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No cuckoo

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

No cuckoo again this year, four or maybe five years since I heard one calling. When we first moved here it was a regular anticipated sound in early May. Atavistic? It marked the soul. Swallows now fewer each year not helped by townies buying up and converting old barns and others who net off their eves because they say bird make a mess. I would feel so privileged if they were to build on our little cottage but alas the eves too low.

Fortunately in twenty one years, not much has changed around here, no real development greenbelt. Thirteen houses and three farms, mostly dairy and sheep. Two of them now been organic for more than twenty years, as a result the hedgerows are alive with an amazing variety of wild flowers. Primroses have done especially well and now the bluebells creeping in.

For a couple of years we had skylarks in a large field not a mile away but huge works undertaken by Severn Trent has scared them off. The curlews have returned having been absent for two years but their numbers like the Lapwings are well down. One critter that is multiplying significantly is the rabbit and the hedge rows on the lanes I walk Sam, our rescue Lab, are honeycombed with burrows. I gave up counting the number I see when I got to a hundred.

Around dawn I will see odd fox or badger and occasionally water voles and pine martins, they say there are otters on the river but I have never seen one. But twice I saw a kingfisher. In abundance are Herons, buzzards, duck, snipe, geese, swans, and something I’ve missed. There are huge varieties smaller of birds unfortunately for them we have a pair of peregrines and in an explosion of feathers one took a ring collared dove in our garden, and the sparrow hawk is a regular visitor to the bird table. After sunset tawny, little and barn owls and what I took to be a night jar. Sadly I have not seen or heard a nightingale since I lived at the The Boot in Willington, but we have hedgehogs.

Recently on our way home from Oswestry we saw a Red Kite, the first I have seen within forty miles of here.

Posted in Environmental responsibility, Fox, Garden Birds, Kingfisher, Living well, Local information, Organic farming, Sadness, Shropshire, Wildlife | No Comments »

Chester Business Club Charity

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

Chester Business Club Charity walk help us support smaller charities that do not receive funding, like Mums Chums providing help and relChester Business Club Charity walk help us support smaller charities that do not receive funding, like Mums Chums providing help and relief for parents with a severely handicapped child.

Walk on the day £10 registration; sponsor yourself or others to walk. Give just a couple hours of your time, a great walk for all the family and, if you have one your dog. Start from through Duke’s drive and back along the river over the meadows, Chocolate stop! Juice stop! Bacon Butty stop! and Gin & Tonic at the end!

Sunday 8th May registration the Stand from 10am ief for parents with a severely handicapped child. Walk on the day £10 registration; sponsor yourself or others to walk.

Posted in Charity Walk, Chester, Chester Charity Walk, Local information, Serendipity | No Comments »

Identity fraud and recruitment agencies

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Insider Fraud and Employment Agencies

This subject applies to all companies/businesses/organisation operating in the UK and I raise it wearing my fraud prevention hat, for further information about protecting yourself against fraud please see www.northwestfraudforum.co.uk or your own regional fraud forum

On the subject of Insider Fraud there is always a possibility when recruiting either permanent or temporary staff through an agency that the correct procedure/checks have not been carried out by the agency.

The recruitment industry has its fair share of cowboy agencies who to cut costs and do not even carry out even the most basic checks. Where this happens how can you be sure the person who turns up on you premises is even eligible to work in the UK, or is the person the agency said they have sent?

My wife’s company had a recent case in Liverpool where a large national agency were supplying temps for a major call centre. It transpired that five of the people that had been put forward to the client and who were accepted on face value, were part of a criminal ring who were expropriating customer bank details etc and selling them off. It subsequently transpired that these people had not even had their eligibility to work in the UK checked.

Preventing insider fraud starts by ensuring you know who is working on your premises and I would urge all companies/organisations that use agencies to do a thorough check on the agency, make a visit to their premises and demand to see their processes. These checks must include:

Identity check either a) Passport; or b) Drivers licence AND birth Certificate
NI Number
Proof of address with recent utility bill/bank statement
References
Eligibility to work in the UK where in necessary must be checked

Victims of Fraud

SMEs who have been victims of e-crime should contact Action Fraud

(www.actionfraud.org.uk). Action Fraud is at the heart of National Fraud Authority’s

strategy to make the UK a more hostile environment for fraud and encourages

small businesses and individuals who have been defrauded to come forward, call

Action Fraud and report the crime 0300 123 2040

TEAM http://www.jobsatteam.com/ is the largest network of independent recruiters in the UK and offers a unique range of services: Over 350 membership locations across the UK providing a Total Recruitment Service to clients and candidates both locally and nationally across a wide range of disciplines

The views/opinions expressed on this website are entirely my own

Posted in Home workers, Identity Fraud, Local information, Recruitment Agencies, SMEs | No Comments »

Whoops! Email etiquette.

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

Ever sent an email and suddenly realised you have made a ridiculous howler. God it’s embarrassing, and what to do? Follow it up with an immediate apology thereby drawing attention to your stupidity or the fact that you are losing the plot. Hope that it will not be noticed? Pretend it never happened?

I always read my emails carefully before sending them, or so I think, but no matter how I hard I try to get it right from time to time after I have pressed send and there is a sudden flash in my WHOOPS, done it again. Or a day later on rereading, I will see the thing that I have overlooked staring out at me in ten foot high neon letters.

Am I losing the plot or is it just always trying to do things too quickly, everything seems to be moving too quickly. I am irritated by feeling the need to answer emails immediately, but I still do it. Why am I unable to slow down.

Is it me? That sounds like some old fart saying ‘I don’t believe it’.

Looking back I could cringe at the idiotic mistakes I have made, the most recent was writing to a client about Tesco Nectar Card, association of ideas or getting my wires crossed. In the context of my email not good.

On the plus side with everything moving at such a pace in this increasingly mad world, I suppose these things are soon forgotten. I hope!

I can never say or write ‘Whoops’ without thinking of Le Chiffre to Bond at the card table in Casino Royale, or docking in Genoa when the pilot hit another ship and with an almighty crunch and the Scouse quarter master at the wheel just casually murmured it.

Posted in Chester, Liverpool, Local information, Serendipity, email etiquette | No Comments »

Chester Business Club and Chester Rotary Charity Walk Challenge

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Just 2 weeks to go

Just 6.5 miles to walk

Just 3 hours of your time

Just once a year

Just something you can do to help others

Just raising money for little, local charities

Just think how good you will feel

Just join us

Chester Business Club and Chester Rotary

Charity Walk Challenge

Sunday Morning April 25^th

Registration from 10am The Band Stand on the river

Just to make it easier we have stops for:

Chocolate – Fruit Juice – Bacon Buttys – G&T

Just call Kirsty Craig 01244 350700 now

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over,
it became a butterfly.

Posted in Charity Walk, Chester, Chester Charity Walk, Liverpool, Local information, Serendipity | No Comments »

Charity Walk Chester Business Club and Chester Rotary

Friday, April 9th, 2010

30,000 people commit to running 26 miles in the London Marathon

Can you commit to walking 6.5 miles?

Sunday Morning 25^th April

Charity Walk

Chester Business Club and Chester Rotary

Registration from 10am The Bandstand

Chester Groves on the River

Help us to raise money for small local charities that receive no funding

A social event for family and friends

The kids, mum and dad, the dog and who you will

Stops on the way around for:

Chocolate, Fruit Juice, Bacon Buttys, G&T

Posted in Charity Walk, Chester, Chester Charity Walk, Liverpool, Local information, Serendipity | No Comments »

Good by March hello ‘Bacon Buttys’

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

I can hear just fine!’
Three retirees, each with a hearing loss, were playing golf one fine March day. One remarked to the other, ‘Windy, isn’t it?’ ‘No,’ the second man replied, ‘it’s Thursday.’ And the third man chimed in, ‘So am I. Let’s have a beer.’
Don’t forget Chester Business Club & Chester Rotary Charity Walk
Sunday morning 25th April registration at the Chester Groves Bandstand from 10am
Walk with friends and colleagues to help support the little charities in and around Chester who do not get funding. Kids dogs and your best friends all welcome

Chocolate top – Stop – Fruit Juice stop – Bacon Butty stop – Gin Stop*
*Recommended at the end of walk not the beginning.
Venue for lunch, for those that want it, will be at The Hickory Smoke House, The Groves Chester. Contact: Duncan Falconer (who is providing Bacon Buttys)

Posted in Business Link, Charity Walk, Chester, Chester Charity Walk, Liverpool, Local information, Serendipity | No Comments »

Andrew Marr and The Silent State

Monday, March 29th, 2010

Always work from home Monday and always listen to Start the Week while I check emails and sort out my diary. One particular guest, Heather Brooke, and her talk on the secret British society really resonated with me and it is quiet scary stuff. But then why am I surprised over the years I have been in business I have come across this time and again, call up a PLC or any company organisation and ask for the name of a director/partner and there is every chance you will be told we are not allowed to give the names. Oh really, why?
Go to a website in the UK and try to find out the same information about a company and so often it’s made as difficult as possible to find out anything about the people who run it. Go to an American website they will give you chapter and verse on every one who works there. I have noticed it has got better over here since the take up on Linkedin and Google will get you almost any name if you dig hard enough. But one of the things she raises, and which is something I have always resented, is the culture of arrogance found in the public sector and her observation about .. ‘the extent to which the government collects information on us while refusing to make civic information available to the public.’

The demise on local papers and journalists who covered local council meetings is also another great loss and a allows these petty little people even more power without accountability. This is definitely a book I will buy as soon as it is published.
Seems winter has returned and I have had to order yet more oil. We want to move the tank this Spring to make way for an extension, so I requested 300 only litres please but was told they cannot deliver less than 500 litres because Trading Standards, (not H&S sic), set that amount as the minimum. Can someone please explain that one to me?
(more…)

Posted in Chester, Freedom of Information, Government and SMEs, Local information, Moral questions, Radio 4, SMEs, Serendipity | No Comments »

Annual Charity Walk Chester Business Club & Rotary

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Calling Chester Desk Jockeys

Tighten that Tum

Don’t Talk the Talk

Chester Business Club

Challenge You to

Walk THE Walk

Sunday morning 25^th April

And

Cough up for a good cause

The unsung under funded

Small Chester Charities

Registration starts at the Bandstand Chester Groves from 10am

Walk 6.5 miles, chocolate, juice, bacon butty and G & T stops on the way

Posted in Charity Walk, Chester, Local information, Serendipity | No Comments »

Liverpool where to stay to impress

Friday, March 12th, 2010

Liverpool – looking for a great place to stay long or short term or got clients you want to impress look up Posh Pads Luxury Service Apartments www.posh-pads.co.uk

Posted in Daniel Craig, Hotels where to stay put up your customers, Liverpool, Local information, Serendipity | No Comments »