Naked greed and hatred

Ahem, I am caving in here to commercial pressures and put a little 'PayPal' button on the sidebar so that any dear, sweet, (Hurls breakfast - sorry about the mess) reader who feels charitably inclined towards this poor old, knackered (Coff, and even more pathetically, coff, coff) ex-enforcement officer can make a direct donation towards keeping this bog alive. I've tried putting stuff up for sale, writing a book and Google's Adsense, now this. Spare a penny or two guv'nor(s) and I'll keep the rabid drivel even more rabid. Hells bells, I'll even (Oh dear God the shame of it) do request items.

Tell you the truth, I've had a day. Immigration were not sympathetic and said bluntly about Mrs S's updated and activated Social Insurance Number; "Oh dear, they shouldn't have done that." The 'They' being Services Canada. Apparently, according to Immigration, even though the Tax people said that the opposite was the case, until our Permanent Residency application is processed (An event I am told which is three years in the future), my wife cannot use her SIN number to get a job. We have to still go the long way round, despite the fact that she is officially a 'Landed Migrant' and the SIN cards legitimacy has never been questioned by anyone else.

Now if you'll forgive me, I'm not a little miffed about this. I've put a lot of emotional capital into this emigration thing, and to be constantly rebuffed in this manner is something I thought I'd left behind on the streets of England. At about half past eleven this morning I announced to Mrs S; "Sorry love, I've lost the will to live." and went and sulked in the car reading John Grisham's 'King of Torts' while she went to the other two appointments she had arranged for early afternoon.

All the extra immigration rules that have come in since the events of 9/11 have made the lives of us ordinary folk just that much harder, and I not only blame the politicians for tying the hands of the security services and Police, but I also blame Osama Bin Laden and his fellow travellers for declaring a pointless war on the West. If it hadn't been for that egomaniacal half wit, Mrs S and I would be well on our way to being citizens of Canada right now.

When he dies and is buried, should the opportunity arise, I intend to take a pilgramage to his grave, and then I am going to piss all over it. I suspect I may have to join an extremely long queue. This is not because I have anything against Islam as a religion, just that particular cunt. Then when I die, I am (If there is such a place) going straight to Hell and volunteer for a job as a demon just so I can torment that motherfucker and all his little friends for the whole of eternity. He'll be there, no one can kill that many and go anywhere but. It'll be worth it.

Flat packs

This afternoon has been spent trudging around shop after shop looking at bits of furniture. We're still trying to keep within budget, which isn't easy as the value of the Canadian Dollar or 'Loonie' has been skyrocketing against the US Dollar. This is good for the Canadians as they can buy more gasoline even while the world price is at an exceptional price. With the price of gold likewise high, this means the Canadian gold mines are doing better than brisk business.

All the good news like near full employment and booming business rather passed me by this evening as I was driven to my knees building flat pack furniture. Most furniture in Canada, apart from bed, sofas and the like comes as a flat pack. Tables, chairs, bookcases, shelf units the lot.

Mrs S was sitting watching while I simultaneously cooked the dinner and built two shelf units, all the while making helpful comments like "Does it have to go in that way?" or "Mind your fingers!" or "I didn't want it there." Divorces have been occasioned by such imprecations and I'm sure it was Mrs Crippens constant carping about the wallpaper and Dr Crippens prowess as an interior decorator that led to her untimely demise.

No matter, the apartment is furnished, the Windstar insured, and we're off to see the immigration people tomorrow. My wife wants to be told (For about the fifth time) that she can stay in Canada without having to leave the country every six months, and yes she can take a job. Sometimes I wonder if she's not looking for someone to say no. This is driving me ever so slightly crazy. If when she gets told everything is okay tomorrow, she goes looking for yet another opinion it's going to be "Pass me the straitjacket love, I'm going to invoke the repatriation clause of the travel insurance about mental health."

Then they can flat pack me in the hold of a 747 and drop me out at 35,000 feet because I'll have lost the will to live.

I should really give up

Last night I posted about the old fashioned fun we used to have at Halloween when I was growing lad, and how it wasn’t all about ‘Trick or treat’. I posted a similar view (Although much shorter) in response to one of the ‘your view’ commenters on the Daily Telegraph website. You can read the thread here.

One person took my words seriously amiss and tore into me personally because his / her Mother had been ‘Terrorised’ by some unsupervised ‘Trick or treat’ teenagers. In his / her own words;

“You (and these scumbags) can keep your 'sense of fun'.”

Which really says it all about the attitude of many in England. No doubt the poor Mother in question was alone at the time. She was so alone and afraid that a bunch of children in fancy dress knocking on her door and demanding sweets could traumatise her so. Yet instead of taking the trouble to help remedy said Mothers solitude, the person took umbrage against the whole festival and anyone who enjoyed it and said so.

Maybe it’s just me. I’m just so used to dealing with strangers and new situations that I’ve lost the conception of what it is to be isolated and scared of the world. To feel so alone and rejected all you want to do is hide. I go out and meet the world and am used to talking to anyone. Three years on the streets showed me that it wasn’t that difficult. All it takes is a touch of old fashioned common humanity and a little guts. My own Mother taught me that. She has a busier social life than I do.

This is the malaise that haunts my native country. The fear, too often reinforced by a sensationalising media that one cannot walk the streets in peace. The fear that you will be unjustly penalised for defending yourself, or murdered if you do. The fear promoted by a State which daily saps personal responsibility from the lives of everyone and then cannot deliver the safety it promises to the very people it should really be protecting (And I don’t mean Politicians).

I really should give up on people who have given up so much themselves. The poor souls can’t have any fun at all.

An apology

I'm trying to debug my blogs HTML code at the moment to see if it can be tidied up. This is interfering with writing posts. My other excuse is having do do a lot of dodging about because Mrs S's Social Insurance Number has now been activated, and I'm busy trying to find out whether she still needs to leave Canada every six months. This is not easy, as Mrs S is visiting Stepdaugters at college in England right now, and the bureaucrats won't tell me anything.

If anyone can shed any light on this, let me know.

Work Permit

A conversation held in the immigration department of the Canadian Government Offices (Open one day a week for four hours only with one solitary clerk on duty). We take our place in the queue and chat to a few other hopefuls until it comes to our turn.
“We’d like some help finding out how to get a work permit.”
“Do you have a job?” Says the clerk.
“Well, not yet, we need work permits.”
“I can’t help you. You have to have a job.” She responded.
“Oh, but we keep getting told that we need a work permit before we can get hired.”
“You’re a Permanent Resident of Canada?” She asked us.
“Erm not yet, no. We’ve applied.”
At this point Mrs S digs out her old ‘Landed Migrant’ status card and Canadian Social Insurance number. “I grew up here, and I have these, but we got told that I’ve been out of the country too long.”
“That’s correct, you have to have spent at least three out of the last five years in Canada.”
“I’ve got my Canadian Social Insurance Number here.” Mrs S hands over the original. “It’s in my maiden name.”
The clerk typed the SIN number into her computer. “Oh.”
“Is it valid?”
“I don’t know.” Said the clerk and then ran a Computer search on my wife’s ‘Landed migrant’ status. “It’s too old. It’s not in the system.”
Mrs S tried another tack. “What if we started a business here?”
“You can’t do that, you’re not permanent residents.”
“So no job, no permit, and we can’t work self employed?”
“Not really, no.”
“But we can open a bank account, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Is it okay for us to buy a house, car, that sort of thing?”
“Oh yes.”
“Can we do voluntary work?”
“So long as you aren’t paid for it, yes.”
“But we can’t legally work?”
“Not without a work permit, no.”
“Oh.” Thoughtful pause. “So what is the actual process of getting a work permit?” I asked carefully.
“Well, you can’t apply for a work permit within Canada.”
“Ri-ight. I thought you had to be here to apply according to your web site.”
“That’s incorrect.”
“Oh, that rather puts the tin lid on it. Say I was offered a job, what would I have to do?”
“You’d have to leave the country.”
“Say again?”
“You’d have to apply at your port of entry for a work permit.”
“Oh.”
“You could do it this way. Say you get offered a job, your would be employer writes to us for a market opinion to make sure you’re not putting a Canadian out of a job. We write back to them, you go down to the US border and leave Canada. Then you come back across the border and apply at a main border crossing for a work permit.”
“So that is how to get a work permit?”
“Providing the market opinion is favourable, yes.”

We left. You know it’s funny. You want to work, make money and contribute to the local economy and there’s stuff out there to do that is screaming out for your talents, but then there’s this seemingly huge adamantine wall of bureaucracy in the way.

On a similar subject; last week I was listening to a radio interview of a First Nations Project Manager who seemed to be having similar problems with the Governmental rule book. The First Nations elders ended up just ignoring the rules and went straight ahead and completed the projects anyway. The permissions came through in the end. They have a word for it. It sounds like “Wa-ey-ya”, which translates as “Just do it.” This is very tempting.