Saturday 11th May

As I get older I find I have become far less tolerant of stupidity, specifically of people doing their job badly.  Incompetence should never be rewarded, but it seems that the level of actual competence is diminishing as the years go by.  Maybe it is an over-reliance on computers, where people trust that the spreadsheet must always be right and stop thinking for themselves.  Maybe it stems from the fact that when I started working, way back in the last century there was precious little employee protection – quite simply if you were incompetent you got sacked.

Now, I would be the last to want to scrap the employment protection laws, and I have unfortunately seen from the employer’s side how redundancy is used as a tool to get rid of ‘troublesome’ staff, and it is grossly unfair.  But there is also an element of ‘couldn’t care lessism’ that has crept into many people’s performance of their work.  Do they never think to themselves what a poor job they are doing?  Do they never question whether they are actually earning their wages at all?

And almost every day I come across incompetence; new starters missed off the wages even though they have worked a whole week, and the stupid manager asks where the payslip is, not even bothering to see if they had included them on the wages schedule; managers deciding that it wasn’t necessary to do the weekend’s banking until Wednesday, even though Monday was a Bank holiday, for some reason as Tuesday isn’t a normal banking day let’s just keep four days cash in the safe; managers neglecting for weeks to print off a new supplier’s e-mailed invoices.

I try not to get angry, because getting angry only hurts me, but honestly if I cock-up I feel terrible and do all I can to rectify my mistake.  It is the nonchalant shrug of the shoulders that really irritates.  Everyone makes mistakes, but you will never learn from them unless you take it seriously and realise the damage and extra work for someone else you have caused.

Friday 10th May

What a week David Cameron has had.  First the humiliation of seeing UKIP do so well in the local elections.  On top of which he was shown repeatedly and belatedly attempting to show some respect to the voters who had deserted him in droves, saying that it was no good insulting UKIP, only to be immediately followed by clips of him doing just that in an earlier tirade.   He is obviously running scared of them and had he had the chance would have rewritten the Queens Speech to be even harsher on Immigrants than it is attempting to be.  Ed Milliband was right when in his reply he said that no matter how much he, the PM, pandered to the Right, they would keep coming back for more.

We have had a succession of Tory Grandees coming out and saying that simply re-negotiating Europe will solve nothing.  Opening this Pandora’s box just a smidgeon means he cannot now close the lid again.  Europe is threatening to break up the Tories yet again.  It is the Corn Laws again on constant repeat.

Then to cap it all the Queens Speech, which was a pretty drab affair anyway, has been completely overshadowed by the surprise resignation of Fergie.  What should have been a news-topping free bit of Government publicity where new (and some old rehashed) policies are presented with all the pomp and ceremony the state can throw at it, even here there was more excitement because Charles and Camilla were there too, raising speculation about her Maj’s possible abdication in the near future.

And then Fergie goes and explodes his bombshell, and today’s papers and the News were full of his remarkable achievements.  Football fans of all persuasions were celebrating, and a really popular man was being lauded.  No matter what Cameron goes on to achieve, which will probably be very little, he will never touch our hearts as Fergie has done.

Thursday 9th April

It has almost become ‘de rigeur’ to speak of the deceased in hushed tones, with a reverence and a glossing over of their faults.  And John certainly had faults.  He was many facetted but like a flawed diamond he shone brilliantly at times.  Always the most dominant of the Beatles, as a child growing up with them he almost scared me, he was the one pushing the envelope.  He drove them along and was as creative as any of them, absorbing all around him and regurgitating it as something new and different.

And he was clearly going off the rails, addicted to everything going.  He met Yoko and ditched his wife and child.  Then the Beatles split and, like Paul and George, he produced at least two brilliant albums that were as good as anything done by all four of them.   Then he seemed to go off the rails again, and had his ‘lost weekend’, and made a couple of poor albums, though even here there were hidden gems, it was just that the quality control switch was never turned on.  Maybe he was just too big for anyone to say ‘Hold on John, this is rubbish. Let’s think again.’

He had a renaissance just before he was shot, and who knows what brilliance or failure he might have achieved.  Would he have become a respectable elder statesman of rock, or continued a rebel, or sunk into oblivion?

His legacy must be the song ‘Imagine’ – he sung ‘you may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.’  No, John you weren’t the only one, but you more than anyone else put into words what a lot of us have always felt.

Maybe, in a strange way going out in such an awful blaze, has done the memory of John a favour.  I prefer to concentrate on his musical legacy, which is wonderful.

Wednesday 8th April

There is a political snowball which needed a mighty shove, but has now started moving, rolling over and over, slowly gathering pace, picking up debris and fresh snow as it begins to roll down the hill.   It has been obvious for years really, though most of us were happy not to see it.  There has been an increasingly large proportion of the electorate who do not vote, or have stopped voting or who no longer vote the way they always have, or the way their parents did.  At first it was simply moving over to the opposition, whichever that was, then they dabbled with the LibDems, who for a while sounded as if they might actually be different.  Now the snowball has coalesced on UKIP, and the unlikely but eminently likeable face of Nigel Farage, who looks and sounds like a second world war spiv, a car salesman, a smoker, a drinker, probably a gambler, in short the opposite of all the politically correct metro-sexual smart-suited leaders of the other parties.  And he smiles and laughs at difficult questions and insists he isn’t a politician at all.  In fact he is that extraordinary beast – a non-political charismatic leader of a political movement which threatens to push all the other parties aside, or at least to bump them along, shake them out of their complacency a bit, and he is certainly doing that.  I bet all the three leaders are dreading losing any of their MPs and facing a by-election at the moment.

Of course we will have to wait a bit and see whether the snowball gathers pace and keeps on careening down the hill sweeping all in front of it, or if the sun of reason begins to melt it and it ends up a damp squib, just a pile of slush with a fallen carrot and lumps of coal as the only sign of its once greatness.

Tuesday 7th April

Well, what a splendid weekend that was.  Unbelievable.  The first time in years we have had lovely weather over a whole bank holiday weekend.  In fact, it was almost too lovely.  The English aren’t used to it, and almost feel they don’t deserve it.  After all we do rain and wind and cold well, but sunshine….ooh not so sure about that, guv.   Actually at times it was almost too hot, too sudden I would say.  We have been bounced straight out of Winter and headlong into almost Summer.  Spring has been condensed into about two weeks, and the plants are all confused.   The daffodils have only been out a couple of weeks and aren’t ready to fold up their petals yet, and the trees are full of blossom already.

But enough moaning; I like everyone else simply enjoyed it.  The simple pleasure of sitting in the sun, we have almost forgotten how to do it in this country.  Last summer it rained and rained with hardly a decent weekend after April.  And the rain and cold continued right through the winter.   But we have just had a couple of lovely weeks of sunshine culminating in a glorious bank holiday weekend.

And everywhere people were out in shorts and tee-shirts and smiling, and sitting in the park, or walking lazily along the river or having barbecues and drinking wine in the garden.  And everyone was happy.  What a change.  And it brought to mind that wonderful Small Faces song ‘Lazee Sunday Afternoon, ‘aint got no time ta worry – close my eyes and drift away.’

And yes it is work tomorrow (today), but as long as the sun is shining who cares, for two days we have had a Lazee Sunday Afternoon.

Monday 6th April

I am writing this early on Sunday evening and Ronnie is just leading in the final, but not by nearly enough to guarantee success.  Probably the most talented snooker player since the meteroic Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins.  But often, as indeed with Alex, talent is not enough; you need other things in your armory, self-belief, patience and temperament.

You sometimes also need your opponent to meltdown before you do.  And this is what makes the current match between Ronnie and Barry Hawkins so fascinating.  On paper there is no contest; Ronnie is by far the better player – Barry Hawkins although ranked fourteenth in the world was hardly expected to get this far, and to be fair to him, he has played some remarkably brilliant snooker.  As has Ronnie, who makes the game look so easy, almost as if he isn’t trying.  And a bit like watching the start of a Formula 1 race with Ronnie there is always the chance of a car-crash.  He has spectacularly imploded before, add to that the fact that he hasn’t played since he won this very event last year and his statement that he is only doing it for the not inconsiderable money, you do wonder just what will happen.

And of course, unlike almost any player anything can happen when Ronnie is playing in the World Championship final.

Sunday 5th April

As you know I had a day off on Tuesday in order to try and shake off my cold.  And I thought I had, or at least broken the back of it.  I felt quite a bit better on Wednesday morning, and on Thursday too.  I travelled down to Walton in the evening and I started feeling wretched.  As occasionally happens when my resistance is low I had an attack of the herpes virus.  Ever since childhood I have suffered, as did my mother before me, with cold sores.  Over the years I have learnt to recognize the signals, that itchy tingle, like tiny pinpricks on the delicate skin around your lips and nose.  This is accompanied by such a low feeling, as if you’ve been given a good kicking and really do not want to get up off the ground.

I am never sure if the low resistance and feeling sorry for oneself means the virus spies a chance and attacks you, or if it is all caused by the virus itself which is sitting there patiently year after year just watching and waiting to have its day in the sun, or actually on your face.

I try to never travel anywhere without Zovirax in my possession, and early application does often help.  But on Thursday, despite liberally daubing my upper lip and under my nose with the magic medicine the wretched cold-sores erupted and kept on itching and tingling all day on Friday and into Saturday too.  If you haven’t suffered with cold sores you will not know just how debilitating it can be.  Your whole well-being is affected, you feel tired and emotional and upset and weary and the worst thing is that you know that you will just have to go the course, and it will be a few days before they start to clear up and you feel better.  And I still have the runny nose and sore throat too.

Saturday 4th April

Of course I would not normally have read this book, or have been so careless as to have bought it.  It was a surprising Birthday present from my son, probably chosen by his wife.  But, it was surprisingly good in fact.  Not great literature at all, but quite passable and an enjoyable read.

I suspect that dear Dawn did write most of it, unlike many celebrity books out there, but I am certain too that the fingerprints of a good Literary Editor are all over it too.  It is just a bit too predictable and formulaic, and never actually veers from an established pattern.  A bit too polished too, too well-written almost and for that it lacks a degree of honesty too.

The story or plot is good, a woman who is in a coma and having her life dissected by what her various family and friends say to her while she is comatose.  Just once do we find out what Sylvia might have been thinking and in a way that is a mistake, it would have been better to have left her a complete enigma.   It is funny and from Dawn you might expect that, also a bit sad which you might have expected too, and there is a good understanding of people and the motives that drive them, so I liked that element of shared human experience.

It went off a bit into daftness occasionally but then it is a novel so one shouldn’t expect the straightforward.  I did get a bot bored in the middle, but it came good towards the end.

All in all, worth reading and I’d give it a six.

Friday 3rd April

Of course I do not know the result of yesterday’s elections yet, but almost certainly UKIP will make big advances.  Whether they will gain that many seats and what that will really mean to local democracy I am not sure.  It is largely a protest vote, and of course, we have seen this before – The SDP, The Greens a few years ago, and the Lib-Dems recently.   But this is different; this appears to be a groundswell coming from the right, and rather than the Left being divided it is now the turn of the Tories.

And UKIP have not actually sprung from nowhere; they are exceedingly well funded and one must ask the question why.   Many on the Tory party are worried by Cameron and his fairly Centrist policies, the recent spate of Thatcher worship showed just how rabid the Right are.  Cameron realised that after three election defeats people just didn’t like the Tories, especially with fairly right-wing leaders like Haig, IDS and Howard, and he took the view that taking over the mantle of the middle ground from Blair would rehabilitate the Tory party.  And to a degree he was right.   But of course in doing that he has angered the Right who want unadulterated Thatcherism again.  And here is the rub.

I am fairly certain that some of those millionaires supporting UKIP are doing it in order to make the Tory party a real Tory party again, by scaring it into reverting to type and lurching to the Right.   To some degree they have already succeeded in that they have got Cameron to agree to an in-out referendum, but only after the election, which of course it is quite likely that Cameron will lose anyway.  There is now pressure to get a commitment to a vote before the next election.  Quite a lot of Tory MPs are clamouring for it already, maybe in fear of UKIP, but maybe also as a result of what the backers of UKIP want all along.

If the Tories do significantly move to the right, especially over Europe, we could well see the media and some of the financial support for UKIP suddenly subside.  I wonder where the ‘protest’ vote will go then?

Thursday 2nd May

One of the writers I used to be impressed by in the early seventies was John Berger.  Among other interesting works was a collaboration with a photographer detailing a country doctor’s life.  One thing which John Berger said has stayed with me, and that is that there is a certain point at which one admits that one is ill and seeks help.  At that point the person becomes a patient and puts themselves into the hands of the healer.   It may be embarrassment or pain or the comments of loved ones that tips the balance and persuades you that you are in fact ill.

On Tuesday, despite my protestations that if ‘I did not do my work, I had to do my work’, I decided or was persuaded to have a day off work.  This is such a rare occurence for me that I cannot remember the last time, a few years ago I think.   I was feeling pretty awful and what at first was a concession to just do a half day and come home early soon became a full-blown day off.  Yes, I will still have to do the work, but I will go to the place I missed on the next two consecutive evenings and pick up as much data as I can and finish it on Friday, my day off.

So, that was the point at which I succumbed to my illness, even agreeing to take myself back to bed where I fitfully slept most of the morning.  And rising at midday I mooched around in a dressing gown and sporadically watched some snooker or fell asleep on the sofa.  I was desperately tired at ten that evening, despite having slept for most of the day and took myself off to my pit as soon as decency allowed.

This morning, although not that much better, my symptoms having settled down to a degree that is just about tolerable I am back at work.  I am not sure what good having the day off actually achieved, but the moment I stopped insisting I was okay, and actually succumbed to my sickness I entered another phase where I became officially ‘poorly’, and now if anyone asks I am recovering and feeling a bit better, thank-you.