vivweb01blog

  Editor's note: See recent update 28.6.25 at the end of the main article for the latest news on the new UK.GOV plans for reorganising recycling collections.... ---------------------------- As one of the more incisive questions of our age, "When is Bins ?" definitely deserves some attention…and hopefully a reliable and effective solution for those afflicted by the recent changes (i.e. most of us!). In days of old, life was much simpler when it came to getting our rubbish collected…. The majority of households had just one dustbin. We put it out for the dustmen (as we affectionately referred to them in those balmy 'pre-pc' days) on the same day each week, and with a bit of luck it got emptied sometime on that day.  Life is much more complicated nowadays when it comes to dealing with our domestic waste. The advent of recycling and climate change awareness, which admittedly was overdue  and necessary, given our profligacy with the earth’s non-renewable resource...

  Editor's note: What a difference 400-odd worried back benchers makes..... Reeves' almost ecstatic 'reversal' of her July '24 winter fuel payment means-testing change yesterday masks a deep humiliation on the part of the Labour leadership.  This flagship 'no-nonsense' policy, introduced within days of taking office, was meant to set the scene for 5 years of strong and reforming government, backed by the largest majority in recent history. All it in fact did was to alienate a substantial proportion of the voting electorate, and set the scene for a winter of hardship, and thus for many of those affected a lifelong hatred of the new regime. Was it all worth it, you may ask ? Let's first take a look at the financial costings.  The cost of WFP in 2023 was £2.2Bn; it reduced to £0.3Bn in 2024 by aggressive means testing, thus saving £1.9Bn that year. However, in response to active encouragement by DWP,  an additional 285,600 people applied for pension credit ...

Editor's Note:  Now that Labour's October 2024 'Disaster Budget', as some still call it, is long past, and its full depressive effects on industry are feeding through, it is to be hoped that the leadership will have learnt its lesson. The inevitable drubbing Labour received at the hands of Reform at the May local elections will also have left back-benchers in fear of losing their jobs in 2029.   More inflationary pay claims, although temporarily in abeyance over the winter and spring, are now starting to resurface, with the BMA already gearing up for industrial action in the face of an already above-inflationary pay offer somewhat  north of 5%. ASLEF, as always, are grumbling for yet more for their deprived 45% taxpayers and you can be sure  there will be plenty more demands, and no doubt cave-ins by Starmer, in the name of 'industrial peace' before the year is out. Tax rises are therefore inevitable in October to fund all this largesse for public sector workers...

Editor's Note:  I recently needed to insert some cross-references into a Word document, but couldn't for the life of me remember how I'd done it the last time (ca 6 months ago). Herewith an aide memoire...for anyone in the same boat...and for me the next time the need arises ! Inserting Cross-References into a WORD Document that Render to .pdf Correctly I ntroduction Those of us who use MS Word regularly to author documents which we then need to render to PDF versions for posting online, will no doubt have come across this problem before..... In a nutshell, what’s the best way to generate cross references within your text to figures and other items in different sections of the document such that: a) You can control the text you want to see displayed at that point and b) You can ensure that the same text gets transferred properly into the .pdf  version when you render it and c) the links actually work ! Easy, you might think – just use WORD's cross-reference Insert ...

  We are indeed all living in a time of great change.... I have to confess, until very recently I've been somewhat perplexed about the direction of travel in world politics, and have had trouble understanding why everything suddenly seems to be happening all at once....and I suspect I won't have been the only one..... Being someone who likes to try and make sense of it all, rather than just take things at face value and move on, I have to admit that the complete upheaval we seem to have experienced since the start of Trump’s 2 nd term did at first sight seem incomprehensible and illogical, almost to the point of absurdity.  Why on earth would anyone with such a weighty responsibility on their shoulders risk ruining an economy still growing and prosperous, and until recently unchallenged as the largest on the planet, by deliberately trying to upset our hard-won, tried and tested world order ? But then I thought…what if it's not just about the random whims of yet ano...