Let me introduce you to ‘Faye’

Bloody Sat Nav
Originally uploaded by MollsMusings

This is Faye, she lives in John’s car (when he is travelling). She lives a very precarious life – at any moment she could be dashed from the windscreen and sent flying out of the passenger window.

I hate Sat Navs, as many of you know. They are an excuse for idiots not to learn to read a map – a life skill that I believe everyone should at least try to learn.

I have no problem with Sat Navs if you are totally unable to read a map despite trying to learn (you know who you are!), or you travel alone a lot to places that are hard to find and driving and map reading at the same time is dangerous or difficult (as John does when he visits clients).

What really annoys me are the idiots who blindly (?) follow what their sat nav says – even when it takes them up a farm track, to the edge of a cliff or down a one way street the wrong way.

I should just qualify that part of my hatred of the things is due to the fact that a Tesco lorry ripped a large gash in my car as he was trying to squeeze down a country lane which he shouldn’t have been on but which his sat nav had sent him down.

So, for the time being Faye is allowed in the car – mainly as a source of amusement and a focus for my insults!

Scary scary stuff

Scary scary stuff
Originally uploaded by Ms. Moll.

I can’t keep quiet about this, it’s scared the bloody hell out of me.

It seems that the Met Police have launched a new counter terrorist ad campaign.

Three posters encouraging people to report suspicious behaviour, suspicious behaviour such as owning more than one mobile phone, taking photographs in the street or using a property in a way which doesn’t fit within what we consider to be day-to-day activity – whatever that might be!

You can see the posters and read the information here.

It’s terrifying. Okay, so you could take the view that if you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about – but if they suspect you they will arrest you, if they arrest you they will as a matter of course take your fingerprints and dna – this information will then be held FOREVER on their database – even if you are innocent.

What if you have an argument with your neighbour over something really petty, you fall out and he feels that we wants revenge…….he can make a call to the handy number of the poster and claim that he’s seen suspicious activity in your house……

How many people have more than one mobile phones? I do – one for work and one for personal.

How many of us take photographs in the street, and with the 4.2 million CCTV cameras in the UK it’s highly likely that you’ll get one (or more) on film – I know that I have when I’m in town centres or out in London.

I rent an office which I only visit occasionally and I use it for storage – maybe that’s suspicious, especially since I often visit it in the evenings and weekends.

If anything is guaranteed to scare people and make people edgy, these posters are – incitement to hatred and suspicion of your neighbours. No wonder society is falling to pieces, and neighbourhoods are fracturing – we are encouraged to suspect everyone.

Welcome to the UK – EVERYONE is watching you!

Why is no-one speaking out about this? Why is this allowed to happen?

Relaxation

Autumn/Japanese Maple
Originally uploaded by suika*2008.

It’s lovely when someone does something nice for your completely out of the blue.

Just before Dad’s funeral my mother outlaw (Jo) gave me a voucher for a ‘treatment’ with a friend of hers who does massage and such like.

It’s taken me a while to get round to arranging a time, but today was the day.

WOW! not just any massage, but a whole body, feet and head massage with lovely oils. I feel so relaxed I can barely type!

So, thank you to Jo for giving me such a lovely present.

You know you want one

You know you want one
Originally uploaded by Ms. Moll.

After talking about it for ages, and having finally set up the website, I thought it about time I produced a book of ‘Lost gloves and smitten mittens’.

It’s come out much better that I could have anticipated, the photo quality is excellent and the production of the book is fantastic.

Inside are photos and short narratives of some of the lonely gloves I’ve photographed over the past few years.

Anyway, the book is for sale – £18 (inc. P&P) so if you want a copy let me know and I’ll sort it out.

Cupboard for naughty children close-up

Cupboard for naughty children close-up
Originally uploaded by Laurie treasures.

As most of you will know, I’m not a mother, nor am I ever likely to be (expect perhaps a step mother – a role I’m kind of enjoying even if it is in an ‘unofficial’ capacity at the moment) – so I don’t make any claims to know about children or much about how to look after them.

But one thing I do know is that toddlers are inquisitive and into everything. So when I saw a young girl (yes, she was very young) park her child next to a big rack of greetings cards in the Post Office, it seem obvious to me what was likely to happen.

Within minutes there were cards being plucked from their shelf and flung on the floor.

What I guess I wasn’t expecting was the girls reaction when she’d finally stopped arguing with her boyfriend/husband, and notice what her child was up to.

‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YER BUGGER!’, she screeched at the poor child and slapped him!

I guess this comes back to a discussion that I’ve had with a number of people over the past couple of months, the fact that many young intelligent professionals (on a good day I include myself in this category) are choosing not to have children.

This is for a number of reasons; lack of funds, focusing on career, left it too late, not the maternal type, environmental concerns……

But it poses a real concern, if the more intelligent, university educated people across the country are not having children, the people who are left to supply the next generation are…..shall we say not the ideal people.

In twenty or thirty years time I hate to think what a state the country will be in – ‘Prime Minster Britney’?

Project Management

Project Management
Originally uploaded by Cappellmeister.

It was intense, and probably not the ideal way to return to work after a long period off, but it was surprisingly interesting and enjoyable. I’ve just completed the three day PRINCE2, Projects in Controlled Environments course.

Three tough days of instruction on how to set up and manage projects successfully ended with a 75 multiple choice question exam – in which we had to get over 50% to pass (I managed it!)

So, I can now put it on my CV when I start applying for a new job. Last week, the day after Dad’s funeral, I was told that the funding had been cut and I am being made redundant, with six months notice from the end of March.

There will probably be two posts, so hopefully I will get one of those; if not I’ll be out of a job at the end of September (with a reasonable redundancy package).

I guess the hope is that I’ll find something else within the organisation, I’m on the ‘at risk list’ which means that I have to be considered for anything that comes up that I’m qualified to do. If not, maybe I’ll do what I’ve been talking about for years, and go and get a degree in photography?!

Needs no comment!

Who am I and where am I going? I have no idea and I have no idea.
Originally uploaded by Vimrod1.

Says it all really…..

ned flanders.jpg
Originally uploaded by auskiller2003.

“I’ve done everything the Bible says — even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff!” – Ned Flanders

Giving to charity

a sooty in aberfeldy
Originally uploaded by werewegian.

I’ve just been down to the local Co-op (the one at Newfield Green) for a few bits and as I got to the counter I found 6p. I asked if they had a charity box that I could put it in……..

….and was told that they used to have a big one for the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) until someone had a ’shit’ behind it!!

Someone, not someone’s dog – SOMEONE!! I despair.

That’s where I am

Originally uploaded by pillow book.