In my foolish innocence I quaffed one of those high energy drinks last night. No sleep for me then. I did manage to get a couple of hours rest in a semi-comatosed state when the drinks effects began to wear off. There goes the alarm clock. I seriously, seriously did not want to get out of bed. It was only the start of Miserable Monday...
Getting To Work
For me the journey to work is a matter of several hundred yards, so no problem there. This morning though I was accosted by a confused old
There was a general lack of managers at work today. Under normal circumstances that would be a recipe for noise and mucking-about, but with my dole payments in doubt I had other things on my mind. I even had to go to the Job Centre this afternoon to force them to arrange my 'Back To Dole Seeking' interview. Talk about DIY.
Meanwhile, back at the stockroom, the quiet atmosphere was making it possible for others to attempt a spot of entertainment. Somewhat carelessly an asian lady started sing
Time to whinge again about the weather. Not because it's particularly bad, but because the weatherment told us the rain was going to lurk over britain for the next week. All those amber triangles were displayed again, warning us of biblical floods and apocalyptic storms. Well... Looking out the window of the library... What a nice day. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and I wish I'd known it was going to be like this beforehand.
So what shall I do today? The options are endless. I could
After the tumultuous ecvents of yesterday, how can tuesday morning be anything other than an anticlimax of mythic proportion? Such is the lack of anything extraordinary going on this world that the story of a dog giving birth to seventeen puppies is headline news. Perhaps that's desperation to find something other than freezing weather to talk about. Now there's a challenge!
It Happened This Morning
First of all today is the shortest day of the year. A part of me wishes that was the true st
Today the sun has made a hesitant reappearance. The thuinderstorms and prolonged heavy rain we got yesterday has moved north, and hopefully I won't get drenched again today. Mornings like this are to be savoured in Britains new globally warmed (and definitely wetter) climate. So in a relaxed happy frame of mind I sat down at the library computer.
As it happened, I was answering a question made by someone else about Roman legions. It deserved a fuller answer than a few sentences, so I got typ
By mid morning the postman has been and gone. In the postbox this morning are two more glosy menu's for takeaway food. They're going in the bin. I do like like my food but for the time being I shan't be buying anything more expensive than the budget label stuff from a supermarket. Aha! A letter. Another rejection note to add to my collection? Shortlisting has been completed but I'm not on it? Please don't get depressed and jump off a cliff?
At first glance the letter is different. More sheet
What a lovely morning! The sun is shining, the drunks are sleeping it off in police cells, and the library has resumed a quiet mood as we all sit down and log on to pursue our various browsing needs. Logging on first thing in the morning isn't a hassle any more either. AM has vanished... what? Has he actually gone South Africa? Or has he succumbed to old age?... I actually miss his verbal presence even if he was a complete scoundrel.
Not like yesterday of course. IHaving left some time unuse
Get the latest version! Upgrade now! Full of new features! I hear those messages all the time now. My email account slowly fills with spam adverts designed to make me think that parting with money, time, and no small amount of sweat is a good idea. So does the library, who have upgraded their system yet again.
As always, this means no-one can log on. The librarians mill around, shocked that public access computers aren't as accessible as before. One or two shrug helplessly. Those with some i
I spoke too soon. Serves me right I guess, but that doesn't excuse what happened. Last night someone tried to steal or steal from my sorry looking Eunos Cabriolet. It has no steering wheel. It has no gear knob. There's an entire ecology all of it's own thriving inside that vehicle. Moss is growing along the ground each side of the car. And if those clues weren't enough, it has two gaping holes in the roof marking the previous attempts by larcenous youths to steal whatever they could.
So why
Yesterday was a complete suprise. Not that Monday happened you understand, I learned long ago that Mondays are inevitable and crop up on a regular basis. Face it, most Mondays are a terrible experience. Weather turns for the worse automatically as thousands leave their front doors for the start of the working week. No, the suprise yesterday was how nice a Monday this was.
The sunshine had a lot to do with it. Unlike a blistering hot summer day, there was a cool, refreshing air to it. As mond
Last night I braved the wet weather and wandered down to the internet cafe to spend a few coins. Paying for food with a credit card has some advantages even though you get funny looks from those who know you're unemployed.
Along the road I passed by the premises that had been occupied by a motorcycle dealership until recently. It was always a dark and uninviting place, so perhaps it's no small wonder they left. Now the premises has been reopened as a fish market, and what a strange sight.
A spectacular end to the day as I strolled home. Bright orange and blue-grey waves of cloud against the pale blue sky and yellow horizon. Best of all it comes for free.
In Poor Health
According to the news, our National Health Service is on the point of collapse. So what? That's business as usual isn't it? The media have made claims of impending disaster for decades. Face it. For all its good work, the NHS is a disaster. Mostly because the people telling the media how ramshackle it all is
"He's just a child" Sneered the woman who passed my home yesterday. A child? What an interesting comment. It does of course imply that I'm childish and thus disqualified from ordinary ecveryday respect, but I can't help feeling this is more than random verbal abuse.
Let me explain. This woman is looking down her nose at me for one reason and one reason only. It's got nothing to do with my behaviour as such - there are more than enough childish men around, just ask any woman, we never grow up
No, don't worry, I haven't discovered Jesus just in time for Christmas, and quite honestly, spending christmas day in a stable full of smelly farm animals with a screaming baby doesn't sound like heaven to me. No, I have a different nightmare....
Heavy snow has hit Britain again and the usual wintery chaos has begun. Homes without electricity, roads slippery, the whole country grinding to a halt. Except Swindon, which once again is blissfully free of the stuff. That means cars can travel fre
Close your eyes. Empty your mind. Picture a whitewashed thatched cottage, rose bushes lining the manicured lawn in front of it. Oak and chestnut trees forming a lush backdrop. The sun is shining, birds are singing, all is peaceful.
Now wake up. I don't know what sort of England you live in, but that rose-tinted image isn't anything like mine, which resembles an edwardian brick terrace, built in the days of cloth-cap engineering, Cars with stereos blaring pause at the traffic lights before vi
The wind is blowing. The rain is falling. What a horrible morning!
Solo Music
A couple of nights ago the BBC had a bit of a Robert Plant fest. Concentrating mostly on his solo career after Led Zeppelin, it was a curious tale of musical experiment including a hilarious commercial phase in the eighties. I've had some respect for his efforts in the past - Slow Dancer from the album Pictures At Eleven has always been a personal favourite among many - but I wasn't aware of the variety of music h
Picture the world in prehistory. No television, computer games, or cars. In between hunting wild beasts I guess they had a lot time on their hands. So bored was one ancestor of humanity that he discovered rubbing wooden sticks together made things catch fire.. Can you imagine how excited he was to discover that?
Later, when voluminous wigs were fashionable, Newton discovered that sitting under apple trees was not only painful, but seriously enlightening. Sometime later, Einstein discovered t
Job searching doesn't get any easier. Now that Honda have cut back on production, they've started seconding their employees to local firms which means potential jobs won't get offered to the public. Jobs for the boys in other words. Now if full-time jobs are filled before I find them, I'm left with only the possibility of part-time work.
The other problem I face is that agencies aren't keen on putting me forward. If I apply for part time jobs I get asked why. Because a lot of shirkers have b
My computer is not well. He's in a coma. No matter what I do, he refuses to boot up. So today I could no more than take him to hospital. There, the repair technicians are drinking endless cups of coffee trying to figure out what is wrong.
A quick visit to the hospital before it closed for business today wasn't encouraging. They wouldn't let me see him, and the receptionist told me that the computer has not yet regained conciousness. He's getting a bit old now I suppose, and deep down you kn
Yesterday there were three women in my life. Now before you mock or pour scorn on that innocent statement, sex was not involved... Now before you click onto another webpage is bored disillusionment and contempt at my failure to have wild passionate sex at every possible opportunity and boast about it afterward, I would like to point out that it is possible to have a warm, fulfilling, rewarding, platonic relationship with the opposite sex. It's just a little less expensive and genuinely less exci
There's been yet another warning about contracting cancer in your lifetime. The list of various causes is growing steadily. If you smoke, sunbathe, drink beer, eat cheese, processed ham, open a fridge, or expose yourself to plastic bags you stand a risk of suffering from this malady. Personally, I think you stand a greater risk of this great disease if you see a doctor.
One chap I used to know from work made a very simple choice. He wasn't interested in the various treatments available for c
I grew up during the Cold War. There were air raid sirens mounted on tall posts around the town, something I realised as a schoolkid although most of my friends were unaware of it. As a child I was hugely interested in aeroplanes and I remember those recognition manuals with grainy black and white photographs of those curiously gothic Russian military jets of the 60's and 70's. Of course I never saw them flying. I never saw them at all. That's no coincidence.
Some years ago I was hiking down
The prospect of Work Experience Day is something I've come to dread. Every week we file into the classroom and spend the day wallowing in retro-infant school nostalgia. Needless to say, I was expecting another lesson better suited to four year olds.
To my pleasant suprise our advisor, TB, brought out a pile of Mecanno sets and tried to give us a lesson about following instructions. As if I listened. I was too busy enjoying the delights of pseudo-car manufacture from kit parts.
The only
I woke bleary eyed after the Star Trek marathon on television this weekend. No, before you ask, I didn't have anything better to do. I've been pretty critical of the films by and large, so you have to wonder why I bothered. Put simply, there were one or two I've never seen and it's been a while since I saw the others.
The major thing that struck me was the obvious. The early films try to create a sense of magic which just doesn't work. It's as if just having the old team from USS Enterprise
Just to prove that remote areas of the United States are not the only desirable place for alien invasions, we have one of our own, with a real live Dalek in the library. I can hear it warbling downstairs. For around five seconds the gathered children were stunned into silence.
With the harsh distorted voice we expect of malicious pepperpots armed with rayguns, it said "I only want to be loved. I came to your planet because I thought you were caring. How wrong can a Dalek be? Exterminate!!!!"
