Yearly Archives: 2008
Remembrance
August the 20th is always a tough day. It’s the anniversary of my brother’s death and I always phone home. It’s hard to hear your mum cry from 7,000 miles away and not be able to give her a hug.
David McKenzie (1968-1994)
David was born in October 1968 with Cystic Fibrosis, a genetic disorder that affects the lungs, liver, pancreas, and intestines and of course has a major effect on virtually every aspect of it’s victim’s life. At the time, there wasn’t a lot known about this disease even by doctors and he was mis-diagnosed for the first two years of his life as suffering from colds, flu, suppressed immune system, asthma and God knows what else, before a canny GP referred my worried parents to a consulting professor at Auckland Hospital, who was delving into CF and recognized the symptoms.
+69Olympics
Anyone who knows me will tell you that in general I couldn’t care less about the Olympics.
While I can appreciate the commitment and self sacrifice that individual participants make in order to be the best they can be (and if at all possible, the best in the world), I loathe the inevitable dirty politics, shady dealings and backhanders that are now so interwoven into the whole spectacle, that they’ve actually become part of the fabric.
When was the last time we had an Olympic games not marred by drugs scandals, huge cost over-runs, civil right clamp-downs, forced relocations or environmental issues?
+14Employee Benefits on a new scale.
Judging by today’s police raid on a cannabis factory in Nottinghamshire, the union of illegal drug producers has scored some major concessions recently.
The ex-chicken factory apparently had separate rooms for staff quarters – each with their own flat screen TV. There was even a fully equipped gym!
All they needed was a profit-sharing scheme, a couple of team building junkets and an annual BBQ (complete with bouncy castle for the kids) and they would have been the envy of downtrodden workers throughout the country!
Maybe I need to negotiate extra benefits when my contract comes up for renewal.
+15British businesses (specialising in being naff)
Yesterday, I had a light-hearted dig at a number of American chainstore franchises, which I think are pretty naff. A possibly-American reader, identifying himself only as “Dave”, took slight exception to this and pointed out that on this side of the pond, we aren’t much better.
While Dave seems to have missed the joke (that Australians occasionally have surprisingly good taste – honestly, it’s no fun if you have to *explain* it!) he’s absolutely right.
+18News Flash! Aussies have some good taste!
Why do Australians call XXXX ‘four-X’? Cos they can’t spell “Koala p*ss”.
What’s the definition of Australian Foreplay? “You awake Sheila?”.
(I’m stopping there before I get lots of hate mail, full of sheep jokes) 
+18Rant: British Gas – Adding insult to injury
I’d like to think this could only in the UK, but I suspect that’s not true…
Yesterday, I reported on how Centrica / British Gas had jacked up it’s prices by 35%, less than 24 hours after it revealed it made almost a billion quid operating profit in 6 months.
Unbelievably, when I got home this evening there was a package from British Gas sitting on my doorstep. The package contained…wait for it…four long-life light bulbs, and a booklet containing energy saving tips (which were mostly straight out the the bleeding-obvious manual).
+19Rant: British Gas at it again!
Yesterday’s announcement by Centrica-owned British gas of a record 35% price increase would have been enough for most of their long-suffering customers to content with, if it had been the only rise this year.
But it’s not of course. Let’s not forget the 15% retail price increase in January of this year, the 12.4% increase in September 2006 and the 14% increase in 2005. Taken collectively, they represent a non inflation-adjusted (but still gobsmacking) 96% rise in the last 3 years!
+19