whilst doing some occasional searches for lost aunties and uncles, the amount of time and money that people spend finding out information that is their's to begin with, is astounding.
as is always the case - something is made more complicated, you will be sold a way of "making it easier" for a price that you could easily have avoided, if those selling, would not have complicated it in the first place!
first off, any records with information relating to families, should be and is the property of those concerned... not some website or listings company next, if you want to find all those people with links to family members, then a simple check on the census for that date, would reveal leads to relatives no problem at all.
for example, from 1900-1950, the census listed every person living in any one household.
now we have to pay to see who lived in each household - then we have to pay again to see details of those individuals that lived there... and so on and more money...
a perfect example of how wrong things are today, a family tree/ancestry system that charges you to view your own families information and creates a money making industry off the back of it...
- a font of knowledge that doesnt try to sell you something or gather information about you - genuinely interested in what youre doing, from the day that youre born - always there for you, in good or bad times
as youve guessed, mum is visiting this week, an impromptu visit, for the week, but surprising because i keep getting asked if shes interfering or messing with things, in her whirling dervish style, as she cleans, folds, washes things and asks me to lift heavy things... of course she is not interfering, i wouldnt have it any other way, the ultimate voice in our household, lord knows shes helped me out enough times, and continues to do so.
out of all the people on the planet, along with dad, mum has known me longer than anyone else. its impossible for her to interfere, because every viewpoint, thought, suggestion, etc, outranks my own.
i maybe knackered from extra work and jobs im being found to do, i may not have anytime to do anything as its all been assigned to other things that i apparently "could be doing" but its worth every minute as it comes from the heart with nothing but good intentions and to help me out.
working lunch (BBC2) has a feature today, at a university, having a drop in "advice" centre with business leaders, "experts" and university non job workers, giving patronising advice to graduates about their CV's and using them to find work.
after ages discussing nothing, they came up with a "package of solutions" - including a cover letter (no brainer there) - include your details - wow really? "amazingly some people dont include their mobile number or email address" - maybe some people like to keep these private, youre going for a job not giving your identity away to be spammed... - include your qualifications - stunning... - include your experience - and here's me thinking that an employer wouldnt want to know what work ive been doing - include your references - what, someone who will vouch for you and give their personal view of your aptitude, how unusual..... NOT
after hearing business leaders and university advisors spouting this nonsense, on television (so no self promotion there then) it astounded me even more to hear the views of those that have degrees and have graduated from university...
"its been a great experience" "ive picked up some fantastic tips" "i wasnt going to come today but now im relieved that i did!"
to put it bluntly... if i was hiring and i got a cv from a graduate that couldnt write a basic cv, i wouldnt employ you! the "tips" are standard fare for a regular cv, how putting your contact details on makes your "cv stand out fromt he crowd" god only knows.
patronising bull, being spouted by egotistical pillocks who are so wrapped up in their self importance they wouldnt know a hard working employee if they turned up in a jesters outfit and bounced a lute off their bonce! thats just the business "leaders" - those already in jobs trying to look clever by patronising others who dont have work - the universities are crying out for funding, yet they employ people (using taxpayer's money) to give out "advice" which most people will have been taught in early years senior school... what a waste of money!
... and what was the most common peice of advice for those applying for work with their cv? "get some employment experience in the area of the job that you are applying for!"
i kid you not..... the whole purpose of a cv is to gain employment, yet according to "experts" the only thing that potential employers look for on a cv, is experience in working in that industry!
in his efforts to secure popularity for his bid to become the labour party's next leader, in true labour style, the more he opens his gob, the more he puts his foot in his mouth!
since the election, ed balls has already revealed labour's complete waste of money in attacking grant maintained schools and undermined his whole argument, that they didnt work, by bringing them back in, a couple of years later - with a new name and more spin, aka "the academy schools"
he went much further yesterday, after errors were apologised for, when making the building for schools futures project announcement.
ed balls called for a case of legal action to be taken against the government, by those councils, local authorities and companies that had lost money on the work - not only is an MP advocating and voicing that more money should be wasted in taking the government elected by the people of the UK to court, a long drawn out and expensive process in itself, but it also raises the question of, why, if the chancellor was making cuts behind the scenes, was ed balls able to go ahead with the entire project? why was ed balls allocating over a billion pounds of funding PER YEAR, from "savings" in other areas of government such as health, policing, council funding and services, housing, armed forces (who are at war) etc etc?
it shows that gordon brown whilst prime minister was lying to the people when denying that ed balls had been lined up to be the next chancellor, until darling stood his ground. it shows complete contempt for the process of government, using unfunded money, taken from other essential services budgets, to run a school building sceme!
another question arises from ed balls revelations... why, when no funds had been allocated and the treasury had told him there was no money and cuts must be made in his project and other schools services, was ed balls department inviting schools, education authorities, local councils and companies to table bids for future building work? not only costing the taxpayer billions whilst reducing services across the board, but wasting resources of local authorities, increasing council tax or reducing services to fund it, as well as giving private companies false hope, for contracts that couldnt be funded!
what was ed balls going to do for the next 5 years? borrow more money whilst blaming the extra debt it on the banks?
why are more than 700 schools in need of rebuilding and serious repair? ed balls told us that "labour have sorted all this tory mess out" - not according to news reports that shows one school with windows falling out and walls crumbling... vast investment and big debts for the nation to rebuild schools, and still we have dangerous school buildings after 13 years... why?
and he finished with the absurd statement "the government havent followed due process!" oh dear ed balls..... take your foot out of your mouth and concentrate on looking after your constituants - you are not even the shadow schools minister and with your track record of saying one thing in public whilst behind closed doors you were being told to make cuts, when in government, shows just how misguided a fool you are!
ive heard all kinds of people and official bodies and unions, moaning about the proposed cuts in the public sector and civil service jobs, but will we the public actually be any worse off?
cuts have to come, of this there can be no doubt, we cannot go on borrowing vast billions of pounds every year just to keep the country ticking along. there will of course be some argument about "the speed" of these cuts, but which ever party had won the last general election, cuts were coming. the choices were stark for us, the normals, either face cuts early and be told about them, or vote back in the existing policy makers who had already started cutting (over £800 million in higher education budgets, juts 2 weeks before the general election) but didnt want to tell us about further cuts they were making - giving the perception to most people that they would cut later.
common complaints so far have been; - same old tories - theres going to be a double dip recession - unions are threatening strike action - the government are robbing the poor to support the rich
how much did you gain from all the borrowing? did you get more from the NHS? - if you require accident and emergency, did the times you had to wait fall? the answer for my family is a resounding NO. noone denies that our nurses and doctors do a top class job, but waiting times on the two occasions to be seen for A&E in the past three years, remained at 4 hours to be treated on each occasion. did my roads get cleaned more often? - NO, rubbish was still left to sporadic cleaning, normally just before some form of election did our road surfaces get sorted out? - NO, if anything roads in my area got considerably worse! in 2007-08 more than £47 BILLION was taken in taxes from the motorist, we were told they were to be used on public transport projects... our former government were telling us lies!!! fewer than £9 Billion was spent on public transport projects, and when i pressed greg pope, my local MP for labour on it, he first accused me of wanting to close schools and hospitals down, then he refused to answer at all, saying he was "far too busy to discuss the matter further"
then we have the destruction of manufacturing - the things that we make and sell to other countries around the world, more than 1.3 MILLION manufacturing jobs have been lost, replaced with 1.8 MILLION civil service jobs... no wonder the unions have been virtually silent during the labour government's time in power. whilst some civil service jobs have been welcome, more nurses etc, the number of nhs dentists has dropped dramatically (12 months waiting list just to register in many areas and for more than 2 million people) more police officers - not many if you exclude community support officers who have no official powers and are not fully qualified police officers, but look at the amount of form filling brought in which of course needs civil servants to do, vast amounts of wasted paper and staff. do the police still land at your door when you dial 999? of course they do.... will they still do so when the cuts are brought in? of course they will ironic this example, as all this extra money being spent (we are told) yet our police force has actually been fragmented and our area at weekends is now covered by a call centre in city centre more than 35 miles away... the extra spending hasnt given us any improvement here either.
in truth, borrowing billions every year was swallowed up by the banks that were lent vast amounts of money to get them out of a financial black hole, of their own making - the public received not one penny piece of it. to make matters worse, is that unscrupilous labour mps continuously mislead the public by telling us that the huge borrowing and printing of new money (called quantitive easing) was to prevent a recession and protect the people and their public services. it was not... a great chunk of what was printed and borrowed was to pay for PFI (money to pay for schools and hospital buildings and the interest we owed upon that borrowing) which was hidden from the country's financial books.
the main concern i have with cuts are that the government would like cuts to be made, in a way that will protect front line services, yet any cuts in services people use regualry will be blamed on the current government, even when its the choice of those at a more local level.
the blame game will fall at the government's door, despite the decisions being made at local level. something has to give, we cannot go on borrowing as we have done and hiding billions of interest and payments that we owe, from the public accounts must no longer be tolerated!
