Better Than Walking the Streets

A slump in the number of stamped letters being sent in the UK has seen Royal Mail's losses widen to £279m in the year to the end of March. The company said it faced a time of "difficult challenges" after the opening up of the postal service. The results included its first loss from its stamped letters business - which is handling about three million fewer letters each day than a year ago.
BBC business editor Robert Peston said that the results were "pretty grim".
The Mail made a loss of £10m in the 12 months running to the end of March 2007.

From the BBC News website.

Well, strike me down with a recorded delivery. Apparently, three of the worst postal service areas are Dundee, Falkirk and Edinburgh. Now to the good people of Dalkeith this isn't a major surprise. We can get our mail delivered anytime between 10.00am and 2.00pm. No second delivery, of course - it's just the one. But if you expect your mail delivered before you head off to work in the morning then you may wish to nominate yourself for a Comedy Award at this year's Edinburgh Festival.

It's not the first time that I've had mail go missing. Both sending and receiving. I posted a birthday card to my mother the year before last and foolishly enclosed a £20 gift voucher for Marks and Spencer with the card. She never received it.

I've lost count of the number of times people have asked me if I've received mail they've sent me, only for me to give them a quizical look. On one occasion, the postie shoved a recorded mail letter addressed to me through the letter box. Without knocking for a signature. Problem was, he pushed it through my neighbour's letter box. And she was on holiday...

The postal service in this part of the world is, to put it mildly, shoddy. I've complained to Royal Mail in the past but have got nowhere. Apparently my complaint got lost in the post...

I e-mail friends and colleagues now rather than use snail mail. I pay much of my bills on-line, thus avoiding the need for a lethargic postie to think about whether he/she can be bothered to deliver my cheque. A decision helped, incidentally, by Royal Mail's decision to remove the post box from the end of my street meaning it's even more of an effort for me to post mail.

So the news that Royal Mail is losing millions of pounds is hardly startling. But I can already hear the rumblings of discontent among the trade unions who'll doubtless be discussing ballot papers very soon.

And if posties consider strike action through a postal ballot then who knows what may happen....

Wendy...Nats Go Marching In

Wendy Alexander. There's a woman who could start a fight in an empty hoose...

The leader - although I use the term loosely - of the Labour Party in Scotland has changed stance yet again on her party's stance on a referendum for independence for Scotland. Just a matter of weeks ago, Alexander said she was totally opposed to a referendum. Now she wants to bring forward a parliamentary bill for a public vote on independence and has called on the Scottish Government to speed up its plans for a 2010 referendum. 'Bring it on' one source has quoted her.

Now it's difficult to know what the Labour Party - sorry, 'New Labour' - stands for these days, if anything at all. In the wake of the party's abysmal showing in the English local elections last week and the humiliation of seeing Ken Livingstone defeated by Boris Cripes Johnson in the fight to be Mayor of London, surely the last thing Prime Minister Gordon Brown would wish is for his Scottish loose cannon to go off on one again.

After just a year in power, the Scottish people are demonstrably better off than they ever were under 'New Labour' (same old broken promises) I suspect that's what is behind Alexander's latest outburst, a statement which must make her brother Douglas, a senior Westminster official, cringe with embarrassment.

Playing roulette with the future of the Scottish nation may be a gimmick for Ms Alexander. Two years from now, when the referendum will take the spotlight for real, I suspect the laugh will be on her.

Escape To...A Monday Holiday

Now, I'm not one to complain......but today is a local holiday - in fact it's a holiday for much of the country - and, for once, the weather is half decent. The sun is out, the temperature is in double figures and Edinburgh resonates to the sound of grass cutters, hapless attempts at d-i-y and screaming kids. But, I'm still suffering from the effects of that near fatal disease known as Man Flu. I'll spare you the gory details but suffice to say I wouldn't be at all surprised if shares in Kleenex tissues and Lemsip have quadrupled over the weekend...

Feeling sorry for myself, I tuned in to a bit of telly this lunchtime and stumbled upon yet another showing of Escape to Victory on Channel Four. It's one of the corniest films ever made but it's one of those where, despite having seen it several times before, you sit down and continue to watch the antics of Michael Caine and co. build a football team from prisoners of war in Nazi Germany with the intention of making good their escape from the camp.

I switched on at the point where the likes of 1980s Scotland star John Wark - in his cameo role in the film - runs about like a headless chicken but still impresses coach Michael Caine. The ball then trundles off the pitch to a bunch of soldiers sitting watching when one of them collects the ball and demonstrates a hugely impressive display of keepie-uppy.

In awe, Caine asks 'Where did you learn to do that?'

'Oh, on the streets of Trinidad' replies the legendary Pele, temporarily forgetting the fact he's Brazilian and the most famous player the world has ever produced. Of course, as the film is set in the Second World War, Pele would, in reality, have been but a baby but it all adds to the daftness of it all. Least not the role of Sylvester Stallone as the heroic goalkeeper, despite his assertion that 'soccer is not a proper sport and is for fairies'. I could mention Hearts present day 'striker' Christian Nade but that would be vindictive...

But, alas, I had to leave Caine and his boys and attend to my small but rapidly over-growing garden which has taken on the appearance of a Burmudan jungle. Well, I will as soon as I've finished this glass of 'toddy' and stuffed another half box of Kleenex up my over-sized beak.

Have I mentioned I have Man Flu...?

Prison and Work

IN PRISON.........you get three meals a day.
AT WORK...........you get a break for one meal and you have to pay for it.

IN PRISON..........you get time off for good behaviour.
AT WORK............you get more work for good behaviour.

IN PRISON..........the guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
AT WORK............you must often carry a security card and open all the doors for yourself.

IN PRISON..........you can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK...........you could get fired for watching TV and playing games.

IN PRISON..........they allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK............you aren't even supposed to speak to your family.

IN PRISON.........all expenses are paid by the taxpayers with no work required.
AT WORK............you get to pay all your expenses to go to work, and they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners.

IN PRISON..........you spend most of your life inside bars wanting to get out.
AT WORK ...........you spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars.

IN PRISON .........you must deal with sadistic wardens.
AT WORK...........they are called managers

Happy Birthday Jack the Lad

It's my grandson Jack's 3rd birthday. So it's a very Happy Birthday to the wee scamp.

I thought about putting a photo of the wee fella on this post but thought better of it. It's a sad reflection of the world we live in today that there are unscrupulous people out there who wouldn't think twice about using photographs of children - even those as young as Jack - for immoral purposes. Sickening but, sadly, a reality. So, instead, there's a photo of Zippy from the children's television programme Rainbow from the 1970s/80s.

Rainbow was a favourite of Jack's mum, Laura, twenty years ago. I was having a rummage in the loft a few weeks back and came across an old VHS tape of the show. I dusted it down and now Jack's hooked, just like his mum two decades ago. His granny has even baked him a birthday cake which is meant to look like Zippy but actually looks more like Al Jolson...

Jack has brought so much happiness into our lives and is the apple of his Papa's eye. I may be toiling with Man Flu (see previous post) but I'll struggle out of my sick bed to go round and see the little tike later.

And, no doubt, infect the rest of the family.

Man Flu

Now I'm not one to complain.

But it's Friday night, the start of a long weekend with no work on Monday due to a public holiday. Whoopee. But instead of propping the bar of one of Edinburgh's finest hostelries celebrating the prospect of three days away from the perpetual struggle that is work, I'm lying in bed - fighting what will be a losing battle against the onset of that most serious of illnesses.

Man Flu.

My throat became dry around lunchtime, painful late afternoon and now, early evening, it's absolute agony. I feel like I've swallowed a broken bottle. My head aches, my nose is beginning to stream akin to a current on the River Forth and my body is aching, like it's been twelve rounds with Joe Calzaghe.

So, I'm propped up in bed, all on my ownsome, with a mansize box of Kleenex tissues for a mansize illness. As any man will tell you, women just don't know how lucky they are. When the fairer sex get a sniffle it's as if the world is ending. But we males get the much more serous Man Flu and get little sympathy.

I only hope I am able to struggle out of bed on Saturday for my grandson Jack's third birthday party. Daughter Laura will have a houseful of screaming little brats as Jack's friends head for platefuls of crisps, chocolate, sausage rolls and juice.

I can't wait to join the little blighters and wouldn't want to have any excuse not to go.

Now, where's the Lemsip....?

Zimbawbe

It's now over a month since the elections took place in Zimbawbe.In the aftermath of the March 29, 2008 elections, Zimbabwe's future seems uncertain. Although opposition parties captured a majority in the lower house of Parliament, the ruling ZANU-PF party has demanded a recount in two dozen races that could tip the balance back in its favour.

The results of the presidential race have not been released; the opposition has claimed victory with enough of a majority to avoid a runoff, but ZANU-PF has denied the claim. The election itself was relatively peaceful, though there was not a level playing field due to allegations of voter roll manipulation, the placing of polling stations to depress the opposition vote, and the use of food assistance to persuade citizens to vote for ZANU-PF.

Since March 29, the youth militias have committed numerous beatings against people suspected of votong for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Over one hundred people have required hospitalization and several thousand have been displaced from their homes. The government maintains a monopoly on the television and radio media, and its denial of accreditation to independent domestic and foreign journalists means that Zimbabweans lack access to information from alternative views.

Amnesty International's priority human rights concerns in Zimbabwe are the lack of an independent judiciary, a concern for the protection of human rights defenders, and to ensure that all Zimbabweans have security of tenure for land on which they live.

Taken from Amnesty International's Website