Well, the poll booths open tomorrow morning and if you’re anything like me you are umming and ahhing over who to vote for.  Conservative seem to understand that not all businesses deserve to be clobbered – for every multi-billion pound bank there are probably a thousand small businesses that don’t make any money at all.  Cozibag Bean Bags is a small business employing a few staff; we have worked tirelessly to build a modern, fresh brand offering high quality bean bag furniture (such as our unique luxury range of Everlast Faux Leather and Real Leather beanbags) and it would be a little harsh to increase the company’s National Insurance liability further.

The Lib Dem promise to increase the tax allowance to £10,000 is an excellent one.  I have long thought that the tax allowance should try to reflect a livable wage and I would suggest it should be even higher than that proposed by Nick Clegg.  This would encourage more people to work (where possible), thus reducing benefit payments.  I would then raise the basic rate of tax for all earnings over that tax allowance (of, say, £15,000) to actually increase total revenue.  On a personal note, I would be happy to pay a little extra income tax, especially during these economically challenging times.

Labour, for all their mistakes (and, let’s face it, any party in power is bound to make mistakes), are still a party which strives to offer fairness across the board.  They have introduced some excellent initiatives for childcare and improved waiting times on the NHS – both huge issues for most people.  Plus, it could be convincingly argued that they have so far carried us through these troubled times and have both the knowledge and experience to see it through to the other side – Gordon Brown is certainly well-placed to understand the economy now.

Finally, there are fringe parties such as UKIP and The Green Party.  They may offer good ideas to some, but they will never stand a chance unless the voting rules are changed to allow people to list multiple choices in order of preference on their ballot paper.

The tactical voting suggested by some top Labour politicians has made this election an intriguing one.  Along with the televised debates, it seems to have reignited many people’s passion for politics, which is a great thing.

Well, just a few points as I see it, but to be honest it doesn’t really help as there are pros and cons every which way you look.  I suspect that many people who, like myself, aren’t aligned (officially or emotionally) to a particular party will do as I do tomorrow: stare at the ballot paper for a while and cross the box that just feels right at the time.

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The political world is buzzing with the announcement today that the general election will take place on 6th May.  Prime Minister Gordon Brown held a meeting with his cabinet before visiting Buckingham Palace to officially ask HM Queen to dissolve parliament.

Mr Brown claimed that Labour had already got the “big decisions” right during the current financial plight of the world recession, and that he would continue to do so in order to avert the risk of a “double-dip recession”.

He promised to protect front-line public services and offer continued support to the armed forces.

Conservative leader David Cameron insists the country needs a change and that successive Labour governments have virtually brought the country to its knees.  I have to say, although Gordon Brown does seem to be handling the current financial problems with relative success (lower than expected unemployment; slightly higher than anticipated economic growth), there are many decisions that should be questioned, not least why our financial institutions were encouraged by Labour (with Brown as the Chancellor or the Exchequer) to gamble more and more money on foreign markets for increased profits, and peculiar actions such as selling huge quantities of the UK’s gold reserves for rock-bottom prices (I’m sure there must have been some thinking behind this but I honestly don’t know what).

Cozibag Bean Bags was set up towards the end of the Blair years and we have gone from strength to strength selling high quality bean bag furniture in leather and faux leather materials.  However, I’d say it was more down to hard work than the political environment, and we’re certainly a little concerned about a possible increase in Employers’ National Insurance contributions.  In all honesty, I don’t see why a small (1p in the pound perhaps?) rise in income tax wouldn’t be a fairer option, particularly if it were only applied to those earning a reasonable living wage; surely that would be a fairer way to increase public revenues without hitting people too hard?

However, Labour have also worked very hard on improving and increasing public services, particularly in areas such as health care.  I don’t know,  it remains to be seen whether to public will remember the good or the bad; I suspect I know which but wouldn’t like to comment either way.  Only 6 months ago it seemed odds-on that the Conservatives would win by a landslide, but things have swung back towards Labour a little and, although still in the Tory’s favour, the polls seem to suggest this one will be a very close call indeed.

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Cozibag Bean Bags

The Easter weekend is upon us; a time for deep reflection if you are a serious Christian, a time to stuff your face with chocolate if not.  I suppose both together is common.

Our High-back XXL and XL bean bags look remarkably similar to Easter eggs but without the calories, so why not treat yourself to a Cozibag bean bag and enjoy Easter whilst remaining on course for your summer beach body!

Like many others, I have never understood how or why Easter seems to change each year, so I decided to have a little look into it.

Apparently, Easter was originally called Pascha after the Hebrew word for Passover, a Jewish festival that is set by the first full moon following the vernal equinox – the spring day when night and day are exactly the same length.  As Pascha fell around the same time as the Jewish festival, Christians wanted to have their feast day at the same time as the Jews.

Pascha later became known as Easter, a word which is believed to be derived from Eostre, the name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess of fertility and springtime.

The date of Easter is determined, like its pagan festival equivalent, by the lunar calendar.

Solar and lunar calendars

The ancient Egyptians used a solar calender which was passed on through the Roman and Christian cultures to become the modern world standard.  However, the Jews used phases of the moon (as Islam now does).

A problem is caused by the solar year (the length of time it takes the earth to orbit the sun) being nearly 11 days longer than the lunar year.  Many formulae have been devised to try to reconcile the two as a method of marking time.

So when does Easter fall?

Generally speaking, Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first full moon after 21 March.

It can be as early as 22 March, as it was in 1761 and 1818 (but that won’t happen until 2285) or as late as 25 April, but we haven’t had that since 1943 and won’t again until 2038.  The most common date is 19 April.

So there you go, a nice little lesson in religious history!  I hope you enjoyed it.

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Cozibag Bean Bags

The country holds it breath…our potential World Cup-winning talisman has gone and got himself injured!  Yes, every football fan in England awaits the results of a scan on Wayne Rooney’s ankle following an injury picked up in last night’s Champions League game.

If Rooney were to not make it to the World Cup finals in the summer, it would be a major blow to the England team’s chances, probably ruining any hope we have of winning the competition – he is that good and that instrumental to the team.

Cozibag often supplies local pubs and bars with bean bags for major football tournaments, so we love these big occasions even more usual!  You just can’t beat seeing our luxury Everlast Faux Leather bean bag furniture scattered around a bar in front of the big screen, the atmosphere simmering with optimism, the beer pumps working over-time, as the growing crowd steadily cranks-up the excitement level with each passing minute as the game approaches.

Fortunately, Alex Ferguson seems to think that Rooney’s injury isn’t too serious, so let’s hope he is right and that Rooney simply twisted his ankle and will be back very soon.  Wayne, get yourself a Cozibag Bean Bag and put your feet up to rest those limbs!

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Another year, another budget to tell us how much more cash we have to pay out in taxes.  The usual rises were there – alcohol, cigarettes, and fuel duty, with strong cider drinkers taking a serious hit! – but not too much else to speak of.

The minimum wage will increase slightly but the tax-free earnings threshold will remain frozen, so no great shakes there.  In fact, there wasn’t much to complain about other than the dreaded rise of fuel duty, but even this has been delayed slightly, to be introduced in stages over the coming year.  However, unless you’re a Green Peace activist, you’d have to agree that fuel duty is extremely unfair on certain groups of people, particularly the transport industry.  Ultimately, it leads to price increases on all consumer goods so you’d think there was a fairer way to spread the taxation burden.

There was good news for first-time house buyers with the scrapping of stamp duty for 2 years for those purchasing properties under £250,000.  This, of course, will be balanced out by an increase of stamp duty on houses over one million pounds, but it probably sounds like a good idea to the majority of people.

Another snippet of good news was that government borrowings will be £11bn lower than previously anticipated, largely due to lower-than-expected unemployment figures.  Some political commentators seemed to enjoy proclaiming this figure to be a drop in the ocean, but I fail to see how saving £11bn can be a bad thing!  Plus, of course, the main point here is that less people are out of work, which is great for everyone.

Things are still a little sluggish in the retail sector, although it was announced earlier in the day that retail figures are actually a little higher than expected.  Again, great news and a sign that things are improving bit by bit.  With this in mind, we still have a huge sale of at least 40% off virtually all bean bag products, and even more off some items such as beanbags in our leather range.

Overall, it seems we’ve been let off rather lightly, but I suspect there’ll be a bit more to come after the election.  Still, we do seem to be heading in the right direction so fingers crossed that the whole banking/economic crisis will soon become just memory.

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A sporting theme seemed to dominate BBC’s TV schedule over the weekend.  With virtually uninterrupted live rugby and football all day Saturday, and marathon fundraiser Sports Relief at various other times over the weekend, there were inevitable complaints from those who were not impressed by such one-sided coverage.

In fairness, I think most complaints were regarding BBC 1’s line-up on Saturday, and though a sporting man myself I was surprised by a rugby/football extravaganza!  The Sports Relief programming obviously wasn’t really about sport, it was a massive event set up to raise millions of pounds for charity.  I do think the whole thing droned on a bit needlessly at times, especially on Friday night, but overall it was a good event.

We at Cozibag Bean Bags made our pledges and one of the team took part in the Sports Relief Mile at Cannon Hill Park in Birmingham.  We couldn’t fail to be impressed by the amount of money raised – the last I heard, the total stood at around £31m, although it may well now be higher – and it’s heartening to know that even in times of belt-tightening (which, being a retailer of high-end leather bean bag furniture is something we are very aware of), job losses and BA strikes, the British public is still willing to put their hands in their pockets to help the less fortunate.

As no doubt many people will agree, we particularly enjoyed the James Corden sketches.  He’s a hell of a performer, the type of person who simply has funny (and very large) bones.  He also doesn’t seem to have any shame when making fun of himself, which is an admiral attribute, especially in the world of comedy.  Fair play, also, to David Beckham for a pretty impressive performance.  I wasn’t expecting any sort of genuine acting ability but he was fantastic!

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Not really anything to do with bean bags, this post, but being a Birmingham company we feel proud of Cadbury, the world’s most famous confectioner, and just wanted to air our opinions about the speculation of a possible take-over by US conglomerate Kraft (and now, seemingly, other companies are trying to get in on the act too).

As any Birmingham resident will tell you, Bournville – the area of the city which is home to the famous factory and developed by the Cadbury family for their employees during the late 19th to early 20th century – is a beautiful area full of old-fashioned character and lots of splendid greenery.  It has been protected for all these years as a monument to George Cadbury’s altruistic belief that his workers deserved respect and a good quality of life.  To this day, the area has no pub (originally to deter workers from drinking) and few other facilities with a licence to sell alcohol.  This kind of quaintness is what makes Bournville and Cadbury such an endearing British institution.

Now, potentially, due to a few shortsighted shareholders the company is on the brink of being taken over by a mighty but faceless corporation with no soul, no community spirit and no charm – at least not on these shores.  Cadbury is a highly successful business with great returns for its investors, but some people are only interested in maximising even bigger gains during the short-term – a corporate greed which helped cause of the current recession.  If anybody really thinks a takeover will do anything other than relocate jobs to cheap labour markets and dilute the brand over the longer term, they are, in our opinion, sorely mistaken.

Next time you are relaxing on a Cozibag Bean Bag with a bar of Cadbury chocolate, savour the experience, for it may not be long before another fine British company goes the way of so many others and disappears into foreign ownership forever.

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Cozibag Bean Bags