A change is as good as a rest

So here it is, work it out for yourself...

... Hang on, I was coming over a bit Jazzie B there for a second.

So what does everybody think? I'd been fed up of that old blog template since the day I started it, but I never had the wherewithall or courage to mess about with it. But then I thought "Blogs be blown!" and went for an overhaul.

I'm quite pleased with it. It always annoyed me how the other one was squished in the centre of the screen and there was no way of changing it because of the template components. Ah, how foolish we are when we embark on these adventures; if only I'd known that other template would be impossible to change when I started out...

But still, I've got four paragraphs out of this. Not bad, I reckon.


Taxing times
I had a look at my tax code on my payslip this afternoon. Just how exciting can a person's life get? Anyway, expecting to see "489L", I was surprised to see "489LI". Eh? An I code?? So I had a look at the Inland Revenue website to see what it meant.

Fucking useless.

They're too busy worrying about tax evasion, self assessment and basically robbing as much money off people who work to actually give anything like useful information out. The most annoying thing is the way you can only have online contact with certain departments, depending on the nature of the query, anything else and you have to phone them up.

I left them some feedback, telling them that their website wasn't at all informative and that people use the internet to AVOID having to phone people up, so why are certain queries only answered over the phone?

Idiots.

For those who don't know, the tax code tells a person their tax allowance - that's the amount you're allowed to earn before you start handing over your cash to the nation's workshy. For most people, this is £4,895, hence the tax code "489L".


Sickened
This news report got me so very upset this afternoon. I was absolutely sickened by it.

I know it's probably wrong, but I certainly care more for animals than I do for people and I detest any form of animal cruelty.

When I win the lottery (and it's probably for the best if I don't), I will open an animal santuary - I will start it off with a couple of donkeys and work from there. I will also fund lawyers to go out to the hot places, where they will work to prosecute poachers who pray on endangered species. The most fun I will have, however, is the hiring of a crack squad of hit men who will hunt down these fuckers who do things like drown pregnant dogs and tie lighted fireworks to cats and they will inflict the most prolonged and agonising deaths imaginable on them.


DRINK!
I mentioned somewhere earlier that I've not had a drink for nearly six years. It's odd that something that was once the central part of my being now rarely enters my mind.

Perhaps giving things up like that is like losing a loved one: unbelievably painful at first, to the point that you're convinced that you'll never be able to continue, and then gradually, you realise that the pain isn't there one day. You feel guilty or confused about it for a while - you're supposed to be in mourning and so you regress a bit, but more and more, week by week, you get better until you reach a point where you hardly think about it at all.

So now I'm at the stage where it's all a bit weird. I may well be OK to have a drink, probably be fine, but why would I and what would the effect be? Would it make me complacent? Would I be OK to have a drink every now and again? Would I start to drink more regularly again, to the point where I got back in to my old bad habits?

So to avoid any problems, I have to avoid drinking for ever I think. I think, I don't know for sure. I do know that it's not worth the trouble and that I can get by without it, even thought it does make me a rather miserable and tetchy fucker at times.

God, my feet are bloody freezing!