Interesting Times

The Labour party's election of a new leader after their underwhelming display at the last general election was, even for disinterested observers like myself, interesting, intriguing and dare I say, not a little entertaining. Even I, as someone whose interest in politics could best be described as distant, could see that as soon as Jeremy Corbyn threw his hat in the ring, Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall might as well have packed up their tents and gone home. It was less an election more a procession, followed by something akin to a coronation.

With many staunch left wingers being considered a little too left of centre once they applied for membership of the party, while those so far on the right that they were actually fully paid up Tories appeared to be accepted, it seemed that there were as many staunch Conservatives who wanted Corbyn elected as there were Socialists, their expectation being that Corbyn's particularly left wing views and policies would make unelectable as Prime Minister come 2020. So, is he unelectable? Who knows; he may not even be Labour leader the next time Britain goes to the polls, and no one knows what sort of fist the Conservatives will make of the next five years after having some of their excesses reined in by the Lib-Dems during the last Parliament. With David Cameron having already announced that he will not stand again, Corbyn's opponent in 2020 could be as unpalatable to the electorate as Ed Miliband was this year. Mind you, the allegations made in Lord Ashcroft's unauthorised biography of David Cameron may sink Cameron before the end of this Parliament anyway.

The early days of Corbyn's tenure as Labour leader have seen a lot of emphasis placed on image and style rather than policy, particularly over his failure to sing the National Anthem, with the Daily Telegraph suggesting that he should appoint a spin doctor tout de suite. All things considered, given that Corbyn is supposedly differentiated from most other politicians by his lack of superficiality, that is probably the last thing he wants.  With the somewhat alarmist and at times bizarre criticisms that have been levelled him however, perhaps Jeremy could do with a spinner to refute some of the more extreme stories. On the other hand, despite his beard and initials he is far from being the new messiah despite what some Labour supporters, who feel that criticism of JC in the press is unjustified and disproportionate, may think. Given the well known right wing leanings of most of the print media the criticism is scarcely surprising. Besides, a forensic examination of any new leader of any party is only to be expected. Labour supporters have also accused the BBC of bias, going so far as to start a petition to call upon the BBC to describe David Cameron as "the right wing Prime Minister" in retaliation for the Beeb's frequent reference to Jeremy Corbyn as the "left wing Labour leader." The difference of course is that Jeremy is left wing in comparison with some of his party whereas Cameron is no more right wing than many in the Tory party. In fact accusations of an anti-Labour stance at the BBC are somewhat off the mark, since the organisation is frequently charged with being too left leaning. If anything I would say it does have a tendency to favour the left, even in light entertainment. The News Quiz for example features Jeremy Hardy and Mark Steel, both staunchly left wing,  as regular panellists and in recordings I have seen these two have launched into vitriolic anti-Tory, anti-Cameron diatribes at every opportunity,  even when the question has relates to the mundane, like a poisonous spider found in a bunch of Waitrose bananas. At one recording one panellist described Cameron as "a nonce" which I am sure was not broadcast, but if ever there was an instance when those who live in glass houses should not throw stones...The fact that the BBC is accused of bias by both sides of the political spectrum tends to suggest that on the whole it is pretty even handed.

But what of Jeremy Corbyn's policies? A well publicised goal is to take the railways back into public ownership, line by line as each franchise expires. Given his stated aim of fairer fares and proper integration, this is not such a bad idea, especially given the current over complicated fare structure. But since British Rail wasn't exactly synonymous with reliability, efficiency or punctuality I'm not entirely sanguine about a "People's Railway" being any better than our current set up.  The name alone evokes images of a Soviet style network, bloated and bureaucratic.  UKIP leader Nigel Farage claims it  would be illegal under EU law to renationalise the railways due to European Union directive 2012/34/EU, but there again Mr Corbyn aims to renegotiate Britain's deal with Europe...which has worked well in the past, hasn't it?

Then there are the energy companies. Currently the focus of much criticism for their complex tariffs, their poor customer services and the difficulty in switching from one supplier to another, a return to public ownership might be a good thing except for the complexity and cost of such an undertaking. The fact that some, like eDF, are foreign owned is perhaps as good a reason as any to bring them back into British ownership, public or not. Perhaps Mr Corbyn would seek to fund such a purchase, and other projects, by returning to the days when Labour sought to "squeeze the rich until the pips squeak" with his plan for a national maximum wage and higher taxes for the rich.  Mind you I can't fault his idea to crack down on tax avoidance and evasion. After the years of a Tony Blair led Labour administration that was in many ways so indistinguishable from a Tory government that I often wondered if Blair was actually a Conservative Central Office plant, it is perhaps refreshing to see a Labour leader returning to the party's roots. Certainly  a strong opposition is important to keep government from excess, but as we have seen in the past, opposition parties often find that they have to compromise on a lot of their beliefs once they discover the realities of being in power, and JC would be no exception if he became Prime Minister.

One interesting outcome, should Jeremy Corbyn ever reach 10 Downing Street, could be that we all have the opportunity to enjoy a lot more romantic, candle lit dinners. I appreciate that it isn't one of his stated goals, but renationalising the energy companies and in all probability reducing the constraints placed on the trade unions by the Tories could make them a thing of the future, just like they were in the literally dark days of the 1970's.

However Jeremy Corbyn's term as leader of the Labour Party, and possibly as Prime Minister one day, turn out, I can't help but be reminded of the curse, "may you live in interesting times," because I have a feeling we may be experiencing a very interesting few years one way or another.

Uniform Rules

The new academic year has started, the children have gone back to school and if the press are to believed, a lot of them have promptly been sent home, or put in isolation, because they have infringed school rules on uniform.

Apparently, 75 pupils at Felixstowe Academy were put in isolation and had to have lunch separately from their classmates for breaching school rules on footwear, despite, in some cases, wearing the same shoes as they had before the summer holidays. Meanwhile in Leeds, Allerton Grange sent over 50 students home for wearing clothing that failed to meet the school's new uniform code. In Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham High School, which banned its female pupils from wearing skirts last July on the grounds that their short skirts were embarrassing the male teaching staff, sent home some pupils (male and female) at the beginning of this term for wearing trousers that were deemed to be too tight.

Some schools, including the one that my daughters attended, have such strict uniform policies that parents can only buy the uniform from approved outlets. Anyone who has had to buy new blazers, skirts and the like from such shops will know that this does not come cheap, especially in a child's first year at such a school. We spent a small fortune the first year our younger daughter went to secondary school. Then there are the items like shoes, winter coats and bags that parents can buy elsewhere but must meet the twin demands of school rules and a teenager's fashion preferences.

Shoes in particular are a minefield for parents. They must be durable enough so that they don't have to be replaced every term, fashionable enough to satisfy the wearer but bland enough to meet the very exacting strictures the school set. It seems often, from the newspaper stories at least, that this is where parents most often fall foul of the rules. It has been reported that Ormiston Venture Academy in Gorleston sent a female pupil home because the soles of her shoes were brown, not black; the school suggested that the soles were painted black.

The offending black shoes with brown soles.

Winter coats are difficult too. Must be black, no logos, no fur trim. And bags; no backpacks, must be black, no logos, no shiny buckles or the like. Some years buying a bag for our daughter for school has involved multiple shopping trips and in the end, an element of compromise.

But while it is difficult not to sometimes have some sympathy with pupils and parents who fall foul of school dress codes, the other old faithful that the press love to churn out year in, year out, is the unacceptable haircut. If it isn't hair that has been died it is the "extreme" or unorthodox style. Usually it is boys who have had a severe haircut, normally involving at least part of the head shaved to a short stubble, that fall foul of these rules and it is harder to understand parents allowing this than it is the odd pair of shoes of which a headteacher may disapprove. Given that my blog is called "Rules, Fools and Wise Men" and I largely subscribe to the idea that rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men, then you may think that on the whole I would be on the side of the parents and pupils in matters of dispute over school uniform and hairdos; on this occasion, not. An argument floated by many a parent whose son or daughter has gone to school with the wrong colour coat, or a skirt that is too short, is what does this have to do with academic attainment? Directly, not a lot; indirectly, plenty. In one word it's about discipline.

Blind obedience of the rules is not something I would advocate in all walks of life, but in the military and at school, to give two quite different examples, it is important. You have to know when to challenge rules and there is a world of difference between questioning a rule and wilfully disobeying it. School uniforms do help schools maintain discipline; if you are sloppy about uniform you are likely to be sloppy elsewhere, and uniforms teach an important lesson about life after school, where many employers have strict dress codes . Being a rebel over uniform at school might gain you some kudos with your peers, it won't do you any good when working at Tesco. Oh, and without a uniform, peer pressure inevitably means that parents will end up paying for designer or at least fashionable, up to the minute attire because no child wants to be seen in last year's trainers or last year's hoodie, now do they?

Where I do have a gripe with schools on the uniform issue is, as I have experienced, the necessity of buying a particular outfit from a particular store. My old school uniform was black blazer, dark grey trousers (skirts for girls) and while shirts. These could be sourced anywhere and a tie, blazer badge and PE kit could be bought cheaply at Pollards (there's a name that has disappeared from our High Streets). Apart from the odd "lad" (or "ladette") told to tie their tie properly (the huge knot and tiny length of tie were de rigueur with many pupils in the 1970's, and it appears, to this day).  I cannot recall anyone being sent home for a uniform infraction and discipline at my school was no worse than anywhere else (apart from the time the Bomb Squad were called after a chemistry class made an explosive device, but that's another story).  So while a green blazer for my daughter's school costs £28 from the approved, and only supplier (a case for the Monopolies Commission, perhaps?) [1] a generic, grey blazer can be had for less than half that price from Asda.

Pollards, with another familiar name now absent from our High Streets, Freeman, Hardy, Willis.

The articles about children sent home for uniform violations are beyond parody; they all feature pictures of the child and one of his or her parents staring wistfully at the offending item of clothing accompanied by an article bemoaning the draconian uniform policy adopted by the school. The  thing that interests me about these stories that are so beloved of the newspapers is how they get hold of them.  From parents presumably.

Double whammy. This lad was sent home for having the wrong shoes and an inappropriate haircut.

I'm just imagining the conversation at home when little Jimmy is excluded from school because his shoes have the wrong colour laces. "You've been sent home because of your shoes? Right, where' s the phone number for the Daily Mail?"

---

[1] The Monopolies Commission no longer exists, it is the Competition & Markets Authority now, but the old name has more of a ring to it.

You Can't Please All Of The People

You can't please all of the people all of the time but when it comes to the current refugee/migrant/displaced persons (delete as applicable)[1] crisis, it seems that politicians, especially David Cameron and the Conservative government, can't even please some of the people all of the time or all of the people some of the time.

Having been criticised for failing to meet its own targets for limiting immigration, the government finds itself under pressure to allow greater numbers of refugees or migrants into Britain. Even accepting that immigration and asylum are not the same thing, limits on immigration conflict with the well publicised needs of British industry to address the skill shortages they frequently complain about, but for whatever reason people seek to come to Britain, the current levels  of people coming or seeking to come won't enable the government to meet those pesky targets.

Even the language that politicians use to describe the refugees/migrants/displaced persons comes in for scrutiny and criticism. David Cameron's use of the word "swarm" to describe migrants camped in Calais was seized upon and condemned for "dehumanising" them. Since swarm is " a large number of people" it seems a wholly innocent, and accurate description, but some people are ever keen to take offense, especially on the part of others who may be unaware of or totally unconcerned by the imagined sleight. Besides, the people to whom Mr Cameron referred have more pressing concerns than how the British Prime Minister has described them. The fashion for taking offense where none is intended or even inferred spread recently to condemnation of BBC reporter Paul Adams after he asked a migrant in Calais if he was going to ‘go back to the Jungle now’. Despite the fact that Adams was referring to the accepted name for the camp where migrants are staying, he was nonetheless pilloried on social media. Rather than get on their high horse about one word, perhaps these uninformed commentators would have been better employed venting their spleens about the problems the refugees face, not how their camp was described.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister's office was attacked for refusing to answer questions as to whether he would personally take in refugees after Nicola Sturgeon and Yvette Cooper had indicated that they would. The former, asked on Sky TV whether she would take a refugee into her home, answered that she would, but to her credit later called the question "gimmicky," which it certainly was. Cameron has received further criticism despite his announcement that Britain would accept 20,000 Syrian refugees because that figure covers the lifetime of this parliament and is a mere spit in the ocean compared with the 4 million Syrians who have left their country and the 8 million displaced within it.[2] Accepting 20,000 refugees, or 200,000 or even 2 million could be described as an inadequate response given those numbers, but for every person who criticises the response as inadequate, there will be those who claim it to be too many. And opposing those who clamour for more to be done, for more refugees to be accepted, there will be critics condemning the fact that to fund these people's arrival and support in Britain, other services would need to be cut or additional tax revenues raised.

Whether central or local government need to find the money to pay for processing and supporting incoming refugees, local authorities will find themselves under pressure. Local government asylum teams were disbanded several years ago when the number of asylum seekers fell and those already here came under the umbrella of other areas of social services. For local authorities already under budgetary constraints, the cost of processing a whole new influx[3] of refugees would inevitably mean cuts in other areas, cuts that would equally inevitably be condemned, even including by those who want more money spent on the refugees. You can't get a quart into a pint pot; something will have to give, somewhere. Having disbanded their asylum teams, local councils may have to rebuild them to cope since it is improbable that the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) would be able to provide the infrastructure as it was barely coping when responsibility was in the hands of local government agencies in years gone by.

It may be an unpalatable point of view for those who believe that all refugees are deserving cases, but it seems to me that some, not all, but some, of the refugees arriving in Europe, especially those who have landed in Greece and in Hungary, have shown more attitude than gratitude. Beggars, as the saying goes, can't be choosers and to arrive in Greece, a country with its own well publicised and very significant problems, and complain about conditions, or to arrive in Hungary and demand passage to Germany because they don't like conditions in Budapest seems unreasonable. If you have made huge personal sacrifices to flee a country where you are oppressed and in fear for your life, I would have thought they would be happy to be fed and accommodated, however basic that accommodation might be, at least initially.

 Suggestions that European countries should share the load of these refugees may seem reasonable, but it is not as simple as just divvying them up and sending them on their way. For instance Slovakia has said it will only accept Christians; Interior ministry spokesman Ivan Netik said Muslims would not be accepted because they would not feel at home (apparently the country has no mosques). For their part many refugees may be unwilling to be settled in a country not of their choosing.

Just this week I have been invited to sign two petitions on the subject. One seeks to petition the government to accept "its fair share of refugees seeking safety in Europe" although it doesn't actually say what it means by "fair share." Presumably more than the 20,000 the government suggests, but how many is anyone's guess. The other, and it isn't the only one framed in a similar manner, wants to restrict immigration, especially from Middle Eastern countries. Little chance of government pleasing all of the people even some of the time, then.

They say that if you aren't part of the solution you are part of the problem and it is easy to slate David Cameron and the Conservatives for their actions or inactions, but the same would be the case if Labour were in power; their solutions would be just as unpalatable to many. What is the answer? I don't have one, but there seem to be plenty of people criticising what is being done; perhaps we should put them in charge of managing the issue.

In fact one might go as far as to say that when we next have a General Election we should put the party that loses and assorted other critics of government into office, after all they always seem to have the answers that the elected government doesn't. Just a thought.

---

[1] Depending upon your outlook. One man's refugee (a person who is outside their home country because they have suffered (or feared) persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, or political opinion) is another man's migrant (a person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions). For one reason or another, they are all displaced.

[2] I'm quoting figures given by the BBC on Tuesday here; I am assuming they are correct.

[3] Influx merely means entry, or the act of flowing in, which is pretty neutral. If you want you can call it pejorative by saying it is a synonym of incursion, or invasion, which have negative connotations. You can take offense if you wish, but none was intended.

A Gun And A Girl

The director, critic and screenwriter Jean-Luc Godard said, " All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl." It seems that many film makers subscribe to this maxim as you only have to look at the posters for the latest films to see guns and girls a-plenty. Then take a look at the covers of the DVDs in your local supermarket and you will see that the majority seem to carry a picture of Liam Neeson or Bruce Willis or Jason Statham or some other hero figure brandishing a handgun. Even comedies frequently feature characters carrying some weapon or another, and yet while there are undoubtedly a large number of on screen deaths attributable to gunshots, considering the amount of fire power expended in the average Hollywood blockbuster the ratio of deaths is actually quite low. I often feel that this blasé use of firearms and the frequent lack of severe consequences from their use is at least partially responsible for many of the gun related tragedies that occur each year.

Gun? Yes. Girl? Yes.

In the UK the police are not routinely armed so unless you are at an airport or sometimes a major rail terminus, chances are the average person won't see a gun from one year to the next, although as of March 2010 there were firearms certificates issued for 1.8 million guns in this country, which still represents one gun for every 35 people in the country. In the USA, if the figures are to be believed, the ratio is one gun for every 1.14 people (270 million guns for 308 million people in 2010). That sheer number of weapons means that gun crime and associated tragedies are inevitable, but news of events such as the shooting by Vester Williams of a TV reporter and cameraman in Virginia last week still have the power to shock and appal.

Vester Williams.

And every time such an incident happens, the debate over gun control in the US opens up again. "If you ask me where is the one area where I feel that I have been most frustrated and most stymied, it is the fact that the United States of America is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient, common sense, gun safety laws." "Even in the face of repeated mass killings," said President Obama in a recent interview with the BBC. In the aftermath of the Dunblane shootings in 1996, UK gun controls were tightened to the extent that even Olympic marksmen had to train abroad but that doesn't mean that gun crime has been eradicated and it probably never will be, because guns are not the problem, people are. The debate over US gun control sees people like rock star Ted Nugent quite obviously diametrically opposed to his president: " Where you have the most armed citizens in America, you have the lowest violent crime rate. Where you have the worst gun control, you have the highest crime rate, " he has said. I'm not sure that stacks up against countries with strict gun controls and where gun crime is much lower than in the States, but of course the issue as ever is that controls, indeed all laws, only work if the populous buy into the concept of observing them. Just as guns are not the problem, so gun controls are not the solution (well, not the only one), people are.

It is often claimed that violent video games and films are responsible for aggressive, anti-social behaviour, but there are just as many people who refute this idea as there are those who support it. It is my opinion, opinion mind, I have nothing to back this up other than gut feeling, that video games of many types have had an effect on people's behaviour. Principally this is driven by an inability, albeit unconscious, to differentiate between what is acceptable when it happens within the confines of a video game and what is acceptable in the real world. It may be difficult to support the idea that there is a direct correlation between consumption of violent video games and films with an increase in violence generally and gun crime particularly, but I am convinced that playing violent video games has a direct effect on behaviour.

First person shooter games and those that feature aggressive driving, like Grand Theft Auto[1] reward intolerance, impatience, aggression and selfishness. Tolerance, patience, passivity and the like are qualities that will get "Game Over" flashing in next to no time; can it really be a coincidence that the very qualities which these games demand bleed into real-life?

Touch wood, I've never seen a gun in a public place other than in the hands of a policeman or member of the armed services, but I have frequently seen equally lethal weapons wielded by members of the public quite evidently under the influence of violent, aggressive multi-media experiences, like the motorists who think that the A13 from Dagenham to Southend is some freeway in Los Santos. Just last week some cretin in a Porsche decided that veering between the lanes, and other vehicles, at high speed and at close proximity was appropriate; it isn't. The worse that can happen in a video game is that you lose a life; it's equally possible that a life is lost in the real world too.

A rare sight.

Obviously it is neither practical nor reasonable to suggest that video games that might encourage violent or anti-social behaviour should be banned and withdrawn from sale; there are millions of responsible gamers just as there are millions of responsible gun owners. And the misuse of guns and inappropriately aggressive driving habits may be exhibited by people who have never played anything more violent than Donkey Kong, but Call Of Duty, Grand Theft Auto and the like cannot help but exacerbate and reinforce aggressive tendencies among the impressionable.

Where my argument falls down, as does that of many others who hold similar views, is that there was gun crime and other brutal crime long before the first violent video game was released, just as there was road rage and aggressive driving before GTA.

Quite clearly the answer isn't to ban guns, it isn't to ban violent video games. What is needed is for someone to do something about other people.

---

[1] Not to place all the blame on one game; others are available and in my view, equally culpable.

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.

---

[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.

---

[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.

---

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