The PM Glass Box.
In a real glass box every evening at 18.00, the PM production team meets to discuss the programme that's just finished. You're encouraged to do so here in this virtual glass box. Tonight's editor Eloise Twisk will read the comments and may well add her own.
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Any pics of the BNP demo? Thought you may be able to find a vantage point
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I was talking to someone this afternoon, who hadn't fathomed what the clever chaps like Mervyn King are on about when they talk of the bankers taking 'undue risks'.
You've guessed. It's gobbledegook code.
Wikipedia explains it quite well,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_crunch
What these word mongers are trying to do, is make respectable the business of 'market makers', 'fund managers' etc, sitting around declaring the stocks, shares and property they own, to be more and more valuable - purely because they say they are, and because they have announced higher prices for them.
This process of walking on inflated air is called by the academic fellow travellers like Greenspin, 'taking risk'
Antonio's ships carry cargo worth a thousand ducats. But at sea, still, and storms due, the cargo is only worth 800. The 200 is the risk 'premium' acknowledging ......the risk of sinking.
When these charlatans bid up the price of their stocks, properties etc academics lend it respectability by saying the crooks have reduced the risk premium - no matter HOW much it goes up! That's fellow travwelling for you!!
Really, they bid up their shares, one to make money - its a money pump, a widow's cruse, two, to bid down the price of labour by claiming a greater share in GNP for capital......because it's more expensive than it was!!!!!!!!
How about getting Nils Mark 2 to read this out, 'cos I think a lotta peopel don't know that, and that the king's got no clothes.
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I'm glad I didn't have any idea you'd be doing a piece on self-serving supermarkets. Er, I mean the ones that have a do-it-yourself machine instead of a human.
Nightmare. They take twice as long, frequently fail, and if you re-use your bags, as I do, seize up completely. There are very few staff to help by keying in codes to make the flaming things work again. All I can do is stand there, hoping to catch the eye of a staff member and curse quietly as it tells me I haven't put something in the 'bagging area' when I have... or have when I haven't... or bullies me to pay while I'm packing my rejected bags... and then simpers: "Thank you for using S[well-known supermarket)y's self-checkout."
Thanks for nothing.
Stressful and time-wasting.
I don't suppose the staff whose jobs have been rationalised away are that pleased, either.
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I was reading #2 - when I realised it's gobbledygook code.
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Er - sorry about that rant. They rile me very, very much.
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When my son was living in Prague last year, I got into the habit of going into one of the local villages every day to shop. The conversation with the checkout girl was usually the only opportunity I got to talk to another 'real' person.
Frances, I sympathise.
BTW: did that woman interviewed in the crowd protesting against the BNP really say: "There comes a time when 'freedom of speech' has to stop"?
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Frances: I find the self-service checkouts tolerable for a small amount of goods (say one bagful) - the little ones where there's space for a bag but no conveyor belt.
OK, occasionally I'll have to grab an assistant if it's moaning about lightweight items which it can't detect, but they're generally fairly reliable.
The conveyor belt ones, on the other hand...
"Unexpected item on belt. Please remove item."
OK then...
"Item removed from belt. Please replace item."
Hmmm...
"Unexpected item on belt..."
Aaarrrggghhh!!!!!
Then if the conveyor gets blocked up, and you leave the scanning area to go and pack...
"Do you want to continue this transaction?"
(Yes, just give me a minute while I get the stuff packed up, will you?)
Having said that, as a certain supermarket now allows you to decide how many carrier bag equivalents you're reusing, I can input a sensible amount rather than leaving it up to the discretion of the checkout staff, who frequently either forget or have never been shown their chart listing how many points each bag type is worth.
But, as a single person, what bugs me more than the checkouts are multi-buy discounts. Not just "3 for the price of 2" but ones whereby a single pack containing, say, 6 pork loin steaks, is considerably cheaper per unit weight than one containing 2. So I'm stuck between having a cheaper shop, and eating the same meal all week, or a more expensive shop and eating a variety.
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I bought a scart lead in Tesco yesterday. I paid for it at the self-service till. I scanned it, then pressed 'Finish & Pay'. I couldn't do anything else, until a Tesco employee came along, snatched the lead from my hand and threw it on the 'bagging area'. I wasn't all that impressed.
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The supermarket man said that if something goes wrong "someone comes instantly and help you."
Utter tommyrot! I had to wait 5 minutes today for the invisible person to materialise.
I gave up in the end, left the machine squawking and queued up at the tobacconist stall instead. Two items, and neither of them baccy, but at least something happened.
I loathe them and they waste time and frazzle my nerves.
OK?
(Phew.)
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I always choose the self service - it's a lot quicker - mainly because there is room for more tills, it's easy to use, and i can listen to my own music while i do it
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Having said that, even if I say to a Real Human "And I've got two bags to re-use, for my points," they often can't be faffed to give me my flippin points, as mittfh says.
Time to lie down in a darkened room now, I think.
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The story about the reverend who profited from an earlier postal strike is quaint on the surface, but on reflection it smacks of strike-busting. Strikes are serious matters about pay, pensions and working conditions: matters much more serious than a leaky church roof!
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I'd rather be a dinosaur than a baby eating militant.
I need to re listen to the Human Rights discussion again. I sat in the car until the UK Mail piece finished and as my 7 month old Nephew is visiting for the first time I thought I should go trying feeding him some Carrot and a couple of swear words.
A postal strike busting vicar? I'll ponder that if I get dragged to church by friends again. Where does it say in the Bible 'thou shalt bust the mail delaying strike by the militant baby eating CWU members?'
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I was driving home when I heard that bit about guesstimates of when casualties will start dropping in Afghanistan? 2012?
OK so nobody saw, or could foresee the great property price bubble, fuelled by ridiculous levels of cheap credit despite the warnings of the IMF, but some how we can predict over a 5 year window what will happen in Afghanistan? How does that work then?
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Thank you. I feel PM listened to my request and Mr Grieve listened to on the proposed British Bill Of Rights. And Keir Starmer didn't sound like he was backing down on his view. Human Rights Act - he knows a bit about it I understand. Is that wrong, Mr Grieve?
I will think on but I remain unconvinced that there needs to be anything other than possible tinkering with what we already have. The Human Rights Act. I am an admitted liker of the European Union but not to the inclusion of improving Great Britains ability to work within it.
Listening to PM piece I heard the same alarm bells that I keep hearing - allegedly. A sort of resentment from certain quarters that we (Great Britain) do not control our own destiny in all things - whatever that means in todays "smaller" world. And that is fine. Different views welcome and let us discuss it all. Law and politics demarcation lines accepted - ALL voices welcome as far as I am concerned.
But - if we get nowhere - too often the cry goes up - "Stop the world - we want to get off!" - allegedly!
Subject: big names comma big brains
Anagram: Big snobs - a macabre miming
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As world Citzen Number 3 (well its going to be in book so it must be true - ask G W Bush and Tony Blair for the premise of this thought)I find what the BNP stands for abhorrent...considering that over the last 13 years most of my true friends have come from the so-called ethnic minorities...but I do wonder at times after reading for example Chris Huhne in the Guardain yesterday if I am living on a different Planet than most people....considering that he suggests that British values are 'moderation and tolerance' all I can say has this Man been a sleep for the last 30 years and more (racial hatred being wiped up in places like the West Midlands by you know who, for Votes) in this country and for a wider perspective read some-one like Mark Curtis (Web of Deceit) to really understand what the British Ruling Elite really stands for...over decades and centuries....
And to end their crimes once and for all let's support a great idea and let's make Seumas Milne the first President of a new Republic...in this country...well so-far he is the only man I have read who is telling the truth about the latest dispute at Royal Mail...(Guardian 22 October 2009 p, 37)..
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