I just had a message from LinkedIn asking if I know Julia Wilson and telling me that “You and Julia have 1 mutual connection in common.”

This is wonderful news. After half a lifetime of marriage and two kids, you might start to look at your partner and wonder what you have in common. I’m sure Julia does. I am not the man she married, and even I don’t know when I changed. Actually, I’m literally not the man she married as most of me is less than 10 years old. I don’t think I need to add more.

Now we know – we have a mutual connection in common on LinkedIn and a chance to be sarcastic about social media and the possibilities of having a mutual connection that we don’t have in common. When I see things like that I always suspect the writer was being paid by the word. I saw another thing I hate earlier today. I was reading a publisher’s blurb that told me the poet in question wrote very unique poems.

Well, for one thing, if they weren’t unique that would be plagiarism, not poetry. And once you are unique, how can you be more unique than that?

LinkedIn, for those of you that don’t know is a social media site where you go to lie about your CV and, supposedly, to find new jobs. I’ve been on it a few years and so far no new job has been offered. I can’t get on it at the moment to alter my profile because, like WordPress, it’s part of the international robot techno-conspiracy to refuse me service due to the inadequacy of my computer equipment.

Catch-22 in action – I can’t replace my computer equipment because I don’t have a proper job, and I can’t get a proper job because I need a better computer.

That’s not quite true, of course. In reality, I can’t get a proper job because I’m close to retirement age, have no qualifications and, quite frankly, have a bad attitude. After years of self-employment I find I don’t like bosses, don’t like co-workers and don’t really care for customers much. I do, however, like being paid regularly, and that tends to keep me in line.

Anyway, it’s possible that there is no better job and, to be fair, there probably aren’t any better bosses and co-workers around, particularly in jobs which allow me to mess about with coins and medals all day.

And now that I’m being paid by the government to have a month off I really can’t see much of a downside to being employed.