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Happy New Year
Having made the obligatory welcome nod to 2006, I'm now going to talk about something completely different.
The more I hate my job, the more I start to understand why people vote Conservative. The people in Government spend the tax that I pay. If they have even merely a reputation for enjoying spending, well I'm going to be concerned. I started thinking the other day about what my taxes go on. Council tax is a fairly obvious one, and I think they manage it fairly cheaply. I mean, the roads are swept, there are pretty lights at Christmas, there are youth facilities (albeit not enough), there are bin collections every week, and parks. But I pay a lot more in income tax than in council tax, and where does it all go? And because I dislike my job, suddenly I get why some people are so angry about benefit scroungers, who never really bothered me before. Where I grew up, the kids who had Nikes had mums who were benefit-frauding, and the kids who had Nicks didn't. Even the kids with Nikes had pretty miserable lives and their mums were really struggling, so benefit fraud seemed a pretty fair thing to me, and I wished my Mum had less of an honesty complex, so that we could get ourselves some of that Nike street cred.
But now that I have to be talked down to by muppets, and have to photocopy junk, and have to deal with the incompetent wives of academics on a daily basis I'm starting to get a bit more panicky about where that tax money's going. If one in five of the hours I work is going to the government, then, well - close the borders, close the NHS to smokers and fat people, and put benefit fraudsters in prison for twenty years! But then what kind of society would we have? So on balance, I think I'd rather a bit of money was wasted here and there, a few people got a free ride, than live in a society where an accident of birth meant you were destined to replicate most of your parents mistakes, and where those who are incapacitated fall down the cracks. So I'm all for trimming bureacracy, and putting the civil service on a diet, but although I now understand more why people want to skinny-up the welfare state, I don't.
Talking of the welfare state - last Christmas my Dad was very ill. He was unconscious in hospital for a bit, and while he was there, the time came round to fill in his forms to renew his incapacity benefit. Just to make it really clear, my Dad really is too ill to work. I didn't understand this as a child, so sometimes was very cross with him for not working much, but now I see that he really can't. Anyway, he made some mistake with the forms, or didn't get them in on time, or something, all to do with the fact that he wasn't very with it, having nearly died. So they stopped his benefits completely, After months of havoc, and unbelievable stress for my Mum, they've reinstated some of his benefits, but not all, and there's been no compensation for the months with nothing at all. The Minister for Disability Or Something Like That has promised to look into it, but hasn't. The local MP, who is himself the Minister for Fire, has referred it all onto his constituency worker, and meanwhile the promotion my Mum has been working towards for 4 years, and has finally won, will now just mean that their income will return to the level it should be on, and would be on had the forms not come at a time when Dad was too ill to fill them in. I know it's just one case, but it's rubbish. I genuinely believe that lots of poorer people's lots have improved under Labour, but there still exists the crushing uncertainty and insecurity of poverty. I don't have an answer, but somebody must have a better idea...
Take That
Why has no-one invented something that makes a sore throat go away? I mean, apart from a really evil migraine, you can drive away a headache, mefenamic acid smites period pain, but nothing gets rid of a sore throat! Strepsils numb it a but they also make your mouth taste and feel like an abattoir. Gargling with soluble aspirin is so disgusting it should be illegal, and it doesn't even work anyway. Lockets are tasty, and they make you happier, but you're just a happy person whose throat hurts, rather than a normal person without a sore throat. I know - Mocha Frappuchino! I bet that'll drive those glands down!
Roy Hattersly writes in today's Guardian that "Blair is now a liability", like it's a revelation. Whenever I read articles like that I feel my pulse rate go up a little in panic. Partly I'm very scared that the Conservative Party with their new David will win the next election, and will eat poor children and single mothers. But also there's a bit of fear that maybe they'll get in, and maybe nothing will change, and that either I'll have to give up my comfortable dualism between 'left-wing' and 'evil', or that it'll be because I'm so removed from the class and place I was brought up in that I'm just not aware of the eating of poor children that's going on. I feel like an embodiement of class warfare - a curious mixture of consumerism and sneering and snobbery and reverse-snobbery and protest riots and conspicuous consumerism and shame. Maybe I need a revolution in me, to sort out these warring classes.
I'm going back to work tomorrow. I don't want to.
steely grey morning
Morning has broken
me
What if...
The solstice didn't actually happen this winter, and it's actually
going to get darker earlier and earlier because the sun is actually
spinning away from us? At what point do we sound the alarm, and how do
we get the sun back?
What if the leaves don't come back this year? What if the bears
hibernate for generations, waking up to terrify the children of our
children, the ones who live with the mere memory of oil?
As I cycled groggily to work this morning I composed a poem in my head
about this morning. I forgot it by the time I had negotiated the
gauntlet of obligatory smiles of 'Happy New Year'. When I'm ill I am
not an extrovert. Today I haven't had a single chat with my colleagues.
I think they think something terrible's happened, but the truth is
simply that I have a killer sore-throat and can't buy any lockets
because I'm over my overdraft limit. I'm good at hiding my emotions at
work, but I refuse to belive that anyone can act chirpy when they have
a cold.
Here's a quote I read in *blushes* a book about Linux :
"A train station is where a train stops.
A bus station is where a bus stops.
MycComputer is a workstation..."
Help, I'm starting to find work-humour funny. If I start to like
Dilbert, please, somebody, strangle me with my own mousecord, if only
to save yourselves!
Oh Mr Beecham, Marry me!
Nostalgic resonance: That feeling you get when a word,
phrase, smell or sound trips the warm glow of nostalgia, but you can't
for the life of you remember why. "Audley End" does it for me - it
reminds me of my little brothers, somehow. They're not little anymore,
but they always will be when I hear "Audley End".
Dear Canadian...
Who reads my blog every day,
Are you my Grandma? Are you my cousin Sara? Are you my Aunty Lorna? Or are you someone I don't know?
I like Canada. When I have a real job I'm going to visit again!