E-mail to the council, sent today

Good afternoon,

 

I have received a Final Notice relating to the service charges payable on my flat. I will pay this. In fact, I have tried to do so today, by phone and on-line. I have not been able to by either method. Why? Because I would like to go down the Direct Debit route, and this is not offered on either of your automated services. So, I will take the time out of my working day on Monday to call your main line. Presumably I will be able to arrange the simple direct debit payments then. I hope.

 

At this stage, I would like to complain on a number of points:

 

1) The shortcomings of your automated services, outlined above.

 

2) The threat of CCJs against me. I pay my council tax. I pay my mortgage. I pay all of my bills. It's hard. And I work hard to do it. I made an error in this instance, thinking that, like all my other bills, there was a DD already set up for this small bill. I was obviously wrong, for which I apologise. But threatening CCJs? That's over-kill surely.

 

3) What is this service charge for? I'd like to think it goes towards the upkeep of the block of flats in which I am a leaseholder. However, living here, I realise there IS NO upkeep of this block of flats.

The stairwells are disgusting, partly because the contractors YOU hired to install the security system never cleared up after themselves when they had finished. There is still a layer of pink dust throughtout the block from where they drilled in to the brickwork. Also because YOUR tenants do not look after them.

Why would they? I spoke to one of our tenants recently, and he told me he "can't be bothered going to work because he's better off staying in smoking weed all day and claiming benefits." Now that is tragic, isn't it? And what does the council do about folk in that situation? Nothing.

My entire block, including my actual flat, smells of marijuana. I don't touch drugs myself, so I'd quite like to live somewhere without that particular scent. In fact, as I pay a mortgage to live here, which the anti-social-smokers downstairs don't, I find the whole thing really quite offensive. I certainly would struggle to sell the flat, or even rent it out, when it smells and looks like a drug-den. Could the council do anything about this? I suppose you can't, or you would, wouldn't you?

 

4) Why do I get charged for everything? I get letters from you telling me I have to pay for the new security system. I get letters from you telling me that my (recently burglarized and therefore open for all to see) shed contains flammable materials which you will charge me to remove. Presumably your tenants are not eligible to pay for these things? It seems to me that they flount the rules to which I am obliged to adhere. For example, the lobby downstairs is currently full of scrap wood and other waste items. It resembles a city dump. Are these not flammable items? Is the lobby downstairs (the only access route to the whole block) not a bit more of a risk than the exterior sheds? It'd only take one of the tokers downstairs to flick his spliff-end in the wrong direction and we're all goners. Surely some of my 300 quid service charge could be allocated to this menace? In fact, give me a tenner back, I'll go and knock on their doors and tell them myself.

 

5) All in all this service charge just seems to be you milking what money you can out of good, honest working folk. I can understand that, it's what governments do. But do you really have to be so brazen as to itemize it as such on the invoice? "Sundry Income". Now that is offensive.

 

Yours, expecting a full detailed justification for the above detailed atrocities and, preferably, some form of compensation,

 

Dan Donovan

What is X Factor? It's magic!

Look, there comes a time in every blogger's life when he has to face up to the big issues. So here it is, the single biggest issue of the day - X Factor.

Of course, my barometer of the world's hot topics is, essentially, based on what everyone in my office talks about on a Monday morning. By this test X Factor is peerless. Indeed, I almost lost a limb once for mentioning that I prefer Strictly, such is the vehemence of feeling for Simon Cowell's evil little brain-child. I'll never make that mistake again.

As it happens, I have been watching X Factor with some interest over the last series or two. Partly because I want to see what everyone else sees in it, partly just because I've grown up a bit and don't really go out on Saturday nights any more. And there's nothing else on really, is there? Although, I regret to add, that I have recently put it on Series Link. You know, just in case.

So what is it? It's a TV show, obviously. But it's more than that too. It's a phenomenon, which pervades our culture - with off-shoots in to magazines, TV, radio and, of course, water-cooler gossip.

Paije Richardson - pretending to be a pop-star

At its most basic level, it's a karaoke competition featuring a range of quality similar to that which you might actually find in a pub karaoke competition. Sure, there is the occasional performer who can really belt out a good song (and some who really can't), but there are far more who are just decent singers pretending, briefly, to be pop-stars. So, at that basic level, for X Factor to have become such a success is a triumph for the mediocrity of the masses. "Look! They're doing something pretty unspectacular! That could be me!"

At its highest level though, X Factor is not a triumph of mediocrity: it's a triumph of media.

Cowell is, at heart, an opportunist. He has seized on the death of conventional Saturday night programming and turned talent-show TV in to the variety show of our generation. You have, in effect, all the same elements: performance, competition and celebrity cameos. It's simply been repackaged, with the clever merging of various proven successful formulae.

These include:

1. The Kylie Factor - The Simon Cowells of this world used to feed off the soaps - "People love Kylie and Jason, let's make them sing a saccharin duet - it's a guaranteed hit record."

And it was. X Factor simulates this by building in the back-stories of the contestants, cajoling the audience in to a relationship with them and giving them a place in our hearts. It is not a difficult concept to realise that a record released by a young lad everyone has watched on TV for 3 months, will sell more copies that the exact same song released by 'a nobody' would. In this way, X Factor is the modern equivalent of the old Stock Aitken and Waterman Hit Factory.

Panto star of the future? He's the villain of X Factor

2. The Pantomime Factor - we have always known
Simon Cowell as TV's Mr Nasty, but he has actually noticeably softened recently. Why? Well, because he has realised he doesn't need to be the pantomime villain any more. The Jedward phenomenon, and the John Sargeant furore on Strictly, has proven that it's better to have a contestant that fans love to hate, than a judge. Wagner certainly didn't get in to the competition based on his ability - there was at least one better singer available in Louis Walsh's allocation of hopefuls. And that's even after the category had been deprived of some of it's more plausible talent by the (at the time unexplained) change from Over 25s to Over 28s.

3. The Underdog Factor - SuBo, Stacey Solomon, Rebecca Ferguson, Mary Byrne. Four very different women, one common theme - they all have a story; something which you might think would preclude them from becoming a pop-star. But they can all - to varying degrees - sing pretty well. So in these cases, X Factor (and BGT in SuBo's case) is altruistic, almost charitable. Everyone loves an underdog.

There are more parts to it, but I don't want to dwell on the make up of the show. I wanted to consider another key element instead. What is X Factor for?

Is it, like fine art, intended to enrich our lives? I think not. No. It is to make the rich richer, isn't it? Mr Cowell in particular. And this makes me wonder about its authenticity. I suggested this doubt at work the other day, and almost lost a limb. Again.

Would Cowell sacrifice the artistic integrity of his show for money? The words of Edmund Blackadder spring to mind, something about selling his own mother for a bucket full of cash and a stash of French porn, I think. Somehow appropriate here? Yes, probably.

But it's regulated, isn't it? If the British public decided collectively to get rid of Matt Cardle or Rebecca Ferguson, who are probably the two most likely cash-generating stars to come out of the show, they'd be gone wouldn't they? Wagner could win it - and therefore be entitled to a deal with Cowell's record label - couldn't he?

Unless they had some way of rigging it. Well we know that TV phone-ins have been subject to scrutiny recently. It would be too risky wouldn't it? Maybe. Although I'm sure not every rigged phone-in has been eliminated from the world of TV. In actual fact, I imagine it would be very easy to rig, and pretty difficult to spot. Who regulates it anyway, and how?

But then it dawned on me - it definitely is rigged, at least until the final. And it's not even secretly rigged. The judges - the people who make the money out of the show - have the option to save their prefered act. So, even if it is 100% bona fide, the public vote is actually almost worthless.

Cowell and co send home the act least likely to make them money each week. Sometimes they even cleverly keep in the controversial acts early in the series to keep up that all important water-cooler gossip. Katie Waissel - who has had the most column inches of any contestant - has been saved twice this series. Even Jedward were saved from the bottom two last series, on Cowell's say-so.



Identikit pop-star?

Towards the final stages, of course, they are more likely to favour the ones who might actually be worth a record deal. Or, for the cynics among us, the one they have already placed in the competition for the record deal. But by that stage the pantomime villain will probably have been thwarted anyway, the underdog's uplifting story will have wound to its natural conclusion. And, finally, all that will remain is the new X Factor Winner - most likely a good-looking, vaguely talented, mouldable pop-star.

It's like the old 'magic' card trick. Get the audience to pick a card. Place it in the pack - shuffle it. Deal the cards out. Let the audience pick a set of cards. Get rid of that set. Do it again. Keep the set they pick. Whittle down the cards. Get them to pick on from the remaining two and show them it - it's their card, isn't it?

Well of course it is, because you knew all along where the card was, and every time the audience made their choice you just got rid of the cards you knew weren't theirs. You showed the audience what you were going to give them, distracted them with some showmanship, and showed them what they wanted. You're happy, they're happy.

The televised auditions are merely the shuffling of the pack. Boot camp is dealing the cards out. Gathering up the remaining ones and dealing them out again is the judges' houses. Let's face it, X Factor has months of auditions before it even gets to TV. This pre-production phase is where the magician marks his deck and lays out his trick. The rest is easy - it's just staging, showmanship and performance.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the magic of the X Factor.

Dreams can come true! But they usually don't work out do they?

Oh bugger, that's a depressing head-line isn't it? Don't worry though - the subject matter isn't that intense. Actually it's kinda about football. Sort of.

My hypothesis is this - you can dream of something your whole life, get it, and then not want it any more. I must stress, this hasn't happened to me yet, but it might do. Soon.

He's one of our own......

See, I'm a Middlesbrough fan, and my beloved club have just appointed my boyhood hero - Tony Mowbray - as manager. For those uninitiated in football, that's a big deal - honest.

I'm delighted. Mowbray - affectionately known as Mogga - has come home, and it's a sentiment widely shared amongst Middlesbrough people.

"He's one of our own," the Boro fans at Carrow Road (Boro were playing Norwich away) were singing on Saturday. And he is. He's Boro through and through and that's why it's magical that he has finally been given the top job at the club. Boro blood pumps through his veins, as it does ours, and we love him for it.

But part of me is terrified. It may be true that we are currently third bottom in the second tier of English Football. It may be true that after over a decade in the top-flight, it would now seem that things can't get much worse. Unfortunately, it may also be true that we have made the wrong appointment. Perhaps it won't work out?

Living in Norwich, and taking a little bit of interest in how Norwich City Football Club fare, I know that when they appointed their club legend, Bryan Gunn, as manager, things went spectacularly pear-shaped. Gunny was sacked amid rumours of behind-closed-doors bust ups and his football career and reputation at Carrow Road have both been forever-tainted as a result. He's still loved in Norwich, but he's also remembered as a spectacular failure, and usually those memories are expressed as disparaging jokes.

The same couldn't happen to our beloved Mogga, could it? Well, yes actually, it could. Not because he isn't an experienced manager (he is, which is where he and Gunny differ), but because football is football. The best manager in the world can have a barren run - just ask Arsene Wenger (Arsenal manager) when he last won a trophy. And while Wenger is respected as one of the most talented managers in world football, and has the Arsenal board's unequivocal backing, the same probably couldn't be said for Mogga.

Yes, he's getting back-slaps from Lamby and Gibbo (Keith Lamb, Boro Chief Exec and Steve Gibson, Boro Chairman) now, but in three months time if results haven't gone to plan? Worse, in May, if we're still in the bottom three? Mogga would be a goner, and probably rightly so.

Were would that leave my dreams?

Well, it'd leave them spent. At 28, one of my most cherished boyhood dreams would be dead and gone. It's something that has helped to get me through the ups (signing great players, getting promoted, getting to cup finals) and downs (getting relegated, getting liquidated, losing cup finals) of my life as a Boro fan; the thought that one day Mogga would lead Boro in to a bright new era.

And here he is. No pressure, eh Mogga? The man literally holds my childhood in his hands.

Fighting Spirit? Mogga as Ivan Drago

If he should fail, then what have I got left to believe in? I'll be forced to grow up. I'll have to get a career (instead of the job I've got now), I'll have to start doing something with my money (instead of spending it) and I'll have to get a proper girlfriend (instead of being picky and hoping to finally meet THE ONE).

Because that's what it's all about: it's hope, it's dreams, it's the idea that one day you might be in the crowd when inexplicably there are no subs left and you're picked out of the thousands of screaming fans to come on and score the winning goal in the Cup Final. It's elation and it's jubilation. It's the madness of believing in the impossible. It's just... everything.

So come on Mogga. Do it for me, and all those like me. Do it for Teesside. Make us proud once more to be Boro.

Most importantly, do it for dreams.