BUSINESS FIRST INNER 3-38:Layout 1 9/6/08 17:17 Page 6
06
A bad hair day,
every day
THE
SCEPTIC
The T5 fiasco at Heathrow was smartly followed by an somehow, shock/horror, some of us are falling short of perfection?
announcement from the Competition Commission that BAA’s Well, guess what? We’re not perfect, damn it. And holding out the
market position was close to monopoly and they may have to illusion that we could be is just one more device used by the
divest themselves of at least one major airport. Please God let it be nannies and the martinets, who have grown like weeds over the last
Gatwick. Someone with a bit of vision and a lot of dosh needs to few years, to make us feel inadequate, and therefore drones to be
move in and give the old girl a real going over. What a great controlled. To hell with that. Celebrate your shortcomings as much
advert for our region and our country, when visitors have to trek to as your virtues. They’re what make each of us different.
immigration through long, drab and sometimes dilapidated
corridors, wall panels and carpets held together by duct tape. The
place just hasn’t kept pace with demand, it is a nightmare Heath Nice county, Surrey. Shame about the roads.
Robinson-esque, Frankenstein of a place.
And as for the queues of foreign-passport holders being dealt with
by only a handful of immigration officials – one look at their
I am as understanding of the need for flexible working as anyone,
frustrated faces tells you just how happy they will be to return. Not.
but can someone please explain to me how I’m supposed to get
business done when the people I need to speak to are only at their
desks every other day? If that…
Ever wondered about all those surveys that tell us X per cent of
Voicemail: “It’s 3pm and I’m sorry I’m gone for the day….I’ll be
society is not as good at doing something as it should be? Or that
back tomorrow. Or maybe the day after.”
not all of us are adopting 100% healthy diets and lifestyles? As if
And then there are job shares. To me, both sharers should do all
tasks and be briefed on everything so you never miss a beat. But
they don’t, they split the tasks between them.
Is it me, or does all this only slow business down to a crawl?
And don’t get me started on school holidays, when half the
workforce seems to be off.
Actually I don’t think I am that understanding after all.
Talking of cranky, I get really mad at people talking us into trouble.
What’s their problem? Blame the media, sure, but they’re just
parrots and congenital doomsayers. They need food for their
gloom and there are too many self-appointed experts out there
prepared to feed them. Can you believe there’s a web site out
there called something like housepricecrash.com? Of course,
whoever is behind it is just cashing in on the market in misery, so no
blame there.
But you know, we do have a choice. Bankers can choose to
release some of the liquid cash they’re storing up and feed the
market’s need for credit. Or they can hoard it. They make their
decisions on the basis of their fear, just as their irrational
exuberance fed the boom. It’s all emotion. If we just calm down a
bit and inject some common sense, we might get through this with
only a few bumps and bruises.
Or we could just talk our way to hell in a handcart.
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