K.I.S.S.

The best systems are the simple ones. The more complicated they get, the more likely it is they will go wrong. The Tax Credit System is horribly complicated, and I'm not in the slightest surprised that it's in trouble. But even the basic principle is barmy - you pay people money for this year on the basis of what they earned last year. If this year they earn more, that creates an overpayment which you then ask them to repay. But by their very nature, these are mostly people at or near the breadline, who spend money as they get it, so how are they supposed to repay? If there's one thing worse than a complicated system, it's a silly complicated system!

I must be getting old.

There's nothing quite like nostalgia. The news that the BBC is to axe "Grandstand" brings back floods of memories of settling down on a Saturday afternoon to watch events you would never otherwise have seen, or even known took place. Anybody remember hill-climbing at Shelsley Walsh for example? I suppose in this commercial world where money can buy the exclusive rights to just about anything, it was inevitable that the Grandstand approach would ultimately run out of events worth showing, but they led the way back in the early years, and Saturday afternoons will never be quite the same again.

What the.........!!

Funny how things come in clusters - like buses. Another for the "You Couldn't Make It Up" collection: a bloke here in the Midlands lives next door to a piece of council land which had become a local rubbish dump. Fed up with the eyesore, he decided to do something about it, and spent some £1500 on clearing the site up. So what happened? The Council wrote to him ordering him to "re-instate the land to its original condition, or face criminal or civil proceedings". I'm just lost for words.

I'll stick with what I've got.

Sky have been bombarding me with literature extolling their new High Definition service. To enjoy the wonders of this new service, all I need is a new HDTV - anything from about £1000 upwards, a Sky HD box - £299, installation costs of £60, and an extra subscription of £10 a month. Yeh, right!

Ooh, me back!

The Supermarket I go to regularly has just had a make-over of its car park, with the result that it is now impossible to park within about 30 yards of the entrance unless you are disabled, or a parent with a toddler. Now I've no problem with special arrangements being made for such people, but what about those of us who are getting on in years and, although not disabled, do on occasion find walking any distance a bit of a struggle? Where do we fit into the great scheme of things? Nowhere, it would seem. How about special parking places reasonably close to the door for the "able-bodied but elderly"?

The perils of emulsion

Going further down the "You Couldn't Make It Up" line, have you heard about the bloke who was not allowed to board a bus because he was carrying a tin of paint? Brand new unopened tin, apparently, but it seems paint under new health and safety regulations is classed as a "hazardous article". The farce of it all is that if the tin's in a bag, then that's OK. Who the dickens thinks these things up? Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks is beginning to look quite sensible!

You couldn't make it up!

The last series of "Doctor Who" included episodes based on the premise that the Government of this country had been taken over by aliens posing as Ministers. Have you looked at Charles Clarke, our beloved Home Secretary lately? Could he in fact be a Slithereen? It would explain a lot. Have you seen his latest piece of idiocy? He is suggesting that people who have been convicted and imprisoned but subsequently had that conviction overturned on appeal should not be entitled to any compensation. So if I'm taken away from my home and family and locked up by a criminal, I would be entitled to compensation, but if the same thing is done to me by the state, I wouldn't be. It appears that I would be classed as a "victim" in the first case, but not the second. Is the man sane?

Is gatso?

There's a basic contradiction with speed cameras. If they're doing their job properly - that it deterring motorists from exceeding the speed limit, then they will raise little revenue. But the fact that they are raising, and continue to raise, considerable revenue means that they are not doing their job properly. And if they're not doing their job properly, what's the point of having them?

I'll see to that, dear......

We're spending more and more on DIY apparently, and yet how many of us are really competent at it? The number of bodge jobs you see - and not just small jobs. There's a bloke near where I live who is building an extension to his house. He's doing it himself - has been in fact for the past two years - and making a right pig's-ear of it. And what's the point? Far from adding to the value of his house, he's actually detracting from it. Best get a man in, and if you can't afford to do so, put it on the back burner until you can.

Who would have believed it!

Do you get as annoyed as I do at reports which come out with conclusions that are so gob-smackingly obvious that you cannot understand how anybody could justify spending good money on getting them? The latest is this one that says the poor are more likely to be burgled, more likely to be stressed by it and less likely to be insured against it. Would anybody honestly have thought different?