Stanfords Finest

I love dance music sometimes. We get so wrapped up in its hedonism that we forget all about the 6am situation – there is daylight outside, the druqx have worn off and you have no money left. The best dance classics concern love; lost it, want it or have it. The worst dance music is concerned with having a good time and holding hands with your brothers and sisters. A perfect example of this is Bob Sinclair’s shockingly bad ‘Love Generation’. Not only is the music so appalling that it sounds like it was knocked out on a PS2 but the lyrics are so trite as to be offensive. Please read the following:

Why must our children play in the streets,
Broken hearts and faded dreams,
Peace and love to everyone that you meet,
Don’t you worry, it could be so sweet,
Just look to the rainbow, you will see
Sun will shine till eternity,
I’ve got so much love in my heart,
No-one can tear it apart,
Yeah,

Feel the love generation,
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Feel the love generation,
C’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon yeah, From Jamaica to the world,
It’s just love,
It’s just love,
Yeah!

We are facing the possibility of WW3 and Bob thinks we are the ‘Love Generation’. Of course we are – the generation of love. No matter if it is a croaky voiced Bob Marley impersonator saying that shit it will always sound crass and untrue. Bob, shovel us much showbiz up your hooter as you can but please do this: turn on the TV and turn off the sound. Put on any 24 hour news station and then play your track as you watch and tell me this – are we really The Love Generation? Of course not you cunt.

So it’s been confirmed then. It does seem that Hong Kong is go go go. Despite my initial reservations about visas and so on it would appear that I have a good case to be granted leave to work for at least two years and thankfully my criminal record doesn’t come into it – all they care about is how much money I have and what I’m likely to earn. Gotta love Asia. Also, they need to know why the new company needs to get in a chav rather than use the local talent. That’s easy too – my field is niche in the UK so its double specialist in Asia. It’s all looking rosy in the garden. We have packed a lot of our belongings already and my interest is now waning in my present company, I mean it’s going to be closed down soon plus we cannot take anymore new work on so we have to wrap up the existing stuff, the bitty stuff near the end of any project.

I sometimes wonder if I am in denial about leaving England and more specifically London. One thing that symbolises my dislike of London right now was the news this week that the historic Bow Street Magistrates Court has closed. Why? Well it’s so it can be turned into a boutique hotel of course. Despite it still serving a purpose and being historically and architecturally important and a vital piece of the local community and economy The Man did decide to flog it for a quick buck. I couldn’t see the French or Spanish selling their prized historic buildings but then again they have pride in their cities where as London is looking like some nightmarish vision of a “lifestyle” future. Will I miss the people and culture of London? I don’t think so but how will I know if I don’t go? Maybe I will hate Hong Kong as I’ve never been to the place. It is a gamble. My feeling is that I will love then hate then love my new home. It’s the painful adjustment period I am dreading plus having a boss who may be a cunt as I haven’t met the man. I’ve done the memory lane bit already and been the places I grew up around and I have visited the parts of Essex that mean anything to me. So now it’s all future and time to move on. My new role promises travel and I hope my schedule stops me from feeling home sick. I may miss those boutique hotels after all.

So I got the job then. It’s funny you know but they were just “taking their time” before getting back to me. I hope they have a similar laissez faire attitude when if turn up for late or fail to get any work done. I have no doubt that there were other reasons for the delay and they were probably screwing some other hapless applicant on the other side of the world for a few hundred quid less than I was asking. Well anyway it’s happened; I have now been accepted with a start date of the 1^st September. In Hong Kong. Now there are a few reasons why I am not jumping for joy right now. Firstly I have to get a work visa and that may or may not involve the disclosure of a criminal record during a heavy interview here in London at the Chinese embassy. Needless to say I have one, albeit incredibly minor and quite a few years ago but it could be a factor and I will only be dancing on the ceiling when the visa arrives. The other factor which could throw a spanner in the works is the references. When I left my old company it was under a cloud as I was effectively sacked when they found out the scheme we be plotting to start our own thing. It got nasty so there will be no words of kindness from those fuckers. If they only want two references then I’ll be OK but if they want my last employers then we can say goodbye to Hong Kong. So, you see even when you think you have got it there is always some sting in the tail. No doubt if all the above is navigated successfully then World War Three will begin as is looking more and more likely with each passing hour.

I find it hard to like big business. I dislike all of the corporate machines that are slowly homogenising our world into one big Happy Place. That said I have always liked Apple even though they are the cock sucking whores of capitalism I have found their products and support to be top notch. Say as you see and I say well done Steve Jobs. Compared with Microsoft, which is looking increasingly like a Borough Council these days with its levels of bureaucracy and its distance from what the punters want, Apple is like a mate who can get you what you really need. Take the iPod. A thing of great wonder and now an essential in our lives but Microsoft couldn’t have come up with that in a million years and if they did it would have different editions, be 80,000 times more complex and expensive. Today my wife’s iPod broke – it happens. We took it to the Apple store in and they replaced it gratis. Lovely stuff. I doubt that as Apple get bigger and Microsoft shrink they will be able to maintain their friendly approach but for now, if I could, I’d banish Bill gates and them to hell and buy Apple from now on. It’s the future.

As if by magic I didn’t get the job. Why? You tell me. It’s not like I wanted it in the first place but I got seduced into thinking this was going to be the chance of a lifetime. We’ve been backwards and forwards for a months and then the line just went dead. Nothing, despite my saying yes. So there you go; a months worth of work down the drain and dreams lying in tatters on the floor. So, I’ll pick myself up, get this company up and running as strong as ever and keep looking. Its not that I wanted to join this outfit much anyway, to be honest they did look a bit chaotic. No, I wanted to escape this country that was my primary aim. So I’ll look for other jobs in Asia and learn the hard way when to stop pushing too hard. What started as a bit of fun has now seriously dented my happiness and aspirations but I must not lose the focus. It’s their loss the cunts.