DISTRACTIONS DISTRACTIONS

Pack small case. Drive to airport. Fly to Seoul. Check in at the Renaissance Hotel on Yoksam-Dong as part of a trade mission to South Korea. Have a few lunch meetings with 'businessmen' in downtown Seoul, away from the Financial District. Change hotels to one on the outskirts of town, somewhere up on Subway Line 4 or 6, Nowon-gu or Gangbuk-gu say.

Private car to the airstrip as the sun sets and onto a small Cessna reconnaissance flight over the border. Parachute into the gully above Kimchaek, deep in North Korea now. Wait four hours in very cold rain. Meet Sonjan-wu and two women at the deserted farm buildings lying to the south of the field system. Long time no see Sonjan. Overnight at the safe house near Ssangpoi-dong, then an early morning moped ride to the perimeter fencing of the Ghonghzu complex. Photo opportunities galore! Once inside the fencing a slow crawl towards the unmanned and seemingly deserted bunkers on the east side of the makeshift runway. The ground still smells of kerosene and rocket fuel and is scorched from the last test rocket that set off from here just 10 days earlier. There's clearly more going on here than you would expect from the aerial photos?

Oh for the life of an international spy in these times of turmoil!


All because of some ageing individual that is slowly turning insane and paranoid about South Korea and the west & testing his nuclear arsenal. Or could we be being had again? Strange how the media is hotting up the 'threat from North Korea', the 'evil despot of the last vestiges of communism' at a time when there's a lot to be focusing in home politics..

strangely coincidental..

MAGNIFICENT MISJUDGEMENT!

This came through the door the other day.

What a magnificent misjudgement of the nation's thinking on the ability of Brown & Co...

EXPENSIVE MISTAKES..

Another day, another MP's expenses claim leak. Today's include Bill Wiggin, a Shadow Minister who claims to have put down the wrong address on his expenses form by mistake and therefore claimed mortgage interest on his family home that he hasn't even got a mortgage on the lucky man (lucky for having no mortgage obviously, not so lucky for being found out!). Of course Bill, we all know you meant to put the London apartment address down but got confused by the oh-so-difficult PAAE form filling exercise (see common sense in my last blog). He seems to have claimed up to £20k a year since 2001/02 based on the info at theyworkforyou.com. Useful error to have made.

On the subject of this mistake, let's have a look at Bill's past life - might he be an ordinary bloke from the street that found himself elected as an MP and therefore prone to making adminstrative mistakes? Here's his wiki entry:
Wiggin is the son of former MP Jerry Wiggin.. He attended Eton and later read Economics at the University of Wales, Bangor. He also served in the Royal Welch Fusiliers in the TA, being a platoon commander for Holyhead, Bangor and Caernarfon. Following this, Wiggin worked as a Trader in Foreign Exchange Options for UBS from 1991-3, then was an Associate Director of Kleinwort Benson from 1994-98, then as a manager in the Foreign Exchange department of Commerzbank from 1998..

But, just one minute! It might not be Bill's fault! This is from the House of Commons guidance on filling out PAAE2 forms: If you have a mortgage, a copy of your annual statement of interest must be provided each year to the Department. If it is not clear from this documentation what the amount of interest payable is on the property, further evidence may be required. You must also inform the Department of any alterations to the terms of your mortgage.

How could this mistake have gone un-noticed if he was being asked to provide a mortgage statement of interest based on a home that had no mortgage on it? The system was not exactly well policed? Maybe we have been paying an extortionate amount to some private consultancy company (insert any big name here) to 'audit' the process. Maybe this is the next scandal? One whose Board is made up of senior former MPs or is advised by current MPs?

At the moment it would seem the whole UK political stack is about to tumble. Some of my more left wing friends are calling for the next Guy Fawkes and looking forward to an entirely new political process to replace what can only be described as the pile of poo that we have right now. I'm not so optimistic about it all really. If you scan the websites of the popluar newspapers - NOTW, Sun etc they do mention political troubles. But todays for example also mention in as many column inches, if not more;

1. Some guy off The Apprentice who allegedly swallowed a hamster at a party?
2 Some woman off The Apprentice who stripped for some photos?
(note: both of the above come above the MPs expenses story)
3 Some woman with fake tits (who Polko actually likes for her menipulation [sic] of the media) who has thrown out her husband and his personal chattels - including a first copy of his CD single, Mysterious Girl - what's he going to do without it I ask?

etc

etc

And of course, there's a whole dollop of football news in there too.

God save us all. If only you were real God.

Which brings me to football. Well, almost. This Friday sees the release of a movie that is based on a book that has been wallowing around for some years. The movie is called Away Days. Great website. Really well thought out write up about football hooligan fashion at the turn of the 1980s. Shame that the fashion world is trying to jump on the bandwagon and re-release all those clothes all over again. Don't get me wrong, I would love to buy another blue benetton rugby shirt, but people are going to look prize dicks walking around in Sergio Tacchini tracksuits and Kappa roll-necks in the 21st Century. I cannot believe the amount of people that have started speaking about various items of retro dresser wear - like the book's author I find it hard to talk about the cult as 'football casuals' as there was nothing casual about the £200+ Valentino and Armani jumpers I was wearing in the early 80s, or the trainers that cost then what they do now. How did we all afford it? That's for another blog methinks :-)

So, to all those people who claim to have been there in the thick of it - you weren't there mate, you couldn't have been, otherwise I'd know ya! (my sense of humour knows no bounds?)

Anyway, it was great. It is over. Let's leave it at that. And a picture.

Education (aka ED-U-KAY-SHUN)

Polko says.. Common Sense and Education.

Unfortunately, I have found that these two things very rarely surface in an individual in anything like equal proportion. If one aspect is lacking you tend to find that that person reverts to saying, "of course you see all these educated people, they have no common sense". Or vice versa.

Recently I have had cause to remind myself that education really does give you a better chance in life.

I will interject to explain a little about Polko. Polko - the real Polko now not anonymous blog Polko (although they are very much the same person in many a way!) - has a First Class Honours Economics Degree (gained when degrees were degrees), a Masters Degree from a top London University, several peer reviewed papers published in professional journals and is the author of a book (that nobody will read because its subject is so academically interesting). To top all this I have a fair amount of common sense and basic 'life skill'. I can get stuck in when it comes to plumbing, electrical work (and we're not talking about changing a plug here - I have practically re-wired a four storey Victorian office and shop saving thousands on some spotty young electrician who would have been working from the manual and from the manual only, down'ing tools when he hit a problem he'd never encountered before). Oh, and Polko possesses a sense of humour too. Well fuelled by Mrs Polko I might add.

Back to the plot.

...which brings me to this morning. This morning I looked around at the few people that live on top of my hill and realised that I am the one that has the easier life (I very rarely work 5 days a week), more frequent holidays, for what they're worth the nice cars, more hobbies and interests outside of bringing up my family and, not that it registers high on my scale, but a higher disposable income (despite having had a child with a money-sucking leach from outer space - no, really - somebody had to and this alien appeared to have a good strong and varied genetic structure).

The defining factor is quite possibly level of education - at least that's what my econometrics/statistics background tells me! Somebody else lurks a little higher up the hill. Another one like me with even more years of education under his belt. This one an eye surgeon. I have a suspicion he too doesn't work as much as people think he does (not now anyway) to live in the big house.

So, I thank my parents at least for giving me the two things that I consider to improve my score; a basic training in common sense (don't you like my builder's bum - below) and the possibility to pursue education to the highest level I could.

...which brings me to the worry that if the people that publish my son's SATS practice test papers (Coordination Group Publications Limited - where the strapline image 1 above was lifted from) can't spell, and these are foremost education consultants, then how are the teachers that have been entrusted with my son's education supposed to give him an adequate one? (Don't even get me started on the fact that one of his teachers burnt all the toast - I mean ALL the toast - on day one of the SATS week breakfast club. I don't think they teach toast making on the PGCE? But, then again, you don't need teaching, you need common sense.. equal proportion as Depeche Mode once said - Get The Balance Right).

Anyway.. I was working through a few revision papers with my son at the weekend as this is SATS week for Year 6 pupils. As I read the inside cover of the English answer booklet I noticed that they started to flip around with the spelling of practice, sometimes appearing as practise instead of with the c..? Odd I thought, maybe it was a one-off - I know I'm hard on the people that work with me for spelling and general consistency/typo errors but everybody's allowed one mistake - but it just kept coming up time and again. More strange is the fact that it changes between practice and practise throughout all the English and Maths, etc papers - no consistent error, just all over the place, sloppy practice..

Either get something right or get something wrong? The inconsistency shows me two things. That this was a true misunderstanding and not just a one-off mistake and, more worryingly (given that the page footer pronounced proudly that Glenn Rogers and Vanessa Kushner were to be thanked for the proofreading) nobody had been bothered to check through it - despite this gem of wisdom from the instructions to children!

Wherever you are out there in the real world - well done Glenn, well done Vanessa. You couldn't even do this simple task right!

Here's the paper - click the link for a larger view - wonder at the inconsistency of it all. The Maths one is unfortunately the same - but in an inconsistent way!


The English paper sternly warns: These practice papers won't make children better at English... How could they, they didn't help the people writing them did they?

So, what of the world that my child is growing up in? I fear it is disappearing down a very long but fast rotating grey vortex.

...which brings me to the Public sector. As the Director of a company I received a notice a few weeks back asking me to check our current accounts position with a local authority that shall remain unnamed (in Lancashire and begins with B - there are a few but it's one of those!). So, given we have an environmental policy we filled out the form and e-mailed it back to them. Problem 1: the form stated we had to do this by Friday 9 May 2009. Now unless my year planner has been hijacked in some cruel hoax I think Friday was the 8 May don't you? Error one. Maybe Vanessa or Glenn now work at B? Problem 2: When e-mailed a bounce back occurred about five minutes later, the postmaster@b_.gov.uk telling me that the address I had used did not exist. Error two. Now I have some friends who work in the public sector that constantly moan they don't get paid as much as others (whilst almost in the same breathe deriding anybody who appears to get paid a lot without really knowing the stress and strain that others might go through in their jobs). Don't get me wrong, not all of these people moan. But some do. I have only one thing to say about it: pay peanuts and you get monkeys. Clearly b_.gov.uk are following this recruitment method.

...which brings me to the end. For now. I sincerely hope I spelled everything correctly today. And my son too as he's going into his English SATS just about... ... ...now.

OOOOPS...

Today's news contained a topical clip about a research team that have randomly bought up cheap hard drives from online disposal websites, eBay and PC auctions and then discovereed all manner of confidential information on them or in deleted but recoverable spaces.

They even found weapons testing details on some, contractor arrangements and corporate bank account numbers - supposedly disposed of by a responsible public sector organisation that has a published data integrity policy. And they want us to agree to ID cards? My arse. Wait til the next time somebody asks me if my company have a similar policy in place (see end picture - there's our policy on these matters).

This is topical because I have an old 3.4Gb drive that's been on the office floor for ages (say it three point four..... sounds feeble now, I paid a fortune for it in the days when drives were sized in Megabytes!). So, it's time to well and truly dispose of the thing. To help in any future endeavours of the same type that you might have - and to save your details being 'found' and used against you (!) - here's a mini-tutorial..

1. Take hard drive and crack open the case. There are no screws on most drives you just pry open the aluminium (US readers spot the second i, and pronounce it!) and peer inside.
2. Obtain a couple of star bit screwdrivers from Maplins or similar retailer and undo a load of screws. In fact, all that you can see.
3. You should now be able to lift off the metallic coated disks one by one. The last few may not come out easily - just get a big screwdriver underneath and bend 'em up!
4. Marvel at the slippery shiny sensation in your hands. They are coated and feel great!
5. Lament in the destruction of said shiny surfaces with your Stanley knife..
6. Scatter the bits across various places and places (responsibly of course) and sleep safe in the knowledge nobody will uncover your financial details or personal web surfing preferences, etc - well at least until the government give them away or sell them when harvested..

Geek? Me? Never.. You should see what I've done to one of my PS3 controllers this week!

Here's my homage to the dead drive. Art indeed!