Where do you go to (my lovely)

With apologies to one hit wonder Peter Sarstedt, I may not live in a fancy apartment off the Boulevard St Michel but at least some of my clothes are now made by Balmain - a very nice suit I picked up at Fenwicks sale in Brent Cross.

A surprise package

Oh, there was another thing that was really funny about the announcement. The administrator was explaining the procedure for claiming redundancy from the Government, and how the Government will pay up to a statutory amount. He then said that "for the money that the Government won't pay we've put together a package".

I, and many others, thought 'that's a nice gesture - nice that they've looked after everyone'.

Until he told us that we could pick up the package that had all the details afterwards...

The last supper

Well, not exactly the last supper, but the nearest thing to it right now. Lots of us went across the road for drinks at The Distillers.

It's such a strange situation that nobody really knows how to handle it. Lots of talk about new doors opening, reunions, Facebook groups etc. I really hope that each and every one of the people in that room is able to emerge from this with something better than they had.

As Suzanne said, it's not the people that you got close to - you'll keep in touch with them. It's the people that you just worked with. The people who have been the canvas for every day you walked into the office. The people who will in all likelihood never be a part of your life again.

So even though I'm writing this on the Piccadilly line and nowhere near a bar, I raise an imaginary drink to everyone at zavvi that I was privileged to work with. Some of you were probably really good at what you did, maybe some of you were just ok. It really doesn't matter.

I've worked for companies, and I've worked for myself. But I can honestly say that in the last year I found a family. A group of people who wanted to achieve a dream against all the odds.

I'm listening to my ipod on shuffle as I write this, and right now it's playing the Rocky theme tune (I'm not making this up, honestly). And there you have it: the story of the underdog, punching above his weight, with no right to succeed. The only problem is that we were Rocky 2 and not the original. We got the girl but lost the fight.

But hey, Rocky came back, didn't he?

It's officially over

We've just been separated into two groups, a bit like in X Factor, and half of us have been told we're redundant. I'm in the losing group...

I know it's not really funny, but we were told to pick up a package at the end, and give our name so we could be ticked off a list. I couldn't help thinking of that scene in Life of Brian where Michael Palin asks everyone if they're being crucified or released. I thought about it, but...

139,988 is the magic number

139,988 - that's how many visitors we had to the site on Boxing Day - one of four consecutive 100k+ traffic days.

For a closed shop. We must have been doing something right...

Sunrise from the Pally

I've mentioned it in a previous post, but the sunrises from Alexandra Palace are sometimes breathtaking. This morning it was blues and yellows with an almost white overlay. The sun was a ball of fiery red like a Japanese flag. Sadly my phone camera couldn't do it justice but try to fill in the mental gaps ...

Supergood

Apart from the Eagles win on Sunday, my Christmas highlight has to be watching Superbad on my last night before going back into the office. Awesome!

I was also able to start watching The Wire over the break. Everyone's been saying how good it is and after the first few episodes, I'm hooked...