Day 234

Have just realised that this book has 192 leaves, not 192 pages - suddenly noticed there's more than half the book to go when I expected to have only 20 pp left. No wonder it was so expensive!

M's new insufferable smugness even harder to put up with - here I am unemployed for 16½ months and she walks straight into a job which her mum got her after six weeks.

Advent Sunday today, apparently - only 26 days to Christmas.

Day 233

Intended to do some Christmas shopping, reversed my decision as everywhere was so crowded. I have allocated funds at £5 for my brother (book token), and £3 each for my parents (bath stuff/diary). At the moment that leaves £13 for celebrations, I should have made that up to £20 by the time Christmas comes.

After tea rang M who as well as again declining to come out, again was offensive on the jobs front. After this, decided not to ring J, went to Sainsbury's for lager.

Day 232

Worked on QBasic in the afternoon. Went out with J 8.30-11.30, had a barely satisfactory evening till the journey home, when we interestingly discussed my deficiencies.

Listening to Bob again this evening makes me wonder what's going on me-wise. Disillusioned, disenchanted, dissipated; and with very little left except for bitter resentment. Still, bitter resentment beats apathy, I suppose.

Why should we let loads of refugees into this country? If they want to fight wars why should we pick up the pieces with 2.8 million unemployed? Bloody Germans. Mind you, it's coming back to them, viz. recent neo-Nazi violence there. Must get the flags taken off my coat.

Female barristers claiming discrimination. All barristers should try life on £43 pw before they start complaining.

Day 231

To the Workshop. Nothing.

In the afternoon experimented with music in QBasic - learnt a lot about the language in the process. It's essentially interpreted Pascal without fussiness over data types.

Day 230

M brought round DOS 5 and also Windows 3.0, which she insisted on trying to install. Much to my surprise it worked! QBasic lived up to expectations - supports EGA Mono too.

Only a month to Christmas.

Day 229

Did a spot of programming before going into town for 3½" discs. Formatted them in the afternoon.

After tea got very depressed about lack of Christmas money, but recovered after the fortunate discovery that Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are both Thursdays - hence they both come before Fridays (Dec. 25th, Jan. 1st) on which one doesn't go out, so the cash can be brought forward.

Tories turning the Torycaust onto the BBC now. They 'want a public debate' - but not about theft of public utilities, 2.8 million on the dole, doubling the number in poverty and crime going up 15% a year. Still, the BBC's Charter doesn't run out till 1996 - hopefully by then the Tories will be nothing more than an evil memory.

Certainly lost all respect for the Government (concept and real) over the last 13 years of Tory misrule. And 1100 more jobs go today...

Day 228

Successfully investigated C time functions. Disc drive arrived. Spent 3 hours fitting it, finally got everything working.

Day 227

In the afternoon did a spot of C, went for a walk at 4 pm. Wonder if the Workshop'll've found anything for me tomorrow?

Day 226

Gloomy rainy morning. Didn't wake up till 10.45. In the afternoon went to town and Sainsbury's in the drizzle, got a MS-DOS book from the library.

Day 225

To the Weffolk University union bar, with M and J. Ended up at 3am having tea and toast at M's brother's friend's house. By a hair's breadth J was persuaded to take me back to Mugsborough, got back at 3.45. Said I was sorry about the misunderstanding. It wasn't my fault though, by any stretch of the imagination.

Day 224

After breakfast and a fag cycled to the Workshop to give in my timesheet. Argued on the steps with the You Ought To Be Shot Woman: eventually she apologised, but not before the following exchange:
YOTBSW: I don't like your attitude.
Me: I don't like yours, come to that.

If they pay £2 a day, they only get £2 worth of respect. After that was interviewed by the green suit bloke. This was much more civilised. Eventually got away and went to Sainsbury's. Then round to M's for an hour, she regaled me with a long story about changing her Fiesta's oil filter.

Day 223

To Dulchester with M. Went to the Jobcentre there and scanned Weffolk University's post-graduate booklet.

Government attacked from all sides on school 'league tables'. Good. Arms to Iraq thing still rumbling on too.

Expect this diary volume to last me till Dec. 17th. Will have to allow £5 or £6 out of the Christmas & General Fund (currently £35) for a new one.

Day 222

Went to the recycling place: got £2.40 for 6 kgs of aluminium cans. Went into town with M in the afternoon - she enthused over this digital camera she spotted.

Day 221

After dinner spent a tedious half-hour sorting out steel and aluminium cans.

Don't think much of the new Ceefax - too complex and sorts through all the pages rather than just the current hundred. Too slow.

The IRA tried to blow up Canary Wharf last night - I sort of wish they'd succeeded...

Day 220

Absolutely miserable grey, cold, damp weather. Up at 9.30, went for the paper, read it after chips and tea for breakfast.

I see certain Muslims sent messages of support to anti-women-priests priests. Goddess preserve us from religious fanatics. Also right-wing fanatics, left-wing fanatics, capitalist fanatics, racist fanatics and fanatics generally. (Not forgetting reactionary fanatics).

Day 219

Transferred all my empty cans to bin bags. With a view to selling them to that recycling company, weighed them - about 8-10 kg.

Went into town early about 1.30. Nothing I wanted to borrow at the library, came back via Sainsbury's. Quiet Saturday.

Day 218

Off to Haysend on a cold clear blue-skied day. Left at noon after sorting out references etc. Back just before 1pm: watched the news, went round to M's. She carried on hassling me about jobs - we went to Sainsbury's, came back and carried on talking.

Feel I should take the German flags off my jacket, which I've been intending to do ever since the Great Yugoslavian Nazi Support Operation began last year.

Day 217

Did a morning's dBase at Haysend, back by 2.30. M rang up after tea to say she'd got a Christmas job at Debenhams. I went round, but the evening was rather depressing.

Day 216

It was raining and windy in the morning; mum phoned to say I could borrow her car to go to Haysend if I drove her to work first. Got there, typed out a dBase III command summary for them. Ate (packed) lunch in the car.

Today the C. of E. General Synod voted to have women priests, or priestesses, one might say. Is this an encouraging trend, or are the antics of Middle Eastern cult followers still irrelevant to us pagans? Probably both. Biggest thing in Christianity since Henry VIII.

Day 215

To Haysend, tutored them on dBase III again. Hung about for a bit waiting for some people from the Workshop to turn up: eventually John the social worker rang them, but they were disorganised and said they'd ring back tomorrow. He told me afterwards that if they couldn't arrange things properly he felt he shouldn't help them. I told him about the 9-week delay in finding me a placement.

Day 214

Got the 9.20 bus to Haysend, absolutely packed with old people - later found out they travelled free today. Had to stand all the way. Got there about ten, reconfigured the database. Had a lot of trouble getting off the premises as I had to lock the office door, everyone being at a meeting.

At least managed to sit down on the way back.

Day 213

Listened to The Duchess of Malfi on Radio 3. Am I Bosola-like or what?

Day 212

Got the Byte Book of Pascal from the library. Also discovered that 3½" floppy controllers are available on a card. Found an XT one for £35.

Day 211

Caught the 9.20 bus at the cathedral. At Haysend set up an example database for their library requirements. Casually mentioning backups found they didn't know what I meant. That could cause problems in future, eh?

Day 210

Mum kindly came round and gave me a lift to the Workshop for a blank timesheet. Then I remembered I'd taken a spare one last week. Caught the 9.20 bus, got to Haysend by ten: had the office to myself till 12.30. Got a good grounding in dBase III. Left at 1.15, home via the Workshop again at 2.15. More dBase III in the afternoon.

In the evening Dad phoned and kindly offered to buy a 3½" drive for my PC.

Day 209

Clinton won.

Borrowed mum's car to go to Haysend again. Copied relevant the QBASIC files for myself, transferred the ticket program and DBase III to the 386 for them. Left at 1.30.

Back to the bloody buses tomorrow, too. And I thought this placement would solve everything. Still, look on the bright side - it's been a change of scene I suppose.

Day 208

To Haysend: finished the tickets, and got the 386 to recognise the 5¼" drive by getting into the CMOS (NVR) set-up. Also taught them to use Windows Paintbrush.

To M's in the evening. Back at 10 pm: early encouragement US-election-wise with a big turn-out. Before Pris Bill Clinton looked ahead, now - 1.02 am - he's gained a load of states and it looks like he is next American President. Comparisons to Kennedy and all.

You may wonder at this excessive interest in America, add to my comments yesterday the fact that Bush represented Thatcherism/Reaganomics - now both stamped DISCREDITED. Any port in a storm, Heath over Th**r any day.

Day 207

Walked to the bus station in wind and rain, got soaked, arrived to see the bus leaving 10 minutes early (again). Waited half an hour for the next. At Haysend typed in some photocopied sheets of raffle tickets.

In a lull in the rain walked into Haysend for lunch: dropped 20p and was rather worried, until a kind woman who'd found it returned it to me. Odd buying food in the Co-op again, takes me back to the third year.

Did 100 buyers and caught the bus back to Mugsborough.

Bill Clinton looks like winning in America tomorrow. I hope he does. Mind you, American elections at the moment are really a choice between Ted Heath and Norman Tebbit. Unusual interest in the transatlantic threat, you might think - still, I reckon the best way to stave off American cultural imperialism is to know as much about them as possible.

Day 206

Had considerable success with a P-code tokeniser and interpreter. Read the paper, screwed the top onto the stool I built in CDT in the second year and now use as a bedside table. That means it's taken me something over 9 years to complete the job.

Day 205

Clear and cold and calm. Up about 10.30, nice to have a lie-in. Glorious mellow sunlight and golden and red leaves in the afternoon. Wrote a successful interrupt handler.