Sim-O

Armageddon is on it’s way. We are all doomed…

How dangerous is it?

Symptoms of swine flu in humans appear to be similar to those produced by standard, seasonal flu.

These include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, chills and fatigue.

Most cases so far reported around the world appear to be mild, but in Mexico lives have been lost

You see, lives are being lost and a couple of people here in Britain might have it too!

The Daily Mail, is of course trying to calm it’s readers down and reassure them that life, as we know it, will go on. Or maybe not. lets have a look…

Private health firms have seen a surge in sales of anti-viral drugs folowing (sic) concerns that the Health Service would be unable to meet demand if a swine flu pandemic broke out.

Well, that’s the first box ticked. The NHS may not be able to cope. I wondered who’s concerned? It’s a pity we’re not told.

One company told the Daily Mail it had sold Tamiflu to 25,000 customers in one day, a further sign that swine flu panic is spreading

25,000? That’s a good days business by anyone standards. Surely the panic can’t be fuelled by our drama-queen press, though. Can it?

The firm, Healthcare Connections, said individuals were getting in touch because they did not believe they would be able to get the powerful drugs from the health service if there was a mass outbreak.

And we’re back to knocking the NHS. Why would people think that? Has the NHS suddenly become a haorder, unable to let go of anything?

The NHS has more than 33million doses of antiviral drugs – enough for more than half of the population – but there are fears the NHS would not have the capacity to get them to those who might need them.

The NHS unable to get drugs to the general population? Who fears it? Why do ‘they’ fear it? Have ‘they’ forgotten about the hundreds, if not thousands of pharmacies in the UK? This drug is a pill, it needs no special skills to actually administer the thing, unlike an injection.

Current plans are for those with symptoms to nominate a friend or relative without symptoms to pick up Tamiflu packs (pictured) from local NHS despatching centres, probably hospitals and clinics.

And pharmacies, maybe? They are the usual route for drugs to be dispensed (or is it called despatching now?) to non-hospitalised patients.
I love this next bit…

But there could be queues of thousands.

Isn’t it great? Everyone in your town, queued up at the same time, for the chemist. The line winding its’ way around the town. No cars on the road and everything else closed because everyone’s queued up to get they’re antidote to the biggest threat to mankind since, ooh, bird flu.

Healthcare Connections sidesteps this problem by dispatching the drugs to the customer’s front door when they are needed.

Thank goodness someones on the ball. Healthcare Connections are the only ones quoted in this Mail story. Would it be cynical of me to suggest this may be turning into an ‘infomercial’?

Louise Lloyd, from the company, said: ‘We make sure there are some of these drugs in the warehouse with your name on it. If there is a pandemic, and a medical adviser will confirm you need them, a car will be sent over with your drugs.

‘The Government does not have the infrastructure to do this.’

No. It wouldn’t be cynical.
Ok, Ms Lloyd. I probabably couldn’t argue against that point, But then the government deals in a slightly different magnitude of customers.
The government ‘only’ has enough of this drug for half the population and if it sent all those drugs out by car, which I doubt you do, as for £3.50 it’ll more than likely be a van on his rounds rather than a dedicated car as you make it sound, people like the Daily Mails’ readers, and of course the Taxpayers Alliance, would be apoplectic about a waste of money when all but the most isolated people (as in loneliest) can find someone to pop to the shops for them.
How many people can you supply? Not 30-fucking-million. And you can send them however you want without anyone complaining because your customer is paying for it [from Healthcare Connections main site]…

You can purchase the Antiviral Protection Plan for just £11.99* per person per year.

So, that’s more than a prescription on the NHS already, which is £7.20.
Still doesn’t sound too bad, does it. £11.99 and you’ve got a dose guaranteed allocated to you., rather than the virtually, pretty much guaranteed for you on the NHS. But if you actually get a bout of the swine flu, it gets a bit more expensive going private…

The table below shows how an upgrade to the full plan cost is broken down; to illustrate where the costs are allocated.
Healthcare Connections will only charge you for your private doctor to patient consultation, private prescription and distribution when you need access to medication.

Antiviral drug cost from manufacturer……………… £16.36
DHL medical despatch secure delivery service……. £ 3.50
Doctor to patient web consultation………………… £18.55
Private prescription/dispensary…………………….. £10.59
Total……………………………………………………. £49.00
Plus VAT @15%

£11.99/year just in case and then £49 when then poo hits the propellor. Plus VAT, it ends up just over £70 to your door.
And for £7.20 and a bit of sweet talking the Missus, I have the same result.

I think that’s a win for the NHS, for a change, despite how The Mail spins it.

The quote in the title is Jacqui Smith talking about the NHS Database.

Do not believe it. What the Tories started in 1992, Labour have embraced used it extensively. That ‘it’, is Private Finance Initiative.

The latest PFI is to widen the M25. And seeing where the money is coming from is like playing Find the Lady.

George Monbiot…

The government, as usual, is telling us as little as it can get away with. But the Department for Transport has admitted that, to make the project viable, it might have to bail out the M25 consortium(12). Some reports suggest that to make sure the consortium remains solvent during the construction phase of the contract – which is worth £1280m(13) – the government will have to lend it £400m(14,15). The European Investment Bank has already pledged £500m(16), which is also taxpayers’ money. This private finance initiative scheme doesn’t require much private finance, or initiative.

If the government underwrites the scheme, the greater part of the risk will fall on taxpayers, negating the entire rationale of PFI. But, citing higher lending risks during the recession, the banks backing PFI infrastructure projects have increased their margins, in some cases by 500%(17). The government will lend or promise to lend cheap money to the banks, which will then charge us, through the consortium, crushing rates of interest for the use of our own cash.

Weird enough for you yet? Well one of the banks reported to be backing the scheme is RBS. The taxpayer now owns 58% of it. This is likely to rise soon to 95%(18). If the government underwrites the M25 expansion, it will in effect be bailing out RBS twice then charging itself for the privilege – and for the bankers’ fees, including salaries and bonuses. RBS – in other words you and me – already has £10bn invested in PFI schemes in this country(19), for which we are paying extravagant rates. If you have come across a state spending scheme madder than this, please let me know.

It’s a fucking road. The government doesn’t have to make a profit out of making it or the upkeep of it, so why can’t it just build a fucking road?
If company A can build a road and make a profit, the government should be able to match the price and build a better road or build the same road cheaper.

The governments, and not just Labour as this was started in 1992 and won’t stop if the Conservatives get back in, fucking us over, trying to i) blag the books to make themselves look good and ii) ensure employment when they retire/ get voted out.

It makes me shit-fucking-kicking mad.

Guardian G20 live blog…

1.43pm:
More windows reported smashed at RBS, branch and masked people trying to get in. Chants of “Whose bank?” answered by “Our bank” and “We paid for this, rob the bank”.

I understand feelings run high and the adrenaline gets going, but what does fucking places over achieve? Not a lot. Apart from it can feel quite good, smashing stuff up.

And that chant? You’re going to rob yourselves then? Or you’re going to rob every other taxpayer, unless you take something equal to your share of RBS. Like a pen, or a pad of Post-It notes.

And take those fucking masks off. If your there for a noble reason and not for looting, general vandalism or because you just love fighting then show your face, your fucking cowards. Criminals, thugs and crooks wear masks.

The Dunfermline Building Society has been bought by Nationwide, the UKs’ biggest building society.

Well, I say it’s bought Dunfermline…

But Nationwide will not be taking on the bits of Dunfermline that are seriously loss-making.

These are commercial property loans and portfolios of buy-to-let and self-cert mortgages – with a gross value of £1bn.

It’s actually bought only the good bits. And where are the bad bits going? Yup, to the treasury. Who’d have thought that would happen, eh?

Being a building society rather than a bank, there aren’t any short-termist-greedy shareholders to blame, probably just plain boring mismanagement.But once again, a private entity shifting it’s crap on to us, the taxpayer.

I realise there is not a lot that can be done about the shit currently hitting the fan, but for the future, companies/business, especially big business, need to be regulated to within an inch of their lives or kept small enough not to fuck everything else up if an entity goes belly up.

Capitalism and neoliberalism is trumpeted to be the the fairest business systems there is etc, but it doesn’t really seem fair to me that a company can take risks and reap the rewards, but then not have to take the consequences when the risks don’t go the way they expected/hoped.

Obviously, the old addage of the private sector doing a better, more effient job than the public sector is a load of old toss, and I reckon has come about because, right the way through from way before PFI to these latest bailouts, the public sector has taken the hit, and the private sector the profits.

Oh and don’t forget, If you fuck everything up big enough, you’ll be asked to advise the government on how to put it back together.

Even recently, when the government made a u-turn with the decision to put a service out to tender (I can’t remember which one) and then because of the uproar decided just to let the Post Office keep providing the service, the minister in charge on Radio 4s’ PM programme refused to answer the question of how much compensation the government had to pay the companies who have submitted tenders, citing commercial sensitivity.
What the fuck is that all about? Paying people because you don’t want them to do the job? You get a few builders round your house to quote for an extension. You suddenly decide that you’re going to move house rather than extend, you don’t pay the builders for loss of work or the time they took to quote, do you?
And commercial confidentiality? When the government aren’t actually getting anything in return? It could be argued for if the government was actually getting something for it’s (our!) money, but when it’s just a fucking payoff? Someone deserves a kick in the face for that.
Try it next time you go for a job and don’t get it. Send the company an invoice for time and travel and preparation of CV, maybe a new suit, see what the response is, because that is what these ‘Captains of Industry’ do when they applied for government contracts.

Nice work, if you can get it.

Lenin…

Informal spying on potential employees is understood to happen on a regular basis. I don’t want to name any names, but temp agencies have been known to advise candidates to take care as to what information appears on their Facebook pages, Friends Reunited accounts, blogs or other potential sources of information. Employers scrutinise these sites when reviewing candidates details to see if they are about to hand a contract over to a weirdo or some sort of inflexible, awkward miserabilist. Your blog can get you fired, remember. If you are going to have a Bebo or Hi5 page that is accessible to the public, then the best bet is apparently to project the image of a smiley, outgoing, success-driven, active, sporting, party-hard, go-getting sort of narcissistic dimwit: a miniature celebrity, with friends apparently growing out of every crevice. Employers love that shit.

The use of Facebook and Myspace to get a picture of a potential employee is fair enough, really. If the information is out there in the public domain, then it isn’t a problem. It’s called research, just like someone researches a company before applying for a job or accepting one.

But to be buying information… These companies must’ve know what they were doing was wrong.
Balfour Beatty, Amec, Wimpy, Skanska. They are big companies with big personell and legal departments that exist, in part, to make sure they don’t get caught by the law. Can you seriously believe that they didn’t know what they were doing was wrong?

Remember kids, capitialism, is not your friend.

The Today programme on Radio 4 had a short discussion on the retirement age today about whether the compulsorary retirement age should be scrapped or raised or left as it is.

At the moment the complusorary retirement age is 65, although the employee can request to stay on, there is no obligation on behalf of the employing company.

I think that this is totally wrong. Why should there be a time, in this case an arbitrary decided age when someone can legally forced out of emploment?

As we get older bits and bobs start failing or but does that mean someone is not fit for employment?
If a person loses a hand or a leg, an employer cannot dismiss that person without first trying to find an alternative position within the company that a one handed/legged person can do. Why then should an employer be able to dismiss a 65 year old person just because they are 65 years old regardless of their ability to do the job?

A responsible employer would probably not do this, but they have the option. And this can’t be right.

As an aside, why are we talking about raising the retirement age at all? Shouldn’t we be trying to enable people to retire earlier? Don’t we spend spend enough of our lives working, without using the extra years we’re living to squeeze more out of us?

Harriot Harman received a new position in the government this morning.

After making comments yesterday about taking back Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwins’ exorbitant pension without giving the sightest hint as to how, Ms Harmann, currently the Leader of the House, will take on the portfolio of Minister with No Mates. A position created especially for her.

This insistance by the new ‘Minnie’ No Mates was greeted with joyful surprise by lawyers, who have a new hope to get through the credit crunch by drawing out a legal wrangle for years, should Ms Harman press ahead.

Several Treasury Officials, who would be tasked with working out how to claw the money back, were so surprised the cry of “WTF?” could be heard ringing all around whitehall.

Magaret Beckett, a veteran MP and current housing minister, took Harriots’ appointment very seriously by isolating Ms Harman by refusing to comment and even suggesting that the government will do nothing.

The shadow chancellor George Osborne commented…

I’m not sure I know… Harriet Harman… at all.

The Prime Minister speaking at Some Forum or Other was momentarily caught off guard. He excelled himself by refusing to address the question, in a way normally only seen in PMQs’, with an answer that we’re not going to unsult you with by printing.

Vince Cable couldn’t help himself and described Ms Harmon as ‘potty’.

It’s been around for ages, putting a price per quantity on the little price tags on the shelf in supermarkets. It helps people compare items and it is A Good Thing.

Now, look at the the two pictures here…


I know it’s not advanced mathematics, you know, multiplying 67 x 10, but what is the thinking behind it? What’s wrong with putting them both in per/kg or per/100g? It’s not like the items are even different brands.

Some git has actually thought about it and decided to make life that little more awkward for some people. I know it sounds like a coincidence but today, I actually had some one ask me how many grams there are in a kilogram. It was an elderly chap, and probably still struggling with decimalisation, but it could’ve just as easily been someone with learning difficulties.

Why? What’s the point? Why make life more difficult than it need be?

Well? Was it? What did you do then?
Buy your misses an overpriced bunch of roses? Or did you take her to your third choice restaurant because you lunched it and left it too late to get a table at the better gaffes? Were you seduced into paying over the odds for a some monkey metal and a piece of glass because some advert told you your beloved will be over the moon about it?

Me? Fuck all. I soon put a stop to that.

I show my wife I love all year round and don’t need to be told when to buy her a present.

Part One:

Part Two: