The Fall of Skysores...?

As reported in the Guardian back in April 

London’s skyline is to be transformed over the next decade with a record 510 tall towers, more than 20 storeys high, planned or under construction. The total is up from 455 towers in the pipeline in 2016, according to research from the industry forum New London Architecture (NLA) and real estate consultancy GL Hearn.

Construction has started on 115 towers, also a record. Over the past two years, work started on more projects than in the preceding five years combined.

Meanwhile as poor London gets bulldozed out of all recognition in favour of these monstrosities (and despite the horror of Grenfell), a most amusing article in The Daily Mail in the past few days suggests that the trend for multi-million pound apartments costing the equivalent of several Scottish castles (but on leasehold) in stab central may be about to break.

Something to thank Brexit for at last... as overpaid bankers and Russian mafiosi desert our shores? Or decide they prefer the white stucco town house in Notting Hill Actually after all.

Or perhaps the secret is out that these blocks are only built to last an average of 50 years with many not even making that before changing fashions (and land values) fell them, making them a shockingly bad investment, aside from the sky high maintenance charges and leasehold fees.

Many of these developments have been marketed exclusively to overseas investors prepared to buy their 'gold bars in the sky', no questions asked, offplan and upfront, quite often intentionally never to be lived in. Money laundering laws have been bypassed for such buyers. Certainly no pub or railway siding is safe from the march of the monster blocks.

Meanwhile homelessness grows worse and those serving the coffee shops and public amenities of central London are often to be found living in sheds in the suburbs or ten to a room in a 1930s semi for the privilege.

While not officially announced the backdraft or second recession is well and truly upon us as we continue paying for Blair's war, forever PFI projects and an education system, national health service and welfare state buckling at the knees. The country is in crisis, no emergency measures are in place (ie to prevent empty buildings), but perhaps the silver lining is that a crash might be the saving of London.

There will continue to be plenty of advocates saying we have to 'build upwards', despite little evidence suggesting this particularly improves housing density and plenty of evidence showing that living so artificially is detrimental to human health but perhaps we should simply start accepting that not everyone can live, rent or buy in the same place and it is a creates an equally unhealthy lack of socio-economic/geographical balance when they do.

My Shoes Blues

Medical advice has it that homo sapiens are supposed to walk 10,000 steps a day for optimum health.

You try walking more than 100 steps in most women's shoes and feel those heel and toe blisters start forming, shortly followed by bunions, ankle spurs, aching contracted tendons and hammer toes, depending on what style of high fashion pointy-toed torture implement you have selected purporting to be in your size.

Small wonder then that even Posh Becks discards her six-inch heels to live in trainers the moment the camera bulbs cease flashing and she steps off the red carpet. Despite this, her feet are now clearly deformed with her toes trying to point inwards as unphotoshopped photographs demonstrate.

Even 'flats' are little more than 'toe covers' nowadays, providing little or no foot support, but just enough coverage to still ensure blisters.
Kitten heels are the highest I can personally tolerate, and even taking those off is akin to walking on velvet after a few hours.
Luckily I am naturally 5'10", so don't need shoes to give me height, but I do sympathise with those women who do.

My distant cousin Margaret-Doreen was similarly tall and a size 7 back in WWII. A combination of shame at being a size women weren't supposed to be in those dainty days, plus the sheer paucity of female shoes in that size led her to cram her feet into size 5's and even 4's.

In her 70s and 80s, she enjoyed near-perfect health compared to her multi-ailing contemporaries, except for her feet, which became so crippled, she could scarcely walk and she spent hundreds of pounds on both chiropodists and various orthopaedic shoes trying to find a wearable pair, preferably offering some relief.

I look at young women these days and wonder if they have a clue what trouble they are storing up for themselves by insisting on the Western equivalent of foot-binding in their determination to suffer for fashion. Or is it for the scruffy young men who wouldn't go to nearly those sartorial lengths for them?

And let's not mention the stars who have started having bits of bone shaved off their feet to fit their shoes - despite having the money to have shoes made to fit them!

Now call me strange, but I've always taken the radical view that shoes should be made to fit feet, not our feet forged to fit shoes.
The irony is that most female shoes are not even as glamorous as they used to be, lacking in both originality and wow factor and looking like a mere three designers probably design them all.

Then again, any shoes requiring the multitude of 'foot rescue' gel pad inserts which have sprung up in order to be tolerated are asking for trouble and should remain firmly on the shelf until someone comes up with the revolutionary concept of both sexy and sensible in the same shoe.
I was recently amused to see disposable 'Rollasole' shoes in pink and silver appear in my local Superdrug for that party girl, who can't walk a step further in her foot griddles, but is still far from home, and even more amused to hear they had won a Design award for coming up with a solution to a problem that shouldn’t by rights exist.

My own shoe blues continue, bar a pair of bright Red microfibre early 'footglove' Mary Janes circa 1995 M&S, which continue to attract admiring comments and glances on the rare occasions I get them out, for fear of wearing them out, (the worn through companion pairs in sensible Navy and Black having being consigned to the bin long ago).

Before fashion goes any further leaving us needing blacksmiths to shoe us rather than shoe shops, I therefore throw down the gauntlet to any shoe designers, manufacturers and orthopaedic specialists who may be reading - let's work together and come up with the perfect female shoes. I have lots of ideas and am willing to split any profits we make.

Meantime how to walk 10,000 steps a day, even in a pair of Clarks (not as sensible as they used to be), whilst musing why slippers are called 'slippers'.

Churchill & The Two-Finger Salute!

Last week I obtained 70 online car insurance quotations for 3rd party fire and theft, ranging in price from £279 -£1285 for my new (secondhand) Skoda, using a variety of price comparison sites. Can you guess which one I went for?

No more fully comp for me after Churchill (a major British insurer which prides itself on the emulation of British values) decided that its British values are incompetence, gross underestimation of both car and customer and trying to string the customer along until they either lose the will to live or die of old age. Yes their quotes may be competitive, but forget it if you ever need to make a claim. As for that legal cover you took out with them, forget about them employing it to defend your no-claims honour against a dangerous road surface on Britain's Deadliest Road - no matter that your car decided at low speed (and of its own volition) to aquaplane at temporary roadwork traffic lights in treacherous conditions.

So that my suffering and paperwork hell of the last four months since the crash has not been in vain I thought I would share with you several useful insights I have gleaned about car insurance companies when you need them - knowledge I found very lacking on the net when I needed it;

a. ALWAYS claim for whiplash injury, even if you only have it for a day as they will stitch you up big time on your car valuation. Not being in the habit of crashing, my mistake was trying to be totally honest and honourable, assuming they would behave likewise towards me, despite friends warning (and urging) me otherwise.
b. Always strip your written-off car of everything you can & claim the money back for any unused road tax on the disc/extract the stereo if it's any good. I only wish I'd had the means to lever my recent tyres off as well!
c. NEVER accept the insurance company's first insultingly low offer. This is regarded by them as an 'opening gambit' to ascertain how big a mug you are and should be regarded by you likewise. However do swat up on the value of your car and your insurance policy wording as you need to be sure of the moral/legal high ground before arguing with these people re what your entitlements really are.
d. Hassle them by telephone EVERY DAY or they'll let your claim drag on ad infinitum. Always be icily polite but insistent. It drives them nuts. One call centre supervisor, 'Russell', said he didn't like my 'insulting attitude' just because I kept asking to speak to the Customer Service Manager (CSM) and pointing out I couldn't afford to accept his 'final offer'. But as a friend remarked it wasn't up to 'Russell' to either like or dislike my attitude if I wasn't actually giving him verbal abuse or insulting him. In fact 'Russell' was being downright unprofessional by making personal remarks and trying to deviate from the point.
e. Always record names/dates/phone conversation details for future reference and keep all correspondence.
f. Finally like me, you will probably be forced to acknowledge that it is unlikely the spotty 17 year-old call centre operator will be authorised to go above a certain amount (usually an extra £100, which they will always insist is their 'last offer'). In addition they will try and lie to you that they have no Customer Service Manager (CSM), as to escalate your case affects their bonus. One 'Leanne' was so desperate to get rid of me, she lied to me that my written-off car had actually been fixed! Reaching a brick wall on one level dictates you move on to the next level.
g. Failing the holy grail of a Customer Service Manager, find out the Regional Manager's address and phone number, and if you get no joy out of him, the Managing Director himself. As a last resort there is the Financial Ombudsman to complain to (free to you, but it'll cost your insurers so it is not technically in their interests to allow things to escalate this far)
h. If you have legal cover and believe the accident was not your fault, insist it is used - Churchill denied me mine on the grounds that they didn't have 100% chance of winning against Oxfordshire Highways. Which kind of makes you wonder what are they doing selling legal cover if they have no intention of letting customers use it? And since when was any case a dead cert???
i. In Britain the Association of British Insurers stipulate that a final claim settlement should be enough to allow the insured to replace their lost vehicle with one of equivalent quality, allowing for regional/time of year price differentiations. It is as well to keep reminding the insurer of this industry-standard obligation as well as sending them at least 6 print-outs of equivalent age/model/condition cars as your own for the price that you seek.
Check out any insurance watchdogs, ombudsmen or regulatory and industry standard bodies in your neck of the woods.

And before you ask, after all that, my final settlement for the Rover was still pathetic. Too depressing to talk about indeed. And contrary to the whole point and spirit of 'insurance', I was left significantly out-of-pocket by the accident. I suppose I should be grateful not to have been in a worse accident, and I am - when the paperwork permitted me time to reflect and recover the will to live that is!

To sum up, God help anyone sick or elderly who needs to fight the same battle with today's insurer. Much though insurance companies undeniably need to protect themselves against fraud, they are bludgeoning the majority of us who are honest too, and perversely, actively encouraging dishonesty (such as exaggerated injury claims) by very dint of their renowned meanness and own brand of rip-offery.

But hey what else did I expect from a disturbingly obscene orgasmic animated dog?

Perhaps someone should report him to Watchdog...?

Other sites of interest;

Beware Car Insurer Tricks on Write-Offs

Fluxsposure - an Insider's Take on the Insurance Industry