These rioters really make your blood boil, don’t they?  It’s been a sad few days for the country and a rather predictable culmination of poor education, bad parenting and a ridiculously soft judiciary system that has, for years, allowed young thugs to get away with criminal behaviour.

I am all for giving someone a second chance and providing them with the opportunity to better themselves, but some of these kids are let off with criminal damage at 9 years old, given numerous cautions throughout their teens and receive community orders for serious crimes in their young adulthood.  If we only nipped things in the bud sooner and taught today’s youth that they can’t get away with wanton abuse and destruction, I’m sure we wouldn’t be seeing these scenes in London, Birmingham and elsewhere.

As I sat on my leather bean bag last night watching the events unfold, I couldn’t believe how despicable these people were.  There was no worthy agenda, no cause to fight for, they simply saw an opportunity to steal expensive goods and destroy property for fun.  It’s not much of a laugh for the people whose lives they are ruining.

There is, of course, an argument that many of these kids find themselves in poverty and get extremely frustrated with life.  It’s funny how people described as being in poverty often wear the latest branded sports clothes; the problem is not usually financial poverty but emotional poverty.  So many of their parents are largely absent in their lives and just don’t care what they get up to.  This has the effect of causing anger, resentment, low self esteem, mistrust, etc, etc.

Here in Birmingham, Cozibag has supplied various charitable organisations with free and discounted bean bags for use in youth clubs, schools, care centres, etc.  We try to do our bit and there are many people who work tirelessly to improve children’s’ lives.  A lot more needs to be done but that doesn’t, however, mean simply throwing more and more money at community groups.

Somewhere along the line we have to get to the root cause of the type of chaotic family life which blights the existence of so many good, honest people.  Work clearly needs to be done on employment and family unity, but I’m not sure I know the real answers, do you?

Thanks for reading

Cozibag Bean Bags

I saw this article today about police in Los Angeles firing ‘non-lethal bean bags into a rowdy crowd.’

There’s something very comical about firing bean bags into a crowd, even if their reasons for doing so were serious!  I wonder what kind of bean bags they were?  I presume they were similar to those little hacky sacks, but how did they fire them?!

It all sounds completely harmless but I’m thinking that if I got hit in the face by a hacky sack fired from some kind of rocket launcher, it would sting a fair bit.  Do they have special guns for these things, perhaps like the old fashioned Tommy Guns you see in gangster movies only with a barrels full of beanbags?  Maybe it was like a scene from Bugsy Malone.  Intriguing.

You definitely wouldn’t want one of our bean bags fired at you.  In fact, I reckon a Cozibag Slouch faux leather bean bag could have taken out that rowdy crowd in one go!

Anyway, have a good weekend, whatever you do.  I’m off to the seaside!  Hopefully the weather will be decent and I’ll be able to relax and see some nice sites, the kind of thing you don’t really get to see in Birmingham.

Thanks for reading

Cozibag Bean Bags

Wimbledon

It’s a glorious day; the sun is beating down and the air is still.  Not ideal weather to be running around a tennis court for two hours, I imagine, but for the spectators it’s fantastic!  Any Murray is looking good and appears to be stepping it up a gear each time he plays, but we’ve all been here before with Murray and Tiger Tim before him.

I often think to myself that it’s better to not quite achieve everything you desire because it leaves you with nowhere left to go.  I suppose that’s the reason that unimaginably rich people keep going, looking for the next big deal or a new project.  We humans need to feel as though we are heading somewhere rather than just existing.  Life is all about optimism and a professional sportsman can look towards winning as many prizes as possible, perhaps with the aim of becoming the best ever/best Briton ever, etc.  So, fingers crossed Murray will progress to the semis today and keep the dream alive.  Sadly, with things due to begin at 1pm on centre court, I probably won’t be able to slump back in to my luxury designer bean bag and watch the match live, although I may be able to knock off early and watch the very end if I’m lucky.

Bean Bags

Talking bean bags, we will soon be taking stock of a new style of bean bag in funky water-resistant nylon.  Although we’ve admittedly messed up a bit by not getting these bean bags back in the Spring, they are not only for outdoor use and will make a fabulous addition to our range all year round.  We’ll keep you posted on those.

Thanks for reading.

Cozibag Bean Bags

Growth of 0.5% is a little lower than hoped.

The latest set of UK economic statistics have been announced for the quarter up until March 2011, and the figure of 0.5% growth is a little lower than the forecast 0.7%.  Whilst many, particularly those in opposition, will declare this to be very disappointing, it is at least a rise in contrast to the previous dip of 0.5% to the end of December 2010.  Not ideal, by any means, but it could have been worse!  I always try to be positive about these things as there are so many people who talk down such issues, which is often a major cause of recessions – the dreaded self-fulfilling prophecy!  That said, it strikes me that these government forecasts often seem over optimistic and it’s obvious for all to see.  When, the other day, I heard that government officials were hopeful of 0.7% or more, my gut feeling told me this just wasn’t going to happen!  Hardly scientific, I know.

One snippet of encouragement in the latest data is that manufacturing has grown at an impressive (just over) 1%.  This is very good news because, as we all know, manufacturing will be the best way for the UK to create more balance to its economy over the coming years following a long period of over-reliance on income generated by the financial services industry.

At Cozibag UK, we have certainly noticed that consumers are being a little more prudent with their spending and sales of our luxury bean bags have been more steady than spectacular.  However, our business is extremely flexible and we are lucky to employ a great team that can constantly adapt to market conditions.  Funnily enough, we have been very pleased with sales of real leather bean bags.  We launched new lines of real leather products at a time when the UK economy was only recently out of recession, so we always expected sales to be moderate, but we have actually surpassed our targets.  This is largely because our customers are so happy with their bean bag furniture and the service we provide that they recommend friends – which, as everyone knows, it the smartest way to run any business.

One thing that should cause concern is the continued rate of inflation of around 4% – twice the Bank of England’s target rate.  Cozibag UK is committed to absorbing as much cost as possible, and even though many of our material and transport costs have risen more than once over the past year, our prices have remained as low as ever (lower in some cases).  Again, we believe this is due to the way we operate in such a flexible way.

Thanks for reading.

Cozibag Bean Bags UK

A quick message to say happy new year to all of our customers and readers.  Everyone at Cozibag had a great Christmas, despite the frantic and somewhat stressful couple of weeks caused by the weather beforehand.

There has been plenty of talk in the news about the VAT rise, which came in to force today.  Although a 2.5% rise does not seem to make a massive difference when looked at in isolation, it’s the cumulative effect as well as the big ticket items that will make a tangible difference.

We have decided to absorb the VAT increase for at least the time being, with all prices maintained at  re-Christmas levels.  That means you can still pick up a beautiful Santiago leather bean bag for just £209 including delivery and VAT.  Fancy something a bit bigger?  The Sao Paulo leather bean bag at just £259 is huge and recommended only for those with plenty of space who wish to add some ‘wow’ factor to a stylish living space.  Alternatively, the Sao Luis is a little smaller, though still a huge beanbag.

We have more leather stock on the way within the next few days as numbers are a little low, but we will definitely be keeping prices pegged back until at least the end of January, so there’s no need to rush in just yet to save yourself a few quid.

Thanks for reading

Cozibag Bean Bags

Whether we believe the worst-case predictions on global warming or not, most of us are more sensitive towards environmental issues these days.  Even if you don’t believe a single word of the Green lobbyists, it is difficult to argue that the continued use of fossil fuels is not at least detrimental to many localised environments and can/does affect the health of certain groups of people to some degree.

Simple commonsense tells us that we should try to slow-down consumption of the world’s resources.  If we can all do small things that don’t have any noticeable impact our lives, and those small things all add up to make a big difference, why wouldn’t we make those changes?

Personally, I think the jury is still out on whether we really are headed for disaster.  I also think it entirely plausible that some scientists see the theory of global warming as one which guarantees major funding for the foreseeable future, securing jobs in their profession.  Intentional or not, it is certainly possible that this could effect subjectivity to at least some degree.  Then we have the politicians, who are always happy to be presented with new opportunities to increase tax revenues.

However, I am definitely all for a lower reliance on oil – there is, of course, also a huge political, as well as environmental, incentive to do so – and the continued increase in recycling waste.  Recycling is far from a  new idea propagated by the Green movement; humankind has always used and re-used as much as possible.  It’s only the past couple of generations that have become accustomed to mass consumerism and the idea that if something doesn’t work, you throw it away and buy a new one.

As a company, we try to do everything we can to reduce our impact on the environment.  When we buy polystyrene bead for our bean bags, it comes in large polythene bags, and we have been wondering if there is a local company that would like to take this away to recycle.  I remember seeing a report on the local news that showed a company which turns waste plastics into things like garden fence posts.  We are going to start scouring the West Midlands for such a company, so if anybody out there has any ideas we’d be delighted to hear from you.

Thanks for reading

Coziag Bean Bags

Today’s the day that Apple launched its much heralded ‘Ipad’ in the UK, and shoppers queued outside Apple stores throughout the night in an attempt to be amongst the first customers to get their hands on one.

Apple is a fantastic brand, a company which seemingly produces iconic designs and groundbreaking technologies with ease.  But this modern-day craze for queuing throughout the night just to buy the latest electronic gadget (or book, in the case of the Harry Potter series) is a bit of a mystery to me.  I just can’t understand why anyone would put themselves through the misery of standing in a queue for 12 hours through a cold, wet and windy night to buy something they could just buy a few days later without any hassle.

Still, I suppose that’s the great thing about companies like Apple – they have such a dedicated consumer base.  I like to think that Cozibag also has a pretty happy bunch of customers, but I somehow can’t imagine people queuing throughout the night to buy a bean bag, no matter how good it is!

Anyway, there’s no need to queue for a Cozibag bean bag because we currently offer FREE next-day delivery on virtually all items.  Just order by 11am Monday to Thursday to receive a luxury bean bag on your doorstep the very next morning; it’s a much better feeling than queuing up all night.

Thanks for reading,

Cozibag Bean Bags