Originally posted 12th March 2010
I'm just about up to the back teeth with this country. Cheating, lying, swindling politicians, potholes all over, rancid buildings à la '1960s USSR', ridiculous policing that's more bothered about car speeds than hooligans, gang culture, chavs, the benefits system, "asylum" seekers who give a bad name to those really in need of asylum, story after story of scandal and misbehaviour... and I get a letter from Bolton Council to say they won't backdate my council tax rebate because 'ignorance of the rebate isn't a good enough reason' for them to back-date it. I've paid into the system for all my life. I've worked since I was 11. My mother never claimed benefits, even when she could have done. I went to a private school on a scholarship, so I cost the tax payer nothing for my 11-18 education. I have grafted every single day of my adult life. I've paid 40% tax at some points in my life. And because I'd rather be self-employed than on incapacity benefit for my bipolar disorder, they'd rather not give me any money. I still haven't claimed a penny. I still pay council tax. And here I am, eating spaghetti with tinned tomatoes for my lunch because I can't afford anything better. Spaghetti and a tin of tomatoes will keep me going for 4 lunches for less than £2.00. It disgusts me. I can't afford to buy washing powder, or bleach, or conditioner for my hair. And yet I have worked every day of my adult life. I worked hard. I didn't claim benefits even when I could. And because of that, I'm being punished.
Not only that, I can't open a bank account because I'm self-employed and I've only got 1 tax year's summary because I've only submitted one set of accounts. I can't, therefore, get a job that needs a bank account. I'm still waiting for bank cards that I asked for 14 days ago, and yet my bank harasses me as soon as they think I might go overdrawn. Bankrupts are treated better than this. It's no wonder people declare themselves bankrupt. I'd be able to open a bank account if I'd just come out of prison, yet I can't because I'm self-employed. So... those on parole, those who can't manage their finances, those who are benefits' hounds, they're the ones who have privileges. If you've got credit, if you use catalogues and have cards, and store cards and HP and loans, then they'll lend you money. But not me.
I hate this country and how it treats its citizens. It's all about money. I earn enough to live (just!) and yet I still get slapped for tax and I pay my prescriptions, even though my drugs are cheaper than a prescription price, and I pay to see, because I need glasses, and I pay car tax, even though the roads are full of potholes. And my local council can go cap in hand to the government and get more cash. I can't. If I can't pay my bills, the bailiffs come round, not someone from the government with some more cash. I pay more than enough for my bank account, and they, more often than not, are responsible for pushing me over the edge when they slap on fees. £10.00 for 5 pages of bank statements exactly the same as the print-offs I had, but the bank I'm trying to deal with in France only accepts 'bank' copies, not mine, and so I pay, even though it probably cost a pound to print and post them. £217.00 to get from here to London on the train. £7.00 return from here to Bury on the bus. RIP-OFF Britain. And I've had enough.
It makes me sick.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3338076.ece
We're being constantly spied-on and monitored, and The Matrix is alive and well, people, and we're living in it!
Today's news:
terror; strikes; terror & strikes; expenses scandals; Budget reports; Income Tax rises; NI rises; man has heart-attack after yobs bait him; pay rise for MPs & pay freeze for doctors; Falklands' rows; vanishing species of flowers; birds fall from the sky....
Now, of course, you and I are rational people. We know this is media spin. Bad News makes Good News. Good News makes Bad News. No-one likes to hear about animals being saved, or kind people, or how much we give to charity, but it's just beginning to get to me. I'm a nihilistic sort of person suffering from anomie. Marx and St Simon were right. I can't stand all this corporationism and globalization, despite its positives. Yes, I can be in touch with people at the touch of a button. Yes, the internet gives me reading and information and TV and it's great. What I don't like is all the negativity.
So... in a way, I'm looking forward to being a bit of a rural terrorist, living off the grid, without gas and a TV line. To some degree, not having a phone would be great too, for business. I'd dearly like to pay only the hospital bills I need to.
I'm just reading:
http://www.off-grid.net/2010/03/05/off-the-grid-and-the-prepared/
which asks us what we'd do if our electricity failed. I know, because Steve often forgets to top up the meter until the last minute. I know about living without a fridge - did it at uni. It's amazing how far you can get without a fridge, and with powdered milk! Not sure how far we'd get without a freezer in France, because I'm planning on freezing a lot of it. Pickling and drying, I guess!! Living without music... a little harder, though you can make your own. Living without light? Candles, fire, early nights. Living without TV. Not so hard at all. Living without the internet? Not so sure.
Maybe this blog is kind of spiritual in the sense of sharing with an unknown world. My words are out there, even if no-one's reading them.
So... a moneyless existence, by and large. How ridiculous I was thinking of getting a horse, yesterday, because along with my bike, I'd need only public transport for longer journeys. No dependence on the car and on oil and petrol! I could wash my clothes in the bath, like I used to at uni, and barbecue stuff and cook it on the range. I could also read by candlelight, and go to bed with the seasons.
Perhaps, then, I should prepare well for an off-the-grid life. I want to be self-sufficient and cash only. That'd work! Except for the taxes. It's true what they say about death and taxes, you know!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whSYTSXm8wo
Paul Weller does a good job here of summing up my feelings!
Anyway, having listened to a bit of Bob Marley, a bit of Jimmy Cliff and some 'Lion Sleeps Tonight', I feel a whole lot better!
Friday, 2 July 2010
Gallivantin' wi' gobshites
Originally posted 6th March 2010
Steve's got the packing urge, really, really badly. He's now packing and labelling things with a fury that is going to outstrip my own. I must add, however, that it's in his own inimitable rag-and-bone, son-of-Steptoe way. All of the boxes are 'reclaimed' and have housed various other objects for various other places. I kind of like that. Boxes with history. They're all pre-labelled with suitably dull-sounding things, and because his office is moving, there's a lot of 'reclaiming' going on. There's an OHP and a gooseneck lamp, a drawing board and some large set-squares, about a hundred rulers and pencils and clip-on wrist-bands and drinks mats and bags and rubbers, strange filing systems, previously used box-files and the likes. And there now seem to be more boxes than there were things in the house.
My packing makes my house smaller and more free; his makes his more cluttered. I've relegated my boxes to the spare room, and whilst it's fair to say there are a good load at Steve's, I've still managed to reduce the contents of my house accordingly, and it's all now squarely secreted away in the downstairs toilet, waiting for April, when it will be moved to France. His packing has taken over the whole house. There are boxes everywhere you look, except in the bathroom.
All this means we're given to entertain Steve's friends in amongst the Steptoe Temple that is his front room. Mostly, they seem fairly used to it, as if it's not unexpected to be sitting between 30 pairs of odd socks, some kettle plugs, a dog harness and a book about the Hell's Angels. I, personally, shall be glad when I can relegate it to a room I never go in to. I would like to have more space simply so I can hide his findings more effectively. I would like to be able to sit on a settee without half of a laundry draped across it, and without a dog lead working its way up my rear end. I can't wait for that moment. In the meanwhile, he will have to live in the austere minimalism of my house, which is a zen shrine of simplicity, where everything is tidy and hidden and clean. I think he might implode. I know he will find my house very small and he and all his long limbs will struggle to fit into it, like a giraffe trying to fit into a hen-house. I dread that moment to the point where I'd quite gladly say 'you go off to France and be free for the next three months, and I'll bring Jake when school's over' as I think Jake and I can manage quite well without the chaos.
Still, perhaps I under-estimate his ability to adapt, just as I have adapted to his clutter and lack of space. Maybe he'll find it quite liberating, like last night when he shaved his beard off and said he felt like he could run faster now. I suspect he may even find it quite liberating.
I suspect that few of his friends recognise 'new' Steve... I think he's much calmer than he was. Listening to Lennie talk last night about him, I realised what a fine man he is. I never under-estimate him. Nothing he does surprises me. I think he tries to pass off his lack of French as something amusing, but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to hear him have a full-blown conversation. I don't think he likes to surprise, particularly, just that he doesn't boast, as I do! However, I think many of his acquaintances - maybe people who've never seen him at work - realise his talent. I know his boss, Tina, does - or at least, she seems to, seeing the same in him as I do... a man who is infinitely capable. It's almost as if many of the people who've known him in 'the real world' remember how talented and able he is. He is a man of gross understatement. I'm hugely looking forward to seeing what he will become in France: blacksmith, joiner, craftsman, gardener.... I think it's all up for grabs, and I think the Steve of the future will be a very different man from now. And I don't say that in ways I wish him to change. I love every inch of who he is now, and I know, deep inside, that my worries about him adapting are unfounded. He will wear this new life it as if it were a garment made especially for him.
Steve's got the packing urge, really, really badly. He's now packing and labelling things with a fury that is going to outstrip my own. I must add, however, that it's in his own inimitable rag-and-bone, son-of-Steptoe way. All of the boxes are 'reclaimed' and have housed various other objects for various other places. I kind of like that. Boxes with history. They're all pre-labelled with suitably dull-sounding things, and because his office is moving, there's a lot of 'reclaiming' going on. There's an OHP and a gooseneck lamp, a drawing board and some large set-squares, about a hundred rulers and pencils and clip-on wrist-bands and drinks mats and bags and rubbers, strange filing systems, previously used box-files and the likes. And there now seem to be more boxes than there were things in the house.
My packing makes my house smaller and more free; his makes his more cluttered. I've relegated my boxes to the spare room, and whilst it's fair to say there are a good load at Steve's, I've still managed to reduce the contents of my house accordingly, and it's all now squarely secreted away in the downstairs toilet, waiting for April, when it will be moved to France. His packing has taken over the whole house. There are boxes everywhere you look, except in the bathroom.
All this means we're given to entertain Steve's friends in amongst the Steptoe Temple that is his front room. Mostly, they seem fairly used to it, as if it's not unexpected to be sitting between 30 pairs of odd socks, some kettle plugs, a dog harness and a book about the Hell's Angels. I, personally, shall be glad when I can relegate it to a room I never go in to. I would like to have more space simply so I can hide his findings more effectively. I would like to be able to sit on a settee without half of a laundry draped across it, and without a dog lead working its way up my rear end. I can't wait for that moment. In the meanwhile, he will have to live in the austere minimalism of my house, which is a zen shrine of simplicity, where everything is tidy and hidden and clean. I think he might implode. I know he will find my house very small and he and all his long limbs will struggle to fit into it, like a giraffe trying to fit into a hen-house. I dread that moment to the point where I'd quite gladly say 'you go off to France and be free for the next three months, and I'll bring Jake when school's over' as I think Jake and I can manage quite well without the chaos.
Still, perhaps I under-estimate his ability to adapt, just as I have adapted to his clutter and lack of space. Maybe he'll find it quite liberating, like last night when he shaved his beard off and said he felt like he could run faster now. I suspect he may even find it quite liberating.
I suspect that few of his friends recognise 'new' Steve... I think he's much calmer than he was. Listening to Lennie talk last night about him, I realised what a fine man he is. I never under-estimate him. Nothing he does surprises me. I think he tries to pass off his lack of French as something amusing, but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to hear him have a full-blown conversation. I don't think he likes to surprise, particularly, just that he doesn't boast, as I do! However, I think many of his acquaintances - maybe people who've never seen him at work - realise his talent. I know his boss, Tina, does - or at least, she seems to, seeing the same in him as I do... a man who is infinitely capable. It's almost as if many of the people who've known him in 'the real world' remember how talented and able he is. He is a man of gross understatement. I'm hugely looking forward to seeing what he will become in France: blacksmith, joiner, craftsman, gardener.... I think it's all up for grabs, and I think the Steve of the future will be a very different man from now. And I don't say that in ways I wish him to change. I love every inch of who he is now, and I know, deep inside, that my worries about him adapting are unfounded. He will wear this new life it as if it were a garment made especially for him.
Feckin whingey old Mary Anns!
First published 1st March 2010
Over a period of time, I've become increasingly disillusioned with the quality of people posting on ex-pat forums. That's a horrible phrase, anyway, 'ex-pat', it sounds so...... Malaysian-rubber-plantation-owner-in-a-gentleman's-club-drinking-gin-and-tonic-wearing-linen-suits... so...Quentin-Crisp-Englishman-in-New-York.... so.... pensioners-from-Merseyside-on-the-Costa-del-Sol.... and I don't like it. If I'm honest, I prefer 'immigrant' to 'ex-pat' - that's how snobbish I am about that word.
Anyway, many of the forums seem full of Malvolio-Malcontent, moaning about everything. They moan about other posters, about schools, about services, about telephones. They moan about neighbours' dogs. Here's some of the moans:
First, following the 'tempest' yesterday, there are people worried about their houses. I understand this worry, myself, but it has invoked the moaning of the ex-pat community because the original posters haven't worried about the 40-odd dead.
Second, there's an ongoing moan about the price of cake and coffee in a local coffee shop. Yes, really.
Then there's someone moaning that their broadband is bad, and someone else adding to the moan that they are lucky they even get broadband and moaning that they don't. This seems to be a regular occurrence, superseding a moan with a moan-trump.
There's people moaning about posters who don't put a photo with a sale, and those moaning about those who do. Then the moaners moan about those who ask for photos, and those who don't buy it when they've asked for a photo.
There's a big load of moaners who moan about Ryanair, and then there's those who moan about those who moan about Ryanair. There's those that moan about it and use it anyway, but they do love a moan!
The rank seems to go like this today:
1 Moan about the weather
2 Moan about tiles coming off the roof
3 Moan about people who aren't glad they're still alive
4 Moan about people who aren't sorry enough people have died
5 Moan about the price of cake
6 Moan about France Telecom
7 Moan about SFR
8 Moan about Orange
9 Moan about broadband
10 Moan about bank charges
It's like they're a nation of ex-teachers. Oh, wait... they probably are!
The worst thing about moaning is that it can really bring others down. Whilst it might do you some good to get it off your chest, it doesn't do any good at all for those who have to listen to it. It makes me feel pessimistic and worried and sick and panicky and uptight. And it makes me forget there are at least thirty people I already know who don't moan about it, even though life might be hard, and just get on with it, and are decent people. Bah.
So, there's the irony: me moaning about moaning.
Over a period of time, I've become increasingly disillusioned with the quality of people posting on ex-pat forums. That's a horrible phrase, anyway, 'ex-pat', it sounds so...... Malaysian-rubber-plantation-owner-in-a-gentleman's-club-drinking-gin-and-tonic-wearing-linen-suits... so...Quentin-Crisp-Englishman-in-New-York.... so.... pensioners-from-Merseyside-on-the-Costa-del-Sol.... and I don't like it. If I'm honest, I prefer 'immigrant' to 'ex-pat' - that's how snobbish I am about that word.
Anyway, many of the forums seem full of Malvolio-Malcontent, moaning about everything. They moan about other posters, about schools, about services, about telephones. They moan about neighbours' dogs. Here's some of the moans:
First, following the 'tempest' yesterday, there are people worried about their houses. I understand this worry, myself, but it has invoked the moaning of the ex-pat community because the original posters haven't worried about the 40-odd dead.
Second, there's an ongoing moan about the price of cake and coffee in a local coffee shop. Yes, really.
Then there's someone moaning that their broadband is bad, and someone else adding to the moan that they are lucky they even get broadband and moaning that they don't. This seems to be a regular occurrence, superseding a moan with a moan-trump.
There's people moaning about posters who don't put a photo with a sale, and those moaning about those who do. Then the moaners moan about those who ask for photos, and those who don't buy it when they've asked for a photo.
There's a big load of moaners who moan about Ryanair, and then there's those who moan about those who moan about Ryanair. There's those that moan about it and use it anyway, but they do love a moan!
The rank seems to go like this today:
1 Moan about the weather
2 Moan about tiles coming off the roof
3 Moan about people who aren't glad they're still alive
4 Moan about people who aren't sorry enough people have died
5 Moan about the price of cake
6 Moan about France Telecom
7 Moan about SFR
8 Moan about Orange
9 Moan about broadband
10 Moan about bank charges
It's like they're a nation of ex-teachers. Oh, wait... they probably are!
The worst thing about moaning is that it can really bring others down. Whilst it might do you some good to get it off your chest, it doesn't do any good at all for those who have to listen to it. It makes me feel pessimistic and worried and sick and panicky and uptight. And it makes me forget there are at least thirty people I already know who don't moan about it, even though life might be hard, and just get on with it, and are decent people. Bah.
So, there's the irony: me moaning about moaning.
I'm flummoxed... do they think I'm gormless?
Having sorted out (a bit) the finances... and realised it might not all slip away to nothingness and fantasy, we've been getting on with the process of uprooting and moving.
The first has been Steve's bike - a CCM 604DS - a beautiful northern beast of a bike - his love and passion. I've been frequenting a couple of forums for expats, and realising they might just not be the place for us! I'd asked what to do about importing the bike, only to have some quite superficially helpful advice.
Turns out, it wasn't so helpful. The guy who I was told to write to for an 'attestation d'identité' doesn't deal with CCM any more... so after I'd painfully transcribed it in French, he'd written back to me (in English) and faxed it through to CCM in Bolton, a mere 4 miles from my house. Bah.
Then it turns out it doesn't have a certificate of conformity because it was pre-1996 and it was not manufactured in great numbers... so it had a motorbike single vehicle approval, which isn't recognised in France, and it'll need the equivalent in France.
Not a big deal, I hope.
Still, I'm quickly getting the impression that the forums are full of moaners who have done things the hard way, if at all. They pass on second and third hand stories about difficulties they've faced.... without any specific 'do this, do this' info, and the guy who I did get some from was so much of a pedant I'd probably slap him in the face. He questioned whether I'd done as he'd advised (to the letter, and better) and then told me what I already knew. Bah.
Then there's the English ex-pats who want everything English - the same cheeses, the same meat, the same cars, who don't want to be in France particularly except it was cheap and not a big deal to move there. It might as well be Spain, Italy, Germany.... France is the accidental part of it.
Why even move to a country you don't want to really live in?
Steve and I went to his mum's on Wednesday, so I could make my famous Anglesey eggs (thanks, Hairy Bikers and ) and we were talking about how close we are to a complete monetary failure in England. So much is owed. We're like some tinpot dictatorship in Africa in the 1970s. It's quite shocking. I'm going to Cuba if the world's economy collapses. They're virtually self-sufficient, were it not for a bit of Hugo Chavez's oil. And they live like we plan to... fresh veg, chickens, bicycles, music.... I know there are social problems and problems getting various items, such as soap, when I was there, but when Hurricane Ivan swept over and much of the island was in black-out, it wasn't much different from normal. No street lights in Havana, no extraneous lighting, no ridiculous food, no commercialism. It's a world totally unaffected by commercial corporations, and I love that. I love that they sit 90 miles off American shores and stick two fingers up at McDonald's and Pizza Hut, Gap and Banana Republic, Abercrombie and Fitch and so on.... I like that they do things their way. I wish not every country in the shadow of America had joined the embargo.
But, it's a rural, quiet, basic life where people sing and play, work some and learn. They're healthy and literate and it's a beautiful untouched country. I like that about rural France.
So I'm not going to expect Sunday roasts and pubs and cheddar cheese and dole queues, but then I'm expecting it to be a lot nicer than England, too, if only because I won't be bogged down in all this political cynicism I've developed. And in many ways, I hope the ex-pats don't invade my turf. I'm interested in France, not living in an enclave or ghetto. Not for me, at all.
The day someone asks me something in French on the street, that'll be the day I'm at my happiest.
Anyway, why is it that people who don't know what they're talking about feel free to add their grumbles, the old women. It's as if they feel like they really should piss on your parade, just for fun. If something's been hard for me, I usually do the opposite and say 'oh, it was fairly easy' and assume that any complications were idiocy on my behalf, or stupidity on behalf of whatever it is I'm trying to do (like some of my ridiculous phone calls of late) not that it's impossible. That just makes me look incompetent.
Anyway, I've realised that someone is missing a damn fine PA. I'm very good at getting things done. I'm good at list-writing and ordering and colour-coding and photocopying, and things involving the post office. I'm good at phoning people up and following instructions and gathering stuff. I'm a paper-pusher of the highest order, and I do so in colour-coded box files and with multi-coloured sticky notes, with highlighter pens and dividers and folders and binders. I love Staples and Office World, and I especially love Paperchase who make organisation a kitsch and cute affair. I love boxes and labels and order.
I could definitely be a 'move co-ordinator' or a wedding planner or something like that. I would be an excellent sheepdog or shepherd, since I'm very good at corralling gormless animals, rounding up strays and bringing it all home tidily. At times, teaching is much more like herding cats, so all of this is easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.
So I say 'bah' in the general direction of the nay-sayers and the old Mary Anns who like to make everything sound impossibly difficult, and I promise, when I have done things, to share my wisdom and optimism about how easy it all was, in practical, colour-coded, logical steps. Yes.
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