This morning was for the first time in weeks a typical Swindon day. Uneven grey clouds obscure the sky and the ground is damp from the rain of the early hours. There's a distinct smell that arises at times like this, a sort of grassy odour amplified by wet vegetation.

The alleyway past the old college site remains as unloved as ever. It never ceases to amaze me where this rubbish comes from. On a regular basis piles of discarded clothes appear, crumpled and dirty, often with a soiled mttress left in the way of vehicular access. Further along th last remnants of a dead piano are rotting. Beside that, obstructing the cinder path that winds along the grassy tufts between the fences and brick walls either side, I see the remains of a bed. A tumble of rusty springs and broken wooden framing. With spring arriving, the verges of this path will soon be smothered by nettles, brambles, and horsetails, a sort of slum area for weeds to thrive.

A Tycoon Is Not Just For Christmas

I see in the news that the super-rich among us are getting wealthy again after the depradations of the recession. Unfortunately thanks to the connivances of the council and the Department of Work and Pensions, that doesn't include me, as I'm now engaged in a life or death struggle to prove I'm in receipt of Jobseekers Allowance and thus claim enough Housing Benefit to remain with a roof over my head. If you detect a small chip on my shoulder right now, be aware, it's becoming rather larger.

In fairness it may well be anonymous members of the public who feel it is their public duty to rat on dole cheats. For those not aware, a dole cheat is smeone who earns money for work and still claims the benefits for being unemployed. There's certainly plenty of them out there, I just wish the public would realise that not all dole claimants are drug using work shy political radicals with Save The Gay Whales Planet tee shirts and woolly hats. Very sorry I replaced my ailing keyboard with another but that money did come out of my savings you know - and incidentially, so did the money to purchase my poor old Eunos convertible, which languishes on an off-road notification permanently. It seems dole claimants are not allowed to enjoy life. We are, by definition, undesirables whose lives must become poverty stricken prison sentences so the working population can sleep safe in the beds in the knowledge they did the right thing.

Remember - A tycoon is not just for christmas.