Bluffield's Blogs

WHY IS OUR GOVERNMENT SUPPORTING THE CHILDREN OF EAST EUROPEAN MIGRANT WORKERS?

2009-11-01T16:38:00.005Z

In yet another outrageous example of EU bureaucracy British taxpayers are having to support the offspring of East European workers in this country who have children living in Poland and other countries. Once more we are being exposed as the fool guys of Europe and the Government can, yet again, be accused of failing to stand up for our rights by refusing to adhere to the EU rules that force us to support the dependents of migrant workers. Astonishingly, a spokesman for HM Revenue and Customs is reported as saying that these payments only account for a 'tiny percentage' of the 7.5 million total child benefit payments, yet the Treasury estimates that 37,900 children in Poland are being supported by British handouts to the tune of £24m; an incresase of 20% on last year's figure.

As concerns grown over the number of immigrants now living in the UK this news will further fire the anger of British citizens, especially the thousands of families that are suffering severe hardships and can no loner afford heating, food and other essential commodities.

Is it not time that our Government started putting UK citizens first?

DANGEROUS LEMONS SHOULD CARRY A GOVERNMENT HEALTH WARNING

2009-11-01T16:28:00.006Z

Every day a new story appears in the quality newspapers that eclipses something that grabbed my attention previously for its gross stupidity. On Saturday, 31 October, the Daily Telegraph included a story about an elderly shopper who was prevented from buying two loose lemons - yes lemons - from an Aberdeen branch of Asda because the staff claimed that the fruit is dangerous!

The man, Chris Pether, 70, was told that health and safety rules prevented the sale of more than one loose lemon - although he could buy a pack of ten had he wished to do so. The reason behind this apparent ban on lemon sales, the man was told, was because local youths had taken to throwing them at people - along with grapefruits and oranges. When Mr Pether placed the lemons on the scales to be weighed a message flashed up to tell him that this was more than the maximum number he could purchase. When he told management that this was 'ridiculous', Mr Pether was told he had to buy them one at a time.

The customer eventually got his lemons - by paying for them in two transactions.

THE PUBLIC HAS THE RIGHT TO BE LISTENED TO

2009-10-23T15:23:00.016+01:00

I happen to believe the BBC were right in allowing Nick Griffin on to the Question Time programmre last night and had they barred him from taking part it would have been another serious nail in the coffin for our democracy. Just because you don't agree with a person's views is not sufficient to gag them from speaking. I watched the programme with a keen interest but I was angered by the way it appeared to have be stage managed. Earlier in the day I had listened to John Prescott talking on Radio 5 when he claimed that the guests had prior knowledge of the questions that would be asked and that the 'invited' audience were 'plants'. I think he is probably right and Dimbleby went down in my estimation for his biased views and poor handling of the programme.

Nick Griffin is not the sort of man you warm to and much of what he and his party stands for is despicable; nevertheless there is no doubt in my mind that the programme was deliberately stacked against him. As such he and the BNP probably gained more than they lost but we will have to wait until the election to see how many voters will back the party. Although I hate what the party stands for, I am convinced support for them will grow mainly because of the lack of confidence voters have in the ability of the other parties to listen to the voters and act in their interests.

The mainstream parties can say all they like against Griffin and the views of his party but nothing will hide the fact that voters are increasingly concerned about the 'open doors policy' expressed by the Government towards immigration. Let's face it, they have not only failed to stem the flow of immigrants into this country but they have also lost track of thousands who have remained here illegally. We can only guess at these numbers but, like everything else, Labour's guesstimation is likely to be wildly inaccurate.

Jack Straw - who still has not answered a letter that I have repeatedly sent and e-mailed him since nearly a year ago - waffled around the problem and was typically evasive leaving Griffin to put across the real concerns of the people. Barones Warsi (Conservative) was far more controlled and gave a good account of herself as did Bonnie Greer who was also on the panel. The public are also rightly worried about voicing their opinions on immigration for fear of being branded as racist when clearly the majority are not. Many share my view that everything in this country is being stacked against hard working decent people while certain favoured groups (did I say bankers and MPs?) and the 'great unwashed' who are allowed to continue doing what they've always done and are left completely unchecked. People are deeply concerned at the drain increased numbers of people are having on our already shrinking resources that have reached breaking point and beyond. The immigration issues expressed by the majority have nothing to do with race or colour, and the Government must clearly understand this and allow the citizens of this country greater freedom to openly air their views. We are aware that the vast majority of immigrants are decent, law abiding citizens who contribute a lot to our country; but, the Government cannot be blind to the fact that there are also countless more that contribute absolutely nothing and are a drain on our system. It is this group that we are concerned about.

If the BNP dramatically increases its support to win a foothold in Parliament (providing Labour does not introduce a law to make the party illegal first) then the mainstream parties have every reason to be fearful. But they can really only blame themselves for failing the public on every count. At a time when MPs are despised for their abuse of the rules, they should be trying very hard to regain public trust, but they are not. Instead of listening to their constituents and addressing what they have to say, they are showing no signs of action. The future of this country is increasingly looking bleaker by the day and the intransigent attitude of Brown and his government are mainly to blame. We need urgent changes now - not pointless promises and lies - and if politicians continually refuse to listen to what we, the people have to tell them, the country will lose its status as a democracy. It is a time for honesty and integrity - a time for a new breed of politician to step forward who will truly represent the views of the people.

When will MPs admit they have fleeced the public

2009-10-13T00:19:00.007+01:00

The issues over MPs expenses exposed by the Daily Telegraph earlier this year are unlikely to die down following the independent inquiry by Sir Thomas Legg. It appears public confidence in those charged with the affairs of running our country will continue to diminish because many Members of Parliament, especially those within the Government, still refuse to admit the errors of their ways. It looks likely that a large number of MPs will either resign or be forced to stand down by their constituents at the next election.

The fact that PM Gordon Brown has been asked to repay £12,415 comprised of more than £10,000 in cleaning costs and £2,000 in other claims is a complete travesty and will prove to emphasise how out of touch he is with the populace. It is unacceptable that Brown can claim more for cleaning than some people earn in a year. MPs continue to argue that what they have done was within the rules – rules that they made themselves, but this cannot be taken as a reason for fleecing the public. They believe that they are being tried retrospectively and many refuse to accept that they should be called to account. More than 500 MPs have been called to account to justify their claims. Those MPs that continue to fight the committee’s findings will surely only succeed in digging their own political graves.

The independent inquiry does appear to have reached some pretty inconsistent findings. Former Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has got off lightly and has not been expected to pay back the £116,000 claim she made for expenses on her family home in Redditch despite conflicting evidence that she spent most of her time at her ‘main home’ in London; a small room at her sister’s house. It is ironic that it is the police who have contradicted Ms Smith’s claim that she spent the majority of her time in London.

From the evidence gathered meticulously by the Daily Telegraph team, it is also shameful that to date there has been no confirmation from the police or the DPP of any impending prosecutions for fraud but public pressure could eventually force them to act.

It will be interesting to see how the expenses issues fans out in the next few weeks.

Check out the your MP's expenses and how Parliament tried to hide the true facts on the The Daily Telegraph web site.

Highly recommended: A thoroughly interesting and informative read 'No Expenses Spared' - The inside story of the scoop which changed the face of British politics - by the team that broke it by Robert Winnett & Gordon Rayner (Bantam Press)

MY NEW BOOK RELEASE

2009-10-12T16:21:00.006+01:00

My latest book was released in the UK on 1 October and is due forworld wide release in December.

'Imperial Airways - The Birth of the British Airline Industry 1914-1940' is published by Ian Allan.

Imperial Airways is a name redolent of the excitement and glamour of the pioneering years of flight. Founded in the 1920s, Imperial Airways flew to destinations all over the world. This beautiful and evocative book on the 'golden age' of passenger flight is the result of years of research, and the text is complemented by a wealth of stunning photographs and ephemera. It is the most definitive book published on the history of Imperial Airways and the formative years of British commercial aviation. The book begins immediately following World War I with the pioneering companies - Air Transport & Travel Ltd (AT&T), Instone, Handley Page, Daimler Airways and others - and shows how, after AT&T's demise, the remaining three companies were brought together in 1924 to form Imperial Airways. The company continued through difficult times, political uncertainties and fierce competition to open routes to India, South Africa and beyond. This was achieved through the untiring efforts of colorful characters such as Sir Sefton Brancker, Herbert Brackley, George Woods Humphery, Sir Eric Geddes and an array of often eccentric pilots such as one-eyed Ray Hinchliffe and 'All-Weather Mac' Robert McIntosh. The book covers all the various different types of aircraft flying at the time. Often out-of-date and, on occasions, considered to be dangerous, the companies maintained a level of safety and reliability that was sometimes against all the odds. This is especially true considering the lack of navigational aids and other equipment that was available. The story continues with the arrival of the legendary HP 42 airliner, the era of the great flying boats and the experimental 'Mercury-Maia' project when routes across the continents were opened to link the British Empire to the motherland during the period between the two wars. The work also covers the important role that Croydon Airport played in the history of commercial aviation. The story concludes in 1940 with the formation of BOAC. This is an intriguing story that represents a journey through time when it could take more than a week to travel by flying boat between Australia and the UK and when passengers flying the near East routes would stay the night at remote desert forts en-route for India.

DINING OUT

2009-10-12T15:55:00.007+01:00

I have recently had the pleasure of eating in two excellent pub restaurants that I recommend you check out. I have deliberately kept my comments short and suggest that you click on the links below to view the web sites of these two inns and to discover about their menus.

The first is The Lord Nelson a delightful 18th century country inn located in the small Oxfordshire village of Brightwell Baldwin near Wallington and is run by Carole and Roger Shippey. The menu is varied; the food excellent and the ambience superb. The hostelry is open all day on Sundays (for Sunday lunch/dinner) but I suggest you book early to avoid disappointment.

The other is the Bell Inn at Beechampton, a recently refurbished village inn nr Stoney Stratford, Milton Keynes. As this is a free house it offers a wide variety of excellent ales and an exceptional wine list that is interesting and varied. Excellent food is served in two cosy dining rooms. I thoroughly recommend that you try their traditional Sunday roasts or treat yourself to their succulent steaks (specials on Tuesday Steak Nights).

Brides Stretch the Boundaries With Intimate Portraits

2009-09-29T00:08:00.004+01:00

When couples have been together for any length of time it can be difficult for a bride to know what to give to her groom as a very special present on their wedding day. For the man that has everything what can be more personal than a beautifully posed portrait of the bride … either nude or dressed in sensual lingerie? Surprisingly there are plenty of young ladies willing to make the effort to have this type of portrait taken as items that appeared in The Sunday Times and Femail in The Daily Mail will testify.

The trend for sensual portraiture has taken off in America where the term Boudoir Photography was adopted some time ago but glamour portraiture is fast catching on in the United Kingdom.

Some brides have taken the plunge by making an all out effort to lose a few pounds in weight so that they can look their very best when they visit the photographer’s studio. Many of the young ladies that are opting for this style of portrait tend to be the shy, reserved types and not necessarily those that are more extravert. But women today are far more liberated and if they have good bodies then there is nothing wrong in being proud of their attributes.

If care is taken over the photographer that is chosen, then there really is no need for the young lady to feel embarrassed or ill-at-ease. In the past I have asked to produced portraits of this kind for clients and it is important to create the correct ambience and to maintain everything on a highly professional level. I have found that my clients soon relax and enjoy being models for the couple of hours that it might take to produce an exceptional set of photographs. It always helps if the client brings along a female friend who can offer her encouragement. An album containing a set of stunning portraits should be viewed as a lifetime investment and is likely to cost in the region of £700.

As one lady, interviewed by the Daily Mail commented “When you see old people in the street, it’s hard to imagine them as young,. But when I am old and grey I’ll be able to look back on these pictures and think, yes … I did have pert breasts and a nice bottom. I want to tell my grandchildren that, actually, I used to be quite sexy”.

If you are thinking of having a tastefully intimate series of photographs taken there it is of course not necessary to be completely nude; this is entirely up to the individual. With the sensational styles in lingerie these days and experienced photographer can produce wonderful images of their clients that in years to come they will glad they had taken.

Although I have a great deal of experience of taking sensual portraits of my clients, if you prefer a lady photographer there are a few all-female studios that specialise in this type of portraiture.

If you'd like some information about my sensual portraiture please drop me an e-mail at info@robertbluffield.co.uk

HAS DAVID DAVIS PULLED OFF AN AMAZING MASTER STROKE?

2008-06-12T23:42:00.000+01:00

The resignation today of the Shadow home secretary, David Davis might in time be seen as a master-stroke. I reason that Mr Davis has become so disillusioned by what he has referred to as '...the slow strangulation of fundamental British freedoms by this government' and by making a firm stand he has the opportunity of making public the underhanded way this government is behaving.

I applaud David Davis; I have always admired the man and I believe that he is one of the most honest MPs in the House. I do not regard his action as a 'stunt by a vain man' as suggested by Tony MacNulty (Labour) on the BBC 'Question Time' programme this evening and I feel it is time somebody from public office put their reputation on the line to stand up and fight for what they believe is fundamentally right. Davis's resignation announcement does not appear to have been as sudden and unexpected as we may have first thought. By having the Liberal Democrats 'onside' by their agreement not to contest the by-election seems to me to be a further well-defined strategic move and I cannot accept that Mr Davis's action has not been timed to perfection. I also suspect that David Cameron could have cooperated with Davis in constructing the strategy.

I feel Mr Davis has taken the view that the 42 day detention rule is the straw that has broken the camel's back but the passing of this legislation by a very small majority in the Commons yesterday merely highlights the latest in a whole string of measures the government has introduced against the public. Under normal Parliamentary debate I do not believe Mr Davis would be able to gain sufficient arousal as a serving MP because such debate would not be sufficiently within the public domain and any vehement efforts for heated debate would most likely be censored and tamed by the Speaker. To take a campaign to the streets is almost certainly going to gain a growing amount of public support and massive media attention over our issues of freedom that the government will only be able to ignore to their folly. I am hopeful that Mr Davis will be able to carry this through and if he succeeds, then the government may have little option than to call an election.

By the taking the action that he has, it is my view that a renewed by-election campaign by David Davis will provide the means to bring the misdemeanours of this government to a greater public arena. If Labour decides to fight in Haltemprice and Howden and in so doing takes a major thrashing as it did in Crewe then surely this can only be a major victory for the Conservative party? If Davis wins by a vast majority then this could be the next nail in Gordon Brown's coffin as prime minister that could massively turn the public further against the Labour party and might even force a general election. Should this happen then David Davis could be heralded a hero.

It is my opinion that the introduction of the 42 detention period without charge will only lead to greater levels of unrest especially among the Muslim community who already believe that they are being unfairly targeted by the police. While every humane citizen wishes to be protected from terrorism an extension of the custody period could lead to the arrest of an increasing number of 'suspects' who are later released without charge. Such action is likely to tip the balance and could lead to an increasing number of militant radicals, especially those more vulnerable to persuasion, to join 'the cause'. There is little evidence to suggest that an increased detention period before a charge is made will lessen the threat.

These are only my views but I firmly believe that David Davis's resignation has been carefully crafted and if his by-election campaign succeeds, the government might have little alternative to being forced to either call an early general election or force Brown to quit. We will have to wait and see but the next few weeks should prove to be very interesting.

THE CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW GOES GREEN

2008-05-30T11:14:00.006+01:00

“Chelsea is always guaranteed to delight … there’s plenty to absorb everyone … from avid gardener to the pure novice.”

The problem with all of the RHS garden shows is that there are so many positive aspects and it is only possible to skim the surface in a feature of this length. Chelsea is the major international show piece of its kind and even if you only have a passing interest in gardens and flora, you cannot help being thoroughly engaged by its content. This year the weather was a great deal kinder than last and exhibitors reported that the conditions were ideal for planting and building their show gardens. This was the 86th RHS Flower Show to be held on the site of the Royal Hospital since 1913 and the popularity forced the organisers to announce quite early that all tickets had been sold and 157,000 visitors were expected to attend during the five days of the event. Despite this I couldn’t help feeling there was something slightly lacking from the usual air of expectancy that usually surrounds the occasion that I could only attribute to a knock-on effect caused by the depressing economic situation.

Sadly there was a notable absence of the popular presenter of BBC gardening shows, Monty Don who had been forced to give up his role after suffering from a recent stroke. I didn’t see that former doyen of the BBC’s ‘Ground Force’ programme Charlie Dimmock either. It seems she has fallen from favour with the BEEB. Press day generally brings a plethora of celebrity guests but there seemed fewer than at previous shows. Those that did make an appearance included Damon Hill, Chris Tarrant, Ringo Starr and his wife Barbara Bach, Felicity Kendal, Michael Portillo, Anneka Rice, Sir Patrick Moore, Brian May and Susan Hampshire. The Queen and other members of the Royal Family did attend later in the day but by the time they arrived the least humble members of the press corps had to vacate the show site.

The large show gardens are always the main attraction and they usually offer something very special on a grand scale. The smaller gardens are also painstakingly put together and are no less impressive even though they are built to much lower budgets. This year there was a distinct indication that the concepts had moved back to basics with strong geometric design and lush planting coming to the fore. Green was by far the theme; not so much as an environmental issue, but as the predominant colour that ranged across the majority of the 21 show gardens. Wild grasses, hostas, tropical palms ferns, perennials, trees and hedges were plentiful and the designers appeared to have adopted peace and calm as their overall themes. One exception was the Oceânic Garden (Bronze winner) by Diarmuid Gavin who had joined forces with Sir Terrence Conran with a flamboyant design that centred on an open sided timber and metal pavilion, complete with espresso machine, overlooking a garden shaded by canopy of mesh and metal daisies. Bamboos, ferns and dicksonias formed jungle style borders around meandering paths and lollipop shaped trees that formed the backdrop. I have the feeling that Diarmuid never quite wins the full approval of the judges, even though Chris Beardshaw had, in a sense gone from poacher to gamekeeper by moving from designer/exhibitor to join the team of judges.

The therapeutic qualities and joy that pleasant gardens can bring to the sick and infirm were evident. The BUPA Garden (Gold) by Cleve West featured plants of medicinal qualities in a tranquil design with a claming water feature that reflected the specific needs of those suffering from dementia and Altzheimers. Similarly the Cancer Research Garden (Gold) by Andy Sturgeon was devised to highlight the progress being made in the fight against cancer by deploying a peaceful design that suggested a journey through different periods in time. The garden contained four reflective pools that became progressively larger towards the front of the garden with Southern beech and large tree ferns planted to provide an exotic woodland setting that formed a series of delightful peaceful glades with orange blue and purple flowering plants brought in to add a brightening element of colour.

The Laurent-Perrier Garden (Gold) by Tom Stuart-Smith was judged Best in Show with a design that was surrealistic in nature that relied on juxtaposing brick-shaped objects around meandering paths arranged in one direction with a random pattern of planting that included a grove of magnificent thirty year old hornbeams that created the effect of floating clouds. Zinc panels on the rear wall and hand-crafted water troughs also of zinc were used to enhance and to break up the strong green by introducing a contrasting shade of blue-grey.

The Cadogan Estates Garden (Gold) designed by Robert Myers reflected how a hotter, warmer London climate of the future might alter the way formal community garden squares are perceived. This used a double canopy of lofty palms to create dappled shade above a layout of York stone paths, a piazza and two parallel canals linked by irrigation streams of harvested rainwater. This created an air of cool calm in a garden that was envisaged to be set among tall buildings. At the rear, a statue of the Cadogan Estate founder, Sir Hans Sloane, proudly overlooked a small terrace while a high feature sculpted from stone and hedges formed the back wall of the garden

Water played a major part in so many of the designs this year and a Far Eastern influence prevailed in several gardens. The Ky Wong Charitable Trust highlighted the cultural links between China and Europe in a creation that they called ‘I Dream, I Seek My Garden’ (Gold) that relied on the imaginative idea of a partly submerged Chinese pavilion and garden being discovered beneath the London soil. Shao Fan is a well respected artist famous for developing old and new Chinese art forms and his garden was an evoking combination of hand crafted wooden buildings, limestone rocks, water and indigenous Chinese plants.

Arabella Lennox-Boyd created a stimulating water garden for the Daily Telegraph (Gold) that achieved tranquillity by tastefully combining an extensive water feature with large slate rocks set in a border of Purbeck stone and slate mulch with a winding path also of slate. A trimmed line of yew bordered the edge of the garden to compliment the colours reflected in the pool as did the strong foliage at the rear of the garden. The ‘Garden in the Silver Moonlight’ (Silver) owed its influence to the Moon Observation Stage at the 17th century Katsua Imperial Villa in Kyoto with a garden devised to stimulate the five senses. This was the first time that contemporary Japanese show garden had been seen at Chelsea and it was devised Hank Ski and Makoto Saito to celebrate 150 years of cultural unity between Japan and the UK. Every year the popular Australians of Flemings Nurseries bring a crowd of personnel to construct their garden and to entertain visitors. ‘The Fleming’s and Trailfinders Australian Garden’ (Gold) this year was designed by Jamie Durie to provide a flavour of beach and bush. Australian plants and hardwoods were used around a wall of Western Australian sandstone constructed from 3,500 individual pieces. A dining area incorporating a central fire bowl ‘bar-b’ completed the impression of outdoor life in a hotter climate and the feature was adorned by an aboriginal hand-painted artwork by renowned artist Gabriella Possum Nungarrayi that enhanced this small vision of Australia.

The show sponsors, Marshalls called their showpiece ‘The Marshalls Garden That Kids Really Want’ (Silver) that used a theme of an organic playground devised to encourage children to play outside. Beyond the metre high stone sculptured snake that guarded the entrance, the garden opened into areas of bold, jungle style foliage that was used extensively and balanced with soft grasses and turf areas where children could play safely. A skimming pool, den and natural rock stack climbing area reached through an underground tunnel added to the overall adventure theme of a fun garden that youngsters were bound to find absorbing.

Chelsea is not only about the lavish show gardens that provide much of the acclaim. Overall there was plenty for everyone from the experienced gardener to the complete novice and the 250 trade stands offered a massive array of the newest and most fashionable garden products and services from tractors to clothing, books to sculptures, botanic wall art to greenhouses. Plenty of expert advice was also at hand for those in need. There were also numerous exciting designs to be seen in a new category to the show; urban gardens that featured outstanding design concepts for small gardens located in a modern urban setting. The 2008 show included no less than 22 of these small gardens; each of them unique and delightful in their own particular way. While the outdoor gardens displayed an abundance of green planting, the Great Pavilion was alive with a mass of outstanding displays of vibrantly coloured popular and less common garden plants, flowers, fruit, vegetables and miniature bonsai trees with features from places as far away as Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada and elsewhere proudly displaying their own indigenous flora. With the shows at Hampton Court and Tatton Park still to come, this looks like being another exciting year for the Royal Horticultural Society.

More information about Chelsea 2008 and the other shows can be found on the Web site:: www.rhs.org
Further photographs of this year’s event can also be seen by hitting the link on my web site at: www.robertbluffield.co.uk

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

2008-05-29T22:33:00.000+01:00

The normal working British people are being thoroughly ripped off and our once great country has already gone to pot. The rich get richer, the poor poorer but there is also a middle ‘under class’ that has evolved that Gordon Brown is succeeding in bringing to their knees. This group forms the majority of good, honest workers that Brown is treating with total contempt. He seems blind to the fact that he is crippling the nation by taxing us to the hilt while he remains happy to continue to blow money on his pet schemes as well as a useless war in Afghanistan and a peace keeping mission that can never succeed in Iraq. All of this is bleeding the country dry. On this score it is interesting how the government steers clear of questions relating to what all of this is costing the tax payer and just how much money is being spent every time a missile is fired.

I believe that Gordon Brown is the most loathed prime minister in living memory; in fact I will go as far as to suggest that he is hated by a vast sector of the population. We don’t like his face; the way he stutters and stumbles whenever he refuses to answer simple questions and we certainly do not like the fact that he doesn't have any ears. If he had then he would hear what the public is saying and for once do something positive about the worsening economic situation he has created. What makes matters worse is the fact that he was never voted into power by the populace and he got there by default. There must be some question about the legality of this? Tony Blair must be chuckling to himself for letting his former colleague loose on the British people and we all know that Cherie is ecstatic. Blair’s action in letting the former chancellor take the hot seat should be deemed in itself an act of high treason which sadly is not worth pursuing because it is no longer punishable by the death sentence.

I feel it is time that an Englishman governed our country. The Scots most certainly would never entertain a Sassenach ruling their country so why should we permit a Scot to rule us? Perhaps Brown is an interloper sent here by those north of the border to destroy our country along with any self-esteem that we have left?

The Tax Payer’s Alliance has estimated that more than £101 billion … yes one hundred and one billion pounds of our money has been totally wasted by the former chancellor during the last year alone. This not only goes to fund a war that is killing and maiming our young soldiers, but is also blown on consultants the government hires but refuses to listen to and costly computer systems that are never likely to work. He pumps money into education and the National Health Service but completely in the wrong places that allows money to flow down the drain while areas that should be supported are left void of cash. One such example relates to the allocation of life enhancing drugs to cancer and Altzheimers patients that are given only to patients that live in the right places.

Then we come to fuel tax. We were told to buy diesel powered cars in favour of petrol and now at my local filling station there is already a 14p per litre price differential in favour of petrol. Everybody is affected by the cost of fuel and it reflects heavily in the prices of every commodity that we buy but Brown appears totally blind to the facts. Our haulage industry has long been under threat from operators from mainland Europe who not only fill their tanks considerably cheaper in France and Belgium before arriving on our shores but then add insult to injury by using our roads totally free of charge. Will there ever be a time when this prime minister comes to his senses? Nothing short of a major blockade or an all out strike by our truckers will be sufficient to make Gordon Brown realise exactly what he is doing to our nation. At a recent Prime Minister’s questions, the Milton Keynes Conservative MP Mark Lancaster put the direct question “Does the PM know what a litre of fuel costs?” Bumbling Gordon was unable to answer and had to rely on a prompt from Alistair Darling to provide an answer which only goes to prove how completely out of touch Brown is with reality. But of course, if he travels by road it is usually in a fuel guzzling Jaguar that is hardly environmentally beneficial and lucky Gordon never has to pay for a tank of fuel. Neither does he have to pay for his TV licence, his carpets, his furnishings, his kitchen … enough said. No, we pay for everything which probably comes down to his underwear.

Like all of these things, the continuing issue of taxes will hit the poorest the hardest. The so called green tax issues relating to increasing the road tax levied on older and supposedly more polluting cars will only hit those unable to afford to buy new, energy efficient vehicles. There is a strong argument here; if you can afford to buy a new car then you can afford to pay higher taxes but the situation will only apply in reverse by charging the poor extra because they cannot afford new cars and have to rely on older models to get to and from work. Could it be that the PM has a hidden agenda that he tries to disguise with green issues? Maybe this is a way of getting as many cars as possible off of the roads. But, if he succeeds then this will create mass unemployment and force countless businesses to go to the wall.

Then there is the issue of MPs pay and expenses claims. Are there any honest Members of Parliament remaining out there who are prepared to stand up and be counted on this issue of coming clean about their expenses? How can you respect a bunch of well-heeled bureaucrats that seem only intent on rubbing salt into the public’s already festering wounds by expecting to grab a 64% wage increase when the Home Secretary has failed so abysmally in the underhanded way that she has treated our police? Nobody else is allowed to get away with unjustified expenses claims nor can most people vote on and approve their own pay deals. The Speaker’s underhanded way of dealing with things has really put him in the spotlight and there is very real justification in ridding Parliament of this self-centred parasite. It is time to review the entire way that Parliament operates and for politicians to come clean about the vast sums of public money they are claiming to line their own nests. In the private sector company bosses that get up to a mere fraction of the tricks performed by the MPs would be sufficient to label them as corrupt embezzlers but a Member of Parliament (I refuse to use the term Honourable because that they are not) sees fit to award his or herself a massive pay award while the under-classes who really need the money are deemed unworthy. What Gordon should be doing is being forced to live on an average worker’s wage for a year and be subjected to all of our household expenses; only then would he start to appreciate exactly how difficult he is making life for the average British citizen. Sorry, did I say ‘life’? This was a slip of the tongue because Brown and his control freaks have succeeded in creating a nation that has had so much stuffing knocked out of them that they barely feel capable of existing.

One would have thought that the hammering Labour took at Crewe and Nantwich would have announced loud and clear that the party’s days are well and truly numbered. The only thing that might prove me wrong here is his reliance on the votes of the ‘free society’ and the Chavs that have prospered by his handouts. These number tens of thousands and my only fear when it comes to the election is that they might just remain loyal to their friend that feeds them. Typically Gordon Brown refuses to accept that the writing has long been on the wall and he has passed his sell by date. He is either blind or simply too stubborn to accept that in the party’s own parlance ‘he is not fit for purpose’ nor for that matter are the are the arse licking Cabinet members that he has around him. I cannot believe that they have any respect for a leader who appears to listen to nobody. But to be more to the point they are probably so scared to death of the man that they are unable to publicly register their disapproval. Behind the scenes one can only imagine the levels of sniping that is going on but there could be a light at the end of the tunnel if this causes New Labour and Gordon Brown to implode.

This government has come far closer to destroying our once proud nation than any Nazi bombs and it sucks. Come on Brown … it is time that you came clean and accepted that you simply are not wanted and step down because there is no way that a tyrant of your calibre should be running our country.

IN GOD'S OWN COUNTRY

2007-11-23T23:09:00.001Z

This feature was written in the aftermath of the 2005 tsunami when I visited the Southern Indian state of Kerala and found it peaceful & relatively unaffected.

As the dreadful events of Boxing Day unfolded on television I was growing increasingly anxious about going to India. I was also deeply concerned that people and places that I knew in neighbouring parts of Asia had been wiped out. I was experiencing nightmares that threw me towards a dark depression yet I knew that by going what little money I would spend might directly help the region’s already depleted tourism industry.

En-route to Dubai my wife sat next to a softly-spoken, middle-aged Sri Lankan, a UK resident since his childhood. He was a psychiatrist returning to his birthplace to help counsel tsunami victims. He expressed a pronounced anguish over what he would face and was concerned about how his own mind would react to the heart-rending situations he would encounter. As a trained specialist he feared the lasting psychological damage he might be exposing himself to and suspected that in time the counsellors would themselves require counselling to prevent the brain from shutting down. As we met our connecting flight, international rescue workers had gathered on the airport concourse en-route to Colombo, a stark reminder of the disaster’s close proximity.

Locally they call Kerala “God’s Own Country”. It shares the most southerly landmass of India with Tamil Nadu to the east and a communal border that continues towards the very tip of the sub-continent. Trivandrum, the Kerala state capital, lies towards the foot of the Malabar Coast near the point where the Indian Ocean meets the Arabian Sea. This stretch of coastline had been savaged killing over two hundred fisherman and pilgrims who were worshipping in the sea as the great wave struck. Kerala faces south west and apart from the most southerly part the majority of coastline was sheltered from the tsunami’s direct path. This spared small fishing communities from total annihilation. Abnormal tides had swept the beaches but they failed to venture far enough inland to cause damage but it did deter many visitors from venturing onto the magnificent white sands. Fewer still entered the sea. Fearing the tsunami might return, some fishermen had already sold up and bought auto rickshaw taxis (phat-phats) with their limited funds.

Religion in Kerala dominates often to the point of obsession. Many locals, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, even Jains commonly agreed that it was “God’s will” that had spared them from disaster. In reality their location was their saviour but it was easy to imagine what a direct hit from the tsunami could have done to the ecosystem around Vembanad Lake and the district’s intricate network of meandering backwaters. These waterways are essential to Kerala’s economy in so many ways not least tourism. The vast lake (204 sq km) one of 34 throughout the State, acts like a hub to 1900kms of peaceful backwaters that links small communities of inland fishermen, farmers, shell collectors and rice growers. Three hundred houseboat operators depend entirely on backwaters tourism to survive. The English language newspaper “The Hindu Times” reported that cancellations and a drop in bookings for 2005 had already diminished their trade by up to 40%. Although Kerala hasn’t the widespread gross poverty that is found elsewhere in India, a reduction in tourism could force many boat owners to go bust. Thankfully the State is rich in natural produce such as rice, fruit, nuts, vegetables, tea, coffee, and spices. These resources provide a steady living for some but this is of little consequence to the houseboat operators. They are well aware of their vulnerability so they are pushing the government to campaign overseas for more tourism in an attempt to save their livelihoods.

The houseboats, known as kettuvallom, are converted rice barges, comfortably equipped; some part solar powered, with a crew of two boatmen and a cook. An overnight stay on a kettuvallom is enchanting even though failing to book an air-conditioned boat was a mistake that made for a very sticky night beneath a constricting but essential mosquito net. A noisy electric fan became the sole means of distributing the humid air. But the boats do have basic en-suite facilities and a restless night is a worthwhile sacrifice when you awake to be rewarded by the sound of the dawn chorus and the prospect of a few more relaxing hours of the cruise still remaining. Nothing could diminish the outstanding pleasure of watching everyday rural life pass by as you sit in a comfortable armchair on the sundeck sipping chilled Kingfisher while the crew attends your needs. I’d heard that the curries created on board are without comparison. Two sensational meals confirmed this to be a true culinary experience that no British take-away could match for taste! Freshwater fish cutlets, vegetable curry, perfectly flaky boiled rice and chapatti for lunch taken at anchor surrounded by bird life on the motionless waters of Vembanad Lake. Afternoon tea arrived as we traversed the water hyacinth strewn backwaters beneath a lofty canopy of swaying coconut palms while lone fishermen trawled their nets from narrow wooden canoes. Dinner was a maharaja’s feast of spiced fried chicken, crispy bitter gourds, okra, fried rice, green beans, dhal and potato curry.

A narrow green divide separates the canals from the lower level of the rice fields where farmers worked their small holdings using bullock-drawn wooden ploughs as their forefathers had done for centuries. Others worked knee deep in mud harvesting rice. At times it felt we were viewing rural life through a kaleidoscope and we’d become an integral part of a Discovery Channel documentary. Farms, small shops, houses, village schools and temples competed for space on these medians, often no more than forty feet wide. Daily life is enthralling, people watching became a pre-occupation. Smiling children in blue uniforms waved from long, tightly crammed boats that criss-crossed the waterways taking them from village to school. Women rinsed their waist length black hair and bathed fully clothed, some used a finger to brush their teeth as others washed clothes in the communal waters of the canals. On land, lop-eared goats were milked while small groups of elders passed time doing precious little. The backwaters also have their own unique sounds. At times the tranquillity was broken only by the low purring of the houseboat’s outboard motor or the occasional deep-sounding throbbing diesels of fast moving waterbuses that distribute human cargos at stopping points spaced either side of the main arteries. Some times nature alone disturbs the silence with the sound of wild birds taking flight, a black crow screeching or the distant rousing call of a cockerel. Overhead, the graceful shapes of white headed eagles circled in the warm thermals. At dusk and dawn the sound of Hindu prayers chanted in Malayalam, the local dialect, permeated the air from a temple dotted within a tiny community. Perhaps this was as near to an earthly form of heaven as you might find!

Kerala is one of earth’s most densely populated rural areas. Nearly 32 million people cram into 38,863 square kilometres, an area smaller than Switzerland. Wallowing in the sleepy atmosphere of the backwaters this statistic can easily be overlooked. It is not even overly apparent within the dusty confines of a busy town. But look inside the churches and temples or along the main highways and it seems this is where life is gathered. During late morning a church in the town of Alleppey was overflowing. People queued for access while several hundred devout Catholics, mostly women in bright saris, were already seated on the floor inside worshipping. Christianity arrived with St Thomas the apostle in AD52 and continued as a legacy of the Portuguese (1498), Dutch (17th Century) and British (1806). Kerala (then called Malabar) has been an important trading centre from the 1st century BC when the Greeks and Romans came in search of spices.

Hinduism remains prominent and from before daybreak the spiritual sound of prayers carries on the tropical air from distant temples. Holy festivals that can last for days are a regular occurrence and in the hours before dawn highly revered elephants are led along the main highway as they are moved between temples. It is haunting to see their broad shapes silhouetted in the headlight beams of oncoming traffic. Apart from a swinging reflector hanging from their tails they have no other safeguard from being hit from behind. Indian driving standards lack common sense or any kind of discipline. Last year 3066 died on Kerala’s roads (13,000 injured). Jokingly we were told that a similar number die from being hit by falling coconuts!* The day we arrived 59 perished when a crowded bus plunged into a canal; seven died in a head-on accident two days later. The most venomous are the horn blowing bus and truck drivers who hog the crown of the road at high speed bullying others to move aside. Motor cycle riders rarely wear crash helmets, car drivers seldom bother with seat belts. I watched a family of four aboard a small moped. The father was helmeted, his young son and wife riding side-saddle behind nursing a baby had no protection. The drivers assigned to foreigners maybe slightly less crazy but they too manoeuvre dangerously into the smallest gaps between moving trucks and overtake blind. Everyone nurses a burning desire to get ahead of all other traffic regardless. Visitors are generally transported in Ambassadors, big heavy cars, still made in West Bengal to the 1948 design of the Morris Oxford. They are basic, seriously underpowered but built like tanks and well suited to the Indian environment.

One night spent on a houseboat is generally sufficient especially when combined with a visit to other parts of India or a stay in the old city of Cochin. A few nights at a magnificent Vembanad Lake retreat or a little longer at a relaxing beach resort can also provide a well earned break from travelling around the historic cities of India. The State Government has launched an eco-Kerala programme that is successfully encouraging hotels to become environmentally friendly. The cost of accommodation, meals and drinks can be high by Indian standards but considerably less than at many comparable hotels elsewhere in Asia. The state authorities claims almost 100% literacy rate for Kerala, the highest in India and unemployment is low by national standards. The extremely friendly people are proud of the history, cuisine, wildlife, deserted beaches and a good climate that the state offers. In view of the tragic circumstances in Sri Lanka and Thailand, Kerala is now well placed to capitalise by attracting visitors who might otherwise have gone to the tsunami affected countries.
• During 2002 George Burgess the director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s Shark Attack File claimed in a speech that “Coconuts kill 150 worldwide each year, 15 times the number of fatalities attributed to sharks”.

KERALA TRAVELLER FACTS
When to go
The best time to visit Kerala is between November and late February. The monsoon comes later in the year and the pre-monsoon heat can be stifling between late April and mid-June. This is followed by the monsoon rains of June to August but seasonal fluctuations can mean that the heavy rains fall later in the year. September and October also tend to be very humid.

Festivals
For much of the time there are religious festivals of one sort or another taking place but the major ones honouring a particular god are the Sabarimala Festival (January – February) Pongal (4th January) Thaipuram or Thai Pussam (January – February) Shivratri (February – March) Onam (August – September) which includes boat races at Alleppey, the ten day festival of Krishna at Guruavayoor and the Pooram (April – May) at Thrissur where elephants decorated with gold are paraded, carrying colourful parasols to a background of fireworks and drumming.

Consuming pleasures
Keralan cuisine is delightful and is quite removed from most Indian food found in British restaurants. It is generally more gentile and full of taste. Coconut in various forms is used in many dishes together with local spices. The different religions have an influence in the way that dishes are prepared but each culture offers a wide choice of vegetarian dishes including okra and gourds that are usually served with rice or lentils. Fish, often cooked in coconut based curries, is also widely served and mutton, duck and chicken is popular. Beef is eaten by the non-Hindus. Malabar Biriyani is fish or meat cooked in rice with an Arabian influence. Local breakfast specialities includes a sponge like pancake, Appam, made from rice or puttu a popular dish made from rice-flour dough. A reasonable Indian wine is available in hotels but Kingfisher beer is widely available.

Kerala is also the home of Ayurveda and this form of herbal therapeutic massage and medicine is available in all of its’ forms inexpensively at centres and hotels throughout the state.

Bazaars and markets sell all kinds of locally grown spices, saffron being a particularly good buy, cashew nuts, Indian tea, silver jewellery, fabrics, cooking utensils, wood carvings and crafts from other parts of India. It is illegal to take genuine antiques out of Indian without a license but plenty of reproductions can be found in larger towns.

State of the Nation
Kerala is the most literate state in all India and there is less obvious poverty than elsewhere. Kerala was made a state in 1956 when the princely states of Travancore and Cochin joined with Malabar, a province under Madras state. It has 20 seats on the Lok Sabha, the national legislative assembly. Hindus are in the majority but Christians form a quarter of the population. There is also a sizeable Muslim following. The people are exceptionally friendly and visitors should feel safe and at ease although there is the expected gentle harassment from hawkers around popular tourist attractions. Malayalam is the local dialect but English is widely spoken.

Web Sites
The official state tourism site that contains much general information about almost anything a visitor would wish to know. The content, photography and graphics are very professional and the site includes a diary of events that includes information on festivals and other activities. This is very well organised site that even offers audio, video and stills photography links.
http://www.blogger.com/http//www.keralatourism.org
Informative site that contains most of what you need to know about the old city and port of Cochin. It lists useful links to all kinds of travel information including timetables and is equally useful to visitors and locals who live in the city.

Books
Surprisingly there are very few books about Kerala available in the UK although there are some excellent local books about Kerala life and culture available within the State.

South India – Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa – A travel guide
By Philip Ward. Published in 1991 this is a journey through the history, culture, wildlife, art, architecture, landscapes and communities of these three states. Knowledgeably written and illustrated with maps and black and white photographs that are now quite dated.
Thomas Cook Guide to Goa & Kerala
By Anil Mulchandani. This is a modern guidebook split into two sections, one for each state, and gives good, practical advice and information about towns and other places of interest to visitors. It also has useful feature articles on items such as the cuisine and architecture, arts and crafts, mammals and Ayurveda. The book is illustrated with good colour photographs and maps throughout and it comes with a useful mini-CD Rom that provides further information and web links.

THE ELEPHANTS OF PINNAWELA

2007-11-23T23:04:00.000Z

There is something very mystical about watching forty or so Asian elephants moving almost majestically in procession, trunks and tails swaying, towards a river where they will take a communal bath. It is a sight I had waited a long time for and this alone would have been worth venturing several thousand miles to witness even had the tropical island had nothing else to recommend it. The elephants, as it transpired, were the icing on the cake because I fell in love with the beauty and the people of this wonderful island that sits, like a glistening pearl, in the Indian Ocean just at the foot of the Tamil region of the Sub Continent.

At the time the island was at war, but then it has been at war for much of its history only this time the fighting was not against an invading force but between the Tamil people and the Government. That makes things all that harder to accept given the otherwise inner tranquillity of the people. Now there is a kind of uneasy peace. Discussions between the warring factions are under way but how long this will last is anybody’s guess. Mostly the fighting has been restricted to the Jaffna region in the north of the island but every so often a bomb will explode elsewhere, on a crowded train or on a Colombo street killing unsuspecting citizens and reminding tourists that the regime is still unstable.

Countless lives have been lost fighting to gain independence for a tiny strip of land. They haven’t all been human lives either. Many casualties have been from the wild animal population. The elephants have frequently been casualties and their existence remains on a tightrope in Sri Lanka as in other parts of South East Asia. Sometimes an elephant has been caught in cross-fire, on other occasions a single animal may have torn up a farmer’s crops causing him to hunt the animal down to kill it. Worse, some have trodden on mines and have lost a foot or an entire limb but have continued to live, usually in extreme agony until secondary disease from the wound spreads and eventually causes an awful prolonged death. The ultimate only comes after the elephant loses its’ mind with the pain that can turn it into a very dangerous and unpredictable animal in the process.

It is believed that 12,000 elephants once roamed wild on Sri Lanka. This was around 1900 when the natural resources that the animals would feed on were plentiful and the population smaller. Now almost 20 million people inhabit the island and much of the habitat where elephants lived and thrived peaceably within their environment has gone cutting their numbers to just a few thousand wild animals. Those elephants that get maimed frequently become separated from their herd. Many of the victims have been females with young that have not yet been fully weaned. The baby elephants, left to their own devices, fall over cliffs or simply starve to death. The few lucky ones are captured by caring villagers and are taken to the Orphanage where they will be fed and cared for.

In 1975 the Sri Lankan Department of Wildlife set up the Elephant Orphanage to care for the offspring of dead or injured mothers that had been found in the jungles. Twenty five acres of coconut grove were taken up at Rambukkana on the Maha River. The orphanage moved locations on several occasions, at one time being housed at the tourist area of Bentota before moving to the Dehiwala Zoo. It eventually ended up at Pinnawela and had just five baby elephants in its care. The intention was for visitors to be attracted to the orphanage and the money raised from entrance fees etc. would support the cause. In 1978 the National Zoological Gardens took over the running of the centre and a captive breeding programme was launched in 1982. At that time there were five mahouts caring for twelve elephants. By 1997 the adult elephant population had increased to 42 and there were 10 babies, all under three years old. Although adult female elephants could successfully be introduced into the orphanage, the situation tended to be the opposite with the males because of their naturally aggressive behaviour.

The Orphanage tries to maintain a natural wild environment for its charges. The babies are fed by hand on milk before being allowed to roam freely over 12 acres of grassland. There are signs of what elephants tend to do naturally, break down trees and the compound is littered with torn off branches. Twice a day the animals are walked to the Maha Oya River, just 400 metres away where they enjoy a two hour bath. This is the spectacle that the majority of visitors come to see and this can be done from the terrace of a restaurant that overlooks the bathing area. The frolicking is great fun to watch even though the occasional elephant may attempt to wander off across the river. The mahouts soon spot a troublesome one and ensure that it is kept with the others.

During the evening the babies are again fed on milk while the older animals receive leaves. The usual diet consists of jackfruit, coconut, tamarind and grass. Each elephant is fed 76kg of green food a day which is supplemented with 2kg of mixed maize, rice, bran, powdered gingelly seed and minerals. Although penned for the night, boredom can set in quite easily so some of the older elephants are encouraged to work by using their trunks to carry tree branches and food stuffs.

Sama is an adult female elephant, now aged about twelve, who had her right forefoot blown away by a landmine when she was only two years old. She had learnt to walk on three legs although as she grows the imbalance is putting stress on her spine. Reports from the Orphanage state that one of the zoological specialists is hoping to train the Sama this year to wear a prosthesis that they hope will solve the elephant’s imbalanced stance. Only time will tell whether the experiment is a success or not.

The good work of the orphanage specialists and staff, aided by others from around the world, continues to save the lives of many of these unfortunate creatures. The Orphanage attracts more than 600,000 visitors a year which helps to create a continued awareness of the problems faced by the Asian elephant that can only help the species’ fight for survival. If you get the opportunity to visit this picturesque island be sure to take the road from the capital Colombo towards the ancient city of Kandy. Set in the hills approximately half way between the two cities you will reach Pinnawela village. It is easy to miss but the yellow signs at the roadside showing an elephant crossing will provide a clue. You will be richly rewarded by the experience of walking amongst these delightful animals.

THE BIG BANK RIP-OFF

2007-11-23T22:54:00.000Z

I have been following the progress of the issues relating to unfair overdraft penalty charges that are being imposed by banks closely ever since the subject first started to receive media attention. Like many readers I have a vested interest. It has been well publicised that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) are bringing a case against the banks because they agree with consumer views that bank overdraft fees are unfair. Whether this action will be in the public’s interest will remain to be seen but the decision to litigate has put paid to any further individual cases being brought to court by individuals who feel the need to sue their banks.

The banking industry could have accepted the OFT’s claims of profiteering by overcharging their customers instead of adopting a largely intransigent attitude that has resulted in legal proceedings being instigated. The eight banks involved are challenging the OFT’s right to interfere in their affairs and claim that it has no jurisdiction. However, the BBC has reported (11 September 2007) that the OFT could drop this highly controversial test case if the banks offered to cut their charges so much, that it would be in the interests of consumers to drop the case. However the fairness of charges isn’t the issue the judge must consider. Instead the Court must rule on whether the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations apply to overdraft charges. The OFT believes that they do apply and that is in their power to order the banks to reduce unfair charges. The banks, as expected, disagree claiming their charges to be a ‘core feature of their current account business’ an area that is beyond the jurisdiction of existing regulations. The banks are also adamant that overdraft ‘penalties’ are legitimate service charges that are fair and justifiable. The OFT also argues that the charges are still excessive even if they could be viewed as legitimate service charges.

Since it was known that the OFT were intending to bring this issue to the High Court, some might be forgiven for thinking there has been an impasse. This is not the case. Most financial experts agree that consumers should still formerly place their claims before their banks prior to the court date; although they believe that the banks will no longer entertain paying any settlements. Despite this view some banks are continuing to offer refunds based on prior claims that were sent to them before the OFT announcement was made. Whether these settlements seem fair or not is for the individual to decide. It appears that the situation has now become a gamble split between whether a customer is willing to accept what the bank is offering them now, or wait for the outcome of the court action. If you back waiting for the court’s decision there is the chance that the banks might win the litigation and you will end up getting nothing at all. Even if the banks should lose the first battle, any settlement is likely to be protracted because they are almost certain to Appeal. Should they lose that too then they might even consider appealing to the House of Lords. This will all take a considerable amount of time. The action is due to commence in January but nobody is expecting a result until at least 2010 so even if the case goes against the banks you’ll still be waiting more than two years before your disputed charges are returned. In many cases it simply isn’t worth the gamble. If your bank is still prepared to discuss a refund you might well consider it now rather than risk losing out totally. The worst part about this is that there is no clear cut favourite to win the action so it’s not an easy call to make.

There is some evidence that some banks are still prepared to consider settling despite the OFT action. If your bank has offered to negotiate it might be wise to be flexible. What they are offering is likely to be considerably less than the amount you are demanding but you can always try ‘pushing’ the bank to increase their offer to something more acceptable. Although this will be a compromise you are guaranteed at least some form of settlement immediately but you won’t be able to pursue any balance. The banks are clearly defining such settlements as ‘goodwill’ gestures and they are refusing to accept any liability of overcharging or wrongdoing. This to me seems rather dishonest. My argument to this is based on my belief that no banking organisation would be prepared to offer a substantial settlement if they didn’t believe that they were in the wrong. Banks simply aren’t in business to make goodwill payments out of a feeling of generosity so this has to be dismissed as poppycock! If a bank offers to settle a claim this is tantamount to accepting full liability and pay up rather than risk the possibility of being taken to court. If they believe they are in the right and that their charges can be justified, then why would they offer a refund? The reason could be that they are growing nervous about losing the case with the OFT in the same way that they’ve already lost the majority of cases brought against them by individuals. This has already cost them dearly. The banking industry’s own interim figures reveals that no less than £399million had already been refunded to customers during the first half of this year. The contributions towards this substantial amount of ‘goodwill’ have been met by Barclays (£87m), HSBC (£116m), HBOS (£79m), Lloyds TSB (£36m) and RBS (£81m).

The whole issue seems to have become a bit like Katch-22 and it is a shame that the OFT doesn’t already have sufficient clout to enforce the banks to refund unreasonable penalty charges under existing laws without having the need to resort to the High Court. The banks, no doubt, will view any government agency intervention in their business as being grossly unfair. Isn’t this a travesty when they have acted unfairly towards their clients for donkey’s years? The banks seem to believe they have the absolute right to help themselves to their customers’ funds. As a result their profits have soared to all time highs and their wealthy shareholders have got fatter by screwing their customers. Their greed has no parallel, they have no scruples and they appear to revel in the ruthlessness of their actions. By compounding the debts of customers by adding unfair overdraft charges and subsequently placing default notices on the credit register they are guilty of creating misery and ruin for thousands. Quite frequently default notices are issued because customers have been unable to pay the unreasonable charges that their bank has imposed such action effectively blocks an individual from obtaining credit for a minimum period of six years. This cannot be fair. No other business is allowed to default a customer in this way so why are the banks allowed to do this without first proving their case in court? There can be no justification for charging a customer £35 for ‘bouncing’ a £3 payment when the banking experts have estimated that it costs the bank less than £2 to process the refused item? More often than not it is a case of the banks extorting money from those that are the most vulnerable; those on low incomes or businesses owners that are facing financial difficulties. When anyone is already suffering financially distress, I believe it is totally unreasonable and devastating to impose further monetary penalties on top of debts they already cannot meet. It is easy to understand why personal and business debts are soaring to record highs. The banks blame their customers, charging them with being irresponsible, but in a vast number of cases people fall into financial difficulties for reasons beyond their control. The banks are merely making matters worse. In any case the banks are not in a position to preach considering their record of poor lending to Third World countries and the recent activities of Northern Rock.

Nobody could ever deny that the banks need to make healthy profits but their methods can readily be viewed as scandalous and their profits excessive. They were once regarded as upright, responsible, honest organisations that could be trusted. Mostly they could be relied upon for their integrity and upright behaviour. But, the public perception has widely changed and most would conclude that as an industry the banks no longer enjoy a respectable reputation or meet the needs of the consumer. Their obsession with the ‘bottom line’ has led to justifiable accusations of greed and they have also come in for criticism over their methods of selling a range of associated products that aren’t always in the interests of their unsuspecting clients. If you were to conduct a poll I wonder how many consumers would consider the banks to be honest and trustworthy? When things are going well they are quick to lend money but, at the first signs of danger, they are equally as quick to ‘pull the plug’ in ways that can cause misery and total ruin. The outcome of all of this is that when a customer complains the banks are likely to retaliate by calling in their overdraft and by closing their account. As a consumer, I can only hope that justice will be seen to be done and that customers will ultimately gain from the process.

Are the International Football Authorities Blind to European Crowd Trouble?

2007-04-05T15:34:00.000+01:00

Eighteen Manchester United fans ended up in hospital following a clash between rival fans at the match against Roma in the Italian capital last night. Several of these had serious stab wounds; others had cut heads following the buttoning by the local police who claim that their actions were "justified". I didn't watch the match but I did see the ugly scenes of violence on the television news. it appeared to me that the police were deliberately targeting innocent bystanders and not any of the fans that were the real perpetrators. The home fans seemed to escape Scott free and it goes without saying that the Brits were blamed for the violence that occurred.

Cast your mind back a few months and you will remember that a police officer was murdered by fans at a match in Sicily. Violence and racial abuse is certainly not unknown in Italy and elsewhere the crowds have an appalling record yet it is always the Brits that take the brunt of any action. After the Heinsel Stadium tragedy it was the British clubs that were banned from European Competition yet this type of punishment has not been handed out to clubs from Turkey (where Leeds fans were murdered by fans in Istanbul)or any other European country.

The level of violence at British grounds now has almost ceased owing to the work of the clubs, our police forces and the genuine fans themselves. isn't it about time that we got a fair deal in Europe as far as EUFA and FIFA are concerned?

Is the Football Association Bringing Our Great Game Into Disrepute?

2007-03-14T13:26:00.000Z

Following the debacle of the Carling Cup Final between Arsenal and Chelsea I can sympathise with Arsene Wenger entirely at the way the Football Association conducted their "investigation". In the now well screened handbag incident it would appear that the linesman (sorry referee's asssisant) was telling porkies when he said Adebayor had thrown a punch. It could mean that the assistant needed to change his optician because he certainly couldn't tell the difference between a player with a kind of dreadlocks hair style and a player who has been almost scalped. Adebayor had every reason to be angered, refusing to leave the pitch after a dismissal that was blatantly wrong. So too did Wenger after the FA had failed to accept the television evidence to back their appointed "line judge" instead. Wenger was further angered by the suggestion that the two managers had trespassed on to the pitch without permission in order to add to the incident. From my viewpoint in my comfortable lounge at home I immediately came to the conclusion that the intention of both managers was to try and separate the players and not to add their weight to the fisticups.

But isn't the truth something the Football Association always tries to avoid in favour of their own version of what they decide has happened? The Association, it has to be said, does tend to favour a certain club from Manchester while Arsenal (and I admit to a certain biase) are always branded the villains. Arsene Wenger is often accused of allowing his players to be out of control, an endearment that has led to so many red cards over the last ten years. But, if we are honest, and we stop to analise each and every one of these incidents you have to reach the conclusion that a high percentage of the dismissals were completely unjustified. How many times can we also conclude that the referee brandishing one red card after another has got it completely wrong? Referees however are rarely brought to task for their mistakes; to the contrary the FA will back their trustees to the hilt.

The problem of money; far too much of it, must be introduced to the equation. It has become far too important and this has created a win at all costs attitude amongst managers and their players. Of course football is a business, a business that plays to high stakes like Monopoly money and players will fight each other in order to win an advantage. But although this might be the case very few football "punch ups" are serious and most are caused by a rash, spur of the moment, action by one player on another. If a player is through on goal and is pulled back by the cuff of his shirt then surely it is little more than a human reaction to turn and retaliate? Ask yourself; if somebody pulled you away from a bar by your shirt tails as you were about to buy a drink wouldn't you turn on that person in anger? I think so. Football is and has always been a highly charged game that is played by men (sorry girls)and a certain level of retaliation has always been, shall I say, a "healthy" part of the game. In the 1960s when i first started to take an interest in the game you could witness some appalling fouls but seldom did anyone get sent off. The first time I saw a player dismissed, in fact both were given their orders, was when Ron Yeats of Liverpool and the late Joe Baker were sent off at Highbury after the former pulled the other down in the centre circle. Baker's natural reaction was to swing a punch at the Liverpool centre half because little Joe would have been through on goal. This was the only time I saw a player dismissed in a period spanning many years. But now of course almost every match has at least one player given his marching orders and the dismissals are ruining the game. Is the game any more violent than it was fifty years ago; I think not. It is probably true that modern day players have become a little bit more crafty, able to con the officials more easily, but violent, no.

I think that it is time that the FA took a break and stepped back to review the conduct of the players that fall within its' jurisdiction. They should take stock of the situation and review the hows and whys of red card incidents to reach a conclusion as to whether or not they were all really necessary. The great game is certainly losing out from players recieving bans, more especially those players that are subsequently proved to be unjustifiably sent off or cautioned. With every decision resulting in a fine for those deemed responsible everything becomes answerable to the cash cow. Results obviously suffer when clubs are missing key players and the fans are also deprived of seeeing the strongest teams being fielded.

I believe that the time is right for the FA to withdraw from the process of punishing clubs and players. Instead I propose that any disciplinary measures should be metered out by a body that is independent of any FA biase. Perhaps this way the system might become a good deal fairer although it would lead to a lot less money from fines falling into the Football Association's laps.

Driving in India Can Seriously Damage Your Health

2007-03-14T12:55:00.000Z

The British government's attempts to bring the road accident rate down to zero can only work if they achieve what I believe they are trying to achieve ... by taxing every form of travel to the hilt. That way they can ensure that we all stay in one place so that the politicians and the thought police know where to find each and every one of us. I firmly believe that the latest form of control from the Labour party is trying to restrict our movements. How long will it be before we are banned from going abroad? With this in mind spare a thought for the Sub Continent where l something like 93,000 people die on the roads every year.

By comparison the accident rate in most European countries can be seen as fairly minor and in Britain I think we have one of the best standards of driving in the world although at times it might not seem like it. But India is something else. Take a taxi ride, even in one of the more laid back states such and Goa or Kerala, and you will be in for a roller coaster ride that leaves you begging to get out of the car. Don't get me wrong; Indian drivers are good, but they are just downright dangerous. By "good" I am referring to the way that they can fit their cars into the tightest of gaps to avoid a collision at the very last second when carnage is about to ensue. Indian drivers cannot accept that orderly driving, one vehicle behind the other, should be the acceptable norm. For this reason every vehicle in front has to be overtaken and this is achieved regardless of what is coming at you in the opposite direction. It is a truly frightening experience but you will not find any tour operators with India on their agendas advising you not to take their transport from the airport! So, dear traveller, if you intend to visit anywhere on the Sub Continent you should be prepared to risk your life when going on the roads.

The buses and truck drivers are the worst especially those that drive the interstate buses for ten or more hours at a stretch non-stop. The Bombay to Goa bus for example sits in the middle of the road and will move for nobody. Argue with it at your peril but the local drivers will and when their luck is out they leave a trail of death and destruction. It seems there is no penalty for killing somebody by dangerous driving in India and life being generally cheap means that nobody seems to care. It is not uncommon for half a dozen people to be killed in a single accident yet even this does not deter the Indian from behaving like a suicide jockey.

I was recently told that the State government in Goa had recently introduced a law to force motor cyclists to wear crash helmets but only on major roads. The rule seemingly does not apply to their passengers (yes, plural because I have seen an entire family of four on a single moped). They recently had a purge but it made little difference if the rider was wearing a helmet because the police officer that stopped him would insist he was breaking the law. A hundred or so rupees however is usually all it takes to guarantee that the officer doesn't write a ticket.

Driving is all a bit of a game really in India; sometimes you win, often you lose. It is certainly not a pastime to be enjoyed by the feint hearted.

Things Can Sometimes Get Better

2007-01-10T01:39:00.000Z

Liverpool 3 Arsenal 6 ... Carling Cup Quarter Final Who could have dreamed that an Arsenal second squad (we mustn't call them Reserves because that they aren't) could go to Anfield, field 6 or so players aged 17 or thereabouts and thrash a Liverpool side that included Gerrard, Bellamy, Fowler and several other first team members? Okay, they too had a few youngsters but the spirit and strength of Arsenal was too much for them.

After Arsenal had taken the lead, Liverpool were quick to come back but they were then overpowered. Arsenal's splendid six was the biggest home defeat Liverpool have suffered since 1914. The Gunners were without their first team regulars except Cesc Fabregas and the determined and often brilliant, Kolo Toure, who was aptly skipper for the night. Jeremie Aliadiere had his best ever game and carved the Liverpool defence wide open with thrusting runs several times to provide cutting passes that gave Brazilian Julio Baptista (known as The Beast) two of his four goals, one of them an amazing curling direct free kick that gave Dubcek no chance. It was a shame that Baptista's penalty, when his personal goal tally was then at two, was hit too close to the Liverpool goalkeeper that allowed him to push it wide otherwise the score line would have been even better and Baptista would have been an even bigger hero. An away player hitting four goals at Anfield must be a record in any case?

Arsene was bubbling with praise for his youngsters and rightly so more especially as they managed to outscore the 3-1 victory gained by the first squad in the Premiership at Anfield just three days ago. But the peformance by the lads tonight was fluent, uncomplicated football and they managed to carve openings in the home side's defence with remarkable ease that was a pleasure to watch. The team's play seemed more direct, less complicated than that of the first team and they managed to score without needing to try to walk the ball into the net. Sometimes Arsenal can be guilty of playing exciting football that is too complicated. As a result they are scoring less goals than they should.

Manuel Almunia, who it must be said, looked positively shaky when he first came to the club seems to have developed a much improved and safer style that is less flashy than Lehmann. The Spaniard is also less volatile and less lilely therefore to risk giving goals away after throwing his toys out of the pram.

The other goals came from Aliadiere and Song. Maybe Aliadiere, after tonight's performance, will no longer wish to leave the club ... or was he merely advertising his strengths to all comers that will surely raise the odds on any transfer fee demanded by the club.

Nine goals in three days away at Liverpool cannot be bad and the results at least have lifted my depressison a little. Bring on Spurs for the Semi-final.

A Very Bad Start

2007-01-10T01:24:00.000Z

How quickly another year seems to come around and in my case another year older, another year in debt is extremely apt. After a great New Year's Eve, when even I indulged in a little Karaoke, the following week was marred by misfortune.

I don't really know how, but as I lifted a cup of coffee my hand seemed to go limp and the contents went all over and inside my Sony laptop. It died extremely quickly and all attempts to dry it out and revive it came to nothing. I'd only just returned to work that day after suffering an upset stomach for almost a week ... possibly caused by some form of food poisoning. I do, after all, have a habit of eating things that have been kept in the fridge beyond their sell by dates so I guess it is my own fault. Was Parma Ham the culprit ... or was it the melon?

Getting back to the routine things I needed to do ... even writing this blog ... has been a major effort since Christmas and everything I planned to write over the festive break failed to happen for one reason or another. I loathe Christmas at home ... just Frances and I. It's okay if there are other people around because at least you can get more into the spirit of the occasion. Boxing Day was like that because we went to friends. Judging by the many people who have NOT sent us Christmas cards this season I suspect others are also tired of the commercial abuse of Christmas.

The crunch came yesterday evening. I was returning from the computer recovery place with CDs of the files they'd fortunately managed to salvage from the laptop when I hit a bump in the road and suddenly found that I had no gears in the Passat. I coasted to a lay-by where I waited over two hours in miserable weather for the breakdown vehicle to arrive to tow me. Today I have found out that my clutch more-or-less disintegrated ... cost over £750!

What a fine start to 2007.

Surveillance, Gas Guzzlers and the Government

2006-11-30T21:54:00.000Z

I have a theory; in fact I’ve had this theory for some considerable time and it all relates to the “Big Brother” attitude of the Government and how they are trying to limit our movements. There is nothing they would love more than to price the motorist off the roads but then have no stealth taxes coming in to invest in alternative public transport. In short we’d have no alternative but to stay within walking distance of our homes. Add the much hated ID cards into the equation and while they are about it, compulsory tagging, and the Labour party righteous would have us exactly where they wanted us.

More surveillance than Russia
It is a fact that we now have more closed circuit surveillance cameras watching us than in any other country in the world. Blair and his merry men try to tell us that they are security cameras; perhaps they are but who are they providing security for? They probably allow Government ministers to feel more secure but hardly the British people. This is proven by the fact that the police never seem to be able to apprehend the criminals that operate in spite of the fact that they know they are being filmed. Put the offenders on Crime Watch and the quality is so poor that nobody can recognise them, which only poses the question of why are they there in the first place? We are watched constantly, everywhere we go and a part of my theory relates to a belief that Big Brother wants to know where we are every minute of the day. The Labour party are paranoid. If they believe that security cameras help us and protect us in our fight against terrorism, then why didn’t this surveillance prevent the London bombings?

Surveillance cameras are a feature on every motorway but they aren’t being used to prevent the country reaching total gridlock. Shouldn’t the purpose be used as a means to re-distribute congestion? If the Ministry of Transport really wanted to help ease traffic congestion then shouldn’t they be providing early warnings of impending gloom on the roads many miles before we ever get to the snarl ups? With the technology we have at our disposal why is traffic not re-routed say ten, fifteen or even twenty miles before a major incident? I don’t know the answer to that but somebody in the Ministry does. To the contrary it seems that the Government actually wants to delay our journeys and perhaps the underlying reason could be because they are trying to force us to rid ourselves of our cars by creating organised pandemonium on our roads so that it is becoming almost impossible to complete a simple journey on time. Could there be some underlying plot to force us all to stay where they know where to find us? If we all remained at home and did our work on the internet then no doubt a Government agency would be planting spiders or some other gadgets into our hard drives that tell them exactly what key strokes we are making,. This is assuming of course that they haven’t done so already!

Motorway madness
The whole system in this country seems to be arse-about-face. They are widening the M1 south of Luton as everybody knows but this is going to take at least a further two years to be completed. Is this because the Government are trying not to spend any money on the project because whenever I drive through this eternal balls up I am yet to witness more than two or three people actually doing any work. It seems nobody does anything at weekends or between the hours of 5.00pm and 9.00am.on weekdays so that doesn’t allow much time for my 2-3 three workers to complete a major road project between tea breaks. At one time, when a major highway required repairs, there would be teams of men working shifts twenty-four-seven to get the project finished in the shortest possible time. Even with this kind of input the projects were generally running behind schedule. On this basis if we start to believe that the M1 widening scheme below Luton will really be completed by December 2008 then we must be in cloud cuckoo land. Apart from some bridge supports and a load of mud what else has been achieved? I really pity those poor souls that have to drive through this crazy chaos everyday because it is enough to put you into a straight jacket and send you screaming to the psychiatric ward. At first I thought the aim was to raise the revenue to pay for the scheme from the specs speed cameras (oops … don’t I mean safety cameras?) that watch over us like hawks These were installed “to protect the work force” (sic) by ensuring that nobody drives at over a 50 mph average speed. My theory however can be shattered by the fact that hardly anybody ever gets out of second gear to get anywhere near this speed so the Government coffers must be pretty empty on that score. Hence, no money to pay for the construction work. I can just see Brown trying to balance his books and wondering where his next billion is going to come from.

What is to follow is an extra M1 junction being planned between 13 and 14 in our neck of the woods. How many years is this going to take and how will this affect the dreadful problems that befall those trying to cross the motorway at Junction 13? You might recall that it took them around 12 weeks simply to repair the supports and structure of the bridge that carries the Willen Road from Tongwell that caused diabolical chaos for anyone travelling into Milton Keynes from Newport Pagnell, Bedford or Olney everyday. God forbid, building an entire new junction doesn’t bear thinking about!

Somebody in the Ministry of Transport came up with the bright idea of allowing peak time traffic to use the hard shoulders of the motorway. A section of m-way was tested in the West Midlands and the civil servants were jumping about congratulating themselves. As usual the scheme doesn’t seem to have been thoroughly thought through. First of all the hard shoulders on motorways were built to allow broken down vehicles to be parked clear of fast moving traffic. If the lane is to be used as an additional carriageway then what happens when the inevitable does happen and somebody does breaks down? My guess is that the following traffic will simply plough into the back of the stationery vehicle causing death and destruction because drivers won’t be able to stop in time. The result will be mayhem. Another point relates to the construction of the hard shoulders. As they were never built to carry a volume of traffic, how long will the surfaces stand up before they too need replacing?

Let’s price the motorist off the road
It seems that Blair’s boys are really trying extremely hard to stop us using our cars. The theory I have this time is that they are really hell-bent on pricing us off the roads. In so doing this will leave empty roads to allow only official ministry vehicles and the stinking rich to move about the country unimpeded as they once did in Soviet Russia and Communist China. If motorists think we’ve had it tough already with the highest fuel taxes in Europe, road tax charges based on engine capacity and income tax penalties for driving company cars, beware because this is only the beginning. The Borough of Richmond already looks set to impose huge parking charges on Chelsea tractors; Red Ken promises to follow suit with a thumping £25 congestion charge that will be forced on anyone driving a car bigger than his and there is talk of charging us for every mile travelled on our roads. At least the 4-wheel boys will still have the option of running amok by cutting across the fields. How long will it take for other sheepish councils to follow these charges by making their own once they realise how much they can raise to fund their jollies through yet even more stealth taxes? As I don’t think the Mayor of London owns a car (he prefers a thing called The Tube) then this will eventually mean everyone will be expected to pay the increased charge.

The vanishing taxes
An issue that these goody-goodies seem to forget is the amount of VAT the Government already collects every time a car dealer sells any new car let alone a fuel hungry 3-litre or Chelsea tractor that raises loads more. The road tax charges are also higher and, because big engines guzzle more fuel, there is also much more revenue for the Treasury to collect from the big-car owners in fuel tax than from someone driving a Smart car. Get rid of thirsty cars and where is the Government going to turn to replace this revenue? Of course, silly me, it will have to come from those the cigarettes smokers and enjoy a few drinks! Imagine the next budget … fags £20 a pack; a pint of beer £15. You think I’m joking but who would have believed five years ago that 20 cigarettes would cost about five quid? Perhaps they might also raise the VAT level to say 20 or 25% thus crippling businesses even more. We’re led to believe that this is all being done to help us save the planet by cutting done on exhaust emissions. Who are they trying to kid more especially as punchy Two Jags Prescott now has a third to carry his croquet set? Of course it would be a wonderful vote winner for the Blairites if we all scrapped our cars and bought electrically powered hybrids that chugged along at 5 mph while we searched for a mains outlet to recharge the damn things. The Government (read police) would also lose their revenue from speed (sorry … safety) cameras. The Greens would simply have a field day. But, as a reporter on the BBC pointed out, wouldn’t the amount of emissions being blown into the atmosphere during the actual construction of these hybrid cars totally outweigh the cause? Of course they would. But wait, the best bit relating to the demands to save the planet is still to come. Somebody has already produced figures to suggest that even if we all did everything we’re being told to do in this country to protect the environment, it would all be completely fruitless because it would take the Chinese just 64 days of normal, everyday fossil fuel burning in their great polluted cities to undo everything we had achieved! Bloody marvellous isn’t it? So why are we burning so much energy even thinking about ways that we can save the planet?

I am afraid with this Government it is all about doing what they tell us to do … but don’t criticise Labour for not setting a good example. Maybe I’m the one who is paranoid.

This article was previously published on www.miltonkeynes.com

How to Avoid the Pitfalls of Buying Property Abroad

2006-11-26T23:17:00.000Z

The media thrives on the horror stories of people that have adopted a casual go-it-alone approach to buying property abroad. Too often what has been intended to be a retirement home or an investment has ended in complete disaster because the unsuspecting buyer has lost money or worse still, has had their home seized by the authorities over a serious breach of a local law.

If you are contemplating investing your money in overseas property in makes sense to do your homework thoroughly before making any kind of commitment. Then, once you have found out the kind of things that can go wrong, it is essential to hire the services of an expert in the overseas property market who will guide you painlessly through the procedures.

It is of course an attractive proposition to escape our damp winters to a place in the sun. If you intend to buy a property the first thing to remember is that foreign laws are different to ours and that they don’t always offer you protection. It never pays to take short cuts and the simple motto will always be buyer beware!

It is worth considering involving friends or family members in your project who could commit resources in order to jointly buy a bigger, better property. By involving other people who you trust could make all the difference between buying a small apartment or a villa with a swimming pool.

If you find a property that interests you it can be a foolish move to commit to buying too early. If you require any kind of finance for the purchase you will need to ensure that this is in place, or at least you’ll need a legal written guarantee that your funding will be available by the time you intend to complete the deal. This should be organised before you commit to signing contracts, even before you put down a deposit. There are many pitfalls that could be hidden from immediate view with re-sale properties. From the outset you should consider hiring a reliable local lawyer in the country where you intend to buy who will advise and protect your interests. This should be somebody who specialises in property law rather than a general solicitor. You will need to know, for example, whether there is any outstanding debt attached to the property that could pass on to an unsuspecting new owner. This can arise if the vendor has raised money to have the property built then allocated this as additional security to the developer’s bank. Similarly there may be an ongoing dispute over land boundaries or planning applications that you could become party to if you fail to have such things checked. It s no good relying on second hand information or on what a developer tells you; always have your lawyer check things. Never commit without having a full independent valuation carried out because this could reveal serious hidden problems such as damp, subsidence or wiring defects. Only when you are completely satisfied that everything is sound about your intended property should you consider becoming involved in a contract. Once you feel confident that everything is in order, your overseas lawyer can be instructed to proceed. Insists on a opt out clause without penalties should your finance not materialise or if something unexpected should be found with the contract or the property to your detriment.

Remember that contracts and other documentation will be written in a foreign language and will comply with the specific country’s laws. It is no good trying to understand what has been written unless you are fluent in the mother tongue of the country; even then it will pay you to ensure that any specialists such as surveyors, lawyers and architects employed locally are fluent in English so to minimise the risk of a breakdown in communication. Never, ever sign what you don’t understand. Believe it or not, many people either think that they understand a contract or make a guess about what they think has been written. This can only lead to costly problems later on.

You will also need to set up a bank account at a recognised bank in the country where you intend to buy your property. Financial details should be arranged in the local currency and you will need to have a thorough understanding of the exchange rates that are prevalent throughout your negotiations. If you are exporting funds into a foreign land you will need to obtain a Certificate of Importation and need to check the current legal implications about moving money to your chosen country. Taxes will need to be paid as well as utility and other bills once you have purchased the property so you will need to organise standing orders locally in order to pay any charges on time. In some countries, France, Spain and Portugal in particular, if taxes aren’t paid you can be fined or even have your property seized by the authorities. It makes sense what Government taxes will apply to you in advance of committing yourself to a move overseas. Don’t forget to set sufficient funds aside to pay insurance, lawyers and the fees of other professionals that you may hire.

The pitfalls of home ownership overseas may sound horrendous and they can be for those that are unprepared to do things properly. In the long run it is always cost efficient to employ a reputable firm that specialises in overseas sales because they will be fully conversant with the various issues involved. They can also put you in touch with accredited experts such as banks, financial advisors, lawyers, architects and surveyors. If you do your homework thoroughly and comply with the expert advice you are given, then there is no reason to suspect that buying your dream home overseas will be anything less than pleasurable.

Who is the English Education System Failing?

2006-11-26T22:33:00.000Z

At the age of ten I left primary school and proudly waited at the school gates of my new school having turned eleven during the summer holidays. My new school was a grammar school, the type of educational establishment that has, albeit mostly disappeared yet as those independent of government interference have proved, they remain successful pillars of learning. I was a little fortunate because I lived within the boundaries of Middlesex and the year before changing schools they abandoned the Eleven Plus examinations in favour of a grading system based on the student’s overall school work. It had seemed a fair and logical system to separate those that were markedly more academic from those better suited to an eventual manual trade. Even the abolishment of the Eleven Plus might be seen as the embryo of the crass changes that followed.

For the first two years at grammar school I scored highly in written examinations. The school was good, the teaching levels appropriately high and the mix of subjects taught were applicable. As I had (during those first two years) a more academic leaning I was probably ideally suited for a grammar school education while most of my former primary colleagues that I’d been through from infant school showed signs of being less academic, yet more practical. It is easy to determine, even for a laymen, why the two systems suited particular people. The bulk of my class mates moved to what we knew then as a secondary modern school where the emphasis was more geared towards practical subjects such as metal work, woodwork and technical drawing. My lessons involved longer periods spent learning maths, English and the sciences. The academic selection process roughly divided the numbers so that 20% went to grammar schools while the remainder went to secondary modern. The system followed a well trodden path that went back many years but it seemed to work. Few from secondary modern schools ever got to university; it wasn’t a consideration and even at grammar school there was still a tendency for many to leave at the minimum age of fifteen. At the end of the second year my education was thrown into total upheaval as state-funded local authorities removed the selection process and introduced the single system comprehensive school. This really was the beginning of the end that forced students of all levels to follow the same newly conceived teaching programme that proved to be totally unsuitable to many, especially those that were more academic. The rot had set in. At my new comprehensive the establishment became almost twice the size of my former grammar school; there were too few teaching staff and many of these were incapable of doing the jobs that they were employed for. Academically I became a failure. My examination marks that were once high fell dramatically as I went to near bottom of the class. I was forced to take subjects I had no inclination to study and, as a result I walked out of school at 15, several weeks prior to my official leaving date at the end of the school year. More recently I have discussed our schooling with former class mates that I have met through Friends Reunited and the general consensus is that we should have sued the local authorities for failing to provide a suitable education.

Unlike today I went straight to a London employment agency and walked into the first job I was interviewed for; a messenger in a major advertising agency. I had the desire to progress and within a fortnight I had been promoted to an office job involving cost accounting. At that time, like most young people who were starting on the work ladder, I made many friends but I never came across any youngsters that were so poorly educated that they lacked all hope in life. This certainly isn’t the case today whereby even Blair expresses concern that one in four eleven year olds are illiterate and a quarter of all school leavers have little understanding of maths or English.

Life then was more competitive and if, during our school years, we played any sports the purpose was to win. Then, if we did win, we were rightfully rewarded with a trophy as a token of victory. I was only mediocre at sports so won nothing, nevertheless everybody appreciated that it was necessary to be competitive. Many of us subscribed to the School of Hard Knocks that made us resilient and we knew that if we wanted something we would have to work hard to get it. When it came to dating girls even those who considered themselves to be “Jack the Lads” had respect it would have been an outrage to have got a girl pregnant. Today the UK has the highest number of schoolgirl pregnancies in Europe and the number of youngsters with sexually transmitted diseases is spiralling out of control. This is nothing to be proud of and much of it has been caused by a failure in our education system.

Things have changed of course but it can hardly be called progress. Successive governments can each take a part of the blame for ruining a once good education system that worked. From the introduction of comprehensive schools the whole issue has been a disaster. The current government believe everybody should have the chance to be university educated, yet they are unwilling or unable to fund those that should go. Is the government so lacking in educational skills themselves that they fail to see that many of those who they steer towards university are totally unsuited? Is Tony Blair too short-sighted to appreciate that the former polytechnics were the catalyst that provided further education for those with lower academic capabilities, similar in a way to the trade schools such as the dressmaking school my mother attended as a young woman during the 1930s?. It is folly to alter the status of lesser establishments in an attempt to convince the public that they should rank in the same category as Oxbridge. Employers know the difference. What major employer would take on a graduate trainee from Luton when they expect to hire someone with a degree from Nottingham, St Andrews or one of the other long established appropriate seats of learning? I am not being flippant when I say that there is a difference in standards yet Tony Blair and his cronies firmly believe they can hoodwink potential employers as well as students by advocating that all universities are on a parr. Both sides are being badly and irretrievably let down.

When I started my business I would regularly try to help students by offering to take a few each year on work experience schemes. Over the years the standard of students that I have received has been growing worse and it has reached a situation whereby they have become a total liability. None has shown any interest at all in the type of work that I do and the majority have been totally unable to communicate either with myself, my staff or my customers. Over the last two years I have had to dismiss two back to their schools because they have been rude, refused to undertake simple tasks assigned to them and were unable to arrive on time. A third faked illness so that she could meet her friend at the Milton Keynes shopping centre who, it later transpired, had acted similarly at another company. I cannot be alone in this experience. But, having discussed the issues with some of the teachers involved it leaves me wondering who is letting who down? Some of the teachers more lately seem to palm students off to work experience places at companies merely to get them off their hands and who can really blame them? Students leave school unprepared for the working environment and few seem to know how to approach an employer for a job. I receive letters from students of all levels who are writing on-spec to seek work. Few of their letters are compiled neatly; they are badly positioned on the page; most contain poor grammar, appalling spelling and the writer often forgets to sign their name to the correspondence nor have the courtesy of enclosing a stamped addressed envelope for a reply. It appears that no guidance has been given on how to present their CVs to potential employers. There are exceptions of course and it is these students that are likely to gain suitable employment while the others sadly become assigned to the unemployment queues. Doesn’t our government owe it to the young people to offer an education system that work well for those of us that were fortunate enough to have received at least some of their schooling before the dreadful days of the one-tier system?

IMPERIAL ...The airline not the mints

2006-11-18T23:28:00.000Z

For over six years now I have been working on my mega work that has a working title of "Imperial Airways and the Birth of British Airlines". The whole thing has really been a labour of love. Much of the time has been spent researching any and every conceivable book about the early aviation pioneers and the airlines they flew with. This is followed by a brief period of hyper activity at the computer knocking each section into shape. At times it has been laborious, mostly however I have enjoyed the experience. 'Why am I doing it' many friends have asked? Well, first and foremost I enjoy writing and I also love the whole airline industry.I find it fascinating how an obscure man can sometimes realise his dream by starting an enterprise that transports people to the most distant corners of the earth in machines that now cost vast amounts of money. The entire Imperial story I find intriguing because it took place between the two World Wars at a time when equipment was incredibly basic and often downright unsafe. As I become deeper involved, there are times when I have tended to feel personally connected to some of the colourful characters that were involved with the company and I can feel their pains when they fail and suffer their excitement when things go to plan.

Certainly I am not writing the book to become rich; far from it. Most writers become engrossed in their projects because they want to see them reach fruition; a bit like watching your young child grow. Firstly the project has to be completed and then you hope and pray that a decent publisher will become as enthused about the subject to want to publish it.

At the moment the book is about two thirds finished and the manuscript is with a specialist publisher in the north of England who has initially expressed an interest. I am terribly fussy about my expectations and I want the book to be exceptionally well produced with an inspired layout and plenty of illustrations; the type of book Dorling Kindersley are famous for. I have approached DK, twice in fact, about my project but they have not been gracious enough to bother me with a reply. Sad really, but then this is often indicative of the publishing industry.

As the manuscript grows in length I shall, from time-to-time, report on the progress but, for the moment at any rate, I've not written a word for several weeks. This is because this Blog and other writing projects that actually pay me money have taken precedence.

The First Blog Is the Deepest

2006-11-18T16:57:00.000Z

I guess I should start by apologising to Mr Rod Stewart and I think it was Miss P P Arnold for 'borrowing' the title of the song they both recorded extremely well called The First Cut is the Deepest. Knowing where to start my first blog is the hardest part ... more realistically it is knowing when to finish because I'm not known for keeping things short and simple.

Okay, what it all about? Well for a kick off it is always good to express your feelings and there will be good as well as plenty of bad times that I am sure will reflect on the content of this page. So, with this in mind I can tell you that I will be writing from the heart about things that are near to my heart. Depending on my mood the subject matter might take many forms but I suspect there will be bits about football (soccer to you American folk) food, wine (the sort that can give you a headache) whine (the sort that resembles verbal diarrhoea) a sprinkling of controversy and a lot of opinionated crap.

Having outlined where I think this diatribe will be heading I hope there will be a few readers out there who may like to contest with me over bits I have said, or bits that I haven't. Feel free to express your views because this is the only way that we can keep this thing lively.