Notes of a Lazy Existentialist

How to get ahead in a competitive Marketplace #1 – Preparing for battle We have now been in a period of falling unemployment and increasing company growth for a couple of years. Even with economic uncertainty on the horizon, the job market has held relatively well at the back end of 2016 with unemployment falling from 8.9% last January to 7.3% in January 2017. However, that is not to say that a stronger economy doesn’t create a new set of challenges for companies. With more people in employment, more companies look to recruit and a drop in net migration it has meant filling those specialist roles becomes increasingly more challenging. This is especially the case in those critical areas where skill gaps already exist, such as IT, Engineering and Healthcare. More recently, instability caused by unpredicted political events (Brexit, Trump’s election in the USA, a hung parliament in the UK) have cast their shadow over the future of the UK economy. While the economy has held re

I left University in 2006, shortly afterwards the UK slid in to financial meltdown. Companies were struggling, unemployment was rife and even the large and iconic brands, like Woolworths, were disappearing. I was lucky enough to actually get a job during these dark times and started working for a procurement outsourcing company.   At the time, Procurement was suffering from an image crisis. It was a reactive process, often marginalised within companies. It was seen as a function that either dictated to teams what they could or couldn’t do or were seen as responsible for large scale redundancies - all in the name of scrimping some savings year-on-year. Then the economic downturn occurred and the winds changed. As companies all over the UK were not only forced to make savings, they were more importantly trying to continue to improve but with less money to do it. Forward thinking procurement teams and companies, such as the one I worked for saw these tough economic times as an op

Now there's nothing left unsaid With storm clouds gathering overhead On the glory of the moments passed between us A s she tells me how it goes The waves lap around at our toes And the rain scars the sand all around us As she wipes away a tear The fragile glory turns to fear And I don't know if we can survive In this torrent of despair I run my hand through her hair And say "nothing can pull us down now" I look in to her eyes Thunder raging in the skies I kiss her and we share in our neurosis For this moment we're alive As we fight just to survive And the flames of desire burn between us And I take her by the hand Water coursing through the sand And I know that we'll make it this time Now we're standing in the rain Glory flowing through our veins Nothing can pull us down now Now we're standing in the rain Fucking Glory in our veins And Nothing can pull us down now Nothing can pull us down now 

From here at my window I see last year's sparrows flit from the trees They are drawn to your sweet breath As you force a path through the fallen leaves Darkness is falling over our garden A shadow falls over your heart-shaped face The birds retreat over the blacked hills Night plunder any sound from this place Oh, darling sing me all those songs of sorrow Sing me all those broken lullabies And we'll rail against the silence And against those midnight skies Whisper slowly that you love me And we'll lay all those dogs to rest Hold my hand for those ghosts to see And lay your head down upon my chest Shafts of light splinter our garden The sparrows return to dance in the trees As we tread a path, hand-in-hand Through our garden and the fallen leaves

Stories have always been important to me. I've written, in fits and starts, for as long as I can remember. I can vividly recall being sat on cold pews in Chapel on a Sunday evening, furiously scribbling down fantastical stories, instead of paying attention to the service. Stories where masked men would burst through the door of the chapel, only to be thwarted in battle with the hero. Stories about pirates and hidden treasure; stories about suave spies foiling criminal masterminds; stories with ghost and ghouls and haunted houses. Even when I wasn't writing,  I was still making up large-scale war epics with my toys, or dressing up as James Bond and having globetrotting adventures without ever leaving the house and spending hours daydreaming in school. It was all part of my love of stories. Most Sunday mornings I used to walk around the wilds of the Llynfi Valley with my Dad, who would tell me stories of wizards, dragons and small people with big hairy feet. These stories for

This is a poem I wrote 20 years ago for a school Eisteddfod. The theme was 'water'. I originally wrote a serious poem about stalagmites and stalactites in a cave.  I  quickly got bored and decided that if I wasn't going to win, I was going to do something that made me laugh.  It won.