Alf Bentley

My daughter and I were those "kind of folk" on trains twice yesterday - but up even earlier to beat the announcement and the rush. This was to avoid missing train connections. If you "calm your tits" and wait to arrive at the station, it can take 5 minutes longer to get off the train, as tit-calmed folk take their time to put on coats, deposit suitcases in the aisle, have a general natter and progress towards the door at 0.00001 mph while looking gormlessly around them. That 5-minute gain can be the difference between making your connection and spending an hour waiting for the next train. When traveling to the terminus and not rushing off somewhere, I do calm my tits and remain seated, though.....

I'm definitely with you on Natalie Merchant. Fantastic voice and songs - and I reckon her last album might be the best she's ever done. She was touring recently, I think, but tickets seemed to be massively expensive. I presume she tours with a lot of musicians, maybe even an orchestra these days, given those prices....

This is a timely thread, as I've recently been job hunting for the first time in 25 years. I'm at a different career stage from most posters, as I'm now 61 (to quote my Dad, "I'm a man with a great future behind me" ). I'd been a self-employed translator, working from home since 1999 - and last hunted for jobs in 1997-98, when the Internet was a new invention. Despite working solo as a translator for so long, I never enjoyed the social isolation. But circumstances conspired to make it the obvious choice: I wanted to work with languages but failed to get a career job using languages; my now ex-partner needed post-accident home care for months; then it allowed me to play a more active parenting role while my daughter was growing up........but none of those reasons now apply and workflow had been dwindling. Rather than look for new translation clients, I've opted to seek outside employment through to pension age. So, for a few months, I'm now a Parking Attendant for a major retail chain. With travel, the hours are long and I'd get sick of it eventually, but so far I've quite enjoyed going out to work, working outside and having some social contact (even if a lot of the contact is telling people they're parked in the wrong place! ). I hope to move to Devon early next year so will look for something slightly better down there - possibly agency office work but I'm wondering about seeking a languages-based Teaching Assistant post. Anyone any experience of TA work? I never fancied being a teacher but TA work could be a means of using my languages, doing something a bit useful/stimulating and having long holidays, without having to do lots of lesson prep, marking or unwinding like a teacher does... A couple of insights so far on job seeking after a 25-year gap: - The Garbage In, Garbage Out principle still applies to a more technology-driven HR - To get work via agencies, it's still worth going to their offices in person, despite most applications now being online I applied for about 15-20 jobs online, direct and via agencies, but didn't get a single reply - apart from an automated message from a supermarket banning from applying for 6 months as I'd got a question wrong in an employment quiz. So, I went into the agency office to get job application advice and to see if the face-to-face approach still worked, as it did 25 years ago. They pretty much offered me the Parking Attendant job there and then. The agency bod also said that most employers now select candidates for interview purely by automated checking of the use of "key words" in applications. So, if the job description requires a "dynamic team worker" who has "customer service experience", you'll get an interview if you use those words in your application - even if you're a crap candidate. Whereas, if you're a good candidate but don't use the key words, you won't even get an interview. Absolute madness, if true. I don't envy you having to complete applications for career jobs, @leicsmac. I remember having to do that back in 97-98, writing mini-essays describing occasions on which I'd shown leadership, initiative, teamwork, flexibility, innovation or whatever. On average, it took half a day to complete an application - and most of them yielded no response whatsoever, not even a rejection letter. After months of that and having failed the few interviews I got, I resorted to agency work, then self-employment. I wish you better fortune!

Noel Edmonds is upsetting the Kiwis...... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/03/noel-edmonds-spat-with-council-new-zealand "He lives with his wife, Liz, in the small rural community of Ngātīmoti. An investigation by the media outlet Stuff this week found that the couple had spent $30m on 12 properties in the area. One is Edmonds’ River Haven estate, which contains a cafe, pub and vineyard and regularly holds events for car enthusiasts as well as the occasional fundraiser. Edmonds is famously a proponent of the benefits of “positive energy” to fight cancer, soothe plants and comfort pets. In 2016, he offered a pet counselling service, calling cats and dogs to offer them words of affirmation and positivity. He has published a book titled Positively Happy: Cosmic Ways to Change Your Life, has claimed that he is visited by two orbs the size of melons that he believes are his dead parents, and carried around a lifesize mannequin named Candice Cannes". "Belinda Crisp, a contractor to the local council, visited River Haven to discuss the possibility of Edmonds allowing a cycle trail to pass through his land rather than alongside a highway. Crisp said she told Edmonds the cycle trail would bring thousands of cyclists to his business every year, but Edmonds objected. “He started saying how dangerous [the cycle trail] was,” she told Stuff. He stood up and pointed at us both: ‘You two need your heads cut off and your brains replaced’.” Stuff’s reporters listened to a recording and said Edmonds could be heard telling Crisp and her colleague: “All hell’s gonna break loose, right. And while you still have this attitude, you are not welcome here. Don’t even think about having a coffee, having a slice … you are our enemies.” First thing: All officials should be named Belinda Crisp and should dress crisply and adopt a crisp manner. Second thing: Edmonds should stay out there and keep his "positive energy" and that fvcker Blobby with him.

Thanks for your thoughtful, considered response. I've not got much time - and will have even less in the coming days - so will respond to select points. That's for the best, anyway, as it's supposed to be about council bankruptcy, not wider politics. Some achievements of the last Labour Govt: a seemingly impossible peace in N. Ireland; minimum wage (I earned £2.75/h for bar work in 1994); equal age of consent; Sure Start family support; slashing of NHS waiting lists; major investment in school infrastructure; improved living standards for the poorest 10%; reduction in homelessness. To be balanced, they also did bad stuff: Iraq War, wasteful PFI schemes, inadequate banking regulation. Some achievements of the Tories (trying to be fair): equal marriage rights; vaccine roll-out; prominent role over Ukraine. I'm sure Tory supporters would also claim "getting Brexit done". I wouldn't see Brexit as a great achievement and you'd correctly claim it was due to populist movements, but Cameron facilitated it & Johnson played a key role in winning the vote. Not only have both govts achieved stuff, I'll also scurry in and say that there are major differences between the two, especially when you look at the state of the nation now (I'm talking public services, poverty, inequality etc.) No and No again... 1) The article defines what it means by "real terms": all figures quoted at 2023-24 prices. "Real terms" specifically means they've adjusted earlier figures to allow for inflation - so that they're comparing equivalent figures. So they ARE saying that the Govt has cut almost £20bn from local authority grants, based on inflation-adjusted figures. 2) Inflation was NOT astronomical between 2009-10 and 2019-20. It was between 0.5% and 4% per annum. It has only been astronomical SINCE then, in the wake of Covid, Truss and particularly Ukraine (impact on fuel/food prices) For many years, the Govt sought to limit local authorities increasing Council Tax for ideological reasons. They're allowing bigger increases now, partly due to crisis in the care sector, but perhaps partly for electoral reasons, knowing that voters will blame their local council for the increases, not central govt. To an extent, that's fair, as it is the councils who put up Council Tax, not the Govt - but they're doing so to offset a budgetary crisis caused by rising needs combined with large cuts in central govt grants. Central govt grants to local councils make sense because councils are not equal in either needs or the ability to tax their local populations. Areas that are high in poverty, have a lot of elderly or a lot of children will have higher needs than areas mainly inhabited by healthy people of working age. Likewise, both property prices and incomes vary widely depending on area/demographics. Not only will some deprived cities and OAP-dominated coastal towns have much higher needs than the stockbroker belt, they will also have less ability to pay - much lower disposable incomes where there are lots of pensioners, kids or people on low pay. I'm quite sympathetic to your point here. It would certainly be more democratic and probably, as you say, more efficient to have more tax-and-spend decisions devolved to local govt. However, for the reasons given under the previous point, there would need to be some mechanism for redistribution from areas with high disposable incomes and/or low needs to areas with low disposable income and/or high needs. Otherwise, the stockbroker belt would easily be able to afford lush, possibly superfluous local public services, while retirement towns and low-income cities would struggle to collect enough local tax to fund much greater needs: i.e. you'd risk exacerbating already growing inequality. Over and out, I'm afraid (very busy in coming days).