Safety, and particularly highway safety, is highly emotive so beware anyone who steps up to rock that cradle. The core issues are clear beyond dispute. The closing speeds of vehicles on opposite direction carriageways are at their most extreme. Accidents can occur where vehicles end up crossing into the opposite carriageway, so these carriageways must to be separated. When these cross-overs happen the resulting carnage is horrific with inevitable loss of life. I do not underestimate the mental and physical distress on all those involved in cutting people out as a result of such an accident, trying to save lives and then having to break the news of a life lost so suddenly. There were three well established carriageway separators, tension cable or moulded sheet steel on posts, dense bush planting and now a new mass concrete continuous section about 900mm high.
We as a society do not choose to protect lives at all costs from the risk of death. The car manufacturer makes commercial judgements as to how much of life safety features are introduced into a car as standard. Not what is possible. Simply what is thought might seen as affordable by the customer, you and I, compared to a competitor. Or at best what we might choose as an extra over option and at what price level. Not a lot on the evidence and well, well short of the possible. How much to spend in saving lives is a pragmatic choice made by you and me. When we condone, as in stand by and watch, our youth going out to get plastered beyond their ability to control their life's consequences we have no right to take a high moral stand point. When we condone, as in standby and allow our politicians, to cut back spending on the frail elderly needy, so there are insufficient resources to ensure the basics of life are provided routinely hour in hour out. The essentials of shelter, food, basic daily care and minimal social contact, just the bare essentials, ignoring higher aspirations of improving their quality of life and giving them a meaningful environment to respond to. Then we have given up any right to claim life matters, claim it is our high priority.
So lets keep highway safety in perspective. Emotive yes, but actually lower down the pecking order I suggest than care for the elderly, care for our new born and care for our youth. Keep it real. Highway safety is yet another pragmatic cost choice. We are very aware of the scenes of road carnage as we pass by. The number of incidents are actually quiet small. 400 hundred cross-over events in a year resulting in 40 deaths. Keep it real. How many teenagers die as a result of excess alcohol? We probably dont know any more than we know how many elderly die of neglect or babies from inadequate natal care. These are not huge numbers considering the number of daily road journeys made. It is called risk management, something we are not used to thinking about but really do need to get a grip on. The level of risk is low and therefore tolerable compared to costs and consequence of trying to significantly improve on these figures when our journey qualities would have to take a huge nose-dive. Look around and see how much more relaxed our European neighbours can be about their road safety without incurring horrendous road causality figures.
So what has got me all fired up. CSB', concrete safety barrier's. I cannot recall a single political parties manifesto that referred to the need to replace motorway barriers. In these times of extreme austerity when services we hold dear are being cut off, not slashed and reduced, but simply turned off, who was it that got to decide in our name to spend hundreds of millions of pounds replacing these central barriers? Who in our name decided without reference to us, without inviting our opinion, that a replacement scheme was essential and should go ahead without consultation, without advertisement to us the public. Just de-facto. The decision was made and it happened. Who got to weigh up the rival merits of the different options and who made the decision, vetted by what watchdog committees, that concrete was the out and out winner? Such that ripping out the old barriers and replacing them with concrete was a right choice for our nation at this time? The interim advice IAN 60/05 that can be seen here, issued by the Highways Agency gives some insight. It appears to be a classic one-sided rival lobbying argument that has swept the board. All the contra arguments are brushed airily aside as if of little consequence. Only the supporting arguments, in favour of concrete, are given any credence. Note how concrete, one of the worst environmental materials, is given an unquestioning thumbs up, because it is home produced! This is indicative of the level of debate. Very partial and very one sided. So who cares. We all should.
The visual intrusion of these concrete barriers is horrendous. They are scale-less, featureless, will weather appallingly and reduces the drive experience to one of unrelieved visual boredom. Motorway designers had learnt their lesson and put gentle curves back into more economic straight roads just to relieve this visual boredom. At millions of pounds we are now relentlessly undoing that past insight. They cannot be easily replaced, we are now stuck with them for the future. But we should rise up and protest and stop more being laid down. This is not the driving experience any of us will relish, blinkered by the unrelenting featureless barrier that strips away any sense of distance and scale. That destroys any sense of the passing countryside. UKplc will become known as the bad driving experience of Europe. Design and environmental issues do matter and do have to be balanced against other priorities, even that of saving lives.
Monday, 24 October 2011
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Public or Private?
With the drive to privatise government quangos the vision has occurred to me of Serco or Centrica taking over the running English Heritage or the National Trust. Why not? I am sure they will run a lean tight organisation and would make pots of money out of it in the process. Far better than pour pots of taxpayers money down the bottomless drain. Government would then be free to concentrate on the important cabbages and king questions. Trouble is, just as with the NHS, when a government takes on accountability for providing a service to its citizens it cannot cherry pick and just do those nice easy profitable parts. The NHS ends up with all the knotty, difficult and inordinately expensive investigations and routines that the private sectors excludes out their policies and walks away from.
It easy to imagine honey spots of our countryside or highly popular stately homes, where the private sector would die to get their hands on them, to cream off some serious profits. That leaves all those scattered equally important but small or unspectacular visit places no one wants to go to, or where there are mountains of restoration to hold back decay or work to make available for visitors. Just those sort of places where profit orientated companies would run a mile from. As far as I know there are no plans to change the status of the National Trust nor English Heritage. My objective in raising this hare is that it exemplifies a breakpoint between functions that serve the nation and those functions which can or should be profit driven. The nations needs are not constrained to only profitable operations. Profit driven companies are not suited to providing needs where profit return cannot be the overriding judgement. For the record I do think its was a catastrophic mistake to sell off water, electricity and telephone. These are vital infrastructures necessary to sustain our nations progress, irrespective of cost or return. The sale of coal and postal services is fully justifiable as they are no longer mainstream to development. Equally ensuring a extensive high speed broadband backbone to cover the country is a crucial investment into our future. If left driven solely by profit, it may not be a fastest enough path nor ensure the widest covered.
We have to care for and invest in our Nation for our own wellbeing but also to give future generations as firm a start footing as we have inherited from the past. Which loops me back to my earlier post, Right to Plunder. We are but custodian of our Nation with a duty and obligation to nurture it and hand it on to future generations in a good viable state. Despite the strong armed bully boys who took whatever spoils they wanted, subjugated us to their will and tithed us on our labours. The Nation is ours, formed out of the sweat and toil of our forebears, cared, loved, protected and died for by succeeding generations. This is our inheritance and the inheritance we offer on to succeeding generations. Time to put our inheritance on a more secure and long term stable basis. No longer subject to the whims and fancies of monarch, or the titled, or those who would claim it and exploit as if it was their own.
Radical yes. For a start let us forgo on freehold. No one can own our Nation. Lease on a use, repair and return basis sure but in the end it returns to all of us. No more crown property, it was stolen from the people and now is the time to return it to the people. We all own the regal trinkets of wealth acquired out of our past endeavours and held as fiscal bounty. Not of course as individuals, not to be squandered but just as custodians. With a duty of care and protection. A duty exercised on all of our behalf's and well beyond the reach of government to mortgage against as cover to their extravagances. A custodianship that encourages us to connect with, participate in and take pride in, our mutual ownership. As in my Right of Plunder, nothing to be taken away unless restoration or compensation paid in full upfront. The land, the sea, the structures placed on it and the rights to run service on or under it, eventually all to return to us to pass on in turn to our successors.
It easy to imagine honey spots of our countryside or highly popular stately homes, where the private sector would die to get their hands on them, to cream off some serious profits. That leaves all those scattered equally important but small or unspectacular visit places no one wants to go to, or where there are mountains of restoration to hold back decay or work to make available for visitors. Just those sort of places where profit orientated companies would run a mile from. As far as I know there are no plans to change the status of the National Trust nor English Heritage. My objective in raising this hare is that it exemplifies a breakpoint between functions that serve the nation and those functions which can or should be profit driven. The nations needs are not constrained to only profitable operations. Profit driven companies are not suited to providing needs where profit return cannot be the overriding judgement. For the record I do think its was a catastrophic mistake to sell off water, electricity and telephone. These are vital infrastructures necessary to sustain our nations progress, irrespective of cost or return. The sale of coal and postal services is fully justifiable as they are no longer mainstream to development. Equally ensuring a extensive high speed broadband backbone to cover the country is a crucial investment into our future. If left driven solely by profit, it may not be a fastest enough path nor ensure the widest covered.
We have to care for and invest in our Nation for our own wellbeing but also to give future generations as firm a start footing as we have inherited from the past. Which loops me back to my earlier post, Right to Plunder. We are but custodian of our Nation with a duty and obligation to nurture it and hand it on to future generations in a good viable state. Despite the strong armed bully boys who took whatever spoils they wanted, subjugated us to their will and tithed us on our labours. The Nation is ours, formed out of the sweat and toil of our forebears, cared, loved, protected and died for by succeeding generations. This is our inheritance and the inheritance we offer on to succeeding generations. Time to put our inheritance on a more secure and long term stable basis. No longer subject to the whims and fancies of monarch, or the titled, or those who would claim it and exploit as if it was their own.
Radical yes. For a start let us forgo on freehold. No one can own our Nation. Lease on a use, repair and return basis sure but in the end it returns to all of us. No more crown property, it was stolen from the people and now is the time to return it to the people. We all own the regal trinkets of wealth acquired out of our past endeavours and held as fiscal bounty. Not of course as individuals, not to be squandered but just as custodians. With a duty of care and protection. A duty exercised on all of our behalf's and well beyond the reach of government to mortgage against as cover to their extravagances. A custodianship that encourages us to connect with, participate in and take pride in, our mutual ownership. As in my Right of Plunder, nothing to be taken away unless restoration or compensation paid in full upfront. The land, the sea, the structures placed on it and the rights to run service on or under it, eventually all to return to us to pass on in turn to our successors.
Saturday, 15 October 2011
Baptism of Fire
Just a few months ago we started volunteering with a group helping to improve the local woodlands biodiversity and access. An opportunity to spend time in woodlands, in glorious locations, doing something useful and, as it turned out, amongst a varied group of nice guys. Vaguely knew that clearing scrub and creating opportunities for free foraging cattle opened up the floor flora to wider diversity encouraging a wider fauna to live and breed. Seemed all very simple and straight forward. I knew next to nothing about the whys, where's or hows of what we were doing. Trusted that there was a Master Planner somewhere who looked down and gave approval and that it would turn out right. From the odd discarded comments, picked up the odd gold nugget that revealed more than I knew of this my local habitat.
Then managed to get myself included in this outdoor conference, "the Woodland Edge" for all those wide ranging professionals whose work one way or another impacts on woodlands. So my mind-blowing journey began, opening me up to some of the wide range of issues that confront woodlands, their management, their financing and their future. You will have gathered from my previous post, Caged by Language, that I was uncomfortably thrown into a very touchie feelie world were emotional content was probably more important to the participants than identify and isolating problems so that tentative solutions could be aired. Maybe I got it wrong but that was my impression. But of course it was only the start of my journey. Well everyone has to be on a journey nowadays. I went with the expectation of coming away with some comprehension of the dynamics of woodlands. Why on earth would anyone choose to invest in planting trees, leaving them for the next couple of generations to cut down and make some money out of. Then there was the issue of conservation and special designated areas where trees just could not be cut down to produce income, willynilly. How did they fit into it all. As a backstory perhaps, who was really profiteering from all this free volunteer labour, the community or some other behind the scene's organisation whose motives I may not necessarily endorse.
During the conference a great many issues were aired that explored degrees of these or similar issues. May be the professionals, (the salaried experts in their particular field) were well versed and brought an in depth understanding. It was not clear to me at all, as the discussions ranged across from forests, as I like to think of them, being mono-cultured planted stock, with a planned life and clear-felled for profit all the way across to the opposite side. A SSSI woodland where every decision to keep, enhance or remove has to be fully argued and justified in some balancing act between an existing living ecosystem and an aspiration to get back to some fixed in time aspirational ecosystem. With a whole range of woodlands falling between these extremes displaying more or less of one characteristics or another. So our professionals discussions were able to range across these woodland distinctions without feeling the need to clarify which aspect of woodland mix they had in mind. But then the conference was more about connecting with emotions than with the dross of practical distinctions.
After the conference I tired to share as feedback the confusion I took away with me but felt like a ignorant pariah pissing on the wonderful emotive outpourings. No really the conference mood was invigorating and uplifting it just did not give me answers that was looking for. Then I turn to "ECOS - a review of conservation" it seems as if it is an academic journal publishing researched papers. Then another world again opens up to conservation at a tipping point with government pushing in one direction. Localism with central direction of volunteer effort. In the opposite direction, that of communities, their 'ownership' of landscape feature which are significant in their daily lives and how their energies can be co-opted to help them to see and achieve their aspirations for their landscape. Irrespective of the extended technicalities of land ownership. At the heart of all these issues, is of course the big question. As a citizen of UKplc who actually owns and controls the land we stand on and live our lives within. When a special historic woodland is designated as something special, does it still 'belong' to the Crown Estates who hold the land deeds, the Forest Commission who hold a lease to manage and operate it within the constraints set by 'Government' who have prescribed what can or cannot happen, presumably for the benefit of all us citizens, so we can carry on enjoying and experiencing this designated unique space and habitat. There is a conundrum. Add to that mix profit and tax benefits for anyone who can show title to a piece of land and you have a potent heady brew with deep seated vested interests.. No wonder our professionals are baffled and confused as to who they serve and what the end objective is. There is no way the complexities of the issues they face can be wrapped up into simple 30 second sound bites capable of being understood by the legislators would make the changes. Equally how do we, as citizens of UKplc, relate, respond and make vocal our concerns for the environment we live in, care about and want to leave in good health for future generations? Have a look at Right to Plunder where I sketch out my thoughts on a self-financing way forward.
Then managed to get myself included in this outdoor conference, "the Woodland Edge" for all those wide ranging professionals whose work one way or another impacts on woodlands. So my mind-blowing journey began, opening me up to some of the wide range of issues that confront woodlands, their management, their financing and their future. You will have gathered from my previous post, Caged by Language, that I was uncomfortably thrown into a very touchie feelie world were emotional content was probably more important to the participants than identify and isolating problems so that tentative solutions could be aired. Maybe I got it wrong but that was my impression. But of course it was only the start of my journey. Well everyone has to be on a journey nowadays. I went with the expectation of coming away with some comprehension of the dynamics of woodlands. Why on earth would anyone choose to invest in planting trees, leaving them for the next couple of generations to cut down and make some money out of. Then there was the issue of conservation and special designated areas where trees just could not be cut down to produce income, willynilly. How did they fit into it all. As a backstory perhaps, who was really profiteering from all this free volunteer labour, the community or some other behind the scene's organisation whose motives I may not necessarily endorse.
During the conference a great many issues were aired that explored degrees of these or similar issues. May be the professionals, (the salaried experts in their particular field) were well versed and brought an in depth understanding. It was not clear to me at all, as the discussions ranged across from forests, as I like to think of them, being mono-cultured planted stock, with a planned life and clear-felled for profit all the way across to the opposite side. A SSSI woodland where every decision to keep, enhance or remove has to be fully argued and justified in some balancing act between an existing living ecosystem and an aspiration to get back to some fixed in time aspirational ecosystem. With a whole range of woodlands falling between these extremes displaying more or less of one characteristics or another. So our professionals discussions were able to range across these woodland distinctions without feeling the need to clarify which aspect of woodland mix they had in mind. But then the conference was more about connecting with emotions than with the dross of practical distinctions.
After the conference I tired to share as feedback the confusion I took away with me but felt like a ignorant pariah pissing on the wonderful emotive outpourings. No really the conference mood was invigorating and uplifting it just did not give me answers that was looking for. Then I turn to "ECOS - a review of conservation" it seems as if it is an academic journal publishing researched papers. Then another world again opens up to conservation at a tipping point with government pushing in one direction. Localism with central direction of volunteer effort. In the opposite direction, that of communities, their 'ownership' of landscape feature which are significant in their daily lives and how their energies can be co-opted to help them to see and achieve their aspirations for their landscape. Irrespective of the extended technicalities of land ownership. At the heart of all these issues, is of course the big question. As a citizen of UKplc who actually owns and controls the land we stand on and live our lives within. When a special historic woodland is designated as something special, does it still 'belong' to the Crown Estates who hold the land deeds, the Forest Commission who hold a lease to manage and operate it within the constraints set by 'Government' who have prescribed what can or cannot happen, presumably for the benefit of all us citizens, so we can carry on enjoying and experiencing this designated unique space and habitat. There is a conundrum. Add to that mix profit and tax benefits for anyone who can show title to a piece of land and you have a potent heady brew with deep seated vested interests.. No wonder our professionals are baffled and confused as to who they serve and what the end objective is. There is no way the complexities of the issues they face can be wrapped up into simple 30 second sound bites capable of being understood by the legislators would make the changes. Equally how do we, as citizens of UKplc, relate, respond and make vocal our concerns for the environment we live in, care about and want to leave in good health for future generations? Have a look at Right to Plunder where I sketch out my thoughts on a self-financing way forward.
Monday, 10 October 2011
Caged by language
A recent conference I was lucky to attend reminded me very eloquently that the expression of our emotions, for one, are constrained by our language. A telling example was given that the Romans imposed a controlling and contained language on us where our use of 'Nature', even when softened to Mother Nature, is a one stage removed abstract. Compare that to a pre-roman direct connection to 'Mother', being the earth and surroundings that support and nurture us. A very direct positive and emotive connection to the land that sustains us. Tosh? Not when you explore your reactions to your environment and understand that the words available to you to explore your inner feelings are remote, detached, non-connected. Other languages do have a much more positive connection, you to your tribe, your ancestors and to those you depend on.
Not that I had that insight prior to the conference but I was stumbling around becoming aware we are both constrained and liberated by our language strictures. For some things we have wide variety of terms to draw on yet in some other areas there are no words or phrase which can quite offer a true summation of the inner thoughts processes. The wealth of English words is vastly enriched by all the nuances of association or social propriety that by phrasing or posture or altered tone it can be imbued with. Whilst we do enjoy a rich language we must do not lose sight that it is also limiting. Our obligation to each other must be to strive for clarity of expression, to get as close to our inner thoughts as possible. The fudge, the double speak actually spread confusion, not the harmony claimed (see also It is not important).
The other aspect of this very rewarding conference, Woodland Edge, was how, for me, it was disconcertingly touchie and feelie. I believe I have no trouble getting in touch with my emotions. My discipline depends on a continual examination and introspection of emotive responses to every conceivable environmental circumstance. How to respond to colour, texture, light, space, ownership, as non-exclusive examples. Every creative response requiring this internalised autopsy. This then is where I take some issue to the touchie feelie brigade. Though a maelstrom of connectedness and a feeling of oneness is cathartic, though it builds bridges which can become pathways for future problem solving what it does not do is to identify all those friction points where conflicts of objective or intention can become stuck. I have been schooled to objectify my internalised emotional responses. What is it that generated such a response and how might it be changed to heighten or diffuse that response. So touchie feelies also need to progress beyond the exhilaration of feeling and explore those areas, not of agreement, but of divergence. Bottoming out on where they differ, not so feel good, but actually more important as this will reveal insight into future possible problems.
All the time we must not lose sight of the limitations of our language and just as importantly the constraints of our particular discipline's thought processes and the jargon with which they are expressed. The more I see the more I realise that we humans are more or less on the same wavelength. In the end it is the just words and phrases used that seem to pose threatening discord. Strip back the words to more neutral expressions and we are actually expressing similar thoughts just but couched differently. That is all there is in the supposed conflict. Language. Remember every time you start a sentence it sets off a wave of limits and expectations to be followed. Start the same idea but with a different sentence lead in and you will end up communicating some thing slightly different, with a shifted emphasis. We are caged by our language but it is all we have to express all of ourselves with. It is essential to talk, to talk clearly and talk precisely.
Not that I had that insight prior to the conference but I was stumbling around becoming aware we are both constrained and liberated by our language strictures. For some things we have wide variety of terms to draw on yet in some other areas there are no words or phrase which can quite offer a true summation of the inner thoughts processes. The wealth of English words is vastly enriched by all the nuances of association or social propriety that by phrasing or posture or altered tone it can be imbued with. Whilst we do enjoy a rich language we must do not lose sight that it is also limiting. Our obligation to each other must be to strive for clarity of expression, to get as close to our inner thoughts as possible. The fudge, the double speak actually spread confusion, not the harmony claimed (see also It is not important).
The other aspect of this very rewarding conference, Woodland Edge, was how, for me, it was disconcertingly touchie and feelie. I believe I have no trouble getting in touch with my emotions. My discipline depends on a continual examination and introspection of emotive responses to every conceivable environmental circumstance. How to respond to colour, texture, light, space, ownership, as non-exclusive examples. Every creative response requiring this internalised autopsy. This then is where I take some issue to the touchie feelie brigade. Though a maelstrom of connectedness and a feeling of oneness is cathartic, though it builds bridges which can become pathways for future problem solving what it does not do is to identify all those friction points where conflicts of objective or intention can become stuck. I have been schooled to objectify my internalised emotional responses. What is it that generated such a response and how might it be changed to heighten or diffuse that response. So touchie feelies also need to progress beyond the exhilaration of feeling and explore those areas, not of agreement, but of divergence. Bottoming out on where they differ, not so feel good, but actually more important as this will reveal insight into future possible problems.
All the time we must not lose sight of the limitations of our language and just as importantly the constraints of our particular discipline's thought processes and the jargon with which they are expressed. The more I see the more I realise that we humans are more or less on the same wavelength. In the end it is the just words and phrases used that seem to pose threatening discord. Strip back the words to more neutral expressions and we are actually expressing similar thoughts just but couched differently. That is all there is in the supposed conflict. Language. Remember every time you start a sentence it sets off a wave of limits and expectations to be followed. Start the same idea but with a different sentence lead in and you will end up communicating some thing slightly different, with a shifted emphasis. We are caged by our language but it is all we have to express all of ourselves with. It is essential to talk, to talk clearly and talk precisely.
Saturday, 24 September 2011
Bankrupt Nation
Been here before, so see also my Government Savings, this Nation is overspending on its Government. Compounded by us, its citizens, with unrealistic, or rather unaffordable, expectations of what can actually be provided or responded to. The size of slice taken to run UKplc is far too great compared to the income UKplc can generate. We are living way beyond our means and get by, by opening a new credit card then spending to its limits without being able to pay back the interest. Suddenly people are waking up to the total absurdity of private investment in new NHS hospitals. It always was crazy double thinking but it got politicians off the hook and gave a back door way to pay for the desperate re-investment required. A back door that had a very nasty and a painful bite some years on. A bite some people are only now waking up to. There is a huge yearly ongoing cost just to service the investment. A cost way in excess of what it would have cost if governement had made the investment directly.
We are in the centre of fudge land. We have expectations of what our country should do and provide for us. UKplc just cannot afford to meet those expectations. The politicians cannot, if they are to survive, tell us to our face that we cannot no longer get what we expect as of a right. UKplc cannot borrow more as it has already exceeded its spending limits. So fudge, enter the world of magic mirrors, where you can spend on huge luxuries, but not actually spend, well not today but only later on down the line. A huge HP loan with deferred easy payments. Everyone happy right? Of course not. As the deferred payments kick in, as they must some time, surprise, surprise, what you have left to spend has been sharply cut back and you owe more to the remorseless repayment schedules and have nothing left to buy for today. It was and is a lunacy.
Yet we clearly do need massive investment in the NHS, and schools and roads and transport. We do actually need to upgrade the apparatus of government and bring it kicking into the ways of the C21 world. We are not in the realm of finding 5%, 10% or even 25% efficiency savings. We really do have to take stock of what we, UKplc, are and what is the level of governance that is supportable. We were once a global power with a huge global empire, a key player. US of A has made it its business to take us out of that role. Today we are a crowded off shore island associated with a big powerful European Union of large nations struggling to come together and work in some sort of harmony. We are a marginal small bit player. Getting marginalised because we fail to play our trumps wisely and opportunely. At this level of play we simply cannot afford grandiose ideas of having an aircraft carrier, with all the attendant fleet, nuclear submarines, an airforce with world strike capability nor an army able to fight in all theatres of the world. What is affordable within our current so much smaller role in the world is a national defence force able to defend its frontiers, if you must, working in close collaboration with our neighbours. That is the stark reality.
I do not have a down on the defence services per say, more on that another time maybe. It is just that they encapsulate so well this bloated transition from global power to small bit player. We cannot give up the baggage of our past and come to terms with today's realities. We just do not have the income to sustain a world power role. But look around and there is evidence of this same bloat everywhere. Ministries and support institutions that were fit and proper for an empire but are grossly oversized and over ambitious for our now current status. We need a new slimmed down model of government that is fit, sleek and apt for the situation we now occupy. Many cherished objects and institutes of national pride may have to be sacrificed as we navel gaze our way from that empirical past down to our new needs. Political Parties have talk the talk for years, exorcising this tip here or this unloved limb there, tinkering, not radical. We need radical now, what is the minimum basics we must have to survive in today's world? That is the starting premise.
Along the way we will have to confront the issue of our expectations that 'they' can and will do everything about all those things that perturb us in our daily life. This is a socialist fantasy, actually a nightmare dream, of the State being the all provider. We are too unique, too diverse and too individual to ever be content with a uniform state provision. But there is a lot of comfort in that escape route, the government must should do that, sort it out so I do not have to bother about it. It is lazy, self-indulgent thinking that has become deeply rooted in our national thought. Time to turn tables.Out of the chaos will emerge a sleek, energetic and quickly responsive UKplc up for taking on of what ever challenges lie around the corner. Confident in its abilities and able to deliver decisively. Well that is my dream.
We are in the centre of fudge land. We have expectations of what our country should do and provide for us. UKplc just cannot afford to meet those expectations. The politicians cannot, if they are to survive, tell us to our face that we cannot no longer get what we expect as of a right. UKplc cannot borrow more as it has already exceeded its spending limits. So fudge, enter the world of magic mirrors, where you can spend on huge luxuries, but not actually spend, well not today but only later on down the line. A huge HP loan with deferred easy payments. Everyone happy right? Of course not. As the deferred payments kick in, as they must some time, surprise, surprise, what you have left to spend has been sharply cut back and you owe more to the remorseless repayment schedules and have nothing left to buy for today. It was and is a lunacy.
Yet we clearly do need massive investment in the NHS, and schools and roads and transport. We do actually need to upgrade the apparatus of government and bring it kicking into the ways of the C21 world. We are not in the realm of finding 5%, 10% or even 25% efficiency savings. We really do have to take stock of what we, UKplc, are and what is the level of governance that is supportable. We were once a global power with a huge global empire, a key player. US of A has made it its business to take us out of that role. Today we are a crowded off shore island associated with a big powerful European Union of large nations struggling to come together and work in some sort of harmony. We are a marginal small bit player. Getting marginalised because we fail to play our trumps wisely and opportunely. At this level of play we simply cannot afford grandiose ideas of having an aircraft carrier, with all the attendant fleet, nuclear submarines, an airforce with world strike capability nor an army able to fight in all theatres of the world. What is affordable within our current so much smaller role in the world is a national defence force able to defend its frontiers, if you must, working in close collaboration with our neighbours. That is the stark reality.
I do not have a down on the defence services per say, more on that another time maybe. It is just that they encapsulate so well this bloated transition from global power to small bit player. We cannot give up the baggage of our past and come to terms with today's realities. We just do not have the income to sustain a world power role. But look around and there is evidence of this same bloat everywhere. Ministries and support institutions that were fit and proper for an empire but are grossly oversized and over ambitious for our now current status. We need a new slimmed down model of government that is fit, sleek and apt for the situation we now occupy. Many cherished objects and institutes of national pride may have to be sacrificed as we navel gaze our way from that empirical past down to our new needs. Political Parties have talk the talk for years, exorcising this tip here or this unloved limb there, tinkering, not radical. We need radical now, what is the minimum basics we must have to survive in today's world? That is the starting premise.
Along the way we will have to confront the issue of our expectations that 'they' can and will do everything about all those things that perturb us in our daily life. This is a socialist fantasy, actually a nightmare dream, of the State being the all provider. We are too unique, too diverse and too individual to ever be content with a uniform state provision. But there is a lot of comfort in that escape route, the government must should do that, sort it out so I do not have to bother about it. It is lazy, self-indulgent thinking that has become deeply rooted in our national thought. Time to turn tables.Out of the chaos will emerge a sleek, energetic and quickly responsive UKplc up for taking on of what ever challenges lie around the corner. Confident in its abilities and able to deliver decisively. Well that is my dream.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Slow Death
The Accountants are slowly strangling and stifflling the life out of UKplc. Now let us get this straight from the outset. You have to make a profit to survive in business, no question. In hard times you have to work your business hard, cut out waste, improve efficiency, make sure you are as productive and effective as you can be. Run a lean mean machine, no problems. There is however a switch over point. When you run your business with the aim to make a better profit, achieve a percentage increase in market share, to improve your shareholding status or whatever of the many and varied slices the Accountants use to 'judge' the financial success of a business by. You have crossed the line.
The first and only criteria to be in business is to provide what you do to the best of your ability and to the customers satisfaction. Once you lose that motivation you have sold out any solid morale justification and thereby squandered your rights to be in business. No matter how much hype and smooth sounding customer focussed mission statements you come up with you have lost that vital contract. Your personal contract to provide the best. This is where UKplc is now finding itself. Whether we are talking the corner shop, a long-standing family firm, a national or international producer or supplier. The Accountants have their claw around them all. We have grown to expect short-term solutions to be the sole inspiration, another percentage point here or there in profits or growth. Entirely losing sight of the long-term goal of keeping your existing customers happy and wanting them to come back, again and again and telling all their friends to join in. This is real growth, this is real vitality and this is the only measure of survival.
If your priority of attention is to squeeze another percentage point of profit out of your business, the end figures may look very impressive, with lots of noughts, but along the way you have had to sacrifice. The sacrifice might be one or some of many things, quality, supplier relationships, staffing morale, reject standards, returns handling, future investment, plant upgrades, transaction delays, support, or a whole host of other such issues. A host with one thing in common they directly impinge on what you supply and your customers satisfaction in receiving what you offer. A host that might add a small percentage in your costs and that can look large in the balance sheet. They can make major contributions to achieving quality, but quality is not a balance sheet account. So any of these minor irritants that you have given ground on have set off a time-fuse. Your criteria for quality has become compromised. A fuse that will, over time, gradually eat away at customer satisfaction and confidence. By then your business will be in terminal decline and your helpful Accountant, that helped you make more profits, will have slipped away to a better and more promising punter.
Once you give ground on being the sole arbiter on what you are offering and it becomes subject to others value-engineering assessments then you are in the mire. Savings are always easy to offer but retaining the standards you set for yourself are a daily nightmare battle only you can make.
This is where this blog wants us to all stop and think. As we too are the Chief Executives of our own business. How we put ourselves out and about is our business and we need to be clear in our minds the standards we set ourselves to achieve. Not to be seduced by tempting offers to buy more, buy cheaper, buy easier but to keep on taking ourselves to task for not quite attaining that quality standard we know is right for us.
So look around, be alert, questioning and challenging on whose products you bring into your life. Keep your life account in balance but strive within that limitation to make the quality happen on a daily basis that you know is right for you.
The first and only criteria to be in business is to provide what you do to the best of your ability and to the customers satisfaction. Once you lose that motivation you have sold out any solid morale justification and thereby squandered your rights to be in business. No matter how much hype and smooth sounding customer focussed mission statements you come up with you have lost that vital contract. Your personal contract to provide the best. This is where UKplc is now finding itself. Whether we are talking the corner shop, a long-standing family firm, a national or international producer or supplier. The Accountants have their claw around them all. We have grown to expect short-term solutions to be the sole inspiration, another percentage point here or there in profits or growth. Entirely losing sight of the long-term goal of keeping your existing customers happy and wanting them to come back, again and again and telling all their friends to join in. This is real growth, this is real vitality and this is the only measure of survival.
If your priority of attention is to squeeze another percentage point of profit out of your business, the end figures may look very impressive, with lots of noughts, but along the way you have had to sacrifice. The sacrifice might be one or some of many things, quality, supplier relationships, staffing morale, reject standards, returns handling, future investment, plant upgrades, transaction delays, support, or a whole host of other such issues. A host with one thing in common they directly impinge on what you supply and your customers satisfaction in receiving what you offer. A host that might add a small percentage in your costs and that can look large in the balance sheet. They can make major contributions to achieving quality, but quality is not a balance sheet account. So any of these minor irritants that you have given ground on have set off a time-fuse. Your criteria for quality has become compromised. A fuse that will, over time, gradually eat away at customer satisfaction and confidence. By then your business will be in terminal decline and your helpful Accountant, that helped you make more profits, will have slipped away to a better and more promising punter.
Once you give ground on being the sole arbiter on what you are offering and it becomes subject to others value-engineering assessments then you are in the mire. Savings are always easy to offer but retaining the standards you set for yourself are a daily nightmare battle only you can make.
This is where this blog wants us to all stop and think. As we too are the Chief Executives of our own business. How we put ourselves out and about is our business and we need to be clear in our minds the standards we set ourselves to achieve. Not to be seduced by tempting offers to buy more, buy cheaper, buy easier but to keep on taking ourselves to task for not quite attaining that quality standard we know is right for us.
So look around, be alert, questioning and challenging on whose products you bring into your life. Keep your life account in balance but strive within that limitation to make the quality happen on a daily basis that you know is right for you.
Friday, 2 September 2011
All in the Genes
Very late in my life
I found out about my paternal grandparents. Up until then I had interpreted all my personal characteristics within the terms of what I knew about my maternal side. Only just very recently it has become crystal clear that my (and other members of my family) single minded focus and concentration on fine detail counterbalanced with an aloof distancing from anything beyond my direct control, clearly comes down the line from my Paternal GMa. Equally my 'blue-sky' thinking, that gazing eagerly at an unfocussed future together with a passionate deep socialism, not your limp wristed capitalist lap dog Labour Party style, comes staight down the line from my Paternal GPa. So all my past assumptions about family characteristics were so wrong and are now history. I have had to reinvent myself at my age.
So what? Well the more that is being revealed about those genes that we inherit the more it becomes clear that everything, just about everything, from facial features, postures, to skin blemishes, the site for and wrinkle formation, our personality mix, it is all set in the genes we get at conception. The journey to understanding the gene contribution is on its way but it still has a long way to travel. What I am picking up is that hardship endured a couple of generations before will impact on the latest generation. I sense that particular trades accumulated particular aptitudes that fine tuned them for the demands of their work. I can see that a tailor has a different skills mind set from a coal-miner or farm labourer, a skill set that gets passed down the line. Or a weaver has a different take on life than a ship welder. All down to the genes. Sure environment plays a crucial part, emphasising or suppressing characteristics until lady luck gets to play her hand, but only working within that unique blend of genes you to inherit.
What on earth then do people think, when they go in for a donor child, whether by egg or sperm? A child is not a feel good status symbol toy. It is a huge investment, of time, emotion, energy, self-sacrifice, money that last for the remainder of the parents life-time. Not a glib, wouldn't it be nice, choice but life changing with no return ticket. The genes that you pick to mix up with yours are important, not to be left to some vague random factor. Not that I am saying a rapist or a murder passes these traits on in their genes but there are mind sets that clearly could sit very uncomfortably with another. But the genes your own mixes with are relevant and important. The next worst option to a wildcard choice would be to try and select for a particular aptitude. Crufts and dogs springs to mind, we just do not have skills to select for a well rounded human, versatile and flexible to cope with a very uncertain future. What has served us so well in the past is still the best option on offer, mutual attraction. Financial advantage, social status and stability are also runners but often with a latent sting in the tail. No, mutual attraction wins hands down.
Our understanding and conciousness of the ideal mate selection process may be almost entirely missing but there are, nevertheless intuitive processes at work, if only we give them time and a chance. It takes more than a steamy aroused one night stand to suss out whether a soul mate has been found. Conception really is best deferred until there is a solid air of certainty that this mate will be good for the long haul and that prospect, of living together, looks attractive. We have not even scratched the surface of why people develop mutual attraction, so for me, there is no techno fix. Just this belief in an intuitive process at work that rules some potential mates in and a lot more potentials definitely out. A complex process, this mate selection, with all sorts of variable and alternative game strategies. There is only one endgame objective, to find a mate that will care, support and bring up any progeny for the duration. Liking them in the meantime can be a considerable bonus.
So no one-night stands with a lifetime of regret for what might have been, certainly not a donor child with who knows what genes on offer and a categoric no to a technical profiled best gene match until, or if, we get to fully understand the processes. In the meantime just learn to listen to your heart strings.They are the very best thing you have going for you to find the best fit gene match to what you have on offer. Genes matter, it is all in the genes.
ps Have now found out that I inherited an ability to be cold, detached and dispassionate when faced with conflicts from my Maternal GMa. Keeping emotions in check and out of the equation can be a good analytical tool but boy it does make relationships fraught!
So what? Well the more that is being revealed about those genes that we inherit the more it becomes clear that everything, just about everything, from facial features, postures, to skin blemishes, the site for and wrinkle formation, our personality mix, it is all set in the genes we get at conception. The journey to understanding the gene contribution is on its way but it still has a long way to travel. What I am picking up is that hardship endured a couple of generations before will impact on the latest generation. I sense that particular trades accumulated particular aptitudes that fine tuned them for the demands of their work. I can see that a tailor has a different skills mind set from a coal-miner or farm labourer, a skill set that gets passed down the line. Or a weaver has a different take on life than a ship welder. All down to the genes. Sure environment plays a crucial part, emphasising or suppressing characteristics until lady luck gets to play her hand, but only working within that unique blend of genes you to inherit.
What on earth then do people think, when they go in for a donor child, whether by egg or sperm? A child is not a feel good status symbol toy. It is a huge investment, of time, emotion, energy, self-sacrifice, money that last for the remainder of the parents life-time. Not a glib, wouldn't it be nice, choice but life changing with no return ticket. The genes that you pick to mix up with yours are important, not to be left to some vague random factor. Not that I am saying a rapist or a murder passes these traits on in their genes but there are mind sets that clearly could sit very uncomfortably with another. But the genes your own mixes with are relevant and important. The next worst option to a wildcard choice would be to try and select for a particular aptitude. Crufts and dogs springs to mind, we just do not have skills to select for a well rounded human, versatile and flexible to cope with a very uncertain future. What has served us so well in the past is still the best option on offer, mutual attraction. Financial advantage, social status and stability are also runners but often with a latent sting in the tail. No, mutual attraction wins hands down.
Our understanding and conciousness of the ideal mate selection process may be almost entirely missing but there are, nevertheless intuitive processes at work, if only we give them time and a chance. It takes more than a steamy aroused one night stand to suss out whether a soul mate has been found. Conception really is best deferred until there is a solid air of certainty that this mate will be good for the long haul and that prospect, of living together, looks attractive. We have not even scratched the surface of why people develop mutual attraction, so for me, there is no techno fix. Just this belief in an intuitive process at work that rules some potential mates in and a lot more potentials definitely out. A complex process, this mate selection, with all sorts of variable and alternative game strategies. There is only one endgame objective, to find a mate that will care, support and bring up any progeny for the duration. Liking them in the meantime can be a considerable bonus.
So no one-night stands with a lifetime of regret for what might have been, certainly not a donor child with who knows what genes on offer and a categoric no to a technical profiled best gene match until, or if, we get to fully understand the processes. In the meantime just learn to listen to your heart strings.They are the very best thing you have going for you to find the best fit gene match to what you have on offer. Genes matter, it is all in the genes.
ps Have now found out that I inherited an ability to be cold, detached and dispassionate when faced with conflicts from my Maternal GMa. Keeping emotions in check and out of the equation can be a good analytical tool but boy it does make relationships fraught!
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