PS

I'm rather glad my weather pixie is working properly again... I've grown rather attached to her in the short while we've been acquainted.

How I started the day (and how it ended)

I think it is fairly obvious that I struggle to post when I'm down.... so don't expect much for the next week... So this is by way of temporarily (I hope) closing off.

I started the day by sketching out a somewhat (okay, very) sarky post about how we need to give careful and serious consideration to banning Hollywood given the manifestly malign influence it has - not only on those watching from without, but particularly on insiders.

My comments were in part inspired by Meg writing about that certified Fruit Loop Tom Cruise (if in doubt read up on comments around first marriage break-up, second marriage break up, Brooke Shields post partum depression etc etc etc, not to mention his 'religious' beliefs). But what really got me typing away was the conjunction of Big Phil (Australia's Attorney-General) calling for the inane TV program Big Brother to be banned and Mel Gibson, another notorious Fruit Loop, being nicked for falling off the wagon (and then clambering into his motor vee-hickle) and then after failing to flee the scene uttering a stream of obscenity-littered anti-judaism.

Is this news, I asked myself as the rest of the world looked on in amazement at the spectacle of (a) Mel Gibson drinking and (b) Mel Gibson holding forth with an anti-jewish diatribe?

Anyway it was good, or so I like to think.

However ... my life has gone a bit pear shaped in the space of the last few hours. It might take me a week to come to terms with what has happened today and post about it. The good news is that even at this early stage I can see that real good might come of it so I'm not about to hurl myself under a train or anything: I've been in need of a metaphorical kick up the backside to resolve the absurd living arrangements we're all enduring and I just might have been given it.

More as soon as I can ...

Pool Watch No. 8

These posts now come with new, improved links to back issues of this tedious saga included at the foot of the post.

Absolutely no progress has been made today. This might seem like a breach of faith as I had previously given an undertaking to report only when there was something to report. But under certain circumstances 'nothing happened' is news.

For the record we are now at the stage of having a hole in the ground, which has been lined, and into which has been placed the frame, attached to which is the pool liner, into which was poured a certain amount of water - enough to fill the liner to a depth of about 6 inches.

The terrain around and about the hole, with the very pool like fixture inside it, is festooned with what might in another context be described as slag heaps, or piles of spoil.

Also now the plastic liner attached to the frame sitting on the liner inside the hole in the garden has an added attraction, a certain amount of leaves artistically disport themselves across the surface of the six (or thereabouts) inches of water.

Tonight I suggested we acquire a net (as in a pool net). Mr Bean replied "oh, we have one of those". I have a horrible suspicion he means the butterfly net that we found abandoned in the undergrowth when we cleared the garden shortly after we moved in. The man's a class act and no mistake.

What I'd like to do is water down the slag heaps (ok that means sacrificing the patch of violets I'd cultivated, but I can always get some more) and then laying down turf over the whole lot. His idea is to fill the pool and then luxuriate in its cooling depths, after a job well done (and never mind the ornamental slag heaps he can see from the corner of his eye).

In the mean time his best mate who has gone away for a fortnight on holiday has left him with the keys and the task of watering the garden and doing one other chore. This is a fantastic opportunity for the Big Fat Bastard to skulk in Friend's den with his immesurably superior music collection and his drink close to hand and 'chill out'. So I'm assuming that's what he's doing now that he's presumably finished watering the garden and cleaning Friend's pool. Our's is still dirty and only six inches deep and surrounded by slag heaps. Bitter, moi?

Previous episodes can be read here, if you've absolutely nothing better to do:

Pool Watch No. 7
Pool Watch N0. 6
Pool Watch No. 5
Pool Watch No. 4
Pool Watch N0. 3
Pool Watch No. 2
Pool Watch No. 1

My finger adn other painfurl subjects

The end segment (for want of a more technical term) of the index finger of my left hand is still attached to me a little more than 24 hours after the incident with the Office Safe. It is, however, an increasingly 'interesting' colour, swollen and tender. I'm convinced now that I haven't broken it, but that's a minor miracle. If much more of my finger had still been inside the safe when I slammed the door shut that bit of the finger and I might be exploring a new and rather more 'long distance' relationship.

As it is that entire last segment is clearly filled with blood, as if that bit of my finger is one entire nascent blood blister. And if I exert a very little pressure on the already clearly darkened nail then it darkens up. I guess I'm going to lose the nail. It would be a bigger deal if I had any nails worth mentioning but I was cursed with nails that are soft and split all too readily so I'll get along.

After the revelation a few days ago that I'm actually married to a fat hairy version of Mr Bean another: I'm a cold heartless bitch who's not only never been in the sway of true love (or possibly even real passion) but actually can't be. Maybe you and I should be a whole lot more sympathetic towards the poor Fat Bastard who found himself lumbered with such a physical and emotional empty space.

I say this because I read the following in a profile and my response wasn't "how sweet, this guy's soooooooooo in love" or even "I wish I'd ever been this in love". Actually my response was first "pass the sick bucket" and then "shoot me if I ever want to write about myself and someone else in such terms".

My name is John Doe. [] My other relationship is with my beautiful, talented and did I mention GORGEOUS girlfriend.. girl of my dreams.. babe-o-rama :-D Zoe!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am clearly totally unfit to enter into another relationship, however fleeting it might be. I have so many defence mechanisms around me now that I can't imagine or abide the thought of letting go and having a little fun. We have a lot of young guys at work and they take the reality that they are lust objects for the sex-starved but still hormonal older women with remarkably good grace.

They know we talk among ourselves about their pecs and GMs and biceps; they turn it quite adroitly to their own advantage. We usually agree that if one of us were ever to make a real move on one of them, however, he'd run a mile in what might be a new world record. I have to admit though that if 'D' from work decided he wanted an education it would be me running that mile.

I'm in a bad mood but I've got a good excuse...oh and the middle east

There will be no long posts from me for the next little while: I damned near took the end off my finger tonight by closing the safe on it. My index finger which is slightly vital as fingers go. I shall probably lose the nail which is now turning black in the centre. I'm rather cross about this as it is the result of a moment's carelessness on my part, though I have finally stopped leaking. I'm tapping this out with one hand will keeping my other hand plunged into a bag of ice. Its been there for an hour and a half and I've taken codine and a couple of beers ... and I'm almost but not quite at the point where I might get some sleep. Oh and tonight, for one night only, I'm blaming ALL typos on me 'one handedness' ... okay?

In the mean time I'm beginning to realise quite how curmudgeonly I've become in my 'old' age. I've no particular brief for or against Israel (I'm neither Jewish or Muslim nor of any particular semitic origin) but I'm now suffering from a quite spectacular fit of antidiluvianism: the rest of the world seems to be queuing up to slag off what Israel is doing and demonise the state of Israel, and I certainly agree that the deaths and injuries and the devestation of infrastructure being inflicted by the Israeli military look awful. But as I asked someone else in the last day: what else could Israel plausibly do?

Those in the west who stand on the sidelines wringing their hands are attempting to apply western values to a quite completely different culture: note, please different rather than better or worse. Hamas and Hezbollah are two peas from the same pod in that neither wholly accepts the existence of and on-going right to exist of the state of Israel.

It is beyond dispute that one way or other these as well as other related and splinter anti-Israeli organisations are well resourced and have powerful and influential backers including Syria and Iran and Putin's Brave New Russia.

And Hamas and Hezbollah enjoy their current quasi-normalised status through plebicites: am I seriously supposed to side with those who handed Hezbollah the cloak of demi-respectability it wears?

When Israel finally and belatedly and somewhat tentatively began to retreat to within accepted and universally recognised borders it was taking a step that rendered it vulnerable - because the last thing anti-Israeli organisations want is any slight evidence of Israel behaving reasonably. Those of us who've been disgusted for years by the planted settlements, the battlements, the rape of the natural environment and so forth suspended disbelief and held our breath. I think that, ironically, this latest little conflagration has risen at a time when Israel has in the recent past been behaving reasonably well. The life Arab Israelis might be grim but Israel has seemed to be exploring the boundaries of what it can get away with in the direction of reasonable-ness when for most of its existence it has been exploring the 'opposite' boundary.

Well we all now know how reasonable Israel can afford to be. One of its young solidiers has been kidnapped and it has made absolutely clear that it will leave no stone unturned in its efforts to (a) bring about his return, and (b) punish the kidnappers and those who have provided succour to the kidnappers. Would I expect the Australian government to cave in? Well yes actually (but my low expectations of Little Johnny's government are another subject).

Those who voted Hezbollah into office gave the green light to what has happened and it's a bit rich to bleat about the consequences. Israel might well have seized on the pretext offered up by Hezbollah in kidnapping the young conscript, and Israel might even have engineered the entire scenario to provide the excuse it felt it needs to beat the crap out of Hezbollah, but that organisation is nakedly anti-Israeli. It's backers want nothing less the obliteration of the state of Israel. Its backers are not the least bit interested in negotiations or diplomacy or concessions or debate or anything else that might hint at a conciliatory posture viz-a-viz Israel.

In such circumstances and knowing that Hezbollah's weaponry are targeted at Israeli, given that this state of heightened alert was triggered by an act perpetrated by Hezbollah how could Israel possibly be expected to put the lives of its civilians at risk by declaring or agreeing to a ceasefire?

If Israel were to show what would be construed as weakness how long would it survive? If it did not hold its ground and concede that ground on its terms rather than with a Iran-sponsored, Syrian-supplied, Hezbollah-held missile pointed at its head, then how much longer could the state of Israel continue to exist.

I have no particular brief for Israel but the obliteration of Israel would be a failure of mankind.

Pool Watch No. 7

I should, I suppose, have marked the water level in the pool yesterday evening after we'd all got out of it. Otherwise how could I check the extent of the water loss. The reason I didn't make a mark is that I actually expected to find no water whatsoever. I've just been out and there's actually quite a bit still in there - possibly even exactly what went in yesterday.

Seems there isn't a leak, but where the hell did the water underneath come from?

Other Friday Stuff

Friday is my day down at the Charity Shop. This time a year ago I was there six days a week but I put a few noses out of joint, was asked to take a less prominent role and spend less time there, so I'm only there Fridays now. I get there about 9:00 to deal with the stuff that's left on the door step overnight. Usually it has been picked through; there are a couple of people in town who cruise past just about each night to go through what's been left and help themselves to anything that appeals. We know who they are because the lady who runs the shop next door is a friend; she lives in the flat above her shop and her bedroom over-looks the pavement.

From time to time a word is said to the ransackers and they back off for a while. They do actually shop in the shop as well, almost everyday in fact. I'm amazed by the behaviour of some people.

Yesterday there were quite a few bags and they'd probably been left out in the morning rather than during the night before because they hadn't been ransacked. I got past them to open the door and survey the state of the shop. The shop's run by a different person each day and everyone's notion of how the shop should be laid out and 'styled' is different. Me, I like clean and orderly. I'm not at all a fan of piling everything in and letting the customers pick their way through everything. So on Fridays, after I've made my way past the donations and into the shop I start the real job of clearing.

Some of it's aesthetics but a lot of it is at least semi-serious. We're not legally allowed to sell electrics or car/child safety without getting such goods certified as safe, and since we can't afford to do that those goods are turned away when we have the chance or thrown away when the come in anyway. There's a limit to the amount of stuff we can have lying around in boxes and buckets before customers (and staff) are at serious risk of tripping and coming to harm. Some of the people who work in the shop have no concept of 'duty of care'.

I regard this day of the week as my bit for the community. We recycle stuff, we offer people somewhere to purchase (reasonably) good quality goods at very reasonable prices, we sometimes offer staggering bargains, we provide a social environment for volunteers who are mostly elderly and might otherwise become housebound and isolated.

I'm not sure I'll be going back again. I had to take the offspring along with me, this being the school holidays. She doesn't mind too much because she's very out going and sociable and anyway knows most of the people who work or shop in the shop.

But yesterday one of the volunteers was rude to her. And yesterday I had such a job getting the crap that shouldn't have been put onto the shop floor out of the way before we opened. And yesterday I realised once I'd cleared the floor that the place probably hadn't been vacuumed since the previous Friday (and shortly after that something closely resembling a flea bit me!).

I did a check of the rails and what I found depressed me thoroughly. I found filthy and damaged clothes out on the rails, which is completely unnecessary because we're lucky to have lots of generous donors and get more quality goods than we really can stock.

We're in the midst of a heatwave and yet I found winter woolies and coats on the rails. An argument could be made for stocking a few such items for the benefit of people about to spend a fortnight or so in New Zealand or Tasmania, but an equally strong argument can be made for stocking what people are most likely to want in greatest quantities, and that when we've such limited floor and rail space, running a couple of winter woolies rails is simply stupid.

I found lots and lots of clothes that had no effort put into tadult clothes on toddler size hangers - that might sound petty, but there's no way of making a pair of ladies size 22 jeans look good on a hanger intended to hold something for a 12-18 month old baby.

Pressure is coming down from head office because takings are so much lower than last year. The reason takings are so much lower than last year is because so much of the time the people doing the work take such a slapdash approach to things. I was unpopular for doing things 'right'. When we put in that extra bit of effort we make the shop look more attractive and make people feel comfortable about spending that bit extra. Instead the solution to the drop in takings has been to put in less effort (less care over selecting what to sell and what to discard, less care over presentation) and raise prices.

I'm frustrated beyond belief. Instead of focussing effort on getting the shop right the energy available is dissipated in a range of more or less futile ancillary activities such as stalls at fetes in neighboring villages, a fortnightly 'car boot' and so forth. Some proportion of what's donated is set aside for one or more ancillary purpose and this has become known.

Some of the goodwill as evaporated: the same people who donate, buy (or their friends do) and there is some suspicion of the goods donated to the shop being taken out of the shop without being offered for sale. Not everyone who can get to the shop can get to outlying villages or the car boot. Any amount of suspicion is too much. Furthermore there's no control over or checking on the background of the volunteers, and there's talk in town about the amount of stuff the volunteers are helping themselves to.

A lot of the talk is peddled in the pubs, late at night and I know about it because the Fat Bastard brings it back and shares it with me. But such is his moral elasticity that he can repeat these tales in all their perjorative glory and still amble along at closing time to spend the next half hour, while I'm cashing up, going over the goods up for sale as well as any late donations for anything that might take his fancy.

Yesterday for example he left with a couple of videos and a pair of swimming trunks (well I'd have bought those for him rather than the alternative - for my sake as well as for the sake of the neighbors) and a set of six italian glasses. He didn't pay or offer to pay for those either. He just picked them up and walked out with them. I'll have to go back and settle up later today. He wanted to take a midi stereo system too, but I managed to pursuade him that it wasn't working properly. Mind you, the damned thing should have been in the skip rather than the shop in the first place.

In other news we went to the fun fair and had an awful time. Even the offspring admitted that it wasn't good. It was much smaller than the one that usually comes to town in September (to coincide with carnival) and there were few suitable rides for someone her age. Almost everything was either for much bigger kids (ie, proto-adults) or toddlers. She tried very hard to enjoy herself and ran through a good deal of my money in the process (on slide, bouncy castle and trampoline, plus roller-coaster and dodgems) then we went home and tried to sleep in this heat.

It's still hot even though we've got the pool up and six inches of water in it, or at least that's how much water we put into it last night. Something isn't right about this weather at all.

Pool Watch No. 6

I got back from my weekly dose of self-sacrifice to news that the hole is complete, lined and we're ready to put up the frame and lining and ... fill the damned thing with water.

Ahead of schule and with another day's warm weather.

And I had one of those moments when a blinding truth dawns. I don't know how well this will translate to non-British audiences but I've realised over the course of this project that I am in fact married to Mr Bean.

Really.

He might have grown rather large (acutally very large) and hairy (everywhere except the top of his head) but he is fundamentally unaltered; still the same inept social grotesque and moral bankrupt, with the technical nous of a ... of a ... of a whatever it is that has no technical nous whatsoever.

Take the pool business... He had made absolutely no provision whatsoever for the material that came out to create the pool-shaped hole. Right now it lies in piles around the perimeter ready to slide right back in. When it starts to slide back in a bodge job is carried out to solve the problem until I patiently explain that we'll have to take frame and pool lining out and start all over again. That means taking up the lining of the hole and relaying it so that it does what it was intended to do.

The protective lining is like roofing tiles, but whereas roofing tiles must be laid with the lowest level first and then each highter row overlapping over the top to send water away from the interior of the house we want to create the opposite effect and so we need to start at the top. Guess where he'd started.

After we'd done that we set the thing up and fund that somehow he'd managed not to me the hole quite large enough. It seems he'd neglected to take a piece of string the length of the radius of the pool attached to a peg which he proceeded to plant in the centre of the hole. By dint of walking the perimeter with the string he'd quickly have established whether the hole was indeed large enough. In fact he should have stuck the damned peg in the ground before he started digging and used the string to mark out the outline of the future hole. As an added benefit he'd have had the opportunity to consider where to dump the spoil and perhaps come up with a plan.

Anyhow, after about another hour we were again in a position to turn on the tap and start filling, and that we did. Except that somehow the protective lining slipped because he hadn't bothered to peg it properly, so another bodge job was called for which involved getting in under the pool lining with some additional protection.

And that was when I spotted the water ... where there shouldn't be water ... where there could only be water if there's a leak in the lining.

I'm that close to giving up.

Pool Watch No. 5

Early-ish today I got out in my heavy duty boots and dug and shoveled like fury, until we had a credible imitation of a swimming pool.

DIGRESSION WARNING!

[I've got the radio on in the background and it seems the winner of the Tour de France has been pulled up for a doping offence. He's been found to have levels of testosterone in a sample provided some time during the race. I bet that news comes as something of a relief actually. I'm always amused by the outrage over doping in cycling. It is one of those sports, along with athletics, wherein I believe the authorities should simply throw up their hands and hand the sport over to market forces. The reason dope cheats cheat is to win. The reason these dope cheats cheat to win - and let us not forget they are doped to the eyeballs, is to satisfy their craving for the adulation that comes with being the fastest or strongest man/woman in the world. Let's see how much adulation and sponsorship money swills around a sport that's openly in the pocket of the bio-chemicals industry. Hrumph!]

Back to the digging. I have the blisters to prove I've been doing something strenuous with my hands, something I haven't done recently either. Sadly it really is digging a hole in my back garden. When the blisters developed I packed it in (pathetic, I know) and gathered up the offspring. Together with her and camera we set off towards the nearest nature reserve. En route we discovered a fun fair so now I have to hand over loads of dosh to a bunch of shysters who've invaded our town with their dangerous rides, crap food and loud music. I really have a problem with fun fairs.

Anyway we got to the open lands and went in search of bugs - butterflies, daytime moths, crickets and other flying 'things'. Unfortunately I've bred infantry rather than commando offspring. We did find a lady bird, but we could have done that in the back yard. We saw quite a few hoverflies, too. Lots of white fluttering things were about and my impression was of more than one variety. Unfortunately between their natural tendency to flitter about and the offspring's rampaging I got photos of only one. That photo was taken right at the end, and ironically when we'd stopped by the fair to get a leaflet for the opening times.

We came home for lunch and a little later the Fat Bastard got back from work. When he realised how much I'd accomplished in a morning he set to work like a dervish and - guess what. Can't? We have a pool shaped hole in our back ground. As we have the lining materials we're ready to rock and roll. By tomorrow or at latest the day afterwards we will have a swimming pool. The Met Office is still promising much cooler weather by Sunday so we're still on schedule.

Pool Watch No. 4

Wooo Hooo..

Just for the avoidance of doubt the reason for the lengthy gap between Pool Watch posts is the total lack of progress on the pool front.

But ...

Today the Big Fat Bastard went out into the garden and quite possibly worked himself into a state of slightly less fat Fatness. The hole in the garden is very appreciably larger both in depth and diameter (we're aiming to dig a circle, since the 'thing' is round).

I say 'we', though I've had nowt to do with the digging, at least up to now. But tomorrow I shall venture forth armed with my shovel and, well, shovel.

The offspring now knows why we're digging a hole in the garden, which actually is a relief given how obvious the reason for the digging. We might have a pool by the weekend, which is also rather obvious actually. After an unbroken spell of weather with maximum temperatures of mid-30s stretching back oh, at least a couple of weeks we're told to expect temperatures to plummet back to low twenties by Sunday.

Our little shopping trip went rather well. The offspring has new shoes for the new school year in September (yes, I did say I'd leave that until nearer the end of the hols). We also acquired some supplementary maths work-books as I'm quite determined to put the crappy teaching of the crappy curriculum behind us to whatever extent is possible.

We've decided to go on a bug hunt tomorrow, which is my day off. We shall head off towards the nature reserve armed with sarnies, drinks and my trusty digital camera.

Work was crappy in all the usual ways and also rather enjoyable too. The eye candy quotient was definitely up. D was in fine form. He isn't particularly good looking in any conventional sense and he isn't in the least bit aware of his particular charm; once he begins to recognise it, provided he has some aptitude for learning he's going to set someone alight in the most almighty way. In the meantime he's a quite delightful object to rest my weary eyes on in the evenings.

Am off to bed now in the vain hope that I'll be able to dig the offspring out and get things (such as Bug Hunt) actually done.

Night all.

School holidays

We're off... actually the children are off, until the first week of September. After I told the moronic uber-supervisor that I'd not be covering any more holiday until I received confirmation of my dates she suddenly pulled her finger out, found my application and got it authorised.

Not only that but she offered not to book one of the days as holiday because under the terms of my contract I can be paid it, even if I don't work it. Best not to ask really. In fact she's generally being deeply creepy which makes me very uncomfortable. She's almost essentially friendless within the office and her behaviour looks to me like a concerted effort by a desperate individual to make at least one friend and ally.

My contract is of course a sticking point and crunch time looms closer and closer now. Basically I have to get my application for a renewal of my visa in to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate some time after 11 August but before 8 September. That means getting onto the phone and finding out what form I need to complete and what supplementary information they require this time to support the renewal. Last time I had any dealings we ended up submitting about an archive boxes worth of paper.

My employer won't employ me after 8 September without confirmation from IND that I continue to have the right to live and work in the UK. Given the hysteria surrounding immigration and the on-going ructions at the Home Office which nearly-new Home Secretary is threatening to turn inside out and upside down this doesn't strike me as an entirely ideal time to be putting my life into the hands of some nameless faceless lower ranking bureaucrat.

I have no choice, but to do this however.

The problem is my application will take longer than 28 days to turn around; everything takes longer than 28 days to work its way through IND. Theoretically IND will send a letter once my application has undergone a preliminary check for completeness and general compliance and that letter will state that pending a decision the terms of my about to lapse visa remain in force. That will mean I can continue to live and work here, but it isn't clear that my employer will accept this letter as authority to employ me.

I'm so anxious about this I'm actually thinking about writing to my local MP (that's Mr Twit) asking him to stop bashing the IND for a moment and actually put in a civil request that they not lose my application and give it prompt attention, or something like that.

In the meantime I yesterday paid off the last of my credit card balance. That means from the month after next, theoretically, I'll only be paying off the new balance, with no interest. Except my MCC membership has to be paid and I've no alternative but to put that on my credit card. Last year I made the mistake of paying that new balance off in instalments. Between interest and a late payment fee (because I couldn't get to the bank due to work obligations between coming into the money to make the payment and the payment falling due; that's how tight things were) I ended up paying far more than necessary so I'm determined to pay the whole lot off, come what may and while I can.

Some people might suggest that I should just surrender my membership since clearly I cannot afford it. I can't afford the membership and Sky or Cable or a swish digital flat screen 56" TV or a big shiny car or .... So I go without the 560 channels of crap on the preposterous TV or the convenience of a car.

We're off today to town to pick up a birthday present of a school friend of B's. She's got a birthday party to go to on Saturday while I'm at work; not sure the Fat Bastard has ever had to get her to a party, and back again. This could be quite a challenge for the pair of them; they are as stubborn as one another and when they lock horns it tends to end in tears.

She also needs some new stuff for the new school year, but I'll put that off until closer to the end of the holidays, though that does tend to mean that choice is limited when it comes to shoes.

Her report came through yesterday and it was as great a waste of paper as anything the school has ever produced. After an academic year in which she's brought home absolutely nothing to explain the mathematics, spelling, grammar, comprehension and writing she's expected to work on through the course of the year, or the levels she's expected to reach, we've received a document that essentially offers a succession of bland and utterly meaningless statements along the lines of "X has worked very well this year..." and "X has made good progress this year...".

I feel like I'm struggling through a fog with this school. I've asked and asked and asked to be given guidelines from them on how they're teaching her so that I can support rather than cut across their efforts. To no avail. Last night B ended up in tears because she'd worked herself up into such a state she couldn't subtract 4 from 9. She's 8 years old and she got herself so stressed she didn't know the answer to a simple maths problem.

While we're out shopping I might try and find something to help her, just a little, over the course of the holidays and I don't bloody well care if it does result in me cutting across what the school is doing. If I leave things any later before intervening then it might be too late.

Someone asked recently if she'd sit her 11+. I muttered some non-committal answer. If we're still her when that time comes I'll have let her down, though it was rather encouraging that the question was even asked. Later I again raised the point that she'd get a better education back home in Australia. Once again he suggested we move to France instead. He really, truly can't stomach the idea of Australia.

This is a rambling and not quite totally pointless post. I'm off upstairs to wake the dead. We're off shopping. I shall try and do better another time.

I am now in SUCH a good mood

The other day I happened to spot a couple of films I've been wanting to see at a good price (on a buy 2 for... type deal) and picked them up.

Simple, no agenda, really. None at all. One was the sequel to a film I'd enjoyed (The Bourne Supremacy following on the Identity). I was disappointed by the sequel. It was rather flat and linear, seemed to lack the intricacy of the original; though since I've not read the books I don't know who to hold responsible for that.

Anyway I also watched, while the Fat Bastard was out at the pub, the second film. It is different at every level. Small in every sense. Shot over twelve days, on an indie budget, from an original script, using good actors without recourse to CGI or any stunt work. A simple and intriguing premise; one which a lot of people bought into. The film was a critical and commercial success. I watched the film, enjoyed it and evaluated it as I would any other film - against the weight of the totality of my experience.

I let on to the Fat Bastard that I'd picked it up and so this evening saw the two of us perched side by side though a few feet apart watching this film. Afterwards he ran off to the pub with this rather peculiar look of relief on his face and only then did it occur to me that I might, sub-consciously, have been making some kind of statement. Well the look on his face was definitely worth the price of the two DVDs.

The film in question was Photo Booth.

If you've seen it, think about it. If you haven't, rent it. I guess even if he does know about the blog he's beginning to appreciate that things could be worse.

Well I didn't know that

Seems there's a Brisbane, California, USA. In my first year of senior school I had an English teacher who wrote an assessment of a piece of work Id done for her which implied that I'd never do anything better. She also used to say "it's a dull day when you don't learn something new." I'm 42 and I'm still learning new stuff.

Excellent!

This post is dedicated to the memory of Mrs E (dreadful cow, not particularly gifted English teacher, but nevertheless memorable - and that isn't something all of us can claim!)

Postscript: seems Brisbane is a City, though I've not heard of it before (the one in California, yes). Wholly unsurprisingly (and unimaginatively) the city's Sister City is (yes, you guessed it) Brisbane, Queensland. I tried ploughing through the history page here but if there's an explanation of how the city came by its name I must have missed it. Well, small things intrigue and entertain me, and while not intending to cast any aspersions whatsoever on the size (or virility) of Brisbane (California, the QLD one being another matter entirely, being too full of Queenslanders for my taste) the idea of there being a city of Brisbane, California has kept me out of trouble for, oh, nanoseconds. Thank you.

The holiday camp post

I haven't had enough time to do more than skim the surface of the Council survey but it looks like it could be fun.

The letters (yes, plural; there were two) from the holiday camp operators were not such fun. Neither was a demand for money with (or without) menaces, which does tend to suggest to me that either the Fat Bastard or his mother has paid the balance. Almost certainly a telephone number would have been provided with the application so it isn't out of the question that a direct verbal enquiry after the balance has been made and the monies forward.

The envelopes contained confirmation of the 'joining instructions' and guardian authorities. Shit. This thing is happening in less than a fortnight and I can feel myself being rail-roaded (again). The timing couldn't be worse since its about then I have to submit my visa renewal to the Home Office and I think that on the actual day in question I'm supposed to be working. If he does send her away while I'm at work the consequences could be catastrophic. I'll have to slog cross-country to fetch her back for one thing but it isn't clear the extent to which I'll have to involve lawyers.

Has he forged my signature (again)?

How do I prove that I've withheld permission for her to be removed from the family home and my guardianship to be at this camp. Will my employer be understanding about an abrupt and unplanned absence? How will he react to me standing my ground? Will he be sullen (as usual) or violent (which would be something new). Basically he's always used his immense bulk and glowering looks as a potent threat. Don't push me too far or I'll explode.

From time to time I've wondered if I shouldn't push him that far (by which I mean make clear I'll no longer put up with the lying, cheating and so forth) and get hit once. Never a feminist but perhaps I'm being really stupid here and I should manipulate the system to my advantage. The problems are that on the one hand I don't find the idea of being hit by a 17 stone ex-rugby player appealing and on the other he might do serious damage if he ever completely lost control.

All in all this has put me in a crappy mood. The other alternative is that these people are trading on the assumption that either we've paid up (administrative cock-up at their end) or we know we haven't but will do (at the last minute). I simply don't know; if I were less tired I'd ask even though I know it would wind up with him sulking.

This survey better be good; I need something to lighten the load.

I haven't a clue

what to call this post.

Sometimes I hate that Title box. It sits there, blank, the cursor flicking at me sadistically intimidating. Do ya feel creative punk? Well do ya? Go ahead, make my day.

Saturday night I screwed up but it was ok in a sense because I was covering someone who'd trained me the previous week, and the person who had to clean up the mess I made of things dislikes the person who'd done the training more than she dislikes me. Go figure.

Last night we played happy families and survived, though I've lost my favourite sunglasses which is seriously annoying because they suit my face so well and quite coincidentally are also the only ones I paid serious money for.

We're also planning a trip away in August (but not the one which entailed spending a week in some isolated cottage in the lake district with the mother-in-law).

In the meantime a couple of items of post came through. The first is from the County Council who have elected to spend the back taxes I paid a few weeks ago by issuing a questionnaire to residents. The survey consists of 9 pages and "should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete".

This is a council that recently advised us it plans to switch off the lights after dark in an effort to reduce energy demand and thereby do its bit to save the planet or something. I haven't time to read the damned thing before I go off to work (which I have to do very soon now), but I suspect I might be able to have some fun with it.

The other piece of post that came through today is yet another letter from the people running the holiday camp my soon-to-be ex-mother-in-law unilaterally signed my daughter up for. I guess they're still demanding the balance of their fee. They can whistle for it as far as I'm concerned.

PS I actually wrote this before I went to work and have no idea why I saved it as a draft rather than posting it. I could say I hadn't spell-checked it (and I still haven't) but I rarely do check the spelling before publishing - something you might well have noticed. In the mean time I have realised that of course, in addition to saving the planet and a few pennies as well, the Council will have additional funds to pay for the extra police required to run down all the muggers, vandals, rapists, thieves and murderers who will think all their Christmases have come at once when the lights go out.

I'm Australian

but I'm baffled.

What's new, you may say. Well sod all, if truth be told.

Apart from the fact that mum's sent through my MCC membership renewal (and I haven't yet worked up the courage to open the envelope and find out how big a hit my bank balance is about to have to take) one news story in particular from home has caught my eye today.

It follows on the heel of countless news stories with the same critical component at their heart; indeed it seeks to tackle this critical component, drag it out in the brilliance of the midday light and examine it.

Before the federal election before last John Howard, PM mongered rumours that would-be asylum seekers were throwing their babies into the open sea within sight of Australian potential rescuers in the expectation that they'd be rescued and brought to a better life in Oz. Turned out, but only after the election, that there never had been any sacrificial baby refugees. The whole thing had been a nasty little (xenophobic) stunt, a bit of lowest common denominator button pushing. Howard won that election and remains securely in place as party leader and Prime Minister.

The scandal involving the Australian Wheat Board has been exposed and the trail leads right up to if not into the Prime Minster's office. His testimony to the enquiry into this cringe-inducing fiasco of loss of probity in office was risible. He's still in office.

Cornelia Rau and the brutalising of would-be migrant foreigners. His brother and the flagrant disregard of the law. Pork barrelling. The wanton destruction of federalism. The aboriginal question. Industrial relations. Channelling of public funds to friends and political allies. The remorseless and malicious concentration of economic and political influence within the geographic boundaries of greater Sydney.

The Australian public for reasons I cannot begin to fathom lap this stuff up. An opinion poll out today suggests a significant majority of voting Australians know and accept that John Howard, PM is a lying little bastard (which is another way of saying 'loose with the truth'). But they'd also prefer he remain in place. Baffling.

I've been busy

It's another very, very hot day here. The panic stations are manned and ready for the demented British public who are working themselves up into a right old lather over the mercury's steady ascent towards the nineties (old money) or mid-thirties. There isn't a cloud in the sky and the day already has the feel of a mid-Summer day in Melbourne; still, dry and potent. A few days like this back home and we're expecting the announcement of a Total Fire Ban and wondering if this will be the year for that long-overdue season of bad, bad bushfires. The theory exists that Australia's bushfire seasons are cyclical, and that a very bad season is overdue. That there's another Ash Wednesday out there, waiting to happen.

Nothing like that is going to happen here, but something of the atmosphere that precedes the bush fire season is definitely in the air.

In tribute to this crazy weather the Brits are not taking a midday siesta in the cool of the verandah, oh no. They're not switching on the air-con and keeping indoors, oh no. They're stripping off and running around in the open. They're scarlet to a man, woman and child; and the warnings about heat stroke and the rapidly rising rate of skin cancer are just white noise.

Meanwhile, closer to home, the hole in the ground is still there. No progress has been made. My money, which I bet on us not having a pool in our back yard any time this summer, is looking very good. I'm off to work this afternoon because someone phoned in sick (now there's a surprise in weather like this) and then on to friends to play happy families - they DO have a pool in their back yard.

Did I mention that I've been busy? I've been promising myself I'd take some photos of his room. It isn't sadly true to say that the detritus he gathers about him is strictly confined to this one room - it has an unfortunate tendency to spread downstairs to the living rooms, however the worst of it remains behind the closed door of his bedroom.

I can't capture the pervasive odour of stale cider (it must come out of his pores as he sleeps and stick to his unwashed clothes) but I can photograph the mounds of crap he lives among. Some might and perhaps will say that the state of the room is a highly negative reflection of me, my application as a wife (and housewife) and my ability to make a husband out of a man. To which charges I must confess my self guilty.

I have no pretensions on the housewife front. I acknowledge my deficiencies in this area by resolutely not making a mess. If you make a mess, clean it up. If you don't like cleaning up, don't make a mess in the first place. I expect him to clean up after himself. I go out and work to keep the roof over our heads, he can do his bit. I have to concede that through all the years I've failed to manipulate him into being some semblance of a civilised, domesticated human being.

I've never attempted to manipulate him. Instead I said to him in simple, clear and unambiguous language what I expected. I guess I am a failure as a woman. I should have learned like my sister to bat my eyelids and wiggle my arse and dangle my cleavage and manipulate him into doing what I wanted with the threat of a withholding of failures.

God, I'm useless as a woman. But I do have the pictures of his bedroom. I dared enter today and took some snaps. They're awesome.

A book or two

I haven't made much of the day each week I spend working in one of the local 'charity' shops. The charity raises funds for cancer research and also to provide palliative care. I work there because the shop is a very important part of this community, because it gets me out of the fun, it's good exercise and it's worthwhile. I'm not sure how worthwhile; we've not had the audited accounts sent to us and there are some grounds for concern about the financial stability of the charity, but in the mean time I'm willing to go along on the grounds that we at the very least facilitate a certain amount of recycling and provide various other low level social benefits to the people of this town.

In truth the goings-on behind the scenes are worthy of a blog in their own right. Some of the people I've come across, some of the situations I've found myself in during the 15 months or so I've been involved are almost incredible.

There are few benefits beyond a warm inner glow; we're not paid, we get to spend our day sifting through other people's crap, everyone bitches at everyone else, the customers think because we didn't have to pay for the stock they shouldn't have to pay either. And so on and so on.

Still, from time to time something turns up in a box or bag of donations that just has to be 'had'. Paid for of course, but there is a certain amount of 'first dibs'.

Last Friday I picked up a book called Mathematics From the Birth of Numbers by Jan Gullberg. It is 1038 pages (mercifully soft cover) of Numbers: Combinations, Symbolic Logic, Sequences, Equations, Functions, Elementary Geometry, Trigonometry, Analytic Geometry, Matrices, Differential and Integral Calculus - and on and on. It was love at first sight. It is here, on my lap at the moment, and usually has pride of place on my desk just within my line of sight when it isn't actually open.

I spend very little time on the books these days. I spent some time years ago working for a second hand book dealer; I have some knowledge of the market, the lingo, book valuation. I spent too much time on the books and got asked to cut back my involvement by some of the shop founders. Someone else takes care of them now. But on Fridays, the day I still go in, I like to have a nose about among the books and I'm still the one who sorts out any actually donated on the Friday.

A couple of Fridays ago another but very, very different book caught my eye. The experience was a bit like one of those car accident moments, where you can't help but slow down and take a look though you know you really ought no.

The book (by someone calling himself Selwyn Hughes) is titled Marriage As God Intended. And it isn't meant as a joke, either. It certainly isn't funny. It was going in the rubbish bin anyway so I brought it home. Tonight flipping through it I realise its even worse than I'd first thought. Apparently everything would have been alright if I'd only let him be in charge. Oh well. There's still the rubbish bin for it.

The process

If I was like so many of the people I see around me, willing and able to discard relationships at the first sign of trouble, I'd have ditched him after a week.

But I'd invested a week, so let's see where this is going.

I'd not have married him if I'd been some doe-eyed teenager thinking of an extravagant dress with all the elaborate paraphernalia of a 'big' wedding and endless connubial bliss to follow. No, I was a bit older and a bit more realistic. I already knew he wasn't perfect.

I never realised that I'd married someone who had absolutely no intention ever of shifting, adapting, accommodating or at the end of the day showing me any respect whatsoever. When he realised that I required things of him he had no willingness provide he resorted to lies and other forms of deceit and subterfuge.

For the last few years things have been moderately stable under this roof because I've effectively disentangled our lives. He does his thing with his money and I do my bit with mine. He gives me a proportion of his pay packet which goes toward the mortgage and the insurance and the utilities which I am responsible for (because when they're left to him they're not paid).

Because we've largely separated our lives we rarely have moments of conflict. The house is a slum because I'm physically incapable of making it anything else. I'm not allowed to throw anything else. Or rather I would have to resort to lies, subterfuge and other forms of deceit to clear out the house of some proportion of the detritus with which he's filled it. And were I to remove a significant proportion I'd be caught out because it would be obvious.

What would happen?

Well he'd get all upset. He doesn't like anything being thrown out, and that's presumably anything at all. Otherwise why is his bedroom a festering cesspit of litter, cups, mugs plates, crumbs, abandoned clothing, books, cds and a mountain of other crap.

I know I've been here before with this blog.

The trouble is that when he's all upset he's rather unpleasant and he tends to take it out on the nearest person. I'm working this evening, tomorrow afternoon and then Wednesday and Thursday evenings. That means he will have to collect the offspring after school, feed her, wash her, keep her company generally and get her into bed.

For the moment I have to keep this job and that means leaving her exposed to his temper. Last week one day I came home after work to find the storage boxes from the bottom of my wardrobe all pulled out and strewn across the floor. She's hidden herself away in the bottom of the wardrobe and still won't talk about it. He'd never hit her or physically hurt her. I'd set the authorities onto him at the first hint of that sort of thing. And he won't shout at her because he hates confrontation or rowing.

What he does to her, I think, is what he does to me which is reduce, grind down. I wish I knew how to describe the process. It involves sniping and snarling and a lack of kindness, a dismissal. Does that sound pathetic.

I think, when all's said and done, the day I can describe what he's been doing to me and what I suspect he's doing to her, is the day I'll be able to pack up this blog and walk away.

A couple of things have prompted this. Yesterday he came back from a visit to his mother with stuff to be put away in the fridge which earlier in the week I'd dismantled and given a thorough cleaning. The fridge is getting on in years and though bought new wasn't a particularly good make or model. The shelves aren't strong and can't take much weight; particularly they can't be laden with lots of heavy jars, drink and roasting joints. Something had to give but with reference to the point made earlier he hates throwing anything away and got into a classic huff when I started picking through the older contents to create some space for the new.

One day in the near future one of the shelves will go. And being able to say "I told you so" will be no consolation. We need a refrigerator.

Then afterwards he asked me to leave out for him my boxed set of Series 1 of 24. He's decided he'd like to re-watch the series in the hour he has between finishing work and collecting from school and then in the hour and a half she's at Cubs this evening.

The trouble is he'd prefaced the request with some sneering about how a colleague keeps her DVD in such pristine condition, down to the disks all being kept the right way up within their cases. Trouble is I'd like him to treat anything of mine I lent him exactly the same way she asks those who borrow from her collection to treat hers. And I can't ask him to keep the disks in their cases, and the cases in the slip case, and keep everything together rather than leave it lying about where it will get damaged. To treat it with respect as someone else's possession, to be taken good care of and returned in the condition it is received in.

I'm just fed up because today I'm in a no-win situation. I can choose to not leave the disks and he'll be upset, creating an unpleasant environment for everyone until he decides he's made his point. I can choose to say something and he'll sulk and create an unpleasant environment until he feels he's made his point. Or I can just give the set to him in the knowledge it will almost certainly come back with scratched disks, and scuffed cases and slip case.

Bird Flu

What the hell happened to Bird Flu? Why aren't millions of unwanted people dropping dead of this deadly disease like 'they' promised?

Postcript: No seriously, what happened?

Only a few months ago we quivered in anticipation of this disease sweeping through huddled European masses. All's gone so quiet I'd forgotten about the Bird Flu News link among my public service announcements. An accidental view of this as seen in published form reminded me late last night and prompted my question.

I suppose it is difficult to think of flu (of any sort) at this time of year in the northern hemisphere, when it is warm and sunny and the preferred preoccupation is the slow, slow progress toward excavating a hole in the garden into which the swimming pool can go.

With no answers forthcoming I've sought out some for myself.



For dispassionate, balanced and current info the World Health Organisation has an information page here.

A completely different angle is available here in a Bloomberg-carried story, dated July 14, about smuggling into the USA of high-risk animal products from known outbreak areas of Asia (China, as it happens).



So it seems this wasn't a hoax and continues to be potentially a huge threat. In the meantime I really, really need to tidy up the side bar.

After the tears

A post at the beginning of the week dealt with my momentary loss of composure. I needed time to consider what had happended before doing the necessary follow up, but circumstances didn't afford me that luxury.

The day after the exertion of power that so upset me we had the flip side of that power on show and the consequences could take weeks or months to work their way out of the system.

As a retail business the most oppressive obligation on our frontline staff and management is that they as individuals (and we as a business) not sell merchandise to persons who are not legally entitled to purchase them. People don't walk around with signs about their neck saying something along the lines of "I'm not old enough to purchase alcohol/cigarettes/butane/lottery tickets/knives/a 12 rated DVD". Far from it.

So whether someone is underage or not becomes a matter of judgement and all the training we undergo urges us in the direction of erring on the side of caution; which is to say if there is in any doubt whatsoever ask to see ID. Our policy is that once ID has been requested if compelling ID is not provided then the sale cannot proceed.

On Tuesday one of my staff asked a rough looking but still quite young looking bloke to provide ID before she sold him the (locally brewed and therefore chemical rich) Fosters he'd brought to her checkout. He had no driving licence, no nothing. No Sale. I happened to be passing and backed her to the hilt. He became abusive. He produce a letter that was a court summons and then claimed to have been born on a particular date. He insisted that the court document was addressed to him although the birthdate of the person being summonsed conflicted with the date he claimed for himself.

Eventually even this particular moron realised he wasn't going to pursuade me to change my position on the sale so he flung the lot (beer, sausage roll and some tins of baked beans) in my general direction and left the store, sadly before I could tell him to take a hike and not show his face again. I thought little more of it after recording the incident in the log book in which we're required to note any such IDings and refusal and abuse.

Imagine my surprise then when not more than ten minutes later I catch the same customer in conversation with my non-friend Blondie, notionally more senior than me. She's listening with sympathy to his tale of woe, of how he's travelled miles to purchase alcohol and a sausage roll from us (as though there are no booze outlets between us and the place he claims to have started out from).

Blondie looked at the letter he was offering her and then asked him if he had anything to connect him to the letter. He produced his electricity card (the electronic card used to top up an electricity meter for those who aren't credit worthy enough to have a contract with the electricity supplier). The card has a surname and initials. It has no photo. There was no absolute proof that the person named on the letter and the person on the card were one and the same. There was no absolute proof that the individual showing her these two documents was the person named.

In other words nothing had materially changed since I'd backed up the operator in refusing the sale. She sent him into the shop to buy his beer with her best wishes.

Needless to say the operator and I have queried this and we're both grateful that we've been backed up by the GM who has confirmed that we were "100% in the right" and Blondie was "100% in the wrong". She's now not talking to me, which in itself is no bad thing. Since the GM has already been made aware of the fact that Blondie's picking on 'Enyo', I'm a little bit fire-proof though the next few weeks could be very, very interesting.

The tears have dried up, though it remains to be seen whether she's capable of being vindictive enough to cause me to spring another leak.

A certain style of reportage

The Daily Telegraph (the UK one, once the fiefdom of Canadian Wannabe Conrad Black and his freaky wife Babs) is the epitome of a particular approach to newsprint media.

It is the most overtly august of the British 'broadsheet' newspapers. Or in other words it is a rather lumpen read. The Daily Telegraph editorial line is essentially jingoistic; pandering to each and every perceived prejudice of the ill-educated over-monied middle classes - now living, trembling with fear of all things alien, within the confines of their gated estates.

The DT publishers and editors know their readers more thoroughly than their readers know themselves (or anything else for that matter). And so the DT caters to the secret as well as openly admitted tastes of it readers, it reaches out to probe and tickle their hidden and illicit little pleasures. Anything to save their readership the trouble and expense of having to tuck a copy of the News of the Screws inside the Sunday edition before carrying the whole salacious lot home.

By way of example of how it accomplishes this the DT doesn't cover the latest goings-on in the Big Brother house but rather it publishes the media's coverage and reaction to the latest goings-on in the Big Brother house - with detail of the actual goings-on in the Big Brother house provided only as useful background information for the assistance of otherwise ignorant readers who do not, of course, slum it with their feet up in front of anything so base, vulgar and uncultured. [Boy, did I just write three things that mean the same?] Bared tits are a bonus.

The DT doesn't cover the disgrace of Abi Titmuss, it covers the media's coverage of the disgrace of Abi Titmuss (with bared tits an added bonus.)

At this point I feel like screaming that something like 60% of the population have tits (including the overweight male element of the population with their man-boobs). And even most of the remainder of the population know what they look like (and feel like). And most have fed from them. Get over it.

The DT doesn't cover the difficulties of this celebrity or that with Colombian Marching Powder, it covers the media coverage. The DT doesn't publish the picture of Diana, Princess of DT Publisher's Bank Balances dying on the back seat of her wrecked car; it publishes the reaction of her two sons to the publication of the picture (with a censored version of the picture so that readers can appreciate the level of offensiveness). You get my point? I expect you do, 'cos I'm labouring it now.

The point of this, and yes there is one, is that one of my favourite reads has gone all DT on me. And I'm pissed (and amused at the same time) and thankful that he's taking his trike and pedalling off into the sunset for a month or thereabouts. Why on earth do I feel like singing the theme to The Aunty Jack Show as he goes?

Fanged Killer Kangaroo found in Outback...

When I'm bored I click on the Next Blog button, and my God, there's some crap out there. I mean really, truly, totally (someone put some effort into it) extravagently crappy crap.

Take (please take) for instance this: Believers of Whatever

or this: Prophet Shammah Whatever

or even this complete waste of cyberspace: Whatever

In no way are the first two examples intended to be representative, and it is purely coincidence that they are both religious in slant and from a particular faith if not denomination. It just so happens that they were to first to that came to hand again when I sought out examples of the kind of material I had in mind.

Then, occasionally one stumbles upon gold, and this is a wonderful example; certainly as far as the Killer Headline goes, though the substances at least initially is almost worthy of the that headline.

MSN UK News, Latest news bulletins from Reuters, UK, World, Sport, Business and Weather:

Killer kangaroo, demon duck of doom roamed Outback

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Forget cute, cuddly marsupials. A team of Australian palaeontologists say they have found the fossilised remains of a fanged killer kangaroo and what they describe as a 'demon duck of doom'.

A University of New South Wales team said the fearsome fossils were among 20 previously unknown species uncovered at a site in northwest Queensland state [sic].

Professor Michael Archer said on Wednesday the remains of a meat-eating kangaroo with wolf-like fangs were found as well as a galloping kangaroo with long forearms that could not hop like a modern kangaroo.

'Because they didn't hop, these were galloping kangaroos, with big, powerful forelimbs. Some of them had long canines (fangs) like wolves,' Archer told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
Vertebrate palaeontologist Sue Hand said modern kangaroos look almost nothing like their ferocious forebears, which lived between 10 million and 20 million years ago.

The species found at the dig had 'well muscled-in teeth, not for grazing. These things had slicing crests that could have crunched through bone and sliced off flesh', Hand said.

The team also found prehistoric lungfish and large duck-like birds.

'Very big birds ... more like ducks, earned the name 'demon duck of doom', some at least may have been carnivorous as well,' Hand told ABC radio.

Archer said the team was studying the fossils to better understand how they were affected by changing climates in the Miocene epoch between 5 million and "

Eye Candy

Tonight's last customers were a couple of drunk Scots who reeled in at 8:55 and lurched in the direction of the drinks aisle. Having failed to find what they wanted (unclear what they were after due to unfortunate combination of thick accent and drunken state, unclear whether their inability to find sought after alcoholic beverage was due to it being something we don't sell, or something we've sold out or something they were too sozzled to see) they staggered to the checkout.

[I'm exaggerating of course; we're not permitted to sell to the evidently intoxicated. But they both stank of stale cider and they'd clearly were at least a bit the worse for wear.]

As it happens D was on the checkout. He was just about he only operator we had working tonight who's old enough to sell alcohol unsupervised so he drew the short straw and the really young kiddies got to stack shelves. Mind you, D only been old enough to sell alcohol unsupervised for a couple of months.

The two cheery cidery drunks eventually allowed themselves to be ushered from the premises and the shutters came down (and the air freshener came out to counteract the stench they'd left in their wake).

D and a couple of others who were working tonight had their 'Prom' in the last week or so. The Prom is a very new import from the US but one that has been embraced with enthusiasm. The kiddies all got togged up and danced the night away at the plushest of the town's sailing clubs. The local rag was there to capture the event and the photos appeared in this week's edition. The photo of D and his mates is pasted up in the back office and I have my own copy tucked away. D's about to go away and train as a police officer, so until we get a new intake of eye candy that photo will have to do.

He looks fabulous in a tux ;) - and I'm a sad desperate old bag.

Suspect in Great Chicken Theft case identified

She's still out here chomping away on a chicken bone she extracted from the bag of garbage I put down beside the kitchen step when I got distracted while in the process of taking it out to the rubbish bin. While the idea of having chicken bones strewn about the garden doesn't please me, and I'll have to go out there in a short while to retrieve what she leaves, for the moment I'm content that our left overs are going to a deserving cause.

Follow up on yesterday's tears...

Pool Watch is the light diversion in my day. Work at the moment is complete and utter crap.

I had a 9-5 shift today and turned up, on time, even though I had kept the promise I'd made to M. that I'd go home and work on having a hangover. I certainly felt less than 100% this morning though it was a rather half-arsed hangover.

The reverberations were still careening around the building. The GM and his girlfriend were both in. Neither can stand the woman who reduced me to tears yesterday and both set about doing what they could to make the day a 'fun' day. Flirting and practical jokes were to be the order of the day.

Then another back office colleague sent a text message in notifying us that due to 'stress' related illness she'd not be in today or for the rest of the week and she would not be contactable. We were already down the Maternity Leave and the Head Injury; now we're down Stress as well. That's three down and just two left - M. and me (and we both have hangovers of sorts).

We had no option but to co-opt the services of the woman who'd brought about the stress (in all of us) to provide cover.

While we were still waiting for her to turn up and do the afternoon/evening cover M. admitted that she did tell the GM first thing this morning that I'd all but walked yesterday (which is true) and that she too is at the end of her rope. That message inevitable had inevitably been transmitted to his girlfriend, hence the tacit support that had been flowing.

The blonde bombshell herself turned up towards the end of the morning bearing a birthday present for the woman who has now taken herself off on sick leave related to the stress the gift-bearer herself has induced. The minute she stepped foot in the building she was summoned to the corner office; some time later raised voices were heard. M confided that Blondie's on thin ice herself.

Sometimes you have to laugh (or you'll find yourself in tears).

I waited until 2.00pm when she was supposed to start her shift, to take my lunch break, and then I waited some more. At least the delay meant my afternoon was very, very short though not particularly sweet.

Not long after I got back I had to put one of the less than middle aged though essentially grown up (OK, about my age) women on a check out briefly to cope with the after-school rush. She ID'd someone attempting to buy alcohol. I thought he looked old enough but I wasn't about to undermine her by letting the sale go through. I stood my ground, backing her to the hilt and taking the abuse the increasingly foul-mouthed would-be customer could throw at me. Finally, eventually he walked.

I went off and did a few other bits and pieces and came back to find the blonde sympathising with he abusive customer and giving the ok to him buying alcohol (or anything).

The original operator and I have now escalated the incident via the GM's girlfriend. Expect more fall out.

I might even call personnel and chase up the renewal of my contract. If nothing else this place gives me something to write about when the Fat Bastard's being a Fat Boring Bastard rather than a Fat Cheating/Lying/Lazy Bastard.

Pool Watch No. 3

Part of the frame he erected yesterday has now fallen over, according to the offspring this happened entirely of the frame's own volition, or something.

This does not constitute progress of any sort, notwithstanding the fact as mentioned in Pool Watch No. 2 that the frame he had erected would have to come down so that digging could commence.

The bit of frame that keeled over is now lying prostrate on the bare earth he'd cleared last weekend (or was it the previous weekend?).

On the other hand he does have a plan. He is the man with a plan. Not only do we need to dig a bloody big hole in our back yard but we also need then to cover the resulting hole with a layer of soft sand and carpet off-cuts (or similar).

The pool party will be happening during the second week of August, but at this rate that will be August 2008 (or perhaps 2009). You're all invited though with just a touch of luck I'll be rugged up and moaning about the dismal winter weather in Melbourne.

On the other hand

Cheap laughs about erections not withstanding (see Pool Update No.2) this has been one seriously shitty day.

On 7 July a silence was observed in memory of those who died a year earlier in the London bombings. As an aside I don't recall silences being observed in memory of those died a year earlier through one or other IRA atrocity. I digress.

That evening a program was broadcast and I felt my eyes watering. I don't deal well with human suffering. I cried my eyes out on the tube train (of all places) the morning after the massacre of the children at Dunblane. I sat with the Times on my lap, the class photograph looking up at me, all those innocent children dead. I couldn't read the paper, I couldn't see through the tears.

I'm a sucker for stuff like that, and I cried when the cats died. I cried because of what CT survived only to die the way he did and I cried when Poddie died simply because I loved him to bits and I couldn't cope any other way with his slipping away in such a dignified fashion (and I couldn't cope with his determination to do it his way, alone). I was crying for me when Poddie went, and I know it.

The last time I cried because of a situation I was in or because of something someone said or did to me was the day back in August 2002 when I realised that the Fat Bastard had helped himself to £500 of my cash to fund a trip to visit his Senior-VP-of-a-Global-Services-Company bit on the side. I cried with Rage.

I cried and then I got over it.

And nobody's made me cry until today. The boss is a walking hairdo with the listening skills of a pebble but she still got to me. She got to me with a finely calculated piece of theatre orchestrated with deliberate intent and that objective was my humiliation.

Bitch.

Sorry, but that's it. I'm now going to drink and go in to work tomorrow with a hangover.

Pool Watch No. 2

The frame has been erected.

[OMG there is so much scope for cheap laughs!]

This constitutes progress of a sort. Now he knows exactly how much of the jungle garden he has to clear and how big a hole he's going to have to dig.

He hasn't actually started to clear the ground or dig, you understand. He'll have to actually take the frame down before he can do that. [Yes, analogies abound.] Knowledge is power, they say.

Next update when there's something to report.

Pool Watch No. 1

Exactly a week ago, in the midst of the most recent spell of fabulous weather (we've had a break but today things have improved and this week promises to be hot 'n' sunny) the Fat Bastard was offered a swimming pool. Not an inflatable but one step up from that, one of those pools that has a rigid frame over which a liner is fitted, a pool with filter etc. A couple of feet deep. Perfect for cooling off in, though not exactly something to swim in (not for someone who spent years hacking up and down the 50m pool at the Balwyn Baths).

He said yes. Then he asked me if I thought there was somewhere in our jungle garden we could actually put the thing up. I pointed out to him the bit of ground that was most suitable and what work would have to be undertaken (clearing, levelling, etc).

He collected the disassembled pool and fittings during the afternoon, got them home and began the job of clearing. He cleared a wide open approximately circular space and piled what he'd cleared up to one side. I directed him towards the rubble sacks that evening. The rubble sacks are still where they were a week ago, the rubble and weeds are still where he left them (a whole new crop are stirring just beneath the soil as I write), the ground is still uneven and the pool is still a disassembled heap along the side of the house.

I'm no psychic but I predict that unless I intervene and finish job we'll get to the end of August and the pool will be exactly where it is today.

Do I sound like a kill-joy? Well if we get the damned thing up I've got a summer of cleaning the damned thing up, getting it down at the end of the summer and storing it away somewhere for a following summer I can't afford to accept I'll still be living here for.

Expect more pool updates throughout the summer as it [the pool] gathers dust, spiders, leaves, bird crap, rainfall and then deteriorates.

For some unaccountable reason

this blog has particularly tickled my fancy (or something in that region).

http://tuxxxland.blogspot.com/

Tough luck on those for whom French might as well be Swahili. If you've rusty school French take a deep breath and then take your time ... deliciously subversive. I wish I knew the French for 'deliciously subversive".

The bad, the good and the beautiful

On top of absolutely everything else I've had a revelation this week concerning my job. I hate it. I've never felt that way about a job before, or perhaps when I have been on the verge of feeling that way I've gone off and done something else.

Sadly that isn't an option for me. Not right now. Not until after I've had my visa renewed. Theoretically that will be September but if the Home Office is in anything like the state the recent incoming Home Secretary described that could be September 2007 (or 2008...).

Unfortunately but perfectly reasonably employers require prospective employees to demonstrate their entitlement to live and work in the UK before confirming an appointment, so harsh are the penalties for even inadvertently employing an illegal immigrant. A non-EU citizen with a time limited visa simply cannot secure full time and permanent employment in this country any more and my current employer has refused to offer a rolling-contract under the terms of which I'd be required to demonstrate the renewal of my visa/work permit.

Frankly I'm stuck. There's simply no point in my looking for an alternative position until the Home Office has done its thing. I can't chuck the job in.

I arrived in time for the start of my 1-9pm shift and walked in to find the colleague I was to take over from wafting around on Planet-S. Yesterday she was threatening to file a formal complaint against one of the Assistant GMs (who'd said the wrong thing or something in the wrong way or the wrong place) but she was at least smiling today as she told me precisely which critical systems had failed during the morning.

Then she wandered off, halfway through what she'd been doing, asserting that the books would all balance, hopefully.

Well I double checked her figures and the cash balanced so I proceeded. Then I worked back and picked up all her little mistakes. They are little mistakes, but with the accounting there should not be any, and if necessary I will have to spend half a fucking hour finding that missing 6p because she can't read her own writing when she comes to adding up her figures.

Between that and the temp who is covering for the checkout supervisor (who fainted and split her head open at home on Sunday and won't be in all week) I felt like I hardly had 5 minutes to myself all afternoon. The phone didn't stop ringing too, and I can do without having to deal with people who want to know what time we're open until.

I know exactly why I hate my job. I hate my job because I don't ever have the opportunity to do it - or even one single component of it - well. There's always some sequence of minor to catastrophic issues to be dealt with, sometimes several all at once.

The problem has only become acutely pressing because the whole store seems to have hit a rather bad patch rather suddenly. Everyone is in a mood (even the GM and the AGM he's shagging had a blazing row on Monday), resignations are flying in thick and fast and a whole set of significant if not critical processes have been undermined to the detriment of overall performance by a lowering of levels of work performance scrutiny.

In other words neither the GM nor any of his AGMs have recently been paying sufficient attention what the Kiddies are doing and (more importantly) how they're doing it. As a result fewer and fewer things are being done right. As a result we're finding more and more out of code goods on shelves and more an more incorrect pricing. If Trading Standards were to go through us like a dose of salts tomorrow we'd be neck deep in the smelly stuff.

In the mean time the GM, who has spent the first three days since he returned from leave telling everyone in turn exactly how and in what manner they are incompetent was in a positively sunny mood today. He's even given us the pool he's just replaced with a more permAnent arrangement. The Fat Bastard brought it home and has actually set to work on the jungle garden so that the thing can be put up.

So one curious side effect of all this total crap is that my garden might be sorted out while the weather's still warm enough to make it enjoyable.

Further good news is that the Victoria Plum by my kitchen door, which last year suffered from some horrible bug that did something nasty to the fruit is this year in fine fettle. We actually ate very few of the plums (I don't even like them particularly) but the butterflies simply adore the mushy flesh of over-ripe 'windfall' (if that's the right expression applied to plums) which I left lying about a couple of hot summers ago.

For a few weeks it was like living in a butterfly house and I've now got high hopes with this extended period of warm weather and the good crop on the tree that we'll have another this year.

?

How's that for a snappy post title? Actually I was about to go to bed and try and sleep (it is slightly cooler so sleep isn't entirely out of the question) when I noticed that someone has posted a cryptic comment in response to a recent post. So I thought I'd give this post a somewhat cryptic title and that was the best I could come up with at short notice and at this time of the morning.

I have noticed that some bloggers either don't have a comment facility or lay down rules (for example by using the option available to only accept non-anonymous comments). I haven't bothered to do that and I'm not about to. I've had a couple of idiot comments but that's probably par for the course and done by the same sort of person as went down our High Street in the early hours of last Sunday morning tipping up all the hanging baskets that the shop keepers had put up for our Garden Festival.

I haven't acquired a cyber-stalker.

I take the view that people should be free to leave random, irrelevant and even incomprehensible comments if they wish and I will only change my position when their comments become a problem for me or other people. In the mean time I shall consider myself at liberty to (a) write random, irrelevant and even incomprehensible posts and (b) comment randomly, irrelevantly and even incomprehensibly on the blogs of other people.

I hasten to add that I haven't actually left a random, irrelevant or I hope incomprehensible comment on anyone else's blog (yet).

On the other hand I also reserve the right to proceed on the assumption that anyone who can't be arsed to identify him or herself in commenting is writing stuff I'm entitled to feel I really can't be arsed to read let alone give consideration to.

So there. Oh and I did once unintentionally comment on someone else's blog anonymously (but non-cryptically so I expected to be recognised). If I was recognised and that person reads this - I put my hands up to just possibly being the tiniest bit hypocritical. If I wasn't recognised then I don't have a problem, do I (apart from all the usual ones)?

Nudging 90 and I'm a skinflint

90F is about 32c which is very warm or even at a stretch hot. Which means everyone here's having hysterics. This may last a few days longer and in the meanwhile we have to endure public health announcements reminding everyone to drink water, and use sunblock and so on and so forth.

Actually this is serious. Failing to take account of the weather can lead to passing out while at work in a kitchen with a stone tile floor and cracking the back of one's head; as a colleague of mine did on Sunday. She's still not fully lucid and possibly lucky to even be alive.

The Fat Bastard is due back from work in the next hour. He's then planning to go out for a walk, a three hour and 26 kilometers (16 miles) during what will be the hottest part of the day, along the river (which is almost totally devoid of shade). I'd bet just about everything he's left me with, admittedly not much, he won't wear sunblock.

This walk is part of his rather desultory preparatory exercise program ahead of this summer's weekend row to help a mate raise money for a charity he's involved in.

I don't suppose there's any chance of him keeling over from heat exhaustion and falling into the river. It would be quite handy to no have to line the pockets of some divorce lawyer or other.

When Kim an' John agree...

Big Brother has been around for years and all but passed me by. I've caught bits and pieces of it down the years, inadvertently, when I've been tuning in to catch whatever follows it or when I'm channel hopping and land there by accident.

I've never been drawn into the concept of watching a bunch of underinteresting, underachieving twenty-somethings loll about in their garden or on their sofas or in bed - or watch them attempt to accomplish stupid, pointless tasks so as to avoid the alleged consequence of failure which is starvation or eviction or whatever.

But Big Brother is impossible to avoid, because the media feeds off itself and the antics are structured so as to have cross over appeal. The bottom feeders among the newspapers feed off the program's appeal to the CDE demographic At the other end of the media spectrum the tendency is to report the program as part of a campaign to feed off the disdain of their own demographic both for the 'red-tops' and the people who read them.

I'm doing my bit to evict the program. I don't watch it and I don't vote in the eviction votes. The makers and advertisers get nothing from me; since I'm unengaged the media that dine off the side dishes get nothing from me either.

Big Brother is an immense commercial venture and when the investors perceive a better, quicker return on their pounds or bucks elsewhere, then elsewhere that capital will flow. Simple market economics.

In theory Australia's is an open market economy. In practice that's just about true. In theory Australia is a democracy. In practice that's largely true.

Which is why Kim an' John's foray into tv criticism is totally bizarre. Enough people watch the programme to warrant it being made? Market forces. It's in bad/poor/execrable taste? Tough. According to our Prime Minister the programme should be axed by the broadcaster as an act of 'self-regulation'. I may not be able to give you a text-book definition of self-regulation but I have to say that from this distance what the PM and the Leader of the Opposition appear to be calling for is indistinguishable from self-censorship.

Little Johnny is quoted as describing the programme as 'stupid', which is true - and called for it to be pulled from the schedules on that basis, which is unreasonable. If every stupid tv program were to be pulled from the schedules there'd be nothing but news and nature programs (excluding the ones made by Steve Irwin) left. That might suit Little Johnny but it wouldn't suit me any better than most of his voters.

Which makes me wonder, how stupid are these voters who fall hook, line and sinker for every one of little Johnny's wizard wheezes for stirring up flurries of electoral support? It's quite one thing to make baseless claims about babies being thrown into the Pacific, secure in the knowledge that the accused can't vote. It seems to me to be quite another thing to be suggesting that the masses have their twenty-first century opiate taken away.

And when Kim agrees with him, you don't even have to analyse to know its a bad, bad idea.

What's he up to?

With good reason I get nervous when I haven't a clue what he (The Fat Bastard) is up to. I'm feeling very nervous. His behaviour simply doesn't make sense.

On the one hand he's being moderately reliable: he actually offered to collect the offspring from school yesterday leaving me free to mooch around at the charity shop. We had few donations, cleared down the awful clothes and shoes, did a good deal of re-hanging, dusting and general rearranging but for reasons not immediately clear to me my heart wasn't in it and I doubt the shop looked much better afterwards.

Still he picked B up and helped me home with some books I wanted to look through. We then sat down to enjoy the Germany Argentina game: on balance the household were behind Germany and pleased with the result.

We're going to a barbeque this afternoon and will watch the England Portugal game with friends. I've spent the morning doing hair and legs and painting toe-nails. I bought a fabulous pair of sandals yesterday and can't wait to wear them. I guess I'll have to keep a lid on my preference for further opportunities to ogle Luis Figo. Whichever way this game goes I'll be supporting the winner as far as they then go.

In the meantime I have some food to prepare, particularly burgers which are my speciality. The Fat Bastard will pick up some other stuff and some drink on the way. Rather sweetly he's assuming that supermarkets across the country won't have been denuded of simply everything and anything worth having for A Warm Summer's Afternoon Barbeque While Watching England in the World Cup Finals by midday.

It won't be a late night because he's 'doing a job' with a mate tomorrow morning. He informed me about this last night which absolutely doesn't mean that he only heard about this job yesterday. He'll be picked up at 7:00 or thereabouts and get home around 10:00 or 10:30. Which is a bit of a bugger since I'm working from 9:00am and B isn't old enough to be left to her own devices. So I have to drag her across town to a baby sitter before I go to work. I think the baby sitter charges less than I take home per hour, but there won't be much in it either way.

He'll then take B over to his mother for the afternoon.

I guess he's got the money to get them over there. That's about £12 with the family rail card discount. Now the curious thing is that two afternoons ago (that's Thursday) he came home from work ashen faced and agitated and announced that he had no money in his account. Not penny. A Zero pence balance. We talked it over and decided that there must be some mistake. He has about £125 spending money a week and hasn't gone much over budget since last being paid so should have about £250 left.

Later in the afternoon he told me he'd been in touch with his bank and had been told that they were experiencing computer problems which probably explained the lack of money. I gave him £20 since which time he's been to the pub (twice), presumably bought at least one packet of cigarettes and some food. Presumably he's still got enough left to get to his mother's but I don't quite see how.

Yesterday, naturally, I asked him if he'd heard anything more from his bank. Then I asked him if he'd contacted his bank. I got some non-committal waffle initially and later was told that he'd tried, but not been able to get through. Standard issue crap and issue avoidance.

If I checked my bank balance and found all my money had disappeared I'd be on the phone straight away and I'd not be off it until I got some answers. I'd suspect either a glitch at their end or fraud and do everything I could to get things ironed out.

His behaviour is not the behaviour of a normal person in the circumstances he claims to be in. Which makes me wonder if he's not actually in the situation he claims to be in. That in turn makes me wonder what the fuck he's up to. Something doesn't add up, and it isn't only his expenditures.

He's always begrudged making any financial contribution to the household budget and struggled with the reality that on our income level there isn't much spare cash for luxuries and other forms of discretionary spending. I'm pretty sure this is his way of transferring some of his financial burden (the groceries) onto me. At the moment that's how things are split. He pays for the groceries while I pay the mortgage, the insurance, the council tax, the water, the sewerage, the gas, the electricity, the telephone and the TV licence.

Sometimes I look at this : no sex, no companionship, no mutual support. I'm truly baffled that two intelligent people could have boxed themselves into such an uncomfortable corner but here we are.



This afternoon we'll play happy families. We're surprisingly good at it.