Inevitable And Obvious
Entry posted by caldrail
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"Does anyone know anything about the Work Programme?" Asked the lady giving us our induction to what is a two year course aimed to return long term unemployed like me to the workplace.
Well there' been some horror stories circulating.
"Like what?"
That we will have to do 38 hours a week on our job searching.
"Oh no!" She chuckled, "That would be like a full time job wouldn't it?"
Exactly my thoughts. Well so far the programme seems very easy going, but I did hear hints that it could get much more stringent later. Sounds like we're bing eased gently into our New Model Army of Jobseekers. The square-bashing will pick up later. I wonder if we'll be issued uniforms? There's no point moaning. We're all in it now.
Who do you think that you're kidding Mr Manager
If you you think we're sat on bums
We are the boys who will make your staff look lame
We are the boys who will make you think again
So... Who do you think that you're kidding Mr Manager
If you think that job's not ours
Well what did you expect? A song from Dame Vera Lynn? There'll be bluebirds over, the local job centre, tomorrow, just you wait and see.... No. We'll search in the hills. And in the valleys. We'll apply on the beaches. We will never surrender. Wel we can't can we? Our money gets stopped if we do.
Quite A Thought
Thirty years. It never really occured to me before a feature documentary on television last night covered the last flight of the space shuttle Atlantis. There was one guy who's been fitting heat tiles to the shuttles for nearly all his working life.
Thirty years. I was barely out of school when they started firing up those oversize fireworks. I remember flipping through dozens of instrument panels in Space Shuttle Simulator and wondering what on earth all this stuff was about.
How long will it be before anything else so significant to our efforts to conquer space rises from the countless ideas mooted around? It was interesting that the head of shuttle flights said that a future space vehicle of this kind will need to simpler and more reliable. Our space rockets don't look much, but their complexity is mind boggling. So are the risks they're built to defy.
Famine? You Mean... That Famine?
Fifty years. That's almost how long parts of africa has been living off international aid. In other words, they've been on benefits since 1963. The UN are moving toward getting people to raise crops, sorgum for instance, a hardy wheat that grows in arid confitions. Africans can make porridge from it. Food handouts ae therefore being reduced.
Unfortunately for this brave new world the sorgum fields are afflicted with a disease that ruins the crops. Might be a while before this East African famine crisis gets resolved. And yet, despite this continual history of hardship in the area, we still see the media portraying it as if this was a disaster that happened yesterday. I guess it sounds more dramatic that way.
Not Just Amy Winehouse
Everyone who could get near the internet has already posted their thoughts and tributes so there's no point my adding to the huge response to her untimely death. Especially since I never listened to her music. My loss I guess. Well sadly she lost her health to such a degree that her body gave up on her. That said, it wasn't really all that shocking, was it? Hands up anyone who really didn't know in their heart that she was destined to be a tragic figure.
It's easy in these cases to get philosophical. To talk about how fragile life can be. How fleeting the human experience is. Some of the people I knew in the music business are no longer with us. Good people. Talented people. Who remembers them?
And As For Top Gear...
I made a bit of a criticism of last weeks program. No, not this time, last nights show was better. Who could possibly be dissatisified with a trio of seventies moustaches? Richard Hammond succeeding in looking debonair against all odds, James May looking like that middle manager who now has to go home and tell his wife he's been made redundant, and Jeremy Clarkson looking like he dates old women for cash. Brilliant.
But it gets better because I too had a moustache in the seventies. Yes. It's true. I am an Interceptor (cue title sequence).
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