Card Charges

The Office of Fair Trading has ordered travel companies to end the use of hidden card charges. According the an article on the BBC airline, ferry and rail customers spend £300 billion a YEAR in hidden charges. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13932299


It's funny isn't it, you go into Tesco, or Asda, or Next or whoever, hand over your plastic, be it credit or debit card, the thing is swiped, the computer says 'yes' (or occasionally no), and you pay the exact amount that your goods total, with no hidden charges or fees. You book your flight, or your ferry crossing or train tickets on line, and BANG, hidden charge for using a card. It's online FFS, how else are your going to pay................stuff pound notes down the telephone line????? I wish!


Now I know that companies have to pay to have card machines, typically the charge for using a credit card is 2% or the transaction fee, debit cards works on a flat fee basis, about £0.20 -£0.50 I believe. But this is all part of doing business isn't it? And surely, if the retailer takes sensible precautions, card payment is relatively secure, better than cheques for example. After all, if the funds aren't there, the computer says no!!!


There are a few places that will charge you to pay by credit card as opposed to debit card; hotels for example, several I have worked in have levied charges if people wish to pay with credit card, but it appears to be online travel merchants that are the worst culprits. Some of the cheapie airlines only don't charge you if you pay be Visa Electron, and only about two financial institutions in this country offer Visa Electron, and one of them is getting rid of it. It is also, bit like Solo (now also gone), often offered to those people with a very poor credit rating - you can only use it if you physically have the money in your account, you can't pre-authorise (something hotels do a lot of). Suspect that's why the cheapie airlines like it.


Now when you use your credit or debit card to pay for goods online, you often have a little pause while the transaction is authorised. This is just like when the chip and machine dials your bank and checks if you are solvent enough to buy the entire summer collection in Gap!!! So, the booking website calls your bank and asks if you have enough cash, or credit, to fly to the moon (and back), and if so, the transaction is authorised, and baring card fraud and the merchants negligence, they get the money, and you get to go to then moon!!!


Part of me understands the charge, but I would actually understand it more if the high street levied it...............after all, you could actually go to the bank and get the cash. But when you buy online, you don't actually have a choice do you? As I said, I can't physically get the pound notes down the phone line, so how else do I pay, if not by card???

Weather

Now if I remember correctly, from my geography lessons, the UK has either a maritime climate or temperate climate. Both, if memory serves, mean lots of rain (yes), cold (but not really cold) winters and warm (but not really hot) summers.


Now we have all become used to train delays being caused by 'leaves on the line' in the autumn, and slippery rails (in winter). Now we have a new one, the heat causes the overhead electricity cables to sag, so risking the trains ripping them down. So now we have the wrong kind of leaves, the wrong kind of snow and the wrong kind of heat!!!!


So, how do other countries manage. Spain has a railway system (I have used it), and Spain gets very hot in the summer, but their trains still run. What about Russia, it has a railway system (again, I have used it) and it does not come to a standstill in the winter.


So tell me this, if other countries, who suffer greater extremes of weather and/or temperate than the UK, manage to have a transport system that does not grind to a halt as soon as it gets hot, or cold.............why can't we?????

Pain in the elbow

Well, tennis elbow to be precise!

Around Christmas time I developed a pain in my right elbow. At the time I thought I had just pulled a muscle, and figured it would sort itself out. Anyway, come February, when it still hurt, I decided a trip to the doctors was in order, and sure enough tennis elbow was diagnosed.


Now I don't play tennis - never have, and I hadn't taken up any new sport or activity, nothing had changed either at home or work that I could think of that would cause the inflammation, but the doc said take Ibuprofen tablets, or try the Ibuprofen gels, that should help.


Well it did help, made the pain go away, while I was taking them. But as soon as I stopped taking them, pain came back. So, I finally got round to going back to the doctors today. He agreed, should have sorted itself out by now. So now have stronger drugs. plus another drug to stop my stomach being upset, as the stronger drug can cause upset stomachs.


All I can say, is I hope that it works, as I am fed up with the pain in the elbow!!

I must be getting old!

While I was waiting at the bus stop this afternoon, I indulged in a bit of people watching, which got me thinking. Then I got side tracked by taking a picture of my shadow and it wasn't until I was watching a 'youth' get of the bus a short while later, that I returned to my thoughts of earlier.


Fashion is a funny thing. Each generation reckons that theirs is the best and often derides the fashions of the following generations. And then there are those fashions that repeat themselves. But there are two fashions at the moment that make me chuckle to myself, well okay, one makes me chuckle, the other I just don't get.


Firstly, the one that makes me chuckle, is this prevalence amongst teenage and young adult males to wear their jeans half way down their arse. Some of them have their jeans so low that they have to hold them up to walk. It always makes me smile as I see them waddling (for they can't do anything else) down the street, showing their underpants - usually boxers or Calvin Kleins. Now this 'fashion' has it origins in gang culture, and gangs are the 'in thing'. Not the type of gangs when I was school, getting up to a bit of gentile mischief, these have a more vicious overtone, but we are getting away from fashion. So you see these lads struggling to walk down the street with their jeans half way down their arse.


The fashion I just don't get is teenage girls wearing what to my generation are thick tights, but wearing them as leggings, and it looks most odd. Just to clarify, both leggings and tights are very figure hugging and roughly about the same thickness, but the difference is the leggings retain their thickness as they stretch, where as tights don't. and you can see flesh through them. It therefore makes it obvious that these girls are wearing tights and it looks like they have forgotten to put their skirts on before they go out.


I am sure that my mother would say that I'm getting old.

It's raining............that'll be Summer then!

The headlines in the news recently have been that certain parts of the country are suffering from drought. East Anglia I believe is suffering from lack of water quite badly. My own little patch of the country has not yet been declared a dust bowl, though I am sure that it is only a matter of time.


I took this picture from my spare room on Friday, when the weather was doing a very good impression of a monsoon. It rained almost every day last week, and this week looks like it will be doing the same.

But of course, it's Wimbledon, so do we expect anything else on the weather front!!!

Shift Work

I work shifts, and thinking back, I have sort of always worked shifts, and I kind of like it. I like the fact I have days off during the week and that I start late and finish early.


I currently work proper shifts, ie, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, public holidays and all. I worked similar shifts when I took a year out from uni and worked for Mars (yeap, making Mars bars). The when I left uni I started working in hospitality and this is sort of shift work. OK, unless you are the night staff, you don't officially work nights, though I did plenty of shifts finishing at 3 or 4am, having started at 3pm the previous day. And there was one or two memorable occasions when I handed over to the breakfast staff coming on duty at 6am! Generally it was early or late starts with late finishes..........and not to mention the very long hours! When I was made redundant for the second time I worked for eleven months as the night manager of a local hotel. Did not enjoy the constant nights, but it paid the bills.


Hubby also works shifts. Like me, in hospitality he worked long and antisocial hours. Now as a bus driver he still works shifts, though he does not work nights, the latest he finishes is around midnight, though he does have some very early starts.....like 3am. He also has the added advantage that the number of hours and days he can work a are all governed by law.......okay, he has to have every fourteenth day off by law, meaning that he can work thirteen days straight, but we both worked many more days without a day off in hospitality. There are also rules like he has to have 11 hours between duties, which can be reduced to 8 hours three times a week, but how many time in hospitality did he finish at 3am and then have to be back at work at 7am?!


When we both worked in hospitality we very rarely saw each other, and on the occasions that we actually had days off together the pressure to do something 'as a couple' was huge. Now I work on average a 36 hour week and hubby a 39.5 hour week, we see a lot more of each other and all the pressure is gone. We are much happier and can actually enjoy life!

30 Million!!!!!!

No, this is not the latest amount of money that the government has given away, it is the population of London and it's suburbs.

30 million people - that's nearly half the population of the country - living in London.

I think there may be trouble ahead!!!

According to various newspapers and websites, the UK is going to be faced with a summer of strikes as public sector works protest about how much of the recovery they are supposed to pay for. Teachers and members of PCS (one of the public sector unions) are planning a co-ordinated strike on the 30th June. The other public sector union, Unison (the one I belong to), is talking of strikes on September. The government say these strikes will be a 'mistake' and some economist chap , who is head of the Adam Smith Institute has said that it is 'vital the government face down union opposition'


Now so far I have heard nothing from Unison about going on strike, but I am sure it will be coming, and let's face it, something is going to have to give. We know the country is in a financial mess and we know times are going to be tough, so when the government announced that public sector workers are going to have their pay frozen for two years, we have accepted this, even though the cost of living is going through the roof and inflation is now at a three year high. So, I am not going to get a pay rise for the next two years, even though the cost of living is going up, so in real terms I am actually suffering a pay cut.


Now the government wants to make us pay more for our pensions. Yes, I am going to get a final salary pension and I currently pay 6% of my salary towards it. The government would like me to pay 9%. So, no pay rise, inflation is currently at 4.5%, expected to rise to 5.5% in the autumn, and they want to increase my pension contributions by 3%. At this rate I won't need the pension because I will not be able to afford to eat, so will have starved to death!!!!!


And this is the same government who has just given £814 million for the vaccination of foreign children. We can't even manage to vaccinate all of our own children!!!!!


Meanwhile in the private sector, hubby is getting a 3.5% pay rise, 2.5% now, back dated to April, with the remaining 1% in December.............and they are managing that even though public transport subsidies are being slashed by councils attempting to save money!!!

Stupid Question of the Week.......and it's only Monday!

So, young man comes into the station today. I would say he was probably one of our foreign students. Anyway, he comes up to the counter, and asks if I can help him.

'I'll try' responds I

'Someone called me, but I have lost their number, can you help me find out who it was?'

Now me, obviously being stupid, thinks he means that one of the police officers has called him, and he has lost their details - you would be surprised how many people come into the station and say I need to speak to the officer who called me and can only say that the officer is male (narrows it down to about 3,000 then!!).

'Ok' says I 'You're going to have to help me out here, do you remember the officers name?'

He looks a bit blank, so I ask

'Is the officer based at this station'

'They are here in Oxford' responds student

'Is this person a police officer?' is my next question, as it is starting to dawn on me that things might be a bit complicated here.

'No' is the response

Now I am sure that my face took on a look of complete amazement at this. I then had to point out that this was not something the police could help with. Student was not too happy with this response, stating that he had spoken to his mobile company, and that they were unable to provide him with the information, which he believed was their way of telling him they could not be bothered.

'Between you and your phone company' say I 'Only way we can get phone info is if there is a very good reason............like a murder or something. I take it there is not a murder involved?'

Student confirms that there is no murder involved but states that his mobile company should have this information.

'Well maybe they don't retain this information' I say. Student really not happy

'I am sure they are legally required to keep this info' he says getting a bit stroppy

'No idea, but it is not a police matter, it is between you and your mobile company and we are not here to find the numbers of people that you have lost'

I walked away at that point, before I gave into the urge to tell him how it really is for gods sake..........like we have enough resources to act as directory enquiries as well as everything else the police now have to do, as councils are slowly absolving their responsibilities due to funding cuts.............and that is before we even get onto our own responsibilities in the face of our own funding cuts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Olympic Farce

Well, we got tickets...............woo hoo!


We applied for the opening and closing ceremonies, cycling, rowing, diving and equestrianism. When I found out what hubby applied for I went into panic mode a bit, thinking if we got them all, the credit card would probably melt!! As it turned out I needn't have worried, we got the cross country stage for the three day event - well by working out what they have charged us, this is what we have got.


We have done well, according to the media, less than 50% of people who applied have got tickets. I don't know anyone else amongst all my family, friends and work colleagues who have got tickets. It does appear that many in the UK are not going to get the opportunity to see our games, which does seem a bit of a shame. I don't know if this is what happens in other countries.......did the Chinese have a ballot system?


Who knows, but least I'm going. Got the day booked off already.

Some people want it all.

So, some kid it suing the Met because when he went on the protest march last month he was 'kettled' and not allowed home for 7 hours. He is saying he is too young to be kettled, but not too young too protest. Now he went with his parents permission, but when you look at the millions of pounds of damage done, no wonder the Met used kettling.


I have no problem with children demonstrating and protesting, it is part of our ethos of freedom of speech. But don't complain about the consequences when the police attempt to keep law and order.

UK has the longest commute in Europe.

Well, what a huge surprise...........not. Last week, the Office of National Statistics published a few and apparently 78% of UK workers have a commute of 30 minutes or less, with over half commuting 15 minutes or less. But if you live in London, then only 18% have a commute of 15 minutes or less. But in London only 35% of workers drove to work, while in the rest of the country, this figure rises to a staggering 76% of us. This has then sparked a fair bit of debate about who is the hardest done by. Londoners claim them, with the high cost of public transport and the time it takes, while the rest of the country just say, if only we had that choice.


My commute to work, falls in the 22% who have a commute of over 30 minutes, but then I have a 50 mile ish round trip. It's length of time varies depending on what time I start and/or finish and the method of transport I use. Now it is impossible for me to get to work solely by public transport, well ok, not impossible, but I would actually spend most of the day travelling, and would never get to work at anywhere near my supposed starts times. I have two options set out below

1. Bus to High Wycombe (once an hour ish, apart from Sunday when we have two in the whole day, between 7.30am and 9pm ish), National Express to Oxford (once every two hours), then 10 minute walk to work.

2. Bus to High Wycombe (see service limits above), bus to Slough (hourly, but departs about 2 minutes before my bus arrives, so I have to wait an hour for the next one), the train from Slough to Oxford (every hour), then 10 minute walk to work.

Eg; if i caught the bus at 07.50 into High Wycombe, I would not be in Slough until 10am for a start!!!

I think you see my problem, when my start times are 7am, 10am, 3pm and 11pm, there is the odd challenge.

So, I have to resort to the evil car, that is currently costing me £215 a year to tax, £28 a month to insure and £1.34 a litre of fuel. So, I hop in the evil car, drive to the Park and Ride and then get the bus into Oxford when I start at 7am or 10am (apart from Sundays, when some fool decided that bus drivers should get a lie in on the day of rest, and the bus does not start until past 8am). On other shifts I have to drive into work, an additional 10 miles or so - by the time I have avoided one way systems and all the restricted areas that the evil car may not go!! And all this generally takes 45 minutes.

Now okay, I haven't mentioned the public transport costs. Now with the magic pass and my police ID, the buses in High Wycombe, Slough and Oxford don't cost me a penny, National Express I could probably get for free, depending on the driver, and the train would probably be about £10 - a day!

I would love the option of being able to fully use public transport, as running a car is becoming more and more expensive. I wouldn't even mind if it took a little while, but for me, and many, it is just not practical, and thanks to the government cuts and therefore the councils cutting millions off their public transport subsidy, it is getting worse not better. At least Londoners have a choice, I don't.


Problem with this country is that we are in love with the evil car. The government (all flavours) is trying to educate us into the fact that, the car is evil. They do this by this wonderful money spinner, called TAX. So the evil car, that we all love, costs us an arm and a leg, plus probably various other body parts. The government would like us all to abandon the evil car and use public transport. But transport subsidies are being cut, so services are decreasing and costs going up, so even people who want to use public transport can't and won't. Catch 22!!!!


So, back to my 45 minute commute, distance wise, mainly by car, at huge expense. I suppose I could get a job closer to home as suggested by some. Well I like my job, and when I got my job, after 11 months in a temporary post after being made redundant, it was the only job I could get. Maybe I should quit and claim benefit, but I probably would not be eligible!

Regulars

Yes, we have regular callers to the police station. You would have thought that people would have better things to do with their time, but no, they come and pay us a visit. Sadly most of these people have mental health problems. Some just come in and chat to us, and generally, if we have time, this is not a problem. Some however, are problematic, they scream, they shout and then we get them removed.