True Grit

I called off my attempt to get to Basingstoke this morning having travelled no further than 2 miles from home, abandoning my car on a steep hill down from Abbots Langley to Kings Langley where multiple small accidents had occurred on roads that were no better than skating rinks.

Overnight I had monitored the weather forecasts and Basingstoke and the South East were due 'Heavy snow' and my specific area was due 'Light snow' - but both areas were due to have sub zero temperatures overnight. Abbots Langley and the area has had relentless light snow overnight but the freezing temperatures has meant that it has stuck and made roads totally treacherous. Not a grain of grit has been put on any of the main roads leading from Abbots Langley anywhere and speaking to several colleagues this morning it appears the same picture is painted across the county.

I rang Three Rivers Council who I pay my rates to. They said that they had gritted some roads but had not expected the volume of snow. I asked had they known the temperatures would be below zero as it was forecasted - even the Highways Agency, the AA and the BBC had warned driving conditions would be poor - so the excuses of not knowing were pretty slim.

I watched a news item a few days ago where a lady Councillor from Haringey, I think, was saying that her council had ordered grit in December and it had not arrived so it was, 'Not our fault'. It was a wonderful piece of politicking yet a swift analysis would be asking why had she left it as late as December to order for the winter months when we had already had snow by then? Further, common sense tells you that if a cold snap does come, then demand for grit will increase so being prepared meant anticipating and getting stocks in early to avoid having to wait when demand was highest. It's pretty simple really.

Gritting has been at the worst level that I can remember this year - there just does not seem to be any attempt to get lorries out and volume of grit down. Granted this is an extended cold snap but the grit wasn't there at the beginning so it is not as if they have run out half way through which would have been understandable - they just didn't seem to have any to start with.

Now here's the rub. As private individuals, supplies at places like garden centres or B&Q are pretty good so these stores have anticipated demand well. There is also a rumour that if I were to grit the area outside my house and did not do it properly and then the postman fell over, allegedly, I could be sued for not gritting properly. In the case of the councils, you have to ask whether they can be sued for gross negligence or causing unnecessary accidents for not gritting at all but I am sure there are many clauses protecting them.

This year has been the poorest on record for gritting and today is shameful. It's not that much snow but we are at a standstill again.

Perpetuating The Lie

Quite what the Chilcot Inquiry will achieve is very unclear. The one thing we can be certain of is that we will never get the truth.

Today, and live now, Alistair Campbell gives his version of events for the inquiry. Campbell was the spin-doctor at the heart of creating the myth that Iraq represented a threat to British Sovereign Territory and was the butt of Andrew Gilligan's assumptions on the 'Sexing Up' affair of the evidence document released to justify our decision to invade Iraq along with the US. Amid innuendo and spin, Dr. David Kelly, who allegedly whistle blew to Gilligan, committed suicide rather than apparently face the music.

Even as we speak, Campbell has already told the enquiry that Blair did not back regime change beforehand when Blair already told Fern Britton on BBC TV he did back regime change. The Guardian has previously reported that George W Bush and Blair had decided on going to war with Iraq at Camp David a year before the final button was pushed. Now Campbell is trying to say that WMD were never the main reason of why we invaded - even though this was the only legitimacy via the UN. But these are the things you will not hear truthfully - history has changed; history we lived ourselves and saw with own eyes.


The web of deceit surrounding that whole period of history will be spun yet further today by Campbell. Incredibly, at the height of the storm over the Kelly suicide, he stormed into Channel Four Newsroom and demanded to be put on prime time TV and explain his side of the story. Arguably then, and now, this showed that Campbell had become bigger than anyone in the country and that propaganda sinisterly ruled.


Nothing much has changed. Tony Blair has already tweaked his version of events to suit the facts over a period of time, culminating in his recent interview with Fern Britton in which he said that he would have removed Saddam anyway even if WMD did not exist saying, "I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat."


The Chilcot Inquiry was dead before it got under way as it was politicised from the start - Gordon Brown will not give evidence until after the election even though there is no earthly reason why that makes sense. So you can assure yourself of some facts - there will be no blame apportioned, no real truth will emerge, no new evidence will gain credence, no former ministers or spin doctors will lose the earnings on their biographies and Britain will still be vilified in the eyes of the wider world community for openly lying about the reasons it went to war.


I am sure, as it did not change the last one, that it will not affect the outcome of this election either. Too much skill, spin, changing of the facts and equivocation will ensure that nobody is blamed. That makes you think that if no one really was to blame then everyone from the Intelligence Community to Government Ministers to the PM himself must have so rubbish at their jobs as to be incompetent.

Hey ho, it only cost us many £billions and the lives of some young heroes. As long as Tony and Alistair's income stream is not interrupted then no one has REALLY lost out, have they?

Consumer - Know Your Rights

There is a terrific article on the BBC online Magazine which I refer to. It highlights five consumer laws you should know when buying goods.

With it comes a few horror and good stories from punters. I am sure we can all relate a few stories about buying products and what the article shows is that you need to know your rights.


Travel


I do a lot of travel and the last few months two things have affected me.


1. Eurostar


I took a trip to Paris and that included a meeting in Lille. So I bought a ticket to Paris returning from Lille so I caught the SNCF train to Lille from Gare du Nord which incidentally is an identical train to the Eurostar in every detail. The Eurostar tickets were Business Class, fully flexible and I noted there was no difference in the price of a return ticket from Paris or the halfway point which is Lille - ah, well you pays your money. My meeting at Lille ended slightly earlier than anticipated and I was able to catch an earlier Eurostar that had coincidentally come from Brussels not Paris. The first thing is that there is no special facility at Lille for Business Class like a lounge. Then when I got to my seat on the train there were only 3 other passengers in the carriage and no one came through with a drinks or meal service. Eventually I had to buy some water and ask for some service. A person came through set out the meal table and then did not return.


I complained to Eurostar and it took weeks of wrangling as all they wanted to do was to compensate £30 for the missing meal. However, I argued that the ticket was Business Class and several services were missing which made the ticket missold. Only when I said that I was referring the matter to a solicitor under my rights as a consumer did they act - then suddenly they went over board and sent me a return ticket to either Paris or Brussels, Business Class. I had not asked for that or expected it, but had clearly touched a raw nerve.


2. Air Travel - Budget Airlines


I recently had to travel to Germany and, late as usual, I could not get back to Dusseldorf in time to catch my flight home and so had to make for the nearest airport which happened to be Ryan Air hub at Frankfurt-Hahn airport. It should be noted the 'Frankfurt' title is pretty stretched as it is over 200km from Frankfurt, about as far as Birmingham from London. No matter, it served a purpose. I called to buy a ticket but as I was inside a 4 hour limit to buy either online or by phone (I didn't know such a limit existed), I had to go to the airport to buy the ticket. I was quoted €239 over the phone which I was assured was the all-in price. When I got there, the price was €354 and I had to check a bag in for extra, I had also to pay for automatic check-in which did not work and priority boarding, the total was closer to €400 for a single flight.


It was late by several very sweaty hours and most of the time we had to wait at a packed gate. It went over the 4 hour trigger to get looked after but nobody manned any desks for Ryan Air and we were told to call them when we got back even though there were small families with thirsty children. When I got back I was told that you had to write in as salespeople didn't handle customer support calls and all is done in writing. Naturally I have received no reply.


For budget airlines, there is misconception that it is implied you only pay for what you get. That is not true - all airlines are governed by the same international compensation policy which have clear guidelines - Ryan Air get away with it as no one calls them out on it while they do not have staff focused on dealing with customer problems or complaints. There is a 'like it or lump it' and 'you pay peanuts, what do expect?' policy in action.


Buying A Car


Some years ago I bought a BMW 7 series - why, I don't know. I went into the garage to buy a 5 series and ended up with an exceptional deal on the 7 series that had languished on the showroom floor. It was an odd car - luxurious and annoying at times but very nice to drive. After about 4 months a recall letter came through and the engine management software needed a bug fixed so I booked the car in to have it done. I was expecting to pick it up later that day but got a call - they had done the fix but there was a problem with the transmission or gearbox. They needed it for another day.


4 weeks later and I still did not have my car back. They had put brand new software, put all the settings back to the factory ones, and still the transmission was stuck in 4th gear. They then tried to get me to take a replacement car for a while but I went to the garage to find my car and found it with it's transmission on the floor beside it, laid out like animal entrails. I turned to the manager and said I wasn't going to have that car back - it was clearly not going anywhere fast let alone back to me. It was not fit for purpose, i.e. driving.


There was long exchange of letters, some help from the Citizens Advice Bureau and a solicitor. In order to stop adverse publicity and have the law poking around, the garage agreed to replace the car with a new one and said I could have any BMW to the same value. I went for the 645i and applied the same discount which sent them into fits as they could sell those quickly. After some wrangles and legal threats, they agreed and I got my new car.


The key factors here were that the car was less than 6 months old and was effectively 'not fit for purpose' in that I couldn't drive it and they had changed the transmission once and could not get it to go. The law was in my favour within that 6 months period. The second thing was that it was the garage, not BMW who had to remedy it. In fact, BMW did not want to know and made it absolutely clear to me, in very legal terms, that they were not responsible for selling me a car not fit for purpose even though it bore their name and they manufactured it. It was entirely the dealer's responsibility.


Finally, it does not matter how big or expensive the item is, if it is not 'fit for purpose' you have six months to exercise your rights and demand your money back or a new product - your choice.


Buying on the Internet


I recently bought a new computer for my business on my credit card - it was with PC World Business. When it arrived, after a few goes, the power block failed. I phoned Sony as PC World said it was a warranty issue. Sony said they would send a new power block to see it it fixed the problem. Clearly this was my work PC, and so I exercised my right to reject it under the 7 days cooling off period you have for any goods or service bought on the internet.


In praise of PCWB, they were excellent and made no quibbles. They took the product back, collecting and delivering the new one of my choice at the same time at no extra cost and credited the full amount on my card within two weeks (with a bit of prompting).

PCWB are a good company - there was never any question of taking the product back for a full refund and the service was superb. I didn't replace it with another Sony, I bought Lenovo instead and it is excellent.

Parallel Universes?

The BBC contends that a report to published on the 'Phoenix Affair' where MG Rover was sold by BMW thanks to Government sweeteners in 2000 for a mere £10 then subsequently was run into the ground by the 4 members of its management team - allegedly.

The 'Phoenix 4', as they were known, are now known to have taken some £42m in pay and pensions before the company went belly up and the residual pieces had to be sold to the Chinese. It was a spectacular show as to how private equity can be not a good thing.

The Phoenix Four had somehow beaten off some heavyweight bidders to inexplicably 'win' MG Rover. To this day, no one really understands how this was achieved and I dare say that the report will, of course, not reveal which ministers actually contributed to what happened next by displaying consummate incompetence or, worse still, had a vested interest in making sure that a bunch of unproven, largely unknown private investors got to run one of the last decent British car companies. The rest is history.

The BBC's Robert Peston is spitting blood about how these individuals 'enriched themselves' while having no real interest in the firm's future or the workforce. It is at this point that my feeble brain clangs and I think, well surprise, surprise, there are real parallels with how banks acted in the last 10 years. I am sure financial people will beg to differ, but what the Phoenix Four did was to find something within the company that realised cash and they rewarded themselves with it. In reality, it wasn't illegal per se but it was a 'damned un-jolly' show. The parallels are there as the banking sector found something upon which to generate vast, effectively unreal profits that had nothing to do with the real worth of their banks or of real assets, to not show it on the their balance sheets and to effectively reward themselves lavishly and widely for their little scam.

So why are we spitting blood? I suppose in proportion, what the Phoenix Four did was highly 'geared' vs the eventual collapse. Put into context, the CEO of Lehmans, Dick Fuld, earned a mere $300m leading up to the spectacular collapse of the bank to the tune of around $700bn. But when you add up all the vast bonuses paid out in all the banks and the incredible losses they clocked up before having to be saved by taxpayers around the world, the principles are very similar. Banks borrowed money on the short term to fuel high risk gambling habits at rigged tables, and when someone found out the tables were rigged, we became liable for the full amount of profits they had previously made. Or have we yet paid the full dues? I would argue we haven't. Have we un-rigged the tables? Nope, we have refilled their vast wallets and allowed them to get on with it again. Only recently have some key people within the banking industry dared to break cover and revealed what the rest of us mortals already knew - banks were making money out of thin air.

The issues surrounding the Phoenix Four was that a great deal of jobs were at risk, the company eventually fell into the hands of the Chinese, ministers contributed to the incompetence and a small number of people made a lot of money in the process. That got a full independent inquiry in which it will likely be concluded that although the 4 individuals were rotten chaps to have taken so money out personally, in fact they were just rubbish businessmen who had no idea what they had bid for, couldn't run a company to save their lives, didn't know what to do when it went wrong but certainly knew how to realise some cash to pay themselves handsomely without a care for the workforce or the company. Where that leaves the idiot ministers involved, who are all around today, goodness only knows.

The parallels with what has occurred on a much more grand scale are there to be seen. In the case of banks, we bailed them out completely and, with few exceptions, the executives have either kept their jobs or have risen phoenix-like from the ashes. In their cases we will not get an independent inquiry which would reveal how we should not have allowed it to have happened or indeed how we can prevent it again for the future. The way the situation was solved was by the self-same people murmuring into incompetent ministers' and regulators' ears and persuading everyone it was a natural phenomenon and we must continue or else the world falls into oblivion and, heaven forbid, economic growth goes out of the window. The Planet Earth faced a fate that rendered the population as potential goat herders exchanging vegetables and beads for the future. To save us, there had to continue to be an incredibly small number of extremely wealthy people who make equally incredible sums of money while we watch in dumb satisfaction.

The Phoenix Four of John Towers, Peter Beale, John Edwards and Kevin Howe plus Nick Stephenson can rightfully claim that their clever accounting was chickenfeed to what ministers have allowed to happen and make us all personally pay for with the banks. It doesn't make any of it any the more palatable but it would be very good to get the names of all the individuals who benefited from the taxpayers' largesse over the last 10 years and get to know them equally well as a lot of people paid good money for them to have their lovely bonuses, fat lifestyles and to make sure they still have their glittering careers.

The poor chaps at Phoenix have had to make do with a paltry £42m between them and eek it out to cover the rest of their lives. Makes you feel quite sorry for them, doesn't it, when you put it like that?

Google's Gonna Get You

I am a massive Google fan. I think they have done more to open up the web and unlock the information on it than any other company. It's all very well having browsers and content but finding what you need in the morass is what has made the web exciting, to my mind.

But all this comes at a price - despite the recession, Google clocked up $5.7bn in revenue last quarter and while profits dropped to $382m, they have made as much as $1.29bn of profit in Q3 of 2008. It is, by any measure, an extraordinarily profitable business.

One of its main functions is to aggregate content so that we can all easily digest information, like that from newspapers. While having amazing deals with newspaper firms which nets it enormous advertising revenues, papers are finding it hard. In a recent conference organised by the newspaper industry, Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, was both critical of papers and criticised by them.

On the one hand, news companies saw the incredible revenues Google was making effectively off the back of their content, for which they have to pay handsomely to produce. On the other, Google believes that newspapers should revolutionise and get with the fact that they are useless at distributing their content. Schmidt criticised the newspaper industry for 'pissing off' its consumers and that Google were the heroes for distributing the content more effectively.

The Big Machine

Producing news is an expensive business, much more expensive than aggregating and distributing it. If someone delivered a paper to your doorstep which was just the information you liked as a synopsis of cuttings that would interest you from all papers in just one copy, small enough to digest the headlines but expandable if you want to read the detailed article, then that's what Google does. With it comes all that context sensitive advertising, carefully targeted to get us to click through and earn fortunes for Google.

It is, undoubtedly, a terrific service.

But it is just that. The content is what drives the interest and it's easy to forget that. I write this blog but the wider world beyond a clique of readers never get to see it as Google does not rate it and I do not pay them for anything. The result is that even if I have some practical advice for SMEs, beyond a few dedicated readers, the wider world never knows about it. If I wanted to expand my readership, I would have to pay Google to take interest. That does not stop them hosting the blog or popping adverts on the side. My content still earns them some money.

Google was described by one source from within the newspaper industry as a 'tapeworm', parasitically dependent on the content produced at great expense by the news industry. The consumers, though, want it all ways. I read the Telegraph from time to time because I like to do the crossword but if I want to find out about something quickly I 'Google' the subject and choose a prominent news story - it may not be the best written, the best informed or indeed written by a factual journalist in this country even, but it will be from the company with the highest Google rating which is ultimately driven by money.

The Future

Rupert Murdoch, that bastion of honest content and fighter on behalf of the consumer, has asked if aggregators like Google should in future pay for the content. It's a relevant question from the wily proprietor. There is a long term risk that if news is only ever presented on the web then Google and others will have all the power in terms of distribution whereas in the old days the news companies controlled the chain right down to the vendors in the street. It was easy to see how money could be made from news. Now it's not so clear.

Google always comes back to the 'fair use' argument - if this is what consumers want, why fight it? While newspapers would argue that the intellectual property rights to their content is being constantly eroded by having such ease of availability. The problem really boils down to, if content aggregation becomes the dominant way in which newspapers are distributed and read, then how will newspapers make money on their content? There is a small kickback of advertising revenue to newspapers, but you can rest assured that Google has the lion's share for itself.

Much of what is reported in papers is rehashed and blogged on - some bloggers making some pretty profits on the back of the original content. News opinion like mine, derives its subject matter from content on the web - I make no excuses for that. While I make no money from it, it would be quite an easy thing to do - so for once, I have some sympathy for the man who took away the Ryder Cup and stuck it on Sky.

News has always been big business and while ticker feeds like Twitter claim that it is the new way to spread word faster when terrible events occur, feeds such as Reuters have specialised in this for years. The power is that Twitter could create a new army of 'amateur journalists' across the globe who provide short, sharp news from source rather than rehashing news on line.

Or so we would like to think. It comes as no surprise that Google is rumoured to be targeting Twitter as a takeover. It is a short hop to believe that Google is then going to become not just the content aggregator but also content provider of millions of 'news' feeds.

The News Revolution

The problem for people like me is that in a busy day with other things to do, getting news needs to be in short bursts and I turn to quality sites like the BBC, Sky, Bloomberg and others to get my feeds. I have tried Twitter but it really is like sitting in a large room with thousands of people talking and maybe one person in the room, at just one point in the day says something of real consequence. The rest is just a blur of irritating noise. To get anything from it, you have to use the aggregation devices, many of which are available like Tweetdeck and these can even be fed to your mobile.

You can then 'follow' your Tweeters into the toilet, through the supermarket and down the golf course and see what they are doing, reading and knowing. The problem is that the VAST majority of the 'Tweets' are just nonsense and trivial to the point of pathetic. Like watching Big Brother, unless you are interested in the armpits of yawning contestants lounging on a settee talking garbage, Twitter provides you nonsense.

The world of news still is all about sifting through the mass of data and source bites and putting together something of interest - reporting both facts and content. Reading Michael Parkinson's superb analysis of Jade Goody's life in the Radio Times was brought to me by Google but the content was all Parky. Without his insight, and the thousands of writers who provide news content and make it interesting and informative, Google would be nothing.

We have this dichotomy all the time. My wife's Uncle, Terry Tyler, is a watercress grower and his cress is grown in the clean riverbeds between Sarrat and Chenies in Hertfordshire. He is not a big producer and he cannot afford the fees and chemicals to go 'organic' (perhaps another story of a sham industry awaits) but he uses no fertilisers at all to produce the most peppery and delicious watercress you will ever taste. You will never, ever buy it at any supermarket in the UK or even on market stalls in 'market towns' which advertise fresh, local produce. You will find it used by some of the top restaurants around Britain, however. The reason being is that he cannot afford to sell his product at supermarket prices as he hand grows and picks the lot. Despite knowing this, I still buy most of my watercress in supermarkets as it is more convenient, even though I am know I am buying inferior product and supporting large faceless suppliers who would put Terry Tyler out of business if they could.

We are a consumer society, and we want our product here and now, conveniently and cheaply. I think what will happen to news will be the same as has happened in Terry Tyler's industry - the value of the content will diminish and the value in distribution will grow. We will see a fall in quality but a gain in availability. No longer will stories arrive at us based on the quality of the journalism and the facts but on the who has paid to be at the top of the search.

Don't knock it, we asked for it.