6 December 2013 (Friday) - Stuff

"Daddies Little Angel ^TM" stayed overnight last night as she was off a mission. I didn't dare ask details, but from what I could glean it made sense for her to make an early start from Ashford than from anywhere else. And as is always the case when she is about, I lost my dog. "Furry Face ^TM" clearly and openly acknowledges that in his opinion "Daddies Little Angel ^TM" is the head of the household. When she is on the scene there is a very obvious transfer of allegiance.

My dog was nowhere to be seen as I scoffed my toast and watched telly.

And so to work. There was minor excitement as the traffic lights by Domino's Pizza weren't working. I slowed down and kept going whilst hoping for the best. As I turned the corner I saw the problem - one of the traffic lights had been hit by something heavy and the supporting pole was laying flat on the road. Completely flattened. Whatever hat hit it had hit it hard.

I got through without problem at 6.30am; I bet that caused problems later in the day. Interestingly at no point did this show up on the BBC's interactive travel hold-ups map. Mind you I'd be very interested to find out how tings to get on to the BBC's interactive travel hold-ups map. Every day (and I mean *every* day) there are reports of traffic chaos in the same places (Spearpoint corner and Pin Hill come to mind) whilst other incidents go unreported.

The morning's radio featured excerpts from proceedings in Parliament yesterday. I was frankly shocked and ashamed of what I heard while listening to what our lords and masters. On the radio they sounded as though they were a rabble; I used to get better behaviour from over-excited eight year olds in the cub scouts.

The morning's news was also full of glowing praise for Nelson Mandela who died yesterday. I can't claim to be an expert on international politics, but I have a sneaking suspicion that with the benefit of hindsight future historians will hold up Nelson Mandela as a classic example of the old maxim "the end justified the means".

It has clearly done so in the eyes of the fellows' contemporaries if the glowing obituaries are to be taken seriously.

We talked about this at work at length today and tried to determine the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter. We came to the conclusion that a freedom fighter is a terrorist who gets his (or her) own way to the satisfaction of the international community.

I got to work a little earlier than usual, and once there I did my bit. At one point I staged a coup and declared myself to be God-Emperor of the universe. However my coup was overthrown by a counter-revolution after a dismal five minutes. I suspect that had I the support of more (any) minions I would have triumphed victorious. However the only one who admitted that he would actually be a minion for me was on his tea break at the time. Witnesses even told me that he had been asleep at the vital moment.

Next time things will be different.

As I came home I listened to "Any Questions". Billed as a show in which politicians and celebrities discuss burning issues of the day, I've always found the show to feature unknown gas-bags spouting drivel. Tonight's show had two politicians, an economist and an author.

One of the politicians was trying to make out that our society's new-found need for food banks was a good thing. The author publically crucified him whilst the audience shouted swear words..