It ain’t over till it’s over

So, what does a self-employed person do who hasn’t had a contract for about 5 months? He turns down a contract. At least, that is what I did today. I got my annual “can you provide feedback on our entries to this year’s competition?” email from the New Zealand place, with the traditional offer of $50US per application. The rationale for this fee is that it should only take an hour – occasionally two – to provide feedback for each entry. The rationale is, in my humble opinion, bollocks. I am a quick worker and a quick typist: but providing bespoke feedback on application forms that are up to 10 pages of A4 in length and in varying degrees of intelligible English does not take 2 hours. (FFS, it takes me an hour to read the form…) On average, in previous years it has taken me 3.5 – 4.5 hours per application (some have taken 7-8 hours), which means a fee of around $10US per hour. And I am taxed on that. So, having received the initial “are you available?” email last night, I got up and penned my “I can’t do it for those rates” reply this morning, and sent it off before I could change my mind. This is why “mates’ rates” – and doing something to get something else “later on” never work. I’ve had enough of working for free!
 
In other news, after yesterday’s surge in health, I am feeling much worse today. It may be a psychosomatic response to having refused work, but I think it is more likely to be due to the fact that Mrs. Ottawacker and Ottawacker Jr. have had something different than I had, and I have now caught what they had. The joys of communal living. There are no black pustules under the arms and no miasma I could detect, so it is unlikely to be anything other than a short-term irritant. Talking of which: the shower/bath unit has backed up, so we had to call out a plumber for tomorrow. Thankfully, we have decent and reasonable plumbers. Much of this may be down to Ottawacker Jr.’s discovery of hair gel.
 
Being sick has led to a certain amount of “distance” from the real world. I noticed this today when I realized that our house was operating in its own time zone, and that we hadn’t changed to Daylight Saving Time (DST) like the rest of the province. Any initialisms beginning with a D and ending with a T have an automatic revision in my head at the moment: can you guess what the S stood for? I bet you can.
 
I’ll tell you who does know what the “S” stands for: Mark Carney. He won today’s Liberal Party leadership race with a whopping 86% of the votes. That’s Kim Jong Un territory. He seems to have galvanised the party, which is what is needed at the moment, at the very least to fight of the slimeball Poilievre. His response? A grotesque almost parody of an attack ad, featuring Polilievre giving Carney a nauseating Trump-style nickname, delivered in an effete, incel-style voice. I’m not sure what he was doing, he may have been trying to do an Elmer Fudd voice; it’s hard to know what that bellend actually thinks. Anyway, he’s trying to get Carney known as “Slippery Mark Carney” who is out to “trick you”. Honestly, he’s a moron that Poilievre. Someone needs to tell the fuckwit to read the room. My rule of thumb for human beings is that if you are incapable of delivering a simple message without resorting to (a) hyperbole, (b) insults, or (c) stupid voices then you are not allowed to pollute my ears.
 
I listened to a lot of what Carney said and wasn’t angry: that is a huge step in the right direction as far as politics and me are concerned. He tried to promote a bit of a patriotic angle – which I despise – but other than that, he was good enough for me to probably vote for in the next election. Which is coming. Soon. I suppose there is little choice. Vote Green, vote for a dancing moron who doesn’t read his files, vote Poilievre *ha hahahhahahha”; or vote Carney. I suppose I could run myself.
 
Arsenal drew with Manchester United 1-1. Hard to know who will be more disappointed. That means Liverpool are now 15 points clear at the top.