Thursday, 25 August 2011
That was Then this is Now
So how are you Allan, how’s life as you know it ?
I’m OK it’s the others. Actually I am just ok. I could do with more money, could do with a job, but at least Susan and I,after 5 months, are building a nest with her 3 dogs, who not exactly fetch twigs as construction workers. Is that life as we should know it?
Maybe it is.
I was born in Willesden London NW10, born into poverty a single parent mum, who did 3 jobs a day to keep my sister and me. I only saw her when she fell asleep in front of the television. She’s been dead 19 years now, wore herself out for others…….
Me I went to the Grammar School, only kid for miles around to pass the 11+ and to wear a uniform. My dog saved me once when the local gang of jealous yobs ran after me with sticks only to confronted by the big brown hairy Chum and beat a hasty retreat as Chum set about them and their mass melay.
When I left school I obtained a Government Legal Qualification to protect the public. It was all exams in those days. I never failed them. I have a photographic memory and can just rewrite what I had revised a few hours before. Handy that !!
In those days I just thought you had to be good at the job and get results. Seemed logical to me. I made the headlines I made the news. I was seen to be doing my bit, actually much more than my fair share. Christ I won awards and commendations for the jobs I pulled off.
But, there were others who had the talk talk gift of the gab. Smooth talking bastards. They were qualified relatives of merchant bankers fluent in bull shit. I have never really made many male friends. This Martian was better with Venusians , much better. Martians saw me as a rival as a threat. With the exception of those loyal that worked for me, the rest might as well have been opponents on the football field or cricket pitch. If you make a name for yourself, there will be those that will plot against you, stab you in the back.
So I have known my own Ides of March. In that career, in love, and even in another career when I joined Aunty Beeb, reaching the giddy heights of Deputy Editor, again only to fail the politics not the job, and failed to watch my back.
Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end, we’d sing and dance for ever and I day. We picked a life that was full, we’d fight and never lose, those were the days oh yes those were the days…………….. until I lost.
Now, I sit here at my lap top, in temporary rented accommodation with my possessions and my memories around me, gathered from my travels, my successes of a past.
My real home is up for sale, occupied by the sitting wicked witch, nicknamed "Black Widow" by her own brethren . This recession is the worst I have known in my life as I know it. No jobs, no opportunities, no chance. No sales of houses. I survive on monies paid from my glory years, monies that soften the anguish and unjustness, of a brain left out to pasture.
Maybe Britain would be Great again if old heads were put on young shoulders. There are lessons to be learned from experience and the thousands of pounds spent on training people. Putting the old heads on the scrap heap just means history will repeat itself anf mistakes made again and again.
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
ARGOS IT
And wait and wait and wait and wait……..Argos telephone service customer enquiries, need a degree in Maths to listen to all the alternatives, press 1, 2, 3,4 ,5 ,6 ,7 8, 9, 10,,, then start again 12345678910
Then disappear up your own Argos Vacuum cleaner no help just automated information, dead loss, then they say goodbye, waste of money phoning them. They also take 48 hours to answer and email, but when they want their money oh they phone me, and they want it there and then,,,,,,,,,,,,wasters.
Then when you get that Eureka
Watch this space ………………
Thursday, 11 August 2011
The Wrong Signals - England City Centre Riots Summer 2011
The Wrong Signals
IF mindless yob and their gang mates watch Tottenham High Street burn, watch Police stand and watch, just like Nero on his balcony ( minus violin).
IF they see profit from mayhem, looting and destruction, go unchecked, then they will want a piece of that action on their patch whether its Wolverhampton , Manchester Liverpool , Bristol
It certainly is doom & gloom Breaking News, 24 hr Courts, 800 arrests in London, Riots, Looting & Arson, wanton vandalism in our shopping city centres, inept policing who worry more about risk assessment and health & safety than saving lives and property.
Result we have murder as well as robbery, lost businesses and insurance claims.
WE have a so called coalition government , Politicians and Policemen who are out of touch with communities. WE have abdication of parental responsibility. WE have mindless moronic no hope youths (criminals).
Even football matches postponed or cancelled.
Economic decline , cuts in public services = increase crime wave.
No hopers, cut the waiting out of wait, by smashing shop windows with their social network smoke signal gang members. They have no fear of detection, of arrest and punishment. They think they will get away with it. They have seen others get away with TV sets under their arms on TV and the Internet. Now it’s their turn. There is seemingly no deterrent. There is little reactive policing reported yet alone proactive policing preventing these horrendous crimes on all of us.
The mass unemployed they are led like sheep to a criminal benefit culture. Where are their parents when little Johnny has a petrol bomb in his hand kicking out a plate glass shop window late at night ? They get away with it at school, now in school holidays they get away with it in the shopping centres. Society has lost the virtues of responsibility and respect. These yobs know no discipline.
Economic cuts in public services as stock markets crash world wide. The forthcoming Olympics a stone’s throw from the riot torn streets of London England
It is sickening.
David Cameron, you are losing the plot. Tottenham Riots should have been prevented, if not nipped in the bud. It was not, now many are paying the price for incompetence.
The 5th column by Allan Sharpe, Peterbrough.
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
5th Column Television
When a DJ clears the dance floor, it is because the choice of music is crap basically.
So what about our esteemed TV programme schedulers ??
Well they do not get my vote. In Britain we have more choice of channels and less entertainment or infotainment.
For instance the new BBC 3 and 4 channels are a waste of air time. Small audiences watching cartoons like Family Guy or abstract culture. BBC News is boring. Who would have thought that Sky could do it better, in an industry where the BBC trains all in the beginning. Terrestrial channels cannot or will not bid for national sport fixtures and those without a satellite dish or cable have to go to a pub to watch their team, their country.
Where is the new comedy replacing that of over 25 years ago? Do not tell me there is anything today as funny as Fawlty Towers or Rising Damp. Comedians were household names a plenty when we only had 3 channels, now they are a dying breed and certainly not as witty, satirical and clever as Spitting Image, the Muppets, the Two Ronnies, Monty Python, Pete and Dud, Tommy Cooper, the list goes on and on, like only fools and horses.
The truth is the demise of British Television started with Margaret Thatcher in the 80's when she forced BBC TV to devote 25% of production to independent programme makers, to break what she saw as a monopoly. I worked for BBC Current Affairs in those years, and the rot set in as BBC lost money due to her policy, to follow ITV in a downward spiral of performance levels. This is what we have ended up with and worse to come. 25 channels 50 channels of surfing and hopping, longer advert sequences, and monotony for couch potatoes.
It is cheap television to run repeats, to run talent shows, where the contestants are free. Reality TV is also cheap using talent less no hopers for the viewers to watch sleeping, making a cuppa tea going to the toilet on CCTV. Expectation levels are down, viewers watch 2 hours of cooking genres, 2 hours of soap operas night after night, except all viewing figures are down as is advertising revenue, because even advertisers realise TV is garbish whereas the internet, computer gaming, dvd films are increasingly better forms of home entertainment for those that are less mindless sheep watching what we are being served up............ dross !!!.
So what about our esteemed TV programme schedulers ??
Well they do not get my vote. In Britain we have more choice of channels and less entertainment or infotainment.
For instance the new BBC 3 and 4 channels are a waste of air time. Small audiences watching cartoons like Family Guy or abstract culture. BBC News is boring. Who would have thought that Sky could do it better, in an industry where the BBC trains all in the beginning. Terrestrial channels cannot or will not bid for national sport fixtures and those without a satellite dish or cable have to go to a pub to watch their team, their country.
Where is the new comedy replacing that of over 25 years ago? Do not tell me there is anything today as funny as Fawlty Towers or Rising Damp. Comedians were household names a plenty when we only had 3 channels, now they are a dying breed and certainly not as witty, satirical and clever as Spitting Image, the Muppets, the Two Ronnies, Monty Python, Pete and Dud, Tommy Cooper, the list goes on and on, like only fools and horses.
The truth is the demise of British Television started with Margaret Thatcher in the 80's when she forced BBC TV to devote 25% of production to independent programme makers, to break what she saw as a monopoly. I worked for BBC Current Affairs in those years, and the rot set in as BBC lost money due to her policy, to follow ITV in a downward spiral of performance levels. This is what we have ended up with and worse to come. 25 channels 50 channels of surfing and hopping, longer advert sequences, and monotony for couch potatoes.
It is cheap television to run repeats, to run talent shows, where the contestants are free. Reality TV is also cheap using talent less no hopers for the viewers to watch sleeping, making a cuppa tea going to the toilet on CCTV. Expectation levels are down, viewers watch 2 hours of cooking genres, 2 hours of soap operas night after night, except all viewing figures are down as is advertising revenue, because even advertisers realise TV is garbish whereas the internet, computer gaming, dvd films are increasingly better forms of home entertainment for those that are less mindless sheep watching what we are being served up............ dross !!!.
5th Column - Come on you Spurs !! (1)
Part of the BBC cuts saw the erasing of the Football Fanzine BBC 606 website. A great dis service to football fans in England. It gave a voice by comment to the silent majority.
I have been a life long Tottenham Hotspur supporter, and I have decided to write on but on a different tablet...this blog, my own blog.
Football in England has got too greedy since Sky TV pumped huge amounts of money into the game, greedy chairman, greedy players, all disloyal in the main to their ever faithful fans. Football allegiance is like no other, it is one and only, it is lifetime. But many players have become foreign mercenaries, except the English players do not travel well abroad.
So avarice has led to the rich greedy clubs getting richer and more successful to the exclusion of the other clubs. Success breeds success based on an increased revenue stream. Other clubst can only compete on the bumpy uphill slope of a playing field, by spending money they have not got, on buying and paying exorbitant fees and wages.
This has led to the decline of the English national side. Players like Rooney, Ferdinand and Lampard look good alongside world international players each week playing for their clubs. When positioned alongside their own countrymen exclusively, they are shown up for what they are, no pride, no passion, no skill, just losers. Where are the likes of Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton , Alan Ball, Nobby Stiles, Martin Peters, who would run, tackle and run until they dropped. There are not many today to compare with yesterday.
Today we have substitutes, unfit players, who still get money they have not earned. The Spurs double side of the sixties used 14 players in that all winning season. Today EUFA have limited squads to 25 for less than 90 minutes of work twice a week. Most of the fans watching will have worked in excess of 35 hours that week.
This money money money situation has to be resolved, else the game will spiral out of control, the sport is now a business and the bubble will burst. The fans will suffer for a game they love and have to pay more and more for, through the turnstiles and replica kit.
FIFA is corrupt and incompetent. Players rule, contracts mean nothing, players and chairmen betray managers and fans.
I suppose all fans like me, live on for the next season, another attempt to win a trophy, and above all .....hope.
Last Season Luka Modric was voted player of the season and rightly so by Tottenham fans. Now he wants a transfer to Chelsea. Berbatov a few years ago hid under a car blanket on the back seat of Alex Fergusson's car in order to sign from Manchester United and escape White Heart Lane. Berbatov was not even on the subs bench for the European Cup Final, and serve him right. These players, as good as they are, still make mistakes, still miss passes, tackles, goals, they are far from perfect, they are professional and some cannot even kick the ball with either foot.
Football is a team game, there is no room for passengers. Ball watchers should stay on the terraces in their seats and not change into a team strip , put their boots on and walk onto the pitch.
I hope Modric stays, I hope he starts scoring goals. I hope Spurs become consistent, I hope they win something. I hope Manchester United fail. Another season dawns..............let the games commence.
I have been a life long Tottenham Hotspur supporter, and I have decided to write on but on a different tablet...this blog, my own blog.
Football in England has got too greedy since Sky TV pumped huge amounts of money into the game, greedy chairman, greedy players, all disloyal in the main to their ever faithful fans. Football allegiance is like no other, it is one and only, it is lifetime. But many players have become foreign mercenaries, except the English players do not travel well abroad.
So avarice has led to the rich greedy clubs getting richer and more successful to the exclusion of the other clubs. Success breeds success based on an increased revenue stream. Other clubst can only compete on the bumpy uphill slope of a playing field, by spending money they have not got, on buying and paying exorbitant fees and wages.
This has led to the decline of the English national side. Players like Rooney, Ferdinand and Lampard look good alongside world international players each week playing for their clubs. When positioned alongside their own countrymen exclusively, they are shown up for what they are, no pride, no passion, no skill, just losers. Where are the likes of Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton , Alan Ball, Nobby Stiles, Martin Peters, who would run, tackle and run until they dropped. There are not many today to compare with yesterday.
Today we have substitutes, unfit players, who still get money they have not earned. The Spurs double side of the sixties used 14 players in that all winning season. Today EUFA have limited squads to 25 for less than 90 minutes of work twice a week. Most of the fans watching will have worked in excess of 35 hours that week.
This money money money situation has to be resolved, else the game will spiral out of control, the sport is now a business and the bubble will burst. The fans will suffer for a game they love and have to pay more and more for, through the turnstiles and replica kit.
FIFA is corrupt and incompetent. Players rule, contracts mean nothing, players and chairmen betray managers and fans.
I suppose all fans like me, live on for the next season, another attempt to win a trophy, and above all .....hope.
Last Season Luka Modric was voted player of the season and rightly so by Tottenham fans. Now he wants a transfer to Chelsea. Berbatov a few years ago hid under a car blanket on the back seat of Alex Fergusson's car in order to sign from Manchester United and escape White Heart Lane. Berbatov was not even on the subs bench for the European Cup Final, and serve him right. These players, as good as they are, still make mistakes, still miss passes, tackles, goals, they are far from perfect, they are professional and some cannot even kick the ball with either foot.
Football is a team game, there is no room for passengers. Ball watchers should stay on the terraces in their seats and not change into a team strip , put their boots on and walk onto the pitch.
I hope Modric stays, I hope he starts scoring goals. I hope Spurs become consistent, I hope they win something. I hope Manchester United fail. Another season dawns..............let the games commence.
5th Column - Communications
Technology and machines have eliminated the switch board operator. Now I listen to endless music or arithmetic lessons as I am asked to press buttons 1 - 10 for the service I want, and by the time the voice instructions has finished, I have forgotten what was said in the first place. Meanwhile the cost of the call is mounting, and I have got nowhere slow.
The other day I laughed as even the British Telecom engineer could only get voice mail when calling into his depot.
Machines are efficient and cheaper than human beings, but not as effective. Neither are call centres who are staffed by people who do not speak my lingo, but they are cheap, just like the service and image they project.
With technology making communication cheaper or even free, the standard of service is poorer. It should all be in the computer. The computer cannot get it wrong. Trouble is computers are artificial intelligence not allowing for human illogical incompetent intelligence. The result is the computer says no...........best way.
Retail Industry, Banking Services, even the Communication Industry this is your wake up call................ oh it appears you are otherwise engaged !!! zzzzzzzzzzzzzz sorry I tried to wake you !!!!!!!
The other day I laughed as even the British Telecom engineer could only get voice mail when calling into his depot.
Machines are efficient and cheaper than human beings, but not as effective. Neither are call centres who are staffed by people who do not speak my lingo, but they are cheap, just like the service and image they project.
With technology making communication cheaper or even free, the standard of service is poorer. It should all be in the computer. The computer cannot get it wrong. Trouble is computers are artificial intelligence not allowing for human illogical incompetent intelligence. The result is the computer says no...........best way.
Retail Industry, Banking Services, even the Communication Industry this is your wake up call................ oh it appears you are otherwise engaged !!! zzzzzzzzzzzzzz sorry I tried to wake you !!!!!!!
5th Column - Recession
I have just heard the Tory Chancellor Osborne tell the TV viewers "everything is all right". What planet is Osborne on??? We still have factories and shops closing, unemployment rising, money as scarce as jobs.
True the British Government have ways in concealing true unemployment numbers. How else would the number of unemployed not equate with those on job seeker allowance. So that is fiddle number one for the Government through statistics.
The reality is that our High Streets have empty shops, factories closed, because the government offers contracts abroad, instead of protecting British Industry, like the Italians, Germans and French do. Most of our manufacturing base has long been allowed to die. It was replaced by a corrupt greedy financial service industry that Gordon Brown permitted to produce a Monopoly money economy and then the bubble burst and the banks were bankrupt.
Now we the ordinary people are paying for the mistakes the rich made, and the rich are impervious to their misdemeanours, the poor are poorer. If you have a job , you are lucky to hold onto it.
In the Great Depression , we built our way out of trouble, with houses, roads and infrastructure. Today, yesterday and tomorrow, we have to see it out and there is no plan, no way out, except cut cut cut expenditure, and no growth no building, no better tomorrow.
We never had it so bad.
True the British Government have ways in concealing true unemployment numbers. How else would the number of unemployed not equate with those on job seeker allowance. So that is fiddle number one for the Government through statistics.
The reality is that our High Streets have empty shops, factories closed, because the government offers contracts abroad, instead of protecting British Industry, like the Italians, Germans and French do. Most of our manufacturing base has long been allowed to die. It was replaced by a corrupt greedy financial service industry that Gordon Brown permitted to produce a Monopoly money economy and then the bubble burst and the banks were bankrupt.
Now we the ordinary people are paying for the mistakes the rich made, and the rich are impervious to their misdemeanours, the poor are poorer. If you have a job , you are lucky to hold onto it.
In the Great Depression , we built our way out of trouble, with houses, roads and infrastructure. Today, yesterday and tomorrow, we have to see it out and there is no plan, no way out, except cut cut cut expenditure, and no growth no building, no better tomorrow.
We never had it so bad.
5th Column - Bugging Me
I hate litter.
An ex Londoner, I have just moved to Peterborough, having also lived in small towns. Peterborough is a scruffy city. It's scruffy because of the people that live there. It's scruffy because teenagers drop litter. They go to the corner shop buy cans of drink, packets of sweets and the empty containers are just dropped on the ground or thrown into the hedge. Worse they smash bottles, not caring that the broken glass splinters will harm the paws of pets and wild life. They have no pride in their surroundings, no care for the environment. They are mindless morons.
Why should the council provide green spaces, trees, shrubs as pleasant surroundings , litter bins, road sweepers to try to keep the city tidy mopping up after these delinquent yobs.
One wonders how this riff raff have been brought up, maybe they live in abject squalor and their parents are equally to blame, dirty, untidy beings spoiling life for any decent human being.
Once upon a time Corona delivered full bottles of pop door to door and collected the empties refunding a small 3 pence deposit on the glass bottle. Years ago non self service shops meant products were not prepacked and sweets were sold loose into a brown paper bag.
So called progress means take away packaged food and drink, and the shops and fast food outlets produce the excess packaging for litter louts to scatter about.
City Council's like Peterborough would do well to promote Pride in the Community, Pride in Peterborough. After all it is not a Peterborough problem alone. Prizes could be given as an incentive for cleaner neighbourhoods. Prizes could be sponsored by the fast food outlets and supermarkets. Individuals that spoilt it for others could be named and shamed. The silent clean majority could isolate the scruffy few.There has to be a system of carrots and sticks. Enforcement is reactive and expensive. Proactive initiatives are cheaper, prevention is better than cure. Schools and the unemployed ranks could provide volunteers to blitz clear up areas.
I would like to bag all the litter these parasites have dropped and empty it all around their beds while they slept. Would they even notice when they woke up, now only a fly on the wall would see if they had modicum of intelligence.
An ex Londoner, I have just moved to Peterborough, having also lived in small towns. Peterborough is a scruffy city. It's scruffy because of the people that live there. It's scruffy because teenagers drop litter. They go to the corner shop buy cans of drink, packets of sweets and the empty containers are just dropped on the ground or thrown into the hedge. Worse they smash bottles, not caring that the broken glass splinters will harm the paws of pets and wild life. They have no pride in their surroundings, no care for the environment. They are mindless morons.
Why should the council provide green spaces, trees, shrubs as pleasant surroundings , litter bins, road sweepers to try to keep the city tidy mopping up after these delinquent yobs.
One wonders how this riff raff have been brought up, maybe they live in abject squalor and their parents are equally to blame, dirty, untidy beings spoiling life for any decent human being.
Once upon a time Corona delivered full bottles of pop door to door and collected the empties refunding a small 3 pence deposit on the glass bottle. Years ago non self service shops meant products were not prepacked and sweets were sold loose into a brown paper bag.
So called progress means take away packaged food and drink, and the shops and fast food outlets produce the excess packaging for litter louts to scatter about.
City Council's like Peterborough would do well to promote Pride in the Community, Pride in Peterborough. After all it is not a Peterborough problem alone. Prizes could be given as an incentive for cleaner neighbourhoods. Prizes could be sponsored by the fast food outlets and supermarkets. Individuals that spoilt it for others could be named and shamed. The silent clean majority could isolate the scruffy few.There has to be a system of carrots and sticks. Enforcement is reactive and expensive. Proactive initiatives are cheaper, prevention is better than cure. Schools and the unemployed ranks could provide volunteers to blitz clear up areas.
I would like to bag all the litter these parasites have dropped and empty it all around their beds while they slept. Would they even notice when they woke up, now only a fly on the wall would see if they had modicum of intelligence.
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