*
I know I’m going to get edited to hell about some parts of this, but it’s how I want it to look. The neutered and politically correct version will no doubt be conforming, polite, and non-offensive, and probably government sanctioned. Still, that’s what editors are for, to make my stories acceptable for consumption, the blander the better.
I’ve sent some letters off to the people CC’d in the Freedom of Information response. They mainly seem to be just government departments, junior civil servants, that kind of thing. I thought I might as well, just to see if they have anything to add. If they’ve been CC’d it may have been for a good reason, though I expect mostly it’s just a list of anyone who could possibly be remotely interested in it, plus many people who probably have no idea what it’s even about. You can’t beat the government for generating needless paperwork.
One of the CC’s I can’t find, a general whose name doesn’t show up anywhere in the military records. Probably a typo or something, so I’m not going to worry about it.
Thursday, April 24th 2014
Yep, I got edited. The boss said he wanted me to stop covering the Reaction Engines story, because I seemed to be too biased.
He’s right, I am, I’m biased towards a company that deserves success, and against government mismanagement. I don’t see a problem with a reporter for a local paper sticking up for local interests. I tried to argue the point, but he wasn’t having it. Isn’t covering local interests what we’re supposed to do?
Taima is off on another interview today, this was a short notice one, she only got a call about it yesterday. It’s a late one, so I’m having dinner from the chippy.
I’ve been reading through this lot, and I think I’m going to change format again. I’ve been skipping a lot of personal life stuff, focusing on some less than stunningly exciting things, to try and get a daily entry. If my diaries are going to be a worldwide phenomenon into the life of a world-famous reporter, I think I’d like to not put readers to sleep with 128 days in a row of yawnish articles about trees being cut down and traffic lights, just so they can get to the good stuff that happens occasionally.
I’m going to go to doing one entry a week for now. If something extra cool comes up, I’ll add in supplemental entries. Hah, I sound like a starfleet captain. A supplemental log. Sorry, I amused myself there.
Friday, April 25th to Friday, May 2nd 2014
First day of the new format. Well, week I guess. I could almost have done a few good single day entries this week, but, let’s see how this format goes.
On Saturday, Taima got a letter telling her she hadn’t got the job in East London. I think neither of us are surprised, or really too disappointed about it. A two hour train trip each way five times a week would be murder. She was still a bit down about it, it’s never nice to be rejected, especially by form letter. I should know, all those reporting interviews I didn’t get jobs from, and at least half of them bothered to tell me they didn’t want me. The other half, I just assume desperately wanted me to work for them, but their motorcycle couriers delivering my urgent acceptance letters, were all killed by the swarms of marauding lions that roam South London... or something.
On Monday I was called into the bosses office again. I thought I was being fired, but he broke his frown to tell me he was really pleased. The Oxford Daily had called and asked to have the original articles from my two Reaction Engines stories, and were going to reprint them in their paper. Only the second time that the Daily has ever been interested in anything we wrote. And they’re paying us for it, so yay, I’ve earned my bacon for the week.
Speaking of bacon, payday came again, hooray! Seven pounds from our overdraft limit, and the money goes in, what a relief. This time a full months salary, and I think we’ll just scrape by. No train trips to Coventry this month, no birthday pressies to buy, we may even be able to afford to spend a little money, but I’d like to get out of the overdraft first I think. After all, it doesn’t do for a reporter to be in debt. That makes us prime candidates for bribery. You hear that everyone. you can bribe me, offer me lots of money to print scandalous stories about people you don’t like! Anyone, please, bribe me!
I spent a day up in the offices of the Oxford Daily. I didn’t mention they’d rejected me when I interviewed with them (the day before the Didcot interview), and I doubt they remember me. The guy that did the interview was the same editor who went over my story and notes and was turning it into the format their paper uses. I have to say I liked the way they worked, the story came out much better than the first one did. I guess that’s why they cover a whole county, and we cover the bottom of budgie cages for 4,018 copies. Nice guys, even bought me lunch. I came really close to asking if they have any job openings. I could enjoy working at this place, but I didn’t say anything in case word got back and put the job I do have at risk. Yeah some may say it’s the cowards decision but I prefer to call it ‘playing safe’. And if you don’t agree, you can fight the person I nominate to fight in my place :-)
An interesting thing happened though, and I got a bit of a surprise. The editor, when they read the Freedom of Information reply, was pretty surprised to see it came from so high up in the Treasury department too, and said they’d like to do some of their own research, if I didn’t mind. They actually asked if they could follow up on my story instead of just stealing it, very professional of them. I said of course not, but I’d like to get copies of anything they find for the Didcot Gazette. They agreed right away.
The surprise came later in the week. The unknown CC on the Freedom of Information reply, the missing general, actually does exist. I’d gone to the armed forces register to find them, which was my mistake. What I should have done was just go online and use a generic search engine. Apparently this isn’t a British army general at all. It was a US Air Force General.
Why on Earth would the government CC a US Air Force General on a Freedom of Information letter, what’s it got to do with them? This is actually turning out to be a bit of a mystery. OK maybe I’d love to see a conspiracy theory, it would certainly do my career no harm to find something strange going on and to report it, but it’s all very odd. I’m sure it will come out that it’s just routine, but I can’t see how. Probably cos I can’t see why it wouldn’t either, but that’s another story.
The editor at the Oxford Daily also had no idea either, but promised to let me know if he got anything juicy.
On Wednesday I got a letter forwarded from my old address, dated three months ago, offering me a job at a paper in Birmingham. Thanks Royal Mail, good job. It wouldn’t have been a better job than this, but it would have been three bloody months ago, and that’s about an extra months worth of salary. Not to mention it’s damned expensive to live down here, and Birmingham is pretty cheap.
Saturday, May 3rd to Saturday, May 10th 2014
I’ve been learning all about financial markets this week. Greece has just withdrawn from the Euro. To be quite frank, I’m not too up on finances, banking, and international trade, but I’m learning quickly. Basically Greece has just announced they will leave the Euro at the end of May, go back to their old currency, the drachma. It isn’t a huge surprise. Even knowing little about the details, I’ve seen people talking about it on TV for years, and how it would be bad for the Euro.
Bad for the Euro, well, it isn’t like the Euro has been doing too well recently anyway. Germany in recession for five quarters, France for seven, they’re the two biggest Euro economies, and their recession has meant that the Euro has lost 20% of its value in the last 18 months.
Hey, do I sound like I know what I’m talking about? Yeah, that’s Wikipedia. I know, I know, it can’t be trusted as authoritative information, but they provide sources and they get me what I need. It isn’t like I’m going for a job as Governor of the bank of England, I’m writing for a small paper that will never be read by anyone, let alone anyone who matters.
The Drachma is back again
This week’s shock a
nnouncement that Greece was leaving the Eurozone after years of failed austerity policies has been greeted with dismay by other Euro countries. The German finance minister has been meeting with the Greek ambassador to Berlin, in an attempt to reverse the decision, a move described by the ambassador as “idiotic, it’s like they think we didn’t think about this, and just woke up one morning and thought, hey lets leave the Euro. It isn’t something they can have a chat with us about and change our minds, it is a carefully made decision for the better future of our country”.
Such strong language in diplomatic circles is surprising indeed, bringing back memories of the Polish ambassador to the EU, who when explaining why Poland should have more population linked votes in the EU assembly, stated that If it wasn’t for Germany 60 years ago, Poland would have a much higher population.
The loss of Greece to the Eurozone is financially minimal, comprising of only 3% of the size of the economy. The real problem is of perception, and concern that others may follow. If people believe that, for example, Italy could be next, then that would be a significant blow to confidence in the Euro, causing panic currency selling, and severe damage to the economies in the Eurozone.
Ironically, although their weak economy is the main reason for their pull out, Greece has now insulated itself from any direct fallout from the Eurozone, and with direct control over their finances again, they are likely to have a better chance of bringing their country back to competitiveness, although repayments of loans to the EU will still be causing hardship for the country for decades to come.
The effect on the British economy should be small. Greece is not a major trading partner with the UK. Only if the Euro becomes weaker due to this event would our own economy suffer, as it would be more expensive for Eurozone countries to purchase British goods.
If you hold funds in Greek banks, your Euros will be worth 3.41 drachma each. This puts the new drachma as worth around 100 of the old drachma, and means that Greece has at the same time re-valued its old currency to get rid of the large denominations it used to need.