January 31, 2004
Hutton and the Beeb
The Hutton Report into Dr. David Kelly's death came out this week and was particularly scathing in its criticism of the BBC while basically saying the UK Government was pretty much blameless...
The first word I said to Carla when I saw the news was "Whitewash".
I agree with the poll which shows people trust the BBC ahead of the UK Government. OK, so the poll shows that 49% trust neither side but if I HAD to choose between the two it would be the Beeb every time as this Government seems to have defined the word 'spin'.
Given that even Bushie is now admitting doubts over the claims of WMD in Iraq surely we should be continuing to support strong independent journalism? Admittedly there should also be incredibly strong rules and guidelines in place to prevent out-and-out untruths being printed and spun but we need to take a stand now otherwise the BBC will end up as just another Government spinning machine, especially now Greg Dyke - ex Director General and Gavyn Davies - ex Chairman have both stepped down.
Thousands of BBC staff paid for an advert in the Telegraph today to show their support for Greg Dyke and Gavyn Davies. Yesterday thousands of staff walked out in protest at what has happened also.
Diamond Geezer has posted a spoof programme listing for Radio 4 in 2006. This could happen... Don't let it!
I support the Bloggerheads campaign to support the BBC and IMHO, you should too!
January 30, 2004
Compliant!
As of about 10 minutes ago the new template I'm using on this blog is XHTML 1.0 compliant! Woooo! :)
It's taken a couple of MT plugins to achieve, namely
- Amputator
- Format Breaks, download broken - try here
along with a bit of other work but it's worth it I think. Now I just have to work to KEEP it compliant!
January 28, 2004
So this is the big freeze?
If you're in the UK you'll know that the news and weather forecasts have been full of news about the big freeze that is coming our way...
While I appreciate that other parts of the UK may be worse hit, the above picture shows the extent of the big freeze in Warrington.
Brrrr..... ;)
January 26, 2004
The IKEA experience.
Warrington is home to the first IKEA that was built in the UK (in 1987).
I'd say that the experience of going into this store is something like this! :)
January 25, 2004
The BPI again.
Just so everyone who reads this knows, there's now a petition you can sign electronically to complain about their latest actions...
And as Keith said in the comments on my previous post on this topic, if you're an artist or member of a band and you think the BPI are acting in your interests then think again - they're really not. All they're doing is taking away people's freedom to buy a commodity at the lowest possible price. CD's are FAR too expensive in this country (HMV generally charge 15 - 16 UKP for a CD - that's around $27 US or $35 CAD).
All we're asking for is for something the BPI and the artists want us to buy at reasonable prices. When you consider how much it costs to press a CD (pennies) then charging 16 quid is scandalous!
I WANT to buy music but there is absolutely no way I will pay a ripoff price for it.
January 24, 2004
IE for Windows...
... officially sucks.
If you're a regular visitor to this (and our other blogs) you'll perhaps have noticed that I've changed the archive type to Individual rather than monthly. This allows us to see which entries are being hit much more easily. For instance I know people are visiting our archives and can tell which month but have no idea which entries they're interested in!
Anyway, part of the change means that the comments and the comments form are now listed on the individual archive page for that entry so you can easily leave a comment and read old comments without having to expend energy clicking the mouse button one more time... ;)
Thing is, all the pages looked fine using Firebird (which I heartily recommend BTW) on both the PC and the Mac but I forgot to look at them in IE (specifically IE6) on Windows. I just looked, gasped, and spent the last 20 mins changing the forms around to make them work properly. All this because of the IE6 peekaboo bug. Sigh.
If you're still using IE6 on Windows do yourself a favour. Either get a Mac ;) or get a different browser, one which complies properly with web standards. One which is actively being developed. One like Firebird.
MS have said they are stopping development on a standalone browser, preferring instead to integrate it further with their operating systems. Hang on, isn't this what they were prosecuted for?
A silly penguin bashing game!
Have a go at this game. The image is of the highest score I've got in about 10 to 15 mins of playing.
January 22, 2004
The BPI suck!
So last night I get an email from CD-WOW and here's what it said:
Dear Member,The UK Major record companies through their mouth piece the BPI* have unfortunately restricted the UK and Irish consumers right to enjoy the freedom of the World Wide Web.
As from this weekend, any CD ordered for delivery to the UK and Ireland will incur a surcharge as we are only able to deliver CDs manufactured within the EU (more expensive).
Delivery to the rest of the world will not be affected.
You only have a few days left - so order now!
Be quick to make the best of our current low low prices while you can still exercise your right to choose.
We will of course still be supplying UK and Irish customers but as of Sunday 25th January 2004 a surcharge of £2.00 (3.00 Euros) per CD will apply.
Please Note - our prices of DVDs and Games will remain unaffected
Warmest Regards
CD WOW!
So yet again the British (and Irish) consumer is going to have to pay ripoff prices for their CD's because the BPI has decided that, essentially, we weren't paying enough.
Astonishingly the BPI appear to be saying that the consumer will not suffer, at least according to this story in the reg.
"It is not the consumer who will suffer" say the BPI. Yeah, right. OK.
CD prices in this country are an absolute shambles. I will absolutely NOT pay the HMV price for a CD of around 15 to 16 quid. The shame of this whole thing is that the consumer could rely on CD-WOW to be around the cheapest place to buy CD's and delivery would be within a few days of ordering. The cheapest place to buy CD's is now likely to be the supermarket and they're only going to carry the poppy rubbish like Will Young / Gareth Gates et al.
Don't think play have caved yet so we'll have to see what happens with them when it goes to court next week.
I am tired of this insane ripoff country where we are taxed to death and everything is seemingly much more expensive than in other parts of the world (witness petrol [gas if you like], it bears a tax of more than 80% making the UK around the most expensive place in the world to fill up a car tank with fuel).
I am looking forward to our coming emigration to Canada. Sure Canada has its problems and the taxes are higher than in lots of other places but at least the standard of living is much higher than the UK.
January 21, 2004
Come on, ring for crying out loud!
Another day, another 50p or so.
I finally got a call from a recruiter yesterday (shock, horror) as I've put in for a contract which should suit until we get out of this country (and if you don't know about that decicion then you didn't read this post announcing our new baby blog Migratory Meanderings). I'm now in the position of waiting for the phone to ring to tell me whether I'm at least going to get an interview for it.
I do kinda want this role as what I'm doing at the moment isn't very well paid and is pretty boring and repetitive. Having said that, I have to be grateful that at least I do have some work happening.
So I'm on tenterhooks at the moment waiting for that call which will hopefully happen today... At least then I can wave what I'm currently doing goodbye and go do something which should be much more satisfying as I will be working back in an IT role albeit not as a manager.
January 18, 2004
Transparent Proxies
Why can't NTL get transparent proxying right? Their track record on using proxies isn't good - they ended up removing them from the Manchester area quite a while ago because of all the problems they caused.
Unfortunately they appear to have decided to reimplement them in this area, as of a couple of days ago. No announcement and seemingly no-one around looking out for problems. Since a couple of days ago the problems I'm suddenly having with both DNS lookups and general webbrowsing have gone from well zero to so many they're positively irritating.
I'm really kinda tired of getting the 'document contains no data' error. Even worse, I can prove it's their stupid proxy by specifying another proxy in the connection profile of the browser. Thing is, even doing that only works for a little while until the 'no data' error rears its ugly head again. Then it's a swift click into the config and change the setting to carry on browsing. How many people out there would know to fiddle around with their proxy settings on NTL? Not many I would imagine. Thanks to Robin Walker's cable modem site it doesn't have to be like that though. If you're on NTL or Blueyonder and you have never visited his site then you should, it's an excellent resource for when things start to go wrong.
Personally I'm kinda hoping that NTL withdraw the transparent proxy again. Quite why they seem to use the Manchester area as their testbed I will never know. Surely they should have a lab to perform tests in? Looking on NThellworld (hello Frank) indicates there are lots of people with the same problem.
For now I'm having to use the IP address of the server I pick my mail up from because NTL's DNS is playing up (I'm guessing it's also locally cached) and I'm going to try specifying another proxy server in another location hoping that this will solve the problem at least for a while.
Sigh, and it was all going so well.
January 17, 2004
Yet another MT update
Another day, another MT update.
This adds some commenting choke features and a couple of other stopgap measures before 3.0 appears. If you're using MT to publish your blogs then go get it!
January 16, 2004
How long does a P45 last?
For those of you not in the know, a P45 is the tax document given to you by your employer when you leave (either through choice or by redundancy).
I left my previous employer in Sept last year (officially, according to the P45) so I gave my new employer the parts that I'm supposed to when I started working for them. I got paid this morning and find that I'm paying emergency tax which is essentially 22% of every penny you earn going straight to the taxman.
Given that what I'm earning is a pittance compared to my last job I certainly don't need the taxman to be getting any more take from my wage! I was kind of expecting a rebate to be paid to me this morning rather than getting less than I expected. Sigh.
So, I call HR and go 'WTF?' and apparently it's because my P45 was 'too old' and had expired. Given that it's still in the current tax year I find this a little disconcerting to say the least.
A search on the Inland Revenue site throws absolutely no light on the situation.
So, if there's anyone in the know - could you please be so kind as to point me in the right direction? When does a P45 expire?
WRT the rebate, if you're in the UK and you're unemployed for a month or more make sure you go to your local tax office and get form P50 just like I didn't! :-/ This form allows you to claim tax back that you will have now overpaid. I didn't know about it until too late...
January 13, 2004
Old Fart
Have a look what happens if you type "Old Fart" (without the quotemarks) into Amazon.com. :)
Announcement
As Carla already announced , we have a new blog to add to our small family.
Please welcome Migratory Meanderings.
C says it sounds like the title of a nature film about Canada Geese or something. Not too sure I agree ;) but it's a tentative title really, as we couldn't make our minds up on what to call it. If anyone has got any good ideas we'd be pleased to hear them!
The purpose of the blog is to document our feelings and thoughts as we battle through the process of immigrating to Canada. We both feel the UK has let us down and that's a shame but I guess it happens. Doors feel like they're being slammed shut over here so it's better to be outside than in.
Anyway, I've already posted an entry over there to get things going as I've started the procedure to get my prosecution and conviction history from the UK police. Should be fine.
I did get a 3 point CD10 about 8 years ago though which I'm slightly on edge about... It's expired now (4 years from date of offence) but still worrying as I'd rather be totally squeaky-clean...
January 9, 2004
True and Sad at the same time...
Have a look at this story on El Reggio. A State Trooper calling at a house at night because the Mother of a 10 year old child wanted to buy MS Flight Simulator for him.
Particularly true is the last paragraph - "At one time it was rare to find US citizens, in the safest and most prosperous country in the world, jumping at their own shadows. Now we only note how high."
Are people over there really so jumpy now?
January 8, 2004
OK, how does this look...
... in work for all of 3 days then struck down with a nasty cold and unable to go in... Oh dear. :-/
UPDATE: Amazingly enough they were OK about it. w00t! :)
January 7, 2004
Working
Well, I'm working again...
It's not very glamorous, nor is it well paid, but it IS a job. And it is just that; a job not a career.
It still amazes me that someone with my experience both in technology and management can struggle to find a real job. I know I'm not the only one either. A number of people I used to work with are struggling to find anything that remotely resembles a real job with career prospects and a decent salary.
I just cannot understand how it can be that I was made redundant from the crappy-company-who-shall-not-be-named and that with all my knowledge and experience I have not found a real job. It seems absolutely crazy to me. I have been agressively chasing pretty much any job that I have seen advertised that I could possibly do since August with virtually no replies.
The fact that I see the same jobs come up over and over again on the job boards just shows that they either just can't recruit for the position because they're being waaaay too picky or that they're just "Honey Pot" positions put up there by recruiters who just want to get as many CV's on their books as possible.
Anyway, after much soul-searching and discussion, Carla and myself have come to a momentous decision. If I have not managed to get a real job using the skills that I have (i.e., a technical or management position of some description) by the end of March (this will mark the 6month+1 unemployment timeframe) then we will begin proceedings to leave this country which we both feel has let us down tremendously.
As Carla is Canadian anyway we will emigrate back to Canada where small business is actively encouraged and I will have a much better prospect of setting up a small IT consultancy and actually doing well for myself.
Canada has it's employment issues and I completely understand that but at least we'd be in a country where small business is encouraged and the lifestyle is so much better. After all, Canada topped the UN HDR list for 6 years and only recently dropped to number 8! The PDF of the 2003 list (not the full report) is available here.
