14 October 2011 (Friday) - Ghosts, Breathing and Wine


Just when I thought that the entire movie industry had run out of ideas, I am proved totally wrong. It would seem there are plans afoot to make a film the likes of which the world has hitherto only dreamed about. “Rentaghost – the Movie”.
As Mr Claypole, the MacWitch and the Pantomime Horse head to the Silver Screen, Hubert Davenport spins in his grave, and I for one won’t be queuing up at the cinema.

I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard the news this morning. It would seem that the energy companies are making eight times the profit from my payments to them that they were making only a few months ago. Apparently from the £1300 I pay them every year, £125 of that is profit. The chap on the radio was shocked about this. So was I, but for completely the opposite reason. He was horrified about how much profit they were making. I was amazed how little they were making.
Perhaps working in the public sector has left me somewhat naïve, but back when I worked in the private sector, (long, long ago), the boss’s tenet of faith was that for the price he paid to buy three of anything, he would sell one. He worked on a three hundred per cent markup. I honestly assumed that of the £1300 I pay to the energy company each year, about eight or nine hundred quid would have gone into their pocket.
One lives and learns.

I was also shocked about the news concerning the cabinet office minister Oliver Letwin. Apparently he’s accused of disposing of some of his paperwork when he’s finished with it. The poor bugger is being crucified in the press because he threw away various dull trivial official papers. Bearing in mind how the press have just hounded the Defence Secretary out of office, I’m left wondering why anyone would aspire for public office.

Work was quiet. So quiet that one of the ladies was able to slip out to see her nephew’s school play. The lad had been in the school’s drama club for some time, and had been asking his aunt to come see the play for weeks. The play was “The Gruffalo”, and the lad in question turned out to be playing the part of a rock.
Personally I’d rather watch the rock rather than Rentaghost – The Next Generation.

There weren’t many people in the slow lane at swimming this evening. Just five of us: me, ‘er indoors TM, two orcas and a young Gurkha. The young Gurkha had a novel swimming technique: he would swim an entire length without taking a single breath on the way, then gasp like a beached fish at the end of the length, before repeating the process.
Mind you, I can’t really criticise. As a child I was an accomplished swimmer. Nowadays my technique isn’t what it was. I know (in principle) what to do about arms, legs and breathing. But in practice I find I can only organise any two of those three. Seeing how I tend to make breathing the priority, my propulsion in the swimming pool isn’t that which it might be.
But I did the obligatory twenty lengths, which passed pleasantly enough (apart from ‘er indoors TM drowning on the sixteenth length).

And then home for a curry. You know you’re seriously into “diet mode” when the curry comes with a bottle of WeightWatcher’s wine…

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