A Universal Truth

So, who knew? Going to second-rate universities to gain rubbish degrees in made-up subjects is no guarantee of a job? I've been saying this for years and years. (And years) If I'm honest I probably wasn't really university material either. But at least when I went up it was as part of a genuinely small minority to do so. Having a degree opened doors back then.

While I was there I encountered a mysterious breed of nocturnal creature – the MBA student. The Masters in Business Administration was a feared and coveted award and its shadowy apostles would work late into the night to meet ferocious deadlines. Most of the devotees were much older than we and being from overseas gave us our first contact with the fierce work ethic of the orient.

Twenty years later, when I took my own master’s degree, I learned that this once mighty ball-breaker had become almost the entry level for many management jobs and the often mediocre students frequently had little or no experience in any kind of paid employment.

At what point did the cart start dragging the horse? When did the system decide that if we opened up education to deliver infinite choices for niche courses with no prospect of employment, this would somehow benefit our workforce? Or the country, for that matter? 

Oh, silly me, neither of those have anything to do with it, have they? No qualification makes a blind bit of difference if the aptitude or the interest is not there in the first place; it’s all about pandering to the gods of diversity and inclusion. (And massaging the youth unemployment figures.) 

In the Olympic park right now are many athletes little more than children, who have sacrificed much to achieve their goals. They have put in true, hard work in pursuit of little reward, for few of them will go on to make a living out of their passion. Once we would have universally applauded their efforts, win or lose, but such endeavours mean nothing to the sort of idiot who tweeted hurtful scorn at young Tom Daley for missing out on a bronze medal in the synchro diving 

Twitter put on its best bonnet of outrage and went on the warpath, illiterate insults were traded for impotent threats, the subject trended worldwide and pretty soon the police were on the case. Really? Is this how we do things now? Is that what the Internet is for? 

Much has been made about how, in the ‘Information Age’, children don't need knowledge when they can Google everything. Strange, then, that all this technological empowerment seems to throw up remarkably few modern Leonardos, Faradays, Darwins or Brunels. I venture that it would take mere days for any of those great men to gain mastery of the keyboard and rather than be at a disadvantage against today’s tech-savvy kids they would wipe the floor with them. 

You can’t polish a turd, make a silk purse from a sow’s ear or improve a pig with lipstick. So let’s put away the cosmetics and pick up the scrubbing brush; scrub away all this entitlement bullshit and get back to some decent, honest hard work and discipline. 

Maybe then we’ll end up with a few more Tom Daleys and fewer of the sort of idiots who will believe codswallop like this! 

No, seriously... they are the future!

Sick and Tired

Back in 2004, when Anastacia sang that she was sick and tired of being sick and tired, concerns had already been rising for a decade about the growing numbers of working age Britons 'on the sick'. "Boo! Nasty Tories!" came the cry because back then we were in the euphoria of Gordon Brown's 'no more boom and bust' economy and the nation's socialists were convinced that it could only be boom and boom for the welfare state. Milk and honey and plenty more where that came from.

But where was it coming from? Why, the lovely bankers of course! Those loveable financial prestidigitators, conjuring up endless streams of free money from... from... oh there was no need for us to worry our pretty little heads about it. Here, have some more money and buy yourself something nice. Venture any opinion on the unsustainability of such an arrangement and you were castigated and labelled a Victor Meldrew; a relic whose principles of thrift and fiscal propriety were exactly what had held us back all these years.

But, of course, we were right all along, as we knew we were. Just as throwing money at the problem has never worked for education and the NHS, neither has it done anything to control the raging tide of personal entitlement that has driven our national character underground for year after year. So now, just as we're getting our mojo back a little, courtesy of the Jubilee, the Tour de France and the Olympics, maybe we can raise a little bile to greet this news, hidden in the background noise of the medal count:

A cough? A bit of a bad back, feeling a bit fed up? No problem; sign here and get on the sick. 3.2 million now claim disability living allowance, costing £13.4billion per year. And many have not been reassessed in a decade or more. While Britain's best are out there fighting for gold and glory a good proportion of the malingerers will be sitting in front of the telly, watching, while you go out to work to pay for them.

A typical DLA claimant

Well, I am sick and tired of paying for the sick and tired. In the race of life there are winners and there are losers. And in racing they shoot horses, don't they?

Taking part

Some fascinating little squabbles on Twitter regarding the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony and Danny Boyle's political affiliations and intentions.

Conservative MP Aidan Burley, sparked a wee Twitter row by commenting on the leftie multicultural bias, as he saw it, so plenty of leftie multiculturalists showed their true colours by demanding his execution. Or at the very least, his resignation.  One Tweeter gloated that DB had used a Tory government's money to fund a Socialist statement - except, of course, the government doesn't actually have any money of its own, so that was a moot point. Apart, of course, from the irony that the majority of government spending of your money is wasted on socialist projects seeking to subvert human nature itself.

I hear that the saintly Billy Bragg, whose Twitter profile says "It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice." also got in on the act and showed what a good actor he is by spouting the usual ill-thought-out, inflammatory, class-war statements, in apparent contradiction of his peace-and-love byline. I say I heard about this as I only get to see his Tweets when others re-tweet them - he blocked me ages ago for daring to agree with somebody who disagreed with him. Such a sensitive [arse]soul.

None of any of that matters. The whole spectacle was magnificent and quirky, celebratory and proud and very inclusive. If you choose to see messages - and symbolism was everywhere - then that's fine too. Britain is still [just] a free country and if a movie-maker wants to engage in a bit of politicking, so what?

Nope, there is something quintessentially British about the whole Olympic spectacle; the notion of doing your very best, meeting with triumph and disaster and treating those two impostors just the same. The opening ceremony, far from being divisive, seemed to repeatedly centre on the very, very British characteristic of joining together and becoming more as a result. It's promising to be a fantastic two weeks of sporting mayhem, so let's just get on and play the game, eh?

Vitai Lampada

("They Pass On The Torch of Life")

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night,

Ten to make and the match to win.

A bumping pitch and a blinding light,

An hour to play and the last man in.

And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,

Or the selfish hope of a season's fame.

But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote -

'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

The sand of the desert is sodden red,

Red with the wreck of a square that broke;

The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead,

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.

The river of death has brimmed his banks,

And England's far, and Honour a name,

But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks -

'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

This is the word that year by year,

While in her place the School is set,

Every one of her sons must hear,

And none that hears it dare forget.

This they all with a joyful mind

Bear through life like a torch in flame,

And falling fling to the host behind -

'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

Sir Henry Newbolt (1862-1938)

Fake 'em all!

Eleven year-old Liam Corcoran walked through five security checks unchallenged and ended up on a flight to Rome. The poor, confused lad appears to have mingled  with some other children, then simply followed them to board the Boeing. Naturally it has caused a retrospective hoo-hah, but at the time, officials who were responsible for counting heads, searching bags and checking credentials appear to have accepted his right to be there without question. Who, after all, would suspect a pre-teen to be travelling unchaperoned?

Not all juvenile adventurers manage to pull it off, however. In Newquay an intoxicated under-age drinker tried to blag his way into a pub using a fake ID in the name of Rodney Trotter of Peckham. After his ill-conceived stunt came to nothing he went on his way, minus the card, leaving the management wondering if he'd have had more luck under the pseudonym of Trigger. (Alright Dave?)

And recently, Stuart Elliott from Hull was exposed as the latest in a long line of a modern-day 'Walts' (after Walter Mitty) peddling a fictitious back-story of heroic derring-do, based on a dubious peripheral connection with the boys at the sharp end. (He could tell you what he used to do, but then he'd have to kill you.)

Fortunately none of these people will ever be in charge. But,wait? Is that a youthful Nick Clegg I see, wandering aimlessly onto the political stage by tagging along with another group of boys, not of his own family? And where are George Osborne's credentials to be drunk in charge of the economy? Has nobody checked his papers? And just this morning I hear on the news that Vince Cable believes he'd make a good chancellor. (So which of the proper parties were you planning on defecting to, you daft old sod?)

It seems the political world is awash with fakers, chancers, wannabes and fools. It does seem that they are the only people mad enough to ever crave a job in power. And while the current incumbents are hardly the stuff of legend, the Labour alternative embraces such colossal levels of delusion as to somehow believe, even after their craven attempt to bring the country to its knees, that more of that self-same same medicine is what's needed. In fact, so gullible are they, they swallowed the line that Tony Blair is a socialist!

We have seen the rise and rise of the 'professional' politician; those who play politics for politics itself and appear to have no connection with or understanding of the world at large. At least the USA once had the good sense to accept that in the world of Walter Mitty nothing was real and elected a Hollywood actor to the highest office in the land. He did okay, too.

Come 2015 I'm voting for Brian Blessed!

It don't add up!

Hmmm, The Daily Mail headlines the tale of the unemployed accountant. I'm not sure why they felt the need to highlight his plight, or why this story had any merit over and above the thousands of similar tales of financial woe. Or, more pertinently, why anybody would really care; he is an accountant, after all.

According to the article: "...the Timpsons drove two cars [and] enjoyed two foreign holidays a year [and] an affluent life in their four bedroom semi-detached house which they bought 12 years ago for £300,000 [and] felt so financially comfortable they remortgaged their property and took out a £50,000 loan in a bid to build their dream home on a plot of land they bought nearby in 2005..."

‘You assume as an accountant you will always be needed ..."

You would also assume, as an accountant, that he'd understand the fickle nature of money and instead of living high on the hog, would have salted away as much as possible for when times got difficult. Surely, he would never have advised employers or clients to borrow and spend like there was no tomorrow? Silly me - that's exactly what 'leverage' was. The buy-to-let market was all about borrow and spend... and hope.

For years small businesmen have been so terrified of finances and running foul of the taxman that they have paid the hourly rate for a qualified accountant, only to have a junior back-office clerk add up two columns of figures, subtract one from the other and fill in an online tax return. It was only a matter of time before some would wake up and realise an accountant was an unnecessary , non-deductible luxury they could no longer justify

If I and many like me watched in incredulous horror as the thrift model was overtaken by the ever accelerating credit economy and wondered just when that bloated, wobbly bubble was going to burst, surely an accountant should have been much more informed and wary - especially with his own money.

Interesting that this story appears on the same day as Exchequer Secretary David Gauke's rash condemnation that those who both paid and accepted cash-in-hand were just as bad as the bankers. Shame about the today's Daily Telegraph lead story that the cash economy is neither wrong nor immoral. Early polling suggests 75% of the readers also support that view. (Why aren't the government spin doctors stamping heavily on these almost daily ill-thought-out leaks?)

The root cause? Human greed, plain and simple. The possibility of getting something for nothing, or more for less, is a prospect that raises a gleam in the eye of humans rich and poor, big and small, the world over. As for tax avoidance, surely it is one of the principle aims of accountancy? Public servants, private businesses, charities and individuals have always been advised, nay encouraged, to avoid paying more tax than they had to. (SIPPS, ISAs Gift Aid to charity, etc)

Pugh cartoon from the Daily Mail

Our society runs on, promotes and excuses greed at all levels. Consumerism is pure greed. Saving is healthy, responsible greed. Addiction is greed, profiteering is greed. false accounting is greed, market-fixing is greed. Theft is greed and even murder is often motivated by greed. It's there, at the heart of the drive for human survival and advancement. Like it or not, greed gets you out of bed in the morning.

Now, if I put my other fist in there?

In the movie Wall Street, Gordon Gecko said "Greed is good". He was wrong, it's much, much simpler than that, Greed is human.

So, now it's agreed we're greedy fuckers, can we shift the debate back, not to who is to blame (all of us) but how we're going to fix it?