Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

The mechanics of UK government are a little peculiar in the period between governments.

This morning Gordon Brown finally asked the Queen to dissolve parliament so that the election period could begin. In practice, of course, the process of government continues but with the small problem that no major decisions can be taken because there’s technically nobody in charge for the next four weeks. Thus the civil service continues to run the country as it always has done but can’t head off at a tangent and needs to be mindful that a different party could (probably will) be in charge next month and thereby acquires in effect a veto power that ordinarily it wouldn’t have.

In that no-mans land period the various parties should be finding themselves kept somewhat more informed as to what’s actually happening within the government machinery. After all, if/when the new lot take charge it’s an overnight change of power unlike the more laid back timetable of the American changes of administration. In effect, the changeover of the administration or rather the preparations for a potential change of administration begins today. Let’s hope that no really big decisions need to be taken in the next four weeks!

The first fruits of that have already been noticed with the arrival of the security protection for the conservative leadership team and, behind the scenes, confidential briefings. There’ll be more, of course, in the weeks to come. After all, labour no longer form the government and so in this interim period there needs to be a balance since the former labour ministers should no longer have the advantage of having the trappings of government if those aren’t similarly on offer to the former opposition party too.

So what next? Expect the annoying arrival of party political broadcasts on our screens and politicians on our doorsteps and a massive increase in junk mail from them all.

When I was little the entire family including grandparents, aunts, uncles and all the associated children went to Portrush every Easter Monday but it’s been quite a long time since that procession set off and with the grandparents dead and most of the children having their own children what used to be three or four car loads of people was cut down to just one.

Quite surprisingly, for me anyway, the traffic wasn’t anywhere near as heavy as it had been when I was younger. In those days, whatever the weather, the end of the motorway signaled the start of the traffic buildup and there was always a tailback of several miles going into the town itself. Yesterday though there was relatively traffic the whole way and we were able to drive right into the town, parking just a few hundred yards from Barry’s, the amusement park.

For old times sake, we followed the traditional pilgrimage route from the car park, passing Barry’s before heading on down to the main street as far as The White House. The weather ruled out sandcastles on the beach but we had the usual session in Barry’s.

In these days of computer gaming everywhere, Barry’s has changed surprisingly little. The ghost train, dodgems and big dipper are still there and still in the same spot within the complex from the days when I was a child.  If I could dig out an old photo of the place I suspect that the only way you’d be able to tell the difference would be from the clothing for little else seems to have changed. It’s the same for the town too. Not only the mix of the shops remains the same but the names of them too, or at least so far as I can remember.

Of course, that’s part of the reason for the lack of traffic jams. Sure, the kids loved Barry’s but, really, there was very little of interest for the adults. For a family resort, there needs to be attractions for all the family and that’s just not the case these days. Even worse, whilst the majority of the small shops don’t take cards, both the cash machines had run out of money by 11am.

Nice for a nostalgia trip, but it needs to do something if it wants to remain as a successful resort town.

Although one episode it seemed almost like an entire series packed into a one hour episode.

To kick off there’s the now typical fairly extended regeneration issues which run through most of the episode. This is used to introduce new aspects of both the Doctor and the TARDIS. This time around we have the changed tastebuds and settling down of the bones and ligaments of the Doctor. For the TARDIS there’s the mention of a swimming pool and library plus more of an emphasis on the regeneration capabilities of the TARDIS itself (don’t forget that it’s a living being). One wonders how many regenerations the TARDIS itself has.

In amongst that there’s the introduction of Amy first as a child, then as an adult in the main segment of this episode and finally we meet her the day before her wedding (which looks none too likely to happen). Meeting Amy as a child gives us the token “childrens’ entertainment” tagging whilst the majority of the episode is more clearly aimed at an older audience. For this episode there seems to have been an attempt to have something for every potential fan past, present or future which contributed to the “all over the place” feel that the episode had.

Will we come back to Amy’s family in the same way that Martha’s family popped up now and again? That could be difficult as the Doctor picked up Amy the day before her wedding so unless that’s off there doesn’t seem much chance of returning to the village or family but who knows at this point?

The new TARDIS control room retains it’s typical mix of ancient and modern devices but overall not wildly different from the previous version at first glance. Monster-wise the clips at the end of the episode didn’t turn up anything notably new but then the new is harder to pick out. There were a lot of clips of the old though.

Worth watching but overall it had little focus.

I’m rather uneasy about the job offer that I quite unexpectedly received earlier in the week for a whole host of reasons.

The job description requires experience in four software products of which I’ve limited experience in only one of them. Moreover, it requires one to work 60 to 80 hours per week when I’m aiming for 30 to 37. I made all that very clear at the job interview so I was quite amazed to put it mildly when I received a phone call to say that they’d offered me the job.

The call was from someone in personnel who had spoken to someone two levels up from the people that I’d spoken to. They obviously couldn’t be expected to know anything about the software product requirements but the call was to clear up the number of hours to be worked. Somehow the people they spoke to understood that 30 to 37 hours was enough to do the work along with 1 weekend in 3 oncall. Yet, the job specification was very clear that oncall (ie being available on the phone and to come in) was required 365 days a year with regular weekend work. In fact, at the interview I clarified that this was the case and in fact the “regular weekend work” actually meant every weekend and that the weekly hours weren’t the 60 or so that I’d estimated but more like 80.

Last time I heard of such a discrepancy was when a colleague went for a job some years ago. The people several levels up assured him that it was basically a fantastic job that he’d love. In reality, when he took it on that basis it turned out that it was the worst job he’d ever had and in fact the one that I’d told him it would be. That discrepancy is just as extreme for this job offer as it was for him.

So I have an offer for a job which I know I can’t do without a fairly substantial chunk of prior training and one which almost certainly requires substantially more than the legal maximum of 48 hours a week. Actually, even the personnel people would be requiring me to sign away my right not to work more than 48 hours a week and that’s something I also made very clear at the outset that I wouldn’t do.

Why the offer at all though? Well, I suspect that the management who made the offer have made some commitment to their own management that they’d get more people into the branch pronto and will basically take anyone they can get, regardless of fit.

When the welfare state was set up in Britain back in the 1940s, it had the laudable aim of supporting those in time of need and the expectation that those in need would want to get out of a dependence on benefits as soon as they could.

The effect of that was that, over time, the amount paid out to people on benefits gradually increased. Initially the level of benefit was set very much at the subsistance level but the amounts involved have increased over the years with the aim being to have the payments at slightly less than the average wage. However, simultaneously with those increases has come a restructuring of the benefit system ostensibly to target those most in need and that’s where the problems are becoming apparent.

For example, take a typical family of two adults and two children which is what the original welfare state calculations would have been based on. Should the man become unemployed (another welfare state assumption was that the man was the wage earner) then they would be entitled to payments of approximately £60 for the adults and £55 each for the children (including the child benefit). That’s a total of  £170/week, £740/month or £9000 per year. Since the benefits are tax-free, that’s the equivalent to a salary of around £14,000. Not great, though there would be additional help in the form of housing benefit, free school meals and a few other things.

However, let’s take an example of two adults plus ten children. Too many children? Well, no, because families of that size are increasingly common in some areas for reasons which will become apparent shortly. Each child adds £55/week so the totals now come to £600/week, £2600/month or £32000 per year. Bearing in mind that the benefits are tax-free this equates to a salary of around £50,000 and, of course, there’s the housing benefit, free school meals, etc. Even though I’m quite highly qualified, I would find it difficult to get that level of salary.

Now, I accept that people with large families don’t necessarily have them to pick up massive benefit payments but even if they don’t, surely there should be some kind of limit in terms of a maximum benefit payment regardless of other circumstances? If not, it would appear that the best plan would be to pop out kids on a regular basis: it can’t be right that the benefit system seems to be actively encouraging that.