I’ve calmed down after my last impotent rant. When I returned to the Independent’s story later on the problem had been cleared and there were several cynical and informed replies posted. The story is getting out, and people are aware that want to be aware. If one chooses to subscribe to the evil Murdoch’s promulgation pawns that is a choice. Less of a choice when you consider how many local radio stations all cut to Sky for their news updates, and the unadulterated propaganda that is Sky telly. Enough! Was it one of those ‘use this word in a sentence’ deliberate misunderstandings on the word ‘horticulture’ that ran: you can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think. Not independently valid on any level when you break it down, but if you accept that reality is objective, its interpretation subjective, and its reporting selective, it follows that a person who fails to question probably just wants a simple answer. As they say of being a biker ‘if I have to explain, you wouldn’t understand.’ Not you, imagined and implicitly clever reader, but the Sun reading herd. Not even that broad a category, Sun believing herd. Anywho, believe it or not I have actually calmed down. All the above was just a way of saying that I probably won’t be writing up my manifesto piecemeal, defining myself by what I oppose. People believe what they want. The evidence that informs my views is equally available to all. To think that only I can extrapolate the truth is verging on megalomania, and is at best patronising. You are all spared. Do your own thinking and don’t blame me when you get it wrong! (Joke!) Over myself now. Now we’ve thrashed that one out lets move on. Potentially good news about my driving, I went in to see the HR chick yet again on Friday (the latest date when everything would be resolved, obviously it wasn’t, again!) but this time the main woman wasn’t there so her minion said she’d go and see her. I waited a few minutes then out came the site manager. I ignored him, thinking he was about his business and it wouldn’t relate to mine. He came up to me, sat me down, and had a five minute chat with me. Perhaps I should mention in passing that the perception is that he is more than just the site manager (although that is at the top of the food chain as far as everyone on site is concerned), the feeling is that he is a troubleshooter. Sent to sort out sites, then move on. He is, it’s felt, a company hit-man. Since he took over there have been lots of changes (such as we de-kit lads being chucked out of our department and Eastern European agency lads being given our jobs). So when I say he was talking to me, I mean a chap with some clout. He said he was still looking into it, […]
Continue readingAuthor: Buck
In the land of the blind…
…the one-eyed Buck is king. I was angered into nearly changing the direction of my blog this week. I never used to watch the news when I was young out of rampant apathy, then I became political as I grew older and watched with a critical, analytic eye. Recently, however I have become so disillusioned that I have been too saddened to watch. Everything is either too trivial and inane to be of any but the most superficial of interest or too predictably cynical and evil. Everything I watch or read just confirms my world view. Even the knee-jerk idiot-fodder only shows what those in influence want the great (!) unwashed to think. In other words, they confirm my world view by denying it. Which is pre-amble to my point, that out of boredom the other day I clicked on the ‘news; heading on my Firefox browser jobby. There upon I saw an article about ‘NATO’ bombing two of it’s own petrol tankers in Afghanistan, killing 90 people. There was no immediate link to The Independent (the quality paper for the tree-hugging, free-thinking, Lib-Dem voting, yoghurt-knitting, sandal-wearing, elbow-patched, be-blazered, beardy-weirdy) so I clicked on The Times article. According to their trite propaganda piece the evil Johnny Foreigner scum had stolen two tankers, one of which got stuck. They were then spotted by a ‘NATO’ ‘plane that radioed back to base confirming that all ninety people surrounding the tankers were terrorists, so was given the green light to bomb the hell out of them. The local villagers who claimed to have spotted the stuck tanker and had their relatives rush to get free hand-outs off the hi-jackers were all seriously bereaved, but patently liars and terrorists to man, woman and child. And even if there were a few civilians present, the hi-jackers had started a fire-fight amongst themselves (at the exact moment the got the shit blown out of them by that ‘NATO’ ‘plane presumably) and probably caused the explosion themselves, an official ‘source’ claimed. Not being completely stupid, I filled in the comments page. I urged an enquiring mind. I noted that the first rule of authority in cases of error is obfuscation. That in the instance of the police murder of Charles De Menezes, the media was immediately informed that the suspect was wearing a heavy winter coat in summer, that he had wires protruding from it, that uniformed armed police officers shouted ‘Stop! Police!’ This was allowed to sink into the herd consciousness, only to be found out to be total lies years later. (As it turns out eye witnesses saw him stroll onto a tube in normal attire when a bunch of men in civvies ran on to the train, threw him to the floor and put eight rounds through his head. The jury wasn’t even allowed to return a verdict of ‘unlawful killing’ and had to leave it as an open verdict. Justice in a country without the death penalty.)The bit in brackets is my rage […]
Continue readingKilling time
Hi again, it’s been a funny old week and no mistake. I’ve hardly done anything really, just been off, got back in to my Taekwondo, read books and waited on the thrice damned postman. A week off work is not to be sniffed at. It’s been nice just relaxing. The weather has been consistently appalling, so I’ve not been out doing stuff, but it’s been lovely not working, dossing around and sharpening my ninja skills by outwitting the postman. I was off last weekend, in Monday, and then off until next Tuesday. On Monday I went into HR to see where my warehouse to wheels thing was up to, as they said they’d have an answer for me this week. I wasn’t expecting an answer on Monday, and in that respect I wasn’t disappointed. I went in prepared for such an eventuality. I had a piece of paper with my name, what it was about (warehouse to wheels) my landline and mobile numbers and my email address, which I handed in. I said I was off this week, but if they wanted me to go out with the drivers as part of my training I would be happy to come in. Not a word. Not a sausage. Jack. I’ve been ringing around some of the jobs advertised on jobcentre plus, but in a half-hearted way. They are mostly agency, and those that don’t turn me down flat are saying it wouldn’t be worth me leaving a full time job. It would still be best if I could get trained at my works then work for them, but failing that a ‘no’ would be better than this. At least then I could throw myself into getting some work. I was told yesterday that although as a new driver the agency wouldn’t be able to insure me as an artic driver they could get me work on rigids. But not enough to make it worth my while leaving a full time job. The good news there being them willing to give me a class II job, in principle. Tomorrow I have somehow agreed to go to Manchester, to see a fight, I think. I was at my TKD class last night and Sah bum nim asked me if I was doing anything on Saturday. I thought she had arranged an extra lesson, or a fitness session, as I’m on 2-10 next week so might not be able to make class I jumped at the chance. Said I wasn’t doing anything, she said something about do you want to come, I said OK, so she said ‘right, you can get a lift with Jim, it’s £10 for the ticket, we’ll split the petrol money.’ What? I asked Jim what we were going to see (he’s a black belt, and second in command) he didn’t know. I asked when, again he didn’t know. So we had both agreed to do something, for some money, at some point, somewhere. I managed to find out that […]
Continue readingNew Kit (Buddha’s got me bang to rights)
Hi y’all, we had an eventful time of late. In a spree of uncontrolled consumerism I’ve been virtually shopping until I virtually dropped. The push-bike I mentioned previously: with it’s narrow tyres and raised ridge thereupon to decrease the contact patch with the road still further: and I mentioned my new hat: here modelled with another recent acquisition, a Chinese Kung Fu / Tai Chi top from Hong Kong. Then from the States we have some new ‘cat eye’ sunglasses for Wendy They really are some bad-arse sunglasses! Here’s the handsome couple; Now then, I put captions on these photo’s when I uploaded them, but in case they were missed I’m going to reiterate a few points here; the first being that that is a loose fitting, kind of stiff, linen top I’m wearing that naturally hangs loose at the bottom. (The camera adds ten pounds! How many camera’s were on you? As the saying goes.) I am actually at my lightest weight for, well possibly years. This damned ‘no sweet stuff’ diet is doing the trick, I’m down to ten stone five pounds (with five to go). I suppose I should also mention that Wendy has lost a bit as well. Three stone two pounds, to be exact. She been hanging on to that dress for years and years, vainly hoping that some consumptive illness would make her slim enough to wear it again. Now she’s done it all by herself (by starving for half a year). Respect is due. Kudos to the Wendster. As though all of the above spending wasn’t enough I then filled in the gaps (well three of them) in my Sci-Fi Masterworks collection, and I’ve ordered a pair of shoes! Also today, as Wendy finally got her first pay packet last Thursday, I acted on an idea I had the other day. We’ve been living here for about three and a half years. We have a bath with mixer taps and a shower pipe jobby. It wasn’t until last week that I realised that the shower kept flowing at Full strength even at head height. Therefore, if I just got the attachment that holds it up, and a shower curtain and rail, we could have a functioning shower. For buttons! Then I thought we’d better paint the bathroom as well. Then it turns out you have an adjuster pole the shower head hangs from, a matching shower head, and it costs ninety nine pounds ninety five pence! One hundred bloody pounds! So much for cheap and cheerful! OK, I expect all you rich people are laughing at a mere hundred quid, but it nearly broke my heart at the checkout. I was envisioning a thirty or at most, forty, pound project. Then we had Luke returning to the nest like some six foot cuckoo after a domestic at home. (Domestic at home. Tautology? Discuss.) That appears to have been a storm in a teacup as a day later he’s back with his chick. I’ll […]
Continue readingTurn and about.
Well, it’s all change again. I went into Human Resources again today, but the HR chick I spoke to a few days ago had been off for two days and by all appearance had forgotten about me. She took my name and number and said she would see the main manager then contact me. This was in relation to my request to have a bit of help in my driving progression. The company boasts of it’s initiatives for its employees, one of which being the ‘warehouse to wheels’ scheme. It’s on a big board as you walk into the main building, yet when I’ve asked the transport hierarchy all they’ve done is provide excuses why our site doesn’t run the scheme. So I asked the HR bint the other day if, now I’ve paid for the expensive bit out of my own pocket (getting the training and licenses) if the company could put me on the final part of the scheme. I wasn’t placing any great hopes on getting a reply, but as I was having a shower (typically!) she rang me. She said she’d talked to the MD of the site and he’d told her to contact the site that does run the W-T-W scheme to find out if it was practical for it to be implemented on our site for me! Apparently the person responsible at the other site is on holiday until Monday, but my new best-mate has sent them an email and has told me to get back to her Monday dinner time, when she can tell me more. That’s not a no. Hope springs eternal. We have qualified driver assessors on site, a whole fleet of trucks and the truckers to man them, what more do they need to get me up to scratch? I’ve passed the bloody test, all that’s left is experience. Yesterday at work, at 13.50 hrs, ten minutes before my shift ended and I was due to speed home with a glad heart and start making ‘phone calls about the jobs advertised on the interweb, a siren went off at work. As is common practise, everyone ignored it. However this time it was for real. We had a major ammonia leak from the cooling system in the freezer. Apparently that’s bad in a terminal way. The fire service and police were on site in minutes, they closed off main roads around the site and banned us from returning to the building until we weren’t going to die. 17.54 they finally let me go back inside to get my keys out of my locker so I could go home. My sinuses had kicked in again so I was suffering from a progressively worsening headache, I was sat outside for the four hours, with no idea when I was going to be allowed to go home. Less than fun. Today, as soon as I got home (without headache, hurray!) I set to ‘phoning around. One of the jobs was a flat out ‘no’ […]
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