Payday Lenders Fight Back
Payday lenders have had a lot of bad publicity today. So Oakam in Dalston decided to fight back.
Payday Lenders Fight Back
I suppose the only guy doing well is the guy on stilts.
Perhaps we need more street performers on the High Street.
Handyman On A Bike
I saw this bike chained to a lamp-post by Haggerston station.
Handyman On A Bike
It’s an idea of which I very much approve. I wish Green Workforce the best of luck.
More Money Than Sense?
I like these two stories on the BBC web site.
One is about expensive motors parked outside Harrods and the other is about a Lamborghini clamped for no insurance in Newham.
I say bring on the crushers.
How about a portable crusher which lifts the car in and then crushes it whilst everybody watches? It has some of the fascinations that used to be associated with public executions centuries ago. But it is very humane and no-one gets physically hurt!
A New On-Line Film Site
I caught this article at the bottom of a page in the Standard yesterday. The title describes it in one.
New player to stream 1,000 British films spanning a century.
It’s all here on the BFI.
i’ve signed up and it supposedly starts on next Wednesday.
Dalston On BBC Breakfast
Dalston featured in a report on BBC Breakfast this morning.
It was all about payday loans.
It is almost impossible to walk down the Kingsland Road without falling over the endless number of boards offering loans on the street.
All loans no matter where they are from, should be properly registered on a central database, which is then checked for anomalies and excessive borrowings.
The FCA is imposing new regulations as reported here on the BBC.
But no matter what regulations are tabled, it will not stop people borrowing at rates, they can’t afford. So the new regulations will probably turn out to be a business opportunity for loan sharks.
What Doctors Won’t Tell You
The Guardian puts the boot in to a publication, some think should be banned, in this article.
It gave me a good laugh.
I’ve had several people say that if I eat bread made from organic wheat, it won’t harm me. But not for some years, as now the organic freaks are often on a wheat-free kick as well.
Two Non-Drivers
You don’t meet many people, who have made a conscious decision not to drive, especially when they are successful businessmen, without any disabilities in their forties and fifties.
But I’ve met two this week. Both use trains, taxis and buses. Neither were originally from London, where non-driving is a lot easier to manage.
I think it’s a choice many more will take!
Eurostar Go For The East Coast Franchise
I have noticed that Eurostar are bidding to run the trains to the North and Scotland from Kings Cross.
I do hope that if they do run it, they bring the excellent gluten-free food from their continental services.
Do People Shout More On Trams?
I travel on buses and trains a lot.
In Manchester on one tram in particular there was a lot of shouting both directly and into mobile phones.
So do people shout more on trams? Or does the noise echo up and down?
Dealing With The Long Term Unemployed
Over the last few days, there has been a lot of talk about how you deal with the long-term unemployed.
In the 1980s, I interviewed a guy called Jim for a management job in Metier. He was at the time, a senior guy in the Department of Employment and told how a lot of the long-term unemployed were not in the obvious places. One thing he did say was that in London, many wouldn’t travel a few miles to get a job, especially if it meant crossing the Thames.
But one thing he said, was that if you call the long-term unemployed in regularly, a lot seem to disappear from the register and stop claiming benefits.
I suspect that some of the Coalition’s policies might have the same effect.
At about the same time, an economist from Lloyds Bank told me, that their predictions for the economy were different from the Government, as they took account of the Black Economy and the Government didn’t. I wonder how models and predictions differ these days?
I do think though, we’ll see a drop in unemployment over the next few years, as the rules get tighter and people find it much less of a hassle to work, as history repeats itself.
The Anonymous Widower 