Terribly UnBritish

Track of the day - All Over Bar The Shouting - Prince Edward Island.

I've never been able to see the point of banning people from driving when they don't have a driving licence, but it happens in courts all over Britain every day.

Today however the full weight of the British legal system caught up with thirty five year old Jamie Manderson from Swindon.
Manderson's first driving ban was imposed in 1988 when he was 15 years old. It didn't do the job because he has since accumulated a further 50 disqualifications, making a grand total of 51 driving bans in nineteen years.
He has never had a driving licence, presumably because he's always been banned.

At his latest court appearance, following an arrest last Saturday, he pleaded guilty to driving while disqualified and driving without insurance. The court awarded him a further five year ban. This time the court in its infinite wisdom also jailed him for 24 weeks and added to that a further 8 weeks from a previously imposed suspended sentence, making a grand total of - 32 weeks.
Anyone who thinks that that'll cure him deserves to be locked up with him.
Amputation of both feet might fix him but it would be terribly unBritish.
32 weeks - just enough time to learn how to clone credit cards if he doesn't get out early.

Credit Card Statement

Track of the day - All Over Bar The Shouting - Prince Edward Island.

Last week I paid the London Borough of Southwark £350. In actual fact I made two payments to them, one for £200 on the 10th April and one for £150 on the 15th April. I know this because my latest credit card statement arrived this morning and told me so.
What I don't know is what services I paid Southwark Council for because I haven't been within 150 miles of Southwark this year and I certainly haven't been sending them money out of the goodness of my heart.

Yes, I have fallen victim to credit card fraud or whatever it's called. My card has probably paid to get someone's car unclamped. According to the credit card company's fraud department, it has also been used by someone to purchase a cover for a Tempur Memory Foam mattress and a load of wonderful herbals from a health shop.
Sounds like an amateur to me. I mean to say £16.93 for a mattress cover! Could have been a lot worse. Could have been a Tempur mattress.
If you recognise the items and paid for them with my card, drop me a line. I'd like to try out the mattress.

They've Frozen My Account

Track of the day - All Over Bar The Shouting - Prince Edward Island.

My credit card company informs me that I may have been the victim of identity fraud, that they've frozen my account and that I should destroy the credit card
When I get my next card statement I have to examine the transactions and report anything suspicious.
As far as I can gather I have been purchasing items from a health store somewhere or other. Doesn't sound like me but there again you never know.
Chances are that I've destroyed my card for nothing.

Last Friday I went to the funeral of a guy I worked with for over twenty years.
The obituary notice said that he had died suddenly.
I'm not sure that 'suddenly' prepared me for the revelation that he had been hit by a train at a local station.
How do people, whether they are family, rail employees or emergency team members come to terms with something like that?

Mentally Exhausted

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.



Yesterday I was fitted with a pair of digital hearing aids. It was an ear opening experience.

Over the last ten or twenty years I've got used to sound being a jumbled background noise, something I tuned into to mask the constant hissing inside my head. I tried and usually failed to make sense of what people around me were saying. In the end I gave up making the effort and just drifted off into my own little muffled world.

Yesterday when the guy finally switched on the aids I knew that something major was different and it was pretty scary. I was suddenly aware of people talking in the corridor outside the fitting room, the soles of my shoes scraping on the floor, chairs creaking, the second hand moving on a wall clock and my stomach rumbling. My brain went into overdrive, trying to make sense of it all. The difference is staggering and I'm not sure that the experience is altogether welcome. By the end of the day I was mentally exhausted.

In my new auditory world there are sudden, unexpected sounds everywhere and they are overtaxing my brain. I may decide that the effort isn't worth it and go back inside my own little muffled world where I feel safe.

Discharged

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

I've just had my "tube and book" appointment that turned out to be a "choose and book" appointment with an ear nose and throat consultant.
I drove round and round the hospital looking for somewhere to park. Eventually I found a space outside the maternity unit. There are always spaces outside the maternity unit because the majority of Bogsville mothers are far too young to drive.
A five minute hike found me in Ear Nose and Throat from which I have now been discharged.
I insisted on being given another hearing test and today's results show no asymmetric hearing loss so I no longer qualify for a head scan.
Tomorrow I'm off to another hospital collect my digital hearing aids, if I can find somewhere to park.