I lay awake for quite a lot of last night. It
wasn’t having four dogs (we were dog-sitting for
"Daddy’s Little Angel TM"). I was revisiting the
squabbles of three years ago which made me feel I should leave the astro club.
Having been a member from the start, for some years I’d been increasingly
worried about the direction in which the club was going. On the one hand was me
and pretty much everyone else who wanted a friendly “by-us-and-for-us”
club. On the other hand was one very forceful and vociferous individual who was
trying to turn it into some sort of corporate entity, and would tolerate no
dissent. Any attempts to offer opinions were firmly stamped upon. The phrase “I
disagree with you for the following reasons” was seen by this chap as a
personal attack. He told me that I was “lacking ambition and direction”,
that I was “embarrassingly irrelevant”, that I was “subversive,
manipulative and a leader of negativity”, and went on to personally attack
me in front of family and friends. Random family members (who were nothing
to do with the astro club) would turn up and ask what I’d done to offend
him.
Consequently
I walked away from the astro club two years ago.
Occasionally
over the last two years I would hear that the club was still having troubles
from this chap’s attitude. I had heard that the club has a new chairman. He is
someone else with whom I have disagreed with in the past, but during those
differences this chap seemed to understand the difference between “I
disagree with you for the following reasons” and a personal attack. Now
he’s on the committee the new boss has been able to see all the previous astro
club committee’s on-line “discussions”.
He
messaged me last night on behalf of the club offering a full apology for how
I’d been treated, assured me that the problem had been dealt with, and asked if
I would consider re-joining the club.
I shall have to think about that.
I made myself some toast and had a look at Facebook
as everyone else snored. There were a lot of “back to
school” photos this morning. There have been all week. I
quite like them; it brings back memories of trying to herd "Daddy’s Little
Angel TM" to school even if it was rather frustrating at
the time. One chap had posted up some meme about how ugly the schoolchildren
all looked. I thought that was rather nasty, but refrained from saying so. I’ve
seen that sort of thing before; those being hateful to the “back
to school” photos are invariably
those who’ve never taken any.
My piss boiled somewhat when I read about the Woodchurch Wagon. Apparently Ashford council has
spent a small fortune buying a minibus for the people of Woodchurch. Apparently
people get very lonely when living in the back of beyond and a minibus will
help counteract social isolation. Bearing in mind that those people living in
the back of beyond in the Woodchurch area are living in houses worth hundreds
of thousands (if not millions) of pounds, why don’t they sell up and move to somewhere less
isolated?
I do get cross when my council tax money is used to
subsidise someone who is demonstrably better off than I am.
As I looked at the Internet so Treacle sat with me
on the sofa, alternately chewing my shirt and chewing my hand, all the time
looking at her brother Pogo. I’m sure she was showing off that she felt that
she was allowed to chew my shirt and to chew my hand whilst he was not. But it
wasn’t long before "Daddy’s
Little Angel TM" arrived to collect Pogo and Sid.
They all set off to the station, and I sat myself
in front of the telly and watched “Black Mirror” until the nice plumber arrived. The dogs woofed a bit, the nice man
did his thing, and ten minutes later we had a new timer for the central heating
and the hot water.
I set off to work. It was a rather bright morning.
I did consider having a little geo-adventure on the way, but the bosses had
been good enough to let me take a couple of hours off at very short notice
(to get the plumbing sorted) so I thought it best not to. As I drove to work the pundits on the
radio were talking about the utter shambles that is British politics.
As I understand it Boris Johnson has effectively
sacked twenty Conservative MPs to get rid of what he sees as a load of
troublemakers. He has then tried to call for a general election in order
to get a whole load of new MPs into parliament who will do what he tells them
to do. However in order to call a general election he needs the consent of two
thirds of the House of Commons to agree to this, and they have said no.
Effectively this leaves the Prime Minister comprehensively poggered.
And to think he wanted the job.
I got to work. The boss was glad to see me, and
thanked me for coming in. I smiled graciously; it was clear that he thought
that I'd done him a great favour by coming in late. I was of the opinion that
he had done me a favour by letting me come in late.
But if he wants to think of me as being the one
who's put himself out, I'm happy to oblige.
I did my bit; I even spotted a Mott cell, and with
my bit done, I came home.
Once home "er indoors TM" boiled up a
rather good bit of dinner which we washed don with some of the red wine out of
that box we got. As we scoffed we watched the documentary
about women by Kathy Burke. Have you seen it? It is well worth watching. It
certainly made us think.
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