Entry #4: 9 to 5

The new job's going well. I'm a database administrator, working on making the data accurate, up-to-date and uniform. This is of course monotonous, but I don't mind because this type of thing feeds my obsessive-compulsiveness.

I'm pondering about the organisation of my time. This job is a Dolly Parton and I get home about 6pm, and if I went to bed at midnight I'd have six hours to play with. If I minus two hours for the everyday stuff then over the working week I'd have just 20 hours to do Web things. That's not a lot when you consider how much time flies when engrossed in code, discussions and research.

I should read on the bus to and from work so as to optimise the use of that time, because that takes up at least six hours. That said, moody mornings are not a time I consider reading, I much prefer to stare vacuously through the bus's dirty windows angry at another failed early night — which I'll probably be doing later, considering the current time.

With such recent preoccupation I've not had time for Celebrity Big Brother, but I couldn't miss the mass hysteria over the past fews days as the public sent in thousands of complaints to Ofcom and Channel 4 about alleged racism in the house. From clips repeated in the news, I see there is conflict in the house surrounding Shilpa Shetty but it's not as severe as all the hype portrays. It is low-level racism, not overt and intentional abuse and bullying.

This is through a combination of having a lack of understanding, bitching together in conforming packs, and simply just not liking her. Mocking Shilpa's accent when talking about her is miscontrued as racism because she is of Indian origin. If a housemate was imitating a more local accent, examples being the Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham or the generic upper-class posh, then this would be considered acceptable behaviour. In normal society people mimic each other every day, and this is not looked at as being discriminatory. In her exit interview Jackiey Budden referred to Shilpha as “that Indian,” but in contrast to the outrage about this no reference has been made to Jermaine Jackson's “white trailer trash” comment.

I am not defending racism and I am strongly against it, but this is double standards. A black man calling a white girl with reference to the colour of her skin passed without criticism. If a housemate had said “that gay boy” or “that stupid blonde bitch” then little backlash would follow, but a person with white skin calling a non-white person follows different rules.

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Entry #4, published on Thursday, 18^th of January 2007 at 03:28 local time (Swatch Internet Time @178 .beats)

Returning in 2008 ;-)