Something from nothing.

I read a column in a certain Sunday newspaper today based on the premise that 50 years on, we still talk about Marilyn Monroe too much. "Isn't it time we let her go?" There followed 650 words or so of talking about Marilyn Monroe. I don't think I need to say much about the article itself, the point is obvious.

I've noticed that I read newspapers much less than I used to. In days of old, half of Saturday and Sunday would be taken up sitting at the kitchen table, drinking litres of tea and reading the multi-sectioned weekend papers. I was more of a comment and analysis junkie myself but I did venture into the "colour sections" - dated phrase notwithstanding. Whether I'd gained anything from it by the end of the day is debatable.

Now I find myself looking at the "gateway" columns that come at the front of the magazines before the more substantial cover stories, and thinking "what the hell are these people writing about?"

The fact is they write about nothing and do it rather well, in an entertaining and amusing manner. They eke out a minor event or passing thought into a weekly column and we lap it up. Good for them. They're skilled at their craft and give us something to read over the toast and marmalade on a Sunday morning. However, I think it's fair to say that a good half of the content of these magazines ranks somewhere between the inconsequential or vacuous and that which positively encourages people to care about meaningless lifestyle choices such as their choice of coffee grinder.

The irony of me writing a blog or column about this will not be lost on you, I'm sure. The difference between this blog and their columns is that I have a theme - a feeling of dislocation that will hopefully pass eventually. What they do so well is write about whatever pops into their head this week. My challenge as a budding writer is what to write about when my current material dries up.

Cut and run?

There are times when I feel it would be a lot simpler to cut my losses, call time on this venture and return to Taiwan. I've made an effort, applied for jobs and been to interviews. It hasn't been without value. I know a lot more about interviews, the UK jobs market and schools environment than I did and even feel what I've learned would be useful in Taiwan. I've reacquainted myself with my country and put my affairs in order. But given the lack of tangible progress towards a career, why not declare the obstacles insurmountable and hop on a plane. I could earn a comfortable living, have a good social life and feel at ease in my environment.

Sadly, this is not realistic. For one thing, there's the cost. It took a lot of money to ship our possessions over here. People sometimes ask me if I'll be visiting Rosey before she comes over in January! If I had a thousand pounds to throw around and could take time off before even starting any prospective job, maybe. As it is, it is neither realistic to return to Taiwan or to visit my wife.

That is not to say it will never happen. "See you next year" is a common refrain when expats declare they are leaving Taiwan for good and I've seen a good many of them return, sometimes with their tail between their legs, others openly admitting that they simply prefer life in Taiwan. For me, for us, I can't leave the UK until I have a basis to come back at a future date rather than returning to do this all over again. And there's no point in returning to Taiwan without experience that means life there is not just more of the same. Not to mention the matter of Rosey gaining UK work experience and moving down the road towards eventual UK citizenship. With those under our belts, we'll be a little more free.

Promises, promises.

Strictly speaking, I'm disabled. You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I am. This entitles me to a disabled person's railcard, which is nice, particularly for the person holding my hand, who also gets a third off their fare. I can't drive, so it seems fair enough.

The other thing it entitles me to do is to check the disabled box on job application forms. Where employers use the Two Ticks "positive about disabled people" symbol this means they have made five commitments regarding employing those with disabilities. They are certainly well meaning, aimed at increasing access to employment for disabled people, general awareness of disability issues at work and communication about these within organisations. However, to be meaningful, they must be in some sense verifiable and enforceable.

The first commitment is "to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for a job vacancy and to consider them on their abilities". The action itself is verifiable, dependant upon the condition of meeting the minimum criteria, which is potentially more open to interpretation. It is this one that concerns me, and more of it later.

The second commitment is "to discuss with disabled employees, at any time but at least once a year, what both parties can do to make sure disabled employees can develop and use their abilities". Discussing once a year is certainly an objective measure and a worthy one, though there is no guarantee that anything positive will come of it. Communication is a good thing, so we won't knock it.

Number three is "to make every effort when employees become disabled to make sure they stay in employment". "To make every effort" is pretty meaningless, it's certainly not a phrase that could be objectively verified. You could always do more, and you could probably do less and still claim you made every effort. Verbalising intentions does increase the likelihood of their being seen through however, so not necessarily a bad thing.

The next commitment states "to take action to ensure that all employees develop the appropriate level of disability awareness needed to make these commitments work". "To take action" means to do something. I suppose something is distinguishable from nothing. "To ensure" would be better (and ensure being a verb, action is integral) . Why "take action to ensure" rather than "ensure"? To make it vaguer, less meaningful, less enforceable. As for "the appropriate level" - that's highly arguable too.

Finally, "to review these commitments each year and assess what has been achieved, plan ways to improve on them and let employees and Jobcentre Plus know about progress and future plans". To review, to assess and to let know are demonstrable and hopefully do make some difference.

Clearly, the more meaningful a commitment is, the harder it is to achieve. No news there. But a commitment to motherhood and apple pie is still "A Commitment". Good PR.

Where this relates to me is the question of whether I meet the minimum criteria for the jobs I've applied for, whether the minimum criteria are actually open to interpretation and conversely, whether objectivity and mechanistic reading of applications actually makes it easier to exclude on a technicality those you don't wish to interview.

I've applied for a lot of Teaching Assistant jobs and got ten or so interviews. Some of these have been with authorities such as Brighton and Hove, West Sussex and East Sussex who are all committed to the Double Tick scheme. Others have been with Academies or other schools with independent employment policies, that don't apply this rule. I've got interviews for similar jobs in similar schools both where the policy applies and where it does not, meaning that I may have benefited from the policy in some cases but I have certainly been in the top five or six applicants in others. I've also not been invited for interview at some schools in all three of the above local authorities, in theory meaning that I didn't meet (or demonstrate that I met) the person specification.

Generally speaking, I think I both meet the minimum criteria and make a good candidate for interview for Teaching Assistant jobs and also do a good job of demonstrating this in my applications. This is born out by the fact that I've got interviews both in the three LAs above, and in Academies etc. Where I haven't got interviews with "Double Tick" employers, were the person specifications so radically different that I didn't meet them? Were they just worded subtly differently such that my application, though otherwise good, didn't check all the mechanistic boxes applied for fairness's sake? Were the so called "objective criteria" actually open to interpretation, or were technicalities used to avoid giving me an interview (because I wasn't actually one of the very best candidates)?

I have no objection to this. If there are five outstanding candidates and I make it to interview on the grounds of mere competence, I'm pretty unlikely to get the job and, other than honing my interview technique, I'm wasting my time and theirs. What I object to is meaningless commitments. I'm sure I'm competent to do most of the jobs I've applied for. I'm also confident of my ability to demonstrate this in writing. Whether I'm an outstanding candidate worthy of interview is another matter. So I can't help feeling that HR departments, faced with several outstanding (disabled or non disabled) candidates plus some merely competent disabled ones, won't want either to bump up the numbers coming to interview or abandon some of the better candidates simply to meet the requirements. So they interpret the supposedly objective person specification and what's written on the applications so as to exclude the merely competent and only invite the best candidates.

Getting interviews on the grounds of my largely irrelevant disability is good for my experience and in some ways good for my confidence - and there are other disabled candidates more in need of it than me. That doesn't stop it being a sham. Keep the meaningful parts of the policy, but don't make promises you can't keep. It only excites the Daily Mail tendency.

Any comments are particularly welcome on this controversial issue.

Baggage and luggage.

I've been tidying up. All the boxes of wedding presents have gone in the spare room. The junk that's been waiting to be thrown out for months (yes, I've been back for months), has been disposed of. My vinyl is neatly arranged ready to be played and every corner of the room is for the first time accessible. Order prevails.

Which has the uncomfortable effect of making it seem more like a functional bedroom and less like a staging post. The feeling struck me as I stood next to the window to draw the curtain as regular people do, rather than leaning over the stack of boxes filling the corner or more likely, just leaving the curtain closed as I had been doing.

The more livable in I make my room, the more paraphernalia I dispose of, the more contemporary I make it, the further back it takes me. Living with the baggage of my past and the luggage of my present, makes me a guest of my younger self. Occupying the room, annexing it to my current self makes it my life now!

The art of blagging.

I received a message from a skills website saying that, based on my profile they had an opportunity that I might be interested in. It was from a company describing itself as a literary consultancy, doing copy writing, editing etc. The advert, written in painful English said the company "seeks an writer for the occasional work on book covers..." "This shall be on a...." "You shall be registered..." "...would suit somebody whom wants" "send an email to myself for further information."

You gotta admire the balls of someone who can't write for toffee, setting up a company whose mission is to improve the copy of others!

Lesson: it's all about having the face to say you can do a job. Regardless of whether you actually can, if one person believes you, you're on your way.

How long will I be an ex-expat?

I''ve been the object of a lot of good will since I've been back. People have been very sympathetic and understanding towards me. I've been back for more than three months now and am beginning to wonder how long it can last.

In my first month, I made a concerted effort, applying for all the teaching assistant jobs that came up and successfully gaining eight or so interviews. Arguably, I lost momentum over the school holidays, with no schools jobs to apply for and no Plan B to put in their place. There was the hope that further TA jobs would come up in September and that my questions would answer themselves. There have been a number of positions come up but I've been less successful in gaining interviews, perhaps because some schools have a blanket policy of not interviewing candidates they've interviewed before. This seems a little absurd, assuming they interviewed 6 acceptable candidates and chose the best, the other five would remain at least acceptable and might prove better than any new applicants.

In the absence of any further TA opportunities coming up for the time being, I need a Plan B. This writing is useful, but it's no substitute for full time paid work.

The premise of this blog is that it aint easy being an ex-expat. But you can't keep on telling people that forever and you can't keep on defining yourself as an ex-expat forever! People will get bored and your life won't move forward. You have to do something new, here and now.

Hopefully, things will get better. And what then for the blog?

Down and out in Haywards Heath

I decided to volunteer at the Citizens Advice Bureau. It seemed like a good idea - as well as doing something socially valuable, it would keep me active, give me some structure in my life (get me out of bed in the mornings) and give me experience in a sector which I could potentially be interested in working in.

The nearest sizable bureau was in Haywards Heath - "the average sized town between London and Brighton on the A272". I had an interview with the area manager on Monday and and arranged to go in on Tuesday to get an idea of how they work.

On Tuesday morning, I arrived at Hassocks station to discover that Southern Railways' networked ticket machines were all simultaneously out of order. The ticket barriers were open and I was advised to pay my fare at the other end. On arriving at Haywards Heath, I found commuters forming an orderly queue as the staff rallied round in true blitz spirit, quickly and calmly selling tickets to the assembled punters.

I went in to the CAB again today to pick up a few more tricks. Arriving at Hassocks station in the morning, the ticket machine would not take my money and again the barriers were open. Assuming it was a similar problem to the other day I took the train, expecting to be greeted by friendly staff working hard to make up for the failings of information technology at the other end.

Instead, I was greeted by a revenue protection officer. "Any particular reason you didn't buy a ticket, sir?" I politely explained the situation, hoping it was plain to see that I was no longer 17 years old and trying for a free ride. "And why didn't you use the ticket office, sir?" he asked me. I explained that since the gates were open, I'd assumed the ticket office was closed, (a not infrequent occurrence on that particular under staffed station).

Long story short, he wasn't having any of it and in the faux polite manner of officialdom, issued me with a penalty fare of £20, (the standard fare being about £4). Again, no longer being 17, I considered my options and rather than getting hot under the collar, swearing at him or jumping over the barrier and running away, I gave him my correct name and address, paid the £4 I had in my pocket and signed the Penalty Fare Notice instructing me to pay the balance within 21 days. He was good enough to point out my right to appeal and advised me "don't say you were running late."

This set me up badly for the day and the fact that the CAB, through no fault of their own, didn't really have anything for me to do left me stewing all morning only to be reminded of the issue again when I had to make use of the station to get out of Haywards Heath.

I came home still feeling tense and genuinely a little upset. I knew the Revenue Protection Officer was only following the letter of the law, but who really believes them when they say they have no discretion in the matter. Too bad I'm not a leggy blonde or a little old lady.

On my way home, I considered stopping to buy a nice bottled ale from the shop. Discounting that, I considered stopping in the 400 year old village pub for a pint of Harveys (the local brew). Again, caution got the better of me. On arriving home I tried drinking tea, reading The Guardian and listening to Radio 4 in the kitchen to relax. It didn't help much. I tried juggling with devil sticks in the garden (usually very relaxing). It loosened me up a bit but I still felt bad.

Finally I went up to my room and leafed my way through mine and my brother's combined record collections. There's something very special about vinyl, its feel and the tactile nature of the process one goes through in putting it on. Combined with the classic tunes of Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd taking me back to the time when I was 17, I began to feel better at last.

I'm now off to the pub for that pint of Harveys with my dad.



*Additional research about Haywards Heath from www.thisishaywardsheath.com an invaluable resource, I'm sure you'll agree.

The 'late evening' garage.

We ran out of milk at around 9.30pm tonight. Tomorrow being Sunday, I thought it prudent to get some in immediately rather than attempting it on The Lord's day. Who knows how far we'd have to venture to find somewhere open and the thought of a day without proper tea fills both my mother and me with dread.

As it was raining, we took the car to the late night garage at the other end of town, only to find the shutters coming down at 10 o'clock. Taipei or London this may not be, but it ain't the Outer Hebrides either.

I swear I remember many occasions in the distant past when, after catching the last train from Brighton and before finally heading home, my friends and I sat on the wall outside the garage eating pasties and smoking cigarettes with only the alcohol in our blood to protect us from the cold and rain. Halcyon days.

It took another 3 miles to find somewhere open. I placed the milk on the counter and was asked by the cashier if I wanted anything else. "No thanks," I said cheerfully.

She pointed to the chocolates lined up by the till and said "Mars bar, only 66 pence?" as if reading from a script.

"No means no," I replied as politely as I could. What really irritated me was being put in a position where I had to force myself not to be rude to someone who was only doing as her employer insisted.

I want the convenience of the 24 hour garage but given that my reaction to her patter was probably comparatively civil, I wouldn't want to man it.