I shall let todays emails speak for themselves (edited to avoid naming companies):

[the company] said [I'm] not a close enough academic fit, I can only presume they wanted a high 2:1 [or above], which I find very suprising.

Your application has been carefully reviewed, and I am sorry to inform you that we will not be inviting you for an interview in this instance...we hope you will not be too disappointed with this decision.

I have just spoken to the Line Manager and he has decided not to go ahead with an interview...Sorry about this, I am very surprised by his decision.

Then we have a selection of Mondays delights:

Unfortunately we do not specialise in candidates with your skills andexperience and are therefore not best placed to help you at this time.

My client is actually looking for somebody who has 2-3 years experience in real time embedded software. So to that end I will not be putting your CV forward at this stage.

And yet people keep telling me that "it doesn't matter that you have a lower-second class degree" and "it doesn't matter that you've only got a years experience". Oh and then there's that gem of advice... "go to the graduate recruitment fair as it's a chance to get your personality across and impress them".

I would like to address the latter bit of advice in more detail if I may:
I believe that I am a nice person - I'm polite, considerate and friendly. I chat to people fine. My technical knowledge is just as good as any holder of an upper-second class degree. The trouble comes when selling myself and when selling my skills.

It's not a matter of confidence - it's a matter of competence. Or rather, the lack of it. I need practice. I WANT practice. But how am I going to get to practice?

My psychotherapy book warns you against using certain phrases as you are often avoiding issues if you use them. One of these phrases is "you don't understand". I'm trying hard to see it how all the people offering advice see the problem. But I think you'll agree that it is hard to see how any employer will want me.

If you look at the evidence, employers are willing to consider my CV / application but, when it's clear I meet all their requirements they decide to raise the skills / experience they require. And you know what bugs me? They continue and continue to advertise for the job, with nobody applying to them BECAUSE NOBODY WITH THE SKILLS THEY ARE ASKING FOR WILL DO A JOB LIKE THAT FOR THAT AMOUNT OF MONEY!

I wish to scream. I'll settle for drinking lager.

All of this overshadows the one bit of good news from today; the point I'd like to end on. I've put all my Dad's side of the family history (210 people) onto the internet and got in touch with two distant cousins. So I should be able to fill out and expand the family tree. Dad will be impressed by the time he comes back off holiday. Over the next week I'll put my Mom's side of the family history up and see what I can find.

Bye everyone

I slept well on Friday night and all weekend. Last night I had trouble nodding off because THAT BLOODY BLOKE RANG AGAIN!

But I had a moment of clarity whilst lying in my bed. The invasive questions he asks would only be reasonable if he thought I had seen the jobs he allegedly sent me and suspected I had bypassed his companyand so done him out of his money. So I got in touch by email (suprisingly easily) and I may have something sorted out. If not, I have his contact details and, mainly for fun, I'm not going to let this lie.

Lots been happening out and about, I won't go into details when I can link to other people who have done the hard work for me! Besides, I'd only be repeating what I've read - so what's the point?

Doctor Who spin-off, Torchwood sounds like it could be good. Have to admit, I was hesitant at first, but I see how it can stand by itself easily. Unlike Stargate SG1 & Atlantis (new series on Wednesday) which are quite similar. As for SG1, I think this might be the last series - it's had a long run but there's only so much defeating enemy after enemy that is bearable - we'll have to wait and see though, I hope to be proved wrong.

Hang on, I think the new series of stargate has started completely without ceremony. Dad won't be pleased. Oh well, it's only the first episode. Second is tonight. Trouble is, we have 2 new characters completely unintroduced.

Anyway, in red dwarf news, there's an online comic coming out.

Venus express is ready to visit, er, venus.

Magnificent image from Mars.

Here are a few images from Saturn's Cassini orbiter

Bored now.

I'm still here. I'm still awake.

Have beaten the French in Empires game, have beaten the computer at chess. Dad has gone to work so I'm left here waiting for the rest of family to wake up. The sky outside is orange.

I am bored.

I can't sleep again.

That bloody bloke who wound me up last time rang again today. And wound me up. I have his name and company written down now, so next time he rings I can give him a taste of his own medicine. And that's what is running through my head... what I can say to him to tell him to f**k off in a polite yet unsubtle way.

So here I am, unable to sleep. So you know what I went and did? I went and drank a load of whisky out of the bottle. How piss-head am I?!

I am so fecking bored it's unbelievable. I can see why people turn to alcohol.

So to pass the time I was running through all the profiles of my friends on MSN messenger. You know what I noticed - I noticed that all my old schoolfriends whose company I still get to enjoy today was those who have a bit of a gothic / rock streak in them. Me feeling sorry for myself then feels like I've let the side down. But then me thinking with my head reminds me that image is nothing - it's whats inside that counts.

I want more to drink right now, I know I shouldn't, and I won't. I won't because my stomach hurts. It hurts like when I ate 5 of those slices of Jalepeno peppers in one go. that hurt.

I'm just incredibly bored and self doubting this morning. So please, ignore me when I say that I shouldn't rely on just one or one friends. It's not fair on them.

Dear God, look what a tit I'm making of myself. I should just delete this post and be done with it. But that wouldn't be right now would it?!

Hello,

Just enough time before the second installment of Waking the Dead to let you know of a development on the job front. I have another company that my CV has actually reached. Should they want me, and not want to raise the bar (like some), I'll let you know.

I do like the theme music from the old World in Action programme.

in WtD, it's good, but they seem to be being very retrospective: looking at the early days of the teams careers. Interesting insight, but they risk overdoing it. Lets see how it goes.

Hello, I'm in a much better mood than yesterday.

Today I've not been particularly busy again. I did a bit of DIY, listened to a couple tracks from the new Evanescence album. Well, new to me, it's been out a year! I had no idea! I've been job hunting, not much success but at least I now have a covering letter for my CV.

I'm still bored - as you can tell by the number of links.

Tomorrow I should get out and visit people. I haven't seen them for well over a week and they'll be wondering what's happened to me.

I've been reading about these RSS feeds that are getting popular. Being a geek, I'm rather ashamed of myself for not knowing about them sooner. My job searches, fansites and news sites all support it, so I think I'll try to integrate them onto one page. It could go horribly, horribly wrong.

Well, tonight I'm looking forward to Spooks at 9pm on BBC1. Looks like another good'un. I've been trying the online game, but I need more practice to do the final assignment - it's a right bitch to do! One mistake and it's start again. Which, to be fair, is the point.

****edit****
Bloody thing cut out my last paragraph. What I said was that I watch other things than the BBC. An examble is The Bill. and Elizabeth I on 4. I'm not doing the links again and you can sod off if you think I'm going to mention reviews again.

I'm rather annoyed right now. I shouldn't be. I'll explain:

Recruitment consultants ring you up and they ask in such a friendly way how the job hunt is going. What they really want to know is if it's worthwhile them bothering. The falseness winds me up. I nearly snapped at one guy this morning. But you just have to play along don't you.

Play along.

That is it for now. I feel better now I've got that off my chest.

News is flowing rather slowly at present. Not just with me either.

There's ages to go until the next major space event - a mission launched to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt in January, not that it's going to arrive for another decade. Though the seven years it took Cassini to arrive at Saturn soon flew by. Excuse the pun. I remember it launching, I remember thinking it's ages away and following it on its journey over the years.

There's no luck on the jobs front. To be honest, there doesn't seem to be many "entry level" jobs available. Tell me, how is one to get experience if nobody is prepared to offer it?

I've seen a couple of job adverts asking for graduates with a minimum of a first class degree and straight A's at A-Level (not asking for much there!!!). Then they go on to offer salary of 17k to 20k. The average is 18k-22k. I'm afraid you have to pay for that sort of quality; is my message to companies.

I discovered Yahoo! Music a few weeks ago in the wee hours of the morning when I couldn't sleep. Well today I'm listening to it again and developing my own 'radio station'. I quite like it to be honest. They have quite a good selection of music. It's paid for by a 30 second advert (for T-Mobile) every three songs.

I'm looking forward to the forthcoming release of the Red Dwarf Series VII DVD. I have it pre-ordered and am waiting patiently. I've also pre-ordered some books; some for me, some for Trace.

The rest of my time has been spent playing games. Mainly this, a lot of this and a bit of this too.

When not wasting my time on the internet, or playing games, or sleeping, or applying for jobs, I'm watching TV. There are several things I've been enjoying. There's a series called Space Race - all about The Space Race. A black comedy called Nighty Night is somthing else I'm watching. You can also watch the episodes online after they have been broadcast.

Actually, this is something I've been meaning to mention, I quite like how the BBC have started making their shows more interactive. There are show related games, interviews, clips, previews, production info as well as whole episodes online. They also are providing travel info, weather, news and more. Now this is good use of my licence fee. They are currently developing a similar kind of concept to iPod downloads. This, I feel, is the future. (by the way, the shows chosen for the links are shows I'm enjoying at the mo). I should mention that the BBC have been doing this for some time with their radio output. Listening to Radio 4 comedy is good. Oh, and BBC7.

The BBC seem to go through spells of producing good TV and swiftly follow it through with derivative nonsense that could be construed as glamorising practices which are illegal in this country.

Well, that's everything I could think of right now. More tomorrow. I think I'll do a little bit on local news.