Incensussed
I was having a quite doze yesterday when there was a ring of the door bell.
By the time I got to the front door, the fecker who rang it was already half way out the gate. I yelled at him but he ignored me and carried on up the lane, but not before I saw that he was from the Census. I don’t know why they have to wear those Dayglo jackets? Are they really that scared of being run down by a train on peoples doorsteps?
Anyhow, I slung a few well chosen words in the general direction of the departing jacket and went about my business.
This morning I was having a well deserved lie-in when the door bell woke me from a lovely dream. It was the fucker from the Census again, waffling on about how I should fill in my census form. He apologised for getting me out of the scratcher, but he didn’t apologise enough.
I don’t hold much truck with censuses [censi? censes? what the fuck is the plural of census anyway?]. As far as I am concerned, they are just a way for Big Brother to glean more private information about us. I am more than a commodity that has to be audited from time to time, and I refuse to be treated like a tin of beans on a supermarket shelf.
I am not going to refuse to fill in the form, but I now have a couple of weeks to come up with some rather inventive replies. I notice for example that they don’t have ‘plane’ as a means of getting to work. That will have to be rectified. I haven’t decided on an occupation yet but it will be somewhere between ‘chicken sexer’ and ‘the bloke who puts the figs in fig rolls’. As for religion? That one is wide open. Jedi? Adorer of the Great Rabbit Pooka? Heh!
When they call to collect my form, I shall let them have it, in more ways than one.
I might even let Dayglo out of the coal hole.
Spray the pack with essence of cat and leave it in easy reach of Sandy. Job done!
If that works spray the census wonk in same essence and let Sandy have a run.
I shall be putting “Smoker” in the religion box.
It should be nothing more than a body, age and gender count. They want to know your religion? Tell them to fuck off and mind there own business. Oh, and it’s censuses.
in sex write ‘frequently if able’
in job write ‘going up stairs’ (my knees find that a job!)
in marital status just plop in, ‘okay so far’
oh they are grand forms to fool around with, i basically just take quite a literal approach to it.
What I want to know is how many people reading your blog know what a coal hole is Grandad… Once again you made me smile and took me back a bit too.:-)
That’s weird ’cause the Census guy called to me yesterday too, IN CORK (small, grey hair, sounded real official etc). My first thought is, he gets around fast, doesn’t he. Then I remembered Santa.
Anyway, since he got to both of ‘us’, yesterday, I reckon the plurul must be “censusus”.
Hope this helps.
Fuck me!! I have just noticed that a failure to complete, or to provide false information incurs a fine of €25,000
€25,000?
Twenty five fucking THOUSAND?
By God I’m going to have to be fierce inventive with this little baby.
Well, that is one way to bail out the Emerald Isle and the EU.
You lot really do need to kick all political parties into the Atlantic!
Legal Offences
Under the Statistics Act 1993 it is an offence for a person or undertaking to:
fail to provide information requested in a statutory inquiry (Section 36);
prevent an Officer of Statistics (i.e. a CSO staff member or field officer) carrying out her/his duties (Section 37);
obstruct the Director General or an Officer of Statistics in the exercise of her/his functions under the Act (Section 40);
wilfully destroy, damage or falsify any document or record issued for the collection of statistics for a statutory inquiry (Section 42);
provide information, written or oral, or deliver a document, knowing it to be false, in purported compliance with a requirement under the Act (Section 43).