I woke with backache this morning; a sure sign ‘d been in
my pit for far too long. I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was
still there. I watched a little religious posting on Facebook with more than a
sense of guilt. In 1975 I took a friend of mine along to the Boys Brigade. I
didn’t realise it at the time, but the Boys brigade was (and still is) a
rather dangerous insidious trap in which youngsters were (and still are)
indoctrinated with religious claptrap. It took me a long time, but eventually I
escaped. But my mate I took along didn’t. He’s now the pastor of a Baptist
church down the west country, and every morning his church posts “Prayers at
10” on Facebook. When my old mate is the star of the show his prayers all
follow the same format. He starts off with saying how crap he is and how he is
not worthy to lick piss off of a stinging nettle. He then goes on to sucking up
to his god about how wonderful it is. He then thanks his god for all that is
good in the world. There is then pathetic begging for his god to put right all
that is wrong… even though what is wrong has always been wrong and his prayers
haven’t achieved anything. And the comments on the Facebook posting are filled
with people blessing him for this.
If it were anyone else presenting this I would just laugh
at it, but it is my old mate. It is because of me that he is spouting this
nonsensical gibberish. “er indoors TM” says I should let it
all go as he is happy. But is he happy? Or is he like I once was – neck deep in
crackpot religion desperately hoping it is all true and terrified of the
alternative?
I got the dogs onto
their leads; they seemed keen to go out this morning. As we drove the pundits
on the radio were talking about how crap the train service is in the north of
England. There was an interview with someone who was the head honcho of “the
northern powerhouse” who was saying that train connections are crucial to
the prosperity of the area, and the unions are thwarting them at every turn.
From what I could work out it seemed that “thwarting them at every turn”
meant that the unions didn’t want staff to be forced to work on rostered days
off. A valid point perhaps… but do the staff all have to be rostered off on the
same day? I’m rostered off today and working on Sunday. Other colleagues have
different allocations.
It ain’t rocket science…
We got to the woods and had a good walk. A pair of French
bulldogs started a game with Morgan and Bailey, then ran in terror. Apparently
they don’t like other dogs. I suggested to the bloke with them that they might
have a yellow harness in future. Why has no one ever heard of the Yellow Dog Scheme?
Mind you the Dalmatian puppy we met wanted to play.
I took a few photos as we
walked, and hid two more geocaches too.
Pausing only briefly to get myself a croissant and a pain
au chocolat for “er indoors TM” I set off to the hospital for
an ENT appointment. Regular readers of this drivel may recall that in January
last year I had my third surgical nasal re-bore and today was a check-up to
ensure all was good.
Basically it wasn’t (and isn’t).
The ENT surgeon shoved hs endoscope up my nose and showed
me where the papilloma has come back (again). As it isn’t affecting my
breathing (yet) he suggests a wait-and-see approach rather than charging
straight back to the operating theatre for a fourth bout of surgery. He’s probably
right. I’m going back to see him in six months so’s he can have another look up
my snout.
I came home, put some washing in to scrub then got on with
telling the geo-feds about the two geocaches I’d hidden earlier. Simply setting
up two web pages took over an hour.
I then ironed like a thing possessed (a day off work is
never complete without ironing) then wasted a few hours snuggling on the
sofa with Morgan whilst watching drivel on the telly.
And then I video-called my brother and we went through some
of the solicitor’s paperwork for the sale of Dad’s house. Can you believe we
have to agree to leave the light fittings and switches? Presumably some people
try to take them when they move house? And there was an extensive checklist of
what we were leaving and what we were taking. Do people *really* take
the carpets and shed when they move house?
And the solicitor wanted an “Energy Performance Certificate”
for Dad’s house. I had no idea what one of those was, so I had a look on
Google. The first link I found offered to provide one for as little as
thirty-four quid. I thought that was rather reasonable until I looked Google’s
second link which was to the government’s web site from which I downloaded the
certificate for free.
How many people have paid the thirty-four quid in good faith?
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