Steve in BC

Civil Service Pension Scheme Capita took over the running of the Civil Service Pension Scheme, the transition has not been going well and members are very frustrated.

They have still not been fixed. Capita promised to fix them by Monday 8 December but that has not been the case. The call centre have been telling people "try again on Friday", but I have my doubts.
For info: stevendrowe.com/civil-servic...

Civil Service Pension Scheme Capita took over the running of the Civil Service Pension Scheme, the transition has not been going well and members are very frustrated.

The outsourcing of the Civil Service Pension Scheme in the UK to Capita is facing some “issues”. Many people, including myself, are fairly frustrated.

stevendrowe.com/civil-servic...

Capita are lying, these issues have NOT been fixed. 300+ broken links. Registration issues. People not being paid. Contact form not working. http not redirecting to https. Poor response time on site. Not replying to emails. A total gong show.

Go to http of the CSPS website and it shows a page not found on the microsoft azure system. They can’t even up update their htaccess to redirect http to https? WTF!

Working on SLA’s for 2026. 2025 has been an interesting year of challenges especially with website security and working around barriers that politicians put up to achieve any good in the world.

Worldometer - real time world statistics Live world statistics on population, government and economics, society and media, environment, food, water, energy and health. Interesting statistics with world population clock, forest loss this year...

These hunger vs obese statistics blow my mind.

There are more overweight people in the world than those who are undernourished.

I never complain if I get a bad meal at a restaurant because so many would be grateful eating anything today.

www.worldometers.info

I thought you had to be 18 years or older to ride Lime for liability reasons.

🚨WOW! The Petition calling for a public inquiry into Russian influence on UK politics & democracy has now rocketed past 75,000 signatures! 🙏

LET’S KEEP GOING!

If a petition is what it’s going to take let’s get this done!
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/74...

Due to my schedule being all over the place this year with work and hospital appointments, today was my Christmas Pudding Stir Up Sunday, but on a Wednesday.

Upminster welcomes exhibition celebrating 200 years of the railway The free Railway 200 Inspiration Train will stop at Upminster station from January 26–30, 2026, offering visitors interactive exhibits celebrating…

The Railway 200 exhibition train will be stopping at Upminster, Essex, UK between 26th to 30th January 2026. Its free!

This would have been interesting to see, if I was still living in Upminster.

#Upminster #Trains

www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/2563946...

Instead of having a swear jar I am going to have a politics jar. Anybody who speaks politics in my home will have to put money in the jar.

I dumped Microsoft because of their strong arm tactics to force AI onto their customers & their rude staff sending abusive emails when I asked how I could downgrade away from Copilot. I will decide on my terms whether I want AI but I thrived without it for 6 decades so far. PS: LibreOffice is FAB.

Advice of the week:
Do not make a recipe provided to you by someone without taste buds.

I asked #AI for a muffin recipe and it turned out to be absolutely disgusting.

Business Etiquette • Debretts A guide to the everyday practicalities of office life, from communication and office relationships to building teams and organising meetings, business lunches and presentations.

Debretts is the British guide to etiquette and even in their letter writing advice they keep it simple. They used to have “Dear Madam or Sir” but that is no longer acceptable for obvious reasons.

debretts.com/etiquette-ca...

I go off companies who take my money a week before sending me the bill. Incompetence in companies appears to be common place these days. Guilty party is BC Hydro.

This happens a lot and some councils have set up cctv in known areas where there is crime and fine accordingly. Appears some greater attention is needed by the criminal justice system.

Trump will be a disgusting human being to the bitter end. As long as people suck up to this criminal and sexual abuser it endorses his behaviour.

Even though their infrastructure is good Telus customer service is pretty bad. The best way to reach them is to send a message via their app and ask for a callback, even though they’ve been pretty homophobic.

This morning I shaved my own hair. I bought a shaving trimmer 2 months prior to COVID. I have never needed to go to a barbers since. I estimated that I have saved a total of CAD1,750.00.

I do feel bad that I am not supporting local businesses but when coming up to pension age every penny counts.

Burnaby apologizes for historic discrimination against people of Chinese descent | CBC News Burnaby, B.C., has delivered a formal apology for decades of discrimination against Chinese Canadians, acknowledging that historic municipal laws and policies barred people of Chinese descent from wor...

City of Burnaby apologises for decades of discrimination against people of Chinese descent.

Not really good that these bylaws were hanging around for so long, I thought these things were under constant review.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Kidlington fly-tipping: Criminals dump mountain of waste in field The enormous pile of rubbish is called an "environmental catastrophe unfolding in plain sight".

Fly tipping has been a huge problem in the UK for ages. Even in my families area roads are blocked due to irresponsible people dumping their waste.

This particular incident is a complete environmental catastrophe by a criminal gang.

#environment

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Local businesses are recommending not to pay with RBC and Tangerine as of this morning because they are double charging. Be careful when paying for goods until they have resolved it.

Regarding the "Vine Reboot" there is already the Fediverse alternative called Loops.

loops.video

Its pretty clear on the Microsoft website who can apply for their non-profit program. Being a religious org does not qualify them, they have to be a 501(3)(c) or equivalent in their country. If they add "any religious org" then they should add "any non-faith org".

Supplier: We will send your parcel via FedEx on the next day service.

FedEx: Your parcel will arrive in 5 days time.

🙄

‘The more in the world you encounter kindness, and cheerfulness (which is kind of its amiable uncle or aunt), the better the world always is – and all the big words: virtue, justice, truth, are dwarfed by the greatness of kindness.’

It's #WorldKindnessDay! This quote from our patron Stephen Fry says it all. 🥰

PM Carney was in our neighbourhood today. I notice he didn't try the famous Fish and Chip there though.

surreynowleader.com/2025/11/12/p...

Love is a far greater force, a far greater power than hate. Stan Lee. Comic book author and humanist.

Today we celebrate the words and imagination of Stan Lee, who died #OnThisDay in 2018. Here's to you, Stan. Excelsior!

China Daily article says “China urges the United Stated to resume its cooperation with the Universal Periodic Review as soon as possible, accept all parties review, and actively address its own human rights violations.

Someone with human rights violations telling someone else to cooperate with UN on their human rights violations 🙄

Hopefully they will both cooperate and implement recommendations.