Forcing direct debit onto us is not the way to do business

The comment she took exception to was a reference I made to domestic duties at Chez Clement and the view that everything below the gutters is the responsibility of the woman of the house – in my case Herself – and if it’s above the gutters then you get a bloke in.

As I was at pains to explain last week when referring to my frequent tongue in cheek comments about my calvados intake – had it been anywhere near what I write about it would have landed me in hospital years ago – I do try to lighten life up a little by using slight exaggerations to make a point and so it was with my comment about my concept of ‘women’s work’.

All that said, and leaving out my hapless attempts at fending for myself in the kitchen when Herself is away with her mate saving us a fortune and doing a bit of retail therapy while she’s at it on her annual shopping expedition a hundred or so miles north of here, there is one thing which I do happily leave to her and that’s the family finances.

My task in this respect begins and ends with opening envelopes and, in the case of bills, making sure the accounts are placed in the appropriate ‘bills to pay’ folder in the filing draw of the desk. She extracts these two or three days before the end of each month and, computer wizard that she has become, pays online those of them she wants while for the rest she writes cheques and it’s my job to post them.

The one thing that neither she nor indeed I am happy about is that awful process called direct debit. I reminded her of that when I read last week that Jersey Telecoms appear to have come to the attention of no less an august body than the Channel Islands Competition and Regulatory Authority – the title of which seems to indicate that, generations too late as it may be, these islands are at long last talking to each other and working together.

It appears from what I read that people are objecting to the authority because they feel that they are being pressurised into using direct debit because the time to pay bills has been shortened and the penalties for late payment – and reconnection charges – have increased.

It’s bad enough have to pay once a month – this outfit managed for donkeys years with quarterly bills – although I do acknowledge that for some people, perhaps those less organised in their management of low incomes than others, there are advantages.

However, if as may possibly be the case, people are being ‘persuaded’ into direct debit by a reduction in the time allowed to pay then might I suggest to our elected representatives that this is a way of doing business which has no place in a government owned utility company.

On previous occasions I have questioned the usefulness of the competition and regulatory authority, sometimes putting it on a par with those famous growth industries of personnel (now human resources, so I am told) departments and counselling services in that if they had real and practical functions which benefitted anyone not in them then they’ve managed successfully to conceal it from me.

I’m holding my breath right now to see what the authority make of these complaints and what, if indeed anything is necessary, they intend to do about it. It will certain be a positive shift away from being the mouse that roared in their efforts to stick an extremely small oar into mergers and takeovers of international companies which happen to do a small percentage of their business here, that’s for sure.

HERSELF and I use the bus services probably more frequently than at any time since we were young and had no other means of getting to and from school and, on occasions when it was permitted for in my case things like getting a haircut or going to the pictures, going into town.

I don’t particularly like disputes of any sort – when an argument looks like getting out of hand in the pub I have been known to drift off home – and was saddened by the recent industrial action taken by bus drivers.

Thankfully, the Jersey Advisory and Conciliation Service brokered a deal which led to a resolution and, for the moment at least, bus services are running to schedule. I say for the moment at least because I am not too sure what the somewhat inflammatory comments from UK union official (Unite general secretary) Len McCluskey have done to further the cause of industrial peace.

Mr McCluskey seems to think that it’s all hunky dory to have bus drivers working nearly twice as long as many other workers – up to 70 hours a week – and attacks virtually everyone in sight because the new bus operations contract seems not to permit this.

Everyone else has acted disgracefully by forcing drivers to face massive pay cuts and such an approach is morally bankrupt, according to Mr McCluskey, who wants drivers treated ‘with dignity’.

So would most people, Mr McCluskey, but I am not too sure where dignity comes into me being worried silly about getting on a bus in case the driver is so knackered that it becomes the healthy and safety issue everyone but you seems to be concerned about.

And finally, can it really be 44 years since Luce’s Jersey Eau de Cologne shut their King Street shop. My old grannie used it and the old man called it Odour Come ‘Ome.