I've run out of titles.

I see that remarksman thinks I've offended those crippled supermen Tom Smith peoples the world with. But I have lots of troubliing dreams without annoying the mentally unusual. Besides, I didn't do down any spazs, as he says I did.

Something good about working in a charity shop: I get a discount on anything I dredge up from their stores. Don Bradman's Book today. A couple of others too. I notice the woman, the student girl, who works there is, as they say around these parts, "well fit". Average face, tremendous body.

I wonder what happened to Jeff Well, from over Rigorous Intuition blog way. He wrote a very good post called "The Strength of Venezuelan Steel", excellent it were. I don't think he'd write it now. He's obsessed with the idea that controlled demolition is irrelevant, as if the truth can ever be irrelevant. Just a distraction. Chaff, as that bloke who supposedly drove David Kelly to his death might say. Doesn't matter if it's true or not, it take's up too much time, or so Wells would have us believe. I don't know what changed his mind. He was once a died in the wool CDer (controlled demolitioner, of course).

Trouble is there's no one way to pursue the truth. If there was, though, it probably wouldn't be by ignoring and suppressing it in the interests of respectability. Communism tried that. Claimed to be the scientific way to run an economy. The one absolute truth. That's why people who disagreed with it had to be put in mental institutions, because they couldn't disagree and be both honest and sane.

The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent.
-- Orwell

I know it says intelligent, but it's close enough. Maybe they would just reeducate someone they thought to be stupid or ignorant, but someone who's intelligent and opposed to them is a danger to their position in the public eye and in their own world view. Must, therefore, be mental.

It's the same with capitalists now, although in the capitalist system it tends to be the oppressor class with their psychobabble based hypochondria who get the psychiatric treatment and the dissidents just get ignored. Laughed at, too. Look at George Galloway. I'm no big fan of his, but he's a proper dissident. There was a half-hearted effort by the intelligence services to wash his hands in Iraqi blood, of which they have a plentiful supply, but even that was mostly for the stand-ups.

"The Sun", 23 April, 2003:
*Sun can’t bribe George to come out of his £1/4m villa on the Algarve*
Traitor George Galloway refused to talk to the Sun at his Portugal hideaway yesterday - even after we offered him a tempting wad of 50,000 Iraqi dinars.

Spiritualism tried the same kind of trick, called itself the scientific religion. Claimed to be the first religion based entirely on reason and empirically proven fact. Problem: only room for one scientific religion per planet, and this planet was spoken for by close-minded empiricism. Spiritualism never stood a chance, poor little mite, no matter how many tricks the demons played.

Mind you, science hasn't done that much better. Like most priesthoods, especially those based on the initiatory principles of the mystery religions (universities taking the role of the Eleusinian caverns) they have become obsessed solely with form, not with content. Their lack of knowledge is greater than their knowledge, and whole fields of study they prefer to ignore. Mainly those with no major profit centres. Artemesinin cures leaukemia, it turns out, as well as malaria. You won't be hearing that on the cover of the New Scientist any time soon.

Geographers in Afric-Maps
With Savage-Pictures fill their gaps
And o'er inhabitable Downs
Place Elephants for want of Towns.
-- Swift

Of course, mapmakers are a bit more knowledgable these days, but scientists still write wordier versions of "there be dragons here" on there terra ingognitas. Not conducive to exploration. dont' want to get gobbled up by the dragons. Don't want to get lynched by the mapmakers' guild when you get back.

Now I've run out of content too.

Another week, I forget how many

Stephen: Not at all, come in, sit down. Coffee?
Hugh: Thank you.
Stephen: How do you like it?
Hugh: Decaffeinated, jug method, low mineral content filtered spring water, not quite brought to the boil with semi-skimmed milk and one Nutrasweet. Unstirred.
Stephen: Right. (Intercom) Mark?
Voice (Intercom distort): Yes.
Stephen: Do we still have that chemistry set in the office?
Voice (Intercom distort): 'Fraid not.
Stephen: Right, one coffee then please.

Lewis Chester wrote a book called "The Money", about Howard Hughes' legacy. He also wrotes books about the 1968 presidential campaign, the zinoviev letter, aristotle onassis.

A book called "Nazi Gold". Sayer and Botting. American troops in the Military Government of the American Zone of Germany involved in the white slave trade, smuggling drugs and radiological material (including uranium and heavy water into Soviet Germany), theft of quantities of buried Nazi loot, mostly in the form of sacks of foreign exchange but also gold. And, of course, platinum, radium, works of art, blocks of uranium, tanks of heavy water, anything that could be looted from the local houses. MI6 by Stephen Dorrill, at least I think that was the book, MI6 using E-boats to smuggle men into Soviet territory, using men to smuggle fags and Swiss gold watches into Communist countries.

Hugh, above as below, is the eponymous "House" in the American television series of that name. I've never seena n episode of that, but I heard enough to think it's unlikely that accent's fooling anyone. I heard some Americans in real life today, assuming they weren't just putting on the voices. In town for Europe's biggest antiques fair.

Stephen So, Mr Lully, you'd like a loan?
Hugh That's pretty much the size of it.
Stephen You mention in your letter that you're starting up a business and that you're interested in taking advantage of our new "Gredo" start-up package.
Hugh That's correct.
Stephen Yes, now first things first. What exactly is the product you're hoping to market.
Hugh Ah, yes. Brought some samples along as a matter of fact. Hugh gets out two small sachets. Haven't actually settled on brand names yet. But there's basically two products. The blue sachet is cocaine and the red is heroin.
Stephen I'm sorry?
Hugh My own market research and some work undertaken by the packaging and graphics team has revealed that cocaine is thought of as a fresher, brighter product, hence the blue, and heroin is warmer and more passionate, therefore red. You disagree? I'd value your input.
Stephen You're planning to distribute and sell drugs?
Hugh On the button. The market's there, I'm ready to go, and let's face it - Europe's open for business.
Stephen Ye-e-es.
Hugh Problem?
Stephen Possibly. Possibly.
Hugh I know what you're going to say. It's a market that up until now has been hedged about with a lot of rules and regulations, and let me tell you this. When I first began to look at this market, I thought to myself, "hey, I'd be better off manufacturing red tape". Hahaha!
Stephen Red tape, yes.
Hugh But thank God, times are changing. Whole new markets are opening up, and I'm ready to play them.
Stephen Right.
Hugh The demand is there, no question.
Stephen Uh huh.
Hugh The most exciting thing for me is that it's such a young market.
Stephen Really?
Hugh Immensely young. Consumer profiling indicates the twelve to fifteen-year-old segment. And if we can instil in them product loyalty, that's got to be good news.
Stephen Aha. But ... but ...
Hugh I know what you're going to say. "Do they have the income?" right? Well, what I always say is, "if the product's right, they'll find the income." Their mother's handbags, car stereos, old age pensioners, wherever.
Stephen Mmm. I meant, well ... I hesitate to use a word like this. I know it's old-fashioned. But do you think it's strictly moral?
Hugh I beg your pardon?
Stephen Is it moral?
Hugh Moral?
Stephen Yes.
Hugh I'm not sure if I've actually got any precise figures on that ...
Stephen Yes, I actually mean ... is it moral to do this at all? You know ... children and so on.
Hugh Well. Let me turn the question round and ask you this. Would you rather we stood by and watched the Germans, the Dutch, the South Americans take our market share? Where's your precious morality then?
Stephen Well ...
Hugh Up a gum tree without a paddle, that's where it is. The question is this. Either you believe in market forces or you don't.
Stephen Well actually, I'm afraid to say I don't.
Hugh You don't?
Stephen No. I used to of course, when I was a child, but like everyone else, I discovered as I grew older that it was all made up.
Hugh Made up?
Stephen Yes. I can still remember the exact moment. It was Christmas Eve. I can't have been more than about thirty years old. I couldn't sleep, so I crept downstairs and heard my parents laughing about market forces, and saying that they'd have to break it to me sooner or later. Bit of a blow, I can tell you. And then two years after that, I discovered there was no such thing as Father Christmas either.
Hugh You're kidding?
Stephen Oh sorry, did you ... ?
Hugh Yes I did. Tscch.
Stephen Oh dear.
Hugh Growing up, eh?

I had a dream

I can't remember anything that happened in this dream. The dream was more of a state of knowledge than of a particular series of events. I woke up from this dream in the middle of the night, I think Star Trek was on the BBC, and I made a note of something I had to remember, which is something I often do. "Aviddarr", it says. I seem to remember that it was a name, or more precisely part of a name. A surname, perhaps. Unfortunately I can't remeber anything else about it, except that I was under the impression that it was of great importance.

I see the Office of Fair Trading have done their usual business loving trick: they've decided to take the banks to court over bank charges, an illegal practice the banks indulge in to their massive profit. Many people have got their money back from the banks through the courts but the OFT has decided that all such claims should be immediately suspended for the duration of the as-yet only theoretically upcoming courtcase. It's a deal they've done, the news said. I see what the banks got from this deal, I don't see what the OFT got in return. That's the point of doing a deal, isn't it? Both sides getting some of what they want? All that's happened here is that the banks have been given permission to continue their illegal doings with impunity and the people have been forbidden from challenging them until the end of the court case the OFT are supposedly going to bring eventually. Thanks a lot OFT. The worst case scenario for the banks, therefore, is that they have a couple of years or so, for these cases are incredibly slow even once they get going, of doing what they like and having their way with the public. More likely the OFT will fuck up the court case, the first court case on this issue that will set a precedent, and no-one will be able to reclaim their money from the thieving banks again.

More interesting is the BBC News' presentation of this. I didn't note down the exact words, but it was along the lines of "Have the banks been providing a good service or have we been expecting too much". In other words, are they right or are we wrong? No, of course, and no. We are right and they are wrong. Thieves. Law breakers and outlaws.

I don't supoprt the ragged trousered philanthropist. Whoever's in charge these days seems to want to bring in a government by philanthropy, rich people coulntarily giving their money up for schools and so on (see City Academies) out of the goodness of their hearts and to have their name on the front of the school. Of course with City Academies most of the cost is met by the taxpayer, but my point stands, I think. Philanthropy, in the unlikely event that you can find any (meaning rich people using their money for normally, these days, governmental purposes like providing schools and medical care), has never worked. It's rare, you don't get to be rich by being charitable, but that's not really relevant. Philanthropy was thought in the nineteenth century to be a very good idea but it was abandoned by society at large specifically becaus eit didn't work. It's not on anyway, the education and health of the poor relying on the ill-gotten gains of the rich being doled out to them by their self-proclaimed betters, but there's simply never enough money available to achieve the purposes it's supposedly meant for unless it's coerced byt he government.

Aviddarr. If you know what that means, or what the rest of the name might have been that my brain was trying to tell me about, make sure to get in touch.

Raust lo dop

In my notes yesterday I had written "raust lo dop", or so I thought. It's really "racist to dog". Just a story I heard at the A4E office. About a man being done for being racist to a dog. Shouting at it, get out of my garden you black bastard. Had to pay it £30 compensation. He'd seen the charge sheet and everything. Like the old man in the wheelchair who got done for saying "bloody foreigners" to a couple of bloody foreigners. Girls.

QIM - anti-feminism and his mystical Rosicrucian loving spazs.

Job Search Day

Here is a remarkable blog post. Glenn Sacks, who I'm ambivalent about. Jail for masturbating. Jail for masturbating in jail, in fact. Indecent exposure, they say, victimising the female guard who was spying on him through a camera connection.


Half day at the New Deal Office today, due to staff training.


It's interesting the things you hear in a New Deal office. And the things you see. Today I was overhearing a nice little story about why one of the attendees was late, something to do with a riot at the KFC, when he pulled the front of his hoodie up at the neck to form a face-protecting balaclava, which attaches to the hood section making the wearer look like either a terrorist, a bank robber or a member of the SAS. I also heard the word "scutterpig", not something I hear everyday. Don't use it on Radio 4, they don't.

I think I've pointed out how little I like the sound of human voices. Like a grater on my nerves, it is. I have trouble deciphering them, which doesn't help. There is someone sitting next to me in the library who talks far too much, with one of his little friends. He's the one who seems to be wearing perfume. He's always arseing about at the library, talking very loudly in an annoying voice with one of his band of homosexual followers. At least, I assume they're homosexual. They're extraordinarily camp, anyway. The sleeveless T-shirts and wristbands, the single earing (a well known gay code of dress before being adopted by effeminate youngsters), the bristly pseudo-military haircuts. The lisp. The perfume. They're whinging about the iniquities of someone called "Dane", who I believe I met at the New Deal office. They're arguing about going to see the Transformers movie. Ooh, must be straight, then. They could just be camp, mind. They were talking about a Kit, which could be a man or the car from camp 80s TV programme "Night Rider", but I think is probably the Kit who is an occasional volunteer at the charity shop.

It seems difficult to understand why finding a job would be so hard. Even in a meritocratic society where everything is based on certificates and experience and the shiny clothing you wear. There was a Panorama a bit back where a couple of undercover reporters just walked in off the street and were straight away hired as professional fishmongers and butchers, in which they had previously had minimal expertise. That's never happened to me. Of course, they're RP speaking and with the weight of the BBC behind them acting like MI6 providing fake references and all that sort of thing. FW Demara had no problems, though. He became a monk, although he was sacked, he tried again and ended up stealing the monastic car. He became a teacher, although he had no relevant qualifications, and became a Naval surgeon although he had neither qualifications, nor experience and was, in fact, a deserter from the armed forces of his own country.

Oscar the death cat, I notice, appears on both Football365 and on the rigint message board.

Back to A4E tomorrow (again)

Someone on the RI message board seems overly paranoid about me. Thinks I'm trying to "bait" him into something. I'm not. I'm just talking about books. Bax, too. Bax anti-feminism and socialism. Weininger anti-feminism and weird Nazism, along with existential specualations about the nature of consciousness. And, as I say, Dingwall.

I saw a film a bit ago, I've seen it before, called "The Transporter". Sounds a bit like "The Trainspotter", which might be a more interesting movie. I've seen another film called "The Big Hit". Very similar, they are, except that The Big Hit claims to be a spoof. If it hadn't been made before the Trainspotter I might think it was a spoof of that very movie. All the same, right down the the captive Chinese girl in the boot of a car. The one in the Big Hit might be Japanese, I'm not sure how to tell.

But Falling Down and They Live are better films.

Another Tuesday

I think my little seat in the library is quite a usual one. Man wearing perfume, or some smelly chemical stuff tha annoys my nose. A couple of Polish people talking loudly. Very impolite, these Polish people. I was quite happy when the local Polish population was limited to the Polish War Graves. Much like those Polish people in the most recent of Harry Enfield's programmes they look down their oddly-shaped foreign noses at you.

As I've said, my berth at the charity shop has shown me that it's tremendously over-staffed. Well, that was even more the case today. The area manager swanned in with her entourage, like the hearthtroop or some medieval tyrant. She brought along another volunteer, some woman who didn't seem to be there for any reason and a young relative. The second manager turned up for a few minutes, too, although she's meant to be off for the next few weeks "sick". She stayed around just long enough to slag off her fellow manager. As I've said, I don't understand all this back-stabbing.

Mind you, don't think they extra staff (all female, of course) got any extra work done. Between them they did more or less nothing, certainly less got done that it does when they aren't there. Similarly, don't think any of them felt the need to do any kind of carrying. You think I was superman and they were all as fragile as Matty Upson, the balsa-wood centre-half. Up and down all day long, I was. I wouldn't have though a box of batteries would have been so heavy.

Martin Short wrote a book about the Mafia criminal conspiracy (Maheu and Susurluk included) and one about the Masons. He's not the only one to write books on different subjects which interest me. Eric Dingwall: writer on psychic issues and anti-feminist issues. Anyone familiar with spiritualism in the twentieth century will rcognise the name, but his "American Woman" is considerably less well-known. Of course, there are reasons to be concerned about Dingwall, although I can't remember what they are. As I could only remember about TWA800 that a naval vessel was fleeing the scene soon after and that someone aboard was the target (as with Lockerbie) (I seem to recall that I didn't even note down the name of the target in my little note book, it's just something I've picked up somewhere an squirreled away in my subconscious, so I don't know who it was (contactee, drug dealer, intelligence agent, could've been anyone, anyone have a passenger manifest?)). So, I'm paranoid about Dingwall and I don't know why, but my brain doesn't normally steer my wrong. Even so, The American Woman is a good book. Best book on feminism there is, perhaps barring the works of E Belfort Bax.

Something to be thinking about.

Need for Heed

I've been looking for a picture of Forklift Driver Klaus. Haven't found one. Seem something, though: it was Klaus' first day on the job, which is the subtitle of the film.

I saw something slightly alarming this morning. I was at the supermarket buying my breakfast, as I do most mornings, and I looked at the cover of the New Scientist. I was alarmed. Remote control for the human brain, it said. Anyone would think there were publicly acknowledged technologies that can control human minds! (See my exchange with the Fortean Times, the bastards.)

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22117956-2,00.html

Now, why have I got that link there? I'll have a look and see. Oh, I see. The police wrote the names of some terrorists in a suspect's diary, then tried to ask him why he had the names of terrorists in his diary when he claimed he was innocent and unconnected to them. Just used it as notepaper, apparently. Good old police, eh? Just jotting down the names of terrorists, no particular reason, and used the nearest bit of scrap paper. Of course, had to get it out of the evidence bag first.

Centro Mundiale Commerciale: World Trade Centre. International Trade Mart. Permindex. Gladio. BND 2, Ganser. BND's CMC. In Switzerland. Permindex. Not a lot of people know that, you know. Not a lot of people have read Ganser's book. Not a lot of people have spotted that 9/11 knocked down or blew up a building named the same as the CIA cut out they used to kill Kennedy. In Switzerland and Italy was the homosexual. The Italy is Gladio. Many things were going on in the World Trade Centre, to translate the Italian name, but not a lot of trade. Lots of CIA money. Trade to start with, profit, crime later. CMC American branch: "International Trade Mart". Well, that's similar, but why not World Trade Centre? These people plan a long way ahead. Sometimes they seem to lose when it's really just a feint. Did the Nazis lose World War Two? Hitler did, unless those rumours about the South Pole are going to include him, but Hubertus Strughold didn't. None of those industrial conglomerates did, either. Planned Parenthood won World War Two, and so did Paul Schaeffer of Colonia Dignidad. So did the Dulles brothers, but we lost the war.

Isandlhwana was a victory for the Zulus and the Battle of Britain for our island race, but the Zulus lost and so did we. We just had cleverer enemies than the Zulus did.

I heard the news today. Oh boy. AK won the election in Turkey. Meet the new heroin smugglers, same as the old heroin smugglers. That's why the military aren't overthrowing THIS democratically elected Turkish government. It's not just the avoid pissing off the EU, although that wouldn't please the globalists. It's because the Islamists aren't lefties. They're only too business friendly. But the BBC has given the new coup-free Turkey the seal of approval: AK are moderate, they say. Hamas, the same "news" story said, are radical. Not surfer talk. One democratically elected fundamentalist movement moderate, the other radical. No real difference of policy. Hamas, though, were set up to do just as they're doing. Perhaps the plans haven't been followed exactly, with all those dead Israelis, but it's close enough. Hamas was made by Israel to split the old left wing secular consensus of the Palestinians and to divide and conquer the Christians from Muslims. The population of Palestine was a third Christian then, a tenth now.

Fun house, it's a whole lot of fun, with prizes to be won.

People suggest "there's no such people as the Palestinians". Not true. They were known to the Ancient Egyptians as the Pelest and the Bible as the Philistines, but they're the same people.

Where was I? CMC, right. Trouble makers. Of all the people who read the Ganser book did no-one else see the CMC - BND2 connection? Well, there you go. Dorrill didn't even mention Gladio in his survey of post-war emigree networks "MI6". I will soon read his book "Smear", which was a Gladio coup attempt. So, Kevin Coogan is a privatised spy. Stephen Dorrill is apparently some kind of Tory MP (I assume it was him and the news misspelt his name, a bit of a coincidence otherwise). Ganser ignores Gladio's global reach: North America, South America (fourth reich, drug dealers). Still, these things happen.

End of week three, must keep count

I've not had much to do with women in the past, I'm glad to say, and I'm not entirely glad to have to deal with them now. I'm not used to all this back stabbing. Luckily they don't think of me as being one of them so they happily stab each other in the back in front of me. All very pally to their faces, of course, but not behind their backs. The shop, I think I've mentioned, has two female managers and an infrequently present female area manager. The one manager is off sick now, and for the foreseeable future. She always seemed slightly sinister to me, but it's the other manager who's been vigourously betraying her to the area manager.

I've been getting more angry about yesterday, the two A4E staff wittering about me behind my back. I don't like that at all. Still, New Deal is like a force of nature, it's just an irrational thing that comes along and proves bad things happen to good people. It just has to be suffered through until it's over and things can go back to normal. Like a plague of locusts to a biblical peasant.

An A4E week over, anyway

I feel like one of these brave heroes/captured terrorists. Whichever you like.

Sonia is jetting off to Prague, apparently. As I say, the big difference between us dole scroungers and them dole-scroungers is that they get a lot more money out of it. And that's quite a big difference, really.

I was having quite a nice day this morning, considering I had to be at that awful place. I just read the papers, which is far the most useful way to spend your time when you're in a New Deal office. Then Sonia gave me another project to do, another piece of busywork and time wasting. Something to do with catering. They misspelled vegetarian, I notice. She was amenable to the idea, which I tried to put on her, that it was a waste of time. So, I wasted a bit of time on that. It was so dull it made me long for the days when I was doing a warehousing project. Then she called me grumpy, the cheeky mare. Too right, I'm grumpy. I've got every reason to be grumpy and I was in a particular grump at that stage. I should, perhaps, have told her how I feel and where she can stick her New Deal course.

I am, remember, there against my will. I'm expected, despite being forced to attend, to do more or less nothing all the time and, if I get owt to do it'll be badly spelt busywork. On the whole this might be lucky, with all those idiots shouting at the top of their voices I can't concentrate on doing anything anyway. I don't like noises. The louder the worse, and I'm particularly unfond of the human voice, which I have great difficulty parsing. All this womanish wittering in unreasonably loud tones of voice gets on my nerves. Then they give me these things that they can't even be bothered to spell check. I, remember, am the one who's unemployed. "Preperation". "Vegitarian". The entire document supposedly teaching me how to write letters. I wouldn't even have been able to tell which letters were meant to be good and which were examples of badly written letters if it weren't for the bad one having "bad" written on it. Got that right, anyway. Man there named Kenneth. Name descended from Cunedda, one of the Gwr y Gogledd (or Men of the North) in the Dark Ages, which weren't really all that dark.

So, yes, I'm a bit grumpy.

It is what you make it, I believe someone once said to me. Not true, it is what it is. I don't blame Sonia personally. She's posh and dopy. Nice but dim, if you prefer. No doubt not inclined towards introspection.

I hear on the radio that they're raising the driving age because drunk young men kill most women, indeed the made it sound like more young women are killed by young male drunk drivers that by all other causes put together, which I rather doubt.

On a related subject foreign Lindsey apparently has a friend who accused a man of rape wrongfully, luckily the police didn't pursue as Lindsey (spell how you please) had told them that she was a habitual liar. Still, hold the feminist line: women never lie about rape.

Dread

Back to A4E tomorrow. The charity shop is not ideal, but it's better than that place.


I feel like someone's skivvy, skivvy-work's most of what I'm doing.


Googlegroups is still playing up. I wonder if that's just for me.


I wonder what A4E will have me doing all day tomorrow. It could be sitting around doing nothing again, that seems most likely. This big problem with the charity shop is overstaffing. As I say there are two managers, always at least two volunteers and sometimes as many as four volunteers, along with regular visits from the area manager and so on. A couple of young volunteers, preferably not the usual old biddies, and one manager would be more that enough. They've got me up in a blimmin' uniform now too, buggerit.

But enough of my problems.


I saw a black woman on TV this morning. BBC Breakfast, it was. I don't go out of my was to watch that, but I woke up and it was on. She, this black girl, was a poster-girl for the government's new plan to force "lone parents" onto their beloved New Deal. It was an advert, basically, a black woman who was supposedly living on benefits but somehow managing to live in a house of respectable size (not like my poky little bedsit, I must say) with various trendy clothings and so on. She looked every inch the respectable middle class woman very much not fallen on hard times. New Deal isn't meant for people like that. And beauty creams aren't meant for the beautiful people in the adverts, their meant only for people who are both ugly and incredibly stupid.

The New Deal, similarly, is meant for the hopeless slum-dwellers you find popping up so often in Coppersblog and so rarely in the mainstream media. "Chavs", as they say - and I've no doubt they would include me in that. I am, after all, in a New Deal placement. No, this black woman who went to the jobcentre one day to pick up her Giro, or modern electronic equipment, and was being serviced by a friendly private-sector New Deal consultant the next day and was in work with the government paying for her child care and buying her interview clothes on the third day is a myth. Or, at least, an entirely affluent phenomenon. Someone who already dresses like an off-duty catwalk model and is the sort to be picked to appeal to the clueless housewives who watch Breakfast is going to be easily able to find work anyway. My own situation is more normal: you're forced from the jobcentre, although I was signing on a year before being sent on New Deal because the Jobcentre people were dragging their feet for six months, but you're forced from there to the New Deal office and then you sit around for a bit doing the odd bit of paperwork until they find you some skivvy-work for which you get not a single penny and the company who "hire" you get paid to take you on, as well as getting a free labourer who is incapable of any kind of protest.

But isn't the BBC massively anti-government? Why are they advertising, albeit in a blatant and possibly counter-productive manner (depending on the level of intelligence present in the average "Breakfast" viewer)? The BBC has never been anti-government.

Here's a quick list of the BBC's major crimes, from my point of view on the extreme left wing of the political spectrum:
Orgreave, the BBC doctored footage to make it look like the miners had stoned the police and the police retaliated with a cavalry charge, when the reality was the other way around, the police attacking and the miners, half-naked hordes being chased along by the cavalry and shield-banging savages of the the imperial infantry, just trying to survive.
Mossadegh, the BBC fired the starting gun on the overthrow of Mossadegh, via the World Service.
Gladio, the BBC also started the overthrow of the Italian government by the Super SISMI by a World Service broadcast.
The 1926 general strike: the BBC performed so well the government gave it a charter, under which it operates to this day.
Cchristmas tree files, the BBC lets MI5 vet and approve all personnel. Been in the Communist party? Better get a new career, because the BBC-dominated (and therefore MI5 dominated) broadcasting industry isn't for you.

That's enough for one day, I think.

All a bit skew-whiff

I can't get onto googlegroups. That's rather taken the wind out of my sails. Something I'd like to say, though: Nottingham supposedly has five times as many women as men. And, of course, more per-capita gun crime than anywhere else in the civilised world.

I see I have a comment. I am very fond of Tom Jones. Rhodri Morgan, when first minister of Wales, tried to ban his song Delilah from Welsh rugby matches. Advocates violence against women apparently. To think. Good old Welshman wouldn't stand for it, though. Good song, that.

My time in slave labour

I was just looking for a quote by Cato on the internet. First thing that came up: Cato women's apparel.

This is the one.

I have learned something today which I like to think I would never have known if I hadn't eneded up in a shop that sells clothes: it's not possible to tell a blouse from a women's t-shirt. The only variation is that some people are more proud in the ignorance that others.

Another bad thing about a placement: they don't let me leave early. At least at A4E they realised there was nothing for me to do and let me go early. It's all women at my placement, beside myself. A couple of old women of the type you might expect to find in a charity shop (either shopping or working), a woman apparently in her time off from Uni and two lairy northern managers. The managers are the only ones who get paid, so I'm very glad the Charity doesn't feel the need to stint on them. Can't have all that money being wasted on the needy, can we?

Thundercats. I used to have them on my wallpaper when I was young. The young woman there will now have them on her curtains, having commandeered a set.

90 day detention. Without charge, of course. Bunch of idiots, the government. Should be one day. At most. Don't arrest if you haven't got the evidence to charge them, if you've got the evidence you don't need 90 days. I know how they feel. 13 weeks is about 90 days.

Another blog.

I missed File on Four over the weekend. It looked like a good one. It's far better than Panorama, none of the sound and fury. Radio's better than TV, you know. My favourite was the one on the pathfinder inititative.

I have seen strange things, things which relate to me. People watching outside my window, for example. I mean just standing that. Kids, they were, a few years back. Just standing outside the window looking in, totally immobile. Didn't like it, I didn't. This area is a favourite of the horse slashers. And, of course, I once saw an inverted pentagram made of scaffolding poles at the side of a major road. I don't know why. There's a building near hear called Imperial Hall with a masonic "A" in both words. Square and compass.

I'm not big on poetry, barring WS Gilbert and the Great MacGonagall, but I like this:

FOR certain minutes at the least

That crafty demon and that loud beast

That plague me day and night

Ran out of my sight;

Though I had long perned in the gyre,

Between my hatred and desire.

I saw my freedom won

And all laugh in the sun.

The glittering eyes in a death’s head

Of old Luke Wadding’s portrait said

Welcome, and the Ormondes all

Nodded upon the wall,

And even Strafford smiled as though

It made him happier to know

I understood his plan.

Now that the loud beast ran

There was no portrait in the Gallery

But beckoned to sweet company,

For all men’s thoughts grew clear

Being dear as mine are dear.

But soon a tear-drop started up,

For aimless joy had made me stop

Beside the little lake

To watch a white gull take

A bit of bread thrown up into the air;

Now gyring down and perning there

He splashed where an absurd

Portly green-pated bird

Shook off the water from his back;

Being no more demoniac

A stupid happy creature

Could rouse my whole nature.

Yet I am certain as can be

That every natural victory

Belongs to beast or demon,

That never yet had freeman

Right mastery of natural things,

And that mere growing old, that brings

Chilled blood, this sweetness brought;

Yet have no dearer thought

Than that I may find out a way

To make it linger half a day.

O what a sweetness strayed

Through barren Thebaid,

Or by the Mareotic sea

When that exultant Anthony

And twice a thousand more

Starved upon the shore

And withered to a bag of bones!

What had the Caesars but their thrones?

Yes, I'm fond of that one. I prefer music, generally speaking. Lucy, by The Divine Comedy, for example. Good one, that. I like pictures too. A thousand words and change too. What now, then? I meant to say something about Nimrod and Tammuz, but it's a bit late now. Still, enjoy the above.

Madeleine McCann (twice in one day again)

Christianity isn't an unphysical religion. As Sabine Baring Gould has said, the unique thing about Christianity of all the modern religions is that the aim is to control the body, not to abnegate it. Weird things about the Mccanns. They've been on the local news, they were from somewhere near here. Down Leicester way, I think. As I say, there are things on the church railings dedicated to her, I think it's safe to say she's dead by now.

http://ben-fairhall.blogspot.com/ -

In 1974, however, to signal that the Age of Iron was drawing to a close, Dick claimed that the NBC television network broadcast a cipher conveying a subliminal message of renewal. This consisted of a cryptic reference to ‘the fifth Saviour’, destined to lead humanity into a new age; who, according to VALIS, was either shortly to appear or was already alive. The cipher was just two words long: KING FELIX, ‘the Happy (or Rightful) King.’

Happy Toxic.

I don't like this bit:

But this would overlook the fact that trauma, mental or physical, is another way of breaking the limits of the ego and penetrating beyond ordinary consciousness. (As the occult conspiracy well knows.) And Gerry has lost his child...

Why should anyone break the bounds of his ego. Good stuff, ego is. Ego is the barrier between us and the outside, beyond. No-one should go wondering aimlessly in the outer darkness, nor should they be under the impression that they can navigate themselves beyond those parts of the mindscape fmailiar to mankind.

It's like John Buchan says, a weakened ego make people go oriental, too much mind and too little matter. Too cowardly and effete. Women, of course, have weak minds. Don't purposely try to bypass your own strength. Buchan:

The civilised is far simpler than the primeval. All history has been an effort to make definitions, clear rules of thought, clear rules of conduct, solid sanctions, by which we can conduct our life. These are the work of the conscious self. The subconscious is an elementary and lawless thing. If it intrudes on life two results must follow. There will be a weakening of the power of reasoning, which after all is the thing that brings men nearest to the Almighty. And there will be a failure of nerve.

I have more to say on the works of Mr Fairhall, but I'm out of time.

End of Week Two

Something to ponder on: I'm in a library. On a shelf I was looking at, in the fiction section, is a book called "Operation Glenn Miller" by a man with a german name and with a mark at the top of the spine saying "(sig-rune) (sig-rune) WOTAN SERIES". A book nearby is "Hitler Youth Attacks", by the same author, with the same Wotanist markings.

I see this from football365: 'The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) is calling on high street books to pull a Tintin adventure from its shelves over claims it is racist.

'Complaints about Tintin in the Congo have led to Borders and Waterstones moving it to their adult section.

'A spokeswoman said the book contained "words of hideous racial prejudice, where the 'savage natives' look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles".

'The CRE spokewoman said: "How and why do Borders think that it's okay to peddle such racist material?"

'"The only place that it might be acceptable for this to be displayed would be in a museum, with a big sign saying 'old-fashioned, racist claptrap'' - BBC.

I don't think this is the right message to be sending to book shops. Sell Mein Kampf and no-one minds, sell Tin Tin and get complaints.

That's what matters these days, though, the three 'W's. Wogs, women and woofters.

Every conspiracy has a weirder conspiracy within it. Cesar killed RFK, but Sirhan was hypnotised. His hypnoprogrammer had a sone who wrote a book about abductions. Alien ones, that is.

The economic hitman was some kind of psychic healer, see rigint for that one, "Economic Shapeshifter".

Once upon a time I had no money so I could afford no food. You know what happened after three days? I started vomiting, that was a surprise. It was only acid, of course.

Nothing to post today.

It's first thing in the morning. I had a visit at my placement from Sonia for A4E, delivering my timesheet. Today, it turns out, I'm to go to my placement, but they don't want me until this afternoon.

In order to be at one with the Static Cosmos, one must achieve a state of supreme stillness.
This state is known as Apathy.
The word APATHY derives from the Atlantean. A-PATH-Y.
A meaning A. PATH meaning PATH. And Y being an abbreviation of WHY. Quite literally A PATH TO THE MEANING WHY.
-- Robert Rankin, "The Book of Ultimate Truths"

Watch Adam Curtis. He shits on Michael Moore.

On edit: I must remember to post about Madeleine McCann. She's still getting on the news. when I have a break I go and stand near the church and upon the railings is a yellow ribbon and a small cuddly toy, evidently placed there for the missing girl. This blog mentions some of the oddities about her. There are some others.

Unpaid labour hurts my back.

Well, dear reader, being out of the New Deal office doesn't make it an easy option.

My first day at the work placement arranged for me showed me that, muscular as I am, I'm tremendously unfit. My musculature is entirely geared to push ups and sit ups, not to hunching over a desk attaching labels to used clothing and even less so to repricing entire shelves of videos to 99p each. I have a pigeon chest, in other words. I don't like standing, let alone stooping, still. I think my ideal job would involve walking very quickly in very cold weather, preferably early in the morning. If you know of such a thing, please get in touch. Those chocolate biscuits seem less than entirely celebratory, now.

Still, the day hasn't been a total loss. For the first time since I was at school I heard the word kushdi. I'm afraid I'm not sure that's the correct spelling. It's phonetical enough, so I don't see why not.

While I'm on the subject of the vernacular of my childhood, I should go further. Yesterday I proved my previous supposition that strange people are found at both New Deal and in the library. Someone, one of this week's newcomers, so I don't know his name, from the New Deal course was at the library. Talking. Loudly. I heard him use the word emo. Never heard it before, though I've read about it. When I was young things like "chav" were new and "choring" (stealing) and "chinging" (bad) were still being used. Kecks was another one, meaning underwear.

Keeping with my childhood and language, when I was young it seemed that life was so wonderful, a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical. No, when I was young it was more important, pain more painful and laughter much louder, yeah. No, when I was young she was always on my mind, my mind felt like this because, she was the one who ruined my world, and killed me from the start. You are always on my miiiiiiind. You are always on my mind. No, that's all wrong, let's give up on lyricism.

When I was young I listened to a different song. I listened to the Boo Radleys, Supertramp and the Divine Comedy. It was the 90s, you know. But one song has always stuck in my mind. It was on an educational video, presumably originally and educational TV programme, which they forced down our throats at school. The only lyrics I remember are "magic magic E". You wonder why the drugs war is failing! Bugger Harry Potter with his own wand, although he hadn't been dreamt up back then, let's look at the use of the letter 'E' and its place in punctuation.

There are two other incidents that stick in my mind from school, both from primary school as my attendance at secondary school was erratic at best. The first is being sent to ask the headmaster a question and repeating the answer in my head so I wouldn't forget it, only to garble it and effectively forget it. The second is not getting full marks in a maths test. Until, that is, I pointed out that I was right all along and the teacher was forced to admit her mistake. I'm no fan of amateur psychology (much less of professional psychology), but perhaps to this incident I could trace my life-long antagonism to authority, if I was so inclined. But I won't.

Two posts in one day is excessive

This is the original letter I sent to the Fortean Times, before it was edited:

Regarding the article of the Random Dictionary of theDamned [223:51-3].

The Hierophant's Apprentice is a blithering idiot.

He uses the usual "sceptic"'s trick or presuming aconspiracy (or in this case all conspiracies) untrueand using psychobabble instead of rational argument,as "sympathetic" writers always do. Treating, in otherwords, the questioning of authority as a psychologicaldisorder instead of a legitimate opinion. The appealto authority as sacrament rather than fallacy. Like the media dealing with the Olsens in Jon Ronson's goatbook. It is a disconfirmation bias.

The official position is obviously more weighty to youthan evidence, but here are three confirmed conspiracy"theories" anyway, the McMartin preschool was found byan archaeologist ot be riddled with man-made tunnels,a jury found that Martin Luther King was killed by aconspiracy of government agencies and nothing need besaid beyond the bare words "Operation Gladio".

Beyond that he implies that conspiracy theories arelikely to be suffering "incipient schizonphrenia" andapplies his disconfirmation bias to the hearing ofvoices in the head. Dr Smirnoff long ago proved thatit is possible to beam voices into a human mind thatdon't belong there, the technology is available, butlet's not let the facts get in the way, eh?

He trots out the deluded idea that it's somehowcomforting that Bush, rather than a mad Arab, attackedthe WTC (doesn't comfort me, I must say, it is ratheralarming ("The individual is handicapped by comingface to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannotbelieve it exists." -- J. Edgar Hoover)).

He says the US government is "democratically accountable". The man needs psychological help.
I hope I need say nothing of the fascist apologetical quote that ends his article.

To me (to you)

I believe I neglected to mentionthat my placement starts tomorrow. Silly me, as the chuckle Brothers would say. Working without pay isn't ideal but it's better than being stuck in that office all day every day.

It's been getting very busy. When I arrived there were only two people in, a fat bald man and a woman with the impeccably English name of Lindsey (named for an ancient kingdom a few miles from here) which is spelt with the liberal smattering of 'C's and 'Z's indicative of the Slav. There were three starting the long-term course with me, including myself, the other two being a man who never learned to speak quietly indoors and another man, we all three of us had the same first name, who impressed me by doing his paperwork, literacy test and all that, faster than anyone else, including myself. He's impressed me even more in that he hasn't been seen since, and has presumably been exited (a New Labour style neologistical verb) from the course. So at the end of last week there were four of us. That number has already more than doubled and apparently there will be another eleven starting next week. The loud mouth has rarely actually been there, although I don't know why. He wasn't there today, I only got a glimpse of him as I was going in and he was going out yesterday, but I don't think he's likely to be skiving.

Apparently Sonia has had people ejected for sexual harrassment in the past. I wonder if I could get her done for creating a hostile work environment. She's quite pretty, I suppose, in a dopy sort of way.

There are too New Deal Advisers at the local jobcentre, I'll call them Bill and Ben, after the famous flowerpot men. Understandably, I'm not fond of either of them. One of them is a dour former cole miner, or so he claims at least, but he's obviously and inexplicably proud of working in a jobcentre, as if his abilities to patronise the unemployed while scrounging massive amounts from the taxpayer make him morally superior to those of us who scrounge less. As for the female one, imagine she's called Billhelmina, she's fat and jolly, a bit like a female Father Christmas, but without the generosity and liberality, and with an appaling attendance record. I remember my first time at A4E, a couple of years ago, I sat for a week doing nothing largely because she's swanned off on holiday, which she apparently does on a regular basis. So much so that even the staff of A4E make fun of her.

Speaking of the staff of A4E Sonia has been off sick today, a bit of poetic justice for yesterday's miserable attempt at humour. She was there at the start of the day, but quickly decided she was off. I, on the other hand, feel almost totally fit again. There's not much justice in the world, but there's some.That left only Bob to run the course, but he was introducing a new staff member who will be standing in for him when he is also on holiday next week. There was also another member of staff, a woman, I was able to divine that she was a member of staff but I couldn't figure out what she was doing. That's a common experience on a New Deal course, but this was something special. I'm glad I'll be out of the madhouse tomorrow. I'll buy some chocolate digestives, my personal favourite type of biscuit, tomorrow to celebrate.

I haven't really had anything to do today, but I was given another "project", a blue folder of papers written for congenital idiots on how to work in shop, or a warehouse as it was today. More busywork. I also overheard my fellow course members discussing whether "Take on me" by A-Ha or "Sledgehammer" is the greatest music video of all time. I must say I'm in a minority in supporting "Sledgehammer".

Incidentally the name of my town is an anagram of a rude word.

While we're on incidentals I see that the BBC has opted for a midnight run of Farscape. A bit too late for that, now, but good to see anyway.

Now, I need to send my regard to the Fortean Times.

Week Two

Another week begins. And another day it is of hard working tax payers money.

On the whole I've not been having a good day. I've not only got a biro out of them, but also a nasty illness. The running nose seems to have gone off but it's been replaced by a splitting headache. Still, you only get five sick days on this course and I'm rather hoping to use them all to turn a thirteen week course into a twelve week course.

I wasn't the only one who's not entirely healthy. Sonia was also ill, in a manner of speaking, but she used it as an excuse to make an anti-male joke of the "sick men whinge too much" variety. It's appropriate that she was whinging herself when she said this, but I didn't quite see the humour. Still, I kept my mouth shut.

Sonia isn't her real name, I must remember that. I was sent for an interview with a view to a placement, unpaid labour that is, this morning at a charity shop and when they asked her name I very nearly said Sonia. I imagine Sonia is feminist. Apart from the above joke, she seems the sort. She has a degree, for starters (I've never had any respect for educational qualifications, I'm proud of not having any). She's very posh. That was this morning, as wasted as usual. More busy work, but even that's all finished now so tomorrow might just be sitting around doing nothing all day. Even today I've spent quite some time sitting doing nothing. Today is monday, of course, so there was a new intake of people, most of whom I'll no doubt never see again. As a result of this I was shoved in with the short-course people and given a set of papers to read headed "INTERVIEW TECHNIQUES - PREPERATION". I wonder why they never seem to use a spell checker.

Still, the late part of the afternoon was productive, or as productive as anything on the New Deal, and unreasonably expensive to the taxpayer (which is the sole source of income for A4E). We went bowling. I've never been bowling, and I can only hope that I never go again. I'm not good at bowling, but that's neither here nor there. Still, a load of taxpayer money down the drain is no skin off my nose. I didn't realise they had barriers which pop up along the side of bowling alleys which render it impossible to miss. There were five of us bowling. Two women, who used this cheat, and myself and another man who had never played before either. And, of course, Bob the course tutor who does it every fortnight and easily beat even those who were cheating. Women cheating, men not: standard.

My Housing Benefit has come through. £50-ish. Taking the piss, it is. One more thing: I have been lambasted in the letters page of the latest Fortean Times (the 60 years of UFOs special), under the name of Stephen Morgan. That's what you get for criticising the free-speech hating anti-conspiracy nuts. I'll have to write a reply when I can get together the vitriol. I would have done so already but I haven't been able to afford this monstrously expensive magazine until this last week.

Leave it, Tyson...

Happy. happy, joy, joy. A week over. Friday is the best day at A4E because it's shorter.


I had a nice visit from a bailiff this morning. He gave me a seizure of goods notice, but didn't seize anything. I have no goods, he says. He gave me a list of my goods through his eyes: TV (small tube); mobile phone; CD radio casette (bust). That's about the size of it, yep. So that's all sorted, as far as the bailiff's concerned it's the council's problem. I got home to find another letter from the council. I'm not sure what it is but I couldn't help seeing red ink.


I suppose I should got through the last two days on New Deal for you. I got out and about to fetch a Morrison's application form on the Thursday morning, as I'd hoped, an expedition which conveniently merged with morning break. I didn't manage to get them filled in, mind. It's the questions they ask: What makes a job with Waitrose right for you? Well, they're the only ones who gave me a form. Name an occasion when you have excelled yourself in work or education? Can't be doing that. I'm just not good with lies. The rest of the day I managed to waste doing a "project". This is a folder full of papers supposedly teaching you how to work in a shop. Today, the Friday, I've finished it off, although I think it's meant to last several weeks. I'm sure I'll find something else to do come the new week. I had no idea there were two different types of forklift truck driving licence. I'm not taking one myself, but the one other person on the course who regularly turns up is, or has done. I've no ambition to be like forklift-driver Klaus.


I don't know what the real purpose of the "project" is, it could be some kind of brainwashing or it could jsut be aimed at congenital idiots. I'm inclined to believe it's meant to cause the reader to internalise its own paradigm, if I may be so bold as to use psychobabble.


Everyone seems to be doped up. There are no people on a New Deal course, barring myself, who prefer to be sober. There is dope, marijuana, and probably the prozac which is the plague of the modern underclass. Everyone needs their brain deadening, as if the course itself wasn't enough for that. But it's not just the people on New Deal that take it, it's the reality of mind control. I'm not saying the government don't put voices into people's heads with microwaves, turn their phones against them and use RADAR as a mind control tool, a la the Montauk Project. I'm not saying they aren't doping the water with oestrogen and using subliminal messages and MI6 IRD style tricks and lies to deceive people, quite the opposite, they are doing these things. But the IRD stuff is only for the newspaper readers and the rest is just for a few unfortunate individuals. Only the mass drugging of the poor with "mood enhancers", a kind of non-physical lobotomy, is widespread amongst all the troublesome poor and totally effective. Don't expect that war on drugs to get cracking anytime soon.


I'm writing this from the library. You get funny people in a library. Lots of people with shopping trollies, the kind old people, rather than supermarkets, have. There's a woman I occasionally see, morbidly obese, trenchcoat in summer, little shopping trolley. Also totally incomprehensible when speaking, although incredibly loud. I wonder what happened to moon-faced Eve.

I can't be doin' with it.

I haven't time, I'll post tomorrow.

I'm alright, Noah, pull up the ladder and sod the rest...

I have become slightly moist. To think, I thought my shoes were waterproof. It's alright, I live on a hill, I won't wake up afloat.


I can't say that there have been major happenings today. The morning was agreeable enough, the usual timewasting: half an hour on the computer looking at the same jobs I was looking at the same time yesterday, then I was relieved to almost have something to do, in that I had to learn how to use MS Word from a sheaf of papers. Of course, I already know how to use MS Word, but no distraction should be allowed to go to waste. That ate up most of my day, that did. Thankfully it was rather more literate than yesterday's letter writing sheath. The afternoon was a different matter, I was ordered out onto the streets to go around supermarkets looking for application forms for nonexistent jobs. Netto, Waitrose, Marks and Sparks, Morrisons, WIlkos, etc.. It seems like a long time ago, for I was very hot at the time and was happy for the light rains to cool me. Now I'm sopping wet and less than happy. However even in adversity the clouds have silver linings. I managed to stretch out my wanderings from immediately after the afternoon break until half past three, knowing that the end time for the day is only nominally four o'clock.


I didn't come back with many forms, just one indeed. "I see you've got a big pile there, then". He ought to be a policeman with sarcasm like that.


Best thing, though, I managed to engineer it so that tomorrow morning I can have a nice walk to Morrison's, to "collect a form". It all comes right in the end. Always does.


There is a security door with an intercom at A4E (Action 4 Employment, for the blissfully ignorant). I have heard the story, last time I was there, acouple of years ago, about why it was put in. A couple of smack heads beating each other up, apparently.


When I was younger I went to a head doctor. I was forced to by someone, I believe he called himself an education welfare officer. There was someone at A4E last time I was there who mentioned this same head doctor. I'm not entirely surprised that it's such a common experience among New Deal "beneficiaries" to have been sent off to the shrinks. Psycho(logist)s and the New Deal are the same thing: beat people into line, make them obey or face the consequences.

I have more money from my dole than I expected. The bank seem to have charged me one less of their illegal bank charges than I expected. Maybe I'm the first person not employed by a bank (and not a bank) to benefit from a banking error. Just like monopoly.

Day Two...

I see a sign out side a local employment agency: "temporary to permanent". It's all advertising. It's like the pretty woman in the sports car advert, or the holiday ad that never shows the monsoon season.

Back to the New Deal, though: the standard wealth-redistribution programme - from the tax payer to the rich. I don't own a coat, so I've been getting wet. I don't agree with coats, if you can't take the cold it serves you right. Stay inside. Big girl's blouse. This is what happens when you let Jeremy Hardy sing.

As usual the day on New Deal was uneventful. I learned something, which is less usual, I learned how much you can stretch what is effectively nothing to fill a CV. I don't like being party to that sort of wastage of words, but that's the way it has to be. I say being a party to it, for I am far too honest to write that sort of thing. Luckily there is a woman who works there who seem to specialise in this sort of thing, this sort of thing being the writing of total rubbish where there should be clean and unblemished white paper. I wouldn't say it's lies exactly, most of the combinations of words are meaningless enough that they signify nothing, whether true or false. I'm by nature a taciturn man and word with no meaning don't come naturally to me. Women find it far easier to run at the mouth. Sonia, I'll call her, although I don't think that's her name. Names aren't my strong point.

I applied for a job today, from a man call shazbot, or something similar. Must be a pakistani name or something like that. He sounded like the typical kind of young trendy asian you find everywhere. He asked how old I was and seemed shocked I'd never worked. I remember years ago hearing "you're nineteen and you've never worked?" Didn't get that one either. He obviously has a different understanding of the phrase "previous experience not essential".

Speaking of people who don't understand the English language, another bit of the busy-work (which doesn't begin to keep me busy) A4E gave me was a sheath of papers purporting to teach me how to write a letter. Apparently I'm expected to send piles of letters to random businesses hoping they'll give me a job. 70% of jobs are unadvertised. The aim of this is, to quote the document in question, "to understand the person of different types of letters". Oh goody. Being taught how to write by an illiterate. I won't list the spelling mistakes and the frankly pathetic grasp of grammar, but imagine how pleased I was, on the first page of this sheath, to see the phrase "it is no use having a CV". Well, I couldn't agree more. It's nice to see my morning was well-spent. Well, I say my morning, it was the woman with the brown eyes, whatshername, who was reeling the drivel off, but it was very strenuous being nearby at the time.

I have a bit of time left, so I'll tell a brief story. One day I was at the Jobcentre (Plus, although plus what I don't know) and I was waiting to sign on. There were four women signing people on, although at that time I was the only one waiting. I was kept waiting, although if I'd been late I wouldn't have been paid. I listened for several minutes, dumb with disbelief, as they talked about what hats they were going to wear to Ascot. I remember that one of them was upset because she'd worn one of her hats before a didn't want to wear it again to such a prestigious occasion, which undoubtedly deserved new headware. Nice to see public servants so hard at work. Still, it's more productive that my current sisyphean nightmare.

I got a letter from a bailiff today. As usual my democratically elected representatives are my main persecutors.

Still, they seem "optimistic" about getting me a "work placement" (forced labour for below the minimum wage). Reasons to be cheerful.

Best foot forward...

...that being the left foot, according to the Statues the Egyptians made of their bizarre deities. At least they had no owl gods, eh?

I have intended this to be a blog entirely about my unfortunate experiences with the forces of the Department for Work and Pensions, a misnomer if ever there was one, but it's going to start with somethin rather different.

I'm a naturally suspicious, even paranoid, man, but paranoiacs are made, not born. The history of terrorism is a history of Gladio-style black-ops and flase flag operations, so I'm sceptical of the government position on the recent "attack" in Glasgow, and the "bombs" (nails and petrol, nothing like a legitimate nail bomb) found in London.

The big problem with the official line is the lack of CCTV footage. I'm hardly either an expert, or the first to spot this, but why has no CCTV been released of the "most wanted" man in the country? I don't think this can have been the product of the infamous terrorist training camps: there were no explosives! These "bombs" were cans of petrol with boxes of nails next to them. I've never built a bomb, but even I know that's not a nail bomb. Petrol isn't even an explosive.

So, here's the official line, some respectable doctors built a "bomb" out of petrol and nails with no explosive and no apparent means of detonation. They, in the hope of not being detected, parked conspicuously and illegally in London. Makes perfect sense.

"There is no indication that the vehicle contained any explosives," said a spokesman.

I saw that somewhere.

The news showed something from Glasgow. A white bloke arrested, only seen from behind on TV, perhaps to protect his face. Maybe he's an intelligence agent and they don't want his ugly mug all over the telly. A "witness" says the man in the burning car jumped out shouting "allah, allah", was he a real witness? We can't know, the witnesses around 9/11 have severally proven to be intelligence plants. Looks like there was no exercise this time, anyway. Poor old Peter Power will be disappointed.

Perhaps the oddest thing is that they were driving mercs. If I was blowing up a car I'd choose a cheaper one. Keep the money to wage holy war another day. But this gets me onto, by route of the Mercedes, my New Deal "placement". Heed the nomenclature of New Labour and tremble: I am a "beneficiary". My "placement" is also called an "opportunity". It's a standard 13 week "opportunity", which those others who've suffered through a New Deal scheme will know about. They used to do 26 week courses, but gave up on those. It's not the first time I've been sent on one of these. They make your life miserable, I tell you. I've still never done a Gateway to Work course, but this is my second 13 week placement. I like to think I've done quite well in avoiding spending more than a fortnight on an actual course since I signed on back in 2004.

Some people won't know how the New Deal system works. For starters, it's in no way related to the New Deal system the American FDR introduced. The New Deal for Young People, Tony Blair's New Deal, seem to serve little purpose beyond harrassing the unemployed and unemployable and, of course, lining the pockets of a few very rich people. Specifically the woman who started the company, which would go bankrupt in ten seconds flat if it wasn't leaching off the government, has become a multimillionaire and got herself a slot on Dragon's Den. Just what we need, an entrepreneur who made her money scrounging off the taxpayer telling other people they're no good in business. I get quite annoyed about all this, you know.

Anyway, the first day of this placement was much as I remember it being last time. Lots of paperwork in the morning followed by lots of sitting around doing nothing in the afternoon. Task for the afternoon: compile a CV. Terrific. Well, no employment experience, no education or qualifications. That was quick. He seem to think writing a "personal profile" (I use quote because I don't want anyone to think I'd write such a thing off my own bat) instead will fool an employer into thinking that I've got marketable skills, rather than emphasing their total absence. I disagree, but what will be will be. And what will be is my time being wasted by idiots.

As for the merc: it turns out the man who runs the course (who, to protect the innocent (me) I will call Bob) drives one. I admit, my dole-scrounging powers seem quite feeble next to that. But, as he repeatedly assured those members of the class who were too inquisitive for their own good, he's not in it for the money, he's there for us. Isn't that nice? And the company buys din dins for the Gateway people , solely out of the goodness of their hearts.

I wish I didn't have to go to it, of course, it's worse than useless: it's a waste of time, but I have no choice in the matter, even if Bob says otherwise (as he does). When a man with a gun to your head gives you a choice, it doesn't amount to much. I'm not optimistic about sticking it for long, but hopefully a blend of angry resentment and stoical resignation will get me through for a bit.
I should mention the last time I was on New Deal provision, to use the lingo. It was probably about two years ago, not long after 7/7 (quite a coincidence) and caused me to miss the Third Test in its entirety. I stuck it out for about eight working days. I got a free pair of shoes out of it, so mustn't grumble. This time's got off to a good start, I've already got a biro out of it, for nowt. I don't really remember much else about last time, except I'd arrived just too late to take part in a group application for jobs at the new TK Maxx, or whatever it's called (used to be a Big W when I live round that way), about which I was massively disappointed, as you might expect. At that time the staff was slightly difference. Bob had just arrived, but there was also a big blonde woman, a man with slicked back hair and a big fat bloke who sounded like a louder version of Chris Moyles. Thank heaven for small mercies, he is no longer there.

A suggestion for government policy: abolish the New Deal. The unemployable should be left alone. By all means offer training, but I mean fund a course for someone who wants to get an HGV licence, I don't mean forcing someone who knows all about computers to learn to use MS Word (my own, personal, sentence). Never mind, last time they tried to teach me to read and write. I must've gone up in the world since then, although I'm not aware of any great change. Save the money currently poured into the coffers of big business (and that woman on Dragon's Den, which I don't watch) , save the money spent on the big buraeucracies of New Deal advisers, New Deal placements and all the rest of it (those mercs aren't coming out of nowhere, you know, and they're not coming from efficient government spending either). Let the poor get on with it, without being pestered or given busy-work. We all know most of these people will find a job, and the statistics show that New Deal actually makes people less likely to find work (in that its effects are greater at taking up valuable job-hunting time from real job seekers than at poking the recalcitrant into action).

If you hear of a blood bath, you'll know the bloke who shouts every fucking word he says got too much for me.