"Even if I got rid of all my problems, I'd just go out and get new ones..."

Politics, relationships, walkmans, and PMS.
9:26 p.m. on 2004-07-08

There's a mix of stuff in this entry.

I was going to rant about the state of the education in the UK - or rather, the new policies produced by the Tories and Labour. Which seem remarkably similar. As one hack pointed out, it might do the Tories well if they stopped fannying about and actually accused Blair of the truth - that he keeps pinching all their ideas and taking the unpalatable bits out.

Unfortunately, in terms of the education system, there isn't much left once you've done that. Both parties are promising 'choice' - choice for the parents in whether to send their child to a state school or a private school, choice for the school in what to specialise in, even choice for the student in what subjects they learn.

Meanwhile, the Lib Dems are quietly saying what everyone else is thinking. We don't want choice. We want our local schools to be good schools. This means more money, not an overhaul of an overhaul of an overhaul and more five year plans (anyone remember the end to the last plans?)

Michael Howard did manage to win point from me, however, when he pointed out to Blair that, basically: "Well done, you've admitted that the education system is a mess. Funny, you've been in power for, what, seven years now?"

I was going to talk about something slightly more serious and personal. Relationships, or one in particular, and how one day you wake up to realise that a close relationship you once had, is now only small talk. But.. that's a little too deep and personal for me.

I might tell you about the bus journey I took home today. Sat behind a teenager in those baggy pants which show his Daffy Duck boxer shorts, and sulking beneath his earflapped-cap. The teenager in question was listening to his CD walkman VERY LOUDLY. The entire bus could hear his choice of music.

Frustrated, I was reminded of a recent "Home Truths" (see: Radio 4, John Peel) in which a caller had confessed to finding a new way to shut up annoyingly loud walkmans on the Tube. He chose to sing along to them. Yes, a teenager may be quite rebellious enough to play his music so loud as to turn 'personal stereo' into an oxymoron, but he is not so radical as to put up with a middle aged man singing along to his tracks.

Unfortunately, since the teenager on my bus journey was listening to trance, a type of music which requires neither tune nor words, thus limited my ability to annoy. But I found a way round it, and started kneeing the back of his seat to the beat. Heh. Said rebellious teenager put up with this for about two or three further minutes before eventually giving up and switching off his CD player completely.

Sure, that might have had more to do with his bus stop, which was coming up in a matter of minutes, but I'd like to think that my silent protest had something to do with it.

Back on topic...I might rant about a person at work.

It's not like the place I work is pressurised. It really isn't. We work unsupervised, the four of us, diligently plodding through paperwork whilst we're left unattended by the Powers That Be. We can choose our own pace, take our own breaks, check our emails and clear off for a slightly longer lunch if we feel the need.

But we work hard.

Well... most of us anyway.

Normally I consider myself to be a good judge of character. I decide whether or not I'm going to hate someone within the first thirty seconds of meeting them, and whilst I rarely decide that I do hate them, if I do, I'm inevitably proved right. This was particularly true of various lecturers over the years, and even now there is one such academic in my life who I immediately decided was an evil git simply on his resemblance to another evil git I knew back from Durham. And I was proved right.

Still... with this other person it's different. At first I quite liked them. Thought we had a lot in common, or at least, similar outlooks on life.

Now I think he's a lazy idle fuck who should pull his finger out before I insert it somewhere he really would rather it wasn't.

If it was just his own workload he was shirking off, I wouldn't mind. His funeral. But when he chooses to spend six hours on the internet, every ten minutes or so stuffing a single envelope in an attempt to look busy, and his actions only mean that the rest of us have to pick up the slack, when he then huffs and puffs and plays the martyr, as though he's given a heavier workload than anyone else, and every extra task is a burden...

That's about the point when I start imagining how best to rip off his testicles with one hand whilst tearing his tongue out with the other.

After several deep cleansing breaths, and several more happy places involving Dwayne 'the Rock' Johnson and a sweaty vest, I calmed down, put my hands back into my pockets, and reminded myself that hey, it's okay, you've got a long weekend to look forward to.

Yup. It's time for my annual trip to a chintzy English hotel with my mother.

I'm quite looking forward to it.

Listening to: Joss Stone "Fell In Love With a Boy"

Quote: "Okay, before I find out what's going on out front, are Peter and I too old for bunkbeds?"

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