Unatural white teeth

Sometimes an occurrence will grab my attention.  Perhaps because it is out of place, unusual, or maybe because it repeats itself.  Recently this has happened to me while watching TV.  I have  seen broadcasters who have unusually white teeth.  These teeth are so white it looks like they have come out of a washing powder commercial.  My eyes squint when I see them.  Worse of all, they are so unnatural.  There are very few people in the world who actually have naturally occurring white teeth, the reality is teeth are varying shades of  pale beige, or even yellowish.  Whilst black skinned people may appear to have teeth which look whiter, this could be from two factors, one genetics and two contrast.  The contrast of seeing teeth against black skin makes them appear whiter than they actually are.  If you see an old movie, the actors have perfectly kept teeth but not necessarily white, just well looked after.  Like they had just been to the dentist for a scrape and polish.  This is acceptable as standards of oral hygiene have improved over they years.  But white teeth is abnormal.  People who have artificially white teeth do look out of place and on TV a warning should come with them, advising the view to put on the sun glasses.

Stress Monkey

In the Fish Factory there is an individual I have to associate with.  They have a personality trait which is begining to get too annoying.  They are a stress monkey.  They blow up every time something comes up which they feel unable to deal with.  Their own attitude and behaviour then effects other people, a bit like a whirlpool anyone who is within three desks can get sucked into it.  My personal irritation level is rising.  I had learnt some time ago it doesn't do much good getting annoyed.  It will always happen when something gets to you, but the only way to rise above it is to give it a moment then get on with the job.  Concentrating energy on solving the problem rather than moaning about it.  Which also lead me to be as self sufficient as I could.  I'd find out how to do something by myself and then I'd do it.  But people are different.  The Stress Monkey reminds me of my own stress monkey and my need to keep it under control, I don't need another person waking it up.  The fact this person is irritating me is a point marking my stress is now being effected.  I want a quite easy life.  I don't need all this exploding bloody stress monkey only a few desks away.  I've contemplated murder, with the hope as the criminal justice system has gone down hill I'd get let off for good behaviour.  This individual is on medication for their stress.  One solution might be just to wait and if I wait long enough they will literally explode.

Useful idiots

I was listening to the radio this morning.  It was the World Service.  This is a good channel to listen to on a Sunday because it gives news items and little sketches of interest.  One item today was about the Holocaust Stalin had inflicted upon his own people.  It was said some 10 million Russians died during it, when referring to the Ukraine genocide.  But because Putin is in power today and was a member of the secret police, he had managed to re write the history books so now in schools there is only one short paragraph which disputes it ever happened.  There was also something they called 'useful idiots.'  This term had apparently been coined in Lenin's time. Such people of  were used as free public relations advocates for Russia.  They would be wined and dinned and given all the best treatment while visiting Russia.  Nice things would be said to them of their work, they would be flattered and men were often given the attention of very attractive Russian women.  They were famous people, writers, singers, actors and the such like.  A short list would include Ernest Hemmingway, Walter Duranty and Che Guevara.  After being wooed and their big ego's stroked they began to purr louder than the biggest Persian cats.  Sent back to their own countries to extol the virtues of communism and Russia as the best thing since sliced bread.

How sad it is normally intelligent people can be so hoodwinked and how important it always is to have a second viewpoint, an opposing view point which is ready to ask questions some find very uncomfortable.

Boring BLOGs

While searching for BLOGs to read, one thing kept popping up and becoming an annoyance. It was other people's BLOGs which were basically about their own family or children, particularly with pictures. It would be here is a picture of my little baby, oh she/he is so beautiful, they had four shits today and I spent the whole afternoon making funny faces at her/him just to see them smile. Hey, just so you don't have to miss out I've added a link to the bottom of this post and you can see them gurgle with delight on YouTube.

I have no doubt BLOGs of this nature should go to an automatic BLOG junk yard. Who bothers reading them. I can now spot one from a hundred paces. I see them through squinted eyes and as fast as a western gun slinger my index finger hits the mouse button to carry me on to another blog. One which I hope is more interesting and captivating. Only for it to be by some middle aged woman going on about how she spends her days making quilts, and looking after her 15 cats, 4 birds and 2 hamsters. There used to be 3 hamsters, but the cats ate one. Someone save me. Someone make the equivalent of a BLOG bullet so I can shoot it and see them drop down into a deep dark hole never to re surface again. Someone build an intelligent search engine attached to blogger.com which knows exactly what I dislike and makes sure those tedious life sapping time wasters are no finding their entertainement from my vomit response. Give me something cerebral, maybe something witty, maybe something with life.

Alternatively shoot me, shoot me and hope to high heaven (if it exists) I never come back as a boring BLOG.

Being a winner is not everything

I have just been reading a BLOG about someone who watched a TV program about how to become a winner. They gave a short precis on what was learnt. It soon became a disappointment to me they had been given a load of psycho babble jargon and had sapped it up like meeting an oasis when the last drop of water had been consumed. They thought, it was because the TV program had given them an insight. When in fact it had actually just tapped into their own internal motivational need to change their life. I could equally argue why being a winner or making it your goal to be the best is a bad thing for both you and for society. A primary example of this can be seen in the way over zealous parents coach their children to be actors at the sake of everything else in life. The children grow up and then become to despise their parents. Or I could say, yes it is OK to be a winner but at what expense? Does it mean treading on others as you climb the social scale? Does it include lying or cheating? And if being first is really the most important thing in life, whatever happened to the fun? Fun and relaxing and being happy with yourself, your family your work. To me a winner would be someone who might well decide they could win a race if they wanted to run all out, but knew it was more important to one of the other competitors so they just let them win instead.

Oh by the way. I understand now in primary schools they give medals to all the children who enter races, regardless of what place they came in. And I bet they all have great big happy smiles and so they should, because we are all part of one race, it's the human race.

Say no thanks to imports

I was seconded earlier today to put up a Chrimbo tree. It came in a long cardboard box and was purchased from Argos. I took out the pieces and looked for the instructions, which were printed on a single sided piece of paper. In the corner of this paper it said those ubiquitous words "Made in China" and with them came dissolution. We have to to the point in the UK where it is easier and cheaper to make and import artificial Chrimbo trees from China rather than to make them here. What a sorry state of affairs I thought. I then began to assemble the parts, it didn't take too long, but as I spread the twigs apart on the branches I began to feel some kind of chemical or plastic like residual on my hands. In addition I really think the design of tree probably would not of passed British safety standards. It was poorly constructed and will likely get thrown away after Chrimbo than saved for the next year. So the carbon used to deliver it to the UK, the life use of the product and it's suspect design means it's nothing to be proud of. In an odd irony this is the prime example of a product which will help destroy the world, i.e. global warming.

There is now little choice in the UK to purchase goods made in the UK, made to British standards and by people living here. Just a walk into any super store will validate this point. The plethora of goods which come out of China are disconcerting. They have cheap labour and dire employee rights. It is from developing countries the Western world now resources the production of many goods of which India can now identify itself. They are moving from the production of poor quality goods into high end services. Another example of this would be caller centres. How annoying it is when ringing up a bank or British Telecom for example and finding you are speaking to someone who doesn't understand what you mean. OK I seen the programs on TV where they train these call centre employees to learn about the British common culture, as though this gives them some insight and ability to deal with queries on the phone. But this is ridiculous, it is like having a brand new graduate come into a company get fast streamed into management and then have the graduate tell lower graded employees how to do their job. You have to live here, and be part of this culture to really understand it. Let alone even consider comprehending regional accents. I know of one Scottish person who has always failed to get a point across to a contact centre based in a developing country. They just plainly can not understand a strong Scottish accent.

In a similar vein I heard on the radio this morning about Afghanistan. Where a flood of cash is being put from the UN. However, this money is not going to indigenous peoples. It is going to foreign workers who set up shop there and bid for contracts. It is equally a sorry state of affairs to believe the Afghan people do not have the abilities and skills to run their own businesses. But then this could all be down to politics. Maybe the people of Afghanistan should start doing caller centres for India and China. What have they got to lose?

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.