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.