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big government

Your Legal Daily Entitlement to Oxygen is…

So now Blair is banning Happy Hours in pubs? Have I heard this right? My reaction: at least, for once, this new initiative isn’t one of the endless stream of ploys to screw more money out of people (to consolidate some of Brown’s humongous debts)… but it’s still another instance of asserting a growing degree of control over people’s lives. *sigh*

Can I just briefly say that Tony Blair is a bastard and all politicians are scum? I’ve said it before, but I’m worried I might not be allowed to do it before long. Thanks.
Read More »Your Legal Daily Entitlement to Oxygen is…

Moving On

As noted in the previous comments thingy, I made the decision Monday that I’d had enough of the endless New Deal harassments (it’s been going on in some form or other since March). I had two appointments in one day: I neglected to attend both of them.

The government will, of course, suspend my benefit almost immediately. Well, tough! I almost took this route four months ago, but someone out there (not a Jobcentre person, I hasten to add) decided to treat me with a bit of understanding. Fine. But enough’s enough. Their tiny handouts just aren’t worth the stress. Sunday, I had a recurrence of IBS, which hasn’t bothered me for a year or so. By Monday, it was crippling me. Funnily enough, it’s mostly subsided now. I might be in deep shit as far as money goes, but I feel a lot less stressed out.

Oh, I haven’t a clue what to do. Broadly speaking, I think I have to consider myself self-employed at the moment and figure out if I can make money from something for once in my life.
Read More »Moving On

The Wonderful System

By way of a moan about the government in general, you might be interested in the state of the pension system these days. My mother was 60 on August 13th (which was a Wednesday). Two weeks later, her pension still hadn’t been paid. She started making angry calls. No one had a good explanation for this, except mutterings about ‘backlog’ and things not being ‘processed yet.’

She did finally get sent a giro for the first two weeks of her pension, last week. It should have been paid into the bank, but they seemed to be having trouble with this concept. It was dated from August 18th. Here’s the fun bit: she phoned to inquire what this meant, and they told her the pensions are only paid on a ‘from Monday’ basis, so since her birthday was on a Wednesday, she loses five days of pension simply because it didn’t fall on a Monday! (How much like an evil ‘save every penny we can get away with’ government plot does this sound?)
Read More »The Wonderful System

I Need to Expose Myself

I’m still not in the greatest of moods. This ‘government scheme’ business is a big factor (hey, our government does nothing but scheme!). On balance, since the house move is so near now, I think I’m inclined to just opt out of the system. £50-odd a week isn’t nearly enough to justify the degree of control they can exert upon me.

So, I’m available for work! Presently, I’m collecting together a few decent writing samples and making a Web site for offering Web design services. I can write. I can do Web pages. Someone out there must have a use for me.

Now, about this Web site… considering the poor degree of link exposure I have, the traffic’s not so bad. But, you know, I’ve worked pretty hard on this site—I reckon it’s one of the better-designed blogs out there, and while some of the content might be considered boring, the same goes for every single blog I’ve ever read. This blog’s as good as anyone else’s, dammit.
Read More »I Need to Expose Myself