Voicing the thoughts of many...

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Read this on Anna's blog:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I can only apologise for causing this queue, but we are off, leaving England and I hope the last queue I ever have to stand in. I have been an electrical contractor for thirty years, employed twenty staff all of whom I have recently made redundant because I am sick and tired of working for the Government and with the whining and complaining of the work-shy and feckless. Give me two minutes and I will be gone, before Clegg, Cameron and Miliband steal this nest egg as well”.

...and ask yourself how this great country got it so wrong. And weep a little.

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A thought on the death of Bernard Matthews...

You know the guy - the fat bloke who sold all those crappy processed turkeys and such. Who Jamie Oliver didn't like because kids preferred his twizzlers to the fine, healthy vegetables that Jamie & the Food Fascists (now that's a band name if ever there was one) felt we should be eating so as to avoid terrible deaths at a young age.

I have to admit that we don't eat turkey much. Not for any noble reason but because most of it - including Bernard's - is dry, tasteless and uninspiring. But despite this I can still admire Bernard Matthews and will urge others to be more like him and less like the righteous fussbuckets. And, of course, Jamie Oliver is much like Bernard too - made shed loads of dosh from building up a personal brand that has something to do with food.

But mostly with Bernard its the business success that I like. The fact that you can turn 20 turkey eggs and a paraffin heater into a multi-million pound business reminds us that achievement isn't really about exams and degrees and chartered status. It's about hard work, initiative, creativity and probably more hard work on top of that (which perhaps explains my relative lack of success). Plus flexibility:

Refusing to give in, he tried again – on a much grander scale. In 1955, backed by a £2,500 loan, he bought Great Witchingham Hall, a dilapidated 80-roomed Elizabethan manor outside Norwich which had once been the home of John Norris, man of letters. Matthews reckoned that, at 5p a square foot, it was considerably cheaper than the 30p a square foot he would have to invest to build his own turkey sheds.

Apart from the bedroom in which he and his wife Joyce lived, he turned the house over to turkeys, hatching them in the living room, rearing them in the bedrooms and slaughtering them in the kitchens.

So when we're thinking about student loans (£2,500 was a load of money in 1950 and Bernard paid it back without a quibble and without protection or discount) and the end of jobs for life in the public sector let's spare a thought for the Bernard Matthews of this world. For without their ideas, creativity and hard work we'd still be a poor country. It is enterprising people like Bernard Matthews that lie behind all the good things we have (as well as turkey twizzlers).

We should celebrate them more.

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Today I am busy....

Today I am busy. Not yet - unless you count putting photographs of thistles on my blog as being busy. And busy is what we were always told to be back in Rat Race Training College. Passive-aggressive little adages like; "the devil finds work for idle hands" and "hard work never hurt anyone" were churned out so as to socialise us in the ways of the working world. Even when we climb the educational ladder a little we get Weber's little tome thrust in our face as pedagogues insist that we're only successful as a nation because of that work ethic.

It isn't that I'm against work - although there are times when I'm with Bing on this matter - but that the thing isn't inherently a good thing. Working isn't essentially ethical and not-working essentially unethical. It may be unethical to lay about the place knowing that the efforts of others will provide for you laying about - but even then I'm not sure that applies in the aggregate.

Today I am busy. I shall work 12 hours. But I don't think this is a good thing. Nor does it make me better. It's just today.

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Try talking about a three-day week to the small business owner!

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I have been pondering how I might comment on “21 hours”, the latest piece of “research” from New Economics Foundation – who are to economics what homeopathy is to medicine.

This evening as I walked through Bingley, the real truth came to me. I walked – at about 6.15pm – past Ophiuchus. Run by Donna and Oliver, this is a hairdresser. And it was open. I wondered what this couple would think about:

“A ‘normal’ working week of 21 hours could help to address a range of urgent, interlinked problems: overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life.”

I suspect the answer would be somewhat a somewhat bemused shrug. After all let’s look at Donna & Oliver’s work:

*The shop is open six days every week – seven days during busy times such as approaching Christmas or before the school summer holidays

*Most days someone – usually either Donna or Oliver – is working from 8.30 in the morning through to 6.30pm or even later if there are still customers

*When the last customer’s hair is finished there’s the shop to clean, tidy and lock up – another half hour each day

*And then there’s stock to order, books to keep, tax and VAT forms to fill, staff to manage and tradesmen to arrange

Assuming it’s a normal week, Donna and Oliver probably clock up 100 hours working. And it’s stressful – margins are tight, business is tough and there’s plenty of competition. And on top of this Donna and Oliver have two kids – who have all the demands and needs you’d expect of young children.

Talking about “21 Hours” is an insult to these hard-working, decent, caring people who happen to have made the life choice of running a small business. The “21 Hours” idea is the product of people who have no clue why people work, what business is about or how the normal life of normal people operates.

We’d all like the “good life”. But some – like Donna & Oliver know it only comes from hard work, effort and good service. So New Economics Foundation, you know where you can stick your “21 Hours”?

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