Swine Flu

So, that old “butterfly effect” again! A pig sneezes somewhere in the ruins of Tenochtitlan and a brief Mexican wave later we have a pandemic of swine flu and a further risk to the global economy as up to 30% of the workforce dies, goes sick or stays at home to tend their loved ones or through fear of mingling with the great unwashed.

So, will this be just another damp squib like Bird Flu, SARS and the great Ebola scare of recent times, or, are we really on the verge of finding ourselves living out an episode of Survivors for real? Hell, and it’s not as if our Texan buddies need an excuse to shoot the odd Mexican that strays across their ranches at the best of time.

Conspiracy theorists are already claiming that the virus is man-made. Sceptics might also claim that it is a useful distraction from some of the world’s more pressing political and economic travails. For sure, anything that keeps Gordon Brown off our news screens is most welcome.

Well, Cancun may well be off my holiday destination list for the time being. And, I might hold my breath for as long as I can next time I am flying. But, I won’t be rushing out to buy bottled water, tinned peaches and a shotgun and holing up in an underground bunker just yet……

“We’re Doomed!”

To quote Private Fraser from the great British cult tv comedy classic, Dad’s Army, “We’re doomed, I say. Doomed”.

It would seem that the credit crunch is causing a fundamental shift in the British economy which is likely to have a devastating long-term impact upon the society in which we live.

Domino’s Pizzas have reported a 24.7% increase in profits. Apparently this is the result of a shift in buying habits, with people looking for cheaper alternatives to eating out. Yesterday, KFC announced that they would be creating 9,000 new jobsin the UK. This follows announcements from Tescos supermarket that they are recruiting heavily.

We are fast becoming a nation of shelf stackers and fast food junkies. Help. I need to emigrate. I’m normal – get me out of here.

Readers of these pages will know that I am far from a fan of KFC – read about it here. And, my past experience would indicate that if I am forced to go self-sufficient in order to get fresh vegetables, then I am likely to starve. Felicity Kendal (sigh), I am not! But, if we are to become a nation of obese couch potatoes sharing our lives and relationships in the full glare of Jeremy Kyle the I will have no choice but to consider departing these shores.

But, where to go? And, how to get there? If things continue as they are then I am even unlikely to survive the flight out of here. Undoubtedly, I will be crushed to death in my plane seat by a Fatty resting after a double pepperoni and zinger burger – read about it here.

Where’s my passport………..

The Sad Demise of Bradford and Bingley!

One of the saddest side-effects of the whole credit crunch thing is the likely loss of the easy-on-the-eye star of the rather poignantly named “Hopes and Dreams”advert for Bradford and Bingley, which will no doubt be lost as a brand as it is swallowed up by the Abbey and Santander.

There is clearly no justice in this world as the Halifax brand is likely to be saved following their takeover by Lloyds TSB. Which means more of those rather irritating adverts featuring Howard.

We can only hope that the Scottish Widows are safe! Fingers crossed.

The Belts Are Being Tightened!

Yesterday saw some stark evidence of the further impact of the credit crunch and failing economy on the Middle Man household.

We were out shopping in Wilmslow, heart of the Cheshire stockbroker belt and home to many a Manchester United player and many minor TV celebrities. We surveyed the state of our finances having struggled to find change for the £2.70 ticket for parking the Audi TT at the back of Hoopers. We decided that we could not afford our usual chianti, Peroni, and repast in the local Pizza Express. We decided that we would have to grab a pasty from Greggs instead.

Until this day I was a Greggs’ virgin. Greggs is one of those places which is usually sited between a JCB Sports and a charity shop. There is usually a gaggle of unhealthy-looking, fat, spotty rough kids outside accompanied by a drooling rottweiler and a couiple of moth-eaten pigeons. But today we checked around to make sure that there was no-one that we knew who could see us, and entered. C chose a cheese and onion pasty. I went for the meat and potato and a sausage roll. We ate them a little further down the road, standing outside the rather posh jewellers, so that we would not be mistaken for people eating a Greggs’ pasty. I have eaten better. I felt hungry again within minutes.

But, when times are hard you have to economise. Mind you, this grand gesture did seem a little feeble. We were actually out shopping for items to accompany C’s fancy dress outfit for the Goodwood Revival next weekend. A wrap and pearls from Hoopers and new red shoes from John Lewis. This was on top of the vintage 50s dress purchased on the web. When we do fancy dress, we DO fancy dress.

It was a successful trip despite our culinary disappointments. We made up for those in the evening when C rustled up Gressingham duck a l’orange!

I Can’t Afford It!

I am depressed. It is all due to the credit crunch. I woke up this morning to the news that the UK housing market is in free-fall. Apparently our houses have lost 2.5% of their value in just the last month alone, being the seventh month in succession that house prices have fallen. So, I’ve just had more value knocked off the house than I spent on the new kitchen and bathroom. Great. Just great.

And, of course, this all happens at a time when the oil price is going mad. It is SO bad that I am actually in two minds as to whether I can afford to go to work. Seriously. I have a fifty mile commute. That’s four hundred miles in a week (I work from homes on a Friday). And with the cost of Super Unleaded at something like £122 a litre and a fuel performance of around 20 mpg or so……

I know I could get a more fuel efficient car than an Audi TT but I do have an image to think about. And, there have to be some perks to all my hard work over the years! Now don’t all you planet huggers and eco-terrorists start on me when I’m feeling down. And, no, public transport is not an option. I live in rural Cheshire (the bit with the M6 motorway going through the middle of it) and the nearest bus service is a good two and a half miles away. The bus only runs on a Tuesday. And, it doesn’t go anywhere that I would want to.

Added to that, another joy of living the rural dream is that I now have to worry about the threat of someone breaking into my home heating oil tank and syphoning it all off. The cost of home heating oil (kerosene) has almost doubled in the last twelve months and it seems to have sparked a min-crime wave. We are not connected to the gas mains so we have no choice but to use oil. So, I can’t afford to go to work and I can’t afford to heat my water or my home!

So, we are economising. Economising mostly involves sacking (“letting go” was the term that C used) our gardener. The efficient and reliable guy who has mown our two expansive lawns and trimmed our hedges. Instead, this has become my job. So, a new petrol powered lawnmower (more bloody fuel cost) has been purchased and two hours or so of my life every other week or so will be given up to putting fresh stripes on the garden. But, do not fear, this is not the first sign of us becoming self-sufficient. Many of you will know of previous failed bids at achieving the Good Life. But we’ll not be going there…….or will we? 

Indeed, we may well have to turn the side garden over to vegetables. Either that or try and sell it to the government as a site for one of their new nuclear power stations….

I can’t afford to drive. I can’t afford to pay someone to cut the lawn (please God don’t let the window cleaner put his prices up!). I can’t afford hot water or heating. And, it is becoming increasingly hard to afford to eat. Sure, rice, bread, and pasta costs seem to have also rocketed around the world. While the good old potato is being touted as the planet’s saviour, I am not allowed to eat them because of my summer diet. “We” are concerned about our bikini figure. And, thanks to bloody Jamie and Hugh I am now so emotionally scarred that I can only eat organic free range chicken from the Dali Lama’s personal petting farm, at the cost of an arm and a leg. If it wasn’t for Waitrose’s wine offers we’d be destitute…..

So it looks as if I have to sell the car, give up work, buy a shotgun with which to guard the oil tank, wrap myself in a Waitrose Bag for Life just to keep warm, and dig for England. It’s probably no bad thing. If you believe the other news headlining today, if I ever did step outside the front door I’d probably be attacked by a ten year old knife wielding crack addict! Always look on the bright side, eh?

Illegitimi Non Carborundum

Illegitimi Non Carborundum 

Wednesday this week was cathartic. No, I do not mean that I spent a lot of time on the loo purging my bowels. No, I meant rather in the sense of being emotionally purging. For, this was the day that I left my employer of 20 years, having been put on gardening leave for the sin of finding employment with a competitor company. 

The day started much as any other work day. The alarm went off. I came downstairs and made a fuss of Maslow, the furball baby, and fed him. I showered. I donned suit. I grabbed my laptop bag, mobile and wallet, said goodbye to C, and headed for the door. 

It being October, and, therefore, the “grey period” weather-wise for the North West of England (it lasts from about September through May!) and it was minus 2 degrees, with a thick layer of ice (or rather frozen dirt – the car needs a wash) on the windscreen. Having de-iced, I wound my way through the gloom and not-so-leafy (it’s Autumn) lanes of Cheshire, to the office in Shameless (see earlier posting) where I have been based for the last fourteen years. 

At the weekend I had signed a new contract of employment with a new company, to start in December. This was a huge, huge, huge, huge (it was huge!) relief as I am being made redundant and due to leave my present company at the end of November. I informed my boss on Monday and on Tuesday got the call to say I was being sent home on paid leave. This was not as dramatic as it may have been. I was not under any immediate suspicion of having stolen the company’s crown jewels, commercial secrets, customer database and intellectual property. At least I don’t think that I was. At least my boss said that I wasn’t. In any case, I was not frog-marched from the building carrying my wife’s photo and a potted plant, flanked by burly security guards.

No, it was a lot more civilised than that. Thankfully. On Wednesday morning I cleared my desk. It has never been so tidy. I cleared my half of the cupboard which I shared with a colleague. I cleared my pedestal drawers. I threw away all of the absolutely essential files and folders that I had been hoarding over the years, filling one of the huge blue, plastic, recycling bins. 

I was left with very little to show for my twenty years of dedicated service – an Oxford Gem dictionary, a calculator, a photograph of my wife, a couple of books on management style and “The Business Skills of Adolph Hitler and Gerald Ratner” and the like. Just one small bag and a single trip to the car was enough to see me moved out. Moved on. Expunged. 

I cleaned out my email and set my final “Out of Office“ message. I undiverted my desk phone, and took my final supper, my very last meal with the Ladies Who Lunch (see previous posting). It was quite emotional. Not because of the food, but the finality and suddenness of the act of farewell. The girls were on good form and trying to buoy me along with the odd joke, the occasional reminiscence, and the latest from the X-Factor. But, there was a sincere affection, both ways, in the hug and peck on cheek as we parted outside of Shameless’ bingo hall. I will miss those girls. 

And so, I sent a final farewell-email to my closest colleagues and work friends, before packing up my PC and handing over my laptop. I had a lovely kiss and a cuddle with the girls in the office (thus discovering how Vanessa got her stripper name on Facebook.com), and handed my security badge in at reception. 

And there I was gone. I drove home through the gloom with a tear in my eye and a feeling of……..deflation, anti-climax, and, wondering what I will do with myself for the next five weeks. I would like to thank all of those former-colleagues that have sent me emails and kind thoughts. Please do stay in touch. I will miss you all. And, for those of you who haven’t sent emails or kind thoughts…….shame on you! I wish you all good luck, success, health and happiness. And, to all, but especially my Ladies Who Lunch, remember the motto: illegitimi non carborundum!   

The Good Life

 

The Good Life 

It is a Thursday and I am at home. The sun is shining and I am wearing shorts, inflicting my skinny pale pegs on the unsuspecting world. Maslow, our furball baby cat, is on the sofa next to me snoring and purring and chasing squirrels or rabbits or mice in his dreams. Actually, he is much more comfortable than I am, having commandeered the greater part of the sofa so that he can stretch out while wedging me against the sofa arm.

But it is a workday so lounging about at home in my shorts sounds pretty ideal you would have thought. But it isn’t. Not entirely. I’m bored and at a loss what to do. You see, while the sun may be shining (an unusual occurrence in the great Cheshire summertime, so worthy of a second mention) my mood is a little flat. I got turned down for a job yesterday. Admittedly I did quite well in the interview process, being only one of thirteen who got to first interview out of some two hundred and fifty applicants. And, I got through to the final three. But, I was pipped at the post. On the plus side, it does show that my CV is strong and that I must have interviewed OK. On the downside, I had already planned a future involving a new car, new phone, banking my redundancy pay-off for a rainy day, enjoying an exciting and demanding new job, and living the life of luxury with a £25k pay increase. But, ‘twas not to be. Serves me right for getting my hopes up. It is a real shame though. 

So now, I ‘m a bit bored. A bit unsettled. A little uncertain about the future. Increasingly anxious. I am less than usefully employed and have plenty of time on my hands. There are only so many times I can go to the shops, walk or cycle around the block, or watch back-to-back Jeremy Kyle shows without turning one’s brain to soup. But, I am making good progress on my latest video game and, so far at least, I have not succumbed to watching live streams of Big Brother Live. That would be when I know I have totally given in. I do like to eat my lunch with Loose Women on TV though – they remind me of the ladies I have lunched with at work over the years. 

The recruitment market is also a tad slow at the moment. People are on holiday I guess. But, without a stream of suitable adverts to respond to I am afraid my mind is drifting somewhat. Straying into dark corners where I entertain my fears of not getting a job at the salary level I would like or need to maintain our standard of living. Of relying on my redundancy insurance to pay the mortgage until even that runs out and I have to start consuming my redundancy monies with far too much gusto. Of being unable to find a job for a couple of years and consequently becoming unemployable. A life of abject poverty surely beckons. Which is probably why my thoughts have drifted to self-sufficiency. Sustainable living. The Good Life. Felicity, Felicity (Kendal), you fill me with electricity. She was kind of cute in the Good Life and downright filthy in the Camomile Lawn. Sigh. 

Now let us be clear. I am not expecting C to don dungarees and grow pigtails in her hair. Nor am I turning into a Guardian reader or a hippy. We actually gave away the chicken coop that once lived in our side garden. I just like the thought of cooking using things that I have grown and nurtured myself. 

Now there have been sporadic delusions of growing my own vegetables over the years. My granddad always used to grow his own. Runner beans, potatoes, cabbages, tomatoes, lettuce, and gooseberries. The whole shebang. He could often be found pricking out in his greenhouse, so to speak. 

Even mom and dad were inspired by the financial benefits of growing your own and turned our back garden into a vegetable patch in the 1970s, when funds were low and the chest freezer had arrived. The chest freezer would be filled with the carcases of whole pigs, lambs, and the larger part of a cow’s anatomy. Offal. Sheep’s brain is a delicacy which has to be tried to be believed. And, our meat was accompanied by home-grown vegetables suitably blanched and frozen to see us through the non-growing period. I think that my main contribution in this period was to plant a few radish plants down the side of the summerhouse. 

When we moved to rural Cheshire I got the gardening bug, briefly. I was probably inspired by the early episodes of Big Brother when they used to look after chickens and tend to their own veggies. These were the early seasons before they started to put vegetables in the house as housemates.  A vegetable patch was dug, composted, and seeds were planted. The planted seeds were occasionally watered. It was a disaster. I was not big into weeding and my tendering was definitely fair weather and intermittent. The slugs and snails soon saw to any actual edible vegetation that appeared. My main crop was bindweed. Indeed, my only crop was bindweed. Nature’s very own barbed wire. 

But, the imminent onset of abject poverty coupled with the terrible tedium of having nothing to do has inspired me once more. And now, the front of our home is adorned with five terracotta earthenware pots, filled with the best growing compost. One is filled with mint, one filled with rosemary, one filled with coriander, another with parsley, and the last with thyme. I can sense the snails smacking their lips already. I know it is only a small start but it a start nonetheless. And, we know that from tiny acorns, mighty oaks do grow. Well, in my case it is likely to be bindweed again…….. 

I just have to get a job……….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Bag Is For Life

A Bag Is For Life 

 

It seems that a bag, like a puppy, is for life, and not just for Christmas. Every time I visit my local Waitrose (which is often) I am offered a “Bag For Life”. No, this is not some promotional idea of a charity raising funds for poor children in Africa or for a new scanner of some kind at a local hospital. No, these are eco-friendlier bags; stronger so they last longer, and, presumably more bio-degradable than your typical supermarket carrier bag which is destined to clog up some landfill site for a couple of millennia. On the news this morning there were a bunch of eco-warriors of uncertain sexuality and various degrees of cleanliness, intelligence, and sowing ability who had taken the idea one step further. They had made shopping bags out of old clothes. Nice. Would you want to bring your groceries home in someone else’s granddad’s Y-fronts? 

Now don’t get me wrong. I am all for saving the planet and avoiding climate change. But, this Bag For Life thing just doesn’t seem to work for me. I think I have about six of the damn things already. Perhaps they are breeding. But for sure, I think I will be stuck with them for a very, very long time simply because I forget to take them with me to the supermarket. I now have to go through that whole routine where they ask me if I would like a Bag For Life; I say, “no thank you because I have several at home already”; and they reluctantly hand me two old-style carrier bags when I clearly need five or six for my many purchases, and they scowl at me in a way which is clearly intended to make me feel as if I am uniquely and personally responsible for imminent climactic chaos on an unprecedented scale. 

And in any case, I recycle/reuse the carrier bags. We put our rubbish in them. Our non-recyclable rubbish that is. I am a frequent visitor to the paper bank, the bottle bank, and the plastic recycling place. But we use the old-style supermarket carrier bags to put our non-recyclables in. And, incidentally, our non-recyclables consist mostly of unnecessary supermarket packaging! Let he who is without sin……. 

And, why do we need plastic bags at all? Why can’t we use paper bags like they do in America? Surely that would be much better for the planet. It would encourage the planting of more forests, and paper is much more easily recyclable than plastic. And, just think how many of us could have met our soulmates in one of those everything-falling-through-the-bottom-of-a-wet-paper-bag movie moments…… 

And, while I think about it, why can’t we have those nice carton things that Americans eat their Chinese takeaway out of using chopsticks, instead of those silver carton things and the plastic forks that we have over here? They may not have signed up to Kyoto, but they do seem to have a thing or two to tell us about packaging.  No, it seems that I am destined to feel the full weight of my own carbon footprint in the form of the growing number of Bags For Life that are to be crammed into kitchen cupboards and the millions of wire coat hangers that seem to be taking over the wardrobes upstairs. Every shirt that comes back from the laundry returns with its own hanger. If only I was creative and talented enough to recycle the hangers into children’s mobiles or sci-fi statues, or anything that I could make my fortune doing. 

And, while I think about it, the real purveyors of global warming and climate change are those little bastards who keep nicking our recycling bins. This happens far too often. We have already had one brown bin for compostable (is that a word?) stuff (weeds, leftover grub, etc.), and one blue box (for paper) stolen. Our neighbours have all been hit as well. We presume it is just kids doing it for fun, as there is not a lot else to do in sleepy Bradwall, rather than eco-terrorists. But it does seem crazy that I have to burn more CO2 by driving to the recycling place myself as a consequence of some childish prank. Perhaps the council can use those tracker things that they are putting into bins these days to find mine and return it to me.

 PS.Incidentally, on the subject of poor children in Africa and elsewhere, I would wholeheartedly recommend World Vision to you. C and I sponsor a little five year old Tanzanian girl called Sesilia. Her mom and dad are only young themselves and are subsistence farmers. We like to think that our contribution will make a real difference to Sesilia’s life. Hopefully, we will be able to pay for her education. And, hopefully, this will enable her to find her own place in the world. We dream one day of visiting her in her village and saying hello properly. In the meantime, we enjoy sending her the occasional photograph and letter and receiving letters from her, translated into English by one of the charity workers.

 

  

 

Grumpy Old Man Part 1

Made My Blood boil!

 

I got very annoyed one Friday listening to Radio 5. There was an interview with an Anna Taylor who was complaining that she would lose out to the tune of £89 per week if she got a job, rather than claiming benefit! This is a woman who has been “on the sick” for a number of years but is well enough to have given birth to five children in the last five years. Her husband/partner does not work either. Between them they “earn” in benefits the equivalent of an annual salary of £35k.

It made me so mad. She gets paid £35k per annum so that she and her partner can stay home 24/7 “bringing up” five kids under the age of five. I don’t know for sure, but I guess that £35k is probably more than a properly trained and qualified Nanny would earn. Someone who has worked hard to get a job as a Nanny.

What really grated was the woman’s attitude. Her whole defence was that she was only getting what she was entitled to and that it was ridiculous that she would be worse off if (and this is a huge, huge if) she got a proper job. I am sorry! The ridiculous thing is that the Government is willing to use my hard-earned tax contribution to fund a family of layabouts and enable them to afford five kids. As far as I am concerned there is an easy way to resolve this dilemma…Cut her benefits by a couple of hundred quid a week and force the parents out to work!!!

My mom and dad were hard up when they were bringing me and my sister up. My dad’s final year annual salary before retirement was less than my first year starting salary of twenty years ago. And he had worked for some 35 years for the same company! My mom often held down two jobs at a time to make ends meet. She took night shift work in factories so that she would always be at home when my sister and myself came home from school. And dad would be there when mom was at work. And, if dad had to work at night too, then a relative would be called upon to look after us.

The only Government benefit we got as a family was the family allowance and my university grant. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate how lucky I was to have had my university education funded in this way. I’m not sure that I could have survived in this current world with loans and huge overdrafts.

But, even then, while a student, I topped funds up myself with two scholarships, that I earned, and by working every Summer holiday! Including a job stripping asbestos from a factory. Wearing full breathing apparatus with an industrial vacuum cleaner strapped to my back up the top of a ladder! And, another job cleaning out oil sumps under tyre presses during the industrial shutdown weeks in Birmingham.

That was one helluva job. It involved being lowered on a rope down a sump shaft that was about one metre square and several metres deep. It was so hot that we worked in ten minute shifts. Ten minutes down the sump and ten minutes on the rope. When in the sump, a bucket would be lowered and you had to dig out all of the gunk, rubber and oil at the bottom of the sump and pass the bucket past your face back up to the top. It was quite horrific when you got to the bottom. Rubber beetles live on this stuff. Rubber beetles are like a cockroach’s worst nightmare. Huge. Scary buggers! Not the kind of thing you want to pass by your face by the bucketful!

My mom and dad worked every hour that God sent; took every and any job that they could to put food on our table and to give my sister and I the opportunity to go to university. They worked hard. They never had a credit card and they only bought what they could afford and when they could afford to have it. They saved for things like camping holidays or for the colour TV. They saved so that they could afford their babies. They were hard working, working class, looking to do better for themselves and their kids.

And then this Anna Taylor comes along complaining that she can’t find a job paying her £35k per annum to bring up her five kids. She left school at 16 and she aspires to a salary that kids who have put themselves through university would aspire to. And, she sees it as an entitlement. She genuinely believes that she is doing her bit by bringing five kids into the world.

Indeed, many sprang to Anna’s defence on the radio chat show, explaining that with our increasingly elderly population, we’re more and more reliant upon children growing up and becoming the tax payers of the future to pay for our pension and health care. I’m sorry! It is actually the past generations not the future ones that have paid for my pension and health care. The past generations and the current workers such as myself.

And, are you really trying to convince me that these five kids, given the example of their not-so-hard-working or civic-minded parents will develop a strong work ethic, get themselves a good education and solid jobs, paying lots of taxes into future social-welfare funds. They will be unusual if they do. I so hope they prove me wrong. Or, is it more likely that we will have another five adults living off entitlements/benefits, producing other kids for the state to feed and clothe, while they sit around all day watching Sky Movies, Jeremy Kyle and Judge Judy on their huge plasma screens. I wonder.

Also, when did it become Government policy in this country to pay people to breed? C and I, unfortunately, have not been able to have children. Not through lack of trying. For many years my annual bonus, which is a reflection of how hard I worked, was spent on privately funding IVF or other fertility treatment, without success. £35k would pay for about ten such procedures, every year! Could you imagine the furore if people such as C and I got that.

So, Mr Brown, please review the benefit system in this country. Think a little more about the tax payers, the hard workers. I am not saying that we shouldn’t look after the weak, the poor and the needy. Indeed I am more than happy for my tax pounds to go towards the needy and to pay for the pensions and health care of those people who have worked hard all their lives. But, you cannot convince me that giving someone £35k is the answer to anything. That woman’s attitude is proof enough.

Why pay benefits for five kids? Why not limit it to two and force would-be parents to think about the consequences of their actions and to develop a social awareness? My mom and dad planned their family, why shouldn’t these? And, by planning, I mean they worked out if and when they could afford a family rather than whether or not the state benefits would cover the additional cost.

Why not make benefits conditional upon certain caveats, such as attending parenting classes, guaranteeing to take the kids to the park twice a week, the kids’ attendance rate at school, etc. And while I think about it, why don’t we bring back National Service? I don’t necessarily mean putting young men into the army and sending them off to fight an illegal war somewhere. But, why not work as hospital porters, or visiting the elderly in hospices, or as support staff in the fire service, the police, or painting civic buildings. Anything to give them a work ethic and a sense of pride and discipline. I think this would solve your ASBO culture and the underage pregnancy rate in one fell swoop.

It just makes my blood boil.

OK rant over. I think I’m turning into Jeremy Clarkson….

 

 

Let’s Be Careful Out There!

Let’s Be Careful Out There!

 

I have recently had a job with responsibility for the security of payment cards and combating fraud. I loved it. I like to think I learned a great deal. I came to the job with almost zero knowledge and left it much better informed, with a huge suspicion and distrust of my fellow man, and of so-called secure technology. It was a huge eye opener.

As a result, I am all in favour of the government’s plan to mark privacy areas around ATMs – holes in the wall. For sure, I will never let that personal space be invaded while I am keying my PIN number. Indeed, I am a bit anal about the whole process of withdrawing money from a cash dispenser. I check for pin-hole cameras. I check for false keyboards. I check for card skimming devices. I check for shoulder surfers (people looking over your shoulder to see what PIN you enter). I check for people with MP3 devices within range. All of these things are widely used to your capture card details and to produce copy or counterfeit cards.

I never let my personal credit card out of my sight – petrol stations and Indian and Chinese restaurants are amongst the most common locations where card details are skimmed. Watch out for waiters who have a cloth hanging from their belt as it may be concealing a card skimmer. Never let them take your card away to pay.

I shred all material containing personal data. I would hate to be a victim of identity fraud. Am I over reacting? No I am not. Fraud is a lot more common than most people would think. You are a lot more vulnerable to becoming a victim of crime than you would think.

Did you know that statistically, 30 to 80% of all job applications contain lies or exaggerations; company employees commit 12% of fraud; management commits 40% of fraud. Who checks your expense claims? Perhaps you should take a closer look at those colleagues you sit with in the office every day. Is he or she a fraudster? How would you tell? Well, the typical profile of a fraudster is someone who does not take holidays, someone who is secretive about business processes, is resistant to supervision, has poor inter-personal skills, has good technical ability, works late, is prone to substance/alcohol abuse, is prone to relationship discord……..Sounds like most of my colleagues. Especially those in the security department. Worrying!

Actually fraud, or rather the impact of fraud, has touched me only fleetingly in my existence to date. And that is as close as I would ever like it to get.

I gave back my first ever company car. I had been so looking forward to my first company car. But, I sent this one back. I refused to drive it. How insensitive of the Company to give me a car that had previously been that of a recently deceased colleague. A recently deceased colleague who had taken his own life. A colleague who had killed himself by attaching a pipe to the exhaust of his company car, passing it through a small gap in a window and sitting in his car in his garage until he breathed no more. This was a lovely guy. He was an experienced sales rep who, just one month earlier, I had shadowed as part of my sales training. Unfortunately he was also a fraudster. He had been caught exaggerating sales in collusion with a number of dealerships for which he was responsible, meaning that they received higher commission payments from the Company than they had been entitled to. He was splitting the additional payments with the dealers. He got caught. The shame of being caught drove him over the edge. Drove him to suicide. He left a wife and two teenage kids. There was no way I was driving that car.

I also know someone who sold her company car. She was a bit loopy at the time.

On another occasion, C and I almost bought a house from someone who didn’t own the house they were selling. A house in Gee Cross near Hyde in Manchester. It was a beautiful house. A double-fronted Georgian house with an nice walled garden and a barn that could have been converted into C’s consulting room (she’s a counsellor and trainee psychotherapist). It was a bit dated inside and would have required decorating throughout, a new kitchen, and bathroom. But it was a beautiful house and would have been a wonderful investment property for us. It was going cheap because it needed some work and, we were told, because the owner had recently died very suddenly and unexpectedly.

We were going through the buying process when, on one evening while I was away on business, C was watching a reconstruction on a TV news programme. It was a reconstruction of the killing of the last victim of a notorious serial killer. It showed the killer parking outside of a beautiful double-fronted Georgian house in Gee Cross near Hyde in Manchester. It showed him entering the house through a nice walled garden, next to a barn. It showed him administering the lethal injection to his victim. The killer then went on to forge the poor lady’s will so that it looked as if she had bequeathed him a huge amount of money, and the house in which she lived. The house in which she died. The house in which she had been killed. And, the house in which the killer had subsequently intended to sell to us, before he was caught.

The killer was a doctor. A General Practitioner by the name of Doctor Harold Shipman. Doctor Death. The most prolific serial killer ever to disgrace these shores. After his trial, an inquest decided that there was enough evidence to suggest that Shipman had killed some 215 people, mostly women. His youngest victim had been a 41-year-old woman. Some sources have suggested that Shipman may have killed over 400 people.

I hate to think how we would have stood legally or otherwise (or where we would have lived) if we had bought the house before the fraudulent will had been discovered. It doesn’t bear thinking about. We had a lucky escape.

So, just you take care. Keep your cards close. Be careful what you throw away. Have a healthy degree of caution when dealing with others. And, watch your colleagues closely. Above all, if you are doing something wrong, stop it now. Before you get caught. The consequences don’t bear thinking about. As Sgt. Phil Esterhaus (Hill Street Blues) would have said: “Let’s be careful out there!”