Boxing Day madness

No, not the sales, the UK.

Student shot in the head. Killed.
Shopper stabbed. Killed.
Baby sitter stabbed. Killed.

It's hard to convince people the UK has not gone to the dogs.

Well that didn't take long

Throughout the 1980s UK employment was increasing. Thatcher's government used unemployment - threat or reality - as a weapon. As unemployment went up they kept changing the way they counted the stats - eventually counting only those actually receiving benefits while reducing the number of people qualifying; in other words taking money away from people who'd already lost their jobs just to make the stats look better.

Eventually the stats started to rise again what with the tories being the natural party of unemployment.

Fast forward to 2011 and it's announced that the UK has the highest rate of unemployment since 1996.

That was the last year of the tory government.

We are now little more than a year into the new tory government. It didn't take them long to get unemployment up to the levels of when they were last in power.

Hot Cross Buns & Blackberries

Went shopping. Bought some blackberries.

I could pick them for free in so many places back in England. It seems strange to pay for them. But they are absolutely delicious. Plump and juicy and no little bits sticking out. Completely ripe too.

From Mexico.

I was hoping to get some mince pies or a single one if there were no little ones. But I came back with hot cross buns instead. Weird. They're an easter thing, not the run up to xmas.

Friday, 24 June

Further to my post on that date, the man concerned is under a lot of pressure .

It's still too early to say and I'm saving my "told you so" but he has disappointed.

I despair, I really do

The province of NB is looking to save money. The (now) government foolishly considered "saving" $600k by abolishing free flu shots for people with chronic conditions that would likely put them in hospital if they got flu. The expense of that would far exceed the so called saving. Apparently our government didn't consider that.

Another idea they are considering is to double the annual maximum co-payment made by qualifying Seniors for Prescription drugs but not change the individual charge.

Those currently paying the maximum are not just those on the lowest incomes but those in poorer health as well as having greater additional costs because of their conditions such as foot care or extra travel for medical appointments.

But the (now) government wants to raise funds from those poorest among the elderly and sick.

Instead, they could save a similar or greater sum by increasing the individual item (for the first time in 15 years!) by a couple of $$ and spread the cost more evenly while those most sick pay no extra.

But just to rub this stupidity in, a couple of years ago the (then) NB government did away with vehicle registration reminders to save money. It seemed reasonable to have people take a bit of responsibility for themselves; there were any number of ways they could take care of this like a note in a diary or on their computer. They could even sign up for automated email reminders. Free.

Now that people have had over two years to get used to it, the (now) government has decided to bring the reminders back.

At the same cost as which they hoped to save with the flu shot fiasco.

You just couldn't make it up.

Parking meters blown up

I read in the guardian today about some parking meters being blown up in England as part of a campaign against them.

Some protesters will go to any lengths to bring about change.

U2 from my front door

Moncton has another major coup this weekend with the mighty U2 playing out at The Hill.

There are a whole load of reasons why I didn't go. None of them major but all with their own problems.

It wasn't expensive; I could have afforded it, even with the taxi that would have been needed because they didn't do the buses this time. But fighting for a taxi may not have been easy.

Since my diabetes, I have found even small wounds don't heal well. That would include mozzie bites and I was never able to leave them alone anyway. By the time I'd have scratched and picked I'd have been a mess for the rest of summer.

I wouldn't have worried about blood sugar levels crashing, but I don't have the energy to walk far either and I can't imagine how I'd have handled climbing to a seat in the bleachers and either staying put (which wouldn't have been good) or descending only to have to ascend again.

Or stay at ground level where standing for hours would have tired me. Or I'd be sitting on wet, probably muddy, ground.

Oh...and I'm taking a prescription that means no prolonged exposure to sun. As it happened I don't think that would have been an issue. But who wants to get wet as an alternative?

All this and then being held up exiting.

But inside tonight hearing the thumping in the distance I went outside to see if I could recognise anything. I did.

And from that moment on I knew I should have made the effort. I can't think of a band that I would like to have seen more. I've seen everyone else that I'd like to see. I could have cried at this missed opportunity.

I went out for about a minute 4 or 5 times tonight. I reckon I've been bitten at least four times. Perhaps it was as well I didn't go. Maybe I'll keep telling myself that.

Andre Villas Boas

Everyone seems to think this guy is a genius. And he might be. He did, after all, win the Portuguese league for Porto and a Europa Cup in his first season. But I can't help but be reminded of The Emperor's New Clothes.

Porto qualified for the Europa League from their league position the season before, when AVB was at his previous club, the little known Academica de Coimbra. He spent just one season as coach there and has no background as a player. At all. His record there is praised for taking the team off the bottom of the league to a respectable mid table position. In reality that was a rise of just five places. Apparently he did it with a change of style. Maybe. But struggling teams often get a boost from a new manager taking over and the improvement may have been nothing more than that.

It's quite astonishing that Porto gave him the opportunity to take over. As I say, no record as a player and he had just part of one season at a lowly club. He seems to have been taken on based on his association with Jose Mourinho.

Prior to him being taken on Porto won their league Four years in a row to the end of the 08/09 season and also two out of the three previous seasons. So that’s six out of seven years they were champions; the exception being a second place. They also won their domestic cup three times and won the UEFA cup and a Champions League.

The season just before he took over, they finished 3^rd, Still 20 points more than the fourth team. And they still won a cup that season so it’s not like they were on a slide.

It’s pretty obvious that Porto were a damn good team when he took over. Probably the equivalent of taking over Liverpool in 1982 or ManU any time in the last few years.Perhaps anyone of average coaching/managerial ability might have continued success for at least one season.

Maybe he just got lucky and took over at the right time?

There are stories of player power at Chelsea. If there’s any truth in that how will they respond to this bloke? Okay, he had a spell there a couple of years ago and some players may know him from that time. But we all know that being the big cheese is different to being assistant and he wasn't even the assistant. What happens if the new season is underway and they are not immediately cemented in the CL places? Will everyone see the Emperor is really naked?

It’s a very interesting situation. But it does make me think some sort of experiment is taking place like that in Trading Places; A guy with no experience as a professional player who only coached/managed a small team to a minor improvement in their situation and then only for part of a season; given a position at a big club.

Nobody else seems to be questioning this.

What a waste of time

When I first started working for the social security department there was a system in place that restricted people's benefits to no more than they had when working. It was actually just being done away with.

I don't really know how it worked but I always felt there was nothing wrong with it if (big if) it could be shown that the person/family had been managing on that wage.

Some people can manage on less. We do here, for example.

But managing on that wage should have to take everything into account, not just the wage. Maybe someone had managed because of other income or savings and that had gone now.

Anyway, it seems the present UK government were to bring something similar back; to prevent benefits being more than average working income.

The most likely reasons for benefits being more than typical income were large families and high mortgage. Over the last few years several restrictions have been instigated to reduce mortgage related benefits, so over the last few years the main reason for high benefits could be blamed on big families.

Now I read that the new rules are to be relaxed. People exempted from restricted benefit levels will mainly be those with large families.

So large families will have benefits restricetd except where they have large families.

Below expectations

I came across a list of English footballers who fell below expectations according to the writer. It's an odd selection.
Dean Ashton, Seth Johnson, Michael Owen, Alan Shearer, Richard Wright, Kieron Dyer, Lee Sharpe, Matt Le Tissier, Stan Collymore, Robbie Fowler.

Odd because I don't recall too many people expecting a lot from Ashton, Johnson, Wright and Collymore.

Odd because Owen and Shearer played for England, played in the latter stages of World Cups and Euros. While Shearer might be disappointed he wasn't at a consistently top club, he did win a league title. Owen was at a top club and maybe he's disappointed to only win one league medal (in terms of barely qualifying for it) but he did get others and, of course, played for Real Madrid, Liverpool and ManU.

Dyer, Sharpe, Le Tissier and Fowler could certainly be included.

Although I say Owen and Shearer shouldn't be there, I would include Paul Gascoigne. You could say his England appearances were on a par with the former pair and Gazza's big money move to Italy was more successful than Owen's time in Spain.

But so much more was expected of Gazza and he fell that much shorter of what might have been.

A similar player was Micky Hazard. I have no idea why he didn't make it and including him would come as a surprise to some. But he was coveted by Osvaldo Ardiles as well as Glenn Hoddle, who is also on my list. Hoddle was quite successful but criminally under used by England.

How to make up ten? Nigel Martyn should have been installed as Keeper toward's the end of Seaman's time. I'm sure he'd have made the position his own.

There's no doubt Wayne Rooney is a candidate. He still has time but he should already have achieved more.

The last one? I'd have to say John Barnes; a constant disappointment in an England shirt especially when one remembers the response to his goal against Brazil.

Ooops

A month has gone by.

You have to laugh

The Home & Garden section of the local weekend paper often has before & after photos of rooms, showing the changes undergone.

Quite often I have preferred the 'before' photo, thinking that all that was needed was removing the clutter that's always present, a lick of paint, a different lampshade and perhaps a rug, to transform the room rather than the major cost of changing the ceiling, adding completely new lighting, adding or changing a dividing wall, making a new floor, splashing out on a new suite, opening up the fireplace, enclosing the fireplace opening up the stairs, enclosing the stairs etc etc. You might as well move - it's cheaper.

But Saturday was funny.

They were featuring the "retro" look.

So the 'after' photos were more " before" than the "before" ones.

A confession

In the UK, people pay VAT when they make certain purchases. It's the same in Canada with GST, except that the price is generally displayed without the tax. So you need to calculate the extra.

In Canada the GST is "refunded." Kind of makes one wonder why it's charged in the first place. I suppose less get's refunded than is taken but then why not just reduce the GST charged and not refund it?

To my confession.

GST refunds are made following your annual tax return. Why everyone has to do a tax return every year is beyond me. The UK manages to avoid having to do that.

Anyway, a refund should reflect what you pay out and it's obviously impractical to calculate everyone's GST payment to refund it, so I thought the idea was to see what income was reported and then have some sort of formula to identify a "typical" spend and, thus, some sort of pro-rata refund. In other words, the greater the income, the greater the spend, the greater the refund to reflect that spend.

But I recently discovered the refunds are calculated using rates per person and children and then reduced according to income above a certain level. So it is means tested in exactly the same way Canada's Child Benefit is means tested.

This begs the question why not simply increase the Child Benefit rates instead and, for those without kids, increase the tax alloance accordingly?

Just how much money is wasted on processing refunds? Every household has a refund and many households have multiple recipients of them.

Still...as Canadians would say if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Carry on wasting money on bureaucracy.

What is it with some people?

Occasionally I make posts on the blog pages of the local newspaper. Occasionally.

Since I've lived in New Brunswick from time to time I read of 'Boil Orders' for water for short periods following some sort of incident and I wondered how the authorities put the word out so people knew they were supposed to do this.

I imagined maybe a few cars might drive around with announcements made by megaphone - as happened at election time, for example. Obviously announcements to be made via the media too, but not everyone has their ear to the radio or logs on to municipal websites daily on the off chance.

It finally happened. No actual contamination (well, yet to be confirmed) but a "precautionary" boil water order following a water main rupture.

It happened early in the morning. Not sure what time. The first I knew was that evening when someone mentioned it on the local forum. He discovered the notice when researching something unconnected on the city website.

On the day it happened I shopped in two stores and used two taxis. Taxi drivers routinely talk about likely snowstorms. Supermarket checkout staff make comments about them being busy with people doing their shopping before the snow starts.

It occurs to me this would be a useful network for something like this.

The city could ask stores to assist awareness via public facing staff. Instead of "find everything you were looking for?" it could be "you heard about the boil water order?"

Maybe the schools could tell their students to make sure their parents know when they get home.

Just imagine you're in one of those health groups (dodgy immune system, say) particularly at risk and you discover 24 hours after the event you should have been boiling your water. By which time you may have drunk coffee (coffee makers don't boil sufficiently to make the water safe if contaminated) or even water from the tap (Crystal Light, for example) or washed your lettuce.

If it turned out it was contaminated you could suffer. Even if it wasn't, how much would you be stressed out for a day or two worrying that it might have been? That brings problems too.

So I blogged on the newspaper site suggesting that the city could use these networks for getting the information out there quicker and to more people.

There's a thumbs up/thumbs down feature for people to agree/disagree and while a dozen agreed, 3 gave me a thumbs down.

As I say, I'm only there occasionally so it's not one of those situations where someone regularly disagrees with you and reacts negatively, almost out of habit.

All I did was suggest people might be better informed of something like this by a system of verbal exchanges that already exists.

I made a follow up post "So does three thumbs down mean that some people think it's better to not bother advising people then?"

That got three thumbs down too.

Great Win

Had a very enjoyable afternoon watching the rugby from Wales where England achieved an excellent win.

Things are looking up again. Plenty of room for improvement but I'm more optimistic than I've been for a while.

Waddatwit

I forgot to take the baps out of the freezer so the bluecheeseburgers will have to wait until Monday.

Can't be later today as we're having Lamb.

A cool minus 27

I didn't want to go out today but I've decided it's about time I tried hamburgers with blue cheese. So I'll go out later to get some burgers to cook up for tomorrow's lunch.

Toenail removed

I had my toenail removed at the hospital yesterday.

I watched the whole job. A bloody mess. Dressing too big to get my shoe on so had to leave wearing a slip over sort of thing.

Christmas Dinner

Christmas Dinner again today.
With Parsnips this time.

1111

1/1/11 in case you're confused by the title.

This is that time of year when the papers do their news reviews. Unfortunately, my local paper reprints items from the past year and fills the current paper with it.

Luckily nothing else happens for them to report.