Again I was awake shortly after one o’clock and then spent
the rest of the night dozing fitfully. I gave up trying to sleep at five
o’clock, got up and made toast. One small mercy of getting up really early is
that the dogs don’t and I get to scoff the toast whilst it is still warm.
I watched an episode of “Poldark” in which our hero
went to revolutionary France seemingly because he could, and then I had a
little look at the internet
Three people on my Facebook friends list were having
birthdays today. I sent out birthday wishes to two of them. I didn’t bother
with the third on account of him being a hamster that died ten years ago.
I checked my emails. I have permission for my new series of
geocaches in Kings Wood. I was pleased about that after the amount of time and
effort I’ve already put in to this project.
And I had an email from the county councilor. I’d sent him
an email about the flooding at the Asda underpass. I naively thought the
council could do a bit of dredging, build a wall and all would be heigh ho pip
and dandy. But it turns out that:
Ashford Borough Council are responsible for the maintenance
of the path
Kent County Council are responsible for maintenance of
the accessibility of a Public Right of Way
The Environment Agency are responsible for the
maintenance of waterways and flood management
And Network Rail are involved as they own the land
The councilor chap says that no one wants to actually do
anything as doing so sets a precedent for future expenses. He says he is trying
to get all parties talking, but matters aren’t helped by Network Rail refusing
to talk to anyone about the matter. He’s of the opinion that at the end of the
day the Environment Agency are the ones who should be getting it sorted, so
he’s chivvying the local MP to chivvy them.
I suppose he’s having a go, but he did mention that there
was a similar division of responsibilities in a local railway underpass where
it took six months to change a lightbulb.
Will anything actually happen at the Asda underpass? It was
flooding twenty-five years ago, and I suspect it will still be flooding in
twenty-five years’ time.
And I had an email from the RSPB. The great birdwatch was
last weekend. I’d forgotten all about it.
Taking care not to wake anyone I got ready for work and set
off. Yesterday I got a chicken fajita wrap from the works M&S which was
crap. Today I went to the co-op and got a similar wrap, a bag of crisps and a
drink for a quid less than what I paid in M&S for just the wrap.
As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were
talking about the Doomsday clock. Some bunch
of international scientists reckon that Russian nuclear threats, the invasion
of Ukraine (to say nothing of other wars), military applications of artificial
intelligence and the climate crisis means that global catastrophe is closer
than ever. Is it? Probably.
There were allegations that the bishop of Liverpool has been misbehaving. Am I being cynical in thinking he's heard
about the Doomsday Clock and is making hay whilst the sun shines? Not that
bishops should do that sort of thing. If a bishop isn't going to take a moral
stance, who will?
And the BBC is making cuts to its
World Service. By axing a hundred and thirty jobs it plans to save six million
quid. So the average person getting the heave-ho earns over forty-five thousand
a year. That’s ten thousand a year more than the average UK worker gets. And it is
the average UK worker that pays the TV licence fee that funds the BBC. A gravy
train which is long overdue to be de-railed.
I got to work. I did my bit. And at lunchtime I scoffed
that co-op chicken fajita wrap. It was far better than the one I got from
M&S yesterday.
Over dinner this evening we watched the final of “Junior
Bake Off”. Now we’ve seen all of that and all of “The Traitors” we’ve
got to find something else to watch.
I wonder what.
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