What a difference a year makes: Scraping Past the Scrapheap

This time last year, I was enjoying a fairly relaxing four week assignment in Malta.   It was very typical of the work I had been doing for much of the previous four years or so, hand-holding a client through testing and giving them guidance when needed.   The people were very friendly and it was a pleasant enough working environment: our little team of three was ensconced in a conference room on the third floor, where the bank people could come and find us if they had any major issues.  In the time I was there, they had very few minor issues, never mind major ones.  Truth be told, it was a bit of a vacation.

The weather was good, as you would expect in the central Med at this time of year, with sunny skies and temperatures in the high 20s Celsius.  It was also something of a trip down memory lane, as I'd been to the island on vacation some years previously.  The bank also put us up in some rather fine spa hotels, including one week where I had my own private sun terrace and pool (which I was not able to use as I was at work during daylight hours).

But it was a good month in the sun, and I enjoyed it.  What I had no way of knowing at the time was that it would be the last piece of work for the company and indeed my last piece of work for a year.



I came home, and settled down to wait for the next assignment.  This is typical of the way I have worked for the last several years: you did your rime on site, whether a couple of days or a couple of years, then wait at home enjoying family life while the resourcing people find you something else to do.  Sometimes you might be benched for a couple of days, sometimes a couple of weeks.  On rare occasions it can stretch to a month or so, but hardly ever more than that (largely because the company is losing money when you're at home).  So when I was at home for a second week, this was nothing unusual.  I was talking pretty much every day to my line manager and the resourcing people, and it seemed there were a few options under consideration - dates were still open, or contracts were still not signed, the usual kinds of delays that happen in my line of work.

So it came as a bit of a surprise on a sunny early autumn Tuesday morning when a DHL Courier turned up on my doorstep - neither Ania nor I were expecting any parcel deliveries  When I opened the package, there was a letter from the company, advising that my contract had been terminated and from that day I was suspended while I served out my three months notice period.  The letter arrived two days after "celebrating" (if that's the right word) 13 years with them - I'd even received a congratulatory e-mail from our recently retired Charismatic Greek Founder and ex-Chairman.  The previous day, I'd spent half an hour talking with my line manager about a probable assignment in Italy where contracts were due for signature that week.  So the letter, completely without prior warning, came as a real bolt from the blue.

Now I know and accept there is no easy way of getting rid of someone - in previous lives I've had to do it myself - but of all the many and varied ways of doing it, sending a letter by courier without prior discussion must be one of the worst.  Many friends and co-workers had been in similar positions over the previous couple of years, but to the best of my knowledge all of them were given at least some inkling something was about to happen by their managers or HR.  Most had been advised at least two months earlier, officially, that their job was "at risk", so were able to start planning their next career move.  I had none of that.  In all my banking years, too, warnings had generally been given, unless the severance was a firing for misconduct or something.  Only once in my life had I lost a job in similar unforeseen circumstances, and that was when the company itself folded one lunch time, as a result of the chairman and chief executive having a monumental fall-out over trading losses, and the chairman (who owned something like 80% of the share capital - it was a private company) decided he'd had enough and closed the place down.  But at least he had the decency to meet with us all personally, as a whole-staff group and individually, to explain his reasons and answer our questions.

I got straight on the phone to my manager, who was totally embarrassed and said very little, beyond "I'll call you back in 10 minutes" - which she did, as part of a conference call with the regional head of HR.  We had what can only be described as a full and frank exchange of views.  It didn't change anything, of course, but at least it got things off my chest.  They also agreed to allow me to keep my laptop (it was only a year or so old, and a good one, so that saved me a few quid), and agreed that I could write my own reference which they would sign (and so they did with minimal changes).

So truth be told, once I'd slept on it, I felt quite relaxed about the whole thing.  I had been expecting something to happen for the best part of two years, as the company culled good people left, right and centre, with no rhyme or reason or obvious strategy in mind beyond cutting costs.  It was a relief, really, and for a week or so I slept soundly, better than I had in a long time.  I had three months' notice, hence three more salaries to come, plus with the last pay packet a redundancy pay-off (less than I felt I deserved after 13 years loyalty, but better than some people received) so paying the bills wasn't an immediate problem.  I felt confident that my knowledge and experience would find a home fairly quickly and easily.  I would start my own company, work for myself as a contractor and earn considerably more than the company had ever paid me.

It was all bollocks, of course.  But it's very easy to see things more clearly with the benefit of hindsight.,



I registered with an agency, run by an old pal of mine who had also worked for the company when I first joined it way back when.  He had been trying to tempt me away several times over the years, with promises of immediate placement and good money, but out of a stubborn and misguided sense of loyalty I had always said no.  He was sorry to hear I'd been dumped, but was confident he could do something soon, and cited a few possibles in various parts of the world.  I told him to go ahead.  I registered on Jobserve, the internet recruitment site, and updated my LinkedIn profile and CV.  I started making enquiries about forming a company, both registered here and off-shore.  I was very bullish.

Very soon, through contacts I had on LinkedIn, people I had worked with, I got a number of leads for business consultancy opportunities, and pursued them vigorously.  I got a number of  telephone interviews lined up, and got one pretty good job offer that I turned down because I felt it wasn't quite right (there was an element of sales involved, and if there is one thing I'm not it's a salesman).  Through another agency (and Jobserve) I pursued another possible in Mauritius that also led to a job offer, but the money was derisory so again I turned it down.  But this was all within the first month and a half, so it looked set fair for a better year in 2013, as the Christmas wind-down kicked in.

But it didn't work out like that.  Instead the market, at least the bit I was aiming at (independently supporting my old company's projects by plugging the obvious resource gaps that exist as a result of its wholesale staff reductions) dried up.  The contacts I had at the company (those of them that stayed in touch anyway....) all agreed that it was very difficult right now, the pipeline as poor, nothing on the horizon yet etc etc etc.  So I had to broaden my horizons.

I changed my Jobserve search criteria.  It did the trick, in that my Inbox was flooded with BA jobs from the entire UK (and even the odd one from elsewhere).  The problem was the vast majority of them were completely irrelevant, and beyond the magic words "Business Analyst" seemed to ignore completely all the other defined keyword.  So I would spend an hour or two every day wading through the latest batch, and sending out applications for those that were even marginally relevant.  I was probably sending half a dozen applications every day for a period of maybe six months.....you do the math: that's a lot of CVs out there.

Net result?  Fuck all. Not one single interview with a potential employer, and precious few with the agencies.  I reviewed and re-wrote the CV half a dozen times at least (that's ignoring the regular tweaks to make it more interesting for a particular job that really caught my imagination), and sought advice from a couple of agencies who (to be fair) were doing their best to help me, as well as one of my sons, who happens to be in the recruitment business (but in a different sector).  It didn't make a lot of difference.  Meanwhile, I opened my company and updated all the software on my laptop (my old employer's licences ran out and it stopped working).  I got business cards printed up, and very professional they look too (not that I've had many opportunities to give 'em out).  I suspended my company again, as I was paying out corporation tax and various other mandatory contributions on an income of bugger all.

I had regular disputes with arrogant young recruitment consultants who clearly had no clue what they were on about when it came to matching my skills with a job requirement.  But most times, when I called to follow up an application, the agency guy was in a meeting, or with a client, or on vacation.....always a polite brush off, but a brush off nonetheless.

By the middle of the year, I was beginning to doubt myself.  By this time, I was over three months past my 60th birthday, an age where many people (myself included) would happily retire and devote their time to different, personal projects.  Like reading newspapers and books.  Writing that long gestating novel or life story (that probably no-one will ever read, but what the hell....).  Travelling for the sake of it, to places you want to go to when you want to.  Growing old (dis)gracefully.

But this was not an option for me.  The money had long run out, and we were living hand to mouth, borrowing from whoever we could to pay the bills and maxing the credit cards.  I hated every minute of it, and feel a deep sense of shame and embarrassment still that I had to do that.  But I have a wife and two little kids whom I adore to support, so I had to face it and not run away (as have some people I know - but that is another story altogether, and not for this blog at all).  But clearly, whether I liked it or not, I had to face up to the fact that quite possibly I was bound for the scrapheap.  Not that I could let on, of course......



Then, through an old colleague who I had spent a very pleasant six months in Limassol (look back to 2011 for some posts about that project), I heard of a good looking position with his company.  I applied, more in hope than belief.  I heard nothing for a couple of weeks, then one Wednesday afternoon, while on holiday at the Baltic coast, I had a call from the HR people - could I come in for an interview tomorrow?  I explained this would not be possible because of my location, but agreed Thursday the following week was good.  My spirits soared - it looked a great opportunity, and as soon as I got home that Saturday evening I booked a flight to London (not that I could afford it....).

The interview went well.  I liked the guy and he liked me, on a personal level.  The job was indeed a good fit, and I was told I would have work immediately: there was a backlog just waiting for bodies to join the company to take it on.  We tentatively agreed a second interview for the following week and I flew home in high spirits.  The next day I had a mail from the HR guy, telling me that I had made an excellent impression, but the interview would need to be pushed back another week as one of the guys who wanted to meet me was on a week's leave.

So two weeks later, on another sunny August day, I flew back to London again (I could it afford even less this time).  I met three people, and again felt the discussions had gone well - indeed I flew home fully convinced I had got the job.  Time dragged over the next week or so, with no news.  I contacted the HR bloke, and was assured there was no problem beyond the people I had met being unable to schedule a convenient time to sit down and come up with a plan for me.  Frustrating, but nothing I could do.

Then - my hopes crashed.  I had a very nice and friendly mail, thanking me for my time, but there was no longer suitable work for me so they were not able "at this time" to make an offer, but this situation was likely to change "very soon" and would I still be interested.  I sent a brief mail back expressing my disappointment, and stating that if the situation did change I would indeed be interested, but on my terms - that is contractor rates, not permanent staff.  I have heard not a word since.

One of the guys who had interviewed me the second time expressed a slight concern he had - namely, that while I had extensive knowledge and experience in my chosen banking discipline, much of it was some years out of date, and that my BA experience was actually quite narrow, focusing on one part of one banking system, and he was worried that at my age the learning curve might prove too steep.  At the time, I sought to reassure him and convince him that for me that was one of the major attractions of the job, the opportunity to learn new things and new disciplines, and that I couldn't wait to get started.  He seemed satisfied, but the rejection brought that concern sharply back into focus, because I shared his concerns and had done so from Day 1.  It's a classic Catch 22 situation - if I lack certain skills I need to be in the job to learn them (and want to do so),  but without those skills I'm not going to get the job in the first place.  And as for the at my age stuff.....well, ageism in the workplace is illegal (at least, so I thought....).  And anyway, I don't feel anything like my age, physically or mentally, so that is total bollocks.

But the scrapheap loomed ever larger.



I was depressed for the next couple of weeks, found it difficult to keep positive and optimistic in front of people, Ania especially.  The new school term came around, so life got back to normal - early start, morning school run, morning and (maybe) afternoon job hunting, afternoon school run, dinner, homework, tv for a while then bed.  ......and next day, do it all over again.

That scrapheap was now definitely overshadowing my life, and I began to feel (though not openly admit) that I could well end up on it, whether I liked it or not.  I was scared.  Sleep became harder and harder to find, and less refreshing when it did come in the wee small hours.

Then an old pal sent me a mail introducing me to someone who was looking for someone with my profile to fill a couple of positions in Africa.  Angola for a year didn't fill me with enthusiasm in all honesty, given the state of the place, but what the hell - beggars can't be choosers.  A touch reluctantly, I sent in my CV. Simultaneously, an agency set up a telephone interview with a bank in Belgium for an interesting looking project.  I didn't dare hope that something might come from either one, but as we were now in desperate straits, a little prayer at Mass that Sunday (a special service to mark the start of the new school year, so we had to go) seemed worthwhile.

On the Wednesday, I had a mail - can we talk this Friday about your CV.  Damn' right was can.  Friday came, and we connected - the guy my mate had referred me to.  I knew him already from some years back, when he had been a bank PM at a project I had worked on for a month or so.  We talked for an hour, and at the end of it, had agreed terms for a 6 month contract, with good potential for extension beyond that time. He promised to get the paperwork moving as soon as possible "but probably next week".  By the end of that same day, the contract arrived in my InBox.

Cue much yelling, tears and dancing around the flat like a couple of lunatics.



So tomorrow, I hop on a plane to Qatar (not Angola: thankfully someone else can take that one) for an initial three weeks on site.  I've never been there before, so I'm looking forward to experiencing a new country (Qatar), a new city (Doha) and a new airline (Qatar Airways, "the World's 5 Star Airline", it says).   Look out for some blogs, probably illustrated for a change, over the next few weeks.  Most of all, I'm looking forward to doing some work again, after 11 months, 3 weeks and 2 days.

The scrapheap is receding behind me now, as I've managed to scrape past it, but I am acutely aware of its existence - I always knew it was there somewhere but the past year has shown me how close it actually is, especially at my age.  Bur forewarned is forearmed - it's in my hands to make sure I continue to avoid it now.

I can't wait to get started.

The Future of Travel - Part 2: Railways and Roads

Regular, long term readers (if there are any....) will know already that I do enjoy a train ride.  That doesn't mean I'm like the sad bastards in anoraks you see sitting at the end of the longest platform on busy stations like Waterloo or Clapham Junction, munching cheese sandwiches and Digestives and swilling tea out of a thermos flask whilst scribbling train identification numbers down in little notebooks.  Nor does it mean I go all misty eyed at the very mention of the Great Days of Steam Locomotives (although my dear departed uncle was a bit like that - he had a huge train set in the basement of his house and a collection of LPs [remember them? Black, plastic, 12" across with a hole in the middle?  OK, perhaps not.] featuring various locomotive sounds and whistles). That said, like many people of my generation I remember fondly the big black smoky beasts that used to criss-cross the countryside in a manner that seems to my memory far more exhilarating and efficient than anything that's come since. And, yes, I do still enjoy a Thomas the Tank Engine story, even though my kids have all outgrown them now.

I'm also not thinking about commuting during the rush hour, which is something I've done all my life to a greater or lesser degree, in a number of countries, and it's hell on earth wherever you do it.  The nearest I've ever come to an enjoyable commute was in Switzerland, where I've done it for several months on and off, in both the Zurich and Geneva areas.  At least Swiss Railways are clean and (generally) run on time, and don't suffer as often from the overcrowding so common elsewhere - but they can be crowded too, with standing room only.  Just not every day.

No, when I say I enjoy a good train ride I'm thinking about the longer distance, non peak hour trips that I've taken before and would like to take again.  I've blogged on the subject before, a couple of years ago (see Let the Train take the Strain), so this is really a return to familiar territory.  Being able to relax in a comfortable seat, in a warm compartment, gazing out of the window at a new and expanding landscape, is one of the more pleasurable experiences I can think of.  And in many countries it doesn't cost the Earth.  I think I have the American travel writer Paul Theroux to thank for that: he's written a number of excellent books about his railway travels around the world, and his descriptions of smoky old boat trains, spittoons in overcrowded and claustrophobic compartments on trains in China and India, and luxurious sleeping compartments on the Trans-Siberian Express captured my imagination and made me want to experience stuff like that as well.  So whenever I get the chance I buy a ticket and off I go.



I just don't do it enough.  Of course, this is partly due to sheer economics - right now my budget hardly stretches to a ten zloty all-day Metro ticket here, never mind an away-day to Krakow or somewhere.  But it's also been (in the recent past) due to the projects I was assigned to.  Typically, my hotel - or if I was lucky, apartment - has been within walking distance of the client office, so there has been no possibility or for that matter requirement to hop on a train.  There was the odd exception - Geneva and Zurich being the main ones (written about in more detail in the post I mentioned earlier), a couple of weeks in the States where I did a reverse commute from Grand Central Station in New York to the university town of New Brunswick, across the river in New Jersey, and a week in Germany where I couldn't get accommodation in Frankfurt because my trip clashed with the Book Fair (great planning that, by the client) so had to stay in Mainz and spend two and half hours each day commuting on the Bundesbahn - and very nice it was too.  In my work travelling days about the only long distance train ride of note was from London to Warsaw via Brussels and Berlin when that Icelandic volcano caused travel chaos in May 2010 - again, see Let the Train take the Strain.

When I first moved here, about the only train journey possible that passed outside the country's borders was one to (predictably enough) Moscow.  On one of my early projects in Warsaw we had a group of Russian techies who used to catch the service every third week to go home for a long weekend, half of which was actually spent on the train (armed of course with cases of fortifying vodka) - but it was half the cost of a flight (of which there was only one a day anyway) so for them it was fine and good value.  Now the choice is much wider.  I passed through the main station here a week or so ago, and in one hour at lunch time there were services to Vienna via Prague and Bratislava, Berlin, Amsterdam (via Berlin) and Moscow.  At other times there are services to Brussels, Paris, Zurich, and Budapest, amongst other destinations.  They don't run every day, of course, but still - there are some rides I'd love to take there.  They may take a day or more to complete, but I would enjoy them thoroughly I know.

There are other trips I would like to take as well, given the opportunity.  I saw an article in the Independent newspaper website last week describing one that runs from Seattle across the Canadian border and through Vancouver to Whistler in the Canadian Rockies, that for the first half (to Vancouver) runs along the Pacific shore with the mountains to the right, then from Vancouver climbs through the mountains themselves.  The carriages are all specially designed observation cars with glass roofs, and the thing only travels at about 40mph so there's ample time to enjoy what must be some of the most beautiful and spectacular views to be found anywhere.  That one tickles my fancy.  Then there's an Australian service that crosses the entire continent from Sydney to Perth, and includes the longest straight stretch of track on Earth, over 200 miles through the desert wastes of the Nullabor Plain.  Oh yes.  I wouldn't mind the London to Fort William and Penzance services back home, and there are decent runs through France (from Paris to Marseilles) and Spain (Madrid to Malaga) that look quite scenic, on the latest high speed trains.  Two problems with all of them - one, money (or the lack of it), and two, I don't think Ania and kids would join me.  I'd still love to do them though - so if anyone wants to sponsor me and commission a book or something about the trips then by all means get in touch (and I'm serious about that.......).



But this article is supposed to be about the future of rail travel (I'll get to the roads in a mo, I haven't forgotten). Let's split it a little - and say the future of rail travel inside the UK and without - because I'm sure they are two very different animals.

Inside the UK, there has been some progress, some modernization, in the years I've been away (that's 11 years and counting).  But the progress seems to be glacial in its pace.  When I left, there was a mish-mash of different franchises providing services across the country, some good, some not so good, but all ludicrously expensive and all seemingly losing money.  Commuter routes in and out of London (and I'll focus a bit on them since I have the most experience in them) were more overcrowded than ever before and criminally expensive.  There were passenger protest groups all over the place, lobbying Parliament for service improvements and cost cutting and getting precisely nowhere (like many of the trains, in fact).   There were plans under discussion to improve and electrify both the West and East Coast main lines to improve and speed up the services to Glasgow, Edinburgh and beyond.  There was discussion going on about a service that would cross London from West to East to improve trans-City commutes, and link west London quickly and easily with high speed trains to the Kent and Essex ports and the Channel Tunnel.  All lines and signals were in any case to be modernized and improved, and rolling stock updated with new safer trains.  The high speed line to the Channel Tunnel terminus near Folkestone was still under construction, and a lively debate was going on about whether the London terminus for it should be at Waterloo (which made sense, since it was already there and south of the Thames - as is Folkestone and the English Channel) or at a newly rebuilt St.Pancras in north London.  The costs involved were astronomical and featured many zeros - which is why all this discussion and argument was going on: the Labour government wanted to be prudent in its spending and save as much as possible, whilst the Tory opposition roundly condemned them for not going ahead with the plans and creating jobs and tax revenues and so on and so forth - the usual bollocks.

Fast forward to 2013.

Now, there is a mish-mash of train operators, some good, some not so good, and most of them losing money.  I caught a train from Luton Airport into St.Pancras, and there were I think 4 different franchises operating that route alone - madness!   It didn't make purchasing my ticket in advance on-line very easy - in fact, I couldn't find one that combined all of the possible operators plus London Underground and the Docklands Light Railway in a single fare, so in the end I gave up and shelled out thirty four quid for a full price One Day Travelcard when I landed.  I can remember paying a similar price 20 years ago for a one week season ticket from Kent to London, also covering the Tube and DLR.....prices have clearly rocketed in my absence.  I'm still trying to justify how London Underground have a cheapest single fare of four and a half quid, and that covering only one Zone - in other words if you went from say Notting Hill Gate to Whitechapel (at opposite ends of the Central Line in Zone 1, the fare would be the same as if you traveled from St.Paul's to Bank, on the same line and perhaps 300 yards apart.   Makes no sense to me.  In contrast, the Warsaw Metro offers a one day travel card costing about 15 zlotys - that's about three quid - for which you get unlimited journeys on the entire metro, tram and bus network (which is huge) within a 24 hour period.  Which is better value?

So it seems to me that in the future, the railways in the UK have somehow got to find a way of reducing fares and offering much better value for money to attract more customers (I'm talking off-peak here, since rush hour volumes are still astronomical).  The rail operators, I'm sure, will say this needs more government subsidy, and the government will I'm equally sure say you can't have it - so you have an impasse that I can't see being broken in my lifetime.  Incidentally, the Warsaw transport system is not supported by central government but by the city administration, similar to the US model and elsewhere.  Is that not one area where the London administration under good ole Boris might be able to help (yes, I know they already do, but given the amount of money London takes in direct and indirect taxation from its residents and visitors, I would suggest more could be done....)?

Beyond the ludicrous number of operators out there, and scandalous fares, the trains I caught at least ran more or less on time, and were newer and a bit more comfortable than those I remember.   they still pale in comparison with those operated in places like Switzerland, Spain, even the USA and here in Poland, but clearly there has been an improvement.  There are more high speed services, and the rail link for the Channel Tunnel is finally open so that trains don't get held up behind slow local services.  The terminal was indeed moved to St.Pancras, and very nice it is too - although the security screening (identical to airport security) seem to me decidedly over the top.  St.Pancras also operates high speed services through Stratford and under the Thames to the North Kent coast and Dover, which came as a pleasant surprise, with a journey time to Ebbsfleet (close to where my kids live) of only a quarter of an hour: (the usual suburban routes still take 50 minutes or more) and for a reasonable price too.

The East and West Coast mainlines are still being worked on, and the West Coast line (nicknamed HS2) seems particularly contentious as costs have escalated and people are now questioning the business rationale for it - so expect the government to develop a severe case of Cold Feet and cancel the project some time soon.  The arguments seems to be getting more heated and muddied and hardly a day goes by without another article in the Guardian or the Independent newspapers on the subject (though without adding anything to or taking anything away from the argument).

And this is typical of the British way.  I remember clearly back in the 80s and early 90s when the Channel Tunnel was being built.  Before the thing opened, the French had decided on the route for and built the high speed rail-link to and from Paris.  I assume there were protests from French towns and villages that were likely to be affected by it, but I don't remember too many press reports on that - mainly because of the rage and fury that the people of Kent were pouring on successive governments over our side of the route.  There were protest marches in my home town, Edenbridge, which is a good 30 miles from any proposed route (my mum was a regular attendee).  The route was chopped and changed with depressing regularity as civil servants and ministers tried to keep everyone happy, while scratching their heads about why places like New Barn and Istead Rise were screaming blue murder without appearing in any plans.  The answer to that one is a classic, told to me in a meeting with my MP at the House of Commons: it seems the original planning had been done by some civil servants at Transport getting a map and drawing a line on it from Folkestone to London, avoiding major towns like Maidstone, Tonbridge and so on.  Unfortunately the map used was over 20 years old, so their proposal carved right through the middle of New Barn and Istead Rise, villages that hadn't even existed when the map was drawn.  So the route had to be changed yet again.....and so it went on.  So when the Tunnel finally opened (late and over budget, of course), the brand spanking new trains were able to thrash along at 300kph in France, then come out of the Tunnel in Kent - and join the queue of slow moving commuter trains lumbering slowly through the countryside.  It took years before the British side was done.

So the future of rail travel in the UK is not very bright I'm afraid - expect more delays and crumbling infrastructure and mega price rises and overcrowding, until the whole British mentality changes and starts embracing the change that is clearly required, and an acceptance that money will need to spent to realise it.

Meanwhile, the French will continue to expand their high speed network - it's now possible to have breakfast in  Paris, hop on a TGV to Marseille for a freshly caught fish lunch on the Mediterranean coast, and be back in Paris, again via TGV, in time for dinner.  And at a reasonable price.  The Spanish too have an impressive high speed network linking the Madrid heartland to the likes of Barcelona, and Valencia and Malaga, far to the south, in comfort without spending hours queueing at airports.  Italian services are improving, the Swiss and Germans continue to set the benchmark for comfort and efficiency, with the Dutch not too far behind. And of course, all of them are interconnected, and route through to the rest of Europe where the services may not be as fast but at least you can catch a train in Amsterdam and wend your merry way through Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Denmark, to end up  in Poland or Russia  or the Czech Republic, amongst other places.  Polish railways are improving - I mentioned earlier the increased variety of destinations on offer earlier in this piece - with investment in new rolling stock (for both local and intercity services) and signalling and track infrastructure.  The work is still going on, so journey times can still be quite long, but at least the new trains are airy and comfortable, and on the intercity services (at least on the longer routes) offer dining cars, bike racks, and even carriages dedicated to families with children that offer play areas and tables.  Certainly within Europe, it seems to me, these interlinked railways provide a decent alternative for those of the travelling public who are happy to spend a little more time getting to their destination and are sick and tired of the increasingly intrusive security screening process and overcrowded airports with their expensive bars and restaurants and persistent flight delays.  In my last post, about the future of air travel, I suggested this situation was likely to continue for the foreseeable future: that said, we can expect continued growth and improvement to railway travel, provided there is sufficient investment made by countries in the upkeep and improvement of the necessary infrastructure.  This is likely across mainland Europe, where the railways still seem to be recognised as an integral part of any sensible transport solution - but less so in the UK.

Further afield, the Chinese are making massive investment in rail travel (as they are with road building, air travel and all kinds of other infrastructure projects) as a result of their drive for economic supremacy. Thousands of miles of new track have been laid and opened over the last few years, and thousands more are planned. New technology is also being developed and trialed, including high speed trains that are faster than anything currently operating, as well as mag-lev technology: I commend you once again to the excellent BBC Future section on the News website for more detail and information.  Indeed, the Far East continues to invest in new technology (as they have done in the IT and telecommunications sectors where their products have far outstripped the leading western alternatives - think of Samsung mobile phones and a whole slew of laptops and tablets that are as good as - and crucially cheaper than - anything HP or IBM or Apple are producing).  The Bullet trains have been running trouble free for years in Japan.  The Indian network is expanding as does its economy, much needed as people migrate from the vast countryside to its major cities of Delhi and Chennai and Pune and the rest.  As more people in the region want to travel, and more tourists are prepared to make the long haul flights to sample the new holiday destinations being opened up (a trend likely to continues, as these vacations offer great value for money against the dollar and euro and sterling) this rail expansion seems set to continue.  Clearly, it's a good time to be a railway buff.



So what of road travel?

Again, there seems to be a situation where the UK lags behind the rest of Europe certainly, and arguably the rest of the world - and for exactly the same reasons.  When the Conservative government in the 1980s started making announcements about new motorways and rail routes, across the country protest groups sprang up to oppose them, purely on the basis that, no matter how important the developments were no-body wanted them near to their homes.  A whole new sub-class of citizens was created to rival the Yuppies - the Nimbys: it's an acronym of Not In My Back Yard.  To this day, nimbys survive and flourish, even though yuppies and yippies and so on have been consigned as footnotes to history.  The nimby delayed the Channel Tunnel rail link and the CrossRail project (because not only do they not want the new railway to run within about 20 miles of their front doors, they most certainly don't want to pay for it).  The nimby has now turned his ire on the HS2 project I mentioned above, and seems to be having a similar level of success. Airport expansion delays?  Nimby driven.  Against wind farms (noisy and unsightly and inefficient, despite evidence to the contrary)?  Nimby driven.  Against fracking (the current environmental campaign in the UK, aimed at preventing exploratory wells being drilled to get at previously unreachable oil reserves)?  Nimby driven (with the ecologist lobby).  It seems to me that until the nimby culture is broken or expires of old age (and a good dose of common sense) there is little chance of much in the way of new road building anywhere in the UK - and judging by the horrendous traffic volumes on the roads that exist now something needs to be done.  The obvious answer is to try and move as much freight and human traffic onto the railways......oh, sorry forgot: can't do that, the nimbys won't like and besides it's all way too expensive.  So be prepared to spend more and more time stuck in interminable traffic jams.

Again, my best contrast is what I see every day in Warsaw and Poland, where a massive amount of road building is going on.  There is a clear co-ordinated transport policy here, and as well as the rail improvements I mentioned above, the road improvements complement it.  Highways are springing up all over the country, most of them toll roads - but I'm happy to pay PLN15 (say three pounds) to lop a good 2 hours off the drive to the coast, and travel on a new and uncrowded motorway.  Around Warsaw, there is a new network of ring roads under construction to link these new highways, so that the TIR freight trucks carrying goods to and from Western Europe to Russia and Ukraine and elsewhere no longer have to pass through (and block up totally) the city centre.  Perhaps in 10 years time this network will be as crowded and unpleasant as the M25 is today - but I hope not.

India and China, in particular, are improving and expanding their road networks to handle greater freight requirements, and again there seems to be some integration with rail improvements.  The same is true elsewhere, as African countries drag themselves, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the modern world. South America too.

All of this is good and necessary.  But probably more important are improvements and developments to the vehicles themselves.  Some of this is environmental, as the oil runs out and we become more aware of the effects of fossil fuels on the environment and climate forces manufacturers to develop alternative power sources for cars and other vehicles.  Hybrids (half petrol and half electric) have been around for a while led by the Toyota Prius, and there are now some half decent all-electric vehicles around, again led by Japanese manufacturers.  Expect this to continue over the next few years, as more and more charging points spring up and battery ranges (and sizes and weights) improve to make them a more cost effective alternative.

Other developments are safety driven.  Many top end cars now come with a variety of sensors that automatically brake if you're too close to the car in front, or straying into the wrong lane or too close to the side of the road.  Most cars have sat-nav fitted as standard (or as a low cost option).  All have air bags and seat belts and strengthened bodywork and crumple zones to protect driver and passenger.  There are reasonably priced cars (again mostly from Asian manufacturers) that have hands-free parking - can't wait to get one of those, parallel parking has never been my strong point!  There are even a few experimental cars that do the lot: you get in, start the engine, give your destination and let the car take over: it can plan the best route using sat-nav (and take into account road work delays and so on), then drive you there with the speed controlled to give optimum fuel consumption and all the safety sensors making sure you get there in one piece.  Even 10 years ago, this was the stuff of science fiction.  In 10 years time it will be the norm in cars, and in 15 likewise in bigger vehicles like buses and trucks.  Travelling may start to become fun again then - provided the road development keeps pace with the vehicle development.




So there you go.  That's how I see things changing (or not as the case may be) over the next few years.  I'll put my crystal ball away now, and wait to see how much (or how little) actually comes to pass.

Happy travelling.

The Future of Travel - Part 1: In the Air

Well, it's been a while again.  But as I'm still at home, I've not had a lot worth writing about - plenty going on in the world but, for me, insufficient interest to comment on it.  Somehow, nothing has really captured my imagination enough to tear myself away from the daily grind of trying to find work, trying to ignore the constant kick-backs from potential employers, and trying to keep body and soul together, and for the sake of my beloved wife and kids trying to keep an optimistic mind-set when in reality my guts have been churning with sheer terror at the prospect of long-term unemployment.  I can't remember the last time I had a proper night's sleep.....  lying there trying to come up with a viable Plan B and listening to their steady breathing (and the more or less constant city traffic) is not conducive to a good kip.  Ania I know has suffered many many restless nights too, for the same reasons.  Anyone reading this who's been in the position knows exactly what I'm talking about so I won't elaborate further.  Anyone who hasn't should thank their lucky stars and hope that good fortune continues to hold.  Enough said.

Anyway, glad to report, things seem to be looking up.  Again I won't elaborate, in case I unconsciously put the mockers on something, but I had a flying visit to London the other week.  Literally, a day trip: I left home about 4:30 a.m. and got back after midnight......a long old day but useful.  I took my usual budget airline, WizzAir, to Luton, then spent an interesting and potentially profitable day running around London using a surprisingly efficient (and punctual) Network Rail service, London Underground and DLR.   For a low-price carrier WizzAir is not at all bad.  The planes are quite new and in good nick, prices reasonable without being exactly cheap, and the list of payable extras seems shorter than some I've seen.  They're also pretty punctual - I've used them on the route several times now, over the past few years, and never had a delay that wasn't air-traffic control related.  The airline is based out of Hungary but operates throughout Europe, linking the emerging Eastern European traveler with the Western European business and vacation centres, and it seems to be growing in popularity.  Certainly both my flights were fully booked, and I've rarely seen many empty seats on earlier trips.  I certainly recommend them.

Of course, I have little to compare them against, as for most of my travelling life I've used the big boys like BA, Lufthansa, Air France and LOT.  Vacation trips have typically been either on those airlines too (benefiting from accumulated Air Miles) or at least on aircraft chartered from them by the travel firms and thus offering pretty much identical service to my business flights.  So low cost carriers are a relatively new experience for me, and so far the experience has been good.  Aside from WizzAir, I used Sky Europe a couple of times, into Stansted, before they went bust several years ago, and another Polish carrier OLT Express.  That one was really good - the year before last I flew from Gdansk to Warsaw for a fare of PLN20 I think (against a normal train fare six times as much), and traveled in a brand spanking new Airbus A320 that had much more leg-room and comfort than seems normal for low cost carriers.  The airline was only about two months old, and as well as guaranteeing at least 20% of its seats on any given flight would cost only PLN25 (with the remaining seats still cheaper than the likes of WizzAir and certainly BA etc were offering), it also had a related car hire company that provided for a Mini (sadly not the Cooper version) for PLN50 a day.  Sadly, the airline closed down a few weeks later - not because it was broke but because its CEO and founder was arrested and subsequently banged up on fraud and money-laundering charges.

I've never had the pleasure of using EasyJet, but I've heard mixed reviews from people I know who have. My kids flew to see me here a few years back, when they operated a Luton - Warsaw route, and said it was pretty good.  Ryanair also fly here now, from Stansted, but are using the new Modlin airport, which is about 60km north of Warsaw with no transport links to speak of (unless you want to pay in excess of a hundred zlotys for a taxi and sit in traffic for the best part of two hours).  I won't use them on principal - I've never met anyone who has had a pleasant experience with them, and any airline that is prepared to even consider ripping out the on-board toilets to increase its seating capacity and increase its profits, at the expense of its passengers' already minimal comfort, is not for me, thank you very much.



Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to the subject matter of this little epistle - the future of travel.

There seems to be lot of discussion and thought going into the way our traveling lives are heading - not just air travel, but the railways, road travel and cars, and more esoteric stuff that could be lifted straight from classic SF stories.  There is of course little or no agreement on any of this, so what will actually happen is anyone's guess, and in this respect yours is as good as mine.  About the only part where there is general agreement is that more and people will want (or need) to travel in the future, especially in the emerging markets (China and India in particular), and that the existing infrastructures - that's largely road and rail networks and all that goes with them - can hardly cope with existing demand never mind that of the future.

Take air travel, for example.  For as long as I can remember (and this is going back to my teen years, not just since I started globetrotting for a living), there have been discussions about the airport capacities in the south of England, and how there is not enough of it, and what is the best way of dealing with it.  I can remember Gatwick when there was only one quite small terminal building - in the early to mid 70s my mates and I used to drive over there some evenings, park outside and go to the bar inside the building for a few beers and watch the planes come and go.  Even earlier, when I was at school, probably around 1964 - 65, I remember my mum taking me there on the train sometimes plane spotting....great fun for an 11 year old kid, blissfully unaware that his undiagnosed colour blindness would prevent him ever becoming the pilot he dreamed of being.  I remember too going to play a football match once at a village quite close to the airport: our convoy of cars took a wrong turning somewhere, and ended up at the side of the runway as a Boeing 707 taxied past us.....God knows where the boundary fence was - we saw neither it nor a gate.  We found the pitch eventually, went a goal down after about 20 seconds to a freak wind assisted kick from the opposing goalkeeper sailing over my head into my goal (huge embarrassment!) but ended up winning 8-1.  I spent the rest of the game plane spotting....

Heathrow then already had multiple terminals but only one runway, and there was a lot of public discussion before a second was finally opened.  Today, there are 5 terminals (six if you count the T5 annexe) but it's still overcrowded and still only two runways.  For the last 10 years at least there has been a succession of proposals, protest movements and public enquiries, all trying to find an acceptable way of increasing capacity still more - a new runway is definitely needed but no-one can agree where to put it, and at least one more terminal would help the overcrowding.  No simple answers I know, but I can see from experience that more people use the place now than were doing so when I started flying in and out every week back in 2000.

Stansted didn't exist when I was a kid, except possibly as a small local airport for fun-flyers, but the boom in the 1970s and 80s in package holidays to the Med and elsewhere put paid to the quiet life for the local population as it expanded dramatically to cope with the new demand (as did Gatwick and Luton).  The M11 motorway link to Cambridge, running right past Stansted airport added to it, as did the improved rail service from Liverpool Street.  It's now a major airport for the holiday trade, and the UK base for Ryanair - so very busy: almost on a par with Gatwick.

But still it's not enough.  More capacity is needed, but where do you put it?  Ah, that's the rub!  When I was at school, there was a proposal to drain the marshes at Foulness, in the Thames estuary, and build an offshore airport there.  It never happened of course, and the plans were dropped as being technically unfeasible and vastly expensive, with efforts being poured instead into the expansions noted above.  But recently they've been resurrected by the Mayor of London no less, in light of technological improvements (not least in high speed trains) that make it perhaps more feasible if more expensive.  It's a "watch this space" issue - at the moment the Blonde Bombshell has no real support for it, and the government (and opposition) have both flatly refused to consider it - though without offering any viable alternative to the capacity problem. Which is what you would expect......

Part of the problem here is that the plane makers themselves can't agree on how air travel is going to develop.  Most airlines seem to be going the low-cost route, at least for short-haul flights, and the catering on offer clearly demonstrates this - very rarely now do you get a hot meal in economy class.  Some national airlines are now providing snacks (ham rolls, Mars Bars, that sort of thing) instead, and charging for them, which I find disappointing: it seems to me that if you are paying appreciably more for your seat on BA or whatever, either through choice or because there is no low-cost alternative on your route, then the least you can expect is a decent bite to eat on the flight included in your ticket cost.  Mr. O'Leary has a lot to answer for me in this respect.....

But the two leading plane makers - that's Boeing and Airbus - differ in their perceptions of how air travel, generally, is going, especially on those lucrative long haul flights.  Both manufacturers provide similar "small" planes for the short haul stuff - the Boeing 737 and variants against the A319, 320 and 321.  I've used them all extensively, as probably every airline operates one or the other (and often both), and they are much of a muchness.  My preference is for the Airbus range, not because I'm a good European but because to me they're a touch more refined and comfortable than their older American rivals.  But for long haul, the manufacturers have different visions, and have developed different planes to realise them.  Airbus are big fans of the hub system, where you have major airports serving as essentially a transfer centre for smaller destinations - think Heathrow, Frankfurt, Dubai, New York JFK.  So they have built the A380 monster, the only fully double decker aircraft in the world to shuttle the biggest number of passengers between hubs, where they can transfer to smaller, local flights (or trains or whatever) to complete their journeys.  Boeing, meanwhile, reckon that passengers would rather travel on smaller planes to more local airports, so they've come up with the 787 Dreamliner, allegedly the most advanced airliner in the world, largely made of composite plastics and with bigger windows, better air conditioning, better ambient lighting and so on, for a more comfortable ride.  I'll ignore the multi-year delay in the delivery cycles, and even the grounding of the entire delivered fleet of 50-odd aircraft earlier this year after a couple of fires on (thankfully landed) aircraft. It's a nice looking plane, instantly recognisable when it flies in and out of my local airport (LOT have a couple flying and more on order) by the narrow, gracefully swept-up wings - and the noise.  For the most advanced aircraft in the world it makes a hell of a row.....much worse then any other plane flying in and out of Warsaw, and louder than the 747s and 380s and the other big boys I've seen and heard elsewhere.

But both of them are the traditional cylinder with wings and multiple engines hanging from under the wings. They may be made of the latest, lightest materials to improve fuel economy - and I recognise how important this is - but they don't capture my imagination in the way, as a kid, I expected planes to look by the 21st century.  We all expected Concorde to be the first of a new generation of supersonic planes that would link the most far-flung destinations in a few hours flying, but it never really happened and the plane is gone now, confined to museums.  There have been no successors as plane makers and airlines have gone the relatively easier high loading but slower route....which seems to me a shame.  There has been talk for years of hypersonic planes going from London to Australia in a couple of hours, but they're still very much on the drawing board.  Maybe modern technology will do the job eventually.  What about different designs?  A while ago I had an e-mail from a mate with a series of photos of an alleged Boeing prototype making flights over the Californian coast that were brilliant - a massive flying wing, with the passenger cabin part of it, glass floors, really luxurious interiors even in Economy, capable of carrying a thousand passengers at near supersonic speeds.  It was beautiful.  It was also a fake, created by some bright spark that had gone viral. But I really hope something like it is developed soon!

Finally, the BBC has an excellent section (called Future) on its website that looks at possible developments in our world, covering everything from plane design, to electric cars, to medical sciences, to space travel.  I thoroughly recommend it.  The other day it ran a feature on a design of a plane that is electric powered, will remain airborne virtually non-stop, and is basically a flying wing the comes down and picks up moving train carriages, lifting them from special tracks that also give it a charge boost as they do so, then lands them on similar tracks at their destination.  Designed by a team at Glasgow University, no less......  Still a concept, on the drawing board only, but technically feasible apparently.  Now, that really would be something to see.....



The problem with all this, of course, is cost.

Planes don't come cheap, never mind airports.  The planning alone these days seems to take years, then there is development time, and once proven, construction and customer roll-out.  The A380 was a couple of years late entering service, and the Dreamliner has fared even worse (and here the delays are getting worse still as Boeing struggles to come to grips with these technical glitches - like the one that caused the fires, courtesy of a new type of battery - as a result of all this cutting edge technology).  And the costs here are measured in billions of dollars - as are the losses suffered because of these problems.  Not an easy industry, plane making.

Airports?  Even worse.  As I wrote earlier, the arguments and discussions, public enquiries and protests, over expanding Heathrow and Gatwick alone have been going on most of my life, and are still going on. Both airports are glorified building sites, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.  Perhaps this is understandable for Heathrow, built as it is in suburban London where space is at a premium and thousands of people are directly affected by it (and in many instances supported by it).  But Gatwick is 50-odd miles south of London, in the Sussex countryside, and hence has a different set of problems - mainly that any development there is likely to adversely affect that countryside.  Now I do enjoy a ramble in the green fields of England myself, and I do appreciate its beauty as much as anyone else, but I also believe wholeheartedly that it is just wrong to stop progress purely for ascetic reasons.  Development is necessary and needs to be done as soon as possible, the government should have the courage to get on with it.  But I'm not holding my breath for that to happen!

Governments everywhere object to spending money on anything that is likely to be controversial or take a long time to accrue any benefits.  The quick fix mentality is prevalent, because governments tend to change frequently and so its members tend to put their own jobs and reputations first, above the longer term needs of their countries.  They don't say this, of course - every prime minister in my memory has talked of how this decision or that law is designed to improve the lot of the citizenry for generations to come, but relatively few of them have had the courage to follow through on these words without huge compromises.  No-one these days wants to end up with the reputation of, say, Maggie Thatcher - a conviction politician who amongst other things pushed through trade union reforms and sparked confrontations that arguably destroyed the British steel and mining industries (and some would argue manufacturing generally) for reasons that she believed were correct even if no-one else did.   She's only the politician I can remember whose death was celebrated by street parties even as her coffin was laid to rest.

So although the long view is the one that governments, not only in the UK but elsewhere, should be taking in terms of airport development and all that goes with it, the exact opposite short term-ism remains prevalent.

Where does this leave the traveling public, then?  Clearly, low cost airlines are here to stay, and they are springing up all over the world to satisfy the demand to get from A to B as quickly and cheaply as possible, and the major airlines like BA and so on cut their prices (and reduce their on-board service provision to offset that) in order to compete.  For the majority of passengers this is of course a Good Thing - with the caveat that they must remember you get what you pay for.  Want a cheap ticket, no grub or drink, and perhaps end up at an airport miles from the place you want to visit, then RyanAir is clearly the airline of choice.  Want a cheap ticket with a short public transport link to your final destination, and happy to take a packed lunch?  Plenty of options - EasyJet, WizzAir, Air Berlin, Go! and many others, in all regions of the world nowadays.  And the choices will grow as the market grows, as it seems certain to do.

If you want a higher service level, with in-flight entertainment that is more than a dog-eared magazine in the seat pocket and free food and drink, then you will have to pay a correspondingly high price for it.  This follows, too, if you want to cut down on the optional extras.  Check-in is a classic example.  All the budget boys, and some national carriers too, are charging for checking bags into the hold - and some of the fees are extortionate.  The justification is that, to check in a bag takes intervention from a salaried member of staff, the use of a desk with all its computer terminals, conveyor belts, electricity to run it all, and sticky labels to put on your bag and (of course) costly boarding card.  OK - I'll buy that: I can see that little lot costs money, though I wouldn't have thought it was eighty quid a time.  But if I'm travelling with hand baggage only, a laptop say, or even no baggage at all (as was the case on my day trip to London the other week), and, further, check in at home on-line (so using my own computer and electricity and desk) and print my own boarding card in PDF format - again, on my own printer for which I bought the ink cartridges and paper - WHY am I charged a fee as an added extra to my ticket price for using web check in?  What cost has the airline actually incurred here?  It's not just WizzAir who do this: as far as I can see all the low cost carriers do the same thing, and much more besides (like charging say £20 for using a credit card that is not endorsed by the airline).  I can see absolutely no justification for that kind of thing, and have never read or heard an explanation from any of the airlines that wasn't absolute condescending bullshit.

Whichever way you want to travel, however, you will undoubtedly face overcrowded terminals, slow security screening, inefficient boarding procedures and regular delays.  Partly this is down to the capacity problems I've already written about - an airport built and equipped to process 10,000 passengers a day will always struggle when the demand is three or four times that number.  Partly this is also down to an out-dated air traffic control system (at least in Europe) where flights are passed through multiple centres as they cross different countries on their journeys.  It could all be centralised, with today's increased computer power and satellite communications, and indeed this is something the EU Commission (for once doing the right thing) has been trying to push through in the past couple of years.  Unfortunately, this path would inevitably mean job cuts, as national centres are closed as unnecessary, and of course the controllers' trade unions (and some governments) have consistently refused to consider it - there have been a number of strikes and protests that have so far delayed things.  That position will not change all the time there is a global financial crisis - so for a while yet then.

Security delays will continue to be the bane of all our travelling lives for the foreseeable future.  For me the most frustrating part of that is its inconsistency.  When I last flew to London, outbound from Warsaw I took off my jacket, made sure my watch and even cufflinks were in its pocket with my mobile phone, and took off my belt.  I kept my wedding ring on, and my medallion chain, but that was it - both were visible, and in any case they rarely set off the alarm.  Sure enough, I breezed through without a problem - no beep.  Fast forward 14 hours to Luton and my return.  Same process.  Went through the barrier, closely followed by another guy who was clearly in a rush and came through pretty much on my heels.  The machine beeped - for him: I had already passed the elderly Sikh security guy.  Another guy, standing behind him, pulled me aside for a search.  I pointed out that I had cleared ok, and the alarm was for the guy behind me (who by this time had grabbed his stuff and was heading at a rate of knots for the Duty Free.  The Security bloke was unmoved - I had to take off my shoes (rubber soled) and go through the machine again - no beep this time either.  But they still insisted on the search (probably as pay back for my having the ordacity to query why they had selected me).....arms akimbo, passengers tutting and/or laughing as this old Sikh basically felt me up (yes, he took an inordinately long time checking my inside leg - I actually told him, quite loudly, that if he touched my crotch once more I'd break his jaw, which prompted his mate to move closer as support).

Now I accept both of the guys were only doing their job, with the idea of protecting every passenger - and I have no problem with that.  I can even (almost....) accept the Sikh was doing nothing more than taking particular professional care in his frisking.  But I can't understand how I, a bald, sixty year old man in a business suit who has complied with all the security screening instructions and twice cleared the machine without a problem, could reasonably be pulled out of line as, presumably, a "potential security threat" and submitted to the indignity of a pat-down in this way, while the guy following me, who had clearly set off the alarm, was allowed to hustle through unmolested.  I'm making the journey again this week, so I'll be interested to see if there's a repetition.



So there you go, some thoughts about what we have to look forward to in our flying lives.  Probably.  Part 2 will follow maybe later this week or certainly next, and look at road and rail travel.  Hope you enjoy.

And it would be interesting to see what you think - feel free to use the Comments section and let me know your thoughts.

Happy travelling.

Pedal Power

About 18 months or so ago, when I was actually working, I had some health issues on a trip to Cyprus.  The flight from Vienna took just under three hours, immediately following an hour and half from Warsaw.  When we arrived at the gate at Larnaca, I stood up to disembark and there was a shooting pain through both hips and I collapsed in a heap.  It was very unpleasant, especially the tut-tutting and laughter from other passengers as they shoved their way past me to get off the plane.  I eventually managed to hobble off myself, collected my baggage and limped painfully out to my taxi.  I spent the rest of that day laying flat on my back at the hotel, waiting for the pain to subside and my joints start working again.

Over the next two weeks, while on the island, I had several similar attacks, and spent a lot of time knocking back painkillers and hobbling around groaning like an old man.  The bank people were exceedingly pissed off and complained about my absences, which I thought was a bit much, especially when our German PM seemed to side with them.

Anyway, I got through it, and on my return home went to see an orthopaedic specialist on my company health insurance.  He wiggled the joints around a bit - quite painful, that was - and sent me for full CT scan.  This revealed that both my hip joints are basically falling apart.  The damage isn't severe enough to warrant replacement surgery yet, and he explained to me what I needed to do to manage it.  Basically, knock back three tablets a day, and if I need to - say after a long flight - augment them with painkillers.  It seems to be working.

He also kindly gave me a letter confirming that my Economy Class flights need to be limited to 3 hours maximum - this came in very handy a couple of months later when my company insisted I flew to Santiago in Chile, and were forced, very reluctantly, to pay for Business Class flights (and very nice they were too).

The final thing Doctor Bones demanded was that I exercise more, to keep the joints active.  He recommended swimming daily and cycling as much as possible.  Now given that I swim like a rock, and have a lingering fear of water more than six feet deep (courtesy of three near-drownings when I was a kid), getting my bike out of storage seemed the best idea.



Now I learned to ride relatively late, at the age of 11.  I tend to do that a lot: I was 25 before I learned to swim (and to this day remain weak, even though despite my fears I do enjoy it - especially in warm seas), and 30 before I learned to drive and passed a test (this was through sheer laziness - all my mates drove and gave me lifts.  Having kids put paid to that).  I learned on this little kids bike that belonged to my mate's sister, and I managed 10 yards.  Thrilled, my mate ran to my house (about 200 yards away) and dragged my mum out to see - I proceeded to ride all the way to my front gate, where I fell off and cut my knee.  This, too, is typical.

So that Christmas, my parents bought me my first bike.  It was yellow and red and had a single gear.  But I spent hours playing around with it - altering the handlebar positions, covering it in bubble-gum stickers, taking the mudguards on and off......I loved it.  At the end of the summer term, the following July, my mate and I decided to cycle to school instead of catching the bus.  It seemed like a good idea at the time - even though school was a good 15 miles from where I lived, and worse, the ride was pretty much all uphill.  So I puffed along on my one-speed bike, struggling to keep up with Graham on his 5 speed racer.......  But we made it, and arrived to a hero's welcome at 9:45 (we had left a 7:15....).  Going home would be a blast, all downhill......  Then I remembered I had two bags full of books to lug home.  I slung them on the handlebars, and puffed off.....  Less than three miles in, I gave it up as a bad job.  My mum wasn't on the phone and didn't drive, so all I could do was abandon the bike and catch the bus.  As luck would have it, I was about 5 minutes ahead of the scheduled bus time at Bidborough, so persuaded the local garage owner to look after the bike overnight, and flagged down the school bus when it came along.  I got home safely, and travelled back the next morning, again by bus, to collect the bike.  The ride home, downhill in the July summer sunshine was indeed a blast.  The thing to remember here was that I was 12......can you imagine, in this day and age, a kid of such tender years being allowed to do such a thing?  Different times for sure - much less traffic on the roads, and hardly any nutters around: I don't think the word "paedophile" even existed.

I spent a great summer out on that bike, with my mates.  We went everywhere, most frequently the six miles or so to visit my elder sister and her kids, living in a very pretty little hamlet in the middle of the Kent countryside, surrounded by fragrant hop-fields and fruit farms, where we spent hours playing cowboys-and-indians, or War, and got sunburnt.  Wouldn't happen now of course - cowboys-and-indians is old hat, and the only War games worth a light are on PSP or something.  But they were happy and innocent days, and I treasure the memories.



I ran that bike for about three years, I think, and outgrew it.  Then my dad replaced it with a second hand racer.  It was red, with drop handlebars and 5 speed Derailieur gears and incredibly slim and fragile wheels - I seemed to get a puncture every other week.  By today's standards, it was heavy and old fashioned, but it was good enough for me - I loved it.  Over the next 8 or 9 years, I rode it into the ground.  I kept it pretty much until I got married although the last few years it was gathering dust in my mum's garden shed.  After my dad died when I was 19 and I discovered booze, I was too pissed most of the time to ride it, and then all my mates passed their driving tests and I started travelling cramped up in the back of smoke filled Minis and Hillman Imps and Riley Elfs (Elves?).  Besides, you could hardly turn up at the Beacon or Clouds discos, or the Wiremill Country Club on a push bike and expect to pull, could you?  I have no idea what happened to that old bike - I guess my mum gave it away eventually, after I got married and moved away to my own place.

That was it for a good few years, really until my kids were in their teens.  Then one year, I got a particularly good bonus at work, and spent it on mountain bikes for the whole family, a five-berth frame tent, all the cooking gear, sleeping bags, and roof and carrying racks for the car to carry it all,  One Friday in August, a hot sunny day, we loaded the lot onto my company car, a Montego 2.0 GTi estate in British Racing Green (very possibly the best car I've ever had), and at 4 the next morning we headed off to Cornwall for a two week camping holiday.  Despite the load (remember there were also five of us - two adults and three teenage boys - plus all the rest of the baggage....food, clothes, footballs and the like) the drive was a pleasure and the car remarkably did over 100 mph on one stretch of the M5 - everyone else was asleep and I just couldn't resist giving it the welly.  We camped at a site just outside Portscatho, on the Roseland Peninsula, a lovely little fishing village we knew very well, having stayed there for several years in different apartments and cottages.  It's still one of my favourite places, and I have many happy memories from it.  I do wonder what it's like now - I haven't been there for a good twenty years - but at that time, the mid 90s, it was still small and undeveloped and there were many good beaches and secluded coves in the area that we used when the weather permitted (this being England and Cornwall rain was, shall we say, not unheard of even at the height of "summer").

The first few days were great, hot and sunny, and we hit the beaches - cycling to them of course.  Then on the Wednesday we were sitting on a beach, eating sandwiches after a swim, and spotted a black line on the horizon.  It grew and thickened, and rapidly turned into what were clearly storm clouds heading in our direction - but slowly.  We had another three or fours on the beach as planned, then headed back to the camp for dinner.  And the rain came.  It arrived shortly after we did, huge pebble sized drops that pounded on the canvas like bullets, accompanied by gusting winds, thunder and lightning.  Camping in Britain can be such fun.  And the rain continued, unabated, for the next three days, by the end of which were cold and fed up and everything we had with us was as waterlogged as the campsite.  The end came when I unzipped the sleeping compartment at 8 on a (still) wet Saturday morning, and saw a huge puddle in the middle of the groundsheet that was just turning into a stream and carrying with it out the doorway a plastic cup.  Water was dropping from several places in the tent roof like a bathroom shower.  Fuck it, time to go home.   We spent the rest of the morning packing everything up and loading the bikes onto the car, then gingerly I backed out of our pitch on to the stone-and-dirt site road (that was now running water like a woodland stream).  It was very difficult, and I came very close to getting bogged down in the mud where previously the car and tent had stood......the boys had to give me push at one point.  Another half hour and we would not have been able to get out at all.   It turned out that we had experienced the worst spell of weather in living memory - a month's worth of rain had fallen in 48 hours, followed over the next 24 hours by half of September's average.

I haven't camped since.  The tent was ruined and remained stored in the garage loft until I divorced and threw it out along with so much else as we cleared the family home.

But the bikes were fine, and continued to be used.



I gave mine away when I moved to Poland, and after a couple of years here, we bought new bikes.  This time I bought a state of the art Scott Mountain bike.  18 gears (that 8 years later still confuse the hell out of me!).  Heavy duty off road tyres.  I added a kid seat on mine, so I could take the babies for a ride.  For many years they were relatively little used, but over the past three or four years they've come out of the moth-balls and been hammered a bit.  Kuba got a bike so he can come along and Ally graduated to the baby seat, but now she too has her own bike and loves it (still on stabilisers, but she rides to school every day when the sun shines), so it's turning back into a family thing again.

I'm fortunate that in the Warsaw suburb where we live there is a big network of cycle paths (including one running past my front door) and ten minutes ride away is the forest on the southern edge of the city that has many miles of cycle paths in it too.  This means we can ride safely, without risking life and limb at the mercy of useless Warsaw drivers, who as bad as they are at least manage to distinguish between the road and the cycle path.  Mind you, some of the numpties on their bikes aren't much better - on the way to school there is a stretch of path that forms a little S-bend, part of which is obscured by overgrown bushes so that as you approach it from one direction it's blind.  Not that that stops some people - typically overweight blokes in lycra, shades and headphones - thrashing round the section at high speed with no consideration that anyone may be coming the other way.  I've not had a collision yet, but had a couple of close shaves - now I sound my bell as I approach (just in case it's a] heard, and b] listened to).  

This is something I've noticed on my frequent rides.  Most men of a certain age seem under the impression they are Bradley Wiggins, or Chis Hoy or someone.  They wear the lycra shorts, gaudy nylon "team"shirts, helmets and wraparound shades, and charge around as if they're on the Tour de France or something.  They're not: they're largely overweight, look stupid and are a danger to everyone else on the path.  Similarly, many drivers seem to believe they are Robert Kubica, and drive like they are competing in an F1 grand prix - not a good idea on the average ill-repaired and over-crowded Polish road.  Not that a single one will accept they are anything other than the best rider/driver in the history of the universe.  Delusional and dangerous.

But despite all that, I love getting on my bike.  Doctor Bones was right - it's doing my joints the power of good.  Very rarely now do I have the sort of pain and stiffness that I had increasingly for a number of years until I saw him and took his advice.  I've cut down on my cocktail of tablets, and feel much fitter all round.  I've lost weight (not a lot) too.....for the first time in years.

So if any of you are feeling a bit heavy, a bit stiff, a bit under the weather - to paraphrase Norman Tebbitt, get on yer bike.  It will do you the power of good!

The G8 Summit June 2013 - A Taxing issue

There are only two sure things in life: death and taxes.
                                                                    - Mark Twain (1835 - 1910


Smart bloke, Mark Twain.  Very wise.  And a great writer.


He said that over a hundred years ago, and taxes are as much a part of life as they ever were.  As universally disliked, and as universally contentious.  The only difference is that nowadays, there is more crap spoken on the subject than ever before.

Not a day goes by without another story appearing in the news about another tax evasion scandal.  Parliamentary committees in the UK and the US both roundly condemn massive companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft for setting up accounting and management structures to reduce their corporate tax liability.  The world's best footballer, Lionel Messi and his father, are accused by the Spanish government of setting up an offshore company to avoid paying tax on the twenty-one million euros worth of income from sales of his image rights.  Inevitably, fingers are pointed in the direction of bankers too - Stephen Hester, the CEO of publicly owned RBS NatWest resigns (possibly pushed) and receives a pay-off in excess of a million quid in salary, bonuses and stock options - much of it tax free.   Led by Obama, Cameron and Merkel (the Three Stooges) the G8 this week debates moves to outlaw tax havens like Jersey, the Isle of Man, the Caymans and others (I wonder if the State of Delaware, population 900,000 but with over a million companies registered, courtesy of exceptionally low corporation tax, will also be included on the hit list?  There is a single building there that is the registered address of - you'll love this - 280,000 companies!).

But here's the thing: in not one of those cases has anybody acted illegally.  So why the witch hunt?



First of all, no-one has so far been able to agree on definitions of tax evasion, tax avoidance and tax efficiency - all of which it seems to me are different things but lie at the crux of the matter.

Here's my take on it: a personal definition that may well be different from yours or anyone else's.  Tax avoidance means you are deliberately trying not to pay tax - for instance, you are working for cash-in-hand payment, not issuing any invoices for the work, and not declaring your earnings in your annual return.  Clearly illegal and immoral, although not at all uncommon: many tradesmen I have come across over the years, in the UK and elsewhere, do it as a matter of course, be they plumbers, electricians, printers or whatever.   In some respects, tax evasion amounts to the same thing - you're trying not to pay tax.  However, this seems to me more a case where you are a salaried employee who also receives expenses, and you falsify your tax returns (and almost certainly the amounts claimed as expenses) to misrepresent your earnings and thus reduce your tax burden.  Again, clearly illegal and immoral, and again very common.....I can think of a number of cases where, for instance, British MPs have charged consultancy fees and not declared them, or issued invoices in the name of their wife or pet dog.  Both of them, then, are fair game for criticism and pursuit by the appropriate authorities.

But tax efficiency is something else entirely, and this is where the waters get muddied.   Tax efficiency, in my book, means that you are quite prepared to pay tax according to the law of the land, but use perfectly legal means to reduce the amount you pay.  I see no immorality in this at all.  For instance, when I started travelling extensively in my job, I dutifully filled out my annual tax return.  One of the questions asked if I had worked outside of the UK during the tax year in question, and if so to provide details.  I did this, and the Revenue promptly classified me as a UK resident (since my home address and employer were in the UK) but non-resident for tax purposes, as it transpired that I had only worked in the UK for something like 90 days that year.  I was thus placed in a zero tax (exempt) band, and given a full rebate.  I queried it with some colleagues who were in the same boat, and found that many of them were in the same position and my payroll guys confirmed everything was legal and above board.  Normally in this situation, your tax liability falls with the country where you worked outside the UK, but invariably there is a caveat there: you have to be in that country more than 180 days to qualify.  So because of the nature of my job, I spent several years happily globe trotting, working my arse off and paying no UK tax, and never once spending the required amount of time in another country to qualify for their regime (and in all honesty, even had I done so my company were simply not geared up to help me pay elsewhere).  I continued to fill in my returns, accurately and on time, and the Revenue continued to zero-rate me.  All very efficient, and more to the point perfectly legal.  I know one guy, in an identical position, who used the extra cash to pay for a lavish wedding in Tuscany.  But I don't know of anyone who voluntarily paid the "missing" tax.

Here's another form of tax efficiency.  I'm now a tax payer in another EU country, and have been a for few years.  The situation here is different from the UK, in that when I'm on the payroll of a company registered in that country, I have to pay full tax in that country, even if 100% of the work is done offshore.  There is no such thing as zero rating as it was (and maybe still is) applied in the UK - so I happily paid my 45%.  Now however, as a sole trader my tax rate is pegged considerably below that and I can offset pretty much everything against that as a business expense.   Mobile phone bills, printer ink, petrol for the car, air fares, hotel bills, it can all be offset, provided I can produce an invoice for the commodity or service.  I understand there are similar provisions in the UK and elsewhere.  Again, I fail to see where the problem is in this: at the end of the day, surely it is the duty of every family man to ensure that his income is maximized to take care of his family without unduly burdening the state, and tax efficiencies such as these can make all the difference.



Now then, much of the criticism I have seen lately has been levelled against companies and individuals who have practiced perfectly legal tax efficiency measures.  Invariably there have been charges of greed, immorality, pariahs and so forth - all very unpleasant.  The label "super-rich" has been applied to most of the individuals who have been able to reduce their tax burden via offshore companies or whatever.  But hang on a minute - in 99% of cases, they have done absolutely nothing different to me, and I am certainly not super-rich....quite the opposite, in fact.  Despite all my tax-free years, I have no savings to fall back on, no offshore bank accounts.  But many people who are riding this particular bandwagon would consider me doubly evil, what with my banking background and history of (perfectly legal) tax efficiency.

At a corporate level, Google and Apple, in particular, have been the subject to the most appalling and virulent criticism over their tax affairs in both the UK Parliament and the US Congress.   The complaint, basically, is that despite earning billions of dollars profit, they have only (only!) paid tax in the low hundreds of millions.  They have done this by setting up off-shore subsidiaries in low tax countries (Ireland, for instance), and reporting the bulk of their profits in those jurisdictions, despite being US companies (where there is a more punitive tax regime).  Now that seems to me a very prudent course of action to take, especially when you consider that, as publicly traded and quoted companies, they are legally and duty bound to provide the best possible return to their shareholders.  It seems to me they have merely hit upon a perfectly legal way of doing exactly that, and if anything should be applauded.   Google, to their immense credit in my view, have responded to the criticism by pointing out that very fact, and further making it clear that they have complied with both the letter and the spirit of the law in each country - and stated that since politicians make those laws, it is up to them to change those laws.  In which case, Google will happily comply with whatever the politicians come up with.  Cue accusations from Labour and Republican politicians that the company is being "mealy mouthed and dishonest"....a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black, if you ask me.  But then, when have you ever heard of an honest politician, or for that matter one admitting to have been wrong?



The so-called tax havens seem to be getting together a co-ordinated front in meeting this onslaught of criticism, and quite right too.  Most tax havens (for want of a better title, and remember there is no internationally agreed definition of a "tax haven" either) are small countries with little in the way of natural wealth - no oil revenues, too small to be manufacturing or agricultural powers, often relying to a great extent on shipping and tourism to pay their way and keep their citizens gainfully employed.  So I fail to see the moral objection to them developing financial services industries that allow companies and individuals to retain more of their hard earned cash through tax efficiency measures, and in doing so support their exchequers.  This is not a new situation, it's been common for many many years, and some of the biggest companies in the world were using tax havens to improve their balance sheets (and hence shareholder dividends), and this was encouraged.  In the early 1980s, I worked for a massive American bank, at that time the biggest company of its kind in the world.  It had a highly complex corporate structure, with many subsidiary companies by business line and domicile, but the holding company, the one whose balance sheet determined the profits on which shareholder payouts and tax liabilities were calculated, was registered in - Delaware.  An evil tax haven, according to current thinking,   It was considered a tax haven then, too, but was perfectly respectable.  The bank in question endured no criticism from any political body, and was held up as a perfect example of all that was good about America and American business.  The chairman resigned in my first year to take up the position of Treasury Secretary in the first Reagan administration.  It was not alone, either - virtually every major bank on Wall street, and many other major companies in the US and elsewhere, were registered in Delaware for precisely the same tax efficiency reasons.  They still are.



Despite all the noise and hot air blowing around Westminster, Capitol Hill, the Bundestag and elsewhere, about doing away with these "immoral tax havens" so that the relevant governments can make sure that the companies and individuals who pay (let's not forget that there is a fee, often a steep one) to use these facilities, are also made "to pay their fair share" in taxes.  Okay, that's all very laudable....but what exactly is a fair share?  That for a start is one thing you are NEVER going to get agreement on - France for instance will always want higher tax revenues to support a bloated state employment sector than will the US, for whom free enterprise and small government are more de rigeur (and we'll leave aside the different interpretations that Democrats and Republicans put on that concept for now).

The only way you will ever get uniformity of taxes across the world is if you have a single tax-setting authority - like a global inland revenue service, if you will.  And that, sorry Mr.Cameron et all, will NEVER happen.  No country is going to sign away its sovereignty in that way.  The UK remains out of the Eurozone largely because it does not want "Brussels bureaucrats" or "German bankers" to run its finances (although it could be argued they already do).  Can you imagine a nation like Poland, proudly independent after 50 years under Communist oppression and now prospering under democracy, handing over its tax setting powers to those same civil servants in another country?  Nope, neither can I.  And what of India, where only 2% or so of its 12billion citizens actually pay any tax - even though many more should do so but simply don't bother  (and escape any sanction because the Indian civil service and justice systems are themselves too corrupt to pursue them)?  No chance.  There are many more example I'm sure.

So, then, it seems to me the G8 leaders, or the G20, or any other number you care to name, can waste millions of pounds, or euros, or dollars, of tax payer money, sitting around big tables in opulent surroundings and debate the subject until the cows come home - and it will make no difference.  There will continue to be countries that will be happy to remain low tax environments; there will continue to be a global financial services industry specializing in assisting its corporate and private customers to take perfectly legal advantage of those low tax environments; and of course there will always, but always, be customers prepared to take that advice and reduce their tax burdens, whether they be the Google's of this world or the Travellin' Bob's.

And that seems perfectly right to this tax payer, for whom the right of individual choice is paramount (provided those choices are legal and harm no one).

The Lunatics are running the Asylum.

I saw this week that the IMF have admitted to "mistakes" in their handling of the Greek debt crisis and admitted that they should have done more to arrange bail-out funds earlier than they did.  Of course, they made veiled criticism of the Greek government in their comment that "growth forecasts had been more optimistic" than they should have been - for which read, mind you our predictions were based on numbers provided by the Finance Minister in Athens. so it's still their fault not ours.

I'm sure the ordinary unemployed and skint Greek in the street was well chuffed with that.

The IMF, in the fragrant French person of Madame Lagarde, has also been calling for some relaxation in the austerity measures that her, and the IMF, have been forcing down everyone's throats for the last few years, on the basis that they have led to too many stagnant and recessive economies that are bad for the Eurozone  in particular and more generally the global recovery.

Quite right too....austerity measures will only get you so far in resolving the situation, as other countries in the world have realized and reacted on.  Austerity is fine to rein in unnecessary government spending, and tighten up the tax receipts, but sooner or later you come to a point where you simply can't cut any more without causing real harm, long term, to your economy.  Too long with half percent interest rates and next to no growth is certain, at some point, to deter entrepreneurs from starting businesses, lead to existing businesses reaching the position where they are not making enough profit to support their expenses (because sales are slowed to a standstill because Joe Punter is scared shitless to spend what savings he might have) so have to cut those expenses.....  Meaning branch closures and redundancies......and more people claiming benefits, supported by decreasing tax revenues.  Which means more austerity measures by the government to reduce costs - which will mean cuts to services like health care, and education, and infrastructure projects......and so the vicious circle continues.

The US has realized this and despite GOP objections Obama has introduced job creation measures and tax reforms aimed at inflating the economy - i.e. giving Joe Punter more dollars to spend.  It seems to be working.  The Japs have also gone to town, with the new PM introducing measures that essentially have the Bank of Japan printing money and giving it away so that Punter-san can rush out and buy the latest Samsung mobile or Toyota motor....a government-driven spending spree that will replace austerity with a projected 5% inflation, for multiple years probably.  And PM-san is quite relaxed about that, even happy.  China, India, Russia, Brazil and the other emerging market economies have basically said recession? What recession?  What's austerity anyway?  And carried right on producing and selling cheaply and inflating their economies by eight or nine percent (admittedly while leaving millions to live in poverty).

All of which means that while the rest of the world starts flourishing again, Europe remains stuck in a crisis of its own making, clinging stubbornly to a policy that is now beginning to fail miserably.  The IMF told the UK they really should boost public spending and job creation to drag its economy out of recession and into growth, or risk a further debt ratings cut from AA......  Cameron, the privately wealthy Old Etonian PM, and Osborne, another privately wealthy aristocrat and Chancellor of the Exchequer - neither of whom have done a real days' work in their lives - merely smiled smugly and politely insisted they would continue government policy.

As an aside here - take a look at Osborne's Wikipedia entry, and in particular his "work experience" prior to joining the Conservative party staff and entering parliament.  It says that, after leaving Oxford in 1992 with his shiny degree in Modern History, he did a bit of part time work as a "data entry clerk", a week at Selfridge's store "folding towels", then some freelance writing on the Daily Telegraph gossip column, before joining Central Office as an "advisor" to various departments including Agriculture.  He was also a speechwriter for John Major, apparently.  Now call me cynical, but how the fuck does that qualify him to be an elected Member of Parliament, representing (in theory) the best interests of his constituents, never mind the task of running the entire economy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?  It is an absolute fucking scandal and says everything you need to know about the parlous state of the British political system that allows a couple of idiots who are barely qualified to wipe their own arses to run the entire country.  Ye Gods, I'm glad I'm not living in the UK any more or I would be sorely sorely tempted to do something extreme - like voting UKIP at the next election.



So anyway, in the UK the Lunatics running the Asylum are insisting that they will not change their policies, probably because they feel it would make them look stupid (which they are anyway).  But what about the other main players, the other Asylums across the Continent?

In Germany, the situation is a little more complicated because there is an election due this year.  Mrs. Merkel of course wants to win it and remain Chancellor, probably because she likes the company car and house and all the trimmings, and because it means she's the most powerful woman in Europe if not the world (that old German superiority complex again....).   So she's not going to do anything that is going to piss off Herr Punter and spoil her chances - and any relaxation of austerity measures across the Eurozone could mean that Germany, as the biggest and richest economy, might have to dip into its pockets again to fund somebody else's spending spree.  Which would piss off Herr Punter very much.  So the lady's not for turning, but for different reasons than the Divine Maggie.

France is struggling with its own austerity program.  Hollande would love to scrap it and start spending his way to prosperity, as he said he would to get elected last year, but realpolitik prevents him doing that because it would piss off the Germans.  Italy is a basket case, and really hasn't a clue what to do - it can't even form a stable government, never mind one that can figure out whether to continue with austerity or start reflating.  Spain, Portugal and Ireland are basically broke and don't have any choice in the matter anyway - they have bail out funds to repay sooner rather than later, so can't afford to piss off the Germans either, just in case they need to borrow some more.



It's a mess really.  And for once, (whisper it.....) it's NOT the fault of Public Enemy No.1, the bankers.  No, they are being hammered just as much by the austerity measures as anyone else.  I know that from bitter experience over the last few months.  My old company sells software to banks and banks alone - it has no product lines in other industries at all.  It's a one-trick pony.   For the last few years, it has hardly made a single sale in Europe, because banks simply will not spend the money on a new system costing several tens of millions of pounds when they are so much in the spotlight over (allegedly) mishandling customer funds, miss-selling products to customers not competent to understand that product, false accounting, money laundering and God knows what else.  So my old company had to save money to prop up its own share price - so it closed a number of offices, and fired several hundred people.  Me included.  And it's still doing so.  And that in turn means that the contract market, the obvious next step for someone in my position, is flooded with potential contractors with not enough work to go around.  It depresses rates, and, worse, makes it next to impossible to find something else.  I can't see anything changing until austerity becomes a thing of the past and banks start spending again.  Whenever that might be....

No, this mess is wholly and completely down to politicians, many of whom (like the Two Ronnies - Cameron and Osborne) have never done an honest days' work in their lives and are as out of touch with Joe Punter's real life and needs as a Martian or visitor from the planet Zog would be, making decisions about austerity or inflation as a policy matter....for which they have absolutely no qualification whatsoever.



A final sobering thought.  The last British prime minister, as far as I can remember, who had a recognizable career before parliament, was John Major, twenty-odd years ago, who was a senior treasury manager at Standard Chartered.  It qualified him as Chancellor more than Osborne could ever dream of.....but as a Prime Minister - well, I'm sure you can all remember how that turned out. 

The Return of Travellin Bob

So another month and half has gone by since my paean to Jeremy Clarkson hit the web and was (rightly) ignored by all bar 6 people (whoever you are, I admire you and thank you for your perseverance).   And not a lot has changed, or indeed happened.



I'm still at home, wondering where the next job will come from and becoming increasingly pissed off with the frankly ill-mannered way that recruiting now seems to be done in this web enabled age.  I used to work in the recruitment industry, many moons ago, back in the glory days of the Divine Maggie, and as I've fallen in and out of work over the years I've been through the mill a number of times, so I do think I know what I'm on about.  And I can say without a shadow of doubt an industry that has always been a little, shall we say, loose with the truth has become even more shambolic and (dare I say it) dishonest.

Back in my day, when I worked for a little agency near Liverpool Street station, we consultants - all four of us - split our time more or less evenly between calling all our industry contacts drumming up positions to fill, drafting up our ads to be placed in the wide range of freebie magazines dished out at all the mainline and tube stations that were the best source of applicants (everyone, but everyone, picked up at least one copy a week), and then vetting the deluge of CVs and interview the pick of the applicants.  We also had people walk through the doors sometimes, on the off-chance of finding something.   Very very occasionally, if we were short of applicants, we would invent a job just to drum up more CVs, but that was not something we did lightly nor often.  One thing we always did, however, was return phone calls.

Now what happens?  Well, all the agencies use the web to post jobs and get CVs in, and there are a whole load of sites out there that collate jobs from various sources, sort them and re-direct your attention to specific agencies, automatically re-routing your application mail.  All very efficient......until you try to follow up your application personally.  Then the fun begins.  I've lost count of the number of potential jobs that have come my way via Jobserve (for instance), - probably 4 or 5 day - and lost track too of the ones that were actually relevant and applied for.  What I do know is that the vast majority of them have produced not even an acknowledgement of my existence, never mind a vague discussion or (God forbid) an interview.   So the CV goes off, I give it a day or two (no more) and call the agency, just to make sure the thing arrived, is there any interest, blah blah blah.  The brush off - she's in a meeting, he's on another call, he's off sick.  OK, here's my number, can you ask him to call when he's free.  And ninety nine times out of a hundred that's it.  Never hear from them again.

I applied for one a week or so ago, that from the job description was tailor made - they wanted exactly my banking background, they wanted my IT and consultancy experience.....not just some of it, but to a T.  I applied.  Called in two days later.  And again after three.  Finally got to speak to the bloke.  He at first denied receiving the CV, then when I pushed it found it on his system - and immediately said it doesn't fit the job profile.  I asked him why.  "Well, you worked for years at the Bank of Poland...."  Oops....big time mistake, you can't even read, fuckwit.  I pointed out this wasn't actually the case, and politely suggested (biting my tongue all the while) that he had another read through.  "I don't need to," says Jack the Lad, "I've been doing this for four years...."   What I felt like saying was, hang on a minute - I've been a BA for three times as long as that, and working in the banking and finance industry for probably longer than you have existed, you poisonous little toerag, so don't gave me that bullshit, and do your job properly.....  What I actually said was - nothing.  Bugger all.  There was no point, because the snivelling little cretin wouldn't have listened or changed his mind anyway.  I gave up and cut the connection.

Sadly that seems to be par for the course.  It's soul destroying, really.....



What's also soul destroying is the way your mates, people who you've traveled with, shared hotel bars and airport lounges with, frequently helped and supported in all kinds of ways, suddenly disappear.  Calls to their mobiles cut straight to Voicemail.  Text messages and e-mails go unanswered.   Those that do bother to respond usually pledge their help and say they'll let you know if they hear about anything - but they somehow never seem to hear of anything quickly enough, and by the time the word of this project or that opening reaches your straining ears, via an increasingly inefficient grapevine, and you apply - it's already gone to someone else (who as often as not is less well qualified).  Unemployment definitely clarifies who your real friends are, that's for sure.....



So my days are spent trawling the internet for openings, keeping in touch with old acquaintances (who I actually thought were mates....) to try and rustle something up, swapping leads and gossip with the handful of real mates about possibilities (it's interesting that my closest mates now seem to be in the same position as me and those still in work are reduced to mere acquaintances).  And reading news items and stuff from an assortment of on-line journals and news sources, in an attempt to stay abreast with what's going on in my workspace.  And reading various books.  And of course watching a bit (not a lot) of tv.  Doing the school run with my kids (sometimes, now the weather has improved) on the bikes, which is nice.  Ironing.  Cooking.  Gazing wistfully at outgoing aircraft from the nearby airport.......

I should really write more - it's not as if I don't have the time nowadays.  This blog for a start - I've neglected it for a while now, sorry about that.  I should finish the task of revising The Match, my long-written but unpublished novel about sex and booze and football.  I should start writing my autobiography - not for publication, probably, but more for the benefit of my kids and their (eventual) kids, just to remind them of their heritage and show them perhaps what the world was like when their old man was a nipper, because it's what made their old man the old man he was....and that's in their genes, too.  That could be fun......

But it's finding the.....how can I put it?.....the oomph to actually get started.  To get those creative juices surging again.  To drag from somewhere the sheer energy to do something about it (I've noticed that the more time I'm at home with nothing to do, the less energy I seem to have and the more I seem to want to sleep....it's a paradox.  My doctor told me earlier this year that for a man of 60 I have the physical body and well-being of a man of 40, which cheered me up no end.  Now sometimes I feel like I'm a 60 year old man going on 80..... It's not nice.)

So here is a New Years Resolution (ok, I know it's June 6 - so I'm a bit late.....).

I WILL finish The Match.  I WILL start on My Life.  I WILL blog more often.



Well, better get started then.....