Ne'er-Do-Wells

It’s not just the housework: scrubbing scum from the bath and scraping food from the sink so the mice don’t get fat, but the whole task of living that makes her irate. The repetitive letters spewed out by government computers threatening her with a court case, a fine, imprisonment, transportation to Tasmania (mmm...maybe not a bad thing) for missing a payment.

Indeed until not that long ago she'd read they transported folk to Van Diemen’s Land for poaching a rabbit, cutting down a tree without permission or spending a month in the company of travellers. Beware those of no fixed abode!

Mind you, thought she, the past was a bloodthirsty place with twenty thousand day-trippers flocking to public hangings to view in the flesh (no internet back then) those unfortunate enough to be tagged deviant and hung from the scaffold. 

Picture the crowd scoffing their picnics dressed in their best for this much discussed social event hyped up by cheap pamphlets detailing the ‘final words’ and grimaces of those lawfully murdered.

And if the powers that be today had their way she’s sure they’d reintroduce such measures of population control to keep at bay all those benefit fraudsters and ne’er-do-wells. And media entrepreneurs would publish blogs detailing the last gurgles of the publically murdered, share pictures and tags. Oh how the ‘likes’ would multiply and all that revenue from ads!

Thus is the turn of her mind whilst doing the washing up. Makes her go Ggggrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!