Tag Archives: jury service

Day 206

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Two poetry magazines arrived today. One has two of mine in it, one has none. However, as I didn’t submit any to the second magazine, this is to be expected.

This month I will be submitting fewer than planned, because I really haven’t been producing much for the last six months and haven’t been on top of the editing for the last couple of months. It was on the rise, but topped out and I can’t raise the old enthusiasm.

At the same time this is happening, I find that I am gripped by an ambition to write better poetry, so am hoping that less quantity will pay off in better quality. I have a suspicion that this what all lazy writers say.

Speckled Wood

Sorry if I worried anyone with news that I’d been for a scan, I often leave medical details out of the blog, but thought that the trouser anecdote was worth including, as was the distance I found I could walk if necessary – must try harder. The result was fine, not perfect, as I still need blood tests and treatment, but nothing malignant was found.

The trick, I have found, is to use two sticks. With two I can go faster, feel steadier and don’t wear out my shoulder. I bought some walking poles recently and am going to try using them next time I try for any distance. That way I will look less like a cripple and more like a serious hiker.

The Jury Summoning Service has emailed to say i have been released from service. Until this notification It was not official.  I have filled in the questionnaire they sent. It was, as with so many Government surveys, useless. It was predicated on the assumption that I had applied for release from jury service. I hadn’t. I’d applied to the Court for permission to use  a taxi and they had applied for my release on my behalf. This made many of the questions irrelevant. Somewhere, a Civil Servant, in fact probably a whole department, is being paid big money to produce sub-standard work. They should pay me big money to go through all this bumph and improve it. That way, things will improve and I will get more money. Win-win.

Large Skipper at East Leake

The only downside to the email from the Jury Summoning Service is that the Court had applied to have me excluded from further selection, but they have jut exempted me from this one and left me open for future selection. You can’t serve once you reach 70 so they have just over five years to call me again and as there is a pool of 30,000,000 potential jurors and they only need about 300,000 my chances of being called are slim. If my number does come up again I will regard it as an omen and buy lottery tickets.

Hummingbird Hawk Moth

My problem with photos is that I have been lazy with titles over the years and photos with ni titles are impossible to search for. I am now paying for my laziness over the years.

Day 199 (Part 2)

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Outside, the sky is yellow and hazy. It’s not pleasant, but it is probably a fitting end to a day that included a new British temperature record (40.3 degrees C in Lincolnshire, an increase of 0.1 degrees on the record set at Heathrow in the middle of the day.)

I used Tesco Whoosh to order groceries when Julia cam home after work. They had run out of ice cream but they did have ice, beer and cream cakes. They don’t all appear in the recommended ways to combat the heat, but if that’s what she wants, that’s what I order. Having spent most of my day inside, I didn’t need beer, but the ice, when placed near the living room fan, worked well. And the cake – a cream slice, was nice and cool too.

The rest of the day was mixed. I sent a group of tanka off to the British Haiku Society Anthology editor yesterday and had notification of acceptance today. He chose the one i had been least happy with, but that’s life. It was a bit of a cheat because members are guaranteed to have one accepted. However, I’m in a slump and wanted (a) a success and (b) one more acceptance to make it number 100. Now I’ve reached the 100 mark I am going to give up counting. It seems like a milestone but really it’s just a number, and no indication of quality.

Photo by Rakicevic Nenad on Pexels.com

This was slightly marred by the interview I listened to last night where a writer said that publication doesn’t seem as important after the “first 1,000”. I doubt I could write 1,000 good poems.

I had a phone call on the land line. It didn’t ring long and I missed it. Same thing happened twenty minutes later. I counted the rings – seven. Who rings a landline and quits after seven rings. Who rings a landline apart from nuisance callers? The answer to that is The National Health Service. Despite knowing that I work and prefer contact via my mobile at least one of them prefers to use the land line for purposes of security and clarity of connection. Practicality and my preferences have no part in the process.

I contacted the Treatment Centre and was told they had tried to contact me twice and I would now have to make another appointment. I explained that they had hardly let the phone ring, and that they knew I preferred contact by mobile as I am rarely home, but the answer was still the same. It’s the results of my chest X-Ray, which I need before I can start my new arthritis treatment. That has all had to be put back two weeks because someone is too lazy to use their notes or let a phone ring. You’d think that having tried the land line they would have tried the mobile number.

Then, having waited for the phone appointment that never came, I was free to ring the Court about getting permission to use a taxi to court for my jury service. They don’t have parking for people with mobility problems, and bus/tram isn’t practical for various reasons.

I opened my email to get the phone number, but found I had another email from the court. They have written to the Jury Summoning Bureau to have me excused from serving. It seems there will be quite a bit of walking in the court and (the real reason, I feel) they don’t generally pay for taxis, despite mentioning it in the documentation.

Looks like I’m officially a cripple now,and not required to do my civic duty. Not sure whether I’m happy or not. I was looking forward to seeing how the system worked, but I am relieved I won’t have to spend two weeks sitting listening to lawyers twisting words. I’m now considering whether to become an advocate for disabled rights – are disabled people to be excluded from their civic duty because it’s inconvenient for the court?

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Day 180

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Teetering on the slide into winter . . .

Started the day with bacon croissants. I was thinking of getting up and making them but Julia got up quicker and read my mind. There are some benefits to moving slowly.

Completed my jury service form online. I still wonder why they need to threaten me with a £1,000 fine all the time. I suspect it is because the sort of people who draft these letters like the feeling of authority given by the ability to bend others to their will. I’ve  noticed this in other people over the years, particularly since lockdown gave encouragement to petty tyrants.

They are generally people of low intelligence who have been frustrated by their inability to rise in their chosen career, or any career. Their parents didn’t love them. They never learned to say please and thank you. I could carry on, but I feel I have conveyed the essence of my contempt.

Marmalade Hoverfly

Marmalade Hoverfly

As a result of completing the form on line I now have a pre-paid envelope addressed to the Jury Central Summoning Bureau. I am seriously tempted to send them a letter querying their whole approach to jurors.

In the waiting room at the surgery I was privileged to witness four different complaints against practice staff. One women wouldn’t name her complaint – she wanted the practice manager.

One man was complaining about the late arrival of his drugs. He had clearly ordered them late. And he also clearly needed help with anger issues, and possibly with voices in his head, as he muttered and swore under his breath.

Another woman was complaining that she had rung for help in treating the skinned knee of her daughter and didn’t like the answer she had been given by another receptionist (get some ointment from the pharmacy). “She’s not properly qualified.” she kept repeating. If you need a medical qualification to treat a skinned knee there is something wrong with the world, and If a parent can’t cope with a skinned knee there is something wrong with the parent.

Finally we had the man who was trying to make an appointment. You can’t make appointments these days – you have to ring in and hope you get through and then hope that the doctor has a free slot to ring you back. He ended up confused and asked “What would happen if I walked out of here and collapsed?”

Wheatear

Him, I sympathise with. Though I also sympathise with the receptionist, who is forced into a corner such as this by the people who run the NHS. In the end she had to give the obvious answer – “I’d call you an ambulance.”

We went for lunch (we actually ate in the restaurant as part of my return to normal), Julia went to Hobbycraft, who have now emptied their top floor, and I went for tea in the back room at the jewellers.

Back home, I filled in my pain survey and, with painful, clumsy fingers, folded the A4 sheets of paper in three and put them in the (to small) envelope provided. I had assumed that “Page 6 of 6” on the last sheet meant it was the final sheet. But no, as I rifled through the remaining pages (they do tend to include a load of junk too) I found “Page 7 of 6”. What logic is there behind that? I’m afraid that as I completed the final two questions I added a rather terse note a\bout page numbers and envelope sizes.

Heron

These people have doctorates, research budgets, staff and big wage cheques (to name but three things I don’t have) and they come up with “Page 7 of 6”.

A light tea followed, to make up for the burger and chip lunch, and I am currently feeling hungry but virtuous as I type.

And that has been my day . . .