Some things change for the better

I have been a customer with Orange for a number of years, almost since Mobile phones begun.

Up till recently, to get through to customer services entailed spending ages listening to crap music, and "we value your custom" messages every minute or so.

At the end of January I was pleasantly surprised to be contacted by a very respectful customer services rep and advised that I was overdue for a replacement phone. What really staggered me is he also advised that I was paying too much and would I like to change to a less expensive tarriff? Well you could blow me down with a feather, my gast was most definitely flabbered.

Was this a one off? No. this evening when opening my phone, (It's a slide phone), bummer, the display was corrupted. Anyway I phoned customer services not expecting stirling service again, only to find that within less than five minutes it had been arranged to send me a new phone by courier, to arrive by tommorrow morning.

I think it shows that with the recession, companies are having to value their customers at long last.
Well done Orange.

Oh dear

Today I'm entitled to a free bus pass.

Now I feel old.

They can't have this right?

I'm so fucked I think. Or am I?

If this prediction is correct in the link above, then I've missed nearly all, or the whole of the nulabour fiasco. Hurrah.

PS Don't click on the links on that site as they are from the usual "You are doomed if you don't change your lifestyle" TWATS

Gordon has given away a sliver of my early life

Gordon went to Washington bearing gifts. I read that one of them was a pen holder made from the timber of HMS Gannet, a sloop of war. What readers will not know is that this scribe spent three years of his formative youth onboard that mighty vessel. This vessel was used for some years as an accomodation ship for the school known as the "Training ship Mercury". The three years of hell I spent there in the early sixties surely entitles me to that pencil case. I want it back.

Slavery British style

FSA

Maybe I'm naive. If the FSA has made such a cockup in regulation of the banks, should it not be wound up? Why does it still exist having proven how inept it was? can someone give me a reason why it still exists?

Whisky galore

I see that the Scottish parliament want to raise the price of booze to prevent too much drinking. They might as well piss into the wind as most drink loving Scots that I know, will grin and bear it, and carry on. Why are they going to punish the whole population for the fault of the few?
Once they've as always tested it out on the Scots (remember they had the smoking ban first), then it'll be the turn of the English and the Welsh.

They might do well to remember that there will be an election and would do well to bear that in mind before they get carried away in their own self importance.

As someone else has bagged the franchise rights to start up an alcohol superstore in Berwick-on Tweed, I'm requistioning the right to set up in Gretna.

USB Wine, telechargez vos vins en direct des domaines !
by zs2creative

When are we going to be rid of this sanctimonious drivel? The Brown Broadcasting Company ran it as their top story this evening. We will need a dram or two to get through the next few years.

Sorry about the vid.

H/T to Dizzzy & B3TA

They've got there at last

I'm glad that the MSM have finally caught up to the fact of the loss of our civil Liberties. Better late than never.

This article by Suzanne Moore in the mail put's it rather well.

Joni Mitchell


And I always liked that song from Joni Mitchell.

Phillip Pullman and the loss of liberty

I thought I'd post it here.

Why did the times remove it? Were they leaned on?

Are such things done on Albion’s shore?

The image of this nation that haunts me most powerfully is that of the sleeping giant Albion in William Blake’s prophetic books. Sleep, profound and inveterate slumber: that is the condition of Britain today.

We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness - the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys.

We are so fast asleep that we don’t know who we are any more. Are we English? Scottish? Welsh? British? More than one of them? One but not another? Are we a Christian nation - after all we have an Established Church - or are we something post-Christian? Are we a secular state? Are we a multifaith state? Are we anything we can all agree on and feel proud of?

The new laws whisper:

You don’t know who you are

You’re mistaken about yourself

We know better than you do what you consist of, what labels apply to you, which facts about you are important and which are worthless

We do not believe you can be trusted to know these things, so we shall know them for you

And if we take against you, we shall remove from your possession the only proof we shall allow to be recognised

The sleeping nation dreams it has the freedom to speak its mind. It fantasises about making tyrants cringe with the bluff bold vigour of its ancient right to express its opinions in the street. This is what the new laws say about that:

Expressing an opinion is a dangerous activity

Whatever your opinions are, we don’t want to hear them

So if you threaten us or our friends with your opinions we shall treat you like the rabble you are

And we do not want to hear you arguing about it

So hold your tongue and forget about protesting

What we want from you is acquiescence

The nation dreams it is a democratic state where the laws were made by freely elected representatives who were answerable to the people. It used to be such a nation once, it dreams, so it must be that nation still. It is a sweet dream.

You are not to be trusted with laws

So we shall put ourselves out of your reach

We shall put ourselves beyond your amendment or abolition

You do not need to argue about any changes we make, or to debate them, or to send your representatives to vote against them

You do not need to hold us to account

You think you will get what you want from an inquiry?

Who do you think you are?

What sort of fools do you think we are?

The nation’s dreams are troubled, sometimes; dim rumours reach our sleeping ears, rumours that all is not well in the administration of justice; but an ancient spell murmurs through our somnolence, and we remember that the courts are bound to seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and we turn over and sleep soundly again.

And the new laws whisper:

We do not want to hear you talking about truth

Truth is a friend of yours, not a friend of ours

We have a better friend called hearsay, who is a witness we can always rely on

We do not want to hear you talking about innocence

Innocent means guilty of things not yet done

We do not want to hear you talking about the right to silence

You need to be told what silence means: it means guilt

We do not want to hear you talking about justice

Justice is whatever we want to do to you

And nothing else

Are we conscious of being watched, as we sleep? Are we aware of an ever-open eye at the corner of every street, of a watching presence in the very keyboards we type our messages on? The new laws don’t mind if we are. They don’t think we care about it.

We want to watch you day and night

We think you are abject enough to feel safe when we watch you

We can see you have lost all sense of what is proper to a free people

We can see you have abandoned modesty

Some of our friends have seen to that

They have arranged for you to find modesty contemptible

In a thousand ways they have led you to think that whoever does not want to be watched must have something shameful to hide

We want you to feel that solitude is frightening and unnatural

We want you to feel that being watched is the natural state of things

One of the pleasant fantasies that consoles us in our sleep is that we are a sovereign nation, and safe within our borders. This is what the new laws say about that:

We know who our friends are

And when our friends want to have words with one of you

We shall make it easy for them to take you away to a country where you will learn that you have more fingernails than you need

It will be no use bleating that you know of no offence you have committed under British law

It is for us to know what your offence is

Angering our friends is an offence

It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as the Protection from Harassment Act (1997), the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), the Terrorism Act (2000), the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001), the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002), the Criminal Justice Act (2003), the Extradition Act (2003), the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004), the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), the Inquiries Act (2005), the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005), not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

Inconceivable.

And those laws say:

Sleep, you stinking cowards

Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms

Freedom is too hard for you

We shall decide what freedom is

Sleep, you vermin

Sleep, you scum

Shocking!

Sometimes, we all see something so incredibly cruel, so incredibly heart-wrenching that we feel that it’s our duty to step in and right wrongs.

Enzo Ferrari, named after the company's founder

Only 400 of these beautiful cars were ever produced. Ever. So hands up who thinks that some guy’s wife got this out of the divorce and broke his heart by painting that gorgeous car that disgusting, revolting colour?

An open letter to Gordon, saviour of the world. Peace be upon us.

I saw this open letter calling on the Scottish, one eyed , idiot to resign, a few days ago.

http://www.katirai.com/

The author has now started a petition to get him to resign. I've signed, why don't you? It would be interesting to say the least, how many signatures are affixed?

I don't believe he's had a reply to the letter yet. methinks it will take Gordon a while to answer it. It's pretty damning.