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You don't get a research grant for "common sense" though.

Whenever I see studies like this, my admiration is always divided.

Part of it is for the scientific process, the collecting and proper analysis of data to produce meaningful results. It is a brave step to write up the report so that people can see *exactly* how you arrived at your conclusions, and to take things from the man-in-the-pub world of "everybody knows" and "it stands to reason" and into the realm of empirically proven fact.

But the greater part is usually for the extreme persuasion and negotiating skills some researchers display in getting funding for this kind of research. I wish I was half that good at getting people to fork out.

Yay, happy new year one and all.

The transition period is going to prove expensive, I think. As well as the dilemma about how to accommodate the change (increase the price you charge customers, or decrease the margin) there's also the admin costs of changing everything over, and for big-ticket items where the increase is noticeable, there's the cost of dealing with irate customers who think they're being scammed.

I'm seeing it a lot on the wedding forums I'm using. People have booked suppliers who quoted them a price with VAT at 17.5%. Now the price remains the same but the VAT has increased. There's a lot of painfully stupid people out there who don't understand the concept of a nationally-set level of taxation and they're ranting and emailing and cancelling contracts and leaving bad reviews about how their suppliers are raising the costs for no good reason and it's rampant profiteering...


How many businesses can afford a dedicated customer service department to explain the tax system to these idiots?

Hurrah! Yes, many many thanks to one and all for the practical business support and also the camaraderie. Merry Christmas.

Yeah, our main roads for Leamington and Warwick are ok too. The big problem is that it's not getting nurses to the town centres that is the issue. It's all those people who've been discharged from hospital to their isolated farmhouse in Dunny-on-the-Wold, population 3 (and some sheep) on the basis that a nurse will look in on them once a day.

The people living on "sheltered" estates are an issue as well - lots of ill and/or retired people, many of them no longer car drivers and not going to work, paying attention to the advice to only undertake necessary journeys... so the salt and grit isn't getting dragged in from the main roads by the traffic that passes through because there is no such traffic, just the occasional car squashing down the snow into compacted icy hazards.

My own assistant couldn't get to my house this week. Thankfully my care package doesn't have anything to do with the kind of specific medical needs requiring the attentions of a qualified nurse, I've already had my festive bumper-pack from the pharmacy, and my partner was working from home, so I'm safe (if getting a little stir-crazy). But I'm horribly aware that there are many people who aren't that lucky.

Congratulations! I'm not properly focused today yet. For some reason my first response was "ooh, what sort of needles?" which is a stupid thing to say as I doubt there are many still knocking about the place.

If I am ever in the vicinity I'll swing by. Mine's tea, white, two sugars.

Actually, I should post this here

NHS Warwickshire this weekend began an appeal for volunteers with 4x4 vehicles to help transport nurses to patients who receive medical care at home.

These patients don't need hospital treatment and it's simply not possible to move them all into hospital wards for the winter. However trained nurses need to be able to visit them at home to do blood tests, administer medications, change catheters, that kind of thing.

If you have a 4x4 vehicle and can help, please call the West Midlands Ambulance Service on 01926 310 310, and let them know when you are available.

Here is a link to the appeal on the WMAS NHS website.

Substantial snow and ice here in Leamington. Even my indestructible milkman hasn't got through yet. Future-husband set off for work in Birmingham at about 8am and sent me a text to report his safe arrival at about 10:30 which isn't great for a journey that usually takes less than an hour. Apparently the motorways he uses are slow-but-functional, but in the towns at both ends there's a lot of people not coping with the ice, which in turn is causing accidents and traffic jams and more confusion.

I don't understand enough about the issues involved to have a valid opinion on the fairness or unfairness of the proposed changes to university fees. There are other cuts which are worrying me an awful lot more - nobody is going to die of having to pay a bit more for their education.

As for the protests, there's a lot of reprehensible behaviour occurring on both sides.

I got quite upset about Jody McIntyre being beaten, and then bodily dragged out of his wheelchair and across the street by the Met, although it was hysterically funny to see a BBC interviewer ask a man who can barely move his arms whether he'd been involved in the throwing of concrete, and suggest that he might have been perceived as a threat.

And I was fairly upset about Alfie Meadows being given such a thwack with a police truncheon that he needed emergency brain surgery, and the Met trying to insist that he should not be taken to the nearest appropriate hospital for that life-saving surgery because they'd "reserved" it for injured police officers. I don't believe Choose And Book should extend to emergency situations.

I think my favourite story, though, was this personal account which goes as follows:
- 17-year-old girl agrees with bunch of friends to go to protests but leave if it gets violent.
- they're up against a police line, they can't move back because of the pressure of the crowd, they get seven shades of snot beaten out of them by the Met.
- crying, she phones her Mum, explains she's trapped and they can't get out.
- Mum phones the Met central switchboard and asks for their official guidance on what the girls should do.
- Met officer advises Mum that the girls should go back to the front and try to explain to the police officers that they just want to leave.
- Mum relays this official advice back to the girls.
- Girls are daft enough to believe it, and surprised when they get beaten up again.

My understanding is that if the music is being used to improve business, then you're liable.

So if it's a Christmas CD putting customers in a Christmassy mood, it's enhancing your business and you pay.
If it's a thumpy Ministry of Sound compilation providing a background tempo to keep your packing workers pepped up, it's enhancing the business and you pay.
If it's chanting Gregorian Monks keeping a stressed-out exec this side of an aneurysm, you pay.

They even made an effort to extract money from a small convenience store in Scotland because, after the business decided it couldn't afford the PRS fee and got rid of the radio, one of the shop workers would sing to herself a capella while filling shelves. Happily they were made to back down on that one.