An unhappy experience in Bacchus Bar under Burlington Hotel on New St
Went for lunch at Bacchus bar off New Street in Birmingham yesterday, with my Sister, as our planned venue for lunch was too busy. It was an abysmal experience. The bar tender who served me seemed to be suffering from some sort of cold symptoms and was couching often with no attempt to cover his mouth or use a tissue. The food took over half an hour to arrive, which for a weekday lunch time is a very long time. They could not even use the excuse of being busy as the place was half empty and most people did not seem to be eating or had been served before we arrived.

I had rump steak and chips with beer battered onion rings, my sister had a chicken pie with vegetables. My sister said her pie was fine althought he meat showed obvious signs of being mechanically recovered meat including tool marks on the meat. My steak was small, very tough and slightly over done it also contained far more sinews than rump could reasonably be expected to, it was more like stewing steak than rump. The chips had clearly been fried along side fish (there were bits of batter and a slight fishy taste, although not enough to set off my allergy to fish). The onion rings seemed to have been battered with ordinary batter, not beer batter.

The two meals with a large coke each came to just over £23.

For comparison our normal Friday lunch (either 2 mixed grills or a mixed grill and a roast dinner, again with two large cokes, at the Windsor on Cannon St) is much quicker, much better prepared and comes to around £16.

I won't be returning.

It may be churlish to point this out but, the decor seemed to include Ancient Roman, medieval European, Classical Egyptian and 19th Century European, but none of the Classical Athenian Greek that the name would suggest.  ¶ 15:27 0 comments

  Afghanistan
I was chatting with one of my colleagues at work last night. He's a Muslim originating from the Pashtun region (which covers north west Pakistan and a sizable chunk of Afghanistan), although I believe that he himself was born in the UK. We talked about the 5 British troops and 3 Afghanis killed by the Afghani security officer. My colleague said that this event was because the Afghani people don't see the Taliban as the enemy, they see the UK and US security forces as the enemy, and that the Afghani people see only 2 ways to win, military victory or death. I then asked if he was saying that the only mutually satisfactory outcome would be to just wipe out the entire population of Afghanistan (NB, I'm not actually proposing we do that), perhaps start by dropping Napalm on all the population centres. He agreed (after I'd explained what Napalm is and what it does) that that would be the only possible outcome.

Based on conversations I've had with other people, including recent immigrants from Afghanistan, I don't actually think that he is correct.  ¶ 08:16 0 comments

  Moving boundaries?
Just seen the latest campaigning bulletin from the South Yardley Liberal Democrats. In it they seem to be claiming responsibility for the opening of a new health centre on Richmond Road.

The thing is, I grew up near Richmond road, my mother still lives in the area, I know that area well. That road is not in South Yardley ward, Yardley constituency or even Birmingham. It's in the Lyndon ward of Solihull, maybe edging into Olton ward at one end but still Solihull. Also, unless the new health centre was built to look exactly like the old one, it's been there over 20 years.

Looking at the front page of that same missive, I can't help but wonder where they found these 83% of local voters who blame Labour for the job losses at JLR, LDV and elsewhere in Birmingham. Acocks Green Conservative Association perhaps? Most of the people I know lay the blame at the door of the leader and deputy leader of Birmingham City Council. My racist (and apparently not very bright) neighbour seems to reckon it's the fault of our former colonies in the Indian sub-continent (well, he doesn't use those exact words).

Overall I doubt the veracity of the whole publication.  ¶ 08:40 0 comments

  Unchecked parents can't loiter in play areas
Just sent this comment to BBC Breakfast news about their item on parents who haven't been CRB checked not being allowed to loiter in supervised children's play areas:

"It seems very sensible to prevent non-CRB checked adults (be they parents or not) loitering around children's play areas. Being a parent and being a pedophile are not mutually exclusive, quite the opposite. Statistically the person most likely to abuse a child is not the media hyped loner lurking in the bushes but actually that child's parents, another parent or trusted family member or friend.

Possibly a more interesting question is why these parents who say they want to stay in the play areas don't get the CRB check. What are they afraid it will turn up?"  ¶ 08:03 0 comments

  JSA, not EMA
I recently heard through a local college that EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance) may be scrapped because the administrative costs are too high. It seems to me that the best way forward would be to roll those on EMA on to the Job Seekers Allowance system. JSA is unlikely to be scrapped (unless it's replaced with something equivalent) and with the existing scale and infrastructure the additional administrative costs should be minimal.

I have therefore started a petition to the prime minister to scrap EMA and allow those who are/would be entitled to claim JSA. I am aware, from people I know who are JSA claimants that the job centres already let people 'sign on' over the web or to simply come to the job centre and swiping a card. Either this could be carried over to the pseudo-EMA claimants or perhaps the colleges could be required to 'sign on' their students to maintain the requirement of attendance to get paid (though if it's a case of we'll pay someone to sit around and do nothing why should we stop paying someone just cos they miss a couple of days of a course?)

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/jsanotema/

Labels: education, ema

  ¶ 18:34 0 comments

  British Computer Society Birmingham branch launch new website
I didn't know they had an old website so can't compare the new one to the old. There it is though: http://birmingham.bcs.org/

It does follow the new branding of the BCS.

Actually that I didn't know my local branch had a website is probably pretty indicative of the key problem the BCS has. Communication. They don't do it terribly well. Not with their members and especially not with employers. It seems to be the only professional body that isn't the de facto, if not de jure, requirement for advancement in the field they represent.  ¶ 08:24 0 comments

  PRINCE2
Got the results for my PRINCE2 practitioner exam. I passed! Got 84% which is way more than I thought.

Some people at work commented that this is higher than the minimum score you need to become a trainer in PRINCE2. I have been thinking of asking one of the project manager's at work if he would like to collaborate on a book.  ¶ 09:02 0 comments

  Aging population and working past retirement age
Sent this to BBC Breakfast as a comment, don't expect they'll read it out so posting here. They're talking out the aging population and people working past retirement age:

The downside of working part time past 'retirement' is that the way many benefits and pension schemes are set up means that any income from part time work will be taken out of your pension or other income.

I do agree that older people should be allowed to remain in work, I'll be 40 next year and expect to have to stay in work into my 70s. Perhaps the way to deal with the perceived competition for jobs between old and young is to look at the younger end for changes. We're already part way into the change. Rather than expecting the majority of people to leave full time eduction at 16 or 18 we should be encouraging them to stay in full, or close to full, time education longer. This does not necessarily mean 6th form or university, it could mean vocational training, apprenticeship, voluntary work or a mixture of these.

This could be continued into adult life where people could be supported in taking career breaks to study for career changes or development. We've moved from one job for life being the norm to many jobs in a career for life, perhaps we can now move to multiple careers in a life.  ¶ 08:43 0 comments