Governments Austerity Measures Hits The Working Class Hardest

After my Land Rover Discovery had been in for repairs for an entire week, I finally picked it up yesterday. I now have a major crisis as I need to find the money to pay the bill!!

The reason for the repair was at first what seemed a minor problem of a fuel leak from the bottom of the engine. When I took the car to my local garage in early december, they initially thought it was an oil leak, and not a fuel leak as I had thought. Still, I booked the Discovery in for repairs at the first opportunity a week later.

The garage took a look at the car, and discovered that the cylinder head was cracked, and fuel was leaking into the engine oil. I was told that a new cylinder head would cost £1100. They couldn't do the repair before Christmas, so I had to book it in last week.

I had worked out that the cost of repairs would not leave me with much change from £2000. Imagine my shock when I was presented with a bill for a few pence short of £3000 !!!

Looking at the breakdown of costs, about £1600 was for the parts, £900 for labour, and a whopping £500 VAT charged! I had to pay an extra £62.50 to the Government because the car was repaired this month instead of last month!! The garage even refused to give any discount for cash!

The garage has now lost my custom!

I have also noticed that the price of petrol and diesel have gone up by 10p a litre over the space of a month. So now it is even more expensive to have a car than before. Of course, public transport should be a viable alternative, except, due to previous Governments privatisation policies, the cost of public transport has gone up enormously, and any route that was unprofitable, reduced or eliminated. Where I live, I would have to add another hour to each end of my journey if I switched to pedal power. Buses are of no use as they do not operate outiside of daylight hours!!!

If the present Government continues with their plans to reduce the deficit so rapidly, I think they will kill any growth in the economy, as more and more people find that they cannot afford even the smallest luxuries anymore. If labour get into power again, all they will do is spend, spend, spend, and ultimately bankrupt the Country!

I've just received notification that my electricity is increasing by 8.5%. I am sure that gas, water and telecommunications will follow soon, it has to, as VAT has increased. I am almost certain that this year, very few employees will be given a pay rise that will negate the erosion of their wages by the government taxes imposed upon them.

I heard a guest on Radio 2 a few days ago mention that a good way to beat the VAT hike is to buy items second hand, as they are exempt from VAT. As a form of protest, I am now going to look closely at items I buy, and refrain from buying items that have VAT charged, unless I have absolutely no other option available. Does anyone know where I can buy second hand petrol and diesel from?

An Evenings Entertainment

Last night, my wife and I trundled off to London to see a special private (not a premiere as I had first thought) screening for investors only of the film "The Mortician".

My personal assessment of the film is as follows :-

I found the film was very slow to get started. I found it difficult to work out what was going on, and where the story was leading to.

The 3D effects were very good, although I did notice that when the camera panned along a street following a character, any graffiti writing on the walls went all blurry.

I found that Method Man's character, had very little depth to it. We learn he is a mortician and a taxidermist, but even with the flashbacks of his past, it is difficult to see what makes him tick emotionally.

The baddie in the movie is Dash Mihok's character "Carver". Again, I felt that more could have been done with his character, especially early in the film, showing more of his ruthless methods of keeping rivals and victims down. Then the second half of the film would have been even more tense.

Once the film got going, and the characters had taken on personalities, then it became interesting. I must admit I have never seen a movie where the principle character (Method Man) is shown as a coward, and basically frightened of his own shadow. Even with having to cope with his fears, he still manages to help others stand up for themselves. He eventually arrives at a position to help clear up any loose ends both physically and emotionally, as he comes to terms with his own demons.

There was one part that had me confused. When Method Man goes back to his home town to seek information about his mother, a woman who knew his mother informs him that she was murdered, and he was taken away without ever being given the chance to see her and grieve. So, why then is there a flashback of Method Man as a child looking at an open coffin of a woman, presumably his mother?

As an investor, I sincerely hope that people will go and see this film. In reality, It definitely will not catch on the way films such as "Slumdog Millionaire", "Ghost", and "The Full Monty" did. As the film was completed on a shoestring budget, it is quite an impressive achievement, and perhaps there may be a little profit in it for us, eventually.

Secretly, I was hoping that during the end credits, there would have been a special thanks to all the investors who had contributed to the film. Unfortunately, it looks like we will have to remain anonymous!

We're off to see a premiere!

As I have mentioned previously, I was lucky enough to be able to invest in a movie. This was three years ago. Now, on Monday 13th December, my wife and I have been invited to see the premiere of "The Mortician". We will meet the actors, directors, and other investors, and probably move on after the film to the celebration party afterwards.

I am hoping that I will be able to get an extra ticket, so that my daughter can also come along too!

Deed Poll Disaster

My step-daughter wants to change her name, so she has the same surname (family name) that her mother and I have. To do this in the UK is fairly straight forward, or so I believed!

When I searched the web, there are numerous sites offering a Deed Poll name change service. All of them charge varying amounts from as low as £7.00 up to £35. There also was some information stating that changing your name is actually free!

Now that word "free" got me searching for a way to complete this task without having to pay someone else to do it. So I eventually found a site where you could download a template, fill in the information, and then print off your own copies.

I duly downloaded a pdf file, put the relevant information in, and then printed it. I got a witness to sign the form when my daughter signed it, and merrily printed copies off to take to the banks. That is when I discovered I had a problem.

The banks will only accept original documents, so any kind of seal mark downloaded via a pdf file and subsequently printed will always look like a copy!!! I have now gone through an official site, to get documents that have an official seal or watermark, that the institutions will accept.

Perhaps I could have gone to my local stationary supplier and tried to get specially embossed paper, or had an embossing tool made. I actually have one that belonged to my fathers business, hidden somewhere in the house, but somehow I do not think that the authorities would accept a Deed Poll document for my daughter embossed with "Abbotsbury Laboratories Ltd" on it!

What shall we do with the drunken vagrant!

This morning, as soon as I arrived at work, I had to deal with an intoxicated vagrant totally unable to keep his balance. In fact he sat down in the passageway and refused to budge!

The vagrant sat there, semi conscious, refusing to acknowledge me or any other member of staff. That's when I decided to call the Police to come and evict the vagrant from the Station.

A few minutes later, the Police arrived. They proceeded to search the vagrant and discovered inside his jacket, a bottle of alcohol wash gel. The vagrant had stolen it from the hospital across the road!

This gel is used by hospital staff to clean and disinfect their hands after any contact with a patient, to prevent any cross contamination. The gel is not supposed to be taken internally as it contains toxins to prevent people from considering consuming it for its alcohol content.

The vagrant was so desperate to get his daily fix of alcohol, that he was willing to take the risk of killing himself by drinking poison! He even tried to make the soap gel more palatable by mixing it with ketchup!

The Police requested an ambulance to take the vagrant to hospital. Eventually a paramedic turned up, and with the help of the Police walked the vagrant across the road to the hospital next door.

What has me worried is what are we supposed to do with people who are clearly set on a road to destruction? This vagrant was treated in the hospital, and 6 hours later he is released and comes wandering into my Station again!

In this day and age where the liberal ethos holds so much sway, is it really being humane to allow an alcoholic wander the streets slowly killing themselves drinking anything that has a trace of alcohol in it? These people cannot function on their own. Therefore society needs to make a decision as to what should be done about them.

My views may be considered controversial but I can only think of 2 ways that would prove effective. The first is euthanasia. I know it is drastic, but surely and injection of morphine by a doctor would be better than months of pain and sickness through consuming poisonous substances. I suppose the liberals out there would suggest that we should provide free alcohol to feed their addiction. The question is are we not just providing them with another form of drug that will eventually achieve the same end as morphine would have done, only over a much longer period and probably psychologically more damaging to the victim too.

The other option would be to lock the away inside an institution. As they are alcoholics, they could never be released as they would immediately start drinking again. Would this sort of treatment be considered humane? Gone are the days of special mental hospitals which force addicts to go cold turkey. Now there are varying degrees of alcoholism in present society's eyes. If it is the early stages, maybe help from family or self help groups might be better. What I am on about are the addicts who have not responded to any form of help or treatment. Do we continue to do something that clearly doesn't work, or do we do something potentially cruel to ultimately be kind?

I sometimes wonder that the present "softly, softly" approach does more harm than good in these situations.
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Industrial Action by Underground Workers

Today, the RMT and TSSA unions combined to instigate a withdrawal of labour by Union members working for London Underground. Having seen the propaganda put forward by both the Unions and Management, I feel I need to put my own views across as to why I believe that this dispute is necessary.

The management, quite rightly claim that this dispute is about the 800 job losses in Ticket Offices, and that in fact, no staff will be made redundant. What they have deliberately omitted, is that they have not covered any of the positions left vacant by people leaving the company, or retiring. So they have already reduced the current workforce by the necessary 800.

Instead of employing people to fill these vacancies, management have been covering the duties through overtime. When their budget was exceeded, they tried to cover the duties by relying on the goodwill of the staff to change duties and times at short notice. This is how they have been masking the reduction of workforce already achieved.

Having read the Evening Standard article about the strike yesterday, the way they reported this left me speechless as to the slant of their reporting! I thought that the press were supposed to make unbiased reports about events, not act as a glorified press release for the benefit of management!

Now, I fully understand why management want to reduce the workforce in an effort to reduce the cost of operating the Underground. What I feel aggrieved about is how they are not telling anyone the whole story. This is what I believe this dispute is really about....

London Underground have for the past few years concentrated on driving forward policies to reflect their catchphrase slogan "A World Class Service For A World Class City". With this in mind, they have set targets for customer service as a major priority. Staff are constantly being assessed on the quality of their interaction with the customers. These assessments are conducted through an independent company using mystery shoppers. On the strength of these reports, London Underground then decide whether to pay any bonuses to staff or not.

Last year, London Underground reduced the the frontline workforce by 1000. Customers using the service may have noticed that Ticket Office opening hours had been reduced, and fewer staff around the stations, especially early mornings, late at night, and at weekends. Management have decided to reduce the workforce the the bare minimum allowed to operate the stations. They leave no leeway for any unforeseen problems that arise. Management will tell you that the Oyster Card they have introduced is a runaway success and that is why their is no need for staff to be available in Ticket Offices, as the amount of sales through Ticket Office windows have dropped by over 70%. Of course this has happened. Management deliberately engineered this to happen. Don't believe me? Then think on this -

In the outer zone stations, they are staffed by supervisors who have Ticket Office licences to sell tickets to customers. Before the first round of Ticket Office closures, these Supervisors manned the Ticket Offices from 07:00 to 23:00. At present, management have instructed these same Supervisors to open only during the morning peak hours (07:00 - 10:00), and in some cases the evening peak too (15:30 - 19:30). The rest of the time they just sit in their office monitoring the station! Now this is where I believe the Unions missed a golden opportunity. There were some Supervisor's who tried to keep their ticket offices open as they originally had been. Management then threatened these Supervisor's with disciplinary action if they continued to open the Ticket Office outside the designated times. The Unions should have backed these Supervisor's, and forced a confrontation with management over this. I am sure that the media would have had a field day vilifying management over this ludicrous policy! It's still not too late for Union's to do this, so if any Union member reads this, then perhaps this idea could bear further scrutiny!

Now let's look at how these proposed cuts in Ticket Office staff will affect the customers (passengers) who wish to travel on the Underground. If you are coming to London for the first time, you will have two choices. If you go to a Station where the Ticket Office is closed (almost certain early morning, late at night), then you can buy a full priced ticket (minimum £4.00). You might be lucky to find a newsagent nearby, or possibly an Oyster card dispenser where you can purchase the Oyster card. Then you can use the Oyster Card to get a discounted journey for £1.80. There will be some stations, though, where you will not be able to purchase an Oyster card if the Ticket Office is closed. Management believe it is good customer service to tell the customer they must leave the station and go somewhere else to purchase an Oyster card.

Sorry, from a customers point of view, that is NOT offering a World Class Service!

O.K. You now have your Oyster card and start your journey. You try to "touch in" on the reader and it doesn't work. The staff member at the gateline tries to check your card, and finds that it is faulty. If you are lucky, you can go to the Ticket Office to get a replacement. At this station you entered, the Ticket Office is closed. Either you go and find a Ticket Office that is open, or you have to purchase a full priced paper ticket (£4.00 again), and then have to contact Oyster Card Helpdesk for a refund later. Or you can hope the staff member will let you travel for free (especially if you have no means to purchase another ticket!) to your destination, as at your destination, the Ticket Office there might be open. With the new proposed closures management want to implement, you might find the Ticket Office closed at your destination too! Now you have travelled for free to your destination, the staff there cannot direct you to an open Ticket Office, so they have to let you out of the Station. Result for you! You have just had a free journey, thanks to managements policy of closing Ticket Offices! There are a lot of savvy people out there who now take advantage of travelling very early, or very late, with faulty Oyster cards, knowing that they will get a free journey! I wonder if the customers who have to pay for their journey feel they are getting a World Class Service?

Now let's look at another problem. You have loaded up your Oyster Card with money, expecting it to last for all the journeys you intend to make. For some reason after a couple of journeys, it stops working due to insufficient funds. When a staff member checks your Oyster Card it shows there is unresolved journeys. Basically this means that the card hasn't registered the entry point or exit point on a journey. What a lot of people do not realise is the discounted journey is only given on completed journey's. If the card has not registered a complete journey, £4.60 is deducted instead of the £1.80 you expected. This can easily be resolved though, just go to the Ticket Office, and they can re-credit your card.... er.... sorry, the Ticket Office is closed. You can either add more money at the machine, or try phoning the Oyster help desk, only you will be held in a queue for a very long time before they answer, or even worse, this problem will happen outside their opening hours of 08:00 - 20:00 Monday to Friday only!! Again, do you consider this to be a World Class Service?

I could go on about all the different ticketing issues and problems customers face every day, that an open Ticket Office could quickly and easily resolve. If Management are determined to reduce Ticket Office hours, and ultimately close them eventually, why can't they be honest with the public and staff, and no longer promote their policy of providing a World Class Service. A World Class Service means that we should provide a service that does not inconvenience ANY of our customers AT ANY TIME. Closing Ticket Offices is doing precisely the opposite!

This is why I agree with the Unions fighting these job cuts, as I believe we will be providing a "Worse Class Service" instead of a "World Class Service". If the staff don't make a stand now, who's to say how far Management will go in their reduction of frontline staff in the future?

One busy afternoon

After getting home from work, I decided to cut the grass in the garden. Then I used the electric rake to clear up the cut grass. I was just about to get the strimmer out, when the phone rang...

It was my wife asking me to collect her from work. I said I would be there in 15 minutes. As this was at 16:45, I had a brainwave to prepare for the Mystery shop I had to do near where my wife works. As this survey had to be done between 17:00 and 20:00, it seemed sensible to incorporate this task into my journey across town.

As I was about to get in the car, my daughter decided she wanted to come along with me on the mystery shop. While I was waiting for her to change into different clothing (typical teenage psychology), the dog decided she wanted to come along too!

So after leaving home, collecting the wife from work, conducting a mystery shop, we all ended up at a nearby park and spent the next 90 minutes walking round the lakes in the afternoon sunshine. This was the first time I have visited this park in the 15 years I have lived in this area. There we're Celtic stones, a Peace Pagoda, and a strange maze (just marks in the ground) to wander around and see.

We all arrived back home worn out and hungry!
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