Friday, 31 August 2007
The third thing I did today
I watered the remaining tomato plants today. There is NO prospect of any of the fruit turning even slightly red, watering them is a total waste of time. I did it for the same reason I feed the cat, I'm stupidly soft and sentimental. A fool. These are living things and they need water. And maybe I'll find my mother's recipe for green tomato chutney before they wither away.
What every silver lining has, of course
The Slug is back and now tucked up in bed. In the mean time I have ascertained that the NHS letter inviting him to have a blood test as part of a CHD Risk Assessment is in fact perfectly routine in men his age. Foiled again.
That Effing Feline
All joking aside I loathe that cat, with a fierce and deep flowing passion.
I've now been out to clear up today's windfall (that bloody plum) and what I've found is the strawberry bed covered under a white blanket. This summer's been a complete fucking joke but it hasn't actually snowed; this was a blanket of white feathers. The only upside here is that the slaughter happened outside rather than in the house - that would have been a catastrophe given the scale of spread of evidence.
I peered in some trepidation but was forced to conclude that the corpus delicti - yes, yes, I do appreciate that the feathers constitute in ample sufficiency the evidence necessary; consider this covered by poetic licence - had gone the way of the body belonging to the mouse's head The Slug found in the other garden yesterday morning.
Only after fetching gloves and gearing up for the really squishy ones did I finally spot the wood pigeon prostrate on the paving. Buggeration. That meant a clear up operation.
Of course that nosy minx from a couple of doors away turned up right in the middle of the procedure. She's still a kitten but she actually growled when I dragged her off the body and dumped her by the biscuit bowl. That gave me enough time to bag the body. I thought the food might have driven thoughts of dead birds from her tiny little mind but oh, no. She came back and sat by it, I turned away, I turned back, the bag was upside down. Minx.
The bag, along with the body therein, has been donated to Tesco. Couldn't think of a worthier cause on the spur of the moment. Sorry.
I've now been out to clear up today's windfall (that bloody plum) and what I've found is the strawberry bed covered under a white blanket. This summer's been a complete fucking joke but it hasn't actually snowed; this was a blanket of white feathers. The only upside here is that the slaughter happened outside rather than in the house - that would have been a catastrophe given the scale of spread of evidence.
I peered in some trepidation but was forced to conclude that the corpus delicti - yes, yes, I do appreciate that the feathers constitute in ample sufficiency the evidence necessary; consider this covered by poetic licence - had gone the way of the body belonging to the mouse's head The Slug found in the other garden yesterday morning.
Only after fetching gloves and gearing up for the really squishy ones did I finally spot the wood pigeon prostrate on the paving. Buggeration. That meant a clear up operation.
Of course that nosy minx from a couple of doors away turned up right in the middle of the procedure. She's still a kitten but she actually growled when I dragged her off the body and dumped her by the biscuit bowl. That gave me enough time to bag the body. I thought the food might have driven thoughts of dead birds from her tiny little mind but oh, no. She came back and sat by it, I turned away, I turned back, the bag was upside down. Minx.
The bag, along with the body therein, has been donated to Tesco. Couldn't think of a worthier cause on the spur of the moment. Sorry.
Things are looking up though!
For years upon years I've looked at The Slug and thought "Why won't you just drop dead of the coronory you're obviously going to have one day?"
Good news for modern woman. He's dragged himself to see the Quack. This is a bloke quietly sloping off to see the Doctor. Odd in itself.
And the darling quack has decided a bit of base line data's required. The documentation came through today. I left the letter unopened by the door, he came home while we were at the park, read it and left it open where I'd left it unopened, then went off to see a mate. Now I'd never dream of opening something addressed to him, but I'm not going to pass up the opportunity to have a gander at something to him on NHS letterhead.
I've had a chance to decipher some of the medico-gobble-de-gook. A CHD Risk Assessment is being undertaken. As part of this the following boxes have been ticked in the section under Biochemistry on the blood test form: Electrolytes, Liver and Lipids.
Pleeeeeeeese let the news be Bad.
Good news for modern woman. He's dragged himself to see the Quack. This is a bloke quietly sloping off to see the Doctor. Odd in itself.
And the darling quack has decided a bit of base line data's required. The documentation came through today. I left the letter unopened by the door, he came home while we were at the park, read it and left it open where I'd left it unopened, then went off to see a mate. Now I'd never dream of opening something addressed to him, but I'm not going to pass up the opportunity to have a gander at something to him on NHS letterhead.
I've had a chance to decipher some of the medico-gobble-de-gook. A CHD Risk Assessment is being undertaken. As part of this the following boxes have been ticked in the section under Biochemistry on the blood test form: Electrolytes, Liver and Lipids.
Pleeeeeeeese let the news be Bad.
Snore
Photo posts are the last resort of the lazy blogger. Given that the sum total of my accomplishment today is one load of washing washed - note, not hung out to dry, ironed, folded and put away. As the scrumptious Carl would say, this is Shocking, Shocking! Lower your expectations all ye who enter here.
This is the hated cat after taking a gander at this last Sunday's Funday Times and passing editorial comment.
Fucking hell!
I've just abandoned the BBC in favour of RTL because of the coverage of That Woman's memorial service and guess what...
Well I suppose I should have known. The French topped their own lot, but at heart they remain in thrall to nobs.
AND The Times fecklessly squandered more news print (two full pages) on the order for today's service and more handwringing.
Rosa Monkton should go stick her head in a bucket too.
When will this end?
Well I suppose I should have known. The French topped their own lot, but at heart they remain in thrall to nobs.
AND The Times fecklessly squandered more news print (two full pages) on the order for today's service and more handwringing.
Rosa Monkton should go stick her head in a bucket too.
When will this end?
Thursday, 30 August 2007
Another case for strangulation
Secondary Book Worm is another perfect case for strangulation on the grounds that she does fuck all, and what she does do normally causes us more grief than good. She's driven customers to tears with her atrocious attitude. She's just horrible. She's not really all there either. She couldn't understand why I got upset when every time I walked past her she muttered "racist" under her breath. Quite why she did this has to be a matter for another post but suffice it to say for now that You Should Never Get Into A Conversation With SBW At All Lest You Find Yourself In Deep Shit.
Avoid her as you would The Plague.
She's never wrong, of course; Never Apologises, Never Explains. Some people are psychologically unsuited to reading. They pick random stuff up, misprocess it then regurgitate it or act on it in wholly in appropriate contexts.
And they weasel, then squeal like stuck pigs when cornered with their lie. If only she'd just called me and told me she'd made a mistake. I'd have fixed it and that would have been that. But instead we have to have all this Fucking Drama.
Avoid her as you would The Plague.
She's never wrong, of course; Never Apologises, Never Explains. Some people are psychologically unsuited to reading. They pick random stuff up, misprocess it then regurgitate it or act on it in wholly in appropriate contexts.
And they weasel, then squeal like stuck pigs when cornered with their lie. If only she'd just called me and told me she'd made a mistake. I'd have fixed it and that would have been that. But instead we have to have all this Fucking Drama.
Another point of order
My hair now reaches below my waist. This is wholly inappropriate in a woman my age. In fact this is outrageous, and if I'm not careful I shall have perfect strangers approaching me in the street offering a few coppers towards a proper hair cut.
Big sigh.
Big sigh.
Point of order
When Blogger had a fit over my first attempt to reflect on my languid desire to strangle certain of my colleagues (oh, scroll down; there's a post I put together earlier today - a second attempt at the subject) I had in mind a jaunty subsidiary musing on something severely weird I had done earlier in the day.
All this abortive posting was done morning after the previous evening wherein I'd gracefully swan-dived off the wagon. Somewhat to my surprise I've clambered back on board and got my footing again. Which possibly explains why now, after a couple of solid days off the piss I can remember what I was thinking.
That morning I filed my toe nails for the first time in my life. I was sitting down to file my finger nails and through my hands I saw my toes; before I properly knew what I was doing I'd adopted a quasi-yoga position and started work on my toe nails.
Deeply peculiar behaviour. I need to do something about this before I find myself spending money on nail varnish and getting about with purple patches at the end of my feet.
Oh dear.
All this abortive posting was done morning after the previous evening wherein I'd gracefully swan-dived off the wagon. Somewhat to my surprise I've clambered back on board and got my footing again. Which possibly explains why now, after a couple of solid days off the piss I can remember what I was thinking.
That morning I filed my toe nails for the first time in my life. I was sitting down to file my finger nails and through my hands I saw my toes; before I properly knew what I was doing I'd adopted a quasi-yoga position and started work on my toe nails.
Deeply peculiar behaviour. I need to do something about this before I find myself spending money on nail varnish and getting about with purple patches at the end of my feet.
Oh dear.
Bitter end to the day
I had to nip out unexpectedly and get some lemons; took the chance to say hello to someone who as things would have it was able to shed light on what I did wrong to day. SEE! I was right. I screwed something up. Better yet, it wasn't any of the complicated technical stuff but basic arithmetic. I shall have to wear sandals to work so I can bring my toes into play.
What is wrong with these people
The chief honcho at the Returning Wallah's Federation has warned that a large number of Brits might find they've inadvertently been disenfranchised if the PM should call an early election for this autumn.
The electoral rolls are not maintained on an, er, um rolling basis. The local Return Wallah sends or oversees or directs the sending out to all addresses of a registration card annually. Householders are required to return the card identifying eligible voters resident at the address.
Failure to comply is a heinous offence punishable by slow death involving suspension by the thumbs, racking, attaching of electrodes to delicate parts etc, etc. This is useful as it provides a civilian occupation for defrocked soldiers returning to civilian life.
And if that fails then the Returning Wallah will write to the delinquent householder again ... and again and again and again... Eventually one of two things happens : either the householder relents and replies or the householder drowns under this tidal wave of little white cards that identify wholly accurately everyone living under the roof who is eligible to vote as already entered on the roll, with no omissions and no erroneous extraneous additions.
The capacity of the British to over-engineer anything is both bewildering and fascinating. How simple it all could be. You turn 18, you register to vote, you remain registered to vote for the rest of your life.
Financial services organisations rely heavily if not wholly on the electoral rolls for the purpose of establishing identity, and the British population depend on such organisations for their limitless consumer credit. So it seems to me that it is now absolutely in the interests of The Great Unwashed to maintain their voting registration. It follows that there is no longer any need for the annual survey of households for the purpose of updating the voting registers. Furthermore any new law-based compulsion must be superfluous when access to that next store card is already under threat.
The kind of people who don't crave store cards tend to be the sort of people who take the trouble to interest themselves in and inform themselves about matters of public policy and therefore would take the trouble to register (and vote) anyway.
And guess what? That million and a half disenfranchised voters (who probably won't vote anyway) would vanish if it simply became a matter of 'keeping yourself registered'.
Ah, but it might put a few over paid local government functionaries with the poncy job title of Electoral Wallah out of a job. Oh dear. And it was such a good idea.
The electoral rolls are not maintained on an, er, um rolling basis. The local Return Wallah sends or oversees or directs the sending out to all addresses of a registration card annually. Householders are required to return the card identifying eligible voters resident at the address.
Failure to comply is a heinous offence punishable by slow death involving suspension by the thumbs, racking, attaching of electrodes to delicate parts etc, etc. This is useful as it provides a civilian occupation for defrocked soldiers returning to civilian life.
And if that fails then the Returning Wallah will write to the delinquent householder again ... and again and again and again... Eventually one of two things happens : either the householder relents and replies or the householder drowns under this tidal wave of little white cards that identify wholly accurately everyone living under the roof who is eligible to vote as already entered on the roll, with no omissions and no erroneous extraneous additions.
The capacity of the British to over-engineer anything is both bewildering and fascinating. How simple it all could be. You turn 18, you register to vote, you remain registered to vote for the rest of your life.
Financial services organisations rely heavily if not wholly on the electoral rolls for the purpose of establishing identity, and the British population depend on such organisations for their limitless consumer credit. So it seems to me that it is now absolutely in the interests of The Great Unwashed to maintain their voting registration. It follows that there is no longer any need for the annual survey of households for the purpose of updating the voting registers. Furthermore any new law-based compulsion must be superfluous when access to that next store card is already under threat.
The kind of people who don't crave store cards tend to be the sort of people who take the trouble to interest themselves in and inform themselves about matters of public policy and therefore would take the trouble to register (and vote) anyway.
And guess what? That million and a half disenfranchised voters (who probably won't vote anyway) would vanish if it simply became a matter of 'keeping yourself registered'.
Ah, but it might put a few over paid local government functionaries with the poncy job title of Electoral Wallah out of a job. Oh dear. And it was such a good idea.
The Law of Big Numbers
I can do differential calculus, I can solve quadratic equations. So why the hell can I not perform a perfectly simple calculation in my head?
I've got a day and a half off, not two whole days. I am a blithering fucking idiot.
I've got a day and a half off, not two whole days. I am a blithering fucking idiot.
Late August resolutions
For the sake of appearing to be opinionated I've decided to believe very strongly that The Environment should be the Government's Paramount Public Policy Issue. I might believe something completely different or even contradictory tomorrow; you'll just have to come back here to find out (obviously) - as will I.
I've also decided, in a complementary stand, to become ever so slightly pink around the gills in order that that I can hold the view (however briefly) that this Brown-led British government is inadequately interventionist and thereby delinquent.
Now in this adjusted frame of mind I can write to the Prime Minister and inform him that the Government must move as a matter of urgency to hold a public enquiry into the decimation of vast swathes of rain forest perpetrated by The Times in the cause of that Fucking Woman.
I'm referring her to the woman formerly kw-towed to and public funded and known as Her Royal Highness, subsequently demoted and sanctified and here ever after to be referred to as The People's Princess - cue sigh, wistful remembering look, sniff and wipe of eye.
We spent the day she died in the pub getting drunk and laughing at the spectacle that unfolded before us in real time on television. We managed to offend just about everyone in the bar. It was probably the last time The Slug and I were totally on the same wave length.
This dead parasite was, among other things: dumb, manipulative, vacuous, sly, needy, foolish, vain and destructive. She was a slut and a fool. She was born into the fucking aristocracy and cried foul when everyone else stuck to time honoured, tried and tested rules. Well might her husband bemoan his fate, shackled to the only member of the Upper Ten Thousand dim enough think she could make him the first Prince of Wales in history not to keep a mistress.
What exactly did she get from her marriage that she shouldn't have expected?
I'm enraged that The Times has squandered so many acres of newsprint on a Handy Lift Out that is three parts hagiography, one part conspiracy theory digest. As Mohammed Fayed would say, Fug Off. Enough already. Long since. Get a life. Get over her.
I've also decided, in a complementary stand, to become ever so slightly pink around the gills in order that that I can hold the view (however briefly) that this Brown-led British government is inadequately interventionist and thereby delinquent.
Now in this adjusted frame of mind I can write to the Prime Minister and inform him that the Government must move as a matter of urgency to hold a public enquiry into the decimation of vast swathes of rain forest perpetrated by The Times in the cause of that Fucking Woman.
I'm referring her to the woman formerly kw-towed to and public funded and known as Her Royal Highness, subsequently demoted and sanctified and here ever after to be referred to as The People's Princess - cue sigh, wistful remembering look, sniff and wipe of eye.
We spent the day she died in the pub getting drunk and laughing at the spectacle that unfolded before us in real time on television. We managed to offend just about everyone in the bar. It was probably the last time The Slug and I were totally on the same wave length.
This dead parasite was, among other things: dumb, manipulative, vacuous, sly, needy, foolish, vain and destructive. She was a slut and a fool. She was born into the fucking aristocracy and cried foul when everyone else stuck to time honoured, tried and tested rules. Well might her husband bemoan his fate, shackled to the only member of the Upper Ten Thousand dim enough think she could make him the first Prince of Wales in history not to keep a mistress.
What exactly did she get from her marriage that she shouldn't have expected?
I'm enraged that The Times has squandered so many acres of newsprint on a Handy Lift Out that is three parts hagiography, one part conspiracy theory digest. As Mohammed Fayed would say, Fug Off. Enough already. Long since. Get a life. Get over her.
Phut post
I did the morning shift and I did something wrong. I don't know what, yet. I got in on time. I had my crib sheet with me - I am after all talking a six o'clock in the morning start, and I have to hit the ground running rather than loll about with coffee for a couple of hours while my brain warms gently.
I remembered for the most part what I was required to accomplish and in what order; my notes were adequate for those few moments when confidence ebbed (as caffeine levels dipped).
By the time the checkout supervisor arrived for work I had finished. Done and dusted. No dramas. No recounts. No calls to anyone for advice. Smooth as the proverbial baby's backside.
What the fuck didn't I do? What the fuck did I do wrong?
I know that I'll be set straight when I turn up for my next shift, probably with a laugh to lighten the moment, and they'll never know that I've agonised over this.
I remembered for the most part what I was required to accomplish and in what order; my notes were adequate for those few moments when confidence ebbed (as caffeine levels dipped).
By the time the checkout supervisor arrived for work I had finished. Done and dusted. No dramas. No recounts. No calls to anyone for advice. Smooth as the proverbial baby's backside.
What the fuck didn't I do? What the fuck did I do wrong?
I know that I'll be set straight when I turn up for my next shift, probably with a laugh to lighten the moment, and they'll never know that I've agonised over this.
Sense of humour failure
Of course I was joking... I don't really believe violence has a place in the well trained management consultant's problem solving tool kit.
But ...
I still don't understand why I can't strangle the work-shy, the stupid, the deceitful and the rude, and particularly the stupidly deceitful rude work-shy.
Loreen Lie-A-Lot got on my wrong side within hours of joining when she called me Luv as in "Alright Luv". It is an expression that sets my teeth on edge any time but most particularly and acutely when dripping from the lips of some diminutive blonde poppet who isn't yet old enough to sell alcohol (legally). This by the way is a round about way of saying that she's not yet 18 years old.
Within a couple of days she'd learned to chirrup "Can I get off, please". Because when she's not working a checkout lane she's at liberty to drift about the store looking distinctly ornamental and being distinctly nonfunctional. Sadly, though, we're actually paying her to accomplish things and not just look gorgeous.
Then the dramas started: A drunk father, an uncaring mother, a delinquent brother, a violent boyfriend, no money, perilous journey. She's one of those frightfully boring people who simply cannot just turn up for work and get cracking; there's always got to be some little catastrophe to make her a focus of our however so reluctantly it may be given attention.
Sympathy would have been readier had she actually showed any grasp of our expectations of her. She has the knack of looking deeply wounded whenever she's taken to task, however gently. Such is the magnificent resolution of the spine of the collective management that we've given up all hope of getting a return on our investment in the form of training and assigned her to the smellies, which means she gets to play with the deodorants and the fragranced* bath products to her heart's content.
There are some disadvantages to this strategy; not the least of these is the isolation of that section (with the attendant difficulties any manager has in monitoring her work output). But on the other hand all the boys work elsewhere so there's some chance we might still get some work out of them.
I'd suspended judgement but on Tuesday night, after learning that she's had her tea-break privilege withdrawn for epic slacking, I had to witness her piss off one of our customers and then have her lie to me, that customer, the customers behind her in the queue and two other colleagues.
Right now she's speed dating her way through all the unattached male members of staff (hopefully keeping her claws out of the attached ones, though I wouldn't put a spot of marriage-wrecking past her). She's dazzled the warehouse manager and now sold him a sob story about how her violent ex is planning to "kick his head in". Such is the wattage of her lustre she can have two swains prepared down animosities and share the duty of protecting her from each and every buffeting breeze.
What is troubling thought is that she's quite prepared to ride roughshod over anyone she's decided isn't worthy of her notice, and what's terrifying is the accuracy of her instinct in this respect. So I'm OK, for the moment, and all men are obviously potentially useful, but there isn't a single woman outside the small circle of managers and supervisors who gets a civil word of acknowledgementfrom her.
This little minx is going to ruin a lot of lives before she's finished. Don't say you weren't warned.
* that's how we speak in retail. Cute isn't it?
But ...
I still don't understand why I can't strangle the work-shy, the stupid, the deceitful and the rude, and particularly the stupidly deceitful rude work-shy.
Loreen Lie-A-Lot got on my wrong side within hours of joining when she called me Luv as in "Alright Luv". It is an expression that sets my teeth on edge any time but most particularly and acutely when dripping from the lips of some diminutive blonde poppet who isn't yet old enough to sell alcohol (legally). This by the way is a round about way of saying that she's not yet 18 years old.
Within a couple of days she'd learned to chirrup "Can I get off, please". Because when she's not working a checkout lane she's at liberty to drift about the store looking distinctly ornamental and being distinctly nonfunctional. Sadly, though, we're actually paying her to accomplish things and not just look gorgeous.
Then the dramas started: A drunk father, an uncaring mother, a delinquent brother, a violent boyfriend, no money, perilous journey. She's one of those frightfully boring people who simply cannot just turn up for work and get cracking; there's always got to be some little catastrophe to make her a focus of our however so reluctantly it may be given attention.
Sympathy would have been readier had she actually showed any grasp of our expectations of her. She has the knack of looking deeply wounded whenever she's taken to task, however gently. Such is the magnificent resolution of the spine of the collective management that we've given up all hope of getting a return on our investment in the form of training and assigned her to the smellies, which means she gets to play with the deodorants and the fragranced* bath products to her heart's content.
There are some disadvantages to this strategy; not the least of these is the isolation of that section (with the attendant difficulties any manager has in monitoring her work output). But on the other hand all the boys work elsewhere so there's some chance we might still get some work out of them.
I'd suspended judgement but on Tuesday night, after learning that she's had her tea-break privilege withdrawn for epic slacking, I had to witness her piss off one of our customers and then have her lie to me, that customer, the customers behind her in the queue and two other colleagues.
Right now she's speed dating her way through all the unattached male members of staff (hopefully keeping her claws out of the attached ones, though I wouldn't put a spot of marriage-wrecking past her). She's dazzled the warehouse manager and now sold him a sob story about how her violent ex is planning to "kick his head in". Such is the wattage of her lustre she can have two swains prepared down animosities and share the duty of protecting her from each and every buffeting breeze.
What is troubling thought is that she's quite prepared to ride roughshod over anyone she's decided isn't worthy of her notice, and what's terrifying is the accuracy of her instinct in this respect. So I'm OK, for the moment, and all men are obviously potentially useful, but there isn't a single woman outside the small circle of managers and supervisors who gets a civil word of acknowledgementfrom her.
This little minx is going to ruin a lot of lives before she's finished. Don't say you weren't warned.
* that's how we speak in retail. Cute isn't it?
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
Community Service Awards
I imagine no-one gives a bugger but I'm going to do it anyway; I'm going to dish out a handful of well deserved community service awards. This was to have been a longer post, but I haven't time. Lucky aren't you?
Californication sounds like total tosh (and so will probably go on to win other awards). To its producers and to Network Ten which is screening it in Australia my heartiest thanks for your sterling work which has managed to upset the United God Botherers Brigade (Down Under Branch). This fruit loop fringe is otherwise known as the Australian Christian Lobby and they're upset about the sex. They're right about there being too much sex about, of course. If only their parent had never indulged, what a wonderful world this would be.
Crackpots also don't like the fact that there's violence in a program called City HOMICIDE (congratulations to Seven) and that a stand up comedian says Rude Things. Now if they were forced to watch, they might have something to complain about. But forcing us Not To Watch, by driving this stuff from the nation's screens. That's an entirely different matter.
Californication sounds like total tosh (and so will probably go on to win other awards). To its producers and to Network Ten which is screening it in Australia my heartiest thanks for your sterling work which has managed to upset the United God Botherers Brigade (Down Under Branch). This fruit loop fringe is otherwise known as the Australian Christian Lobby and they're upset about the sex. They're right about there being too much sex about, of course. If only their parent had never indulged, what a wonderful world this would be.
Crackpots also don't like the fact that there's violence in a program called City HOMICIDE (congratulations to Seven) and that a stand up comedian says Rude Things. Now if they were forced to watch, they might have something to complain about. But forcing us Not To Watch, by driving this stuff from the nation's screens. That's an entirely different matter.
Monday, 27 August 2007
Good News for Modern Woman
The Shit Weasel (the Cat that adopted us) and the Tart (his female feline friend) working as a tag team caught something tonight. It wasn't cute. The light had gone completely and the Slug (husband) came in to let me know that they were out there in the garden somewhere with something...
So I stumbled about in the dark and shouted the Shit Weasel's name and the little fucker Growled at me. Really loud and really serious type growling, that would have sent me scurrying back into the house if I hadn't already had a couple of bottles of dutch lager inside me.
So I shouted some more and the Shit Weasel picked what ever he'd caught up and ran straight for the kitchen door, only deviating at the very last moment when that primeval self-preservation instinct kicked in and he chose instead to go down the side of the house. Must have known I'd have picked him up and added the colour of his brains and innards to the charmless collection of colours our house is already decorated in otherwise. God, I hate that cat.
Even then he stopped in the middle of the strawberry bed in the back yard. I blundered about in the gloom and trampled through the bits of forsythia that hadn't fitted into the recycling bin, shouted some more and finally he got the message.
He took his kill through to next door, via a gap in the fence, and didn't come back until he'd finished with it over in their garden.
Someone else dealing with it. That's the way to do things.
So I stumbled about in the dark and shouted the Shit Weasel's name and the little fucker Growled at me. Really loud and really serious type growling, that would have sent me scurrying back into the house if I hadn't already had a couple of bottles of dutch lager inside me.
So I shouted some more and the Shit Weasel picked what ever he'd caught up and ran straight for the kitchen door, only deviating at the very last moment when that primeval self-preservation instinct kicked in and he chose instead to go down the side of the house. Must have known I'd have picked him up and added the colour of his brains and innards to the charmless collection of colours our house is already decorated in otherwise. God, I hate that cat.
Even then he stopped in the middle of the strawberry bed in the back yard. I blundered about in the gloom and trampled through the bits of forsythia that hadn't fitted into the recycling bin, shouted some more and finally he got the message.
He took his kill through to next door, via a gap in the fence, and didn't come back until he'd finished with it over in their garden.
Someone else dealing with it. That's the way to do things.
Smoke gets in your clothes...
Within five minutes for arriving at work today I'd drafted the opening line of this post: "Stumped up to be confronted by Yoda and the Big Swinging Dick doing a sick-making double act..."
but I mustn't be mean to the BSD. I must be NICE to the BSD because the feed back following our brace of excursions to the big smoke continues to be very very positive and a glimmer of hope might just reside there in.
I've given him serious amounts of kudos and he KNOWS it because I can do things that he can't. He can do lots of things I can't (like remember and retell really filthy jokes, but that's another story) but he lacks the polish that comes of being a senior manager within a global management consultancy who might be asked at a few hours notice to turn up in the office of some SERIOUS City of London heavy weight and interview him (or her? don't make me fucking laugh) from a position of strength or at least credibility.
It is an act but not one that everyone can pull off. I did. For years. And I still have it, too. I can't do the ducking and diving that he can, or at least I can't do it as well as he can.
The two skills are not necessarily mutually exclusive, in fact I can think of some slimy shit bags who were working my side of the fence when I was in the city who would leave him eating their slime trail any day. But I don't have it. That's why I only made it as high up the food chain and went when I did. I didn't complain then, I'm not complaining now. I don't want to have what it would have taken. Simple really.
Ours has the makings of what is known in the trade as a symbiotic relationship. But that entails me getting something out of it, too. So far all I've got is respect, but that's more than I've hitherto enjoyed.
So I'm basking in that faintly golden glow and struggling to keep the contents of my stomach in at the same time. Thank God it really is true that women can multi-task.
Mind you, this was the height of today's demands on me. Even dealing with the fact that Darryl the Dick Fiddler's formerly gorgeous older brother has totally outgrown his looks and is now of deeply weird mien. How sad. He's only a boy still. He's got an entire life to get through looking like that.
And Jack the Lad is getting all hairy, which is slightly icky. I'm developing a crush on Carl "shocking" Hot But Dim, and the worst of it is that The Paper Shuffler in Chief fancies him too. I might need a lie down and some serious medication. Carl suggested that I needed to "chill, smoke something". Perhaps he's not as dim as most people suggest.
Blah, blah. More of the same. Bolshie Book Worm took over in the afternoon. Senior Frustrated Novelist was my side kick.
Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here. Dismal customers, plenty of WAFIs about.
Summer started three days ago but it probably won't last long. It will, after all, be September before the end of the week. Today we had the first and probably final barbecue of the year. How sad is that. Loads of lovely beer (oh, didn't I mention I'd fallen off the wagon and landed with a hell of a thud?). How did I leave that bit out? How naughty of me.
Apart from the bread and the meat the ingredients were all picked from the garden in which we cooked and ate, as required. That's something. Nowt fresher than the spuds the offspring grubbed, the 'rots she pulled, the beans she plucked.
Genius. My clothes stink of smoke, of course. Small price to pay. Now two evening shifts and a morning shift and an evening shift and ... I can't see any writing being done between now and next Sunday. Not even in my head.
Shit.
but I mustn't be mean to the BSD. I must be NICE to the BSD because the feed back following our brace of excursions to the big smoke continues to be very very positive and a glimmer of hope might just reside there in.
I've given him serious amounts of kudos and he KNOWS it because I can do things that he can't. He can do lots of things I can't (like remember and retell really filthy jokes, but that's another story) but he lacks the polish that comes of being a senior manager within a global management consultancy who might be asked at a few hours notice to turn up in the office of some SERIOUS City of London heavy weight and interview him (or her? don't make me fucking laugh) from a position of strength or at least credibility.
It is an act but not one that everyone can pull off. I did. For years. And I still have it, too. I can't do the ducking and diving that he can, or at least I can't do it as well as he can.
The two skills are not necessarily mutually exclusive, in fact I can think of some slimy shit bags who were working my side of the fence when I was in the city who would leave him eating their slime trail any day. But I don't have it. That's why I only made it as high up the food chain and went when I did. I didn't complain then, I'm not complaining now. I don't want to have what it would have taken. Simple really.
Ours has the makings of what is known in the trade as a symbiotic relationship. But that entails me getting something out of it, too. So far all I've got is respect, but that's more than I've hitherto enjoyed.
So I'm basking in that faintly golden glow and struggling to keep the contents of my stomach in at the same time. Thank God it really is true that women can multi-task.
Mind you, this was the height of today's demands on me. Even dealing with the fact that Darryl the Dick Fiddler's formerly gorgeous older brother has totally outgrown his looks and is now of deeply weird mien. How sad. He's only a boy still. He's got an entire life to get through looking like that.
And Jack the Lad is getting all hairy, which is slightly icky. I'm developing a crush on Carl "shocking" Hot But Dim, and the worst of it is that The Paper Shuffler in Chief fancies him too. I might need a lie down and some serious medication. Carl suggested that I needed to "chill, smoke something". Perhaps he's not as dim as most people suggest.
Blah, blah. More of the same. Bolshie Book Worm took over in the afternoon. Senior Frustrated Novelist was my side kick.
Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here. Dismal customers, plenty of WAFIs about.
Summer started three days ago but it probably won't last long. It will, after all, be September before the end of the week. Today we had the first and probably final barbecue of the year. How sad is that. Loads of lovely beer (oh, didn't I mention I'd fallen off the wagon and landed with a hell of a thud?). How did I leave that bit out? How naughty of me.
Apart from the bread and the meat the ingredients were all picked from the garden in which we cooked and ate, as required. That's something. Nowt fresher than the spuds the offspring grubbed, the 'rots she pulled, the beans she plucked.
Genius. My clothes stink of smoke, of course. Small price to pay. Now two evening shifts and a morning shift and an evening shift and ... I can't see any writing being done between now and next Sunday. Not even in my head.
Shit.
Sunday, 26 August 2007
Novel situation: point of clarification
I should perhaps explain that when I moaned about having the family at home today rather than out braving marauding hordes of fifteen year old assassins on BMX bikes (because the whole country is over run with them, as we know), it wasn't just because I can't abide my slug of a husband.
No, I really did have intentions. Good ones too, for the most part: washing and ironing and the kitchen floor, and etc. But I also intended to keep up with things while I'm on a roll. You see I wasn't joking about this damned thing in my head I had to get out. And I've got out three pages of what I had in my head. A series of aide-memoire that will possibly convert into 30-50 pages of text. So I'm getting it out and this was like someone sticking things up with a concrete plug.
I hate it when this happens. No one is tolerant of me in this phase. I can't expect them to understand and I don't blame them for finding me intolerable. That doesn't make things easier for any of us.
Also I've seen something about blogger and a book template which I'm tempted to try, inflicting this on an unsuspecting audience that will be no doubt admirably well equipped to tell me exactly how derivative and meaningless it is.
But I still have to get it out of my head before it drives me insane. You don't have to read it, you know.
No, I really did have intentions. Good ones too, for the most part: washing and ironing and the kitchen floor, and etc. But I also intended to keep up with things while I'm on a roll. You see I wasn't joking about this damned thing in my head I had to get out. And I've got out three pages of what I had in my head. A series of aide-memoire that will possibly convert into 30-50 pages of text. So I'm getting it out and this was like someone sticking things up with a concrete plug.
I hate it when this happens. No one is tolerant of me in this phase. I can't expect them to understand and I don't blame them for finding me intolerable. That doesn't make things easier for any of us.
Also I've seen something about blogger and a book template which I'm tempted to try, inflicting this on an unsuspecting audience that will be no doubt admirably well equipped to tell me exactly how derivative and meaningless it is.
But I still have to get it out of my head before it drives me insane. You don't have to read it, you know.
The Eyes don't get it.
This is the fifth evening I've not succumbed.* Not even to the cheap plonk (French, red) in the little fold-up, fold out arrangement that does for a wine rack in our house.
So I'm just wondering, like, well, er ... when will my eyes stop being pink where they're supposed to be white?
* that is fifth evening in a row, not in total in my entire life, like, yeah, okay?
So I'm just wondering, like, well, er ... when will my eyes stop being pink where they're supposed to be white?
* that is fifth evening in a row, not in total in my entire life, like, yeah, okay?
Spectral visions
I caught a glimpse of something terrifying today. The possibility that this might be it. As good as it will ever be for me. If only he knew. If that ever took hold of me there really would not be any point in bumping him off, because this is purgatory. God knows what I did in a previous life to deserve this. Perhaps I was Hitler, or Pol Pot (even if he was still alive when I was born) or Stalin or George W Bush's grandfather.
There. That's more like it.
There. That's more like it.
Not even funny
This morning I succeeded in kicking everyone else out of the house by 10:00 which is not bad for a Sunday and prepared myself for a day on MY OWN, without distractions, interruptions or other petty annoyances.
I went upstairs to gather together the last load and ... well I only intended to lie down for a couple of minutes but before I knew where I was the offspring was bounding upstairs to tell me all about the horrendous journey they'd found lying before them.
Fuck.
He picked up my work schedule for the next three weeks from the office yesterday and brought it home. Today was basically my last day to get ANYTHING extracurricular done between now and the middle of next month and it just vanished, like that!
And, this is my fourth day off the piss (I think; these days of sobriety are all blurring into one long mangled stretch of sobriety.) I was in a foul mood, stomped about doing a dozen things at once and making everybody else miserable so we could all be miserable together. Family togetherness of a sort.
I got a little ironing done before it became apparent that the offspring was going to hang on my shoulder in danger of receiving a serious burn until I stopped doing that and did something else to make everyone very upset. I went into the back garden and took some of my mood out on the forsythia which is now so hacked back, on one side at least, that it is almost under control. I got together some plastic buckets and started collecting the fallen, rotting fruit from the big fruit tree in the back garden which he insists is a green gage but which produces fruit that look very like the Victoria plums sold in the local supermarket.
What to know something really funny? I'm listening to Stand By Your Man right now. Bizarre.
I filled three buckets from underneath the tree and among the strawberry plants that are now throwing out yet more runners. Anyone who wants some, free to anyone who can collect, drop me a line.
The plums or whatever are very nice but the tree is about sixty feet tall and prolific and we get bored with them after a few weeks. The rest just rot. In lovely hot summers they provide foot for various bugs and butterflies and so forth - we had a couple of red admirals and a peacock this afternoon - which was bright and sunny, swooping about, driven crazy by the sickly sweet aroma of the rotting fruit. One of the red admirals settled on a clutch of over ripe fruit still hanging from one of the lower branches and drank ... and drank ... and drank. I could have reached out and touched it but I preferred just to watch and marvel at a work of perfection.
It cheered me up, we had Chinese for supper ... soy sauce, chillies, ginger and garlic with water chestnuts, bamboo slivers, spring onion and peppers. It all went so it can't have been too awful.
Now he's finally buggered off and I'm cramming this in ... it might be The Last Post (for three weeks, and I can forget a password in that time, believe me).
I went upstairs to gather together the last load and ... well I only intended to lie down for a couple of minutes but before I knew where I was the offspring was bounding upstairs to tell me all about the horrendous journey they'd found lying before them.
Fuck.
He picked up my work schedule for the next three weeks from the office yesterday and brought it home. Today was basically my last day to get ANYTHING extracurricular done between now and the middle of next month and it just vanished, like that!
And, this is my fourth day off the piss (I think; these days of sobriety are all blurring into one long mangled stretch of sobriety.) I was in a foul mood, stomped about doing a dozen things at once and making everybody else miserable so we could all be miserable together. Family togetherness of a sort.
I got a little ironing done before it became apparent that the offspring was going to hang on my shoulder in danger of receiving a serious burn until I stopped doing that and did something else to make everyone very upset. I went into the back garden and took some of my mood out on the forsythia which is now so hacked back, on one side at least, that it is almost under control. I got together some plastic buckets and started collecting the fallen, rotting fruit from the big fruit tree in the back garden which he insists is a green gage but which produces fruit that look very like the Victoria plums sold in the local supermarket.
What to know something really funny? I'm listening to Stand By Your Man right now. Bizarre.
I filled three buckets from underneath the tree and among the strawberry plants that are now throwing out yet more runners. Anyone who wants some, free to anyone who can collect, drop me a line.
The plums or whatever are very nice but the tree is about sixty feet tall and prolific and we get bored with them after a few weeks. The rest just rot. In lovely hot summers they provide foot for various bugs and butterflies and so forth - we had a couple of red admirals and a peacock this afternoon - which was bright and sunny, swooping about, driven crazy by the sickly sweet aroma of the rotting fruit. One of the red admirals settled on a clutch of over ripe fruit still hanging from one of the lower branches and drank ... and drank ... and drank. I could have reached out and touched it but I preferred just to watch and marvel at a work of perfection.
It cheered me up, we had Chinese for supper ... soy sauce, chillies, ginger and garlic with water chestnuts, bamboo slivers, spring onion and peppers. It all went so it can't have been too awful.
Now he's finally buggered off and I'm cramming this in ... it might be The Last Post (for three weeks, and I can forget a password in that time, believe me).
Saturday, 25 August 2007
Evangelism warning
I had a wee revelation last night or this morning. This is what I get for not drinking. Nothing last night, nothing the night before. That will be 72 hours if I can go another evening. I suppose I could go to bed and masturbate; there are worse ways for a girl to pass the time - such as spend the time in the company of her useless stinky lying lug of a husband ... or drinking I guess. The skin and eyes are already looking better and my brain seems to be functioning on more than a mere brace of cylinders.
Now I had feared on Wednesday night that abstinence would be pointless since he'd be off to his mother on Sunday and come back with more of that delicious Belgian-style Carlsberg beer - yes it is Carlsberg (usually undrinkable piss), yes it is 'Belgian-style'. Believe it or not, it works. As it happens he's blown this month's pay already and won't be buying much of anything for another 12 whole days, which gives my liver &etc a lovely long rest as long as I can retain this level of self-control.
Now I was aware when I posted on the subject of this border-line dependency a few days ago that I sounded whiny and lacking in self-awareness; blaming my problems on him rather than taking responsibility for myself. I wrote the piece anyway, just because I don't like him and it felt good.
But I do know the solution is in my own hands. The problem is I fear what I might become. Like one of those frightful reformed smokers, holier than thou types who rush around stubbing out other people's perfectly lawful cigarettes while extolling the virtues of reclaiming one's nicotine virginity I'd have to make a stand - LOUDLY.
I'd have to make a declaration of intent, I'd have to become a Born Again Non-Drinker. I'd have to become one of those intolerably smug bores I dislike so much.
Big sigh.
Oh, and there's the weight issue. I can't afford to by any new clothes so if any more weight does come off, you're all going to be in deep shit with so many extra acres of my lily-white flesh on parade. Sorry.
Now I had feared on Wednesday night that abstinence would be pointless since he'd be off to his mother on Sunday and come back with more of that delicious Belgian-style Carlsberg beer - yes it is Carlsberg (usually undrinkable piss), yes it is 'Belgian-style'. Believe it or not, it works. As it happens he's blown this month's pay already and won't be buying much of anything for another 12 whole days, which gives my liver &etc a lovely long rest as long as I can retain this level of self-control.
Now I was aware when I posted on the subject of this border-line dependency a few days ago that I sounded whiny and lacking in self-awareness; blaming my problems on him rather than taking responsibility for myself. I wrote the piece anyway, just because I don't like him and it felt good.
But I do know the solution is in my own hands. The problem is I fear what I might become. Like one of those frightful reformed smokers, holier than thou types who rush around stubbing out other people's perfectly lawful cigarettes while extolling the virtues of reclaiming one's nicotine virginity I'd have to make a stand - LOUDLY.
I'd have to make a declaration of intent, I'd have to become a Born Again Non-Drinker. I'd have to become one of those intolerably smug bores I dislike so much.
Big sigh.
Oh, and there's the weight issue. I can't afford to by any new clothes so if any more weight does come off, you're all going to be in deep shit with so many extra acres of my lily-white flesh on parade. Sorry.
Spider Pig
The Simpson's Movie, which I've not seen, includes a story line involving Homer and a Pig and featuring a song that has already acquired a life and renown of its own. You can see it on YouTube. You can download the song as a ring tone to your phone.
For those of you wishing to sing along in French here are the words in that language of this irritating little ditty:
For those of you wishing to sing along in French here are the words in that language of this irritating little ditty:
Spider Cochon, Spider Cochon,
il peut marcher au plafond !
Est-ce qu'il peut faire une toile ?
Bien sur que non, zc'estun cochon.
Prends garde ...
Spider Cochon est là !
Something I've been meaning to have a moan about
I'm prone to filing things away with every intention of moaning about them and one of the draw backs about being sober is that procrastination isn't such an easy option. Stuff bubbles back to the surface and I get all gung-ho and it pours out and before you know where you are you're being bored rigid if you inadvertently land here by my steam of conscious-lite crap.
And in that spirit let me say that the rather low-brow and pedestrian radio station I've been listening to is on the brink of losing me totally as a listener. Just as the phut-brawl season starts and I should be adding a dab of super glue to the tuning knob so no one else in the house can have a say in what we listen to I've found myself switching off, or more precisely switching over.
For me the final straw's been that ghastly Victoria Derbyshire woman back from maternity leave and oozing sanctimoniousness while gently stirring up all kinds of unpleasant strife. She is the Dolores Umbridge of talk back radio. And there's that new sports talk back wanker who'll allow you to have your own opinion only so long as you wind up agreeing that you're wrong and he's right. There were already too many Littlejohn's in British media. And even Alan Green makes a pretence of allowing a multiplicity of points of view to have airtime
Big sigh.
So that's Simon Mayo sometimes and Peter Allen who's nicked Anita which means I don't have her to listen to in the evening. That vile pudgy Northern Irishman can go stick his head in a bucket and right now I can't think of anything else I'd tune in to. The problem is I'm not good at thinking "Oh, it's 3:00 on Friday, must switch over and listen to Simon and Doctor Kermode camping it up over this week's (almost entirely incidental) movie releases".
All of which means that my French language skills will perk up considerably. See, there's a silver lining to every single cloud and cheers to the BBC for continuing to do its bit to fulfill the element of its charter relating to education.
And in that spirit let me say that the rather low-brow and pedestrian radio station I've been listening to is on the brink of losing me totally as a listener. Just as the phut-brawl season starts and I should be adding a dab of super glue to the tuning knob so no one else in the house can have a say in what we listen to I've found myself switching off, or more precisely switching over.
For me the final straw's been that ghastly Victoria Derbyshire woman back from maternity leave and oozing sanctimoniousness while gently stirring up all kinds of unpleasant strife. She is the Dolores Umbridge of talk back radio. And there's that new sports talk back wanker who'll allow you to have your own opinion only so long as you wind up agreeing that you're wrong and he's right. There were already too many Littlejohn's in British media. And even Alan Green makes a pretence of allowing a multiplicity of points of view to have airtime
Big sigh.
So that's Simon Mayo sometimes and Peter Allen who's nicked Anita which means I don't have her to listen to in the evening. That vile pudgy Northern Irishman can go stick his head in a bucket and right now I can't think of anything else I'd tune in to. The problem is I'm not good at thinking "Oh, it's 3:00 on Friday, must switch over and listen to Simon and Doctor Kermode camping it up over this week's (almost entirely incidental) movie releases".
All of which means that my French language skills will perk up considerably. See, there's a silver lining to every single cloud and cheers to the BBC for continuing to do its bit to fulfill the element of its charter relating to education.
Friday, 24 August 2007
Suck it and see
He broke the vacuum cleaner and after weeks and weeks of dithering and procrastination got hold of the name of A Man Who Does Vacuum Cleaners. But only for money, not for fun.
This strange man came and collected the bits of our vacuum cleaner that required attention and left us a temporary replacement. This was about ten days ago, before The Dick Head discovered that he has less than £10 to get him through to next payday, which is now just under a fortnight away. So that's OK. Since this geezer with the very lived in face had no idea when the part might turn up from Dyson or whatever intermediary he acquires parts through we were not expecting a next day return or anything like that and, given the circumstances we're currently in, we didn't exactly set up a howl of complaint.
So there we were this evening, sitting down to chicken and rice and there was a knock on the door. The Man Who Does Vacuum Cleaners had done our vacuum cleaner and wanted his machine back ... and £25 too, thank you very much.
Yup.
How much are baked beans and where can I buy them in bulk?
This strange man came and collected the bits of our vacuum cleaner that required attention and left us a temporary replacement. This was about ten days ago, before The Dick Head discovered that he has less than £10 to get him through to next payday, which is now just under a fortnight away. So that's OK. Since this geezer with the very lived in face had no idea when the part might turn up from Dyson or whatever intermediary he acquires parts through we were not expecting a next day return or anything like that and, given the circumstances we're currently in, we didn't exactly set up a howl of complaint.
So there we were this evening, sitting down to chicken and rice and there was a knock on the door. The Man Who Does Vacuum Cleaners had done our vacuum cleaner and wanted his machine back ... and £25 too, thank you very much.
Yup.
How much are baked beans and where can I buy them in bulk?
Oh, FFS
Tits and Cookies ... and those fucking God Botherers. Sometimes Cookies and God-bothering all mixed up together. But this afternoon, mostly Nottingham Tits.
Big fat ones too, and not all of them perkily Silicone enhanced. In fact some of them heading south at a great rate of Knots. So much so they'll soon be long enough to have knots tied in them, or be tied together, or flicked artistically over opposing shoulders. Anything would be better than having them flopping about like that, dear.
Where was I. Oh this nonsense. And I had a bit of a clear out of the Sympatico, cos some of that was too NICE. No more Next Blog-ing for me for a while.
I'm in a bad mood because the Age is now carrying more details about what was said about whom and it is all too sadly predicable. I would have gambled the house on it being Sex or Drugs or that other thing, but more probably Sex or Drugs given that it involves un-evolved Aussie Rules types. And the worst of it is that the story carries the point that a fully paid up member of Howard's Mini-Me Army is slating the sport's drugs policy and ...
The Law of Big Numbers says this had to happen some time and it has. This is historic. I agreed with the fuck-faced little weasel. No, I've not seen his photo, but he's one of Little Johnnie's Minions so he has to be that attractive, if only on the inside.
Well (Big Sigh, Bigger Breath) I agreed with him. The story should have come with a health warning. It will take me years to recover from this. Bastards. On the bright side I now have another reason to loath the little fucker.
Big fat ones too, and not all of them perkily Silicone enhanced. In fact some of them heading south at a great rate of Knots. So much so they'll soon be long enough to have knots tied in them, or be tied together, or flicked artistically over opposing shoulders. Anything would be better than having them flopping about like that, dear.
Where was I. Oh this nonsense. And I had a bit of a clear out of the Sympatico, cos some of that was too NICE. No more Next Blog-ing for me for a while.
I'm in a bad mood because the Age is now carrying more details about what was said about whom and it is all too sadly predicable. I would have gambled the house on it being Sex or Drugs or that other thing, but more probably Sex or Drugs given that it involves un-evolved Aussie Rules types. And the worst of it is that the story carries the point that a fully paid up member of Howard's Mini-Me Army is slating the sport's drugs policy and ...
The Law of Big Numbers says this had to happen some time and it has. This is historic. I agreed with the fuck-faced little weasel. No, I've not seen his photo, but he's one of Little Johnnie's Minions so he has to be that attractive, if only on the inside.
Well (Big Sigh, Bigger Breath) I agreed with him. The story should have come with a health warning. It will take me years to recover from this. Bastards. On the bright side I now have another reason to loath the little fucker.
Call me an idiot
Now there's an invitation you can't help but feel you didn't actually need. Quite right, too.
But just to put the matter beyond all doubt let me take this opportunity to confess that I've wasted the last half an hour of my life clicking the Next Blog button. Cheers Blogger. An endless stream of Bloated Nottinghamshire Tits and Stay At Home Mom Drivel. Oh, and I'm sure that I saw the phrase Pedo Pics pass before my eyes in the little Recently Updated section. What a charmless tawdry, obligation-free universe this is. I'm only glad I'm able to make a full contribution.
But just to put the matter beyond all doubt let me take this opportunity to confess that I've wasted the last half an hour of my life clicking the Next Blog button. Cheers Blogger. An endless stream of Bloated Nottinghamshire Tits and Stay At Home Mom Drivel. Oh, and I'm sure that I saw the phrase Pedo Pics pass before my eyes in the little Recently Updated section. What a charmless tawdry, obligation-free universe this is. I'm only glad I'm able to make a full contribution.
Nicknames
I've named her Pea-brain. None too affectionately either. The Big Swinging Dick refers to her as the Air Head.
The General Staff have taken to calling her Yoda, as in "Stupid I am, Blonde it is... Stupid I am, Blonde it is". So if I refer to Yoda you now know who I'm writing about. Ok?
The General Staff have taken to calling her Yoda, as in "Stupid I am, Blonde it is... Stupid I am, Blonde it is". So if I refer to Yoda you now know who I'm writing about. Ok?
Seasonal Greetings
'Tis the season to be totally fucked off by the influx of out-of-towners; braying types with bigger boats than either dicks or IQs.
You're known in these parts as WAFIs, which is to say Wind Assisted Fucking Idiots. Welcome to town. Enjoy the sailing. Spend your dosh and sod off.
You're known in these parts as WAFIs, which is to say Wind Assisted Fucking Idiots. Welcome to town. Enjoy the sailing. Spend your dosh and sod off.
Can I be like this too?
Are all old people this stupid I wondered to myself last Sunday? Actually I didn't. I nearly peed my knickers at the opinions of the Certified Old Duck who was regaling her dining companions and everyone else in the dining room of the Stockpot last Sunday. The Stockpot is the joint we had lunch in on the way back from collecting the Offspring from Victoria Coach Station.
She was there with a couple of equally decrepit blokes and another woman who was sitting with her back to me and whose age I cannot comment on.
There she sat, all garish and highly improbably red hair and absurd face paint. And the only two English cricketers she rates highly, she informs the entire world, are Freddy (that's Andrew) Flintoff. Fat, indisciplined Freddy. And Marcus Trescothick, the Somerset batsman who has a head so all over the place he can't play international cricket.
Hmm.
A few years ago an Australian captain was asked to comment on the England team and whether any of them would make the Australian team and he observed that Darren Gough would be useful ... to carry the drinks.
I ask myself if an Australian captain asked today whether he'd accept any of this lot and I have to conclude that the answer on this occasion would be an emphatic Fuck Off, Mate.
That was wonderful enough but then there was an old duffer bringing up the rear of a parade of old duffers out for a constitutional at the same time as us earlier this week. We were down on the river front at the far end of town where the clubs and pubs are clustered. In their midst there's one shop targeted at yachties.
The shop occupies several several shops knocked together. It sells nasty little nick-nacky (sorry, I have absolutely no idea how to spell that, and the Blogger spell checker has no idea how to spell) things from one window and clothing from the window at the other end of the shop.
I was standing on the step in front of the clothing window to keep out of the way of the parade and I heard him say, as he approached the shop from the clothing end: "Ah, the first chandlers ... well not so much a chandlers as a clothing shop..." Except that from the three shop fronts in between the trinkets and the deck shoes there's acres of charts, winding gear, cooking and lighting equipment, anti-fouling paint and so on and so forth. Everything a boat owner might need in fact. It is indeed a chandlers in the fullest sense.
So when I'm that old, never mind the purple dress or hat or whatever it is I am supposed to want to wear: can I be that bonkers and premature too?
She was there with a couple of equally decrepit blokes and another woman who was sitting with her back to me and whose age I cannot comment on.
There she sat, all garish and highly improbably red hair and absurd face paint. And the only two English cricketers she rates highly, she informs the entire world, are Freddy (that's Andrew) Flintoff. Fat, indisciplined Freddy. And Marcus Trescothick, the Somerset batsman who has a head so all over the place he can't play international cricket.
Hmm.
A few years ago an Australian captain was asked to comment on the England team and whether any of them would make the Australian team and he observed that Darren Gough would be useful ... to carry the drinks.
I ask myself if an Australian captain asked today whether he'd accept any of this lot and I have to conclude that the answer on this occasion would be an emphatic Fuck Off, Mate.
That was wonderful enough but then there was an old duffer bringing up the rear of a parade of old duffers out for a constitutional at the same time as us earlier this week. We were down on the river front at the far end of town where the clubs and pubs are clustered. In their midst there's one shop targeted at yachties.
The shop occupies several several shops knocked together. It sells nasty little nick-nacky (sorry, I have absolutely no idea how to spell that, and the Blogger spell checker has no idea how to spell) things from one window and clothing from the window at the other end of the shop.
I was standing on the step in front of the clothing window to keep out of the way of the parade and I heard him say, as he approached the shop from the clothing end: "Ah, the first chandlers ... well not so much a chandlers as a clothing shop..." Except that from the three shop fronts in between the trinkets and the deck shoes there's acres of charts, winding gear, cooking and lighting equipment, anti-fouling paint and so on and so forth. Everything a boat owner might need in fact. It is indeed a chandlers in the fullest sense.
So when I'm that old, never mind the purple dress or hat or whatever it is I am supposed to want to wear: can I be that bonkers and premature too?
What else
Reasons to be cheerful, part ... where am I up to? Oh, ONE.
Got on the scales for the first time in a few weeks, expecting to have piled weight on during the 'summer' holiday, through being so inactive (so little gardening) and miserable. But no, I haven't.
Why.
If only I were a hypocondriac I could up with some really, truly unpleasant illness to explain my failure to put on loads of weight while essentially eating and living exactly as I had done for the previous seven months.
But I'm not. Which probably has some bitterly ironic twist to it in that I'm actually silently suffering from some deadly disease that won't manifest itself until moments before I drop dead.
Got on the scales for the first time in a few weeks, expecting to have piled weight on during the 'summer' holiday, through being so inactive (so little gardening) and miserable. But no, I haven't.
Why.
If only I were a hypocondriac I could up with some really, truly unpleasant illness to explain my failure to put on loads of weight while essentially eating and living exactly as I had done for the previous seven months.
But I'm not. Which probably has some bitterly ironic twist to it in that I'm actually silently suffering from some deadly disease that won't manifest itself until moments before I drop dead.
Palpitations
Suffered them last night, or this morning. I had a highly disturbed night's sleep overall but that was the scary bit. It was while I was lying in a lather of sweat, trying to work out what had set the anxiety attack off that I realised it I had been used to dream about being trapped in airport departure lounges with no way out but no longer do so. And I thought it so sad, since it probably reflects an acceptance of my grim fate and loss of hope for the future. Then I wake up to all that Alexander Downer nonsense and that other idiot Howard-lite creature and this doesn't seem like quite such a negative state of affairs. If only I could be happy and financially secure and living here from a position of strength rather than weakness.
Downer
I used to think of Alexander Downer as one of Little Johnnie Howard's more benign dribblers, but no longer. Sandy's vision of democracy is one wherein the truth is what Wee Johnnie and his merry men say it is, end of argument. Anything contrary to their wisdom isn't wrong, it is anti-democratic, or odd or weird or ... damn it ... I had intended to garner the adjectives Downer actually used in his petty, nasty anti-Wikipedia tirade as reported in an article on the Age web site. But bugger me if it hasn't gone. Already. That's slick.
Still, there's always Federal Ageing Minister Christopher Pyne. Not someone I know or want to know. In fact someone so singularly unimportant I cannot recall ever having heard of him before. I suppose his mother thinks his political career's going great guns with a Job Title Like That. Pyne's waded into a very minor imbroglio yet again involving an unnamed football club and two of its unidentified players who've done something unspecified. Boy does this stuff get the juices flowing. A television program said something about the club and players and an injunction's been obtained so that what was reported can't be repeated which is why the Age version is so, um, like, thin.
Well Pyne is apparently "very disappointed for the players, the families and the AFL." The Age story goes on to quote Pyne as saying: "It's always sad for individuals when revelations like this come to light," he said in a statement."
Yes that is Revelations, not allegations.
It is no fucking wonder I've stopped having nightmares in which I'm trapped in the departures lounge of an airport seething with people, unable to find my way to the right gate and get on a plane home. I don't really want to live in this dystopian creation run by an Elect Vessel who doesn't believe in voting or tertiary education and blah, blah. Too much weirdness causes my brain to shut down and I can never retain the entire litany of stupid things the Brethen believe in. Yes, the EV isn't actually Howard, but that complete fucking fruit cake he's prone to entertaining in the publicly (that's elector) funded Office of the Prime Minister of Australia. People who don't vote or believe in voting have NO PLACE WHATSOEVER in a publicly funded office.
Howard should be done for treason for his betrayal of the public trust and misuse of political office.
And in the meantime the whole fucking cabinet should pull its collective nose out from between the covers of the bible and spend their time instead performing their publicly funded duties.
Still, there's always Federal Ageing Minister Christopher Pyne. Not someone I know or want to know. In fact someone so singularly unimportant I cannot recall ever having heard of him before. I suppose his mother thinks his political career's going great guns with a Job Title Like That. Pyne's waded into a very minor imbroglio yet again involving an unnamed football club and two of its unidentified players who've done something unspecified. Boy does this stuff get the juices flowing. A television program said something about the club and players and an injunction's been obtained so that what was reported can't be repeated which is why the Age version is so, um, like, thin.
Well Pyne is apparently "very disappointed for the players, the families and the AFL." The Age story goes on to quote Pyne as saying: "It's always sad for individuals when revelations like this come to light," he said in a statement."
Yes that is Revelations, not allegations.
It is no fucking wonder I've stopped having nightmares in which I'm trapped in the departures lounge of an airport seething with people, unable to find my way to the right gate and get on a plane home. I don't really want to live in this dystopian creation run by an Elect Vessel who doesn't believe in voting or tertiary education and blah, blah. Too much weirdness causes my brain to shut down and I can never retain the entire litany of stupid things the Brethen believe in. Yes, the EV isn't actually Howard, but that complete fucking fruit cake he's prone to entertaining in the publicly (that's elector) funded Office of the Prime Minister of Australia. People who don't vote or believe in voting have NO PLACE WHATSOEVER in a publicly funded office.
Howard should be done for treason for his betrayal of the public trust and misuse of political office.
And in the meantime the whole fucking cabinet should pull its collective nose out from between the covers of the bible and spend their time instead performing their publicly funded duties.
Thursday, 23 August 2007
Big Red Tomato
He's got an admirer. She's a notorious widow, a blond of a certain age with a propensity for pinching fresh meat. Most of the younger male staff know to avoid her, or at least not have their backs to her lest they be goosed flagrantly.
At the start of the summer she donated a bag of pots of young tomato plant seedlings. I ignored them, he ignored them. I gave in and potted them on. We lost a few but enough survived. We have about twenty five tomato plants. Big, strong green tomato plants, bearing big green fruit. Green.
Thank god my mother left me a receipe for Green Tomato Chutney. What a shame I can't remember where I put it.
In the mean time he's mentioned to her that our fruit are the Wrong Colour. She's making a donation of some of her surplus Big Red Ones. How caring. Wish she'd take him by way of a trade.
At the start of the summer she donated a bag of pots of young tomato plant seedlings. I ignored them, he ignored them. I gave in and potted them on. We lost a few but enough survived. We have about twenty five tomato plants. Big, strong green tomato plants, bearing big green fruit. Green.
Thank god my mother left me a receipe for Green Tomato Chutney. What a shame I can't remember where I put it.
In the mean time he's mentioned to her that our fruit are the Wrong Colour. She's making a donation of some of her surplus Big Red Ones. How caring. Wish she'd take him by way of a trade.
Well things might be looking up
Department X has been almost obliterated because of illness, injury and indolence. Billy the Kid is a slacker as everyone knows, so him not being at work is par for the course. Little Lee is off due to a car accident. Hardly surprising. He cannot be big enough to see over the dash board. Mike the Mouth is off sick because he's just back from holiday and he always gets sick on holiday.
Another floppy haired fool has given in his notice so the Deparment is only function because of the labour of a couple of Uni students we'll be losing in the next two or three weeks. After that they're screwed unless the slackers can be kicked into something like shape by the Big Swinging Dick in the meantime.
Another floppy haired fool has given in his notice so the Deparment is only function because of the labour of a couple of Uni students we'll be losing in the next two or three weeks. After that they're screwed unless the slackers can be kicked into something like shape by the Big Swinging Dick in the meantime.
Well that's alright then
Saw Paul again yesterday, for the first time he announced he'd be hosting a small soiree for the purpose of consuming large amounts of absinthe.
How frightfully recherche of him, indeed.
He's survived, having done things moderately properly and relatively sensibly. He eschewed the whole flame thing, deeming it imprudent given the convivial but ever so young company he was in.
Now his parents are back and only mildly disappointed in his behaviour and the state of their house. Which just proves how lame he is. Nothing burned, nothing important broken. The vacuum cleaner, unused but also undefiled.
Kids these days! And they're going to be running this country in twenty years time, God help all who remain on board at that time.
How frightfully recherche of him, indeed.
He's survived, having done things moderately properly and relatively sensibly. He eschewed the whole flame thing, deeming it imprudent given the convivial but ever so young company he was in.
Now his parents are back and only mildly disappointed in his behaviour and the state of their house. Which just proves how lame he is. Nothing burned, nothing important broken. The vacuum cleaner, unused but also undefiled.
Kids these days! And they're going to be running this country in twenty years time, God help all who remain on board at that time.
Things can only get better
Ever had a bruise you can't resist kneeding. It hurts already, you know it will only hurt more but you do it anyway.
Our financial problems are a bit like that. Things we are likely to need to replace in the near future are one bed (and matress), the washing machine, the fridge, central heating system, the front door, the master bedroom window, the cistern. Major structural work is required to the rear chimney, the window frames, the roof and the front porch. The entire house needs painting.
I should be suicidal or at the very least manic. But I had almost nothing to drink last night. I know this because I actually didn't feel too bad last night. No nightmares either. I have them some times, or if I'm awake they're crippling anxiety attacks.
But even the thought of the mountain of expenditure facing us and the distance between me and a better paid job that creates I don't actually feel depressed this morning. We were in fear of flooding last night but I slept well.
Now that is deeply strange.
Allow me to make it stranger still. He trotted over to withdraw some money late yesterday afternoon and came back rather ashen faced. No money. Well eight pounds and not much else. And that has to last him two whole weeks. He won't be paid for another two whole weeks. That's a long time to go without fag and vodka money.
Our financial problems are a bit like that. Things we are likely to need to replace in the near future are one bed (and matress), the washing machine, the fridge, central heating system, the front door, the master bedroom window, the cistern. Major structural work is required to the rear chimney, the window frames, the roof and the front porch. The entire house needs painting.
I should be suicidal or at the very least manic. But I had almost nothing to drink last night. I know this because I actually didn't feel too bad last night. No nightmares either. I have them some times, or if I'm awake they're crippling anxiety attacks.
But even the thought of the mountain of expenditure facing us and the distance between me and a better paid job that creates I don't actually feel depressed this morning. We were in fear of flooding last night but I slept well.
Now that is deeply strange.
Allow me to make it stranger still. He trotted over to withdraw some money late yesterday afternoon and came back rather ashen faced. No money. Well eight pounds and not much else. And that has to last him two whole weeks. He won't be paid for another two whole weeks. That's a long time to go without fag and vodka money.
Wednesday, 22 August 2007
Out of hand
As usual things have escalated from a delightfully low base. In the space of a month I've gone through not remembering when I last had a drink to not remembering how much I had to drink last night. I peer at my face in the mirror the following morning, hate what I see, swear I won't do it again and know deep down that I haven't yet got to the point where I can go through a day without succumbing.
The worst of it is that I haven't bought a drop in all those weeks. He keeps on trotting home with it, even when I don't ask for it. So oblivious is he to the possibility of life without it, he fills what he sees as a gap and almost certainly thinks I should be pleased by his thoughtfulness, flattered by his attention. The scarier possibility is that he knows I'm less able to help myself when I'm helpless.
The worst of it is that I haven't bought a drop in all those weeks. He keeps on trotting home with it, even when I don't ask for it. So oblivious is he to the possibility of life without it, he fills what he sees as a gap and almost certainly thinks I should be pleased by his thoughtfulness, flattered by his attention. The scarier possibility is that he knows I'm less able to help myself when I'm helpless.
Do men do this any more?
For what ever reason I had a vivid out of any appreciable context memory last night of the last (and indeed only) time anyone tried to flagrantly pick me up. It was a business trip. I was flying from London to Brussels to attend a Euro Talk Fest (on what subject I cannot recall at this distance).
The plane was mostly full of business types. We landed and taxied toward the airport. Silently we unstrapped ourselves, stood awkwardly and began the ritual grapple with other people's luggage in the overhead lockers. Except I'm never that enthused about engaging in a bun fight to be the first person off a flight as that only leads directly to another bun fight at the luggage carousel followed by another bun fight at passport control and yet another at the taxi rank. So I stood, to stretch my legs, and waited.
And I caught this man's eye. I can't remember much about him except that he was suited and clean shaven, dark haired and taller than me. Probably a good 15 years older than me too. Suave, sophisticated and well travelled.
Then he waved his wallet at me. It was subtle enough that probably no one else noticed. With one hand he pulled the left side of his jacket back a bit. Then with finger and thumb of the other hand he delicately lifted his wallet out, waggled it a bit in my direction and gauged my response. After a pause to process this, and recognising that he wasn't going to put it away until I gave him an answer I shook my head ever so slightly.
He put it away, turned and left. I never saw him again.
In the intervening years I've thought about that moment just a few times. After the conference I went back to London and married the fat, hairy bane of my life. I have ruled out being mistaken about what happened, though I've never heard of another instance of a bloke attempting to pick up a women by litterally (rather than figuratively) waving his big fat one at her in lieu of words, flowers, chocolates, champagne, candles and soft music. Come to think of it everything just mentioned - apart from the words, is just another form of 'shag me, I'm loaded (enough)'.
I haven't ever before wondered what might have happened if I hadn't said no. The only thing I can say with any conviction is that I might have been more confident that I had other options and made a better choice. If only more men had waved their wallets at me. I might still be poor, but at least I would have had the luxury of time and sufficient self-assurance to choose someone honourable.
The plane was mostly full of business types. We landed and taxied toward the airport. Silently we unstrapped ourselves, stood awkwardly and began the ritual grapple with other people's luggage in the overhead lockers. Except I'm never that enthused about engaging in a bun fight to be the first person off a flight as that only leads directly to another bun fight at the luggage carousel followed by another bun fight at passport control and yet another at the taxi rank. So I stood, to stretch my legs, and waited.
And I caught this man's eye. I can't remember much about him except that he was suited and clean shaven, dark haired and taller than me. Probably a good 15 years older than me too. Suave, sophisticated and well travelled.
Then he waved his wallet at me. It was subtle enough that probably no one else noticed. With one hand he pulled the left side of his jacket back a bit. Then with finger and thumb of the other hand he delicately lifted his wallet out, waggled it a bit in my direction and gauged my response. After a pause to process this, and recognising that he wasn't going to put it away until I gave him an answer I shook my head ever so slightly.
He put it away, turned and left. I never saw him again.
In the intervening years I've thought about that moment just a few times. After the conference I went back to London and married the fat, hairy bane of my life. I have ruled out being mistaken about what happened, though I've never heard of another instance of a bloke attempting to pick up a women by litterally (rather than figuratively) waving his big fat one at her in lieu of words, flowers, chocolates, champagne, candles and soft music. Come to think of it everything just mentioned - apart from the words, is just another form of 'shag me, I'm loaded (enough)'.
I haven't ever before wondered what might have happened if I hadn't said no. The only thing I can say with any conviction is that I might have been more confident that I had other options and made a better choice. If only more men had waved their wallets at me. I might still be poor, but at least I would have had the luxury of time and sufficient self-assurance to choose someone honourable.
Monday, 20 August 2007
The Ingrate
We've done everything he demanded. We brought back the Little One and erected the Pink Palace. How's he reacted to all this? By behaving like a perfect ingrate, or if you will a stroppy teenager who doesn't know when he's well off. He huffed about the place for a while before settling down, behind His bedroom door which is, as previously mentioned one of the more awkward places for him to curl up.
We're all going on a summer holiday
Last year the Big Swinging Dick made a mistake. Hardly news, hardly surprising.
What was odd about this was how quick he was to recognise his mistake and move to address it.
He put up a notice. Hardly news, hardly surprising. It is, after all, what he does when confronted by the need to appear managerial.
It wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if only his staff would or could read, but even the ones that can won't.
He laid down the law in no uncertain terms. Occasional staff recruited (or re-recruited) to help out over the summer, both to cover an upturn in customer numbers and also the upturn in annual leave taking by permanent staff may not take holidays. Simple.
Or it would be if the Big Swinging Dick had even the spine of the simplest vertebrate, and something like a grip on the decision making of his assistant managers. One way or another they've all managed to slope of for days off here and there, mostly on the weekend, when we're in direst need of additional staff let alone cover.
And the absinthe swigging soirees are only the worst of it, not the least interesting. Fucking students.
What was odd about this was how quick he was to recognise his mistake and move to address it.
He put up a notice. Hardly news, hardly surprising. It is, after all, what he does when confronted by the need to appear managerial.
It wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if only his staff would or could read, but even the ones that can won't.
He laid down the law in no uncertain terms. Occasional staff recruited (or re-recruited) to help out over the summer, both to cover an upturn in customer numbers and also the upturn in annual leave taking by permanent staff may not take holidays. Simple.
Or it would be if the Big Swinging Dick had even the spine of the simplest vertebrate, and something like a grip on the decision making of his assistant managers. One way or another they've all managed to slope of for days off here and there, mostly on the weekend, when we're in direst need of additional staff let alone cover.
And the absinthe swigging soirees are only the worst of it, not the least interesting. Fucking students.
Guess What
This really is a post about waste management. Not his ability to pee and fart at the same time. That's my dawn chorus, and I'd shoot it if I could.
No, I've digressed. What this is actually about is us earning another elephant stamp because, for the third week running we've actually got our shit together and put all the rubbish out, and the recycling boxes out, and all in good time so that they've actually been collected.
Aren't we clever?
No, I've digressed. What this is actually about is us earning another elephant stamp because, for the third week running we've actually got our shit together and put all the rubbish out, and the recycling boxes out, and all in good time so that they've actually been collected.
Aren't we clever?
Big Smoke
Yesterday's journey to town included a bone shaking journey across country along 'B' roads, though how much contact there was at any given moment in time between all four wheels and the road surface is a matter of conjecture, but something perhaps not best contemplated by someone likely to have to repeat the experience at some time in the future.
We're broke again (or still) so we won't be escaping the public transport bind for a while.
I had an anxiety attack during the week. That was another thing. A year after the last round of serious money worries we're no further forward. And I looked on the home office web site. I have two visa options but one of them, holding it would make it far easier to get a better paid job, will cost me the best part of £1,000 while the other will cost just over £300. It just isn't going to be possible to make the investment in the 'better' visa. I also need a car if I'm going to get to and fro that better job. How the fuck am I supposed to get myself out of this cesspit he dug for me?
The upside of the bus journey was that it took less time than it should have, and we were ahead of ourselves. Also the trains were running right into London rather than stopping outside and dumping us onto the underground. We had bucket loads of time to kill and he suggested popping into the Museum of London; this was fine by me as it meant we didn't actually have to talk. The museum has come on strongly since I first visited it almost 15 years ago. This time we didn't get past the pre-history gallery of case upon case of flint, old bone, pottery shards and the occasional piece of ornamentation. This is all while major work is going on to revive the lower galleries, but I was perfectly to pass half an hour there.
Then legging it across to the west to the coach station, travelling by the No.11 which used to be such a cool experience and is now in many ways just another bus journey, albeit one that takes the passenger from the heart of the city, via St Paul's (where we picked it up) down Ludgate Hill to the point where what was once the Fleet is crossed. From there on up Fleet Street and the Strand, towards Trafalgar Square then onwards to the Abbey and in to Victoria.
At some point we picked up a couple of old dears very much off their patch (Knightsbridge to go by the accent) and one was moved to remark to the other - but quite loudly enough that the entire assembled company heard her over the engine, that "London is rather full of tourists these days!" which made me and the few other people on the bus with enough English to understand smile. She and her friend tottered off somewhere down Victoria Street, still a long way from home. Perhaps they were a couple of well-heeled crusty recusants off to the Cathedral to bother God.
We were on time, the coach was late. The board said "Delayed, no information available". The information desk was equally informative. The coach turned up about forty minutes late. She looked tired. We said our farewells to the friend she'd made last year and kept in touch with. She insisted she'd had a good time but she wasn't bounding the way I'd expect. We dragged her luggage to a cheap restaurant and fed our faces, then went up to Covent Garden to spend money (but note the opening to this post). Apparently it had to be done. We bought booze, but Vic Bitter and Coopers Ale have lost their appeal. They just aren't as good as I once thought they were. But we had to buy some and some food.
So now we were dragging luggage and shopping through London's crowded streets with an exhausted child in tow. We got a little more about her week from her. The coach was late getting in because the driver took the wrong route and put them that much behind schedule. I hope the two German kids they'd had on the camp and who they dumped at Heathrow to get a plane home didn't miss their flight. Before she went away we'd talked about going to the good Indian restaurant in town for a nosh-up, but by the time we got back we were all too tired to go out again.
The cat has perked up no end with the Little One's return and the second coming of the Pink Palace.
The Palace, meanwhile, has lost some of its lustre apparently. Although she slept in it last night she came up in the morning and crawled under the covers of her 'little old bed'. We haven't had a summer and the jumpers which I never did get around to packing properly are now being worn again. The days are shortening and she'll be back to school. I have the school shoes and most of the rest of it can give us a bit more wear. Thankfully.
Next year it is spy camp we've been told, whether or not her friend from last year is going too. Here's hoping that the paternal grandmother can stump up the readies, 'cos I can't see us affording it unless one of his scratch cards turns out to be a big payer.
Next thing is to shake off yet another bug. Another novel, a bit derivative but what isn't, has started to take shape and the only way to get rid of it will be to write it down.
We're broke again (or still) so we won't be escaping the public transport bind for a while.
I had an anxiety attack during the week. That was another thing. A year after the last round of serious money worries we're no further forward. And I looked on the home office web site. I have two visa options but one of them, holding it would make it far easier to get a better paid job, will cost me the best part of £1,000 while the other will cost just over £300. It just isn't going to be possible to make the investment in the 'better' visa. I also need a car if I'm going to get to and fro that better job. How the fuck am I supposed to get myself out of this cesspit he dug for me?
The upside of the bus journey was that it took less time than it should have, and we were ahead of ourselves. Also the trains were running right into London rather than stopping outside and dumping us onto the underground. We had bucket loads of time to kill and he suggested popping into the Museum of London; this was fine by me as it meant we didn't actually have to talk. The museum has come on strongly since I first visited it almost 15 years ago. This time we didn't get past the pre-history gallery of case upon case of flint, old bone, pottery shards and the occasional piece of ornamentation. This is all while major work is going on to revive the lower galleries, but I was perfectly to pass half an hour there.
Then legging it across to the west to the coach station, travelling by the No.11 which used to be such a cool experience and is now in many ways just another bus journey, albeit one that takes the passenger from the heart of the city, via St Paul's (where we picked it up) down Ludgate Hill to the point where what was once the Fleet is crossed. From there on up Fleet Street and the Strand, towards Trafalgar Square then onwards to the Abbey and in to Victoria.
At some point we picked up a couple of old dears very much off their patch (Knightsbridge to go by the accent) and one was moved to remark to the other - but quite loudly enough that the entire assembled company heard her over the engine, that "London is rather full of tourists these days!" which made me and the few other people on the bus with enough English to understand smile. She and her friend tottered off somewhere down Victoria Street, still a long way from home. Perhaps they were a couple of well-heeled crusty recusants off to the Cathedral to bother God.
We were on time, the coach was late. The board said "Delayed, no information available". The information desk was equally informative. The coach turned up about forty minutes late. She looked tired. We said our farewells to the friend she'd made last year and kept in touch with. She insisted she'd had a good time but she wasn't bounding the way I'd expect. We dragged her luggage to a cheap restaurant and fed our faces, then went up to Covent Garden to spend money (but note the opening to this post). Apparently it had to be done. We bought booze, but Vic Bitter and Coopers Ale have lost their appeal. They just aren't as good as I once thought they were. But we had to buy some and some food.
So now we were dragging luggage and shopping through London's crowded streets with an exhausted child in tow. We got a little more about her week from her. The coach was late getting in because the driver took the wrong route and put them that much behind schedule. I hope the two German kids they'd had on the camp and who they dumped at Heathrow to get a plane home didn't miss their flight. Before she went away we'd talked about going to the good Indian restaurant in town for a nosh-up, but by the time we got back we were all too tired to go out again.
The cat has perked up no end with the Little One's return and the second coming of the Pink Palace.
The Palace, meanwhile, has lost some of its lustre apparently. Although she slept in it last night she came up in the morning and crawled under the covers of her 'little old bed'. We haven't had a summer and the jumpers which I never did get around to packing properly are now being worn again. The days are shortening and she'll be back to school. I have the school shoes and most of the rest of it can give us a bit more wear. Thankfully.
Next year it is spy camp we've been told, whether or not her friend from last year is going too. Here's hoping that the paternal grandmother can stump up the readies, 'cos I can't see us affording it unless one of his scratch cards turns out to be a big payer.
Next thing is to shake off yet another bug. Another novel, a bit derivative but what isn't, has started to take shape and the only way to get rid of it will be to write it down.
Grand Wormwood Scrubbers
Dear Paul,
Your schtick has been wearing thinner with each passing day. You are no longer a charming or entertaining or impressive novelty. You're not half as bright or as well educated as you've been allowed to believe.
I'm neither impressed nor amused by your velvet smoking jacket and frankly your hand wafting and lack of volume control or 'off' switch set my teeth on edge.
Thank God you're fucking off to your glorified poly and your rubbish studies: take your absinthe rituals with you, puppy.
Yours truly,
Henny
Your schtick has been wearing thinner with each passing day. You are no longer a charming or entertaining or impressive novelty. You're not half as bright or as well educated as you've been allowed to believe.
I'm neither impressed nor amused by your velvet smoking jacket and frankly your hand wafting and lack of volume control or 'off' switch set my teeth on edge.
Thank God you're fucking off to your glorified poly and your rubbish studies: take your absinthe rituals with you, puppy.
Yours truly,
Henny
Saturday, 18 August 2007
A bloody cat tale
The cat has launched a valiant but doomed challenge for Ted Heath's record for the longest sulk in history. With every fibre of his being, flick of his ever so expressive tail and hunch of his shoulders he demands "what have you two done with the Little One". Well she's back tomorrow and that will leave him some decades short of Ted's back bench brood record.
At first he simply occupied space, indignantly. One morning he wandered the house for a good hour crying inconsolably. Then he took up residence on the ironing board (which means the cover needs de-cat hairing). When I took a chance during one of his loo breaks to fold that up and put it away he set up camp on the landing, outside the bathroom, where he stood a good chance of either tripping us up or being trodden on. There's definitely something of the martyr in the way he's conducting himself.
Over the past couple of days he's rediscovered the fine art of waking Him up by rattling his door handle until He's forced to get up and open the door. Once inside the cat curls up behind the door so that He has to squeeze his flabby bulk to get through for the urgent first thing in the morning pee.
There's also something rather malign in the way the cat's conducting himself. It will all be over some time tomorrow evening.
At first he simply occupied space, indignantly. One morning he wandered the house for a good hour crying inconsolably. Then he took up residence on the ironing board (which means the cover needs de-cat hairing). When I took a chance during one of his loo breaks to fold that up and put it away he set up camp on the landing, outside the bathroom, where he stood a good chance of either tripping us up or being trodden on. There's definitely something of the martyr in the way he's conducting himself.
Over the past couple of days he's rediscovered the fine art of waking Him up by rattling his door handle until He's forced to get up and open the door. Once inside the cat curls up behind the door so that He has to squeeze his flabby bulk to get through for the urgent first thing in the morning pee.
There's also something rather malign in the way the cat's conducting himself. It will all be over some time tomorrow evening.
Fiddling the books
Would I ever do a bunk with great wodges of cash? No. Why? Because I couldn't be bothered. Too much hassle. I'd rather be poor than guilty.
So I didn't appreciate the call I got on Thursday afternoon. Right in the middle of dealing with the possibility of the bastard being under my feet for another whole day the phone rang and it was the Paper Shuffler in Chief wanting basically to know if I could explain a cash shortfall of £500 or thereabouts. Now, I've already made clear that I'd not nick great wodges of cash because of the effort and stress involved. But £500? That amount of money wouldn't get me on an airplane going somewhere useful like Brazil or the Coasta del Crime or where ever it is that chavy fools who've dipped into the petty cash are supposed to flee to. It would take most of that in taxi fares to get me to the nearest international airport.
So No, Dear. It isn't me. Since I didn't close the banking with a shortfall it is probably you, or possibly the person who was doing the accounting the previous evening not adding up properly. Try taking off your socks if you can't work the calculator properly.
So I didn't appreciate the call I got on Thursday afternoon. Right in the middle of dealing with the possibility of the bastard being under my feet for another whole day the phone rang and it was the Paper Shuffler in Chief wanting basically to know if I could explain a cash shortfall of £500 or thereabouts. Now, I've already made clear that I'd not nick great wodges of cash because of the effort and stress involved. But £500? That amount of money wouldn't get me on an airplane going somewhere useful like Brazil or the Coasta del Crime or where ever it is that chavy fools who've dipped into the petty cash are supposed to flee to. It would take most of that in taxi fares to get me to the nearest international airport.
So No, Dear. It isn't me. Since I didn't close the banking with a shortfall it is probably you, or possibly the person who was doing the accounting the previous evening not adding up properly. Try taking off your socks if you can't work the calculator properly.
Friday, 17 August 2007
The bit I forgot
You might be wondering what I meant by the title of the previous post, but probably aren't.
I'd meant to ramble on until I reached the subject of football when I started, but I got bored and pressed the publish button.
As I said, I'm a foreigner, but an Australian so the football is next to irresistible. I fought it as hard as I could, but mostly because of the way in which football in this country intrudes so rudely on the cricket season. But since summer is such a lame thing, and so many cricket matches are abandoned, and since the English are so totally crap at the game any way it might be better if you (they) give up and cede the pitch to us - except for 'Ashes' tours down under every for years, purely for historical re-enactment purposes.
Then one night in the pub (as it happens the Orange Tree in Richmond in Surrey) which is better known as a rugby pub) I underwent a Conversion. I had been attempting for some time to forge an emotional connection which as any real football fan knows is the foundation of a life-time affiliation. I'd been failing but on that night a great club, a proud club, a front-running club poised to nick the title simply imploded. On that night I fell in love.
There was little bit of very belated teenage rebellion in this too. The family club, the club my grandfathers and grandmothers, my parents and uncles and aunts supported and support is one of the old VFL's* founder clubs and in the period up to 1964 one of the competition's most successful clubs. Since then not one pennant. Hm. Arch enemies and long term rivals wore a strip in black and white vertical stripes. Their name, reflecting their inner Melbourne base was derived from the part of the world wherein the club I fell in love is based. And the name of the Melbourne suburb was given in honour of a son of the North East. I fell in love with Newcastle United.
But I'll never be a proper fan and now I know it. Roy Keane is an animal (and if you don't believe me consult the poor bugger he crippled with that tackle Keane boasted about in his biography). He's also a grizzled old misogynistic sod who can't recognise that a wife's views have validity in any matrimonial decision making. But I have to concede however grudgingly that to this point he's not done a really crappy job in managing Sunderland**. You'll not that I'm uncomfortable because of the vile things Keane's done and said rather than his association with Sunderland itself. And that just goes to show how completely foreign I am.
Oh well.
* This is a reference to the Victorian Football League, precursor to the Australian Football League. The football played is Australian Rules Football - a game that isn't soccer or gridiron or rugby (of any code) or even Gaelic football. It is aerial ping-pong or ballet or mud-wrestling or licenced thuggery depending on one's perspective and the time of year.
** Never the less I cannot resist point out that the Blogger spell checker doesn't like Sunderland, but insists it should instead be Sunder Land. What ever that is.
I'd meant to ramble on until I reached the subject of football when I started, but I got bored and pressed the publish button.
As I said, I'm a foreigner, but an Australian so the football is next to irresistible. I fought it as hard as I could, but mostly because of the way in which football in this country intrudes so rudely on the cricket season. But since summer is such a lame thing, and so many cricket matches are abandoned, and since the English are so totally crap at the game any way it might be better if you (they) give up and cede the pitch to us - except for 'Ashes' tours down under every for years, purely for historical re-enactment purposes.
Then one night in the pub (as it happens the Orange Tree in Richmond in Surrey) which is better known as a rugby pub) I underwent a Conversion. I had been attempting for some time to forge an emotional connection which as any real football fan knows is the foundation of a life-time affiliation. I'd been failing but on that night a great club, a proud club, a front-running club poised to nick the title simply imploded. On that night I fell in love.
There was little bit of very belated teenage rebellion in this too. The family club, the club my grandfathers and grandmothers, my parents and uncles and aunts supported and support is one of the old VFL's* founder clubs and in the period up to 1964 one of the competition's most successful clubs. Since then not one pennant. Hm. Arch enemies and long term rivals wore a strip in black and white vertical stripes. Their name, reflecting their inner Melbourne base was derived from the part of the world wherein the club I fell in love is based. And the name of the Melbourne suburb was given in honour of a son of the North East. I fell in love with Newcastle United.
But I'll never be a proper fan and now I know it. Roy Keane is an animal (and if you don't believe me consult the poor bugger he crippled with that tackle Keane boasted about in his biography). He's also a grizzled old misogynistic sod who can't recognise that a wife's views have validity in any matrimonial decision making. But I have to concede however grudgingly that to this point he's not done a really crappy job in managing Sunderland**. You'll not that I'm uncomfortable because of the vile things Keane's done and said rather than his association with Sunderland itself. And that just goes to show how completely foreign I am.
Oh well.
* This is a reference to the Victorian Football League, precursor to the Australian Football League. The football played is Australian Rules Football - a game that isn't soccer or gridiron or rugby (of any code) or even Gaelic football. It is aerial ping-pong or ballet or mud-wrestling or licenced thuggery depending on one's perspective and the time of year.
** Never the less I cannot resist point out that the Blogger spell checker doesn't like Sunderland, but insists it should instead be Sunder Land. What ever that is.
How not to be a football supporter
I'm a foreigner.
One day soon, should I seek settlement, I shall be obliged to take a test paper to prove that I've a sufficient grasp of the English language and culture, and since I'll be assessed by some oikish graduate in Meeja Studies (or something equally ignoble) from a jumped up poly I'll probably be failed for festooning my textual responses with quirky markings such as the " ' " and the " , " and the " . ", and most of all the unforgivable offence of occasionally combining the vaguely familiar " , " and " . " into the palpably made-up ";". I shall have compounded my offence by doing peculiar things with verbs (the technical term for which is conjugation), and using a illegally high proportion of words comprising three or more syllables.
Oh dear.
But I swear upon my child's life that if the assessor has the temerity to probe my knowledge of English history I shall bore him or her to death (or at least the brink of insanity) with my specialist four hour lecture on precisely why it is a travesty that there is only one full length biography of John of Gaunt in English and precisely why he is deserving of a new treatment and a more prominent place in any analysis of this country's transition from the late medieval to early modern phases in its life.
Don't say you weren't warned, Oik!
One day soon, should I seek settlement, I shall be obliged to take a test paper to prove that I've a sufficient grasp of the English language and culture, and since I'll be assessed by some oikish graduate in Meeja Studies (or something equally ignoble) from a jumped up poly I'll probably be failed for festooning my textual responses with quirky markings such as the " ' " and the " , " and the " . ", and most of all the unforgivable offence of occasionally combining the vaguely familiar " , " and " . " into the palpably made-up ";". I shall have compounded my offence by doing peculiar things with verbs (the technical term for which is conjugation), and using a illegally high proportion of words comprising three or more syllables.
Oh dear.
But I swear upon my child's life that if the assessor has the temerity to probe my knowledge of English history I shall bore him or her to death (or at least the brink of insanity) with my specialist four hour lecture on precisely why it is a travesty that there is only one full length biography of John of Gaunt in English and precisely why he is deserving of a new treatment and a more prominent place in any analysis of this country's transition from the late medieval to early modern phases in its life.
Don't say you weren't warned, Oik!
And another thing
I would really love to sort this tip out.
Now that the socialist mob have extended their recently launched wizard wheeze for raking in yet more dosh (the Home Information Pack Scheme) we've got to do something [working on the assumption fir the moment that we'll ever actually do the decent thing by one another and divorce] to put the shack in order so that there's some chance of it selling.
The plain fact is the place is fit only for development. It needs virtual rebuilding from top to bottom. It's actually difficult to think of anything that would be left if I had the resources to sort it out myself and I'm certain any self respecting buyer would view things the same way.
Packed full of potential but difficult to see how anyone could have lived in this, would be how most viewers would regard the property.
So here I am struggling to keep the mountains of crap he and the offspring insist on surrounding themselves with. And he went out shopping this week and came home with six new books. That doesn't sound so bad does it. But these were all enormous coffee table books and I have absolutely no idea where to put them. We already have so many books most of them are stacked in piles (which is bad for them) or in boxes (which isn't much better).
It is heart breaking to attempt to dust and vacuum around this lot, shifting it all from one place to another to get around the house. One day I'll drag the whole fucking lot out into the back garden and set fire to it. And I'll be nicked for causing air pollution.
There ain't no justice in this world.
Fat fucker's due back. I'm sure there's more. What was it?
Meanwhile sun's over the yard arm in plenty of places. Time for drinky-poos.
Now that the socialist mob have extended their recently launched wizard wheeze for raking in yet more dosh (the Home Information Pack Scheme) we've got to do something [working on the assumption fir the moment that we'll ever actually do the decent thing by one another and divorce] to put the shack in order so that there's some chance of it selling.
The plain fact is the place is fit only for development. It needs virtual rebuilding from top to bottom. It's actually difficult to think of anything that would be left if I had the resources to sort it out myself and I'm certain any self respecting buyer would view things the same way.
Packed full of potential but difficult to see how anyone could have lived in this, would be how most viewers would regard the property.
So here I am struggling to keep the mountains of crap he and the offspring insist on surrounding themselves with. And he went out shopping this week and came home with six new books. That doesn't sound so bad does it. But these were all enormous coffee table books and I have absolutely no idea where to put them. We already have so many books most of them are stacked in piles (which is bad for them) or in boxes (which isn't much better).
It is heart breaking to attempt to dust and vacuum around this lot, shifting it all from one place to another to get around the house. One day I'll drag the whole fucking lot out into the back garden and set fire to it. And I'll be nicked for causing air pollution.
There ain't no justice in this world.
Fat fucker's due back. I'm sure there's more. What was it?
Meanwhile sun's over the yard arm in plenty of places. Time for drinky-poos.
So much crap
So much crap, so little time to wrap it up in tidy parcels for disposal here.
First of all the fiasco of the camp. The offspring sent off with a suitcase of totally inappropriate clothing, because he knows best. What a fucking moron he is. If she doesn't come back to us with pneumonia we'll be fortunate.
I've spent most of this week seething and angry at everything including myself for not having the spine to tell the fucker to, well, fuck off. I just wish he'd drop dead. So much. And he's going into a pauper's grave in a cardboard box no matter what happens after the dire straits to which he's reduced us by his irresponsibility.
Then this week, which is supposed to be the first of my two week's of annual holiday I've been up at some god awful hour of the morning, being a trained monkey then coming back here and having to spend hour after hour after interminable hour in the fucker's company. No wonder I've drunk so much this week. I've drunk heroically for England. Sad to think that not so long ago I was going days that stretched into weeks without touching a drop. Stuck within these four walls with only him and his dreary conversation, drinking copious quantities has been about the only thing to do.
Then on Wednesday I flipped. The previous two days I'd done half shifts. Wednesday I did a whole shift. Four thirty in the morning is an uncivilised time to eat, so I didn't. I went up to work on a tidal wave of coffee, then hit the wall at around 10:30 when my blood sugar levels plummeted. I staggered on to 2:00pm on a fist full of sweet biscuits. I hadn't even had a couple of hours respite, as I had enjoyed the previous two days, between my return and his. No, he was right there in my face determined to inflict his company on me.
The only scrap of consolation I could find in the situation was that I wouldn't have a repeat performance on the following day because he had plans to go out. Except the indolent fucker missed his train and hung around like the awful stench he is. Hours and hour and more hours of him, again.
The one job he could have done to make me feel better about him not fucking off was the one job he conspicuously ignored. I could only lock myself away, stick my fingers in my ears and sing to my self.
Even today he was around when he shouldn't have been, coming back to get some things that he'd forgotten. Now I'm just waiting for the dread sound of his footfall and his heavy hand on the back door.
I'm not quite suicidal and I'm not quite murderous, but I've felt at time this week like I normally only feel when I'm being racked by an hormonal surge once a month.
Now where did I put that rat poison? Just kidding. Just.
First of all the fiasco of the camp. The offspring sent off with a suitcase of totally inappropriate clothing, because he knows best. What a fucking moron he is. If she doesn't come back to us with pneumonia we'll be fortunate.
I've spent most of this week seething and angry at everything including myself for not having the spine to tell the fucker to, well, fuck off. I just wish he'd drop dead. So much. And he's going into a pauper's grave in a cardboard box no matter what happens after the dire straits to which he's reduced us by his irresponsibility.
Then this week, which is supposed to be the first of my two week's of annual holiday I've been up at some god awful hour of the morning, being a trained monkey then coming back here and having to spend hour after hour after interminable hour in the fucker's company. No wonder I've drunk so much this week. I've drunk heroically for England. Sad to think that not so long ago I was going days that stretched into weeks without touching a drop. Stuck within these four walls with only him and his dreary conversation, drinking copious quantities has been about the only thing to do.
Then on Wednesday I flipped. The previous two days I'd done half shifts. Wednesday I did a whole shift. Four thirty in the morning is an uncivilised time to eat, so I didn't. I went up to work on a tidal wave of coffee, then hit the wall at around 10:30 when my blood sugar levels plummeted. I staggered on to 2:00pm on a fist full of sweet biscuits. I hadn't even had a couple of hours respite, as I had enjoyed the previous two days, between my return and his. No, he was right there in my face determined to inflict his company on me.
The only scrap of consolation I could find in the situation was that I wouldn't have a repeat performance on the following day because he had plans to go out. Except the indolent fucker missed his train and hung around like the awful stench he is. Hours and hour and more hours of him, again.
The one job he could have done to make me feel better about him not fucking off was the one job he conspicuously ignored. I could only lock myself away, stick my fingers in my ears and sing to my self.
Even today he was around when he shouldn't have been, coming back to get some things that he'd forgotten. Now I'm just waiting for the dread sound of his footfall and his heavy hand on the back door.
I'm not quite suicidal and I'm not quite murderous, but I've felt at time this week like I normally only feel when I'm being racked by an hormonal surge once a month.
Now where did I put that rat poison? Just kidding. Just.
Saturday, 11 August 2007
Corporal Jones moment
It is really simple. Count. Take of shoes and socks if necessary. Invest in an abacus. Whatever.
Then the phone goes. "I have to do this, and I have to do that and I have to do the other. So could you come in early?"
No. Now Fuck Off and panic at someone else. This is my day off and I'm already giving you quite enough of it.
Then the phone goes. "I have to do this, and I have to do that and I have to do the other. So could you come in early?"
No. Now Fuck Off and panic at someone else. This is my day off and I'm already giving you quite enough of it.
So Cute
Unless my ears deceive me 'They' have named the big hurricane bearing down on Hawaii and threatening catastrophe: Flossie. How Cute is that?
The benefits of a college education
Well they don't include the ability to proof read. All that tax payer subsidised education and Jack the Lad* couldn't be depended on to spot a basic error in some text - a table with three columns showing code number, description and quantity - I'd had to type up and asked him to sing-song with me. I read, he checked. We spotted the obvious error, which was a line largely missed. He missed the fact that after that line the code numbers were out of sync with the description.
Thanks Jack.
Fortunately I spotted the problem before sending off the order. Otherwise our Christmas wine offering might not have been quite what it should have been.
By the way that does go to show that not all businesses are gearing up for Christmas before the New Year festivities are recovered from, and sorted by Easter. No we're still deciding what we might want in and asking for it.
Any way none of this really matters. Jack the Lad has a profile on FaceBook (or another of those social networking sites) so he's obviously got all the technical skills to get ahead in life. And he does so remind me of my mother's younger brother as I remember him when he was the same age. Big sigh. I know Jack that one day you'll be balding and wear polyester trousers. What a shame.
*I suppose I can track Jack's progress through life via social networking sites: he's now left us and gone to university where, no doubt, he'll do splendidly.
Thanks Jack.
Fortunately I spotted the problem before sending off the order. Otherwise our Christmas wine offering might not have been quite what it should have been.
By the way that does go to show that not all businesses are gearing up for Christmas before the New Year festivities are recovered from, and sorted by Easter. No we're still deciding what we might want in and asking for it.
Any way none of this really matters. Jack the Lad has a profile on FaceBook (or another of those social networking sites) so he's obviously got all the technical skills to get ahead in life. And he does so remind me of my mother's younger brother as I remember him when he was the same age. Big sigh. I know Jack that one day you'll be balding and wear polyester trousers. What a shame.
*I suppose I can track Jack's progress through life via social networking sites: he's now left us and gone to university where, no doubt, he'll do splendidly.
Friday, 10 August 2007
Would you friggin' believe it
We have a customer notice board. No charge, little scrutiny. Today someone local was offering a second hand Frig for just £40. At that price I'd want flowers, chocolates, champagne and a bit of sweet talking too.
In the meantime
The Pink Palace is down and the cat is trying to suck up to me by way of getting sympathy. Doesn't he realise I don't like him? Without actually being a 'cat person' I normally quite like cats and I'm normally happy to have them about me but this one is an obstreperous little shit and he's cost us a small fortune in vet bills. He isn't even ours but his previous owners, who were neighbors, moved town and left him behind. I'm not surprised. He has a little girlfriend, a kitten that arrived in the area about four months ago. She's almost completely black and still wide eyed. Until a couple of days she'd fall through the cat flap and take on startled look of The Doctor's new assistant on first stepping into the Tardis.
But she's finally got the hang of the big indoor space the other side of the little door and made her way upstairs. She's crawled under the bath and got stuck, attacked the net curtain's in the Offspring's bedroom, tipped over the clothes airer, clambered into the fireplace and trailed soot over the carpet and expored the Pink Palace.
The Feline Girlfriend loves it when we do that gardening thing. She'll crawl into a pile of cuttings then trail them about like MacDuff on his way to the rout, except going in circles. Today and tomorrow we have to Panic. That's official. Not one thing's been packed. Between now and 3:00 every last required thing must be identified, sourced, labelled and packed. I'm not going to panic yet. Instead I'm going to procrastinate. Tomorrow I'm going to do panic. And the hair cutting thing.
But she's finally got the hang of the big indoor space the other side of the little door and made her way upstairs. She's crawled under the bath and got stuck, attacked the net curtain's in the Offspring's bedroom, tipped over the clothes airer, clambered into the fireplace and trailed soot over the carpet and expored the Pink Palace.
The Feline Girlfriend loves it when we do that gardening thing. She'll crawl into a pile of cuttings then trail them about like MacDuff on his way to the rout, except going in circles. Today and tomorrow we have to Panic. That's official. Not one thing's been packed. Between now and 3:00 every last required thing must be identified, sourced, labelled and packed. I'm not going to panic yet. Instead I'm going to procrastinate. Tomorrow I'm going to do panic. And the hair cutting thing.
Taking Stock
Any idea how most major business get an annual or biannual stock taken completed? Turf out the staff and all but a skeleton staff, bring in specialists, let them loose, receive their report, pay their invoice, know exactly where you start at the beginning of the new trading period. Simple.
What you don't do is have the staff carry out the stock count, during normal trading hours, while the shop is open for what is notionally business as usual. You have disgruntled staff, disgruntled customers, disgruntled management and an inadequate, inaccurate count. It is simply impossible to get a clear and accurate picture of stock levels if you've got trading going on simultaneously.
Any hoo, it looms. We have a weekend in prospect of doing 1, 2, 3, scribble. Some of the staff will be doing this barefoot, since we don't have enough calculators to go around. No one is supposed to be exempt from count-fest. Even the idiot yard man is expected to be about, even if it is just to show willing, set an example and get under everyone's feet - though I'm being metaphorical here since nobody wants to get within spraying distance of the Village Idiot when he gets himself all excited.
A couple of wastrels have tried to wriggle out of it and had the riot act read to them by the Big Swinging Dick. Formal written warnings will be issued to those who develop funny tummies on the day in question.
Stock levels are allowed to run down somewhat to make things slightly easier for staff, which isn't great for customers. At least this way of doing things is cheap. Then on Monday the Seriously Big Swinging Dicks are paying us a visit so Sunday, while the mopping up work is carried out by senior staff the floor staff will be breaking down and merchandising an stonking great delivery to make the shop that has been allowed to go to pot back up to scratch and then some.
Hoops upon hoops upon hoops. Out of sheer desperation I've bought a ticket in tonight's lottery draw. I don't care what you think of me or what it says about me. If I win a sizeable chunk of that £35million prize I ain't going in.
What you don't do is have the staff carry out the stock count, during normal trading hours, while the shop is open for what is notionally business as usual. You have disgruntled staff, disgruntled customers, disgruntled management and an inadequate, inaccurate count. It is simply impossible to get a clear and accurate picture of stock levels if you've got trading going on simultaneously.
Any hoo, it looms. We have a weekend in prospect of doing 1, 2, 3, scribble. Some of the staff will be doing this barefoot, since we don't have enough calculators to go around. No one is supposed to be exempt from count-fest. Even the idiot yard man is expected to be about, even if it is just to show willing, set an example and get under everyone's feet - though I'm being metaphorical here since nobody wants to get within spraying distance of the Village Idiot when he gets himself all excited.
A couple of wastrels have tried to wriggle out of it and had the riot act read to them by the Big Swinging Dick. Formal written warnings will be issued to those who develop funny tummies on the day in question.
Stock levels are allowed to run down somewhat to make things slightly easier for staff, which isn't great for customers. At least this way of doing things is cheap. Then on Monday the Seriously Big Swinging Dicks are paying us a visit so Sunday, while the mopping up work is carried out by senior staff the floor staff will be breaking down and merchandising an stonking great delivery to make the shop that has been allowed to go to pot back up to scratch and then some.
Hoops upon hoops upon hoops. Out of sheer desperation I've bought a ticket in tonight's lottery draw. I don't care what you think of me or what it says about me. If I win a sizeable chunk of that £35million prize I ain't going in.
Thursday, 9 August 2007
Unsolicited advertising
Picked up a some new beers today and I've just enjoyed one of them with my supper. They are output of a local company called St Peter's Brewery. The three I got are a Golden Ale (4.7%), an Organic Ale (4.5) and a Best Bitter (3.7). The bitter, which is the one I've tried, isn't as substantial as I'd expected but has interesting notes and reminds me of something I haven't yet put my finger on. The retail price is highly competitive, this is a local brewery which almost but not entirely is grounds enough to buy the product. I like the fact that they're not scared to shift down the alcohol content rather than weigh in on a par with some of the more familiar ales.
Finally the stuff comes in gorgeous bottles. The only shame is that they can't be returned. I think the brewery should be supplying the store selling the stuff with a crate and providing some kind of incentive to consumers to return the bottles. I hate to think of them going into the district recycling scheme where they'll be pulverised. Or even worse, going to land fill courtesy of indolent householders who can't be arsed to separate their waste.
When I was a kid pensioners going around the MCG after a big match with sacks for all the cans was a very familiar sight. When I was very young you could still take some containers back for a few cents a piece.
Then we all went to plastic and tetrapak. A long time later the milk people reintroduced milk in glass bottes. Not those dated pint bottles with the foil top birds could peck through but elegant bottles with metal screw tops. Retail milk is never better than out of glass, and moreover when kept in an air-tight container so that the milk isn't tainted however slightly by whatever else you've got in the fridge.
Within weeks of the glass bottle's reintroduction the supermarket I shopped at would be cleared out before mid-morning of the glass bottle variety, leaving slugs to slope out with their foul tetrapak version.
Ok this turned out to be as much of a rant as a pat on the back. Sorry. The bitter's got to me, I guess.
Finally the stuff comes in gorgeous bottles. The only shame is that they can't be returned. I think the brewery should be supplying the store selling the stuff with a crate and providing some kind of incentive to consumers to return the bottles. I hate to think of them going into the district recycling scheme where they'll be pulverised. Or even worse, going to land fill courtesy of indolent householders who can't be arsed to separate their waste.
When I was a kid pensioners going around the MCG after a big match with sacks for all the cans was a very familiar sight. When I was very young you could still take some containers back for a few cents a piece.
Then we all went to plastic and tetrapak. A long time later the milk people reintroduced milk in glass bottes. Not those dated pint bottles with the foil top birds could peck through but elegant bottles with metal screw tops. Retail milk is never better than out of glass, and moreover when kept in an air-tight container so that the milk isn't tainted however slightly by whatever else you've got in the fridge.
Within weeks of the glass bottle's reintroduction the supermarket I shopped at would be cleared out before mid-morning of the glass bottle variety, leaving slugs to slope out with their foul tetrapak version.
Ok this turned out to be as much of a rant as a pat on the back. Sorry. The bitter's got to me, I guess.
Job Crap
I went to work in some trepidation but more hope that my catastrophic error of Tuesday night had finally been uncovered and a P45 had been prepared. No such luck. Another whole afternoon and evening of my life gone down the toilet for minimum wage (or actually a few pence above that because I'm not actually at the bottom of the heap).
The Big Swinging Dick was in a vile mood, though nobody's quite sure why. Perhaps working the hours he does is part of the problem but he will insist, quite unnecessarily on doing both the rostered morning shift and then staying on for the rest of the day to be The Hand Maiden's help mate. Like she can't run the place on her own.
Neither was anywhere to be seen when some preposterously tall prick baled me up with a complaint about our unreliable checkouts. Well, doh. Tell me (and the rest of the world, for that matter) something new. The crap we use was crap when it was installed. Now it's antique crap. Rumours abound that they're working up plans for a refit. The betting is that what goes in will be a job lot picked up off the back of someone's van, but only after Tesco and the others have fingered it.
T'wasn't all doom and gloom today. Someone confided in someone who in turn gleefully reported to me that I scare him. Excellent. Turns out I scare the whole fucking lot of kiddies. Not enough so that they actually earn their pay, but scaring them at all is enough to brighten my day somewhat.
The Big Swinging Dick was in a vile mood, though nobody's quite sure why. Perhaps working the hours he does is part of the problem but he will insist, quite unnecessarily on doing both the rostered morning shift and then staying on for the rest of the day to be The Hand Maiden's help mate. Like she can't run the place on her own.
Neither was anywhere to be seen when some preposterously tall prick baled me up with a complaint about our unreliable checkouts. Well, doh. Tell me (and the rest of the world, for that matter) something new. The crap we use was crap when it was installed. Now it's antique crap. Rumours abound that they're working up plans for a refit. The betting is that what goes in will be a job lot picked up off the back of someone's van, but only after Tesco and the others have fingered it.
T'wasn't all doom and gloom today. Someone confided in someone who in turn gleefully reported to me that I scare him. Excellent. Turns out I scare the whole fucking lot of kiddies. Not enough so that they actually earn their pay, but scaring them at all is enough to brighten my day somewhat.
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
Bad Girl (sack me please)
I could do with doing something else. My job bores me witless. I know someone has to do it. Some people are born to do it. My immediate supervisor simply adores her job which is a glorified and slightly better paid version of my job. She's one of those people who lives to work. Her job and employer are just about the sum total of her life now her kids have left secondary school.
She's been at her kitchen table drafting Christmas schedules this week. She's happier than a pig in shit counting in boxes of pen and rationing paper clips.
If there were a better job in this town, if I weren't too poor to run a car, if I had indefinite leave to remain and could actually apply for a permanent post rather than a fixed term post then I would. If I could ditch the shit bag husband and the mountains of crap he insists on having in our tiny house... If. What a great big word.
Well today wasn't a day like most days. The Big Swinging Dick and I went off on another tour of the county. We left early so that BSD could get in a little shopping (a belated birthday present for the Handmaiden being required). He was in good form, and as this was our second "date" we were a little more relaxed in the company of one another. He's amazingly comfortable talking about the difficulties in his marriage, but also intriguingly expectant that he and Mrs BSD will be together in retirement OopNorth.
Probably what ever is going on between he BSD and the HM, if indeed anything is going on, is nothing more than an elegant bit of R&R. But most people are convinced that theirs is one long and unremitting shag fest or that nothing s going on but the BSD is nevertheless totally in thrall to the Hand Maiden's pert rear end.
Any hoo, we nattered about this and that, found common ground in despising Dubya and reluctantly agreeing that in certain lights such as the current one Reagan doesn't look so bad. Neither of us is terribly keen on God Botherers of any faith or denomination and look on in despair at the contortions Homo Sapiens Sapiens tends to perform over a turn of phrase or the meaning of a word, and the resultant mess that always ensues.
Apart from one short outburst on the motorway his leaden foot was kept under control and there were, obviously since I'm typing this out, no mishaps. The meeting itself went as smoothly as expected. Since we were there to deliver chastisement rather than dismissal and the girl herself has been proactive in getting the help she so clearly and desperately stands in need of the atmosphere was lighter and we all ended up hoping the best for one another.
On the way out of town I confided child care problems to BSD (looming this Sat., pm when we're both expected to be working) and he's agreed that the offspring can sit upstairs and run (for that is what the little bossy boots will undoubtedly do) the staff canteen. The staff currently think Pea Brain a tough task master. They've not seen anything yet.
My Feral Pig isn't the least bit grateful that I've sorted things out but I have my own special form of revenge for that in store. I've been keeping an eye on my calendar and I am going to be absolutely full of PMT right about Sunday evening.
I had to say something because I failed yet again to get myself sacked from my dismal job. I failed to send off an order yesterday evening which ought in my book be sackable offence. No such fucking luck. In fact no one said a word.
Must try harder next time. Perhaps if I emptied the safe? No, that won't work. I just want to be sacked, not shipped off to prison.
Any suggestions for where the middle ground might lie?
She's been at her kitchen table drafting Christmas schedules this week. She's happier than a pig in shit counting in boxes of pen and rationing paper clips.
If there were a better job in this town, if I weren't too poor to run a car, if I had indefinite leave to remain and could actually apply for a permanent post rather than a fixed term post then I would. If I could ditch the shit bag husband and the mountains of crap he insists on having in our tiny house... If. What a great big word.
Well today wasn't a day like most days. The Big Swinging Dick and I went off on another tour of the county. We left early so that BSD could get in a little shopping (a belated birthday present for the Handmaiden being required). He was in good form, and as this was our second "date" we were a little more relaxed in the company of one another. He's amazingly comfortable talking about the difficulties in his marriage, but also intriguingly expectant that he and Mrs BSD will be together in retirement OopNorth.
Probably what ever is going on between he BSD and the HM, if indeed anything is going on, is nothing more than an elegant bit of R&R. But most people are convinced that theirs is one long and unremitting shag fest or that nothing s going on but the BSD is nevertheless totally in thrall to the Hand Maiden's pert rear end.
Any hoo, we nattered about this and that, found common ground in despising Dubya and reluctantly agreeing that in certain lights such as the current one Reagan doesn't look so bad. Neither of us is terribly keen on God Botherers of any faith or denomination and look on in despair at the contortions Homo Sapiens Sapiens tends to perform over a turn of phrase or the meaning of a word, and the resultant mess that always ensues.
Apart from one short outburst on the motorway his leaden foot was kept under control and there were, obviously since I'm typing this out, no mishaps. The meeting itself went as smoothly as expected. Since we were there to deliver chastisement rather than dismissal and the girl herself has been proactive in getting the help she so clearly and desperately stands in need of the atmosphere was lighter and we all ended up hoping the best for one another.
On the way out of town I confided child care problems to BSD (looming this Sat., pm when we're both expected to be working) and he's agreed that the offspring can sit upstairs and run (for that is what the little bossy boots will undoubtedly do) the staff canteen. The staff currently think Pea Brain a tough task master. They've not seen anything yet.
My Feral Pig isn't the least bit grateful that I've sorted things out but I have my own special form of revenge for that in store. I've been keeping an eye on my calendar and I am going to be absolutely full of PMT right about Sunday evening.
I had to say something because I failed yet again to get myself sacked from my dismal job. I failed to send off an order yesterday evening which ought in my book be sackable offence. No such fucking luck. In fact no one said a word.
Must try harder next time. Perhaps if I emptied the safe? No, that won't work. I just want to be sacked, not shipped off to prison.
Any suggestions for where the middle ground might lie?
Tuesday, 7 August 2007
Kiddies
Mother nature played a cruel trick on Australia. She bestowed upon her vast quantities of top grade, easily extractable iron ore, vast reserves of coal, an immense coast line and then positioned her at the arse end of the globe. [New Zealand is beyond the arse end of the world, where ever that is]. Even then things would have been fine but Mother nature, fickle floozy that she is put the iron ore on the western side of the continent and the coal on the other side. Make economically viable steel out of that.
Well we just about have.
Our farmers extract a living from unlikely soil. We have literacy and numeracy levels just about as high as those any where in the world.
The kiddies we employ, as opposed to those we've rejected as unsuitable, work an entire shift before they've earned an hour's pay. That's a cage of goods put out per person per shift when it should be a cage of goods per half hour. Danny, James and Jack - consider yourselves shamed. Jack, I know you've got a my space presence and I'm not afraid to use it, so extract yourself from your student rep activities just long enough to actually earn what we're paying you. OK?
Well we just about have.
Our farmers extract a living from unlikely soil. We have literacy and numeracy levels just about as high as those any where in the world.
The kiddies we employ, as opposed to those we've rejected as unsuitable, work an entire shift before they've earned an hour's pay. That's a cage of goods put out per person per shift when it should be a cage of goods per half hour. Danny, James and Jack - consider yourselves shamed. Jack, I know you've got a my space presence and I'm not afraid to use it, so extract yourself from your student rep activities just long enough to actually earn what we're paying you. OK?
Junior Talent Team
Hardly had I heard the last word on Crack Head when we received a tip (from Kids, OK) that we had a tribe of little kids "nicking stuff". Off I went with The Ferret. We make a fine tag team wandering up and down cornering the little shitters. There they were, eventually, attempting to make a nonchalant getaway with their one drawstring bag over the should of the smallest of the lot.
The Bolshie Book Worm joined us in the cornering and demanded the contents of the bag. The smallest, for it was he carrying the bag, made some play of being unable to open it and tried to palm the thing off on to one of his mates. I think he'd slightly missed the point behind him being the bag carrier not that any of them were likely to be more than 12 years old.
When his mates declined to take the bag and open it he did what BBW was asking and from it she extracted a double Galaxy bar pack. They'd not got the vodka they were aiming for. BBW sent them off with a flea in their collective ear, the tallest though not necessarily the eldest almost in tears and protesting as he went that "it ain't nuffin' ta do wiff me".
Outside they rejoined their parents to whom they had (I suspect) to confess that they'd been rumbled and unable to snatch the booze.
The Bolshie Book Worm joined us in the cornering and demanded the contents of the bag. The smallest, for it was he carrying the bag, made some play of being unable to open it and tried to palm the thing off on to one of his mates. I think he'd slightly missed the point behind him being the bag carrier not that any of them were likely to be more than 12 years old.
When his mates declined to take the bag and open it he did what BBW was asking and from it she extracted a double Galaxy bar pack. They'd not got the vodka they were aiming for. BBW sent them off with a flea in their collective ear, the tallest though not necessarily the eldest almost in tears and protesting as he went that "it ain't nuffin' ta do wiff me".
Outside they rejoined their parents to whom they had (I suspect) to confess that they'd been rumbled and unable to snatch the booze.
Christmas is coming
Oh, yes it is. The first Father XMas of the year has been spotted (at Mohammed Fayed's tawdry emporium). You've been warned. Now get on with it. You know what Christmas is all about. That's right. Spending. No excuses now.
Progress
Arrived at work as the police van pulled away. No need to wonder what that might be about. Entered the office to find everyone including the Senior Frustrated Novelist and the Bolshie Book Worm flaked out and looking like they couldn't wait to clock out. BBW doesn't normally work Tuesdays and was inclined to tell anyone who would listen as well as everybody else that she'll Never Do Another Tuesday.
I never did get to hear about Sunday (or Monday for that matter) because things had already moved on too far. Shortly after 1pm, about an hour before I arrived, a female was detained attempting to leave the store with alcohol that she hadn't been paid for. The Ferret (I used to be the Ferret but after my sprint through Health and Beauty on Saturday I'm now The Greyhound) and RatFace caught her after she'd been spotted by Ratty behaving rather suspiciously (that is to say taking a bottle of alcohol and putting it in her shoulder bag rather than her shopping trolley).
Duly she was frogmarched by the Bolshie Book Worm up to the security suite. And after her identity and age were established proceedings were put on hold until a responsible adult arrived to hold her hand. That responsible adult was her mother and that poor woman had to sit through having her daughter's bag searched. As well as the alcohol a crack pipe was retrieved. The poor woman collapsed.
While waiting for the mother to turn up the child had been accompanied by The Ferret in whom she'd confided that she's already on remand (awaiting trial) though what for wasn't divulged. Things are not looking good for her in the sense that she's going away. If she's very, very lucky she'll end up in the hands of someone who'll (a) be prepared to take the time and (b) have the resources to draw on so that this child of 14 years of age gets the help she needs to sort herself out before she goes too far down a path that will lead to a grossly premature and very ugly death. If she is so very, very lucky then being locked up will be her salvation. Otherwise she won't make 25 which is about the life expectancy of a very early female homo sapiens sapiens.
We continue the struggle to 'progress' as a species. Mother nature has a glorious capacity to put us, and everything else, back in our box. Crack cocaine as mother nature's solution to uppity overly aspirational hairless hominids?
By the way this isn't someone fitting the stereotype 'scummy gutter brat' but the offspring of a pair of professionals. As her daughter was preparing to be led away in handcuffs the mother was heard to say something along the lines of "but we've given you everything" which just might be part of the problem.
I never did get to hear about Sunday (or Monday for that matter) because things had already moved on too far. Shortly after 1pm, about an hour before I arrived, a female was detained attempting to leave the store with alcohol that she hadn't been paid for. The Ferret (I used to be the Ferret but after my sprint through Health and Beauty on Saturday I'm now The Greyhound) and RatFace caught her after she'd been spotted by Ratty behaving rather suspiciously (that is to say taking a bottle of alcohol and putting it in her shoulder bag rather than her shopping trolley).
Duly she was frogmarched by the Bolshie Book Worm up to the security suite. And after her identity and age were established proceedings were put on hold until a responsible adult arrived to hold her hand. That responsible adult was her mother and that poor woman had to sit through having her daughter's bag searched. As well as the alcohol a crack pipe was retrieved. The poor woman collapsed.
While waiting for the mother to turn up the child had been accompanied by The Ferret in whom she'd confided that she's already on remand (awaiting trial) though what for wasn't divulged. Things are not looking good for her in the sense that she's going away. If she's very, very lucky she'll end up in the hands of someone who'll (a) be prepared to take the time and (b) have the resources to draw on so that this child of 14 years of age gets the help she needs to sort herself out before she goes too far down a path that will lead to a grossly premature and very ugly death. If she is so very, very lucky then being locked up will be her salvation. Otherwise she won't make 25 which is about the life expectancy of a very early female homo sapiens sapiens.
We continue the struggle to 'progress' as a species. Mother nature has a glorious capacity to put us, and everything else, back in our box. Crack cocaine as mother nature's solution to uppity overly aspirational hairless hominids?
By the way this isn't someone fitting the stereotype 'scummy gutter brat' but the offspring of a pair of professionals. As her daughter was preparing to be led away in handcuffs the mother was heard to say something along the lines of "but we've given you everything" which just might be part of the problem.
That bloody song
The offspring is still in the early stages of establishing an independent aesthetic, both visual and aural.
On the music side she's still quite keen on her motown, which she picked up from us, but she's discovered more slightly less ancient stuff like Madonna and some random current stuff that just sails clear over my head. Who are these people?
Unfortunately one of the songs she's very keen on and plays a lot is So Macho which was recorded by someone called Sinitta. This dance song is infuriatingly catchy, but that's not my big problem with her giving the damn thing the time of day. This song made it huge as that year's great Gay Anthem. He's gotta have big blue eyes, blah blah. That's not my problem with the song either.
No, my problem is that the guy who wrote the damn thing and who still rakes in royalties has turned his back on 'all that' and now uses the income stream to fund his anti-gay proselytising north of the border via the Scottish Christian Party of which he is leader. I'm really uncomfortable with the idea with some how I'm funding or supporting his hateful activities, but I can't put my foot down and insist that she stop playing the damn song. Apart from anything else I'm loath to dignify this ragtag bunch of nitwits and perverts with too much of my time.
It is scary to think that Hargeaves, standing as a candidate for his party in a by-election last year received 411 votes for a platform that included promotion of creationism and advocacy of a Mind Pollution Tax.
So I have to go to work with the bloody thing ringing in my ears. Grrr
On the music side she's still quite keen on her motown, which she picked up from us, but she's discovered more slightly less ancient stuff like Madonna and some random current stuff that just sails clear over my head. Who are these people?
Unfortunately one of the songs she's very keen on and plays a lot is So Macho which was recorded by someone called Sinitta. This dance song is infuriatingly catchy, but that's not my big problem with her giving the damn thing the time of day. This song made it huge as that year's great Gay Anthem. He's gotta have big blue eyes, blah blah. That's not my problem with the song either.
No, my problem is that the guy who wrote the damn thing and who still rakes in royalties has turned his back on 'all that' and now uses the income stream to fund his anti-gay proselytising north of the border via the Scottish Christian Party of which he is leader. I'm really uncomfortable with the idea with some how I'm funding or supporting his hateful activities, but I can't put my foot down and insist that she stop playing the damn song. Apart from anything else I'm loath to dignify this ragtag bunch of nitwits and perverts with too much of my time.
It is scary to think that Hargeaves, standing as a candidate for his party in a by-election last year received 411 votes for a platform that included promotion of creationism and advocacy of a Mind Pollution Tax.
So I have to go to work with the bloody thing ringing in my ears. Grrr
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