An evening with virtual reality, and an email from the Dept of Work and Pensions
Two case histories recording our species' insatiable appetite for infantile fantasy
The people in the room seemed real enough. I was just another person in the room. The room was packed with those in search of free drinks and excellent canapes.
But I was alone in the room. In a room in a world gone mad. I had one beer, and left early.
The launch party was for a Members Only bar, and two German blokes were demonstrating some Virtual Reality life-size software. I had thought that by now Virtual Reality had been found out and consigned to history.
I was wrong. The idea seemed to be that all eventual bar Members would join the bar's virtual golf course, and play the course. With a ball thwacked at a curtain by a club swung onto greens that existed only on film while avoiding bunkers, long grass and water hazards on the big screen that miraculously took over from the curtain. Each week, I learned, there would be a virtual golf champion given a plaque to show his mates. If he has any.
On the virtual golf course, there is no fresh air, no exercise, no warm breezes, no sun, no blue sky, no sense of being lucky to be alive. The experience is utterly unnatural and - it would seem to me - pointless.
The perfect sporting experience, perhaps, for an artificially intelligent Bot.
I have rarely felt so solitary, desolate and downright alien as I did during that launch event. 'Lonely' doesn't even start to cut it. I may have been wrong about one or two attendees, but I somehow knew that ninety-nine per cent of this achiever creme de la creme demographic had lost everything - their ability to discern BS, their humanity, their grip on empirical reality, and....let's face it, the plot.
They will, without doubt, be cast to the four winds by the Gambian tourism bust, energy crisis, Zionism, digital currency banker greed, Islamic fundamentalism and WHO/Gates mandated anti-pandemic fakes.
And in that context, today's news about US attacks on Iran make the last but one Slogpost all the more percipient when it comes to escapist denialism:
John Anthony Ward
You read it here first.
Many ordinary African workers will go from struggling survival at the level of gross poverty to an appalling descent into desperation.
They're not going to get any help from their thieving masters. And oddly enough, here comes a segue.......
Notes on receiving an email from the bonused money-grabbers at the UK Department of Work and Pensions [DWP]
Predictably, the email is marked DWP DONOTREPLY.
Something of a one-way give and take conversation here: I gave national insurance payments towards a pension in good faith to the British State for 42 years, and they take liberties by denying my Civil Rights and pretending that my Right is a Benefit...although they know perfectly well it is an inalienable entitlement.
Herewith extracts from a risible response from Whitehall Renegade Central...my emphases in bold italic, my responses in bold capital letters:
We sent a life certificate to the correct address on 18 November 2024. I can see from our records you were emailed a form in September 2024 which you returned. This was received on 24 September 2024. This was processed by our department however as it was not part of the life certificate exercise, it did not stop one being sent in November. I should explain that the Life Certificate is used along with a range of other measures, to help capture information about UK State Pension customers who live abroad.
'... it was unfortunate timing that The Gambia had been chosen to take part in a Life certificate exercise in November 2024. Those who are chosen to take part in the exercise are chosen at random and if we do not receive a reply within 16 weeks, the system will suspend your account as it has done so on this occasion. We do not require a life certificate more than once roughly every 2 years.
SO JUST TO BE CLEAR HERE, YOU DO NOT REQUIRE LIFE CERTIFICATES MORE THAN ONCE EVERY TWO YEARS....YET YOU GOT ONE FROM ME IN SEPTEMBER 2024, BUT THEN STOPPED THE PENSION AGAIN WITHIN FIVE MONTHS. WHY???
We are required to suspend payment to customers when contact is lost with them and a failure to return the Life Certificate within a reasonable time or a letter being returned to us saying ‘not at this address’ is an indication of lost contact.
YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED BY ANY KNOWN UK LAW TO SUSPEND PAYMENTS TO STATE PENIONERS AS A RESULT OF ANY KNOWN PARLIAMENTARY LEGISLATION. THIS IS MERELY THE RESULT OF AN ARBITRARY DECISION BY YOUR GREEDY SENIOR MANAGEMENT
This may delay a response and customers may put themselves in a position where benefit would be suspended.
STATE PENSION IS NOT A BENEFIT, IT IS A CIVIL RIGHT BASED ON NATIONAL INSURANCE CONTRIBUTIONS
Life certificates may seem a nuisance however they are necessary and issued not only by ourselves but private pension and insurance companies.
THAT IS A DOWNRIGHT LIE. I HAVE PRIVATE PENSIONS WITH BOTH JAMES HAY & STANDARD LIFE, & NEITHER HAVE EVER ASKED ME FOR A LIFE CERTIFICATE
Any views expressed by the sender of this message are not necessarily those of the Department for Work and Pensions.
ANOTHER DESPICABLE ABROGATION OF RESPONSIBILITY BY YOUR RENEGADE DEPARTMENT. EITHER YOU WORK FOR THE DWP OR YOU DON'T....YOUR ATTITUDE REFLECTS THE CHAOTIC ENTROPY OF DWP HYPOCRISY
Lest anyone should forget the appalling bonused sociopathy of the DWP's modus operandi, I would draw your attention to this Slogpost of May 2025:
John Anthony Ward
Postscript
Before closing today, can I remind members that while every opinion expressed on threads at The Slog is valid, personal insults against other members will not be tolerated. This includes stuff like calling somebody 'a dick'. If you can't get beyond the playground of life, then this isn't the site for you.
You have been warned.