Uk

fast and dangerous

Richard Hammond, the 36 year old presenter of Top Gear and Brainiac, is critically ill in a Leeds neurosurgery unit with serious injuries after crashing at over 200 mph in a high-speed jet powered car, Vampire.

Let’s hope he pulls through.

staggering incompetence

And just this once, not mine.

When you take out a Self Invested Pension Plan (SIPP), most SIPP schemes are unable to accept Protected Rights.

Imagine my surprise, then, when Sippdeal contact me asking for authorisation to make a payment from my SIPP to Equitable Life in respect of a refund of Protected Rights payments that the Government are requesting, in turn, from Equitable Life.

Equitable Life claim this refund is now very urgent because the original request was made in January 2006 and no response has been received.

nice day at the office, dear ?

Yesterday I had a pretty bad day. I got up early and drove to Chesterfield. Unfortunately, the performance environment was not available as originally planned (overrunning weekend engineering works) so I simply collected some data and drove back to London.

Still, it could have been worse. The original plan had me staying overnight in a hotel in Chesterfield.

Although this unexpected change of plan was inconvenient and tiring, it still wasn’t as terrible as this gentleman’s bad day

Dragon's Den

‘Dad - please can I have 5 pounds ?’

‘If I were to give you the 5 pounds, what exactly would you spend the money on ?’

‘I’m going into town to buy Emma a CD for her birthday.’

‘…but surely 5 pounds won’t be enough.’

‘Well Mum gave me 15 pounds but I can get the CD for 8 pounds from Tesco’

‘Oh I see. Now you’ve got me interested. You have already secured seed funding from an angel investor. Net margin close to 100%. What will your turnover be in years 2 and 3 ?’

hello, hello, hello

What’s going on ‘ere, then ?

Woof.

the urbanisation of Richmond Park

There are more signs, warnings, instructions and speed limits in Richmond Park than the nearby South Circular.

The Parks Police really are destroying the park for all those who simply want to enjoy it.

so farewell then

1. Steve Irwin - You had a passion for wildlife that truly brought it alive.
2. Andre Agassi - You sobbed uncontrollably on a tennis court.

Paula Radcliffe

Congratulations to Paula Radcliffe who is pregnant.

Let’s just hope she doesn’t give birth squatting down on the roadside.

Red lorry, yellow lorry

Dear Red Lorry

You are a similar size to yellow lorry. You are a similar weight to yellow lorry. You have a similar size engine to yellow lorry.

When yellow lorry slows down going up an incline, the laws of physics mean that you are also likely to slow down. Consequently, there is little point attempting to overtake yellow lorry. Unless you shed your trailer or engage turbo boost mode, you will simply hog the middle lane. You may eventually pass yellow lorry on the flat after 17 minutes and 9.4 miles. Alternatively, you may have to abort the manoeuvre and lose face.

Your papers, please !

Just returned from the annual torture of the seemingly simple task to renew two parking permits. Yes folks, we have to pay for the privilege of parking our cars in a nearby road, miles from our house.

To secure the parking permits, you need a wad of paperwork. In fact, you probably need to produce fewer documents to adopt a Romanian orphan. If you have two vehicles registered to one person but used by two different people, the documentation requirements and level of complexity increases exponentially.