One thing the Chancellor should have put in his pre-budget report was a special tax on smokers to cover the cost of an army of people scouring the UK picking up nub ends. ‘Two birds with one stone’, it would have been; fewer people smoking, perhaps, and job creation at the same time.
There is no getting away from the fact that smokers are a disgrace. They cough and splutter their way through shortened lives with their foul smelling breath, clothing, cars and homes. There is much I can do to avoid them whenever I can, but there is one aspect of their addiction I can’t avoid – their litter.
How good is that video from Keep Britain Tidy? It really is an accurate view of the UK.
A survey in South Wales in February 2009 found that cigarette ends accounted for 90% of the litter found on roads and pavements. The smoking ban won’t have helped, and has probably made the problem far worse – remember the publican’s face in the video? Southampton City Council also found that 70-90% of all city litter was smoking related. They also say that it takes around 12 years for a nub end to biodegrade – smashing apart one of a long list of childish excuses that smokers put forward for their habit.
If we are to get the clean streets that we want, more needs to be done to get smokers to keep themselves to themselves. I’d love to see some pubs open to smokers again – at least we’ll know where they are and, therefore, where to avoid. Only smokers need be employed there, so we’ll see smokers cleaning up after smokers. And since they’ll have places that they can go to smoke there’ll no longer be half of the excuses that we get now.
Then, perhaps, we should then look to get unemployed smokers to pick up smoking related litter in return for the cash the state gives them. If they expect society to buy them cigarettes it’s the least they can do in return.
I take it that you’ve all had a chance to use the new Grange Roundabout on the A456 at Halesowen. For some 20 weeks we’ve all had to find alternative routes or sit in massive long queues for hours. It’s now finished; was it worth it?
If you live in Stourbridge or the surrounding area and need to drive to Birmingham or the motorway network you will probably use this junction. Do so heading east in the mornings and you would have been faced with at least a half mile tailback. Travel back in the evening and you’ll tail back to Junction 3 of the M5 from about 4:3opm. After months of work, and a huge sum of money spent drivers should be experiencing shorter queues. I haven’t noticed any.
I would regularly use the A456 at similar times each day, and a simple gauge of success would be for me to spend less time queuing. Each time I’ve used the road since completion I find myself backed up to the same point; if you’ve watched long and triple jumpers mark their run up you’ll know what I mean. Could it be that new traffic, excited about the new layout, has suddenly started to use it? I doubt it, and would even suggest that there are fewer vehicles using it now which means it might even be worse than before. During the works I found an alternative route, and even now, after a brief period back on the A456, I’ve gone back to it. How many other drivers have done the same? Any claimed success for the new scheme, although not obvious, could be due to displacement of traffic as I suggest.
So what was this work all about? Councillor Angus Adams, cabinet member for transportation, said:
“This is a major safety overhaul for that junction which should bring benefits for everyone travelling through the area.”
I can see the barrier protected pedestrian routes, and I can see that some dividing areas have been removed, and I can see that the roundabout itself seems to have a bigger diameter. Some lanes have been added on the downhill from Romsley too, but I can’t really see how this is beneficial. If journey times are still as long as they were beforehand then we must ask if it was worth it.
And then we need to know the costs of not really making it any better. We’ve been told that it was paid for by central government, but I’ve also heard that a not inconsiderable sum of Dudley tax money was used as a top up. I’ll see if I can find out how much and report back.
I’d love to hear from you if you have found this work to have benefited you. Has it reduced your journey time? Do you like the layout? What colour do you think it should be? Yes, you read right – Dudley MBC wants to know what colour we’d like the roundabout to be. This will be the ‘consultation piece’ of the jigsaw. Click here to participate in a survey to find out about the colour scheme and whatever garish sculpture we’re going to get. If there’s an option for White Elephant I suggest you vote for that.
This post will be here for about a month. Below is a link to a radio show that I made for 102.5 The Bridge in Stourbridge – single handed – on 29th September 2009.
Have a listen to the problems that we face regarding litter in Stourbridge. The recording features interviews with Lynda Waltho MP, Cllr Angus Adams, Tory candidate Margot James, Lib-Dem candidate Chris Brammal and Nicola Peate from Keep Britain Tidy. Also features members of the public and the odd track of music.
Although I must say this myself, this isn’t bad local radio at all.
We have a 21″ plasma TV at home, in a room 17′ x 12′. It’s great; all four of us can sit together as a family and watch whatever we want. It came with Freeview, and the picture quality is stunning. Best of all is that it cost less than £300.
I spent around two weeks weighing and deciding which TV to get, with a key factor being the price. I really didn’t want to spend more than a few days pay on something as ‘throwaway’ as a TV, as it’s sure to go wrong at some stage and then I’ll need to by another. There are more important things to buy.
It does seem that we massively undervalue TV’s at the Eden’s. This was compounded when the local free newspaper arrived this week complete with a ‘Bright House‘ pamphlet – “Making Christmas more affordable”.
Bright House has recently opened a store in the Ryemarket in Stourbridge. I’d walked past a few times but took no notice of the name until today. I’ve read the pamphlet, logged onto the website, read the blog and searched Google about it. Oh dear! Beware Bright House!! What does it say about our town, and the benefits based society we live in?
My 12 year old son spotted an issue straight away. “Why would anyone spend £2,650.44 for a TV that costs £1196.36?”, he asked, followed by, “that’s more than double!”
“Exactly”, I replied. “Because they can’t afford £1196.36″
“So why would they buy one then?”
I went on to explain that 42″ plasma TV’s are a sort of status symbol, and people who don’t have enough money to buy a TV for £1200 rely on shops where they can obtain ’status’ with borrowed money at exorbitant rates of interest. He shook his head in dismay and walked away.
So let’s just take a closer look at this particular Phillips 42″ LCD deal at Bright House. I’ve no doubt it’s a very nice TV, but would seriously question the ‘need’ for something quite so gross. In a huge room it might look OK, but you just know that most will end up bolted to a chimney breast above a three bar electric fire with flickering flame effect.
I cannot help feeling disgusted that my town has a store that sets out to sell items of huge expense to the very people who cannot afford to buy them. Isn’t that what started the recession off? Isn’t this just ’sub-prime’ lending for electronic equipment instead of housing? I’ve discovered on the web that roughly 40% of Bright House customers are on benefits, possibly sitting at home all day watching Tricia on 42″ TV’s that they’ve rented from Bright House – which advertises on Tricia. You can’t fault the genius behind it.
So here’s this TV with a cash price of £1196.36 (I shudder each time I type it!). I don’t have figures for how many people pay cash, but at Bright House there’s no need to pay a deposit, and the weekly payments are only £11.04 – so let’s assume that most people take the credit route shall we? These punters sign up to pay £11.04 for 156 weeks. Onehundredandfiftysixweeks! Now I make that three years, or even 36 months, but in the land of Bright House it seems that customers deal in weeks.
£11.04 x 156 = £1722.25. That means that the customer/fool pays £525.88 in interest over three years – on a TV!
£525.88 / £1196.36 = 44% total interest payable. There’s more…
Worried about it breaking? No problem. Take out Bright House’s ‘Optional Service Cover’. It only adds £5.95 per week to the deal. It’s only £5.95 after all – but that nearly doubles what they want you to pay.
£11.04 + £5.95 = £16.99 x 156 = £2650.44 – for a bloody TV that you can’t even afford!! £2650.44 – £1196.36 = £1454.08.
£1454.08 / £1196.36 = 122% Yes, you’ve got it. People with no money are being offered the chance to buy a TV for more than twice the price – in shops in the UK!
From what I understand the customer can pay by Direct Debit or cash, but most would pay cash – which they have to do ‘in store’ on a weekly basis. A cursory search on t’internet finds consumer forums with all manner of customers complaining about being charged penalties for late payment and even some being charged each time Bright House calls them to chase the debt.
I’m shocked. I walked past the store in the Ryemarket today. It’s laid out in a particular manner – to sell a lifestyle of lounging around on huge sofas watching huge TV’s. The problem with that is simple: it’s what loads of people are doing all day, every day, because they draw enough in benefits to allow them to buy into this lifestyle – and Bright House is there to capitalise on it.
And as a working man keeping a family of four it makes me very angry. All we have is a 21″ TV, while the thick, lame and lazy get to watch 42″ TV’s at my expense!
Typical vegan fodder
I cycle because I like cycling. Most of the people I know and cycle with do so because they like cycling. We formed a group in Jan 07, and now have up to 250 members in our small town. More and more of them are cycling not only for health and enjoyment, but also for utility trips, day to day transport and commuting. Cycling is wonderful, and I continue to encourage as many people as I can to participate.
What I don’t do is try to get more people to do it by beating them over the head with a great big stick; a stick with Carbon Footprint written on it. I spent yesterday at the CTC / Cyclenation Conference in Nottingham and came away with a bitter taste in my mouth. It would appear that we’re doing it all wrong in Stourbridge; we’re getting people cycling for all the wrong reasons. We shouldn’t be encouraging people to do it for themselves, for their own health and fitness and to save a few quid. What we should be doing is beating people into doing it to ’save the planet’ and to reduce their carbon footprint.
Lunch wasn’t quite lentils, but one obviously proud member of the organising team took great steps to ensure that we all knew that what we’d eaten was a Vegan lunch. In his short sermon he went on to proclaim, “Reduce your carbon footprint; stop eating meat and dairy products”. At this point I was very close to leaving and heading home. I was completely swiched off by it. He might have had a point, and it may well be the case that I could reduce my carbon footprint by changing my diet, but I didn’t pay £20 admittance to a cycle conference to have an LA cycle trainer from Nottingham tell me what I should eat. If I want to listen to sactimonious, self righteousness I’ll watch the Parliament channel thank you very much!
It’s about time people realised that the best way to grow cycling is to sell it for what it is. We must keep green politics out of it. What chance is there of getting the Daily Mail reader on a bike when we’re spouting this at them? Our church isn’t broad enough, and we should work at being a coming together of all political persuasions, each doing their bit for themselves and at the same time adding to a collective effort that puts more people on two wheels insead of four. “Saving the Planet” will surely then become a by-product of our success.
Mary Stevens Park - a fine bandstand
At last nights meeting of the Friends of Mary Stevens Park I was sort of co-opted / volunteered to help them fight off the imposition of some outdoor gym equipment. I have taken this on because I love the park.
Dudley MBC has £300k from central govt to create a ‘Healthy Hub’ at MSP. This money will be spent on a variety of items such as safe cycling and walking routes to the park, an improved pavillion, and the contentious outdoor gym.
I’m convinced that DMBC officers have made up their mind what is going to happen, and is engaged in a false consultation with the community ahead of steamrolling it all in. For months now, as Chairman of Stourbug, the leading cycling group in the town, I’ve been attempting to get involved with the consultation on cycle routes. Others have also tried. None of us have been successful in even speaking to those running the consultation let alone participating in it! Democracy? Minds are clearly made up.
Worse still, the Friends of Mary Stevens Park have also been kept in the dark and outside of decision making processes. DMBC has had plans drawn up that ignore the thoughts of the group, and the council’s favoured location for the gym equipment is being fudged as favourite. ‘Consultations’ have taken place here, there, and everywhere – except with people who have an interest. Members of the FoMSP have attended ‘consultations’ in the town centre and opposed plans, but officers haven’t even bothered to record their comments.
Briefly, this is what they are planning to do. The outdoor gym is a series of 16 pieces of gym equipment that will be installed in one of three areas:-
- On the grassy area to the north of the pavillion in the direction of the bandstand – where all the families sit in the summer for picnics.
- Between the pavillion and Stanley Road
- On the grassy area to the west of the play area adjacent to the wall alongside Stanley Road
The council’s preferred location is the first, and this is totally unacceptable to the FoMSP since, as stated, this is the area adjacent the play area where families sit so that they can see their children on the play equipment. The other locations are considered too close to Stanley Road and residents are afraid that it will draw anti-social behaviour at night.
FoMSP last night agreed to write to DMBC to oppose all options, and instead to put forward options to have the equipment spread out around the park to avoid the impact of it.
I would be very grateful if you could have a think on this, as it would be good if we could support the FoMSP. I’m currently setting up Social Media (web/twitter/facebook) sites to co-ordinate the public in supporting FoMSP and stopping the council railroading this through.
www.twitter.com/fomsp
www.marystevenspark.org.uk
There is also a Facebook group called Friends of Mary Stevens Park
Please pass on this knowledge so that we can build a massive local group to campaign for what’s best for the park instead of allowing a box ticking exercise for DMBC.
Mary Stevens Park, Stourbridge, 8th Nov 2009
Many hundreds of people attended the Remembrance Day Parade in Mary Stevens Park this morning. Stourbridge people, in the main, are very respectful of this day and this year was no exception. Not even the prospect of standing in the rain was going to put people off showing their respect to the fallen from the town, or as in my case from further afield.
In amongst the older generations, immaculately turned out and still very proudly wearing regimental ties and berets, I noticed many younger veterans. Men and women in their 20’s and 30’s proudly wearing ribbons and medals that could only have been won in the most recent of wars.
Local cadet forces stood to attention as the marching band paraded past the memorial followed by many others in uniform. We all stood still as the dignitaries filed in; Lynda Waltho, in a wedding hat, followed by a line of local politicians. For quite some time the massed ranks and assembled spectators stood to, in silence but for the buzzing of an infernal generator situated in a Transit van parked far too close to the proceedings.
Following a pattern replicated around the UK the service played out. Flags up. Flags down. The Last Post. Prayers. Hymns. The dignitaries came forward to place poppy wreaths, followed by other bodies and then, most poignantly, the relatives of the fallen. One by one they filed in and laid poppies and wreaths. Each stepped back, looking up to the plaque to view the name of their fallen relative. One man stepped forward to touch a name – “Edwards”. He backed away and stood to attention before moving away. One veteran, he seemed to me to be in his 60’s, came forward. He was a big man in both height and girth and wearing the obligatory long dark overcoat. On his head was a sandy coloured beret and a badge with a winged dagger embroidered on it. I couldn’t help wondering about what he’d been engaged in whilst he was on active service with the SAS.
During the above came the two minutes silence. We all stood in silence, but the moment was spoiled by the noise from the generator, accompanied by a traffic altercation on the roundabout by the main gates and a couple of barking dogs.
More prayers, more hymns and then the band fired up to lead a procession down Queens Drive, a lap of the bandstand and then back up towards the main gate. It’s always a good service, and atheists such as myself feel no hardship in taking part. I just wonder how many more lives will have been lost by next year. We have no control over that – but hopefully someone reading this will do something about the generator.
#CDWM on my Twitter page
Prepare for crap TV made better!
There has been a revolution in the Eden household this weekend. No longer do we sit in front of the TV just watching it, we now do so with laptops and Twitter hashtags. This is a whole new dimension to TV; it’s TV beyond your own four walls. This it TV within everyone elses four walls!
Firstly, click through the link and get a Twitter account. Then, sit yourself down when there’s some crap TV on. Strictly Come Dancing, X Factor or Come Dine With Me will do fine. There will be others – but we’ve yet to discover them. On your Twitter page, in the ’search’ window type the hashtag for that programme. I’m currently watching Celebrity Come Dine with Me, so my search is #CDWM. Then, just sit back and watch all the comments being made in lounges up and down the country. Pure genius!
This weekend we’ve done #strictly (Strictly Come Dancing), #scd (also Strictly Come Dancing) and #cdwm (Come Dine with Me). Some of the comments that have been made are just so funny.
However, there is a higher brow use for this. I can very seriously recommend #bbcqt (Question Time) on Thursday evening; when Nick Griffin was on I’m amazed that the Twitter servers were able to keep pace.
Anyway, must dash. Time for #docmartin.
Dangerous drugs
Professor David Nutt, sacked yesterday by the Home Secretary Alan Johnson raises some very valid points – points that the Home Secretary and UK Government prefer to keep under wraps. I personally find it disgusting that our Home Secretary – an ex postman and Union official – thinks he know’s more about drug usage than a man who’s devoted his working life to the subject. It’s a classic case of the government of the day treating its subjects like mushrooms.
I’m not going to write a lot about this as it’s all over the newspapers, but let me leave you with this comment by Prof Nutt:-
“The greatest concern to parents should be that their children do not get completely off their heads with alcohol because it can kill them … and it leads them to do things which are very dangerous, such as to kill themselves or others in cars, get into fights, get raped, and engage in other activities which they regret subsequently. My view is that, if you want to reduce the harm to society from drugs, alcohol is the drug to target at present.”
The government’s friends in the drinks industry wouldn’t like that, would they?
Happy Christmas, or is it?
I’m not a religious man, so can totally distance myself from the farce around what some people believe happened on 25th December. But it didn’t. It didn’t happen on 25th December at all. A quick Google search throws up Christianity hijacking the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun as determined by the Roman Emperor Aurelian, where we get gift giving from, and the adoption of many a pagan idea such as bedecking your place with greenery. In simple terms, Christianity nicked the ideas off others and clamped on to them like some parasite.
If that’s not enough, Christmas has been hijacked again – this time, however, by retail business. Christmas isn’t about religion or sun worship at all it seems; it’s all about shopping and getting yourself into debt. I’m still amazed when I think back to the Farepak debacle, where families on low income saved as much as £2000 to spend on their Christmas. £2000! Why? That would represent 25% of taxed income for some families. Things have moved on and today these families will be the ones buying 42″ Plasma TV’s from Bright House at extortionate rates of interest over 156 weeks just to make them feel good on Christmas day as they watch DVD’s or play Call of Duty 6 on last year’s XBox. If there is amazement to be had at Christmas it is surely that people on low incomes are so easily enticed into serious debt to ‘celebrate the birth’ of someone born on a completely different day roughly 2005 to 2015 years ago. I despair.
My Christmas is more about being around the family, and getting to sample my father’s latest culinary delights; last year it was something to do with devilled kidneys. Perhaps this year we might get something to do with eyeballs. Cake is an important factor too. Mrs Eden bakes a top cake utilising free range eggs from my ex-bat ladies down the garden. We won’t be spending anything like £2000 on gifts, and won’t even send out many cards. We’ll have a nice real tree and chuck some other greenery on mantelpieces and doorways in a paganistic manner. There will not be any glitter or tinsel. My sons sussed the truth about Santa many years ago, so we’ve stopped the blatant lies and no longer set out to mislead them for our own amusement. We won’t be attending any religious establishments.
Many people will try to make us feel bad about it all by using words such as ‘humbug’, ‘Scrooge’ and ‘miseryguts’. I’ll enjoy it my way – but I won’t be beaten-up into celebrating or overspending for something I don’t believe in, which is nothing more than superstition in my eyes. And every time I hear the wailing of Mariah and the out of tune growelling of ‘The Boss’ I’ll be turning off the radio and listening to Gary Glitter’s Another Rock and Roll Christmas on YouTube.
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