As is so often the case, with an alarm set I was awake
far too early. At half past four I was watching another episode of “Victoria”
and wondering. Just how accurate was this TV show? I’m rather vague about
history. Like the episodes of “The Empress” I was watching last week I
was wondering just how much had been made up for the telly. I found myself
thinking back to dull afternoons in room K at the Hastings Academy for Budding
Geniuses where our history teacher showed us how to kill a subject stone dead.
The history teacher’s idea of teaching was to give us a text book and over the
course of a year have us copy it out in the hope that we might remember
something.
I certainly didn’t.
I then had my usual root about on-line. Not much was
happening so I set off to work on a very dark and rainy morning. As I drove I
listened to the pundits on the radio spouting their drivel as I do. Apparently
the storms last week did damage to the port at Hollyhead which is now closed for at least a month. This is causing major
issues for the transport industry. Apparently. Exactly what those issues are is
anyone's guess though. Out of the three experts wheeled on to discuss the
matter, only one spoke passable English. The other two were speaking in accents
so thick I couldn't make out a word they were saying.
There was also a lot of talk about the WASPI women. When the government
brought in changes to pension provision some years ago a lot of people felt the
government failed to provide adequate notice about the changes to pension
provision. They probably didn't. It turns
out here was a two-year delay in sending out letters to those affected.
Ironically the Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall
apologised for the balls-up, but said there was no compensation forthcoming
even though she'd previously implied she would sort it all
out.
I suspect Ms. Kendall has found that being in charge
is much more difficult than standing on the sidelines throwing rocks at those
in charge.
Work was work. But being on an early shift I got out
early. I didn’t get home early though. It took three quarters of an hour to get
to the motorway. Having spent most of the year rebuilding the Coldharbour
roundabout, after a couple of weeks whoever it is that does the roads had coned
half of it off… then gone home leaving chaos. And then having got through that
I then had to face “Operation Brock”; ten miles of motorway cordoned off
for absolutely no reason whatsoever with absolutely no vehicles using it.
As I watched today’s instalment of Downton Abbey “er
indoors TM” went off to Aldi. I did
volunteer, but being worse than useless there was no telling what I might have
brought home. Being worse than useless has its advantages – you don’t get sent
shopping.
We scoffed pizzas whilst watching “Mary Does Christmas” not
out of any desire to watch Mary Berry, but because I’d had the heads-up that an
old friend would be appearing in the show. If you are going to watch it, fast
forward to about five minutes from the end. The Town Crier – I went to school with
him fifty years ago.
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