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?)

Detectives Beyond Borders: A Forum for International Crime Fiction: Ian Rankin finds an outlet for his writing

Detectives Beyond Borders: A Forum for International Crime Fiction: Ian Rankin finds an outlet for his writing

As a crime writer myself (waddya mean? Didn't you see the links at left, eh??) I can recommend this chat page. Very well done, Peter. Good stuff.

Like, especially dropping the odd Rankin name. Did I ever mention I was chatting to Ian Rankin at the Crime Fiction Convention in Doncaster in 1997? Well, I heard him talking. Well, I saw him pass by. But I heard people talking about him. Hey, that's nearly good enough, isn't it? 'Friend to the stars' and all that?

Strange thing is, when you read stuff about people who write crime fiction, the writers are always trying to explain what's going on. But isn't the point about the genre that it's Mystery fiction (as they call it in America) ? Shouldn't we just leave a bit of it alone? Why does everything have to have a reason?

Why, that's only true in fiction!

Hanging on the telephone

If I had to target the next big corporation that nearly ruined my life, I've have to pick on Kodak (get the picture?)

Ooops, I know you're going to say this is my fault, but hear me out. I bought a new mobile phone about 2 years ago, and it was because I needed a camera. I'd seen these people who'd taken pics and got them on telly. I thought, wouldn't it be great if I was walking down the street and suddenly saw a dear old lady being mugged (or a bank being robbed, or Sporty Spice signing autographs) and I could get them into a pic? Then I could download them and put them on my website, (or my Blog, hey pay attention, this means you) or some 'Breaking News' programme? Yeah.

Let's cut this short. For most of that 2 years I had pics on the phone but couldn't get them off. My biggest and most immediate problem is that didn't have a wire. Everyone else did. 'Plug your phone in', they'd say. It's easy, they'd imply. I got no wire, I'd reply. Worse, I got no hole. The only input into my phone that I could see, anywhere, was the wide connection at the bottom that I used for charging. There wasn't anything else, honest.

Okay, look in the Manual, they'd say. Well yes, I got a small instruction booklet with the device, but it was less than helpful when talking about getting the damn pictures out. The only route it recommended was sending them to Kodak, or more precisely, the Kodak web site, (and it would be all jam after that, it seemed to be saying). I tried that, early on, but the thing wanted me to sign on, fill in forms, choose a password, all the usual dross, and when I went back the next day to see if it was working, I couldn't remember what I'd told them. I couldn't log on.

Skip 6 months. Yes, really. You don't want to know the agonies I went through trying to get that little lot sorted out. The basic problem was that I couldn't log on, but I couldn't use the helpful 'Forgotten your password?' button, because it kept telling me that nobody with my name and email address had joined. Ever. Great, I thought. I'll join again. That didn't work either. Every time I filled in the form (and I tried several times) it said something like 'That phone number is already registered'. I know, I wanted to scream. It's me. Hey, I'm banging on the door. Let me in. Frustration followed frustration, as I tried to email, many many times, and got no reply, just an acknowledgement and a promise that I was being 'dealt with'. I wasn't.

Okay, now it gets really good. I looked up Kodak in the phone book. No, they aren't in Manchester, England, where I am, but they had some kind of Head Office in Guildford, or Ilford, or some garden suburb of London. I plucked up my courage, girded my loins, and dialled. A very nice lady said I needed to call the Freephone number. Great. I got a number and it's free, what could possibly go wrong? They didn't answer. I got a recorded message and an assurance that my call was important to them, but nobody picked up the damn phone. Worse, it was Robbie Williams singing while I waited. Grrr, my teeth gnash at the very memory. After 45 minutes I was ready to climb the walls, then someone picked up. I made it! Wrong. You got the wrong number, they said.

But I phoned (G)Ilford I screamed! Besides, I've suffered Robbie for three quarters of an hour. Have you any idea what that's like? I bellowed. They gave me another number. I called it. A man answered straight away, listened, then said, 'Simple, I'll cancel that registration and you can re-register. Here, I'll even wait on the line while you do it'. God, he was helpful and all my problems were answered. I was in, I could upload my photos, I was open in Kodak with my own album, everything was going my way. What could possibly go wrong?

Easy. (Well you knew it was going to be something, didn't you?) I wanted to use my phone photos on my web sites or, possibly, to email pics of the wild party to my friends. Simple, all I had to do was click and save, right? It didn't work. No matter how I manoeuvred, there was no option like that at all. The only thing they were offering was to print out the pics. Ahhhh, Kodak, you say. Don't you get it? They sell films. They print pictures. What else did you expect?

Back to Google. I searched for someone to take my mobile phone pics and found Moblog. Thank the Lordey for Moblog. In case you don't know, it's www.moblog.co.uk and you can find my pics there, under the username 'mburry', (well, you don't want 'Mike' all the time, do you?) And that's it. Well, not quite the end of the story. There's a final kicker. When I was setting up my Moblog account it told me to email my pics in, which I did. Hold on a minute. Email?? Yes, the fact is that I could have emailed my photos at any time to any of my email accounts. What do you mean, you know that? Why didn't you tell me?

Ah well, two years later. A little wiser.

May-er (or June-er)

It's the beginning of June and the Mayor has come to visit our little street.
(Shouldn't that be June-er?)
Well, there's nobody dancing round the Maypole any more in Ordsall, or even dressing the wells like they used to. (Apparently Well Dressing is still a tradition that's alive and well in Derbyshire, not too far away.) It could be about akin to Morris Dancing, which seems to have faded out when Break Dancing hit the streets, (literally).
The Mayor is impressed with our little gathering, and had something complementary to say about our liitle business, Salford LIDS (see their web site at http://www.salfordlids.co.uk).
Meanwhile the sun is shining, the leaves are rustling, and only the cries of children and the yapping of dogs disturbs the idyllic scene.
What does that look like?
I'll try to insert a photo below.

Technical or Technorati?

Technorati Profile

Okay, no, I don't get it -
because yes, I've seen 'The Da Vinci Code',
and yes again, I've even read Dan Brown's other contribution to Western culture, a page-turner called 'Angels and Demons',
and in that he talks about The Illuminati.

Which, you'll have to agree dammit, sounds a lot like Technorati.
Or is it just me?












So let's just think about the collapse of that so-called Western civilisation and, if necessary, sit in the corner and think about what we've done....

Blogging and Blocking

If I had to launch off on a list of corporate Multi-Nationals that are ruining our world, I'd have to start with Microsoft.
(Who wouldn't?)

My particular story goes back a few years and concerns email.
You see, I'm old enough to remember when a bright new company called Hotmail burst on the scene. Founded by a bunch of college geeks, they had the innovative idea of offering 'free' email on the internet, to everyone, without having to go through your usual service provider.
Yep, folks, it was new.
Up to then, in fact all through the 1990s, the only way you could get email was to sign on with an ISP such as Compuserve or AOL and they'd give you an email account as part of the package. Hotmail was different, it was innovative. It was offering email straight from the web.
So, what happened next?
You guessed it. You're right. Microsoft bought it.

Now, maybe they thought they had to be nice to the old clients, and not rock the boat too much, (while they were changing the company, incorporating it into the MS empire, and recruiting millions of new members) but nothing changed for a while. Us old Hotmail members carried on as normal.
Until 6 months later when my account was closed.

Suddenly, without warning, it was gone. I woke up one morning and couldn't log on.
You have to understand, if you couldn't log on you couldn't access the 'Help' file. In other words, there was absolutely no way to find out what had happened. There was no way of contacting the company unless you were a member, and I wasn't. I had been kicked out. Terminated.

It took a week for the penny to drop. Then I figured it out.
I changed my name, slightly, and rejoined. (They allowed that. There doesn't seem to be any system of checking. They can decide they don't like you one day and finish you. The next day they'll welcome you back. How logical is that?)
Anyway, then I was in a position to start asking questions.
I got no answers.
It seems that Microsoft had instituted a 'Contact Us' procedure that took you straight to the Help file. That listed a number of things that could go wrong, and listed a number of suggestions about what might happen and what you might be able to do about it.
The one thing it didn't do is answer the question: Okay, what happened to ME? Why did I get dropped? Where has my account gone?

Are you keeping up? Because, you see, that's now two things. One, is that my account disappeared. Two, is that there was no way of finding out why, and what happened to it.

I never did get an answer from the big boys.
One possible answer came from another source, a friend.
He pointed out that we had been having trouble with a guy in Manchester spreading rumours about our charitable community project. 'Think', he said to me. 'What was the last thing you did before your email shut down?' I thought about it. Then I knew. I had sent an email to the rumour spreader, challenging him to come up with facts and figures. Prove what you're allleging, I said. Put up, or shut up.

He came up with something better. He shut ME down.

We figured it out. He must have written to Hotmail, complaining about these 'abusive' emails he was getting. So the company took action. They pulled my plug.

Okay, okay, I hear you say. Isn't that fair enough? The internet is full of abuse. If it happens, shouldn't the providers take action? Yes, but what action? How about if they had contacted me and asked if what the man was saying was true? How about if they read the correspondence HE was sending out? (Now that was real 'abuse'?) How about if they did something, anything, apart from simply close the account?

Because - and this is where paranoia creeps in - it's the cheapest option, isn't it?
It's got nothing to do with being 'fair' - that would involve investigating the case.
It's got nothing to do with 'abuse' even, because that was alleged, sure, but not proved. (They didn't bother 'proving' anything, they just acted.)
It's all about the company, the people in charge, who have all the power but don't take any responsibility. Not once did Hotmail ever even admit that they'd closed the account. They never supplied any info, any correspondence, from the man with a grievance, from us, from any interested party. They never replied to the emails we sent them, and never answered any questions we sent them.
Of course. They'd have no time, would they? It would distract them from their work (of taking over the world).
The big corporate companies blather on about 'involving the customers', 'responding to feedback', and then set up an automatic Help file that means you never get the opportunity to speak to a real person. Heavens no, because then you might actually complain. This way, Microsoft can explain that they 'never get any complaints' about Hotmail. They don't! They don't let them through.

Still, I'm using Hotmail now.
Would I recommend it to anyone? Sure, but don't rely on it. Accept that your account might be closed anytime, any way, and you'd get nothing - no word, no explanation, no recompense. And, like me, you might lose 2 years of emails, just like that. No recovery, nothing you can do.
I don't think that's right, but hey, I'm just a guy.
There's six and a half billion people in the world and Microsoft wants all of them.
Why would they worry about little old me?

Photo credit: Annie Golden and Lisa O'Neil

Parking and Clamping

Living across the river in Salford has many advantages.
In fact, I very rarely visit Manchester.
Now I know why.

This lunchtime, Friday, I was persuaded by a friend to go shopping in Rusholme.
We parked behind the halal supermarket and prepared to go in.
Since it was a nice sunny day, we decided instead to walk along Wilmslow Road first and find a place to eat.
We relaxed, and worked on our shopping list over lunch.
We came back to start shopping, and got a shock.
Someone had clamped our car.

Stranger still, no one would admit to doing it!

The supermarket said it wasn't them.
The security company, who eventually arrived and charged us £85 for the privilege of driving away, said it wasn't their fault either.
They blamed the supermarket.
Both said we had been warned.
They said that what we had taken to be a car park was actually a 'clamping zone' and pointed to signs on the far wall, (not visible behind parked white vans).

So, we had to decline the chance to shop in Rusholme and went on instead to the Lidl in Salford, where parking is free.
Come off it, Rusholme!
You want people to use your restaurants, but parking is limited, and the supermarket penalises people who want to both shop and eat.
Our experience?
Rusholme is quick to take money off you, either for food or parking fines, it doesn't matter which.
Now that is not what I would call people-friendly.

Sorry Manchester. It's closer to home for us in future!

The visit

The day before ... we went to the BBC, and met a ghost!
Yeah, this is me, looking guilty and speaking up for truth, justice and the British Broadcasting Corporation - before getting there.
As part of my training at Ordsall Community Cafe, I signed up for the free tour of BBC Mansions in downtown Manchester.
Wow, a real behind-the-scenes lowdown and -
we met that nice Mr Gordon Burns (at last).

Hint - if you scroll down the page and look at my last link to 'the BBC' you will get to see the nice Mr B.
(and me, in the Community Cafe.)

Lights.
Camera.
Action

Blackmail? This is just business

Roll up, Roll up (roll of drums) -
Yes, it's the one, the only, the original -
Tripe Pickers Journal
(fresh from 1978).

If this works, and Heaven knows, technology is miserable now, you may see an image of the very first, (yes, it still exists), the very first cover, ever.
Spiffing, eh?
(Isn't that what they used to say, back in the old days?)
That's Paul and Mike on the cover.
Which one is me?
(Clue: compare to last blog's pic!)

Fanzines are different now.
(They might not even have that name.
They might be e-zines, or whatever.)
Of course, everything was made out of wax and cement in those days. Fanzines were etched on parchment or cranked out on duplicators. (The word Gestetner comes to mind.)

Nowadays the word is Epson, and aren't they a pain?

Anyone else out there doesn't like Epson?
Sign up!
It started out OK.
I bought one of those '1,000 in one' jobs -
you know - print, scan, etch, make tea, etc etc
and it worked fine, at all those jobs
(the tea was a bit weak)
but I wasn't happy with it.
The main problem was it insisted on lecturing me,
haranguing me,
telling me off,
whenever I wasn't doing exactly what it commanded me to do.

The main point of contention was that Epson wanted me to use their own ink in their printer.
Only their ink.
No one else's.
Never.
Ever.
And the messages came up, over and over, every time one or other of the ink cartridges got anywhere near getting used up (which happened suprisingly quickly, strangely enough).
Now, I didn't mind. At first.
For months and months, I toddled down to Staples superstore at the end of our road and stocked and re-stocked with inks whenever needed. The real ink, the Epson ink, just as ordered.
I didn't think of doing anything else.

Until yesterday.
That was the day the Staples woman behind the counter said to me 'Our brand is cheaper. Oh, and the cartridges contain more ink'.
Well then, if someone is promising you 12mls for the price of 7, that's got to be a bargain, right?
And, hell, this was Staples, right?
They're a big name, even round here, the north of the north.
Far from the maddening London crowd.
We're heard of Staples, begorrah.
(Why we even have frothy milk in our coffees now.)
It seemed like I couldn't lose.

But I did.
First think that happened was that I took out the used black cartridge (Epson made) and put in the new Staples cartridge.
Well, I got the message.
My computer told me - 'This isn't one of ours'.

What I wanted to say was 'Go ahead anyway'.
It wouldn't.
I clicked on this, I clicked on that, but no dice.
The printer wouldn't start.
There was a big red cross over the pic in the Printer dialog box,
like it wasn't even there.
But it was.
I'd bought it and I wanted to use it.

I changed the next cartridge, yellow, and the same thing happened.
So I took out the new black one and shook it all about.
Bad mistake.
I got black ink all over my hands -
the printer,
my other (laser) printer,
my cup of tea -

I hunted around for inspiration.
I clicked on the 'Help' button.
Things started happening.
Before I knew it, I was connected to the internet and in earnest dialogue with a man in Epsom, (the place, not the printer).

He was unsympathetic.
He was about as haranguing as the damn computer.
He told me he 'couldn't be responsible'.
He thought it might be a 'faulty chip'.

I had a question.
I wanted to know what Epson had done to the printer to make it refuse to accept all cheap ink cartridges.
He was outraged.
'We don't do that', he said (not out loud, in typing - this was an email, after all).
Why not? This is business, right?
Why wouldn't you jimmy our printers so we have to pay more for only the 'legitimate' ink?
'Oh no, no', my new-found friend insisted.

He really wanted to help, he really did.
Well, that's nice, but it was me that had to troll on back down the road to Staples on the junction and change all those flashy new cartridges I bought,
and pay for new Epson ones, just like they 'advised'.
So, now the message is clear.
Not only should you use the same-make cartridges, brother, you got no choice.
Only Epson cartridges work in Epson printers.
Neat, huh?

One more question.
Isn't that blackmail?
Isn't that, you know, illegal or something?
Isn't it unethical, at least?

What do you think?