Benefit Busters

Have you been watching this?? I'm hooked!


What are they like at A4E?? That poor guy last week who got the job and then was 'let go' after a couple of weeks! The way that old guy spoke to him when he walked out to save himself from death by boredom! The tutor sitting in front of a room full of desperate people without jobs, completing his paperwork!


Where were the basic skills classes? Where was the ICT training? Where was anything except humiliation?


It all makes me so mad. And sad. And outraged. There are people out there milking the system, there's no doubt. There are also lots of people who want jobs, and who are made to sit in a boring room all day looking through the few same job adverts over and over, demotivated and patronised. How does that help them?

Is all publicity good publicity for A4E or will the govt look at the programme and think: hmmm, not such a good system after all. Let's actually give them something to do...

Passive aggression anyone?

Being passive and being aggressive...hmmm, aren't they mutually exclusive?

Don't you hate it when someone makes up a technical name for something when they could just say sulking or obstructive or obnoxious or just bone idle? For that very reason I've made great use of passive aggressive recently as a term of light-hearted abuse for Barney. Neither of us knows what it means, but it sounds impressively 21st century.

Try this fun quiz to determine whether or not you're affected by any of several personality disorders. Well, I thought it was fun anyway...

Diggin' an 'ole

We have a hole - well, holes - in the road outside the house, courtesy of the electricity board, or whatever they're called these days. There are many orange barriers which many men come and lean on at various times, gazing into the depths of the holes, looking for...what might they be looking for? There are also road cutters which are revved into action outside Sweetie's bedroom window about 9am and which do not please her one little bit...don't they know it's the school holidays? is the gist of her complaint.

Meanwhile the Guardian reported that in Scotland, 'Louise Brown' (you'd think at 91, she'd merit a 'Miss' or a 'Mrs' before her name) is on the brink of borrowing her 25,000th book from Stranraer library and is running out of large print items to borrow. I'm sure some would direct her to the talking books collection but, while I'm a big fan of talking books, it's not the same, is it? There are times you want reading matter piped directly into your head and times you want to curl up with an actual book. Go on, Stranraer, buy her some more.

Being a woman of few words...

I sold a story!!

And I was shortlisted in a comp!!

Yippee!!

This Ole House

Short story writers make use of every little thing that happens in their lives, don't they? That's why we walk round with notebooks in our pockets and pencils behind our ears. So, when Sweetie Pie and her friend started banging about and giggling loudly in the middle of the night I tried to see it as the basis of a story. Honest, I did. And then I fell asleep.

Next morning, without a hint of sheepishness, they asked if I'd heard the noise. Turns out when one of them needed the loo in the night, the door fell off its hinges. It's obviously finally taken its bat home at the regular kickings it took to persuade it to shut. Bottom hinge now hanging by a thread; top one dangling in mid air. Health & Safety R'nt Us.

I went and looked and touched the door, positioned carefully upright like a corpse, and the thing wobbled and fell over. And it was pretty funny.

So...story tie-ins...faulty door representing last straw? relationship spoiled by wife nagging about house faults, door finally falls on idle hubby? noisy kids misjudged? house renovations gone wrong? door represents something else that's wrong?...

And talking of being unhinged: can anyone expain why I requested, on Barney's supermarket list, 2 x chimney breasts?

Rise of zombie-girl

A MILD sedative, that was what the doctor said he was prescribing for the sleeplessness which was taking away my ability to think. Not sure how mild mild's meant to be, but anything which knocks you out for not only the night but also most of the next day surely doesn't qualify? I sleepwalked through the end of term party, went back to bed in the afternoon and mumbled replies to anyone daft enough to ask me a question, till about teatime.

Barney and Sweetie say they didn't notice any difference.

Don't send this man to the US

OK, it's embarrassing to be lining up beside the Daily Mail, but if you'd like to keep Gary McKinnon in this country, please visit here.

And there's a touching article, explaining why Mr McKinnon shouldn't be extradited, by Jane Asher, President of the National Autistic Society, here.