Posts in category "UK"

Would you like any cashback today at all, Sir ?

Oh yeah. That would be handy. £50 - thanks.

'Oh I'm awfully sorry. I haven't got enough money in the till to give you £50, Sir.'

'Oh OK - how about £30 then ?'

[Looks dolefully into depths of till] 'Hmm - not really. That would leave me a little short of cash.'

'Can you manage £20 ?'

'Yeah, yeah. £20. I can give you £20.'

'OK great. I'll take twenty then. Thanks.'

[Rummages in depths of till and brandishes two 10 pound notes which he then withholds by holding them out of my reach] - '...but it really would help me if you could just take £10.'

'Oh - wait. No problem. It really doesn't matter. Sorry to mess you about. I'll just go to the cashpoint outside to get some money. It's fine. Please, forget I ever mentioned cashback.'

Then, as I walked home, I remembered it wasn't me that broached the prospect of 'cashback' at all - it was him.

Days Inn Hotel. No restaurant service because it is Christmas. No cooked breakfast because it is Christmas. No Sky Sports which is normally available but has been withdrawn because it is Christmas. Boddingtons is available despite the proximity of Christmas at a very reasonable 2.95 GBP for a pint.

The Marksman hostelry, a mere half a mile away, but a little more earthy, has Sky Sports at every booth and on big screens and sells Stella Artois for 2.20 GBP per pint.

Just got my car a shiny, new MOT certificate as an early Christmas present. The MOT certificate is a pre-requisite for renewing the tax disc which expires at the end of the month.

The format of the MOT test certificate has changed and all MOT's will be recorded on a computer system at the Vehicle and Operator Agency (VOSA).

This means that you can now apply for your road tax online as VOSA can also verify that the vehicle is insured using another computer system.

Good news for me. One less trip into the Post Office.

Bad news for car criminals.

Not many things make me laugh out loud.

Pete Mitchell and Geoff Lloyd on the Virgin Radio breakfast show were very funny.

Now they are leaving. Time to burn a few more CD's for the tedious journey into work.

Just bought 30 second class stamps and sent a parcel recorded delivery in the Post Office. The stamps cost £6.30 and the recorded delivery costs £2.25.

That will be £8.55, please Sir.

I hand over a 20 pound note. The lady gives me £8.55 in change, asks me to put the parcel in Santa's overflowing grey sack and prepares for the next customer.

'Sorry but I thought you said it was £8.55'

'Yes. That's correct.'

'But you only gave me £8.55 change'

'Yes. That's right'

'But it should be, err, 11 pounds, err, 45 pence'

'No. It is 8.55'

'How much are the stamps and the recorded delivery ?'

'8.55'

[People are now starting to sigh loudly in the queue]

'How much did I give you ?

'Twenty pounds'

'What is 20? minus? 8.55 ?'

'Oh I see. I am awfully sorry, Sir.'

Two things that are not immediately obvious about digital radio.

1. Not all DAB stations are national. You may be able to listen to Capital Radio in Brisbane over the Internet but you cant listen to Capital Radio on a digital radio in Inverness. This is because 'local' radio stations are still subject to UK broadcasting regulations which means they must remain local, even with DAB. Consequently, the range of radio stations available on DAB isn't (quite) as wide ranging as you might expect.
2. The sound quality of FM radio is better than DAB. Tune the same radio station in on FM and DAB, turn up the volume and toggle between the two. The difference is quite marked. I used to think my ears? wouldn't be able to distinguish between an expensive Bang & Oulfsen system costing 2,000 GBP and an Alba record player. I was wrong.

A few months ago, I was shocked and amazed to receive an email from Friends Reunited entitled Janet Oldsgate has sent you a private message.

God, I was so excited, I could hardly contain myself. The adrenaline started flowing, I broke out in a hot sweat and clicked through like I had never clicked through before.

Oh no. What is my darned password for Friends Reunited ? I looked it up on the Palm - nothing. I looked in Thunderbird under 'Infrequently used Web sites' - nothing. I tried a couple of the usual suspects but no joy. Then I remembered the password was in fact, 'JOldsgate73!'. This password was a deliberate and incredibly secure choice to prevent a repeat of the unfortunate incident when my wife hacked my Friends Reunited account and modified my 'Profile' in an oh so amusing and hilarious fashion. My, how we laughed.

Now I was logged in and the sense of anticipation grew. I summoned up the courage and clicked on the inviting 'Your Messages' icon. Nothing. Shurely shome mishtake. Refresh. Nothing. I frantically read the online help and used 'Advanced Search' to locate all private messages from 'Janet Oldsgate' sent directly to me, ever. Absolutely nothing.

Then it slowly dawned on me. There was no private, personal message from my long lost and first love, Janet Oldsgate. I shouldn't have got my hopes up. I should have known better. I was gullible. I was foolish.

The clues were there all along. Firstly, I went to an all boys grammar school. Secondly, I do not and have never known anyone called Janet Oldsgate.

This email was merely an elaborate, cruel hoax (known as phishing) that ruins peoples' lives, causing untold distress and angst to its innocent victims and breaking up happy marriages. And all of this purely in the name of a CRM marketing campaign to drive more traffic to the Friends Reunited web site.

And now on the back of the increased traffic, advertising revenue and click through rates generated by this slightly questionable and underhand campaign, the founders of Friends Reunited have sold up to ITV for a cool 120 million GBP.

Scobleizers trip to the Guinness brewery reminds me of a similar visit I enjoyed many years ago with a few friends.

After enduring the 45 minute tour of the Dublin brewery, we finally settled back to enjoy the free samples which were willingly dispensed in 1/2 pint glasses of sheer perfection.

After a while (seven halves), I sensed the barmaid was about to ask 'Shouldn't you lads be moving on now ?' but one of our party got in first with 'Have you not got any pint glasses back there ?'

Last week, I initiated the transfer of the last of my pension funds into my Self Invested Personal Pension (SIPP). This should be a relatively straightforward transfer of the Protected Rights element of a former pension plan. The first step was a response from the pension company receiving the funds. They need me to fill in a form explicitly stating that I did not request any financial advice about this transfer to guard them against mis-selling claims.

It is ironic that the Protected Rights must be transferred into a stakeholder pension (and not my SIPP) as these contributions were made by the UK Government on my behalf so it must be entrusted to those sensible men in grey suits and not invested in the funds of my choice in my SIPP. Tell that to the people who lost thousands of pounds of their hard earned money that was supposedly secure with Equitable Life.

However this is a minor inconvenience compared with the pain, delays, bureaucracy and sheer incompetence I suffered three years ago. After twenty years working for various IT companies, I had accumulated small pots of money distributed across a variety of pension funds. I decided to consolidate all of these pension funds into a self invested pension plan (SIPP).

This was mainly so I had direct control over exactly where my money was invested and to reduce the impact of the management charges paid to the men in sharp suits. In a SIPP, you are charged for each share transaction. If you buy and hold shares for the long term, then the SIPP charges are much lower than a managed fund. In addition, one significant pension fund was invested with Equitable Life which was in dire financial straits, subject to a lot of negative media coverage and was closed to new business.

So I wrote lots of letters, filled in lots of transfer forms, made lots of phone calls and opened an account with SippDeal. The transfers of seven different pension funds were all initiated around the same time (January 2003) and the final batch of funds were made available for trading in early July 2003.

Once I learned how to play the game (write letters in the first instance, fill in the required forms promptly, take copies of all correspondence, telephone in the second instance, get names of the people you deal with, record the date and time, record what was promised, get a direct dial extension, keep comprehensive records), I found that most companies were relatively efficient in handling the transfer.

However a dishonourable mention goes to Scottish Widows who really did plunge new levels of incompetence (letters getting lost, faxes getting lost, people promising to call back etc etc). Maybe I was unlucky but all I can say is that I am really glad Scottish Widows are not managing my pension any more.

The SIPP appears to be performing really well as the funds are primarily invested in high yielding FTSE 100 companies. However, this may be misleading as the FTSE has performed well since January 2003.

What I should really do is to compare the performance of my stakeholder (with the PR funds) invested by the wise men in grey suits against my SIPP. Maybe when the transfer of this latest pot is complete, I will do exactly that.

I used to have a Psion 5. This was a neat little personal organiser in a clam shell case with a mini QWERTY style keyboard. The Psion even had a port of the vi editor available. However, after the novelty wore off, I didnt use it much other than a few short-lived pointless games and as a glorified address book when sending out my Christmas cards.

Years later, I worked with some young, trendy individuals who wore Diesel trousers who taunted me as they all gradually acquired new, shiny Palm PDA's. Of course, I simply couldn't face them with my aged Psion so I went out and bought a Palm Vx.

Inevitably, the initial novelty soon wore off, the young things upgraded to different designer trousers and yet another trendy mobile phone (with camera) and I didn't use my Palm Vx much either apart from as a glorified address book for the annual Christmas card list.

Anyway, over the weekend, I decided to dust off the Palm and see whether it might be useful for capturing ideas for blogs. As the Palm had lain unused for so long, the batteries were totally dead and the device had been reset to its factory status. I performed a synchronisation with Palm Desktop using the Infrared link to check the communications were working.

Then I went to re-install Beyond Contacts from DataViz which synchronises data from Microsoft Outlook with the Palm. All my details were stored in my online profile at DataViz, so I was able to quickly obtain my registration key and upgrade to the latest version for free.

So now I can use the Graffiti application to enter information into the Palm, synchronise to my PC and then into the blog. I wonder if this will be quicker and more convenient than scribbling with a pen onto the back of an envelope. We will see.