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29 December 2023 (Friday) - A Birthday

Last night I had a brilliant idea for getting a decent night’s sleep. Sadly it went the way of most of my brilliant ideas. I went to bed, slept like a log and woke busting for a tiddle at one o’clock. I came downstairs for that tiddle. “er indoors TM and the dogs were still up doing a jigsaw puzzle (“er indoors TM” was jigsaw-ing, not the dogs). The dogs then charged upstairs and I charged after them in a race to secure bed space. I got some, and after a succession of vivid dreams in which I’d been drafted to be the Scout Association’s ambassador to the Open University (it was rather scary!) I woke at half past five with something of a backache.
 
I made toast and watched the last episode of “Harry Enfield and Chums”. With that watched I now need to find something else to amuse me in the mornings. Watching telly isn’t as easy as you might think. Back in the day with only three channels you just switched the thing on and stared at it. Nowadays with a thousand channels, catch-up TV, recordings and endless streaming services I am totally spoiled for choice, and have such trouble making my mind up.
With nothing much happening on Facebook (for once) and no emails of note I had a quick look at my Munzee app. Overnight our clan had completed the third of our monthly challenges, and all that remains for us to hit our final target is for Fishgirl to fill a second Qrate. Go Fishgirl !!! 
(There’s never a dull moment in Munzee).
 
I set off to work; the bin men were conspicuous by their absence this morning. I drove off... and did an immediate emergency stop to avoid colliding with some idiot on a bike. He started to get lippy; I told him in no uncertain terms that the moment he had a light on his bike and he wasn't dressed all in black in the dark would be the moment he could say anything at all. He cycled off muttering.
 
The guest editor on this morning's radio news program was Andrew Malkinson who spent nineteen years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
Unlike the guest editors of the last couple of days, this chap put some rather interesting content on the radio this morning including an interview with the chap who'd been his tutor on the Open University degree he did whilst he'd been banged up. Mr Malkinson made the observation that for all that "the system" encouraged him to study, the individual guards in the prison made it quite clear that they didn't like him studying and made it incredibly difficult for him to do so. This made me think...  Why were Mr Malkinson's guards resentful of his getting to do a degree? He said that doing a degree gave him something to do whilst locked in a cell for hours at a time every day. If I was him I would be naming and shaming those who'd been troublesome to him.
This was followed by a rather interesting article in which Mr Malkinson said he felt no malice for his accuser. The woman who'd accused him of rape had picked him out of an identity parade. Bearing in mind she said she was looking for someone with a hairless chest, no tattoos and a major scratch across his face (Mr Malkinson had chest hair, prominent tattoos on his forearms and no scratches) and who was three inches shorter than Mr Malkinson, I'd be suing her along with the police and state.
 
Work was work. I spent a little while with one of my more recently qualified colleagues looking for the rather badly-named "Green Crystals of Death"... Sadly these crystals were first identified in extremely ill people, and the name has stuck to the dismay of pretty much everyone in medical circles.
 
At tea break I started another e-book, the latest from a favourite sci-fi author of mine. Peter Cawdron specialises in creating plausible well-rounded characters and putting them into "what-if" situations. For example, given that an alien spaceship visited Earth, we all know that the Americans, Russians and Chinese would be charging off up there trying to get ahead of each other... but what would the aliens make of seeing three competing ships being launched to go say "hello"?
If you are ever at a loose end, download one of his e-books (especially anything from his "First Contact" series). They are rather good.
 
With work done I came home (as most people do). “er indoors TM boiled up a rather good bit of dinner and as we scoffed it we watched more “Taskmaster: New Zealand”. Only two more episodes of that left… and then we start the second season. There’s four in total.
 
Oh – and today is the pups’ second birthday. Does then mean they aren’t puppies any more? Apparently so…

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