Why?

I have been avidly watching the "CUTS".

I have worked for smaller companies, such as one which turned over around £10m p.a., where the IT hardware budget was £3k. Yes, a year. You can buy a heck of a lot with that. We never needed to go over budget, and that included supplies such as laser toners.

I have worked for medium-sized companies. Ones whose turnover was around £100m p.a. In those, the IT hardware budget was more than ten times that of the smaller ones. A heck of a lot more. In the order of £3m. Because you HAD to have "servers" (a server in this context is a PC, for those who think they know differently). You had to have dual redundant PSUs and RAID and all sorts of other cock which mainly didn't work. And spares. And they HAD to come from huge companies, because they did, that's all. And of course they had to be at least 64-bit because 64 is bigger than 32. Even though most programs only ran on 32-bit and ran slower on 64, because they did. And all IT hardware last for two years and then it goes bang. It does.

I have worked for huge companies. Billions of pounds. £xbn. The IT hardware budget in these companies would pay for a decent-sized battleship plus crew and well-stocked bar. Really.

So, what's the analogy? Well, this. Everything I'm hearing has the word "cost" in it.

Here are some examples:

• A battleship costs £x
• A mobility scooter costs £x
• It costs £x to house a family of four
• It costs £x to bring up a child
• It costs £x to provide a bowl of rice to an African goat

That sort of cost.

And here is what is so, so wrong.

It doesn't. It costs what you are prepared to pay. If a submarine, you know, a common or garden one, that can carry a Trident, costs £23,000,000,000, that's what it costs. If company X makes such a submarine, and nobody else really does that sort of submarine, someone will pay that. Especially if it isn't their money.

But in a smaller company, someone, such as I, will ask "how much?". And it will then cost a lot less. A LOT.

So, peoples, NO. I would love to take the piss and charge what I like. But I can't, because I don't sell to idiots. If I tried it on, I would be dumped, and someone else would jump in.

Wake up. That is all.

Fiddle

Remember the olde pubbe song, "Old King Cole"?

Fiddly-diddly-dee, diddly-dee, went the fiddlers?

Here's one, just from my timeline on Twitter. If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always rely on Paul's support.

Let us have a grant, have a grant, say the scientists;
Money for a house, for a house, say the homeless;
Money for my child, for my child, say the parents;
Let me smoke indoors, smoke indoors, say the smokers;
Let me shoot a fox, shoot a fox, say the hunters;
Let me learn for nowt, learn for nowt, say the students;
Give me great big ships, great big ships, say the Navy;
What about the planes, 'bout the planes, say the Air Force;
Give it all to us, all to us, say the EU;
Spunk it up the wall, up the wall, say the Quangos;
We've had the lot, had the lot, say the bankers;
Claim what I want, what I want, say the troughers.

And the refrain ...

                   let me raise more tax, raise more tax, says the gov'ment.

Feel free to add your own. It might catch on.

Know what I think? You can all fuck off. Earn it. Just earn it. I have to. And you're not having mine. Not unless I think you deserve it.

Ornery

A Twitster yesterday twoth that she had, unaided and unabetted by any male, successfully assembled a piece of flatpack furniture.

Git that I am, I casually mentioned that my nine year-old girl makes these. Sometimes with a bit of help from her eleven year-old sister, very occasionally with a bit of guidance from me.

But I think that anything creative is a good thing. Especially trying to decipher the pictures which are meant to be the equivalent of multi-lingual instructions on the cheap. Trying to line up the mis-drilled holes. Wondering why there is at least one screw/bolt/dowel left over.

The Twitster in question was my MP, Ms @LouiseBagshawe. She writes books. Not books I'd read - they're called chicklit. Sort of girly books. Like Sparkles. I don't know what book-writers get paid, but I should imagine that they get more than the girl who works behind the till in the One-Stop. I expect, though I don't know, that Ms Bagshawe, MP, could afford to get a bed from a posh shop and get it delivered. And probably get someone to make it up for here every day as well.

I disagree with nearly everything Louise says. She's a staunch supporter of the smoking ban, she must have voted for continued carnage in Afghanistan, as she wasn't one of the ten who voted against, she's a feminist ... I like feminists, actually, I think they're cute.

Ms Bagshawe went to Oxford Uni, so she's probably posh/lucky/well-orf. I've spoken to her though, and she doesn't sound that posh to me, she sounds quite normal, and quite nice too. I think she's got her head screwed on and her heart's in the right place.

And she's made flatpack furniture. That tells me a lot. That tells me she's real. And I'm proud of her (but don't tell her, obv).

You know what I'd REALLY like to see? Remember the programme "The Generation Game" where the contestants had to do some silly task, demonstrated to them first by an "expert"? I'd like to see Cambo, Cleggy, Miliballs et al assemble an Ikea chest of drawers.

Because I don't think they'd get past opening the box.