Life Spugs because...

[House of Usher]

USHER changes profile pick...and now I'm confused...

It's only temporary, until things become less Kafkaesque... 

In the meantime I'm chasing bits of paper, supplying information in triplicate and changing overnight into an enormous insect. Possibly.

[WoD]

possibly....probably...take up the fly-paper just in case...

[Bouwel]

*gets out the Vapona and prepares for Description of a Struggle*

-Bouwel-

[Banners]

Cheers Fellas,

I presume you're only going to pay for 225 of the items Matt.

Unfortunately we pay up-front...

Fark. And they want people to do repeat business with them??

...and they're also quite a bit cheaper than anyone else, so, regrettably, we'll be going back to them. Ah well...

M@

[Peter Wolf]

Cheers Fellas,

I presume you're only going to pay for 225 of the items Matt.

Unfortunately we pay up-front...

Fark. And they want people to do repeat business with them??

...and they're also quite a bit cheaper than anyone else, so, regrettably, we'll be going back to them. Ah well...

M@

That must be their justification then and they must be so cheap that you can effectively write off 10 percent or less of the goods that they sent you or if you look at it another you are getting the faulty goods for nothing.

Theres different ways of looking at things.

[Roger Godpleton]

My mum asked me to bring in the long dead rabbit's water bottle from the shed and in a fit of pique I decided to drink the leftover water in said bottle. As much as I enjoy the mechanism of rodent water bottles and the stop ball thingy they so effectively employ it doesn't change the fact that I was putting my lips around an object last used by a creature who attempted to escape from the cosy blameless domesticity we so graciously provided only to be eaten by a dog. Does cheese prevent myxomatosis, cos I did have some cheese afterwards.

Now I shall cut and paste the lyrics to "Myxomatosis" by Radiohead.

the mongrel cat came home
holding half a head
proceeded to show it off
to all his new found friends
he said "I've been where I like"
"I've slept with who I liked"
"she ate me up for breakfast"
"she screwed me in a vice"

"but now
I don't know why I
feel so tongue-tied"

I sat in the cupboard
and wrote it down in neat
they were cheering and waving
cheering and waving
twitching and a-salivating like with myxomatosis
but it got edited fucked up
strangled beaten up
used in a photo in Time magazine
buried in a burning black hole in Devon

I don't know why I
feel so tongue-tied
don't know why
I feel
so skinned alive.

like my thoughts are misguided and a little naive
I twitch and I salivate like with myxomatosis
you should put me in a home or you should put me down
I got myxomatosis
I got myxomatosis

yeah no one likes a smartarse but we all like stars
that wasn't my intention (tension), I did it for a reason (treason)
it must have got mixed up
strangled beaten up
I got myxomatosis
I got myxomatosis

I don't know why I
feel so tongue-tied

[Roger Godpleton]

In the bath I lathered up my left forearm and decided to write song lyrics in the lather¹. Obviously, I decided to write Sometimes People Make A War. However, when I got to "Don't know what its for" I realized I had neglected to include proper punctuation and I had to start from scratch. On the second attempt I got to the same point and realized I had to forgotten to include the pivotal "(Business)". At this point my right arm was too tired for me to continue.




^1. In order to do this I frequently had to wipe over the lather in order to continue writing more letters, essentially forming the illusion of a continuous line of text for my own amusement.

[House of Usher]

More dealings with the Council Tax Benefit division today. Aaaaaarghhhh!

"Please confirm what business expenses are for in June, July and August, totalling £103.88" - so that a) we haven't tried to conceal income in June by passing off personal expenditure as business expenditure, and b) we haven't tried to reduce savings in June, July and August by making unnecessary purchases in order to slide under the savings and capital threshold to qualify for benefits.

What does it matter what those expenses were for??? You can't get council tax benefit if you've got savings and capital of £16,000. £103.88 is a long way short of £16,000. Our savings are a 4-figure sum rapidly heading for 3 figures or a negative sum, as I've told them repeatedly and supplied supporting documentation. They want copies of 7 receipts totalling £103.88, including for a £4.00 storage box and £1.77 lever arch file dividers, in order to establish that we haven't been inventing purchases of office supplies to convert savings into expenditure, when the amount concerned is so small and if we'd spent it on vodka instead it wouldn't even be being looked at. It's insane.

I've now told them what those expenses are; that the small sum I received in June (before the claim started) is my share of my late grandmother's estate; money my partner paid into her account before the claim started was her earnings for June(duh!); and that the £500 deposit in my partner's account came out of my account (as shown in the statements they asked us for) and was for her to pay her income tax and our council tax with!

It's barmy that they're so thoroughly interrogating the information I've provided when everything is well below 'applicable amounts', and they're making the assumption that a fraudster will have given them details of all their bank accounts and won't have concealed major purchases by paying cash and not declaring them for income tax purposes as deductions against declared earnings.

Yesterday I thought things were becoming less Kafkaesque in my corner of the universe, but I guess that's because it was a Sunday. Monday morning rolls around and it justs starts all over again.

[Proudhuff]

If you worked out the people's time who are checking all this detail, it would no doubt add up to far more than the 'possible' saviing to the Council.

hey should give the clerks some leeway to say 'look this guys not at it can we just cough up and start chasing the businessman who owns us thousands or indeed helping out some poor bugger who hasn't got the wits to jiont up the dots'

Just remember HoU: This too shall pass

[Bolt-01]

iT. jUST. dOES.

Big time.

[House of Usher]

My cynical advice to anyone who is in a couple both with insecure employment:

If one of you has a contract and the other is self-employed, the self-employed partner should cease trading as soon as the contracted partner's employment ends and the self-employed partner's earnings fall below the threshold at which they can claim benefit too. Don't continue working the odd few hours here and there until your client pool dries up, regardless of how much you value those clients. As soon as your earnings fall below threshold for claiming benefit, turn away any clients until your partner starts working again.

If you continue to work self-employed for a few hours a week while your partner claims Jobseeker's Allowance a) it will complicate your claim for JSA, b) most of your earnings will be deducted from your benefits anyway and you'll still be taxed on them, and c) it will complicate any benefit claim you have with the council, they will want to know far more personal information than if you stop trading when your partner's contract ends, and payments may be delayed by up to 8 weeks (my best guess so far).

[TordelBack]

They want copies of 7 receipts totalling £103.88

Sheesh, Ush, just admit that you bought Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose collections for 'research' purposes.  They may put you on the sex offenders register, but at least they'll want you off the phone/out of teh office as fast as possible.  Hell, you might even qualify for Disability Benefit.

[Peter Wolf]

I had a very vivid dream this morning where i was either working with a team of building conservation people restoring a delapidated stately home or they were working under me .I cant remember which way round it was but life spugged when i woke up and realised it was all a dream.

Oh well - Back to reality again.....

It will happen for real at some point in the not too distant future though .

[johnnystress]

the parcel I was expecting, containing all the recent progs has been safely delivered...to the wrong address


idiots 

[Roger Godpleton]

Good mood was blackened by student loan statement.

Also I have to housesit for my parents for the next two weeks. Would be fine except for the bad brother being around to throw mess-producing parties for people who in all likelihood avoid him like the fucking plague for the rest of the year. He seems relatively docile these days, but he could pull his "Why isn't there any food in the house?" routine at any time.