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 ...