Category: society

Brexit, business, culture, history, Law, politics, society

Erasing 1000 Years of History

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Erasing 1000 years of history

One of the things I’ve noticed in the past couple of years is the appearance of cans of Carlsberg; Guinness and some other beers and lagers, which have been repackaged in larger pint-sized containers.  So when you pour it out, it will reach the top of your glass.  Just as if you were buying it draught.

What makes it legal in the UK to sell beer in pint-size cans is the fact that the 568ml equivalent is also displayed on the can.  Just as a McDonalds quarter pounder doesn’t define its weight but is a trademark.  A McDonalds quarter pounder’s actual legal weight in the UK is a minimum of 113.4 grammes uncooked.  But for me, it will always be quarter pounder.

So why is it that when I buy a 454 gramme jar of strawberry jam, I am not allowed to call it a pound of jam?  It is never labelled as such, even though for all practical purposes, 454 grammes is a pound of jam  The welcome exception is MacKay’s 12-ounce (340 gramme) jars of jam and marmalade, which are labelled in this way.  So why can’t other manufacturers label in the same way?  Selling items in imperial units is not illegal provided that you label the stuff correctly.

The fact Is, that pint cans have never been part of the British tradition because, before metrication, off-sales of beer were in brown pint or quart bottles.  The only notable canned beer which existed before metrication was the Watney’s Party 7 (and the smaller Party 4), which was sold in large cans which you could never open.  And when you did manage to pierce the heavy-duty aluminium, the gaseous contents sprayed everywhere.  From the 1970s onwards, most canned beers were sold in the horrible 440ml size, which doesn’t appear to convert to anything and which continues to be the standard size for most canned beers sold in the UK.  Why 440 ml?

Currently, it is only the British Weights and Measures Association (which appears closely aligned to Brexit and Farage’s Reform Party) which is fighting to preserve use of imperial units and which is fighting a rearguard action against mandated metrication.  But you don’t have to be an ardent Brexiteer or Faragist to regret the erasure of 1000 years of history.  And there is nothing anti-Europe about wanting to preserve our industrial heritage.  And the problem with rearguard actions is that they always fail, unless they buy time for something else to intervene.

Where imperial measurements still reign supreme, are in those parts of the world economy which have been traditionally dominated by the United States.  And no mandated-metrication is ever going to change that. Which is why we buy 15-inch pizzas and eat 15-ounce steaks.  Why we buy our McDonalds Quarter Pounders.  Why we fly at 30,000 feet.  Why heavyweight boxers still weigh themselves in pounds.  And why you might buy a 56-inch TV for your living room.

business, housing, Law, London, politics, property, real estate, society

Kings Speech 2024 – What it means for conveyancers and other property professionals.

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King’s Speech 2024 – what it means for conveyancers and other property professionals.

We are not talking about the big-ticket stuff – like House of Lords reform.  Instead, we are focusing on the small-print in the Starmer agenda.  The things which are likely to affect our day-to-day work.  We also mention things which we would have expected to see mentioned in the King’s Speech, on which there has so far been silence.  Here are the things which interest us.

A Planning and Infrastructure Bill

This is exciting.  For too long, the ‘no’ lobby has been in the ascendancy.  And all at a time of housing crisis. Planning has become two politicised.  Planning pre-conditions have become long shopping lists, within a process which has become like treacle.  Even so, the government’s announced proposals for reforming the planning system are modest: with the restoration of house-building targets and the reclassification of some parts of the green belt.  When what is really required is a speeding up of the whole planning process.  Which shouldn’t be problematic for a self-financing public service.  We’re sure many developers would be willing to pay a little bit extra by way of planning-fees, to pay for the additional staff needed to get their applications through the system.  And if it is blocked by local politicians, to get it quickly in front of a government-appointed planning inspector.  Why should that be difficult? 

Leasehold Reform

Some of it we have heard before. Like replacing a leasehold system which has existed for more than 1000 years by a new system of commonhold.  The legislation already exists in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.  But it didn’t work when Tony Blair tried to introduce it more than 20 years ago.  Because nobody wanted it.  So why will it work now?  Despite its imperfections, residential leasehold is the most workable system for selling flats and maisonettes.  So wouldn’t it be better just to make the reforms needed to get the existing residential leasehold system right, instead of trying to force something which nobody wants.  At the moment, we are waiting for the new government to bring into force detailed provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, which received royal assent in the last days of the Conservative government.  But it is not just about bringing it into force, because the detail will be in the regulations which, as far as we’re aware, have yet to be published.  So there is some work for the new government to do before that legislation can take effect.  We are also expecting the new government to waste no time in pushing forward with the Renters Reform Bill, which had been tabled by the previous Conservative government but dropped as soon as the general election was called.  It always seemed to us that the last government’s commitment to removing section 21 no-fault evictions was always a little half-hearted, we assume because of the landlord-lobby.  Funny thing about the section 21 evictions process, was that it was not seen as problematic in 1989 when the private-rented sector was opened up, because the residential market was so different, with residential landlords competing with each other for the best tenants, not the other way round, as it is today.  It meant that if, in 1989, you were a reputable tenant who was unlucky enough to be given the section 21 notice of eviction, there would be dozens of other potential landlords bidding to accommodate you.  And remember, that in 1988, most councils still had their social rented stock.

Absences

As well as the reforms which the new government has announced, there are also some things missing, which we would have expected to find within the King’s Speech or other government announcements.  We are surprised that there has been no mention at all of any scaling back of right-to-buy, not even from the crazy discounts introduced by the Cameron government.  What is scandalous is that up to 40% of ex-right-to-buy properties are now in the hands of private landlords, meaning that local authorities are having to rent back ex-right-to-buy properties on their own estates, just to meet their statutory housing needs.  What nonsense is that?  Is our system of housing benefits really so generous that it can afford to throw money at private landlords, because there is no longer any significant affordable rented sector?  No wonder first-time buyers and private renters have been priced out of the housing market.  The other thing, for which there has been no mention, is any revamp of the measures brought in by the Gordon Brown government to bring long-term empty dwellings back into occupational use.  The problem with Brown’s empty dwellings management orders, was that the whole process was too cumbersome to be of any use.  At the last count there were approximately 260,000 empty dwellings in the UK.  What a waste!

Legislative Agenda

We have also taken a few moments to look at the government bills which are currently before Parliament.  Presently, there are only five government bills, most of which we think are uncontroversial.  These include a new Arbitration Bill, building on the existing 1996 legislation, to restore London as the world’s arbitration capital.  Who is going to argue with that?  And there is also the bill to re-nationalise Britain’s railways.  With only four clauses, this bill is astonishingly short for what has become one of the new government’s landmark policies.  It does no more than prohibit a re-letting of existing railway franchises except to a government-owned company.

business, career, jobs, Law, property, real estate, self improvement, society

Conveyancing – How to Increase Your Productivity and Your Chargeable Output

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Conveyancing – Four Ways to Increase Your Productivity and Your Chargeable Output

Conveyancing is piecework.  Forget hourly rates.  In a competitive legal market, residential clients want to be able to compare quotes.  And professional rules now require transparency when it comes to pricing, so that prospective clients can see at a glance what they are going to have to pay.  But whenever you quote a prospective client, you need to be able to work within budget.  If you overrun that budget because you under-quoted or did not appreciate the extent of the work-tough!  You’ll be doing some free work. That’s not the client’s fault.  Unless you can genuinely say that additional complications cropped up which no one could have ever previously foreseen or because of something your client didn’t tell you.  So it’s all about packing in as much personal productivity as is possible for each working hour of your day.  Here are some tips:

  • Always dictate-dictate-dictate your work.  Never try to hand-type everything.  It’s just too much hard work.  Maybe like me, you lost your secretarial support more years ago than you can even remember.  Never mind.  There is Microsoft voice dictation.  If you’re working on a computer which is Windows 10 or above, you’ll find voice dictation somewhere.  Just go to ‘settings’ and ‘ease of access’.  Dictating your work can be annoying to those around you, particularly if you have to keep repeating the same phrase until your voice recognition gets it right.  Sometimes it never gets it right.  If I say the word ‘comma’, it will tell me to ‘call my mum’.  If I say ‘draft’ as in document, I will always get the draught which blows in from an open window.  So why do I use voice dictation?  Because even with its faults, it’s still three times quicker than trying to type everything out longhand.  Because even if you can touch type, you can’t type as fast as you can speak.  So by using voice dictation I can triple my chargeable output.
  • Standardise-standardise-standardise.  Take a tip from Henry Ford.  Install a conveyor belt.  Metaphorically speaking of course.  Try to create your own all-purpose templates, which you can easily and quickly populate before sending out.
  • Front-load your work, so that you can do as much as possible in one shot.  Don’t wait for the other party solicitor to send across to you their title documentation, download it yourself and save a week.  Never issue documentation in draft if the you can send out something which is a engrossment-ready.
  • Finally, never compromise on the quality of your work or the service which you provide to your client.  Make sure that everything is right first time, the moment it is sent out.  Don’t rely on your client to pick up your mistakes.  Take the trouble to organise your electronic file so that everything is correctly labelled and stored in its correct folder, so that you can find anything in an instant instead of having to trawl through the whole file.  It also makes it easier if a colleague has to look after your file in your absence.
housing, Law, London, politics, property, society, Uncategorized

Right to Buy Service Charges

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Thousands of people have done well out of Margaret Thatcher’s right to buy, including Labour’s Angela Rayner.  But not everyone has been so lucky.  Amongst the least-lucky are those leaseholders who purchased high-rise flats under right-to-buy and are now facing sky-high service charges.  Amongst those, are the leaseholders in Verulam House in Hammersmith Grove who are facing service charges of between £17,500 and £21,500 for window replacements which they say are not needed.  One of the problems for right-to-buy leaseholders is that although they are the ones picking up the bills, they have little say in the matter because they will always be in a minority.

Although residential leaseholders now have extensive rights to take over the management of their flats, they can only do this by acting collectively.  For example, the statutory ‘right to manage’, introduced by the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, can only apply where a majority of qualifying leaseholders are on board with it.  But this is of no help to right-to-buy leaseholders where the majority of flats in a high-rise block are still owned by the local authority and let out as social housing.  The most, to which those right-to-buy leaseholders are entitled, is the right to be consulted over proposed service charges under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.  But even this right to be consulted, is cut down for right-to-buy leaseholders because they do not have the same right to nominate their own contractor as is enjoyed by other private leaseholders.  And even the prices may be higher as councils are constrained in their choice of contractor because of the need to comply with rigid procurement regulations, which means that they cannot shop around for the best deal.

business, culture, job; career; money; raise; pay; increase, self improvement, society, Uncategorized, writing

Selling Your Writing in a Changing Market

bruceandholly
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Ever since the first words were written many thousands of years ago, writing for publication has been about knowing the secrets of selling.  It’s about knowing how to grab a reader’s attention in the first line.  How to interest your reader in what you are about to say.  How to keep them reading.  And to provide your reader with a call to action.  In other words, something for the reader to take away.  Being a successful freelance writer is also about studying changes in the editorial markets and adapting to those changes by changing your own business model.

30 years ago there were always opportunities for someone who knew their subject and could write to a publishable standard, to earn a good second income writing for professional and trade journals.  There was also the excitement of receiving money through your letter-box.  But no-one writes cheques any more.  And editors no longer have to pay freelancers to fill their pages, because they receive so much quality material free of charge from businesses wishing to promote their goods and services.  But even promotional material has to be professionally written.  And someone has to be paid to write it.  Why not you?

Forget expensive newspaper and TV advertising.  The most cost effective way to promote the sale of goods and services is on the Internet.  It’s about drawing the casual Internet browser to your website and to the goods and services you are offering.  Today, the ‘keyword’ is king.  It is about trying to anticipate the words and phrases which your prospective customer is going to type into their search engine, when they are looking for the type of goods and services which you are offering.  It is those critical keywords which must be incorporated within your promotional material to draw those prospective customers to your website.

So what about artificial intelligence (AI)?  Is that going to make freelance writers redundant?  If your computer can write your promotional material, why do you need to pay a copywriter? 

They said the same thing about secretaries when word processing was invented at the end of the 1970s.  But it didn’t happen.  Instead, the amount of paperwork ballooned.  The issue with any piece of written work generated entirely by a computer is that it lacks originality.  I learned that when I asked my computer to generate some promotional material for a book I had written.  Instead, it repeated back to me the promotional material which I had already written.  I’m sure that if I asked my computer to compose my next Eurovision hit, it would come back to me with a mishmash of every successful Eurovision entry which had ever been written, including words and music from ABBA’s ‘Waterloo’.  Is that going to convince anyone?  I don’t think so.  ‘United Kingdom – Nil points.’

Just to show you how modern marketing works, I have included at the end of this article, a link to my book, ‘Write Quick.  Get published.’ I’m not asking you to buy it.  Just to notice it.  And if you do notice it, please take a moment to look inside.  If you then decide to buy a copy, I’ll be raising a glass.  Cheers!