My So-Called Life
the random and not-so-random musings of a twenty-something history geek
My So-Called Lifethe random and not-so-random musings of a twenty-something history geek |
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| About Lizzie: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Lizzie is a fully qualified history teacher having finished her course at Canterbury Christ Church University. She's also a geek who was secretary of the University of Kent Computing Society during her three year BA at the University of Kent. She is very much in love with her shiny Husband, though she is sad that he doesn't glow bloo :( More about her on her website: http://carina.org.uk |
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| Mar. 14th, 2009 @ 02:24 pm Government to track movement out of the country | |||
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I'm currently feeling rather annoyed by this. " All travel plans to be tracked by Government". Under the plans, starting to be brought in already: "Anyone departing the UK by land, sea or air will have their trip recorded and stored on a database for a decade." I don't know where to start on this, or what annoys me most. Perhaps it is the justifcation from the government: "The changes are being brought in as the Government tries to tighten border controls and increase protection against the threat of international terrorism." How does tracking people leaving the country and holding the details for 10 years protect us against terrorism? This comes across as a standard line from the government, much like how ID cards will apparently protect us, even if they didn't protect the people of Madrid. Or it might be the "condemnation" of the plans by Chris Grayling, the home affairs spokesman for the Conservatives: ""Of course we need to keep a proper record of people as they come in and leave the country. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound much like it's condemning the plans to me. Grrrr. This government is making me so annoyed with plans like this I barely know where to start. As soon as one lot are withdrawn, another lot comes up. I'm starting to feel quite worn down by it all. |
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| Jan. 22nd, 2009 @ 11:24 am MPs and FOI | |||
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Typical, that on the day the Government withdraws the plan to keep MPs expenses secret my MP should write back to me about voting against the proposed measure. For good measure, I'm putting a copy of his reply here. Bits in italics were handwritten and not always very clear ;) ( Letter from Julian Brazier ) In other news, should you have any spare cash lying around (I know that this is unlikely given the current economic climate) and fancy putting it towards a cool cause, the National Railway Museum in York are trying to gather funds so they can finish their restoration of The Flying Scotsman. "Steam our Scotsman" - the campaign to raise money to finish the restoration. |
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| Jun. 2nd, 2008 @ 10:54 pm 42 days detention | |||
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I was watching Newsnight just now and there were some politics experts talking about the new Counter Terrorism Bill, which is going to be voted on by MPs next week. There are lots of things in the proposed bill which make me angry, and I'm not going to go in to that right now, but the major thing being discussed tonight was the clause of holding suspects without trial for 42 days (the current is 28 days and the highest in the world already). What made me especially angry tonight, livid in fact, was the man who basically stated that the bill with 42 days would probably pass because most of the Labour MPs who would rebel feel that they have caused Gordon Brown enough trouble right now and that the bad headlines would damage their party. There are just no words for how angry that makes me. The idea that a flawed bill with a hugely flawed detention without trial limit would be allowed through because some people feel that they need to conform for the good of their party and are not willing to stand up for what they believe in (and the fact they were considering rebelling in the first place tells me that they think this is wrong) makes me really angry. What a ridiculous reason for letting this bill though. I could almost respect them if they thought it was the right thing to do but just because they think they've caused enough trouble for now? It strikes me that it is an inherently bad law if the best reason for passing it that someone voting for it can come up with is that they don't want to rock the boat any more. ARGH! AngryAngryAngry. |
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| May. 31st, 2008 @ 01:14 pm Petition to make maternity and paternity leave fairer | |||
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I got this from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jmkg, and she explains it best, so I'll let her:"Please sign the petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/flexibleleav We believe that families should be able to choose what works for them, rather than assuming that the mother will always be the parent who will be taking the childcare leave. In a lot of situations the mother may wish not to have a full year off work, or the family may not be able to afford for her to. Yet there is no provision to transfer any leave to the mother's partner, who equally may well prefer to have more than the two weeks allocated to spend with their new baby. Naturally a lot of families would still choose the traditional route of the mother taking the full leave, but *there should be the choice*. Please sign the petition even if you don't think it affects you personally, but you think that other families should be able to choose what's right for their situation. A flexible system of leave could also have the advantage of reducing sexist employment behaviours. MEP Godfrey Bloom (UKIP) said "No self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age", but if parental leave wasn't automatically assigned to the mother then a major incentive for unscrupulous businesses *not* to hire women of child-bearing age would disappear. The petition doesn't propose any increase in the overall amount of leave allowed to new parents, though that could be a focus for future campaigns. It is just intended as a first step - a large first step, which could make the world a fairer place without costing money for businesses (a major reason why other proposals to make the leave allowances fairer have failed). What you can do: please sign the petition, and visit our website at equalrights.org.uk for more information. Please pass this message onto other people: tell your friends, tell your online communities, get people interested, help spread the word!" |
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| Sep. 27th, 2007 @ 11:37 pm More on the tax saga | |||
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I have to admit I'm impressed. Or possibly more shocked. After I emailed edexcel two days ago (after the yelling ranty call to the tax office following major incompetence and stuff) I expected very little in the way of either cooperation, speed or competence and this morning my statement of earnings turned up. It's even been signed by a real person! I'll be taking a photocopy of that then before I send it off to be eaten up by HM Revenue and Customs. Still, as I said, I'm impressed. It seems the key to dealing with edexcel is to set your sights and expectations very low and then they may actually impress you! In other news, I went to curry to celebrate Adam's birthday (on Tuesday evening), which was lovely. I also met up with Oziris for coffee (on Wednesday), which we must do more often and today I looked after Sue's baby, John, who is delightful and lovely and not terribly hard work (or at least wasn't today) - the best part is having a nice time and handing him back afterwards! Finally tonight foo and rah came round and we had uber lasagne of doom. Yum. Now I'm off to bed - I have a counsellor's thing tomorrow, preceeded by a gulbenkian breakfast :D Atfer that the day is mine. Any ideas? ;) |
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| Sep. 25th, 2007 @ 03:01 pm The great tax saga | |||
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Honestly, it's days like this that make me wonder if I'll ever be a useful member of society again! (I should write a CBT sheet for that thought I suppose) Anyway, I woke up in a pretty good mood and went to collect the post. The first one I opened was from HM Revenue and Customs. I should mention at this point that I am waiting on money (over £500) to come back from them that I overpaid in tax last year. This has been going on for four months. I sent them a letter when I got my P60 from Kent (which was when I realised just how many squillions of pounds I had overpaid) enclosing my P60 and my forms from edexcel (essentially a payslip, but it's all they give me - edexcel don't issue P60s). When I first called in April to find out what I needed to do to claim back my tax I was told these forms would be sufficient. I got a letter in August (two months exactly since they recieved my original letter) asking me to fill out my employment history for 2006. I did that and sent it back. Cue the clock starting again on my claim (they say it'll be up to two months from the date of my last communication arriving with them). More or less two months since I sent back that form I get another letter today, saying that they've sent back my P60 (which wasn't enclosed) and that my stuff from edexcel was not sufficient, despite what I had been told four months ago. At the moment I seem to be able to go between extremes of emotions. I ended up getting very angry very quickly and I called them and first yelled at the person who answered the phone and then requested a supervisor and yelled at her. When I'd yelled at them for about 20 minutes about how the legnth of time wasn't acceptable, nor was the fact my P60 was MIA, nor was the conflicting advice I had got from their office I got off the phone to them and burst in to tears. I went from angry to very sad and virtually helpless in a matter of seconds. Now I feel bad for yelling at them. I've done jobs like that and I know it's not their fault, but I was very angry and had to take it out on someone. I called edexcel who don't do P60s and are instead sending me a statement of earnings. I'm now more than a little terrified. I am waiting for them to send me the right document as soon as possible. I'm basically combining the incompetence of Edexcel with the incompetence of the tax office. I'm starting to wonder if I'll see my money this side of Christmas. As I said above, it's days like this that make me wonder if I can ever be a useful member of society again. It probably doesn't help that my hormones are all over the place at the moment, as I have come off the pill to see if it helps with my depression. At the moment though I just feel even more out of whack than before. Argh. I'm also annoyed at myself. It's moments like this that I feel a real burden on those who are close to me, especially my husband. Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything silly, I've never been that depressed. I just needed to get it all out. There. By the way, I still haven't filled in the forms for Incapacity Benefit. I'm so scared of getting them wrong. Wow. Talk about lame excuses. |
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grumpy
relieved
angry
pensive
calm
anxious