issed Off!

From my earlier list of trials in the wake of Carnival week I omitted pick-pockets and those parasitic purveyors of gaudy gimcrack.

Enough alliteration already.

gimcrack, jim'krak, n. [Probably from Prov.E. gimp, gim, neat spruce and old crack, a pert boy; originally applied to a boy.] A trivial piece of mechanism; a toy; a pretty thing.

Clear evidence that God does exist

and has a wicked sense of humour.

The whole tawdry cavalcade set out at about 7:30pm. The outriders had very nearly reached the summit of the hill we're on and could see the finishing line ... the vanguard were rolling out ... and the heavens opened.

Fab excuse for me to slink back to the warmth and dry. Only another twelve months until the whole bloody circus starts up again.

Happy Days

We're in the midst of carnival week, the town's autumnal knees-up. Somewhere, sometime ago, a girl in her mid-teens was plucked from the crowd to be carnival queen and a handful of younger cuties were offered the consolation prize title of carnival princess. In consequence mum and dad get to shell out for a posh frock, or the refurbishing of a second hand posh frock.

I believe the idea might initially have been to reward some particularly community spirited young woman of comely appearance for fund raising work or some other form of public endeavour; in lean years when such a suitable candidate fails to come to the fore the title goes to the mayor's best friend's daughter or whoever else can agitate most effectively in favour of their own particular precious.

The totally committed get to work with the grey matter (hopefully) and ingenuity and dexterity to produce a more or less compelling 'float' and supporting costumery.

In the mean time a few auxialliary events are staged ... or so it is rumoured; this is a town of seven thousand strung out along one main road that follows the course of a river. How hard could it be to publicise the carnival fringe?

At the beginning of the week the fair rolls into town. No side show freakery these days; instead we get loud, loud music, lots of light and frantic movement. We get endless Eye of the Tiger and other similar thumping 'classics'. We get the stench of very cheap food being cooked very, very badly. We get flashing lights, relentless movement, spun sugar, rip-off rides and a foetid atmosphere in which underage drinkers and police play a game of cat and mouse in the midst of families impelled to the field by the incessant demands of wide-eyed children.

The children don't see the mercenary glint in the eye of the unwashed, illiterate community that operates the fair. The children cannot sense the total contentment of these people - to spend their lives touring the country. The children don't see the lank, greasy unwashed hair, the pock-marked skin, the sunken cheeks and eyes, the black teeth, the scraggy beards, the pallid complexion, the dirty nails, the smell of body odour and unwashed clothing.

These ghastly people are a breed apart happy to spend their lives apart - moving from community to community, sucking all the potential before leaving. They put nothing in at all except ofr an uplift in the shoplifting problem for the duration of their stay. And they breed like fucking rabbis.

In their wake we have a destroyed playing field - they've driven their heavy vehicles onto it in autumn, and over the course of the fair the thousands of people who visit will finish what they start.

I loathe the funfair.

Tonight the floats and the costumed will gather as the sun goes down and parade through town collecting for a range of good causes; with the rest of town we'll be there to cheer them on and put a bit into the collection bins. Then tomorrow I'll go out and help clear up the mess that's been left behind.

Okay, Joy's dead. Who shall I slay next?

Speed cameras?

Three times today I've had to listen to (male) correspondents advocating their removal from the armoury of the law.

The fact is all roads have a speed limit. All drivers (with certain limited exemptions related to emergency services and select individuals) are required to observe these speed limits at all times. These speed limits are absolute maximums; prevailing conditions may from time to time dictate that a lower speed is the safe maximum.

It is manifest that a campaign is underway in this country to remove speed cameras from our roads. The problem seems to be that they cause drivers to be too concerned, too abruptly with the presence in the near vicinity of a camera.

Intriguingly the proponents of the new camera-free world seem to advocate a return to placing greater emphasis on human patrolling of driver behaviour. It strikes me that human patrolling could be entirely random and unpredicatable and more tightly focussed on emerging hotspots than is possible with static speed cameras.

So let's abolish these static speed cameras.

Let's revert to a regimen under which drivers can only be caught breaking the speed limit on a particular stretch of road entirely unpredictably and randomly.

Yes human patrolling has a part to play in this but let us also deploy speed cameras (but without the advance promotion).

How the hell do speed cameras impact on the quality of driving skills? That's the latest hoary chestnut to be floated (do chestnuts float?) by this lobby group.

The fact of the matter is that these people lack the balls to set out what it is they really want which is the abolition of fixed speed limits. They know, and I know too, that the safe maximum on any given stretch of road fluctuates according to a variety of factors that includes: the skills of the driver, the vehicle being driven, the time of day, the light, the weather and the traffic conditions.

The fact they will not acknowledge is that the law cannot be drafted to account only for what might (for the sake of argumement) be referred to as "the highest common denominator".

So perhaps we should reset the speed limits for the maximum safe speed under the worst conceivable conditions (the M25 being a parking lot is exempt) and fine the complete and utter crap out of anyone who has the temerity to drive even a mile per hour over that maximum. Provided traffic plod in their supercharged mini metros can catch them. OK?

No. I for one will not stand (or even sit down and type) for a two tiered driving population.

What would I do

If I were to be offered a half-decent paying job, but one that required more flexibility of me than I can currently offer.

Anyone who thinks it is easy to be a two wager earner family when your both earning a low salary is a complete jackass.

Right now I'm getting the faintest sniff of a better paid and more demanding job than the one I'm currently in. It might seem perverse to be seeking a promotion or groping towards some semblance of a career when what I really want is a couple of one-way tickets to Melbourne, but this just might make sense.

My former career is effectively dead in the water, way beyond resurrection. Successs was based on being there, in the mix and I've been out of it too long now to be credible in the job market. Sayonara Super Salary.

Somehow, though, I have to make a way of supporting the two of us once the Fat Bastard has finally buggered off, so that means making something new, and this might just be it. It's something I've some aptitude for. An opportunity might be opening up for me and I have to decide how to play this. It could mean more than doubling my present salary and putting myself onto a career path, but I'd have to sacrifice the Fat Bastard to do it.

I've no objections to doing that, needless to say, but I can well imagine if this opportunity were presented the objections he'd raise. Because we'd be back to me working and him doing the child bit. Specifically he'd have to do either the waking/taking or the collecting/feeding end of the school run. Which days he'd be doing what would be variable both within a week and from one week to the next and he'd have no chance to develop much in his own right. He'd be free to work within school hours but that would be it.

From his point of view not having to work (much) would be a bargain ... except that it would look suspiciously like me taking a step closer to independence. He's one of those cunning individuals who can feel an ill-wind a mile off...

This is going to take some finesse and delicate salespersonship. Ever heard of a 50 foot tall and bloodthirsty Greek Goddess with a side-line in finesse? Me neither!

Variation on an Enigma

Or something.... I was all fired up for a bit of housework this afternoon. I swept up the detritus of our lives that has accumulated indoors over the last few days and put it into a black sack with the usual rubbish. I put the newspapers together for the paper recycling collection, I put the glass together for the glass recycling collection... and I got told off.

Those (yes, elegant) cider bottles "I'm keeping" because the Fat Bastard has a Dream... he wants to go into business making ******, and he's going to put the ****** into those bottles (presumably washed first) and sell it thus to the general public.

Never mind the how, and when and where of the production, the necessity for a certain level of hygiene (so far an alien concept to him based on all the evidence he's offered). It's the overall when of this that really is getting on my tits. I've got jars and racks in the garden, baskets in the under-sink cupboard, labels and plastic bags in the lounge (not food-grade, you should understand) and more bottles somewhere out of sight [where has he put them?]. Now I've got used cider bottles that I'm not allowed to throw out.

When I'm shot of this fucker I'm shot of everthing. I'll make a calculation down to the nearest knicker, bra, sock, piece of paper, knife, fork, plate, glass, cup, mug, bowl and so forth and so on and the rest is the property of the first person to turn up and make a claim. Anything we can live without we will leave behind.

Up, up and then back down to earth

I have fits of enthusiasm for my job. I tend not to worry about this a great deal, as they tend to pass quite quickly. My current fit of enthusiasm has coincided with final confirmation that another of the admin. staff who has been on maternity leave will not now be returning.

From a financial point of view this has been good news for me... I've been working a lot of extra hours per week since her leave began and I've now been offered those hours on a long term basis. So that's my hours up, and we still need an extra body so I can push to get my weekends back.

Another colleague who is struggling with endometriosis and stress related to the fact that she's in a job she absolutely loathes got married almost three weeks ago (remember my big night out on my first ever Hen Night?). Well she was due back on Tuesday, but instead she phoned in ill. Then when she dropped in the note about her illness she added, almost as an afterthought, that she had decided to quit and was therefore handing in her 'notice'.

Immediately I went another notch up the ladder, oh to the heady heights of deputy chief paper-pusher.

Then the following morning (yesterday) she decided that she isn't actually depressed and she's withdrawn her resignation and I'm back down at the bottom of the ladder.

Oh well.

A Score Draw...

The most pressing concern, the most important thing going on in my life right now, is getting the extension of my visa. That might strike you as odd, but I can't jettison us (the Infant and Me) out of this from an unstable platform, or rather it might be possible but I'm just not made the right way to take that approach to life.

That said the application's in, the fee's paid, the HO has accepted my application. All's well. I just have to bide my time as the application wends its way through The System.

Except that this morning, and right as I was getting into my stride on the housework front the post arrived - one item, hand addressed but on a business envelope and from Sheffield (which is in the big Ooooop North for the benefit of the uninitiated). Needless to say I was intrigued. Then then I flipped the envelope to find a printed sticker return address that also 'rang bells'.

Inside a letter from the HO asking for an original of a document I was ready then to swear I'd sent to them with my application.

To a chorus of much blue language I dug out my 'file'; sifting through it I found the copies of the documents I'd included. At that point I rang the telephone number given and eventually (after much languishing against the kitchen cupboards to strains of Vivaldi) spoke to human being. After much explaining she put me on hold and when she came back she rather proudly announced that she'd spoken to the person who had written to me.

He was insisting that the document was not among the things I'd submitted but would call back. As it happens I was running out of time to get washed and dressed and up to work by this time; she said she'd get him to call me back tomorrow when I would be at home all day.

In the fullness of time I arrived at work to learn that the signatory had phoned work and would be phoning back in a while.

When he did, and to give him his due he did (and was polite), he insisted that the document he wanted was among the papers I'd sent and also not on the list of documents I'd given them.

I was equally insistant at I'd copied it along with all the other documents and sent the original. He told me not to panic, and if I couldn't find the original, send him a copy. The irony for me was that the document he wanted was the one piece of paper I could send him is actually HO issue.

Tonight and in less of a panic I've gone back through the papers and found the photocopy to send him - and then I've been through the papers one more time for luck and found the original.

Damn.

Still the little paper shuffler had three attempts within the first quarter of a page to spell my life correctly and got it correct once (in the salutation) - with two alternatives (in the address and the subject)

I might not be perfect but neither is he. This is called a score draw, I believe.

No idea

I got up this morning, took a long look at the house and then decided I'd be best of going back to bed.

Unfortunately I couldn't ... the infant can't yet get herself up, dresssed, breakfasted and to school without some 'encouragement' and assistance. So I hauled myself about the place endeavouring all the while not to see the writing on the wall (and the detritus on pretty much every other surface - three people and a cat live in this house; one spends all her time cleaning up after the other two and driving herself nuts in the process)

I worked at home this morning then took myself off to the job that actually pays ...

By the end of that eight hour shift I was in no mood to be entertained by any amount of Green Bombs, though the story about the chinese bloke who had a 10" penis grafted on to replace an original lost in an industrial accident - only to have it amputated a fortnight later at the request of his wife did capture my attention for a nanosecond or three.

This week's highlights include a senior teacher at my daughter's school coming in and in her pathetically plaintive voice insisting that her card had been cloned in our store back in January so she was very, very, very distressed that when the chip and pin system fell over on the weekend we'd taken her card away so as to obtain transaction authorisation manually.

Baseless allegations of card cloning are so welcome when delivered in the middle of the shop floor. Just what we need to bolster consumer confidence.

Then we had the jerk with his arm in a sling and his trousers at half mast. He's been around a lot and I only learned tonight that he's been issued with a banning order - not for theft but for abusive behaviour. Sure enough he was on form tonight. Foul mouthed and threatening towards one of my colleagues he was run out and then reported to the police who tonight have him in custody.

The pustule covered yoot from last week was in again but since he hasn't yet received his banning order I could only stand helpless as he came in and, being fair, purchased what ever it was he wanted.

The clown prince tonight was the thug who slipped in and got to the drinks aisle where he gathered up a bottle of what later turned out to be Southern Comfort. He headed out of the drinks aisle in the wrong direction and I managed to catch him attempting to slip out the other exit (with the bottle in his back pack)

He can expect a banning order as soon as we can get one drafted up and get around to his home (he lives next door to the grandmother of the shop floor staffer who spotted him - OOPs).

After all that I got home and the Fat Bastard was in one of his droning moods.

In all honesty no amount of good news from caring, kind sensitive bomb makers or foolish chinese could amuse me so I'm off to bed.

Good night.

Almost entirely pointless Shit post

Pig Shit stinks. That's a fact. It smells worse than the excrement of another person's baby. It smells far, far worse than cow shit or chicken shit.

Pig shit is diluted and used as fertiliser in these parts and right now the aroma of dilute Pig Shit hangs over the entire peninsula like a cloud of blowflies over a carcass.

For fertiliser nothing beats chicken shit.

A friend of mine called Jackie was into all kinds of eco-friendly stuff long before it became fashionable. Essentially she wanted to be the lady of the manor (she's english) on a typical Melbourne suburban quarter-acre block. And since that wasn't possible she cribbed as far as possible from the Good Life (that might not translate for American readers, a sit com set in Surbiton, London featuring an ad-agency exec and his wife who drop out in suburbia and live off the 'land')

Then one year Jackie and her husband Phil planted some corn. Phil dutifully fertilised the ground with Chicken Shit. Somehow or other and due to a domestic misunderstanding this fact was lost and the same patch of ground was refertilised with Chicken Shit. When the corn matured they were about twelve feed tall and bounteous.

And the smell in the meantime was bearable.

And the corn that came forth was wonderous, as I can testify 'cos I ate some.

Now I warned you this was a pointless Shit post, didn't I!

Why the British Empire declined and fell...

Here we go ... the article titled "Watch out Sarge! It's environmentally friendly" fire can be read here. I only include this link so that you can see I'm not making it up. The gist of it for those who can't be arsed is that BAE which is the UK's and one of the world's largest Killing Machine developers and manufactures is going eco-friendly (or will die trying). Pardon me while I die laughing

The company's initiative is being backed by the Ministry of Defence which itself wants "quieter warheads" to reduce noise polution and Grenades That Produce Less Smoke.

The article claims that experiments have been conducted to see if explosives can be turned into manure. Surely it would be cheaper to go into the manure making business more directly either by sitting at desks and producing shit or, um, going into the pig* farming business.

The promulgator-in-chief of all this crap (no pun intended) is a certain Dr Debbie Allen who is quoted in the article as saying that "it was important to consider the environmental product of all products".

I bet she enjoyed drafting that. But not as much as she enjoyed putting together the following: "Weapons are going to be used and when they are, we try to make tham as safe for the user as possible, to limit collateral damage and to impact as little as possible on the environment.

It seems that in BAE-World people (and their possessions) are in some way divorced from or otherwise entirely separate from The Environment.

Geez. All this green advocacy has got us to the point where the environment matters in its own right rather than because we humans, whether we like it or not, are part of an infinitely and intricately interlocked eco-system.

More progress.

In BAE-World we will have:

• bullets with lower lead content because "lead used in annunition can harm the environment and pose a risk to people"
• armoured vehicles with lower carbon emissions
• weaponry with fewer toxins (no more volatile organic compounds or other hazardous and often carcinogenic chemicals
• safer (yes, that's safer) artillery
• energy saving measures and recycling

In its entirety this is predicated on the assumption that we need such weaponry, when the reductio ad absurdum of the green argument is that we should all retrench to fisticuffs.

To the Brits who are frantically endeavouring to be all things to all people simultaneously I say: "make up your minds". If you wish to continue to be something like a significant military power, fine. I'm not a citizen/subject. It isn't any of my business.

But for fuck's sake and just this once do it properly. If you must design bullets, focus first on the primary object which is the termination of the target. If you must build bombs, make sure that the crap really is blown out of what ever they're dropped on. If you must rampage across what ever environment, make sure that your primary objective is achieved and concern yourself with the exhaust fumes only when material issues have been resolved.

Stop fannying around - that's how the empire was lost.

Your caring sharing artillery manufacturer

What do you look for in an armaments producer?

Personally I look for financial ruin, but that ain't likely to happen anytime soon. I've been in a foul mood since about 1:00pm of what is now yesterday and in need of amusing.

Thanks to tomorrow's newspaper I'm now in a fabulous mood. I feel so much better for knowing that some death peddling corporation or other has been ploughing some of its ill-gotten gains into R&D into environmentally sensitive weapons of mass destruction.

Look out for a lead-free bullets which will be next slaughter season's must-have accessory; so much kinder to swans and other vulnerable birdlife. And the next generation of ballistic missiles will be far quieter as they travel overhead on their way to wrecking death and destruction somewhere or other, thereby causing far less noise pollution en route.

These days very very few stories cause me to check the date but this one did. It is right up there with my favourite April Fools news stories, but it isn't one - it should be. It is simply fabulous. I only heard the gist (at least I hope I got the gist) during a preview of the main stories in tomorrow's (now today's) papers.

Any further developments and a link to the actual story will follow in due course.

Bad mood post

I've been at work since lunch-time come home and all the Fat Bastard wants to do is talk.

He has this incredible knack of waiting until I've come to the conclusion that he's finished droning on, and turned to something more interesting (growing grass, drying paint), before starting up again in this voice which brooks no shutting out... And despite the fact that he's monopolised my attention for half an hour I couldn't tell you a damned thing he said at me.

Work was a complete bitch today; so much so I hardly know where to start. I have a menu of:

• deficient software and technology which supposedly were introduced (possibly last century, more probably during the one before) to, um, make our lives easier and the business more efficient and effective;
• 'big corporate' inability to run a business; any business;
• the fecklessness (indolence, incivility and illiteracy) of so many of the people who turn to us for employment
• the system which makes it worth someone's while declining more than 15 hours per week - because the Job Seekers Allowance pays better than we do;
• customers.

The saddest thing though is that even if I could get a baby sitter tonight I couldn't be bothered getting dressed up and heading out for a night on what tiles this town has to offer.

Our software is chronically and possibly terminally ill. This morning we struggled for a prolonged period to process credit / debit card transactions. The only mercy for us was that the supplier did finally get around to filling the ATM outside and so some customers could withdraw cash to cover their transaction. This evening one of the check-outs 'fell off the system' which meant that I couldn't process the back off financials properly. The checkout that fell off the system isn't the same one that was falling off a month or so ago, but it will need an engineer to come out and coax some life into it.

That might happen tomorrow, but tomorrow is Sunday.

I'm not even going to start tonight on the inability of corporations to run businesses ... something I read last night got me thinking but I made no notes and will come back to that later when I'm in a more suitable frame of mind.

Tom Tom the senior clerk's son decided to hand in his notice because he couldn't change his weekend shifts so as to give himself free time to play football, with the particular team he wants to play with. Like all general assistant staff he's expected to work his notice period which is one whole week. That week ended today for him with a 5-9 shift. He didn't turn up but I had to endure a conversation with his mother who went on and on and on about how difficult it is to get a 16 year old to do what he's told.

When I was sixteen I went to school, I came home, I practiced tennis/violin, I ate, I washed up, I did my homework and then I went to bed. That was it. Five nights a week. Then I did lots of tennis and music practice and housework on the weekends. I wasn't expected to go out to work but on the other hand I wasn't treated an adult in any other way. My reading, music, tv, movies and friends were subject to scrutiny and my mother held the power of veto.

The message was really simple. When you're an adult and you have a place of your own you can do what you like. Until you're an adult, and so long as I'm responsible for you, you will do as you are told; this is not your house and you may not do as you please within it.

I've long since come to the conclusion that we (my generation) have fucked our children up good and proper and the only thing that remains unclear is who will pay the heaviest price. I suspect the answer might actually be an as yet unborn generation. What we seem to have don is treat them as adults part of the time - and then we do nothing more effective than scratch our heads when they won't behave like kids when we want them to.

As for the Job Seekers Allowance and how it acts as a block to perfectly employable individuals seeking full time employment, I could say lots and lots of complex stuff but what that boils down to is 'scrap the social welfare system as it exists and starts again'. Each successive administration since the end of WWII has added a layer of administrative complexity until we've reached the point at which nothing short of the 'nuclear' option could eliminate the faults and failings in the system. I'm not sure what should be built over the ashes of Nye Bevin's dream but it sure isn't a cradle to grave, free at the point of consumption type welfare system such as that in place now.

As for the jackass who walked out leaving his paper and 2 pints of milk behind I have three words: "Go to Safeway". At the time I was short staffed and struggling to nurse the check-out software through its nineteenth nervous breakdown. Safeway, as far as I'm aware, are no long trading in this country (at least under that name) and to the best of my knowledge the nearest ex-Safeway store is a good 25 minute drive from us. I think that even in the worst case scenario waiting at the checkout would have taken less time. Damned fool. Damned fool me for putting myself through this for a pittance.

It's a shame he didn't realise he was tangling with a fifty foot Greek Goddess who is rather unpleasant at the best of times. I might just take it out on Mrs Jackass next time I see here but then she'd be poor sport. I suppose she and her husband have reached an amicable accommodation and she's found some kind of tolerance for his notoriety, but from the outside she looks like just another fool - and yes, it takes one to know one. Sorry that's cryptic but it is someone else's life.

The fact that I had to drag myself out from under a check-out to have what little conversation we had (words flung at me as he stalked out) should have served as some indication that we had what might be termed technical difficulties to resolve.

The fact that we had an insufficiency of tills open ought to have been taken as an indicator of short-staffing. Does anyone out there seriously think that store managers deliberately run their stores ineptly, with insufficient staff thereby creating frustration in customers who might well go elsewhere in future?

Now I know I married the Fat Bastard, but I'm not that stupid.

Beta Blogger

Is it worth it? Is it better than an Alpha Blogger or an improvement on a beta blocker? I need to know.

Night all.

That sound? It's me sniggering

Well I asked for it I suppose. I hit that damned Next Blog button again and I got this. I'm going to crawl off now and cry myself to sleep (with laughter that is).

It's either that or I beat my forehead to a pulp by driving it rythmically into something very, very hard and solid. Or perhaps the whole thing is a joke I'm not in on. Life's too short; I'm not going to try and work that out.

PS Toddman - in the oh, so appropriately named Painsville, OH; if you're out there and discover this link to your 'marriage saver' let me save you the trouble of abusing me by 'fessing up front that I'm a heathen (Greek Goddess, okay?), I'm a bit erratic in my leg-shaving habits and they might, from time to time be other than absolutely, entirely hairless, I didn't change my name when I married (more's the pity since the changing back obviously has some cathartic purpose) etc etc. In fact If I were a closer approximation of the woman I wish I were I would be your worst nightmare. Now get back to the woman you've got barefoot and metaphorically chained to the kitchen sink!

The Erection Problem - how big is it?

I'm being quite serious. Really!

All I did was click on the Next Blog button after landing on a blog written in some language (either Portuguese or Spanish) I don't read well enough to make sense of and I get something called Search---.com.

What I'm looking at is a search results page, for a search on that holy grail of pharmacopoeic research known to you and me as VIAGRA.

And more specifically I'm looking at:

• Buy Big V at $x.xx per dose
• Big V in our directory
• UK ".." - The UK's Trusted Impotence Specialists
• Big V 100mg for $x (in 10 languages)
• Order prescriptions online (FDA approved)
• Top Ten Big V products
• Generic Big V
• Big V - $x per pill
• Obtain Impotence Products Quickly and Discretely
• Half Price Big V

Apart from the absence of competition the thing that hits me in the eye about this is the curious way that all bases are covered.

I want to ask, boys, what is the Big Problem? Some further thoughts: a hard-on isn't worth the money that's been spent on it if you don't know what to do with it, boys; there's nothing discrete about a nine six-and-a-half inch bulge; a hard-on for hard-on's sake is just a money shot for a porn mag; Big V in our what?

There are many, many ways to make love to a woman. No one I've ever discussed this with (and yes boys, our conversations are exactly as excruciating as you've heard they are) was turned on by a blue pill.

Now the next thing is, do I go back and press the Next Blog button again?

Another mundane weather post.

My weather pixie who is always slightly behind the times is a lying Minx. There, I've said it. She should be ashamed of herself, suggesting as she does that a pair of decorative trousers and a light top would be appropriate in these parts.

The only thing for it this evening is a smart one or two piece (according to preference) accessorised with sou'wester and wellies.

For the weather that would have had us floating out into the North Sea on Monday has arrived tonight, or perhaps this afternoon - I was at work.

I became aware as evening grew to night that the road outside was a trifle, shall we say, damp. Then some time later, that the puddles in the gutter were still being dappled by continued rain fall.

Then around 8:00 the Fat Bastard phoned to announce, with something suspicously like glee, that the storm water drain at the top of the lane leading to our house is blocked and overflowing - down the lane and in the direction of our front door.

I became aware that stuff that sounded like thunder which I'd been hearing for the past hour was not, as I'd assumed, the sound of racks being rolled about in the upper warehouse but actually er, thunder.

I asked the fat bastard to unplug all electrical appliances not actually essential (ie, my 'puter) and put sand bags or equivalent in the appropriate place to fend off the flow and divert it away from our house if at all possible.

At 9:00 I left. I stepped out into something almost biblical in scale, and then it got heavier. I squelched across to the road, waded across that, forded the carpark and aquaplaned down the road. Over my right shoulder all the way I had the dubious priviledge of a light show spectacular over Kent. Unless I'm mistaken, and I am no meteorologist I admit, we had sheet and fork lightening. The entire sky above the wide plain that extends from our river south towards Kent was lit up almost constantly.

The good folk of the Pas de Calais must have been having a dreadful time of it. We almost always have the same weather as them. It is a bizarre truth that I have a better idea of what the weather will be like if I tune into RTL from Paris than anything broadcast from this side of la Manche.

In all honesty I've never been concerned about being out in a storm until tonight. The lightening never seemed to stop and also seemed to be all about and there were bits of the walk where I seemed to be awfully exposed. A few yards from the lane I met my next door neighbour going the other way. We could only laugh at the state we were both in. My trousers by this time were clining to my legs in a decidedly uncomfortable way, my eyes were stinging and my feet were shifting about in my shoes in a manner that leads me to fear they (the shoes, not the feet) are ruined.

Damn it.

I stripped off just inside the door, and I mean right off. I haven't seen proper weather like this since I left Melbourne and it made me feel good to experience mother nature's raw power. [Actually the rain, for all it has created problems still wasn't even truly sub tropical but it was heavy and it was sustained, but I've not seen such a prolonged electrical storm, and almost stationary too.]

Obviously the 'puter and I have survived. Since the light show went out the Infant has finally gone to bed, and I'm not far off that way myself. The Fat Bastard presumably enjoyed the hasty strip tease. I can't remember the last time I 'got 'em out for him'. Now he's off in the pub - now there's a surprise. Sorry, but you are definitely not supposed to make a link between my strip tease and him hastening to the pub, ok?

My hair is just about dry so I'm going to tidy up and get myself to bed.

Take care all.

New reasons to be dangerously annoyed

First of all the noisy grandchildren of the people next-door are out in force. These people had too many children and they in their turn are having way to many children, including in pairs. As babies they howl, constantly, then when they're big enough to run about and talk they run about clubbing one another with anything that comes to hand and then swearing when they in their turn get hit.

Generally I get a bit wound up when they're about, but one of the little shits has just kicked a football into our garden and knocked over (and broken) a flower pot.

I've spent the time waiting for someone (a parent perhaps, or even a grandparent) to apologise looking for my upside down apple cake recipe and I can't find it.

A friend has brought round several pounds of apples and the only thing to do with them is cook them. Cakes, muffins and tarts are on the agenda, but I need that damned recipe in order to make the cake I'd promised to another friend.

The internet has proved utterly useless as it so often does for recipes. Most of the ones I find are US or prepared for a US readership. Non-metric measurement systems don't cut it with me at the best of times, but what the F*&% is a 'stick of butter' or a 'cube' of butter or ... I could go on but I have to get to the supermarket and buy baking stuff as part of the school run.

Maybe by the time I get back the people next door will have scrawled a note of apology ... assuming they are, against all odds, literate.

September 11, Part II

Today is an altogether more personal anniversary. The atrocities of five years ago today were the catalyst for my lying, cheating, thieving, feckless husband to drop an email on the off chance to an old acquaintance who goes by the name of the Fool from Philadelphia in these parts. Until very recently the chronology of the affair he launched with avowed intent of providing himself with a safe landing should I tell him ever to 'sling his hook' has puzzled me, but Top Buddy has recently confirmed that he and the Fat Bastard really working remotely this day five years ago and all but oblivious to the day's events.

The away trips with Top Buddy segued so pefectly into away trips to be with the Fool from Philadelphia that I struggled to take the evidence from her that he'd only contacted her in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 at face value.

Mea Culpa.

He really did contact you then and not months or years earlier. Not that it makes his behaviour any better. But at least now I do know the timing because I've got it from someone who isn't you and isn't him. You're welcome to him, but that doesn't mean I have to believe a single word either of you says or writes.


On an altogether different note someone asked today how the events had altered me, my life and my perception of the world about and I had this to say:

I was at my desk, at work in the City of London. I had the BBC world service streaming, while another colleague had CNN. We listened in real time through the afternoon as events unfolded. Then I fled to the country and hid out there for a couple of days. I went back into work to learn that the lead partner for one of my clients had been on one of the planes along with his partner and their son - the same age as my daughter; and it is that last fact that makes what happened that day enduringly painful. There was a three year old boy on UA175 which was directed into the south tower. He would be an eight year old now, like my daughter, but he didn’t get the chance.

I don’t expect an act of terrorism ever to envelop those me or those I hold dearest, but on the other hand it might one day happen. In the meantime I’ve given up work in London for a slower pace, a lower salary (and standard of living) and lots more time with my daughter.

I won’t adapt my value system one bit to accommodate or appease the sort of people who perpetrate such acts and moreover I won’t be swayed by the bland protestations of their fellow travellers who with one breath disavow those behind 9/11 but then proceed to insist that somehow the west brought this on itself through its decadence and its ruinous economic policies.


Which is a lot more like what I wanted to write this morning than I managed to achieve before I had to leave off to get ready for work.

September 11, Part I

Blah, blah, blah.

I've been sitting here all morning attempting to put something suitable, appropriate and meaningful together to mark the fifth anniversary of the hijackings.

Where was I? At work, in London. Because of the time difference (5 hours) it was already early afternoon. A nearby colleague was the first person to become aware of what was happening; he mentioned a plane had flown into the World Trade Centre. He showed me the CNN window he had up. It was impossible to gauge the scale. I wandered off under the mistaken impression that a light aircraft had flown into the building due to pilot error or illness.

Within ten minutes perceptions changed and I spent the afternoon listening along with colleagues to news from the east coast of America. We heard rumours that London might be a mirror target. I walked through the city that evening, through London's financial heart to Liverpool Street station. I walked eerily quiet, unusually empty streets, people huddled in doorways talking in hushed tones. From the upper level the concourse of Liverpool St looked like bedlam, I plunged in and caught a train that took me most of the way home then got a lift with a friend the rest of the way.

My little girl then was three years old, too young to understand the nature or the scale of what had happened, only that she didn't like the look of it. The Fat Bastard was away that week; I only got confirmation of exactly where he was this week.

I stayed home the day afterwards and the next day went into work to learn that a colleague, the Lead Partner on a client of mine, was among those on Flight 175 which ploughed into the south face of the south tower. He was travelling home after a holiday with his partner and their three year old son. They died at 9.03am on September 11, 2001.

This is when it all becomes blah, blah, blah. Discovering that I knew an individual who'd died did alter my appreciation of events subtly. It isn't that I couldn't already see how vast and terrible the events were. But knowing about Dan, and particularly with his son and my daughter being of an age, rendered it all that bit more personal. And I don't know how to articulate any of this because the truth is I didn't know him at all well. I didn't lose a huge part of my life. I can't write personal memories of him because I don't have them. He was a voice on the end of the telephone, the sender of emails that would turn up overnight.

He's a conduit for me to the pain and suffering of everyone who lost someone or who in some other way was immediately and directly caught up in what happened that day.

So I remember, and I remember on all sorts of occasions and not just on anniversaries. But I remember particularly today.

Weather Post

Well we've still our heads above water, and our feet too.

But only because (a) there was only ever 6" of water in the swimming pool and (b) because there's not a breath of wind out there [whatever the weather pixie thingy says].

We're a lick and a spit from the North Sea here. The Fat Bastard's been muttering occasionally for weeks now about how 10/11 September were when we would be flooded out. He didn't do anything practical like fill sand bags or move everything valuable/electrical plus some stores of useful stuff like fresh water upstairs. But he did tell me all about it.

I even took some of it in. Not much, but some.

And then I caught a piece in yesterday's Times.

The headline was "Highest tides in 20 years threaten coast towns this weekend". What do you know; it turns out the Fat Bastard wasn't lying, exaggerating or ....!

The environment agency has identified a three-day period from today
[Saturday] until Monday evening when high astronomical tides are likely because
of the gravitational pull of the Sun and the Moon.

The article goes on to explain how a certain local council a bit up the coast from us in Norfolk has issued its people with sandbags and encouraged people to install flood defences on their front doors.

Our council on the other hand with an eye to the main chance and with its Green credentials uppermost in its mind has focused on the primary issue which is of course deforestation. If trees were not needlessly felled to provide raw material for the paper industry, a practice that is demand-led and as such underwritten by rabid pinko councils nannying citizens with redundant tips on how to respond to potential flooding, then none of this environmental catastrophe stuff would happen.

In fact I am putting words in the Council's mouth. It hasn't even bothered to explain its singular lack of effort and failure to communicate.

Something similar to this particular conjunction of moon, and sun and earth (partly evidenced by the big white moon I didn't see, according to some people) happens again next month, so if Mother Nature doesn't get us this time round she gets a second crack next month when the conventionally crappy autumn weather in these parts will be working harder in her favour.

Anyone have a spare snorkel?

The Silence of the Frogs

Sunday is normally my day of rest.

I go to work, but only for 7 hours. I'm so busy there ordinarily; I exist in the moments of those and have no time to think. Thinking is exhausting and all too often painful. Well today D. was back in. In the immediate aftermath of his resignation it seemed he was in every other day, but I hadn't seen him for weeks. Not only was he in but he made a point of stopping for a chat which was utterly distracting. If, one day, I do have a verrrrrrrrrry big boat ... well every big boat needs a cabin boy, doesn't it.

Sunday being my day of rest I'm home by 4:15pm. The house is then empty because Sunday is the day the Fat Bastard takes the Infant across to London to visit his mother. I have the house to myself for three or so heavenly hours. I get to watch the repeat of the week's episode of Lost in peace.

Not this week, oh no. The Infant has picked up some bug or other and is feeling poorly, but not half as bad as me. Anything she picks up she immediately passes to me and I'm always twice as ill with it as she is. But I can't have a couple of days of school, can I. Oh no.

The worst thing about these bugs is that they never amount to much. They just malinger in the most unpleasant way, at the back of my throat most of the time. I feel lousy without any particularly spectacular and obvious symptoms so I just get on with it. This is probably the most conventionally maternal thing I do.

Which is my way of pre-empting the post of millions of mothers who do exactly the same thing, over and over again, and are shouting a big fat "so what" in unison. See I do know .... nothing special.

I was greeted at the door by news that he's 'started' to dismantle he pool.

Which is his way of explaining a frame that is now in pieces and scattered all over the garden, a bit here, and a bit there and a bit some place else, while the plastic liner is laid out, nearly emptied of water and a charmless shade of green where the water once was.

He's so proud of what he accomplished today, and by my calculations it took him all of half an hour. Half-a-fucking-hour. Oh, and he proudly listed out what he fed the ailing Infant today: A bowl of rice crispies and two bacon rolls cooked on the Trangio. Fruit? Vegetables? Jesus Christ!

The man is an imbecile.

She had home made pizza tonight. That was my way of getting some fresh tomato, fresh pepper, fresh onion, good ham and good cheese into here on a home made dough base. She had fresh strawberries and cream to follow. Home made Pizza is my way of conning her into consuming most of the major food groups in a balanced way at one sitting.

While I was cleaning up afterwards the Fat Bastard announced his other accomplishment of the day which was the extermination of a future army of amphibians.

Since we weren't using the pool a frog couple had co-opted it ... she spread her eggs, he did his thing and in due course a million baby frogs-to-be hatched out.

And now they're dead, because the Fat Bastard pulled the plug. And he's so proud of himself and I'm left regretting the premature demise of the swimming pool. Ironic or what?

Self-protection

I have a wonderfully well-developed self-protection mechanism.

It keeps me strong.

It disables those processes that might otherwise lead me inexorably down the path to suicidal depression.

It enables me to make fun of his Swimming Pool escapade (chronicled mostly during June/July).

It prevents me from considering the consequences of his actions from me.

Why?

Because If I had considered those consequences fully back in June I'd have spent the past 7 weeks contemplating what I'm only now having to deal with.

What's that?

'That' is dismantling a swimming pool that wasn't swum in this year. It never amounted to anything more than a large hole in my back yard lined with plastic draped over an aluminium frame and filled with 6 inches of water that are now verdantly stagnant.

And someone is going to have to go in there get that water out, get that plastic clean, get that plastic dry, dismantle the entire thing and put it somewhere (any suggestions?) until next high summer, when he will once again think about how good it would be to put the swimming pool up.

And that someone won't be the Fat Bastard, and I sure as hell won't let it be the Infant. So that leaves Guess Who.

Shit, what a lousy way to spend Sunday afternoon ... even if it is supposed to be what English forecasters are describing as 'warm'.

Ha.

Oh ... I have a really excellent weather story that also involves the moon (and the sun) but I'm not going to do that tonight. But I am going to do that 'that' before we're [big hint here] flooded out.

My life is just fabulous. How the fuck did a fifty foot tall, bad tempered and very blood thirsty Greek Goddess wind up here listening out for the flood siren? If you don't know the answer read on (that's how the posts work, in reverse chronological order).

Good night.

To lose one icon may be regarded as misfortune

to lose both Steve Irwin and Peter Brock inside a week looks like carelessness.

Not that Steve Irwin was ever my cup of tea; he struck me as a man weighed down by the burden of his Australian-ness, it was a thing he did not wear lightly. Brock never achieved the kind of international recognition Irwin had; on the other hand Peter Brock had been an accomplished and successful racing driver for as long as I could remember. News that he has died in a accident while taking part in the Targa West Rally has shocked me and saddened me deeply. You know you're getting old when your childhood icons are passing away but Peter died still doing what he did best.

He was the King of the Mountain and inextricably bound up with the Holden marque. My first car was a Holden.

Farewell Peter Brock.

Missed again

I've never had anyone attempt to 'dishevel' my 'theorising' before. Perhaps it is a curious northern practice that goes well with whippets, warm beer, flat caps & etc.

Thanks to YorkshirePudding who is a man blessed indeed I gather that I missed a bit of a show last night. No, not DeadEnders which is something I miss on a daily basis and twice on Sundays; I mean the partial lunar eclipse.

Tipped off by his comment, and fearing that I might have been imagining the big white round thing in window (or was it merely a misinterpreted reflection of one of the kitchen spotlights?), I've called upon the National Maritime Museum this morning.

There was indeed a partial eclipse of the moon last night, and I missed the whole damned thing. First of all I was being a Domestic Greek Goddess (Lamb roasted to perfection, sweet potato, asparagus, steamed carrots, red current gravy - with raspberry cheesecake afterwards) then I was cleaning up, then I was ... winding myself up about Bloody Tesco.

I'm still baffled about the dishevelled theorising. But I'm baffled by a lot of things. I shall now return to concocting new and excruciating fates for the Bloody Tesco Board of Directors. Which is lots fun.

Oh, and the partial eclipse over by 2200, so the big white thing in the window probably was the moon.

Beautiful

Tonight we have a quite large and utterly perfect moon*. Round and white and bright and sitting as I type this in the top corner of the window to my left. Big, round, white moon with a hole in it where some damned fool crashed a space vehicle recently.

You'd think we caused quite enough crashes accidentally, both here and beyond the earth's atmosphere - the Open University's Mars exploration vehicle springs to mind, but no, we've got to go and put further crap and other samples of human detritus in space.

And today I read somewhere that a substantial segment of one of Mont Blanc's glaciers has been turned yellow by the volume of climber urine it has been required to absorb (or be coated in, whatever, I'm not interested in the grisly details).

These two fine examples of humanity's regard for the space around and about it fit neatly with the quite perfect contempt the legions of fools who annually ascend Mt Everest display for the mountain they invade and .... but I'm already boring myself and there are so many more examples I could cite.

Good night.

*though as Yorkshire Pudding has pointed out it was also partially eclipsed - from shortly after sunset to 22:00 - I missed it

Bloody Tesco ...

You're everywhere. You think you're God's Gift to supermarketing. You are total )%*&(£$. You are parasites who nurture a fear that seems to reside in most of the population of this tawdry little island that it is necessary to buy Stuff .... NOW .... and that Stuff must be bigger, brighter, newer, noisier, quieter, smaller, more powerful, longer, shorter, anything, than last year's model which this year's model Stuff will replace.

But you can't find it within you to deal in a civil fashion with a customer query even when you've asked for that customer query.

The people responsible for Bloody Tesco ... for creating and maintaining the monster ... are here and what a sad bunch of jaded hookers and deviants they appear ...

Next time Bloody Tesco pisses you off remember to blame them; they're the ones in charge of it.

Citizens of Romania!

This country needs you ... NOW!

The Right-of-Right is as usual muddled in its thinking as the events of the past 24 hours have made painfully clear. For weeks the ROR have been agitating for the government to take unilateral action that might or might not be in contravention of some EuroObligation or other, in advance of Romania's accession to the European Union. The ROR are concerned that unless steps are taken to choke the tide at source we'll be flooded out by a wave of immigrants from that country determined to take advantage of the open EuroEmployment market.

The ROR also looks forward to the demise of Blair's pinko socialist government.

The shame of it all is that the Romanians are the Europeans with the most recent track record of resolving a political impasse of the kind we're now faced with most robustly and effectively.

At this point I should confess to planning a Totally Tasteless Post, but chickening out of actually posting the extant proof here. Instead, if you need it you can find it by googling "ceausescu dead".

The Italians have also proved themselves in the more distant past equally effective: for proof google "mussolini dead".

British resolve taking a very different form to that of the Romanians and the Italians they (the Brits) shall instead demonstrate their heroism in the face of a politician they're sick to the back teeth of by, well, displaying particularly stiff upper lips. Plucky chaps and chappesses (?) that they are.

Alternatively, this being a Socialist Workers Paradise, what we're seeing might be nothing more than a Job Creation Scheme for Indigent Political Journalists. Wor' Tone's Long Goodbye is going to last months ... and months ... and months and (anywhere up to but not including 12 of them).

I feel cheated

I arrived in this country when John Major was Prime Minister. I went to work at a small agency close to the Treasury in Westminster. My greatest claim to fame as a professional pundit is that in the week before the 1992 General Election which the professionals were then suggesting would go to Labour I backed the Tories to hold on ... and I was just one seat out.

Anyhow... a lot of water has passed under a whole lot of bridges since then.

I woke up this morning to news that Tony Blair's self-induced little local difficulty (persistent speculation about the date of his departure from office) had rather abruptly evolved into a not-inconsiderably large problem. Wor Tone's turned to the Australian Right in the past for tactical and strategic support, but he's clearly not learned the lessons that were always available.

Little Johnny's clung to office through an enduring speculation that directly parallels the challenge facing Blair, to whit the Man Next-door. In Blair's case the Man Next-door does literally live in the adjacent house. Peter Costello holds the two posts analogous to those occupied by Gordon Brown which are senior Finance Minister and Heir Apparent.

Somehow Little Johnny to date has succeeded in keeping Costello somewhere other than entirely off-side while retaining a firm grasp of the levers of power. I may loathe the man and also in large part his policies and what he 'stands for' but I cede to no person in my admiration for his skills as a politician. In that sphere if no other Little Johnny is peerless.

When I left for work today, with letters from junior minsters calling on the Prime Minister to step down, junior ministers resigning to agitate from the back benches, it looked like the Prime Minister might be gone before I returned home. Sadly, he's still with us even in the political sense.

Like Costello Gordon Brown does appear to have learned hard lesson served up by Hezza who observed with some prescience that He Who Wields the Knife Seldom Wears the Crown. One can't help but wish that Heseltine had kept his smattering of classics to himself since Brown, Costello, Johnno and all the other viable would be challengers are tonight sitting on their hands. Which means that this 'thing' could go on and on and on until Cherry Cherie says otherwise.

Kiss my Arse (please)

If I sound chipper tonight there's a pretty decent reason: even making allowances for the fact that they were members of staff who are frankly shit-scared of me (sensible) having them unsure where in my thirties to put me was just perfectly delicious after the lousy night I had last night.

Phew ... what a scorcher

We're enjoying a balmy Indian summer here, and allegedly it was 24C as recently as an hour and a half ago.

Don't I look fabulous in that little pink number? I might even take a photo of the real thing, which is hanging up in my wardrobe waiting for a suitably good excuse to strut its funky stuff (not to mention a pair of sandals that don't clash).

Its almost as fabulous as me!

Pond Life

My main reservation when I agreed to take the hours I work was not my own personal safety but the practical stuff like getting the Infant fed and washed, homework supervised, uniform prepared for the following day...

It didn't occur to me that I meet new and lower forms of life...

We had pond life in tonight; verminous, drug raddle, alcohol steeped and gobby. They began their raid at shortly before 5:00pm which is when a major shift change takes place and everyone's slightly flapping. A concerned member of the public spotted the 'carrier' and alerted us but too late to actually catch him. But several of us recognised him and when he and his mates came back later we were after them.

Of course they realised we were on to them. First they treated it as a game, splitting and heading in various directions, lippy too. Then they got bored and simply became unpleasant. Then they became verbally agressive. At that point we called the police. Before they could get to us a male customer intervened to scare them off and the police didn't attend, but the scum came back and this time they did some damage to the outside of the store, broke glass all over the public approach and rounded things off neatly with threats that "you're dead" over and over to me, the Store Manager and another member of staff.

How utterly charming I thought, this being the first time anyone has actually threatend to kill me - at least since the fall of Troy. So stupid of them not to recognise what they're dealing with - me being a bad tempered 50 foot tall Greek Goddess and all... Only later did I realise that I could and should have kneed him in the nuts at that point.

Ever since I got home I've been day-dreaming about driving my very bony knee-cap into that oh-so delicate part of his anatomy. Secretly it's something I've long dreamed of having the chance to do to just one inadequate bastard, just once in my life; and right now there isn't a better candidate (and that includes the Fat Bastard).

There's always tomorrow night, or if not then Saturday. What are the odds?

Quite why I have taken it upon myself to slot the Swindon Appreciation Department blog among those I (really do) read regularly shall remain a matter between me and my conscience; however if you do call on the Sub-Comandante you can read of his recent experience of equally effectual policing (though a different constabulary) there.

Blog etiquette...

I've been carping recently about shoddy English driving and the Shoddy English education system and most recently about the declining standards of social intercourse, particularly in more formal situations.

Which is a round about way of saying that I sounded off a few days ago on the execrable telephone manners I have to endure on pretty much a daily basis.

I work in a supermarket. People phone up. Members of the general public phone up to ask if we stock something in particular or if we have something in stock or to complain. Colleagues from other stores and from head office for a wide variety of reasons. Suppliers ring up, potential suppliers cold call us. Then staff receive calls ... and my job means I'm one of a handful of people most likely to be near the phone when it rings. So I answer it.

I posted a question on telephone etiquette a day or so ago here, and your comments would be more than welcome.

Now it turns out that Anonymous has commented. Far be it for me to appear ungrateful that a passing caller has taken the time to read the post and compose a comment, which after all is precisely what I'd requested. And responding to my request with an anonymous reply might be a finely crafted exercise in irony or something...

On the question of anonymity in blogging I should (re) lay my cards on the table. The cast of villainous characters about whom I vent or pontificate or on whom I shower random sprays of pity include my big, fat, mean spirited, drunken, thieving, cheating, feckless and generally thoroughly rotten husband. I don't particularly wish to provoke him and some of the stuff I get off my chest by posting here would undoubtedly provoke him.

I mention in passing my daughter in the course of my postings and I've got an obligation above all else to protect her, both from any rage I might other wise provoke and from involuntary publicity; I've no right to make her a public figure against her wishes. She can become a celebrity in her own right in the fullness of time if she so wishes.

I mention the mother-in-law who was from hell but is now seriously ill. However she brought him up if he were man enough he wouldn't lie and cheat and steal and use people up the way he does.

I mention the Fool in Philadelphia, the unfortunate and thoroughly deluded 'other woman'. He conned me, he's got her believing his lies. The only grudge I have in respect of her is that she didn't make a bigger push to get him to fuck off to the USA and live there with her; leaving me in peace.

So I'm in no position to demand candour of visitors. But anonymous comments leave me unable to learn anything of those who pass through and are moved to comment.

Probably this isn't a question of manners or etiquette; just me being frustrated that I can't reciprocate the visit by Anonymous.

Crap driving

First let me thank W. who took the trouble to comment on my previous post in which I posted a question concerning Telephone Etiquette. All comments, including those telling me to get a life are welcome. I'll still think I'm right, but your comments are welcome.

Apart from the Sudden Death By Dangerous Animal of Steve Irwin who was Australia's real life Crocodile Hunter the news here has been dominated today by Iraq, Israel, the murder of one Brit in Jordan, the start of the new school year under the new Good Food regimen and the release of a pugilistic has-been called (Prince) Something Or Other.

Now Steve Irwin did not rise to prominence until after I left home; and when I finally, accidentally stumbled across him I was quite horrified by the way in which (a) he was being given airtime and (b) he was being embraced by the Poms about me as the epitome of an Australian. Sorry, but whatever Irwin's credentials as a wild life conservator and custodian he was also several parts show-man with his eye on the main chance and for any opportunity for commercial exploitation. He got that, as much as his taste for and talent with animals, from his parents.

He was swimming with an animal that does have a track record for inflicting fatal wounds; not a long rap sheet, but a rap sheet all the same. Suggestions are already being made that link Irwin's notorious buffoonery with his proximity with this animal and drawing the inevitable conclusion. On the other hand Steve Irwin has died leaving behind a wife and young children and my sympathies are with them tonight.

Early today I had to endure a visit by the local radio station I to a grammar school somewhere oop noth and pompous Year 12s attempts to argue that because they're so much older they can safely consume deep fried foods and soft drinks (and other forms of gastronomic crap) every school day of the year ... and even if they can't then what about freedom of choice?

What happened to 'sit down and eat what's on your plate'? The French don't get everything right, but every day of the school year French students taking a school midday meal eat from a set menu that is chosen by their parents and not by a school board, a local government committee or worst of all some commercial organisation brought in to cut costs. The French spend four times what the Brits do on food for their children.

As a result their children don't eat economy sausages and burgers made from mechanically covered meat and God alone knows what else. The accompaniments don't come out of a freezer or a can or a deep fryer. Nor are they boiled to buggery during preparation. And if Mademoiselle doesn't like it, she can lump it. They don't get a choice but then they're not being offered a choice of Crap.

Right now over the airwaves a tide of agitation at the 'early' release of this pugilist is flooding. Fact though is he's being released in accordance with the sentencing guidelines which quite properly take no account of the fact that he's a clapped out, gaudy, ostentatious, exhibitionist twat of the highest order.

They also take no account of the fact that when his '£One Third of A Million' high performance sports vehicle, being driven in excess of the speed limit and in which the driver (The Twat) was attempting a highly illegal as well has highly inadvisable manoeuvre collided with the bog standard, run of the mill and thoroughly ordinary vehicle travelling in the opposite direction every major bone in the body of the driver of the on-coming car was broken. He will never be the same man again. He will always be in pain. He will never be properly mobile. He will live with what happened every moment of his life. It will never go away.

So what is the appropriate punishment for such an act? The answer to that question hinges, as it happens, on the answer to another question which is 'what sort of act did he (The Twat) actually commit? Is this a case of reckless driving or driving without due care and attention? Or is this rather a case of dangerous driving?

The law takes no account of consequences in determining the act and therefore the offence and the sentencing guidelines to be followed if a conviction is secured.

I was struck some years ago by an something said in an early episode of The West Wing. A young gay kid was killed and CJ was all gung ho for using the murder as a platform for a Hate Crimes bill. Others within the administration were wary of such a course on the grounds that it smacked of (and I can't remember precisely how it as put) legislating against thought. In other words it didn't matter why, it only matter that it had happened and who 'dunnit'.

Those who believe The Twat should still be behind bars can safely be ignored since they clearly have no understanding of the sentencing guidelines which in fact caution against early release of prominent prisoners. In otherwords it is more difficult rather than easier for a 'celebrity' to secure early release.

But the bigger problem is with those who believe that just because The Twat severely disabled someone he should be locked up for years and years and never be allowed to drive again. The Twat is actually guilty of driving too fast and attempting an overtaking manoeuvre on a stretch of road whereon said manoeuvre was either reckless or dangerous. And that's it.

Except it isn't. Because the Twat has form. The Twat's lost his driving licence previously for driving in a manner that contravened the laws which govern driving. He's been punished previously for excessive speed. If he hadn't acquired an appreciation through those convictions of the basis for the law then is he not too stupid to drive?

Let us explore an hypothetical Twat who likes to show off with a knife rather than a car. He performs stunts with his knife for his mates and a wider audience though there are laws covering concealed weapons and specifically knives. He's punished for being caught with the knife and warned that it is something with which he could hurt someone, that it is by definition, a dangerous object; perfect when used for the purpose for which it was intended but potentially lethal.

He subsequently in performing a knife stunt misjudges things and wounds someone seriously. Is this nothing more than careless / reckless knife-stunt-performing, or even dangerous-knife-stunt-performing?

To make the analogy clearer (and for the purposes of my argument) it might be better to presuppose that the driver and the knife stunt victim die. Is this an accidental death, is this death by misadventure? Or is the wielder of the knife/car somehow culpable? If so, of what? And does sure knowledge that the wielder was aware of the potential consequences of his actions as well as their specific illegality a significant factor in determining what happened, as opposed to what consequences should flow from the actions? And should that have any bearing on the sentence imposed upon conviction?

All this is too tortuous for talk back radio, of course.

Those clamouring for Hamed's longer term incarceration over look the fact as observed earlier that all he did was what countless Brits do every day of the year, albeit in slightly posher car.

Not one of them has had the good grace to add "there, but for the grace of God", to the clarion call that Something Must Be Done.

Not one of them has recognised that only when the common and garden domestic motor vehicle is recognised in law as a lethal weapon will the punishment fit the crime this tawdry ex-boxer is perceived to have committed.

Telephone etiquette?

I'm running a bit of a risk here, bigger even than the risk that no body answers, but there's a question here for anyone who will take the trouble to wade through the preamble and get to the point, which I promise I eventually do.

Let's start with a helpful hint for anyone struggling the title; it comes from Webster's because that's what I happen to have to hand - etiquette, et'i.ket, n. [origins/derivation] Conventional forms of ceremony or decorum; the forms which are observed towards particular persons or in particular places; social observances required by good breeding. Well, it is a rather old copy of Websters.

Elsewhere on the web I found this rather more direct definition of etiquette: RULES GOVERNING SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOUR which continues with: Etiquette fundamentally prescribes and restricts the ways in which people interact with each other, and show their respect for other people by conforming to the norms of society.

Now ...

When I call someone, upon my call being answered, how I respond depends on the circumstances ...

If I'm calling my mother and she answers she gets Hi Mum. My sister's lucky to get more than G'day, though I'll usually add 'got a few minutes' because I'm a sensitive, caring older sister and she is a very busy single mother and chaser of men.

My best and closest and longest standing friends don't need a chapter and verse introduction either.

BUT

I have never placed a business call in my life and not started the conversation when the phone is answered with any thing other than "Hello, this is (or its) X." And if I don't get the person I was hoping or expecting to speak with I follow up with "May I speak with...".

In my job, which I've now been in for 10 months, I do quite a bit of telephone answering, just because I'm the one who's most often closest to the phone. I'm answering calls from the general public as well as colleagues from head office, suppliers and other stores and people making personal calls to other members of staff (oh and also jackass cold-calling suppliers of whiz-bang utility/phone/packaging/insurance/penis extension miracle solutions).

99% of these people don't have the decency to identify themselves. Apart from leading to crass misunderstanding when higher life forms from head office trip over themselves and confuse me, because they haven't bothered to tell me who I'm dealing with, I just find this incredibly rude.

Am I making too much of this?

Footnote

The boxes of crap that I'd put together for him to take down to the charity shop or otherwise dispose of, which he took upstairs to his bedroom in lieu of a more durable solution to the whole Living Room Space Issue, I eventually successfully needled him into bringing back downstairs and getting out of the house.

They are now sitting outside the house on the path leading to our front door.

When I made the mistake of suggesting that his behaviour might be defined as passive-aggressive he snarled that 'this doesn't need psychoanalysis' and proceeded finally to do a little bit of what I was asking to do, though not without snidely adding that I could have taken the boxes down myself.

Yes, and my reward for doing that would have been to endure a monumental sulk because I'd thrown out (among the hundreds) that one paperback he'd been intending to read or read again. Yes, and they're not my fucking books either, you grossly overweight lazy, cheating, thieving, feckless, amoral, sick, twisted moron.

Well hey, 48 hours after he took decisive action those boxes of books are looking a tad limp, having been out in the wind and rain that is so typical of late English summer. Now those books he wouldn't have me simply throw out are, um, ruined. Guess what the charity shop will do with them when they unpack them (if they even do that).

Silly me

I though Geoffrey Chaucer was dead, buried, mouldered, turned to dust, clapped out anew from much daisy up-pushing. Happily, I was mistaken (and not for the first time either).

Quiet, and even a bit of peace

The house is empty but for me and the cat who is curled up on the floor on the business side of the bathroom. I can only get in sideways, so no more tea for me for now. Autumn arrived this week, although still not cold (or even cool) the skies are different and it is much windier. In this part of the country, near the North Sea, the autumn winds can be brutal. Also the days are getting shorter, I'm sitting here pecking away at the keyboard and my screen is a rectangular pool of light in deep gloom.

Since getting home from work I've watched the repeat of Lost in peace. The Fat Bastard has taken The Infant to visit his mother. I'm not sure why Becky's so enthused by these closing episodes of Series II. Perhaps I'd enjoy them more if I wasn't constantly alert to the sound of the family coming back.

Several of those who went out last night made it to work; and some of them started an hour earlier than me. On the other hand they are half my age so I'd expect them to have better powers of recuperation than me. And then one of them let slip that they'd all baled out within half an hour of me going.

Ha! The youth of today have no stamina.

One thing leads to another

I'm fascinated by the way individual blogs, like so many stepping stones, link to one another according to forces so vast and so small as to make them unseeable. Start at the same place two days running and see how far apart one may end.

Or even better try a new starting place.

Today Lily who has visited and who blogs here provided me with a new starting place. Welcome, and thank you. Brief messages from visitors, even one-off visitors are really appreciated.

A charmless bundle of mystery

Somehow some sad sack has found its way here via the following Google Search: "how much do the abos get for ayres rock".

For you, I have two words: "Fuck Off*". If you don't, I might get cross - and I'm a very old and blood thirsty fifty foot Greek Goddess. You don't want to make me cross.

* for some reason this isn't exactly what I put here initially, but it is what I meant

Picking precisely the correct moment

The delicate art of choosing absolutely the right moment has not left me. I stayed until I was clearly under the influence, until we'd visited more than one pub. Then I strode away, head held high and appreciating the fresh breeze off the river. Nobody was offended by my departure. Enough left in the tank to get a small post out.

More later.

Whooops

I accidentally on purpose forgot something.

Actually it was more probably a case of my subconscious trying to look after me ... my the Fat Bastard's been tapped up and come home with a reminder that I'm expected at a Hen Night tonight. The 'Girls' from work are doing a Pub Crawl of town (I think that means 9 pubs). Notwithstanding the fact that I'm supposed to be working tomorrow, actually scratch that I am working tomorrow but moreover expected to be functional, I clearly am not going to be able to stay the course.

Now it turns out I need to rendezvous with the (what is the collective noun for hens?) lot of them at around 8:00pm in order not to miss them at the rendezvous point. But the serious business of getting pissed as a [what ever the collective noun for newts is] whole lot of pissed things.

Christ Almighty, this is going to be a couple of the longest hours of my life and I've spent some very, very long hours in the company of the Fat Bastard.

In this part of the country a girl doesn't give herself the quick once over to make sure her jeans aren't too stained or ripped (or smelly?) and pull on a clean shirt. She takes hours over selecting the right items from her capacious wardrobe, ensuring that the whole thing adds up to a co-ordinated ensemble. Then she puts in another few hours work on hair/make-up etc.

It's after quarter to 5 in the afternoon now and I be most of them have been agonising and primping for hours. I suppose I should get in the bath.

I've got a couple of clean pairs of jeans somewhere. I suppose I could find a warm and presentable top to go with them. I have a high-heeled pair of boots that are not yet ready to be thrown away. There's some slap in the bathroom cupboard that might be past its sell by date but is probably serviceable.

That's me sorted then.

If I'm not a total gibbering wreck after this I'll come back and explain just how ghastly it all was. This is my very first Hen Night by the way; and I think that's damned fine going.

Red Letter Day (How did I fail to mention it earlier)

That I'd cleared some Crap and Stuff from my living room this afternoon what I really meant to say was...

The Fat Bastard spotted his candle which I'd extracted from bedroom (bedroom, for fuck's sake!!) the moment he walked in the door. He then spotted that I'd put up his tent in his absence all on my own, without any help from him or prompting. I explained why I'd been concerned about the candle and he denied that there'd ever been a lit candle, but that he'd only used the metal shell of the tea-light as a holder for an incense cone. Right.

Anyway he then returned to buggering around with his he-man, mucho macho form of camping stove which basically amounts to a little tin (ie baked bean tin or soft drink can) inside a big tin (eg, industrial scale baked bin tin) that has had air holes punched in it. I think he calls it a buddy burner or something similar. After I stopped him from using my best scissors to do the punching he used a screwdriver. Sensible chap!

In the discussion that followed the phrases 'displacement activity' and (big mistake this next one) 'passive-aggressive behaviour' passed my lips. He slouched back into the house with a face like thunder having had to put aside his toys, and muttering darkly that his behaviour wasn't something that needed 'psycho-analysing'.

Well first of all, as I explained to his retreating back, it either needs psycho-analysing or it needs some more direct form of explanation. He turned around, looked me straight in the eye and admitted that he'd done nothing about his room because of laziness.

We've been married since October 1994 and I'd say that I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he's previously been as honest as that.

Except that I don't think he's being honest, at all. I think I hit a raw nerve with the passive aggressive line. I think he's heard it before. I think that he heard it a long, long time ago either as a teenager or in his early twenties when his mother had him sit down with someone in order to work towards understanding why at the very last minute (within days of sitting the first of his A Levels) he got himself expelled from his very good school or why later he dropped out of university.

For good measure he turned around and pointed out that I could have taken the boxes I'd prepared down to the shop but this conveniently fails to take account of his previous offer to take them down. His renewed offer to take them down one box per night overlooks the reality that if he'd only done that from the start all the boxes would be out of the house by now (and I'd be on his back about the fucking supermarket trolley park he's building in our garden).

The other thing he was ignoring was the reality that had I had the temerity to dispose of even one book that he wanted to read or re-read or just keep (because it's stuff, and stuff makes him feel good) then I'd have been and Even Bigger Bitch Than Usual.

Goaded by my jibes about displacement activity and passive-aggressive behaviour he went upstairs, brought down a couple of boxes, picked out just three books he wanted to read or re-read and then took them down to the shop.

Good boy!

Punch and Judy, and Monty too

They've been so good to us in the last couple of weeks. I started putting some notes together in Neighbours. Now Mac has helped me take out the last of Monty's stitches.

When he went back to the vet on Tuesday for a check up he was knocked out so that his chest could be x-rayed to confirm that all was well there and was also to have all his stitches out. Mac drove me over there and apart from missing the turning at the duck pond and taking us to the town where the vet clinic is via a series of back roads nothing happened to back up the Fat Bastard's disparaging remarks concerning Mac's driving - which does serve to back up my belief that when it comes to driving the Fat Bastard really does know Fuck All.

One the way over Mac told us about making Elderflower wine with an alcohol content little less than that of whiskey. We swapped stories about champagnes and the Australian wine industry or perhaps that should be industries and the decline in real terms of the French wine industry which has stood still (resting on its well deserved laurels) while the rest of the world has worked its whatsits off to improve the quality of its wine output. [Which reminds me of something I need to add to myotherlist which is where I jot down the things I miss from home. Wall to wall Australiana and ancient personal history.]

Mac also waxed eloquent on home made jams that he and Judy once would make but longer have the time or space for. Instead they buy in their jam from France, holding English jams in low esteem.

This was the journey which confirmed I'd not be on the wrong track if I offered them a bottle of bubbly as a gesture of appreciation for what they've done.

Mac went on to explain how he'd scraped a living in Paris when he lived there before The War. If he's in his 80s he must have been very young to have been there before the war but that fits with Judy going there straight from school.

I also remember Judy telling me how they'd had to get some kind of dispensation or make some kind of fix because when Mac first applied for a passport - so that he could join her in Paris, it emerged that his birth was never registered! Oops. No registration = no birth certificate = no passport.

These days they spend a good deal of the time they're in the UK in the countryside where Mac flies the model aircraft he builds from scratch. I've not figured out exactly what Judy does while Mac's standing in the field with his remote control in his hand - perhaps she's topping up her suntan.

Anyway Mac drove us back to the vet to collect the cat in the afternoon. The x-ray had been clear as everyone expected, but not all the stitches could come out. Some of the cuts were on parts of his legs that are subject to major stress when he leaps or stretches and the vet thought it prudent to let them stay in for a three extra days.

Three extra days from Tuesday is Friday. The vet said he could take them out here in town which is within walking distance, even with a heavy cat in a heavy case, but added that if I felt I confident I could even take them out myself.

Now I'm not sure if that strikes you as an odd thing to say. It struck me as an unlikely thing for a vet to say but not particularly odd. About twelve years ago I cut my arm and had to have about half a dozen stitches in it. On the appointed day to return to have the stitches out something came up at work and I couldn't get away. For one reason or another the next possible chance to see someone and have the stitches (on my left arm and I'm right handed) out was a few days later. In the mean time the wound and the stitches began to itch like crazy, and one afternoon while I was on the phone I absent-mindedly scratched at those stitches caught one of them with a nail and whipped it right out before I realised what I was doing. A couple of minutes later I had all those stitches out. I had to be careful because the actual wound was quite tender and wouldn't take the touch of anything but otherwise it was the easiest thing in the world.

Monty was as good as gold and now is without stitches.

Earlier in the day I posted that I was putting up his tent so that it could be cleaned and dried before being put away for the winter. The cat has taken a liking to sleeping in the tent. As has the Infant to the idea of sleeping in the tent. So after all that work to clear my living room of Crap and Stuff, it has now been overtaken by a large-ish two-berth tent.

Bloody hell.

Hypothetically speaking ... and what does this mean?

The Infant has taken to camping. I enjoyed myself too. So let's imagine for a moment that next year (this year's camping season being all but over) we go camping again. Not necessarily with the Fat Bastard in tow, of course.

This is speculative, but assuming it might happen and hypothetically only we're in the market for a tent; not one of the two person tents we took with us, but something a bit more substantial. Two women in a two person for days on end isn't feasible, particularly when one of them's my Infant. Besides I need somewhere I can get dressed with just a bit of dignity.

So we're in the market for a family tent and I'm a total babe in these particular woods.

I'm stumbling about the internet hopping from one outdoor/camping supplier to another and in my travels I've found the following advert for a Khyam Indiana 6 Family Tunnel Tent.

A family tunnel tent with 3 bedroom inners that can be interchanged or removed
completely to either maximize living space or maximise the number of berths (up
to a maximum of 6) (ideal for Mormons). This tent also offers a 2.4m x 2.4m
central living area, front and rear exits and a generous sun canopy with two
steel upright poles provided. The flysheet is made from double-coated
Weatherweave 2oz polyester with fully taped seams giving a hydrostatic head of
3000mm. The inner tents are breathable polyester and the groundsheets are
polyethylene. The frame is a fibreglass (colour coded) pole construction with
ring and pin system. Living area groundsheet comes as standard.

I've spent too much time reading these adverts. I can read 'double-coated' and 'fully-taped seams' and 'hydrostatic head of 3000mm' without batting an eye-lid. I'm on the way to becoming a camping geek. Who would have thought? I suppose a Greek Goddess ought to be able to take the outdoors in her out-sized stride but this is an unanticipated turn of events.

In fact the only thing that puzzled me reading this advert is the reference to mormons. Ideal for mormons? What the hell does that mean?

Now I feel a bit better

I'm pretty sure that my temper is going to get worse before it gets much better, but for the moment the tension has eased somewhat. I've put his tent up. Indoors it actually appears larger than it did at the campsite and it takes up pretty much the entire floorspace in the living room, after I've juggled the furniture about a bit. I also had to shift some boxes of books and after checking the contents I've earmarked another four to go with the two that are already in the kitchen and set for taking to the nearest charity shop if not the tip. They're not joining the boxes he took up to his bedroom the day before we left (last Friday) and there's no indication they'll be coming downstairs anytime soon.

They're stuff, and stuff makes him feel secure. Never mind the quality feel the volume. Stuff, and more stuff.

Actually he's a bit of a joke among his friends which was something else that came out while we were away. They're laughing but they don't have to live with all the stuff ... or the predations on the family finances that go with the acquisition of Stuff.

One of our shopping expeditions was to (boo, hiss) Tesco, currently all seeing, all conquering in the grocery sector. The store isn't bit or large or huge or enormous - it is gargantuan. The downstairs has an electricals department that's about as large as our local supermarket. Then there's the food and groceries and booze. Upstairs they sell clothes and stuff for indoors and outdoors (furniture and furnishings and God knows what else). The Fat Bastard was in heaven.

It doesn't matter to him whether he can afford the stuff or not; he has to browse and where possible fondle. And he never, ever, does anything quickly. It drives me insane and from what his TB had to say as we tried to cajole, entice, bribe and bully the Fat Bastard into the section of the store we needed to be in he's experienced Shopping With The Fat Bastard on more than one occasion before.

Well he's now due back from work ... he'll get a bit of a shock to find me and the Infant in the house. He'll be a bit taken aback to find his tent up. He'll be horrified when he realises I expect him to do a few chores this afternoon.

Poor lamb.

Particularly as the Infant is currently using the tent as a play house, which leaves (a) books etc to the charity shop or (b) cleaning his room.

Bits and pieces

Wow. IND have written to confirm the receipt of my application which is, I suppose a rock solid first step. Next step will be to accept my application and acceptance is contingent upon payment going through and upon my using the correct form and supplying all the required information.

I'm holding my breath. The letter ends with the following statement: "An applicant who has permission to be in the UK when an application is made is legally entitled to remain here on the same conditions previously granted until the application has been decided." I guess that means I can stay here while my application now wends its way through the system. To me that constitutes permission to breathe.

In the mean time I've been offered more hours at work because the woman who was the supervisor and on maternity leave has resigned. She's working as a barmaid at one of the local pubs, cash in hand, and has calculated that she'll be better off with that arrangement than coming back to us. I know she's living in social housing and I have to assume that if she's getting cash in hand she's also getting various other tax-payer funded subsidies not to come back to work full time.

The extra hours will help financially, though there are issues I'm going to have to find a way of addressing such as making sure that the Fat Bastard feeds B properly and makes sure she does her homework and bathes and brushes her teeth and all that boring parenting crap he's been able to remain oblivious to. Feeding her properly means something more than filling her up; any fool could do that. Homework doesn't mean shouting at her to do it, but sitting beside her and helping her through the harder stuff as necessary and generally being firm and supportive.

Washing means washing. The problem is that his poor personal hygiene suggests someone who doesn't understand that basic fact. Brushing her teeth requires supervision; making sure that she does something more than apply paste to brush and waft brush in vicinity of teeth. Oral/dental hygiene is another of his not-so-strong suits. What few teeth he has left are rotten, and he only visits the dentist when one of them falls out, chips or otherwise gives rise to an infection that causes his face to blow up to more grotesque than usual proportions.

In the meantime war is about to be resumed on the home front. Four weeks ago after his stunning act of bastardry involving sending my (our) daughter away for a week when I'd said no, I made his continued residence here conditional upon his better behaviour on the domestic front.

I've just been up to his room, the door to which he's left open. From the doorway I could see and incense burner above which was the remains of a tea-light. The fucking idiot is burning candles in his pig sty bedroom and that must be either when he's sprawled on his bed in a stupor or late at night after he's come in from a heavy drinking session. Either way that would be suicidal behaviour if he lived alone but as he doesn't it could be murderous.

Finding that, nestled among the glasses that were there before we went away on holiday, is too much. We're back to being unable to see the carpet for the clothes and books and other forms of crap and he's going to have to shift his fat arse or I'll shift his filthy crap to the charity shop myself once B is back at school and I have time to walk back and forth.

And time I will have.

Today I went down to the shop for my regular weekly shift. I found the place in a shocking state, the shop floor crammed with stuff of every description and too much of it. Having picked my way through it with the overnight donations and some stuff that came in as I arrived I found that the back was worse. The electricals are still being hoarded though we can't sell them. A lot were left lying about in the work area rather than stowed in the office. The latter is still hoarding electricals but at least they're not in everyone's (ie, my) way while working.

From what I could see, and my view was obscured by the excessive amounts of stuff crammed in, we've reverted to dumping stuff on the floor in lieu of space on the rails, shelves and other display furniture. Never mind how difficult that makes accessing the shop for the able bodied let alone those who are less than perfectly mobile (dangerous).

The place clearly hadn't been vacuumed in days. The window displays were tawdry, very little had been priced up (illegal).

I found records piled before the heating outlet and hauled them out the back as well as tidied up the pictures.

At that point one of the women who works Fridays with me(and is also a committee member) turned up and a bloke who's been co-opted into helping but hasn't formally been signed up (or insured, also illegal) also came knocking and clearly expected to be let in. It was the final straw.

I hate being driven out but as the committee member in charge of the shop on Friday's I'm responsible for its presentation, as well as all the legal (trading standard, health & safety, staff) issues. Almost a year ago I asked the chief executive, who was insistent that the charity would be the defendant in any case where an agency was to take action against 'us', to confirm this vague 'opinion' in writing. No such document has been forthcoming. Her 'hands off' management style has left the old couple who got things off the ground to run things as they see fit and that means ignoring the law, disregarding even the most reasonable concerns for health and safety and generally allowing things to 'drift'.

I handed over my keys and walked out. Later I phoned the woman I'd left the keys with to explain that while I'd left her in the lurch I'd had more than I could bear with the despicable letter written to me a fortnight ago that dragged B into the fight and was otherwise full of lies and distortions and motivated by malice, the squalor (God knows I've got enough of that at home), the peddling of gossip (mostly by her) that fuels all the backstabbing.

I have my Fridays back, at least until the employer who actually pays me decides to fill that particular void with paid work.

I have my Fridays back to harass the Fat Bastard into sorting out the pigsty, clearing the garden of his burgeoning collection of supermarket trolleys and other crap, getting up into the loft and sorting that out.

I've already this morning had to tidy up the remnants of yesterday; the camping trip's detritus is still all over the house downstairs. To be fair the tents do need to go up to be dried out and cleaned up before they're stored. On the other hand I found a plastic bag with his washing tucked away underneath a bookcase that otherwise might have lay there festering for weeks or months for all he might care.

Yesterday I patiently explained to him that he doesn't need to wait for dry weather before getting the tents up to clean and dry. They're small enough to put up inside provided newspaper is put down first. So I'm off to do that or we'll be forking out for new tents.