Baby Talk. No, not what babies say; what people say to babies. In particular what they say as they cradle them up & down to try and get them to stop crying. My Grandmother is the worst offender for this, her favourite phrase when trying to get my newest niece, Lexi, to stop crying is "it doesn't matter". I mean, what's 'it' that doesn't matter? The Northern Rock fiasco? The rugby result? Foot & Mouth disease? I suspect that Lexi has not the time, the inclination nor the comprehension to care about any of these things. 'it' probably refers to her being hungry, being in need of winding or being otherwise discomforted, and for a baby, these things do matter and no amount of telling them otherwise will make a h'apeth of difference.
That's an unpleasant title, isn't it? So is the subject itself. Fly tipping makes the place look a mess, there's no question about that (although if you're on the lookout for stuff that you can re-use, following the advice of the wombles, it's a gold mine). What, however, is the best way to deal with it? Well, I saw in the local rag yesterday a piece that Cardiff Council plans to spend £20,000 on CCTV at popular fly-tipping sites to try and catch the nefarious types, along with a battery of other expensive measures. Dear Cardiff Council, here's a clue: The best way to combat fly tipping is to make it easier to legitimately dispose of your waste than to fly-tip it.
At fly-tipping hotspots, and this is a real innovation; leave a skip for people to put rubbish in!
If someone's bin if full to bursting, it means that they have a lot of rubbish and it needs collecting. Leaving their bin, full, at the kerbside is utterly counter-productive and a danger to public health.
Make municipal dumps easier to use (like not requiring people to own cars to be able to use them). There's a dump around the corner from where I live, apart from very bulky items, it would be possible to walk around there with rubbish, but we have to drive instead - if we didn't own a car, we simply wouldn't be able to dump our rubbish.
Stop charging for commercial waste disposal - it's rubbish, it goes in the dump, that's what dumps are for. Making it hard for people to do that (by charging a really substantial amount of money) is going to make it harder to get by without fly-tipping - legitimate tradesmen who do things properly have to pass that cost on to their customers, who are now more likely to go with the cheaper option of using cowboys.
Structure your recycling rules such that if in doubt, you put things in the green bag, rather than the black one.
When people call up to get bulky items collected, have enough capacity to be able to offer them an appointment within 24-36 hours, rather than next week. Most people don't want an old sofa to sit in their front garden for a week before it's collected. Nor do they want dangerous items like old fridges to sit around any longer than necessary.
See; simple, sensible, solutions - I suppose that means that there's no chance of the council employing me now :-(
would you believe it? Anyway, my serious point regards John Sweeney's piece about the 'Church' of Scientology on Panorama. Unfortunately, I was nominally revising, so didn't see the entire piece, but that's somewhat immaterial. What I want to discuss is the major talking point, John Sweeney losing his temper. See this video (from the scientology people):
And then there's the BBC's version:
Now, it should be noted that even in the BBC's version, he's losing control of his voice, but in the CoS version, the sound is actually distorting - either they're using cheap equipment OR they've deliberately manipulated it to make it seem like it was louder than it was.
Now, my point on the whole issue is this, this Tommy Davies character could have wound John up, made him explode, and got a great capital out of it. Maybe he thinks that he did.
He didn't. See the thing he didn't do was shut up. Had he allowed John to shout and then calmly responded he may have managed to acquire the intellectual high ground. As it was he just kept his condescending monotone waffle talking right through him (which also shows the value he has for his own point of view). Maybe he was hoping that by continuing to talk and winding John up further he could keep him shouting and come out on top.
It didn't work. You see, the thing that Tommy failed to realise is that we've all seen his type before and most of us aren't impressed when we see the archetypal 5-year-old putting his fingers in his ears and going "la la la la, I can't hear you". That's what Tommy is doing and it's the last refuge of someone who realises that his argument has run out of steam. Another five year old would probably have hit him. Maybe he was hoping to keep John shouting and try to look good for not being a raving madman.
It failed. I, and I suspect many others, saw past the shouting man to the other man who was deliberately winding him up. Being the person losing their rag is bad; being the person who deliberately winds them up is worse.
Now, back to Tommy. If you watch the BBC clip right through, you'll see another little gambit with the roles reversed and this time John demonstrates far better how to deal with an angry shouting person. John is talking about the CoS and qualifies it with the phrase "some say it's a sinister cult" and Tommy leaps on this and goes off on one about religious freedom and storms off, refusing to answer John's really very valid point about freedom of speech. (While it maybe be Tommy's right to hold whatever religious beliefs that he wants, it's equally Johns right to label it a sinister cult.) Now, it's interesting to notice that it takes him a good few seconds to erupt, during which time it becomes clear as to where John's line of questioning is going. Is it taking Tommy a while to wrest back control of his anger behind those dark glasses or did he figure out what the question was going to be about and quickly backtrack so he could shout about some side topic before leaving quickly? Also, if he has such great faith in his beliefs why does he get so angry that someone who doesn't share them doesn't put so much stock in them? (Which, in fact, wasn't even the case since John was simply quoting a oft-repeated popular opinion of scientology).
Kudos to the BBC for tackling this head on and not letting the CoS silence them (or at least getting a lot of it out there). The CoS may have thought that agreeing to do this would give them some good publicity and show the world that they're going mainstream. It hasn't. They're the same bunch of raving nutters and winding a BBC reporter up to the point of getting him shouting has only reinforced that view. Perhaps they thought they could break and discredit the BBC. They haven't. It's going to take quite a lot to shake the BBC's reputation for (normally) quality journalism and this wasn't enough. Go for a smaller fish.
So, in conclusion, a few tips for Tommy:
Don't wind people up.
Don't talk over people.
Don't go for the condescending monologue, it doesn't look good.
Don't go banging on about your right to hold religious beliefs; it doesn't extend to forcing others to respect them or not call them a cult.
(this is my fourth attempt to write this post) My exam timetable has finally come through and it's na' lookin' good! I know the rest of you will doubtless be as shocked and apalled as I am at this travesty - I have an exam at 9:00 AM on a Saturday. A Saturday! There are no suitable words to express my horror at the prospect of this dreadful event.
Anyway, enough drama-queening.
My new jacket was looking highly stylish yesterday as was my new tie! Although I wore the jacket when I sat down, which creased the back and then I took it off to sit down and hung it from the back of the chair, which then creased the collar... Here are some more photos from last weekend:
ok... so I've been away even longer this time. I just don't get much time to write my blog. My thanks to the people who have commented on my blog - at least someone is reading it (sorry about not publishing your comments earlier, I'd forgotten that I'd turned comment moderation on). Not a great deal has been happening (that's, of course, not true - I just can't think of anything to write about) but I too went for the walk at the Brecon mountain centre on Monday and, er, well, I got to the top. I also got the opportunity to chuck a disc around (which was nice) and take some arty photos. I was also impressed with my own ability to run around the circle without falling over in pain. Another interesting happening this week is my acquisition of a new suit and a dinnerjacket and an additional jacket - I shall be the most handsomest young man on the cruise this summer (which, if last year's cruise is anything to go by, will be a win by default). I was might impressed at how much the jacket cost, since it came from the Next shop at MacArthur Glen and was... (*drumroll*) £14, down from £75. Although, the dinnerjacket was free so that was better. Whilst I was at the factory outlet village (which I shall henceforce go back to calling MacArthur Glen, since it's shorter) I took the opportunity to pop into Moss Bros. and get a proper dress shirt - you can always tell when you've bought a shirt from Moss Bros. because it comes attached to the cardboard with real metal pins rather than plastic clips. Anyone doing some sewing and want some pins? I also went for a bit of a walk on Good Friday & Easter Saturday. On Good Friday we went to 'the canal' although quite where it is is a mystery. Anyway, I took some photos there: Then, on Easter Saturday we went on an arduous walk up a mountain (well, we drove to the car park at the top of Caerphilly mountain and walked a few hundred yards (sorry, meters) over to the trig point). I took some photos there too: Then we went over to The Wenallt, and I took some more photos there: Then we popped into my grandmother's house on the way home and I took a photo of a daffodil there: Isn't the world a photogenic place?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to be getting on with.
Away? me? never. Anyway, something exciting to write about. I got some spam. Actually, I get lots of spam, but this particular bit caught my eye. It's a phishing attempt to get the details for my nonexistent PayPal account. Here's the text:
Dear valued PayPalr member:
Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of the paypal account we have issued this warning message.
It has come to our attention that your PayPalr account information needs to be updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our website. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and update your personal records you will not run into any future problems with the online service.
However, failure to update your records will result in account suspension. Please update your records on or before within 24 hours
Once you have updated your account records your paypal account service will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.
To update your PayPalr records click on the following link: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run
Thank You. PayPalr UPDATE TEAM
The interesting thing that first leaped out at me was the fact that whoever wrote it couldn't spell 'PayPal' for toffee (except in the message subject). The second thing was that it referred to PayPal customers as 'members' and the third thing was the fact that it described PayPal members as 'valued'. That was the dead giveaway - PayPal doesn't value its customers, it makes them sign terms of service which allow it to change the terms of service unilaterally and assume agreement and allows them to 'fine' their customers by draining their bank accounts if it doesn't like what they use the service for. Spammers 0 - 0 PayPal
