Perhaps Farewell

My life has changed and hopefully, I’ll be truly happy for a few more years.

So this blog has now been left in a state that anybody can read and not be embarrassed.  Unless of course you are perhaps a supporter of Gordon Brown.  And he needs those now!

I may post again.  But I probably won’t!

Reminder Call From BT

Tomorrow, I’ve got to getup early. 

I don’t trust my radio alarm as it’s so complicated to set, so I thought I’d set one on my BT landline.  The trouble is that operator driven ones cost a whopping £7 or so and I suspect this means that the automated one isn’t too well-publicised.

This is BT’s instructions.

• Setting up a reminder call – Press the star (*) key on your telephone keypad followed by the number 55 and the star key again, the required time in 24 hour clock format (e.g. 7.30am should be entered as 0700), and then press the hash (#) key.
• Cancelling a reminder call – Press the hash key, the number 55, and then the hash key once more.
• Checking the time of a reminder call – Press star, hash, the number 55 and then hash.

I’ve left the deliberate mistake in the notes.

The calls cost 20p to make. 

But in this case, I can’t afford to miss my swim.

Vote Early

I’ve just got back from voting. 

I hope my vote puts another nail in the coffin of this useless Labour government.

Beware The WAGs

WAG has become a term to mean wives and girlfriends of such as footballers, cricketers and other sportsmen.  Generally it has been derogatory!

Now it has a new meaning, Women Against Gordon!  Hell has no fury like a woman scorned.

Et tu Hazel!

Note that the woman scorned quote is not from Shakespeare, but from William Congreve.

Going, Going…

The words rats and sinking ship seem to be surrounding Gordon Brown these days. Jacqui Smith, Beverley Hughes and Tom Watson are all stepping down, or is it going before they are pushed.

There will be a debate on whether this parliament should end next week.

Will all the other parties win the vote?

No!  But here’s hoping.

There is a hope though, as for the motion to be carried it will need a lot of Labour MPs to either vote against the government, abstain or just not turn up.

So why would they do that, as for many it would mean the end of their earnings as MPs? 

I’ll add an aside here! – I could add expenses, but I’ve met a few poor MPs and know that the expenses system we have now, has come about because they are not paid enough!  But some have abused the system!  And how!

Now at best some of the Labour MPs have a year to run as it is unlikely that they will be re-elected.  When this happens, they will get their severance pay and pensions.  But, in the meantime, they are getting abuse and hassle, that they don’t want. 

So would you hang on?  I might well take the money and run!

The Air France Disaster

My heart goes out to everybody connected to the crash of the Air France flight from Brazil to Paris.

I’ve flown too many times to be worried, but I will still avoid a plane if I can. That’s why I use the tunnels, trains and my car. I know statistically, that I’m actually probably safer in the air than in my car, but it’s all about the perception.

I shall not be worried on Friday.  Except about missing the plane, as it’s so very early.

Politics Is Just Show Business For Ugly People

It’s an old one and I just heard it on the radio.

It’s from Jay Leno.

Taming The Tiger

I saw this pair on BBC this morning.

There’s only one word for it!

Cute!

While I’m at it, here’s another.

Britain Hasn’t Got Talent

I didn’t watch the show on Saturday night.  I had much better things to do!

But the way that everybody, and especially the media, has built up Susan Boyle and then dumped her from a great height has appalled me.  I thought public executions ended in the mid-nineteenth century! 

I have flagged this Entertainment.  But it is not!

Death Of A Company

It looks like General Motors will file for bankruptcy today.

It’s sad when one of the world’s biggest and most successful companies ends up like this. Employees will lose jobs, suppliers and financiers will lose money and the ripples of this giant crash will be felt all over the world.

I can’t help thinking that this has been on the cards for many years.  I can remember going to the States in the mid-eighties and hiring a succession of cars at airports, as my late husband and I criss-crossed the country visiting possible clients and investments.  I think we did about twenty states in five weeks.  Towards the end of the trip, we’d given up on Ford, Chrysler and GM and were always trying to hire a Toyota, a Honda or a Nissan. 

That is sad really.  But everyone seemed to agree with us, that if you wanted a good car, you avoided the American makes. And that was nearly twenty-five years ago.

It would appear from the sales figures, that they really were not producing a car that anybody wanted and the result has been the inevitable bankruptcy. 

I do not hold out much hope for the future of GM in the car sector. The one part that produced cars people want, the European arm, has now been sold to Magna, putting their designs out of affordable reach.

Look what happened here to MG-Rover.  As it got smaller and smaller, and lurched from crisis to crisis, people stayed away in droves from their products.  And it’s since been acknowledged that some of their products were actually rather good.

So will people buy the new-GM cars?

I doubt it, as you won’t want to buy something, that might suddenly dive in value, when the company folds again.  So we get a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Interestingly, they’ve just had a very upbeat Director from Honda on the Beeb. With capacity to spare, other companies can easily fill the gap left by GM.