Monday Moan 57

It’s for you – please pick up!

Lucy Kellaway, writing for the BBC Magazine, says that the telephone is no longer needed, because she does everything by email;

 

“We are now witnessing the death of the office landline, and with it the main switchboard.

 

If anyone really wants me, they send me an email, and because I don't like random disturbances ..... I've stopped answering my desk phone altogether.

 

The other day I checked my voicemail and found 100 messages stretching back over weeks. Guess what I'd missed? Nothing of any note at all.”

 

Sorry Lucy, you are wrong on so many levels.  For a start, some people would say you are behind the times and that email itself is now dead because everyone is using social media instead.  I think this is wrong too, but it just demonstrates that there are always those who see themselves as being at the forefront of whatever the latest trend is who will proclaim the death of the old way of doing things.

 

In fact, Lucy is a brilliant example of the kind of person who is so frustrating to the vast majority of normal people.  The majority of us answer our phones because we know that nobody makes a call without having a good reason for doing so (unless they are just trying to sell you something, of course).  A phone call is so much more immediate and satisfying that an email.  And you can’t pretend that all emails are vital and need immediate attention.  By all means don’t answer the phone if the number is withheld, if it appears to be from someone trying to sell you something, if you can see it’s from someone you don’t want to speak to, or if you really can’t be disturbed at that particular time.  But please pick up normal calls and please check your voicemail and then get back to people who need to speak with you!  I wouldn’t mind betting that many of the 100 messages she claims were of no note were from people who were then forced to email her instead, thus causing extra work and taking longer than a simple phone call would have done.

 

 

Define selfish ……..

A series of programmes about different aspects of keeping London’s roads going has been surprisingly captivating over recent weeks.  I loved the lady who offered her opinion on a road patching repair to the gang who had just done the work – “I could do better than that ….. that’s rubbish ….. it’s not very technical is it, it’s like icing a cake, you put the base on, then you stamp it down, then you put the top bit on, you’re meant to leave it smooth".  

It was hard to disagree with her and she said it all in such a perfectly calm and non-aggressive way that the labourers involved did not take offence or feel threatened.

 

 

As with all such programmes, however, there were those who said things that were just nonsense.  A cyclist taking part in one of the regular Critical Mass events that see hundreds of cyclists clogging up the centres of cities said; “Of course we are annoying people this evening,  ‘cos what we are doing is in some ways selfish, but then everyone on the road is being selfish.”  

 

Well no, that’s not true, is it?  Most people who venture onto the roads do so because they need to get somewhere.  That’s not being selfish, that’s the whole purpose of roads.  On the other hand, using the roads for no purpose other than to deny to others their freedom to use the roads, with no thought as to the possible consequences for those delayed by their actions, is not just selfish but arrogant and potentially dangerous. 

 

 

Out of office and out of mind?

The out of office message is a great invention. It allows you to know that the intended recipient of your email is not around and, if that mail requires some urgent action, who to contact in the absence of the first person.

 

So much for the theory.  In practice, of course, it doesn’t always work out quite like this.  This little chain of messages from last week is, unfortunately, not uncommon. All names have been changed to save any embarrassment ……….

 

To Peter:

“Dear Peter, I am writing to you hoping you will be able to help with […….] I look forward to hearing from you soon.”

 

From Peter:

“I am currently on leave and will be back in the office on 2^nd September.

If the matter is urgent, please contact Paul on paul@xxxxxx.org.uk or phone 0123 456789.”

 

OK, I thought, no problem and thanks for letting me know.  Wasting no time, I forwarded the original message to the person mentioned in the out of office message –

 

To Paul:

“Dear Paul, I see I have missed Peter, no doubt on a well-deserved holiday. I imagine, from his out of office message, that you have not yet set off on holiday yourself, so wonder if you could have a look at this please and let me have any comments?”

 

From Paul:

“I am currently on leave and will be back in the office on 2^nd September.

If the matter is urgent, please contact Peter on peter@xxxxxx.org.uk or phone 0123 567890.”

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

 

 

Last time before the summer break

Someone said to me last week that they thought I had a bit of a thing about Margaret Hodge and that I didn’t like her.  Reading the Moan over the past year might give you that idea, but in fact my issue is not personal and I am not picking on her. It’s just that she is the most high profile and irritating of those politicians who display a particular kind of arrogance and who abuse their positions to promote their own, often ill-informed, opinions without stopping to consider alternative views on their merits.

 

MPs are now on their summer break from their formal Parliamentary duties and so the Moan can take a break from commenting upon their posturing, particularly in Select Committee inquiries.  But I couldn’t resist the temptation to award Stuart McIntosh, Director of Competition at Ofcom, the accolade of ‘Best Witness in dealing with Hodgewallop’ for his handling of Margaret Hodge last week.  McIntosh was giving evidence to her Committee but failing to say the things she wanted to hear, so in time-honoured Hodge fashion she simply kept interjecting her own comments whenever he didn’t say the right thing.  McIntosh was having none of this and twice within a minute he corrected her – she didn’t like it at all. You can listen to the exchange here. A few minutes later she became exasperated with him not saying what she wanted to hear and started to ‘correct’ him by regurgitating what another witness had told her, but she couldn’t quite remember what had been said so asked that other witness (who was not actually giving evidence) to intervene. McIntosh took all this and then very clearly said that he personally had invited that complaining witness to present some evidence to his organisation so that they could then take action. Unfortunately, no such evidence had been produced – with the very clear inference to be drawn that the witness was simply using the system to complain, without there being any substance to those complaints.  What you could term, ‘playing the system’.  Hodge’s response?  A disgruntled “I hear you.” You can listen to this exchange here.

 

I’d like to think that Margaret Hodge might use her summer break to ponder on her performance and to wonder whether she might be being manipulated by those who have spotted her penchant for publicity and are just feeding her lines they know will feed her ego.  But I’m not holding my breath.

Monday Moan 56

Don't waste my time by disagreeing with me

Margaret Hodge was at her most combative, argumentative, intransigent and rude in a session about rural broadband last week.  She has form (see Moan 44 and others, for example).

 

The initial session of the hearing started with Margaret Hodge giving an open and friendly platform to BT’s competitors to put their points to the Committee, including the CEO of one company which has not, so far, invested a single penny in the UK.  No such luxury or latitude was afforded to the witness from BT, who found himself being hectored, told he was wrong, and being ridiculed by Hodge. She disagreed with him when he quoted facts, relying in some cases on the obviously much more reliable evidence of “an industry insider told me”.  Her sidekick Richard Bacon, MP (no, not the Radio 5 broadcaster, although the latter would undoubtedly be a more thoughtful, serious and useful person to have on the Committee), spent the session looking to raise a laugh and trying to make fun of the BT witness – he told him he should consider a career as a Jesuit priest (because he could say that black was white) and then that he should have been a comedian, because he had the temerity to deny that BT had a monopoly on superfast broadband.  “Boom, boom” was the intelligent contribution of Bacon (the MP) to that, ignoring the witness pointing out that Virgin Media had a larger share of the retail market than BT.

 

Ian Swales, MP tried to be clever by saying that decisions on building infrastructure did not depend on likely use - “You don’t build a road based on how many cars are going to use it, you just build the road.”  Oh dear.  Back to school for Ian I’m afraid.  Of course investment in infrastructure takes account of expected demand.  Do we need a new road, and if so, does it need to be single carriageway or a multi-lane motorway?  How on earth does he think we get to the answer without taking account of likely usage of that road?  Similarly regarding investment in almost any other infrastructure like schools, airports, etc.  Poor old Ian also had a whole argument with Government officials at the next session haranguing them for blocking the possibility of using fixed wireless solutions, when in fact this was completely the opposite of what the witness had said, and Swales was forced to apologise for his misinterpretation.

 

Margaret Hodge and Richard Bacon spent large amounts of time having side conversations, distracting the witnesses and showing huge disrespect to them.  She complained that witnesses were not answering her questions, but what she actually meant was that their answers did not match her pre-conceptions. She got so frustrated by this refusal of witnesses to agree with her that her aside of “Oh Jesus” at one point caused one of the MPs on the Committee to note that this was inappropriate and un-Parliamentary language.

 

The thing is, we pay for these people and we have a right to expect that they will conduct themselves appropriately. This should include objectivity and giving witnesses both a chance to be heard and the right to say things that conflict with the Committee members’ pre-conceived notions and positions, without being accused of lying or having their evidence dismissed out of hand.

 

Value for money?  I don’t think so.  Maybe there should be an investigation into the value for money of the Public Accounts Committee?

 

 

It’s a heatwave – but not in Rochester (again)

The UK is experiencing a heatwave – it’s all relative, of course, but here in the UK we are not used to high temperatures, so a few consecutive days of them constitutes a heatwave.  Anyway, we have now had something like 10 days of hot weather – with the one exception being last Saturday, when we went to Rochester to sing at their annual open-air ‘Prom’ concert.  This always takes place on the third Saturday in July, and it seems that it is traditional that whatever the weather has been doing on other days, on the day of the concert the weather will be rubbish. 

 

This year was no exception.  Temperatures of around 30c on other days disappeared and a more typical 18c was reached – for one day only, of course, as the hot weather returned the following day. It was cold, it was windy, the extra layers of clothing were all needed – but it was still great fun and we’d certainly do it again!

 

 

ITN – they decide what’s news

Yesterday’s Independent Television News decided that the main news was that the Prime Minister had again refused to answer repeated questions about whether or not he had discussed proposed rules on health warnings on tobacco products with one of his advisers, Lynton Crosby, who works for a PR firm whose clients include tobacco companies.

I would be amazed if the two of them had not talked about this at some stage.  And I would add a very loud ‘SO WHAT?’  I’d rather he was talking to an adviser who actually knew something about the issues in question than someone with a theoretical knowledge, gleaned from something they had read or that had been sent to them.  Do people imagine that everything a politician says has sprung from their own imaginations or research?   That would be ridiculous.  Of course politicians are recipients of information, of ‘lobbying’ on a daily basis – that’s the only way the system can work.

 

Here’s the thing.  This ITN ‘story’ was actually gleaned from an interview on the BBC earlier in the day – and yet the BBC did not even think it newsworthy enough to mention in its own main news bulletin.  

 

Strange choice for ITN?  Well, they have a track record for choosing strange lead stories.  At the end of June, for example, they thought the most newsworthy story of the day was their own ‘investigation’ which revealed that some NHS Trusts were saving money by not having to pay VAT for certain services.  Nothing illegal about this, they acknowledged, but still worth interviewing Margaret Hodge (yes, her again) and elevating this above all other news of the day.  The story was delivered with all the seriousness the presenter could muster, managing to link the NHS with Starbucks and Google, who have also been accused of not paying tax that they did not need to pay.

 

Not much of a story really.

 

Have the BBC got it in for the England cricket team?

Not content with their previous attempt to make England get twice as many runs for victory as was actually the case (see Moan 52), the BBC were at it again last week in the First Test Match against Australia.  

 

Obviously worried that the Aussies were not able to make much of a game of it without some outside help, the BBC stepped in to show that 5 wickets had fallen when in fact only 4 had done so:-

 

Didn’t make any difference, of course, as the Aussies were beaten and then suffered a humiliating second defeat at the weekend.  Oh how they would have gloated had the boot been on the other foot.  We, of course, are more restrained – HA!

Monday Moan 55

Never work with children or Dads?

Roberto Perrone broadcasts on BBC Three Counties Radio every weekday afternoon for four hours.   That’s a lot of air time to fill each day and it must be a huge challenge to make it fresh and interesting.  Like all presenters of such programmes though, there must be times when he must wonder how he’s going to keep an interview going when the person on air is either not very interesting or seems reluctant to talk.

 

Most people being interviewed seem quite happy to talk, of course, but it’s a gamble when you have children as your guests.  Last Wednesday afternoon Roberto dipped his toes in the water with an interview with a couple of young cricketers who had been part of a school team that had won a national competition.  As you might expect with 11 year-olds, they were full of ‘amazing’, ‘great’, ‘yeah, really nice’, and the like.  Slightly hard work but it worked pretty well.  

 

However, Roberto might have wondered why his producers had then lined up another young sporting star to be interviewed shortly afterwards.  This time it was a budding long-distance runner who was being interviewed with his Dad.  Good old Dad was quite happy to talk about his son, his son’s school and athletics club and the charity he was supporting.  However, Roberto struggled manfully to get the young runner to say much beyond ‘yep’ to any question.  I felt for him as he tried different ways of framing his questions to try to avoid those that invited a response of ‘yep’; compelling radio but I was left feeling sorry for all involved.

 

It will take 5 minutes, but do have a listen here.

 

Sainsbury’s – customer service?

I love to shop in my local Sainsbury’s.  One of the reasons is that there are so few customers that you can walk round freely without the usual stress levels associated with busy stores.

 

But why so few customers?  I think I know why.  The shop is run for the convenience of staff and not of customers. Shopping there yesterday I heard an announcement that the store was going to close in five minutes and I should make my way to the checkout.  Obedient as ever I did exactly as they wanted and then made my way out of the shop. Unfortunately, the staff, presumably eager to get home, had decided to lock all the exits bar one – which meant every customer had to walk all round the premises in order to find the one remaining open door and, having found it (with no help from any of the employees) this then entailed walking out through the car park.

 

Must try harder.

  

No test required

Here’s the scene.  A mother is in charge of two young children.  One of her children, probably no more than 5 or 6 years old, has already crossed the busy road they are trying to negotiate.  The mother is holding onto the other one, probably two years old, with one hand.  In her other hand is her mobile phone, pressed to her ear so she can continue her conversation with whoever was on the other end.  There is a break in the traffic so mother and child prepare to cross the road – mobile phone still in use.  The child’s hat falls to the ground.  

 

So, does the mother;-

1.  Leave the hat where it is and continue to cross the road?
2.  Put her phone down, pick up the hat and continue across the road?
3.  Let go of the child, keep talking on the phone and pick up the hat?

 

Unbelievably, she chooses option 3 - to let go of the child.  At the same time, the other child, perhaps seeing the fallen hat and wanting to help, runs back across the road, apparently oblivious to the approaching traffic and without a word from her mother to stop her.  Fortunately for all concerned, she made it across the road and the whole party was reunited.

 

You don’t have to take a test before you become a parent – but maybe you should?

 

 

More than a colour

Watching Dan Cruickshank’s BBC 4 documentary about the growth of London in the 17^th century was an interesting way to spend an hour on a Sunday evening.  But I had to wonder what it would be that a casual viewer might remember most about the programme.  Would it be something about the Great Fire of London, or perhaps about the Plague?  Would it be about the history behind Covent Garden perhaps?  

 

Sadly, it occurs to me that people might remember most that the House of Orange was named after the colour of the carrot.  At least, that is the impression I think you would get from listening to this extract from the programme.

 

No doubt when editing the programme Dan Cruickshank must have realised that this was what seemed to have been said, so why wasn’t this given some kind of voice-over to avoid this historical nonsense being perpetuated?  

 

Sloppy work chaps.

 

Monday Moan 54

Andy Murray – who would have believed it?

The Moan cannot start anywhere this week other than by congratulating Andy Murray on winning Wimbledon.  Having come so close last year and then blubbing his disappointment in front of the watching world, he returned this time and played a brilliant final against the awesome Novak Djokovic to win the title.  He kept the public on the edge of their seats leading up to the final by flirting with defeat against both Fernando Verdasco and Jerzy Janowicz, but in the final he avoided the early stutters of the two previous rounds and produced compelling and overpowering tennis.

There is something fascinating in watching his development from a gangling, surly, unlovable character, seemingly destined to be another in a long line of British tennis hopefuls who ultimately failed to reach the top of the pile, into the world-class player he is today, who will undoubtedly be adored by the public for years to come.

 

And then what about our traditional ‘love’ of the gallant loser?  Surely this came about only through necessity over the years, in the absence of having many winners to love?  Maybe this character has been consigned to history over the past year, with the cycling feats in the Tour de France, the countless Olympic triumphs, golfing victories galore and even a Lions rugby victory to savour?

 

Anyway, this year's Sports Personality of the Year contest is over before it even got started.

 

 

I saw it with my own eyes?

We appear to have been so seduced by our camera-phones that we now see everything through the windows that they provide rather than directly through our own eyes. We all want our own pictures of things, no matter how inadequate those pictures might be, rather than to drink in the scene or event with our own eyes and then rely on the professional photographers to capture the high quality pictures.

Evolution will see to it that our arms will gradually become longer and stronger, as the need to hold a camera phone above our heads for long periods of time becomes one of the key elements in the survival of the fittest.

 

 

 

 

Wonder if they queued for their tickets?

One of the traditions at Wimbledon is the dedication (madness?) of those who queue overnight and for hours beforehand in order to claim their place in the ground on the big days in the tournament – particularly the finals and those days when a British hopeful is due on the show courts.

 

It's not just in tennis, of course, but a new tradition seems to have emerged in the way that ‘celebrities’ are given free tickets for sporting finals, no matter their level of interest in the sport in question.  So yesterday, we had the ‘pleasure’ of seeing in prime seats such people as Victoria Beckham, Wayne and Coleen Rooney, and actors Gerard Butler and Bradley Cooper.

 

And, of course, the politicians.  David Cameron and, for balance, Ed Miliband, both took time off from their day jobs to be seen enjoying the sporting action.  At least it told us that Ed was still with us.  And no event featuring a Scotsman would be complete without Alex Salmond sliding his ample, smiling face into shot at every opportunity.  True to form, Alex displayed his customary dignity and desire to avoid the limelight, this time by unveiling a Scottish flag behind David Cameron’s back – just supporting Andy, of course.

 

Sad, but predictable.

 

 

Must try harder

We have all heard a lot about how big businesses are squeezing the life out of small businesses and that we should be supporting those small companies where we can in order to ensure that they survive, that we maintain consumer choice and that we do not end up with faceless and uncaring companies as our only option.

 

I’m in favour of this as a principle. But this doesn’t mean that small companies can just assume that consumers will be there when they need them – they have to work at it too.  On a number of occasions recently I have approached small companies with enquiries about their products, wanting to see what they could offer in comparison with the well-known and large companies.  Disappointingly, most of these small concerns have not even bothered to reply.  Some have but have not been able to offer what I wanted – having a small and inflexible portfolio of products. 

 

One company seemed better than the rest and very keen to tell me how they looked upon customer service as their key selling point.  Brilliant, I thought.  I arranged to visit their showroom to look at their products and have a face to face discussion with the person who had been responding to my online enquiries.  Unfortunately, when I turned up at the appointed time the showroom door was locked.  The person inside tried his best to pretend that he hadn’t seen me, but persistent banging on the door eventually got him to open up.  I announced myself and asked to see the person who was expecting me.  “Hang on a minute”, he said and then called out through to the adjoining office that I had arrived.  It was quite obvious that the person who should have been expecting me was taken by surprise – probably hadn’t written down that I was coming and had just forgotten our exchange and arrangement.  No apology when he was persuaded to come to speak with me.  Their products were not very good either – well short of what I have been led to believe in our exchange.

 

I don’t want to use the High Street name that is the obvious alternative, but it is proving so hard to find someone else that I fear being driven in their direction.  We keep hearing that it’s a competitive market and the odds are unfairly stacked in favour of the big companies. But that’s not the whole story, is it?  Small companies need to try at least as hard as the big ones, not less hard because it’s too much bother.

Monday Moan 53



 

Playground spat ……

Ever watched children arguing in the playground by calling each other silly names designed to be insulting and to make their watching friends giggle?  If you want to return to your younger days and experience this kind of thing again then the best way to do it is to watch the UK House of Commons in action.

 

Last week we had the weekly slanging match that is Prime Minister’s Questions, during which the leader of this nation decided against taking the moral high ground by venturing down the road of insults, likening his opponent to Bert, a character from The Muppets.

 

It was pathetic, but it left me with an uneasy feeling that Ed Balls, that most unimpressive and unlovable of politicians, would be unable to resist lowering the tone still further. Sure enough, hectoring Ed decided that the mature way to put over his argument was to compare the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to Bungle and Zippy – apparently characters from the children’s tv series Rainbow.

 

I’d like to think that the nation felt insulted by this childish behaviour, but I’m afraid that the number who felt like that was probably matched by those who thought this was the height of great political debate – and an even greater number were simply unaware or didn’t care.

 

 

Got a question?  Want to hear a debate?  Don’t bother watching this then

Having fallen asleep during the BBC News last Thursday, I woke to find that Question Time was on my screen again.  Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!

 

Here we had the combined intellectual forces of David Willetts, University and Science Minister, Liz Kendall, Shadow Health Secretary, Simon Highes, Deputy Leader of the Lib Dems, Jill Kirby, ex-leader of the Centre for Policy Studies, and Mark Steel, comedian.

 

Unfortunately, the assembled panellists decided to adopt the same approach as just about every other set of panellists I have seen in recent years – no listening to what others had to say, no debate, just regurgitation of entrenched views, talking (often shouting) over the other panellists, and all delivered in a self-righteous way.  The ‘comedian’ (or equivalent) is often the worst, particularly if they bring with them (as in this case) very obvious political views. 

 

And then we have the audience.  Now, we all know that the audience comprises people with political allegiances – that’s how the tickets are distributed, and the BBC says it aims to get an audience representing all political views. Unfortunately, the result if often that the members of the audience who are called upon to speak do so with even more venom and bile than those on the panel.

 

Unedifying and dispiriting.  Wish I’d stayed asleep.

 

 

Revenge is sweet ……………

So, Kevin Rudd, ex-Australian Prime Minister, elbowed aside by Julia Gillard in 2010, got his revenge last week and was re-elected as leader of the Labour Party and, therefore, became Prime Minister again.  Julia Gillard said she would quit politics.

 

Australian men have a reputation for sporting prowess and a generally macho approach to life.

 

And then there is Kevin. 

 

 

 

Glastonbury – kick off the slippers

OK, I’m getting on and I have to accept that I no longer recognise most of the names of the acts who appeared at this year’s Glastonbury Festival.  That’s just the way life goes, and I feel no shame in it at all.

 

But I am confused.  Sir Bruce Forsyth at Glastonbury?  Made the Rolling Stones seem like young kids – joking, of course.  Average age of 69, apparently.  Best act ever at Glastonbury, apparently.  That must make all the headliners from the previous festivals feel great.

 

Best of all was the brief piece on the BBC News interviewing people who had queued the longest to see the Rolling Stones and were happily waiting at the front for most of the day.  They ranged from youngsters whose grandparents probably remember buying Rolling Stones records in the 1960s, to the grandparents themselves – as shown in the picture. 

 

Couldn’t help wondering how they were going to cope with having to stay in their front row position for all of those hours though.  It’s a long way to the toilets, for example.