Just saw an advert in which a woman complains about her stretch marks, which reminded me of this, which tickled me:
Advertising to Men vs. Advertising to Women
July 3rd, 2009Late Licensing Penalty
July 1st, 2009I’m kind of a forgetful person. I can sit in front of a computer and manipulate virtual things all day and keep variables and chains of reasoning in my head, and solve all kinds of technical problems. But put me in charge of anything physical and I’ll forget where I put it, or even that I ever saw it. It’s the way I’m wired. It’s not that I accept it or blame anyone but myself, and I fight it and constantly try to find techniques to work around my limitations, but the fact remains that I’m good at some things and not good at others.
So it seems that sometimes the government is out to get me. Today I got a letter saying I’d forgotten to pay my car tax and have to pay a £40 penalty (or £80 if I forget to pay that). It’s actually a lot less than I might have thought, and it’s not like they don’t make it easy to pay, and I do at least *choose* to have a car.
But the fact remains: if I was good at bureacracy I would have become a bureacrat. All these requirements — fill in this form by this date or else — are thrust upon me with very little sympathy for the fact that this kind of thing falls outside what I’m good at.
I admit I don’t blog every time I incur a late fee for a forgotten credit card bill, and on the face of it it’s the same kind of thing, but the language here is crucially different. I have comitted an “offence” and must pay a “penalty” and if I forget to pay there may be “court proceedings”. A credit card company might at least phone me up and have a friendly chat about a forgotten bill. Indeed, I can remember one occasion where a late fee was waived when I told them I hadn’t realised a rounding error left me with a few pennies’ balance on a credit card. I don’t imagine the DVLA being all that understanding about it if I call them and tell them that I was organising a wedding when the reminder notice came and on honeymoon when the car tax was due.
And they are a monopoly. It’s not as if I can switch to another provider if I don’t like the terms. I can get a credit card that will take the minimum payment by direct debit. I don’t think the DVLA offers this option, as if the ability to fill in forms on time is part of the test for car ownership.
I can only be thankful that the horrendous ID cards scheme is unravelling. I can imagine the ways I might have unwittingly fallen foul of *its* requirements and penalties.
Monday Metro Madness
June 29th, 2009I forgot my book (actually I am reading short SF stories in Interzone) so took the unusual step of reading the Metro. I’m glad I don’t read it every day.
The front page says that Britain is braced for a state of emergency because of the heat. The Met Office has “issued its first ever heatwave warning” – although the Met Office themselves say they issued a heat warning in 2006. By Thursday we could be at def con 4: “so severe or prolonged that its effects extend outside health and social care, such as power or water shortages”. We’ll see. Old people and the very young should stay inside between 11am and 3pm.
I can sort of see the point of such warnings so that those affected can deal with the marginal effects of hot weather, but good grief, it makes for dramatic reading. And there’s the feeling that it’s nothing new and we’ve seen it all before.
Will we beat August 2003 when the hottest ever day was 38.1C and 20 people were struck by lightning? Or July 2006 when the hottest ever July day was 36.5C, beating the previous record from 1911 when it was 36C and, presumably, there was a lot less concrete around storing up heat? Or June 2005’s 33C? Or May Day 1953’s 31C? Or the 15 consecutive days in 1976 above 32C?
Elsewhere in the Metro, Gordon Brown wants local housing for local people in a multi-million pound plan that involves shuffling things around to make them more “fair”. Oh, and he’ll treble housing investment to £2.1 billion of other people’s money, too.
MPs are next to be attacked for moonlighting. Unlike the expenses row, though, they’re at least earning their own money. Not sure I can see anything wrong with that.
MPs are telling police that protestors are people too; a radical cleric converted an 11-year-old boy; and fat celebrities are making obesity seem okay. The war on fat people continues. Presumably one day in the future only government approved perfect people will be allowed on the telly – or will that just make people who aren’t perfect feel bad about themselves? It’s a minefield!
On a lighter note, there are some valuable 20p pieces about that the mint forgot to stamp a date on. The mint want them back, will give you £50 for one, and even have a web site about it.
Meanwhile, there’s no news at all on BBC1 because the tennis is still going on.
Manifesto Club
June 27th, 2009Ah, lazy Saturday afternoons, blogging with the tennis on in the background.
Yesterday the Manifesto Club was all over the blogs, having been featured in the Times.
More than 700 “controlled drinking zones” have been set up across England, giving police sweeping powers to confiscate beer and wine from anyone enjoying a quiet outdoor tipple.
I once saw a picknicing couple approached by an official in my local park, presumably because of their bottle of wine. Seems daft. Like Nick M, we have a picnic hamper. At some point we’ll get around to using it, but will we dare to take a bottle of wine?
The Manifesto Club have also noticed all the health and safety signs that seem to be multiplying. They have a fun photo essay on the subject.
They also campaign against bureacracy that impedes visiting foreign artists; against vetting everyone who so much as looks at a child; against censoring un-PC poetry in schools; for free speech in general and in favour of cheap flights.
They sound like an all-right bunch of people.
Subscribe to Comments
June 24th, 2009You can now subscribe to comments and get emails when someone replies to you. Hopefully this will encourage more discussion.
NedaNet
June 24th, 2009This is interesting: Eric Raymond and a bunch of hackers are setting up resources such as web proxies and anonymisers for Iranians to use.
Motorcycles in Bus Lanes
June 22nd, 2009I managed to get a £60 fine for riding my bike in a bus lane. I’d recently seen posters about how wonderful it is that Motorcycles are now allowed in bus lanes for an 18 month trial.
But there is small print. And you have to read it while you’re riding your bike and trying to avoid pedestrians, other vehicles and slippery, wet drain covers. You have to check for the presence or absence of a tiny motorcycle symbol on tiny blue signs sporadically placed somewhere along the bus lane.
Here’s the comment I left on the motorcycles in bus lanes survey
The signs telling you whether it is allowed to ride a motorcycle in a bus lane are small and hard to see.
I was fined £60 for riding in a bus lane; this never happened before the trial.
Suggestion: allow motorcycling in all bus lanes. This will be safer because I will not have to strain to see the small signs and I will have to filter close to oncoming traffic less frequently.
I also learnt that they have people whose job it is to watch CCTV images looking for transgressions such as mine. You’d think real people like that would use a bit of judgement. I got my fine on the day of the tube strike after giving my wife a lift to the train station. Like many people I was making an unfamiliar journey – some leeway would be nice on such a day. In the photo I was sent of me in a bus lane, there is no bus in sight.
But to an official, the letter of the law is all that matters, never mind the spirit of it. Not getting in the way of a bus is no defence.
Flying Into America
June 19th, 2009Surfing through the news channels I just saw two related stories in ten minutes.
CNN was reporting the story of a tourist who was questioned by TSA officials at an airport. He recorded the whole interview on his iPhone. He was asked why he had so much money on him, and he asked whether he was legally required to answer that question. The TSA officers apparently got quite irate with him. He says he was being hassled. Perhaps you can download the recording from somewhere. (Update: here is the story; he was a Ron Paul supporter.)
A few channels up on the Indian news channel NDTV, a Bollywood actor was complaining of problems getting into New York. He had visited Afghanistan. The immigration official asked if it was legal to visit Afghanistan. The actor replied, “are you seriously asking me that?” The actor said that the immigration official took offence at this question and detained him for six hours.
Two stories doesn’t quite make a pattern, but perhaps people are increasingly standing up to official nonsense. Not that it’s doing them any good.
Meat; Helicopters; Libertarian Bloggers; Browsers
June 15th, 2009Today was no meat Monday. It’s backed by Paul McCartney so I thought it was something to do with vegetarians, but apparently it’s something to do with global warming. I celebrated by eating an extra large chicken sandwich for lunch and making an enormous spaghetti bolognese for dinner. Mmm, animals taste good.
No meat Monday is also backed by economic genius Chris Martin, who said that shareholders are the worst evil in the world.
My dad visited at the weekend and brought with him a micro radio controlled helicopter, which he gave to me saying, “I bought one for myself, and then bought one for you too!” Jolly nice of him! It’s a proper 4 channel one, meaning you control up and down, forward and backwards; left and right and rudder. It’s tricky to fly but rewarding when you get the hang of it. So far I can just about hover for 30 seconds or so before things start getting out of hand and I have to land. I’m already thinking about graduating to something bigger*. The hobby can involve some pretty expensive and cool gadgets. Oh dear, Chris Martin would not approve.
I am number 66 on this list of Libertarian bloggers, which I think is Brian’s list but sorted by Technorati ranking.
The LPUK blog rightly points out the stupidity of the EU hassling Microsoft about daring to include a browser with its OS.
* There is supposed to be a link here to a video of a guy doing amazing stunts with an RC heli, but YouTube is down. Search YouTube for RC heli stunts instead.