School of Thought

Often, what you think will be the simplest of tasks turn out to be actually fairly complicated.

I blogged a while back about the difficulty in choosing a High School for Jessica. It came down, realistically, to a choice of three schools, two of which were within walking distance. After visiting all three we actually slightly preferred the one not within walking distance, mainly because it has a slightly smarter uniform. Of the two within walking distance we discounted one, because we didn't like the way the kids spoke and acted. We'll call that one School B, the other walking-distance school School A, and the one furthest away with the smarter uniform, School C.

In the end, we decided that our first choice would be School A, especially as we fall a bit out of the catchment area for School C. It has the advantages that it is literally a walk in the park to get there (not even one road to cross, just a saunter along a nice path), it has good results, and had that slightly chaotic feel to the place that made you think that learning there could be fun. Also, the headmaster was a "proper" headmaster. He didn't try to dazzle the audience in his speech with up-tempo buzzwords, he just went through a basic presentation giving information about the school and how they do things.

We easily fall into their catchment area, too. We then discovered that our next-door-but-one neighbour sends her son there, and that he didn't get offered a place (it is very over-subscribed). They had to fight tooth-and-nail and keep him off school for three months in order for him to be accepted. He had been offered a place at a school miles away that is frankly a shockingly bad school, although my mother (who works there) tells me it's getting better. The initial council reaction was to offer him a place at an out-of-borough school that is equally bad, and even further away. Still, eventually he got in and I'm prepared to do the same thing for Jess if it comes to it.

So, back to the simple task. We decided to apply online, which is a new thing. You apply to all the schools you want to in one go, and the schools decide whether to offer you a place or not, then the council ultimately decides which one you get given. This on-line system gives the advantage that you can change your mind up until the submission date, and you also get to see what school you have been allocated on the day it is done, rather than waiting a couple of extra days for the post to perhaps arrive.

We registered on the website and filled in the details. It was a well-designed site and the task was easy. The next step, we were told, was to send in a proof of address (required to stop people putting down addresses they don't actually live at in order to get a place). The proof required? A council tax bill.

What we needed to to, therefore, was send a copy of our council tax bill to the council. Quite why they haven't got a copy, I don't know. Quite why they can't look it up on the computer, or check the electoral roll or something, I don't know. So, stupid as it seems, we have to send the council something that they sent to me, to prove that I live at the address that they already have on a computer.

But, of course, it isn't that simple. We sent it off (the fact that we found it at all was a miracle), but because it is in Ele's maiden name still, they wanted further proof. Again, the electoral roll is obviously not good enough. I mean, that only enables us to vote for heaven's sake.

They wanted a child tax credit letter from the Inland Revenue. We found one and sent it off. But because it was dated from last year, it wasn't good enough. Evidentally she could have changed her name several times since then and moved house a few times, too. So we found another one and sent that. Hopefully it's been accepted because we haven't heard anything back from them yet. I'm half-expecting a call saying that we didn't send it (i.e. lost in the post) and therefore Jessica will have no school forever.

But, the really daft thing, is that Jessica's name on the child tax credit form is her "old" name (Jess being my step-daughter and having her "real" dad's surname, before we got it changed by a solicitor). Yet nobody picked this up and asked for proof of her name - and she's the one who will actually be going to the school.

I'm amazed that all this checking is necessary. I'd have thought that these records all exist in a database somewhere. If they don't, building such a thing would actually be very easy. Being someone who programs databases for a living, I could probably knock up the design of one in an afternoon that would link people, addresses, and all their relatives to each other as well.

Any councils reading, please get in touch. My rates are very reasonable.

Intelligent Design

Today's blog is so clever, and so well-designed and thought-out, that it could only have been bought to you by God.

Or so goes the "theory" proposed by those behind Intelligent Design.

Their theory states that as life on Earth is so complex, it could not have evolved by chance and therefore must have been created by a higher entity. They stop just short of saying God, but that's just so that people will take them seriously. Douglas Adams proved this best (paraphrased below from the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy):

God: Without blind faith, I am nothing.
Man: Ah, but the babel fish is far too useful to have evolved by chance. Ergo, you created it and have thus proved your existance.
God: Bugger. Didn't think of that.
God vanishes in a puff of logic.

Of course, they are of course missing three rather vital points. And as usual, I will point them out for you:

1 - Something is more likely to be complex if it evolves. A design would be more ordered and structured.
2 - What fool left the appendix in? How did that get past beta testing and quality assurance?
3 - The ultimate point: If it is so complex that it had to be designed by an supremely intelligent entity, ergo that intelligent entity must be more complex than man. So who designed the intelligent entity itself? A more intelligent entity? How far back does this go? On the evidence provided, each entity cannot design something more complex or intelligent than itself, so there must be an infinite line of intelligent entities stretching back, each designing life slightly less complex and clever than itself. What this is supposed to achieve I don't know. Man will surely continue the trend, by creating life in laboratories that will be less clever than itself. It's nice to know we are currently at the bottom of the cleverness-chain, but should be a rung up in the next fifty years or so.

The slightly worrying thing is that these people have sent literature to all the heads of science at high schools across the country. So far, 59 of these have responded in a positive fashion, saying they would be interested in receiving further literature on the subject and teaching it as an alternative theory.

This is crazy. I can understand this subject being debated in Religious Education lessons, but it has absolutely no place in the laboratory. Science should stick to science and not get involved in religion. Evolution has been proven by scientific research since Darwin discovered it, and this is what must be taught. Teaching Creationism (sorry, Intelligent Design) as an alternative theory is no good. It's like teaching that things fall to the ground because God wants it that way. or that electricity is actually generated by fairies.

There was a court case I dimly remember in the US regarding parts of the bible belt, where they still taught Creationism as the accepted means of explaining the origins of life. I don't recall the outcome, unfortunately, and don't have time to look it up. I'm reasonably certain that common sense won the way, though.

Let's have science stick to facts, shall we? The national curriculum has it's faults, but at least it's got the seperations right.

Teachers should not deviate too far from it.

Well Fair

Today in the news it is reported that £64billion is paid annually to those claiming benefits, and that these people are not required to seek work.

Basically, they live for free and money is thrown at them every week for them to do with as they please. Evidentally, something is fundamentally wrong here.

Every month I look at my pay slip - in fact I got one this morning - and am horrified by the amount of tax that I pay. The fact that a lot of this money goes towards subsidising the lifestyle of those lazy bastards that can't be bothered to work for a living really, really pisses me off. NHS? Fine. Education? No problem. Dole payments for those who are temporarily out of work? Again, this is Ok.

But those who just choose not to work and expect to be looked after? No way, Jose.

It is a problem caused by the fact that these days, nobody is allowed to be poor. In times gone by, if you didn't bother working, you didn't eat. You dressed in rags and lived in squalor. These days, being poor means you car is over ten years old, you only get twenty TV channels and you have to buy your Playstation games second hand.

Clearly, this is not poor. It is, however, funded by thee and me. I don't understand the justification for giving so much to so many, when they do nothing to benefit society. Worse, is that the problem self-replicates. The offspring of these people will do the same thing. Except that there will be more of them. Two parents breed more than two children, as they get more benefits for doing so. So those two will spawn, say, four. Those four will spawn sixteen. Those sixteen will spawn sixty-four. Within a few generations - and bear in mind these are short generations as they'll start breeding at a young age - this mere problem will have turned into a crisis.

Ok, there will be the occasional few who strive to do better, and don't see the ethics in sponging from the state all their lives, but most will learn from their parents. Soon, the pensions problem will be small potatoes compared to the welfare problem. There will be more out of work than actually working, and the system will be completely unsustainable.

THe obvious answer is to reduce benefits. But of course, the under-educated, work-shy population will suddenly be able to quote chapter and verse of the Human Rights Act (that useless and alarming piece of European legislation) and say they are being forced into poverty. Of course the fact that they actually belong there will escape them. Nobody would dare suggest they actually work for a living instead.

But, as usual, I have the answer. We will remove all benefits for the long-term unemployed (barring actual proper medical reasons, of course). Instead, they will be given everything they need. Need some new clothes? Go to the council clothes outlet, which will stock trendy, fashionable clothes. Well, trendy and fashionable in the 1970s anyway. It will not need to be brand new. If you truly need clothes, these will do. Food? Go to the council food outlet. Here you will be provided with healthy, nutritious ingrediants with which to cook your own meals. TV broken? No problem, an appropriate set will be provided. It will not be plasma or LCD, and it will only receive four channels (Channel 5 if you are lucky). You don't need more than that to watch Eastenders. You want a car? Sorry, no can do. Here's a free bus pass instead. You don't need an Ipod. A Playstation could perhaps be provided, as long as you have children. It'd keep them off of the streets, at least.

No money of any sort will be given out, but records will be kept of how much you have received to stop selling of clothes or TV sets. If your TV breaks down and you've already had one in the past couple of years, too bad. If you want a new one, go and earn some money and buy one. The amount of stuff you are allowed to receive for free will go down if you start earning. But of course you can buy whatever you like with your own cash. Incidentally, all credit will be declined for anyone on this system, to stop debts from being built up that are unpayable.

I've no doubt whatsoever that this system would send many spongers back to work. Then the tax bills of the decent, hard-working (well, at least working) people would go down and the economy would be far stronger.

And then perhaps England would become a decent place to live again.

Border Control

The European Union, in a blatant act of having it's arms twisted, has decided that we can't have duty-free goods after all, and that any goods coming into the country will have that country's import duty levied upon it.

This is not the news I was hoping for, but exactly what Mr Brown wanted. I imagine he did a lot of the arm twisting.

He moaned that he would be left with a £10bn hole in his budget. Of course, he is missing the fact that if our duty wasn't so ridiculously high this wouldn't have been a problem in the first place.

It was said that income tax would have to rise 3p to cover the gap. Why? Why can't he do what we all have to do and make do without that extra. Ok, it's on a bigger scale, but frankly I'd imagine shaving £10bn off the spending budget would be quite easy, really. Getting rid of John Prescott would save a few million alone.

When my council tax goes up, or the interest rates go up taking my mortgage payment with it, or petrol goes up, I can't turn around and say to my employer, "Right, I'll need extra money now to cover it." because they'd tell me to put up or shut up. If we all remember that the government is employed by us, not the other way around, then we should be telling Mr Brown the same thing. If you don't like it, bugger off and work elsewhere. We'll elect a different government instead.

The other strange thing about this decision is that it begs the following question: What is the point of the European Union?

The way it seems at the moment is that we have all the cons, but none of the pros. We can't buy goods from abroad, but we can have hundreds of thousands of people coming here to claim benefits. We lose some of our law making abilities because Brussels over-rule us. We pay fortunes to the EU each year, so that French and Irish farmers can keep up their nice subsidies. We have to arrest our greengrocers for daring to sell things in pounds and ounces. There seems to be little in the way of benefits to us. The duty-free imports would have been one, but now we are still restricted to going abroad to buy them, which isn't worth the hassle, really. So now there are no benefits at all.

It seems our borders are only open to a certain degree.

Stupid Americans...

... is a phrase you often hear in the UK. I've said it myself, although it's been directed towards the current US government, rather than it's citizens.

Last night though, I saw a programme on one of those cable channels that lurk at the far end of the TV guide that should be made compulsory viewing to anyone that has uttered that phrase. It was the most heartwarming piece of TV that I've seen for a long time.

Initially, I was expecting it to be cringeworthy. It was a documentary centering around a family with no less than sixteen children. They were from Arkansas, and all the kids had names beginning with J. They were all biblical names as well, such as Jebediah, Jesiah and so on. Thinking of sixteen names beginning with J is a feat in itself. The dad was called Jim-Bob. I found that funny, as I thought people were only called Jim-Bob in King Of The Hill cartoons, but he really was. Nobody, not even his wife, shortened it Jim, either.

A couple of weeks ago in the UK, there was an article in the paper about a guy who had 12 kids, or thereabouts. He didn't work, neither did his wife, his kids were the sorts of oiks that you'd hate to encounter anywhere (you know the ones, any boy over the age of four has already got an earring and they all wore baseball caps in that threatening way that only those sorts of people can). He lived off of benefits, and was in the news because he was claiming the council should give him a bigger house as it was unfair and against his human rights to be squashed into the one he already was provided with, free of charge, despite the fact that he made no contribution to society of any kind.

What a contrast! The US family were lovely. They all got along, the kids had respect for their parents and for each other. There was never a raised voice or a raised hand, nor a foul word uttered. The mother stayed at home to home-school the children, and the father worked, presumably very hard, to provide for them. He was a good dad, too. They all lived in a 3-bedroom house with only two bathrooms. Clearly they needed something bigger, but these were not the sort of people who would go banging on the door of the local council demanding a bigger place. These people had self-respect and a work ethic that puts us all to shame.

The main focus of the story was that they had decided to build their own house. You couldn't have done what they did in the UK on their scale, as the land alone would have cost a couple of million, the planning permission would have taken ten years, and the cost of materials and labour would have been astronomical.

But, rather than hiring people to do it, they built most of the house themselves. They didn't know how to build, so they learned as they went. It was a steel-framed house, so they learned welding. They also learned plumbing, woodwork, plastering, everything. And by "they", I mean the entire family. They all helped to build this house. The children had their own drills at the age of eight and they all worked hard. For three years. Most kids would have got bored of working after a few weeks, but these little guys were still at it three years later. The house was for them, and they helped with everything, including the interior design.

The end result was a masterpiece. It still only had three bedrooms, because the boys wanted to be together in one giant room, and so did the girls. They probably could have had their own rooms but they wanted to be together. The difference is that these were huge rooms. They also had nine bathrooms. The kitchen was effectively a cafeteria, with industrial ovens and dishwashers. It only cost them $11,000 because they bought all the stuff second-hand. They also had a second, smaller kitchen. The pantry had a roll-up door that a delivery van could drive right up to, and more shelving than my local shop. They had a launderette with four washing machines and four dryers, which pleased one of the girls as it was her job to do the laundry and previously they only had one washer and one dryer. Not that she had complained, of course.

It was very Von-Trapp in parts, particularly at the end when they gathered around the grand piano they had obtained (a Wyman piano, I reckon provided by the TV company as a gift), with the eldest child playing it, and the other fifteen playing along on their violins to Amazing Grace. Given my personal opinion that the violin was actually designed as an instrument of torture, rather than an instrument of music, it actually sounded quite good.

Seeing this family work together, willingly and with smiles on their faces, brought a smile to me, too. You may think people are mad to have that many kids, and in this country it's only really done to get benefits. I'm not naive enough to think that this is the same situation all over the US, but it proves that it can be done, and done well.

Stupid Americans? Stupid us, more like.

Olympic Hurdles

Aren't we lucky to be hosting the Olympics in 2012?

No?

Correct. We aren't.

The whole thing was put together by Mr Blair as a kind of final glory, something to be remembered by. The Labour Party got us these Olympics, they'll say in 2012, when they are no longer in power, remember how great we are bringing all this attention to Britain, and please vote for us again in the next election.

Unfortunately for the taxpayer, and by taxpayer I specifically mean those in London, including myself (I live in an area described variously as both London and Surrey, depending on whether it's the Taxman or an Estate Agent speaking), the cost will be carried by us. But I suppose by the time it's gone a few more billion over budget, the Chancellor will be forced to claw it back nationally, to plug the hole. The National Lottery and further tax on Londoners isn't going to be enough.

It's just been reported that the cost has risen by about a billion pounds, due to a couple of miscalculations:
Firstly, steel has doubled in cost. Just how much of the budget was actually going to be spent on steel, I don't know, but it can't be that much in total.
Secondly, transport costs have gone up. This is such a stupid statement as I've not seen any qualifiers to determine exactly what they mean. At the moment, this statement means absolutely nothing.
Thirdly, things will cost more in 2012. Yup, the (presumably) highly-paid financial and organisational minds who put the bid together forgot to take inflation into account.
Fourthly, they paid £400m to a consulting firm to make sure it doesn't go over budget. No, I don't understand how paying £400m over your budget to someone so they can ensure you don't go over budget works either.

The government does not have a great track record when delivering large projects. In fact, the country as a whole doesn't. This is basically down to red tape and health-and-safety. Brunel would have built the whole lot in a weekend using nothing more than a handy foundry, and a few thousand men willing to work for pittance. He would have needed no consultants, no project managers, no quangos. He'd have whipped up some plans on the back of a napkin and it would be built and last 1000 years. These days we can't build a Dome, or a Wembley Stadium with anything like success. Even the new footbridge over the Thames wobbled about before they fixed it.

How they will deliver the Olympics is beyond me. I absolutely guarantee that the budget by the end will be at least doubled, and that it'll barely scrape in on time. At least those 500,000 Polish immigrants will find work building the thing, because no sane Englishman will want to be associated with it.

There is also no chance of it generating enough money to cover it's costs. Australia managed to turn in a profit on their games in Sydney, but the Australians have a lot more common sense than we do.

I also bet that if you ask Londoners if they want a choice of higher taxes and no games, or paying a fortune and having them staged here, that the answer would overwhelmingly be "No games, please, we're British". But, of course, nobody asked the public. The government somehow assumes that it has the right to spend billions of public money on whatever it wants to, without consulting us, despite the fact that it was our money to start with. And then steal more money from us to cover up it's stupid decisions and general incompetence that led it to go over its budget.

But then, if they had said it'd cost £10bn to start with, it wouldn't have got off the ground. Better to say it'd cost £3bn and then gradually increase it as time goes by, because it's too late by then.

In fact, I think the whole thing is a ploy by the Labour Party. They know that they'll be out of office by 2012, and having a vastly overbudget Olympic Games will force the Tories to raise taxes for it once they realise the cost hasn't been met. And because the Tories are in power, they'll get the blame for it.

In fairness to Labour though (and it's not often you'll hear me say that), the Tories did the same to them with the Millenium Dome, which was conceived under Conservative leadership, and then ridiculed under a Labour one.

It's just the public schoolboys flicking each other with wet towels again, really.

Going Postal - Part 2

Following on from yesterday's postal blog, I thought I'd relate another delivery-related nightmare, this time concerning Tchibo and DHL. See what happens if you piss me off? You get named and shamed in the worlds greatest blog. There will now be literally three people who know how bad you are. Corporations of the world, you have been warned.

Several months ago we ordered four stairgates from Tchibo online (Tchibo is a high-street and on-line retailer, notable for selling coffee as well as normal goods, and also for changing their entire stock each week, meaning that every time you go in there, there are different things for sale. QUite a good concept and they often have quite reasonable prices. They also have the hardest-to-pronounce name of all shops in the world, ever).

Anyway, we got these stairgates (three for us, one for Saffron, Eleanor's sister) and soon realised they were not so good after all, as they only opened in one direction. This is tricky to explain, but imagine that if you are standing in front of the gate, then it will only open towards you and to your right. To make it open the other way you turn the whole gate around, and then it would open away from you and to your left. This is no good if you want it to open towards you and to the left, which is what we wanted on our stairs. Opening to the right was not at all practical. And of course, it didn't mention this on the website. Every other stairgate in the world will open both ways, but not this one.

Confused? Good. So we decided to keep one of the four to put in our kitchen archway, and send back the other two (remember that Saffron had one; keep up). Even the kitchen archway one would have been better the other way round, but it'd do. So we call Tchibo and arrange for a pickup. This was not deemed to be a problem, and on the appointed day, Ele waited in. And waited. And waited. And they didn't come.

So we call them back and they arrange another pickup. This time, Chris, Ele's mum, waited in as Ele was at work. And waited. And waited. And waited. And they didn't come.

A third, fourth and fifth pickup were arranged, with a variety of different courier firms. And Ele waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

And they didn't come.

Finally they arranged for DHL to come. On the appointed day (a Tuesday) they came to the door, dropped a "Sorry we missed you. We crept up the driveway as stealthily as possible, knocked on your door with a feather, waited 0.2 seconds and then assumed you weren't in so we left and we'll come back tommorow" card. They didn't come on Wednesday, but did come on Thursday and finally picked the stupid things up.

Hooray! And so ends the tale. Except that it doesn't. A few weeks went by and a credit card statement dropped through the door (Sarah - funny how bills and junk mail never get lost, isn't it!). Inside, the bill was £39.98 higher than it should have been, because I had not been refunded. Hereafter, the Saga Of The Pickup changed to the Saga Of The Refund.

A call to Tchibo established that they hadn't received the stairgates. Or had received them but had mislaid them. Either way, this was why they hadn't refunded me. No problem, say they, we'll send you a form, fill it out and send it back to us and we'll process your refund forthwith. The form arrives, I duly fill it out and send it back. Again, I don't hear anything for a couple of weeks. Another phone call reveals that they haven't done anything because there is no proof of delivery. I also mention that the form was more a "goods not received" form rather than a "goods received and then sent back and not received by Tchibo" form. So they send me a different form and tell me to include the proof of posting. This I do, and here I made a fatal mistake in not sending a photocopy of the DHL receipt, but the original.

Again, weeks pass, ice ages come and go, civilisations rise and fall, and my credit card remains un-refunded.

Another call reveals they have not received this latest form. So now I have no proof of pickup because I sent it to them, and they don't believe I sent them the stairgates because I haven't got proof of pickup. Their solution is to send me another form (there must be departments in these companies whose only task is to design forms for each possible scenario: Ah, you'll need to fill in the "Postman broke his leg whilst delivering a package to 22 Acacia Avenue on a slightly snowy day in February, causing him to drop your package in the fall" form, Sir).

So, another form is filled in, and returned. A couple of weeks later, I call them again. The conversation went something like this:

Me: I still haven't got my money, but I sent you the form.
Tchibo: Ah, that's because you haven't sent us proof of collection.
Me: We've been here before. I did send it to you, but it either didn't arrive or you lost it.
Tchibo: Well, we couldn't possibly have lost it, so it must have been lost in the post.
Me: whatever. I don't have it, you don't have it, and I don't have my money. Give it to me now.
Tchibo: Well, without proof of collection we can't do that.
Me: Give me a refund or I'll murder your dog and spray obscene messages onto the side of your car.
Tchibo: Ok, let me speak to my manager. Please hold.
Me: Dum-dum-de-dee-dum-de-dee-dee-dum-de-do.
Tchibo: Right, we can do the refund, but for reasons that are far to complicated to explain to customers, we will have to refund the cost of one stairgate today, and the other in two days' time.
Me: Ok.

And they did! Except that they didn't. They did the first refund, but not the second. And so today I called them again and after explaining everything for the 723rd time, they've arranged the other refund. I'm quietly hopeful it will arrive. FYI I orderd the stairgates in May. Today is the 21st of November.

After saying yesterday that shopping on the internet is great, I should perhaps amend that to say it's great as long as you don't have to send anything back.

If I'd bought the stupid things from the shops none of this would have happened.

Going Postal

A new week, and only 5 of them to go until Christmas Day, according to the man on the radio this morning.

That's a scary thought... we haven't really thought about what to buy the kiddies yet, yet alone anyone else.

One thing that often happens at Christmas in these days of the Internet, is that you can buy things online. This is a Very Good Thing. You avoid the queues, don't have to fight other parents for the last of the Must Have Toy 2006 Edition, don't spend fortunes on car parks and don't get jabbed with other people's overloaded shopping bags every two minutes. You simply sit down in your nice, comfy chair, click a few times with your mouse, type in your credit card number and a few days later the postman rings the bell and cheerily hands you a package.

At least, that's how it's supposed to happen. The first bit is always fine. Ordering is no problem. It's the delivery that seems to be the big deal here.

Recently, our postman has been taking liberties with the term "delivery". In the recent past I've had two items jammed down the side of the bin (one from Amazon and one from a book club who decided to send me something in the vain hope I'd pay for it. Hah! No chance there. I'll be keeping the book, but without an order or proof of delivery they have no chance of getting cash out of me!) Then this week the doorbell rang at about 7am. I looked out of the bedroom window to see a Royal Mail guy getting back into his van and driving off. I went downstairs, opened the door, and found, sitting on the wet, rained-upon driveway, a box of stuff Ele had ordered.

In the not-so-distant past, the postman would ring the bell and then wait for you to answer. If you did, he handed you the parcel. If you didn't, he would drop a card through the door inviting you to go to the sorting office and collect it. This was an inconvenience, but at least your package was safe. Sometimes they might leave it with a neighbour. This is risky ground, as your neighbour might not be, well, neighbourly, but this was fine for us as we have good neighbours.

Now, they seem to think that slinging it somewhere in the vicinity of your house is sufficiently good enough. The problem with leaving things on the driveway is that a) they get rained on, and b) they get nicked. The only reason I saw the ones jammed down the side of the dustbin is because I went to throw something away. If it had happened the next day and I hadn't put the bins out (which I often don't do), then the bin men might have had a nice present when they got them off the drive (which they frequently do, in a most uncouncil-like act of helpfulness).

I think I might have to do the most un-English thing imaginable, and actually complain to the Royal Mail because it isn't really an acceptable situation. I think I'll try and email them later, asking them what they are going to do to ensure my kids Christmas gifts are not stolen or turned into sodden mush.

I would write to them, but I've got no confidence that it'll actually get there.

"High" Security prisoners

It has been reported that prisoners are receiving compensation because they were drug addicts and forced to quit cold turkey, and therefore this is a violation of their human rights.

Somehow, this is supposed to make sense. I'm not sure how this even got entertained.

This is quite crazy. Obviously what the prisoners want is to be given free drugs, because that is what they are asking for here. We can't stop, so you must provide. Unbelievable. They honestly think that they should be given drugs in prison.

Of course, they have never stopped to think that buying, owning and taking these drugs in the first place was illegal and that if they got addicted it was their own stupid fault. Nobody has to take the blame for anything these days.

The whole prisoner's rights thing gets on my nerves. As the old saying goes "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime", but these days prisoners expect a fairly luxurious stay and complain that they are treated unfairly.

Sometimes I'm speechless when I hear things like that. They really don't seem to grasp the fact that they have broken the law and are being punished. And given that most people these days are just given ASBO's or Community Service, it must have been a severe crime to actually land you in prison. Like murder, rape, or not paying your council tax when you are a pensioner with only a tiny state pension to live on.

This country has a crime problem that is getting worse because of soft sentancing and easy prison life. Add to this the lack of police on the streets (apart from the quite useless Community Supoprt Officers who can't even arrest people) and you have a spiralling situation. Rudy Giuliani solved New York's crime problem by putting cops back on the street and a zero-tolerance policy. I don't understand why we don't have someone tough in charge. He's now considering standing for president. I wish him all the best.

The simple way to solve our problem is to double all sentances and to make prison conditions really harsh. Toss out the Human Rights Act for the convicted. Take away all luxuries and all mod cons. Have them in single cells. No TV, no Playstations, no table tennis. Either have then working or in their cells. Books (at least pre-approved literature) should maybe be allowed, as I've not ever heard of anyone becoming a worse person after reading.

The current theme seems to be that prisoners should be taught and educated out of their bad ways. Like David Cameron's "hug-a-hoodie" idea. All you need is love. This is evidently not working, so I say scare them shitless and treat them like dirt whilst they are there and they will not want to come back. I'm not suggesting daily beatings, but then again if you are housing murderers and rapists and so on, who would really care? I bet most would quietly be in favour.

Now I'm not saying this should go for all criminals. Certainly a doubling of sentancing across the board would be fine, but the really hard stuff should be reserved for anyone who commits an unprovked violent crime against another person. They are the lowest of the low. Middle of the road crimes like shoplifting could maybe avoid the beatings, but still be locked away for longer and without TV and so on.

And Pensioners not paying their council tax should be locked up in a five-star hotel with room service for their duration.


PS - Saw a headline on BBC News yesterday: "The average European is overweight". No they're not. The average European is of average weight. Anybody over the average European weight is overweight, and by definition that cannot be the average European. They really need to clarify their headlines a bit more: "The average European is over their ideal weight" might have worked a bit better, but perhaps is not quite so snappy.

Female required

I thought I'd put off the prison rant for another day, as it seems I've been far to uptight recently.

Instead, I'm going to talk about highchairs.

Not a particularly interesting subject, but one I've recently had to deal with. We decided to buy one for Joe, as his attach-to-the-table seat is a bit small now and he's probably well over the weight limit. We've always liked Saffron's one as it's completely plastic and if it gets dirty you just put it out in the rain and it gets clean again. So we set about trying to find one. She got hers from a charity shop, so it wasn't a simple matter.

After a great deal of internet searching, Ele came across a site that had an email address for the company that makes them. We contacted them:

"Dear kind sirs, we have been searching high and low on this here interwebby thing, looking for one of your fine plastic high-chairs to purchase but have not been able to locate one. Could you please point us in the direction of a convenient retailer, who may be furnish us with this furniture?" we said, or words to that effect.

"Argos. £19.99" came the reply, more or less verbatim.

Not sure how we missed that one, really.

So the next day we whenced to Argos and purchased said item. At about 9pm I sat down to build the thing.

This did not fill me with dread. I am a hardy Ikea veteran. I have built wardrobes single-handledly and bookcases by the dozen. Admittedly, I may swear more than is usual and curse the Swedish swine that devised the stupid thing, but generally I finish very quickly. They are all the same anyway; slot that bit in there, put that funny screw thing in and twist it with an Allen key. Or with the correct attachment on the electric screwdriver if you've got any sense.

So, a plastic high-chair did not faze me. Ten minutes, for a man of my talents and experience, I thought. Then I picked up the instructions. I generally like to give them a brief glance before emitting a knowing scoff and casting them aside. This time I didn't for they read roughly as follows:

1 - Before doing Step 1, please do this small bit.
Step 1 - Assemble rest of chair.

Why there had to be a step before Step 1 I don't know. Why this couldn't have been made Step 1 and Step 1 changed to Step 2 is a mystery. And as for Step 2...

Anyway, I seemed to have some trouble building the damn thing. It required five seperate wobbly bits to all be aligned at exactly the same time and then pushed together, without disturbing the bits you'd already put in.

I grunted and swore for several minutes before claiming this to be an impossible task. At this point I gave up and went outside for a cigarette whilst Ele had a go.

Of course, when I got back in she'd done it. I asked her how she had done it.

"Well, you need to be careful and have patience and not be brash with it." she said.

Honestly, I don't know how a man is supposed to build these things. There should be a warning on the box: "Female required for assembly"

Charge 'em up

I was going to write today about how prisoners are receiving compensation for being forced to stop taking drugs, and had even written the blog.

Then I discovered the BBC news article about Red Ken increasing the congestion charging zone price to £25 for high-emissions vehicles from 2009. Sooner, if he can get away with it. So the prisoners can wait until tommorow.

I realise I rambled and ranted only a couple of weeks ago about eco-idiots but they are the one bunch of zealous morons that really really get my goat.

Not only is the charge to increase to £25, but also the discount for living there will be removed if you have a band G car. Currently you get a 90% discount (although, of course, it should be free if you live there. Charging people a tax to go home is outrageous) but this will be wiped out. You will have to pay £25 every day simply to live in your house with your car if it falls into band G.

Now the green line dribbled out by most of these asylum patients is that if you can afford a £60,000 Range Rover or an £80,000 Porsche then £25 per day is small change. I say £6000 per year is a lot in anyone's book. They also miss the point that it doesn't only affect cars bought by millionaires. It also affects family cars and people carriers. I doubt these people looked at the actual figures. I did. Of 1,718 models on the market in May 2005, 497 are in band G producing over 225gm/Km of CO2. This is 29% of all models. Admittedly, lots of these are the likes of Ferraris and Aston Martins, but also include the Renault Espace, the Rover 75 and the Fiat Stilo and many more. Not the minority that they would have you believe. These cars are not bought by rich people. They are bought by ordinary people. Ordinary people cannot afford £6000 per year to drive to their own homes.

Kenny-boy said that these people have chosen to buy a high-polluting vehicle and therefore should be punished. Actually he said "Those who buy them can afford to choose from pretty much the whole of the mainstream car market but have chosen to buy one of the most polluting vehicles. By making these changes to the congestion charging scheme we are encouraging people to take into account the impact of their choice of new car on the environment and the planet." which is the same, really.

He still hasn't grasped the fact that what he does makes no difference to global warming as Britain is basically an tiny inconsequential little place with practically no impact on climate change at all. Actually, he probably has, and just sees it as a way of making more money.

The London Assembley's Lib Dem spokesman had the following to say "Two years ago, we championed using congestion charge bands to hit the hated 'Chelsea tractors." Hated? By "hated", he of course means "popular"and "fastest-growing vehicle market segment."

The LA's Green Party (always useful for a jaw-dropping statement of complete lunacy) said "fantastic news which will mean the end for the Chelsea tractor". Ah, good. It's about time we closed down the last of our car industry. Land Rover may be US-owned these days, but it is based in the UK for its design and production like it always has been. Obviously it would be fantastic news to shut it down and make thousands and thousands of people redundant. I'm not sure how to word it to the families who work there but I'm sure they'll agree.

And do you know how many of these band G cars are actually 4x4's? I alluded to this in my previous tirade, and this time I actually counted again. 111 out of 497 according to the spreadsheet I got from the DVLA (I think it was the DVLA, it was over a year ago). Less than a quarter of band G cars actually are 4x4's - the vehicles specifically targetted by the Greens and the Lib Dems and other dim-witted people.

This fashionable targetting of 4x4 owners has to stop, along with ridiculous envinronmental taxes.

Driving and Drinking

Two points to make today. The first is that another celebrity has been injured during filming in a car at high speed.

This time, it was Ms Dynamite. I'm sure she has a real name but I'm not in-tune enough to know it, unfortunately. I know she's a singer and that I don't like her music much. She was appearing on a programme called The Race, which I didn't really see much of, but basically it involved a few celebrities training to become racing drivers. On the final race of the day, Brian Johnson - Bon Scott's replacement in AC/DC - managed to push her off the track at 100mph. She was then airlifted to hospital. I think it's a good thing, as rock music has triumphed over rap, or hip-hop or R&B or whatever it is that she sings. Even better was the fact that Brian Johnson went on to win the race.

But the thing is, within about 3 seconds of Richard Hammond's dragster coming to an upturned halt, the media and the critics were yelling from their soapboxes that Top Gear should be banned as it is irresponsible. Nobody as yet seems to be saying that about The Race. Top Gear, they say, glorifies speed and dangerous driving (not true). So what about The Race? It's entire purpose was to glorify speed in a competetive way, using novice drivers. I'm not saying Hammond was a pro, but he has certainly proved he was a top notch driver and has had plenty of experience. The real reason, of course, is that lots of people don't like Jeremy Clarkson and want him off air, because he doesn't agree with politicians, or global warming. And, or course, he inevitably turns out to be right with what he says. Top Gear, in it's current incarnation, must have made about fifty shows, probably more, with only one accident. The Race aired about 6 episodes, with two accidents. So which one is safer?

The second point is that it looks like the EU may actually do something good and popular, and banish import duties. I've long thought it daft that you can buy duty-free booze and cigs from abroad and bring them in in unlimited quantities (unlimited here being defined as "for personal use", which essentially means whether the customs officer got laid the night before and if he didn't he'll just take your car). But I've always wondered why we have to go through the hassle of actually going to the other country. Surely this is an unneccessary step? Well know, it seems, the EU agrees and you will be able to buy the aforementioned items from anywhere in the EU, only paying the duty in the country you buy from. This means a carton of 200 cigs could cost about £7 from the lowest bidder, instead of £5 for 20. A huge saving, and one that can be repeated on wine as well. A few clicks on t'Internet and your goods will be winging their way to you.

What I want is to be able to buy my petrol this way as well, but somehow I can't see that happening.

This is all, of course, fantastic. But Gordon Brown will be beside himself. He rakes in a fortune for his coffers on import duty (£4 for each pack of cigs for a start) and will no longer get that money.

So I fear the victory will be short-lived, as Mr Brown will certainly find some other way of stealing our money.

Thank you, Microsoft

Dear Mr Gates,

I'd like to thank you for wasting many hours of my time, trying to install a perfectly legal copy of Windows XP.

You see, my father-in-law's PC is old and decrepit. Being the helpful chap I am, I specified a new barebones PC for him, swapped some components from his old one, backed up his data and set about installing his legally purchased copy of Windows XP onto the new machine.

It is here that I hit a snag. Because I was installing onto a SATA drive I was unable to use the CD supplied by his computer vendor. This CD is essentially a "recovery" CD of the type that wants to boot up and start copying files over to the hard-disk in order to run. When you have a SATA drive, Windows Setup can't see it until you give it a driver floppy. And you can't do this until after the files have been copied. I commend you on this, it is a brilliant bit of circular thinking. I did try putting the old IDE drive in to accomodate this problem, but the install still wouldn't accept the Product Key. This would prove to be a big problem.

So instead I tried to use my own Windows XP CD, in conjunction with his Product Key. Initially this seemed to be working fine. I was able to press F6 and specify additional drivers, meaning I could use the SATA drive. For some reason Setup decided it wouldn't work with the IDE drive plugged in as well (something about it needing to write a boot sector to it but not being able to, with the "helpful" advice to delete a partition from it), so I had to remove this and start again. No matter; a trivial inconvenience. Windows then started to install itself onto the SATA drive and all was going well. Twenty minutes or so passed, and then it thought to ask for the Product Key again. It wouldn't accept it. A bit of thinking made me realise that my XP CD is a retail copy, and his Product Key is an OEM one. Never mind that it is a perfectly legal copy, it wouldn't accept it. Incidentally, how about asking for the Product Key right at the beginning, therefore saving twenty minutes of waiting and pointless file copying?

Realising I was getting nowhere, I threw your EULA to the wind, copied my CD to my laptop hard-disk, modified the SETUPP.INI file to fool it into thinking it was an OEM copy, and with the help of ISOBuster created a new setup CD. I then retired for the night.

The next evening I tried again. It discovered the half-completed installation and I decided to let Setup repair it. This was obviously as mistake as the repair process done by Setup is about as good as the job done by the handyman who tried to fix my leaking shower. However, it did take the Product key, which was encouraging.

I then had to re-format the drive and re-install again with my hacked CD. This worked with the OEM Product Key, and Windows was also activated online with no problems. Windows Genuine Advantage also had no issues with this.

So, evidentally this was a legal copy of Windows. It shouldn't be this hard to install the damn thing. I spent a lot of time Googling (not MSN Searching) for solutions. Many people had the same problem, and none of them seemed to solve it. Most of them resorted to buying a new copy of Windows XP. Crazy when they already have a valid licence, but obviously a good money-spinner for Microsoft.

All in all I wasted about 8 hours due to this. Please let me know where to send the invoice for my time.

Yours sincerely,


Neil D.

Interesting Rates

The Bank of England have increased interest rates again. Great. Apparantly it's because they want to keep inflation in check. Admirable, but misguided in my unfinancially educated opinion.

The problem with increasing interest rates is that it makes the poor poorer and the rich richer. Well, it would if banks actually passed on rate increases to their savers, rather than reserving it for borrowers only.

Ironically one of the indexes used to judge inflation is called RPI, and it includes mortgage payments. Guess which index will be increasing next month, then?

Inflation is being driven by utility bills such as Electricity and Gas rising. Coming up shortly are big increases in university tuition fees and then next year will see council tax rises, too.

Of course inflation is going out of control, that's what you get when you have a government with no concern toward the middle classes. Although out of control is a bad statement, actually. It's about 2.4%. Compare that with Iraq at about 70% or Zimbabwe at about 10000000% and you see it's not too bad.

The problem with rising interest rates is that people don't earn enough to keep up with it. For my part, the past 3 years I've got a 1% pay increase. With inflation running at 2.4% I'm falling further behind every year. Typically my salary increase might just about cover my increased Council Tax. Because where I live might loosely be described as "London" we also have to pay the Ken Livingstone tax, which of course will jump up because the Olympics are going to be held there. I don't care about the Olympics and couldn't give a hoot that they are being held there. Incidentally, they are miles away from me so my area will see no benefit whatsoever.

So with my Council Tax going up every year, gas and electricity prices increasing and my salary not going up to match it, I fail to see how squeezing my last drop of free income (by which I basically mean our food budget) dry is going to help either me or the economy.

So it goes with house prices. I'm being frequently told by the media that the government is planning all sorts of nastiness with Council Tax, to take the value of your home into account. I don't think this will happen because there'll be a coup d'etat if it were to. The point is though that my rising house price is not my fault and isn't a benefit either, really. If my house were to go up in value by 10%, then guess what? The more expensive house I want to maybe buy has done the same. So my, for example, £200k house has gained £20k and the £300k house has gained £30k. So I'm now an extra £10k short. Well I'm glad the value went up then.

What I don't get is how they have gone up so much. I think it's a ploy by Estate Agents to push up their commission. They spout supply and demand as the reason, but it's always been the same. There are no more buyers today than there used to be, really. People may move around more and not stay in the same house for 30 years, but the total number of people and the total number of houses is still about the same. In fact there are more houses, due to John Prescott's plan to concrete over the entire south-east.

So given the ratio of buyers to properties must be about the same, the only reason for prices going up is because Estate Agents make it that way. Why put a house up for £180k when you could put it up for £200k and get more commission? Nobody questions the values; if it's up for sale at £200k then you offer a bit less and that's it. If it was up for sale at £180k you'd have done the same. Then it became a national sport, and still the buyers came. It's levelled off a litle but they are still going up. I bet my next-door neighbours mortgage is a fraction of mine as they've lived there a lot longer and therefore bought it cheaper. My parents mortgage payment was about a tenth of mine. I don't earn ten times what they do, either. A bit more, perhaps, but nothing like that. They bought their house about seventeen years ago for about £40k less than I paid for mine 5 years ago. Their house is about twice the size and currently worth at least double the price of mine.

I don't care how much my house is worth. What I care about is how much my mortgage payments are and how much my council tax is. Month-to-month finances concern me. My house price in twenty years does not.

Gee Whiz

The London Congestion Charging Zone is a hot topic of conversation in the office at the moment, particularly the fact that it is being extended westwards to encompass Westminster, Kensington, Chelsea, Notting Hill and so on.

I want to state a few things about the zone. The first fact is that it was introduced to cut congestion. Hence the name, obviously. Initially it did this, although traffic volumes have crept back up again. Because of this, and because of the passing environmentalism bandwagon, Ken Livingstone has now decided that the CCZ is now actually to be all about emissions. Henceforth, it will be a low emission zone, handily bypassing the fact that it hasn't really cut congestion at all.

To meet this new, fashionable end, it has been mooted to charge even more for "Chelsea tractors" His words, naturally. The reasoning (if it can be called that) is that they emit more emissions. Obviously he hasn't looked at the actual figures as I once did, which revealed that the top 50 or so polluting cars are not 4x4s, but actually sports cars. Of course these weren't mentioned, as it's not fashionable to do so. And also ignores the fact that many family cars will be also hit harder. And further ignores the fact that if two or more people share the car, the total emissions are much lower than they would have been if they travelled separately, but no allowance is made for that.

The whole thing reeks of double standards, but the worst bit is this: The G-Wiz electric car will be exempt from paying the charge. It will also get free parking in some places and free recharging of its batteries. The reason? Because it is electric and therefore emission-free.

PARDON? EMISSION FREE? Er, so how does it recharge then? That's right, with electricity. And how is that electricity generated? Oh that's right, from power stations. And they do what? Oh yes, emit CO2. Independent research has shown that the creation of the amount of electricity needed to fully charge one of these "emission-free" vehicles is actually more than put out by a Ford Focus when compared per kilometer, which is the only proper way to compare.

And lets follow this through to the logical conclusion. Say everybody falls for the propaganda about electric cars being emission free and buys one. Then nobody is going to pay a congestion charge. So what then? The obvious thing would be for TFL to announce that their task is complete and to shut up shop.

But I rather suspect they'd find something else to charge us for instead.

Braveheart would cry in shame

Since man first gained a higher level of consciousness than his ape cousins, he has stood in fields of green, gazed up at the stars and pondered the unanswerable questions. What is the meaning of life? How did we get here? Is there a God? To which, of course, the answers are 42, Evolution, No. Man was much more stupid back then.

But now there is another unanswerable question. One that academics, scientists, and drunks will be discussing for years to come: How the hell are the McDonald Brothers still in the X-Factor?

For those of you who don't watch the X-Factor, you may wish to stop reading now because the rest of this blog will mean nothing to you.

Still here? Ok, then. Just in case you don't watch the X-Factor but decided to carry on reading then I shall briefly explain. The X-Factor is a "talent" show, where the definition of "talent" is held in very loose regard. Basically, a group of singers and, er, groups, all try and win a recording contract under the watchful eyes of Louis "I discovered Westlife" Walsh, Sharon "I'm married to Ozzy Osborne and therefore famous" Osborne, and Simon "I've got more money than anyone so I don't care what you think" Cowell.

The McDonald Brothers are, frankly, the worst contestants there have ever been on any show, ever, in the history of the universe. They stand there, immobile, one usually playing a guitar very badly, and sing with quite useless voices. This week the guitar-playing one attempted a guitar solo. It was rubbish. Simon Cowell commented on it saying the same thing. Louis Walsh (their "mentor") shot back asking what did he know about guitars? Simon knew nothing. I at least know a fair bit, having played one for ten years or so. I know I'm not that good. I always stuck to rhythm when I played in a band because I know I suck at solos. Therefore I would not try and do one on live national TV in front of millions of people. Not so Ronald McDonald (as I presume his full name is). To paraphrase (or maybe even quote, I don't know) Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons: Worst. Solo. Ever.

The only thing I can think of that is keeping them in is that they are Scottish and therefore all the Scots are voting for them out of national pride. But why? If it's national pride you are concerned with, then getting this embarrassing representation of your country off of the screens would be the best thing to do. People will start to associate the McDonald Brothers (surely named because that is where they'll be working once they finally get booted off) with Scotland and therefore think Scotland is rubbish as well. Of course this is far from the truth. Edinburgh is one of my favourite cities.

Scotland invented the television, now they are responsible for the worst thing on it. Some kind of irony there, I think.

PS - Ben to win. He is the only one who is actually very good indeed.

Post-Birthday

Yesterday was great.

Joe was one year old and we filled the lounge with balloons and he loved them probably even more than the presents and then Chris, Saff & Anise came over and he had more presents and then he had a nap and then me and Ele took him to the indoor ballpark playground place to play and it was really fun and then we picked up Jess from school and went home and he opened more presents and then Chris, Saff & Anise came back and he played some more and he's walking everywhere now and then he had a bath and went to bed.

Then we had pizza for dinner. The staff at Domino's now know me by name so I think we're buying too much pizza. My waistline also confirms this, along with my bank balance (or unbalance, rather).

Tommorow is his birthday party. Not so many peope are coming as we first thought, which is actually a good thing.

Happy Birthday!

Reading back over the past few entries it seems I've done a lot of moaning.

So today's blog will be (almost) moan free. Then it'll get a little mushy.

I have to start by saying that I had to jump-start the car again this morning before taking it to the garage to be fixed again. When I got there I mentioned the steering lock doesn't work and could they check it. The man on reception wrote "check stearing lock" on the form. When a garage can't even spell steering correctly, you kind of lose all confidence that they can fix the car.

Then I got to work and got into the lift with two others. The lift decided that opening the doors at floors 3 and 4 was too much trouble, so it didn't. We were all quietly hopeful they would open on floor 5 but alas, they didn't. Fortunately one of the people I was in the lift with was one of the buildings maintenance guys and he radioed for assistance and we weren't stuck long.

Our house survived halloween without incident. We decided on a "turn off the lights and ignore the door-bell" policy, which worked quite well.

Now the mushy bit. Tommorow is the first birthday of my first-born! Joe will be one year old and I can't believe that it's come around so fast. I've taken tommorow off work to spend his birthday with him. Unfortunately the weather looks awfully cold for tommorow, despite the best efforts of the government to tell us that the world is inexorably warming up, so we'll have to do something indoorsy. I suppose I'll have to turn on all my household appliances and leave my car running 24/7 so that next year it might be a bit warmer.

He can now pretty much walk when he can be bothered, makes a kind of smacking yum-yum noise when he sees something he wants to eat (i.e. everything), gives kisses, can occasionaly force out a mama or dada, and is getting very good at saying duck. He also has just about doubled in height over the last year. If he keeps this rate of growth up he'll be about 1000 feet tall by his tenth birthday and looking forward to a career cleaning windows on high-rise office buildings.

He's also the cutest boy the world has ever seen. You may think me somewhat biased, but he really has got a really cute grin on him, and he is constantly using it. We frequently get people stopping us in the street because Joe has been beaming at them.

He really is the best thing ever and I pity those who choose not to have children. Obviously that's your own lifestyle choice but you really don't know what you are missing out on.

You simply don't know the meaning of love until you have a child of your own.