"I heard the news today......"

This is a mini rant!

Why do reputable & reasonably reliable TV news channels think we have the attention span of a gnat & the memory of a chicken? Am I the only one to notice the boring & unecessary repetition of the same information? The anchor will deliver the outline of whatever the news story is & then hand over to the link correspondent who repeats precisely the same information again, suitably embellished if they know anything further, which all to often they don't. Often the correspondent simply repeats the same facts, especially if it's breaking news.

I find this patronising & completely unecessary. Added to that it must be a huge waste of money. In many cases I question whether we really need to have a correspondent at the scene at all. Plus there must be a team of people supporting the front wo/man. Where a correspondent has expertise & / or relevant additional information of course they do put flesh on the bones of a story.

I also find the seemingly universal speculation around a breaking story a complete waste of time. People are asked their opinion about what might happen when they aren't even sure what has happened. What is the value of a personal opinion in this situation. Lot's of things might happen as a result of an incident, but until there is some indication that it's likely, speculation is utterly pointless.

I & presumably lots of other people want to be informed about the news - accurately. I am capable of retaining more than one fact at a time & making my own judgements. I would like to be treated as an intelligent adult by the media. If I wanted tosh I'd read the Daily Mail or some other rabble rousing newspaper.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Not!

The white, silent world is beautiful. All uneveness and ugliness is wiped out. There is a magical quality to the countryside, which hides the struggle that wildlife has to cope. I love the tree skeletons dusted white and the pristine, untrodden, ground that eventually shows where foxes, deer & birds have left their mark.

However, I was trapped in my house from Thursday night to Monday because my small Micra car isn't up to these conditions, even with winter tyres. Another snowfall overnight means I can't get out today either. There was a power cut, fortunately brief, last night. I am prepared though - I have torches & a gas lamp & camping stove.

It is a lesson on one's own inner resources to be marooned in a rural area. Neighbours with 4WD's are great, but essentially one has to simply accept the conditions & the knock on effects. So, I've missed a lunch with friends last week, which was postponed to today & now postponed again. I've missed a weekend of joint birthday celebrations with my daughter & family. Fortunately I got out to go swimming on Monday & Tuesday, so do feel I've had some exercise.

I'm lucky, I don't have the daily struggle to get to work. I'm warm & comfortable & have plenty of food. I find it very difficult to really imagine what it must be like to be living on the streets in weather like this. Or to be trapped in poverty & have to choose between eating & being warm. Or to be old, ill and alone.

We who are fortunate all know that there are people struggling to cope in our rich, developed, country. It is too easy to put the images out of our minds & focus on our own fairly petty struggles. I sometimes think that, particularly in Britain, we care more abour wildlife such as birds & our pets, than we do about our fellow human beings.

It doesn't have to be like that. We could, each one of us, do more.

PS
I give a huge vote of thanks to my post lady who struggled through the snow this morning & the electricity workers who did the same last night to restore power. In fact the thousands of people who put themselves out, & sometimes in harms way, to make sure that the wheels of society keep turning. We shouldn't take them for granted.

(Designer) Labels

I have never understood the urge to define oneself by which "designer label" is on one's clothes, accessories or household goods. Even more I am baffled by the willingness to pay more for something which is the "right" label & give the company free advertising. It all seems pretty shallow & needy to me.

Surely what is important is personal taste & individuality. Or do we all need to proclaim to the world that we belong to a particular tribe? Perhaps the whole "Emperors new clothes" thing just shows how terribly insecure many of us are. We are sold goods by clever & expensive marketing, PR firms & "celebrities" who are paid a fortune to endorse things in the hope that we will be daft enough to follow the herd.

If we are only "worth it", as the advert says, if we buy the "right" things, what does that say about the value of us as individuals?

Yesterday I went to a 70th birthday party which seems to me to really show someone's worth. Not in monetary terms, or what they wear, or the things they posess. But in terms of love & friendship. Loads of people turned out in the current dreadful weather to celebrate the birthday of someone they all obviously liked / loved. The very fact that we all celbrated this together shows the real worth is in acts of caring & friendship.

It isn't what you have or don't have that's important. It's the fact that you are valued as a person that shows real worth. It's a pity that most of us won't know how we are thought of by others because we only tend to say at a funeral.

The Perversity of Life.

I try very hard to be Zen like & live each moment fully mindful. I know that nothing can change what has happened & also that however much I want something to happen sod's law says that it may not. Sometimes it does turn out to be better that plans have had to be changed - other opportunities emerge.

I just wonder why the juxtaposition of events so often means that "the best laid plans..." go awry - or is it just that I wasn't born lucky? The snow didn't stop me seeing Les Mis on Thursday night, but I have to admit to a frisson of concern that I may have to walk home from Stroud.

Friday dawned silently white. I was meant to go to lunch with friends I haven't seen for a long time to share experiences of a trip to Nepal. They live on the other side of the Severn, so conditions are even worse than here. Fortunately that has just been postponed.

I was then supposed to drive to Oxford to see my daughter & family to celebrate our joint birthdays. A take away & bottle of champagne on Friday evening & a rare, looked forward to opportunity to enjoy a chat on our own. Impossible - the weather & road conditions meant it would have been foolhardy & I'm too old to be stuck in solitary isolation in one of the many accidents & traffic snarl up's. The combination of weather & inexperienced drivers, plus phone calls from concerned male friends was enough to deter me.

A forlorn hope that I might be able to go today - but nothing much had changed except it's colder. So, a happy weekend lost.

How to see the positive in this? I really don't know at the moment. Except - I haven't had an accident or been hurt, & I haven't caused anyone else to be hurt. Dealing with disappointment isn't easy. We all have aims & desires which seem very important at the time. The temptation to say "why me" is great. Perhaps what we should say is why not me?

At the end of the day none of this experience is really important in the grand scheme of things. My disappointment is merely an emotional response to having what I want thwarted. Buddhists would say that we shouldn't desire things. Obviously I'm nowhere near Nirvana yet!

Birthday Musings

January isn't the best month to have a birthday. It's usually cold, wet, grey & miserable on mine. However today is beautiful. My spirits rise when the sun shines.

I'm 68. Not really sure how that happened. However the evidence is before my eyes every morning in the mirror. I'm sure I could think of 68 reasons to be cheerful, but it's too long a list to write. It could probably be encapsulated in Maslows Hierarchy of Needs:-
1. Biological and Physiological needs - food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep...
2. Safety needs - security, stability, law, freedom from fear...
3. Belonging / Love needs - work group, family, friends, relationships...
4. Self Esteem needs - achievement, mastery, independence, recognition, respect...
5. Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential / inner talent, self-fulfillment, personal growth, creativity...
I have problems - who doesn't. An awful lot of people have more serious ones than mine. I know now that I can't change anything that has happened. All I can do is try to deal well with each event as it transpires.

It is true that when you age you become more reflective. One should have learnt from experience & therfore be more empathetic. I know a lot of stuff, although much gets temporarily lost in the Swiss cheese that is my brain nowadays.

One thing I know is that number 3 on the Maslow scale is really, really important. My lovely neighbour Cilla arrived on my doorstep with a card & a bunch of flowers this morning. You can't buy that sort of friendship & thoughtfulness. My lovely daughter rang to wish me a Happy Birthday & sent me a card that made me laugh. I have received cards & egreetings from friends who remembered despite their busy lives.

One has to give love & friendship in order to receive. I do hope I don't turn into a crabby old woman who no one wants to be with - New year / Birthday resolution - must work hard at making sure that doesn't happen. You can't take it for granted.

Anti - Social Media

I'm not usually ambivalent. I generally know what I think. But in this instance I'm not sure. I joined Facebook because I hoped to get in touch with some friends I had lost touch with, who didn't know David, my husband had died. It didn't work. Probably because I'm not sure I really understand Facebook. I also joined Twitter, but that's even more of a mystery to me. I can't see the point of it, so I unjoined.

Then I started to Blog, because I found it theraputic. Now I'm hooked & don't much care if anyone reads me or not. What I don't get is where all these people who could possibly be my friend, even though I have never heard of them, come from. The list grows exponentially & I don't seem to be able to get rid of it. It all seems so superficial & pointless. Who wants hundreds of friends they don't know apart from some sad loser?

What I really don't get is why anyone would imagine that other people would be interested in the boring minutii of their lives. It seems bizarre to me - along the lines of verbal diarrhoea. There seems to be a general need to let the world know what you are doing & where you are, all the time, however mundane & uninteresting that information is.

Texting & speaking on mobiles is bad enough. Listening to other people's mobile conversations is rarely edifying.  For some reason there seems to be a general acceptance that the person on the other end of the phone is deaf or stupid - or both. I'm always amazed at the length of some of these fairly mindless conversations. People can't be that hard up if they can pay their phone bills.

On the other hand Social Media has become a valuable communication tool, often taking the place of journalists in areas of conflict. We can be informed what is going on all over the world as events play out. That must be a powerful way of stopping criminal regimes from getting away with despicable acts. People can be warned of danger or mustered to act in concert against evil. If the world is constantly under the microscope of mobile camera phones it is hard to get away with anything. That must be good. The corollary to that is the use of networks during the riots in the UK a couple of years ago. Seemingly, as with most things, there is a positive and a negative.

I, however, don't want to be instantly available to anyone who has my number. So I rarely switch my phone on. I get very irritated with banks etc who send me activation codes for internet transactions via my mobile. Especially as I have no reception at home.

If I were involved in an accident I could instantly have a photographic record. If I were ill or in any sort of trouble, or saw someone else who was, I could do something about it. On the whole I tend to think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. But I could be persuaded otherwise.

In fact it's all irrelevant anyway. Technology & Social Media is here to stay. I still prefer a face to face, old fashioned, conversation. You can pick up body language & facial expression & just give someone a word of encouragement or a hug. Smiley's in an email just don't do it for me. I just hope we don't get to the stage where we all just have an implanted communication micro chip.

Prison Closures - Spot the Difference - Cows / Prisoners.

Two of the most influential books I've ever read were "Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler & "Small is Beautiful" by E F Shumacher, both written in the 70's. I'm tempted to send copies to the leaders of this Government, but I doubt it would change the current Government thinking on our Prison Estate.

The announcement today that seven prisons are going to be closed & three will be partially shut to be replaced by super prisons came as a complete shock to those of us involved with any of these prisons. Staff will be re-deployed or offered voluntary redundancy as far as possible. Offenders will be moved.

We were warned at the annual conference of the Independent Monitoring Board last year that the Government was committed not only to privatising services to prisons, but the prisons themselves. However, at the prison I serve we had been reassured that we would be OK. A new Governor & her staff have worked unbelievably hard to improve the prison over the last year.

The impact of this on all staff, offenders & their families will be enormous. Then the impact on all the people involved in the support services for these prisons has to be taken into account. The implications are huge & the cost will not be inconsiderable. Maths isn't my best subject but I am left wondering how the Government has arrived at the cost saving figures they have announced.

The new super prison will house, (what a euphemism!), 2,000+ offenders. It isn't yet built, but the closures will start at the end of this financial year - i.e. April. The government insists that offenders will have more opportunities in a very large prison. However, it sounds to me as if that doesn't necessarily mean an improvement in conditions, as a lot of courses will take place in the offenders cells. So they may well be locked up for longer than they already are. Although the government denies the term "warehousing" I find it difficult to believe that won't be the outcome. The parallels with the story line in "The Archers" about the mega cattle rearing sheds Borchester Land is building seem obvious to me.

Professor Andrew Coyle (Prison Studies London University & the International Centre for Prison Studies), is against this move. He says there is clear evidence that the optimum number for a prison is 500. He also says a feasability study has already been published which questions the use of "super prisons". The American example fills me with foreboding.

We have to hope that the Secretary of State for Justice Chris Grayling & his Under Secretary Crispin Blunt know what they are doing.  Personally, I prefer to put my faith in someone who has the expertise, the qualifications and the experience like Prof Coyle. Sadly he doesn't have the power.

Tax doesn't have to be Taxing - 2

Apparently HMCR takes their ad' strap line literally! They only want the money of ordinary mortals like me, and are happy to make rules which allow big multi national corporations pay little or no tax on their vast profits.

In the usual complicated & euphemistic jargon used to confound normal people it's called "income shifting" or "tax transfer pricing". If you Google, (one of the worst offenders), the big tax companies like Ernst & Young or Price Waterhouse Coopers you will find they actively market their skills at doing this. It's not illegal - just completely immoral.

It seems to have started with Irish tax law, (how appropriate), & is a way of shuffling profits into & out of subsidiaries so they end up in tax havens where the corporations pay little or no tax.

The average corporate rate of tax is 20%. However in the USA it's 35% & in the UK it's 28%. The big corporations seem to be paying as little as 2.4%. This means the USA loses 1.4trillion $ and the Eurozone loses 868 billion euros.

It isn't just the developed world who are losing out to the corporations. It significantly affects the developing world too. That seems even more reprehensible to me - "Fat Cats" doesn't even begin to cover it.

Having said all of that, the real problem is the complete mess the tax system is in after years of add ons to a system which isn't basically "fit for purpose". What sort of supposedly professional Tax experts do we have? We have a group of overworked, probably underpaid, people, trying their best to make this stupid system work. The really good people probably go to work for E & Y or P W C for much bigger salaries & help the corporations squirm out of their obligations.