Monday Moan 65

WANT  TO KNOW WHAT I THINK?

Amongst the deluge of email that appears in my inbox every day I spotted one asking me if I wanted to join a panel called Shopper Thoughts, run by Tesco apparently.  I joined and have been filling in short questionnaires every few weeks when they ask me.

 

Recently I was asked to complete a questionnaire online next time I was in my local Tesco.  I tried, but failed completely as the online form did not appear as promised when I logged on.  I tried again and still no success.  So I called the helpline number provided. This took me to Tesco Customer Services, and although the person I spoke with had never heard of Shopper Thoughts, her supervisor said I needed to call their internet helpdesk on a different number.  The internet helpdesk said they knew nothing about it and I should call their customer services ……… .  

 

Undaunted, I approach the customer information point in the shop.  Oh yes, they had heard of it because another customer had been in earlier that day and had asked the same question.  That customer had then called the customer services number and been advised that Shopper Thoughts was a scam and they should ignore it.

 

Imagine my surprise then, when I check with Tesco online and discover that Shopper Thoughts was launched by Tesco in 2009 and gets plenty of mentions, including on their web pages for investors.

 

I’m very happy to be contacted by Tesco to give my thoughts on all this if they want them.

WALLY FOUND

Political spin doctors tell their masters how important it is to use the current ‘key message’ at all opportunities.  Make sure you manage to refer to it in every interview so that people are in no doubt what they are supposed to remember from amongst the things you have said.

 

Ed Miliband has taken all this to heart.  The current key message is that people should not be taken in by improved economic data but should realise instead that there is a cost of living crisis.  

 

Yesterday’s BBC London news programme had a piece about how the Labour Party in Harrow had managed to split into two and, in the process, lose control of the Borough Council to the Conservatives. Ed was asked for his views on this change in leadership and his response must have brought  tears of joy to the eyes of his spin doctors – “you always get particular issues with local councils, but the point I want to make is that people should vote Labour if they want someone to tackle the cost of living crisis”.

 

Brilliant execution.  Nonsensical response to the question.  But all delivered with his new determination to say the right thing and to say it with a Gordon Brown-like smile on his face.

 

Best of luck with the unions this week mate.

 

 

ACCESS – BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT

Since October 2004, the Disability Discrimination Act has required companies and organisations providing services to the public to ensure that they offer reasonable access to disabled people. In many cases this means ensuring that the building within which the services in question are provided is itself accessible to all.

 

It’s not easy to work your way through the mountain of helpful guides produced on this topic, like the 360 page code of practice produced by the Disability Rights Commission (described as a 'practical guide for small businesses), but I’m pretty sure it means something a bit more appropriate than this ……………..

 

 

 

SUNDAY NIGHTS

Downton Abbey has returned.  

Oh joy.




 

 

The Earl and Countess of Grantham still seem the least likely couple to be in bed together since Eric and Ernie.

 

And Lady Mary is still searching for her facial expressions.

 

 

(Monday) Moan 63

“AND NOW FOR SOME ROLE PLAY …..”

These were words guaranteed to make my heart sink.  In my working days I was all for a spot of out of office training, of getting to know your colleagues better, of having time away from the daily bustle to be able to think about what we were doing and how we might do it better, of planning for things we knew we had to do in the year ahead.  All sensible stuff.

Team building events came in many shapes and sizes, and those that involved learning how to juggle, or engaging in what amounted to a game of Twister with your work colleagues always seemed of questionable value – even if you enjoyed them.    But I could rarely see the point in role play activities.  Occasionally one of them would have some relevance to work to some degree, but often it just seemed like someone had taken a look at a list of wacky things to do and decided which to pick on the basis of the random-finger-on-a-page-whilst-blindfolded approach.   

So, my full sympathies to Alan Bacon and his fellow job applicants who were asked to do a dance at a recruitment session for a Currys store in Wales.  I’d like to think that whoever came up with this bizarre and demeaning idea is now looking for a new job, although one where they don’t have to jump through hoops to the command of some half-brained idiot who thinks they are at the cutting edge of recruitment strategies. 

 

 

SOMETIMES INSTINCT IS A BETTER GUIDE THAN THE RULEBOOK

Alan Chittock has worked for the railways for thirty years. He knows what the rulebook says and my guess is that on most occasions he will happily follow its guidance.  But with that amount of experience he has also accumulated a keen eye for potential danger and how to deal with it before it escalates. He can assess situations instantly and take the appropriate action – even if that sometimes means deviating from what the rulebook might dictate.

 

Alan saw a woman in a wheelchair topple over the edge of the platform and onto the tracks at his station, with the next train due in a short while. Rather than heading off to alert the signaller so that the train could, hopefully, be halted before it appeared at the station, he decided that instant action to get the woman off the track was the better option. Alan was helped by other people who had seen the incident and the woman was brought back onto the platform – job done, safety maintained, no disaster at this station.

 

Except, of course, that Alan hadn’t followed the rulebook. So, instead of a word of commendation from his bosses for swift action to save the woman, he was suspended from duty pending an investigation into his breach of procedures. 

 

It may be that all Alan would have needed to do to stop the trains was reach behind him and press a button.  Or it might be that he would have had to go from one end of the platform he was on, over the bridge, down to the end of the other platform and then find the button, which might have jammed because it had not been used for so long, to alert the signaller, who might have been distracted by other urgent matters for a few seconds. Obviously, I don’t know the full details.  But I do know that life is full of moments when you need to make an instant decision based on the knowledge available to you and using the wisdom and experience you have accumulated in however many years you have been on this earth.  There isn’t always time to do whatever it is that you read about somewhere, or even the thing you have been trained to do. Sometimes, commonsense and instinct are the best guides.

  

 

ED MILIBAND COULD RESHAPE BRITAIN AS MUCH AS MARGARET THATCHER, SAYS TUC LEADER

So said the headline in the Daily Mirror last week.

Now, given that Ed’s performance as leader of the Labour Party so far has borne a closer resemblance to Wally than to a potential Prime Minister, I thought this a rather bold statement for Frances O’Grady, TUC General Secretary, to make. But when I read the article I realised that Frances had not come up with this rather glowing assessment of Ed's abilities.  No, her call was for Ed to stand up and make a name for himself, to show a bit of character, to remind people that he is a serious politician.  Essentially, she was telling him to find some balls other than those represented by his Shadow Chancellor. The headline to accompany that article would have sounded critical of Ed, so the editor decided to change the emphasis from Ed should to Ed could - subtle but important.

Whether you applaud the suggestion that "we could become the Britain of Danny Boyle's Olympics opening ceremony" depends on what you thought of that monumentally expensive, clichéd, naff and embarrassing depiction of 'all that is good about Britain'. Guess you know where I stand on that - but it's just an opinion.

  

 

THANK YOU FOR YOUR FAITH IN ME …..

Kevin Rudd ousted Julia Gillard (born in Barry, South Wales) as Australian Prime Minister a few months ago (see Moan 53). 

He had little time to bask in his new position, however, as he and his party were soundly beaten in the Australian general election last week.  He has been replaced by Tony Abbott (born in London, England) – most famous recently for his comment that “What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing ……..”.

Politics in Australia seems so much more interesting than in Britain.   Abbott’s coalition has secured 91 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, giving it a significant overall majority. But is doesn’t have a majority in the Senate, so will be beholden either to the main opposition party it has just replaced, or to a rag-bag of independent Senators elected under Australia’s complex proportional representation rules.  These include Wayne Dropulich, an ex-rugby player, whose Australian Sports Party has few, if any, policies beyond supporting lots of sports, and Ricky Muir, whose Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party is in favour of exactly what it says on the tin.  

Poor old Julian Assange failed to plot a seat in the Senate from his Ecuadorean Embassy bolt-hole in the UK.  No great shame in that, I suppose.  Although he was beaten by the aforementioned Australian Motoring Enthusiasts, as well as the Sex, Family First and Australia First parties, he can be proud of his achievement in having overcome the challenges of the Shooters and Fishers, Help End Marijuana Prohibition, Animal Justice, Australian Fishing and Lifestyle, No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics, Bullet Train for Australia, Drug Law Reform, Stable Population and Bank Reform parties.  I can’t help thinking that the Shooters and Fishers and Australian Fishing and Lifestyle parties might have done better if they had amalgamated.

 

Of course, this rejection by the citizens of Australia will do nothing to damage Assange’s opinion of himself as the saviour of the world – his first quote afterwards was along the lines of ‘time to get back to the real work of publishing secrets’.  I don’t suppose many of the tiny number of people who voted for him would have been surprised by this. 

 

And please spare a thought for those hardy souls of the political system, the voluntary party-workers who pound the streets and knock on every door to canvass the views of residents before polling day.   It’s a thankless task in parts of Australia, not least in the constituency of Durack, in Western Australia, which is almost 1800 miles from top to bottom – further than from London to Moscow, and covers an area more than three times the size of France.   ‘Sorry you were out when we called ’ would be a very sad card to have to leave, wouldn’t it? 

 

 

COME AS YOU ARE PARTY ……..

Regular readers will know how much I love people whose desire to say something clever leads them to say something silly.  So, we had the reality show contestant who was trying to describe how he got bored listening to another contestant because that other person wasn’t saying anything interesting.  He decided to do this by using one of those little foreign phrases that people like to pitch into conversations to show how intelligent they are – but unfortunately, in describing it as leaving himself “non compos mentis” he was probably nearer to the mark than he intended.

 

And once again we had someone misusing the under-estimate/over-estimate expression.  Marin Alsop, in her speech at the end of the Last Night of the Proms having conducted this annual jamboree, said that “you cannot under-estimate the power of music”.  Oh yes you can – ‘music is of no importance whatsoever’ – there, I did it.  Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should use the opposite expression instead, because quite clearly you can easily over-estimate the importance of music.  No doubt what she meant was a genuinely felt “please do not under-estimate the power of music” – so why didn’t she say it?  

 

But more importantly than any of this, who decided that a free-for-all concert dress policy for the choir for last Saturday’s concert was a good idea?

Monday Moan 46

Eurolather

There is something entirely predictable and sad about the lather the Conservatives have got themselves into over Europe.  It doesn’t take much for the usual bunch of noisy nobodies to mount their soapboxes and start ranting about the iniquities of Europe and how the UK should cut itself off from the rest of the continent – sailing off (back) into a Golden Age where Britannia rules the waves.

Onto the roundabout again.  No doubt the surge of ‘support’ for UKIP in the local elections last week has spooked some Conservatives. But for the Eurosceptics (or, more accurately, the anti-Europeans) this is just a convenient excuse to play their anti-European loop yet again.

As well as the usual suspects (why do they always wheel out John Redwood, largely considered to be just the right side of mad?), Lord Lawson, no less, thinks we should leave the EU.  The addition of Lord Lawson to the anti-European numbers shows that we should all take this seriously, apparently. But hang on a minute, could this be the same Lord Lawson who now lives in France and who was mercilessly mocked by nearly everyone a few years ago when he declared that global warming was a myth?

And then there is Lord Lamont – you remember, the chap who used to be Norman Lamont, veteran Eurosceptic, Chancellor of the Exchequer during the ERM debacle in the early 1990s (whose advisor was one David Cameron), all round figure of fun.

Don’t you hope that just occasionally our politicians can pull themselves together and do something worthwhile?

 

The Queen’s Speech

In the days when I was a working man I used to look forward to the Queen’s Speech – it was a big deal for me to provide quick analysis for my employers of the speech and the legislation proposed and its likely impact on us.

Last week’s Queen’s Speech outlined the legislative programme for the next year. It contained about the same number of proposals as usual, some of them were quite important, some were of less importance.  But what struck me most was how little impact the event had on the vast majority of people – not a topic of conversation in social circles, not headline news in the media other than for the subsequent coverage of Tory MPs wanting to know why it didn’t include anything on a referendum on Europe.

Now I know why my friends looked at me with a mixture of incomprehension and pity when I used to tell them I had a big day ahead with the Queen’s Speech.  What matters in life all depends on your perspective. 

 

 

Another endless loop to be debated again

Must be the week for endless loops.  This time it’s whether or not London needs another airport or, more accurately, whether or not London’s airport capacity needs to be increased to cope with demand and, if so, how this should be done.

Cue the debate on expanding Heathrow or perhaps Stansted, or whether we should build an entirely new airport in the Thames as Boris Johnson keeps promoting.

The question of airport capacity has been discussed for as long as I can remember and, no doubt, will be discussed long after I can remember anything.  It’s an industry that keeps a lot of people employed, one way or another. But it costs us all a lot of money – in the end we pay for the indecision and for the inevitable (and hugely expensive) public inquiries and all that they entail.  The beauty for those engaged in this is that there can never be a resolution to the issue – even if another runway or airport is built, it won’t be long before the debate about expansion starts again.

That’s why so many of the public simply switch off when the topic comes up.

Where’s Ed?

Still no sightings.  Anybody know where he is?

 

 

 

 

Monday Moan 43

Keep up ……. or keep quiet

Watching the news the other day that instant irritant Margaret Hodge appeared on my screen.  Readers of previous editions will understand that comment (see Moans 6 and 27). My immediate thought was what on earth had her House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found worthy of an insightful and newsworthy report?

She didn’t disappoint me.  After months of deep investigation and consideration into last summer’s London Olympic Games, the PAC had decided that there was a bit of a problem with the security arrangements, and that ticket allocations had been flawed, with too many empty seats in the first few days in the areas set aside for officials and athletes .
 
None of this is news, of course.  So I’m not quite sure why the media decided it was important enough to interview Margaret Hodge yet again.
 

No doubt those who are responsible for such things in the Olympic movement in Lausanne and the organising committee for the next Games in Rio de Janiero are even now poring over the text of the report and the tapes of Margaret Hodge’s interviews in order to take heed of her advice.

  

 

Would you invite this man to dinner?

Amidst all the interest in the antics of Luis Suarez it is easy to forget that behind the headlines is a man shaped by his background, just like the rest of us. 

Little Luis comes from a poor Uruguayan family, one of seven children, and had to move to Europe in order to earn a crust.  His career has been blighted by allegations that he dives, acts, handles the ball, racially abuses other players and, on occasions, tries to eat them. He feels alone and that the world is against him.

 

Then he discovers that they have stopped the tradition of the half time orange that has been the main sustenance available to players during a game since the beginning of time.  Is it any wonder that he decides to snack on his opponents once in a while?

 

 

A gold star for Sainsbury’s

I have had occasion to complain in these Moans about the way Sainsbury’s have thrown away perfectly good food.  So, in the spirit of telling a good story when there is one, I am pleased to say that on a visit to the ‘offending’ branch at the weekend I witnessed them reducing the price of their cakes rather than throwing them away.  Good to see.

 

No stars for Marks & Spencer though

As one store rises in my estimation another descends.

 

In Marks & Spencer at the weekend I needed to use the toilet.  Standing there and minding my own business (required behaviour if you don’t want to be misunderstood) I heard the door open, someone stand there without coming in, and some rustling of paper.  Then the door closed.

 

Turning round I realised that the sheet of paper on which they record when they have ‘inspected’ the toilets had been on the wall just inside the door and that this must have been what I had heard rustling.  OK, I was grateful for the privacy I had been granted instead of someone coming in and giving the place a thorough inspection whilst it was being used, and I assumed that whoever was supposed to do the inspection was probably standing outside and waiting for me to leave.

 

But no, I soon realised that I had imagined a far greater sense of responsibility and tact on the part of Marks & Spencer than was actually true.  Looking at the inspection sheet as I went out I saw that even though it was only 15.30, the toilets had, apparently, been inspected and found to be clean at both 16.00 and 17.00 already! 

 

I was outraged and thought I’d take a photo of the sheet on my smartphone, with my wristwatch next to it to prove the deceit of the store. Fortunately, I soon decided that taking photographs in a public toilet was not a good idea after all, so you’ll just have to take my word for it!

  

Finally, a missing person appeal

Anybody seen Ed Miliband?  Missing without trace for too long now.

Monday Moan 20

‘Honest’ Harry

The producer of Match of The Day must have thought himself a very lucky man on Saturday night when he saw the dismal performance of Arsenal against Norwich.  Not only had he got himself a match that people would want to watch – small club upsets one of the big-time Charlies – but he had already booked ‘Honest’ Harry Redknapp as a guest pundit for the show.  What a stroke of luck to have 'Honest' Harry there on the day that his old foes at Arsenal gave such a feeble and embarrassing display against the mighty Norwich.

Notwithstanding the rave reviews Arsenal had received on previous MOTD programmes earlier in the season, ‘Honest’ Harry let us all know that the resentment and personal hurt are still as strong as ever they were during the period he failed miserably to move his Tottenham side above Arsenal for the first time since Noah set sail. Paraphrasing, he said that Arsenal were rubbish and a weak team and had no chance of getting into the top 4 this season. Of course, still essentially the same team that managed to rise from the floor of a 0-2 deficit against his much-hyped Tottenham side the last time they met, so much so that Arsenal ended up 5-2 victors that day.  That must have hurt.

Still, no sour grapes on ‘Honest’ Harry’s part, I’m sure.  His comments on Saturday must have been entirely objective, in the best traditions of a pundit with no axe to grind.

 

Andrew Mitchell – just a common yob?

So, after more time in the news than is often accorded to major earthquakes or similar natural disasters, Andrew Mitchell eventually succumbed to what he saw as the inevitable and resigned from the Government.  His crime?  A cynic might say it was to commit an error of judgement when there was not much else in the news to force the Opposition to concentrate on more important matters.

I am as puzzled as the next person as to where the truth lies between Andrew Mitchell’s very sketchy account of his engagement with the forces of law, order and security at the entrance to Downing Street a few weeks ago, and the apparent accounts of those forces themselves.  Mitchell denies the words attributed to him by those forces, but still felt guilty enough to apologise for whatever it was that he did say. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know the truth.

But what are we to make of the Labour Party’s pursuit of this issue as though it was a matter of the utmost importance?  Could it be that they knew if they kept on about it Mitchell would eventually have to resign – thus handing them a ‘victory’?  Even though I imagine most people groaned out loud whenever Ed Miliband returned to the theme at PM’s Questions. 

And was Ed right to suggest that Mitchell had been afforded treatment not granted to a common yob – who would have spent a night in the cells for verbally abusing a policeman?  That always seemed to me a slightly ridiculous assertion – as a quick look at any of the many documentaries currently on TV showing the police in action would demonstrate.  These fly-on-the-wall documentaries charting the forces of law and order’s everyday attempts to deal with drunken yobs on  a Friday night, or errant motorists, or groups of young people intent on making life miserable for the communities in which they live, all show that you can get away with a huge amount of abuse and foul language towards the police without being arrested.  I don’t agree with it, but it seems to be a fact. 

As with so many things, the reality of life seems to be very different from the picture painted, or imagined by our politicians.

 

 

How could this have been undetected – Part 1

I don’t wish to say much about Jimmy Savile, partly because I know no more than you, since my only sources of information are also available to you.  I might wonder whether the level of ‘evidence’ apparently available today is very different from that which was available to the various police forces who looked into allegations whilst he was still alive.  I might wonder if the standard of evidence required is now much lower since he is no longer with us, and since he can’t answer back.

But my chief worry in all this is how this could have failed to emerge whilst he was still alive, given the apparent scale of what went on?  I know all about his good works for charity and how he was regarded as beyond suspicion.  But it also seems that whilst many complaints were made, nobody made a connection between them and so a broad picture never emerged.  How could this have happened?  Surely some of those allegations came to the attention of the marauding and insatiable investigative reporters of the national media?  Why was it that they did not pursue their prey with the same vigour as they would almost anyone else?

 

How could this have been undetected – Part 2

And on the same track – although with a very different set of circumstances, how did the world of cycling fail to find out the truth of the Lance Armstrong doping allegations after so many investigations over so many years?  It’s incredible that a sport so intimately associated with drugs scandals over the years could have failed to spot the Armstrong situation, given the amount of testing done generally and, specifically, of the man himself.

Monday Moan 18

I’m just a common man …..

So, Ed Miliband is a common man, a man who has shared the life experiences of an ordinary person, who knows what most of the UK population have to face in their everyday lives – he is, therefore, one of us and someone we can trust.

Well yes, to a point.  I’m not sure that those who have described Haverstock school as ‘Labour’s Eton’ have got it right.  It is not and never was one of the best schools in London, arguably not even in Camden.  But it did and does seem to attract a reasonable number of the pink socialists of Hampstead and Primrose Hill, for whom sending their children to a Comprehensive school is a badge of honour, but let’s make sure it’s a good school.

The real difference with Ed, of course, was that he had a famous academic for a father, which must have helped with securing the attention of his teachers.  Ed also managed to move on from the school to both Oxford and Harvard universities – good for him, but hardly typical of your average UK voter.

More to the point, poor old Ed just doesn’t look the part, does he?  I mean, we should not be so superficial as to think that presentation and personality are all that matter, but it is undeniable that to be taken seriously as a potential Prime Minister you have to score well on both counts. 

That’s a shame for Ed.  It’s also a shame for the Labour Party and UK politics generally.  I can’t help thinking that if the names on the ballot paper for leader had not included 2 Milibands then the voters might not have got so confused and elected the wrong man.

 

 

Give us a story – any story will do

The big story on the eve of the Tory Conference was about Jeremy Hunt’s quote that he personally favoured a 12-week limit for abortions – just as he had voted for last time the issue came up in Parliament.  Nothing surprising there and hardly newsworthy really, even though Jeremy is now the Health Secretary.

As with other issues of what we might call belief or conscience, votes in Parliament on abortion are not cast along party political lines – the parties themselves do not have policies, leaving decisions on how to vote to individual MPs.

The Government has no plans to review the current arrangements so it’s a non-story – except for what it tells us about Jeremy Hunt.  Let’s see, he was the man who somehow emerged from the shambles of his handling of the BSkyB takeover fiasco still in his job, despite what almost everybody believed was, on the most charitable of views of his behaviour, thorough incompetence on his part.  

Of course, he was also the man who nearly nearly decapitated an innocent bystander at the start of the Olympics.

It really is a miracle that the man has risen to his current position, isn’t it?  On abortion he is quoted as saying, “my own view is that 12 weeks is the right point for it. It is just my view about that incredibly difficult question ………. I don't think the reason I have that view is for religious reasons.”

Hmm. Should we worry that he appears not to know whether or not he holds his views for religious reasons?  Maybe the truth is that he should have stopped his remarks after uttering the words “I don’t think.”

 

 

Who are these people?

What is it that makes some of our political leaders feel the need to have a group of supporters sitting behind them during their party conference speeches?  All the backdrop people get to see is the back of their leader yet they are supposed to look enthralled, hanging on every word. They must, above all else, stay awake, of course!

Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband took different approaches when selecting their supporters.  Nick’s looked like they were serious party workers, had heard it all before, and were less than inspired by what they heard.  Ed’s, on the other hand, looked like they were waiting to audition for Glee, all bright-eyed and hanging on Mr Leader’s every word.

 

But if they have to have them there, isn’t it rude not to turn round and acknowledge them during their speeches?