August Bank Holiday

 I  often wonder, do banks really DESERVE to have a holiday? Considering the mess many of them got into in 2008 (I may have got the year wrong.) when the government bailed them out with taxpayer's money, THEY should be paying US!

Sunday. 11.35 a.m. We haven't had a proper church service for a few weeks now, because it's August, and the thinking is that, as most people will be away on holiday, there's really no sense in full service. Last week we had a community picnic and this week we have the famous church barbecue. I have made up a salad and done a few baked potatoes, which I put in the oven at around 6.30 this morning. I had gone to Sainsbury's yesterday after another of our prayer triplet sessions at a friend's home in Conniburrow. I then realized, when I got home, that I should have got something to drink to take with me. I drove to the Tesco Express store in Oldbrook Boulevard. Because of social distancing, you are supposed to follow a one-way system around the store. I picked up what I wanted and then made my way to the check-out, going to a manned till because there was someone using the self-service tills. I arrived at the back of a reasonably long queue and for some reason wasn't sure who was queuing. Then a young man let rip at me, accusing me of pushing in. Untrue, but he was adamant that I had. He continued to rant at me, using bad language which I won't repeat here. I thought he was going to end up hitting me, so I stood back. Then he hurled a packet of sweets or chocolates at me and then stormed off out of the store, continuing to rant and rave. It left me feeling somewhat shocked, and I think the same could be said of the rest of the customers who were queuing ahead of me. I have a feeling he was probably from a residential home nearby, probably with a severe type of learning disability or another mental health issue. Which made me wonder why he was allowed out on his own.

Monday. 11.00 a.m. So, Bank Holiday Monday! It's not exactly a baking hot day. Drizzling when I took out Alfie earlier. I'm not doing a lot, just pottering around. His Nibs is asleep on the sofa as I write this.

I had another odd dream last night. I know, most dreams are odd. I have mentioned before in these blog posts my time working in stage management and on one particular play I was A.S.M. on at Greenwich Theatre some fifty years ago, 'A Voyage Round My Father', written by John Mortimer. In the dream, I had a visit from his wife (not sure of her name.) She wanted to give me a copy of a book John Mortimer had written (I have no idea of its title.) and I told her about working on the play. She signed the book, and that was all. Strange, particularly as I haven't been thinking of that play or anything to do with it recently. Mortimer also wrote the Rumpole stories and television series, which I love.

Tuesday. 4.10 p.m. I am currently working on a sort of subplot for my writing project. I wouldn't call it a fantasy as such, but as my main character is a writer it's a sort of spoof of a genre of writing very much inspired by 'The 39 Steps' by John Buchan. I have always loved the Hitchcock version, which veers off course from the original story to a large extent. I watched the BBC television version which seems to stick to the original to some extent then uses some of Hitchcock's ideas and then changes the ending, what exactly are the titular 39 Steps? It seems as if each version has different suggestions, but it's one of those films and stories which is the blueprint of many later espionage thrillers.

Spring Has Sprung!!

Life during the last year, caused by lockdown to prevent the spread of the covid-19 virus, has been turned totally upside down. Just sitting in a small room, with only a little dog for company and rarely seeing another soul, except on Zoom or FaceTime, isn't my idea of how to spend your time. I'm used to be outside doing things, such as going to Camphill on a Tuesday, or even at church, generally going places. As a child my mother would never allow us to stay in doors during the day when we were on school holiday. The idea of daytime television would be totally frowned upon. In fact, I don't think we turned the television on until around 5 o'clock when children's television started. (Mind you, I don't think in the 1960's children's  television probably sorted somewhat earlier. 

(Tuesday) A mild and sunny morning here in Milton Keynes. Not much else to report at the moment (7.45a.m.)

Later. 9.55a.m. I've just got back from Sainsbury's. I had to collect meds from the in-store Lloyd's and I had a shopping list prepared so to kill two birds with one stone (sounds cruel, but never mind.) I thought I might as well get the things until I get paid next week. It's a good deal easier when there aren't lots of other shoppers in the store. It's still bright and sunny and reasonably warm. It's the sun which is encouraging the trees to burst forth with leaves and the flowers to bloom. So, you might say that spring has sprung at last

So warm I'm considering opening the windows and wearing my shorts! My goodness, what ever next?

 6.00p.m. Just heard on BBC News that it's been the warmest March day since 1968. People going mad in a Nottingham park. Crowds of people not paying attention to social distancing. Well, having been locked up for months on end you can hardly blame people for this sort of behaviour.

One of my all-time favourite film directors, Alfred Hitchcock, is reputed to have said 'Drama is life with the boring bits removed', or words to that effect. That's what is probably this blog is probably NOT, because I tend to write more or less everything which happens to me during the course of the day, mundane and interesting. It's really intended to be a sort of observation of human life, such as it is at the moment, and probably more so since all these lockdowns caused by the covid-19 pandemic. People are fascinating and I continue to be intrigued by those I observe. A good basis for my writing. 

I'm shocked to find that, on taking Alfie out for his mid-morning trot around Oldbrook Green, how much litter there is today. Yesterday, probably because some of the restrictions have been eased, was more like a Bank Holiday. A more carefree atmosphere, but people are being somewhat lax in their litter-dropping habits. The same can be said about the amount of dog fouling (sorry to mention it, but I must.) Not nice when there's children playing on the grass. And amongst all the plastic water bottles, coke cans, sweet wrappers and so on, I have to report that a large amount of discarded face-coverings seems to be getting worse. Surely it isn't to difficult to put them in a bin or even in your pocket until you can dispose of it in your rubbish when you get home, but apparently not it would seem,

Really warm and sunny. I actually went out WITHOUT MY JACKET this morning! I'm sitting here at 11.20a.m., busily writing this with the window open and the electric fan on next to me. It has got incredibly stuffy in this flat. The fact that the kitchen is boiling hot because you can't turn the heating down (which I think I have mentioned before on here.) doesn't exactly help. Have it warm when the temperature drops below freezing, when there's a hard frost or show outside (which we had for a couple of days during the winter months.) but is totally unnecessary to have it so warm. It means I can't leave some food items out, such as milk, because it will go off, or bread, and it goes stale faster. There should be some sort of control to turn the heating down, as you would have with central heating.

I mentioned the Zoom market research I did on Monday morning. I've already been paid, and it's in my bank account. I wasn't expecting it to be my my account so quickly, probably a week or two, but not days after the work was finished. I'm now having problems attempting to get into the on-line account to keep an eye on the balance. The number of passwords and 'security codes, etc is really annoying. I realise it's to keep things secure, but it is driving me crazy. Then it tells me 'account frozen' because I've made too many attempts. But I will get into it soon. My Nationwide account is so much easier to get into, with a card reader, into which you put your PIN number and then it gives a series of numbers which you put into the site and then you can see your statement. Easier than for the Metro account.

Been out and walking round Oldbrook Green. Groups of people sitting on the grass. The litter is worse than ever. 

(Thursday) A mild morning. I woke up and then went back to sleep and then didn't wake up until around 7.30a.m. It's not like me to sleep so late. I took Alfie out and we came back inside as we usually do. I took him out again at 10.00a.m. but we didn't go far as there was the possibility of rain. I felt a few drops and the sky was clouding over so we went back to the flat.

Pandemic Burnout

(Wednesday) Oh  no! Yet another press conference about the pandemic, shown on BBC1 tonight with Boris Johnson leading. I get the impression, right or wrong, that all the questions asked by the journalists are censored and some questions are evaded. You're not allowed to undermine the scientists or go again government guidelines regarding the pandemic. Oh dear! I just think Boris should be a good deal bolder and not listen that idiot Witty who keeps on saying that there'll be x thousands of infections and x thousands of deaths as a result of the covid pandemic when his predictions are inaccurate and produced from computer projections which have been out my umpteen thousands. He should listen also to other scientists who have produced far lower infections. Why on earth can't these press conferences go on the BBC news channel? When they're on BBC1 it means the early evening programmes are scrapped, at least one or two on BBC2. Pointless gets moved to BBC2. If people want to watch them, then go to the BBC news channel. I'm not sure it's not on there as well. Why does it have to be on two channels at the same time?

I listen to Julia Hartley-Brewer on Talk Radio. She's a good journalist and doesn't suffer fools. She's like me in that she doesn't believe the data that the mad scientists feed the government. I'm no sheep and have to do my own research as regards the pandemic. She was grilling some N.H.S. bureaucrat on the fact that hospitals are probably not as busy as they would be in a 'normal' winter. The testing system is flawed in that it gives false negatives, picking up 'dead' coronavirus. I could go on ad infinitum on this issue. As I've already said in the above paragraph, the government should be listening to a wider range of evidence from a wider cross section of research from more scientists before making lockdown decisions.

I had a weird dream last night. Well, nothing usual in that because most dreams, or at least those we remember, are odd. I was in a theatre. Took me back to when I worked in stage management. It was in Leicester. As I was an A.S.M. briefly at the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester in the early 1970s, perhaps not a surprise, but it wasn't clearly like the Phoenix. A theatre where some of the auditorium seats had been removed. I sat at a table with other people and one was an academic of some sort. I'm not sure what I was doing there. Was i part of the stage management team? Or about to be acting in a play? It seemed that it might have been a rehearsal. Some of the seats in the auditorium had been removed and some were facing the wrong way round to the stage. That's about it, but I've had several similar dreams, one where I had gone to Northampton (I think. But it seemed like Northampton.) and had been brought in at the last moment to be an A.S.M. or at least a member of the stage management team. I had no idea what the play was that we were involved in but I have had dreams where I am expected to take over a part, without knowing any lines and standing on stage and trying ro recall my lines. I think this is a typical dream that actors are supposed to have, having to take over a role at short notice and be an understudy for an actor who is ill or otherwise incapacitated. I think it is understandable when actors have worries about forgetting their lines.

I have divested the Christmas tree of it's decorations. I am so pleased with that little tree which I got from Waitrose. Absolutely perfectly for the flat. It hasn't dropped a single needle. My experience of 'real' Christmas trees is that, when you come to deal with them at the end of the festive period, you find the floor covered in needles. I have kept it watered during the Christmas period which might be the reason it has kept it's needles. After all, a real Christmas tree is like a house plant which needs care, particularly watering. 

The little Christmas tree is now outside in the community garden. I have given it another water, I hope it doesn't get lonely. It's going to be another frosty night and it won't like getting cold.

I got a text message from Nationwide to tell me that there wasn't sufficient cash in my account to cover a couple of Direct Debits which go out today. My only option was to go into the city centre and take out money from my second account, the NatWest and transfer it into the Nationwide. This had to be done by 2.30. I had around an hour and a half to accomplish this mission. I drove in and parked near the Point and rushed into the shopping centre. The carpark was virtually empty and when I reached the Nationwide I had to wait to enter as they're not letting too many people in and they have a one-way system due to the pandemic. I managed to take out enough to cover the Nationwide payment, from my NatWest account and I then had to wrestle with the cash machine. You can only pay in cash one note at a time and the thing was being difficult. Several of the notes I managed to insert in the slot were disgorged, but eventually I managed to get them all into the machine, but it was a tortuously slow procendure. It was as I walked back towards the car that I realised that I hadn't paid my parking ticket. I was in such a hurry that I clean forgot.

Very few of the shops were open. I think W.H.Smith and Boots were open, along with banks. Probably they are what they call 'essential.' 

I got back to the car to find a host of crows either sitting on the cars or all over the ground, like a swarm of flies. Very reminiscent to the Alfred Hitchcock film 'The Birds.' A couple were sitting on my car. Not the sort of bird you'd want to have an argument with, considering the look they give you with their beady eyes and their sharp and pointed beaks!

(Later) Boris is given ANOTHER press conference! How much more of this can a person endure? It's getting so tiresome. I know we have to be told, but endless ramblings and those miserable faced scientists and their graphs. Just turn off the television or watch another channel, which is exactly what I did. I put 'Pointless' on, which was on BBC2.

Claiming Benefits

As I explained yesterday (Wednesday) I went in to the Milton Keynes Civic Offices to attempt to deal with what I was told was a sort of discretionary top-up to my housing benefits. Milton Keynes Council will not pay all my rent, for some reason best known to themselves. I need to have the rest paid from this, whatever it's called. I drove back in to Milton Keynes centre for the third time this week, parking as usual near The Point (oh dear, what a sad sight it has become! A once major Milton Keynes landmark, a sort of iconic Milton Keynes building with it's metallic pyramid-shape now little more than a rusting hulk, the rest of the multi-screen cinema complex deserted, boarded-up and looking a real mess. Totally sad and a disgrace to let it rot like this. The first multiplex cinema complex in the United Kingdom. I could go on. No doubt the owners waiting until the price of this prime location goes up before selling it off to the highest bidder.) Anyway, rant over. But you have to admit that it rather lowers the time of the area and doesn't exactly give Milton Keynes a very good image if you were to arrive via bus and then see this disgrace. I walked in through the shopping centre. There are no end of black crows perched in the trees and you walk across the road, some strutting around on the pavement, giving an air of impending doom and disaster, rather like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's film 'The Birds,' based on Daphne DuMaurier's  creepy story.

Having reached the Civic Offices, a good walk through the shopping centre, I had to sign in using one of the computer terminals. The thing issues you with a printed ticket with a number on it and then you have to wait in the seating area and wait for your number to come up on one of the screens and a computer voice to call you to whichever desk. There weren't that many other people waiting, fortunately. A lot of odd people wandering about, a large party which was going to the offices upstairs presumably for some sort of meeting and signing in at the furthest desk. They don't have such a thing as a reception desk anymore, a similar system they have at my bank, the NatWest, which is right next door to the Civic centre. Someone sort of 'floating,' with a clipboard or an iPad, to greet you as you enter, and make sure you're signed in and on the correct 'path', either to sign up for benefits or something else. It amuses me the way the computerised voice gives you instructions as to where to go when you number is called. I'd be interested as to how it works. Does someone sit and record all the numbers and then they are stored in a computer system? I don't know how it manages to decide which 'chunks' of dialogue to broadcast and in which order. The voice doesn't manage to sound too realistic when it gets to the end of a sentence. It should go 'down' rather than 'up.' Which gives a somewhat weird style of delivery. Why is it a female voice? Do people react to a female voice rather than a male? All these sorts of things go through my mind as I sit and wait.

I had to wait about half an hour and then my number came up. Number 208. I could see the numbers going down on the screen. One of the reasons I made sure I was at the office early enough because the last time I went in there it was mid-morning and I had to wait a good hour-and-forty minutes, with screaming babies and people talking with loud voices on their mobiles.

So, I walked to the correct desk and sat down and told the clerk or whatever his title would be, why I was there, to be told that any discretionary payment applications could only be done on-line. Which annoyed me considerably, considering I had to drive into the city centre and park and then walk through to the Civic offices and wait in the queue. So, I left somewhat disconsolately. But at least I could do the application on this MacBook Air.

I was taken to Marks and Spencer at the shopping mall near the football stadium. for lunch by Ross Dilnot, Pastor at Shenley Christian Fellowship. He and other church members have been extremely supportive during the last few months and particularly at the time that Carol passed away.  This is one place that Carol and I came on a regular basis for coffee and something to eat.

When I got home I had to search on-line for the Milton Keynes council website and the discover how to do the application for the discretionary payment I mentioned earlier in this blog post. I got part-way through the application and then the site would not move on to the next page, with the 'spinning ball of death' refusing to allow me to continue with the application. After several more attempts (I refused to give up as I wanted the application done in it's entirety.) I eventually managed to complete it. I have also done an application for the Teachers' Pension in the hope that I might receive some sort of payment from Carol's pension from working as a teacher at Milton Keynes Academy. I had to include a copy of the death certificate as well as our Marriage Certificate. 

Lax Vax Max Cracks, Packs, Sacks!

I know it's a rather boring topic, but some boring things make interesting material for writers, surprisingly. A lot of what Alan Bennet writes about is just mundane. But it's brilliant mundane.  Drama is generally about life, but as Alfred Hitchock said about drama that it was life 'with the boring bits taken out.' And he knew one of two things about drama, considering he wrote and directed some of the best ever film thrillers. So, I'm going to mention that we've been having problems with our vacuum cleaner. But it doesn't mean I am going to now use it as the basis for a play or a short story. Although, on second thoughts, it could become the basis for something or other.

We were in the middle of Spring cleaning the house. Carol has been on Half Term this week and we wanted to vacuum the lounge. Over the past week or two I'd had problems with this Vax machine and couldn't get it to pick up even the smallest bits of fluff from the carpet. I'd cleaned out the various filters and emptied the dust compartment (it is one of those machines that doesn't have a separate bag. It has a clear plastic tube where the dust and rubbish collects.) Cleared everything, the brushes were working, the tubes were clear of fluff. Not a pleasant job, but it had to be done. I explained all this to Carol and she couldn't get it to work properly either. I wasn't sure how long ago we'd bought the thing. It was bought from Very, an on-line retailer and we've bought several things from them, so I decided to go on-line and look at the list of items and find out when it was bought. Important if you want to make a claim if the thing is still under guarantee. It turned out we'd bought it in July last year, so it would still be under guarantee. Then I decided to ring the helpline, whose telephone is conveniently displayed on a nice little sticker on the machine. I got a lovely female voice tell me that there was a 'technical fault' and that the phone lines wouldn't be available for at least another two hours. I decided that I wasn't going to wait until later to phone again. I'd give it another go in the morning. The label on the machine told me that the help line was open from '8.30 a.m. until 5.p.m.' So, this morning I rang at precisely 8.30- to THEN be told that they had changed the opening hours from '9 a.m to 5 p.m.' Really irritating me by now, as you can imagine. So, I attempted to ring a little after 9. I just got an endless menu of the what's and why for's and things this and that. I wasn't going to get to get through in a month of Sundays. So, I thought, it's obvious that Vax isn't interested in it's customers, and between us we eventually decided to buy a new machine. After all, if we'd had to send the thing back, even if it was still under guarantee, we'd have to pack it up and post it off and it would cost a fortune in postage, so it was probably going to be a good deal cheaper to buy a new one. You can spend good money buying an extended warranty or guarantee (I never knew what the difference was anyway and to be honest I don't think I'm too keen to find out, thanks all the same.) when it's probably a lot cheaper to just throw the old heap of rubbish in a skip and buy a new model which is, frankly, going to be a lot more efficient than the old model. These extended things are just a rip-off anyway and just a way of extracting more hard-earned cash out of your bank account. Some stores try and sell you these 'extras' when you buy certain things, for example, Curry's or Dixon's (which is all part of the same conglomerate, which also includes Carphone Warehouse). As I said earlier, it's just a way to make more profit and no doubt, extra commission for their staff.

So it was that, when we visited Sainsbury's a little later in the morning, we had a look in their electrical department and browsed the vacuum cleaners they had on display and decided to purchase a Russell Hobbs cyclinder vacuum cleaner, priced at a little over £50.  On  eventually getting it home and assembling it (not particularly complicated as it turned out.) it proved to be a good deal more efficient and easy to use than the Vax machine which it now replaces. A small machine which takes up far less space and probably far more efficient. I'm just annoyed that the Vax machine has barely lasted in a working state for less than a year and that it's so difficult to contact the manufacturer due to the incompetence of their telephone helpline or call centre or whatever you want to call it.