Wierd moments of our time.

Between about three and five yesterday afternoon we had not one but a string of underage operators on. This is a colossal bother for absolutely everyone: me, the operator, the customers, the trading standards stooges...

It is no wonder businesses such as ours are disinclined to offer work to under-age applicants, and at least one no longer will take them on as operators. This looks like age discrimination but it is in fact a pragmatic business decision. At many levels under-age employees are a great nuisance and frankly overall they're more trouble than they're worth; the draw backs of having someone 16 or 17 on a check-out are just one aspect of this.

Time and time again, and whenever I'm not advocating setting up a have-all-you-think-you-can-handle stall outside to supply those not yet 18 with as much booze as they want free of charge, I've proposed an in-house 'off-licence' entirely separate from the main store, staffed only by mature employees, subject to entry restrictions akin to those of a public house, covered by genuinely effective security both to prevent under-age entry and theft.

No-one listens, or rather they do and then they dismiss the idea on the grounds that the customers won't like it. The customers don't like being asked to prove they're old enough to purchase age restricted products, the customers don't like having to queue, the customers don't like it when the card payment system falls over (a frequent occurrence). The list of things the customers don't like is long, but except when it comes to making changes to emphatically deal with the theft-and-under-age-drinking issue we're Grade A wimps.

And yet yesterday afternoon we, which is to say the disgruntled customers and I, were able to bond over a conspiratorial nudge-nudge. Oops, there goes another bottle of wine into my trolley; slap me now and get it over and done with and save me from myself. The situation was not so much absurd as it was surreal when the general bonding session over 'middle-class excess' extended to a shared moment by a monstrous Torygraph buyer and a Hippy-freak Guardianista. Weird

And the bad news is

That grinning loon who I'd briefly believed would NOT be moving in to a house near us will be a neighbour, and that before the end of the month. Oh shit.

He's talking about walking the offspring home and baby sitting her and her baby sitting their offspring in due course (baby due at the beginning of October, offspring old enough to baby sit in four and a half years).

I DON'T WANT YOU NEAR MY LIFE. GO AWAY!

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.

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.

Victory Shall Be Ours

In the Great Endeavour to remain faithful to Gordon's first Best Girl: Prudence, we've all got our part to pay play. That means doing you're bit to dob in a dipper. Every £80 fine incurred is a step however small on the flight ascending to fiscal rectitude or some such other clap trap.

The tom toms have been beaten. The flags have been been waved. The smoke has blown. We had security on the premises this morning and We Nicked One.

That's one down, several tens of thousands to go. But Confucius, he say "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step", so we're not down hearted about this.