Check out the Oxfam bookshop on Cotham Hill. It has some really good books, and asks a reasonable price.
Oct
18
THE JOY!!! No passengers were on board, just a bust First bus. Click here.
Sep
28
So the great Cabot Circus has finally opened, on time as well. Like a fool I decided to visit on the first Saturday. Take a main thoroughfare at Glastonbury Festival, remove the mud, the drugs (unless you count shopaholics) and the music, times it by three floors and replace the stalls with posh boutiques and there you have it. Most of all the cacophony was unbearable. It seems that the acoustics might just have been overlooked when they designed this temple to Mammon. I reserve final judgement until I go on a quieter day, but it seems that the glass roof might be the cause for a sharp rise in sales of paracetamol.
Two other things that I noticed: an absence of shopping bags – they had clearly forgotten their credit cards – and the presence of cigarette smoke in the open air section, (see last entry). Smokers unite!
Sep
21
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but save the smokers! Bristol’s new mega-bucks shopping centre is about to take the no smoking ethos a step too far. When Cabot Circus opens on Thursday shoppers will not be able to smoke there, even in the open spaces. Now I don’t smoke, I wouldn’t want to encourage anyone to smoke, but this is shear lunacy. The country’s smoking ban indoors was great, going into smokeless pubs has been a joy; eating without feeling as smoked as salmon has been much more pleasant; but this dictatorial act will do none of us any favours. Ironically, the one place that you will be allowed to smoke there is on the terrace at Raymond Blanc’s brasserie. How many shoppers will be able to afford the smoked salmon there, I wonder?
The reality is that smoking in large, open areas has no effect on anyone but the person with the cancer stick in their mouth. Why, then, stop one in four shoppers from de-stressing themselves in such spaces? It only means that they will become grumpier, leave sooner and buy less. On the plus side, it might well be the reason why shops in the original Broadmead shopping centre will carry on making money. Especially any tobacconists.
Sep
15
Funny how there has been a series of air disasters featuring in the news in the last month, just when we are in a petrol crisis and the global warming debate gets hotter than ever. Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Spain have all suffered, not to mention the many nationalities of the passengers involved. Then travel company XL collapses, leaving thousands stranded abroad.
Is someone trying to discourage people from travelling unnecessarily? It would be nice to think that that no one would sabotage commercial flights for this reason, but their prominence in the news is a cosy coincidence for anyone wanting to discourage extensive travelling by the masses. Stick to trains, as long as the channel tunnel is not ablaze, that is.
Sep
07
It seems that the despicable behaviour of people in the benefit offices extends to face to face treatment in job centres. A recent report in the Daily Mail – I cannot believe that I am actually agreeing with that particular tabloid – told of an unemployed mother being kicked out of a job centre for bottle feeding her behaviour. Not breast feeding, BOTTLE feeding. The grounds for send her out, because there was a no food or drink policy in the building.
The lunacy of following that rule to the letter without considering the reason it exists – to avoid mess – was compounded by the fact that Samantha Corbridge was feeding her baby as it was crying with hunger. Which would the job centre prefer, that the baby cry, that its mother be unable to look for a job or that everyone get along with what they were doing without disturbing each other? Perhaps the member of staff who was so anal is in the wrong job. Traffic warden sounds like a far more appropriate post to me.
On another note, thanks to takingiteasywatchingjeremykyle.blogspot.com for putting a link to this blog on his site. It is worth checking out if you want to read about the not so easy reality of being on benefit.
Aug
26
We see adverts accusing people of benefit fraud, but who are ‘they’ to talk? Since the British economy has been declared on the verge of recession the benefit offices seem to be going all out to claw back money in the most underhand way. A friend just had his incapacity benefit cut on the grounds that he has moved house, therefore his ‘circumstances’ – i.e. if he had a live-in partner – MIGHT have changed. He was supposed to have received a form giving him a chance to enlighten them, but no. The first he knew about it was a letter coming the day before the payment was reduced.
They seem to think that these financial reductions are just numbers, mere abstract figures, but they are not. They are food, bills, the cost of living. They are security. Take away the certainty of that income and you create financial and emotional turmoil. Perhaps if the person who messed up could see the bi-polar ‘client’ physically shaking with intense anxiety things would be different. Would he have been so capable of screwing up and going home with a clear conscience?
If the phone call that followed to try to resolve the situation is anything to go by he probably didn’t give a flying duck. As for the bigger picture, what makes it even more sickening is that any money they manage to claw back is ultimately going to be spent elsewhere dealing with the costs of having more ill people, needing more care and costing the state even more money, so what is the point of trying to claw it back in the first place?
Aug
09
The benefit system in this country, and certainly in Bristol, is nothing less than a horse’s rectum. The housing benefit department seem to think that you only need so much money to live regardless of what government agency’s assessments say. The net result is that if one hand decides you warrant receiving more money for health reasons the city council takes it away.
As if that is not enough the collective ‘they’ make it financially pointless in getting any sort of work that does not bring in twenty grand. Since when is someone who has been out of work for any length of time going to get straight into a job of that sort of wage?
This is still nothing compared to the incompetence that leads to them paying you in error, leaving you budgeting for the money you have and only then demanding the money back. Where on earth is the recipient supposed to get the money from? Do they think that we have magic savings to cover it?!
As if all that is not enough, if I had decided not to return to work, to stay in my own flat rather than share, to pay more rent and demand more financial help from the city council none of this would have happened. It is at times like this I understand why people go to war.
Jul
30
For those of you who are into the darker arts of the internet, perhaps you should read the BBC news story that this link will open up. I’ll hold back on making a moral judgement on hacking, but can the US military really complain about it? Surely they should be employing the man instead. Anyway, if you are a hacker that is your business, just don’t get caught!
Jul
29
Chain stores suck! Especially supermarkets. Certainly when it comes to having a conscience. It is bad enough that they dominate the retail market, leading to the demise of the traditional high street. It is all too rare that you see a street consisting of a local butcher, baker AND candle stick maker. Alright, so I have never seen a national candlestick maker business, let alone a local one, but you know what I mean. Bristol’s Gloucester Rd was described by the Independent as England’s last high street and there are many local businesses there. Yet even that has a Somerfield’s, Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s.
That the evil Tesco own a quarter of the ENTIRE British retail market – not just the food retail market- is bad enough, but what makes it worse is that they and their counterparts try to make out that they have your interests at heart. The perfect example is there for all to see in Sainsbury’s right now. If you believed the notices hanging in their temples for mammon you would think that they share all our ‘values’. Even if the pun about financial value is accounted for the implication of ethical consideration is still there. How can they share all our values when everyone has variations in what they think is right and wrong? Of course, this stems from the green ethos which is becoming more and more prevalent, and rightly so, but since when are our ethics their primary concern? Making money is their primary concern, and they will take as much of ours as they can, starving local businesses in the process. Somewhat ironic for a business in the food industry.
As for what should be done. Something will come to mind.
