And so, like it is with all get rich quick schemes, I didn't get rich quick.
"Whoever thinks up these schemes, I don't know what they are thinking," she said.
In addition to coverage schemes, I heard from a couple of former editors who wanted to make more general points.
It took a lot of time searching around and deciding which graduate schemes I wanted to apply for.
On new schemes I find that there's a tendency for planning authorities to look at existing deficiencies as opposed to thinking about what the new residents might want.
With most other schemes, I find it takes forever to accrue anything of value, but I can see why people sign up to them.
Quite the opposite of veering into "pregorexia" territory where pregnant women engage in extreme dieting and exercise schemes, I reveled in fat slices of coconut cream cake and developed an impressive appetite for hamburgers.
You can read it in full here, but some highlights are below: As an employer who has agreed to get involved in one of these schemes I would like to try and correct a few of the negative myths.
However I soon began to lose count of the number of companies and schemes I had applied for without even receiving an email confirming receipt of my application, let alone a message telling me I had been unsuccessful.
Having now done a bit of work on these pilot schemes, I can honestly, categorically state that I do not recognise the organisation described by one commenter as a "wet, lily-livered, cowardly, out-of-touch, fashionista, yoof-obsessed body".
All the schemes I had invented -- gravel paths bordering wild grasses, the hop-vine gazebo, a wisteria-shrouded garage-turned-greenhouse -- vanished before the realities of small paychecks, relationship crises and the landlord's fix-it men.
