What has happend to British manners?

I am frankly puzzled why some people have no manners. The world would be a much better place if we all practised being polite and being honest. Time and time again, I meet people who do not have the decency to respond politely to me. For instance, at work we have a radio comminication system that you can set for each individual Station. It is easy to accidentally switch the channel from your own Station to another one. When I hear someone request information on my Station channel, and know it isn't one of my staff, I politely let them know they are broadcasting on my Station, and they should check which channel they are on. What I would like to happen is the person to radio back and say thank you. What normally happens is dead silence! It's as if they are embarrassed to acknowledge they have heard me!

Another annoying habit people have is their way avoiding having to say no! I arranged to see someone today. As common courtesy, I phoned them an hour before I am due to be there to see if it is still convenient. Their first reaction is, "Sorry, I can't hear you, you're breaking up." Then the line goes dead. When I ring back again, they pick the phone up, as soon as I speak, they put the phone down on me. When I phone a third time, their answer phone is switched on! And all I was trying to do was confirm it was OK to go and see them! How difficult would it have been for them to say "no!".

Transparency of TV competitions

Normally, I avoid watching the TV reality/celebrity shows, where the outcome of who gets voted off relies upon telephone voting. The only exception is Dancing On Ice.

I have always wondered why none of the TV companies will show the actual number of phone votes each contestant gets. They used to do it many years ago. So why have they stopped? I am sure if the audience actually saw how many votes their favourite performer received, they would be more likely to pick up the phone and vote, if their favourite was in danger of being voted off the TV programme. Surely it would be in the TV programmmes interest to increase the revenue it gains from the phone calls, and also it would be more transparent about the voting process. Then they couldn't be accused of fixing the competititon.

I have left a couple of messages to the Dancing On Ice presenter Philip Schofield, in the hope he may redirect me to someone who could actually give a valid response to my question. Who knows, I might be lucky and get a reply from him!

The Mortician

Nearly two years ago, I was approached to invest in a movie called the Mortician. Just before Christmas they commenced filming in 3D over in New Orleans. They also did a documentary "The Making of" program that will be included on the DVD release later. I was sent a link to a few clips uploaded onto YouTube. It doesn't show very much about the plot, just some of the actors and production crew. You can see the clips below -




Sometime in the summer the film will be premiered on London, and I will be invited to attend, and meet all the actors! I may have to hire a dinner jacket and bow tie for the occasion! I think I had better have a word with my wife, as she will also need to have a special dress for the occasion!

One step closer to my holiday project!

Just bought 16 boxes of ceramic wall tiles for the bathroom! Nearly broke the shopping trolley bringing them out to the car! The type of tile I bought is a Natural Marble effect. I worked out that I would need about 700 tiles to do the entire room, and each box contained 44 tiles. I may have left myself very little room for any errors or breakages!

I will take some pictures of the en-suite before I start my decorating project, and hopefully I will report on my progress as I go along (my wife and daughter are on holiday abroad for 2 weeks, and they want to know what I am doing while they are away!).

At the moment, I keep thinking of all the things I need to do in the form of preparation, for instance, removing the cupboard, toilet roll holder (these are easy), radiator, toilet cistern, and basin (these involve playing with water pipes!). Then I will have to remove the old shower cubicle, and remove the wallpaper (could get very messy)!

I have a DIY book that I am looking into, to help give me some hints and tips to make my task as risk free as I can possibly make it. The only unknown element in this project is my own ability to do the work! Whatever happens, I will have an interesting couple of weeks ahead of me!

British Justice... What British Justice??

Whilst walking home form the bus stop in the next village with our dog Bonnie, I came across some damage to a building caused by some mindless vandals. This made me consider the state of the British Justice system.

There is seldom a day goes by when there is an article in the daily press highlighting the inconsistencies of British Justice. It all depends on how convincing the defence or prosecution Lawyers are in twisting the evidence in their favour.

I would love to see a change in the way some crimes are treated. For instance theft and vandalism. In most cases, the criminals are given a fine, or community service orders. Only the most prolific offenders are given a custodial sentence. Even then, they may be given a few years, possibly 3 or 4, but the sentence is invariably reduced, for a variety of reasons. In reality they will only serve less than half the original length allocated by the Judge.

I know this would never be accepted by Human Rights brigade, but why not have a simple system of Justice for thieves and vandals. Any thief or vandal must pay back the cost, of what they stole or damaged. The court costs should be included in the total amount to be repaid.

Now most of the criminals, would be unable to pay back that sort of money. So then they are sent to prison, and must work at some trade within the prison. Their labour is given a value that is consistent with the value payed to law abiding citizens who get paid with board and lodgings included in their pay. The criminals will then have to stay in prison until the debt is paid. It is entirely up to them how quickly they want to get out of prison. The harder they work, the quicker they get out of prison. More importantly, the criminals will know exactly how long they will be incarcerated for. It will be entirely up to them how long they stay in prison for, and not a decision for some parole board that the British Tax payer has to pay their salaries, so that they can make the decision to let the criminal out prison early, to allow the criminal to continue his/her life of crime.

This system would have many advantages. It would discourage repeat offending, as most criminals steal because they don't want to work and buy the items they covet. Vandals have no idea of the cost of the damage they cause. I think they would certainly think twice about causing more damage knowing the consequences of their actions.

The only problem I can see with this idea, is that there is simply not enough prison space, to implement this kind if Justice. Also, probably the Prison service is not geared up to provide this form of punishment. I am also sure the thieves and vandals would not want this sort of Justice!

Utility Man goes International... Well, sort of?!

My colleague WarrenJoffre had added a link to another blog called "Along the Central Line". Out of curiosity, I took a look at the sight, and I was immediately struck with the language translator gadget available. Between WarrenJoffre and myself, we tried to install our own translators to our sites, with out any success.

Every time I installed a translator, either it would not show the little flag icons, or it simply wouldn't translate at all! At first I thought it might be because of the computer at work, which has severe Internet restrictions, but I had the same problem when I got home.

I then spent a couple of hours searching the Internet for the html code that would actually do what I wanted it to do. Eventually I found the code, and now I have the translation facility placed on my Blog! The original code only had 9 languages available. I needed it to have one extra language - Russian, so that my wife's family could read it if they wanted to.

Another hour of Internet searching, and I finally found the code for the Russian translator. Now if anyone knows how to find the code for any other languages, then I would be glad to hear from you. For some reason, when I try and add the code on this page, it changes when it is posted. So I don't know yet how to get the HTML code to stay as it is when posted and not get partially executed, as it seems to be at present.

Where's the Grease Monkey when you need one?

Where I live, there has been very little vandalism in the area over the past 13 years. So it was a surprise to discover some mindless idiot had decided to break off the aerial on my car right at the base. I now cannot receive any radio signals until I do something about it!

It is many years since I had to replace a car aerial. and I know it is never an easy task to do, as the wiring is always a sod to get connected from the aerial to the radio. As my years advance, I find the thought of contorting myself into the inaccessible places within bodywork is distinctly unappealing.


Now I could probably cheat and find an old wire coat hanger and shove it into the remains of the present aerial. Or I could pay someone else to do all the work. For some reason, I decided to attempt the task myself! Big mistake, HUGE mistake!!!!


First, I had to take the old aerial out. I had to remove the plastic wheel arch cover over the front wheel to gain access to where the aerial was attached to the bodywork. I discovered that where the plastic was attached, the metal had all corroded, and I got a massive shower of rusty wheel arch all over me as I tried to remove the plastic! Now there is no way I can re-attach the plastic to the wheel arch again, unless I go and get new metal welded back on again!


Oh well, now I have got this far, I might as well continue and worry about putting everything back together again later. Inside the car, I managed to get to all the wiring behind the dashboard, and located the aerial wire. The next thing I did was attach a piece of string to the wire securely and then went back to front of the car and successfully pulled the wire with the string attached all the way out, and removed the old aerial completely. Phew, half way there!

After all the trouble of getting the old aerial out, I though I might as well make it worth my while and replace the old aerial with a new "motorised" version. "No one will be able to break this off" I said to myself. When I purchased the new aerial, I discovered that I had a new set of problems to overcome!

When I got the aerial out of the box, it had about 1.3 metres of aerial cable attached. It also had 3 wires for the electrical operation. These wires were approximately 6 inches (15cm) long. How I am expected to connect these wires to the radio, live and negative points, in the car, is something I couldn't work out. Now I have to rummage around the garage to find some extra lengths of wire to extend the wiring so that I can connect the aerial to the correct parts of the car.

Putting everything back again, has definitely been a challenge for me. The weather hasn't been of much help either. Every time I go out to the car, somebody turns the tap on and I get a soaking! For some reason electricity and water do not mix! So my attempts at finishing this task is now dragging on over a number of days.

Having managed to add extension wires to the original ones at the aerial, I then start rummaging around inside the car to find the correct wires to attach my new leads to. At first it was quite easy as I had plenty of space to get to the wires under the steering column. It was when I needed to connect a wire to the radio that I came across a major obstacle.

There simply was no room to feed a wire through behind the dash board to anywhere close to the radio. So I had to remove the centre console to be able to get to the wiring behind the radio. Only after removing enumerable plastic bits, and dozens of screws, was I able to peer into the dark depths inside. (I am now distinctly worried! I didn't realise that the car had been secretly trying to build its own version of "Short Circuit"!)

I managed to connect all the wires to the correct places. I was even smart enough to test that the aerial actually goes up and down when I switch the radio on, before I started to put everything back together! So after about 5 days, I now have a fully functioning motorised car aerial, a rusty wheel arch that has suddenly become more religious than I will ever be, and a mixed sense of accomplishment, tempered with chagrin that I have caused more damage to the car than the vandal originally did!

Water, Water, Everywhere!

A colleague of mine sent me an e-mail with a link to a PowerPoint presentation about bottled water. With all the media hype of how global warming is going to ruin our planet, and how we must all do something about it NOW! This message about how much energy and resources are put into the plastic bottle of water you drink, is scary!

I have personally hated paying an extortionate price for bottled water, though I have bought a bottle or two, especially on a hot day when I haven't been able to get any water to drink in any other way. I understand how many people find it so convenient to carry a bottle of water with them.

What I cannot understand is why we cannot go back to the days where drinks were always sold in bottles. Nowadays, all your milk comes in plastic bottles, all your fizzy drinks are sold in cans or plastic bottles. When I was a child, I can clearly remember buying a glass bottle of fizzy drink, and when it was consumed, I could take the empty bottle back to the shop and receive some money back. The bottle was then sent back to the manufacturer for re-use.

Take a look at this presentation and perhaps one day we might return to glass bottles that can be be re-used over and over again. If enough of us change our habits just a small amount, then perhaps, collectively, we can all make a huge difference to our environment.

Secret Squirrel at Work!

This week, I have been quietly doing a Mystery Shop assessment on a high street bank. The work involves two parts. First I had to make a personal visit to the branch, and assess the cleanliness, friendliness of the staff, and their ability to answer certain questions accurately. Next I have to wait to see if they call me back on the phone as requested.

I have been doing mystery shopping as a hobby since 2004. So far, my reports have not been challenged, either by the venue or the companies I work for. Only once, have I made a mistake of going to the wrong venue, and basically wasting my time and effort on the survey.

Since the onset of this recession, the number of different venues, has begun to shrink, and more to the point, the payments for the time, and effort have reduced considerably. The biggest cutback has been the travelling allowance. One of the companies I worked for was called NOP. They had a policy of paying a mileage allowance to all destinations. So I was quite happy to travel over 50 miles to visit a venue. Sadly, NOP is no more, and the current employers either have a maximum payment of £3.50 for travelling, or sneakily include the travelling expense into the overall payment. So now I have become very choosy as to what venue I will visit.

Because I seem to provide good quality reports on the venues I visit, I often get contacted by one of my employers to visit a number of venues further away than I would normally accept. Then the employers are happy to pay the full travelling expense! It is actually quite fun to receive a call and get them to negotiate a price that is favourable to me!

Doing this kind of work also proves very helpful where I work for my main job. Here the tables are turned and we get mystery shopped on a regular basis! It also allows me to understand that every survey is always going to subject to the individual assessors viewpoint, and no two assessors can be truly similar. I am also very quick to challenge any result that shows that the assessor hasn't done his or her job fully.

When I first started doing this work, I was given the opportunity to visit a loan company. Now at the time, credit card companies were offering interest rates around 20%. Bank loans were about 10%, and mortgages were about 7%. This loan company specialised in giving loans to people who did not have a good enough credit rating to get a loan from the usual places. My task was to ask for £1000 to buy a new TV. I would only need to borrow the money for 1 year. As I went through the process, I discovered the sales person was trying to hide something from me. Whet she was trying to hide was the staggering 59% APR they were charging for the loan!

I never realised that if you you are in full time work, and pay your bills on time, you can get low interest credit, which you probably don't need, very easily. For those people who are in desperate need of credit to help sort out the mess they have got into, they are the ones who end up paying extortionate rates they can ill afford to pay! No wonder you hear stories of vulnerable people ending up with nothing from having out of desperation gone to loan sharks!

How difficult would it be for some institution to offer to help those in need by offering them a loan at a reasonable rate with the condition that they are taught how to manage their money as part of the deal. Most people in financial difficulty, do not want to face up to their problems, and let the problem continue to get worse until it is at a stage where they either lose everything, or they become so depressed that they seek solution in committing suicide.

There was a TV program a while back that had a financial advisor help families sort out their financial problems. Although this an interesting way to do this, it would only help a few people, lucky enough to be chosen to go on the show. There are thousands of other people in as much need of help, and don't have the luxury of waiting until a TV company might or might not choose them for its next broadcast.

It has puzzled me that everyone of us has to attend school from the age of 5 to 16. Everyone of us has to deal with income and expenditure, savings and loans, credit, and debit. Yet none of what we have to deal with on a daily basis in our adult lives is ever taught during our school years. I doubt much emphasis is placed on how important it is to budget your finances.

The present Government seems to think that getting further into debt is the answer to stop this recession biting deeper. Surely they would have been better off offering better incentives to businesses, so allowing them to continue trading, or new businesses to start up. Yes, there a large number of businesses caught up in the borrowing spiral, borrowing more than they can pay back. I still don't understand why banks would prefer to write off the debts to these businesses and lose all the money, rather than work with the directors of the company to work out a way of first stopping the hemorrhage of money disappearing, and then work to slowly get the business back towards profitability, and then to pay back their loans.

Can Britain Choose Talent?

For the first time, I succumbed to watching the TV show "Britain's Got Talent". At present there are 5 semi-final shows spread over this week, with the final to take place on Saturday. After all the recent revelations of competition fixing by various shows, I am wondering how truthful and accurate this actually is.

The winner of this show is going to perform at the Royal Variety Show in front of Her Majesty, The Queen. Now what I am curious to know is does Her Majesty ever watch TV? If she does, would she watch "Britain's Got Talent"? And what would happen if she contacted the producers of the show and tells them that she likes a particular act? We are never told how many votes were cast for the individual acts. How easy would it be for the producers to make sure an act favoured by Her Majesty would go through to the final and ultimately win despite what the public vote might be?

Also, why do the producers think that 3 celebrities, would be able to choose the best acts to continue towards the semi-finals. I would have thought it would have been better if there were different judges at each stage of the competition. Then you could be certain that the acts chosen would entertain a greater percentage of the public.

Who let the MP's out of the Asylum?

I was looking for something topical to do with the current mess the British MP's have got themselves into over their expenses. How they bleat about how they have done nothing wrong as it was within the framework they had previously agreed. Of course this would be the case, as they can make up any Law they want to (especially if it is to their own benefit). All they need is to convince enough of their colleagues of the benefits and hey presto! you can lead a a very wealthy life at the expense of the taxpayer!

It is fortunate that the politicians can be replaced come the next general election. Although I wonder how many of them will promise you one thing while trying to be elected, and then do something completely different when they have gained a coveted seat in Parliament!

have been trying to find out if some of the daft laws passed by the government over the centuries are still actually active, and have not been repealed. Every now and then the media dig up some interesting titbit that makes you wonder why Parliament do not actually allocte a certain amount of time each year to go through the statute books and repeal obviously outdated, and useless laws.

One such law is that it is illeagal to die in the Houses of Parliament! The reasoning behind this is that a rumour was spread that if you died in the Houses of Parliament, you were entitled to a State Funeral. Maybe this rumour started because on the site of the present Parliament used to be the Palace of Westminster, home for many of the medieval Monarchs, who would have been entitled to a State Funeral. What puzzles me, is that no one has discovered any concrete evidence about State Funeral entitlement, so why the need to make a law about something that doesn't exist!

Another daft Law is that "All English Men over 14 are meant to carry out 2 hours (or so) of longbow practice a week supervised by the local clergy". Again I can understand the need for this Law after the battle of Agincourt in 1415. Why hasn't this law been repealed? Perhaps the law could be amended to fit into todays society by changeing the word Longbow to Darts, and Clergy to Publicans! Then at least we would become a nation of darts champions!

Does anyone actually know if there is an official website that has every currently active British Law avaiable to see? Or is that a closely guarded secret that only the Politicians and the Lawyers are allowed to know about?