Service - At Last

 Gosh, I emailed late yesterday, got a response back, came to see me this morning and I have a quote and they can start pretty soon which is brilliant.

Wow, finally someone who was not only responsive but also courteous and turned up when they said too.  Excellent.

The other company turned up but in reality they were a little too expensive but they turned up and were pleasant.  A bit too rich for the blood perhaps though.

I am glad about that as I need to get things sorted out for the house.  re-pointing the front wall may seem a bit extravagant but it needs to be sorted out as the frost has got into the mortar and I'd rather give it a new lease of life now than if it falls down!  I can then get my hedgerow sorted out too.

Which Got Me Thinking More About Kindness

 I mentioned that the women I knew were kind, sure there were some nasty ones but once you've left school and go to college yo no longer associate with those who gave you a hard time but gravitate towards those whom you have good relations.

It occurred to me that, of course, there were plenty of people who disliked me and gave me a hard time.  A lot of that is because of my personality type.  Being an INTJ is difficult and lots of people don't know how to handle us.  Then as I was just mulling it over a flashback to a situation where I was a young up and coming technician who was plucked out of the pool because I had a specific skill for understanding complex control systems and I could scan multiple drawings and see problems in them - it's a pattern thing that I can notice things like this.  A number in a series that is out of place, a connection that is in the wrong line and so on.  So I became a young wizzkid I suppose and now it dawns on me, all these years ago, that the reason I was treated quite so badly was that I could do something other people could not and maybe I was a threat to them?  I don't know, I liked to be around clever people but something must have affected people who'd lose their minds in anger sometimes.

All it did to me was to make me work harder, learn more and move around jobs.  I look at how people are losing their mind over Trump and Musk and I wonder if it is some sort of problem people have that they cannot work with people or perhaps they've been found out and karma is coming down the road fast towards them?  I'd say I'm pretty much a dark horse and keep my cards close to my chest in business, not so much outside of that area.  The thing is that perhaps I scared these people somehow?  I'd always have run ins with the vast majority of my bosses, there were only a handful that I really excelled working for, two of them were women and they were scarily good but they knew that I'd get the job done, would leave me to it and I'd only have to go and ask and they'd put things in place for me.  A couple of men too were good but the rest were chancers who had no idea what they were doing and who made decisions that weren't thought through.

What they'd hate is that I'd challenge their decisions where needed and I'd produce data and plans why their decision wouldn't work or be suitable and then they'd get angry and tell me to implement it.  I'd document my objections, tell them what might happen and blow me down, it would come to pass.  Then they'd explode and I'd make the situation worse by giving them a copy of what I'd told them would happen.  I wasn't a diplomat! 

So back to it, all this mistreatment was because inevitably these guys would screw up all by themselves and then they'd come after me.  I didn't help myself as I'd probably make the situation worse :-) I see this in the world now.  Cr@p decisions made by inadequately prepared specifications, a wrong grasp on facts and figures and no planning, ROI, work on risks or knock on impacts.  It's pitiful.  When you point out that there's a problem they actually use words like "I don't care" or "No it's not" and there's absolutely nothing there at all.  They don't listen and they make stupid decisions as if just by making them it's going to solve things.  Then they get angry and yell and are nasty and for what purpose?

It's a nasty place at the moment.  We are run by intellectual lightweights who hold idealogy above real life actual data and who's idea of an impact assessment lacks any coherent argument, planning or cost benefit analysis.  The reason is?  None of them have been in business or understand the totality of what it means to approach the self inflicted problems in a holistic manner.

Anyway, as I daydreamed this meeting I had with a technician who couldn't see the problems I was highlighting it struck me that all they saw was a threat and all I saw was the danger of wiring up some components in a way that would potentially kill someone if installed as shown.  I wonder if all displays of anger are based in this inadequacy to be open to discussion and more likely to protect their own necks?  

That's It I Think

 You are no longer in their life and haven't been for years and there's no need to reunite or reconnect in some ways.  It was a period of your life and theirs that you were present in, no matter how long for or indeed how deep the relationships were at the time, now it doesn't really matter.  You are no longer part of their lives and they are no longer part of yours.

Longing for something different is perhaps a failed and false illusion.  For over 35 or 50 years they just haven't been in your circle of friends, they didn't experience what you did and you didn't experience what they did.  We were all too busy working our way through life's rich tapestry, grafting, working hard, getting into our own troubles and getting out of them and they weren't there and neither were you there in there lives.

It sounds blindingly obvious but the mind has a romantic view of the past and I tend to have a rose tinted view of those who I was close to.  Of course, it is just that, an idealised vision of what was and I think what I'd have liked it to be and "if things were different" what sort of life I'd be living now.  It's fantasy of course, destined only to happen in a parallel universe.  Contacting after all this time has awakened feelings that I had at the time.  I often feel that in these daydreams I have that the ladies in my life would finally look at me and see the way that I look at them and ask "How long have you loved me?" and I'd say with a slight tear in my eye, "All my life".  And I have really but perhaps not in the way it might sound.  There are a small number of women who have been special to me in all sorts of ways.  Recently finding them again after so long presents me with the possibility that if things had been different what would life be like now?

It is a theoretical fantasy filled hypothetical conundrum for I wouldn't change my children or grandchildren for the world but... What might have happened?  It goes nowhere of course, it's the mind playing tricks on me and it's taunting because in my own way I loved everyone of them, they were different to all the other interactions I had with other girls at the time, they were kind, knowing, gentle, patient and above all good friends, quite platonic friends when all said and done.  We may have held hands, danced at a party, stolen the odd kiss but that was it mostly.  I probably should have asked one of them out I suppose but I never did.  I was horribly shy and not confident at all.  Give it a few more years on and I got better once I had a proper relationship.

Yes, it is strange that I know how they are, have heard the fill in of the last 35 years and they have heard mine, similar tales and similar joys and woes and now, I'm not overly interested in getting back together again or pursuing it further and I don't thing they are either.  A polite exchange of historical facts and we continue with our lives no matter what we meant to each other all those years ago.

The realisation that none of us are part of our current lives is mutual and you can't make a gap that far go away again I think?  We are all so different now, shaped by our experiences and the roads travelled.  Our paths appear parallel but in reality they couldn't be more different and yet the same.

There's No Going Back Is There?

 It's interesting that the last time I met  my old friends was way back in 1990.  Thirty five years ago.  Stuff happens and you drift apart not really meaning to but emails and addresses get changed and that's how it happens. 

It wasn't a coincidence that we reconnected at all really.  I thought it was but realised that I'd seen my friends face and something must have started my mind churning and the memories of his wife, another old friend of mine where playing with me and then I realised that it was him just without his beard.  He's changed a fair bit (haven't we all) but his wife, hardly at all.

We exchanged messages and caught up with 35 years news in two exchanges.  We both have sojourned through our work and our adventures, have children, have grandchildren etc.  All are retired and that's about that really.  There's nothing here to go forward.  The great times we all had were back in the 1970s and early 1980s.  We have lived different lives since then.  We went to visit when we had our eldest and showed her off on our way on holiday and that was that.

You drift away, quite rapidly I think, we used to exchange cards and the like and then nothing.  He and I shared our 21st birthday party and we all used to play badminton every Sunday, go to concerts together (a memorable one being Rod Stewart initially cancelled through a snow white out and rescheduled for New Year's Eve).  The car broke down at New Cross late on New Year's Eve.  We got the train home and went back the next day to fix a leaking hose and limp the car back.  We were able to fix our own cars back then.

Oh well, we all move in different spheres and different directions and I'm not sure what I'd expect really.  It's nostalgic of course to look back at all the fun and mischief we got up to, sharing the house, brewing our own beer, the fat cat falling down behind the TV (bloody thing deserved it), parties - turning the clock to the wall above the fireplace if you had "company" and we often did.

But that was then and this is now.  Did I think we might meet up and pick up where we left off?  Probably not, it's been too long and what's the point.  I suppose if we met up it would only be interesting for me not for anyone else and my children and theirs were far too young to remember anyway. I think it's best left like that too.  

There's a certain longing for the "old days" we were at peak of our youth and young adulthood, strong, fit, slim, good looking, beautiful even.  The lady he married does hold special memories for me though, she really was nice to me in an arm around your shoulder sort of way.  She is one of the very special people you come across in life who was fun to be with, never toyed with my shy quiet ways and treated me like a brother I suppose.  A beauty in mind and body, and she still looks just as I remember her all those years back.  I was, of course, too shy to ever ask her out and to coin a phrase used today I'd have been punching way above my weight if I had.  

I am pleased she is happy and they are still together and their family are all well and enjoying life.  Good on them. 

Thank Goodness That's Over

 I very rarely suffer headaches, I get a few but one a year maybe.  Yesterday I had a headache and dry mouth (I did hydrate) and by the time I arrived home my head was pounding and I even took a few Ibuprofen before getting to bed.

It was my ex mother-in-law's funeral and whilst I don't actually have any problems with my ex, my kids and my ex brother and sister in law, it's actually old friends I have a problem with.  I mean they smile right enough but actually I can feel the burn, if you know what I mean?

The lady was very kind to me as was her husband also sadly no longer with us and I wanted to support my daughter who wrote and delivered the eulogy.  

I hope that there wont be too many of these things to attend as they are stressful.   

Through Children's Eyes

 One of the great things about being a grandparent (possibly a parent but you are sometimes too busy to notice) is the level of excitement that a child can get from something that, to us, appears ordinary.

My grandson showed an interest in the Moon and planets and my daughter asked me if I still had my telescope.  Unfortunately it broke so I gave it to a charity who said they could repair it and use it.  Great as I couldn't get an answer from the manufacturers or distributors!  So I said it was broken but I'd happily buy him one.  It duly arrived and he was so excited by it and it has really sparked his curiosity and got him interested even more.  When you see his obvious joy and enthusiasm you get to remember what it used to be like to see things for the first time, experience things and be in awe of what's around you.

I thought as he liked that I would get him one of these planetarium projectors which has gone down a storm too.  It's meant to be a calming thing but he's buzzing seeing the planets and the moon right up there on his ceiling.  There are a number of different slides and so I am pleased that he likes that too.  So, my other grandson will be getting a telescope and projector too.

We quickly forget what it is like to be amazed at things, to be enthralled with a view of an animal, a fossil, the night sky, trains (who doesn't like a train trip) and so on.  So much so that we as adults do not find the joy in these things.  Seeing my grandchildren and watching their reactions is precious and a blessing and it reminds me to try to get the joy out of life once again, the spirit of being alive and observing and enjoying it.  Recently working in the garden I can see why people enjoy that - I'm not a great gardener but I can get the attraction.

It's difficult to be conscious and in the present moment though as we become jaded through our life's journey I feel.  It's remembering to enjoy these things and the joy of a child is just the tonic to do that.  

Why Waste Your Time And Mine?

Some people appear to have nothing better to do than to hurl abuse on social media.  I run a number of social media pages for a number of organisations and it never surprises me that someone would take the time to formulate a bilious, abusive, rant response to what I always feel are quite innocuous posts.  I don't have any political leanings in the posts I do, they don't reflect current affairs, they are just informative or self-deprecating.

The ugliness of some of the comments probably points to some deeply disturbed problem and it's as if they have battery acid for blood.

I don't suppose they'll know that I have a system that deals with these promptly and that's a report for abusive hate speech, blocking and there's a few little features that stop any other iteration of the same account coming back.  It's effective and report and block are powerful tools especially when hatred and abuse are posted.  Their account will be immediately suspended pending review and I imagine that it wont just be my account that they've abused and so they'll lose their account altogether and any other account they have might be suspended.

I get occasional suspensions and I'm pretty certain that people are reporting my account but, or course, when they investigate, they can see that the account is active, not threatening or in any way outside their Ts&Cs and so I normally get reinstated in 5 minutes from notification.

The other stuff I get is Spam and so you just click and report spam and block in the same action.  It's simple.

It makes you wonder why they do this sort of thing but each to his own I suppose.  

Coincidence Or Something Else?

 I wrote recently about when I was younger and losing touch with people and blow me down, I was looking at a Facebook suggestion and the face was familiar as was the name but the two didn't fit together or I hadn't clicked what it was.  I had been dreaming recently and indeed looking back at some photos and reminiscing about those times and a certain lady and how she'd been very kind to me.

By kind I mean that she and I were good friends in a quite platonic way although, I have to say I really liked her but I digress.  I was an awkward teenager and found it quite difficult in social situations.  She was great and helped me out interpreting romantic situations for me.  We went on adventures as a group and I recall we spent a weekend in Paris seeing the sites.

So I saw this chaps face and suddenly it dawned on me that he didn't have his beard and I have always known him with a beard!  We lost touch about 25 years ago and I have no idea how that happened.  He and I shared a house together when we were 19!  We spent a lot of time together at various pubs and we were forever fixing cars his especially would break down regularly and I'd go and tow him home!

So he married the girl I mentioned earlier and previously she had been my other friend's girlfriend too so we all got on together well.  After they married they moved away to Basing and then to Cheddar and had children and then we had our first and we went to see them and that was that, Christmas Cards dried up and email didn't work and I'd tried to contact them but I guess they'd moved away.

Anyway, I've written a note and got a response.  There, on his profile, as lovely as ever is his wife and my confidante from all those years ago.  It will be nice to see if this reconnects us.

Are We Really Doing Well With Cancer?

 I've survived it and I think it was pretty impressive that someone was able to work out how to use BCG and get an immune response to tackle my Bladder Cancer.  A bit like the first person to see a Cow's udder and think "I wonder if I can drink what comes out of there?"  But I digress.

I watched the Cancer Research UK Advert the other day and it now states that 1 in 2 people will get cancer in their lifetime. As an official 'old git', I recall not only when they said it was 1 in 3 but also when it was 1 in 4.  So, what is it?  If it is really 1 in 2 people a 50% chance or more likely a 1 in 4 or 25% chance.  This 1 in 2 figure is for countries like UK, USA and so on.  Elsewhere it is more like 1 in 5 or 1 in 4 some say that is down to detection rates and lifestyle without doubt.

So here, there are a lot fewer people who smoke now and we have a higher standard of living almost zero pollution (you had to live through the 60s and the smoke filled air) and so why on earth is cancer on the rise like this?

I'd like to hazard a guess that the way we eat has a lot to do with it.  Look at photos from the 60s and 70s and we were all skinny and fit as a Butcher's Dog!  Now, we all look like relatives of Mr. Blobby!   Certainly I don't see 50% of my friends with Cancer.  Just thinking it through there's probably more likely 1 in 10 I'd say.  

Diabetes worries me as that is going up and up and no one seems to add 2 + 2 and get anywhere near the right number on that.  We can quite clearly see why there is diabetes and obesity and yet nothing is actually done to prevent it.  As type 2 it can (generally) be reversed but maybe it is more profitable to treat the symptoms than addressing the cause?  

Prevention rather than cure but there's no money in that.  Always follow the money!

Become Ungovernable

 There is something about our present government that is at its heart cruel and spiteful and uncaring.  I felt that before under Blair and Brown too.  There was a constant chipping away at wealth and our very civilization and identity.

I remember "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Mahatma Gandhi and how he said "An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so". He believed that people should resist unjust laws through nonviolence, not violence.  By refusing to do certain things it would make India ungovernable.  

I like to think that the longer this goes on and the more people finally awaken from their slumbers (and get angry) something similar would happen here.  I'm thinking about just being awkward (why is that word so difficult to spell) and not doing things, civil disobedience if you like.  I had in mind making the local council invoice me every month and not take my money automatically and all the utility companies too.  Get them sending paper requests and paying at the second letter or statement.  Staying away from village centres and only shopping at the local Farmer's markets, not parking where you have to pay but walking a little further to get whatever you went for.  Boycotting things and so on.

The trouble is we aren't like the French who seem to have a once a fortnightly riot whether they want one or not, nor are we like our Latin counterparts in France, Italy and Greece.  The British have a far more laid back attitude and you can push and push and push if you are willing to suffer the consequences because once pushed too far things turn distinctly dark.

There's no easy way to become a thorn in the side of the authorities who are elected to their positions by the very people that they mistreat.  It's not a loving relationship and its almost abusive.  We are meant to be governed by consent, that's what the democratic process is there for apparently.  Whet we get is ideologues unworthy of their position, amateur in their outlook and ugly on the inside and generally that bristles through to the outside too.  The infliction of (mainly) monetary pain followed up by the destruction of our heritage and history is unacceptable and it will lead to consequences that no one saw because they don't think, plan, work out outcomes and benefits and rewards.  It's all beating the populace with a stick at the moment and telling us its good for us.

I do my little bit with complaining and so on but feel that the next step is to make it difficult to deal with me.  Huge increases in my household budget are coming in because this government lied.  They were going to freeze them all but no, they've taken the brakes off and kowtowed to their invisible masters and let them all through at once so utilities are going up, local taxes, employment taxes and general taxation - they'll say it isn't but they forget conveniently the effect of fiscal drag by not changing thresholds.  The currency is now unstable, gold is being moved around the globe in large quantities and investment is drying up and money being moved out.  I know I am getting myself ready for this.

They state that inflation is only (whatever it is) but we can see it must be double or perhaps treble that maybe even more and so it keeps everyone poor.  If you are reducing the value of your currency by around 8 or 10% per year then you are in a bad space.  They just haven't realised it yet.

Well let's see what is coming down the line and become ungovernable if possible.

What Have We Become?

I was watching someone who was arrested by the police and taken to the station, at night, stayed overnight, brought back home and apparently it was because he posted hurty words or some such.  One person found them offensive and complained. Not hundreds or thousands, one person.  

These people were what we called the school sneaks, you know the sort, spotty kids who probably spent a lot of time alone staring at some sort of nerdy book and who just couldn't or didn't want to integrate at school.  They'd rat on others and they'd never really have friends apart from their own sort.

So, that's the sort of basement dwelling, anonymous, cowards we have to deal with today.  I have no idea how much time the police spent but you can imagine it was a few hours and more than one officer plus the station staff and then duty solicitor and so on.  Transport to and from the station.  And for what?  Os this guy dangerous to the public?  Did his hurty words offend the one complainant?  What on earth is going on.  There's kids getting knifed, other crime not followed up, just recorded but there's plenty of time to go and arrest someone and tell them off for incorrect grammar and hurty words.

The bottom line on this is that people take exception to it.  For goodness sake whatever happened to ignoring people if you don't like what they are saying.  Remember when if you didn't like something on TV you turned the bloody thing off.  Why sit through something that's annoying you and then after you've wasted another hour of your life watching it and hating it, then write and complain taking another hour of your miserable life in doing so?  

Here's the thing that I tend to do now more often.  I used to (and still do actually) receive emails selling something or asking something and often I am helpful in responding.  Yesterday a case in point where I was trying to assist someone who lives in Africa and listed down the steps he needed to take to join an organisation.  Obviously that wasn't good enough and it got to a point where on the third email which proved he hadn't read anything I said, I used all those lovely tools of blocking the contact and if you really want to, make it spam too so it kills it all off.

Now I could have prolonged the exchange but, life's too short.  I use these tools on my email and on my phone, they are great, you never have to hear from these people again.  I certainly don't go and complain about them to the authorities and just deal out my own form of justice of blocking and so on.  You can of course report people in Instagram, Facebook and the like but that's for flagrant abuse or phishing and similar scams.  If someone is abusive or just downright annoying, block them.  For some of my friends who get all "Soapboxy" and rant, mainly about politics etc., you can put them on a 30 day cooling off period. It just means you don't see what they've posted for 30 days and if they are still ranty then you can repeat it.  There's no real need to report them is there?  It's their opinion after all and whilst it's annoying that they publish and be damned and display a level of ignorance and negativity, naive analysis and reactionary outbursts to MSM headlines, you don't need to dob them in for it, just shake your head, push the pause button and wonder how these people get along in day to day life?

Anyway, that's enough for now I suppose but I do find it disturbing and disappointing that one person can take offence at something and cause a large amount of tax payers money on reporting it.  The cost for someone to be cautioned, the paperwork and all the rest of it is just another drain on society and it appears that the vast majority of these are politically motivated, because they can.  I liked it back in the olden days when you just ignored people, turned the radio or TV off or just chose not to watch or read the stuff that would anger or annoy you.  Just avoid it altogether and FFS get a life you little creeps!  

Not Good At Communicating

It's interesting in an INTJ way that I am good at communicating especially in business terms and hopefully my written work, in my own peculiar style, is generally well received.  I do struggle though in everyday conversation and situations.

An example, would be in conversation with someone they might ask me how I am or some other basic conversational question and I'll generally give a short explicit answer.  What I do not do, as I don't think about it at the time, is ask them a similar question thus keeping the conversation going.  I don't make idle chit chat and it doesn't cross my mind, until a little later, that I should have perhaps asked as it appears rude.  I just don't have the inclination to ask these questions.

I'm OK in terms of a conversation especially about a subject I know about and can bring facts to the conversation but just asking asinine trivial weather and health related chit chat, that's not me.  INTJs deal with facts and figures and we have a planned thought out view of things and so ask me about Climate Change, Business, Finance, World Economics, Cancer, Diet and so on and I will be in my element as I know a fair amount, can present it coherently and whilst I have a viewpoint, I will not ram that down your throat rather I will listen and hear the argument that's presented.  I may add something here to counter but I've learned not to go all in these days.

We were talking about electric cars for example and the chap had a plug in hybrid car with a very long warranty and he knew what he was doing in terms of he worked out how long he would have the car, the warranty cover etc.  He's keeping it for the full 7 years and anything goes wrong it's covered.  It's the first time I've heard that argument articulated in that way and that's fine because he has sat down, done the maths and worked out what he wants and is prepared to pay.  It's more money than I would "invest" in a car and I was explaining about the problem car manufacturers are facing with the EV mandate but I hadn't looked at one point until he said it.  He knew what he was doing, he's done his homework and worked it all out.  He'd have got his return on investment in 7 years, anything more was a bonus.

I enjoyed that conversation.  What I didn't really do though was all the "how's your partner?", "Nice weather we are having?" sort of stuff because it doesn't get you anywhere or at least it doesn't get me anywhere.  These are social niceties that I just don't have or get.  I can do them, I just have to be aware of my situation and tune in to it, then I can join in with this sort of inane banter.  All my life I've been like that I generally tend not to ask the same question I was just asked back to the questioner to carry on the polite hors d'oeuvres of a social gathering.   I want to get straight onto the main course :-)

It's a bit late for me to change now and whilst I can be quite charming it needs the people I am in conversation with to be worthy of me dipping back into my polite chit chat vocabulary.  I much prefer to meet people who you know straight away will be good company and have great things to say and you'll learn a lot from.  They say opposites attract which might be true but I generally mute down if there's a powerful extrovert in the group.  I prefer a sparkling conversation about anything really except football or TV programmes that I have no interest in.  I don't know who half (or more) of these "celebrities" are and so you'd lose me on that.

Yes, strange - I must try harder though to work on my inane banter.  

When Will It End?

 The house maintenance that is....  Today I dug a small bed out for the Beech Hedge and found a grat big lump of metal dug into the ground.  I couldn't budge it even with my pallet breaker bar and so used brute force and ignorance (of which I have plenty left) and my trusty club hammer and bashed it down a little further and folded the edges in, burying it under about 6 inches of earth and a soon to be Beech Hedge.  I went to plant some of the other trees but t'other half was going out so I didn't, instead I chopped up some of the barbed wire fencing I'd dug up!  That can go to the metal waste bin and then I repaired the gutter which had come loose for the second time in seven years.  I hope that I have actually sorted it out this time.  On inspection the gutter ends have disappeared and so I guess they got blown away in the gale as they were there a few months ago.

Then the Trickle Vents need doing so I've ordered those.  The gaps need doing and I've got stuff to do it but the ground is water logged making it difficult to get my steps to stop sinking into the earth!  It's like quicksand by the side of the house.

I have a list of things to do that's about a mile long and so let's hope the weather improves and I can get to do them.  I have a builder coming over to look at re pointing our wall and fillings in some gaps and repairing some mortar joints.

And to top it all I've just found a leak in the airing cupboard where the new tank went in a few weeks back.  I was hoping that it was just a stain from the previous leak but this looks as if it is either a new leak or something not tightened up.  

The garden is so very slowly getting sorted but it takes so long to get anywhere.  At least the little hedge trees look to have taken so far.

New Glasses

 And just in time too.  The old pair are four years old and thankfully my prescription hasn't really changed that much but after the old pair hit the floor on Christmas Day as I dodged a huge steam escape from my oven.  There's a small crack which formed by one of the screw holes and I've super-glued it but it did look like it was getting worse I have to say.  

The new glasses arrived this afternoon and they are OK but as usual they take a little getting used to and adjusting.  I'm sure it will be OK in a day or two but the one lens that has changed is taking a while to get used to as it takes me a while to get used to the new lenses.

More planting and Ivy and Bramble removing going on and the rather small hedge plants I hope will take and fill in some of the gaps we have. It looks as if I can weave some of the existing branches which I will do at some point in time too.

There's lots to be done in the garden and to the house and so I just need to get myself properly organised to do them. It will be a welcome distraction from the dog's breakfast going on with our government - jeez, these people are useless and then some.  We really could do with some adults to take charge as these childlike politicians are making a right mess.  They are eating their crayons and making a right mess LOL!

 They can't even answer a basic question and seem to by lying all the time.  Please, let them be caught out and have to face the consequence of their actions.  At the moment they are getting away with it.  I think we are all just watching out of curiosity and disbelief myself!

Ouch, Brambles Alert!

The hedging plants have arrived 10 days early!  That means I have spent three days now trying to remove clumps of English Ivy like Jungle Vines from the hedge.  Three 1 x 1 x 1 metre bags are full of the stuff and there are gaps in the hedge where old rotten tree  stumps have crumbled away.  

Inside the hedges and around my feet were brambles and my legs are scratched to bits where they have wrapped themselves around me when I have been tackling the Ivy.  It's pretty painful but at least these gloves are doing there job and so my hands are fine but my legs, not so much LOL.

We need to get the plants in as soon as possible to give them a good chance to take root and hopefully fill the gaps.  In some cases I can bend some of the younger tree branches to start to fill in the gaps too.

I've been waiting for a quote to do the front wall - it needs re-pointing and so I daren't get any of the new trees near it whilst they do that!  If I wait any longer I will have to do it myself - which I don't fancy - I feel knackered and aching after pulling and cutting out the Ivy as it is so working on a wall and knocking up cement do not fill me with glee!

Time for a rest and wait for my partner to get home and hopefully we can get trees planted and clean up the hedge borders.  The Ivy has left pockets of vegetation in the branches and so we have compost and rot to deal with.  Hopefully the opening up of this area will allow the trees to sprout from lower down this year and we can get our new trees to start to grow a bit ready for improving the Hedge over the years.  The Ivy though is horrendous and needs to be tackled regularly to keep it down.

Infamy, Infamy....

 "They've all got it in for me!" (So said Kenneth Williams as Emperor Julius Caesar in the 1964 film Carry on Cleo).  

And so it felt this morning as my altered plans were once again,.... altered.  Rain stopped play or a I was going to do continue stripping out the English Ivy from our hedgerow. It's been raining since the early hours and that's a nuisance as I really wanted to get as much cleared as possible to plant the hedging plants I've bought.  We have a selection of Hawthorn, Dog Rose, Dog Wood, Beech, Silver Birch and Holly which should fill in the gaps of the hedge nicely.

But there you go, it's just wet and horrible out there and no signs of clearing up anytime soon.

Well at least the Six Nations Rugby starts tonight and I've been a bit naughty by buying some beers to watch it with.  It hasn't been a totally dry January but I did finish off all the Christmas beer before the New Year - the fallout though is that there's been so much food left over that I have only just got back onto my carnivore diet.  I haven't put on a lot of weight but it is noticeable that I've put on a little.  Hopefully this year I can set to and lose a lot more.

The current government are just a nasty sad bunch of losers.  They behave like spoiled children in parliament and the education secretary needs, well, to put in mildly, an education and to learn some manners.  She comes across as a disgusting poison mouthed common piece of sh1t.

Oh well, has anoyne seen through the extra runways and tunnels nonsense yet?  Huge capital projects that probably wont see the light of day until I have shuffled off this mortal coil.  Just  smoke and mirrors to deflect from the self inflicted, near mortal wound, dealt to the country by a budget that's probably been written by AI and peer reviewed by a child.  

Being dealt a 20% increase in our water bill was a bit bad yesterday considering half of our town has been without water for days due to a power cut!  Where the hell do they think we are going to get that sort of money from given all the other increases we have just suffered?

I'm Always Complaining

 I am though.  Today it was with Amazon who moments after I bought something then held a flash sale and the blatantly displayed a big saving on what I'd bought.  I complained not that it had gone down but that they had blatantly shown a flash to me moments after completing the purchase which was a bit like a punch in the face.  So I suggested that they might like to look at that as it isn't a great sales technique.  A bollocks answer generated by AI no doubt gave me "The Company Position" which all I really wanted to point out was it probably wasn't good for business.

Then there's driving.  In a supermarket car park where people are loading their cars and wandering around with trolleys and the like surely you'd drive a little slowly and cautiously?  No not bleeding Lewis Hamilton in his Volvo - I was edging out past a van and I glimpsed this bloke in the car opposite's windscreen and so stopped, he skidded to a halt near to me as he'd possibly seen me moving out.  I did give him my raised eyebrow look.  What an idiot though, the skid marks were pretty long so I'd say he was hitting 20 or 30 and then had to emergency stop not that I was anywhere near him as I'd halted my car and wasn't even sticking out into the drive.

Then we had a grandchild with us at a restaurant and he's very good holding hands and the like, two vehicles swung into the car park and narrowly missed us and we were on the raised pavement.  What's the point guys, what is the point you can't actually park at that speed can you?  

So those complaints for today along with, my latest one.  We need to sort out our hedgerow it's been neglected and is covered in English Ivy so I ordered some trees to replace a few and to fill the gaps knowing that delivery was to be 10 days which was great.  That would allow me time to remove the Ivy, dig over under the hedge and prepare for the new trees.  Two sodding days they arrived in - 2 days!  FFS.  I've been out there working like mad today and have only got about a fifth of the hedge done.  That's filled up the compost bin already and the heavy stuff is yet to come.  Oh well, it just means that I'll have to give it a good go tomorrow now and hopefully get it finished over the weekend. Let's hope the weather stays fair.

The Art Of Doom Scrolling

 Here I am sitting in my office scrolling through pointless vacuous Facebook posts and rolling my eyes at the bizarre comments and general fecklessness on display and whilst I have done a little work this morning, re-pressurised the boiler and got the driveway gates unlocked and closed (I opened them for the gales we've had - it saves them getting damaged and also overly stressing the gate posts).  I was going to head out but there's a likelihood of rain they say - although it looks OK to me.

The betrayal of the WASPI women was debated yesterday and our Government seemed to be OK dishing out huge pay rises to their mates but not settling yet another glorious f**k up by our leaders.  This despite the PM, Deputy PM, Chancellor etc etc saying they'd sort it out.  That is the general level of lying corrupt politicians we have at the moment.  Either they are so out of touch that they don't understand that the very basics of trust are built on say what you do and do what you say.  This lot have lied and incompetently bumbled their way along and pretend that they know what they are doing.

They amass enemies like my house amasses dust.  I hope that the whole thing blows up in their faces.  Their own MPs are getting roasted by their constituents and rightly so and I imagine many will be wondering what they've signed up to.  These "leaders" are woefully inadequate, have little or no real world experience and lack the basic principles that they should hold dear. 

Totally feckless and unbelievably gullible.  They are throwing good money after bad and expecting things to improve but will not compensate around 3.5 million women who had their pensions disrupted and they are happy to bare faced lied to them.  They supported them to get the votes and then sh1t on them from on high.  They wonder why we hate and deride them?   They cannot argue their way out and so, like so many these days they resort to name calling and accusations of "Far Right" to people who call them to account.  Not so long ago they were opposing everything and now they are in power have proved they are just the other cheek of the same arse.  

The damage it does is that no one takes those in authority seriously now.  Their adenoidal nose speak is horrible and their lecturing us from a position of ignorance is also rubbing us up the wrong way.  I've never been able to lie to people which is a strength and a weakness.  A strength in the fact that I've never had to remember a lie I might have told.  A weakness because people don't like to hear the answers to their questions.  What's the point in making them feel good by lying to them?  

People ask questions sometimes for their own benefit.  When I was ill "How are you today?"  When answered with I'm in serious pain lying on a bed and wanting it to go away they'd go quiet.  The thing was they wanted to hear you were OK.  No one wanted to hear that you might die for example and wouldn't ask properly hence I bought the Monty Python Tee Shirt with "I'm Not Dead Yet!" on it.  

Oh well. lets' see what car crash the Chancellor gets herself into today.  Apparently everything is great and we are "Going For Growth" so that's alright then.  The figures don't show that and the markets may not totally agree with her either.  Most of us just want to put two fingers up and express our indignation that we ended up with half the North Korean Communist Party governing us.

Incentives And Behaviour

 I recall one of the discussions we had years back was about the law of unintended consequences and how people behave when incentivised to do so and how, if these behaviours are not thoroughly thought through and tested then there are problems.

The Cobra problem in British controlled India was a case in point.  These snakes were seen as a problem and a bounty was placed on the head of each snake delivered to the authorities.  It was proposed that this would incentivise the population to assist in getting rid of these snakes.  What happened was that there were a lot more snakes than the British realised but in fact the bottom lie was that the locals were breeding them so as to make income from the snake bounty.  It happens in industry quite often as well as in local and big government too.

When a target is placed on a service a KPI it prioritises that service to deal with the target and perhaps not something else in the system.  I complained to my boss many times that every quarter (for we were a US based company) that they'd change the goalposts, they'd tell us to do something different.  Go for Revenue, Go for Profit, Go for Cash Flow, go for Sales and so on.  You probably get the picture.  My complaint was that I'd got my 120 strong staff to concentrate on one thing and it takes a while to turn a ship, communicate the changes, advise the customers and put training in place and 3 months and the next quarter came and I'd have to do it all again but for some other metric.  The hideous costs involved in changing these directives came at the cost of productivity and no one really knowing what they were meant to be doing.  

There was, I complained, a lot of change for changes sake and then there would be the disappointing quarterly figures to deal with.  You know, Revenue is down we need to concentrate on revenue, Oh now profits are down so we need to concentrate on profits and around we went.  Linked to these goals were behaviours and targets and everyone wanted to get their bonus and so they did these targeted things.  Often the targets were at odds with the outcomes but we incentivised people to achieve these and once they did, we would be obliged to pay them no matter what internal or external damage these had caused.

I was amused to see that it happens today in a strange round about way.  The government of the day cannot fathom why despite saying they are going for growth that it isn't happening.  The PM states that the measures are working and we are seeing the green shoots of a turn around.  Absolutely delusional along with his feckless Deputy and Chancellor.  There's no incentive to work any harder because you get taxed more, people aren't stupid and why should they do anything when there is no incentive to better oneself.  I looked at the Tax on dividends and Capital Gains and the limits on these have shrunk to limits where you are going to get taxed for having just a few hundred pounds coming in.  

It's not worth working extra time for, it's not worth making more money than the Tax thresholds because the system is unfair and fully garnered against you.  If you run a business, the corporation tax is up, business rates are up and if your employ someone you are walking into a new minefield of regulation and higher employment taxes.  You can't sustain any of it and if you want to change behaviour you must make it worthwhile.  People are fed up of their money being wasted, given away and being handled by incompetent ideologues who don't care and cannot see that their actions are causing great anxiety and stress as well as impoverishing the very people they say that they are elected to represent.

At the moment they seem to think that all is well in their world and despite people yelling at them to change course and to wake up and smell the coffee (well it's brown and doesn't smell like any coffee I've tasted) they are happily full steam into the Iceberg of economic ruin.  How any of them have kept their jobs I don't know.  Time will tell I suppose but they've certainly chosen poorly and made people very wary about spending money and many are concerned for their jobs and welfare.  

Can't Get Away From All This Doom And Gloom

 It's a case of new day new f**k up by someone or other in the government.  Today it's more grabs on dead people's estates from the thieving bastards.  Essentially the way they implement taxes it's downright theft and bayoneting the wounded and dead bodies after the battle is the low stooped to by this feckless bunch of politicians.  

Councils are declaring a 114 so that they can charge way more than they were allowed to under the law.  Some of these are looking to charge 15% or more.  Councils are charging us more but delivering us less and less.  I see no improvements to services and all I do see is our money spunked away on traffic schemes that didn't work and needed to be changed back again.  Costly gold plated pensions schemes and of course there's always plenty of money to spend on DEI and wokery too.  

The County council are delaying our right to vote and want to become a unitary council which is ridiculous considering how large our county actually is.  There's mounting anger with it all and I hope that it will end very badly for the main political parties.  I fear the country will go to the dogs to start with but somehow this has all got to end.  I said before about the tail wagging the dog and the 1% or 2% makes so much noise that they get their way when the vast majority do not.  It's time to change it and make this nonsense go away.  

When they started to ease discipline in school and then forced the unruly kids to stay on dragging down the good ones it was as if they wanted everyone to be dumbed down. I can understand that dumb and stupid are excellent qualifications for a politician but not for many of us who held responsible jobs.  If I didn't do my job correctly people could have died.  Do you think that being a dumb fool would be a defence in that case?

I knew this government would be bad but they are really going to town with the complete lack of direction, planning or coherent policies.  I imagine that they are only given crayons to write with in case they injure themselves.   That's is they haven't banned buying crayons from Amazon this morning!  Believe me, that wouldn't surprise me in the nanny shut the stable door after the horse has bolted world they frequent.  The deflection and misdirection going on is pathetic, childlike and so obvious that even stupid people can see through it and call it out.  It's like listening to a class load of prepubescent 12 year olds arguing over who their favourite pop star is and then when called to order by the teacher explain that they were discussing the subject they were meant to be studying.

I watch as they stagger from one f**k up to another, stumbling over the rotten corpse of the last lie they told and digging themselves every deeper into a pit of lies.  Painting themselves into a corner of moral ineptitude and financial naiveity that is almost beyond belief.  It's like a kid who can't add up being given £20 pocket money and being let loose in a gaming shop.  It will all end in tears when the sums don't add up.

Reminds me of one of the phrases on my desk that I used to say was about me "His men would follow him anywhere, mainly out of curiosity"