The Meerkat Muse: 22nd of October, 2025
We’re back! As we move through mid-October, we also move nearer to the awakening of her. More on that in a mo!
The Persistent Caller
As a general rule, I do not answer calls from random mobile numbers. I could be missing out on all sorts of excitement, but there are so many clever scams out there that I have been left extremely wary. Also, these calls generally come in whilst I am at work, where I can’t usually answer. My standing belief is that if the call is genuinely important, the caller will leave a message. If they leave no voicemail, and decline to text me, I assume it’s some sort of spam call.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a call from a random mobile number. Well, I say ‘a call’, it was actually four calls, in rapid-fire succession, presumably because whomever was calling was stabbing the redial button the moment it became possible. It’s not unreasonable to assume that the call was important to the caller, but if it’s truly that important, why did they leave me no message? I am perplexed as to the manner of this call.
The trouble with persisting callers via mobile is that it’s very hard to track them to any specific person or business. At least with landline calls, I can search the number for more details. At present, I have no idea who was so determined to reach me.
Persistent Spammers
It seems not a day goes by where I don’t receive an email that feigns interest in my books. I am now at a somewhat cynical point where I automatically assume anyone emailing me, or messaging me on social media, to talk about my books and my writing is in fact trying to sell me a service. Not only that, I am not at all convinced that any of the people offering these services are legit. The fake interest, and the regurgitation of my books’ blurbs (often filtered through an AI chatbot, by the looks of it) is at this stage boring to me. I have previously humoured the initial contacts, in the vain hope that perhaps I am dealing with actual, tangible interest, but now I am making it clear that I will not be entertaining anything to do with marketing, reviews, book trailers or sales.
We’ll see if that provides an adequate deterrent.
A Matter of Timing
Eagle-eyed followers of Meerkat Musings might have noticed an error with the last Muse. My goal is to publish Meerkat Muses on a bi-weekly basis, and on a Wednesday. I had scheduled the previous Muse for the 8th, and left WordPress to it only to discover to my absolute horror that it did not publish as planned. It therefore went live a day late. I feel faint!
Yet More Promotional Pilfering
No sooner had I typed up my earlier rant about false interest in my books, I received an email purporting to be from internationally-renowned author Ken Follett. For those who don’t recognise the name, Mr Follett has written scores of novels, and has won several awards for his work. He happens to live in Stevenage, which is my old stomping ground. Needless to say, genuine contact from an author of his stature would be an absolute delight, but I hardly think he’d be personally emailing lowly old me!
More of Murray’s Adventures
I really don’t know where I’m going with these doodles. They’re a bit all-over-the-place, but then, I suppose they’re meant to be. Who says that there has to be any kind of deep meaning behind any of these little creations? Sometimes it’s better not to place meaning into them, or at least it’s better to leave my own interpretation absent, so that you dear ‘kats can interpret it for yourselves. The main aim is to have a bit of fun putting these doodles together.
Bracing for Change
I cannot help but feel that a long-standing friend and colleague is on the verge of a major decision. That decision is of course theirs to make, and I strongly suspect it would be the right decision for them, but it would come at a cost to me personally, since I would not see my friend anymore. They are experiencing a great deal of stress in a role that was supposed to deliver less angst than their previous role, and they don’t need to endure it, so with a better offer in the wings why would they choose to maintain the high stress levels? I know what I would do if I were them.
I can relate, to a degree. I am not in as stressful a role as my friend, but I am often feeling out of love with the job. My employers are not going in what I believe to be a sensible direction, and I am regularly checking the job market. The job I really want is not yet available, but my patience has limits. I cannot leap for the sake of leaping; the role has to be right, and in the meantime, I will keep everything crossed that my desired job does become available.
Fish and Chips
Last Wednesday my parents came down for a visit, and it was therefore entirely reasonable to get fish and chips from the local chippy. There’s something about chip-shop chips that just hits differently to chips from anywhere else. We’re not exactly talking about fine cuisine here, but I’d stack fish and chips from the chippy against a lot of other choices without hesitation.
It was obviously nice to catch up with my parents, in case you were wondering!
Letting Time Run Out
Within my particular realm of retail sales, we tend to give customers the opportunity to plan in advance when they would like to take delivery of their order. In some cases, arrangements can be made at short notice, but even then, we’re still talking a few days’ notice. We usually deal in timeframes of weeks, and even months. With that in mind, it is immensely frustrating to see customers fail to pay for orders, even after repeated attempts to get in touch. Whilst we can and do operate with weeks or months in mind, there will come a stage where balances are due, and dates need to be locked in. Customers who subsequently render themselves hard to contact make life difficult for themselves, but also for us.
My main concern is that somehow, despite making a great deal of effort to contact these customers, their failure to get back to me will somehow become my fault. It shouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t be perceived that way. My quest to touch base with these customers wasn’t helped by unexpectedly having to lone-trade the other day. Granted, the store is not exactly a hive of activity, but there’s enough happening that at times things got a bit fraught. Between dealing with a delayed store delivery, customer collections, chasing up these errant customers, and people wanting to make changes to quotes and orders – typically at the same bloody time – last Thursday was certainly what I would call a day!
Murray the Pirate ‘Kat
I’m not as happy with this one as past efforts. I didn’t get the eyes quite right, he looks a bit drunk! Plus, the sword needed to be a lighter shade. Still, overall, Pirate Murray still manages to look quite dapper.
Murray the Cake Lover
Feeling Peopled Out
Whilst the steady stream of people into the showroom on Saturday is certainly a good thing, there were moments when I could not help but feel like it took more effort than usual to get up and speak to customers. There are times when I have enough other things to do (such as existing designs) that I could really do without a steady stream of interruptions. Alas, retail and sales do not work that way. There’s no neat schedule of events over the span of any given day.
I guess it’s something of an irony that I seek to escape one form of retail for another, but I’m good at it, and I think it suits me. As ever, we shall have to wait and see on that front.
Going Green
Of late, the Green Party has been gaining traction. This is great! What with social media (and regular media) providing Reform with a regular platform upon which to regurgitate all sorts of crap, it is brilliant to have a bit of balance. The Green Party could be considered the only true left-wing party in Britain right now, as Labour seem to be determined to out-Reform Reform. The Liberal Democrats could also be considered left-wing, but they don’t seem to be capturing the public’s imagination quite like the Greens are, and momentum certainly seems on the side of the Greens.
Whether this pans out to anything meaningful remains to be seen. Jeremy Corbyn’s new party is yet to actually emerge as a solidified concept, but when it does it could also galvanise the political left in the UK. There are those who believe that it would be better if Corbyn allied with the Greens, rather than dividing the left-wing vote. It certainly looks like support for Labour is falling, and the Tories are losing a lot of their support base to Reform, so the right-wing vote looks to be congealing around Farage and his lot.
One thing is absolutely certain: Farage and Reform cannot get the keys to No. 10 Downing Street. Nothing could be more disastrous for this country. A united left is needed, and at the moment the best hope for that rests with the Greens.
A Mighty Murray!
I’m rather enjoying drawing Murray’s random experiences. Who knows what he might get up to next?!
Alien Nightmares
Down the years I have had a number of dramatic dreams, and Saturday night provided yet another one for the collection. This was some kind of battle, with a group of people fending off the fearsome xenomorphs from the Alien franchise. I think this was brought on by my experiences playing Alien Isolation (not an especially good game in my opinion). Being hunted by these creatures was no fun, but that standout element of the dream was a moment where a guy had rescued two others from the clutches of the xenos, only to have his eyes and nose melted off by the aliens’ acidic spit. He promptly fell down the stairs, presumably dying.
The other weird moment – well, weirder moment – was when the skeletal remains of dead xenomorphs somehow came to life to join the fray. I really don’t know where half this dream came from, and I don’t especially want a repeat of it.
The prior night’s dream was more sedate, and based on pleasant memories of my trip to Australia. The dream involved waiting to board the flight home, but the bulk of it was about finding a toilet to use. Fortunately I did not actually go!
Plunged into Darkness
The showroom has a lighting issue! There’s a bank of lights at the front of the store that have all died. Whilst most of the other lights are still working, the loss of these front lights will make the showroom look particularly dark in the mornings and evenings. This isn’t particularly handy for attracting customers through the door.
No sooner did I type all that than the lights sprang back to life of their own accord.
A Breather
The chance to take a break from work, even if it doesn’t involve doing anything or going anywhere, is always welcome. A few days off to recharge will hopefully feel good, and at least some of those days will feature no alarm whatsoever, as my daughter is off school for half-term. My chief hope is that I’ll be able to get in some good writing time, but the reality is I hope to simply relax. It’s certainly a nice way to conclude a Meerkat Muse! Until next time, all my good ‘kats.
