Pirates & A Titanic Week

Another week has passed and not a great deal has changed. My attempt last Tuesday to reap some kind of reward from my private pension pretty much failed, though the chap we went to see did comment that it was one of the largest he'd seen for someone of my age. Sounds good I know, but a fat lot of good it will do me at the moment. At 55 (in 16 years from now), I will have access to it but nothing can be done with it until then. It is possible, he told us, to transfer the fund to the bank but it couldn't be used as security against our house. So that's that. I'm sitting on a small fortune but can't do a thing with it.

On Monday of last week, my wife and I took our son to see the new Pirates film at the King's Lynn cinema. We were determined to treat him ourselves after his trip to London and found that tickets were being sold at half price - £3 instead of £6. So we booked them online, which turned out to be a good thing as when we got there, it was sold out and the queues were very long indeed. It had been some time since we had been to the cinema and it was the first time we had ever taken our son. The film was in 3D so we each had a pair of 3D specs and found seats down at the front. I'd never seen a 3D film before and had thought it was all a little over-hyped but I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it and found the whole effect quite wonderful. My son was quite enthralled and at several points during the film he raised his hand to touch whatever he thought had appeared in front of him. I have only one complaint and that is to do with the brightness and contrast of the film. I'm aware that they now use digital projectors over the traditional film and I did find the whole thing a little dim. But all in all it was a very nice experience and the film was pretty good too. I tell a lie, there is another little niggle and that's to do with the people we had to share the film with. The constant up and down of people to relieve themselves and the consuming of food really was quite irritating. A child behind us could be heard crunching its way through a boiled sweet and someone else a couple of rows away rustled a bag of some kind from beginning to end. You've probably guessed that I'm not a big fan of the cinema - I much prefer to recreate the experience in the comfort of my own home.

This week will be remembered for the 100 year anniversary of the Titanic disaster. Now I know there are some who are frankly a little sick of the numerous documentaries and general media coverage and I suppose there is a level of sympathy for this. I do though think it is important to mark the event and for those who have links to the lost, this anniversary has a special significance.

I've written of my fascination for Twitter and I have to say that I have certainly developed a keen fondness for it. I'm not quite at the stage of checking every two or three minutes but I do find myself updating my status at least once an hour. I do also really quite heavily on it for news and celebrity gossip. Breaking news does seem to appear on Twitter before it does anywhere else and where else could you discover what  your favourite celebrity had for breakfast or what their pet looks like? Trivial I know but for me it is another source of information. It's a constant stream of 140 character nuggets. Most of them are rubbish, but once in a while you do come across gold.

I am toying with the idea of keeping an audio journal. I think I've mentioned it before but this time I'm pretty determined to get it going. I really want to leave something in addition to the usual written thoughts and photographs. They won't be very long in length unless I have a lot on my mind. They will simply journal my life, as it is, day by day. I do already listen to a couple of audio journals, one from Richard Vobes and the other by Lloyd Bayley. They are both quite unique and in their own way very interesting.

I was going to complete a job application I had started a few days ago. It is for the role of IT Technician, again at a local (ish) school. I had pretty near completed it this afternoon when I discovered the position reported to an IT Manager. This immediately precludes me from the role as I have held senior positions previously so I didn't take the application ny further. It's a shame as it's the sort of role I'm looking for. The problem I have is the fact that I've held very senior positions and therefore applying for and being accepted for lesser roles is damn near impossible, such is my dilema.

As for my 'elephant in the room', I've been pretty much OK this last week, apart from the constant financial worries and fear of the post. I hate receiving post, particularly anything in a brown envelope or marked 'personal' or 'confidential'. I've written before that it's a constant struggle to stay above the water. Provided we managed to avoid a crisis, then I seem to cope. We're contributing a little toward the mortgage which is keeping the wolves from the door but it can't continue indefinitely. I know this. I'm made to feel worse this week as, because of our wonderful government's tax changes, my wife now has to work an additional day each week for us to continue to receive working tax credit. My wife had always wanted to reduce her hours to spend more time with our son, and hopefully care for a second child. This all seems further away than ever and I simply cannot see any remedy to the situation.