milk and honey

Last week didn’t exactly get off to a great start.
I managed to oversleep by an hour on Monday, then in an effort to catch up with myself decided to get a cab to the train station. However I didn’t have any cash so asked the driver to stop by the local shop on the way. Turns out the fucking shop is shut for a refurbishment so we had to make a longer detour to the cash point.
Just great.
Make me even later then I already am.
I get to the station just as the train is pulling in - no time to get a ticket, jump on the train and since you are supposed to get a ticket first or risk a £20 fine I go straight to the conductors cab in the rear carriage.
After he finished with the door lock I ask him if I could buy a ticket and this ignorant twat said,
“No, not yet”
“Why ? I need to get a ticket, I didn’t have time before the train left”
It takes all of 3 minutes to issue a ticket.
“I’m too busy now”
Doing what ? Sitting in your little cubicle reading the paper.
“Will you be walking through the train soon though, I’m only going four stops ?”
“Just go away”
What the fuck ?
He then went into his cubicle. I tapped him on the back and said "I will go away but don’t be telling me about no £20 fine when you come to check and I don’t have a ticket”.

He needs to be.

I sat down and he didn’t come out before I got off.
I was thinking thanks for the free ride, except when I got out the other end the barriers were closed so I had to explain to the guard on the gate what had happened. Luckily he believed me - and he said I should report the other fella and gave me the email address to do so.
I have.

I also realised on the train that the reason I never wore the pair of jeans I’d grabbed from the bottom of my wardrobe in my hurry to get out the door was because the zip was broken.
Luckily I had a long top on and huge pants. Sexy huh.

Then I get another cab up to where I work and have to listen to the driver moaning to me about the ‘bloody foreigners’ that are taking all the work that should be his. Especially the Agfhans and Turks apparently.
I bit my lip, I was already wound up by the other ignorant fucker on the train and the last thing I needed was him kicking me out the taxi half way to (already late for) work.
And the best bit . . . .  he wasn’t even English himself.

Coincidentally on the news this week I have been hearing about some new idea to encourage employers to hire less immigrants and more British people.
Have they been talking to the misguided racist patriotic taxi driver ?
It's already causing controversy and arguments amongst the politicians.
No change there then.
Ideas like this are no doubt formed with the best of intentions, it is well known that foreign workers come here and are prepared to work for the minimum wage - or less if they’re illegal - it’s still more then they can earn at home, and they are prepared to work hard for a better life.
That obviously makes them attractive to employers.

Perhaps the government should also be looking at the issues around equality and wages and exploitation of minority and immigrant workers. If employers were forced to pay everyone decent equal wages then there would be no favouritism given to those prepared to work for peanuts in the first place.

Typical UK summers day.

The world as a whole needs to open it’s doors - and eyes - to the people who flee their countries as a result of persecution. But I think when it comes to immigration we have gained a reputation as a country that is easy to get in to, and a lot of people come here thinking it’s the land of milk and honey and opportunity.
It’s not.
We might have a benefits system, a national health service and council housing - I don’t think there are any countries in Eastern Europe, which is where most of the new arrivals are coming from now, that offer those things. But we also have thousands of homeless people and families living below the poverty line, rising crime levels, the highest rate for teenage pregnancy in Europe and our economy and unemployment numbers are worsening all the time.

And until we resolve those problems perhaps it is time we tightened up our immigration policy, if I wanted to go and live in America or Australia I’d have to prove that I had something to offer the country and the means to support myself first. If there isn‘t enough work for them, which is what this new idea is essentially saying, then maybe don’t let them in ?
Given that most of them come here for work anyway.

How are they supposed to support themselves ?
Oh yeah benefits.
Pay the British workers a decent wage so they can pay taxes that you are going to use to pay income support to the people who didn’t get the job.
Is it me or is there something wrong with that idea.
Every day customs intercept people trying to get here illegally in lorries coming over from France, they might not be quite so persistent if they thought they would be caught and sent back home instead of knowing, as they must, that there is (often illegal) work to be found here.

There's another 20 in the back.

It must be awful to know that the only way you can provide for your families, which is all these people really want to do, is to leave them and move thousands of miles away under suspect circumstances.

I can’t imagine being that desperate and I am very grateful that I live here and don’t have to.

But even though I feel some degree of sympathy for them I really think we should look after those who were born here first, whatever the colour of their skin or ethnic origins.
So okay maybe the government and the taxi driver have a point.
But when he was making it in a strong Arabic accent he just sounded like a hypocrite.
Perhaps I do too. It’s a difficult subject to tackle without sounding racist.
But then it’s my blog so I can say whatever I fucking well want. People have a choice about reading it whereas I was pretty much held captive in that cab.
Well for ten minutes anyway.

But, even having said all that this new initiative worries me.
Of course I feel for the people who can’t get work, whatever the reason, but my concern is this campaign will give the racists another reason to spread hate.
And if you start telling employers to hire in favour of British born people then maybe there will be jobs refused to non-white but British people by bigoted employers. To some people if you’re not white then you’re not British, even if your grandparents were born here. Those fuckwits are gonna love this idea.
Employment law in this country is supposed to be include equal opportunities for all the people who call this country their home.
This new campaign might just set that back fifty years.

And breathe.

To get back to Monday it only got worse as the day went on.

Yes my day was pants. Huge pants.

When I got home from work I had a couple of things I needed to do, as it was so hot I removed my top and bra and put on a very thin white vest top. I had just sat down with a coffee when I heard someone moving the crap I had put in front of my house at the week-end.
I figured whoever it was was looking for scrap, and there was a bit more in the back garden.
So forgetting all about the fact that my jeans with the broken zip are undone showing the massive pants and the top with the tits akimbo I open the door.

At least he's got clothes on. I didn't.

There in the front of my house is a fella lifting out the crap. I asked if he wanted to take the stuff from the garden as well, and step outside. We have about 10 seconds of conversation and BANG ! the front door slams shut and I am locked out of my house.
And then I realise that my not exactly small jamoonas are swinging in the breeze and the Bridget Jones pants are on show.
Oh what fucking joy.

I tried crossing my arms and standing behind the recycle bin, but too little too late really.

The fella said he’d jump over the back wall for me, which he did - but that meant I had to leave the safety of the recycle bin to knock the door of the neighbour that I fucking hate and ask to let him through their house.

Luckily my week did improve after that.
And I have now got rid all the crap I no longer want or use from my house.
Hopefully I’ll hear back from the train company and a years free train travel for the upset and distress caused will be on it’s way to me very soon.
Every cloud and all that . . . .

I also overcame a bit of a fear this week and did something I've never done before.
Well I'm not really scared of horses, but they have huge teeth and they do make me nervous. Probably because I was pretty much forced to ride one when I was lot younger and it wasn't exactly well behaved. I don't like heights and I was sat on this huge thing that kept wandering off to the side of the country lane we were walking on and my head was getting shoved in the trees, I thought I was going to get knocked off.

But anyway a friend asked me if I would braid her horses mane.
Here she is, her name is Leonora and I can't remember the name of the breed. Duh ! (Yes Ann, I know you told me three times, but you know I got a brain like a sieve). But she is a descendant of Dutch war horses. Pretty cool I think.

Got any sugar lumps ?

Do you like my new hairdo ?