In the news almost daily now we have some analyst or think-tank or self-indulgent quango spouting their theory on how bad the UK and world recession will be and how long it will last. Growth figures are thrown around and the UK gets ranked against other countries based on how it will cope with the recession. Apparently the UK economy will shrink all the way through 2009 and will be hit harder than most other countries by the world recession.
I have a message for all of these analysts: You know nothing! In every one of your statements you make a short disclaimer somewhere to the effect that because of the unprecedented nature of this downturn it is very hard to make predictions and yet you still make them and you make them sound so accurate as well!
We have spent years studying the weather and we have vast supercomputers constantly analysing it. We can measure and record what weather systems are around and where they are heading. Yet if you look out of your window on a daily basis and compare it with the weather prediction, how often is it actually accurate?
The analysts and market commentators seem to think that they can predict the duration and nature of a global recession which is based on that most unpredictable facet of human nature, fear. How can they possibly attempt to judge the reaction of billions of people in thousands of cultures. The truth is that they can’t and by making alarming predictions of a severe downturn lasting throughout 2009 they are simply compounding the fear which people already have following the troubles in the banking industry.
I say shut the hell up and let’s see how quickly the fear dissapates.
Well that was a shock! The Bank of England finished their two-day meeting this morning and announced a 1.5% interest rate cut. Even the most optimistic of analysts only expected a 1% cut and most people, myself included, thought that they’d play it safe at 0.5% instead. At 3% the interest rate is now at it’s lowest point since 1955 and and it is the largest single reduction since a 2% cut in 1981.
I only hope that such a dramatic and unexpected move will prompt some optimism and courage from the banks and the markets in general. It will clearly hit sterling hard but it is so important that banks start lending again, borrowing rates are reduced and as a result the economy gets a much needed kick start.
If the banks don’t pass this rate cut on to customers and the markets don’t respond positively then every senior manager in the commercial financial sector should be sacked. Bankers and traders have spent years bragging about their skills and nerve in the marketplace yet now that their mistakes have come back to haunt them, all of that courage and bravado appears to have evaporated. It’s time for them to stand up and grow a pair!
Having not posted for a while I came to post this morning and when trying to upload an image, the “Choose Files to Upload” button had stopped working. Clicking on it didn’t do anything. I assumed it was a problem with the PC at home, but the office PC had the same trouble so I did some investigation.
I initially thought it was a Server problem but everything looked fine and I hadn’t changed anything on the server so I started to look into other recent updates. It also seemed to be a very specific error rather than a general problem. Since Wordpress uses Flash for the image/media management I started to look into a possible Flash problem since I know that all my machines have recently had a Flash update prompted by an Adobe pop-up.
It turns out that there is a known issue with the upload mechanism and Flash 10. There is some discussion here and the solution seems to be to downgrade to Flash 9. However, since I only upload one or two images at a time, I chose to manually disable Flash in Firefox for any session in which I’m posting. Wordpress then reverts to the old basic way of uploading files. If you upload a quantity of files at once, this workaround may not be suitable for you.
To disable flash in Firefox for the current session, got to Tools –> Add-Ons –> Plugins –> Shockwave Flash –> Disable. Remember to enable it again for your next session.
Does anyone else like Storm watches? I used to until last month. I have two Storm watches and I love the designs in their range. However, this year my Stepson had one for christmas and it stopped working in June. His girlfriend had one in March and the catch broke in July and I bought my Fiancee one in August and the catch came loose twice, once she managed to catch it and the second time she didn’t and the glass smashed on the floor.
I took all three watches back to the nearest Storm shop , in Birmingham, a round trip of 40 miles and very expensive to park at. They replaced the catch on the one watch and kept the non-working one until they got a new battery in stock. The smashed one, they sent away for repair. I got a call a couple of weeks later to say that they would not repair it under guarantee as there was nothing wrong with the catch. No amount of arguing would convince them that I was there when the watch fell off and smashed on the floor and the catch had been secured properly.
Here’s a tip for any customer services bosses out there. When a customer has three of your products which have all failed in just a few months and they have taken a 40 mile round trip to bring them back for repair, YOU TAKE THEM AT THEIR WORD! Three Storm watches purchased, three failures. If my company had a 100% failure rate for a customer I’d be a lot more responsive to their needs.
Now, despite admiring their designs, I wouldn’t buy another Storm watch. It seems that they are just very nice looking but very poor quality products. Anyone else had problems with them?
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