Petrol Station Glamour and Red Rizzla papers

It is one of life’s mysteries that Sainsburys do not stock Red Rizzla papers.  Should a consumer require any other colour of Rizzla papers they are available in spades but Red is forbidden by Mr Sainsburys.

I have discovered this recently in my mission to purchase the cheapest petrol.  The cheapest available seems to be at Sainsburys.  Their petrol is several pence cheaper than competitors.  So I asked the lady in the kiosk and she said she did not know the difference between the different colours of paper or its meaning.  I thought this was a bit poor.  After all, if you work in a filling station it’s not like you have a huge amount of stock detail to memorise.  Tobacco products hidden in the white cupboard of sin are surely one of your main product ranges.




Then again I expect that’s what you get for saving a few pence a litre on petrol.  I’ve no idea why Sainsburys petrol is cheaper but I imagine it is partly subsidised.  Also the kiosks are quite a high level of no frill.  At the upper end of the filling station market Shell have fantastic petrol stations to look at whereas Sainsburys struggles on with a couple of fluorescent tubes to illuminate the few shelves of snacks and car fluids.  Shell’s petrol stations are lit like a motion picture.  Banks of chilling cabinets purvey lots of over-priced fizzy drinks and snacks on two-for-one offers.  The attendants don colourful uniforms.  They stock every kind of Rizzla paper.  However, their prices for petrol are up to 7p per litre higher.

I always thought my life would have gone wrong when I start worrying about the price of petrol.  However, now it obviously has gone wrong I’ve started to have a strange interest.  In order to make their increased prices seem logical Shell have a loyalty card scheme whereby you have a card which, when you get enough points, gives you a money voucher off.  However, after 5 years I have not amassed enough points for even the smallest voucher.  The purpose of this scheme seems to me to be to sell V-Power – their version of Super Unleaded. 

It is a mystery to me why anyone would buy V-Power or Super Unleaded.  Mainly because the downstream oil industry does not explain the benefits.  Is it really more fuel efficient?  What’s the point?  What’s the difference in the manufacturing and refining processes …?  The downstream forecourt industry eschews answering such questions and you’ll never get an answer off Top Gear or Jeremy Clarkson.  It is one of the great mysteries of life.  I firmly believe that Super fuels are primarily sold on snobbery.  There may be a benefit to the lifespan of your car if it is high consumption but my tiny engine car is unlikely to notice…

Of course there may be a difference between Sainsburys Unleaded and Shell or Esso (Exxon Mobil) unleaded but personally the only difference I can see is the number of lightbulbs in the forecourt kiosk.  Selling petrol – it’s all about the glamour…

Response to Appeal Letter

Dear Ms Waya,

Thank you for your email of 20 December 2018.


“In light of your reasons for choosing to appeal, I should reiterate the following comment in my previous email:


I cannot see that there is a lawful basis for confirming or denying to the whole world whether the information requested in relation to the two properties in question is held. Clearly, there may be legitimate reasons for releasing this information to you or to others. However, that is not the same as releasing it to everyone else.”


Thank you for repeating yourself parrot fashion as though I am completely stupid and underlining your words in case I have learning difficulties that prevented me from comprehending them the first time.


In my previous email I explained that I do not believe that all of the 5 questions I asked would reveal personal data about anyone if answered.  Questions such as

“"Does the Council have any sanctions for continual lease violations?"

and

"Is it true that the Council is excempt from right to buy laws with regards to the freehold?"

and

“Does [the property]  have a file? And if it does can we see it (note: I don't need you to digit out now)?"

 are so general as to reveal nothing meaningful at all about anybody.

I also believe your assertion that all FOI requests will end in the data provided being disseminated to the “whole world” to be a specious smokescreen of an argument.  Not every person who gets an FOI answered is going to chose to publicise the information and nor do they all have platforms with a significant digital readership to publish them on.  Believe it or not internet traffic does not randomly materialise at HTML pages it has to be driven there by the publication of interesting content.  The answers to these questions are actually not very interesting to anyone except the person who asked them so I fail to see a huge danger in disseminating them. This is an attempt to end the public's right to question the government by accusing every citizen of being some kind of media personage - there is no rational reason to believe such a thing ...only the government's own paranoia.  Also by definition no one can control information once disseminated - this seems a poor argument for not disseminating information ... that it may be used one day by a 3rd party as yet unknown.  By it the government is attempting to take on the responsibilities of the private citizens to whom they disseminate information - but the government is not responsible for the actions of persons outside the government.  In the final analysis this argument for refusing to answer is little more than "the people are not to be trusted".

The reason for asking for the information in the first place has long dematerialised but the obtuseness of yourself and other public officials in refusing to answer the queries and, indeed, continually purporting that the 5 separate queries are all invalidated on one single ground of being “a violation of data protection” has spurred me on to appeal because it is simply ludicrous.  I believe actually the purpose of these objections is not data protection but obfuscation mixed with passive aggression.

So to repeat myself again as if you have learning difficulties … I wish to appeal your decision on the following grounds

"The following questions remain unanswered:
"Why is the Council scaffolding the same property twice in 3 years?"
This is not a matter for personal data protection because the entire street can observe
when the house is scaffolded ...

There are actually 4 leaseholders.  At what point does personal data privacy over-ride
public interest.  If I asked the same question about a Council property with 100 residential units woud it be blocked because I am invading 100 people's privacy?  And people wonder why Grenfell Tower burnt down.

"The question of how the leaseholds divide up has now been resolved but not the question…


"As there is no RTM company does the Council as the Freeholder take on this role?"


This is a policy question not a personal question.  I am asking the Council
to clarify its interpretation of the leases of the property as they are unclear."

The question of how and who manages leashold properties at the Council is a legitimate one which affects all leaseholders to whom the Freeholder is the Council within the Borough

"Does the Council have any sanctions for continual lease violations?"


This is a policy question for the Council about any Leasehold property for which it owns the Freehold

"Does [the property]  have a file? And if it does can we see it (note: I don't need you to dig
it out now)?"


Again this is a policy/data question.  I am not asking to see the data.
I am asking what data exists for this Leasehold, where it is stored and who can see it?"

It seems not unreasonable to me for ask if a council owned property has a file
and I do not see what this reveals about the owner?


The ownership of property is a matter of public record anyway and can be accessed for £3 down the land registry

"Is it true that the Council is excempt from right to buy laws with regards to the freehold?"

As I said before this is a policy question not related to any particular address that applies to all Council Freehold properties...

"Is it the Council's policy to sell the freehold of such properties"

...this also is a general policy question with regards to the Council's role as a Freeholder."

Thank you


Anthony

Letter to my younger self

Dear Anthony,

                          When I was your age I was very insecure and worried about my place in the world.  I want to tell you that although you are feeling very insecure and vulnerable and have numerous worries one day you will grow up to be smug middle aged man who writes pompous letters talking down to your younger self.   

You will of course be incapable of empathising with what your younger self would have thought of you today but you will be able to make up for that with a smug and patronising prose style.  Whereas at the moment you are relatively humble as you approach your 5^th decade you will suddenly become insufferably vain.   

You will want the Aston Martin that you never wanted when you were young enough to look cool driving one and went everywhere on public transport.  You will also be able to bore yourself and any casual readers with examples of the conspicuous consumption you fill the empty voids in your life with.  You will be very proud of your career successes despite the fact that in the grand scheme of things you haven’t really had any.  Also you will gradually start turning into a snob.  

Increasingly as you get older you will become more and more intolerant to the point where you think Ghengis Khan was a bit of a pussycat and even more amazingly you will convince yourself that this is some kind of virtue.  While becoming more intolerant in private you will modify your public persona to be far more laid back and accommodating than you really are.  

At the moment you are worried about the security of your job but don’t worry as you age you will become increasingly talented at stabbing other people in the back while making a smaller and smaller contribution to the betterment of society.   

Today you feel full of untapped creativity but do not worry as you age your creativity will decline to the point where you hardly ever push yourself intellectually at all.   

Finally you will become brilliant at looking down at young people and being unable to even consider the possibility that their lives might be even harder than yours was at that age.  In short my younger self … one day you will grow up to be a complete berk.

Lots of hate

Anthony

Loss of confidence in no confidence motions...

Theresa has no confidence in her Deal but says she has confidence in the Deal.  The Tories have decided they just about have confidence in Theresa.  Jeremy has tabled a motion of no confidence in Theresa but not in the government.  The DUP say they won’t vote for Theresa’s Deal but would they vote to bring down the government?  If they would then Theresa’s position as Prime Minister is unconstitutional …or a constitutional crisis or something… Jeremy despite calling for a general election seems to have no confidence in a no confidence motion on the government and not a lot of confidence in his no confidence motion against Theresa as he keeps moving the date of it.  The cabinet seem to have lost confidence in the Deal and so do the EU.  Business has lost confidence in the government’s ability to strike a deal.  We cannot sign the deal because the deal says that we can’t exit the deal – so less of a contract more of an offer of indentured servitude.  The Tory backbenchers cannot table another motion of no confidence in their leader for another twelve months but Theresa seems to have lost confidence in herself and says she will go before the next election.  And of course when we do strike these magical new trade deals with all the people we couldn’t deal with before when we were in the EU then the EU will lose confidence and start renegotiating all over again…

There are two conclusions that can be drawn from this.  Either the politicians are now doing all the work that they’ve been previously avoiding by getting the EU to negotiate for them in the past or we don’t have the political/economic clout in the world to pull off Brexit.  Whatever way we leave the EU the deal or the WTO rules wont be the end of it we will be in constant regenotiations for all eternity.  But none of this matters… what matters is – we’re British!

Facebook suddenly decides that my blog is not spam after all ...

It seems then that my blog is not spam after all ...

I remember when we were the best at divide and conquor...

One of the things people often say about British people as a snide comment is that we’re “very good at divide and conquer”.  A dig at the old days of the Empire.  Well, looking at Parliament today locked in its endless squabbles over Brexit one has to say the current batch of elected potenates are no Philip II of Macedon.  The cat that is the true costs and complexity of Brexit having escaped the bag Boris and Co concealed it in before the Referendum those at the top are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea every way they don’t jump.  Ms May flits about Europe negotiating with every country independently because we’re in too big a sulk to have anything to do with the European Parliament and then says only she has the magical power of forceful negotiation.  Corbyn and Co say that only they have the magic answer.  The Unionists are in a terrible rage that they’ve been sold down the river.  Without getting in to the mechanics of the backstop it was surely obvious to the meanest intelligence that if Europe and the UK separated politically then that would have serious implications for the Good Friday Agreement.  The SNP just say endlessly that they want to leave us for the EU.  And I’m sure the Liberal Democrats would be doing something stupid too if there were enough for anyone to listen to them.  Faced with the gravest political crisis in decades the complete inability of any of the main or even minor parties to work together on a solution is truly depressing.  Everyone is simply out to make as much cheap short term capital as possible.  Threatening general elections, leadership elections, 2^nd referendums (and possibly 3^rd or 4^th) … Brexit rolls on endlessly to the cliff edge of dropping out on WTO rules with the unstoppable momentum that can only come from a plebiscite cutting the brakes.  The pound has already thrown its self over the edge of the cliff like a Lemming.  And finally Ms May has pulled the vote she knows she would’ve lost.  Well, Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas and this Christmas no one wanted to vote for the “deal” that was a Turkey.  How the EU officials must laugh and laugh and laugh at the childish Brexit blame game.  What these politicians don't realise is if they mess this up history will never forgive them.  Not that that matters if you have no shame.

Mentoring...?

Me? Mentor other comics? What in? How not to make money? or How to Promote badly? Sorry but I don't think comedy needs any more incompetent people giving other incompetent people free advice.

Mark Zuckerberg bans me posting links to my own blog as "Spam"

Gentle Readers, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg has decided in his wisdom that I cannot put any more links in Facebook to external content such as my novels or this blog as apparently posting links to your own product on Facebook is "spam" and "against community standards". I have thus decided to give Mark even less content than I used to. I dont mind giving content away for free but I dont see why I should give it to him personally so @Zhu_Zhanji will now be hanging out down twitter for the forseeable where it is all spam and there's no such policy.

Funny one thinks no one reads this blog but it's good to learn that it's a commercial threat to someone's business model somewhere...

I read recently he was empty chaired by some politicians who claimed to represent 400,000,000 plebs (a slight lie) and couldn't get in touch with him.  Just put a link to any external content on his site old beans and you'll hear from the Z almost straight away.  Sorry, Mark, why should I give you money to "spam" people when Twitter will let me spam 'em for free?

Council/Goverment uses the Data Protection 2018 Act to avoid answering any questions at all about Housing

Council/Goverment uses the Data Protection 2018 Act to avoid answering any questions at all about Housing

Remember Houses contain people so all questions about housing can be refused on the basis they are an invasion of privacy.  Even if you ask a generic question about a set of houses.

Dear Mr Miller

I write further to my letter of 7 September 2018 regarding this matter.

I have carefully considered your request for information contained in the letter you received from the London borough of Lambeth (the Council) dated 24 August 2018 (attached).

I am satisfied that the Council was entitled to deny your request on the basis of the exemption at section 40(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) largely for the reasons explained to you by the Council in that letter of 24 August and upheld by the Council following an internal review (attached).

Technically, given that the request relates to possible construction or repair work on a property, it is likely that it should have been handled under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) and not the FOIA.

However, this would not have made any material difference to the outcome because there is an equivalent exception (to section 40(5) of the FOIA) in regulation 13(5) of the EIR.

The information requested relates to an identifiable living individual(s). Confirming or denying whether the requested information is held inevitably reveals something about  (properties enquired about) which is clearly linked to the occupants of either property.

Such information defined as personal data in the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) is exempt under the FOIA or the EIR. Information released under the FOIA or the EIR is effectively released to the world at large regardless of whether only one individual has requested the information.

In the circumstances of this case, I cannot see that there is a lawful basis for confirming or denying to the whole world whether the information requested in relation to the two properties in question is held. Clearly, there may be legitimate reasons for releasing this information to you or to others. However, that is not the same as releasing it to everyone else.

The Commissioner's position in relation to such requests for information is now established. You can find published decisions in relation to section 40(5) and regulation 13(5) on our website here: https://icosearch.ico.org.uk/s/search.html?collection=ico-meta&profile=decisions&query

You say that you re-submitted your requests in a generic form not relating to the properties and that these were also denied by the Council.

However, this complaint is about the response from the Council to your request which according to the Council was received in June 2018. If you wish to complain about the fresh request you submitted, you may do so through the following page on our website: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

What happens next?

You may request a decision notice if you would like to appeal my decision to the First-Tier Information Rights Tribunal. Please note that it may take up to 2-3 months before I can issue the decision notice which will not differ materially from the explanation above.

Please contact me by Friday 14 December 2018 if you have any questions and/or would like to appeal my decision.

I shall assume you have withdrawn your complaint and close the case if I have not heard from you by 14 December.

Yours Sincerely

Terna Waya
Senior Case Officer
03304146366

Stand up at the Corner Shop

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