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6 November 2023 (Monday) - Butt Cream

Having got a negative COVID test last night, it was back to work for me today. In a novel break with tradition my alarm woke me this morning. I got up and fortunately remembered about all the cardboard packaging I'd left laying around in the living room before I fell over it all. I had a shave, and needing to be cracking on this morning I didn't watch any telly. Instead I made toast and had a little peer into the Internet to see what had happened overnight.
Having rebooted my phone half a dozen times because the "back" button wasn't working on the Facebook app it would seem that the nice people at Facebook had deliberately turned it off, and people all over the world were grumbling about it. And it would seem that the loss of a "back" button was far more important than anything else on social media this morning.
 
I got dressed and then gave “er indoors TM a prod; she was taking a friend's littlun to school this morning. I left her yawning as I drove off on a little Munzee mission capping various Points of Interest before heading up the motorway to work.
As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the Prime Minister has announced that from here on in every year licences will be granted for companies to drill in the North Sea for oil and gas. The Labour Party have announced that they will repeal this legislation when they come into power as it goes against all their environmental policies. Whilst I sympathise with the environmental lobby, I would ask what they intend we might run the country on whilst we wait for nuclear fusion power to become a practical proposition. Duracell batteries, perhaps?
And there was a lot of talk about the government's promise of thirty hours of free childcare each week for all pre-school children for all working parents of children aged nine months and upwards. A shame that this won't come into effect for two years, but it is a nice thought.
There were interviews with young parents about how the cost of child care is so high, and how young mothers have been refused promotion because of child care issues. Mind you  child care isn't the ultimate panacea which it was being made out to be; who's actually going to be doing the looking after? Has that one been thought through?
 
I got to work for the early shift and did my bit whilst keeping my head down. We had the inspectors in today. It was just a "surveillance visit", but I still wanted nothing to do with it. I rarely blog about work, but I've ranted loudly so many times before about inspections of blood testing laboratories. Back in the day the inspections were of what we actually did, of the validity of the results we produced, and whether or not the users were happy with the service we provide. These days the assessment process has moved out of the hands of people who know what they are assessing (Clinical Pathology Accreditation RIP) and into the hands of the UK Accreditation Service who assess engineering, food handling, facilities management... and rather than focus on what we actually do, they focus on the quality of the paperwork that we generate.
I did have a dental appointment booked for this afternoon, and I'd planned to take the dogs out and do a tip run as well, but the bosses had asked me to be on hand for today's inspection as they wanted "someone senior at the microscope". I fulfilled my "senior obligations" by formally and sternly admonishing all the trainees that under no circumstances were they to bite the inspector, and I spent the day sulking whilst looking at the glorious sunshine outside (after a week of torrential rain). Ironically the inspector had a personal emergency and went home at mid-day.
 
As I worked I had yet another nuisance phone call from the Carphone Warehouse trying to flog me a new phone. I told them (yet again) that I would never get a phone from the Carphone Warehouse simply because they keep phoning me up, and I (again) blocked their number.
I also had a phone call from “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”. “Darcie Waa Waa TM has eaten her butt cream (“Darcie Waa Waa TM 's butt cream, not “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”'s), and they were waiting for a phone call back from NHS111 about the toxicology of butt cream. Personally I'd not eat the stuff, but a quick Google search makes me think littlun will survive this one
 
Being on an early shift meant I got out early (dur!) I got home just as it was getting dark and walked the dogs round the block. As we walked so some half-wit on an electric scooter pulled up next to us, screamed a load of profanities and sped off. I shouted after him that it was rather cowardly to have a full-face balaclava on, and as he turned to the sound of my voice so he was clipped by a passing car. Were the chap not a total half-wit he would have stopped, having been clipped by a car but he sped off.
Perhaps I should have reported this episode to the police, but I know from bitter experience that the police have no interest in doing anything that I consider to be police work.
 
I had a dunk in the shower and wrote up some CPD until “er indoors TM finished her work. She boiled up a very good bit of scran then set off to bowling. I shall sit in front of the telly and try to stay awake…

 

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