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21 October 2015 (Wednesday) - Waste of a Day

There's no denying that I hadn't been looking forward to last night's night shift. I don't know why; I quite like the freedom I have at work at night being on my own and being able to work (within reason) at my own pace doing my own thing. And I certainly like being at home with my dog during the week (which goes hand-in-hand with night work). As it happened the shift went well; rather quiet really,
Perhaps I shouldn't have the radio on at night; its constant stream of drivel does wind me up. Last night's stream of drivel certainly did. There was a major tirade about the state visit of the Chinese premier. On the one hand there was a State banquet; pomp and circumstance. On the other hand pretty much everyone sees the Chinese premier as Satan incarnate, holding him personally responsible for all sorts of human rights atrocities and for the collapse of the British steel industry. Prince Charles refused to show up for the bunfight, and everyone who was even remotely civil to this bloke was effectively being accused of collaboration with the enemy.
With such international squabbles going on, very little air-time was given to something of major importance. If the proposed sugar tax does go through (the intention is to combat the rising tide of childhood obesity) the co-co pops monkey will be banned together with Tony the Tiger and Snap, Crackle & Pop.
I must admit that in the early hours I gave up with Radio Four and listened to ELO albums on You-Tube for much of the rest of the night.

I came home, collected "Furry Face TM", drove out to the garage where we left the car (for its service) and we walked home through the drizzle. We went via the pet shop where I got my dog a bone for his brekkie. As he munched his bone I had my morning ablutions and took myself off to bed.
I had a rather vivid dream that "Daddies Little Angel TM" was shrieking at me, and woke to find that I was sitting up in bed with my phone to my ear and "Daddies Little Angel TM" was indeed shrieking at me.
When she paused for breath I went back to sleep until I was again woken with the obligatory "your windows computer am send the virus what is the windows password" phone call.
When Liam phoned with a whole load of lies about his PPI-related scam I saw red and told him to stick it up his arse. (I get grouchy when I'm tired). He didn't like that and he got rather lippy with me. I wasn't having any of it and told him that seeing how he had my phone number he probably has my address and so if he'd like to come round I would shove it up his arse for him. He hung up then.
Finally the garage phoned with a list of all the failings of my car. The rear light unit is split. It has been for some time. Various bulbs and wiper blades need changing. The tyres and brakes are good for a few thousand more miles. All rather routine. And some good news; one of the rear seat belt clasps hasn't been working for some time. I was expecting that to be a costly job. It turned out that there was a five pence coin wedged in the works. I said I would come and collect the car; they said it wasn't ready. They were just phoning me for.... well, I have no idea why they were phoning me. I'd taken the car there for them to fix it. If they wanted a conversation they should have had that when I dropped the car off.

I looked at the clock. I'd only been in bed for two hours. Why won't people let me sleep? I tried to get back to kip but it wasn't happening. I gave up trying to sleep and got up for a rather late brekkie only to find we had no bread for toast.
Corn flakes just aren't the same.

I assumed that as the garage had phoned then they were about to start on the car and that it would be ready soon. I assumed wrong. I then wasted the afternoon waiting for the garage to phone. Eventually they did; they were worried because they couldn't find the log book. It wasn't where I told them it was.
Seeing how it was raining I rang the taxi company to get a lift to the garage. They said they would be about half an hour. I walked; it was quicker.
Once at the garage I produced the log book from where I said it was, and then waited for far too long for them to fill in the log book. I paid up, went to drive away, and immediately an alarm went off about a failure in the parking brake. So I went and got the nice man from the garage. He took the car back to the workshop and after forty minutes they discovered that they had stuffed it up when moving the car. They tried to imply that the problem was my fault because the car is a Renault and they are different to Volkeswagens.

I had planned to go to a geo-meet in Northfleet this afternoon. By the time I was back in possession of a working car I was an hour and a half too late. So I came home, gave myself a haircut and sulked until "er indoors TM" came home. She was just as stressed as I was, having just road raged some normal person whilst trying to park.

Over a rather good bit of dinner we watched Saturday's episode of "Doctor Who" . In previous years I've been rather disparaging about the show. I've watched it because I want to like it even though I didn't.
I think I'm quite warming to Peter Capaldi.

And finally today was "Back to the Future Day". I'm sure everyone's seen the hype. I've only actually seen the "Back to the Future" films once. It was on Saturday 4 February 2012, and what I remember most is that haivng watched all three films back-to-back we came out to the car to find heavy snow. Reading my diary for that day I see that "I'd heard mixed reports about them (the films) during the week, but was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually liked them".
Perhaps I should give the films another go because that certainly isn't how I remember them.

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