It was bound to happen sooner or later – an angry post about
the process of moving home and miscellaneous matters. I’ve finally found someone foolish enough to buy
the money pit, the abode Frank and I believed would be our last home. He was
right and I was wrong. Again. In any event, Team Goddard are moving on with a
mixture of excitement and sadness. Boychild is finding it hard to get his head
around the idea that leaving Goddard Towers does not mean leaving his dad. It does
however mean leaving the remains of more pets than I could shake a stick at,
but I won’t go back there, except to report that the hamster with no name is no
more. The Twinset by comparison are eagerly awaiting a small but perfectly
formed home that they won’t be embarrassed to invite their friends to. You can
please some of the people some of the time, and all that.
Despite what his grandparents think, Boychild is a thoughtful
child, frequently questioning the world around him, but not always particularly
considerate. He won’t admit it to me because he is aware of my evangelical
atheism, but he seems to be toying with the idea of letting God into his life.
I don’t push my beliefs, or lack thereof, on the Little Darlings and simply tell them when
they’ve been around the block a few times they can make their own minds up. I’m
far too lazy to do it for them. I’m a follower of the Marcus Brigstocke view of
religion, and consider that children can no more be Christians than members of the Postal Workers
Union. Boychild was recently overheard saying to one of his religious friends
that “I’m purer than my sisters because my mum and dad were married when they
made me.” I was so proud of his mathematical ability.
In any event, after five months of running around the house
madly making beds, hiding dirty underwear, and putting toilet seats down before
leaving for the school run I can sit back and relax. Or that’s what I naively
thought. I found a potential new base of operations for Team Goddard, persuaded grumpy to
lend me the deposit, and made an appointment to see the bank manager to arrange
a new mortgage. Computer says no you can’t borrow £100,000 less than you
currently owe us because you don’t have signed off accounts for your first year
of trading, even though you bank with us, and we know exactly what you earned over this period. You also have too much access to credit, and even though
you asked us to cancel your overdraft facility, and your loan will be repaid
from the proceeds of sale, the computer still says a resounding no. I say, no
fucking wonder there is a banking and housing crisis. By comparison to the
banker (yes I did say banker – this time) HMRC are a bunch of fluffy kittens.
The British, or at least the English have no bollocks. When
anyone with any degree of authority says it has to be so, we sit back and
accept it. We may write or share angry posts on our faceache pages, but deep
down believe it’s futile. I may have mentioned that the Ministry of Justice, led
by Mr Failing Grayling, is intending to introduce price competitive tendering
into the criminal justice system. Did I mention a petition? Everyone I know
that has a vested interest has informed the Ministry in every possible way that
the proposals are misconceived, based on out of date costs figures, unworkable
and will lead to wasted court time with defendants representing themselves,
costs to the public purse for inevitable miscarriages of justice, and the
unemployment of solicitors, paralegals and support staff casting their burden
on the State as a consequence of the hundreds of firms that will close.
On the Today Programme on Radio Four this morning the snivelling
prefect incumbent Chancellor spoke of the need for the various Ministries to
make savings. Much in the same way that I know that my current
mortgage is unsustainable and am trying to take steps to reduce it, I accept the Government’s
need to reduce public spending. It’s not what is being said that is bothering
me, it’s what is not being said. He referred to prisoners receiving legal aid
to make complaints about the treatment they receive in prison when they should
be using the Prison Service’s complaint’s service. The truth is that there has
been no public funding available for prisoners to complain about their
treatment by the Prison Service since 2008. Yes it is possible to apply for
funding to help illiterate or mentally ill prisoners to navigate a complaints
system which invariably ends with the Governor’s computer saying no. I once
applied for funding to assist a prisoner with learning difficulties to complain
about being bullied by a prison officer and the computer at the Legal Aid
Agency said no. To avoid disappointment I haven’t bothered asking since. I also saw Osborne on Breakfast Beeb this morning justifying the cuts to public sector budgets
by pointing to the fall in crime rates despite the cuts to the Police Service.
What he neglected to mention is that the Police are not arresting or charging
nearly as many people, and the CPS are not proceeding with nearly as many
prosecutions. Not only has this lead to a significant reduction in claims against the legal aid fund, it is leading to the guilty going free. One of my firm's clients was recently caught fair and square on CCTV committing an assault. It should have been a
fair cop – he was after all bang to rights. He would have been advised to plead
guilty if the computer at the CPS hadn’t said, no, it’s not in the interests of
justice to prosecute. Really? Perhaps the next time he twats someone the
computer might reconsider. Perhaps the bank will be persuaded to look at the
detail of my mortgage application. I’m not holding my breath.
I had intended to spend today reflecting on the fact that
Frank is now six months dead to the day. I wanted to feel sad, but I'm just sad that
I feel so fucking angry.
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