Don’t You Let That Deal Go Down

Sep 23, 2020 | Covid-19 Diary, Dead Water

Twas brillig, and the slimy Gove did announce that, as part of the easiest deal ever, truck drivers would require a Brexit passport to enter the county of Kent en route to La Belle France, and the police would be checking authorisations. As the M25 runs, in part, through Kent, what could possibly go wrong? Still, freedom from European tyranny, eh?

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After 45 failed attempts, I finally got an appointment at the doctors, and I only managed it because I tracked down the email address of the practice manager and dropped him a very polite note saying there was a problem with a single point of contact becoming a single point of failure. We had a very nice chat about systems and bureaucracies, and an appointment was sorted then and there (although a nurse called me later to fix a better time).

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I also got a file of scans of a bunch of negatives I sent off. The scans were disappointing, kinda flat. I’d say it was my fault–I’m always happy to put my hand up to silly mistakes–but since the pics were taken with four different cameras, a variety of lenses and three types of film, I suspect the problem is not with me in this case. When the negatives come back I’ll have a look with my old scanner.

I have a notion that it might be time to thin the herd of film cameras I have sitting in the cupboards. One of my putative retirement projects was to remind myself how to process B&W film and learn how to do process colour film. Maybe it’s time to do that as well.

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We marked the passing of the equinox by taking a boot full of garden rubbish to the local tip, leaving us more or less ready for winter when it comes. While I was in the garden a long skene of geese flew over, almost too high to be seen but clearly to be heard, marking the equinox in their own way, by heading south. I doubt they’ll get stuck in Kent waiting for authorisation.

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Music: dedicated to everyone stuck in the queue when the M25 becomes a car park and Europe is cut off by Brexit bullshit in the English Channel. Plastique Bertrand.