More miscellany

Well, I've finally got a job. It's not massive - a mere 10 hours a week, 6am-8am Monday to Friday, but it keeps me in honest verifiable employment, instead of leaving a huge hole on my CV. It's a cleaning job, which most people are condescending towards as in, it's only cleaning, but it's simple and, being part-time, my working day ends agreeably early. Located on the Medway annexe of Kent University, it's also just a short walk away from me and the building I'm working in - title: The Gillingham Building; that's original - is state-of-the-art having opened this very summer. There is a lt of building work going on and my supervisor said that I might be moved to a building nearing completion in the near future.
I've only been here one week though and already the company has been sold to an Irish company. The guy running the firm has spent 35 years in the business and began as a cleaner himself. We had a pep talk from our local head of operations that all our jobs were secure, but that we would be getting a new uniform, though seing as I have yet to be issued with one, that's not really much of a biggie. What is important is that the new chief executive will be inspecting us in our workplace, maybe even tomorrow, talking not just to the cleaning administrators but making it an issue to see the workers on the bottom of the hierarchical rung. Therefore, I'll have to work with an especially finer eye for things to make sure everything I do is ship-shape. We were also told to keep morale high, but I'm pretty happy as it goes anyway.

Last Sunday, Michael Palin went to a part of eastern Europe with which I'm a lot more familiar - Moldova and Romania. He started off in the country that does not exist - Transdniestr - a de facto rather than de jure entity. It's capital, Tiraspol, had a lot more life for Palin than when I visited it, perhaps because of the city celebrations. I wonder if the BBC crew had to pay the special visa fee that kicks in after 3 hours or whether they skedaddled with five minutes to spare. They were probably officially escorted in this unofficial state and that would explain why they took no pictures of the national stadium which is a state-secret of sorts. The BBC probably visited Transdniestr during Moldova's wine festival - a two-week festival in which visas are free, but entry is not visa-free. I know because when I went in 2005 we visited Tiraspol a few days before it's anniversary party (that lasts two days, purely so it is longer than Chisinau's, the Moldovan capital holding similarly timed carnivals).
Palin's guide in Moldova proper was wearing a UNICEF jacket which shows the circles the producers of this series move in, but hardly delving down to the local level. The hand-picked farmers Palin conversed with were asked questions about nostalgia for the former USSR. When I was there I was more interested in Moldova's relationship to Romania, given that they are ethnic Romanians. Palin did too, but didn't delve. The answer he was given was more a lament that Moldova had only land to offer (actually there is much more), rather than what I was told - that the Moldovan's have no intention of joining Romania again after the way the Romanians treated them in the 1920s and 1930s. There was also no mention of the man/woman imbalance (two-thirds of the population is women). Palin rounded off his trip with the band Zdob si Zdub, a band I have seen play live, but again kind of shows that Palin was operating in rather rarified surroundings.
Then it was on to Romania. He passed through the ancient Sighisoara and added to the Romanian tourist board's mythmaking about Bran Castle's links to the historical Dracula, Vlad Dracul (the Impaler), though Brasov, possessing one of the biggest Gothic cathedrals east of Vienna, didn't get a peek. On one of the train journeys, Palin talked to an 'ordinary' Romanian, who was reading a book by a native philosopher. The former Python said Britain didn't really have many philosophers to speak of. What?!?! Britain - no philosophers!?! After he made that comment I thought of Bacon, Hobbes and Locke within five seconds. And there are many more. Obvious what Palin did not study at university.
This travel series doesn't really have an impetus - a leitmotif - other than for a BBC jolly around an unfamiliar region. I watch it for the scenery, rather than the genial, largely inconsequential banter that is supposed to represent the 'human interest'. Before watching, I felt I wanted to keep this corner of Europe, mostly pristine and largely unknown to the western world, to myself and those who have actually ventured to such an enchanting. Palin's slight travel documentary means I had nothing to fear, but I was actually happy that he was, if only in a little way, demystifying this part of the planet. I don't know if my familiarity and continued interest in the area heightened the enjoyability of the episode, but it had more resonance than the first two installments.

One can tell a general election is in the offing. I'd prefer for it to happen in the spring so as to combine it with the local and mayoral elections and nor risk voter fatigue when next year's date comes around, but it seems a November poll has been fixed upon. I say this because the local Labour party has leafletted us extolling the sitting MP's man-of-the-people virtues. Given that he only has majority of 254, Paul Clark MP probably finds his position precarious and has given the impression in a snatched interview that he'd rather PM Gordon Brown MP wait longer. But the leaflet indicates that an inside source high up in the Labour food chain has given the nod to the constituency party to prepare for an autumn election. The official announcement from the prime minister is a formality.