We had the podge-a-thon weigh-in today. Despite my McDonalds last Sunday, over the last week I’ve lost three pounds.
An interesting letter arrived for me at work today. I have to make a decision about my pension. The NHS has changed its pension scheme for those who started after 2008, and those of us who started before that date are being offered the option to transfer to the new scheme. On the one hand the new scheme will offer me a not inconsiderably higher pension. On the other hand I will have to work much longer before I get that pension. It’s always been my intention to retire as early as I possibly can. But will I be able to afford to retire on half pay, as opposed to the offered two-thirds pay if I work longer. Ideally I would like to see how I feel as I approach my sixtieth birthday and decide then, but that would be too simple. I have to make my pension decision in the next month. ‘er indoors TM wants me to work to the bitter end. I want to pack up at the first opportunity. I shall have to do some sums and se how skint I might be in February 2024 on the existing scheme as opposed to how well off I could be in February 2029 on the new scheme. I’ll do those sums later…
Meanwhile it has been said that I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time running down the Government, but today I must react against the news in their defence. The Government today launched a new web site on which you type in your post code and you can find out what manner of villainery has been going on locally.
The web site has started off by giving a load of false information, and then crashed, and the pundits are gloating. Gloating unfairly in my opinion. The false information coming out of this site is only as good as the information going in. If the police reporting the crimes in the first place can’t be bothered to record the information properly, then the information on file is going to be wrong.
Also such a website is going to attract a lot of interest, if only out of morbid curiosity. And when it was first launched amid a fanfare of media coverage, it was receiving over seventy five thousand hits a minute before it finally gave up and crashed. Seventy five thousand hits a minute is quite a lot, really. Once the novelty has worn off, and hits subside to a more reasonable level, and once the police have actually put reliable data into the website would be a better time to condemn the website out of hand.
For myself I'm still undecided about the innovation. One the one hand I'm intrigued to know how rampant crime is along my street. On the other hand I can't find out because I crashed the works PC when I tried to find out…
No comments:
Post a Comment