…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 readingAuthor: Buck
Killing 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’ […]
Continue readingBelieve nothing that you hear…
…and only half of what you see. As they said in the army. That union rep I said about a few weeks back, the one who spontaneously announced that he’d been in the office and sorted out a training programme for me, is full of shit. I went into the transport managers office today and whilst I was waiting for some drivers to sort out their business (so I could get to see one of the managers) Nick (the rep) walked in. I collared him and asked what to do next, and basically he told me to go and get some experience elsewhere, then apply for our place. Thanks for nothing, Nick. Why, though? I didn’t stress him, or even ask, he said to me he’d been in and sorted it out. Did he think my license would never get back from Swansea so I’d never realise he is nothing but a bullshit merchant? I just don’t get it. If he can’t do anything for me that’s just the way it is, but why get my hopes up? What purpose did it serve? I do not understand why he would do that. So I’ve been scouring the interweb looking for work. Surprisingly I may have found some. There were about five jobs that didn’t categorically state ‘no new drivers’ and one that actually said ‘new drivers welcome’! OK, so it’s all agency work, crap pay, and two of the jobs state that it’s only for thirteen weeks, but I’ve got to get the experience somewhere. The two thirteen weeks one will be my last option, that would mean they are just wanting agency cover until xmas, then I would be on the dole in January, when there is no agency work. Wendy pointed out that I will have to take a chance at some point. If I end up taking one of those it will be with a goal to secure other work ASAP, well before the thirteen weeks is up. Once I’m up and running, already a driver, surely it will be easier to convince other prospective employers to give me a go. Off my own back I have been in and seen HR at work, to see if there is anything they can do for me, I’ve filled in an online application for Eddie Stobart’s, and I will be ringing about those jobs tomorrow. Also I will be tracking down all the local supermarket distribution centres to put in speculative application forms. Th’Asda, th’Safeways etc. Bugger. Anyway…, other stuff. It wasn’t just that I’m fat and old and lazy, it was also that damned mountain bike! (I KNEW IT!) Tried out my spiffy racing bike this morning and it was so much easier. The riding position is right, you’re not sat upright with all your weight squashing down on the saddle, your nethers are more or less in the air, and instead of having a contact patch of about three inches of soggy tyre, I have a little […]
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