More Losses
31 July

Early on Thursday morning, we all received an email at work calling us to a meeting.

From what had been going on for the past few weeks, the news came as no surprise. Six people were to be made redundant.

It's been just over four years since the last round of redundancies. We shall have to hope that the current situation does not mirror that of 2003 when one set of redundancies was closely followed by a second set.

I'm surprised that none of the training team have been lost. However, I do wonder if, at some point, Jill won't be asked to retire as she turns 66 in September.

Nevertheless, the move continues a trend which has changed the company I first joined in June 2000. I took up a post at a high tech company working at the cutting edge of web-based technologies which did training as a side-line. If you now look at the way the income is based, it is now, in reality, a training company which supports a technological rump.

Of course, I completely understand as to why the company's website doesn't project that image. But it is salutary to reflect that this is not something which is much dwelt on within the company either.

There is money to be made from social training in the current national circumstances. However, no-one in the company is experienced enough to be able to go out and grow the business by getting new work. I'm not saying that I can do that job. But someone really needs to be able to if we are all to survive.

During the 2006 redundancies, Gill expressed the opinion that my reaction was disproportionate to the reality of my situation. She felt that it had a lot to do with very old material that I carry round inside of me. This time, although, I feel a sense of loss at more colleagues disappearing, I don't feel personally threatened. Like those more closely affected, if it were to happen then I would simply get on with my life in a different fashion.

What is dispiriting in all of this is that management's only response to these economically difficult times is to shrink the business. It seems to me that there are plenty of other strategies that could be adopted.

I re-read Christopher Isherwood's novel A Single Man earlier this year. I gave that three stars and I'm not sure that I can give more to the film based on the novel.

Tom Ford has produced a stylistically chill film which reflects the world of the novel without too much of the waspishness. Julianne Moore is fine as the alcoholic friend. Nicholas Hoult is luxury casting as the tweetsy love interest, Kenny, even if his body, with its defined muscles and tan lines, is far too 21st Century for the early 1960s setting. Matthew Goode was excellent as the dead lover and Colin Firth as George gives one of those career defining performances which garner awards but which are soon forgotten because the film does not bear too much repetition.

I didn't like the film's interpolation of George's planned suicide. I don't think that Kenny would have shed his clothes quite so readily in front of his tutor in the 1950s (though we liked Nicholas Hoult's body). I'm uncertain about the level of community acceptance of George's lifestyle - the book is much more cautious. Still, it's the acting and the sharp clothes which carry it.

The following day, Nicholas Hoult also cropped up in Clash of the Titans though presumably he did this one for the money - it really cannot have been for the subtlety of the script or interesting characterisation or the moving critique of contemporary society.

Ross has been none too well the past few days with a sinus and ear infection. It's affected his energy reserves. The best that you can say is that, in his diminished condition, it provided a reasonable two hours' worth of entertainment.