Ethical Companies – The Blog

Bingo caller told to cut ‘fat ladies’ patter by council.

A bingo caller in Sudbury has been “advised” (council speak for “ordered”) to stop using the traditional “patter” when calling the numbers for fear it might “offend someone.”

“The concern was that if there might be two large ladies in the audience when I said ‘two fat ladies 88′ or someone might think I was looking at their legs when I said ‘legs 11′,” he said.

I’m sure there’s always at least 2 “large” ladies at any given moment in any given bingo hall. I doubt they find the “call” offensive though.

“What’s the alternative, ‘two generously proportioned people of either gender?’ It’s not very snappy.”

So what do you reckon ? Political correctness gone mad or genuinely “offensive” ?

Steve

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The Rotten State Of Britain.

Spotted this title over on Al Jahom’s Final Word.  I’ve not read it yet (I’ve ordered one from Amazon) but I reckon it’s going to be pretty interesting.  We already know pretty much what’s going to be in the book (unless you’ve been out of the country for the last ten years or asleep) but it’ll be interesting to see it all in one place.  As someone who remembers the state the last Labour government left Great Britain in (1979) my heart sank when Labour was voted back into power back in 1997.  I knew then it would end in tears, and the optimism people showed was unfounded and unrealistic.

Perhaps you’d like to check the book out yourself:

Steve

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The Age Of Love – Behind Blue Eyes

I’ve been reading the Behind Blue Eyes blog on and off recently and found his comments on the 1980’s interesting as I have been considering the 1980’s myself for a number of reasons.  It is often said that we look at the past through rose tinted spectacles and that our recollection of the past is tainted by only remembering the “good stuff” and forgetting the bad.  Is this true ?

Myself I left school in summer 1981 largely unsure of what I wanted to do but with some notion of becoming a star chef (God knows where I got that idea from) and immediately got a job at a local (well localish) restaurant and started attending college on day release to get City and Guilds 706/1 and 706/2 (these qualifications are considered to be somewhat “rare” now and have been replaced with NVQs.)  College was pretty good what I recall of it and the tutors Chef Oliver (not Jamie lol !) and Chef Salsano were nice people to work under.  My boss at work was, however, a different story.  An Austrian by birth he had come to the United Kingdom and started up a restaurant and was quite definitely the most irritating and obnoxious boss I have EVER had the misfortune to work for.  He was also a miser and I was very poorly paid, even by “school leaver” standards and had to work up to 55 or so hours a week with no “overtime” pay.  Whilst I don’t deny the job gave me some valuable experience this is not the way life was meant to be so my important years of 16 to 19 were essentially ruined by poor wages, a bad boss and absolutely no social life due to the working hours.

Things got largely worse work wise after some changes, and I rapidly came to the conclusion that the catering industry was not for me.  I can cook, and I consider myself to be quite a good cook but it’s not my idea of a career.  Only those who end up on the TV or set up their own premises can make big money and even now catering is still is a poorly paid and largely disregarded profession.  We’re not all Gordon Ramsey or Jamie Oliver after all.

I ended up in the transport industry next.  I’ve been a courier, a next day delivery driver (DHL style but not DHL), an HGV driver, a despatch rider and even an international air courier.  Again not much scope for a “career” but better pay than catering and it is possible to get by.  Work wise that about sums it up for the 1980’s, although there’s other bits and pieces.

What about the “Age Of Love” part ?  Well ….  Let me see, there was …. Err, not a lot of that going about.  I was never a very confident teenager and health issues (I had had a lot of health problems when I was young with asthma and recurring bronchitis etc which I fortunately “grew out of”) had left me a nervous lad with little self confidence.  I couldn’t say “boo” to a goose, as the expression goes, so “love” was largely off the menu.  My first experience was ok, but my first girlfriend was less than pleasant and her treatment of me little short of disgraceful.  Funnily though I have stuck her name into Google and Facebook once or twice, as I am convinced that she probably now has 6 children, and lives in a council sink estate, maybe that’s just wishful thinking  A little bit of “revenge” mentality ?

Not surprisingly I was uninterested in politics, but it was of course an era of major change.  The Warsaw Pact was disbanded and the Soviet Union ceased “hostilities” (if you can call them that) with the Western world, essentially ending the Cold War.  The real change though was the change in economics.  The Margaret Thatcher/Ronald Reagan era was essentially a revival of capitalism and laissez faire economics (free market economics), the downside of which we are now feeling.

So have I anything positive to recall about the 1980’s ?  Err ….  Well there’s always the music.  Like any 16 year old lad I was into music, and Top Of The Tops was something I looked forward to every week (I worked Thursday nights so used to ask my mum to record it which she didn’t always manage to do) when I got home Saturday night after a long day in the kitchen.  Tainted Love by Soft Cell was number 1 when I left school and remains a firm favourite song for me.  Then there was Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Modern Romance, Michael Jackson and the greatest of them all ….  Frankie Goes To Hollywood.  Born out of what was called “Boystown” disco (Divine was another example) genre, to me Frankie was explosive.  Relax was great, Two Tribes even better, and I even discovered a taste for ballads with The Power Of Love.  God I wanted a Frankie Says Relax t-shirt as well, but I never got one ….  To anyone who has never listened to Frankie: if you’re going to experience the 1980’s then Frankie is what it’s all about (to me at least), they are the musical symbol of the 1980’s era.  I know some will disagree with me (doubtless Russ and Richard) but I still don’t think 1980’s music comes any better.

TV and film wise I don’t recall much of the 1980’s due to the antisocial hours I was working.  I do recall finding Private Schultz and Blott On The Landscape rather humorous though.  As for the films, well this is the era that gave use Back To The Future and Indiana Jones, seriously good stuff …

The only other memorable aspect of the 1980’s was the boom in computers.  The Commodore VIC20 and 64, and miscelllaneous arcade games exploded onto the world and we were awash with Pacman, Defender in the arcades and superb computer games such as Fort Apocalypse.  So the era gave me a grounding in computers, valuable experience for the future.

So all in all a pretty naff era.  What about the 1990’s ?  Well that’s another story, and I might reflect on that at some later point.

Steve

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Unison forced to cut final salary schemes.

I don’t normally get involved with political discussions (you can’t argue with politicians as they simply ignore you and arguing with ANYBODY about politics is usually a good way to lose friends) but I have to make a comment on this one ….

Unison is one of the UK’s largest (possibly THE largest, someone will no doubt let me know) representing over 1,300,000 loval government and NHS employees.  Unison as a union has argued and campaigned on numerous occasions against cutbacks to public sector worker’s employer pension schemes, as  you would expect.  BUT an organisation as large as Unison does of course have it’s own employees, and Unison has recently announced plans to make cutbacks to the final salary pension schemes their own staff receive (or don’t receive no doubt in the future) ….

It must be great to work for an organisation that doesn’t practice what it preaches (not) ….

Steve

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