zeitgeistless

horribilis

it has to be said that the end of my 53rd year was pretty shit.

has to be said that the start of my 54th year isn't looking much better.

i wish i could claim that others were responsible for the position that i am in, it is all on me.

i have made things worse by being passive and letting the world go by while i have moped and wallowed in a small puddle of self-pity and self-hate - veering from depressed to unhappy with just a few smiles thrown in to alleviate the gloom (can't be miserable all the time: and while misery may like company no one wants to hang around with a miserable bastard).

at least, for the moment, i haven’t hit rock bottom. whether that is a good or bad thing is still to be decided.

to make matters worse i lost interest in what was going on in the world around me and in those that i cared for. the revelation that the world goes on and that other people have problems while i bemoan my situation serves as a wake up call.

what got me into this situation was sticking my head in the sand and hoping that when i finally emerged that the world around me would be filled with bright coloured rainbows and pots chocolate snacks. it wasn’t – just more of the same: the world recast in a brown hue. depressingly i didn’t learn my lesson and quickly accepted my new situation and promptly buried my head again.

while i was in a position to whistle up my barcelona life went on for other people, i missed that. a year in which i ignored friends.

my reengagement with the world starts now.

a small step.

an easy step.

but then all journeys start with one step.

 

passwords

for various reasons i am not using my regular computer.
i made a mistake and got a chromebook, it isn't that the chromebook is bad, just that it doesn't do what i wanted it to do, and in fairness the chromebook never said it could do what i wanted it to do, more a case of me wanting not to spend a lot and not paying attention to the specs.
as i once learnt from a financial controller who loved a bargain and thought himself a tough negotiator: buy cheap buy twice

so here i am composing on a chromebook.
the thing that is annoying is trying to remember passwords and log-ins.
yes i could be organised about these things and have the ones i want there at my finger tips i thought i did. but oh no i haven't.
lots of looking through emails i have sent myself to find passwords and log-ins,
only to discover i have changed some passwords like they were going out of seasons, others i haven't kept, but have managed to save and secure all the details i would ever want to know about websites i had even forgotten that existed let alone every cared about going back to them.
or then you discover that a simple spelling mistake fucks everything up so badly you are up to your neck in deep cyberpooh. on a positive note i have potentially created an email site for assassins as i have told google my alternative email is on hitmail - that will work.

still the upshot of it all is that i have managed to track down the email login that this site is under (i had forgotten i needed to do that) and after several attempts i have managed to even find the right password for it.

so up and running.
again.
who knows maybe this time i will keep it up. 

belated

just a belated wish to one and all that they have (well now more a case of had) a merry christmas.
a further wish that the new year is better than the previous year and that hopes and dreams come true

merry christmas

grimch

it seems that i can officially begin my 'pissed off with christmas' phase now.

shops are talking about christmas.
papers have adverts for christmas.
restaurants and bars are now offering christmas packages.
articles about christmas finances and christmas food have sprung up.
it can’t be long now before the first ‘christmas has been cancelled in case it offends a few people on twitter’ stories appear.

and we are only just in october. 

alright i suppose i should come clean about it – it isn’t christmas i dislike it is the fuss and bother that springs up around it. for most people it isn’t about the religious festival it is about a forced bonhomie so that everyone can get right royally pissed and tell stories of the office party. now there is nowt wrong with wanting to get pissed or have an office party but for fucks sake do we have to plan it and hear about it for three months or more.

for retailers christmas is just a period of profit. the only ringing they want to hear is the bells of cash registers opening and closing: often. stuff bought that you would never normally buy but feel you have to because well it is that time of year.

christmas should be a time of joy and happiness – a time when you can relax reflect on the year just gone and get ready for the year ahead. instead it has increasingly become a time of conspicuous consumption, where joy and happiness can be measured in pence and pound.

so it isn’t christmas i dislike, it is all the commercialism and fake joviality that goes with it that turns me from mild mannered pat into full blown grinch.

my name is pat and i am a grinch.

pests

do you remember a time, not so long ago, when the media was whipping up a storm that the british national party were about to make huge electoral gains and that meant the end of westminster democracy as we knew it?

do you remember that pretty much nothing happened?

funny enough you can see the media doing it all again only this time it is the united kingdom independence party. commentators seem to flip from ukip as saviours to ukip as fruit loops. in the end ukip’s appeal can be summed up as being the outsider led by a cheeky chappie.

now this all works when there is nothing real at stake, come the general election that changes as people realise that there is something serious at stake. but they have done well in the european elections you tell me. not really a surprise i reply firstly their success is based on giving the government of the day a bit of a kicking and really does anyone care who wins the european elections?

in a perfect world ukip would get the same sort of coverage that the green party gets (who strangely have an elected member of parliament), but promoting the greens has no traction. pushing ukip allows commentators to voice their agendas against europe and the two main parties. so the continual vacillation between immigrants bad and we need more immigrants can be used either way in order to punish the main parties. meanwhile ukip and nigel farage keep getting plenty of coverage. any attacks on them become a rallying call for those who may have be disaffected with westminster politics.

all ukip are pests, they are not contenders for power and they shouldn’t be allowed to get into a position where they are allowed to set the political agenda.