I’ll follow you if you follow me!

At last! An email from my recruitment agency! It’s promise of ”EXCITING NEWS” set my mind racing… A great job offer? A fresh perspective? Wise words of encouragement??

No, apparently the most exciting news they can offer me this week is that David Cameron is joining them on the 2009 OX5 fun run.

Now I am all for spreading the charitable word. Honest. To prove my point, here’s a link to the very deserving Oxford Children’s Hospital and a photo of me completing the 2008 London Marathon and raising £3,300 for Muscular Dystrophy. It’s just that after months of Sooty-esque silence from said consultancy, the content of this email was as disappointing as discovering I had been beaten by ScoobyDoo and a man with a fridge tied to his back.

Or perhaps I was meant to read between the lines? Was it in fact directing me to an incredible job in the Tory party?

Low and behold, the Conservative Party website does indeed show a variety of jobs on offer, all of which would make my Tory Councillor father-in-law very, very proud, even the slightly sinister sounding “Party Agent”. Beyond the blue, a website aimed at “everyone working for an MP” helped me find out what’s on offer within the other parties. As it turns out, not that much at the moment. Finally, being a huge Obama-nut (and West Wing fan), I snuck a peek at The White House to see if there were any intern positions. However without a US passport, I reached another predictable dead-end.

Grrrrr. Recruitment companies can be such a waste of time. Have angrily shoved their EXCITING NEWS into the SPAM bin where it belongs.

LMAO when this photo of my niece arrived in my inbox this morning with the caption “Sophie’s ninjaaaa death strrrike!” Therefore I have spent this morning researching whether I can make a career as a ninja or a “kunoichi” as us lady ninjas are known. Ninja’s and Samurai being secretive peeps, it’s obviously been a hard job to investigate. In fact, the only chap I found who made any money is the Ask a Ninja.

Undetterred, I decided to check myself against the ten steps to becoming a ninja (stealthily nicked wholsesale from WikiHow) 

Ten Steps to Becoming a Ninja

1. Decide upon a series of ideas, morals and philosophies to live by – I’m leaning towards a mix of Mr Myagi off of Karate Kidand Yoda.

2. Get and maintain a ninja body – Started this morning with a 3 mile run.

3. Know how to escape – successfully escaped the evil clutches of commuterism

4. Learn to control people and manipulate events not by force, but by words – Mr P says “as a female this should come naturally”.

5. Study the 18 different disciplines of ninjutsu – Reckon I am already skilled in Sui-ren (water) ie taking a bath and Kayakujutsu (pyrotechnics and explosives) ie cooking.

6. Learn how to move stealthily – Snuck up on neighbour this morning whilst putting out bins. To be fair, he is a deaf octogenarian but hey, it was a start

7. Feed your mind. With knowledge comes power – And with great power comes great responsibility. Watched Spiderman.

8. Master self control – It’s already 8am and I still haven’t eaten any chocolate. Result.

9. Practice ninjutsu in secrecy – Err….

10. Never publicize your aspirational status as a ninja -D’oh!! Failed

Consoled myself with my Karate Kid box set. Wax on. Wax off.

In place of a lengthy blog entry, here is a picture of my good friend and personal trainer Chris East enjoying himself larking about as an extra on the set of new film “Centurion”. You can’t see his “co-stars” Olga Kurylenko and Michael Fassbander but I’m assured they’re there somewhere.

When Chris isn’t running around Surrey dressed as an ancient Briton, his day job is helping patients at the Royal Surrey County Hospital or teaching people like me how to run marathons. When I had my first session with Chris he told me I ran like a “camp, asthmatic orc”. I’ll leave it up to you to pass judgement on his fetching outfit.

If you are interested in becoming an extra, I found these sites which could warrant further investigation Lost in TV, Film Extras, Casting Collective

Or maybe do some research by watching this first…

“I’m not some crazy hippy… I’m an ethnobotonist trained at Kew Gardens.”

So begins every episode of James Wong’s addictive show Grow Your Own Drugs. Ethno-w-t-f? Why was I never informed of such a position? Clearly another good idea the teachers neglected to mention on career day.

Hot chocolate with petals? Conker cream? Pine needle juice?! Pah! All potions I press ganged my brothers into “testing” during the 1980′s whilst Wong was still in short trousers in Singapore. All those wasted years “in training” in my back garden – I could be making a fortune by now!

If only my mum hadn’t noticed my penchant for adding a felt tip pen to my concoctions (for colour). Then I wouldn’t have had to sit through that dull chat about vivisection ethics nor had my mixing jars confiscated.

Intrigued by the idea of regaining my lost youth, I had a quick squiz over Kew Garden’s  MSc in Ethnobotony which shows ethnobotony has a broad description, relating to anthropology, sustainable development and agriculture. Mmmm it seems a lot less Hogwarts’ potion class than James’ makes out, perhaps ethnobotony is just a common and garden rebrand – Titchmarsh with a hint of Blumenthal. I looked for similar vocations with the same herbal content but more glitter and less smug country walks. Voila Lush - the shop you can smell from a mile away, the one that reminds you of The  Body Shop “when it was good”. They have a few  vacant store manager positions at the moment. I also had a brief look at becoming a Herbalist but decided that it wandered far too far into the realms of the aforementioned “crazy hippy” for me.

Regardless of this deadend, I felt it important to put my unrealised potion making potential to the test. I hacked down an unruly mega-sage from the garden and, a quick Google later, the house was stinking of vinegar as I cackled over a terrine full of jammy green gloop. The result, not quite an Echinacea Lollypop or Plantain Bite Relief but apparently goes nicely with roast pork or sausages.

Simon, Michael or Mark… care to test?

We met Peter Bjorne when he took us for a snowmobile tour through the Abisko National Park, zipping across the frozen Torne lake and up into the mountains to a cluster of Sami huts where his forefathers would have stayed during spring herding. When we stopped to take a quick coffee break (you have to be quick, or you end up licking a coffee popsicle) we quizzed him about his work.

Peter owns his own business, working outdoors all day and in all seasons. During the long dark winter, when the snow is at waste height, his fleet of snowmobile riders offer an essential delivery resource to the villages and towns 600 miles North of Stockholm. He carries anything; food, people, mail, rubbish. In summer, when the 5 ft thick ice field melts back into a lake, the snowmobiles go into storage and he runs a speed boat service for the hundreds of tourists that descend on the National Park.

All of this is on top of his more traditional career in reindeer husbandry, hence “Dead Derek”. It’s rude to ask a Sami how big his herd is but we did casually asked whether he used dogs to herd them. He laughed and said dogs would probably fall out of the helicopters they needed to use for moving 800 animals across 160,000km.

Everyone we met in the Arctic Circle seemed to know or have heard of Peter, had been employed by him or bought his services. He has an affectionate reputation as a sort of North Pole Del Boy.

In terms of a career for me, it doesn’t snow enough in Bucks to warrant investing in an Arctic Cat Sno Pro 500 but maybe a quad bike and a herd of those glow-in-the-dark Panasonic sheep …

The article also reminded me of my own teenage trip to the a careers counsellor. She asked what I liked studying, I explained that I was finding Nazi German history interesting and that I also enjoyed acting. She concluded that I’d probably make a good career in marketing and advertising. Career, almost. Good, well not really.

Mr P  is currently stretching his philanthropic legs by setting up free coaching courses for 16-18 year olds at our local school. I trust he takes all of the above into consideration when working with other susceptible minds.

An amazing viral ad for LED monitors?

Or an amazing incentive for me to become a Welsh shepherd?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iCXvJ-jJzI

Happy April Fools Day x

There are several reasons why I won’t be following up on this lead. A case in point as to why, might be that last night I sent 32 teenage girls home with red food dye all over their hands and lemonade in their hair. I am in the middle of writing an apologetic email to their parents to explain that this was the result of over-zealous cocktail making followed by blowing -up hand crafted volcanic islands (complete with inhabitants). The resulting lava was, by the way, more pink than glowing red, as you can see in the photo, (note to self: next time less vinegar more cochineal). This was a pretty tame evening compared to the week before last when I facilitated a series of games themed around “Blood, Snot and Diarhoea” .

I want to give the Guides as much opportunity as possible to take part in activities they would probably never do in school.

I haven’t been in a classroom for a good 11 years but I’m pretty confident that the 21st century curriculum doesn’t include cooking on an open fire, learning to raise copious amounts of money, night hikes, Longboat trips down the Thames or taking a GCSE in Chocolate. Guides, on the other hand, offers all this and more, especially now that we are in our Centenary Year.

And yes there really is a Chocolate Badge and yes of course I’ve earned one.

I think London is the greatest city on the planet and I could not be more excited about the London 2012 Olympics. Speaking to someone about my passion over the weekend has inspired me to start this week’s job hunt than by checking out the opportunities to get involved and get paid for being so excited.

The “Big Build” is now well underway but there is still a wide variety of onsite careers available for all levels of experience. Examples include JCB driver and mother of two Mary McElhinney  who successfully retrained at the 2012 “Digger School”, to this rather attractive group of twenty something professionals working for the delivery partners like Carillion, Atkins and Balfour. The scale of what they are working on is incredible and has to be seen to be believed. Until August last year I was working for the marcoms and events agency who were at the heart of the winning bid (before my time) and I had the chance to visit LOCOGs Canary Wharf offices. I remember standing in their top floor reception area, pressed up against one of the floor to ceiling windows gawping at the view over the vast construction site. If you can’t find a legitimate excuse to visit HQ, I recommend getting behind the big blue hoardings by going on one of the annual free tours round the site or pay for one of these.

With less than three years to go, there’s no time left for me to get the right engineering qualifications. However, I can look at joining the permanent team at LOCOG HQ which will be growing from 300 or so to 200,000 over the next 3 years. I counted 23 opportunities on the LOCOG jobs vacant page this morning – such a refreshing contrast from the “sorry, not currently recruiting” notice I keep hitting elsewhere.  Education Team Communications sounded interesting, there’s even space for a full time vet.  Beyond this, there will be 2012 “departments” in all of the 26 (and counting) London 2012 Partners and the four London Olympic Boroughs, although these are more likely to have been “crunched”.

The 6 hour commute makes it a bit of a stretch for a day job for me, but I’ve signed up in ink as a 2012 volunteer and will schedule for any forthcoming children to stay with my mum for the entirity of the Games. I’m sure they will understand.