So, after watching the final episode of the current BBC Three series "Conspiracy Road trips", which centred on the belief that UFO/Alien cover ups exist, one thing stood out to me in particular.
Amongst the "road tippers", which was the usual assortment of overly paranoid conspiracy buffs and new age-esque hippy types who claim some form of alien contact, there was a man who made the astonishing claim that he had been personally attacked by aliens in his own home, an encounter which he said he would do everything in his power to prevent again.
The most worrying aspect of his story, which involved him being supposedly set upon by a group of alien creatures while he was wearing only his underpants (!?!) was that after this supposed attack, he had developed an extremely paranoid attitude towards the whole thing, culminating in him showing on screen the collection of edged weapons he keeps hidden inside his house (which he shares with his wife and two young children), including a vicious looking short sword kept down the side of his sofa, and an axe kept hidden in his bedroom, and stating his intent to use them should any alien enter his property again. He was also later shown to be interested in purchasing various firearms when the group visited as gun shop during the course of their road trip (which, as any resident of the UK will know, firearms are generally illegal to obtain or own throughout the entire British isles).
Mental illness issues and suitability to be allowed access to children aside, It got me thinking about what would actually happen if the EEBUL ALEONZ!!11!! actually did turn up on our doorstep and announced that they were spoiling for a rumble.
So, this thought experiment (of sorts) makes the following assumptions:-
#1 - The aliens come from a planet comparable to ours, within 10 light years of Earth
#2 - The aliens are biologically comparable to us, as in oxygen/nitrogen breathing with similar tolerances to gravity, atmospheric pressure and heat/cold.
#3 - The aliens are more technologically advanced than us. (This is a given being as that with our current level of technology, interstellar travel is not available to humans)
So, as in law, there are three sections that need to be covered, "Means", "Motive" and "Opportunity".
Opportunity
I'll cover this one first, as it is probably the simplest.
As it stands right now, the human race doesn't look much further than its own doorstep. We have various methods of observing the space around us, such as telescopes of both the optical and radio types, as well as radar, lidar and so on, but as routine, we do not maintain a permanent observation of space in its totality.
It could come to pass that a comet or asteroid could appear in one of our blind spots and annihilate us with very little warning, so thus, it could also be conceivable that an alien spacecraft or fleet could sneak up on us unnoticed.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, humans have been beaming various radio and TV signals into space (both intentionally as well as unintentionally), as well as hurling unmanned satellites into the void. Granted, most satellites sent into space these days lack the indentificaton markers and "invitations to visit" that some of the probes sent out in the 60s and 70s had (i.e, the Voyager golden record or the Pioneer plaque, both of which provide reference points by which the finder could use to see the probes point of origin), but as it stands, the human race has been very noisy over the past 150 years or so, and to anyone who has been listening or watching, the idea of coming here may seem attractive, especially if they have the capability, and if they have malevolent intent, the chances are that they could arrive and take us more or less completely by surprise.
"Officially" we do not have any kind of orbital weapons systems, nor do we have any kind of space combat vessels, so should a fleet of alien spacecraft suddenly pop up out of nowhere, our chances of being able to halt them before they get too close are practically nil, a rather depressing thought, almost akin to leaving your backdoor wide open with all your valuables laid out and neatly catalogued on the kitchen table, along with a note saying "please take all my stuff, KTHXBAI!"
Of course, as there is very little evidence to actually support the existence of any kind of intelligent alien life, not being prepared for an alien attack could be seen as simple common sense, after all, why be paranoid about a risk we are fairly sure doesn't exist?, add to this formula mans arrogance that something like that could never possibly happen, and you can see why there is very little interest in the subject at anything more than a speculative level.
The problem with that kind of thinking though is that mathematically speaking, it is improbable in the extreme for there NOT to be some other kinds of intelligent life out there..hmm.
Motive
So, after we have announced our presence to anyone who happens to be paying attention, and they decide to pay us a visit, what would their intentions be?.
Well, as with many things, it can either go good or bad.
Given that this race had the technological means to get from their planet to ours in some manner, whereas we don't have the power to go see them, this would mean that they would have to be more technologically advanced than us in the field of space travel, but their ability to do a thing would be tempered by their reasons for doing said thing: -
Peaceful intent
Its not outside the realms of possibility that a more technologically and culturally advanced society would see contact with another intelligent species as a source of great excitement and curiosity, and would visit us with the intention of wanting to learn more about us as a species on a purely cultural level. They may also wish to trade or even assist us with our problems by giving us access to their superior knowledge.
The problem with this is that should this happen, it would be akin to times when a "superior" race of people imposes itself on the culture of another, for example, the British, French and Italian empires expansion into Africa caused many problems such as giving people who were at a lesser stage of societal, cultural and technological development access to weapons and knowledge that they were not able to handle in a responsible manner, the repercussions of which can still be seen today.
Should aliens visit Earth and allow us access to their technological and/or medical advancements, it wouldn't be long, barring some sort of massive cultural change, before mankind's inherent jealousies and pettiness would lead to someone somewhere figuring out a way to weaponise the new technologies.
For example, if the aliens showed us how to build practical small sized fusion or anti matter generators or batteries, it wouldn't be long before someone figured out that you could connect these up to serve as a power source for the many directed energy weapons that we have already developed but as yet have not been able to find a practical power source for.
Medical science could be corrupted to produce any one of a number of noxious chemical or biological weapons, which when bolted on to missiles would form very potent means of exterminating another nation in a single strike and not leave any nasty radioactive crap floating around like what you get with good old fashioned nuclear weapons.
Teleporters could be used to dispense with the need for missiles and bombers and transport bombs instantaneously to their targets without any kind of advance warning.
The list goes on, but even if aliens came with nothing but good intentions, the chances are that in some way, humans would fuck it all up, simply because we aren't at the stage yet where we can handle not being the top of the pile, much less put aside our differences and make a big step in our understanding of the universe at large.
Malevolent intent
There are varying degrees of malevolence, depending on what the aliens actual objectives are:-
Resources (mineral) - The Earth is abundant with many metals, chemicals and building materials, most notably oxygen, aluminium, silicon, iron, calcium, sodium, copper, strontium, uranium, germanium and so on, all of which have many uses within a sufficiently advanced culture. In addition to this, being as that 71% of the Earths surface is covered with water (DiHydrogenOxide or H2O), which is essential for all known forms of life on Earth, it is surmisable that an alien species similar to us would also require water for some reason.
Resources (organic) - As of the time of writing, there are nearly seven billion (7,000,000,000 short scale) humans living on Earth, in addition to the billions of individual examples of animal, plant and bacteriological life forms we share the planet with. All of these life forms contain various proteins, amino acids and other "useful" compounds and elements that could be rendered down and used as food, fertilisers or many other chemical uses.
If mass slaughter isn't their thing, 7 billion humans would make a handy dandy workforce if they could be subjugated, even if a 20-50% casualty rate stemming from a forceful invasion thinned out numbers out, that would still leave between between 3.5 and 5 billion pairs of hands left to mine resources for our new overlords, or shipped off world to work somewhere else.
Conquest (benevolent) - Our visitors may see us as an unruly child race who is in dire need of a good stern lesson in humility, and thus come to Earth to stop us from inevitably causing trouble.
Alternatively, the aliens may see the damage we are causing to our own world, and decide to take steps to preserve the rarity of a world which can support life of a similar type to theirs by either annihilating us or at the very least subjugating us "for our own good".
Conquest (malevolent) - A warlike, expansionist or nomadic race may routinely seek out and invade worlds which are able to support lifeforms such as theirs, with a view to either colonising them or using them as a base from which to move on to the next world, in addition to using them as a place to resupply themselves with the essential resources required for conquest.
Needful intent
It may be a strange idea, but its not outside the realms of possibility that an alien race may come here because they have no permanent home of their own, or because we have something they need in order to fix problems on their own world.
Nomads/homeless - For whatever reason, the aliens home world may have been destroyed or otherwise rendered uninhabitable, and a percentage of their civilisation was able to escape into space to begin looking for a new home. Their arrival on an already overcrowded Earth would in all likelihood be met with both welcoming arms and open hostility, as they would represent both confirmation that man is not alone but also would end up being more mouths to feed, which again, could lead to problems integrating them into our society and cultures, possibly ending up with some sort of global war of some description, but certainly inaugurating a new level of prejudice based on species rather than skin colour, religion (or lack thereof), social status and so on.
Needy/beggars - As I said, Earth has abundances of many resources, any of which could be useful to aliens even in small (considering) quantities. For example, water, which is one of the most abundant things on the face of the Earth (all 71% of it, in addition to the unconfirmed amounts known to exist on the Moon and Mars, and the suspected amount of it on Jupiter's moons) could be required due to their planets supply either being contaminated in some way, or because their worlds water supply is limited and over population means they need to find more from somewhere.
Means
So, the aliens have now figured out why and when they will come, but now its time to ask how they would come and what they would do when they get here, there are many options available:-
Travel
As the aliens are more advanced than us, there are any number of ways they could come here, using both "conventional" and/or "theoretical" means...
Generational Ship/Fleet (sublight) - A single large ship, or a fleet of ships, carrying everything a conquering force would need in order to carry out a perceived successful invasion. In essence, this ship/fleet would have to consist of both an invasion force and a colonisation/occupation force, meaning that there would have to be a hell of a lot of aliens to make it worthwhile. for example, if they decided that for every 10 humans there would be the need for 1 alien, that would mean that somehow they would need to ensure that by the time they got here, they had at least 7,000,000,00 aliens ready to fight, in addition to weapons, vehicles, equipment and mundane things like food, medicines, clothing (if they require any).
If the vessel could not travel at or faster than the speed of light, then this journey would be very long, and very tedious if they did not have access to some kind of method of suspended animation, the food, drink and medicine requirements alone would be a vast logistical nightmare which would more than likely require centuries of planning and preparation in order to successfully pull off. Add to this the fact that you'd need to keep everyone on the fleet/ship entertained and educated while the journey is taking place (in order to both keep them sane and to ensure that they don't stray from their purpose), and the whole "sublight invasion fleet" idea gets a bit too ridiculous for even a desperate race to consider.
Having access to some kind of cryogenic/suspended animation technology would significantly ease the logistical requirements relating to the welfare of the voyagers, as they wouldn't need to be fed, clothed, medicated or entertained during the journey, although there would in all likelihood be a requirement for some to remain awake and die in space in order to keep the ships systems maintained etc, although this function could be carried out by robots or automated repair systems of some kind.
Generational Ship/Fleet (light speed) - If the planet of origin is 10 light years away, then if the ships can travel at the speed of light, the journey will take roughly 10 years (given the requirement for time needed to accelerate and then decelerate, provided they didn't have the ability to stop/start without accelerating), roughly equivalent to a single generation. This of course does ease the logistics of the effort somewhat, because food for 10 years would have to be provided, as well as all the other required equipment as mentioned before. Access to some method of suspended animation would eliminate much of the need for this, but would still require the transportation of 7,000,000,00 aliens for the assault.
Wormhole/Faster than light/Space folding travel - Being able to cut down travel time from the order of centuries to a matter of months, or even weeks, simplifies the logistics problems which would otherwise have been encountered. Also, as human detectors can only "see" at the speed of light, something travelling faster than light, or something which simply appears seemingly out of nowhere would provide an additional element of surprise.
Assault
Once within striking distance, the invaders would of course need to attack in some way. As a species, having very little by way of space based offensive capability, we in all likelihood would not be able to prevent or even respond to this first strike in any meaningful manner. In addition to this, any vessel which is capable of traversing the interstellar void is going to be built of tough stuff in order to resist the rigours of exposure to hard radiation of varying types, meteor collisions and extremes of temperature etc, so shooting their ships down with ground based missiles would probably be more of an annoyance than any kind of serious threat, especially so if the ships hulls are bolstered by some kind of force field or energy dissipating material.That said, if you hit something hard enough and often enough in the right place, then it will eventually break, so all those experimental military spec railguns/coilguns that are out there would probably be useful for that.
Depending on what the aliens want from us means that a fair few options are open to them in terms of the actual military assault:-
Conventional "Combined arms"/"Total war" Assault. - As we would with our own conventional wars, the assault would begin with bombardment of targets of importance, taking out military barracks, airfields, missile silos, C3i installations and such, before aircraft move down from orbit in order to establish air superiority over the areas designated for landing zones.
Once these areas are cleared, landing vessels containing troops and ground vehicles would fortify the areas until permanent bases could be set up.
High/low orbit bombardment - If the aliens are following a "scorched earth" type agenda then wasting valuable resources and time on a difficult and costly ground war could easily be offset by blasting the surface of Earth with missiles and such without even landing, thus killing the humans en masse and driving the survivors away from the bits where they want to land/occupy.
Nuclear/Biological/Chemical warfare - A virus tailored to be deadly to humans could easily be whipped up by a sufficiently advanced race, and then disseminated into the air by unmanned drones. Similarly, poisoning the seas, rivers and reservoirs would lead to mass deaths and a complete breakdown of society within a matter of weeks, then all the aliens have to do is come on down and there will be many ready built cities for them to occupy and abundant resources to just pick up and carry away.
Mind control/Subliminal hypnosis - Using the Earths many orbital satellites, a subliminal signal is inserted into TV, radio and internet broadcasts, which eventually makes some humans more open to suggestion, or in extreme cases, completely brainwashed, so that when the aliens finally do come down and take over, people are not only pleased, they're actually happy.
So, what would our chances be?
Well, there is the distinct possibility that should E.T come a calling, their invasion would end up being completely destroyed en route by some sort of celestial phenomena, bad planning or even infighting amongst the invasion force (especially so if their journey is a long one).
Should they happen to get here though, bearing in mind that an alien race is able to construct vessels which can stand the rigours of the interstellar medium are gonna have to be, by necessity, well built and well protected, so slamming a couple of patriot missiles into their hulls more than likely isn't going to cause much by way of worrying hull damage. Also, it has to be bared in mind that a race sufficiently advanced enough to achieve interstellar travel isn't going to be stupid, so their offensive and defensive capabilities should be sufficiently advanced enough for their weapons to be more powerful and their armour to be resistant against most expected forms of attack, plus you'd expect that prior to wasting their time and resources on coming here to make war they'd at least do their homework to the point at which they were fairly confident of their chances of success against the yokels. It has to be said though that like us, this confidence, in whole or in part, could be purely psychological in nature. Imagine the look on trooper glurglzorgs face as he prepares to kill the first human of the war with his deadly poison gas grenade gun only to find that to the humans, the deadly gas actually induces fits of laughter or even makes the humans stronger and more able to kill him, having no adverse effects whatsoever against the enemy.
As we dont currently have access to death rays, laser guns, intelligent war robots or any other number of stereotypical sci-fi weapons, we will have to make do with what we got.
A machine gun may seem primitive compared to an alien wielding some sort of plasma bolt launcher, but if our own wars against each other have shown, if you hit something hard enough with a heavy fast moving object, eventually it will break, as the most advanced and powerful gun in the universe isn't going to help you if someone is busy caving your skull in with a hammer, or poking holes in you with a sharp stick, so, in conventional ground based warfare, I'd still say the odds were pretty even. If the aliens did use some kind of poisonous gas or chemicals, we have had protective suits to guard against that kind of thing for decades, and if we can build bunkers that can withstand 50 years of radioactive fallout, then short of completely destroying the planet there will always be survivors who are willing to fight back.
Either way though, win or lose, I reckons that soon after the alien war has finished, mankind will find a way to start making war on themselves again.
Wednesday 24 October 2012
Friday 19 October 2012
My take on the whole "Jimmy Savile" thing
Unless you've been in a coma these past two months you will have undoubtedly heard of the numerous allegations surrounding the (now deceased) Sir Jimmy Savile relating to his alleged "misconduct" in regards to his relationships with children, stemming right back from the mid 1950's right up until sometime in 2006.
All of the media furore stems from the program "The other side of Jimmy Savile", broadcast on the 3rd of October 2012 as part of ITVs "Exposure" series of documentaries.
The program itself garnered infamy even before its broadcast simply because unlike the other programs shown thus far in the series (with subjects including mistreatment of the dead and bereaved by funeral directors, unethical payments made by British businesses to foreign governments etc) , it was heavily promoted both on TV and in the newspapers.
In the program, many women who were in their teens during the 1970s recount their stories of how during various encounters with Savile (in the course of his TV or charity work) they were physically or sexually molested, including further allegations naming other famous faces who have at some point been associated with either the BBC or with Savile himself.
The broadcast of the program was followed the next day by an absolute media circus in which nearly all the tabloid newspapers began printing further accusations made by both participants in the program as well as new people who have "come forward" to tell their stories.
as a result, many other accusations have "come to light", such as Saviles alleged molestation of young boys as well as girls, and Savilles alleged molestation of corpses while working as a volunteer at various hospitals, finally culminating in a statement released by the NSPCC today (19/10/2012) in which they state that based on the current evidence, Jimmy Savile could possibly be the most prolific child sex offender in British history.
But lets take a step back here, as thus far, the only evidence that is available has been statements made by people about events that may or may not have happened over a quarter of a century ago, coupled with a lot of hearsay and gossip from both current and former employees of the BBC who were around in some way during Saviles time working on programs such as "Clunk-Click", "Top of the pops" and "Jim'll fix it". None of this evidence can be easilly corroborated, simply due to the amount of time that has passed, and the fact that Savile, as well as many other people involved in what is believed to be a massive BBC "cover up" have in fact died in the mean time.
The furore is so big that the BBC has had to launch its own internal inquiry into whether a cover up does indeed exist and who exactly was involved in it, which has been "helped along" by testimonies from people like Esther Rantzen, who also appeared on the ITV Exposure program stating that she knew that soemthing was going off due to "rumours" that were apparently rife within the BBC, but said there was "no-one whom she could voice her concerns to".
Lets sort this one out now, Esther Rantzens assertion that there was no-one she could talk to about it is rendered questionable due to the fact that from 1969 until they were married in 1977, Rantzen had an eight year affair with Desmond Wilcox, who from 1972 until 1980 was the BBCs head of General features, and thus was in a position to have followed up the allegations back then, but yet for whatever reason, didn't. This also ignores the fact that at any time the suspicions could have been reported anonymously to the police (who always take a dim view of any allegations of child molestation) for them to have investigated, but no, Esther decided to remain quiet until after Savile was dead, despite her huge amount of work on setting up the "Childline" charity in the mid 1980s and generally being an active campaigner for the protection of children and children's rights.
What we are seeing thus far is nothing more than what has become known in recent times as "Trial by media", which very rarely ends in justice for anyone involved but it always helps to sell a few thousand newspapers, it is also helped along in this case by the fact that a bizarre quirk in British law means that anyone wishing to make allegations against someone who is no longer alive can do so completely free from the worry that they may face criminal prosecution if they are found to have lied or distorted the truth.
Although thus far the bulk of allegations have been made against Savile himself, there have been one or two other names crop up in connection with him, for example the former pop star turned convicted paedophile Paul Francis Gadd (aka Gary Glitter) and comedian Frederick Leslie Fowell (aka Freddie Starr).
In relation to the accusations made against Freddie Starr, Karin Ward, the same person whom is also making accusations against both Savile and Gary Glitter, states that at the age of 14, she was invited to London to attend the recording of an edition of Saviles "Clunk-Click" program after which she was invited to a party in Glitters dressing room. She states that while attending this party she "saw Glitter having sex with an underage girl while Savile watched", and she was then later "groped by Starr, who then humilated her by calling her a titless wonder (referring to her small breasts) when she rebuffed his advances".
Starr himself originally denied having been on the Clunk-Click program, but then was later found to be wrong as a short video excerpt from the show came to light showing Starr and Karin Ward on the program which was originally transmitted in 1974.
Starr countered this by stating that he had simply forgotten he had appeared on the program, as he has been rather prolific on TV and radio since the early 1970s, and simply couldn't remember a single appearance on a show made nearly 38 years ago. In an interview on ITVs "This Morning" program, he requested that the police contact him in order for him to answer any questions they have, and pointed out the fact that Karin Ward had made several contradictory, and in some cases, untrue statements about him in the interim period, such as changing the story concerning their meeting, and also stating that Starr "reeked of booze", despite being teetotal, this was later changed to state that he "reeked of the same cologne that [Wards] stepfather wore, and she hated her stepfather. He also highlighted how easy it was for people who work in TV to forget people they had met briefly by pointing out to presenter Phillip Schofield how he himself had famously denied ever having met racing driver James Hunt, but then was found to have met him during the course of his career.
So anyways, as Savile died in October 2011, it is hardly likely that any kind of inquiry into his alleged escapades will ever find out what really went off, due to the fact that he cant be questioned due to him being dead and buried for nearly a year, it is my belief that yes, there is something in the allegations of child molestation, but the majority of them may not be true, for example, he is alleged to have molested teenage girls in his various visits to the Duncroft Approved School for girls (basically, a kind of prison for "wayward" teenage girls, in the same way as troubled males were sent to a "Borstal"), and at the Haut de la Garenne childrens home in Guernsey during the 1970s, but yet after investigations carried out by both Surrey police (in 2007) and Guernsey police (in 2008) he was released without charge under the grounds of insufficient evidence.
Police are currently following over 300 lines of enquiry and state that there is a potential for there to be over 200 associated victims, but on a daily basis more and more people are "coming forward" with stories linked to Savile AND others.
The majority of the accusations against him have this bizarre feeling of untruth, and seem mainly to be based on peoples opinion of him as being rather "creepy" or "weird" in some way. This is certainly understandable, for example, by the time he began presenting "Top of the pops" in 1964, he was already 38 years old, but yet dressed and behaved a lot "younger", its akin to the embarrassing feeling of having your dad turn up at a party and then attempting to dance and talk with your friends.
Throughout the 70's and 80's he was regularly ridiculed by both the general populace and the press for wearing tracksuits during the majority of his appearances (which one of his current accusers states he did so that he could quickly drop his trousers in order to facilitate sexual encounters, and not because he was generally associated with advocating exersize and a healthy lifestyle, as well as the fact that he had stated he wore them because he found them comfortable) , as well as having his eccentricisms mocked by impressionists, comedians and satirists, and yet while all this was going on, he was still one of the most respected TV personalities in Britain, and remained so until after his death, despite the fact that over the years people made various accusations about him in one way or another.
Another thing I note is that, as I stated earlier, anyone with concerns could report them anonymously to the police, It seems rather odd that all of a sudden people are "giving up their right to anonymity" and coming out of the woodwork to say things, all of them no doubt receiving generous fees from the various newspapers, TV news companies and documentary makers for their various appearances.
The other questions that need to be asked of them are "why now?" and "what do you hope to get out of it?", although I'd wager that deep down, the answer probably lies in the millions of pounds sat in the bank accounts of the various charities associated with Savile, which recently received a boon thanks to the sale of many of Saviles personal possessions at a widely publicised charity auction, which raised an additional £320,000 for their coffers. I mean, after all, no legal action can be taken against Savile himself, on the account of him being deceased, so if money isn't the object, what use will smearing the name of a dead man have?, other than to discredit the various charities associated with him.
Sure, it'd be nice if the truth, if it even exists, comes out, but along the way, I'm sure there will be many cheques and envelopes filled with cash change hands, and if it turns out there was no cover up, or indeed anything for Savile to be held accountable for, at least the newspapers will have no reason to worry about any impending legal action, well, unless that is they continue publishing names of people who are still alive and end up having to explain it away in court.
All of the media furore stems from the program "The other side of Jimmy Savile", broadcast on the 3rd of October 2012 as part of ITVs "Exposure" series of documentaries.
The program itself garnered infamy even before its broadcast simply because unlike the other programs shown thus far in the series (with subjects including mistreatment of the dead and bereaved by funeral directors, unethical payments made by British businesses to foreign governments etc) , it was heavily promoted both on TV and in the newspapers.
In the program, many women who were in their teens during the 1970s recount their stories of how during various encounters with Savile (in the course of his TV or charity work) they were physically or sexually molested, including further allegations naming other famous faces who have at some point been associated with either the BBC or with Savile himself.
The broadcast of the program was followed the next day by an absolute media circus in which nearly all the tabloid newspapers began printing further accusations made by both participants in the program as well as new people who have "come forward" to tell their stories.
as a result, many other accusations have "come to light", such as Saviles alleged molestation of young boys as well as girls, and Savilles alleged molestation of corpses while working as a volunteer at various hospitals, finally culminating in a statement released by the NSPCC today (19/10/2012) in which they state that based on the current evidence, Jimmy Savile could possibly be the most prolific child sex offender in British history.
But lets take a step back here, as thus far, the only evidence that is available has been statements made by people about events that may or may not have happened over a quarter of a century ago, coupled with a lot of hearsay and gossip from both current and former employees of the BBC who were around in some way during Saviles time working on programs such as "Clunk-Click", "Top of the pops" and "Jim'll fix it". None of this evidence can be easilly corroborated, simply due to the amount of time that has passed, and the fact that Savile, as well as many other people involved in what is believed to be a massive BBC "cover up" have in fact died in the mean time.
The furore is so big that the BBC has had to launch its own internal inquiry into whether a cover up does indeed exist and who exactly was involved in it, which has been "helped along" by testimonies from people like Esther Rantzen, who also appeared on the ITV Exposure program stating that she knew that soemthing was going off due to "rumours" that were apparently rife within the BBC, but said there was "no-one whom she could voice her concerns to".
Lets sort this one out now, Esther Rantzens assertion that there was no-one she could talk to about it is rendered questionable due to the fact that from 1969 until they were married in 1977, Rantzen had an eight year affair with Desmond Wilcox, who from 1972 until 1980 was the BBCs head of General features, and thus was in a position to have followed up the allegations back then, but yet for whatever reason, didn't. This also ignores the fact that at any time the suspicions could have been reported anonymously to the police (who always take a dim view of any allegations of child molestation) for them to have investigated, but no, Esther decided to remain quiet until after Savile was dead, despite her huge amount of work on setting up the "Childline" charity in the mid 1980s and generally being an active campaigner for the protection of children and children's rights.
What we are seeing thus far is nothing more than what has become known in recent times as "Trial by media", which very rarely ends in justice for anyone involved but it always helps to sell a few thousand newspapers, it is also helped along in this case by the fact that a bizarre quirk in British law means that anyone wishing to make allegations against someone who is no longer alive can do so completely free from the worry that they may face criminal prosecution if they are found to have lied or distorted the truth.
Although thus far the bulk of allegations have been made against Savile himself, there have been one or two other names crop up in connection with him, for example the former pop star turned convicted paedophile Paul Francis Gadd (aka Gary Glitter) and comedian Frederick Leslie Fowell (aka Freddie Starr).
In relation to the accusations made against Freddie Starr, Karin Ward, the same person whom is also making accusations against both Savile and Gary Glitter, states that at the age of 14, she was invited to London to attend the recording of an edition of Saviles "Clunk-Click" program after which she was invited to a party in Glitters dressing room. She states that while attending this party she "saw Glitter having sex with an underage girl while Savile watched", and she was then later "groped by Starr, who then humilated her by calling her a titless wonder (referring to her small breasts) when she rebuffed his advances".
Starr himself originally denied having been on the Clunk-Click program, but then was later found to be wrong as a short video excerpt from the show came to light showing Starr and Karin Ward on the program which was originally transmitted in 1974.
Starr countered this by stating that he had simply forgotten he had appeared on the program, as he has been rather prolific on TV and radio since the early 1970s, and simply couldn't remember a single appearance on a show made nearly 38 years ago. In an interview on ITVs "This Morning" program, he requested that the police contact him in order for him to answer any questions they have, and pointed out the fact that Karin Ward had made several contradictory, and in some cases, untrue statements about him in the interim period, such as changing the story concerning their meeting, and also stating that Starr "reeked of booze", despite being teetotal, this was later changed to state that he "reeked of the same cologne that [Wards] stepfather wore, and she hated her stepfather. He also highlighted how easy it was for people who work in TV to forget people they had met briefly by pointing out to presenter Phillip Schofield how he himself had famously denied ever having met racing driver James Hunt, but then was found to have met him during the course of his career.
So anyways, as Savile died in October 2011, it is hardly likely that any kind of inquiry into his alleged escapades will ever find out what really went off, due to the fact that he cant be questioned due to him being dead and buried for nearly a year, it is my belief that yes, there is something in the allegations of child molestation, but the majority of them may not be true, for example, he is alleged to have molested teenage girls in his various visits to the Duncroft Approved School for girls (basically, a kind of prison for "wayward" teenage girls, in the same way as troubled males were sent to a "Borstal"), and at the Haut de la Garenne childrens home in Guernsey during the 1970s, but yet after investigations carried out by both Surrey police (in 2007) and Guernsey police (in 2008) he was released without charge under the grounds of insufficient evidence.
Police are currently following over 300 lines of enquiry and state that there is a potential for there to be over 200 associated victims, but on a daily basis more and more people are "coming forward" with stories linked to Savile AND others.
The majority of the accusations against him have this bizarre feeling of untruth, and seem mainly to be based on peoples opinion of him as being rather "creepy" or "weird" in some way. This is certainly understandable, for example, by the time he began presenting "Top of the pops" in 1964, he was already 38 years old, but yet dressed and behaved a lot "younger", its akin to the embarrassing feeling of having your dad turn up at a party and then attempting to dance and talk with your friends.
Throughout the 70's and 80's he was regularly ridiculed by both the general populace and the press for wearing tracksuits during the majority of his appearances (which one of his current accusers states he did so that he could quickly drop his trousers in order to facilitate sexual encounters, and not because he was generally associated with advocating exersize and a healthy lifestyle, as well as the fact that he had stated he wore them because he found them comfortable) , as well as having his eccentricisms mocked by impressionists, comedians and satirists, and yet while all this was going on, he was still one of the most respected TV personalities in Britain, and remained so until after his death, despite the fact that over the years people made various accusations about him in one way or another.
Another thing I note is that, as I stated earlier, anyone with concerns could report them anonymously to the police, It seems rather odd that all of a sudden people are "giving up their right to anonymity" and coming out of the woodwork to say things, all of them no doubt receiving generous fees from the various newspapers, TV news companies and documentary makers for their various appearances.
The other questions that need to be asked of them are "why now?" and "what do you hope to get out of it?", although I'd wager that deep down, the answer probably lies in the millions of pounds sat in the bank accounts of the various charities associated with Savile, which recently received a boon thanks to the sale of many of Saviles personal possessions at a widely publicised charity auction, which raised an additional £320,000 for their coffers. I mean, after all, no legal action can be taken against Savile himself, on the account of him being deceased, so if money isn't the object, what use will smearing the name of a dead man have?, other than to discredit the various charities associated with him.
Sure, it'd be nice if the truth, if it even exists, comes out, but along the way, I'm sure there will be many cheques and envelopes filled with cash change hands, and if it turns out there was no cover up, or indeed anything for Savile to be held accountable for, at least the newspapers will have no reason to worry about any impending legal action, well, unless that is they continue publishing names of people who are still alive and end up having to explain it away in court.
Wednesday 17 October 2012
PC Game Review - Half-Life, er, yeah...
I recently came across a cheapo copy of "Half-Life: Anthology" for the PC .
It was £2, and as I'm one of those types of folk who likes a bargain (see:- tight), getting three games for a couple of quid is always a nice prospect.
Over the years I've heard people bang on about how good Half-Life is, what with its supposedly engrossing storyline, interesting characters and challenging puzzles and all that, but my only encounter with it previously was trying to play it on an underpowered system way back in 2003, which I gave up on pretty quick as, like most folk, I tend to dislike skipping, slowdowns and badly rendered sprites.
The disc itself contains the following:-
Half-Life: Game of the year edition
Half-Life: Opposing Force
Half-Life: Blue Shift
High definition add on pack
The add on pack itself isn't an actual game, but installing it upgrades the rendering on all the games various character models, although to be honest, this is debatable, but more on this later.
So, installation doesn't take long, I mean, these are old games designed for use back in the days when most folk were still using Windows 95 or Windows 98 (*shudder*), so no need to leave your pooter running while you make a cuppa and a sarnie like you have to do with some games.
I started off by playing through the original Half-Life, as you do, and first impressions were decidedly "meh".
The overly long "intro" where you are introduced to Gordon Freemans background fluff while riding a monorail to the black mesa research labs is, lets be honest, tedious as hell. Yes, its nice that they included an intro bit to make you feel like you're playing some sort of interactive movie, but after 3 minutes of aimlessly wandering around the cramped confines of the train car with nothing to do but look at the blocky, pixellated rock walls and train track sorta gets you off to a bad start.
Anyways, I'm not gonna beat around the bush, from here on in, the game simply becomes an exersize in moving from room to room and occasionally shooting at things with whatever weapons happen to be handy at the time, and occasionally having to solve some sort of "puzzle" which usually involves having to push some boxes around and/or making some sort of difficult jump...it gets real boring, real quick.
I continued to play through though, desperately searching for these "interesting characters" and "engrossing plot lines", but alas, this was not forthcoming, in fact, the non player character roster includes a whopping FIVE different character models, yes, five, one of which is the "G-man" character, other than that, you'll see the exact same security guard dozens of times, and watch him die just about every time, and every time you see a scientist, he will either be the "black guy", the "white guy" or the "guy who looks a bit like Einstein", and all of them are resplendent in their blocky angled rendering which looks barely human, although, lets be fair, the game was originally released in 1998, but still, you'd expect the high definition pack to give a better increase in definition and stuff.
Oh, I forgot about the army guys, all 2 of them "generic grunt" and "guy in black beret" *face/palm* , whose only real use in game is for you to kill so you can pick up machine gun ammo and grenades, at most, they are an annoyance, but after a while a bit of radio chatter reveals that the army are evacuating, so machine gun ammo becomes more scarce. I should also add that the army guys quite difficult to kill, seriously, I don't care that they're wearing body armour, if i shoot you with a shotgun at point blank range, you die instantly in a hail of viscera, other games of the same period (Duke Nukem 3D,DooM, Quake, Medal of Honour) managed to get this shit right, so yeah, I can't think where they went wrong here.
Anyways, finishing off my moan about the in game characters, a special mention has to go to the Interdimensional alien badguys, all of whom are fairly interesting looking, from the teeny weeny "headcrab", right through to the rather badly animated "grunt" creatures. The only problem I have with the EEBUL ALEONZ!1!11111!!! is that many of them are far too easy to kill, unlike the army guys, and considering they make up the bulk of the enemies you'll come up against, the "action" bits of the game end up being a bit of a damp squib, which to be honest, isn't helped by the fact that the weapons you get your hands on are a bit boring.
So anyways, I'm not gonna harp on much longer about this, lets just say that after completing the original game, and then having a bit of a playthrough of Opposing force and Blue shift (and finding them both offering the same bland level of game play) I still find myself unable to figure out why this game is held with such reverance by many gamers.
Its not often that while playing a game I find myself being bored to tears, but literally while working through this game, I literally didn't giv e a shit about any of the characters, nor did I find myself being curious about any plot developments, simply because somebody forgot to include them.
I dunno, maybe Half-Life 2 will hold the answers, but for now, Half-Life 1 gets a big ass thumbs down from me...*uninstalls*
damn, what a waste of £2......
It was £2, and as I'm one of those types of folk who likes a bargain (see:- tight), getting three games for a couple of quid is always a nice prospect.
Over the years I've heard people bang on about how good Half-Life is, what with its supposedly engrossing storyline, interesting characters and challenging puzzles and all that, but my only encounter with it previously was trying to play it on an underpowered system way back in 2003, which I gave up on pretty quick as, like most folk, I tend to dislike skipping, slowdowns and badly rendered sprites.
The disc itself contains the following:-
Half-Life: Game of the year edition
Half-Life: Opposing Force
Half-Life: Blue Shift
High definition add on pack
The add on pack itself isn't an actual game, but installing it upgrades the rendering on all the games various character models, although to be honest, this is debatable, but more on this later.
So, installation doesn't take long, I mean, these are old games designed for use back in the days when most folk were still using Windows 95 or Windows 98 (*shudder*), so no need to leave your pooter running while you make a cuppa and a sarnie like you have to do with some games.
I started off by playing through the original Half-Life, as you do, and first impressions were decidedly "meh".
The overly long "intro" where you are introduced to Gordon Freemans background fluff while riding a monorail to the black mesa research labs is, lets be honest, tedious as hell. Yes, its nice that they included an intro bit to make you feel like you're playing some sort of interactive movie, but after 3 minutes of aimlessly wandering around the cramped confines of the train car with nothing to do but look at the blocky, pixellated rock walls and train track sorta gets you off to a bad start.
Anyways, I'm not gonna beat around the bush, from here on in, the game simply becomes an exersize in moving from room to room and occasionally shooting at things with whatever weapons happen to be handy at the time, and occasionally having to solve some sort of "puzzle" which usually involves having to push some boxes around and/or making some sort of difficult jump...it gets real boring, real quick.
I continued to play through though, desperately searching for these "interesting characters" and "engrossing plot lines", but alas, this was not forthcoming, in fact, the non player character roster includes a whopping FIVE different character models, yes, five, one of which is the "G-man" character, other than that, you'll see the exact same security guard dozens of times, and watch him die just about every time, and every time you see a scientist, he will either be the "black guy", the "white guy" or the "guy who looks a bit like Einstein", and all of them are resplendent in their blocky angled rendering which looks barely human, although, lets be fair, the game was originally released in 1998, but still, you'd expect the high definition pack to give a better increase in definition and stuff.
Oh, I forgot about the army guys, all 2 of them "generic grunt" and "guy in black beret" *face/palm* , whose only real use in game is for you to kill so you can pick up machine gun ammo and grenades, at most, they are an annoyance, but after a while a bit of radio chatter reveals that the army are evacuating, so machine gun ammo becomes more scarce. I should also add that the army guys quite difficult to kill, seriously, I don't care that they're wearing body armour, if i shoot you with a shotgun at point blank range, you die instantly in a hail of viscera, other games of the same period (Duke Nukem 3D,DooM, Quake, Medal of Honour) managed to get this shit right, so yeah, I can't think where they went wrong here.
Anyways, finishing off my moan about the in game characters, a special mention has to go to the Interdimensional alien badguys, all of whom are fairly interesting looking, from the teeny weeny "headcrab", right through to the rather badly animated "grunt" creatures. The only problem I have with the EEBUL ALEONZ!1!11111!!! is that many of them are far too easy to kill, unlike the army guys, and considering they make up the bulk of the enemies you'll come up against, the "action" bits of the game end up being a bit of a damp squib, which to be honest, isn't helped by the fact that the weapons you get your hands on are a bit boring.
So anyways, I'm not gonna harp on much longer about this, lets just say that after completing the original game, and then having a bit of a playthrough of Opposing force and Blue shift (and finding them both offering the same bland level of game play) I still find myself unable to figure out why this game is held with such reverance by many gamers.
Its not often that while playing a game I find myself being bored to tears, but literally while working through this game, I literally didn't giv e a shit about any of the characters, nor did I find myself being curious about any plot developments, simply because somebody forgot to include them.
I dunno, maybe Half-Life 2 will hold the answers, but for now, Half-Life 1 gets a big ass thumbs down from me...*uninstalls*
damn, what a waste of £2......
Thursday 11 October 2012
How to spend £15 and get fuck all in return, or Why recruitment agencies should be better regulated.
So, Tuesday of this week was a day of great joy and optimism, I had a job interview, the first job interview I've had in about 3 months, and things were generally looking up.
As I said in my last scribbling, I'd had to go through to have my first interview at the agencies office in Sheffield, which is fair, no complaints about that, the problem came when against all previous experience, I trusted them at face value.
The agency in question is Concept Recruitment, who are currently based at Velocity house just outside of Sheffield city centre, which as I said is a large new build property development which combines office facilities and living accommodation, but doesn't seem to think that clear signage is particularly important, meh.
During my first interview on Tuesday, the advisor who had contacted me with regards to my application went through the job vacancy in a fair amount of detail, or so I thought.
As the opportunity was presented to me, the job itself was working for Maplin Electronics at their head office, which is based at Manvers in the Dearne valley. My first concern over this was the fact that the Dearne Valley is generally somewhat difficult to travel to using public transport, however a quick check of bus and train timetables showed that I could easilly get there for 8am during the week, and for 9am on a Saturday, so no problems there, I was further reassured when I was told the requirements were simply that I make myself available between 9 and 5, Monday to Friday, this was too good to be true, and, like all things too good to be true, turned out that in fact, it was.
Going to the 2nd interview on Wednesday, I had a really good feeling, and indeed the interview went well, the lady interviewing me said that yes i was the ideal candidate for one of the six vacancies they had available, and would I be available to start the following Monday, to which I replied in the affirmative...and then everything turned to shit when she said the following:- "O.k, good, now, I assume you are familiar with our shift system?"
No, no I wasn't, and when I said that I had been led to believe that the job was a simple 9-5 type affair, she wasn't very impressed. The job spec the agency had been given gave details of the working hours, she showed me it, and it suddenly became clear what had happened here, simply put, the Agency had sent me there hoping I wouldn't notice and end up accepting a job that I couldn't possibly ever hope to be able to actually work the hours.
The "shifts" were described as thus:-
Weekdays 8-4:30, 9-5, 10-6, 12-8 (on a rota)
Saturday 9-5
Sunday 10-5
Everything within that is OK, apart from Sunday, the earliest I could possibly make it there would be about 10:45, and that one fact turned a successful interview into an failure.
The lady who was interviewing me was as upset as I was, as it mean that potentially everyone she had interviewed that day that had been sent over by Concept would need to be contacted in order to make sure that they knew about the shift patterns.
Yeah, I wasn't a happy chappy, because once again a fucking agency had spun me a yarn and I'd fallen for it, I called them about 10 minutes later to ask what the excuse was, and they said they had been told it was a 9-5 type job, when i asked if anyone had made sure, I was told by the smarmy cunt that there was "no need to". When I approached the subject of them refunding the wasted costs of travel, which I cant really afford to be spending, I was told that I'd have to "take it on the chin like a man"...
He will never know how fortunate he was that he wasn't within grabbing distance.
Anyways, the same smarmy cunt called me this afternoon with "feedback" from my interview, in which he then proceeded to berate me for not just simply accepting the job, I stopped him in his tracks and told him he was a patronising cunt who hadn't got a fucking clue about anything, which he countered by trying to make out that somehow it was my fault that I had been lied to.
At the end of they day, all they, and indeed any employment agency, are bothered about is getting those finders fees and commissions, they couldn't care fucking less if in order to hit their monthly bonus target they have to lie through their teeth, and this is what is worrying, because such casual lies on that kind of scale, and like the usual type of pathological liar, when they get found out, they start playing the blame game, you know, where they reckon they haven't done a thing wrong and you're either lying yourself or some sort of idiot in some fashion.
This isn't the first time I've had an agency tell me a pack of lies which quickly unravel once the actual employer speaks to me, and then when confronted about them, try to make out that I'm somehow at fault.
To be continued....probably....
As I said in my last scribbling, I'd had to go through to have my first interview at the agencies office in Sheffield, which is fair, no complaints about that, the problem came when against all previous experience, I trusted them at face value.
The agency in question is Concept Recruitment, who are currently based at Velocity house just outside of Sheffield city centre, which as I said is a large new build property development which combines office facilities and living accommodation, but doesn't seem to think that clear signage is particularly important, meh.
During my first interview on Tuesday, the advisor who had contacted me with regards to my application went through the job vacancy in a fair amount of detail, or so I thought.
As the opportunity was presented to me, the job itself was working for Maplin Electronics at their head office, which is based at Manvers in the Dearne valley. My first concern over this was the fact that the Dearne Valley is generally somewhat difficult to travel to using public transport, however a quick check of bus and train timetables showed that I could easilly get there for 8am during the week, and for 9am on a Saturday, so no problems there, I was further reassured when I was told the requirements were simply that I make myself available between 9 and 5, Monday to Friday, this was too good to be true, and, like all things too good to be true, turned out that in fact, it was.
Going to the 2nd interview on Wednesday, I had a really good feeling, and indeed the interview went well, the lady interviewing me said that yes i was the ideal candidate for one of the six vacancies they had available, and would I be available to start the following Monday, to which I replied in the affirmative...and then everything turned to shit when she said the following:- "O.k, good, now, I assume you are familiar with our shift system?"
No, no I wasn't, and when I said that I had been led to believe that the job was a simple 9-5 type affair, she wasn't very impressed. The job spec the agency had been given gave details of the working hours, she showed me it, and it suddenly became clear what had happened here, simply put, the Agency had sent me there hoping I wouldn't notice and end up accepting a job that I couldn't possibly ever hope to be able to actually work the hours.
The "shifts" were described as thus:-
Weekdays 8-4:30, 9-5, 10-6, 12-8 (on a rota)
Saturday 9-5
Sunday 10-5
Everything within that is OK, apart from Sunday, the earliest I could possibly make it there would be about 10:45, and that one fact turned a successful interview into an failure.
The lady who was interviewing me was as upset as I was, as it mean that potentially everyone she had interviewed that day that had been sent over by Concept would need to be contacted in order to make sure that they knew about the shift patterns.
Yeah, I wasn't a happy chappy, because once again a fucking agency had spun me a yarn and I'd fallen for it, I called them about 10 minutes later to ask what the excuse was, and they said they had been told it was a 9-5 type job, when i asked if anyone had made sure, I was told by the smarmy cunt that there was "no need to". When I approached the subject of them refunding the wasted costs of travel, which I cant really afford to be spending, I was told that I'd have to "take it on the chin like a man"...
He will never know how fortunate he was that he wasn't within grabbing distance.
Anyways, the same smarmy cunt called me this afternoon with "feedback" from my interview, in which he then proceeded to berate me for not just simply accepting the job, I stopped him in his tracks and told him he was a patronising cunt who hadn't got a fucking clue about anything, which he countered by trying to make out that somehow it was my fault that I had been lied to.
At the end of they day, all they, and indeed any employment agency, are bothered about is getting those finders fees and commissions, they couldn't care fucking less if in order to hit their monthly bonus target they have to lie through their teeth, and this is what is worrying, because such casual lies on that kind of scale, and like the usual type of pathological liar, when they get found out, they start playing the blame game, you know, where they reckon they haven't done a thing wrong and you're either lying yourself or some sort of idiot in some fashion.
This isn't the first time I've had an agency tell me a pack of lies which quickly unravel once the actual employer speaks to me, and then when confronted about them, try to make out that I'm somehow at fault.
To be continued....probably....
Tuesday 9 October 2012
Whats the point in multiple job interviews?
So anyways, after last nights semi coherent ramble, I finally managed to doze off at about 7am, which was fucking crap being as I had to be up for 9am in order to get my shit together, the end result being I ended up feeling worse than i did at 4am...great start to the fucking day.
*ahem* anyways, after making it to town, with the bus driven by the most timid driver I have ever seen, resulting in a 30 minute trip taking nearly an hour, not helped by the fact he was already 10 minutes fucking late (if they need someone to fill in his P45, I hereby volunteer) to start with, I ended up missing my intended train, but thankfully I had the foresight to make sure I had allowed for fuck ups along the way (its a bugger when you have to actively plan for upwards of an hours worth of fuck ups), so managed to hit Sheffield with an hour to kill before I had to be anywhere.
Now, my strict spending budget of precisely £0.00 didn't allow for much fun times to be had while there (having already spent £6.40 on a "Day Tripper" ticket, which is a bargain when you think about it as it allows unlimited travel on any form of public transport for one day so long as I stay within the boundaries of South Yorkshire), so I set about actually trying to find the place.
As I said last night, finding the place was about as easy as plaiting sloppy shit, Google maps was no use, neither was street view, being as that the address given shows a half demolished industrial estate of some sort, but I thought I would be ok so long as I managed to get to the street.
Yeah, cos once i got there i was confronted by a nice shiny new build combined office and housing complex, which although looked nice and modern with its multitude of plate glass windows, cantilevers and white stone terraces resplendent with gleaming stainless steel railings and spotlights and shit, it lacked the one thing that adds substance to the style.....clear signage.
Yep, in a property development that must have cost millions of pounds, some dumbass didn't think that maybe there might be a need for signs telling people where stuff was, it took me nearly 15 fucking minutes to find a door that was open (I musta looked like a burglar casing the joint :s ), which according to the guy sat at the reception desk, was the entrance to the residential sector (yes, they had a receptionist on the doors of a posh block of flats), thankfully though the guy had the smarts to point me in the right direction, which turned out to be another non descript plate glass door which led to a featureless corridor and another fairly minimalistic reception area, complete with a branch of Costa coffee (yeah, I wasn't expecting that one).
The young lady on the reception gave me some forms to fill in for the agency I was going to see (standard forms, complete with the usual insultingly easy intelligence tests).
Eventually someone came to fetch me up to their office, located on the 3rd floor of the building, but it seems the developers don't like disabled folk because to get there involved trekking up no less than 5 different flights of stairs with no lifts in sight, all of them spotlessly clean and resplendent with gleaming white bare plaster walls.
The "office" itself was one of your standard glass walled type affairs with what appeared to be a converted storage cupboard filling in as the "private" office where confidential discussions take place.
The "interview" itself was a fairly standard affair of going through previous work experience etc (yawn), but the lady going through it with me seemed fairly genuine, although this is probably down to the fact that as I have experience of working in the recruitment industry, I wasn't going to fall for any of the usual agency half- promises, optimistic spin doctoring and so on, which is refreshing to be honest as one of the main reasons i avoid agencies is the fact that they don't half like to patronise the fuck out of you by assuming you're some sort of brain dead moron (or at least the ones I've dealt with in the past have done) simply because you don't have a job.
So, the end result was that I now have a second interview tomorrow, I have a good feeling about it but I cant help but feel the old nerves again, just hope I'm gonna be able to get some shut eye tonight because I have no idea about the area where I'm going tomorrow and I'll need my wits about me if I'm gonna do well...
*ahem* anyways, after making it to town, with the bus driven by the most timid driver I have ever seen, resulting in a 30 minute trip taking nearly an hour, not helped by the fact he was already 10 minutes fucking late (if they need someone to fill in his P45, I hereby volunteer) to start with, I ended up missing my intended train, but thankfully I had the foresight to make sure I had allowed for fuck ups along the way (its a bugger when you have to actively plan for upwards of an hours worth of fuck ups), so managed to hit Sheffield with an hour to kill before I had to be anywhere.
Now, my strict spending budget of precisely £0.00 didn't allow for much fun times to be had while there (having already spent £6.40 on a "Day Tripper" ticket, which is a bargain when you think about it as it allows unlimited travel on any form of public transport for one day so long as I stay within the boundaries of South Yorkshire), so I set about actually trying to find the place.
As I said last night, finding the place was about as easy as plaiting sloppy shit, Google maps was no use, neither was street view, being as that the address given shows a half demolished industrial estate of some sort, but I thought I would be ok so long as I managed to get to the street.
Yeah, cos once i got there i was confronted by a nice shiny new build combined office and housing complex, which although looked nice and modern with its multitude of plate glass windows, cantilevers and white stone terraces resplendent with gleaming stainless steel railings and spotlights and shit, it lacked the one thing that adds substance to the style.....clear signage.
Yep, in a property development that must have cost millions of pounds, some dumbass didn't think that maybe there might be a need for signs telling people where stuff was, it took me nearly 15 fucking minutes to find a door that was open (I musta looked like a burglar casing the joint :s ), which according to the guy sat at the reception desk, was the entrance to the residential sector (yes, they had a receptionist on the doors of a posh block of flats), thankfully though the guy had the smarts to point me in the right direction, which turned out to be another non descript plate glass door which led to a featureless corridor and another fairly minimalistic reception area, complete with a branch of Costa coffee (yeah, I wasn't expecting that one).
The young lady on the reception gave me some forms to fill in for the agency I was going to see (standard forms, complete with the usual insultingly easy intelligence tests).
Eventually someone came to fetch me up to their office, located on the 3rd floor of the building, but it seems the developers don't like disabled folk because to get there involved trekking up no less than 5 different flights of stairs with no lifts in sight, all of them spotlessly clean and resplendent with gleaming white bare plaster walls.
The "office" itself was one of your standard glass walled type affairs with what appeared to be a converted storage cupboard filling in as the "private" office where confidential discussions take place.
The "interview" itself was a fairly standard affair of going through previous work experience etc (yawn), but the lady going through it with me seemed fairly genuine, although this is probably down to the fact that as I have experience of working in the recruitment industry, I wasn't going to fall for any of the usual agency half- promises, optimistic spin doctoring and so on, which is refreshing to be honest as one of the main reasons i avoid agencies is the fact that they don't half like to patronise the fuck out of you by assuming you're some sort of brain dead moron (or at least the ones I've dealt with in the past have done) simply because you don't have a job.
So, the end result was that I now have a second interview tomorrow, I have a good feeling about it but I cant help but feel the old nerves again, just hope I'm gonna be able to get some shut eye tonight because I have no idea about the area where I'm going tomorrow and I'll need my wits about me if I'm gonna do well...
Monday 8 October 2012
First!, Brought to you by Insomnia and stressing *sigh*
Hello slimy furtlers!
Well, its currently 3am and having attempted to forcibly gain entry into the land of nod it seems that once again I have been rebuffed, so, having a bit of unwelcome time on my hands I thought I'd get my arse in gear and set up this "Blog" thing.
Regular viewers will know that I usually post my thoughts on stuff either via Youtube or Facebook (neither of which are being linked to on here...ha ha!), but sometimes I find both of them rather constricting in a way that I don't seem to get hampered with when writing things down. (<-this statement makes perfect sense to me, it may not make any sense to you, but that's not really that important right now)
So anyways, I finds myself sat here in the early hours of the morning, typing away whilst sipping on a cup of lukewarm tea and debating whether to have a fag, not because of any health condition or noise pollution or anything mundane like that, no, I'm here right here, right now because the only thing i can think about is the "Job interview" I have which is due to take place in a little under 12 hours.
I say "job interview" and not just simply job interview because once again, said interview is taking place through one of the many, many, many employment agencies that there are dotted about across the length and breadth of merry olde England, and, having had many, many, many rather dubious experiences with these agencies, both as a prospective employee and as an employer of them, you'll forgive me if I approach this "interview" with a degree of apprehension.
The agency in particular is called "Concept Recruitment", I've never heard of them before, which is unsurprising really as after a slew of bad experiences with agencies in the past (more on that at some point in the future, oh yes) I generally prefer to avoid them like the plague, and tend to skip over them when doing my daily jobsearch.
What surprised me though about this particular one, was that even though I had never heard of them - up until about 2.10pm yesterday when I came across their advertisement on www.mysouthyorkshirejobs.co.uk for a "Technical Customer Services Advisor", which I subsequently applied for, along with their advert for a customer service advisor of the non-technical kind, which I also applied for - they were pretty quick to give me a call, with my phone ringing literally 2 minutes after I had clicked on "apply now".
Now, my cynical side tells me that the reason I got a call so quick was because the lady who called me was sat around with nothing to do (always a red alert warning, esp where employment agencies are concerned), but after a longish conversation with her about the job, I got a feeling that you know, maybe, just maybe, this one might come good.
Now, those who know me will know that I detest large call centres, but this job, she assures me (I'm not gonna name and shame at this point, because there's no need to, but watch this space, lol) that this particular company is only a small firm who only have about 25 people on site, this sounds good to me because one of the main reasons i dislike call centres so much is down to the "faceless" nature they foster, where instead of being a person, you are merely "Employee 29847304" , and where if you don't fit in with their Americanised, and sometimes rather bizarre, dogma on what constitutes "Teamwork", simply sitting down and getting on with the job you are being paid to do becomes a task of Herculean difficulty (speaking from extreme experience here).
So, lets give "Concept Recruitment" the benefit of the doubt shall we and see what they have to offer, although that said, the first hurdle I've noticed is that the address they've given me doesn't seem to exist, either that or google maps are a bit behind the times as the place where they've said I need to go appears on street view as what looks like a half demolished industrial estate...spose I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it...wish me luck!
-Pika
Well, its currently 3am and having attempted to forcibly gain entry into the land of nod it seems that once again I have been rebuffed, so, having a bit of unwelcome time on my hands I thought I'd get my arse in gear and set up this "Blog" thing.
Regular viewers will know that I usually post my thoughts on stuff either via Youtube or Facebook (neither of which are being linked to on here...ha ha!), but sometimes I find both of them rather constricting in a way that I don't seem to get hampered with when writing things down. (<-this statement makes perfect sense to me, it may not make any sense to you, but that's not really that important right now)
So anyways, I finds myself sat here in the early hours of the morning, typing away whilst sipping on a cup of lukewarm tea and debating whether to have a fag, not because of any health condition or noise pollution or anything mundane like that, no, I'm here right here, right now because the only thing i can think about is the "Job interview" I have which is due to take place in a little under 12 hours.
I say "job interview" and not just simply job interview because once again, said interview is taking place through one of the many, many, many employment agencies that there are dotted about across the length and breadth of merry olde England, and, having had many, many, many rather dubious experiences with these agencies, both as a prospective employee and as an employer of them, you'll forgive me if I approach this "interview" with a degree of apprehension.
The agency in particular is called "Concept Recruitment", I've never heard of them before, which is unsurprising really as after a slew of bad experiences with agencies in the past (more on that at some point in the future, oh yes) I generally prefer to avoid them like the plague, and tend to skip over them when doing my daily jobsearch.
What surprised me though about this particular one, was that even though I had never heard of them - up until about 2.10pm yesterday when I came across their advertisement on www.mysouthyorkshirejobs.co.uk for a "Technical Customer Services Advisor", which I subsequently applied for, along with their advert for a customer service advisor of the non-technical kind, which I also applied for - they were pretty quick to give me a call, with my phone ringing literally 2 minutes after I had clicked on "apply now".
Now, my cynical side tells me that the reason I got a call so quick was because the lady who called me was sat around with nothing to do (always a red alert warning, esp where employment agencies are concerned), but after a longish conversation with her about the job, I got a feeling that you know, maybe, just maybe, this one might come good.
Now, those who know me will know that I detest large call centres, but this job, she assures me (I'm not gonna name and shame at this point, because there's no need to, but watch this space, lol) that this particular company is only a small firm who only have about 25 people on site, this sounds good to me because one of the main reasons i dislike call centres so much is down to the "faceless" nature they foster, where instead of being a person, you are merely "Employee 29847304" , and where if you don't fit in with their Americanised, and sometimes rather bizarre, dogma on what constitutes "Teamwork", simply sitting down and getting on with the job you are being paid to do becomes a task of Herculean difficulty (speaking from extreme experience here).
So, lets give "Concept Recruitment" the benefit of the doubt shall we and see what they have to offer, although that said, the first hurdle I've noticed is that the address they've given me doesn't seem to exist, either that or google maps are a bit behind the times as the place where they've said I need to go appears on street view as what looks like a half demolished industrial estate...spose I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it...wish me luck!
-Pika
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