I woke up shortly before the alarm was
about to go off and looked out of the bedroom window. I was pleased to see the
cars outside weren't iced up. I got up and tiddled the dogs. Because going
straight from warm baskets to a cold garden is something of a shock I always go
out with them. I didn't think it was that cold at 5.30am; certainly not as cold
as it has been recently.
The dogs then shot upstairs to lay on my
bed, and over some toast I watched a rather sad episode of "Dad's Army" in which Captain
Mainwaring fell in love. I then got dressed, said goodbye to the three who were
snoring on (and in) my bed and went
out to find that during the previous hour my car had iced up quite
impressively.
As I scraped the ice from my car I saw
something quite remarkable. A cyclist. On the road (where he should be) and not on the pavement. And with hi-vis
clothing and lights on his bike.
I set off to work and it wasn't long
before I very nearly ran over some twit cycling dressed all in black with no
lights. He came seemingly from nowhere; this near miss shook me up somewhat. I
opened the window and shouted that he should be more visible. He shouted "F... off" and kept going - almost
directly into another car; seemingly oblivious to the mayhem he was causing.
The pundits on the radio commented that
today had been the coldest night of the winter so far. Admittedly it had got
cold over brekkie but the coldest night?
I must admit to having had a wry smile
over the next bit of news. The
government's All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on social integration has
recommended that all immigrants to the UK should
be able to speak English before trying to come to the UK, or should learn
the language as a matter of urgency once having arrived.
Really? Who would *ever* have thought that this might be a good idea?
What really boils my piss about this is
that this *isn't* news. This has been an issue for years. Regular readers of
this drivel may recall my previous rants on this subject. On
30 January 2013 I complained about the recent census which showed that at
that time there were one hundred and thirty eight thousand people in the UK who
couldn't speak English. And that wasn't "spoke English badly" - that was "couldn't speak English at all". The number that spoke English
badly was over seven hundred thousand back then. And on 12 February 2007 I
mentioned that forty thousand long term UK residents stood to lose their
unemployment benefit due to proposed government legislation in which the
government was planning to cut benefits for anyone who was unemployed because they
could not speak English and refused to take (free) English lessons.
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for
immigration. After all, the countries hospitals would close tomorrow if not for
immigrant labour. But surely the ability
to speak English is a pre-requisite for coming to the UK?
(And
for those who *are* against immigration I have a question from my own personal
experience... You advertise a vacancy for a vital job in a hospital several
times in various nationwide job markets. You don't get a single application
from any UK nationals. Not one. How would you proceed?)
I stopped off at Morrisons petrol
station on the way to work. Again the petrol in Canterbury is five pence per
litre cheaper there than in Ashford. And then I went to work for my last early
shift. And I also did far more than my bit. Because it needed to be done..
As I worked I found myself looking out
of the window. Yesterday I took a day off and it rained for much of the time.
Today the sunshine was glorious.
An early start made for an early finish.
In all honesty I would rather have stayed at work this evening. I got home and
took my dog for a short walk. The puppy stayed in her cage as she makes the
walk too much of a misery. Once the walk was over I let the puppy out. Both dogs
got *very* jealous of each other as I
tried to fuss both.
I came out of the shower to find the
puppy chewing my watch. It took an age to load the washing machine as the puppy
kept running off with the clothes. It was fun at the start; the novelty of
having a puppy has worn off…
Yesterday I had a really good day. Today
was rather crappy…
No comments:
Post a Comment