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Most annoying office noises
CRISP munching
colleagues are the scourge of the British workplace according to an
online poll of the most annoying sounds in the office.
Amplifon, the UK's largest specialist hearing aid retailer, polled
more than 1,000 office workers and identified the top 10 sounds that
drive staff round the bend:-
1) Crisp eating
2) Slurping tea and coffee
3) Annoying mobile ring tones
4) The boss's voice
5) People collecting lottery money
6) Hum of the air conditioning
7) Personal phone calls
8) IT jargon
9) Hold music on the telephone
10) Keyboard tapping
Enrico Vacca, director at Amplifon, said:- "People are easily
offended by sounds in the office but very few do anything about it.
Most people are suffering in silence as their colleagues create a
cacophony of din around them."
WORLD HERITAGE SITE WAREHOUSE LISTED
HUMYAK HOUSE,
a warehouse on Duke Street near the reconstructed Casartelli
Building, has been listed as part of the on-going review of
Liverpool's World Heritage Site.
The warehouse, which has been given a Grade II listing, has survived
relatively unspoiled since it was built in 1864 and represents a
typical mercantile warehouse of the mid-Victorian period. It
retains its distinctive 'jigger loft' complete with winding
gear and its cast iron window shutters. Internally cast iron spiral
staircases and columns supporting its heavy-duty timber floor
structure survive intact. Taken together these features give the
warehouse its significant historic and architectural interest that
justified its inclusion on the national List of Buildings of Special
Architectural or Historic Interest.
Although close to the site of the Old Dock of 1715 - the city's, and
the world's, first commercial enclosed wet dock - Humyak House
represents a much later redevelopment from the time when Liverpool
had reached its ascendancy as a world trading port. It is typical of
the smaller warehouses still being built at that time, in contrast
to the huge bonded warehouse complexes such as the Albert Dock.
Cllr Berni Turner, Executive Member for the Environment and Historic
Environment Champion, said:- “This is the latest building in
the World Heritage Site to be listed as part of the continuing
review of buildings there.
It is further proof of the success
we are having in providing additional protection to significant
buildings.” |
100
YEARS OF WAR ON PENSIONER POVERTY AND STILL NO VICTORY
THE State pension is
old enough to claim its own pension and this year should be
receiving a telegram from the Queen. The Old Age Pensions Act, now
the State Pension, celebrated it's 100th anniversary on 1 August
2008.
The Act was designed not only to combat poverty in later life,
but to banish it completely. Leading older peoples charity Help the
Aged believes such a momentous commitment took immense political
courage at the time and hopes all political parties will show the
same courage today by committing to tackling pensioner poverty.
Despite 100 years having passed, pensioner poverty is still a huge
scourge on society. The numbers of pensioners in poverty rose by
300,000 in the 2006 to 2007 period, a staggering average increase of 822
pensioners a day falling into poverty. Help the Aged is calling on
the Government to make a renewed commitment to eradicating this
national tragedy.
Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time the Old Aged
Pensions Act was introduced, called the Budget introducing the
pension a war Budget. In George’s view the war was on poverty and
the “wretchedness and degradation which follows in its camp.”
The Chancellor hoped the measures being introduced would see poverty
banished within a generation.
Mervyn Kohler, Special Adviser to Help the Aged, says:- “Many
generations have passed since the first Pensions Act but pensioner
poverty is still a huge issue.
The pension debate must look back to
its beginnings in the war on poverty.
We have to come up with a
modern, workable, living pension.”
The national average income in 2007 to 2008 was £457 per week while the
poorest 10% of pensioners struggle on £150 per week.
Help the Aged
is calling on the Government to introduce automatic payment of
benefits and to link the state pension to average earnings.
Mervyn Kohler continues:- “The Government needs to take a
serious look at how benefits are paid.
Each year more than £5
billion in benefits for older people goes unclaimed because of over
complicated application requirements and Government departments not
talking to each other.
Guaranteeing take up of means tested benefits
would lift 500,000 pensioners out of poverty and 500,000 pensioners
out of deep poverty overnight.
This could be achieved by paying
benefits to older people automatically.
Help the Aged is calling for automatic payments of benefits to
directly combat pensioner poverty.
In the past, some politicians had
the courage to try and tackle the big problems - we need the
politicians of today to show the same courage.” |
