Welcome back, pea! Gee, you get to go to a lot of conferences, don't you? Lucky duck.

I just saw Sheffield was flooded on the morning news here (along with vital information about Paris Hilton leaving prison). I thought of H and I am sure other people have mentioned being from Sheffield here - hope you are all okay.

Remember, don't go in flood water unless it is absolutely necessary - it is filthy stuff. Everything you see on the ground on a normal day and think "gross" at, is now floating in that water. Eewww.

Of course I missed you, Coastman. You are after all, the only reason I come to this site .

This Week on the Forum in a Nutshell (By Piglet):

404 and sue have been bored and lonely, so have been entertaining us all on the Last to Post thread.
Alicepalace has a cold but a 2000 word deadline looming so cannot fall in a snotty heap as she wants to. On the mend now and sleeping, so sssshhh.
Poor shani missed out on some important funding .
Someone has resurrected the Otto is Banned thread and now golfpro (bless his feisty heart) is having a minor biffo with someone on there.
Jojo and chrisrolinski are bogged down in writing and corrections (grrr - we all know how pooball that is).
And another crazy Aussie has appeared (hermaatje) on the forum. Welcome hermaatje!

In the world of Piglet, this week has seen me continue working for a pittance in a shop while furiously applying for "real" jobs so I can tell the shop people to go jump with their $16.62 an hour .

Hiya Coastman!

...and pea and H.

Go to bed early, drink lots of water and keep warm - tuck your shirt into your pants if you have to! Hope you feel better soon.

Did anyone else see the Views for this thread at 6666? Cool! Gone now though, sorry.

Boo hoo.

Thanks for your support, shani. I have spent today applying for "real" jobs, so fingers crossed something else comes up soon.

Funny thing was I overheard a guy telling a customer how great a particular Cabernet blend wine was...except it was a classic Rhone Grenache/Shiraz/Mourvedre wine. Oops!

Tee hee. I have shoulder-length dark blonde hair. Thinking of going shorter and dark for a change soon. Wish I could sing like Missy though.

Job is poos and bums and wees (as my 9 year old nephews would say). I dislike it immensely and am terrible at it. I get scared of the customers who ask me about a wine and I have no idea what wine they are talking about. I live in fear that I will recommend a wine and it will be disgusting. I got a minor telling off for not paying attention to the front counter last weekend, but I was only doing another job I had been told was urgent and had to be done right away. I am getting paid a pittance and although I work 9-10 hour shifts, no one takes any breaks and they look at you like you are a slacker if you ask if you can take a 15 minute break to eat something after 6 hours on your feet. Boo hoo.

I am treating it as the perfect incentive to get a "real" job ASAP!

Feel free to comment even though you haven't started your PhD yet, Walmin. The forum has been so quiet lately I think I would talk to a street light if it knew what a university was and posted on here.

I had a dream about the forum meeting for drinks in what looked like my old school staff room and we ate strawberry sponge cake. In my dream H's real name was Hamila, Ann had red hair, sylvester looked like Borat and katq was a beautiful blonde. Weird given I have never met anyone from the forum and don't know any of you in the way H and Coastman know each other in real life.

404, I always picture you looking like the Aussie singer Missy Higgins!

I tell other people stories I have read on the forum and then think "where did I hear that?" and then giggle to myself when I realise it was on here. Sometimes I have to hide the truth a bit and say "I read this funny thing on the internet the other day..." and don't mention it was on a forum.

It needs some vegies I think...

Ha ha, I am with UFO! Plain old "unemployed". I am certainly not going to use my "sales assistant" title.

I used to say "student" unless it was uni-related in which case I was "PhD student". I try to avoid mentioning the PhD word as much as possible in the non-academic world.

I can provide the drinks, just don't expect me know anything about them.

(alcoholicbeverage)

First shift at new job this afternoon and am very, very scared. Can anyone explain the sensory profile differences between a Cote de Nuit and Cote de Beaune quickly please????? Arrrrgggghhhh.