9 March 2020 (Monday) - New Neighbours


I woke up giggling at three o’clock. I have no idea why. I wonder what that was all about. I didn’t get back to sleep after that.
I got up at five o’clock. Amazingly the Smartmeter said that we had used one pound twenty-nine pence worth of leccie and gas since midnight – how is that possible? (We’d only used two pounds sixty pence worth of the stuff by nine o’clock this evening…)

Over a bowl of granola I watched another episode of “Uncle” then peered into the Internet to see if I’d missed much overnight. I do this every morning just in case something good, interesting or amazing had kicked off.
I’d had a friend request on Facebook from some weird new-age-hippie bloke. His supposed name was as long as your arm and with nowhere near enough vowels in it. Dwyfd Dltyghth ap Fggyth Plnthch (or something along those lines – I can’t remember now). Having been posting all sorts of drivel about bees, mediumships (?) and Barsoomian airships I thought that I didn’t really need this nut case on my list of cyber-friends.

As I drove up the motorway I drove rather slower than usual, but the window repair held. As I drove the pundits on the radio were fuelling the flames of national panic over the corona virus outbreak. Some expert was saying that it was now too late to panic. When is it *ever* too late to panic? Some government spokesman was explaining that the government was in contact with the supermarket chains to ensure that essential supplies will be available; spokesmen from the supermarket chains were explaining that this was the first they'd heard of any contact from the government.
For those of my loyal readers who don't do politics, this is the drawback of a capitalist system (Conservative). The entire ethos is that market forces control supply, and the last thing that should ever happen would be that a government should get involved in a supply chain. To be fair it is a system which works OK for most of the time, but when uncontrolled panic buying sets in, it becomes painfully apparent that there is no control over what is in the shops. Or isn't...

There was also talk about how serving police officers are less likely to be convicted of domestic abuse than any other member of the general public. I wasn't so much amazed by this as by the fact that this was presented as being surprising. It's not as though the local police haven't cautioned anyone for an offence for which they obviously hadn't committed, is it? Of if the local police haven't imprisoned anyone with absolutely no evidence whatsoever is it? Of if the local police didn't tell me that I am *not* to complain to the Chief Constable about them, is it?
It's a shame really – the actual idea of a police force is a good one.

I got to work; an early start made for an early finish. I came home via Aldi partly because I needed supplies, and partly because I’d heard that because of the corona virus scare there was a national shortage of bog-roll and that supermarket shelves were bare. And it was true (in part). The shelves where the cheap bog-roll sits looked as though the locusts had been through. There were a few rolls of the pricier stuff left. Not that I want to condone panic buying, but after a week or so I might just be choosing which socks to abandon, so I got some expensive bog-roll.

I came home. The bodged rear window was flapping a bit by the time I parked so I fixed it, and then took the dogs for a walk. When we came home we met our latest new neighbours…
On 28 May 2018 I ranted about “nice-next-door” (as opposed to “not-so-nice-next-door”). Back then, as one set of neighbours moved out and another moved in I wrote “I can’t help but wonder just how transient this lot will be”. Today that question was answered. The couple who will be recorded here as “them what went off to run a pub” lasted a year and ten months. As occupants of that house that’s quite a long time.
The new people (as yet un-alias-ed) seem pleasant enough but doesn’t everyone the first time you meet them. The young chap was telling me that a lot of the house has been bodged together; I got the distinct impression he wasn’t happy with the place. I wonder how long they will last… Gone by Christmas? Probably.

Once I got in I saw that the postman had been. I’d ordered a couple of maxi-figures from eBay. Politically incorrect I suppose, but then the 1970s were.

"er indoors TM" went bowling; I wrote up a little CPD. Tear-drop cells… 

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