My Two Pence

It seems like a lot of people are at least trying to go green these days.  Whole companies make their living through pushing the green scene, selling services such as energy performance certificates, auditing homes and reducing people’s carbon foot print.

I try not to think about it too much; I recycle glass and cans, plus I always give my old clothes to charity.  I do think that our generation need to sort out poverty as well as the whole green issue.  The country seems to be in such a mess at the moment though.  Recently it seems like a case of, where do we start?!

I’m 26 years old and I can state for my generation that we are completely detached from our countries economic and political agenda.  We have not got the UK into the situation it is in now and yet don’t seem to have much of a say about sorting it out.  I personally think that in a couple of decades we’ll be left to pick up the pieces of a broken Britain.

I think that there should be a complete cull of politicians; the expense row gives the perfect excuse.  The majority of them have taken the complete piss and should go.  The government needs a wider variation of people in terms of age and wealth, not just race.  It may then be possible to say that the government is making decisions for the whole of the UK, rather than just a small percentage of the public who like in a) London and b) are old.

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Oh my god, this morning I had a mare getting into work.  The access control security systems seemed to completely give up.  I stood in the pouring rain, desperately swiping and swiping my ID card to no avail.

My day has pretty much gone from bad to worse after that.  Now however, it’s Friday afternoon and all is not that bad in the world.  There’s just over two hours left of work and a 3 day weekend ahead of us.  No clients, work or access control security systems to contend with.  Though, my door key has gotten very stiff in its old age, so I’ll probably have to wrestle that to get into the house.

Never mind that though, the weather outlook is good and for three days the world is my oyster.  I’m going to do some shopping, drinking and sleeping, and then try to stay out of trouble.

Then when Tuesday morning hits us like a tonne of bricks, it’s going to be business as usual.  Slipping back into the lifeless lull of the rate face shouldn’t be too much trouble.  I think it’s fair to say that the rate race is getting me down.  Down, down to China Town!

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Gaah, how does my number get on business telemarketing lists?! I can’t sit in the sanctuary of my own home without some random company calling up to see if I want to buy something. Obviously I don’t want to buy anything as I’m sat in the comfort of my own home, watching television and making the most of the little time I get on my own. I do not want my program to be interrupted by a complete stranger blagging my head!!!

The amount of adverts is getting worse too, I remember when watching a film didn’t take up five hours. Now there are so many adverts breaks; advert, after advert, them telling us that we want things that we don’t need. It’s ridiculous!

Ha, I have found a way round all this advert business. It costs me more but I now subscribe to Sky Plus, record everything and fast forward through the commercials. I no longer loose cumulatively, days of my life to media companies and adverts.

I need to get myself on an exempt business telemarketing list to get them to sod off. I will find away to get round this business! Let’s face it; it’s just another invasion of our privacy which we need to deal with.

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We have just moved into our new house which is bigger and better than our old house, I am most impressed (as daft as it seems) with the towel warmers in both the family and guest bathrooms.  It seems like such an obvious invention, but it warms the whole of the bathroom brilliantly, as the towel warmers surface area is far greater than the cast iron radiators of the past.  Plus you can neatly fold a number of towels that will be toasty and warm for the whole family for after their showers and baths.

The garden is massive and our Siberian Husky loves it.  I don’t think he likes it because it’s aesthetically pleasing like the rest of the family, but that he can dig it up and completely ruin it for me!  Luckily, we are yet to buy our new carpets, so that fact that he keeps treading mud all over the place, though is annoying is not the end of the world.

Since when did I turn into such a house wife?!  It wasn’t that long ago that I had so many things going on in my life that a towel warmer would have been the last thing in the world to get me excited!

Oh well, to middle age and onwards.

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I know that we are in the middle of a recession and everyone’s purse strings are tighter but I am sure that we are running out of office furniture.  We have had so many new people start that there is a massive shortage of office chairs and I am sure that people are sneakily steeling them at night so that they don’t end up with the nasty, tatty ones.

I know it sounds odd that we are increasing the number of staff on chairs, when everyone else seems to be making redundancies.  It’s baffling me too and I still think that we are understaffed; I know that I am being worked like a small mule!

It seems that everyone is between a rock and a hard place at the moment, under so much pressure and so stressed.  You only have to turn on the news to see how black things are at the moment.  Please don’t get me started on the politician’s fiasco!!!  They sit there on their chair of authority, making decisions for us hard working, taxpaying, no expense receiving idiots.

I for one am sick of the state of things at the moment.  I want to move somewhere hot and live off the land, or at least by simple means.  The rat race is just too much to handle at the moment.

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In the news this week Katie Price and Peter Andre have announced they intend to divorce.  Both parties blame the separation on each other, with Katie in the Daily Mail insisting that Peter had made the decision to split.

Peter has been in the news saying that he could no longer cope with his ‘out of control’ wife.   Reports say that Peter can no longer cope with Katie when she’s drunk as he can’t trust her.  Peter told the Sun ‘I’m not jealous of anybody until Katie’s drunk.  But if she’s been drinking, I know she’s capable of anything. The devil gets inside her and she’s a nightmare’.

Katie has fled the country with her two sons, getting away to an undisclosed location.

Katie said:

‘Pete is the love of my life and my life.  We have children together and I am devastated and disappointed by his decision to separate and divorce me, as I married him for life,’ she said, before adding: I will always love my Pete’.

One wonders how messy the divorce will be, with a two children caught up in the mess and a small fortune up for dispute.

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In the news again this week, the Labour party pushing UK ID cards onto us.  Apparently people can take ID cards out from pharmacies and shops if they wish.  I think that it seems ridiculous!!!  Why would I want to go get an ID card if there is no reason to do so?

It’s not like the government can ensure the security of the information they already have on me, why would I freely give them more.  It won’t be long now until document scanning facilities allow people to make carbon copies of all our ID documents.  Either that or a friendly, yet incompetent government official will leave it on a train, tube or bus for any travelling criminal to find.

Not only have the majority of the British public dismissed the ID card idea, only the Labour Party are pushing it through and even then, they don’t have support from the whole of their party!  I have enough documents to carry without adding to them!

The government should wait until there is such a technological advance to require a new country wide ID scheme.  Retina or finger print scanning perhaps with a UK wide central database to cut out the document scanning and card carrying that goes on every day.

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As the recession continues and everyone’s purse strings tighten even further, more job losses have been announced.

In the news today, Staples Promotional Products are eliminating 45 jobs.  The job losses come from the Iowa, Hawarden and Marcus plants, all job losses are blamed on the economy.

Last year, Staples Promotional Products became the largest US supplier of promotional products after they acquired Corporate Express Promotional Marketing in 2008.  According to reports the two companies earn more than $400,000,000 in sales annually, yet are still heavily affected by the current recession.

After the print of the Sunday Times rich list, it has become apparent that the music industry have been hit hard by the credit crunch too.  Reports have said that some of the wealthiest British individuals have seen massive dips in the fortune.

The list has shown that Paul McCartney has apparently lost £60 million from his wealth since the list was published last year.  Though, still in 3rd position on the music industries wealth list it is hard to feel too sorry for him.  His fortune still stands at an estimated £500 million!

Elton John has seen a 26 percent drop on his fortune, from £235 million in 2008 to £175 million this year.

All looks good for Andrew Lloyd Webber who tops the music industry rich list.

The rest of us can watch on in envy, as they lose more than we could ever hope to hold in our accounts!

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Time is running out for Newcastle, as they fight to stay in the Premier League.  The Magpies only managed to take a draw from Portsmouth last night and hope is now starting to run out.

Newcastle are 3 points away from fourth place Hull, with matches against Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Fulham and Aston Villa left.  The game against Middlesbrough will be dog eat dog, as surely the winner of this match will inevitably stay in the Premier League.

All is left to play for, for those at the bottom of the table.

New Premier League arrivals Stoke City after a slow start have done themselves proud, currently in 12th position.

The next few weeks will decide the fate of those left in the balance and all is yet to be decided!

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Four years ago Vince Cable was attacked by Gordon Brown for supporting more funding into bee keeping and diseases associated with the British and furthermore European bees.

Now years later, it comes to light that the European beekeeping industry could potentially be wiped out in the next 8 to 10 years.  The causes are disease, insecticides and intensive farming.

In 2008, a third of Europe’s hives died, that’s around 13.6 million hives.

The long term affect of this is that farmers will struggle to farm, as the Bees will not pollinate the crops.

Vince Cable was also the person that predicted the collapse of Northern Rock.  Perhaps Labour and The Conservatives should start listening to the Lib Democrats; they may actually know what they’re talking about!!!

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