Foreign Perspectives

With the credit squeeze in full force many people are finding it difficult to source short term borrowing when they need it to tide them over to the next paycheck. This is where payday loans come in and, of course, there are more and more of them on offer every day.

In principle they’re fairly simple in that they are:

1. intended to be repaid from your next paycheck (although you can usually roll them over to the one after that);
2. don’t require a credit check;
3. are from around £100 to £1500
4. require you to be in regular employment of at least £1000/month (usually for at least the previous three months);
5. require you to have a normal current account (usually for at least the previous three months); and
6. be over 18

Approval is very fast and even quicker now that online checks can be carried out by the credit company ie no more faxing of documents.

Although payday loan advances are fairly simple, the sheer number of them that are around means that a little guidance is handy. The rules do change and you’ll find that the legislation on these apparently simple loans is quite extensive.

Applying online is easy and quick, but do watch the amount that you’re paying as it can easily pull away from you.

Two weeks from today, I’ll be sitting down to do the SK320 exam which means that I’m well into phase one of the revision.

It’s a bit of a mountain of a course for a 30 pointer. In addition to the 1400 pages of text, there were numerous videos embedded in the course material, references to some massive tomes (e.g. HEAT weighs in at 3000 pages!) and oodles of tutorials.

At the moment, I’ve completed my run through the first two books and am getting into the third book which I should complete by this weekend. At 300 pages, it’s the shortest of the three books and as it’s on public health rather than the science, it’s not quite so heavy going. So, hopefully, I will have a full set of notes in a few days time and then it’s on to phase 2 of the revision.

Phase 2 will be a mix of going over the notes I’ve prepared, the past papers (only two plus the SEP), the FAQ which looks useful and, not to be forgotten, the research question for the final part of the question paper. That research question is a bit of a puzzler at the moment as I’m not sure if I need to research any more information at this point so it’s difficult to say how long it will take; my theory at the moment is that it shouldn’t take more than a day to look over but I plan to take a first run at it as soon as the main notes are completed.

More anon on the revision as I move onto phase 3 in the final couple of days before the exam.

Geography has contributed to that sense of difference as, whilst it’s a very interesting place to go in it’s own right, it’s a unique place and not in a region that’s particularly touristy. Consequently, you’ll find that the the New Orleans tourist people are able to concentrate on the city and it’s immediate surroundings rather than the nebulous type of tourist promotion that you get in areas such as Florida.

That’s no bad thing on the whole as it’s very much a spot that deserves to be seen but it does have the downside that you need to consider booking accommodation quite a bit in advance. For example, one of the very best times of year to visit is during the annual Mardi Gras which has parades running from January 25th to February 5th but you would need to book your hotel rooms quite a bit in advance to reserve your spot (actually, now is a good time to book for next year).

The colourful nature of Mardi Gras is quite typical of the city. After all, where else do you get funerals accompanied by lively jazz music? That’s a development of the African American roots of the city but there’s an equally strong French presence felt throughout the city and it’s the mixing of such different cultures that provides the rich tapestry that is New Orleans.

Given the concentrated nature of the attractions, the hotels are pretty thick on the ground here. The varied cultures around the city is, for once, reflected in the wide range of hotel styles that you’ll come across, even within the same hotel chain. For example, you can have typically southern Style (with a capital “S”), French quarter or super-modern (with a French twist too) and that’s just a few of the hotels on offer from Marriott.

Perhaps the biggest downside of New Orleans is that the rich history of the city provides just too much too see. It would be easy to spend a couple of weeks here and barely touch the surface.

Photo courtesy of New Orleans Tourism

Despite a very misleading campaign led by Alex, he still lost which just goes to show that there are quite a number of people who mainly feel British rather than Scottish. What would have been interesting is to have been able to analyse the breakdown of voting by age as, going by the media reports, it would appear that there was a much higher “yes” vote from the younger voters which, of course, is why Alex wanted the voting age reduced to 16.

Although the “no” vote won, what’s clear is that there are an awful lot of people in Scotland who think of themselves as more Scottish than British and their needs will have to be addressed in the years to come. The various parties have made committments to do just that by devolving a lot more power to the Scottish government in the fairly near future. What’s becoming apparent is that the Welsh and Northern Ireland governments will want similar powers granted to them as well as indeed will areas within England. That’s going to make life in the UK a whole lot more complicated in the years to come if local changes are allowed in taxation and welfare provision.

Will it, for example, move to more of a federation of local governments than a union of kingdoms? If so, how local would those local governments need to be? London seems to be aiming towards it’s own governing structure but if that’s granted, what about the other major cities?

If nothing else, it’ll certainly be an interesting period with the multiple negotiations going on. Already the Northern Ireland and Welsh assemblies are holding discussions as to the way forward for them and perhaps other major regions will join in that discussion in due course.

Seeing as I’m restarting the psychology next month, I’ve been keeping my eye out for events in that line. We’re quite well served with them locally and I’ve managed several full-day conferences as well as a number of shorter presentations.

Last week was the occasion for a “Thinking Well” event which is part of the ongoing series of events that the civil service health promotion Well programme runs. This is something of a new departure for them as up to now they’ve generally concentrated on physical health and with relatively short presentations compared to the three hour long one last Friday.

Usually, these work-based mental health programmes concentrate on stress to the exclusion of all else so it was a refreshing change to have one that looked more at one’s own behaviours and the thinking modes of others for a change. Quite an interactive session though fortunately it wasn’t billed as such as that would have almost certainly put people off what was an enjoyable and, I think, useful session.

The two presenters passed the presentation back and forth pretty much seemlessly and used a whole bunch of techniques that they later explained to manipulate a number of people in the room surprisingly successfully. One session at the end designed to show how easily people developed mirrored body language was almost scary in how closely some people dropped into the mirroring with two people in the group almost at the point of appearing as an couple.

As in all psychology models, there were idealised groups into which people were categorised, in this case auditory, visual, kinesthetic and autitory-digital and there was a fair bit of talking around the most effective means of interacting with each of those categories.

Overall, quite an enjoyable little course and one that has elements which may be useful in the future.