A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a number of things, Milo being ill, visits to Edinburgh for work and an update on Arthur and some monies returned to his account by the firm of a fraudster.

https://smallthunderdog.blog/2026/03/29/nil-desperandum/

Easter has come and gone in the meantime, we’ve had glorious hot weather and hailstones – just a day apart.

Otherwise known as April.

Milo had a small setback but has more or less gone back to normal now, he’s clever and funny and doesn’t behave like a dog at all sometimes.

I told Shirley that she now has some more money but it really didn’t register and she’s starting to look very frail indeed.

I think that I probably need to schedule a visit to Richmond in the next few weeks once I’ve got a few work related things out of the way, including training for the faint possibility that I’ll have to visit the Middle East – still, better to take the training and not need it.

I’m not sure what I’ll do for the next visit, whether I’ll take Cairo for the very long car journey, or just descend on friends with booze and an invitation for dinner.

Cairo does love her car journeys.

Either way, I don’t know if there’ll be another visit.

But we do what we can and no more.

Guilt is a pointless emotion and it’s a false one a lot of the time.

We’re not the centre of even our own little universe and our actions or inaction may or may not contribute to any outcomes at all.

It’s natural to think that you could do more or could have done more, but for the most part, life is a roar of noise and confusion and it blurs around us like one of those sci-fi effects where we’re a still point in the confusion.

But even then, we’re part of someone else’s confusion.

Probably.

And so, I create my own little bit of chaos in my wake, sometimes deliberately, sometimes just by being me.

Sometimes a mix of the two, where I react to something and then decide to double down – or even triple down.

Which I’ve just done.

Somebody has managed to hurt one of my friends, said somebody has no idea that I exist. They have also been living a double life with an assumed identity and quite the backstory.

Yeah.

Well done mate.

I’m pretty sure that I’ve ripped your whole fucking life apart with a couple of deep searches and some very pointed emails.

Nobody hurts my friends.

So, I’ve sown some real chaos and confusion, this time from afar and I’ll be genuinely interested, in a vague, dispassionate, almost clinical way, to see what happens.

I do sometimes wonder if I should do some self-analysis, but the truth is that I can’t be bothered.

I still live by my own code.

I try very hard to be as nice to people as I can, I try to respect everyone that I meet, I never put people down or belittle them. I help where I can.

But

“ I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.”

Yes. It’s from The Shootist.

But it’s mine too and I extend it to others on their behalf.

Zero fucks given.

Absolute Zero.