Another restless hot night. Treacle particularly suffered.
At two o’clock I arranged her so that the fan was blowing on her, and I
listened to her panting for much of the night.
I got up at half past five, made toast and had a little
look at the Internet. It was rather dull this morning, which was probably for
the best. I sent out birthday wishes to two Facebook friends. Someone I know
through fishing, and an ex-trainee who was thirty-nine today. Thirty-nine?
There wasn’t a lot else going on, so taking care not to
disturb the sleepers I got ready for work.
I had quite a walk to find where I'd left my car.
Fortunately the rain which was coming down as I'd scoffed toast had stopped. I
drove round to the co-op where some new lad was filling the fridges with the
sandwiches. I asked if they had coronation chicken. He (oh-so-politely)
explained that you only ever get coronation chicken at Christmas time. I smiled
politely, and thought better of saying that Sainsburys and Tesco have the stuff
all year long.
As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio
were talking about the government's performance in Parliament yesterday. They'd
won the vote for their proposed welfare bill, but had to make so many concessions they might as well
have lost.
The chap being interviewed made an interesting point.
The chap said that incoming governments rarely get into office by actually
winning an election. They usually get in as the outgoing government has lost an
election having pissed off the electorate. A subtle point maybe, but
probably true. The governments we get aren't so much the most popular choice as
the least unpopular one. The point was also made that Labour's massive
landslide victory meant quite a few surprise candidates got in who normally
probably wouldn't. And knowing that they are in by a fluke and will be out at
the next election they don't see themselves as having a long-term political
career and so will act as their conscience dictates rather than how their party
tells them. Which is why the government has had to make so many concessions on
its welfare bill. Personally I see this as a good thing...
I got to work where there was a minor flap going on.
Nothing major really. Absolutely every workplace the world over has minor flaps
from time to time. Back in the day when I was a manager I would have been
in the thick of the flap with all the other managers... These days I see myself
as being well out of it, and minor flaps being somebody else’s problems.
And with flap flapped I did my bit and did some
e-learning. Ironically bearing in mind this morning's excitement today I
learned about Business Continuity Planning.
Back in the day if things went west we'd make up a
work-round as we went along. And then the world changed. I can remember talking
with an ex-friend (many years ago) who had moved into "disaster
planning". The place where he worked had once had a minor crisis about
which the local newspaper found out, and vilified them as they had no written
procedure for dealing with that specific crisis. This chap told me he spent all
day thinking up utterly implausible scenarios and devising plans for coping
with them. I can remember him telling me what fun it was; and the more
implausible and outlandish the disaster for which they were planning, the
better. What if the Martians invaded? What if the Martians invaded on a Bank
Holiday? What if the Martians invaded on a Bank Holiday and the police and army
were all off on holiday themselves?
These days not only are there comprehensive disaster
plans for everything, there's even a formally recognised international
standard for them.
Whilst I did my e-learning I waited for the forecast
thunderstorm. I'd heard rumbles of thunder as I scoffed brekkie, but there were
major storms forecast for today. None of which happened in Maidstone, though
I’m reliably assured we had several downpours at home.
With work worked I came home. Bearing in mind we’d had some
rain (and also that the dogs were asleep) I decided against a walk.
Instead I geo-puzzled. Yesterday geo-HQ announced the criteria for the next set
of geocaching Treasures… ones with a relatively high difficulty level and ones
with the “special tool required” attribute. There’s not that many that
fit the bill, and most of those that do involve going up trees. For the most
part this evening’s puzzling involved finding ones that didn’t risk my neck.
I’m so happy that heatwave has passed…
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