10 July 2018 (Tuesday) - Before (and after) The Late Shift

As I scoffed brekkie I saw a picture on Facebook which boiled my piss this morning. You ca see it by clicking here. I can’t pretend to be a fan of the England football team, and it seems that neither can anyone who likes to think that they are Scottish.

I know several people who like to think they are Scottish. I seem to meet them everywhere I go. They are all very similar in that they are about as Scottish as my arse, but claim to be a Scot because of some vague family connection, or that they like whiskey, or that their auntie’s cat once took a day trip to Kilmarnock. These “fake Scots” are all very vocal in their disparaging anything English but what *really* boils my piss is geography. Look at the map. *All* of these wannabe-celts live in Kent. You can’t live on the same island as Scotland and get any further away from it than Kent. *If* Scotland is so bloody wonderful, why do these people live four hundred miles away from the place?

I took the dogs for a walk. In a novel break with tradition we went clockwise (as opposed to our usual anti-clockwise) through the co-op field, into the park and back through Bowens Field. As usual Fudge straggled and sniffed dog tiddle every few steps. Treacle however was rather willful today, and even charged off after a rabbit at one point.

As we walked we met other dog walkers at their dogs. We chatted, played, humped and ran in terror in equal amounts. There was a young lady doing boxing practice with some epically muscled chap by the fountain. Neither were wearing anything like what might be described as “adequate” clothing; It would have been rude to stare and take photos, but it took super-human efforts not to do so.

We came down past the KFC to be harangued by a drunk. There is nothing quite as pathetic as an old woman who is as pissed as a fart at half past nine in the morning. She stood up, fell over and shouted at the world that she wanted to fuss my dogs. I made it clear we weren’t stopping and kept going. She got up, fell over again, and (in between various repeats of the f- word) told me I didn’t have to be in such a rush. I told her she didn’t have to be drinking extra strength lager at half past nine, and left her to fall over for a third time.

The motorway was something of a mess as I drove up it this morning. The slow lane was coned off for the first few miles for no apparent reason. There was also a sign saying the slip road at junction nine will be closed tomorrow evening. I bet I forget that tomorrow when I'm off to do the night shift.

I came off of the motorway at junction seven, and (narrowly avoiding being run off the road by some Cornish HGV) I drove up to the back of beyond for geo-reasons.

I parked up and went for a little wander. Would you believe there were two geocaches near where I'd parked?

My first geo-target was one which hadn't been found for a year or so. It hadn't been found for a very good reason; it wasn't there. Or so I thought. I found the obvious hidey-hole, but no cache. I logged a DNF and put it on a watch list (as one does if one is that way inclined) and I thought I might await developments. Developments developed... The chap whose cache it was went out for a look-see. It *was* there.

I might go back tomorrow evening...

The second one was not far away. To find out where it was you had to solve a rather fiendish puzzle, and then (once you got to where you'd been directed) it was rather obvious where you had to go.

Up.

I looked up at the tree. I looked down at myself. Just lately I've managed to defer most tree climbing to my stunt double, but today it was just me. I looked up the climb again; how hard could it be?  On the one hand the tree looked dead and rotten, on the other hand the fall wasn't *that* far and the ground wasn't *that* hard. As is so often the case in my world, idiot enthusiasm triumphed over common sense and I shimmied up the tree.

I was soon doing the happy dance as best I could several feet off of the ground.

Interestingly the chap who'd claimed the First to Find on the paper log wasn't the person who'd claimed it on-line. Interesting... There are those who would quibble about that, but I'm taking the line "not my circus, not my monkeys..."

Walking back to the car was uphill; I was rather warm by the time I got there. I was glad I'd had the car's air-con sorted a few weeks ago. I then drove on to Sainsbury's in Aylesford for petrol. On the way I actually drove past a petrol station on Bluebell Hill. I was glad I didn't stop there; petrol in Aylesford (only five miles further on) was five pence per litre cheaper.

As I filled my car there were some drunk thugs sprawled around the forecourt of the filling station screaming that football was coming home. I smiled sweetly at them and they all gave me the thumbs-up. Better a thumbs-up than a punch up the bracket.

On to work. Again I drove straight past the Aylesford McDonalds. Instead I went to the works canteen. Chili and rice, bananas and custard. All washed down with cherry flavoured diet coke. I might not be eating in McDonalds, but I can still kick eating healthy into the long grass.

I spent much of the afternoon farting for no adequately explored reason...

With my shift done I came home. I listened to the news. Jeremy Hunt has been promoted from health secretary to foreign secretary to replace Boris Johnson. Presumably this move to the foreign office is so that Mr Hunt can be hated by the rest of the world; not just by the British. Mind you, much as it pains me to say anything positive about Jeremy Hunt, at least the chap has had a haircut recently. Quite frankly Boris Johnson looks like... what I was going to say might have been construed as being libellous or defamatory. But let's just say that he looks a mess. A serious mess. He may well claim that his appearance is his trademark but as far as I'm concerned, whilst such an appearance is quite acceptable in a scarecrow which has has had a heavy night on the piss, one expects a better turnout from a minister of state. (Or am I just hopelessly old-fashioned?)

(And before I get accused of political bias, Jeremy Corbyn could do with tidying himself up a bit too...)

Two people I've never heard of have been appointed to replace Jeremy Hunt and the ex-Brexit secretary David Davis.  I had been hoping to hear some updates on what was going on in the government, but instead the radio was broadcasting claptrap about insomnia. I know quite enough about that already without some vacuous windbag telling me to have a glass of warm milk. I switched the car stereo to my Ivor Biggun CD and sang rude songs all the way home…