Cold Calling

A very nice young woman came to the door and asked me about my children and my grandchildren and... well, she was trying to weasel money out of me for the Red Cross. It's not the Red Cross I object to (good people I'm sure) it's the techniques their sales division had taught her-  the attempts to get under one's guard, to shame one into giving, to build up a simulacrum of a personal relationship. 

We had a phone call from some breezily arrogant chap who said he wanted to talk to Aileen.  He used her name as if he knew her personally. She does a lot of business I'm not in on so I passed him over. Turns out he was just some other cold-caller. The breezy chap handed her on to some other guy who was all snuffly and when she commiserated with him he admitted he had a migraine. Doing that job would give me a migraine too. 

First thing this morning Ailz drew my attention to this article in Martin Lewis's Money Saving Extra. This guy was doorstepping  for some truly sleazy outfit- whose boss insisted his drones read porn on their way into work as a way of desensitising themselves and getting the adrenalin pumping. 

I make a point of never doing business with a cold-caller- no matter how good the offer, no matter how good the cause...

Fat Lines Of Coke

Unless I've missed something, the stories about George Osborne, his friend the dominatrix and the fat lines of coke she says they shared have been received with wipespread shrugging. No-one is particularly surprised, no-one is particularly shocked. We live in a society that has become very relaxed about recreational drug-taking. 

So when is the law going to catch up with public opinion?

Now They Are Seven

At the beginning of the year (at the time of the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch) we had two collared doves visiting our bird table. This morning I counted seven.