Daily archives: January 11, 2005


Vote for me, vote for me!

MP Idol, anyone. I wish I’d heard about this sooner, because I have some strong views about reforming benefits at the moment. Specifically, if they want people to stop working the black economy, why am I being punished for being honest with them and telling them I’ve got a part time job?

Because the University is too useless to ensure that I get my payslips, I’ve had all my benefits stopped because I have to present every payslip to the Jobcentre before they’ll decide how much money to deduct from me. Because the JC has put a stop on my money, Housing Benefit has put a stop on their payments and I’m worse off than if I hadn’t tried to make things better for myself. Less honest people would turn around and say “Fuck it, gimme cash in hand”.

I’m waiting for a call about full time work, so this should become a problem of the past soon. But I really ought to write a letter to my MP or my pal Tony asking why the people setting the rules for benefits so obviously don’t have a clue how the real world works.


Happy birthday to me!

No, I’m not telling you how many candles.

Just to annoy me on my birthday, my printer has gone insane and something wiped all my Firefox bookmarks. Managed to import the old bookmarks from IE, but I’ll still have lost a few links. The printer remains screwed up and prints page after page with just a few lines of what looks like code, but is probably gibberish, at the top of each page. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers, which does nothing, and the diagnostics won’t help me because they think it’s disconnected. Grrrr.