May 18

 Somewhat ill yesterday, despite no food shenanigans.

Ho hum.

Perhaps I am in a triggered state. Perhaps not. Perhaps its just all fucked up.

Misery.

So. The nephew has called off coming down. Probably for the best given I can't stay well for more than 12 hours at the moment. I feel pretty incapable at the moment of doing anything.

Also got a letter through the door today. From some of my official paperwork. The DVLA. Apologies they say. The photo the post office took was taken too far away. We've binned your application. Do it again. Manually. Here's a paper form. Take another photo. And no you can't do it again via the post office, because you did that once already ( ??? )

Sorry, they say.

We'll refund you £4 of your fee though.

...

Right.

Because it's the £4 that is the real struggle here.

I don't accept the apology. Worth the paper it's written on. By a machine. From a text file. In a similar vein to the automated apologies the railways give out. Uttered by a machine. At the push of a button. No real apology in there. Just the formality. To stop you complaining. But. We apologised. Look. I had to stop reading the newspaper and push the apology button for 5 seconds of my life. What more do you want ??!!? 

No one's actually sorry. They don't give a fuck.

I find the whole, taken the photo too far away to be.. eh... somewhat implausible. It's a set thing. Done in a set way. By someone that does 20 a day. Perhaps it was a hair off ? I'm more inclined to believe it's the DVLA being shitbags given their complete bureaucratic collapse over the last 4 months. Perhaps it's a way to relieve the throughput. Just reject a bunch and make them re-apply. Sounds stupid. But shit like that happens in the depths of bureaucratic mismanagement. Seen it.

And what's with the paper form ? If everything is tickety boo except the photo, then, just send a photo, no ? Don't be ridiculous ! Bureaucracy ! It will need to go through the Manual Paper Channel Team.

Honestly, the more you think about it, the more it just smells like dumping workload from the digital service onto the manual service. And the one golden way they can do that, is reject the photo. Touchy feely don't have to prove it rules, file gets binned. Take our word for it. Do it again.

Fuckers.

Anywho. So I gotta drag up the enthusiasm and mental wotsitery to go out get a photo done, come back, fill in the paper work, and assume, maybe, possibly, this time, it's all ok. No pre-approved digital thing. Which didn't work last time anyway. This time it will be even more shanky.

But that's ok.

Onus is on me. My responsibility now. The state has successfully washed its hands of the problem and made it my problem, despite me having absolutely no part of that whatsoever ( thats what you pay your money for, let the professionals do it ).

Of course. It's government shit. Public services. So there's no comeback. Or accountability. Shit show city is the default norm. What ya gonna do ? Get a competing government to handle your stuff ? Wheeze. There is only one ! We're the monopoly mate !

Ho hum.