A COUPLE MORE...

Michael Moore and Jobcentre Minus, sorry Plus (must remember the irony in their name), have announced a scheme which will give unemployed people 50% off train fares if they are travelling to interviews. 

Great! I don't want to rain on their parade, because every little bit helps, but despite what His Smugness Lord Baldermorte said today, there are NOT NOT NOT plenty of jobs for the unemployed, and the ones that there are, are often part time, some with what are called 'zero hour' contracts, which means that there are different shifts and hours required every week. The minimum that an employee can be given in any given period is...zero hours. (Not handy when there is rent to pay, kids to feed and electricity to buy.)


Additionally, there aren't THAT many train routes away from the central belt, so unless you are in "Edingow" this may be of limited use. 


Thirdly, even with 50% off, Scotrail fares are some of the most expensive in Europe, and if you have to travel by train to interview, won't you have to travel by train to do the job? 


Fourthly, I'm not certain I'd trust Scotrail to get me to an interview on time. I once trusted them to get me to a post PGD examination in Aberdeen, with near disastrous results.


And lastly First Scotrail receives subsidies amounting to around 75% of the cost of operating the railways in Scotland so this is not, as was suggested by Moore, incredibly generous. (And just for a little bit of extra information, the salary of the highest paid director is over £400,000!)
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The English Courts system is in turmoil because the translation service has been put out to tender and as usual they have made a mess of choosing the correct company.


The trouble is that to provide the service at the knock down cost Applied Language Solutions said that they would only pay a translator for the time (s)he actually spend translating. In most cases this is very short. A tourist who has witnessed a crime for example may be only 10-20 minutes in the dock to give evidence. But they could be called or recalled anytime, so they have to sit around, sometimes for hours, waiting... and so do the translators ... for no pay. The people who do that kind of work are highly trained, highly skilled ... they aren't going to hang about all day for 10 minutes' pay... 



So the good ones won't work for Applied Language Solutions. Trials have had to be abandoned because translators can't be found, don't turn up, or can't do simultaneous translation. 


But here's the big laugh. The Olympics organising body, whatever it's called, has to engage translating services for athletes, coaches and minders from all over the world.... and guess who put in the cheapest tender... and got the contract...


Yep! 


The word 'Duh' comes to mind.
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