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.