Strike On!

Its official, the pickets are out and once again the Royal Mail workers are on strike.
A walk out of between 24 and 48 hours.

I don't know all of the details. The workers are unhappy about the forthcoming changes to their contracts as the company desperately tries to modernise in order to compete in the 21st Century when snail mail is no longer the primary means of communication.

The reasons for needing to modernise and streamline are clear. They are delivering some 10,000,000 letters per day less than they were several years ago and this is a trend that is continuing to decline. So with a falling base of customers and as more and more of us switch to electronic bills and switch the green option of paperless, how can the Royal Mail business Model continue to exist long in to the future?

They are planning the biggest hike in the price of postage in its history with a 3 pence per First Class letter rise coming very soon. But with such a decrease in customers surely revenue will be falling as fast as the price increase adjusts.

Meanwhile, without modernisation the company is in a very bad place. The workers blaming the management, the management blaming the customers. Who is to blame? The Government for not interfering? As much as I feel sorry for the workers, to strike when there is so much unemployment in the country, in excess of 2.5 million workers desperate for a job, seems to be a bit off key. For over a year now we have been saying that things look like they are heading towards a winter of discontent. People are fed up with high inflation, but poor wage rises and yet still being taxed to the nth degree. With the highest cost of living in Europe old England is far from cheap. People that work at the Royal mail in the delivery offices and posting the letters will not be on the highest of salaries, but provide what I always believe should be considered an essential service.

The mail, like dustmen, the provision of electricity, water provision and infrastructure as well as transportation services are all necessities of the modern world and as such I think something that should be provided and run by the Government. We have however learned the hard way that at least in this country they couldn't organise a drink up in a Brewery.

Failed Metronet after the Government sold off the rights to run the tube, the highest electricity and gas prices in Europe after they sold off all the utilities and yet despite selling everything off they managed to dig a hole of dept that is currently 59% of GDP. What did they do with all the cash? Probably paid it to themselves in handsome little expenses packages.

Meanwhile, the Royal Mail strike continues and we hear that the Government is keen to sell the entire service off. They continue to strike, business customers leave in abundance for rival courier services and incidentally they have a pension deficit of between £9 and £10 Billion. Now while I may feel sorry for the workers at their grievances, who's going to want to buy a company of striking workers with £10 Billion dept. The Baby Boomers have struck us all again with yet another cost no doubt we will be left to pick up. Of course there is another option, Royal mail will fold. 25 years ago the miners were on strike and where are the miners now?

Time with the folkes

This week was to be a packed agenda of training and more training. I don’t think I barely have a day without any training until November at least. So knowing that my energy reserves would be required for the delegates in the training room, decided that the weekend needed to be less than energetic.

Saturday afternoon, having enjoyed a lovely lie in I made my way in the car around the North Circular and stopped off at Edmonton for a quick fly around Costco. It wasn’t that I so much needed anything but its always good to wander around and see what kind of deals and bargains you can find. We all love a bargain don’t we? Plus I managed to find the CrockerPot Slow Cooker at some £25 less than they were charging in Sainsbury’s.

From Costco I took the short drive down through the Abbey to my parents home where not only were they waiting in for me but also my Brother, Sister in Law, Nephew and Cousin. My newphew is not yet 2 years old and hardly knows me as every time I am at family events all of the girls fuss around and the boys never get a see in. So he stood there and looked at me with these eyes that were all inquisitive and almost saying “Who the heck are you?”. Of course he remembers the fabulous airplane I bought him at Christmas that he can sit on, which apparently was his favourite Christmas gift.

It was good to see the folks again. I almost felt obliged to go as it has been so long since I saw them last.

Came home around 7PM and spent the rest of the night at home.
Sunday I only made my way out of the flat to put the rubbish out and to nip very quickly to Sainburys to buy some Stewing Steak and rooted vegetables. Well I needed to try out the new Crockerpot right? Needless to say the slow cooked stew was divine. Must try a lamb shank next time.

Domestic Godess

This week is my final opportunity to prepare all of the materials for my new Portfolio Management course at work. Being prepared that I might need to work a few late nights I thought I should have a quiet weekend. Literally only going to Sainsburys and then having a complete domestic day on Sunday. Dug out a couple of cooking books and found a lovely recipe in the new Jamie Oliver one for Marinated Chicken (left it in the fridge overnight) and then made some dauphinois potatoes to go with them. Yummy. It's been a long while since I spent a Sunday at home cooking, possibly the whole of the summer, so that must be a good thing about winter drawing in. Back to home cooked hearty meals.

Meeting with my personal trainer on Thursday she worked my upper body so hard by Saturday I could hardly move my arms. Where I usually would do a full body workout on a Saturday had to skip that and let my arms recover. Back to the usual workout routine this week. Bigger by Christmas in all the right places we hope.

Football Streaming

This weekends International match will be shown exclusively via the internet and not any television channels, subject to a pay per view charge. Apparantly it has caused uproar amongst fans who like to watch either at home or in a pub. Not being a fan of the beautifull game, it doesn't affect me. But surely this is the furture. Television on demand, for a fee, via the web.

Imagine, the concert you couldn't get a ticket to being streamed live, for a fee to your home. It could be fabulous for all those things that we don't get a chance to see. Watching the reaction on the news fans were moaning that its not practical to sit around a computer screeen for the duration of a game. Funny I am sure it didn't stop you when you were viewing porn?

I wonder if one day movies might be released simultaniously in the theatres as well as broadcast on television? We rarely go to the movies anymore. Not because we don't want to see what's on, but because the thought of sharing the theatre with people chatting, cell phoness and disrespectful people means sometimes its not an enjoyable experience and something you prefer to do at home. Well see what happens in time. I have read in a magazine that by 2012 bandwith demand will outstrip supply. That's the funny thing about the furture, you just can't predict it.

What happened to education?

Its funny how so much can change in so little time. I didn't leave school that long ago but it was a time when only a handful of students got grade A. We didn't even have an A* grade. G.C.S.E's were bought in with the first year taking their exams in 1988. It was a time when the teachers were always on strike. They refused to mark your homework and you often had a day off school as the National Union of Teachers were on strike. Add to this a handful of bomb scares made even more realistic by the constant threat of the time of attacks from the IRA and it seemed that education in the late 1980s meant you had to work hard to get decent grades. We always insisted that GCSE actually stood for General Collapse in Secondary Education. How little we knew at the time.

Today something like 95% of students are achieving A's and A*'s. Now I’m not saying that the kids of today don't study but surely if 95% of students are getting the top grades then surely you are not making the exams hard enough? I often hear at work about the problems they have finding young people that can actually read, write or have a basic competence of Maths. The invention of Text Messages seems to have removed any ability to spell and dropping or substituting any letter. E.g. Alrigt m8 wot u upto?

We have an admission test at work of English, Maths & general competency. It does make you wonder what will happen when all of these young people come up to the age of being ready for employment? Will the world be able to understand their slang?

Meanwhile, University which used to be something that people that wanted to go into professions like Law, Teaching, Medicine. Today it seems they have opened up the Universities so that there is a place for nearly every student. It no longer seems to be a privilege but more a right of all these young people to go. Which is fair enough if they are going to go and learn and leave with a degree of worthwhile, but makes you wonder, do so many go to University now as they all got the required A Grades because they dummed down the exams so much that anyone could get in.

It has gotten so bad that Private Schools have opted out of the GCSE system and switched to the International GCSE (IGCSE) as they are harder.

Does make you wonder was all this done to simply get more people into study and off the unemployed list and therefore off the current statistics? Time will tell but from my own experience with GCSEs many years ago I'm all for bringing back O levels.

Autumnal Break

As the Home Office have still not returned our passports while we are extending Dusan’s visa and his right to remain in the UK (Despite the fact we are married), we had to go away on a domestic break. (The Home Office have had the passports over 3 months now and took the £800 fee in July. It still feels like we are trapped in the UK especially over the summer months).

So we had a week off at home. I know they say it’s good for the environment and admittedly it was cheaper. We spent the first part of the week literally just shopping and enjoying a much needed lie in. Especially as starting today I will be teaching virtually every day of the month. We ended the week off with a mini break to Torquay. England’s Riviera. I have no idea who came up with that as a phrase for Torquay, it was more like Skegness. A small bay side town with a strip of shops and then rising above it some hills where literally every other home was a small hotel.
We had seen advertised a new “Gay Resort” called Key West. Which drew us to the area in the first place. It was a small 19 room hotel that looked like the bedrooms had been recently refurbished. It was very Hollyoak’s looking with that kind of funky feature wall wallpaper. But had the sort of electric power shower that the hotter your made it, the lower the pressure would drop.

The features included an outdoor pool, which was almost on the main road, and a newly built, sauna & Steam Complex. We had thought we would end up going out for dinner then maybe a nice steam or spa in the hotel. The advert failed to mention that the spa was “under construction” and that the entire sauna complex closed at 9PM. Seemed a bit weird as it was a hotel resort and who really arrives early on a Friday?

But the biggest turn off to me was the lack of hospitality. We had to go to the bar on arrival as reception was closed and was given our key and told where to find our room. But then in the morning Dusan was in the shower when one of the owners came by and asked if we needed our room serviced. I said we would be ten minutes as Dusan was showering. “We don’t come back”, he snapped. Talk about offish!
You would have thought that considering that they are restricting their market to a “Strictly gay resort” they would be going out of their way to offer something a bit different. If it were me, Hospitality would be top of the list, and I nearly replied to his “We don’t come back”, with a “neither will we”. Especially as they bar was pumping out loud music that came directly through into the bedrooms each night till past midnight.

All in all it was very disappointing as we had much higher expectations and at £80 per night, far from cheap. As for a gay resort, well if a bar and a closed sauna complex make it a resort fine, but next time I want a gay weekend I think I will check into a Mal Maison or a Hotel de Vin where you really are treated, hospitality is outstanding and is almost about the same price with an option of room service or full dining service in their Bistro. Maybe the owners of the Toquay hotel would benefit from a stay in one if they hope to survive in business. I fear bad word of mouth will drive people away as it did us. Although the room was compfortable enough it was very basic.

On a positive note, it was nice to get away, the weather was fairly warm and we found a fabulous Mexican restaurant where we dined Saturday evening. Drove back in 5 hours yesterday and opened the bottle of Champagne Richard and Mark bought us (Thank you) for our holiday. Top the week off in style before heading back to the rat race this morning!

Cage au Folles

What better to do on a week off other than visit the theatre. So thanks to James at work we had front row seats to Cage au Folles. I tell you I do pick my seats well! Why is it that the woman next to me always laughs ten times more than anyone else?

Still we sat and watched the fabulous John Barrowman as the leading man or should I say lady, in the fabulous show. I don't know what it is about live entertainment that makes you just love it. Live music, live singing and comedy to boot.

The sad fact is that the drag queens on stage had bigger arm muscles than I! Memo to me I must go to the gym more. Stil was a fun a night and another show ticked off the list! ;-)