In yesterday’s paper there was an article about a sixteen years old girl, whose both parents died and who’s now working so that she could keep her high school studies, may be forced to quit school as ‘she is making too much money working’ (150 week) and is not entitled to income support any more. She was then advised to get pregnant so that she’d be entitled to the income support.

Now I am not sure that the story is correct, because we all know the media love affairs with the sensational, even if untrue. Yet, true or not, it still raises two important questions:

First, do we want to encourage people to work? Because if we do, this is not the way to go about it. If, for instance, we (whoever we is in this case) decide that 70 a week is the income support rate, then to encourage people to get off it, work must make them better rather than worse off.

For instance, if you work earns you 50 a week, the government would pay you only a decreased amount, say 60. This will make your work worthwhile: you are now working, and your income is increase to 110 rather than 70, this is a sum working for; it costs the tax payer only 60 instead of the original 70. And once you start working, there is a chance that eventually you’ll earn enough not to need the dole at all. The exact details of the scheme can be worked out, but by doing it smart, everyone will win, if this is really what we want.

Second, is the question of law. What happens if the government has raised the school leaving age to 18, as it hopes to do? That means that the girl, forced out of school, is now breaking the law. Will she be taken to custody? Will she be given hefty fines to pay?

I am well familiar with the situation of being forced criminal, because I have been there myself not so long ago. We moved to a new town outside London, just before the beginning of the school year and we needed to find schools for our children. For two we had no problem, but there was no place for the third.

We went to the council and they told us to speak directly to the schools. The schools, on the other hand, told us that as their quota had changed it would be illegal for them to admit my daughter. So we went to back the council, which was kind enough to highlight to us that we were breaking the law, and that our daughter had to go to school. This went on for weeks, fortunately, a vacancy became available in one of the schools and the problem was resolved. But for over a month, we were the law breaking dangerous to the public criminals.

To quote the old king in the Little Prince:
were I to command a general to change into a sea-bird, and were this general not to obey, it would not be the general’s fault. It would be my fault.

But he was a smart king.

I have just read in the paper that from Jan, train ticket prices will increase by up to 14%. Are they crazy? For your information, British rail is BY FAR, the most expensive train in the world. That is, if you live outside zone 6, you are likely to be paying 14-20 pounds a day just to go to work. This is about 3000 pounds a year, or more than one month average salary. This is crazy.

Now compare it to NY, where the same distance costs about $8, or less than 4 pounds. Going from Yokohama to Tokyo in Japan is 500 yen, or about 3 pounds. And we, here in England, stay quiet.

They claim that they have a good excuse, they say, that this is due to improve productivity of their stuff. Do they really think we are stupid? Apparently so, and probably we are!

For a private company, being more efficient means that with the same resources you can make more, and that you can be price competitive. Efficiency is what has driven down prices of cars, of airfares, of computers and electronic. But if for the rail services, efficiency means more expensive. Please don’t be efficient. Just be good and affordable.

Unlike in Japan, here they have no competition, they are simply allowed to print money, so they do. Why not? Wouldn’t you print money if you were given this license? This is pure hypocrisy, at least if they told us that they don’t care about us and just want to make money for themselves, I would have respected them much more.

Yes, they need to make money (118m last year), but this is not capitalism, it’s a monopoly, and must not be subject to the same market forces. As a monopoly they must be forced to provide services at a reasonable cost. They must be supervised, while the supervisor must keep passengers in mind (I can’t really consider that being forced to pay over 8% of the average income on train ticket is looking after passengers). But as this is a Labour government; we can’t really ask them to care about people, can we?

Or maybe is part of their policy to reduce congestions on the roads – a major British problem? Because despite the soaring cost of petrol, I am now finding my car a much more attractive option for many routes.

So lets organize a passenger strike, for one or two days we should all take sick leaves and stay home. This will make a statement. But this is just a dream. So instead, lets all pay the extra cost, grumble and mumble, and make sure that the rail bosses, will get their nice bonuses next year.

Welcome to Britain.

So do you think that all I can say about the UK is negative? Not at all. I just don’t write about things I like (a journalist friend once told me that no one reads positive comments anyway).

But as I keep complaining about Heathrow, let me tell you one thing. I love BA. I didn’t used to, but now I do. Let’s leave higher classes aside, but when flying economy is concerned, BA is my favourite.

Only yesterday I was forced to fly SAS. The service was wonderful; the stewardesses were friendly, but if you were as tall as I, you just don’t fit. Indeed, I love yoga, I admit. But I don’t want to sit for hours in a yoga posture, not to mention being unable to view the screen in front of me (wrong angle), read a book (I can’t move my hands) or open my laptop.

Also, if it hasn’t developed into a full blown fight, I also feel sorry for the person in front of me, who cannot lean backward.

I am familiar with the statistics telling me about leg room and sizes. But like any statistics, it’s misleading. I don’t care if they tell me that they have 8’’ while BA’s is only 6’’. My knees don’t read, and if they don’t fit, they just don’t. And please don’t tell me that your is bigger than BA’s because in BA I fit, in many others I don’t.

So which airlines are the worst (as far as size is concerned)?

The worse is Virgin Atlantic, the second is SAS, and then there is a full list of budget airlines. But for $30 I can accept suffering, especially on the short routs; for 300 I expect a bit more.

So here, for a change, I’ve said something positive. Doesn’t it feel good? I should definitely do it more often.

You already know that I have nothing against rats, on the contrary. I also have no issue when they stand under the bird feeders waiting to catch everything that falls to the ground. But the problem with rats, that although we started with one, we now have half a dozen of them.

Instead of waiting for them to become many dozens, we’ve decided to trap them and release them in the wild. So we got a few traps, put some food in it and waited

It was cold days, and they had nothing else to eat. But do you think they got in? No way! They were just standing round the trap and discussing who would be the sucker to go in first. I swear, they were just running round the trap and every now and then stopping for discussions. None of them got in.

A few hours later, we came back and there was a squirrel in the trap. The rats were standing round it blowing raspberries at him.

We let it go.

We still half a dozen ratties in our backyard. Any ideas?

First, you need to know something about me. I travel. I travel for work; I travel for leisure. I seem to be spending about half my life passing through airports. Not the best way to spend one’s life, you may think justly. But I love it. This is what I do, and this is what I enjoy most.

Travelling, some airports I love, most are ok, but some I dislike. Heathrow, unfortunately, belongs to the latter ( see welcme to the UK). True, it’s not the worst of all airports, but I still immensely dislike it. It just doesn’t seem to operate with passengers in mind.

There are many reasons why I dislike it. Maybe one day I’ll be able to cover them all. This time, I want to talk about security.

Don’t take me wrong, I am a great believer in good security measures. After all, I am a frequent traveller. But in Heathrow (not the only airport, by the way) they seemed to have forgotten that the reduced convenience for the passengers is a consequence, not the purpose of security. So if are lucky enough not to have experience it first hand, let me take you through Heathrow security.

First, you are dropped off long distance from the gates (this is a necessary evil I’d be insane to complain about). Second, after you’ve checked in, you’re asked to get rid of all liquids (undoubtedly important, no complaints here). But then, if you carry more than one handbag, regardless how small they are, you’re asked to combine the two into one. This is not an airline policy (I specifically asked), but rather a security measure. So here how the discussion between me and the security guard went:

Me: “Why is it safer to have my things in one bag rather than two?”
SG: “These are the instructions.”
Me: “So what do you want me to do now that I have already checked in?”
SG: “Just put them one inside the other.”
Me: “So you’re saying is that it’s possible to put a bomb in two begs, but not in one that have the content of the two?”

OK, I did not really ask the last question. After all, I didn’t want to mention the B word in as security guards are a bit jumpy these days, and are not famous for their sense of humor. So instead, I just moved aside and tried to compress the content of one bag into the other. I was almost successful, but could not fit in the empty small carry bag. You know the type, big enough for a book or two, but too small for a laptop. So I went back to the security guard to try my luck. However, he insisted that I had to check in the empty bag (something I tried to avoid, to save time at arrival) So as I ran out of arguments, I returned to the queue and checked it in.

After that you move to the next queue, where you need to take your laptop out of your bag (necessary, as the X-Ray machine cannot see what’s behind the laptop). You put your mobile, coins, belt, watch and anything else that contains metal into black trays (necessary, as metal items beep when you go through the magnetic scanner), but then they ask you to take your jacket off. That always makes me nervous. Is there anything dangerous I can hide in my jacket they cannot detect? I can’t imagine anything that I can carry in my jacket that will not fit under my shirt or into my trousers. Is it possible that we are not as safe as the want us to believe?

Anyway, passing to the other side of the scanners, everyone scurries to catch their belongings before the conveyer belt carrying the black trays will push them onto the ground. So with one hand you are trying to put back your belt, in the other you are holding your laptop, and with the third you hope that your wallet will not disappear into someone else’s bag (by mistake of course). Why don’t they provide some more relaxed getting reorganised space? I agree that putting your close on, and exposing the contents of your handbag to everyone is a great way of socializing and making friend. But is it really necessary for security?

If you’re still here, you’ve nearly made it, and there is only one more station to go – the shoe check. Once you have organised yourself, its time to take your shoes off and move to the next machine (this has become absolutely necessary ever since the shoe bomber). But let me see if I get it right: the first machine cannot catch if you carry anything in your shoes. So if you were to smuggle something you could take it in your shoes through the first machine, take a rest, take you shoes off and get whatever you are having there into your handbag. Am I missing anything? Or is it that we know something about terrorist’s inability to get the order of their action right?

Do I feel safe when I see all these security measures? Absolutely not. After all, you need a thief to catch a thief, and it’s unlikely that rigid bureaucratic processes will do the job, unless passengers’ inconvenience and not security is what they are really trying to achieve. The last comment, by the way, is neither a joke nor sarcasm. It’s possible that if something should happen they could point to all these measures to cover their back sides, which may be the purpose of the entire exercise, rather than deterring terrorism.

As a side note, today is the third visit terminal 1 in which Est Café claimed that their card machine is broken, and that they can only tack cash. Should I believe them?

McClaren’s 2.5m golden goodbye is the latest example of the grand British tradition of looking after those who failed ( License to Fail)

How can I, a non-British, make sure I don’t miss on a job that promotes this wonderful tradition?

I got some personal emails stating that my previous email is ridiculous, and cannot be. And that I am making it up, because

BT is wonderful.
BT is grand.
BT is an English icon,
and must not be blamed.

So I went back to make an online payment, and here is the proof.

I use BT’s telephone. I just don’t have a choice. I wish I had, as I’ve got such bad experiences with them. My stories may fill an entire volume, which I may write one of these days. This time it’s just a quick anecdote.

If you are not aware, BT moved to the internet age, and now you can pay your bills online. I don’t know when they did it, but today it was the first time I was trying the service. Smooth operation. No problems whatsoever, until I was asked to input my credit card details into a non-secure site.

Are they serious? Haven’t they heard about credit card frauds, or about hackers (hopefully no hacker is reading this post)? Or maybe they are just not familiar with secure server technology? (I will be happy to provide them my services for the right amount)

On the other hand, let’s not be too harsh on them. After all, its technology we are talking about, and we can’t really expect them to know much about it, can we?

The UK health system is, by far, the curiousest (ok, most curious, but I like the other form better) I have encountered anywhere. It’s a mix of modern and archaic practices; a system where doctors are regarded Gods, and your luck determines if the God assigned to you is merciful, and more importantly, competent. It’s a system that where you live determines the quality (and quantity) of the health services you get.

The logic of the system is beyond understanding for anyone who didn’t grow up in it, and doesn’t know that rain everyday is not the only way to live.

It defies logic when people wait for years to be examined by the most modern and most expensive equipment, when a shorter wait for cheaper equipment would have been more effective, if not life-saving.

It defies logic when hospitals panic because of the spread of the super-bug, and yet, in many hospital wards, patients still share huge halls, separated by curtains only. It also makes no sense that families may be regularly visited by hoards of specialised health-professionals rather than by a single generalist, who can call the specialist only when needed. (For example, a healthy family I know is being visited regularly by three specialists: a baby specialist to look after the new-born, a post-natal specialist, to look after the mother, and an old-age carer e to look after the grandparents. )

So as the quality of your health-care can be rather unpredictable, if you’re worried about yours and your family’s health, the PPP may be the way to go. But this way as well, can be full of traps and pitfalls. For example:

My GP (on the public health system) decided to send me to a specialist (nothing serious to worry about, but thanks for asking). The specialist asked me to call my insurer and get a reference number. The insurer, it turned up, needed a letter from the GP. Obliging, I went to get the letter, and carried it to the specialist, who asked me to contact the insurer with the details.

As my last medical encounter had been prior to arriving in the UK, I found all this running around a bit unnecessary. It seems, however, that most bread and born English find it a necessary evil, just like the monarchy, for instance.

But that was not the end. Some days later I got a call from the insurer who asked me to bring another letter from my GP to state that mine was not a pre-existing condition. As my GP had left for Uganda, getting the letter was a lengthy process, but in the end, another GP, while charging me for the visit (not covered by public health), eventually issued the letter, and my specialist got paid. End of story. So what am I complaining about?

1. Why did I have to spend days to do something that in a well designed system should take a few minutes only
2. Why is the system designed in a way in which a letter from a doctor who knows nothing about me is better than a statement (or even a legal declaration) by me, who hopefully knows much more.
3. Why can’t simple logic be used rather than a paperwork trail (the very nature of my problem couldn’t have the result of a pre-existing condition)
4. Why did I go to all this trouble in the first place? After all, the cost of the GP’s letter and the time (and don’t forget the cost of petrol) I had to spend was more than the cost of the specialist.

But for me the most interesting question is how much do systems really serve us, and how much do we let them grow, like a cancer, out of control.