Credit Card

I use Amazon a fair bit - mostly window shopping, but I pick up the occasional bargain. Anyway they were hassling me to get their credit card and I though well it would be more convenient than using my BNZ Mastercard. I mostly use a UK debit card, but sometimes one needs a credit card! So I started filling in the form, but when it came to filling in the amount earned (I gross about £9000 per year with Income Support and Housing Benefit) it would not accept the amount I was putting in. Too small? That made me laugh. So I'm keeping my NZ card alive while I can because I'd never get credit otherwise.

My handy hint for operating a NZ card from the UK is that the cheapest and most reliable method of sending money back home is to use travellers cheques. I buy a £20 TC from WHS Smith for £25. Then it costs 65p to post it. No need to register it because with TCs they are automatically covered by a kind of insurance - if you lose them you can cancel them and have them re-issued. So if after a few weeks they don't show up on your balance then you can try again. But it's never happened that a TC I've sent didn't make it through. The bank cash it in and take a fee, but I usually find that £20 is about NZ$45 so the rate is pretty good. And doing a bank to bank transfer costs about £25 (last time I checked!). Sending money orders was also more expensive last time I checked, and more of a phaff.

Most depressing day of the year?

The Guardian have dusted off a story about 'blue monday' - no, not the New Order song, but the idea that the post-christmas slump reaches a peak on the 3rd monday in January. That's actually today - I am a bit depressed and have been since Christmas, so there you go.

Meanwhile The Times suggests that "toxic society" is to blame for depression, well they would, wouldn't they. But apparently it's not genetic, and certain demographics, and those who had traumatic childhood's are much more likely to develop depression. Then at the end you find it's all an advert for some guy's book, which is a bit depressing - he's scathing of drugs and flogging CBT which isn't the ultimate answer I can tell you!

I really don't think that medical journalists have understood depression, let alone the medical profession. But it's a hot topic cos every other person has it, a lot of money is thrown at it and not much of it is any help! So it's 'a story' now.

Jargon

One of the reasons for getting this blog going, apart from needing to spout off, was to get all the jargon straight. Was just looking at the subject labels or 'tag cloud' and wondering how any uninitiated human being could possibly understand it all. On it's own the welfare system jargon means absolutely nothing. It's a completely artificial language like Esperanto. After three years I'm nowhere near fluent.

Who does having an artificial language for this kind of thing help? Does it signify that being on a benefit is not natural and shouldn't be considered normal? Removing the human element is another aspect of making being on a benefit difficult and unpleasant - "we want to help you, but we don't want you to enjoy it, or take it for granted that we will help". Probably in fact it was done by degrees. Endless reviews and reshuffles and consultants (= con + insult) have gradually forced the welfare jargon away from natural human language and into this officialese bullshit.

With all political parties talking 'cuts' I assume that people on benefits in the UK are in for a tough time in the next few years. The fall-out from the rich getting richer is going to fall on the lower strata of society. With Labour talking about cuts to Education (whatever happened to "education education education"?) one can only quake in one's boots. And this cold weather has been very expensive for the welfare system - I like getting my £25 when it's below freezing and I imagine some people are absolutely dependent on it, but the last few weeks must have cost a fortune in cold weather payments.

2010 is probably going to be a year of anxiety for people on benefits - the chances are that the Conservatives are going to get in, and they will be cutting social spending more than the others, and making life more difficult for us. I know Labour are getting farcical, but do we really want the Cons back in? What this country needs is PR, but the pollies will never go for it because it reduces their power. Perhaps we should focus on getting citizen initiated referenda on the agenda first and then use that. Not that I have any time and energy for politics - I just stand on the sideline feebly hoping I don't get trampled. I call it my Hamlet Complex. And we all know what happened to him (or should do!).

Cold Weather Payment

It's snowing and bloody freezing. Yay for cold weather payments!

Psychiatry's failed paradigm

Saw this tweeted today

"The solution to mental illness has seemed to lie in application of drugs. If a serious psychiatric disorder arises, the reasoning goes, it must be centered in the brain - and, the reasoning further assumes, the most successful treatment is a biological one. Or is it? In his book, "Doctoring the Mind: Is Our Current Treatment of Mental Illness Really Any Good?" Richard P. Bentall challenges psychiatry's presumption that drugs are best for tackling mental illnesses. Bentall, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Bangor in Wales, argues for treatment that focuses on the patient as much as on the brain in a setting that stresses a strong relationship between patient and doctor."

from the The Washington Post.

I might add that Bentall makes a lot of sense. I would highlight this sentence as well

"Recent studies of antidepressants suggest that they are barely better than placebo, although drug companies have made the data look otherwise by selectively reporting positive results."

and he finishes with

"If we are to improve outcomes for people with severe mental illness, we need to abandon the idea that all the answers lie in genes and biochemisty. We need to develop a less drug-based, more person-centerd approach, which takes the experiences of patients seriously."

Hallelujah!! Oh how I hate psychiatrists and their fucking drugs. No doctor should be allowed to prescribe a psycho-active drug they have not personally taken for a month!

Good luck contacting the Jobcentre

I have a simple question I need to ask the Job Centre - it's not urgent and I prefer to ask it anonymously - have you noticed that every time you contact a government agency they almost won't talk to you without getting your identity and logging the call against your name? I just want to ask without the 3rd degree or feeling like I'm putting anything at risk - which may be slightly paranoid on my part, but I do suffer from anxiety.

I don't want to spend half the day navigating the phone menu, then hanging on hold listening to on-hold music that induces suicidal (and/or homicidal) thoughts. I don't want to spend money on an 0845 call when the bulk of my time will be spent navigating the menu and being on hold - and I'm poor anyway so I don't like spending money fullstop. What I'd like to do is send in an email query that they can respond to at their leisure. But can I contact the Job Centre by email? Hint... they say I can...

You try it. The address is http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk

You click on contacts and it takes you to a page with a range of options. But these more or less all lead to the FAQ page or to forms for benefits claims. And even though the text says that you'll be able to contact them, and that they do not guarantee to answer all emails - THERE IS NO FUCKING EMAIL ADDRESS! So what the fuck are they talking about? Unlike many other government agencies which allow me to send in non-urgent queries that they can take their time answering, they want me to tie up a phone line and end up suicidal.

If I want to complain about this? I can phone them on the 0845 no. "Or you can write a letter and post it, email it, fax it or hand it in to us at your nearest Jobcentre." Except... THERE IS NO FUCKING EMAIL ADDRESS! (Or fax no for that matter). Basically despite everything they say you have three options - pay to phone them and end up suicidal; snail-mail it, or go to see them in person. Going in person is also probably half a day for a 5 minute answer. And it means standing around waiting for an appointment because half the time there is not enough seating, and the seating make my back ache anyway.

I give up at this point. Maybe another day when I have a bit more patience. Or maybe I'll spend an hour outside in sub-zero temperatures waiting for the CAB to open because if you don't get there well before they open your chances of being seen within the few hours they are open are negligible - freeze for an hour, or spend the whole day listening to commercial radio (thinking about slashing my wrists) and sitting on chairs that seem to be designed for the purposes of torture, with a distinct possibility that they'll run out of time and you'll have to come back the next day and queue again.

Fuck. Today seems to be one of those "everything is hard" days. Wonder if I have any valium left over...?