15 November 2022 (Tuesday) - Eight Billion

I woke with backache this morning. I get that when I stay in my pit for too long. I took the pups out, then had brekkie and peered into the Internet where today it was filled with adverts from various organisations wanting my money. The Labour party, the ramblers, the national forest, companies selling fishing baits… everyone had their hand out this morning.
 
With toast scoffed I saw the forecast rain hadn’t come, so I took the dogs out. As we drove the pundits on the radio announced that the eight billionth person alive would be born today. When I was born the world population was three point two billion, and the five billionth was born in the year that “My Boy TM” was born.
It would seem that the current population is about four times the ideal number, and is continuing to grow. There were lots of predictions about just how high the world population will go before levelling off, but no one seemed to realise that this is an old idea in science-fiction but we are already one billion past the most famous dystopian idea. At the risk of looking after number one, is it wrong of me to hope it doesn’t level off until my pension is paid for?
 
As we came round the roundabout by the motorway I slammed on the brakes as Terry flew by. I can only assume someone called Terry was driving; why else would you have the memorable registration plate “T777RY D”? Having cut me up in spectacular fashion, this chap then drove a couple of feet behind the car in front of him for the five miles up to Challock, getting to the turn-off to the woods about five seconds before we did. That dangerous driving sure saved Terry a lot of time, didn’t it?
 
We got to Kings Wood and set off on our walk. We took what has become our usual route, but as we walked the sky darkened. At the one-mile point so the rain started, and went from no rain at all to torrential in a matter of seconds. All the time we were under the trees the rain wasn’t too bad, but the last two miles of the our usual route have precious little tree cover, so we cut our walk short. Probably for the best; we were all soaked by the time we got back to the car.
We all had a hot shower when we got home, and those of us that wear pants put on a dry pair.
 
The dogs all curled up together on the sofa and I got on with the ironing as I watched the first two episodes of the second season of “Stranger Things”. I quite like the show in that it has believable characters and characters to whom I can relate, but in two hours, absolutely nothing happened.
And with ironing ironed I watched the Netflix production of “All Quiet on the Western Front”. According to Wikipedia the film “received positive reviews from critics for faithfulness to the source material's anti-war message”. Bearing in mind that the source material was a book I’ve read many times, I can only imagine that these critics haven’t read the actual source material. Despite having my school English teacher try to kill the book stone dead, it was actually a rather good book, with several interesting characters and a plot. The film on the other hand just had a lot of blood and mud and gory wounds.
 
I then finished the job application I’ve been working on for the last few days. Job applications are such hard work, aren’t they? I remember my first successful job application. I turned up at the Harbour Restaurant where I asked the boss if he needed anyone to help about the place. He said he did as it was a Bank Holiday, and I walked out nine hours later having done a full day’s work.
Things are a bit different these days.
 
“er indoors TM boiled up a very good curry which we scoffed whilst watching the final of this year’s “Bake Off”. I won’t say who won it, but I will say cauliflower cheese pies – who would have thought such wonders were possible?
 

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