A Cut Above

Quick merging of images in-camera since tonight I'm not going to have much time to photoshop properly...

Once there was hair, then there was... Erm... Less. If my dad's anything to go by I'm not in much risk of losing hair other than with a trip to the hairdresser.

So. I didn't get the Guardian job I applied for. Apparently they were 'very interested in the online work which [you] included in [your] application', but there were a lot of applicants of 'high quality' and depsite this not being the 'ideal job for [you] right now, we hope it won't stop [you] applying in the future.' Or words to that effect.

Reading between the lines of the email I got it would appear that the position of beatblogger in Edinburgh, which would involve gathering stories from around the city and presenting them in an enagaging social media friendly manner, as well as being able to take photographs for use in the same, would be better suited to someone with a proper journalism qualification and proper journalism experience. Which wasn't included in the job advert...

So the links I sent them to my cycling website, this stream of conscious, my Flickr account, my Twitter feed, as well as examples of published stuff in the Evening News, Modern Mini, FIRM, Lothian Life and Singletrack, carried no weight in the end. Not enough weight for an interview even. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, and it could well be that my style of writing simply didn't go down well, or genuinely just isn't good enough, or they thought I was too specialised or limited in what I wrote about.

Or maybe my spelling was too gud*.

Whatever way, I wish they'd be honest so I could know, and if they have truly been honest then the advert wasn't...

Onwards and... Erm... onwards. Actually, with the most annoying thing about it all being the realisation that another avenue out of this particular job has closed, since I thought that job spec could have been written with me in mind (and I have no doubt whatsoever I could do the job with my eyes closed) so what are the chances of a proper journalism job?

But write I will continue to do. And write I have continued to do. The novel continues apace, and by God I'm happy with it. Very happy.

Confidence (is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as ... Parklife!).

I may have finally lost it.

Toodle pip.

*stock Grauniad joke