Welcome back folks, I trust you’ve had a nice rest since reading all of our last weeks’ blogs? What’s that – you didn’t read them!? Well, I can’t say I’m not offended, though by the same token, I’m not exactly surprised either….pearls before swine ;o)

This week I’ve moved onto Corporate Affairs, a new desk and a new bunch of people to get to know – I’ve even got a lamp on my desk this week! However, having just written this, I look around and it occurs to me that every desk has one of these dextrously necked glow-worms. How odd. I could’ve sworn only a few desks had them. In actual fact, I’ve got rather an excess of lamps lighting my way as I write this weeks entry – there’s one craning it’s neck to cast a soft glow on my computer monitor which, it must be said, is emitting enough of it’s own glorious luminescence, so the lamp is really surplus to requirements here; another glaring across the face of the keyboard causing twisted spindle like shadows to flit and fly across the keys as my fingers speedily seek out the next letter; and finally, there’s one peering down behind my monitor, perhaps searching for it’s favourite switch or bulb. It kind of reminds me of that Pixar Studios short from a few years back, thought obviously less animated and bouncy.

I haven’t really had enough of an experience of corporate yet since it’s only the first week and because I had to take one of these days off because of the death of one of my friends, Ryan. For posterity’s sake and to give you some context, Ryan was a 21 year old South African living and working over here that I had known for about a year. He had a girlfriend, a job and lots of friends who loved him dearly. We’ll never really know why he chose to hang himself for certain, nor what drives anyone to do such things. However, I think at times like these it’s very important to be thankful for the people around us and everything we have that is good in life, especially the small things that often get ignored, because for many of us, we’ll never really appreciate them until they’re gone. I don’t think it’s always right to follow Horace’s words, de mortuis nil nisi bonum and I’m not about to eulogise on how good or worthy Ryan was, suffice it to say that like anyone we lose who is close to us – he will be sorely missed.

Speaking generally about suicide, it saddens me that anyone would feel such self-loathing or sickness of life that they would see fit to cut it short. I would like to think that nearly anyone can be counselled or drawn from the brink by those closest to them. The difficulty is knowing when this is necessary and this requires openness and communication, something we seem to be sorely lacking in today’s society. Suicide is the ultimate act of destruction and antipathy to life and we should sympathise with those that undertake such a course of action. However, it is also one of the most selfish acts one can commit and ruins the lives, at least temporarily if not permanently, of those left behind and I feel so deeply sorry for Ryan’s parents and family, whom I had to speak to that night that words, no matter how eloquent, could never express.

Catharsis.

So this week has been characterised by changes – changes of emotional perspective and a change of department (with seamless links like that, I should be on . Now sitting in Corporate, so far this week I spent all of my time compiling media lists and evaluating pan European and global coverage trends. Admittedly, so far it has been quite dry but necessary work and I’m confident as I get a bit more involved in some of the accounts it will become more interesting. I have also this week been throwing off any remaining shackles of technophobia that clung to my ankles (or wrists) and began using Mozilla Firefox as my internet browser. I’m told by those in the know (the omnipotent wünderkind) that it’s much better than Internet Explorer and I have to admit, it’s been fairly useful so far. You can open several windows in one, it remembers passwords for you and you don’t need to type in the www. part of a web address. I’m sure those are just the basic differences and if I knew (or cared to know) more then I could probably wax lyrical on the minutiae of Mozilla that makes it so much more user friendly…but I don’t, so I won’t.

Whilst on my technological tip, I’ve also been given a baptism of fire using Gorkana which is, essentially, a database of publications and the journalists and freelancers that work on them. I’m sure I have again just glossed over the deeper technicalities such as creating lists, basing searches on interests etc but for my (and your) purposes – consider it an address book without the annoying letters on the right hand side which always rip off meaning you can never find the person you want…and it’s always ‘S’ and ‘H’…why is that – I don’t know that many Simon’s or Harry’s….most perplexing.

This afternoon I’ve had more fun putting together media lists and scanning various databases with odd names (LexisNexis anyone!?) for pieces on patent law. Fascinating stuff. So far, despite quite dry work I’ve enjoyed Corporate – people are nice (as ever with Edelman) and there are some interesting clients which, obviously, I’m not allowed to mention – got to keep it on the QT apparently.

Right, after that emotionally strained blog, I think I’ll sign off for now. Might add a little more on Friday but for now – that’s your lot!

One more note – the banter on Corporate is good.