Ways to spend £168,000…

I was surprised to find myself reacting rather angrily to an article that I read in the Metro this week, about a gambler who spent £168,000 on drinks on a night out in London – largely on champagne which was subsequently sprayed over the crowd.

Ok, perhaps ‘angrily’ is the wrong word. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I felt saddened by the article.  Saddened to see such an overly overt waste of money, while elsewhere in the UK the number of people surviving on low incomes is ever increasing, and a staggering 4million children live in poverty.

Now I defend anyone’s right to have fun and to spend their own money as they please (this isn’t a blog post about capitalist excess or about redistribution of wealth), but just to put things into perspective, here are a few ideas of how else he could have spent his £168,000…

• The annual salary of 6 youth workers for one year (based on average salary of £25k)
• 84 powered wheelchairs of children with disabilities (average cost £2k per wheelchair)
• 11 Kidney dialysis machines for a hospital (based on average cost of £15k)
• The annual salary for 7 nurses for one year (based on average salary of £21k per year)
• A place in a care home for an elderly person for 5 1/2 years (based on an average cost of £30k per year)

I just hope that the hangovers were worth it.

What do we really learn from success stories?

The obvious, short answer to that question is ‘a lot’, but can’t we also learn just as much from our failures?

The subject has come up time and time again in online and ‘real life’ discussions – how we are often very happy to share our successes with one another, but will generally hide our ‘failings’ from public scrutiny.

And perhaps this is a sweeping generalisation, but it seems that as a culture we tend to fear failure – that failure is some way unacceptable.

As the existentialist psychologist Rollo May said “…as human beings we always strive for some sense of perfection – possibly because we exist in an imperfect state”.

I don’t think the implication here is that we are all perfectionists per se, but more so that perhaps there is something in all of us that wants to do something or make something perfectly – whether that to take the perfect picture, write the perfect poem etc etc.

Take, for example, TV shows such as the X Factor or Britain’s Got Talent.  Thousands of people striving to be ‘the best’ at what they do, and the devastation when their best is found not to be good enough.  Of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having ambition – in fact if we didn’t have ambition then nothing would ever get done.  But equally it is ok to be…well ‘ok’ at what you do.

It is also acceptable to fail, because when you do something not quite so well, you learn not to do it again or to do it differently next time – this is how we as individuals learn from our own failures.

Yes, success stories are inspiring and we can learn from them, but perhaps, if we took more time to share with others some of the things that didn’t work out for us quite so well, the past mistakes or ill informed decisions we have made, we could help other people learn so much more.

This quote from Richard Feynman, the US physicist and professor who worked on the Manhattan project to develop the US atomic bomb – summarises my point perfectly:

“We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished as possible, to cover up all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or describe how you had the wrong idea at first, and so on. So there isn’t any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what you actually did in order to get to do the work”

Richard Feynman

On Volunteering…

Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend of mine about why we both spend quite a lot of our time volunteering in our local community.  We came to the conclusion that it is human nature to want to help others – just simply because we ‘can’.

Our conversation put me in mind of this passage by George Gilbert Aimé Murray on ‘Man as a Social Animal’, which I thought I would reproduce here as I think it explains my thoughts perfectly;

The whole supposition that a system of violent and intense rewards and punishments is necessary to induce human beings to perform acts for the good of others is based on a false psychology which starts from the individual isolated man instead of man the social animal.  Man is an integral member of his group.  Among his natural instincts there are those which aim at group-preservation as well as self-preservation; at the good of aurui as well as of moi.  Even among animals, a cow, a tigress, a hen pheasant, does not need a promise of future rewards to induce her to risk her life to save her young from harm.  The male bison or gorilla needs no reward before fighting devotedly for his females and children.  They all instinctively care for autrui.  And it would be a mistake to imagine that this devotion only shows itself in the form of fighting, or in dangerous crises.  It is part of the daily life of any natural group or herd; the strong members help the weak, the weak run for protection to the strong.  In man even in his primitive state these instincts are much more highly developed that in the gregarious animals; with the process of civilisation they increase in range, in reasonablenes, in sublimity.  In the late war, how many thousands of men – not particularly selected or highminded men – risked their lives eagerly to save a companion wounded in No Man’s Land?  The did not ask or know why they did it.  Some may have alleged motives of religion, or motives of ambition in the form of medals or promotions.  But the basic motive was probably more or less the same all through; that instinctively they could not see a mate lying there wounded and not try and help him.

A Fair and Progressive Budget?

I was saddened, but not surprised to read Sunday’s Observer article; ‘George Osborne’s budget cuts will hit Britain’s poorest families six times harder than the richest’ which states that

The impact of George Osborne‘s emergency budget on the poor has been revealed in a study that finds the country’s least well-off families face cuts equivalent to 21.7% of their household income. That means they will be hit six times harder than the very richest by the coalition’s deficit-cutting measures.

I understand that this country is heavily in debt, and that the government needs to make cuts in order to repay the deficit, however, I fail to see the so called ‘fairness’ of this austerity budget.  After all, wasn’t the recession itself exacerbated by the wealthy banks?

The poorest in our communities struggle as it is.  The announced cuts to benefits (yes, a three year ‘freeze’ in Child Benefit does count as a ‘cut’ in real terms), cuts to public services (on which those poorest in the community rely on heavily), rising joblessness and VAT rises will only serve to increase the rich / poor divide.  And while the rise in income tax allowance is a welcome, I can’t help but feel this is a very small carrot compared to a very big and brutal stick.

Meanwhile 23 of the 29 new cabinet members are millionaires…

Fair and progressive?  I fail to see this myself.

As someone says in the comments section of the above Guardian article “This budget will cause misery for many least able to bear the burden”.

Every Little Helps?

I actually blogged about this on my other blog a couple of weeks ago…but thought I’d also post it here…

Via the wonderful medium that is Twitter, I stumbled over an utterly horrendous article which stated that the supermarket superpower Tesco, are to build their own ‘mini villages’.

I’m really, really, hoping that this article is  a spoof.  I’m not a lover of supermarkets, and truly believe that they already hold too much of a monopoly over our buying habits, put local businesses out of business, and limit our choices as consumers.  And not to get too ‘Big Brother’ but via store cards, credit cards, in-store pharmacies, and on-line shopping, supermarkets already know our buying habits – which brands of shampoo we use, if we are diabetic, whether we smoke, if we drink too much…

(I have a theory that if the supermarkets / major stored linked databases and stored information on each of us with those records held by the public sector, we truly would end up in a Big Brother society.  Imagine a system where the NHS could see how many units of alcohol you were purchasing from the shops each week, and up your National Insurance contributions accordingly?  I think we are only spared this at present because of the ‘preciousness’ of personal data – no supermarket would share it, and also the complete ineptitude of public sector offices to a) keep reliable information and b) not to leave it on trains etc.  But I digress.)

I just wonder if I alone in finding the fact that supermarkets also intend on supplying housing utterly horrifying..?

What would happen if the power went out?

This is actually an old post that I wrote on my other blog in January 2009…I thought it was worth reproducing here on this blog…as it sort of explains some of the thinking behind me trying to be a little more self-sufficient…

Another day, another blow to the UK economy – interest rates are at the lowest rate in 300 years, savers are being penalised, and the Government is now considering printing more money to ‘help’ – the same way as it helped the German Economy after the first World War.

Now, I am not an economist…but following an interesting conversation with a friend of mine today I got to thinking – what would actually happen to the UK and indeed, the western or ‘first’ world if the economy completely collapsed?

I honestly believe that the modern generation would not (initially at least) be able to cope.  Our society is so dependent on everything that we need or want being available 24-7, that if the power went out or money supplies became worthless, we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves.

In the post-war period in Britain – my grandparents generation – the country was in a time of hardship, with rationing continuing into the ’50′s.  However, people of that generation were so much more self sufficient than we are today.  My grandparents were both very skilled people.  My grandfather made most of the furniture still standing in their old (and now my aunt’s) house.  My grandmother could cook a meal from scratch, make new clothes out of old ones (one lovely story I remember her telling me was during the war period, a boyfriend of hers was in the parachute corps, and used to give her the old silk parachutes to make blouses out of), and throughout their lives my grandparents had a greenhouse and grew their own fruit and veg.

Compare that to today, where material possession are so cheap and easy to own – in fact so often we judge ourselves and others by what we own.  So why bother learning to knit when you can buy a jumper for £3 from your local supermarket?  Why repair a blouse when you can pick another one up for a few quid from your local highstreet.  How many people grow their own veg when you get pick up nearly anything you want from the local supermarket at any time of night?  And home cooking – sure a lot of people can knock up a meal from scratch, but equally, how many people can’t?  How many people rely solely on those cans, ready meals and take-aways?  Furniture is cheap and easy to make and so accessible – who remembers anything from their woodwork classes so many years ago?

And so often of course, sometimes the intent is there, but modern living dictates that those living in tower blocks have no chance of sawing wood or growing vegetables anyway.

People are so used to having things easy in this modern age – but what would happen if the local supermarket ran out of food?  What would we do if the electricity went off?

Please don’t get me wrong – this isn’t going to turn into a rant about socialism – I just think its a crying shame that the skills that were considered essential 60 years ago are obsolete in a large percentage of the modern day population – and I believe this will be to our detriment.

Perhaps its a romantic notion, but now, with the value of money going down, and the enevitable price rises / things being more expensive, people will start being more practical and start making do with the things around them, and picking up those skills again.  It would be nice to see.

I also wonder about what sort of anarchy the world would see if the global power just shut off.  Would Western countries end up imploding while those that actually DO make do with the essentials – i.e. those third world countries – prosper?

Its not a comfortable thought.

Shame on H&M

I read a shocking article in the New York Times yesterday, about how H&M have admitted to slashing clothes to stop people scavanging discarded clothing from it’s stores.

The article goes on to say that “[Ms. Magnus]…volunteered to help H & M connect with a charity or agency in New York that could put the unsold items to better use than simply tossing them in the trash. So far, she said, she has gotten no response”

I find it appalling that in this day and age of over production, and unequal wealth distribution, some large organisations such as H&M have such disregard for ‘social responsibility.   It isn’t impractical to donate unwanted / unsold items to charity – other organisations manage it after all, organisations such as Pret a Manger who donate unsold sandwiches to homeless shelters in the UK.

The fact that this has come to light has meant that H&M has certainly lost a customer in me.