I entered a weird parallel universe when I walked through the office door this morning. My desk, which I had left in its usual state of disarray on Thursday night, was full of Liberata (or rather L!berata) branded odds and ends. A new mouse mat, coaster and coffee mug and one of those cardboard pyramid calendars that serve no purpose whatsoever had taken up residence on the desk and an I.D. tag cord was draped over my monitor.

The desk was still untidy, unfortunately, which is something that I suppose I’ll eventually have to do something about.

All this was thanks to Kathryn, who had ever so kindly laid out the assorted paraphernalia that had arrived for me, as it had for each new Liberata employee in the council, in a large white Liberata carrier bag.

I’m not sure what this so-called ‘corporate re-branding’ is supposed to achieve. In fact I’m completely baffled; I don’t feel any more a Liberata employee today than I did on Friday, when I wasn’t. In fact the whole situation has the feeling of a slight shift in trajectory, one which is largely irrelevant at the point of origin but which will move the final resting place of we humble employees (in whatever terms you choose) by several million miles.

So far the bigwig who will be responsible for the IT department hasn’t made an appearance, though I’m reliably informed that we’ll be meeting him this Thursday. Whether the status quo will remain is yet to be seen, though anyone thinking about going in for the Champions’ 10000m Breath-Holding event might be well advised to put things on hold for a short while.

In other news both Bill and Kathryn are now engaged (though not, I might add, to each other), and I have volunteered to write a semi-regular ‘diary entry’ for the Liberata magazine in order to give Pendle some exposure. Nowhere in the email I received, though, did it say I had to be sycophantic about our new employer.