TV Timewarp

2005-04-26 at 9:28 p.m.

I have had a good weekend. With the parents being away, I celebrated by having a drink one day (well, more than one, but not enough to be drunk with) and by watching a lot of TV with the subtitles on.

I should explain about the subtitles. I love subtitles and always put them on (when they're available) when I'm watching TV. Except when the news is on, because the subtitles are frankly crap when typed at the speed of speech. Before you wonder, no, I'm not deaf or hard of hearing, I just like the subtitles. I like being able to turn the sound off when noise irritates me, and to read what people have said if I lose concentration. My mother thinks this is weird and quite possibly perverted, so the only time I get to watch the subtitles is when she isn't there, otherwise she screeches "they're creepy, get them off!" all the time.

On Monday, I had yet another delightful government-sponsored job thing. Not an actual job, oh no, I had to go to a company near Brick Lane which puts the long-term unemployed on voluntary placements. Which they have also not done yet, I actually had to go in to take a literacy test, despite the fact that I took one for Employment Solutions not so long ago and surely have not forgotten how to read English since then. After taking this rather boring and easy test (what is wrong with this sentence: "the test was really esay" is a good example of the questions) they then claimed it would take an hour and a quarter to mark all eight of these tests and instructed us to go outside. Naturally therefore it was pissing down with rain and I got soaked and came back after half an hour. I spotted one of the other testees, a girl whose name I didn't get, and we grumbled about the corrupt nature of these businesses for a while. Then, as there were no seats, I decided to commandeer an empty office to sit in, informing a woman who looked like a hamster of this as I went. They took down my name for that. So then I had an hour's conversation with the girl-with-no-name about GCSEs, how crap Oona King is, and why we should all write to the newspapers and expose the fact that these companies are ripping money off the government, but don't like to in case they decide to get their own back on us while we're still unemployed.

I am definitely going to do something about this though. I noticed while I was there that, in common with Employment Solutions this place had only very local newspapers, even lacking the Evening Standard, for us to find jobs in. Considering that I know that they get money in order to buy all local and national newspapers plus any specialist ones we need, I think they're skimming money off that way into their own pockets. Then there are the computers, there were about three, and considering this place is compulsory to attend for a large number of the unemployed, either not enough money has been given to buy a decent number of computers or someone has nicked it. Then there are the tests themselves. Not only is it self-evidently unnecessary to give two literacy/numeracy tests but the tests themselves (from the Basic Skills Agency) are photocopied, which rather suggests that they have bought one test from the publishers and are now photocopying it in order not to pay for more. Yet they get money from the government and the EU and probably any number of other people/agencies and surely this would cover the buying of such tests. There are always huge numbers of staff in these places, Employment Solutions was the same - and yet they never seem to have anything to do, don't help people look for jobs or fill out application forms and as far as I can see spend most of their time looking for jobs for themselves. Employment Solutions was being funded twice over for the computers they had, once by the government for the use of the unemployed and once buy the council because they were being used by the community college. Whats the betting they didn't inform them that these were the same computers being used for both functions? There is fraud going on, I can practically smell it - I think I might do a little digging and see whether I can bury them once I've got a job.

Anyway, I passed my tests, not surprisingly. Then we had a ten-minute interview which consisted of a very bored woman saying "how many GCSEs have you got" and writing them down on a form. Because naturally I couldn't write them down myself. Then I had to sign to give them permission to claim that they had found me a job even if I had found one off my own bat (and thus get money from this claim) and I could go away. By now rather thoroughly pissed off, made worse by the primary-school atmosphere of their office, all primary coloured posters and "motivational" cartoons. Oh, and because they had me looking for jobs in The Voice - which is a black newspaper. Erm, did they not notice that I'm white? Somehow I think that if a job is being advertised in a specifically black newspaper that they're not really looking for white employees.

Anyway, after that I decided to ask in the various pubs and that sort of thing that I passed on my walk home to see whether I could get a job and avoid going back to that place. Most of them just said "nothing going" when I asked, but I filled out an application form for the hotel on the corner as its near to me and I have done waitressing before in a four-star hotel, even if I did hate it. It rained all the way home and I got very wet indeed. Actually I think I must have looked quite pitiful because when I was standing at a crossing a girl came up to me and offered to share her umbrella with me! Thats never happened before, she must have felt sorry for me.

Dad came home yesterday but mum isn't coming back till today as our heating up in the other house has broken down, apparently. Dad is now on a serious health kick, having got a scare because now both his parents have heart problems and diabetes which puts him (and incidentally me) at greater risk.

Today, I tried to work on my physics assignment but I think I'm going to just give up on it a bit as I have no idea what I'm doing. Then I went up to town a little early and bought a couple of DVDs. A Doctor Who episode and Season 3 of Father Ted. The Doctor Who thing was brought on because I was watching a programme called the Nation's Favourite Kids TV Shows or something like that, and they showed a clip of Doctor Who. I suddenly remembered watching it when I was a kid and that I not only rather liked it but, I can remember having a massive crush on Sylvester McCoy, who was playing the Doctor when I was growing up. So I thought I would buy an episode, and see whether it was as good as I remembered. They were having a two-for-one offer on so I bought the Father Ted DVD as well, as I liked Father Ted and have the complete scripts of it knocking about the place somewhere. I might have another look in there tomorrow as they were also doing a CDs for under a fiver offer, and as I've mislaid my Tracy Chapman CD I might replace it.

Biology was quite decent. All about genetics again, with some rather disturbing jokes being made about sperm that I'm trying to forget, coming as they did from our respectable older gentleman student. I didn't get my essay back so presumably I'll get it back next week.

I've written a bit more than I intended to. Oh dear.

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