Tuesday Scream!

I slept badly.

Awake every hour or near enough.

Too hot, too cold, too tired, too awake, on and on it went.

I stumbled up around 7 am, scampered unwillingly to Sainsburys masked like a bank robber, though they usually are not struggling to breathe or blinded by steam on the glasses.  Hurried back to find the laptop dying.

The adaptor wire helpfully broke meaning no power was entering and the battery was soon running out.

This meant a struggle to find a replacement, and an even greater struggle to get the old laptop, slow and difficult, to work.

By means of EBay I may have a replacement arriving soon...maybe, if it is the right one. Until then I must make do with this useless old one.

Herein the day got worse.

Not having been used since my failed Linux experiment naturally the beast was in a huff.

Nothing would work.

Eventually it worked but everything had to begin again.

Everything slowly, oh soooo sloooowly began to begin again.

It was at this point I remembered how sailors swore...

All day I played with browsers, downloaded, slowly, the required items, slowly got them to work slowly and often suggested to Toshiba what they could do with this laptop.  They did not answer.

By afternoon I not only had much of it working I even found the cricket, which I canny watch as I am watching things appear, often uninvited, onto the screen.  

Tired, weary, unable to sleep it off as I expected the workmen to knock and the postie to bring a packet.

She arrived eventually, just on one O'clock.  As she now works only three days she can survive the system, it is however not a good one.  Poor women needs an easy round, this once was, I did it myself, but changes, absurd changes, make the posties life hard.  Management, driven by paper wielding  non-posties in offices far away do not provide a service as in days of yore.   Blood from stone Tory style instead.  We must all expect more such work practices to abound under this government.

Now I comprehend that a Syrian women, endangered in a Turkish tented refugee camp with her children while her man abandons her to make his way to fame and fortune in Europe has more reasons to scream than I have.  I really do understand.  However, early this morning I was not understanding much, least of all how to get this brute to work.  

I wonder what fun lies ahead tomorrow... 

Haircut and Football

At last I had a haircut!
I was about to get one when Lock Down began so it brought back memories of losing the Hippy hair many years again when the Barber chopped all those lumps of grey hair from my head. Waking up with hair not indeed unlike a bad tempered used mop was becoming a bit wearing.  Now I no longer feel my hair growing into my shirt and can happily move my head almost all the way round now.  Not quite Owl like mind.
It was a while before I could find a free Barber.  All the shops I passed had people waiting or several being dealt with as I looked in.  The sight of Barbers wearing those face masks, those with glasses loose out as they steam up so wearing them appears difficult.  I was interested to hear the Barber had not been paid for 4 months.  I thought there was some money made available for businesses, though I suspect these guys work independently so miss out any cash, the boss may do well mind.
He was efficient and friendly enough, the result OK, not that I am one to fuss, and at least the hair is cut.  I need to go again, just before the next Lock Down begins in 6 months time!

Back home I have invested in NOW TV for Sky Sports once again.  I have done this a bit early, Scots football does not arrive for a few weeks yet, but already I have watched several not very good football games.  I also watched the English tedium called Cricket!  This was a bit tedium as not much happened when I watched and the 14 year old director spent far too much time making use of a moving drone and short 5 second pictures of individual players interspersed with each ball or repeats, and several of them, of incidents that for the most part need not be replayed.  Rather typical TV these days.  Then it got dark they went home, and I went back to football.

Otherwise Occupied...

I may have made a mistake.
The other day I scrutinised the games still to be played and splashed out £30 on a 'Now TV' 'Sky Sports Pass.'  This enables me to see Sky Football coverage on the laptop.  Now as I also have BTS for Scottish football this enabled me to view more than the occasional match.  
Since then I have viewed quite a few.
Yesterday I watched three games and did almost nothing else.
Today I escaped from church a wee bit earlier than I wished, cadged a lift from a young woman and arrived home in time for the Edinburgh derby at 12:15.  This was better than last weeks wimpish offering and questions must be asked why Hibs players are so well liked by referees.  But I'm not one to complain...
After this, while preparing a burnt offering which may be with me for ever, I watched a bit of Burnley v Manchester City, this was disappointing after the proper football from Easter Road and soon I turned on to the Rangers v Aberdeen game where another showing of Glasgow Rangers bias enabled the blue bigots to win by two penalties to none.  Mr Defoe must wonder what he has to do to be sent off!  He not only handled the ball twice he also clouted the goalie and then feigned injury. The ref did not see a blatant assault ten yards ahead of him!
What is more is for the first time I realised that the referee, Don Robertson, is in fact now a FIFA registered ref.  Apart from a friendship with Jim Fleming who heads up Scots refs how on earth did this man get to that level? 
I then caught the second half of the rather poor English offering, Manchester United v Chelsea, a somewhat meaningless game after the first one I had watched.  This contained little emotion and less football but a lot more money.
I considered watching the MLS game from the US after this but wondered if maybe I was becoming hooked on this SKY lark?  As I look around I note lots of empty and half empty cough bottles, rubbish lying around, papers unread, mail unopened, dishes unwashed.  Could it be I need to switch off for a while?  
Surely not... 

 

Wednesday

Rolling news channels can be very good when there is a story of importance which needs to be told now! Great indeed and very useful for society. However when the story does not add up to much we are subject to a desperate attempt to pad out the time until the adverts (and how!) so someone has to ask dumb questions and receive dumber, and much drawn out, answers. As the day progresses the same faces appear repeating the same drawn out nothingness and repeats of conversations with folks who have only tenuous connections with the main subject have to be endured repeatedly. Kevin Keegan has not appeared, so the talk was entirely speculative. How lucky we are that Alan Curbishley found an excuse to get out of West Ham. Not so important but changes the topic for us.

In between writing for two jobs that do not suit, I don't want and don't want me, and informing the Member of Parliament just what I think of the rip off merchants who are overcharging us for gas and electric I have been indulging in the Sky News repetition. I am so glad I got the video working again. After my early morning bike ride,(just why do I feel so worn out when they tell us exercise makes us feel 'good?') I found time to slouch in front of the TV set and indulge what passed for breakfast. Using 'Freeview' I can get many channels and I amazed at the amount of meaningless tripe that fills the early morning schedules. Thirty year old American cop shows, a variety of talk shows where the lower orders have their broken lives exposed - the modern day 'freak shows.' Who is watching this rubbish? Some of these shows start at six in the morning! Who wants to watch a life destroyed at that time?

Now they are giving us the US election. We are as sick of this as the Yanks must be! We have sat through the Obama v Clinton war, and nobody cared about McCain! Now it is his chance and all they talk about is his unknown running mates daughters pregnancy! Is it six in the morning I ask? Will the loser appear of Oprah or Montel and reveal the family mess? I hope not. I think it is time the Yanks copied our political system, at least it is over in six weeks!