Targetting Businesses that Avoid Tax
If you read this blog regularly, you’ll see that I tend to shop and purchase with I hope an ethical dimension. Other things come into it like good service and convenience.
So if I need something quickly here, I’ll tend to use local shops or the two small Sainsbury stores within walking distance. As one has a good Free From section and sells Green’s beer, I use it a couple of times a week.
As I said in a previous post, I never use Tesco, except when it is totally to my advantage, as the store’s attitude gets up my nose in so many ways. But I am a free man and can have my own prejudices towards business.
So when it comes to the protests against the likes of Vodafone and Arcadia, because of tax avoidance, I have a certain sympathy with the protesters. But these two companies have been on my don’t buy list for years, as I don’t like their attitude. My cheaper clothes usually end up being purchased in such as Gap and Marks & Spencer, if possible. But lately, it’s been Gap, as they have a small size that isn’t made for the obese. Fit is important to me.
So if these protests cost Philip Green some money, I’m not bothered, especially, as I never use his shops because they don’t have what I want. I’m also annoyed with British Home Stores for effectively cutting out the dry way of getting from Oxford Street tube to John Lewis, by reorganising their store. But that doesn’t bother me now, as I can take a 73 bus to right outside John Lewis.
I tend to use John Lewis a lot, as I get service and goods that last at a good price. But then could the service be so good because John Lewis is a partnership with everybody’s bonus on the line?
Rear Window
I took this picture, through the rear window of a 277 bus yesterday.
Through the Rear Window of a 277 Bus
I then walked round Highbury Corner and had lunch in Carluccio’s in Upper Street, before getting my provisions in Waitrose at the Angel.
Snow in Upper Street
Home was just a walk to Upper Street, with my backpack loaded with veetables and the other heavy stuff and one of Waitrose’s Quick Check carriers with all the other stuff. Once on Upper Street, a 38 bus took me to within a hundred metres of home.
It was all so easy. And yet there were people still driving around looking for parking spaces.
Living with Pubs
In all the places C and I lived we never had a pub within walking distance, except when we lived in St. John’s Wood and the Barbican. But in those cases we could not either not afford to go out for a drink, or pay for a reliable baby sitter.
Here though, I have four pubs, two restaurants, a deli with a cafe and several other cafes within two minutes walk. I actually have a pub on the corner, but it doesn’t serve my type of drink; proper cider. I’;ve only been there once and although it looks nice, it just isn’t my type of pub.
Last night, I walked two minutes away and found a real pub with what looked like decent drink and food. The building was also in the style of many London pubs, that have been immortalised in East Enders, but it had a rather nice courtyard around it, that will be a nce place to drink in warmer weather.
I had a decent half of Addlestone‘s cider, talked to the chef about gluten-free food and then walked home. I shall try some of the food in the next week or so.
So as I had a nice snack lunch with a friend in one of the other pubs, that makes two that will satisfy my taste within walking distance.
Am I Bothered?
Look at this picture of a Congestion Charge sign.
Congestion Charge Sign
And this parking ticket machine.
Parking Ticket Machine
But then look at this picture of the traffic as I approached the West End on one of the few means of transport still available to me, my feet.
Traffic in the West End
So am I bothered? Not in the least, as I can still walk, use buses, the Underground and other trains and where it is more convenient or a cost saving, I can even use a black cab!
Sleeping on the Floor
No problems last night except that the central heating is designed for Eskimos and a broken smoke detector keeps beeping.
But interestingly, I’m breathing much better in the clear London air.
Throwing a Life Away
In today’s world, there is not the point of keeping anything like there used to be. I’ve just spent an hour shredding bank and credit card statements, as if I need them they are on-line anyway.
Whole boxes of memories end up being compressed into a box a third the size of what you started with. Things that you hoped you would trawl through with your wife in front of your grandchildren, just go straight in the skip. Is it sad! Perhaps! But if I don’t do it now, my son will have to do it in a few or hopefully twenty years time. Even my travels of the previous few months, has ended up in a rather small box. But I will make a collage of the train and football tickets in memory of an adventure.
Ocassionally, you find the odd gem, but most of it is just rubbish. The real memories are in my mind or as photographs on disc or in more boxes.
But hey, I’m only 63 and may have a few years yet, so perhaps this is only throwing half the first half of a life away. In a way I’m going back to where C and I started in that area to the north of the City of London, bordered at the top by the North London Line.
The Masons Arms
This pub in Devonshire Street played a major part in my life in the 1970s.
The Masons Arms
It was just round the corner from the offices of Time Sharing Ltd., the company we were all associated with in the early 1970s, so often if you needed anyone they were drinking in the Masons, as it was always called. One of our staff, who later joined Metier, even developed a long-term relationship with the landlord, which still flourishes today.
But it’s not just me, that has pleasant memories of the pub One of my friends, who sadly died a few years ago, had a part-time job in the pub, whilst he worked for AEI. He claimed that someone from AEI New Zealand, the landlord of the Mason’s and himself, enjoyed themselves immensely on a spree in London. Now this was after AEI had been taken over by GEC and all expenses had to be approved by Arnold Weinstock‘s office. It was queried by asking who they had taken out for the evening. The reply was that it was the New Zealand High Commissioner. And to prove it he gave the office, the personal telephone number of the Commissioner. The expenses were paid.
Business is very different these days, but I’ll always remember the Masons Arms with fondness.
The London Transport Lost Property Office.
After lunch yesterday, my friend needed to go to the Lost Property Office to collect a bag, that her husband had left in a black cab a couple of weeks ago.
I’d lost something myself years ago, and then it was very much the haunt of the jobsworths!
But yesterday it was a totally different experience and after paying a reward for the taxi driver, the bag was efficiently and politely retrieved.
It all went to show that putting in a good and well-thought out system can bring significant benefits to both your company and your customers.
A Very Much Better Day!
I should say I had a very good day yesterday, as although I had a slight problem caused by my stroke on Monday, the Keppra that the doctors have put me on have made my life infinitely better. I met an old friend in Hampstead and we had a good lunch. I then spent an hour or so walking round the shops and I have found that my gammy left hand and my eyesight are both almost back to normal. Just typing this is very easy, but for the last few months, it has required endless corrections. So I did make three, but two weeks ago, I’d have made 33!
I caught the six forty-four home and even got a seat from Royston!
The RSPB get Everywhere!
I was reading The Times this morning and they have a slightly tongue-in-check report on the Erotica exhibition at Olympia.
They were rather surprised that the RSPB were there with a stand. But as their spokesman said, “We’re an inclusive organisation. We’re meeting our new market halfway!”
They’ve probably done the right thing, as it says the average spend is £200 a person!
The Anonymous Widower 