Wobble

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I had to take my car to the garage today.  Now that I don’t do that much motorway driving, and since I barely achieve more than a 20mph crawl in the local roads, it was a bit of a surprise when I finally reached 60mph on a journey to Norfolk last week that my car felt like it was going to vibrate to the point of exploding like a clown car at the circus.  The sensible thing to do in these circumstances is to tootle along at a speed that’s comfortable, but me being me, I figured on the washing machine spin-cycle principle and accelerated through the wheel vibration to an ear-splitting speed of 80mph in an attempt to prevent my wrists and elbows dislocating.

Wheels rebalanced – they were way out, apparently – good old Gracie should be in fine fettle to transport me to Wales this weekend.  I’d love to have a new car.  One that doesn’t creek and clunk.  One that isn’t already way past its best by the time I get behind the wheel.  One that doesn’t give me the heebie-jeebies every time the smell of burning hits my olfactory senses while I’m sitting in traffic.

But this month brings a bit of excitement and a nice big hire car to Sniffyworld! I’m off to Ireland on a road trip with that foul-fucking-mouthed Canuck April Pissoff, her daughter “and then you saw me dead” Sacha and my friend, the half-Irish Sinead (who is in charge of diplomatic relations).

Normally, when driving around the UK, I like to wing it re directions and just follow road signs after checking out a route to my destination on the maps app on my phone.  Occasionally, I use my phone as a sat nav if I fear getting horribly lost, but it’s reliant on a decent data connection and this is always a bit of a gamble with my mobile provider – yes, that’s you, Vodafone.  Needless to say, I’m reluctant to use my entire data roaming allowance just getting out of the car park at the car hire place in Dublin, so I’ve done something that I said I’d never do.  I have bought a sat nav.  Yes, I’m a fucking hypocrite, but at least I admit this as I’m typing away on one of my many Apple devices (have you seen the new MacBook Pro? Beautiful! And no, I don’t have one, but I’d like one).

I really do hate sat navs though; the way drivers are so reliant on the out of date instructions from a machine, rather than using their eyes and common sense. But, a) it’s a gadget and b) it’s a gadget! And there’s nothing I love more than having a gadget that tells me what to do in a sanctimonious voice.  She’s called Serena, this one, and I just know that she’s going to be getting right on my tits by the time I hit the M62 when I test her out on my trip to Wales at the weekend.  

The alternatives are “Kate” and “James”, who I think are still in the bitter phase after recently coming out of a long term relationship.  Their acrimony will be all too evident as they issue instructions:

“Take the A6 Broad Street and stay in the left hand lane onto Albion Way… of course, that fucker James in his big car for a small cock would say to take the M602 and Regent Road then A57(M), but that’s just because he likes to sit in crawling traffic with his hands down his pants, trying to find his amoeboid balls.  You could go that way if you like, but if you go the way I say and down Liverpool Street, you can cut through the retail park and pick up a quinoa salad from Sainsbury’s for your lunch”.

“Follow the M602 and stay in the right hand lane for A57, Regent Road.  Katie will be stuck in traffic on Albion Way right now, but that suits her because she can take the time to cover herself in slap while Facebooking that slag Serena.  She said there wasn’t anybody else, but I know she’d be exploring Serena’s ‘Let’s go along the Crescent and through town and past Canal Street so we can have a look at the girls coming out of Vanilla’ route.  Take an immediate left into the Irwell and fuck off and die”.

Despite my apprehenhions of in-car navigation, it can’t be any worse than having my mother say out the name of every Welsh town that we pass en route, with added Welsh accent.  It’s going to be a very long two hours. 

Llanfairfechan off.

Passive aggressive weeding

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My engagement with life has been somewhat suboptimal this year.  That old devil called depression has left me feeling disinclined to do stuff and, while people around me seem to be getting on with things, I have been gripped by a state of pfft, still waiting for the summer, still waiting to feel better.  Sometimes you can wait too long and sometimes you just need a little bit of help to get you back to being you, whatever that might be, whoever that might be.

During the summer months, particularly the school holidays, the relative freedom from work of my immediate neighbours taunts me.  Unleashed for six weeks, they are able to enjoy their outdoor space as much as the weather allows; for them, any day when it doesn’t rain means that they move their existence to their extended garden, with added deck that overhangs the river.  In addition to the near constant procession of them running from house to outdoor living area (with accompanying slamming of their back door, and two gates every thirty seconds) they have now added a pool table to the deck.  When the door and gates aren’t slamming, the balls are.

But they are doing what normal people do: enjoying life; living it to the full.  I can’t resent them for this.  I just wish they’d be a bit quieter and decide whether they’re coming or going.  And stop slamming that fucking gate and door. And yes, I know my dog is an annoying little fucker, but if you were at work all day like most folk, you wouldn’t hear him.

Despite being consumed by ennui, I did manage to make the most of my own bit of private outdoor space this year.  My little yard was jetwashed to within an inch of its life and is adorned with flowers that cheer me when I open my blinds in the morning and when I return home from work as the late afternoon sun still fills the far corner.  It’s a nice little spot and I like to spend as much time out there as possible, Radio 2 filtering through from the open door into my kitchen.  In contrast, my other outdoor spaces have been neglected.  I decided to leave the patch this year in an almost deliberate attempt to attract hedgehogs.  It is now an overgrown mess infested with mares’ tail weed.  The area where I park my car, immediately behind my back fence has suddenly sprouted all sorts of undesirable weeds, and despite my best efforts, the paved area to the front of my house provides a constant battle against nettles and dandelions.

I am unwittingly doing my best to provide affordable housing to the area by bringing property values down.

But, you know, I’m on my own and I work full time (unlike SOME I could mention).  Just because I’m on my own, it doesn’t mean my kitchen and bathroom get any less messy than those of a family of four.  My home seems to generate more dust than any other I’ve encountered.  And, you know what?  I’m tired, so bloody tired.

So, do a few weeds outside my back gate bother me?  Well, yes actually, they do, but not as much as not having a clean kitchen or bathroom, or not having clean clothes or bedding, or having everything covered in dust, or not having an evening meal, or even a little dog who likes to go for nice walks down the woods.  But clearly, the weeds outside my back gate were bothering my neighbours because I returned home from a few days away last weekend to find them gone.

Now, I know I shouldn’t get irritated by this, but I am.  Along with the slamming back door and gates, the constant in and out to the car and them filling up MY paper recycling bin to the point that I can’t fit any of my stuff in (because they got rid of their own so they could park their two cars), this has wound me up.  Maybe to return the favour, I should go and fix their gate so that it doesn’t slam.  Or stick a note on their windscreen that says “Have you remembered everything from your car so you don’t have to keep coming and going for stuff four times an hour?”

I think though, in return for this act of kindness, I’m going to phone the council and request a new paper recycling bin for them.  I’m sure they’ll be most pleased.

Save the tigers

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It’s pretty much been the least pleasant Christmas break since “the year of the flu” in 1995, sickness-wise. But I’ve not been ill. And that’s the most frustrating thing. For a few weeks, I’ve been suffering from a bad cough and a bit of a sinus thing, but it’s the sort of cough and sinus thing that has rendered me sleepless for its duration. I’ve not had a temperature, or aches and pains, no sore thoat, nothing but an irritating cough and sinus explosions. Some of the sinus episodes have been dramatic, resulting in much nasal blood-loss, the biggest eruption being at 8am on New Year’s Day… all over the duvet cover. If the police should happen to examine the contents of my bin, they’d find enough evidence to convict me of the brutal slaughter of an O neg dwarf.

Accompanying the cough and the snot/blood has been agony from pulled muscles in my shoulder and hip. So, not only was sleep compromised from coughing, I’ve not even been able to find a comfortable position to sit, stand, or lie for a week.

In spite of lack of real illness, the lack of sleep has been so draining. And so it was that I was awoken near lunchtime today by a phonecall. At its conclusion, I was still unable to deal with the prospect of engaging with the day, so took myself back to bed with a cup of coffee and BBC iPlayer on the tellybox. And then I saw it: Tigers about the house: what happened next.

A tiger expert from Australia Zoo in Queensland took his wife and young son to Indonesia and Sumatra to see the work of the conservationists there. You see, despite Sumatran tigers – indeed tigers in general – being one of the most majestic creatures on the planet, idiot humans destroy their habitats and poach them for a) because they’re complete cocks, b) “traditional” medicine, c) because some people think it’s cool, it shows how fantastic they are, if they display the skins of these animals in their homes. Caught up in the trade for tigers are: tigers; elephants; monkeys; orang-utan; tapirs… and countless other beings who should just be left alone to live as they’re meant to in the wild.

It was upsetting to watch. You just know that so many wonderful species will be extinct in the wild in a matter of decades and the conservationists are fighting a losing battle unless thousands’ year old cultures can be educated. Or wiped out.

The programme made me search for others in the series. Giles Clark, the head tiger man, was passionate about the welfare of tigers that are kept in captivity. The philosophy of Australia Zoo is to have a hands-on approach with many of their animals, including tigers, so that the animals can feel more comfortable in their environments and with their handlers. In a previous series, Giles was shown hand-rearing two tiger cubs for four months in his family home: oh to be part of that family during that time. The little fellers were Spot (Hunter) and Stripe (Clarence) and both thrived in their environment.

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In this world of seven billion people, humans strive for their own survival above all else. Maybe they shouldn’t. We’re not the be all and end all when it comes to this planet, yet our one species overruns and controls and destroys all but the deepest oceans. We are woeful custodians of our home.

I’d actually like the humans to face a catastrophic illness that wipes them all out so that all the deserving species are given a chance to enjoy the remnants of this earth. They are despicable creatures. But this being unlikely, the best the rest of us can do take care of what we have, and help save the tigers. Because if we save the tigers, we save the world.

You can read more about Giles Clark and the work to help save the tigers here.

Victims

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It seems that not a day goes by without some person or group screaming that they have been offended by something that has been said, written, manufactured, or just happened. The world is clamouring with people who see themselves as victims who need protecting from what is often just the plain and simple truth.  The police now even use time and resource to investigate the terrible crime of “offence”; scouring twitter feeds for remarks made in 140 characters that somebody, somewhere might find a little bit upsetting.

There are are the morbidly obese reporting hate crimes against those who tell them the truth about the consequences of their chronic gorging.  Others who bleat “RACIST!” when their their religion or nationality are criticised or commented upon.  And there are those who take offence on behalf of others.

The latest in protests from the professionally offended comes after minor celebrity Katie Hopkins tweeted about a nurse from Scotland who had contracted Ebola being treated in England.  In not-such delicate terms, she commented that, if the NHS in Scotland is independent of NHS England (which it always has been), and if the socialist utopia’s healthcare system is so great, then why is this person being treated at the Royal Free in London; why has NHS Scotland not set up its own specialist centres?  [It probably has, but we have a ludicrous situation where all UK people who contract ebola are shipped to just one unit in London]

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Of course, in using the term “sweaty Jocks”, certain people were outraged, cried “RACIST!!!!” and started a petition for her to be arrested.

Is this how things work from now on?  Are we not allowed to make remarks, outrageous or otherwise, for fear of being investigated or arrested because of what is essentially mob rule?

People seem to have lost the ability to accept criticism, to debate, to argue, take a joke, or to even shrug off idiotic comments made by people who seek publicity, or indeed seek to offend.  Instead, they see themselves as oppressed victims, seeking any opportunity to be offended rather than grow a pair, take some responsibility and stand up for themselves.

God help anybody who dares say anything remotely critical against the people of Liverpool.

This attitude, this collective feeling of injustice, possibly comes from the creeping political correctness that has pervaded western society over the past few decades.  Borne out of good intentions of equality and fairness, it has been turned on its head and spun around so much so that no longer can somebody be called a dickhead without them screaming back that they’re being picked on because of their weight/nationality/religion/gender/sexuality/hair colour/body art.  Where does it stop?

I’m not the sort of person to ever quote Stephen Fry, I’m not a fan of his, but to quote him:

It’s now very common to hear people say, ‘I’m rather offended by that.’ As if that gives them certain rights. It’s actually nothing more… than a whine. ‘I find that offensive.’ It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. ‘I am offended by that.’ Well, so fucking what.

So fucking what indeed.  People choose to be offended.

If they want to, people should take offence at the global situation that gives rise to our focus of attention being on one or two people from the developed world who succumb to Ebola when there have been thousands of others who are anonymous:

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The customary rant about New Year

I don’t like New Year, cannot abide it.  This whole “let’s hope next year is better than the last one” is just a load of bollocks that’s been repeated by millions of people at 12.01am every first of January for years.

As December 31st progresses, the news media show us how New Year has been celebrated in the Pacific nations.  Oh look, there are fireworks on Sydney Harbour Bridge, I’ve never seen that before…  People smiling and clinking champagne flutes while wearing comedy glasses in the shape of whatever year it happens to be… People dancing in fountains… and of course, Scottish people.

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Nothing magical is going to happen on the stroke of midnight (hopefully I’ll be asleep): this cold I’ve been suffering from won’t disappear; I’ll still have to do housework tomorrow and go back to work on Monday; people will come and go, as will the seasons.  Nothing changes, we just get older and more weary.

2014 in review

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,500 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 42 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

December will be magic again

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No it won’t.

It is a dark, cold, wet and dismal month. A month of forced joy and unwarranted expense. A month when those of us who are alone have the joy and excitement of people in relationships or who have families thrust upon us by the TV commercials and radio programmes that paint a picture of togetherness and love, sharing and happiness. More and more, Christmas serves as a reminder of my exclusion from the life that I’d hoped for; a life that I thought I’d had not such a long time ago.

Still though, I introduce a tree into my home and decorate it with lights that welcome me when I get in from work. It is a fragile connection to that life that I thought I was going to have, one that may yet still be waiting for me.

Pffft.

At least there’s sherry.

Walking back to muddiness
Everything is wet at the moment and I am engaged in an eternal battle against the gruftiness of my kitchen floor. The little dog thinks nothing of wading through muddy puddles and piles of dirty leaves while we’re out on our soggy walks. On returning home, he never wipes his feet on the doormat and loves nothing more than shaking off the excess filthy water from his little body before jumping on every chair in the living room.

People who suggest going for a walk as a leisure activity are quite clearly insane. They’d soon change their tune were they to ever acquire a dog and be forced out at least twice a day, rain or shine. I don’t resent the little dog, just the mess he creates, and having him is good thing for a person who would most likely not leave the house unless they absolutely had to, but I will less than politely decline the offer should anybody suggest going for a walk just for the sake of it.

Caught a light sneeze
My immune system better be up to scratch to deal with the afternoon I had. My sister sings in a community choir – of all the things! There was a shindig of a number of choirs, orchestras, bands and the like at the Tudor mansion that just so happens to be smack bang in the middle of Salford. I went along to show my support because Mother had to take care of my niece who had become ill through the night. It was not my plan to spend my Sunday afternoon being coughed and sneezed on by the diseased masses, or constantly kicked by a toddler who was sitting next to me on the knee of his mother.

But I sat amongst the crowd and listened politely. There was the youth choir, followed by some saxophones – both excellent. Then, controversially, a primary school orchestra had muscled in on the event uninvited and they spent seven minutes torturing us with renditions of fuck knows what played on instruments that were all out of tune. Well done, Miss, you pushy twat! There was a brass band that played Mars from The Planets; it’s quite threatening enough as it is being the in heart of Greater Manchester’s answer to District 13 without having a terrifying soundtrack as accompaniment. They were OK though, in a sort of weird out of tune way that would have been quite good if it was intentional. Flutes. Recorders. Hey, nonny nonny, let’s get our Tudor thing on, and finally, the Salford Community Choir, which was very good and mercifully prompt at finishing in time for me to escape just before the football crowd emerged from the nearby Theatre of Shit.

I called in to my sister’s house on my way home. The little one was lying under a blanket on the sofa looking quite dreadful while Mum looked after her. I stayed just in time for my niece to throw up next to me. The last time I had a child with sickness bug do this, I succumbed myself two days later and what followed was the most dreadful day and half of aches, pains, shivers and vomit. Needless to say, I’ll spend the next two days monitoring all my physiological signs for any hint of being struck down myself. If I had my way, infectious diseases would be like that runic spell in “The Night of the Demon”, whereby, if you get exposed to an infectious agent but manage to pass it on to somebody else before the symptoms show, you don’t get ill yourself. It’s in the trees… it’s coming!

Dairy of a mad man

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I don’t use milk. My preferences for the way I take my coffee are well documented:

Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrison’s own brand “Italian style” ground coffee, number 4 strength; brewed strong
Three heaped teaspoons of Coffeemate Light (the blue one)
One heaped teaspoon of white sugar

This combination is perfect and I don’t understand why nobody else takes their coffee this way. It irks me when I have to buy a pint of milk so that I can provide visitors with tea, especially when those visitors are builders who are relieving me of £300 to fix an unstable chimney breast and some loose ridge tiles from my roof. But whilst milk in tea I can understand, even though I don’t drink the stuff, I simply can’t comprehend why people like to destroy a good cup of coffee by adding milk. Things will change when I’m in charge.

I am in charge in my house I suppose. Just as I would never expect to be offered my preferred soft drink when I visit somebody’s house, nor should others automatically expect me to have milk. But they do, so I buy it very occasionally and then it turns to cheese in the door of my fridge and those who discover it think I’m the bad person for letting it get like that.

Whereas milk-cheese is an undesirable by-product of the dairy industry, veal is absolutely delicious. I just had some for my lunch. I don’t quite understand the objection to eating veal from those who eat dairy products, much in the way I don’t understand the objection to eating frois gras from those who have never tried it. Let’s just say, I was very much in the “anti” camp until I was force-fed it myself.

Matrimoany
Having experienced a certain degree of heartbreak and upset a few months ago, I am now on fairly good terms again with a woman I was sort of involved with last year. She comes here for a meal occasionally; we have a nice chat and she compliments me on my coffee and my cooking. It’s always lovely when somebody who I’d happily settle down with, but who has no interest in me says: “I don’t understand why you’re not married”.

Stunned silence from Tina.

It’s odd that every woman who’s ever dumped me has said exactly the same thing.

I have come to the conclusion that I am under a hex: “The Barcelona curse”. It seems to me that, as soon as I get involved with somebody who I really like – a keeper if you would – and plans start to be made to visit the Catalan capital, everything goes wrong. If I’m ever in a relationship again and my significant other suggests a trip there, they’re getting dumped.

Rocky… Rock! JESUS!!!

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Those three words, said with exasperation, are the ones that are heard most within these walls more than any others.

With the odd “fuck!” thrown in of course.

Not to mention: “I’m fed up” and “I hate my life”.

After a restless night last night during which I had to give in to yet another canine tantrum and allow him to sleep with his squeaky toy on the bed, the offending item had been hidden from him this morning. Now that it’s bedtime again, he has demanded his latex comforter; shouting at it, even though hidden from his view.

My dog acts like a retard, but is highly intelligent. He is pack leader in this house.

It was never meant to be like this. He was introduced into a home with two mummies (he being the idea of his other mummy), but homes with two mummies are doomed to failure because relationships between two mummies generally bring together women who are suffering from a spectrum of mental illnesses, otherwise known as lesbianism.

“You can keep the fucking house, I’m taking Rocky!”

What on earth was I thinking? I’d been his main carer for nearly two years and I still wanted to have sole custody. Mental illness, you see. But still, of all the souls I have encountered in the past seven or so years, and of all those that I have yet to be acquainted with, that little dog is only one who I know will love me unconditionally and will be a constant in my life.

I just wish he was normal.

Photo shoot
When I took him for his jabs and check-up the other month, I signed up to something that provided a discount on this and that, flea treatments, annual blood tests… and a free – get this – photo shoot! They phoned me today, the people from Venture Portraits: “So, you can come along with your partner and children, and our photographers are great with animals, so we can do some lovely shots and you can have some lovely photographic memories to keep and keep again.”

“Can I get somebody else to have their photo taken with him? I look like something that’s crawled up a railway embankment after a derailment.”

…Nervous laughter…

“I’m joking. Yes, it might be nice, but it’s just me and him, unless I can drag my niece along. That might be nice. Actually… can you just do him? After he’s had a hair cut? And a few valium?”

They’re calling back next week.

I remember when those sorts of family portraits started cropping up in people’s homes around 2005. At first, they seemed quite sweet, an innovative way to capture the family dynamic away from the staged “book of the dead” portraits that had gone before them. Then after the first few times of seeing another family pile-up shot (“Oh, ha ha ha! isn’t that a lovely and novel way of taking your photo, I’ve NEVER seen that before!”), it became at best tut-worthy and at worst, something that made me want to kill small animals.

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Right Move either had the obligatory Audrey Hepburn negative on block canvas or the Venture Portraits family pile-up shot adorning walls of houses that were being sold in all price brackets. [For a fun evening, I often go on Right Move and tally up the number of homes for sale in a particular area that have at least one Audrey Hepburn and/or a “feature” wall of hideous floral wallpaper.]

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This image will haunt your nightmares.

I am tired. I’m tired of life, of the struggles of having nobody to share the burdens of it with. So, I’m taking a week off work in an attempt to recharge a little bit. To help lift me from this autumnal gloom, I am going off to Blackpool and I’ll be staying overnight in a 1960s-themed guest house where the bar looks like this:

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Kill me now.

Alarmist

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My loathing of alarms will never be abated. Alarm clocks, smoke alarms, the fire alarm at work, the oven timer. However, it is the domestic burglar alarm that I hate with a passion, which, if harnessed, would be enough to provide power to my sleepy locale until the end of days. Unfortunately, Electricity Northwest seem to be having a bit of difficulty providing power to this little corner of Bolton, as evidenced by a series of power cuts – or “outages” as they call them these days – over the past day or so.

Of course, life being what it is, the disruption to our electricity supply has coincided with that point in the night when I have been in the deepest of slumbers. How do I know this? Well, because when there’s a power cut, a couple of things happen:

1. Every fucker’s house alarm starts going off at the same time, which has the consequence of waking every poor bastard just as they’re having the most delightful dream about being Nigella Lawson’s kitchen slave, at the second before she starts to mouth the word “unctuous” (with camera close-up).

2. The printer in the back bedroom/study/dressing room restarts with a clatter and whizz and a whir of sliding and rotating components.

Soon enough, the majority of alarms are silenced and the people of this parish can return to their slumber. Unfortunately for some though, the Nigella of their dreams has run off with yet another loser and their love remains unrequited.

The morning after the most recent disturbance, after a couple of rounds with my alarm clock’s snooze button, I stumbled my way down the stairs and into the dining room. My own house alarm went off: sirens, strobe lights, beeping things. It took a couple of seconds to register. How could this be my house alarm? I’ve never activated the thing once and I’m not even sure what the code is. How on earth could this be happening? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS HAPPENING TO ME??

I tried to turn off the fuses and it just beeped more. I hit the numbers of the keypad in the living room – no response. I tried the keypad in the kitchen – no response. I was in a living hell at 6.30am, the little dog was going into meltdown.

How on earth was I going to deal with this situation? Well, the first thing to do was, quite obviously, put the kettle on and make coffee. The next thing to do was to find the main box for the alarm and rip the fucking thing off the wall. Before resorting to that though, I figured that an examination of the internal workings of the thing might help identify a less destructive method of dealing with the noisy problem from my absolute worst nightmares.

Screwdriver in hand, I opened the box, hopeful of finding an off switch. Of course there wasn’t a bloody off switch, it was more like a terrorist bomb from an action film. “Red or blue?” Red or blue? There were about fifty wires in there of all sorts of colours, randomly chopping at them with a pair of nail clippers was never going to be useful solution. And then I saw them: fuses. I couldn’t see a thing in any detail, but I started pulling the fuses in sequence until eventually, I removed the one that silenced screaming.

Once the sense of relief had left me, confusion reigned again. What on earth had happened? How can an alarm system suddenly arm itself? So not only does my fear of burglar alarms stem from the terror of not being able to disarm a system in time before the bells and sirens start, all the time being beeped at loudly, but now I find, the bloody things can arm themselves out of spite while disabling the control keypads. This is a whole new circle of hell that I’d never imagined in my worst nightmares. It’s almost enough to make me want to live in a yurt, far away from the entrapment of reliance on mains electricity and precious things that need protecting from theft.

Almost, but not quite.

But thinking about my whole issue with alarms, does this make me an alarmist? Or am I alarmic? Alarmophobic? If somebody holding the view that people of other ethnic backgrounds are inferior to people of their own is a racist, what does that make a strategist… or a therapist… or organist? Is organism something we should be marching in the streets against?

This whole matter has confused me immensely and I am consulting with my electrician to find an explanation. He’ll probably just tell me that I was inputting the wrong code and that’ll be fifty quid thankyouverymuch.

Daytime drinking
I did daytime drinking today, but finished by about 5.30. My body now finds itself in that weird 4am place where it’s not sober, but no longer drunk. Aldehydes are doing unspeakable things inside me and I really ought to go to sleep. I wonder what Nigella is up to.

Lightbulb moment

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While watching the tellybox on Friday night, the bulb in the table lamp beside me started flickering. It’s one of those low-energy LED things that’s supposed to last X number of years longer than a standard one. When these things start flickering, it’s a certain sign that they’re in the throes of death…I’m… trying… to hold… out… for just… a few… more… min…. Blackness. Fucking things. Of course, what with them being so expensive, you only ever buy them when one goes. It’s rare to have a spare, unless for some reason you’ve bought one of the incorrect wattage and discovered you’re either dwelling in the light of our cave-painting ancestors, or you burn your retinas out when you turn the bloody thing on.

Anyway, while well-stocked with the smaller variety of these givers of inappropriate light, I was deficient in large screw-fit bulbs. FFS.

9 watts. I needed 9 watts to restore the calm and warming ambience of my living room. The following day, nearly six pounds lighter in pocket, I returned home with an 8W bulb. Eight, compared to nine, it should’ve been alright, but it’s so much brighter than the one it replaced. So annoying. There’s another unit that you’re supposed to look at too, but I barely scraped through physics, so I’ve no chance of understanding this crap. Why can’t 8W provide the same brightness across the board? Why do things have to be complicated with other units?

Could you imagine if this sort of thing was applied to cooking? Measure out 250g of whatever, but you also need to factor in the phase of the bloody moon because it affects the gravitational pull on your kitchen scales.

Ridiculous.

I’m now quite uncomfortable in my living room. I might as well be sitting in a Housing Units display area with harsh shop lighting rendering it a two dimensional, shadow-less hell.

But at least the spiders have nowhere to hide.

Respect my authority
I have very little respect for local authorities, especially Labour-controlled ones. They are wasteful and they establish policies that show their hatred for working people, whom they see as cash cows to fund their ludicrous lefty agendas, knowing full well that working people are too bloody tired and busy to kick up a fuss. They pander to those who keep them in a job and ignore those who aren’t numerous enough to boot them out of office.

But that’s for another time.

My beef with my local council is with its bin men. We have alternating collections here. For my £74 a month Council Tax to Bolton Metropolitan Council, I have my general waste removed one week and the recycling taken the following week. We all use wheelie bins and sometimes, after I’ve been out for a walk with my dog, I deposit his deposits in my general waste bin. For some reason though, my bin men, refuse collectors, whatever they’re called, don’t deem it necessary to empty my bin properly. So whereas everybody else’s gets put on the back of the wagon, tipped up and emptied, all they do with mine is pull out the sacks of waste and leave whatever is left to fester.

I noticed they’d done this the other week and even put my bin out on the street for them to empty it properly before going to work. On returning, my bin had been returned to its normal place and, on inspection, I found this:

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Dirty, fucking, pigs. Despite it containing festering dog poo, they couldn’t be bothered to just put the bin on the back of the wagon to empty it properly. I was furious. It’d be another fortnight before it was collected again. But what on earth possesses them to even do this? Why go rooting around in bins and pulling sacks out and putting them in other bins? Why not just empty all the bins on the back of the bloody wagon?

And what would they rather me do with my dog’s poo, just leave it and not bag it up and bin it? Or maybe save it up in a pile somewhere that it can attract flies and disease until such a time that I have a pile big enough to put in a bag that the bin men see worthy to pull out of my bin.

Unbelievable.

So, here’s me: single income, no kids (SINK). I pay over the odds for council services compared to my multi-occupancy neighbours (with kids), and I don’t even get my bin emptied… and my neighbours use MY paper bin and it’s always full of their stuff when I come to use it.

I don’t ask for much, I understand that my Council Tax needs to help towards providing services and education for the vulnerable (and those pretending to be) and the progeny of breeders, but for what I do pay, is it too much to ask that my bin is emptied properly, that the street lights work and that the roads are kept in a decent state of repair? In Bolton, clearly it is.