Communication stations

Mail is a wonderful thing. The Royal Mail has been cutting back its services for many years now to try and make itself profitable since being privatised, which is only understandable. Shame then that a lot of people think that Royal Mail owe them something just because the service has changed over the past decade.

Post used to be delivered early in the morning, so that it would be on your doorstep as you ate breakfast. Well now you get it lunchtime, when you've properly woken up, or when you come home from work. What good is a DVD when I've got to shoot off to work? I can't use it until I get home.

The service is amazing. Anyone that complains should try and take a letter halfway across the country for the price of a stamp. To order something on the internet at 3pm and have it come through the letterbox 18 hours later is remarkable. It's a brilliant, brilliant service.

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You're not old, you're older.

I'm going to have a rant. The thing that's been pissing me off is the perception of age.

Ever since playing my ukulele at a folk night, my respect for people far older than I has sky-rocketed. Their skill and experience is something to behold, that for 60 years (that's just over 3 times my age) a guy has been plucking away on his banjo, learning and learning. It's something to be commended.

I'm not saying we should have parades in the street for older people, to celebrate their wealth of knowledge, what I am saying is to put an end to this stupid trash talk of "old people? Get out of the way man, you're so useless". Yes, they're a bit slower than us younger folk and have more weathered skin - does that mean that suddenly they have nothing to provide to society?

I remember one smug tosser proclaiming that pensioners "do nothing but sponge off the state with their expensive pensions". Well fuck me, Einstein, it's because of their graft that you have a fucking state with which to live in! It's because they went to work instead of clubbing every night and filling your brain cells with toxins from every corner of the globe that the world keeps fucking turning. I'm also unsure as to why not paying income tax constitutes to a feeling of uselessness - they still pay VAT on all their goods, they still pay tax on fuel and for their cars and all other taxes we have to pay. They still fund the state.

The TV show Top Dogs showcases 3 older men that take their two friends into their field of expertise. Are we saying that because Robin Knox-Johnston has reached retirement age, that his contribution to the world is now null and void? Show me any teenager that has sailed around the world single handedly and successfully navigated Cape Horn 3 times. That, my friend, is a fucking achievement.

The harshest mental exam any teenager goes through is either learning a second language or taking a cold shower on a morning. Ranulph Fiennes walked to both poles on this earth unaided. Most people that go out on a Friday night can't walk home unaided.

John Simpson spends his days in war-torn countries, reporting the news from the ground and from a first-hand perspective. It's because of this lumbering old fart that free speech still exists, his experiences in these countries ensures that the internet is an important tool in gathering news fast, and not just 24 hour access to kiddie porn.

Not all older people are wise. Some are ignorant, others plain fucking stupid. Same goes for the middle-aged, and the young. But they know shit that we don't, and if knowledge is power, then we should stop and listen to these old farts whilst they're still alive.

We might just learn a thing or two.

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Around The World In 80 Trades

The last possible thing anyone would want to see on television during these troubled times is a show about investing. And yet Channel 4 do what they do best (doing something because they're not really meant to, like some ignorant teenager) and commission the show.

It's all very quaint; a city trader gets bored tapping numbers into a computer, sells his flat (where in the UK do flats sell for £25k?) and takes off to travelling around the world, investing in wares and selling them on for profit. The premise immediately tramples over what everyone should really be doing, which is working and shopping to get the economy on track because arseholes like this ruined the system in the first place. But I like Conor, he's a good lad.

A bit dim though. When investing in something it's usually wise to do a bit of homework before splashing the cash. Sadly, Conor's homework amounts to little more than phoning or emailing "contacts" for where to sell for the highest price. Buying coffee and horses looks like a good investment, but when you know sweet fuck all about what buyers look for in a coffee bean or how horses need to be looked after, well you're leaving yourself open to be a right mug. Conor trades in a world completely alien to him; he has no idea whether buyers are warning him that his horses look injured, that he's been sold shit coffee, or that they're pulling his leg to get a better price for a top product.

The show pans out with Conor visiting a premises, having a look around and then making insultingly low prices which has the seller squirming in their seat to make a deal on TV. Conor then sets about travelling hundreds if not thousands of miles to a notoriously tough and risky market to sell the product at a high price. He's then mocked and battered down to a profit so measly it was worth fuck all going for it in the first place. This is because he isn't a trader or a merchant, he's someone looking for a quick buck. A real trader would reject low bids for his wares, go home and try again the next day. Conor wants a quick sale so he can move on to more travelling around.

Around The World In 80 Trades really is a laughable programme which teaches you how not to be a trader, and shows for all to see the risks that these bastards make and have made in the past to make a profit. it's why we're all paying for it now.

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