I have moved in and am trying to find bookshelves, pans, chairs and all the things needed to fill an empty house. I also have to get a phone line and internet and sign on for work. Both are hideously complicated simply, as far as I can see, the people who set up these things had a sadistic delight in seeing grown men crying. Foxes all of them!
I write this in a local cafe, appropriately called Java. Oh, if only I could be writing in in a cafe called Newcastle under Lyme in Java!
Circumstances, bureaucracy, has forced me to go to the doctor who confidently diagnosed sciatica. A good vague diagnosis of half the symptoms. The other half, the chest pains, were actually the most painful and wearing as I could not lie down to sleep. But those did not really fit with sciatica so they did not seem to count.
I have the suspicion that if a doctor does well in the legs or liver exam exams then wherever possible the diagnosis will be a legs or liver problem and every effort will be made to avoid those lesser known and unfamiliar body parts.
Anyway, I am officially unfit for work over Christmas. So Psssssharrrrrp! - or similar noise - to you Santa!
Recently lot has been said about benefit fraud but trying to claim sickness/job-seekers I was struck by the fact that unless you are well off enough to have an accountant or spend most of your life obsessively counting pennies it is almost impossible to make an entirely truthful claim. Many of the questions demand Yes or No answers when the truth is something vague, a bit of this and a bit of that.
Those who design the system make scroungers out of good honest working folk.
I have been told that Alec Smart - well known on these pages - is working on a revolutionary new economic system that will set the world 'aright. So I set aside my plans to set it all alight... for now.
I have just met Brian, an old colleague, in the coffee bar. We gossiped a little about the dreadful state of the Library Service. It was rather depressing because Brian is an expert on local history as well as having something of an encyclopaedic knowledge or the arts and sciences and a perpetually cheerful personality. He was much loved by all the regular library users, but his knowledge actually seemed to counted against him, as did his age. He had the wrong 'image' for a 21st Cent 'Ideas Shop'* so was forced to leave. He told me that many of the older staff have been fired in order to save money, just weeks before they would have had to be given pension rights or redundancy. The inept and Philistine boss has, naturally, been promoted. To the position of Commissionaire. Brian said what everyone else was thinking,
"Does that mean she is in uniform and standing outside a hotel helping with the bags?'
That probably speeded his departure.
Selamat Hari Natal dan Tahun Baru pada Teman-temanku!
* Not that I am against changes to the Public Library System. I am just against idiot changes that are superficial and based largely on image and brand rather than content.