What's an iBox?

This Thursday I'll be flying to Timaru in one of those little planes. I'll be staying down south till the following Wednesday. I'm looking forward to getting away for a few days.

We had the autism group tonight. We split off into three subgroups of five or so. In our group was a woman I hadn't really met before. She didn't speak although she was very facially expressive; she communicated by tapping out messages on her phone. At one point we discussed physical exercise and she handed me her phone which showed the simple message "I box". For a few seconds I was picturing some sort of Apple gaming console. Ah, you do boxing. Now that's proper exercise. Her next message said that she used to cycle at national level but came off her bike at speed and suffered a brain injury. Judging by her insightful messages all evening there seemed little wrong with her brain. Tom was also in my group and was busy unscrewing a table with his Swiss Army knife and Leatherman. It's actually quite comforting to know that he unscrews other furniture besides mine.

One of my team-mates at work got fired last Thursday. Sacked, dismissed, however you say it it's not good. Part of her role involved taking calls from customers; she'd receive points (which converted into dollars) for certain outcomes, for instance if someone rang in to cancel their policy but she retained the business. Apparently she'd been fiddling the points. I don't know the ins and outs of it all but it doesn't sound clear cut to me. Some of my colleagues aren't happy with the way she's been treated. She plans to take legal action. I think the incentives work on a dollars-per-point basis, but if you don't reach a certain monthly target you get nothing for that month. I think that's an unfair system, and some people will try to beat unfair systems if they can.

There was a headline in Saturday's Dom Post: "Wellington dithers while Auckland hums". I'm not sure what kind of hum they're talking about because whenever I go to Auckland I don't hear it. I think it's more of a "kerching" than a hum - people flock there (from within NZ and from overseas) because that's where the jobs are. House prices in Auckland continue to skyrocket. On TV last night they showed a (Pakeha) woman struggling to get a toehold on the Auckland property ladder, who was particularly interested in a house because it was number four and Asians might be put off by that. "Four" sounds very similar to "death" in Mandarin. When house numbers start to become a major consideration, something isn't right.

Mum and Dad have just bought their third property, and their second flat in St Ives. I asked Dad what would be next - he assured me there wouldn't be a next. My parents have always been interested in houses, and like looking at them - particularly new developments - when they drive somewhere.

I went to my cousin's place on Saturday night. We watched the All Blacks game against France. I only had one eye on the game, if that. There was much excitement at a couple of the All Blacks' tries but I didn't share in it. Unlike tennis I don't really get rugby, even if I watched some of the most recent World Cup. At least the match finished with a tennis score (30-0) although I thought the French were unlucky to get nil.

Next month they're having a Great Gatsby-themed mid-year work function. Should I go? I'm not sure I can face the prospect to be honest. Last year I was in Auckland when the function was on so there was no decision to make. No such luck this time.

App games: it's time I got a life

I've recently dipped my toe into the vast sea of app games, really to get ideas for my own app game, the first (non-live) version of which should be in my hands in a few days. I downloaded four free games and I thought I'd give a review of them here.

Candy Crush Saga

This game has overtaken Angry Birds as the world's most popular app game. I can see why: it's fast-paced and busy, constantly bombarding the user with animations and sounds. It took me a few minutes to twig what you were supposed to do, probably because I'm a bit thick. The object is to swap adjacent pieces of candy to create lines of three identical candies. The first couple of levels are very easy so that you're hooked in at an early stage, and this game has more hooks than a coat rack. There's a ticking clock in the background (What's this for? Is there a time limit?). It turns out that every half-hour you play, you gain an extra life. You can also buy extra lives or gain them by sharing your score with your Facebook friends, if you have any, and of course many people have hundreds of them. The colour scheme and candy-store theme are quite feminine; attracting that half of the population has played a big part in the game's success I think. As for me, well I completed about ten levels, hardly scratching the surface of the "saga", then promptly uninstalled the game (it's nice that it's so easy to rid yourself of apps if you've had enough of them). I quickly tired of the booming voice telling me something was "sweet!" or "tasty!" every few seconds. All the colours were over the top, and when I saw coloured fish crawling over my screen accompanied by fairground music, I wondered if someone had spiked my tea. And my lack of a Facebook presence renders the game unworkable for me. I won't give it a star rating: Candy Crush is very cleverly designed but it ain't for me.


4 Pics 1 Word

This is a puzzle game, each puzzle consisting of four pictures which combine to give a single word. Beneath the pictures are some letters which you use to form the answer - this can be anywhere from three to eight letters. My cousin and her family have played this a lot; it makes a very good family game. Some of the puzzles could be solved by quite small children and would provide a useful, fun tool for helping kids with spelling and vocabulary, while others would probably need grown-up eyes and brains. Difficulty varies a lot from one puzzle to another but it isn't in any sort of progression: puzzle 173 might be harder than puzzle 456. That's not such a bad thing; it doesn't lock out the younger family members after a certain point by producing a stream of hard-to-get words. And there are a lot of puzzles. I visited my cousin's place last night and there was a real sense of anticipation as we homed in on the 1000th (and supposedly final) puzzle. What would happen after completing the last puzzle? A big fanfare? Something asking you to shell out money for more puzzles? What actually happened was puzzle 1001. Everything is very clean and slick, with just the right amount of sound and animation. Sure, the pop-up ads on the free version get annoying, but I can't blame the designers for wanting to make money. My only criticism would be the choice of letters which you pick from. The unused letters seem to be picked at random from the alphabet; this means the low-frequency letters appear more often than they "should". Sometimes you'll even get a selection containing say three Q's and no U, in which case you can disregard the Q's immediately. That's really just a minor nitpick - I'm happy to give 4 Pics 1 Word 4½ stars.

Gyro
Quite a simple game which had me hooked from the start.
There's a wheel split into three coloured segments in the centre of the screen; using the touch-screen you rotate the wheel to catch coloured flying balls by matching them with the correctly-coloured segment. As you might imagine, the balls get faster as the game progresses. The more consecutive balls you match correctly, the points value of each subsequent ball increases, and it does so in quite an ingenious way. However if you mismatch a ball, the "energy level" of one of the three sectors reduces, as does the points value when you next catch a ball. When the energy level of any of the sectors reaches zero it's game over. Some of the balls have special powers, for instance one type of ball creates drones (they're all the rage these days) which ward off rogue balls. The worst ball to collect thankfully occurs only rarely: it reverses the rotation of the wheel, leading (for me at least) to certain death. The game has many subtle but rather cool features. The balls leave a trail as they streak across the "sky"; if you mismatch a ball the handset vibrates; as you approach your personal best a circle appears showing whatever username you picked for yourself, closing in on the magic colour wheel until your record is broken. I love the spacey feel of the game, the simple colours and the choice of font. As your high score climbs ever higher, you move up a ranking system. My last attempt, which was a huge improvement over my previous best, only elevated me to the third of 13 possible ranks. I haven't played since, but as each game only lasts a few minutes I may well do so again without feeling especially guilty. All in all Gyro is a suberb game: 5 stars.

7x7
As the name suggests, this game takes the form of a 7x7 grid. The object is to rearrange coloured squares around the grid to create lines of four (or more) of the same colour in a row, which then disappears. It starts off nice and easy, but rapidly becomes very difficult. And that, to my mind, is the biggest flaw of 7x7. However, the game is an interesting mix of skill and luck - there's a lot of strategy involved in deciding where to move each square to maximise your chances of still being able to move on future turns. You can see what colours are coming up next, and that makes strategy considerations even more involved. Odds come into play, as do other poker-like concepts such as inside and open-ended straight draws. If you do clever stuff like make two lines in one go, you get extra "lifelines" which are crucial in being able to survive later on, but you can only really collect these lifelines in the earliest levels and I don't like that your survival (or not) of level four is so dependent on what you did in level one. There are other things that could have helped make the game more marketable. It's too static; it needs a few more lights and sounds. Someone wisely pointed out that the "try again" button implies failure, and "play again" would have been better. And perhaps most importantly, the name could be more appropriate. It's true that the game is played on a 7x7 grid, but that's really only incidental. Four is the key number, not seven, so if the name is to contain a number at all it should be four. Still, I can't be too critical. Creating a fully functional phone app isn't easy, and it's kept me occupied for a few hours already. I'll give it 3 stars.

Sudoku - a cure for chronic depression?

Last night I saw Julie at her flat. She was in her dressing gown. She talked and talked, replaying conversations she'd had with this or that person, expressing anger at things people had or hadn't said. As usual, she lost me in a sea of he-saids and she-saids. I'd interject occasionally with "mmm, that's right" or "that must be hard". Sometimes she said she was at rock bottom with nothing left to lose. A friend of hers in Raumati suggested she move into a nearby flat. Julie said that would only make things worse. I then told her she'd contradicted herself because she'd said things couldn't get any worse.

Julie is in a lot of mental and physical pain, but I'm sure things would be much better if she had a family. She's got an extended family of course, and a handful of friends, but none of that comes close to having your own children. (I'm guessing here because I haven't got kids, but I have got a mum, and I've got a bond with her that I don't think you can have with anyone else.) I think of my maternal grandmother who had seven children; she was always having family popping in and was always on the end of the phone.

Last night I noticed Julie had a Sudoku book on her shelf. I picked it up - there were no marks in it. I thought it might be a good way to stimulate her, but she was too busy replaying conversations to be interested. She asked me what she should do and say the next time a particular person came over. "What would you do?" I couldn't give her a satisfactory answer. Eventually, with the Sudoku book open at page one, I said, "what I'd do is put a one in this corner." She laughed, I explained the rules, and we finished one of the easier puzzles. She was in so much pain though (her medication was overdue) that I felt under a lot of pressure to finish it as quickly as possible. And what if it went wrong? I've never done such a stressful Sudoku in my life. In fact I hardly ever do Sudoku these days (I've never been that big a fan anyway) but last night's puzzle served quite a useful purpose I think.

I spent longer at Julie's than I'd planned and ended up getting a takeaway from Golden Sun. Three doors down from the takeaway is Evil Genius (have a look at their website), a shop selling vinyl, coffee and other stuff and I'm unsure of. It was still open, and according to their site it's open till four in the morning (ish), even on weekdays. How does that work? I mean, Berhampore isn't somewhere people "hang out". Where does the money come from to allow you to stay open 20½ hours a day? I'm glad it does work, or seems to. I had a good look in the window but I didn't dare go in: I felt too old, uncool and musically clueless.
Edit: it actually closes (normally) at 4pm, not the 4am I assumed. There happened to be a special event going on when I walked by.

The world's oldest man died yesterday at the age of 116, which (as I found out this week) is the height of my work building in metres. It's also nine-eleven upside down. Talking of numbers, I found this interesting post and video on Language Log (a language-related blog) about the extensive use of numbers in Chinese puns. Because there are so many homophones and near-homophones in Chinese languages, the word for five (say) sounds similar to a bunch of other words. In my time in France I remember seeing 109 (cent neuf) standing for the identically-pronounced sang neuf, meaning "new blood". You'd also see K7 standing for "cassette" (they're pronounced the same in French). And of course in English people use 2 and 4 all the time in their texts. But it seems the Chinese do this kind of thing on a different scale entirely.

I know I need to meet new people but doing so causes me a lot of stress. It's a real catch-22 for me.

Fog lifting?

I felt stressed for most of the weekend. It seemed impossible to switch off from everything going on in my head, which meant that everything I did, or tried to do, was shrouded in dense fog. I was busy all weekend - at least it felt that way - but I never felt like I did anything of significance. I went for a longish walk, went to the market, did my chores around the house, played around with a few phone apps (which I need to do as part of my "other job") and spent a fair while on the phone, but didn't talk face-to-face with anyone unless the market stallholders count. That's not an unusual weekend for me; when I return to work on a Monday and someone asks me what I did at the weekend I often end up saying "nothing special" or words to that effect.

At lunchtime today I saw my support worker (have I mentioned her?). Her main job is to help people look for and keep jobs, but when I see her I often drift into territory that lies outside work. Today it felt we were getting somewhere, and I think my fog cleared a little as a result.

I had to phone a few customers at work today. Considering how hard I find certain people-related situations it's funny how I don't mind calling customers, and sometimes even like it, except when they ask me something I don't know the answer to and I feel silly. Today I found myself in an interesting situation when a name I knew flashed up on my screen. I checked his notes and one of my colleagues had written "I spoke to him, he said he's autistic...". Yep, definitely the guy from the group. He'd applied for an automatic acceptance policy (no underwriting) and it's easy to see why: he's very overweight and with his past history of addictions he'd struggle to get cover otherwise. He'd be about five foot five in every direction and his trademark braces make him a very recognisable figure. Some of his comments on Monday nights make me wince ("when I feel down I fire up YouTube and listen to one of Hitler's speeches"). Eww. His view of the world lacks any shades of grey, and he can get worked up over issues to the point of being scary, but he's also highly intelligent and can be very friendly too. Anyway I was really supposed to ring him but I just couldn't. How could I pretend I didn't know him? What if someone listens to my call (which is recorded)? I saw his birthday was imminent so I sent him a text wishing him a happy birthday and, er, by the way, if you provide your payment details I'll put your policy in place. I found it interesting that he told my colleague he was autistic - he seems to identify strongly with the "brand".

Julie sounds like she's in a pretty bad way and I don't think I can do much to help. Our 45-minute phone conversation on Saturday (which was really her conversation) could have been summed up in seconds: "I'm in a lot of pain, I feel hopeless, and I don't want to live any more."

So Nadal did make it eight French Open titles and twelve grand slams in total. Quite remarkable really. Some of the results in the latter stages of the tournament (Tsonga beat Federer 3-0; Ferrer beat Tsonga 3-0; Nadal beat Ferrer 3-0) show the importance of match-ups in tennis.

Collecting

I stood in the cold on Lambton Quay for an hour and a half on Wednesday evening, trying to raise money for Autism NZ. There was plenty of foot traffic but the weather didn't help; people just wanted to get home. It was also hard to get noticed, unlike last year when we put up a stand at the entrance to New World. To my surprise two blokes each gave $20. I was the next biggest donor (a $10 note and a bunch of small change) but of the thousands of others who walked past me, only ten or so donated. If everyone had given just a dollar, what a difference it would have made. It can't help that so many people live cashless lives. I stood next to a bus stop for some of the time; bugger those Snapper cards.

I can't remember anything of Thursday except that after work I walked past a café that I hadn't really noticed before on the corner of Dixon Street and Courtenay Place. It has lots of old shabby furniture. I heard the latter half of what seemed like an amazing song blaring out of the speaker. The only lyrics I caught were "Jump On My Shoulders" which happens to be the title of the song. I Googled those lyrics after going to the gym. When I listened to the song (by a band called Awolnation) on YouTube it no longer seemed amazing, just reasonably good. I must download the Shazam app (which can identify songs as they're played) when I ... um ... get back to using my smart phone instead of my dumb one.

Last night I saw the Great Gatsby at the Embassy with the work social club. It's good for me when the social club organises a movie because I can participate without having to be very social. I read the book in 2009 and I can see why it's viewed as the great American novel. I didn't realise that F. Scott Fitzgerald was so damn young when he wrote it. The movie wasn't bad either but I preferred the book and I felt the movie was half an hour too long (one of my colleagues said two hours too long). They could have cut back a bit on Gatsby's use of "old sport". Visually it was quite spectacular though. After the film a few people, including my boss, wanted to extend their night out but it was an easy decision for me to go home.

I listened to bits (when I wasn't asleep) of last night's gripping semi-final between Nadal and Djokovic. The other three grand slams have produced all manner of great men's matches in recent times but this time it was Roland Garros's turn to come up with a real classic. It wasn't just the quality of play and closeness of the match, but the significance of the outcome. Luckily I woke up in time for the fifth set. During the most dramatic game of that set, which saw Djokovic broken for 4-4, the commentators did justice to the historical significance of it all. The crucial moment was perhaps when Djokovic touched the net to hand Nadal a break point in that vital eighth game, but it's easy to single out individual moments. Had Nadal served out the match at 6-5, all those "crucial turning points" in the fifth set would never have happened. With a staggering record at Roland-Garros (58 wins and only one loss), Nadal must be a fairly heavy favourite to win a record eighth title.

Could I live with other people again?

Martin came over yesterday. He'd just been working as an extra for the second Hobbit film - they needed tall people. He thinks he might be called upon to play an orc in the third film. We played squash, or tried to, and the rest of the time just talked. I'm a bit embarrassed of my flat when people come over - I have way too much space for one person, and you can't help but give away a lot of information about yourself when people see how you live. I'm toying with the idea of taking on Martin as a flatmate (he's not all that happy with his current arrangements). The money would be handy. But I haven't lived with other people for six years, and the idea of living with someone I sort of know is scary. I think I'd almost rather take my chances on someone I don't know from Adam.

Last night we had the autism group. It was a really good session, the best in a long time. Some of the quieter people are gaining in self-confidence and contributing more, which is excellent. After work tomorrow I'll be collecting for their annual appeal (due to some calendar stuff-up, this year's collection is in midweek, which is a shame).

I listened to an interesting programme on the radio yesterday. David Stuckler, author of The Body Economic was interviewed. According to him (and contrary to what you hear from politicians and in the media), recessions are health-neutral. In other words economic downturn doesn't make people sick, but how governments react to the situation just might do. In particular, he says, austerity (a word we've heard so much of in the last two years) is a killer.

Tommy Haas marches on at the French Open. He hardly broke sweat last night as he beat Mikhail Youzhny to reach the last eight.

I think we can safely say it's officially winter now. The weather took a violent turn early this afternoon as heavy rain combined with gale-force winds. The colder, wetter weather obviously means people wear a lot more clothes, and that makes life more interesting when you're wandering through (or sitting in) town. On my better days I almost go as far as caring about what I wear, and I should probably write about that some time.

I saw Julie tonight at her flat in Berhampore. Unlike some residents of the suburb (including those in one of the rest homes she stayed at) she wasn't evacuated in the early hours of the morning due to a landslide. Just as well; that might have been the last straw for her.

Ways to make a living

The opening night of Dad's UK exhibition was a success. He sold about a dozen paintings. He still has quite a following in his old stomping ground, which he hasn't come close to matching in New Zealand. I'm really proud of Dad (and, if I'm honest, a little envious). Not many people can make a living in the way he has. Mum's career as a primary school teacher is also something to be proud of. Since the early seventies she's been shaping people's lives; that's high-stakes stuff. Then there's my brother; his army career is awe-inspiring. All three members of my immediately family have been very good at their jobs for long periods of time, while I've been good at mine only very sporadically.

A riot broke out yesterday at Spring Hill, a prison in the Waikato. I wonder what sparked it, if anything. Back in 1990 there was a huge riot at Strangeways, a maximum-security prison in Manchester, that lasted weeks. It succeeded in bringing about major (positive) changes to prisoners' living conditions. A fly-on-the-wall documentary series about Strangeways is currently being shown on TV here in New Zealand. It's grim stuff, but strangely compelling viewing. One of the featured inmates makes a perpetual dirty protest; the amount of time spent on him is unreal and it all seems so futile. Another inmate (that for some reason I found endearing) talked about going to the gym: "If I had to choose between the gym and doing loads of drugs, I'd take me gym. Well, come to think of it, I quite like both."

I've been enjoying the French Open tennis commentary on the internet. You can choose to have the commentary in either French or English. They now have a Kiwi by the name of Matt Brown on the Anglophone team; I've been impressed with his knowledge of the game. Perhaps the match of the tournament so far took place last night while I was sound asleep. Tommy Haas, who's older than me by a full two years, beat John Isner in five sets. Remarkably Haas saw a dozen match points slip by in the fourth set, then had to save one en route to winning 10-8 in the decider, taking it out on his 13th opportunity. Grand slams produce these kinds of battles that you just don't see the rest of the year (and it's hardly a surprise that Isner should feature). Kiwi hope Marina Erakovic was beaten narrowly in the third round last night but she'll still get a helpful rankings boost.

Continuing the sporting theme, I saw this superb cartoon about club football. It's hilarious and very well done, and shows how unbelievably irrational some football fans are.

Tomorrow is a public holiday. Why we have a day off for the Queen's pretend birthday I'm not so sure, but I'm not complaining. Martin will be coming over. I haven't seen much of him lately.

Doing OK

Last weekend was a bit stressful. I spent most of it making, formatting and checking puzzles. And unlike a crossword or other word puzzle, these were basically grids full of numbers, à la Sudoku, and a lot less fun to make. On Sunday I went to Zealandia (the wildlife sanctuary) with a few other people from the anxiety group. It was the Wellington Open Day so instead of the usual exorbitant entry fee it only cost $2 to get in. That of course meant that every man and his dog made their way there (road works around the Karori tunnel didn't help matters) and a lot of the animal life sensibly decided to hide. One of the guys in our group was a big help with his knowledge of flora and fauna. It was nice to get out and get some human contact but really my mind was elsewhere.

I just had my latest mini-appraisal at work. I'm doing a bit better than I thought. When I think about it, I take more pride in my work than I did when I was getting paid twice as much (it's hard to take much pride in your work when you don't know what you're doing). I'm also much more aware of what my colleagues are doing (in my old role I rarely had a clue) so I'm able to prioritise a lot better. Although I'm generally doing OK, I know that OK is as good as things will ever get for me in this kind of work environment. I'll admit that today my eyes did glaze over at times when my boss showed me a new task. It probably didn't help that he made extensive use of the words "liaise", "deploy", "utilise" and "populate".

I spoke to my parents on the phone last night. I'm flying down to Timaru on 20th June to spend a few days with them. Dad has an exhibition in the UK starting very soon. It's a shame he can't be there for it. Dad won the singles competition at the indoor bowls club on Tuesday night, beating Mum in one of his games. He gets a trophy for his efforts and now has to play off against other club champions in some regional competition. Who knows, maybe he'll get a call-up to the national team; I think they're called the Black Mats or Mat Blacks or something. It's all quite amusing because, from what I can tell, he can't stand the game.

Life's a gas

I was back to work today, despite all the burping and farting.

I wasn't feeling well after work on Monday so didn't go to the autism group afterwards. That was a shame because one of the topics of discussion was relationships, something I'm almost totally clueless about.

A news story last week made me think a bit. In 2009 there was a huge fire in a rural area outside Nelson, destroying a home and a forest. A couple have recently been found responsible for the fire: the High Court ruled that their dumping of hot ashes started the blaze. They have been ordered to pay over $1 million (money that they haven't got) in compensation. They weren't insured. I've seen a fair bit of comment on the couple's plight. OK, you can say it was irresponsible not to take out insurance and to dispose of ashes like that, but it was also extremely unlucky that the fire spread like it did. I certainly felt sympathy when the couple were interviewed on TV. The woman made what I thought was an interesting comment (I'm paraphrasing here): "We've been left without hopes, dreams or goals; nobody deserves to live like that." It got me thinking: are hopes, dreams and goals basic human rights, like food, water and shelter? If so, I've spent some long periods of time without those basic rights; if not completely hopeless I've definitely been dreamless and goalless.

Talking of insurance, Campbell Live have done a series of programmes looking into the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes, and rightly so. As I see it, thousands of Christchurch residents have been left totally hopeless, dreamless and goalless by EQC, the insurance companies and the government (who really need to be putting a rocket up the insurers' arses). It's really not good, but having worked in the insurance industry (albeit in a different line of insurance) for several years, it isn't that surprising. By and large, the people I work with who speak to customers on the phone all day do a pretty good job. When I hear their calls, either they care about their customers or are doing a good job of pretending they care. However, none of those people make any of the big decisions that steer the company either one way or the other, and I've got a horrible feeling that the real decision-makers are too detached from their customers to really give a monkey's about them.

The earthquake goings-on (or lack of them) made me wonder why parliament was sitting "under urgency" last Saturday to approve fuel tax rises and make it illegal to protest at sea. Haven't they got more "urgent" things to be dealing with?

Needed a break

I took a sick day today, my first in eight months. I'm not that sick, but for the last three days I've had a sore tummy with regular gas emissions from both ends. I've also been feeling stressed and have been struggling a bit with work, so with plenty of sick days up my sleeve I didn't feel too bad about taking the day off.

I managed to upset Julie in a fairly big way at the weekend. I was worried I might have cut all lines of communication with her but I invited myself to her flat this morning, and after phoning her from her doorstep, she let me in, still in her dressing gown. She did a lot of talking as always. As soon as I left she got another visitor.

Last Thursday night I played badminton with the anxiety group. It was the first time I'd played that since probably '96 or '97. It was good fun. We played games which were unnecessary really; most of us would have been happy just whacking the ball, or whatever you say in badminton. My backhand wasn't up to much, I sometimes missed the feathery object altogether (surely people don't call it a cock), but I did develop a good smash. I hope we do it again.

I met up with Phil twice over the weekend. He was down from Auckland to visit some relatives. We had some interesting discussion. He noted that the latest cost estimate of the Christchurch earthquakes - $40 billion - amounted to over $100,000 for every man, woman and child in the city. A staggering amount.

The tornado that ripped through Oklahoma with such destructive force has taken at least ninety lives, probably more. Sadly many of those in the path of the tornado were schoolchildren.

You must be kidding

There were a couple of other things I wanted to write about yesterday but they slipped the mind. Mind-slippage has been a feature of the early part of this week. I coped better at work today and didn't fall any further behind.

On Monday one of our customers made a complaint about a premium surcharge on her travel policy due to her son's autism. The lady who deals with complaints (who does her difficult job extremely well it must be said) forwarded on the email, but instead of autism she wrote Austin, which someone else then thought was the son's name. It will be interesting to see the outcome of this (my colleague who dealt with the complaint was on the side of the customer).

There's a lot of interest at work in the American basketball play-offs. Some of the younger ones even come in on casual Fridays wearing singlets from their favourite teams. It all seems a bit strange to me. Basketball has never been a game I've got into. It might be the artificial-sounding team names (like the Heat) that put me off. For some reason naming your team after a day of the week, as a certain English football side did, doesn't seem weird to me at all.

I got an email last week with the news that an old work colleague of mine is soon to become a father. For the ninth time. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a kid. Hard probably. Life-changing definitely. But nine of the little buggers (some of whom are already quite big buggers)? The mind boggles. I'd be struggling to remember their names. As for their birthdays, or whether they like honey or marmalade, forget it. I remember looking at UK census returns from the late 19th century, and I was amazed by all the big families; a woman would have her first child at twenty or so and keep popping them out every second year until she no longer could. Well my ex-colleague and his wife had their first child in 2000 so at their current rate they're beating those Victorians into submission.

It looks like "coat-tailing" (where a political party who wins an electorate seat can bring in extra MPs even if it gets below the 5% threshold of party votes) is here to stay, because no consensus could be reached in parliament over whether to get rid of it (or change any other aspects of the MMP system). Of course there wouldn't be a consensus. Some parties clearly benefit from coat-tailing while others don't, and what do politicians want to do more than anything else? Stay in power, that's what. Most people, of those who have an opinion at all, think it should go; that politicians get the final say in this matter seems ridiculous.

A rare post about work

It's been a tricky start to the week at work (and the end of last week wasn't much better). I haven't been able to concentrate, everything has slowed down, I've become more sensitive to light and sound, and so on. I know the drill. I'm frantically trying to find the drive or folder or button, and it just won't come to me. It got worse as the day went on today. By the afternoon I was definitely into head-banging territory but even though the wall tiles in the loo looked like some weird optical illusion involving mirrors, my head made no contact with the tiles. I've been head-bang-free for 16 months.

Our team's email inbox (which I'm supposed to be dealing with this week) has been piling up, and anything appearing in my own inbox has largely been ignored. I have a system whereby emails sent only to me appear in red. This week if it ain't red, it ain't read.

What's brought on this latest patch of fog (because that's what it feels like) I don't know, but I can take a guess. Some of our systems have been automated. Our manual tasks (which I didn't actually mind) have been replaced by other bits and pieces, so everything now seems fractured. Just about all our processes have changed recently and I'm not the best at adapting. It often feels as if I'm starting from scratch. But the biggest change of all has been people swapping desks. I'm now hemmed in on three sides by my boss, another manager and a woman in my team. They're all quite extroverted, they often get worked up about things which seem unimportant to me, and they make sexually suggestive jokes. It's fine if one of them is away or in a meeting, but when all three of them are together it's like I'm caught up in a Bermuda Triangle of innuendo (!). I have no real problem with the jokes and what have you; it's just very distracting.

The extra automation has meant I now rarely see customers' medical details and conditions. That's a shame because I found that the most interesting part of my job (even though it wasn't actually part of my job at all). I mentioned to someone that I found the medical stuff interesting and she suggested I train to be an underwriter. Oh no. Underwriting would be an interesting job in theory, but it's a career job with a progression, in a large company, and I know now that taking on that kind of role would be giving myself a death sentence.

The changes at work are nobody's fault. In fact they were supposed to be good changes. But it's happened to me before in jobs where I'm going along nicely for a few months, maybe a year, not excelling (I've never done that at work) but coping, then somebody leaves or arrives or a process changes or they bring in a new system or product, and within weeks I'm a lame duck.

Last Friday I gave a customer an extra $100,000 of life cover for an additional four cents a month. I had to ring up this lady, and when I looked at her policy a message flashed up on my screen telling me that she could have a lot of extra cover for no extra premium. Or even a lot of extra cover for a reduction in premium. If that sounds ridiculous, well it is, and it's because of our crazy and illogical premium rates that work as in the graph below. On Friday I worked out how much extra cover I could give her for the same premium, then added four cents to make her cover level a nice round number. There was some discussion that I might have done something "outside the best interests of the company" but my colleagues agreed that doing anything else was unethical, and they had done the same thing themselves in the past. I know we're not the only company who have such a bizarre system, so if you have life insurance it might be worth ringing your provider and asking whether you can have an extra hundred grand of cover - I'm sure you'll be able to scrape together those extra four cents a month.

The good news for me is that when it comes to work, the puzzle stuff has given me a second bullet to fire. At this rate I might need it.

The now ex-National MP Aaron Gilmore has been in the news a lot lately. Too much, in fact. I'm not a psychiatrist but it would appear Mr Gilmore has some sort of personality disorder, perhaps narcissism.