BrigitDoon's Bomb Shelter

[Josef]

Sorry about Blackpool, but not Hamilton.
Main reason they went up was their plastic pitch.
Poor core support and awful 1 and a half sided stadium behind a supermarket and industrial estate didn't make for an interesting away day experience.

* .....card marked...*

[RDR]

Oh dear
I like my football away days to be interesting.
QoS and a day in Dumfries is one.
I'm afraid a trip to Hamilton, living in Motherwell doesn't count as very interesting, since I'm over there quite a few times a week.
If it make you feel any better I don't rate going to the hell that is Livingston either!

[Josef]

That was actually the best bit about supporting a bit-crap team, getting to see the kind of places you would otherwise never think of visiting. Arbroath, Brechin, Stanraer, Kirkcaldy, Dumfries, .....etc.

I was actually a Motherwell home-and-away man for five or six years before the orange contingent started showing up in the late seventies, bringing their songs with them. Macrae Whiteford and Wark, Watson McCallum and Goodwin.

[BrigitDoon]

The Gestapo have finally caught up with me. It's the nonsense about employment and support allowance. The letter popped through the letterbox yesterday lunchtime. I read it and it said that they were going to call me on my old phone number.

Despite giving them my new number, they never called me. Last night, my fortnightly payment didn't go into my account and at lunchtime, the dreaded assessment form popped through the letterbox. I've been on to various departments of the DWP today and my head has been spinning with the extra painkillers I've taken. Ain't no fun...

[hungryjoe]

The Gestapo have finally caught up with me. It's the nonsense about employment and support allowance. The letter popped through the letterbox yesterday lunchtime. I read it and it said that they were going to call me on my old phone number.

Despite giving them my new number, they never called me. Last night, my fortnightly payment didn't go into my account and at lunchtime, the dreaded assessment form popped through the letterbox. I've been on to various departments of the DWP today and my head has been spinning with the extra painkillers I've taken. Ain't no fun...

I'm back at work as you all know, but my appeal against the D.W.& P.'s decision of two years ago, to deny me Employment & Support Allowance, will be heard next Tuesday. I don't have high hopes. Despite suffering from Depression, Glossopharyngeal Neuralgia, which caused the Depression, and having suffered a depressed fracture of the tibial plateaux where the tibia also split from the knee to the ankle, and where the tibia also snapped halfway down the calf, and despite being deaf enough to get a hearing aid from the N.H.S., I didn't score a single point on my assessment.
The joys of politics.

[BrigitDoon]

That's ridiculous.

I've looked at the assessment form and found several places where I might claim 15 points, namely the "staying awake" part. I get put to sleep by the pain and the painkillers, sometimes with about 30 seconds warning.

Mind you, if they're going to throw it out, I may as well not bother. I'll give them some FOI stuff to worry about instead. My data is supposedly protected, but I'll bet that's so much hot air...

[Doorstop]

Been reading this over the past few days and weeks Bridge and I really hope you're going to see Citizens Advice or some other disability advocacy group to help you fill in these forms and deal with any sort of subsequent appeal process.

This sort of shite is becoming more and more common these days. A lad at my gym has a relative who is diagnosed schizophrenic and has had significant symptoms of his illness on a fairly ongoing basis. And, yes, he's been pulled in and had his benefits drastically reduced as, because he attends some classes at the local college he's deemed fit for work.

He's a cert to have things repealed but it just goes to show the lengths these cunts are going to in order to save a few bob.

Hope things go well for you, as I'm sure they will if you use the facilities available (also a dwindling choice with funding being removed left, right and centre. Hardly coincidental, is it, that funds to the bodies that aid you in applying for benefits get slashed at the same time these bastards are attempting to hack the benefit bill down to approaching zero?)

[BrigitDoon]

This morning, I had to go into town to pay the council tax, so I thought I'd have a word about housing benefit while I was there. The most important thing is to keep a roof over one's head. The council have a benefit calculator on their website which tells you what you're entitled to depending on your circumstances.

I decided this morning not to get worked up about it all. I was in a far more difficult situation four years ago, but I managed to deal with that by keeping reasonably cool. I thought to myself, "if I don't pass the assessment, then I'll have to apply for JSA. If I apply for JSA, I'll have to apply for jobs. I can't apply for jobs if I'm ill, so I can't sign a declaration that says I'm well. Basically, I'm caught in the gap between the two and there's nothing the Jobcentre will do for me."

So it occurred to me that there was no point in applying to the DWP. No DWP. Whatever else shit happens (or doesn't), no more DWP.

It was like one of those moments where I've had to walk out of a job with nothing else to go to. There's the uncertainty, of course, but then there's the relief of not having to deal with the thing that's causing the misery.

Yesterday, I didn't have a lie down and I was up until quite late. Today, I haven't had a lie down either and I've been quite busy. I don't feel half as stressed as I did yesterday.

It will probably turn out to be the DWP that's causing most of my pain through the stress they cause me.

[BrigitDoon]

I'm back at work as you all know, but my appeal against the D.W.& P.'s decision of two years ago, to deny me Employment & Support Allowance, will be heard next Tuesday. I don't have high hopes.

Mindful of our Joe's experience, I think it would be a waste of time filling in the Limited Capability for Work Questionnaire. I have a copy going spare, therefore, and a pre-paid (first class) envelope in which to return it whence it came.

It is a clean canvas, as it were, and it begs the creative spirit to enliven it. It would be rude to pass up such an opportunity. Let us consider the question, "How often do you behave in a way which upsets other people?" Who wouldn't wish to answer this on behalf of David Cameron and elaborate on his mental health?

Whatever happens, a completed form will cost them time and money. ATOS are, I understand, paid for each individual that they find fit for work and If I don't fill in the form and return it, then they won't be paid.

I will also be looking into data protection requests and FOI to make sure they earn their corn (and delete any data that they should not have in their possession.)

Naturally, if the completed form warrants it, I'll scan it and share it with the world before sending it back.

[BrigitDoon]

Some weeks ago, you may recall, I received a letter from the DWP. It purported to come from Exeter Jobcentre but the address given was in Plymouth. Those of you with brown leather elbow patches will know that these two cities are at the opposite ends of Devonshire, to the East and West respectively.

I had surmised that recent government cuts had done away with Dartmoor National Park, the excision of which would certainly bring Exeter and Plymouth much closer together, however, this hypothesis would leave much unexplained. There is, however, a more satisfying explanation and quite the three-pipe problem it was too.

We have all seen Mercator's Projection, the rectangular map of the world with Alaska to the top left and New Zealand at the bottom right. Both the left hand edge and the right hand edge represent longitude 180, ie the same locus.

Let us suppose the DWP had commandeered Devonshire, lifted the whole and wrapped it around a spare asteroid of suitable size. We might then find that Dartmoor would present its forbidding aspect towards us while the cities of Plymouth and Exeter would become joined on the far side. Exeter Jobcentre might well find itself in an outer postcode of Plymouth and it would explain the curious address on the letter that I received.

It would also confirm what we have long suspected: that the DWP are aliens. We are not on the same planet.

QED

[Bridie]

or Brigit maybe an explanation for something (don't know what mind) lies in the fact that Buckfast Abbey is also betwixt Exeter and Plymouth!

[BrigitDoon]

I've been finding it very difficult to concentrate on anything because of the Gestaporrhoids.

In times gone past, they've made me apply for random jobs. I try to tell them that it's a waste of time because they will reject me for being overly qualified.

"Go away; you'll be bored rigid within minutes."

"Go away; I need a bog cleaner not a bug-fixer."

On one occasion, a guy I used to see in the pub was looking for someone to help in his wharehouse. The man's a laugh and humour is half the battle. I can shovel shit all day if I've got the right mate with me. I phoned him up. I had to be joking, apparently, but I said no and persevered until he said to drop 'round after lunch.

He bowled out of his office and said, "Come on, what the fuck are you doing here? Go and get a proper job..."

It's no good pleading. Employers aren't stupid and their businesses depend on employing the right people. I know from experience, having run a football team, that you don't play a man out of position.

Just try and explain this to the myrmidons of the DWP. "The rules say..."

I've checked my blood pressure this morning: 145/100

[BrigitDoon]

Plumber came to fit a new hot water tank yesterday, the idea being to make the loud banging noises go away and cure the filthy hot water problem. He did a tidy job and went away.

The noise is even louder and more frequent. The hot water is as filthy as ever.

The hot water tank was the most obvious likely cause of the chaos. Whatever could it be?

I bet it turns out to be a "three pipe problem".

(Sorry, devil made me do it. )

[BrigitDoon]

Complained to the council the other day about the mungineer and we agreed that he could come back on Friday morning. No show. Nor the afternoon. No sign of him at all. Reclaimed by the aliens, hopefully.

Still have the central heating gurgle from hell and grubby water.

Then another problem reared its head this morning. I was horrified to see an entry from dabs.com (remember them?) on my credit card account. It looks like the bank may finally have come to a conclusion (though I'm not sure which way at the moment). The disputed amount was £16 after an original amount of £220 was mostly refunded. The amount showing this morning was £220.

It's taken an hour to find out what happened and for the bank to admit to making a mistake. They'll phone me tomorrow to say what they will do to straighten things out. I don't expect it to end here, either, there was talk of dabs.com disputing the amount.

Someone's getting an invoice for hindrance. That should sort things out very quickly indeed.

[BrigitDoon]

I bought a compressor for the airbrush the other week. Tested it this afternoon and all appears to be well. Next project will involve creating a lot of fine fallout in the kitchen