A law that isn't enforced isn't really a law. As far as Puritanism goes, the UK is nowhere near as bad as the US, we aren't even as bad as some of our European neighbours, Germany has a hard-on for blocking porn sites where as the UK just politely asks you don't let any minors on but doesn't really check after that. Bit like the TV license thing.

The UK was picked as it's a big target. I mean Australia has far more restrictive laws that do get enforced, but it's too small and far away to be noticed by anyone.

I should explain to our European and American viewers playing along at home, Australian airlines means QANTAS, who have the lions share of the Australian domestic market and a significant share of the international market. Virgin Australia is the only national competitor and they have many of the same problems as QANTAS, REX gets rave reviews but their network is tiny in comparison.

As an Australian, I'd rather swim to London than fly QANTAS, after stranding 40,000 of their own customers just to screw over their own staff in 2011, Australia's "national airline" is about as Australian as the Sphinx.

Yep, had to go all the way to CASA with my Air Europa claim who continually denied it even though the reason for the delay (jetbridge hitting the aircraft) was literally listed on the EU's site as eligible for compensation. Still would rather have the laws even if they aren't perfect, if this had happened in the US or Australia I wouldn't see anything from a 10 hour delay (that turned into a 24 hour delay as I missed my once-a-day connecting flight in Madrid). It took six months to get the £520 owed but I got it in the end.

That being said, laws are no use if they're not enforced. The EU/UK261 legislation works because it ultimately is enforced with government bodies like CASA/PACT and ADR (Alternate Dispute Resolution) boards that will look at the case and go to bat for the customer if they're in the right backed up by significant, legally enforced penalties.

Time will tell if the US can make it work.

Tell me you don't understand the issue without telling me you don't understand the issue.

One of the defining characteristics of a developed country over a developing or undeveloped one is just how expensive it is to raise a child. You're looking at a cool $250,000 just to get one to 18 in most developed countries and I'm sure that's on the cheap end of the scale. In developing countries, children are cheap, but so is life in general.

Sorry if this invalidates your "blame women" rant.

There are still a few businesses that maintain decent call centres, you can tell because the hold music isn't compressed to hell and back by a VOIP line set to the lowest possible bit rate. Oddly enough I have to call out American Airlines, they changed my flight to have a 50 min connection in Miami (International to International) and I was able to sort it out with a 5 min phone call, simply explaining that there was no way I'd make it through Miami in that time, the CSR agreeing with me and saying "let me see what other flights I can get you on".

Conversely, I think part of the problem is that some customers have unrealistic expectations and far too high an opinion of themselves (the kind of person who thinks "the customer is always right", if they think that the customer is a complete moron). A key element to getting what you want is knowing what it is you want, in my case above it was to be able to make my connecting flight (of which there were only 2 a day ex Miami) and make sure what you want is reasonable (run it past a 7 yr old if you're not sure). Also be polite and kind to your Customer Service Representative and most of the time you get what you want.

OTOH, Lufthansa stands out for terrible customer service, literally lying to you in order to get you off the phone, no records, got told my refund would be coming next month 3 months in a row. Ended up having to go to the ADR (Dispute Resolution Board) to get my £99 back for a cancelled flight.

I think it's both, but good language skills generally go hand in hand with an ability to think.

With call centres, especially in developed nations, it's hard to hire and even harder to retain staff as it's a terrible job no-one wants. So you're starting with a pool of applicants that is either desperate or can't get a job in a supermarket. So your good workers are going to be looking for the first job thats better and that will be almost any job. Even if they stay, they get promoted pretty quick (or poached by other departments) if they have any aptitude so you're back to trying to recruit because turnover is insane.

AI could actually improve call centres, not because AI is any good but because most call centres are fucking terrible... and I mean terrible even if they're run with the best of intentions, let alone when they get run as cheaply as possible.

Don't tell him about those pesky consumer protection laws either, he'll shit a kitten. That darn EU, looking after ordinary Europeans over corporate greed... I mean who do they think they are?

This. A lot of sites just have a perfunctory "we use cookies on this site" banner that disappears quickly because they aren't trying to violate the GDPR and the easiest way to do that is to collect as little data on the visitors as possible. The only reasons these banners are even there is because some lawyer is justifying their exorbitant fees.

If you want to stop the annoying popups, stop doing business with companies that sell your private data to all and sundry and support GDPR like laws. Also get "I Still Dont Care About Cookies", it'll take care of almost all of the cookie popups. You should already be running something like Privacy Badger to thwart their attempts to spy on you.

This, a 400 mile range isn't that good when you've a 5 hour charging time. Electric cars might be a bit more appealing to the average commuter if you had an 80 mile range but could charge to full within 15 mins. Current battery technology doesn't permit this.

This, "electrifying" a design adds an additional £10,000 to the price, a Volkswagen UP! is about £13,000 where as the E-UP! is £23,000. It doesn't make sense to try and make these commodity cars, you're paying 3 series money for a VW city car.

Current battery technology is just not suitable for electric cars. If we're going to bet on a yet to be developed technology, my money is on sustainable alternative fuels.

Whilst this is true, Indian work culture has a serious conflict with getting things done.

1. No-one can make a decision. Everything has to be discussed in a large group until a consensus is reached, usually this consensus is to do nothing or to see who the problem can be passed onto.
2. Passing the buck is a 100% legit solution that needs to be employed as much as possible. As long as you can pass the problem to someone else, it's solved. A ticket will happily keep going on a merry-go-round with different teams being asked to do the needful forever if no-one complained.
3. Zero responsibility, as above, there's no ownership of problems.
4. They like to call because if they can get you on the phone you're (culturally) obliged to take the problem. This also reduces the chance of a record being made of the exchange. Even though you're obliged to take the problem this often means you're obliged to find someone else to take it off you.
5. Saying "no" is the height of rudeness, so everyone says "yes" and it's an exercise for the listener to determine if it's "yes I can" or "yes I cant".

You can get good people from India, they're usually people who have worked in western countries or at least a western culture before and adapted to it... Of course these people aren't cheap, if you hire cheap you're always going to get useless people.

So you're saying the British shouldn't have given that territory up, after all we fought to take it from the Ottoman empire (mostly using Arabian or commonwealth soldiers).

If you're happy parroting terrorist propaganda. That means you support the rape and murder of pretty much everyone who HAMAS holds as an enemy and I hate to break it to you, that means your (and my) western arses as well.

If you're done with HAMAS' talking points, the UN isn't a world government, so it can't tell individual states what to do. This goes the same for Tuvalu as it does for China and the US. They get to make recommendations but beyond that, the UN needs to do what it's meant to... Be a platform for negotiation. One thing a lot of people never get about something like the UN is that it isn't a mono cultural beast with a single overriding will. It's a huge bureaucracy and has a lot of different departments with different purposes, goals, ideas and conflicts. People think of it as a thousand hands guided by a single head where it's really the other way around, a thousand heads trying to guide a hand.

I thought the greatest benefit of remote meetings was the ability to put yourself on mute and then get on with some actual work/play on your phone/zone out whilst Gerard from presales drones on about something that has zero relevance.

Different software, even different cars.

Nissan is also, not that popular in Europe. Especially since they got rid of their decent cars like the Lancer EVO and just started selling hideous SUVs like the Juke. Europe makes it's own hideous cars (see: Fiat Multipla). Pretty sure the Juke isn't even sold in the US.

The fact is, in most places in the world Apple has become passe. Being popular is a fickle mistress. It seems to have happened first in Asian countries as Apples support of non-English language is second rate at best, even supporting En_UK properly is a bit beyond them and it gets worse the further away from English you get.

However it's at the point where no-one cares what phone you have so you may as well get a phone on criteria other than brand and primarily that comes down to price, specifically what the monthly payment is to your telco. Secondary to that are people who want specific features and the high end Android market here is very, very competitive.

Zooms to annoying looking kid "whats an Apple"... welcome to the post Apple world.

And this is how the "low tax state" bears fruit. It's a race to the bottom and there will always be a lower tax state willing to ignore the abuse of it's people in exchange for "winning" business by effectively giving them taxpayer money. The whole thing isn't sustainable.

What you want is a place where good workers want to live with an environment conducive to business (I.E. as few barriers as possible to maintain a competitive, fair and non abusive market).