I've just been "VDI'ed". VDI stands for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. What it means is that my computer is no longer a computer. It still looks the same as it did last week, but it no longer behaves the same. My computer "desktop" still looks the same but it is now "virtual" ..... there is no computer behind it ...... all the programs, applications, documents and everything else are stored on the Follyville servers. The point of all this is so that when we move to our new "virtual desks" (which aren't actually going to be there because the silly burghers of Follyville seem to think that most of their staff can work without a desk) in our new office (which is actually there!),we will be able to plug our dongle into any of the few terminals which will be available and see what we would have seen had we had a computer of our own. (If you don't understand all this, please don't phone in because I don't either).
Back in the "real world", without a real desk in the real office, if we want to do any proper work we will have to go home and do it. Here comes the clever part ...... if we plug our dongle into our home computer it will show us what we could have seen in the office, had we had anywhere to sit and see it. Sounds great ..... I can work from home, with hours to suit, not wear a tie, make myself a cup of coffee whenever I want without having to remember to bring in milk, sugar etc.......
But here's the stupid part. Once you've plugged your dongle in to any computer, whether at home or in the office, it disables all other peripherals. This means that you cannot use a USB memory stick to transfer documents between home and the office to work on, you can't download photographs from a digital camera (a fairly important part of my job), and you can't use a printer at home.
So you can log on to the Folleyville server and find out what jobs are waiting for you, but you can't just print out the details and go out and do them. No, that would make your life far too easy and efficient! As compensation for the relaxed coffee culture whilst working at home, you will either have to spend a while doing mental gymnastics trying to remember the name, address and other details of every visit you have to make, or else or save the details into a "secure print queue" and go all the way in to the office to get a print-out before you go anywhere else.
This, we are told is the Government's idea, nothing to do with Follyville B.C. The burghers have signed up to the Government's "I.T. Security Code of Practice". What absolute nonsense is this?? A couple of Civil Servants leave a laptop on a train with some important data on and the Government's kneejerk reaction is to stop all Civil Servants and Local Government officials throughout the country from doing their job efficiently. Simultaneous to all this, they complain that the public services are costing too much money and that huge cuts have to be made.
Listen up Government ........ and listen well!! The only reason the public services are costing too much money is that you are continuously making it more and more difficult, time-consuming and expensive for public sector workers to do their job. Just tell your departments, quangos and local authorities what you want them to do ........... and then let them do it without any further interference, obstruction of hindrance. All these bodies are old enough, wise enough and experienced enough to do the job efficiently and effectively on their own without any further help (sic) from you!
The prophet has spoken!
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Follyville continued (again)
Monday - receive e-mail that all desks have to be completely cleared by close of play Thursday because they are being removed on Friday to be taken to the new office .......... but we are not moving for another four weeks ........ which means that hire desks will have to be brought in to keep us going in the meantime. I think maybe the Follyville burghers should have consulted a logistics expert before undertaking this little bit of stupidity ...... or at least consulted me for a bit of common sense.
In practice I am not going to be in for the rest of the week so I have to clear my desk (and everything under it!) with about 6 hours notice. Luckily a supply of large crates are delivered at lunch time and I manage to get all my paraphernalia into two of them ...... just! And then I read another e-mail that states we should use one crate each and, if at all possible, share a crate with a colleague! No one knows where all this stuff is going to go to at the other end ... there simply is no room for storage.
So on Monday I return to my hire desk ........ naturally much smaller than the one they have just stolen from me. I was planning on living out of crates until the final move but, no ........ we have to pay for the crates by the day so they all have to be emptied back onto and under the desk. The crating up exercise will have to happen all over again in four weeks time. A little foresight and forward planning could have avoided all this disruption and expense. Goodness only knows what will happen on D-Day if the burghers carry on like this. The phrases "meltdown" and "the end of civilisation as we know it" come to mind. Watch this space as the story continues.
In practice I am not going to be in for the rest of the week so I have to clear my desk (and everything under it!) with about 6 hours notice. Luckily a supply of large crates are delivered at lunch time and I manage to get all my paraphernalia into two of them ...... just! And then I read another e-mail that states we should use one crate each and, if at all possible, share a crate with a colleague! No one knows where all this stuff is going to go to at the other end ... there simply is no room for storage.
So on Monday I return to my hire desk ........ naturally much smaller than the one they have just stolen from me. I was planning on living out of crates until the final move but, no ........ we have to pay for the crates by the day so they all have to be emptied back onto and under the desk. The crating up exercise will have to happen all over again in four weeks time. A little foresight and forward planning could have avoided all this disruption and expense. Goodness only knows what will happen on D-Day if the burghers carry on like this. The phrases "meltdown" and "the end of civilisation as we know it" come to mind. Watch this space as the story continues.
Saturday, 14 November 2009
Follyville continued
The workers at Follyville Borough Council continue to get ready for the big move. The office phone system has now been replaced with VOIP (Voice over internet protocol). This is supposed to be cheaper and will allow those working from home to make free calls. However, it is plagued with problems. For a start, you can't make a phone call unless your computer is logged on. This in itself is a process that now takes about 20 minutes each morning so, if you have just popped into the office briefly before going off somewhere else for the day, you can't make a quick phone call because it's just not worth firing up the computer. It also means that you can't be helpful and answer your colleague's phone when it rings because if they are not there, their computer will not be logged on.
This week my system has been ringing and then hanging up before I have a chance to answer. The caller gets a message asking if they want to leave a message, even though I am sitting at my desk. This then transformed into a total malfunction by the end of the week whereby my colleague had to phone someone else in the office on their mobile and get them to bring me a message to phone her back because my phone was not ringing at all (no voicemail either).
But this is not as bad as it gets. We heard on Friday that when we move we will lose our computers and will instead have "dumb terminals" connected to the server. The dumb terminals won't have any kind of sound-card in so when the phone rings ........... we won't be able to hear it! Great for getting work done but not exactly high in the "customer care" stakes. I'm starting a book on how long it will be before we get proper phones back again!
This week my system has been ringing and then hanging up before I have a chance to answer. The caller gets a message asking if they want to leave a message, even though I am sitting at my desk. This then transformed into a total malfunction by the end of the week whereby my colleague had to phone someone else in the office on their mobile and get them to bring me a message to phone her back because my phone was not ringing at all (no voicemail either).
But this is not as bad as it gets. We heard on Friday that when we move we will lose our computers and will instead have "dumb terminals" connected to the server. The dumb terminals won't have any kind of sound-card in so when the phone rings ........... we won't be able to hear it! Great for getting work done but not exactly high in the "customer care" stakes. I'm starting a book on how long it will be before we get proper phones back again!
I've just put a link to this site on my new Facebook page, so hopefully I might get a few followers!
Does anyone actually understand Facebook ....... or is it really as random as it seems? I keep getting e-mails from people I have never heard of wanting to be my friend. Is it just that (a) I have completely forgotten them over the years. (b) they think they know me but have made a mistake or (c) they are desperate for friends and will take anyone? If they read the blog for a while they will probably all be clamouring to be de-listed.
If you can explain how the system works (simply), please respond to this message.
Does anyone actually understand Facebook ....... or is it really as random as it seems? I keep getting e-mails from people I have never heard of wanting to be my friend. Is it just that (a) I have completely forgotten them over the years. (b) they think they know me but have made a mistake or (c) they are desperate for friends and will take anyone? If they read the blog for a while they will probably all be clamouring to be de-listed.
If you can explain how the system works (simply), please respond to this message.
Monday, 2 November 2009
More Government Stupidity
Just when you thought the government couldn't get any more stupid - it does just that! Not only is the level of stupidity increasing but the rate of it as well. Two significant items this week within a day or two of each other......
1. The government appoints expert scientific advisors and then not only ignores their advice but actually sacks them for having the cheek to give it. Alan Johnson the Home Secretary, on sacking the head of the government's Drug Advisory Committee, said "I have lost confidence in him". What he meant was, "I have sacked him because he said the opposite of what I wanted him to say". But if the Government already know what answer they want and what action they are going to take, why bother to have an advisory committee at all? Could it be, Alan Johnson, that if this is the attitude you are going to take, the public has lost confidence in you. Just remember that MPs are supposed to exist to represent the will of the people ......... and that the will of the people is based on facts and common sense not political dogma.
2. Two very disturbing articles in the Times about the effects of the new Independent Safeguarding Authority .....
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6898127.ece
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6898212.ece
One of my favourite poems (because it is so short I can actually remember it) is by Steve Turner -
History repeats itself.
Has to.
Nobody listens!
The government are not immune to this failure to learn lessons from history. They seem hell bent on taking us back to the Stalinist era of Russia when nobody could do anything unless the government said they could. In this country we have fought long and hard for democratic freedoms but now the government is slowly (or in some instances not so slowly) unpicking all this and reverting to ultimate state control ....... of everything. This sort of thing resulted in Revolution in Russia (and in other countries where it has been tried) and it can only be a matter of time before it happens here.
We are supposedly still a Christian country. The Queen is the head of the Church of England and we still have "Her Majesty's Government". So why the discrepancy?? One of the main commands of the Christian religion (and many other religions too I believe) is "Love your neighbour". Yet the government seems determined to put every obstacle possible in the way of people doing that. But who is the first organisation to bewail the breakdown of society as we know it in this country?? ........ that self same government! On the basis of the above, the law bringing this ridiculous scheme into being is almost certainly "ultra vires" and probably contrary to the Human Rights Act. I shall certainly ignore it and I suggest everyone else does the same. If nobody co-operates the scheme will have to fail. in addition to the ethics and common sense of the scheme, it is a horrendous waste of money. On one hand the government is saying we are in a terrible financial situation and must all tighten our belts and cut back spending, and on the other they are inventing new quangos, to carry out a function that nobody wants, will cost them money, and which will be completely ineffective anyway.
When the next election comes round I will drag the doorstep candidates indoors and not let them go until until I have a written assurance that, if elected, they will do all in their power to get this iniquitous law repealed.
1. The government appoints expert scientific advisors and then not only ignores their advice but actually sacks them for having the cheek to give it. Alan Johnson the Home Secretary, on sacking the head of the government's Drug Advisory Committee, said "I have lost confidence in him". What he meant was, "I have sacked him because he said the opposite of what I wanted him to say". But if the Government already know what answer they want and what action they are going to take, why bother to have an advisory committee at all? Could it be, Alan Johnson, that if this is the attitude you are going to take, the public has lost confidence in you. Just remember that MPs are supposed to exist to represent the will of the people ......... and that the will of the people is based on facts and common sense not political dogma.
2. Two very disturbing articles in the Times about the effects of the new Independent Safeguarding Authority .....
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6898127.ece
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6898212.ece
One of my favourite poems (because it is so short I can actually remember it) is by Steve Turner -
History repeats itself.
Has to.
Nobody listens!
The government are not immune to this failure to learn lessons from history. They seem hell bent on taking us back to the Stalinist era of Russia when nobody could do anything unless the government said they could. In this country we have fought long and hard for democratic freedoms but now the government is slowly (or in some instances not so slowly) unpicking all this and reverting to ultimate state control ....... of everything. This sort of thing resulted in Revolution in Russia (and in other countries where it has been tried) and it can only be a matter of time before it happens here.
We are supposedly still a Christian country. The Queen is the head of the Church of England and we still have "Her Majesty's Government". So why the discrepancy?? One of the main commands of the Christian religion (and many other religions too I believe) is "Love your neighbour". Yet the government seems determined to put every obstacle possible in the way of people doing that. But who is the first organisation to bewail the breakdown of society as we know it in this country?? ........ that self same government! On the basis of the above, the law bringing this ridiculous scheme into being is almost certainly "ultra vires" and probably contrary to the Human Rights Act. I shall certainly ignore it and I suggest everyone else does the same. If nobody co-operates the scheme will have to fail. in addition to the ethics and common sense of the scheme, it is a horrendous waste of money. On one hand the government is saying we are in a terrible financial situation and must all tighten our belts and cut back spending, and on the other they are inventing new quangos, to carry out a function that nobody wants, will cost them money, and which will be completely ineffective anyway.
When the next election comes round I will drag the doorstep candidates indoors and not let them go until until I have a written assurance that, if elected, they will do all in their power to get this iniquitous law repealed.
Sunday, 25 October 2009
I was wrong.
OK, so I got it completely wrong about the Pope's statement. I optimistically thought it might be one small step forward in ecumenism but cynically suggested that it might mean no progress at all just "we're still talking". Alas even that was a huge overestimate. What the statement apparently boils down to is a blatant attempt by the Roman Catholic Church to pinch clergy from the Anglican Church. Having realised they are in dire straits manpower-wise they have decided to involve themselves in a bit of industrial espionage. All this talk about congregations is a complete red herring ..... it is the clergy they are interested in. A breakaway Anglican leader has described this as "a moment of grace" ??? It is nothing of the sort. Nothing new is being offered. It is merely active encouragement from the Roman Catholic Church for Anglicans to defect to them.
There has never been anything to stop Anglicans going over to Rome if they so wish. Even the concession that married clergy can remain as clergy has been allowed before - so there is actually nothing new at all. The sad thing apparent in the press reports is that many people seem to think that the Pope is creating a new kind of religion that is half Anglican, half Roman Catholic. Nothing is further from the truth. Any folk who do move across will be well and truly Roman Catholic. If you owe allegiance to the Pope you cannot also owe allegiance to the Archbishop of Canterbury despite the strange wording in the statement about "retaining certain elements of Anglican patrimony". The only concession that is being made, as far as I can see, is the right to certain liturgical freedoms, but all the Roman Catholic services I have ever been to have not been that different to Anglican liturgy anyway.
A female lay reader from a church in Walthamstow is reported as having said "It is the best news I have heard all year. I would support it 150% because this is the faith to which I belong. The Church of England doesn't seem to stand for the genuine, God-given doctrines."
What planet is she on?? If this is the faith to which she belongs, why is she not worshipping in a Roman Catholic Church now? As far as I am aware the Romans do not have such things as lay readers and would certainly not tolerate female ones (so she would be out of a job!). And what exactly are "the genuine God-given doctrines"? From my reading of Church History, there may be God-given commands / laws, but all "doctrines" are entirely man-made ....... hence the existing discrepancies between the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches. We use the same bibles ...... it is only where the church hierarchy started laying down rigid doctrines that schism started taking place and has resulted in the mess we are all in today. If there is one God-given doctrine, it is that the church should be one. Funnily enough this is the only one that seems to be ignored!
There has never been anything to stop Anglicans going over to Rome if they so wish. Even the concession that married clergy can remain as clergy has been allowed before - so there is actually nothing new at all. The sad thing apparent in the press reports is that many people seem to think that the Pope is creating a new kind of religion that is half Anglican, half Roman Catholic. Nothing is further from the truth. Any folk who do move across will be well and truly Roman Catholic. If you owe allegiance to the Pope you cannot also owe allegiance to the Archbishop of Canterbury despite the strange wording in the statement about "retaining certain elements of Anglican patrimony". The only concession that is being made, as far as I can see, is the right to certain liturgical freedoms, but all the Roman Catholic services I have ever been to have not been that different to Anglican liturgy anyway.
A female lay reader from a church in Walthamstow is reported as having said "It is the best news I have heard all year. I would support it 150% because this is the faith to which I belong. The Church of England doesn't seem to stand for the genuine, God-given doctrines."
What planet is she on?? If this is the faith to which she belongs, why is she not worshipping in a Roman Catholic Church now? As far as I am aware the Romans do not have such things as lay readers and would certainly not tolerate female ones (so she would be out of a job!). And what exactly are "the genuine God-given doctrines"? From my reading of Church History, there may be God-given commands / laws, but all "doctrines" are entirely man-made ....... hence the existing discrepancies between the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches. We use the same bibles ...... it is only where the church hierarchy started laying down rigid doctrines that schism started taking place and has resulted in the mess we are all in today. If there is one God-given doctrine, it is that the church should be one. Funnily enough this is the only one that seems to be ignored!
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Keep it simple, Stupid!
The General Synod of the Church of England has obviously never heard that the best way to get anything done is to "Keep it simple, Stupid (K.I.S.S.)".
Having, last year, overwhelmingly voted in favour of consecrating women bishops, a "Revision Committee" of the Synod is now engaged in working out some very complicated arrangements for allowing conscientious objectors to ignore their female diocesan bishop and turn to some new breed of super-bishop with the statutory authority to overrule the Diocesan. If this isn't the kiss of death for the Church of England as we know it, I don't know what is. The whole point of a bishop is that they are the "focus of unity" in their area. How can anyone, male or female, be the focus of unity knowing that some of their flock won't even talk to them and are taking instructions from an interloper?
The revision committee state that they are trying to address the concerns of those with "conscientious difficulties" so that they won't leave the church altogether. Conscientious difficulties?? Their conscientious difficulties should lie in their continued insistance on treading a path that is at clear odds with the declared will of the majority of Synod. In the "good old days" of the Church such people would be declared heretics and burnt at the stake. You wouldn't have found Henry VIII or Queen Mary saying "let's just change the whole order and structure of the church to accommodate these folk who, quite clearly, do not believe in the unity of the church anyway."
If the Church is not one it is nothing. Stop pandering to these people and let them either put up or shut up. It is surely better to preserve the majority of the church and lose a few than to risk destroying the whole church.
More on this here: www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=83359
Having, last year, overwhelmingly voted in favour of consecrating women bishops, a "Revision Committee" of the Synod is now engaged in working out some very complicated arrangements for allowing conscientious objectors to ignore their female diocesan bishop and turn to some new breed of super-bishop with the statutory authority to overrule the Diocesan. If this isn't the kiss of death for the Church of England as we know it, I don't know what is. The whole point of a bishop is that they are the "focus of unity" in their area. How can anyone, male or female, be the focus of unity knowing that some of their flock won't even talk to them and are taking instructions from an interloper?
The revision committee state that they are trying to address the concerns of those with "conscientious difficulties" so that they won't leave the church altogether. Conscientious difficulties?? Their conscientious difficulties should lie in their continued insistance on treading a path that is at clear odds with the declared will of the majority of Synod. In the "good old days" of the Church such people would be declared heretics and burnt at the stake. You wouldn't have found Henry VIII or Queen Mary saying "let's just change the whole order and structure of the church to accommodate these folk who, quite clearly, do not believe in the unity of the church anyway."
If the Church is not one it is nothing. Stop pandering to these people and let them either put up or shut up. It is surely better to preserve the majority of the church and lose a few than to risk destroying the whole church.
More on this here: www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=83359
Important Statement from the Archbish and the Pope
Well ..... I think it's important. A joint statement made today can be found here - www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2572
Have you read it? Good - then perhaps you can explain to me what it actually means. Particularly the bit about "a canonical structure that provides for Personal Ordinariates, which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of distinctive Anglican spiritual patrimony." Does this actually mean a change in anything or is it just a very verbose way of saying "We're still talking"?
What I would like it to mean is that we Anglicans can take communion in a Roman Catholic church without thinking we'll be damned to all eternity if the priest ever finds out we're not a Catholic. ...... but I don't suppose it means that at all. Any attempts at a proper translation into common English would be much appreciated.
Have you read it? Good - then perhaps you can explain to me what it actually means. Particularly the bit about "a canonical structure that provides for Personal Ordinariates, which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of distinctive Anglican spiritual patrimony." Does this actually mean a change in anything or is it just a very verbose way of saying "We're still talking"?
What I would like it to mean is that we Anglicans can take communion in a Roman Catholic church without thinking we'll be damned to all eternity if the priest ever finds out we're not a Catholic. ...... but I don't suppose it means that at all. Any attempts at a proper translation into common English would be much appreciated.
Monday, 12 October 2009
At last! Someone with some common sense.
I am thinking of becoming a "Seddonite". Not some new religion but at last someone with a common sense view for the future of local government.
John Seddon is described as an "outspoken management thinker". He is only saying what I have been saying for a long while ........ but if people listen to him, I don't mind if he takes the credit.
He says "Targets always make performance worse. They are arbitrary measures which distort people's thinking and sub-optimise the system." Outsourcing and shared services in local government is "wasteful and pointless", and he is all for saving billions of pounds and making services run like clockwork by scrapping the entire "systems and inspections industry".
In other words Whitehall - let local government get on and do what it has to do without continually telling it how to do it, when to do it and how fast to do it. Local government has been around for a long time now ....... it knows how to operate efficiently and effectively and as cheaply as possible ....... unfortunately those who think they know better won't let it.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/public_sector/article6733600.ece
John Seddon is described as an "outspoken management thinker". He is only saying what I have been saying for a long while ........ but if people listen to him, I don't mind if he takes the credit.
He says "Targets always make performance worse. They are arbitrary measures which distort people's thinking and sub-optimise the system." Outsourcing and shared services in local government is "wasteful and pointless", and he is all for saving billions of pounds and making services run like clockwork by scrapping the entire "systems and inspections industry".
In other words Whitehall - let local government get on and do what it has to do without continually telling it how to do it, when to do it and how fast to do it. Local government has been around for a long time now ....... it knows how to operate efficiently and effectively and as cheaply as possible ....... unfortunately those who think they know better won't let it.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/public_sector/article6733600.ece
Monday, 28 September 2009
Gottcha Dawkins
Oh dear! Richard Dawkins has finally been cornered by his own peers. Recent studies reported in the Sunday Times (6.9.09) [www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6823229.ece ] have suggested that atheism may be fighting against nature. Humans have been hardwired by evolution to believe in God, scientists have suggested. The natural processes of evolution have ensured that those with religious beliefs tended to work together better and therefore stood a better chance of survival.
Professor Pascal Boyer, anthropologist of Washington University, holds out little hope for atheism and said "Religious thinking seems to be the path of least resistance for our cognitive systems. By contrast, disbelief is generally the work of deliberate, effortful work against our natural cognitive dispositions - hardly the easiest ideology to propagate."
Professor Pascal Boyer, anthropologist of Washington University, holds out little hope for atheism and said "Religious thinking seems to be the path of least resistance for our cognitive systems. By contrast, disbelief is generally the work of deliberate, effortful work against our natural cognitive dispositions - hardly the easiest ideology to propagate."
Upside down priorities.
So much stupidity going on at the moment that it's difficult to know which example to pick!
This week's prize has got to go to the school which sacked a dinner lady because she told a child's parents that the girl was being bullied at school. In the minds of 99.99% of the population this was entirely the right thing to do. Somehow the school managed to justify sacking her on the grounds that the child's confidentiality had been breached! So keeping confidentially comes higher up the ethical scale than safeguarding a child's physical safety and human dignity does it? I pity any child at that school if they have to put up with this kind of warped thinking for very long.
This week's prize has got to go to the school which sacked a dinner lady because she told a child's parents that the girl was being bullied at school. In the minds of 99.99% of the population this was entirely the right thing to do. Somehow the school managed to justify sacking her on the grounds that the child's confidentiality had been breached! So keeping confidentially comes higher up the ethical scale than safeguarding a child's physical safety and human dignity does it? I pity any child at that school if they have to put up with this kind of warped thinking for very long.
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Safeguarding - or revenue making?
The world hasn't got any saner since I've been away on holiday. The latest bad idea to hit the headlines is the Independent Safeguarding Authority, the body set up to register anyone who wants to work with children or vulnerable adults. It will shortly be an offence for anyone to work with these groups unless they are registered with this body!
When will the Government stop interfering with everyone's lives and just trust us to manage our own affairs? This stupid idea apparently sprung from the murder of two schoolgirls by a school caretaker. Nasty occurence, obviously, but exactly how is this kneejerk reaction going to prevent such cases? Even the policeman who was involved in the case can see no sense in this suggested solution www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6834544.ece
Instead of identifying future murderers and paedophiles, all this is going to do is make a lot of unneccessary work for everyone and cost a fortune to administer. While the Government looks one way and asks for suggestions on how to cut public spending, its alter-ego looks the other way and sets up an expensive and completely ineffective quango. All this will show is whether or not the person being vetted has been caught before. Anyone who is any good at being a murderer or a pervert won't have been caught and won't have a record. I am convinced this is simply a very poorly disguised way of raising more taxes (I understand it will cost £64 to become registered. The requirement will apply to millions of people ...... that's , err....... quite a lot of money, thank you very much.
How many undesirables will it catch? ......... I would venture to suggest probably none.
I am sure I have said it here before, but I'll say it again. Every government department and every local government authority should employ a "Common Sense Officer" to vet all political decisions before they are put into practice. This seems to me to be the only way to stop the country completely disappearing down the plug hole!
When will the Government stop interfering with everyone's lives and just trust us to manage our own affairs? This stupid idea apparently sprung from the murder of two schoolgirls by a school caretaker. Nasty occurence, obviously, but exactly how is this kneejerk reaction going to prevent such cases? Even the policeman who was involved in the case can see no sense in this suggested solution www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6834544.ece
Instead of identifying future murderers and paedophiles, all this is going to do is make a lot of unneccessary work for everyone and cost a fortune to administer. While the Government looks one way and asks for suggestions on how to cut public spending, its alter-ego looks the other way and sets up an expensive and completely ineffective quango. All this will show is whether or not the person being vetted has been caught before. Anyone who is any good at being a murderer or a pervert won't have been caught and won't have a record. I am convinced this is simply a very poorly disguised way of raising more taxes (I understand it will cost £64 to become registered. The requirement will apply to millions of people ...... that's , err....... quite a lot of money, thank you very much.
How many undesirables will it catch? ......... I would venture to suggest probably none.
I am sure I have said it here before, but I'll say it again. Every government department and every local government authority should employ a "Common Sense Officer" to vet all political decisions before they are put into practice. This seems to me to be the only way to stop the country completely disappearing down the plug hole!
Friday, 21 August 2009
Downsizing
I have been moaning for sometime about the "rabbit hutch" mentality in British housebuilding. But now it's official. A report from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment [http://www.cabe.org.uk/publications/space-in-new-homes] says that new British homes often have barely enough room for proper furniture or even a microwave. Things have become so silly that many people are now renting out units in self-storage warehouses to keep all their possessions in and, in some cases, to live in part of the time. A room that would have been a walk-in cupboard in my youth is now designated as a single bedroom. A single bed is all that you can get into it. No room for a wardrobe, drawers or even a chair. British house sizes are now the smallest in Europe with an average floorspace of 818 sq.ft. compared to 1200 sq.ft. in France.
When I started in Local Government we had the "Parker Morris" standards which were designed to ensure that houses were fit to live in and provided a decent standard of accommodation. Somewhere along the line these standards went to the wall. Now anything goes. The more units you can cram onto a piece of land the more profit you make. Never mind whether anyone wants to live in them or not. Never mind whether people will go mad, get stressed, and probably come to an early demise if they do.
Despite all the government's rhetoric on "Decent Homes" they are doing absolutely nothing to ensure we get them. It would be quite a simple matter to deal with - classify housing accommodation as "1 person", "2 person", "3 person" accommodation etc, with or without a garden. Then get Local Authorities to refuse planning consent for any units which do not meet an appropriate space standard for their grade. Separate space standards should be set for both living accommodation and garden space. Then people would know exactly what they were getting when buying a house or flat and local Housing Authorities would be easily able to deal with overcrowding issues without people being able to claim that the cupboard under the stairs is really a bedroom. Bring back Parker Morris.
When I started in Local Government we had the "Parker Morris" standards which were designed to ensure that houses were fit to live in and provided a decent standard of accommodation. Somewhere along the line these standards went to the wall. Now anything goes. The more units you can cram onto a piece of land the more profit you make. Never mind whether anyone wants to live in them or not. Never mind whether people will go mad, get stressed, and probably come to an early demise if they do.
Despite all the government's rhetoric on "Decent Homes" they are doing absolutely nothing to ensure we get them. It would be quite a simple matter to deal with - classify housing accommodation as "1 person", "2 person", "3 person" accommodation etc, with or without a garden. Then get Local Authorities to refuse planning consent for any units which do not meet an appropriate space standard for their grade. Separate space standards should be set for both living accommodation and garden space. Then people would know exactly what they were getting when buying a house or flat and local Housing Authorities would be easily able to deal with overcrowding issues without people being able to claim that the cupboard under the stairs is really a bedroom. Bring back Parker Morris.
Going, Going, Gone
I hung on as long as I could..... but my drawer unit has finally gone. My line manager wheeled it out himself despite my protestations that I will now not be able to work effectively. I threatened that he would be mentioned in my blog but it didn't seem to worry him. He probably doesn't think I have one. So .... MARTIN ...... you know who you are! This is the beginning of the end!
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
An Introduction to the Chaos of Follyville
Sorry no blog for a while ...... holidays etc. But it's back now to the chaos that is Follyville.
Follyville is the fictitious local authority I work for. Well .... I try and work for! Every day they try to make it more difficult to work for them. Some kind of perverse reverse logic I suppose. They want to increase efficiency but every move they make decreases it.
Everyone in my office has to move out by the end of the year. The burghers of Follyville have sold the office (in a prime position in the central High Street) and we are to be relocated to another office on the outskirts of the town. The trouble is, that office is already full with other employees. To make matters worse, part of that building has now been leased to a completely different organisation. The result will be about half the number of desks for the number of people that need one and very little storage space for anything else. Staff will have to book a desk and computer when they can get the chance, and work out of the office for the rest of the time.
We have now been ordered to empty all our drawers and cupboards by the end of the month in preparation for the move. At present we each have a neat little draw unit to accommodate much of what we need, which also extends the working area of the desk itself. Each draw unit has one of those little plastic inserts that hold all your paper clips, staples , rubber bands and all the other paraphernalia that is the mainstay of office life. It is a piece of equipment which is specifically designed for the purpose for which it is used. But now we have to empty it and try and find something else suitable to put all this stuff in ....... and then find somewhere to put that. And we can't just leave it on the desk-top because we won't actually have a desk-top to leave it on! At the moment I have put it all in a plastic box under the desk and am running a serious risk of getting a slipped disk or a hernia every time I try to retrieve anything. I am just wondering how many compensation claims it will take for the burghers to realise what a stupid mistake they have made.
All files and other documents must be scanned onto the computer as there will be nowhere to store them in the new office. This, initially, sounds like a good idea. But some paper copies are essential, to take to meetings or out on site. The cost of printing will rocket as everyone tries to copy scanned documents to work with .......... and then destroy them afterwards (until the next time) because there is nowhere to put them!
More about Follyville later
Follyville is the fictitious local authority I work for. Well .... I try and work for! Every day they try to make it more difficult to work for them. Some kind of perverse reverse logic I suppose. They want to increase efficiency but every move they make decreases it.
Everyone in my office has to move out by the end of the year. The burghers of Follyville have sold the office (in a prime position in the central High Street) and we are to be relocated to another office on the outskirts of the town. The trouble is, that office is already full with other employees. To make matters worse, part of that building has now been leased to a completely different organisation. The result will be about half the number of desks for the number of people that need one and very little storage space for anything else. Staff will have to book a desk and computer when they can get the chance, and work out of the office for the rest of the time.
We have now been ordered to empty all our drawers and cupboards by the end of the month in preparation for the move. At present we each have a neat little draw unit to accommodate much of what we need, which also extends the working area of the desk itself. Each draw unit has one of those little plastic inserts that hold all your paper clips, staples , rubber bands and all the other paraphernalia that is the mainstay of office life. It is a piece of equipment which is specifically designed for the purpose for which it is used. But now we have to empty it and try and find something else suitable to put all this stuff in ....... and then find somewhere to put that. And we can't just leave it on the desk-top because we won't actually have a desk-top to leave it on! At the moment I have put it all in a plastic box under the desk and am running a serious risk of getting a slipped disk or a hernia every time I try to retrieve anything. I am just wondering how many compensation claims it will take for the burghers to realise what a stupid mistake they have made.
All files and other documents must be scanned onto the computer as there will be nowhere to store them in the new office. This, initially, sounds like a good idea. But some paper copies are essential, to take to meetings or out on site. The cost of printing will rocket as everyone tries to copy scanned documents to work with .......... and then destroy them afterwards (until the next time) because there is nowhere to put them!
More about Follyville later
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Stand at Ease
I got the dreaded disease. Been off sick yesterday and today. It's taken a lot of phone calls and pushing but I've eventually managed to discover that the results of the swabs were negative for swine flu. It's taken a lot of hard work on my part to get this information though. Anyone else probably wouldn't have bothered and would be walking around potentially contaminating anyone they came into close contact with. Makes a mockery of the emergency plan!
Saturday, 27 June 2009
A Plague on all Your Houses .......
Suddenly the swine flu pandemic hits home ........ too close to home ....... actually in the home! And you realise first hand how the carefully prepared emergency plan doesn't actually work in practice.
The scenario goes like this. Five Australians arrive on Tuesday from Melbourne to visit for a month. (Mrs Journeyman's brother and his family). They are supposed to stay with us for the first few days and then transfer today to a caravan at a local holiday park. Yesterday the youngest two, aged 1 and 3 are not feeling very well. The youngest one was born 4 months premature and, as a result, has lung problems so, to be on the safe side, his mum and Mrs Journeyman took him up to the Medical Walk-In Centre last night for a check-up. As soon as the receptionist saw the word "Australia" on the paperwork she decided it must be swine flu. She wasn't having any of that in her clinic so she ordered them home with a phone number and told them to ring the out-of-hours doctor. This they duly did. The doctor said he could see them at 10.20pm but they would have to come in. Guess where? ............. Right next door to the Walk-in Centre. They actually share the same reception desk! So back they went across town. This time, after a brief examination, they were told to go and wait in the car park. Luckily it was fairly warm last night but even so, a 25 minute wait outside with a sick 1-year-old is somewhat stressfull. ........ so they gave up and came home. Shortly afterwards we got a phone call to say that a doctor would come out in the morning to take some swabs. Finally got to bed at 00.45 (way past my bedtime).
Nine o'clock this morning the flying doctor car arrives. Doctor gets out and kits up in the street with face mask, apron and gloves. He's obviously not used to this because it takes several attempts to get the mask on properly. Then he comes in with two pre-wrapped packets. Each contains the necessary equipment for taking, preserving, packing and labelling a throat swab. All goes well with the one year old. He then opens the second pack to swab the 3 year old and finds there is no preserving medium present. He goes out to the car to fetch the other two packs he had brought, only to find they had no medium either. His driver is promptly dispatched back to base to get some more sampling kits. She eventually returns and says she found the medium in the fridge. So the second swab is taken. He has brought a prescription for Tamiflu for the youngest but not for the other child. I explain that the whole Australian family is due to move onto a caravan later today. Doctor says he will contact the Health Protection Unit and take advice on that, and also write out a prescription for the other child. He disappears out to the car for ages.
Eventually he returns to inform us that the two sick children must be quarantined in the house but that anyone with no symptoms can go where they like. He hands over the two prescriptions and says we can get the Tamiflu at Boots. So Mrs Journeyman and I set of to get the medication. We go to our local pharmacy where we know the owner (it's also much closer than Boots). They look at the prescriptions and shake their heads. "We don't keep that in stock". "Alright", I said, "we'll carry on to Boots". "They won't have any either", the pharmacist said, "local Tamiflu is all kept at a central point ........ in this case... (wait for it) ......the Walk-in Centre!".
She then phoned the Head of Medicines and Pharmaceuticals (who just happened to be on holiday in Yorkshire - but she answered anyway!). She then had to ring the Walk-in Centre to arrange the medication for us because the original doctor had put the doseage at 2ml twice a day when the doseage should have been 30 mg twice a day. How many mgs you get in a ml will obviously depend on the concentration of the liquid, which was not specified.
So eventually we got the medication. And we also get to keep the Australians until we get the test results.
The scenario goes like this. Five Australians arrive on Tuesday from Melbourne to visit for a month. (Mrs Journeyman's brother and his family). They are supposed to stay with us for the first few days and then transfer today to a caravan at a local holiday park. Yesterday the youngest two, aged 1 and 3 are not feeling very well. The youngest one was born 4 months premature and, as a result, has lung problems so, to be on the safe side, his mum and Mrs Journeyman took him up to the Medical Walk-In Centre last night for a check-up. As soon as the receptionist saw the word "Australia" on the paperwork she decided it must be swine flu. She wasn't having any of that in her clinic so she ordered them home with a phone number and told them to ring the out-of-hours doctor. This they duly did. The doctor said he could see them at 10.20pm but they would have to come in. Guess where? ............. Right next door to the Walk-in Centre. They actually share the same reception desk! So back they went across town. This time, after a brief examination, they were told to go and wait in the car park. Luckily it was fairly warm last night but even so, a 25 minute wait outside with a sick 1-year-old is somewhat stressfull. ........ so they gave up and came home. Shortly afterwards we got a phone call to say that a doctor would come out in the morning to take some swabs. Finally got to bed at 00.45 (way past my bedtime).
Nine o'clock this morning the flying doctor car arrives. Doctor gets out and kits up in the street with face mask, apron and gloves. He's obviously not used to this because it takes several attempts to get the mask on properly. Then he comes in with two pre-wrapped packets. Each contains the necessary equipment for taking, preserving, packing and labelling a throat swab. All goes well with the one year old. He then opens the second pack to swab the 3 year old and finds there is no preserving medium present. He goes out to the car to fetch the other two packs he had brought, only to find they had no medium either. His driver is promptly dispatched back to base to get some more sampling kits. She eventually returns and says she found the medium in the fridge. So the second swab is taken. He has brought a prescription for Tamiflu for the youngest but not for the other child. I explain that the whole Australian family is due to move onto a caravan later today. Doctor says he will contact the Health Protection Unit and take advice on that, and also write out a prescription for the other child. He disappears out to the car for ages.
Eventually he returns to inform us that the two sick children must be quarantined in the house but that anyone with no symptoms can go where they like. He hands over the two prescriptions and says we can get the Tamiflu at Boots. So Mrs Journeyman and I set of to get the medication. We go to our local pharmacy where we know the owner (it's also much closer than Boots). They look at the prescriptions and shake their heads. "We don't keep that in stock". "Alright", I said, "we'll carry on to Boots". "They won't have any either", the pharmacist said, "local Tamiflu is all kept at a central point ........ in this case... (wait for it) ......the Walk-in Centre!".
She then phoned the Head of Medicines and Pharmaceuticals (who just happened to be on holiday in Yorkshire - but she answered anyway!). She then had to ring the Walk-in Centre to arrange the medication for us because the original doctor had put the doseage at 2ml twice a day when the doseage should have been 30 mg twice a day. How many mgs you get in a ml will obviously depend on the concentration of the liquid, which was not specified.
So eventually we got the medication. And we also get to keep the Australians until we get the test results.
Friday, 19 June 2009
A Level Standards
Another Times report this week, bewailing the lowering of A Level standards, meaning that students are now much less well prepared for university. Making courses "modular" has badly affected students' overall understanding of the subject, and resits have developed students who always seek a second chance.
Elizabeth Truss, the deputy director of Reform (the organization that produced the report) is quoted as saying:
"Today's students are being badly let down by the A-level system. They are not developing what they really need: a spirit of independent inquiry and confidence that will set them up for university and later life."
This is amply borne out by the typical quote of current 6th form students - "I don't need to know that - it's not in the syllabus".
When I recently asked Alice (currently doing Biology A-level) a biology question, the response was "don't know". When asked why she didn't know, as this would certainly be in the syllabus and she was very nearly at the end of the course, the response was that she'd done it last year and already passed that module!
Call me old-fashioned if you like, but I like to think that if you had learnt something and passed the module, then, if questioned later, you would know it. Education isn't what it was.
Elizabeth Truss, the deputy director of Reform (the organization that produced the report) is quoted as saying:
"Today's students are being badly let down by the A-level system. They are not developing what they really need: a spirit of independent inquiry and confidence that will set them up for university and later life."
This is amply borne out by the typical quote of current 6th form students - "I don't need to know that - it's not in the syllabus".
When I recently asked Alice (currently doing Biology A-level) a biology question, the response was "don't know". When asked why she didn't know, as this would certainly be in the syllabus and she was very nearly at the end of the course, the response was that she'd done it last year and already passed that module!
Call me old-fashioned if you like, but I like to think that if you had learnt something and passed the module, then, if questioned later, you would know it. Education isn't what it was.
Two Ways of Looking at Things
Strange story in the Times this week.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6513866.ece
An orthodox Jewish couple are suing the other neighbours in their block of flats for installing a motion sensor to automatically turn on the light in the communal stairwell when anyone leaves their flat. Their argument is that they will now be imprisoned in their flat over the Sabbath because if they try to leave, the light will automatically come on and they will have been responsible. They will thus have done "work" on the Sabbath, which is forbidden.
Whilst I am fully in support of maintaining religious customs, I can't help thinking that they are approaching this issue from completely the wrong side. An automatic motion sensor should be every good Jew's answer to prayer as it prevents the necessity for them to do "work" by manually switching the light on, and ensures that they don't break their necks falling down the stairs in the dark - thus creating a lot more work for the doctors and nurses at the Jewish hospital!
Come to that, if they are that strict in their observance, why would they want to leave the flat on the Sabbath anyway? In scientific terms, even a leisurely stroll round the park opposite would involve considerably more work than simply flicking a light switch (or not, as the case may be).
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6513866.ece
An orthodox Jewish couple are suing the other neighbours in their block of flats for installing a motion sensor to automatically turn on the light in the communal stairwell when anyone leaves their flat. Their argument is that they will now be imprisoned in their flat over the Sabbath because if they try to leave, the light will automatically come on and they will have been responsible. They will thus have done "work" on the Sabbath, which is forbidden.
Whilst I am fully in support of maintaining religious customs, I can't help thinking that they are approaching this issue from completely the wrong side. An automatic motion sensor should be every good Jew's answer to prayer as it prevents the necessity for them to do "work" by manually switching the light on, and ensures that they don't break their necks falling down the stairs in the dark - thus creating a lot more work for the doctors and nurses at the Jewish hospital!
Come to that, if they are that strict in their observance, why would they want to leave the flat on the Sabbath anyway? In scientific terms, even a leisurely stroll round the park opposite would involve considerably more work than simply flicking a light switch (or not, as the case may be).
Monday, 8 June 2009
A Run of Bad Luck
Sorry ...... been a bit busy lately with a run of bad luck.
Two weeks ago Laura fell over and tore the cruciate ligament in her knee. This has caused immense problems for everyone. She can't use crutches so she has had to manage with a leg brace and wheelchair. Manipulating a wheelchair in confined spaces is an acquired art at the best of times but with a leg sticking straight out in front .......?? We have great difficulty getting her into the car, and even getting her to bed is an effort because, once in the standing position, she can't hop on her good leg so has to be lifted everywhere. With a bad back myself at the moment, this is not good news.
Then to make matters worse we had a bit of a flood on Friday night. We had a new bathroom fitted a year or two ago with one of these new fangled toilet cisterns with a piston valve rather than a normal syphon. It was all boxed in and looks very nice ......... until something goes wrong. And when it does it's disastrous because you can't get to the cistern to do anything about it. In this case the valve would not re-seat after the flush, which meant that water was continually flowing into the pan and the cistern never filled up. We are on a water meter and could have run up a huge bill if we didn't do something about it - so try we did. We managed to get the front panel off so we could see the front of the cistern but there was then only about a centimetre gap between the top of the cistern and the fixed worktop above. No room to get my hand in. I recruited James with the smallest hand in the family, and instructed him to feel for a plunger and push it down. As he pushed his hand into the gap the cistern moved backwards a little and the pipe from the cistern to the pan came adrift. There was immediately a flood of water onto the bathroom floor. Panic all round. We'd only just had a new carpet fitted on the stairs and landing four days previously so top priority was to prevent any water leaving the bathroom. Every available towel in the house was pressed into service to act as a kind of sandbag barrier across the doorway while I rushed downstairs to turn off the stopcock. This was achieved fairly rapidly but unfortunately the flood did not stop. Water was still pouring out from behind the WC pan. It took a while to click that this water was actually coming downwards from the tank in the roof. ........ Ladder ...... up into roof ....... try and reach the tanks from the hatchway (there's not a lot of room to actually get up, and loads of cross beams to block your way if you do manage it). There were three pipes coming from the tank and only one had a tap on it. I turned it anyway. We turned all taps on full to drain down the system as quickly as possible and, eventually the flood stopped......... only about two inches deep on the bathroom floor and not a drop on the new carpet! However, at some point before I disappeared into the loft, it was noted that water was running down the light fitting in the hall below. A bowl was strategically placed to catch this but a minute or two later the entire electrical system was blacked out. We carried on baling and mopping by torchlight.
Then Alice came home. Now Alice has a different set of priorities to everyone else. She was not the least concerned that we had had a major flood and had all been working manically to prevent the new carpet being ruined. Her only concern was that we now had no electricity in the house so she would not be able to use her hair straighteners in the morning! If only that was my biggest problem!
Two weeks ago Laura fell over and tore the cruciate ligament in her knee. This has caused immense problems for everyone. She can't use crutches so she has had to manage with a leg brace and wheelchair. Manipulating a wheelchair in confined spaces is an acquired art at the best of times but with a leg sticking straight out in front .......?? We have great difficulty getting her into the car, and even getting her to bed is an effort because, once in the standing position, she can't hop on her good leg so has to be lifted everywhere. With a bad back myself at the moment, this is not good news.
Then to make matters worse we had a bit of a flood on Friday night. We had a new bathroom fitted a year or two ago with one of these new fangled toilet cisterns with a piston valve rather than a normal syphon. It was all boxed in and looks very nice ......... until something goes wrong. And when it does it's disastrous because you can't get to the cistern to do anything about it. In this case the valve would not re-seat after the flush, which meant that water was continually flowing into the pan and the cistern never filled up. We are on a water meter and could have run up a huge bill if we didn't do something about it - so try we did. We managed to get the front panel off so we could see the front of the cistern but there was then only about a centimetre gap between the top of the cistern and the fixed worktop above. No room to get my hand in. I recruited James with the smallest hand in the family, and instructed him to feel for a plunger and push it down. As he pushed his hand into the gap the cistern moved backwards a little and the pipe from the cistern to the pan came adrift. There was immediately a flood of water onto the bathroom floor. Panic all round. We'd only just had a new carpet fitted on the stairs and landing four days previously so top priority was to prevent any water leaving the bathroom. Every available towel in the house was pressed into service to act as a kind of sandbag barrier across the doorway while I rushed downstairs to turn off the stopcock. This was achieved fairly rapidly but unfortunately the flood did not stop. Water was still pouring out from behind the WC pan. It took a while to click that this water was actually coming downwards from the tank in the roof. ........ Ladder ...... up into roof ....... try and reach the tanks from the hatchway (there's not a lot of room to actually get up, and loads of cross beams to block your way if you do manage it). There were three pipes coming from the tank and only one had a tap on it. I turned it anyway. We turned all taps on full to drain down the system as quickly as possible and, eventually the flood stopped......... only about two inches deep on the bathroom floor and not a drop on the new carpet! However, at some point before I disappeared into the loft, it was noted that water was running down the light fitting in the hall below. A bowl was strategically placed to catch this but a minute or two later the entire electrical system was blacked out. We carried on baling and mopping by torchlight.
Then Alice came home. Now Alice has a different set of priorities to everyone else. She was not the least concerned that we had had a major flood and had all been working manically to prevent the new carpet being ruined. Her only concern was that we now had no electricity in the house so she would not be able to use her hair straighteners in the morning! If only that was my biggest problem!
Saturday, 16 May 2009
Business Woman of the Year
Laura (my stepdaughter) is now a business. It's official! It must be, because the government says so! So the world gets ever more insane and the Office for National Statistics is now inventing businesses that don't exist. [Must be something to do with the credit crunch]. I've heard plenty of people moan that they are now regarded as nothing more than a number, but I've never heard anyone complain that they have been turned into a business.
I knew the government was getting desperate, but to invent spurious businesses in order to prop up the ailing economy strikes me as really being a bit beyond the pale.
This interesting perspective on Laura comes to light because we have just received a very official form from the Office for National Statistics headed "Business Register Survey 2008". It is to be completed for "the business named above" ...... i.e. Laura. It must be returned by 12 June or "penalties may be incurred under section 4 of the Statistics of Trade Act 1947". The form goes on, "We hold details of your business ......". That's quite clever, considering this alleged business does not, and never has, existed. I shall be returning the form with a Freedom of Information Request demanding to know where they got this information from and what other information they hold about this fictitious business which is, in fact, my stepdaughter.
I knew the government was getting desperate, but to invent spurious businesses in order to prop up the ailing economy strikes me as really being a bit beyond the pale.
Monday, 11 May 2009
Identity Crisis
The cost of the government's identity cards has gone up by more than £160 million to more than £5 billion. In a time of recession such as we are in at the moment, with huge public debt, how on earth can the government justify spending this sort of money on a scheme that very few people seem to want and will only tell us what we already know ....... who we are. I have known who I am from a very early age and I expect most people are the same. Why should we have to keep proving to other people who we are? If they want to know, we can tell them. If they don't believe us it's their problem. They can take it or leave it.
Moses once asked God who he was. God didn't lower himself with "proof". He simply said "I am who I am". That was good enough for Moses ..... it should be good enough for everyone else, including the government!
Moses once asked God who he was. God didn't lower himself with "proof". He simply said "I am who I am". That was good enough for Moses ..... it should be good enough for everyone else, including the government!
Sunday, 10 May 2009
Why can't managers manage?
Sorry for the long pause in transmission. I've been very busy and not having much luck :-
(a) Our cat disappeared on Easter Monday and hasn't been seen since.
(b) I have had serious back problems which wrecked our post-Easter holiday as I was hardly able to walk anywhere.
(c) I was short-changed in Superdrug to the tune of £5. Had it been just one or two pounds I wouldn't have made a fuss but I can't afford to lose £5 in one go. Just imagine if that happened in every shop you went into!
I bought a packet of Neurofen (for my back pain mentioned above) for three pounds something, gave the girl at the till a ten pound note and received change for five pounds. I remained at the till with my hand out and said "where's the rest?". Instead of admitting the mistake and giving me the rest of my change, she said "Wait here, I'll have to go and see the manager". She disappeared and quickly returned saying, "can you go and see the manager. He's in the middle of the shop". I went to see the manager and asked him for my £5 outstanding change. "Well I can't open the till now," he said, "it's lunch time. I'll check it straight after lunch and phone you." He took my phone number and I reluctantly left. Needless to say, he didn't phone me, so I went back to the shop on my way home from the office. The manager was nowhere to be seen. I enquired at the central till and they immediately put out a call on the tannoy - no response. They then sent a runner up to the staff room and manager's office - still no luck. Further tannoy calls and further waiting. After about 15 minutes he eventually turned up. No apology for not phoning or being so hard to get hold of. Merely an assertion that he had checked the till after lunch and found it was two pounds over. Naturally, if my claim was correct it should be five pounds over. He didn't directly call me a liar, but the inference was there. I pointed out that I was quite certain I had given the till girl a ten pound note as I had checked the money in my pocket before I left the office (to see how much I needed to get out of the bank) and I checked it again when I got back. Allowing for the money I had taken out of the bank and my lunchtime purchases, I was five pounds short. I further pointed out that this must mean that mine was not the only inaccurate transaction at that till today. The manager did not seem to grasp the implication of the last statement. Instead he said he would have to ask the regional manager what he wanted to do about it. Why? Was this a regional problem? - No of course it wasn't. It was a minor branch issue that should have been dealt with promptly by the very minor branch manager. So the obvious conclusion is that we have here an incompetent manager and either an incompetent or thieving shop girl.
Time after time in my professional life I come across managers of shops, offices, restaurants, pubs etc who are simply unwilling to accept the responsibility of a manager. They are really no more than the guardian of the key - to unlock the premises in the morning and lock it again at night. If anything goes slightly wrong they abdicate all responsibility to the area or regional manager.
My plea is simply this - please appoint managers who are capable of managing ...... or the state of the country will decline even faster than it is at the moment.
(a) Our cat disappeared on Easter Monday and hasn't been seen since.
(b) I have had serious back problems which wrecked our post-Easter holiday as I was hardly able to walk anywhere.
(c) I was short-changed in Superdrug to the tune of £5. Had it been just one or two pounds I wouldn't have made a fuss but I can't afford to lose £5 in one go. Just imagine if that happened in every shop you went into!
I bought a packet of Neurofen (for my back pain mentioned above) for three pounds something, gave the girl at the till a ten pound note and received change for five pounds. I remained at the till with my hand out and said "where's the rest?". Instead of admitting the mistake and giving me the rest of my change, she said "Wait here, I'll have to go and see the manager". She disappeared and quickly returned saying, "can you go and see the manager. He's in the middle of the shop". I went to see the manager and asked him for my £5 outstanding change. "Well I can't open the till now," he said, "it's lunch time. I'll check it straight after lunch and phone you." He took my phone number and I reluctantly left. Needless to say, he didn't phone me, so I went back to the shop on my way home from the office. The manager was nowhere to be seen. I enquired at the central till and they immediately put out a call on the tannoy - no response. They then sent a runner up to the staff room and manager's office - still no luck. Further tannoy calls and further waiting. After about 15 minutes he eventually turned up. No apology for not phoning or being so hard to get hold of. Merely an assertion that he had checked the till after lunch and found it was two pounds over. Naturally, if my claim was correct it should be five pounds over. He didn't directly call me a liar, but the inference was there. I pointed out that I was quite certain I had given the till girl a ten pound note as I had checked the money in my pocket before I left the office (to see how much I needed to get out of the bank) and I checked it again when I got back. Allowing for the money I had taken out of the bank and my lunchtime purchases, I was five pounds short. I further pointed out that this must mean that mine was not the only inaccurate transaction at that till today. The manager did not seem to grasp the implication of the last statement. Instead he said he would have to ask the regional manager what he wanted to do about it. Why? Was this a regional problem? - No of course it wasn't. It was a minor branch issue that should have been dealt with promptly by the very minor branch manager. So the obvious conclusion is that we have here an incompetent manager and either an incompetent or thieving shop girl.
Time after time in my professional life I come across managers of shops, offices, restaurants, pubs etc who are simply unwilling to accept the responsibility of a manager. They are really no more than the guardian of the key - to unlock the premises in the morning and lock it again at night. If anything goes slightly wrong they abdicate all responsibility to the area or regional manager.
My plea is simply this - please appoint managers who are capable of managing ...... or the state of the country will decline even faster than it is at the moment.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Banks - don't you just love them?
Every other day I get bombarded with financial junk mail trying to get me to take out a new loan, get a new credit card etc. At the end of the financial year they are mostly exhorting me to make the most of my tax allowances and invest in an ISA before it's too late. With all this money they spend on advertising you would expect them to make it as easy as possible to get their hands on your money ....... but not a bit of it. Having whetted your appetite, they then put as many hurdles as possible in the way to prevent you doing exactly what they were encouraging you to do shortly before.
On Saturday Mrs Journeyman and I went to Barclays to try to open an ISA account in her name (before it's too late). We thought this would be a simple process, taking out only a few minutes of our shopping trip to town. I had already primed Mrs Journeyman to make sure she had her photo-driving licence with her as it's well known that banks always want to know who you are and are never prepared to take your word for it, even if you go with a witness.
On enquiring at reception, we were told that they now operate an appointments system and there was a 40 minute wait. If we wanted an appointment we couldn't go away for a coffee and come back in 40 minutes time. We had to remain on the premises! We were ushered through to the waiting area which you could easily have mistaken for a dentist's waiting room. Forty minutes later we were summoned to a cubicle. Then the trouble really started.
Unlike any other bank I have been in, they didn't seem the slightest bit interested in seeing my wife's photo on her driving licence. They didn't even want to verify her address with a utility bill. This time they seemed to know exactly what we hadn't got ........ and that was what they wanted .... her National Insurance number. You know - the sort of thing that everyone carries around with them when they go shopping on a Saturday! We phoned home for someone to find it, but of course no-one was in. The man (surprisingly) was prepared to be flexible and allow us to phone it through as soon as we got home. But then there was another problem. We had a joint account at that branch and a transfer could be made from that. Unfortunately there was not enough money in that account to cover the full amount so I was intending to make up the difference with a cheque from my account at a different bank. "Oh no," said the man, "you can't do that! That's your money." He was afraid I might be exceeding my own ISA limit by paying some money into my wife's account. The fact that almost every other married couple in the country who have ISA's do this seemed to bear no weight at all. The fact that as soon as I wrote out a cheque with my wife's name on, it would technically be her money anyway carried no weight either. Nor did the fact that this account would be in her name so I wouldn't be able to get my hands on it anyway. The only solution, he said, was for me to pay a cheque into our joint account, wait until it had cleared, then go back to the bank and transfer it to the ISA. It didn't seem to worry him that as this was a joint account it would still be my money. He even said that my wife didn't have to go back as, once the ISA was set up, anyone could pay money into it! So that is what we had to do. After succumbing to their advertising which seemed to plead for our money, a simple job, which could have been done in five minutes or so, will actually take us a week to complete (and that's assuming that the cheque clears in time to get the money into the ISA in the outgoing tax year).
There seems to be absolutely no logic or consistency in the banking system, and absolutely no will on the bankers part to make the system helpful or efficient for the customer. With interest rates now down to virtually zero, I can see a mass return to people keeping their savings under the mattress. It takes no time at all to put it there and at least you know where it is!
On Saturday Mrs Journeyman and I went to Barclays to try to open an ISA account in her name (before it's too late). We thought this would be a simple process, taking out only a few minutes of our shopping trip to town. I had already primed Mrs Journeyman to make sure she had her photo-driving licence with her as it's well known that banks always want to know who you are and are never prepared to take your word for it, even if you go with a witness.
On enquiring at reception, we were told that they now operate an appointments system and there was a 40 minute wait. If we wanted an appointment we couldn't go away for a coffee and come back in 40 minutes time. We had to remain on the premises! We were ushered through to the waiting area which you could easily have mistaken for a dentist's waiting room. Forty minutes later we were summoned to a cubicle. Then the trouble really started.
Unlike any other bank I have been in, they didn't seem the slightest bit interested in seeing my wife's photo on her driving licence. They didn't even want to verify her address with a utility bill. This time they seemed to know exactly what we hadn't got ........ and that was what they wanted .... her National Insurance number. You know - the sort of thing that everyone carries around with them when they go shopping on a Saturday! We phoned home for someone to find it, but of course no-one was in. The man (surprisingly) was prepared to be flexible and allow us to phone it through as soon as we got home. But then there was another problem. We had a joint account at that branch and a transfer could be made from that. Unfortunately there was not enough money in that account to cover the full amount so I was intending to make up the difference with a cheque from my account at a different bank. "Oh no," said the man, "you can't do that! That's your money." He was afraid I might be exceeding my own ISA limit by paying some money into my wife's account. The fact that almost every other married couple in the country who have ISA's do this seemed to bear no weight at all. The fact that as soon as I wrote out a cheque with my wife's name on, it would technically be her money anyway carried no weight either. Nor did the fact that this account would be in her name so I wouldn't be able to get my hands on it anyway. The only solution, he said, was for me to pay a cheque into our joint account, wait until it had cleared, then go back to the bank and transfer it to the ISA. It didn't seem to worry him that as this was a joint account it would still be my money. He even said that my wife didn't have to go back as, once the ISA was set up, anyone could pay money into it! So that is what we had to do. After succumbing to their advertising which seemed to plead for our money, a simple job, which could have been done in five minutes or so, will actually take us a week to complete (and that's assuming that the cheque clears in time to get the money into the ISA in the outgoing tax year).
There seems to be absolutely no logic or consistency in the banking system, and absolutely no will on the bankers part to make the system helpful or efficient for the customer. With interest rates now down to virtually zero, I can see a mass return to people keeping their savings under the mattress. It takes no time at all to put it there and at least you know where it is!
Monday, 23 March 2009
Planning common sense at last in Essex
Have you noticed how horrible ghettos have been springing up all over the place in the past few years. This is largely due to the government's bizarre policy to discourage the use of the car by imposing anti-car planning conditions on new developments - not enough car-parking spaces, roads too narrow to park on, drives too short to accommodate the length of a car and (most stupid of all) garages so small that if you can manage to get the car into one, you then cannot get out because you can't open the door! As anyone with an ounce of sense would have forecast, this failed miserably to achieve its objective and just made life intolerable for everyone.
At last Essex County Council is having the guts to stand up to the government and issue its own planning guidelines which reverse this foolhardy trend. They should be applauded for this ....... but in fact they are having to put up with criticism from other organisations such as the Campaign for Better Transport who claim that they are "undermining a decade of work to help people become less car dependent". This is, of course, utter rubbish. You are not helping people to become less car-dependent by designing out parking spaces. Some people actually need a car. The only way you will reduce this need is to provide cheap public transport, easily accessible to peoples homes, which goes where you want to go, when you want to go there. ........ and that is still a long way off.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article5920679.ece
At last Essex County Council is having the guts to stand up to the government and issue its own planning guidelines which reverse this foolhardy trend. They should be applauded for this ....... but in fact they are having to put up with criticism from other organisations such as the Campaign for Better Transport who claim that they are "undermining a decade of work to help people become less car dependent". This is, of course, utter rubbish. You are not helping people to become less car-dependent by designing out parking spaces. Some people actually need a car. The only way you will reduce this need is to provide cheap public transport, easily accessible to peoples homes, which goes where you want to go, when you want to go there. ........ and that is still a long way off.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article5920679.ece
More bad news for the atheists
Despite the recession, Amazon has recorded a 25% increase in bible sales in the UK during the past year. This parallels a rise in church attendance, the attendance figures for last Christmas being significantly higher than the year before.
These strange atheists
According to the Times an atheist wants to be the first person in Britain to be de-baptised, claiming that he wasn't consulted at his baptism in 1953 and does not believe in God. He has obtained a "debaptism certificate" from the National Secular Society and has paid £60 to record it in the London Gazette.
All this does is demonstrate to the world that he does really believe in God but wants to make a point of rebelling. If he really did not believe in God his baptism would be meaningless and there would be no point in trying to cancel it out .... it would just have been a load of "hocus pocus". This man obviously believes his baptism does have some power and that would only be true if there was a God behind it.
All this does is demonstrate to the world that he does really believe in God but wants to make a point of rebelling. If he really did not believe in God his baptism would be meaningless and there would be no point in trying to cancel it out .... it would just have been a load of "hocus pocus". This man obviously believes his baptism does have some power and that would only be true if there was a God behind it.
Saturday, 21 March 2009
Things ain't what they used to be
For decades now we have been told by the scholars that the Dead Sea Scrolls were written by a group of ascetic monastic types called the Essenes who lived around the Dead Sea and who may well have influenced Jesus.
Now there is uproar in the academic world at a new theory that not only disputes this but claims that the Essenes didn't actually exist. They were invented, in literature, much later. Professor Rachel Elior claims that the scrolls were actually written by Sadducee priests living in Jeruslaem and hidden in the caves at Qumran when they turned their backs on the temple after its desecration by the Greeks in 175 BC.
For more details see here: www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5927336.ece
Now there is uproar in the academic world at a new theory that not only disputes this but claims that the Essenes didn't actually exist. They were invented, in literature, much later. Professor Rachel Elior claims that the scrolls were actually written by Sadducee priests living in Jeruslaem and hidden in the caves at Qumran when they turned their backs on the temple after its desecration by the Greeks in 175 BC.
For more details see here: www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5927336.ece
Why can't people speak English anymore?
Standing in the queue at the sandwich shop for my lunch I am assailed on all sides by young people calling out "Can I get .... such and such?". "Can I get?" - what sort of language is that? Of course they can't get anything - it is not a self-service establishment. They have to wait in the queue to be served like everyone else. With the huge variety of ethnic minorities now living and working in this country and struggling to learn the language, the least we thoroughbred English can do is to speak the language properly so they can easily pick it up. What chance have they got when all they hear is some warped version of the mother tongue such as "Can I get?".
Monday, 16 March 2009
The Vagaries of Fashion
I'm sure you've all heard the agonising question "Does my bum look big in this?" I have always understood that if the answer to this question was "yes", then the female concerned (because it was always a female) would choose to wear something else. I'm sure the majority, if not all, of my male colleagues, understood the question in the same way. But it appears now that we may have been wrong all along. The latest marketing craze, it seems, is padded knickers, intended to deliberately make a woman's bum look bigger than normal. These we are assured, are selling like hot cakes. I'm not sure which is more contrary ...... fashion or women!
Saturday, 14 March 2009
More on the Atheist Bus
To counter the atheist bus project with the slogan "There is probably no God", the Christian Party have launched a retaliatory project with buses marked with the slogan "There is a God". Strangely, the Advertising Standards Authority have had 1,045 complaints about this last slogan, 10 times more than for the atheist slogan. They have neatly wriggled out of having to do anything about it, however, by claiming that the advertisements are "electioneering" and therefore outside their remit.
God must be used to some people following him and others not, but the idea of being voted on must be an entirely new concept.
God must be used to some people following him and others not, but the idea of being voted on must be an entirely new concept.
Saturday, 28 February 2009
Child Support Agency
I am very concerned to read, this week in the Times, this article
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article5804200.ece
The Child Support Agency appears to be totally out of control and a law unto itself. Much has been written about its gross inefficiency and I could go on at length about that (from personal experience), but what I want to highlight here is the dubious morality of the whole CSA concept. It is yet another example of the government devising a very rigid system to deal with a problem and then applying it across the board, whether it is appropriate or not. In most other situations there is some means of appeal for inappropriate situations but in the case of the CSA there is no appeal under any circumstances. You may appeal against the assessment if you feel the amount is not appropriate but under no conditions can you appeal against the fact that an assessment has been made in the first place.
The concept of the system is based on the observation that in many cases a man walks out on his partner leaving her with a child or children and no means of support. I don't doubt that this is what usually happens, and I have no problem with the concept that he ought to financially support his family. But consider the reverse scenario which can and does frequently happen. The woman walks out on the man, for no valid reason, and takes the children with her. The man has been seduced into fathering children on the understanding that they would all form a happy family, and then the woman leaves, either because she had no intention of forming a happy family, or because she has found a new man she prefers the look of. The man is left with a destroyed life. He has planned to form a happy family and to be a good father for the rest of his life. Now he is suddenly left with no wife, no children, no family. And to add insult to injury he is expected to pay for the priviledge.
The government, from time to time, blows its own trumpet over how they are supporting strong families and how this is good for the social stability of the country. But letting the CSA loose in the scenario above certainly does not help support those ideals ........ quite the opposite. It encourages women to get pregnant with no intention of making a proper family, or to run off with another man, knowing that they will be financially supported by the poor abandoned spouse.
Now, assuming the woman has gone off with another man and the abandoned spouse manages to find another partner with children we are left with the bizarre situation where the errant wife is being supported twice (once by her new man and once by her ex partner) and the ex partner is having to pay twice (once for his new family and once for his old family). I ask you .... is that just or fair? I understand the CSA is about to be replaced by a new body. Let's just hope that the government learns from its mistakes and puts sufficient flexibility into the system to prevent such miscarriages of justice in the future.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article5804200.ece
The Child Support Agency appears to be totally out of control and a law unto itself. Much has been written about its gross inefficiency and I could go on at length about that (from personal experience), but what I want to highlight here is the dubious morality of the whole CSA concept. It is yet another example of the government devising a very rigid system to deal with a problem and then applying it across the board, whether it is appropriate or not. In most other situations there is some means of appeal for inappropriate situations but in the case of the CSA there is no appeal under any circumstances. You may appeal against the assessment if you feel the amount is not appropriate but under no conditions can you appeal against the fact that an assessment has been made in the first place.
The concept of the system is based on the observation that in many cases a man walks out on his partner leaving her with a child or children and no means of support. I don't doubt that this is what usually happens, and I have no problem with the concept that he ought to financially support his family. But consider the reverse scenario which can and does frequently happen. The woman walks out on the man, for no valid reason, and takes the children with her. The man has been seduced into fathering children on the understanding that they would all form a happy family, and then the woman leaves, either because she had no intention of forming a happy family, or because she has found a new man she prefers the look of. The man is left with a destroyed life. He has planned to form a happy family and to be a good father for the rest of his life. Now he is suddenly left with no wife, no children, no family. And to add insult to injury he is expected to pay for the priviledge.
The government, from time to time, blows its own trumpet over how they are supporting strong families and how this is good for the social stability of the country. But letting the CSA loose in the scenario above certainly does not help support those ideals ........ quite the opposite. It encourages women to get pregnant with no intention of making a proper family, or to run off with another man, knowing that they will be financially supported by the poor abandoned spouse.
Now, assuming the woman has gone off with another man and the abandoned spouse manages to find another partner with children we are left with the bizarre situation where the errant wife is being supported twice (once by her new man and once by her ex partner) and the ex partner is having to pay twice (once for his new family and once for his old family). I ask you .... is that just or fair? I understand the CSA is about to be replaced by a new body. Let's just hope that the government learns from its mistakes and puts sufficient flexibility into the system to prevent such miscarriages of justice in the future.
Local Government Stupidity 3
This week the local press reports a family of seven, currently living in a three bedroomed house, who have been refused a four bedroomed house by the Council on the grounds that it is not big enough for their family. Apparently they have done an assessment of the house and decided that it would be best for the house if it was occupied by a family of six.
Well excuse me, but since when did what is best for the house have anything to do with it. I thought the purpose of a Local Authority was to do what was best for the residents in their area. I accept that this family may still be technically overcrowded if they took this house but, in anyones eyes, four bedrooms is better than three. So, unless the Council have a five bedroomed house to offer this family, their argument is a bit insensitive.
I accept that there are other families on the waiting list who may have a greater claim, but the question to ask should be "which family would benefit most from occupying this house" rather than "which family best fits the house".
Well excuse me, but since when did what is best for the house have anything to do with it. I thought the purpose of a Local Authority was to do what was best for the residents in their area. I accept that this family may still be technically overcrowded if they took this house but, in anyones eyes, four bedrooms is better than three. So, unless the Council have a five bedroomed house to offer this family, their argument is a bit insensitive.
I accept that there are other families on the waiting list who may have a greater claim, but the question to ask should be "which family would benefit most from occupying this house" rather than "which family best fits the house".
Sunday, 8 February 2009
Birds
The cold weather has brought a flock of long-tailed tits to our garden bird-feeder.
According to my bird book, long-tailed tits rarely visit suburban gardens ..... so we are really honoured by their presence.
Local Government - Stupidity 2
This week we hear that Birmingham City Council has made a policy decision to spend their taxpayers' money on going round painting out the apostrophes on the road signs for such places as Acock's Green and King's Heath. In future no road signs will be allowed an apostrophe. At a stroke the Council has decided that it knows better than the rest of the country how the King's English is to be spelt (Kings English!).
The official reason for this stupidity and monstrous arrogance is, apparently, that the Acock family no longer own the green and the king no longer owns the heath. So what? You can't just change the national language because ownership changes. It is part of the area's heritage that the king once owned the heath and the Acock family once owned the green. Are they suggesting that any road names that don't reflect current reality should be changed? I can think of many examples of a "Cambridge Road" which doesn't lead to Cambridge or a "High Street" which is no longer the main street in a town.
I suspect the real reason for this decision was that the councillors thought so little of the intellectual capabilities of their residents that they assumed most of them wouldn't know what an apostrophe was. How arrogant can you get?
Many local government staff, myself included, have been on quality assurance courses to try and improve the quality of local government and the services it offers to its residents. One of the definitions that sticks in my mind is that "Quality assurance is about getting it right first time" rather than trying to correct mistakes once they are made. A council that deliberately formulates a policy to ensure that they get it wrong first time and flatly refuse to correct it thereafter is completely outside the fraternity of other councils who are doing their best to improve things. I can only pity the residents of Birmingham if this is the quality of councillors they elect.
The official reason for this stupidity and monstrous arrogance is, apparently, that the Acock family no longer own the green and the king no longer owns the heath. So what? You can't just change the national language because ownership changes. It is part of the area's heritage that the king once owned the heath and the Acock family once owned the green. Are they suggesting that any road names that don't reflect current reality should be changed? I can think of many examples of a "Cambridge Road" which doesn't lead to Cambridge or a "High Street" which is no longer the main street in a town.
I suspect the real reason for this decision was that the councillors thought so little of the intellectual capabilities of their residents that they assumed most of them wouldn't know what an apostrophe was. How arrogant can you get?
Many local government staff, myself included, have been on quality assurance courses to try and improve the quality of local government and the services it offers to its residents. One of the definitions that sticks in my mind is that "Quality assurance is about getting it right first time" rather than trying to correct mistakes once they are made. A council that deliberately formulates a policy to ensure that they get it wrong first time and flatly refuse to correct it thereafter is completely outside the fraternity of other councils who are doing their best to improve things. I can only pity the residents of Birmingham if this is the quality of councillors they elect.
Monday, 2 February 2009
Atheists again
More bad news for Richard Dawkins and his cronies. Latest figures just released show that church-going in Britain is up by 5%. Small beer, I know, but its a step in the right direction.
Local Government - Stupidity 1
Part of the brief for this blog is to comment on "the stupidity of large organisations". We haven't had much of that yet, so let's make a start with Essex County Council.
Their latest plan is to re-organise the secondary schools in Colchester by closing two of them and sending the children to the other secondary schools in the town which will be enlarged appropriately. On a purely numbers game I have no doubt that the plan will provide sufficient school spaces but, as is usual with Local Government, one department does it's own thing with blinkers on in complete isolation to the others. The members of the Education Committee have obviously never visited Colchester in the school rush hour. With most of the secondary schools located to the west of the town and another two to the north, these areas get completely clogged up for half an hour or more in the morning and again in the afternoon while an endless procession of cars and buses fight for occupation of the same small stretches of road to drop off or pick up children. Anyone who wants to drive straight through just doesn't stand a chance. A five minute trip along Lexden Road, for example, can take at least 35 minutes if undertaken at the wrong time of day.
The two schools Essex County Council want to close are the only two secondary schools to the south of the town. This will mean the entire school population of the south of the town and all the villages to the south of the town having to be shipped somehow to the far side of town adding to the already chaotic traffic situation. This is in direct conflict with the Council's own sustainability policy which states:
"Sustainability is about managing and enhancing the environment and improving the quality of life for existing and future generations. The Council is committed through its policies and decision making to protecting and improving the environment and to ensure its decisions are sustainable in environmental, social and economic terms."
This stupid idea is not sustainable in environmental terms (far more vehicle journeys into already busy areas), social terms (it will destroy the social fabric of the communities to the south of the town) or economic terms (the ongoing costs to these families of having to transport their children to the far side of town and then return on five days a week doesn't bear thinking about). In addition it is not long ago that the Council was trying to encourage more children to walk to school to (a) help the environment and (b) help the fight against obesity. This will be impossible under the new scheme as the distances involved will just be too great. Children would spend half the day walking, assuming they were willing to undertake the feat.
One consultation on various schemes has already been held. If the local press is to be relied on, the vast majority of people in Colchester are strongly against this particular proposal, yet it seems it has emerged as the front-runner and a second consultation is being held on just this scheme. Whatever happened to local democracy (or common sense for that matter)? The people deciding this matter obviously come from Basildon or Harlow or Epping and have probably never been to Colchester in their lives.
This scheme must not be allowed to come to fruition. It will make a laughing stock of the County Council and will make life a misery for a large part of the population of Colchester (and not just the school-going families either!).
Local Authorities in general get a lot of bad press for appointing people to strange posts which most others can't see the need for. What they all seem to have failed to do is appoint a "Director of Common Sense". Such a person would sit independantly of all the other departments and committees and would review the schemes and proposals put forward by the main departments and committees to ensure that they were sensible and in compliance with overall council policies and strategies. In short .... to take the holistic view rather than just the financial view. I am available for such a role should Essex County Council care to get in touch.
Their latest plan is to re-organise the secondary schools in Colchester by closing two of them and sending the children to the other secondary schools in the town which will be enlarged appropriately. On a purely numbers game I have no doubt that the plan will provide sufficient school spaces but, as is usual with Local Government, one department does it's own thing with blinkers on in complete isolation to the others. The members of the Education Committee have obviously never visited Colchester in the school rush hour. With most of the secondary schools located to the west of the town and another two to the north, these areas get completely clogged up for half an hour or more in the morning and again in the afternoon while an endless procession of cars and buses fight for occupation of the same small stretches of road to drop off or pick up children. Anyone who wants to drive straight through just doesn't stand a chance. A five minute trip along Lexden Road, for example, can take at least 35 minutes if undertaken at the wrong time of day.
The two schools Essex County Council want to close are the only two secondary schools to the south of the town. This will mean the entire school population of the south of the town and all the villages to the south of the town having to be shipped somehow to the far side of town adding to the already chaotic traffic situation. This is in direct conflict with the Council's own sustainability policy which states:
"Sustainability is about managing and enhancing the environment and improving the quality of life for existing and future generations. The Council is committed through its policies and decision making to protecting and improving the environment and to ensure its decisions are sustainable in environmental, social and economic terms."
This stupid idea is not sustainable in environmental terms (far more vehicle journeys into already busy areas), social terms (it will destroy the social fabric of the communities to the south of the town) or economic terms (the ongoing costs to these families of having to transport their children to the far side of town and then return on five days a week doesn't bear thinking about). In addition it is not long ago that the Council was trying to encourage more children to walk to school to (a) help the environment and (b) help the fight against obesity. This will be impossible under the new scheme as the distances involved will just be too great. Children would spend half the day walking, assuming they were willing to undertake the feat.
One consultation on various schemes has already been held. If the local press is to be relied on, the vast majority of people in Colchester are strongly against this particular proposal, yet it seems it has emerged as the front-runner and a second consultation is being held on just this scheme. Whatever happened to local democracy (or common sense for that matter)? The people deciding this matter obviously come from Basildon or Harlow or Epping and have probably never been to Colchester in their lives.
This scheme must not be allowed to come to fruition. It will make a laughing stock of the County Council and will make life a misery for a large part of the population of Colchester (and not just the school-going families either!).
Local Authorities in general get a lot of bad press for appointing people to strange posts which most others can't see the need for. What they all seem to have failed to do is appoint a "Director of Common Sense". Such a person would sit independantly of all the other departments and committees and would review the schemes and proposals put forward by the main departments and committees to ensure that they were sensible and in compliance with overall council policies and strategies. In short .... to take the holistic view rather than just the financial view. I am available for such a role should Essex County Council care to get in touch.
Sunday, 18 January 2009
More on the Atheist Buses
If you are following the atheist bus saga, see more (with videos) here
http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2009/01/d-and-b-the-ath.html#more
http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2009/01/d-and-b-the-ath.html#more
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
Boyfriends
Helen's got a boyfriend. It's official. How do I know it's official? She told us a couple of days ago. How does she know it's official. She asked him!
I am struggling to get my head round this. In my youth you either had a boyfriend/girlfriend or you didn't. There was no such thing as an "official" boyfriend. Having given the matter some thought, I am left with two possible options:-
1. The "official" boyfriend is the main one, implying that you also have a couple of others in tow just in case (not applicable in Helen's case), or
2. Someone in the last 30 years or so has, unnoticed by myself, invented another stage in the formal hierarchy of things which comes just before engagement and can best be defined as "a mutual commitment to each other unless or until something better comes along".
I am really clutching at straws here, so if there is anyone out there who really knows the answer to the conundrum "what is the difference between a normal boyfriend and an official boyfriend?" please get in touch. I need to know!
Sunday, 11 January 2009
The Atheist Bus (2)
Further to my post about the Atheist Bus on 26 October 2008, I can now report that the campaign was officially launched on Tuesday. It all started, apparently, when the campaign founder, Ariane Sherine (a comedy writer), saw London buses featuring bible quotes such as "Jesus died for your sins". In an article she wrote on the internet she suggested that all atheists reading it should donate £5 to fund a "positive, rational, counter-advert". She expected to raise about £5,500 and ended up raising £141,000. So her fund-raising abilities are not in question. It's just her theology that is a bit weak.
The slogan she wants to put on the side of London buses reads " There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life". It has already been pointed out in the press that anyone who subscribes to this creed is not really a fully paid up atheist. The use of the word "probably" indicates a certain lack of conviction. Such people should really describe themselves as agnostics. But the other half of the slogan is just as erroneous. It implies that anyone who has a faith in God spends most of the time worrying and does not enjoy their life. Nothing could be further from the truth. It has been observed in the past that those with a faith tend to be less stressed than others and no evidence has been put forward that believers enjoy their lives any less than atheists. It is difficult to imagine exactly what she has in mind. The only aspect I can think of which might fit the bill is the issue of drinking. If this is it, then might I put Ms Sherine straight:-
1. By no means all believers are teetotal.
2. There is no evidence that I am aware of to indicate that those who are teetotal are any less happy than those who are not.
3. If by "enjoy your life" she means getting involved with binge drinking after work every Friday night ........ what is enjoyable about that ??
Ms Sherine says the campaign has now spread around the world but sadly "the Australians were banned from launching theirs and they had the best slogan: "Atheism - sleep in on Sunday mornings"."
Well yes, it would be nice to sleep in on Sunday mornings, but the Atheists seem to have a very short memory. It was they who fought tooth and nail against the "Keep Sunday Special Campaign". They won that particular battle, which is why thousands and thousands of people now have to get up early on Sunday mornings to go to work in the shops that were previously closed. I don't know if it's the same in Australia but that slogan wouldn't carry much credibility in this country.
The slogan she wants to put on the side of London buses reads " There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life". It has already been pointed out in the press that anyone who subscribes to this creed is not really a fully paid up atheist. The use of the word "probably" indicates a certain lack of conviction. Such people should really describe themselves as agnostics. But the other half of the slogan is just as erroneous. It implies that anyone who has a faith in God spends most of the time worrying and does not enjoy their life. Nothing could be further from the truth. It has been observed in the past that those with a faith tend to be less stressed than others and no evidence has been put forward that believers enjoy their lives any less than atheists. It is difficult to imagine exactly what she has in mind. The only aspect I can think of which might fit the bill is the issue of drinking. If this is it, then might I put Ms Sherine straight:-
1. By no means all believers are teetotal.
2. There is no evidence that I am aware of to indicate that those who are teetotal are any less happy than those who are not.
3. If by "enjoy your life" she means getting involved with binge drinking after work every Friday night ........ what is enjoyable about that ??
Ms Sherine says the campaign has now spread around the world but sadly "the Australians were banned from launching theirs and they had the best slogan: "Atheism - sleep in on Sunday mornings"."
Well yes, it would be nice to sleep in on Sunday mornings, but the Atheists seem to have a very short memory. It was they who fought tooth and nail against the "Keep Sunday Special Campaign". They won that particular battle, which is why thousands and thousands of people now have to get up early on Sunday mornings to go to work in the shops that were previously closed. I don't know if it's the same in Australia but that slogan wouldn't carry much credibility in this country.
Saturday, 3 January 2009
Sign of the Times
Just as well this man isn't a traffic warden ......... I can't see a blue badge displayed!Friday, 2 January 2009
Atheist Christmas
Well - Christmas is over for another year. I got a digital SLR to replace the camera I lost in the river last summer, so when I work out how to get pictures onto the blog you should be seeing some illustrations here.
In the meantime, I was intrigued by this reference to the atheists "rational celebration of Christmas". Never heard of such a silly idea in my life! (Well I have, actually, and hope to bring these ideas to your attention in the future!)
http://3minutetheologian.org.uk/blog/2008/12/08/3mt-nine-lessons-and-eight-year-olds/
In the meantime, I was intrigued by this reference to the atheists "rational celebration of Christmas". Never heard of such a silly idea in my life! (Well I have, actually, and hope to bring these ideas to your attention in the future!)
http://3minutetheologian.org.uk/blog/2008/12/08/3mt-nine-lessons-and-eight-year-olds/
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