If you want to know more about the Apple iPhone – http://www.apple.com/iphone/

You know that what ever Brown says, he really has something to say off camera, a hidden agenda me thinks! Just look at his behaviour when he thought he was away form the cameras and called a woman a bigot, I really wanted him to let rip in that car whilst people were listening. But all that said, it really just shows him as being human albeit a little two faced.

• I have to consider what Labour has done to us, Poor NHS funding and inadequate doctors resulted in my fathers death, my uncles death, my aunts death.
• Treated my mother like a criminal for their mistake, she’s an OAP for Christ sakes.
• Can’t even get their bin men in order but still charge my mother an incredible amount of council tax.
• I needed help from their job centre, but instead got sod all but I’m sure if I’d come from another country I could have had help. All those years of them money grabbing
• DVLA threatening legal action for a vehicle which I’d had sorn with them and later informed them was written off which my insurance company also notified them of. They harassed me for months despite me telling them the numerous times again.
• The list could go on, but for now this will do

We’ve then got the used car salesman, David Cameron. Honestly I think I’d struggle to buy a car from him he just gives off these vibes that he’s after a good commission this month.

BNP, well you know I was considering having a look at what they stand for and today we got a leaflet through the door so I had a quick read. The way I read it is they want to rip our troops out of other countries which could be a devastation not just for use for those countries we’ve gone into but also for ourselves. We need to fix the problems we’ve helped create there and we still need to fight terrorism, if we just pick up and leave places like Afghanistan then we might as well throw them back into chaos and give them some weapons to come get us with afterwards.

The bombings we’ve endured in this country hurt people who didn’t choose to fight in this war, it killed people who were just living their life and if we continued to do nothing they would still continue to come at us. The world is our oyster and we live in it so we have a duty to care for it and not just ourselves because if don’t then when all hell breaks loose we will then be dragged in to it.

BNP also don’t believe in climate change, well regardless of their belief the things we do which scientist claim contribute to climate change are still ruining our world and how we live. Coal, Gas and oil won’t last for ever, landfill sites will still be a mess and will still give of methane. The gases thrown into the Earth’s air will still be poisonous and waste from nuclear power plants still can’t be disposed of easily.

And the other parties……… Well if I’m honest I don’t really understand what they are proposing or what they stand for but I guess I should give them some consideration.

OK after careful consideration I think we should line them all up, blindfold some voters, maybe all of them and give them a paint ball gun who ever gets hit the fewest is in. lol

Maybe not?

She passed away in the early morning of Thursday 2nd July 2009 from Cancer.

The funeral of Margaret & Arthur Webb will take place tomorrow 12th July 2009.

May they both rest in peace.

28th June 2009 my Uncle, Arther Webb, husband to Margaret Webb, father to Steven Webb, Tony Webb, Ronnie Webb, Andrew Webb, Linda and grandfather to many has passed away.

In my previous blog to this, I also mentioned that my Aunty Margaret (Webb) was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

How can one have faith when life keeps dealing these blows.

On my return it was starting to get dark and she was still there, so I decided I’d drop my mother and aunt off first and then come back after all it was only 5 minutes or so away.

Now this is not the first time I’ve done this sort of thing, the other month a chap out side was struggling to get his car going so I went out then drove him to petrol station to get a fuel canister filled up and then back, a few months prior to that I pulled over on a country lane to offer assistance to another driver with a flat tyre. It’s just the sort of thing I do because I’d like to think if one of my family or I ever needed help then someone would offer it.

Anyway, so Helen and I returned back to where the car was and the lady was sat in, I walked up to the window and offered my help to change her tyre, well it seemed she’d managed to get hold of her son and he was on his way I insisted I could help if she wanted but she said no and thanked me. She also stated that I was the second person to stop and offer help.

So two people in total stopped to offer help, lets do a little math here.

Busy road, perhaps 100 cars going on 1 side ever 5 minutes, I was gone maybe an hour so that’s approx 1200 cars on one side of the road which never even thought a stranded driver might need help, perhaps they never saw the flat or the fact that the car was parked at an obscure angle as if it had turned around to park in the middle of the road pretty much on the exit of a road junction.

* These numbers are rough, there could have been a lot more. It was probably something more like 1 every second or 2 so 60 a minute is 3600 an hour.

This just seems to tie in with the whole Woolworth’s post I made, people are only bothered about themselves and what they can get out of everything. Now just imagine if that was your aunt, gran, mother, sister, daughter, son, brother, father, grandfather or uncle, wouldn’t you want someone to help them?

On another note, I couldn’t belive how selfish the British public are and how cheap they were, crying out that things were not cheap enough to the staff of Woolworths who this Christmas will be celebrating without a job, just spent thought on them and their families. I guess the UK is just full of cheap usless barstools who need to get a grip on reality!

Did I hear the government were considering helping out Vauxhal? What a load of crap.

Here are just a few radical ideas for our Government to save money and avert the current situation we’re heading for:

The current annual salary for an MP is £61,820. In addition, MPs receive allowances to cover the costs of running an office and employing staff, having somewhere to live in London and in their constituency, and travelling between Parliament and their constituency.

Taken from: http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/members/pay_mps.cfm

Ok so lets start making some cuts to help dodge the recession or at least ease the pressure on the public and lets cut some of those additional allowances, lets also have those MP’s give back, take a pay cut to £40k or £30k that’s more than enough to live on whilst the public are suffering to make ends meet on crappy £9k jobs, well if they have a job.

MP’d didn’t help with their recent second homes and extra cash for all the interior and such so give those second homes back to the public, cut the dead meat away and you don’t need big cars.

According to a document also downloaded from this website, Mr Brown earns some  £189k per year with others like the Speaker earning £138,724. Most of these Salaries could be cut by up to 75% saving the tax payer some money, easing our living costs, fuel costs and so on. Surely the Prime minister could live on £70k a year?

Government Pay – PDF file from the above site.

These don’t have to be permanent changes but should take affect to help our economy save money until we’re in the clear again.

Companies announcing high profit margins like British Gas, First (Bus) and others should either be forced to lower their prices to help the public or should be penalised for imposing high prices on us when they don’t have to, this money would then go back to the economy.  The Price of oil has recently dropped a hell of an amount but the reduction we pay for petrol doesn’t reflect this change, the price for us shot up, it should shoot down also.

Stop unessential road maintenance, There is a perfectly fine road near us that seems to be dug up every year, why? It would be cheaper for someone to asses if a road really does need doing once a year or not, don’t just blow money on it because you can.

Remember you work for us, it shouldn’t be the other way round! So we shouldn’t suffer for your lifestyle.

I’m all for charity, that’s something that starts at home. So stop throwing all that money and aid to other countries first, let the public decide if they want to donate don’t just use the funds because look at what all that money could of done right now. I’m not saying stop all together but just to be more conservative and Remember we also have poor, homeless, and dying people who can’t afford to live.

I’m not being heartless here, but if we can’t look after our own and then our country falls to pieces who will give these other poorer countries the money and aid? No one because we won’t be able to.

Red Nose and other fantastic charities allow the public to choose if they want to donate, let them carry on the good work.

Take the easy FREE ride away from illegal immigrants, either send them home or make them work to live here rather than handing it to them on a plate. And if there are immigrants in this country that want to work then let them, I have two friends that live here and they are not allowed to be employed they have to be self employed which is something to do with the visa or what ever it’s called that allows them to live in this country, because of this it can sometimes be hard for them to find work unless the employer is happy to pay them as a self employed person.

Prisons is another big waste, stop giving inmates such as easy ride. If they want a TV, a Playstation, or any other perks then make them work for it, don’t give them a free ride, free food, free accommodation.

An idea would be for the prison service to be like a business, make the inmates work, perhaps make blankets for the old and poor, grow and farm food which could be sold to Tesco’s, ASDA’s or even better, smaller businesses at a price which would let them compete with the bigger chains and still make a healthy profit because remember no work force to pay, the inmates are working for their wrongs and to get perks in addition to paying for the accommodation and staff needed to guard them.

For a days work the inmate could earn some privileges temporary or permanent. Inmates could do this in secure environments with money generated from selling products used to fund the prison system and help the public.

Shortlist:

PM Salary Cut.

MP Salary Cut.

Force energy companies with high profit to reduce costs and compensate the public or penalise them for unreasonable pricing.

Force other essential companies such as transport companies to reduce their costs for the public (based on high net profits and thus not penalising the small business and sole traders).

Stop thieving from the public with excessive speed camera’s, use speed camera’s to make a difference not to charge a fortune, i.e. put them where they are needed to reduce speed and accidents not just to make a quick buck. Take action on repeat offenders obviously if a fine isn’t a deterrent then do something that is, to protect life.

Stop thieving from the public with traffic wardens, reduce the cost of tickets, often these penalties hit the families and not the rich.

Reduce the amount of public money spent on foreign aid efforts, temporarily at least.

Either send illegal immigrants home or make them work to live here, thus giving back to the UK and not just taking.

Make prison inmates work for their privileges, they could produce products to help small businesses make profit, or help the poor and elderly live.

Summary:

The money saved on these few things alone may not steer our Country away from recession completely but it would most certainly ease the pressure and those monies could be used for the people and families that really need it.

Some of these could easily be done straight away and only have to be temporary whist we ensure our country stays on it’s feet.

Others could be more permanent and would maybe take a little more time to provision but still there are ways to make money and save money in addition to making costly services pay for there own.

There are no easy over night fixes and I realise this, but we need to look at trimming the fat and building the muscle that makes our nation, the UK, what it is.

A conclusive list of ideas and ways to trim the fat whilst saving money it isn’t, but a starting point it is!

Another Note:

Now that the public own shares in some major banks I’m hoping to see them starting to work for us and not just for themselves, they do of course have to stay profitable but they could still reduce the cost of such things like being overdrawn for a day, stop charging £20 to £40 for a letter when you do go over drawn, by charging those that don’t have the money your simple throwing them further into debt and poverty, this doesn’t help anyone, and you may loose a customer or even worse kill a customer.

Consider allowing a customer a grace period of maybe ten days, send them a £2 letter informing them they have X days to fix the balance and then they will be charged further, but give them the option to speak with a human because a few days may not be enough for someone who is getting close to financial ruin.

In the past I’ve had problems where I was expecting payment which arrived a moment or two late and a Direct Debit going out which sent me into Zero’s with a £30 charge for a matter of hours.

I know something was going through High Courts about this recently, I’ll be honest in saying I haven’t followed it much but I believe a High Court ruled that Office of Fair Trading (OFT) could decide on if the fee’s charged are fair or not. If something has changed on how they can charge then something positive is happening but if not then it’s now time for the Banks to do something because it’s right and helps people.

Well this was only going to be a short blog which turned out to be a little long so I’ll stop here for now, but will say there are other things the government and we could all be looking at to keep the country afloat

Recently I learnt something about a very close loved one, well we were close once but in recent years we had kind of drifted apart which I’m now doing my utmost to change, this person I hold dear to me and love with all my heart, we may not always agree or see eye to eye. I’m sure I irritate him sometimes as he does me but that’s what family is about and being able to be there for each other and when mistakes are had, being able to forgive them regardless, although sometimes a little time is needed.

Within the paranormal and the music world my brother was known as David Vee, was and yes talking past tense but no this person isn’t dead. I’d always kind of looked up to David with some things in my life being inspired by him (That doesn’t mean I always agree with everything he says or does).

We lost contact last year but hadn’t really seen or spoke much since he moved back to Oxford after dad died in 2005, I suppose I was dealing with things in my own way, so relations of any kind were maybe a little stretched at the time. I really wish he hadn’t moved back because losing dad was real hard he was my rock and when he died it was like reality hit home and I finally realised life as we know it, inevitably changes and no one lives forever including those you love dearly. I’m not sure I was the same after that but when I was ready to rejoin the living again, I could have really done with David there.

We used to go for coffee’s every week, something else I miss because that was the time we got away from everything and just chatted without the pressures of real life, because of the distance we live apart that’s now a rarity.

In March of this year Helen and I married, we tried to contact David to invite him but couldn’t get hold of him even through mutual friends. I was disheartened and worried at the same time because we wasn’t sure if he was even OK. I spent a little while tracking him on-line through sites like MySpace, Facebook and of course his own website.I could see the content was changing and he was active, the only two real new things were in a link on his links page and someone else’s name running his profiles “Tansy Tyler”.

Now I know David and if someone was running his profiles it would either need to be a partner or a real trusted friend and I knew he was always content with his choice in living alone and he’d never mentioned this person as a friend, ever!

So 2 + 2 did indeed seem to make 4, that link I mentioned was to a Transgender website and if you hadn’t guessed by now then this blog will become clear very shortly.

The wife and I were still worried so we took an emergency trip to Oxford (from Yorkshire), we had an old address for David, I also vaguely remember another place he lived. The address we had was probably the most recent, so we started there. A guy was outside the property, when we approached him, he seemed a little distant and perhaps odd especially when we asked for David Vee along with another alias ‘Moggy’ as some of his friends knew him. This guy wouldn’t tell me a thing, except to say David was at work and wouldn’t be in for a long time. We left our details in case David got home early.

The other location I knew of, we left for the time being and moved on to a music shop that I knew he frequented whilst in Oxford. The guy was really helpful and let us know where David was working and so off we went in search…………………………

20 minutes or so later we arrived at his work place and walked in, I think as we approached he seemed shocked and unsure of what to say, maybe stunned about our sudden appearance, I don’t know.

We went out into the alley behind his workplace for a chat where he confirmed my thoughts. David Vee was no longer and had in fact changed to Tansy Tyler yes that’s right and he then confirmed he was indeed having a sex change also, I simply replied with something along the lines of ‘yeah thought as much, I still love you no matter what but you should have told me sooner’ the words may have been slightly different but the context was the same.

From this point on in this Blog I shall now refer to David Vee as Tansy Tyler and refer to him as a her and he as a she.

I sincerely believe in equality although not always apparent with my sense of humour but my friends and family know different, just because for me personally something doesn’t work, doesn’t mean for others it can’t and doesn’t mean I won’t respect their choices and paths no matter how diverse it maybe.

Turned out she hadn’t received the communications we’d sent and for some reason the phone number I had was totally wrong even though she’d not changed her mobile in years. The wrong number would most likely be attributed to my fairly recent change of mobile and manually moving all the numbers over.

It must have been so hard, carrying this around her whole life worried about what people may say, think and do and now coming out is something I have much admiration for, as this takes much courage and strength.

Tansy now knows she has the support of the family, I’d already spoken with most of them before going to Oxford and informed them of what I thought was happening and they were all fine with it, so with Helen’s and my message of support also came that of our families.

Tansy expressed that it no longer mattered what people thought because now the dream she’d had her whole life was being followed and coming true. I’d still like to believe though that our support makes a difference and gives her some solace in knowing that she doesn’t need to be alone through this transition and we, the family are always only a phone call away and a few hours by car when needed.

I’ll be honest in saying it was (yes was) easy accepting this change for me because I’m a fairly open person but hard to say good bye to a few things like the name David Vee and saying she and her, it will also be hard saying good bye to the voice. I’ve always felt Tansy had a real nice and distinguished male narrators voice. But those are very small things in comparison and within time the change of title will roll off the tongue much easier and no matter what Tansy is still the same person deep inside. I suppose a vague and weak metaphor would be calling an apple, an apple all your life then learning it is in fact an orange, accepting that but getting use to just the name change.

So today I publicly say with great sadness good bye my Brother, David Vee and with much excitement welcome my new Sister Tansy Tyler.

To Vee or not Vee, that really is what the question was once!

If you have a friend or family member who is curious about transgender and have questions, then there is a lot of support out there for you, like wise if you’ve recently had news of someone’s intentions and your unsure of what to make of it or want support yourself. Medically you should contact your doctor who should as a professional give you some sound advice and details to seek further information. If you have a patronising doctor who doesn’t listen then make a formal complaint and get a new one, or to just save face move onto another source of information.

You can also try Google to find the information you wish.

http://www.transgenderzone.com

http://www.davidvee.com

 (Out with the Vee! In with the Tyler! Tansy Tyler October 2008)

If your reading this blog and have some useful links to help people then please just make a comment, I’ll check them out and if they appear to be suitable then I’ll set the comment and link live.

If you can’t get your head around it, then give it a little time before dismissing that person and remember that person for all intents and purposes is still the same person you know and love inside even if their choice wouldn’t have been yours.

If your about to go through this, or come out then remember you may loose friends but remember this rhetorical question, were they really friends?

Not everyone is as open to this sort of thing, some people fear what they don’t know, some people are just to narrow minded but you will find out who are your true friends and who really has love for you. If you don’t get the support you need from your family then seek out some communities where others have gone through similar experiences, I’m sure they would love to help you.

Finally, remember if someone cannot accept you, for you, then thats their problem and not yours!

Anyway we walking around town on the way to meet David at his work place so it must have been around 11pm-ish. As we walked up one street we kept seeing flashes of light in the distance and at first wondered what it could be, as we approached we could see it was two traffic wardens, ticket inspectors, idiot’s or what ever name you wish to use. lol

Now they were doing their job which is fair enough, the council need to rob, scam and pillage people somehow especially during this credit crunch (recession despite what the government keep fooling themselves with) but the irony of what we saw is after a while these traffic wardens went and jumped in a car parked on double yellow lines and sat there for while longer, before driving off. Maybe they sat there so long writing themselves a ticket.

Don’t you just love the law, the council and the government, do as I say not as I do!

Rob from the poor and give to the rich!

Don’t steel from the government, they hate the competition!

If you not familiar with Blog Action Day, it’s basically one day of the year where thousands of bloggers all blog about one important issue in an attempt to make a difference via the internet. Some will talk about issues close to their hearts, others about ways to donate and fight the cause.

It doesn’t so much matter what your blogged about providing it covers that years topic.

Information from their website:

Post Topics

The best thing a blog can do is to keep their post on topic. Audiences visit our blogs because they enjoy the style, personality and topic of the site. So it makes sense that the best way to get through to these audiences is to use that same style, personality and topic to talk about Poverty. For example:

• A Design Blog might analyse a set of charity posters and how they convey their message.
• A Tech Blog might look at pro-poor technologies and projects.
• A Political Blog might examine the relevant agendas of leading candidates.
• A Sports Blog might look at recent charity activities of a major sports franchise.

Read More Post Suggestions

What Can One Person Do?

Poverty is not only a pressing issue, it is a complex one. It’s easy to think that there isn’t much an individual can do. Fortunately this isn’t the case at all. With activities ranging from advocacy and professional contribution to charity and financing, there is in fact many ways that we can act.

You can find a range of resources about poverty, about what the average person can do as well as dozens of post suggestions and ideas in our Resources section.

Visit the Resources Section.

To learn more and/or get involved then visit their Blog Action Day’s website @ http://blogactionday.org