Good advice is hard to find

Let me be clear from the outset that I think Citizens Advice Bureaux are great services provided by very committed people.

However I do feel concerned for the issues they have to face when you read their frequently asked questions.

Not only do they have to respond to people asking: "can CAB help me with my faulty waterworks", they also have to endure poor depressed souls asking them "When my girlfriend dumps me can CAB help?".

Apparently, they are also frequently asked "can the CAB lend me money?" Perhaps it is just that local bureau and Haddington has a lot of skint, lonely people with burst pipes?

As others see us

Yesterday morning, the BBC Scotland morning news was most informative on the deficiencies of our little country.

Firstly, we discovered that returning soldiers were more likely to be unemployed in Scotland. Then we were usefully informed that it was more likely that those in mortgage arrears in Scotland would lose their houses than those in a similar position in England. Finally I was berated for living in the country with the dirtiest beaches in Britain.

I have a couple of issues with this approach to news. In particular, it doesn’t actually tell me anything. I’m no expert on statistics but wherever you compare two items, one is going to come out ‘worse’. The rest of Britain may have remarkably clean beaches and Scottish beaches simply have a couple of crisp packets blowing by. Or they may be knee deep in raw sewage. I’m none the wiser.

On a wider point though, why does Scotland obsess over its comparative position with other countries? Look through Parliamentary debates and you will see a common theme of ‘why don’t we do ……. like they do in England/Netherlands/Denmark (delete as applicable). There is a corresponding dialogue in our newspapers too.

Perhaps this isn’t unique to Scotland? But I just can’t see the French lamenting anything that they might need to do differently or the Germans debating how on earth the Danes do everything so well.

With a reasonable hat on, I understand you need to provide points of reference for your audience and an understanding of how we compare to others can be useful. For me, the telling point is that pretty much a whole news bulletin amounted to a bad report card without really mapping any ideas on how to improve things. Burns may have introduced the idea of seeing ourselves as others see us but I think it has become an unhelpful obsession.

Applying yourself

I spent an evening this week looking through applications for a vacancy in my team at work. Two things struck me. Firstly, that there was a depressing number of people who listed 'redundancy' as the reason for leaving their most recent job. The other thing that I quickly became aware of is that there are a few basic rules to follow when you hope to get yourself an interview.

These are:

- Try to spell the name of your current employer correctly. This helps to create the impression that you have actually been paying attention to the people paying your wages for the last few years.

- It is also beneficial to check the spelling of your prospective employer as well. I know it can be tricky to remember how to spell 'children' but a dictionary should be consulted if you are unsure.

- It is a good tactic to write more than two short paragraphs when answering the question: "please explain how your experience gives you the skills necessary to undertake the post as described in the job description".

- Check your application for basic errors. Telling me you started with your current employer in 2010 leaves me confused. I wasn't expecting Doctor Who to apply for this post.

- Finally, if you have a really embarrassing e-mail address, consider setting up a more neutrally titled yahoo account before completing the form. A few pointers might be avoiding addresses with the words 'sexy', 'big' or any ridiculous nickname you may have found yourself adopting.

And of course, stapling a few twenty pound notes to the covering letter is never a bad idea.

Cold caller

Today was probably the coldest day of the decade. The snow was still falling and I had just endured an hour and a half of stressful, slippy driving to get home. It was therefore a bit surprising to get a knock at the door and find some half-wit from E-ON trying to get me to change my energy supplier! By the time I had shooed him away, all of the heat had escaped from my house and my energy bill had just doubled.

Ant attack

I just checked the TV guide and am devastated to discover I missed this fine Hollywood production:

The Hive (2007)
A horde of flesh eating ants go on the rampage, slaughtering a group of mine workers in Thailand. A scientist is sent to wipe them out, only to clash with a conservationist old flame who hopes to find a way of containing the threat without destroying them. They soon find themselves forced to join forces to survive, however, when it emerges that the carnivorous insects have evolved a sinister intelligence and have deadly plans for the human race. Thriller, starring Kal Weber and Elizabeth Healey

It would appear to have enough plot lines to keep four or five movies going! And it all sounded so plausible too, until they just had to add the sinister intelligence bit....

Defining incongruous

Coming home on the train this afternoon, I witnessed an unusual commuter picnic. A chap in his fifties sat opposite me and tucked into his Marks and Spencer sandwich. What was unusual was that he washed it down with a Bucks Fizz!

It was a carefully crafted meal. He had placed his sandwich carefully on top of his newspaper. Then he took a clear plastic cup out of his bag and half-filled it with orange juice from a carton. He proceeded to quietly open a bottle of Cava and top up his drink.

I gave the scene some consideration. Normally when I see someone drinking on a train I feel slightly nervous. So why did I not feel threatened simply because he had Cava instead of Buckfast? His neat pinstripe suit and polished shoes also helped convince me he wasn’t about to burst into song or lob his empty bottle down the train.

In fact, as he lovingly placed his little cup on the grubby Scotrail floor while he took a bite of his sandwich, I felt a pang of jealousy at his level of lunchtime organisation.

His luxury lunch, precise but odd demeanour and maybe his copy of an Ian Rankin novel that had clearly been dropped in the bath at some point convinced me that he was a harmless eccentric.

I couldn’t help imagining though, that he was a credit crunch victim who had been required to give up his chauffeur driven Jag and was trying to hold on to some vestige of luxury

Irony of the week

was surely the BNP member bemoaning the publication of their membership list by saying "we seem to be living in a fascist state in Britain today"