Friday’s Today programme featured an interview where Chris Grayling lost it while he was talking to Evan Davies about the Work Experience programme. Leaving aside arguments about the programme itself, wouldn’t it make more sense for Iain Duncan Smith to do the interview? He is the Secretary of State for work & pensions and Chris… Continue reading Organ Grinding
Blog
Well Unfare Part II
The latest company to pull out of the “voluntary” Work Experience programme is Burger King UK. I suppose it’s tempting to say that when a fast food company decides a scheme is a mistake then it must be really bad. However, although burger bars tend to have a reputation for quite a high staff turnover,… Continue reading Well Unfare Part II
Branching Out
Good to see the “Taxpayers” Alliance on the ball as ever. There seemed something a bit familiar about their “ZOMG WE’RE RENTING TREES!!!!!!!” story, and indeed there was. This story was reported by the BBC way back in 2000 when Portcullis House first opened. Still, I suppose 12 years to put in a Freedom of… Continue reading Branching Out
Well Unfare
The semi-voluntary Work Experience programme has been in the news this week, along with bonkers Tories like Iain Duncan Smith calling people names like “job snobs” if they criticise it. What kind of jobs has he had then? According to his profile on the Guardian he was an officer in the army and then went… Continue reading Well Unfare
Starting Off
Thought I’d relaunch this blog for a longer version of some of the political ideas I mention on Twitter. Aeons ago I briefly used it for blogging my combat sports training but no one read it. So, what to expect then? I’m politically left of centre and not keen on any of the main political… Continue reading Starting Off
Not dead yet!
These days I spend so much more time on Facebook and Twitter that I know I haven’t updated here for months. I’ve been trying to write about the odious public sector “reforms” but I only get so far before I get bored and stop. If I did get into political blogging I wonder if Blogspot… Continue reading Not dead yet!
Past Present
People following my Facebook feed may have noticed that I did quite a big presentation for work this week. I work for a large and pretty well known telecoms company. Like most big corporates it does a lot of things and has quite a few programmes to stop staff getting too bored. One of these… Continue reading Past Present
Lookalikes #notw
With the News of the World hacking scandal getting even more interesting I noticed the similarities between this pair of rogues. One is a puppet who acts on the direct orders of a shadowy boss whose only interest is power, and the other is a character in a Harry Potter film.
Tickling the Ivories
Haven’t exactly been keeping up to date with LJ, even if I do read my friends page several times a day. It’s easy to get out of the habit of things. However one thing I’m getting back into is music. When I was about 3-4ish my parents got a cheap upright piano (mostly wooden frame)… Continue reading Tickling the Ivories
Shocking Behaviour
For reasons I’m not going into in a public post, getting probate on my dad’s estate is taking a long time. Most of the organizations owed money were happy to put things on hold and hang in there, but not E.ON Energy. When I notified them of my dad’s death they wanted a copy of… Continue reading Shocking Behaviour