Nej's Natterings

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Ignorance is bliss

We've all scoffed at the ignorant teenager, not knowing a fact that we take for granted that everyone should know.

He didn't know who wrote Lord Of The Rings!
He didn't know who painted the Mona Lisa!
He didn't get my Romeo & Juliet reference!
He didn't know the name of the Chancellor!

But what I find odd, is that these self-same people will happily confess to a Jade Goody level of ignorance when it comes to certain things, and will even boast about it.

I'm talking, of course, about technology.

I've met countless intelligent people, who are proud of the fact that they cannot fully operate their mobile phone, are clueless about their computer, have never heard of MP3 and wouldn't know their Blu-Ray from an X-Ray. Bluetooth? That's the stuff you get from the dentist to show you where you need to brush more, isn't it? Gigabyte, megabyte, what's the difference? The guy at PC World said it was good, so I bought it.

Parent: "I can't even set the Sky+ box, have to get my son to do it for me! He has his uses, although he's useless at school. When I was his age I could do long division in my head! Stupid boy..."
Son: "My dad is useless, he can't even set the Sky+ box! He keeps going on about how I can't do long division in my head. Like that's important - we have calculators now! Stupid old man..."

Each person is convinced the other is stupid, and this can't be good for the relationship here, because neither probably is stupid, just stubborn. The child cannot be bothered with long division, because he can't see the point. The parent can't be bothered with the Sky+, because he assumes it's difficult and that he is too old, so doesn't try. Of course, the parent would undoubtedly have no problem operating the Sky+ if he put his mind to it, but he doesn't. The child would have no problem with long division if put his mind to it, but he doesn't.

It's a sign of changing times. Mental arithmitic is no longer as important as it once was - unless you want to appear on Countdown - because we have computers and calculators. But does this mean we should stop learning how to do it? No, we shouldn't.

And should we stop learning how to operate new things as we get older and be proud of this fact? No, we shouldn't.

Learning things, old and new, is what makes us what we are.



For non-UK readers, of which there are quite a few:
Sky+ is a hard-disk based satellite TV recorder.
Countdown is a long-running TV show where contestants need to have good word and numeracy skills.
Jade Goody is a foul-mouthed, fat, ugly, stupid woman who became famous after appearing on Big Brother.


Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Speedy Operations

Apparantly, NHS patients should pay for smaller operations themselves, to save the NHS from having to pay from them.

Erm, don't we pay for them already? Through the little things called Tax and National Insurance?

Yup, thought so. So why do we have to pay for them twice? Doesn't make sense to me.

And in more stupidity, the usual zealots are lambasting Jeremy Clarkson, after he said "Remember - speed kills" at the end of the recently returned Top Gear, as an obvious snide remark, as Richard Hammond was back on the show after crashing a jet car at 280mph and suffering temporary brain damage, but returning to full health in a remarkable recovery.

The anti-speed organisation Brake, who won't be satisifed until there is a man with a flag walking in front of every car again, came up with their statistic that as far as they are concerned proves them right:

"Speed was shown to be a factor in nearly one third of fatal accidents"

Erm, self-defeating argument anyone? That just proves that speed was nothing to do with over two-thirds, i.e. the vast majority, of fatal accidents.

I'm not saying we should all drive at 70mph past the school gates at 3pm, but I am saying that it is inappropriate speed that kills, not speed in general. And if you are really picky, you can argue that it's not the speed that kills, it's the stopping really really really quickly that does it, as you slam into a brick wall.

Anyway, driving at, say, 90mph on the motorway is not usually dangerous. If it is pelting down with rain, then it is. If it is foggy, then it is. In normal conditions, it is not. A truck doing 55mph who swerves out suddenly into the middle lane to overtake another truck doing 54mph is dangerous. But they aren't speeding, so it's Ok.

Anyway, Hammond's accident showed that speed can be dangerous. Moreover, it showed them doing this on a runway, not on the M1. Therefore it wasnt' dangerous to others.

If you are doing 90mph on the M1, you are more likely to be concentrating harder. You are scanning the road ahead and far more aware of other cars around you. Whenever I drive this fast I reckon I am far safer than if I'm bumbling along at 60, drumming along to music and lost in whatever train of thought I'm following at that moment.

Doing 75mph on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend on a country lane in the dark is dangerous. Doing 45mph on a straight 30mph road at 3am is not.

Speed on the whole isn't bad. It's inappropiate speed that kills. Some people need to see the difference.

Welcome back, Top Gear.

Monday, January 29, 2007

The state of Estate Agents

Apologies for lack of new material... I spent the latter half of last week off sick.

Whilst I was off, we had our house valued by three different estate agents, as we were thinking of selling.

What was interesting was the different ways that each approached the task and how each one viewed our house.

The first man came, and it was immediately apparant that he knew the area well. He had sold houses on this street before and was glad we were on the side of the road that we are on, as we have a nice view over the parkland behind us. He was enthusiastic about the property - commenting on each room - and felt that our main points were the view and our bathroom. His agency was also the most expensive, at 1.6% plus VAT. As they are a large national chain, there isn't much room for negotiation on that, although I'm sure they'd not throw away business should I insist. His valuation was to market it for £285k, and to accept £280k.

The second man was from an agent around the corner. They normally deal with houses on the
council estate and as such I wouldn't use them, but they are local so I thought they'd be worth a shot. This man was about 12 years old and didn't say a word whilst looking around the place. He didn't even comment on our view. When he finished, he reckoned to market at a whopping £310k and to accept not less than £300k. I felt this was a bit over-priced, but I'm sure he's still learning. Their price to sell was 1% + VAT.

The third man wasn't a man at all, but actually a woman. She also didn't shut up for the entire time she was in our house. She was from the agency that sold us the house so I thought I'd get them round. She insulted our lounge so I didn't like her ("ooh, it's very rustic isn't it. People like smooth walls and halogen spotlights these days, you know."). Excuse me, but I like it! She did notice our view but wasn't as enraptured as the first man. She came in with a valuation the same as the first guy, at £280-£285k. Their fees are the cheapest by far, at a fixed rate of £2000 including the VAT, which is about half the price of the others.

I don't think we're going to sell, but it was interesting to have the valuations done. Overall, on a personal level, I much preferred the first guy, even though they are more expensive. If we decide to actually go ahead then I'll get more valuations done.

But I think finding the ideal estate agent is a quest that may never be fulfilled.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Hilarious

In the ultimate show of environmental madness, a crazy lady decided that, rather than flying to Australia to attend a wedding, she would seek an alternative route, to save the C02 emissions. So she drove and trained from the UK, across to mainland Europe, up to the trans-Siberia railway, then down through China and kept going until Singapore, where she caught a boat to Darwin.

The plane journey would have cost £450. Instead, she spend about £2000.
It would have taken one day. Instead, it took 51 days. 51!!

And how much C02 did she save? Not even 50%!

She spent 4 times as much money, took 50 times as long, and didn't even halve her C02 output. Now if this was a holiday by itself, fine. But this was simply the means to the end. Which makes it rather daft.

Naturally, she is the kind of eco-crackpot that doesn't have a proper job and can afford to take months out of her busy life. Apparantly she works part-time in an eco-awareness place or something and lives in a caravan in Wales. I wouldn't be suprised if she has a CND tattoo, grows hemp and has dreadlocks.

Obviously, this is not quite suitable for most people, but you know what? She might be onto something.

My employer has a whole green initiative going on. I think I'll suggest that this mode of transport be considered next time I have to go abroad. A weeks' trip might become a months' holiday!


But the funniest thing is..... she now has to get back.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Laughing policeman

Today I read something that made me laugh. A female Muslim newly-recruited police officer refused to shake the hand of the senior officer at the passing-out parade, because it is against Islam for her to touch another man.

Ooookay, so how exactly does this officer intend on arresting people?

"Please put these handcuffs on yourself and get in the back of the police car, there's a good chap" doesn't quite have the same ring as twisting an arm up a perpetrators back and growling "You're nicked, sunshine", does it?

I mean, we've already got Community Police Officers who can't actually arrest anyone, and now we have actual police officers (ok, one actual police officer) that refuses to do the same thing.

She should be fired immediately. Obviously the police force don't discriminate on grounds of religion - and neither should anyone - but she has obtained the job by deception, as she must have known from the start that she would have been incapable of doing the job. But they won't, because you can't argue with religion. That might be discriminatory.

Obviously the ability to actually do a job will soon no longer be a hindrance to getting it. I have no experience as a dentist, but they seem to earn lots of money, so I'll apply for one, put down that I'm perfectly capable of doing it, and then watch the money roll in. If they expect me to do any dentistry I'll just have to say that I've got a phobia of teeth and that they can't possibly make me do it. They wouldn't dare fire me, because I've got a phobia. Similar situation.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to find a religion that stops me from using computer keyboards. That way I can get paid to sit at my desk and not do anything because, you know, it's against my religion.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Loadsamoney!

People assume, because I work in IT, that I'm paid lots of money.

Unfortunately this isn't the case. I do, however, earn a fair salary, probably more than other people I know who don't work in IT. There is therefore a glimmer of truth in the statement, but not as much as most might think.

There is, though, a reason for this. Writing software is hard. Let me give you an example; A little while back, my boss asked me to make a change to our website to add a tick-box that, when ticked, would show the last ten positions for a vehicle on the map, rather than just the most recent one.

Sounds simple? A tick-box! But it isn't, really.

It actually involved knowing SQL, HTML, ColdFusion, CFScript and Javascript. 5 Different languages to accomplish one tick-box.

It involved changes to the code of 14 different web-pages, 6 SQL Stored Procedures, the creation of a new database table, a new Trigger and another new Stored Procedure. Plus the creation of 3 new icons.

It required being able to hunt through the Fusebox methodology to track down what actually does happen when you click on something.

It also needed the creation of a test app in Visual Basic to test things that our mapping engine has not been asked to do before (easier to figure things out in VB than on a web page), like drawing polylines.

It needs you to hold several trains of logical thought in your head at the same time, all at different levels of abstraction. You need to know what page is calling what page, what bit of Javascript is being done at the client-end, what the server is doing, and what the database is doing. You need to hold it all in your head at the same time and follow them along mentally.

Not everybody can do this. I'm not calling myself superior or anything, it's just that most people don't have the bit of the brain that can cope with this. Or, more likely, they probably do but are too smart to try, sparing their minds the twisting that programmers put theirs through daily.

Currently, I'm trying to track down bugs that have arisen from a test rollout of a new version of Coldfusion. Things that used to work, now don't. And that's even harder, especially on web apps, because there's practically no debugging. What I'd give for the ability to set breakpoints and watches. The problem would be solved in a fraction of the time. Especially as it's hard enough just to find what web-page actually doesn't work (much, much harder than you might think).

Sometimes I think life would be much easier if I was a train driver or something, and my brain wouldn't feel like it's the wrong way round in my head.

Now if you'll excuse me, the wind is blowing at about 5000mph and I want to go and look out of the window.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

The problem with Vista

Within 2 weeks, Microsoft's latest and greatest operating system, Vista, will be with us.

It requires a more powerful PC than XP, but anybody who complains about that is just stupid. Of course it does. And guess what? Hardware is now vastly more powerful (and cheaper) than when XP was launched. Either buy a new PC or don't buy Vista. Simple.

Anyway, I was looking forward to the upgrade because it does look jolly nice (assuming my graphics card can cope with the new bits). But then I came across a big problem.

The price.

It costs £149 for the upgrade version. £149! You can buy an OEM install disk for half of this, but then you can't upgrade and have to install from scratch. IT purists (i.e. those who call themselves consultants, but really just fix PC's for their Auntie Nora) will say "No! You can't upgrade and operating system! You have to install from scratch!". To which I say "It's taken me bloody ages to get all the software installed on my PC and I'd rather take a chance on it still being there and working after the upgrade than having to install it all again".

Unless I can persuade Ele to let me buy a new PC, but I doubt I can even pursuade her to buy Vista, at that crazy price tag.

And here is why the price tag is crazy: The XP upgrade cost £79 or so. And it was needed. ME was so bad, that you just had to get XP. And at £79 it was worth it.

But, XP is still good enough. ME was so bad that it crashed frequently. The only thing that worked well was the System Restore function, which was handy, because you had to use it all the time.

XP has none of these problems. It works. It doesn't crash. The security isn't too much of an issue. I've got Norton, I've got a hardware firewall, my wi-fi is encrypted.

So where the upgrade to XP was justified and neccessary in terms of actually being able to use the computer, the upgrade to Vista is, frankly, eye candy only. And £149 is a lot to ask for that.

That will be Microsoft's biggest problem. Their previous product was so good that there is no point in upgrading. And I think (although I am prepared to be proved wrong) that the new look and feel will be ported to XP anyway, thus lessening the reasoning behind the Vista upgrade.

Conspiracy theorists - start wondering about why XP's security has been pondered over the last year more than ever before.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

More company daftness

One other thing I forgot to mention from yesterday's boring presentation was that we are owed something in the region of £750k.

In order to get our hands on this, we need to hire two experienced debt collectors to chase up these payments.

But the parent company won't allow it. They say we are not allowed to increase our headcount (beyond the sales team, at least), and therefore won't authorise the hiring of two people. These people would be temporary staff anyway, and - crucially - would pay for themselves many times over.

Spending, say £70k a year on a couple of staff is not a problem if they are going to bring in £500k in otherwise lost money.

So why not allow it? It makes no sense. The only thing I can remotely think of is that parent company is normally used to dealing with goverments who just pay their invoices, rather than lots of small-medium size companies who often don't. Either that, or it's because they're French and jealous that we turned them down...

I'm thinking that the time is become more and more ripe for a move away.

Does anybody need a talented(?) SQL developer, with plenty of VB experience, some Coldfusion and some Java? Also with plenty of experience in GPS and telematics systems, based in the Surrey area?

If you do - give me a shout...

Monday, January 15, 2007

Waffle, waffle, yawn

I've just sat through a very boring presentation.

As it concerns the activities of our parent company and how much they are growing etc, it was of no interest, as part of their growth seems to be getting rid of us.

Not only that, it was full of typical corporate nonsense. "We aim to become a global leader in system integration and security by leveraging new synergies between our business divisions". I just made that up, but we had three different presentations by three different senior (rank, rather than age) people each of which waffled crap like what I just wrote.

They could've summed up the whole thing thus: "We want to sell more".

I think I actually missed off about 7 layers of Vice-Presidents and Senior-Vice Presidents in my layers of management entry last week as well, judging by the organisational charts I've just seen.

But - and this is the important bit - we got a free lunch out of it. So it was worth it.


Even better is the news that I got a Paypal refund regarding my non-existant camera. It actually happened only a couple of hours after filing the dispute, which was a big relief. A lot of others have put in claims against that same seller, too, who now has a long list of negative feedback and has been de-registered from Ebay.

So I bought the camera from Jessops instead. They did a buy-now-pay-2008 deal, which I took. If somebody wants to lend me money for free for a year then I'm happy to let them do so. I'll just hang onto my money until then, thank you very much.

They tried to sell me a memory card, but the man got a bit offended when I laughed at him, I think. They seem to think that a 2GB 133x CF card should sell for £129.99. Amazon seem to think it should cost £39.95. Guess who I agree with?

Anyway, it's snazzy and takes great pictures, although Ele is insisting that if I'm buying an expensive camera (a Canon EOS 400d, by the way) that I should learn to use it properly. She has got a good point so I've also ordered a book specifically on photography with digital SLRs. She wasn't so keen on my observation that if I get really into it then I'll want to buy more lenses, and so on. But, that'll be a lesson learnt for her.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Not happy

Today finds me in a bad mood.

Yesterday was good, all in all. It was Ele's 30th birthday so I took the day off work. She had some nice things (I bought her a nice watch. One handy thing about a January birthday is that presents can be bought in the post-Christmas sales!). In the evening we had her parents and a friend over for a nice Indian meal which was delicious. Later on, my parents came over, too.

It was only spoiled (for me, not for her) by two things:

1 - A camera I "bought" from Ebay looks to have been a scam and a hijacked account.
2 - The stupid Bank Of England decided that I obviously had far too much money, so they'd put the interest rates up. Apparantly the ability to buy food is not that high a requirement.

So now I'm having to file a dispute claim with Paypal for the damn camera (plus I'll have to buy the camera anyway, at a higher cost than the Ebay one). I'm hoping I'll get my money back from that - if I don't then I'll be extra-extra pissed off, because I'll have basically bought the damn thing twice and I could only barely afford it the once.

And now I have even less money because the Bank Of England reckoned that salary increases for the new year were more than expected? What bloody salary increase? I haven't had one and I'm unlikely to, either. It just adds up to more money out of our food budget.

How does this help people get out of debt? We now have pretty much no choice but to do at least part of our monthly food shop on a credit card. How is this good? It's not like we buy top of the line foods. We watch what we buy very carefully and only the essentials make it onto the list.

Happy birthday, honey.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Bad company

I work for a stupid company.

Over the past few years they've made many, many people redundant. I myself was up for redundancy at one point, but was spared at literally the last minute (although I made them give me a pay rise before I agreed to stay).

The problem is, the company doesn't make any money. Historically, this hasn't been a problem because we have a huge (and I mean huge) parent company who has billions of pounds lying around and they were happy to give quite a lot of them to us.

Now, however, the parent company has had enough and has decided we are not a core asset, nor operating in the ideal fields that they would like (i.e. we don't build missiles, planes, warships, security systems and so on all with multi-billion pound contracts).

The fact that we lost about 5 million Euros last year doesn't help (this year, well, last year technically, was a big improvement and we only lost 1 million). But I can't help thinking that without so many layers of management, we might fare better.

Our local "boss" who is in charge of us in the UK has to report to another boss based in France, who is in charge of the UK, French and South African operations. He in turn reports to another boss who is the head of this sub-division. That person reports to another boss who is the head of the division. And that one reports to another one who is the head of the "business line". That one, finally, reports to the CEO.

A lot of layers there! I'm sure I missed a couple, too. Plus there is a general corporate "UK-Head" appearing in the mess somewhere along the line. The upshot of it all is that we can't decide anything for ourselves. No bold, daring moves can be made. Every little idea has to be scrutinised and go up the chain.

But even the local boss can mess things up. We have a desperate shortage of sales people, and are trying to get more. One applicant is somebody who used to work here. He was a very good sales guy. He also knows the product and the industry very well. Recently he'd been working on his own as a consultant, and had a big list of prospects that he was going to bring with him.

Perfect! You might cry. Only the company told him that because these prospects fell outside of his geographical area, he would lose them and the commission. Quite rightly, he told them to stick their offer and has carried on by himself. They threw away a very good sales person, and a list of qualified prospects because they wouldn't let him keep those customers. Crazy. So now we have no sales guy, and no new customers. That turned out well, then.

So we're all sitting waiting to know who's going to buy us, and if we'll all have a job when they do.

Can you feel the motivation in the air? Can ya?

No. You can't.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Ikeaaargh!

I have a love/hate relationship with Ikea.

On one hand it offers some genuinely cheap stuff, and on the other hand some stuff seems to be very expensive for what it is. Some stuff seems to be high quality, and others a bit rubbish (I think the two points may go hand-in-hand here).

Still, over the years I've bought lots of things at Ikea, and managed to build them all without too much fuss, swearing, or instigation of divorce proceedings.

They have the best restaurant in the world, too. You can buy breakfast for 95p. 95p! It may not be the best food, but you get eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, beans and a hash-brown. I tend to add a bread roll, some orange juice and a limitless cup of coffee, but the total for two people is still only about a fiver.

Then, there are the meatballs. These are simply the best things you can eat in the entire world. Joe tried them at the weekend when we went and kept asking for more, so he's obviously a chip off the old block.

There is a great choice of goods on sale, and they do provide handy shortcuts so you can skip large sections. The "Marketplace" section is also very handy for buying things you never knew you needed until you saw them.

So you wander through the store, eventually deciding, as we did, that we would buy a particular new wardrobe for Jess. It was a good price, the right size and had all the relevant features. So we jotted down the aisle number and location, went to the aforementioned brilliant restaurant, where Joe had great fun making a mess of the place, and then went to collect the wardrobe.

This is where the whole hate part of the relationship comes in; they didn't have any. There is nothing more demoralising than walking around a store for two hours, finding the perfect thing to buy, but then discovering there are none left, and now you are so far away from the actual shop floor that you can't face going back again. It's like getting down from the top of Everest only to realise you've left your keys and wallet at the top. You'll just have to make do without them.

Some kind of stock-checking thing like Argos have would be good. Although by the time you get down there they'd probably all be gone because it takes so bloody long.


Finally, in recognition of the fact that this blog is getting far too serious of late, I'll share a little conversation between Jess (who is 10), and Ele and myself that happened a couple of weeks ago.

Jess: Oh Dad, you found my bracelet!
Me: No problem, now put it somewhere safe.
Jess: I'll wear it, it's to show I'm a virgin.
Ele & Me: Er, well, quite, um, I should hope so!
Jess: Oh wait, I mean Virgo. I always get those two mixed up.

Friday, January 05, 2007

Crash, bang, codswallop - part II

So, the coach crash...

Obviously tragic, but what has astounded me is what people have been saying - namely several of the survivors: "The bus was doing at least 80mph when it turned over".

Really? I doubt it. Can you honestly judge the speed that accurately - in the dark - with no speedometer to look at? Even speedometers are hopeless. Mine reads 80mph when the GPS (far more accurate) reads 73mph. They always over-read. I'd be really interested to put people in a car on a deserted motorway and get them to tell me what speed they think I'm doing. I bet it's nearly always wrong. Psychologically, if I drove in the outside lane at 60, they'd probably say I was doing 80. If I drove in the inside lane at 80, they'd probably say I was doing 60 because we're conditioned to think you go faster in the outside lane. I don't know what lane the coach was in - I suspect the inner lane given the slip road, actually - but you see the point. You just can't tell.

Anyway, the coach was definately not doing 80mph. It was limited to 62mph to start with. It was on or near a slip-road, and wouldn't have had the time to build up the speed. I guess the tacho will show the truth but I'd be amazed if it was doing 80. When was the last time a coach tried to overtake you on the motorway? Exactly.

The point I'm making is that people have automatically assumed the driver was speeding. And speed is A Bad Thing. We know this because we are told this. Despite the official figures that showed that speed was only a factor in 25% of road deaths last year.

The driver may have been at fault - that's for the police or a jury to decide - but let's not blame it on speed without proof, please.

And let's not sensationalise it with ridiculous claims.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

My pips are squeaking

Ok, enough already. My pips are squeaking and I can't take any more tax:

Tax on what we earn (twice, if you include national insurance)
Tax on waste collection (Council Tax - I can't see what else it does)
Tax on what we spend (VAT)
Tax everytime we get in our car (Road Tax + Fuel Duty + Tolls + Congestion Charges)
Tax on alchohol
Tax on cigarettes
Tax on plane travel
Tax on moving house (Stamp Duty)
Tax on insurance (IPT)
Tax on interest earned
Tax on things we sell (Capital Gains Tax)
and so on...

And then, to cap it off, they tax you when you die as well.

I mean, come on! This is quite ridiculous. Tax used to be a thing that was introduced occasionally to pay for some war or other when the reigning monarch couldn't quite afford it themselves and King Merde decided to invade across the channel.

Now everything we do is taxed. Every penny we earn is taxed. Moving house? Cough up thousands of pounds. Why? I really really don't understand why we should pay to move house. Capital Gains Tax? If I buy something - at my own risk - and sell it on at a profit with my own canniness, I have to pay Gordon Brown. What has he done to deserve it? Dare to die? Well, your children had better sell the family home you left them in the will because the government for some reason thinks it's entitled to 40% of everything you strived for during your life.

If I manage to earn £1million, at least £400,000 of that would go straight to the treasury. Then if I died the next day and left it to my kids, 40% of the remaining £600,000 (i.e. £240,000) would goto Mr Brown, leaving only £360,000 out of the initial million. The government would have got it's hands on £640,000 for no good reason whatsoever. How is that reasonable?

If I walk up to you in the street and demand you give me all your money, or else I'm going to kidnap you, I'd goto prison. Yet the goverment does exactly this all of the time. Pay up, or we'll send you to prison.

I appreciate that some tax does need to be paid. Keeping roads running well, the NHS fully-staffed and efficient, and a good education system. But we don't actually have any of these things anyway, so where the bloody hell is the money going? I'll tell you. It goes here:

Wars we shouldn't be fighting.
Payments to the EU that we shouldn't belong to.
Benefits to work-shy lazy scroungers who don't deserve them.
Quangos that needn't exist.
MP's salarys and benefits that do not need to be so lavish.
Useless computer systems that are over specified with useless contracts.
Subsidies to poorly run rail networks that should never have been privatised.
Thousands of unnecessary civil servants.

Trim out all this crap (and more), re-nationalise the railways and cut our tax bill by 50%.

Then we'd see a happy nation.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Crash, bang, codswallop

I saw on the news last night that apparantly young drivers are more likely to crash their cars!

My God! I never once thought that the younger drivers' lack of experience would actually make them more likely to crash their cars! Incredible! Something must be done! Thank goodness somebody did that research - I'd have never realised that on my own.

And something has been put forward to solve the situation. A suggestion so cunning that it must've taken a team of highly paid consultants weeks to come up with: Make the driving test harder. Bravo.

Sounds good, right? But it's wrong. Completely and utterly.

The driving test already IS hard. I took it over ten years ago, and back then if you so much as clipped the kerb whilst parking, you failed. Since then it's become tougher with the theory test getting harder, hazard perception tests and all sorts. More and more people need more than one attempt to pass it. Not me, of course, but then I'm a naturally gifted driver. Ahem. Let's just not mention the car I wrote off aged 19...

So, if the test is hard enough already, what do we do? Well, my thought is a "pilot"-style system. When you learn to fly a plane, you have to complete so many hours in the air before you are awarded a licence. And in a plane there isn't even anything to hit. So why not do the same in a car as well? The test must still be passed, but until you have clocked up 100 hours or something in the learner car you can't have a licence.

In the US, they can often start to drive younger. 15 or 16 is quite common, I believe (if movies haven't lied to me, at any rate). This does actually make sense. At 15, most young men aren't the raging balls of testosterone that they become at 18. Therefore they can learn to drive and actually get some experience behind the wheel before they feel the urge to fit bored out coffee tins as exhaust pipes to impress the laydeez.

Limiting the type of car they can drive is pointless, as a 1 litre car will still do 80mph if you want it to. Limiting the times they can drive is also not workable, as some will need to drive at night. Fitting speed limiters is useless because they will bypass them.

I have two further suggestions. Make all new drivers sit in a car that crashes. They can have a seatbelt on, but no helmet or airbags. Crash that car at 20mph into a wall. They'll not have any major injuries but it'd scare the crap out of them. Of course that wouldn't get past health and safety.

So the only other option is - given that it only seems to affect boys - is to give all newly qualified men a dose of estrogen.


PS - There is a lot of furore about Microsoft giving away free laptops with Windows Vista to bloggers, on the hope that they'll write favourably about Vista. Obviously I'm outraged. I've got a blog and didn't get one. So let the record show that should Microsoft want to send me a free laptop, then I am willing to accept.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

I'm back!

Well a fantastic Christmas was had. If you care about what we got up to, it can be read about here.

So what has happened in the world? Saddam was hung, which is a good thing. Hopefully we'll soon see George W Bush suffer the same fate for the death of 3,000 American soldiers and God knows how many Iraqis. Somehow doubt it'll happen...

Anyway, what I was going to write about was my Parking Rage. Well, more of a Parking Rate Rage. Due to various vouchers that were received as presents, we took a trip to Sutton to look in the sales (where you get to see the expensive presents you bought the week before at half the price). We were there for about 4 and a half hours in total. When we left, I stuck the car-park ticket in the machine, where it informed me that it expected payment to the sum of £5.50 before it was going to give it back again.

£5.50! I tried to reason with it, but it stuck to it's guns and demanded the full amount. There was a helpful laminated sheet stuck to the wall besides the Parking Tax Machine, which helpfully informed me that prices were going up. I can't remember what it used to be, but it wasn't this much. Something in the region of £3, I think. I remember Sundays used to be 50p but now they are a pound. I don't see how a doubling of prices is justified.

The problem now is that I am blatantly not going to cough up £5.50 to park my car for four hours, so what do I do? I can get a bus, shout the people with beards. Yes, and the bus stop is but a 30 second walk from my house where three different buses could convey me there. But, it costs more. £1.50 each there and then the same back will make it cost £6. Plus you can't load it up with shopping, nor nip back to the bus to deposit a heavy item that you don't want to carry around. Plus if it's raining then the bus driver will leave you getting soaked rather than letting a second pushchair on. Plus it's full of teenagers mugging people. People without cars will tell me I can get an Oyster card and pay 80p per trip, but I refuse to do this on principle. Firstly, I very very rarely use public transport, so the money I put onto the card is wasted as it does not earn interest for me. Secondly, you have to pay to get one in the first place, so what you are doing in a very real sense is paying Ken Livingstone for the privilege of lending him money interest-free. No thanks.

The other option is to walk. We do this quite a lot when the weather is more pleasant. But when it's cold and an 80mph wind is blowing, I'd rather not, thank you all the same.

So that leaves the hidden last option, which is to not go at all. We'll save money on parking, save money on buying things, and help to spoil the economy of Sutton because the stupid, selfish council wants to rip us off even more now that it's unfashionable to raise council tax by double-digit percentages. Of course I could go on Sundays only, but so will everyone else because they'll also want to avoid the huge rip-off it has become. Sundays always were cheaper, of course, but now the rest of the week is so bad it'll shift more people to become Sunday shoppers.

At least my local shops might see some benefit.