Trust Me, A Trip To The Dentist And Hairdresser

Chipped my tooth or lost a filling on Tuesday, rang up and they could see me this morning which was a result.  Mind you the car park was pretty full which surprised me, it is not normally and you can always get a space.  The car park bays were freshly pained and I managed to squeeze my SUV into a small space, pay and go on my ways.

 I now find out that the new Sainsburys was opening so the great and the good, our MP and Council leaders were there and I can see why there were son many Sainsburys Hessian bags in the High street!

The Dentist and I came to an arrangement about the tooth.  Ideally she wanted a 45 minute reconstruction and that proved quite expensive and as I said to her, I have heating oil and council tax bills hitting at the same time so we compromised on a bit of patchwork and I need to go discuss what to do going forward.

I then went and got my hair cut and the nice lad that did it was about to ring up and asked me, if I didn't mind, how old I was and so I got an OAP cut for £13 rather than £20.  As I said to him giving him the change from £15 as a tip "Well, there are advantages to getting old".  

I have to not eat on the side with the filling for 24 hours and so I've bought some crumpets and hot X buns for today only!

The sun is out, it is cold though but other than that - all is well.

Settle Down Now, Settle Down

 If you recall, and probably only if you are from the UK, was the catch phrase of the late Ken Goodwin - the nervous comedian.  Where he used to urge the audience to... Settle down.  

I use it on myself all the time now as I slowly come to grips with losing the load off my shoulders and my head and work out what on earth I am going to do with myself now that the business has ceased?  I get quite, upset isn't the right word, maybe disturbed by the utter cr@p I have been through to all intents and purposes, doing the right thing. Old fashioned I know but I was brought up to do do these things.  Even if the other bloke was giving me a hard time, I was still the Director of the business and I had an obligation to the business and the other shareholders not just to him.  No one seemed to appreciate that at all.  The work I did, complying with the business's obligations was what I was expected to do.

I like that they felt there was no obligation to pay me off - I guess not one of them know about employment law and all this nonsense was going on just because I was doing my job!

So I don't know why I feel anxious about that when I should know better.  By that I mean, if it ever was presented before a tribunal it would be thrown out at the first stage.  but I guess constant attacks and mud throwing take their toll.  Back in my youth I imagine I would have landed the stupid arse a punch and had done with it.  You can't do that now and you really couldn't do it back then but life was a lot different 50 years ago for sure.

The worst of all behaviours and the throes of a stupid old man who threw his toys out of the pram and then set about painting himself into a corner that eventually he could not get out of.  The last throw of the dice was just that and in his rush to discredit me he failed to consider what moves I had already undertaken to protect the business.  Of course he called me a load of names about it but the fact of the matter was he was blinded by rage and had no idea what he was going to do had he succeeded in getting rid of me.  The business would have been destroyed overnight and he would have overseen the company being insolvent by the end of the day.  But that didn't happen, he sulked off which is great.

I should take no pleasure in telling him that we completed his project, put it to market and no one bought it at all.  Despite targeted advertising there was zero interest.  That surprised me a bit I have to say but there you have it.  So close it down having tried everything in my power to get it to market, defend his constant attacks, beat off his takeover of the company which for his own benefit would have landed him in such deep water personally and I suppose I would have been able to take him and his shareholder conspirators to tribunal for just about every set of reasons available, wrongful dismissal, non payment of money due to me, no notice period and on and on we go....

But here we are, in my own heart of hearts I know I have done all the right things, I have all of the company meeting notes, plans and so on, showing the moves that have been made and the work that has been done, what has been achieved and of course got it to market and so on. Whilst I know I have done everything and more that could have been asked of me this evil vindictive old man has made my life hell and I am still affected by it for no reason.  It's the sort of coercive control type thing but he has ended up with nothing and it must have cost him a fortune to pay for solicitor's letters and the like.  

I'm trying to think how I an explain him to you.  When I first met him he was an eccentric Englishman with an interesting proposition but no ideas how to get it across the line or even start.  He reminds me of Gollum or perhaps Bilbo in the Lord of the Rings where suddenly, they turn from being pleasant into demons.  That's how I think of him.  Twenty or thirty years ago I could hold my own against bullies and yet now, not so much - it really has got to me and dealing with an unpleasant, ignorant, intransigent thug stresses me more than I can say and this level of stupidity appears to know no bounds.

It is of course his problem but I think that my own issue is that I take exception to be called unprofessional,  accused of doing things illegally and just reading his pages of lies.  He's a sick minded guy and has caused me enough grief which I don't need.  I hope that I am climbing out of the rut I have built for myself and in all seriousness I hope he rots in hell! 

Learned Behaviour - Pavlov's Dogs - Me?

 This getting used to being on the way to unburdened and dare I say free (as much as you can be in our current socialist utopia) is actually difficult.  Whilst it hasn't been continuous, the way that this bloke with a grudge has fired off at me for accepting his resignation and withdrawal from the project has left a back of my mind concern every time I do something I expect the hurl of abuse like before but now I think it is going to have to be, if anything, the last word letter.  It was last time and so I expect it now but there is, in reality nothing he can do.  What he may feel he can do is now seriously limited and it would be like arguing with rock.

If he does complain to the authorities then he will have to 1). Have something to complain about and 2). Have something concrete to show them.  Neither of which he has of course.  He has no documentation to speak of and that he has is my response to his accusations which destroy his assertions and of course, I still have the very original letter where he distances himself entirely from the project.  And who is going to arbitrate this considering I offered arbitration and he refused?  The other thing is that unless he has sound paperwork to go to the authorities with - he will be treated to a polite direction towards the door. 

If the company has had its Accounts duly prepared by Chartered Accountants and accepted by Companies House and HMRC then there's not much ground to his hearsay and invisible evidence.

I convince myself that if he did any of this, he'd find his way blocked and whilst it may be reviewed initially it will be found to run out of steam at the first hurdle.

So I am pretty confident about all of this logically and yet he is not logical and that's my worry.  Having seen his previous meandering, accusatory and circular ramblings what could he do next?  The answer I know is that it is not a lot.  There is nothing he can do and that should be that.  The business is no more and I just need to follow the process and have done with it.  

I can feel and taste freedom.  Yesterday on a whim we went out to lunch and I do feel much better but I suppose these fears and dreads I have are that he cuts up rough but once again to do and achieve what?  There is nothing more he can do.  There's no money left, the business is dead and that's that.  RIP the business.  

So I realise this is some sort of problem I have, I expect this bloke to be an arse, to send me his solicitor's letters and that's annoying but what can he do now, why would he even want to?  Why am I dreading the post, why is it disturbing me so much?  It's a tiny company, not some multi million dollar corporation.  Shutting it down SHOULD be an end to it all.  It is what it is, there is no logical reason to counter it or try and do anything about it.  Yet still my mind is whirling with all those possibilities and it's not fair or reasonable, it belittles all the work I have done to actually get the idea to market.  That it failed the final test and nobody actually bought it, tells the ultimate truth.  Customers voted with their wallets and not one sale happened.  That's absolute proof that whilst they downloaded it - they did not want to part with cash to purchase it.  

That absolute is the bottom line and still I worry that he will complain but you know that's me.  It will be over soon and there will be no need to worry about it at all.  He can do what he wants I guess.

I have to get over this which is taking a little time.  18 months of the abuse from this guy has taken its toll on me but let's get past this and have done with it and I need no longer worry about him and his cronies ever again.  I get short bursts of freedom and I am going to expand on these in the coming months as I regain my freedom and start living a retired life.  That's the plan but I am sure I will keep circling back here but hopefully with less frequency and less stress in my head.  He isn't worth it. 

It's All Gone Quiet - What's Wrong?

 The lull before the storm, perhaps?  Run out of breath, maybe? I hope that it is they've run out of ideas and as they don't know what is coming next, they're waiting to see.

Accounts for last year are now sent and these, being about 9 months on from the accounting date are probably meaningless to my detractors.  I enjoyed posting them off and producing the shortest covering letter to go with them.  

The next accounts they will see are the ones that show the demise of the business and close down which has in effect already happened.  I have to work out whether to say anything about them in a detrimental way - I could get a point across if I really wanted to.  But the real talking point will be to show that the business made no money at all, not a cent :-)  I have all the defending paperwork on what we did to market and sell the product and an astute reader would probably work it out from those.  At the back of my mind I'd like to explain what happened and show the figures to prove that I spent time and money to achieve a phenomenal number of views, visits and downloads and yet despite that, not one person looked to buy it.

I think that is perhaps worth me keeping to one side and bringing out should anyone try and dish the dirt on me.  They probably can say something but they haven't got anything to go at me for considering the way they treated me last year.  Siding with your friend to mount a hostile takeover and not reading the company specifics and ignoring the facts right in your face and then losing your motion should have alerted them to something you would have thought.  After shooting down each of the assertions with logical and business argument you'd have thought one of them would have at least asked why they were doing this? The reality was that I had a logical and data backed answer for each of the points which were adhominem and not business, contractual or legal arguments but hurtey feeley nonsense.

Shortly they will receive a letter stating that the business has breathed it last dying breath and has already ceased trading.  They have 2 months to argue that case with Companies House.  I have already told them and the individual on many occassions that if they have a case, then they should have the relevant paperwork or agreements or something else to back up their assertions and that they should provide copies of such.  Of course they don't have these things, not at all and so, if they should go to Companies House, the strike off may be delayed but as they do not have any evidence for their assertions, there might be a slight delay whilst they ask for the necessary paperwork, as it doesn't exist and there is no money in the bank from zero sales it won't go far.

I am dreading what these people may do but there actions are limited or doomed to failure.  I look forward to seeing it all disappear and that they never darken my door again.

Here We Are, Sunday, A Day Of Rest - Supposedly

 Yesterday it started to feel a little more real as I was able to spend a little time out on the balcony just sitting, with a cold beer (I know I shouldn't) and enjoying the sun, a very little breeze and listen to the birds and other sounds around me.

It's good for you and as long as the phone isn't buzzing and bonging then everything is OK.  The birds were getting excited and there's nest building going on.  The Pheasants are making their (almost) Turkey like cries and I have no idea what the Jackdaws were up to, a huge flock were noisily making their way between the fields at the back here.

Living in the country is what we aspired to and I got to appreciate it more yesterday. Which brings us to today, Sunday and it's not quite so sunny and it sure is cold but everyday the morning and evening times are getting lighter, it seems to happen so quick that I was moaning about how dark it was in the mornings and how quickly it all closed in in the afternoon and here we are, in a week we will be turning the clocks forward!

I've been working on a new project to do with my family history which involves going through thousands of banking ledgers from around the time of the Great Fire of London.  They are an amazing record of the trade happening around the time of the Restoration.  My merchant ancestors appear fleetingly in these records as do their neighbours and wider family.  It is interesting but it is heavy work going through the many thousands of accounts and trying to work out who is who and how the wheels of the Merchant classes worked.  Gold and Silver bullion, metals, produce and the inter connections are all intertwined in a surprising dance together with the trivial there are glimpses of the rebuilding of London, the various Guilds, the Lord mayor, Aldermen and then there are Naval records and so on.  It's quite an undertaking but also quite enjoyable too.

I do feel like an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders and I don't have this tension and stress induced tightness around my chest anymore.  If I need to take a break, I can grab a coffee and just wander out into the garden or up to the balcony and let the world drift on around me.  The difficulty is that I have always been running at 90 miles an hour and this sudden deceleration and a need to be "Doing things" is challenging as we probably aren't meant to live that way.  

Making room to do other things is perhaps my next mission.  I have my Drones, cameras, family history to name but a few things to occupy my time and mind.  The struggle is changing 50 (or more) years of doing stuff or other people.  I need to be doing things for myself including taking it easy and leaving a gap for nature, peace and quiet, some real R&R. 

The Journey, The Drift, Missing Links

Browsing through Facebook and LinkedIn I can see people from my past and I suppose I could drop them a message and see how they are but I don't and neither do they drop me a line.  I have very few close friends and that's probably to do with whether these people are 'true' friends or acquaintances, work colleagues or some other connection.  I've been disappointed it would be fair to say and people are net users of my time and my generosity of character and of my money too.  Sure I'd help out someone in time of need but the problem is that they are very forgetful, perhaps they have some sort of dementia and any obligation once they've gotten back onto their feet again soon evaporates and disappears.

So it was this morning that I remembered someone who I was close to - we hung around together and we used to spend time with each other, I'd help out and we'd often meet in London, Glasgow and so on and then he moved away and whilst I stayed in contact for a while, it faded into the distance.  Last Christmas I send a card and this time didn't receive one back.  That seems to be the way it goes and having said that I will be seeing an old colleague next month which will be great, he lives way down towards the coast and lives in a lovely village where he is now integrated into the community and I have to say his location is idyllic and he has all those sorts of things you'd want a lovely old house, a lot of land, the village pub and church are withing a minutes walk.  It will be nice to meet up again, we worked together in Wiltshire, Bedfordshire and quite a bit in London too.  

But as I look back I see this drift in and out, this coming and going of these relationships and it is strange how that happens.  One day you are hardly out of each other's pockets and then, for whatever reason, you never see them again.  I recall starting a new job some distance away and being right in the thick of it trying to establish myself and sort out the various offices I was in charge of and my life was erased, I only met one or two of those old colleagues from my previous life (for I had changed career from Electrical Engineering to full on IT and Software development, global change and so on).  It took me around Europe and the UK.

There are a couple of people that I'd like to have kept in touch with but it was too late to track them down.  For two or three years I'd worked with this great lady and we'd travelled around together and regularly travelled home together and so that was a bit of a regret I suppose.

Anyway, it was just this life journey and these short or long interactions and unbeknown to you, one day you are great friends or work colleagues and then you never see or hear from them again, the drift sets in and you each continue on your own journey.  

Apprehension & Stress Levels Slowly Fading Away

 It really did upset me, these past 18 months or so with all the stress caused by someone who made a rash and hasty decision and then started to go to war with me because things didn't turn out the way he wanted them to.

I am and I am not glad that I took his idea through to its conclusion and I could well have at the time he walked away shut it all down.  That would probably have been a good thing I suppose but no, I was left as the Director in charge of a business that's mission was to get this thing over the line and for good or bad see if the public warmed to it.  Well we know that they didn't and for whatever reason, no one bought it.  Plenty downloaded and tried it but no one bought it.  The only course of action was to close it down and that's where we are now.

I felt quite stressful about doing that but actually, that's what has to happen - there's no money, the thing isn't selling and the only course of action is to shut it down.  Which I have now commenced.

Still I feel that this bloke would be demanding something - I have no idea what that might be but he can now go and fight with Companies House when that comes to it or to The Chartered Accountants organization and see how far he gets with that. Not far I'd hazard a guess and if anyone wants to see the Company records then they'll actually see the nonsense that has happened but of course, there is nothing on the business side.  There's no money left and creditors are well, me!

Anyway, as the days tick by I am feeling less anxious and a lot calmer than I have been.  Just winding things up and archiving it all is therapeutic and soon it will all be a done deal.  Let's hope so!  

Anyway, things are gradually improving and with it my mood, this and with Spring and lighter days and evenings lifts my mood a day at a time.  I actually notice the lightness of my mood and that encourages me for better times ahead. 

Levels Of Incompetence Off The Scale

 For someone who worked in a risk managed way for my whole career I observe with jaw dropping incredulity the pathetic thrashing about of our governing classes.  There's no plan, not even now, to protect the citizens of this country from the ongoing impacts of the crisis in the Middle East and prices have rocketed and yet we are told just 25% of the world's oil and gas products come from this area!  So that means that 75% comes from elsewhere I suppose?  

In an effort to cool the planet by 0.0001 Degrees C our successive Governments have blown up power stations, stopped exploration, stopped fracking, poured concrete down wells and we have the highest energy prices in the world, yes in the world and all so we can worship at the alter of Net Zero and change the climate by making ourselves poorer and bankrupting the country!  

Under our feet are huge gas deposits and out in the North Sea are fields of Oil and Gas and we make it almost impossible to drill or explore for new stuff,  huge taxes on producers have put many thousands out of work and affected industry so that we don't really have anything left.

We rely on others for our fuel and also interconnects to keep the lights on and no one sees the bleeding obvious where one Minister talks about getting 40+ AI Server centres and the other increases the scarcity and price of the fuel needed to run them.  Forty Five of these would require a doubling of capacity of what we have now!   There are no plans just talk, no idea of the level of investment required and no relaxing of taxes on those who want to build them.  How can they be so thick?  Why are they so stupid?  They just cannot connect one thing with the other.  They tackle one thing and make the rest worse, then they tackle that and it still gets worse and they have absolutely no idea why.

The level of ignorance and incompetence really is off the scale. We can see it logically and clearly but somehow they don't see it at all, they have no idea, no planning, no direction.  The trouble is, like every socialist government before them, they run out of other people's money, they destroy whole industries and the country is left in ruins to be picked up by people who need to do difficult things to fix it.

I can't see there's much left and it's coming up to two years of this utter shambles and people can hardly afford to live.  The hierarchy of needs is skewed and the gulf between the haves and have nots grows, patience wears thin and trust even thinner.  

The cost to heat my house has more than doubled and food and other bills have also exploded after 2020.  Meanwhile the government pisses on us tell us it's raining.  

Interesting Prospect Upcoming

 The rise in Oil Heating Oil (Kerosene) is going to be problematic.  Why, I hear you ask? well unlike other fuel / energy Gas and Electric - you pay in advance and generally you future buy 3 to 6 months worth and it isn't a monthly in arrears transaction.  In my case it has gone from around 55p +VAT at 5% per litre and you have to order a minimum of 500 litres.  In a couple of weeks since the Iran conflict it has risen to £1.34 +5% per litre!

Considering I get just over £1,000 per month for my pension to fill 500 litres would take around 70% of that in one hit.  Sure it will last me 3 months maybe but consider that just last month it would have been 28% of my pension and you can see what an impact this will have.

Ah ha I hear you say but the Government are going to put £53 Million into a pot so we can be helped out.  Yes but I'd probably have to be on some form of benefit to get any assistance so it's probably not going to happen.  Bring back Covid lock down when it was 18p a litre and we could fill our socks LOL  No, not really but look at the jump in price.

Anyway, I suppose it is lucky it is coming into Spring and Summer when we use less.  I do feel sorry for those who's budgets are shot to pieces by this conflict though.  If only we had our own resources in the UK?  Wait, what? You poured concrete into the well heads, blew up the power stations and raised taxes to the point where it was economical to supply our won fuel and you stopped any further exploration deeming it better to buy the stuff extracted from the very same fields via Norway.

Foot shooting in extremis by successive politicians / governments who clamber for our votes.  Complete tossers the lot of them.  Luckily though, they aren't affected by their own decisions! 

Off We Jolly Well Go

 So the company accounts are completed and approved, signed off and delivered.  Sending them off to the Shareholders - I wonder what they'll make of them?  Of course these are from last year - they do not know that the business has effectively closed and that will become evident in a few weeks time when I will once again and I hope, for the final time, write to tell them.  

I felt a little nervous printing it all off to be sent but then again, it is what it is and they can go argue with the Accountant if they want.  I suppose they could argue with me but that will go nowhere and maybe they can try some other nonsense but let's see what happens.  I think one of them will kick off but it's no use kicking off with me as to all intents and purposes the company is no more, isn't trading and will soon not have a bank account or anything.  Good luck with that sonny Jim.  I have taken just about enough sh1t from him anyway and it's a shame that we can't settle this in the old fashioned way you know, like a duel of something LOL.  Frankly back in the day for being that annoying to me I think I would have set to and verbally abused him and then I recall that actually I did verbally abuse him!  He completely deserved that of course.

Anyway we are on the slope away now and that I hope will end this bitter nastiness.  People are strange when they fulfil their self fulfilling prophecies.  They self destruct and then blame everyone except themselves!  Well good riddance to bad rubbish!  

An Awkward Conversation With Mum

 My brother is an interesting character he's far more "emotional" than I am and added to that he reacts differently.  It was Mother's Day yesterday and I spoke to my mum on this video link I set up with here - years ago and so we see each other like that most of the time.  She was a little bit down and as she said, she's getting close to 89 now and I think she is doing great for her age but she is having ore mobility issues and so the flat has been upgraded with aids to help her get about.  The main problem is her joints are extremely painful and so every now and again she gets down and I think I would too as it takes ages to get dressed and to go anywhere.

So after I'd spoken to her my brother called me and was pretty upset that she was behaving differently and was so down - I can only guess that a few of her phrases were shocking to him but he should know her.  She's just in pain a lot.  He didn't take my Dad's death too well either and that's just the way he is.  Anyway I spoke to her again today and she was feeling a lot better and it was just a low blip as anyone might have as your mobility goes away from you and you become more conscious of it.  

It's not difficult for me just to ask my mum how its going and how is she and all that.  I'm going to arrange to go up and see her a bit more often as the cr@p of the business disappears away from my day to day.

I'm just waiting for the Accountant now so I can sort out the death throes of the business.  Once done I am free of all the rubbish and can walk away from it.  It's been a week and I am happily not involved in its administration apart from the paperwork to close it down.  Hurrah!  

A Little Outing Yesterday

 We meet 6 times a year and it was nice to go out for lunch and just enjoy the company of some friendly people.  Fascinating to be with people who are around 20 years older than us and listen to their trials and tribulations and realise that, I suppose, I'll be there soon!  They are around my mother's age I'd guess, late 80s.  

It was nice to get out and have a meal and a few zero alcohol Guinness which is possible one of the best low alcohol beers.  I though this would be nice to do it a bit more regularly and I've already set up a meeting with an old colleague of mine in April that I am looking forward to immensely.

 Here, in stupid land, we watch the government of the day continue to lie and weasel their way around things and all the time, we watch the utter levels of denial expressed by these people and the complete lack of disaster or risk planning available.  The Chancellor was faced with GDP growth figures of 0.1% for January and with all the turmoil in the Middle East  said something along the lines of "Our economic strategy is beginning to bear fruit" or some such other bollocks.  Our heating oil has more than doubled in 2 weeks.  That's doubled to way over £1.25 or more per litre, plus VAT at 5% and I paid close to 50p just a month or so ago!  Petrol and Diesel too have risen and so there's going to be an impact to the economy, even I can tell you that LOL.  We closed down most of our capabilities to be self sufficient in energy and as usual, the need to be seen to be cutting carbon (FFS) outweighs the safety and security of the very people who you are meant to keep safe and secure. 

I suppose they don't see it coming and just keep bring in ideas that piss off the electorate, make it difficult for us to live or earn a living, our bills have doubled and if I fill up my heating tank today that will be half, YES half of my pension this month just for 500 litres of fuel.  Actually it will be 2/3 rds of my pension just for heating in my house! 

In other news, the gale force winds and the rain were horrendous yesertday and the phone went off at about 00:30 this morning.  When I answered they were giving us advance notice that a power cut was imminent.  It did come eventually some 30 minutes later.  Luckily I have UPS sets for the computers and servers but the PC draws so much it switched off before I could, wake up, find a torch and struggle downstairs.  The Servers though were fine so at least I didn't have the surge problems we had a year and a bit ago!

Coming to terms with being a pensioner and being retired is funny - come on it's only day 4 LOL.  I have at least done something useful today with some finance spreadsheets and there's some Grand Prix action on TV later.  No doubt I'll be gawking at our useless PM and wondering whether he is lying every odd or every even word?  

Dismantling The Business

There isn't much to do in reality because it isn't a mega business, it has me in it, some shareholders, granted, but their input is minuscule, sub atomic in reality.  So there isn't much to close down.  A Bank Account, The websites, the emails, finalise the accounts, file those, do the Tax returns and switch off the lights on the way out.

There's a twinge of failure but I've documented everything I've done and dotted the "i"s and crossed the "t"s as the saying goes.  The contractual elements are few and sorted.  If you haven't got anyone buying your stuff, you haven't got a business and that's the bottom line, you cannot magic up stuff, you cannot argue with the situation because it is exactly what it is.  It's more profound than that even when the figures are reviewed.  In 5 months we didn't sell a thing despite over 180K views, circa 700+ Taps and 160+ downloads and no one wanted to buy it so it's a product not meeting the price-to-value expectation. 

You just know there's going to be someone who will try and argue about those figures - there always is.  But of course, they can argue but facts is facts.  

Anyway, all under way and it's quicker to tear it down than the 9 years its taken to build it.

How Utterly Bizarre

 Gosh, what a strange feeling.  I spoke to the Accountant this morning and worked out my timetable and suddenly, there's next to nothing left to do but wait.  My day after that has been empty - albeit I made some bread and wrote a few things down.  I suppose I'll get over this emptiness and not knowing quite what to do with myself.

It's a bit strange thinking what to do next because this has come as a bit of a shock.  There's some waiting to be done for sure and then a short burst of activity and that should be that, the business will close and everything can be archived and that's it.  It's not the first time I've shut a business down but it will be the last time I expect and this one is a little more complex but not overly so and I suddenly feel at a loss.  It's quite peculiar really.  I guess that happens in real life when you retire and stop working.

No doubt I will get used to it but for the moment it is a little disturbing to say the least.  I have things to do but I'm just not used to having the time and space to actually do them.  I hadn't really planned for this sudden loss of business activity.  

Who Did You Work With?

I came across a few names that reminded me of work colleagues of the past and it reminded me of how much I'd erased from my mind.  By that I mean when I was reminded I knew the names but not always where from.

I spent sometime, perhaps 14 or 15 years ago now destroying the past as I was finding it a real burden and my thoughts were all caught up with what I had and had not done.  One night I had had enough and somehow erased everything.  I imagine it is somewhere in this blog, I'd been reading either 'The Power of Now' or 'A New Earth' by Eckhart Tolle and I'd got to a point that I no longer wanted all that baggage and bang that was it.  

If I get reminded of something I can remember parts of it but it no longer invades my mind like it used to.  An entry in a diary or the odd thought (I am writing an autobiography which triggers some things) and as I write this I recall someone I worked with in 1980! I need a name or picture to do this whereas I used to be able to tell you who I worked with but now it is only anecdotal based on specific memories good or bad.  The downside is that I look at people in old photos and struggle to recall who they were, why I took them and I should have labelled them really LOL. 

I think it is a good thing that my head is clear from all those years ago, you wouldn't have liked the utter turmoil and the constant regrets and what ifs that I went through before getting rid of it all.  It was bad and I occasionally get the flash backs and what ifs but recognize them for what they are and stop the thoughts short if I can.  Not always easy when something triggers it but at least it is very occasional now not all the time like it was.   

I Didn't Expect To Feel This Empty

 Now this is strange. I feel empty and of course, the thing that has occupied me is at an end.  I no longer need to be doing the daily advertising stuff I've done for about 3 or 4 months now nor all the other build up stuff, sales and marketing, competition analysis and so on.

Most of the things that need to be done are in process or I've done them.  A chat with the Accountant tomorrow and resolve what needs to happen to shut it all down, follow the process and hit the deadlines and there we are.  

But it is the looking around and not doing anything that is totally strange - after 9 years on this and other projects and there it is - space, emptiness and not being sure what to do with my mind and my hands :-)

I suppose I will get used to it.  It gives me time to do the things I wanted to do but procrastinated about LOL.  

Also strange that this bloke's crazy reactions to situations is a potential threat but I need to remember that he's the one with the problem, not me and I have the paperwork to throw back if he gets shirty again.  If that's all I have to worry about then it's no problems I suppose. 

New Day, New Dawn

 Maybe.  The deed is done and I've withdrawn to App from sale and closed down the website and so on. Contacted the Accountant which will take it to the next step and then we can shut it down and I can hopefully live happily ever after.

You just know that the other guy is going to be snidely about it but that's his problem.  It won't be mine - I've gone above and beyond to deliver his idea dodging his accusations and other libels too.

Anyway, that can all disappear and with it this last weird thing in my body and mind that tells me I owe people something.  It has been with me these past years that I somehow have them all on first call and "owe" them some sort of allegiance even though they never appear to owe me any?  As a Director, of course, I owe all the shareholders a duty of care and shortly that will be gone, thank God!

Then I owe allegiance only to myself.

As Nina Simone sang:

"Birds flying high, you know how I feel
Sun in the sky, you know how I feel
Breeze driftin' on by, you know how I feel 

It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life for me, yeah
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life for me, ooh

And I'm feeling good!"

Yeah - roll on freedom from all this sh1t!      

Stroke Of A Pen

Well, an email actually and we are no longer trading and in the midst of shutting down the business.  A few clicks on the website portals and 9 year's work has been archived and that, as they say, is that.

My Accountant needs to call me back but other than that, the key elements have been disappeared - websites, shop fronts and so on.  That's the way it is and I'm hopeful that it shouldn't now be too difficult to move things on a bit and get to the end of this journey.

I feel that I have now done my bit and taken it to a logical conclusion.  There's no where to go with this anymore here but I am handing back all of the IP to it's rightful owner although through gritted teeth as he gave me (and might still do) a hard time after walking away from the project!  Oh well, it takes all sorts of course.

So there we have it, I did feel a slight wobble about it but then again.  It cannot continue making no money and that's a fact.  I have had to do what I have, end of.  He may not see it like that but he never understood some of the business side so maybe he won't understand this.  Unicorn farts and magic money trees do not occur in business.

The Day Before Tomorrow

 The inevitable decision approaches and it will be 5 months tomorrow and that neatness allows me to stop trading with 5 months data before me.  It probably isn't that important in all reality but it works in terms of my mind and how that operates.  It maybe OCD or ADHD or something but it's logical and neat in my mind.

I'll have the data to make this important decision and the whole thing looks scientific.  I'll produce a report and analytics (Get AI to help you with this bit) and it will prove positive that the market is not there.  There's been so much work that has gone into this that it should have a fitting postmortem / autopsy and a headstone.  It is there in case the other party should ever ask for it.  Hopefully he won't but it is there nonetheless.

Would it have ever reached the market had it been on time?  We will never know.  When I tell people not to fix things if they aren't broken it is for a very good reason.  When I said get it to market, if it sells then you can add new bits to it because customers are funding it but OH NO! they didn't listen and 8 years late is what you get and then only half a job too.  I actually have the original App on an old device and it is a tiny bit different to what we have now.  All that extra money and time got us.... nowhere but you can't reason with some people and you cannot change the past.  Here we are, another business that failed to get off the ground and that's the way of it.

My own business was killed by COVID and the bailing out of other businesses but not mine as it didn't qualify.  Having just invested 6 month advertising and marketing I was greeted with lock-down, no money and no customers as they were locked down too. It's just the way it is and there's nothing you can do about it.  It was going OK but not great but it was so heavily impacted that it never recovered as all of my seed money was spent with no business from that investment!  Hey ho.

So tomorrow morning and I imagine for a few days I will be taking the necessary steps to shut it down.  Basically you cease trading and that means exactly that. I need to back the business out of its arrangements and inform various people and secure the money we do have in the Bank and a series of actions.  It shouldn't take long as there isn't much there.

I feel OK about it, I've guessed this would be the outcome and I've invested some of my own money to prove it. In so far as it matters, the testing of the marketing system was necessary as I have now exhausted all avenues to make a go of it short of knocking on doors.  People are happy to download the App but not to pay for it.  A shame but the market decides not me.

And It Came To Pass

 There is a certain amount of worry that making a decision comes with and as I get older I get less courageous in my decisions and actions - not that I was particularly courageous when I was younger I guess.   

I have to make a decision about the business.  I know exactly what that decision is and yet there's a niggle at the back of my mind about it but there shouldn't be at all.  It is in fact the logical, rational and proper decision to make, to close the business.  It's not the pride of that either, there's no pride in losing money or trying to defy the forces of financial inevitability.  I just know that someone is going to kick off about it.  I suppose he can do that but in reality neither he nor I can stop the certainty that if the business carries on it will go insolvent and no one wants that.

So my fiduciary duty of care is to shut it down and to do that now (well on Monday).  It's done then and that's a fact.  I suppose people can argue about it but the facts from the data show that it will never make money and so that in itself could be tabled but why the hell should it be?  There's been no input from these people only the hurling of brickbats - I don't think they can really do anything as it stands.

At least this period of the journey will come to and end and then I can just tidy up the outstanding items and move on.  

Decision Time Beckons

 I am going to spend the weekend immersed in Rugby and F1 and in that time, I will see if the App's fortunes improve.  I kind of doubt it having given it every possible chance to thrive and paying for the privilege.  I have to say that I have found AI most helpful in doing some of the heavy lifting for me and it's been like having a small back office working for me.  Some of the computational stuff would have taken me hours but it's been done in seconds.

Despite that and the massive improvement in people looking and downloading the bottom line is that no one is actually purchasing it.  The amount of downloads is now significant and so I can but give it one more chance to flourish over the weekend when more people are active and come Monday, I am pretty certain that I will need to shut it down.

Lots of people think that is sad and I suppose it is in a way but not everything makes it to market no matter how good your idea or product might be.  That's just the way of it.  

It will mark an end to my active involvement with business leaving just one dormant business that sits there ready for the right opportunity.  That means, in a month or two I get my life back and this can all be archived and put behind me.  It does feel like a weight being lifted especially all the sh1t they put me through.  

So Monday morning it is going to be simple mathematics - how many downloads and how many sales, what's the ROI and can we afford to keep going.  I can then commence with the necessary paperwork to close it all down and who knows? Live happily ever after LOL!  

I've known for some weeks in reality where this was heading and I just needed to execute my exit strategy.  

Logic Versus Security

The first duty of Government surely must be the safety and welfare of the people who voted for you and who pay for you.

Safety and security go hand in hand and so why have they undermined our energy supplies?  Surely they must have thought about this, it's happened before when there were supply issues 2022 and in the 1970s I remember it being bad wondering whether my petrol would last long enough to get home after a long trip - luckily a kind garage forecourt man let me have a few gallons extra.

But what I mean is to show our virtue off we have cut off our very own get out of jail free card.  We didn't mothball out power stations, we blew them up, we virtually stopped our own gas and oil production and we have great quality coal under our feet to this day.  So right now we are seeing huge spikes in our fuel prices - our heating oil (kerosene) has gone from around 55p/litre to almost double that and some are paying more like £1.28 I saw yesterday.

If we are reliant on other people for our fuels yet we have out own supply that we've shut down you'd have thought heads would roll?  No, of course not its all done for CO2!  Politicians still cannot work out that the whole world is fuelled by oil and gas they think it's all Unicorn farts and Fairy dust obviously.  When are we going to get anyone in charge who understands their portfolio and doesn't put us all at risk.  A huge chunk of the population, like us, are reliant on reasonably priced heating kerosene and they've doubled our costs overnight because they don't do risk management.

Braveheart Freedom

 Well kind of I suppose.  Freedom beckons and come April I think I will be pretty much feed up from the shackles of this business that has sucked around 9 years of my life without giving me anything much back in return!  It's a shame really that it wasn't more rewarding but when you deal with incoherent, ignorant ungrateful fools, this is what happens.  I have legal responsibilities and they don't they can go on their merry way tripping you up and making life difficult all the while basking in their self righteousness and Philistine Pig ignorance!

But soon, that will be gone and there will be none of this left.  It can disappear back into the ether from whence it came and the chains can come off and I can recapture that time somehow.

Looking forward to not having to dread the post arriving or anything else like that.  

It Comes Back To Bite You

The level of incompetence in the ruling class is breathtaking in the extreme.  With the Iranian war going on, fuel prices (heating oil) have jumped over 50% in a few days.  I understand that Petrol and Diesel are jumping and luckily when I was out at the weekend I filled my tank at about the lowest rate I've seen form months.

So our Business Secretary says we must "double down" on our Carbon Neutral Targets!  What planet is this man on?  The punishment is already a huge element of tax for now scientific reason or benefit other than filling the coffers of the fat bureaucrats.  We stopped our own Oil and Gas industry and now we are facing the very thing we have all been saying that if supply from abroad that we now fully rely on starts to dry up where are you going to get your supplies from?  The stuff is right underneath our feet but is ignored in place of importing it from abroad! 

The folly of it all and these imbeciles in government just don't appear to have thought it all through.  You security relies on many things and keeping the lights on is one of them and the more they tamper with its supply the more vulnerable the country becomes.  So concerned are they with pronouns and minutiae control of our everyday lives that they forget the very basics of keeping us safe.  And worse still the uneducated metropolitan elite want more of it.  They just cannot see how dangerous this all becomes as they eat away at our liberties, choose progressiveness of the woke kind and avert their eyes from the utter hell that they are building up for us.

We have turned the heating off and will use the log fire until this blows over (let's hope it does) and will just have to see what contingency plans these idiots in charge actually have.  I suppose the good news is that at times like this it brings the fifth columnists to the surface and more people get to see them for what they are.  

NHS Bucking Fonkers

 Send us your BP readings.  Done - they are slightly above the "recommended" 120 over 80 but apparently higher than the number of 120 over 80 that everybody in the world needs!!!

If you know - you know right.

So they've asked for the next 4 day's readings.  NP I can do that so I click the link and it's not 4 days worth it's 7 days twice a day.  The NHS clearly hasn't sorted this out at all has it.

So I will give 4 readings as they asked and they can whistle for the 14 readings that the link asks for.

I kind of wonder whether all 7 billion of us can all reach the 120 over 80 target?  

Lifting The Mood

 It's all doom and gloom out there at the moment - wars and conflicts, Labour government, and so on but here, the Sun is out for the second day in a row.  It has been grey, raining and gloomy for months but now a change in the Jet Stream (I guess) and weather patterns and the move towards lighter days as we turn to face the sun means that we have blossom everywhere in our Hedgerows particularly and the birds are getting pretty excited as I see nests appearing once again.  Lighter mornings and evening and my mood becomes lifted.

I struggle every year in Autumn and Winter and this year wasn't much different and I've had a couple of pretty depressing years.  I think that will all change soon.  I am almost certain that I will close the business and that will lift a huge weight off of me.  After a few months that should all just be a memory and I can get on with being retired.  Something ties me, like it always does, to try my best and keep working as if I am actually employed by some strange force.  Conditioning from the past perhaps.  

I need to "Get it our of my head!" that I am not an employee slave and whilst I have committed to trying to do my best, surely by now, I have done that?  It all needs to go away and I need to dedicate the remaining years to enjoying myself and my family - my grandchildren too I feel have been neglected and I need to work on that - not to put things right but to actually spend some time with them (if they want to) and doing some things for my family and for me.  I have done a lot for other people and generally had that thrown back in my face so now, let's go and do things for me!

It doesn't need to be anything huge either of course.  Just enjoy the independence and look after myself would be a good start.  

Shaking My Head In Disbelief

 I am probably not alone in wondering what has gotten into people's heads?  I am willing to accept people's opinions and free speech is a given albeit not for our government who dislike it intensely. No, I'm talking about people who's only apparent reaction to almost anything is to take offence, get upset and then double down on their own belief or shoulder chip. 

There's a heavy weight people carry around these days (the Pain Body as Eckhart Tolle would describe it) who's only form of interaction is to be offended or who have ideas that make no scientific or any other sort of sense.

Where were these people for example decrying regimes that existed on the back of piles of their populations killed for ideological reasons?  They weren't there then but now that something is happening that may redress the situation they scream out how unfair it is.  Why not tell that to all the dead, maimed and injured?  Then they become defence and foreign affairs spokesmen and proudly proclaim stuff from Facebook, X and Instagram what world leaders should do and how they should do it among other grievances and the naivety of it all does make me shake my head and wonder whether these people really mean it.  I suppose they do.

There used to be a rule when I was at work which was something along the lines of "Engage your brain before selecting gear"  I wish more people would just take a deep breath, work out what their point is and then say it having worked out what the consequences of their actions and more so, wishes are. 

Dawning Realisation

 I suppose it should come as no surprise to me least of all that the business just doesn't look like it will make it.  This Tuesday a big change will take place in the way things operate and in that change will be the very last chance to see if the App will make it.

So far, some of the signs have been encouraging but having now invested 4 times more than my original budget I am empty handed despite increasing numbers of people interested but, of course, interested doesn't mean buyers.

So I sat down last night and went through the plan for shutting it all down.  I could have done that over a year ago in reality but I wanted to make sure that this long-term project actually saw the light of day and if it had (or didn't have) potential.  The reality is that we don't have the capital like our competitors to flood the market and in many ways, whilst I could put my shoulder to the problem I no longer feel inclined to do so after the way I have been treated.

So with this big change I will give it a couple of weeks and if the fortunes do not change then shut it all down.  It's an easy process but a little complicated by other factors, easy enough to get over though I'd say. 

Perhaps I will strike it lucky and it will all come good but I don't think so.  The good news about shutting it all down would be that I can walk away and get my life back.  That would be great as I was surprised how much of my time this has taken up.  

Having worked on this for 9 years or so, I do feel a little pissed off that the chap who wanted all this assistance has turned on me, walking away and leaving me to it!  I just hope that he fades into the past and never darkens my door again. 

Interesting Times

 It's a strange old world and we've got another couple of wars to deal with in the interim.  We've had a wake up call or at least those of us who are interested in this sort of thing in the Gorton and Denton By Election. The Greens winning was perhaps inevitable but the style of the campaigning and the result should ring alarm bells a bit. The Greens do not seem to be the luvvies we were led to believe and have changed into a sort of far left of Attila the Hun sort of party.  It's a protest vote, of course and that's understandable given the complete shower of excrement we have a a government at the moment but it's how they went about their win that should worry people.  Quite a bit of the canvasing wasn't done in English.  The manner in which people voted is against the "rules" but they overturned the 6th safest seat for Labour demoting them to 3rd.

So it's pretty seismic I'd say, as the two uni-parties were in 3rd and 4th Places with Green in 1st and Reform in 2nd.  In 5th trailing in were the liberal democrats but they both must have lost their deposits as they were only in the hundreds of votes not the thousands.  

I think that people may be worried about this but it is a By Election and that is going to be different to a full election.  I also think that as a protest it works well but a party that wants opne borders, houses for illegals, legalizing Cannabis and Class A drugs, de-funding the police and so on aren't serious contenders.  Their stance on Middle East Politics will get them a certain % of the vote too but quite how they square the LQBTQ community with the Muslim community will be a very interesting mashup. 

What is for sure is that the old two party system has had a shakeup and a new left and new right are appearing.  It's all a bit bitter and squalid to my view and the ugly manner in which this campaign had been conducted doesn't bode well for the future.  I still look on with abject amazement and morbid curiosity as to why I'd want any of them in government at all?  The way this lot have behaved has been disgusting and their naivety is shocking.  Grab the popcorn, settle back and watch the horror show. 

Fix - Temporary

I fixed my door mirror and it will do for now.  It's a different colour but hey ho, it will do the job and at least keeps the water off of the electrics which were exposed.  A few of the lugs were smashed up so it didn't seat quite as neatly as I'd like but a small bit of Duck Tape seems to have held the snapped clip for now.

 I have to do a bit of Motorway driving tonight so that should prove the installation one way or the other.  It's a fix and whilst it looks a bit strange it will have to do as if I'd bothered my insurance company they'd have got me to pay the excess which is about £200 anyway so for £30 it will just have to do.  

It's a car not a work of art and so I don't mind it too much.  Years ago it would have bothered me.  It did with my old Jaguar with its lovely blue and white leather interior but I really like this Volvo, it is a working car and it gets dusty and dirty and is scratched where it rubs along the hedgerows, dirty as it bounces in and out of the potholes and it does its job perfectly.

I'm about to go out to meet some people.  Annoyingly it will cost me £12.50 for the privilege with this ULEZ crap payment and like everything else that is wrong in this country at the moment we all know it makes no difference to health or air quality at all.  It's about the money.  If it was about anything else they'd ban cars wouldn't they?  You can but hope the people of this country wake up from their sleep walking, realise that the magic money tree is in fact their own purses and wallets and do something about it!  After the By Election result last night you wonder what people are thinking?  The Green party are now anything but and a few of my local councillors are Old School environmentalists and their hearts are mostly in the right place.  This new incarnation is the nearest thing to communism dressed up as "be kinder" politics I have ever seen.  Let's see what happens - it looks a bit worrying to me.

 

So What Can I Find To Moan About Today

 Probably everything.  I used to say that we men only have two faults according to me Ex.  Everything we say and everything we do!  LOL.  

And so when you look at the performance of the political parties and the point scoring that was yesterday's PMQs all bluster and no substance, much as it has been for years now and then you look at the petty potty mouthed insults in the By Election happening today it makes you wonder why on earth anyone would vote for these people.  The sectarianism on display was breathtaking and the sheer hypocrisy of the name calling beggars belief.  We are in the schoolyard again, calling out words like "Racist" and so on.  What is going on?  Is that what it has come to these days?  As I've often said here, the weaponisation of words is these days perfectly acceptable.  It's just that and I like that someone actually promoting  sectarian politics is calling out the other party for doing exactly what they are doing?  I cannot remember the actual phrase this chap I once knew used to say, something along the lines of "They are exactly what they accuse you of being" 

They do not discuss their policies they witter on about far away lands, they produce their political leaflets and videos in other languages for those who do not speak English and so on.  If that doesn't boil your piss I don't know what else would.  The messages are unhinged and totally crazy.  One of the parties wants to legalise drugs, all of the drugs, Class A included.  It wants to teach kids how to take them properly.   It wants infant schoolkids to be able to "identify" as whatever gender they want (from 4 onwards).  Can't we let kids be kids anymore?  Then there's the open borders, de-fund the Police and give housing and benefits to illegal aliens.

This is their policy and people will vote for this.  Cast your eyes across the pond and see what that brings and yet people will vote for lawlessness and a return to the Wild West.  The world's gone mad.  Let's see what the results of this By Election turn up.  Sure, it can be seen as a protest vote but who wants to vote for something that will harm you in ways you know not.  The lunatics have taken over the asylum and whether we will be able to shake loose of the insanity currently befalling us remains to be seen. 

Facing Up To Facts

 I see the business in its final throes as I continue to experiment with getting paying customers, of which, so far there are none.  It could be that this is due to the reporting issue they found a couple of weeks back which isn't showing any sales at all.  So I have to come to terms with the fact that whilst people are downloading it now, no one is buying it. And inevitably that means, the business cannot support itself and neither can I continue to support it either much further.

There's only so much cash you can throw at something and the level of work I have put in and the cash injection to pay for the advertising system just isn't producing the results in purchases but is producing downloads.  Next week a new version of that comes into being and so I can give that a few weeks to see if anything improves.  Then of course, a decision needs to be made.  Should things pick up and we get purchases and dependent on how many of those versus the cost to obtain them is the calculation that's required.

I can only keep going if the money in is greater than the money out and if not, the business needs to close.  That's unfortunate but no need to be sentimental about it.  Ii know the chap that started it with me will be less than charitable but facts is facts and that's that. 

You get attached to "your baby" and want it to do well and flourish out in the wider world but either the market isn't right or you come up against some stiff opposition or as in our case we are very late to market by some 8 years of messing around and frankly not listening to me when I suggested to stop making unnecessary futile changes.  You put the thing out there, see if they like it, see if you grow your revenues and if changes are wanted (by customers not some vanity idea) you make the changes and can charge for them.  

Any-road, here we are, decision point coming in the next few weeks and a little bit of me would prefer it to close down so I can get my life back.  

Taxi Update

 Great so I get delayed to go pick up and as I drive through the village a Royal Mail Van driving like Lewis Hamilton on a Race weekend smashes into my mirror and wipes it out - it's notorious and normally I would wind my mirrors in but he came so fast that I had to emergency slow and he just kept going.

Of course I could go via insurance but the components are readily available and less than £50 so I'll do it myself (the excess on the insurance is in the hundreds).  Typical!

Taxi Service And Is It Just Me?

 I'm driving the OH around at the moment and of course, plans have changed and it's me that has to try and accommodate such changes even though I was booked for a specific time and have built MY day around those hours!  Lucky I got the call or I would be sitting outside the wrong place!

In other news why does this happen?  I just ordered £100+ from the Butcher and used my loyalty card points.  Order is confirmed and what's just arrived in my email?  Of course 20% off for the next two hours FFS!  It's not the first time either - it's just so annoying.  Maybe I'll check when these arrive and plan my shopping around the bigger discounts! 

Other than that I see the world has gone crazy with luvvies and all their caring and sharing and be nice stuff shown up for what it is as they did not understand what Tourettes Syndrome actually is even though it was one of the films in the awards!  The world went into ATomic Meltdown and with a little real love and understanding and a knowledge of what it is, they'd have realised quite how ugly and poisonous their shallow, vapid and superficial lives really are? 

These people who tell us what to do are Philistine pig ignorant benighted and worthy of the title "The Ignorati" I think that sums it up but I have other derogatory terms if you'd like? 

SO I'm hanging around now before I go and pick up in the rush hour, another blessing - Not!  AT least I've done something useful with AI today as I got it to detail out my financial calculations for the club subscriptions.  It was really useful as I brain dumped all the details and calculations, numbers, costs and so on and it was brilliant in allowing me to look at the figures in a different light.  I have to say that it was a real Godsend and once I had the figures resolved it produced a letter to go with the figures, back up rationale and a spreadsheet to use the next time too!  That saved me a good few hours. 

Leave Us/Me Alone

Woke up to the HMRC radio advert.  Unbelievably patronizing and it sounded all the world to me like a full on piss take.  We're changing so you need to do this.  They have gone from yearly accounts for sole traders and the like to quarterly reporting.  These are sole traders mind you and they are being forced to report quarterly like some USA corporation!  What is the actual point of it apart from making life even worse for them.  They have to pay to buy "approved software" so it has to be online now too.  

I cannot be alone in looking at these draconian rules which aren't made to do anything other than piss us off and benefit the lazy gits in the Civil Service and make out lives miserable.  Does anyone actually think it will increase revenues to the Government?  In fines maybe but who has the wherewithal to do this level of administration when you are a sole trader or self employed or a landlord? 

Some spreadsheet jockey has realised that it makes their lives easier and pushed the burden on to the working guy who has to purchase software and make more of his working week as an unpaid clerk to HMRC.  When IR35 arrived I took my foot off the throttle and shut down my business.  It was hard enough to run the business anyway.  You are responsible for your own sick pay and contrary to popular belief you paid taxes at a company and personal level and NI and with all that on your plate why bother?

I hate being told what to do or having decisions made for me.  If you do that you would find immense kick back.  We used to finish work at 4 p.m. on a Friday and often my arse of a boss would say there's a meeting the other side of London at 4:30 or some such and he'd do it to everyone.  My response would be along the lines of "Well you are going to be lonely" or variants to the same.  Don't book things until you ask me - he used to be as thick as mince on this stuff.  He may not have had a home life but come Friday evening, that was family time and so tough, you set up the meeting, you go to it.

Any such order that arrived was treated the same.  You don't make up your mind on what I will do. You don't take decisions in my name or setup anything without my say so.  It makes me angry just recalling these idiots,  On one occasion someone set up an 8 am meeting for me on Monday and emailed me at 6 on a Friday evening.  I drove into work which was around 150 miles away from the meeting.  Opened my email to see this "instruction".  First, he worked for me not vice versa so had no authority to do so and as I told him when I phoned him up, he has neither the authority to do that and what made him think that I can access emails from home?  Apparently he could.  When I explained how far away I was and that the meeting was to start in a few moments and that I had not made the meeting arrangements and that he had, he had better make the apologies.  I also asked him what was wrong with a telephone call to make the appointment.

I had a lot of trouble with him until I was able to get rid of him from my team.  So don't tell me what to do, don't arrange things that I am not party too and leave me alone.  

Knowing The Price Of Everything And The Value Of Nothing

 "Knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" is a famous quote from Oscar Wilde's 1892 play Lady Windermere's Fan, defining a cynic as someone focused solely on cost or monetary worth rather than intrinsic, emotional, or ethical value. It critiques materialism and a shallow, profit-driven society. 

It's something I come across quite a bit and no more so than someone who has no idea what goes on behind the scenes and is quick to trash the work undertaken with some idea in their head about what should happen based on their life experience in the business which, in layman's terms is the square root of sweet Fanny Adams!  

I used to find this when people queried how much my quotes were for certain projects and they could not get their heads around the fact that you cannot discount people costs.  You can possibly do it on capital equipment but I cannot reduce the people and get the same work done in the same amount of time.  I used to enjoy asking them which person we should lose from the team and what part of the project didn't they want delivered!  It's my fun facts time where surely it would be easier to have a baby that rather than a lady having to produce a bay in nine months we could get 9 ladies to do it in one month!

The other one was it takes a month to build one mile of motorway and so if you increase the workforce 30 fold you can do it in a day!  Flawed logic and it's impossible to actually achieve even if you were able to as you'd also need 30 times the machinery and all the materials to arrive in the correct order and in huge quantities.  Everyone would be getting in each others way and the overall logistics just could not achieve it.

In many ways this is how politicians appear to view the world, in a way modelled by home grown spreadsheets and an idealized view of their world.  They apply their own rules to things, not asking the experts if it is (MY favourite word comping up...) DO-ABLE.  Yes, can your idea actually be feasibly implemented and of course in 101 cases out of a 100 of course it can't.  

There's also the knock on effect.  input and output, cause and effect, impact on other projects and so on.  It's what I used to do planning at an Executive (Programme) level.  I used to watch their eyes glaze over as I spoke about the overall Programme rather than the individual projects that made up that Programme and how project managers (I used to be one so I know) and sponsors were focused only on their part of the overall scheme and had no cognizance of the other things going on around them unless they were delivering into one or more of those projects.

A delay in one project could cause problems across the whole spate of projects and cause bigger problems elsewhere.  A one week delay on an individual project could cause months of delays elsewhere.  Operating at their own project they could not see the whole thing but it did have an impact.  More often than not huge impacts could be caused by something very small at the project level.

How many times I had to explain this I've lost count.  There'd always be some smart arse with no connection to the overall programme ready to offer their 'considered opinion' and we often used the phrase to laugh at them "For every problem there is a solution that is simple, neat—and wrong!"

Is it worth explaining to these people the error of their ways?  I don't know, I'm tired of attempting to do so as they get all defensive and don't listen to the explanation anyway! 

Turtles All The Way Down?

 It's beginning to feel that way I think.  Just look at the complex situation where we find ourselves in and as we scratch the very outer surface of the huge almost unimaginable web of lies, corruption and deceit I think we all know that this is hardly all of it and that it goes very deep and to many layers of depravity that we cannot or are not allowed to see.

It should shake us to our very core but we are so used to these levels of depravity and corruption that it no longer shocks us.  The can of worms is perhaps an infinite number of cans of worms each as disgusting and sickening as the previous ones.  

Are we being fed a little at a time to make it acceptable?  Are we defending out own sanity by blocking this stuff out of our minds "well it hasn't affected me or my family?"  or is there something else at play here?  

What is more concerning is that these things involve children and again, can we really fathom out what is going on or what has happened and why is no one tackling it?  We aren't being told the half of it and how deep does this scumbaggery go?   

It looks bad from the little we know of it and I imagine as it is leaked out to us in snippets it won't look as bad as what it actually is.  

Choreographed Political Theatre

 Well imagine a press release all ready and waiting for something to happen?  Really?  Of course, things don't happen these days without the spin doctor's say so and this close choreography beats and synchronized Olympic event hands down. 

It should not surprise us in the slightest but I am certain that half of the public "buy it" and the rest of us roll our eyes towards the heavens and wonder when will they realise that half of us no longer listen to (or if we do don't believe) these propaganda press releases and related actions.

It's tiresome and see through.  It insults the intelligence and undermines democracy and trust in the very people who are meant to do our bidding rather than trying all the time to rule us.  They rarely  use words that mean they are meant to rule on our behalf and instead use words like power.  "When we get power", "When we are in power".

Talking of power we had two old ladies living not far from me both fined by local enforcement officers £300 each for the heinous crime of...... leaving a charity collection bag on their doorstep for the charity van to come and collect (as per the instructions on the bag).  Not lying on the pavement or in the road, no, one their very own doorsteps.  That's the shit head low life council for you.  We pay their wages, we vote them into power, they fine our old age pensioners on the spot the bastards, I feel utter contempt for these low life gits (as you might have guessed) and everything that is wrong in the UK now can be wrapped up in that one act!

I was involved in a pubic consultation last year about parking where I explained that if they were to introduce parking fees in this particular area that it was as easy to go park on the streets nearby as there were no parking restrictions there.  Did they listen? You know the answer as well as I do and guess what?  The local roads are now clogged up with people parking and it is causing local traffic issues - obviously and no one is using the car park as predicted.  Useless pricks the lot of them.  Why ask if you aren't going to listen and what we, the ordinary general public, who are loaded with real life experience, worldly hard earned from life's hard knocks and having to face these public servant made issues every bloody day?  

It's like everyone can see what the government's next failure is going to be before they do, what fiscal crap they publish, what the budget will mean and lo and behold it comes to pass as if by magic and is a huge surprise to them and yet we've all been saying it to them since the lauched their latest policy etc.

The whole thing is beyond a joke.  It's all spin and ideology with no risk reviews.  

As I often quote from the late Sir John Harvey Jones: “Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression.”

Retirement - Decision Soon

 I found myself at it again the other day,  thinking that I needed to be doing something and of course, there really isn't anything to be doing.  There is and there isn't.

The App and my journey are continuing.  I have given it until March to see what happens and then I need to make a decision either to continue or close it down.  It would be nice for it to be winner but it isn't looking as if it will be based on improving views but no actual purchases.  I am surprised a bit as it is very different to other subscription Apps but it is what it is of course.  So perhaps in another month I will be able to make that decision.

I have things to do, of course, but I still have this sort of frozen impasse where I feel I should be doing something but I am not doing it (whatever it may be) and working out what to do with myself.  I'd like to be doing something more than I am doing now but there's getting the enthusiasm for it and this want to have a rest.  Just don't do anything at all but knowing me, that's not going to happen.  I can busy myself with hobbies but so many things these days have lost their joy and I cannot be bothered.  When I do get motivated well that's different of course but where is that old spark and how do I get out of the rut I am in? 

I find myself quite settled in my home and happy with my own company but really do want to get out and sort stuff out.  I suppose I will be able to work this all out in 4 or 5 weeks time?  I hope so.

I Like A Spreadsheet

 It is interesting that I have been using spreadsheets in one way or the other for 40 or more years.  When we got them in the late 80s electronically it was a revelation as before I had been handcrafting them for quotations and bills of quantities and so on.

I was often times laughed at for showing how we could at a stroke change things and try different formulae to arrive at different views of the truth and why actually some weren't to be trusted.  You can show a profit when there isn't one etc.

They are useful to back up written work and support  plans and designs.  And so I turn to stuff I will call it, that just gets presented as "The Truth" and has no data to back it up, no well worked argument with a rationale, experiment, conclusion etc.

Just a statement made and it is, in reality, just what someone thinks, or wants me and others to think.  You see it all the time on X and Facebook someone says something, states it as fact and it's an opinion piece at best.  Challenged they go into meltdown and rather than state how the y arrived at said conclusion that they've shared with me and the world, they YELL REALLY LOUDLY and cite that as proof 😊😊.  If that doesn't work you then call their parenthood into doubt or add words like denier or similar. There is a lot of this around.  

I can call a politician whatever I like and generally I reckon I could back that up with four or five examples of evidence to say it.  I saw today someone called a politician a Fascist.  Now Mussolini and Hitler could well be called that but a politician in the UK?  Even acting like a Fascist is taking things a bit extreme in reality.  They probably mean in some cases acting like a Dictator and even then that doesn't really hit the mark.  Being an outrageous knob on the other hand would fit if indeed they were doing what they are at the moment and as a previous post highlighted just making things worse as they thrash around trying to save their jobs and digging a deeper hole.

They haven't acted anything like a Fascist - it's just that the person commentating wants them to appear in a bad light.  At the moment everyone seems to be acting in their own interests and not those of the electorate - the people who give them power.  This faux outrage that their ideology is collapsing as most of these policies must appears to allow their supporters carte Blanche to attack everyone else but their own people. Built on sand, no ROI in any decision making, no attention to the risks on the other side of their Utopian dream and the damage their rainbow coloured world of unicorns and fairies actually inflicts in the real world where we actually live.  It's pathetic and so damaging to societal cohesion and to the country's finances. 

Anyway, I think I should demand the spreadsheet when they make these claims.  

What Can I Do Next? I Know, I'll Dig Myself A Deeper Hole!

 And so it came to pass that our micro brained leader pulled off yet another action that made him more hated and despised whilst declaring that it was good for the country.  Yes our PM signed up to yet another treacherous "agreement" that makes us poorer and then explains how good it is for us all that he's done it!

It's both funny and tragic at the same time.  They appear to learn nothing and miss the point entirely.  This is some climate change nonsense with the EU who are going down the toilet faster than us probably because we have the un-flush-able turd in charge! 

It's as if he really thinks, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that this will fix things when it does the opposite.  It makes him look more of a pratt than he already is and out of touch and frankly doomed - he really shouldn't be in post but believe it or not, he's the best that the Labour party have got.  God help us all!

In so many ways it is as if these guys are in some sort of warped Disney Film.  They think they are the heroes and they really need to stop, work out that everything in their own world is wrong and come out here, the other side of the sickly sweet "all is wonderful" fantasy world they appear to inhabit and see what it is like.  What it is really like.  They appear to have absolutely no idea and their ideology and "let them eat cake" attitude will bring them down.  I hope the fall from grace is massively painful for each and everyone of them.  They are the lice and fleas of the human race, parasitically clinging on and feeding off us free.  

It's difficult enough as it is and I see my new tax code has arrived which is how we deal with things now, tax the daylights out of us and pass the proceeds onto those who presently are living off of a dwindling number of people able to pay the tax to support them.  Unchecked they will of course kill off the host.  Perhaps that is what they want but they hasten their own doom in doing so.

Of course a lot of this stuff is going on to protect what is left of his weak and feeble premiership.  

My Boss Was Like This Government

 I've had a pick of bosses some good (very few) most bad but listening to our utterly useless Prime Minister (in name only now I'd suggest) and his imbecile ministers you have to wonder why they are so utterly useless, charmless and on the wrong wavelength to ordinary people.  I class myself as ordinary - I know difficult to believe but there you go!

They just come up with stuff that immediately puts your back up, has no foundation in reality or doesn't appear to have one foot in reality.  They think it does, they think it is big and clever and the rest of us can hardly believe what they've said.  If you wanted to go about getting the people behind you and agreeing with you and rebuilding your reputation you'd do well to say the absolute opposite and pursue sound policies based on data, reality and good judgement.

If they aren't coming out with crazy stuff like, I don't know, making boats more buoyant by drilling holes in them, cutting the wings off of planes so they fly straighter, compulsory square tyres on motor cars then they are out cussing and dissing their opponents or practising Red Herring tactics and blatant obfuscation. WE SEE THROUGH YOU, YOU UTTER MORONS!  

Honestly it's like listening to kids in a junior school coming up with alibis over some prank that has been found out.  It really is that pathetic and at least you can laugh at children's excuses.

Attacking your opponents goes nowhere, pathetic politicians have been doing it for years but do they not know that we see through it all.  No one believes them and no one takes them seriously anymore.  They are cornered and are fighting exactly like cornered animals.  Attacking words and their meanings, attacking us because we are far to stupid to b given the vote.  No wonder people are getting seething and angry at the moment.  

Small insurrections are starting I notice little things like criminal damage to council parking machines and notices are one.  It low level civil unrest and reading between the lines it's that politicians are ignoring their voters wishes, forcing change where it is not necessary (if it ain't broke don't fix it) and forcing those who voted for them to accept things they neither voted for nor want.  All the while pissing on us and telling us it's raining. 

I like the British, they have a good level of tolerance but that's stretching and beginning to break, you can feel it and their good nature has been stretched and is about to come under more stress especially if you try and rule carrot and stick and continue to take more than you give.  I feel that things are at breaking point and that finally enough is enough.  Sit back,m grab some popcorn and Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride (Hunter S. Thompson).

I hope the present evil batch of low life politicians see their future writ large come the May elections.  Good people, don't flinch, send them into the Abyss back where they belong.