I did say last time that every time I consider sorting out my time table so I have more time to work on my career something comes along and derails my plans. Well this time it was a form from the DWP.
The DWP - the Department of Works and Pensions. Or as I prefer to call them the Department of *ankers and Perverts. Seriously, what kind of person wants to earn their daily bread by quite literally stealing it out of the mouths of crippled veterans and those that were born with physically or mentally a bad hand in life? What kind of person can go to bed at night knowing that their employer makes their money by refusing to give funds to a woman who is dying of cancer, a child who lost their leg in a car accident and a veteran who sees his best friend's skull bursting like an over ripe plum every time he closes his eyes? Seriously what kind of person do you have to be?
And they say these supervillains are unrealistic because of their lack of empathy and their evilness. Um, I think their only unrealism is that they are open about their desire to run the world and the fact they are willing to stamp over people to get there. Now, if you want realistic then have your villain say that they don't want to rule the world, oh no, no, no, they don't want to rule the world, they just want their country to be strong and great and to do this they must cut out the fat, reduce the wastage, decrease the unemployment rate and build a strong economy. Wait a minute, this seem very familiar. Why is that? No, don't tell me, it will come to me in a moment.... Let me think about it....
So, that aside, I had a twenty five page form to fill out where basically every question is - tell us why you are too useless to society to have a proper job? Twenty five pages that you have to fill out by hand in really tiny writing to fit it all in because if you use extra pages to fully explain why you are not a valuable human being well, let's put it this way I used extra pages when I had to fill out one of these forms in 2017 and strangely all of what I'd written on those pages was undelivered. The fact that it was posted in the same envelope as the rest of the form and yet some how was undelivered is a mystery never fully explained. I guess there must be a post office ghost that can some how extract extra sheets of paper from between the pages of DWP forms without breaking the seals on the envelopes that surround both forms and extra sheets. A phantom indeed and far more powerful than any theater born spook.
Now part of my problems in dyspraxia, which means I co-ordinate very slowly and that make writing standard size letters difficult. Writing the tiny size required for a DWP form is even more difficult and time consuming if they are to be readable by anyone who is not a doctor's secretary and as the reviewers who are employed by the DWP are not medically trained I doubt any of them are doctor's secretaries. Therefore, after spending a week and a half complying my answers in rough form I then spent a further two weeks writing them out on the form, crafting them letter by letter, all in black ink, all in upper case. Then after all that struggle, I had to take it down to the post office and pay to have it sent recorded delivery. Yes, I know they provide an envelope that you just have to make sure that it is in the post seven days before the deadline BUT if it turns up one day late they will reject your application and you will have to go to a tribunal with the second application so paying for that recorded delivery is the only way to be damn sure they get it on time.
So having fought my way through that soul sucking morass I was finally able to go back to my career, only to discover that it is now the summer holiday. Infant Distraction incoming!!!!!!
On the plus side, we did manage to organize a whole bunch of friends to come over and help put the outer shell of my shed up so we are one step nearer to having my studio ready. Now to just silicone seal the holes in the walls, water proof it inside and out, insulate it with some new fleece lining (having discovered that the polymer foam that was originally used is one of the most flammable substances on earth), put up the marine ply inner lining and finally paint the whole thing inside and out. So nothing much to do then.
Cue manic grin and baggy eyes.
