Appreciated, valued, deluded and underpaid

According to a piece of professional development drivel I just came across, people who are 'appreciated' work harder. The capacity for self-delusion amongst the horny-handed toilers never ceases to amaze me. Having been told for years that unions are evil, that any form of collective expression of dissatisfaction is wrong, it seems we now have a generation of workers that feel beholden to those who employ them or commission them to work - is it any wonder that pay rates are, at best, stagnant? The best way to show appreciation for work well done is to pay for it properly, and on time (if performed by one of the growing ranks of the self-employed). Recent years have seen a growth in CPD as a means of ensuring that skill levels remain relevant across a whole range of sectors, but - hand-in-hand with this - has been the insidious spread of a species of management-speak that constantly chips away at the need to pay well (or even at all - witness the growth in reliance on volunteering or the apparently unstoppable rise of the unpaid interns). There is clear danger here: by denigrating concern about pay levels, we are creating an underclass of impoverished workers, at a time when management sees its pay levels increase out of all proportion to those they employ. We need politicians and economists to demand a far greater correlation between the two - and soon.

The wild (city)rover

Owing to a car service that necessitated an overnight stay in the garage for our somewhat venerable Fiat Punto, I ended up with a Cityrover courtesy car. Cityrovers, for those not familiar with the marque, were built at Longbridge between 2003-2005 and, rather incongruously carry the Rover badge. Now, in my youth, Rovers were a beast of a car: John Thaw's Jack Regan drove one menacingly around London's badlands every week on the Sweeney and every hard-bitten (plus quite a few soft-boiled) 70s sales reps probably gave their eye-teeth to get behind the wheel of one. A Cityrover, by stark contrast, is a rattle-wagon with an under-powered rubberband engine and doors that give the adjective 'tinny' a bad name. In short, driving from home to Yeadon and back was a trial. The experience was made worse on arriving at work as, for reasons best know to the manufacturer, this car is fitted with an alarm and immobiliser of fearsome proportions - far in excess of the vehicle's worth - and which I managed to set off while trying to lock the damn thing. My humiliation was not quite complete, however. On leaving the office, and making the most of the non-powered steering to wrest the thing out of its parking bay, I was treated to a look of such superiority and contempt by the man behind the wheel of a sleek, brand new Merc (64 plate for UK readers) who was just pulling into the car park. Cityrover - experience the true feel of 1970s British auto engineering: coming soon to a scrapyard near you.

Recommended reading?

I bought Nick Davies' expose of high crimes and misdemeanors in the evil Murdoch empire Hack Attack on Read Now app, which has just recommended Mein Kampf for 74p. I knew Rupe was a thoroughly-bad egg, but didn't have him in the same league as Hitler. One recommendation I won't be taking up.

Guinea pig bereavement

Peppa, one half of the duo of sows we 'adopted' in April died in her sleep on Wednesday night. At six-and-a-half this was not entirely unexpected. Cheeky and playful to the last, her version of raging against the dying of the light was to stage an audacious dash for freedom when being moved from the run to hutch for what proved to be the last time.
Her partner, Salt, at three, and with a far more nervous disposition, has gone through a complete transformation in behaviour. Where previously she'd run away if we approached, even bearing food, now she just sits and looks vacantly into space, she is also now content to sit on a lap and purrs when stroked. I think we will soon be looking for another adoptee.

Thirteenth birthday bash, where's the antacid?

Youngest son celebrates thirteenth birthday tomorrow, so tonight - as requested, we have a sleepover preceded by an outing to KFC. Hope sleep comes early, and the heartburn inducing deep-fried grease fest doesn't mean I'm the one who can't get to sleep til the wee smalls...

I Am Pilgrim

Enjoyed Terry Hayes' debut novel. Bit too James Bond in places but a good espionage tale nonetheless. Looks like a film's planned, so see what the movies make of it. Decided to follow it up with Le Carre's Most Wanted Man. Might not get to see it at cinema so soon after its release bit really enjoy his writing in any case. Sad to see it's Seymour Hoffman's final leading role.

Dead flies and a dead shredder

Just seen off the second shredder of the year. With the sheer volume of paper that contains names, addresses or even hints of bank details needing to be disposed of, you'd have thought they'd built to last. Them again, perhaps weakness makes up  for the lack of built-in obsolescence in the damn  things. Either way, it's another 25 quid down the drain. At least it keeps the guinea pigs in bedding.
And now, as the nights draw in, the time has come for Autumn's least likeable task: removing dessicated fly and moth remains from the conservatory roof blinds delicate folds... All hail the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, and crispy creepy-crawly corpses.

Choking in praise of Wensleydale

Over dinner last evening in Ziggy's Indian restaurant, Halifax, my eldest son regaled us with the news that one of his scout leaders had, earlier that day,  cycled from his home in Sowerby Bridge to England's highest market town, which is situated in Wensleydale, an are I love to visit. Indeed, so caught up was I in the moment that I immediately ejaculated the highly ambiguous phrase 'I like Hawes'.
Cue coughing fit and mirth from spouse and offspring.
It's great when you can embarrass the kids in public...

Family walk in the Dales? That'll be £14, please

Went to Ingleton today as a family of four looking forward to the 4 mile walk that takes in a couple of dozen waterfalls and some fine limestone scenery, all in the majestic shadow of Ingleborough. There's always been a charge for this, as most of the route is admittedly over private land. However, we were unpleasantly surprised to find the price had been hiked to £14 for a family ticket! Time for another mass trespass?

Fear and loathing - religious bigotry in west Wales

Leaving the Gatehouse after visiting St David's Cathedral, in the smallest Welsh city of the same name, I was handed a double-sided, closely typed A5 sheet. The bearer was wearing cycle clips, which I probably should've taken to be a portent of obsession. The message contained on the sheet, and reinforced by a disparate collection of biblical quotes ranging from Genesis to Timothy, although all held together by the drivel that is Revelation ('the happy hunting ground of heretics and schismatics' or 'I don't know what the writer was on at the time they wrote it, but I wouldn't want to be caught coming through Customs with any...': two blistering counterblasts I once heard a baptist minister deliver against the final New Testament entry). The text starts by stating that God has made Israel his 'battle axe' to destroy all 'His and Israel's foes', so you know straightaway that were talking fundamentalist Christian support for Israel's stance on Gaza. Interestingly though, Islam isn't mentioned by name as one of the 'human anti-Christs' to be destroyed by the divine battleaxe. Rather the writer states that Israel is now 'surrounded by enemies' that want its destruction. These are all lumped together as 'Satanic'. But if Islam is only hinted at, others aren't so lucky - because also lined up for a bit of battleaxe smiting action are Jehovah's Witnesses and anyone that practises transcendental meditation (looks like some personal issues crept in at that point: still, must be hard to stop, once the smiting urge grabs you). To sum up the message: taking a string of biblical prophecies and eschatological texts (ie those dealing with the end of the world/judgement day/Armageddon, etc), written between 2,000-3,000 years ago, the author is using the Old and New Testaments to justify the violence and death being visited on Gaza by the modern-day Israeli state. In this context, the author's antipathy to Jehovah's Witnesses is interesting, because they too are heavily influenced by a belief in the 'end times' (which to them started in 1914 and will culminate with a cataclysmic final battle - literally Armageddon). This belief that 'the end is high' is also shared by several other sects and even some 'mainstream' fundamentalist evangelicals, and the author of this text is clearly motivated by a desire to hasten the 'end' by talking of modern-day Israel in Old Testament prophetic terms: this isn't a focus on the suffering of either Israel or the Palestinians, but rather an attempt to exploit the suffering for decidedly millenarial ends. The bible isn't always on the side of the foam-flecked, however, and instead of using Rev as the mortar to stick disparate pieces of biblically inspired intolerance together to justify the violence that has caused so many child deaths in Gaza, it would have been better to turn to Micah, Chap 4. Best known as the bit in the bible that wants to turn swords into ploughshares, it goes on to say that all should live in peace, each under their own figtree. Now there really is a quote worth reminding Israel - and all those who sell it weapons - about. Could also be used as a British value, if Mr Cameron really wants to show some leadership. Micah appears to have lived at a time when - as now - tolerance and peace were in short supply in the Middle East. The writer's response was to pen a phrase that stands in stark contrast to those who filter scripture to bolster calls for war. In Chapter 6, in answer to the question 'what does God require of you?' there is the simple reply: 'do justice, love mercy and walk in peace with your God'. Effective, straight to the point, and certainly beats peddling hate outside cathedrals/chapels/mosques/churches/temples et cetera, passim, ad nauseum.

Llandudno, twinned with Devizes?

Twin Llandudno with Devizes
An Orme so small, hardly no Orme at all
But another so big it wins prizes.

All together now: serving food the family way...

Might sound rather old-fashioned, but my family of four likes to eat together, sitting at a table, but here on holiday in south-west Wales that's proving rather difficult. In pubs and cafes over the past week, we've had food delivered at intervals, so that some sit eyeing up the dish in front of them, while neighbouring sibling or parent twiddles their thumbs. It used to be standard practice to assemble and hold all one table's dishes in the kitchen so they could be served together. Now, food delivery seems to focus on each individual dish, so that eating is staggered - even between members of the same party, who ordered their food at the same time. And it's bloody annoying.

The perils of falconry

Caught a falconry display at Pembroke Castle. A couple of Harris hawks put through their paces by a falconer from Abergavenny with a nice line in slightly politically incorrect patter. Come the grand finale, however, and the anticipated peregrine flying display fizzled out when the bird flew off over the castle walls only to find chasing seagulls preferable to entertaining the crowd, which left, leaving lone falconer climbing the castle walls shouting 'Quack Quack' - the bird's name, but surreal nonetheless.

Estuary-side holiday let

Neyland, Pembrokeshire. The letting agent insists on calling the three-bed semi we've rented for the week a 'cottage'; it isn't.
It's comfortable enough, although the claw-footed bath with ersatz rubber shower hose attachments is rather impractical. We're also next door to a masonic hall. The bowler and pinny brigade haven't shown up yet, but I'm on the lookout for rolled-up  left trouser legs.

Telegram from Guernica, biography of George Steer

In which Churchill's recorded as being in favour of using poison gas against native uprisings. Mussolini got there first though. War in Ethiopia was orchestrated by Italian fascist regime and used copious amounts of the stuff against poorly equipped Ethiopians.

Summer, the first time...

Last Saturday, with my wife out shopping and eldest son skateboarding with his friends, I rashly asked my 12-year-old if he would like a barbecue. Not keen myself: risk of eating raw meat and amount of cleaning up afterwards, but he was very keen to take up the offer, so burger and sausages in hand, and charcoal nearly alight, the cooking commenced. Soon afterwards, there was a call from the first-born, could he and his friend AND TWO GIRLS also attend the charred meat fest? The upper case letters are there to denote a first: we haven't had a request for teenaged girls to join us before - my youngest son was horrified, and immediately said he would be eating inside (girls to him are classed as 'annoying' - the vast majority; or 'OK' - which means the like to play football and go nuts in the park with him). I declared the barbecue open to all - with the proviso that eldest son procured either more sausage or burgers as we didn't have anywhere enough for six people. The four newcomers duly arrived and I was amazed when the girls ensured eldest went for the extra food without my having to issue the request more than once, and took the lead in arranging an impromptu al fresco experience on the decking. Mind you, youngest still thought they fell in the 'annoying' category, they didn't eat any of the salad or offer to help with the clearing up. Still, a major civilising influence and a neat, yet determined, counterbalance to the usual testosterone-fuelled, YouTube video-watching staple of teenaged male-only mealtimes. They can definitely come again, no matter what youngest son says...

Know your place

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sense-Place-David-Hyatt-ebook/dp/B00M6ZW3PC/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406576153&sr=1-1&keywords=a+sense+of+place+hyatt

Patterson and Gove and the blobbies

First Gove derided one, now Patterson has blamed one for his ministerial demise. Both criticised 'blobs', environmental or educational establishment groupings that stood in the way of their pet theories. But delving into the alleged constituent parts of their respective blobs, a different picture tends to emerge. Take Patterson's Green Blob, where we find pressure groups - like Greenpeace and other lobby groups, the Green Party, and a vague identification of others opposed to Patterson's climate change beliefs. These aren't the dangerous elements he describes, but rather those concerned enough to take  stand against the arrogant/ignorant stance taken by ministers convinced as to the rightness of their cause, but lacking the empirical evidence for their frequently dogmatic assertions. It's not the blobs we should fear, rather the unchallengeable assertions of Tories with unshakeable views that don't stand up to reasoned argument. Bet IDS has a lot of blobs.

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden

Really enjoyed this surreal romp through 50 years of geopolitical history; even made grim, apartheid era South Africa funny. And the king even appealed to Republican me http://www.harpercollins.com/9780062329127/the-girl-who-saved-the-king-of-sweden

Zut alors; French cops on English streets - a Mail reader's nightmare

Along with 2.5 million others, I managed to catch sight of the peloton as it made its way through God's own country at the weekend. As I left Mytholmroyd train station to walk up the hill to Cragg Vale, the longest continual incline in England, I noticed a line of deckchairs on a grass verge, every single occupant of which was engrossed in the Mail on Sunday. Thought at the time that this was one of those quaintly British paradoxes at work here: a group of right wing media consumers out to watch a bunch of mainly foreign bike riders race past them. It was only an hour or so later that I realised they faced a threat to their well-being from the pre-peloton 'caravan' itself. By then waiting outside the Robin Hood pub, the first outriders appeared, but they weren't British bobbies on motorbikes, rather French Gendarmes or Police Nationale, and they kept on coming, either on high-powered bikes or in minibuses. The platoon of MoS readers must have been driven to apoplexy, I thought. Soon afterwards, I heard the wail of a siren, only for a Mountain Rescue Service ambulance to drive past, down the hill in the direction of the station. I learned later that it was called to treat someone who have fallen off a wall, not to defibrillate a MoS reader who'd been driven to cardiac arrest by the sight of so much French motorised law enforcement. This was probably a good thing, because the ambulance itself was Irish - first aid for the Tour being provided by the no doubt excellently equipped Dublin and Wicklow Mountain Rescue Service - Erin Abu.

Ofsted inadequate

Son's school has just had an Ofsted inspection that shows - achieving academy status AND opening a 'free school' FE vocational centre notwithstanding - that it's gone from a 'good' community high school to being so inadequate, across all four inspected areas, as to be placed in special measures.
All this decay took place against a veritable deluge of supposed good news stories pumped put at regular intervals via email and paid for mailshots. Strange, then, that notification of the Ofsted inspection was by way of a letter handed to pupils to bring home. Being suspicious by nature, I now wonder if they hoped to ameliorate the potential flow of bad news to the inspectors by using the least reliable method: after all, the Ofsted report itself mentions the low number of parental submissions. There's a parents' forum taking place in an hour, where I'm really hoping that serious questions will be answered, particularly regarding the findings of inadequate teaching in KS3 and 4 and the inadequate finding for pupil behaviour and safeguarding. But then again, perhaps I shouldn't expect too much, after all, in the (mailed) letter inviting us to the 'forum', the headteacher assures how keen they are to embark on their 'improvement journey'. From Michael Gove preserve us...

Forum update: Some very interesting questions about lack of quality homework - this is an area that the school has previously said senior management (SMT) were going to tighten up on, but nothing happened. Some parents also very scathing about internal organisation of recent Yr 10 mock exams. The new head did admit, in response to one of my questions, that attaining academy status had not worked for them. Seems to be more a case of being distracted by the 'freedom' of being run by the DoE, as opposed to answerable and accountable to the LEA, that they failed to consider the developments being made by other comparable schools in the locality. She even went so far as to admit that there had been no proper benchmarking undertaken for the best part of two years, so that the SMT were essentially 'flying blind' but happy to do so, given the nice warm feeling of being in charge of their own school and the new FE centre. All crashed down around them now. Gove not such a good replacement LEA after all. Not to worry - it's only our children's futures they're working with.

Virgil Tracy lives on our street

The electric double up-and-overs hide his island of neat Each tool and gadget is easily to hand Thuderbird 2 has been swapped for a white van. Hours spent wall-mounting, storing and ordering Unlike the rest of us unprepared tool-fumbling dimwits He knows anything could need fixing in the next 30 minutes.

A problem in the trouser department

When was it decided that button flies were back in fashion? What will they bring back next - night soil removal? Rickets? I know UKIP and the Tories want to take us back to the fifties, but hadn't realised zips were on the list of things they disapproved of, along with social security, the NHS and human rights.

Assessing insurance claims

Time was if misfortune or accident struck, you called your insurer and left it up to them to sort put estimates and costs. That's what insurance companies did. But then, insurers realised they could cut operating costs by turning themselves into call centres, which handled the initial contact, and sent out premium reminders - which have now morphed into egregious auto renewals, complete with nasty, unexpected direct debit bills. The difficult site visits and dealing with builders, mechanics, car body repairers, etc being farmed out to loss adjusters.
The insured, having notified the insurer of a claim, would then deal with someone from a different company, who sorted out the costs and expenses and instructed the repairer. But now, yet another entity has interposed itself between insured and insurer: the claims or loss assessor. Once a claim comes into existence, these bottom-feeding ambulance chasers use divers means, including, apparently, payments to emergency service personnel, to discover the identity of the insured, and then hasten to 'sign' them up, by getting signatures to a contract that allows the assessor to 'manage' the claim on the insured's behalf, in return for commission payments from the repairers they obtain permission to use from the loss adjuster.
In reality, however, the assessor is doing nothing the insured couldn't do in person, and adding yet another party into the equation also increases the time taken to put right the damage caused. Unnecessarily complicating the claims procedure adds to adminstration cost and that forces up premiums, meaning that we all lose, due to the resistable rise of the loss assessors.

Happy Anniversary

The picture was taken 100 years ago today - my grandparents married at St Andrew's Church, Burley, Leeds on 1 June 1914. Just 27 days later, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was assassinated in Sarajevo - a place that most of the people in the photograph would never had heard of. But by the beginning of August, WWI was declared and within 4 years my grandfather would be fighting in Flanders and of his two brothers, Arthur would be a prisoner of war in Germany, and his youngest brother, Albert, would be dead - killed in an air raid at Ypres. Of two of the male cousins in the photograph, one would lie about his age to enlist and another would endure the opprobrium and ridicule reserved for the conscientious objector. Before the public displays of remembrance start, I want to offer my family as an example - on this, the centenary of my grandparents' wedding - as a reminder of what war did to ordinary people, and how they coped with the horror of events way beyond their experience or control.

Conspiracy of email silence

15-year-old son's high school has a tendency to send out emails on matters of mindless tedium. Surprising then to discover, 10 days after the fact, that it saw fit to inform parents of a recent Ofsted by the tried and not-so trusted method of sending a letter home - which I've only just found!
Anyone would think they didn't want us to talk to the inspection team...

The Myth of Beef Tomatoes

Nearly 30 years ago, I worked with Keith, a keen gardener, at a printing company in Leeds. Keith’s main interest was growing flowers, but he, like many gardeners at the time, also liked to grow tomatoes. Perhaps it was the novelty of growing something that demanded light and warmth in the wet and usually cloudy north, but he enjoyed the challenge, with the added dimension of being able to claim that he had grown tomatoes that were larger than his neighbour’s or work-mate’s efforts. Keith used to talk about another former workmate who had seen large beef tomatoes when he was on holiday in Spain. This person, whose name escapes me, if indeed, I ever knew it, had managed to dry the seeds of a large Spanish beef tomato, from which he had grown his own tomatoes in his greenhouse back at home. The story seemed plausible, more than that, it set up the challenge: would this successful gardener share his seeds? Keith asserted that the exercise had been repeated for a number of years, but, unfortunately, he had now lost touch with the grower of those wonderful Spanish-originated tomatoes. A few years later, I was working at another printing company, when a similar story reached my ears. This time, it was a machine-minder called Lewis, whose cousin – certainly not the person Keith had mentioned – who was the successful importer of the rare sun-dried seeds, even though the modus operendi sounded very similar: the tomato was eaten on holiday in warmer Spanish climes; the putative grower procured another specimen, extracted the seeds and managed to dry them on a hotel room window sill, before packing them within the family’s luggage for the return journey. In those now far-off days, when we still had a printing industry worthy of the name, printers were inveterate potterers, so this part of the story, which relied on ingenuity struck a chord. Some of my co-workers had turned pottering into an art form and spent years perfecting the skill of obsessively creating things of little apparent use, both in and out of their paid working environments; these strange ‘hobbies’ ranged from complex indoor recreational activities, such as crazy golf or indoor cricket games that could be hastily removed if the boss appeared, while others became factory-renowned experts in cacti and succulents, geneology (years before Who Do You Think You Are? graced our TV screens), and there were also renowned home brewers and winemakers. Some of this latter grouping led me to experiment for a while, until, that is, my then cellar became home to a few dozen bottles of lethally explosive cider. Sitting upstairs of an evening, my television viewing was punctuated by random subterranean detonations, followed soon afterwards by the sharp aroma of apple and the soft tinkle of broken glass falling from shelf to floor, which led me to abandon the project. And yet, thinking back over the eccentrics and the pranksters, for example, the work’s foreman who delighted in wandering into a local DIY shop at lunchtime, where he would surreptitiously set a couple of the mouse-traps that formed part of a long-standing basket display, before loitering in the adjoining paint aisle to await activation by an unsuspecting shopper, you have to mourn the passing of interests and diversions that enlivened the working day, for we were not yet enslaved to desk or screen and prevented from interaction by stress, deadlines and worry; co-workers were ‘mates’, not ‘colleagues’. Collegiality now means isolation for many, as opposed to being alongside others in the collective exercise of labour. We even tolerated those whose productivity was lower than our own. For example, my first boss would urge us to keep the noise down after lunch if one of our number was in the darkroom. It only occurred to me later that my workmate was having a short rest: a power-knapper years before his time, and that the boss, normally such a stickler, was fully cognisant of the fact. We could also cover-up for the unfortunates who suffered equipment or fitting malfunctions or transgressed health and safety norms. In this category fall the paste-up artist who joined with the mythical three old-ladies by becoming locked in the lavatory when the bolt stuck, and had to be rescued by the boss, who effected the release with the aid of a liberally applied hammer that just about drowned out our laughter. Or the camera operator who managed to slip and fall from a darkroom bench when changing a light source filter. The front of the bench was fitted with an exposure control switch that became entangled in his left trouser bottom as he rapidly descended. This caused a rent in his trouser leg that extended from ankle to crotch. The dull thud was heard by many, but he refused to open the door or a while. Indeed, he only did so when convinced that ‘Charlie’ wasn’t in the building: he had fallen so hard onto the control switch that ‘I’m surprised there aren’t two lumps on the back of my neck’ were the first words he said as he shakily emerged into the light, and ‘the last thing I needed was Charlie howling with laughter when I opened the bloody door’. The biggest beef tomatoes ever grown in the north might have been the Leeds print industry’s very own modern myth but I still want it to be true. Now that the indoor games have been packed away and graphic design software has swept away the darkrooms and cameras, even the very businesses where we worked, that the memory of those tenuous claims to fame have achieved the status of waymarkers to a past, where, sadly, we did things differently but with more style and fun than we can ever claim now.

Playing doctors at the Chemist

Routine collection of a repeat prescription was enlivened by the announcement that the pharmacist on duty wanted to review my medication. This turned out to be a short discussion in a rather cramped 'consultation room' that they've craftily hived-off from a storeroom. Working through a list of my medication, the pharmacist seemed most concerned to know whether I needed to take rabeprozal sodium every day - and what would happen if I didn't?
Now, these questions rather highlight the facile nature of the review exercise: this medication was prescribed several years ago to treat a hereditary condition that affects the duodenum's ability to prevent stomach acid entering the oesophagus. Rebeprozal is a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) that stops me enduring perpetual heartburn caused by acid reflux. Asking the question means the pharmacist didn't know the obvious answer, and caused me to wonder why she'd decided to second guess my GP, who also regularly reviews my medication - the key difference being that, whereas the pharmacist dispenses, the physician prescribes. And I'm interested to know who has decided that essential and time-honoured division should now be eroded by the pill-counters.

Bullying lasts

Research showing that bullying victims recall their feelings and sense of humiliation years after the event comes as no surprise to me. Bullied at primary school in the mid-sixties, I can still remember the sense of hurt and alienation. Even now I fear seeing the face of a tormentor in the crowd if visiting the place where I grew up. The effects, for me, are heightened when I remember the inaction of those supposed to protect me. Teachers then handled complaints of bullying by doling out the routine advice 'don't let them see it upsets you'. In other words, they expected the victim to modify their behaviour, rather than challenge or confront the tormentor.
A few years ago, I saw how things can change for the better. Now a teacher myself, I found a Yr. 8 boy crying in the cloakroom. A sensitive and intelligent child, he told me he'd been bullied by another boy. I mentioned this to a senior staff member, who asked that, as there were 'pastoral' issues surrounding both boys,  would I mind writing a short note for 'the record'? Remembering my own humiliation from decades earlier, I agreed, but asked that she take my comments onboard. Her response was swift and effective: both sets of parents called, bully confronted, and effects of his actions painstakingly explained.
We have learned something in the intervening half-century. It's not the victim that has to hide their feelings or the bully that's allowed to carry on unchecked anymore.
And Richard, if you ever get round to reading this, the kid you used as a punchbag in the cloakroom at Beckett Park Primary School in Leeds back in 1966 hopes you somehow learned to change your behaviour on the way to becoming the director of an electrical contracting business. If you didn't, you must have cost the business thousands in compensation claims by now. You see, your primary education failed to prepare you in much the same way that those charged with providing it failed to protect me. Either way, it did not allow us to grow into fully rounded people, capable of empathising with, and relating to, those around us.
But there's another face I fear glimpsing in the crowd, and that's your's, Chris. Because every victim can turn on another they perceive to be weaker or different to them, and that's what my senior colleague saw from my report: the victim had turned on a quieter boy, a victim of his own, to visit revenge of a kind, for the humiliation he'd suffered at the hands of others. Which is what I'd done to Chris - one who struggled at school, who now would have been identified as having needs to be addressed so he could make the most of the education he needed. Yet back then, he was singled out by the teachers and his fellow pupils, made to sit at the back with much easier work than the rest. They might as well have painted a target on him.
The bullied can bully too. I did, though thankfully not for long, because a deputy head intervened, but the harm I could have done shames me as much as the hurt I suffered.

Bullied children still suffer at 50 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27063715

The house at pooh corner, or why I wanted to kiss a Glaswegian drain cleaner

Confusion reigned this week. A blocked drain, and some distressing internal seepage, raised the question as to whether I or Yorkshire Water were responsible for the repair bill. On Monday, a blockage was discovered, which meant we were no longer left feeling flush after a visit to the smallest room. So, I called a company that advertises in the phone book. Assuring me they were specialists in this matter, they advised a CCTV survey. For £140.00 I got to share a viewing of the mystery of our sewers, which the technician assured me were damaged beyond repair. A pavement licence would have to be obtained from the local authority. This would allow them to dig up the path outside the house and replace the cracked and broken pipe from the fall pipe to the nearest manhole.
Fortunately, at this point someone decided to call Yorkshire Water, the 'statutory undertaker' for drainage in these parts. A visit from the aforementioned Glaswegian contractor then followed, which brought forward two pieces of very good news. First, Yorks Water were responsible for all the work because the fall pipe entered the ground on 'public' land; after the first flush, our poo became public property. Then he got his own camera out. This showed that the 'collapsed' pipe our contractor had identified was nothing of the sort, but rather a long abandoned surface (ie rainwater) drain. The poo pipe ran beneath - and was soon unblocked by a high pressure squirt from my new Caledonian best friend. Up to that point, I had been in fear of a four figure repair bill, but with that jet wash blast, my worries disappeared -- the block to happiness vanished along with the very tangible matter that he had freed. Now all that remains is the small matter of the deposit I had to shell out to the contractor for the now unnecessary street works.
Confusion as to whether the statutory undertaker or a private contractor was responsible for the work arose because of rule changes brought in two years ago, rules which neither public nor private sector drainage workers seem to fully understand - with the attendant risk that homeowners are paying for unnecessary repairs that are now the legal responsibility of the private water companies - but who seem rather shy about publicising the fact.

Chuggered on my own doorstep

A guy called from the RSPCA the other day. We don't live on a main road, in fact, you have to travel some distance up a hill to find us, but he was nothing if not persistent. He wanted me to agree to a standing order to protect animals from cruelty and he was very forceful in his delivery and batted aside my comment that, while I knew the RSPCA prosecuted those who harmed animals, I also thought that they were a tad too gung ho in some cases. This was 'political' and he didn't want to go there - all he wanted were my bank details. And I refused to give them, so he left - leaving me with the rather unpleasant feeling that I had been hectored on my own doorstep by a chugger. Meet one on the street and you can sidestep them, but when they turn up on your doorstep, all enforced bonhommie and over-the-top persuasion, they present a very different image. If one calls from a charity I do support - and there are many - I will immediately cancel my direct debit and tell them exactly why I've done it.

A stumble on the stairs

Although I asked him not to laugh, the chap at the till in M&S at Leeds Station apparently couldn't stop himself when I answered his question about my finger. 'I tripped on the stairs', the first part of the answer went OK. But when I followed it up with 'all my weight landed on my right hand and I ended up with a chipped bone in my little finger (not, NHS 111 operator please note, my 'pinky'), the chuckle barrier broke. And when I finished by saying that just about everything in the known universe that I'd encountered since seemed magnetically attracted to the spot, well I don't know if he'll manage to finish his shift.
The break was diagnosed and dealt with by the staff at Calderdale Royal Hospital A&E, a department under threat of closure from shortsighted penny-pinching NHS beancounters. They must be resisted at all costs. Preferably given forced enemas by Linda the capable and friendly nurse practitioner who strapped up my finger hopefully administered in a public place, while an effigy of the excreable Hunt burns slowly in the background.

Spooky, pop-pickers, spooky

Earlier this week, apopro nothing at all, Joe Dolce's 1981 novelty one-hit-wonder Shaddap You Face popped up in my mind. Such things happen at my age so I probably parked it somewhere in my cerebral cortex and carried on wondering what I'd gone upstairs for.
Now forward to this afternoon and I'm waiting to pay for petrol when the cashier, a man of my own age - who also happened to be listening to Tony Blackburn on the chart show, doing a rundown of the chart of this week in 1978, as I had before pulling into the petrol station, looks up and says that  TB had just said Midge Ure was on record as saying that Brian and Michael's Matchstick Men had kept Ultravox's Vienna off the number one slot.
'er no it didn't' I replied: 'it was Joe Dolce with...', and that's as far as I got-because the cashier finished the line for me by adding 'Shaddup You Face', or maybe he was addressing me directly for daring to contradict that colossus of pop, Tony Blackburn.
I checked when I got home, though. Ultravox didn't release Vienna until 1981 and it was Joe who deprived them of the number one slot,  not the cuddly Manchester folkies.

Neanderthal P E Teacher

Just heard my son's PE teacher call him by his surname, 'he always does that' my son replied when I asked if that was usual. The boy doesn't mind, but I do. Brought back unpleasant memories of my own school days, when teachers seemed to regard their pupils as lower life forms. Contrary to all expectations when I left school, I am a teacher myself, but I find respect and cooperation get far better results, and make for more harmonious learning environment then the one I was educated in.
Of course, it would have to be a PE teacher that brought this on; the sweaty trainer brigade never were at the forefront of academic life.

The joy of tumble dryer ownership

A friend complained that there tumble dryer was packing up after only a coup!e of years' use. When asked if she'd checked the filter she replied 'what filter?'. Can you imagine the sheer joy at peeling away all that compacted lint? Simple pleasures, but probably wasted on the filter ignorant....

Work experience?

15 year-old son's high school has declared that next week is work experience week for Year 10 (14-15 year-olds). In his case, this is to consist of visits to three universities. Parents were asked if they could arrange work placements, but only given a week to do so, and subject to the proviso that they were to take place within the LEA area, to cut down on traveling costs for teachers who needed to conduct risk assessments and supervise activities.
Would have thought uni visits were more appropriate to Years 12 and 13. On present showing, by time we reach that stage they'll tell them to stay home and watch day time TV in mornings in preparation for the real student experience.

Co-operative Group - time to show we really care.

In his satirical observation of 70s Northern life and social mores, Peter Tinniswood's Brandon family reflected the decline of traditional working class culture and the aspiration - as voiced by the upwardly-mobile but socially inept wife, Pat, to middle-class values. Most frequently expressed in her urging her hapless, and largely disinterested spouse, Brandon, to be a 'young executive'. Pat embodied much of that generation that would later embrace Thatcherite values of self-interest and later materialistic excess. The demands of the executive class have now 'evolved' into a demand for ever higher pay, without the justification of hard work or measurable success criteria that are accepted or understood by few outside the immediate 'charmed circle' at the top of an organisation. If Carter Brandon ever did climb the greasy pole to become an 'executive', he would now be one of those - like Euan Sutherland - who argue that high salaries and bonuses are justified merely on the basis of job title, without a corresponding increase in corporate value or profitability. News that the Co-operative Group now wants to award Sutherland with a pay and bonus and pension 'package' worth £3.66 million, with similar increases for the rest of the board, means that the final bastion of non-shareholder led endeavour on many of our high streets has now fallen victim to the prevailing, though ultimately illogical, business ideaology that management should be rewarded at levels that are out of all proportion to pay levels endured lower down in the organisation, but justified by remuneration committees on the basis that 'talent' has to be retained - even though there is no evidence of a demand for it elsewhere in the general employment market. Tinniswood's Brandon family books - A Touch of Daniel, Mog, Except You're a Bird and I Didn't Know You Cared were turned into a TV series by the BBC under the title of the final book - I Didn't Know You Cared: when it comes to the Co-op that title could prove to be highly prophetic - Co-op members should care, and show they do, by refusing to countenance the inexplicable rise of the 'executive' in an organisation that has hitherto prided itself on being led by them, not some mystical charmed circle remote from the shopfloor and answerable to the Stock Market, not the membership.

London property rental prices - good for a laugh

Checked rents charged for residential property in Bloomsbury yesterday on way back from British Museum. Saw a 'studio' flat (one, not very big, room) for £750.00 per week. Laughed all the way to king's Cross. Who has that sort of cash to play with? Certainly not hotel and shop workers or museum staff which seemed to be only employment on offer. Time for a social housing revolution, methinks.

I am the target

Reaching some age milestones are accorded special status, the 40th birthday, the joyous 60 year-old, for example. Hitting the half-century, in my case, has brought me into repeated life assurance advert-related contact with Parky himself, courtesy of Google targeted advertising.
Plebs are supposed to stalk celebs, but Parky -in yet another twist to his long and illustrious career - has gone for stalking the great mass of 50 to 80 year olds that he feels are in desperate need of no frills, no questions asked life cover.
Parky, you were the doyen of chat, king of Saturday night TV, the chat show come back kid - hey, you even reversed boomeranged back to the UK after taking Aus by storm. But please, from one Tyke to another, call off the cyber ad blitz. Otherwise I'll be forced to seek out the emu...

Jeremy Paxman's War

Although Paxo gave some good insights into the way WWI affected life on the home front, the overwhelming coverage given to the Western Front gave a rather one-dimensional aspect to the series. He only seemed to mention the Dardanelles briefly and failed to give any coverage to the fighting that took place in Palestine, Mesopotamia and Salonika-Macedonia. It was on this latter front that, arguably, the Central Powers began to fall apart, after first Bulgaria and then Austro-Hungary sued for peace, leaving Germany, in Hindenburg's words to 'wage war alone against the world'. It was also irritating to hear him shoe-horn the phrase 'all in this together' into his commentary in a couple of places. The centenary is far too important for politicians - or those who comment on their activities - to use for their own narrow ends. Don't want Paxo to start a trend that Cameron - with his desire to turn the whole thing into a 'commemoration' - can use for party political tub-thumping in the run up to the 2015 general election.

The Bishops are being pastoral again

So, the Anglican bishops chose St Valentine's day to have another go at gays in the church. In what they refer to as a 'pastoral statement' they state that those in same sex marriages can't be ordained and those gay clergy already serving can't enter into same sex marriages. Alright, we know they've got form in this area, but seeing as its now law, wouldn't you have thought the 'established' church (ie the denomination that's headed by the Queen) would accept the law as passed by parliament? Are the bishops so far removed from reality that they believe they can issue a pronouncement from on high that the rest of society will meekly accept?
And they wonder why their pews are getting emptier.

Mind the Gap - Tonight it Starts in Leamington

At times a train manager's lot is not a happy one. Liaquat explained - several times - that the delayed departure of the 17.33 from Birmingham New Street to Oxford was due  to a 'driver shortage'. One was finally rounded up and we left Birmingham at just before six. The first stop was Leamington Spa. It was to be the last stop too. On arrival, Liaquat's best oratorical efforts could not detract from the plan and bitter truth: a complete power failure at Banbury meant everyone had to leave the train.
Somewhat shamefaced, I made my way through the throng of disappointed passengers. I'm here for a work-related meeting and was pre-booked into a rather shabby guest house. The Stucco's fine, but in place of Betjeman's oft-quoted chintzy chintzy cheeriness, I'm faced with grungy grungy carpet-stainedness.
Can't help but think that the delayed Brum departure was down to a premonition that had spread amongst the drivers. South of Leamington on this storm-tossed night, lay danger and peril for the traveler.

The Casino, the Church and the Page 3 Model - Northampton Goes to Hell in a Handcart, For a Fee...

The decision by Aspers Casino to project a 30 foot tall image of a page 3 model on the front of All Saints' Church in Northampton has led to a bit of confused thinking by the Diocese of Peterborough. The image was projected without permission being sought and is intended to advertise a St Valentine's Day Strip Poker 'event' (touching, eh?) but the diocesan spokesman's response proved interesting - to say the least. He was "disappointed that Aspers Casino has sought to use a church building for advertising a commercial event without offering payment and without even having the decency to seek permission first". Presumably if they'd paid it would have been OK? What was that about a den of thieves - in Peterborough Diocese it looks like a den of strippers would be allowed in, or more accurately, 'on' the church - but only as long as they paid first. Fetch the cord, start the whipping...

Without a human care in the world

Defending the Coalition government's decision to remove the clause imposing human rights standards on private care providers from the Care Bill, my local representative of the swivel-eyed loon faction saw this as a victory for cost and complexity reduction.
Ruling out basic standards of human rights for some of the most vulnerable in society, on the ground that it was too complex for the private sector shows just how far the government is prepared to sell its own people short so that it can promote the interest of corporatism. And the patients? Well, my MP felt they were more than adequately protected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the doughty and fearless regulator regularly shown  up in the media for its inability to spot dehydration or pressure sores in patients, or even signs of physical abuse.

Like Nam - the food, the choppers

More a case of not a Goodnight Saigon last night. After a first - and very favourable - experience of Vietnamese food at Pho at Trinity Centre in Leeds yesterday evening (Ok, but I've only got myself to blame for the bird's eye chili overload - they give you a whole bunch of herbs and fruit to add to the noodle soup...), returned home and went to bed, only to be wakened in the wee smalls by the West Yorkshire law enforcement community's helicopter hovering near my house. In the cold and wet light of today, work, thought, even breathing, seem to involve wading through treacle. Two lessons this afternoon; hope there aren't any flashbacks.

Superfast broadband in Bucharest

Had to call Microsoft for help earlier today. The month-long Word trial on my new laptop had ended and the download of the paid for version wouldn't work. Not even our resident 15-year-old IT wizz could get it to load, so I called the 0800 number and found myself talking to Adrian, who, by the wonders of 'remote-working' sorted the problem and waited with me while my UK-based service provider's broadband took an age to download the correct version. While we waited, I correctly guessed that Adrian's accent was Balkan, then narrowed it down to Romania. This seemed to impress him and he then commented on our respective broadband speeds - 'theirs' is much faster and more reliable than 'ours', apparently. So, taken with emergent xenophobia and UKIP-inspired hostility, efficient and fast broadband provides another reason for 'them' to stay 'there'. 'They' can do 'our' IT jobs from the comfort of home.

School governor shortage - now how could that have happened?

According to the charity Governors for Schools up to one in 10 governor posts remain unfilled, a figure that rises to one in four for schools in rural or deprived areas. As a governor of over 12 years' experience, I can think of a number of reasons for this. The business of governance is time-consuming. Hours spent in committees and sub-committees, talking to teachers and administrative staff, attending courses and conferences, getting ready for Ofsted (and the box ticking and form filling that entails) calls for a high level of dedication. And that's before we consider the plethora of - often contradictory and ill-thought through 'initiatives', policy documents and guidance notes that issue forth from the DfE. Mr Gove's fiefdom has also added to the burden by now choosing to scapegoat governors in underperforming schools; academization (which I'm not sure is even a proper word) beckons for those deemed to have failed. But, then again, he's also on record as stating that many governors are only in it for the kudos. Twelve years in and I've yet to find any, but then again, I'm probably too busy being responsible for child protection and safeguarding and sitting on the finance committee to be that concerned about the honour of being there. Then again, I might just be looking for glory in the wrong place. Making sure my school provides the best possible education for its 420 pupils and makes the most of its 50-odd dedicated teachers, teaching assistants, administrative, catering and caretaking staff - and provides them with a caring and committed place of work that can continue the tradition of education that started in 1869 and has continued unbroken, with a surprising short list of head teachers ever since. That's success - and what makes governorship worthwhile.

Handelsbanken - a boutique, not a casino

The Beeb's love-in with Handelsbanken, a Swedish bank famous for bucking the rip-offs and PR disasters so prevalent in other commercial banking operations. While highlighting Handelsbanken's disdain for casino banking, the article doesn't mention its cherry-picking tendencies. In the wake of the Co-operative Bank scandal, I was looking for an ethical banking alternative that didn't look like it would sell out on its core principles anytime soon and called what I thought was my local Handelsbanken branch. But when asked for my post code, I was then told they couldn't help me because my house wasn't visible from the top of their - imaginary - 'church steeple', and was instead referred to another branch, situated on a rather soulless trading estate, that was within view of my house to an imaginary steeple-climbing bank manager. Just one problem, I wanted free banking, but that only comes at a price with Handelsbanken. Each manager sets their own rules, and, no doubt fresh from his pretend steeplejacking activities, the manager of the local branch had decided 'free banking' only applied to those keeping £85K in their current account. Should such mythical creatures exist, they know which steeple to climb.

Your Country's Commemoration Needs You, By Jingo!

The choice of Lord Kitchener's image - and blunt 'your country needs you' slogan as the coin design to commemorate the centenary of World War I bodes ill for those, like Jeremy Paxman, who feared the coalition government would turn this event into a jingoistic flag-waver, or worse, a flag-draped smokescreen that could be harnessed for electoral purposes. My granddad, who served as a Driver in the Army Service Corps in Greece and Macedonia in that conflict used to joke that they gave them a medal that said they'd fought 'for civilisation' because the powers that be couldn't admit to not having a clue as to what the war had actually been about. The forthcoming centenary will evoke many feelings - while my grandfather's generation have now passed on - they left a powerful evocation of the suffering and horror of war, even though they were told not to talk about it when they returned - and many didn't because deference to authority was such a powerful element of early 20th century society. Times have changed, and the memory of our loved ones - both those who returned and those who did not - taken together with our current prediliction for conflict and even involving the military in schools means we should not merely accept the events and artefacts given to us to remember but rather actively question their motive and appropriateness over the next four years.

Goodwill ends at Tesco

Predictably, I suppose, the season of peace and goodwill ends when the sales start. For me, signs that normal incivility had returned came when the man next to me at the customer service counter decided to be boorish and unpleasant to the young female assistant serving him. She managed it well, with a slight reddening of the cheeks developing in response to a tirade that sprang, seemingly, from nowhere. But the most striking them was that none of her co-workers offered any assistance or solidarity after the moron had left. Are they so used to it - or is it company policy not to show weakness in the face of aggressive behaviour?

Ofgem's unwelcome Christmas gift to Co-operative Energy customers

Ofgem, the scourge of overcharging energy companies everywhere, has decided, in its infinite non-wisdom, that the dividend, beloved of co-op customers for generations, has no place in the 'regulated' energy market. Co-operative Energy, a not-for-profit gas and energy provider - of the sort that is really needed to ensure genuine competition in a decidedly non-competitive sector - has been ordered by Ofgem to stop paying dividends to Co-operative members that sign up for its services but who have no 'democratic connection' with Co-operative Energy's owner, the Midcounties Co-operative. Evidence of a rather parochial approach by the industry regulator, while it lets the 'big six' carry on regardless with their cosy price-fixing ways.

Indoor skateboarding, yawn

Watching son play X-box skateboard game. Can't think of anything more futile or boring than virtual-reality skateboarding. Is this a sign of an unbridgeable generation gap or just that I've finally morphed into an old fart?

Just one more teenaged sleepover until Christmas...

The combination of a December birthday and a rash promise comes home to roost tonight. Telling recently-birthdayed son that he can have a sleepover turns into reality tonight. Deep joy, and I'm locking the fridge. Oh, and the three of them are in a band. The neighbours are going to love this.

Christmas at the Farm Shop

An early start this morning; after queuing for an age last year, I decided to get to the farm shop when it first opened. Now feeling knackered but justified, as only the second person in the place at 7.00 can.

They do things differently in the Diocese of Chichester

The Church of England's Diocese of Chichester has had to move quickly to distance itself from anti-gay comments made by one of its own elected General Synod representatives. Fresh from a conference in Jamaica, Andrea Minichiello Williams, urged the Jamaican government to maintain its criminal ban on homosexuality, before going on to trot out the old saw that homosexuality is the same as paedophilia. The important thing here is that the diocese has only distanced itself - not taken steps to remove its representative. How very Anglican - half-measures and a little light condemnation.

Hammond - the ideal politician to drone on about drones

Interesting piece from RAF Waddington - the UK's drone central - on the operation of what the MOD wants us to call Remotely Piloted Air Systems (RPAS) or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems (UAVS), in fact anything but 'drones'. A losing battle if ever there was one. But then again, there is more than the naming issue that seems unreal. Locking the 'crew' into a windowless metal container in their flying overalls to operate an aircraft thousands of miles away is also pretty unreal - they could just as easily rock up for 'work' in jeans and t-shirt. The only thing that is real - and lethal - is the payload. That and the admitted chance of 'collateral damage'. The RPAS/UAV/drone pilot can speak to troops on the ground, or a lawyer in the UK; why don't the go the extra mile and let them phone a friend? Then again, if they did, they'd probably have an American accent, because 'our' drones only operate courtesy of US satellite technology. Biggles it most certainly isn't.

That Christmas spirit

Had a great time at a Leeds toy shop today, after three customer services staff had calmed down the near homicidal patron ahead of me in the queue. She obviously wanted to leave someone feeling a warm glow-in a pool of their own blood, by the sound of things.

A free guide to cutting energy bills, sort of...

In October, I 'switched' from Scottish Power to another 'energy provider', who I will refer to as C, for a property we had rented since the end of August. Remember the dates - and the UK weather at the time - they are important. C ask for 'final' gas and electric readings, which were to be passed onto Scottish Power to enable them to prepare final bills. All went well with the electricity side of things, but the gas bill proved much more problematic. First, Scottish Power sent a final bill for £116.00, based on 'estimated' start and end dates. When I queried this, pointing out that the period from August to the start of October had been unseasonably warm for the UK, this was reduced immediately to £75.00. Feeling that this was still, possibly, on the high side - and noting, once again, that the new figure was based on two 'estimated' readings, I contacted Scottish Power again (no mean feat, given the uncommunicative nature of ther call centre set-up), where I learned that they had never received the 'final' gas reading from C. Turning into my own volunteer Scottish Power customer service adviser, I called C, who gave me the 'final' gas meter reading that I had sent them in October (what do I have that Scottish Power doesn't, I wondered...). Not wanting to brave the call centre wait again, and having received a mildly threatening letter about late payment from Scottish Power, I sent the readings to the manager who had, supposedly, signed the threatener and was rewarded with an email, informing me that a new bill, using the real 'final' reading would be sent to me. It arrived yesterday - in the sum of £50.00: a £66 reduction on the first attempt. The moral of the story? If you can't find the scrap of paper that you wrote the readings on, at least remember what the weather was like at the time.

Windows 8 - welcome to computing's netherworld

The prognosis wasn't good. I couldn't even get my Windows 7 laptop to switch on and the guy in our local computer repair shop said it was 'beyond economical repair', so - taking the advice of my IT guru, I've just taken delivery of the latest Lenovo Ideapad, which came complete with the all-singing, all-dancing Windows 8. From the start, it didn't feel right. The front screen looks as if you should be swiping at apps, like a tablet, but all you've got is the touch-pad or mouse. And you don't go straight to the desktop. In fact, I didn't seem able to go to anything; frustration soon crept in: at every turn, all Mr Gates' minions wanted to do was sell me something, or want to know where my mum was born. I soon felt like swiping more than the screen. Enter 14 year-old son, home from school. He's just earned himself a tenner for sorting out the entire mess I'd got myself into. Might even be able to do some work tomorrow - if I can find my way back to the desk-top, that is.

Ireland's first woman bishop

Congratulations to Rt Rev Pat Storey on her consecration as first woman bishop of the Church of Ireland. Good to see Ireland leading the way on this - it's a shame that the Church of England still can't live up to the promise of equal recognition of male and female ordination that it embarked on 20 years ago. Divided, backward looking and increasingly out of touch - the 'established' church has a long way to go before it can seen as a credible voice of faith and theological teaching in contemporary society.

Home again

Spent first night back at home since we were flooded while on holiday back in August. It was great to wake up this morning in our own bedroom after so long away. Made the stress of moving - twice - almost seem worthwhile. Hopefully won't be seeing the inside of Ikea again for a while, either. Walking the route of the corralled intending purchaser has been a fixed event in our lives for the past couple of weeks. The coffee's good, and I like the herring in mustard sauce and meatballs, but the time spent queueing amongst the laminated products gnaws at the soul after a while. Can quite see why the Swedes are so into self-harm.

Playing doctors and nurses in Sainsbury's

The combination of chemists giving quasi medical advice and supermarkets opening in-house pharmacies means you get to broadcast intimate problems to all and sundry as they go about their weekly shop. Just encountered a well-meaning assistant who seemed to want the full-on details of a thrush condition before she'd handover the Canestan. Apologies to the couple passing by on their way tobthe cooked meat aisle - the symptoms just overrode the embarrassment factor.

Farewell to the Co-op but not mutuality

OK, finally had enough. Despite the well-intentioned pleas of Save our Bank the activities of the Rev'd Flowers and Osborne's multiple 'investigations', I've decided to switch from the Co-operative after nearly 20 years' trouble-free banking. The Co-op's demise - a mixture of poor decision-making and management appointments, coupled with serious regulatory failings - marks a serious reduction in the much-vaunted neeed for diversity in the retail banking sector. Far from trying to blame Labour for the Co-op's problems, Osborne needs to understand that diversity and increased competition won't spring from nowhere, but instead needs serious government backing, allied with Treasury-sanctioned initiatives.

Scottish Power's final, final gas bill - probably

We sacked Scottish Power as dual fuel supplier for our rental property in October after a fruitless afternoon trying to get through to a human being in their customer services dept. A colourful pie chart reproduced on the bill showed that out of every £100 charged, £9.00 goes on customer service, while only £3.00 is profit. I don't know what they get for all their money, but judging by the amount of time spent on hold, those customer service advisers must have the run of a comprehensively equipped bar and leisure complex. After telling Scottish Power we were leaving - and enduring a number of phone calls begging us to stay (so they can call out OK) - we were asked to supply final gas and electricity readings to our new supplier. The electricity reading was obviously passed on to Scottish Power, because we received a final bill, which was duly, though reluctantly, paid. The gas reading, however, was a different story. At the start of this week, we received a final estimated reading of £116.00. A rather high figure, I thought, given that it related to the period from 22 August to 14 October, when we were enjoying a pleasant Indian summer. On mentioning this to a Scottish Power customer services adviser I happened to catch on her way from the sauna to the poolside bar area, she agreed, and said a new estimated bill would be drawn up. Why estimated, I asked, to which she replied that they could not ask our new supplier for the final reading, given the time that had now elapsed. Today's post contained the second estimated final reading, in the sum of £75. Thinking again that this could be on the high side, I called our new supplier, where I was given the final reading from October straightaway, along with confirmation that Scottish Power could have asked them for it at any time. Of course, I could not provide the final reading to Scottish Power, because they are experiencing 'high call volumes at this time', so the final reading, along with a promise of verification from our new supplier, is awaiting the next Scottish Power customer services adviser who decides to read an email after the latest blockbuster screening finshes in their media viewing area. When estimated readings are plucked out of the air, and utterly ridiculous explanations given to perfectly reasonable questions, is it any wonder that the poor benighted energy consumer holds private energy utilities in such low esteem? Privatisation hasn't worked - and 'switching' isn't the answer; it merely serves to churn customers from one bloated supplier to another. Time time has come to renationalise energy supply.

Fibro or Poly, it's still Myalgia

After enduring aching arms, neck and shoulders and feeling the kind of tired normally associated with pulling a sledge in an Arctic expedition, I went to the doctors for a consultation last Friday. Feeling that the symptoms indicated polymyalgia rheumatica, she sent me for a blood test because this condition causes a raised inflammatory marker to show in blood. However, when the results came back, there was no raised ESR level - which she was looking for to explain the condition. Poly duly ruled out, we then discussed Fibro, which turns out to be a really tricky little blighter. While the explanation of differences in symptoms left me feeling there isn't much to choose, in diagnostic and treatment terms, Poly seems far more preferable to dastardly Fibro: while Poly helpfully increases the pesky inflammatory marker and can be treated with steriods, Fibro doesn't show up in blood tests results - and there's no recognised treatment (aside from some distinctly 'tree hugging hippie crap' stuff on the wackier reaches of the internet). Oh, and depression is a side-effect of both conditions. So, with arms, neck, shoulders - and now wrists - aching and the need for a lie-down manifesting itself each afternoon, it looks like I'm in the longish haul while the medics try to decide whether I've got Fibro, or not...

The Smell of Teen Spirit...

Being the father of a teenager carries a number of unforeseen responsibilities. Right now, I'm preparing to deliver forgotten PE kit, so 14-year-old son can take part in an after-school martial arts group. The kit has been residing (more accurately, festering) in a sports bag for several days now and probably represents a biohazard. As I walk to school, with this offensive article slung over my shoulder (straps adjusted so that the body of the bag is furthest from my olefactory receptor), I'll take care to keep away from other people. Can't help but wonder if the malodurous nature of the kit is a defensive strategy: after all, you'd have to be a pretty determined opponent to come into close proximity to the wearer to be able to even attempt a hold or throw, and hanging on would be foolhardy, to say the very least.

September 1918

Those poor beggars. To us, they looked to be either young boys or old men. Dressed in rags, starving. They just threw their guns onto a pile at the side of the road and shuffled off into the distance

. My Grandfather, then serving as a Driver in the Army Service Corps, remembered watching the Bulgarian surrender at the end of September 1918. War in a land without a settled name Southern Serbia, Alf called it where maps now place Macedonia or FYROM from Salonika’s dubious attractions to a frontline where even water had to be delivered by mule or lorry train. His war was a sideshow to a sideshow: out of the birdcage, out of the garden. Where boredom and malaria took a greater toll than bullets and shells. Tiadatha’s braves moved out over Muckydonia to face the Bulgar and the Hun. Soil too shallow for trenches; in this land you froze in winter, baked in summer fought mosquitoes and ennui in between, watched all the while by an enemy from Crowns Big and Small and the Devil’s Eye.   Then from Dobra Polje to Doiran the line began to move – following Desperate Frankie’s urgent plan to capture the Vardar and Strumica. In the bloody aftermath, corpses packed standing in lorries the easier to transport, silent guards of death. So standing on that dusty road he watched that vanquished army walk away to a shattered land that had bleed so much but now could not bleed anymore. Bulgaria - the first Central Power to fall. An end forming the birth pang of fractious new nations: freedom’s allure mingled with nationalism’s latent dangers. There were no winners in that, Alf said. He was no military hero, never keen on the soldiering life. There because he had to be, yearning to go home: after going through that, I wouldn’t even join a library his response. I owe it to his memory to staunch centenary ‘celebrations’ because there were no winners in that. Nothing for idiot politicians to exploit, nothing to glory in, not after what he saw on the road from Doiran. For Alf.

11-plus coaching - the middle class obsession

Good to see the Sutton Trust criticising the middle class 11-plus coaching 'industry'. Here in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, our 2 selective grammars run a neat line in paid for pre-test exams (for the borderline) and full selective 11-plus tests that help to keep private tutors gainfully employed. Anecdotal evidence shows that hopeful parents regularly start paying for tutoring at the start of Year 4. But the tutoring really moves up a gear when the pre-test and final exams draw near. The tests themselves also bear a striking similarity year-on-year, thereby helping to perpetuate the middle class domination of grammar school places that the Sutton Trust report also criticises. Coaching itself can prove problematic for those who pass the exam and are then awarded their coveted place at grammar school. A maths teacher at one of the schools revealed that his colleagues can identify those new Year 7 pupils that have been tutored in his subject within days of the start of the new school year - and also predict which of those will then need additional support to enable them to access the curriculum. Middle class push and paid-for coaching does not ensure a pain-free transition to the type of grammar school education that Mr Gove so idolises and the pushythat the middle class so crave.

Unco-operative banking - the 'ethical' question: the expensive Swedish alternative

Appalled by the hedge fund sell-out of the Co-operative Bank, I decided to look for an 'ethical' alternative. Handelsbanken looked good: local branches that will offer a personal service but only if you either live or work locally (within sight of the top of the local church spire, apparently), and its Swedish - the Ikea of cash?. Maybe even offers fish and meatballs, I wondered. However, a cold Scandinavian chill soon descended when I spoke to an account manager at the paragon of Nordic finance. Free banking is only available if you keep £85,000 in your accounts - otherwise its £15 a month. And what do I get for that, I asked? A dedicated account manager and the chance to drop in for a chat. A chat? For £15 a month I expect meatballs and a slice of Dime bar cake - and none of those disgusting berries no-one's ever heard of, thanks very much. So, while the hard-nosed capitalists prepare to carve-up the Co-op, I won't be looking to Sweden for banking salvation, thanks very much.

High school is just so exciting

Or so it seems at the Sports College Academy my eldest son attends. After gaining academy status a couple of years ago, the establishment seems to have appointed a large number of head teachers - each with a different job title. Makes you wonder how they managed with just a head and a sprinkling of deputies in days of yore; or whether the new appointments have all the gravitas of McDonald's employees stars - though I suspect with far better remuneration... One role of the new breed of head is to appear unaccountably excited and enthusiastic about the most mundane changes. A couple of months ago, the 'executive head' (formerly headteacher) wrote a letter that suggested pleasure of almost orgiastic proportions at a new reception desk and improved WiFi. Calm down, dear was my response. But now another head has written of her 'excitement' at the latest drivel from Gove's DoE surrounding curriculum changes. Given the response from others in the profession, her heightened state is somewhat misplaced - a feeling added to by her subsequent admission that she doesn't yet know the full extent of Gove's proposals. She signs of her bewildering - but excited! - epistle with the hackneyed phrase: "With challenge comes opportunity", to which I can only add "and with bullshit comes suspicion...".

When sorry is the only word...

Met the new employee of the business upstairs today. She'd forgotten to lock the toilet door and I breezed straight in, well the lock showed it was vacant. She screamed and then said 'sorry' and I did the same. How very British, as will be subsequent embarrassment at our next meeting, no doubt.

The top 50 call centres - Arghgghg

Just unsubscribed from an online retailer that was becoming a pest - emails daily offering unbelievable, and unnecessary, goods. Scrolling down to the unsubscribe 'button', I noticed the business prides itself on running on of the 'Top 50 UK Call Centres'. Really? How are such things graded: does Lucifer and his demons check the chains keeping 'operatives' at their desks? Does Azkhaban send dementors to check on the levels of misery stalking the corridors and toilets? I'm free of their pestering emails, but my undoubted sense of freedom is somehow tainted by the knowledge that there is a league table of call centres. Tear down the facile marketing slogans, rip up the sales scripts- you have nothing to lose but your chains!

World War I commemoration - far too important for the politicians to control or direct

I know he was selling a book, but Paxman came across well on Graham Norton last night, and the audience approved of his repeated criticism of Cameron's idiotic linkage of WWI commemoration with Jubilee celebration. While the First World War is now beyond personal memories, it is certainly still a large part of collective folk/family memory: how many families have granddad's or great granddad's medals in a tin or drawer? The commemoration needs to focus on that shared memory - not made easy, as many of that generation followed their orders not to talk about the suffering and loss when they came home. Damn the British sense of deference to our 'elders and betters' - something that should have sunk in the mud of Flanders, but sadly limped on for a few more years. We don't want cloying sentiment or triumphant flag waving - that would only serve to cheapen and demean the memory of those who suffered; but we can't afford to let the political class make the running either. August 2014 is less than a year away from the general election due in May 2015 and it would be appalling if Cameron, Crosby, Osborne et al were to try create a patriotic smokescreen to garner a few votes. Remember those who went before us - those ancestors who returned and those who lie in Commonwealth War Grave cemeteries (Britain legislated against returning their bodies, partly to prevent the full extent of the losses becoming known, for fear of undermining the war effort or encouraging civil unrest). Remember, but don't allow any hint of 'celebration' to enter the equation.

Oh, Mr unpaid 'station ambassador', what shall I do?

Brighouse is inordinately proud of its railway station. Closed for 30-odd years by the Beeching cuts, it re-opened in May 2000 and provides a useful link for commuters across West Yorkshire and now even boasts two daily return journeys to London, operated by Grand Central Trains (prop. Arriva - ultimately owned by Deutsche Bahn). Our station is a pretty minimal, two-platform ('up' and 'down') affair - for Thick of It fans, its major claim to fame is that it was the location for Rebecca Front's character, Nicola Murray's angst-ridden resignation as leader of the opposition. Oh, and JK Rowling once steamed through on a Harry Potter special. Now, however, due to a spiffing idea from Grand Central marketing and publicity wonks, Brighouse has been chosen for an interesting unpaid work opportunity. Locals with time on their hands are being invited to apply to become Station Ambassdors, who will rock up to the station - in GC supplied uniforms - once a month to 'assist passengers arriving and departing from the station'. We used to call these people porters, and they were railway employees. The added shame of this is that this exciting idea is being supported to the hilt by the local traders' organisation, the Brighouse Business Initiative. Not much initiative being shown here in reality: volunteers won't have any extra money to spend in local shops - the 'consideration' they receive for their luggage lugging efforts will be rewarded with free train tickets - to take them to London.

One night's stay in hospital, one MRI scan, TWO surveys...

Yesterday afternoon I returned from a 24-hour, unplanned, stay in hospital necessitated by a suspected TIA (mini sroke). Minor symptoms on Sunday afternoon led to admission after a visit to A&E (don't worry, Mr Hunt; we were told to go if I experienced such symptoms after a planned visit to clinic the previous Saturday, so I wasn't wasting resources). Before I could be discharged, after being seen by my consultant who arranged for the MRI and discussed the outcome with me, I was interviewed in person for one survey and given another to be completed on a pre-paid postcard. The face-to-face interview involved completion of the usual 'on a scale of 1 to 5' questions, which included such shoe-ins as 'how would you rate the food' and 'what do you think of the decor' - neither of which are going to be too high on the list of improvements, given the current state of NHS funding. Most difficult to reduce to a 1 to 5 response was the question about quality of sleep. It was very poor, but this was because I'd been allocated a bed - at short notice on a Sunday afternoon - in a high dependency stroke unit, where my three fellow 'roomies' needed round the clock care from a dedicated, hard-working team of medical professionals. If lights turned on and off during the night and medics conferring at nearby bedsides disturbed me, lack of sleep was a small inconvenience to me alongside the care the other patients obviously needed. On a scale of 1-5, sleep quality was accorded a '2', but I made sure the scribe recorded my reasons at length. Higher up on the facile question scale was the single question on the pre-paid card: how likely would I be to recommend this hospital to a friend or relative in need of similar care? I've decided to save the NHS the postage on this, as it smacks too much of vapid customer satsfaction league-tables. But the answer is: should you find yourself suffering the symptoms of a stroke or mini-stroke in Halifax or its environs, the staff on Ward 6 at Calderdale Royal Hospital do their utmost to treat and reassure, given the constraints currently facing the NHS, and if you have a friend or loved-one being treated on that ward, they are - on the evidence of my experience - treated with a high-level of care and respect. Sorry there's no appropriate column on the survey for that testimonial, but dedicated, well-trained professional healthcare can't be reduced to a simple box-ticking exercise. So if your'e looking to save NHS resources, the questionnaire culture should be the first to go.

When Dad and Uncle Harry Couldn’t get a Pint

Dad and his best mate Harry, home on leave from Italy. A Joiner and a Caretaker turned Sapper and Fusilier sergeant 'for the duration' went into Leeds for the night. Two lads from Burley walking down the Headrow and into Vicar Lane called in the Robin Hood for a quick one. That’s how the story starts. Start of a home town night out. Harry was a big man, a sergeant in battledress, he goes over to the bar. Dad’s the smaller one of the two. It’s Harry’s shout, and shout he does. The barman goes red in the face as the drinkers at the bar part. “And I’m telling you I can’t serve you in here. Leeds is closed to the British. We can only serve Yanks and Poles in here”. Now Harry liked the Poles, fought with them at Monte Casino, though neither he nor Dad really got the Yanks. Too much money, too many cigs, too many girls. Dad never forgot three days’ blinded from the flash of one of their anti-aircraft guns defending the harbour at Bari, always grumbled how “you’d think they’d won the bloody war” at war films on TV. But denial of beer in the Robin Hood was an indignity of war they remembered and passed on; for them it was a war story in their very own backyard. If they’d hailed from Białystok or the Bronx, instead of Burley, then that genial mine host would have pulled their pints, but there was to be no beer in the Robin Hood for those two squaddies that night. D-Day Dodgers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4hny_XRaw4 By the same author: Short and Curlies Gnosis

A run in with a big prick

Nurses aren't trained to take blood samples. A useless fact - unless you've just agreed to be guinea pig (human pin-cushion) for a staff nurse's first attempt; as I did on Saturday. As if the TIA 'mini-stroke' clinic wasn't scary enough, the nurse in charge of blood letting and pressure checking decided to ask me if I 'minded' being first victim for her colleague. OK, take a walk on the wild-side, I thought, after all, it's just a 'little scratch', so they usually say when taking a sample. Enter staff nurse in training with trolley and look of steely determination. The needle was prepped and she went at the task like a Tommy preparing to clear a trench in a bayonet charge. Pausing only to observe I'd given her a 'good vein' and to line up the needle, in she went. Still got the purple welt two days later. Whereas the pinprick from this morning's professionally phlebotomist-taken sample has already faded into memory. Now who feels the little prick?

Coming over a little queer in the kitchen

Emptying the dishwasher is a mundane job that we do without thinking. It's a day-to-day activity that isn't marked out as special in our minds. Apart from last Wednesday evening, that is. I was just standing up with a handful of plates when my right side became numb: face, arm, hand and upper leg all lost sensation. I was immediately aware that one side of my body was sending or receiving the usualy amount of sensory information and I suddenly felt very vulnerable and 'odd'. Wife and son confirmed that my face looked 'normal' but I felt anything but for nearly an hour. Once sense and feeling returned to normal, I didn't think anything of it, until the following day, when I have the mother-and-father of all migraines - accompanied by 'speech disruption': I knew the right word, but couldn't say it out loud - quite a handicap, given that I was attempting to deliver a contract law lesson at the time. So, a visit to the GP was arranged for later on Thursday afternoon. The doctor asked my permission to video the consultation, which I agreed to, but now wonder whether we both might regret the recording. She started by asking if there was anything I was afraid of and what she hoped I could do for her: both rather daft questions, but probably conforming to some NHS training protocol of which I was unaware. Having run through the events of Wednesday evening and that morning, she thought I'd suffered a transient ischaemic attack (TIA)or 'mini-stroke', as they used to be called before the relentless onward march of the TLA (three-letter acronym) took over. She then proceeded to give me a full neurological examination, which involved hitting knees and wrist with a small hammer and scraping a metal object against my arms, legs and feet before printing a six-page article from the internet and telling me to take an alarming amount of aspirin each day until I was summoned to the TIA clinic at the local hospital. On returning home and reading the literature, however, I saw - on the sixth and final page - that I was now unable to drive until I'd been seen at the clinic, where a decision on the full duration of a driving ban would be made. Alarmed by this - especially in light of the GPs failure to mention driving, coupled with the amount of aspirin seriously outnumbering the prescription I'd been given, I made another appointment for the following morning. Now events took a far more serious turn. The second GP was very concerned about the speech disruption and, on discovering that the TIA clinic appointment was for the following Wednesday, called the hospital to expedite matters. He wanted me seen sooner because speech disruption is another TIA symptom, and could, therefore, indicate that I had had a 'crescendo' TIA, where episodes follow each other with increasing severity. The appointment was rescheduled for 9.00am the following morning. So, Saturday saw us at the hospital, bright and early, where I was ushered, with brisk efficiency, through blood pressure and blood checks, a neck ultrasound examination and consulatation with a reassuring doctor, who then said I was being prescribed a statin and a clopidogrel: the former as a precaution against cholesterol and the latter against sticky platelets (but not of the dishwashing variety, these little blighters hang around on artery walls, waiting for the chance to break off and get carried off down every narrower blood vessels until they get stuck and cut off the flow of blood to some poor unsuspecting nerve ending). He also said I would be called back for an MRI scan of the back of my head and advised a period of rest - 'don't worry and don't overdo things'. Yeah, and I'll try not to think about giraffes, either... Go on, bugger off, you long-necked pest.

From bona fide emergency to nothing to do with us

When the car disturbed the manhole cover in the middle of the road outside the rental property we moved into yesterday, I ventured a look into the hole. This turned out to be an approx 40 foot drop into a surface water drain, with upended cast-iron cover sticking up - end-on - diagonally into the air. Either way, it represented a serious danger to passing cars, who were at risk of hitting the cover, driving into the hole, or both. So I called Calderdale Council's emergency helpline. It's a bank holiday weekend and the operator agreed that I'd taken the correct course of action; for around 5 minutes - at which point she called back to say it wasn't their problem, because the were the responsibility of an unknown private contractor. So, from emergency to nothing to do with me in 5 minutes. The only suggestion forthcoming from the helpline? 'Call Yorkshire Water' - on the vague offchance that they might know who had fitted the manhole cover. Solution? Go to neighbour, who, bravely, manhandled the manhole cover back over the hole (I'm a devout coward when it comes to positioning heavy metal objects over deep holes and not afraid to admit it). The hole's safe-ish until Monday, when my neigbour assured me they're coming back to tarmac the street. We'll see - it'll still be a good old-fashioned British banky then, after all. It shouldn't surprise me, but the speed with which the Council washed their hands of the matter - especially given the potentially serious consequences - shows, yet again, how far the public service ethos has been lost in the UK.

An Unintended Consequence...

We returned home from holiday on Saturday 3 August to find our house flooded. On the morning we left, I went into the bathroom to discover no water was flowing from the taps. I called Yorkshire Water, our 'service provider', to report the disruption to our supply and then went on holiday, with the operative's words wishing me a good holiday ringing in my ears. Not so welcome was the call from our next door neighbour the following Saturday. We were just south of Worcester on the M5 when she called to say that there was water running out of our front door and that her partner had turned off the stopcock on the pavement outside. As our 'keyholder' - my sister-in-law - turned out to be enjoying a weekend away in Rutland (is that even possible...), we then had to endure the torture of a stop-start drive back up the M5/M6 before we could witness the damage first hand. The journey did allow us the luxury of reporting the flood enroute, so we arrived home in the knowledge that the restoration team would call on the Sunday morning, but also that the emergency accommodation promised by our policy would not be available until the following night, because all 'quality' hotel accommodation in our area was fully booked. I was, therefore, left with the need to secure overnight accommodation in a local 'non-quality' hotel, or cheap flop-house, if you prefer; least said the better, though a room that comes complete with a dog-end must now be a comparative rarity in these smoke-free days. After a fortnight in a Holiday Inn, we're now enjoying the delights of a Premier Inn, while waiting for the formalities to be compeleted on the assured short-hold tenancy of a three-bedroomed house near to all local amenities and our own, slightly damp, home. It was at this point that I reported our predicament to our local authority, Calderdale Council - itself no stranger to flooded households, but which was still able to deliver a most unwelcome surprise. Owing to changes the Council had been allowed to make by central government, Calderdale's cabinet has recently reduced the second home exemption to a nice round 0%, which means, shorn of the legal terminology the official tried to hide-behind, that we will have to pay full Council Tax on our own home and temporary accommodation. This is, apparently, an example of the coalition government's localism agenda, which gives local authorities powers to do what central government and civil servant used to do, but for which no-one gets the blame when hard-of-thinking local councillors and their employed jobsworths make a complete pig's arse of something in their own area. This came home to me when I brought the matter to the attention of one of my ward councillors. An independent, he turns out to be a member of the very cabinet that voted for the disastrous change. His reply was a prime example of how much havoc a no-doubt well-meaning numbnuts can cause when left in a room with a number of other elected representatives, a supply of tea and coffee making facilities, some biscuits and a frightening array of devolved powers. He had voted in favour of the reduction in exemption rates because he thought it would somehow prevent private rented accommodation being left empty, but he went on to say that the reasoning behind the decision was 'scant consolation' for us, as we were victims of the 'law of unintended consequences' that 'will get you every time'. He ended his apologetic email by asking if there was anything he could do. To which I must respond with two suggestions: 1) get your hand in your wallet and pay one of the two Council Tax bills you have landed us with, and 2) think about the consequences of your actions, rather than trying to use financial policy to motivate private landlords to do what you should be doing - housing people in need in your borough, councillor.