HFO services and unprofessional ethics

HFO is a company 'headquartered' in the UK with an office in gurgaon india.  With another two offices opening in 2009, mumbai  and sydney respectively; this is obviously a fast growing dynamic international company.

A company which, to all intents and purposes when you listen in on conversations, might have had many of its first and second tier employees taken from Fawlty Towers, if it had been a finishing school, and they had been forcibly ejected!

The thing about HFO (which you may discover if ever you have the misfortune to come into contact with them), is they're the bottom feeders - in the eyes of debtors and angelic sharks to creditors.

As a strapline quote on their website says...

An ever expanding client base
A global Distressed Debt Investment Company
A unique multicultural environment, with one overriding goal – SUCCESS

Yes a company that appears to be of the mind-set, that if you don't succumb after the first five minutes they'll progress to shouting at you. Use legal terminology to put the wind up. Threaten court as the next step. All in the hope the unlucky plucky person on the other end will say "bang to rights guv. I'll just pop over to the cayman islands and liquidate all my assets as i've seen the error of my ways!"  Hfo services, i presume, can then feel justified in placing another tick of success, into the book of commission whilst throwing the book of good business practice, into the bin. 

Just in time for that presentation to bigger company "a", and buy their debt for peanuts. All to begin the bullying tactics all over again.

Is this unacceptable behaviour? If not, it should be thus described. But what do I know, as an outsider looking on.

A quick bit of typing into any search engine will bring up streams of pages about the antics of this particular company.

But why would I bring this up?

Well the following is just one example of a conversation overheard:

"If you want you can record this conversation.

Legal proceedings have started which will add £80 to your account and when court proceedings occur it will add a further £32; and judgement will be passed against you.

Please do not waste our time or yours by offering to pay £1.

We're not regulated by the FSA and not bound to accept any payment.

Do not waste your paper or our time.  Your £1 will help you reach to the court.

You just need to wait, the calls will not stop and you will not stop the court proceedings"

Here is a link to the consumer action group and forum with experience of hfo and its practices.

Here is a link, in relation to call recording and your rights.

If you have or are been harassed by telephone calls from companies, then here is a link to a letter template that you can send them, to desist.

And finally, just to put the cat amongst the pigeons, here is a link to trading standards - in the uk

So, in summary. Don't sit back and take it. If they, or any other organisation (and there are sharks out there), attempt to force or bully you into doing anything, stick to your guns.  Know your rights, and don't be afraid to get help!

Now, just have to calm my friend down, and begin the process of hunting down the sharks!

Thanks for listening and reading.

Glorious day

Yesterday was such a glorious moment: blue sky, a light breeze, smiling people. I even managed to take the camera out for a little spin; after the flatmate's inner ear required the attention of a doctor.

Living in one of the noisiest parts of town, you get used to inserting earplugs on a nightly basis. But on this occasion, it would seem the plug insertion was carried out a little bit too forcefully. Personally I put it down to a simple case of the flatmate overstressing the body the week before. 

The options were:

1. going to the local gp as emergency and waiting nearly four hours to get seen, or
2. trying out the nhs walk-in clinic tucked away just off the main road in victoria. 

Luckily there's a direct bus (which on this occasion looked as if it hadn't been cleaned since it was introduced) route.  Twenty minutes later we walked in to a practically deserted, modern, clean, fresh smelling reception, with (and this caused a little stumble) an actual smiling receptionist; who took down the details and said the flatmate should be seen in about 15 minutes. It took ten. Ten minutes on the NHS to walk-in and be seen. People came, people left and the doctors and nurses quietly, efficiently, went about their duties.

Even heard one person upon leaving, congratulating the receptionist, "I didn't know you were here, but I'll be using you in future."

And there's the rub.

It's currently good, efficient, with a relaxing - almost healing - atmosphere because it's not stretched to capacity. Once that happens, it will end up like any other gp's surgery. Everyone bad tempered, cursing the day they set foot in, and with a two week plus waiting list.

But the pictures. Not of the surgery but of a couple of other lines that caught my eye...

         

Which ended in a glorious moon...

A quick chuckle

Had to take a second look at this piece from auntie. And a screen pic - just in case they change it.

"Five arrested in joint operation

Five people have been arrested and drugs with a street value of £1m seized in an operation by Thames Valley Police and the Prison Service.

Search warrants were executed at houses in Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Coventry, London and Southampton.

About £100,000 of cash was also recovered in the raids on Wednesday..."

So how big was the joint, this particular operation managed to handle?

Bad brown

There is a great trend for those who are already highly skilled to be working with employers - who so value their skills and experience - that they will go out of their way to ensure those are kept up to date and relevant.

But work your way further down the greasy ladder of employment, until you reach the heady world of the temp, agency workers and employment agencies; where your current skill-set, reasonable ability to work (or at least shuffle papers around and click the mouse button a couple of times per hour) is all that matters.

It is is up to you, to ensure your skills are better than just up-to-date.  To, as week follows week, keep abreast of developments, new legislation, protocols that are produced in any arena of work, but especially in any area where computers play a very big part.

If however, you are unemployed and poor, then your ability to improve your employability decreases at an exponentially marked level. 

The job centres are really only concerned that you can read/write/apply for a job (any job), forgetting that having this lowest common line in the sand is damaging in the long term, to the economy, the unemployed person whilst bolstering the how much can we get away with paying mentality. 

Case in point been tjk parent of tk maxx, of the losing millions (45.7) of customers banking details and making the uk government look competent in comparison, company based in the us. Yes this company pays a bit more than the minimum wage for its uk staff. But the staff forego overtime pay, easily working an extra 4+hrs over allotted scheduling per week. Breaks are short. Cancelable at short notice, as the one off goods are priced up for consumers to whip off the shelves.

But back to the point.

Colleges, which used to have subsidised courses for those who where unemployed - but keen to re-enter employment by re-skilling - now find they have to scrap particular courses under the current governments "re-balancing" of educational need towards those in the 16-20 year old age bracket. With those over the upper age, considered over the hill and past it!

In today's environment, webdesign, plumbing, engineering, are a few courses of note that would be beneficial to potential employers and to those seeking work. With the added bonus of improving the unemployeds earning potential, way beyond that of the idle giro payout; thrown in. 

But the Wisdom of Brown seems to be striking again. As those very same courses have been favourably targeted towards the under 21's whilst those over 20 are forced to consider different courses or learn by themselves as the courses are no longer subsidised, or even worse, have been cut altogether.  Sort of when Mrs Thatcher made away with the milk and deprived many growing children (from deprived backgrounds) of a valuable source of daily calcium and nutrients.

Invariably as this carries on, it will mean temp/part-time workers will have to create and fund their own learning map.  Which is as it should be, as generally they're financially on par, or better off, in the particular employment situation they currently inhabit than their full-time slave to the boss colleagues.

During my webering (web wondering), bumped across this carton from Paul Toner on his ruebritannia site. Excellent work.

Lowest of the low

So a Doctor who rushes to the aid an elderly person injured in an accident -and forgets to remove her keys - has her car stolen, obviously from an opportunistic parasite at the scene. 

There will be those who say it's her own fault for not removing the keys, after all it only takes a second. But those few seconds could be all it takes, for that person she's rushed to help, to die in.

I just hope the person who's nicked it doesn't need to be cut out of an upturned car, waiting for the emergency services to cut her/him (more likely to be a him) out.  Only to have it burst into flames and him (or her) burnt to a crisp; all because the services have to go through those extra few seconds of procedural diligence, due to the lowest of the low!

Instead of village stocks, we should have tasering posts.  Were the victim of criminal activity can, if they wish, go along to off-load a well aimed taser.

Own goal raspberries

Have decided to throw a couple of raspberries at myself, for forgoing that staple of the written word - no not self censorship - but proof reading.  But then, it's not always the case that undergoing umpteen amendments ensures the best body of work. 

Sometimes the only things amendments, changes and redrafting achieve, is the neutering of that initial burst of enthusiastic anger, which threatened to burst a couple of blood vessels or two.

Luckily, this particular entry only required the one (well nearly one) redraw. Now, where's my musings on the olympics.....

Dead Mercenaries Found in Tskhinvali

One side of me had to muse on this for this while. But I suppose it could well be true.

'Authorities in the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia claim that dark-skinned mercenaries took part in the attack on Tskhinvali, reports RIA Novosti, citing representative of the South Ossetian president in Russia Dmitry Medoev. He said there were bodies of many Georgian soldiers on the streets on Tskhinvali. “There were blacks among the dead, who were probably either mercenaries or instructors in the Georgian armed forces,” Medoev said.

South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity had said earlier that mercenaries were fighting with the Georgian forces. That information has not been confirmed in Tbilisi.
Latest information indicates that the Georgian Foreign Ministry has announced the withdrawal of its forces from the conflict zone. Russian peacekeepers have not confirmed that information, however.'

Taken verbatim from, the Russia's Daily online english version news otherwise known as kommersant.  But then I thought yes it probably is possible.  After all there couldn't be any Georgian soldiers who happen to be darker than the President... surely that sort of thing, just isn't possible.

Golden dragon - the computer says no!

No not a swipe about the olympics, but it does start tomorrow. Oh I can just see the disasters.  No nothing about the olympics, except that.

A wee tale about the bending of space and time? No. Of warp-holes in the fabric of macadam tarmac? Again no. 

This is a regaling tale, of the dire state of trying to order a chinese takeaway. Supposedly, in one of the most populated chinese takeaway parts of the globe.

The fridge was bare. The flatmate, although soon to leave for pastures new was elsewhere entertaining, and so it was a case of what should I do. 

Over to friends?  No, I'm sure they're tired of giving me doggy bags to take home.  Hmm. I could pop to the "salmonella" café and spend the rest of the morning heaving as it leaves my system...

A couple of hours zip along before I realise I've tied myself into a tizzy. I should just relax. Count the pennies and bring out the faithful old dusty chinese menu, for a treat. 

Proceed to give them a call, only to hear "I'm sorry. The number you have dialled has not been recognised, please check and try again." 

And I do.

Of course, my phone's speed-touch button had misdialed?  It couldn't be a network fault or the business closed down? Perhaps just another exchange's stopped working?

So I do a little online search on yell.co.uk, justeat.co.uk. And pick out the nearest two.  Dial the first and start to order...

"It will cost you an extra pound," the order taker informs me. "You're too far!"

"To far? I'm not even one and half miles away from you. How can I be too far!"

"The computer says you're to far."

Apparently, the system they use to calculate the food bill also incorporates a postcode checker, which can't be overwritten (suppose it avoids tampering by the staff) so he couldn't do anything. 

Obviously the credit crunch isn't affecting this particular business as they're more than happy to lose my order, because to all intents and purposes, the computer said "no!"

Do I hear a "so what?"

Well the main reason I was so particularly irked was, in comparison, the company that I usually call up is approximately - thank heavens for dependable google - 2.5 miles or 4.1 km (one way), and doesn't charge delivery if the amount of the meal exceeds £9. Whereas this interloper company wanted to charge an extra pound for less than two-thirds the distance, whilst requiring a spend of at least £10, to be entitled for free delivery.

So I try another restaurant, which is 1.4 miles away only to have the number permanently engaged.  No-doubt myself and another 500 people using re-dial.  Perhaps it was a major hack on chinese takeaways by the "hackus of tibet".  Or maybe, it was just one of nights. 

I had forgotten how delicious beans on toast could taste. Had to include that link, as I came across it in my ever frantic attempts at finding something.  Even though the webowner thought it looked unpleasant, it looked far more appetising than the fare I managed to eventually scrape together and swallow down.

When I initially penned this, the last sentence was going to end on a dire trembler.  But the olympics started and russia invaded. Bombs went off, the international community showed just how impotent it is when dealing with an ex-upandcoming-muscleflexing superpower. 

I just hope the games can make it through without any other major incidents taking place.  That would be nice. And in honour of the sporting achievements been created by the many thousands of athletes taking part in this years olympiad here's a wee collage...

... or it will be, once it's finished.

Rambling missives - revisited

At 01:22hrs (GMT) watched the Constable Savage clip from youtube. Not on the official auntie channel, or any of the other "authorised" terrestrial, cable or satellite channels, but from a link posted on a comment read from the PC Pro website) and remembered just how comically excellent the "Not The Nine O'Clock News" series was.  Enjoyed it so much, I will now consider purchasing the series on DVD - if that is, they're out. 

It's little things like this which, over the years, enable people to remember things they've forgotten (have I just uttered a bushism?) - which those silly companies that wish to take people to court should consider is actually helping to keep their income streams flapping around in the breeze.  People will watch and see far more in the future from the interwebual than by simply sitting in front of a slivering television box watching the latest advert about henna hair. 

But then the television box will in turn become even more interactive and replace the noisy PC. We can simply wave our arms in the air (aka the Wii wave) and become even more athletically couch-potatoesque, by waving our arms in the air more vigorously (whilst sweating and obtaining a hernia) in a half-assed attempt to get even more complicated remote controls functions, to do what the old plastic wedge of a remote used to do, so simply and easily before.

In the meantime, the big companies with bosses who make whopping bonuses will instead of properly bearing down on those criminals who repackage the entire DVD for resale at t'pence ha'penny, continue turning their fire and brimstone lawyers onto those people who use these little memory aides to recapture such long lost moments.

So it's a yes to "go after those making millions illicitly copying dvd's/vids etc for resale" in pubs, clubs, on the street, down Mr Parokies cornershop. But think again about the others.  The many who will actually buy those overpriced shining tea coasters.  For those of us wondering what all the fuss is about, let's just hope we only get that fly on the wall experience by reading the headlines in a Sunday paper; that the judiciary or legislative/lawmakers have finally worked out, who the real cowboys are!

And then we have Alistair Darling saying that the government aren't sure yet about what to exactly do, to help those mortgage buyers suffering from the credit-crunch.  Doesn't know what to do? What have the government been doing since all this started so many months ago?  If they initially believed what was happening in the US wouldn't wing its way over here and then make plans for it then they don't deserve to be in power, neither do the conservative party as they didn't have anything much better in place or to say either.

"A return to family values", not quite sure how that equates to been better by doing without tv, internet access, mobile phones, consoles. Smacks more of a return to the buggy and cart, quill and parchment, with food been brought in by the servants period.  But then caravanning's on the up. More people realise we can do without the latest updated upgrade and it's so much more environmentally friendly.

The olympics... 3 days and counting.

Dickens would be so proud of our brave new world - a rambling missive

Forcing people back to work, if they are unable to find work or are incapacitated, sounds like a return to Charles Dicken's country.  You could see the great man himself flicking through the pages of today's papers with depressed resignation at the direction the current government, opposition party and general populace are seemingly headed. 

With the ban on smoking, kill joys are now working on drinking, no doubt after that we'll all have to wear the correct type of clothing otherwise we'll be sent to the gallows.

Soon to, no doubt, as too many people will be perceived to be enjoying themselves, the holiday periods will be rolled back and working hours increased under the guise of research showing that if people didn't have so much free time they wouldn't:

1. get drunk so often,
2. have enough time to be obese eating all that balanced food

Whilst those who had too much free time on their hands would be made to work a 50 hour week for the benefit of the community, ensuring they are no longer:

1. idly unemployed and going around robbing people,
2. have time to smoke and so become less of a drain on the health service - eventually,
3. need to live in deprived areas and having offspring turn into feral beasts - through boredom and nothing else better to do.

Yes, it's mainly those who are poor, whom the political chatterers and right of Stalin editors seem to have it in for.  If you're rich and wealthy then you can ensure your offspring are suitably taken care of by the chauffeur and bodyguards, even if they would rather be rogering the missus.

It's could, perhaps, be also true that there are shirkers out there who find the problem of moving to pick up a remote control, to much effort.  But the vast majority do want to work. Meaningful work.  Work, that at the end of the day makes them feel like they have made a difference. Work that is more than the means to a basic existence. 

Unlike, investment bankers, whose idea of making a difference is knowing they've pushed a few million more people further into poverty or destroyed the meager savings of another bunch of pensioners.  For this group, the government should barrel down with increased legislation.  Raise taxes so many of them actually pay proper taxes.  But will they? No. As the government is in fear they will up sticks and leave for easier climes.  Not realising that in reality, easier climes could only be had at the beach house.

A spineless government that believes this group will simply up sticks and leave, creating chaos and plunging the country into ruin. Perhaps.  but with the bloodsuckers gone, ramping up inflation (especially housing), then the vast majority will be able to manage on the average meager wage, and anyhow they will have to learn how to, once China and India truly begin their inexorable climb to burgeoning middle-class hood and their respective Bourses surpass the london stock exchange.  Then the redistribution of traders will begin as the lse fades into the distant horizon, overtaken by the far east and a new european financial exchange, the last dreams of empire finally fading into the mists.

Been at work is bad for your health, especially in this day age; unless you work for google or apple and perhaps - at a push - ibm. 

In london on any working day just - if you can bear it - travel on london underground and look at your fellow travellers.  Rarely will you see anyone smiling or laughing. If they are, it's a firm bet they are tourists, or passing through, or have only lived in the capital for 6 months and not yet had the happiness and love for life beaten out of them.  But just look at the people going to work. It's a chore, the majority don't enjoy it, but they keep doing it.  For they know if they don't, that they could be that grubby beggar pestering everyone for 10 pence or is it now £50, to help buy a cup of tea.  Heaven forbid they end up like that, so away they beaver and work. 

To be fair there are people who have lived in the capital for 10 or more years and are still happy. But then they have homes overseas, holiday 20 times a year, worked hard and don't have to endure more than they need to.

But for those stuck within the boundaries of the M25 and its lofty green fields, the constant grind has the subtleness of your own personal pneumatic drill.

Changing planets

With the ever increasing noise about climate change and how it will affect the planet and all the species it contains, perhaps now is the correct time to think about what comes after. 

Imagine all that captured carbon solidified and compressed into a small space then been carted over to mars.   With the leaps and advances made in the arena of ameliorating the worst effects our own climate folly could embue upon us, the flip side could be the knowledge to change another worlds atmosphere to one of our own suiting.  Yes that wonderful science fiction staple that is known as terraforming.

Security vetoes blood soaked hands?

Amazed at the shocks revereberating around the "developed" world that two permanent members of the security council vetoed the implementation of sanctions against Zimbabwe...

Let's see now?

Russia! Oh yes, a poster child for democracy. Not poisioning ex-spies it disagrees with, nor grabbing assets that under a different premier would have been sold off for cheap trinkets - like a tantrum child. Nor showing how manly and muscular it can be by posing with upper torso exposed whilst fishing. With a tenuous, almost Mugabgiesque view of what democracy should be, that's permanent member security veto number 1.

Then there's China, sigh. Ivory back on the market, promoting quiet diploamcy whilst buying up the "developing" - as if the entire world is not in a continual state of developemnt - world's resources, but unlike the Mugabe regimie more likely to imprision for decades as opposed to have the army or ex-army go around and kill them. Duff them up a bit yes. Kill them? No! Well, if you don't take into account Tibet, or the Tiananmen Square massacres (nearly 20 years ago - strange that it still feels like yesterday), or the Falun Gong 'sect', or "AIDS activists have been followed by police and beggars rounded up." And there we have permanent member security veto number 2.

So with all that and China soon to be in bed with Russia over oil & gas, supply and demand, then it should come as no surprise at all ,that things went the way they did in the UN security vote.

And there's obvioulsy going to be no surprise when the 1920's recession clips our chirpy wings, bringing us down from the heady clouds of the never-never we (oh so seemingly briefly) inhabited, to the scrabbling scorched earth of the never-never again.

IndyMac Bank, with perhaps Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae going the same way and destroying 50% of the US mortgage backed guarantees, the green back is looking, as each day passes, more the sick puppy that will soon be on its back in the advanced stages of rigor mortis; with everyone saying 'how did it happen?'

Well those who wouldn't be giving thanks that the great satan has been laid low.

Living on £1.64 a day

Can you live on £1.64 a day in one of the worlds greatest capitals, and remain fit, healthy, in charge of all your faculties, and still have change left over for an end of the month slap up meal?

Yes? Then write in and let us all into your little secret.

No?

Living on £1,640 per day?

Then write in and let us all in your secret.

Broken distillation

Some are born to greatness, some achieve greatness and wholesome fulfillment in their lifetime, others strive for greatness only to find mediocrity; whilst some (the vast majority) no matter how much they strive, continue sinking into the mire.

Never forget that so much has to be distilled and broken down into bite-sized chunks of understanding.

Passing calamities

This was initially tapped, but left in draft form, during the merry month of May.   However, after another reading, realised there's nothing better than a bit of optimism to get the adrenalin going.

Half the year has more or less passed under the metaphoristic bridge. With more disasters, impending disasters possibly followed by a slew of really great big whopping disasters.  All ensuring we haven't totally forgotten, what a disaster feels like!

Dutch Pig Poo

Ah that time of year, when easterly winds have at us and drag the farming air from the Netherlands and northern Europe across the UK.

So for the next day or so, the smells won't be you or your neighbour, but the after-effects of farming cultivation.  Having serious second thoughts about country living.

Grammatical faux pas

That's the problem when undertaking the bish bosh principle when commenting and enjoying a tiple of cider at the same time.  Brain to finger co-ordination exponentially diminish, whilst blind righteous indignation grows ever stronger! 

Best to be avoided at all cost, as the point is swamped by the readers inability to get beyond the  wrongness of a piece.

Breadless

Egypt, once the bread basket of an empire, is now running short of subsidised bread due to the rising cost of wheat. 

But when everything is a commodity, everything has a price.  And heaven help those who don't have the ability to leverage, as they'll be squeezed further into the gutter and labelled as terrorists if they complain.

End of Easter

Well easter monday is finally here, with flurries of snow - luckily for us Londoners - deciding not to settle.

But with flakes the size of plates descending from the sky, it seemed appropriate to take a picture or two.  At least it makes up for the lack of anything meaningful over the christmas period.

Going back a day or two the peace, which does briefly occur between blaring sirens, was rudely broken by the appearance of another low flying-ish helicopter. 

A whole heap, of Chancellors doings

Well the first budget brought into existence by Alistair Darling is a roasted horse chestnuts load of landfill waste. Which will be made ever higher by his inaction.

I imbibe the odd drink and smoke way to much. So yes it's a crap budget for me. More taken out, as ever.

With 'stability' the new watchword replacing 'prudence'; they both appear like pantomime dames. All show but laddered and leaking stockings going as far as the eyes can see.

Can't wait until the next one. When things in the country really do start going downhill.

But on a good note, he's returned to using the old budgetary case that the old chancellor jettisoned. Good to see we're firmly heading back to good old tradition... Oh well boom and bust, here we come!

Boeings lcd

It's always 'interesting' watching, listening to the wranglings and hearty outpourings over the so-called loss of national standings (aka Boeing, McCain et all). But globalisation's been going on for centuries. It's just in this day and age the time to source part b from across the globe, only takes a couple of weeks and not years.

No country wants to have itself swamped, every country wants to protect its citizens employment base, unless of course the employment base gets to uppity; then a dose of unemployment (especially with the potential loss of their homes), would show them who's boss.

But with the global race downward towards the lowest common denominator of price continuing apace, more people on the ground level at home are losing jobs (which are transferred elsewhere), whilst the eating heads of big business complain they aren't making as much profit as they could due to been uncompetitive and having to worry about labour costs.

Amazing how, at the end of the day, when billions are made in net profits, it's usually the directors who see the greatest benefit, whilst the lowly employee gets a 1.49% rise in salary and has to thank his or hers, lucky stars they are still employed for another month.

But then, barring a slip up, it will either be China or India who will take technology to the next level and there the companies can still tread roughshod over the rights of the many.

Ranting checks

There's nothing more gratifying (well not for me at this moment), than doing a post.  In the firm knowledge I have thoroughly relieved my chronic-over active constipated mind, from another stray bit of arrant nonsense clogging up its ability to accurately: co-ordinate, move, breathe and effectively harmonise all areas of discordant chi's.

Until of course, that submit button's been pressed. 

But on a good note, my less than insightful insights(sic), haven't yet removed me from the list of "socially acceptables".

So it is, that friends make polite points about the odd few spelling errors and even greater glaring grammatical inconsistencies.

What did Douglas Adams id say.... "with a brain the size of a planet!"

Clarity

Well it's nice some people make the effort.

"In a moment of clarity, like a snake it hits.
Its not the fact you're big or strong, they only see fear.
The colour, the shade, your skin.
And the fact its cold, no hair on your bald pate,
in need of that cap or floppy hat.
Is blocked from blinkered eyes.
You are out with only one intent;
to molest, rape, kill!
Their sub/conscious thoughts repositions and tugs.
As a hastened whisper and protective move,
lashes fear across adjudged surfaces!
After all, you only want what is their's!

In a moment of clarity, it strikes and hurts.
As you're walking to work,
meeting a friend - to view the latest release,
making your way to the local shop.
No doubt just to lift the goods,
if security's stare's to be believed.
Buying a book, booking a flight,
chatting with a friend on the phone...

But in a moment of clarity this is all lost."
© 2006 Nacnud

Underworld CSI

Often wondered, since watching CSI (only the Las Vegas one - the others are too painful), whether it has an underworld equivalent; perhaps called ICS?

You know, sultry, depressive and bombshell types that go around watching crime scenes and how they're solved. So now we have criminals running around with different coloured lights making sure their tracks are sufficiently covered with a suitably nifty little vacuum cleaner sucking up any stray passing bits of debris and DNA. If not, then they deserve to get caught.

Suspect device in south London

At 10:00hrs a south London street was cordoned off and the nearby residents asked to evacuate by the police.

The scene occurred on a 109 bus, with the police been in the area coordinating the movement of people away from the potential blast and cordoning off the scene.

Apart from that no further information has been given.

Survival of the fittest

At what stage in our growth, will Darwinistic theory become irrelevant to our survival?

Bleeding foreigners

Every now and then you overhear the strangest of remarks...

"I'm a victim of those damned foreigners coming over here taking our jobs, forcing us native born folk to go out and seek work.

Life living off the dole's just not worth the effort of getting out of bed for in the mornings anymore. Unless of course you're a bloody foreigner coming over here with a bundle of kids, claiming housing, council plus a load of other benefits, whilst working cash in hand and renting out your own home to the same people you're getting the money from in the first place! It just ain't right.

Now, I just got to go check on my new villa been built in Cala Panizo. Make sure those workmen have put the right taps in. If they were your German foreigners, you know they'd do a proper job and you'd be looking at a finished build by now."

Colour

When you see colour, what do you see?

Regurgitating Interwebties.

Apart from the high flying academics, hob-nobs of the Interwebty, the soon to be regurgitatives - this year's graduates. I'm not sure how many of us are able to get our heads around the rapid change in technology occurring all around us and in so many fields.

Perhaps that is why an increasing number are taking solace in the blandness of reality shows, binge drinking or heading off to new less busy pastures to enjoy the fruits of their labour.

How many of us want to spend hours after a long hard day/evening or night in the office, once home, to start digesting information we haven't had to think about since leaving the last term/semester of school, college or university?

Even so, all the current crop of wonderful new gadgets which are wonderful and fantastic, will be paling in comparison to those around the corner and actively in the pipeline. But we'll be understanding less and less about their intricate insides. And the only way of fixing something that goes wrong, will simply mean throwing the item away and buying a new one, until we run out of resources that is!

Overload. Input. BSOD. Super T!

With failing memory cells, sudden memory loss, and having to reboot at regular intervals during the morning, I often wonder why I bother getting out of bed.

Below is an image of my desktop. Fairly icon free, with Google desktop keeping me informed of the: time, temperature, appointments, events, many of the ups and downs occurring in the world, beyond my 23 walls.

To many of my friends, it just comes across as me being sad. "You're just stuck there in front of the computer, all day. No wonder you're getting fat!"

But to me, it's nothing more than a heavenly experience. Within the space of an hour I have digested the news circling the world, chatted with friends (whilst reading) around the world. Read many of the online papers, news stories and settled down to replying to emails; over a relaxing steaming cup of coffee, whilst listening to the plethora of streaming programming hitting my sound card from that doyen of tit-bits, BBC Radio 4. All the while retaining my slowly slipping sanity, by not been part of the rat-race.

I am now far beyond the need to risk life and limb skateboarding off a sky-scrapper or bungy jumping down the grand canyon. Those particular notions bring nothing more promising than a panoptic vista (no, not that one!) of all manner of broken painful lost bones, followed by those many months convalescing in hospital. And all for the sake of a shaky camera shot. No. If I require an adrenaline junkie rush, I'll fly solo in low-sec space of the MMORG game I play, eve-online. That and not getting mugged or shot at, whilst standing in a McDonalds queue are more than enough in the way of excitement, that I wish to experience during this particular moment in my lifeline.

So Super Tuesday is nearing an end, when we'll have more of an idea about who the next leader of the free world might be. And they do need change, badly!

After so many years of participating in the formulation of things like Outsourcing, Hedge Funds, burning the planet into oblivion etc., etc. It's time for a change in thinking. To come away from the 'me, me, me' culture that has been perversely corrosive over the past few decades. To think of all the species and planet as a symbiotic whole, and not just a hole for plundering and landfill.

Ghosts in the shell

Sometimes as we meander our way through life, with some experiencing a harder time of it than others. We come across and meet up with people that stop us in our tracks. Who actually make us sit up, and actively think!

They have a selfless abundance of goodness that is remarkable for its sheer pugnacious disregard for reciprocation. A wealth of untrammelled energy which is utterly astounding.

Then on the flip-side you have the Stalin's, Pol Pot's, Mugabe's, Bush, Bin Laden's and now the one from Kenya, whose entire existence appears to be that of making everyone else's hell.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as humanist-atheistic leaning as the next sensible person. But with the number of atrocities jumping by the day and, of course, impending (again) global calamities around the corner, perhaps there is something more than just electrons whizzing through grey spongy soup which makes those few people, special.

Deliverance

Received call at 08:08hrs, after been up since 06:30hrs again.

Finally, at 08:50hrs, the bell chimed and my new box arrived; with two delivery boys carrying it in from a parked up transit outside.

According to the sheet, this was the first delivery!

Will I do Argos again?

Where's my raspberries...

Climate change. Official!

So the American Geophysical Union or AGU, have finally revised and re-affirmed most of the globes belief that the majority effects of the increase in melting, warming, flooding... is, with a more than 50% probability, down to human intervention.

"The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system—including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons—are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century. Global average surface temperatures increased on average by about 0.6°C over the period 1956–2006. As of 2006, eleven of the previous twelve years were warmer than any others since 1850." AGU

But many people have already accepted the scenario that it has been happening, for years. And started making small changes in their lifestyles to match. But how many actually recycle, how much in the way of goods are actually wasted, ending up in landfills or incinerated, all produced from energy fossil fuels.

A deep-vein coal mine has closed down in Wales today, lasting 15 years longer than anticipated. But it has come to an end, other mines will no doubt be in a similar position. Many mines in the UK have or had been in operation for centuries; before the Thatcher & Scargill fiasco.

There is no great probability of developing nations ditching their dash to luxurious modernity, by cutting back on their need for energy! Just as there won't be any real passion in developed nations to cut back on the luxuries and disposables they enjoy.

In the meantime, we know (well according to the science) that a CO2 reduction of at least 60% is in order, and that's just to get us back to where we were a decade ago! If a single digit reduction's managed, that would be a major surprise.

So what's to do?

Solar power, wind, turbine, nuclear, all with problems of their own. How many places have 12 hours of sun beating down from a cloudless sky, with at least 2 hectares given over to energy exchange? Or continual wind? Turbines sound more feasible if the motion - electricity conversion could be made more efficient. Nuclear? Current costs, possibility of meltdowns (with Three Mile and Chernobyl as benchmarks), terrorism and the dumping of burning waste for thousands of years - unless a safer means is found to secure and dispose of it.

Which brings me back. So what to do?

Fusion doesn't seem to be anywhere in the running! Could there be something peering out of the backwater?

Artists drawing of the ITER project

Delivery revisited: II

With so much happening out there in the ever wide expanding universe; rolling 24 hour news, reality TV - are these more real than actual real life news events? Radio, blogs, disasters, killings, starvation, cabals, fundamentalist's, some bloke spending a few billions in an investment bank unwisely! Murders and general mayhem. It seems rather churlish of me to just pander on, about my little ongoing delivery problem.

But I shall.

As mentioned at the end of Delivery Revisited, I expected the resplendent top today. Between 07:00hrs and 12:00hrs. Its delivery was faithfully guaranteed. Although in hindsight I should have gotten a couple of drops of blood, made them swear their first and second born to perpetual servitude whilst getting those short chains ready, to put to some good use!

To ensure that I would be ready and awake with plenty of time to spare, the night before I did the sensible thing went around setting all the alarms for 06:30hrs. All of them, at around 02:45hrs!

06:30hrs arrived and the klaxons went off. Dazedly I sprang out of bed. Briefly meandered around, waiting for the call and delivery.

12:00hrs arrived and I called them up. To be put on, off, on hold, then 'someone will call you back in 5-10 minutes!'

Fifteen minutes later I get the call. "Very sorry, I don't know what's happened," the voice from the other end said. "They did the paperwork, and sent it through to us, but for some reason they never sent it to themselves!"

"Oh," was all I could muster.

"Will tomorrow morning be okay?" he asks. Sounding very contrite mind.

"Tomorrow morning, like this morning?" I ask, trying to keep the cynicism just below the screaming abuse threshold. "Between 7am and midday?"

"Yes," he replies.

"Well," I feel the buried side of me rearing up. "If it isn't delivered this time, the next time I call it will be for you to collect the whole order, and I will expect a full refund along with compensation for wasting my time."

"Oh," he says. "Okay, it will be with you tomorrow!"

And at this moment, this is all I can recall. As sleep deprivation appears to be sapping my will to live!

Flying trotters

So a politician's finally done the decent thing and resigned.

To clear his name.

After, and only possibly mind - nothing's yet been proven! But been caught with both front trotters, snout, and floppy ears waving around in the crumbs jar. It's more and more, beginning to look like a re-run of the Major years.

Delivery, revisited

The metal thing from Curry's works like a dream. No complaints about it at all. So an excellent thumbs up to the Leisure corp. Whilst throwing a very big, over-ripe raspberry, at Curry's!

And now onto Argos. I suppose having to deal with hordes of people in the retail section is sometimes like dealing with the living dead. But then the very same complaint can be made about those working behind the counters.

My faith, however, in the commonsense ability of the everyday man (or woman) was partially restored by the efficiency of their initial delivery service.

Sadly the shoddy item (made in China), had to have one part returned, and with the only available (apparently) delivery slot, in a week's time; I agreed and patiently waited.

Delivery day arrived and I received a call from the driver, saying they'd be here in five minutes. Ten minutes go by and sitting in the living room, I notice a brightly coloured Argos van go sailing by. Get a call from the driver saying he can't park because it's on a red route. I inform him that if Salisbury's, Tesco's, meal-on-wheels can unload so can he. But no, he's adamant and drives off saying I will have to re-schedule.

I contact customer services to inform them of this turn of events and give them the same information that I have just given the driver.

They contact him. After a few moments I get a call from him saying, he should be here by 14:20hrs, but he will call me five minutes before hand. At 14:10hrs he calls to say he's nearly here, again, and have I removed the cones from the bay? "What cones?" I say, "there is no bay here, it's the road and I will be by the pavement with the packaged item. It should only take a couple of minutes maximum!" After all if Tesco can disgorge £70 worth of shopping in about five minutes, a one metre sheet of non-heavy packed glass, shouldn't take any longer than that.

I go outside, 15 minutes later see the van coming around the corner and I start waving franticly, whilst holding onto the glass. He slows down (in the middle of the road), saying "I'm not going to stop, its a red route."

"You can stop, you're only briefly unloading," I shout to the passing lorry.

So he speeds up and drives off.

I'm flabbergasted. Decide to hang outside for another ten minutes, in case he is turning around somewhere, and coming back. But no!

Go back inside and again contact customer services. In a previous tapping, I might have mentioned the fact that at this stage, all you want to do is scream down the phone. But with large companies the person you usually scream at, is far removed from the actual events occurring outside your door.

Then get a call on the mobile from the delivery side of Argos, and again explain what's been happening.

The next time I have a delivery, will have to make a recording. So when I have contact someone I can just press the play button, which would save so much time and energy.

So the kind lady enquires if I wish to re-arrange delivery. I count to five before saying "yes, any time."

"Is Friday, between 7am and 12am any good?" she asks.

"That's perfect," I reply, wondering what's coming next.

"Well the driver will call you half an hour before. To make sure there's no problems!"

I wanted to say that, having to be up at 6.30am, is indeed a hassle and I shouldn't have to. But just say, "that will be fine."

"He'll deliver it in a transit van, as there shouldn't be any problems with that, for quickness."

I agree.

"Will there be anything else?"

"No, that will be all," I reply.

And with that and another five hours in the future to be wasted, I can feel the urge to send letters out to the Delivery department as well as the Chairman's office, lambasting them about the inefficiency of their set-up!

There are many roads in the capital that are on red routes. Wardens although quick to ticket, are also not stupid and around here they do understand that in many situations a five minute (usually less) drop-off is necessary.

So after an initial burst offering a beacon of hope; sadly Argos to, gets the big over-ripe, raspberry.

Sunny days

The first day since the new year, where the sun has been beaming down through crisp rarified air, here in London.

That and obviously the influence of the full moon, has combined to produce a strange amount of behaviour in the fair folk of town.

So here's a couple of pictures (courtesy of APA) and it's only just gone mid-day!

Remarkable - it's not always AOL's fault

There's nothing nicer than freshly laid carpets tickling the soles of your feet. Certainly an improvement over draughty floorboards.

But back to AOL. Over the past couple off weeks I have been experiencing intermittent connection problems, with my otherwise perfect AOL service. So, decided to give them a call!

Call centres are a wonderful idea, especially when they help to keep costs down, give big fat bonuses to directors and dividends to shareholders.

But one of the reasons they gave for changing from a free call number to their member services desk to a national charge, was to improve the service. It's one thing hanging on for half an hour, trying to get an issue sorted out with your connection, when the call is free. Quite another when you have to fork out 10p/minute for more than 10 minutes.

I, along with many others, resented that change from a free to a charged call, which on average lasted 30 minutes. Especially when they started outsourcing, root and branch.

I have nothing against outsourcing - I'm sure once the recession hits and markets slump, with millions of unemployees milling around chasing pigeons, companies will be flocking around at the hint of increasing profits from the surplus of cheap willing labour. But when you have to repeat yourself 3 - 4 times to get the nature of the problem across, and go through the whole process again when the person can't deal with it and has to 'upscale'; it's no wonder people get frustrated wishing to bang their head (but more likely the member services representative's head) onto the nearest sharp object. Whilst screaming at the top of their voice out of pure frustration!

On this occasion it took over an hour to get AOL to finally escalate the problem up to the Tech II stage, and to do a line test. Which, after the results popped up are poured over, and reveals that there is indeed a problem with the line.

Having been with AOL now for over five years (yes, the term Mug does spring to mind), missing out on the free Laptop Offer, the free year talk time, upgrading to faster package plan meaning I'm stuck in an 18 month contract - without perks. I was all in mind to claim breach of contract and terminate.

But then I started noticing that the fault mainly occurred when someone was walking around. The DSL and Internet lights would go off for a second then the DSL would flash and both would reconnect again.

Looked at the connections? All fine. But perhaps it was the original cable? Original in the sense that the wires were individually wrapped with cloth and encased in lead. So that was changed. But the problem still persisted. Maybe the filters? Swapped them around. Just had the DSL cable and wireless router connected to the master socket without any thing else, and still the connection would go off and on. Could it be the Wireless Router itself playing up?

But that nagging suspicion about movement wouldn't go away.

So, to cut a long story short - even starting to bore myself! When the carpet was put down, one screw was screwed into a carpet holder, which partially cut one of the wires (but still made a connection), but also cut the cloth of the other wire. But, the two wires didn't touch (and thus short-circuiting the system) until there was movement, which happened? When people were walking on the floorboards around that screw.

So as much as I like to bash AOL, this had nothing at all to do with them. Wasn't their fault in the slightest.

However shall be having firm words with the installer; for causing me two weeks of connection misery.

No shows: Currys dearth

No, nothing here about the writers strike in the USA. But a gripe about the tripe service from Curry's, subsidiary of DSGi.

Before Christmas this particular item was on sale for £299. After Christmas and in the new year sales, it was again on sale for the whopping amount of... £299!

So deciding this particular bit of metal wasn't going to come down in price, anytime soon, the purchase was made. Expecting two weeks delivery, we (flatmate and myself) were very surprised when a slot was available just five days away. So a great big YES was said to that.

Oh and then - not to forget - the extra added value of a £20 delivery charge on top; after the transaction had been put through. And a firm NO, to the extra insurance protection plan!

...

Five days came and went. The morning before anticipated delivery, we called the number on the receipt to find out whether everything was on schedule. This turned out to be deceptively good. An automated service which located the order and the associated special delivery instructions and time. Delivery, 2.15pm to 6.15pm. Very precise. Let's just see if it lives up to the billing!

...

Delivery day arrives and quickly speeds around to 2pm.

6.15pm comes and goes. No delivery!

6.30pm Dispatch service is called. And there is nothing on the system that indicates that the delivery has been cancelled suspended, or even running late. Even they are quite surprised, that we haven't heard from the driver.

6.52pm receive a call from the drivers assistant, saying they'll be arriving in 5-10 minutes.

7.03pm get a call from the driver. He has finally parked up (150 metres away) and we'll have to go and collect it!

So as the driver argues with his assistant saying he doesn't want to get a £120 fine by parking on a double red line - which would be taken out of his wages and that was more than he earned in a day - we told him that the bay outside of the flat was a single red line, with a sign specifying 'no parking 7am-7pm'. And since he was already 50 minutes late and it was now 7.06pm, there was no fear of him been ticketed by a warder, unless he was still there at 7am.

But no, he was going to drive away, or drop it off in the street; after we'd been waiting in all day - afternoon - for delivery. Leaving us to carry it - a full sized cooker - 150 meters!

Eventually they take it out of the lorry and wheel it to the pavement by the roadside. Still leaving us to deliver it, the rest of the way in.

So once more, Curry's! First place for Rubbish customer service in store. First place for Rubbish delivery service out of store. The only saving grace at this time, is the appliance doesn't appear to have any dents. Whether it works as expected, we will find out tomorrow. When it gets installed.

House alerts

Caveat emptor indeed!

Yes, that golden rule that you ignore at your peril.

So what are the salient points of getting that housing yoke firmly around your neck?

• Never trust the seller - they are out to make as much money whilst glossing over the true state of the building and other associated undiscovered problems
• Always get at least three but preferably five estate agent valuations - yes even if you are buying
• Always get a full survey done of the property, including electrical's - otherwise you might find at some stage that your fuse box starts smoking and potentially going up in flames. At the very least it could be condemnable
• Never trust the seller
• If you are thinking of living in a vibrant energetic part of town, remember that as lovely as that is, when you want peace and quiet the noise will drive you insane
• Check to see if they have neighbours above, and if it's a conversion whether they have sufficient carpet and underlay down and not wooden flooring
• Never trust the seller
• Check all radiators, fittings, fixtures
• Find out what's hiding underneath that big painting or mirror, and been covered up by that artex* finish or polystyrene tiling - is it damp or will all the plaster work need re-doing?

With financial markets somewhat edgy, best wait a couple of weeks as the rate of repossessions increases and bargains will be out there to be had!

* Care should be exhibited when working with old Artex surfaces as the original formulation of Artex contained white (Chrysotile) asbestos which could release airborne asbestos fibers when worked upon. This practice ended some time around 1980, although reports vary

Sports icons

So, another English (admittedly by affiliation) potential sports icon has suffered the dreaded English malaise of landing on his rear, after been dumped out of the first round of tennis Aussie Open by the number nine, France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Clips of which can be seen here, from the BBC website.

What's left? Who is left? Which home grown bit of talent will step up to the mark and bring back a resurgent period of sporting glory, to this once glorious archipelago?

The English Football team? Soon to be managed by an Italian and look as much a winning team, as an old nag winning the Grand National, by ten lengths.

Fencing champion Richard Kruse? Coached by three times Polish foil champion Ziemek Wojiechowski and Britain's national coach for several years currently over in Poland. As for Rugby and Cricket... they might as well not bother leaving the dressing room, except to hand the other team the trophy.

So what is left? Formula-1? let's hope Lewis Hamilton can pull it out this year. Or failing that, there's always the World Singles or World Pairs of the World Tiddly Winks Championships?

Advertising dilemmas

You read about people sticking on various ad-links, urls to their blogs, pages, web-sites, and soon afterwards retiring on the proceeds they've had pouring in from day one.

Naturally I thought what a good idea, and set about setting up my google adsense widget.

I had a bit of a dilemma, wondering whether to have everything from news links to wart remover, scattered all over the page. In the end I decided upon having just the one advert text box, and at the bottom a little strapline with the latest breaking bit of information.

The widgets have now been on for quite a few weeks. Not really sure why I put the widgets on after all, sort of second thoughts especially after finding myself re-viewing and seeing companies that I rank amongst the likes of Pol Pot, Stalin or Idi Amin gracing my pages. Must sit down and work out the exclusions list: banks, lawyers, solicitors, banks!

Although just having fluffy clouds and lily pads gracing the page, is probably defeating the entire purpose!

So how did this budding new advertising mogul's plans pan out?

PT cough jackers and the Norovirus

Oh, things are looking bad!

Two differing neighbours have so far been laid low by the dreaded 24 - 48hr norovirus and its associated symptoms: heartily throwing up, experiencing severe diarrhea whilst vehemently refusing the offer of a full English breakfast. I ask you, how could anyone refuse?

But they have been sensible, staying in, and eschewing all contact with the outside world, even gone to the extreme of taking a couple of days off work!

In this day and age, when taking more than 30 seconds for a toilet break automatically makes you the number one office "slacker", most people will vainly struggle into their workplace. Thus continuing the effective spread of the virus. Unless, they work from home.

Now, I am a great proponent of public transportation. Use it on a regular basis, travelling up and down the country. Swear by it. When it works!

But there is nothing worse than been on an empty (it does happen on occasion) tube train, or a normal train, when it pulls into a station and someone enters the exact same carriage. Not sure if it is a homing instinct the chronically ill have as part of their genes, or that some memes have taken control, forcing them to sit directly opposite and start coughing all over me; doing their weepy impressions of frog swallowing fly's, mouths wide open, all the way down to their stomachs. But it sure feels like it.

So I end up been fully sprayed with whatever this years version of influenza happens to be! And as the little pests take the option of hurtling across the carriage and down into my passageways, I just know that in a couple of days time, it will be me doing those very same weepy impressions.

Makes me hanker after the Tokyoites very healthy respect for mask wearing when in ill-health, or if anyone else around them is ill, or if they are an anime character!

GP Patient Survey...

When the above popped through the letter box, I thought I'd died and gone heaven.

Perhaps it is me and I have been labouring under a misconception that booking an appointment to see ones GP had been, or is in the process of been, reduced to a week! Perhaps even, at a push two!

So I bite my tongue when I am told the earliest appointment is four weeks away. And bite it even harder when that four weeks have been and gone and I go to find I shall be seeing a locum and not my own regular GP! A Locum in today's parlance, is a professional temp!

They (the government - perhaps more under the previous than current incumbent) have been happy bleating on about the number of billions been pumped into the NHS (National Health Service). But all those billions appear to have been soaked up by the heightened upper echelons remuneration, way before reaching the bottom, in the form of meager scraps.

Would this be a time to mention Consultants, Area Managers, Managers, Secretaries, whose increasing use of days off 'due to stress', must make opening a travel agency within hospital grounds an accountants financial dream. Doctors (not the private - full or partial), Receptionists, Nurses, Security, are more or less front line targets and deserve way more money than they're getting. And of course the humble Cleaners for whom English may be a 2nd or 3rd tongue, a course in English along with a 'how not skimp on the cleaning solution' and report your bosses if forced to' one, would be in order.

On the bottom line - apologises - front-line, it is a shame all those billions spent on the service have proved incapable of ensuring that when your four week wait is over, and you have made it over the threshold (so proving, however tenuous, your claim to be in the land of the living); that the look of disappointment palpably rippling outwards from the front desk - like some bodily emanation as another body hasn't pegged it and manages to stumble through - increases in tedium each dreaded passing visit.

Then the wait to finally see your GP begins. Book an appointment for 10am and if you are lucky, you will be seen two hours later by about 12pm. If anything, you are far better pretending that your body is about to gasp its last and you will be zipped in under an emergency booking. At least then you are guaranteed to walk out in a couple of hours with a printed prescription pre-laden for the next round of pills; praying to which ever god you believe in that you don't have to pay the place a visit, ever again!

If you miss your appointment by 10 minutes or more, you are politely told that you can't be seen. As the Doctor is now busy. And you will have to re-book, for another time! Which is, naturally, another 4 weeks down the line.

How can it be improved? Hard to say. The current economic downturn negates the ability to increase funding. But even then just throwing money at it isn't the right idea; despite the strain it is experiencing, people living longer and having more ailments with increasing age and new forms of expensive treatment coming on-stream.

But what is needed is a root and branch structural review with no sacred cows or white elephants in the closed wing. A review that every citizen is involved with and not just once in a blue moon at election time. The NHS used to work! We just have to find a way of making it work and work effectively (for us all in the UK), over the next few decades!

Are we been well served by the NHS? Only if you're an estate agent, travel company and, with increasing cases of MRSA, MRSi and other yet to be championed unknown bugs around the corner, I have to vouch a no!

One possible view of MRSA infection.

Sale madness, food waste, holiday's end

Sales should normally be coming to an end! But credit-crunch vampires, recession worries and lower than average spending, have - like naughty St. Trinian's - ganged up and put paid to that. So each day since the season of shoplifting and goodwill upped on its downers, the Hydraverts (many-headed advertising monster) mercilessly batters, the poor beleaguered cashless shopper!

Considering that over the holiday period and on Christmas day itself, a fair portion of shops in the capital were open. From the evidence of people shopping until the last of Christmas Eve however, you would have thought there was going to be imminent global rationing, or at the very least major shortages. People were packing trolleys to overflowing, and pushing each other out of the way to get those turkeys.

Now a 20lb turkey to feed 8 people is more than acceptable, but to feed only 4? Gluttony and wastefulness are terms that spring to mind. How much of the Christmas fare have we - and yes I include myself as part of the herd - been waiting for more than six months to enjoy, simply ended up in a landfill? How many presents have we all brought that people have ungratefully responded with, "don't know why you bothered! Wouldn't wear," and why is it always clothes, "that load of shite if they paid me!" Although saying that, I have been guilty of ingratitude once or twice in my lifetime, but never quite like that. Just once, or twice mind!

But it's a never-ending merry-go-round of what we really need and greed. We can't really afford - well the planet can't really afford - our wasteful over exuberance. So next Christmas I'm not going to buy, give or receive any pressies or cards. Just my way of giving a gift, to the environment!

Churchillian bridges

Never in the field of human history was so much owed by so many to so few!

A misquote, I know. A misquote, with which I hope the fat man with the perpetual cigar would have been happy with.

Nearly 70 years have flowed under the bridge of history when he said that. Sadly it would appear the same waters are going round and round and round. Becoming increasingly cloudy, ever more dangerous, with no high ground in sight to escape to.

Of course, one day, it will all just evaporate.

Living in London on £3 a day

Not sure where I initially saw the subject heading, but that and then passing by the Daily Mail, sent my wondering mind into pondering mode.

People on the dole or unemployment have it so easy! After all, they don't have the daily chore of having to commute with fellow smelly passengers on full to capacity overheated tube trains first thing in the morning, through particle ridden sewers.

Sorry, but sometimes that's just what it feels like. To be up at the crack of dawn till long after nightfall working for someone who you know's an idiot and if it weren't for them winging through with some dodgy bit of paper they've exchanged their soul for, and are now in a position of authority above you; would be selling lavender-scented sawdust.

Yes those dole-ites have it easy!

Free prescriptions. Which if you consider costs over £6 per item is a tidy sum, no wonder they're always ill and then they have the audacity to go around with bad teeth, which should be made a criminal offense. After all they even get some sort of free dentistry. Admittedly they don't seem to get any help or benefit with water, gas, electricity or telephone, tv licence, usage. But if they were out looking for work and pro-actively seeking it, they wouldn't need to use any of those. They have perfectly good unemployment offices. Which, I believe, provide them with a cup of water should they pass out - as long as it's measured, don't want them getting a feel for the easy life. Not to mention good library facilities they can use in the pursuit of knowledge and more importantly, finding work.

With the advent of Primark and jeans for £2, shoes for £1 some sort of polyester top for 50 pence, clothing needs are taken care of, and with all those charity shops that abound today, they have plenty of options.

They have no need of a social life, as in the paragraph above, they should be busy, out, looking for work. And they shouldn't be smoking as no doubt that will give them cancer and another excuse for idleitis, not to mention becoming an even greater burden to an already overstretched NHS.

So if they don't cut out smoking and drinking their benefits should be cut. And if the Conservatives new proposals ever come to fruition, they should indeed be doing community work, but probably from the same week they sign on and not just after a couple of years. Clearing up some of the mess they have more than likely created in the first place.

But back to living in London on £3 a day. So what are the possibilities?

You can have two single bus journeys, and still have enough money to buy a cheeseburger and an apple. Very healthy in anyone's book; especially with obesity levels rising.

Or one tube journey, a bus journey back and still have 10pence left over to spend.

For £3 you can buy 5kg of imported chicken which with a stock cube or two, and some vegetables would provide plenty of food to last a couple of days, probably enough to even give a spare days worth of money, to frivolously spend.

Admittedly you won't be able to visit a cinema, but then you should be out busy looking for work, shouldn't you!

No need to buy a paper, you can read them for free in any library or wait until editions of the free papers, The London Paper, London Lite, Metro, City A.M. and on a Friday morning: My Free Sport, are available and do all the reading from there. And once finished, no need to buy toilet paper. There, money saved yet again.

Visit one of the many free museums and exhibitions or take in a bit of street theatre.

So Living on £3 a day or £21 a week why do people need any more! After all if their housing costs up to £80 a week are taken care of and 80% of their council tax, if anything, people's benefits can be reduced to probably £35 a week. As from the example above, more than enough.

Spamalicous

I must say I am more than happy with my google email. Much better than my old yahoo or AOL one or for that matter hotmail. That one had more spam per day than I had original emails in a month.

But every now and then one slips through. I suppose at this particular juncture, even automation has its limit.

But after receiving an email starting

Resolution Panel On Contract Payment (Atm-822)
FROM SENATE PRESIDENT .... etc., etc., etc.

My hackles, which would normally be raised in indignant annoyance, resolutely stayed unruffled. Instead, my fingers immediately moved the mouse upwards and just clicked the report spam button.

No fuss, no clicking on a link to see whether this was that one off. That just in case! After all, if you were in line for hundreds of millions, you would expect they'd have done some homework like your correct name and have parked outside a limousine ready to take you to the bank! As that hasn't happened, I can take it this is just another sad attempt to part me from my banking details. Unlike Mr Jeremy Clarkson however, I shan't be giving my details out, whilst saying do your worst!

New year, old problems.

We're now firmly stuck-into 2008, and thankfully I've been allowing my pennings, or tappings, or typings (erk) to slip and somewhat whither, into the arena of minor scribblings. But, I have been busy with the odd photographic tit-bit. Been surprised at seeing a fly in what's supposed to be the middle of winter here, not once but twice and nearly in the same place, as well as a bumblebee, lady bird and the odd mosquito.

Taking vid-clips of the hell-hole I am currently inhabiting, as it goes through a slow transformation, room by room. And as each one's done, actually more tarted up to look less horrid, something else drops by that makes me wonder why I bothered with it in the first place. Hindsight, they say, is a wonderful thing. Such a shame foresight took that initial wide berth!

But it could be worse, everything could be so much worse! Consider the poverty in other parts of the world, consider the many millions of people who are living on an annual income lower than I get a week. It puts things into perspective, consider been caught up in one of the many natural disasters sweeping around the globe. So yes my own personal space isn't perfect and I'm facing my own private calamities, but it could be a heck of a lot worse!

My hat goes off to people who are able to get through such events and come out stronger the other side. Not sure whether my mental make-up is of sufficient strength or character, to carry me through one of those. So far the test hasn't occurred, and (touching all the wood I can whilst doing this) I hope it doesn't either.

Africa's to all intent a failed continent that seems to be worthy of nothing more than pillaging and rapping (of its minerals, best minds and warmth) by the rest of the world. A continent largely led by rulers cuckolded unable to see further than their bank balances, who's only concern are how many wives they can bed and how big a palace they can build!

Where are the Nelson Mandela's, people of whatever race, sex, or religion; of vision from the continent? Sadly, it seems they die way to early before being able to do any lasting good! And the ones who don't do any good just seem to go on forever.

So here's to hoping that the start of the year is just a minor blip and we'll all soon be back to living in peace, harmony and forward human progression.