I am informed that my LinkedIn profile is ’70% complete’. To finish it off, I need two recommendations. This means I should ask two people to write a testimonial about their experience of working with me.

I haven’t bothered with this. I don’t mean to make use of LinkedIn.

However, something has made me revisit this decision. Last week I was spammed by James from a recruitment agency.

The way LinkedIn works is that if you’re not directly connected to somebody, you can only message them directly if you pay for a premium account. However, recruitment agent James has found a way around this. He requested to be my contact and in the field for putting in a personal message, he wrote:

Dear Joan

Apologies for the direct approach but I wanted to introduce myself to you and I am hoping you may be able to help me.

I work for a company called [...], a recruitment consultancy that focuses on the sustainability space. I am currently working with a company that specialise in the provision of sustainability solutions, looking to grow their team in the built environment…

I would really value the opportunity to talk to you about this role and find out if you know anyone who could be interested, or indeed if you might be interested yourself! My contact details are: [...]

Thanks and Best Wishes

James

I thought, ‘The nerve!’ Of course I won’t respond to this kind of spam, this abuse of LinkedIn.

Just before I deleted his message, I clicked on his name and found out that we have three degrees of separation (one of my contacts knows someone who knows him). He also has a glowing recommendation from one of his clients.

‘…James has exacting standards and is a fantastic communicator which are really appreciated both in terms of the search and selection process as well as the negotiation of final contracts. James acts with the integrity of both client and candidate ensure that the final deal is one which sets both parties off on the correct footing.’

This testimonial starts to make me think differently about James. Maybe, instead of being merely rude and untargeted, he is actually working hard and is using social networks innovatively to get results during difficult economic times.

Hmm. These recommendation things could be very powerful.

We were a couple of drinks in at the pub last week * and a colleague I had met for the first time that evening was getting angry.

One of the things he was angry about was a girl in his group, who worked only exactly the hours required of us (9am to 5:30pm), and yet she is well thought of by most people.

‘People like her, they’re good at self-promotion and talking themselves up,’ he complained. ‘But she doesn’t put in the hours.’

I was surprised to hear this. I know of this girl and have chatted to her a few times. I haven’t worked with her so I don’t know how ‘good’ she is. However, she does have an interesting personal and academic background and she seems to have a lot of initiative.

I started thinking, ‘Maybe… maybe there are people in my company who are upset about me too.’

Compared to other junior people, I am well known around the company. I hope this is because I do good work. In addition, I do try to meet people, keep in touch, make presentations and answer questions on the online company forums.

While I’m good at raising my profile, I hope I back this up by showing I have something worthwhile to contribute.

I am sure that there are people in the company who have something equally worthwhile to contribute, yet they aren’t getting the same attention because they’re not as comfortable at networking and self-promotion.

I’m sorry if people like me crowd them out. I do try very hard to direct questions and work to the right people and this means passing on leads to those who know more about a subject than me.

Despite this, though, it is conceivable that there are people who resent me the way this work colleague resents that girl.

I can’t do much about this except I am now reminded that I must be genuine and thoughtful: to speak when I am sure that what I say could be useful (not simply grandstanding), and give the quieter ones in the group the space to contribute.

* Not me, I don’t often drink at pubs. I don’t like the taste of alcohol and friends/colleagues are happy for me to have water and chips instead of beer.

At work, they’re refurbishing the office one floor at a time. I used to work on level 5. They moved me up to level 6 to refurbish level 5. Now I’ve moved back to level 5 while they do up level 6. When level 6 is finished, I’ll move back up.

The company’s done its best to minimise disruption. For each move, we pack our things into boxes, then over a weekend they move the boxes and our computers to our new desks.

However, a rumble of discontent has been growing louder. An unexpected trade-off has revealed itself. With refurbishment, we gain shiny new desks and decor — but we lose the microwave.

After a few days in our new digs, it became clear that no one would be reinstalling the absent microwave in the kitchen. People became very upset. I was upset too. I love cooking and bringing my food in. I look forward to my tasty hot lunches.

‘Why?’ we cried. ‘Why no microwave?’

Estate management emailed a company wide reply, saying that some people ‘misused’ the microwave. With further probing, we found out that two of the board directors had decided that the smell of hot food in the office was ‘unprofessional’.

Cue widespread fury. My team mate, Juhi, is spearheading the campaign. She opened up a survey and within the first day, half of the group has responded with comments like:

• ‘It’s them versus us now. Unlike board directors, some of us can’t afford to buy hot lunches.’
• ‘So, I guess they’ll be giving us lunch vouchers for shops around the office, right?”
• ‘If they don’t sort it out by winter, there will be riots.’
• ‘I don’t come from a culture that eats sandwiches and salads. If you provide prayer rooms for some people, then why don’t you give us a microwave?’
• ‘I don’t want to work for a fascist company!’

There is still a microwave on level 3, which is next to be refurbished. At lunch time, microwave refugees from level 4 and 5, as well as our office across the road (which had microwaves taken away last year) line up in front of the level 3 microwave.

‘Your microwave will be taken away too,’ I warned the level 3 natives.

They seemed bemused, not realising the seriousness of the situation. ‘Maybe we can charge a pound for people to use the microwave,’ they joke.

Now, you might be wondering what happens if people buy hot food from outside and bring it in. Wouldn’t that cause smells anyway? Well (and this is rather shocking), they’ve banned this exact practice in the new office across the road. I once bought a pie and sat in the company cafe in the new office. One of the serving staff immediately came over and told me to take the food outside.

‘No hot food in this building,’ she said.

Juhi reports that she has met with estate management, who seem genuinely surprised at the depth outrage. Supposedly, something will be ‘sorted’ by September.

In the mean time, I’m experimenting with sandwiches. This week, I’m making pumpkin and sunflower seed batch slices with hommous, caramelised onion, roast aubergine (eggplant), red pepper (capsicum) and courgette (zucchini). It’s very yummy, but I’m looking forward to going back to hot lunches.

Today I joined the 22 mile (35 km) ride around Camden, a large borough of London.

I am the queen! I rule! I went up all the hills, even as people around me were dismounting and wheeling their bikes.

I had so much fun. At 10am, I arrived at Camden town hall, one cyclist amongst 80. There were road bikes, a chopper bike (a pedal-powered low riding Harley-style bike), a Swedish army bike (red and built like a tank), a beautiful Dutch-style Bobbin cycle, two Bromptons, and four other Dahons. Over the course of the ride, I sped up or dropped back to chat with my fellow Dahon owners about the model of their bike, if they liked their wheel size, if they took their bikes on the train, how heavy the bikes were…

A lot of people rode up to admire my bike. ‘Yes, she’s shiny because she’s new,’ I say. ‘She has hub gears and I can change gear without pedalling.’

When you’re in a mass of 80 cyclists, you own the road. We had around ten stewards, fast and nimble cycle instructors in bright yellow who shepherded the group like sheep. They stopped traffic for us. We ran red lights. People on the street cheered. Some got angry. I didn’t care.

‘What are you campaigning for?’ bystanders shouted.

‘Cycling!’ we said. ‘Hooray for bikes!’

The ride took five hours, with one rest at Regent’s Park and another at the the British Museum. We had lunch at Golder’s Hill and ended at Hampstead Town Hall. We went through all my favourite places: Covent Garden, Holborn, Charlotte Street, Hampstead Heath, Kilburn High Street, Camden Town…

I almost gave up at the 20 mile mark. I was thirsty, my rear end was (still is) very sore, and we were coming up to my home. I resisted temptation and pushed through the final steep hill to coast into Hampstead village.

I am the queen, queen of the road! I fear nothing, no red buses, no roundabout can defeat me now!

My mum forwards me interesting emails from around the interwebs. This clip is thoroughly impressive. This is the kind of amazing stuff China come up with for the Olympics opening ceremony.

And after I had watched it and was amazed, I found out that all those performers ARE DEAF! Bloody hell! That’s insane. Gee….

Everyone in the UK knows about the extreme perverseness of the difference between the cost of train tickets and plane tickets. I have flown to Paris for £20. A train ticket to Cardiff has costed me (well, my company) £200.

It makes it so hard for people to make the environmentally sane choice.

This cute video shows the problem well. I like it — Train v plane: fair fight?

Here are the last photos that I want to show you from my January trip to Lisbon. I really enjoyed this ‘Jewish flea market’. I don’t know what was Jewish about it but it was definitely flea-style, the trash and treasure kind of market.

I love the colours.

Here’s Joan. Mum will ‘tsk tsk’ about me wearing sneakers with a dress but it would have been impossible to walk in the pretty black shoes that I brought to wear for the work part of the week.

Mmm, sexy reading material. Wolfgang and Rosangela paid a Euro for the sauciest one of these graphic novels.

We took a 45 minute train trip out of Lisbon to a town called Sintra. Sintra is famous for its three castles, and we made it to none of them due to underplanning and over-relaxing.

This ‘house of cream tarts’ (queijadas) was in front of the train station.

We came across this door on our long climb up the mountain towards the Moorish Castle.

The first sign of the castle were these ruins.

We reached the Moorish Castle half an hour before it was to close. We decided to save ourselves the cost of the entry fees and continued on the path to the next castle, Pena National Palace.

It was only to be expected. Pena Palace had just closed when we arrived. By this time we were a little weary of the whole thing, so we paid for the crazy lurching bus ride down the mountain to the centre of town. It is a picturesque place, full of little craft stores and the smell of roasting chestnuts. And of course the third castle, Sintra National Palace in town, was closed too.

On our last day in Lisbon, we took a 20 minute tram ride to Belém, home to the justifiably famous Pastel de nata, the Portuguese egg tart. The tarts are so yummy! I wish I took a photo of us sprinkling cinnamon and icing sugar on them and scoffing them down.

But here is a photo of Belém’s second most famous attraction, the Belém Tower.

The Tower and other museums are free to visit on Sundays.

The chapel of Jerónimos Monastery, which is a World Heritage site. It’s very pretty but, you know, I’m a bit over cathedrals and chapels now. I think I’m done, now that I’ve seen Canterbury Cathedral, York Minster, Winchester Cathedral, Durham Cathedral, King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, the Dom in Cologne and other churches all over Germany, the Sacre Couer and Notre Dame in Paris…

Well, maybe I’ll make an exception. I might still put up the cash to visit Westminster Abbey one day.

In making Chinese dumplings recently, I have come across a useful shortcut. I used to chop fresh veggies for the dumpling mix but while I was at the store buying fresh spinach, it suddenly occurred to me that I could use frozen spinach.

Frozen spinach, how fantastic! It’s cheaper and possibly healthier too.

When I got home and cut open the bag of spinach, I was delighted to discover a third benefit. Instead of having a mass of spinach to melt, the spinach was very conveniently shaped into little truncated cones (also called frustrums or frustra). I could pick out only what I needed and store the rest away for later. Isn’t that clever!

Frozen spinach

I have been eating ‘spicy eggplant stir fry’ all week. It’s a recipe from bowl food, which my ex-housemate Richard gave me for Christmas.

I had bought all the ingredients on the weekend and was talking to mum on the phone about the recipe.

‘Sounds nice,’ mum said. ‘But if you fry eggplant, it will soak up a lot of oil. It’s not very healthy. Why don’t you bake or steam the eggplant instead?’

Later, Damjan confirmed it. ‘Well, yes, eggplant probably will absorb a lot of oil. That’s what makes it taste nice!’

However, in the interest of health, I decided I would take mum’s advice and steam the eggplant before frying it in the wok. I don’t have a steamer but I do have a rice cooker and a flat bottomed round metal container sized such that it would sit snugly in the rice cooker. The combination is an ideal no mess double steamer.

The experiment was successful, very tasty. You can recreate it yourself.

• 1.5 tbsp mápó sauce (Sichuan chilli bean sauce, of mápó tofu and ants climbing up trees fame)
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp vinegar
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 500g eggplant (I used around two medium sized ones), cut into cubes
• 1 onion, cut into slices
• 1 red chilli, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/2 cup fresh coriander

Mix together mápó sauce, soy sauce, vinegar and sugar.

Steam eggplant until soft (or fry in oil and use paper towels to absorb excess oil).

Then fry the sauce and eggplant together. When finished, mix in the coriander.

The coriander is very good. I think it made the dish taste nice. Serve with rice.

Update
I sent this recipe to my mum and she immediately tried it out. She wrote:

‘Joan, I have just cooked the eggplant stir fry recipe that you gave me. It’s very tasty. For the next party I go to, I will bring this dish. Have a look at this photo. Is it like yours?’

Eggplant stir fry by mum

Mum, I’m glad you liked the recipe! I cut my eggplant into smaller pieces. I think your eggplant dish is more beautiful because of the dash of fresh green coriander sprinkled on top and it’s in a pretty bowl.

I volunteered to take photos at the gala 50th birthday celebration of Damjan’s boss. I love taking photos at events, especially when I don’t know many people. Being designated photographer gives me an excuse not to be awkward when I have no one to talk to but also gives me an opening to strike up conversation with people.

The only trick at this party was that the birthday man wanted me to use his camera, the Nikon D300. I’m sure it is an excellent camera (and it must be, costing £1000). It also had a rather magnificent zoom lens.

However, I’ve never used a Nikon SLR before. As soon as I arrived at the party, I had to frantically flick through the camera quick guide to get myself up to speed. I felt the pressure to do a credible job as the photographer for this milestone event.

It wasn’t until I had to do this did I appreciate just how much I had accustomed myself to my Olympus E-300. I’ve had it for 4.5 years. It is a dinosaur digital SLR. There’s no need for me to upgrade, though. I think I’m probably still limited by my skill more than my equipment.

Here are some photos. That’s me in the middle. I found a beautiful mask of red and black velvet with black tassells. It has a headband rather than a elastic that goes around the back of my head. The headband makes it comfortable and also avoids squishing hair to the sides of my head.

Masquerade party