Sunday, July 19, 2009
[sunday syntax] complete this
Complete this sentence:
The way to a man's ______ is through his ______ .
The way to a man's ______ is through his ______ .
[good plan] needs to take account of the current agenda
Got you where we want you, sheepleMark Wadsworth is really gunning for it on his blog just now. We're up to N19 of his reasons why arguments against LVT won't wash. Along the way, he's written a number of things which stick in the mind.
Here is something he quoted:
The State seemingly doesn't want people at the job centre to get jobs (or it would be making them do a lot more), and even if they are offered a job, unless they are offered a good wage (average in the UK is about £25,000)* there is little incentive to take it.
If I decide to move into a flat on housing benefit, I will have a large incentive not to take a job unless it comes with a good [wage]. So, no bar jobs, no part time waiter work, etc. It just doesn't pay. The same goes for the other 2.38 million people.
I understand it's not exactly Mark I'm addressing here.
"The State seemingly doesn't want ..."
It certainly does seem that way. They know very well that as more and more become redundant [the actually employable], then there is an increasingly vast pool of able people available for the shrinking number of slots. And as market forces apply here, the tick boxes multiply to ridiculous proportions [I have seen this in two cases already and am sure it is countrywide]; they ask you to second, third and even fourth interviews, they um and ah and generally f--- you about.
Employers are, in reality, saying, on the one hand, that you must be a specialist. No, they say to your face, we want someone flexible. Bullsh, I retort - you need an NVQ for going to the toilet these days and the only people who are prepared to fork out for one of these NVQs is someone who has decided to be in that particular field. So, having demanded this waste of time and money, the employer then turns around, in an effort to differentiate between candidates and starts demanding all this side-experience and these other side-qualifications.
Experience in an area of work used to be a valuable asset, even more valuable when one is experienced in many different aspects of that area of work. Now, you can only be of value if you've got the latest Brownite bit of expensive paper which has zilch to do with whether you can do the job or not.
One thing the person Mark quoted did write, which is true, is that there's no point taking bar jobs or NMW part time work because there are things called mortgages, other repayments, gas, electricity, phone, council tax, water and insurance to pay. I estimated that I need £350 a week, just to cover expenses and pay for food.
Mark has this solution:
As background, I have long said, as a first step in the right direction, we could replace all existing taxes on residential properties (Council Tax, Stamp Duty Land Tax, Inheritance Tax, TV licence fee, Insurance Premium Tax etc) with a fiscally neutral flat tax on land/property at current market values, which would be about 1% per annum, i.e. on an average property worth £150,000, the annual tax would be £1,500, which is much the same as current council tax plus TV licence fee.
Any such system of taxation would have to work on the basis of averaged-out market values based on actual selling prices of properties in each area (i.e. postcode sector or local council ward etc). Sure, it's a bit rough and ready, but better to be roughly right than precisely wrong, say I.
On water supply, he says:
JH, thanks. But there's no such thing as "water rates" any more, you pay them to the water company. OK, if you're not on a meter, you pay a flat fee of [a made up figure] x [a made up percentage], but as a free marketeer, I approve of water meters (despite my family would probably end up paying more) and also believe that the government should charge water companies for their monopoly right to deliver water (the price to be decided by auction), but those are different topics.
Right, so let's take this further.
Lord T has a notion that planning permission will be removed from the local authority if enough people cause a huge problem. We discussed it and it might happen this way:
A young man is on £18 000 p.a. On that basis, he can only qualify for a mortgage of, say, £60 0000, based on his monthly gross against repayments. Let's say he and his girl plan to marry. She's on £14 000 and so they end up able to afford a £110 000 home. But the income/house price gap has artificially inflated to the point where they no longer can buy even a base home.
So, with the £7 000 or £8 000 they've managed to sock away, and the £20 grand the parents can supply, they almost manage the price but not all the other bits and pieces as well. You might ask where I'm getting these figures from. OK, I'm having a stab at them.
The bottom line is that new homes are not affordable, even in the recession.
What do the young people do? They do as they used to do in Russia - they live at home at one set of parents'. This is not good and if enough young couples across the country are in this position, the parents are also p---ed off by it and third world things are going to begin, once again as in Russia. Shacks start springing up in unzoned areas, holiday homes are used, old caravans are bought, campsites are utilized and lies are told.
In an atmosphere where, as Julia M points out, this is happening, the council prosecutes by the salami principle but it gets into the local rag and then everyone starts doing it. Don't forget the retiring boomers going on the dole and those who don't even qualify for it now finding themselves on the street - no dole, no pension [Gordon stole even the little bit they'd saved], no job prospects - a new underclass.
There'd be mayhem and hopefully the stranglehold would break but not before many tears at bedtime. Now Mark's ideas in a perfect world are fine and he makes a good case but he makes it as a fully-employed accountant and not as someone about to find himself on the street.
Economics cannot be fashioned in a vacuum. I think he's right in principle and furthermore, I'd like to see government reduced to almost negligible proportions but the simple truth is that we are observing an agenda which, as the person quoted above said, shows the government are not really interested in people being employed - they want little piglets at the mother pig's teats.
So, in order to achieve the goals we know we should achieve, we have some breaking down to do first. Meanwhile, a lot of people are going to be starving on the streets with these sudden knee-jerk swingeing cuts, as we move form one scenario to the otehr. And don't forget that if Irish Lisbon 2 is passed on October 10th, the socialist agenda will rule.
I'd like to ask Mark how, in this scenario, the tax plans I fully agree with him about can actually be brought into practice.
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[dancing, computing] and the two left feet syndrome
Now, 1-2-3- oh dear, what comes after 3?When I say I don't like dancing, I mean I love dancing but not when I'm doing it. Actually, I love dancing when I'm doing it but not when any woman is watching. The only solution in the early days was to be like The Fonz and be too cool to dance, which hid all these insecurities.
It's all very well a girl saying, 'It's easy, there's nothing to worry about.'
'Yeah, to you perhaps but to me it's like going to the dentist.'
'Oh no, James, it's just so ... oh ... wonderful. It sets you free. I could dance all night.' [This from a usually shy person, mind you.]
'I could dance all night too but not if you're watching every error I make.'
People are good at what they have liked for a long time. I can sail because I've been into it since I raised a towel on my paddle board as a kid and felt the first thrill of wind speed. The tiller in the hand tells a multitude of things about the trim of the boat and so on.
If you come on board, I'd put the tiller in your hand and when the boat lurches downwind, say, you'd be insecure. I'd say to you, 'Nonsense, it's easy.' Actually, I wouldn't say that because it's a ridiculous thing to tell someone.
Look, put me on the dance floor with you and I freak. The body is paralysed and that creates the two left feet. The face is drawn and super-serious. The only solution is to dance crazily, in some sort of cranked up two-step-come-ice-dance. It's five hours of sheer trauma. The slow dance comes as a relief. With you up close, something else comes into it and you're not watching my foot-moves [although you can sense them].
I don't dance, I'm not good at it and I've never practised it or been taught. Well, I did once go to dance lessons but that was only to get a girl - I don't remember any of it.
Bob B said about jive, in comments on the weekend poll update:
It was certainly challenging and intimidating for the neophyte - just standing there twitching to the music wasn't good enough. The newbie needed a sympathetic and encouraging partner to start learning and to avoid going on looking a complete lemon. To complicate matters, there were different styles of jiving which didn't readily blend - a floppy, stompy style and a tight, fast style, as in the video. Adherents of the one found it difficult to dance with adherents of the other. The result was likely to look a mess and induce frayed tempers.
I went to a dance party and a girl came up and wanted to dance. It had taken an hour to thaw out enough and I'd chosen a self-conscious girl who also had the two left feet problem. I felt comfortable being the one who drew her out of herself and as she saw I was no great shakes, she did thaw. Anyway, up came this other tall girl and somehow she got me to dance with her.
After a short time, I thought, 'She's not that great at this game,' and I started to loosen up and enjoy it. We danced for a long while.
Later in the evening, once again with the gf, we saw an exhibition performance and this Alexandra was one of the four and my goodness, she was unbelievable, the moves she made, perfect coordination of arms and legs. The jaw dropped and I said to the gf, 'I was dancing with her earlier.'
'I know, I saw you. You've got two left feet - even I dance better than you!'
End of story - that was the second last time I've ever danced with anyone for any reason whatsoever. I'm sure she said that because it was one thing she was excellent at [and she was] and I was terrible. She couldn't resist the dig.
We went for a holiday and that awful time came round late evening. Hallelujah, she fell asleep after the day's exertions. I tiptoed round the hotel room and made no noise. I was even prepared to give up N1 for the night. About 01:00, she woke up, realized what had happened, said, 'You bastard,' got herself ready and we had to go to the club.
It was closed.
We had to get a taxi to another one.
For some reason, it had closed its doors.
She gave up and that was maybe where I lost her. Of course, the thing I'm not too bad at wasn't on the agenda, was it, after my deception? The episode [in a previous post] with the rose between the teeth - that was the next evening in the hotel and though it was much better, I still gave dancing away completely because there was no pleasure in it.
An adept in any field - sport, dancing, sailing, computer games - has either forgotten or has little patience with a neophyte or non-adept. Women who can dance want one of those tall, handsome gigolos to flit around the floor with and then hubby or bf can, mercifully, go to the bar and sink a few whiskies.
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
If she cares at all, if she wants a dance partner in perpetuity, she doesn't say, 'Oh, go and get some lessons, would you!' She becomes what Bob mentioned above - a sympathetic and encouraging partner who is overcoming a quarter of a century of having avoided it whilst she can't wait to break out into dance any hour of the day or night.
Surely a woman realizes that someone who can move pretty swiftly between the sheets [and anywhere else round the room] could also possibly move on the dance floor, approached the right way.
Patience. Caring. Kindness. A forgiving attitude to her dear man. Aren't they supposed to be the traits of a woman? :)
...
A programmer friend of mine in Russia wanted to install a programme called Symantec Ghost on my hard drive. 'Fine,' I said, 'only go slowly and let me write down the steps so I can do it myself next time.'
He sat down and the fingers went at 4000 mph, disks were whipped out and others put in, something called Win Rar suddenly appeared and things suddenly disappeared, bang, bang, bang, all done!
'Yes but I didn't have time to write it down. Could you go through it patiently with me?'
I could see the frustration creeping in, the shoulders tensing and heard the little sigh. He started again in an exaggerated slowness but as it went on, he became faster and faster and faster. It was useless. The way I finally worked it out was after his third visit and slowly, slowly, I'd managed to get it all written down and then had a go myself, in my own time, at my own pace, making my own errors and discovering how to correct them.
Adepts in any field should bear this in mind.
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[spacewalk] one small step for endeavour ...
Spacewalk day:
Two astronauts ventured out on the first spacewalk of Endeavour's space station visit Saturday to help install a porch on Japan's expansive lab. Veteran spaceman David Wolf and rookie Timothy Kopra got straight to work as they floated out the hatch, 220 miles away from the planet. With Apollo 11 on the minds of many back on Earth, NASA noted that Saturday's spacewalk was the 201st by Americans since those first [alleged - JH] steps on the moon by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin 40 years ago this Monday.
Lord T will be happy:
The work involved extensive robotics with both the shuttle and station arms, as well as a hands-on effort by the spacewalkers. "It's going to be something," Wolf said earlier in the day. "It's a heck of a day of teamwork between robots and people in space and all over the world."
This blog's been concentrating on the dance of life between men and women lately but maybe we should be looking a bit more at the dance of entities between mankind and robots:
Hope it doesn't all end in tears:
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