The simple fact is that I am grumpy at the best of times. Just about everything gets on my wick, irritates me, annoys and just generally pisses me off. However, it is not a malicious sort of "pissed off" - not a bit of it. No, it's just a general sort of thing such as being annoyed at the drivel politicians spout when it is blatantly obvious they don't believe a word of what they are saying themselves, they are merely adhering to the party line.
Esoteric - esoterically pissed off, that's what I am - me and millions like me. But it doesn't make me or them a bad person or bad people, it just makes us pissed off.
However (and with me there is always an however), every now and then, from time to time, there is a genuine cause for my state of irritation and this time it is that wonderful person whom we have all come to know and love well - the Smiling Assassin. Once again she has raised her ugly head above the parapet to take a couple of shots at me. Personally I think she must be in league with that other fickle ould tart, Lady Luck.
As we all know, I have been undergoing a good deal of assessment and other interviews to ascertain whether I am suitable to be treated like a human bean or whether I am actually - as the Smiling Assassin would like us all to believe - as mad as a March hare.
I now have in my possession reports from various sources such as Blodwyn, The Wallace, my personal officer and his line manager. Without exception, and without any form of caveat, they all say the same thing - it is time to give the miserable, grumpy old bastard a break and let him go off to greener pastures. All I am waiting for now is two more finished and final reports - one from Blodwyn and one from the independent psychologist. I fully expect that these will also support me in the strongest terms. I hope to have them in my gruby little mitts before Tuesday 5th October when I go before the Risk Assessment Board.
Da da! Enter,stage left, the Smiling Assassin. It is completely matterless what anyone may say to this woman, she will twist and distort it to suit her own ends, and if those ends are not vicious enough then she will quite simply lie. There is not a prisoner in the place who has a good word for her and she was once heard to say that if she had her way then all cons would be kept in their cells for twenty-four hours a day - no telly, no radio, chained to the wall and fed on bread and water. Oh no, the Smiling Assassin doesn't like prisoners. It makes me wonder why she is even in the job, unless of course she gets her thrills this way.
Anyway, be that as it may, she wanted me to go and talk to her about the upcoming RAM board. Why? She makes no reports! She merely collates from the reports that are submitted by the authorised areas and departments. I wouldn't go to see her yesterday - she can rip my heart out without any assistance from me, thank you very much.
Was that good enough for her? Was it hell. She came to my cell door and, while I cannot remember her exact words verbatim (only policemen can do that), I can give the gist of her comments and veiled threats.
You need to speak to me... It is for your own good.. The only person you will harm is yourself... You promised Blodwyn...And so on.
In the end I made one comment. I said, "You can stand there talking all afternoon, it won't do you any good. I've got nothing else to say to you," and ignored her as I went for a drive on my PS2.
She stood there for a minute or two, made a couple of other cracks but finally buggered off.
So, what is she going to put into the document which she is going to prepare for the board? The same document incidentally which she threatened to use against me weeks ago and which has now been superceded by factual stuff from the various report writers. She was going to submit the document KNOWING it to be false, wrong and all the rest of it, if I didn't speak to her. She intended to do it anyway of course, but now she can't - she knows all about the new reports, the support I have and all the rest of it. However, she will still try to slide the metaphorical knife into my poor, aching ribs because she knows no other way of life.
As I said earlier, it's not easy being me.
I am doing myself a big service by not speaking to her because I know that in my honesty I would be offensively rude, and I have no desire or intention of putting myself in such a position - far better not to speak at all, not even with witnesses.
And that, my friends is called spotting a problem before it can develop and taking the appropriate action to avoid it. I might be a miserable, grumpy old goat, but I'm not a stupid miserable, grumpy old goat.
The Voice In The Wilderness
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