I Feel Grotty.

It turns out sitting around in near freezing temperatures drinking and smoking isn't so great for your health.

So while I sit here looking for excuses to not go to the gym I suppose I should tell you what I got up to yesterday.

Firstly I got a hair cut. There's nothing particularly important about this. It's just that combined with a close shave it is contributing to a sense that my head is far too small for my body.

Then because my home printer/scanner isn't working I had to go to an Internet cafe to write up and print out this letter to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). This was very brief and simply pointed out that in 2004 work related activity (my traffic warden job) caused a significant worsening of health resulting in an acute hospital admission. In 2007 supported voluntary work at a mental health project (Enterprise House) caused a significant worsening of my condition resulting in a near hospital admission. Since then my levels of functionality have decreased while my levels of medication have increased. Therefore the person who assessed me as having no limited capability for work related activity clearly misinterpreted the evidence presented to them.

Then I went out and brought a new CD player/Hi-Fi system. I know that in light of the above that sounds highly illogical. However this is something I've been preparing to do for at least four months and it makes more sense to do it now rather then when things really start to get tight.

Finally I went and had dinner with my mother. As is becoming standard practice we left our smartphones in another room as we were talking making it near impossible for people to evesdrop on the conversation. Apart from demonstrating to the US that the power that they've been bragging about holding over me since the start of the Rihanna thing is only the power I choose to give them this was rather meaningless because nothing of any importance was discussed. Funnily enough though my DWP mother suddenly found she had to work late so we only met up for all of five minutes as we once again enter one of those periods where it's difficult for us to be seen in the same room together.

In the meantime I've been trying to think up a way of talking about that video of South African police handcuffing a man to and then dragging him behind one to their vans without it sounding like a threat. Apart from the police brutality the main thing I took from the story was that the man was Mozambican. This coupled with the cheers from sections of the crowd highlights the high levels of anti-immigrant feeling that exist in South African society. Although this is a pan-African problem affecting South Africa in much the same way as it affects European nations such as Italy in the north a particular problem in South Africa is illegal immigration from neighbouring Zimbabwe.

Therefore a lot of people have high hopes for Zimbabwe's upcoming referendum and then election. The problem is that the 2008 Zimbabwe election that brought about this referendum is heavily entwined with the disciplinary procedure at Enterprise House. Therefore you have to ask if Britain really wants to be making an issue out of that at this tme.

10:05 on 1/3/13.