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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…)

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…)

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…)

The kids broke up today & as July seems to be behaving itself they’ve got nothing to complain about & endless weeks in which to run free. They’ll do nothing of the sort of course & instead will find the quickest route to being bored out of their minds that they can, it’s odd but they manage this every year without fail. I can remember being bored rigid during the long Summer holidays as well but as I recall we didn’t manage this until at least a few weeks had passed & all the bikes were broken. These days it’s something of a criminal offence to not to offer the kids constant stimulation but even here there’s a problem since as soon as a chance to learn something comes up they all moan that they aren’t at school anymore? They don’t make it easy, there are things they want to do but since these things always involve quite a big outlay of cash it can be tricky doing more than one or two of them when cash is tight. You’d expect this point to be appreciated by children who live on a council estate which contains mostly poor people but in all honesty they don’t see it, they just expect it to happen. I’m not moaning about this, I’d like to just whisk us all off on a new adventure every day until they were begging me to be allowed to stay home but it’s simply not possible & what is possible isn’t up to the required standards. (continue reading…)

There are a few things that get a bad press time & time again but drinking is by & far the winner, there’s hardly anyone in the newspaper or magazine business that wants to do anything except explore the dark side of drink. Okay so it causes untold misery to millions & is responsible for countless accidents & early deaths but aside from that is it really all that bad? The statistics seem to be painting a fairly grim picture of cause & effect & there does appear to be some circumstantial link between consuming large volumes of alcohol & bad things happening but is drink to blame? Even if it is are we only examining the evidence from one side? Hasn’t our addiction for intoxicating beverages brought us anything worthwhile at all or have we been fooling ourselves all along? Could drinking or not drinking make a difference to our lives? Well, if you’re about to fly a plane or perform an operation then nipping out for a few pints is probably not a great idea, then again if you’re a referee you might as well, it might help a bit & you’d resent the booing less. (continue reading…)

I guess it had been coming for a while now, almost a couple of weeks had passed without any kind of Facebook related life interference, it’s back now though as if it was just saving it up. I wouldn’t mind but I hardly get any trouble concerning me from Facebook, okay so I don’t go on much except to update my status here & there & see what everyone else is up to but even so, it’s crazy how much of an effect it has on me. The teens have it the worst I guess as they always seem to do & say now & doing any thinking required later, this is not a good strategy when online both in public & in real time. Considering that just one hasty post made in anger can produce reams of anger & days of threatened retribution you’d think they’d know better but they don’t & afterwards go back to doing it anyway. Normally there’s at least one of the kids embroiled in some meaningless argument during any given week, sometimes it’s due to gossip, sometimes to their joining in with other peoples’ rows but there all the same.This week though it’s been relationship week on Facebook, relationship week is always a barrel of laughs & as the statuses change from single to otherwise & back again the only real surprise is that more people don’t get killed over this nonsense. (continue reading…)

I get the theory obviously, if the government can drag more money in than it actually spends then the debt will have to be reduced accordingly, it’s logical but also not quite. If the cutbacks increase unemployment then the government will have to spend some of the money it’s trying to save, & if the cutbacks reduce the amount of money people have then they’ll spend less so unemployment will go up. I keep studying the figures as far as I understand them but I can’t see why this isn’t political suicide, it’s probably a worthwhile risk right now with Labour still outcasts but it remains a risk. It may well be in the interests of the UK to have some harsh medicine to swallow but when the people doling it out are rich & those taking it are not then the risk that they’ll remember come election time has to be considered. People have never liked doing things solely for the common good especially when they’re only going to feel the benefits after years & even then only in the abstract. The lottery may make a comeback but it’s hard to see anywhere else getting a boost out of austerity, I aren’t saying that the job doesn’t need doing or that I care how unpopular the Tories get, just that I thought they were meant to be brighter than this? (continue reading…)

The famous can’t just die it seems, because they have an army of fans & attract the intense attention of the media as they live out their lives in public mere death is somehow beneath them. Not for them the humdrum deathbed or the quiet heart attack in the supermarket car-park, there must be intrigue & doubt or else they weren’t really famous. In deference to the principle that speculation about a famous death must begin at the point the body hits the floor Jackson ticks all the boxes & everyone wants to play. Sooner or later the mystical burger joint where Elvis cooks is going to get a new waiter, conspiracies are way better for many people since without them all you’ve got is a middle aged bloke over-exerting himself. It may be fun to remember Elvis as he was in the fifties but that’s not what he looked like by ’77 & by the same token the Jackson that made “Thriller” wasn’t the guy who was about to perform at the O2 arena, that guy was long gone. As soon as for most of us at least the concept of an actual death has been accepted the logical upshot of way too many people is that he must have been murdered, real stars live forever? Maybe they do, but their bodies don’t go the distance with them, if any other 50 year old drug addict collapsed & died after spending weeks dancing the only surprise would have been that it took weeks for it to happen. (continue reading…)

It’s funny but we all make the same mistake, all of us not knowing that the rest of us have already made it or are just about to make it, it’s just one of those things that we all have to get through somehow & that some of us will spend our lives repeating. It’s lasagne of course, I’m sure you’d all mostly guessed anyway but if you didn’t don’t worry, you will, it’s impossible not to make mistakes when it comes to lasagne from the moment of discovery to the last bite you’ll ever have. None of us will ever forget lasagne & yet we’ll all have the stories that chill the blood as we remember the other times, the lasagne that just didn’t work out, even the ones that we did our best with & desperately hoped that we’d found the ultimate lasagne. In the end though it’s not just about the pasta or how well the white sauce was stirred or what kind of cheese was or wasn’t required or even what dish it was served in or what with, there are some things you can’t spoil & some that are built spoilt, that’s lasagne for you. (continue reading…)