Bloggin' All Over the World

I was in two minds as to whether or not to publish a blog this week; I’m sure that even the most enthusiastic followers of any blog (let alone mine), have enough on their plates this week to push reading a blog down their list of priorities. On the other hand though, as we are nearly at the end of the year it is as good a time as any to look back at my first year of blogging.

In one of my very early blogs, “It’s Life Jim, but not as we knew it,” (http://rulesfoolsandwisemen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/its-life-jim-but-not-as-we-know-it.html) I said that “One of the reasons for starting this blog is that I’ve always enjoyed writing, either for work or for fun, and it can be quite a cathartic process, even if no one else reads it. For better or for worse, I’m going to try adding to this blog once a week at least.” Now it remains true to say that I enjoy writing and it is cathartic at times and when the need has arisen, I’ve enjoyed digging around for information to include in my blog. But did I care if people read it or not? Of course I cared.

As far I can see, there is no accurate or reliable information on exactly how many blogs there are out there on the net, but earlier this year Tumblr.com had over 101.7 Million blogs, WordPress.com had in excess of 63 Million blogs, Livejournal reports 62.6 million blogs and Weebly over 12 million, and a quick look at the worldometers website (http://www.worldometers.info/blogs/) shows that nearly 1.2 billion blog posts have been written in 2013 so far. With that number of blogs competing for attention, any number of hits I got was going to be a bonus but I would be lying if I said that I would have carried on if I had not had some sort of readership.

What did surprise me (and gratify me too) was that each week when I published my blog there would be a respectable number of hits, and while I knew that a few friends would take a look, there were always some hits from outside the UK. As you might expect, the bulk of my audience appears to be in the UK, but the US, Spain, Germany, France, Russia and Poland also feature regularly, which is nice!

Sometimes the subject matter for my blog readily suggests itself, possibly because of some news item I have read or seen; alternatively it may be because I have done something particular that week. Then there are the subjects that I just think would be interesting. One such was A Midland Odyssey (http://rulesfoolsandwisemen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/a-midland-odyssey.html). Now when I say interesting, I have to admit that I thought of it as chiefly of interest to me (and possibly anyone who worked for or had worked for, Midland Bank or HSBC) but possibly not to many other people; I thought it might be a little self indulgent. To my surprise, this proved to be my most popular blog to date.

Like so many things associated with computing and the internet, blogging is so much easier than it was years ago; basically there is a template, you chose your design, decide on a name, type in your content and...well, that’s pretty much it really. The trickier thing is having some sort of inspiration as to what to write and the time to write it. The latter is of course far less of a problem if you aren’t holding down a full-time job. Before I actually started doing so I had hankered after the idea of writing a blog; there were a couple of false starts before I published anything. As with many things, I was uncertain as to how it would work and whether I could sustain the momentum, especially since it became clear that publishing every Thursday put a little pressure on.  But that has been a good thing; I’ve banged on about liking routine, so having to sit down once a week and write something and then publish it has been beneficial.

Having blogged for a year now I would thoroughly recommend it, so if you have been thinking about it and maybe putting it off, why not give it a go? It’s easy, it’s free and having people read what you have written is rewarding.

That’s it for 2013, thank you for reading!  Rules, Fools and Wise Men will return on January 2^nd, so until then, Happy New Year!

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Less than a week to go then; less than  seven days until Christmas 2013, less than seven days until midnight mass, Christmas dinner, The Queen's Speech, Christmas Top of the Tops, visiting relatives, waiting to see if it's going to be a white Christmas, opening presents, pulling Christmas crackers, listening to cheesy Christmas songs, sleeping off (or walking off) Christmas dinner, too many Quality Street, mince pies, mulled wine, Christmas carols...and so on.

The more organised among you will have already bought and wrapped the Christmas presents, written and posted the cards, will have the Christmas lunch menu sorted, made arrangements to meet family and friends and will be looking forward to a stress free Christmas. Others among you may be rushing round in a blind panic in overcrowded shops trying to find that essential gift, realised there is only one more day until last posting day for Christmas, so those cards had better get written, and be wondering when the hell you will be able to do your food shopping while suddenly realising that having invited Auntie Mabel  over for Christmas dinner, someone has to go and collect her and where on earth is she going to sit because the dining table only seats six and you've invited ten.

Somewhere between the two extremes is me; most of the presents are bought, the cards have by and large been posted and the food shopping can wait till Monday in all probability. Having a small family no one is going to be exiled to the conservatory to eat their turkey and sprouts. Mind you that isn't to say there won't be a last minute crisis when I realise that I have forgotten to get something essential.

Yes it will probably be Monday when I will be wandering around a supermarket buying a turkey joint, potatoes, vegetables (including the inevitable sprouts) and trying not to overbuy. All around me there will doubtless be shoppers with trolleys laden with enough food and drink to feed the five thousand. I've mentioned this before (http://rulesfoolsandwisemen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/waste-not-want-not.html); the amount of food that is wasted in this country is scandalous and this is true at Christmas like no other time of the year. Unlike in the days when I was a child and the shops might be closed for three days, now they close their doors on Christmas Eve and open them again on Boxing Day. There really is no reason to buy as much as some people do. In this 24/7 world we live in there will even be some shops open on Christmas Day itself. No longer does the country shut down and sit in front of the television, stuffing its collective face with turkey and sprouts, nuts and chocolate...oh, wait a minute it does actually, just not for quite so long.

As enjoyable as Christmas is however, there are many people for whom Christmas is tinged with sadness. Anyone who has suffered a bereavement during the year will feel their loss most keenly at this time. I know from personal experience that the first Christmas after the death of a loved one is difficult; this Christmas there will be many people putting on a brave face while feeling sad and bereft inside. Then there are the lonely, those who live alone or who will not be seeing their families for whatever reason. I read an article last week about a man who has spent the last ten Christmases alone. This year, faced with only his own company yet again, he advertised for a companion to spent the day with him. Touchingly he has received a number of replies from people offering to spend time with him and he has received his first Christmas cards in years.  

Christmas dinner 2012 

Apart from the shops being open every day bar the big day itself, Christmas is different from when I was young in other ways too. Back in the days of my childhood it was always exciting to see what would be on the television on Christmas Day. The Morecambe and Wise Show, Christmas specials of all your favourite shows and of course the TV premiere of some blockbuster film. In those pre-DVD days it was always quite an event when the schedules were announced and as we had no way of recording anything, TV viewing had to be planned meticulously to make sure we didn't miss any of our favourites.  Not so these days; a quick glance at the festive schedules and there is nothing that falls into the "unmissable" category, at least not as far as I am concerned.

For those of you with young children, I have no doubt that Christmas is still as magical as ever. There is nothing quite like the anticipation of Christmas for a young child, even if it means that on Christmas Eve they become over excited. Most parents will remember (or be anticipating) the entry into their bedroom of a small child (or children) at some God foresaken hour and being asked if they can open their presents, to which the answer is usually, "No, it's only three o'clock! Go back to bed!" Cue exit of child or children, who will return and repeat their question continuously for the next three hours till their parents become too exhausted to refuse any longer.

"Has be been yet?"

Doubtless these days everyone is canny enough to check that any battery operated gifts contain the necessary batteries, or if they don't will have gone out and bought some, as most of us will remember from their youth one Christmas present that sat forlorn and unused until the shops opened and some batteries could be purchased. But never forget those dreaded presents that airily proclaim "some assembly required" on the box. I recall one year buying my elder daughter a Barbie camper van and having to spend most of Christmas morning on my hands and knees assembling it from its five hundred individual parts. Never again; a few years later a dolls house that was purchased was assembled a week in advance, thus avoiding any tantrums (mine or my daughter's).

The dreaded Barbie camper van!

One thing that doesn't change is that every year we wonder if we will have a white Christmas and every year we wake on Christmas morning, fling open the curtains and are greeted by grey skies and drizzle, or at best a sharp frost that at least provides the illusion of a white Christmas. I read somewhere once that it is more likely to snow at Easter than Christmas and I have to admit that I really can't recall snow on the day itself, not even in my childhood. Still, one year I suppose it might.

However you are spending Christmas, whoever you are spending it with, whether you will be at home, or visiting relatives and friends, or (as increasing numbers are doing these days) if you are spending Christmas at a hotel, in this country or abroad, I hope that your Christmas is a happy one. 

Happy Christmas Everyone!

There Is No "I" In Team

There have been times when people have accused me of being a cynic and in many ways I do not have much of a defence, although what others may see as cynicism I prefer to call healthy scepticism. There is probably no greater field of endeavour in which scepticism or cynicism is likely, nay inevitable, than at work and (in my experience), nowhere at work  more so than in the team building exercise or leadership courses.

I was reminded of this recently when Val and I went to watch a recording of the BBC radio comedy, Clare in the Community, which stars Sally Phillips as Clare, a social worker with all the right jargon, who likes to sort out other people's problems while ignoring her own. I am sure that we have all worked with people who know all the right jargon[1], all the right buzzwords and who are supremely confident that they are effective, efficient and productive when in fact they are generally pretty hopeless. Clare is a control freak who has lost control and what do you get when a control freak loses control? Yes, a freak.

Clare in the Community began life as a cartoon in The Guardian.

In the particular episode that we watched being recorded, Clare's team leader arranges a team building exercise. This being comedy, this exercise does not consist of paintballing or raft building (which the team were hoping for), but takes place in her flat. The location is unimportant, for what ensues is fairly typical of most team building/bonding exercises or leadership courses, principally that no one really wants to be there.

Over the years I went on any number of courses while at work. In the early years these were largely technical in nature, that is to say they taught you the nuts and bolts of the job. These tended to be quite rigidly structured; in many ways it was quite like being back at school. But, and this is an important but, by and large people came back from these courses with more technical knowledge of how to do their jobs and by extension usually became more effective or efficient. Gradually however, these courses began to include increasing elements of training in what may be called leadership or management skills until eventually there were no technical courses, only courses designed to make people better at working with other people or in managing them  without necessarily being able to do their core job any better.

Team building exercises tend to fall into two categories; the fun activity course and the earnest psycho babble course, but both have the same potential pitfalls. In the fun activity course everyone meets at an off-site location and a day of quad biking or clay pigeon shooting incorporating some subtle (or not so subtle) exercises in teamwork, you know the sort of thing. These may be fun and they may provide people with something to talk about at the coffee machine for a few weeks after the event, but do they make people more collaborative at work? Better team players? Better planners? Better managers? The artificial nature of the activities, the unreal setting and the fact that ultimately the outcomes on the day are pretty unimportant, means that it is unusual for anything worthwhile to be transferred back to the workplace. Anything beneficial that is learned tends to be eroded  quite quickly; everyone slips back into their normal patterns of behaviour sooner or later.

The outdoor life; team building walking on a rope.

The psycho babble course will generally take place indoors, albeit away from the workplace and will normally consist of the less outgoing members of the team desperately trying to avoid being picked out for some activity or another and hoping that one of their more gregarious colleagues will volunteer themselves. Personally I always disliked these types of courses and especially when the dreaded "role playing" exercise was on the agenda. Psycho babble courses may be run by other managers in the organisation and generally these courses are not so bad, at least the people running them usually have a certain sympathy with the participants. Worse though are the courses run by outside consultants; earnest young men and women, armed with motivational techniques and an apparently never ending supply of good humour, whose goal (unintentional though it may be) appears to be to encourage the participants to undertake activities with which they are uncomfortable to some degree or another.

The normal reaction to a team building seminar.

The greater incident of certain words and phrases, the greater the degree of babble included in a course, the greater the likelihood that the participants will tune out and, in inverse proportion, the greater likelihood that the course will have limited benefit. "Holistic," "empowerment," "leverage," "synergy;" these are all words that one comes to associate with these courses. Now there is nothing wrong with any of these words per se but they tend to be bandied about in courses with little relevance and thereby fall into disrepute. This can lead to the course organisers becoming annoyed as the participants appear not to be taking matters seriously, which may just be a defence mechanism on the part of the group members, particularly when they feel uncomfortable with whatever activity they are being asked to perform. Inevitably that old chestnut "There's no I in team," is trotted out, which means nothing to my mind; I am presumably part of "the team," so there is in fact an I in team.

In a perverse way these courses do sometimes work (although this is in spite of the content) by uniting the members of the group in their discontent and providing plenty of anecdotes once everyone has returned to their normal jobs.

It is possible that I am being overly critical, perhaps too sceptical, perhaps even cynical about this type of course or exercise. The last one in which I took part was actually quite enjoyable, if a little predictable, but it is doubtful if either I or any of my colleagues performed any better once we returned to the office as a result of taking part. The sting in the tail of that particular event was that we were given the task of taking away the lessons we had supposedly learned and applying them to performing some community based or charitable task. As a great many of the other teams decided to support one charity or another, including the immensely popular Help for Heroes, we decided that to avoid the inevitable compassion fatigue associated with the frequent demands on our colleagues'  finances, we would do something for the community. We linked up with the Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST)[2] to help clear a pond on Waterloo Green and later to install some raised flower beds at a school in Southwark so that the pupils could grow vegetables. Despite my misgivings about team building or leadership developing exercises, those tasks that we performed for BOST were immensely rewarding; they drew us all as participants closer together and enabled us to apply team working and leadership skills in an unfamiliar environment.

The pond on Waterloo Green.

Whether we would have done these things any differently, or any better, or any worse, had we not been on the course in the first place is moot.

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[1] Actually there is nothing wrong with jargon when used correctly although it has been given a bad name over the years. Jargon is special words or expressions used by a profession or group that are difficult for others, i.e. outsiders  to understand. If all parties understand what is meant then it is perfectly acceptable. Having said that I was once criticised for using "jargon" when using an expression that was fundamental to the business and which the listener should have understood; it said more about him than me, I felt.

[2] See their website here: http://www.bost.org.uk/

What's In a Name?

Football fans tend to be conservative (with a small “c”), more likely to embrace evolution than revolution. Supporters of every team will expect and accept change; managers come and go, players come and go: nowadays owners come and go too. Increasingly clubs are likely to move home; that prime town centre site can easily be sold for housing or retail redevelopment and exchanged for an out of town stadium with all mod cons. Okay, the new ground (with all those mod cons, albeit lacking a certain character) may be less convenient to get to; maybe it is a bus ride away or necessitates a trip by car instead of the convenience of the more centrally located, if slightly shabby old ground, but fans will tolerate that. It is progress and the greater capacity and better facilities offset the inconvenience and the loss of that ramshackle, scruffy old ground, steeped though it was in tradition and history. But tradition is something that supporters hold dear and which club owners trample on at their peril, as the owners of two clubs have found out in recent months.

While fans will accept many changes, some may be beyond the pale. How would West Ham supporters react if the club decided that their move to the Olympic Stadium at Stratford should be accompanied by a change of name to say, Stratford Olympic, in the belief that such a change might attract new support? Or how would Liverpool react to a proposal to revert to the Blue and White shirts the team wore when the club was first founded? Unthinkable, surely.

The Olympic Stadium will be West Ham's new home; is a change of name beyond possibility?

Well, fans of Cardiff City and Hull City have either had changes like those foisted upon them or have been made aware of similar potential changes that strike at the very fabric of their clubs. Cardiff City fans may have been ambivalent about the change of ownership that saw Datuk Chan Tien Ghee take over as chairman in May 2010 with Tan Sri Vincent Tan Chee Yioun also investing and joining the board. They may have been happy that the new owners oversaw promotion to English football’s top flight but were less happy that the new owners changed the club’s colours from Blue, worn by City since 1908, to Red and changed the club badge to remove the traditional Bluebird, from which the club drew its nickname, replacing it with a Dragon. In May 2012, when news broke that the colour change was opposed by fans, the club announced that they “would not proceed with the proposed change of colour and logo and the team will continue to play in blue at home for the next season with the current badge.” Less than a month later the shirt colour and badge changes happened anyway. Tan was quoted on the subject of the changes as saying that “'A few (fans) were upset but like in any business if we get 80 per cent or 75 per cent of the customers happy, with 20-25 per cent not happy, that's fine. If they don't want to come to support our business, that's fine. We need the majority.”

Out with the old...

...in with the new.

It was significant that Tan referred to the fans as customers and that he was happy if the disgruntled among them did not want to support the club; he rather missed the point on what a football club should be. Yes, at the highest levels of the game they are businesses, big businesses that need to be run as such. But a football club is not a business in the same way that a supermarket is; if Sainsbury’s are no longer to your taste then you go to Tesco but you don’t lose any sleep over it, you don’t have a Sainsbury’s scarf and replica shirt that you can no longer bear to wear. If your football club does something that disenfranchises you then you tend not to go and support someone else. In this, and probably most other countries, football club owners are seen as custodians of a club’s tradition and heritage and because they are transient they are merely caretakers; they tamper with those traditions and heritage at their peril.

This man thinks that fans are "customers".

Meanwhile on Humberside, Hull City owner Assem Allam proposed changing the club’s name to Hull Tigers, prompting supporters to form a campaign group called City Till We Die. Allam retorted by saying that fans can “die as soon as they want.” He called the City name “lousy” and “common” stating that the Tiger brand would be more marketable. Fans behind the City Till We Die campaign ere hooligans said Allam; a “militant minority” who disturbed and distracted the players: inflammatory remarks that will have done little to appease supporters mistrustful of the chairman and his motives.

This man thinks that City is "lousy" and "common."

There is no doubt that to prosper in the Premier League, or even simply to survive, clubs need to compete both on and off the field. Gone are the days when football clubs, chaired perhaps by a wealthy local businessman who also happened to be a fan, could bumble along largely thanks to the largesse of their bank manager. To compete at the very top of the tree nowadays clubs need to match the investment capabilities of men like Roman Abramovitch at Chelsea or Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan at Manchester City; simply to survive in the Premier League now requires serious amounts of money, sums of money which clubs can often only attract by providing their new benefactors with pretty much a blank sheet of paper on which to draw their designs of the club, moulded in its owner’s image.

Should either Cardiff or Hull change their names then both clubs should expect plenty of sympathy but also ridicule from fans of other clubs; British football supporters tend to be contemptuous of this kind of thing as we saw from the vitriol that was poured over Franchise FC (otherwise known as MK Dons). If the name changes were accepted, would this pave the way for further rebranding of football clubs and if so, what sort of names could we look forward to? Probably some could be the mere addition of the club nickname, such as Manchester Red Devils but there’s the potential for such American football style monikers [1]like Reading Roughnecks, Sunderland Storm or Blackpool Rock. I can just hear Charlotte Green reading the classified football results now, “Fleetwood Fisherman 1, Northampton Cobblers 1,” that sort of thing.

Ultimately is it important what colours the team play in, or what the club is called? These surely are inconsequentialities compared with whether the club plays in the Premier League rather than League Two, or whether the club exists at all. But are they? Well actually yes; to repeat my earlier point, owners are mere custodians of a club’s tradition and heritage and because owners are transient they are merely caretakers. Most football clubs in the English leagues have histories dating back more than one hundred years, histories that their supporters take seriously, histories that mean a great deal to a great many people, histories that the temporary owners would do well to consider before they instigate changes that (in the case of Cardiff and Hull) may appear largely cosmetic, but which create marginal benefit while engendering significant hostility.

A football club is not a democracy; the owners are entitled to act as they see fit, but while they may be successful businessmen that does not automatically infer that their every decision will be popular, let alone correct and that in terms of maintaining the history and traditions of a football club, the natural guardians are more likely to be the fans than an owner whose awareness of the club’s very existence may not extend beyond a few months.

The chairmen of Cardiff City and Hull City should remember that football fans who have supported their teams through thick and thin will tolerate a great deal from the players and from management and will remember them affectionately for their successes (and sympathetically for their failures) for years to come, but chairmen who preside over success will likely be remembered not at all; chairmen who preside over financial ruin or bring their club into ridicule are likely to remembered with only the opprobrium their actions deserve.

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[1] No disrespect to American football teams or their names; it’s a matter of horses for courses and that word tradition again.

Here is the News...

What constitutes news? Sometimes I wonder. There was a time, just a few weeks ago, that you couldn’t watch the news on TV, listen to it on the radio, or open a newspaper without being bombarded with news on Syria; now if you want to find out what is happening there you have to search for it. I assume, from what I have read on various websites, that the whole thing has not yet been resolved (irony), but watching the BBC news, one could be forgiven for thinking that it had. Certainly as far as the TV news on the BBC is concerned it is old hat; they have moved on to other matters.

Now I accept that the way we consume news has changed significantly in recent years and that may have an effect.  When I was young it was limited to a few TV and radio broadcasts and the newspapers of course, and I can remember watching the news in the ‘60s and every night there were high profile reports from Vietnam; I remember the Prague Spring of 1968 and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia that dominated bulletins for ages. There have been other significant events that have taken over broadcasts for periods and I guess that they have similarly been overtaken by other events, but in these days of twenty four hour rolling news and the internet, it still surprises me that major events suddenly disappear off the news makers' radar, at least to the point that one has to make an effort to find out the latest on a story that yesterday was in every newspaper and on every news programme.

Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s the general public’s access to news was much more limited than it is today. Newspapers had far fewer pages; TV news broadcasts were shorter and radio had no stations dedicated to the news (at least not in the UK). Now we have the internet, newspapers have so many more pages and on TV there is any number of channels broadcasting news 24/7. And yet sometimes I think we are less well informed than we were thirty or forty years ago. When John Kennedy was assassinated, when Russian tanks rolled into Prague and when Apollo 11 landed on the moon we relied on limited news sources yet we could scarcely have been less well informed. While even then TV news favoured stories for which they had filmed footage, there were so many major stories that no cameraman could access or if they could, it would not be possible to transmit it as immediately as it is today; if the story was significant enough they were still reported on though. Now it seems that unless a story has some accompanying (and preferably evocative) footage, it will be relegated to some sort of news ghetto.

The rolling news channels package stuff into fifteen or twenty minute segments, repeating the same stories over and again, with footage from on the spot reporters (or nowadays, from amateur, mobile phone pictures and videos), while other stories go unreported because they don’t have some nice sexy pictures. Remember last year when Hurricane Sandy hit the eastern seaboard of the United States? The BBC despatched reporters to New York to give us in depth reports on the effects of the storm; seventy three people died in the US as a result and we should never minimise the impact the storm had there, but people were killed in countries like Haiti, Dominion Republic and Cuba, yet watching coverage in this country, one could be forgiven for thinking that these countries had not been impacted at all. Presumably the broadcasters had no reporters on the ground in those other countries.

And then there are the newspapers. In the days when I regularly bought one (and since I ceased commuting I admit that those days are over), I would be constantly frustrated by the fact that a single story would dominate the papers so much. Perhaps the most outstanding was the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. Understandably the story was the lead everywhere for a day or two, but after buying newspapers a week later the fact that were still devoting half of their pages to the matter made one start to wonder if the rest of the world had stopped doing anything. Major story that it was, the number of column inches given over to it was entirely disproportionate. Even today it seems that hardly a month passes without some new Diana story appearing, usually on the front page of The Daily Express on days that they are not predicting the worst winter or hottest summer since time began, or how drinking two cups of coffee can prevent a stroke; followed a week later by the news that the same coffee consumption can cause cancer – doh!

The ultimate Express front page; a health story AND Diana!

Meanwhile The Daily Mail can be relied upon to give prominence to items about “the loony left” or “health and safety gone mad” with regular scare stories about immigration, and the red top tabloids will be dominated by stories about Katie Price or the stars of some reality TV programme you don’t watch, but at least with the newspapers you know what you are likely to get; you pay your money, you take your choice. If a left wing slant is to your taste there are The Mirror and The Guardian. Supposedly for a more balanced, neutral point of view we should be able to look to the visual and audio media in the form of the BBC, although Auntie Beeb has undoubtedly veered leftwards over the years. But even then the more perceptive viewer or listener should be able to filter out any partiality and take from their reportage the facts and make up one’s own mind on them.

The cult of "celebrity;" is that news?

The Sport never pretended to be a newspaper.

I like to think that I am astute enough to make up my own mind on stories that the Beeb may report, but again they have the tendency to allow a story to dominate their broadcasts for a while and then, as though it had never happened, never refer to it again. TV news broadcasts on the BBC have also increasingly appeared to be mere trailers for other stories on many occasions. Often they will report, as though it was a recent story, on some matter that occurred months (or years) ago but is really only being shown now to trail an episode of Panorama  or some other documentary special, or as recently, plug a non news show. Last week Dr Who was fifty years old (the first broadcast was on 23^rd November 2013) and the BBC marked the occasion with a special episode, broadcast simultaneously in ninety four countries, earning it a Guinness World Record as "the world's largest ever simulcast of a TV drama.” It was watched by over ten million people in the UK alone. Not an insignificant event I agree, but did it warrant the amount of TV coverage, on the news, in prime time, with reports that were little more than plugs for a TV drama? Is that news? Well if it is, it deserves little more than to be consigned to the “and finally” segment of any bulletin.

As an aside I watched The Day of The Doctor (after the event, on iPlayer) and have to say that I am probably not enough of a Whovian to have got the best out of it; it was frankly a bit of a mess, albeit with a couple of goodish jokes. OK, having read some reviews I may be in a small minority that didn’t go into raptures over it, but as I have rarely watched Dr Who since I was about six and then spent most of the programme behind the sofa or watching through my fingers, I may not be the best judge. Bear in mind that I loved Gormenghast on the BBC but imagine that a lot of people hated it.

But finally, back to the news and with such a plethora of news media to choose from, why do I feel so ill informed these days? It is probably my own fault, I really should read a decent newspaper; any suggestions?

Tossed Salad and Scrambled Eggs

It is highly unlikely that I will ever be asked to appear as the castaway on Desert Island Discs, but I cannot be the only person who, in idle moments, has tried to imagine what records and book I would take were I ever to be asked to be on the show. And frankly, I would find choosing just eight records and one book quite a tall order; my choice would in all probability depend on my mood at the time and what I had recently been listening to or reading. When it comes to my luxury item, however I find myself quite certain in my choice; it would be the box set of Frasier (hopefully the necessary equipment to watch it would be provided).

There is no doubt in my mind that if Frasier isn’t the best comedy series ever made it must be in the top five, although in its early years it seemed not to attract the same sort of publicity as another famous American sit-com. I can recall the hullabaloo when Friends was first broadcast in the UK; Val and I sat down to watch the first episode and were somewhat underwhelmed, and more than somewhat put off by the whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ of the studio audience. Our attitude towards Friends has softened somewhat over the years, but I still don’t believe that it can hold a candle to the travails of Seattle radio psychiatrist Frasier Crane and his family.

The first time that Frasier came to my notice was one Friday when I returned from an evening out and Val told me about a show she had watched and thoroughly enjoyed. The episode was (we later ascertained), “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” in which Frasier arranges a wine tasting session to help with his attempts to become maitre de chez at his wine club. In moving his father’s chair, Frasier dents the wooden floor; he calls a repairman whose efforts to repair the damage lead only to one more job after another. By my reckoning, assuming that Val watched the first airing of this episode, this was August 1996, by which time Frasier had been showing in the UK for over two years. Somehow we had not previously been aware of it; any fanfare that the debut broadcast had must have passed us by.

We may have missed the first two series but since then we have more than made up for it. We habitually record the show, which is still being broadcast consistently by Channel Four, must have watched our box set from start to finish at least twice, and whenever we are at a loose end, will often select an episode at random to fill an idle half-hour.

Neither Val nor I had been fans of Cheers, in which Frasier Crane first appeared, so we had no history with the character but we immediately became enamoured of the show. If you look back at the very first episode, “The Good Son,” the show betrays few of the doubts, flaws or faults that one regularly finds in pilot shows. The characters, although they develop as the series progress, are fully formed. The relationship between Frasier and his father, Martin, is as antagonistic as one might expect from an ex-cop, invalided out of the force, a man’s man, and his intellectual (some might say effete) son and his even more fussy sibling Niles. As the series advance, that father-son relationship changes, evolving from hostility and mutual frustration through acceptance to eventual understanding, and affection.

But it is not just the father-son relationship that makes Frasier so compelling, there are other relationships, between Niles and Daphne, between Frasier and his radio show producer Roz, between Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith and their son, Frederick, and between Niles and his ever present but never seen wife, Maris that make the show such a joy. Unseen characters are a popular device in shows like Columbo (Mrs. Columbo), Dad’s Army (Mrs. Mainwaring), Minder (‘Er Indoors) but Maris must be television’s most unforgettable. Oddly, and I know not why, the most memorable unseen characters all appear to be female.

A major strength of the show is its ability to use varying and contrasting styles. High farce as in “The Ski Lodge” with the constant confusion over who thinks who is lusting after whom; slapstick as in “Three Valentines” when David Hyde Pierce as Niles attempts to iron a crease out of his trousers, and disaster ensues when they catch fire and he loses control of the fire extinguisher, or the pathos of “Moon Dance”, the classic episode in which Daphne teaches Niles to dance. Unaware of Niles’ infatuation with her, Daphne accompanies him to a ball at which he first declares that he adores her; she treats this as his acting to impress everyone in the room.

Although undoubtedly Frasier was a starring vehicle for Kelsey Grammer, the ensemble cast (John Mahoney, Peri Gilpin, David Hyde Pierce and Jane Leeves, never forgetting Moose and later, Enzo as Eddie) were never left simply trailing in his slipstream; they were full rounded characters who often took centre stage. Peripheral characters such as Bob “Bulldog” Briscoe (Dan Butler), Gil Chesterton (Edward Hibbert) and a whole raft of KACL station managers, like Kate Costas (Mercedes Ruehl) and Kenny Daly (Tom McGowan) were also memorable; all were given ample opportunity to share the best lines. And of course, there was Frasier’s ex-wife, superbly portrayed by Bebe Neuwirth, who has become part of the fabric of life in the Woods household following our acquisition of a mannequin (don’t ask), which we immediately christened Lilith.

"Lilith"

Some sit-coms outstay their welcome, not holding to the showbiz maxim “always leave them wanting more” and by series ten, that may have been a view some would hold about Frasier. It began with Niles and Daphne finally marrying, which removed a lot of dramatic tension and comedic possibilities; the series reached its nadir (in my view) with the episode “Enemy at the Gate” and later drifted into the maudlin with Niles being taken to hospital suffering from a heart condition. The introduction of the Julia Wilcox character (Felicity Huffman) perked up the storylines no end and the episode “Fathers and Sons” is a classic, which would hold its own in any of the series. Fortunately the writers girded their loins and the final series, series eleven, was packed with outstanding episodes and by the end, in “Goodnight Seattle” the loose ends had been tied and although we bade farewell to Frasier, Martin, Niles, Roz and Daphne with a heavy heart, it was with the consolation that there would be no “going through the motions” to sully the marvellous memories that the preceding two hundred and sixty two episodes had given us.

Marty Crane and that chair.

 Of all my favourite Frasier episodes (and there are many), if I had to choose just one that epitomises the show, that has slapstick and farce and that sparkles with wit, it would have to be “An Affair to Forget” in series two. After Niles has fought German fencing instructor Gunnar (whom he suspects of having an affair with Maris) with swords, Frasier, translating through Marta from English to Spanish to German, is involved in the following dialogue:

Gunnar: Maris ist unwiderstehlich.

Marta: [to Frasier] No me puede contralar.  Maris est irresistible.

Frasier: [to Niles] He couldn't help himself, Maris is irresistible.

         [to Marta, in Spanish] Irresistible?

Marta: [to Gunnar] Unwiderstehlich?

Gunnar: Ja.

Marta: Si.

Frasier: O-kayy.

The nuances in “irrestible?”  and “O-kayy” as uttered by Kelsey Grammer are priceless; worth, as they say, the price of admission on their own.

There are so many sit-coms about (and sadly most of them are British shows), that recycle old gags, that flag the jokes up in a “there’s a joke coming; here it is; now wasn’t that funny?” sort of way that Frasier never did, preferring to allow the audience to work it out for themselves. It says a lot about the quality of the writing and of the cast that, in our household at least, we never tire of Frasier Crane and his friends and family, always finding something new, or revelling in the familiar. It is not unusual for a line from one show or another to find its way into everyday conversation.

Goodnight Seattle, goodnight Frasier Crane; gone but never to be forgotten.

Treat People, Not Targets

News emerged last week regarding practices at Colchester General Hospital in Essex (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-24819973)[1] with Essex Police investigating whether a criminal investigation was appropriate. To summarise the situation, waiting time data was being falsified and staff who expressed any concern over changes made to that data were being bullied to keep quiet. More importantly, cancer suffers who should have waited no longer than thirty-one days for treatment were, in extreme instances, waiting more than three times as long.

Colchester General Hospital. Photo: Daily Mail

Coming on top of the scandal involving unusually high mortality rates at Stafford Hospital, which were subject of a cover up and a public enquiry that was criticised for not being wide ranging enough, and with other hospital trusts being found wanting after being placed under public scrutiny, one might gain the impression that the National Health Service (NHS) is crumbling around our ears.  The NHS, created in 1945 following recommendations made by the Beveridge Report of 1942 (it amazes me that, even in time of war the government had the desire to commission such a report), is one of the greatest legacies that any UK government, of whatever political hue, has left us.

Fifty two years after the foundation of the NHS, and on the eve of the 1997 election, Tony Blair told voters they had 24 hours to save the NHS. Typically, government decided saving the NHS could be best addressed by introducing guidelines, frameworks and procedures, regardless of whether or not these reduced waiting lists or improved patient care. Jonathan Fielden, chairman of the British Medical Association's (BMA) consultants committee, said at the time; "The biggest problem is that the government has not engaged with doctors. They have imposed these targets from the centre which have interfered with clinical judgement."

Fielden could have been speaking about any field of government activity; governments are obsessed with targets, with guidelines and procedures but not with how these impact the public, the consumer of the services (be they consumers of central or local government services) nor indeed the very people tasked with delivering these services.  This last group of people are expected to maintain or improve services while coping with increased and onerous reporting, often with fewer resources.

 In 2000, after eight year old Victoria Climbie died at the hands of her guardians in Haringey, the local authority were heavily criticised and as a result introduced new guidelines and procedures to avoid a repeat. In 2007, in another widely published case, Haringey Council were again taken to task over similar failings which led to the death of toddler Peter Connelly. And just last month Haringey Council were again in the news when they failed to adequately protect another child, known only as Child T, who suffered fifty or more bruises to the body after being hit repeatedly with a belt and a stick before finally being taken into care.

It would be easy to blame the individuals involved; to blame the overworked Social Worker spending more time on admin than dealing with the children they are supposed to protect; too easy to blame nurses and doctors in hospitals where meeting targets is given greater importance than treating patients. The goal of meeting targets and reporting on whether targets are being met is an evil that impedes anyone doing anything productive.  Cohn’s Law succinctly sums up this problem as it states “The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend all your time reporting on the nothing you are doing.”

Today, as we have seen with the Victoria Climbie and Peter Connelly cases, any institution that has to face up to its failings does so by introducing new procedures but usually fails to address the actual issue. Thus Social Workers, or nurses, or doctors, or anyone actually engaged with helping, protecting or treating the public is not tasked with performing their principle task in a more efficient or effective manner, but rather with reporting more rigorously on how they are performing. Thus the Social Worker or the nurse or the doctor is presented with numerous additional tasks, none of which benefit the people that they are serving, but which can assure  government and regulators that past failings are being addressed by enabling timely reporting of future deficiencies.

A key problem that I see in the services delivered by the NHS, by central government and by local government is that a culture has developed which seeks to ascribe to these non-profit making, beneficent organisations the same methodology  as is prevalent in multi-national, shareowner controlled, profit making corporations. Should the NHS have the same ethos, targets, and reporting structure as British Petroleum? No. Should Haringey Council operate, report and structure itself in the same was as Marks & Spencer? No. Private enterprise is not immune to similar problems, where projects are particularly prone to the syndrome described in Cohn’s Law, but in these companies we are less likely to be concerned with matters of life and death, but rather with profit and loss.

So, what is the answer? Indeed, is there an answer? In part the fact that in all areas there is greater reporting, greater visibility, is good as it means that failings are not swept under the carpet. It would be naive in the extreme to believe that the failings that we have seen in Stafford, in Haringey and in Colchester are unique or that they are a new phenomenon. In the past, however there would likely have been less evidence, less accountability. The key, whether failings are found and kept in house, or found and made public, is that the failings are addressed.

Patients’ lives are saved by nurses and doctors exercising their clinical skills; vulnerable children are saved from abuse by Social Workers with the experience, and equally importantly the time, to investigate their circumstances and implement solutions. Whatever the means by which failings are addressed, greater reporting and more stringent procedures are not enough on their own; no patient’s life was saved purely because of better procedures, no vulnerable child was saved from abuse because of more accurate reporting.

I have little doubt that at Colchester General the false reporting that occurred was, in the topsy-turvy world we now live in, driven by the fact that adherence to procedures has become more important than doing the right thing and reporting on what is being done is now more important than actually doing anything. In organisations it now seems the norm that not following procedures but achieving a successful outcome is a greater sin than following procedures (which may be flawed or inappropriate to the circumstances) and failing to reach a satisfactory result and that reporting on whether targets have been met is more important than actually reaching those targets. This is not to say that procedures and targets are unimportant, but rather that they are tools useful in achieving  the primary goal of the organisation; following procedures and producing data on targets are not ends in themselves, merely means to achieving an organisation's principle goals.

Doubtless the recommendations as to how the failings at Colchester General should be addressed will include a thorough review and tightening of procedures and improved performance monitoring; improving patient care may be purely coincidental.  

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[1] The report in full can be found at http://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/documents/ins1-916119012_rdee4_colchester_general_hospital_20130827_f2.pdf

A Midland Odyssey - Part One

I have been retired for ten months now, and after the initial shock of being made redundant and having to make adjustments to the way I live, I have enjoyed not having to go to work anymore. There have been some days (fewer now than at the start of the year) when I have felt somewhat odd; the lack of routine and discipline that going to work provided have, now and then, left me unfocussed and feeling slightly disoriented. It is difficult after all, to stop working after thirty six years without some effects. I still occasionally think about work, or rather some aspects of my working life, and on a whim decided that I would visit all of the locations at which I worked, in a single day.

I actually worked at ten different locations (some more than once) and due to the geography, decided to visit them not in the chronology of when I worked at those places, but rather in the most logical and time efficient manner. I have, however listed them in the order in which I worked at these various sites, although by the time we reach the last two offices there is some overlap. Last Monday I took a trip round the ten sites I worked at; by bus, train, tube and good old Shanks’s pony; it took me just over four hours.

Midland Bank, Gants Hill

I started work here in 1976. It was a small branch (fourteen staff, if I remember rightly) and I learned a lot, performing a variety of roles, starting with Waste (Remittances), which entailed balancing items passed over the counter, before moving on to Terminal input (using the legendary Burroughs TC500 machine), Control and Standing Orders. Back then all of the major banks had branches at Gants Hill; now only Lloyds Bank remains, testimony to the shrinkage in the branch networks of all of the Clearing Banks. Midland Bank closed its doors in the 1980’s (I think) and the building is now a pizza restaurant. At one time it was a Pizza Express and I once went for a meal there, which was an odd experience as we were seated almost exactly where the Remittances desk had been, precisely where I first started work!

Random Memory

One day, on going out to lock up the front door at the close of business, I found a small dog tied to the door handle. The manager instructed me to bring the animal inside and few moments later the doorbell was rung by an angry lady demanding the return of her pet!

The legendary Burroughs TC500 - state of the art computing technology circa 1976

The former Midland Bank, 412 Cranbrook Road, now Enzo's pizzeria.

Midland Bank, Queen Victoria Street

When I moved to Queen Victoria Street (QVS) I had visions of advancement; I was soon disabused of this notion when I found that my “career” had moved backwards and that I would be doing Waste, a job I hadn’t done for almost a year. I can’t say that my time at QVS was particularly happy; I progressed from Waste back to Cashiering and Standing Orders during my time here. Working here I did, however met Carol Mayo, who after a number of years, married Steve Giles, with whom I worked later during my time in the Bank. QVS has long closed (although there is now a new branch at a different location in Queen Victoria Street) and the original site is now occupied by a new office block.

Random Memory

The day we had armed police in the back office and in the banking hall after a tip off that one of our customers would be robbed when they collected their wages. Nothing came of it.

A new office block stands where Midland Bank, QVS once stood.

Midland Bank, Romford

The upside of working in Romford was that it was only a twenty five minute walk from home; the downside was that I spent the majority of my time here doing the job I liked least during my career – cashiering. Habitually I was the number three cashier, whose position was the first that customers came to when entering the branch. Consequently I was rarely without a free moment. After a while I was given the opportunity to learn the job of Foreign Clerk, which was, with hindsight, one of the best things that happened to me.

Random Memory

One summer’s evening we played cricket against Lloyds Bank. Our branch manager, who had at one time captained Midland Bank’s cricket team, was overjoyed when he learned that I knew how to fill in a cricket scorebook, so I got that job. He was even more pleased when I took four wickets for twenty-two runs in a thirty run victory!

 

Romford branch

Midland Bank, Barking

Barking branch had a very bad reputation and I moved there with some trepidation. My fears were unfounded however as I enjoyed five very happy years there, almost all of which were spent working as the Foreign Clerk. It was very busy, but we had some great customers and staff and I learned a hell of a lot. It was while working at Barking that I made a lot of really good friends. Norman Evans I have already mentioned in a previous blog (The Obedience of Fools: http://rulesfoolsandwisemen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/the-obedience-of-fools.html).

Apart from Norman, I became firm friends with (among others), Gerry Baker, Paul Calvert and Keith Markham, who I still see regularly to this day.

Random Memory

I hadn’t been at Barking very long when one day we were besieged by newspaper and TV reporters after an unfortunate incident involving one of our customers, a student at a local college where we had a sub-branch, who alleged that she had been locked up in an interview room while the police were called as a result of her unauthorised overdraft.

Barking Branch

Midland Bank, Eastcheap

From being the sole Foreign Clerk at Barking, I moved to Eastcheap to become part of the Foreign Department, specialising in Inward and Outward Bills. It was here that I met June, who later became my first wife. June was the Foreign Department’s typist and on the first day I worked there she slapped me with a ruler for being cheeky (so she said).  Eastcheap is now a branch of the electrical retailers, Maplin.

Random Memory

It goes without saying that it would have to be meeting June while working here.

What was Eastcheap branch, now a Maplins

Midland Bank, Threadneedle Street International Banking Centre (IBC)

When the bank decided to centralise its Foreign processing, I moved here to work in the Payments team, occasionally on the Bills team, and for some time, in Admin. It was while working here that June and I were married. Our office was sited on the fifth floor of what was an old and somewhat eccentric building; it is now Threadneedles, a 5 star boutique hotel and also home to Bonds Restaurant and Bar. The exterior still has some reminders of its past life as Midland Bank.

Random Memory

The day the IRA bombed the Stock Exchange over the road; we were subsequently evacuated after a warning of a bomb in our building was received. This turned out to be a hoax perpetrated by a Midland employee.

The former Threadneedle Street office; the shield (above), still shows part of the old Midland Bank logo.

Midland Bank, Multicurrency Payments Department (MPD), Martin Lane

 Further centralisation saw the payments team taken out of the IBC and moved into Martin Lane. I progressed from payment checking to queries here, but it wasn’t long before we moved to Park Street. Martin Lane is no longer owned by the bank and is now offices occupied by a variety of companies.

Random Memory

Absolutely nothing memorable from my time at Martin Lane sticks in my mind.

24 Martin Lane, formerly the home of MPD, is now an anonymous set of offices.

Midland Bank, Multicurrency Payments Department (MPD), Park Street

In 1992 MPD moved into the newly completed Park Street building on the south side of Southwark Bridge. At that time the area was a complete dive; subsequently the then derelict Bankside Power Station has been converted into The Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre has been rebuilt, largely thanks to the efforts of the late Sam Wanamaker.  When we first moved to Southwark the area was so bad that it actually frightened and intimidated some people. Subsequently it has been gentrified and in the summer months it is awash with tourists. Bars, restaurants and shops have opened and it was always one of my favourite places to work. Sadly, it was while I was working here, twenty years ago this week in fact, that June died having suffered a brain haemorrhage.  I made many good friends during the numerous spells that I worked at Park Street, too numerous to name, but honourable mentions to Steve Giles, Steve Tucker, Solidea Cocciatelli, Mus Huseyin, Gary Cook, James Bowker...I could go on (and on).

Random Memory

As part of a leadership project, six of us helped to clear weeds and debris from a pond on Waterloo Green; hard work but really rewarding.

Park Street, with the chimney of the former Bankside Power Station, now the Tate Modern, in the background.

HSBC St Magnus House – The Midas Team

By 1992 HSBC had taken over Midland Bank and sometime after that I was seconded to The Midas Team, a project team developing a computer based payments enquiry system, supposedly for six months. The secondment lasted six years! Initially we were based in St Magnus House, which was also home to other IT and head office departments, but after a while we moved over to Park Street (not for the last time). St Magnus House is now home to Clarksons, a provider of integrated shipping services.

Random Memory

While working here I received probably the best single piece of advice I ever had while working for the bank, but sadly it was while I was working here that two window cleaners were killed when the cradle they were working from fell from the side of the building. I also recall more than one occasion on which I had to work through the night; sometimes I was the only person in the building apart from a security guard!

St Magnus House; the blue building in the background, once home to Midland Montagu, is now owned by Northern and Shell, publishers of The Daily Express.

HSBC 8 Canada Square, Canary Wharf

From St Magnus House, via Park Street, the Midas Team moved to Canary Wharf, into the purpose built forty-five storey tower, home to eight thousand or so employees. Some people loved working at Canary Wharf; some loathed it. Personally I found the area and the building soulless; literally it was working over a shopping mall and all the character of the old docks had been eradicated.

Random Memory

Watching England win the Ashes against Australia in The Cat and Canary one lunchtime back in 2005, or perhaps the aftermath of the bombing of the London Underground on 7^th July that same year and the highly convoluted (and long) journey home that ensued.

My job saw me ping-pong back and forth between Canada Square and Park Street for a number of years until my eventual redundancy at the end of last year.

Now that I am retired, people sometimes ask me if there is anything that I miss about work, to which I say very little about the actual work, just the people. Over the years I worked with hundreds of people and I am pleased to say that a great number of them I count as friends.