financial support

The bureaucratic process for claiming financial support from the Open university is unnecessarily difficult. You need a copy of your birth certificate, a photocopy for an official copy isn't good enough for them, and the photocopy must be signed and "certified" by people in certain professions, apparently a list drawn up by the Department of Business Environment and Regulatory Reform or whatever they call themselves these days. A nurse, for example, isn't good enough. Nor is a sergeant in the armed forces. Neither are dentists adequate. On the other hand doctors, police, probation officers, these are. Of course I don't know any of them. Doctors are for the infirm, which I'm not. I've never been to prison so not prison officers or probation officers. Don't know what a "permanent civil servant" is. Wouldn't know where to look for a commisioned officer of her majesties armed forces. Can't afford to speak to a lawyer. Narrowed it down to local government officials and police. Man at the desk at the local rent/council tax office wouldn't do it. Asked his boss for permission, apparently not allowed. Police refused to do it too. Had to recruit someone who nearly counts and hope they don't notice. Then I had to get the jobcentre bods to certify the form, which I won't go into. Now I've just got to hope the OU process it all in time.

Hitler returns

Odd little film called Incendiary

British Film. All about a terrorist attack on London. Specifically about one woman's emotional journey through the aftermath of the events, so obviously not very good. I see from the internets that the woman in it isn't a typical east end slapper, to quote the fillum, but an American film star formerly in Species as the kid and in the TV series Dawson's Creek, as the blonde one.

Nonsense, mostly. Reminds me of Silent Hill, which is an awful film.

A couple of pieces of interest, though. Firstly, to cut a long story short, the head of the Met anti-Terror branch turns out to have known all about the attack in advance and to have LIHOP, if not MIHOP. Film too busy with emotional journeys to bother with a plot. Secondly, at one point she's sat in a tube station when the tannoy announces that all trains have been cancelled "due to a power surge at King's Cross". Those of us who were watching the news on 7/7 will remember that the original explanation for the explosions was a power surge causing the explosion of transformers in the railway power system. It is, of course, a common trope in conspiracy circles that initial reports reflect the truth which has yet to be concealed by the slick PR operation of the real terrorists behind the attack.