Tick.
At 11am on the 28th September 2010, I was a company employee. At 11.30am I was an ex-employee and, at the same time, joined the ranks of the Jobless. I remember saying then that I could be out of work until Christmas. That seemed to be the worst case scenario. And here I still am.
There are a few consequences of being unemployed that might not be immediately obvious to those who haven't experienced it.
One of those is the effect that being idle has on Time. I had always thought of Time as a non-variable commodity. An hour is an hour no matter how you fill it. But that is not the case. We've all experienced this to some degree. You are late for an important meeting and stuck in traffic. The dashboard clock in the car is a blur as the numbers flash round closer and closer to your meeting time while you get more and more frustrated. Minutes feel like seconds.
The reverse is true for the Jobless. I quickly realised that if I was going to survive a long period without work, I would have to find things to occupy my mind. I also realised that I was going to have to get used to doing things more slowly than I was used to. I even started walking more slowly - after all there's no rush; I've got all day. Deadlines are something for those with a job.
I had not factored in the devious nature of Time. Time is evil and when it sees that you are trying to defeat its purposes, it slows down with you.
Try doing absolutely nothing for - say - five minutes. Don't read or watch tv. Just sit and keep an eye on the clock. After about thirty seconds you feel that you have been up all day and it must be time for bed! The distance between tick and tock becomes unbearably long and the rest of the day stretches out before you into infinity. And there will be another one tomorrow and the day after.
Of course there are always little jobs to do around the house - especially if you have a resourceful partner - and this can help. But still Time can frustrate you. A job that normally takes two hours to do when you haven't got two hours to spare, only takes 45 minutes when you have all day to do it. Everything just falls into place and you find that you are unaccountably efficient. That screwdriver is exactly where you first looked for it; the screws didn't stick or the heads get mashed up; when you put everything back together again there aren't two pieces left over and everything works perfectly. And while you are doing it you are acutely aware that the clock on the wall is ticking in a basso profundo, like an old vinyl record played at the wrong speed.
Damn - I typed too quickly.
Tock
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Saturday, 19 February 2011
Compos(t) Mentis
Compost noun; a mixture of decomposed organic substances such as rotting vegetable matter etc which is used to enrich soil and nourish plants.
So says my dictionary on the subject.
People garden for different reasons. It seems to be fashionable these days to grow your own produce, thereby saving money that you would have spent on vegetables in the shops and, as a by-product, rescuing the entire planet from destruction by carbon dioxide poisoning by not having to import a bag of potatoes from a farm in the next county.
However, most gardens are status symbols. Whether you own a stately home with thousands of acres of rambling woodland and formal geometric boxwood hedging enclosing the ornamental duckpond or whether you have a two foot strip of grass between you and the general public, the overwhelming priority is that your garden looks better than the one next door.
It doesn't matter whether you can tell your aster from your lobelia, just as long as the weeds aren't obscuring your view of the outside world and the grass is neatly trimmed, you can hold your head up high in the world.
Another way of saving the planet is to make your own compost, although I doubt if this alone would prevent an attack from unfriendly aliens with an orbiting thermo-nuclear weapon. However, if compost making is the way to avoid Armgeddon, I'm doomed.
I got my first garden when we moved to a new house in 1977. In the intervening 34 years, I have religiously kept garden and kitchen waste in a variety of containers in different conditions for different lengths of times and have produced enough compost to fill a small flowerpot, though it wasn't filled right to the top.
There are many books written on the subject of compost making, but the main gist of the instructions is that you have a heap of organic material which heats up and rots to produce a sweet smelling, fine and crumbly brown medium which can be used to enhance your garden soil. It's easy isn't it?
All you need to help Mother Nature along is air - and water if the compost gets too dry.
Air is no problem. This comes free on a daily basis courtesy of the atmosphere. I have never had a problem of my compost being too dry. Insects and worms that stray into my compost heap quickly develop gills or they drown. Even in death they don't contribute to the organic mix that I am striving for as they are preserved intact as if suspended in amber.
Two years ago I purchased a purpose-made compost bin with a lid. I raised it up off the ground to prevent water rising up from below; I added dry ingredients in the form of ripped up newspaper; I bought a box of accelerant as recommended by a friend (who incidentally told me that making compost is as easy as falling off a log). Two years later, when I open the bottom door of my bin what do I find? Potato peelings, leaves, newspaper pieces that are still readable - all covered in a cold, wet slime, but still fully recognisable as the 'waste' products that were added months before.
My family do not understand the anguish and frustration that I suffer as a result of my not being able to control a natural process that should proceed without any human intervention. Cruel remarks have been made to the effect that when I die they are going to lay me on my own compost heap in the hope that I will be preserved for ever. Given that some of the dead plants that I have discarded on to my heap have actually grown there, I might even come back to life.
In the meantime, I'm off to balance on a log and see if I can defy gravity as well.
So says my dictionary on the subject.
People garden for different reasons. It seems to be fashionable these days to grow your own produce, thereby saving money that you would have spent on vegetables in the shops and, as a by-product, rescuing the entire planet from destruction by carbon dioxide poisoning by not having to import a bag of potatoes from a farm in the next county.
However, most gardens are status symbols. Whether you own a stately home with thousands of acres of rambling woodland and formal geometric boxwood hedging enclosing the ornamental duckpond or whether you have a two foot strip of grass between you and the general public, the overwhelming priority is that your garden looks better than the one next door.
It doesn't matter whether you can tell your aster from your lobelia, just as long as the weeds aren't obscuring your view of the outside world and the grass is neatly trimmed, you can hold your head up high in the world.
Another way of saving the planet is to make your own compost, although I doubt if this alone would prevent an attack from unfriendly aliens with an orbiting thermo-nuclear weapon. However, if compost making is the way to avoid Armgeddon, I'm doomed.
I got my first garden when we moved to a new house in 1977. In the intervening 34 years, I have religiously kept garden and kitchen waste in a variety of containers in different conditions for different lengths of times and have produced enough compost to fill a small flowerpot, though it wasn't filled right to the top.
There are many books written on the subject of compost making, but the main gist of the instructions is that you have a heap of organic material which heats up and rots to produce a sweet smelling, fine and crumbly brown medium which can be used to enhance your garden soil. It's easy isn't it?
All you need to help Mother Nature along is air - and water if the compost gets too dry.
Air is no problem. This comes free on a daily basis courtesy of the atmosphere. I have never had a problem of my compost being too dry. Insects and worms that stray into my compost heap quickly develop gills or they drown. Even in death they don't contribute to the organic mix that I am striving for as they are preserved intact as if suspended in amber.
Two years ago I purchased a purpose-made compost bin with a lid. I raised it up off the ground to prevent water rising up from below; I added dry ingredients in the form of ripped up newspaper; I bought a box of accelerant as recommended by a friend (who incidentally told me that making compost is as easy as falling off a log). Two years later, when I open the bottom door of my bin what do I find? Potato peelings, leaves, newspaper pieces that are still readable - all covered in a cold, wet slime, but still fully recognisable as the 'waste' products that were added months before.
My family do not understand the anguish and frustration that I suffer as a result of my not being able to control a natural process that should proceed without any human intervention. Cruel remarks have been made to the effect that when I die they are going to lay me on my own compost heap in the hope that I will be preserved for ever. Given that some of the dead plants that I have discarded on to my heap have actually grown there, I might even come back to life.
In the meantime, I'm off to balance on a log and see if I can defy gravity as well.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
Technobabble
I have been listening to a programme on my coal powered wireless set about the launch of 3-D mobile phones. I suppose since mobile phones seem to do just about everything these days ( I assume you can still use them to talk remotely to other people) there's no reason that they shouldn't operate in 3-D though to be honest I find that the best way to see things in 3-D is to keep both eyes open.
I can't deny that I am behind the times when it comes to modern communication technology. I gave up trying to keep in contact with the goose-stepping march of progress after the video recorder gave way to the DVD. This was concurrent with me having just bought my first video recorder.
We have passed into an era when we no longer need to know how a thing works in order to be able to use it. I still can't understand why the light on the ceiling comes on when I press a switch on the wall. Or is that just me? As I say, I'm a technological stegosaurus. Apples, Blackberries and Blue Rays are all things that I would order in a restaurant.
The mobile phone has gone through regenerations faster than a test tube full of randy fruit flies. Maybe after all this is the way to future App-iness. (See what I did there?)
Despite my reluctance to drive myself down the communications highway there is one thing that intrigues me about the use of mobile telephones. It is something that I have discovered following a period of shallow research carried out by me on a sample of less than a few people.
The results clearly show that the second word uttered by users of mobile phones once connection has been made is 'just'.
This can signify
a) location: as in "I'm just on the bus/in the supermarket/in the toilet
or
b) activity: as in "I'm just shampooing the dog/writing my blog/growing my hair
While this is interesting in itself, there are two further interpretations that should be considered.
The use of the word 'just' could be taken to mean dissatisfaction with one's present circumstances.
"I'd rather be on the beach in Brazil with a cold drink in one hand and a hot man/woman (delete as applicable) in the other but..... I'm just on the bus"
Or it could indicate a state of incompleteness or 'only just'.
In this case "I'm just on the bus" might indictate that the person in question has boarded that bus but that the doors have closed and they have left a leg outside. (or for hands-free sets - an arm).
I haven't personally witnessed this, and more research is obviously required.
Anyway my idea is this. Yes, there is an idea lurking - all the above has not been for nothing.
The technology must exist for the phone companies to be able to monitor the rogue useage of the word 'just'. There must be a way that they could make a small charge for each occurrence which would be added to the monthly bill to the phone user. At the end of each financial year the companies could then prepare a statement which would be submitted to the appropriate government department and the revenue raised, less a fee for administration, would go to help to reduce the national deficit.
I can't think why no-one has thought of this before. It is a foolproof system and there could be no legitimate argument against it. Who could claim that this is not a 'just' tax?
I can't deny that I am behind the times when it comes to modern communication technology. I gave up trying to keep in contact with the goose-stepping march of progress after the video recorder gave way to the DVD. This was concurrent with me having just bought my first video recorder.
We have passed into an era when we no longer need to know how a thing works in order to be able to use it. I still can't understand why the light on the ceiling comes on when I press a switch on the wall. Or is that just me? As I say, I'm a technological stegosaurus. Apples, Blackberries and Blue Rays are all things that I would order in a restaurant.
The mobile phone has gone through regenerations faster than a test tube full of randy fruit flies. Maybe after all this is the way to future App-iness. (See what I did there?)
Despite my reluctance to drive myself down the communications highway there is one thing that intrigues me about the use of mobile telephones. It is something that I have discovered following a period of shallow research carried out by me on a sample of less than a few people.
The results clearly show that the second word uttered by users of mobile phones once connection has been made is 'just'.
This can signify
a) location: as in "I'm just on the bus/in the supermarket/in the toilet
or
b) activity: as in "I'm just shampooing the dog/writing my blog/growing my hair
While this is interesting in itself, there are two further interpretations that should be considered.
The use of the word 'just' could be taken to mean dissatisfaction with one's present circumstances.
"I'd rather be on the beach in Brazil with a cold drink in one hand and a hot man/woman (delete as applicable) in the other but..... I'm just on the bus"
Or it could indicate a state of incompleteness or 'only just'.
In this case "I'm just on the bus" might indictate that the person in question has boarded that bus but that the doors have closed and they have left a leg outside. (or for hands-free sets - an arm).
I haven't personally witnessed this, and more research is obviously required.
Anyway my idea is this. Yes, there is an idea lurking - all the above has not been for nothing.
The technology must exist for the phone companies to be able to monitor the rogue useage of the word 'just'. There must be a way that they could make a small charge for each occurrence which would be added to the monthly bill to the phone user. At the end of each financial year the companies could then prepare a statement which would be submitted to the appropriate government department and the revenue raised, less a fee for administration, would go to help to reduce the national deficit.
I can't think why no-one has thought of this before. It is a foolproof system and there could be no legitimate argument against it. Who could claim that this is not a 'just' tax?
Monday, 14 February 2011
The Law of Averages
I have fallen foul of the Law. The Law of Averages that is! After 37 years of continuous employment I now find myself out of work and a victim of the economic recession.
People say "Oh well after 37 years, by the Law of Averages, it was bound to happen sooner or later".
This seems to work on the same principle as the Chaos Theory whereby an indescriminate flap of a rogue butterfly's wing in the depths of a South American rain forest can cause World War Three, an outbreak of bubonic plague or a serious shortage of custard creams.
In my case, it means that some work-shy layabout in a slum district of a major city somewhere in the world, who has never worked in his life, has inadvertantly got himself a job and, to keep the averages right, someone (me) who has always had a job, has to lose out.
And so the world stays on a even keel. I suppose I should be grateful that I have been given this opportunity to maintain the balance of the universe. I might even feel proud to be a part of the greater scheme of things.
Until the credit card bill arrives.
How easy would it be to find said work-shy layabout and convince his employers that he is not the man for the job? Or would that kill a butterfly?
People say "Oh well after 37 years, by the Law of Averages, it was bound to happen sooner or later".
This seems to work on the same principle as the Chaos Theory whereby an indescriminate flap of a rogue butterfly's wing in the depths of a South American rain forest can cause World War Three, an outbreak of bubonic plague or a serious shortage of custard creams.
In my case, it means that some work-shy layabout in a slum district of a major city somewhere in the world, who has never worked in his life, has inadvertantly got himself a job and, to keep the averages right, someone (me) who has always had a job, has to lose out.
And so the world stays on a even keel. I suppose I should be grateful that I have been given this opportunity to maintain the balance of the universe. I might even feel proud to be a part of the greater scheme of things.
Until the credit card bill arrives.
How easy would it be to find said work-shy layabout and convince his employers that he is not the man for the job? Or would that kill a butterfly?
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