Happy Familes

What a mess this week has been!

For most of it my computer has been out of action and what a week it has been on various fronts.

Sunday evening he returned from a visit to his mother with news that she is planning to send my daughter off somewhere for a week during the summer holidays. I haven't been given the name of this place - I have no idea where it is, who's behind it, what it offers or any other essential information but I'm supposed to acquiesce.

Then we're all to reconvene and play happy families somewhere up north - I gather the plan is to rent a twee cottage in the Lake District for a week. Hmmn. Now I wonder what sleeping arrangements she's envisaging and the extent to which her spineless backbone has set her straight?

There's not a snowball's chance in hell that I'm climbing between the sheets with him for the first time in almost eight years, not even for the sake of appearances, not even to keep his mother happy.

This is that nasty bit of boggy terrain whereupon the merits of the 'white' or 'social' lie are debated.

And there are people out there who will argue that the kinder, more humane course would be to hunker down with the fat, lying, thieving, cheating and slovenly so-and-so for a week in order that his frail, elderly mother of eighty-something can go on living in a soap bubble of her own devising.

Others will contend that conspiring to lead her to believe in something other than the truth whether by act of commission or omission, is tantamount to lying to her since it amounts to practising a deceit upon her however well meant it might be.

For me the problem is more practical and more painful than that. I can't bear being in his company for more than a few minute at a stretch most of the time and the idea of being in such proximity for hours on end makes me want to heave. A propos I was mildly intrigued by an observation attributed to the current pope that the growing number of loveless relationships could be to blame for declining birthrates in the Western world.

Gee, did he work that out all on his own?

These announced plans for our summer have lain on the metaphorical table all week, studiously ignored by us. Discussing them would require that a few tough home truths be spoken. Right now he overlooks the reality that he's locked in a loveless, prospectless union to someone who despises him because overlooking reality is the habit of a lifetime, and anyway this reality is easier to live with, when it does intrude, than the one involving a return home to live with his mother.

But nothing stays the same for ever. I had a game plan once and that came to nothing, but slowly and surely an alternative has developed.

What I want is the wherewithal to start afresh. It's probably too late for more children, though I turned out to be a far better mother than I'd guessed I'd be, and I've serious doubts I'll ever find it within me to form another serious relationship. I wrote about this to someone this week during one of those brief periods when my computer was behaving. I wrote about waking up from a kind of hibernation to discover I've got to go out into the meat market with a body that is 14 years older than last time. Life is full of challenges. I guess that's just another one and I've no right to feel sorry for myself. I said yes. No-one was holding a gun against my head when I did.

I want my share of the house and my share of the pensions. For the eight years we've lived here I've paid perhaps 95% of the mortgage and the same percentage of the pensions; as someone once put it "life's a lemon - I want my money back"

It is a while since I did any kind of calculation of what that might amount to but since the pension is locked up tight I'd say I've a moral claim to almost all of the value in the house. Which leaves him with mummy and her great big house in central London.

If I sound greedy, tough! I put up with fourteen years of crap. I've been lied to, stolen from, cheated on and taken advantage of. Being married to this SOB was the hardest thing I ever did in my life and I'm in effect asking only for an decent day's pay for a day's decent work.

My current game plan hinges on getting my daughter's Australian citizenship sorted out and a return home. Every six months I have to adjust my thinking based around the academic year. Realistically we're now looking at staying here for one more Christmas and then returning in time for her to start the new school year in January 2007 on the other side of the world.

All of this has been floating around all week and then this evening he let off another little bomblet - his mother has accepted an offer for her house. She's no idea what she'll do next or where she'll live but apparently she's selling up.

Last night when he was soaring off on one of his flights of fantasy he claimed that he'd always dreamed of winning the lottery so that he could by a certain house. Now this particular house was built in the 1860s for my great great grandfather who'd migrated to New South Wales from Ireland and then moved south to settle in Victoria. His origins are unclear but it is possible that he wasn't from totally dirt poor stock. He certain prospered. He became a gentleman farmer who helped revolutionise the colonial beef industry, and a pillar of the community.

The rabbit plague and financial crash of the 1890s pushed the family off the land but not before his older children including the son I'm descended from had got themselves well established. The house passed out of the family, went to rack and ruin and then in the 1970s was lovingly restored by new owners. Briefly afterwards it became a museum but is now again a family home. The house was built after my ancestor had become prosperous, was architect designed, well built and is now protected. Everyone descended from that Irish migrant is brought up on a diet of stories of the house and the country it is set in.

Yes I'd love to own that house.

But its moments like this one which make me doubt that he's really the inept and guileless shambling wreck he appears.

We haven't had an emotional connection (or a physical one for that matter) for the best part of a decade and he wants to buy me this house? Why?

If I sound ungrateful and ungracious help me out here because I really can't think why he would suddenly, right out of the blue drag the House into it like that with this extraordinarily generous offer.

I can't even get him to do basic things like help pay the household expenses or keep the house reasonably clean and tidy but he can say he'll do something like that for me. Talk is cheap and I'd had enough of his talk, oh, say twelve years ago.

This takes me right back to where we were with him saying "I love you" a thousand times a day when all I wanted was for him to get up in the morning and do something with his life rather than just drink and smoke it away, as though saying "I love you" might blind me to the crap I was already knee deep in.

If this is an incoherent post, that reflects the fact that tonight I am deeply confused; its as though I've been driving along a straight road and suddenly I've found myself approaching a junction without a map.

I'm going to take time out and think about this and maybe post some more about the goings on at the funny farm (aka my office) or some of my extracurricular activities (but not, sadly, of that kind).

In the meantime the news from the outside world as gauged from tabloid front papers (excluding stories dealing with people I've never heard of)

• Peerages for sale - so last month
• Party funding loans - ditto
• Are there any live chickens left in Norfolk?
• Erosion of civil liberties - I have satellite tv, does it matter?
• Freeing of foreign cons - Clarke to survive, by a whisker
• The NHS - the Glory Year (by Pat Hewitt)
• Deputy Do My Secretary - 10/10 for effort, 0/10 for style
• Steve (See I'm Not Dull, Really) McLaren (Subtitle: Anything Sven Can Do...)
  
  and finally
  
• Brazilian Man Makes Sensible Decision Shocker

Oops

My computer had a nervous breakdown (personally I think it was just a cry for help). I've had a morning off while a friend has done unspeakable things to its insides and things seem to be up and running?

So now I have a backlog of correspondence and lamentation - to Matthew who has probably given up hearing from me I owe a mea culpa, though I still think a simple eg XXn(n) nXX would be a safety net for hapless idiots like me, to Tom who deserves a follow up and to others I'll get back to when I finish work tonight which might at this rate be around 10. And yes, to those this means anything to I do have the remnants of humble pie all over my face if its any consolation.

I'm particularly disappointed that my poor computer chose this of all weeks to fall over when Charles Clarke has chosen it, of all weeks, to render any criticism of his performance as Education Secretary and past performance in his current job so last year. My mouth has been agape at the spectacle Clarke's made of himself over the release back into the British community of foreign convicted criminals - we're talking murders and rapists here, not pickpockets and fare dodgers, at the end of their sentences (without even an examination of the possibility of deportation) and I've had no place to channel that astonishment.

Never mind. I got to watch the football last night and I can say with some confidence that never in the history of the beautiful game has such a Big Match been won by a team playing So Badly. Congratulations Arsenal. I'd add something about needing to play better that that if you're to avoid Total Humiliation in Paris but you could hardly play worse could you?

Must go now or they'll never let me out tonight.

What's in a mission statement?

I was prompted to write the following by a comment to my recent post “Another Public Service Announcement”. I decided not to squirrel this away as a reply to a comment after considering what came out as I worked on it - and deciding it doesn't reflect well on me.

Tom the answer is ‘not much’ in my opinion.

Google “How to write a good mission statement”* and get an idea of how many superannuated and wannabe consultants there are in cyberspace churning out something along those lines.

But take it from me, and remember I was one once (but I’m better now), management consultants cannot make your organisation better let alone perfect.

I’ve not yet come across an organisation with a mission statement that hadn’t either been done over by the zealots from one or other MC firm or fallen under the sway of some moderately to very senior executive with a brand spanking new, ink barely dry diploma from one of other minor business school.

The answers to a couple of questions are essential if progress is to be made. So, what is a mission statement, and how will having one make your small organisation any better – and one for luck, is there no better way of investing the few precious moments of your time it will take to write?

I offered up your mission statement to someone I trust who looked perplexed for a moment and then ventured Police Officer. Actually this is an interesting suggestion for the author of your mission statement and perhaps you even like it.

I’ve a personal preference for the Don Chip approach to mission statement-ing: “Keeping the Bastards Honest” was his ambition. The language is probably too earthy for twenty-first century sensibilities. I’m the product of another country and another era.

Surely your mission statement, if you must have one (because your backers require one?) should be an expression of what you intend to do in terms that reflect your values. Your mission statement should also be something you believe in wholeheartedly. But reading that mission statement who could guess that you develop websites that help the British* monitor the activities of and contact their elected and unelected representatives. It’s a possibility, but there are others as my friend pointed out.

At the end of the day it is and will be your Mission Statement and I can’t write it for you, because if I did it wouldn’t be yours. Without seeking to excuse my behaviour in failing to provide something less unconstructive than a snide dig I must point out that I’d only recently been at the Home Office site which promised so much more than it delivered and I was carried away on a tide of frustration.

I must also point out that I spent years lining the pockets of partners by luring organisations into spending money so that I could put their people through all sorts of hoops that basically boiled down to a meeting room, post it notes in various colours and flip chart paper around the wall. We’d use responses to a proforma questionnaire circulated more widely as the basis for the prompts in our focus group work and write up our inordinately lengthy reports according to a pre-approved template, with the findings subject to client approval via a 'draft final' document.

I thought I was fully recovered but like an alcoholic with the whiff of cheap scotch in her nostrils I'm reaching for my box of magic tricks and ready to bedazzle my audience before you can say 'cliche'.

So there you have it Tom, a considered response, whether ill- or well- I’ll know tomorrow. And now I am cross because this is just about the bitterest post I’ve drafted. Maybe other people can’t detect it but I can and it hurts. The shame is that I’ve written this because of a web venture I’m essentially entirely enthused by and wholly supportive of.

So if you’re not Tom and you’ve got this far ignore all the bile fuelled preamble and have a look at:
www.mySociety.org
www.TheyWorkForYou.com
www.PublicWhip.org.uk
www.HearFromYourMP.com
www.WriteToThem.com

because they’re much more worthy of your attention than this is. Better yet, but only if you're British plug in your post code ... with a space between the first part and the second and use capitals to be on the safe side. Register your interest in your MP and drop him or her a line.

*Googling ‘How to write a good mission statement’ brings up approximately 99,300,000 pages. That’s the very best part of one hundred million web pages the world would not miss were they to vanish. Oh, and inadvertently Googling on How to write a good misssion statement brings up another (?) 604 pages.

** British Citizens doesn’t work for me, it offends my republican sensibilities. Subject sounds clumsy though more honest. Hence the choice of phraseology.

Another public service announcement

I regret that either because it isn't an option with Blogger or because I'm inept I can't categorise my posts.

But I can't, and that's that. It means that people who find this blog by searching on "how to have an affair" (and the number of people who do has been an eye-opener) are doomed instead to read stuff like this -

When I had a life I would make time to dip into things like The Onion and keep an eye on things like The Drudge Report. Rebuilding me diminished my peripheral vision, but a sports coach will tell you that this is something which can be exercised and developed like any other muscle. Anyway, for the time being I've given up crawling over other people's blogs (which I did in the apparently vain hope of discovering other people quietly and unassumingly blogging their way through the healing process and moving on).

Via Alice Miles who commentates on parliament for The Times* I have discovered www.mySociety.org. In its own words mySociety builds websites that "give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives". This counts as drivel in my book and I might not have looked further but I'd already seen a couple of the websites they've built and I have confidence in La Miles.

What mySociety does is build unlocked portals to the universe of parliamentary democracy. So step through!

One of mySociety's big projects has been TheyWorkForYou.com which describes itself as "a non-partisan, volunteer-run website which aims to make it easy for people to keep tabs on their elected and unelected representatives in Parliament." Among other things this site provides performance data from www.publicwhip.org.uk, access to voting records, speeches, text searching, and hansard (parliamentary transcripts).

Site users can register areas of interest and receive email alerts when keyword linked subjects are debated.

Another contribution to twenty-first century parliamentary democracy is www.HearFromYourMP.com. People can sign up to receive messages from their MP. When 25 have done so the MP in question is notified that he or she has some constituents who would like a message. When 50 have signed up another message is sent, and another and another until the MP responds.

Alternatively it is possible to use another project (www.WriteToThem.com) to contact your MP directly.

________________

The first thing I did was enter my postcode in the box under the heading Find out more about your MP. The second thing I did enter my postcode in the right format. If I could make one change to the web site I'd fix that straight away so people don't have to guess.

My local MP is John T Whittingdale. [Actually I made that up. It would be asking for way too much that his middle initial is really T.]

His is the 158th safest seat of 645 in the country. He is the 316th most rebellious MP.

This is his voting record on a variety of key issues that have come before parliament since 2001:

Moderately against introducing a smoking ban. votes, speeches
Very strongly against the reduction of parliamentary scrutiny. votes, speeches
Moderately against introducing ID cards. votes, speeches
Moderately against introducing foundation hospitals. votes, speeches
Quite strongly against introducing student top-up fees. votes, speeches
Moderately against Labour's anti-terrorism laws. votes, speeches
Moderately for the Iraq war. votes, speeches
Quite strongly against the fox hunting ban. votes, speeches
Quite strongly against equal gay rights. votes, speeches

Another quibble: I have a problem with the way they've attached a political label to the anti-terrorism laws alone. The Labour Party is in government and most of the key legislation brought before parliament will therefore be 'Labour' legislation.

Two new services introduced by mySociety on 19 April 2006 which between them provide:

• Identify a Lord who is interested in an issue of interest to you.
• Write to any Lord you want via WriteToThem.com
• View individual Peer profile pages including attendance at votes, most recent speeches, rebelliousness and more.
• Get custom email alerts every time a certain Lord speaks, or when a word or phrase is spoken by anyone in the Lords. Over 5000 people will be mailed with unique updates today alone.
• Produce league tables of which Lord or which MP has spoken words or phrases the most (handy for identifying which members show a public interest in which issues).
• Search, read and annotate Lords Hansard back to 1999

So lots more to play with.

Charles Clarke

My Navel Gazing posting might have misled people into believing I have a higher regard for Charles Clarke than I actually do. In it I effectively opined that he is 'well educated'.

This was sloppy of me.

Charles Clarke's voice is relatively well modulated and when he strings words together he usually selects from an admirably broad vocabulary (desuetude) and combines his selection in a manner conforming to reasonably high standards of grammar and syntax.

In all probability he has some grasp of mathematics.

His grounding in the fundamentals is evidently better than merely sound. Somehow though an assimilation by-pass has been effected so that Charles Clarke has never rendered the sum of his education into a coherent totality.

Or else he's completely flipped and secretly believes he's Henry Ford.

Fair's Fair

I have to admit that he has repaid the money I loaned him earlier this week, in full.

He hasn't given me anything else from his pay check ie, to pay for the house, the utilities etc., but he has repaid the money he borrowed from me.

THIS HAS NOT HAPPENED EVEN ONCE BEFORE IN ALL THE YEARS OF OUR MARRIAGE.

It is really most peculiar. Perhaps he's coming down with something.

Public Service Announcement

Readers not already sufficiently whipped up into a lather over Bird Flu can find lots more scary material here at Bird Flu Breaking News which I found because, bless them, my references to Bird Flu in Navel Gazing (posted yesterday) caused them to visit. What a bitter disappointment that must have been. Nevertheless I'm only too happy to promote a website that promotes among all the blogs it lists one entitled "And More Bird Flu Bollocks". Sadly I couldn't take a peek at this particular blog, but it is a fine title.

Oh, and

It is a bit pedestrian, I know, but it's my job.

One of my responsibilities is customer relations. I have to deal with the customer complaints whether it is a question of a serious product fault or customer stupidity.

Very, very occasionally we sell something that for one reason or another we should not have sold. This is almost inevitably the consequence of the excessive packaging which surrounds everything we sell; it leaves us unable to verify the 'saleability' of the goods we flog.

More often I'm dealing with a nitwit like the woman who bought a nutmeg grater then nearly took the flesh off one side of one of her fingers trying to grate cheese with it. By her own admission she bought it because it was cheaper than the other sort of grater we sell (that would be the CHEESE grater) but she still wanted her money back because in her opinion the item was not fit for purpose since it said 'Grater' on the label, but did not carry "not to be used to grate cheese" as a product warning. We gave the poor lamb her money back with a smile. She needs it more than we do.

Today I had to deal with Sour-faced Desiccated Middle Aged Trout and her Overripe Tomatoes. Well what the fuck do you expect when you buy tomatoes in the UK in April? Fresh? Grow them yourself in a greenhouse woman.

Throughout my ordeal by overripe tomatoes I kept up my sunniest "its a pleasure to be taking on responsibility for solving your problem and making your day a little better" attitude. Did the granite faced cow look any happier by the end? Fat chance. I asked her for a penny so I could give her £2 (in two shiny gold coloured coins) rather than £1.99 (in £1, 50p, 20p, 20p, 5p, 2p, 2p), and she responded with "so I have to give you a penny" as if I was charging her for the refund.

Yeah lady, we're that petty and I've got nothing better to do with my time.

The troll wouldn't accept the offer of a replacement pack because she's going to 'get them elsewhere in future', and I hope she chokes on them.

There's a long follow up to this about the pernicious influence of on-going battles in that great British institution the Class War, but I can't be arsed to deal with it here except to say that next time you find yourself dealing with a surly vindictive British shop assistant remember that said shop assistant spends most of its working life dealing with surly vindictive customers. As will I bear this in mind when being driven up the wall by the attitude of our staff.

Navel gazing

Impressions can be misleading, and I spend less time gazing at my own navel than might be apparent or seem probable from reading this blog.

I spend more time looking outside than in, and a lot of what I see either I don't like or I'm worried by.

Things that don't worry me include:

• bird flu (yet)
• gay marriage
• British doctors' pay levels being the highest in Europe
• inherited wealth
• women bishops
• the purchase of 'honours'
• the wrongfully convicted being compensated
• BBC staff being paid market rates

Things that do wind me up include:

• hysteria about bird flu
• gay 'marriage'
• British doctors not earning their pay
• inheritance tax
• Home Secretary Charles Clarke
• the influence of the archdiocesan and diocesan authorities of Nigeria in Sydney over the Anglican Church
• privately owned media parading individual salaries out of spite

Bird flu might well become a major health issue; we have the wherewithal to deal with that threat and investigative journalism has a role to play in keeping public health authorities and medical science focused on developing strategies and solutions. Instead we get hand flapping when a handful of birds die in quarantine and emotive photographs of a decomposing swan on a remote Scottish beach. Great journalism.

I resent that my taxes are being squandered on establishing a parallel system so that gays and lesbians can be civilly partnered without a whiff of 'marriage'. This is how we promote family? This is how we encourage people to settle down and partner up? I'm no fan, but if we must have social engineering could it not be fiscally responsible and grounded in common sense?

The National Health System of this country is a decrepit relict, a haven of Victorian sensibilities, practices, architecture and plumbing. I've lost count of the number of times I've been patronised or insulted or ignored by a doctor. These people are paid by me. Courtesy costs nothing.

Charles Clarke is an pig-ignorant buffoon. He was a pig-ignorant buffoon when he was Education Secretary and he'll almost certainly now die a pig-ignorant buffoon. Take the following, the first of which is an illustrative paraphrasing and the second a direct quotation:

[I] would not give a toss if Classics teaching fell into desuetude, what
with it being no earthly use in the workplace...

'I don't mind there being some medievalists around for ornamental purposes, but
there is no reason for the state to pay for them'

Google "Charles Clarke Education Secretary Teaching Medieval History" for further reading.

Of the two the latter was delivered in an interview given to The Times Higher Education Supplement in May 2003 and caused the greater furore, possibly because most young hacks had no idea what he was getting at with the first comment. The combined impact of the two should have terminated his ministerial career.

Charles Clarke is now Secretary of State for the Home Office. The move from Education to Home Office constituted a promotion. Both are cabinet level posts but the HO gig is regarded as one of the Big Four.

I consulted the Home Office web site for details of its current remit. The Home Office has been done over by zealous management consultants as evidenced by the statement under the heading Our purpose, aims and values which reads "Building a safe, just and tolerant society is our main purpose." Great, but what are your responsibilities? Or to put it more simply, what do you do?

Beneath the main heading (above) there are two sub-headings; one 'Our aims', the other 'Our values'. This page recommends reading the Annual Report for further information about Our purpose, aims and values. Thanks, but I'll pass. The url for this drivel is http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/purpose-and-aims/ if you feel inclined to see for yourself.

The bar down the left hand side of the page invites you to explore further delights headed Crime and victims, Security, Passports and immigration, Anti-social behaviour, Drugs, Communities, Equality and Diversity, The police, Justice and prisons, Science, research and statistics.

Of these aspects of the Home Office remit the one that scares me the most is actually the last. It conjures up for me a vision of windowless rooms in 1960s tower blocks filled with earnest bearded sandal-wearing sociology PhDs churning out rainforests of mutually contradictory research papers setting out proposals for improving Security by cracking down on Communities, while at the same time expanding Anti-social behaviour at the expense of Equality and diversity. And even the most casual student of UK miscarriages of justice knows the words justice and prison should only be placed in proximity with one another after the most careful consideration of the consequences of sounding like a complete fool.

The pig-ignoramus presides over this lot. The tragedy is that the man is all too evidently intelligent and well educated and potentially a ministerial giant. Unlike the Deputy Prime Minister he really doesn't have an excuse.

Charles Clarke presumes to be an agent of change within the framework of parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarch while dismissing the branch of scholarship which bears its weight on the forces that brought us through from the dark ages to the early modern era and during which were built the foundation on which every key element of our society rests.

The high and late Middle Ages date (roughly) from the Great Schism [1054] to the middle of the fifteenth century. In England around the middle of this period Geoffrey Chaucer was making it socially acceptable to read works written in the language of the lower orders if not the actual peasantry, John Wycliffe was failing to play by the rules and publicly debating those contentious questions of theology and doctrine which the church considered only its most senior prelates capable of tackling [and with all due respect to the Church for the counter-reformation and Vatican II it really hasn't grown up much since] while secular princes were learning, albeit of necessity, to wield diplomacy when once the sword would have been employed. The first national pay award was struck (and immediately ignored) during this period and House of Commons became established and began to flex its muscles. These were formative years.

Through the study of this period we learn of and understand the forces at work to establish those things which have become archaic convention and these range from the silly (such as referring to the House of Lords in the House of Commons as 'the other place' and vice versa) to the serious (a couple of well established features of the practice of justice such as trial by jury and habeas corpus, for example). It is all very well to say that those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them, but the worst that might, just might befall Charles Clarke is that he loses his job.

The real penalty will be paid by those who are wrongfully convicted who on release find the state unprepared to pay much if any compensation. The real penalty will be paid by those who are never tried, but who are incarcerated indefinitely without the evidence to support this incarceration ever being brought before an open court.

The numbers of those who have paid dearly down through the years for the rights and privileges we enjoy (or did enjoy until very recently) are numberless and largely nameless. Charles Clarke blithely sweeps away these rights and privileges with a dismissive waft of a piece of secondary legislation.

Be careful what you say and be careful who you say it to. This man is armed and dangerous.

-----------

I haven't dealt with the Mad Mullahs in Mitres who run the Anglican Church in Nigeria and Sydney (and yes one or two other places). Nor have I dealt with the tempest in a tea cup over BBC salaries. If the latter story continues to take up acres of newsprint and miles of bandwidth over the next couple of days I'll stick my oar in - always assuming the Fat Bastard doesn't do something to aggravate me in the meantime.

As for the Mad Mullahs - sadly they're not going away anytime soon.

Fun and games at the lunatic asylum

• The branch where I work is largely staffed by cripples and misfits*
  
• The prevailing culture is one of secrecy and fear
  
• The majority of employees switch off the brain when clocking in
  
• The larger proportion of the remainder don't have a brain
  
• The most practiced on-the-job activity is blame re-allocation
  
• Most of the senior management are perfect examples of the Peter Principle**
  
• The senior management 'team' tend to behave like a sack full of vipers when under stress
  
• I hate my job
  
• I despise my employer
  
• I cannot stay in this job for fear of being infected by this culture or adapting to it
  
• I will be spending more time on the internet in the near future (job hunting)

Why the above?

A couple of hours ago I was ranting and raging and laughing and tearing the whole amateur shower to shreds. An hour earlier I'd been sitting at my desk with my head in my hands feeling nauseus and incapable of dealing with any of my colleagues with any degree of civility.

What brought this about?

For readers outside Europe much of the following will possibly seem completely made up, on the grounds that it couldn't possibly happen. But it did.

I dropped the offspring off at the school gate for the first day of the new term. At the gate I had a brief conversation with one of the staffers. She passed on to me details of a conversation she'd had with another employee who had been told she'd be paid only straight rate for working Easter Monday as requested though it isn't one of her contracted hours ie, she isn't contracted to work any hours on Monday (except she is because her contract of employment includes a clause permitting 'us' to co-opt her for Public Holidays).

Since she would have been working alongside staff of equal experience who are being paid double pay becuase Monday is their contracted hour I found this a little difficult to believe.

I decided to investigate.

I got into the office and before doing anything else I had a conversation with a peer of mine who has more years under her belt and she, it emerged, hadn't the foggiest idea what the relevant policy says or rules are, or any idea how to go about finding out. So I put in a call to our payroll department.

I asked the woman I found myself dealing with (and damn it I didn't get her name or I'd be inclined to publish it here) to send me a copy of my, her, our employer's policy with respect to rates of pay on Public/Bank Holidays after identifying myself. She offered to post it to me at home. Don't bother, I told her, could you just fax it to me here at work? She agreed to look into getting me a copy. Fine.

About an hour later, no fax. About two hours later, no fax. Lunch time no fax. I went home briefly, to change into another pair of shoes because the pair I'd gone to work in wore beginning to rub for some reason. Back from work and still no fax.

A little while later a call from the General Manager.

"I understand you called Payroll asking for some information."

"Yes"

"Well you need to go through me or 'Deputy General Manager X' if you have questions concerning personnel or pay. What do you want to know? I'll can answer your questions."

"I want to read the policy."

"Well there's the contract [blah, blah], and the National Agreement; blah, blah..."

"I would like to read the policy."

" Someone working Good Friday; blah, blah, blah..."

"I'm not specifically interested in Good Friday."

"I know that there were rumours going around that people would be paid for Good Friday whether they worked it even if they were not contracted to work Fridays. [nb I worked Friday which is outside my normal contracted working week.]"

"I wish to know what the policy says, and this isn't about Good Friday."

"Well I think; blah blah blah" [Ah ha, he thinks!]

"I would like to read the policy."

"We have a copy here on file and a copy should be on the notice board."

"It should be on which notice board?"

"It should be on the notice board in the staff room."

"So I can go into the staff room and read it there?"

"It should be there ... wait a moment and I'll get Deputy GM X to check."

" So if someone asks me I can refer them to the notice board?"

"You should be able to, yes"

"But I can't have a copy of the policy?"

"There should be a copy on the staff notice board upstairs in the staff room."

"Fine. Thanks"

The little fucker is still in one piece tonight solely because our paths did not cross between the end of this conversation and me leaving work absolutely on the dot at 5pm.

Later though Deputy General Manager X and I did meet up, out in public which was fortunate for both our sakes. Her drivel isn't worth repeating at any length.

I did finally admit though (and I regret this) that I'd been prompted to investigate by conversations with a couple of people. Of course her little ears pricked up - must be a reflex reaction given how under-powered she is in the grey matter department. It must be all the hairspray.

Her explaination for the kerfuffle was slightly at odds with that I'd been given earlier - according to her 'head office don't like to have people calling them' or words to that effect.

Fear and secrecy.

* Re cripples and misfits, which some readers might find offensive:

Part of our work force is students filling time between college terms or between school and college or between college and that first proper job. Most of the rest are people who honestly couldn't get a job elsewhere or if they could, couldn't hold it. Every single day I juggle other people's reschduling due to medical needs of one kind or another.

Diabetes, 'women's problems, a woman with a bag who has to have a break meticulously at fixed intervals, arthritis cases, weak bladders, bad backs, tendonitis, angina and so forth. These people are not to blame for their illnesses, nor should they be excluded from the workforce. But it is an inescapable fact that these chronic problems are a reality placing significant limitations on the flexibility we might otherwise have in our workforce and require constant consideration.

We also got a small number of social misfits, harmless but deeply eccentric, lovable but very nearly only employable by an undemanding organisation such as ours.

** The Peter Principle for the uninitiated (or forgetful):

The original principle states that in a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their "level of incompetence". The principle is based on the observation that in such an organization new employees typically start in the lower ranks, but when they prove to be competent in the task to which they are assigned, they get promoted to a higher rank. This process of climbing up the hierarchical ladder can go on indefinitely, until the employee reaches a position where he or she is no longer competent.

At that moment the process typically stops, since the established rules of bureacracies make that it is very difficult to "demote" someone to a lower rank, even if that person would be much better fitted and more happy in that lower position. The net result is that most of the higher levels of a bureaucracy will be filled by incompetent people, who got there because they were quite good at doing a different (and usually, but not always, easier) task than the one they are expected to do.

[Deputy General Managers Y & Z were promoted from behind the retail counter while Deputy General Manager X is a hairdresser both by training and by instinct.]

So now he's broke

It has started. No sooner do I admit to being in the black than he's 'borrowing' money.

Let me be clear here: in the years that have passed since our wedding in October 1993 he has 'borrowed' money from me more times than I can remember while the number of times he's ever repaid the money he's borrowed is clear as a bell in my mind. Can you guess.

Probably there will be people out there who will regard 'borrowing' within a marriage between the two contracting partners to that marriage as a technical impossibility. These are probably the same people who regard rape within marriage as impossible.

FFS. He drinks, smokes, buys extravagantly at easter/birthday, runs out of money and then when his lack of budgeting has led to empty pockets he takes from the individual who has made sure the money stretched from one pay packet to the next ... if what I earn is his and what he earns is mine then once again he's taken from 'our' savings for current (booze and fags) expenditure and without consultation.

If he can't make his money go the distance he should go out and get a job that pays better.

For tonight

One more thing for tonight.

The two of us can sit through an edition of Time Team and take turns at picking holes in the pseudo-science quite amicably. He's the only person I get to talk with who can do that and I imagine I'm the only person he's in regular contact with who can reciprocate. He's the only guy I'm in regular contact with who can hold his own with me on a sufficiently wide range of subjects.

But in case you're wondering this, which I stumbled across tonight while looking for someone (anyone )enduring something approximating my situation, fairly accurately depicts what you'd here if we ever attempted a conversation about our situation.

Utterly ghastly and totally futile.

[And I hope the link works.]

Warning: I'm in a slightly strange mood

It is Easter and I'm all alone (with the daughter being asleep upstairs after subsisting on chocolate almost all day) and I am in a strange and only slightly beer fueled mood.

The 1973 Norman Jewison directed film of Jesus Christ Superstar was screened this afternoon on TV and I had to watch. There are a small number of songs that have withstood the ravages of time but there was a more important reason. Back in the first half of the 1970s JCS was a huge cultural event and challenge in the same way Monty Python's Life of Christ would be almost two whole decades later (and how the two connect with me in a kind of sub-adult angsty kind of way is some kind of miracle in itself). Following the release of the album and an amateur production the musical was staged on Broadway to mixed reviews before moving to the West End (London) and film.

The Australian stage production got the kind of reception and made the same sort of impact as the London version... it ran and ran and every body saw it - including my younger sister but not me. I can't remember the circumstances under which Bobby saw the stage production which had John White as Jesus and Jon English as Judas but I was not so much jealous as distraught. And typically of me I let that fester away inside until it assumed unmanageable proportions. My mother took me to the cinema to see the film but I couldn't enjoy it because it wasn't the stage production, it was a subsitute.

Now I know that there was a more fundamental 'couldn't' at work. JCS might work as a stage production but it was not a good film, perhaps a noble attempt to put the production on film but a failure nevertheless. I have a recording of JCS on my hard-drive. Somewhere along the line I lost the case and the insert so I've no idea about the cast, and right now I can't be bothered trying to look it up but I'm as sure that the guy in the role of Jesus is the same guy in the film as I am sure the guy in the role of Judas is not. And actually the guy in the role of Jesus is far better than memory and undercurrents had allowed me to remember.

Anyway the real point of this is that it brings family to the forefront including mum and Bobby and her daughter, mum's mum who will be having her 91st birthday later this month, sundry aunts cousins and so forth but particularly mum and Bobby.

From the time dad became ill when I was six until I left home there were the three of us. We had a choice between pulling together and helping one another through or fighting like three cats in a bag. Guess which option we chose. This manifested itself in a game of two against one in which the only variable was which of us made up the 'two' and who was the odd person out at any given time.

Bobby flunked school and ran off to shack up with a succession of more or less undesirable blokes before landing herself a good, decent man who only wanted to be able to spend his Saturday afternoon's running the boundary at football games. Bobby's inner demon got the better of her and their marriage collapsed under the weight of her intolerance for an absence of drama. Now she's raising a daughter on her own back home and with considerable help from mum who gives what time isn't demanded of her by her daughter to her increasingly dependent mother.

There was a time a couple of years back when I was in pretty constant contact with the pair of them, but from a hell of a long way away. Always one of them whispering in one ear while the other nibbled at the other. WTF!Sort out your own problems. I got tired, frankly, of listening to the pair of them and being made to feel less and less able to share even a hint of what I'm enduring here.

I'm still not sure I was cutting of my nose to spite my face. After all if I'd said 'hang on a moment and listen to me for a change' I'd probably have been accused of being selfish and self-centred.

I don't think I'm any more alone for being in contact with them on a very occasional basis than I would be if I was listening to their drivel 24/7.

I cleaned the oven out and got onto my knees to scrub the kitchen floor. For my trouble the Fat Bastard has tramped muddy footprints into the previously pristine stone, left debris from the meal on one bench, relicts of his domestic drinking on the other and gone to the pub - which is why I have the time to be here.

Oh and I have a belated new year's resolution, one I need to fulfill effectively by September - to do an OU course next year if I am still here rather than safely back home.

Yesterday's post about the new series of Dr Who had absolutely nothing to do with the driving theme here, except that it was something we sat down and watched as a family. Its about the only thing that I don't feel agitated over.

Its amazing that generally speaking I can barely tolerate him being in the same room as me, the sight of him dithering away his life has the same effect on me as someone running their fingernails down a blackboard.

He drivels on about this or that, and I don't care about it, but once he's gone I care about the fact that I don't care. For example, several close members of his mother's side of his family are seriously ill and he passes on news to which I respond with suitable platitudes but I can't care, and I can't care because he's telling me as if I'm entangled with them via him when what I want is to be free of that entanglement and at liberty to care about these people as individuals.

Does this sound perverse? It does to me. I think it is some sort of act of self-defence.

A couple of posts I've laboured over have vanished because of connection problems of one kind or another. One of them started to explore the far darker passage when I came to suspect that I'd lost my mind. Emerging from that dark period (and how I did it has to be dealt with at another time) I found evidence that was inconclusive in my effort to establish whether what he did was borne of malice or of simple ineptitude at human relationships.

I still haven't recovered from what he did to me to drive me to that place or what he did while I was there, and I doubt that I ever will and the hardest thing I now have to do is love the person I've become and stop hankering after the person I once was.

This self-defence mechanism, if that is what it is, suggests that I've a lot further to travel, a lot more work to do than I sometimes like to think.

I'm going to scrub out the oven now.

The Good Doctor

Woo Hoo ... he's back.

David Tennant's debut as the newly regenerated Time Lord was screened this evening and he's a bit of a let down ... I've no problems with him as an actor; I thought he was utterly charming in and as Casanova. This isn't simply a rant from someone who grew up on Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker. I thought Christopher Eccleston's turn was simply magnificent.

Will any of this stop me sitting down next Saturday to watch The Doctor tackle Queen Victoria and the Werewolf? Not bloody likely.

I don't want to hate men, but...

Somewhere in the first series of The West Wing Josh's ex-girlfriend tells Bartlett to try and sound less like "an Economics Professor with a big old stick up his ass*." The president responds with "I am an economics professor with a big old stick up his/my (?) arse**."

I feel like a traduced wife with (metaphorically only, of course) a big old stick up my arse.

I don't want to hate men, but sometimes I find myself reacting to them in a way that suggests a bleak future.

The Fat Bastard has his Fool in Philadelphia to make him feel good about himself, even if it is a long distance thing. From time to time I get a positive reaction that puts a spring in my step and gives me renewed confidence that the piece in my Bio is not wholly in breach of Truth in Advertising principles.

But for the p,ast couple of days I've been engaged in an electronic exchange with a guy in London who was treating me, ironically, at 'face value' right up to the point where he realised he was dealing with someone female. Since then, each time we've been in contact the exchange inevitably drifts, if I let it, through my size, shape, age, and innuendo and ends up with handcuffs. None of this would have happened if he'd been dealing with another bloke and it bugs the hell of me.

Yesterday in some peace and quiet amidst the chaos of school holidays I managed to put together a piece about a couple of things that have got me steamed up in the last couple of days ... and then my internet connection fell over and the ensuing fuss the text evaporated.

So that's another thing to get steamed up about.

The preamble to what I wrote was the good news that my bank balance is in the black (and the bad news that I admitted this to the Fat Bastard - who will no doubt use this as an excuse to evade is financial responsibilities).

This is good news in absolute terms but also in the context of problems that are emerging at work. The woman who had overall responsibility for cash management below the GM is on maternity leave. She's been away for a month and already things have gone to hell in a hand cart. The woman who has assumed many if not all the leaver's responsibilities is probably too stupid to commit fraud but that might not save us from having to call in the auditors.

Being solvent will probably save me from the kind of scrutiny I suspect I'd otherwise be subjected to.

On the work front I finally learned from a colleague that the Fat Bastard's Other Woman actually has called quite a number of times in the past (see this account of that telephone call in early March). Initially I didn't think to much of it but the more time that's passed the more clear its become just how awful he behaved towards both of us and how strong an example this is of what is wrong with him.

He knew or should have known that I'd intercept a telephone call from her sooner or later. He should have either warned me, or preferably told her to stop distracting him with personal telephone calls to the office. But he didn't warn me and he didn't warn her off.

Further more the implications of these regular-ish telephone calls from a woman known not to be his wife were well understood so I'm back fighting against him humiliating me and wondering what else he's been getting up to.

The thing I didn't want was to be left looking stupid, unwanted, discarded, traded in or some combination of these and all the other things a betrayed wife feels even if she doesn't actually feel 'betrayed'. Now I'm back wondering quite how much everyone else knew and what prism they view me through as a result. And I'm back wondering what everyone else knows that I don't yet know.

Last night we had him sulking because I asked him not to abandon his bottle of cider in the middle of kitchen bench, rather to walk a couple paces down the kitchen and put it in the cabinet with the other drink bottles. I have a whole house of these little battle fields to negotiate and a long weekend trapped in the battle zone.

I can't wait for Easter to be over and we're only at Good Friday.

this curious universe

A funny old world...

I read hers, and she reads mine and I read the ones she reads and she might read the ones I read but I never get round to listing them before I'm bored with them ...

Keep up the good work Meg. Love you, or at least the part of you that is in your blog. One day I'll work up the courage to email you directly, but that won't be a day when I've dipped into your online account of your life where you've just recounted some sad sack's email onslaught.

I made the mistake of dipping into a blog that made me stop and count the number of years (never mind the months weeks and days) it has been. I guess it must be eight and a half. Years

That is a hell of a long time to go without meaningful human contact (aka sex).

I've had a couple of beers and now I'm off to bed. What a thougtht to take away with me.

I had to sort out some battery stock tonight and that inevitably lead to all sorts of jokes among the shop floor girls about how many weeks a basket full of batteries might last me. How little know.

Its a hard life when you're a cat

We don't have any pets ... we had two cats at one time, the circumstances under which we became catless have been dealt with elsewhere and I can't bring myself to go over that ground again.

Since we became catless we've been adopted by a stray. His is a rather sad story. He and another cat were owned by a young couple who lived a few doors away from us. They moved to the next town and on the day they moved they couldn't find him so they went without him. Although only three miles down the road they didn't come back or make any enquiries about him for a number of months.

By that time we and a set of neighbors had taken it upon ourselves to feed and comfort the stray and he'd become quite settled within a small territory, wandering from house to house pleading poverty and probably eating better than most domestic cats as a consequence.

In summer we don't see much of him as he makes his way from food bowl to sunny patch to food bowl to sunny patch and so on for week after week.

If it does happen to rain he'll pop in but he isn't very sociable, so he'll wander upstairs curl up for a sleep until the weather blows over and then pop out again: places to go, people to visit.

We've nicknamed him Monty (after Monty the Mouth from Stuart Little). He's a tough little so and so; very independent and with a distinct preference for feeding from domestic rubbish bags than from purpose-made pet food bowls.

Right now, with spring only just sprung it is rather chilly outdoors and damp under foot as well after the rain we've had in the last 24 hours. So Monty is upstairs, sound asleep. He's been there all night. He's been there most of the winter. Conserving his energies, I suppose. It takes a lot out of a cat to haul the remains of a roast chicken from the rubbish bag and drag it across the kitchen floor, as he did recently. It will take a lot out of a cat to drag his sleepy body around the back yard in search of the sun's last rays each day, come summer.

This is one animal that has not yet emerged from hibernation.

Water

Reference the previous post, one of the ironies we are confronted by each summer is that this green and pleasant land is prone to suffer water shortages each summer.

This is to do not with the amount of rain that falls (the case back home) but with the lack of suitable ground in which to store this rainfall pending human use... the wrong type of ground or something.

This year the water companies have got their retaliation for habitual domestic profligacy in first, whether or not as a diversion taking our attention away from their inadequate management and maintenance of their own infrastructure. We have hose pipe bans in several areas of the south of the country where the problem of water shortages is particularly acute.

We're also being exhorted to turn of taps, fix drips, low flush when practicable etc. My own particular favourite is showering with a friend; sadly I haven't anyone at hand (as it were) with whom I'd enjoy sharing a shower, but I have a little list of people I'd welcome offers from. Sadly no one on the list is likely to call this summer, or the next, or the one after and so forth. I digress.

In light of the bombardment to which we've been subjected in recent weeks as winter has given way to a rather tentative spring it is particularly sad that this man has wandered off to work this morning after his moment of multi-tasking leaving the cold water tap running full.

Some people just don't get the message.

Men and Multi-tasking

Men can't multi-task.

Well I can state quite categorically and without fear of contradiction that this treasured truism is based on an utterly false premise.

This morning I listened with a mixture of awe and disgust as my husband, who evidently and as usual was running late, went into the bathroom, didn't put the seat up then proceeded to: open the flood-gate, let rip with a long slow fart and clean his teeth - all at the same time.

Awesome.

From the fact that the tap in the basin was still running when I made my way in a little while later I initially surmised that he'd taken the trouble to wash his hands after wards ... and then it occurred to me he'd probably put the tap on to wet the toothpaste.

Temptation .... and unsated Lust in Provo Utah

The good folk of Utah (like most Australians my knowledge of the State embraces Salt Lake, the Mormons and the Osmonds - to the extent that the last two are in fact two) are an unknown quantity.

I have a little gizmo attached to this blog that sort of enables me to track visitors and provides location and IP address info.

Well someone has just visited this blog having googled "How To Have An Affair". Leaving aside the question of what particular kind of moron needs or would seek out advice on How To Have An Affair, there's the minor matter of Temptation.

I could, if I were really, really naughty put the IP address on here.

But I'm a good girl, so I won't.

Clothes shopping (for want of something better)

I'm now a bit more forty something than I was they day before yesterday. I was treated to a meal at the newest restaurant in town on the same day I learned that the best restaurant in town has closed due to a 'falling out' between the couple who were running it.

No card, no phone call from mum. I guess I'm not forgiven. The weather at home is getting colder now, below 20 yesterday which must be coming as a total shock.

I'm also off to work this afternoon for a few hours to cover for someone which is OK, then we're into school holidays in the two weeks up to Easter.

I tried on some clothes yesterday, a bikini in the sort of colour that led to it being dubbed my Israeli Army Issue Bikini. I'm not sure that's fair. Lots of armies issue uniform in olive green.

Then there was the pink dress. Lovely colour, great length, awful cut. The top half kind of billowed and bulged where I don't billow and bulge. Uggh.

Then I tried on a skirt but it was horrid, a pair of casual trousers that were way to big. So that was it. Nothing.

I hate clothes shopping!

The cause of all this is the weather which seems finally to have decided to be slightly spring-like. The last few days I've been able to ditch the Thinsulate boots in favour of sandals but what else to wear is a challenge. My daffodils are finally out; it is too warm now for the woolies but too chilly for tees and floaty diaphanous skirts. I've never succeeded with the stuff suitable for in between.

Mind you I've just gazed out the window and it is cloudy out there. Maybe I'll be back to my boots after all.

The offspring sleep on and it is almost 8.00. The plain fact is this house is dominated by people who are not 'morning people' and to some extent at least that suits me just fine. The house is beautifully quiet, I can hear the birds in the garden and there's no TV to compete with the radio.

I just might shift myself to spend a little time in the garden. I haven't mentioned the garden before, I think, beyond remarking from time to time that the approach to our front door is lined with bags of this and bags of that which he's decided to leave outside rather than bring into the house or in some other way put in the appropriate place.

Right now the detritus includes a hiking stick, his camp stove, three (yes three) shopping trollies which he promises to take back on a near daily basis, a pair of old boots, a bottle of weed-killer, a couple of bags of bags of rubbish he's taken out of the house but not yet as far as the tip. That's just the start.

One day I'll have a proper moan. I must be coming down with something because right now I'm not in the mood.