Another night with an alarm set, and so another restless
night. At least I stayed asleep until after three o’clock this morning. After a
couple of hours I gave up and got up. I made toast and watched another episode
of “The End of the Fxxxing World” in which our heroes travelled to the
Isle of Sheppey. There were some spectacular aerial shots of the Kingsferry
bridge; I do like seeing places that I’ve been on the telly.
As that finished I caught the end of an episode of Bullseye
in which two rather greedy idiots from the 1970s gambled some frankly rubbish
prizes in the hope of getting a speedboat, and lost the lot. Personally I could
never see the attraction of winning a speedboat. The things are utterly
impractical. Where are you going to keep it? If you store it on your drive or
in the garden you’ve got to find a slipway from which to launch it. Have you
ever tried to get a boat out of the water and back on to its trailer? And if
you are going to keep it moored somewhere, harbour fees ain’t cheap.
I’ve experience of boats. An uncle once persuaded my father
to go half-shares on a fishing boat they kept on St Leonards’ beach and I can
remember my dad constantly griping about what a load of arse-ache that was.
I sparked up my lap-top and peered into the Internet. It
was still there. Today’s petty squabble on Facebook was about why people should
leave cash tips in a restaurant (of at least twenty per cent of the cost of
the meal) because the waitresses are so poorly paid. Others were taking the
line that it is up to employes to pay staff, not customers. People were getting
rather nasty with each other on the matter.
If I’m going to leave a tip in a restaurant I’d not leave a
cash tip. I’d pay it on the card so’s everyone working in the place could get a
share. I used to work in the kitchen of a seaside restaurant. My basic wage was
the same as the waiting staff. My take-home was a fraction of theirs. They got
tips and I never did.
I set off to work on another dark morning. As I drove the
pundits on the radio were spouting their drivel as they do. There was more talk
about the Archbishop who resigned yesterday over the ongoing scandal, and talk of four
more bishops who should resign. The Archbishop of York said that those who
"actively covered this up" should go but he said those were
not bishops. I suppose he would, wouldn't he?
As I said yesterday, in my experience bishops are a dodgy
lot.
Meanwhile President Trump is planning who is going to have the
top jobs in his new government. He's giving senior positions to the world's
richest man Elon Musk, and to Fox News pundits and (so it was claimed)
those who'd supported him in his campaign. There was quite a bit of
consternation that he wasn't appointing people who'd been elected to public
office but was appointing those who'd done him favours despite their having no
political experience. It strikes me that Mr. Trump hasn't really got any
political experience, and that's never stopped him, has it?
I got to work where I did my bit. In between this and that
I did an external quality assessment blood film. Periodically NHS Head Office
send out slides from obscure cases to check we don't miss anything important.
It was in one of these that I saw some trypanosomes
today. Trypanosomes are nasty little
things that get into your blood and cause sleeping sickness.
I've never seen them outside of external quality assessment exercises, but I
live in hope.
And I got a certificate and award for forty years service.
It came in the post. Bearing in mind I hit forty years in September 2021 I can
only assume it got delayed on the way somewhere.
I came home to find the Christmas "Viz"
magazine had come in the post as well. That hadn’t been delayed.
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