Did you miss me?

OK, so I haven't been posting much recently. Well, not at all for a few months. Alright, not a blinking sausage.
I intend to rectify this.
I should say that there have been three reasons behind my extreme rectitude of the last six months:
1. I have been in the throes of a separation, and to be honest, I can think of better things to think about than blog.
2. I have been up to my eyeballs in studying.
3. I am by nature a lazy git, and I couldn't think of anything worth saying.
4. OK, no. 3 is in fact two reasons.
5. All right, I've thought of something else: I was feeling weary of being online, on places like blogger and Twitter, where it seems you're surrounded by a myriad of voices all shouting 'Me! me! MEEEE!!' all the time.

The question is, where to start again?

Oh alright then, politics.
There have been, to put it mildly, what might might be classified as Interesting Times in the rarifed realms of politics, law, media and finance. Put simply, it would appear that we are witnessing a rather black farce, with the ruling elite's trousers falling down at an alarming rate.
 Unfortunately, there's no-one making a 'POOooo-oooOOP!' noise on a flute, or someone pretending to be a lampshade.
What we are witnessing is just how far the politicians in Westminster, of all political pursuasions, have been in thrall to the media and the banks, and just how scared of them they are. The Leveson inquiry has unveiled all sorts of shenanigans, chicanery and other words suggesting farcical black deeds in the press and its relationship to those nominally in charge; The utterly disgusting behaviour by Barclays and other banks is now the possible subject of another inquiry.
The problem is this: the people who have set up Leveson and are pushing for the banking inquiry are to some degree culpable. It's a bit like a witness for the defence in a murder trial being asked to set up the case. Why on earth is there not more anger about this issue? For the past four years now, we have increasingly seen the ways in which politicians, media figures and bankers have actively colluded to deceive, cheat, swindle and threaten. If these were people in your neighbourhood doing this, they would quite rightly be the subject of prosecution - but because these are the lawmakers, the purseholders, the newscarriers, they can make a law, keep hold of our money and tell us all that it is, somehow, all our fault.
Or worse, That We Are All In This Together.

Huh. It's been one of those days.
I took Sean shopping and decided to withdraw some money from the cash machine. Just after slipping the card in, I noticed that there was something awry with the thing - the screen was out of kilter and the plastic slot where the card feeds in and out looked like it had been battered. After I requested my dosh, the machine tried to spit my card out, but the thing got stuck. After frantically trying to rescue it, the machine, with a final high-pitched 'beep' swallowed it. I swore, then went to complain to the customer services.
'well, we can't touch it, because it belongs to the bank, not us', replied the customer service bod. 'It's done that to several people now'.
'So why haven't you put a sign on it warning people not to use it?'
'Oh, we're not allowed to do that, because the machine doesn't belong to us'.
After a couple of minutes' spluttering on my behalf, I managed to get the duty manager to promise to put one up.
I went home, nearly running out of petrol on the way, in order to pick up my chequebook. It was only after I'd got home that I realised that was no use, as I now didn't have a cheque guarantee card, it now nestling safely in the metal bosom of a dodgy ATM. So, shopping done on the credit card instead.
I had intended to start my crimbo shopping as well this week, in a bold attempt to break with my past habit of flailing around lethargically until the last minute.
And now it's raining.
Bah.