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13 February 2024 (Tuesday) - An Unexpected Early Shift

In between listening to the snoring last night I had an incredibly vivid dream in which I net up with someone with whom I used to work forty years ago. Known to all and sundry as “Frankie Abbott” (from The Fenn Street Gang) because of his endless telling of implausible made-up stories he didn’t drive and walked everywhere. Walking everywhere in Hastings involves going up a lot of hills and getting rather sweaty. “Frankie Abbott” was sweaty and smelly. He had a particular rather distinctive odour about him, and I smelt that in my dream.
 
I got up and made toast and watched another episode of “Peep Show” before peering into the Internet. It was still there. There was another memory form the old days in Hastings to be had this morning. An old friend from primary school was having a birthday today. I sent out the birthday video, and idly speculated on having a reunion of the old primary school gang bearing in mind we are all having a big birthday this year. There’s half a dozen people from my old primary school on my Facebook list. One is now a vicar in the west country, one is in Sweden… I won’t ever actually organize a reunion, but I can waste time thinking about having one.
 
The car had iced up again overnight, but this morning it had melted somewhat to something of a thick sludge. With that scraped I set off to work up the motorway.
As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the state of the country's finances. More and more people are in arrears with mortgage payments. I'm so glad mine is all paid off. As the conversations with various experts went on I found myself again thinking that I really should do a Coursera course in economics as all the talk of money on the radio leaves me baffled. I have formed the distinct impression that our entire society functions on the principle that those with loads of money lend it to those without, and charge them through the nose for doing so, and all else is piddling details.
It can't be that simple... can it?
And there was talk of Azhar Ali. Originally the prospective Labour candidate for the upcoming by-election in Rochdale, the Labour party have thrown him out. He's now standing as an independent as (legally) people get nominated, not political parties, and nominations closed some time ago and it is too late for anyone else to stand. He got chucked out for supposed anti-Semitic comments that he supposedly made... Did he? Yesterday I mentioned that Israeli troops in Gaza were filming war crimes and putting them on Tiktok seemingly without repercussion.  I've since heard that journalists who pointed this out have got in trouble for doing so and it is now claimed that this is propaganda by the Palestinian side.
It seems to me that it is rather difficult to get to the truth of the matter these days.
 
Work was work, but after a rather convoluted mishap I’d been asked to cover the early shift at short notice, so I got out rather early. It was a shame that it was raining, but you can’t have everything.
I came home and made a cuppa for me and “er indoors TM. As I brewed I discovered a jar for the decaf coffee. We’ve only had it for two years (or so I am told). It’s amazing what you miss if you don’t pay attention.
I sparked up my lap-top. I’d had a message from the geo-feds about my Earthcache project. There were one or two trivial things to adjust (which I did), and then I looked at a message I had from the council. A few weeks ago I complained about their allowing several sets of road works to be allowed in close proximity to each other, and then the road works being left obstructing the traffic with no one actually doing any road works. Their response was “blah blah corporate catchphrases” and they claimed they had done spot inspections and had always found someone working when they looked. I suggested they looked before 11.30am and after 2.30pm.
 
“er indoors TM boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the final ofJunior Bake Off”, and then moreDogs Behaving (Very) Badly”. I finished my Coursera course on Quality Management and passed with a score of eighty four per cent.  And then I had a message. The geo-feds have given my Earthcache the thumbs-up. I’m quite pleased about that. That’s two elements of my plan for my March geo-meet sorted… five more to go.

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