Congratulations are due to

Julian Worricker who was the first person I've heard, in discussing that crackpot and his comparing women to lumps of meat - who get themselves raped if they're not wrapped up, to actually point out that as well as displaying a total contempt toward women was actually being quite rude about men.

... and to his guest Paddy ? who promptly agreed.

I meant to post this earlier but got bored with getting that error message and sloped off to do something equally but differently unworthwhile.

Now I'm working my way through a box of Barbeque Shapes and I'm as happy as a ... well you can add your own adage ... but I am making rather a pig of myself.

Night all.

There were errors

Here I am talking away to myself (to a more than usually absolute degree) because of some technical glitch or other. You bet there were errors: blah, java, blah, forward-slash, blah

What ever all that techno-babble means; seems that any number of people are currently unable to post. If this goes on much longer I might just have to pick up the telephone or (shock, horror) actually go Out .... and ... Talk to Someone.

Now if only I could remember how. I'm sure I've got an address book somewhere with the names and numbers of all those friends I had before his boorish tendencies became too unbearably distressing.

Why?

Given that the English drive cars fueled by petrol, whether leaded or othewise, or LPG or deisel (and very, very occasionally in Highgate and Hamstead and Notting Hill and Chelsea Village a hybrid) why oh why do commentators, when wading into the 'environment/go green/cars and planes are going to be the death of the planet' debate, insist on referring to low mileage vehicles as Gas Guzzlers?

Why?

They're usually the same people who blame the world's environment ills (and most of the others too) on the US.

The New Free Market

Benign Self-Interest?

The Sunday Torygraph touts news from the feral fringes - an experiment in local taxation whereby "the nicer the neighbourhood the higher the local taxes you pay". I only read the headlines while buying that other paper (and taking the chance to prime my knowledge of serious current affairs via a scan of the red-tops: for detailed analysis I'd need to actually buy the Torygraph).

My first inclination was to get out and about with a couple of cans of spray paint and tag every brick wall within walking distance, set fire to the local bus shelter, throw a brick through only nearby public telephone and/or rip the hand set out and then set myself up outside the local Tesco express with very loud music from my youth, cheap wine, soft drugs and a generally threatening attitude.

Do you think that will be enough to bring my local taxes under control?

I figure I could go further and super glue car locks, scratch duco, strew my domestic garbage in the neighbours' gardens (they'll thank me when their tax bill nose-dives), um...

Any other inspiring ideas welcome.

Oops

Only inadvertently picking up on the theme provided by Lily in her comment on my Guy of Gisborne post (and if he does float your thingummy, Big Hint - Don't Drool Over The Keyboard) ...

I was a bit premature with the old button pushing. It seems that his dreams of rolling in unearned stuff are edging closer to realisation and he's got a veritable spring in his step this evening. Thank fully he's sprung off to the pub now and I don't have to gaze down from my Olympian heights at the greed-fired glint in his eye.

Mummy's just about sold her (huge) house preparatory to moving into something smaller and for her almost infinitely more sensible and manageable. He's expecting some dosh now as a down payment on the future inheritance. That's more money to squander. The number and total value of the windfalls he's let slip through his fingers makes me want to weep.

Anyhow that will shake things up a bit if it happens. Of course it could all fall through but if it doesn't I have some chance of recouping the money I earned and which he frittered away (without so much as a by-your-leave let alone a consultation).

dilemmas and other frustrations

Yesterday evening I went to loads of trouble (really) to knock together a reaction to some numbskull back home. He's a self-appointed community leader who trotted out that threadbare and much derided view that women who aren't covered from head to foot and are outdoors unsupervised are asking for it when they're then raped.

The predicable response flooded in, and it was the tenor of that response which caught my attention. After all the comments I've still to see one man say something like "hang on, I don't like what your suggesting about me here." After all, the explicit contempt for women being expressed here only imperfectly masks an implicit contempt for men.

Anyway the moment has gone and the mood with it and I'm now grappling with (not to say agog at) the spectacle of evidence of subtelty in Dubya. He's reacted to Cheney's answer when asked about dunking in water by saying "we don't torture, we interrogate". That's an answer worthy of Little Johnny and I can't help wondering if our Glorious Leader has been supplementing the meagre stipend provided out of tax revenues for his role as Australian Premier with a little bit of high-fee coaching on the side.

God on yer, wee man. It's a long time till you'll get your next chance to bask in the reflected glory of Australian sporting achievement (and please, please let us not fail to win the Ashes ... I still grimace every time I call to mind the gracelessness with which the Accidental Prime Minister handed over the Rugby World Cup).

Guy of Gisborne

I wandered over to the BBC web site to half-inch this photograph (I hope that's adequate acknowledgement). Now I can't remember the name of this guy and I certainly haven't watched anything else he's appeared in ... but he isn't bald and he isn't called Keith Allen ... and I think he's rather yummy.

And better yet we had someone turn up at work today who looked so rather like him I just had to hover and enjoy the view for a while.

My navel isn't the only fascinating view from this pew

England are playing crap cricket just in time for the start of the Ashes. Not excellent. It would be nice to thrash a half decent England cricket team.

Which reminds me I MUST pay my MCC subscription.

Schappelle (Is that enough letters?) Corby has discovered the horrible truth that life inside an Indonesian prison is no picnic - and has decided to build herself a little nest egg by bleating about how awful her existence is for profit. I might be delighted to learn that this incredibly, embarassingly stupid Australian tart can write if I didn't have to assume that a ghost writer (aka schlock journo) had, er, taken a hand.

The british governing body for ob & gynae practitioners has had to back pedal furiously after proposing that very premature babies ie, those born around 22 and 23 weeks not be automatically be registered BECAUSE OF THE EMOTIONAL PAIN SUCH A REGISTRATION CAN CAUSE WHEN THE LIVE BIRTH WAS THE UNINTENTIONAL RESULT OF A LATE TERMINATION.

I do know about Macca vs Mucca.

I also know about the baby buying antics of that ghastly woman who used to prance about in the gaultier bustier.

See, I have been paying attention to all the important stuff

I accidentally watched that Celebrity Dancing thingy on the weekend. Mark Ramprakash has quite a smile on him! How come I never noticed that when he was playing all that test cricket against Australia? Oh, yes....

I was forced to watch the latest episode of the new Robin Hood; so awful, so splendid. And who is that actor who plays Guy of Gisborne? I have to find out. He'll do as a replacement for my ex-lust object who is no longer a public figure.

The Romanians and Bulgarians should be allowed here on the same terms as the Polish. One of the Poles living in this town has just married and is now about to return home with one of my least favourite colleagues. Perhaps if the English let enough of them in they'd clear themselves of peroxided women of a certain age with mouths like Billingsgate fishwives, and slack attitudes of the 'doing the minimum required to keep my job' variety.

Oh, there were a couple of other things

First of all, he lied. He does it all the time, admittedly, but this was special lying because he gave me a lie I passed on to other people which I then forced him to contradict before those same other people. So they've got his measure more accurately, which is some compensation for what he's put me through since Wednesday.

Secondly his occasional fascinating tendency to display psycopathic behaviour* re-emerged: his apology was all about how he "hadn't thought", and he "hadn't meant to get me into trouble" ... for real awareness he'd have to have displayed some consciousness of the reason why what he did could have got me "into trouble".

He humiliated a whole lot of other, perfectly innocent people. He hasn't said a word about them. He's oblivious to their suffering, all but oblivious to their existence. For him they're agents, pawns; nothing more.

This isn't any consolation at all, really.



*I'm sure I did a post on this but months and months ago. Years ago he gleefully produced one of those Is Your Boss a Psycopath-type questionnaires. For him, the point was that he could tick off so many indicators for his own boss; for me the increasingly compelling point to emerge as he worked down the list was actually how many indicators I could tick off for him. One of the indicators is around self-awareness. Another is around empathy.

.,._(@@)_.,.

I had to take a step back for a few days and consider what he did. I will never know for certain if he did what he did deliberately and maliciously; I do however know that he is highly intelligent, and it is very, very difficult to see how someone so intelligent could do what he did without having some appreciation of how wrong it was.

It very, very nearly cost me my job and it has certainly cost me what ever faint chance I had of promotion. Which is a bit of a bugger, given the limited options within reach of where I live. It has cost me the regard and respect of colleagues and the trust of my boss; I can't replace any of that.

Of course I'm shaken mostly because I put myself at risk by giving him the ammunition he needed; I guess I will never ever learn how to live safely with him - I suppose that more than anything else is precisely why I must get shot of him. And if it were legal to own a gun I might easily have just walked in and shot the fucker on Thursday night and pleaded temporary insanity based on what he'd done.

Instead we've returned to our world-famous performance art which we call Happy Families.

I'm back, sort of.

Difficult Woman

This has been a very, very BAD day. The Fat Bastard has been up to his tricks again but he realises he's overstepped the mark and there are all sorts of ramifications which include me being fortunate tonight to still have a job. I need to internalise this. Yes that's me again, not using this blog for the purpose for which I intended it. There you go. If you don't like it you can fuck off to. If you're still reading after that crudity...

I love and leave you with the wise words of the wonderful Paul Kelly* who, for the uninitiated is one of Australia's finest singer songwriters. The only recording I have of this song is by the incomparable Renee Geyer, but I always believe that if one holds a recording by Ms Geyer, one needs no other rendition. Here's the words, if you can, get a recording.

Difficult Woman

A difficult woman
Sometimes hurts her friends when she don't mean to
A difficult woman
Makes it hard for the ones she loves
It's easy to do
She's had to be tough all of her life
So she's built herself a wall
She doesn't know how to trust herself
So it's hard for her to trust at all
A difficult woman needs a special kind of friend

A difficult woman
Swings between shame and pride
A difficult woman
Has strong, strong stuff deep inside
And getting her is no easy affair
It's like working a mine
You'd better prepare to pay the price
If it's treasure you want to find
A difficult woman needs a special kind of friend

And living with her is better and worse
Than living with anyone else
She can be cruel or so kind
Oh you got from heaven to hell
If she got what she wanted
If she got what she needed
She wouldn't be hard to understand
A difficult woman needs a special kind of man

* Actually it is Leaps and Bounds that has the capacity to reduce me to tears, a facility matched tonight by the Fat Bastard, but that only takes me back to territory I currently prefer to avoid. Sweet dreams

Bonkers

I'm not certain but it looks like my weather pixie thinks it is snowing outside. It isn't. In fact I just walked up to the convenience store wearing nothing but shoes, trousers and think cotton shirt and I was comfortable. She is clearly bonkers.

Those chemicals have got to him

Bizarre behaviour. If he were female I'd attribute his peculiar behaviour to the hormones, PMT and it being That Time Of The Month.

He's been doing housework. Yes really. Not ordinary housework though, oh no. That involves what my grandfather referred to has Elbow Grease. Elbow Grease = hard work and that is absolutely a No-No on Planet Fat Bastard.

On Planet Fat Bastard when there's housework to be done wait until it demands an heroic gesture and then perform said heroic gesture with the aid of Serious Chemicals*. God alone knows how much ozone he's depleted today, how many centigrade the mean temperature will rise as a consequence of him deploying some unholy chemical cocktail on our kitchen floor and stair case, innumerable are the species that have vanished from the planet in the cause of a clean kitchen floor, the North Atlantic cod stock certainly was obliterated this afternoon.

But we have a clean kitchen floor.

*Let me make it abundantly clear, Ladies and Gentlemen, that the chemicals herein referred to are not by any means general household chemicals of the type or in combinations freely available on supermarket shelves up and down the country. The chemicals to which I refer are INDUSTRIAL grade chemical compounds, no less, and subject to certain constraints as to their distribution and deployment that are not applied to standard grade domestic chemical weaponry.

First things first

Lurid headlines on this week's local rag: Local Man Trapped in Car Crash...

But Magda's husband was released from hospital this morning and she was at work today. He had been complaining of lower back pain to paramedics while the fire brigade were working to cut him free but the pain now is in the upper back. He's wrenched everything and will be in pain for a while. Fortunately he's young and fit and so he's expected to make a good recovery.

I haven't had the heart to tell him that while I felt great for many years afterwards I can once again feel the pain that is the consequence of breaking three bones in the lower part of my spine when I was 15 years old. And I know that now, it isn't going to get any better.

Inch by inch

Attaining freedom one piece at a time.

Passport application is now to all intents and purposes complete. I can afford the fee. If there are no further hiccups I'll have a full set of documentation by January and be in a position to go back into the workforce properly rather than fannying around in my current job. A half decent salary will free me to run my life on my terms once again, and once I can do that he can take his crap and please himself with it some place else.

My birthday falls in March and that is now my deadline for a well-paid job. See, no illusions, no assumptions; this won't be easy but the hard work I'll have to put on will definitely be worth it. Among other things I have this morning made another pile on the lounge room floor out of the crap that's been dumped about my house. And if he makes the mistake of getting the hump about it and taking his anger out on her I shall have no qualms about pointing to the slum at the top of the stairs that is also occasionally referred to as his 'bedroom'.

Good news bad news

I had a visit from a friend of a friend. This older woman had news of my friend who I haven't seen much of since spring for the simple reason that back then she had her first baby who unfortunately was born with a host of serious complications. Most of these had been anticipated due to the wonders of modern medical technology but I have to say that having seen what my friend K and her husband have been through I'm not sure that things are better for people like them than they once were.

A hundred years ago their little girl would have been born and died not long after - and because all of the problems were internal and therefore invisible to the naked eye it would have been put down to 'one of those things' or 'God's Will'. They'd have mourned decently and then got on with the pleasant business of producing another one.

Instead they spent the near entire duration of the pregnancy going up to London to consult one expert after another - one of for the heart, one for this one for that one for the other. And each interpreted the bloods and scans differently. K and her husband got a different spin on things each week and didn't know what to expect.

Then when their little girl was scheduled to be delivered no bed was available. She was born later than planned but still early. She's still in hospital. She's in a hospital closer to home now which means she's been liberated from the high dependency highly specialist London unit which is a vote of confidence. Unfortunately this isn't the first time she's been this close to home. There was a time in late spring early summer when we hoped that she'd be back her before the end of summer. Now we'd like her back for Christmas. Another set back and it will be 'please let her spend her first birthday at home'. K and her husband who have been and will continue to make great parents won't have another one. This has all been too much for them.

On balance though the news about K and hubby and baby was all positive. Then tonight I learned that the husband of a work colleague was in a road accident, a collision with a tractor on a bend on an unrestricted road.

He's in hospital tonight with his wife at his bedside. She isn't English and she has no familiy in this country. Her closest friend is looking after their 18 month old baby tonight; I saw the pair of them and stopped for a chat. The little girl is utterly oblivious to the fact that her father is in hospital fighting for his life; mummy is usually at work in the evenings so in that respect tonight was just a normal night.

Lots and lots to ponder as I go to sleep. Good night. God bless K and S and baby N, and also M and S and their little girl.

Someone elses's problem

I'd really, really like to write one of those spanking posts you read from time to time that have clearly been put together by very clever and literary people who probably compose thoughtful, incisive pieces as part of their day job and so have lots of practice unlike someone such as me.

I'd write that piece on the chain of cause and effect that has led us to the sorry sitution where UK schools are to have (if some minister has his way) airport-style detectors installed at entrances to reduce the amount of student-on-student and student-on-teacher violence that is currently at worrying levels.

I'd point out that tax-payer provided funds will finance this initiative.

I'd point out that those same tax-payers until they reach a certain income threshold are already clawing back some of their tax in credits calculated and organised by civil servants whose salaries are paid by ... civil servants.

I'd point out that these tax payers are buying their four-year old children their own personal television set which will be installed in the child's bedroom in the tax-payer subsidised council house the family occupies.

I'd point out that these same tax payers, having eaten crap all their lives now require the tax-payer to pick up the dental bill for major rotten-tooth extraction work.

I'd point out that these same tax payers, having eaten crap all their lives (and usually while seated in front of a television filling their brains with crap) are never actually healthy and so are chronically dependant on the National Health Service which is funded by ... the tax payer.

I'd point out that the children of these tax payers, when not actually watching television are being touted about the supermarket with snot running from their noses, leaving streak marks across their filthy chins and necks and clotting on their filthy cheap clothes. And I'd point out that these children, when kicking-off in the supermarket can always be pacified with cheap, E-Number filled crap available at each checkout and at strategically placed impulse points throughout the store.

There's a thread here, but every time I think I've got hold of it, the damn thing slides out of my grasp. I think I'm headed towards a load of tax abolishing that could be funded by abolishing a shed load of civil servants who exist only to administer the redistribution of those taxes leaving everyone having to actually make sensible decisions about their income.

I've long been of the view that Gordon Brown is just about the most cunning bastard that ever walked the planet; a bastard so cunning he'd give Little Johnnie Howard a run for his money at least over a short distance.

Basically Gordon Brown's tinkering with the tax and welfare system have resulted in it being more comfortable than ever for more people than ever as a proportion of the British population to rely on someone else to get them through the shit (but not necessarily out of it - because shit's so warm and provides such a cushioned landing) .

What does this have to do with Knife Detectors? Well these knife-toting thugs in short trousers are getting their ideas about carrying knives from somewhere - and I suspect it just might be from something they've been exposed to like perhaps the television they've got in their room and have had there since they were four years old.

The kids from that age are someone else's problem - TV will take care of them. Then kids grow up and someone else will take care of them. At first that's school, then that's those people who are net contributors to the nation's fiscal balance.

Bitch moan gripe whinge carp whine grouse

I am so easily distracted ... I went in search of a few additional synonyms and wasted 10 whole, entire minutes of my life on the origins and variations of the name Katherine (having discovered that among the many nearly useless appendices at the back of my dictionary there is one on the subject of names).

I'm at home, alone (the infant is asleep) and if I thought I could get away with watching the entire thing uninterupted I'd put a film on. There are many more annoying things to me than having my viewing pleasure interrupted by his inane drunken witterings, except when he's interrupting my viewing pleasure with his inane drunken witterings.

So instead I'm thinking about stupid things like the fact that when I was in my twenties if a dropped a stone and a half in weight my tits would just about vanish. I'm sure I remember owning [and what's more to the points properly fitting into] a size 34B and wondering if I shouldn't move down to an A. If I put on a bit of weight they might expand to fit a 34C.

Last year when my weight ballooned I got up to a 36D. Phew. Now my weight's back down to 34B/C levels but my tits still require a D cup. It isn't as though they jut out like twin early warning signs that the rest of me is about to arrive. They've just spread. I know someone else who's been contemplating perkings up and now I am ... at least then they'll be in proportion.

There's always someone worse off

I called those bastards at Carphone Whorehouse yesterday, finally, having given up waiting for them to call me. I called them via the 0800 (freephone) number and so I was almost happy to hang on to innumerable repeats of Thunderclap Fucking Newman....

When I did get past the menu system and have a human on the other end of the line I was perfectly happy to be transferred all around the CPW network, content in the knowledge that this time it would be costing them money.

I can't recommend too highly the SAYNOTO0870.com site. It should be obligatory for those in the UK who want to get one over on the bastards who are only endeavouring to claw back some of the cost of operating a call centre to handle your calls, which you're only making because they're providing an under-investment driven, cut-price service to start with.

Eventually some young thing came on the line.

"I want you to take your lousy phone and your lousy contract and you can stick 'em."

"You can't get out of the contract."

"What the hell do you mean? You lied to me, I agreed to the further contract on the basis of false and misleading information - of course I can get out of the contract."

"In what way were you given false information?"

"First of all I can only contact you - Carphone Whorehouse via an expensive 0870 number; your [fucking] menu system is enough to drive a sane person round the twist; then I have to give it, your [fucking] menu system, highly sensitive personal information [my bank account number]; for my pains and expense I am then subjected to crap music. This isn't customer service. I'm completely pissed off. I made that point when I spoke to some other flunky last Friday afternoon and I was given an undertaking that I'd receive a call from a manager with an apology and an offer of compensation for the way I've been buggered around."

"There's no record of that conversation on your account"

"Why doesn't that [fucking] surprise me! I suppose it goes some way to explaining why no-one's had the decency to call me back. Well I want to speak to someone now about cancelling the contract."

"I'm sorry but that isn't possible."

"You people misled me. I don't want anything more to do with you. You can take your phone back and the SIM which finally arrived. And you can do it at your own expense. "

"In what way did we mislead you."

"Your colleague in Customer Entrapment (aka Loyalty) advised me that the phone would come with new SIM and that isn't what happened. Your colleague in Customer Entrapment told me that the cheque for £150 would be sent in one instalment automatically, but the literature accompanying the 'phone makes clear that the money will be sent in instalments over the course of the contract and only provided I go to the trouble and expense of submitting back to you the bills you've already sent me. How's that for starters?"

"No the cheque will be sent automatically in one instalment."

"You're asking me to believe you over what I have in my hand by way of corporate literature? Don't try and make me laugh, I'm not in the mood."

"Please hold one moment while I confirm that you will receive the cheque automatically."

pause and then "I have confirmed that you were sent the wrong documentation. You will receive the full amount within 60 days automatically."

"I want that in writing."

"I can send you an email."

"I want it in writing, through the post."

"I can send you an email." [Does she have an email fetish, I wonder to myself. How terribly 21st Century.]

"Just put it in the post."

"Can I confirm your address?"

[You have to be fucking kidding - I've given you everything up to but not yet including my cup size.]

"It's blah, blah. But I'm pissed and I want out. Nobody had the decency to call me back. So when will someone be coming out to collect this phone from the address I've just given you. I'm going down to the bank tomorrow to cancel the direct debit. You've probably recovered what you'd otherwise be losing through your 0870 scam."

"I can offer you £20 as a credit on your account, towards the cost of the calls to Customer Entrapment."

"Okay."

That was all yesterday. The correct corporate literature didn't arrive today. If it hasn't arrived by Tuesday I'll be making a further dent in their profitability via their 0800 number.

In the meantime worse news for Carphone Whorehouse than my little who are losing suppliers to High St rivals the way some business shed staff. Speaking of which AOL UK which Carphone Whorehouse acquired yesterday (even as I was telling them what a pile of crap I think they are) has today announced that it is stripping out 20% of its workforce. They don't yet appreciate their good fortune I suppose.

I'n the meantime I've had a look at the OFCOM [UK telecommunications industry regulator] and to my total non-surprise Carphone Whorehouse doesn't have a Code of Practice. Well not one they're prepared to admit to anyway.

I was going to add something more to this story but the smell of roasting chicken is a total distraction so I'll come back and add it when I can concentrate.

In the meantime this is a blog I've enjoyed reading hugely but not got around to adding. As it happens ACW has had an epic confrontation of his own for much the same reason and you can read all about it here.

Wanted: A Winner

This is absolutely a digression from the really very pressing but currently insoluble problem that might be called "How do you solve a problem like Fat Bastard", sung to the tune of How do you solve a problem like Maria" from the Sound of Music, which I have selected because he particularly dislikes that musical.

I came home tonight to the news that England, Mighty England, managed to secure a 2-0 defeat away against Croatia. There are a lot of grown Englishmen (presumably including everyone within the FA connected with the current Head Coach's appointment) weeping into their cheap and nasty English lager tonight as the godawful truth begins to dawn that the only option on the menu is More Of The Same, which is to say going out in search of a nil-nil draw against any opposition that isn't Faroe Islands*.

Lots of grown men complaining that the men who turned out either were not the right men or they were the right men but they weren't playing in the right position when the simple fact of the matter is that this mob are playing Good Enough football when if they were anything like as good as they could be they'd be crushing the Faroe Islanders* and grinding Croatia into the turf.

The problem seems to be that England's players tend to believe their press. If only they believed that they were no better than anyone else, they'd go out believing that they were playing against equals commanding their respect and they'd play accordingly, they'd play with all their heart.

Professional and personal pride would demand that they'd burst out of the tunnel determined to leave the pitch held in higher regard by the spectators than they'd entered it.

Instead they believe they're infallible Gods, and such is the power of the sporting press in this country they continue to believe it in the face of all the evidence (such as that to be found in the final score-lines of the team's last two competitive matches) to the contrary.

More on the Fat Bastard when I'm in a better frame of mind. Sometimes it's rather pleasant to let my hair down and be fundamentally Australian (ie, sports obsessed).

The fridge shelf saga

I mentioned in an earlier post that another of the shelves in the fridge has all but given way. Well last night, by way of conversation since he wasn't going to just go away I brought this to the fat bastard's attention. I did this without prejudice which is to say I didn't apportion blame or make accusations or resort to "I told you so." I just made the point that we need now to be more careful than ever about not overloading the poor thing.

His reaction was just beautiful in that it quite perfectly sums up the insane take he has on the world and all its parts.

Yes, why don't I spend a whole morning trying to find someone who can supply me with replacement shelves for the cheap and nasty and now relatively old fridge we've abused for years.

I'm sure I can't think of a single better way to spend my morning.

And what will we do if I can't find a supplier of replacement shelves?

I know what I'll be doing - I'll be listening to endless re-runs of "I don't believe it ... these people are hopeless ... they're pathetic ... how difficult could it be ... why can't they ... and blah, blah, blah.

What he can't envisage is the conversation whatever call-centre operative I speak to during the course of the morning would have with his or her partner when they get home at the end of the shift:

"Oh God I had this woman on the phone today. She bought some cheap fridge, years ago. I mean it isn't as if she's not had her money's worth and now she's acting all surprised when the shelves give way (eventually) and she actually expects us to still make replacement parts for her archaic fridge when it would be cheaper for us to simply supply her with a whole new fridge. Some people!"

Memories are made of stuff like this, I guess

The Fat Bastard and I have been married for thirteen years, six days and sundry hours. I honestly cannot remember what time of day; couldn't even tell you if it was morning or afternoon.

You can take it as read though that I've known for a long time that he snores. His snores have a particular basso accent that sets panes quivering in their window frames. During the years we occupied the same bed the earplugs were the one thing I absolutely never went to bed without. Other men can have me in nothing but Chanel No 5. (I wish).

After my last post I was pretty much ready to go to bed and put the day behind me. I fiddled around for a bit and then slowly it dawned on me that the background noise had a particularly familiar rhythmic quality to it. I'm on the floor below him and on the other side of the house, in the extension to which sound should not carry efficiently. But I can hear him snoring quite loud and clear.

At first I wasn't certain that it was him snoring. I've not been aware of hearing him from my vantage point before. But then he reached a crescendo and broke off then started again. No doubt about it. That noise is emanating from him. And sometime tonight I'll have to follow him upstairs and try to get some sleep in the room right next door.

Now if only I could remember where I'd put those earplugs.

Memo to self

This has been a difficult night.

I came home and it was obvious that he'd been drinking heavily. To get himself into the state he was in when I got home he has to consume alcohol in quantities it would be utterly inappropriate to describe as 'heroic'.

He isn't a pleasant drunk either.

As long as he isn't contradicted or criticised, provided his will isn't crossed, he is 'safe', but the alcoholic fog serves as a reminder that he and alcohol create a highly volatile, unstable compound.

I got home at about 21:15. He'd been at home since about 14:00. That's quite a few drinking hours. The problem is at 15:00 he had to go to the school and collect the infant and she was in his care from then until the moment I walked through the door. That's six hours she was with him and at some point he crossed the line from tippling to being well and truly plastered.

In the forty five minutes I had to put up with his company before finally he wandered up to his slum bedroom I had to observe him swaying about the kitchen and listen to his interminable rambling nonsense. Then after he left I had to get down on my knees and scrub clean the kitchen floor where he'd first dropped half the bowl of pasta bake he helped himself to, then trodden it in.

There really isn't anything I can do immediately. This is the first time I've caught him incapacitated while having sole care of the infant. This is the first time I'm aware she's been exposed to him insensate. The danger is that time might pass and the impact of this, the quiet fury I've felt since I got home, will be dimmed. So I'm posting what I found when I got home so that when the time comes I've got it here as a reminder.

Snap

Our refrigerator is neither particularly large nor particularly 'good' in the sense that the model we have is not at the top of the range of the make we settled on, and it isn't a particularly 'quality' make.

You can take it from this it isn't a smeg or anything fancy dan like that. On the other hand it was cheap and it has been reliable. In fact I think we've probably had the thing six or even seven years.

And it still keeps stuff properly chilled (in the fridge bit) and frozen (in the freezer bit). The problem though is that for years the poor thing has been struggling to handle the culinary dimension of the Fat Bastard's obsession with Stuff!. He can't help himself, he sees stuff and he buys it - and that habit is as true when he's on the loose in a supermarket as it is when he's in a charity shop or Harrods. It's stuff, he's got to have it.

The upshot of this behaviour is that the fridge has been forced to accommodate far more than it was ever designed to hold. For one thing this cramming tends to work against the ability of the unit to keep the contents at the correct temperature. Worse however (in the near future) is the fact that two of the cheap and nasty plastic shelves, which were always the most obvious expression of the 'inexpensiveness' of the fridge, have now cracked. One developed a crack a while ago and is holding together with a bit of packing tape. Yes, I know, but I can't afford a new fridge. Alright? Now, I guess overnight, the bottom (from which the two salad baskets depend) has gone too.

All this in the run up to Christmas when his propensity for over consumption sheds the last of its limited constraints.

ARGHHHHHHHHHHH Now perhaps he'll understand why I've been so 'awkward' about all his food Stuff!

The Get Rich QUICK scheme

Blue plaque ahoy. The powers that be have contacted his mother and she has reciprocated. A commemorative knees-up to mark the commemorative marquing of the house will take place. Arrangements (including invite list) are being put in place; seems I'm on it. Please, please I win the lottery (I only need half a million quid, and I'll go quietly - promise!). I'll tell the entire show to sit on it and swivel. I don't need a swanky cocktail party thrown by someone else to the memory of some obscure third party to make me feel good about myself.

What I do need is compensation for the flat and car and small savings I had (once upon a time). The figure quoted above takes the losses into account and builds in a modicum of capacity for independence.

In the mean time I'll trudge back up the hill to my day job to earn the money that keeps the roof over our head and the food on our table.

Some small compensation came my way, today. D was back in, flashing that totally indecently gorgeous smile. He's stopped growing upwards and started to feel comfortable with his height which has done him no end of good (not that there was anything faulty with the aesthetic, he just looks so much more grown up). And I've stopped feeling like a child molester every time I think to myself how utterly gorgeous he is.

A nice little earner

It will cost £5.4billion (and that's a million million) to set up and run a national identity scheme according to a release today by the UK government. Without having seen any of the detail it does strike me that the government hasn't said how much it will cost to track down and prosecute those involved in the manufacture, distribution and (mis)use of fakes. And it hasn't said how much untaxed revenue will be accrued by the manufacturers and distributors which will then be ploughed straight back into the country's economy, by-passing the depredatory Inland Revenue and Customs & Excisemen, in the form of conspicuous consumption.

See, they can't even get their act together and give us a proper economic impact statement.

Get Rich, QUICK!

The Fat Bastard is forever coming up with what might be classified under the umbrella of Get Rich Quick Schemes ... more often than not they're stupid, occasionally they're rather tasteless, usually they're gone almost as soon as they're thought up. They do however have one characteristic : maximum output for minimum input.

His perennial favourite however is the one called Mummy Dies And I Get the Loot. Right now MDIGL is No.1 favourite topic of discussion because the Fat Bastard has discovered that someone is about to enrich him his mother by about £100,000 by sticking one of those blue plaque things on her house.

Smug Fat Bastard.

Sunday snitch

I worked today.

I didn't work last Sunday and it was a bit of a shock to discover how boring it was not to work. It wasn't much comfort to discover that the person who covered for me found the whole experience slightly traumatic.

Sunday brings the gossips in and I had a chance to speak with someone who works with the Fat Bastard during the week.

I wasn't, as it happens, all that keen on a conversation on the subject of the Fat Bastard. My housewifely zeal has been met with an equal (or perhaps superior) but opposite force: Fat Bastard in Full Slob Mode. So last night, after he'd fucked off to the pub leaving the dishes undone and after the infant had been shepherded complaining all the way to her bed I came downstairs and gathered up all the crap the pair of them had dumped during the course of the day into a pile in the centre of the lounge room floor.

When the Fat Bastard came down stairs this morning, as I was getting ready to go to work upstairs, he got his first glimpse of this pile and he wasn't best pleased if the slamming of doors was anything to go by. Presumably he hadn't seen the pile last night (or early this morning) through the alcoholic fog by that time surrounding him.

So obviously I'd made a mistake ... picked the wrong day. Because the infant by the time I came downstairs to intercede was sitting on the floor huddled in her dressing gown looking completely distressed.

I did my best for her. Once he realised that his gargantuan sulk had accomplished its end - which is to say I was now feeling like a wreck for having had the temerity to point out to him that his habits disgust me - he was perfectly happy, charming and reasonable; and quite safe to leave the infant with.

I knew that this was happening: slam enough doors and I'll grovel and let him believe I've come to realise how much in the wrong I was to call him up for anything. It is his standard grade tactic for evading responsibility for his own actions.

Anyway, I wasn't in the mood for anything by the time I got to work. The day was slow though and I fell into conversation with his colleagues who happened to be in.

Seems back on Monday the Fat Bastard's boss went out into the back office and lost his temper at the state the Fat Bastard keeps his section in - I'm told the boss swept all the crap off the shelving and desk space onto the floor and kicked it about. Funnily enough, while he's usually all to keen to share his Boss's idiosyncratic behaviour with me I didn't hear diddly about this incident.

I guess he's feeling rather put upon at the moment, poor lamb!

Sexy beast stuff ... which will make it clear how bored I am

My new sexy beast comes with a long sleek manual. To the disgust and frustration of the Fat Bastard and the Infant who both wanted to play I insisted on turning first to the manual. It comes with three pages of lay out drawings, two pages of manufacturer guff, a two page table of contents, a two page menu layout and then twelve (12) whole pages given over to safety warnings.

I now know that my phone contains a transmitter and receiver and that it both receives and transmits Radio Frequency Energy (when it is switched ON).

There follow two pages of dire warnings of the consequences of tampering with the phone or using it other than in the manner intended or with approved manufacturer-provided accessories: "When placing or receiving a phone call, hold your phone as you would a fixed line phone."

Then there's stuff about not using the thing in hospitals when directed to turn it off, to obey the instructions of airline staff, to be very careful if you've a pacemaker or a hearing aid (or some other unspecified medical devices.

Then we get to the phone and driving. The fact is driving while attempting to much else besides breath in and out is potentially lethal (though not breathing in and out would almost certainly be lethal too). Banal conversations are normally safe but contentious or complex conversations by their very nature demand concentration and are distracting and therefore not conducive to safe driving; something that holds true whether the co-conversationalist is sitting beside one or on the other end of a phone line.

So the point isn't or shouldn't be what the law says but what is right (though I can't object to the injunction to Always Obey The Law). The trouble is the manual says "give full attention to driving and the road" but then proceeds to imply that it might under certain circumstances be safe to hold a conversation using the phone while driving [hands-free, of course].

Quite amusingly on the following page the manual goes on point out that airbags inflate with great force and anyone being stupid enough to keep their phone over the airbag outlet is likely in the event of that airbag inflating to be injured.

There's more after that about petrol stations and other potentially explosive atmospheres (such as the inside of boats and grain silos). Then under the headline Blasting Caps and Areas there's a warning about using the device near electrical caps or in areas that (again) with warning signs and yet again there's a warning to Obey All Signs and Instructions.

The manual then turns to the battery and much of the following six and a half pages is given over to their use, charging, storage and disposal. Somewhere in the midst there's a brief piece on repetitive strain-type injury.

I'm now going to sleep of the strain of getting to the point in the manual wherein it explains how to place or receive a call.

Sexy Beast

Yes the phone's gorgeous (it did arrive yesterday in the late afternoon when it was no longer raining quite hard enough to flood us out).

By that time the offspring had been given weekend release and the Fat Bastard was back from work so I didn't have a chance to savour my phone in privacy.

Immediately it became clear that I'd been misled: no SIM card with the phone. I'd been told by the sales person (Chris) that I'd spoken to at one point towards the end of the grisly process that I'd get a new SIM card accompanying the new upgrade phone. In my not at all humble opinion it is reasonable to interpret the word 'accompanying' to mean 'travelling together' and thus arriving at the same time.

After getting myself suitably steamed up by reading the fine print I dialled their damned 0870 number again and settled down to endure interminable Thunderclap Newman again.

By way of ensuring that I was in the ideal frame of mind for the conversation I was about to have I made my way to Customer Loyalty via the Carphone Warehouse's diabolical menu which culminates with a demand for sensitive personal information. I had thought that by providing bank account details to The System the previous day and resetting the PIN I'd surrendered to The System and given myself over to it. But no - to my fury I was required once more to provide that information. By the time I had another human being on the other end of the line I was once more ripe for murder. Ever time he opened his mouth to apologise I gave him another barrel load of complaint.

Before long he was emailing 'management' with what he told me was details of my complaint and request for further compensation but what was probably a plea to be rescued.

I haven't even finished yet. Those mendacious bastards at Carphone Warehouse (and particularly the representative Kate I dealt with in regard to the upgrade) claimed that the cheque would be sent 'automatically' and three months after the contract renewal. But according to the literature the cheque isn't sent as one lump sum but in three instalments, and isn't sent automatically but rather has to be claimed by sending off copies of the previous four monthly bills or statements.

The young lad who had the misfortune to deal with me yesterday afternoon took details of telephone number and times I'd be available to discuss further compensation with someone from 'management'. And added that if I haven't heard from anyone by Tuesday morning the deal's off and they can send their bloody courier to take the whole bloody lot back again at their own expense. By my calculation that should claw back from their bottom line what ever profit they've made from my calls to their bloody 0870 number.

Ironically I'd only been reading this week about the website SAYNOTO0870.COM but due to the publicity it has been receiving in the media it has been difficult to reach. This morning I've been able to get through and now I'm armed with a freephone number (assuming it does work) so no more profiteering from my misery for Carphone Warehouse. Bastards.

But even better

In the end I only posted the bit about the Canadians for the record. They've already been overtaken in the race to be top of my 'call-centre menu driven psychosis-inducing' shit list by Carphone Warehouse who are suppliers to Me of mobile telephony services - but it has cost them! Hee hee.

I phoned to cancel my contract which rolled on for years and years due the wonder of nature that is inertia.

I finally got off my backside and rang their customer 'service' number which is 0870 111 7200 (in case the call to the Canadians hasn't done the job). I immediately entered a nightmare world of looping menus and unanswerable questions, abrupt cut offs and demands for highly sensitive personal information - over and over and over again.

Hideous Tesco really needs to get its act together if it is even going to retain a place in my Shit List Top Ten.

CPW wants your telephone number and then a pin number and then a bank account number and then, when you've given them all that and your cup size they still haven't got the menu item you need so you get put through to someone else and get to listen to Fucking Thunderclap Newman, alternating with some anodyne faux-jazz piece. There was something in the air alright and it was mostly very blue.

Round and round and round I went and never did I get anywhere near then end and then, suddenly it all seemed to magically disappear and I had a very helpful young lady on the other hand who put me through to Customer Loyalty who bribed me with a new phone and a check for £150.00 to stay with them for another year on a tariff that is less than half that I'm currently paying. Now you know what my scruples are worth and how very easily I can be bought.

Funnily enough a colleague had told me of doing something similar for her son - calling towards the end of a contract to end it and getting a new phone and some money back too. I might be on to a nice little earner provided I don't forget to call them at the end of the year.

The tariff is cheap because it is rather nasty but the phone I'll be taking delivery of tomorrow is unlocked so I can stick my alternative pay as you go card in it and use that rather than their 'won't cost you too much as long as you only text - or ring subscribers to the same network between 8pm and 10pm on the second Thursday in the month provided it happens after the Full Moon in that Month' plan [which also comes with some fine print which I shall go over when I get the phone.]

I switched back to the old network sim card and promptly put the wrong code in twice and rang them back (do I have a death wish?) for help. The twit I spoke to told me to put the number in a third time as she'd then give me the unlocking code. When that didn't work she got her supervisor involved who advised me that for £15.00 I could have a new SIM card.

Not unreasonably I huffed at this. I'd only blocked the card at her underling's direction and now they were to sting me for a replacement. The underling 'fessed to her gross error in not telling me before hand that I'd be incurring a charge so the Supervisor directed me to sales who would be able to credit my account for the £15 so that a card could be sent to me at no charge.

At this point let me stress that I'm inventing NONE OF THIS.

Sales initially tried to unblock the card again then went into a bit of a conflab, then came back with "you said you're getting a new phone tomorrow?" something I'd mentioned at the start of a sentence that ended with 'and I'd really like to able to use the thing'.

Them: What sort of phone is it? Is it an upgrade?

Me: Yes

Them: What model?

Me: Er (rapidly thinking do I know anything about it other than it qualifies me for £150 back and takes photos?)... it's a Motorola ... 'Thingummy'

Them: Do you mean Motorolo 'whatever'.

Me: Oh yes, that's it..

Them: Well it comes with a new SIM card.

Me: Right, so I'll be without a phone for 24 hours but then all will be ok?

Them: Yup. And it will be your old number. You could stick a thousand sim cards in it and it will be your old number.

Me: Fine. Thanks for your help. Bye

Phone down.

Me thinking: But my PAYG SIM card is a different number. Have I just been screwed? Update when my new Motorola Whatever (black, takes photos) arrives tomorrow.

On the other hand

Yesterday there was a thumping at the door from my very pleasant but rather alarmingly muscular post-lady with a big buff envelope I had to sign for. I could only think of one thing that would be coming to me by registered post and I wasn't expecting that for months so I was a bit mystified. But the envelope was undoubtedly addressed to me so I signed for it, brought it inside, flipped it over and discovered that it was from the people I wasn't expecting to hear anything from for ... oh ... maybe even a good year or two if they really took their time.

Hats off to IND who have excelled themselves, turning my application for a visa renewal around in less than the minimum turn around being quoted on their web site.

Public servants are all too often derided as work-shy sponging layabouts (and all too often they're worth the criticism), but someone did a fine job of work and whoever you may be I salute you.

Bloody Canadians

Approach 1: You might be labouring under the misapprehension that Canadians [and in what I'm about to say, bear in mind I carry a Canadian passport] are nice people. Never mind the debate about whether or not that perception is even remotely reasonable; consider instead do they really exist. You sure as hell don't get to speak to a fucking Canadian fucking human being if you call the fucking Canadian Head Office fucking High Commission in fucking London. Yes I got a bit wound up.

My alternative approach was: Do you really hate someone enough to have them phone the Canadian Consulate in London and request a copy by post of their wretched Passport application form?

And in the middle of wanting to strangle someone (thankfully I was on my own in the house when I was calling these people yesterday) the woman would start droning on in that oouutrageous French-Canadian of hers and reduce me to laughter. I call that cruel. Only the context enabled me to comprenez 'besoyne' and 'passpart'.

If you have someone you truly loathe and would like to send loopy the telephone number for the Canucks in London is: 020 7258 6600 (or from abroad +44 20 7258 6600).

The single, solitary positive aspect of this experience is that they don't have a 0870 number to fleece people with. Very sporting of them us.

Bombs away

I don't think that the Fat Bastard is quite sure what's hit him, though he's in no doubt he's been thumped.

I've been a very, very busy girl. He can't see yet where this is leading and I'm looking forward to the moment what that does dawn on him. More bags of crap than I could count have I decanted from this house in the past week, along with several boxes of books. The difference this has made to the feel of the house is impressive though I've barely begun. Before the end of the year the amount of 'stuff' in this house will be reduced by about 90% and he'll by no means be the only 'victim' of this. By Christmas this house will feel Big rather than Suffocating.

I've picked through the summer clothes that are realistically not going to get much further wear this year. The very best stuff can go away for now; some of the remainder has already gone, the rest will follow next rubbish collection day.

Of the clothes that have come out of storage those that don't fit (I've lost over a stone in weight since the spring) will go rather than hang around just in case I put that weight back on. I'll just have to keep it off. If that doesn't reduce my stock of clothes to manageable proportions then I'll just have to do something else. If all else fails I'll roll a dice. The problem isnt' with my shoes and handbags, of which I have actually very few - a couple of pairs of boots, a couple of pairs of dress shoes, a couple of pairs of work shoes (the summer footwear has been mothballed along with the clothes).

On top of that I've done one of the gardens - pruned and weeded and turned over the soil. On Friday I'll pop out to the garden centre and pick up some winter colour which the Infant and I can plant out after school. I also picked up the bits of the dismantled pool that he left lying about and put them away in their storage box. Unfortunately the liner is still lying in a dirty heap at the bottom of the hole in the yard - I couldn't quite bring myself to grapple with it. I know that such squeemishness is unbecoming in a 50 foot tall Greek Goddess but, well, it is absolutely filthy and filled with pockets of nasty green water.

The plan now is to finish the hole and then turf over it so that it will still be there next year. He also wants to move the washing line from the other garden to this one. Let's examine how his proposition would work: we move the washing line, which in this country can only be used for a handful of weeks in July and August, relocating it to the same patch off garden we've just redeveloped for the swimming pool (which can only be used for a couple of days in July and August).

The man's capacity for making stupid decisions is limitless.

The roses are pruned which may or may not be a good thing for them. I've no idea about roses except that mine seem to flower all year round if left to their own devices which strikes me as odd. I thought that roses were delicate things that needed to be pruned and mulched and shielded and blah, blah. Oh well.

Enough of this nonsense. I must away to work. Perchance to meet my dream baby.

The Fireworks Display

At approximately 1935 hours the family straggled in from its visit to the metropolis. At the time I was engaged in the labourious exercise of transferring the numerous black sacks of crap I'd evacuated from the house up the lane to the furthest point the council-employed refuse collectors will venture.

After waiting until I'd moved all but one back of crap and one back of newspapers and the actually newspaper recycling receptacle the Fat Bastard stepped in and very heroically carried the receptacle to the top of the lane.

Then, after donning heavy-duty boots and coats we set off for what was until very recently the town's playing field for the pyromaniac's pyrotechnician's display. And alas at the corner where until this morning had stood the board promoting this evening's 'specacular' stood a board making somebody's apologies. To the great sadness of the town's children (and relief of every adult and animal within a jolly good radius) the extravaganza had been cancelled due to that had the scribe been up to the task would have been described as inclement weather.

Oh well, there's always the Fifth of November. Remember that?

We live in hope

In the past half hour we've had thunder, lightening and great chunks of ice pelting down - note, not hail (neat little white spheres of ice) but genine chunks of ice; some cubed, some looking like the chippings from an ice-climb. In fact the temptation as I watched my garden turn white from the safety of my kitchen was to nip out (under the protection of an umbrella, of course) to gather up a bit.

Of course the best thing about this dramatic weather was the delay to this afternoon's festivities but the sky has cleared and the racket has set up: sadly it looks as if I will now have to go out and watch the tawdry bloody fireworks display that marks the absolute end of this long, drawn out week.