A Benefit To Britain At Any Cost? .........

After a forced absence due to my moving house, (living without an internet connection is both freeing and irritating in equal measure it seems) I'm back with a good old fashioned whinge, and it's about a fairly predictable subject I suppose.

I'm going to have a little moan about the 2012 Olympic budget figures. Now I know there are some out there who think it's a typical British reaction to jump right in with a moan about any sort of big project as soon as it's price goes up, prices always go up right?
You have to expect an increase in the budget of these things right?
The budgets we hear at the beginning of a project can't possibly take changes into consideration can they?

What nonsense. From the announcement of our successful bid for the games, when a budget of £2.4bn, the cost has now risen to a massive £9.35bn, almost quadrupling!

In what sort of lala land is it acceptable for this sort of bare-faced bullshit to take place? Ours apparently.

Are we actually being told that the 2012 Olympics being held in London is a good thing at any cost? If this is the case, could we not have been given an honest budget figure in the first place and allowed to make that decision for ourselves?

I've been in the pro-bid camp all along in so far as the games can shine a very positive light on what I happen to think is the greatest city in the world.

I just wish we could find a way to have this, and most other big build projects that are undertaken these days, managed and budgeted with something resembling a degree of honesty and integrity.
Instead we are treated like some confused granny being fleeced by a dodgy builder, who keeps putting his quote price up once he's already got your roof off.

That's Gratitude For You.....

It's been announced, once again, that Nurses annual pay increases will be lower than the rate of inflation. They are to receive a total increase of 2.5% on the year, which compares to a 4.2% inflation rate. Effectively a pay cut.

It seems to me that all my life I've heard the same story, yet nobody in government, regardless of their political colour, (what little difference there is these days) makes any effort to do anything about it.

Why exactly do we as a nation sit back and let the people who work tirelessly to heal us, be treated this way, whilst successive administrations vote themselves ever bigger pay increases?

Are we really that ungrateful?

One Last Blast From NTHELL.....

Yes, they've managed it. In spite of passing their number-one rated anti-customer service organisation off to someone else, (celebrity facial-hair-wearer Richard Branson), good old NTL have managed to do us all up the proverbial just one more time.
As some of you will already know, Branson's megalomaniac company Virgin has taken over NTL now, and first day of Virgin Media being the new boss, and their little dispute with SKY means customers lose a whole bunch of the TV channels from their screen. Fear not though, in true NTL style, Virgin Media don't of course see this as not giving us something we're already paying for, these were 'free' channels of course.

A bit like you going along to a pop concert, but when you get there, there's no lights, but you can't moan, you're paying for the music right? The light show was free wasn't it?

You'll be pleased to hear I'm moving house soon, and therefore finally consigning my cable subscription to history. No more moans about customer service nightmares......... but then I'm moving to SKY, so watch this space.....