Occasional Ramblings

The Aberlady Pages website has been updated with an article on football - http://www.aberlady.net/aberlady_football.php

After a six month experiment where the speed cameras in the county of Oxfordshire were switched off they have today been switched back on because figures showed a big rise in road deaths in the area.

Despite this there are still people who claim that the cameras are just a cash cow for the government. But these people forget one very simple fact; If they didn't exceed the speed limit the government would get no money. Simple logic.

It has been quite a while since i have blogged anything so i thought i had better get started again, but what to write about? I've written about sport, politics, and many others things but i wanted to make this post different to the others.

How could i do that? And what subject could i choose? Well i gave it a great deal of thought, not to mention the time i set aside for the thought process. Many ideas passed across the old'grey matter' but nothing seemed to be appropriate or fitting for a post of this type. So in the end i decided that i could come up with nothing, so that is exactly what i have blogged about. Oh Well, onto the next idea.

The latest political furore is about the Conservative/LibDem coalition idea to take away child benefit from people earning more than £44,000, but i fail to see what all the fuss is about.

As i see it there is two points that those who are affected are concerned about. Why should someone who is ambitious enough to have gotten themself into a particular income bracket be penalised for doing so? And why is a single person earning over £44,000 going to be penalised while a couple earning, for example, £35,000 each ( total £70,000 ) will not be?

As usual those affected by this are blinded by their own position and thereby completely missing numerous important points.

I would ask those people who are against this policy the following question. "What make and type of car do you drive and how many holidays have you had in the last twelve months?" You can bet that to the former part of the question the answer is - in most cases - that they drive one of the more expensive makes of car and or drive a 4x4. To the latter part most will have had at least two ( sometimes three ) holidays a year.

Sadly nowadays many people think that to drive an expensive car and have expensive holidays is a right that they are entitled to rather than a luxury, particularly if their friends and/or neighbours have such a lifestyle. As such they budget not for what they can comfortably afford but for what they think they should have.

The simple answer is to drive a less expensive car and take less expensive - or fewer - holidays and then the loss of child benefit  will make no difference at all.

On the second point, the disparity between single people and couples,  i see even less for people to complain about because if you think about it this situation already exists within the tax system.  You have someone paying the higher rate of tax while two people each earning an amount below the higher tax threshold will have a combined higher income but both be paying a lower level of tax.

People should get real and budget for their income not the lifestyle that they think they should have. Doing that, policies such as this one - and other unforeseen  circumstances - would have little or no impact on their lives.

Is it now time for all the teams in the Scottish Premier league to ditch Rangers and Celtic?

I have just been listening to the Hearts v Rangers game on the BBC and with Hearts 1-0 up, with most of the second half still to play i said to a friend that you can be sure that if Rangers are still losing close to time up ( or even if it is 1-1 by then ) that the referee will add at least five or six minutes of injury time to give them a chance to get the win.

No surprise then when the referee added five minutes and Rangers did win in the added time.

If this only happened to the 'Old Firm' teams on an odd occasion it could be seen as a coincidence but it is a regular occurrence when they are behind or drawing. No wonder the other teams don't have a chance.