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 idea of what to do rush away upstairs to kick their IT slaves in the dungeon. Eventually normality is restored and we computer addicts get our daily fix.

Probably just as well. One chap I see regularly in the library is currently spinning himself round on the seat, just for something to do. He's unemployed too, a stumpy little guy who rarely says anything but giggles a lot. As if he wasn't dizzy enough already, his antics on the seat are only going to go horribly wrong sooner or later.

I suspect that's one reason why seats at the Job Centre are pretty much nailed down. Yesterday I saw one claimant, barely twenty years of age who was fidgeting and searching his seat like a two year old. He just couldn't keep still and eventually draped himself over the seat in a ridiculous manner out of boredom. Ten minutes is a long time to wait for dole claimants. The advisors don't seem too concerned. I guess they see this all the time.

That said, most of the claimants are more patient. There was a group sat in the seating area, safely herded into one spot where our claimherders could keep a watchful eye on our jolly japes, and I suddenly realised I'd been wrong. There was I, moaning that the Job Centre didn't support cultural diversity, but of course they do. Here were claimants of all shapes and sizes, colours and creeds, all sat together in a sort of depressive communal gripe against their keepers. That stumpy guy who liked revolving chairs? He looked at me quizzically and asked "Do you get paid more for that?"

Huh? More for what? Then the penny dropped. As a regular library-goer, he'd already spotted my title on the screen before I'd logged on to my previously reserved PC. More dole money for being a noble? Is he joking? It also makes a mockery of the Job Centre's worries about volatile behaviour over mixing different social classes. Relax. Everybody knows about it. But they still won't call me 'Lord' regardless of any requirement to be polite, and no, I don't get paid any more than anyone else.

Smart Move?

Bovine Betty was watching me this morning. The staff meeting was over and she had no claimants to shout at, and in any case, I was sat opposite from her desk. She wants me to sign on dressed in a shirt and tie. I know that because she shouted across the office the other day. Dress smartly to sign on? Good grief - anyone would think I was wealthy. And that, above all else, will make my daily visits more volatile.