24 March 2018 (Saturday) - Another Late Shift


I was rather all-in when I went to my pit last night; such a shame that "er indoors TM" chose to fight with the puppy for much of the night.
Over brekkie I looked at the Internet as I do. Facebook was much the same as ever; the attention-seekers sought attention as they do. Mind you one posting caught my eye. My cousin had posted up an advert for “An Experience with Sylvester Stallone”; the idea being that you turn up at this event and Mr. Stallone stands on stage and entertains. I’m not sure how he does this; the accompanying video just had clips from his films. Tickets for the event started at over a hundred and thirty quid and went up to nearly four hundred quid. I suppose people must pay these prices or they wouldn’t be putting the show on.
There would seem to be money in having once been famous. There is a sci-fi convention in Folkestone every year. One hundred quid might get you four photographs with has-beens from thirty years ago. When I was with the astronomy club I looked at getting one of the British astronauts to give a talk to the club... five-figure sums of money were wanted.
I suppose that (at the end of the day) all the time people are paying them money, they will keep taking it. I would.

With no emails of note we got the leads on to the dogs and went to the warren for a walk. As we drove "Daddy’s Little Angel TM" phoned to say she’d been selected to do jury service. It’s something I’d like to do, but I’ve head mixed tales of it. Some people have told me it’s dull. Another chap told of a jury he sat on in which the defendant was clearly guilty but a fellow juror would not say “guilty” as she didn’t want to be responsible for having sent someone to prison (regardless of his crime). Yet another friend told me of a fraud case on which he was a juror. It was pretty obvious that the chap was guilty but the rules are that guilt had to be proved. As not a single juror understood any of the evidence (despite several pleas for clarification) they delivered a verdict of “not guilty”.
I’ve told her to err on the side of caution and to go for execution. If nothing else it would serve as an example to the others.

We had a rather good walk round the warren; as we walked I met an old friend and we chatted. Her thirty-year old daughter was there too, and I felt old as I introduced myself and told her that I remembered her being born.
Last night a new geocache had gone live on the only road in and out of the warren. As we’d driven in there were normal people in the way, so we thought we’d have a look-see on the way home. The thing was called “Well of Doom” and was appropriately named. There was a manhole. It was covered by a heavy grating. The cache was hanging from the grating. Easy peasy… I lifted the grating to get to the cache and dropped the entire lot into the manhole. It fell about five feet into the most disgustingly stagnant mud.
Oh how I laughed.

After a couple of minutes I spotted a wooden stake on the nearby building site. I hopped the fence, grabbed the stake and was soon head-down in the hole. I managed to spear the grating with my stake, but as I heaved I felt myself slipping into the hole. The grating was stuck firm in the mud. I needed more leverage.
I had an idea.
"er indoors TM" sat on my ankles to give me some leverage. As I heaved I could hear her having a conversation with some passing normal people.
Eventually I recovered the grating (and quite a bit of mud) and with the secret geo-rituals done we came home for a wash, a cup of coffee, and I set off to work for the late shift. All the fun of the day was over and done with by eleven o’clock.

In closing today I think the blog’s hit counter has gone berserk; have my rantings *really* been read eight thousand times over the last week?

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