How Fortunate We Are

 To live in such interesting times.  So my old boss used to say and he was right.  Often used as we read a contractual letter or departed a meeting where some sleight of hand was being attempted it sort of meant we could sit back and watch the car crash or have a play with our opponent much as a cat plays with its victim.

Here, in the UK, there's stuff stirring away and it is indeed interesting times as I am certain none of these clowns in government have the slightest idea what they are doing or how to manage (govern).  It was interesting that not one person had been to understand why the protests were happening?  Not one.  As I recall, the PM isn't the sort of empath you'd want at the scene of a tragedy as he doesn't appear to like to be near, well... people really!

If I read the financial vibes correctly, and also look deeply into the latest statistics (albeit not sure the ONS actually knows what it is doing) the country is in deep do-do indeed and some of the "policies" being bandied about to correct an even bigger "black hole" in the finances are going to have the diametrically opposite effect.  The CGT and IHT plus attacks on Pension funds and the idea of a Wealth Tax are also sure fire winners NOT!  I wonder if they recall what happened last time a Poll Tax was tried?

Anyway, on top of that the online safety bill was brought sharply into focus today.  So I was interested in a new AI chat system, as I heard about it and so duly went to have a look.  I like that most of them allow a free access model which allows a couple of queries a day and that's just about all I use it for.  So I get to signup and get the message that due to the Online Safety Bill they need my Credit Card!  WHAT? Yep, apparently that's a thing.  So I just switched on my VPN and that's not needed now.  WTF are these idiots playing at?  The Sledge Hammer to crack a Walnut is definitely what these twits do ALL THE TIME.  They are just illiterate when it comes to IT, finance and commerce, law & order, crime and punishment and they are wishy washy flip flop.  So naive it hurts, the whole of the world must be laughing at our hopelessly out of depth PM who, let's remember, notoriously and shamefully took a knee with his deputy and he used to be the head of the CPS FFS!

Day after day you see the inaction of the government, the strange actions of local government who act all big and world leading when they can't even get the bins emptied and the pot holes filled, but fly the wrong flag, woe betides you.  I want my local councillor to deal with local matters, that's what they are there for, servants of the public who voted for them and pay their council tax to them and you'd think that these councillors would do the very job we pay them for but oh no, fines this, fines that, mucking about with speeds on the road, sticking gastly white Elephant cycle paths in at huge expense that no cyclist uses as they prefer to stick to the very roads they narrowed to accommodate the cycle paths.  Getting involved in world-wide initiatives at Town and village level.  Our local village Pop. 474, has a climate change policy because, you know, in a population of over 7 billion people, the residents and change the global temperature by 0.000000000001 Degrees in a thousand years! FFS.  An ex-mayor, town councillor I know was telling me about "Climate Justice"?  I have as much idea as you do.  I had a discussion about car parking in the town and why I no longer go into town.  A few months later they stuck the prices up again to park and extended the hours.  Not that you actually get anything in return.

The stirrings are out there as people rightly start to wake up (it's taken them long enough) and now there is the expanding backlash building up to Tsunami status perhaps? I don't know but in many ways we've seen enough of the UK being turned into a hell hole and we are soon to face the consequences of our mismanagement going back many years.  I wouldn't be surprised if we don't end up having a serious chat with the IMF the way we are going and I wonder whether the PM, his Deputy and the Chancellor will face their Margaret Thatcher Poll Tax moment?  The way it's going it wouldn't surprise me if something like that kicks off.  You can't keep taxing people in the vainglorious hope that it will bring about financial stability and growth.  They already borrow huge amounts to service the debt.

So, let's sit back, strap ourselves in and repeat after me "How fortunate we are to live in such interesting times." 

It's As If They Don't Know Anything

 I see that the war on motorists is still waging whether in terms of taxation (double in the case of fuel) and let's not get started on taking our money to bribe ourselves to buy EVs!

So I did a quick AI search this morning on the use of cars, train, bus, walk and cycling so just look at these for a moment:

By Passenger Distance

When measured by total passenger kilometres, cars are the dominant mode of transport in the UK. In 2023, road modes—including cars, vans, and taxis—accounted for around 90% of all passenger distance travelled. Within that, cars and taxis alone made up about 85%.

Buses and Coaches: Accounted for around 4% of total distance travelled.

Rail: Comprised about 9% of passenger distance.

Motorcycles and Pedal Cycles: Each accounted for around 1% of total distance travelled.

This data shows that while other transport modes are important, private cars are overwhelmingly the primary method for long-distance travel.

By Commuting to Work

A different picture emerges when looking at how people get to work.

Car: The most common method of commuting is by car, with around 66% of workers in Great Britain using a car or van.

Walking: A significant number of people commute on foot, accounting for 11% of all journeys to work.

Rail: This is the third most popular commuting choice, used by 10% of workers.

Bus or Coach: Used by approximately 7% of commuters.

So I thought there was a little incomplete picture here as like many councils ours has invested heavily into cycle lanes although you hardly see them used and a large number of cyclists are in with the traffic and ignore the lanes around here anyway:

While cycling has seen a notable increase in recent years, particularly in urban areas, it still represents a small percentage of overall commutes.

Overall UK: Data from the 2021 Census for England and Wales indicates that just 2% of people in employment usually travelled to work by bicycle.

London: This figure is significantly higher in London, where 5.1% of workers commuted by bike in 2021. This is a testament to the city's investment in cycle lanes and other infrastructure.

If you were to ask a local Government employee or politician you can bet that they'd say that cycling was the way forward and rail or bus.  What they tend to miss entirely is that out here in semi rural England the only practical way to get around is by car, there are buses but I have to walk 30 minutes in one direction and perhaps 10 to 15 minutes in the other to find a bus stop. There's 1 bus an hour in one direction and in the other 3 buses and hour but after 6:45 that's your lot it stops altogether.  A taxi is hideously expensive to get me to the train station a good 45 minute walk away (in the dark for some of it).

Rail is interesting as only 10% use it at most and not surprisingly as the fares are the highest in Europe.  I did a trip around Europe mainly in 1st Class and the prices for some of the intercity trains was perhaps a quarter of the prices here.  It's a lot of money, poorly serviced and still doesn't really cover that much of the country.  You have to work on what the onward and inward journeys are.  Cycling is not practical here unless you have a mountain bike for the first part of the journey.  

But they are penalizing car drivers, the cash cow for successive governments, they raise car parking charges to such a rate that I no longer go into town unless I have to.  When I do go, these days, I can always find a car parking space as the usage has gone down significantly.  Have they scared people away?  Then there are fines for this and fines for that.  It's all on its head now and there is no incentive to visit town when I can turn my car in the other direction and go and park for free at retailers that want my custom.

The rubbish we are fed from the media and these nut jobs who tell you black is white and vice versa has got worse, or I've risen above the stench of their headlines.  It's hilarious that the BBC feel they need to run a Verify section on certain topics headed up by someone who actually embellished their CV shall we say?  And the stuff they spout off as truth is anything but, just scratch the veneer from the surface and go and do your own research.  We have the Internet (yes I know) but it does allow you to go and do some research and draw your own conclusions. Just read past works like could, might, scientists predict, according to research and so on.  The headlines rarely tell you where they got the data and if they do it is not normally actual data driven research, the stats they do give are flawed and incomplete.  Given a spreadsheet and a few graphs that I can alter the x and y axis and cherry pick the data I too can bend the figures to frighten you.

The whole thing is slowly unravelling but still they come for more money from our pockets to fund their fantasies and service the huge debts they have caused.  

The current approach stifles growth and mobility, taxes people without delivering any tangible benefits and leads to a punishment not incentive based government.  We see the beginning of the problems now arising and the only way that they appear to tackle problems is to spend more on them.  Good money after bad we used to say.  It reminds me of the 1970s again but this time there are even more idiots in charge driven by ideology and bad data and worse than bad data is bad analysis and little risk management or planning too. 

I'll have to do more on EVs but that's enough for today I'd say! 

Doing Me No Good

 I thought it would be an easy thing to do, back up the blog, turn it into a record of the times but it has actually not done that I feel quite disturbed by it all.  I am certainly going to give it a rest for a while.  It wakes up some deep dark area of my mind (and body) which had been stored away and it disturbed my sleeping pattern and my day-to-day activities, it even makes my food taste bland and so it has to stop and those memories need to go away from whence they came - perhaps another day I can do some more work on them but for now, I really don't need the mental turmoil that's being conjured u.

This stuff is all in the past and so cannot hurt me, it's all done and dusted but they way people treated me when I was seriously ill triggered the reaction and as I said previously I imagine Karma has dealt with them properly over the years.

Reliving The Past

 Having to give this book (based on the blog) a rest.  It actually stirs up emotions from long ago and of course, they no longer exist and they are over but it strikes right into you some of it.  And actually it's not worth the bother of the memory or the waste of time feeling it and replaying it all again.  I was feeling quite upset and annoyed about one particular relived area and it's upsetting and yet, it's happened, it's over and I can't do anything about it really.

The characters in that episode are I imagine dead or in prison and it was part of the journey through life at the time.  What I can see is how ill it made me and I imagine that's what is stirring up the emotions.  You can see from an overview what it was doing to you when you see it month on month and of course, when you are at the coal face, you don't see it at all (the woods for the trees).

So I am going to give it a short rest and try and be disconnected from it for a while.  What is interesting is how tired I was.  I see it as a recurring theme and I see how stressful the job was but as I'd only given it a short while to see how it would go, it didn't matter in the overall scheme of things.  The upside is that I had gone through the life of an internet start up seen the horrors of the green eyed, observed the failings of the incompetent self professed entrepreneurs and watched them implode as they hadn't thought through the business properly, had been incompetent about the software and negligent on the financial and business side.  Their Laissez-faire approach to company law, insolvency practice and insurances etc was mind blowing.

In all is stood me in good stead for the jobs that came afterwards and even on the one I am on now.  

What Goes Around Comes Around

 I noticed some striking similarities between my times in 2007 and now.  Situations, work, relationships and the like are all getting the synapses to fire off and draw parallels and conclusions from those.

The work one is yet again, people have betrayed me, questioned my professionalism and commitment.  That's potentially the worst thing you can do or say to me as I am and always have been fully invested (until I'm not).  When I might change is when the breakdown is or has happened and woe betide you if you are on the wrong end of it.

So there I was looking at this bloke who had gone off the deep end at me and then found that it wasn't me he should have written this quite damning email.  But here's the thing.  When he found out it wasn't me did he even apologise or withdraw his accusations? Not a jot of it.  People do things like this and then throw their toys out of the pram, cause chaos and then blame someone else, often me. 

Underestimate me at your peril ought to be tattooed on my forehead perhaps LOL. 

The similarities are quite striking and here we go again all these years later!

Shocking Review Of The Past

 I decided that I would look back on this blog to the earliest and darkest days right at the beginning and I have been pulling posts out to go into a journal.  This is not without it's own dangers of course.  I find posts that I made in 2006 and 2007 where I can barely remember who I was talking about or who in fact had died or what meetings I had and so on as I didn't say at the time who they were.

On top of that as I edit and tidy the posts I find that I was reliving some of those moments and recalling the highs and deep deep lows of the journey and I am only just one year into the journey.  The not so fun part is the hindsight.  Things that I didn't do correctly, advice I took (and subsequently gave) that I now know to be incorrect.  The most interesting is the job choice I took which turned out to be a bit of a disaster but actually and interestingly, I had that in the blog that I took the job as it was a start up and that it could go well or it could fall flat on its face (which it did).  It annoyed the hell out of me but there it is, in black and white, that I would learn a lot from this start up and that it would do me well in any way it worked out.

So it came to be and of course I've been involved in three or is it four now and falling flat on our face is always an option.

I was also acutely aware re reading some of these posts how ill I was.  Read between the lines and whilst I mention it, I think the way I wrote about it (and reading it now with knowledge) alludes to a darker time I was having of it all.

What I have taken away from it is how on earth I managed to work and have treatment and I see at one time I had three gigs on the go and was having immunotherapy at the same time!

It is slightly disturbing though going back over all of this stuff, half remembered occasions, the worry and concern, the highs (only a few at 2006/2007) and the lows, the mediocre and mundane and the frantic and downright craziness of it all.

Tucked in the late 2006 and early 2007 is a post that leapt off the page and it was about collateral damage.  The post wondered if the fallout from this would affect the family unit and would things ever be the same again.  In 2013 we found out the truth behind that.

I am giving it a short break though as it gets intense when you see the things you were going through and how (in hindsight) you'd wished you'd tackled things differently (or would you?).

Spendthrifts

 I recall my younger days and people living beyond their means.  On occasions I have bailed these people out only to find that they continue to not learn their lessons but often double down on them.

Finding a sum of money unexpectedly in their account they spent the (thousands) and then when the bank spotted the error they had to pay it back.  Surely you'd have spotted the error yourself and would know how much you had?  Others continue to go out for meals and get take away, buy things like pre-made sandwiches and bottled water etc.  

What am I driving at? Well the government are now looking to go for those of us who saved prudently, want to give something to our kids, put money away for our old age etc.  This is just another form of theft in my book.  You've taxed the money before and since and now you want to do it again and why?  WHY?  Because they are shit at running the economy, because they are the sort of people who cannot live within our means (it isn't their money is it) and because they just spunk the money they do have up the wall, waste it, throw it away, give it away, cannot control it and frankly do not look after or care for any of it because it doesn't affect them.

The waste is atrocious, the payment of I think they said 4 million sick days in the Civil Service, lobbing out for all sorts of freebies - I like that the free ice creams they tried to sort out for their staff ended up in both Ice Cream vendors being done for their vehicles, licenses and insurance and so no one ended up winning.  Then they are spunking £32 Bn into carbon capture that will (if the untried tech actually works) save 2 minutes worth of CO2 output per year!!!

They cripple the economy, restricting everything with red tape and overarching regulations.  And when the interfere it comes down to us to pay for the fall out caused.  If these imbeciles    had another brain ell they'd qualify as amoeba.

Every time that they f**k up, we pay.  They don't do anything to look at themselves and take a scalpel to their waste.  They whinge about black hole this and black hole that but are cowards when it comes to actually doing something about it.  Instead of cutting back on the supermarket offers of a "meal deal" and doing it themselves, they double down, instead of making economies of scale they come cap in hand (well they just take it actually) and expect us to have deeper pockets.  We no longer have deep pockets, we don't get anything from all the taxes we pay and it is wearing thin that this bunch of amateurs are allowed to run a country the way they have.  The smart money has gone, inflation is going up, unemployment is rising but not in the public sector where, miracle of miracles they are still employing people on great salaries and gold index linked pensions.  Many having had record pay rises last year are now going back to the handout bowl and asking for more huge pay rises.

It's like the 1970s again.  I am old enough to recall the dark days and the IMF intervention.  They want to take my money, take my children's future for ideological reasons.  I wonder what the uproar will be like if they do in fact bring in these measures?  How on earth they've survived this long in government I don't know.  It would be nice to think that this next round of tax the workers and aged into oblivion will pop the genie out of the bottle but no one seems to be that interested at the moment.  When they find that they can't afford ordinary food let alone their take aways, perhaps then it will matter?

Goodness Me 2006 was a bad year

 I decided that I ought to put the posts from this blog into some sort of order for no other reason than I felt my descendants might like to cure their insomnia! 

It's been quite a journey - I am around 10 months in and now in 2007 at operation 3 and following the first immunotheraphy sessions.  Losing my job and then getting a pre-diabetes warning after following "government guidelines" was a huge shock to add to the others.  In fact as I see it all play out and things less well remembered surface.  I really wished that I knew then what I know now.  Good old hindsight of course.  

The advice to load up on carbs and fruit and vegetables almost gave me Type 2 Diabetes.  FFS!!  There was me worrying about salt intake and I should have been worried about fruit, fruit juice and carbs in all their disguises.  

It is surprisingly (or not) a little upsetting to see the very ill me wrestling with diet, health, treatment, unemployment and so on. And it got worse in many ways before it got better.  

BUT, it did get better and whilst it took 15+ years - I made it and came out the other end.  At one time it looked as if I was going to be a yearly checkup but the science has moved on and so I was discharged a few years ago.

Bringing it all back I am not sure if I am actually enjoying the relived experience.  

Don't We Say Thank You Any More?

 I've probably said this before but it's worth repeating I think.  As a genealogist I look after the one name study and records for the family tree.

I get enquirers and I try and diligently answer their questions and try and give some more detail and suddenly that's it.  I've spent quite some time sorting out complex tree connections, telling them their ancestry sending them documentation and bang, you hear nothing back, not than you, not that they were interested or appreciated the data provided.

I imagine that is what it is like these days.  You don't get thank you cards any more either and you never know if they liked the money you sent them or what they spent it on, even a Facebook Message or email would be something.

We appear to have lost many things in the past 50 years and manners, politeness and chivalry are among the ones I miss the most. 

Well That's Worrying

I watched an interesting podcast last night and at close to an hour long it was a good investment of my time and whilst it reinforces my own views which I understand doesn't give me anything to debate those views it does make me even more concerned at the way we are tracking and how we are probably having our own little car crash where other countries may dodge the bullet.

For my own part I think that there is a global reset coming and a realisation that "the West" has brought upon itself some serious problems.  the BRICs setup is beginning to demonstrate why and the decisions made may years ago in the West are starting to bite (I'd like to say Bigly) as we understand the place in global supply chains.

But that is for another day I guess.  Here, in the UK, things are going to take a turn for the worse.  The podcast looks at the economic situation and of course the political situation too.  Socialist ideology is being applied to a problem of our own making and rather than correcting course it jams the heavy leaden foot onto the accelerator of our impending car crash or train crash or whatever else you want to call it.  I don't know if millionaires and business people are fleeing the country but I did have course to look at the Directors of a company in the UK and I was surprised that their Directors and major shareholders all lived in Dubai - this is a local butchers with an online shop and 10 or more large retail and a big wholesale business outlets.

So maybe those with the money are getting out from the higher taxes we are paying.  People are hunkering down and I am somewhat concerned that increases to corporation and business taxes will start to seriously kill off UK businesses.  A rate reduction down to 4% yesterday when inflation is increasing seems to be a strange way of trying to combat that and it seems that painted into a corner and allegedly, no one really understanding economics either globally or locally,  is going to do for us come October when the Budget is due.  All the indicators are really bad and the Laffer Curve appears to me to be in full play here as the Government spends its way out of trouble.  How on earth the OBR and the Government can get their sums so wrong is worrying and the ONS need to employ people who actually know about, you know, statistics. 

Quite where this leaves us, who knows?  Taxing your way out of a fiscal hole isn't really going to sort it out - I like that they use "Black Hole" as if that makes any difference at all, it is incompetence of the worst kind.  How can you go from £80Bn projected deficit to £121Bn in a few months is ineptitude of the worst kind, surely? (and don't call me Shirley).

Watch the podcast and shudder at what is coming down the line at us and goodness knows how we are going to pick up the pieces.  Finally someone has also talked about the VAT limits and how the vast majority of small trades don't really work beyond February as they approach the VAT Threshold and they don't start work again until 6th April when the new tax year cuts in.  It is blindingly obvious that this happens but as none of these Politicians has done an honest days work in the real world, they don't understand it.  

I suppose I shouldn't be rubbing my hands to see what these clowns do as I do recall the 1976 IMF things and it would be seriously bad to go back there.  If we do we will have something in common with Italy and Greece I suppose! 

I See No Ships

 Only hardships as my old colleague used to say.  A play on Lord Nelson's quote placing the telescope to his blind eye!  But it also encompassed the day-to-day struggles we had at work especially with useless management and people with a complete lack of vision.  People I hoped that I'd never turn into.  Hopefully I succeeded but I suppose that's for others to judge?

You see it all the time this inability to do the job they are paid for, to think ahead and plan for all eventualities, to get the materials for the job and the people for the job to be at the same place at the same time.  I recall being asked to have 20 men on site on a Monday morning which I did have and arriving late to site the customer opened his car boot and gave me a couple of reels of cable.  "So what do you want me to do in 5 minutes time?" I asked.  Where's the materials?  Long story he hadn't organised any or rather he had but it would arrive later in the week and so I promptly charged him for the standing up time and then showed him how to call in a favour.  I called my supplier who was local and asked them for every bit of cable and racks etc they had and could they get them to me ASAP.  They did, in sort measure and a couple of journeys he and I organised the delivery of equipment and we got the job done charging appropriately for the privilege.

It's how I got to work in the IT business proper as they saw I could sort this stuff out.

Today, it appears you don't need to do your job properly judging from the utter nonsense that is going on in this country, neither do you need to understand the actual job you are tasked with doing or be an expert in your field.  I watched the economic figures coming out yesterday and the total lack of awareness of the damage these people are causing by not understanding even basic economics.  Whole industries are having dire straits in this awful oppressive environment of taxation in all of its forms.  As the economy shrinks they believe it is external factors and yet cannot see that their policies are to blame and confidence is flat because we can see that they are driving us over a cliff.  Why they pursue policies based on ideology rather than good old fashioned common sense is beyond me and 99% of the population. 

Typically, the very things bringing the country to its knees is the thing they are keen to do more of!  It's not just this Government either, the previous lot sat on their fat arses and did nothing as well.  They cannot do the basics right, they have no plan, they have no clue how they are  going to get out of this and we are left watching the car crash in slow motion and they cannot see it.  How is that even possible?  

You can actually feel it at last.  People are fed up with this mismanagement and incompetence and it is affecting our safety and security now.  The underlying feeling is that they just don't care, that the more they tax us the better things will be and they miss the fact that external observations of our country, its government and tax regime put off investment.  There's no profit in it for the savvy investor and they can go elsewhere.  It isn't in the gift of the overburdened tax payer to invest into this country mainly because most of the spare money they do have is gone in tax, higher bills etc.  People are hunkering down now, they know what's coming and they aren't spending and that puts us into the spiral that the sown seeds of low confidence and oppression by this poor excuse of a Government will inevitably lead us to and that's a recession (let's hope it isn't a depression).  

These problems are of their own making and they can get out of it but their socialist, Marxist, spiteful policies blind them to the possibilities available to do so.  

Inconsistency of AI

 It amuses me when a website, basically a series of ones and zeros, asks me if I am human?  Likewise, realising that the developer has written something for the beauty of the code not for the easy operation of the user.  Fundamental stuff really.

AI works fine if you know how to use it but the inconsistency is annoying.  I am joining groups on Facebook, just buy and sell groups.  I noticed that after 20 a day they'd halt access thinking that I was a robot.  So I worked out that the most to join per day would be 16 and for many weeks now, I have limited myself to 16 a day and things are fine, I get to join the groups and they get a new user and participant but Oh No, not this morning, Facebook kicked off at me joining 12 groups (well 11 actually, I was trying to do the 12th when it decided that it would halt me doing that operation).

It's like my Instagram page.  I got a message saying that they liked content and I should somehow be encouraged to post more often.  So I upped it to twice a day, not a huge increase if you look at other posters who you know everything they've done since they woke up this morning.  Anyhow, upped the content to two pasts a day whereupon my account gets suspended for spam activity!!  I kid you not.  So hold on, you want content and then you don't.  You ask for me to up my posting for that is what Instagram is all about and you suspend my account for doing so?  I then had to go around the bloody houses and do all sorts of tests to prove I was human and of course, after the sheer inconvenience they tell you that they are protecting me and the users!  A short apology by robot and blow me down if two weeks later they didn't do it again.

This is what is wrong with the way they set up algorithms and the way that AI is used.  It's a lazy way that p1sses off the user - I'm surprised some of them have any users left.  Facebook is turning into a police state.  Oh well, just have to live with it I suppose.  

React Or Ignore

 When the seething anger has subsided and you reflect back on that and try to deal with the inevitable fallout then there's a point where you just no longer react or perhaps don't react so much.  It's a tightrope walk and balance between actually saying what's on your mind or letting the other party reflect on their actions.  I'd like to say that I ignore the bait but I probably react via a facial expression or just move away without any contact whatsoever.

There we are, the walking on eggshells trick and it's tiresome really.  Can I ignore it all or will I react at some point?  Who knows. 

Onward To Hell, In A Handcart

 With origins supposedly about the dead from the Great Plague it conjures a vision of bodies piled high and taken away to be buried.  All a bit Monty Python I imagine and my Tee-Shirt "I'm Not Dead Yet!" refers.  It was the Tee Shirt I purchased when I was ill as no one ever really wanted to ask the "Are you going to die?" question when you told them you had cancer. 

But I wasn't thinking of that, I was just looking at the state of the UK now.  Everywhere you look it seems that there is another car crash of an interview from a Politician who isn't on their game, is completely out of touch with the reality of the situation and who has no idea whatsoever what the problem is because try as they might they cannot see it.

Basic maths would surely assist along with logical thinking or critical thinking.  What we get is cognitive dissonance and surprised looks.  It's desperate out there.  I thought the way that they are handling just about everything is diametrically opposed to what they should be doing.  The record imports of Gas was interesting, it's to help with reaching net zero and we are paying to import it because the network really isn't robust and because we shut our own Gas supplies down?  Other people's Gas must be net zero Gas then?  Of course not.  The economy is just falling apart and "going for growth" probably implies fungal growth I presume as there is nothing growth like about the policies in fact, the opposite and we get ready to double down rather than review and change direction.

I have seen this behaviour all my life where a decision is made that can be plainly seen will end in disaster and yet the manager goes headlong for it.  If you say "That won't work" you are the one who is called out and they increase the speed and the likely impact to smash their project to pieces.  My job, as you may well know by now was to stop that happening or pick up the pieces and Code Red the project.   What surprises people is that sometimes, you cannot save a project and have to close it down and walk away despite protestations it just isn't viable.   A badly specified piece of software, an engineering project that would never work, a project with no defined end point and so on.  

The job was all about risk identification, monitoring, mitigation and review.  I was horrified that not many businesses actually run projects properly (or Programmes for that matter).  People lose sight of what the project was for and all the planning around it was not properly set up at day one.  In today's situation, running the country, there is agreement from many what the problems are and how to tackle them.  I think that today's politicians have no balls, certainly no courage and no experience to do the job we expect them to do.  Brave politicians are few and far between.  Faced with the blindingly obvious issues that they have to deal with, they shirk or side step them.  They do not grasp the problems perhaps and for that alone they shouldn't be in charge.  Neither do they measure the consequences of their actions or more likely inaction and they blink as if sun-blinded at the chaos they themselves have accelerated because they have dealt with it incorrectly.  They throw fuel on the fire and wonder why it burns even more fiercely.  

So here we are, still driving at full speed towards the rail or car crash whichever your preferred method of destruction is.  People are yelling advice and they aren't listening to them.  We, the men and women on the street, at the coal face can see it but they cannot and the road to Armageddon is stoked by SPADs and Civil Servants who have never been in business or practised risk and crisis management and couldn't punch the skin off a rice pudding or fight their way out of a paper bag.

It seems to me to be a disgraceful betrayal of trust for the public that these halfwits and shysters should have access to power and be making such a bad fist of it.  Hell in a Handcart it may well be but when will they actually realise?  I fear it will be too late and once again we find out that following the Dogma of socialism will make us all poorer, it always has and doing it over again hoping for the desired Utopian outcome never works.  But you try telling that to them.  Try showing them the facts and figures and they won't believe you until it all comes crashing down around them and they struggle to comprehend why?  How did this happen? We know it will not be their own fault, far from it.  It will be those useless voters who should have worked harder and paid more taxes.  It's never their own fault, never!

So You'd Better Watch Out!

 I've never liked threats and I have never liked being told what to do.  Threats are made by people who cannot articulate clearly what is going on in their head and lack a basic vocabulary to express this and so resort to physical or verbal (mainly) intimidation.  So I get they might be angry and upset but when did yelling at me either in person or second hand written ever settle whatever is wrong in their heads.  It may momentarily ease their angst but actually, in trying to put right whatever is wrong, antagonizing the very person you want to sort things out for you isn't actually going to get you far.  Not with me because when I dig my heels in, I very rarely move.

And then there's telling me what to do.  Expressed in a way that suggests team work and assistance and gratefulness for me doing something for you which I am not obliged to do and isn't what I was going to do can work.  However just ordering me to do something without a reasonable reason, thought through and encouraging me to do whatever it is really does not work at all and many have found to their cost that when I say no, I mean NO.  Very un-English of me I must say but it's not some sort of arse kissing exercise.  We say yes too often, we try and help out and generally, as I have found to my cost, I end up getting screwed to the wall for the other parties failure to recognize that they asked for me to do something in the first place.  I lose count of the disappointments and my time and money wasted on these people.

The recent flying off the handle coming out of the blue after years of looking after them is a case in point.  Who ends a letter that cuts off all future contact and commercial and contractual relationships with "if you don't do <certain action> or else!"  I mean really? In writing you threaten me although what "Or else" actually might be can be argued but I think "Or else" instead of "Yours faithfully" could be construed as a threat.  I had done the action, the letters crossed in the post and so whatever "Or else" might have been I imagine has gone away.

Doubling down on that some time later I wonder what thought process goes through people's heads that threats and accusations are necessary when to pick up the phone which I tried, isn't the very first thing you do stating what your problem is and let's fix it.  People don't act like that anymore do they?  I used to say that if there was any sort of problem, especially in business you've got to "Eat the frog" and go and sort it out, you cannot let things fester and you cannot ignore it especially if it is your customer.  So many people didn't get it.  They'd be frightened and sure some customers could yell at you or swear at you so just put the phone down and when they said we got cut off tell them that they need to discuss these things properly.  

It used to infuriate the boss when you'd find there was a problem, ring up the customer, go and actually see them, tell them what the problem is and how you intend to fix it.  If they were worth their mettle they'd understand and appreciate your candour and that you would sort it out, cr@p happens, deliveries get lost, things get broken and so on.  Own up and sort it out.  Of course, my boss who liked to get involved (this actually for 95% of the bosses I ever worked with) would go to the customer and not inform me or ask and come up with some pack of lies (never lie unless you have a great brain) and the customer would often let them know that it was all under control and they'd be exposed as liars.  Then the boss would get angry LOL.  I'd then explain why they should always ask the person in charge (me) before setting off on a Propaganda mission.  They'd never learn though and do something similar shortly afterwards.

So, I have found the recent set of threats quite disturbing but that's from the betrayal of the action.  You never really know people even having worked with them for over a decade.  The threats are all made and amount to nothing and are barely worth a worrying about now but it's taken me a good 5 months to regain my equilibrium.  The thing about people throwing accusations and the slings and arrows is that you can gather all the bile and hatred and return them with interest later on.  Again, telling me to "watch out or else" will come back to haunt them (if it ever goes that far which I doubt)  as you just turn the tables and present facts and figures without anger and hysteria back, arguing each point, stating the truths of the matter and one by one countering their claims.  There's no need to tell them to "watch out or else" as the point by point destruction of their points and the little outbursts dissolve from view.

Official I Am Clearly Too Old

 Yes, I don't feel any of my 68 years at all.  I'd say I felt 40 or 50 maybe.  It is strange, but of course things happen that bring you screaming up to date with your age and frailty.

I had to wait for help to put up some scaffold to change our light fitting in the high apex of our dining room roof.  Before I had used steps but it was precarious to say the least and I had scaffold available and should have used that really then.  Of curse the damn thing got a fault and we had to change it.  The scaffold was ordered to be used by the other half who rightly so, suggested that it would be safer (for a man of my age probably whispered).

It is very light and easy to assemble but I still needed assistance as the fitting is big and cumbersome and awkward to hold etc.  The first thing I noticed was that I had difficulty getting over the trapdoor and onto the platform.  I then had the problem of balancing and trying to support the light and disconnecting and reconnecting the new one.  This resulted in shaking hands - not good when trying to do up electrical contacts LOL!

So, it was all quick and relatively painless but I wouldn't want to do it again.  I find that things I used to do when I was younger like that are just difficult now, I am reasonably fit, I wasn't for example puffing and wheezing with the effort but it was the bending and stretching and lifting myself through the trap door that was difficult.  I could easily carry the scaffold and move it around but I must start to realise my limitations.

It's Tough At The Top

 It is and it's lonely too.  I like the references to my now solo business venture and to those who think it is easy, it's anything but.  It's stressful and a minefield of red tape and I haven't turned a buck yet!  Ten years it has taken and it still isn't finished and indeed I have had to compromise yet again and only get half of the product to sell because of the incompetence of one party and the irrational behaviour of the other.

It really is a bloody nuisance and I think I perhaps should have walked away when the irrational person threw his toys out of the pram and left me in the sh1t not that he thinks like that of course.  He wants nothing to do with it but keeps coming back for a little bite here and there.  Reminds me of these thugs who lose a fight and then come back and do something stupid to someone else in revenge (seen it loads of times).  I am now ignoring it and whether or not it will go away remains to be seen.

Everyone knows what you are going through and yet, in reality, no one does.  Full of advice about how to run a business when they never have.  The vast majority of my acquaintances were employees in large corporate companies or public sector and so have little direct experience of the angst of running a business other than reading about it I suppose.

So there we are, I am on my own, battling opposing factions on a business that hasn't any revenue and has only spent a shed load of money over the years.  Great, I was hoping that retirement would bring something other than this.  I hope that my fortitude will shine through but I am really beginning to have my doubts about it as it has slipped another month and soon it will be a whole year since we made a go no go decision to launch at Christmas last year!  

Disheartened and somewhat lonely sum it up and they have the cheek to ask me what I have been doing when the business has had three false launches and we look like incompetent idiots and all the work has been done to launch with all the sales and marketing available and poised.

Not a good day today at all.

A Quiet House

 It is quiet, just me here since very early and I've got all my chores done and it isn't even 9 am - so the rest of the day is my own.  I'd like to go for a walk but there is a threat of Thunderstorms and torrential rain so that is out of the possibles list.  Perhaps I will tidy up some of my office to get started and perhaps do some work on my clothes which need sorting out - perhaps put away my winter stuff at least.

The scaffold is moved into the house for me to change the light fitting and so tomorrow I can change over the central light fitting to one that works and doesn't flash intermittently! 

Yes, I can get some stuff done here with just me to get in the way of progress :-)

None Of Your Business

 People can be bloody strange.  I follow someone on Facebook, I doubt you'd know him, but he's an excellent singer for a Prog Band.  He's interesting, funny and a great vocalist.  So he posts about his friend who has been his best friend for 30+ years and some follower says "Tell me you're not gay?"  which got a very good response but who are these people?  What business of theirs is it that you feel you can ask that question, in that way?  I follow him because he is a great vocalist and an interesting person and how he lives his life is totally up to him.  I wouldn't even question that out of malice or curiosity. How dare they.

That's the problem I also have from people who seem to want to know my inside leg measurement although I haven't been asked if I am gay yet!!  So the madness of the chap that totally disassociated himself from me has reared it's ugly head yet again and he wants to know stuff that he's no longer entitled to.  Wants reassurances about this and that, how I am doing things and performance data to which he is no longer entitled.  The various interpretations of "I never want to deal with you again" come down to one undeniable interpretation of that statement I would have thought?  I entertained the first request but this shall go ignored as it is none of his business, literally.

So there you go people are strange and emboldened by letter, text and social media.  It's none of their damn business and it is creepy too.  Why do they want to know, what "rights" do they have to that information, why are the sitting in judgement over you?  Who knows what goes through their heads - probably nothing, they don't consider or think.  Arseholes! 

Who Are These People?

 I have to ask this as the past 15 or more years the "quality" of politicians has eroded to such an extent that the lab rat joke now applies to them.

The Rat Lab Joke?  It goes something like the fact that they have substituted Lab Rats for (lawyers) Politicians.  It's no great loss to society and the Lab technicians don't get attached to them!

These myopic, ideologists do not appear to have any moral compass or any analytical abilities.  They cannot think in big terms and so they make stove piped decisions that screw up other areas of the economy or international relations.  They don't resign when they are wrong or when they do something wrong.  Gone are those days where a politician would resign over a matter of honour or because they disagreed with policy or indeed they had done something wrong either in the job or on the side!

They have no grasp that they are there to serve the people and not themselves, they lack empathy and cannot work out why people are angry with them and the decisions they make.  The ivory towers of political life and the do what I say not what I do hypocrisy is off the scale.  "The Foreman's job is mine at last.... The working class can kiss my arse!" as the old song goes and the slow and painful car or rail crash is still happening in very slow motion and they are the only people who cannot see it.  I say slow motion but it is beginning to mount up now and shades of 1976 are ringing in my ears.  I had not long started work and this country shipwrecked itself and was salvaged by the IMF.  Have a look at THIS Debt Clock and we are potentially £4 trillion in debt and this clock shows the debt running up.  They have to take a loan to service the debt.

Of course, their policies are now reaping the opposite of what they wanted, high energy costs, upping minimum wages, increasing National Insurance and all the other measures finally brings the rewards that they (I hope) didn't plan.  High Streets look quiet and shops are shutting along with hospitality venues too.  The solution I imagine will be to tax harder and deeper and so eventually it will destroy what's left.  They never learn this lesson.  Every time they come in to power they do this.   More public services does not bring money into the country and the Laffer Curve proves right, once again.

Nothing I can do about it other than watch the crash and hope it doesn't overly affect me and my family.  Mind you, our politicians presiding over running the country into the ground and letting it go to the dogs cannot see any problems and are totally disconnected from the very people they say they are there to serve!

Keto Carnivore Or Diet Bore?

 Here's an interesting thing.  I am losing weight, not where I want to from around my stomach although the side handles are almost gone.  I am losing weight on my arms and legs, neck and some areas at the side of my body.  I decided that the beer drinking had to go even though I was losing some weight even whilst drinking and that the Keto diet I was on seemed to work for a while using the LCHF, (Low Carbohydrate High Fat) approach.  So I have switched to the Carnivore (including Fish) diet, high fat, high meat and fish and low to zero carbs.  I don't have any vegetables now and I do have butter, cheese and the like. In place of beer, fizzy water and coffee still plays a part.

I also intermittently fast which takes the form of not eating until (as long as I can) gone midday even as far as 2 pm. 5 days a week.  Two days a week I have breakfast but I then try and last until mid to late afternoon.  So far so good, if I get hungry then I'll eat, if I don't I won't.

Results?  weight loss around 2 inches around the waist, noticeable looseness around wrists and wight off of the thighs too.  midriff side handles almost gone.  Blood pressure down significantly now around 120 / 80 most of the time. 

So I am pleased with that.  I am going to keep on the carnivore approach (some call it Paleo or Caveman diet).  I feel good, my skin feels good, I just need to lose this middle stomach bit which is going down gradually.  AS I often say, you didn't get fat in a week so don't expect to lose it all in a week or a month.  It will slowly work its way off, you just have to follow the process.

Missing the beer of course but I think that I can just have the occasional one or two when I am out and as long as it is occasional it is manageable.     

Taking Back Control

 Yes, the process of taking back control has begun and just a small victory so far in consolidating a load of electrical bits and throwing stuff out.  It is a little victory but it is also a start and it gets things moving slowly and steadily.  Of course, I found the fuses I was looking for last week and had to reorder! So I now have hundreds of small glass fuses!   Oh well, at least the car adaptors are working once again.

All the lamps are now together in one box which starts to help and the fuses are in two locations with the electrical tools and the small tool box with all the hobby tools in it.  So now, I can start to do one or two things a day and get organised and also start to make a little room.  It's no use doing it all at once as that would be a little depressing and a lot of hard work and the task is monumental.  Little steps, little victories, gradual reorganisation and results will come.  

I feel a lot better, no booze despite the temptation to have some and now the next stages gradually come together as I tackle a little at a time.  I think the overall thing is daunting but if you can just tackle small areas at a time it can get resolved.  I now need to also start throwing stuff away which will make room and giving stuff away too.  It's sat here for months if not years just in case...

"Slowly, Slowly, Catchy Monkey" or sometimes "Softly, Softly, Catchee Monkey" comes to mind.  An old phrase you used to hear a lot but not so much these days.  We will get there and if I only do 10 minutes a day - it will be progress.  

A Few Days Away - What The Doctor Ordered?

If you can ever see a Doctor of course.  Yes, apart from a hold up on the M25 on the way and one on the way back adding 3 hours and 1 hour respectively, it was OK.  The carnage of traffic controls ill thought through and the sight of workmen not even working on the road but sat in their vans was annoying to state the least.  It was a bit anxious sitting in crawling traffic surrounded by huge lorries and I hope the Police dealt with the cars and lorries going through the Red flashing lane closed signs.

So I saw my mum, she's looking frail and walking slowly now with her trolley.  Bloody lock-down did for our elderly as she was quite fit until they imposed restrictions and made her more sedentary.  So where we used to quite happily wander around town she now needs to take short breath stops every 100 yards or so.

The good thing is that I am feeling much better, my shakes are almost gone and I feel a lot better and a lot of the stress has gone too.  This is good and I hope that I will now build on this and I have a few ideas what to do and how to tackle things.  There's a lot to be done and I need to motivate myself to tackle it.  Elephant eating will have to be the name of the game and a gradual tackling of tasks will be needed.  

Feeling better so that's good and the main thing, certainly I am not feeling nearly as stressed out as I was before I went. 

 

General Observations

I am definitely not firing on all cylinders at the moment, my voice is gravelly (stress) and I have idiots all around me and worse than that, they appear entitled, opinionated, loud and wrong.

This entitlement is bordering on the absurd and is in no way reflective of the reality of the situation (Recollections May Vary).  When you paint yourself into a corner the only way out with any honour is to understand that you've done the deed to yourself and then to apologise and try and work your way out.  Fighting may be a cornered animal's option but you should have the wit to work out what you've done and how to get out of it but, no, you can't because you are full of hatred and the sad, very sad thing is, you completely did this to yourself and then doubled down - twice.  

I've another who doesn't get that he hasn't delivered once on his schedule in 8 years.  Not once have we hit a deadline or milestone even if I have given him room to review, thinks about it and still, still we aren't there.  A person who slips a deliverable a day before it is due by nine months surely doesn't know what he is doing?  You can have bad luck of course but so often and so similar?  

Hypocrisy is another thing isn't it.  Telling me that you stand for certain inalienable rights and support those who are severely affected whilst at the very same time delivering the coercive behaviour to me you say you so abhor?  Strange that and the irony isn't noticed and once again, it's my fault!   

So 4 days away will sort me out a bit here.  I'm OK with it and I'm sure that I can iron my head out a bit whilst I am away.  I know what I need to do, I just cannot face the reality of that at the moment.  If that seems logical?  It's "Eat The Frog" time again and I'm putting it off and trying to believe that it will all be right when of course it never is, never will be and I myself am now painted and backed into a corner.  I know the way out of it, but I'm a little too cowardly to face the truth of that and do anything about it.  I know just how disruptive the answer is going to be! 

A few days will straighten that thinking out and we will see where we go from there.  

A Short Break

 I'm looking forward to a short break I have to say.  I need it and the pressures (inevitably that I heap onto myself) are just making my life a bit of a misery at the moment.  I still feel a little sick, I notice my hands shaking and I know that I need to do something about it.

Hopefully it will get a little easier if I do not think about it too much?  The trouble is that it makes me inactive and I don't do anything to get out of the rut.  It's been like this on and off for years.  I have to come back from this break with a plan to actually do something about it all, the business, my life, where I want to go from here.  

Fingers crossed that I can sort it out on my return. 

Time To Take A Few Days Off

 I need a head straighten session and to get away for a few days to just chill out.  The stress that this bloke has put me under and my software developer failing once again to deliver really got to me yesterday.  It shouldn't because it will be what it will be I suppose, the only thing my developer IS good at is failure by the looks of it.  

So perhaps 4 or 5 days away will resolve it all and no PC to deal with no stupid letters to look at and just get away from it all.  I am concerned though that this latest failure to deliver is just biting into the time I need to sell the App and make some money back after all these years and then I look and think what did I waste my time for, I am meant to be retired and enjoying it, I'm not getting any younger and I should be doing other things.  Oh well.  Maybe that will iron itself out whilst I am away?

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

 It's getting more obvious by the day that the recent bunch of politicians are just not sensible.  I suppose we always knew that they lied to  your face and all the usual but these decisions they make cannot be thought through properly.

Inflation up, jobs down, unemployment up, significant downturns starting to be reported and it was all predictable as they've made this common mistake loads of times before and not learned the lessons of their own destructive policies.  "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" is often attributed to Albert Einstein, but it's likely a misattribution.  Whatever, they double down and make the same mistake again and then again!

Other things you can see are stupid, nanny state stuff for the sake of looking like they are addressing one thing and then something else happens.  I think I mentioned it before, the "Cobra Effect" in colonial India refers to a failed policy where the British government offered a bounty for dead cobras to reduce their population in Delhi. Instead of decreasing, the cobra population increased because people began breeding cobras for the bounty, effectively turning the situation into a cobra farming operation. This unintended consequence became known as the Cobra Effect, highlighting how incentives can backfire and worsen the problem they were intended to solve. 

I red this morning that Red Squirrels are under threat in Scotland as they have enacted an air rifle law over some incident and people have to get some sort of licence.  As the author points out, if you are a Ne'er-do-well you aren't going to bother.  The law abiding citizens now rarely use their rifles as they haven't applied for their licence and good lord, who'd have thunk it?  Red Squirrels are now under threat as the Grey Squirrels that the Air Rifle users were pest controlling are taking over again.  The Grey is an American non native.  

IT won't be the last time either, the stupidity of these people knows no bounds.  I am glad to see that the various councils that Reform have taken over are getting scrutinised for how they spend OUR money.  A sort of UK DOGE unit is you like.  Whilst they are meant to deal with waste they are not meant to be causing it.  There are people with non jobs the Net Zero team and the DEI HR people, you never needed a separate department 40 years ago why do you need one now?  I think they said £140 M they'd found so far.  Many of these councils are approaching bankruptcy and have massive debts and they really don't know how to run the very thing they are employed at great salaries to do.

I have experience in this area having dealt with a couple of councils in my time who were failing and who being offered a solution to control everything in one suite of management software felt that it would flag up too many problems.  Rather than actually know what the problems were and their KPIs, inter-dependencies and risk monitoring and mitigation they were happy to let it be.  It was jaw dropping that the Chief Executive couldn't answer some of the basic questions and bullied his staff - right in front of us to say they didn't have a problem where we'd been information gathering for a day and knew the opposite was true.  Such is the level of "management" we have these days, they appear to be the very opposite of how we were taught and how we worked.

It's the bare faced lying and obvious lack of grasp of their subject that is astonishing.  Politicians now just stuff it in your face, cannot answer questions, lie continuously - the list goes on and wonder why they've lost any respect (not that they had much left) from the public.  Finally, they seem to be waking up and seeing this Chimera before them.  The worst is yet to come gathering by the figures I am looking at not the glossy weasel words.  Go look at the real figures on employment, inflation and business investment and then be afraid because it is heading for a crash and not all countries are.  This is of their own making and I am waiting for something like "We are going to borrow more money to pay the debt we have!" or something like that.  

Their answer will be to come back to the people for more tax which will disincentivise the people further and with the recent hit on energy and food prices, people will rein in their spending and the death spiral will get started.  They said they were going for growth - the only growth I see is mould and moss over the deserted landscapes of our towns and cities and the loss of more jobs because people just wont be buying stuff anymore.  The latest splashing of our money is going to incentivise us to buy electric cars.  There's more discounts to attract people and allowance to let you (those who live close to roads) have a gully to safely take your electric charging lead to your car.  Again, they don't live in the real world at all.  Ask anyone who lives with road parking how often they actually get to park their car anywhere near the front of their house and you'll find that once in a blue moon is probably the answer.

People know that electric cars are meant to be the future but now they've had them for a while, the expectations are turning to disillusionment as it comes home to roost just how unpractical they are.  My daughter's car was worked on every month for 18 months and eventually they gave up and she got another car, a petrol one.  Mostly you are paying more for an electric car and so in these hard times, knowing that to own one of these is going to give you little or no return and they depreciate so fast that they realistically lose you a lot of money.  I only know of one person who likes theirs and even they've had three or four call outs this year on minor problems.  People aren't buying it and are suffering from all the other taxes imposed on us, the worst burden since after WW2.  

Their ideology is diametrically opposed to the reality but, none of these people have worked in business (or if they have they were juniors) they mainly come up the lobbying and local government route and they have their heads full of Marx and Keynesian economics which are not what is needed at all.  The whack of taxes has pared back business owners, the slew of employment laws coming will also do the same, none of it make sense and it is hurting present and future growth, the opposite of what they said they wanted.  The slow train crash continues before our very eyes and the wide eyed naive politicians seeing the curve ahead ope the throttle fully in the hope they'll stay on track.

We all know what's going to happen and who will feel the pain.  That pain needs to be transferred back to the policy makers and advisers.  As I am oft reminded by Edmund Blackadder "I wouldn't trust him to sit the right way up on a toilet!"  So full of it, I doubt they've ever been to a toilet and warning tags are attached to their backsides stating "Don't give enema!" on the supposition that if you did all the sh1t and wind would be knocked out of them and they'd disappear altogether! 

Now It's Sleep That's A Sort Of Problem

 I can fall asleep OK but once I wake up and my mind clicks in, it is difficult to get back to sleep.  If it's 2 am that's not normally a problem unless my mind has been wrestling a particular scenario.  If it is bad I can get up and go downstairs.  This morning I was awake well over an hour earlier than normal and it was easier to get up and throw some clothes on and wander down here for an hour and a bit until the alarm went off and I could return to some semblance of routine.

My mind is in a spin as it is working out all the various permutations of things with the business and it is also, now, playing various outcomes of the business now that I have been left to fend for myself.  There are a lot of variables involved and it's playing those through that is giving the challenge - lots of paths, lots of outcomes.

Hopefully it will be short lived and I can get back to a slightly more even keel.  

Looking At This All Wrong

 It struck me as I continue to analyse things, possibly way too much, that I am looking at this all wrong and taking a view that there is something wrong that needs to be answered and that it is my fault and that's actually not what it is at all.

The current nastiness is not caused by anything that I have done it is because the other party has unilaterally taken action without thought and after some time realised that the consequences of their own actions have backed them selves into a blind alley and painted the exit.

I have been looking at the details and not the bigger picture on this.  These actions are neither logical or well thought through and they are scatter gun in nature, there's no obvious solution to their actions.  It's quite a different scenario when you helicopter view this.  

I cannot solve their problem which I wanted to do, I want to take the path of peace but no, they don't want to do that as they've assembled on the field of battle ready for war.  I've offered negotiation and they don't want that.  Realising that, I have to do..... Nothing, no thing.  It's not my actions that have got him where he is, it's not in my gift to repair whatever "wrong" there might be because, that isn't made clear and in fact the whole thing is a muddle.  I'm surprised at whoever is advising him for taking this massively aggressive approach when a reconciliation is what they should be trying to achieve.

So this epiphany struck me last night in the middle of copious note making.  I write all the time and it gets it out of my head on to paper and then moments like this occur.  At times like this the absurd is never far from my mind and it brought to mind 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' film.  Do you remember the Bridgekeeper at the Bridge of Death, they are asked three questions. The first is, "What... is your name?" The second is, "What... is your quest?" and the third, for some characters, is "What... is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

Mine goes something along the lines of "What do you want?" no more, no less.  If you resigned from a job and left it with immediate effect and cut off all attempt to communicate (your choice), washed your hands of the part of the project you were doing and walked away commercially and physically with no further communication as a demand.  How is that anyone's choice but your own and how is that my problem?  I've been left with a part finished project and Hobson's choice on completing it.

Now, he wants something but it's not clear what he wants?  He threatens me but wants me to enter into some sort of third hand correspondence and is demanding things that he has no rights to?  Plus he didn't want any contact after he left abruptly.  Oh well, there's me, trying to do the right thing and actually, it doesn't deserve any more of my time.  There's no remedy requested, no apology for his disgusting behaviour, no way forward and nothing that I can do to relieve him of the consequences of his dire and crass decision.   

It's taken a while to get here but when you boil it down and look at it over and over enough times and play the various scenarios you eventually hit on the truth of the matter and then you have a light-bulb moment and intuitively recognise what you missed before.  

Green Eyed Monsters And Adaption

Once again I am reminded that people are a strange combination of gullibility and greed, although that may be the wrong word.  I read someone explain Climate Change nicely and can actually concur.  I have been to Finland and I have been to the South of France and Spain when the temperatures were -44C and +44C respectively and people live across these ranges.  So that's an 88C swing and yet we adapt and survive these.

It's uncomfortable for us Brits either way but like the current heat spike (how can it be a heatwave if it lasts a few days?) we have temperatures of around 30C and actually whilst it is a little uncomfortable, the very people who complain are the ones jetting off to higher temperatures elsewhere - make it make sense.  So how a 1.5C increase is even noticeable in the overall scheme of things I have no idea.  

The green eyed monster rears its ugly head again as people just think they can get money for nothing and not have to work for it.  They are like vultures circling overhead and whilst I am working flat out to make things happen and sell and thereby make money they stand at the sidelines throwing stones but also expecting to be fed from the trough that I will create.

Anyway, it's getting warm and its early in the morning so I think it will be an easy day.  I've done all my admin for the day (and its Saturday)!  

Imposing Your Will or View Onto Others

 I'm pretty much sick to death of this.  Does no one ask politely anymore?  Since when has it been acceptable to just come out with some random demand and expect obedience?  What's the point?

I'd expect it from ignorant people but these people aren't that.  It's as if these past few years since Convid have allowed people to act like the Stazi and lord it over others.  This isn't management in a business, this is full strange "Do this" or "Don't do that" or "Do what I say not what I do" and frankly, I've had enough of it. Sick to death with it.  

SO how to deal with it?  Well, it's me so I just don't speak to them and ignore them which is OK for me, I can live in my INTJ world.  Only communicate when needed. Only do what I want to do, don't look out for them.  Best I can do as it is upsetting that they even think all of this is acceptable.  Turns out we've got cr@p government and some of my acquaintances are trying to be worse than that and succeeding too.  

Cancer and Mental Health

 You may find this podcast interesting or read this  transcript.

If you read the early stuff I did you'd know that it isn't easy to describe it but you go low and down and whilst it isn't mental health in the way we'd know it in a clinical sense it is real and difficult to deal with.  I mainly dealt with it on my own but I know I affected those around me whether knowingly or just by the way I was.

I still have highs and lows and I still get the odd flash back because it is this time of year, when I discovered the problem, saw my doctor with varied reactions as he was not a bedside manner guy and then met the lady who diagnosed me, got me into Hospital quickly and did the Operations and all the treatments etc.

There's things like waiting, worrying, letting your mind (I am particularly bad at this) per mutating all possible outcomes and then much to my personal shame, there's the fallout of divorce and quite a lot of wasted time and energy when I should be doing good stuff and celebrating.

Anyway, if you are having a bit of a rough time of it, have a listen - you are very much, not alone.

What Is Going On?

 What is wrong with people with their trivial problems that they need to project onto you.  They make huge mistakes in their own lives and it's your fault!?  WTF.  Since when is this acceptable behaviour and since when is this my fault?

Then, there's the list of demands on what you should and shouldn't be doing.  Frankly, if they act this way they should up sticks and go move to North Korea or somewhere that would appreciate them.  It's getting annoying in the extreme now and it's the new norm. 

Their logic even goes so far as asking you to do something about their problem, get them out of the fix they've got themselves into. Irony is lost on them and they do not seem to actually understand that they are the ones being unrealistic and weird.

Suppose they'll have to learn the hard way.  

Monday Night

 Friends from Australia on a stop over suggested an evening meal.  It wasn't too far for us to go and the traffic was so light that we were able to do he journey 10 minutes quicker than normal.  The Hotel / Pub was nice, I haven't been there for 40 years or more so I don't remember it at all - apart from its facade.

Food was good and plentiful and the company was excellent.  Like the UK, Australia is turning very sadly away from being the world of Crocodile Dundee and I imagine that the way both our Governments are behaving with their cult like Net Zero and here too our NHS worship that a collapse is on the cards.  In both cases the (I can't bring myself to call them politicians) creeps and dunces in charge know how to get us out of this, they'll tax our way out of debt!  National Debt Clock is an interesting and disturbing watch.

Here, companies are leaving, those choosing an IPO are going elsewhere and you can see why.  The price hit of the combined raising of minimum wage, national insurance and the change in when that kicks in put a huge problem for small business.  New labour laws will do the same.  It isn't sustainable without growth and no one is growing apart from more public sector and they don't produce anything, they don't keep the populace healthy so they can go to work (quite the opposite).  You have to wonder whether this is all by design?

Oh well, it was nice to see our friends even though this year on a fleeting visit.  They've held off plans for moving or buying a second house over here based on their view of the UK.  Interesting times ahead and choppy waters too. 

Twenty Years On

The 7th July 2005 and I was in the vicinity of Aldwych, London.  I'd gone up for an interview and was on a carriage of kids who were all due to go to Baker Street and I imagine Madame Tussaud's and the Planetarium.  They were advised to catch the train back as there was a power outage and a fire and I think they duly caught the train back.  I wandered up the road to the interview.  There was a BAR F1 Car in the window of an office block - the sort Jenson Button drove as I recall (perhaps wrongly).

It was an early interview and I immediately realised that the two guys that were interviewing me were way out of the depth.  By that I mean that they hadn't prepared, hadn't read my CV and had no real grasp of the job that they were asking me to do.  It was like sending the cleaner to hire a Brain Surgeon.   The interview didn't last long as they couldn't answer my questions and the little creep was also sneering and I could see had no idea of what I was talking about.  He also didn't like the questions I was asking them about what their roles were to be if they hiring the overall Programme Director, what part in the Programme were they taking and would I be reporting to them.

Once you realise that there isn't a hope in hell, then go on the attack and make them work hard to close down the interview etc.  They said that there had been an incident on the underground and just up the road and so I thought, as it was relatively early I'd go back to Charing Cross and just go home.  The sound of sirens was all around and when I got to the station the dooors were locked and a Policeman was guarding it.  I asked what was going on and I think he said security incident, that Charing Cross was closed but Waterloo was open so I walked across the bridge to Waterloo and then found that whilst Waterloo was open (that's the East station) they were actually running trains out of London Bridge - the next station on and using Waterloo East to turn the trains like they'd do at Charing Cross normally.  So I walked on but the other side of the station saw the largest numbers of Fire Engines, Police Cars and Ambulances all lined up.

The mobile phone network had been turned off and so I didn't get the frantic calls from my mother, brother and wife.  I could not call out either.  I walked in the mizzle towards London Bridge and as I arrived there, a train came in and I was able to head home on a reasonably empty train.  The phone eventually rung as I got nearer my destination and it was my brother and so I briefly explained where I was and that I was on the way home and got him to ring my mum and my wife so they knew I was OK and making my way home.

I came out of the station into the local pub and grabbed a beer and they had the TV on so I was able to finally see and hear what had gone on.  Not for the first time I had been in London during a multiple bombing.  I drank a second beer and wandered home and watched the horror unfold. 

 It was a horrific attack and the Bus in Tavistock Square was the nearest to where I was - still around a mile away I'd guess - possibly a little less. A sad day, the dead, injured, those affected and the emergency services all caught up in the events.  

If At First You Don't Succeed.....

Then Sky Diving is not for you as the joke goes.  

I find myself doubting what I know intuitively to be right.  It creeps in and I find myself doing my heavy analysis bit to check, recheck, invert, recheck, send it into another dimension, recheck and recheck again.  

I know that these comments and requests aren't all that they appear to be.  That's at the heart of the matter, it's a three dimensional game of chess in many ways or perhaps cards.  I dropped the trump card last time and that has done a lot to temper this second letter but now I re read this for the nth time I see things that can only be there for the wrong reasons.  

Regime change is an interesting thing and it requires a certain amount of knowledge which he doesn't possess.  It always looked as if he was being manipulated and this second letter proves it.  The first one pretty much pointed to it as well.  What is interesting is that the wording has changed and the attack point but it still doesn't add up.

It's taken me a while to just work out what I need to do on this.  In reality, that is nothing but a change in ploy is now required that allows me to deal with this over months not days.  They've take their time to respond and so I shall take a similar time. I might acknowledge the letter though even them, maybe not.  What's the point?

It's all messy as you like and not of my making.  It's just annoying and takes up too much of my time when the outcome is likely to be the same as the last time. The John Cleese phrase in Fawlty Towers "You started it, you invaded Poland!" flashes through my mind to pull me back to the reality of the situation.  This is now the third attack and whilst the first was shocking, the second really was devastating both business and personally.  This third one strips down to a few key elements and the traps are baited, because answering them leads to another form of action opening the door to prolong things.

You know it is a trap when you look behind what these questions actually mean.  Using probing questions to provide information that they are not entitled to is also an alarm bell.  Trying to establish figures to enter into their spreadsheets can wait.  

Oh well, I know what I can do now as their precedent is set in terms of timing and their strategy / game plan is becoming clearer through the obfuscation of the first letter and the probing nature of the second.  As luck would have it, I don't actually need to answer any of it as it concerns no one but me.  

Disappointing Isn't It?

 I'm pretty fed up at the moment with this chap still writing through a solicitor.  It's a typical thing when someone's made a big mistake that they cannot let it go.  I can see his point but as I used to say to people, "I'd like to see your point of view but I can't get my head that far up your arse!"

It's now making me a little depressed as rather than just walking away, they are firing off stuff at me that isn't really important at all and just causes me stress and isn't necessary but more than that, I now see that some of this is from another hand another person as he isn't the sort to think or act like this of his own volition because it is a series of little traps and frankly, stuff that shouldn't even matter unless there was something else behind it.

So I am coming to the conclusion that there needs to be a new line drawn in this and it will be to turn this around and go into offence not defence from now on.  I need to go back to my Sun Tzu Art Of War thinking and act quite differently to the reactive way I have had to so far.  I need to start treating this on my terms not on his.  He has nothing to give so he'll need to try harder.

It's just so annoying that people act like this but I suppose he's got nothing else to think about and needs to go through these dying actions.  I think that the worst part, for him, is that he's lost some real friends and allies but has probably gained some Worm Tongue or Tongues who are making him do their bidding.  I cannot help him anymore, all he did was betray my trust and became disloyal, back stabbing and undervalued the work I had done on his behalf.  Now hiding, he snipes back as if he is in the higher moral position, in the right and on the moral high ground.

Dear reader, he 'should' know me well enough to realise that it's not going to be tolerated for much longer given the brutal attack originally instigated.  This second approach is disguised on a bit more conciliatory but hides its true intent between the lines.  It's an old trick - he forgets, despit me having told him many times in the past, that I used to this stuff for a living.

Yay, It's Another Circuit Around The Sun!

 Yes, It;s my birthday and having been quite depressed for a while, this morning I have cheered up a little bit.  

I have to say getting another solicitor's letter was just so annoying and distressing but of course, having read it, there's not a lot that I can do about it anyway - just "buyer's remorse" I put it down to.  Actions have consequences and so these are the consequences and they're not my actions despite them trying to project them on to me.  

I will spend the day just relaxing and hopefully be fully chilled out about it all later. Nineteen years though since the presentation of my Bladder Cancer.  A lot has happened and I'm glad that I am still here and able to live my life.  Many are not that fortunate unfortunately and some of the people I knew back then are no longer with us, I count myself lucky that I am not one of them.  

Here We Go Again

 Another Solicitor's letter FFS.  Not so bad this time but still a thundering nuisance nonetheless.  I could do without it but have to deal with it I suppose.  For someone who wants nothing to do  with me, it's almost the opposite.

Oh well, just another thing to deal with that I don't need at this time.  Amazon excelled themselves yesterday too.  I ordered something to expressly arrive today as I was out.  Apparently it was handed to the resident or in my case on the doorstep!  It was a high value item too but luckily it was there when we returned last night.  Talking of which two strange drivers - one who was overtaking everything on suburbans roads and the other displaying no lights and driving a little erratically - the sort you drop back from and they had been harassed by the car mentioned previously but there was something wrong with the way they were driving and as we went past some temporary traffic lights they managed to drive both nearside tyres at some speed over a raised curb island.  It did make a bang and as I suspected both tyres blew a few yards further down so they had to pull over.

It was late and twilight and they were over to the curve so I passed and drove on - "aren't you going to stop?"  And the answer was "No" - twenty or thirty years ago perhaps but you just don't know who is in the vehicle and they weren't driving it properly so could be drug or drunk I don't know but the last thing is to go and help out.  Hopefully they have breakdown insurance and I imagine they'd need new wheels too the impact was that heavy.  I'm not a young fit man anymore and you just never know who these people are.  

Nineteen Years

 Always, at this time of year I get a bit cranky.  It is 19 years today since I found blood in my urine and so that is one of those reasons. My father died on the 3rd July and it is my birthday on the 4th.  There are other things associated with these 3 or 4 days too so unsurprisingly I get a bit down.  

I feel particularly rubbish this morning as I stupidly had a few beers last night and that hasn't helped me one bit.  I must learn to just not go to the beers when I am feeling low!  It only makes matters worse.  I know this, I'm old enough to know better too! 

Nostalgia And All That Jazz

 Writing my biography is an interesting exercise but it is actually throwing up what I obliterated some years ago.  I was prone to reviewing and playing over in my head all the scenarios of things that had happened and was very bad at this constant analysis and reanalysis of situations that had happened because my mind does that, it's a whirr of computational what ifs and I always felt that was why I did what I did as a living.

I one day realised that all this stuff in my head whizzing around being worked on in multiple layers in a parallel type computational way was actually getting me nowhere, no where at all and that really was a problem and somewhere in the blog is the moment I lay down in bed and set fire to my memories and stopped dwelling and what-ifing.  My mind was then free of all that stuff.

Writing my biography has actually brought back some of that (not all I hasten to add) but some key moments in my life.  Well what I felt were key or pivotal.  Maybe not at the time.  These junctions in the road are interesting in an academic sort of way as you can do the "What If?" test on them but I found myself doing that this morning and I must stop it.  In my head are perhaps 8 to 10 moments in my life where I could have done something but didn't, I opted for what I knew, the place of safety and certainty and there's the regret.  I very rarely make a move or decision that I haven't thought through, I rarely do things on the spur of the moment and that is what I can feel being a regret.

Interestingly these are all relationship things.  I could have made a different decision and who knows what would have happened?  Your head and heart now say that something incredible would have happened, something with a romantic and rose tinted view of the world and yet if I really, really thought about it, I'd tend to doubt so.  With the romantic, idealised view there, of course things could have turned out differently and have been all Disney and perfect.  But you and I know that isn't true.  My analytical mind also realises this but that little ego voice likes to thinks that it would have worked out fine, Much better.  

I suppose it is alright to dream a little and in two cases I can conjure up a life that would be massively different from right now.  The fantasy plays out in my head and that's where it will stay but not for long.  Now's the time, after it is written down to get rid of it.  These are not in my biography but written down in another document that could be inserted into it.  I don't think that they should be in there.  I think some could be as it was part of my life and my journey.