Welcome
Help!
Jobs provides links to websites offering job vacancies and CV tips.
The long and winding road
The nineties job quest describes my first long period out of work and how I eventually managed to find gainful employment again.
Don't pass me by
Career looks at my career to date and options for the future. Potential employers can contact me via a special contact page that I mention on the CV page. Certificates displays my school and other certificates.
Taxman
The politics of unemployment draws on my experiences of being unemployed, covering a variety of issues including finance, housing, bankruptcy, the TV licence fee, electricity meters, immigrant workers, data protection and identity theft, but especially focusing on New Deal. I got out of a similar mess once before, but it's much more difficult now.
According to the British government, all unemployed people are lazy, stupid, feckless, lunatic or a combination of those stereotypes. Well, I'm not any of those, but as long as journalists are able to find people like the McFadden family, the stereotypes will persist in the minds of many people. Judging all unemployed people on the basis of the McFadden family is like judging nurses on the basis of Beverley Allitt or doctors on the basis of Harold Shipman, or assuming that all football supporters are hooligans.
Across the universe
Amazon topics will appeal to any Amazon customer or contributor who is interested in more than just buying stuff. If you are interested in reviews, votes, rankings, lists, guides, tags and other stuff on Amazon, look at this section.
Note that Amazon USA installed a new reviewer ranking system in October 2008. At least for the time being, it co-exists with the old system, on which my blog is based and which is still the only system used at Amazon's other websites. I am currently working on a much more comprehensive version of "Amazon topics", which will be set up in a new blog. All pages in the old blog will re-direct to the new blog when it is ready.
I've just seen a face
News media describes my experiences of being in the news, including my interview on BBC Radio Leicester, which I did live in the studio, as well as an article that appeared in The Times. There is also an analysis of the lies and half-truths reported elsewhere.
Here comes the sun
Christmas is celebrated on the same day that sun-worshippers celebrate Saturnalia. I think I've reviewed more Christmas music on Amazon than anybody else, but if anybody has reviewed more, I'd like to know.
Ticket to ride
Trains interested me a lot when I was young, not so much now. Nevertheless, I've reviewed several CD's of American train songs and several British books about trains. This section provides links to those reviews, plus a store where you can buy other train books, together with a selection of website links, especially those devoted to rail heritage.
Your mother should know
Board games face stiff competition these days compared to previous generations, but there is still a market for them. This page contains links to my reviews, of which there aren't very many, as well as a store where you can buy the others.
Every little thing
Blog setup mainly discusses technical matters, so will be useful to those setting up a HTML-based blog (but read Blogger's own help stuff first), which is necessarily more complicated than a standard diary-type blog. I hope that this blog will also prove useful to potential employers wishing to assess my capabilities.
In my life
About me provides some trivia about who I am, when I was born and where I've been. At one time, I thought it might expand into something much more substantial, but all the substantial stuff has been posted elsewhere.
Things we said today
If you wish to, contact me using the special form that I set up to avoid disclosing my e-mail address publicly.
