Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi says Everything in the universe is ‘Muslim’ for it obeys God by submission to His laws… For his entire life, from the embryonic stage to the body’s dissolution into dust after death, every tissue of his muscles and every limb of his body follows the course prescribed by God’s law. His very tongue which, on account of his ignorance advocates the denial of God or professes multiple deities, is in its very nature ‘Muslim’…

So god’s law is that I deny him – yeehah!

Since I have a mortgage for 13 Eddie Court, I need my mortgage provider’s permission to rent out the flat. I applied for this at the end of January, once I was sure of the names of the tenants. I’ve been checking on the progress of this application ever since.

However, the mortgage provider’s head office help-desk-bot tells me now they haven’t received the form. Their lettings department doesn’t take incoming calls so the help-desk-bot has emailed that department to ask them to contact me.

I’ve also contacted my mortgage provider’s local office: they can’t speak to the head office letting department either. However, my lawyer/rental agent has retained a copy of the application and is now trying to use it to beat ‘seven shades of shit’ out of the mortgage company via their local office.

Meanwhile my sister’s dealings with state agencies crawl on interminably. She’s been denied tax credits for 2003-4 and 2004-5 because she didn’t provide proof she’s still disabled. Because she’d already received these credits, the inland revenue now want them back: over £1500. The only consolation is I now know she can pay this.

Also, the Department for Work & Pensions now want to check up that she’s been looking for jobs assiduously enough. They’ve denied her JobSeeker’s Allowance for several months because Morrisons told them she’d resigned her job ‘for a change in career direction’.

Of course, Morrisons have yet to put their offer of reinstatement in writing. Their latest tale is that their lawyer doesn’t know whether the written offer should come from the lawyer or the HR department.

I thought I had it yesterday and today all planned out:

• lunch with a friend in Edinburgh
• take the 2·10 train to Leuchars to meet with MsInvisFem at 4 pm. (She’d told me she wanted to contact me about issues resulting from our separation and, since I’d come back to Scotland to see old friends I hadn’t been able to meet in January, tweak some final pieces about renting out the flat and to have my final vaccinations, it seemed reasonable to offer to meet face-to-face.)
• spend the evening with friends in Gauldry, then either stay with them or go back to Edinburgh
• if Wednesday’s meeting with MsInvisFem hadn’t covered all she wanted, go back to St Andrews to meet finish it on Thursday morning
• get my final vaccinations in Dundee
• get back to Edinburgh around 5pm to have a final evening with Elly before heading back to Worcester on Friday

Here’s what actually happened

• as planned until 4pm, when MsInvisFem said she was cold. I offered to turn on the heating and found the boiler’s timer (which wasn’t replaced when the old boiler was) had died.
• That utter god of CORGI, Paul Johnson, arrived about 5pm to try to fix it. He had to remove the old timer from the wall and fit a new one above where it had been. This then left an open junction-box where the old timer had been and Paul didn’t have any blanking-plates to cover it. However they are easily available at DIY stores so I should have no problem buying and fitting one on Thursday.
• MsInvisFem didn’t have time to finish the things she wanted to cover that evening but said she would finish a draft for me to see on Thursday morning.
• My friends in Gauldry were going through various hassles and so couldn’t offer me a bed for the night. Elly offered to come and collect me from their place and take me back to Edinburgh. There was a few phonecalls back and forth to agree a final plan, during which I feared I’d upset her and was just about ready to jump out of a window: she’s been so supportive of me, especially over the last few months that even coming close to upsetting her is totally out of order.
• I met up with Gauldry-dwellers. Emily had to go to bed as soon as we’d eaten: their 6-month-old had hardly slept for the past few days and so needed attention all the time. Barry and I chatted until after 10pm when Elly arrived. On the drive home, my brain seized up and my mouth dried out so conversation was difficult, and hampered by my fear that I’d embarrassed Elly when she arrived at Gauldry.
• Got to sleep around 1am and woke around 5pm, full of emotional issues and annoyance about the flat not yet being sorted.
• took 9·10 train back to Leuchars. Just before I left Edinburgh, MsInvisFem phoned to ask when we would meet. I told her that I would be in St Andrews at 10·30.
• MsInvisFem arrived at the flat at 10·50, bearing teabags, sweeteners and soya-milk. (Many thanks to her for this.) She hadn’t finished the draft the previous evening and so took a while finishing it. Discussion of it took more time. I then visited my lawyer to discuss the draft and look for some documentation Julia believed I might have in the files I’d left there.
• No joy with the files, but plenty to alter in the draft before it ceased causing me problems.
• Then rush to Dundee and wait for over an hour to be seen.
• Get out of hospital at 4pm back to St Andrews to buy and install the required blanking plate.
• take the 5·44 train back to Edinburgh, arriving 6·45 – almost two hours later than I wanted and dog-tired.

finally had enough of chewing my ‘tash: I have a face again!

Why an incomplete success? Well, the grey’s still here. However the face-fungus recontouring situation is entirely satisfactory.

Artemis Indeed, you are 62% erudite, 58% sensual, 70% martial, and 58% saturnine.

This Greek Goddess was patron to young girls and provided comfort to women in childbirth. She was known as the Virgin Huntress, and she chose to spend her time among a clan of toughened nymphs living in the great outdoors of a land called Arcadia.Just like her Celtic equivalent, Artio, Artemis was also called “Mistress of Beasts” and “Goddess of Wild Things.” It’s not surprising then that she was also considered a Fertility Goddess. What is surprising is that this Fertility Goddess was a perpetual virgin. The race of warrior women called the Amazons worshipped her as the Goddess of the New Moon. Strong, athletic, and temperamental, this was no Goddess to irritate. Even looking at her could kill. She was also very demanding when it came to her worship. She was known to bring down entire empires simply because a sacrifice might have been overlooked. The Fifteen Goddesses These are the 15 categories of this test. If you score above average in … …all or none of the four variables: Neit. … Erudite: Minerva. … Sensual: Aphrodite. … Martial: Artemis. … Saturnine: Persephone. … Erudite & Sensual: Isis. … Erudite & Martial: Sekhmet. … Erudite & Saturnine: Nemesis. … Sensual & Martial: Hera. … Sensual & Saturnine: Bast. … Martial & Saturnine: Ilamatecuhtli. … Erudite, Sensual & Martial: Maeve. … Erudite, Sensual & Saturnine: Freya. … Erudite, Martial & Saturnine: Sedna. … Sensual, Martial & Saturnine: Macha.

Digitize – Nick Sentience & Andy Farley

Destructively testing an iPod nano

How much of your kit could cope with this kind of abuse?

Sunhair – Ozric Tentacles

Tag history query
I’m still wondering about the ease-of-use to value ratio of LJ-tags. Has anyone noticed, either in the standard LJ browser-interface or in any of the OSX apps (or even in a classic mac OS app) a list of the tags they’ve used so far?

Ryan-air news
This afternoon the atmosphere in the Ryan household was more relaxed than it has been since I arrived. Susan’s told Morrisons this morning that she is ‘minded to accept their offer’ of reinstatement and back pay, so long as it’s given in writing and Morrisons’ records either don’t show the suspicion of pilfering or do mention it but state that it was later proved to be unfounded. Morrisons are also aware that ACAS are talking to their solicitor who submitted the piece about eating some sweets and putting others into a carrier bag, with a view to getting that nonsense expunged. So the chap who ran the Grievance Hearing needs to talk to M’s solicitor and will get back to Sue. However, it still seems that they’ve accepted they were wrong to accuse her in the first place and wrong in how they dealt with the suspicion.

snap crackle pop
Also, mum’s been examined by the doctors working for the insurers of the plonker who crashed into her and wrote off her car a few months ago. They’ve accepted that she has been battered and bruised and that it’ll take her six months to recover to her state before the crash. So she’s feeling vindicated and relieved that this little indignity is over – and is looking forward to feeling less achey in a finite time.

Iconoplasty?
I like my current icons:

• a clip from me curing a leckie laptop with a hammer:
• MsInvisFem’s ‘pissed-off Bruce’ drawing:
• MsInvisFem’s impression of me flying the sexiest laptop ever:
• MsInvisFem has also drawn me a ‘cambo pig’ icon:

I’m very grateful to MsInvisFem for the latter three!
However, since my Random Bozo alter-ego is about to take over, I think I need one that celebrates my randomness. Any volunteers? Here’s a few pix that could be worked with:

• My first ever passport photo (from when I was 16)
• My mini-parents and I
• Tramping around
• Marianne, Latimer and I
• Me about 17 years ago

bigger versions of these pix are of course available.

… but I took a couple of photos of my parents while we were waiting in Morrisons’ lobby for Sue and her MENCAP advisor to come out of the Grievance Hearing. So you can see what 40 years of parenting me has done.

Almost a result! At the second part of Susan’s Grievance Hearing, the Morrisons staff were far more courteous than last week. The store manager running the meeting said, inter alia:

• What do you want to achieve out of this? (Susan’s answer was ‘Justice’.)
• Morrisons do have procedures, developed with MENCAP, for cases like hers. However they were not followed in this case.
• In this case, Susan should have been suspended while an investigation occurred.

They gave Susan a photocopy of the ‘resignation letter’. It’s plain as day that all of it apart from the signature wasn’t written by Susan: the letter uses words Susan wouldn’t and is in architect/engineer-style, very neat, capitals.

While they didn’t actually retract the theft allegations, they then offered Susan reinstatement, with back pay. Susan didn’t answer straight away – and there is a further meeting on Thursday morning. Meanwhile the MENCAP advisor is consulting with ACAS over whether Susan should accept Morrisons’ offer.

I phoned the Inland Revenue Tax Credits helpline on Susan’s behalf yesterday afternoon. Following that conversation and examining the documentation Susan’s retained there appear to be two problems:

• In the middle of 2005, Susan received a letter saying thank you for completing your 2003-4 Tax Credits piece. I now intend to query it: please provide evidence that you are still disabled.

Susan appears to have responded but not in the required way: there’s a further letter saying you haven’t provided the evidence I asked for. I am therefore removing the severe disability element of your tax credits.

Of course, since Susan had already received this money, the Inland Revenue wants it back. Similarly, they want back the severe disability element of her 2004-5 tax credits. They’ve just sent her ‘notices to pay’ back these sums, totalling over £1400. (I imagine they’ll also want back the severe disability element of the tax credits she’s received in 2005-6.)

• Tax credits are state support for people on low earned income or with other needs. The Inland Revenue carried on paying Susan tax credits after Morrisons dismissed her. The Inland Revenue will want that back. It’s unclear whether they’ve paid her the severe disability element but from the very low amount of the 2005-6 ‘award’, I think not.

So I’ve written the bones of a letter on Sue’s behalf which

• makes it plain that we have no quarrel with the amount of tax credit the IR say she’s received in 2003-4 and 2004-5 – it’s all there on her wage slips (when tax credit was paid via her employer) or in her bank book (when paid direct by Inland Revenue)
• appeals the decision to take away the severe disability element in these two years. After all, her condition is congenital and irreversible: it won’t get better. In fact, in 2004, the Department for Work and Pensions wrote to Susan, saying ‘we accept you have disabilities and will continue to do so until at least 2009’.
• asks for a blow-by-blow account of how and when the overpayments occurred because the amounts of overpayment appear to vary from document to document
• points out that because of her disability Sue doesn’t know what to do with official letters and so asks for leniency and tolerance in her case. (She has until 27 February 2006 to appeal the amount of her 2005-6 tax credits award but I don’t know if she can still appeal about the earlier years.)
• asks that they hold off attempts to recover tax credits paid to her after Morrisons dismissed her because it’s quite likely that once the Tribunal process has finished, she’ll be reinstated and paid for the time she hasn’t been working
• asks that if she hasn’t been paid the severe disability element in 2005-6, that she should be.

I wanted to write it while the conversation with the helpline worker was still fresh in my memory and so got to sleep around 3 am. So after the grievance hearing I went to bed and slept until the early evening.

I’ve emailed the draft to dad and Sue’s mencap worker so they can add tact and take into account whatever the Inland Revenue say in the ‘how to appeal’ piece they’re sending to Susan.

Meanwhile a huge Thank you! to everyone who’s sent encouraging words and thoughts, via LiveJournal or otherwise. It’s meant a hell of a lot to me and my folks.