Or to put it another way: “BSM making redundancies?”
I keep hearing these rumours, but nothing concrete has been forthcoming. Similar to the “Red has gone bust” rumours that are flying around, I guess.
I wonder if some of the visitors from the BSM Instructor Academy could enlighten me so I can publish it? All in the highest level of confidence, of course.
I recently posted a recipe for Pilau Rice which had been submitted by a reader (Peter, from Devon). Having tried it, it really does work well – much, much better than the method I’ve been using, and extremely close to what you buy from the takeaway.
Peter has also submitted another tip. I haven’t tried this one, but this is what he says:
I just came upon a great new marinade for a curry by accident – instead of using plain yoghurt as the “liquid” part of a spice/chilli/onion/ginger/garlic marinade… I used a big splash of green ginger wine – result was fantastic.
The only drawbacks I can see to not using yoghurt is that the meat won’t be tenderised – that’s one of the purposes of yoghurt in marinades – in the same way, and the essential fat will be missing (so the meat might be drier). However, I would imagine ginger wine is still acidic enough to have some effect as a marinade, and if it tastes good who cares if it is the ‘classic’ way or not?
My project to build an ergonomic kneeling chair has been one of the most popular items on the blog. This page is a summary to identify the various separate articles involved in the project.
Note that this kneeling chair is made out of metal, not wood. The finished article is absolutely bomb-proof.
The separate articles are listed below:
Follow each stage in sequence.
Someone asked me what size bolts I used. I didn’t include that information in my drawings – I think I assumed that the diameter of the holes was enough, but I should have explained more clearly. In fact, the bolt size doesn’t matter as long as you don’t make your holes so large that the structure is weakened, or use such small bolts that these themselves become the weak point. Mine were two sizes – the ones used to link the struts were about 5/16″ (or 8mm); the ones elsewhere were about 3/16″ (or 4.5mm). I bought them online.
Someone else asked if the drawings could be used to make the chair out of wood using 2x2s and 2x3s. The short answer is no – because the strain on the part where the struts join the feet would be so great that the assembly would split (and even wooden ones you buy suffer from this problem, which is why I went for metal if you remember the introductory article). I suppose you could modify my plans and develop a functional wooden chair, but that is beyond the scope of this series.
I should also clarify that the kneeling chair I built used three parts left over from the last one I bought: the seat and knee pad panels, and the raising mechanism.
The pad panels are just bean-shaped plywood with threaded mounting holes in them. I re-upholstered them using foam and fabric purchased online (detailed in the articles). However, if you were building one from scratch it would be a simple matter to make your own panels for the seat and knee pads using ¼” or ½” plywood. The raising mechanism would be a little more of a challenge, but still fairly simple to construct. All it consists of is a threaded shaft inside a corresponding threaded socket. When the shaft is turned the overall length of the socket/thread assembly either increases or decreases. Since the ends of this assembly are fixed to the support struts of the chair, the seat rises or falls as the thread is turned.
Another interesting story – this one is about the modern culture of praising and rewarding children for things like being able to pee in the toilet without missing as if they’d just invented an unlimited energy machine or something.
I couldn’t agree more.
The article says:
Growing numbers of experts believe families lavishing compliments on their youngsters for something trivial actually demotivates them.
It isn’t just children. It demotivates anyone with brains enough to see through it… and for those without the brains, you just end up with a bunch of people who’ve been told they are brilliant when they aren’t!
The whole issue ties in with an earlier post about exams and the annual argument over whether they are easier than they used to be. FACT: Yes. Exams are easier now than they used to be. And the pass level is set so low that they are almost impossible to fail. People just can’t seem to grasp the simple concept that if you have someone with intelligence measured on a scale of 1-100 right at the top end, then somewhere or other there will be someone with intelligence right at the bottom end. And most people will cluster somewhere in the middle.
So rigging exams to make sure everyone gets grades which point to them being at the top end is simply covering up the reality. And this latest article is providing evidence which fits right into that reality: pointless praising of someone who isn’t bright does not make them bright. In most cases they know they aren’t bright, and the false praise is wasted. As the article says:
Simon Brownhill, a sen[i]or lecturer in education at Derby University, said that prizes should be linked to proper achievement, above what is normally expected.
He said: ‘A prize should be something you can work towards. When I was learning to swim I got a certificate for five metres, one for ten metres and so on.
‘Whilst I am all for rewarding achievement, it has to genuinely recognise progress. A prize or certificate for nothing devalues the concept of a reward.’
In other words, you only get praised or rewarded if you actually do achieve something real.
As usual, some of the comments left by people on the Mail article give an insight into what I am saying about some people having intelligence down the bottom end of the scale. Fed Up from Birmingham is a prime example:
Load of rubbish. You try telling a child everyday that it’s useless, and in the end they believe it enough TO BE USELESS. Now, try praising a child everyday, for anything, no matter how small, and that child will feel 10″ tall. And before you say ‘how do i know’, well i’ve brought up 3 healthy, well balanced, successful children that are a credit to me and everybody around them, by doing just that.
Nothing annoys me more than people who cannot understand something failing to realise their limitations and then opening their mouths to broadcast the fact. This idiot has missed the point entirely: trying to make children feel good about nothing is not as useful as making them feel good about a real achievement. No one said anything about telling them they are useless – just don’t keep telling them they’re great unless they actually are!
An OLD article! From 2010.
Let me make it clear right from the start: I am a Windows fan, and Bill Gates is one of my heroes. I would never use anything other than Windows (and there are a lot of sound technical reasons for that). I deliberately avoid buying Apple products: my MP3 player is a Creative Zen, and my smartphone is an HTC Touch HD running Windows Mobile.
However, whenever Apple releases a new product I have to admit that on the surface it looks highly desirable. I think this is how the iPhone took off – it costs a bloody fortune and has (or had) several technical limitations when it was released (i.e. ringtone customisation/cannot use mp3 files for ringtones, no video recording, limited Flash support when browsing, etc.)… but it still took off because it looks great and was hyped on that strength.
The same is true of the MacBook Air. It looks gorgeous, and if its performance were in any way related to its looks it would currently be running for office, and be a dead cert for next US President. But it has upgrade limitations, restricted connectivity, bloody expensive with a tiny hard drive, and you can’t replace the battery.
And as far as the iPod goes, Apple’s bad record with non-user replaceable batteries and DRM-protected (originally, anyway) files is well known. But it looks great.
The keyword in all that is ‘looks’. Apple has appearance down to a fine art.
Yesterday, the iPad was announced. It is a tablet computer and… yes, it looks absolutely beautiful!
But based on previous Apple performance issues, does it really achieve anything new?
This story in the Daily Mail highlights some of the drawbacks which are actually rather serious:
Critics are labelling it as an oversized iPhone, and the web is already awash with virals poking fun at its limitations.
I’ve included a couple of YouTube movies below – I warn you, they’re parodies involving Hitler’s Response to the iPad, so don’t watch them if that is likely to offend you. Oh, and there’s a lot of bad language.
But I agree that the iPad is likely to be successful – even though it probably shouldn’t be.
Thanks for the heads up from Kirst D’Raven (from the Unknown Phenomena Investigation Association), who pointed out this updated story in the Chorley Guardian about the Buckshaw Beast.
The Guardian – which is probably normally delivered by Town Crier (or on wooden tablets in hard copy) to Buckshaw residents – is naturally all excited about the worldwide media attention the story has whipped up.
I must admit that the whole thing is still a little unclear. You see, in August 2007 there was a similar story about The Beast Of Dartmoor (the Daily Mail has a vast repertoire of headline vocabulary, as you can see). The ‘beast’ turned out to be Troy – a Newfoundland dog approximately the size of small asteroid, who wandered around the place where the picture was taken.
People seem to be claiming that the photo of the Buckshaw Beast is the same photo of Troy from 2 years ago. Take a look at the two side-by-side. Troy is on the left, the latest Beast on the right:
Troy vs. The Beast
I’m not convinced they are the same photograph. Troy’s left foreleg is reaching forward as if he is walking, and he is next to a rock. The Beast is standing still and there is no rock visible. But having said that, the two animals are almost identical in appearance. Uncannily similar, in fact, and it would not surprise me if the photos are of Troy from different angles – or possibly of another Newfoundland.
Now there’s a thought: does anyone in Buckshaw own a Newfoundland?
Something else I noticed when I had a quick look to see exactly what the geography around Buckshaw is like, and that is that Buckshaw Village is sandwiched between the M6 (less than 1km to the west), and the M61 (less than 2km to the east). There is a notable lack of any wild open space except for a few small managed woods adjoining the two golf clubs bordering the village, and a country park to the north, which is bordered by the M6, M61, and M65. It isn’t what you would call wolf or hyena country. But it is dangerously close to places like Wigan, Preston, Manchester, Bolton, and Blackburn… definitely crackpot country!
One thing is certain: it isn’t a wolf and it isn’t a hyena. OK, that’s two things, but you get what I mean! Nor is it a cross between a boar and a wolf, or any other pair of species incapable of breeding together (either as a result of some warped desire, or through the basic laws of biology). I doubt even that wild boars can be found in the location in question, and certainly not unless they managed to cross the motorways – and that wouldn’t make sense, because they are sods to find even when you know they inhabit an area.
I keep hearing rumours that Red Driving School has gone under. Certainly they seem to have stopped advertising on the TV – you used to get the ad repeated several times an hour from what I remember.
I should point out that I have also heard that they haven’t folded at all and the stories are rubbish put about by competitors and people who never completed training. At the moment they still appear to be trading.
I’m not sure what the truth is at this stage, but based on supporting information I put a little more faith in the second version (the first seems to be wishful thinking on the part of those reporting it)… but who can tell until the real story comes out. There’s obviously something going on, but then you have to remember that there is a recession and it would be unreasonable to expect someone to keep advertising the way Red used to.
EDIT 28/1/2010: Latest rumour is that Red has warned its staff of redundancies and closure of certain regional offices. This is only a rumour, but like the two alternatives above I’d say the scales are slightly tilted in favour of this story having some truth about it.
EDIT 18/2/2010: For those too lazy to check for the latest news as a result of not Googling for a more relevant result, there is an updated story confirming Red HAS gone bust.
EDIT 21/02/2010: But within days of handing over to administration, it seems Red has been saved by private equity firm Kelso Place.
These two excuses for “organisations” are really ticking me off at the moment.
I’ve written about the huge damage the Nottinghamshire County Council (NCC) has wrought on hedgerows around here (after many years of not touching them at all). I’ve also commented on the appalling gritting service provided during the bad weather (i.e. none at all during the worst parts) by both the Nottingham City Council and the County version. In fact – now that the snow has gone – I am biding my time, waiting for my car to be damaged as it goes through a major pothole so that I can claim against the idiots who will now take months to do anything about the problem.
But my latest gripe involves blocking roads to carry out minor roadworks operations, and taking weeks to complete it.
First of all, on the A60 in Ruddington there are temporary railings up in various places (the kind which narrow the road). They’ve been there for a week now, and they have spread down the road as the week has gone on to places where they prevent or restrict the movement of two-way traffic. There is also one of those converted containers from a lorry which serves as a site office just at the end of Landmere Lane.
What are they doing? They are surfacing – or I should say “resurfacing” – the bloody bus stops. Not on the road, but on the pavement.
It’s no wonder this work takes weeks – if it was being orgainised and carried out by chimps it could be done quicker. It really should only take a few days. I’m also pretty sure that idiotic Health & Safety rules are the reason it causes so much disruption, with temporary lights if traffic would come within 100 metres of a workman in the brief periods during which he’s actually working.
The second thing bugging me is how the Council has closed a lane permanently on Huntingdon Street outside the Litmus Buildings. There used to be a left filter lane and two straight-ahead lanes – but our illustrious idiots decided that the left filter lane should go to make room for a huge pedestrian area (which was huge to start with). Why?
These idiots are known to be car-haters, and all councils (wherever they are) are staffed with the kind of people who should work in nursery schools and care homes but who, instead, become responsible for hard decisions affecting the entire population (if it isn’t things like this, it is multi-colored wheelie bins where you “can only put potato peelings in the green one if there is an R in the months, and it isn’t raining, and if snow isn’t forecast – but not otherwise, and add the number you first thought of”).
It might have something to do with the Council’s attitude towards the darlings who live in the Litmus Buildings. It may have something to do with the number of far-eastern students we have at the moment, who seem to spend most of their time standing in the middle of busy roads looking vacantly upwards (why do they do that?), having ignored the pretty coloured lights, and some of whom will have no doubt fallen foul of this foolish activity and prompted a “safety review”. Who knows? But it sure doesn’t help the traffic flow when people want to turn left – and it is now a very sharp left, so very slow – during rush hour.
And they haven’t even removed the old lines or partially covered arrows. They can’t even carry out bad decisions in a proper way.
And the third thing involves the absolute chaos they have allowed to develop down in Hyson Green. The traffic lights have been out for at least a week and replaced with temporary ones – again, it seems to be down entirely to resurfacing the pedestrian crossings on the pavements (not the roads). And when I went to pick up a pupil down there yesterday, it turned out they had closed off the Nottingham-bound side of Radford Road from the Asda garage (though not the darling trams… oh no. They were still allowed to move). It was gridlocked chaos.
I haven’t got a clue what insane purpose this is going to serve, or why they chose to just block off the road for the weekend and then do nothing. Knowing the idiots involved in all this it wouldn’t surprise me if they ended up turning Hyson Green into a no-car zone – it’s just the kind of area the Council is likely to do that to. I DO know that no one was working yesterday to get it done quickly (big surprise there then).
The roads are an absolute disgrace with potholes. The idiots at both Councils will no doubt need months of meetings before they even start to send men out with tarmac and shovels (and lots of cones and site offices to enable them to turn a few hours worth of work into a week long catastrophe). Obviously, putting new tarmac down on all the bus stops is much more important.
Incidentally, I should also point out that the bus stop work does involve replacing ONE kerbstone as well. It is much higher than the others (well, maybe 6 cm at most taller than it was before) – no doubt this is where the bus is supposed to stop to prevent passengers having to step on to the bus! I would imagine that the whole exercise is going to involve hugely expensive retraining of bus drivers (who stop wherever they bloody well want), and is in response to the millions of people the Council’s Health & Safety primates believe have died in the last 12 months due to having to step on to a bus.
I just noticed someone found this site on the search term “adi’s lack of pupils 2010”.
I’m not noticing any lack myself. I noticed a distinct reduction in new pupils between April-September 2008 (and yes, I do mean 2008), but from October 2008 it skyrocketed, and the whole of 2009 was very busy. I’m still busy right now, picking up typically 1-2 new pupils a week.
The snow affected lessons, of course. One pupil decided she would wait until it cleared up before she started lessons again, but others revelled in driving in the harsh conditions. I suppose some people who might have planned on starting lessons decided against it until the weather got better, but others seem not to have considered the weather at all and want to learn to drive. Pupils, after all, are like the phases of the moon. They are forever changing.
Having said that, the world does not revolve around me and I know that a lot of other instructors are having a hard time – and have been in that position for quite a while. So why might that be?
The first thing to remember is that whatever is the direct cause of not having enough work today is probably not the same direct cause that perhaps resulted in (for example) lack of work last summer, or in 2008, or 2007, and so on. What happens in the space between someone having an ADI badge and pupils wanting lessons is extremely complicated. Plenty of people think they know the answer, but they don’t – because as I just explained, there is no single answer. It is different for everyone, and it is different every time it happens.
Let’s just consider some of the factors which could be involved.
We’re In A Recession
Shops are closing every day (well, last year they were). Entire businesses are disappearing. People are on short time… You could go on and on. Anyone who thinks that this isn’t affecting people and their ability to pay for driving lessons – particularly in some areas of the country - is an idiot.
It does have a positive side, in that being able to drive is another string in the bow of someone looking for work, so they may put learning to drive as a fairly high priority if they still have funds. I’ve had a few of these myself, so I know it can be a factor – but in really depressed areas it might not be as significant a factor as it is here in the Midlands.
It’s Winter
Some instructors insist that it always goes quiet “at this time of year”. Well, maybe it does for them – so we can’t dismiss it as a possible factor. Personally, I only ever find the Christmas weeks (very) and maybe the first week or two (slightly) in the New Year quieter than the surrounding periods.
It’s Summer
Yep. You hear this one, too. In my own experience you will get a few who go away for an extended period. Even several people going away for a couple of weeks around the same time can rip your diary to shreds if it is already lightweight, but generally people seem to like taking lessons in the summer. However, see the next section for another reason why summer can hit you hard.
Bloody Students
If your clientele is primarily sourced from the Universities and colleges, then once their exams are finished and they go home your work just about dries up from that source (Unis especially). You have to wait until October for it to start picking up again, and it doesn’t pick up immediately… they have to get settled in, finish playing silly buggers, and wait for the colder dark nights to come before they start thinking about driving.
I got caught out with this one year, but I now make sure to the best of my ability that my pupil base isn’t entirely composed of Uni students over the summer. Up to a point you don’t have much choice (unless you turn people away just for being students, which would be stupid), and some years it is worse than others, but it shows the perils of concentrating on just the Universities with your advertising.
On the flip side of this, you do get a few students who start learning when they get home for the summer (although this can be affected by going on holiday, and the fact they stop again when they go back to Uni come October – but 4 months is still a long time to have them).
How Many?
In some places there are a lot of instructors. South Yorkshire is famous for it. And if you believe some of the scare stories numbers are still increasing as people try to earn the oft-mentioned £30,000 by doing as little as possible for it. Personally, I think the danger is overstated – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a factor to be considered in some areas. Obviously, too many instructors looking for work in a depressed area is likely to result in disappointment for some.
Where Are You?
There is a big difference between people living in the South East and those living in the North East or North West (or South Yorkshire, and parts of Scotland and Wales) in terms of employment and disposable income. There’s a big difference between the South East and the South West in terms of population density. In other words: everywhere is different from everywhere else for one reason or another – but if you cover a poor area, with high unemployment, and a reputation for low hourly lesson rates and stacks of ADIs all seeking work, or perhaps where you were the only instructor in a rural area but another two have appeared recently, you might find work taking a downturn.
Totally Independent
Driving instructors are all self-employed (there are a couple of elitist organisations which target affluent people and who, in some cases, might pay their instructors a salary – but they are in a tiny, tiny minority). Instructors either operate completely independently (e.g. Arnold Smith’s Driving School, consisting of Arnold Smith and one car), or through a franchise (e.g. BSM, AA, local school, etc. – all operating more than one car).
An instructor with a franchise will have the franchise’s marketing machine behind him to generate pupils. The effectiveness of this machine can vary from huge to bugger all use… and it is also prey to the same fluctuations already mentioned. Arguably, the larger and more ‘national’ the franchise, the smaller the effects of some of the various causes of fluctuations are likely to be – but then again, it is quite possible a small local franchise has its own marketing down to a fine art, though not all of them do. This is where risk enters the equation (and we’re not going into that here).
If an instructor is not with a franchise he has to advertise and make his own marketing machine. This can take many forms ranging from sitting outside the local school at lunch times or sticking postcards in the chip shops’ and newsagents’ walls… all the way up to whole page adverts in Yellow Pages and local newspapers. It can be cheap or very expensive – and it can be effective or a total waste of money (the amount spent is not automatically proportional to the amoung of work generated).
So what does all this mean? And bear in mind I am not offering a quick fix – just an explanation…
Well, any one instructor could either be fully booked or totally without work depending on how he has developed his business and how external circumstances have settled around him. Two ADIs living in the same street could have vastly different workloads depending on how long they have been doing this, what hours they cover, what days of the week they work, what kind of people they are, and so on. It is possible for the longer serving ADI to be the one without work. It is possible for the least “pleasant” ADI to have the most work. So it is pointless trying to emulate other people and expecting work to roll in: it doesn’t work like that. But yes, some people are suffering heavily at the moment. Any ADI is subject to any or all of the above factors (and there could be plenty of others I haven’t mentioned here).
New instructors especially may be totally useless at marketing their businesses – and yet these are the ones most likely to decide to become totally independent and not use a franchise as soon as they qualify.
The bottom line is that if you do the right things for your own circumstances you can only hope for the best – but with the knowledge that you really did give it your best shot . But if you don’t know what you are doing and just try to cruise along, the risk of failure is higher. In this latter case, you will only have yourself to blame .
Just happened to catch this situation today whilst driving down a country lane in Bunny:
[flv:/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/sheep_in_road.flv 480 360]
I did the right thing: stopped and turned off my engine. The sheep were incredibly well-behaved.
The driver bringing up the rear said he doesn’t use dogs because they cost more to feed than the 4×4 does.
(This was playing with my new in-car camera in 720p/60fps mode – motion blur is reduced, but you get a bit of outer-edge distortion)