Friday 28th April, 2017                                 1930

Hardly seemed worth the effort going in just for one class this afternoon, especially since most of them had bunked off early to start their May Day holiday. What a surprise. Yep. I showed a film instead.

Even more of a surprise though was the queue of students at Peili Square waiting to take the 131 bus to the train station when I went down to get the school bus. I’ve seen queues before there but never on this scale. Must had been 200 yards long and four abreast. Even given the fact it leaves every fifteen minutes I reckon the tail-enders had well over an hour to wait even though the buses will have left rammed to the gunwales.

Even better, when I crossed the road I had to negotiate another battalion of students desperately trying to flag down taxis. God knows what it will be like now and tomorrow morning when those not playing truant want to travel. I think if I was a pupil I would probably not bother going home, far too much hassle.

I just hope I am not greeted by this sort of thing on Tuesday morning when I need the bus to the train station to get to the airport.

Saturday 29th           0050

There are few things that annoy me more than people getting it wrong and trying to lay the blame at my door and people denying there is a problem when clearly there is one, yet making out it is just me.

In the first instance it was the MNOPF pension. I got an email thanking me for the documents (phew! I wasn’t sure they would arrive, particularly as my old passport was in there) but then saying I needed to send X documents as well signed by me which I had failed to provide. Checking through the printouts I could find nothing in relation to what they wanted even in the second copy the school printed out that I had not completed, signed and returned.

There was no question that what they needed had never been sent and then they sent me the documents. Now I can use a laptop but I am not an engineer for Hewlett-Packard and I don’t work for the CIA. Send me encrypted and password protected emails all you wish but if I can’t download them and even if I can don’t offer me the option of actually using the password and there is nothing I can do!

I am happy to say they eventually sent them in a format I could access and no, I have never seen them before. So much for my being diligent in filling in my claim forms last week. Anyway, hopefully that can be solved over the weekend so Alice can post it but I will need to borrow a USB stick seeing as all mine are at school.

The second involves an international survey site. Been with them for years and about every 8 months I accumulate a £50 cheque . Not much but as you do the surveys when you have nothing else to do and considering that’s 5 days’ living expenses for me - worthwhile.

But they have updated their T&Cs and everyone needs to log on and accept. Ok, no problem. Except when I clicked the link I couldn’t log on!

Meek and mild as I am, I fired off an email saying the link provided wouldn’t allow me to log in.

I got the usual claptrap by reply and fired off more emails. The last email they sent me was they could not help as everything worked fine their end. Well it would, wouldn’t it? I said so I just have to leave? Thanks for your help.

Just had a global email saying that as people have reported problems they will be issuing a new link in due course!

Have I received an apology?