3 June 2020 (Wednesday) - Bit Dull

My mornings usually have some sort of a routine to them, but today started differently as I spent ten minutes clearing a pile of dog sick from the upstairs landing.

I made toast, and watched the last ever episode of “Schitts Creek”… the series started well, but like many shows it went on perhaps two or three seasons too many. Three of the four members of the main family were rather self-obsessed narcissistic shallow people who you instantly disliked; in this final season they got very much worse.

As Fudge snored I sparked up my lap-top to see what was going on in the world of cyber-space. There had been some “turn your Facebook profile black” thingy yesterday which I’d totally missed, but from what I could see, anyone of Caucasian decent who had done so had merely upset those who felt that they alone had the right to be upset by racial intolerance. It strikes me that this “Black Lives Matter” campaign is just stirring up problems where previously there were none. However I am reliably informed that the new racism is to deny that racism exists… Am I racist? I really don’t think so.

I sent out some birthday messages and checked my emails. There was one from neighbourhood watch. Neighbourhood watch has turned out to be something of a disappointment. I thought I got to be a vigilante going round squealing up all sorts of imagined infractions of the law to a disinterested police force. But instead I just get emails about burglaries in distant parts of the town where friends who are very rude about my street live.

I set off capturing flat friends as I walked down the road to my car (it's a Munzee thing). As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were interviewing the head honcho of some university or other who has made preparations for a socially distanced autumn term with distance-learning and video lectures so that the students can resume their studies safely.  There was then a couple of interviews with students who weren't interested in distance-learning and video lectures as they were irrelevant. Apparently the whole point of going to university is the student lifestyle, and as far as they were concerned if there were no bars open which were selling cheap alcohol then they might as well go and get a job. As they said, why else would anyone want to be a full-time student...

Which is exactly the reason why I was never a full-time student (and I quite like a drink!).

There was then talk of that idiot Sir Kier Starmner. Within days of becoming leader of the Labour party he effectively ended lock-down single-handedly by demanding details of the government's plans to end lock-down, and in starting the conversation about ending lock-down, so people started ending lock-down. Everyone had been quite content staying put until he opened his mouth.

Now he is having a go at the government for ending lock-down too soon, even though this is what he was advocating only a few short weeks ago.

Yet again the Labour party chose a twit to lead them to ensure that they can freely criticise the way the country is being run whilst never having the responsibility of taking the big decisions themselves.

I got to work, I did my bit. I came home via Aldi which was swarming with normal people and I completely forgot to look at the tat aisle.

And that was the highlight of today – going to Aldi… rather dull, really…

2 June 2020 (Tuesday) - Another Late Shift

I’ve found that sleeping *on* the duvet rather than under it gives me a far better night’s sleep. It worked again last night.

Over brekkie I peered into the internet. Not much had happened really. And there wasn’t anything in my in-box either. A new geocache had gone live which wasn’t a million miles from my route to work. I’ve I’d not been on a late shift I might have chased the First to Find. But I wasn’t, and so I didn’t. Instead I waited for "er indoors ^TM" to get ready, and we had a look for that cache on the way to a dog walk in the Warren and missed being first to find by twenty minutes. I must admit I was a tad miffed. Not so much at being beaten to the first to find as being beaten by someone who has now claimed over one thousand eight hundred FTFs but has only hidden three caches (and none of those in the last seven years).

Narrowly avoiding a collision with another car (the driver of which was paying no attention to the world around him) we parked up and took the dogs round the Warren. It was a relatively good walk; there was only one “Pogo episode”. There were quite a few squirrels about the place; two of which were “doing the dirty deed” whilst clinging to the side of a tree. Treacle soon put a stop to that shenanigans; I’mglad someone took a moral stance.

We came home, I set the washing machine going, and then carried on with geo-preparations. I was intending to make up some containers, but it would seem that I’d run out of tape to disguise my film pots, so I went on-line to order some more.

I packaged up the SD card from my CPAP machine to send to the local hospital. They should have been reviewing the thing on an annual basis… this will be the first time they’ve had a look in years.

And after an hour and a half the washing machine finished it’s one-hour cycle. Perhaps it is time to get a new one? I hung the washing out – might as well make the most of the bright weather.

I set off to work. As I drove there was some frankly insulting thing on the radio about how the term "everyman" is perfectly acceptable to refer to any generic male person who may be portrayed in literature, on radio or on screen. But the female equivalent "everywoman" is utterly unacceptable because it is demeaning to lump all women together. The shrieking harridan presenting this on the radio went on to say that the concept of an "everywoman" was devised by a middle-aged white man, and so was somehow my fault.

Even though it isn't.

This isn't entirely unlike the "Black Lives Matter" campaign which is gaining momentum. This afternoon during a break I read that anyone who counters the slogan "Black Lives Matter" with "All Lives Matter" is part of the problem. 

I'm sorry but that whilst equal rights for all is certainly something I support wholeheartedly, the inequalities in all societies are something that have been going on for hundreds of years. Why am I being made to feel responsible for something over which I have no control whatsoever?

Perhaps working where I do I have a more cosmopolitan outlook on the world? None of my managers are white caucasian males; I don't see that they should be. That doesn't bother me at all. In my world racial and gender equality just isn't an issue.

So why am I being branded racist and sexist purely because I'm a white middle-aged man?

1 June 2020 (Monday) - Late Shift

There was an interesting question on the all-new Geocaching in Kent Facebook group last night. One of the old hands is doing some on-line discussion thingy about public perception of COVID-19 and wanted to know whether people would be happy using the government’s track and trace app when it is launched.

Bearing in mind that Facebook tells you how many people had read any post, less than twenty per cent of people who had seen it had bothered giving a response. Of those that did, three quarters were happy to be tracked and traced.

Personally I don’t have an issue with it. Anyone who reads this drivel or sees my Facebook feed will know that my life is an open book. Whilst I suppose that people do have the right not to be tracked and traced, I can’t help but wonder what these people have in their lives that they want to hide. Particularly those posting on a geocaching-related page which is a hobby all about openly and publicly recording your movements.

But even if you don’t indulge in GPS-related hobbies, Google is already tracking pretty much anyone with a Google account and a mobile phone. Have you ever wondered where you’ve been? Log into your Google account and call up Google Maps. Click on the “more” button (three horizontal lines) on the top left corner, then click on “your timeline” and use the calendar to view a particular day.

Or Google a local business or tourist attraction and Google will tell you when you were last there.

I was rather amazed when I discovered this.

Having said that, the tracking isn’t perfect. Take yesterday for example – Google Maps thinks I was at the goat sanctuary at one point. I wasn’t, but I was within a few hundred yards of the place. And that near miss was streets ahead of its attempt of August 4th last year when it thought I was at Southern Microscopes in Dumfries when I was actually wandering around Loose.  

I had a message this morning. What did I think…? When you go hunting Tupperware the golden rule is that you sign your name on the paper log inside the thing. All else is immaterial, and not signing the paper log is grounds for having your on-line log deleted (and your tally reduced – fighting talk indeed!).

Some people go hunting Tupperware in teams; that is understood and allowed. We do it, and sign as a team when we go. But we sign. The signature is all-important.

But what about the team (lets call them) “Fish and Chips”. Yesterday a friend was out caching. He saw the names “Fish and Chips” written on several paper logs, but when he caught up with those hunting Tupperware in front of him he only met “Chips”. “Fish” was nowhere to be seen. And this isn’t the first time this has happened. I’ve seen Chips” out on his own before with “Fish” not there, but “Fish and Chips” written on the paper logs. And with the name on the paper, the on-line claim can then be made Clearly “Fish” has the opportunity to be claiming when he shouldn’t. The burning question is does he do so?

Does it matter? In the grand scheme of things it is incredibly petty and trivial, but your geocaching profile has a number on it – how many film pots you’ve fund under rocks. The higher that score the more regarded you are by those who respect that sort of thing. “Fish” has a score over three times mine. (And I’m doing well -I’m in the top three hundred).

But I suppose they are only cheating themselves… not my circus, not my monkey…

With a little time on my hands I took the dogs down to Orlestone Woods. As I drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing the business secretary. I have no idea what he was saying; he was being constantly interrupted by some alarm on his phone. If I was being interviewed live on national radio I’d put my phone on silent before I started.

We had a good walk; as we walked we saw a black squirrel. I’ve seen grey ones before. I’ve seen red ones occasionally. But black? That was a new one to me.

We only had one “episode” today. We walked past one dog quite nicely (having seen that one coming from a hundred yards away), but Pogo kicked off when another jumped out at him seemingly appearing out of thin air. I’ll let him have that one.

We came home; I put laundry in to scrub, got a bumper harvest of dog turds from the lawn (despite having cleared them all yesterday evening), and went round with the lawn mower. It was a shame that Fudge wanted to sleep in the very bit I was just about to mow. And despite my moving him out of the way, he just kept coming back into the way. Time and time again.

I chased the bank to see where my credit card statement had got to – that wasted half an hour.

Bearing in mind that Matalan was open I thought I might get myself a couple of new shirts on the way to work. I arrived in their car park to see a couple of members of their staff (in high-vis jackets and hazmat gear) organising members of the public into an orderly (and socially distanced) queue and bossing them about. My time is precious, and I am getting sick and tired of being told (in a very patronising manner) that which is screamingly obvious, so I turned my car around and set off to work. I shall order some shirts on-line later, and let's not anyone be surprised when the Ashford branch of Matalan goes bust.

I got to work; I did my bit. As I worked my phone beeped. Regular readers of this drivel may recall that last week I was the first one to find a particular geocache… I say “geocache” today – last Friday I was rather more accurate when I called it a soy sauce container which had been drop-kicked into a hedge. The leader of the guides who hid it has got the hump and has deleted my log. She has (somewhat patronisingly) given me her regal permission to re-log if I lie and pretend the thing was marvellous. She also claims to be an experienced geocacher herself and admits that the hide might have been less than perfect. It took thirty seconds to find out who she is… she’s logged hardly anything cache-wise this year so clearly is rather out of practice at the game.

I’ve referred it all to Geo-HQ in Seattle. They can sort it out.