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Archive for December, 2009
Apple not to blame for hearing loss from playing iPods too loud, says judge
December 31st, 2009
Music fans who damage their hearing by cranking up the volume on their iPods cannot blame Apple after a US appeals court ruled that users are responsible for listening to music too loudly.
New firm: Emmerson Law Limited opens in South East
December 31st, 2009New firm: Emmerson Law Limited has opened in South East.
Former Manches Partner, Simon Emmerson, launches Emmerson Law Limited on 4 January 2010. The new firm is based in Central Reading and will provide commercial litigation and dispute resolution solutions to businesses, in-house lawyers and other law firms. The firm offers flexible charging structures for those looking for an alternative to hourly rates.
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Charity shops could shut because of Mandelson’s plans to charge more for music
December 31st, 2009
Police officers would "rather stay in the warm police station" than snare criminals, the Justice Secretary has said.
How law could help to fight antibiotic resistance
December 31st, 2009
A couple of years ago 10-year-old Daniel Roberts hurt his leg falling from a slide in the playground. Within 48 hours, infection had spread throughout his body and he suffered septic shock and total organ failure. As huge volumes of antibiotics failed to work, it became clear that his infection was a particularly aggressive strain of MRSA. Daniel was not expected to survive. After a month in a coma and five operations to scrape away infected bone, his infection was cleared, but now he spends most of his time in a wheelchair.
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Police officers ‘prefer warmth of police station to catching criminals’
December 31st, 2009
Justice Secretary accuses officers of preferring to sit in "warm police station" rather than fight crime on the streets.
Timeline: Finland
December 31st, 2009
A chronology of key events
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Scottish Labour’s front bench team
December 31st, 2009
A guide to Scottish Labour's front bench spokesmen and women in the Scottish Parliament.
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Spare a thought for shop workers | Anne Wollenberg
December 31st, 2009Sunday trading laws should not change for Boxing Day 2010 sales – restricting the mayhem to six hours is no bad thing
My friend Rachel (not her real name) used to have problems entering her workplace. On one occasion, a group of women standing outside spat and swore at her. "You bitch!" one shouted. Not what you want at 4am when you're starting a long, exhausting shift, during which you will be subjected to more verbal abuse.
Where did Rachel work? An abortion clinic? Jobcentre Plus? Nope, she was a sales adviser at a high street fashion store. Her abusers were sale shoppers desperate to get their hands on some Boxing Day bargains.
There's nothing like a post-Christmas sale to inspire new levels of irrational behaviour, such as queuing from the crack of dawn, in the freezing cold, just to go clothes shopping. This year's Boxing Day brought reports of crowds and stampedes, with shops taking £3m a minute . The Next store in Drake Circus, Plymouth, forced to close three times due to stampeding shoppers is just one example of many (and anyone scoffing at the idea of sale shoppers posing a safety risk can't have seen them in action).
But this hasn't deterred some of the UK's biggest shopping centres from launching a campaign to change Sunday trading laws in time for next Christmas . Boxing Day 2010 falls on a Sunday, restricting shoppers to just six hours of mayhem. The operations director of Manchester's Trafford Centre says it will be "an absolute nightmare". On Sunday 27 December this year, he says, "we had 20,000 people in the centre before the shops were open and at 6pm we had to close with 30,000 still inside."
As a former retail worker, this makes my heart sink. I'm all for reviving the economy, but spare a thought for shop workers. It already is an absolute nightmare. It doesn't matter when you open or close, people always want more. More shopping hours, more bargains, more tills. There are always customers who can't understand the correlation between cheaper shops and lower staffing levels, who shout at staff because other customers have dumped unwanted items in the wrong places faster than they can pick them up, and there's always someone who doesn't want to leave at closing time – regardless of when that is.
I got used to being screamed at by customers who resented queuing, yet went shopping at the busiest times. When we held a silence for victims of 9/11, one customer slammed her shopping down and stormed off because she didn't want to wait an extra 60 seconds. And I'll never forget the time police warned my employer to close after an arsonist spent the morning starting fires in neighbouring stores. Would the customers leave? Would they heck. But hey, who cares if there's an arsonist on the loose when winter jackets are 50% off?
We don't need to go shopping all the time. We don't even buy things we need or want – one recent survey found that the average Briton spends around £85 a year on so-called bargains they won't even use. Some will have queued for hours and elbowed people out of the way in order to do this. The minor hiccup of a six-hour shopping day is hardly going to put them off, but it might just help to contain the madness a little, and that's no bad thing.
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Apple off the hook over iPod volumes
December 31st, 2009
Apple won a legal victory today when a US appeals court ruled that the American technology group was not to blame if iPod owners damage their hearing by playing their music too loudly.
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Wales’ best-read stories in 2009
December 31st, 2009
The stories which were most read by you on the BBC Wales news website in 2009.
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