Insurers have a laugh

Coincidentally I've just received renewal notices for the buildings and contents insurance on our place AND on my Mum's house, which is currently in the process of being emptied ready for sale, but isn't quite empty yet (by several tons).

Our monthly premium has crept up by a few pounds every year, which I put down to inflation, and increased charges owing to the scrotes who regularly scam money off the insurers, but this time round I noticed that - compared to my Mum's quote - our people don't show an annual charge. So I worked it out, and had to pick my jaw off the desk. Suddenly 5 years after we've moved here, we're paying over a thousand pounds a year for combined buildings and contents insurance.

Hang on, that can't be right. The bill for Mum's place is less than 400. OK, it's a smaller place and Nottingham isn't *quite* so bad for crime as Manchester, but even so that looks a bit ridiculous. Let's do a quick check on confused.com. See if they can redress the balance of all those irritating adverts they've subjected me to over the years. Hey look! They can!!

Five minutes on the Internet and I've saved us about £600 a year. Love it.

I'm sure you'll be able to predict what the original insurers said when I phoned to cancel. "Well, we could look at the underwriting - I'm sure we'll be able to do it cheaper." Yeah. Thanks. Maybe you should have thought of that before assuming I'd carry on letting you rip us off.

Pensions again

At a time when I'm feeling particularly sore about my own pension - having had it ripped out from under me after 33 years by a company that took years of "pension holidays", and variously used the fund to pay off criminally negligent senior executives and to bankroll redundancy programmes - here comes a Panorama expose showing that I wouldn't have been much better off in a privately-held scheme.

Panorama: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/10_october/04/panorama.shtml

Pay in 120,000 over 40 years; lose almost 100,000 in fees and commissions.

How is it even legal to have 80% of your money taken away from a pot that is supposed to look after you in your retirement? Why are the fees so high? Because the average length any particular share is held is now one year, and buying and selling the porfolio contents - the "churn" - attracts bumper brokerage charges and fees. And then there's the bonuses to pay, even if the fund hasn't performed well. And finally - surprise surprise - many of the investments involve kick-backs to the fund managers, incentivising them (see how effortlessly he invents new verbs!) to leave your money in under-performing investments because they pay the biggest bribes.

Yet another example of how the financial world stinks, and lines its own pockets at the expense of the ordinary guy struggling to put enough by to be comfortable in old age. Is it just me, or is this kind of thing becoming WAY too common these days?

Beeb under fire

The culture and media Secretary has recently announced a review of the BBC by the Audit Office, which potentially may result in a reduction of the licence fee. Cue the predictable whining about "Tory cuts" from socialists and luvvies both within and without the Beeb, and the raising of spectres of shredded drama budgets and how we need to "protect our beloved and sacred Beeb from the wicked Tory axe."

I'd like to peer for a moment behind the curtain of party political bollocks and bring some calm rationality to the debate. Before we start I should nail my colours to the mast: I'm a firm fan of the BBC. I willingly pay my licence fee, and am happy that for the princely sum of 40p per day I get access to a load of quality, ad-free output, as well as a load of other crap I wouldn't watch, or listen to, in a million years. But hey, there are 26 million households also forking out their 40p a day and they're perfectly entitled to watch crap if they want to.

But that's not what this is about.

1. Every publicly-funded organisation, government department, local authority, or whatever is coming under financial scrutiny right now. To suggest that the BBC, which is effectively (if indirectly) funded by public money, should be exempt from this scrutiny just because it's in the "arts and entertainment" sector, is patently ridiculous. We're paying for it, we should be assured that we're getting value for our money. We can debate how that value is perceived in the BBC's dramatic or entertainment output, and I don't for one second believe the government should (or even can) impose any controls over that, but on the business side Auntie should be as well run as possible, and should be able to prove it.
2. Every large organisation embodies a proportion of waste. It's as inevitable as a thunderstorm in an English summer. Some are better than others but ALL will have some waste in them somewhere, and the longer the time that elapses between audits, the worse that waste will be. Whether it's more efficient procurement, industry standard benchmarking of costs and remuneration, better management structures, more effective administration and on, and on, every business can benefit from close scrutiny from time to time. The Beeb is no different in this respect, and a lot of the savings could, I predict, be made without impacting the core BBC business - radio and television output - at all. (Whether or not they WILL be implemented in this way depends on how much the implementers have a political axe to grind. I wouldn't, for instance, put it past some people to try to trash something like The Archers to give "the cuts" the maximum profile and impact among the listening public)
3. While we're on the subject of "core BBC business" - what is it that we actually expect from the BBC? What is the BBC FOR? Because as time goes on, simple focus on that key question can be lost, and corporations of the size of the BBC can easily fall into a mindset of "here's how much money the licence fee generates, now how can we spend it?" Which will usually lead, over time, to growth in non-core sectors of the business, leeching money from the pot and generating apparently legitimate business cases for ever-increasing licence fees. It's good every so often to take a step back and examine what direction the Beeb is moving in: what business, what outputs, what is really important? What do we - the people who pay for it - want it to be for? 
4. I hope the auditors will examine the thorny issue of "competitive salaries". No matter how much the corporation's leaders bleat about it, the BBC is not in competition with commercial media. They should exercise some discretion and play on the cachet of working for Britain's best-loved entertainment provider. The most high profile example of a hyperinflated salary deal was Jonathon Ross's £6million-a-year wedge, but he's gone now, so who's next in the firing line? Whoever it is, they don't need to be paid that much. Other recent examples of well-reported leavers - Brummie tosser Adrian Chiles and his vacuous sidekick Christine Bleakley - have been gone for a while. Do we miss them? No. Are their replacements paid as much as they were? No. Has that made a difference to the "quality" (*cough*) of The One Show? No. I rest my case. Anyone - and I use that word advisedly - anyone can present a TV programme. Assuming they can read. They are not "celebrities." They are not "stars." In a way, they're a bit like receptionists. They sit at the notional front desk of TV programmes and show people where to go. And we all know how well-valued receptionists are, don't we? TV presenters deserve similar wages. There, that's a few million lopped off the budget right there.
5. Finally - because this is turning (has turned?) into a lengthy diatribe and you'll be wanting your lunch - on the subject of licence refunds. It's been said that if and when the audit finds significant savings, these will be given back to the licence payer as a refund. No, thanks. I think I'm on pretty safe ground when I suggest that the overwhelming majority of licence payers can do without the couple of quid a year they would probably get back. Keep it. Make some good programmes with it. Don't give it to Ross, or Norton, or Wogan, or Chiles or anyone like them. Don't set up a new department. Don't buy a new manager, director, or executive. Make more programmes. Make better programmes. That's all we want from the Beeb, really. Isn't it?

I've made $10!!

It's pretty quiet in my corner of the world. I have a few regular readers (that I'm very grateful for - thanks guys!) and a few others happen by from various parts of the world, but I'm not one of those blogs that is read avidly by millions. In fact I'm so not into that whole thing that I couldn't even quote you the name of one of "those" blogs. So it was very much with tongue in cheek that I installed Google AdSense almost two years ago, more out of curiosity than anything.

Imagine my surprise then when I received an automated email from them today saying that now my account had reached the dizzying heights of $10, I needed to verify a few details in case they ever need to actually pay me. I thought it was a phishing scam at first, especially when I logged into my AdSense account and saw the balance was, as always, $0. That was until I realised it was showing the earnings for the day. As soon as I clicked on "all time earnings" the balance shot wayyyyyyy up. To $10.27.

So yes, I've verified my phone number, and nominated a bank account, and I'm in the process of verifying my address. Nice to know, with all this verifying going on, that my ten bucks will be secure from fraudsters.

Unfortunately, since Google don't pay out until the balance reaches $100, I won't actually be seeing anything for a while. I signed up in April 2007. Call it two years ago. So on current form it'll be around 2027 when I collect my earnings. I can put it towards my retirement party! Still, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so thanks to all my visitors for all your clicking!

No snow!

And there it was: gone! After listening to the 10 o'clock forecast warning that another two or three inches were expected (that'll be a disappointment for someone) and that some areas could have up to a foot (way too much of a good thing - someone else would be choking on it), what did we have?

A huge melt. There's nothing left.

Which, if repeated across the whole of the UK in these credit-crunchy times would be A Good Thing. At least, if yesterday's news is anything to go by. 6 million people failing to get to work, £1.2 billion lost to the crumbling economy, roads closed or impassable, trains, planes and buses cancelled, people full of the great British spirit battling their way to their local train station only to find that's as far as they're going to get. We wouldn't have won the war if we'd had this namby-pamby attitude back then, I tell you! Cough! Splutter!

Sorry. Got a bit carried away there. Still, it is faintly ridiculous isn't it? It's not like snow in February is exactly unexpected. It was even forecast. I heard Ken Livingstone on the news (mind you, he'll say anything to beat the drum won't he? Still smarting from having to hand over to Boris I expect) blaming the worst of the travel problems on councils who didn't want to send the gritters out on Sunday and pay overtime. What a load of bollocks. I was out and about on Sunday night and followed several gritters all over the North-west.

I tried to work out, in my usual geeky way, what proportion of the UK workforce 6 million came to. There's about 65 million of us altogether. If you assume a linear distribution of ages from 0 to 80 (I know that's not right, but for the sake of argument...) that makes 34 million of working age (over 18 and under 60), of which there's about 2 million unemployed (32) and an unknown number who don't work, or try to, at all. But even if you leave the figure at 32 million that's one-fifth of the entire workforce couldn't get to work! Crikey.

Rather madly I'd decided to stick to my usual routine and go in to the office yesterday. I could have worked at home, but as it turned out (and not surprisingly) a much larger than normal number of my colleagues had elected to do that, and overloaded the corporate VPN shortly before 9am, so I wouldn't have been able to get much done anyway. I really needed some light relief while negotiating the roads into the office, and it was duly provided by Radio 4, where they read out an email from a listener pointing out that we were now suffering the 21st-century equivalent of traffic chaos as well as the more traditional sort.

Yes, not only were the roads blocked and the public transport cancelled all over the place, but the traffic and travel WEBSITES were all crashing too, under the load of people trying to find out whether they should set out or not. What irony! What symmetry! The British do farce SO well.

Tis the season to be merry - #2

Nikki's works' do migrated, as it does, to a different hotel this year, only this time to one we'd used before, three years ago: the Worsley Marriott. We were quite happy with this, as it's barely a 20-minute drive from home and we remembered how good the breakfasts are there. A strange thing to concentrate on when you're supposedly going there for a Christmas do, you might think, and I couldn't possibly comment. Except to say that Christmas dos are all too often much of a muchness, but a good breakfast is beyond price.

Anyway we had a relaxed start to the day - two pots of coffee and lots of 'puter time - and took a leisurely drive over there after a late breakfast, arriving around 3pm, checking in and making our way to the Chimney Bar.

Since our last visit the rooms have all been refurbished and are now very comfortably appointed, with a massive bed, good choice of TV channels and a well-equipped bathroom. Nice touch that the room's lobby had a motion-activated light too, which came on as soon as we opened the door and remained on long enough to find the other light switches.

A couple of Nikki's colleagues were already waiting for us in the bar so we treated ourselves to a sandwich lunch and a couple of beers, soaking up the atmosphere and generally relaxing. Soon it was time to return to the room and put on our posh duds, joining the rest of the company for a pre-dinner drink before walking through to the main restaurant area for dinner.

It's impressive how a hotel restaurant can serve up several hundred meals and not only have them all still hot when they reach the table, but also looking appealing and appetising. It's not always the case, but the Marriott did us proud. Tomato soup with roasted red pepper, turkey dinner with all the usual trimmings, and Christmas pud in brandy sauce for me, while Nikki had the same, but branched out to the chocolate mousse for dessert. If I was being uber-picky I'd say the roast potatoes were a bit on the hard side (Nikki reckoned they'd been roasted in advance and then microwaved too long), but other than that in mass catering terms the meal was very nice.

We spent a frustrating couple of hours trying to dodge the result of the X Factor final - the DJ insisting that he would bring us news as soon as he got it! Eek! - before retiring to bed at a far too sensible 11.30pm. Don't know whether the credit crunch is biting, or there's been a general realisation that it's crazy to stay up until the small hours getting drunk at hotel bar prices, but the party area was distinctly less busy when we went to bed than in previous years.

Having retired early and only consumed 4 or 5 drinks each, we were (as usual) awake long before dawn, and hence the first to arrive for breakfast almost on the dot of 7am. The breakfast staff concealed their surprise very well at seeing someone awake at that hour after a Christmas party, and the egg chef cooked me up two perfect fried eggs to go with the excellent sausage, hash browns, beans, fried slice, juice, coffee and toast, after which we checked out and arrived back home around quarter to nine! Very civilised and a perfect time to make another pot of coffee and settle back to watch our unspoiled recording of the X Factor. It was a close call, but we made it!

Every cloud dumps on the struggling artist

As if it wasn't hard enough trying to break into the literary market, news reaches me today of another dire effect of the credit crunch. According to Writersmarket, now is not a good time to be a struggling author, as publishing houses tighten their belts and rely (even more) on trusted names and stories within an ill-defined "comfort zone."

So basically, unless you're Bill Bryson or Ian Rankin, (which clearly I'm not), you may as well look forward to a few more months of rejections, whether or not your ms is any good. Still, look on the bright side, eh? As we all know, writers write because they have to, not because they need the money or the recognition or anything. ;-;