RANDOM WEEKEND WITTERINGS

It has to be once of St Vince’s great successes.

He sold off the Royal Mail at half what it was worth, after bankers lied to him about the value.

(Whoever would have thought that bankers would have lied when it came to money, Vince? Just like Daily Telegraph reporters. Can't trust anyone nowadays, can you?)

And now the postal regulator has told the company that it must improve services after missing key performance targets and warned that it could face fines.

RM (how can it still be called Royal Mail when it’s a private company? Should it not pay someone millions to come up with a name like, say Consignia?) has a target to deliver 93% of first class letters the next day, but in fact managed only an average of 91.7%.

In some areas (unspecified, but I wouldn’t mind betting that the Highlands and Islands will be amongst them) it was as low as 62%.

Isn’t it amazing that a private company (with all the efficiency advantages that that apparently brings) can be so pathetically bad at working to its targets. After all a first class stamp isn’t exactly cheap these days.

In response to Offcom’s report, the Royal Mail said it was "disappointed" that it hadn't met all of the service targets required.

Oh well, that makes it all right after all we're a tad "disappointed" too.

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If you live in the Dundee area and you are thinking of getting some dry cleaning done, take my advice and walk right past Aberdeen Valet Service in Broughty Ferry. Not only are they outrageously expensive, but the staff must be the most disinterested and impolite I have ever come across. Only my opinion of course.

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Camergold

Mind you, someone has given her dress lessons.
She's got rid of her granny's curtains

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I read that a Liberal aristocrat, Lord Purvis of Tweed no less,  has been given the job, by Nicky Clegg, of bringing the Labour and Tory parties together with his own, to have a common agreement on what to do when (they refuse to accept "if") there is a NO vote.

Lord Tweed of Purvis, or something else stupid and pompous

They are hoping that they can agree a raft of new powers for Scotland, not an unreasonable thing to do, given that Devo Max is what most Scots said was their preference, at least until Cameron ruled it out.

But I was just wondering why would we believe anything that they said. Quite apart from the British government having form on this kind of thing, the Liberal Democrats must be the most unreliable party ever when it comes to making promises.  Ask students in England, and what was that about electoral reform?

Oh yeah, nothing.

Then there is the matter that both Alistair Darling and Michael Forsyth raised way back when we were discussing the third option on the referendum... You can't offer any new powers to Scotland without the approval of the UK parliament. 

So what the Noble Purvis has been charged with doing is getting these people, all of whom are desperate for power and the money and self import that it brings, to agree that they will all have the same stuff in their manifesto. Yep, that's going to happen.

Of course that it won't happen is no great big deal to them. They are politicians after all. What they say today is footsteps in the sand tomorrow, forgotten like it was said 500 years ago. And it just seals the deal that a shape shifting Liberal is in charge of it.

But on the off chance that they manage to get it into their manifestos, who here thinks they will actually act on it. I mean seriously...

Well, none other than the illustrious Noble Baron, it seems... "Lord Purvis claimed that a united front from the three pro-UK parties would create a strong push towards selling the policy of a "refreshed Union" and he was optimistic that it could be achieved." 

Pfffffffffffff, snigger.

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Dump the lot. Labour Party policy since 1900

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The Greenest Government ever in the history of the universe
 is going to dump all the Green Crap that Cameron believed in with all his heart,
(like he has one) and soul (or that) and... Oh, pass me a bucket.

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And one last thought

...and it is only a thought. Christmas is nearly upon us, and I suspect that some people anyway, are running around, credit card in hand, wondering what to get old Old Uncle Ned or Auntie Betty.

Now, I don't suppose any of you were going to buy me anything, but just incase you were... what I'd like more than anything else is a donation made to help people like this wee lad in the Philippines.

Really, I have everything I need (well, unless you were thinking of a Ferrari).