The World Of Meerkat

An open letter to the Ramadan Foundation

2013-09-23T09:38:00.002-07:00

I heard the announcement on the news the other week that Mr Jeremy Hunt, Justice Minister for Her Majesty's Government, was proposing the start of a public debate on the issue of face coverings on women in the Muslim religion.

The same news item announced that the Ramadan Foundation was "angry" at this government announcement, which puzzles me because there are a number of different sources saying whether this is a compulsory or cultural requirement of the faith or is left open to personal choice.

The whole idea of a debate is to allow two opposing sides to state their case in relation to a motion, take questions and for the audience to cast their vote following the speakers making those cases.

Surely a public debate is something that an organisation such as the Ramadan Foundation would be welcoming as here is a perfect chance to utilise a platform provided by HM Government to be able to clear up the confusion and explain thing as well as hearing from an opposing or alternate view.

Perhaps the Ramadan Foundation should also remember that HM Government is a democratically elected organisation from across the entire UK electorate where as yours is elected (at best) from within the ranks of its own membership.

Doorstep Chuggers

2013-03-09T01:15:00.002-08:00

This post was prompted by another round of door-to-door charity collectors, or chuggers, last Friday night.

In the UK, the word "chugger" is a slang term short for "charity mugger": it refers to people who either stop you in the streets, stop you in the supermarket, or come to your door to persuade you to sign up to donate a monthly amount from your bank account to the charity they work for (direct debit donations, which I'll call D3 for short).

They are unpopular here because of the attitudes and tactics of some of them, plus the fact that many of these chuggers are employed by recruitment agencies under contract to the charities, so there's another cut. In fact, it's believed that it takes 13 months of D3 for a charity to start seeing the actual money from the donor because they've covered the costs of the chugger.

There's also the question of are these chuggers actually genuinely working for the charities they say they represent? It isn't that difficult to get the logo for a charity, get some jackets/tabbards screen printed, get the local authority permits and pretend to be from a charity - since many charities use third party agencies now to do street / door-to-door collections, how can a local authority commit the resources to check these companies out thoroughly?

Now, I (like many other people in the UK) have a sign on my door that states "No cold callers", which is aimed at people selling at the door. The version I have also asks charities and religious groups not to call as I'm not interested. I still get people calling, even though the sign is big and blue on a white door, so how can they not see it??)

Anyone reading this who works for a charity, please bear this in mind for your future door-to-door campaigns because chugging is bad for your funds as it's costing you more than you think and your reputation since it's alienating potential donors.

There's also the issue of implied right of access to be considered: a homeowner can withdraw the implied right of access from any person or company (except for people like meter readers, emergency services, utility companies on emergency business), and this does include charities and their agents.

If you send in a door-to-door agent to gain new donors and they ignore a no cold callers sign that asks them not to call (even though charities and religious groups are exempt from the regulations, which is a rant for another time), there is nothing to stop a homeowner from calling the police if your people do not leave when asked and then withdrawing the implied right of access from your staff / agents.

Police commissioner elections?

2012-10-08T10:35:00.001-07:00

In a sudden new twist, we're getting to vote for our own police commissioners on November 15th. First I really heard of it was late last week when our Labour party candidate, MP and local councillor put their campaign leaflet through the door.

In theory, this is just England and Wales, and each region's force will have one publically-elected commissioner to cover it (as far as I can tell).

However, the first official campaign from the Electoral Commission (who oversee our elections) or Government won't be until around the 22nd October 2012, only a few weeks before polling, and will mostly be pointing people to a website (wow, way to include people who don't have internet access, guys).

The UK commissioners won't be like the ones in America, their powers will be watered down in comparison .
So, will I be voting in this, especially since I feel it's my duty to use my vote in every election I can?

Well, the answer in this case is a resounding "no". As per usual, the candidates aren't doing enough to get their message out. In fact, the Labour party leaflet is a single sheet of A4, double-sided, with minimal information on it - they point to their website for the information about this election, but I looked and can't see it as there's no obvious link to where it should be (it's more like a blog than a website).

I don't see the point in this election at all - why are we spending more taxpayers money at a time when we're supposed to be cutting back on public spending?

If the other candidates get off their arses and put through leaflets, I'll post a dedicated entry for each one, and I might review the leaflets - well, it'll give me a cheap laugh anyway :)

Heatwave

2012-09-08T02:45:00.000-07:00

Well, we've had good weather the last few days, needed the air con on in the office and the windows opened at home.

Just waiting for someone to come and quote me for getting the drains and guttering cleaned on my house, had one quote on Thursday.

I'm looking to take some unused holidays to get stuff done round the house later this month :)

Altered images - the blog

2012-09-08T00:06:00.005-07:00

Just a short one this time, folks - I decided to try a new look for the blog and also add a world clock gadget/widget from WorldTimeServer.com.

I like this look, it's reminiscent of a newspaper, but I can't see the widget yet - perhaps when I log out and back in again, it will be there. Or maybe it's a side effect of one of the layout options I chose that's not showing any of the gadgets/widgets I chose. Oh well, I'll work it out later :)

Local elections for the fail

2012-05-26T06:09:00.002-07:00

Well, we're nearly at the Diamond Jubilee, but earlier this month we had local elections for our city councils - some cities also had a referendum regarding how their mayors get elected. I know, politics, yawn, but please bear with me.

I want to comment on the flyer from the Labour party (that's all we got for campaigning - fliers, and not many of them, no door-to-door stuff). So, the Labour flyer goes on about Labour doing a good deal for families, and all that lovely vote winning stuff, but since I've lost the flyer (well, I recycled it), so, Mr. Miliband (I keep having to fight my urge to type millipede instead), here are some bullet points

New Labour went to war twice under Blair with Bush - Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which have questionable legality under International Law.
New Labour bailed out the banks in 2008.
New Labour didn't introduce stronger financial services regulation, just a regulator that doesn't use their powers as well as they should.
New Labour signed an agreement with the EU saying that British taxpayers' money would be used to bail out Eurozone countries even though (wait for it) Britain is not in the Eurozone, all without a referendum.
New Labour snuggled up to Bush (and not in a good way), taking everything that man said as the truth.
New Labour copied things from the Australian and New Zealand immigration systems (not that bad I suppose, but it does make life even more confusing than it was).
New Labour created NICE (National Institute for Healthcare and Clinical Excellence - yes, the "H" from "Healthcare" doesn't appear in the abbreviation) to oversee care provision and standards in our NHS, including approving drugs for treating patients.
NICE approves allowing hospital trusts to provide fertility treatment on the NHS (this is a personal bug bear of mine, as I feel that state-funded healthcare should be to treat illnesses and save lives, and I don't know of anyone who died or fell ill because they couldn't have a child - ever heard of adoption, people?).

So, that's really my rant over for now. Will someone from New Labour actually read this and reply? Well, someone from the rail website replied to my Christmas rail ticket post before, so we'll have to wait and see.

Those Darn Charity Bags

2012-02-25T08:11:00.000-08:00

Okay, it's happening again - had a few of those plastic charity bags dropped through my letter box in the last week, one of them being from that prolific serial letter box bothers called Treating Children with Cancer.

Now, I've a particular bone to pick with this particular charity - about 18 months ago, I sent them an email stating that I was withdrawing their implied right of access to my home - in short, I didn't want them just walking up to my door without an appointment, or prior agreement. In doing so, if they come to my door again, they're trespassing (which is illegal).

I happened to tell them that this applied to their own staff and those of their contractors. What did they reply with? A simple, 1 line, email stating "we use our own staff" - great, but what about the rest of my email??!!

So, over the last 18 months or so, they keep dropping bags in - I've threatened with them with court (but unable to carry it out for various reasons), but even their directors completely ignore me.

So, NRE tries to contact me through here

2011-10-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, sorry for the long delay in writing anything, had lots of stuff going on - mainly getting my job sorted out on a permanent basis (yay! Happy meerkat dance!).

So, my previous posting attracted a comment from someone at National Rail Enquiries (NRE) - now, like Linkara, I moderate comments to my blog, and I've decided to use the same policy as him (nothing's deleted unless it's outright spam or generally accepted as offensive), so the comment's visible.

Actually, the problem with booking the ticket is that one journey was on a sleeper train, which can only be booked on the train operating company's website.

What is wrong with train companies' websites??!!

2010-11-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

I tried booking a ticket last night to go to visit my family for Christmas, do you want to know how many websites it took me to actually book it? Take a guess. If you said "less than 6", you're wrong.

Yes, that's right, dear reader, I had to visit 6 websites before I could buy the ticket I wanted.

You see, here in the UK, our railways were privatised years ago, and different routes are run by different companies (think the set up in America with like Amtrak, Southern Pacific, and so on), so they each have their own websites.

There's also a website for the National Rail Enquiries service which works with all the others, and the rail regulator insists that all train company websites show and allow you to buy tickets on all available routes.

So, I was choosing a morning departure from my home city one date, and then an evening departure on a sleeper train on the return date, and this is what I faced (and I'm going to name names here):

National Rail Enquiries (NRE) site: showed me the options, and allowed me to go to Cross Country's website to buy once I'd decided what I wanted to do.
Cross Country (one of the train operators): their site said it couldn't find the ticket requested (wait, what??!!)
The Trainline (run by part of a train operator, but like the NRE site): showed the ticket, but no option to buy it.
National Express (another train operator): just wouldn't give me any results, dumped me straight back to the timetable search page.
East Coast Trains: like NRE, gave me the options, but actually showed me why I couldn't book it from them - the return train I wanted was greyed out because (get this) it's a sleeper service run by a particular operator, so can only be booked through that operator (now why the hell couldn't the others tell me this?)
First ScotRail (another train operator): they run this sleeper service, so I went and bought my ticket through them.

So, yeah, that's the hassle I went through to buy my train ticket. Thankfully, I can go to the station and pick it up for no extra charge...

And here was me thinking that the internet was supposed to help people not hinder them.

Just a quick note

2010-11-01T14:23:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd say something because I haven't put an entry on here for a while :)

So, I'm still watching Linkara (and several of the other contributors on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com) and I really enjoyed his Halloween special reviews of the Silent Hill Dead Alive mini series.

He created a compelling, interesting and terrifying story in 3 parts that he told at the start of each part of the review (covering all 5 issues in the mini series), and if I liked it, it's got to be good - I don't really like horror films that much (although I do like The Shining or the remake of House on Haunted Hill - I really must see the original one day).

I'm definitely backing Team Linkara in the Lord Vyce story arc he's got going just now. If you want to be entertained, check him out.

Oh, a final note for now: also check out Iron Liz's Foundry and The Spoony One's Wrestle Wrestle! With Spoony, you always wonder if TNA Impact is going to make him finally lose his mind completely or not.

Yay! More nonsensical ramblings!

2010-09-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd put another post on here, so I'll make some nonsensical ramblings. About the UK Tax Man * boo! * In the UK, we've got the HMRC (HM Revenue & Customs), which is like the IRS, but has even less of a sense of humour.

Just recently, they announced that when they last changed their computer system (in something like 2008!), they didn't process peoples' tax codes properly, so about 1.4 million people will either be owed a rebate, or will owe the tax man money.

They have already told 45,000 people what their situation is by now, with the remainder to be told by Christmas, so, as you can imagine, I'm one of the worried peeps out there.

However, there is a possible (and fully legal) escape: the HMRC have, in UK law, a period of 1 year to rectify any mistakes made in an individual's tax affairs in relation to money being owed to the HMRC - if they have had the right details, but not used it within that time, then they are not (technically) allowed to deduct it as they have had the time to do so already.

So, I'm left hoping that they owe me money, and not the other way round: if it is a case of I owe them, I want to apply for the get-out clause in the law... heh heh heh.

More on this story as it develops.

Linkara is the man!

2010-09-07T10:12:00.000-07:00

Just finished watching Linkara's latest Atop The Fourth Wall video - once again, he's delivered his mix of balanced review and his own personal feelings on everything (which is one of the reasons why I like him, apart from the fact that he doesn't need to use the "f-bomb" when on camera).

Can't wait for the next episode, which is his 100th! Congratulations on reaching this milestone, Linkara, if you're reading this!

I now want to go to my local comic book shop and start having a browse around again, based on his recommendations.

Incidentally, Batman: The Brave & The Bold Animated Series (AS) rocks, as does all of the Bruce Timm DC AS, in my opinion, and I definitely like Jaime Reyes as the newest Blue Beetle. Sweet :)

Hello everyone!

2010-09-06T09:52:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, and welcome to The World of Meerkat!

This is my new blog that I intend to use to put out my thoughts on various things, and almost no topic is off-limits.

I was inspired to do this by Linkara and Iron Liz, and I am a fan of their reviews, many of which are linked to from their own blogs on Blogger.

Just as an aside, I was watching the Michael Bay Transformers movie on TV last night, and I thought it was quite good - I felt that it dragged a little in places with some unnecessary scenes, like when Sam has to deal with the jock with the Hummer-like car, or the traditional Michael Bay touch of shots of "Helicopters At Sunset", and I felt that they slowed the film down.