Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

I was annoyed by technology right from the off this morning, well before I left the Carpathia to come to work.

After breakfast, as is my custom, I took my coffee upstairs to take a look at the news and LJ on my computer. The computer had gone into one of its periodic power-saving comas whence it can only be resuscitated by pressing the standby button enough to jerk it into life but without rebooting it. So far so good. Except that the mouse no longer works. Or rather the buttons and the scrolling wheel work, but the pointer stays resolutely immobile.

So: reboot.

Nothing; mouse still arsing around. Luckily I had my art pad and stylus, which meant I could navigate through windows without trying to remember the sorely neglected and mainly forgotten keyboard commands.

Dig out wireless mouse, change batteries and link it to the computer. The other mouse remains uncooperative, but now I have mouse function on the wireless. I then do as most people would and try random functions in My Computer. Nothing happens, nothing changes.

At that point I decide to write a grumble on LJ to ask you good chaps if you have any bright ideas. Then the internet connection dies. The router is fine, the PC is fine, Furtle’s PC is fine. The home network is OK, but there is suddenly no DNS and the ports are playing up. Some problem at PlusNet, I reckon. After 15 minutes of cursing, the entire system sponts and we’re back on line and I’m late for work.

Sometimes I miss the analogue life, particularly when technology fails and then recovers for no apparent reason. I think my USB mouse is still poorly, though. As usual, I have no idea why: it was fine last night.

How’s your day going so far?

I haven't decided yet (though I shall have to, shortly) whether I am going home today or very early tomorrow. I have already had a text from my sister telling me my youngest niece wants me to go home today; the emotional blackmail begins before breakfast.

I have done the early run home on Christmas Eve before and once started, it isn't so bad. You can always doze off on the train. It's a bind, but not really a problem.

Coming back to London after Christmas will be a problem. The West Coast Line is being dug up again. I think that since the Paddington rail crash in 1999, there has been about one year when the lines have not been subject to hectic maintenance. I don't think much more than a fiver in maintenance was spent on the entire network between Nationalization in 1948 and de-Nationalization in the mid 80s, and maybe a tenner in the ten years before the rail crash. People have to die before improvements are made and that's what happened. So, time to get 60 years of maintenance done in under ten years.

The upshot is that on 29th when I aim to come back to London, I have two options: I can either take the usual route from Shrewsbury to London. That will involve rail replacement buses between Birmingham International and Northampton. Total travel time over 155 miles? Three hours 55 minutes.

Or, I can take the train from Shrewsbury to Birmingham New Street, walk across the city centre to Moor Street Station and travel down to London Marylebone. Total travel time a much more acceptable two hours 46 minutes but with a 20 minute walk in the middle with bags. If I take this option, I can't get a return ticket as I shall be using a different series of rail companies. That will effectively move the fare for the holiday from an already extortionate £45 to around £90...

I hate traveling in the UK.

I am taking time out, Gentle Reader, to calm down; for I am pissed off mightily with today.

This morning got off to a bad start with the request for a copy every submission we have put up to Ministers on a certain policy over the past few weeks. Yes, I spent the morning belying my managerial status polishing those old, long-neglected clerical skills that are both the boon and bane of the teenager/student trying to earn a little extra pocket money.

You may recall that our current Minister, Ms Indecisive, aka She-Who-Never-Reads-A-Word-Put-To-Her-But-Is-Willing-To-Ask-For-More-More-More (That is her name amongst the Sioux at any rate) has commissioned more words on something relatively simple than anyone in the history of anything. Anyway, it took some time because not only did I have to find the buggers, but then print and collate it all. That was enough paper to assure the destruction of woodland the size of Belgium. How I enjoyed it.

I got out of the office at lunchtime in time to enjoy a fraught phone conversation with my sister who is mightily pissed off with me for having the audacity to buy my niece an 18th birthday present when she had already had the foresight to buy something on my behalf.

Mm. Keep it under lock and key, Dear. You can save money on the 21st in three years time.

In the bank, meanwhile, where I went to pay the latest instalment in worship of the great god credit card, some dweeb was arguing with then cashier because she didn’t like the fact that the signature on his Driving Licence differed from that on the form he’d just signed to get money from his account. Her solution was to ask him some questions about his account, and all he wanted to know was why she wouldn’t accept the licence as proof of identity, and if she thought there was something wrong with it she should check.

Great.

I must say she kept her calm admirably, although she should have gone through with her offer of cancelling the transaction if he wasn’t happy.

They were still at it when I completed my payment, and still going strong when I put the wrong card in the ATM, and then entered the wrong PIN number twice while trying to get cash. I was distracted, see.

I blame the dweeb. It did little for my continued good temper.

This afternoon, of course, before my will to live slipped into the red, my boss came along and asked me to retrieve the papers he’d asked me to produce this morning, and then copy them again so he could have his own personal copy.

My joy was not yet complete, but the jamming of the photocopier saw to that, and the resultant queuing in reprographics nailed the lid on its coffin.

So that’s all done. The papers are copied, collated, stapled and distributed. My mood is dark and I am eyeing anyone who passes my desk with a view to taking the head off the unwary. What with the jamming of the photocopier, that’s another one and a half Belgiums pulped and shipped. All papers will be in the recycling bin by 6pm at the latest.

I am also tired, which gives me the grump, too.

Some days you are the statue, and some days you are the pigeon. Today I have been most decidedly the statue, and the whole pigeon race has flown by.

Oh, and I hate Cherry Coke, too. Vile stuff.