One step closer to being a Cat

Well a couple of days ago I happen to say that something very important was going to happen. And as it happens it has now happened. Now when I say important it is important for me but in reality except for my own family it is of no importance to anyone else and even my own family might be inclined to say it is not important, but it is important. You see I am no longer an official IT expert, in fact some would say I am an not an expert in anything of any form what so ever. And the reason is that I resigned this month from my rather part time job and therefore now do nothing, well not nothing I do move about eat food write things on my blog including rather odd poetry, but I do nothing that actually generates income. Which means I actually have an annual income of nothing, which does seem a little extreme but it is better that it might sound at first glance. You see almost my entire working life I have never spent money I don’t have, I have never borrowed money with the one exception of a mortgage for our house. Which due to a very unfortunate incident in 1985 meant I was able to pay in full a long time ago. A classic example of the old saying . . . . Something of a double edged sword . . .   

So for the next two and a half years I now have to survive on an income of nothing and a bit of savings and writing very bad poetry which I will recite outside shops until they pay me to go away. If this fails I do have the back up plan of eating the cats, but I can’t see that keeping me going for more that a week or two at best. It is a bit of a gamble having no income because the world, and in particular western society is very much based on the premise that we all go out working everyday so that we can earn money to live in a home that we don’t live in because we are all out earning money to pay for the home we live in. But I have made my decision and I have leapt out of the rat race and into the fire. Or at least sitting beside the fire keeping my toes warm.

In two and a half years I will actually receive a pension from the state which is not huge, but my out goings are minimal and if all stays as predicted then I can chill and spend the rest of my days annoying folk with slightly odd poetry and pointing at seagulls.  I have always felt society in the west is all a bit wrong as most folk are forced to chase a reasonable income in order to remain fit and healthy in order to work. Cats do not have this problem, a well fed middle class fat cat is to all intense and purposes a lazy fat critter who likes dinner on demand and a warm bed and does very little to justify his over indulgent lazy lifestyle. I am now one of those cats although I am not fat and would like to think I have worked away as best I can to get to this point.      

How (NOT) to respond in important meetings

I spent today at an important meeting, well sort of important, I will admit right now that unless I have some paper to hand to make notes on I am not good at important meetings. Unfortunately I did not have any paper today to make notes on, so all was not well and I got a bit distracted and started to join in the meeting. Sadly the acoustics were extremely bad and much of the time folk could not hear what people were saying so some of the meeting was confused. Apparently my Indian war chant did not help matters or pointing out that the battered chicken things on the lunch buffet looked just like deep fried rat. 

Then the man next to me started complaining about the fact he could not hear the speaker so I said . . .  HALF PAST SEVEN BUT I THINK IT STOPS IN BIRMINGHAM AND YOU WILL NEED TO TAKE A CLEAN TEA BAG. . . .  He did not speak to me after that and thought I was a mad man. I did explain I did not have a piece of paper to take notes, but by then the meeting was well into the afternoon so even if I did get some, time was against me. 

To tell the truth I don’t actually take real notes at these meetings I draw Zombies and the like and pretend to take notes. Generally I find no one is that interested in what I am drawing and assume I need to take notes, and I do look up at key moments and nod and look at folk in a knowing way saying. . . . I QUITE AGREE . . . . WELL SAID. . . and then carry on drawing. But not being able to do this means the little devil sat on my shoulder whispers stuff like . . . GO ON SING SOME RED INDIAN SONGS. . . . I am rather good at Red Indian; I think I may have been one in a previous life which would also explain why I like pointy sticks and one of my favourite saying to say (not Write) is . . . WHITE MAN SPEAK WITH FORKED TONGUE . . .  No I really love that saying because it is so often true.

Once it was all over I managed to assist in slightly breaking part of the display, I was not the main person involved I merely pointed out that if they took it apart in a certain way in might not work, and I was right it didn’t.

I think the next important meeting is in December so I will make sure I go with paper next time rather than assume it will be supplied.

OOOOo I found a dead moth tonight on the patio, I hope his mates don’t think it was my fault that might be a problem. It is getting dark very early these days, I think summer might have vanished for the year with plans to stay in warmer parts of the world for a while. . . DAMN

The Ghost Writer, an Office, an Update and a Golden Ibis

Now my last post was all about stuff changing and how it sort of happens jolly damn quickly at times and then sometimes so slowly that we cant deal with it in human terms as change. Well yesterday I found myself for reasons some of you will have worked out, at the office of the Ghost Writer. Who although a terrible Ghost Writer, is known to many as the IT Guru to the Stars as well as folk of a non star status. Well lets face it stars are not what they were when Humphrey Bogart, Jane Russell. James Cagney or Gary Cooper and the like were stars, these days they are folk I have never heard of and often look like spoil teenage brats.

Anyway there I was in the office of the Ghost Writer when a message arrived to say that a small flock of Zombies were attacking a shed in my garden. . . . . . No hang on that is not the message I was planning to discuss. . . . . No a message arrived in the office to say that the national organisation were doing important updates and that it might impact to some degree on the internet of the offices across the United Kingdom. Well as the Ghost Writer himself said at the time what this means is that no one will be able to do any work what so ever, and he was right.  And as the office suddenly came to a grinding halt it showed the very weakness of the modern internet based working environment. 

You see at one time a wizened old monk would be there with his quill and vellum working on his illuminated manuscript and except for the Vikings would work away through thick and thin, power cuts and even no internet. Even till very recently an office full of typists could produce loads of stuff a day, far more than they do now using the internet, but of course distribution was a bit of an issue, but at least folk did not spend half their day emailing pictures of cats to each other or shopping.

So there you have it a high tech (OK not very high) office is all well and good but takeaway the internet and almost instantaneously it is paralysed and folk can not do a thing. It is now very trendy to work in the so called Cloud, but just wait until the next major solar flare or some evil organization takes over and the internet is zapped, what will folk do then. It will not fair well for my blog either although luckily I have a wizened old monk writing it all on vellum with a quill from a Golden Ibis so . . . . . . . . . . . . HAH AHHAH haha ha ha ha hah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ahha ha haha ha ha ha ha haha ha ha ha . . . . my place in history is assured.  

A Perplexing Anomaly about Sport, Aliens and Popularity

I am not a person who has a huge amount of interest in sport, something that may (or may not) be clear from my coverage of the Football World Cup and if you delve back into the deaths (sorry Depths) of my diary, the Olympics.  This is a personal thing, I don't mind if folk get excited by sport, I even have known folk who like sport so much they will have it on the television even when they are not in the room watching it.   But there is an odd thing linked to my coverage of these sporting events in my own rather offbeat way (although every word is true-ish), yes it appears I get far more pageviews on my blog.

So what makes the masses choose my blog to get the latest news of these sporting competitions? Many would say they learn absolutely nothing from my blog; OK they did learn the entire world cup was manipulated by Dave the Elvis Impersonator and won by German Androids. . . . . And the World Cup is probably not the Holy Grail. 

My main worry now is that in order to continue to see growth in the blog I will be forced to comment on more sport, but I am not a great fan of sport so I am more than a little perplexed by this strange state of affairs. Will I be forced to rely on the Commonwealth Games to perpetuate the excitement of the masses? And reveal that certain sports have been taken over by Aliens stealing the bodies of the unsuspecting sports people. . . it is a strong possibility.

Anyway the Ghost Writer spent his day in the office pondering the virtues of computers and using his own set of unique tools to perform tasks that other IT folk think of as plain stupid or blatant vandalism.  And as myself and the Ghost Writer are physically and mentally bonded together in a way that can only be described as diabolically indescribable, much like those Commonwealth Athletes that have been taken over by Aliens.  What this means is, when the Ghost Writer is knackered (so to speak. . . sorry small children your parents will explain) so am I. . . .

Therefore that’s your lot I’m off. . . I hate computers. 

     

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Ghost Writers and Fat Cats

The Ghost Writer was in his office today and, as I explained about a week ago the organisation he works for may lose all its funding from the local county council. What the local council do is fund the core structure of the charities organisation; this allows it to get funding for other projects from other sources, to fund an assortment of other things. So as a result of one hundred thousand pounds per year from the county council, they have been able in the last ten years or more to increase this by two or three hundred thousand pounds plus.

 And because of the nature of the organisations work helping people with debt, benefits, housing and employment issues plus folk with disabilities and mental health issues they have worked out that they have achieved financial gains of over two million pounds to the people of the county in the last couple of years. Which of course mostly gets spent in the local economy, so indirectly the county councils money brings more money back into the county, which in many respects is almost a profit.

Although the organisation is a national organisation each part of it is dependent on the local council for core funding which is a weakness, because the local council when they are keen to save money will always cut funding to outside organisations first.. Folk were rather angry today because last nights council meeting saw the councillors all vote to cut 100% of the organisations funding again there are three meetings in all (well think of all those travelling expenses clocking up). I have been told that the councillors get rather good allowances and travelling expenses and a few other perks which appear to have avoided all the cuts (gosh).

 Anyway all is not well and many folk are very angry indeed . . . . I thought of the old well known saying of . . . . . . Putting the Cat among the Pigeons, but then thought it was not the right saying as it occurred to me that one cat among a load of pigeons would get confused and end up catching none. I know this to be true as we have cats and there are loads of pigeons here too  as they pinch all the bird food we put out for the birds (yes OK strictly speaking pigeons are birds, but greedy ones) anyway after some thought I have decided that the old saying (slightly modified has more relevance) should be . . . . .

Putting the Pigeon among the Cats . . . . . (that’s Fat Cats with large allowances and perks). . . . . You see the poor old pigeon has no chance and is a goner for sure, which is I suspect what will happen to the charity the Ghost Writer works for.  He will then be a down and out old has been, so no change there then . . . . . .HAH H HAH HA HAH HA HA HAH HA HA hahah ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haha.

The Ghost Writer, the petition to save Powys Citizens Advice Bureau and a man on the phone.

The Ghost Writer was in his place of work yesterday as he had to move the server, he hates moving this as it must be one of the last of the old NT4 servers working away doing its bit on the front line in Britain. But as the Ghost Writer has said loads of times . . . . . . A cat dropped from a great height can’t catch mice until it lands on the ground. . . . . . He insists it is one of those strange saying that folk use all the time although I cant think of anyone else who says it.  Anyway he set off earlier than he needed too because the weather was wet seriously wet. Us Brits are good at complaining about the weather, but just for once we have good reason too as it is rare to see so much flooding for this long. 

As the Ghost Writer wandered into his office in his usual chirpy fashion (OK his normal grumpy self) there was a quiet pause and folk looked at him. As it happens he has this effect a lot when he walks into places I think it’s his ramshackle dishevelled image and bits of stuff falling off him that does it;  on this occasion though it was due to news that had been received. You see the Ghost Writer works for a charity and the core funding of this charity comes from Powys County Council who are trying or need to save 20 million pounds so one of the things they have decided is to stop funding charities, well the one the Ghost Writer works for anyway. It will not save a lot of money about one hundred thousand pounds, but the Ghost Writer is a cynical as well as grumpy chap and says he suspects that the council will target the folk with the least voices so the likes of folk in need of help, disabled and homeless and the like first . . . . .  He may be wrong though and they might make all the directors and managers redundant at the council instead. . . . . . . . Hang on what was that I saw . . . . . . . . . . . . . OOooooooooo look it’s a flying pig.

Interestingly as a change of subject I answered the phone this morning and spoke to a very nice man from India who said that someone at our house had been in an accident in the last three years and was entitled to loads of compensation from the Ministry of Justice. He seemed like a nice chap and I was not in a rush to rush off anywhere so I had a long chat; however he started to get a bit annoyed because I was not responding correctly to his questions, and in the end accused me of wasting his time and then he hung up which was rather rude. 

It has been raining again today and it is due to rain tomorrow followed by heavy rain on Saturday. Anyway in order to tie in my drawing all I can say is I feel sorry for any fire breathing dragons at present, it is just not the weather to help them one bit.

 For those that are interested below is an online petition for people to sign that will help the Ghost Writers cause in gaining support for the Charity he works for . . . Powys Citizens Advice Bureau . . . . . .  Although a national organisation each bureau is very dependent on local funding for core bureau funding. Without the core funding all the other projects it supports can not exist. 

Help Save 

Powys Citizens Advice Bureau 

Mr M, Pointy Sticks and the art of remaining still.

It has been a wet cold day and time is all a bit of a blur at present due to visiting Mr M, our old friend. However it is important to visit Mr M as he is sort of on limited time even if he is doing a good job of hanging on in there and sort of poking at the gods with a pointy stick, I suspect that the gods may at some stage when he goes to see them mutter about pointy sticks, and confiscate any he may take with him. I am not good with religion in general but don’t think any of the main stream religions of any country deal with pointy sticks in any great detail, I think at sometime I will need to draw  Pointstickius the Micro God of Pointy Sticks. Anyway we will be off to see Mr M shortly so I am typing super fast to finish my diary entry or at least as much as I can which is why I suspect it may make no sense what so ever.

The Ghost Writer has been rather busy as he had to go to his grey office today and do things although he did say that by hiding in a dark corner and remaining very still he did manage to get through the day without too many problems. He says the art of remaining still in a dark space in the office is a skill most people need to survive work and yet no one ever teaches it at school anymore.  In the old days it was taught subtlety in the playground to children and was called Hide and Seek rather than Work Avoidance Skills or WAS after the standard answer to the question from the boss. . . . . . . Where have you been . . . . .  where we say in a slightly panicky way I was, was, was mmmmmmmmmmm posting an Armadilo to the design department.

OK we have returned from Mr M, he looked a little better than last night which was good but alas it does not mean he is getting better just that he is still comfortable and the old brain cells are still in working order.  As I said yesterday (I think) it is a funny old world and I must say there are times when you feel that if you could poke someone with a pointy stick (obviously not Mr M) it might just help a bit. 

Aliens are from Venus, Zombies are from Popular television shows.

As I said yesterday the Ghost Writer had to go into his office today to do things, he is not happy apparently he has got five more working days till Christmas, it does not sound much to me. He says that there is only eight of nine more Saturdays till Christmas and only about three weeks until Easter eggs start appearing in the shops and the hardiest of folk start queuing up to buy the Boxing day sale bargains.  As someone who makes things out of cardboard boxes, Boxing Day is a good day as in general there are lots of empty boxes about that folk do not want.

The Ghost Writer says he wrote the greatest technical paper ever written about something no one is interested in and then he shouted at some software.  Of course his technical paper is technically not the greatest technical paper ever written as my diary is, although it uses a lot of paper. It is also the dynamic opposite of his technical paper as everyone is interested in my diary, well everyone except the very nice Mr Steven Spielberg, but I now put this down to the fact it is too heavy to pick up these days and he is getting a little older than he was.

To slightly change the subject myself and Mr Jones noticed a bright light in the sky to the west tonight, low on the horizon hovering in the air at dusk.  So it is plainly an alien Venusian Battle craft masquerading as a planet, but we known, they can’t fool us, we have not been turned into Zombies getting excited by folk baking cakes, and things like that in order to win a glass cake stand.

Those Zombies are testing the human population and once enough folk spend the night watching cakes bake, or so called celebrities who keep telling the nice Mr Spielberg I am mad, dancing in circles or the man from the butchers singing the green green grass of home while his dog tap dances; they will make their move (that’s the Zombies not the dancers). Well that’s if the aliens don’t get here first and end up in a battle to the death battle with Zombies while the human race phone up to vote for the fire eating granny from Blackpool or a French ventriloquist oblivious of what is going on outside (that’s the humans not the French ventriloquist) .

AH . . . . . . . DAMN I got all distracted again, this diary is getting a bit erratic. Anyway I got a photograph of the alien battle cruiser with the Steam powered Y Ray telescope as evidence of what is going on.  People don’t believe me without evidence which is quite frankly unbelievable.  

The End of the World and a Slight Error

A certain person has called in from his place of work; it is a place of work that deals with what can be sensitive personal data about members of the public. All sorts of stuff that must be kept secure.  Now as this is a national organisation using various IT systems to store all this data, internet and computer security is rather important, well very important, so this person was somewhat surprised today to learn of a slight error made by someone.  This was not a local error as he would then be held responsible as the local IT guru, but happened up north. Anyway it appears for reasons best known to an as yet unknown person a slight error has occurred.  

Well I say slight it appears one or two files containing sensitive personal data may have been accessible via the internet to everyone. Well I say one or two, but I may mean a few, OK I say a few but a couple of hundred sensitive files is quite a lot. So when folk start saying nearly one thousand three hundred files have been compromised due to what appears to be a grave error, the local IT guru says he is glad it is a long way off as (putting it rather bluntly) much shit will be hitting fans.  It seems that the BBC has become rather interested as well as the press and if the story takes off will not fair well for this organisations reputation. Although the local IT chap says it was not the national security systems, but someone did a very silly thing as far as he can tell.

In other news the six high apple tower still stands as the foreteller of doom and in order to appease the questioning minds of the mathematicians and men of science who read my diary the apples to the side of the apple tower have been moved away, clearly showing that the date stated yesterday for the End of the World is correct. Although for one IT man up north the End of the World may arrive sooner.

Did you notice that I managed that without once letting slip that the local IT man is in fact the Ghost Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . DAMN… 

  

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A Cunning Master Plan and a Robot

Interestingly this evening I have noticed that a Mr Gary was saying in the wondrous world of cyberspace that what he needed was some clones to help him in his efforts to get everything done. I say interestingly because the thought had also occurred to me, because the Ghost Writer keeps making me move loads of stuff. Today he was removing cables from the ceiling void above his old office and said I was small and already a shambly dishevelled person so getting covered in Asbestos and toxic materials would not ruin my clothing. He has to wear a suit, well maybe not a suit, but they prefer him to look smart, although in my opinion he looks as dishevelled as I do.

But luckily dad had built a Robo-Rob as part of what he calls A Cunning Master Plan to replace certain people with obedient killing robots. So he said to the Ghost Writer that he could test the Robo-Rob to see if folk notice it was not me as in the real me, and that it would work faster then me anyway and not poke things with a pointy stick.

It apparently fooled everyone who all thought it was me, in fact the Ghost Writer said it was a highly successful day and I have never been so popular and that the only slight mistake was on the way home when the Robo-Rob destroyed a small car with a little old lady in who was driving very slowly in front of the Ghost Writer and then it laughed hysterically for the rest of the journey. It appears that the Robo-Rob and myself have got to have a shoot out later; only the Robo-Rob has a high powered death laser weapon and I have a pointy stick. Dad says it is a test of his micro nano technology to see if a robot or a man will win in a struggle to the death, battle of wits. It is part of dad’s cunning plan as he says it is best not to try and replace politicians until he has proved his robots work……     

The Office, The African Queen and Sky Treasure

The Ghost Writer was in his office today, it was extremely hot as it has been everywhere now for a while. He was also on his own dismantling the network as everyone has now moved out and for a few weeks he will get to play in a large office all alone so he can pretend to be the boss and have extra tea breaks.

However the heat got to him and in a desperate attempt to cool down and avoid the sun he decided to dress and move about as folk might do in a hot environment, based on his knowledge of hot environments, which is old films like The African Queen.  So I think it was no surprise that when he did eventually venture downstairs to the other office where other folk were working, wearing his improvised outfit, he was set upon by several passing policemen. As it happens the police station is just up the road (or down the road I still am not sure about protocol for up and down roads), anyway once he explained he was an IT Guru hunting a RAM and was the Ghost Writer of Rob Z Tobor they let him go and they wished him luck or was it said he was MAD.

As for me I was looking for sky treasure where X marked the spot HAR HAR HAR  . . . . . . . . . Sadly I was let down by the lack of convenient transportation to go up, so the treasure got away . . . . . . . .DAMN  

    

The IT Guru and the Office Chair

The Ghost Writer has been in his office all day doing what he does with computers; last time he was there, the office had a slight crisis when the accountant invested all the money on Lottery tickets before running off to a tropical tax haven. So he thought he might find an empty office with dust and tumble weed blowing about, but everyone was there and they were all fairly chirpy.  He thought it best no to ask about the accountant and the lottery tickets just in case, but every three months or so there is a big meeting where everyone gets together and tells everyone else what they have been doing. The Ghost Writer says he hates these because at some point they will all look at him and then he is expected to tell them all what he has done.

It is very difficult to tell a whole room (hall) full of expectant folk that he has been hiding for three months since the last meeting and that if he could remember a whole three months worth of stuff he would probably be off making his fortune in the IT business rather that pretending that he knows all about IT and hoping for the best. Still he is very honest and always tells everyone he does not have a clue what he is doing, but they all laugh and say “of course you do, your our IT chap”. I think the Ghost Writer has mastered Sarcasm better than I have.

He does however have one very important question for his big meeting (in about 2 weeks) and that is . . . . Why do all the bolts and screws keep falling out of office chairs, an important question as, it happens to all of us (well me)

He has told me not to worry about my loss of Wit in cyberspace as there is a special area where everyone who has lost their Wit can go and practice until it comes back called T-WIT-ter. It appears it is good because no one pays any attention to a single thing you say (tweet, so called because most folk feel they are right tweets after a bit).