annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starts angry, ends happy After three days of almost continual sleep, I have emerged as Ms Angry. Or MS ANGRY, to be more precise. In reverse chronological order, this is because: a) I can't find out how much it has cost me to spend most of the afternoon calling 0845 numbers. Fuck you, Richard Branson and fuck your poxy Virgin Media and its fucking obtuse website. b) Spending all that time on premium rate lines, attempting to get ED's benefits sorted out. In the olden days it was hard to get through to the DHSS. They've always had more calls than they can deal with, but you used to get the engaged signal and have to try again, over and over and over again, but when it rang, a person answered and they dealt with your query. Total cost - a few pence. Now it's answered immediately, by a machine. After undergoing trial by option selections you find yourself sentenced to Vivaldi hell - the opening bars of 'Spring', followed by the ring tone, a voice advising you that they will get to you as soon as possible, then the same fucking opening bars of bloody Vivaldi and on and on, round and round in a loop, until you forget what you were calling about, have doodled your daughter's NI number into complete illegibility and need to go to the toilet right now, actually. c) ED's claim has been discontinued, because she didn't meet the deadline. The system has refused to engage with the medical reasons given by her GP, MS Nurse and Physiotherapist as to why the form was late - it was late and all the appeals against the refusal to reconsider the discontinuance have been rejected. We haven't even got as far as whether or not she is 'fit for work' - they just won't look at her application for a benefit to which she is legally entitled, having worked and paid NI for fourteen years. d) The benefits advisor at the MS centre knows fuck all about what to do next, apart from writing to my MP. Yeah, like that's going to gain anything beyond a form letter on expensive paper with a fucking crest, thanking me for my letter and saying they'll look into it, which they won't. e) My fucking born-again step-brother, over from France for the disposal of his mother's ashes, coming round here yesterday to "sort out those problems of yours," because let's face it, all I need are a few words of wisdom from a man of the fucking church and my life will be plain sailing, tra la fucking la all the live long day. They (he and his wife) visited ED today. He phoned afterwards and said, "Well, we found the situation just as you said." Of course you did, you fucking knob, what did you think? That I was making it all up, just for a laugh? Got any suggestions then? No, didn't think so. Any chance of accepting that we're all doing our best to deal with the shit life throws at us and we're all still alive, so what the fuck, let's try and get some pleasure while we can? No? Well get out of my face with your fucking sanctimonious do-goodery and fuck off. [The above paragraph may not be at all fair, and the language is definitely influenced by the discovery that Armando Ianucci employed a special advisor to perfect the epic swearing of Malcolm Tucker. Reading the article (can't find it now or I'd link), I laughed out loud at his response to a knock at the door; "Come the fuck in or fuck the fuck off!"] f) Bloody religious bastards, assuming that living a secular life is to live without morals, as if without the fear of reprisals no one bothers to live a decent life. FUCK OFF.
9:32 p.m. - 16.04.12 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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