The arrogant Michael O'Leary capitulates !!

So the bullish arrogant CEO of Ryan Air, Mr Michael O'Leary has suddenly woken up to the fact that in retail, the customer is king. Well too late Mr O'Leary, much too late. Who in their right mind will want to travel with your low class airline when there are bargains to be had with more upmarket carriers who give a far superior level of customer service. In fact, I doubt whether the many thousands of your customers who have left you because you treated them with such disrespect will ever forgive you. You have treated us as fools for far too long and I hope it all back fires on you now.
Everyone will recall that Mr O'Leary's theory on baggage charges was to deter people from taking too much luggage with them. Another way of achieving this, so it seems, is to arrange for your luggage to be severely damaged whilst being loaded in the aircraft hold so not only do you have to pay for the privilege of taking luggage with you but also have to pay to replace it once it is damaged. Thus, you will definitely not want to take luggage with you next time. . .  geddit?? (see below)

Tim Cook CEO of Apple disrespected by Russian Vitaly Milonov

Tim Cook CEO of Apple has officialy come out as gay. This makes him the highest profile CEO to come out. Are most of us bothered about that? Well no, in fact I am really pleased about it as there must be many CEO's out there who are gay and this declaration by Tim Cook might just set the ball rolling as, after all, we are now in the 21st century right?
Well actually no, not in Russia. This is what Vitaly Milonov said as a member of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg:

“What could he (Cook) bring us? The Ebola virus, AIDS, gonorrhea? They all have unseemly ties over there … Ban him for life.”

What a disgusting piece of shite Mr Milonov is and his comments also say a lot about Russia today. What a sick society they must be. I wish good luck to Tim Cook but I am afraid I cannot express what I wish Mr Milonov !!!!

What do G.P's really know?

You see, I have got this funny little patch just above my forehead which has been there for about a year.  I am always banging my head on the cooker hood (men don't belong in the kitchen) and I thought it was as a result of a little knock. Over the year it has got slightly larger so I have applied all sorts of creams to it, antiseptic, hydro cortisone cause it sometimes itches but it's still remained there. So I made an appointment with my doctor to get some jollop to put on it and make it disappear. On the other hand I was also unsure if it was more serious and wanted to know if it was. 
My doctor took out her magnifying tool which lights up (some sort of scope) and had a look and exclaimed "I don't think it's anything serious, more likely dermatological and sometimes they freeze it to get rid of it so I will refer you to the dermatology dept. at the hospital". 
I got a phone call some five days later from the hospital telling me that they had a cancellation that very afternoon if I could make it, otherwise not to worry an appointment will be sent to me in due course. I said o.k. as I am about.
I was called into the examination room on time which was great, sat down and the consultant swanned in holding the same magnifying scope thing my doctor had, had a look and within five seconds said "yes it is skin cancer and not what your doctor thought it was. Don't worry it is not the nasty kind, it is very minor and we will just cut it out at a day surgery". Well, can you imagine how I felt to be given this news. Of course I am relieved it is not the serious sort but it still is the "C" word and my doctor was completely off course and I have to ask myself what good are G.P's other than for treating colds and headaches or referring patients to specialists who really know what they are doing. I find it exceptionally frightening and I just can't get my head round it (no pun intended).

Scotland Says No to Independence

Congratulations to Scotland  for saying NO to independence, you arrived at the correct decision. At least power hungry Alex Salmond is now stepping down as first minister and hopefully will be replaced by someone who will have a better perspective of what it will actually mean to Scotland if they split from the UK and hopefully not Nicola Sturgeon, someone with more vision of unity. The SNP should now adapt their slogan: 

Together (with the rest of the UK) we can make Scotland better.

Lloyds Bank Credit Card

Imagine my surprise when a letter dropped through my door from LLoyds Bank stating that they were going to cancel my credit card within two months. The letter was the usual standard bullshit which covered every eventuality and not personally written to me as an individual card holder. I thought to myself, this is strange as I have no balance, in fact I haven't used the card for about a year and yet the letter was saying they make their decision based on card usage, how I have managed my account and information from external credit agencies.
 It also said I can view my credit details by sending £2.00 to an address they quoted. I would love to see that as I have no debt, no balances outstanding on credit cards, no loans . . . nothing so I must have a really bad credit rating right? LMFAO.
Then it struck me, they are closing my account because they are not making any money out of me, stupid me. So Lloyds Bank, why don't you say that instead of sending me a standard letter which does not fit my situation, all wrapped up in bullshit and sounding like you are doing me a favour. Have the guts to come right out with it and say WE ARE NOT EARNING MONEY OUT OF YOU SO WE ARE CLOSING YOUR ACCOUNT!! Idiots.

Unbelievable cruelty from parents towards their son

The following is a video which shows the unbelievable cruelty from supposedly christian parents towards their son when he decides to "come out" to them. I found it distressing to listen to and I think anyone reading this blog will too. How in the name of god can any parents subject their child to this sort of abuse. Just shocking.

HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) - A shower of sh(!)t ?

I retired at the end of March this year. My actual retirement date was end August 2013 but I chose to work on for another seven months. My pensions became due at end August 2013 so they became active too.
My salary from my employer was already over the threshold for the basic rate of tax so any additional income i.e. pensions would be liable for tax at the rate of 40%. Anybody with an ounce of intelligence that is employed should be aware of rates of tax, but it appears not so the very people who administer public taxes who we entrust to look after our tax affairs.
Over the past couple days I received a letter from HMRC telling me I had underpaid tax by £2017 during the tax year 2013/14. How did that occur? My employer provided all the information concerning my income and benefits to HMRC and my P11D was correct. My pension providers are required by law to inform HMRC when they commence paying me my pensions, which I know they did because they were deducting me tax from my monthly income.
I have double checked the HMRC statement and their calculations are correct concerning income and PAYE deducted, so if they had this information where did it go wrong? How could I possibly underpay my tax as I do not personally deduct it from my income, only receive the net amount after tax deductions  have already been made.
My employer and Pension Providers deduct the tax they are told to when issued with a tax coding from HMRC. Oh dear me, is it possible that HMRC did not issue the correct tax coding's? According to their statement and my P11D they had all my income and benefits information so how difficult was it to issue the correct tax codes on my retirement date. In fact, it was very simple indeed: 
 As I was still employed and my salary had already exceeded the standard rate of tax any additional income i.e. pensions would be taxed at 40%. Simple? You would have thought so! Instead now I have a black hole in my pension income and there is nothing I can do about it even though it was not me who created it. AND it's not good enough to just say "well you had the money" because I was completely unaware that I was not entitled to it!
So, was there an apology from HMRC for causing this problem?  Well no. It was just a standard letter, worded in a matter of fact way telling me I don't have to do anything about the deficit as they will just deduct it from my pensions.
Oh, excuse me . . . has anyone bothered to check that I can actually afford for £180 per month to be deducted from my pension? Well of course not. 
Just to give you an idea how on the ball they are, during the first six weeks of my retirement they unbelievably sent me a tax coding amendment at the rate of about one per week.

At this rate I may well have to ditch my retirement and find some employment. What a load of wankers. GRRRRRRR.

The Wolf is back

Well, I am back. I gave Twitter a try for a while but to be honest it is so difficult to express yourself in 140 characters or even expanding that a little bit more using TwitLonger. So from now on in I will be posting blogs here on issues that concern me and one is brewing at the moment about HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs). So, must get cracking on that real soon.

The desecration of the Hanstead Estate, Bricket Wood, Hertfordshire

Hanstead House

I don't know where to start really, however, I guess it was yesterday when I learned of the plans to develop Hanstead the former home of Sir David and Lady Henrietta Yule located in rural Bricket Wood, Hertfordshire into a housing estate.

I know nothing stays the same for ever, but I could not believe what I was reading, it is a travesty, it is planning gone nuts to even think of such a thing in an area of precious green belt land.

I grew up in that area and well remember Hanstead's 1200 acres which was given over to farming and the breeding of pedigree Aberdeen Angus cattle and the World renowned Hanstead arabian horses which had such an impact on the modern arabian of today and the influence on today's show ponies through the little grey Hanstead arabian stallion Naseel. After Lady Henrietta died in 1950 her daughter Gladys took over the estate and kept it running until her untimely death through a heart attack in 1957 at the young age of fifty three.

I had my first riding lesson on Hanstead land and used to ride around Smug Oak Lane and Drop Lane and across the Water Meadows wading through the river Ver in the winter with the river up to my pony's belly and my legs out of the stirrups up around his neck. I remember this little skewbald pony well, his name was Peter Pipikins, Pip for short.

I knew well the farm buildings where the Yule's Aberdeen Angus herd was located on land just off  Colney Street and the prize certificates from shows were still pinned around the walls of the big barn where the cattle pens stood.

After the death of Miss Gladys Yule the estate lay dormant for a number of years until it was sold to an American religious sect World Church of God who turned it into an educational campus and renamed it Ambassador College. We still rode through the estate past the main buildings and regularly saw fresh faced american students going about their lives but the rural nature of the estate still remained despite the development of some of the original buildings, including the wonderful clock house stables which I remember having the name plates of their famous arabian inhabitants such as Grey Owl, General Grant, Count Dorsaz.

Much of the area around the main buildings was excavated, sports facilities added including a running track, a lake dug out. Ambassador College was eventually closed in 1974 and the site was bought by the Central Electricity Generating Board in 1978 as a staff training centre. The sports part of the site was taken over by the city council as a leisure centre but they closed it due to lack of patronage.

HSBC (Hong Kong Shanghai Bank) bought the site as a management training centre in 1994 and closed it in 2011 and moved the facility abroad.

Now the site has been purchased for housing redevelopment by St. Conger Land Limited who are now trying to justify why it is necessary to desecrate this green belt area of historical beauty. If ever there was a place that is not right for a housing estate, this is it. It is indeed a dreadful, dreadful travesty, a blight on the rural landscape.  There are riding / livery stables in the immediate vicinity so imagine what it will be like for them to negotiate the increase in traffic alone not only once the development is finished but during the building stage as well. Absolutely frightening.

Fortunately, I do not live in the area anymore and much prefer the more rural idyll of Somerset and Devon. I guess the building of the M25 across part of Bricket Wood saw me off. However, it has been in my mind for a couple of years now to revisit Bricket Wood to see how much it has changed since I left and perhaps relive a few childhood memories. Google Earth does give you some idea but I feel that treading the "real earth" is a better experience.

I guess I had better do that sooner rather than later or else I may be just too late to recognise anything.

Threshold - great British rock band

I have been listening to the latest album March Of Progress from British rock band Threshold. It's quality rock music of that there is no doubt. However, I am not a fan of singer Damian Wilson's screechy vocals and if the truth be known they get on my nerves a bit. Previous singer "Mac" was so much better, in my opinion, a classic rock voice with range and depth which I thought was much more suited to Threshold's music.

Taking all that into consideration, I have to say that this album is pretty fantastic, if nothing else from the awesome guitar work of Karl Groom and the brilliant keyboards of Richard West.

This is classy progressive rock with a capital "C". If you love progressive rock go buy it, you may even like Damian Wilson's vocals . . . . . .  oh, and have I mentioned that they're British too.