Without doubt this is a miserable day. A fine mist of dampness hangs over Swindon, enveloping our grey town with... Well... Even more greyness. Only wetter. The feeling has reached my neighbour, who slammed the doors this morning in another sulk at having his dreams of all day and night parties crushed by the need to live alongside other people. Must be nine o'clock then.

As I strode determinedly through the rain to reach the library at the bottom of the hill, I reminisced about how this was so different from a few days ago. On that particular evening I girded my loins and braved the early evening youth culture to grab a loaf of bread at a supermarket near me. Gangs of pink chimpanzees dressed in oversized rags tend to congregate around this time, often in the park just past the corner from where I live, where they meet to discuss pimply things and educate passers-by on fashion sense and self-esteem.

But no, that particular was mellow, calm, the flocks of water fowl sat in family groups around the lake having set aside their daily struggle for breadcrumbs, the local apes reduced to less competitive social activities like picking fleas out of each other, as soft guitar chords wafted across the lake. Now that's how it should be.

On the other hand, now it's the weekend again, and that means the guitar wizard who cast that mystical spell upon the park and its inhabitants won't be there. So I guess it's the usual round of chest beating from our pimply anthropoids instead. I suppose it keeps them off the streets...

Sweet Deal

It came as a great suprise, nay, shock, to Friendly Ferret (one of our stockroom co-workers) to discover that we placementees only receive two thirds of the National Minimum Wage (and no Tax Credits) for our labour. I guess that really does make us slaves. But then, TB at the programme centre very generously offered a chocolate easter egg at her own expense for the first person to land a proper job. As incentives go, it's worth considering. I'll remember to mention that to the next employer when I get interviewed.

The original plan mooted by the government was to hand out jobs to dole-seekers who'd been claiming for more than six months and if you don't like cleaning sewage pipes for a (modest) living, tough. As Mr F, our ever friendly and chatty programme assistant pointed out, that was tyranny.

There is a sense of desperation in politics right now. The government are desperately clinging on to credibility against rising disapproval and strike action, the usual symptom of extended Labour rule. The opposition are desperately seeking credibility to persuade us they could do a better job, when deep in your heart you just know it's going to get tougher. So I suppose I could do something useful and answer the letter from our local college asking if I'm interested in part-time courses to expand my conciousness (and indeed, marketability in the employment stakes) by signing up for a course in sewage pipe cleaning.

Come to think of it, there's a sense of desperation in Swindon. Perhaps that was always the case, but right now it feels like the Fall of Pompeii, as everyone runs around in ever decreasing spirals in a hedonistic rush to do something pleasurable before the money finally runs out. If I were honest, I'm just as guilty.

Rampant Rabbit Says Hi

"Boris!" He said as he went about his business in the stockroom. Good grief. Recognition. And all it took was a silly name on my back.

Happy Robot Says...

(*beep* *whirr*)

Thank you Happy Robot for that wonderful and illuminating message. My life is enriched by that wisdom. I hope yours is too. Alternatively learn to play guitar and enjoy those balmy evenings in semi-comatosed ecstasy.