Day Seven- Poppers, Blowers & Bloomin' Sherbet

Hey ya Blog people,
                                 Right, first things first... I hate sherbet. You know, the children's sweet, basically just crystallised bits of sugar. It comes in the form of tubes, sherbet lemons and Dip Dabs. Hey, don't get me wrong I like the taste of it as much as the next guy... But being at absolute has made me realise something...

I HATE THE STUFF

Damn it people, I really do. I have been asked twice to get some for Gregg... and twice failed. Well the first time I managed Dip Dabs... but not this time... Anyway that part is for later in this blog entry.. Exciting!!!

So what have I learnt today?

• I hate Sherbet
• I hate party blowers
• The paperwork will NEVER get done.

Right so the day began on a good "sign" Basically I set my alarm/radio/clock to wake me up each morning, and I always have the radio turn on to wake me up. Obviously being at my uncles, frequencies for local stations are different to ones I am used to down south. So last night I scrolled through the tuner, and found a random station. I set that as my "Alarm station" and went to sleep... and you will never guess what... the station it turned out to be when my alarm woke me up? Only Absolute, well darn, ain't that something.

A good sign I believe. So lets skip the boring parts of the day...

I got to absolute, and find Guy is already there... Eager Beaver. He is sorting the post into the pigeon holes. Being the top guy that I am, I help him find people he can't find. Awesome, then I take the delivery of fruit up to the Zoo to put them in the bowls. Standard stuff so far...

Next I return to reception to ask Kerry if there were any jobs that need doing. There was. On each staircase wall, there is a "picture" which is basically different album covers in frames. But, at Christmas these are taken down to make way for "Christmasy" ones. For example, One is a picture of an old school Record with War is over by John Lennon written on it. You get the idea. In fact I took pictures... Yayssss.

Here is an example of the ones I had to take down...

And here is an example of one I had to put up.

Its a bit blurry, but rest assured its something to do with Christmas :D

So I do this with Guy, and then its time to create a new tree :D This is the big one... the mammoth. You will probably remember me saying there were loads of branches in the basement store cupboard. Well turns out they are all parts of the big tree. But as its the main on, it has to be put up in the Zoo. So we take all the boxes upstairs.

We set to work creating it. Its a standard creation process. Like, each row had a letter, and each branch had a letter. So if the letters matched on a branch to a row, the branch went in. My apologies, that was a rubbish explanation, but anyone who has ever created a Christmas tree will understand. So that takes a while, and half way through we are asked to prepare tea/coffee for a meeting...

FOR 15 PEOPLE

That is one big meeting... we had to use three trays... THREE! One thing I will say about Guy, he is stingy with the biscuits. I put a nice pile of shortcakes... He puts in three shortcakes and one bourbon... The bourbon was a nice touch, I must say... I love bourbons... you open a packet near me, they will be gone instantly.

Anyway we sort the meeting, no worries... SO back to sorting the tree. We put the tree together. It has some missing branches, and looks unhealthily thin, but still, its a tree, and Christmas tree's always make people happy :) Just like yesterday, everyone who walked past seemed to become enlightened and emotionally lifted. Tis the season :D I will take a picture of it tomorrow, as I know your all dying to see the creation :)

So me and guy go and get the tree lights from the basement. They don't work. Two boxes of 160 lights, and neither work. Typical. But before we can do anything about it, me and Guy are called to reception. Jonny Silver wants to see us. Hes the guy I've seen about, but not had a proper conversation with yet. He tells us about Press Cuts. Its the first thing I did when I arrived at Absolute. A quick recap, its basically news stories from the past day that involve Absolute. Basically we are given a pile of news stories, and what we have to do is summarise each story to a sentence, then put it in a word document, and send them to Jonny. Last week Nicola did it every day. So I needed a recap as well. We also had to look through the financial times to find "big" stories about companies, and also email them to Jonny.

I leave Guy to sort the Press Cuts, as I have a meeting with David from Agency on my timetable scheduled for 11am. I go to the Zoo, and find him. We then make our way to floor 2, so he can explain to me his job. He basically works with different agencies to plan advertisements with different companies. As, after all, advertisements are where commercial radio stations make the majority of their income. He explained about different aspects, like sponsorships and prizebigs them up. Reading it, you would think they were the Kings of radio...

WHICH THEY ARE =D... I am obliged to say that... On pain of no Cider at the Christmas party.

O that reminds me. Me and Guy are invited to the Christmas Party. Drunkenly ask Clive Dickens for a show... that's my plan. Its bound to work :) He is the Big Big boss before you ask. It will make my Thursday blog interesting though...

So anyway I can't keep the booklet, as apparently they cost £20 to make... darn.

So after I return to floor one to work on some Live Reads. Then at half 1, Eloise and Kerry treated me and Guy to lunch. Unfortunately, the fact I'm particularly fussy when it comes to "foreign" food (Well, with the exception to Italian) the suggestion of Thai, that was well received by everyone but me, was not taken up. So we went to a little food place called "Eat." One of those healthy places that no one appreciates. Only joking... it was actually quite nice. And they sell a lot of soup (Yay...)

Once we got our food (All paid for, courtesy of Absolute :D) we returned to the Zoo to eat. We all chatted, with me and Guy explaining what we want to do, past workys (Yes that is now our official title) and about work experience in general. They both did work experience a couple of years back. Turns out Guy already knew Eloise, as she had done a show with Ian Lee a few years back, which he listened to (I hope that's right :/) This meant that they were happily chatting about things I didn't understand.

It was all nice and friendly though so that was nice. And I think Eloise is a Production Assistant? I hope I got that right. Yesterday I called it Work experience helper person. Not the best title to have.

So next up for me was a meeting with Zoe (All previous meetings had been cancelled) I waited in the Zoo... then it was cancelled due to her being busy :( One day I will meet the enigma that is Zoe.

Then I had to cover reception. Someone wanted Clive Dickens... LOL I told her to jog on...

I didn't really

I was much better on the phone today. Polite, courteous. Though I must remember to write down names... hmmm

Anyway, it was finally time for me and Guy to hunt down decorations for the thin tree in the Zoo, as the current decorations were quite frankly... a shambles. On our way, Gaz (Who apparently hates being called that and is really called Gareth... since my first day I had wondered who Gareth was) asked if we could go and get him some party poppers, and party "Blowers" (Those things you blow at parties, that unravels. I will put a picture...

Its the sort of thing you expect to find everywhere. Well apparently Gaz couldn't find any, anywhere. Luckily, that shop I got tinsel from a few days back had some, so we went there and got some...

And then... the blowers... the god forsaken blowers. We looked everywhere. John Lewis, Clintons, even Hamleys for petes sakes. No where. It seemed we actually did look everywhere. Gaz wanted them for the drive show at 5, and we started our seach at 4, and it lasted over an hour. After a while I rang Kerry, to say we couldn't find them anywhere. She spoke to Gaz, and he said not to worry. We made our way back.

Seriously I hope me and Guy are appreciated for what we did. He tried so hard, power walking everywhere to try and find them. We put blood, sweat and tears into it... well maybe not that far. But we honestly looked everywhere. My legs were like lead when we got back... All love our love of Radio.

It was 10 past 5 when we got back, so time to sort the post and just gently chill before leaving at half 5.

IN YOUR DREAMS COLIN

That's what fate was saying.

I get back and Gregg wants me to pick up some stuff. Here's my facial expression when I found out

 He had a list:

• Mince Pies
• Stilton Cheese
• Ryvita
• Sherbet

So I think, okay a quick trip to tesco metro... no big deal. So I set off again, leaving Guy to sort the post. As expected I get the Mince Pies, Cheese and Ryvita from Tesco, but no Sherbet. I plan to get some Dib Dabs at the Newsagents on the way back... After all,, there are three on the journey back to Absolute from Tesco...

BUT NONE HAVE DIP DABS

By this time, its half 5, and I need to get back to get my bag and go to get my train. So I get back and explain the situation...

Turns out Sherbet is a big deal, as they need it for a feature on the breakfast show tomorrow. Whilst Gregg is trying to figure out what to do, Kerry comes to see if I'm about to leave. I explain the situation. She says she knows a sweet shop. I say I'll go... But I'm told not to worry, and to go as I was late leaving as it is.

I felt bad...

SHERBET IS EVIL I TELL YOU

Anyway that was my day. Walking and Sherbet... Dam Sherbet.

I need to sleep... I'll probably have a nightmare about Sherbet and Blowers.

D=

You stay classy Internet,

Colin