Blue Witch

Friday questions

2 current true scenarios within the Parish.

Today I'm interested in your take on them.
What, if anything, you'd do when someone approached you with the issue.

And tomorrow I'll tell you what I did.

1. Parish Counci1 decide that, as BT say they will no longer clean rural pub1ic te1ephone boxes unless they are fouled or vandalised, local residents living near each of them will be approached to 'adopt' them and voluntarily clean them on a regular weekly basis.

2. Local Briti5h Legion branch approach all local clubs, groups and organisations to give toi1etries to be packaged up and sent to the tr00ps in Iraq and Afghanistan, who they claim are uncomfortable because they are short of such basics as so@p, deodor@nt and toothp@ste.

Guest post from Mr BW

How many Renault engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
(and this is a serious question!)

Over the last few weeks I have dismantled a rear axle, brakes and bearings, wired in brake lights and indicators, and tuned and replaced bits and pieces on a 1933 car. I am an engineer by original profession (BW adds - and that's real engineer, not washing machine type), could rewire a house if required, and can turn my hand to anything DIY (BW adds - and to a much better standard than most tradesmen). I am therefore not incompetent in the technical or car departments.

So, yesterday, on realising that a headlight on our 14 month old Clio had blown, I decided to remove the bulb when I got home so that I could check which type it was and get a new one today at lunchtime.

30 minutes of fiddling and pushing aside of pipes and wires later and I could not get to the bulb. I could see the end of it but not reach it. Thinking that I must be missing something I decided to visit the Renault dealer today.

1 spares assistant, 1 specially selected spares technician with very slim fingers and a spares manager later we gave up. Further consultation with a passing fitter confirmed what needed doing (as he had done a bulb on a Modus the week before).

To change a simple headlight bulb, the front end of the car needs removing (inner wheel arches, bumper assembly, grill and upper bodywork), then you can reach the light assembly to remove that and hey presto you can replace the bulb. £120 to you sir.

One hundred and twenty pounds to change a headlight bulb?
Unbelievable.

I picked their brains and they took pity and gave me a 10 minute lesson in what needs unscrewing (where the hidden 10mm bolts are and things like that) and from where. They also gave me the generic bulb number to save half their price (sixteen quid) by getting it from Halfords.

They left me with the comforting words, "You should see the new Laguna, that's worse..."

Thought for the day

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

- Henry David Thoreau

Art Class: Extra

"Oh, she's gorgeous!" enthused the lady who runs the day art classes down by the coast that I go to occasionally and went to on Saturday. "I'd love to meet her - when can I come round?"

"Anytime you like, but please bring a spade..." I replied.

Luckily I know her well so she's used to my facetiousness, and I recounted the tale of the Ginger Familiar's untimely Death by Motorist two years and one week exactly before that day (and, hopefully, there may soon be news on the BW Campaign to Obtain Official Measures to Slow The Lunatic Speeding Drivers Down, now into its tenth year, as Mr BW has been helping the local numpties understand how things can work if people want them to - ie annoying everyone, incessantly, with emails, phone calls and personal appearances at meetings related and not-so-related, so that they get on and authorise a few measly signs (which I told them 7 years ago we were happy to pay for, if funding was the problem as they claimed then)).

A most informative course, using paste1s and paste1 penci1s, and working from the centre of the picture out. That is, starting by putting in the eyes/nose and then working out from that point only, to build the fur around them, so never have a restraining perimeter line. I thought that would be hard, but it turned out to be much easier, and more effective, than I or anyone else had expected.

Paste1 on paste1 paper, 15" x 15", "The Ginger Familiar"

The tutor was a weird man - very quiet and rat-like, but he knew his stuff, and met my two criteria for an art tutor - he could do art and he could teach.

We were kept amused by the banter of Albert, an old boy (somewhere between 80 and 90), who watched the tutor's initial demonstration attentively (Tutor George produced in 12 minutes something 100 times better than what the rest of us subsequently spent most of the day doing, using just a set of 10 cheap, hard, paste1s from The Works that had cost £1.99), then asked, "George, what do you do with things you're not happy with? Do you throw them away?" "Oh yes, yes, yes, yes I do!" replied Tutor George. "Where do you throw them?" Albert asked.

Some time after lunch, Albert shuffled out to the toilet, and returned several minutes later, looking rather embarrassed. "Apologies to the next person in there," he said, "but there's a bit of a puddle on the floor that I can't get down to clear up. If you want to know why there's a puddle, it's because when you get to my age your willy's so shrivelled up you can't find it to point it in the right direction any more, so you just dangle and hope." I don't think the graphic image that etched into my head will ever leave...

Paste1s are fast becoming my favourite medium, after textiles. So reversible. And addable-to. Now I've looked at the image above, hugely scaled and resolutioned down from the oriignal, I can see a couple of things that need a bit more work.

Food and the environment

• Information proliferates.
  
• Statistics have always been used selectively to prove particular points and suit particular purposes.


• The majority of people don't fully understand statistics.
  
• Therefore, misinformation proliferates.

I've just found this interesting article of food facts (via).

In the interests of further disseminating this information and not re-inventing the wheel, I'm pinching Pete Smith's - the blog author's - excellent summary of key points (which may conflict with info you already know):

According to the UK's Soil Association, 50 percent of the increase in global CO2 emissions between 1850 and 1990 has been tied to changes in land use - mainly because of farming practices.

The Food Climate Research Network estimates that 31% of EU greenhouse emissions come from the food chain.

More than half of that, 18% of total emissions, comes from meat production. The “average burger man…emits the equivalent of 1.5 tons more CO2 every year than the standard vegan,” reports The Guardian.

According to Farmers Weekly, the amount of food that is air-freighted around the world has increased by 140 percent since 1990.

The UK, for example, now imports more food than it exports, with 95% of its fruit and 50% of its vegetables coming from overseas.

The global transportation sector contributes 14% of greenhouse gas emissions.

A recent report from the International Maritime Organization says that, contrary to previous data, the shipping industry globally emits twice as much greenhouse gases — 1.2 billion tons — as the aviation industry, which emits between 600 and 650 million tons annually.

By the end of this century, climate change-induced floods and droughts could cost India 30% of its total food production; and China 37% of its wheat, rice and corn crops.

The amount of arable land per person is shrinking, says the FAO, from 0.38 hectares in 1970 to 0.23 in 2000, to 0.15 in 2050.

The IPCC says that by 2080 3.2 billion people will suffer water shortages.

If the EU were to replace just 10 percent of its fuel needs with biofuel, it would require 72 percent of its arable land.

Poor African farmers are now opting to sell crops like cassava for use as alternative energy instead of food because they get paid more for it.

China, one of the world’s leading corn exporters, withheld stocks last year for the purpose of biofuels.

And I thought I was an informed person on these issues... over a quarter of these 'facts' were news to me.

WHY do we import 95% of our fruit and 50% of our vegetables? (and, returning to the point I was making right at the top - what is that 50% and 95%? Consumption? (by whom? Don't forget the increasing numbers of us who grow our own!) Sales? Sales from where? (shops, markets, farmers markets etc etc))

It's all just so confusing.

Thought for the day

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

- Epictetus (50-120, Stoic Philosopher)

Take care with Shell fuel

With diesel now pushing £1.05 a litre (that's 9 US dollars a US gallon for non-UK readers) in the cheaper places and up to £1.10 in some places round here, Shell garage owners have decided to beat the supermarkets on price.

How? Because they've found a new trick to keep their profits up, as I discovered last night.

The garage I went into was displaying a price of '104.8 ppl' for diesel. At 2 to 3 pence per litre cheaper than other garages within a 10 mile radius, and it being Saturday early evening, there was a queue. Eventually I reached the front, and was standing with nozzle in tank waiting for the camera to record my registration plate and allow me to begin fuelling, when I noticed that the tiny 3" x 2" price per litre display was showing £1.109. Not used to seeing pound and penny prices displayed with 3 decimal places, and very tired after a day's pastel course down at the coast, and in the dark and drizzle, my brain's initial reaction was confusion, but a sense that something wasn't right. It took me several seconds to work out that £1.109 was definitely not the 104.8 pence displayed on the huge price sign at the entrance.

I looked over at the next pump and saw that it had diesel at the advertised price. A few seconds after I noticed that the inflated-price diesel on my pump had a 'v-power diesel' sticker stuck over the normal 'diesel' sign (about 6" x 2"). Thanks to the marketing boys, there are so many variants on fuel names these days that I suspect 99% of people filling up wouldn't realise that the fuel was 6.1 pence a litre more than the price advertised, or realise that it is an alleged higher-performance fuel (just Google to see that it's not the wonder-fuel being claimed, and actually does around 5% fewer miles to each gallon) , and shouldn't be used in some older engines.

There was no other warning on the pump.

I replaced the nozzle and used a different pump to put in regular diesel.

When paying, I informed the cashier that I felt there should be better signage on the v-power pump. He replied, "Yeah, other people have complained, but the manager doesn't give a fuck, he says he has to make his profit somehow!" I paused for dramatic effect, gave him a BW Hard Stare (much harder than a Paddington Hard Stare) and spluttered, loudly, "I beg your pardon?!" His older female colleague standing alongside said, "What he means is that the manager has checked with Head Office and it doesn't have to have special signage. It's up to people to notice what they are putting in."

I asked to speak to this manager. They told me he wasn't there, didn't know when he would be there, and refused to either give me his phone number or ask him to ring me.

On my way back to the car I checked the other pumps. Some of them had petrol v-power stickers on them, with petrol at a higher price than advertised, but you'd only see this if you bothered to check the price on the pump before fuelling. Furthermore, the allocation of the special fuel to pumps was random (and mixed up with normal fuel of a different sort on the same pump), and, in my opinion, clearly designed to mislead. Which, of course, is illegal.

I asked one lady filling-up her People Killer with v-power petrol if she was aware that what she was putting in was 7 pence a litre more than the standard fuel. "Oh, it's all gone up this week, didn't you know?" she said, smiling in that sickly over-moneyed way that those driving People Killers do. I pointed to the price window on the pump, then to the sign at the entrance. "Blimey!" she said, "I've just put nearly 100 litres in... that's £7 extra they've had from me! I'm not going to pay that!" "Good luck!" I said, "but you'll find that the reported attitude of the manager, who is unavailable and uncontactable is 'tough luck' and that he claims his labelling policy is sanctioned by Shell UK. Only that's putting it politely..."

This kind of consumer deception makes me very cross. Unwitting customers are deliberately being misled into paying between £3 and £7 more on a tankful (depending on their tank size) and potentially using a fuel not suited to their engine.

Shell will no doubt be getting a call from the County Trading Standards Officers when I've finished speaking to them tomorrow :)

In the meantime... if you don't normally check pump prices carefully, and fill up in a Shell garage, do 'look twice fill once' to distort the old saying.

Friday questions

1. Do bars of soap dissolve more rapidly than they did years ago?

(and no, I don't want the two nuns in a bath soap joke regurgitated in the comments, thanks ;))

2. Why are (almost all it seems to me) calendars being printed on shiny paper that won't take felt- or ink- pen?

3. Does anyone else find the channel logo in the corner of a TV screen distracting?

Return to sender

The trouble with spells is that you *think* you've just got one right (see below), then something happens that makes you remember what you forgot to put into the mix.

The first FOTCR™ card of the year has just arrived (yes, our post does get here late, doesn't it?)

It's November the twenty-second for goodness sake! I am not amused.

Has anyone else had any?

How to be a local legend in your own lunchtime

"Were you in Sainsbury's yesterday afternoon?" asked Cleaner BW (now happily returned to our employ following her 6 months of enforced 'holiday' following a heart bypass - you too can have one in your mid-thirties if you smoke 10-15 a day for 15 or 20 years).

"Erm... maybe... why?" I replied, tentatively, racking my brain to think what I might have done that might have got back to her as a 'you'll never guess what a customer did today story' when she did her supervisor shift yesterday evening. I decided I'd not taken anything back, complained about the lack of organic milk, unhelpful staff, or any kind of overpackaging. Unusual that, but just occasionally I do get the customer service that everyone deserves all the time, so I don't have to pass comment to keep them on their toes :)

"Well, OK, yes, I was in that establishment at that time, someone's got to pay your wages y'know, why?"

"Thought so!" she said, "you're giving them ideas, that's why!"

"Oh?" I said, "which idea exactly are you referring to?"

"Well... some of the ladies were talking in the locker room as they were leaving and I was coming in about this customer who'd been chatting to one of them on her way through the till when they'd said that the christmas music loop played all day was driving them mad about how pointless and commercialised christmas was and how people just make stress and debt for themsleves and actually no-one really needs presents and most people especially kids don't like what they get anyway and most people eat and drink well all year round these days and don't really want to spend time with many of the people they feel they have to spend time with at that time of year anyway." (She really does talk in very long sentences without pausing for breath.)

"Mmmm... and?"

"And, well, all the ones without children or grandchildren decided they agreed, and a lot of the others, and I suspected it was you that Carol had been talking too!"

So, there you have it. Straight from the mouths of the local Sainsbury's till ladies. The FOTCR™ these days is only about presents for greedy children. They have succumbed to my spells :)

I am strangely nonchalant about the whole phenomenon this year. It's like looking in on other people's chaos and not even thinking about needing to engage in it, at any level. True resolution.

Even the news that a small local town (population just over 6,000) has spent £19,000 on installing their FOTCR™ lights, and another a bit further away (population 15,000) has spent £34,000, just made me glad I don't pay part of my council tax to those town councils. Although... thinking about it now... £3 per person, plus running costs (and the resultant unnecessary light pollution and environmental damage)... *sighs* Better use could been made of that public money, surely?

Seen on a Radox bubble bath bottle:

"with MIMOSA renowned to help promote tranquility"

Thought for the day

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive.

- Anais Nin

Cat in sheep's clothing

The current favourite sleeping place of Pointy Velcro Claws, The Dark Tabby Familiar, seems to be on a smelly old sheep's back.

There are currently three fleeces sitting in plastic bags in the utility awaiting processing. Gifted by our Northumbrian farmer friend, who was more than pleased to give them to someone who would grade, spin, wash and dye them, before using them for assorted, but as yet undefined, textile projects, rather than sell them at a loss to the Wool Marketing Board.

Given the current resurgence in the passion for knitting (and anyone who knits knows the inflated price of wool these days), do you not think it is scandalous that our farmers get just 50p per fleece from the only body to which they are allowed to sell raw wool, when it costs them at least £1.25 to shear each animal?

As our farmer friend said, shearing is now regarded as an animal welfare operation, rather than production of a saleable product. Without subsidies from the EU, our sheep farmers could not exist. Without sheep farmers, vast tracts of land suitable only for sheep grazing would quickly become overgrown wilderness.

Thought for the day

The value of achievement lies in the achieving.

- Albert Einstein

Yes, yes, yes!

I don't know if you ever have the experience where there's a lot of 'stuff' floating about, cluttering your mind, somehow waiting for some sense to be made of it, but not urgently in need of attention. 'Stuff' that is on the one hand perplexing, but on the other almost beyond any kind of order coming from it because it's outside of your reasoning, or personal familiarlity, or just one stretch beyond what you are comfortable with saying you've understood.

I find that this kind of 'stuff' creates low-level noise in my head, and a feeling of unease. I like to be able to solve things, to make sense of them, and to understand what underpins them, and then to move on to the next mystery. I like creating order in chaos. Sometimes that involves modifying what I once believed to be the solution to past mysteries, but that is, I believe, the heart of true learning.

I like thinking I understand things because it helps me understand people and the world better. I'm not often happy with the level of understanding that most people would regard as 'already overthunk'. My level of understanding has to be able to be passed on - it needs to be able to allow me to say things, in certain situations, to people that make them think differently.

I've been drowning in 'stuff' for a while. I think it's mostly other people's stuff that I've gathered, actually, which is probably why I've not got anywhere with a complete synthesis. A vague malaise about what I hear goes on in offices and workplaces, in kids' attitudes in the street (and to their parents), in the reactions of people who should be there to serve you (eg in call centres and shops) but aren't, in the way people drive, and push in at the front of queues, and in incessant consumerism irrespective of cost or debt.

It's what I've had semi-labelled as the, 'Me, me, me!" culture. No regard or care for anyone else. Manyana will do, the truth is irrelevant as long as the excuse sounds convincing, don't tell me about you (I'm only interested in telling you about me), and if you can get away with it, then do. And I just don't understand any of that.

And now I've just read something that Ann found. And all of a sudden the penny has dropped. What the article says resonates with the 'stuff' at such a level that it's like nuclear fusion in my head.

It's a CBS News story, from here, but I'm going to paste it in because otherwise it will be gone next time I go to look for it. It's written about American workers, but I think it applies just as much over here.

The "Millennials" Are Coming: Morley Safer On The New Generation Of American Workers

Stand back all bosses! A new breed of American worker is about to attack everything you hold sacred: from giving orders, to your starched white shirt and tie. They are called, among other things, "millennials." There are about 80 million of them, born between 1980 and 1995, and they're rapidly taking over from the baby boomers who are now pushing 60.

They were raised by doting parents who told them they are special, played in little leagues with no winners or losers, or all winners. They are laden with trophies just for participating and they think your business-as-usual ethic is for the birds. And if you persist in the belief you can take your job and shove it.

As correspondent Morley Safer reports, corporate America is so unnerved by all this that companies like Merrill Lynch, Ernst & Young, Disney and scores of others are hiring consultants to teach them how to deal with this generation that only takes "yes" for an answer.

The workplace has become a psychological battlefield and the millennials have the upper hand, because they are tech savvy, with every gadget imaginable almost becoming an extension of their bodies. They multitask, talk, walk, listen and type, and text. And their priorities are simple: they come first.

Just ask Marian Salzman, an ad agency executive at J. Walter Thompson, who has been managing and tracking millennials since they entered the workforce.

"Some of them are the greatest generation. They're more hardworking. They have these tools to get things done," she explains. "They are enormously clever and resourceful. Some of the others are absolutely incorrigible. It's their way or the highway. The rest of us are old, redundant, should be retired. How dare we come in, anyone over 30. Not only can't be trusted, can't be counted upon to be, sort of, coherent."

Salzman says today's manager must be half shrink and half diplomat.

What are some of the do's and don'ts in speaking to the generation of young workers?

"You do have to speak to them a little bit like a therapist on television might speak to a patient," Salzman says, laughing. "You can't be harsh. You cannot tell them you're disappointed in them. You can't really ask them to live and breathe the company. Because they're living and breathing themselves and that keeps them very busy."

Faced with new employees who want to roll into work with their iPods and flip flops around noon, but still be CEO by Friday, companies are realizing that the era of the buttoned down exec happy to have a job is as dead as the three-Martini lunch.

"These young people will tell you what time their yoga class is and the day's work will be organized around the fact that they have this commitment. So you actually envy them. How wonderful it is to be young and have your priorities so clear. Flipside of it is how awful it is to be managing the extension, sort of, of the teenage babysitting pool," Salzman tells Safer.

All of which has led, as you'd expect, to a whole new industry -- or epidemic -- of consultants, experts they allege, in how to motivate, train and, yes, sometimes nanny the extraterrestrials who've taken over the workplace.

Mary Crane, who once whipped up soufflés for the White House, now offers crash courses for millennials in, well, the obvious. "As to the tattoos just make sure they stay covered up within the office, especially if you are going to be meeting clients," she advises her clients.

"It's a perfect storm we have created to put these people in a position where they suddenly have to perform as professionals and haven’t been trained," Crane says.

Basic training, like how to eat with a knife and fork, or indeed how to work. Today, fewer and fewer middle class kids hold summer jobs because mowing lawns does not get you into Harvard.

"They have climbed Mount Everest. They've been down to Machu Picchu to help excavate it. But they've never punched a time clock. They have no idea what it's like to actually be in an office at nine o'clock, with people handing them work. And oh, by the way, possibly asking them to stay late in the evening, or their weekends," Crane says.

She maintains that while this generation has extraordinary technical skills, childhoods filled with trophies and adulation didn't prepare them for the cold realities of work.

"You now have a generation coming into the workplace that has grown up with the expectation that they will automatically win, and they'll always be rewarded, even for just showing up," Crane says.

"To what extent are you having to tell the boomers, the bosses, the 50 to 60 year olds, 'The people who got to change are you guys, not them?'" Safer asks.

"The boomers do need to hear the message, that they're gonna have to start focusing more on coaching rather than bossing. If this generation in particular, you just tell them, 'You got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this.' They truly will walk. And every major law firm, every major company knows, this is the future," Crane explains.

It's a future of sweet talking bosses, no more, "Pay your dues just like I did." If this generation knows anything, it's that there are more jobs than young people to fill them.

"I believe that they actually think of themselves like merchandise on eBay. 'If you don't want me, Mr. Employer, I'll go sell myself down the street. I'll probably get more money. I'll definitely get a better experience. And by the way, they'll adore me. You only like me,'" Salzman says.

So who's to blame for the narcissistic praise hounds now taking over the office?

Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow covers trends in the workplace and points the finger at the man who once was America’s favorite next door neighbor: Mister Rogers.

"You have got a guy like Mister Rogers, Fred Rogers on TV. He was telling his preschoolers, 'You're special. You're special.' And he meant well. But we, as parents, ran with it. And we said, 'You, Junior, are special, and you're special and you're special and you're special.' And for doing what? We didn't really explain that," Zaslow says.

"But isn't this generation, particularly of middle class kids, really quite special? Aren't they, in some ways, much better than your generation, certainly mine," Safer remarks.

"Well, except, when we were younger, you had a piano teacher who expected you to practice your piano and work hard at it, and the parents expected it. And now, the parents say, 'Have fun, learn the piano, practice a little bit.' So, there's not the expectations that they will achieve and work hard," Zaslow says. "It's not the same work ethic."

Zaslow says that the coddling virus continues to eat away even when junior goes off to college. "I heard from several professors who said, a student will come up after class and say, 'I don't like my grade, and my mom wants to talk to you, here's the phone,'" he says. "And the students think it's like a service. 'I deserve an A because I'm paying for it. What are you giving me a C for?'"

Today more than half of college seniors move home after graduation. It's a safety net, or safety diaper, that allows many kids to quickly opt out of a job they don't like.

"There once was, if not shame, a little certain uneasiness about being seen to be living at home in your mid 20s, yes?" Safer asks Mary Crane.

"Not only is there no shame with it, but this is thought to be a very smart, wise, economic decision," Crane says.

"Well, that would suggest that they probably had pretty happy childhoods," Safer says.

"And who couldn't be happy when you're growing up in a world where there's no failure?" Crane points out.

And dear old mom isn’t just your landlord; she is your agent as well. "Career services departments are complaining about the parents who are coming to update their child's resume. And in fact, you go to employers, and they're starting to express concern now with the parents who will phone HR, saying, 'But my little Susie or little Johnny didn't get the performance evaluation that I think they deserve,'" Crane says.

"Our parents really took from us that opportunity to fall down on our face and learn how to stand up," says Jason Dorsey.

Dorsey and Ryan Healy both make a living advising their fellow 20 some-things on how to cope with work. Healy started a Web site for that purpose and Dorsey has written two how-to books for them. And while Dorsey admits his mother picked out his suit for his interview with 60 Minutes, his generation is not going to make the same mistakes their parents made.

"We're not going to settle. Because we saw our parents settle," Dorsey says. "And we have options. That we can keep hopping jobs. No longer is it bad to have four jobs on your resume in a year. Whereas for our parents or even Gen X, that was terrible. But that's the new reality for us. And we're going to keep adapting and switching and trying new things until we figure out what it is."

And figuring it out takes time. Sociologists tell us most Americans believe adulthood begins at 26 or older and that having witnessed so many sacrifices by their parents to achieve middle class security has had a huge impact. Family and friends are the new priorities, while blind careerism is beginning to fade.

"We definitely put lifestyle and friends above work. No question about it," Dorsey tells

Both Dorsey and Healy feel that that's pretty much the way one should look at life.

"I remember my dad getting laid off and all these things growing up. And that's 'cause they sacrificed for the company. Well, the first knee jerk reaction from me is I sure don't want to do that. I'm going to be in it for me and I'm going to make it work," Dorsey says.

"Where does this fantasy about 'I'm going to find the dream job' -- there's no such thing as a dream job. I mean, a few of us like me happen to have it. But where does this fantasy come from?" Safer asks Dorsey.

"I think we were told when we were little, 'You can be anything you want.' And then they went on and on and told us this," he replies.

"Big lie, right?" Safer asks.

"Big goals are great. Selling a fantasy that everything's going to be perfect and peachy is not," Dorsey says.

"I also think from, when you're in your early 20s and you're really not responsible to a family of kids, this is the time to find the best job, the best career. You know, what you really want to do," Healy adds.

And more and more businesses are responding, offering free food, fun and flexibility to keep their employees happy.

Online shoe retailer Zappos.com has found that the best way of keeping employees is giving them what they want. Actual work actually happens, despite goofy parades, snoozing in the nap room, and plenty of happy hours.

Motivational consultant Bob Nelson says companies like Zappos will avoid a looming demographic crisis. "It's harder to get people. There's gonna be fewer of them to get. And if you want to keep them and get the best out of them, you sure better know what presses their buttons," he explains.

Nelson, known in the trade as the "guru of thank you," believes that the teeniest rewards pay big dividends, regardless of age. And boss-abuse gets even bigger dividends.

"I've worked with managers that have, if we make this goal, they'll shave their head type thing," Nelson says, laughing. "Or they'll be in the dunk tank at the summer picnic. When a senior manager's willing to do that is, it says we're all in it together."

All that togetherness comes together every year at the Motivation Show in Chicago -- with acre upon acre of coaches, consultants, knickknacks and fancy stuff -- rewards for a job well done, and reminders to work harder.

"You think this would help motivate people to work harder?" Safer asks a masseuse.

"Oh it does," the masseuse says.

But for sure, there is an almost evangelical fervor about this work philosophy -- no stick, all carrots. And believe it or not, all this prodding, praising, peddling, cajoling and psychobabble is worth $50 billion a year in business. Ain't America great?

Where else you find free back rubs for the deserving worker bee. What’s wrong with a happy workplace and taking your time to grow up?

"Could this be that everything is being delayed so that adolescence ends at 30 say and middle age starts at 60 say?" Safer asks Jeffrey Zaslow.

"You can hope that's the case. But, while we're having this delayed adolescence, are we getting behind as an economy and as a workforce, because we're just all playing computer games at work while we wait to grow up?" he replies.

For all the complaining, Dorsey and Healy believe their generation will transform the office into a much more efficient, flexible and yes, nicer place to be. But until then, a message to bosses everywhere: just don’t forget the praise.

"We want to hear it and truly we'd love for our parents to know. There's nothing better than Mom getting that letter saying, 'You know, Ryan did a great job. Yeah, I just wanted to let you know you raised a fantastic son,'" Dorsey says.

"Send it to grandma, too," Healy adds, laughing.

It's all so obvious really, now I've read this. Older people I know keep telling me that things will come full circle. I think I'll print this off and dish it out to the next person who says that. Then maybe they'll understand that, actually, it can't.

'Me me me' 'gimmee gimmee gimmee' 'want want want' is here to stay because someone forgot to insert the work ethic, the delayed gratification, the respect, and the 'there's no automatic right' into the latest generation's mix. As the second paragraph of the article says, "They were raised by doting parents who told them they are special, played in little leagues with no winners or losers, or all winners. They are laden with trophies just for participating and they think your business-as-usual ethic is for the birds. And if you persist in the belief you can take your job and shove it." It's not a good thing.

Friday Question

Is it just me that is annoyed by misplaced apostrophes? I'd rather see no apostrophe than a mispaced one.

Yesterday I saw two appalling errors on the backs of vans travelling on a local trunk road. One for an online pet supply business whose name I can't now remember, boasting, "Cheap food for your cat's and dog's," and another belonging to the local Ford main dealer offering, "Cheap servicing for older Ford's."

Once upon a time the good old-fashioned paint signwriters were generally able to correct poor punctuation and spelling, but now that plastic-stick on letters have proliferated, more and more errors are creeping in. More errors are appearing in our 'environmental scripts' than on a veg man's market stall!

Where is this all going? And am I the only one who thinks it matters?

And while on the subject of signwriting on commercial vehicles... I saw another van with "sNack foOds" written on it. Either D&D's or P&P's, I couldn't work out the font (and was attempting to get past some erratic driving from a drug dealer in an old BMW at the time). Was someone being ironic, or just using up mixed-case stick-on letters without regard to the message being conveyed to the brighter, more observant sections of the audience, I wonder?

Seen any good howlers recently?

Thought for the day

I know unless I'm true to myself I couldn't be happy. Too much emphasis is placed today on externals and too little on character.

- Betty White

Not to be sneezed at

I'm a bit busy secreting Feathered Familiars in officially unseen places just in case the 'Powers' That Be come up with this idea again this time around.

Killing millions of feathered friends, or even keeping them confined, as precautionary measures, just isn't going to work. Either of those options are a huge cost to animal welfare. It's an impossible task.

Why the panic? Que sera sera I say; there really is nothing you can do about something spread in the way it is, by wild birds. Fewer than 200 people worldwide have died anyway. Loads of taxpayers money being wasted and officialdom gone mad, yet again. *sighs*

Thought for the day

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

- Martin Luther King Jr

Senior Service

I am convinced that the answer of the majority of the generation below 20 to computer problems is to buy a new computer. By extension, that is also the answer of the majority of the generation above 70. Probably because the olders are often 'advised' by the youngers in the form of grandkiddies.

Once upon a time in a similar situation, my answer would have been to call Little Computer Man. But, that was in pre-blog days, before I realised that computers weren't as mysterious and scary as IT professionals would like them to appear, and cancelled my annual maintenance contact. These days I can sort most problems, and when I can't I generally know where to go, or who to ask, to find out.

In recent times I seem to have acquired a Gaggle of Grannies, from the various Nice Ladies' and art and craft groups I frequent, who rely on me for advice to solve their computer problems. Blind leading the blind. Literally, these days, as well as figuratively. However.

Sometimes it's as simple as switching on the printer, changing the ink cartridge or cleaning the print head or roller, or clearing the congested print buffer. Often they've just inherited the latest grandkiddy cast-off, which has supposedly been 'cleared' of grandkiddy's documents (I've twice had to delete grandkiddy's 'my girlfriend and me' pics before impressionable gran saw) but often still has nasty viruses or a messed up installation of something or other that needs deleting and reinstalling in order for things to run smoothly again. Other times it's, "My broadband isn't working!" ("Erm, no, see that little socket dangling from the cable attched to the modem? Well, it needs to be in the telephone wall socket, it's not magic!") or, "I can't find the document I was working on before lunch!" ("What did you save it as? Ahhhh, yes, well, you see, you do have to call it something, or at least click 'Yes' when it asks if you want to save 'Document 1' before shutting down!"), or "Norton/McAfee keeps popping up and demanding £79 for next year's anti-virus subscription, that's a whole week's pension, do I have to pay it?" (No, let's install some free anti-virus software, and you do have a firewall don't you? Oh, grandkiddy told you the Windows firewall was excellent and you didn't need anything else? Erm, right, that probably explains why things were in the mess they were then... but let's install a free one just-in-case, eh?")

My latest acquisition to the Gaggle is keen not to be as dim and dependent as most of the others and wants to do her own 'regular maintenance'. She's asked me if I could produce a one-side-of-A4 guide to "Keeping your PC in good health when you're an OAP" (she has a sense of humour that one...).

Not wishing to reinvent the wheel, I wondered whether such an idiots' guide already exists?

If not, I shall just produce a list of instructions for basics eg clearing temporary internet files, doing a disc cleanup, and defragmenting, together with a suggested frequency (although I'm not sure what would be appropriate for this?). I'm undecided about including other things like clearing cookies and checking for spyware as I'm not sure how simple I could make the instructions (and it might lead to more work rather than less for me in the long run!).

All thoughts and ideas welcome...

Thought for the day

Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choices words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech.

- Edwin H. Friedman

Friedman's work shows how all organisations and systems have personalities. Interesting to anyone who wants to better understand the culture within which they live, work, and interact.

Enrich your vocabulary and feed the world for free

This is more than just another of those 'click here to donate' charity sites

FreeRice has two goals:

- To provide English vocabulary to everyone for free
- To help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free

It's advertising sponsored, of course, but that is right down at the bottom and I didn't notice it until I looked for it - help relieve Apple of some of its money!

Participate here and do pass it on...

There are 50 vocabulary levels. They claim people rarely get above 48. I managed 45 on one occasion by having a good initial run, but, once you've got an answer incorrect, it's jolly hard to get back up (39-43 seems to be about par for the course if you get just one wrong in a game). And it is American English.

More info about FreeRice.

And, while digging around a bit (to check this out before posting it), I discovered a truly shocking chart of how much 22 wealthy countries in the developed world give to international aid.

When Sweden is already giving 103 cents for every $100 earned in the country and has already reached the 0.7% aid as a percentage of income target needed to raise the $195 billion per year needed to beat world hunger and its associated diseases, how come the US only gives 17 cents and has no time-schedule for increasing it?

The UK is currently 7th in the table, giving 52 cents per $100, and scheduled to reach 0.7% in 2013.

Only Greece gives less than the US. I suppose Shrub thinks he'd doing his bit for international aid by waging war. It just makes me sick to think that the richest country in the world is also the most selfish.

Other countries that have not yet set up a schedule to give the 0.7% they signed up to in 2002 are Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and Switzerland. All of them give less than the UK. Why?

Thought for the day

Enthusiasm is Better than Confidence.

1. Confidence is about you - enthusiasm is about your subject
2. Confidence is about you (again) - enthusiasm is about others
3. Confidence is impressive - enthusiasm is infectious
4. Confidence is certain - enthusiasm is creative
5. Confidence is serious - enthusiasm is fun

- http://www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/ (do read the full text in that link)

Give peace a chance

‘War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war.’

- Peace Pledge Union

Learn peace.

Friday Tip

Save a minimum of £899 over the next 18 months (figures via).

Don't, just don't.

Even the Gadget Show thought they were crap (interesting how the website version is nowhere near the beating they gave it on TV...).

As I said on July 31st when I first posted the pic, for it to live up to all the hype, and for me to buy one would require it to have all those functions.

With god on my side...

I did a spell to magic a lesson out of the air for my Year 7 Pupil with severe 5pecific 1iteracy difficu1ties. There are only so many times and so many ways in which you can attempt to teach someone to spell prepositions and the days of the week at the age of 12 after all.
(For those who don't know, most of what I do isn't this, but when I find kids with problems so intcratable that everyone else has given up on them, and they've given up on themselves, I sometimes agree to have a go, to keep my hand in)

He turned up tonight clutching a flash drive and excitedly telling me that he had a project to do for RE that he needed some help with.

I patted myself on the back for doing a successful spell.

He'd forgotten his homework diary, so it took me about 5 minutes to extract from him that it was a month-long project to find out all about Chri5tianity and produce an animated computer presentation.

It was then that I realised that the spell might have had a slightly wrong ingredient. I'd done it from memory after all, and my memory is less than good at present. Asking me to help someone learn about religion in any form is never going to be a good idea. But, I decided it would be a challenge, and prefaced every remark with, "Those people who believe this say..."

Someone in school had helped him set up the basic P0werp0int format, which was just as well as it's not something I use regularly, and when I do need to, Mr BW does it for me as he uses it all the time and can produce in 10 minutes what it would take me all week to do.

A quick mind-map later, and I'd got Pupil BW to decide what he needed to do.

He chose to find some appropriate images first.

I began to realise that the spell had gone even more wrong than I'd thought when we typed 'chri5tianity' into Google Images and found this (may not be safe for work, and may not work if you have safe search turned on). "I don't think I'm meant to see that!" he said and quickly scrolled past the top line. I explained that some people put things on the internet that other people may find offensive, and part of using the internet was deciding what was good and what wasn't. I also cursed not having thought to put safe search on before we began, but then I can't recall ever finding 'pron' on page one of an image search before, ever (it was the spell I tell you, the spell...).

He paused for a bit then said, "Can I ask you something BW?" "Of course," I replied, "that's what I'm here for!" "That picture... what were they doing?" I Googled my brain and remembered that Clause 28 was repealed a few years ago, and probably wouldn't have ever applied in my situation anyway. I remembered that his mum worships the ground I walk on (when you have a 9 year old who can't even read one syllable words, anyone who does a spell to help takes on God status after all), and so decided that she might forgive me imparting some knowledge to her son that he would otherwise only hear from another kid in the playground of his (pretty rough) secondary school.

So, we got over that one.

We cut and pasted bits from various websites into slides, and then rewrote them in simpler and more concise form. It got to 5 minutes before the end of the lesson. Up until then I'd been careful to let him do all the control of the computer, but he'd needed a lot of talking through, and we'd run out of time for him to end and save it all. "Let me just put a few notes on the slides we need to work on next week, and save it all" I said.

Bish bang bosh and things were flying about all over the place.

He burst out laughing. I peered at him over the top of my reading glasses (a habit I have recently been able to develop to great effect as my eyesight has deteriorated a lot). "What," I demanded sternly, "is so amusing?"

"Look what you've put BW!" he said, motioning to what I'd typed in caps next to his chosen title line on a slide into which we'd pulled stuff directly from a webpage.

If there ever was a moment when I knew I'd succeeded with (a) the underlying message of my lesson, and (b) my attempts to make a non-reader master the skill, it was this ;)

Give us this day our daily bread

But, I'd suggest you may not want to eat it if it's made from corn grown in the field behind The Coven.

The farmer has surpassed himself this year.
I think he's taken Bob Flowerdew's no-dig methods rather too seriously.

Rather than ploughing, then harrowing, then rolling after harvest, this year he has applied 2 sprays of glysophate at 2 week intervals, then sown, then chain harrowed and rolled in. A most interesting method of cultivation. The annual deep turning of the soil by ploughing after harvest allows the incorporation of organic matter (stubble) which improves the quality of a heavy clay soil, as well as distributing both essential soil trace elements and the toxic chemical build up from the year's spraying in the top compacted layer.

As you may be able to see from this photo taken early on Monday morning, just as the mist was lifting, patches of stubble are still visible after 'sowing' 2 weeks ago.

I do admit to helping things along a bit when I did a spell to stop him ploughing too soon after he'd harvested (I never did show you the pics of the 2 combines working together, did I?) as a view over a golden field is so much more pleasant than a view over a brown field, but I really didn't expect this to happen.

The farmer is a lecturer at the local agricultural college too... so I'd say this method is coming to a field near you soon... if it hasn't already.

Most people have no idea what farmers are doing in fields. We only know because he's always rather too ready with the chemicals (and we know exactly what he uses as he's not allowed to spray anything without informing us, due to The Stripey Buzzy Familiars, which, luckily, gives us time to close windows and/or vacate the premises for a couple of hours if necessary, depending on the chemical being used). I think that this sort of practice is really worrying. Not least because many GM crops are bred to be glysophate resistant.

Oh to be an organic gardener with land backing onto this sort of system... or to be a consumer unknowingly buying bread, cakes, biscuits, cereal, ready-meals containing wheat-based thickeners etc etc etc made from this land's yields... Is it any wonder there are so many food allergies and unexplained illnesses around?

Food production methods in this world are slowly killing us all.

New Familiars

The great thing about our children is that when they die we can just pop down the road and buy some more.

Here are our latest four - shortly after arriving at The Coven on Sunday afternoon and being covered in organic louse powder and having their legs dipped in surgical spirit to kill any lurking scaly leg mites. We are nothing if not hygienic, and not everyone who breeds hens is as particular as us about disease control and welfare.

I have a suspicion that they've got the Daily Wail to read there... Not my first choice, but a Witch in need has to take the papers that are offered after all.

These are all hybrids as they live longer and lay better than pure breeds. We always keep a mix of hybrids and pure breeds. After recent deaths from old age and unknown causes we only had seven others left (one Light Sussex, one Cream Legbar, one Maran, one Welsummer, one Amber Star, two Light Sussex/Rhode Island hybrid crosses), so the latest are two white, one brown and one black and tan. When they are older I'll be able to work out their parentage.

These are ostensibly 18 weeks old, but, as ever, breeders tend to conveniently 'forget' when eggs hatch. Experience tells me that these are more like 15 or 16 weeks. Being hybrids, they may get round to laying before the lighter days of the spring come round.

At present they're confined to separate barracks while the older hens get used to having them around and they learn to go up the ladder to roost at night. Only 2 made the connection between dark and up to nice warm house last night, and the other pair had to be extricated by torch-light from huddling together under the ladder. Incidentally, I bought Mr BW 2 wind-up lanterns - powered by LED and chargeable by winding, or by conventional plug-in to mains or car - for his WitchDay, and they are highly recommended so far. FOTCR™ present (if you're still doing such things) for the eco-minded amongst your family/friends maybe?

I hate seeing hens caged in this way, but it's only for a few days, and I console myself by knowing that, in battery cages, 32 hens would be 'kept' in the space occupied by their house and run beneath.

And for the hen keepers amongst you, I'll post a report soon on the very-expensive peck-to-release hopper we've always wanted but haven't wanted to pay for, but have finally been forced, at rat-point, to invest in...

Thought for the day

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

The scariest town in the UK

I hereby nominate Rothbury in Northumberland.

We've been there twice now, last year and this, and I got the same creepy feeling each time.

At the beginning of November at least, totally silent, eerie, even the odd passing car or truck manages not to break the peace.

No birds sing, and almost no people in view, full of small shops with almost nothing in them except the proprietor, willing you thorugh the glass to come in and buy something. How they make a living at this time of year I have no idea.

The red traffic-light coloured dyed-headed pimply youth on the till in the Co-Op notices it's noon on the clock and declares, 3 items from the end of the customer in front of me, in almost-indeciperable local lingo, "It's me lunch time" and leaves the till and wanders off in the direction of the shop door. When Christine arrives to take over some 2 or 3 minutes later I ask why he's allowed to do that. "It's easier," she sighs, "it's easier."

The older couple, dressed in similar colours and walking identically, asking us if we knew when a closed ironmongers was going to be open. At first we thought they were speaking an Eastern European language, but then we realised it was just the effects of 70-odd years of sheep-dip.

Totally spooked out I was, totally spooked out. And that's before we get onto what the sheep all over Northumberland do on the night of October 31st...

Thought for the day

Time is a dressmaker specialising in alterations.

- Faith Baldwin