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It’s been a while now since the financial world went to hell in a hand-basket but not that big a while, as we all continue to struggle with the impact how are the banks making out? Well, they’re fine to be honest, they’re back to making money & doing their best to make as much of it as possible by charging plenty of interest whilst paying almost none. To look at an average bank now you wouldn’t believe that the current economic turmoil had anything to do with them whatsoever, I had hopes that the banks might have come out of the mess with a better or at least more realistic attitude but this is certainly not the case. If anything they’ve proved that they can do pretty much as they please & that if the brown stuff ever does hit the fan again then it’s in our best interests to act in their best interests. Frankly the whole thing stinks to high heaven & anyone who wants to believe that they’ll be responsible in the future when they have no chance of suffering the consequences of their actions is a bloody fool. (continue reading…)

We all know that when the wind is howling & the rain lashes down the kids get bored within seconds & there’s never anything good to distract them on TV, when this happens you need a new game to make the day fly by & loft fishing is a great start. We all throw stuff into the loft, it’s always stuff that we’re never going to use again but think that we might, aside from the Christmas decorations though we never do, what makes it interesting though is that we’re not alone in this. Over the years houses have many occupants & upon the day of their departure they look into the loft & despair, then they collect the Xmas tree & the baubles & set off for pastures new leaving the detritus of years behind them. After this someone else moves in & unless they ambitiously decide to convert the loft to another bedroom they simply continue to hurl things into it until either they leave or else the ceiling comes down. (continue reading…)

It’s a problem that doesn’t seem to be going away even with the banks’ share prices coming along nicely, that’s the trouble with rushing in, it might need doing but it’s just never that simple. The fact is that this country borrows too much whether it’s a good year or not & then when the brown stuff hits the fan we’re stumped, it doesn’t even matter who’s in power either, they all do it. Given that simple maths tells us that we’ve got to take a few years to sort this out & that other things are going to happen there ought to be a proper plan. That the Tories want to play hack & slash is no surprise to anyone, it’s sadly the only plan they ever have, that the Lib-Dems are going along with is slightly amusing though. Selling out is always awkward & no matter how they dress it up it has always been a case of selling out for them, it was their only chance for power. Like many people I was hoping that with the return of vast profits to the financial sector we could be spared some of the pain caused by the financial sector, this doesn’t seem to be coming though, apparently we only count when they’re broke. (continue reading…)

It’s certainly meant to be & they’ve certainly worked on it & done their best to get all their users to understand how to tweak it but has it worked? In an always on world it’s easy to leave your personal data public in places you’d rather not & with FaceBook in particular this can be a big deal. It’s all very well being impressed that everyone online can find you but in many sad cases there are those people who you’d rather be invisible from, these problems can be taken care of within FaceBook but it’s not always either easy or clear. Even within your own friends list there may be areas where a little discretion can work wonders, I don’t think people should be friends with their bosses online but if you’re going to do it then a few fences are justified. It may be that these precautions are a step too far for most people & that they couldn’t care less who sees what but these people are going to become fewer & fewer as time passes, it may seem trite now but if you can Google yourself & chuckle at the results then so can anyone else. (continue reading…)

I mean without a plane obviously, or a helicopter or balloon or hang-glider etc, we’ve been trying for a few years now & with all the progress we’ve made everywhere else we ought to have produced at least one superhero by now. I thought most of them were created by weird accidents or pollution anyway? This is clearly rubbish since we’ve had no end of accidents & have patiently polluted the earth from one end to the others, we should have supermen flocking like starlings but have we? No, we haven’t even got the stretchy ones that have to walk everywhere but can still do some good stuff, we haven’t even got any psychic ones, it’s a disaster. Evolution may be a force of nature but aside from getting a bit taller & better at pushing buttons the human race isn’t exactly motoring along, I don’t mean to come over as expecting a freak show of epic proportions but we should have something. I’m not talking Superman, he was an alien & nothing to do with humanity as well as being fictional but we could have a webbed wonder or an invisible man or just one flying silly bugger! (continue reading…)

The Summer holidays are well underway & like Santa at Christmas going to the cinema comes up a lot more often in the right season, the rain helps as well. Since this year 3D is being flogged as the greatest thing since they sold enough HD ready equipment it was only a matter of time before it came up, ok so you get the choice between 2D & 3D but it’s only a couple of quid difference & tech’s tech right? It is if I’m paying anyway & although I may not see the point of 3D television because watching a soap isn’t an event I do sort of see it working in the cinema where people have made an effort to be entertained. The kids were quite excited about it as well & were looking forward to seeing amazing special effects & having a new experience to scream out over Facebook, so off we went to see Toy Story 3D in the sure knowledge that Woody & Buzz would save the day but that it might be fun anyway. As far as it went the film was alright, there was one point where it looked as if all the toys were going to be incinerated but the director bottled it presumably in favour of Toy Story 4D, as for the 3D, well, it works but it has issues. (continue reading…)

It depends I suppose, I mean compared to what exactly? Obviously if you’re putting a run down council estate up against a new build of executive homes then your conclusions will be dull & predictable, & meaningless. I can only speak for myself but as an estate dweller for most of my life I’d have to say that there are both better & worse places to live. I’ve lived on a number of estates & whilst some of those estates are now predominantly private due to the selling off of social housing the fact is that it’s mostly former council tenants who still live in them. The estates may be bastions of poverty but that’s got more to do with who can qualify for a council house these days rather than the estates themselves & whilst they may not be overflowing with amenities only a few of them are truly dire. Like anywhere else in the world what kind of place you live in is defined by some degree by the people who live around you, on the estates this breaks down into ” good ” streets & ” bad ” streets although to the outsider all the streets will look the same. (continue reading…)

It would seem that the legendary reliability of Blackberry privacy is ruffling feathers in the Middle East as a few of the countries there are demanding monitor rights over their networks. It may well be just a power play to bring a successful company to heel but if nothing else it shows what a fine line can be drawn between an individuals’ right to privacy & a governments’ need to know. Maybe given that Rim are so business orientated that they will only use their own servers for certain traffic this was bound to come up eventually but in a world scared rigid by terrorism this may just be another knee jerk reaction by the authorities. Most of us use mobile phones every day & we expect our private conversations & Emails to be just that, private, sadly we also expect the forces of Law & Order to be ever vigilant against those who would do us harm & so provoke the constant paradox we now live under. I get around it the same way most everyone else does by assuming that the government have every right to snoop on anyones’ privacy so long as they stay the hell away from mine because I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m not saying that this solves the entire problem but as far as honesty goes it’s all I’ve got. (continue reading…)

It was a wet & cold Spring morning in Spangly Woods, the rain had only just stopped as Bryan the badger stuck his head outside for a breath of fresh air before bedtime. A small stone bounced off his head, ” Ouch! ” said Bryan hastily pulling his head back inside his sett, it was a good job he did too as several more stones proceeded to clatter down in front of him. ” What’s going on here? ” he shouted, at first there was no answer at all, just some faint sounds of movement, then someone started shouting, ” You’re not having them do you hear? You’re not bloody having them! “, there was a flurry of wings & then silence. Bryan shrugged before carefully easing himself out into his glade for a look around, it was now utterly peaceful with only the sound of rain dripping from the trees to disturb the quiet, it didn’t matter though, the day was somewhat spoilt now for Bryan, he’d best get a good days’ rest he thought as whatever was going on today in Spangly Woods would surely involve him again at some point. A little further away from Bryans’ ruined morning Matty & Monty the stoats were watching a frog & trying to decide whether they felt quick enough to catch it, Monty had just decided to chance his arm & was preparing to leap when a veritable storm of pebbles came down & crushed him to death. Matty looked down at Montys’ lifeless form & then up at the sky, birds could be right bastards he thought to himself before tucking into Monty, ” It must be my lucky day ” thought the frog hopping away like mad. (continue reading…)

It’s always nice for politicians to have an easy target & for the Americans right now there’s no-one easier than BP, it doesn’t matter how much money they can throw at the Yanks, they’re still going to hate them, which is stupid. Okay if you were going to pick a group of companies that could be hated even more than the banking system then the oil companies are a fair point to raise, the profits they generate are obscene & they’re forever involved in the less democratic areas of the world in their endless search for fresh supplies. On any level despising the oil industry is peachy, it’s like loving the addiction but hating the dealers & we can all relate to that, after all it’s our way of life that spawned them & continues to feed them although we intentionally ignore this because it spoils all the hating & resentment. Even amongst the oil companies themselves there’s always one that gets to be singled out for a special dose of hating due to whatever disaster it caused or was attached to, at least until one of the other oil companies causes a fresh disaster & claims the crown back that it is. Right now BP is right up there as demon number one & if the oil spill had happened anywhere else in the world I’d be right there hating the company along with everyone else, but I can’t do it, it can’t be done & shouldn’t be done, as much as I’d like to join in with the abuse it’s just not right. (continue reading…)