There's been a Quantum Leap in the use of Quantum Leap by cutting edge hacks and media reporters of late.
But a quantum is the smallest form of matter known to man so how does Quantum suddenly take on the mantle of something very much larger? That's a Quantum leap in itself.
The root cause of this misnomer is that the majority of my fellow countrymen are ill-educated in all practical subjects such as geography, physics and especially engineering of any form. And that's because, unlike in Germany and Italy (for example) where the title Ing Spaghetti Bolognese is used as the everyday title of an Engineer (in much the same way as we call a Doctor, Doctor), here in the UK we have mercilessly squandered, mis-matched and degraded the term engineer. And an engineer's currency has been at rock bottom for decades to the point where no modern teenager aspires to become the commonly percieved engineer; the oily handed, dirty fingernailed grease-monkey with a grimy rag in their boiler-suit pocket.
In fact, a true engineer is a qualified man probably wearing a suit and more at home calculating stress and metal fatigue than changing a Nissan's oil. If the local mid-wife gave herself the title Doctor, there'd be claims of an abuse of the medical profession. But how many times have you seen the title 'John Grimes, Motor Engineer' above a paint-peeled pair of garage doors? That's because we've happily allowed garage mechanics to upgrade themselves to fully blown engineers since cars were invented. But in doing so, what do you call the real engineers? The ones who invented the damned motor vehicles in the first place?
Small wonder that so few people study engineering these days.
And no wonder the great unwashed still think a large advance is aptly described by the term Quantum Leap.
Friday, 8 January 2010
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Credit Addiction
In September 2008 when Lehman Brothers' failure kick-started the current recession, the UK Base Rate was 5%. The typical credit card rate levied by the major UK bankers was then around 18 to 20% APR. This realised the major banks a profit margin of around 250 to 300%. Not bad.
Since the recession - THAT THEY ALONE CAUSED AND WHOSE BAILOUT WE ALONE ARE FUNDING TO THE TUNE OF £15,000 PER MAN WOMAN AND CHILD - bankers have seen their cost of cash fall to exactly one tenth of what it was pre-recession - just 0.5% these days.
Today I am truly gob-smacked. There I was, just checking my emails on the BTintenet website when my eye spotted a credit card advert and the rate they now have the audacity to charge for credit.
Their 40% APR represents an 8,000% profit margin! Yes, that's an EIGHT THOUSAND PER CENT PROFIT MARGIN, a margin some 30 TIMES GREATER THAN THEY EARNED PRE-RECESSION.
Does your average Joe not recognise them for the pimps that they are? No wonder their profits are already back to almost the highest level they ever reached just prior to the crash. The bastards. I am absolutely incensed even though fortunately, I don't conform to the typical Briton. For if I did, I would be part of the swathe of people who are in debt up to their necks (and more) being comprehensively ripped off by the bankers. I would be one of the very people they inveigled into taking out yet more credit by mailing us yet more unsolicited credit cards, a tactic that has resulted in we British being the most indebted per capita of any citizen in the Western world.
Put it another way, think of bankers as drug dealers and pimps and you won't be far wrong. First they get you hooked on spending and then when you have an incredibly high dependance and crave more of their credit (though you cannot really afford increased repayments), they dangle new credit cards in your face and suggest you 'consolidate' all your debts into one new card offering a mythical ZERO PER CENT (but in reality, charging a higher interest rate of course). Then these sharks raise the price of their credit until not only the pips squeek but the entire lemon in your hand is so dry that it turns to dust. And when it looks like you're dead with a NEGATIVE credit rating and CCJs hanging over your head, they offer you a 'no questions asked' credit card at an even higher rate. That's how they get their rates to 40% and how people are tempted.
I am as sorry for the idiots who took out more and more credit to fund an unwarranted life-style of big houses, fast cars and expensive holidays in the same way as I am sympathetic for drug addicts who started smoking pot but who have been tricked into using harder and harder more damaging and addictive drugs. The parallels are many though.
But the bankers are the real bastards, And I speak as a shareholder too. These bastards need to be publically executed alongside drug dealers.
S-L-O-W-L-Y - using piano wire.
The whole damn lot of them.
Since the recession - THAT THEY ALONE CAUSED AND WHOSE BAILOUT WE ALONE ARE FUNDING TO THE TUNE OF £15,000 PER MAN WOMAN AND CHILD - bankers have seen their cost of cash fall to exactly one tenth of what it was pre-recession - just 0.5% these days.
Today I am truly gob-smacked. There I was, just checking my emails on the BTintenet website when my eye spotted a credit card advert and the rate they now have the audacity to charge for credit.
Their 40% APR represents an 8,000% profit margin! Yes, that's an EIGHT THOUSAND PER CENT PROFIT MARGIN, a margin some 30 TIMES GREATER THAN THEY EARNED PRE-RECESSION.
Does your average Joe not recognise them for the pimps that they are? No wonder their profits are already back to almost the highest level they ever reached just prior to the crash. The bastards. I am absolutely incensed even though fortunately, I don't conform to the typical Briton. For if I did, I would be part of the swathe of people who are in debt up to their necks (and more) being comprehensively ripped off by the bankers. I would be one of the very people they inveigled into taking out yet more credit by mailing us yet more unsolicited credit cards, a tactic that has resulted in we British being the most indebted per capita of any citizen in the Western world.
Put it another way, think of bankers as drug dealers and pimps and you won't be far wrong. First they get you hooked on spending and then when you have an incredibly high dependance and crave more of their credit (though you cannot really afford increased repayments), they dangle new credit cards in your face and suggest you 'consolidate' all your debts into one new card offering a mythical ZERO PER CENT (but in reality, charging a higher interest rate of course). Then these sharks raise the price of their credit until not only the pips squeek but the entire lemon in your hand is so dry that it turns to dust. And when it looks like you're dead with a NEGATIVE credit rating and CCJs hanging over your head, they offer you a 'no questions asked' credit card at an even higher rate. That's how they get their rates to 40% and how people are tempted.
I am as sorry for the idiots who took out more and more credit to fund an unwarranted life-style of big houses, fast cars and expensive holidays in the same way as I am sympathetic for drug addicts who started smoking pot but who have been tricked into using harder and harder more damaging and addictive drugs. The parallels are many though.
But the bankers are the real bastards, And I speak as a shareholder too. These bastards need to be publically executed alongside drug dealers.
S-L-O-W-L-Y - using piano wire.
The whole damn lot of them.
Re-Cycling
Yes, it's true. I've bought a cycle.
I was convinced by my thoughts that you don't see fat old men (they all die young) and my envy at the kids riding their cycles from one end to the other of Eastbourne promenade.
Actually I've bought two. The first one I bought was a Desert Fox - er no, that's Muddy Boots - or was it Desert Boots? Something like that anyway. I bought it off my dapper 92 year old pal Dennis who rode it despite its arse-splitting perch and confusion of 21 gears to and from the Lidl Supermarket in St Leonards-on-Sea. I just thought, "If it works for Dennis, it'll be OK for me." I made him a silly offer and the bike was mine.
I rode it once. Around the marina. That was enough. The crippling load it put on my wrists with its chest-over-handlebars riding position with bum stuck hi up in the wind not to mention the fucking gears is forever etched on my skull. I'd forgotten about frame sizes and ignored the fact that Dennis comes up to my shoulder and could wear a suit made out of the cloth of one of my own trouser legs. So for me the bike's a piece of aluminium shit.
It's for sale.
And then I recalled the last time I had ridden a bike. It was summer 1993 and I had sailed up the coast of Belgium on passage to Vlissingen and the Dutch delights beyond; Middleburg, Veere, Goes and Ziereksee. I was almost in Holland when I stopped overnight as usual at a place called Nieuwpoort. Now this has one of Europe's most commodious marinas, and visitors were allowed to borrow one of the fleet of visitor's bicycles provided by this very up-market marina. The town was probably two miles away and the bike was a godsend. You will know what I mean by a 'Dutch' bicycle I expect. Well this Belgian bike was a Dutch bicycle - large frame, no-nonsense sprung saddle and 28 inch wheels. If this bike had a job it would be a Sergeant Major or a Matron.
Well I enjoyed the rides I had on that cycle. Comfortable, smooth and fast.
And so, 16 years later in England, I went to a shop called Amsterdammers (http://www.amsterdammers.co.uk/) in Brighton and bought a second-hand Peugeot cycle - yes it's French but built to meet the unique Dutch specification. It has an all aluminium frame and wheels (so is quite light), a sprung saddle-tube, an adjustable handlebar post (fore-aft, up-down), dynamo front lighting, permanent U-Grab-type rear-wheel lock, a sturdy carrier and fully enclosed chain and gears. Oh yes, it has SEVEN gears by Shimano, in the good old Sturmy Archer-type hub. Finally, it has expanding hub brakes.
I paid around £200 for this truly great second-hand machine. In fact, all it needs is a wicker basket at the front.
Now new Dutch cycles - such as Batavus - can easily cost North of £1,000 if you're not careful. And I'm not talking here of the sort of thing a skinny-dipped, Lycra-leotard wearing, Jimminy Flippet might feel comfortable riding through Brighton's Lanes. Oh no. This is a machine a retired and greying Archbishop might ride in Canterbury with nary a glance from his parishioners. What I have bought and enjoy riding is a plain vanilla bicycle. The sort we used to ride in the fifties/sixties. It's a machine to get you there fast - and un-noticed.
And that's when I learned that Eastbourne is not the cycle-friendly town I imagined it to be. It's not all Miss Marple and twitching net curtains you know. The cycle track peters out at the wet-fish shop after about two miles of promenade. Thereafter, there are special red-rimmed road-signs depicting a cycle with the written warning 'No Cycling - Maximum Fine £500' Mmmmmm - Oh Really? To avoid transgressions, I have to ride on the busy promenade road staking my life at every parked car and wobbling as I ride with my right arm doing the time-honoured hand signals I was taught fifty years ago on my cycling proficiency test. Bet they don't have those these days. In fact I know they don't which explains why the modern (especially London) cyclist can be so rude and law-breaking as to ignore red-lights and simply hop onto the pavement to avoid obstacles. I'd have failed my cycle test if I'd have got up to those tricks!
So I am a cyclist now and it's a different world.
I was convinced by my thoughts that you don't see fat old men (they all die young) and my envy at the kids riding their cycles from one end to the other of Eastbourne promenade.
Actually I've bought two. The first one I bought was a Desert Fox - er no, that's Muddy Boots - or was it Desert Boots? Something like that anyway. I bought it off my dapper 92 year old pal Dennis who rode it despite its arse-splitting perch and confusion of 21 gears to and from the Lidl Supermarket in St Leonards-on-Sea. I just thought, "If it works for Dennis, it'll be OK for me." I made him a silly offer and the bike was mine.
I rode it once. Around the marina. That was enough. The crippling load it put on my wrists with its chest-over-handlebars riding position with bum stuck hi up in the wind not to mention the fucking gears is forever etched on my skull. I'd forgotten about frame sizes and ignored the fact that Dennis comes up to my shoulder and could wear a suit made out of the cloth of one of my own trouser legs. So for me the bike's a piece of aluminium shit.
It's for sale.
And then I recalled the last time I had ridden a bike. It was summer 1993 and I had sailed up the coast of Belgium on passage to Vlissingen and the Dutch delights beyond; Middleburg, Veere, Goes and Ziereksee. I was almost in Holland when I stopped overnight as usual at a place called Nieuwpoort. Now this has one of Europe's most commodious marinas, and visitors were allowed to borrow one of the fleet of visitor's bicycles provided by this very up-market marina. The town was probably two miles away and the bike was a godsend. You will know what I mean by a 'Dutch' bicycle I expect. Well this Belgian bike was a Dutch bicycle - large frame, no-nonsense sprung saddle and 28 inch wheels. If this bike had a job it would be a Sergeant Major or a Matron.
Well I enjoyed the rides I had on that cycle. Comfortable, smooth and fast.
And so, 16 years later in England, I went to a shop called Amsterdammers (http://www.amsterdammers.co.uk/) in Brighton and bought a second-hand Peugeot cycle - yes it's French but built to meet the unique Dutch specification. It has an all aluminium frame and wheels (so is quite light), a sprung saddle-tube, an adjustable handlebar post (fore-aft, up-down), dynamo front lighting, permanent U-Grab-type rear-wheel lock, a sturdy carrier and fully enclosed chain and gears. Oh yes, it has SEVEN gears by Shimano, in the good old Sturmy Archer-type hub. Finally, it has expanding hub brakes.
I paid around £200 for this truly great second-hand machine. In fact, all it needs is a wicker basket at the front.
Now new Dutch cycles - such as Batavus - can easily cost North of £1,000 if you're not careful. And I'm not talking here of the sort of thing a skinny-dipped, Lycra-leotard wearing, Jimminy Flippet might feel comfortable riding through Brighton's Lanes. Oh no. This is a machine a retired and greying Archbishop might ride in Canterbury with nary a glance from his parishioners. What I have bought and enjoy riding is a plain vanilla bicycle. The sort we used to ride in the fifties/sixties. It's a machine to get you there fast - and un-noticed.
And that's when I learned that Eastbourne is not the cycle-friendly town I imagined it to be. It's not all Miss Marple and twitching net curtains you know. The cycle track peters out at the wet-fish shop after about two miles of promenade. Thereafter, there are special red-rimmed road-signs depicting a cycle with the written warning 'No Cycling - Maximum Fine £500' Mmmmmm - Oh Really? To avoid transgressions, I have to ride on the busy promenade road staking my life at every parked car and wobbling as I ride with my right arm doing the time-honoured hand signals I was taught fifty years ago on my cycling proficiency test. Bet they don't have those these days. In fact I know they don't which explains why the modern (especially London) cyclist can be so rude and law-breaking as to ignore red-lights and simply hop onto the pavement to avoid obstacles. I'd have failed my cycle test if I'd have got up to those tricks!
So I am a cyclist now and it's a different world.
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Reality call
Not so very long ago we used to deal with people face-to-face. You know, we talked. Now we're encouraged by virtually all market sectors to do everything ourselves, usually on the internet. Supermarkets now expect us to do our own bar-coded check-outs. The doorstep conversation with the 'Man from the Pru' when we needed insurance has been replaced by moneysupermatket.com. Now we 'talk' to our computer. We complete an on-line form or contact a call centre. We don't do our shopping at the local shops - or even have a fleeting conversation with the check-out person; we order our stuff over the internet for delivery by yet more vans cluttering our roads and there's no need to speak to anybody. We don't speak to people on the telephone, we text them.
And how efficient is that? Texts are hugely profitable for the Service Providers but lousy for those who need to practice their spelling or who invent abbreviations. And we still don't need to talk.
And banking? Well for years, they've been encouraging us to use the internet too. Why? It's greed and avarice.
For aeons they've known that if they can persuade customers to use internet or telephone banking, they can close down their expensive-to-operate High Street branches manned by people costing them salaries, sickies, holidays, pensions and National Insurance. And when local people crisicise them for closing a branch, the banks have the temerity to blame their customers for preferring to use internet banking!
And what replaces the High Street branches? A few internet programmers and a few call centres based, not in expensive suburban or city-centre streets, but in the sometime squalid outlying industrial wastelands whose inhabitants enjoy the highest levels of mass unemployment.
Out of work people desperate to do any job for a paltry subsistence wage is the aftermath of shutting down our coal-mines, steel-works and shipyards. That's why so many call centres are located in South Wales, Merseyside, Belfast, Glasgow and the North East with accents so strong that most of us cannie ken 'em. And no mention here of Calcutta or Bombay. Diction doesn't rank very high on the bank's agenda so you won't find many of their call centres in London and the South East.
Anyone who's ever visited a call centre knows they're populated at the rock face by so-called 'agents' working in cramped, manically noisy sweat-shop-like conditions. They're up against difficult-to-hit hourly call targets too and told to push some profitable financial product at us as a goodbye gift. For these reasons, nobody on a career path wants to work as a call centre agent. When did you last hear of anybody mentioning their ambition to work in a call centre?
So why is it that whenever I see an insurance ad on TV or receive an unsolicited letter showing a call centre operator, they always depict pretty young agents smiling through a row of orthodontically-correct teeth? They're the sort of person you'd love to be your wife, husband, daughter, son. And oh yes. They always work in a relaxed modern office with acres of clear desk space. They use the latest telephone and computer equipment.
Get real. Show it as it really is.
And how efficient is that? Texts are hugely profitable for the Service Providers but lousy for those who need to practice their spelling or who invent abbreviations. And we still don't need to talk.
And banking? Well for years, they've been encouraging us to use the internet too. Why? It's greed and avarice.
For aeons they've known that if they can persuade customers to use internet or telephone banking, they can close down their expensive-to-operate High Street branches manned by people costing them salaries, sickies, holidays, pensions and National Insurance. And when local people crisicise them for closing a branch, the banks have the temerity to blame their customers for preferring to use internet banking!
And what replaces the High Street branches? A few internet programmers and a few call centres based, not in expensive suburban or city-centre streets, but in the sometime squalid outlying industrial wastelands whose inhabitants enjoy the highest levels of mass unemployment.
Out of work people desperate to do any job for a paltry subsistence wage is the aftermath of shutting down our coal-mines, steel-works and shipyards. That's why so many call centres are located in South Wales, Merseyside, Belfast, Glasgow and the North East with accents so strong that most of us cannie ken 'em. And no mention here of Calcutta or Bombay. Diction doesn't rank very high on the bank's agenda so you won't find many of their call centres in London and the South East.
Anyone who's ever visited a call centre knows they're populated at the rock face by so-called 'agents' working in cramped, manically noisy sweat-shop-like conditions. They're up against difficult-to-hit hourly call targets too and told to push some profitable financial product at us as a goodbye gift. For these reasons, nobody on a career path wants to work as a call centre agent. When did you last hear of anybody mentioning their ambition to work in a call centre?
So why is it that whenever I see an insurance ad on TV or receive an unsolicited letter showing a call centre operator, they always depict pretty young agents smiling through a row of orthodontically-correct teeth? They're the sort of person you'd love to be your wife, husband, daughter, son. And oh yes. They always work in a relaxed modern office with acres of clear desk space. They use the latest telephone and computer equipment.
Get real. Show it as it really is.
Going forward anytime soon?
Do you know what? There are a number of trendy media phrases that really get up my nose.
There's bin a shed-load of them achally.
Where did 'anytime soon' come from? What happened to 'in the future' or 'soon'? 'And do you know what? Gordon Brown isn't planning to step down anytime soon,' said a BBC reporter recently.
His name was Nick Robinson and he's one of the biggest culprits for spreading these annoying expressions. I like Nick's forthright reportage but I don't like the way he peppers everything with the latest buzz-words. I just Googled 'anytime soon' and 'do you know what' and Nick Robinson uses them all over the place - in his broadcasts, political reports, his blogs etc. I bet he puts HP sauce on his jam roly-poly too.
Going forward is another. What happened to the media's favourite link 'moving on'?
And how many times a day do you here the phrase "..but first..."? This usually follows a shopping list of contents given at the head of a TV or radio programme. I always thought that 'meeja' writers were generic creatives. So what about "Let's start with..."? Or "But here's an interesting opener..."?
And do you know what? begs the question "No I (expletive deleted) don't and I don't (expletive deleted) care!"
Not many years ago, I worked with a bloke who interspersed his speech with "D'you understand?" So a conversation would go like this, "There was this guy, d'you understand? He called me this morning to complain - d'you understand?" At each 'do you understand' he'd cock his head and raise a quizzical eyebrow for extra effect.
I felt like saying, "Do you know what, Jeff? I don't understand. The concept of a guy making a phone call is a concept that's FAR TOO COMPLEX for me to understand. Can you run it by me again?"
There's bin a shed-load of them achally.
Where did 'anytime soon' come from? What happened to 'in the future' or 'soon'? 'And do you know what? Gordon Brown isn't planning to step down anytime soon,' said a BBC reporter recently.
His name was Nick Robinson and he's one of the biggest culprits for spreading these annoying expressions. I like Nick's forthright reportage but I don't like the way he peppers everything with the latest buzz-words. I just Googled 'anytime soon' and 'do you know what' and Nick Robinson uses them all over the place - in his broadcasts, political reports, his blogs etc. I bet he puts HP sauce on his jam roly-poly too.
Going forward is another. What happened to the media's favourite link 'moving on'?
And how many times a day do you here the phrase "..but first..."? This usually follows a shopping list of contents given at the head of a TV or radio programme. I always thought that 'meeja' writers were generic creatives. So what about "Let's start with..."? Or "But here's an interesting opener..."?
And do you know what? begs the question "No I (expletive deleted) don't and I don't (expletive deleted) care!"
Not many years ago, I worked with a bloke who interspersed his speech with "D'you understand?" So a conversation would go like this, "There was this guy, d'you understand? He called me this morning to complain - d'you understand?" At each 'do you understand' he'd cock his head and raise a quizzical eyebrow for extra effect.
I felt like saying, "Do you know what, Jeff? I don't understand. The concept of a guy making a phone call is a concept that's FAR TOO COMPLEX for me to understand. Can you run it by me again?"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)