Taxing problems.

 Grit my teeth, grit my teeth, grit my teeth.  My lodger regularly moans to me about local and Government services and things being online.  I just take my frustration out in this blog.  

I have elected to receive emails from HMRC which is good, but no good if you cannot reply to their emails and they do not include an address you can reply to or phone number you can reply to.  Apparently my tax code has changed, but to access this information online I need two additional bits of information one my passport - nice and easy - two the other one information about when I last sent them something.  Well heaven knows the answer to that, so I do not have the required information to pass security but no way of getting back to HMRC to check what they have told me.  Perhaps scammers make it easier to be contacted whereas august official bodies like HMRC are so guarded you cannot access your own information.  Cannot be bothered right now to search through papers for an incorrect address to work out what is going on. 

Pushing the bus out.....

Adrian Ramsay, Co-leader of the Green Party delighted locals and party activist by visiting Hoddesdon on his East Herts Big  Action Day.  Whilst there he had the chance, along with local Candidates - Sally Kemp, Bob Gledhill, Owen Brett and Roy Clements - to find out about the quality of local bus services.    Responses ranged from "appalling" to "good".  A third of those questioned used buses as their primary source of local travel (cars and trains were the other most equally popular forms of transport) and a number felt service had got worse recently but that night buses had long been bad.    Other concerns raised were the frequency of buses, cleanliness, connectivity and price.       Interestingly only about half of those questioned had actually formally complained about the services, but one person said they did so regularly and found the responses inappropriate and unhelpful. 

Broxbourne Green Party has called for improved services on existing estates,  as the services are none existent in some places,  and they have stressed the importance of them when new estates are being given the go ahead.  Nationally the Green Party is calling for a "£1 fare to take you there". In our survey cheaper prices would definitely get more people out of their cars and onto buses - provided they run on time - helping to reduce congestion on the roads and pollution in the area and helping us to reach net zero.   BGP will be submitting the results of the survey to HCC and welcome any further feedback on bus services in the Broxbourne areas. 

Our Party leader is coming to town. Come and join us.

 

Adrian Ramsay, Green Party Co-leader, will be visiting Hoddesdon on 21st March 2023. He will be located at the Clock Tower, Hoddesdon from 6-7:00pm. He will be out and about with local members, supporters and activists.

Members of the public are encouraged to come and meet Adrian and ask him any questions you would like to raise.

Back to politics - personal and local.

Anyone would think it was very cold in Wales on my return from Croatia.  

 I dashed up there but was back in time for the Green Party meeting. Then the snow returned to London and I was so shattered I could not organise myself at all.   I just about felt human by Saturday only to have quite an unpleasant experience with another former friend - this is a bad habit - but in the end felt I just had to cut myself off from things. Felt very fragile for days.  Now coming back into being with a litter pick and time at the community garden where I was asked to display my still unfinished pictures.  

Workaways that do not work, insurers who do not insure and totally incompetent power Ombudsmen. Carnival capers.

As life is moving on I decided I needed to try and have one last adventure and do some volunteer work abroad. For years I have been dipping into the Workaway site, and finally took the plunge to join. HOwever, what the promotion material does not show is that whilst you may contact lots of people to see if you can volunteer, only if you are prepared to break visa regulations will you get some volunteer work. To be fair, I only wrote to five or six people, and someone wrote back agreeing to my placement straight away, but then I hit a wall. The regulations say you need a business visa to volunteer in Vietnam, but the host did not have the paperwork necessary for me to get the visa. Other people have taken the risk and not bothered to follow the rules and perhaps if I had been innocent of the rules I would have done the same, but having made the effort to contact the Embassy both by email and in person, in the hope that they would tell me that a tourist visa was enough, I do not have the courage to go and volunteer with the wrong visa. One other person did respond but the communication dried up as soon as I suggested needing the paperwork for a visa. Other people have looked at my CV and walked on by. So hopes dashed. So instead I decided to book a holiday but as I am away I have been told I cannot get insurance until I am back, but by then it might be too late to book the holiday. I was also given a quote of £1000 for the insurance - enough to give me a heart attack, I was hoping that before 70 insurance would be affordable. Meanwhile urgent but incredibly stupid paperwork needs sorting out, but it will take a phone call or two to resolve. I tried getting in touch with the courts re the Mr. B case - the first person said I had the wrong details and put me in touch with the King's Bench, they have sent on all paperwork to me, but say they are not the people I need to be dealing with but I have no idea who I should be dealing with. Apparently I probably should have been sent papers to say that someone was trying to take me to court, but instead I got an email from a different organisation posting the information online. I do not think I have to do anything about it, but I am not sure, how is one to know. Similar problem with E.On. E.On are not my energy providers, I have never asked them to provide for me, but when I first moved in to my current address, they were the providers and it took me some years to extricate myself from their clutches after which time I arranged for Green Energy to be my provider. My son has never had an account with them, but some months ago, he got a letter chasing him for not paying for his account with them. I therefore contacted E.ON only to be told they no longer exist, however, I was eventually given an email for them and informed them of the problem and asked them to resolve it. Having contacted them several times without success I informed the Energy Ombudsman of the problem this is their reply: E.ON Next Residential has disputed the acceptance of your case due to data protection stating you are not the registered account holder. Can you please contact our office by telephone on 0330 440 1624 with the account holder present so we can update the case with their details and authorise you as a third party to deal with the complaint going forward. Alternatively, please provide the account holders details and we can update the case and send out a complaint form for them to sign and return. Please let us know if you would prefer this option. I look forward to your reply and will keep your case open for the next 10 days. Please note that if I do not hear from you within the next 10 days we will not be able progress your case under the above case reference number. However, once you do obtain the requested details and information, please contact us so that a new case number can be provided as we will then look The only good thing about this stupid reply is that it helps establish that we do not have an account with E.ON so why the hell have they accused my son of being in debt to them and why the hell have they sold that illegal debt on. And why the hell has not Ombudsman service not realised how stupid their reply is. The calm waters of Kastela normally soothe but not today not after all the above. However, today the Carnival in town. Tiny compared to the one in London, but much more ancient and much appreciated by the surprisingly large crowd.

Cold in Croatia, lively up in the Gods.

The coast of Croatia is beautiful, bundled up in lots of clothing and sitting in the sun, I go read and relax, but at night boy is it cold. I am out here dog sitting and learning what it might be like to live here out of season. I do not know which is colder my study or this one. It is though still lovely to be here and to potter along with the dog, grab a coffee and potter back again and I have caught the sun. Sadly my phone camera is even worse than ever after a brush with a yoghurt pot and thinking I could not do further damage to the phone I had stupidly declined accidental damage on my insurance.

It is just over a week since a terrible earthquake in Turkey and Syria. I remember many years ago, the last major one, as some of my students had family caught up in them. At the time there was anger that the buildings had not been built properly and that was what had caused so many deaths, and yet apparently after this the builders were allowed to buy dispensation for the problem rather than fixing them. This would be similar to the British Government allowing illegal cladding to remain if the builders paid to be permitted. In the Grenfell disaster lots of people have blood on their hands. In Turkey and Syria over 45000 have died most unnecessarily. It will be interesting to see if anyone (especially those at the top) will be topled as a result. The cost of living crisis has affected so many in the UK but that has not stop many donating genourously to the fund, which would not have been needed, had the Government in Turkey insisted on proper building standards. However, most places that I go to seem busy and full of life. The theatre to see the performance of Sylvia for example was rammed to see Beverley Knight reprise her role as Mrs. Pankhurst. The price of the tickets was very low up in the Gods, my coffee and organic almond croissant almost cost as much, and at present theatre if you are prepared to sit high up is very good value, but eating out is getting very expensive even in modest restaurants.

I have been in touch with the King's Bench as Mr B seems to be happy to spend "his" money taking legal action, I am not sure what it means for me.

Being lent on by the man who told the police he had taken my money, yet the CPS decided not to prosecute cos of this nonsense.

I am not leaning on you. I also did not disappear with money. The money has always been available for you since the High Court action was launched, and payable once the Tomlin order was issued, as per correspondence I sent you at the time. The money has always been available for you since the High Court action was launched, and payable once the Tomlin order was issued, as per correspondence I sent you at the time. I will now ask the Court to set a date for the Hearing. Can we agree to leave the outcome to the court, and abide by whatever the court decides (which we have to). You will receive notification of a Court Hearing date in due course, and can have your say in court, if you so wish In the meantime, please take down the posts from the Facebook Page page on which you have been posting and any other posts you have been making on this matter. That is fair, while we await the outcome of the court's decision. As per my previous email, I was doing something good not bad, as you will see from the fact that the property we were buying at £33,000 is worth over £121,000 today.