Apparently it's quite an achievement because according to the local Argus that whole city's got a drink problem. So it seems a good excuse for me to tell you a story that I've been trying to tell for a while but avoiding because quite frankly it sounds wrong.
The Court of Protection (CoP) is located pretty much in the Highgate area of London which is a very Jewish area. That meant on Maunday Thursday I was escorted into court by a group of very obviously Jewish children and their equally obviously confused parents. I'm sorry about that but it has to be the first time in history that someone has gone to Camden in order to tone down the weirdness.
Thursday, 8 April 2010
British Airways Strikes
On Tuesday March 30th British Airways (BA) cabin crew and check in staff completed their second round of strikes. This round went to the BA management and played out pretty much how I predicted it would after the first round of strikes.
Having gathered a clearer intelligence picture of which staff would strike and which staff would work BA used this information to refine their contingency plan. This mainly involved rostering non-striking staff onto short haul flights and potential strikers onto long haul flights where the up to twelve day tours of duty prevented them from taking part in the four day strike. BA also followed through on their threat to remove discounted travel perks from staff who participated in the strike which encouraged some strike breaking but is now obviously a spent threat. The result of the refined contingency plan was that BA was able to move around 10% more BA passengers on BA aircraft reducing their reliance on chartered vanilla aircraft. This reduced BA daily losses on strike days from around £7million to around £5.5million. BA was also able to clear its backlog quicker then I was able to clear mine.
Away from the actual strikes BA have been going to great lengths to convince the stock market that it is coping just fine with the strikes. This mainly involved widely spreading the rumour that the full seven days of strike action would cost BA a frankly ridiculous £70million. That meant that when they announced yesterday (7/4) that the strikes had only cost £47million it sounded as if BA had won even though that figure is still slightly above the realistic estimate. Today BA have also announced that they expect to complete a merger with the Spanish airline, Iberia by the end of 2010. This sort of business expansion is not what you would expect from a company that is in the serious financial troubles that BA is telling Unite the Union that it is in.
Since Friday, April 2nd there have been very hush hush talks between BA management and the Unite leadership. This is the moment where BA had planned to be accepting Unite's unconditional surrender. Provided that Unite's leadership remember which side they're meant to be on I don't think that will happen now because the union still have plenty of scope to broaden the length, frequency and therefore impact of any future strike action.
Having gathered a clearer intelligence picture of which staff would strike and which staff would work BA used this information to refine their contingency plan. This mainly involved rostering non-striking staff onto short haul flights and potential strikers onto long haul flights where the up to twelve day tours of duty prevented them from taking part in the four day strike. BA also followed through on their threat to remove discounted travel perks from staff who participated in the strike which encouraged some strike breaking but is now obviously a spent threat. The result of the refined contingency plan was that BA was able to move around 10% more BA passengers on BA aircraft reducing their reliance on chartered vanilla aircraft. This reduced BA daily losses on strike days from around £7million to around £5.5million. BA was also able to clear its backlog quicker then I was able to clear mine.
Away from the actual strikes BA have been going to great lengths to convince the stock market that it is coping just fine with the strikes. This mainly involved widely spreading the rumour that the full seven days of strike action would cost BA a frankly ridiculous £70million. That meant that when they announced yesterday (7/4) that the strikes had only cost £47million it sounded as if BA had won even though that figure is still slightly above the realistic estimate. Today BA have also announced that they expect to complete a merger with the Spanish airline, Iberia by the end of 2010. This sort of business expansion is not what you would expect from a company that is in the serious financial troubles that BA is telling Unite the Union that it is in.
Since Friday, April 2nd there have been very hush hush talks between BA management and the Unite leadership. This is the moment where BA had planned to be accepting Unite's unconditional surrender. Provided that Unite's leadership remember which side they're meant to be on I don't think that will happen now because the union still have plenty of scope to broaden the length, frequency and therefore impact of any future strike action.
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Election Fever: Day 2.
Today I put six months of strategic planning and saving into effect and finally brought a new television. That meant I spent most of the day setting it up and trying to find a level of brightness that didn't give me earache and yes I mean earache. As a result I don't really have a clue what's been going on in the world of electioneering.
I did also managed to have a quick chat with my mother and discovered why my father appeared to take the visit from the social services so well. Straight afterwards he went round to the hospital where my mother works and threw an almighty tantrum. That means he is now on very thin ice with hospital security. As I got the impression that my visit caused quite a bit of tension obviously I haven't made my self clear on the issue. While I don't want to tempt fate by going into too much detail the whole strategy was dependent on me behaving in a certain way so when I didn't behave that way the whole thing was starting to unravel. Therefore I wouldn't be getting overly excited about it because I won't be worrying that much.
I did also managed to have a quick chat with my mother and discovered why my father appeared to take the visit from the social services so well. Straight afterwards he went round to the hospital where my mother works and threw an almighty tantrum. That means he is now on very thin ice with hospital security. As I got the impression that my visit caused quite a bit of tension obviously I haven't made my self clear on the issue. While I don't want to tempt fate by going into too much detail the whole strategy was dependent on me behaving in a certain way so when I didn't behave that way the whole thing was starting to unravel. Therefore I wouldn't be getting overly excited about it because I won't be worrying that much.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
As the Broadcasting Restrictions Have Kicked In....
....and there are also local council elections scheduled for May 6th I think I should declare an interest.
My local council, Croydon, is a Conservative controlled council. On a national level this means that the ward in which I live, Croydon North, is held by the Labour party and Croydon South is held by the Conservatives. The Croydon Central seat is though more interesting. At the 2005 General Election this seat was won outright by the Conservatives. Unfortunately the MP question, Andrew Pelling, was later discovered to be such a carpet chewing lunatic that the Conservatives were forced to throw him out of the party and he saw out the rest of his term as an independent.
In light of that I would hate for the problems that I going to suffer over the next four weeks to be blamed on the Conservative party. After all the guys who are causing my problems have followed me through three counties and make the Conservatives look good. Hell those guys even make the BNP look good.
My local council, Croydon, is a Conservative controlled council. On a national level this means that the ward in which I live, Croydon North, is held by the Labour party and Croydon South is held by the Conservatives. The Croydon Central seat is though more interesting. At the 2005 General Election this seat was won outright by the Conservatives. Unfortunately the MP question, Andrew Pelling, was later discovered to be such a carpet chewing lunatic that the Conservatives were forced to throw him out of the party and he saw out the rest of his term as an independent.
In light of that I would hate for the problems that I going to suffer over the next four weeks to be blamed on the Conservative party. After all the guys who are causing my problems have followed me through three counties and make the Conservatives look good. Hell those guys even make the BNP look good.
Oh Yes, Croydon Social Services Have Been Round
To investigate my father. Well they didn't even manage to do that properly. Instead they sent my grandmother's care manager, Enid to assess the situation and guess what? They can't find any problems in their conduct whatsoever.
In order too maximise the impact of this thorough investigation they also chose to print out a letter that I had sent to the GP and marked Private and Confidential and showed it to my father. That provoked such a massive backlash that it lasted for a whole minute before it was forgotten about.
On a related note that does sort of demonstrate the completely self absorbed vacuum that my father operates in my grandmother has again been summoned to the House of Lords. My father decided to organise all security passes etc involved in this by telephoning the House of Commons at around 10:00 this morning. I mean it's not as if they were going to be busy at that point what with the General Election being called and everything.
So yes I think the recurring message from this blog for the duration of the election campaign is going to be;
Either way, you're F****d!
In order too maximise the impact of this thorough investigation they also chose to print out a letter that I had sent to the GP and marked Private and Confidential and showed it to my father. That provoked such a massive backlash that it lasted for a whole minute before it was forgotten about.
On a related note that does sort of demonstrate the completely self absorbed vacuum that my father operates in my grandmother has again been summoned to the House of Lords. My father decided to organise all security passes etc involved in this by telephoning the House of Commons at around 10:00 this morning. I mean it's not as if they were going to be busy at that point what with the General Election being called and everything.
So yes I think the recurring message from this blog for the duration of the election campaign is going to be;
Either way, you're F****d!
Oh, Do We Have To ?
Today (06/04) the British Prime Minister called a General Election for May 6th 2010. That means that for the next month politicians are going to be everywhere. They're going to be knocking on your doors, putting up billboards and falling over each other to get their ugly mugs on TV.
Already the quality of political discourse has fallen so low that the leader of the Conservative party has been compared to a character in a popular TV show and the state of the economy has been compared to England footballer Wayne Rooney's injured knee. Over the next four weeks it's only going to get worse.
I'm just going to console myself in the fact that while they're all busy trying to convince us that they're the best people to run the country none of them will actually be running the country.
Already the quality of political discourse has fallen so low that the leader of the Conservative party has been compared to a character in a popular TV show and the state of the economy has been compared to England footballer Wayne Rooney's injured knee. Over the next four weeks it's only going to get worse.
I'm just going to console myself in the fact that while they're all busy trying to convince us that they're the best people to run the country none of them will actually be running the country.
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Today I Was Looking For an Excuse...
...to avoid cooking dinner.
So instead I filed papers with the Court of Protection (CoP) to cancel those Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA's). I decided to file on the grounds that the statutory instrument(s) no longer exist because they were created without a valid objection being considered. That oversight was caused in part by an clerical error on the part of the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) and in part by a "change of heart by the solicitor in the two months it took for him to register the LPA's." I chose this procedural argument because it is an issue of law that does not call into question anyone's suitability to hold an LPA. It also gives me the opportunity to use the suitability argument as a fall back position in the unlikely event that this course of action should fail.
While this process only involved filling in a form the form in question was 10 pages long, needed to be filed in triplicate and carried all the usual warnings about making false or inappropriate statements. I think then that the vast majority of people would have found the form quite intimidating and I guess that was the Brits second gamble.
It is fortunate then that this isn't the first time that I've been forced to represent myself in court. I believe the last time when I was fighting that eviction notice that caused the Brits to very generously bail me out of my troubles. On that occasion I remember that the conversation with the District Judge went something along the lines of;
Him: "I think you're clearly not disabled.";
Me: "Well this report by a court appointed doctor thinks that I am."
Him: "I'm not going to bother read that so you lose. Bad luck(!)"
Based on that experience I have no choice but to think that this current case could go either way especially as the Brits are probably 'phoning round "appropriate" Judges as we speak.
* Just for the record the papers were received by the court at around 14:38. Since then I've been in the pub hiding from the 19:00 dinner deadline whilst desperately searching for the MAKE INTERNET WORK!! button on my mobile 'phone.
So instead I filed papers with the Court of Protection (CoP) to cancel those Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA's). I decided to file on the grounds that the statutory instrument(s) no longer exist because they were created without a valid objection being considered. That oversight was caused in part by an clerical error on the part of the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) and in part by a "change of heart by the solicitor in the two months it took for him to register the LPA's." I chose this procedural argument because it is an issue of law that does not call into question anyone's suitability to hold an LPA. It also gives me the opportunity to use the suitability argument as a fall back position in the unlikely event that this course of action should fail.
While this process only involved filling in a form the form in question was 10 pages long, needed to be filed in triplicate and carried all the usual warnings about making false or inappropriate statements. I think then that the vast majority of people would have found the form quite intimidating and I guess that was the Brits second gamble.
It is fortunate then that this isn't the first time that I've been forced to represent myself in court. I believe the last time when I was fighting that eviction notice that caused the Brits to very generously bail me out of my troubles. On that occasion I remember that the conversation with the District Judge went something along the lines of;
Him: "I think you're clearly not disabled.";
Me: "Well this report by a court appointed doctor thinks that I am."
Him: "I'm not going to bother read that so you lose. Bad luck(!)"
Based on that experience I have no choice but to think that this current case could go either way especially as the Brits are probably 'phoning round "appropriate" Judges as we speak.
* Just for the record the papers were received by the court at around 14:38. Since then I've been in the pub hiding from the 19:00 dinner deadline whilst desperately searching for the MAKE INTERNET WORK!! button on my mobile 'phone.
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