What a difference a letter makes. There I was, jobsearching in a mad desperate attempt to keep the authorities happy, when everything went horribly wrong. They have quotas for finding dole cheats and unfortunately my number came up, even though I was exceeding their demands by an order of magnitude. So innocent or not - I was declared guitly by any pretext and the money stopped. Luckily for me an employment agency eventually found me ongoing work - though I have to say, for two months it looked
I passed a small advertisment the other. "Life After Death". Apparently if I pop down and attend the lecture I can learn all about what happens when biology stops working. They also claim I can discover the Meaning of Life. I doubt they have a gargantuan supercomputer that's been calculating the answer to life, universe, and everything for the last seven million years, so I kind of wonder where they get all this information from, but hey, who knows? Perhaps I was Julius Caesar after all.
At
For a few days now cheery weatherpersons have smiled and siad we're all going to get wet. Amber triangles are shown on the screen with Heavy Rain! in bold black lettering. Risk of local flooding. They might be right I suppose. It's just that so far we've only had one day of rain and that was drizzly. I must also confess, that as I write this, I can see the library window splattered with raindrops. I knew I should have brought my canoe with me.
The damp conditions now spreading across Swindon
Yes its mid-July, and the rainy season is upon us. It seems global climate change has given us a monsoon in summer. Here in Rushey Platt there's great concern about where all this rainwater is going to go. The Swindon area isn't too badly off where flooding is concerned, seeing as its built on a hill. Given last years floods and the media attention it received, people are obviously worried.
Funny thing is, I had a dream last night on this subject. Nothing apocalyptic I'm afraid, so I can't w
Would you believe it? A damp and dreary day in Rainy Old Swindon. The rainforests of Darkest Wiltshire never let you down.
Luckily the wetter stuff happened in the night. I am told it absolutely poured with rain during the night. I wouldn't know, I was deep in snooze mode and even my neighbours door slamming in the early hours barely raised my eyelids.
But, damp or not, today was another day on the farm, so I headed out to the programme centre for another great day of learning how to ap
Today I made another visit to my local surgery. All part of keeping the Grim Reaper at arms length. Nothing much to report, just a routine visit, and despite not feeling completely fit as a fiddle, I'm not suffering in any real sense.
By coincidence I spotted a news article teling us fifty-somethings how to stay in the front line against the Grim Reaper. Sort of like a survival manual for grey haired old codgers. Who knows? Maybe there's a few tips I could use?
Tip number one. Keep Chec
Deep in the rainforests of Darkest Wiltshire, the natives are restless. The Independent Peanut Republic of Rushey Platt has decided to go public, to reveal its ancient mysteries to the world. I suppose that means we have to accept tourists too but you can't have everything.
So what is the Republic of Rushey Platt? Well, when I was unemployed I decided it might be a cool idea to declare my idependence from the UK government. That way I could ask for Foreign Aid and get paid millions of pounds
Hilary Clinton has made a fashionably late visit to our shores and naturally the press conference followed. It's becoming a bit of a soap opera. Is it just me, or are political speeches becoming a bit commonplace? To some extent that's partly because of modern media coverage. With so many channels and air-time to fill, it seems politicians are rising to the challenge of opportunity. I guess that's politics. If you want to get ahead in that business you need people to hear you.
The subject m
Monday morning again. If there's one certainty about life it's that at some point you will be forced to endure the misery and agony of finding your leisure time has run out. You might claim with some justification that being unemployed means my monday mornings are non-existent. Well, not today. Finding myself unable to sleep I was hard at work typing this blog entry at five in the morning.
I want to be positive about the world. I want world peace, an end to starvation and disease, gainful em
Such is the good weather we're getting this weekend that Yahoo is making a news item of it. That said, I look out of the window this morning and the sky is a plain white sheet of cloud. Perhaps Yahoo need to be a bit quicker off the mark with their journalism?
Grand National
We have a horse race in Britain called the Grand National. It's something of a national event these days. It was televised yesterday and some outsider won it, leaving bookies with huge losses. One complained that they'd
For the last couple of days the weather has been interesting. One minute the sun is out and everyone is relaxed. The next a massive spread of towering grey and white cumulus unleashes rainfall on the unsuspecting. I had to shelter in a doorway two days ago while one downpour opened up. Not only rain, but hail mixed in. Ten minutes later the clouds drifted away to reduce someone else to a drowned rat. Now I can go about my business again, safe in the knowledge that my school swimming certificate
Last night I started to feel a little warm. You know those restless nights where you just cannot achieve a state of blissful comfort no matter what permutation of bedroom artifacts you choose? Yes, it was one of those nights. I decided the atmosphere was a bit stale and opened a window, plodding back to bed in the vain hope of sleeping.
As I lay there staring at the gloom I could hear rainfall. It is curious what a gentle sound it has, how soothing it can be (providing of course, you're not
Something's wrong. I know something is wrong. Part of me thinks this might be paranoia, yet I cannot escape the evidence of the light through the bedroom curtains. It looks distinctly un-sunny. Oh no!
My worst fears were confirmed as I glanced bleary eyed out the back window. A grey, overcast day, with a sombre mood. How strange! Normally it rains on a Bank Holiday Monday but all we got was blistering sunshine. What it must have been like trapped in a traffic jam with a family of bored kids
This morning my doctor called me in for a decision on what to do about my health. Apparently if I was 65 or older he wouldn't bother (Heck, I'd probably die of old age anyway) but since I'm such a young man, he'll presribe these very special radioactive kryptonite pills.
I kid you not, the little card box vibrates with strange power all by itself. Reading the instructions is an eye-opener. Some people aren't affected, but the side effects are headaches, tiredness, nausea, and so forth.
It may be Friday but my jobsearch goes on. And on. And on. And ... Well, you get the idea. Right now my life seems like an endless ritual of phone calls, internet browsing, emails and letters, and quite why employers don't believe I can do a days job is beyond me because I do a virtual job already.
That said I'm not exactly well paid. Increases in benefits have not exactly kept pace with rising bills. Food is more expensive and the supermarkets seem hell-bent on forcing everyone to purchase
I've just watched a video about things alien. That image of the rock that looks suspiciously like sasquatch. An enthusiastic 'expert' getting exciting about meeting real live aliens from Out There (doesn't he have any real friends?). Film clips of a psychopathic alien smelling Sigourney Weaver, cute grey thingy waving at the assembled scientists on a mountain top, intergalactic hippie E.T. getting caught with no clothes on by a kid, and a gelatinous blob terrorising small town america. Quotes fr
Quite some time ago I suggested that the british government of the day wanted a return to victorian england. Mostly, I suspect, because they rather liked the idea of masses of hard working citizens doffing their caps as they trundle past in expensive limousines. That's always been a feature of human society - the desire of the wealthy to accumulate even more wealth, status, influence, and comfort. Another feature of human society is the inevitable backlash as the downtrodden rise and.... Good gr
I was watching one of those cop programs last night. The usual sort of thing, car chases across america with exciting heavy metal music and a breathless commentary. There was one that stood out. It started as they all did, with a suspect making a break for it and piling down the highway without regard to safety. At one point he swerves to avoid an obstacle, and at over a hundred miles an hour, very nearly loses it completely. Thing is though, what I notice with all these chases is that the suspe
There's a tree in Savernake Forest that I know of. An unremarkable tree at first glance until you discover how old it is. That old fella was sprouting out of ground, fresh from the seed, roughly the same time William the Conqueror was striding ashore at Hastings.
That day in 1066 changed everything. From that point forwards, England and France would be uncomfortable neighbours, no doubt made worse by the Germanic roots of the Anglo-Saxons. Of course now we're on good terms, despite my succes
After the last two days of dull wetness, this morning was a welcome relief. The sun is shining, the skies are blue, and before I get too lyrical about how wonderful the british weather is right now, it's also very chilly out there.
Today is a day for relaxing. It shouldn't be really, seeing as it's a normal working day in the middle of the week (most wednesdays are, for those who haven't spotted that curious fact), but it just feels as if it should be.
However, the gleeful warnings of im
Who amongst you had a dull monday? A fair few of you I'll bet, but I'm afraid my monday was probably duller than yours. It was one of those days when the whole town just seemed to say "I can't be bothered".
I did see an interesting bit of aerial combat between a crow and a gull at the park. The crow was faster and kept on catching up, but that agile gull certainly had the edge on manoeverability. Here we have a perfect opportunity to witness evolution as it happens. Only the fittest will su
My world is very quiet of late, apart from the odd squabble among among my neighbours. About the only event worthy of note is the inspection of the property by my letting agent. They do tell me that they're not overly concerned at my lifestyle or how tidy the place is, but my days as an air cadet still afflict me with an instinctive desire to avoid having to clean the place all over again until I can eat my breakfast off it.
So I had a bit of tidy up. That didn't hurt, did it?
Plans
The
For some strange reason the museum sells plastic balls that play voices from Family Guy. Only one on the premises actually works. We know, because we conducted a quality test this morning. I guess you had to be there.
Missed Call
My mentor at the programme centre is getting a little anxious. She's keen to get me a job before I finish the course and the frequency of her emails has gone up an order of magnitude. What makes it worse is that she doesn't seem to understand I have no internet con
Iraq has been returned to sanity. Libya has been returned to sanity. Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen are undergoing counselling. Afghanistan was always a pretty insane place to begin with and so far has proven difficult to pacify. Now President Assad of Syria has spotted the trend and warns the west that intervention will cause an earthquake that will burn the whole region.
Now apart from his complete ignorance of geology, this does sound like the usual arabic vitriol. "Rivers of blood" is another