Monthly Archives: January 2012

Jan 31 2012

Rank service

Anyone can be a black cab driver it seems, especially if your English is poor and geographical knowledge woeful – certainly judging by my experience in Sheffield city centre yesterday.

I needed to go from the city centre to a commonly known street less than two miles away. A cab with its yellow light on (meaning it was for hire) stopped and I got in. The driver could barely speak English, and even with my best annunciation, did not know the location of my stated destination. I started to explain the route to him but he was utterly lost.

A legitimate cab driver

“You really don’t know where it is?” I asked.

He replied, “I am a new driver,”

“Uh, why would I pay you money when I am doing a major part of your job by working out the route?” I queried.

A ‘new driver’? Isn’t there a minimum requirement before becoming a cabbie? There was no photo ID on display, making me wonder if this man was the friend or brother of a licensed driver sub-letting this vehicle illegally.

Back out and onto the pavement, another taxi stopped. This guy’s grasp of English was markedly better – but he also didn’t have a clue where the street was, even though, as with the previous driver, I told him what the nearest recognisable landmark was. However, this guy phoned a friend (presumably the legitimate owner of this second vehicle) who knew the street and so I actually did get there.

With a population of 555,500 (2010 estimate), Sheffield is the UK’s fifth largest city. For many years, the local authority imposed a limit of 300 licences for Hackney cabs but deregulation in 2005 meant anyone able to pass the council’s test could ask for a licence. Since then the number of legitimate drivers has more than doubled to well over 600.

Now, with mandatory insurances and taxes to pay, any motor vehicle is burning its owner’s money, even if it is parked on the street whilst its owner is taking time off. So what better than to have someone else drive it and so earn extra cash during down-time?

#justsaying

Jan 29 2012

You don’t watch TV???!??

The television set has for many years been the Establishment’s agent placed in everyone’s living rooms – spouting propaganda as “news”, pushing moronic soaps or promoting mindless sports in order to keep the masses both misled and otherwise preoccupied.

How we get our news and entertainment is certainly changing though. #ACTA permitting, news – whether in alternative and so-called “mainstream” form – is available across the internet. We are no longer limited to terrestrial programming or carefully chosen digibox options.

But the UK government finds it hard to believe that there remain a few of us who are not chronically addicted to TV and who are perhaps determined to shun this would-be intruder …

Jan 26 2012

Occupy Sheffield trial today

At 10.30am this morning, Occupy Sheffield is attending a trespass hearing in the city’s District Registry Court.

A news release just received from Occupy Sheffield reads as follows:

As with the case of the City of London Corporation v Occupy London, this case is being heard by a High Court Judge, namely Mr Justice Foskett. Unlike in Occupy London case, Sheffield Cathedral are seeking costs which already amount to over £8000 and have chosen to name 14 individuals (& “Persons Unknown”) in the court documents. Through fundraising efforts Occupy Sheffield has managed to raise enough funds to be represented by Barrister Michael Paget who also represented Occupy London in the St Pauls case.

This week the camp offered to leave the Cathedral forecourt seven days before the land was required for planned building works. This was the latest offer from Occupy Sheffield which the Cathedral found unacceptable.

Occupy Sheffield feels strongly that all legal costs could have been avoided if a substantive discussion had been entered into at an earlier stage (and not 24 hours before a court case, a belated offer which we could only decline as the subject of our proposed eviction was not to be discussed!).
Occupy Sheffield believe that for the Cathedral to name individuals is unwarranted, and they should be removed. But this should not be a distraction from the fact that by naming ‘Persons Unknown’ the Cathedral are indicting working people, disabled people, Christians, homelesss people, unemployed people, young people and pensioners. ‘Persons Unknown’ are the 99 per cent.

If you are poor, take heed. If you are unemployed, take heed. If you are disabled and losing funding, or young without a job, or sick but made to work, take heed. If you are a worker who sees your wages stay the same, your conditions of employment ever weakened while the Chief Executive of your company walks away with more and more, take heed. Objecting to this situation may cost you dearly. Occupy Sheffield will soon find out if there is a price on the head of protest and protestors, and implore the court to determine that access to basic democratic freedoms is not contingent on access to funds.

We know already that the influence of finance on democracy is corrosive at the highest level. We await to see if access to funds will be determined a necessary entry point to democracy at the grass roots, and hope that the Judge will see that it is in the service of democracy to allow sustained and peaceful protest to take it’s course. We passionately believe that access to democracy is a basic right not contingent on wealth, and it is now clear that at the heart of our peaceful fight for economic and social justice is the struggle for democracy.

Occupy Sheffield

Follow us online:
www.occupysheffield.org.uk
www.twitter.com/OccupySheffield
www.facebook.com/OccupySheffield

Further news will be posted once received.

Jan 25 2012

Can Yorkshire Water be foiled?

So the water meter and its smart meter attachment are now double-wrapped in aluminium foil and I’ve today written to Yorkshire Water both to tell them what I’ve done and to request removal of the offending item.

It’ll be interesting to see what they have to say, not least as I signed no agreement. Watch this space!

The letter is reproduced below.

Customer Services
Yorkshire Water
PO Box 52
Bradford
BD3 7YD

January 25, 2012

Dear Sir or Madam,

REF: Automated Meter Reading to cease on account xxxxx xxx xxx xxxxx

A few months ago a chap knocked on my door claiming to be from Yorkshire Water. Thinking he had come to read my water meter, I happily let him in.

However, this man swiftly moved towards the meter saying he was putting a smart meter attachment on, without asking if I agreed to the adaptation, and proceeded to do it before putting a leaflet in my hand to explain what he had done.

Having subsequently researched smart meter issues, I now demand that this attachment be removed entirely.

In the meantime, the attachment will be wrapped in aluminium foil so as to block the RF transmissions it pumps out. The machine should therefore become unreadable except upon entering my property, after receiving my agreement, to check manually.

Please respond by confirming you will remove the offensive item.

Yours sincerely,

RussellCavanagh

If anyone wants to join forces in organising against smart meters, do get in touch via the comments box! 8-)

Jan 25 2012

Bondage is still alive – if unwell

When I was a child, I often wondered how come the world was shaped so precisely that many people earned only just enough money to keep their families together and a roof over their heads.

As an adult, I increasingly realised that global levels of market supply and demand dictate the welfare of individual nations and their peoples – living under a profit system that seeks the lowest priced labour, goods and services.

This thought came back to me this morning when reviewing new research by moneysupermarket.com that says six in ten UK households would relieve their financial worries with as little as an extra £1,000 (equivalent of just under £20 a week) cash injection.

But surely any society which has embraced capitalism for over 200 years must have figured out how to make life’s material essentials – food, shelter and heat – affordable to all? Not so! According to the fresh data, a quarter of UK households couldn’t survive for more than a week should their income dry up suddenly.

2012 Top Financial ‘Fears’ according to moneysupermarket.com:

Rising cost of utility bills 43%
Rising cost of food 34%
Rising cost of petrol 33%
Losing my job 16%
Not being able to save money 16%

(Perhaps surprisingly, not being able to meet mortgage or rent repayments came 11th in the table at 4%.)

Outright slavery may have been abolished throughout modern societies, but economic bondage is clearly still alive – albeit increasingly unwell.

Jan 20 2012

Energy Minister’s anaemic response on smart meter fiasco

Energy Minister Charles Hendry wrote to the Daily Mail today to bolster the highly deceitful case for smart meters being rolled-out to every UK household by 2020.

In his letter, responding to an article by Mail journalist Sean Pulter, he states the benefits, as he would state them, of smart metering as being reduced costs through external readings becoming possible for utilities companies.

The most telling section in Hendry’s letter (reproduced in full at the bottom of this post) runs as follows: “Smart meters will give more control over how we use energy at home and work, helping us cut waste and save money. And it will mean an end to estimated billing: no more nasty surprises for consumers.”

  1. Yes, there will be more control for power companies to disconnect or reduce people’s supplies, especially when it is gas or electricity that is being monitored.
  2. No, it won’t save money for those householders having their analogue meters replaced with digital versions; requiring, as they do, electricity to pump out deadly RF radiation in frequent and regular bursts.
  3. Yes, it will help utilities providers to know our private activities through real-time monitoring of household usage. Meters can also be hacked from the street by third parties.
  4. Yes, it will save money for energy corporations by slinging a few meter readers out of their current jobs.

For a fuller picture of the civil liberties issues and health risks of smart meters, see http://economicsurvivor.net/2012/01/15/organise-against-smart-meters/. More on the criminal climate change hoax is also at http://economicsurvivor.net/2011/11/29/climate-hoax-staggers-on-but-not-on-mars/.

Smart meters are an invasion of privacy, a very real health risk, and ultimately an attempt to plug the world’s population into one huge smart grid: Similar projects are being rolled out in the US, EU, Asia and other continents – with a view to joining them all up eventually. The upgrading of the grid is already costing £200 billion in the UK alone alone (guess who’s already paying these “carbon taxes”!), and is set to cost €Trillions across the financially beleaguered Eurozone.

The fool Hendry missive is below: Continue reading →

Jan 17 2012

Energy extortion continues

Energy providers may well be following each other to reduce household bills, but the b*st*rds have thieved an extra £2.24 billion from our pockets this past year alone.

Research results just released by uSwitch.com:

  • Energy prices rocketed by £224 or 21% in just over a year, but price cuts this year amount to £34 or 2.6%
  • Two rounds of price rises since the end of 2010 added a total of £2.24 billion onto household energy bills – this year’s price cuts will shave £340 million off again
  • Average annual household energy bill will fall from £1,293 to £1,259, wiping out 15% of last year’s price hikes
  • In January 2006 the average household energy bill was £660 a year. Once the price cuts come into effect it will be £1,259 – £599 or 91% higher
  • 2.6% price cut announced by suppliers will pull just 136,500 households out of fuel poverty

USwitch said that almost a third of consumers (32%) are finding household energy unaffordable in the UK.

#justsaying

Jan 16 2012

Chilling fact

Despite Britain experiencing a mild winter up until frost descended only a few days ago, a staggering 43 per cent of householders say they are worried that they can’t pay their next fuel bill.

Citizens Advice, who released the astonishing statistic today, said that their advice services dealt with over 500 fuel-related problems each day over the past three months.

Household energy bills averaged were on average 21% higher than they were at the start of last winter – rising from £1,069 in November 2010 to £1,294 now. This means that one in six people plan to only heat half, or fewer, of the rooms in their house this winter. (source: Consumer Focus).

The government’s Department of Energy & Climate Change Propaganda calculates 5.5 million households in the UK as being in fuel poverty. Fuel poverty is defined as 10 per cent or more of household income being required to pay for energy bills.

Research carried out earlier this year by the Post Office found that 36 per cent of credit card holders are relying on their plastic to meet ordinary household expenses. No wonder that Citizens Advice Bureaux deal with literally millions of individual debt problems every year.

Factor in the £200 billion estimated as being required for “upgrading” Britain’s share of the power smart grid – all in the name of criminal climate change measures –  that’s planned across Europe (and eventually beyond (similar projects are rolling out across Asia, the US and elsewhere) and impoverishment is certain to continue.

Our government and the energy companies are inflicting economic violence on the people of Britain!

No doubt smart meters will be touted as the ultimate answer. But that’s another story …