Cobblers to Poll Tax

Reekers,

I had two rounds of combat scheduled today with Her Majesty's Government.

Round 1 was with the Poll Tax Assessors who we had invited round to reconsider there decision to "up" the banding of our little house. They have obviously made some mistake and mixed up our file with Mohammed Al Fayeds for Skibo Castle, easy mistake to make.

We thought, once they see the house, and the "improvements" that are supposed to have been made we'll probably get a rebate. Now, I'm a bit of a traditionalist and when you say "home improvements" I hear, "improved home". Well not in this case.

I was expecting the Viz's Bottom Inspectors to turn up, but the bloke was decent enough and even laughed at one of my jokes about us all catching emphysema from the Artex. Artex, for those that don't know, was apparently a very popular choice of ceiling decoration back in the 80s. And this house had a real Artex artisan living in it at the time, every conceivable design can be found somewhere. I've given them names, like Jaggy, Mashed Potato, Fan and Carrott and WTF. If it was only on the ceilings it would be bad enough, but its on the walls as well, even Jaggy is on the walls.

Round 2 was with machines that run our nations Social Security offices. I had received an invite to attend, and this time gain admittance to the inner sanctum, where all the plum jobs are kept.

First real decision of the day was what to wear. I opted to get dressed up in my finest TK Maxx discoveries and wear the biggest, shiniest watch I have. I'll unsettle them by not wearing a track suit and unfeasibly white trainers and maybe catch them off guard, thereby hoovering up all the top jobs. In I purposefully stride, full of confidence and self assurance. This time when the little woman and Security guard come scurrying over, they are like ants and I brush them aside by declaring how I am expected and have an appointment. I am offered a seat. I'm in.

My decision to wear clean clothes is drawing a bit of attention and I'm glad when my name is called. This is where they get clever, the whole process consists of more than one part, and you are passed from one to the other, till you find yourself back out in the car-park at the end. You can't get friendly with anyone, or heaven forbid intimidate them with a chunky watch and smart jacket. I did notice that my phone didn't get a signal once I was over the threshold, not a good sign I thought, even GSM doesn't work in the job centre.

The first lady i see looks like she might have been appointed by William Beveridge himself, and she didn't do much apart from photocopy my passport, the next bloke was somebody called D Butler. I hoped beforehand that maybe D would be a womans name, and I had images of Dee Hepburn in her football shorts, but no, I think its short for D-1000. There is no way that someone in that place can be so inanely chipper and bouncy without it being due to some kind of hardwired government developed implanted programme.

Anyway, what about all the available jobs, the blue chip organisations lining up to pick the cream of the crop from lake flacid. Well, there was a cooks position at the Lucky Dragon, but my Cantonese isn't what it could be so don't think I'd get it.

The job centre had two soldiers in it today, not looking for work, but just strolling about. I think they were there to remind the young and aimless that soldiering is an option, i hope they remember to tell them though that the job centres in Kandahar are a little different.

My hunt for the best bacon roll in Kirky goes on and today with 20 minutes to kill, I took the opportunity to try out Papa Kawa's. Except, I had to abort the bacon roll because it was taking so long to get served and settled for a cup of tea instead. The most striking and memorable thing about Papa Kawa's, today at least, was the collection of unfortunate looking folk that were in there all at once. Now, I'm no oil painting, in fact the only modeling I could do would be for Toby Jugs, but I know whats not put together properly. In any other species, ugliness wouldn't really be an issue, they just wouldn't get the chance to pass their ugly genes on, and they would wither and perish on the vine, so to speak. Was that not Darwins proposition, that we are constantly evolving and refining ourselves to excel in the world around us. Well with people, its not working, in fact, its going backwards. Ugly people, only end up mating with other ugly people, thereby concentrating the ugliness and producing even uglier offspring. Its a worry and Papa Kawa's is out.

After my appointment with "The Man" I grabbed a quick lunch in a local pub. Now Kirkintilloch was a champion of temperance and was what used to be known as a "dry" town as late as 1968. Which means unfortunately that nice old characterful pubs, like The Chimes (It'll always be The Chimes to me) in Dunblane, are in short supply, I'm taking a minute to think of one, and I cant, so its even worse than a short supply. So I had to go into a Weatherspoons place, The Kirky Puffer. These places are like feeding troughs in a factory farm, but £4.75 for a pint of Guinness, a bowl of Cullen Skink and a sandwich cannot be beaten.

Funny how my fear of bookies shops disappears when I'm going back to pick up my winnings. I stride in, all cocksure, present my winning ticket with a flourish and am overly loud with my gratitude when trousering the proceeds. Though, i didnt actually manage to keep the proceeds for long, I had put a pair of shoes in to get fixed, and no matter how delightfully old fashioned the idea of a cobblers is, with the smells and obscure looking tools, they certainly don't charge old fashioned prices and I was £23 lighter as a result, I think the shoes only cost £40.

Lang may yer lum reek.