(no subject)

[girlofprey]

Hello. I am stupid. I don't know if I mentioned what happened the other week with the Jobseeker's appointment I missed - I was given another appointment for that Friday, as opposed to later in the day, which is what usually happens. I managed to get there pretty much on time, only to be sent to a different department than I usually go to, and told that because I hadn't come in at all on Wednesday, that day was "in doubt" and I had to fill out a form explaining why I hadn't come, which had to be submitted to a decision maker. And if they decided they wouldn't allow it, I'd basically have no benefit paid for that day, and I'd have to close my old claim and open a new one. The guy at the desk thought that I should have been given an appointment the same day rather than waiting till Friday though, as did I, so I had some hope that it would be allowed. I had to wait till the end of the day for a call back, but it was allowed, which was nice. But it was a lot of hassle I would rather not have gone through, and wouldn't have had to if I had just gone to my actual appointment on time.

Today, I was booked in - since a few weeks ago - for a Back to Work workshop, only for about an hour, at half past twelve. I knew it was after 12 because I'd been given a few times to choose from, and had picked the one I'd be able to go to after listening to Adam and Joe. I got up and got ready quickly after listening to the show, and went down to the Jobcentre, got there early so wandered around for a few minutes, then went back. Only to be told that sadly, they'd just stopped letting people in for the workshop, which was actually at quarter past twelve, not half past 12. Which it send in my diary if I'd actually bothered to check. I explained that I'd thought it was at 12:30, the security woman went up to ask if I could come in anyway, but no. It had already started, so I had to rebook. And apparently it might affect my benefits. But it was better to have turned up late than not at all, apparently, and I can at least say I was convinced for some reason that it was 12:30. But I'm starting to feel like all these missed appointments and late appointments are probably not going to look good on my claim as a whole.

I'm really not feeling that great at getting to appointments on time generally at the moment, but it's not bad enough for my doctor to sign me off work, so there's not much I can do about it really. So. On the positive side, they started paying me Jobseeker's income-based allowance last week, backdated to when my first allowance ran out. And this week I got a letter from the council saying they were paying me Housing Benefit again. But they said since I had not given them a good reason to backdate my benefit to the end of August, which really depended on the Jobcentre sending a form in saying I'd claim earlier in September at least, and which they said was being held up by the same thing holding up my Jobseeker's Allowance, so I assumed was all taken care of when that came through - basically, they were only going to pay me benefit from the end of September. The 28th, rather than the 21st, when I picked up a form from the Council office to claim for Housing Benefit myself. But whatever. So yeah. And according to the statement they sent me today or yesterday, they'd overpaid me by £10 in total over July and August, I think, so they were taking that off. And they weren't going to pay me up to the end of November, they paid me from the end of September to the middle of November, for some reason. So yes. That's all a bit complicated. And frustrating. I'm going to take their letter down to the Council office next week and see if I can talk to someone about it. But I'm not sure if I can appeal against a decision once it's been finally made. So I don't know. But at least I'm getting some money in, finally, I guess. ::sigh::

Anyway. On a slightly happier note, having had some money finally to spend I obviously set about spending some of it on slightly trivial things that I'd been wanting for a month or so. Including some nice new underwear from La Senza. I was going to make a post the other day starting with "They make Oscar the Grouch underwear for men but not for women, WHAT KIND OF FOUL SEXISM IS THIS???". I didn't, but I feel that my point still stands. Oscar the Grouch for all, I say. Anyway, some of my new underwear can only really be worn at Christmas, but it's still rather lovely.

And I have been watching TV:

• I missed most of the It Takes Two shows this week, due to appointments and going to the cinema and such things. However, nothing will ever be funnier than Len trying to teach Claudia how to rumba. And I did see Erin's house with it's lovely mirror. And shoe collection. And weird bug thing. And amazing rug, where she choreographs routines. I'm quite looking forward to tonight, with it's new dances. I happen to know from (Sue Perkins) experience that the Charleston is a bit great, frankly.



• True Blood - Oh, I don't know how right it is to love this show mainly for Jason Stackhouse. I do like quite a few of the other characters, like Tara and Sam, since I know what's Sam's secret is from looking on communities and reading fic ahead of time and being spoilered. And it was pretty bad, and shocking, when Jason hit Sookie the other week. But he sort of is the best thing in it for me at the moment. The other week, being all sad and confused about Pluto not being a planet anymore, and this week, keeping two TVs in his house because one of them is busted but it's his parents' so he still keeps it. And wondering if if he'd been a better kid, his parents wouldn't have died. Oh, Jason. <3



• Tony was onscreen on Thursday and Friday this week. He was being charged officially in court, and despite him having been in police custody for about a week he still seemed to be wearing his own clothes, having a rather fetching t-shirt on. The police officers probably just realised he looks better in them. Tony asked the angry policeman standing next to him to let Maria know about the court date the next day, in a very quiet voice, and the policeman said it would be his pleasure. He went round to Maria's and told her about the court date, and she looked stricken, and he said that Tony was co-operating fully with the police and in his opinion his remorse seemed to be genuine, and Maria looked sort of torn. Maria's mother and father in law, who she was about to move to Ireland with, wanted to change their flight from that evening so they could stay for the court hearing, but Maria said she couldn't face him. So off they went, for Samia Smith's (the actress') maternity leave. Apparently Tony is going to have another storyline next year in spring, which I think will coincide with Samia's return. It seems to make sense that she'd want to see him and talk to him, at least once, before moving on with her life. Although it might not be that, I guess.
  
  On Friday they had the court hearing, and Carla turned up and Liam's sister Michelle and her son Ryan, and Michelle had told Ryan to try not to make a scene after he said he was going so he could tell Tony what he thought of him. But it was only a short hearing, as it was being referred to the Crown Court because of how serious the charges were, and as he was going down Tony didn't really give a smile, but a sort of sad, "I'm sorry", regretful look at Michelle or Ryan, and I can understand him wanting to show the family he was sorry, especially now that he's admitted everything and is letting himself feel sorry about it, but it really did look a bit patronising and weird, and Michelle was all "Did he just smile? Did he just smile at you?!", and she FLEW up to the box where he was shouting at him not to smile at her son and spitting at the glass and screaming "murderer!" at him. So, it was eventful. But that's probably the last we'll see of Tony now until next spring, at some point. They mentioned another court date in January, but I don't know if he'll appear for that, unless that's when his new storyline starts. He's apparently going to start filming for it the new year though, according to Wikipedia, so it doesn't seem as though it will be then. And I apologise if these paragraphs seem a bit weird or choppy, I accidentally deleted them once and had to write them out again.
  
  
• Also I have been reading Looking For Group, again. I love Cale. I love Richard. I love it. I'm not finished though, so don't spoil me please.



• Misfits - Well. There was some sexual assault caused by Alisha's power, and it did read as a kind of punishment for her for using it badly earlier on. But they did put in quite a lot of "forcing people into sex is wrong" and "sex is not the be-all and end-all of relationships" stuff in before that too, I guess. And she did pretty much get herself out of the situation, rather than needing to be rescued. I liked that she was touching girls as well as boys in the club at the beginning too. Hopefully they'll move away from the violent parts of Alisha's power in the next few episodes, and onto her relationship with Curtis. More so, anyway. I'm struggling to think of ways she can actually use her power usefully, in future situations, the way that the others can. But anyway. We'll see.
  
  Regarding Nathan: I sill think he'll get a power at some point. It would seem a bit odd for him to have not gotten a power during a storm that gave everyone around him powers, especially since a bunch of people in their town besides them seem to have gotten abilities. There was an article I was reading about Misfits before watching it that was talking about how the character's powers relate to their shadows in the credit sequence. It suggested that Nathan's wolf shadow might suggest a shapeshifting power of some kind, which would probably work - it might suggest why he hasn't started using it yet, since he haven't really been in a situation where something like that would have been needed. And if the current plots continue and in a few weeks they have to arrange for Tony to be seen getting on a plane, it would come in useful. And since most of the characters seem to get an ability they wished for at the time of the storm, it would probably suit him, since his constant lying and storytelling could suggest a desire to "be someone else", or have people not see the real him. So it seems sort of logical to me. But then again, he may still not get any power. We'll have to see.
  
  On the other hand, I was thinking when I was reading the article that his shadow being a wolf might suggest that he'd turn out to be the "villain" of the piece, in the end. That doesn't seem to be the way they're playing him, but then with next week's preview shot of him wrestling with someone for a gun, he might turn out to have a more unstable mental state than he's seemed to have so far. I don't think it's likely though, given how nice they've had him being to his mum and everyone in the past few weeks. However, I'm starting to worry that Simon might be heading that way - he's been acting actually quite creepy in the last few episodes, and last night he was basically suggesting going out for a drink as sort of a fuck you to the guy they accidentally killed. But then again, he was quite nice to Kelly about her being bald, and is being helpful quite a bit with remembering useful information and things. So I don't know. I hope none of them turn out villainous. I hope they all stay superpowered and sort of sweet all together.
  
  They are pushing the Kelly/Nathan stuff more and more, aren't they? I don't entirely mind, I like Kelly and I like Nathan. Hopefully he'll be less of a prat and rethink his "you'd only have to get a couple of Bacardi Breezers down her" approach to her, if they do get together. I was kind of thinking of Kelly/Simon at the beginning of the show, what with him being the one who doesn't speak up because he feels like he'll be ignored and her being the one who can read people's minds even if they're too shy to say something. But he has been acting pretty creepy lately, as I've said. So whatever. I still love Kelly, by the way. "Fuck it, bald him up". Yay :)
  
  Regarding next week's preview: Obviously it's Curtis' episode, but - going years or months back, Curtis? That's going to be a lot of stuff to have to do again. And you might mess with the group. Don't mess with the group, dude!
  
  I am very much enjoying Misfits, by the way :)

And I believe that's all of my TV-watching for the week. I'm going to make a pizza now. Mmm, warm pizza.