News Archives: February 2010

Friday, February 19, 2010

Bridge over Politics

I suspect that for many students, their first serious contact with politics is being part of a student society, club, or union. These typically have all the trappings of democracy. Votes! Elections! Meetings! Debates! Speeches! Factions! Votes of No Confidence! In fact, far more democracy than you'd ever be allowed with something as unimportant as government. Some people get terribly excited by the whole thing, and engage in as many acts of democracy as possible. Often without noticing that the society/club/union carries on pretty much the same regardless, acting out of tradition ("We always meet on a Thursday") and with most of the work being done by those with the enthusiasm or organisational skills needed, whether they've been elected or not.

I do wonder what effect all this has on the average person. Are they put off by the arguments and factionalism, and engage with real world politics in a more mature, considered manner? Or do only those who enjoy the arguments and factionalism go into politics for real? I've bad feeling I know the answer to that one...

Gordon and I lampooned these tendencies quite deliberately when we founded the Glasgow Uni Bridge Society. Everyone who joined - all 20-odd of us - got a place on the executive, with their choice of title. You couldn't use the same one as someone else, but since no one did anything, it didn't really matter what you called yourself. Whatever would sound good on the "membership of clubs & societies" bit of graduate recruitment forms. We had a president, treasurer, secretary, social secretary, games convenor, tournament convenor, and many more. I can't even remember what my position was - probably secretary, as I did maintain the membership list (with titles), and wrote the constitution. This was largely an exercise in using the word "quorum" as often as possible, and ensuring that the complicated rules for a quorum boiled down in practice to "having enough to play Bridge". We did have lots of meetings (where we played bridge) and charged a pound for membership (which we spent on tea and chocolate to welcome the newest exec member). Ah, happy days.

(For the record, I was games society treasurer, bridge society secretary (probably), and try to keep real world politics at the far end of a ten foot pole...)

Posted by graham @ 08:21 pm

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Shiney and New

Claire and I have launched a new website for our collar-making business, Celtichound. This is a little side project for us, which grew out of Claire's hobby of making pretty much anything she can imagine. Celtichound isn't going to replace the day jobs in the near future, but it is raising a bit of money for charity, and there's an undeniable thrill to seeing a dog wander past in one of our collars.

I'm writing this on the other newness of the moment, a lovely Asus Eee Seashell. Claire bought it for me last week, just 'cos she could. Talented and generous - I'm a lucky guy!

Posted by graham @ 03:16 pm

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Lies, Inc.

I'm getting really pissed off with companies wasting my time and telling lies. Just in the last couple of weeks :

My neighbour's phone line broke. At first BT claimed there was no fault on the line. Then they didn't phone back when they promised to. Appointments were booked for an engineer to call, but no one arrived. Since she had no phone, her daughter and I had to do all the calling. After seven days, five hours of my time on the phone (plus however long her daughter spent), four missed appointments, two broken promises of "they'll get someone out today," and numerous missed callbacks, we finally got an engineer out, who spent two hours replacing the cable that had "no fault" in it. I need to check if my neighbour got any compensation for all this - I got nothing for my time they wasted.

Parcelforce were supposed to deliver a package on Tuesday. No sign of it, so Wednesday I phoned the sender. Parcelforce had told them they'd "tried to deliver, no one in, so left a card". The last bit at the very least is a lie. I called the local depot, to be greeted with an attitude of "it's at the local post office, you can pick it up whenever you want, why are you upset?" Complained to head office, who gave a vague apology, a vaguer promise to "talk to the people involved", and a stern "Parcelforce does not pay compensation".

An order from Dabs.com was showing on their website as "shipped" yesterday, with a note that they'd emailled me tracking information, but that the email might take 24 hours to arrive. Still no sign of the email this morning, so contacted dabs through their webchat window. "It hasn't shipped yet, you'll get an email when it does." They did offer me £5 off my next order, but I don't feel inclined to order again.

I'm starting to wonder if I can start suing for every time someone wastes my time or lies to me like this. I could make a freaking fortune.

Posted by graham @ 11:53 am

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