Thanks for ruining my day...

People sure know how to put a total downer on my day.

When I got to Liskeard to get my train back home, I sat down in the sheltered area, away from this family who were also sat there. Not too long after that, the mother (I assume) started laughing as she looked over to me, turned to her son (I assume) then pointed to me, still laughing. I've no idea what the fuck she was laughing about, but it sure made me feel like shit.

It's that kind of stuff that really lowers my self-esteem...and I don't have much of that to begin with! I've no real confidence in myself and all, and it doesn't help when some fucking bitch starts pointing and laughing at you for no apparent reason. Because of that, it's no real surprise I have no real friends locally anymore. I've no confidence to walk up to someone and start a conversation with them or anything. Seems so much easier talking to someone online because I'm not talking face to face with them and since they can't really see me, they don't really have anything to laugh at.

Is it my looks? The dirty jacket I was wearing because of working out at a muddy field? Everyone working out there gets dirty from the mud. If that's the reason for the laughter, then they've obviously never had to work outside in a dirty area. There's no way you can remain clean unless you don't do any work at all!

Ah well...fuck it. Fuck people like that. Thanks for ruining what was a good day really...

Anyway, back to the project. I got out to the project rather late due to the train being delayed by 42 minutes. I was dropped off at the field by Richard, and immediately after that, he had to take one of the younger guys down to St Austell to go to the Job Center. This left just myself and Abby out at the field. I finished nailing another partition together, and then moved onto fixing some pallet steps up to the building. That took a while to do, and I ended up finding out that the mud I was digging up to steady the steps shouldn't have been dug up. We're going to have to fill that area I dug out back in with mud from else where in the field. I've no clue where though.

We have two of the walls up now. One of them was up when I got out there today, and the other was put up while I was there (after Richard and the guys got back from St Austell). I think that by the end of next week (if not tomorrow) we should have just about all of the building up.

I'm not sure how much work will be done on Monday and Tuesday of next week as Richard will be busy with other things. I can turn up on Monday, but I'll have to walk out to the field. I'm not sure I really want to do that because it probably means that I have to walk back to the train station, and like yesterday, that could mean that I completely miss my train again and end up having to get a later train back home. I don't really want that to happen again, so I'll probably just relax at home.

On Tuesday, I definitely can't go out to the project as I have a doctor's appointment.

This means that after tomorrow, I'm more than likely not going to show up to the project until Wednesday. If the building isn't finished by the end of tomorrow, I wonder how much of it will be completed in the two days that Richard and I aren't there. It'll be interesting to see how much farther the project has advanced in those two days.

I've been taking my camera along with me for a couple of days now so that I could take pictures to show how the project is advancing. At some point, I'll have to take the pictures off of the camera and upload them for people to see.

160,000!?

Holy crap! 160,000!? That's a hell of a lot of jobs to lose.

I noticed on the front of one of the newspapers today (The Daily Express) that there was an article titled "Immigrants Do Take British Jobs". It stated that 160,000 jobs have been taken from "British born" citizens by immigrants. It's no wonder that people like myself are having a majorly fucking hard time finding a job! A hell of a lot of them have gone to people who aren't even from this country.

Here is exactly what the article said (taken from The Express website)

IMMIGRANTS have snatched 160,000 jobs from British-born workers in just five years, a damning official report revealed yesterday.

One British job was lost for every four non-EU workers arriving here between 2005 and 2010.

The study by the Government’s Migration Advisory Committee revealed that the total number of foreigners working in the UK has soared by 2.1million in the past 15 years.

The startling findings come with 2.6 million Britons now jobless and youth unemployment crashing through the one million barrier. They vindicate the warnings the Daily Express has sounded for years over the dangers of Labour’s open door on immigration.

The report makes a mockery of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s pledge in Government to create “British jobs for British workers”.

And Tory MP Mark Reckless said that the findings also back what many MPs have been arguing for years. He said: “It has been clear for a long time that immigration has been too high and the burden on public services and society is too great.

“This Government is determined to get control of our borders and bring immigration down to tens of thousands.

“This report shows how important that is and how it relates with the work Iain Dun- can Smith is doing with the welfare of British people.”

Fellow Tory MP Philip Hollobone added: “The problem is magnified in this time of economic weakness.”

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the think tank Migration- Watch UK, said: “The committee have had the courage to say straight out that immigration can add to unemployment, especially during a recession.

“They are also right to draw attention to impacts that are harder to quantify such as housing and congestion.”

The report warns that the argument that immigration boosts growth is flawed because most benefits go to the new arrivals, not existing residents.

It also revealed that migrants are pushing up house prices and rents and costing schools 33 per cent more per person a year than British residents.

The Migration Advisory Committee is a committee of five top economists set up in 2007 to give ministers objective advice over the debate.

Its first official examination of the impact of immigration contradicts claims that UK workers have been unaffected by the number of foreign workers arriving in recent years.

MAC chairman Professor David Metcalf said the findings indicated that ministers were right to seek to restrict arrivals from outside the EU and previous assumptions that migration did not effect British employment were wrong.

He said that between 2005 and 2010 a total of 700,000 non- EU workers entered Britain. The resulting “displacement” of British workers totalled 160,000, or 23 Britons losing work for every 100 overseas arrivals.

However, he said foreigners who have been in the UK for more than five years do not affect British-born workers.

The study shows that wages have been pushed down for lower skilled workers, but that for higher skilled Britons the impact of migration on incomes has been positive.

The MAC also details the effect incoming foreigners have had on housing, education and health, putting all three services under extra pressure.

The evidence will give fresh ammunition to Home Secretary Theresa May in her fight for tougher immigration curbs.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said: “This Government is working to reduce net migration from the hundreds of thousands a year under the last government to the tens of thousands we saw in the 1990s.

“Controlled immigration can bring benefits to the UK, but uncontrolled immigration can put pressure on public services, on infrastructure and on community relations.

“This report makes clear that it can also put pressure on the local labour market.” Another report this week claimed that mass immigration from inside the EU is almost certainly to blame for Britain’s spiralling youth unemployment.

MigrationWatch compared official figures for youth unemployment and immigration since eight former eastern bloc nations including Poland, Lat- via and the Czech Republic, joined the EU in 2004.

The number working in the UK who were born in eastern Europe had risen by 600,000 while youth unemployment rose by almost 450,000.

Number 42 advancing

I almost missed my train home today. While laying out some pallet steps (well, one) I checked my phone to see that the time was 15:45. That gave Richard about 13 minutes to get me to the train station. On the way there, there was some road works going on or something, and getting caught in that made me think for certain that I wasn't going to make the train on time. Fortunately for me, we actually did make it, and I had about 4 minutes to spare to get out of my muddy boots and back into my sneakers. I'm sure the train staff and all would not have been happy with me at all if I got onto the train in those boots.

The project is advancing rather quickly now. We have a retired builder (Abi/Abby?) helping us out with it, as well as some younger guys helping. Because of that, most of the flooring has been laid down and screwed down to the beams that were already down. Also, two walling beams (I'm not entirely sure what to call them) have been built and raised up to make one of the walls.

A couple of the younger guys cut back some of the tree branches that were over lapping the building, although the trees themselves really need to be cut down to let in sunlight as the place is going to be powered by solar panels. I'm not sure what Richard's plans are for that. I know that he wants the 3-4 trees next to the railway removed to let in the sunlight from that angle. I think that he was going to cut down the others too that are almost overlapping the building, but maybe that plan has changed. I don't know.

Yesterday, Abby was talking to one of his friends about the building, I think his name was Rob. Rob was talking about how the floor looked really unstable, and that was really needed more underneath the flooring beams to make it a lot more sturdy. At one point, be was slightly bouncing on it, and one of the beams sounded like it was going to break in two. Due to this, we had to add several breeze blocks under some more of the beams. That was a lot of heavy lifting for me unfortunately. Never had to do any real heavy lifting today.

So, our advancements over the last two days?

1. Several more breeze blocks placed under the flooring beams.
2. Flooring laid (mostly).
3. One wall erected (Wall beams?)
4. Several tree branches cut back.
5. Started to lay pallet steps (That could be one or more steps after I left.)

Elvira

Recently, after playing the old Elvira video games, I became aware that Elvira was not only in those games. She has apparently had two feature length movies, as well as introducing other movies in DVD collections.

I looked into the movie "Elvira: Mistress of the Dark" on YouTube, and was amused by the clips of the movie that I had watched. Because of it, I decided that I would purchase both of the feature length movies starring her. I don't think I'll bother with the DVD collections of other movies. I can always look up the small clips of Elvira in those collections on YouTube and see what she does without needing to buy the collection. I doubt there are many movies on those collections that I'd really want to watch anyway.

If you've never heard of Elvira, you should check out some clips of her on YouTube; it's well worth it.

On standby once more

One day back at the project, and now it's on standby again. The reason? I'm assuming it's Richard's wife. She's ill, and Richard was telling me that he may have to look after their kids while Anna rests up and gets better. Oddly enough, I was actually waiting for a text message from him saying not to come in again until Monday. Somehow, I knew that was coming.

I'm fine with it all though. I've not been getting much sleep lately, so at least I can just climb into bed now and sleep for a while. I have nothing to do now afterall. Perfectly fine with me.

We didn't get too much work done yesterday really. Just a few hedges replanted, and some wood moved from one place to another. Most of the day was spent travelling from one place to another.

I was shown The Street Outreach Project's website yesterday when I met up with Richard, and he showed me the "The Team" page of the site. Amusingly enough, he placed me on the page. I was never expecting to be mentioned on the site at all, so it was a nice surprise. Looking at the page address for The Team part of the website, I think on Monday I'm going to have to ask Richard whether he knows that he typoed the address as "/thetean" instead of "/theteam".

I'm hoping that on Monday, the weather will be a hell of a lot better than it is right now. I was being pushed around by the wind when I was out in it a little earlier. It's rediculously strong. Because of it, I'm actually glad that Richard doesn't want me to return until Monday. If the weather in Lostwithiel is anything like the weather here, then it would be hell to work in. You'd have the wet mud as well as strong winds pushing you around. The wet mud on it's own is bad enough.

YouTube Caption Fails

Thanks to Mari from Smosh Pit Weekly, I came across a YouTube video titled Christmas Carol CAPTION FAIL. This video was done by a couple of guys who call themselves Rhett and Link.

After watching the video, I decided to check out other "Caption Fail" videos that they've done, and damn are they hilarious! Check them out.

CAPTION FAIL: Lady Gaga Putt-Putt Rally.
CAPTION FAIL: Jamaican Vacation Hoax.
CAPTION FAIL: Police Brutality.

I'm sure a lot of people have already seen these videos, so don't tell me that I'm way behind on these videos. :P

Also, HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! Hope you all have a great year this year!