4 July 2023 (Tuesday) - Early Shift

Yesterday I started off by saying (about Sunday) "I went to bed last night feeling all in having spent much of the afternoon and evening falling asleep. I was wide awake at four o’clock this morning". Yesterday I was knackered - I slept all through my lunch break, and once the evening's ironing was done I was fast asleep in front of the telly within minutes. I again had a relatively early night last night but was still wide awake at four o'clock having seen every hour of the night.

I gave up trying to sleep, made toast, and watched an episode of "Shameless" in which many of the protagonists were doing the dirty deed, but only one set had actually taken their pants off first. I'm sure I remember pants being quite an obstacle to doing the dirty deed...  it has been a while.

I had a quick look at the Internet. McAfee were still sending me emails saying that "a response was needed to service my account" even though they gave me a refund two days ago. Other than that not a lot had happened in the Internet overnight so I set off to work.

As I drove I listened to the news of the day. Palestine and Israel were having yet another fight. I can remember an interview on the radio with senior Israeli and Palestinian officials a year or so ago. Both kept harping back to incidents and offences which had happened long before either had been born, and both admitted that all the time they kept doing this, there was never going to be an end to the conflict. Sadly this conflict continues with neither side seemingly having any interest in ending it.
And there was a lot of talk about banking. Is having a bank account a right? Can the bank tell you to get knotted and close your account if they don't like you? Well, demonstrably they can, as has
happened to Nigel Farage. who has had his bank accounts closed allegedly as "an act of revenge by the “establishment” for Brexit". Officially it's nothing to do with Brexit, officially banks find high profile celebrities and politicians to be hard work.
But whilst you might be forgiven for wanting to shake the "establishment's" hand, should the bank be able to do this? That's the question, isn't it? Several politicians had words to say on the matter, which I found frankly amazing. I find myself following current affairs with something of a sense of "WTF is going on" these days. The whole premise of a Conservative government is that they don't actually govern, isn't it? They farm out the donkey-work of running the country to those who will do it as a private money-making business.
And those running their own business can therefore then pick and choose with whom they deal. That's been the plan for years, hasn't it?
Take the water and gas and railway companies. They were once in public ownership, but aren't any more and so prioritize profit over service.
The government of thirty years ago decided to sell off so much on the nation's assets to make a profit. At the time they were told what a stupid idea it was, and now they are seeing the error of their ways as they try to call the shots and get the arse when they demonstrably can't.
Banks are private institutions. They aren't a public service and so don't have to offer service to everyone, do they? If they want to tell Nigel they won't work with him because they don't like him, that's their prerogative.
Isn't it?
Along the same lines apparently the head honchos of the country's four biggest banks are being called in to explain to the Prime Minister why they aren't increasing interest rates to savers as high as they might. I suspect the head honchos of the country's four biggest banks will stick two fingers up at him.

Work was work. As I cracked on I found myself thinking about colleagues, friends and acquaintances who are moving house at the moment. With house prices falling, now is a good time to buy a house... provided you aren't trying to finance that purchase by selling a house.
I've often whinged that I would like to move house, but now that doing so is a realistic proposition, would I really? Where would we move to? Going out into the countryside to get away from town life is all very well, but I know so many people who've done that just to move back again as living in the arse end of nowhere is impractical (at best). And we've got so much clutter in the house. We'd have to chuck out so much stuff. And the house needs modernising. And I've spent so much time and money in the garden...
Perhaps I might stay put... for now

 Work was work. Being on an early was good; I got out early (dur!) and took the dogs to the woods. Whilst they were playing silly beggars something caught my eye. Something big seemed to be moving away from us down the track we were about to take. It might have been a shadow, but I’m not convinced it wasn’t a deer.

 er indoors TM boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we washed down with a decent bottle of plonk whilst watching another episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”. Insomnia plus plonk equals rather tired…

 

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