Just a Thought from the Loudounpatroller

HSBC at planet zog

2010-10-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

Stop wasting your money!

It is reported that as many as15 million workers have less than £249 set aside for the proverbial rainy day, this figure is the equivalent of 5 day's average take home pay, the report says. This report also states the figure people should have in their bank account and this should be, wait for this, £4,863.

Now most people who work incur expenses, and not the ones that can be claimed back or set against tax. Transport, clothing and food spring to mind and need to be deducted of this massive wage.

The weekly cost in the average household for what is now deemed necessities is £265 which is made up of £170 mortgage, £36 personal loans, £5 Internet/TV/telephone, £23 gas/electricity, £7 water, £3 home insurance and £21 council tax. There is no money left for food this week, never mind putting money in the bank.

If you want to find out how to manage your average wage and save for a rainy day contact the author of the report,

Richard Brown, Head of Savings at HSBC, Planet Zog Office

Bank fraud

2010-10-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

Has anyone needed to activate a new debit card (replacement only) where you receive a telephone number to call to activate the card, when you call this number a taped voice tells you to enter your debit card number, this number is not recognised you will hear, then you can hear the call getting transferred. The next voice is an actual human who activates the card for you, so far so good and quite simple. Job done, wrong, just as you are about to hang up you now find why they didn't activate your card with the robot,because the big sell is on and they want you to take out their fraud insurance which sounds free but it’s not, its £6 a month and lo and behold you need to pay up front,£70 thanks and you can't pay per month, are you still with me? don't worry, as the girl assures me, if you haven't got the money just spread the cost, put it onto a credit card. This is what I call hard Sale tactics. Shame on this bank, Australian owned, and is named after a big hoofed horse. The operators have been trained well on how to capture a poor unsuspecting person, I told her four times I did not have a credit card but she kept on persisting what a brilliant deal it was. I now know what the above horse feels like I was naying and naying to no avail,I bet some weaker people will be £70 plus interest less in their bank account , and all they were trying to do was activate a number. The only fraud protection anyone needs is against banks.

hire a car

2010-10-07T11:55:00.000-07:00

7th October 2010

Car hire in Glasgow.

There is a new car hire system starting to-day where you can go to a designated car bay and jump in a car and have use of it for a couple of hours and then leave it at another bay in the city. In Edinburgh this scheme has proved successful going from 20 cars to around 100 cars in 3 years.

Now call me a cynic but Glasgow is the city with the highest unemployment in Scotland and if you happen to drive at a speed of below 30mph you will find your wheels have been stolen. In Glasgow I would start with 200 cars and hope there is still 20 cars left at the end of the week.

Bog standard biogas

2010-10-05T11:05:00.000-07:00

5th October 2010

Bog standard power from Biogas

Householders began cooking and heating their homes with gas derived from raw sewage yesterday, under a £2.5m scheme the first of its kind in this country at Didcot sewage works in Oxfordshire. The use of human waste in this scheme will produce renewable gas to supply 200 homes. The process takes about 20 days from flushing the loo until the gas is piped back into people's homes.

This looks like another of these schemes that is extracting the urine or as we say in Scotland "your taking the piss" we can imagine these households' boiling water for a cup of tea and using toasters at the same time, Boots the chemist will be needing extra security to hold back the crowds at the Senekot (herbal laxative) counter.

The Prime Minister appealing to the rest of us to keep eating our green vegetables and devour as much roughage as humanly possible each day, anyone not regular enough will be subject to some shock treatment, you will be made to watch the Chancellor deliver a speech on the state of the economy and if that doesn't scare the shit out of you, you have what the medical profession call severe constipation.

There will be compulsory colon irrigations to any bum not complying with this new scheme.

Then again why not just put a big pipe from the House of Commons and the Lords to Oxfordshire? There is surely enough shit and hot air spoken to heat 1000's houses.1

BT versus Sky or Free

2010-08-14T16:11:00.000-07:00

Bt Vision, have bought rights to sell Sky 1 and 2 sports channels. Sky put the first Scottish game Inverness v Celtic on Sky 4, next week Scotland are on sky 4. The Australian Murdochs will not rest until they have full control over what we watch on our televisions. All football is free online.

Planet Zog

2010-08-05T13:20:00.000-07:00

Teaching our Children.
The newspapers and all the media tell us on a Wednesday that the UK teachers are not up to scratch, they can hardly teach our children the basics of reading and arithmatic, they said. The very same media one day later announce, The exam boards have had record passes in all grades by UK students. Both of these statements can't be correct?

The Rise And Fall Of The Banks.
Headlines in the media until a few months ago were telling us, the profits that the banks were making was obscene. Then like a bolt out the blue the banks are skint, jump in the UK labour Government and bail them out to the tune of billions with tax payers money. Lo and behold a few short months down the road, the banks are back in profit making billions. As a tax payer, problem sorted, wrong we have still to loose countless jobs and pay more and more tax. The main rise in VAT has still to come in next January. Are the British really so gutless we are going to sit back and watch these *ankers dishing out our money between themselves and call it bonuses? it would appear so.
Beam me up Scottie

Fk The Pr

2010-07-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

After ex Prime Minister Blair managed to shove two fingers right up the rest of us,now, I give you President Clinton. They both go about the world telling the rest of us to give to the poor and get along with our neighbours. These two took us to War and they are the real people to profit. All along they are holding extravaganza weddings and parties that would feed small countries, these countries are starving(£2 a month makes all the difference we are told in the advert) and these two buy up property that at the cost, would house thousands, or even give some countries clean fresh and yes free water. Oh just another thought, where is that other ex Prime Minister Broon? sorting out his finances I'll bet!
Watch this space.

Eamonn Holmes And The Big Fat Cheques

2010-07-22T13:35:00.000-07:00

I noticed Eamonn had a grouse and he most likely ate it with some chips of his shoulders, the problem Eamonn has, is an impersonator on tv insinuates Eamonn is fat, whatever gave the impersonator that idea. The one thing that I see is the pay cheques that are comeing to the bank account of the said Ulsterman. Eamonn as you will notice, has as we used to say, wears many hats. Sky breakfast show 6AM until 9AM, then he has to shoot to ITV for the morning show 10.30AM until 12.30PM, which he appears as a double act with his wife. ITV are now plugging a new Saturday Quiz programme with yes, Eamonn and his wife, and if you have not had your fill, he has a column on a Sunday paper. Just how many fat cheques does one household need?

Schools/children

2010-07-13T13:52:00.000-07:00

Not So Great Britain
Watching tv and reading newspapers,it is really annoying,all I see is schools crumbling. We are told no money in the kitty! just think for a minute, all the trillions that have been spent on projects; ie trident, wars, nuclear or otherwise?, football, olympics,and even Concorde, which was a rich man's plaything at the taxpayers expence,how many people in this country was on this super money guzzler!! the list can go on and on over the last 50 years. How sad, that we are going to accept there is no money for our children, what an affront on our country. We surely cannot just except that and lie over and die in 2010?

Game set and match

2010-07-08T02:18:00.000-07:00

Last words on this years "wimbers" from the winner (a certain Spaniard called Nadal) of the men's championship.
"Yesterday I played against a local player and the respect of the court was amazing and that's not happening on every court in the world." As I said previously the English wanted anyone to win except a Scotsman and they say it is the Scots that are biased.

World Cup 2010

This time around the world cup has just about finished with only the final still to come. I feel it's about the biggest non event to happen in ages with hardly a talking point except for the goal "that was but wasn't" against the 1966 version of the goal "that wasn't but was"
During the break of the Spain v Germany game the panel on the BBC spoke of a sublime pass, an exqusite pass, an excellent through ball and all this tosh because a Spanish player kicked the ball a few feet in front and found a player from the same side who then managed to kick the ball into the goalkeepers arms, and from players who earn thousand's of Euros per week. Who is kidding who here? The football players going through the motions or the studio panel who keep talking the game up to keep themselves in a very lucrative nice little earner? My own opinion is a major overhaul is needed urgently and not with a camera to capture a ball that crosses the goal line every blue moon, the major factor is the constant obsession with off-side and the line that appears on screen to tell you his nose or his left leg or right hand is off-side what a lot of {hockey cockey and shake it all about}. Stop the off-side and watch the "beautiful game" flourish and lastly stop the stupid substitutions when playing added on time of 3 or 4 mins and have 3 or 4 substitutions what a waste of time and energy.

Millport/Wimbers

2010-06-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

Millport.
We decided to take number 2 grandson to Largs for the day, we parked the car and headed for the seafront, his little face was beaming with the sight of all the children's rides and the lovely weather, the sun definately captures everyone at their best.
We went all nostalgic and decided to take the ferry, and visit Millport, we were not disappointed. This little isle still holds a bit of a bygone life with people of all ages on bikes, cycling round the isle. I would recommend everyone, please leave your car in Largs, give the bike people peace, the coaches are waiting as you leave the ferry to transport everyone to the heart of the isle.
A Fantastic day was had by everyone.

Andy Murray. (You cannot be serious)
I cannot help but notice there seems to be more (foreign visitors) at "Wimbers" this year than I have seen for years. The one thing that is noticeable as the tv camera's scans the crowd is the amount of people sitting on their hands, to stop themselves from clapping a "Brit", is it maybe because he's a Scot? therefore he is not a Henman, Lloyd, or a Wade.
Please feel free to add any other English Private School Child who has played the game. "OH I SAY"
Just to prove a point I tuned into the main news bulletin on the British Broadcasting Corperation (BBC)at 10am Sunday Morning. The news was 15mins of England at the world cup, 6mins of news, 2mins of weather and the last 7mins of sports news about England and a 20 second piece on motor racing, not a mention of Andy Murray winning at Wimbledon. Why do we Scots pay the same licence Fee? as all we are drip fed is England England.

Day Time Television

2010-06-02T14:19:00.000-07:00

As someone who is usually working day time hours, being ill at the moment, I am able to take in some strange tv and none more so than the adverts.The adverts seem to pop up on a regular basis. These adverts are really strange, please try to watch some of them. Two subjects that caught my eye was money loans, and a new food diet.
The advert for the money loan is for a fast loan usually paid out in a few hours from applying, so far so good, and then they go and spoil it by stating the APR is a massive 2375%. I thought the government was going to clamp down on loan sharks, and here they are advertising on tv.
The second to make me sit up and pay attention was a new diet, all it costs is £47 per week, and they send you a hamper of food to be cooked in a microwave. They then produce "actual" people who are on the diet, and all losing weight and stating how the food is terrific. I am not a nutritionist, but I can't for the world of me see how this diet can be healthy and of any good as a weight loss aid.
Thinking about it, maybe combine the two, borrow enough money to pay for a years supply of food. The diet company want you to pay monthly anyway, and with the APR you will be so worried about never clearing your debt to the loan company, you will lose mega pounds and that's guaranteed.

Election Result

2010-05-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

There is definately something wrong with our voting system, this one allows the leader of the party that came last(rock bottom) and with only a handful of seats. To enter 10 Downing Street, as our "Deputy Prime Minister", and another 5 losers get top jobs. The icing on the cake is Vince Cable, who has been verbally hammering the banks and the people that run them to be taxed to the hilt and lo and behold, his job is looking after the banks, so that's his mouth well and truly zipped. I can assure anyone out there the only people that will be taxed to the hilt will be us, the mugs that go out and do a job to try and keep a roof over our heads. Now have a comedy double act, and they will try to be funny as they rob us blind, I don't think they are a Morecame and Wise, in fact not even Mike and Bernie Winters and we all know how bad they were.

The Aftermath after the Ballot

2010-05-07T14:52:00.000-07:00

The crosses have been counted and not a winner, as I said in my last blog in April, there is the subject of power with a capital P and not one of the parties got it from the electorate. This type of result proves to me that the people will not give the leaders or their parties a mandate to run a country after the money grabbing expenses scandal, and have put them in the position to work it out together and come up with a deal that we like, if we don't we will send you back to do it all again until we are satisfied that we can trust you again.

Scotland
Scotland voted in 59 constituencies and not one seat has a new bum in it, how amazing was that,Scotland voted exactly the same as they did 5 yrs ago with England swinging all over the place between parties by up to 10% . My own opinion is because we already have a Government of our own that is run without a majority and we have a lot of benefits that England does not have. The first legislation that the Scottish Government introduced was to freeze the Community Tax, brought in the smoking ban, that the rest of the UK followed suit, stopping the prescription charges where they are nearly all but free, there has been a few other benefits and yet the SNP never really get a look in when it comes to London elections.
You have to ask how can London be run by the Tory/Lib Dem coalition and in Scotland be predominately Labour and work with a Scottish Government run by a SNP administration, talk about fireworks!

This soap opera has a few episodes to run before there is a satisfactory finish.

Taken for the proverbial ride

2010-04-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

The Government of the day have been released of their duties, the oppositions have been told go home and think again. What does all this media frenzy mean? There must be an election in England to appoint a new set of members of parliament to speak for the people of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, instead of themselves.
The country is still functioning, so that brings us to the question who really runs the country?
A new set of members will be elected:
Do they somehow become wizards at;
Defence, Money, Pensions, Law or do the same civil servants keep their jobs whoever is elected, and just keep on running G.B. plc under a different banner.
The country is billions in debt (175 billion) we are told to scare us, what you will never, ever, be told is what G.B.plc earn in any given year. I can assure you it's trillions, and that's figures that most minds couldn't contemplate, it's just too large.
Will the next set of men and women make any difference? that would be wonderful if that happened, but I'm afraid the ballot boxes will be needed again, probably within the first year as the system needs Power with a capital P and that will not happen this time.

What goes around comes around

2010-04-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

How sad to read in the newspapers that Scottish "comedian" Frankie Boyle has used his stage act in Reading to ridicule and make fun of our fellow human beings, who just happen to be born with Down's syndrome. Where will this low life stop, as he must think it's open season to mock and ridicule people with skin conditions, people in wheelchairs, the deaf, the blind, just to name a few conditions that people find themselves in thru no fault of their own.
Don't forget Mr Boyle, better and funnier people than yourself have seen their career finished by stupidity, you are also at an age where life can give you a new set of cards, take a look the next time you are out and about and see someone who's cards were not as good as yours, in the first deal and say to yourself "There but for the grace of god go I".
If you are brave enough go up to a Down's syndrome person in a shopping precinct or at a sporting venue and laugh in their face, without the safety of being up on a stage surounded by people that find this type of humour funny, and find out what the public at large think. and it certainly won't be that you are a funny man.
What Goes Around Comes Around.

Under starters orders and the omens are off

2010-04-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

I opened my daily paper this morning and whoa, if you excuse the pun, what was that headline that had just grabbed my attention? Hermitage could win The Burns Pet Nutrition handicap (class 4) in the 16.35 at
Ffos Las. I thought hold the reigns that must be an omen, as my wife, Marlene who usually nags me about the time and energy she spends working for Burns or as John Burns likes to say, my staff are having a lot of fun and get paid doing it, anyway Hermitage was now implanted in my brain as the winner, I phoned Marlene to tell her what I had seen in the paper and asked, did she have any inside info about the race?, I’ll call you back was her reply. There was nothing to report came her answer later, but she said, I had a look at the race field and the one thing I do know is that Hermitage struggled to finish last time out, but with the bit between my teeth, I’ll still stick to my omens thank you very much.

Horse racing is a bit like that, people have all sorts of ways of trying to get winners, following trainers, jockeys, owners or even reading the racing paper with all the facts and figures, weights, ages and when it last ran and what about the going is it soft, heavy good ? The most successful punters I keep hearing about over the years are what are termed housewives; Just look at the papers this Saturday (Grand National Day) and there is usually a horse that will be categorized as the housewives choice, and all those housewives will be running to the bookies with their 10 pence and it could cost the bookies millions if the so called housewives choice wins, somehow I don’t think so. There are many other ways to try and pick the elusive winner. People use the old chestnut I just fancied the name or number 8 is my lucky number or the jockey is in my favourite shade of pink and on many occasions I’ve heard, I backed it the last 3 times and it’s improving all the time it is sure to win one of these times. What about the chap in the know who always gets a phone call from someone who works in the stable and will tell you, the stable says the horse is trying, you just wish it was the horse that was speaking, and it’s worth sticking a couple of bob on the nose, but don’t tell too many people as it will alter the starting price!!. Where is that pin I used in the last race?

I remember when I started out in this horse racing betting, with some friends we visited the bookies in Darvel, the bookie in question was Locky Cox (John Cox to give him his name who was also the father of the Famous Glasgow Rangers player Sammy Cox), as we did not have too much knowledge about how to put a line on, they just used scrap paper then. I asked Big Jock White a Dervel worthy; can you double a horse with a dog? Jock was famous for his wit and quick as a flash he replied you can double a horse with a snotter as long as it’s running. A snotter if you don’t live in the west of Scotland is the foreign matter that comes out your nose. I recall another time when it was torrential rain, just about as heavy as it gets and entering the bookies soaked to the skin, saying to Jock who was studying form, that he should have a look outside at the rain, without even looking up from his paper his answer was, I have seen rain coming down for 40 years when it goes back up give me a shout.

It doesn’t get any easier when you go to the race course, on one occasion five of us were in the bar just before the last race, which had 6 runners, when this drunk lifted his head which had been slumped on the bar and slurred E Hide E Hide E Hide (who was a famous jockey then) to make sure we got the message. The five of us chose to ignore this “tip” what we decided was back the other five horses in the race. Now you have got it, E Hide came in with lengths to spare.

So just to sum up it’s a mugs game as they say and just out of interest “Hermitage” well it finished last and was backed favourite along with the winner, a definite change of strategy needed before I make an ass of myself.

Wait a minute is that a horse called housewives choice running in the next race? That must be an omen. Where’s my shirt?

Humpty Dumpty waiting on Santa

2010-04-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

The Easter eggs flew of the shelves at the last minute, so it's goodbye until next January, but I can't help thinking is it not time we saved our future generation from this chocolate madness, in a normal day you would never buy your child £10's worth of chocolate for them to sit and devour it in the one sitting but hey lets give them more, one from their granmother, auntie, brother, sister and anybody in between and suddenly you have a mountain of calories being fed to children that will take weeks to exercise off. We keep saying we are serious about children not becoming obese.
Let us examine a few hard facts,sales of Easter eggs in the UK is worth around 200million pounds a year and rising, this is around 80million eggs and with these type of figures you start to see why the supermarket chains are freeing up more space in their shelves in the run up to this "Religious Festival".
As well as the eggs there is also all kinds of sweets inside them just to add more calories. Then there is the waste of cardboard boxes, and all sort of cheap tins, mugs and toys that will be cast aside within minutes of eager young fingers ripping out the chocolate.
One famous company called Cadbury who has just been sold to a foreign buyer produce the famous "creme egg" and will shift 6millions of these to eager mouths desperate for a sugar fix.
Each egg contains: 175 calories 25.7g sugars 6.1g fat 3.8g saturates 0.05g salt and each egg is only 39g's in weight and don't forget, there is also a few E numbers and flavourings in the mix.
They now conveniently put them in a handy new 12 (twelve) yes, they print it twice in large print on the box, and then a lot smaller in the corner they recommend you to be treatwise and get to know your G D A's. And in case you miss it these figures are per adult, children don't seem to count! You would think they are trying to turn everybody into humpty dumpty and we all know what happened to him.
Roll on July, I can't wait to see all those lovely Christmas selection boxes that will start to fill our shops.

2010-04-05T03:32:00.000-07:00

Easter Monday holiday

I had so many plans for today which all needed to be done outdoors and lo and behold looking out the window and it's the proverbial "raining cats and dogs" and with a gale blowing to boot, how typical is that.? I will have to rethink my plans as a day in the house just does not appeal.

I watched the news on the television earlier today and there was the Prime Minister using Wayne Rooney to get over a point about the economy, It just didn't seem very genuine or sincere, but I suppose with a general election in the air a minor sprained ankle and the country about 170 billion in debt and counting you can just about see the comparison!!

This is the first blog by loudounpatroller so please return in the near future and there will be more interesting topics.