2012 — 30 June: Saturday
The young people arrived, not too long ago, and are already asleep. Work seems to have that effect. Impossible though it clearly is1 — June is very nearly done, if not dusted...
How and when did that happen? I shall ponder while I, too, slumber. G'night. [Pause] And it's another day, this time with an added dash of sunshine.
What can one say?
The search for scapegoats has moved into the biochemical realm:
Still, the terribly nice chap in charge at one of the banks I now own 84% of (as a taxpayer) has magnaminously waived his £2,400,000 annual bonus in the wake of the software troubles2 — viewed in a certain light, I suppose this would be funny. I seem to have a life-long propensity to leave certain businesses and banks a little before things go (to use a technical term) pear-shaped.
Perhaps I should buy a suit and start testosterone injections? Though I've left it a bit late to attend Eton and become a Tory. It's nearly a quarter of a century since I had the following little financial tale to relate to my friend Carol in New York:
Are banks and other financial institutions as stupid and as full of incompetent morons in America as they are over here? Last March, my bank serenely paid the 25th of 24 monthly payments (on the number two video recorder I was wearing out) to the store I got it from. (Wonderful, isn't it, the way they're so good at disbursing other people's money?) Anyway, I didn't latch on to this right away, of course, since they only send bank statements when it suits them, not you. So, come late April, your hero finds himself £28-77 shorter than usual, though it doesn't take the organic Cray too long to realise what has happened. As my beautifully-written clear exposition of events wings its way to the bank that night, however, a rather terse epistle is already on its way to me from the store suggesting that I contact the bank to tell them to cease and desist their overpayments. (The store was at that point slightly more on the ball than the bank.)
To cut an unbelievigable (sic) exchange of letters and phone calls down to a reasonable size for VNET, I ended up with an electronic refund from the bank, and a paper refund from the store, both of which went into my account. (The bank insisted I should pay the cheque in; the store insisted I should accept their cheque.) And this after pleading with each institution that I was making a profit on the deal and that something, therefore, was surely amiss? Each side reckoned only they were right, and that the others must surely be of unfruitful sexual habits that were destined not to lead to population problems.
Today was the day of reckoning. As we're now in the middle of a postal strike (caused by arguments about the employment of casual workers to clear the backlog from last week's one-day token stoppage!) I had a phone call from the bank. Please can they raid my account to the tune of £28-77? But, say I, I told you so back in April. Ah, say they, I don't know who you spoke to Mr Mounce, but they were surely wrong and the books don't balance and, unless you cough up, Brazil might also decide to default and all hell will surely break out throughout the entire banking system of the Western world. Oh very well, say I, but don't take any more, will you?!
The bank in question — of course — was the one now prepared to hand out that £2,400,000 annual bonus. Time for breakfast, methinks.
Having watched me...
... for a while, working my way through some hand-written lists cross-checking recent(ish) book and other acquisitions against my 'master' database lists, I noticed an intruder on my network. Junior was now browsing, from his phone, for some "collector" software. He only found stuff I'd tried and/or rejected, but that's neither here nor there.
"Why don't you scan the barcodes and grab all the data off the web?" Brief discussion of the pros and cons. Then he sent me the following amusing tale.
They are now both productively employed out in you-should-excuse-the-phrase "my garden" wreaking death and destruction among the brambles and other such flowers of unrecognised virtue. Me? I have a fresh cuppa at hand. By the time I've drunk it, I expect they'll be ready to be taken out for a spot of lunch. Isn't Life grand?
And so it came to grass
Not that I have much of the stuff. And the ersatz grass that has been slowly (actually, not so slowly) taking over that ecological niche has now been through a process of rendition involving the use of three large green "garden waste" bags that were doing nothing much in one of the sheds for the last year or three. I foresee a trip to the local domestic refuse recycling centre in the near-term future. Before that, when the two young people have recovered, and eaten, I'm hoping to show them a film. It's already 20:16 though I don't understand how that can be.