Thursday's update

Well, as I started this at 3pm I may as well finish it with whether I did any of the things I expected to or (surely not?) even more?
I did a few improvements on my painting, and though I have probably run out of places to look for the growing list of missing items the few places I did check produced no surprises. I ended up calling the radio place and I was right, but the good news is even though I do usually go there they will pick it up and return it for me. I'll miss it for a couple of weeks but it should be done for nothing pretty easily. I suspect a large number of these radios are going west (literally as well for me) in the same way as as soon as I told the nice lady what was wrong with it it was more or less 'one more, only a few more hundred left to go', as if they all do it sooner or later. The radio actually took about two years longer to produce as advertised (and pretty widely at that) and besides the known problems getting digital radios to work on batteries (mine last about 4 hours at £7 a go, not the advertised 25) they really had to piss around with the recording and AM functions, eventually ditching the AM band entirely to save money.

I have also just copied a pile of pictures of my grandpa with some famous musicians to go on the wall in what used to be his music shop. It's the first time in ten years I've spoken to them as it was taken over and we had nothing to do with it after that, until someone I know wanted one of their books so I called and told them many years of related stories about him and the shop. So I now have a number of pretty good pictures of him on my computer I can also share with any other enthusiasts I come across.

Well, these sort of free days always interest me, firstly to see what I do to fill them and whether it's predictable and to plan, and also if anything extra happens, which of course it rarely does. Another oddity I experience, as do most people is whenever you're thinking about something you want to happen it almost never does, and once you forget about it often does. It's a brother of my 'plan B' phenomenon, where long standing delayed situations don't happen until you have it covered by a new alternative. What the bloody hell is wrong with the world? Both these (and many more phenomena) imply an intelligent design, so if there is, why make it so fucking annoying and complicated? If I had to design a system I'd make things so you needn't suffer or wait to learn or improve your life, as usually there's always an easy way for every hard way. The trouble is so many people only feel they've achieved anything when it was bloody tough to get. That's fine if you take a course or overcome a physical challenge in a planned way. But when you just want a girlfriend, someone to pay for your professional standard work, work to be done on your house etc., then why do we seem to have to take the longest and most stressful possible route when there's no real reason for our own personal growth which is used as an excuse for suffering to learn things.

Having children is always a way of at least allowing others to lead the sort of life you'd have preferred, as being able to make so many rules I'd never ration or restrict my children's pleasure as life does when we have no control over it. I wouldn't spoil them mind you, just not make things difficult when they needn't be. The people who make decisions that seriously affect peoples' lives, from examiners to the government departments, insurance companies, employers and the like really make life changing decisions, and so often string decisions out for so long even when they offer the person what they want they make them jump through so many hoops and string it out so long the person is often in pieces by the time it comes. I reckon these guys either don't realise how important their simple yes or no is to the faceless name they're dealing with, or they do and exploit it mercilessly for pleasure. It's actually a combination of both, plus lazy incompetence when they simply don't give a damn and nothing is important unless it's someone they think is important. The builders who offer to do jobs they know they won't do unless their regular customers all die of a heart attack or go broke are wasting our time and effort but many do it and they don't give a shit. Or the one who took out my old central heating in December, pissed off for Christmas and fixed it six weeks later in one of the coldest winters I remember. He should be fucking shot for that.

I'm not talking about dishonesty here as that's logical, I'm talking about how when life or specific individuals carry the decision to give or not and don't without a fight. Life has more and more become like this for me, and though new to the media, can't believe it's right for TV programmes to always underestimate how long they'll take, magazines to advertise and then not know for over a year if they'll even go into production, as well as the usual dance women usually make us go through before even making a blind date arrangement let alone a hot one. Everything is so bloody difficult. My recent money trouble in the end meant regular letters and calls every few days, often covering almost the same ground before finally resolving. The effects it had on my health must have been significant. Taking two years to find anyone prepared to fit a small kitchen for less than a 'take it or leave it price' (the one they give when they don't want to do it that's so high only an idiot would accept it) when the ultimate installer will be earning more than I do per hour for almost as many hours as I do in a year! You'd think everyone else I offered it to would have jumped at a month's earnings for many people in less than a week! So the question is is this just me, or do most simple things we need or want become almost a holy grail as life and people do their best to delay their donation till the ultimate end? If I can ever think of any way to smoothe the effects of any of these bumps in the road of progress I'll be a very happy man, but I don't believe the system is there to be beaten. Yet...