23 January 2023 (Monday) - NCC 1031-A

As I stood in the garden at half past five this morning waiting for the puppies to tiddle I was again amazed at how many houses had lights on. Early starters? can't sleep? So many people are up and about far earlier than I'm sure they would want to be.
I made toast (despite there being no jam) and watched the first episode of the fourth season of “Star Trek: Discovery”. I can remember the first three seasons being something of a disappointment,  but so far the show seems to be picking up.
 
As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were talking about the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer Nadhim Zahawi whose tax affairs would seem to be dubious, to say the least. It was claimed that Mr Zahawi "paid a penalty to HMRC over unpaid tax" while he was Chancellor; this penalty being in the region of five million quid.
It's another world, isn't it?
There was also a lot of talk about the new head honcho of the BBC. Some claim he was appointed properly according to the rules. Others say he got the job after effectively giving the ex-Prime Minister (that idiot Boris Johnson) a quite substantial bung.
Again there's no end of scandal about the country's politicians. It has to be said that the country's politicians leave a lot to be desired, but they are all those judged by the electorate to be the best of a very small bunch who have made the effort to get off their arses and stand for election. In many cases that is quite blatantly only to feather their own nest, but how many of us get off of our arses for any reason whatsoever? I can't help but feel we get the politicians we deserve.
 
Today rather than going up the motorway to work I went west through the "-hursts" and the "-dens" to Pembury. The roads were surprisingly busy, and (as always) there was an idiot lorry driver who had wedged his lorry on the sharp bend by Goudhurst church, and the congestion was compounded by all the cars refusing to give said lorry any space whatsoever.
With a few minutes to spare I went to Tesco to get jam. A little while ago “er indoors TM told me I wasn't to get any more as we had far too much. Far be it from me to disobey, but we needed the stuff. Despite the cost. The last time I got jam (last autumn) it was twenty-nine pence a jar. Now it is thirty-nine pence. That's twenty-five per cent inflation for you!
We also needed washing jollop for the washing machine but I forgot about that. Woops! I didn't forget to get some Cadbury's mini-eggs though...
 
Work was work. As I did my bit so my phone laid an egg. Apparently on Saturday I'd been in close contact with someone who has since tested positive for COVID. Well, it wasn't “er indoors TM or “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”. It must have been someone at Dog Club. I thought about telling the Dog Club, but thought better of it. There's quite enough needless scaremongering about COVID as it is.
 
As I drove home I thought of all the money we‘d be getting. One of the items on the morning’s news was all about how there was a major drive to cut down on power usage between five and six o’clock this evening. This would be monitored by SmartMeters and people not using much power in that time would be rewarded. Bearing in mind I didn’t get home until after half past six I should be quids in.
 
I got home and kept very quiet. “er indoors TM was on the warpath. Yesterday for some reason she’d taken the Hoover apart, washed some vital component or other, put it somewhere to dry… and lost it. Apparently she made a point of telling me where it was. Had she? Quite possibly.
In between looking for missing Hoover bits she boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching “Mastermind”. I thought that had died a death years ago. In this evening’s episode two women with specialist subjects of “Catherine the Great” and “Some Poncy Painter or Other” had their arses handed to them on a plate by some bloke whose specialist subject was “Wallace and Gromit”.
There’s a lesson for us all in there…
 
“er indoors TM went bowling. Having saved a fortune by not using any power a couple of hours previously I set washing machine and dishwasher to full power and watched more “Star Trek: Discovery”. The second episode of the fourth season was rather good too…

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