Hackers ...

For the second time in just a few days, I have received notice from Google Mail that someone in France (Rennes to be precise) has tried to access my personal email account. Why anyone would be interested is unclear, especially to me. It is annoying, because each time it happens I have to change my passwords, and for safety reasons I do NOT use the same password for everything I do online. And again, for safety reasons, I change them all each time I get a notice to this effect.

That is probably the biggest nuisance, because not only am I having to think up new and ever more complex passwords, and then remember them, but I have to keep track of them as well. So, here is a message for any hacker reading this; I don't have loads of money, and my bank account isn't overflowing with it either. I'm not a member of the NSA, CIA, MI5, MI6 or any other 'interesting' organisation. I am not interested in being the recipient of those hidden zillions some unfortunate is unable to extract from Nigeria, the UAE or any other foreign state. I am not the CEO of some bank, oil company or major multi-national. I'm a private individual living on a pension. So would you mind taking your silly games somewhere else.

This does seem to be a major problem for everyone at the moment, and I am reliably informed that while some of this is down to criminal activity (as in organised crime) a great deal of it is opportunist and instigated by students of computer science for 'fun' - though they often pass on the passwords and data they do crack to crime gangs in exchange for payment. It is worrying for someone in my position since it could be extremely costly - something I could ill afford. What puzzles me at present is this; who in Rennes is targeting my email, and why? I have no connection with anything in Rennes, and only two friends in all of France. In short, this makes no logical sense.

Oh well, here we go again. A new batch of passwords to generate.

Tax and Spend ...

In the midst of all the fuss about companies like Starbucks actually obeying the tax laws set up by the Westminster Incompetents, the Guardian posted a graphic breakdown of how the money gathered in tax in in 2010/11 in the UK is actually divided up among the various Whitehall Departments. The amount involved was a hefty £691.67 billion, which was a mere 0.34% increase after adjustment for inflation, on the previous year. Several aspects are very intriguing and thanks to a friend and fellow blogger, The Gorse Fox, I am able to put them into a neat perspective.

The top five Whitehall Money Reducers are in descending order -

• The Department of Work and Pensions 
• Department of Health
• Department of Education
• HM Revenue and Customs - (The Department that actually collects the taxes!)
• Debt Interest Payments - (The Treasury itself!) 

Sixth is the Depratment of Defence, the interesting aspect being the way the costs are broken down, with the Navy in receipt of less money than the RAF or the Army. Now here is the crunch, the cost of the MoD is just 1.8% of GDP, less than most developing nations (some of them in receipt of UK 'aid' grants) spend on "defence." Another interesting revelation there is that "Administration" costs the MoD £2.3 billion. That's probably why a large number of non-commissioned ranks are also having to draw on Income Support, Housing Benefit and possibly other "social security" benefits. 

The breakdown of the Dept of Work and Pensions budget is also interesting. Setting aside the fact that, from the budget headings, "work" doesn't seem to be part of its activities, the split of spending is £79 billion on "benefits" and £69 billion on "pensions." The fact that the first part of that includes some £8.18 billion for "pension credit" - an allowance paid to those whose pensions are inadequate. Surely common sense says that should be scrapped and made a part of a targetted increase in overall State Pensions? Oh. Yes. Sorry, my mistake, we're dealing with Whitehall here, such a common sense approach would probably axe about 20,000 civil service posts, and we definitely can't have that!

Likewise, the Dept of Health gets a whopping £105 billion, of which a mere £66 billion goes to hospitals and the like, and another £21 billion goes to doctors, prescriptions and so on. So what exactly do they do with the other £18 billion? It certainly isn't obvious from the graphic.

HMRC gets a whopping £45 billion, of which some £40 billion goes to "Tax Credits" and "Child Benefit" the latter being far and a away the lesser of the sums involved. So what is it they do that costs £5 billion? Again, not explained. Seems to me that they must be overpaid and living in luxury at the HMRC sites around the UK. The Treasury itself costs around £2.43p in every £1,000 taken in tax and the school for civil servants (where they get the chip inserted that makes them useless for anything else) costs the taxpayer £0.33p in every £1,000 in tax. (My former employer which trained Fire Officers and Fire Fighters was deemed "too expensive" at around £0.03 on the same scale). 

The Cabinet Office, according to the Gorse Fox's numbers, costs £0.82p per £1,000 tax, Parliament (tricky, they spread the costs through a number of 'front' departments) costs around three times what the Lords does and both cost more than the Royals. 

What these numbers reveal is that over half the tax take goes to the Department of Work and Pensions, the Department of Health and HMRC. I think one of the major scams this reveals is that "Pensions" are classified as a "Benefit." In my view, it is something we are all required to contribute toward throughout our working lives. It is not, therefore, a "Benefit." We are merely receiving back what we've paid for - in most cases over 40 years. A "Benefit" is something one receives without having contributed toward it, but, of course, in the twisted accounting of Whitehall and the Treasury, the money we've all paid toward these pensions has been spent on all manner of other things, for which they had no income and the contributions were never invested, so now, the money is running out, and it must, therefore, be the fault of these freeloading pensioners ...

Perhaps Baroness Thatcher had a point when she said; "The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money."

I suspect we're getting close to that point. 

The New Face of Bullying

A thread started by Josephus on Facebook has brought out some interesting examples of the sinister turn that bullying has taken in recent years within organisations. Ironically, especially those that are supposed to have been 'reformed' in order to 'stamp out' corporate bullying. As Josephus has highlighted, the civil service, in all its manifestations, has become the worst offender, secure in the knowledge that it is never subjected to the sort of scrutiny any 'capitalist' organisation would get.

in Private Eye; "Despite losing an employment tribunal with a damning summing up, Northumbria, tyne and wear HNS trust is still playing dirty and refusing to reinstate the person they accused of bullying in order to get rid, allegedly due to trade union activity. "The saga of unlawfully sacked psychiatric nurse Yunus Bakhsh takes a turn for the sinister as yet another anonymous threatening letter emerges." Funny how in industry this sort of conduct, while rare, leads to things like the Leveson inquiry, in the public sector it is hidden well away in the small print."

If this were the only example of the Civil Service breaking the rules, it could be an abberration in one area, but its not. There are numerous examples of the use of threats of 'poor annual reviews' and draconian actions taken against individuals who dare to oppose "management" or who stand up for the rights of the colleagues subjected to bullying managers. I am aware of at least one case where managers have taken actions which could prejudice any legal process.

The problem is, as Josephus has pointed out elsewhere, that management is now down to "measurements, targets and control." The new weapons of the bullying "manager" against anyone who dares to stand up for decency and fair treatment, is to use innuendo, peer pressure and nit-picking criticism of a persons work. Or they place obstacles in the way of the target, the simplest is to withhold resources, preventing them from completing a task or from acttually doing it. That, of course, becomes something that can be used against them in an annual appraisal.

It is insidious, it is contrary to everything the civil service claims it is supposedly 'leading' in creating a 'fair' society. The tragedy is that though a lot of people know what is going on and can give examples aplenty, no one dare do so. The Civil Service can, when it goes as wrong as this, be worse than the infamous Mafia or the Chinese Tongs ...

There are times ...

There are times when one can be embarrassed by some of the opinions one reads from supporters of certain anti-European parties. Most recently I have read statements that are so blatantly ill-informed and frankly xenophobic it has been difficult to believe they are being made by persons who claim to be educated and intelligent.

One of the most common is that "Europe" is a socialist mess, and the EU is all about "dragging the UK into socialism." Quite apart from the fact that the UK is one of 27 countries that make up the EU, to label the whole of Europe as "socialist" is to exhibit the worst kind of ill-informed ignorance. Living in Germany one quickly realises that the UK is far and away more 'socialist' at almost every level. The EU  may well be a 'socialist' experiment and ideal, but I think a more honest appraisal than any I have seen or heard in the UK Media would dispel at least some of that idea. My personal feeling is that it was and is a political experiment aimed at creating a cohesive economic and political 'power' to balance the current 'East/West' split that sees individual states in Europe treated as very junior partners to the USA.

That leads me to the next frequently aired opinion - that the whole EU project is a Franco-German attempt to recreate the Carolingian Empire. That view is frankly laughed at in Europe, and deservedly so. It also betrays the ignorance of those who try to read into the present something from the past. Yes, Charlemagne or Karl der Grosser was a Frankish 'Emperor' who united Europe, but certainly nothing like the current boundaries. Almost all the North German States, Denmark, Sweden and Norway were not a part of it, though they certainly traded with it and enjoyed certain 'protections' as part of treaties with him. Chancellor Mrs Merkel would be, I think, amused and scornful if anyone confrinted her with this one.

The latest and stupidest comment I've encountered on this score is that the "British" are not Europeans. Genetically, they are, despite the interpretation some now put on the findings of a book published in 2006 that argues the genetic lineage of the British predates the peoples who moved into Europe post the rising sea levels cutting off Britain from the rest of Europe. That is blatant tosh. It ignores completely the successive waves of tribes that followed before the Romans added legionaires from all over Europe and even the Levant, or the Vikings, the Angles, the Saxons, the Normans (who were also Jutes), the Gaels from Britanny and Northern Spain and all the various Flemings, French, Germans and others who have settled in the island since the Conquest.

I can understand people being anti the European Union in its present form. I don't like the way the Commission operates or the way Commissioners are appointed. I don't like the huge bureaucracy that infests Brussels and has tentacles in every other capital city and I don't like the way they try to regulate everything. But, unless you are terminally blind or so totally biased, it is patently obvious that everything Brussels suggests or directs, is immediately seized on by Whitehall, the largest bureaucracy in Europe other than the Commission, and gold plated as another way of guaranteeing the faceless wonders of Whitehall retain absolute control.

To see how they are doing this, you do have to step outside of the UK and the media misinformation there, to realise that the rest of Europe takes a far ore sensible and pragmatic approach - as is intended by Brussels. Yes, I am embarrassed by some of the hyperbole and outright misrepresentation indulged in by some in the UK, one commenter proud of the fact he'd never set foot anywhere outside of Britain. It is people like this, bigoted, biased and frankly ignorant that give the UK a bad name and make us a laughing stock everywhere.

Please, can we have some balance?

A fritzed internet connection ...

We've had a little battle the last couple of days, between us and our FritzBox router. It suddenly refused to connect to the internet, even though everything else on it was functioning. Our internal LAn, the WiFi parts - just no internet. We traced everything, connections, jack plugs, reset the thing and no joy.

So, today it got replaced. Bingo. We're back. Normal service resumes tomorrow.

There are definitely times ...

When my body takes it upon itself to remind me in the most unpleasant ways that I am no longer 25 ...

Yesterday I re-laid some paving slabs in our front garden, by lunchtime it was obvious my back had taken exception to the exercise. This morning I couldn't stand up and so I have spent the day mostly horizontal, full of pain killers and hoping it will all settle down again by tomorrow.

Hopefully ...

Thankfully Mausi has been able to take care of a whole range of things my back currently forbids even attempting. A major change from the last time this happened!

Frustration ...

Generally speaking I am very happy with my iMac and the programs I run on it, but the Apple Store is something I approach with the prior knowledge that I'm likely to have a problem. Today was no exception. I want to upgrade my iMac from the Mac OS X Snow Leopard system to the Mac OS X Lion. It should be a doddle. All I have to do is go to the Apple App Store, buy the upgrade and download it.

Simple.

No. Apple will not accept payment on any of my bank cards. They insist that I must use a card issued by a German Bank. No other website I buy from has a problem with my UK Bank cards, only Apple. To complicate matters, it won't let me buy the upgrade from the UK site either. Why? Because I live in Germany. The alternative would, for me, be to use "Click and Buy." An attempt to do that proved even more frustrating. The C&B website, for some reason, refused to accept my valid password. My attempt to get past that has resulted in the account being "locked." OK, so I tried to go down the road of asking for a password reset - except that now I ran into a "security question" the answer to which I have not the faintest idea. There is no way I can get in touch with them without answering this question - so, I hereby give notice to Click and Buy.

Take your service and shove it ...

I still cannot persuade the Apple Store to accept payment, I can't get anyone at the Apple Store helpdesk who can suggest anything useful and Apple, for some reason best known only to Apple, they don't accept payment through PayPal, my preferred alternative.

So, it looks as if I will be paying a visit to the Apple Store in Wiesbaden. I think, from past experience of their work, I can expect a little more useful support. Failing that, or perhaps on top of that, I plan to write a fairly stiff note of complaint to Apple HQ. Frankly, its a great product, I hate the thought of having to revert to Microslosh, but Apple's customer relations stink.

Buzz Phrases that irk ...

A thought for today! Those who claim to be "Blue skies thinkers" should consider this definition….

"The most important feature of a clear blue sky is that it is clear; in fact it is totally lacking in any interest or feature which distinguishes it. A cloudy sky or a sky which has scattered clouds, now that has features, ever changing, ever moving, growing and developing clouds change the skyscape and move the eye and the mind from one pattern to another. Likening thought patterns to clear skies or blue skies is just another way of saying that the mind is empty, devoid of discernible thought and totally lacking in originality."


Now that is a definition I can live with. In my experience those who claim to be "Blue Sky Thinkers" are generally people without a clue about anything they are supposedly dealing with, call endless meetings they call "Brain storming sessions" and then steal, repackage and promote the ideas of those they have gulled into offering them.

Electronic Filing

Would be wonderful if you could easily access them. Would be even better if you could find the discs you originally stored them on, and then, once you've found the device that allows you to 'read' the old 3.25 inch 'floppy' (which isn't), if the Word version you are currently using, could open them ...

There is a large degree of frustration in constantly getting an "error' message that says the file is 'blocked.' There is an even greater degree of frustration when the Microslosh provided advice on dealing with the problem, doesn't actually solve it. The problem, of course, is Microsloshes habit of changing the Operating System every time they bring out a new version of something. These files were originally created on my very first laptop running on Windows 95. Since then there have been several new versions of the Word for Windows system, though, to be fair, I could still read these files on the last version of that I had on my Windblows operated PC. But not, it seems on Word for Mac ...

Fortunately, the information is not a matter of life or death, just a favour for a friend, so I will now have to dig out my last laptop using Windblows and see what I can do on that to access and convert the files to a format everthing else can read.

So much for "Electronic Backup."

Dealing with Bureaucracy ...

Aargh! Or, as another blogger has titled her blog - Ack! Thbbbbbt!

In order to get the money from a small "paid up" policy now maturing in South Africa I am having to leap through more flaming bureaucratic hoops than I ever imagined possible. Even if I succeed in getting all the "proof" they demand to show that I did, in fact, emigrate more than twenty years ago, they will still only allow the money to be paid into an account in South Africa...

OK, that's one way of making sure you don't have a currency haemorrhage I guess, but as they don't have or are not able to supply me with copies of some of the certificates I had to file to leave SA in the first place, how the heck am I supposed to do it twenty-three years on?

I love bureaucrats. I do. I really do. I just want to see them all dangling from lamp posts or swimming with over excited sharks ...

Warm and Sunny...

At least some of our planets like the warm and dry weather. These very colourful plants close at night and in rain, so they at least appreciate the sunny weather we're currently having. I'm afraid a lot of other plants aren't.

I expect the volcano currently sending vast clouds of ash and CO2 into the atmosphere will, eventually, have an impact on the weather in these latitudes, an ash cloud usually does. Will it accelerate the melting of the Arctic Ice or slow it? Will it bring us another cooler than average summer? Another colder than average winter? If the geologists are right, probably all of the above.

I wonder of the IPCC and all the "The Climate is Changing, we're all gonna die ..." mob will finally acknowledge that these volcanoes actually do more to make things change climatically than we human fleas ever can...

Waiting for rain ...

We've been promised rain now for the last four days, but, apart from a few drops occasionally, we haven't had any. We've watched in hope as thunder clouds have built to the west of us, then swept majestically past on either side. On Friday it rained in the valley below us - heavily - but not a drop up here on our moutain top.

So now we've used the lawn sprinklers. Even that didn't encourage the rain ...

Ah well, the weather forecast says it "might" rain next Thursday. I'll believe it when I see it. In the meantime people to the south of us have had more than they wanted or needed. At least it will put some more water into the rivers.

Phew!

It has taken all day, but the Monk has recovered all the files his rash use of the "delete duplicates" wiped out.

Fortunately he had backups and trawling through the "trash" traced all the important files he needed to recapture and the rest can now be dumped. What it has shown him is just how easy it is to create a monster file storage unnecessarily.

Next project - sort out a filing system that works, that doesn't end up full of duplicate files and folders and the resultant inability to know which file is the updated version without going through a major search! There will be a cleanout to beat all cleanouts!

Aargh ...

The Monk had a wonderful idea. He knew he had multiple copies of files on his Mac. He knew they were cluttering his system, so he had a brilliant idea. He got the computer to list and identify all the duplicates.

Then it went to pieces. He told it to delete all the duplicates.

Fine, except that the files it removed were all the ones he wanted kept, and now he's faced with the task of finding the copies the computer has kept ...

Experience is what helps us make a different mistake next time ...

Up periscope?

Now in the final stages of preparation for having my diverticulitis examined. Hungry, glued to the toilet and wondering when it will stop....

Oh well, in anther three hours or so, it will all be over.

Slow Progress.

My German lessons are progressing slowly. I seem to make progress only to get myself completely tangled in a simple sentence at the first opportunity to try out my language skill. Pronunciation, tenses, articles and the personal pronouns all get muddled as soon as I try to string them together. Still, most of those I deal with are understanding and try to help.

I'll get there, perhaps its just that patience has never been my strong suit.

Back trouble

My back has been "grumbling" for several days after I lifted something awkwardly. Yesterday it seized up on me totally, and today I'm totally immobilised. It couldn't happen at a worse moment, Holy Week starting, packing to do, tidying needed before Mausi arrives on Thursday and right now I can't drive a car...

Nothing seems to help release it either, but then maybe I'm just being impatient. And annoyed because I couldn't even get to church today.

Rest, take the pills and stop stressing about it... Yeah, right.

Heading out East

OK, so I'm packed and ready, almost, for the trip to Tehran. There's only one problem. My portable drive is playing up and it has everything, and I do mean everything, I need for the teaching slots on it. I rushed out and bought a backup unit today, and the new one won't talk to the Mac.

So, Trekstor, you better play ball for the next six weeks.

Meantime, I'm carrying way to much stress over this, so its good night all.

Busy days ahead

As I prepare to leave for Tehran there is a lot to do. First I have to get the car through its annual MOT check as that expires a week after I leave, so that is task One for today. Then I have to get all my clothes together and make sure I have everything I need to survive in a change of seasons (Tehran gets very cold November onwards) and that I can do it within my baggage allowance.

Typical Bl**dy Civil Service contract, send tutors round the world in Cattle Class with the lowest baggage allowance and still expect them to carry all the equipment they need and their clothing on the lower baggage allocation. Oh, and then refuse to pay for the excess baggage charges.

If I didn't need the income this badly I wouldn't do it at all. Not for three months anyway.

Dentists, banks and business ....

This morning I finally get the cap fitted to a premolar I broke three or four months ago. It has had a temporary cap for most of that time and, to be honest it won't take long to rip the temporary cap ff, clean off the glue remnants and fit the new one. But I am one of those people who would rather face some dangerous and challenging situation than recline in the dentists chair and let someone poke around in my mouth with a range of tools that look and sound like something out of the Dungeons-R-Us catalogue! Perhaps too many childhood experiences of "This won't hurt a bit!" and "You won't feel a thing!" have left me deeply suspicious of the profession. Fortunately my current dentist is a bit of an artist and good at his work. Still, it isn't a fun prospect. But at least there's nothing else needing attention ....

Unlike my bank, which has lost the really important Standing Order I handed in to them three weeks ago in preparation for my trip to Iran. They've asked for a duplicate but I know that scenario, been there before. Suddenly two deductions coming out when you've only got funds for one. And from Tehran I've got diddly chance of detecting that or sorting it out! So that will need to be addressed PDQ as well.

And then there is HMRC who want this years tax - and a half again "on account" for next year. Makes me wonder why I bother trying to make a living.....