December 2009

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Can we find a million people?

December 30, 2009 in Rants | 1 comment

Ah, the latest Facebook craze. How it angers me.

Before we go any further, yes I am a self-confessed Facebook addict. And yes, I am a member of some pointless groups, for example I cried for the dog episode of Futurama. However, this latest craze of Can we find a million people who…? makes me want to go and stab myself with a spoon.

The other variation on the theme is If a million people join this will or will not happen. This makes me want to hang myself with a string of spaghetti.

Firstly, these groups are pointless. I saw one today which made me incredibly angry. The name of the group was If 1 million people join, my dad will not put our dog to sleep.

Three simple points here.

  1. What.
  2. The.
  3. Fuck.

Firstly, this group has surely got to be a fake. What kind of sick person would put a healthy ten year old dog to sleep, unless FB says otherwise? Secondly, why would you make a FB group if this is true? Would you not call the RSPCA instead? Lastly, you million plus people who have joined the group are all twats.

The dog will live.

What is wrong with people?!

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Charity Singles

December 21, 2009 in Music, Rants | 1 comment

I’ve obviously been living under a rock for a while because I wasn’t really following the whole RATM vs XFactor war to the XMAS number one, but the power of Facebook and the people won out in getting RATM to the top of the charts.

I was indifferent to this; I do like some RATM songs but feel that neither the producers of the XFactor or RATM really need the cash that badly. I’m not into buying singles in all honesty – I’d rather get the album if I like the band. Anyway, that said, I had to eat my words yesterday when I was told that RATM were donating the proceeds of their single to Shelter. This, I very much approve of, but leads me to a new subject.

Charity singles.

Now, this is absolutely NOT a stab at RATM donating their proceeds to charity. Fair play to them I say, after all the single wasn’t released as a charity single, so that’s pretty damn awesome.

No, my gripe is with charity singles being released in general. I know some singles are produced free of charge, mixed free of charge, the singers don’t make anything, yada yada and that’s fine. But, with a lot of charity singles, there are still fees to pay, which means that only a relatively small percentage of the cost of each single goes to charity.

And often the single is cheesy crap!

Surely it would be better to take your three quid and donate it to the charity instead of lining the pockets of various record companies, with the charity only getting maybe 10p?

Thoughts, anyone?

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Public Sector Pay Freeze

December 10, 2009 in Rants | 3 comments

Alistair not-a-Darling yesterday released his pre-budget report for the financial year 2011. He has to save a lot of money and make cuts due to the recession and I can honestly say that I wouldn’t want that job. I find it frustrating enough doing budget forecasting. However, I digress.

Amongst his plans, he has decided to enforce a 1% paycap on public sector employees from 2011. This fills me with rage, partially because I am a local authority worker.

I know many people will be sitting there saying that we are overpaid, shouldn’t be complaining, we get paid for pointless jobs and essentially not doing much, yada, yada, yada. Yes, I do Tweet and Facebook in worktime sometimes, however I very rarely take a lunchbreak, I am always in early, I sometimes work late and I am constantly doing extra work from home. I have a stressful job, which is often difficult and whilst for my age I am well-paid, my salary is not enourmous. I have bills to pay, just like everybody else. The cost of living rises for me every year, just like everybody else. My job in the private sector would probably be paying me in the region of 40-45k, at least. There would be annual pay reviews and possibly bonuses. We don’t get bonuses in LA.

Yes, there are some jobs in LA which probably are pointless and there are some jobs which probably do pay too much. But spare a thought for that man who collects the trash from your street and doesn’t get paid all that much for it. Is it fair that his pay is capped?

I’d also like to throw it out there that we also pay taxes, just like everyone else. So, in essence, we are actually contributing towards our own wages.

So, before you start saying that it’s just right that our pay is capped, I’d like to point out that most people in the private sector get rises in line with inflation and it’s only right that we should, also.

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