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Who's the shouty man in the lumberjack shirt?
(And what is he selling?)

If it's not double glazing, it might be something more interesting.


The new Charles Dickens | Sponsume

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The new Charles Dickens | Sponsume

Yeah, click on the link and you get a chance to take a share in a new novel. In fact, you can get a free download or a free copy of the paperback book, (for a few pounds). Spend a few more and you can even get a walk-on part in the story! (Has that been done before?)

BBC bans book 'critical' of the BBC

The BBC is moving to Salford Quays.
For people living in the twin cities of Manchester and Salford, this has been the biggest news in years. For Manchester residents, it's a tragedy to see the 1960s office block that housed the BBC headquarters on Oxford Road in the city centre becoming boarded up and empty. For residents of Salford, it's a joy to see famous names move down the river to the brand spanking-new tower blocks that call themselves 'Mediacity', the new home of the BBC in the north west of England.
It's no surprise to hear that the BBC doesn't want to make such a huge upheaval without 'consulting' everybody; they have consulted their own employees, and found that some who now live in Manchester aren't bothered about relocating, but the ones who now work in London aren't looking forward to a move up to the savage north. The BBC haven't bothered consulting people in Manchester, of course, because most of them are gutted. They've 'consulted' with residents of Salford, though, and found two main responses: some are flattered and honoured at the prospect of being host city to the distinguished broadcaster, while hoping that they might find jobs in the shiny new offices. Others are more cynical, convinced that the few new jobs available will suit the unqualified residents who live nearby and unimpressed that the new bars and restaurants of Mediacity will have anything to tempt their palette.
I'm a resident of Salford. When I started thinking about my reaction to the plans, I had mixed feelings: I knew that nobody was going to offer me a job on Salford Quays, not even as a doorman. I also was sympathetic to local people who are having their expectations built up but aren't going to see their sons and daughters employed by the big corporation either, (mainly because of lack of paper qualifications). But, I was also keenly aware of a contradiction: Salford Quays is branding itself as 'Mediacity' but, in my experience, Salford itself is a media city.
When I thought about the message I wanted to get across to the BBC, it's simply this: the BBC is not the only producer of 'media' in Salford. Many Salford residents have skills and experience in making films; plays and drama; songs and music; art; sculpture; and other forms of writing like poetry, stories and books. Having been involved in maintaining a 'Creative Writing' group in the heart of Ordsall for eighteen months, I knew that local people had immense creativity and had come up with an amazing output. This has been showcased at the Ordsall Festival; weekly on Salford City Radio, our local station; and in a book produced in the summer of 2010 of selected writings.
Only one problem: the BBC don't want to hear that someone has written a book which will tell them all this. I've sent it for review to 'Front Row' and the Radio 2 Book show. I've given it to Radio Manchester. I've sent emails; Press Releases; and blogs. The blogs, in particular, are a real problem: if you try to make a link to a book on a BBC blog, they accuse you of 'being commercial' and delete the contribution. Let's be clear: I am completely happy to GIVE AWAY copies of the damn book, if only BBC would deign to read it, and hear the voices of people in Salford.
There is an old Zen saying: 'If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is there to see it, did it really happen?' We could update that for the modern age: 'If a book is written about the BBC, but they never read it, review it or even allow their employees to hear about it, does that book really exist?'
The BBC has given their answer.

My Blog Log

How does that look?
Can you see what it is yet?

Joe Coffey does fiction

All Joe Coffey did was set up an Art Exhibition,
down at Langworthy Cornerstone.
Little did he know that the 'One Day Film Club'
(see their page on Facebook)
would come in and make a short drama.
Poor Joe.

Joe (drama) on Youtube

Joe Coffey HOODLIFE Exhibition

This is amazing!
I get interviewed at an Art Show.
(I know, me, at an 'art' show!)

Moving onto the cutting edge of technology

Ouch!
It's a sharp place to be, a razor's edge.
Who needs to be out here, gunning for the horizon?
Anything to add?
Well, actually, I want to put some code in here.


I'm not saying it will do me any good, but I'm interested to know if it's going to put fuel in the tanks or rubber on the brakes.
I'll let you know, when the goldfish coughs.

Other ways to impress

Picture the scene. I'm driving sedately in my family car across the desolate moors of Derbyshire, in particular the High Peak area of North West England, the far side of Macclesfield. It's a long, fairly straight road, but there are some vicious bends in it, and if you take them too fast you can end up in the ditch, your car a write-off. Maybe that's why some sections of the road have a 50 miles per hour speed limit. It's known as a dangerous place to drive, and also fairly renowned for having more than its fair share of motorbike traffic. (It seems the 'Easy Riders' like the twists and turns and enjoy the risk. They're asked not to: there are posters at intervals along the road warning them to slow down. They regularly ignore the injunctions. Motor bike riders regularly crash, especially in wet weather.)

This day I'm talking about is fortunately dry. I'm keeping up a good speed, but well within the limit. I don't want to dawdle, because I know that it can annoy those people following. Sure enough, that day, there is a car a few metres behind me, pressing hard, trying to get past. He seems in a bit of a hurry, so, as I want to be helpful, I go as fast as I can (or, strictly speaking, as fast as we are both allowed). He doesn't care about that, he just wants to get ahead. Not surprisingly, he seizes the first chance he can get. As we come down round a bend, he swings out and hammers past me, his engine racing. He didn't judge it very well. The road ahead seemed clear for a while, but a car comes round the bend ahead of us, and my overtaker has to pull in abruptly in order to avoid a collision.

Firstly, he took a chance, an unnecessary risk, simply in order to get ahead. It doesn't help his journey. A mile further on is a junction and I caught him up there. Slightly further on are traffic lights, and he was forced to stop there too. So, simply because he didn't like his position on the road – behind me – he put all our lives at risk. If he had crashed his car, it might have caused me to come off the road too, plus the people in the car coming towards us. The slightest misjudgement could have been fatal. Being in pole position didn't speed up his journey because it's such a winding road that he couldn't build up enough speed to really get ahead of me. That was a mistake.

Still, let's be fair. He had a car that looked impressive. It was more modern than mine, and made all the right noises. Surely he was entitled to race it? Not if his bad driving put our lives at risk. Second, not if he broke the law, i.e. the speed limits, which were clearly marked and surely there for all our sakes. Anyway, let's think about that. Do we know it was his car? It might have belonged to his employer. Would his boss have encouraged him to hammer his vehicle, knowing it would shorten the serviceable life of the car? What if – more likely – the car belonged to the bank? Yes, we don't like to think about it, but it's a fact that if we 'buy' things on credit then they don't actually belong to us, not until they're paid off. 'His' car might be yet another consumer possession that the man was able to use, but hadn't quite paid for yet – and therefore didn't actually own.

Fourthly, why was he in such a hurry anyway? Now, his employer might be involved at this stage. Maybe he had given the man orders about being at such-and-such a place, to meet a certain person at such a time. Me, I was ambling along because it was early afternoon. I had fulfilled my appointments for the day and was heading home. (The joys of self-employment!) So, our 'boy racer', in his brand new car, isn't a person to be envied all that much, if his time is not his own, and he is 'racing' to perform business that won't actually make him rich and is someone else's priority.

What a disappointment! I may be guessing, but I think that young man in his shiny car was pretty full of himself. He was gunning the engine and assuming that other drivers were envying him, his flash motor and his fast-paced lifestyle. He would be horrified to hear that observers were, in reality, feeling sorry for him, the stresses placed upon him and the way he was wasting his time and energy. Sound familiar? How many of us want to be admired? That's an obvious thing to get. Just got out and do something worthwhile. It might be difficult, of course. But don't expect that you can take the easy way out and simply show off your glossy possessions at the populace in order to earn their admiration automatically. Their pity, maybe, but driving fast cars recklessly and a non-stop, busy lifestyle is simply a sign of bad time-keeping. Nothing to admire there.

Give me credit

If I had to name the next big institution that has tried to ruin my life, it would have to be the Inland Revenue. The Tax Man. In particular, his dubious attempts to give me money. It sounded fine in theory. The leaflet said, 'If you're working but not earning much, you can claim Working Families Tax Credit'. Okay, I said to the missus. We are a Working Family, and we're not earning a lot – just like they say – so let's fill in the form and get some cash out of the government. Who could possibly argue with that? In a matter of weeks there started a steady drip of credits into our bank account. Wow, it was like winning the Lottery. Suddenly we were in the money.

After six months we had to fill in a new form, but this didn't seem threatening at the time. They were just trying to find out if our circumstances had changed, they said. We form filled, we complied, we posted off, and the blessed donations kept arriving. What could possible go wrong? Well, it wasn't as if we imagined the happy situation could go on for ever. After all, they were paying us because our income was low. If it ever went up, well, we knew the tap would be turned off. What we didn't know is that we have to start making contributions to them.

It works this way. If your income is below a certain level, then the UK government gives you money to make it up to that point, (wherever it is they've decided is good for you). But if you earn over that amount, then you are no longer entitled. Fair enough. But, they say, and this is where it gets nasty, if you've got so much money now, then maybe you could afford to give some of the stuff we gave you – back to us! Hey, hold on. What happened to us is that I was working part-time and I was self-employed. My income went up and down from month to month. For almost a year I was below the level decided by the Tax Man and he was willing to send me cheques. The following year things picked up and got better in my world. I worked myself over the hurdle and I didn't qualify for help. But what I'm saying is that I had a bit more cash – I didn't have so much that I could afford it give it away! But that's what they wanted. They said, 'We decide how much you need to live on. If you're getting less than that, we'll give you more. If you're getting more, why then, we can take it away from you and you won't suffer'. But we did! We weren't earning so much that we could afford to send cheques to the Tax Man. We were only just paying the rent. He might think that meant we were swimming in champagne, but we didn't notice that. All we saw was a demand for repayment, and we couldn't afford it, (even if the man in a grey suit said we could).

Nobody told us that Tax Credit was a loan! But that's the way it works out. If somebody had said that, then we could have gone to the local Credit Union, or even taken advantage of our friendly neighbourhood Loan Shark. The British Tax Man is worse than a Loan Shark, because he tells you one thing – when your income is low, low – then hits you with a demand when your income is simply low, (but not very, very low). And it works like this. Five days before Christmas, when I was seriously wondering whether I had enough money to buy anyone any presents at all, let alone invest in a turkey, an envelope dropped through the door. No, it wasn't a Christmas card. It was a threatening letter from the Tax office telling me that I owed them a thousand pounds, and 'would have to pay'. Some Christmas present!

Well, credit me with some intelligence. I phoned them up and they said sorry, it was a 'clerical error'. No, they didn't know where the thing had come from. Yes, we had owed them some money in the past, but we 'repaid' that by them not giving us a bit of credit that we were owed, so that was fine, then. We were all up to date. 'Sorry to ruin your Christmas'. Yeah, right. Thanks, Tax man. The irony is, of course, that they keep insisting on sending us letters inviting us to apply again. No way! Maybe we are entitled, maybe they will give us some cash if we're short and it will tide us over the bad patches, but with the prospect of being harassed, hassled and threatened for repayments when we get out of the hole and are a bit better off, no thanks. I'd rather stay poor.

First Bus - The bus company from Hell

If I had to choose the next big organisation that is doing its best to wreck my life, I'd have to pick on First Bus. In overall terms, they are pure evil.

Firstly, they start with an advantage.

They are the only service running up the main road past the area where I live now. The only one. Even though the buses aren't there because they've been designed for us – they are simply wending their way past, on their way to Wigan, twenty miles away – the company provides the only moving vehicle available to me and my neighbours that is able to get us into and out of the great city of Manchester.

When they deign to run.

You see, they have on the bus stop what the company laughingly refers to as a 'Timetable'. It bears about as much link to reality as The X-Files. If you believe in flying saucers in our part of Salford, then you might believe in First Buses too. They are about equally as rare.

Secondly, they change their nomenclature.

During the day the buses running our way will be called a number 33.

After 7 o'clock at night, they become a 63.

Ah, you say, the night service is worth twice as much.

Wrong, quite wrong. It's exactly the opposite. The service after 7pm operates at half the frequency and travels for half the distance. Why, it doesn't even go all the way to Wigan anymore – it stops somewhere past Eccles.

You want Manchester? You want to go out for the night, perhaps to sample the delights of the night-life of City Centre, Manchester, the bars, the nightclubs, the concerts, plays and entertainment? Tough. You can't count on getting there by bus, and you certainly can't be assured of being able to get home by bus. No way. They cease altogether, long before the pubs chuck out. You thought this was a bus 'service'? Not for you, buddy. Not for normal people.

Thirdly, they make up their own rules.

The thing - the one single damn thing that makes every other annoyance feel like a small and unimportant irrelevance - is that First Bus has its own take on reality. In particular, the idea that a bus service exists to drive along the road and pick up people waiting at bus stops. Sounds simple? First Bus don't play by those rules.

Oh, it will take you a while to realise. At first, it seems like a mystery. My experience is that I was standing in the bus area at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester in the depths of winter, shivering and waiting for a 33 to take me home. I waited, and waited. I arrived just after ten past five. I consulted the timetable. There should have been a bus at 5.13, but it didn't arrive. No matter. The next one was scheduled for 5.33. It didn't arrive either. Strange. Every other bus was coming along, including the 34, the 35, the 37 and the 39. But no 33. None at all.

You guessed it. The 5.53 didn't arrive either. Eventually I was gratified to see the 6.13 hauling up, I caught it and got home, having wasted an hour of my life which I will never get back.

The explanation? You think some buses broke down, and had to be hauled back to the garage by a tractor unit, maybe. Or maybe they got caught in the traffic, couldn't move, and are still out there, stuck in a solid line of cars and trucks on the East Lancs Road, dreaming of arriving in Wigan, one day?

No, the answer – which I got from a bus driver – is that all those buses that should have arrived between 5 and 6 were there, yes, there, in Piccadilly Gardens. But, and here's the big problem, they were running late – yes, because of the traffic. So, the devious trick they play, encouraged by management, is to arrive at one end of the Gardens surreptitiously, dump all their passengers, then, quietly and unobserved – kill all the lights, knock off the display at the front and back of the bus, and roar out of the bus area as quick as their overcharged engines can take them – without passengers. When they get to Eccles, miles out of the city of Manchester, they can then switch lights and signs back on, become a proper bus again and start picking people up. The point of this subterfuge? They've saved time, by failing to pick people up and drop them off, and are now back on the official timing schedule, at least as far as the part of the journey from Eccles to Wigan. The other bit, the distance from Manchester to Eccles, is lost, gone for good.

The reason it works, and works so well, is that the first part of the journey is the most popular. More people get on in Manchester city centre than at any other stop, and then most of these same people disembark at the few stops between that place and Eccles and do so more than on any other part of the trip. Leaving them out – leaving us stranded – is a brilliant way to save time and get back on schedule. In other words, being 'on time' is more important than having people on board the vehicles, and it is! The bus company gets fined for running late. It doesn't get any penalties for running empty, apart from having no income in fares. Hell, they're used to that. They just don't like the fines, that's all, and have evolved to avoid them.

So, a bus company that finds out its customers want to travel to and from Manchester, but only in the short space between that town and Eccles, might be expected to start a service that runs that route, picks people up and charges them money. Not First Bus. They would rather leave passengers stranded in Manchester city centre than have them slowing the service down and causing them problems with the regulators.

Well done, First Buses, the bus company that prefers a 'business' running buses without customers than serving the passengers and giving them the transport that they want.

Oh, topsy-turvey world.

Feed that burner

Or burn that feed!

Ever been at a party and everyone is tucking in to the canapes on the tray, and you don't even know what canapes are? (Why would anyone seek to put fish on toast? It beggars belief.)

Well, that's how I feel about Feeds.
I just don't get it.
Oh sure, there's a Discussion Forum for new guys like me.
Hey, there's even 'Frequently Asked Questions'.
But didn't you ever get into that position where somebody was saying to you, (back at the Cocktail Party, perhaps), 'You're better off going in via the access portal rather than the live feed', and you haven't a clue what they're trying to say?
(Maybe it's flirting.)

Well, gentle reader, you've stuck with me before, and you know - even better than me - that ignorance is often a temporary feature of my life, (please, God).
So it may be that in the not-too-distant future we will look back on all this and laugh.
(Why not? We're laughing now.)
And say, 'Gosh, was that a problem? Then? How foolish I feel now to think that I was stuck at the hurdle of understanding, when all I had to do was vault the horse of technology - and move on'.

People of my age and disposition feel the same way about decimal currency.
That was a huge change.
Meanwhile, we're dreading the metric system.
(When's that due to arrive in England?)