Come into the Garden, Maude

What did you do for Easter? I don't fucking care, this is about what I did. On Sunday afternoon I celebrated the death and resurrection of OUR LORD JEBUS CRUST by doing what all good people did and went to the pub. I met up with Danny, Jaime and wee tiny little Richard Bennett. Just before I arrived I received a text off Danny telling me they were sitting in the beer garden. 'What a pack of stupid cunts' said I to myself. It's a typical British thing that as soon as Spring is announced everybody strips off and starts sunbathing and going on about how nice it is to have the sun out again, despite it being -40 and blowing a gale. And snowing. And my cuntish friends were no exception, they were huddled together for body heat in a howling gale force wind. Tables were being thrown about by the blast and I had to duck several times lest I be struck about the head. My lips froze to my pint glass as I tried to drink it was so cold. I eventually coaxed them inside, but only after the sun had set and the snow lay thickly all around.

'Come on, let's go inside for a bit..'
'OK, we'll just have one more outside to get the last of the sunlight'

Back at Christ's Mass I had loaned Bob a book on Passchendaele as her Great-Grandfather had fought there. It was time to retrieve said book and as Bob was back up North for a few days it was decided we'd meet up. As it happens she was in Leeds for the night so I took the chance to tie in a visit to the Royal Armouries. Bob wanted to come along as well, so off we merrily wandered to stare at guns. Then the ubiquitous trip to the pub for a debriefing on what we'd seen and so Bob could give me a blow by blow account of her 'oliday out in the mysterious Far East. I put her on her train and made my way back home after a great day.

Guns get two thumbs up from Bob!

Tuesday afternoon followed a similar pattern, except for the freezing to death part. Ninjasaurus Rex and I had a few pints together in an empty public hostelry. He was drowning his sorrows after someone had probably lost three grand of his invoices. I was only too willing to step up to the challenge. So I guess all in all, Easter was celebrated in the time honoured tradition. Last night I was back in Leeds again, this time with Rhys and Mainy to see Eyehategod. They were fucking great and the crowd went pretty berserk. One of the support acts Dragged Into Sunlight were also fucking great. They were playing in a pretty small pub and by the end of it the room smelled like the burger van I used to get my chicken burgers from in Reykjavik. Great night.

Hail Ostara!

I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die:

John, 11. 25

Dead Christ

Let's get away from Arguing about the Dole and celebrate the Death and Resurrection of our Lord Jebus Chrust. I'll do it through the medium of video, HALLELUJAH!!

Reply to Comments

Well that last post certainly set a few furs flying. Here is my reply:

First off Danny said: 'what if you had found yourself unemployed in a society where there were no free handouts, and everyone had to fend for themselves? It's not that hard to imagine.' We don't; We live in a society where I pay taxes for such an occurrence. So this has no validity. If I was in such a society, I would be working. Simple as.

He also says: 'At the end of the day, I think it's a massive luxury to be given three whole months to sort yourself out at the taxpayer's expense, before they start applying a bit of pressure on you. People should be bloody grateful for it!' I would have been working for the past three months had there had been work for me. I am grateful for the pittance I am given by the Dole, I am certainly not 'sorting myself out' at the tax payers expense. I am doing it out of my Tax, that I paid whilst I was working. It is not like I have never worked and am just taking it for granted. Like Archer, this made me rather angry.

Darren is correct, rather than forcing me to work outside of my area of expertise the Job Centre should be forcing other genuine Dole scroungers back to work. You can see it when I go to sign on. I see the same faces and I see they don't even bother checking the computers for new jobs, which is something I do everytime I'm in the Job Centre. I know that the markets will pick up again soon and there will be work. I am currently weathering the storm.

Archer is also correct, Danny you were on the Dole for years back in the day, same as me. I'm not particularly proud of it, but we got away with it because we could. I am now genuinely out of work and have paid taxes in order to support myself during this hard time. If I want to go and stack shelves in Netto, that should be my choice. I am not a scrounger, I want to work, but I want to work in the Profession which I am trained for and which, incidentally, I ran up £12,000 worth of debts to train for. These factors are not taken into account by the present system. The reason is it is a JOB centre, not a CAREER centre, two very different things. To them we are just numbers and as long as the monkeys behind the desks punch enough numbers into the computers they don't give a shit about your circumstances, past or present.

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

I went to the Job Centre today for my three month 'review'. This is the point in the life of the unemployed that the Job Centre decide that you aren't doing enough to get work so they force a change of career on you. You are allowed three months grace to find work in one single preferred job, at this review they make you widen your search to include two further possibilities. If like me, you are a trained professional, weathering the storm of the recession, there is no hope. You are treated like all the rest of the unemployed scum. There are no concessions for people trying to do the job they are trained for. If they had their way, my eight year career would end today and I could look forward to a sparkling new career moving pallets around in a warehouse. There's always work in Warehouses.

A new career beckons...

I pointed this out to the Robot who conducted the interview for me and the interview went something like this:

Me: 'I have a Degree in Archaeology and eight years experience in the field. There is a recession on that is stopping me working, nothing else. I don't want to look for other work.'

Him: 'I AM A ROBOT'

Me: 'I'm not arguing with you, you're only doing your job, but the system is wrong in that it doesn't cater for people like me.'

Him: 'I AM A ROBOT'

Me: 'OK, a Steelworker who has worked in the steel mills for twenty years is in a similar position, but Thatcher made sure their industry closed down years ago whereas my profession is still going. The markets just need to pick up.'

Him: 'I AM A ROBOT'

Me: 'I'm not really getting through to you, am I?'

'I'll put you down for Warehouse work, yes? You have ten seconds to comply!'

As a back up plan I told him I would be signing off in a couple of weeks anyway when the job in Thirsk starts. This tempered him a little and we compromised by only adding one more job to my list of preferred work. He did actually agree with me that the system was wrong but in order to get my benefits (which I paid taxes for in the first place...) I had to jump through the hoops. Hoops made out of dog shit and set on fire.

You want your peanuts? You'll have to dance!

We got talking about how wrong the system was and he said that Gordon Brown has plans afoot to actually move all the Benefits System online. This would mean scrapping Job Centres, turning them into flats and saving the government a fortune being free of their upkeep and the staff. So in cruel twist of fate it looks like he'll be the one out of work and looking for a place in a warehouse.

The Postman Always Rings Twice

Wow, I really got a roasting on Facebook for that last post. Just when I thought this blog was supposed to be written by me and was therefore an online diary of my thoughts and actions as I saw fit to discuss, it turns out it's actually owned by everyone that reads it! Well, Flip Me! That's the last time I'll be doing that, so from now on I'm just going to listen to you instead and write exactly what ever it is that you want me to write about. So from here on in expect a load of Doctor Who content, a load of crap about some old Science Fiction programs that were axed for being too shit and travel blogs about places I've already been to.

'Gosh, really hope my readers like what I'm writing! I only do it for them anyway'

Hang on, no I won't. You can all go FUCK YOURSELVES. If you don't like it, don't fucking read it. But there is one I'd like you to do, if you have comments don't post them on the Facebook posting, put them on here please. The reason is, the Facebook stuff gets lost in the other torrent of shit that is the Newsfeed and at least they stay on here and are in context with each posting.

Yeah, just stop it.

Speaking of posting. I have just returned from the Post Office at Broom Lane. Fucking Hell, it was only an hour but I feel about forty years older the place had such a life-sucking effect on me. Recently I have got to know the different Post Offices around Rotherham quite intimately. The main one in town always takes a while as it is busy most of the time except in the afternoons when Rotherham becomes a ghost town for the most part besides around the Wetherspoons pubs, where beer is cheap and fights are often. There is another on Wellgate that is usually empty unless it's Pension/Giro day. This is no surprise given its close location to the feared Job Centre. The staff are VERY young in here and rather surly. They also, inexplicably have a dog behind the counter and it can get very disconcerting when you're asking to weigh a package whilst the young lady shouts 'Shurrup! Get down!' between asking if you want it sending First or Second Class.

'Can I send this to Rangoon, it's some silk stockings for a dear lady I met there in '43'
'Shurrup!'
'I'm sorry! All I want to do is to post this parcel.'
'Get off my leg!'
'How dare you? I fought in Two World Wars...'
'Stop shitting every where!'
'Boo hoo..'

The best by far is up at the Brecks. You walk in and are confronted by a section of brick-a-brack, second hand Robert Ludlum books, decades old Fishing Weekly magazines and most disconcertingly 'Treasure Hunter' metal detecting magazines from the 1980's. The place is like a Charity Shop and behind the counter are two old dears. Your heart sinks as you think you're going to be in there a long time as they work out how to turn the computer on. But no! Fear turns to pleasant surprise as they both are incredibly efficient at their jobs and burn through the pile of parcels in no time at all. Bam, in and out! The Brecks is so far away it feels like it's well over the County Line but it's worth the extra distance travelled to avoid going to Broom Lane.

Just the good ole' boys Never meanin' no harm Beats all you never saw, been in trouble with the law
since the day they was born Straightenin' the curves Postin' their mail...

To return to what I was saying, Broom Lane Post Office has the ability to suck the life out of you. It's like one big Derby and Joan club. The place is packed with pensioners withdrawing their life savings to stuff under the mattress, cos they 'don't trust the darkies running the banks', or sending a parcelled up kitten to their granddaughter working as an English Teacher in South Korea. Mind I think at least half of them were young and sprightly when they went in, they have just been waiting to be served for over fifty years. Because it is the slowest Post Office service in all of South Yorkshire, if not the country. If you had two parcels to send you'd be faster travelling to Land's End Post Office, posting one parcel, turning around and driving to fucking John O'Groats Post Office and posting your second parcel than you would waiting for an empty slot at Broom Lane. I was in there today as I only had a few parcels to post. I thought it wouldn't take too long, but boy, was I wrong. The queue was massive as usual, but the staff were oblivious to it as the customers at the counter were engaged in full flowing conversations about Bristol accents, travelling to Leeds conferences and how to be a Best Man at a wedding. I shit you not.

The best years of my life are passing by... I'll never have this time back again...

Eventually the queue thinned to an extent that I was finally seen. But my journey was not over yet. Not by a country mile. Every minute detail of the process was poured over by the Post Master, every press of the computer keyboard was deliberated to it's finite degree. Each address was meticulously recorded on the proof of purchase slip. I could feel another nail of my coffin slowly banging in as he printed and stuck each stamp on my post. I was stood there so long rigor mortis had set in on my left leg. Countless Aeons passed, great civilisations rose and fell before I handed over payment. The books in the parcels had long since turned to dust, but I was out of there! I could live and breath again! No more had my life been suspended in the Chryogenic process of the Broom Lane Post Office. The sooner they sack all the Post Office staff and replace them with robots, the better!

Let's create a social impetus for enjoying wearing our national dress

There has been little to report since my last entry, except I went to see Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese's latest film. As you'd expect from Scorsese it is well made, brilliantly directed and acted, the scripts were good, but it left me wanting. I felt the film wasn't as good as it could have been. It was let down by a couple of very unnecessary scenes and I felt as though half an hour's (at least) worth of cuts could have been made and it could have been an altogether tighter and gripping movie. It seemed slightly over indulgent and plodding. Not one of Marty's best. But it brings me to conversation Ninjasaurus Rex and I were having over another romantic lunch date about Scorsese's films. He said 'when I think of him, all I think of is Gangster films.' I protested and to shove it further in his stupid face here is a list of films directed by Scorsese with a 'G' to mark out the gangster films:

1. Sinatra (2011)
2. The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2011)
3. Untitled George Harrison Documentary (2010)
   
4. Shutter Island (2010)
5. "Boardwalk Empire" (1 episode, 2010)
   
6. The Key to Reserva (2007)
7. The Departed (2006) G
   
8. No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005)
9. The Aviator (2004)
10. Lady by the Sea: The Statue of Liberty (2004)
11. "The Blues" (1 episode, 2003)
    
12. Gangs of New York (2002) G
    
13. The Concert for New York City (2001)
    
14. Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
15. Il mio viaggio in Italia (1999)
    
16. Kundun (1997)
17. Casino (1995) G
    
18. A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995)
19. The Age of Innocence (1993)
20. Cape Fear (1991)
21. Goodfellas (1990) G
    
22. Made in Milan (1990)
    
23. New York Stories (1989)
24. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
25. Location Production Footage: The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
26. Bad (1987)
27. The Color of Money (1986)
28. "Amazing Stories" (1 episode, 1986)
    
29. After Hours (1985)
30. The King of Comedy (1982)
31. Raging Bull (1980)
    
32. American Boy: A Profile of: Steven Prince (1978)
33. The Last Waltz (1978)
34. New York, New York (1977)
35. Taxi Driver (1976)
36. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
37. Italianamerican (1974)
38. Mean Streets (1973) G
39. Boxcar Bertha (1972)

Hmmm. Not many there really is there? Five in fact, five out of a list of nearly forty. A list that doesn't include his really early shorter works. So Rex, STFU! And please don't try to tell me that Taxi Driver is a Gangster film, it's not, it's a vigilante film.

You talkin' to me?

This post went a little away from the topic I was going to write about, North Korea, so that will have to wait for another time. One final thing, I forgot to mention Young Matt's blog in previous posts. It's one I read and once you get past the atrocious grammar and spelling it's rather funny. Read it HERE.