No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

Everyone knows that there's no such thing as a free lunch, but there are some things advertised as being "free" that one might reasonably expect to come with fewer strings attached than is the case. Take the humble "free" CD given away by newspapers.

A few years ago it seemed that barely a weekend passed without most of the newspapers giving away a free CD, tucked inside the paper itself. There were compilation CDs, Christmas CDs, full length albums by artists like Blondie, Roxy Music, Pet Shop Boys and Spandau Ballet. There were special compilations of artists like Queen and Genesis, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, and I collected loads of them. Some weekends I would buy four or five newspapers, just for the CDs. Most of the newspapers went straight into the recycling, unread. Nowadays it is rare to see a CD attached to a newspaper, but the "free" CD offers remain, it is just that to get your "free" CD you have to jump through a number of hoops.

Free CDs from the newspapers: some are really quite good.

Last weekend the Daily Mail, which I justify buying because I like the supplement with the TV guide, offered a "free" CD. Since there was no physical CD with the paper, I looked at how one actually got it. To obtain your CD you have to create an account with the paper, login, enter a code from the paper and order the disc. Apart from the expense of buying the paper, this CD is therefore actually free in the sense that no money has to exchange hands, but there is still a price to be paid because you have to create an account, and with that you are providing the newspaper's publishers with certain information about yourself, and that information has value because it can be used for marketing. I didn't bother. It's slightly different from the "collect ten tokens from different editions of the newspaper to claim your free CD" offers that mean you may pay £5 for newspapers you would not otherwise have bought in order to obtain your "free" CD, but you pay a price of sorts anyway.

Similarly those loyalty cards that clutter your wallet or purse, from Tesco and Sainsbury, Waterstones and Boots. It is nice when the postman delivers some money off vouchers, or you redeem some points in store in exchange for your purchases, but you get nothing for nothing and in exchange for your benefits you pay one way or another, if only by providing information about yourself and your shopping habits that supermarkets and other retailers find invaluable.

That sort of thing is relatively harmless, even if it does have the effect of  sometimes making you spend money in one shop as opposed to another and occasionally to spend more than you intended, but more insidious is the "free" offer that is nothing of the sort, or the prize that you have allegedly won that comes with more strings than a Thunderbirds puppet.

A few years ago we entered a free competition at the Dagenham Town Show to win a holiday. A few weeks later we received a phone call. We had won a free holiday to the Canary Islands and all we had to do to claim our prize was attend a presentation somewhere near Tottenham Court Road where free drinks and nibbles would be available. For presentation read hard sell timeshare sales pitch. We declined. Even if they don't inveigle you into signing up for a timeshare, the "free" holiday turns out to be the accommodation only and require that you pay extortionate prices for flights, transfers and insurance, to the point where you could have got the whole holiday cheaper if you booked it all independently and separately. Strangely, even though it must be five years since we entered the competition, we "won" again last year. Again, we didn't take them up on their offer. If you are interested, the company anxious for us to claim our prize are called CLC World; Google them, adding a few words of your own choosing (I'm sure I don't have to spell them out) to see what the rest of the world thinks of them.

Sometimes you can get something for nothing though. In 2008 we went to Hawaii and stayed at The Hilton on Waikiki Beach and one day were approached by a salesman offering $100 in exchange for us taking a tour of some timeshare apartments that the hotel were developing. The fact that Waikiki is over 7,000 miles and the best part of 24 hours from home meant that we were never seriously going to consider buying a timeshare and in truth, the salesman knew that because his sales pitch was pretty half-hearted. As good as his word though he handed over the $100 (it was in vouchers to spend in the hotel, so not as good as cash, but we did spend them on meals and souvenirs and considered it to be a good enough deal).

The Hilton, Waikiki

Anyone who has any type of social media account will have seen the posts claiming to offer free Tesco or Asda or Primark vouchers, I'm sure you've seen the sort of thing I mean. These subtle, but dangerous posts claim that if you share them and comment, "Thanks!" you will get a voucher; amounts of up to £500 are bandied about. Of course they have nothing to do with the stores they purport to be associated with, as Tesco especially are at pains to point out. Following the instructions just drives traffic to dubious online surveys, the key purpose of which is to gather information from you. Information that will result in you being bombarded with spam emails and texts, the latter which can result in your mobile phone being signed up to premium rate services. Oh, and there are no vouchers either. These schemes continue to be successful however because enough people believe in them, for whatever reason people still believe that something that seems to be too good to be true actually is true; after all how likely is it that Tesco are giving away £500? Have you ever heard of anyone actually getting any sort of voucher? No, of course you haven't.

Yes, this IS too good to be true.

Free is defined as "without cost or payment" and while some of the "free" offers may not require payment of cold, hard cash, they are not necessarily without cost. Even if it purports to be free, the old maxim caveat emptor  still applies.

Come On, Make Some Noise!

Remember Christmases when you were a child? The anticipation and excitement of Christmas Eve when you hoped and wondered if Christmas morning would see the presents you wished for at the end of your bed or under the tree? That, pretty much, was how I felt last Sunday when I was on my way to Kings Place for the Big Big Train concert. Would they play my favourite songs?  Having been looking forward to the show for months, would they be as good as I hoped? Answers later, meantime I was sitting on a train into Liverpool Street, stuck at Manor Park with only two lines open due to engineering work and delayed by a signal failure at Bow. As I abhor being late and can only just tolerate being on time (I have to be early for everything), I had fortunately allowed plenty of contingency. Just as well as the minutes ticked by and my twenty minute journey stretched to forty.

Happily, having changed to the Central Line at Stratford, I was at Kings Cross at one o'clock for the 2 pm start, a time unusual in itself. I've never been to a matinee concert before and I'm only here because the Friday and Saturday night shows sold out before I even knew tickets were on sale. Kings Place is not your typical rock concert venue; it's more the sort of place you expect to go to see an exhibition and have a meal in the Rotunda restaurant looking out onto the Regents Canal. It's none the worse for that, it's a light, bright, airy building that at first I fear may be a bit antiseptic for a concert; as it turns out my apprehension is unwarranted.  

Like most concert venues, however the price of refreshments is eye watering, but with typical British diffidence I don't demur when a small beer and a packet of crisps costs an arm and a leg. The concert hall is smaller than I expected, and I'm in Row D, nearer  than I anticipated to the stage, which barely looks large enough to accommodate the eight musicians that comprise the band, live. And I can't recall ever seeing so many guitars on stage (I lose count at about 15), not even at a Steven Wilson gig; where I wonder, are the brass section going to go? On the balcony it turns out.

The chap on my left is down from Wigan for the show. We exchange notes on bands we like and concerts we've seen recently. It says a lot for the resurgence in prog [1] in recent years that we each name some bands and albums that the other isn't familiar with. Then the band are on stage and we kick off with Make Some Noise which to me is by no means a typical BBT track, but boy does it get you into the mood and the show off to a flying start. Next comes The First Rebreather and for the first, but no means last time in the afternoon, the hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end. In fact they do so again during the next song, the title track from the album that got me into the band in the first place, The Underfall Yard. Moving on, and the jaunty Uncle Jack is followed by Victorian Brickwork and...an interval (another first for me at a rock concert).

After the break, Kingmaker is followed by Wassail, nominated in the "Anthem" category for the 2015 Progressive Music Awards and taken from the EP of the same name which is listed in Amazon's Folk Music chart. It's a tub-thumping piece of prog that demands audience participation, with vocalist David Longdon playing and waving flute and donning a mask, elements of the show that would have the anti-prog brigade recoiling in horror: the audience love it.  Replaying the show in my mind later, I conclude that this is the highlight of the afternoon. The more serene Summoned By Bells is next and then Nick D'Virgilio launches into a drum solo, another thing that is anathema to those who don't like prog. Personally I love a drum solo (or, indeed a duet) and this is a particularly fine example that segues into the next song, Judas Unrepentant, which my neighbour and I had remarked we were particularly keen to hear the band play. After Curator of Butterflies David Longdon announces that we've reached the end of the set, which concludes with East Coast Racer (I'm listening to this as I write, with goosebumps, and a lump in my throat). An encore of Hedgerow and suddenly I'm outside, and in daylight after a gig; it's a day of many firsts.

So, did they play the songs I hoped for? By and large yes; if they'd played everything I wanted to hear we'd still be there (not that any of the audience would have complained). There's a guy (from Holland, I think) at the back who wants the band to do A Boy in Darkness: "Maybe next time," replies David Longdon. Let's hope so. Were they as good as I had hoped? Unequivocally yes, it was a brilliant show. My wife, who doesn't share my musical tastes, asked me what sort of music BBT played. "It's prog, but very pastoral, English prog, with a bit of folk, strings and a brass section," I told her. I don't think that does them justice if I'm honest, BBT are so multi-faceted that no single definition will really suffice.

It's turning out to be a vintage year for prog gigs. I don't go to many, but I've seen two crackers so far, Steven Wilson's Hand. Cannot. Erase show at The Troxy back in March, BBT this weekend, and then there's Lonely Robot and Fish's Farewell To Childhood tour to come.

While most bands engender loyalty among their fans, it seems that BBT fans are more devoted than most. It's clear that a lot of the audience have already seen one or even both of the weekend's shows and the rapport between the band and their devotees at the end is plain for all to see. This is not just a gig, this is more a celebration and with a bit of luck, it won't be too long before the next one.

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[1] See my previous blog, "You Want Noodles With That?"

The Thin Blue Line Gets Thinner

There's an old joke about a man who phones the police when he sees two men breaking into his shed. The police say they are unable to attend due to "a lack of resources." The man rings off, but calls back shortly afterwards to say there's no need to worry as he has shot the intruders dead. Almost immediately his house is surrounded by police cars and armed response units, while a police helicopter hovers overhead. The police are surprised to find the burglars very much alive and arrest them. "I thought you said you had shot them," says one of the policemen. "And I thought you said you had no resources," responds the householder.

This joke came to mind more than once recently after the pronouncements by Sara Thornton, the chair of the National Police Chiefs Council, and by Leicestershire police as to how they will respond to reports of burglaries, or rather how they won't.

Sara Thornton

Leicestershire police have been trialling a scheme to investigate burglaries only at even numbered properties as a money saving scheme, describing the policy as having "no noticeable impact on victim satisfaction" and not affecting the number of suspects identified, and then we have Sara Thornton's statement that victims of burglaries should not expect any sort of visit from a police office and may be expected to upload details of a break in, including photographs, via the internet. Thornton goes  on to say, "Does it make sense to send a uniformed officer to the scene of a burglary to take a statement and look for forensic evidence, then a scenes-of-crime officer to gather the forensic evidence and finally a detective to investigate the crime?" Well, actually yes it does given that the raison d'être of the police is to investigate crimes. Thornton's statement that there are now a lot less burglaries is actually even more of a reason for police to attend as that suggests they have greater resources to deal with them (I know it doesn't, but it is no more specious an argument than Thornton's).

In fairness, what Sara Thornton is arguing is that if the intruders have fled, then the matter is best dealt with by a visit from a scenes of crime officer who can gather DNA and fingerprint evidence and that some evidence in the form of photographs could be emailed by the householder to the police. That would be neither possible nor appropriate in some cases, since for many older people, who may not have access to the internet, a visit from an officer may be the assurance they need.

Sara Thornton's assertion that police need to be focussing on sexual offenses, terrorism, cybercrime and protecting children comes at the cost of, as she says a "move from reacting to those traditional crimes to thinking about focusing on threat and harm and risk and really protecting the public" which would be all fine and dandy were it not for the abject failure of the police to protect child victims of sexual abuse in Rotherham and Rochdale. And is there a danger of policing being based on what crimes are currently "trendy" or fashionable at the expense of "traditional" crimes that are nonetheless still crimes and still the cause of distress and loss among victims? I doubt anyone would disagree with the notion that the police should protect the public, but that is equally well served by investigating "tradional" crimes and putting away the perpetrators.   

The police are, like many other public services, being expected to do more with less following cuts estimated to be in the region of 20% in the last five years, resulting in the loss of 17,000 officers and a similar number of civilian staff. The fact that the service could lose 34,000 jobs in five years and still function suggests an element of over manning in the first place; the truth is that, like most organisations a certain number of cuts were tenable, but they have probably gone too far. Add to the cuts the overwhelming need for the police to report on the work they are doing (anyone who has worked in any large organisation will know that reporting on what you are doing is in many organisations more important than the job itself) and the other equally inevitable imbalance that large organisations suffer where the people directing strategy outnumber those implementing it and bingo, the number of officers at the sharp end soon becomes insufficient to deal with the organisation's primary function. And remember, the primary function of the police service remains what it was in Sir Robert Peel's day, to prevent crime and disorder; is it within their remit to decide that this crime is more worthy of investigation than another? I rather think that if a police officer of Sara Thornton's rank were burgled they would be visited by an officer (or several) regardless of whether they lived at a property with an odd or even number and I rather doubt that they would be expected to upload their own scene of crime photos on the internet.

It must be distressing to be burgled under any circumstances. To return from a holiday to find your house ransacked and your treasured possessions stolen must be even more distressing, but at least, even if the police are uninterested you won't be out of pocket if you are insured. Except that, in the fine traditions of insurance companies everywhere, any possible reason not to pay out will be sought out and pounced upon. The latest is that insurers will trawl social media accounts of burglary victims and any announcement of an upcoming holiday or happy snaps posted from an exotic destination may be used as a reason not to pay out on a claim. To add insult to injury then, our burglary victim will not only to a large degree be ignored by the police but they will be dismissed by their insurers.

And is burglary the thin end of the wedge? There is a whole, separate debate about whether or not certain drugs should be legalised and part of that debate is driven by the notion that the war against the production, distribution and use of these drugs has been lost. The idea that because some crimes are proving difficult to solve or that certain laws are difficult to uphold, we should simply give up on them would be abhorrent to most people, including, I imagine, many policemen, both rank and file and senior. On the other hand, and this is where my initial antipathy towards the views of Leicestershire police and Sara Thornton begins to waver and turn to understanding, if not agreement, cut-backs and reduced resources mean that increasingly police forces must cut their coats according to their cloth. As is true in most organisations, the troops on the ground have the difficult task of implementing directives from above that are based on imperatives with which the they, and certainly the public, do not agree or find hard to justify.

"Evening all"

Increasingly, the police are being expected to do more with less; the thin blue line gets ever thinner.

The Fear Of Missing Something

It is difficult now to remember what it was like in the days before we had the technology to record TV programmes, but in the days when it was watch it live or not at all (or wait for the repeat) we all missed programmes because we had unbreakable commitments or simply because we had a better alternative. In 1964, Labour leader Harold Wilson actually arranged for the BBC to reschedule an episode of hit sit-com Steptoe and Son to avoid a clash with the general election lest the 14 million odd Steptoe fans failed to make it to the polling booths and potentially cost Labour up to a dozen marginal seats. Nowadays people are more likely not to vote for more everyday reasons such as their disillusionment with politics and politicians rather than because Dave are repeating an episode of Top Gear for the umpteenth time.

Photo: BBC

While in the 1970's and 1980's we had to choose between going to a football match, a concert, down the pub with our mates, or stay at home and see who shot JR instead, we now routinely record TV programmes to watch later. We don't have to miss out, unlike forty years ago when we had to miss out on something sometimes, and we had to decide which something.

Today many people seem to be constantly in fear of missing out on something, and it most likely isn't a TV programme, in fact they probably have absolutely no idea what they are missing, but just have a vague notion that they might be missing something. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is the fear that everyone else is having more fun, doing more exciting things than you are, that something is happening somewhere that will provide the ultimate experience. More prosaically, there is the dread that without a constant connection to the rest of the world via social media sites, life will pass you by because  it is critical that you keep abreast of the minutiae of other people's lives.

Photo: Creatista/Shuttestock

The internet has a lot to answer for and I blame it for many things. On the one hand it frees us from the mundane, it's good for communication, it's good for the economy, it's good for learning and we've reached a stage where life without it is unimaginable. On the other hand it's as addictive as any narcotic, especially since it is now more readily available than ever in the form of the ubiquitous smartphone. Mobile internet access is now virtually omnipresent and I know I'm stating what is pretty obvious, but we now have a society in which a huge proportion spend the majority of their day connected and experience real anxiety if they are deprived of that connection. An apparent need for constant connection has developed in order to address the Fear of Missing Out. And not just FOMO.  There is the equally persistent variant Fear of Better Options (FOBO), a fear or belief that in doing whatever one is doing, one is missing out on something better. An obvious example of FOBO happens when you arrive somewhere new and want to stop for a bite to eat. You rule out McDonalds and Burger King because you don't want fast food. You pass the local Harvester because you don't want to go in a pub and rule out Wetherspoons for the same reason and because you can go to one any time. You rule out a few ordinary looking restaurants because you're sure you can find somewhere nicer and before you know it you are sitting down in a Little Chef wishing you had gone to that nice little Italian place you ruled out twenty minutes ago. Thus your fear of missing out on a better option leads you to an eatery of the lowest common denominator.

Photo: Daily Mirror

FOMO and FOBO can eventually lead to the Fear of Doing Anything (FODA)[1], although they aren't the only routes to FODA.  Fear of failure, past experiences and anxiety can lead there, but FOMO and FOBO can, singly or in association,  get people there. Because people with a Fear of Missing Out can find it difficult to say no they may accept multiple, often conflicting invitations to functions, parties or other social events and have to somehow juggle these or let people down at the last minute. And of course, whichever one they choose, they will invariably believe that whatever they declined would have been more rewarding, because FOBO can, as with the restaurant example, mean passing up perfectly acceptable offers and invitations in favour of some impossible dream of an incredible experience which is ultimately dissatisfying. Sufferers find themselves wracked by indecision, unable to accept offers and invitations "in case something better comes along," and eventually doing nothing. This may also lead to procrastination and in severe cases, complete paralysis. Both FOMO and FOBO can lead to sufferers putting off more important or less enjoyable tasks in pursuit or in the expectation of more pleasurable ones, although at least these procrastinators will eventually perform those important tasks, even if it is often in a half-arsed fashion. The more extreme sufferers will, through a form of paralysis, either put things off until it is too late or simply not attempt them at all.

Sometimes FODA is an effect of being swamped and finding it impossible to do the little things because too much else is on your mind and getting in the way. You know the sort of thing, the boiler has packed up, the dog looks like you should take it to the vet, the TV has gone wrong and you've run out of milk, so you take your tea black because  popping down to the shops to buy a pint of milk is too much, too overwhelming. Or you go out, buy several litres of creosote and treat the fences and garden shed because that takes your mind off the fact that there's no hot water in the house and where can you get a reliable plumber who isn't going to rip you off and God alone knows how much the vet's bill will be. If that sounds a little jokey, it isn't. I have known people with FODA, and I occasionally succumb to it myself.

Photo: freeimages.co.uk

The Fear of Missing Out, the Fear of Better Options and the Fear of Doing Anything are not exclusively phenomena of the internet age, although the technology exacerbates the problem. A potential cure, dropping off the grid and avoiding social media, may only cause another FOBO, namely the Fear of Being Offline. Frankly, we're doomed.

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[1] FOMO and FOBO are well documented syndromes or conditions. FOMO was first documented by Dr Dan Herman in 1996, (see http://fomofearofmissingout.com/fomo) while FOBO is a more recent discovery.  FODA appears to be a figment of my imagination, although procrastination is not.

What's Your Mother's Maiden Name?

In 2008 there were 77,600 cases of identity theft reported to CIFAS[1], the United Kingdom's fraud prevention service. By 2012 this figure had risen to 123,600 and although it fell slightly in 2013 (to 108,500), identity theft is the UK's fastest growing method of criminal activity. Whether it is phishing, or vishing, shoulder surfing or card skimming at the ATM, or old fashioned rooting through rubbish for  bank statements and the like, there are so many vulnerable points in our lives that a thief could exploit and with each new piece of technology that comes along, those vulnerabilities increase. Just recently the news has carried stories of the threat to the public posed by thieves intercepting data from contactless payment cards and with Apple Pay just having been launched there will doubtless come tales of security vulnerabilities and fraud through that medium in the not too distant future.

Any vulnerabilities in Apple Pay will come to light, sooner or later.

From the individual's perspective, the fight against fraud and identity theft is similar to the security services' fight against the terrorist; the fraudsters only have to get lucky once while the public have to be ever vigilant, a difficult task when the crooks are perpetually innovating new techniques to part us from our money. The current method of choice appears to be the vishing scam where the fraudsters dupe their victims into withdrawing or transferring large sums of money from their bank accounts or deceive them into handing over their bank cards and revealing their PIN. One might think that with the amount of publicity these scams have received there would be no one left gullible enough to be taken in, but apparently there remain enough people unaware or easily duped for this form of fraud to remain popular and just last November two couples in Tunbridge Wells lost £57,000 between them. Even ex-bank managers can be fooled; a Nat West manager with 40 years' service is among victims of this type of crime.

Got one of these? You are at risk.

Touch wood, I've not had any of these sorts of calls. I have had calls advising me that I've recently been involved in an accident (not surprisingly, when I ask for details the caller is unaware of any) and I've had plenty of calls asking me to take part in surveys. To date I've also not had any calls purporting to be from Windows Support, but I did have a weird call some years ago that illustrates how even the most careful of us can get taken in.

Having working in banking for many years, and in the last couple years of my time in the bank in Risk Management, you would think that I would be quite familiar with the type of phone call that might be suspicious, but the call I had proved how easily one can be taken in, especially if you are off your guard.

It happened one evening. The phone rang and a chap introduced himself as being in BT's sales department. Would I be interested in broadband? he asked, and as it happens I was. We'd been discussing getting broadband as we were becoming increasingly frustrated by the slow speeds and inconvenience of dial-up, so I said yes. Of course had I actually already had broadband or just not been interested, this would have gone no further, but as it was the timing made me vulnerable. The man on the other end of the phone talked me through the process, but first he had to ask some security questions, didn't he? and like a patsy, I answered them, including the ubiquitous mother's maiden name question. He concluded the call by telling me that my new broadband router would be delivered within the week and that if I had any problems, to call 150, the usual BT contact number.

A week or so passed and no sign of the new router, so I called 150 and enquired about its whereabouts. BT had no record of the order. Fortunately I had the name of the guy who had called me, so I asked to speak to him. They had no one of that name in the sales department; they did have a senior executive with that name, but obviously he would not have been making sales calls! As you might imagine, I hung up on that call with a degree of unease and at the earliest opportunity checked my bank and credit card accounts for any suspicious activity; there was none. What I probably ought to have done, and certainly would do now, was check my credit score. In fact, out of interest , because I'm  writing this, and because there are all sorts of nasty things happening out there that we are all blissfully unaware of, I just checked my score, which was interesting. Even more interesting is how much information there is about us all out there in the ether and how easily and quickly this can be aggregated and used both by us and by legitimate enquirers.

Apart from the huge raft of publicity about scam calls, my "BT" experience has made me highly suspicious of any unexpected phone call, suspicious to the extent of treating calls from legitimate sources with some distrust. My bank phoned me a couple of weeks ago and in truth I was half expecting the call, which was about a new Standing Order instruction.  I fully understand why, even though they have phoned me on the number they have in their records, they wanted to ask me a few security questions but even this call was one I was initially very cautious about. A former colleague of mine had a call purporting to be from his bank (and as he worked for the same bank you can understand why he was suspicious when they started asking unexpected "security" questions), which he quickly identified as fraudulent by answering one question incorrectly and not being corrected.  I have found that a tactic that usually deters callers like those who want to undertake surveys or sell you something or help you following your "accident" is to answer every question with a question, or better yet ask lots of questions of your own before they get the chance to ask any themselves. Genuine callers will field your questions, the scammers will lose patient and hang up. I have made it my mission to get the cold callers to hang up first and by and large I've succeeded.

And I bet you've had one of these.

The fact that I am aware of a lot of the scams that are out there doesn't make me 100% safe of course. Anyone can be a victim because the fraudsters are coming up with new schemes all of the time. A high level of scepticism and a finely tuned bullshit detector are essential in this day and age.

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[1] https://www.cifas.org.uk/

A Midland Odyssey Part Four - No Moustaches Please!

I've lost count of the number of courses I went on during my working life, but one thing that stands out about them is the way in which they changed over the years. By the time I left work the majority of courses focussed on soft skills like communication, managing people and being a leader, but in the early days of my time in Midland Bank the courses were about the nuts and bolts of specific roles in the organisation.

Before I had even set foot in a branch I went on an Induction Course, which taught the uninitiated what banks did and what sort of roles we would be performing.  After starting work at Gants Hill I was sent on a Remittances Course, a Control Course and a Cashiering Course[1]. Later there were Basic and Advanced Foreign Courses and sundry others. Midland Bank had a Training Branch at Buchanan House in Holborn, just by Chancery Lane tube and what was striking about the place was how strict the rules were. It was a lot more formal than working in a branch, and believe me in the mid 1970's it was pretty rigid in branches.

Buchanan House. Picture: Google Maps.

One of the first things that was mentioned on courses at Holborn was the management rule about moustaches and beards or facial hair in general. Men were told that if they arrived at Training Branch on day one of their course clean shaven, then they were expected to remain so for the duration of it. Bizarrely, Training Branch management thought that away from the their normal office environment, men would immediately take the opportunity to grow beards or moustaches and that this would not project a neat image, that the public would somehow be affronted by Midland Bank staff growing facial hair; therefore it was forbidden. Graciously, management allowed that men already in possession of beards or moustaches would not be obliged to shave them off.

There being an actual branch of Midland Bank on the ground floor of Training Branch, one might have expected that being customers of the Bank as well as Staff members, attendees on courses could take advantage of these facilities to cash cheques or pay money into their accounts. This was most definitely not allowed. It was feared that lunchtimes would see the Branch so gummed up with people from the various courses queuing to cash cheques that the whole place would grind to a halt. In fact there always seemed to be a perception among the course tutors that, freed from the strictures of working in their normal Branch or Department, course attendees would run amok. In actual fact boredom was a more common occupational hazard on these courses, driven by the fact that many people were on whichever course it was at the wrong time. Some people were sent on courses too early, sometimes even before they had done the job it related to at all. The course therefore would go right over their heads. Others would have been doing the job for so long that the course added no value. These people often knew more about the job that the tutors and were usually a valuable source of knowledge for the small band of people who were, in the manner of Goldilocks, on the course at about the right time, having done the job for sufficient time to have an understanding but not too long that they knew it all. Of course there would occasionally be something that everyone wanted to learn about, normally something that was rarely encountered in Branches. Such a thing was Automatic Transfers. I can't recall anyone in Branches understanding them, so when I was sent on a Control Course I was particularly keen to find out about them, and so it seemed was everyone else on the course. Naturally therefore, Automatic Transfers were glossed over and not dealt with at all, leading me to believe that either the tutors knew nothing about them (very probable) or that they did not in fact work properly (equally likely). On reflection, it is more than likely that both were true.

Some people were sent on courses simply to get them out of the Branch. At times when there was no one on holiday and there were more people than jobs, sending someone on a course, no matter how inappropriate, was a good way of getting them out of the way. Hence there would be Cashiers on Foreign Courses being taught about Documentary Credits when the sum total of the foreign work in their branches was the sale of currency and travellers cheques. And there were many people who went on courses and then went back to their branches only to find that it would be months before they had the opportunity to do the job the course related to, which rather diminished the benefit of attending the thing in the first place.

In those far off days when flared trousers and kipper ties were de rigueur but not everyone in the country had a bank account, Midland Bank Staff Accounts were constantly under scrutiny. Management appeared to be terrified that staff would misuse their accounts. Overdrafts were not allowed, money going into a staff account (other than the Bank's salary) was treated with suspicion and required managerial approval, grudgingly granted only after an interrogation in which all that was missing was a bright light shone in the eyes of account holder. Applying for a credit card or personal loan required much more hoop jumping than would have been the case for a regular customer. Stories circulating at the time included one about the member of Staff refused a Personal Loan to buy a car on the grounds that the car he wanted to buy was superior to that owned by his Manager, who would therefore not permit this since he (the Manager) could not be seen driving a car inferior to one of his subordinates.

 If these restrictions were driven by a terror of fraud or theft on the part of a member of Staff then it was perhaps ironic that two of a very small number of cases of dishonesty that I heard about during my years in the Bank were attributed to people who worked at Training Branch. One case, which went to court and was reported in the national press, involved a tutor who misappropriated expenses. Course attendees were paid travelling expenses, in cash in my early days in the Bank, and one tutor was in the habit of inflating claims and creaming off the difference, which ran to thousands of pounds, albeit over a fair number of years. Another tale, which may or may not have been true, involved the cafeteria at Buchanan House. This served a desultory selection of rolls and sandwiches, crisps and chocolate bars and apparently turned a regular, if modest profit. Then the chap who ran the cafeteria was taken ill and spent some time on sick leave. Profits soared under his replacement's control, only to be restored to their more modest levels upon the original chap's return. If the rumours were true, the only thing being cooked in the cafeteria were the books.

Much of what I learned at Training Branch had to be treated with a liberal pinch of salt because as everyone who has worked anywhere knows, there is a correct way of doing things and practical way of doing them. Mind you, I can still remember the definition of conversion.[2]

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[1] For the non-bank types, Remittance, often called Waste, consisted of (among other things) batching up cheques and credits paid in over the counter and processing them for input or despatch to Head Office. Control was a job that included checking entries input on the computer (dumb terminal), dealing with unpaid cheques  and balancing the books at the end of the day. Cashiering is self evident.

[2] "By our actions, we deprive the true owner of their rightful property."

Feeling Weird

One of the reasons that I started writing this blog was because I felt that it would be cathartic, and this week I feel more in need of some form of release for my feelings than I have for some time, because last Friday I sold my late Mother's house and it has affected me a great deal more than I expected that it would.

My Mother died at the start of the year. I wouldn't say that it was either expected nor that it came as a total shock. Ever since about this time last year I had felt that Mum was not quite her normal self; "slightly off her game" was the way I described it. Largely I put it down simply to the fact that she was getting older, but she seemed to have lost a lot of her enthusiasm for life; in short she had lost interest in things, in life itself.

Mum came to us for Christmas dinner and although she was fairly subdued, she seemed to be a little more like her old self, telling us some things she intended doing in the New Year. She ate fairly well but went home quite early as she was feeling tired. A few days passed after Christmas and we had had no contact, which was not uncommon; we didn't live in each other's pockets and Mum was often out at the shops or at the church, so when I phoned and got no answer I wasn't unduly concerned. That was until we got a call asking if Mum was Ok as some of her friends had not seen her for a few days and she hadn't been answering the phone. We went to Mum's house and I admit to having an uneasy feeling as I opened the front door.

Mum was lying in the hall and clearly she was dead, from a heart attack it later proved and blessedly her passing must have been swift; the evidence suggested that she didn't suffer, for which I am grateful. Of course a sudden death like this, in the home and when not under specific treatment, adds to the bureaucracy that surrounds someone's passing, and the first few weeks of the New Year were spent dealing with administration.  From getting the Death Certificate to arranging the funeral; from notifying the utility companies to making sure the house was secure, anyone who has had to deal with a death in the family will tell you that there is often little time to grieve as you are too busy with practical issues.

Funerals are something of a watershed. Although it was a day when, on one level, I felt that I was saying goodbye to my Mother, I knew it was still nearer the start of the grieving process than the end. Research by the Sue Ryder charity has been published that suggests that people grieve on average for two years, one month and four days after losing a loved one, or, for those without any support, an additional eight months, three weeks and five days on average. The danger with this sort of research is that people can take it too literally and feel that once these deadlines have been reached they will be better. In my experience, and I am certain I am not alone, the grieving process itself is not linear, we progress and then we go back. We may take two steps forward then one step back because although many people say time is a healer, it only heals if we help it to.

Time passed and dealing with the practical aspects of settling Mum's affairs I had neither the opportunity, nor to some extent, the cause, to feel too upset.  Although it was odd in the extreme to go to Mum's house, to clean, tidy, dispose of furniture, sort through effects, get rid of her clothes, empty the shed, keep the lawn mown and generally keep the place in order while the estate agents were marketing it, it helped to be busy. Practical matters take the mind off the emotions.

Almost immediately that the house was put on the market, we had an offer; two in fact. A first time buyer (with mortgage) and a cash buyer. We plumped for the latter, which promptly fell through when local searches revealed that the council would not permit the conversion of the property for multiple occupancy. On reflection I was actually quite glad about that. Mum's neighbours had always been really good to her, and were supportive after her death; I didn't think it would be very nice for them to have a HMO (Home in Multiple Occupancy) next door.

A couple of other false starts and then we seemed to be proceeding quite nicely with a sale, again to a first time buyer, so no chain. This suggested that once things got to a certain point, there would be no need for a month between exchange and completion; I expected a week but because I've never been in this situation before, the call I had from the agents asking if we could exchange and complete the very next day threw me into a state of panic. On one hand I was reluctant to agree as there was still some residual tidying and cleaning to do, but equally disinclined to refuse in case something happened to cause the deal to fall through. In the end I agreed and spent a few hours finishing off and leaving the house in a fit state for its new owners. A few items that I couldn't work out what to do with now reside in my garage pending a decision.

And that was when I began to feel distinctly weird. While the house was unsold, a part of my Mum was still with me. Once it had gone, the final cord had been cut, the final link with Mum had gone. On a rational, logical level she has been gone since the turn of the year, but now the house had gone I felt that I missed her more than ever.  The sale of the house seems much more strange, more unsettling, than any other I've been involved with. Possibly because I didn't live there, didn't have to move out, I'm finding it difficult to come to terms with the fact that the house is now nothing to do with me, that I don't have to go round and do something tomorrow, or the day after. And now there's no one to go and talk to about things that the family are up to. Mum's not there to talk to on the phone, or to listen to about what's going on in her life, or at church.

I'm by no means unique in having to face up to a death in the family, by no means unusual in having to deal with the death of a parent, and it isn't as though I haven't had to deal with a sudden death of someone very close to me before, it's just that this time I am finding it harder to deal with than I expected. I've been looking through some old photos, and there's a strange thing, the photo albums I remember from my childhood were nowhere to be found when we cleared Mum's house. Some old pictures remain, found stuffed in envelopes, but some I distinctly remember, particularly Mum in a polka dot dress on her honeymoon to Jersey in 1955, have vanished. I miss them and I miss her. 

The End Of The Pier Show

There are many pleasure piers along the British coastline; sadly they all seem to be particularly prone to catching fire or suffering some other calamity. Weston-Super-Mare, Great Yarmouth, Eastbourne, Brighton and Colwyn Bay have all been stricken by fire and Southend's famous pier, the longest pleasure pier in the world at 1.34 miles, has suffered several fires including the dramatic blaze in 1959 when three hundred people had to be rescued after being cut off.  Among others, Southend pier was struck by the MV Kingsabbey in 1986, creating a 70 foot gap and in 1947 Penarth pier was hit by the Canadian merchant ship, Port Royal Park, a vessel of over 7,000 tons.

Fortunately, each time Southend pier has suffered a blaze it has been restored, although it has to be said that there is now less of a reason to walk to the end than there was, apart from the pleasure of the walk itself, as there is now little at the end of the pier apart from a cafe and the lifeboat station. Still, I'm glad that it has been consistently rebuilt as Val and I visit Southend several times a year and frequently walk to the end of the pier, sometimes returning to the shore by train if the weather is not too good. On more than one occasion we've walked to the end in a howling gale and been glad of the train, although one New Year's Day we walked the length of the pier and the weather was more clement than it can be in summer. Walking the pier is something I've been doing on and off since I was a child. When I was very young and my parents could not afford a holiday away somewhere, we would go out for days during the school summer holidays, sometimes to the museums in London but frequently to Southend and I have many happy memories of the train ride to the coast and walking along the seafront.

The Sir John Betjemen, the train on Southend Pier. Betjemen said 

"the Pier is Southend, Southend is the Pier"

Other piers have been less fortunate than Southend; many are now derelict, including Brighton's West Pier. Those that have been rebuilt or restored owe much to the efforts of local people raising funds for their renovation, and even now many rely on the admission charged to those who promenade along them, one reason why I think it important to visit seaside piers, to maintain this important part of our heritage. It is sad to visit Herne Bay for example and see the stump of the pier that is all that remains usable, with the pier head stranded hundreds of yards out to sea. Many of the piers that remain have lost a little of their glitz and glory, the music hall shows that were once a common attraction are now much fewer.

Southend Pier, from the PS Waverley.

Apart from the walk on the pier, those childhood visits to Southend normally featured a few similar activities. You can't visit the seaside without occasionally partaking of fish and chips and we would normally go to The Royal Fish Bar, which I'm pleased to say is still there, although I haven't eaten there for years...maybe next time. A visit to Southend with my parents would also usually mean a visit to the cockle sheds at Leigh where my Dad would indulge in some seafood, although this, accompanied by a pint or two of beer, an ice cream and the aforementioned fish and chips would often result in him feeling a bit queasy by the time we returned home. And I can still remember, on those walks as a child, looking down through the gaps between the boards, seeing the water and fearing, irrationally, that I might fall through a rotten board into the sea.

Leigh, famed for its cockle sheds.

We went to other seaside resorts when I was young. Folkestone once when I was very small; I don't remember it at all, although there are some photographic memories, and Eastbourne springs to mind as being one of the last seaside holidays I took with my parents, I must have been about sixteen. Nowadays I'm more likely to visit the coast just for a day, in fact one of the last seaside holidays I took in this country was to Bournemouth with Val, just for a few days back in 1997, although we had been to Bexhill for our honeymoon two years previously. 

Me with my parents on some long ago beach holidays...

...and Val, at Bexhill. Note the warm clothes, gloves and ice cream!

There is nothing quite like a day at the coast, be it Southend or one of our other favourites, Whitstable, which is quite a contrast from the Essex town. Where Southend has a pier and amusements, Whitstable is a working fishing port with quaint back streets and unusual shops. Both have their charms, both have their appeal but in both places we like nothing better than a walk beside the sea.

Southend Pier opened in 1830 and became popular with visitors from the East End of London, so much so that the Victorians dubbed the town "Whitechapel-on-Sea" because of the number of visitors from that part of the capital. It might not attract the same numbers today, it went into decline during the 1960's when holidays abroad became more affordable, but 6.4 million people still visit the town each year and a great many of the will tread the wooden boards out to sea. I can't imagine a summer without a visit or two and the memories it evokes.

It's Only Words

Somewhat more than 25 years ago I went on a course from work, during which all of the participants were required to deliver a short presentation. This did not need to be work related, although mine was (it was about Foreign Bills for Collection in case you are interested; a more memorable talk was on the correct way to wash a car, as I recall). These presentations were videoed and then we had the excruciating task of watching ourselves and critiquing our performance. The thing that struck me about my talk was that I had not realised it was possible to say "OK" so often during such a short time. Since then I have been conscious of the various verbal tics that I have and of the number of times I repeat certain phrases. It has made me keen to vary my speech, to search for synonyms and not to resort to clichés. For example I am at present trying to wean myself off starting sentences with "In my honest opinion," or "If I'm honest," because they annoy the life out of me so goodness knows how my listeners feel.

It is either because of the experience I had on that course or because I am something of a pedant, that I have accumulated a number of words, phrases and expressions that have gained common currency which infuriate me and I crave your indulgence while I share them with you.

1.       Bad Boys

I happen to be a fan of Jamie Oliver's cooking. I have one of his recipe books and I admire his efforts to get people eating wholesome, home cooked food, but every time he picks up a chilli, or a piece of fish, or whatever, and says, "Look at this bad boy," I cringe. I've noticed that in the latest Sky TV ads, Idris Elba is describing smartphones and tablets as "bad boys" and again, I just want to go "aaaargh!" A bad boy is a poorly behaved, male child, not a vegetable or a piece of technology: can we all desist from describing inanimate objects as "bad boys" please?

2.       Calls out

Just this week The Huffington Post stated that Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan had been "Called out for hypocrisy" over remarks deemed to be homophobic. Apparently, to be "called out" means to be challenged, to which I would say to those using the expression, I challenge you to use proper English and not some lazy substitute. A call out is a publishing term; it is not synonymous with confront.

3.       Like a boss

This one annoys me immensely, perhaps irrationally, but this is my blog, my opinion, so get over it. "Like a boss" is commonly used to describe a person completing an action with authority and finesse, so why not just say so instead of employing an annoying surrogate?

4.       Cheeky

Everything these days seems to be "cheeky." Be it a "cheeky Nandos" or a "cheeky pint" after work or popping out of the office for a "cheeky cigarette." The word has become an inane adjective that ought to be consigned to the dustbin. A drink after work may properly be described as "a swift half" even if several pints are involved; a visit to Nandos may be described as "going to Nandos" and a fag break may be exactly that or "popping out for a fag" but, please, please spare me the "cheeky" whatever. A child can be cheeky; even an adult can be cheeky, but as with "bad boy", inanimate objects and activities remain steadfastly un-cheeky.

5.       Owns

I own a motor car, I own a house, I own a computer but if I beat you at a video game (unlikely I know) or at Scrabble, I do not "own" you. I detest the internet pages I see with headlines like, "Ronaldo owns Messi in El Clásico" after Real Madrid have beaten Barcelona. It's lazy, it's stupid and it demeans our language. If Real beat Barça then it may be legitimate to say "Ronaldo outguns Messi" or the like, but "owns"? Sorry, no, no and thrice no!

6.       Stylee

I can accept the use of the word style slightly out of context, by which I mean not as describing a procedure or design or description but as a means of emphasis, for example "United won in fine style" but "stylee"? Commonly used (overused) by music critics who think it is hip, it's a word that just grates on me (shudder).

7.       Paradigm

Now paradigm is a noble word. It means a typical example of something or a distinct set of concepts, but it has been hijacked by the trendy to grant importance to the bland. The fact that Russell Brand once used it in a Newsnight interview is enough for me to wince when I hear it. What he said was that voting is "a pre-existing paradigm which is quite narrow and only serves a few people" when concept or idea or model would do just as nicely, thank you. Paradigm is used generally by people who are trying to make themselves out to be cleverer than they actually are. You may think that this is a fitting description of Mr Brand: I could not possibly comment. Oh, and "pre-existing" is just superfluous.

8.       Team or Crew

Football clubs and cricket clubs have teams; ships and aeroplanes have crews. Your local McDonalds or Tesco have staff or employees, or at a pinch, servers. It really irks me to see the waiting staff in a restaurant described as "the crew" or the shop floor staff in a supermarket described as "the team" or "colleagues." I accept that alternatives may be difficult to ascribe but a little imagination would not go amiss, or perhaps just a little more formality. The same goes for many groups described as "squad" or "gang" unless they are soldiers or safecrackers respectively.

9.       Curate

A curate is a member of the clergy;  a curator is historically the keeper of a museum, or gallery, or library. In recent years the act of curating something has been debased to simply mean someone who uploads some pictures on flickr. On that basis anyone with any type of social media account to which they occasionally upload a photo is a curator.

10.   Broke the internet

I strongly doubt that this blog will break the internet. I also doubt that anything apart from nuclear war, North Korean superhackers or a catastrophic solar flare will break the internet. Pictures of Kim Kardashian's oversized rear end did not and will not break the internet. This term has become a hackneyed expression that simply means that a few internet sites have received a few more visits than  normal.

I imagine that some of you are probably wondering why I am getting worked up over this. "It's only words" you may say, and so they are; just a few misused, excessively employed, stale, tired out words for which the language has so many richer, more descriptive, fresher alternatives, amirite?