Sunday, May 22, 2011

Job Spec

As some of you will know I'm currently looking for a job. I saw an advert for one job that helpfully tells you about different aspects of said vacancy - job 'Purpose' for example and 'Typical Tasks and Problems'. All very sensible. All very helpful. Ad performance dips a little with 'Key Result Areas', 'key' being a word that kind of implies unlocking but is rarely used in that way. However, one of the aspects described is 'Illustrative Dimensions'!

I'm not applying for a job that has 'Illustrative Dimensions' thank you very much. Nor am I working for a company that talks like that. This bit tells you where the job is and a bit more about what the job involves. Nowt to do with how big you can crayon...I think they should be made to speak English...

Sunday, May 01, 2011

There's a riot going on!

Last time I remember there being riots over shops it was the un-edifying spectacle of people fighting each other to buy stuff at a new IKEA. So it's a whole new experience to hear about people rioting against a supermarket. Perhaps there's hope yet...

Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit!

Yeah, sorry to go on about the Royal Wedding...I mostly avoided it but I did see a couple of minutes here and there, so definitely enough to be horrified by the BBC and their coverage. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the BBC have some sort of comittment to neutrality somewhere? I mean if they started telling you that you should be a Socialist or a Muslim or go bleedin' fly fishing you'd tell them to take a jump wouldn't you?

Well, I saw Huw Edwards and other newsreading bods spewing out propaganda promoting deference and irrationality in huge grinning soft-headed bucketfulls. Half-wits and buffoons were given hours to go on about wedding dresses and fairytales and generally take up time that could have had telly programmes on instead. Even the continuity announcer introduced the one and half hour long 'highlights' programme as the event that 'brought the whole country together'. Well, I didn't watch it and nor did my next door neighbour; the tat on sale at Wilkinson's was reduced to half price before it happened; the Council weren't giving permission for people who wanted to hold anti royal wedding street parties and even a survey I noticed in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph had 72% of people saying they weren't going to watch it.

So, my experience tells me that the news was a lie, the BBC mis-represented what was going on in the country and just broadcast hours and hours of propaganda and nonsense. Why should I believe a word these people say?

Incidentally, the 'news' did report 45 arrests - but did they say what the offences were? Did they fuck. Was anybody charged? Dunno. That's what happens in China and places isn't it - they talk darkly of 'trouble makers' but fear that if they tell you what they were actually doing / saying there's a danger you might have some sympathy.

One final thing. Did anybody notice that the crowd for the royal wedding (that 'united the whole country' remember) was a lot smaller than the crowds who demonstrated against spending cuts or the Iraq war or for CND in the 80's? Those demonstrations that 'divided opinion'.

It just makes me feel a bit ill and that no-one can be trusted.

They should be forced to speak English!

More NHS cocktalk for you. I recently received an email inviting me to "Smaller Provider Engagement Workshops: Developing the Provider Landscape and the role of choice and competition"

If you need me to explain how awful this is please leave now, you've come to the wrong place. But for those who play 'Bullshit Bingo' or just despair at idiots wasting time here's another wodge of 'stuff' from the same email - I've highlighted a few choice phrases for those worried about lapsing into a coma or dying of a rage induced thrombosis if they try and read it all - or for your enjoyment possibly...

"We want to engage with as wide a range of providers of health care as possible on how to create the best environment that allows improved services for patients, enabling increased patient and carer choice and control, better outcomes, and increased value for taxpayers. We see small to medium providers (whether from the voluntary or social enterprise sector or for profit) as being key to driving innovation and personalisation, but are aware that there can be barriers to entry to the marketplace and expansion. We are therefore currently planning a series of four workshops in early to mid May, specifically aimed at smaller providers.

The Department of Health’s command paper ‘Liberating the NHS: legislative framework and next steps’ available at http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Healthcare/LiberatingtheNHS/DH_122624, set out a clear vision of a diverse provider landscape, with organisations from all sectors both working together and competing to deliver innovative services that are responsive to patients. The government has also now made clear its intention to take advantage of a natural break in the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill to pause, listen to patients, clinicians and the public, reflect and improve its plans for modernisation of the National Health Service. These engagement workshops will also feed into this wider listening exercise".

I think secretly they can speak English you know...