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OR - THINGS THAT REALLY MAKE MY BLOOD BOIL AND
CONSPIRE TO MAKE ME A GRUMPY OLD MAN! |
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CRIME & UNDISCIPLINED
CHILDREN
EASTENDERS WASTE The European Convention On Human Rights GREEDY CORPORATIONS FOREIGN CALL CENTRES ANNOYING WORDS AND PHRASES And So Much More |
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CRIME
WALLABY - Innocent & Defenceless
photo by Donna Overton
CHILDREN MURDER BABY WALLABY
In May 2004 Midlands folk read the local
newspapers, listened to the local radio news and watched the local TV
news bulletins with utter horror and total disgust: Four young
thugs took great trouble to break into the compounds at Dudley
Zoo one evening simply to terrorize the animals and eventually kill
a defenceless five month old baby wallaby by chasing it and kicking it
to death.
These horrific and barbaric events were captured on CCTV and police quickly arrested the thugs. However after questioning they were all released without charge. The young killers were aged between eight and twelve years of age and therefore below the age of criminal responsibility. Dudley North MP Ross Cranston commented:
These horrific and barbaric events were captured on CCTV and police quickly arrested the thugs. However after questioning they were all released without charge. The young killers were aged between eight and twelve years of age and therefore below the age of criminal responsibility. Dudley North MP Ross Cranston commented:
"I don't believe
stigmatizing and criminalizing children this young is the best way to
prevent a repeat of such behaviour. However, these children must
be made to realise that this type of behaviour is barbaric and
unacceptable. In addition, I am concerned children this young
have
the opportunity to commit such acts, no doubt many people will be
wondering where their parents were at the time."
By the current law children under the age
of ten who commit an act that, were it not for for their age, would be
a
criminal offence can be subject to a Child Safety Order and supervision
by the local authority.
This is no deterrant and what has happened to parental responsibility. These little criminals should be named and shamed. We also have to ask where are the parents and what are they doing letting kids out at night without any supervision or knowledge of their whereabouts. These kids obviously have never been taught right from wrong or to respect fellow creatures. How long will it be before one of them attacks or even kills another human being?
All over the country we see kids running riot with no respect for property, the law or anybody else. The parents don't care, the police are powerless and the teachers (if the kids even bother to attend school) are not allowed to discipline them. These wretches are the nation's future - god help us. no wonder I am grumpy.
This is no deterrant and what has happened to parental responsibility. These little criminals should be named and shamed. We also have to ask where are the parents and what are they doing letting kids out at night without any supervision or knowledge of their whereabouts. These kids obviously have never been taught right from wrong or to respect fellow creatures. How long will it be before one of them attacks or even kills another human being?
All over the country we see kids running riot with no respect for property, the law or anybody else. The parents don't care, the police are powerless and the teachers (if the kids even bother to attend school) are not allowed to discipline them. These wretches are the nation's future - god help us. no wonder I am grumpy.
No matter how much Home Secretary Blunkett tell us how much crime is being reduced, no one can surely believe him. Ordinary law abiding citizens know that crime is out of control and that no matter how willing the police may be to solve crimes, they are crippled by paper work and burdened by laws that favour the criminal and penalise the victims - and the criminals know this. Recorded crime may be down, but that is because people just can't be bothered to report it since they know that even if the police could find the perpetrators, the courts would just give them a 'pat on the head' and let them go free to commit more crime. But then again I suppose that is their Human Right.....
(BBC TV "SOAP OPERA")
Why,
Oh, Why, Oh, Why, (to borrow from Points Of View or Not The Nine
O'Clock News) is it that EVERY time a character in EastEnders has
something important to say or earth-shattering to announce to another
member of the cast that they repeatedly get interrupted by that other cast member either butting in or
having to dash off on some vitally un-important errand, or the telephone ringing - just at the
wrong moment, or someone else coming into the room or any other
contrivance that prevents the vital sentence ever being delivered.
Of course this is a writer's ploy used to string out storylines in EastEnders, and has been continually used for year upon year in this pot-boiler soap. It is now wearing very thin indeed - in fact it is now quite threadbear and VERY ANNOYING!
(Not that I would ever watch EastEnders, you understand)
Of course this is a writer's ploy used to string out storylines in EastEnders, and has been continually used for year upon year in this pot-boiler soap. It is now wearing very thin indeed - in fact it is now quite threadbear and VERY ANNOYING!
(Not that I would ever watch EastEnders, you understand)
HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYERS, THE EU and HUMAN RIGHTS
What has the EU ever done for us eh? No matter how much Tony Blair tries to encourage us to embrace this corrupt institution the sheer idiocy from Europe makes any sane, right thinking individual dispair.
The European Convention On Human Rights was quietly incorporated into British law a few years ago in the hope that nobody would notice, and for a while nobody did. It seemed innocuous enough - let's be humane to each other, sounds nice right? Wrong! Now we all know what nonsense this PC legislation can produce.
We should have learned our lesson from years one by that the EEC and its rules and laws just don't work. Look at the EEC's Common Agricultural Policy, this did not work. The C.A.P. simply promoted inefficiency and over production and created butter mountains and wine and milk lakes. The European Convention On Human Rights is destined to produce an even bigger mess - a sea of something quite unmentionable.
Pop songstress Madonna has pleaded that her 'human rights' are being breached because walkers who are roaming the countryside quite legitimately near her mansion can overlook her property (I'd laugh if it wasn't so bloody annoying). So one extremely rich person is now able to use the daft Human Rights laws to prohibit ordinary people from enjoying a country ramble. And you ask me wy I'm so grumpy?
Furthermore, disgraceful 'ambulance chasing' (i.e money grabbing) lawyers are expecting British tax payers to fund legal aid cases so that Iraqi clients can sue the British Army for losses experienced during the conflict in Iraq. They argue that because Britain has a military presence there that the European Convention On Human Rights should apply. Imagine the claims that would have arisen from the second world war after the British Army liberated France had the European Convention On Human Rights been in effect then?
Ultimately this European Convention On Human Rights legislation could paralyse a nation, not just militarily but in every aspect of business and private life.
Britain's ancient system of justice was based on Common Law and common sense, but our system has now been made a laughing stock by this Euro-vision of human rights. Who can blame a nation whose popultion does not want to sign up to the European Constitution? Tony Blair thinks it's a wonderful document though and will do everything he can to convince us that bad is good.
The Constitution looks as noble and harmless as the convention on human rights, but the devil is in the detail. The EU Constitution would outlaw any form of discrimination. That single clause will be a field day for lawyers who will twist apparent sense into complete nonsence.
If the European Union were a beacon of integrity we might forgive them a little, but as we find out that EU human rights laws could be turned against British soldiers and English ramblers, we also hear that the EU is riddled with £365,000,000 worth of FRAUD. Watchdogs led by failed Labour leader Neil Kinnock seem utterly powerless to stop this fraud. Oh, so that's alright then.
Tony Blair may have blind faith in the EU Constitution, but as far as I am concerned (and it seems much of the public agrees) a vote for Europe and the EU Constitution is a vote for Corruption, Fraud, Crippling Laws and Total Stupidity.
WASTE
I dislike wast of any kind, but to continue from the above it seems to me that waste is epitomised by the huge beaurocracy that is the E.U.....
THE EUROPEAN UNION
Undemocratic? Utterly Wasteful? Completely Pointless? Corrupt? Surely Not!
Do carry on reading while I am just flushing my money down the toilet:
The EU costs Britain around thirteen billion pounds (£13,000,000,000) every year, that's about £220 per person or over £500 per houshold per year! Britain is also the fourth largest contributor to the EU shambles. What do we get back in return? A few pounds back here and there to pay for crackpot euro-funded schemes and an ever increasing number of regulations and restrictions that are spreading like tentacles everywhere and are strangling our businesses and society. 70 percent of our laws are now dictated from Brussels.
We must now bow to almost every command passed by undemocratic Brussels beauraucrats and pay for their bloated lunches and huge and completely unneccessary salaries. A GRAVY TRAIN is the only way to describe the EU, and every year millions upon millions of pounds of your money are lost through documeted fraud and corruption while the rest is just wasted. How can we and why should we trust this corrupt and cynical organisation? There is only one point to the EU and that is for these corrupt officials to further propagate their own careers.
The fabulously expensive European Parliament building in Strasbourg cost $500 million
Construction commenced in 1993 and it was completed in 1998
MEPs want to abandon it in 2004, as it is too expensive to run - What A Waste and Shambles
Many people have said it before and it now seems like a cliché, but more and more it seems like the truth: Britain and other countries fought for their freedom, but today, and even more so with the new EU constitution, Britain can no longer rule itself, with most laws being dictated by the EU - some of the most suffocating being the potty EU Human Rights laws.
With diktat upon diktat being spewed out of the machine, the EU now seems more like communism than a Common Market. This really does make my blood boil.
BIG GREEDY COMPANIES & CORPORATIONS
OR: The World Is Not Enough....we want everybody's money
Give them a
little or give them a lot, whatever massive fortunes they have they
still want more. Take MICROSOFT for example. MS has nearly
90 percent of the world's operating system market, with MAC and LINUX
etc. accounting for the remainder, but 90 percent is still not enough
for Microsoft. By sponsoring (should we read read gentle
persuasion or arm-twisting?) Irish EU officials, Microsoft are
attempting to undermine the market for Open Source (i.e freely
obtainable) software.
Open Source software (such as LINUX) essentially means that the computer source code that makes the programmes work is freely available for anyone to use and further modify and develop and distribute, unlike Microsoft's code which is highly secret so that MS can charge enormous sums of money for their software. For example MS Office XP is the best part of £400 whereas the perfectly acceptable open source office package from OpenOffice.org is free.
Open Source software (such as LINUX) essentially means that the computer source code that makes the programmes work is freely available for anyone to use and further modify and develop and distribute, unlike Microsoft's code which is highly secret so that MS can charge enormous sums of money for their software. For example MS Office XP is the best part of £400 whereas the perfectly acceptable open source office package from OpenOffice.org is free.
This release from Mandrakesoft provides more detail:
In
direct contravention of the recent vote by the European Parliament to
curtail Software Patents, the Irish Presidency of the European Union
has
surreptitiously reinstated unlimited software patent language into the
text of a statement to be adopted by the European Council of Ministers
on Monday May, 17th, without further debate!
The new text, if adopted, will extend Software Patents to every piece of software, including computer programs, data structures, and process descriptions. This will directly harm most software firms and all Open Source projects unable to pay patent licensing tribute, and amounts to an appropriation of the public domain by proprietary interests. A direct beneficiary will be a new class of pure patent companies without any real business or contribution to employment, which will use the threat of litigation to extort payments.
Of note is that a sponsor of the Irish Presidency is Microsoft, currently building a large patent portfolio. If the Software Patent text is adopted, Microsoft may use this patent portfolio against Linux and other Open Source projects.
For further information please
see the following links:The new text, if adopted, will extend Software Patents to every piece of software, including computer programs, data structures, and process descriptions. This will directly harm most software firms and all Open Source projects unable to pay patent licensing tribute, and amounts to an appropriation of the public domain by proprietary interests. A direct beneficiary will be a new class of pure patent companies without any real business or contribution to employment, which will use the threat of litigation to extort payments.
Of note is that a sponsor of the Irish Presidency is Microsoft, currently building a large patent portfolio. If the Software Patent text is adopted, Microsoft may use this patent portfolio against Linux and other Open Source projects.
http://swpat.ffii.org/journal/04/cons0507/index.en.html
http://kwiki.ffii.org/SwpatcninoEn
Continuing
on from the above theme of Big Greedy Corporations, I have to mention
the current trend of big greedy companies moving call centres from the
UK to foreign locations, such as India, as this really does make my
blood boil.
Big companies establishing 'call centres' was a bad enough trend. Twenty or so years ago when phoning a bank, for example, you would have expected to deal with the local branch and talk to local staff, or even your own bank manager, who stood a reasonable chance at appreciating your banking requirements and maybe even knowing who you were.
More latterly this form of customer telephone contact has, in many cases, been removed from branch level to some anonymous call centre miles away. Of course this is so that the bank / electricty company / phone company or whatever can save money (because they never make enough millions and millions of pounds do they?) by having fewer overall staff in one centralised location being paid less money to deal with customer enquiries - that is if the customer can get through the barrier of the automated, computerised and impersonal switchboard!
When the customer eventually gets through to the correct person, or department, the chances of receiving true personal service are minimal. If your requirements don't mesh with the criteria set out in the company manual then you're stuffed. There is no room for local individual or intelligent descision making here - no, if you don't fit into some general pre-defined scenario you've had it.
The only good thing that can be said of call centres in the UK is that there are many of them and so provide very many people with what must admittedly be often rather frustrating employment.
Big companies establishing 'call centres' was a bad enough trend. Twenty or so years ago when phoning a bank, for example, you would have expected to deal with the local branch and talk to local staff, or even your own bank manager, who stood a reasonable chance at appreciating your banking requirements and maybe even knowing who you were.
More latterly this form of customer telephone contact has, in many cases, been removed from branch level to some anonymous call centre miles away. Of course this is so that the bank / electricty company / phone company or whatever can save money (because they never make enough millions and millions of pounds do they?) by having fewer overall staff in one centralised location being paid less money to deal with customer enquiries - that is if the customer can get through the barrier of the automated, computerised and impersonal switchboard!
When the customer eventually gets through to the correct person, or department, the chances of receiving true personal service are minimal. If your requirements don't mesh with the criteria set out in the company manual then you're stuffed. There is no room for local individual or intelligent descision making here - no, if you don't fit into some general pre-defined scenario you've had it.
The only good thing that can be said of call centres in the UK is that there are many of them and so provide very many people with what must admittedly be often rather frustrating employment.
That is UNTIL NOW!
Not content with
saving enormous amounts of money by consolodating customer contact into
call centres, our greedy fat-cat companies are now exporting these jobs
to places such as India so that a bit more money can go to the bottom
line - i.e. their back pockets. Now India and such places are
industrious and burgeoning places, I have no doubt, and deserve
continued prosperity. So nothing against these countries, my
problem lies with the companies and organisations in the UK that set up
call centres over there.
I have tried to deal with several such foreign call centres and none of them have a single clue as to what is actually happening in the UK. Okay the call centre employees may have to adopt UK sounding names and ask us how the weather is Cooventerie in a vien attempt to make us feel more at ease, but there is still a language barrier. We cannot properly understand them and they cannot properly understand us. Even if some communication is established, trying to solve a technical problem with your dishwasher or your internet connection will prove nigh on impossible.
Perhaps even more important than this 'apalling service' gripe is that it is huge corporations that are defining the UK economy. They move jobs abroad to save money. Money to pay for these call centres and the staff wages then flows out of the UK. Maybe it is my simplistic view but then: Unemployment in the UK grows (government figures may claim 'only' 1,400,000 people out of work where the real actual figure, pre government doctoring, is perhaps rather more likely to be nearer 3,000,000 - a total Mrs Thatcher had a lot of trouble with), with higher unemployment the population has less money. Less people are paying tax. There is less tax income for the government to pay for the unemployed. Taxes may have to rise. Retail companies have less income coming in from sales, because there is higher unemployment. If taxes go up these companies will look to cut costs, maybe by reducing the workforce and sending more jobs abroad. Possibly an ever decreasing spiral.
I have tried to deal with several such foreign call centres and none of them have a single clue as to what is actually happening in the UK. Okay the call centre employees may have to adopt UK sounding names and ask us how the weather is Cooventerie in a vien attempt to make us feel more at ease, but there is still a language barrier. We cannot properly understand them and they cannot properly understand us. Even if some communication is established, trying to solve a technical problem with your dishwasher or your internet connection will prove nigh on impossible.
Perhaps even more important than this 'apalling service' gripe is that it is huge corporations that are defining the UK economy. They move jobs abroad to save money. Money to pay for these call centres and the staff wages then flows out of the UK. Maybe it is my simplistic view but then: Unemployment in the UK grows (government figures may claim 'only' 1,400,000 people out of work where the real actual figure, pre government doctoring, is perhaps rather more likely to be nearer 3,000,000 - a total Mrs Thatcher had a lot of trouble with), with higher unemployment the population has less money. Less people are paying tax. There is less tax income for the government to pay for the unemployed. Taxes may have to rise. Retail companies have less income coming in from sales, because there is higher unemployment. If taxes go up these companies will look to cut costs, maybe by reducing the workforce and sending more jobs abroad. Possibly an ever decreasing spiral.
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THAT'S WHY FOREIGN CALL CENTRES MAKE MY
BLOOD BOIL
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ANNOYING WORDS & PHRASES
OOOH - how these over used,
meaningless and unnecessary words and phrases that repeatedly litter so
many sentences really make my toes curl !!!!!!!
"....at the end of the day....", "....y'know....", ".....sort of.....", "....kind a' like.....", "......basically....".
AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
If you have ever been subjected to having to BBC Radio One involuntarily rammed down your auditory canal, you would have heard the empty headed, star-struck, simpering deejay, called Jo something-or-other, littering almost every paragraph with "...kind a like...this" "...kind a like ...that..." or "....kind a like ... the other...". It's just unbearable . . . . not that there is anything of any importance whatsoever contained therein . . . .
DOUBLE AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Of course that brings us on to the awful Chris Moyles, but my head will explode if I have to think about that subject for too long! So For an antidote to the British Yob Culture that the Moyles's of our world seem to represent , and the antithesis of Radio One, do try - Mike Dickin every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night.
So glad I got that off my chest! Hope you don't mind - thanks for bearing with me.
Ahh that's so much better.
Have a nice day.
"....at the end of the day....", "....y'know....", ".....sort of.....", "....kind a' like.....", "......basically....".
AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
If you have ever been subjected to having to BBC Radio One involuntarily rammed down your auditory canal, you would have heard the empty headed, star-struck, simpering deejay, called Jo something-or-other, littering almost every paragraph with "...kind a like...this" "...kind a like ...that..." or "....kind a like ... the other...". It's just unbearable . . . . not that there is anything of any importance whatsoever contained therein . . . .
DOUBLE AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Of course that brings us on to the awful Chris Moyles, but my head will explode if I have to think about that subject for too long! So For an antidote to the British Yob Culture that the Moyles's of our world seem to represent , and the antithesis of Radio One, do try - Mike Dickin every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night.
So glad I got that off my chest! Hope you don't mind - thanks for bearing with me.
Ahh that's so much better.
Have a nice day.
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