Guess who got a cat?

I've always considered myself to be a dog person and never a real fan of cats, the idea of actually taking one as a pet never crossed my mind. Yet three weeks ago that is precisely what happened.
Before arriving at the Cats and Dogs home Tiiu and I had only two requirement in choosing the cat, the first was that it couldn't be white and the second was that it would somehow chose us and not the other way around. When we went into shelter there were twenty cats lounging around in a couple of rooms drinking and staring out of windows, a scene which somehow reminded me of a bunch of businessmen hanging around an airport.

There were cats of various shapes, sizes, ages and colours. Some sat up proudly demanding your attention, while others swarmed around my feet like Piranha. OK cats being compared to Piranha, now that is odd even by my standards, anyway you get the idea there were lots of cats...lots of them.....everywhere.
But that was also part of the problem, there were simply lots of cats and not one cat that somehow grabbed my attention and it seemed that we were about to leave empty handed, until a panther black cat did precisely that.
As I stood beside a window ledge where three cats seemed to be planning an escape as they stared outside, one of them stood up on its back legs and put his front paws on my shoulder.
This was it, this was the sign that we had been hoping for, yes this was the cat for us.
We told the caretaker that this was the cat for us .
She congratulated us on our choice.
The cat looked at me I looked at him and then he bit me.
Yep, that's right, the one and only cat in the entire world for me, took all of five seconds to bite me.

For the first twenty four hours in the apartment, he crept around the place diving into every bit of darkness that he could find. As the days and now weeks have gone by that scary cat has long since vanished and replaced by someone who struts around the place as if he owns it and we are his guests
Oh yes and his name.....its HAPPY

The Sick man of Europe

Stealing this historical reference from the old Ottoman Empire, I have been stuck in bed for the last couple of days, feeling very much like that proverbial sick man.
Having checked my symptoms online for Swine flu, I was relieved to discover that I only had five of the eight and belatedly agreed to leave work and head home before these five symptoms went looking for further victims.

This seemingly small matter raises a greater question.
Namely Sick pay.
In Estonia if you are out sick from work, you receive no pay whatsoever for three days and then on the forth day you receive a percentage of your wage as long as you get a doctor's note.
Now, I'm not seeking to condemn any particular nation’s treatment of its sick citizens, as most countries have similar policies and in these times of international crisis cut-backs appear to be a necessary evil.

What I am questioning is the real value of this law and the attitudes of and effects upon those runny nosed and coughing individuals, as well as their not so honest compatriots who take unofficial free days. According to a recent survey over here 50% more people are now less inclined to take time of work because they cant afford to miss a days pay.
So I guess we have a successful law?
People are no longer trying to pull a fast one and get a free day?
Companies, the economy and the country are saving money?
Right?
Well.....No....Not really.

Admittedly this looks like a successful law, but it isn't.
Employment law should be a dual approach of encouragement and personal responsibility, not just punishment . Employees should want to go to work and for right reasons, not out of fear that ultimately hurt their employer.
Perhaps it’s because I spent many years in Irish Catholic schools, but whatever the reason, I have discovered the answer and the correct approach to be taken and it’s "Guilt".
That's right, Guilt.
Make your employee feel guilty about missing work, make him feel responsible not only for his own performance but that of his team and colleagues.
Trust me on this, Guilt works, I've even used it myself

Luckily for me I have a job that I actually enjoy. I still get a kick out of it when the plan comes together and therefore my employer has achieved his target of a happy (at least relatively) employee.
I wanted to go into work today and felt guilty about not doing so. It would have been madness to do so as I continued to feel bloody awful, but the important thing here is that I wanted to. This desire was partially through a sense of guilt about letting the team down, but also out of a sense of professionalism that encourages me to do a good job.

But I digress somewhat. If the employee feels appreciated and enjoys their job they don't need draconian laws to keep them in place, as they will want to turn up and do the job. Yet with this current law you end up with people who are forced to go to work, spreading their germs on their way to and at work onto the rest of us, who in turn get sick. Our own performances will initially slip, and then we’re forced to take time off work, ultimately the companies productivity slips.
So explain to me again how these laws help the economy, the country and the employer?

So the next time that you are on an overcrowded bus and someone coughs in your general direction, polluting what little clean air that there was, tell them to do us all a favour and please go home.

Its been a while

Its been a while (again) since I last blogged. I thought that it best that I should put down these few words in case you remove me from your own blog sites or fear that I have been taken of the air for one too many Anti-Russian stories. Since I've started working full time I seem to have less time to write or maybe its just that I'm not getting out as much as I use to and my news worthy stories have dried up.

That being said I haven't simply drowned in a new Rat race.
Work is surprisingly enjoyable. I know that its not meant to be something that you enjoy but so far so good My working day is from 11.00 to 7.00pm, to match up with the UK's 9 - 5 office hours. The company is an Internet bookmakers sports comparison site, at the moments my sports are Gaelic games and TV+Music (X Factor Stuff).

My fledgling football team is slowly developing. When I first started this project I was barley working 15 hours a week and had all the time in the world to sort things out, but since then....well you know.
Over the last couple of weeks we've played and visited three different venues.
Hopefully the current location will become the permanent home pitch.

Sticking to football stories the draw for the World Cup play-offs were announced today and Ireland have drawn France. It could have been worse I suppose, I however was hopping that it could have been the Russians, now that would have beeen a nice and easy victory.

Book Review No. 10

Dunkirk The Men they left behind by Sean Longden

Mention the word “Dunkirk“ and you probably picture an armada of small boats that rescued the remnants of the British army from the beaches of Dunkirk to escape the Blitzkrieg German army in 1940. That rescue is well documented, but what isn’t so well known or is what happened to the men that put up the rearguard action and kept Rommel's forces at bay so 330,000 Allied troops could escape to England.

This book tells the story of the unfortunate 41,000 British troops who were left behind and spent five hellish years as German prisoners of war.

It wasn’t for another six weeks after the evacuation that the units of British and French armies finally surrendered to the Germans. For the next five years most of the men became prisoners of war. But life as a German prisoner was far removed from films such as the “Great Escape“ , but horrifically closer to those who became slaves of the notorious Japanese. These men became slaves, starved, executed, tortured and worked to death in mines and wherever the Third Reich felt that they could be of use.

A third of the book tells of famous last stands where it was only after all ammunition and hope of rescue was lost did the soldiers surrender. Sadly many of these troops were executed shortly after offering their surrender by an enemy who cared nothing for the Geneva convention. After this things didn’t get any better.

No Life beyond Football

Now that I'm working again the only thing I seem to blog about is football. I guess it isn't too surprising as a part of the job relates to football, I play on my free time, Q.P.R. are actually winning the occasional match and am now trying to start up a team.

It was only a couple of weeks ago when all seemed lost and I was banishing all things football far far away from my blog universe, but now its all changed. Yesterday morning fourteen potential superstars turned up to play, which is thirteen more than the last time we were meant to play. Yes, that's right I'm still moaning about being the only one who turned up.

Anyway that was then and this is now.
And now I am in the process of starting up an official football team that will take part in the Estonian forth division next season. All I need to do is register thirty players, which includes convincing and ensuring that they not only sign up but turn up every week for practice and then for the actual matches when the season starts in February or March. With that matter sorted out all that is left is to find somewhere to play, train, a trainer, a method of getting to away matches, a kit and other equipment a name for the team and of course some method to cover all these costs.

With a stroke of good fortune I seem to have found a couple of potential sponsors, one being a well known pub in Tallinn and the other to be announced later in case that doesn't work out. These sponsors will hopefully cover most of these costs.

With the new job at Bet Genius I found a source of potential players and was able to kick start the Saturday morning match once again. With half of yesterdays team coming from B.G. and potentially another ten due from the old Chinese Dragons as well as further recruits from B.G., things are slowly taking shape. Hopefully this initial interest will continue, with sufficient numbers turning up every week.
Early this rainy Sunday morning I went to look at a potential venue for our home games. The pitch was great but with winter approaching and I don't mean an Irish winter, I will need to find an indoor venue as it will soon be too cold to play outside, although we could use this pitch for official matches in the new season.

Seeing so many people turn up yesterday felt very rewarding, but thinking about all the work that lies ahead is rather daunting.
During all my childhood years of dreaming about becoming a footballer, I never saw myself as a manager. Yep, its a funny old game.

We made the second Round

Four times a year or so the Estonian football association organises an eight-a-side tournament. Today was the latest of these and the third one that I've taken part in, this one however was different and for the first time my team (The Chinese Dragons) qualified for the second round.

This time the statistics didn't read "played three lost three". After a shaky 3 -0 defeat, which was just 1 - 0 with two minutes left to play, we then won or next game on penalties and were through to the second round. But lets not get bogged on details regarding the remainder of the competition, yet let us focus on the facts that not only did we get to play three more games, scored a few goals and were unabeaten in all the penalty shoot-out that we played in.

Although the day didn't end in glorious victory it was a definite improvement on our last couple of attempts and it helped bolster team spirit as my plans to turn our weekend kick-about team into an offically recognised team in the Estonain league for the 2010 - 2011 season.
But much much more on that topic at a later date.

Ingloriously Confusing Bastards

Went to see Brad Pitt and the rest of his Inglorious Bastards today.

Wow What a movie.

For those of you who haven't already seen it I won't say too much about it apart from the fact that I loved it, it was totally over the top and half of the film was in subtitles as the dialogue for fifty percent of the time is in French, German and Italian.

Normally watching a subtitled film isn't a problem. The problem arises when the subtitles aren't in English but in a foreign language, which in this case was off course Estonian. As Brad mumbled his few words in Italian his heavy American accent the audience roared with laughter while I sat there wondering what the joke was.

Luckily for me however I had Tiiu beside me to translate as fast and as quietly as she could.

On the way out of the cinema I couldn't help but take a picture of this weird 3D type type picture on the floor and then go for a ride on the vibrating chair. Come on people surely somebody has a joke or two about that last comment.