(Written 7/2/2010. And to remind you of the advert, see this first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo4LaXcERnA )
I'm much impressed by the latest Barclaycard advert, folks, which, if I understand it correctly, seeks to persuade me to build a customised roller-coaster ride between my house and place of work, financed with their credit card. While I must admit that it would be a most exhilarating way of commuting, and certainly much more green than using the Jag, I believe I may have spotted a tiny flaw in their recommendation.
Aha - you're thinking it's the cost, aren't you? Well, if the banking crisis has taught me anything (and I believe it has) it was that the loss of confidence was caused by people not borrowing enough. Or not paying enough back. One of the two, anyway. Well, a huge capital project like this will certainly require huge borrowing, and if we all get behind this initiative, I believe we can "kick start" the economy, as we masters of finance refer to it. I often get lovely letters from Barclaycard, explaining how their credit card rates are very low, and suggesting that I have an exotic holiday or buy some luxury white good, then pay for it later, so I imagine I'll be able to keep to their repayment schedule.
Now, I wouldn't be surprised if you're also thinking "Hang on - Babba regularly blows up computers, his kitchen tap has been dripping for six years and he's on first name terms with every AA patrol person in the UK. He is not, even on a good day, mechanically minded. As for mechanically handed, he is a walking disaster area. If he tries to put together a roller coaster, it'll end up going through someone's window. And bursting into flames for no explainable reason." I do not blame you for this thought, but I would point out that I have assembled flat-pack furniture in the past with some success.
I astonished an ex-partner some years ago when I put together two wardrobes and a floor to ceiling wall unit in an afternoon. I'll allow that part of her astonishment was due to her expecting the nest of tables shown on the pack, but that need not detain us.
The point is, I know which end of a screwdriver is the business end. A doctor once explained it to me, as part of a stern lecture that can be best summarised as "There are no user-serviceable parts inside your lung." So, you see, I now know which end to lean on when trying to shift a recalcitrant screw.
I shall buy a socket set - partly because if I go into a tool shop and ask for one, I'll know what it is when they hand it to me. I'll also take professional advice on how to use it from the NHS drop-in centre up the road.
Some welding will probably be needed, which might have been a problem, had not my mechanic (who can speak technically-challenged very well) once explained that "It's basically glueing metal together, that's all you need to know, chum". A few large tins of Evo-Stick, then, should suffice.
The supports? Oh, I can hear you now, you think the supports will be the problem, don't you? And yet, some friends will remember the unfeasably large tent that I used to bring to Cropredy. Believe me, if anyone knows how to rig a set of guy ropes, it is your correspondent. Supports, I assure you, will not be a problem. Especially if they are colour-coded with electrical tape like the supports of the tent were.
And if you think I'll be refusing professional help, you're wrong. I shall engage someone to paint the car properly, because I can't draw a lightning flash to save my life.
In all, then, I see no overall problems with the project, beyond the tiny flaw that sadly, makes it impossible. You haven't spotted it, have you? I don't blame you, it's clearly eluded Barclaycard, and it would probably fox most engineers. I'll tell you.
Friends... what happens if it's raining?
Yes, you'd get to work with your clothes all damp. And your hair all of a fright. And the spreadsheets in your briefcase would be a bit runny, so that all your co-workers would giggle when you handed them in to the boss, especially when you said "Sorry, sir... the dog wee'd on them", and some sneak shouted out "Make him do them again, sir!"
See, if I worked for Barclaycard, I could have told them that their roller-coaster commuting scheme was doomed from the outset. In fact, I may write to them and offer to advise on future advertising campaigns, because only complete thickos will buy into this one.
Meanwhile, I shall be putting my money into the American Express underground Ghost Train package, which promises to be just as exhilarating, but less weather-dependent. The giant drill and compass will be delivered next week, and all I have to do is remember to take a left turn at Albuquerque.
Wednesday 22 January 2014
Tuesday 21 January 2014
"The Day The Immigrants Left"
(Written 25/2/2010)
Did anyone else see this interesting and entertaining documentary tonight? It was set in Wisbech, where unemployment is 40% above the national average and there are a fair few immigrants around.
It started with a few vox pops repeating the same boneheaded nonsense you hear quite a lot - "There's no jobs, because the immigrants have taken them all", "I feel like a stranger in my own country" - all the usual botty water.
So the BBC arranged for several local businesses to give one or two of their foreign staff a couple of days off, and advertised for local people to fill in for them. They managed to identify twelve potential workers, and off we went.
It didn't start well, to be blunt. Of the three people who were taken on at the local potato factory, two arrived half an hour late and the third called in sick. I should say, texted in sick. At midnight, and the thrust of his text was "Just got in. I'm feeling really sick" which rather revealed the cause of the illness. The other two, deprived of their team member, were then inducted and set to work packing bags of potatos, assisted by one of the experienced foreign workers. "His name's Yuri..." "Oh, well, that's me buggered, then... oi'll call him Bill" was the response of one of the locals, who clearly did not speak any foreign language and wasn't about to start now. Having been told that it might be more appropriate if he called Yuri by his actual name, the team started work, putting twelve bags of potatos in trays and loading them on a large trolley.
Within hours, they'd stopped a production line. A quality controller had found that, while the team may have had many hidden talents, counting up to twelve wasn't one of them. So their line was stopped while they rechecked all the trays they'd loaded. "Call him Bill" wasn't happy that he and the other local had been singled out for criticism, "'Cos there was three of us on the team. I mean, it might not be our fault, there was three of us..." he muttered, glowering darkly in the direction of Yuri.
At the Indian restaurant, things started well. The four sent to work there all arrived and were shown how to make basic curries, chop onions, take orders and so on. They all seemed pretty keen, one going so far as to say "Well, I've learned something today!" with a satisfied grin. And so, the foreign four were told to take the next couple of days off and the locals prepared to get their hands spicy on the morrow.
Tragically, sickness once again visited... only one returned. Two down with food poisoning, one with a sick girlfriend that he'd had to take to hospital, so the survivor was set to waiting duties. Which he found somewhat difficult - "How am I supposed to know how to spell dansak?" (Just a guess, but by reading the menu, perhaps?)
The hopeful waiter had to take a couple of fag breaks during his shift simply to keep his nerve. It didn't work, half way through the shift he handed in his notice.
Over at the asparagus farm, which the Angel of Death had forgotten to visit, they had a full complement of three locals, who were being told how to harvest the crop - "If the stalk is this high, cut it and put it in your basket." For each kilo harvested, they would earn 38p. Off went the foreigns, darting thither and yon, while the locals went a little slower. "Blimey", one said peering into the middle distance, "He's at the end of the row already." A darting dot, hundreds of yards away, confirmed his observation.
After an hour or two, the field supervisor (foreign) had clearly had enough, and came over to offer some tactful advice, viz, "You have to work faster". Now, there are several ways to respond to such advice, taking it being the most obvious one. The local had a slightly less effective response - "I'm taking a break!", he bellowed, walking away from his clearly baffled supervisor. Sitting against the back of a 4x4 and smoking a roll-up, he explained to the camera "I had to walk away, otherwise I'd have lamped him" - a turn of phrase that would have baffled his supervisor even more.
At the final workplace, a local carpenter was set to work erecting plasterboard in a house. At the end of the day, the boss brought one of his foreign workers round to inspect the work in progress. Several deficiencies were noted, which didn't go down well - "He criticised me to my face, while I was there!" was the outraged yelp of the local tradesman. "OK, wait until I've gone... but while I was there!" I imagine his school reports probably contained the note "Does not respond to criticism well."
Some of the encounters ended well, though. The two chaps at the potato factory did much better on their second day. Their superviser told them that they could apply for a job there anytime. The carpenter was taken on for the rest of the job, and had a few weeks employment. Oh, and the waiter, having handed in his notice, was sat down, offered a menu and told to order anything he wanted, on the house.
The Asparagus Three had picked so little that the farmer had to cough up £50 just to make their pay up to minimum wage.
Amongst all this, Evan Davis made a few telling points - like when an area experiences a large number of immigrants, local services need time to catch up, and there is some truth when people say that they can't get a doctors appointment because the surgery is full of foreigns. It's not, but when a towns population swells, each surgery has to cope with more people, and there are only so many appointments available. Same goes for other services, like housing, dentists and the like.
He also talked to the jolliest school Head I've ever seen, in an infants school where tinies who spoke not one word of English had to be accommodated, sometimes at short order - "The family lands at Heathrow on Wednesday night and we get the children on Thursday morning". Evan suggested that this might adversely affect the education of the local children, at which she bristled like a badger. "NO! Never! If anything, local children gain from it!" To illustrate her point, the cameras went into a classroom, where all the children were being taught what I remember as "describing words". "I am 'happy'" said a teacher, pointing to a smiley face. "How are you?", pointing to a child. "I am happy", replied the grinning kid. They're all learning a language...
Davis also went to the local Jobcentre, where he looked at the vacancies for unskilled labour. There were a few, although the pay was minimum wage and the jobs were not terribly nice. Not all the opportunities had been stolen by the immigrants, then.
On a superficial level, it would be very easy to sneer at the jobless boneheads of Wisbech. Indeed, I hope you've had an entertaining minute or so while I've done so. The fact is, though, that signing off from benefits to take advantage of a short-term contract to harvest a crop, or renovate a house, then signing on again is difficult, and can bring serious cashflow problems. Coin operated electricity meters don't understand "I'll get the giro next week", or "I have to work a week before I get paid." Nor do supermarkets, and if you have children to feed and keep warm, a stable income is vital, even if it's benefit based.
It's also a fact that cheap labour keeps many industries in business, and if such a pool were not available, they'd either go under or bring in more automation. The asparagus farmer made it plain - if he couldn't get people willing to work very quickly for 38p a kilo, he couldn't turn a profit. As for the potato factory manager, he could buy robots that could count to twelve, but people were cheaper. In both cases, it seems that the jobs that immigrants "stole" only exist because the immigrants are available.
In the coming election, I'm hoping to hear how politicians who rage against immigration intend to re-can these worms.
Did anyone else see this interesting and entertaining documentary tonight? It was set in Wisbech, where unemployment is 40% above the national average and there are a fair few immigrants around.
It started with a few vox pops repeating the same boneheaded nonsense you hear quite a lot - "There's no jobs, because the immigrants have taken them all", "I feel like a stranger in my own country" - all the usual botty water.
So the BBC arranged for several local businesses to give one or two of their foreign staff a couple of days off, and advertised for local people to fill in for them. They managed to identify twelve potential workers, and off we went.
It didn't start well, to be blunt. Of the three people who were taken on at the local potato factory, two arrived half an hour late and the third called in sick. I should say, texted in sick. At midnight, and the thrust of his text was "Just got in. I'm feeling really sick" which rather revealed the cause of the illness. The other two, deprived of their team member, were then inducted and set to work packing bags of potatos, assisted by one of the experienced foreign workers. "His name's Yuri..." "Oh, well, that's me buggered, then... oi'll call him Bill" was the response of one of the locals, who clearly did not speak any foreign language and wasn't about to start now. Having been told that it might be more appropriate if he called Yuri by his actual name, the team started work, putting twelve bags of potatos in trays and loading them on a large trolley.
Within hours, they'd stopped a production line. A quality controller had found that, while the team may have had many hidden talents, counting up to twelve wasn't one of them. So their line was stopped while they rechecked all the trays they'd loaded. "Call him Bill" wasn't happy that he and the other local had been singled out for criticism, "'Cos there was three of us on the team. I mean, it might not be our fault, there was three of us..." he muttered, glowering darkly in the direction of Yuri.
At the Indian restaurant, things started well. The four sent to work there all arrived and were shown how to make basic curries, chop onions, take orders and so on. They all seemed pretty keen, one going so far as to say "Well, I've learned something today!" with a satisfied grin. And so, the foreign four were told to take the next couple of days off and the locals prepared to get their hands spicy on the morrow.
Tragically, sickness once again visited... only one returned. Two down with food poisoning, one with a sick girlfriend that he'd had to take to hospital, so the survivor was set to waiting duties. Which he found somewhat difficult - "How am I supposed to know how to spell dansak?" (Just a guess, but by reading the menu, perhaps?)
The hopeful waiter had to take a couple of fag breaks during his shift simply to keep his nerve. It didn't work, half way through the shift he handed in his notice.
Over at the asparagus farm, which the Angel of Death had forgotten to visit, they had a full complement of three locals, who were being told how to harvest the crop - "If the stalk is this high, cut it and put it in your basket." For each kilo harvested, they would earn 38p. Off went the foreigns, darting thither and yon, while the locals went a little slower. "Blimey", one said peering into the middle distance, "He's at the end of the row already." A darting dot, hundreds of yards away, confirmed his observation.
After an hour or two, the field supervisor (foreign) had clearly had enough, and came over to offer some tactful advice, viz, "You have to work faster". Now, there are several ways to respond to such advice, taking it being the most obvious one. The local had a slightly less effective response - "I'm taking a break!", he bellowed, walking away from his clearly baffled supervisor. Sitting against the back of a 4x4 and smoking a roll-up, he explained to the camera "I had to walk away, otherwise I'd have lamped him" - a turn of phrase that would have baffled his supervisor even more.
At the final workplace, a local carpenter was set to work erecting plasterboard in a house. At the end of the day, the boss brought one of his foreign workers round to inspect the work in progress. Several deficiencies were noted, which didn't go down well - "He criticised me to my face, while I was there!" was the outraged yelp of the local tradesman. "OK, wait until I've gone... but while I was there!" I imagine his school reports probably contained the note "Does not respond to criticism well."
Some of the encounters ended well, though. The two chaps at the potato factory did much better on their second day. Their superviser told them that they could apply for a job there anytime. The carpenter was taken on for the rest of the job, and had a few weeks employment. Oh, and the waiter, having handed in his notice, was sat down, offered a menu and told to order anything he wanted, on the house.
The Asparagus Three had picked so little that the farmer had to cough up £50 just to make their pay up to minimum wage.
Amongst all this, Evan Davis made a few telling points - like when an area experiences a large number of immigrants, local services need time to catch up, and there is some truth when people say that they can't get a doctors appointment because the surgery is full of foreigns. It's not, but when a towns population swells, each surgery has to cope with more people, and there are only so many appointments available. Same goes for other services, like housing, dentists and the like.
He also talked to the jolliest school Head I've ever seen, in an infants school where tinies who spoke not one word of English had to be accommodated, sometimes at short order - "The family lands at Heathrow on Wednesday night and we get the children on Thursday morning". Evan suggested that this might adversely affect the education of the local children, at which she bristled like a badger. "NO! Never! If anything, local children gain from it!" To illustrate her point, the cameras went into a classroom, where all the children were being taught what I remember as "describing words". "I am 'happy'" said a teacher, pointing to a smiley face. "How are you?", pointing to a child. "I am happy", replied the grinning kid. They're all learning a language...
Davis also went to the local Jobcentre, where he looked at the vacancies for unskilled labour. There were a few, although the pay was minimum wage and the jobs were not terribly nice. Not all the opportunities had been stolen by the immigrants, then.
On a superficial level, it would be very easy to sneer at the jobless boneheads of Wisbech. Indeed, I hope you've had an entertaining minute or so while I've done so. The fact is, though, that signing off from benefits to take advantage of a short-term contract to harvest a crop, or renovate a house, then signing on again is difficult, and can bring serious cashflow problems. Coin operated electricity meters don't understand "I'll get the giro next week", or "I have to work a week before I get paid." Nor do supermarkets, and if you have children to feed and keep warm, a stable income is vital, even if it's benefit based.
It's also a fact that cheap labour keeps many industries in business, and if such a pool were not available, they'd either go under or bring in more automation. The asparagus farmer made it plain - if he couldn't get people willing to work very quickly for 38p a kilo, he couldn't turn a profit. As for the potato factory manager, he could buy robots that could count to twelve, but people were cheaper. In both cases, it seems that the jobs that immigrants "stole" only exist because the immigrants are available.
In the coming election, I'm hoping to hear how politicians who rage against immigration intend to re-can these worms.
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