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1 July 2021
(Thursday) - Hic (!)
I watched another half-episode of “Fresh
Meat” as I scoffed toast. The show makes me think – it is about a bunch
of youngsters sharing a house whilst at university. Bearing in mind I did my
degrees and post-graduate stuff whilst working (with small children in the
house) I never did the house-sharing thing, and I think I’m pretty glad I didn’t. The closest I ever came to that was
two weeks living in Ashford Hospital’s Nurses’ Home in September 1984 and it
was pretty much the most miserable time of my life. There were twenty-four
rooms in the place and it was filled with people *pretending*
to be having a good time. I can remember that putting any food into any
communal fridge or cupboard was pretty much the same as giving it away (as
you would never see it again). All mail was opened by the resident weirdo
who thought all mail was for him. It spoke volumes that for all that everyone
was loudly saying what a good place it was to live, there wasn’t anyone who
wasn’t actively searching out alternate accommodation. I suppose some people
must like that lifestyle; I certainly didn’t. I sparked up my lap-top and peered at the internet.
A couple of days ago I whinged about our Munzee
clan. At the last minute last night our Munzee Clan Leader got a shift on, and our clan reached
its target. Go us!!! I then rolled my eyes as I read some of the
postings on a work-based Facebook group. Once upon a time that group was
educational and helpful and a resource for all. Nowadays random people post
photos of random blood cells and say “what do you
think?” and people who clearly haven’t got the faintest idea post random
guesses ranging from “guts ache” through to “fatal death syndrome”
covering pretty much every malady known to medical science in between. I sent out a couple of birthday wishes (both
to people called “Andrew” – what are the chances of that?) and got ready
for work. Despite the best efforts of several European
lorry drivers who were determined to stop everyone (by driving two abreast
nose-to-tail), I eventually got on to the motorway this morning. As I
drove the pundits on the radio were quite frankly wasting air-time.
They were constantly harping on about an episode in Parliament yesterday when
the Leader of the Opposition had been haranguing the Prime Minister. The
disgraced Minister for Health Matt Hancock had openly breached lockdown rules
(by porking his floozie) whilst other
people followed the rules and didn't get to spend time with dying
relatives. The Prime Minister felt that having had Mr Hancock resign
was an end to the matter. Personally I can't help
but feel that Mr Hancock should face some sort of prosecution. After all he's
the one who brought in the rules he so flagrantly ignored. Work was work. Despite being on the early
shift I was only two hours late getting out. This is the trouble with working
in a hospital – if you are busy you *really* can’t leave work till the
next day. I came home, and as er indoors TM”
boiled up dinner I tuned in to the Horror channel and watched an episode of “Space
1999”. I watch that show out of a sense of nostalgia… as a child I loved
it. However as a sci-fi show it doesn’t work. I like
science-fiction, but for science fiction to work, the science bit has to be plausible. Had “Space 1999” been billed
as “bollox fiction” it might well
work. We cracked open a bottle of red wine and
watched a couple of episodes of “Lego Masters USA”; having stopped
recording the show, the SkyQ box suddenly presented
us with some episodes. They were rather good. As was the red wine… |
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2 July 2021 (Friday)
- Telly, Lego, Star Trek
Once I’d made toast and scoffed it (whilst
watching more “Fresh Meat”) I sparked up my lap-top and looked at the
Internet and found myself thinking about my car – my car is fourteen years
old. When it finally croaks (and it can’t be long) I will probably sell
it for scrap. A friend of mine sold his car for scrap on Wednesday. He got a
hundred and fifty quid for it, and this morning he posted on Facebook saying
he’d just seen that very same car advertised for sale on the Friday-Ad web
site for five hundred quid. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were talking about how the Labour party won the by-election held yesterday in
Batley and Spen. Admittedly they did win it
in that their candidate got more votes than any other. But that candidate
only got thirty-five per cent of the votes cast, and that on a less than
fifty per cent turn out. So effectively the MP was voted in by less
than one voter in five. And the actual amount
of votes cast for the Labour party's candidate was some ten thousand less than
that cast at the last election. Admittedly the Workers
Party of Britain had been playing silly beggars, but
doesn't this speak volumes about the current state of the Labour party. With
the country seemingly facing the imminent threat of being unable to feed itself,
a massive rise in the public's lack of confidence in the government's handling
of the COVID crisis and the Health Secretary's frankly
abysmal behaviour, the public still feel that the Labour party are a bit
of a joke. I was also rather amazed to hear the
announcement that COVID vaccinations have only a limited
effect in immunocompromised patients. I wasn't amazed so much at the
statement as I was amazed that so much air-time was
devoted to it. If you've got a condition which affects your immune system (any
of the blood cancers), or if you are on any cancer treatment, then the
COVID vaccinations won't work as well as they would on anyone else. Isn't
this blatantly obvious? Seriously? It is like saying that if you don't
regularly charge your mobile phone then it will stop working. Or if you don't
put fuel in your car then it won't go. Surely everyone must realise that you
are going to struggle to boost an immunity if that which makes immunity is
broken? Don't they? Work was work. An ex-colleague came to visit.
A year or so ago he left and went to work in a hospital in Devon. He’d left
that place very quickly and had moved on somewhere else. Some of the more
isolated blood testing establishments can be rather parochial. Another colleague announced he was leaving
soon; he is moving into hospital management and will be doing a job coaching
and mentoring other managers in various projects they may be undertaking. Isn’t this entirely where the world has gone
wrong? Back in the day a manager just got on with it. These days so much as
making a cup of tea needs a formal plan which is managed and reviewed at
every step of the way with endless meetings and teams getting involved. Back
in the day you would have done whatever managing needed to be managed in less
time than it would take to stage today’s first preliminary meeting about the
thing. With work done I came home to find Pogo
was back in residence. I fussed him, then set about mowing the lawn. It is
only nine days since I last mowed it, but you’d think a couple of months had
passed; it had grown so much. er indoors TM” then took the dogs
out and I slobbed in front of the telly and watched
another episode of “Space 1999”. Yesterday I described it as “bollox
fiction” and I wondered if I’d been a tad harsh. But having watched
today’s instalment I don’t think I was. It is entertaining, but… In today’s show a load of space probe
thingies landed on the moon (for no apparent reason) and gave it
an atmosphere. Having an atmosphere was useful because our heroes could then
open the windows on the moon base (opening windows? On a moon base?)
before flying off in a space ship (for no
apparent reason) and crashing it (for no apparent reason).
Rather than seeking help they sat around starving and dying of thirst before
getting ripped to the tits on magic mushrooms. In the last five minutes all
the space probe thingies took the Moon’s atmosphere away again (for no
apparent reason), and the credits were rolled. I think “bollox fiction” is a very apt
description of the show’s genre. As er indoors TM” boiled up
dinner I played about with a new toy – the Voila
AI Artist app. I suspect I am going to learn about all sorts of privacy
issues with this app and how it has sold all my personal data to the highest
bidder, but I quite enjoyed playing with it. The thing has got my humungous
nose and wonky eyes just right. We scoffed a rather good dinner whilst
watching the final of “Lego Masters”, which was also rather good. And
as we looked for something else to watch after “Lego Masters”, so the second “Star
Trek” film started. It was the first film that I took er
indoors TM” to see at the cinema. It was the first film we
ever hired on video in 1985 when we hired our first-ever VHS video recorder
from DER. I’ve seen that film dozens of times, but still
we are going to watch it. It’s the law. One early scene made me sit up and take
notice though. Admiral Kirk and Doctor McCoy were taking about getting old on
what was Admiral Kirk’s birthday… on which he was five years younger than I
am now…. |
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3 July 2021
(Saturday) - Feeling A Bit Tired
In a novel break with tradition
I had granola for brekkie rather than toast as I watched an episode of “Fresh
Meat” and as yet another negative COVID test incubated. I sparked up my lap-top to record the
negative result, saw absolutely nothing at all had happened on-line
overnight, and got ready for yet another early shift. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were doing the "Farming Today" program. A show which has the
potential to be very interesting but is often incredibly dull. In between
talk of growing clover in with wheat (no - I have no idea why either)
there was talk of the disposal
of nuclear waste. Apparently over the next hundred years the UK looks set
to generate just over five
million tons of nuclear waste and some bright spark has come up with the
bright idea of getting robots to shift it... on account of it is bloody
dangerous stuff and no one wants to go near it. I suppose that this then begs the question of
who *do* they get who is daft enough to shift the stuff at the moment? And exactly where are they sticking it? I wish I knew how you get the job of being
one of these bright sparks. I would love to be paid good money for pointing
out the blatantly obvious. Meanwhile the Hubble
Space Telescope is poggered. It has done well
to last for thirty-one years. I got to work and started on my sixth
consecutive early shift. This was the fifth Saturday I've worked out of the
last seven (the two I didn't work were when I was having a little holiday).
For all that I grumble, I quite like working at the weekends really. There is
something satisfying about being trusted to get the job done without needing
to be watched like a hawk. As I worked the weather went from torrential
rain to glorious sunshine back to torrential rain. When I came hoe the sky
was very black, and rain was intermittent as I came back down the motorway.
Not wanting to chance the weather I decided against going to the family fun
day that “My Boy TM” and Cheryl had organised. Instead I slobbed about at home.
Having worked for six days I think I might have overdone it somewhat. With a frankly awful day forecast for
tomorrow I shall have a lie-in in the morning. |
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4 July 2021 (Sunday)
- It Didn't Rain
Having been up at five o’clock for the last
six days I slept through till after nine o’clock this morning. Mind you I
would rather have got up early to go for our usual weekend walk, but we’d
cancelled because of the awful weather forecast for today. I must admit I was
rather glad to see that it was raining when I finally got up – we hadn’t
cancelled for no reason. The forecast had got the early morning weather
right. However that was all that
they had got right. The rest of the day was dry. We *had* cancelled
our walk for no reason. Talking of weather forecasts
I am convinced that weather forecasting has got worse over the last year or
so. A few years ago we could rely on the BBC’s
forecast. These days it seems to be little more than guesswork. I had a
little look on-line and found that my feeling was right. The reliability of
weather forecasting *has* got worse. The reason – coronageddon. Seriously. With far fewer planes flying
about, the meteorologists have got far fewer observations of actual weather
on which to base their predictions. As I munched toast I
peered into the Internet I saw the potential for a squabble on the local
Facebook geocaching page. Someone new to the ancient and honourable pastime
of sticking film pots under rocks had the arse.
Having put out three caches in deepest Rochester they were a tad miffed that
only two people had logged finds on them. Looking on the map these caches
didn’t look to be easily accessible if you don’t know Rochester’s roads very
well, but I wonder if this is just symptomatic of geocaching going the way of
many other hobbies (kite-flying, astronomy and
fishing immediately spring to mind) in that people don’t so much do the
hobby any more preferring to pontificate on-line about it instead. I then wrote a rather depressing obituary on
the state of my profession (for a work-based Facebook group) and got
dressed (at eleven o’clock). Just as I was pootling in the garden so the phone beeped. A whole load of geocaches had
gone live just down the road. Whilst I’m pleased that someone has taken the
time to put these out, it is a shame that this has effectively done for the
Greensand Way project that several of us have been working on. Oh well… such
is life. Those who’d taken on that stretch of the Greensand Way have had over
a year to get the job done. But seeing the chance of a First to Find, er
indoors TM” and the dogs charged out of the house. We set the
GPS on a cache we could drive to, but as we drove so an FTF log appeared on
it. We drove on to another cache where we saw those who’d got the FTF walking
away from it. Our third attempt had us on the wrong side of a flooded ditch,
but we got to be First to Find on the fourth attempt. Mind you I don’t think
that cache will last. The people in the house over the road seemed absolutely
fascinated with what we were doing. From there we drove over to the back end of
Park Farm where there is a little loop of nine geocaches. We had this plan
that they would give us an hour’s dog walk before the forecast rain hit. If ever you fancy hunting out a film pot
under a rock, don’t bother with the “Love In A Cache” series. There
are two types of people who hide geocaches; those that want them found and
those that do not. These caches were clearly hidden by someone from the
second camp. With rather poor GPS co-ordinates, frankly meaningless hints,
one seemingly drop-kicked into a thicket and one looking to be in someone’s
garden I think we were lucky to have found four out of nine (which is an
incredibly bad success rate). Interestingly the person who had supposedly
found the caches before us hadn’t signed any of the paper logs, and after two
minutes of stalking them on-line I was they had also claimed finds in
Carmarthen on the day when they were supposedly in Ashford. Was he cheating?
I don’t know. But rules are rules. He is supposed to sign the paper log. We came home, and
sat in the garden drinking beer and enjoying the afternoon sunshine. At five
o’clock we hurried inside as the sky grew dark, but after two minutes it
brightened up again. er indoors TM” boiled up a rather
good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching Adrian Edmonson going round Great Britain. He was in Devon in
today’s episode making walls and apple pies and gin. I could do that… |
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5 July 2021 (Monday)
- George Cross? Me - I'm Furious!!
I didn’t sleep well, seeing every hour of the
night. Eventually I gave up trying to sleep and made some toast. Just as I
sat down in front of the telly so my phone beeped. I
apparently had a voice mail, and if I could just log into some very dodgy
website… It did seem odd that the scammers would be trying it on at five
o’clock though. I watched another episode of “Fresh Meat”,
then peered into the Internet. I did chuckle when I saw a "suggested
for you" item on Facebook - it was something from a movie-related
Facebook site featuring an interview with Roger Moore. Mr Moore said he
stopped doing James Bond films when he was about my age because he thought it
was rather disgusting seeing someone nearly sixty attempting to do the
dirty deed with girls young enough to be his grand-daughter. I'd thought exactly the same when watching this morning's episode of
"Fresh Meat" in which one of our heroines was porking her university tutor; a chap old enough to know
better. There wasalso quite
the argument kicking off on the Goodies Facebook page in which Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden and the late Tim Brooke-Taylor were
being accused of racism, sexism and pretty much every -ism imaginable.
Amazingly the chap who’d taken offence at The Goodies responded to everyone
defending them with the reply “eat shit, man”, and (amazingly)
there were some people taking his side. If people don’t find the Goodies
funny, then what *do* they find funny? Or is the entire concept of
humour offensive to the woke mindset? I checked my emails. One hundred and
twenty-five “found it” logs and twelve favourite points on geocaches
I’ve hidden. That was something of a result. I set off to work. I had been scheduled for
the late shift today, but late last night I’d had a message. Could I do the
early shift instead? Yes please!! I drove up the motorway through drizzle,
managing to avoid being driven off of the road by a succession of very
poorly driven lorries. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about
how the western armed forces are pulling out of Afghanistan and so the
Taliban are seemingly making
a come-back. When I was a lad I had visions of a
future with moon bases and high-tech and freedom and affluence for all, and
here we are with great swathes of the world reverting to the dark ages. There was also a lot of talk about how the
Queen has awarded
the George Cross to the entire NHS supposedly as a thank you for doing
their (our) job over the last year or so. As an ardent Royalist I must admit to being
very disappointed with Her Majesty for being a party to a shameless ploy to
help a cheapskate government avoid giving the NHS a decent pay rise. And
having given the matter quite a bit of thought today, I can’t help but see
this as something of an insult to the brave soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians
who earned
the George Cross "properly" and I don’t want anything to
do with it. Work was work - I had something of an "iron
deficient" day (as one does). Did you know you can get a good
idea of someone's iron levels from the size of their red blood cells? No? -
Reading this drivel is an education, isn't it!! But an early start made for an early finish.
Dozing in front of an episode of “Space 1999”, a good bit of scoff,
watching Adrian Edmonson tourist-ing in Yorkshire.. I get paid more on a late shift, but I’d
rather do an early one. |
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6 July 2021 (Tuesday)
- This N That
As I peered into the Internet last night it
seemed that the Queen’s awarding of a George Cross to the NHS hadn’t been
received as well as it might have been, and this morning the discontent was
still raging. One or two people thought it was a good idea, but generally the
feeling was that it was somewhere between a joke and an insult. But yet again many people made the mistake of thinking
that the tern “NHS staff” was synonymous with “nurses”. And I rolled my eyes when I read a post on a
certain author’s Facebook page that I follow. Someone had asked for
recommendations of other authors in the same genre. You might think that this
would be a reasonable request until you consider that this is the only thing
that is ever posted on this Facebook page. Didn’t the chap see the dozens of
identical requests as he wrote his? I set out birthday wishes and got ready for
work. I set off to work through a wet and dismal
morning. As I drove the pundits on the radio were spouting their usual brand
of drivel. There was talk this morning of changing the
laws by which refugees can claim
asylum in the UK. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for helping people who are
fleeing in fear for their lives. But can anyone seriously make that claim
when the danger zone they are fleeing is thousands of miles behind them, and
they've just travelled through half a dozen safe countries? Look at the
armada of small boats crossing the English Channel - are they *really*
scared for their lives and fleeing from France? And there was also talk about how there are
moves to change how compensation claims are
handled by the NHS after mistakes have been made. Mistakes do happen. No one can deny that. But
at the moment (so it was claimed) the NHS
cannot settle a claim for compensation until a court has made a ruling in a
claim of gross negligence. There is a world of difference between an honest
mistake and gross negligence, and so such claims are taking up to five years
to settle and aren't cheap. It was claimed this morning that the amount of
money paid out in claims in maternity cases is more than ten times that
needed to make up (what is seen by many to be) the shortfall in
staffing in that area. As I've said before this whole "compensation
culture" does very little to aid recruitment in the NHS. I got to work and did my bit whilst the
weather outside went from glorious sunshine to torrential rain and back again
(several times), and came home to where
it seemed to have been dry all day. We took the dogs out to Great Chart where we
met Cheryl and Rolo, and had a good walk up to the river and beyond. I had
been in two minds about going out – I was glad that I did. er indoors TM” boiled up a good
bit of dinner then went Zoom-ing at her mates. I
used the time to watch drivel on the telly whilst ironing shirts. It never
fails to amaze me how long it takes to iron one shirt – let alone eight (and
a pair of trousers and two bandannas too). And seeing how my shirts were
past their best I had this idea to get some new ones, and to make a saving by
getting them from Amazon. I typed “mens
long sleeved shirt with breast pocket” into the search bar and was
immediately presented with a selection of forty thousand (so it claimed)
shirts. However most were short sleeved and few had
breast pockets. Quite a few of them were being modelled by young ladies who
had the things unbuttoned down to their belly buttons. Perhaps the young
ladies’ breasts made up for the lack of breast pockets? And the pricing… some of the shirts cost a
penny, but the postage was thirty quid. Others quoted the price of the small
size, but the XXL price was over double that advertised. And what’s with the “slim fit”? Do I
look “slim fit”? Does no-one cater for the more rotund gentleman these
days? I thought about going to Matalan tomorrow… but
their days of the cheapo shirt for a fiver are long gone. I’ve ordered one
shirt (to see what it looks like) – it should be here on Thursday…
here’s hoping. |
7 July 2021
(Wednesday) - Before The Night Shift
I slept
well, which was something to be appreciated. Rather than having the usual
morning routine we leapt into action and took the dogs to the woods for a
little wander. And it was a good wander; if a little dangerous. The ground at
Orlestone is currently rock-hard but with a
millimetre-thick covering of slimy mud which makes your every step not unlike
skating on wet ice. I never actually went arse-over-tit this morning, but it
came close several times. But the dogs liked it, even if they did come home
covered in mud. As er
indoors TM” scrubbed the mud from Treacle and Pogo so I went
into the garden to attack the lawn. I came back in after two minutes though.
The fine drizzle had become proper rain. I made
toast, and as yet another negative COVID test
incubated I scoffed brekkie and peered into the Internet rather later than
usual. I sent out birthday wishes to two friends, and
saw something of a squabble kicking off on one of the work-based Facebook
groups I follow. It never fails to amaze me how medical opinion varies
between countries who provide state healthcare for the public and countries
that don’t (i.e. America). I blogged
about that particular issue somewhere
else, then checked emails. Apparently my credit
score has gone down four points this week. I wonder why? I was asked
to cast my votes for the building society’s AGM – as if I have any
understanding of what they are talking about, or any knowledge of the
candidates standing for election. And I was
very surprised to see that the nice people at geocaching HQ have given me another
set of Adventure Lab Caches to do with as I will. Adventure
Lab Caches are… well… they have the potential to be excellent. In theory the
idea is that I create a guided walk that takes you somewhere that you
wouldn’t usually go. Once there you have a little wander to answer some
questions that have been set for you, and you get five more smiley faces on
your geo-score when you get the answers right. However
in reality, for every person who goes out and does it properly there are a
dozen who use VPN software and geocaching cheat sites on Facebook to blag the
things from the comfort of their own living rooms a thousand miles away. I
was awarded a set of these Adventure Lab Caches in September 2019, put quite
a bit of effort into setting it up, and of the first ten people to do it,
seven had clearly cheated. I expect I
shall set the thing up at some point, but what do I do with it? Do I set it
up to try to thwart the cheats? Or should I just say
“stuff it” and let the cheats do what they will, knowing that there
are those who will do it properly and enjoy it. I have a couple of ideas for
locations, but none of them are quite what I’d like them to be. But it does
seem odd that some people (like me) have now been given two of these
whilst others (like er indoors TM”) haven’t had any. As I
checked emails and wrote about the vagaries of the Kell blood group system
and pondered maps so not-so-nice-next-door clanged away at her piano.
Until recently she regularly started playing at quarter past five in the afternoon,
but just recently she has started doing so at eleven o’clock in the morning.
Perhaps I’m being unfair when I describe it as “clanged away”. I
suppose a professional musician really needs to practice, but is she *really*
a professional musician? She must enjoy doing it as she’s been at it for
twenty years, but she’s nowhere near as good as you’d think someone who has
been at it for twenty years would be. Perhaps she is doing a “Les Dawson” to wind us
up? Though it rather suits me having her clanging away to her heart’s
content. With a couple of hours of that every day she can’t say a word about
the dogs’ barking. Seeing how
the rain hadn’t amounted to much I went out into the garden and mowed the
lawn. It wasn’t that wet, and at the rate it is growing it needed cutting
sooner rather than later. And with lawn mowed I had
a shower and went to bed for the afternoon. Both dogs came up at various
times to see what I was doing, and I had a phone call from 07481 443640 which
the internet tells me is a number well known for scamming phone calls. I’m hoping er
indoors TM” will boil up some dinner soon, then I am off to
the night shift. I was originally supposed to be working last night but I was
asked to swap at the weekend. There is some major international football
match this evening apparently. Looking on the internet I see it starts at
eight o’clock. That should make for a quiet Sainsburys when I go shopping
before work… |
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8 July 2021
(Thursday) - Bit Tired
The England football team won their match
last night. As I drove home after the night shift the pundits on the radio
could talk about nothing else. They interviewed all sorts of people from all
walks of life, all of whom claimed that “it’s coming home”. The talk
of football even took over an interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer
who made the claim that having the national football team win is good for the
nation’s economy because (apparently it is a documented fact!) people
spend more money after the England team have a big win. How does that work? How does spending money (and
presumably leaving you with less money) improve the nation’s economy?
Money moves from one person to another, there is no net gain or loss? Clearly I’m missing something here; maybe I might log in
to Coursera and see if they have any “Economics for Dummies” courses. As I got close to home
I saw er indoors TM” and the dogs going for their morning
constitutional. They didn’t see me. But having them out made for a quiet
house. I got a quick shave and shower done and was in bed before they got
home. Usually after a night shift I lay in bed whilst the dogs stomp about me
trying to get comfortable. But despite having been up all night I only
managed two and a half hours’ sleep during which the shirt I had ordered on
Tuesday had arrived. Over a late brekkie I peered into the
Internet to see what had happened since I’d last had a nosey in there. There
was a post on Facebook from the pub run by the woman who owns the house next
door (the side that doesn’t hate us) who was saying that on Sunday her
pub will only be open to people who’ve booked to watch the football in
advance. Apparently the aftermath of last night’s
match was something of a debacle with drunken thugs pissing in the streets.
From the tone of her posting I got the impression that I was completely wrong
in feeling that this was what going to watch football in the pub was all
about. One lives and learns. And I nearly choked on my toast when I saw a
couple of Facebook posts from an old colleague. Having been educated to a
post-graduate level, some years ago this person packed up hospital work to
run sex parties in the Channel Islands before going to prison for selling
unlicenced cancer treatments. The reason the cancer treatments were
unlicenced was because they
simply didn’t work. She hadn’t posted anything on Facebook for some years
(the reason being that she had been in prison)
but she was posting this morning – posting pandemic-denying twaddle. Why do
people do this? An educated person who really does know better. I got the ironing board out and spent the
afternoon sorting the laundry whilst watching episodes of “Fresh Meat”.
Doing the ironing after the night shift seems to have become something of a
routine for me. Hopefully “er indoors TM”
will boil up some dinner soon. There’s talk of cracking open a bottle of
plonk to drink with it today. Across the country the family will be raising a
glass to “er indoors TM”’s Uncle Del who died twenty years
ago today. I liked Uncle Del – he was a good ‘un. And in closing today, our old friend science
says there is a dinosaur-killer sized asteroid wizzing
around in space that might (just possibly) crash
onto Earth some time in the next hundred years
(or so). That would be a nuisance, wouldn't it? I'll probably be long-since pushing up the
daisies by the time it comes close, but if “Stormageddon – Bringer of
Destruction TM” and Lacey survive the environmental
collapse I'd rather the planet wasn't wiped out by a rather large
space-rock-thingy. But nil desperandum (as they used to say
in ancient Rome), the Chinese are on the case. They are proposing to blat it out of the sky with a fleet of Long March 5
rockets, and they claim they can do this far cheaper than the Americans can,
and do it fifteen years quicker too. It might be best to draw a veil over these
Long March 5's dubious
success rate though. The Chinese have only ever launched six of the
things, and one went belly-up in an incredibly spectacular way. Mind you, all kudos to the Chinese for having
a go at the asteroid. I wonder if they will blat it
successfully? Here's hoping. |
|
9 July 2021 (Friday)
- Another Early Shift
I woke shortly after one o’clock feeling like
death warmed up, and then spent the next four hours dozing fitfully plagued
with nightmares about having been drafted into the army. I got up half an hour before the alarm was
due to go off, made toast and scoffed It whilst watching an episode of “Fresh
Meat” then tuned in to the Internet. There were several posts on one of
the work-based groups from American blood bankers who were talking about a
rise in patients asking for blood from donors who have not received any of
the COVID vaccines. I made the observation that
people like this make me wish that together with the “like”, “love”,
“care”, HaHa” “Angry” and “Sad”
responses, Facebook had one that said “FFS”. What do these
vaccine-deniers seriously think the vaccine is going to do other than offer a
resistance to a disease? I put on my new shirt and, taking care to let
sleeping dogs lie, I got ready for work. As I walked out of the front door so
not-so-nice next door had just come home. I wonder where she'd been to be
coming home at half past six? Wherever it was, she
seems to go there overnight quite a lot. She was trying to park her car. "Trying"
being the operative word. I wouldn't say that I
doubt she's passed a driving test, and I know that parallel parking can be
tricky, but every time she pulls up outside the house
she reverses the car into the space so it is actually perpendicular to the
kerb. The car really does poke out at a right angle, and she then spends
about fifteen minutes to-ing and fro-ing trying to turn the car through
ninety degrees to get it alongside the kerb in line with all the other cars.
As she shuffled forward and backward so she glared daggers at me as I walked
past. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were talking about the Prime Minister's announcement that employers should be
flexible with their staff on Monday, and if people get that pissed up on
Sunday (when watching the football) that they are incapable of coming
in to work afterwards, then employers should
turn a blind eye. There is even talk of the Prime Minister giving the country
an extra Bank Holiday this year if the England football team win
the final on Sunday. You can see why this twit is so popular with
the masses, can't you? Meanwhile the ongoing coronageddon
has left councils up and down the country over three billion quid short. I got to work and made a start on another early
shift - the ninth in two weeks. I do like the early start. I did what I had
to (taking great care not to volunteer for a bonus shift tomorrow)
and, with my bit done, came home again. When I got home my phone presented me with some memories on Facebook.
One of the memories was the album I
created which featured various piccies of the pond’s early days. I added
one or two more piccies to it to bring it a bit more up to date. I shall add
some more at some point – it needs piccies of the sundial, Fudge’s memorial (for
want of a better word) and the camouflaging of the pond’s filter adding. “er indoors TM” and I then took the
dogs out to Great Chart where we had a good walk. For some reason the path up
to the river was heaving with joggers this evening, but unlike the joggers
who plague Viccie park, these ones were all polite
and friendly. It was a shame that he dogs found the only mud for miles
around, but the mud wasn’t anything a dunk in the river couldn’t sort
out. Being Friday we had
fish and chips for dinner which we scoffed watching an episode of “Ade in
Britain” in which Adrian Edmondson made cheese and a pork pie, served
biscuits to bell ringers and visited a monastery. If anyone else was
presenting the show it would be so tedious, but Ade really does bring it to
life… |
|
10 July 2021
(Saturday) - A Birthday Bash
I slept through till nine o’clock this morning. As I scoffed toast I
peered into the Internet. There was a post on one of the local Facebook
geocaching pages from some chap asking about the possibility of meeting up
with people to go caching. This brought back memories. At
the moment formal geo-meets are all on hold with the pandemic. When I
used to work different hours I would advertise on
that Facebook page saying I was going on a walk and tell people where and
when we might meet up. A thread would then form in which people that I knew
would be at work would say that they were working, but one or two of us would
meet up each time. There are one or two people who still do advertise meeting up for a
walk on there but organizing these seems to have somewhat died a death
lately. I suppose it does take something of a leap of faith to meet up with
some stranger in the back of beyond and desperately hope they aren’t an
axe-murderer. But I did it. Many times. I’m glad I did – I met so many good
friends that way. Facebook also presented with a video from
Jake Ducey (?) who had made a video telling
me of five warning signs from the universe. For the benefit of my loyal
readers who’ve actually got better things to do than
watch crackpot videos the warning signs that the universe might send you are: Seeing the same thing over
and over again You have negative people coming at you You’re going through some form of pain You feel stressed and forget to breathe You’re being rejected Although the signs are quite
obvious, Jake was a tad vague as to exactly what you might be being
warned about. But he was quite clear as to what do you do if you really are
getting these warnings from the universe. You should move into the creative
plane, mimic the energy of the universe, and spend good money on quack
hypnotherapy whilst (presumably) trying not to laugh out loud. I asked Facebook why they ever thought I
would be interested in this sort of twaddle. They didn’t answer. With the rain hammering down, pootling in the
garden wasn’t a practical proposition, so I looked at the geo-map and
pondered a few geo-puzzles in the area of where we
are going on holiday in a few weeks’ time. I solved some, failed on others,
and didn’t even bother with quite a few. Why do some people delight in
setting such ridiculously hard or tedious puzzles. A
two-hundred piece jigsaw puzzle kept me quiet for
over an hour but was just mind-numbingly dull. And reading the descriptions
of some of the field puzzles told me the places we shall avoid. If you go to
a church and (say) count the windows before going off on a little
stroll, then that is simple enough. But going to the east door,
counting all the rivets and then going to the west
door and counting all the stones around the chancelry before then hunting out
half a dozen random graves… I don’t think so. There was a minor hiccup when I saw the
nearest pub was five miles from the cottage we are staying in; especially
when we’d been led to believe it was only a short (ish)
walk away. After a little confusion it transpired that there are three farms all of the same name within five miles of each other where
we are going. I expect that causes quite a bit of confusion. But, as long as we get the right one, “not my circus, not my
monkeys!” I then wasted half an hour trying to access
my pension details. After a lot of farting about I eventually got through to
something that hadn’t been updated for over two years
so I have no sensible idea of how much pension I look to be getting, or when.
I have this naïve idea to take semi-retirement in two and a half years’ time,
but I need to see some figures before I can find out how practical that would
be. We then settled the dogs and drove round to
the New Chimneys for a birthday party. It was good to catch up with old
friends and meet new ones. We came home via “My Boy TM”’s
house. Cheryl gave me left-over Chinese for supper. It has given me guts
ache… |
|
11 July 2021 (Sunday)
- Appledore
I looked at the last
portion of the left-over Chinese as I farted like a thing possessed,
and decided that it might be a more prudent move to give that stuff a
miss and stick with toast for brekkie. I set another
negative COVID test incubating and as Treacle tried to eat it
I had a little look at the Internet. This morning Facebook
seemed to be flooded out with posts from teachers who were crowing about the
start of their summer holidays. Do they *really* have two months of
summer holiday? There was also quite
a bit of talk
about Bradley Walsh. Having been a part of the team which put the final
nail in the coffin of “Doctor Who”, he’s apparently caused uproar with
his herbal product “Gaias Choice CBD
Gummies” a herbal medicine for supposedly every
ailment known to science, Does his “Gaias
Choice CBD Gummies” stuff work? Like all of these herbal remedy bolloxes,
the answer
is yes and no. There *is* an active ingredient in the stuff which
has health-giving properties, but the amount of this stuff varies from batch
to batch. Does that matter? – Go to Hastings Old Town. Go to a pub in the High
Street called the First In Last Out and have a pint of their Ginger Tom (home made ginger beer). Go back a fortnight
later and have another. You will find they taste utterly different as no two
batches get the same amount of ginger in them. This is what is wrong with all of these herbal (so-called) medicines. The
amount of the active ingredient varies massively from one batch to another.
That’s why when a doctor prescribes a proper medicine, a pharmacist makes
sure you get the right amount. Not too much and not too little. We got ourselves and
the dogs organised, and set off to Appledore. A few
months ago a new series of geocaches went live
replacing the series which had been archived. Those ones first appeared on 23
October 2013 when I got First to Find on most of them. I can remember
that being a very good walk, and together with Karl, Tracey
and Charlotte we walked the route again. I say “walked the route again”;
it has been extended from what I remember. We almost fell at the
first hurdle when the village car park was closed, but it wasn’t long before
the cars were parked somewhere else and we were on
the way. We walked through the rather pretty village of Appledore, along a
footpath alongside the canal up to Kenardington
church, and cross-country through the vineyards back to Appledore. Despite
the recent heavy rain the walk wasn’t muddy, and the
long grass wasn’t wet. The walk was mostly on flat ground; some of it must
have been up hill as there was quite the down hill
slope towards the end. As we walked we met quite a few normal people out and about. One
took great exception to a huge pile of rubbish that had been fly-tipped not
far from where we’d stopped to have a picnic. Someone had obviously taken the
contents of their shed and dumped it in a hedge near Kenardington
church. I agreed with the chap – why on Earth do people bring lorry loads of
rubbish into the countryside just to fling it into a hedge? But from the way
he was ranting I formed the distinct impression that he felt we were
responsible for the fly tipping. It was shortly after
this that I and both dogs got rather bogged down in some rather foul slurry.
Yuk. But despite that, we had a good walk - I
took quite a few photos. It was only a shame that I did for my knee when
nearly going arse over tit when not looking where I
was going at a kissing gate. Geocache-wise it was
a good series. I must admit that personally I would have put out some larger
pots, but that’s very much a personal thing. The GPS co-ordinates were good,
hints were helpful, and there were a range of hides. Some straightforward;
some not. We found all but one of our targets; the one we didn’t find was a
four-stage puzzle based in the churchyard, and we were going past just as the
righteous were all getting ready to suck up to God. Having five of us (and
two dogs) rooting round the churchyard would have looked a tad
suspicious. After nearly seven
miles we got back to the cars where we said our goodbyes and came home. There
was an intense scrubbing of foul-smelling slurry from dogs, gaiters and boots, then “er indoors TM”
took Pogo off for a little holiday with his mummy. After all, Pogo is “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM”’s dog. On her return “er
indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner and then we
watched the football cup final of whatever cup it was that has been going on
for the last few weeks (it wasn’t my idea!). Seriously - what is
the attraction of football? It really did seem incredibly repetitive with the
players just hoofing the ball from one to another. Occasionally one or
another would make great show of being hurt, then would leap up and carry on
proving there had been nothing wrong with them. After what must have
been the most tedious hour and a half of my life the match was a draw and an
extra half hour was added to the duration of the thing. That achieved nothing,
and it was all decided by a penalty shoot-out. Why couldn’t they have done
that at the start and saved us all an excruciatingly dull two hours. After weeks of being
told “it’s coming home” it would seem it isn’t. I’m told there’s a
football world cup next year… |
|
12 July 2021 (Monday)
- Before the Night Shift
We had a vague idea to go for a walk in the
woods this morning but the torrential rain put us
off of that idea. It was doubly a shame as a new geocache went live about
half a mile from the woods just as we would have been arriving there and a
cheeky FTF would have been good. I made toast and peered into the Internet as
I listened to the sound of the rain. Facebook was alive with people
congratulating the England football team for very nearly winning last night,
and there was also a lot of talk about a whole load of racial abuse that had
appeared all over social media last night (and had quickly been removed)
directed at the players who had missed penalties in the last five minutes. I’m
not defending it at all, but it has always been my experience that racial
hatred goes hand-in-hand with defeats for the
England football team. Friends of mine of Portuguese extraction told me ten
years ago that it wasn’t safe for them to walk the streets for two days after
the defeat of the England football team as the thugs needed someone on whom
to vent their frustrations. There was also a lot of consternation being
expressed at the Royal Voluntary Service who are running a scheme this month
in which people are asked to donate three quid so that hospital workers can
be given a cup of coffee. Three quid!!! You can buy a jar of the stuff and
get a cuppa every day of the month for that. But people weren’t so much
worked up at the price as at the recipients. Admittedly I have had free
coffee and free cakes over the last year or so, but when I did it was quite
clear that I was just getting the scraps. Most of these freebies go to the
high-visibility parts of the hospital. It was being suggested that these schemes
weren’t so much for the recipients, more to make those running the schemes
look good. Harsh? Possibly. Seeing a break in the rain I took Treacle for
a walk. We walked round to the park where I let her off the lead and she
walked closer to my side when off the lead than when on. We haven’t been to the park for some time,
but we hadn’t missed much. OrangeHead was there (now grey rather than
orange) with an all-new posse. I don’t think they saw us. But we did have
a run-in with another dog. Some stupid woman with a huge grey dog came up.
Her dog towered over Treacle who hurried away. The dog (and woman)
followed her and would not stop bothering her. I told the woman that Treacle
was frightened. The woman laughed. I suggested that the woman might like to drag
her dog away (as it was on a lead) but she
laughed again. I was about to tell her to f… off when there was a yelp.
Treacle had nipped her dog which was now pulling on the lead to get away. The
woman looked horrified when I exclaimed “now will you leave us alone!” We came home, and I did some CPD until there was
a knock on the door. Regular readers of this drivel may recall that towards
the end of last year I had no end of problems with the gas meter and despite
daily interactions with the power company I got nowhere. Eventually they told
me that many of the smart meters made at the same time as ours simply
don’t work. They offered to give me fifty quid to shut my
rattle, and said if I didn’t like it I could whinge
to the ombudsman. I did whinge to the ombudsman and
they said that the power company should replace the meters with ones that
work. And that’s what happened today. Two nice men arrived and replaced the leccie meter and the gas meter. It only took them two
hours to do. Initially Treacle wasn’t at all happy about it, but she soon
lost interest. It was as well that Pogo is off on a little holiday as the two
of them would have wound each other up constantly. And I dread to think of
the fuss that would have happened if they’d come when I first raised the
issue nine months ago when four dogs would have been shouting. I went to bed for the afternoon where I
managed three hours sleep during which time we (apparently)
used seventy-eight pence worth of power. Though whether or
not that is a fair estimate of our usage remains to be seen – the nice
man who fitted the meter did say that the thing can take a few days to settle
down (how does that work?) I’m hoping that “er indoors TM”
will boil up some dinner, then I’m off to the night shift… through the rain.
I had hoped to go on a minor Munzee mission on the
way. Perhaps I might put that off? |
|
13 July 2021 (Tuesday)
- Goodbye to an Old Friend
As I drove home so my phone pinged with the worst news. A good friend
had passed away. I first met Terry… Probably about twenty years ago. I don’t know
exactly when but “er indoors TM” can remember the first
time we met. We were camping at Brighton Kite Festival. Terry and Irene had
set their camp just up the hill from us, and came to
say hello. It wasn’t long before we soon realized we had a mutual interest in
drinking beer and camping. Both of us liked to camp, and both of us despised
roughing it in a tent. It was his influence that soon transformed a few rough
tents into a luxurious home from home. It was through Terry that coffee at camp soon became filter coffee in
cafetieres rather than instant (and they take some washing up!) And it
wasn’t just the coffee. Terry would prepare so many treats for us from the
raw ingredients. Bread for example – Terry would make and bake bread whilst
at camp, Baking bread can be something like hard
work – Terry did it in a tent. And the drinks cabinet that he brought along to camp was impressive,
to say the least. Ice, fruit, mixers… The oldest photo I can find of us together was at Bat-Camp in 2005.
Bat-Camp was a special thing in our lives – only open to a select few and by
invitation only. Terry would clearly have been a firm friend long before
2005. Terry and Irene would both cook the meal on the first night at
Bat-Camp, and they would always arrive with loads and loads of the most
amazing curries.
Terry and Irene would often be back in the country for early February
for trips to Dover Beer Festival when the snacks he brought along had to be
seen to be believed. When people in other groups had a few bags of crisps,
Terry would bring along a huge bag with pork pies and olives and cheeses
which we ate off of plates with knives and forks. I
can distinctly remember trying to find a stout that he might like at those
festivals – just like me he liked a beer, but unlike me he didn’t like the
black beers.
I knew he had been poorly – he told me of the start of his troubles
when we were drinking to excess in the Maison Dieu in Dover in 2019, but what
with the pandemic and lockdowns and stuff we rather lost touch over the last
year… which in retrospect probably allowed him to keep his troubles quiet.
That was probably how he would have wanted it. I had the message that he was very ill just over two weeks ago, and I
was able to pop up to see him. He was extremely positive as we chatted. I had
hoped to see him last week, but the doctor was visiting. I had a vague idea
to see him last night before the night shift, but I’d heard he’ taken a turn
for the worse. I shall miss Terry. We’re having a curry this evening as we remember
him. With dahl – he introduced us to that stuff. I’ve heard that quite a few people are doing the same… |
|
14 July
2021 - Qrates, Dinner...
I was fast asleep when the shop over the road had a delivery at five
o’clock. I suppose the lorry driver could have made more noise unloading if
he’d tried, but he clearly didn’t feel the need as he was making quite enough
racket already. That shop is rather odd in that for all that they have a *lot*
of deliveries far too early in the morning, the shop itself opens several
hours later than you’d think a shop in that location would do. As I scoffed toast I watched another episode
of “Fresh Meat” in which one of our heroes had started studying
pharmacology having given up on both zoology and dentistry. In my time I’ve
met a few people like this. The actual “going to university” is far
more important than what you actually learn whilst
there. It seems odd to me that you’d run up a five-figure debt on just any
old subject at all. Mind you when I was in the sixth form
I can remember hearing that over half of biology graduates went into banking,
and no end of people apply for trainee positions at work with utterly
unsuitable degrees, so perhaps this *is* what undergraduates do. I sparked up my lap-top and peered into the Internet. Regular readers
of this drivel may recall that geocaching HQ have given me the chance to
stage a Community Celebration Event. I’ve been rather at a loss as to what
sort of event to run, but yesterday I had a stroke of inspiration. I had an
idea to run a workshop showing people how to write a Wherigo cartridge. I
asked if there would be much interest on the local geocaching Facebook page. There
was some interest, not loads, but enough to make putting on the thing a
practical proposition. But my eyes rolled when I saw that a couple of the
leading lights from the GAGB (Geocaching Association of Great Britain)
had appeared from nowhere and wondered if I might like to write something for
their magazine along these lines. I’ve ranted about the GAGB many times
before. Claiming to represent all the Tupperware hunters of the UK, I’ve been
nominated to their committee a few times, but no one (least of all other
committee members) seem to be able to tell me what they actually do, and we only ever hear from them when they
want something (usually votes in their committee elections). I then capped the Tree House and in doing so opened a qrate and released a piggy cubimal
(it’s a Munzee thing), set the dishwasher
going and got ready for work. I drove to work up the fast lane of the motorway together with all the
other non-HGV traffic. I had little choice as the slow lane was filled with
HGVs and the middle lane had a constant stream of HGVs dancing in and out of
it trying to pass the ones in the slow lane.
I got to work and did far more than I'd hoped as we were a tad
short-handed. A colleague had to suddenly nip home to deal with an unexpected
flood (as if there is any other sort of flood). As I worked we all judged another colleague's friend who had
sent her a message saying that she had just "done the dirty deed"
on a third date. It is many years since I had a third date so I'm a tad out
of touch here. - is brandishing the pork sword on a
third date good or bad? The general feeling was that it was either something
of a result or was particularly un-moral depending on your personal view on nudey prod games. Rather than coming home this evening I drove to the abode of the first
fruit of my loin where “er indoors TM” and Treacle were
waiting for me. Cheryl had asked if we liked lamb shanks (oh yes!!)
and we spent a rather good evening sitting in the garden having dinner. And
pudding. I might have scoffed too much… |
|
15 July 2021
(Thursday) - Early Shift
When I was sorting out the undercrackers on
Tuesday I found I was missing a sock. I wasn't overly worried as these things
always turn up. The missing one turned up this morning laying on the kitchen
floor. I suspect Treacle had been playing with it. She does that. I set yet another negative COVID test going,
made toast, and scoffed it whilst watching an episode of "Fresh Meat",
then had a quick look at the Internet. There was an argument beginning to
smoulder on the Facebook "Bottom" group in which some chap
was quibbling about inconsistencies in the show regarding Spud Gun's name and
family. Bearing in mind the show’s target audience is people who think that
belting people round the head with a frying pan is funny, perhaps the best
comment in the potential squabble was the friendly but sincere advice that
the chap quibbling should get a life. However friendly but sincere advice
offered on-line is rarely taken in that vein. Taking care not to wake “er indoors TM”
or Treacle I set off to work. Getting out of Ashford at
the moment is something of a pain in the glass (to coin a phrase)
as the main west-ward road is blocked completely in two places. But after a
ten-minute diversion I was soon weaving around the HGVs on the motorway. As I
drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the government's plan to
introduce a "sugar
and salt" tax on foods in our shops. It was billed as the "World's first
proposed 'snack tax' on sugary and salty food" which confused me a
tad. Wasn't one introduced a few years ago? I can distinctly
remember there being
talk about it and I ranted on the subject myself six years ago on 30
November 2015. Pausing only briefly not to get run off the
road by a van brandishing artwork about "Safe UK" (somewhat
ironic) I was soon at work. I did my bit; an early start made for an
early finish (as I so often say). I took a little diversion to Penenden to cap five Qrewzees
for the Clan War (it’s a Munzee thing)
before coming home. Once home I had a surprise – Pogo was back in
residence. We’re having something of a dog-share with Pogo between “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” and us. I was a bit dubious about the idea,
but so far it seems to be working. “er indoors TM” boiled up a
particularly good bit of dinner which we washed down with a rather good
bottle of claret (not bad for four quid!) as we watched “Ade in
Britain” in which Adrian Edmondson visited Kent. He went to the Shepherd
Neame brewery, and to the Whitstable oyster festival and to a cobnut farm… I do like that show – bearing in mind it was
made about eight years ago I can’t help but wonder how many other gems I’ve
missed… |
|
16 July 2021 (Friday)
- Feeling Tired
I lay in bed listening to the dustmen crashing
about outside for a while, then gave up trying to sleep and got up. Once I’d
watched an episode of “Fresh Meat” I peered into the Internet to see
what I’d missed. The nice people at the power company had sent me an email
welcoming me to their company (I’ve been with them for years!) and
saying that I now had smart meters which sent them readings every half-hour (I
wondered what those blokes had been doing last Monday!). They gave me a
link to their website on which I could review the meter readings, and that
website said they still hadn’t received any readings and
also said it probably wouldn’t for the first ten days of the meter’s
life… The email says they’ve been receiving
readings, the website says not. This is *exactly* the sort of thing
that made me contact the ombudsman in the first place… I shall give it a
couple of weeks to see what happens. Sky had sent me an email telling me about he VIP treats they had for me –
exclusive access to all sorts of sporting events which didn’t interest me in
the slightest. And I had nearly a hundred “Found It”
logs from people saying nice things about the geocaches I’d hidden –
including one from the local geo-fed (which was something of a result). I sent out birthday wishes to both of my
god-daughter’s Facebook accounts (twenty-four! – where did the years go?)
then peered into the depths of Facebook. Today’s quarrel was about the layout
of the rooms at 165 Easton Place in the 1970s TV show “Upstairs Downstairs”.
Some people really will argue about anything. Resisting the temptation to
point out the factual inaccuracies in the postings from people on both sides
of the argument I got ready for work. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were talking about an interview with the leader of the Labour party Sir Kier Starmer in which he had been trying to appeal to ex-Labour
voters. From what I heard of Sir Kier he would have done far better to
have spoken in English sentences rather than using meaningless
management-speak catchphrases. But that is true of most people that they
wheel on to the radio these days. Though he did talk about "sweating
blood to get voter's respect" - that might be impressive to watch. There was also talk about the NHS
Test and Trace app which has been pinging people living next door to
people who've been vaguely near to others who've come in contact with cases
of COVID. And this rather over-enthusiastic attitude has apparently got
hundreds of thousands of people self-isolating this week which is costing
businesses millions of pounds. It would seem that the
app is being uninstalled at quite an impressive rate by people who have
realised that it is actually a load of crap. I got to work rather earlier than I might
have done and read my Kindle for a while before getting on with that which I
couldn't really avoid. As I worked I had an email. A
few weeks ago I entered a Trust-wide draw in which
some lucky winners (picked at random) would get a packet of Mr Ames
Golden Breakfast tea. I won. Result! Mind you, I say "Result" -
personally I can't stand tea, but I do like winning things. “er
indoors TM” can drink the stuff, and if all else fails I can
flog it on eBay.. Less of a result was the discomfort I found
myself in for much of the day. Eventually I found I had two rather impressive
dog-teeth-sized holes in my undercrackers. Bearing in mind that Treacle was
playing with the undercrackers when I was sorting the laundry on Tuesday and
that Pogo has been on a little holiday for much of the week, the list of
suspects isn't long. “er indoors TM” took Treacle and
Pogo out for a walk this evening. I stayed at home and dozed in front of the
telly. I wasn’t feeling that well this evening… and I’ve got yet another
early start in the morning. I think I might have felt a tad better had the
bin men kept their noise down before five o’clock this morning. I have
formally complained to the council about them before, but the chap at the
council told me that he had no intention of following up any complaints about
the dustmen as his priority is to appease the contractor. Doesn’t that speak
volumes… And today marks three months since my
Fudge-dog died. I miss him so much….I’ve blubbed at least once every day since
he went… |
|
17 July 2021
(Saturday) - Busy, Busy...
I woke still feeling less than one hundred
per cent, made toast and slobbed in front of the
telly watching an episode of "Fresh Meat" in which one of
our heroes had the misfortune of having her mother come to visit. I
particularly dislike TV shows in which parents are shown to be less than
perfect. The implication is always that all parents are rubbish which
disrespects those that aren't, and is particularly
upsetting for those who could have done better. Like me. I resisted the temptation to rummage in the Internet this morning; I had to be at Pembury
rather early so I got going. As I drove down the road there was some utter
drivel on the radio so I turned it off and sang
along to my rather "special" choice of music. Ultravox, ELO, Sparks, Ivor Biggun,
Kate Bush, Boomtown Rats, Martha and the Muffins...
I howled along with the best of them. As I drove I
realised something. I've been doing driving all wrong for these last forty
years. If you look at any road you will see a broken white line running down
the middle. I always though that it divided the
road into two sides so the traffic going in opposite directions doesn't crash
head-on into each other. Judging by the traffic on the A28, A262 and A21 this
morning it seems that is *not* what it is for. It
would appear that when driving you are supposed to drive along that
dotted white line, and if anyone comes in the other direction you then play a
game of "chicken" with them in the hope that they will get
out of your way. After thirty miles this became rather tiresome. I got to work for my sixteenth weekend shift
of this year. It was rather busy, and featured a
"Red Alert". A "Red Alert" is a lot more
stressful and a lot less exciting than when you see them on "Star
Trek". If I had my time again I would work
somewhere that doesn't have them on a regular basis. Being the weekend I
treated myself to dinner in the works canteen. Chili and rice, chocolate
pudding with custard. Good stuff. As I worked I
looked out of the window at the glorious day outside. I don't mind working at
the weekends when the weather is grotty, but I'm less keen on it when the
weather is good. A colleague told me her daughter was going swimming today.
It looked like a good day for swimming. I was told that it was the ideal sort
of day for swimming during a pandemic. Have you been swimming recently? Apparently the swimming pool in Tunbridge Wells doesn't
offer any changing facilities any more. In this brave new world of coronageddon you are expected to turn up already in your swimmies. The pool staff offer you a box into which you
drop your robe and anything that doesn't go into the pool with you. And then
once you've done your swimming you go home dripping wet. I slipped out of work a few minutes early. As
I’d driven to work earlier the car had sounded a tad noisy, and when I looked
at my car in the car park the exhaust pipe looked to be hanging off. The
local Kwik Fit was less than two miles from work and
they said they could have a look at it for me. I must admit I have reservations about Kwik
Fit. The Ashford branch once replaced an exhaust pipe on a car of mine and
managed to weld the main lead from the battery to that pipe and short circuit
the entire car. However that episode happened long
before “My Boy TM” was born and that branch was bulldozed
in 1992. In the meantime I have had very good
experiences with other branches of Kwik Fit. I really should give them the
credit they deserve. I got to Kwik Fit. They got the car up on the
ramp, saw the problem, fixed it, and I was on my way in less than twenty
minutes. There was also an added bonus. The problem
I’d had was that one of the brackets holding the exhaust pipe in place had
rusted through, and the other was about to throw in the sponge too. I said to
replace both. As I sat waiting I heard one chap
bellow across the workshop to his mate asking how much the brackets cost. His
mate replied that they were forty-eight quid each not counting VAT. When I
came to pay the bill was ninety-six quid. That was the cost of the two
brackets, no VAT and no labour charge. Result! I came home and (for want of anything else
to do) mowed the lawn. The grass had grown impressively in the few short
days since I last mowed it. And by the time I’d mowed it the temperature had
fallen enough to take the dogs out.
With walk walked we watched more “Ade in
Britain” whilst scoffing pizza and ironing shirts. We’ve now got the film
“Star Trek III” on the telly. They only have a yellow alert in that
film. Perhaps I might get on better with yellow alerts rather than red ones… |
|
18 July 2021 (Sunday)
- Far Too Hot
I slept for nine hours last night. That was something
of a result. I came downstairs, and as I made brekkie
I saw that the warning light on the smart meter was yellow. The thing has
three lights warning us of power usage. Green is good. Amber is getting a tad
keen. Red is “Turn stuff off. Now!” At the time I noticed the amber
light we had two fridges, a freezer, two digital clocks, the fish tank and
the pond filter going as well as the kettle and toaster making my brekkie.
When the kettle and toaster finished, so the smart meter went green. I wondered
if it was seriously telling me that we really shouldn’t be using any more
power than the bare minimum? I’ve already been into its settings once to
increase what it thinks is our power budget to what we actually
spend. But after a little while spent playing silly beggars it would seem that the smart meter has a serious aversion
to the electric kettle. I peered into the internet as I scoffed toast
(my lap-top not sending the smart meter back into amber). I was
immediately presented with memories of a walk round Swanley this time last
year. I smiled as I remembered, and sulked a little
as we didn’t have a walk planned for today. With much of our party in ten-day
isolation we’d cancelled, and it was as well that we had. Today was forecast
to be the hottest day of the year, and black dogs don’t do well in bright
sunshine. I had an email from The Wine Caverns which I
immediately deleted. The Wine Caverns seem to have an address in East Grinstead
and are flogging massively overpriced wine. I suppose there must be a market
for massively overpriced wine, but I know (from experience) that stuff
in Sainsburys costing seven quid is far better than the pretentious stuff
costing thirty quid. With temperatures far too hot we sat in the
garden (in what shade we could find). I took the opportunity to carry
on reading my current e-book. Whitten by Liu Cixin
(billed as China’s answer to Arthur C Clark) it explores the Fermi Paradox. For
those of my loyal readers who’ve not heard of it, the Fermi Paradox is one of
the biggest unanswered questions. Knowing what we do about our own planet and
knowing what we do of others (from all sorts of space probes and
telescopes) we can make a fair guess of how many alien species there are
in our galaxy. Although there are a lot of variables to be considered, in
theory there should be a *lot* of alien civilisations in our galaxy. *In
theory.* In practice we’ve not seen any aliens. Why? One particularly worrying explanation is the
“Dark
Forest Hypothesis”. Put simply with life seeming to be constantly
expanding (look at humanity) but with very limited resources (look
at the state of our environment), someone else’s resources are a very
valuable commodity. Leaving the aliens alone gives you nothing. Talking what
they’ve got gives you loads… Invasion by aliens is a joke… right? Or is it a risk best not taken? It makes
sense not to let aliens know where you are. In my e-book one of the leading characters
sends a message of friendship to Alpha Centauri and ends up wishing she
hadn’t. As I read my e-book
I had a bottle of wheat beer. Then a bottle of Hobgoblin Gold. Then a bottle
of Golden Goose. Then I went into the living room and had a little lay down.
After a couple of minutes Pogo joined me and we both dozed on the sofa for
three hours. The plan had been to walk the dogs in the
evening when it was cooler, but it was still twenty-six degrees at six
o’clock, and doth dogs were listless and hot and bothered. “er indoors TM” boiled up a rather
good dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the last episode of “Ade in
Britain”. I wonder what we will watch next. “er indoors TM” then tuned in to
the Sunday zoom meet in which absolutely nothing at all happened. Having been at work for large parts of the
last six days and planning to be at work for the next five days, today was my
only day off. It was pretty much wasted. I shall blame that on the excessive
heat. It had been billed as the hottest day of the year… |
|
19 July 2021 (Monday)
- Freedom Day (?!)
Last night was hot. I woke at least once
every hour because of the heat, and much more than that because of restless
dogs. Eventually I gave up trying to sleep and came downstairs where I made
toast and scoffed it whilst watching an episode of “Fresh Meat” whilst
my sixtieth negative COVID test incubated. I then sparked up the lap-top to register my
negative test and to see if I’d missed anything overnight. I saw had a
message from “Itz Lizy
Bae” a young lady with a rather epic chest and a pair of pants which did
a rather poor job of covering her bum. She suggested I might like to invest
in “BIT Investment – a platform where you can make a fortune”. I did
think that “Itz Lizy
Bae” might like to invest in that. If she were to make a fortune she might be able to afford some clothes. I sent out some birthday wishes then rolled
my eyes as I read about “Freedom Day” Today has been billed as “Freedom
Day” in which the government dropped most
of the COVID restrictions despite infection rates demonstrably going
through the roof. The public are being asked to use common
sense… This is the same public many of whom phoned
the emergency services where there was a tram crash on “Coronation Street”, and sent the BBC tens of thousands of pounds to pay for
a wedding between two of the poorer characters in “Eastenders”.
Some of the more genius of the public were on
Facebook this morning posting that “Lions don’t wear masks”. This “using common sense” is going to
work, isn’t it! The most obvious effect of this easing to me
is the closure of the M20 motorway with the re-introduction of “Operation
Brock” for no apparent reason. As I crawled up the motorway the pundits
on the radio were talking about just how many people are self-isolating
across the country. Despite all the COVID restrictions having been thrown out
the window, the head honcho at the supermarket chain Iceland said that they
were having to close stores as they had over a thousand of their employees
isolating. And some chap from the RMT union claimed that a quarter of all
rail staff in the North-East were isolating. There was quite a bit of consternation being
expressed on the matter seeing how the Prime Minister himself had been told
to isolate himself at the weekend and had tried to weasel his way out of
doing that which he currently demands of everyone else. (And *still* the electorate see him as a
better option than any of the alternatives. Speaks volumes about Sir Kier Starmer and whoever is in charge of
the Dribbling Democraps, doesn't it?) The weather forecast for today then came on, and predicted "Gin clear skies".
I'd never heard that expression today. I looked it up on the Internet. Its
meaning was utterly unlike what happened. We had a good day at work. Not only did two
different people bring in cake, we had an impromptu
half-hour display of gymnastics just outside our window from some chap
wearing a pair of orange pants. I was quite impressed, both at the gymnastic
prowess, and at the pants. I probably spent far too long watching him and yrying to take photos. He started off doing rather impressive back
flips and cartwheels. But he did start to go down in my estimation though
when he tried and failed to do the W.O.R.M. a la “Scotty Too Hotty”. I could tell he was running out of ideas
when he was crawling round pretending to be a tiger, and it was shortly after
he had a fight with a tree that a nice lady came out and led him away. After that the rest of the day was something
of an anticlimax… |
|
20 July 2021
(Tuesday) - Stuff
It was marginally cooler last night than it
had been the night before. But only marginally. Having a hot dog snuggling up
for much of the night didn’t help. I made toast and watched an episode of “Fresh
Meat” in which our heroes were supposedly “doing the dirty deed”
but were obviously not as they still had their pants on. However
during this bout of unmorality one porked the other with such vigour, enthusiasm and
ferocity that she snapped her associate’s banjo string (apparently it’s a
thing). I can’t help but think that if they’d removed their undercrackers
then they might have had a less traumatic session, but what do I know? I had a little look at the internet where
there were some squabbles kicking off. There was quite a good argument on one
of the pond-related group on Facebook. Some people’s ponds were attracting
mosquitos which were then biting them. There was a theory being banded about that people who eat copious quantities of
marmite don’t get bitted by mozzies. Those who adhere to this idea wouldn’t
hear a word against it. Those who eat copious quantities of marmite but still
get bitten by mozzies said that it didn’t work. You would think that in light of evidence proving that it doesn’t work the
theory would have been abandoned, wouldn’t you? But those who believed in it
(despite not eating marmite themselves) clung to it religiously. I popped to the co-op on my way to work to
get a bag of crisps. I don't usually use the self-service checkouts, but I
did this morning. As I struggled with the machine, the chap using the other
one made the observation that he too doesn't like
the things, but he prefers the self-service checkouts to the
infection-spreading old and tatty gloves being worn by the woman on the till.
My sentiments entirely. Rather than going up what passes for a
motorway in these "Operation Brock" times I headed westwards
to Pembury. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the Prime
Minister's ex-adviser Dominic Cummings. Having been sacked after quite a bit
of scandal, he's agreed to give an interview in which he looks to have dished a *lot*
of dirt on the Prime Minister. Making all sorts of nasty claims aren't going
to hurt the Prime Minister, are they? The masses love Boris, and anything
which paints him as a maverick and a bit of a lad can only help him. Can't
it? There was also talk of how yesterday
saw the most illegal immigrants cross the English Channel in a single day. I can't
work out why people are surprised about this. For years migration from the
war zones in Africa and the Middle East were a European problem in which
twenty-seven countries dealt with the issue. Nowadays the European Union
isn't where the migrants want to be; it is somewhere that the migrants pass
through, and the remaining twenty-six EU countries are happy to see them go.
So much so that yesterday a French
warship escorted a boatful of migrants to the British mainland. Apparently the UK and French
governments struck a deal last November to tackle illegal Channel crossings
but details of that deal remain sketchy as the French authorities have so far
resisted the idea of having dinghies sent back to their northern beaches. Of course they have. Why are
people acting surprised about this? Pausing only briefly to hit a pigeon as it tried
to fly under my car's front wheels, I got to work and told everyone of
the chap I'd seen outside the window yesterday doing his odd exercises. The
consensus of opinion was that the chap was actually doing a "Primal
Movement Workout"; some new thing (originally from Australia)
in which you have a keep-fit routine based on movements that you tend to do
naturally in daily life anyway rather than just for the sake of doing
exercise. Apparently sit-ups and press-ups aren't
natural, but crawling round like a tiger and fighting a tree are. One lives and learns… |
|
21 July 2021
(Wednesday) - More Stuff
After a night wracked with nightmares of
trying to stop “er indoors TM” joyriding twocked cars round
the local car parks I woke feeling like death warmed up. I made brekkie and
watched another episode of "Fresh Meat" in which our heroes
were again "doing the dirty deed" with their pants still on.
One of them then stood for election for the position of president of the
student's union with the single policy of cheap chips for all. This was very
much a vote-winning policy and would probably sway much of the country's
electorate at the next General Election. Leaving everyone else asleep I set off for
work. I was rather amazed by the pundits on the radio this morning. Not for
what they'd said, but for what they hadn't. Last night the long-awaited interview
Dominic Cummings had been broadcast. Having been one of the leading lights in the
"Vote Leave" campaign during the Brexit referendum the chap
now openly admitted that he felt Brexit had possibly been a mistake. He also
spoke at great length about how he had been instrumental in Boris Johnson's
rise to power, and also about how he and various
others (as yet anonymous) had spoken about removing Boris Johnson from
office as he wasn't up to the job. During an hour's interview this chap
implied (many times) the existence of a shadowy cabal (of which he
was a part) who exert puppet-master control of the country. Is this sour grapes from someone who was sacked, the
fictional ramblings of a deranged mind, or something we should be rather
worried about? Mind you Dominic Cummings did say (several times) that
the electorate aren't able to understand that which they are voting for...
he's got a point there. I've ranted about this many times in the past. Is
having a shadowy cabal running the show (rather than a government
appointed by a public wanting cheap chips) such a bad thing? There was however a lot of talk about how the
UK Government wants to overhaul the Northern Ireland
Protocol. Right from the outset of the Brexit negotiations it was clear
that the position of Northern Ireland was going to be problematical. The head honcho of Marks and Spencer has
already said that their
Christmas lines in stores in Northern Ireland will be but a shadow of
what they usually are. Car dealers in Northern Ireland are finding
it cheaper to source used
cars from Japan rather than Mainland Britain. Something's got to give. I suspect that which
will be given will be Northern Ireland itself; being handed back to the
Republic of Ireland before very much longer. There was also talk about the Animal
Welfare (Sentience) Bill introduced in Parliament a few weeks ago. Everyone knows that dogs and cats are
sentient. Just look at them. They clearly have feelings. You can tell when
they are happy or sad. You could see from his expression just how much Fudge
liked cheese, and he *definitely* used to sulk when he didn't get his
own way or when I (incredibly rarely) told him off. But according to
the legislation, all vertebrate animals will be recognised as sentient beings
for the first time in UK law. This has quite a few implications... Obviously
this will improve the lives of farm animals but many
animals are farmed purely for their meat. Can we legally eat a sentient
creature? Personally I can *if* is is bred for that reason, has not been mistreated and has
been killed in a humane way. But if we can't scoff them any more, then cows and sheep and pigs will vanish
from the fields. Only those who can afford a very expensive pet them will
breed them. And fishing for sport... that will be a thing
of the past. I stopped off at Tesco on the way to work.
There were two Qrewzees in the car park this
morning. There aren't any more (it's a Munzee
thing). I then went shopping. I put on my face mask mainly because that
is what everyone else was doing, and I didn't want to be on the receiving end
of the tutting and glares that most of the masked shoppers were pointedly
giving the one unmasked shopper. I'd left home early to give me time for Qrewzees and Tesco. Together the two took me five minutes
so I got to work half an hour earlier than I had planned to. And so whenever this happens I use the time productively and
constructively. I went to the works canteen for a bit of second brekkie.
Second brekkie was good. Suitably replete I got on with work. The boss
had spent good money on an Olympus DP23 camera which (once hooked up to a
microscope) I rather monopolised for the day. After forty years I still
like taking photos of things far too small to see without serious
magnification. It was a shame that the wonderful brekkie
gave me a guts ache which lasted all day… |
|
22 July 2021
(Thursday) - Currant Affairs
I had a stroke of genius this morning. When I
got up I turned on the Sky-Q box *before*
having a shave and making toast. That way it did all its re-setting and farting about whilst I was doing other stuff and was ready
to go when I wanted to watch telly. Like most modern technology the Sky-Q box
upgrades its software several times a week. This is all very well, but it
does leave the thing utterly useless at the very time when want to use
it. I watched an episode of “Fresh Meat”
in which our heroes again tried to do a nudey sauce
romp whilst fully clothed, then I sparked up my lap-top.
I say “then sparked up my lap-top” – the lap-top
gets sparked up some ten minutes before the TV show ends to allow it to do
all of its farting about so that it is ready to go when I want to use it. I peered into Facebook where this morning’s row
was about the pay offer that had been made to NHS staff. Many people are
furious at the three per cent pay offer (which is seen as an insult)
and were talking about the difficulty of organising cover for any strike
action. I resisted the temptation to ask what a strike would achieve if the
strikers have arranged cover for themselves, but
thought better of doing so. Someone else pointed out on one of the NHS Staff
Facebook pages that accepting a very poor pay increase might go against the Code of
Conduct of the Nursing and Midwifery Council. It struck me that *if*
doing so did go against that Code of Conduct, then this would only be an
issue for nurses and midwives. It wouldn’t have any bearing on pharmacists,
physiotherapists, transfusion practitioners, cleaners, cooks, biomedical
scientists, podiatrists, speech therapists, cardiographers, gardeners,
dieticians, porters, secretaries, med lab assistants, biochemists,
radiographers, O.D.A.s and the majority of the
professions who work in hospitals… but I didn’t say anything. The
average nurse gets rather offended when they are told that there are other
staff in hospitals other than doctors and nurses. Needing some petrol
I drove round to Sainsburys and wished I hadn't. I'd forgotten that the staff
in the Ashford branch have unilaterally decided to make the place
self-service. If you want to buy anything then it is up to you to scan it
through the till (that they are sitting in front of). And if there
isn't space for you to put you shopping down and scan it, then that is your
problem and not theirs. Usually I get petrol at
Sainsburys in Maidstone where the staff are helpful, but when working at
Pembury there is little option for fuel. The petrol at the Sainsburys nearest
work there is usually (at least) eight pence per litre more expensive
than the Ashford one. And no one else does Nectar points. As I drove west-wards this morning I found
myself staring at the van which I followed for over twenty miles. Whoever
owned the van (presumably F.G.S. Pilcher) had spent a lot of money
having his name painted on the van in huge letters. And in letters almost as
big he'd had his web site painted. I found myself wondering why. Was
this advertising his firm? If so, it was rather poor advertising. What does
F.G.S. Pilcher do. Is he a plumber or a dog groomer? Does he specialise in
waste removal or does he deliver stuff? Is he a
painter or an electrician? It turns out he does groundwork (whatever that
is), but you would never know that from the van. Just sticking a name and
a website on a van and automatically expecting everyone to know what it's all
about isn't good advertising. There was also talk of the University of
Exeter which had somehow accepted far too many students
onto its undergraduate medical program starting in a couple of months’ time. Rather than admitting their mistake, the university
is offering ten thousand pounds in cash to anyone who will defer their course
for a year, and on top of that are offering a year's free accommodation next
year. And we all wonder where our tax money goes. I got to work and made the most of the day,
even though yesterday's guts ache continued to rumble. As I worked I saw that the boss was getting busy with the
notice board, and had created a new section on it for "Current
Notices". When she wasn't looking I
shuffled stuff about on the board and created a section next to it for "Currant
Notices" which now features a picture of Tesco's Organic Currants.
The boss hasn't seen this yet, but she did wonder why everyone developed a
fit of the giggles every time she walked past the board. I shall deny everything; I usually do. |
|
23 July 2021 (Friday)
- Early Shift
I was woken in the small hours by a mass
exodus from the bedroom. “er indoors TM” went to the loo,
and Treacle and Pogo followed her. Both dogs hit the floor like sacks of
spuds, stomped down the stairs as though they were trying to go through the
stairs, and had a bit of a quarrel when they came back as both wanted to
sleep where the other was. I eventually gave up on sleep, did yet
another negative COVID test and scoffed toast as I watched an episode of
"Fresh Meat" in which one of our heroes realised what a
waste of time and money a poorly considered university degree can be. Having
spent three years studying geology the chap wanted to work in the media and
was having something of a melt-down. Speaking as someone with multiple
post-graduate qualifications, I've always felt that a university degree can
be an over-rated commodity. Getting a degree is expected these days, isn’t it?. But why? What does the degree achieve? Is it a means
to an end, or an end in itself? I once read that fifty-two per cent of
biology graduates end up in banking, and only two per cent of history
graduates ever gain employment in anything where their degree is remotely
useful. As Evelyn Waugh wrote in Brideshead Revisited
(seventy-six years ago) "a degree just means you start life
three years behind the other fellow". Unless you are going into a
profession which requires graduate and post-graduate knowledge (testing
blood springs to mind for no apparent reason), having a degree for its
own sake just means that you can fart in Latin…
doesn't it? Does a degree get you on in life? I don’t know. I got dressed as the dogs (and “er indoors
TM”) snored, and set off to work.
Being Friday the pavement was less of a place to
walk and more of an obstacle course set by the local bin-men. Seeing their
lorry strategically blocking the road I took the long way round to get to the
A28. As I drove there was talk on the radio about
the consternation being expressed by many disgruntled hospital workers who
aren't happy with a three per cent pay rise. I can't say I'm impressed with
the offer, but what option do we have? Unless people are prepared to do a
proper strike (and let the bodies pile up) then we have two choices.
Take it or leave it. I can remember when I was a union rep many years ago
being told by the full-time union officer that unless we were prepared to go
on strike for months on end then we had no option but to take whatever pay
rise we were offered, and to be grateful for it. The chap had a point. Mind you, the masses all stood on their
doorsteps banging their saucepans for me, didn't they? You can't put a price
on that, can you? There was also a lot of talk about the start
of the Olympic Games
in Tokyo today. Much of the talk focussed on Kentarō Kobayashi who having organised the
opening ceremony was then sacked yesterday for some comment he made
twenty-three years ago. Admittedly the comment was in very (incredibly)
bad taste, but it was twenty-three years ago. This is setting something of a
dangerous precedent, isn't it? Are we all to be looking over our shoulders
waiting to be bitten on the arse by long forgotten
comments made in our immature youth? As I parked my car I
was glad to turn the radio off. I have no idea who was being interviewed, or
what they were talking about but it was on BBC Radio
4. It was not some bunch of thugs in the pub. In the conversation on the
radio something had been necessary and so apparently someone "would
of hat" to do something or other. In my world someone "would have had"
to do something or other. No one ever (in the history of the universe)
"would of hat" to do anything. A subtle distinction, but an
important one. Is being able to speak English no longer a
requirement for the interviewees on Radio 4, or am I just becoming a snob? I went in to work, and
had a far busier day than I had intended to have. Not that I get much say in
how the day goes. But there were doughnuts, and an early start made for an
early finish. I drove home (singing along to my Ivor Biggun
CDs), collected the dogs, and took them down to Orlestone
for a little walk. We’d not been there for a while – the recent hot spell had
dried out the mud and we had a good walk. Really must get back in the habit of going
down there… We came home, and I then slobbed
in front of the telly. I’ve worked all but one day of the last two weeks… I’m
looking forward to a day off tomorrow. |
|
24 July 2021 (Saturday)
- It Didn't Rain
With no need to be up at silly o’clock I had
hoped for a decent night’s sleep, and (as always) God laughs when we
make plans. Pogo decided to growl at the curtains tapping against the window
frame in the small hours, and “er indoors TM” told him off.
Several times. Someone’s car alarm went off for over an hour. When that
finally stopped, new-next-door’s son turned up outside (at five o’clock)
shouting that he’d lost his keys. “er indoors TM” and dogs
had snoring fits, and there were three separate thunderstorms between seven
and eight o’clock. I eventually dozed off, and
woke shortly before nine o’clock. As I scoffed brekkie
I saw a new geocache had appeared on
the route we’d be taking when we went to see Dad. There was a puzzle to solve
before you would know where to look. After ten minutes of brain strain I gave up. Not so much because I couldn’t solve the
puzzle as because I had no idea what the puzzle was. We drove down to see Dad. We arrived to find a skip in his front
garden. Over the last few weeks he’s taken down his
greenhouse. For years he loved his greenhouse – now it has gone. We also
arrived to find all the Christmas decoration boxes out. Over the years mum
had accumulated loads of really pretty Christmas
ornaments, and Dad wanted rid of most of them. We’ve taken some. He seems to
be clearing out pretty much everything. We had a cuppa and cake with Dad, and another
cuppa and more cake, then popped round to see mother-in-law. She seemed well
after her spell in hospital having fallen off of a
ladder. As we drove home I
had a stroke of genius. I still had no idea how to solve that geo-puzzle but I had an inkling of where that new geocache
might be. To cut a long story short it wasn’t where I thought it might be,
but as I was leaning on a crash barrier and peering inside
so I saw movement by my hand. I’d put my hand right next to a little lizard
who obligingly stayed still long enough for me to take a photo. We came home and I ran the lawn mower over
the lawn until “er indoors TM”’s parcel arrived, then we
drove out to the Warren where we met Cheryl and Rolo
and we had a good (if relatively short) walk. It was a shame that Rolo (a yorkie-chihuahua cross) picked and won a
fight with a Great Dane. I say “shame”; it was something of a result
really. A result for Rolo in that not only did he
win, but he didn’t get eaten alive either. With walk walked we came home. “er indoors
TM” wanted to go up to the co-op field for Munzee
reasons. I didn’t. perhaps I should have done? She was not at all happy with
Pogo when she came home; Pogo had found a foul ditch and I’m not sure whether
the black slime or the foul smell took longest to scrub off
of him. With dinner scoffed “er indoors TM”
set off to the Saturday film night and I stayed home and ironed shirts whilst
watching more episodes of “Fresh Meat”. It has been a rather busy day today. It
wasn’t a bad day, but I’m not happy. The BBC’s weather forecast had been
crystal clear on the subject all week long. Today was going to be endless
rain. The rain actually stopped at eight o’clock
this morning. Again we were wrong to have cancelled
plans. That’s another day of my life that the BBC’s frankly abysmal attempts
at weather forecasting have spoiled. Someone at the BBC’s weather forecasting
department needs to be sacked. No one else is allowed to be anywhere near as crap at the job that they do as weather forecasters
demonstrably are... |
|
25 July 2021 (Sunday)
- More Ranting
I slept well. I had rather hoped to have been
woken by thunderstorms in the night – not so much because I like
thunderstorms as to restore my confidence in weather forecasts. But there
wasn’t a drop of rain during the supposedly torrential night. I made brekkie and looked at that geo-puzzle
that had stumped me yesterday. I
remained stumped. Some people put out geocaches to be found, and others put
them out for the perverse satisfaction of *not* having them found.
Take the one in question… the puzzle might very well be solved by using the
following (so-called) logic: The only information given in the puzzle is
the first three stanzas to the song “Hi Ho Silver Lining”. Silver – that
is an element… Element – elementary – “elementary my dear Watson” was
what Sherlock Homes used to say. Sherlock Holmes lived at 221B Baker Street…
Baker… There’s the answer. You find where the cache by typing “bake crusty
loaf” into the “What Three Words” app. I sent the chap who set the puzzle a cry for
help yesterday. He hasn’t replied Pausing only briefly to send out some
birthday wishes I had a look at the monthly accounts. They could have been a
whole lot worse. I shouldn’t complain. We then drove down to the pet shop for fish
food, then went round to “My Boy TM”’s house. They’d all
gone to Chessington World of Adventure, and we collected little Rolo who was coming for an adventure with us. We drove up to Kings Wood. As we drove so the
rain started. I was glad to see the rain because that meant we hadn’t
cancelled our walk for no reason… and then the rain stopped – less than a
minute after it started. (I say rain – does half a dozen drops
count?) We got to King Wood, and
had a bit of a wander round. We walked for two hours during which time there
was glorious sunshine, cloud, overcast skies… and not a drop of rain. Treacle
and Pogo were very well behaved, but little Rolo
let the side down several times. Treacle and Pogo would come to the sound of
the whistle and watch as other dogs walked past… but little Rolo saw other dogs as an opportunity for a fight. Mind
you, he eventually got the idea of whistle training and two of the last
three dogs we met passed by without incident. With walk walked we came home and sat in the
garden and had a spot of late lunch. Just as we sat down so there was a clap
of thunder. Just one though. About half an hour later the rain started in
earnest. It did come down hard, but didn’t really
last long. I set about some geo-puzzles that *were*
intended to be solved in readiness for our upcoming holiday, and as I puzzled
so Cheryl collected Rolo. They’d given up on
Chessington because they’d got rained off – and got given free tickets to
come back when it wasn’t raining. At least someone had rain today! “er indoors TM” boiled up a very
good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching a couple of episodes of “Richard
Osman’s House of Games”… and in closing I will rant about the weather
forecast. Again. I’m getting rather fed up with abandoning
plans on the strength of utterly wrong weather forecasts. Look at ten of the
hours from today’s BBC weather forecast. Six of them were wrong. Compare that with your local GP who sees six
patients an hour for eight hours each day. That’s (about) ten thousand
patients a week. If she mis-diagnoses only one of
these, she is crucified by the newspapers and faces investigation by the
British Medical Council and being sacked. Why is a one in ten thousand
failure rate unacceptable for a doctor, but a sixty per cent failure rate (quite
frankly) what we expect from a meteorologist? |
|
26 July
2021 (Monday) - Not Ranting about the Weather
I found myself sitting bolt upright in bed
shouting at “er indoors TM” (for no reason that I could
fathom) shortly after three o'clock this morning. I wonder what that was
all about? I made toast and watched the last episode of
"Fresh Meat". It wasn't the best show on the telly, but it
certainly wasn't the worst, and it passed the time as I scoffed toast whilst
everyone else snored.. Now that I've seen the lot, I
wonder what I can find to watch instead. I'm toying with the idea of watching
"Game of Thrones" all the way through... I wonder if it is
on Netflix? With telly watched I had a quick look at the
Internet. There was quite the quarrel kicking off on one of the Lego Facebook
pages I follow. Having made their own Lego models, some people sell the plans
on-line. Others forward their plans to the Lego corporation to see if the
nice people at the Lego corporation want to market a set based on the designs
that have been sent in to them. If you sell your own
designs on-line you can get up to twenty dollars per sale. (It sounds daft
to me, but people really do pay that). If you send your design to the
Lego corporation (who have already got their own design staff) you give up
all rights to your design and probably won't get anything at all (unless
the Lego corporation market a set based on your design which is *extremely*
unlikely, and even then you probably wouldn't get
anything like as much money as if you'd sold the plans on-line yourself). Personally I would
take the money and run, but there was quite the squabble going on. Those
who'd sent their plans to the Lego Corporation (who hadn't wanted them in
the first place) felt there was some merit in choosing the least
lucrative option. I drove off west-wards along the A28. There was a
minor hiccup at Bethersden. I could tell something
odd was happening when the traffic stopped whilst a double-decker bus did a
three-point turn. A hundred yards after this the traffic then slalomed round
four fire engines which were parked in random places across the road for no
apparent reason. And then after another few hundred yards the traffic was
mounting the pavement to get past signs telling the east-bound traffic that
the road was closed. I would have thought that telling the west-bound traffic
about the road closure *before* they'd all gone through the closed bit
might have been a good idea, but what do I know? As I drove the pundits on the radio amazed me.
They were in Whitby interviewing a pub's landlady who was having to close her
pub on some days as she couldn't get enough staff to run the place. Last week
they had a live broadcast from Scarborough (not twenty miles from Whitby)
and had been making a point of how people in seaside towns can't find work. Which is it, Radio 4? No jobs or no staff? Or is
it the old chestnut that the immigrant workers have all gone home and the
hospitality industry doesn't pay anywhere near good enough money for local
people to want to do the job? There was also a lot of griping about the BBC's coverage
of the Olympics. Apparently the BBC can only
broadcast two live events at the same time because the Discovery Channel
paid the Olympic money a ton of cash for the broadcasting rights. The
BBC can only get whatever scraps it is thrown by the Discovery Channel, and
if the BBC wants more coverage, it can pay for it..
and (from what was said on the radio) pay a *lot* of money for
it. After all, the Discovery Channel has paid out loads for the broadcasting
rights, and they aren't a charity. There were those on the radio this morning
whinging how this is incredibly unfair to public service broadcasters who
don't have much money to throw around. There were also those on the radio
saying that this is capitalism in action and the bleeding-heart-lefties
should suck it up. I find myself rather torn here. As a "bleeding-heart-leftie"
I'm not keen on sucking anything up. But as someone who finds most sports
incredibly tedious to watch I'm glad that not too much of my licence fee is
being squandered on something in which I have absolutely no interest
whatsoever. Pausing only briefly to make a sizeable detour
for geo-purposes I was soon at work where my geo-detour had given me wet feet
which stayed annoyingly damp for much of the day. And as well as wet feet,
another day-long annoyance was that I had the "Waddley-Archer"
song stuck in my head. I did my bit and came home. Once home I fiddled
about on my lap-top for a few minutes whilst “er indoors TM”
walked the hounds. Over a rather good bit of dinner
we watched more of “Richard Osman’s House of Games” during which I was
rather embarrassed not to be able to remember the date of the Mutiny on the
Bounty. And in closing today I’ll mention that there is a
rash going around. I won’t say who’s got it, but I will say that the rash app says that if you’ve got a hot
tub in the garden, make sure the water stays pristine… |
|
27 July 2021
(Tuesday) - Buns, Schools, Stuff
Finding myself at something of a loose end as
to what to watch whilst I scoffed toast, I put on the first episode of "Chewing Gum"
and stared at it as yet another negative COVID test incubated. As I logged
that negative result I had a quick look at the Munzee map. I'd got up early this morning to go on a
little Munzee mission to scan a certain type of
bar-code needed for our current clan war, but overnight someone else had
scanned all that needed scanning. So... with no
need to have been up anywhere near as early as I had been I watched another
episode of "Chewing Gum" in which our heroine (like all
TV show heroines) "did the dirty deed" whilst keeping
her pants on. At least she had the good grace to have a nose
bleed whenever she did anything un-moral; she felt un-morality was
rather stressful. With time on my hands
I stopped off in Goudhurst on my way to work. I had a plan that I might set
up my geocaching Adventure Lab there. My idea was to create a guided tour of
the village based on those blue circular plaques that you find on old houses
where the famous once lived. Goudhurst is a pretty village; a walk round
there would be just the thing... Or it would have been *if* there were
any of those blue circular plaques that you find on the houses. I couldn't
see any. I asked a passing local who told me that she'd never seen any of
them in Goudhurst. The closest ones were in Cranbrook five miles away. So
much for that plan... As I was passing I
popped in to the local bakery; the Belgian buns looked nice. The local thugs
getting their sandwiches didn't, but you can't blame the shop for the sort of
thug it attracts. And then as I walked back to my car
so my idiot magnet turned itself on. A passing dog walker asked if I knew her
dog. I said that I didn't. She told me that her dog certainly knew me - she
could tell from the way the dog was looking at me. I fussed the dog, and the
woman took this as a tacit admission that I *did* know her dog. I
tried to explain that I fuss all dogs, but she wasn't having any of it. If I
didn't know her dog, why was I talking to him? Doesn't everyone talk to every dog they meet? As I then drove on to work the pundits on the
radio were talking about how Members of Parliament are calling for a register
of all children who are undergoing home
schooling rather than being educated at a proper school. It was claimed that there is no formal record
of which children are in state schools, which are in private schools, which
are being educated at home, and which are running feral. Those wanting some
documentation of what the children are doing said that some families in
England face being forced into home schooling their children (partly)
due to a lack of support for children with special educational needs and
disabilities. That's probably true - Swadelands
School in Lenham forced us to home-school “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” for the end of her last school year because
they couldn't cope with her "challenging" behaviour, and
that wasn't a success. There was some odd woman from the Home Schooling
Association being interviewed on the matter. She was dead against any
register of home-schooling, was rather aggressive toward everything asked of
her and sounded as though she was about to burst into tears at any moment.
Failing to address any of the points put to her, she just demanded that home
schooling was by far the best way to educate a child whilst offering no
evidence to support this (at all). Personally I have major
reservations about home schooling. You need a variety of experts to educate a
child. If I had to, I could (probably) teach maths and science, but
that would be all. I'd need someone else to teach history and languages and
geography and stuff like that. I don't doubt home schooling could be done
well, but it would take some doing. But then, that's why we have
schools, isn't it? Of the children I know who were home
schooled, one's education consisted of playing tennis and reading wikipedia, and another got to the age of seventeen and
still couldn't read. I got to work, made myself a cuppa and
scoffed that Belgian bun I'd bought in Goudhurst. Over the years I've become
something of an expert in Belgian buns and this one was perhaps the worst one
I have ever had. It certainly wasn't baked today, and I would be very
surprised if it had been baked yesterday. If you were to type the word "stale"
into Google you might well see a picture of that
very bun. It was shortly after this that I had a minor
panic. I'd lost my swipe card. It wasn't in my pocket where it should have
been. Realising that I'd needed it to get into work I must have lost it
somewhere after the laboratory door. So I re-traced
my steps to no avail. It wasn't in the tea-break room. It wasn't in (or
down) the toilet. I hadn't (somehow) dropped it in any of the
bins. Having re-traced my steps three times I eventually found it laying on
the floor at the exact spot where I realised I'd
lost it. Woops! At tea break my phone beeped at me. Not only
had that geocache I'd hidden yesterday
gone live, it had been found too. Yesterday I put
out a geocache not far from Goudhurst church. To find it you need to solve a
simple puzzle based on the Battle of Goudhurst. I'd deliberately not
mentioned it on here yesterday as there are those who follow this diary in
the hope of getting hints to new geocaches that I might hide, and then go out
to find them before they are released for everyone to find. Work was work, and with my bit done I came home and we watched the final of “Bake Off: The
Professionals”. I do love all the “Bake Off” shows… I like
watching others cook, but having been a paid cook
for two years I’m not keen on cooking myself. Mind you, if things had
turned out differently I could have been on “Bake
Off: The Professionals”… |
|
28 July 2021
(Wednesday) - Bit Dull
I woke in something of a cold sweat. I’d had
a nightmare in which a group of clones of “Bake Off: The Professionals”
judge Cherish Finden were running a protection
racket at work, and a gang of colleagues were retaliating by breaking the
clones’ necks with a vigorous twist. The boss was concerned… not so much at
the wanton murder as at the fact that we didn’t have a formal documented
process for breaking the necks of extortionists. I didn’t get back to sleep after that. I made brekkie and scoffed it as I watched
another episode of “Chewing Gum” in which “dirty deeds” were
being done with various degrees of enthusiasm. Perhaps I should choose more
moral viewing? Brekkie telly is lonely these days. Whilst (towards
the end) Fudge wouldn’t get out of his basket (he used to just lay
there). I miss him not being there. With brekkie scoffed I set off to work. The
roads were rather quiet this morning, and as I drove the pundits on the radio
were talking about Team GB’s success at the Olympics. For all that I am
pleased for the success of the various athletes I can’t pretend to any
patriotic pride over it. I must admit I can’t understand the attitude of
those that do. People who (only a week ago) had never heard of
synchronised diving or taekwondo are now supposedly experts on the matter.
I’m sure I must be missing something. I stopped off at Tesco. I needed some granola
bars for lunch, and I got some beers for the weekend whilst I was at it. Tesco
also had some of the same garden pots that I got from them last year. I
picked up a couple with a vague idea to do something with them… I have no
idea what though. Work was work… we had a new girl start today.
“Hello” I said “How are you?” “I’m
fine” she replied. “My God is with me.” I used to think like that once; a long time ago. Mind you for all that her God was
with her, he/she/it didn’t seem to get in the way at all, which was probably
for the best on what was a busy day. With work done I came home. The drive from
Pembury is not that much longer than the drive from Maidstone, but it is hard
work. From Maidstone I have a straight run down the motorway. Getting to and
from Pembury involves a lot of country lanes and it is tiring. I got home
just as “er indoors TM” was taking the dogs out. Usually I look forward to the dog walk… this evening I
just wanted the five minutes peace while they all went out. “er indoors TM” boiled up a rather
good dinner. We scoffed it whilst watching “Richard Osman’s House of Games”.
Have you ever seen it? If not I can thoroughly
recommend it. But like all TV quiz shows over the last fifty years the first
round should be “who are the celebrity contestants”. In this evening’s
show I recognised half of them, which was a very high success rate. Today was dull… |
|
29 July 2021
(Thursday) - Cake, Picnic Table
In this morning's episode of "Chewing
Gum" our heroine met a unicorn... which was certainly utterly unlike
anything I might have expected, and took unmorality to a whole new height. I shall stick to fluffy
pink ones with rainbows, and idly wonder why my male friends who are "on
the other bus" seem to be obsessed with them. If any of my loyal
readers don't know what "unicorns" are, you can find out on
Google, but I wouldn't recommend it. There were a couple of squabbles kicking off
on Facebook this morning. The co-op are selling ice
cubes
made with British water. "British water" ?! How does
that work - have the co-op never hear of the water cycle? Water
goes all over the planet. I suspect that the co-op means that by using water
sourced from Britain they are reducing transport costs. However
in doing so they are encouraging the half-witted jingoistic element who had
been ranting (on various Facebook pages) that British water was far
superior to foreign water. I rolled my eyes, and on reading about the next
squabble I wondered if I would be going to prison any time soon... For some odd reason several people were (independently)
insisting that it was illegal to own a sword. According to what I can glean
from the government's own
website it is perfectly legal to have a sword (or two) in the
house. But it is illegal to brandish them in the street or to try to sell
them privately. However there were those who didn't
hold with formal government advice and insisted that owning a sword was
illegal because their mate said so and he was told by a policeman. I did the final bit of admin on this month's Munzee clan war (there's lots of swords in there!)
and set off to work. As well as loads of talk of the Olympics on
the radio there was also talk about COVID vaccinations and how several big
companies (Google and Facebook were mentioned) are insisting that
their employees
be vaccinated against COVID before being allowed on their premises. This
seems to be perfectly reasonable to most people, but the crackpot lunatic
fringe were kicking off. Civil liberties were being
infringed. Apparently it is one's God-given right to
spread infection far and wide(!) Interestingly most of the people I know who
advocate against the COVID vaccine do so because they claim the thing is an
unknown quantity, but have no problems (at all)
in sourcing recreational drugs from dubious characters lurking on unlit
street corners. There was also talk about the threatened demise of the
BTec. As someone with both an Ordinary and a
Higher BTec certificate I would be sorry to see
them go. I spent four rather good years getting those, and
met many good friends as I did. There was some chap singing the praises of
the BTecs on the radio today, but whereas in the
past there would have been an interview with a lecturer or a college
principal, the chap talking today was the chief executive of a local college.
Isn't that a sign of our times? Pausing only briefly to avoid being run off
the road by a lorry of "Better Fencing Ltd" I was soon at
work. The early shift started rather frantically, but eventually calmed down.
We had a substantially better day than yesterday for two reasons. Firstly I didn't have to step up to cover for the boss (who
had been off sick), and secondly because there was cake. More cake than
sense. An early start made for an early finish. I
came home, mowed the lawn, and watched “er indoors TM” put
the new picnic table together. We only had one serious mistake during
assembly, but that was put right in less than five minutes. I must admit the
thing is rather smaller than I thought it might be, and some of the wood is
quite seriously pissed, but the table is together. I wonder how long it will be before I drive
the scraps of it to the tip… |
|
30 July 2021 (Friday)
- Another Facebook Friend ?
By the time we'd put the picnic table
together last night it was rather late so “er indoors TM”
went up to the KCF to get our dinner. Much as I like that stuff, it is rather
salty, and I was up a few times in the night for copious amounts of orange
squash, and consequently copious amounts of tiddling. I eventually tired of going up and down the
stairs and made an early brekkie As I scoffed it I
watched another episode of "Chewing Gum" in which our
heroine was surprisingly non-un-moral for once. Needing to make an early start I didn't
bother with the Internet this morning. I headed off to work. Initially I went
in completely the wrong direction; the car needed petrol. Sainsburys does the
cheapest petrol and does Nectar points too. As I went into the kiosk to pay for petrol I took my time getting a sandwich and a bag of
crisps. The argumentative old biddies on the tills were being particularly
nasty about the customer who had just walked out, and
having completely slagged off pretty much everything about the chap one said
to the other "but he was nothing; you should have seen the one who
came in on Wednesday". It was at this point that they realised that
I could hear every word and they went quiet, which was a shame. I would have
liked to have heard about "the one who came in on Wednesday". As I drove in the right direction for work
the pundits on the radio were talking about how Team GB has won a gold medal
in the women's BMX bike riding event (and a silver medal in the men's
event). It would seem that BMX bike riding is
now an Olympic event with multiple categories. The commentator was trying to
make a big story out of the fact that the woman who won the gold medal had
paid for all of her expenses for the Olympics by
crowdfunding. She's raised over fifty thousand quid that way. Good for her.
Since she didn't have fifty thousand quid of her own to pay for it, she
raised the money she needed. That's what I did when I was part of a team that
took scouts to Canada (twice). Mind you, the implication was that the
British Olympic team should be funded by the government (and ultimately by
extension by us). Most other sporting events are paid for by the
sponsorship, with the participants being paid a wage and paid expenses. Is it
fair to expect the taxpayers to pay for the Olympic team? I'm certainly not
keen in the idea. But after a little looking about on-line it
seems that he UK Government *did* fund the BMX teams, but cut funding
to the women's team to
pay for the men’s team. That's an entirely different can of worms. There was also talk of a growing "thing"
in that some employers are offering
unlimited annual leave to their staff The idea is that if you can
show your boss that you've done all your work then you can have a day off.
And you can have as many days off as you like *provided* you've done
all your work. I quite like the sound of this... at the
moment the hard workers and the skivers get equal amounts of leave.
But under this sort of regime some (me!) would have a couple of days
off every week, and some would never have a day off again. Ever. I suppose the scheme is all very well all the
time you are the one getting time off. The take home message is to take
advantage of your mate's efforts whilst dumping all your crap
on him.... *if* you can get away with it. I got to work. As I walked in
I did chuckle. There is a lot of landscaping being done at work. One of the
contractors turned to another, and as I walked past
he announced "they want a shrubbery!" Since when did the
Knights Who Say Ni! control the hospital grounds? I did my bit at work, and
got away early (being on another early shift). I drove home singing along
to Ivor Biggun’s second album “More Filth Dirt
Cheap”. Once home I walked Treacle and Pogo up to the
park and back. They were as good as gold. We saw several other dogs; Treacle
ignored them all, and Pogo looked at each one and
then looked at me as though to say “look – I’m being good”. “er indoors TM” boiled up fish and
chips which we scoffed whist watching an episode of “Richard Osman’s House
of Games” in which one of the celebrity contestants (I won’t say who)
appeared to be drunk. I wonder if she was? I did some ironing, wrote up some CPD, and
then got a friend request on Facebook. Liane Francke
He, she or it claims to have started a new group of adults for WhatsApp
featuring many single girls who are willing to “do the dirty deed” for
free. If I join this group I get the opportunity to
“do the dirty deed” with “my type of girl”. I considered
telling him, her or it that “my type of girl”
is one that feeds me, and (quite frankly) all the time “my type of
girl” is wasting time on “doing the dirty deed”, she’s not getting
busy in the kitchen. I’ve reported Liane Francks
to the Facebook authorities – I wonder what they will do. |
|
31 July 2021
(Saturday) - Family Get-Together
There was a minor bit of excitement this
morning as my COVID test came out positive. After a moment’s panic I realised
what I thought had been a second pink line was actually a
bit of jam on the test card. I did chuckle as I registered yet another
negative result. I sparked up my lap-top and peered into the
Internet. The amazingly wanton Liane Francke had
disappeared from Facebook overnight (which was probably just as well).
I sent out three birthday wishes, then had a look to see what people were
arguing about today. I did roll my eyes at one post I saw. Someone with whom
I used to work is constantly posting anti-vaccination propaganda despite
having only recently been released from a French prison (having been
banged up for over a year for selling unlicenced and unproven cancer
treatments). This morning she was posting more of the stuff. I think
she’s on a hiding to nothing; yesterday the pundits on the radio were saying
how die-hard anti-vaxxers in the USA were taking the vaccines having been
offered a hundred dollars with each jab. I took Pogo and Treacle over to the co-op
field for a bit of a run. Yesterday they were as good as gold; today we had a
little grumbling at other dogs. And with dogs walked I got ready for the day.
The event shelter went up, chairs and tables went out… tidying and organising…
“Daddy’s Little Angel TM” arrived, and me and her sat and
had a drinkie or two until the rest of the family arrived. We had a good afternoon with all the tribe.
Sitting in the garden, eating far too much… The threatened rain which was
forecast for three o’clock was no more than a couple of drips, and the rain
held off ubtil after six o’clock by which time
things were incredibly vague. I
took a few photos during the afternoon, if only to remind myself what
happened. Apparently I won thirty quid
during the family Zoom bingo session later in the evening… that was a result. |
