shooting crocodiles

My objection to the demolition of the Welsh streets

2011-04-13T15:22:00.005+01:00

Planning ref 11PM/0603.

Dear Decision-Makers,

One of my most vivid and earliest childhood memories was the car journey back 'home' to Liverpool. As I pressed my nose to the window, street after street of red brick houses flashed past in the rain.

The very next year the same journey took us through a vast eerie landscape of broken bricks, criss-crossed with the faint grey of former streets.

To me it was an astonishing picture of destruction - literally a wasteland. Who had done this to a busy community? And where had all the people gone?

But who were we to complain about other people - slum dwellers - getting decent housing? My extended family lived in pleasant leafy streets around Muirhead Avenue, where three bedrooms, a bathroom and a garden back and front was the standard pattern. My own parents had taken the route south to a detached home in the garden county of Kent.

There was still a sense of loss. The adults made the same wry comment as people in towns and cities all over England: 'The planners have done more damage than the Luftwaffe ever did'.

The 1960s was the age of the white heat of technology, when we were promised jet-packs and cities in the sky. It turned out there were no jet-packs and the cities in the sky were cold and lonely. But once the low rise homes were gone, they were gone. There was no going back. Should the same happen to the Welsh streets?

I don't know how many of the Scottie Road houses could have been repaired. But I am certain that with modern technology the Welsh streets could become comfortable, sustainable, desirable low-rise homes for local people of all ages. One thing my parents' generation learned in the war was not to waste anything. And what could be more wasteful than flattening hundreds of houses that could be repaired and renewed?

No-one would now dream of suggesting a 60s style estate of tower blocks, so why persist with the other half of that toxic equation - the wholesale destruction of viable low-rise housing stock in the face of a nationwide housing shortage?

I was astounded to discover that there is no design proposal to develop the site even this was the whole point of demolishing the homes in the first place. So the best outcome that can be hoped for is a sterile grassed expanse and the worst a kind of no-man's land similar to that which persisted for years in the Scottie Road area, with serious implications for the safety and security of those living nearby.

The structural condition of the five sets of houses to be left standing is unknown so the proposed treatment of the gable ends may not prevent their collapse when the surrounding terrace is destroyed. Exposed interior walls may need emergency underpinning - at great cost. To proceed under these circumstances seems reckless.

Demolition would also unfairly prejudice the future of the neighbouring Kelvin Grove Houses.

With serious efforts underway to find viable alternatives to demolition there seems no reason not to wait for financial and design proposals from those who can offer a sustainable future for these houses. To proceed at this point would have no value other than for those whose bureaucratic and political status is supported by not reversing a contentious decision.

I have two further reasons for supporting the retention of the Welsh streets. Firstly, my researches have shown me that my forebears lived in similar houses, moving frequently around the Bootle, Toxteth and Kirkdale areas. There are thousands if not millions of people with a similar heritage. LCC would do well not to ignore the economic benefit of restoring and retaining streets that attract so many visitors. They may not appear in tourist board statistics but they are there. I too have made the journey from Scotland to see the home my great-grandmother lived in. Our built heritage is not just about cathedrals and stately homes.

Secondly, I have detailed knowledge what is involved in making old houses habitable. The cost for giving a repair contract to a major builder is one thing. If individuals were given the right support - perhaps through a housing co-operative - these homes could be revived at a far lower cost.

I believe the WSHG has made a cast-iron case for delaying the demolition whilst alternatives are explored. I sincerely hope that LCC will align itself with their forward-looking cause and rather than the bulldozers of the past.

Yours faithfully etc

Marketing for girls

2011-03-13T17:07:00.002Z

Somewhere there is a picture of my youngest child, slumped asleep in his buggy with a nappy at bursting point. We were on holiday, he fell asleep and we selfishly continued to consume food and wine until adult bedtime. I used to feel guilty every time I saw that photo. Now I don’t. It was only wee, he didn’t get nappy rash and his parents and older brother enjoyed a bit of non-toddler quality time.

But it was of course against my instincts as a mother (for instincts read ‘social conditioning’).

All over the country, every day of the year, women return from work or something self-indulgent like the weekly shop, to find their male partners watching telly and the kids covered in chocolate, wearing each other’s clothes and with nappies stretching Pampers technology to its limits. (Do they still look like giant rice puddings?)

The partner will suggest that the kids are in fact, perfectly OK. The mother will express her view that chocolate biscuits are only for after tea and now all their teeth will rot.

And that’s why women are so good at marketing. Have a look at this interview in today’s Observer (brought to my attention by @MichaelNewbury). Sofie Gråbøl describes her portrayal of Sarah Lund in The Killing. To make Lund work Gråbøl had to act like a man - to suspend the feminine impulse to run round ‘making sure everyone has enough salad’, or indeed a perfectly hygienic bathroom and a dry nappy.

I’m not suggesting for one moment that women in marketing should put themselves in second place or (pass the sickbag) use their ‘feminine wiles’. Like Gråbøl, I don’t want to generalise about men or women. But the ability to empathise - to see things from other people’s point of view - comes in pretty handy when you’re trying to sell stuff.

How not to sell French enamel house signs

2010-12-08T22:23:00.001Z

Date: 9 September 2010 17:24:14 BDT

Hi Roy,

As requested, this is to confirm we would like to proceed with our order for a custom sign as per the revised artwork. Cost of £55 paid by debit card this afternoon. To be dispatched to: [withheld]

Sent: Monday, November 01, 2010 6:47 PM

Hi Roy

As per my phone call just now we have not received our sign. Please

advise on delivery.

Judy

On 1 Nov 2010, at 19:16, Roy wrote:

France is in a total meltdown at the moment, national strikes, gorilla strikes and when back at work, no work is being done.

I have spent 2 weeks in France at the factory trying and threatening and pleading for my work to be finalised.

Hopefully a delivery will be with me very soon and I can then post every ones order to them.

Regards.

Roy

Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 7:23 PM

Very disappointed to see that nearly a month has gone by with no further communication from you.

If you are not able to deliver the sign for which I paid nearly three months ago, please say so and return my money.

Judy

On 5 Dec 2010, at 13:11, Roy wrote:

?Hello.

The French have been having lots of strikes and also France & the UK is now having the worst winter for 20 years.

My order is stuck in France at the moment but should be with us later this week.

We will then post everyone's order out to them.

All this of course is beyond my control.

Roy

Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2010 2:03 PM

I'm afraid all this sounds like excuses rather than reasons and the

complete absence of any apology or any communication unless chased is

both annoying and worrying. From where I'm standing it seems likely

the factory is refusing to release the goods for non-payment.

I hope that is not the case but if I don't hear something more

concrete within 24 hrs I will start formal procedures for the return

of my money and also report you to your local authority.

Judy

On 5 Dec 2010, at 14:50, Roy wrote:

Hello Judy,

I think it's best if we refund your money.

I realize you will probably find this hard to believe - but I would have liked to have delivered your plaque to you months ago. It is of no benefit to me to have irritable customers. I'd rather not have people sending irate e-mails to me. All I have been able to tell you is what the factory tells me.

We have been told that the plaques have been shipped, but I don't know when they will arrive. I wish I did. You don't need me to tell you, that the weather is bad here and in France - but then, there is no point in explaining anything else to you - you don't want to know.

You do not need to do anything else, e-mail or phone me. You will get your money back.

Roy

Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2010 3:42 PM

Poor Roy. None of it is his fault, it's the factory, it's the French,

it's the weather. It is, rather amusingly, gorillas. And when all

else fails it's the fault of the customer.

You might have fewer 'irritable' (sic) customers if you kept them

informed, and apologised for the inconvenience you have caused them.

And you would have greater credibility if you stopped changing the

story.

Please ensure the money is returned to my account on Monday.

Judy

On 5 Dec 2010, at 16:14, Roy Foulger wrote:

Are you drunk? Or don't you understand English?

Please do not e-mail me again.

On 5 Dec 2010, at 17:00, Judy Olsen wrote:

Customer service isn't your strong point is it Roy?

Free copywriting - but check the conditions

2010-08-13T15:55:00.007+01:00

I've often said I'd rather work for nothing than for cheap, and like everyone else in this business I have on occasion given my services for free to a good cause.

Now though, I'm offering to do this for one person or organisation on Twitter.

What you get is a full half day of my time, which is enough for a campaign letter, a couple of pages of a website, an email or two, a modest flyer, a bit of editing or an ad to go in your local paper. I charge serious professional rates, so this is worth something. Here are the conditions:

1) You're not in it for the money either. You might be a small disability rights group, a campaigning organisation or an animal rescue - that kind of thing.You don't have to be a registered charity but you do have to have a Twitter account.

2) Your budget really is zero. If you have the money to pay a copywriter, please pay a copywriter. We're worth it.

3) The offer is limited to four hours of my time. Please don't ask me to write an entire website or your annual report.

4) Think of me as a consultant and my work as advice. Don't ask for a re-write if I begin a sentence with 'and'.

That's basically it. You can find out more about me at www.judyolsen.co.uk or follow me on Twitter (@judycopywriter) and requests should be sent to topcopy[at]mac[dot]com. These don't need to be detailed or complicated - just say who you are, what it is you'd like me to write, and whether or not you already have a draft.

Update: There may be a problem with emails triggering Apple's spam filters. So if you send me an email request, please also send me a tweet so I know it's on its way.

The deadline for requests is being extended so please feel free to apply.

Turning base metal into...more base metal

2010-08-13T11:00:00.002+01:00

A recent radio discussion on what to do with all those spare coppers (money, not lazy bizzies) attracted some amazing texts. Apparently, Britain, you simply chuck your surplus pennies in the bin. That's right, there are people who throw away money. Isn't this the ultimate in conspicuous consumption? 'Oh we have all this money, but it doesn't quite suit us so we're going to throw it away.'

It's not hard to imagine. The perfect house. The smudge-free glass doors leading to the sterile garden. The bowl of grubby coinage that poor people may have touched. Nope, just not part of the dream.

True, these are not people who go to the pub, to have crisp notes downgraded into a trouser-full of change. But they don't use public transport and the Daily Mail is delivered, so their opportunities to offload metal money are limited.

Presumably they're also too thick to understand that this is still money, just in its second least appealing form*.

But for the rest of us, help comes from an unexpected quarter. Lord Sainsbury and his ilk have provided us with special machines so we can convert handfuls of smash into acceptable drinking tokens. And here's how.

In the interests of cutting the nation's few remaining jobs, major supermarkets have introduced self-service tills in their smaller outlets. These tills take cash. You can also part-pay in cash and then switch to a card. For small amounts of change, this is the preferred method.

But let's say you want to buy something costing £5, and have accumulated £10 in change. If you have the nerve (and I do) you can feed your £5 into the machine in any combination of coins you happen to have. Then press 'Cancel Payment'. Do you get your rubbish money back in an embarrassing heap of coins that spills on to the floor? You do not. You get proper money, including notes. You can then feed another £5 of change into the machine to complete your purchase.

Unfortunately you are also doing the supermarkets a favour, by giving them loads of change, and saving them the cost of buying it from the bank. But I think we can live with that.

* Rupert Murdoch or George Osborne, your choice.

The old man and the tree

2010-04-27T18:52:00.000+01:00

Behind this street there's a smaller street that runs at 90 degrees. So our kitchen looks out over their long back gardens.
In the third garden along there's a rather fine tree. But the man who lives there hates it. The first sign of spring round here is when he gets out his ladder and hacksaw. And today is the day.
Each year he climbs into the tree and prunes it hard. His wife watches from a faded plastic chair. Then he takes the branches into the lane and burns them. Each year the man's hair gets a little more grey and the bonfire in the lane gets a little bigger.
I imagine their conversation.
'It's the wrong time of year, you know. You should prune this tree in the summer.'
'I know what I'm doing.'
'You're pruning too hard. You're making it grow bigger. Look at all the shoots from last time.'
'I know what I'm doing.'
He's looking thin and bent. This may be the last year he climbs the tree.

Everyone forgets...why they were sh*t-scared

2010-03-09T13:15:00.006Z

With one of the kids doing a school project on JFK, we asked my partner's dad for his 'where were you when' memory.

It turns out he was on duty as an air traffic controller, in the tower at Prestwick Airport. Someone heard a BBC news bulletin on the radio in the airport lounge, and John used the emergency phone to call the USAF on the other side of the airfield and see if they knew anything. (They didn't).

With the Cuban missile crisis fresh in their minds, they all thought that the Russians had shot Kennedy, and that nuclear war was imminent. John's wife Shirley - alone in the house with four very young children - was terrified.

So for some people at least, the power of that iconic moment was less about the Zapruder film, and more about thinking you're about to die.

Cleaning out the cage

2010-01-24T11:08:00.001Z

Like a selfish child with a new pet, I lavished attention on this blog when I first started. Then my attention was distracted - hey, it happens - and well, I just lost interest.
Fortunately, unlike hamsters and guinea pigs, blogs don't die from neglect. So time to clean out the cage, buy a few fresh carrots, and start scratching its tummy again.

Up to his elbows in it

2008-05-07T13:19:00.000+01:00

Rising food prices, rocketing energy bills, endless tax hikes, static incomes - there must be an easier way?
Well of course there is, and Drew Rozell's the guy to show you how.
Just buy the book, sit back, and squadrons of smiling piggies will bring you piles of money. That's squadrons of flying piggies, can you see them? Aw cute!
Drew would like you to know that he's 'smart enough to earn a Ph.D. in psychology from Syracuse University', but was struggling financially until he became conscious of money and invented a complex money management system involving 'multiple online bank accounts and the power of the internet'. How original is that!! A hideously complex web of virtual money without all the trouble of becoming a drug dealer. Everyone at Croc Towers is impressed.
And there's more. Just $29.95 brings you more than the book - there's a whole package of extras including "A Happy Pocket Full of Money" by David Cameron. Few people have happier pockets than David Cameron, leader of the Tory party- and he explains how to attract money using quantum physics, so it just has to be the same guy. I'm reaching for my credit card, which of course I don't need - but just this once Drew, is that OK?
Hey ho. In case you've missed all those subliminal messages (surely he's doing it on purpose?) the piles of money belong to Drew.
A man who signs his name with a little face.

Credit Crunch

2008-05-07T09:54:00.000+01:00

"Credit crunch claims first Scots jobs", says this morning's Scotsman. "Last night there were fears that the moves were the start of a series of cuts that could lead to as many as 5,000 financial services jobs being lost in Scotland."
So what's actually happened? Well, HBOS is cutting 92 jobs from three corporate banking teams. Some of the personnel will be redeployed, and of the rest, half are based in London. We're told that HBOS has 1,000 people beavering away in its corporate division, so 92 is fewer than 10%. Meanwhile Aberdeen Asset Managers is cutting costs by £15 million, claiming the cuts will mostly come from natural wastage and are a "natural part of the cycle".
Apart from all that 'natural' stuff, which makes the Croc feel a bit queasy - this is finance not yoghurt after all- that's not an unreasonable explanation. Especially when it only takes a couple more clicks on the virtual Scotsman to discover that £15m is about a third of AAM's pre-tax profits for the last six months and they've just bought Goodman Property Investors for £130m.
Which brings us neatly back to the HBOS jobs, some of which happen to be in acquisition finance. Global finance is a complex subject to say the least, but it is hard to see how a crisis in inter-bank lending and general liquidity can be blamed quite so directly for specific and limited job losses in another part of the forest. AAM paid cash for Goodman, which it got by issuing shares. And there are plenty of other ways companies buy other companies, few of which involve the use of a credit card. Yes, the economy is teetering on the brink of economic downturn: but recession means two successive quarters of negative growth and we're nowhere near that yet. Yes, house prices are slipping, but everyone and his dog knew they were stupid and unsustainable (apart from people with stupid and unsustainable BTL portfolios, whose dogs think online poker is a good career option). Sure, it's harder to pick up a cheap mortgage, but does that mean the whole of corporate Britain is going to curl up in the fetal position with its fingers in its ears, singing na, na, na? Apparently not.
"Last night there were fears" is one of those lazy journalistic devices that neatly sidestep the issue of who said what. Quite often the person experiencing the specific terror is a man in a pub, a journalist's mum, or, in the last resort, a drunk at a bus stop. All of whom have good reason to worry. But in this case, the Cassandra is named as Douglas Adams, 'an economist at the Ernst & Young Scottish Item Club'.
Now I'm not saying that the credit crunch will have zero impact on Scottish jobs in general and the financial services sector in particular. And I'm not one to trivialise the impact of anyone losing a job. But normally such trimming of staff would hardly raise a ripple, and to flag it up as the first trumpets of impending doom is surely a bit of a stretch.
But this Adams bloke made the link himself didn't he? Well no. Dougie (as he apparently prefers to be known) does seem to have said that 5,000 financial sector jobs might go, but the Croc can't find the actual report on the Item site and is too lazy to phone their press office. He also seems to have tempered his comments with a lot of on-the-one-hand-and-on-the-other type stuff. And the Item forecast for Scotland in 2008 considers evidence that that the downturn in financial services actually predated the credit crunch.
Who then made the terrifying connection between slightly shorter queues at Starbucks and sectoral meltdown?
My money's on the drunk at the bus stop. I've heard he used to be a journalist.

Playing sardines

2008-04-17T18:59:00.000+01:00

There's nothing women like more in a man than warmth, intelligence and humour. So when wannabe novelist Tony Parsons told the Portuguese Ambassador to keep his 'sardine-munching mouth shut' his walk back from the pub must have looked like the chase scenes from A Hard Day's Night.
But despite his obvious charms, no fewer than 485 people grassed Parsons up to the Press Complaints Commission.
I think we can be fairly certain that Kate McCann wasn't one of them. Yet how blooming she looked on her recent tour of the Low Countries, and how tasty the talented Mr Parsons looks in photographic reproduction (in his case the only sort the Croc can bear to think about). Has Tony discovered the health benefits of little oily fish? Is the true reason Kate refuses to return to Portugal a deficit in the barbeque arrangements?
Is this new wonder diet their guilty secret?

cheap at half the rice

2008-04-17T16:32:00.000+01:00

Rice is in the news this week. Mindful of its mission to educate and inform, the BBC held a Rice Day to tell us how poor people are coping with huge jumps in the price of their staple foodstuff.
There are even helpful FAQs to explain why "prices are increasing sharply for some of the most basic foodstuffs traded on international commodity markets". Who or what is to blame? Everything from historically low prices to global warming and ethanol production. Oh and the greedy Chinese, who are not only persecuting the Tibetans, but have the effrontery to sell us container loads of plastic toys and buy cheeseburgers with the proceeds. But surely that means they're eating less rice, not more? Why are there riots in Haiti and not outside MacDonalds in Milton Keynes? Well the Chinese dinners thing is a red herring. The real problem is that they're keeping domestic rice prices down by cutting their exports. Other Asian countries are doing the same.
And there, surely, is the real story.
It's there in those three words - international commodity markets. Demand for rice is outstripping supply. Some farmers are hoarding it. Shoppers are buying a bit extra to keep in the back of the cupboard. Market forces dictate that prices will rise. But the market which really matters isn't in anyone's village or High Street, it's the global market, where commodity prices are determined not only by how much is produced and consumed, but by tariffs, protectionism - and speculation.
Speculation, as Money Week unblushingly reminds us, can make you lots and lots of money. But if profiteering while the poor starve makes you feel a bit sick, don't worry. They'll also tell you 'how to make a fortune from the Chinese water crisis'.
I hope I haven't put you off your dinner.

I learned something today

2008-04-15T23:42:00.001+01:00

Oh all right then. Here is a 'fun' croc shooting game, for people who like 'fun' croc shooting games.
By the way the croc-murderer in the basket isn't a donkey, it's a water buffalo, as if you care.
I googled 'carabao' but I could have saved a couple of calories by saying it out loud instead.
Did you know that crocodiles kill their prey by getting in a line and pushing rocks over a cliff? Neither did I. But then until a couple of years ago I didn't know that it was OK to drive tanks into other people's countries, bomb the sh*t out of them, and fill the papers with a load of scary crap to justify it all. Stap me, I had this crazy idea that millions of people fought a world war over that one, within living memory too.
Now of course I know better. We have so much to be grateful for.

easily distracted

2008-04-15T11:21:00.001+01:00

Blogger asked me to give a location. 'United States Outlying Islands' caught my eye, but 'Vatican' truly was tempting. Who blogs from the Vatican? Correct. Allegedly.
This was of course a distraction - and distractions seems to me a good thing to have on a blog, especially since the blog is a distraction in the first place.
So the first of my favourite distractions is...Pope Pez.

reptile of the week

2008-04-15T10:49:00.000+01:00

the blog is not about shooting actual crocodiles. it takes its title from management-speak: in order to get through your problems you need to shoot the crocodile nearest the boat.
that's not true of course. sometimes you need to shoot the crocodiles in the queue, because you know you won't get time to reload.