Category Archives: life

musings on life, the universe etc. etc.

So where are all the EU women?

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Five inter-related thoughts on the theme of where are all the women:

1) I’ve been following an interesting debate over on Twitter.  Life’s a bit complicated technologically at the moment so my joining in Tweets haven’t all got there, but the gist of the discussion is this: why, when there is an EU-related panel discussion, is it so hard to find a panel with gender balance?  Or more than just one woman?  Where are all the women? (@europasionaria, @EuropeanAgenda @maitea6 @euonymblog)

2) Meanwhile, the European Women’s Lobby has drawn attention to the issue of where all the women are in the European External Action Service (just 36% at present – the petition calling for more can be found here)?  Just over one third?  Seriously, where are all the women?

3) At the same time (and there is a link here too, I promise), my care arrangements have suddenly got more complicated: it now offers half an hour less time in the evenings with no good reason offered for the change, meaning a much bigger risk of being late…
Then, for reasons best known to themselves, the public transport system in London has decided that I should have to have a minimum extra half hour journey a day…
And Eurostar has changed the timing of the Brussels train meaning it is now impossible to catch our care at the end of a day at meetings in Belgium…
Argh!  Logistics nightmare!  But I know I’m not alone in this.
Thousands of families have complications. Many sort it out quietly, anecdotally often by having another baby or someone downgrading or giving up work.  Does it have to be like this?

4) Are the EU women working part-time and thus unavailable, or not highly enough ranked to take part in the more public roles?
Short answer is no – not all women are mothers, not all women work part-time. But a big group do.
A quick look at the UK: is it possible to be both successful in your career and work part-time? In the UK public sector, broadly yes.
What about the private and voluntary sectors? Well, the right to request flexible working is out there, for parents and carers at present and with a good take up rate.  It’s less clear how many do not request for fear of career implications or pessimism about being turned down.
Also there is a prevailing view that somehow part-time and full-time labour markets are and should be separate.  Well, this makes no sense given the quality of individuals looking to work part-time whose skills and experience should not be confined to lower level roles (particularly now that the retirement age is gone and older workers might want to reduce their hours without actually leaving work altogether). It also makes no sense given the news that the huge majority of jobs created recently have been part-time (let’s just hope it doesn’t also mean that they’ve been low-paid ones).
Recently there’s been quite a lot of resentment in newspaper letters pages towards demanding parents who have made a “lifestyle choice” to have kids and should not expect any special treatment as a result.
Let’s leave aside for now the “who pays your pension” argument, though it should be made.
More immediately, is there actually anything wrong with parents wanting both to play a major role in bringing up their own children and also using the skills and talents that they’ve spent their lives building up for the profit of all?
And there also seems to be fear about employing women as it is just “more difficult” than employing men (a view openly expressed by working mother Katy Hopkins on BBC Question Time).
So can it be done?  Well obviously yes.
Are there any non-superwoman role models?
The Evening Standard ran a brilliant piece (not available online) on a London mother working a very senior design job at a well-known designer store part-time three days a week – but noted that her father had given her the role with some resistance from other decision-takers. Dammit, why does it take a father to demonstrate that it can work?

What about the EU institutions and related organisations?  Given that the institutions staff are not covered directly by EU legislation on part-time working etc., how exemplary are the institutions as flexible employers?
And what about the lobbying industry?
Or the voluntary sector in Brussels?
Do they expect the Belgian childcare system to step in so parents can work full-time? Is there any scope to work part-time?
And, given the likelihood that family are not close by, what happens when meetings run on past the 6pm childcare cut-off point? Or the essential networking sessions are all held in the evenings?

5)  Final thought: the gender pay gap (notional average wage difference figure) and indeed everything affecting where the women are job-wise, are complex and interconnected.
Not least because it all matters for men too.
Measures taken now might not have immediate effect, but it does not mean no action is necessary.  Governments across the EU, and the institutions themselves, are realising this and trying to do something about it.
Gender balanced panels would be one small step, but a visible one.

Britain outside the EU? Why not just head Down Under?

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Wai-o-Tapu thermal wonderland, near Rotarua, NZ (lake of arsenic and sulphur!)

Over the last few weeks, despite 48 hours on aeroplanes, my husband and I have relaxed, unwound, found that we’ve been able to smile without complaints from facial muscles unfamiliar with the position.

Of course we’ve been back just more than 48 hours now, and I can already see the stress rising for my husband.  I have another 24 hours reprieve before its my turn, and I’m trying to make the most of the time available to me today.

The chance to take 3 weeks off is rare, especially in these straitened economic times when proving your value and how indispensible you personally are to your organisation’s success is equated with hours visibly in the office.  Being able to do so over Christmas, when everyone wants some time away, is doubly difficult.  So we had to book this time some months ago.

We’ve only really had access to Sky News and the occasional bit of BBC World, and I confiscated my husband’s work PDA, so we’ve been blissfully unaware of the news.  On return, I’ve just seen the Daily Express’s 24 page spectacular on how Britain should leave the EU, aimed, I assume to coincide with the EU Bill vote in the House of Commons today.
Take head, find brick wall, apply.

Well, I’ve spent my holiday in another part of the Commonwealth.  Does it show what Britain outside the EU would be like?
(Probably not, but it gives me the chance for a different take on a holiday blog post…)

New Zealand is very much like the UK with sunshine.  There are of course some differences, based on our observations:

1) the attitude to children is refreshing – they play outside, everyone talks to them and pats them on the head, they’re not regarded first and foremost as criminals waiting to happen.
The starting position is not that all adults around children are potential paedophiles.
It is simply not thought necessary to keep kids indoors for their own safety.
When needed, parents take responsibility for their children’s actions and support teachers and neighbours in expecting good behaviour and disciplining them.  This is simply not the case here – while there might still be children who, if they do something bad at school are a bit scared to tell their parents for fear of their disappointment in them, teacher friends tell me that more often than not these days parents are used by the child as a threat against the teacher…
But it’s not being in or out of the EU that affects this issue.

2) the attitude to nationhood is very different.
Everything is Kiwi this and NZ that.  Kiwiana, the celebration of all things New Zealand, is very popular not just for tourists but for New Zealanders on T-shirts, homeware etc.
The butt of NZ jokes is not England but Australia – in fact the Kiwis cheer on England in the Ashes.  This cricketing support for the sucess of what was originally the colonial country is not felt to be problematic for their own identity nor their fierce pride in national sporting success in other games.
NZ is not portrayed as innately superior or inferior to others, but as a young country and good place to be.  What it is not to be burdened with a successful past…
Children learn the national anthem (“God Defend New Zealand“) in English and in Maori at school, and sing it weekly.
Contrast this with nationhood in the UK.  We have more people, more complexity (local, regional, devolved, national, European and international political identities) but we seem somehow to expect citizens that are born here as opposed to naturalised, to somehow just know and understand it.  It’s not as if much clarity is provided by the press.  As the British system has evolved over millenia it is not simple, streamlined and created with a clear goal in mind – and yet we don’t explain our consitutional set up to ourselves.  This is clearly crazy.

3) the attitude to politics is…
impossible to compare.  Two weeks there, and what we noticed is:
i) politicians put great big photos of themselves onto the exterior walls of their constituency offices so everyone knows who they are and where to find them  -no one complains about this lowering property prices as far as we know!;
ii) the only policy that anyone can remember from the newly-elected mayor of Manukau is that he has made all the public swimming pools free for residents, the only part of Auckland Super-City to have this!;
iii) most ordinary people we met seem to think that the Wikileaked American assessment of the NZ foreign policy as reported in NZ press (that those in power were broadly supportive of the US while being vocally anti-American in the national press) was actually rather a sensible way of handling it.

4) the attitude to ethnicity and immigration is…
complicated.  My relatives have only once had “you don’t even come from here!” shouted at them – but they have residency and I understand in NZ this gives full voting rights.
But the truth is no one really comes from New Zealand.
Maoris have certainly been there longest (they came from Polynesia) and, unlike Australia, the colonisation of New Zealand was relatively peaceful and Maori language and culture is taught in schools.
For everyone else, while there may be some original POMs without choice, most chose to emigrate and the only question for those seeking to look down on more recent arrivals should be “wasn’t my parent/grandparent/ great grandparent just doing exactly the same thing?”
As for racism etc. I don’t know.  We were lucky enough not to witness anything first hand.

5) the attitude to faith is different.
While no more than about 20% of people attend a Christian church service regularly in the UK, it is thought to be closer to half of the NZ population.  And that’s before you look at other faiths.
We occasionally tie ourselves in knots in the UK about our Scots-crushing national anthem (looking worldwide, aren’t they MEANT to be embarrassing?), or what a song for the millenium should look like (even a decade or so on, I’m not sure that the sentiments of “Imagine” actually are any better than the winner “All you need is Love”), can you imagine the furore if we did actually try to change it?  Traditionalists -v- modernists would be nothing compared to having a mention of God -v- not mentioning God – nightmare.

6) So could the UK be more like NZ outside the EU?
And would anyone want it to be?
Leaving aside the completely different economic strengths and weaknesses which actually power this argument…

In any case I’m not exactly sure what the country the Daily Express wants the UK to be would look like.

The things I thought were positive about life in New Zealand came either from its geographical location (good weather, lovely countryside, spectacular landscapes, lots of beaches, proximity to Asian markets for goods), or from marginal policy differences (how the education system is run giving more freedom to teachers to teach, and an insurance based health system that’s more affordable).

We can do nothing about the UK in the sense of the first of these (unless we employed magical giants to tow us elsewhere on the globe?) and very little that the EU stops us from doing that we would want to do in the second sense (neither how schools systems nor health systems are run is covered by the EU).
In terms of our wider institutional set up, yes the EU does affect the UK and sometimes things are not set up exactly how we would’ve designed them from scratch in a UK-only situation.  But we rarely vote against, not because the UK is a poor or weak negotiator but because it is a strong one that achieves its main objectives and recognises the value of being inside pissing out, so to speak.  This is clearly no longer considered enough for the Daily Express – but it is hardly the tyranny portrayed.
But how free is NZ to do its own thing?  NZ is part of the Commonwealth and the UN and the WTO, is bound by international courts, the law of the sea, has a free trade agreement with ASEAN and many other countries, ANZIL and PILON… in fact it is not an island and a law unto itself but a fully-interconnected part of the world.

Anything else about NZ that is conforting for the UK citizen looking for the famliar abroad?

They drive on the left.  In the UK there’s a constant euromyth that the EU might FORCE us to change that (not that the EU can do that anyway, I hasten to add…).
They still teach French, though as a third language in schools after Maori and English (but with an increasing emphasis on Japanese and mandarin Chinese).
European goods are still available – albeit at a hefty mark-up.

Being on the other side of the world (and having travelled via the USA), I noticed how European we are as a family.
Although having lived abroad ourselves we could probably easily slot into an expat community just about anywhere, we are just more comfortable living in Europe.  I love its sheer diversity, and if you want to read more of my reasons for loving the place, you can do so here.

I don’t want to conclude this other than in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, so here goes:

Are you disillusioned with Britain in the EU, which is after all your country and your constitutional situation to be proud of but you may have decided you don’t like (NB I can’t see how that point of view should automatically be thought to make you MORE patriotic than someone that does like the UK consitutional set-up?)?
Well, if you are under 45, in a wanted profession such as teaching or policing, attracted by the picture of a country painted here which is different but not too different, why not consider a move to the other side of the world?
It’s got spectacular scenery, it’s part of the Commonwealth, and it’s a generally lovely place to be.
It’s not right for me, but then I’m a European at heart.
But are you?

Flu – should you buy yourself a vaccine?

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(image of flu virus from http://www.proteinx3d.com/mi/index.jsp?page=InfluenzaA)

There’s a most peculiar story on the news this morning.  It seems the head of the UK College of GPs has said that it should be made illegal for people not in the most at risk group to buy flu vaccines at pharmacies as GPs are reporting that they’ve run out of vaccine stocks.

I had to hear this story in two bulletins and then an interview with the spokesperson to try to understand what on earth is going on.

According to an interview on the radio this morning, it looks like the NHS normally plans on a 75-80% take up rate by vulnerable groups of the annual flu vaccine but this year’s strain of flu and swine flu is particularly nasty, deaths have ben reported (50 so far, with 45 from swine flu)  and all this is coming later in the season that in previous years.
That seems to mean that more than the expected percentage of at risk groups have attempted to get the vaccine – and there’s none left.
The 2009 swine flu vaccine has been released to try to ease the situation – see?  There was a good reason to order so much back then after all….

It now seems that vocabulary such as “banning” and “making illegal” may have been a bit ill-considered  – the line has certainly softened (or perhaps press and comms people have now got involved in the press lines?)
I’ve complained about the Kafkaesque and indeed Stalinist approach to people that I’ve personally encountered in the NHS over the years and use of this sort of language today does nothing to make me feel that the NHS has worked out what its role is British society.

I should be clear that I don’t know how the agreement between the drug companies that develop the vaccines and the NHS work in practice.  I presume the NHS is just a major purchaser of vaccines that are the property of the companies rather than the client for whom the vaccine is produced and that, given that flu is seasonal and a different formula is needed each time that not too much is made at a time.

But surely if the problem is higher take-up by vulnerable groups than expected there should be some sort of procurement mechanism negotiable that would enable the NHS to buy-back the vaccines that have been bought by the private sector pharmacies for wider retail?
According to the Department for Health this is in fact already happening between GPs and pharmacies at community level – all very much in line with the decentralised, localisation of the NHS that the current government champions.
If that works, great. But is it that it is harder to interface with a devolved decentralised system than with a monolith that might explain some of the obvious concern and frustration behind the Royal College’s comments?

But why did the Royal College of GPs try to put the blame on people that have in good faith been to their local pharmacy to buy a vaccination?
This is perfectly legal, and in fact some businesses encourage their staff to do so in order that the country does not grind to a halt over the winter.  It saves on sick pay, keeps the country afloat in these tough economic times etc. And stops anyone taking a week off with “flu”.
It’s also worth noting that the most vulnerable groups for swine flu in 2009 were not the elderly (12 percent of deaths were those aged 60 plus) – more than half of deaths were from the 20-49 age groups with pregnant women and obese people most at risk. So while pregnant women should definitely be prioritised, what about fat people?  Or is that not acceptable?
You’ll have to decide for yourself if you think buying a vaccine is necessary for you – I did, in December, as I have done since the mid noughties – working and looking after a toddler when you feel at death’s door is not a pleasant prospect.

May be its easier to get press coverage for “greedy healthy individuals taking the vaccine that vulnerable groups need” rather than “NHS messes up procurement” stories. Or am I just cynical on my return from holiday?

Leftovers for lunch- twisty turkey lattice

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So, leftover turkey.

It’s a pain, isn’t it?  Cold and sliced for a couple of days, hot and stirfried or chopped up into pesto for pasta.  Curried, too, if you can stand the thought.  It get’s hugely tedious. I know the real answer is buy a smaller bird, but no one ever does, do they?

Anyway, thought we were going to be snowed in today, so this is the leftovers recipe I’ve just made.  And rather yummy it was too. As it was made with leftovers, the measurements are somewhat approximate.

Twisty Turkey Pie

Left over turkey, shredded
3 slices left over bacon, chopped
third of a box of passata
third of a tube of concentrated tomato puree
3 chopped carrots
3 lumps of frozen spinach
1 glass white wine
5 chesnut mushrooms, sliced
1 pack frozen puff pastry, defrosted
olive oil
salt, dried thyme, lemon juice

Firstly shred as much turkey as you can stand.  My food processor’s still in the box from moving house, so I actually grated mine.  Very odd feeling, doing that, but worked brilliantly. Turkey is very low fat, so add a slug of olive oil and start frying, gently.
Add the bacon, and the tomato puree.  Boil a kettle and cover the three spinach lumps in a measuring jug to defrost.
Add the wine and passata to the turkey and stir, remember you’re still sort of frying it. Then add the spinach and water.
Chop carrots and slice mushrooms, add to the mix. Season with the salt, thyme and lemon juice.

You’ll end up with a kind of pale orange mixture, studded with veg and flecks of spinach.

Butter a pie dish, or if like me you’ve not actually unpacked those yet, a springform cake tin.  Roll out the puff pastry on a floured board, and put it into the tin, lining all sides with the pastry.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a bit patchworky, as long as it’s sealed.  Load in the filling.
You will probably not have enough pastry to make a full pie top from the leftover pastry.  Cut the remaining pastry into long strips.
Twist these and attach them across the top of the pie, like a lattice.
Butter or milk around the edges to glue them to the edges of the pie pastry, and across the lattices to make them nice and shiny in the oven.

Bake for 30 minutes at 190c, then check every 10 after that to see if it’s done yet.  Mine took 50 minutes, but it will depend on the quantity of filling.

Best use for leftover turkey I’ve found yet…

(NB that’s not my pie – can’t get my photo to upload – so that one’s from http://tobykitchen.wordpress.com/page/2/ and may actually be filled with rhubarb… but it does nicely illustrate the twisty lattices)

Feeling autumnal, feeding autumnal

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(not my pork, but a very similar looking one from Asda magazine!)

I promised to share a recipe that we made up the other week and which turned out to be totally delicious and perfect for autumn.

Pork and Cider Casserole

4 pork neck steaks
1 330ml bottle decent cider
pork/ chicken/ vegetable stock cube
1  bag chantenay carrots, topped and tailed
8 portabellini mushrooms, sliced
2 eating apples, cubed or in neat slices
flour
4 sprigs rosemary
salt, pepper, dried thyme
olive oil

(one chopped onion and two crushed garlic cloves)
(crème fraiche)

We started off by coating the steaks in flour, and browning them in the olive oil.  Put them into a big lidded pan for the oven (we used a Le Creuset).
Once that’s done, really you should cook the onion and garlic in the same pan until the onions are golden after which they should go in the same oven pan as the pork.
But we forgot to add them all together and the casserole was still delicious.

Next, we added half the carrots, all the mushroom and apple to the pan, frying these a bit to release the flavours,  then tipped those into the same pan.  Seasoning with the salt, pepper and thyme, we topped up the pan with cider so that pork and bits were completely covered, adding the rosemary sprigs to the top.
We dissolved a stock cube in a little bit of boiling water and stirred in the resulting goop.
This all went into the oven at 180c for an hour and a half.  You could take the lid off for the last half hour to reduce the sauce into something nice and sticky.
You could stir in crème fraiche at the last minute if you like.

We served ours with jacket potatoes, and more carrots (the other half bag) – yum.  Just the thing now the nights are drawing in…

2 minutes with the Archbishop of Canterbury… and a helium balloon

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“Archbishop of Canterbury is thoroughly nice bloke” – that’s the headline my husband suggested. But mine says what it is I want to tell you about…

Today was Back to Church Sunday.  Our church celebrated this not only by having Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, there for the services in both of the parish churches (a formal service and a more freewheeling one), but also by all having lunch together.
I had something specific I wanted to ask the Archbishop, which I’ll tell you about in a minute.

The Archbishop did both a talk with the children, and a sermon today. The children all had a sheep to hold, and the Archbishop explained that the staff he had with him was a real old Kentish shepherd’s crook.  Given what happened later, I think this made a bit of an impression on the kids.  He answered questions about going to church when he was young, and what life had been like growing up (tin baths in front of the fire, apparently).
The really nice bit was that, as the children had all gathered on a mat at the front, he went and sat on the floor with them.  I noticed that, similarly, when doing communion, he bent down to each child’s level to do their blessings.  It was a great reminder that being head of the Anglican church nevertheless puts you on a level equivalent to a child in the eyes of God.

The sermon we heard (and apparently there was a different one at each service) was on the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16, 19-31).  This is a great subject for any newcomers service (the other good one is Acts 8, Philip and the Ethiopian with it’s message “how can I know what its all about if no one explains it to me”?)  The story of the little girl who told her mum that the Optician of Wales had been to her school triggered a great sermon on helping people to see, to see time at church as honest time in which we confess our sins but also celebrate how God sees us, with unconditional love.

When the service ended, we all helped put up tables and move the chairs to make a dining hall.  A posse of helpers had baked potatoes, made bolognese, grated cheese and provided great vats of baked beans and coleslaw.  We had all also brought desserts to share.
The Archbishop did not spend his time just talking to our minister.  Instead, he made his way around the room, firstly meeting all the people who’d stayed for coffee but not staying for food, then round to each table, joining us and chatting with us.  This was done gently, without entourage (he brounght a “minder” with him, basically like a Minister bringing a private secretary – or a Camerlengo to the pope?), and without formality.  He moved around seemingly at random, but clearly trying to see everyone.
When he came to our table, we were all ready to talk to him, but right at that moment, our vicar and a woman in a pink jacket came over – the Archbishop’s visit had been filmed, not just to go on the church website (as I’d assumed) but for Back to Church Sunday, to be shown in other churches. As recent arrivals, would we mind talking about it?  Of course we were happy to do so, but part of me was thinking, well that’s our chance to talk to him gone.   And when we’d filmed our segment, the Archbishop was asked to go and film a segment.

Someone at the church had provided some large silver helium balloons for the service spelling out WELCOME.  After the meal, some of the children were playing with them, and somehow the L had become separated from its weight and had floated up to the high village hall ceiling.  The children tried to use the O balloon to lasso the string of the L but even though the O could reach it, there was not enough tension in the string to bring the balloon down.  The the vicar’s daughter had a bright idea – the Archbishop’s shepherd’s crook!
Although they tried and tried, standing on a chair, the kids couldn’t get the hook to twist around the string and rescue the balloon.  Then one of the church team arrived with sticky tape.  They coated the top of the crook with it, and on tiptoe on a chair, the balloon was finally rescued.  The whole room applauded.

I started to take some pictures – and in the last photo , I realised the Archbishop had sneaked into the background – he’d come to see what was happening and congratulated the kids – nothing wrong with the flock borrowing the crook and all working together to solve a problem.  I’m sure there’s a metaphor there somewhere…

Which meant that, thanks to wanting to record this for my blog, I actually got two minutes with the Archbishop of Canterbury.
 I talked about this blog and the other things I do online talking about faith issues and in particular the discussions I have with those of no faith.  I asked ths:  I talk about personal experience of God in our lives, and that if Jesus rose again then everything else is interesting but ultimately we need to take seriously what he said and live it… but what other message should I have for you?

The Archbishop said this: the incredible value of each individual.
This is what we learn from Jesus – how much we are loved by God, and the value we place on each human life.  There are and have already been people in this world who don’t value people this way, but we feel this is wrong. It is through seeing ourselves through God’s eyes that we understand why we feel it is wrong.

Thinking about this more, this is like the argument that our morals and values must come from somewhere – why is it that, underneath our own interests, our greed, that we instinctively know that equality and fairness matters?  Why do we sometimes feel that the right thing to do is to lay down one’s life for one’s friends?
And all the psychological, biological, genetic, historical efforts going into trying to prove that altruism and ultimately self-sacrifice is not a betrayal of selfish genes but somehow good but without a God dimension… this pales into insignificance when you realise that we know this because. for a moment we see ourselves through God’s eyes and realise how life changing it is to see others in this way too.
How can you not give to the flood victims in Pakistan, send clothes for the deported Roma, visit your neighbour you’ve not seen around lately, buy a coffee for your collague that’s having a tough time when you realise that God sees them as just as important as the Archbishop of Canterbury?

Without that sense that each individual should be prized, we are no better than the rich man ignoring Lazarus starving at his gate. And as Jesus has the rich man in his parable say, if we don’t realise it now from all the words from everything that we’ve been told, then we won’t believe it no matter who tells us, not even if someone were to rise from the dead.

Dwelling on customer service

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Dear reader, you will have noticed that poor customer service really upsets me.
I’ve mentioned before the maxim taught to me by the sales trainers at my old ferry company: provide good customer service and your customer will tell three friends.  Provide poor service, and they’ll tell at least seven.

Well now we live in the age of the internet – and I’d like to tell you about the customer service we’ve received recently.  Possibly there are now more than seven of you reading this direct, via RSS, Facebook, bloggingportal, EUGirlGeeks or other blog aggregator, so, I hope the new rules of customer service and social media means speedy resolution for other customers of the sorts of issues I’m about to share with you…

I’m a repeat customer of Dwell.  Dwell is a shop of nice things, described by Mary Portas as being somewhere between Ikea and Habitat in terms of price and range.  I love Dwell furniture, and have set out to have as much of it as possible in our house.  Deliveries come at the weekend and on bank holidays, and when it’s good, it’s really good.

In March, we ordered a bedside cabinet (pictured above).  It was not hugely expensive in comparison with what we could have spent at Habitat or Bo Concept, say, but it was rather lovely.  When it arrived, in May, it was damaged – a split right along the side.  My dad, who knows a lot about wood, said that it must have been dropped with some force, or from some height to sustain that damage.
We rang Dwell, and were asked to send them some photos of the damage before they would agree to do anything further.  We did, and emailed them the photos.  We were told that we could have a 20% discount on the damaged cabinet, or a replacement.  We opted for the latter and were assured of a June pick up and delivery date.  In the meantime, the damaged cabinet sat in its cardboard box in our sitting room, taking up precious floor space.
A week before delivery, we checked our order status – to find it had been delayed.  A new date some weeks later was on the order, and it changed again to a later date still, with no one informing us.  We rang, and were told that the bedside table was being held up at “the port” somewhere, and they had no further information.  August became late August, and we rang when the latest date too passed.
“It’s only a couple of days late”, said the customer service representative, who appeared to be actually in a branch somewhere.  Possibly there was no information about the wait to date on the order?
We were then told that they had no idea where it was or when it would be delivered so we decided enough was enough.
We’d been waiting since March for a usable piece of furniture, and so instead we requested a refund.  We were told that once the damaged goods were back in the warehouse, the money would be returned to us.  So we arranged a pick-up for a Sunday, after 12.30pm.

Mid-sermon that Sunday, my husband received a call.  He was informed by the driver on his mobile that the pick-up would be at midday.  No, he said, we arranged 12.30pm – 1pm at the earliest.  The driver said they had not been informed of this, and did not want to wait around – something about returning to Milton Keynes.  My husband arranged to be home at 12.15pm, even though this would mean leaving the service early.  We got home at 12.14 on the car clock – no van.  12.20, 12.30, 12.35 – nothing.  As we were now into our original window my husband rang.  The mobile was switched to voicemail.  We tried several more times – including from the house phone in case it was my husband’s number they were ignoring.  An hour after the supposed pick up time, my husband rang the Dwell customer order line.  We were promised a call back to find out what was going on.

What followed just beggared belief. I was outside playing with our toddler when I heard my husband shouting.  He came and handed me the phone: “he wants to talk to you”.  The customer sales representative then basically told me that the driver said he’d been outside our house 12 noon until 12.15 and had left. I said, well we arrived back from church at 14 minutes past and there was no sign.  He said our watches must be slow!  This felt tantamount to an accusation of lying.  I told him I was appalled and listed the catalogue of delays and problems associated with this order – I said that this really was not putting Dwell in a good light at all.  I was assertive but didn’t shout or swear, but I did say that I was very upset and now needed to give the phone back to my husband.  We’ve still no idea why he asked to speak to me in the first place – the order was in my husband’s name – there shouldn’t be an expectation that you are married!

My husband took the phone and arranged that yet more of my time would be sacrificed – 12-6pm pick up on Tuesday.  They came shortly after noon – but the driver still asked to examine the damage to the cabinet that we had returned to its box back in May…
And then this week, we received an email asking us to arrange a delivery date for the replacement.  It just felt like they don’t listen.

The irony is that the MD of Dwell, Aamir Ahmad, appears on the Barclays Corporate website,  talking about how cash flow and customer service are his priorities.  He says the right things, he seems like the sort of person I’d get on with, it’s just a shame the company isn’t living up to his expectations (“we hold everything in stock… deliver within a few days”???).

We’ve had so many lovely things from Dwell, but this experience was just awful.  Of course you start researching these things on the internet: just search “Dwell” and “customer service” and you find this, this and this. So we’re not alone.  No company should be proud of only 22% of customers recommending them.
I felt offended, not just because I wanted my refund sorted (it now has been), but also I think that, in a capitalist economic set up, the happiness of your customers drives repeat business and should therefore be your goal alongside profit, of course.  So I think that it is bad business to treat your customers poorly.  There cannot be such an infinite number of potential customers in the UK that you can afford to alienate the ones you have.

So, Aamir, there are 10 things in your current catalogue that I was thinking about ordering and now won’t be.  
Given they were  this, this , this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this, it might not all have been immediately, but we are still setting up home, and this is our sort of style.   I lose out because they are lovely things that I wanted and can’t bear to think I might have and then lose because they arrive damaged.  But you lose out too, because reluctantly I’ll have take my business elsewhere.  
I need some pretty amazing customer service to regain confidence in Dwell.

By the way, a few weeks ago, Marks and Spencer screwed up an online order in two different ways.  
Despite receiving an email saying it had dispatched, it did not reach the shop for pick up.  
The staff took a mobile phone number, but then customer services emailed my husband asking him to call on an 0845 number – he emailed back to ask why, given they already had his number.  A phone call came, they cancelled and refunded the order, and gave us a £5 credit for the inconvenience caused.  
Who do you think we’ll shop with again?

Today in a Haiku

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(image, bizarrely from California State University Long Beach!)

While English haiku tend to be 10-14 syllables, the classic Japanese haiku is 17 syllables.
On Twitter earlier, I took up @MyWordWizard‘s haiku challenge:
“Got haiku? We’d love to read it. Submit @MyWordWizard at http://tinyurl.com/SubmitPoem #poettalk #poems #poetry #poet #writer #haiku”

I may submit it to their site, but then it occured to me – can you better this?  Can you sum up your day today in a haiku?

Here’s mine:
“Sitting at home with toddler, /toys on floor, food in hair,/
what bliss./And mess”…

Justice? No, it’s criminal lack of foresight

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image from www.yourkenttv.co.uk

I know this is an age of austerity but it’s amazing what these cutback look like on the ground.  It’s also worrying the lack of joined up thinking amongst those with the power to make the cuts.

Don’t worry, I’m not naive.  I know there’s no masterplan, no overview of how and on what cuts are made.  That’s the problem in believing in local decision-making though, is that you do kind of expct some sort of consistency in the local area.  I’ll show you what I mean.  As you may have noticed because I’ve blogged about it a bit, Ashford in Kent is one of the growth towns in the UK.  Here’s what Ashford’s regeneration agency “Ashford’s Future” has to say about it:

Key facts about Ashford:
The fastest growing town between London and the Continent
Plans to create 31,000 homes and 28,000 jobs by 2031
Around £2.5 billion planned investment
37 minutes to London via the high speed rail link
Paris in 2 hours and Lille in under 1 hour from Ashford International
Exciting shopping opportunities in the extended County Square shopping centre and the Designer Outlet
Some of the best leisure facilities in the South East including a multi-million redeveloped leisure centre and international standard athletics stadium
Excellent and expanding education facilities including a multi-million Ashford Learning Campus for further education
2 million sq ft of commercial office development
Office rents 68% lower than in London and 40% lower than in the South East
House prices 28% cheaper than in London and 14% cheaper than the South East average
Fantastic countryside, including part of the Kent Downs area of outstanding natural beauty and extensive areas of woodland
Easy access to beautiful countryside, charming villages and the south coast
And – 85% of Ashford residents value the quality of life in Ashford

So what’s the problem?  Out on Saturday, I heard the story of a 15 year old, wrongly arrested for shoplifting in Ashford Town Centre. As ths is town gossip, I’d be delighted to have facts corrected, of course.

The police cells at Ashford police station have been closed.  This means that said 15 year old was apparently taken all the way to Folkestone for questioning. The way the story was told to me, once it had been acknowledged that it was a case of mistaken identity the 15 year old was released.  But he’s in Folkestone, 20km (12 miles) from where he was taken.  Fortunately he was sensible enough to point out that he was under 16 and get the police to get his parents to come and collect him.  But carting a 15 year old 12 miles from home on a mistaken basis, with no obligation to return him to his original location?  That doesn’t seem like an intended consequence, nor in line with the standards of child protection we’d expect from public authorities.

So then we learn that the closure of the custody suite is to be used as a justification for closing Ashford’s magistrates court.  Describing the court as “underused“, the money saved by not doing maintenance recently is also given as a reason for transferring magistrate court functions from Ashford to Folkestone and Dover.

But a letter in this week’s Kentish Express (not online, will see if it is still available) from a former Magistrate sets out the cost errors in the assumptions that this would save money, including the extra fuel and travel time of all the Ashford-based solicitors alone (NB there are only a couple of solicitors firms handling court work in Folkestone, and none in Dover).

One local solicitor pointed out the propensity of magistrates to grant bail to those kept waiting long in the day.  Another firm, Griffin Law, which is involved in the campaign to save the courts says:

The closure of a [...] Magistrates Court in Ashford is particularly ill thought through, given the government’s intention to grow the population of Ashford and surrounding villages.

And that’s exactly the point.  While it might be a short term saving to close the older magistrates court based in Ashford, it is Ashford, not Folkestone, which is well placed in terms of transport links (road and rail), Ashford that is designated the growth town, Ashford that is to expand so substantially.
It is therefore not the case that the population of the south east kent area is best served by moving the justice functions to Folkestone. Even now, Ashford is bigger than Folkestone.

This is a short-sighted decision, exactly the sort of thing that the level of cuts needed in public spending are likely to bring about, but without the careful holistic thinking that we might have hoped would be in place given the amount of time and warning the various different public bodies involved have had to think about it all.

It would also be great to see Ashford’s MP taking a leading role in fighting this sort of nonsensical decision that could potentially affect quality of life in Ashford.

Oh, and the international standard althetics complex Ashford’s Future mentioned?  That’s not being used properly – no compatitions etc. being attracted to the area – so that’s in line for closure too.  What a waste.  The Facebook campaign on this one is here.

The classic British holiday…

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… or 5 really good things I did on my holidays and 5 potential deal-breakers…

1) The English country wedding
What could be more perfect than starting a holiday with a wedding? 
My cousin got married in a little stone church where everyone knew her, and had a hog roast reception at a specially converted wedding barn in the middle of nowhere (the fantastically named village of Throcking).  My son was a page boy and insisted on carrying a “Just Married” balloon down the aisle behind her, and stripped all his outfit off during the ceremony because he was too hot.  Don’t you just love toddlers? ;)
Fantastic day, lovely to see my family, great to see my cousin (who has always been the closest thing I have to a sister) so happy.
Of course, the location of the wedding limited our options for making use of our week off, so we headed east, to Suffolk…

2) Visiting Castles
Having recently joined English Heritage, my husband is determined to get his money’s worth.  We’ve visited three castles and a ruined abbey within a week.  Fortunately, my son is obsessed with castles at the moment.  At Framlingham (where Mary Tudor was declared queen), we joined the EH Time Travellers.  While a toddler is too little to take part in the mock battles and wild bear hunt,  my son was plenty big enough to paint a shield and was thrilled to get the design he asked for (“a big lion with a tail on!”)  He also ran the ramparts, thrilling for him, a little nerve fraying for me although it is all in good repair.
At Orford castle (pictured) he fell asleep in the car and spent a good 40 minutes asleep on my lap in the main hall.  Waking up there was the Best. Thing. Ever!  He then climbed to the top of the castle, and back down again, on his own little legs.  and slept soundly that night.

3) Southwold
We’ve wanted to visit Southwold for ages, but when we holidayed in Norfolk, it was just a little too much in the wrong direction.  It was worth the wait.  We stayed at the hotel Gordon Brown used on his holiday there (no, we didn’t book for that reason, we didn’t know that until we were leaving!)  My favourite moment was my toddler walking into our room and saying “Ooh! This is lubly!”
It is famous for its rows of brightly painted beach huts, its white lighthouse, the Adnams brewery and its pier, which was only recently completed and is in fact the UK’s only 21st century pier.  Southwold is truly lovely, and although it has the usual middle class beach uniform shops (Fat Face, Joules and a mini-department store stocking Crew and White Stuff) there are also an impressive number of independent stores.  There’s a tiny amber museum and a few more museums that we didn’t go to (no time!) and many happy hours can be spent mucking about on the beach (sandy) and on the pier (the modern ironic amusement arcade is fantastic although too scary for a toddler). 

4) Sutton Hoo
When we told people that we were going to Ipswich over night, most went “why???”  Some people know about the regeneration of the docks area which is really very stylish indeed, but most know it as a bit of a chav town, not really living up to its claim (with Chelmsford) of being the first Anglo-Saxon towns in Britain.
And the proximity to Sutton Hoo, the site of the most important Anglo-Saxon archaeological site in Britain, shows that this last point was an important one.  Sutton Hoo in the rain is basically a big mound of grassy earth at the end of a wheelchair-friendly but muddy path. However it has an excellent visitor centre.  We were a bit disappointed to find it was National Trust rather than English Heritage (by contrast Stonehenge is EH… go figure) so we had to pay the entrance fee but it was worth it.  There’s an excellent film, a really interesting exhibition, drawing tables for kids, a rather alarming “open grave” in the floor with a sandcast of a murdered body within in, and a replica of the longboat in which the Anglo-Saxon hoard and the helmet (here a plastic version is modelled by my husband, the original is in the British Museum in London) was found.
For anyone interested in the dark ages, or in the history of Britain – political or religious because this site is pagan burials with early Christian influences- Sutton Hoo is a must.
The best thing for me was my son’s artwork going up on the wall in the visitor’s centre.  And a slight moment of embarrassment when he told the nice curator that his name is “Baby Bear”…
     

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5) TV tie-in
And finally… for anyone without a child under 7, this picture will mean little. 
But for Cbeebies fans everywhere, this is a really famous building.  This is Jason Mason’s house in Sunny Sands from “Grandpa in my Pocket”!!!  My son knew it immediately and was thrilled.
If you want to find it, it is in Aldburgh, near the seafront. 

However, as always there are things that disappoint you.
Here’s 5…
1) customer service at reception in the Salthouse Hotel, Ipswich
An error meant that two rooms had been reserved for us.  Rather than check us in, give us the key to one and sorting out the backroom issues later, we were kept waiting a good 15 minutes with our toddler (and the after effects of my food poisoning) in the admittedly stylish reception and almost accused of having reserved two ourselves!  Given this hotel is Alastair Sawday Special Places to Stay-listed,  a sign of quality we’ve never been disappointed by, we were appalled.
Breakfast food and service, the room itself and the extremely helpful porter were excellent.  But the reception experienced tainted it.  

2) customer service at the Crown hotel’s restaurant, Southwold
We had dinner at the Crown Southwold on the first night we were there, and were impressed with the food and service.  We decided to return for our special dinner.  We couldn’t reserve, but thought arriving before 7pm would be fine.  
We got a table without difficulty, but after ordering we waited an hour for our starters (crab on toast with gazpacho, and mushroom and tarragon soup).  Neither dish takes an hour to prepare, there was no explanation, no offer of bread.  We were only grateful that our toddler had eaten beforehand and sat happily in his chair colouring Peppa Pig pictures.  When it finally did arrive, and we were asked if we were enjoying our meal we said well the food is fine but how did two bowls of soup take an hour?
The maitre d’ arrived, all explanation that the restaurant was busy, but no real apology, and certainly no offer to waive e.g. the cost of the starters. The mains arrived very speedily and he personally delivered our desserts (the strawberry pannacotta, strawberries with basil syrup, strawberry and basil sorbet and red basil was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten!), but it shouldn’t be that you have to complain to get reasonable service.  Frustrating, given the excellent service only a few days earlier.  

3) food poisoning from my only non-fish meal in days!
Chicken, perfectly roasted, must’ve had been exposed to bacteria after cooking.  Haven’t been that ill in ages. Not the Crown, in case you were wondering.

4) the behaviour of drivers on the motorway (and frankly most other roads)
You lot!  You’re mad!  As I now have access to sat nav, my attention in the passenger seat is back on the road.  When did it become acceptable not to indicate before moving?  When was it made ok not to look to the right when joining a roundabout?  Aren’t white lines in the centre of the road meant to be to the right of the car, not in the centre? Don’t you know/ care about the £80 fine for talking on your mobile when driving – its not about money-making – you’re endangering others!  Speed limits aren’t a goal or a minimum – on country lanes you need to drive appropriately for the speed of the road even if there’s a “national speed limits apply” sign.  What the HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU ALL???!!! 

5) the M25 (and the Dartford crossing)
In Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s “Good Omens” there’s a fantastic sequence where Crowley the demon shapes the M25 into the dark sigil Odegra.  Have you been on the M25 recently?  Journeys that used to take 1.5 hours (like getting to the wedding) now require you to leave up to 3 hours in order to be sure of getting there.  The Dartford tunnel in particular is diabolical at present.  But to add insult to injury, as you crawl across the Dartford bridge, you can see where they are installing speed cameras.  Speed cameras! Our average speed over the bridge was 10 mph!  We didn’t get faster than 20mph!  And this was 3pm, not even rush hour.  Truly dreadful.
Sorting out the mess of the M25 needs to be a national level strategic transport priority.  

But a holiday’s not a holiday if you don’t have something to complain about, after all.  I hope you all enjoy yours as much.