Unemployed not being helped by A4E

I just been watching a TV program called Benefit Busters. Which seems just as much and advertisement for the organization which seeks to put people in works as for the plight of the unemployed. This weeks episode was people who had been out of work for some time, one man had not worked for the last 13 years. He then went on to get a job, but after only a couple of weeks was served his notice letter. I felt sorry for him because he seemed a nice enough bloke. However, what was disgusting was the help this supposed employment helping company gave their clients. It verged on the absolutely ridiculous, these unemployed people would be in a class and their task might be to build a bridge out of paper and sellotape, or a model from scraps. There was no structured process by which they set out a time table of constructive events which would help people in to real work. They offered them temporary jobs through contacts they had with employers, they gave them the Yellow pages and also let them write letters to prospective employers, oh yes lets not forget access to the Internet. To which most people just browsed and did their own thing. What they should of done they didn't.

They could of improved the prospect of unemployed people if they used a little bit of initiative and gave those unemployed the skills they would need. Simple role play exercises, for instance on interviewing, or maybe even putting the unemployed in a different frame of mind and asked them all to imagine they were employers, then to draw up a list of things they wanted as an employer from a new recruit. There was no injection of confidence, no inside help, no use of their time or facilities, it was abysmal. So now if anyone mentions to me the acronym A4E, I will just feel sorry for them. And unfortunately realise how they had been baby sited for a few weeks, not helped and not given any skills to help them in work.

An even more annoying point was when the program stated this organization had now been given a 700 million pounds contract with the government over the next 5 years. How the founder must be rubbing her hands together and smiling with glee.

Lunch - not if they can help it

Getting lunch at lunch time is difficult, especially when all the schools are out for the summer holidays. My usual lunch time shops are brimming with people who would normally be at home and children at school. Every food shop is full up, there are ques and crowds. I eventually end up just going to the most convenient and instant places I can, these are Chinese restaurants or take aways. They serve fast and I don't have to que or wait around for my food. But as I eat each meal I now wonder what it does to my cholesterol levels and how much more weight will I put on. It's not good. I'm forced by other people to take these actions. So tomorrow I'm going to make my own sandwiches and stuff the lot of them.

There should be places where only working people can go. Where no tourist or shopper is allowed to enter. Places of sanctuary for the worker, off limits to others. Which require identity verification or something to show you are a worker and not one of the common mob out on a sight seeing tour, out because freedom has been given. I don't have this freedom, my time at lunch is limited. Further I want food which is not going to set me up for a heart attack in ten years from now. Is it too much to ask?

Fitzpatrick walked out of a wedding for good reason

It is amazing how people make snap decisions on very little information. Over the last couple of days the news has aired a case of an MP who walked out of a Muslim wedding. Predictably people were ready to state their opinions about Mr Fitzpatrick (also the Minister for food, farming and environment) without knowing the full story. He is the the MP for Poplar and Canning Town, which is an area with a high proportion of persons from different ethnic communities. Particularly those who are of the Muslim faith. I expect part of if not all of his constituency is in Newham Borough, this is a borough. Just do a search on the internet for further demographics, then you will understand yourself. As I sat listening to this program it was called Any Answers and was aired by Radio 4, the general consensus of callers was Mr Fitzpatrick was rude in walking out of the ceremony. With intonations he did not respect Islam and did not understand this religion. If men and women were segregated into different groups for a marriage ceremony, most of the callers accepted this was OK. The next thing which vexed me was how the broadcaster did not explain the situation further to callers, he basically let them come forward with snap judgements and so make it seem Fitzpatrick was a bad man who did not respect Islam.

A day earlier I had heard an interview with Fitzpatrick also on Radio 4, on the Today program. In this he was able to give his reasons why he walked out and explain he did so very discretely. This man revealed he went to between 2 and 4 Islamic weddings every month. Sometimes more sometimes less therefore for people to cast doubt Fitzpatrick new little about Islam is a spurious point. It seems to me those who said such things actually knew a great deal less. Mr Fitzpatrick stated in 15 years of going to such weddings, so he must of notched up quite a few, this was only the second time he had experienced segregate guests by gender. Doing the rough maths, lets say he goes to about 30 weddings in a year so 15 times 30 is 450 weddings in all. Now putting this little figure into the picture now shows his reaction in a somewhat different light. Fitzpatrick was in fact highlighting this is not the normal procedure for an Islamic wedding. It is in fact abnormal and is tending towards how a more fundamental version of Islamic preaching, which is trying to seep into the world. He explained the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) were responsible for this version of Sharia and the wedding was taking place in their building. When the honourable MP left the wedding he did so discretely, not making any fuss or drawing any attention to himself. At the same time his wife who was in a different part of the building had also come to the same conclusion and she left. The whole incident was not a case of disrespect to religion or Islam, it was a case of a man who had made an informed decision on previous experience. Perhaps he believed gender segregation is discrimination towards the female sex, especially if we are to understand in the context of the different versions of Sharia. Of which I know one type states the wife will always walk behind the husband. To some people in the Western world this does not constitute freedom, but is rather a sign of oppression.

So in light of a few additional facts I wonder if those phone in callers who thought Mr Fitzpatrick was rude would change their mind. I wonder how many of them had been to as many Muslim weddings as he had, and I expect there would of been very few.

Ads on Hotmail - now fight back

Microsoft are now putting awful advertising on their hotmail accounts. It's odd, they designed Msn and hotmail in such a way as it is easy to report SPAM and to block it, but in a paradox Microsoft have now become the villans. Each of us has bought Microsoft products in our lives, there's no way of not purchasing them, and for me getting a free email account was really a small payback for being a customer of many of their other services. However I now have to re think and seriously consider whether I want any of their products at all, and if I can avoid them and get either freeware or an alternative third party product this will be the case.

It may seem a brash decision to take, but it is not when I consider how much hard money Microsoft has made from products I use. In my workplace their products are the norm. So a licence is purchased so I can use them. At home another licence is purchased. Although they may have the world in the palm of their hand, they can not control every single software writer on the planet. Only the ones they employ. So out there the world of freelance, freeware, and not to mention pirates are churning away the grey cells of find work around. Google is brilliant, just do a search and suggestions come up. Some might not work, but some do help.

If Hotmail is a piece of software which lets me read my email, but I can't read it because I am distracted by the adverts then I will stop using it. Microsoft you are not the only persons on the planet and really, isn't it time you just gave back to the people a small thing, after all its them who have made you so profitable.