Somewhere safe and warm

Around 5000 families in London might be forced out of their homes, a recent City Hall report says. Homelessness, or rough sleeping as it’s also referred to, has been increasing in the UK over the last years.

It’s estimated that even before the debated financial cuts were announced, approximately 1,200 people were sleeping rough in the streets. But the figure might be even higher.

There’s a large unknown number of people, the so called hidden homeless, who don’t appear in statistics.

Below is a radio report on what some charities and private individuals do to help breaking the negative trend.

Strikers playing with fire

The fire brigade strikes in conjunction with Guy Fawkes Night in November last year, involved over 5,500 fire-fighters, and caused a rift between the Fire Brigade Union (FBU) and the government.

Maria Jackson reported on the heated debate in November.

Close to a solution?


Now, a proposal to end the dispute will be discussed this Friday, according to the BBC.

FBU’s regional committee will then decide if they will switch to 10.5-hour day shifts and 13.5-hour night shifts, instead of the current nine-hour days and 15-hour nights.

FBU members are supporting the plan, and Brian Coleman, the chair of the London Fire Authority, said he was "delighted", and that he was glad the union "saw sense" about a "silly dispute which dragged on for six years".

Under Ryan Air's spell

Time and time again I've said: "I will never use this airline again!", only to find myself suffering on yet another of their flights a couple of months later. How does Ryan Air manage to keep us under their spell?

One of their pilots, who had the bad luck of sitting next to me on my last flight - having to patiently defend their sales tactic and much more, gave me some inside information.

It all looks so attractive at first; £20 for a round trip to Stockholm, Rome or Paris. But as everyone knows who has used this airline before, in the end the ticket often ends up costing as much as, or more, than BA, SAS, KLM or any of it's more decent competitors.

First the expensive taxes, then £10 for paying by card and another £5 to check in on-line is the minimum added.

Checking in luggage is another £20, and if you haven't checked in on-line it's another £40 penalty fee charged at the airport, and every single kg of over-weight over the mere 10kg limit will cost you £40.

Since the airports where Ryan Air lands are often long distances outside the destination city, add another £30-40 for trains and busses.


How they get the best pilots on the market

No designated seats, queuing up like cattle up to an hour before boarding, revolting food to rip-off prices, extremely annoying music at boarding and landing, generally bad service and ugly and cheapish looking interior, but still - their flights are booked to the last, un-foldable seat.

Apparently the Irish carrier made a pre-tax profit of £420m in the six months to 30 September 2010.

One must really compliment the airline on a successful marketing campaign. But I think what really annoys me is the greedy way of little extra charges here and there, and that nothing is spent on the comfort of the passengers.

"Why are there no pockets in the seat in front of you?" I asked the pilot next to me. "Well, it's all to save time in between flights - the less newspapers and litter the more time saved for the crew." He explained slightly embarrassed.

After opening up about the airline’s poor staff policies and telling me that a colleague of his was refused a day off on his wedding day, I of course wondered why he chose to work for them. He replied that: "For pilots it's one of the best paying airlines!".

I was both shocked and relieved by his answer. At least I should be in good hands of skilled captains – I always feared that security must be dangerously saved on as well. That is, if I ever fly with them again.