Category: Rant

SAAS still suck – but call them for free/cheap

A landline telephone
How SAAS make the money to pay your course fees

For those who’ve tried to call SAAS recently, I’m guessing you likely had a nightmare getting through to them on the phone. I tried last week, and it took me about 20 attempts not to get a busy tone. I was then placed on hold for 35 minutes until I gave up in disgust.

Pamela responded to one of my earlier posts and tells me she’s racked up £200 in phone calls trying to sort out her matter with them. Will someone kindly explain to me why a government office dealing with people who are stereotypically amongst some of the poorest in the country can be allowed to only publish an 0845 contact number? One that – as far as I’m aware – isn’t included in any mobile contract’s free minutes? Indeed, in BT’s landline contract either.

Calling this number generates revenue for the people at the other end so it’s in their best interests to keep you on hold. If they picked up quickly and dealt with matters swiftly then it would only be a minor inconvenience, but they don’t. First of all you stay on hold for an age, then if anyone ever speaks to you they only take your details before referring them up to some ape in a suit who’ll shove them on a pile while he sits there wondering if his banana tastes better before or after he’s shoved it up his bum.

Then 8 months later finally send you out a letter completely unrelated to your query.

At least I can help you call them for less, though I can’t guarantee they’ll bother answering your query or – heaven forbid – actually send you any money. Courtesy of the rather excellent Say No To 0870 website, I can inform you that the landline number to call is:

0131 476 8212

This is the general main number alternative. There isn’t one listed for the specific departments they have on their website, but the menu system is apparently the same as the main one. In other words you get through to the exact same place as if you’d rung the rip-off 0845 number.

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KKK-westion

The KKK: Nazi salute and Holocaust denial
A racist with a small penis wearing a bedsheet

Dear Grand Wizard

For no real reason (although probably related to alcohol intake). discussion turned last night to “why do the KKK really hate Jews and coloured people?”. Seriously, I don’t get it. They claim to be Christian of some type or other and yet Jesus was Jewish. Chances are, he was also Arabic or some other “coloured” race that the KKK despise.

As for the blacks (sorry, for those who keep a list of whatever’s classed as politically correct at any moment in time – I’m going to say “black people” and don’t care if you think I’m racist because of it. I know I’m not and that’s all that counts) is it just a matter of fear or jealousy?

Look at the likes of Morgan Freeman and Samuel L Jackson. Guess their ages, then look them up online. Both guys have aged spectacularly well – and this is common in black (and indeed Asian) people compared to whites. I’m jealous of that.

Then there’s the fact that people of African descent have a great tendency towards athleticism. Look at the amazing football players and runners who are black. Hell, the guy who really embarrassed Hitler that Berlin Olympics all those years ago was black. Jesse Owens is one famous person from history I would love to meet and shake the hand of as he categorically proved that being tall, white and blonde doesn’t make you superior.

We could point towards the stereotype that black guys are somewhat better endowed in the trouser department, but I’d rather flip this around and go for the assumption that any of the bedsheet wearing freaks in Louisiana just have small penises and need something to take their futility out on. After all, black people don’t tend to marry their own sisters either.

And when was the last time a white supremacist released a classic album or was highly regarded for their musical skills? Check out the huge list of black artists from Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Michael Jackson (in the earlier days), Bob Marley…

If a coloured person or organisation want to make a point they usually do it in public, pre-arranged and without their faces hidden behind something they ejaculated on at 7am the same morning. Sure there were riots many years back, but thankfully this is (to a large extent) a thing of the past. Given the climate in which many of these rallies were held, this shows that blacks – certainly at that time – were a hell of a lot braver than the cousin-shagging hillbillies with six toes on each foot.

Seriously, I just don’t understand what the KKK (and the BNP) have against coloured people. Unless they’re jealous. Or scared. After all, these seem to be the main reasons for starting wars and targetting people or peoples: you’re frightened of them or they have something you want.

If you want to see if taking action based on these emotions is worthwhile, ask some people who’ve done it. Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, George W Bush. Hardly a historical popularity list.

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Dear passenger…

Gesture raised fist with middle finger lifted
You wanktard

Were you the individual who left your bag in the ladies’ toilet at Edinburgh Airport yesterday? The one who sparked the security alert which caused a 4-hour delay to Leah’s flight (not to mention other changes and cancellations), which made he rmiss her connecting flight to Singapore from Heathrow and onward flight to Kuala Lumpur? Which means – assuming she makes the new connections – will have her arriving over four hours late, close to midnight and with no luggage for two days?

If so, I hate your guts. I hope beyond hope that the bag contained enough material to identify you and have you crucified. At the very least I hope all of your travel documents, passport, money, house keys and the like were inside and it was blown up in a controlled explosion and it costs you a fortune to replace it all.

You stupid, bloody idiot.

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Ban everything!

Many used or smashed paintballs on the floor.
Danger - may cause you to go postal

And I thought we were the only over-reactionary country in Europe. After a horrific school shooting in March, the German government has announce it’s going to make it more difficult to obtain a gun. It’s also toying with making home gun safes mandatorily biometric – so you have to open them with your thumbprint and not a key.

OK, I can go with that. If weapons are harder to get hold of through legal means or through theft then nutjobs will find it more difficult to go on a rampage.

However, they’re also planning to ban all laser tag and paintball across the country as well. The ****? That’s about as mad as, say, banning all depictions of swastikas in a vain hope that everyone will forget about Hitler. Oh, wait – they did that as well.

Coming up next, if nobody stops them I’m sure, will be a complete ban on violent computer games. And films. Every re-released DVD in Germany which features a handgun will have digital jiggery-pokery performed on them to change the firearms into radios or something. Mr Spielberg will be minted from the royalties from that idea.

Seriously, it was an awful thing to happen to any community. But does anyone really think that banning paintball will have any effect at all?

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Teacher knows best?

A teacher writing on a blackboard.
The next SoS for Education?

Maybe I’m thinking outside of the box here, but surely the people who know education best are those entrenched in it? The front line. The actual teachers and head teachers.

Instead, policy is set by the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, formerly one half of the Secretary of State for Education. This position is currently held by one Edward Balls, who’s an economist. Not a teacher. He never has been – as far as I can discover – involved in the teaching profession other than by being a student.

So, given the decline in educational standards that’s pervaded our system for the last dozen-or-so years, what on earth makes him think he’s right in what he does and that teachers shouldn’t be listened to when they’re discussing their own profession? I’m not saying teachers aren’t as good, or as dedicated. I’m saying the infrastructure they’re forced to work within is screwed and makes their jobs far harder than they should be.

The current news story is one of the two main teaching unions deciding to boycott SATs exams for 11 year-olds next year. From their professional point of view, the exams are a waste of time and serve only to feed league tables – something our current government loves and has adopted for many of the public services.

Thing is, I agree with them. Exams are fine in certain circumstances but when trying to prove the worth of a school they’re utterly pointless. It’s easy to train someone monkey-fashion to pass exams, especially 11 year-old children. Instead of being taught about a subject, teachers are forced to teach them how to pass a certain set of exams. This narrows the educational spectrum massively and serves no purpose for the children whatsoever.

All you have to do is look back to the 60s when we had an educational system to be proud of. Exams were hard. I defy anyone to compare a 1965 O-level in maths and the 2009 GCSE equivalent and tell me that they’ve not become easier. Leaving aside the Imperial system used back then (I admit that would make things more difficult in itself) but the breadth and depth of the subject matter is far greater in the older papers than the current ones.

In a bid to make our schools seem better, we’re making things easier for children. Seriously, what is the point in ensuring that 30% pass with A-grades (or whatever the figure is) if we’re managing that by lowering the standards? Part of the reason we have to lower the standards is that teachers currently have to waste so much time coaching children through exams every other year.

We already live in a society where children (and adults) are handed things on a platter. By making schooling easier, we’re ensuring the production of generations which feel they don’t have to work that hard – if at all – to achieve what they want. Generations that’ll settle for what they can get with minimum effort.

No wonder the country’s in a complete mess. If something’s worth having, you have to work for it.

Now, I just want to make it clear that my criticism here is not levelled at teaching staff or the pupils themselves. It’s at the system, and at the government(s) that have created this system. As with much of our social infrastructure, the whole thing needs torn down and redesigned. Remember that old “back to basics” promise we were given? Why can’t we have that?

And isn’t one of the most basic things taking a person from within an organisation and promoting them to the top – simply as they have a lifetime of experience from which to draw? So how’s about making an ex-head teacher the next Secretary for Education?

Or is that too much like common sense?

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