Stating the Obvious (Yet Again)
Posted: Wed 28 October, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, News, Thoughts 1 Comment »Monday’s verdict from the inquest into the death of three men in an RAF Puma helicopter was a perfect exercise in “No shit, sherlock”.
Apparently, “the pilot was attempting manoeuvres beyond his capabilities“.
Which is pretty obvious when you think about it. After all, the helicopter crashed.
The news coverage though was even better – and how they didn’t end up with a really rude answer, I don’t know. It’s another of those situations where I’m glad I’m not involved in this kind of idiocy, because my response would’ve been rude, insensitive and many other things.
At one point the reporter asked “So was the helicopter flying too low?”. Of course it fucking was, it ended up flying into the ground.
Self-Assessment
Posted: Tue 27 October, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Business, Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised, Security, Thoughts 3 Comments »Over the weekend, I completed – and sent off – my Self-Assessment Tax Return to Your Friends And Mine at HMCE. The deadline for receiving them is October 31st (i.e. this Saturday) so I’ve only just scraped it this year, having been really really good with it last year.
I know, I could do it all online, and have ’til January 31st to fill it in etc. – but I still don’t trust the online system. I wrote about this a couple of years back, and my feelings are still the same. Mainly, I’m happy to spend the money and use the Special Delivery stuff to get the tax return in – it just means I’ve got a signed confirmation that the Tax Return has been received where it’s been sent. I’ve been bitten by that before, the entire “Oh no, we haven’t received it” from HMCE. Of course, if you say you haven’t received something from them, it’s a case of “Well we sent it, so you must have received it”, but it’s not the same thing when it’s time to send stuff to them.
Basically, when it comes to sending documents to HMCE, it always pays to be paranoid. Always assume that they are either :
- Vindictive
- Inefficient beyond the dreams of man
- Both
and you’ll be OK.
It’s because of that – OK, it’s partly because of that – that I still don’t trust the online submission of tax returns. Yes, you can be pretty sure they’ve received it – but when it comes to HMRC, “pretty sure” simply isn’t sure enough. I feel the same way about HMCE’s online submission as I do about the people who store all their important data/files with Google, Amazon or some other internet cloud-based server – in other words, “Expect it to get lost. Expect it to get hacked.”
My tax return is on paper. Yes, I know it’ll end up being clocked in to the HMCE ‘System’. That’s fine. But letting their system be the only place it’s held? Sod that. I’ve got a photocopy of the tax return. I know where the figures came from, and I’ve got them recorded. I expect HMCE’s copy of the document to get lost, edited, hacked or mislaid. If/when it happens, I’ve got my own hard-copy backup. If you’ve done all the calculations on-line and not printed out the results (or even better, screenshots) and/or received confirmation from the system of those figures, what proof have you got of what you filled in?
Even if it’s simply that the electronic version gets corrupted, if HMCE also have it on paper then there’s some way they can recover the information without me even needing to be involved. If they only have an electronic version, then lots of people are going to be screwed if anything does happen.
So while I can, I’ll stick with doing my tax return on paper and sending it in to them. When they eventually go to “Online only”, I’ll still make sure I’ve got a printout of the entire thing, along with all the figures I’ve used to calculate it.
Call me paranoid, I don’t mind. Frankly, I’ve been kicked in the nuts by HMCE too many times to not be paranoid. And that’s not paranoia – that’s just common sense.
Mail and Moir
Posted: Mon 19 October, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, Media, News, Thoughts 1 Comment »While we were away over the weekend, I kind of missed the furore about Jan Moir’s Daily Mail column about the death of Stephen Gately in which she spreads more rumours and bigoted claptrap than I’d wish to read.
What surprised me more though was the number of complaints about this article. (At the time of writing this, the PCC has received more than 21,000 complaints) Yes, it’s an offensive, bigoted piece and breaches three conditions of the PCC code of conduct – and let’s not forget that Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, is also the chief honcho at the Press Complaints Committee. Oh, the irony. But really, when did anyone expect anything but hate-filled, bigoted writing from that shit-stain rag which camoflages it’s vitriol and hatred as ‘news’?
As Deeply Flawed But Trying wrote far better than I can, the Daily Mail has a long and vicious history of being a nasty hate-filled rag of bigotry and loathing. Hell, most of the time it doesn’t even like its own readers, let alone the rest of the nation/world. Charlie Brooker (as usual) had his own well-written point of view on it too.
I’m glad to see the Daily Mail being complained about at epic levels – but it should’ve happened years ago. I’d love to see the Daily Mail sued for inciting racial hatred, religious hatred, and homophobia. It’s a divisive, nasty, vindictive rag, and should incur the wrath of balanced people every day – not just for one ill-written article on one day.
Criminal Mastermind
Posted: Wed 14 October, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Stupidity Leave a comment »Some people really are too stupid to live, in my opinion.
In this case, a fugitive fraudster who decided he’d keep on updating his Facebook page and is then amazed when the police catch up with him.
Cameroon-born Maxi Sopo’s messages made it clear he was living the high life in the Mexican resort of Cancun.
He also added a former US justice department official to his friend list who ended up helping to track him down.
The criminal genius at work…
Gagging the Press
Posted: Tue 13 October, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, Media, News Leave a comment »While Private Eye covered this in some detail last week, the shit appears to have officially hit the fan today with the Guardian’s announcement that it has been barred from mentioning a certain question to be asked in Parliament this week. From the story…
Today’s published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.
The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.
The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.
The question (according to other sources) is about Trafigura, and their toxic oil dump back in 2007. And this is what it’s all about…
61 N: Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.
It’s all publicly available in this list of Parliamentary questions – which makes the entire media-gagging order look pretty fucking stupid, and more and more as though Trafigura et al. have something to hide. Which is pretty fucking stupid in itself.
Fuck You, Tesco
Posted: Thu 8 October, 2009 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Festering Season Leave a comment »
In an early front-runner for “Smuggest advert of the Festering Season”, the fuckstick bastards at Tesco have dropped a blinder. Not just smug and insanely early, but as sexist and shit as it’s possible to be.
A rough version of the text (it’s engraved in my brain having seen the cocking advert once) goes as follows…
Toys.
Come December 25th there’ll be Action Man for boys and Barbie for girls.
And yes, we know it’s only October. But Christmas comes quickly round here.
Smug overbearing materialistic shit-flogging sexist fuckbag cunts. Fuck off with your shite, you weaselly tossbags.
iEverything
Posted: Thu 8 October, 2009 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Festering Season 2 Comments »The latest marketing ‘trend’ seems to be to emulate Apple by branding any given product with an “i” at the start, in the theme of iPod, iPhone, iDontCare etc. etc.
The one that boggles my brain more than usual in the current adverts is the Babyliss iTrim. It’s a fucking razor. Nothing iconic, nothing trendy. A fucking electric razor. That’s it.
Of course, we’re now in the advertising run-up to the Festering Season, so it’s all go for adverts about shit like this, so I’m sure it’s not going to be the last product this year with an i at the start of the name.
It’s still bullshit though. Sorry, iBullshit.