Some Don't Like It Hot

The weather forecasters have been happy hyping it up with the big smiles and telling us “isn’t it all going to be so wonderful?”  Apparently it is about to become very hot.

It might be OK if you could sit out somewhere shady taking it easy with cold drinks and with not much to do, or on holiday in a place you enjoy.

It is not much fun if you have to be rushing about, up against tight deadlines, in a building that does not do air conditioning and any of the rest.

It is even less fun if you have to use the deep London Underground and the services have become erratic or are stalled.  Or stuck in a train where the power system has failed and you are gently roasting in your own fat.

Or worse find yourself with nowhere to go in one of the usual traffic jams anywhere in the motorway system or on the busier roads.

Personally, I burn easily and after the needle hits near or above eighty just have to close down and stay out of the sun.  There are many others, notably amongst the elderly.

In urban surroundings if the heat means little or no wind then the air quality soon deteriorates.  My brain does not like it and my temper suffers.

If I was much younger, perhaps fed up, short of money and on top of this souped up with the wrong kind of liquids I might just go out and start a riot.

Travelling In Hope

Long ago when young and attending football matches of one sort or another and other events a wise uncle told me that it was not the going, it was the coming back that I should think about.  Quite how much time, effort and bother he has saved me, and later my family, is incalculable.

At events in the towns where I lived this did not need a great deal of thought or planning.  What did need this were events in other locations, especially those which had large attendances.  A little time taken to work out from maps, timetables and later potential parking places could make huge differences.

After one match at Twickenham, I was having a pub meal just north of Grantham when someone else I knew was still struggling to make progress within sight of the ground and another had just made it back to Waterloo on the local train service.  Things may have improved since then, but I doubt it.

We have had a great deal of comment on many aspects of the arrangements for The Games but I have yet to see much on what happens when you are coming away.  This is likely to have had a low priority. 

We shall see what might happen on Friday 27^th July when a full house is expected with a large number of others who brought in or who have come from locations away from the Stadium, most of whom will be travelling either by public transport or by vehicle.

Quite why the Opening Ceremony is scheduled to begin at 9.00 in the evening and finish at midnight is not clear.  The programme has been brought back already from half past midnight but a 1971 Spanish peso says it will run over, possibly for longer than expected.

As a long time traveller by rail, underground and car around London the timings, routing and distances are almost engraved on the mind.  The absolute rule is that it always takes longer than you want and often expect. 

The rapid movement out of up to 90,000 people heading out of the exits for the stations that are open or their cars probably means some holdups and dislocations.

Should their be any shunts on the roads, delays arising from confused motorists or junctions that cannot carry the weight of traffic then this could be like the old Wembley at its worst.  That was always bad, very bad.

As for public transport, one complication is that the closest station, Hackney Wick has been closed for the Games.  This has infuriated local shopkeepers robbed of a great deal of their normal passing trade in the locality.  But it is probably sensible, neither the station nor the franchisee, I suspect, could shift the potential numbers.

There are a number of late services available generally, but they may not be enough and there is a real risk of those heading for say Victoria or Paddington could be in trouble even if there are minor delays.

For the sake of those who might be involved I hope difficulties do not arise and it will go reasonably smoothly.  But there is a risk that many could find themselves looking for the early morning trains instead of the late night ones.  Worse still, this might invalidate their tickets.

There are two further complications.  One is the recurrent signalling problems on many rail and Underground lines, these are not going away.  Also, Friday night is boozers’ night on public transport as I know with bitter experience of too many trains stuck whilst the police deal with an “incident”.

Our problem is which DVD we will be watching that evening.  Perhaps the original 1955 “The Ladykillers” or even the 1952 “The Titfield Thunderbolt” might be appropriate to the occasion.

The Return Of Butch And Sundance

In the past this blog has referred to “Shanghai Lil’s” as a satirical take on the local branch of HSBC.  Like other banks they are not as they used to be decades ago when banking was taken seriously and deposits were twenty per cent of assets held.

It hinted that compared to the past there was a slightly raffish, almost personal way they tried to flog you their financial products.  The charming young ladies and jolly young men are very different from the rather older, often grumpy and distant male clerks of the past.

One of my acquaintances however has other opinions about HSBC.  Once it took him three weeks to move his money from one account of his own to another as hurdle after hurdle was put in his way.  The assistants sighed sadly when they told him that this was necessary to avoid money laundering and other frauds.

What made matters worse was that the savings account he had held for a long while was earning a derisory 0.5%.  In the Marks and Spencer shop along the street he picked up a leaflet offering 3.5% for a similar savings scheme.  The small print told him that the account was based on HSBC.  The word “fraud” leapt to his mind.

It was not as though he was one of the flirts or easily bored of their customers, moving from bank to bank on a whim of a marginal rate of interest.  He had banked with HSBC and its predecessor Midland for over fifty years.  When a man like this looks askance at the service he gets it tells you a lot.

The trouble is looking for another.  Barclays?  Oh dear.  RBS? Oh dear oh dear.  LloydsHBOS?  Oh dear oh dear oh dear.  And so it goes on.  If he had a bit of money then perhaps Coutts, the posh end of RBS?  Not so fast on the trigger, Butch, this is a frame up.  Coutts is now effectively based in the Caymans catering for a certain class of people.

Amongst them may well be the famous financier once at the centre of Labour’s financial policy, Fred Goodwin.  A vintage ten bob note, now out of circulation, suggests that a certain very high placed Scottish person who is acutely sensitive about issues relating to his personal finances is another.

There are more distinguished persons associated with Coutts, quite a few celebrities and others with a longer connection.  Does one really want to have people like this standing in the same queue at the branch in The Strand?  HSBC have a presence in The Caymans, hence the picture of the Cayman Crocodile above.

HSBC, as we know, have fallen foul of American investigators.  They are the sort of person who likes to go into detail, wants to hear the explanations and wants another notch on the butt of successful prosecutions.  The particular question is large scale money laundering, notably from Mexico where the trade is associated with large scale homicide.

So what has been going on in London, accused of being the money laundering centre of the world, clearing house for a network of tax havens moving bad money from account to account at the speed of light, if not Higgs Boson?  We shall never know.  Too many are too close both to the government as well as the opposition.

Long ago, I was in the gallery at the Bow Street Stipendiary Magistrates Court where several of my acquaintances were due in the dock to be asked why they had trashed a number of clip joints in Soho.  This had caused distress to their owners and senior police officers on their payrolls. 

They did not appear as one of the punters who had been debagged was a Cabinet Minister and the charges were hastily dropped.  But one poor hapless soul, called up from the cells had been seen by a police officer to take tuppence (two old pennies) from a telephone box.  He was handed down a month in prison.

Perhaps he should have gone into banking instead.

Annie The Agony Aunt Answers

Dear Annie,

Usually, at the end of July a close neighbour holds a big family party and likes to send lots of balloons high into the sky.  As we are in the No Fly Olympic Zone will this mean we will have missiles and drones aimed in our direction?

Yours ever,

DC, Notting Hill.

Answer.

Probably, yes, whilst these are normally very accurate and should only destroy your neighbours there could be collateral blast damage for at least one kilometre around.  If there are a lot of separate balloons, however, this could trigger missile or drone strikes in series which will wipe out about twenty five square kilometres.  Your home insurance will not cover this because it is an “Act of God”.

Dear Annie,

We live in a leafy close with a lot of green spaces.  A few days ago a number of families with caravans and horses arrived claiming to be the Ruritanian Wallet Lifting Team who will be competing against others at the Olympic Stadium. 

A neighbour who complained to them about the midden they had created in his front garden was stoned to death along with his family.  The police say as his complaint was discriminatory there was nothing they could do.  What can we do?

EM, Hampstead.

Answer.

My legal adviser tells me to say nothing but to refer you to Make Your Community Happy Ones report from the Department of the Environment.  The police action was fully justified in terms of the recent 373,000 page law on interaction between persons during Olympics year 2012. 

I am informed that the complainant’s mortgage has been foreclosed and there should be no further problem.  You are not covered for your home or life insurance.

Dear Annie,

In my retirement development along with others nearby we have all been told that we are to have a cruise of a lifetime with full facilities whilst our flats are used by persons engaged in Olympics security.  These are all dressed in American First Nation clothing which looks like the Mescalero Apache warrior type. 

However, some have been seen in service uniform with a double A insignia and shouting “Remember Ste. Mere Eglise” and “Arnhem Here We Come”.  In the pub one whose was a bit over the top claimed to be going to invade Belgium to take over Brussels to win the election for Obama.  The cruise ship looks to be very like the large aircraft carrier, USS “Benedict Arnold”.  Can you help?

KC, Kensington.

Answer.

This is the opportunity of a lifetime.  As it is a “mystery” cruise you could find yourselves enjoying a visit to Tehran or Islamabad or Cape Fear for the shark feeding and mating season.  You will not need travel insurance because it is an “all in” package but there is no guarantee of a return journey.  Your life insurance or funeral insurance will be deemed void.

Dear Annie.

I find myself increasing at a loose end in my job and being given tasks that cannot be done because of interference.  Nobody seems to want to listen to me.  The latest thing I have been asked to do is reform the railways, or in short “go and play with the trains” during The Olympics.  Should I think of changing my job and seeking employment with a competing firm?

NC. Brixton.

Answer.

You should be so lucky.  According to my sources your existing job may not exist for much longer so you would do well to be out of it.  It is possible you are too trusting.  Your personal liability insurance will not cover any decision you make.

Note:

Annie will be taking extended leave to compete in the equestrian hacking trials during the time that the Olympics are in progress.

Where Are My Legions?

It is said that the Labour Party think that it has lost five million voters since 1997 and wonders where they have gone.  The general idea seems to be to reclaim them for the party and have them back in the voting booths.  Or at least doing multiple postal votes where they can get away with it.

This could be difficult in that, amongst other things, it involves a mass resurrection, perhaps on the lines of Stanley Spencer’s famous painting.  Because many of those born before 1950 have now shuffled off the mortal coil either to be up there voting for the Celebrity Saint of the Year or down there voting for Footballer of the Year,

They have been replaced by others born after, say, 1980.  These would have been infants in the 1980’s and whilst some might have been brought up to believe that Margaret Thatcher was wrong and others that she was right, I suspect that the great majority would have been fed an intellectual diet of pop and media claptrap.

Also, they would have been reared in a world where debt and consumption was good.  When politics and public events did impinge on their passing consciousness from the mid 1990’s onward they would have been aware of continuing sleaze, deceit, confusion and a world where morals came a long way behind making the money.

On the other hand their pre 1950 elders are more likely to have regarded debt as bad, savings as necessary and straight dealing required of public and financial services.  They grew up in a different world of food supply and costs, before antibiotics and where the patterns of family and local loyalties were quite different.

In the past it may have been conventional for many to attach themselves to a political party as part of the pattern of loyalties expected of them but over the decades this has gone along with other past loyalties.  Also the right to vote is now taken for granted whereas before it had been won only recently by many.

As in the UK we are now well removed from Empire, traditional industry and work habits have radically changed and we are bombarded with marketing that tells us that brands and particular celebrities are the crucial things.  Politics for many of the youngest seems almost a tawdry side show outside the big tent of the circus of our lives.

Voting may now be seen in terms of just another consumer option and not the most important one.  After all if Westminster is no longer the centre of our economic and political world, never mind the “real” world of our media and communications, then why bother too much, if at all?

But the world is changing and in ways that few understand.  What an electorate is faced with now is groups of people who not only do not really govern but do not know how to.  So if more do not vote, do not attach themselves to major parties and take little interest in what actually goes on, then what happens to democracy.

Ancient Rome rid itself of the Kings to become a republic.  When that dissolved into chaos they found themselves with an Emperor, Augustus.  He soon found the limits to Imperial Power when Publius Quinctilius Varus marched into Germany who lost the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th Legions in the Teutoberg.

For the remainder of his days many times he would cry out “Where are my legions?”  Our political parties may find themselves in the same situation.  Suddenly, we may have an electorate that is neither interested in politics nor indeed voting.

Then what?

Stan And Ollympics

Following the extensive reports in the press recently on security issues for the London Olympics (copyright or a visit to Execution Dock) and other matters all I can say is that you saw it here first on Tuesday 12 May 2009.

http://thecynicaltendency.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/2012-olympic-security-costs.html

The document had been written at the end of 2008 but did not raise any interest so shortly after I began blogging it was made use of.

Could someone kindly explain to me how come a single grumpy ancient, who had been around the block a time or two, could see it when all those highly paid people did not?

At least you could laugh at Laurel and Hardy, now one can only weep.

Age Shall Not Weary

According to The Times, I am now a “financial time bomb” and unless defused will cause the economy to flatline.  Whether this means that it should become policy to cause persons of my age profile to flatline before that happens is not certain.

In the last week or so there has been more attention paid to matters arising from dealing with the elderly who need support.  Inevitably, much of this has centred on human interest stories. 

Less mention has been made of the Equality and Human Rights Commission recent report called “Close To Home, An Enquiry Into Older People And Human Rights In Home Care”. 

The report attempts to bring together the Commission’s view for its future policy and guidance about Equality, Disability, Diversity, Care management and Human Rights for the elderly in need and who are disabled. 

Yes it is very expensive with many and various implications that entail costs, duties and obligations.  The question of who pays and how is left to others to worry about. 

Necessarily battle has been joined over whether the aged with assets should be given free or limited cost care allowing their wealth to be passed on to family or others or whether those assets should be used to fund the care requirements.

One of the oddities that goes unremarked is that amongst the aged are many whose periods in education were much shorter and who worked for much longer than those of later generations are likely to.  But to discuss this would simply confuse the key issues.

Historically, we have never been here before, which makes a change for this blog.  In the past with the expectation of life being much lower and few people being able to appreciate assets in the way we have done the numbers of aged needing care were far smaller and the few who did have assets were expected to use them.

From my extensive scratching around Census Returns of the past looking for this and that the common practise was for the aged to be with their families, normally used on light household duties.  Some of the poorest did finish up in the Workhouse. 

Some continued in work, one of mine seemed to be still employed into his nineties, perhaps urged on by his much younger third wife.  Well it was Leith which might explain it.  There were a few with assets often listed as “annuitants” which meant that the wealth lasted only as long as they did.

But the better off then could hire servants and the less they could do then the more servants and nurses they employed.  If they were renting, as was common at the time then the notion of property as assets was tempered.  Also the property market in those days was radically different.

At present in the district where I live there is a stark contrast.  There are hardly any aged who are Brit’s living with their families.  But amongst recent migrants there has been a striking increase in the number of families who have brought in their aged parents to be amongst their UK kin.

Which raises an awkward and interesting question.  If all care for the aged is to be borne by the taxpayer then many migrant communities will be paying for old Brit’s to be supported by their taxes whilst they themselves take care of their own.  Did anybody see that one coming?

Another difficult question is who are the carers?  At present the care for most either in residential facilities or their own homes appears to be done by part timers or agency workers earning very modest incomes, having had limited training and given very tight schedules.

Moreover, they are becoming in short supply relative to need.  So not only may the money not be there to fund all this, there isn’t the man (or rather woman) power there to do the job effectively.  The resources locked up in all this are alleged to be so much as to damage the working economy.

As in so many things, there are no “right answers” to any of it.  All we have is a number of options all with “downsides” that are both problematical and in some cases impossible to resolve to the satisfaction of all parties.

This one is going to get rough because the pre-conditions are in place for a social, economic and political disaster.  See you in the Job Centre.