24 August 2021 (Tuesday) - Stuff

After a very good night asleep I was woken by the dulcet tones of my phone's alarm saying "get your arse out of its pit". It really does say that; I thought it was rather funny at the time when I set it up.

I got up and make brekkie. There was a minor catastrophe as we'd run out of marmalade. We have loads of jam and peanut butter - but no marmalade. Some people would see this as a minor inconvenience; it was apocalyptic to me. I sulked as I watched the last episode of "Chewing Gum", then had a quick look at the Internet.

There were two separate arguments brewing on one of the Sparks-related Facebook pages I follow. Some chap had found a website selling Sparks-related merchandise at a fraction of the price of that charged by the official website, and the cheaper stuff came complete with spelling mistakes and was of far poorer quality. Did we all agree that this was actually officially licenced stuff? The poor chap posting seemed to think that  the dodgy stuff must be legal because it is illegal to sell rip-off poor quality unlicensed merchandise. Some people were rather nasty in telling him how thick he was.

And there was a lot of unpleasantness about a particular arty film for which Sparks recently made the soundtrack. I've not seen it, and don't really intend going out of my way to see it. Apparently it is a terrible film, but if you are a Sparks fan you are supposed to pretend to like it because that's what fans do. There was quite the row kicking off about that too.

 

I got dressed and walked out of  the house in the desperate hope of getting a GPS signal for my Munzee app. It is hard to play a GPS-based game when your phone's GPS has gone doolally and seems to think you are somewhere off the coast of Nigeria (as my phone did this morning).

I took a little longer than usual driving away from the house as I'd found my car was parked in place with only six inches between it and the cars in front and behind. It didn't take *that*​ long to winkle my car out; if only people could spare a thought when they are parking you can easily get seven cars in the bay outside our house. But people rarely give any thought.

 

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were talking about the new rules coming into effect soon in which care home workers must be vaccinated against COVID, and it was claimed that sixty per cent of UK care homes will have to sack workers refusing to take the vaccination.

There was talk about civil unrest over this, and that forcing people to have vaccinations contravenes their human rights and civil liberties. Presumably this is their human right to be a twit? Take anti-vaccination as an example of some people's stupidity. Ever since Edward Jenner  gave the first jab over two hundred years ago, it has been a resounding success. Nevertheless the anti-vax movement goes from strength to strength?... is it because some people are scared of needles and make the most of how everyone has rights and no one has responsibilities?

I blame the schools. If over the last few decades teachers hadn't pussyfooted around so much and forced the kids to learn their lessons we wouldn't have such a load of uneducated people who feel that their misinformed and factually incorrect opinions are of equal worth as proven facts established by experts over many years. It bothers me that in today's society the considered opinion of an educated person is of no more worth than the whim of a half-wit.

There was also consternation being expressed that McDonalds has run out of milkshakes. McShakes are the latest thing to run out as the nation's few remaining lorry drivers struggle to deliver essential supplies. Nandos ran out of chicken last week, and there's been shortages of fresh fruit and vegetables in local supermarkets for weeks. Oh well... there's still water in the tap (for now).

 

Work was work (as it usually is), but starting early meant that I finished early. On the way home I popped to Aldi to get marmalade. I got some biccies as well. Like most supermarkets right now their fresh fruit and veg section was rather sparse, but amazingly the “centre aisles of tat” were full of the usual sort of tat that Aldi is famous for. With a nationwide shortage of lorry drivers and all sorts of foods in short supply, there is still an abundance of cheap rubbish. I bought a couple of tennis balls and a ball-thrower for he dogs. And I got a Euro-Millions ticket too. Thirty million Euros would suit me very nicely.

 

When I got to Ashford I had a stroke of genius. Rather than getting tangled in the traffic lights along Brookfield Road (where the road is up for a month) I decided to go through the town and home past the Outlet Centre… where one of the many lunatics who drives up there far too fast had driven straight into another car and had blocked the road. By the time I’d got round the wreckage and the police and the ambulances the entire town was gridlocked. Our road was bunged solid with cars trying to use it as a cut-through only to find police guarding the bollards which are supposedly to allow emergency vehicles through but have been stuck in the “open” position for years.

It speaks volumes about the mentality of the local traffic officers in that on the one day that people should be using that area to avoid the jams the authorities decided to enforce the fact that it should be closed.

 

I eventually got home to be snarled at by “er indoors TM”. I think she’s still got the arse that her handbag is awash with hand gel from where Pogo sat on it. I’m not sure why I’m in trouble about it, but I find it best to just go with the flow.

She took the dogs out and I mowed the lawn. It took some mowing. And with lawn mowed I sat down and looked at the household accounts. Every month I sit quietly and account for every penny that I’ve squandered over the last month. A bit petty of me? Perhaps. As always I’m not too badly off. I’d like more money, but I might well be a whole lot worse off. I wonder if I might squander a little on eBay… I shall type “1970s Lego” into the search bar and see what happens.

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