly blew a gasket at that ludicrous list of ‘why sensible people get married nowadays’.

Yes, as you know, I am a wild partier. Bring on the Scotch! WOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!!

Ahem. Back to your normal programming. The rather more boring reason is that I stay up late reading books…or writing comments on certain indie-snobbish friends’ blogs.

You will be pleased to know that I have been spreading the joy of Broken Records around. I gave my slightly-indie-boy German teacher some of their songs (including Wolves and Out on the Water from the Toad Sessions) and he is now a big fan. One by one, slowly but surely…

And yes, Decemberists = excellence.

1. 7

2. it would be 8-9 but SOMEONE in the house usually shoves me over at 3am and starts snoring like a pig.

3. Friday is usually frantic till 5 or after (going on a business trip) or most relaxed after lunch with a spot of economist reading and a few cups of tea. A casual interrogation of colleagues’ weekend plans, spot of sarcasm distributed merrily and an examination of whatever humorous links the afternoon has fished from the interwebmongs. Unless punctuated by meetings of which more below…

4. Get to the point. 1) No really, agendas may be bureaucratic but if I’m to accept a meeting invite, I’d like to know what the hell it is about first. 2) Consensus is nice but if someone is going to grind their axe all afternoon, lets not all sit there patiently trying to change their mind. Its not Twelve Angry Men for fuck’s sake, vote, commiserate and move on. 3) Its okay to say nothing if you have nothing to say. Dullards who render a half crushed kernel of information into a Ceasarlike monologue purporting to be of interest and value to others greatly mistake the positive effect on their own importance in the eyes of everyone else in the room, It screams MORON OUT OF DEPTH HERE!!! Three sentences max, if its interesting, people will ask for more.

5. The Skids – Into the Valley. Its probably about 2pm when I get up anyway.