INTERNATIONAL BUY NOTHING DAY ??

Today is International Buy Nothing Day apparently. An honourable enough cause - see www.buynothingday.co.uk - but one that many will I guess choose to ignore...

..or maybe not?

In these harder times (notice the relative 'harder' as economic conditions still cannot really be described in an absolute sense of Hard Times a la Dickens, great depression, etc?) people might just decide to spend less today than they have been doing in the past few years..

Credit crunch, mortgage woes - lower interest rates are one thing, but many people are having to stump up severe penalties by way of higher loan to value and arrangement fees on mortgages that are at or above 100% of their homes values and these translate to expensive fees when mortgaged out over the twenty or so year mortgage horizon as people add fees to mortgages instead of paying for them with shorter term loans - job losses looming in several areas of retail and manufacturing let alone the rationalisation of banking that is about to occur in the first half of 2009. All these factors are bearing down hard on most people's spending habits.

All good then, and in my opinion it's about time people generally stopped trying to live way above their incomes, buying newer and more expensive cars on bubble loan schemes - worse still consolidating the last loan with a new one and buying a new vehicle, borrowing against inflated property values to spend on depreciating assets and generally acting like the people they see on the telly. Who'd want to be a celebrity anyway? In the UK recently it would sadly seem plenty of people do.

Hold that thought while I slip back into obscurity for another day - and maybe go and spend some (non-borrowed) money in my nearest city to help Woolies out a bit!

ENGLAND 0 THAILAND 4

The BBC carries the main story of the day today as; "Flights from Thailand's international airport have been suspended after hundreds of anti-government protesters stormed the building outside Bangkok. The demonstrators are in full control of Suvarnabhumi airport, leaving at least 3,000 passengers stranded."

Apparently they are trying to prevent Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat returning to the country from an international summit in Peru.

Good luck to 'em I say. Our own government messes us all around in so many different ways these days and I cannot ever think that the English population would ever have the balls to do something so daring as this. And look at the armaments the Thai government's Forces and Police carry around with them - ours only have batons and handcuffs! The Thai's are brave indeed.

The English prefer instead to sit around in their boxes each night moaning about the price of fuel to each other, the state of football or the weather. All I know is the old spirit of England that was still around with our parents and parents' parents has now finally been extinguished by the fan of modern politics whose strapline should be something like: keep 'em dumb, keep 'em down. See my last blog on How To Win by Distraction While Introducing More Tax.

Keep watching Celebrity Big X Factor In The Jungle folks!

WHAT DID YOU SAY YOUR NAME WAS?

As if Alistair Darling isn't a silly enough name, now the man in charge of the UK's public finances is trying to be Clark Kent aka Superman too. He has made a statement that he is not prepared to let the recession in the UK take its natural course... New Labour to the rescue! Who on earth does he think he is? Does he honestly think he can beat the effects and moves of the international financial system. At best a naive thought, at worst a very damaging one indeed.

November's Pre-Budget speech was launched (officially at least) on Monday 24 Nov. It contained a lot of nothing much as far as many economists were concerned and seemed to go round in circles in many parts. The obvious targeting of a few smoking guns in a rise in income tax for those earning over £150,000 - netting little of the necessary finances that the government are going to need if their plans for boosting the economy are to be realised. Good headlines for middle England. Takes their attention off the 0.5% rise everybody will pay in National Insurance contributions! Realistically, it looks like everyone earning somewhere between £20,000 and £35-40,000 a year or more will be worse off through the package of measures announced in the speech. But the headlines of hitting high earners look good dont' they? I'm not even going to discuss the Manifesto pledge of not raising income taxes that New Labour once promised - they've decided to raise income tax, but not until after the next election, this they maintain is not really technically raising taxes in their government is it? is it? what do they take people for?

VAT down from 17.5% to 15% for 13 months - an ominous choice of term if you're superstitious! More worryingly, not even a bold or educated policy shift. Interestingly, my local landlord simply said last night that this was good as he wouldn't pass the reduction on to his customers, pocketing an extra bit of profit instead. I suspect this is pretty much what almost all businesses will do. Net result: lower tax receipts (of around £12.5bn) + no change in consumer behaviour = own goal Labour. Nice one. Again.

As others are pointing out there really is a more simple solution to help the average person in the street and therefore help everyone in the economy. People do not ponder hard over the rate of VAT and buy more items when it moves a few percentage points downwards (assuming of course that price changes are somehow related to changes in the rate of VAT, see my point about our local landlord above!). Vince Cable of the Liberal Democrats hit the nail on the head with the following statement, "What I fail to see is how the economy gets a major stimulus for, for example, a £5 cut in a £220 imported flat screen television or a 50p cut in a £25 restaurant bill," he said. Here, here.

The key indicator for the average householder's budget is the size of their largest debt payment - their mortgage - and therefore what money they have left over after its payment.

The government in my opinion should be focusing on maintaining pressure on banks to keep interest rate reductions being passed on to those with housing debt problems, thus helping the average person's net income position. Secondly, work with the banking system to ensure liquidity between them and commercial borrowers. If personal borrowing dries up people tend to spend less, a proportion of which is always on imported TVs and the like anyway. When commercial borrowing gets difficult or in this case stops altogether, businesses are more directly affected and jobs are lost much quicker across the economy than when consumer spending starts to wane.

But then, what would I know? I only have a First Class honours degree and a Masters in economics.

Leave it to the former teachers in the New Labour project. We'll be alright. Won't we?

RUTHLESS (IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE)

An abstract thought, but I hope interesting nonetheless.

I was driving in a town near me the other day and kept reaching the traffic lights next to a security van. Time after time it was me and the security guards looking into each others vehicles (my car is a 4x4 so they could see me and I them). This carried on for four or five sets of lights around the ring road and I felt like they were looking at me and becoming suspicious - not that I routinely look like a gangster or ne'er do well but I had been out the night before with a friend and was unshaven and hungover so probably looked a little rough at the edges to say the least. If only they knew I was at that very moment listening to Wham's Greatest Hits in my car! I'm guessing this is hardly your average gangsters choice of music while on the job.

I got to thinking what is statistically the most significant day of the week for security vans to get done over / blagged / held up - you choose the dialect and accent depending on where your from. There must be a specific day that more vans get done over than any other? Friday's, and this was a Friday that I am speaking of, have got to be up there as a prime candidate? End of week wages blags and all that? And, taking this further, there are probably regional variations in preferred days of operation of the scumbags, preferred vehicles and methods of operation.. Now, if you could collate all that information into a database and analyse it spatially you would have a great - and profitable - line of business. Advising the security firms of when to go out, what to look for and which vans to have tagged and followed by others/Police etc?

Or, given the millions involved in this line of business, maybe this already happens?

Anyway... onto something a little lighter... as if! This week I am finally going to dig out my copy of the Ruthless Rap Assassins 1991 release Th!nk - It Ain't Illegal Yet. One of my all time favourite UK conscious rap releases, and all done in a flat in Hulme - now sadly (in a strange way?) pulled down and 'regenerated' into an entire district of Lego houses all resplendent with an array of 'To Let' or 'For Sale' signs on them, inhabited by grey students whose only act of rebellion these days is ordering the Grandé Cappuccino at Starbucks not the Regular, or perhaps sprinkling a little more cocoa powder on there than usual? These kiddies would shudder at the thought of the student squats that used to stand where mummy and daddy have bought their little box in the city, sorry I should use the term apartment. There, does that make you feel better for paying so much for it?


The link is this. The Ruthless Rap Assassins, three black kids who grew up North Hulme, Manchester in the 80s wrote some amazing lyrics about how life was getting a little duller each day, people's minds becoming numbed by everyday celebrity tat and how the US and UK governments (along with many other of their cronies) was marauding the world in the honest name of capitalism and democracy! This was 1991. This was the age of the Gulf War. Who knows what happened to Anderson, Kermit and Carson (and if you do, please get in touch as I'd personally love to buy 'em all a drink and ask them to start writing this stuff again) but their lyrics are now more salient than ever in describing the trajectory that this country has found itself on.. from the students who now live their Wi-Fi broadband-enabled Diesel-clothes-clad lives where the Assassins flat and those of others such as A Guy Called Gerald once stood to the countless hordes of suburban families in Barratt Homes feeding off a diet of cheap Tesco food, Hello! magazine, Celebrity This And That on TV and shopping centres filled from floor to ceiling with all the latest stuff you never knew you didn't want.

I'm not a Celebrity, Get Me Outta Here..

Here's a short excerpt of those lyrics written at the emergence of the 90s housing market crisis, 1st Gulf War and post-Poll Tax/Public Utility sell-offs please do take time to think, it really ain't illegal.. yet..

excerpt: Think (Hinds/Hinds), 1991

Britains in a mess because the government stinks
Does anybody care what the poor man thinks
Interest rates rising 'til they can't rise no more
You know the shit was heavy 'cos they started a war
You know who got the blame, they called him insane
But just who was it sold him the weapons and planes
The National Health's in trouble, lack of money is why
But still they spent millions sendin' people to die
Too many people scared to stand up and rebel
You listen to the government and you buy what they sell
They made the cuts and the nation bears the scars
Sold power to the people when the power was ours
And now you're an owner but something ain't right
'Cos if you don't pay your bills they still cut your light
Companies going under and the government say
To keep inflation down that's the price we have to pay
They sold shares in gas and telecon
Most people on the street couldn't get none
Worked like a slave to buy your own house
But when you heard the shout you were gettin' thrown out
Got no bread, can't afford the water
Can't meet the bills at the end of the quarter
Poverty is hell and most are on the brink
You let it happen 'cos you didn't stop and think

CREAM CRACKERS!!!

Question: what's so creamy about Cream Crackers®

Surely, they're just dry flavourless things that jump into life when you put cheese on them?

I've got some in front of me and have had a look at the ingredients list, which consists of the following : Wheat Flour, Vegetable Oil, Salt, Yeast, Raising Agent (E500).

No sign of any cream in the mix?

Just a short random thought.

A SHORT THOUGHT

A very quick thought for a Sunday morning.. My work-world (like many others) has been full of medium sized companies ripping off their clients for large fees for the past 10 years, flexing their muscles by showing off large bonuses, expensive Directors cars and packages, over-paying under-experienced junior staff and occupying swanky offices, and all the time charging out spotty young graduates with no clue about the real world at rates up to £400/day...

These companies, some of whose Director's I know well, have constantly been saying the days of the specialist / niche / small company are over...

Now that the credit crunch is really biting in the global economy and these very same companies are finding themselves saddled with high costs and - in some cases - expensive debt, ask yourself the following simple question that appeared in Property Week recently...

if you are a client, ask yourself who you would rather have selling your property: the niche firm led by the star agent or duo, or the megalith whose top brass are distracted by bigger corporate concerns?

At the same time, for whom would you rather work? A firm that is slashing costs, (has over-spent on expensive property leases or buying up over-valued smaller firms) whose share price is on the slide – or yourself and a few mates? Quitting to do this is risky but can also be a breath of fresh air.

I and many others like me already know the answer to this one!

VERBALLY CHALLENGED

This is going to be a strange one but I'm going to start this blog about english grammar with an image of an early Jay Z release on Def Jam.. All will hopefully become clear.

I'm sure there are plenty of blogs on this very same topic, but here's my two pence worth..

I am forever being bugged by people using the wrong verb. Let me slightly correct that. Not the wrong verb, simply people getting mixed up who they are when using a verb. Let me explain.. One of my friends recently told me that they were going to learn me something.. learn, learn! It took me all my wits not to shout at the top of my irate voice, "I think you mean teach. I'm the one learning not you!"

Another mis-representation that I hear, though thankfully less often, is when people get mixed up between buying and brought'ing. Using, "I brought it from the supermarket" when you really mean you bought it there. This particular problem really is simple 10 year olds English grammar, isn't it?

Then there's my main gripe - everybody under 30 constantly (mis-)using the verb "to get" when ordering in restaurants or shops. F*ck me, do these people all think they are in Califonia or something?

"Can I get a chocolate muffin and an espresso..." "Can I get the Lasagne with garlic bread." Oh to be a waiter just for a night or work in a coffee shop for an afternoon. When asked this question I'd love to respond, "No you can't... I'm the waiter and I'll GET you it, you can HAVE it you dumbo!". In short then, people can 'get together', you can 'go and get it', 'get rid of a problem', 'get better' but you simply can't get something off a menu unless you work in the place!

Now I don't have a language degree to do the analysis with but it strikes me there's a passive/aggressive issue here too. Just think about the way in which "can i get" sounds next time you hear someone using it. It is squarely centred on the "I" and is a very possessive verb, almost aggressive when compared against the alternative, softer sounding "can/may I have". To have almost implies that somebody else has given, of their own free will so to speak. A passive, humanistic gesture if ever there was one. To get implies a taking action, regardless of whether the other person is giving of free will or not. Hmm... getting deep into liguistics here, so I'll move on.

The thing that really depresses me about this creeping change in language is that a lot of the people getting messed up over such fundamental English grammar are so called intelligent people. I have only one thing to say to these types, wake up! take the pillow from your head and put a book in it (a KRS-One line not mine) & maybe just maybe stop watching so many American sit-com's that drip feed this language deep into your psyche.

So, between the confusion over get and have, the ignorance over learning and teaching and buying and bringing.. it would seem the whole world is either verbally fucked up or just going grey and not thinking before opening their mouths? And you already know my views on that one.

Let's ponder the pervasiveness of "can I get" just one more time... Perhaps most of the people that use the term are ignorant to the fact that it is also the title of a Jay Z track, Can I Get A.. Most people who have heard it will have the chorus stuck somewhere in their sub-conscious. It goes something like.. Can I Get A What What.. I prefer the original release, true to its hip hop roots (did i just say that about Jay Z, I must book into the doctors for a check up some time soon?) as the chorus describes my exact feelings about this whole sorry grammatical mess...

The original uncensored chorus was "Can I Get A.. Fuck You."

F*CK ME.. trendyBACON

My partner returned from a shopping trip with the following packet of bacon..


Even bacon has gone trendy in its branding. I instantly warmed to the subtle bold/non-bold joined up and all lower-cased spoiltpig branding, using a sans serif font of course.. where will it end?

Final Question: Are Capital LeTTerS DeAd??