My 18th short story: “Coming In To Land”

July 10th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

Ever been on an aircraft when there was a tricky landing? This is the inspiration for my short story entailed “Coming In To Land” which you can read here.

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There is so much terrible news out there, but here’s a tale of survival and love

July 9th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

A British couple have survived four bouts of cancer and 19 heart attacks to celebrate 60 years of marriage. You can read more about David and Muriel Emery here.

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Another new experience with my granddaughter Catrin

July 8th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

I like to collect my granddaughter Catrin – now four and a half – from nursery once a week and this week the day coincided with an invitation to parents and carers to come along a little earlier and read some stories to the little ones.

I was certainly up for that and so were Catrin and friends. I was given a child’s chair and a selection of children’s books and off we went. Catrin chose the books for me to read and insisted on taking prime sitting spot on granddad’s knee. A fun time was had by all!

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How many elements are there?

July 7th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

I am currently reading “The Magic Of Reality” by Richard Dawkins. In this book, he writes that there are about 100 different kinds of elements of which only about 90 occur in nature.

I wondered what is the exact number of elements known to us. It seems that the answer is 118 – see here.

A fuller description is found on Wikipedia which notes that:

“As of April 2015, 118 elements have been identified, the latest being ununseptium in 2010. Of these, only the first 98 are known to occur naturally on Earth; 80 elements are stable, while the others are radioactive, decaying into lighter elements over various timescales from fractions of a second to billions of years.”

You can find a list of all 118 elements here.

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Ready for a laugh? Well, how many jokes can you take?

July 6th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

I have lots of serious material on my web site, but there are plenty of jokes too. Check out these sections:

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A review of “Terminator Genisys”

July 5th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

He said he would be back and Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to the “Terminator” role at the age of 67. So, was it worth the wait? You can read my review here.

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The future of our post offices

July 4th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

I’ve been interested in post offices since 1978 when I became Research Officer at the Post Office Engineering Union (POEU) which later became the National Communications Union (NCU) and is now the Communication Workers Union (CWU). I spent 24 years as a trade union official before taking early retirement.

This week, I chaired the Post Offices Advisory Group (POAG) of Consumer Futures which is now part of Citizens Advice. This is something which I have done for seven years now, dating back to when I was on the board of the then Consumer Focus (before that I was on the board of Postwatch, which was merged into Consumer Focus, when I attended the predecessor body to POAG).

At its post-war peak, the size of the post office network was around 24,000, but today it is down to about 11,500 and the Government has committed to maintain the network at this number of outlets. I can remember when Post Office Limited (POL) proudly claimed that there were 28 million customer visits a week but that figure is now down to about 17 million a week.

So the network is currently undergoing its third major change programme in a decade. Urban Reinvention involved the closure of nearly 2,500 post offices and the Network Change Programme required another 2,500 closures with around 500 new outreach locations. The current project is called the Network Transformation Programme and, while the size of the network should stay the same, every office will be modernised, redesignated or relocated.

Outside the 370 or so Crown offices (owned and staffed by POL itself), the network will consist of three models: Main Offices (open plan section in another retail operation), Local Offices (till in another retail operation) and Community Offices including outreaches (effectively the last shop in the community).

The Network Transformation Programme has so far involved around 4,500 physical changes – about 2,500 Mains and 2,000  Locals – with something like 40 conversions every week around the country. The whole programme is due to be completed by March 2018.

So, if you value your local post office, please use it.

Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)

A review of the film “Danny Collins”

July 4th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

You might not have heard of this movie and the title is hardly a come-on, but it’s treat – full of warmth and pathos. You’ll find my review here.

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Trade unions are central to improving productivity

July 3rd, 2015 by Roger Darlington

As someone who was a national trade union official for 24 years, I was pleased to see this short piece by John Earls, Head of Research at Unite, arguing the case for involving unions in the drive to increase productivity in the UK economy.

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Today is Employee Ownership Day – so what’s it like working for a mutual?

July 3rd, 2015 by Roger Darlington

Created by the Employee Ownership Association in 2013 and supported by business, an array of trade and industry groups and across the political spectrum, Employee Ownership Day is a unique opportunity to highlight and celebrate the significant benefits employee ownership delivers to the UK economy.

Now, as it happens, I am on the Board of a mutual organisation which is owned and controlled by the staff. Only this week, I chaired a Board meeting of the Tinder Foundation which approved a suggestion – from one of the newest and most junior staff members – that has changed the remuneration policy of the organisation.

You can read her observations on working for the Tinder Foundation, together with the thoughts of a longer-served staff member, here.

I am proud to be associated with an organisation with such great staff that does such wonderful work.

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