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7 May 2014 (Wednesday) - Cats in Boxes

Much as I'm not keen on the CPAP machine, it seems to be doing the trick; last night I got an unprecedented six hours sleep. I woke shortly before 6am, and set the dishwashed going (a job I forgot to do last night) then watched a bit of telly. "Life's Too Short" (featuring Warwick Davies) was rather entertaining, and "Pramface" shows promise. As I scoffed my toast "Furry Face TM" helped me with the crusts. I'm not sure I should be encouraging him to eat crusts, but he is such a fussy eater that it's good to see him eating anything.0

The morning's radio news was interesting. Yesterday I ranted about the poor standard of spoken English in the local KFC. Today the pundits highlighted the poor quality of spoken English in immigrant care workers employed in UK care homes. The elderly, infirm and vulnerable are struggling to be able to communicate in any way with those who are supposed to be looking after them. Because the only people applying to work in care homes are immigrant workers who have only a cursory grasp of the English language.
Also the local Kentish health authorities are looking to recruit 500 temporary staff to bolster their overworked staff. Many of these people will also be immigrant workers. Possibly with poor language skills too? Who knows?
As I've said before I can't help but feel that if the media weren't so actively hunting for honest mistakes and oversights in a very overworked and underpaid section of society then just perhaps there might be more people seeking employment in the care industries. Just perhaps there wouldn't be such a recruitment crisis; perhaps there might be candidates who *could* make themselves understood.

At lunchtime I had a saxophone practice; I've been neglecting that lately, so once again I set up my music stand at the far end of the works car park. My teacher says I am to play "On Top of Old Smokey" *really* loudly, so I was giving it full blast when a woman came running toward me screaming for me to stop. She glared at me, went to the car next to where I was playing and opened a box in the boot of that car. She fussed about inside this box and then told me how evil I was because the noise I'd been making had terrified her cat. Presumably her cat was in this box; I never actually saw a cat, but I did notice that all the windows of that car were open an inch or so.
I listened to her ranting for five minutes, then suggested we called the RSPCA and let them decide which of us was the villain.
She said nothing more, but drove off rather promptly.

Once home I took "Furry Face TM" round the park. Apart from a minor contretemps with a bulldog our walk was mostly uneventful.
With "er indoors TM" off candlemongering I watched the first episode of "Game of Thrones" on my newly upgraded SkyPlus box. So far it is all swords and tits and precious little story, but it is still early days...

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