Bloody hell #2

Appropriate, perhaps, to be talking about blood on Halloween weekend, but in this case it's real blood rather than fake blood, and the lack of it rather than the gory surfeit so popular with many of the costumes you might be thinking of putting on at some stage.

I had a text yesterday from the Blood Donor service warning that stocks were low and asking for my help. So I popped along to their website (because I'm one of those shy retiring types who prefers to do things by typing and reading rather than talking to a real person on the phone) to see what was afoot.

As it happened I ended up calling them anyway because I had to register to use the site and their security procedures meant I had to wait to receive my login details through the post before I could do anything useful online, but that's not the point of this post.

No, the point is the headline text that greets you when you visit the blood web site:

96% of us rely on the other 4% to give blood.

What? Are they serious? Don't get me wrong I'm very proud to be part of that 4% but, really? Every single scheduled and emergency operation throughout the UK relies on just FOUR percent of the population for its blood? Crikey. Come on you lot, get off your arses and get on your backs and get donating! Wimps.

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?

The march of environmental fascism

For reasons I won't bore you with I was trawling through my posts in the Blogger window the other day when I came across the draft below. Somehow it had slipped unnoticed onto the second page without ever being published and, thus hidden, had languished there ever since. Which is a shame because (a) it was a finished post and (b) it's a rant, and everyone loves a good rant.

So I've bumped it and, although when it reads "yesterday" it actually means some time last year, I think the rest of it still holds. We've bought our own canvas bags for shopping now. Pass the hummus...


Hulme Asda were doling out warnings yesterday about their stopping supplying carrier bags from next week. This warning is accompanied by a relocation of the bag supplies under the till, thus making it more awkward to insist on using them. They've been replaced by "bag-for-life" type bags on sale for 5p, or 10p, or something.

Doubtless I'll get pilloried by the hummus-lovers, but (and pardon me for saying so) I think there are about a thousand environmental problems in need of more urgent attention than plastic bags. But sure enough, the "plastic bags" issue is the one this bankrupt government concentrate on, and the major supermarkets, with all their massed commercial might, are only too delighted to toady up to them and go along with it.

And why wouldn't they be? Supplying carrier bags for free has, until now, been seen as a cost of being in business. Here's a chance for them to pass that cost onto the hapless consumer, and LOOK GOOD IN THE PROCESS! Oh look at us, we're being environmentally conscientious. We're doing our bit for the planet. This is such utter b0ll0cks. How many billion pounds a year profit do these ba5tards make? I don't know, but almost certainly enough to swallow the entire cost of recycling every single plastic bag in the country. They could even afford to pay us a penny every time we reuse one, as an incentive. Oh look! Some of them HAVE been doing that already! Until the government let them off the hook by declaring the plastic carrier bag Public Enemy Number One. A nice, easy target. One whose destruction will only affect the poor old consumer, right at the bottom of the corporate food chain, who now has to cart around a dozen bags every trip, bags that will get dirtier and smellier as the weeks go by.

Meanwhile the number of 4x4s on the roads continues to climb, the icecaps keep on melting, China and India continue to pour millions of cubic metres of concrete, the rainforests are almost gone, fish are being caught at unsustainable levels and drug companies defy testing regimes and outright bans. But it's OK, the planet is safe. As long as you use a sustainable form of plastic bag. God.

Snouts in the trough

Politicians, eh? My dear old Dad always used to call it a dirty business, and by God he was right. Even if you accept for one minute the old chestnut trotted out on every news bulletin in the past few weeks - that people go into it in the hope they'll be able to make a difference - it's clear there's a whole bucketload of truth in the adage that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Among the miles of column inches and video footage that's poured from the media since this story broke, there are some who claim there are more important stories that should be grabbing our attention in these credit crunchy times, that the sums of money involved are relatively small (in government terms, if not in average people's salary terms) and that maybe not everyone at Westminster is to blame. A lot of this, for me, misses the point. The point is: integrity. The expectation of it, the lack of it, and its apparent replacement by hubris.

I can't say I'm happy to pay taxes. Is anyone? When I look at my pay slip each month and work out how much is taken away before I see any of it, I scratch my head and sigh. When I was younger I naively consoled myself with the thought that those responsible for spending the money we all grudgingly hand over were at least using it for the general good, to improve the lot of the community and to support the less fortunate. Years of watching them blow billions of pounds on fatuous schemes, illegal wars and town twinning put paid to that notion, leaving behind a much less attractive reality - that successive governments exhibit greater or lesser degrees of incompetence but in the end they are, all of them, incompetent to some degree.

But at least, I told (fooled) myself, they weren't benefiting personally. Were they? Well yes, of course they were. Where there's power and influence, there's money. And where there's money, there's the chance to pocket some of it. And where there's a chance, for most people, there's a temptation, a shrug, and a quiet trousering of the wad.

Credibility, my old boss used to say, is like virginity: one cock-up and it's gone forever. And throughout this sorry tale, there's been much more than one, as credibility and integrity have been shredded. Some random thoughts:

• The expenses fiddling had been going on for years. There's no evidence that anything would have changed if there'd been no leak, despite there being gross, obvious and ongoing breaches of rules, lack of correct monitoring and a general approach of grabbing whatever they could
• When it began to occur to them that we might find out, they continued to do everything possible to cover it up. Parliamentary Ombudsmen who got too close to the truth were sacked, or prevented from doing their job. Motions were passed to try to prevent the application of the FoI Act to MPs. The general impression, far from being one of gravitas and integrity, was more like the behaviour of ants when their nest is uncovered. Scrabbling around trying to hide the treasure
• Once the truth was out, suddenly everyone was a "victim of the system." I've done nothing wrong, I obeyed the rules, why didn't someone tell me I couldn't claim for decorating, moat cleaning, 17th-century mahogany hand-carved furniture, etc, etc. For people who supposedly have the intelligence and leadership qualities necessary to run a country, this was at least disingenuous. I've seen better behaviour from schoolchildren.
• It soon became clear that claiming to only have followed rules wasn't going to wash with the public, who not surprisingly expected more from their leaders. So did they come clean? No. They started looking for a scapegoat, of course. Step forward Speaker Michael Martin, who was required to fall on his sword as the man in charge of the fees office, which presumably was staffed exclusively by people who couldn't tell the difference between a legitimate expense and a fiddle. Today's Matt cartoon in the Telegraph was spot on. Two MPs are standing in the shadow of the House of Commons and one says to the other: "As soon as I saw what I'd been up to, I knew the Speaker had to go"
• Even though the solution to the problem should be very simple - it is one, after all, that every major company in the country solves on a daily basis - the arch complicator Gordon Brown as usual managed to make it sound like a problem so complex that it challenged the brightest minds in government. (*cough*) It was going to take weeks, maybe months to come up with a solution. Remember this: it takes a really intelligent, innovative and astute person to analyse a situation and come up with a simple solution. Just about anyone can think of a way of solving a problem that is long-winded, complicated, and difficult to manage.
• Finally, we had a bit of a backlash from the smarting MPs who didn't like the thought of their gravy train being derailed. One overblown ego even went so far as to claim that the whole expenses debacle was driven by jealousy, just because "I've got a very big house." I don't know about you, but I don't want the country to be run by people like that. People who think the country owes them whatever they choose to take, that privileges are theirs by right and the rest of us should keep our noses out of their business because we're clearly too thick, or too jealous, or too insignificant. Politicians serve the people, not the other way round, and servitude exhibits humility, integrity, compassion and hard work.
  

So what's the answer?

One of the things that has many people scratching their heads is the entire question of having two homes, where one of them is effectively paid for on expenses. What is that all about? There are countless thousands of people who have to work in the City, and live elsewhere. They commute. They work just as long - or longer - hours than politicians, often for much less money. If they don't commute daily, they stay in hotels and claim the cost of that on expenses. Works perfectly well for them, why not for MPs?

If there's a question of security, or for some unfathomable reason London hotels are not suitable for politicians despite being just fine for every other businessman and woman in the capital, then build somewhere, or compulsorily purchase somewhere, and fit it out for the purpose. Either way it's got to be cheaper than the current scheme. And they don't need flock wallpaper and 17th-century desks. They're supposed to be working people. Regular furniture from IKEA is good enough for us, so it's good enough for them. There's only 600-odd of the buggers, and they don't all need another London pad anyway.

And finally, and probably most surprising to the general public, is this whole business of the incompetence or downright fraudulent behaviour in the fees office. Anyone who has worked for a UK company will have had to submit expenses for travel, accommodation, or small purchases needed in the course of doing their job. The Chief Executive of McDonalds, Steve Easterbrook, made exactly this point on Question Time last week. Why is it so hard? He, or any UK business leader, could solve this broken process in a week, given chance and the will to solve it. But maybe that's just the problem? They don't really want it solved. Not by "an outsider." They want another arcane, secretive, self-monitored scheme so they can carry on with their snouts in the trough while giving the impression of reform.

People are our greatest assets

I can't hear that phrase without a feeling of creeping cynicism. It's a mantra that HR departments and directors always trot out when they want to impress the workforce with how well we're being treated. Like the BBC hype surrounding their execrable new drama Bonekickers however, the message does not reflect the medium.

I arrived at work this morning - the first time I've been into the office for some weeks - to find a corporate email in my box. It was about business travel. Some poor graduate trainee has been given the task of analysing the business mileage data for the last year, and the message is that the top 10 drivers are responsible for 41% of total mileage claims and spend 62.5 days per year in their cars.

These incredible statistics, along with averages for the rest of us, are used to promote the message that we should all be more careful at deciding whether we drive or not, and consider alternatives such as telephones (no! really?), voice conferences, video conferences or instant messaging. So what drives the corporate need to achieve a reduction in miles driven? Is it concern for those poor employees, trapped in their cars for nearly 9 weeks of the year? Is it perhaps a recognition that we need a better work-life balance? Are they trying to reduce stress levels among the employee population? Or maybe it's a simple case of wanting to save money?

No. None of these things. They've pledged to reduce the corporate carbon footprint, and this is one of the most significant contributors.

Give me strength.

Insignia - you drive; we nag

I made the mistake of giving the local Vauxhall dealer my email address, so every now and then I receive a gentle reminder that it's been a while since I bought a car. The reminder usually includes a supposedly tempting offer I can't refuse and/or an "irresistible" graphic of their latest climate change inducing product.

Nothing, however, could have prepared me for what arrived in my much-abused Inbox yesterday.

This is the Vauxhall Insignia. "Designed to make life easier," the marketing blurb trumpets, "new Insignia is packed with technological innovation:" and then proceeds to supply a bulleted list of features clearly intended to make the prospective car buyer's mouth water.

My mouth watered alright. Only it was the kind of watering that usually precedes vomit. Especially when I reached the final point.

"The Front Camera System even reads speed limit signs and displays a reminder"

Whoop-di-do! You know, that's really useful. Cos my eyes aren't that good any more and I find it hard to read those little round red "30" signs when I'm doing 85 past my local primary school. So a dashboard reminder is guaranteed to make me think "oh - 30 is it? Gosh, I'd better slow down right away."

Good grief.

'Course, it's only a matter of time before that "Front Camera System" is connected directly to the throttle and rather than displaying a reminder it will simply adjust the speed for you. Welcome to Stepford.

Feeling congested

So it looks as though Manchester will be getting a congestion charge scheme after all. Not until 2012 or thereabouts, but with the amount of bribery subsidy on offer from the government, it's looking likely. The ten local councils all have to vote on it too, but since 7 out of 10 have already declared themselves in favour, there's no hope there either.

No word yet on what the scheme will mean for residents, although a local pundit on the radio today suggested that only 30% of the local population would end up paying. By this I think he meant many people will be able to "avoid" the charge by using public transport (which until they extend the tram system both South and East won't be an option for either of us, and unless they install guards on every tram to protect commuters carrying laptops from marauding hoodies I wouldn't use even if the routes were in place) or travelling outside the charge hours (7.00 to 9.30 in the morning and 4.30 to 6.30 in the evening - again not really an option for us).

We live inside the M60 orbital, so presumably leaving this area in the morning and heading out of town won't incur a charge, but if I were to be working at home and giving Nikki a lift to work, I suspect I'd incur a £2 fee per day simply for returning home from Northenden, and if I'm going into the office too, I'll pick up a charge when I leave the orbital and head into town from the other side. Sheesh.

An opposition pundit pointed out that drivers already raise £45 billion of revenue a year in one way or another, and this is just another tax on the poor motorist. With the prospect of a change in government in a couple of years' time, maybe this will all be scrapped. Or maybe by the time it's implemented everyone will be so hacked off with the cost of driving there'll be a mass non-payment protest like there was with the poll tax. A lad(*) can dream.

*Use of the word 'lad' not meant to imply age restriction. No warranty implied or given. Interpretation subject to status. Terms and conditions apply.

Budge up a bit

We've had to be a bit creative about where to store all the dining room furniture while the new lounge is created. My Mum's treasured dining table now has... err... pride of place in the... err... hall. Tucked away behind it is the mirror that we took off the walnut sideboard to make it easier to move. I could easily get used to having a table here actually - it's real handy when bringing in the groceries!

Not quite so handy is the "old" lounge, where the large sofa is pushed out to make room for the main dining table, shorn of its legs, and at the back of the room the drinks cabinet looms ominously over the sofa, cutting out a surprising amount of light to say that it's positioned end-on. The smaller sofa hasn't avoided disturbance either: it's been moved away from the wall to accommodate the girls' PC and some of the dining chairs.

Finally the rest of the sideboard, minus its mirror, has taken up residence in the kitchen. Much to the cat's disgust, as she now has to eat and drink on the other side of the room. Not much of a disturbance you might think, but she's getting on you know. She prefers routine. Probably best if she moves out then - lol - there's precious little routine around here!

The ultimate irony

My Mum got home from hospital this evening - two days later than originally estimated owing to picking up an infection in her hip from the operating theatre. Presumably it wasn't one of the scary ones - MRSA or C. difficile - or she'd still be in there. Or worse. Anyway, she's home. Still in a lot of pain, but they've given her pain meds for that. And here's where the "ultimate irony" comes in. For a woman with a lifelong phobia against hypodermic needles (she couldn't even watch when I had my inoculations as a child), the pain medication they've given her is morphine. Injectable morphine. Which she has to administer herself. Ouch.

Once a day for the next six days, straight into the stomach. Can she do it? Yes she can. Already done it, to her amazement. If it's true that everyone's on Earth to learn at least one lesson or face one fear, this might just be hers.

A whole new world

We were leafletted the other day to inform us that a new branch of Slimming World was starting to meet at the social club just around the corner from us. Now I've never been one for "organised slimming." My Mum went to Weightwatchers years ago and I have to admit it was her most successful dieting experience ever, until she reached the age where her appetite said cheerio and headed off over the hill never to return - now she never stops bragging about how slim she is, despite the fact that it's not due to any herculean effort on her part.

But the thought of a roomful of women (because let's be honest, at least 95% of them would be) clapping each other as their new weights were read out has been enough to keep me away...until now.

Having been on an upward trend weight-wise for the past 15 years or so (you might even say for the past 50 lol), and having watched a similar "improvement" in Nikki since we got together, we came to the mutual conclusion that it might be worth a punt and so, at 7pm on the dot, we made the long walk around the corner (it's about 300 yards) to the parish centre and poked our noses through the door.

A large circle of chairs had been put out in the function room, surrounding a table laden with books and magazines featuring people like Gloria, who had lost 4 stone. She looked very happy about it, which is more than could be said for the people occupying the first ten or so chairs in the circle. We took our seats and then spotted a coffee bar. Unfortunately, the urn ran out of hot water just as I reached the head of the queue, but as I didn't have any other pressing engagements, I waited while the urn was refilled and reboiled. Well, partially boiled, which was fine for Nikki as she was having coffee. My tea tasted like warm water that had passed through an oily rag and I made a mental note to also have coffee in the event we should ever return.

Turned out that the meeting was being run by a new girl. A very popular new girl, since she seemed to know most of the twenty people who were now occupying seats, but she needs to learn something about starting a meeting on time. 7pm it said on the flyer and we didn't really get into our stride until 8. One of her assistants handed out members' packs and invited us to fill in our details (we held fire), after which we got started. The leader read from the info pack, telling us all about green days and "original" days (I'm sure they used to be called red days - maybe that's too political for them now, but if that's the case they should have come up with another name for green days too), healthy extras, syns and all sorts of other stuff that blurred into one as I became more and more desperate to leave.

My estimate of the male-to-female ratio had been bang on (there was one other bloke there, and he was, how shall I put it, not exactly "blokey") and when we got to the part where the regulars started having their weight loss shouted out, and each result was greeted with a resounding round of applause, I turned to Nikki in utter despair. Luckily I could see she'd come to the same conclusion, and at the earliest opportunity we beat a hasty retreat.

Don't get the wrong impression though - we're determined to do it. We just don't want to put ourselves through that every week, and have to pay for the privilege! No, uber-researcher that she is, within a couple of milliseconds Nikki had already found, bid and won all the SW resources we could ever need off eBay (she even found someone who was selling the SW website password each week for £1.50 a pop - she only has to sell it three times to cover her membership fee!) and had downloaded a slew of recipes.

The next few weeks will tell if we have the staying power to "go it alone." Just the thought of possibly having to admit defeat and return to that awful meeting will be enough for me, I'm certain!

How's it swinging?

After my audition last week, I wondered how long it would take Dave to make his decision. I was in Bracknell today for a morning meeting, so when I turned my phone back on afterward I'd had a message from him.

Ever the gentleman, he apologised for leaving "bad news" in a voicemail, but said he'd decided on balance to stick with a female vocalist. Can't say I was surprised after the conversations we'd had last week. It would have been a lot of work for him to transpose all those arrangements - judging from the pile of music they all carry around with them there must be over a hundred numbers in their repertoire - and as I said before there's always the glamour angle to consider.

He was gracious enough to say that if they hadn't had a female interested they would definitely have gone with me. You might think that coming second out of two is not such a great result, but I took some comfort from his words, although I really wasn't bothered either way. In fact on reflection I think it is the right result. If I'm honest I could see myself getting bored with very quickly. Swing isn't really my genre, the Friday factor would have come into play too, and it would have been wrong to put the band to all the trouble of learning new arrangements only for me to walk away after a few weeks.

Bob's not your uncle

Our cat Mimi, who we "inherited" with the house, has been exhibiting a grossly enhanced appetite of late. Since she's an "outdoor" cat I immediately suspected a worm infestation, and bought some worm treatments from the supermarket. Bob Martin's to be precise. Two varieties: some stuff for tapeworms that you squirt on the back of the cat's neck (don't ask me how that works - you're the one on the Internet) and a separate and more traditional treatment for roundworm - granules to mix with the food.

I've had cats for over thirty years and I've never had much success with the "mix with the food" variety. Companies that make this stuff never learn. Cats have a much more sensitive sense of smell than we do. You sprinkle these grey granules over the food, mix it well in, cat walks up, takes one sniff and steps back smartly as if to say "I'm not going anywhere near THAT!", turns round and walks away.

In my experience it matters not how long you leave the stuff down, the animal would rather starve than deign to eat any of it. However in our case, it's dried food, so it remains to be seen which of us has the stronger will...