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NewLiving Diary Index
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item0049B 792, 793 25 August 2003118500 - 118118 - 118888
Deadline at last! Last Saturday 23/8, at midnight, a new, painfully-constructed "market" in Directory Inquiries ground into life, with three major players. There were originally TEN, when the process was launched by Oftel, last December. But now the cruelly-expensive advertising war is reduced to three major players, in the way that markets tend towards monopoly. But who are they? One is BT, but who are the others? They are advertising anonymously without explaining who is behind them. The whole exercise has the makings of 
UK law has always been soft on business names - unlike the Continental courts, which take their use very seriously indeed. If you have a business (whatever its legal format) you are entitled to give it any business name or names you like, provided that you are not "passing yourself off" as any other business. And in the UK, there is no public Register, where consumers can keep track on the use of such business names. At the head of my Homepage, the term www.LivePolitics.net is one of my business names, as a sole trader - consultant, lecturer, author. The Courts have always given the business community a great deal of freedom to promote their firms, in the manner of the market-place, the fairground, without taking the process very seriously.
Parliament did step in (most recently under Margaret Thatcher, in 1981) and ruled that on any "business documentation", you were required to state not only your business name, but your true identity - any party doing business with you was entitled to know precisely who he/she was dealing with - fair's fair. But the law then takes a narrow view of what constitutes a business document. Advertisements and business cards are mere promotional devices - they are not documents which actually do the business. But letter-heading, or any contract-form, or a Delivery Note or Invoice - all such documents must carry the fully real identity details. You must also be prepared to give out the same details if you are ever asked for them, in the way of business; and you must have a notice up at your business premises explaining (e.g.) that "The Number" is the business name of Chattanooga Choo-choo Limited of Tuscaloosa, or whatever. But none of these Press advertisements is "doing the business" - therefore they do not have to carry the business details. Who is behind "The Number"? And who is "118888"? Until they tell me, I for one will be sticking to BT.
----------------------------------------------------------------- "psychotropic" means "affecting the brain and influencing behaviour", but to my ear with a more directional flavour than the term "psychoactive"... Back to text -----------------------------------------------------------------
25 August 2003 Swansea Bay to have
Porthcawl, on the Eastern edge of Swansea Bay, has been the centre for protest this weekend about the extension of wind-turbine generators, three-miles offshore in the Bristol Channel. The protesters do not have my support - I positively like the sight of these elegant and useful mobiles, both onshore and inland. Where the site is right, I welcome them. This Government has laboured long , to find a workable policy compromise between a reliance on nuclear power (as in France) and a determined drive to maximise green, safe, sustainable power. The plan is to drive as hard as possible to make a success of green power for the next twenty years, but in the meantime to keep the nuclear option open.I agree with that. I have never been able to share the obsessive fear of radioactivity that has set it apart as an entirely unacceptable risk. Coming from a South Wales that has seen so many thousands upon thousands of its menfolk slaughtered in coalmining accidents, it is entirely acceptable to me that we should seek to manage the risks of nuclear power is a calm and measured way, using all the scientific resources at our disposal. And if greenpower were not to be sufficient, I would have no hesitation in turning to nuclear power again.
What do you think? Drop me a line
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