Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Higher Unemployment

Very depressing statistics out today show the unemployment figures have increased again with the Government blaming the poor results on the Eurozone problems. What rubbish!

The current situation is due to what was happening in the economy 6 to 12 months ago not as a result of what is happening now. The awful thing is that with other current economic indicators also showing sluggish, if not zero, growth then the unemployment figures are set to get a lot worse in 6 months time when the Eurozone effect does actually start to influence them.

The Government has to take action to help the million plus young people get some kind of employment and they need to do it now. This mess will not go away for quite a while, probably years, and it is totally unacceptable for youngsters to be dumped on the scrap heap for that length of time.

What can be done? Well, here's a few ideas;

1) Give employers PAYE credits for employing school/college/university leavers.
2) Remove employers NIC contributions on new employees under 21's
3) Give employers grants to take on apprentices.
4) Allow the unemployed to take up short term unpaid secondment to businesses where they are still paid Job Seekers Allowance but don't need to sign on during the secondment. This will allow them to get the experience required to get a proper paid position.

Listening to young people talk about the difficulty getting a job the most common problem is that they don't have the experience required. This is a growing issue and needs some "out of the box" thinking to permanently resolve. Perhaps all education leavers should go on secondment for 'x' months after finishing education. A permanent system, jointly funded by employers and the government, should be set up to provide a route to experience where every employer over a certain size must offer young persons secondment positions.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Nothing on TV!

They, whom ever they are!, warned us that once we got multiple TV channels that the quality of the programs would deteriorate. Well, perhaps the quality has not deteriorated as badly as we imagined because all we get to see are the better (or sometimes the worst) programs that were produced years ago. It's repeat after repeat and then they, the TV companies, throw in "The Best of ..." or "Highlights from ..." or "Revisiting ...". What crap that's just another word for REPEAT. Do they think were all stupid?

Poor programming is blamed on low advertising revenues supposedly due to the recession but more likely due to there being too many channels chasing to few advertisers, with new mobile technologies available there are far better ways for advertisers to get their products to the people than using expensive TV adverts.

However the TV companies don't help themselves; putting adverts 5 or 10 minutes before the end of a film or other program does not make me sit and watch the boring adverts as they show for so long I have time to go and put the kettle on AND visit the loo AND get back to see the last 2 minutes of the real program and I imagine the rest of the country is doing likewise. If per chance there is an excellent program being shown and adverts disturb my enjoyment of it I make a point NOT to buy any of the advertised products, I don't complain to the TV company I just vote with my wallet. Given that TV advertising revenues are constantly falling, and set to fall even more, perhaps others including the advertisers have figured out that bad timing of adverts just antagonises the potential customers and it is a poor way to sell products and services.

Whilst I am spouting off I will not just blame the TV companies, the adverts themselves don't help the advertisers either - WHY DOES THE VOLUME (SOUND LEVEL) GO UP DURING THE AD BREAK - It just makes me turn the sound off completely! - ADVERTISERS DO YOU HEAR ME?

WE TURN THE SOUND OFF!

Another AD type that is laughable are those that are obviously recorded in a foreign language and then over-dubbed. There is a current car advert featuring what is supposed to be an English couple in their new offering but if they are in Britain then they are driving on the wrong side of the road! My view is that if you are trying to tempt me to buy your product at least make an effort to appeal to me in my own language and film it in my country or perhaps it's not really an advert you are making but a feeble attempt to produce an out-take for Harry's TV Burp.

COOKERY PROGRAMS

The problem with showing cookery programmes that were filmed last year, or perhaps even earlier, is that they did not reckon on few being able to afford to "put it a slow oven for FOUR HOURS!" - Do you own an electricity generating station or a gas pipeline from Norway too?

And what about your larder - what larder! TV chefs are cooking in kitchens twice the size of most folks houses, using gadgets and gizmo's that few people have room for today.

There is a great need to get back to basics, you don't need all that crap to cook. you don't even need scales (an old fashioned gadget used to weight things), just buy an old cook book from a charity shop as it is likely to use measures like "one and a half a cup of flour" or "a teaspoon full or baking powder" or perhaps even a "pinch of salt". I even saw one gadget that has different size spoons on it to measure a full spoon, a half-spoon and a quarter-spoon! I bet the person who thought that one up could sell sand to Egypt. What idiot needs a gadget other than a teaspoon to measure "half "of one! 


Why not make cookery programs using a kitchen space the size of a normal domestic kitchen, with equipment and ingredients that normal people have (and can afford) or perhaps you are not interested in economically feeding the masses but only those who can afford to eat out every day anyway?

Anyway, got to go, the repeat of the repeat of "Coast" has just started and even though I have seen it before, more than once, it's the only decent program on all night. Bye.