After A While, It All Clicks Into Place

I watch a YouTube channel presented by a Barrister and it's pretty interesting stuff.  I've had years of claims and counter claims experience and a few scars to show for it.  What's refreshing is that after some months of not being right and feeling pretty miserable I needed this wake up call to realise that it is the way some people go about things and not me.

Here's the video and it's worth a watch and a like and subscribe - there are some very interesting things and not just only in this video. I certainly enjoy Dan's candour and I like to watch what the "legal take" is on some of the things you hear.

So, this video suddenly re-enforced the opinion that the recent pretty awful letter was indeed just that, a nasty tactic to get me disturbed and worrying about something that has had me annoyed, worried, losing sleep, analysing, strategic planning and more.  I should know better having faced this sort of nonsense most of my working life but, now, I'm not working (well I am but that's another story) I should be retired but some people want their cake and eat it and want you to make them more cake so they can have that too.  All the while they are just being plain nasty.

I finally stopped worrying about this disgusting letter I received and made my mind up that it was, as I had suspected, a ruse.  It actually now makes no sense whatsoever, it doesn't actually say what it wants resolved and it doesn't stop short of being abusive and almost threatening.  So watching this video really did clear up all of that for me.  

What I do not understand though is why the very first letter is an all out assault and not something stating what needed to be resolved.  Such a powerfully arrogant, nasty and downright insulting letter actually paints them into a corner, there's no possibility of discussion or mediation it's his way of the highway and that's it, they are cornered.  Why play all cards at once, stick the "frighteners" on and leave no way out for either party?  It seems a bad call to me.  There's now no nice, clean and agreeable way forward.

Anyway, glad I came across this video at this time.  

 

Distraction As A Technique To Getting On With It

 I am still seething about the way I was treated and I still don't know if it is over.  I am hoping that it will be and that it disappears or if it does raise its ugly head again it will be in the form of a grovelling apology.

I've put myself full on into building up the business marketing strategy and having tested this morning I can see we are pretty much there now.  Some hard work to do with the launch but it will just have to be hard work won't it?  The next thing is to tackle my anxiety and this shaking which is annoying and a little concerning.  I'm sure it is stress related to what's going on but I just need to monitor it and keep an eye on it.  I dislike it as I can see my hands tremble and that's not good.

I've got to try and get back on top of all of this and I am hoping that the business will prove successful and if it does, then some of the worry can go away.  Work is proving the distraction I need but of course that's related to the whole shenanigans going on too.  

Still I'm Not Feeling Great

 Without doubt the betrayal of trust and sheer vengeful nastiness aimed at me not only caught me off guard but still makes me feel quite sick even now I feel anxiety and stress caused by this awful hideous attack on me.

How anyone can go from being quite fair and reasonable to the diametric opposite is just beyond me, unless he's ill of course and then. perhaps, that might account for it.  If he isn't ill and this is his alter ego then it proves that you never really know someone.  However, how dare he do this and what on earth is he thinking after 9 years I've helped him try to achieve his dream.  He hasn't always been good listening to advice, hence we are somewhat delayed as I prediced if he followed his instincts.  You can't tell non business people what the impact of their decisions are going to be even if you tell them directly.  

I am pressing on and yet I feel the shadow of his presence hovering over me, willing me to make a mistake.  In clearing off he's left me with a business to try and run and he spent month and months doing nothing and now sends sniper shots!  Yes, makes me feel nauseous all the time about it but I hope that maybe when we go live, if we make some money we can move on from here.

I've just got to work through it I suppose.  IT's not nice though, not nice at all!

A Little Me Time Helps I Think

I say "me time" meaning that I was at my Lodge yesterday afternoon and met up with some old friends and it takes your mind off of everything really.  It helps to be thinking about other things and I was presenting a talk too so I was able to concentrate on something else for a change.  It's been months of trying to work out what to do and how to do it and having sh1t thrown at me to have to deal with.

But, here we are and I'm feeling better today than I have done for a while which can only be a good thing.  There's time off now for some months to get on top of things and then it will all satrt again in September.  

I am just going to soldier on for the moment and see where we get to with all of this.  I'm hopeful that things will start to get back to normal as I really can't see if there's any sh1t left in the pile to throw at me.  I really hope not I am far too old for it and it makes no sense.  Why are people like that?

Anyway, feeling better and hopefully things will settle down a bit now.

Should You Wish For Revenge? Let Karma Do Its Thing? Or Forgive?

 It is a difficult thing this because as I have grown older my wish for revenge (if that is the right word) has diminished, I may think it for a while and then I let it go and think that Karma will actually sort this all out.

I have to say that I am pretty livid about recent events because I suppose it isn't logical and generally, that's how I am excepting recently which my brain has decided that high anxiety is the permanent state 😃 and I find myself swept up between moments of outright anger and frustration, then a period of calmness, then reflection and yes even forgiveness for perhaps this person I have known might be ill or having some sort of breakdown or being controlled by other forces unbeknown to me?

In the bad old days I'd have plotted something for this chap that would have pulled the rug out from his feet and he'd be left bewildered as to what had happened and would not have connected it with me or his actions, it would have been something out of the blue, not physical but certainly something mentally shocking to them.  It's something you learn about when you are at work to protect yourself and your projects.  It's almost like a war or boxing strategy where you let them come on and think they are winning and then boom, they're not anymore.

So I actually feel sorry for this bloke rather than revengeful.  Perhaps Karma will level things down but at the moment I am still quite angry and upset about what he's done to me, it's made me anxious and nervous and a little worried as to what the hell he is going to get up to next.  Shouldn't worry about stuff that you have no control of of course, but you try telling my head that!

So Here We Are - Back To Earth Again

 It helps to write things down I find and so I wrote about the past few months and the treatment I've been receiving from someone who has leech like taken my time over the past nine years and then betrayed my trust in him.  Enormous trust too.  I like that they think that my contribution is worthless and that they can dictate what I am to do under threat that if I don't I'll be in trouble.

So, I wrote it down and looked at all the angles and I did a more thoughtful piece as I had done a angry rant a few days earlier.  I always used to write when angry and get it out of my system and actually it often threw up a few home truths to be used in responses.

So I worked on it and provided balanced views and ideas and actually it helped yet again to review a possible way out for him and me.  I was unsure about it all but the more I analyse it the more I come around to the view that what ever he may throw at me going forward can only be an unhinged response - there's nothing in the accusations to worry too much about I think.

So today I am a lot calmer than I have been and I am thinking more strategically in terms of what I can do about all of this.  The main thing is that I let it run its course now.  It has a life of its own and his attempts to derail it have come to nothing so far.  I can't do much about it anyway but at least I am nowhere near as stressed as I was earlier this week.

FFS Why Am I (Knowingly) Allowing This?

 I'm a reasonably smart cookie I like to think.  I used to work in a business that was at sometimes quite contractual and not particularly nice but "It was business" of course.  I know that people can be arseholes and I realise that they don't care about me but yet it affects me that somoene whom I've known for quite a while would turn on me.

Yesterday was really horrific, I felt dreadful and for why?  I don't know, the world closed in on me and didn't let me operate closing down my brain and my body.  It was a meltdown of sorts and I knew I should have done something but also knew that it would have been bad for me to do.

Having blitzed through that, working my way through and making myself be active rather than sit in a self induced sulk with the black cloud over my head I find myself back thinking about it all and it depends how I look at things as to how I feel about them.  I find that the thing that I cannot comprehend, the thing that isn't logical or makes any sort of sense is in fact the thing that is troubling me.  That is why.  Why pursue something in such a way as to play all your cards at once, to go "all in" and have no back stop, no trump card, no get out of jail free card?  Why would you do that?  I would always have a plan that had a back door in it or many avenues of extraction because you don't always win, because often the first attack is parried and so you have a strategy surely.

I cannot see what his strategy is.  It's a strange mixture of attacks from different angles but none of it is joined up, none of it is coherent, cohesive if you like.  The bottom line is that all these attacks and all these strange parables actually have no reflection or bearing on the reality of the situation.  Diametrically so, the arguments are as a result of their own actions some time ago and that's the strange thing.  If you took a calculated decision, some time ago and set that out and then acted on it, who's decision is it?  Who metaphorically pulled the trigger so to speak and for what purpose?  Once that action had been executed and put in place the reality slowly dawned that not only was it incorrect but it was also pretty terminal.

Now, I would have left myself an opening right there.  But oh no, rather than throw hands up and say my mistake, apologies, make up and move on.  They want to fight and make it my fault.  They are doing the Celebrity Lister shouting that it's someone else's fault.  

That's the thing isn't it, not just the betrayal in the first place, not that they've painted themselves into a corner, not big enough to own up to it, they explode with anger and resentment towards the very person who would have rescued them had they only humbled themselves and asked.  The bottom line here is it is affecting me really badly and yet I know that it shouldn't do that.  It's not my problem, it is firmly theirs but call me old fashioned if you like but it does affect me that they would choose to be like this when a phone call would have sorted this out all those months ago.  Not for want of trying on my side, they would put the phone down or just not answer.  

I must stop doing this to myself, it's all in my head and because it is (or was) a threat, it engages my INTJ brain to work out all the various paths this could take. 

What Is Wrong With Me?

 I'm back in the past again with my head.  This morning I was getting ready to go to a freind's funeral and checked the route and saw there was a lot of traffic and that there were delays of around 40 minutes it said.  Instead of planning a different route I suddenly came over all shaking and was at my claustrophobia worst, worried about getting there on time, being stuck in traffic, not being able to park and so on and the death spiral started so that I was just a mess.

What on earth was all that about?  I made my excuses and was going to go lie down in a darkened room for the rest of the day but my partner said that the best thing I could do would be to get out in the air, it's a lovely day and so I've spent hours in the garden sorting out her sunset bench and the fire-pit arrived a short while ago which sets it all off nicely.  

Of course, I've damaged my hands a bit strimming the lawn, mowing it, raking and so on, laying paving slabs and jet washing the bench.  It looks good and I feel that I have achieved something excepting my hands are in their arthritis gloves for a short while to help me recover them from all that lifting.  I do feel better, she's right but I couldn't have felt any worse frankly.

I hate that this stress and anxiety is being caused by someone who doesn't deserve to live rent free in my head.  The threat of something else happening to me, planned by him is not helping.

I have two meetings with friends on Friday and Saturday I hope that I am over this awful shaking and worry by then.  My hands have been shaking now for a few weeks not uncontrollably but visibly noticeable.

And Now I Am Angry

 So many emotions that I really don't need right now.  With all this stuff going on I find that now, today not only do I still feel a little sick (back of the throat nausea) but I am now very angry.  I've gone through the Kubler Ross cycle a few times LOL!

But here's the thing.  Wrongly accused, spitefully libelled and treated like something you stepped in isn't particularly nice after giving nothing but good vibes and being diligent etc.  I recollect that one thing I will not have done to me is to call my professionalism into question.  I once told a prospective employer to shove his job where the sun doesn't shine after he treated me as if I were some child at an interview.  Well the look on his and their faces when I told them that if they were going to treat me, a very senior engineer like a dickhead and some unruly youth and "keep an eye on me" then they could stick the job up their arses and f**k right off!  That shut them up and I picked up my stuff, walked out of the door and down to the reception area where the guy who had arranged the interview was sitting so I told him that he'd better go and see them as I'd told them where to get off.

It felt SO good.  What was funny was that my father and brother both knew these people and both said good, well done, they were all the sorts that were up their own arses.  I don't need sh1t like that.  And I don't but at the moment, I have some non-business type telling me how to run a business, what I should and shouldn't be doing and that's the least of it.  Well he can jolly well go and f**k off and when he gets there he can f**k off some more.  Not big enough to say it to my face and not clever enough to have presented the evidence to back it up, he can go and p1ss right off.

Oh I do like this, it's getting the anger out of my system.  I hate cowards and I hate idiots and I hate that they snipe at you from a safe place but haven't the guts and balls to face you.  Sometimes I hate humans for being so sh1tty.  

When You Think Things Through - It Falls Into Place.... Eventually

Choral Evensong at Rochester Cathedral yesterday was a good time to reflect on the past five or six months and to return home with a calmer, clearer mind.  

What it actually meant was I once again returned home, sat on my own and let my brain compute the various scenarios and work its way through, perhaps for one last time, where I am at and what can possibly happen now.  The result is that I have done exactly what I should have done given the horrific attack on me and that is to offer to meet and to work through the other party's problems.  They are only MY problems, if I let them be, for not one of the actions leading to this have been mine, none of the aggressive stance is mine either.  I returned a copy of a document that completely invalidates the assertions and diffuses the entirety of it.

Any interference, and he has tried to do that, has been firmly countered as he cannot conduct company business or do anything on behalf of the business as he does not have the authority to do so.  So, interestingly it boils down to that in many ways in that he is no longer a sleeping director, has no authority and no control which makes it interesting.

There's a last throw of the dice I think he may want to try but if he does he destroys everything, a nuclear option that may not be worth contesting, life is too short and I can't be bothered if he does that.

It is funny that these people value your worth as nothing but believe they hold the 'God Card' and their efforts are miraculous and omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent LOL.  On review, I can confirm that it is anything but and in fact it's been a drag on the business and still is really.

Anyway, I may be viewing the world in rose spectacles at the moment but I am pretty certain that the vast majority of the accusations can go away from whence they came and my peace offering remains on the table to be grasped or otherwise ignored.  

So, Is That It? Anymore To Come?

 Now, the limbo period where you wait to see if there are any further attacks incoming.  It's stressful but I suppose I ought to have the attitude that no news is good news but when you are dealing with irrational behaviour you never know what they'll get up to next?

Having dealt with the outright hostility by offering to sit down and discuss it, I hope I've defused some of the vitriol and vexatious accusations levelled at me.  I don't need this especially as it is unfounded and not of my making at all.

I suppose that in reality it has affected me quite deeply.  Betrayal does that but it isn't the first time and I suppose it wont be the last.  People who you think you knew turn on you or fade away never to be seen again.  I've spent time with all of them, been by their side through thick and thin, bailed them out (I really don't want to know quite how much money I'm owed - it is substantial) and invested my time with them only for them to just melt away and now I'm lucky if I hear from them once in every few years or maybe bump into them at weddings and funerals.  

It is disappointing and I suppose human nature to be so self centred and selfish.  I like the words from the Royal Family when they used the phrase "Recollections may vary" which is very much how it is at the moment excepting, I've got it in writing direct from the author and it's the trump card so to speak.  Having sent the copy of that back with my response it should make it all go away if you were sane and sensible that is.  If you are bordering on insanity and not being rational I am sure it is like a red rag to a Bull.  Let's see?

What I hate about this all is that it's not my actions, not my hurt feelings, not my ill thought through strategy and it's all unnecessary.  Just come and talk.  He won't though as he's worked himself up into a lather and it's personal.  It's not personal, it's business and that's the point, it's got nothing to do with business, it's all to do with ego, bruised as it may be, muddled thought processes, lack of understanding of the way things are done and a complete misunderstanding about how the business functions, how it makes money and the practicalities of running it day-to-day.

It's upsetting though that after a very long time working together, this has happened. Oh well, onward and upwards. 

FUD - Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt

 What are they going to do next?  It could apply to just about anything these days.  For me it is a case of exactly that, what are they going to do next?  When you are dealing with rational, logical people, you tend to have a good inkling what they will do next.  When dealing with irrational, hate filled emotional and off the rails types, then you wonder just what is coming your way.

I'm hoping that they are just going to go away but that depends on whether they have understood what their position is.  They've already made a painting into the corner move and that's the trouble, that in doing so, they've left themselves no room to manoeuvre or negotiate out of the problem they themselves have created.

Dealing with these types is dangerous as you just don't know what they are going to do as it is often illogical and so you cannot prepare for it.  It's like a fight in a Pub.  You don't know what is going to happen and there are often "afters" that impact the innocent.  If I see anything like that (it is rare these days) I'm out and gone before it kicks off.  At present it feels a bit like that.  I don't know if or when it is about to kick off, if indeed it ever will now.

Based on the previous behaviour it seems to me that I'm dealing with full illogical, revenge, vengeance anger.   There's no science in this, no logic, no particular reason.  He may be ill of course and that would perhaps explain it.  Like a cornered animal these are dangerous times for me.

I can't believe how badly this has affected me but I am much older now and I don't really need all the hassle.  When I was younger I'd thrive with this sort of conflict in a sort of gladiatorial manner.  I really don't feel that great and I find myself shaking sometimes.

As someone stated, "The process is the punishment" and so it proves to be.

Calming Down, Re-Focusing, Rational Thoughts etc

 Bloody hell, the last few weeks have been horrible and there's uncertainty and some trepidation that having kicked the problem into the long grass and hopefully disposed of it, the irrational accusations, for that's what they were, could easily raise their head again.

Such is the nature of people who set off without a preconceived plan of what they are trying to achieve continue to paint themselves into a corner and like a wounded animal it makes them desperate and dangerous.  If you conceive a plan where the outcome you want is the destruction of your fellow colleague and to grind him under your heel to dust and humiliate him then you'd better be right, you'd better have all the facts to hand and you'd better have an escape plan.  But, if you go all in through malice and vexatious intent then you will be blinded by your own anger and be unable to understand the complexities of the war (for that's what it is now) you are about to unleash.

There's no way out you see when you run a campaign on anger and without a clear strategy about what you want to achieve and how you are going to get there.  There is also the fact that you blindly believe in your case and your cause is just and perfect in your own judgement.  Heaven knows why it was felt necessary to go all in and then double down leaving no way out when the truth of the matter was demonstrated by their own hand!  Forgetting a key piece of evidence was folly and stupid and now that it is in full view, it destroys the whole reason for the min campaign.  There's no ability to retreat and there's no real chance to reconcile even though I have provided that avenue for you.  It's a big climb down and a huge loss of face but ignoring my entreaties over and over again will just add up to further painting yourself into a corner.

I imagine there's now a difficulty in having to deal with me after having abused and accused me of various things, professional stuff and that's one thing I have always maintained.  Thinking that I wouldn't have the documents to back up my position was another miscalculation on your half.  But I can see you not wanting to do the right thing and come and sit down at the table and discuss these things and retracting your falsehoods and attempting to restart.

Why do people do this?  Why do they make a rod for their own back and practice self immolation?  What on earth is the point of getting so angry (and so wrong) that you destroy all hope of reconciliation or retraction and leave yourself with a trail of destruction in your wake surely you must know that it can only lead to your own downfall?  I suppose not, people let their anger overrule their logical brain and sacrifice everything for nothing.  A shame after all these years but I cannot be my brother's keeper and I am unable to stop the little voice in his head taking him over and resulting in an outcome diametrically opposite of that which he probably felt he was going to achieve.  Sad but he has wounded me after all these years.  

I doubt I will trust anyone else in the future which is my take away damage. 

Another Shock To The System

 A Facebook posts announces the death of someone I know, not well but knew on first name terms and enjoyed his company and had a laugh with.  Shockingly he died this morning and it was announced as these things are these days on social media and it was a shock as he wasn't old and whilst he had a little ill heath he wasn't at death's door etc.  

Reading the comments I was then really shocked as someone else I knew better than this guy also died earlier this week and I hadn't heard anything about it until I read the comment.  He and I had a few interesting times up in London at various meetings and he was a special sort of character who appeared gruff and hard as nails on the outside but once you got used to his strange ways and his sense of humour you realised quite what an interesting and sharp witted man he was.

You never know do you?  It's like my friend who died in the early days of lock-down - only a young guy and I'd only been speaking to him a day or so before and gone, you never see them again do you?  It's sort of strange that you can be chatting to someone and you (and they) have no idea it will be the last time you'd interact with them and they'd be gone.

How strange it feels to write that they are no longer here and you'll not see them again.  Two in a week.  

Polling Day

It nearly didn't happen here as our Council leaders wanted to defer the vote.  I wrote complaining and got a good response from my councillors and a less than good response from the leader of the Council.  Taking away the democratic right to vote is a step too far but the way we are heading in this country at the moment.  A lot of people don't see anything wrong, many didn't know, so many don't care but these people are meant to be our servants and talk about power and pontificate over us.  Let's see if today, people who do care will demonstrate how much it really means to them.

I'm jumping the gun here but there needs to be a shaking of the ground and a reset - I have my local council wedded to climate change and carbon neutral but they don't tell you how much extra that costs.  We all know who pays and it's us, all the time.  Gone are the days when they looked after the local service for the residents.  They play party political games - watching their council meetings online is like watching playtime in a kindergarten. 

Let's see if people are awake and will vote to change things.  I'm not particularly upbeat as we've heard it all before and people don't always do what you'd expect.  It's a very sunny day here so maybe that will encourage voting.

Will the incumbents get a bloody nose?  You kind of hope so if only to get a good feel for the mood of the country.

Sometimes It Is An Ugly World

 My recent experiences bear this out as people often bite the hand that feeds them.  They don't appreciate the many things you have done for them, protected them and have sacrificed yourself for them.

Then they turn on you in different ways.  They exile themselves and disappear for years only to reappear when they want something.  They abuse you and make you feel bad and yet they are the ones who are displaying disgusting behaviour.  They make you feel bad about yourself so that they may feel good.

All my life I've been let down by people and many times they just don't get it or see it.  I am made to feel like I have failed or not done something and all the while, they are using my good side to their own benefit only to sh1t on me from a grand height when they are finished with me.

And so, I am left thinking that I should perhaps just give everyone the finger from now on and live my own life and they can all go to hell or wherever they are destined to be.  If you can't trust people you've looked after, sometimes for many years, to do the right thing even having led by your own example, what can you do?

It's the inevitable hurt whether in love, life or business that's difficult to deal with I find.  So I think that I've had enough of this now and I'll just withdraw from any attempt at helping people.  It just isn't worth it as they just let you down time after time.

The Seeds Of Doubt

 I hate this feeling that I am in the wrong and am at fault and yet I know that I'm not but it's just the thought of being attacked like this and in such a repellent manner by someone that you felt was truthful, that you mentored and worked alongside and whom you trusted and you were sure they trusted you.  For years and years I've supported them only for the most horrendous attack ad hominem on me, absolutely disgusting.  

You know what though?  Even though I realise that it is just that, an explosive outburst full or vitriol and hatred it has taken me aback and really upset me.  It's shocking and uncalled for and best of all, it doesn't reflect the situation at all. 

I am actually shaking writing this and I don't need it, it's ridiculous, out of character and just plain nasty of them.  Whether fuelled by their own inner pain body or some worm tongue - it is one of the most hateful things I have encountered and really has knocked me for six.

I must rise above it and be calm and patient, logical and factual whilst they go off into their fantasy world.  Yuck, what an evil thing to do.

I haven't felt this low for some time.  It's the betrayal and the quite evil way it is being done.  The bottom line is, I can just add this to the long list of people who've let me down and taken the hand of friendship only to pay it back with loss of contact or as in this case an attack on me loaded with such vitriol and malice that I wonder if they aren't seriously ill or have suffered some sort of breakdown.  

I'm laid low for the moment as it has shocked me to the core that, not for the first time, they have attacked me without atoning for their own actions.  One of those weird occasions when they take some self damaging set of actions and then after they've festered over it for a while blame their own actions on someone else, namely me in this case.  I just wish that I could snap out of this current malaise and move on but there's always the concern, fear perhaps that it will escalate as it already has done.  

Why, If We Are Capable Of Wondrous Things....

 Are we also capable of destruction, violence and the opposite of what we surely are here for?

I saw a 2,000 year old Roman ring on a website, intricately carved in reverse was a stone with a 3D bust on it.  It was a marvel.  Works of art, intricate jewellery and so on point to how amazing we are.  Watching the defacement of such things when people protest throws up a dilemma for these very people would be against that sort of thing.  BUT they're not.

People are very quick to accuse, threat and act in a manner which go against (I'd suggest) our nature.  You let them get away with it and it's an "order" to do it with more force or emphasis.  Why people think that this is acceptable is beyond me.  Yes, I can get angry but the last thing I'd consider doing is some mindless and random act of vandalism to get my point across.

I suppose I grew up in a country where if you accidentally dropped a sweet wrapper your parents treated it like a Capital offence and you were made to pick it up and deposit it in the waste bins that were in abundance back in the day.

Drive along the roads and you see rubbish thrown out of vehicles and cars, it's not just foreign lorries.  The sides of the road look awful in some places and some poor person has to risk their life to clear it up.  It's easy enough to take it with you and throw it in a bin that to do this.  The people that do it are the world's environmentalists and animal sanctuary supporters etc.

We need to go back to building amazing and beautiful things for everyone's benefit but I despair these days at the way we have sunk to a third world country, the pride has gone, the willingness to do it gone too, we are too busy looking at our handheld devices to notice what is happening and when the batteries run out maybe them we will take our eyes off of these and see the devastation on our own doorsteps.

Tackling Difficult Things

 These accounts are to use a phrase "Doing my head in!" for such what you would think is an easy things to do with subscriptions and the like it has a twist in the tail.  There were refunds and all sort going on that year and it is just a nightmare to allocate what goes where!  If it was a cash account it would be fine but the balance sheet method gives you a proper view of what is really going on.

With all the noise and distraction going on at the moment, it's made me procrastinate far more than I am used to, I've had my confidence really severely knocked too.  No matter how much you think you are working in the right way and doing the right thing every now and then something comes along to nudge you of course and make you doubt yourself.  It's been close to a month now that the impact of that has affected me.  I think I have done all my thinking and strategy work now and I am 90% comfortable that I have understood what is going on and how to combat it but FFS, I shouldn't have to, it's just people being ridiculous and unthinking.

So I am getting on to doing what I have to do, "Eating the Frog" - you always eat the ugliest one first as I recall.  I was always OK doing that when I worked for a living and now I am retired and getting older, I doubt those powers and my logical mind.  

Breakfast With A Friend

 He and I go back a very long way but were made closer as we both had Cancer at the same time.  As I was undergoing my operation, he was undergoing a similar Op.  We don't live far from each other and we met up as we recovered and talked (a lot) about our experiences and what we learned from it.  It was he that put me on to Eckhart Tolle and we subsequently went on the change the world (well we could have done) going on our Odyssey.  We collaborated together for a number of years, both leaving our jobs to do the right thing.

I'm an INTJ and so I have very few close friends and he's not one of them!  He's just a great guy, sound as a pound, level, straight and we very rarely get above a slight inflection on our voices.  We don't always agree but we listen to each other's points of view and do our research and that's great.

There's a great place for Breakfast locally, a little expensive but good quality, nice service and today, I even had a beer afterwards rather than a coffee.  He listened to my woes and I his and we concluded that the world has probably gone to hell in a handcart and how everything these days is ugly and angry.

We get trapped into things too, things that weren't part of our own plan but stuff you are doing for somebody else because you are a nice human being.  Then you get shafted for it.  It truly makes me want to just drop absolutely everything and go away somewhere near the sea, with my music, books and that's about it really.  It would be bliss but you've all the other calls on your time which preclude you from doing the things you love or want to do.

I think that the note to myself is to work hard this year on what do I want out of life?  I can say that the present isn't impressing me greatly and I lurch from one bad actor to another and I just want out of it.  Would like to tell these hangers on to just F right off.  It's easier said than done of course, or else I'd have done it ages ago.

Happy Easter to all.   

Tackling Stuff - Getting There

 I am getting there gradually and managed to actually do what I said I was going to do and I am now tackling the second thing that I HAVE TO DO.  It is really hard as it easier not to do it.  Easy to say well it's the bank holiday weekend and I'll start it again on Tuesday but in reality I need to do it now.  The first thing I had to do was unpleasant and a real "eat the frog" thing to do.  It means cutting off a relationship and I have mixed emotions about doing it.  I don't like it, it really isn't what I would have chosen to do but now, after many years, I need to sever ties and walk away from it.   So that's what I've done.  If you know me, you'll realise that I don't like not fulfilling my duties and obligations but I've been provoked into doing this.

The worry is that I am concerned for them but at the same time they are showing me no respect or concern so it's a one way street.  Soon to be ended I hope forever.

You sometimes need to just give up on these things I suppose, it's no good trying to think and do the best for people when they are sh1tting on you from a high altitude! It's ungrateful behaviour and it's not acceptable. 

So that's that.  Next is to get a grip of these accounts :-) Urgh I hate accounts but I have to do them so I'm going to pinch my nose and work through them.

Long Exhale - Phew!

 Well that was good apart from having to pay more for my car park than I needed.  You never know do you?  So one look at my teeth and gums and a quick poke around and Hygienist was most impressed with progress and no need for all the scraping and poking around inside between teeth and gums.  A good clean up and polish and I was on my way.  Come back in 9 months unless things get worse.

So I now know what I need to do to keep up the good work and I have to say, the Hydrogen Peroxide mouth washing has done its thing along with the other interventions and so both Dentist and Hygienist are happy with progress

Mind you my teeth ache a bit from being bashed around and scraped and all that good stuff.

Hurrah!

Not Looking Forward To Today

 Does anyone actually like the Dentist visits?  Mind you it was good news last week and I don't have to go back until 2026!  However, today is Hygienist visit and I am certainly not looking forward to it as it sounded like they were going to do a lot of work.  

What I have done to mitigate how much they have to do is called on my old friend H202 (I think), Hydrogen Peroxide, Coconut Oil Pulling, Salt Washes and Xylitol Gum to see if I can minimise the amount of work they identified in January.  I hope so but let's wait and see.   I've called off an appointment tonight in case I am numbed up too much.

In other news, the roofer man is coming to fit cowls to the chimneys pots which should prevent a recurrence of the Jackdaw down the chimney event! 

As for procrastination - I am determined to try and sort that out. It's something that is debilitating it in it's own way and just needs tackling.

Procrastination Or Should I Put Off This Post Until Tomorrow

 So annoying, so annoying is procrastination.  It comes at me in waves and sometimes I used to kid myself that I was building up stress pressure to make me do something.  It's a bit "Eat the frog" as we used to say.  I have stuff to do and it just sits here staring at me and before I know it, it's late afternoon and I head off out with nothing done of any significance.

It doesn't help with the craziness going on with all these threats and unpleasantness which I really don't need at all and that makes me tetchy too.  I don't mean to be sharp with my responses but I do find people these days appear to want to be told what to do or have questions answered or generally be looked after and so I sometimes get a bit one word answer mode and also my sarcasm superpower goes full superhero and I find my attitude whilst 100% accurate hasn't been tempered with what little diplomacy I own.

So I am annoyed with myself as much as anything and I don't like getting old as I no longer have the Rhinoceros hide that protected me through my working life.  I don't need all of this, it's unwanted and I'm lumbered with it.  I just want to actually enjoy my retirement, perhaps that's it.  You end up in situations you never planned and your reward is to get castigated by others for something you never wanted, never wished for and would happily get rid of.  Maybe that's what I really needed to do (if I wasn't so deeply involved and embroiled) walk away and let some other schmuck take it over.

Kubler Ross Revisted

 I am revisiting this as I am beginning to recognise the signs that I am in this loop once again.  I'm too bloody old for all this sh1t and some people just go way beyond what is acceptable behaviour.  Also some people enjoy the flogging of a dead horse too.  They have no idea what their crazy little world view makes them do.  They have utter belief that they are right and they have convinced themselves that logic is on their side.  Viewed from any other angle, you'd say it's the opposite.

So here it is in all it's glory.  I'm at Anger now and I'll have to see where I am going with this.  I'm meeting a friend on Friday and I'll get a bounce off of him as he's pretty stable and I trust him, unlike the other chap.  Over a decade I've known this chap and suddenly he's turned into a monster, lost his logic and his moral compass all at the same time.  

Anyway, it's annoying because I've gone past shock and straight to anger.  I don't need to be angry, I need to have a steady head and be calm.  On that front, so far so good.

Disappointing Betrayal Again

 I used to have a poster above my desk of a cartoon mouse (I think it might have been a person) with a screw right through their middle attached to a wall.  It said something along the lines of "Be kind, good and gentle to others and you will obtain your just rewards"  

Once again, in life I have gone out of my way to help someone, for over a decade I have helped and guided this person and my reward?  You guessed it, they've made some sort of decision themselves that has backfired and...... it's my fault!!!  Quite how this logic and powers of deduction led their decision to have been in anyway involving me I don't know so they've gone off the deep end and accused me of all sorts of stuff and yet if they'd have spoken to me I could have given balanced reasons why they should probably not have made a hasty and ill thought through decision to their detriment.  Having not sought my advice or consulted me they then go on to do the most illogical thing and realise too late that it cannot be undone.

As I say, not the first time in my life.  Three others when I was younger were looked after as my own, I spent time with them, helped schooling, college and university, became a father figure and was parent taxi to them.  I barely hear a word from them now.  The amount of support I've given to various people including monetary support goes un-repaid.  Minds, like my wallet are empty and forgetful when needed.

I'm getting too old to give my time to these people anymore, I will help anyone but now I feel that I'm getting metaphorically "screwed to the wall" when I freely offer to help.

It feels wrong but I have to withdraw helping others out to my detriment if all they do is forget all the help you've given them.  They try and make you feel bad and stupid me, I do.  It worries me that they've done stuff to themselves and want to victimise me for their own actions.

Smashed It

 After my note about the Who Dunnit yesterday I am pleased to say that by 10 minutes in I had worked out who it was and how they did it.  Dead Goldfish was a giveaway :-)

In other news I am still quite stressed out by recent events that I cannot mention at the moment but it's annoying that people can be so awful.  Those who you help out and look after turn into monsters and betray you.  I've always been helpful to others and this is the reward, you get stabbed in the back.  I think I am too old for this now though.  I used to be able to take it in my stride but this is beyond the pale and it just erodes your trust in people and I've noticed it more and more.  People just don't know how to behave these days and courtesy and gratitude, please and thank you, kindness and politeness are, like our society, being ground into the dust.

I don't know what it is that makes people believe they can act like this but it isn't honourable and getting a metaphorical kick in teeth for all your help and assistance really hurts.

Lesson learned I guess!

Who Dunnit!

 I don't know if there are subtle clues in these detective series but 9 tomes out of 10 I tend to guess quite early on who dunnit!

I don't watch too much TV these days but there are a couple of programmes I like to watch that don't take too much thinking and a few things like University Challenge and Only Connect when occasionally I amaze myself by what I know and also bristle when the teams don't know the answer. However, pride before a fall, often kicks in when I don't know the formula for unobtainium or some such :-)

These light detective stories are generally easy to solve as it is the least obvious character (at the beginning) and so far I am spot on with these.  I think the more you watch them the more obvious the formula is and strangely the easier it is to work out the perpetrator.

In other news, the sun is shining although it is quite chilly at the moment.  Two seasons in one day.  It used to catch me out when I'd leave at around 5:00 to go to work in a big overcoat and by the evening I'd be sweltering and carrying said overcoat home :-) such is the UK weather and why we always speak about it.

Stress - I Really Don't Need It

 Who does?  It's not really needed and I am far too old to have to deal with it but, there you go, deal with I must.

Why people are so difficult, illogical and vengeful, even though they bring these things on themselves I have yet to fathom.  Their actions are now apparently my problem to deal with.

Oh well, it will be what it will be but it's just a trivial waste of my time and energy.  

The bottom line is I should be retired and not having to deal with all of this, but I am!  

That's A Relief

 A visit to the Dentist and an all clear and see me in 9 months time (2026) which I'm most pleased about and also the slight gum problems I had are all gone.  I'm impressed she can remember that far back but there you go.  So I am hopeful that all the work I've been doing has paid off and that next week's visit to the Hygienist will not be as traumatic as I am expecting from my last visit there.  Fingers crossed for that.

Growing Anger - Is It Just Me?

 There's a growing anger in this country, one that stems from ongoing lies and deceptions and a populace that has seen things decline and get worse as we reach the bottom and continue to dig.  Injustice seems rife and the entitled are slowly realising that they cannot ride roughshod over us.   Everyone in the country has faced massive increases in costs and its starting to bite that these people don't give a flying F about us.  They rode in with huge statements about freezing this and that and the bottom line is that prices for us all and taxes have gone up appallingly.

I think my household bills are near double since 2020 and it's unsustainable and do they do anything to tackle and manage it?  No they blame someone who left them with..... <insert excuse here>  When I was in business and having to sort out other's sh1t it was down to me, I could perhaps get a few weeks or months grace if it was screwed previously but I had the power and authority to change it and that's what I did. These guys don't get that - yet!

Anyway, the more people I speak to the more they hate what's going on.  The UK people are patient and generally pragmatic people but they really do seem to have had enough.  You can feel it and hear it now. 

It Seems I Am Always Moaning About Something Or Other

 Stuff that boils my p1ss - why are people so horrible these days/I don't know the answer but the Lock-downs have a lot to answer for and expectations versus outcomes also appear to me to be an issue with people.   A lot of people haven't been told NO and so when they are presented with stuff they don't like they throw a paddy or a tantrum, lobbing all their toys out of the window.

And, what's with the double standards too.  People are happy to dish it out but give some back and they go into full melt down?  You can probably tell that I hate fools and deliberately stoopid people along with those deliberately pretending to be naive when they are anything but.  Yes these people really annoy the hell out of me as they aren't clever enough to get away with it and they rely on your innate goodwill to get away with their manipulation techniques.

I still enjoy the "never interrupt an enemy when they are making a mistake" phrase as it is all you need to catch out a liar or a badly thought through ploy.  Just let them go on for long enough and they grind themselves to a halt or forget up to what lie they are living in and ultimately they betray themselves and destroy their own fantasy.

So, yes, I am moaning about all these people, I wish they'd just go away and leave me alone.  I wish they'd treat me as they'd want me to treat them but oh no, they cannot do that as they are always right and in their minds I am wrong.  They insult my intelligence and defeat their own arguments as they convolute their narrative to fit their fantasy.  If they'd all just f*** off everything would be fine.  

Definitely Dark TImes

 I think that we should be worried about the way things are going.  I've often said it but today we appear to have gone soft on the things that should be important and hard on the things that should not be.  You can get a visit from the thought police for posting hurty words online yet they are reducing police numbers in areas where, in reality, they should be boosting them.  A number of ex Police friends lost their jobs some time ago now and they were happy to be paid off, let's face it, it's not always Dixon of Dock Green, when they took out a layer of experienced Officers.  Of course some were taken back under contract but hey.

The "Trump Tariffs" have made markets jittery and I can see why he's done it.  It's a world-wide economic gamble and our Rachel from Accounts didn't see it coming....again!  I'm shaking my head again wondering why we cannot see beyond the Friday of the week we are in.  There is no long terms strategic planning at all.  It's crazy that we are about to shoot ourselves in the foot yet again when the foot we shot last week hasn't really begun healing up!

So, how about our Canal system.  I imagine very lightly used as a means of transporting goods but there is a little commercial traffic on them.  Thousands of miles of Canals, Tow Paths, Locks winding their way through beautiful countryside (in the main) and big cities too.  So they want all boats to be, wait for it, electric, not to have log burners blah blah.  Somehow they are going to need to put infrastructure by the sides of the Canals and in the Marinas.  Being a trained electrician, I ought to warn people that the old mantra we used was "Water and Electricity do not mix"  So the dangers are electricity close to water now I know you can hook ups in Marinas but the joy of canal boating is that you poodle along at 4 mph maximum and that you have the bump bump bump of a diesel engine under you.  I imagine that electric would make it quieter, we have a local electric boat which is whisper quiet.  You wouldn't need a Tesla type arrangement as the water would provide you o glide through but who pays for the conversions and who pays for the infrastructure, how do ensure complete safety of the charging?

The other "Look at how stupid I am" was that they want to reduce the size of petrol and diesel tanks on cars to 20 gallons and then to 10 gallons.  These people are absolutely crazy - what does that achieve?  These days it's like a class of ten year old children have been asked to come up with energy saving ideas and their class project is to demonstrate how they'd save energy.  The trouble is, these fanciful ideas further oppress people who are already made poorer and struggle on day to day living costs because of Venezuelan style policies.  Once one of the richest countries in the world you can do some research on what's happened since they adopted socialism.

I don't know how long it will take to impact people but I feel a growing resentment coming, even among my friends that are shall we say left leaning.  Time will of course tell and these mistaken ideological policies will, as they always have, lead to the very people they are meant to help being the victims of the very well intentioned but worthless policies our naive elected politicians think are so clever and helpful.  As they will inevitably end falling flat on their faces we can only hope that, as they are always saying "Lessons will be learned" are uttered as their faces hit the mud.

A Few Days Away - Just What Was Needed

 Well that was good.  A few days away, some sunshine (but a bitterly chilly wind). A Nice Hotel and a visit to a few places, sun, sea, air, all  is good.

Have some cr@p going down here which I need to sort out which is disturbing and a little worrying but, some time to think this through and I think I can now handle that too.

Nice to have good weather and to start to get things sorted, apart from my bloody gates - they've got a mind of their own at the moment and I have no idea what they are doing or why they are doing it.  I'll have to go through my troubleshooting routine to sort it out.  

I do find that "people" act strange and do crazy things, not well thought through and completely missing the point and completely at odds with reality.  Perhaps it's just me but I find people who tackle problems by menace and threat miss the target.  A person who's only tool is a hammer treats every issue as a nail!  So, applying logic and thought would have removed their anger issues and now having blasted their point out and painted themselves into a corner, they have no escape route nor plan after their actions.  Crazy attitude. 

Fantasy Land

 La La Land isn't it?  In a world where I am happy that you can be what you want to be, don't you find it strange that those whom I have no interest in and I am happy for them to do what they want, be what they want to be, etc etc don't actually really want that.  No they want me to go along with their fantasies whatever they may and to my detriment not theirs.

The general public that makes up let's say 98% don't seem to worry as little by little their voices get eroded so that we can accommodate other's.  I think we all originally thought that we should let people be what they want to be etc but the tail wags the dog in this country and stuff that never needed to be said may soon have to be.  

Anyway, these fantasists really need to get a grip because they've been pushing it for a long time now and I wonder if patience is going to eventually run out?  The give an inch, take a mile sort of attitude is one that will inevitably lead to a pulling up short.

I wonder if people ever think about the way they portray themselves and the way that they try and push their views onto others because it has got to a sort of turning point now where many people are fed up of having to walk on eggshells around their fellow citizens, where a word you use in common parlance suddenly has a different meaning and someone gets offended.  It's got to stop and the trouble is it's all been held in, contained inside and I worry that it will boil over at some point.  Worryingly, we aren't allowed to talk about it openly for fear of being branded as <insert hurty words here> that has got to brew over time and needs a vent.

I suppose the only thing to do is to watch it happen and then say "I told you so"

Do People Actually Think Before They Act Anymore?

 I wonder whether people actually think before they act at all?  Some make the most curious decisions and make the most inappropriate suggestions.  They then double down on a decision that will actually end in their own embarrassment or to their own detriment as they haven't considered any other position other than their own.

What I always enjoyed when I was at work 20 years or so ago was how someone would purse a course that was vainglorious, predicated on their own world view of the situation and their belief in the "justice" and right of their position.  Often the action were not the correct ones and furthermore they had ignored advice, fired a letter off before reflection or perhaps had reflected on it but ignored the obvious flaws of their argument.  It happens, you are convinced that your truth is the only way of looking at something.

In cases like this it was always a good strategy to take your time to analyse what they were trying to achieve by their actions and work out what you were going to do about it.  Seeking clarification sometimes works to reflect back the errors of their argument but not to provide them with any ammunition to solve the problem or have it used against you.  

I think it is Sun Tzu or Bonaparte who said something like "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" and for good reason.  Your position is made far stronger as they make mistakes, they cannot support their allegations, their arguments fall apart on cross examination. Never give up your own high ground, have all the answers, the documents and evidence to hand and know what you are going to do but don't let on. 

I find it particularly strange that they don't give up and potentially you can destroy their arguments time after time.  

For me it's such a waste of time and energy defending but if you know how they are thinking and what "Gotchas" they might have planned you can easily run rings around them and deliver the coup de grâce and yet still some fight on for some reason, vanity, too thick to realise their case has been destroyed very often by their own attitude and ineptitude too. 

I suppose we have to put up with this pathetic, ill advised, unthinking nonsense.  One of my favourite sayings I used to use a lot in meetings after fending off another ill thought through attack from these was to get the decision in my favour and ask the now failed opponent - looking seriously at them as they realised their case was dismissed "Don't you ever get tired of being wrong?"  If nothing else it made ME feel better after all the grief they had fired at me.  

Why Do People Act Like Complete Dictators

 Can't say what's happening at the moment but I have to question what the hell goes through people's minds?   I've got enough trouble as it is going on which I don't need and should not have to deal with without getting another crazy giving me a hard time which just eats into my time and into my schedule.

I cannot understand why someone who I have known for some time has turned into the Dark Lord of Mordor?  But there you go, I have to deal with this complete nonsense and waste more time and effort on it that it truly deserves.  

People - I'll never comprehend stupid decisions, making things more complicated and the like.

Ho hum. 

And the Chair Is Repaired Again

 Antique chairs hold many repairs and bumps, scratches, patina, patches and now my glued efforts.  So I'll leave it for 24 hours and hopefully that will fix it but I'm not confident as the wood felt very light and dried out to me but hey ho we kept these and sold mine!

It's the Spring Statement apparently - mini budget more like. As predicted it's everyone else's fault not our esteemed Chancellor.  The socialist experiment is collapsing and accelerating as we go.  Someone said some time ago that "you can't Tax your way out of the financial hole you are in" and this is so and perhaps will prove to be such,  When you are working from an ideological point of view and not an economic one you soon find your nose bloodied and blink wondering where that blow arrived from.

We pay the highest energy costs (electric) in the world.  We've gone all in on some stooopid promise that the faster we get to Net Zero the better off we will be.  At times like this I then like to remind myself of the following:

One million seconds is 11 Days.
One billion seconds is 31 Years.
One trillion seconds is 31 thousand, 710 years.

We bandy Billions and Trillions around without really thinking what these represent.  If just we were to go to Net Zero the expected costs are around £3 to £4 trillion.  

Socialism seems to promise great things but I do not know of one place where it has truly worked.  To make it work you need to oppress the masses and that's started here now and I'm hoping the whole thing crashes around them and that we won't go too far in blaming the population for it, it will be of their own making.

They are correcting things and in doing so making it worse.  If you only address the symptoms and not the root cause it will always be so.  Back to my days in business and not tackling the failures with a box of band aid and some iodine cream but getting to the root cause most often bad management and bad direction.  It was often the case that the way they managed brought out the opposite behaviour in their staff that they wanted.  These course corrections incoming start to swing the vehicle until it gets out of control and crashes.

I see some placards in the demonstrator's hands saying "Tax the Rich don't reduce our benefits".  The problem is that "the Rich" are no longer in this country.  As they are rich and are generally mobile you need to go and track them down to <enter favoured tax haven here> because they are unable to work in this country for fear of being punished and having their money taken from them.  If I were in that bracket, I think I'd be looking to do that.

I think we are mortally wounded financially and blaming Trump, Putin etc etc doesn't actually fix things it kicks the can down the road and as I've often said, you now own the problem and you have to get out of it.  I used to be thrown into the brown and smelly stuff all the time and had to make the best of it.  Very occasionally I'd have to tell management that it wasn't able to be fixed and they'd need to shut it down or get rid of it or whatever.  If you could rescue a situation then you'd have to demand the power and the authority needed to go and do it.  Once you had that, you could go and implement you plan and bring things back under control.  No excuses, no procrastination, no pampering to the Nay Sayers, just get in there and fix it.  Of course there'd be collateral damage but in the long term there would be benefit but potentially a lot of pain to get there.

If only our politicians had spines and brains.  They are downright dangerous unsupervised as they are at present. 

The Race To The Bottom

 We are on our way and when we get to the bottom we are going to dig to go further.  I was reading a report about my favourite pet peeve subject.  Climate Change and CO2 reduction blah blah blah etc ad infinitum.

It was about how the whole world is connected and how in general terms what ever we do in this country doesn't change a thing except make us poorer.  If no one else is doing what we are doing we are wilfully destroying our country in pursuit of the unreachable.  We contribute less than 1% and if CO2 was actually the temperature knob then it is barely noticeable almost trace background.  One good volcano and all your work is gone.  I like that people think that any benefit would only work here, in the UK!  The 99.1% from the rest of the world needs to do something?

So a bit like cleaner air zones.  It's flawed because like earlier this week Saharan dust was again present around the country and paying £12.50 for a car in a clean air zone did sweet fanny Adams to make it clean.  I recall a lamp post with a sign on in Lewisham (A South East London suburb) that said a Nuclear Free Zone.  Which was impressive, I imagine the war hungry nuclear powers making their bombs drop in the neighbouring borough so as to comply and not damage it!

There's this strange lack of understanding about science and how people grasp facts and figures too.  It is as if they think that things only exist within a country's borders.  They don't seem to appreciate that we can't change the temperature only in our own country, it doesn't work like that.  A bit like me proposing that double glazing window units be filled with CO2.  If it's that powerful then it should be able to assist heating your home right? (I know it doesn't) but that's the fragility of the argument surely?  CO2 is heavier than Oxygen and Nitrogen so unless it gets stirred around a lot can it really be higher up in the atmosphere to heat up etc.  I am over simplifying it for sure but the impact on our lives of doubling or tripling our energy bills and taxing us at the highest since WW2 is only destroying our way of life and no one seems to be looking elsewhere whilst we punish ourselves with this self harm.  We are all but in recession.  Rachel from Accounts will say and do something tomorrow apparently.

Our economy is getting smashed at the altar of the golden idols of public services and climate change and now talk of war again.  Does no one learn from the past, are we going to repeat the failures of the past which are well documented and available to see?  

I like that Pensioners like myself are potentially to be means tested for our pensions.  Something I have paid into the system for over 50 years!  These clowns are now looking at the private pension that I also put aside and wanting to do something about it?  They already tax it and want more.  Thieving bastards the lot of them.

The whole lot of them are pathetic and are just spunking money away on virtue signalling causes.  If they stopped and thought about it, they could make the country great again with a few subtle changes but no, they cannot think outside of the ideology and their blinkered philistine pig ignorance.  They should consider what the Laffer Curve is and think about the resistance that will come about by more un-audited, unhinged, crazy, no ROI analysed spending. It's a shame to see it all collapsing at the hands of these amateurs but maybe that's what is needed to jerk the country back onto the straight and narrow.

Antique Chair NOT Repaired It Seems

 A bit strange I have to say, the glue I've used on many other things just didn't seem to set and so this morning I've been left with a mess of old glue and part of the chair not glued up.  Perhaps the frost got to it or it's seen better days.  I suppose the last time I used it was about a year ago.

It just adds to my list of failures this past year.   Yet again, the driveway gates aren't quite opening up properly - some limit switch gremlin by the looks of it.  I can fix it but it is so fiddly and quirky.  Oh well, it's just the way it is I suppose.  I don't recall being bad at DIY in the past but recently everything I touch turns to poo!

Add to that I woke up deaf in my left ear and today is turning out to be a bit miserable.  I imagine it is a sinus issue and so I will attempt to sort that out too.

A few days away might fix things.  Anyway, I am out for a meeting tonight and hope that will cheer me up a bit.  Something needs to.  I am feeling pretty cheesed off.  Plus a friend died yesterday and I am "getting that age" where it appears to be happening more often.

I also have the "joy" of going to the Dentist and Hygienist in a few weeks and on this occasion I am not overly looking forward to it. I hate being pulled about and I know my Hygienist will be making my mouth bleed again! 

I'm a bit concerned that I am slipping back into a bit of a depression.  Hope that the sun comes along to cheer things up. 

Antique Chair Repaired

 Apparently it was a Jackdaw that came down our chimney!  Huge thing!

I managed to really hurt my hand as I tried to help myself up resting on a chair back.  I also managed to break the chair.  Today I have been repairing it and I don't mind but the constant attention and fussing I can do without especially as I am using very sharp chisels and knives in an attempt to take off decades of glued repairs.  The chair was pretty badly split too so I've tried to repair that as well.  I'm not hopeful but we shall see if my very strong glue has done its best.

As I said yesterday, it seems to be never ending and in repairing one chair I've found another that needs attention.  In fact they all do as they are very old and the joints are dried and cracked - much like myself!

I am still having real problems with motivation and getting things done.  It's a constant struggle for me these days.  At least the App is in late testing so that's something but yet again there's some weird change in the development that could set me back again!  It's ever easy is it?

I am annoyed just how much weight I've put on and I know I've been eating all the wrong things.  It's just difficult to keep discipline.  I need to get stuck in but I have meetings to go to and all that and it's just difficult not to hit too many carbs etc.  At least the spring blossom and greenery are beginning to lift my mood so I hope that I will start to lighten my dark mood.

Painting the Forth Bridge

 The expression "Painting the Forth Bridge" is a British idiom meaning a never-ending task, stemming from the fact that the Forth Bridge's original paint technology required continuous repainting, but now, with modern paints, it only needs repainting every 20-25 years. 

So once again, I've had to fix my driveway gates.  One of the posts suffered a lot during the gales and is ever so slightly loose in the ground.  I'd fixed that by driving metal stakes into the ground and also by tying back to a local tree and using a system of small pulleys.  Anyway, it's worked OK for a few months (the cold weather also affects the wood) and I've just had to go and put a new stake in as I can see where there was a gap through the recent high winds.  So that's fixed..... For Now!

Down the week I had to fix one of the WCs which had started to leak but instead of an easy fix I had to buy all new components and fix it.  Then the auto cupboard light needed fixing too!  The light fitting was fixed on and so the heat was ridiculous so I also changed the lamp for an LED one too.

Blow me down if yesterday, my partner said she could hear scratching from the chimney!  Yes there was scratching and I could work out roughly where so I opened the windows and doors blackened one half the room with the curtains and took out the baffle plate in the log fire and left the door open.  You then need to shine a light upwards (it's not the first time this has happened).  All that happened was the bird pooped on my torch!

Giving it an hour we realised that we may need to help things along so I started to undo the inspection hatch but I'm old and not as slim as I used to be so partner's son came over and loosened the screws.  Still nothing, we could hear it but nothing so I once again shone my working light up the hole.  I also started to cook some food thinking the smell might help.

I was suddenly aware of a dark shape coming out of the darkened area of the room (we have a doubled sided chimney).  Then on one of our ceiling rafters we saw.....  A huge Crow.  It flew across to another rafter/beam and then shot out of the window!  Greeting all his Avian friends in a chorus in the field at the back! 

I've managed to partially put back the inspection cover and baffle plate but will need the long tall assistance to put the rest back!  

So that's my week.  How has yours been? 

Another Funeral To Go To

 I dislike funerals and have never really got on with them fully.  I am not sure why but I didn't like graveyards as a child and had an over active imagination.  I was singing at Rye Church and we stopped the Church clock from ticking and the huge pendulum which was putting us off our A cappella singing of Faure's Requiem in Latin.  Just before we started and were getting changed into our Choir Cassocks and Ruffs there was a massive Thunder and Lightning storm and the rain lashed down.  Opening the door I always remember the rain had pooled around the grave opposite the door and the water was bubbling.  My nine year old mind was well and truly disturbed.

 I always remember my mother and I going to the graveyard where her father was buried and a gravestone fell over and hit her leg!  So I never liked them.  My mother always said that "They can't hurt you, they're all dead!"  Tell that to her bruised leg I thought.

And to this day, I never quite feel right at these things, so much so that I am thinking of getting an unattended funeral/cremation for myself.  My mother has arrangements to do that and I need to check whether anyone objects to it in my close family.  I think they may want to do something and it won't actually matter to me what they do really.  So in the course of writing this I may be changing my mind and seeing what others want to do.

Today, a member of my Lodge, I don't know how many of us will be there in total, definitely two from our Lodge will be there.  Then afterwards to a pub I haven't been to for about 40 years or more maybe.  It was always a nightmare drive to get to down very narrow country lanes but since they built the M25 access has been made a lot easier by the looks of it and just a few hundred yards off of a roundabout! 

Quite often you find out things about someone you never knew but that's not helping the fact that I dislike funerals.  I think it is probably mortality thoughts that affect me.  Having seen that prospect and being reminded of it quite often, it's probably that.

Anyway, being there, despite my dislike is the thing.  But how is this, I knew him and I know his wife but I have never met his children until today.  So that in itself is strange I often feel.  I don't think that is always common in these situations but you feel you know someone quite well and yet perhaps not that well at all , you were only part of the person's life story. 

 

Why All This War Mongering?

 Why, knowing what we all know about wars and the like are we even contemplating this?  Sure have a defence policy and decide what you want to do and then do it but, whoa big fella (that's our PM) why are you being the big kid and talking up feet on the ground and all that good stuff.  Didn't we used to have United Nations troops for this sort of thing?  You know, neutrals not NATOs?  Maybe I'm being simplistic here but all most of our European countries have done is fight a proxy war with the lives of another country and prolonged the agony and consequences of that war.  Likely a generation of men and women wiped out too.

Politicians talking it all up, spending trillions they haven't got to pursue something that only bankers and big business profit from and none of the lessons have been learned from previous conflicts where nobody wins.  

It's disturbing that they aren't even coming from a position of strength and heavily rely on the US who rightly ask why they should protect Europe, what's the point?  They've been posted over here for 80 years.  We have run down our services, introduced wokeness and we just don't have the numbers and the capability anymore.  

This little speck of a planet 4.5 Billion years in the making, hardly visible in the solar system let alone the universe and apparently blessed with life everywhere, still seeks to destroy itself and not operate for the good of man, the dominant species on the planet.  We argue over God (which is like arguing over who has the best imaginary friend) and if we don't get our way justify the killing of others in pursuit of a peaceful religion and because it will further our cause.

It's all futile, infantile and serves not to advance our innate goodness but to self limit ourselves and drag us back down to the primordial depths from whence we evolved.  The standards of living and health and many progressive impacts of abundant cheap energy have rapidly advanced us so that we live longer, healthier lives, the poor are being lifted out of poverty and the impacts of natural disasters are mitigated through progressive increases in wealth but once again our politicians wrestle defeat from the jaws of victory, if they aren't proposing war, they are taxing the very things that have brought us this far.  

Maybe we will all wake up together and stop this?  Maybe it will just fail of its own accord?  Whatever happens I wish these idiots proposing war and of course not having to feel the consequences themselves would wake up and limit their ambitions to get us all killed. 

Outrage - Really?

 It is amusing to me that we have headlines stating something like some foreign dictator doing what foreign dictator's do.  It's a bit like finding that there are groceries at the Supermarket and screaming outrage "How dare they sell all this stuff!"

I was looking at the news - I try not to but was too lazy to get up and walkaway when surprise surprise, Vladimir Putin hadn't agreed to a ceasefire or any other demands.  He'd moved a bit but everyone was surprised that he hadn't done what they'd expected him to do?  Has he ever done that?  A bit like our Ed Millipede telling the Chinese what to do or Starmer threatening Putin.  It's surely a time when you should quote those much loved (by me) words 

No Sh1t Sherlock!"

What's the outrage when you know full well what these people are like?  I like that the reporters stare directly into camera addressing you and report as if it is unusual behaviour.  I was too lazy because I'd fixed some PIR cupboard lighting and a close coupled WC with all new parts before I had my dinner!   

DIY - It's Never Easy Is It?

 OH says there's a leak in her bathroom.  On checking, yes there is, not a lot but enough to wonder why that should be as I only repaired it around 18 months ago when there was a similar problem.  Anyway, I know roughly what the problem is as it is a close coupled WC and there's every possibility it is from the doughnut (donut) coupling which I had replaced, maybe it just needs tightening up!

Of course not dear reader, of course not.  Tightening it didn't do anything so I took it apart, that's unscrewed from the wall after draining down, taking off the attaching wing nuts, turning off the water and disconnecting the feed pipe.

All looks OK perhaps the doughnut isn't seated exactly in the centre but it should take a small leak and so I reassemble and then I get the full Niagara coming out.  So what on earth can this be, it hasn't been flushed so there must be a leak and I have to drain it down, disconnect it all and then testing the cistern and testing it with a few cups of water I find that the seal must have gone underneath!  So it's the cistern flushing mechanism washer must have deteriorated.

I've only recently done the downstairs cloakroom and so I've hot footed to Amazon, and a new flush unit, filler unit and a new doughnut (it's best to do all at the same time - which I should have done last time).    Anyway hopefully that will arrive today and I can fix that.  Along with the downstairs cloakroom PIR detector and light fitting which I also need to fix!

It's never ending and I guess I just need to make a list of everything and tackle them one at a time which I would do except these two recent jobs have only happened this week!  Onward and upward.  

Nil Desperandum

 "Illegitimi non carborundum" is a mock-Latin phrase, meaning "Don't let the bastards grind you down," Often used at work along with many others such as “We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.”  attributed to Konstantin Josef Jireček

And so we go on our journey with such mottoes as we shake our heads in disbelief at the liberal value system that isn't particularly liberal or that exemplifies and real decent values either come to think of it.

I see that in the US a District? Judge of some sort demanded that criminals (many vicious and pretty unsavoury) be returned to the US.  The plane, already in the air (or planes) completed their mission and these undesirables were repatriated.  What sort of person wants one or two plane loads of criminals in their country?  Such are this Judge's overblown authority that he should perhaps denounce Putin and send his troops back home, order KFC and Coca Cola to disclose their secret recipe and other such urgent matters.  

We have Rory Stewart.  He's quite different in opinion to me - opposite would be underplaying it, he's almost alien in outlook.  Often calling things out wrongly, sweeping victory for Harris in the US elections etc.  He has a sort of young puppy excitement about things and just sets off my spider senses every time I hear him or see him.  

There seems to be a new breaking awakening among the great unwashed. A slow realisation of how much poo we are in, how unbelievably bad our so called leaders are, how corrupt, how stupid, naive and how they lack any real experience of life, the universe, business, science, economics and they have a very loose grasp on the truth.  How so many can have lied about their past careers and have actually got away with it is beyond me.  Again, in "public" life it appears that you do not have to be meritorious, perhaps the opposite.  You don't have to have displayed competence in your particular subject nor understand the consequences of your actions.  In my real life experience, I'd have lasted less than a day if I'd have displayed anything approaching the low level of achievement these people think is acceptable.

Are we waking up to this?  A little too slowly I think we are.  I suppose everyone is sick to death of it all and so have been dulled and numbed like having your teeth filled, you don't feel the pain after a while and you get worn down by it all.  But, gradually the roar is beginning to build up and the hatred (for it is that) is beginning to brew up as both local and central government continue making our lives miserable.  Local councils are doing things at the dead of night, against their very own constituents wishes.  It's like a dodgeball game out there, dodging fines and cameras and the get rich quick schemes of the people who work for us, by our mandate.  I really hope that this May, people will heavily punish all the old established parties and give them a bloody nose.

Of course, some people are happy to be told what to do all the time and how to act.  Happy to be fined and ordered around like some unruly flock of sheep.  It's time that the public woke up as one and kicked the living daylights out of the system.  Any new councillors need to act hard and fast to tear down the nonsensical oppressive systems there before, save money by cutting away all the waste and nonsense of huge committees and running services based on central office policies instead of what is right for the people.  It's like living in 1960s East Berlin in some local towns and cities.  The financial crap they've managed to get into (some of them) is not punished, oh no, the people they represent have to foot the bill and have double digit increases imposed on them through mal-administration.  And no one gets sacked or goes to prison for it.

Yes, come on everyone, wake up, vote them out of office.  Get rid of traditional uni party and see what this new lot can do.  What's there to lose?  You can have more of the same or you can try out the new kids on the block who have talked a good game so far.  You can't really lose as everyone else has screwed up so far.  If they get in and make no difference then we are all in trouble.