At the risk of sounding like a broken record; I’m finding it increasingly hard to motivate myself to do my regular job. Today I was in danger of being drowned in online courses, Health and Safety, Display Screen rules and regulations, how to spot fraud and how ro avoid taking a bribe, etc etc. Mind numbing, and they get longer and longer every time, and worst pf all they now have tests at the end so you have to read and go through everything. So I drank quite a lot of tea to keep my teeth stained and thus to give me a hard time at the dentists, and a super charged coffee to keep my alertness levels high, see if I can spot the virus anywhere so I can make a citizens arrest. The time dragged on and I hadn’t yet opened the training website and the time was getting on for elevenses so I thought i’d go out and drive around the villages surrounding Malvern to count the phone boxes and picnic places which beats working. Would you believe that 4 of the phone boxes I’d expected to be there have now gone, even the concrete bases have been smashed to mix in with the surrounding ground and if I hadn’t realised they were there previously then I would never have known they had existed at all. They are probably all in the corner of someone’s garden as a greenhouse or talking point now. And can anyone tell me when a picnic place is not a picnic place, how many tables does it have to have? This is what my life has come to, I ask you. Turns out that today in my efforts to avoid online courses as well as occupying myself with picnics and telephones I also neglected one of the events of the month; my car was booked in for a service in the next town, and I was going to bundle my bike in the boot, drop the car off and cycle back. That’s not going to happen now, mores the pitty but I have booked a service of the boiler for next month. Forgot the car service (exciting) but remembered the bins (mundane).

With the missing of the car service I have avoided the sibilant sound of a mechanic sucking air through the gap in his two front teeth as he or she assesses the car, little does he know I really couldn’t care less if the car was being sucked up its own exhaust pipe, and with that I could walk out and cycle off into the sunset via the massive roundabout next to Aldi and the WTF shop selling countless piles of shite. So now I have to wait until the company sorts out another service date for your forgetful, and it has to be said, apologetic, author. I lied and said I had an urgent appointment in Herefordshire, didn’t say what for, because I didn’t want to perpetuate the lie, if they ask I’ll make something up.

Can you believe we are into week 13 since the pubs shut. And now, as regular listeners will be aware, I have no close local to go to because the landlord is a massive racist. So much as I am looking forward to the pubs being opened again, its a kind of bittersweet feeling. I’m sure it’ll be popular with the rest of the village residents, lets see who, if anyone, gives a fuck. I’ll send reports from my position in a hedge across the road, like I’m doing a bat survey.

#blacklivesmatter