The Brush Off

This managing director lark is brilliant.

When I was a mere sales manager or sales director, I would get all kinds of brush-offs from secretaries, factotums and assistant footstool bearers. Now I get straight through to the boss with no trouble whatsoever.

I think every salesman should be given the honorific title of managing director.

The 50% Tax Row

The row about the 50% tax band is heating up. Personally I think increasing the percentage as salary increases is unfair and inflationary - the higher paid (invariably entrepreneurs) will simply pay themselves more to cover the extra tax, leaving less for their staff or investment.

Ed Balls is quoted as saying; ”People who earn £150,000 should be paying a bit more tax."

Isn’t that the whole point of percentages in the first place? 40% of £150,000 is a damned sight more than 40% of £50,000. People on £150,000 already do pay more tax.

The Quiet Man on 9/11

Is it me, or has whatsisname....... Something Milliband ..... Ed, I think, disappeared?

And why is everyone talking about 9/11? It's months away from November.

Bank Speak

The Royal Bank of Scotland says it will vigorously defend itself against US government claims the bank misrepresented the quality of mortgages it sold.

Seems to me that the words; "We will vigorously defend," have come to mean; "We don't really have a leg to stand on."

Just the other day, NatWest charged me $4.50 for buying zero commission foreign currency at the Heathrow Travelex, quoting the charge on my bank statement as a 'cash advance'. No mention was made of this charge when buying the currency and the transaction slip did not show it.

How something I bought using a debit card, the cost of which came direct from my bank account, could be considered a cash advance is beyond me. Naturally they blame Visa - but Nationwide absorb the charge - which in any case is irrational.

I rang the bank to complain and threatened to move my considerable stash (the savings for the house build) to another bank. The drone on the phone didn't give a toss and told me to read the small print on my debit card.

Talking of rebuilding and investment, a pub in Cumbria has been brought back from the brink of closure by the village buying it for £300k. Seems a bit daft to me - the place was described as central to village life, but it was obviously in financial difficulty through the villagers not frequenting it in the first place.

Surely a better strategy, and one that did not involve the villagers mortgaging themselves to the eyeballs, would simply have been to frequent it, which would have brought it back from the dead and saved them a stash. I am confident that, now the flurry of activity is over, they will all go back to not patronising their purchase, and that was inevitable will once more become inevitable. Expect the Butcher's Arms in Crosby to close within a year.

Delusional, If You Ask Me.

Col Gaddafi is apparently 'ready for long war' and has the support of the people of Libya.

He's not exactly doing much for the popular view of megalomaniacal dictators. They're renowned for having a somewhat tenuous grip on reality at the best of times, but claiming popular support when it's popular support that's just ousted you is on par with claiming you've just visited Alpha Cantauri or that UK students have improved their academic ability for 26 continuous years and our 15 year-olds are the cleverest in the world.

Click to enlarge

Flying back to the UK today - glad it's not tomorrow, as the hotel breakfast is abominable on a Saturday. This is due to the prohibition by strict Jews on the use of electricity on Shabbat, hence no fresh coffee or freshly cooked foods in the hotel.

Given only about 30% of Israelis are observant Jews, it's a bit much.

Google Advice on Lentils

Yesterday Google told me I was in another country and asked if I wanted to change my location. Naturally I said yes, and since then I've been plagued with Google searches producing results in Hebrew and the screen being oriented left to right. That's the last time I accept any advice from Google.

I was reminded yesterday why I have never eaten puy lentils since the first time I tried them. They were on offer in the works canteen, which has a wonderful salad bar, and I was overcome with an irrational urge to try them again. It's like eating cardboard - I can't see their point.

I was told yesterday that they're confirming me as MD of the European sales region today. My six months probation was reduced to 4 months, so I must be doing something right.

Next time I travel I'm going to spend more time selecting clothes for the trip - I spent yesterday in agony from having to wear trousers that were a size too small around the waist and I had neglected to take to the charity shop.

I Hate Flying

Well, I certainly hate flying at night.

I boarded the plane at 22.00, immediately donned my 'nil by mouth' sign (blanket over my head) and was fast asleep before the plane took off.

Having worked a full day, I was in no mood for anything except sleeping all the way to Tel Aviv, and would have done so had my kind neighbour not woken me above Sarajevo in the mistaken belief I was desperate to partake of a mid flight cheese roll. Needless to say I was not, nor was I able to get back to sleep.

I don't know about you, but flying gassed me up something awful, and it wasn't long before my neighbour had cause to regret waking me.

Landed at 5am, waste d half an hour due to my bloody driver not showing up, and am in a taxi on the way to the hotel and should be in time for a quick 7am breakfast before a car collects me at 8 to take me to the office for a round of meetings that are scheduled to continue till 19.30, followed by dinner with our guests. I shall sleep well tonight.

Thank God my return flight is during the day.

It's quite amusing, but whenever an inbound plane lands at Tel Aviv, the majority of the Israelis onboard applaud on touchdown.

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Group Pregancy

Someone told me that Beyonce is pregnant - and it's Destiny's Child.

Off so Israel again till Friday, so a small hiatus in posting is imminent.

Glasto Paper Delivieries Cutbacks

We had the annual Folly House gig yesterday afternoon. The day started off quite promising for a 3pm kick-off, and at 2pm the heavens opened with torrential rain. By 4pm it had stopped, but there were further occasional downpours. Needless to say, the garden turned into a Glasto-quagmire.

You can see the house-build in the background of this shot above. We're going to be resuming work in a couple of weeks when our artisan window maker will be measuring up.

As some of you may know, Hay and I have a local paper round up in the village. We've noticed that whereas the pensioners have kept to their normal papers during the economic crisis, the more affluent villagers have cut back to just weekend papers, or none at all.

Para-Digital-Techno-Olympics

Apropos of all this hot air about Oscar Pistorius' blades; ain't it about time we had separate categories for drug-assisted, technology-assisted or whatever-assisted olympics?

Whatever anyone says about whether Pistorius' blades provide an advantage, basically no-one really knows.

What we should be striving toward is people competing on the basis of like-for-like.