The Meerkat Muse: 26th of March, 2025
It’s Meerkat Muse time! Welcome one and all, what’s been going on?
Heists and Hijinks
I don’t refer to daytime activities here, so some of you may be disappointed! I refer instead to the dreamscape, which has created some truly baffling nocturnal adventures over these past couple of weeks. In one dream, I was breaking into Harrods (of London high street fame), for purposes that the dream never revealed. The secret entrance/breach point was a toilet, of all places, and once inside I (along with a small team) set about evading security and running around. It turned out this was some form of initiation, for an organisation opposing criminal plots, though precisely what we were foiling was never made known to me.
The next dream was just as weird. I was walking to collect my daughter from school, only I was coming from a totally different direction (the direction of our old home, on the other side of town). I realised I was running a bit late, so picked up my pace, and when I got to the school, I was met by my wife, and Keanu Reeves! Keanu was offering to help my wife and I get new tattoos, and I kept noticing I had new tattoos, that I had no memory of getting. Eventually Keanu had to go, and wife required my assistance in finding a football for her dad.
Flybys
Returning from school the other day, my daughter and I spotted a pair of helicopters moving across the evening sky. What made these stand out is that they were military helicopters. A friend later confirmed they were Chinooks, which are used by militaries around the world. I couldn’t tell if these were Royal Air Force, or if they were belonged to the US military.
In a time of tremendous global uncertainty, the sight of military machines has the potential to set tongues wagging that little bit more, but the odds are this was some pre-planned exercise, as opposed to sinister preparations.
Bad Neighbours
Generally speaking, my neighbours are all nice people, or at the very least, people who give us no grief. In truth, I don’t tend to interact with most of them, and they don’t tend to interact with me and mine. This is fine, there’s no aggro and no trouble. This has changed a little bit, with one set of neighbours playing peculiar games with a parcel intended for my wife. The postman delivered it to the wrong address by transposing some numbers, which is fair enough, mistakes happen, but these neighbours did not answer the door to my wife, or myself, when we knocked.
I can only speculate as to the reasons. They gave it back to the postie when he knocked, but refused to even acknowledge my wife and I, when we knocked. Did they somehow not trust us? Why would they completely ignore us, if they knew the parcel was not for them? It transpires they pulled a similar stunt with another neighbour, which sadly speaks volumes.
Eat the Rich
OK, so maybe I’m being too dramatic. On the other hand, maybe I’m not. The UK government, ostensibly a left-wing government, has decided that to reform the welfare sector, the people who should suffer the most are the most vulnerable. Cuts to the welfare sector will hinder the lives of people who depend on benefits. Those who are on a PIP (Personal Independence Payment) are on such plans because of illness and disability, what becomes of them and their lives if their PIPs are cut? What happens to anyone who cannot work, for whatever reason? What of support for low-income families?
Some Labour MPs have pointed out that there is another, better solution: a wealth tax. A wealth tax could generate considerable sums of cash, but in a move that will shock no one, Keir Starmer’s Labour do not appear interested in a measure that would ease the burden on the working class. To offer up some perspective on this, if you charged each of the UK’s five wealthiest people £10 billion each, each would still have more than £10 billion available to them, but you would generate £50 billion for public services. Keep in mind, that’s merely the from the top five. The money is there, hoarded by the super-rich, who go out of their way to protect their interests, even as people in countries as supposedly affluent as the UK freeze and starve.
Labour is supposed to be the party of the working class. They are not supposed to take more from us. At this point, their only saving grace is that they are not the Tories, and not Reform.
Swastika Shame
Someone in my local area has, for reasons known only to them, painted a large swastika on the pavement. It is impossible not to know what the swastika symbolises, so whoever did this did so knowing the history and awful legacy. It is shameful, shameful beyond words, and I am both horrified and disgusted.
There is no excuse, not one, to be painting such symbols of evil on the streets. This is a mark of how much influence the hard-right is gaining over the hearts and minds of people. There really needs to be a push-back against this sort of ignorance and cruelty. I am struggling to express my anger at this, I am so lost for words that such a symbol could find its way to my town’s streets.
Chaotic Cats
I love my cat dearly, he is an affectionate ball of fluff, but sometimes he drives me mad! The other night he decided to come upstairs, nudge his way into our bedroom, and sit across my wife and I, whilst purring away in our faces. He was clearly happy to have joined us, but this is not handy when we’re trying to sleep! Once removed (and we had to remove him more than once) he proceeded to have a bath, right outside our door. In the middle of the night a cat licking themselves is not a quiet sound. Following this, he had what we like to call a ‘nutty half-hour’ of running around.
Needless to say, I was a bit shattered the following day.
Delays
I don’t refer to the recent chaos at Heathrow Airport (though I certainly don’t envy anyone caught up in it), but rather my own personal delay in getting from work the other day. I have often resented circumstances that delay my return home, but in this instance I was not quite so annoyed. The delay was for more understandable reasons, and it yielded a large order, which makes such experiences more worthwhile.
Still, in general terms, I cannot shake my despondency about work. My desire to leave remains. Unfortunately I don’t know if I am smart enough to do something else. To put it another way, I am good at what I do, it’s just difficult to find the energy and hunger to embrace it. I am not doing myself any favours, so I have taken a bold step, or what might become a bold step. We shall see what plays out.
Inconsistent Weather
Let us end this Muse with a classic British rant. The weather, whilst largely dry of late, has been somewhat variable, temperature-wise. One minute you need a coat, the next you’re sweating, but if you remove the coat, you’re cold. This is irritating! Unfortunately this is also spring, where conditions tend to be erratic at best. With the next Muse being in the middle of April, might we start to see some consistently warmer weather? This meerkat hopes so. I am a summer creature.
With that, I bid you all adieu, until the next Muse!
