Both of my children have had some sort of non-avian flu over the last week - not at the same time of course, but sequentially so I have been rather housebound. Not to worry though as I am not going crazy at all. Nope. No way.
I spent yesterday prowling the house for things to do and then did the ironing out of desperation. I had emptied the laundry basket and everything was neat, clean and in drawers so how does that explain the full dirty washing basket that I have discovered today? It's bonkers! The major irritation about housework is - of course - its pointlessness. In many ways its worse than the Forth road bridge (or whatever fucking bridge it is) because unlike that massive piece of macho architecture nobody sees and appreciates your efforts on the dusting front, nobody gives you a pat on the back for neat cupboards and when the ironing basket is empty do you get plaudits? My family certainly act as if all this hard work is done by housework fairies. They blithely trail in mud across newly cleaned floors treating my wails of pain with bemusement, and apparently hanging up towels and placing clean clothes is appropriate wardrobes is VERY hard work so they don't bother.
....and the dog helped the housework load by peeing and poohing on the dining room carpet last night. Bastard. We settled down to watch "Its me or the dog" a while later and I could heartily sympathise with those sentiments. Although as my spouse, bless him, has told me that he is happier with the dog around, so I think that it would be me packing my suitcase. Like most things in spouses domestic life he gets to have the fun without the pain - he walks the dog a few times a week, I walk him once or twice a day, who cleans up the pee? Me!!! Who launders the hairy dog bedding and hoovers up the daily hair? Is it my dear hubby .....no of course it isn't, but frankly it was ever thus.
The dear old government - Tony and his proto-Tories - are planning to get all those scroungers off incapacity benefit and into a job. Hurrah! Except that folk with mental illnesses and disabilites are already finding it tricky to get any help for their problems - I think I have mentioned that our health authourity has a two year waiting list for therapy? So how is the same health authority going to handle any more people requiring help and support when back in the job market. Or will they just give people more pills? Forcing people into a job is pretty dumb - if they get back to work and can't cope and go off sick again they will end up "blocking" a job vacancy, and they will get paid benefits again anyway in the form of sick pay ( though initially at least the employer will pick up the sick pay costs....ah ha... is this how the govt. plans to save cash???) and in all likelihood the ex-incapacity benefit claimant will feel even more shitty after failing to make the grade in the workplace.
1.4 million people actually get the benefit (I know that 2.2 is quoted but that is the amount who claim which is not the same) and I wonder exactly how many of those people are really able to work but are "shirking" - not so many would be my guess. But we are still obsessed with the idea of deserving and undeserving poor: the idea that you should only claim benefits if you are really, really desperate. Living on benfits cannot be fun, you don't get enough money to do any of the things that the moralisers in the Mail take for granted - holidays, theatre, good meals in restaurants. I doubt very much that anybody would choose benefits over a wage if they had real options. No matter what it says in the Express.
I have always supported the Labour party - though largely because a party with a true socialist identity hasn't existed. Now I almost hope that the Tories win the next election - not because I like them or their policies but I think the Labour party needs to remember what and who it really represents and maybe the shock of being back in opposition will do it. At the moment it seems to base policy on the bleating of the middle classes and the rants of the Tory press. While the Labour party had been in power the gap between rich and poor has widened - it is only because we have a relatively prosperous society in general that the people at the bottome of the pile are surviving, but what happens in the event of a economic depression? What then?
