Posts in category "UK"

Rejoice ! After 18 months, Rupert and Richard have ended their standoff and the Sky channels will be returning to Virgin Media.

Now, I wonder if some kind soul could fill me in on the last 18 months of 'Lost'.

Occasionally, I commute into London on South West Trains. I normally listen to music or podcasts during the half hour commute into Waterloo.

Whenever I buy a ticket at the station, I always pause the music and remove my earphones. This is for two reasons:

1. I need to be able to communicate with the person to purchase my ticket.
2. People behind me in the queue may not want to hear 'Serve the Servants' by Nirvana.

Last Monday morning, I joined a short queue to buy my Travelcard and removed my earphones as usual.

The lady immediately in front of me was talking on a mobile phone and moved forward to the ticket booth. Much to my surprise, she continued her obviously unimportant conversation with a friend while conducting the entire transaction.

'Yeah so then we went on to the Slug - weekly Travelcard, zones 1-5 - No, no, he wasn't there - he was drinking in Putney with his mates...'

'£41.40 please.'

'...but we met them later - Sorry - what did you say - someone just interrupted me - Anyway, what about tonight ?

'Please can you enter your PIN ?'

'Sorry - she just interrupted me again - What ? - there you go - Yeah - well I'll get back about half-six - then we can go for a drink and then get - sorry what - oh my ticket.'

I then approached the ticket desk, waited for the young lady to move out of earshot and said:

'Honestly, I can't believe what she just did. I think that is incredibly rude and disrespectful.'

The lady smiled ruefully: 'Yes. We used to have a polite notice but most people simply ignored it.'

So, if and when Jonathan Beckett secures the domain name 'ignorati.com', I'll be an avid reader.

Surrey Traffic Police should run a recruitment campaign with the tagline

Join Surrey Traffic Police and see the world.

This would appeal to young men who fancy the glamour and travel traditionally associated with the Armed Forces but are slightly wary of losing their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan.

In August, I hired a car mid-way through my holiday in Venice to drive to the foot of the Dolomite mountains and also took the opportunity to visit Lake Garda.

So that explains why, on the hot, sunny, blissfully lazy afternoon of Sunday 10th August, I was driving slowly through the lovely small Italian town of Spresiano.

To save money and increase fuel economy, the Brightside family were crammed in to a rather underpowered Fiat Panda as we explored churches and Italian villages using the delightfully, quiet country roads.

Imagine my surprise, as I left the sleepy town heading for Treviso, I was flagged over by two Carabinieri (not Italian police - Carabinieri) who were obviously not merely equipped with radar guns but real guns.

The official approached my window and made a polite request in rapid-fire Italian. I looked blank and replied 'Sorry - Inglese - do you want to see my driving licence and documents ?' He looked perplexed and a little disappointed: 'Oh so you are English, yes ?. What are you doing here ?'

'We're on holiday and hired a car to come to see your beautiful mountains and Lake Garda'. I pointed at my family who were listening to iPods, reviewing sunburn and consulting the map studiously in an effort to reinforce my argument.

I got out of the car and opened the boot to locate the hire car documents and dig out my driving licence. A pile of wet towels, a rucksack, some beach shells and a large bottle of Fanta Orange fell out. The military official looked dismissively at me.

'So - why are you having a pink driving licence ?'

A multitude of witty answers immediately sprang to mind but I contented myself with 'Well - that's what the English Government gave me.'

His colleague, irritated and curious about the delay on a routine traffic stop, wandered over and the mood lightened. 'Oh you are coming from London. I have been to London in 2005 - do you know Li-ches-ter Square ?' followed by 'I have always wanted to visit Ed-een-burro'.

Finally, their checks complete, I was free to continue my journey. I summoned up the courage and whispered: 'Excuse me but was I travelling too fast ?'.

The two Carabinieri looked at each other and said 'Oh no - no problem - it is just a routine stop. This is normal in Italia.'

And then, in a scene reminiscent of the Great Escape where Gordon Jackson has his papers checked by the Gestapo and the German officer quietly says 'Good Luck' as he goes to board the bus to which Jackson replies 'Thanks', the Italian policeman muttered 'See you in London'.

This closing comment perplexed me and I assumed I had misheard the Italian accent. That was until today when I received another letter from my friends at Surrey Traffic Police. The letter formally notified me that, on 23 October 2008, 3 further points have now been cleared from my driving licence (leaving an outstanding total of just 3).

Chillingly, the official letter closed with:

PS. Hope you all enjoyed your holiday in Venice

18 months ago, I reviewed the online editions of the leading UK newspapers and the various syndication options.

At that time, all the newspapers only offered partial text feeds which, in my opinion, is understandable but unsatisfactory.

So I was pleasantly surprised to read in ReadWriteWeb that The Guardian has broken ranks and now offers full text RSS feeds. It will be interesting to see whether this increases subscribers for The Guardian and whether the competition will be persuaded to follow suit.

During a ritual purge of Inbox, I just discovered the following email

Years ago, in a different life. I worked as an Oracle DBA for a dot com in deepest Clapham.

For reasons that now escape me, the CEO managed to get a discounted rate so we could all lie in complete darkness in a flotation chamber listening to whale music with joss sticks burning.

Performance was pretty bad and the backups never got done but we were all completely relaxed about it.

I recently got an iTouch and, as I have been commuting into London recently, I have been listening to a few podcasts in an effort to usefully pass the time.

• Digital Planet - BBC's short (30 minute) roundup of technology news. Tends to cover new and interesting topics not on my conventional radar.
• Ricky Gervais - Yes, sometimes he's repetitive and childish but Ricky Gervais still produces occasional moments of pure genius that bring you to tears. Also features co-writer Stephen Merchant and Karl (perennial scapegoat) Pilkington.
• FIR - Neville Hobson is one of my favourite UK bloggers and this twice weekly 'For Immediate Release' podcast (co-hosted with Shel Holtz) covers a wide range of developments in social media and use of new technology in the Enterprise both in the US and Europe.
• Fighting Talk - Like Gervais, Colin Murray seems to provoke strong opinions but I like his sense of humour and quick wit as he comperes a sporting 'Have I Got News For You' style quiz.
• This Week in Tech - Leo Laporte's popular podcast. If you've been away from Google Reader for a while, this podcast is a great way to catch up with events from the tech world.
• Linux Outlaws - Last but by no means last, my favourite podcast. Co-hosted by Dan Lynch (Liverpool) and Fabian Scherschel (Germany), Linux Outlaws is a comprehensive summary of OpenSource news, Linux distros, 'Micro(soft) watch' including interviews and feedback from the community. Informative, honest and occasionally very funny. Love the theme music (created by Dan) too.

Last night, I took a number 521, red, bendy bus from St. Pauls to Waterloo station.

As the journey progressed, someone insistently and repeatedly pressed the bell to indicate they wished to disembark at the next stop. Nothing too unusual in that.

At the next stop, again the bell was sounded early and rang repeatedly. I assumed the 'Bus stopping' sign didn't light up as the individual concerned continued to sporadically, but repeatedly and insistently, press the bell.

All of this got too much for the South African lady sitting directly opposite me, who was simply trying to ask her partner: 'Why don't you tell me all about your day, darling ?'

I was forced to avert my gaze because the couple were now holding hands and I am British. So I carefully and intensely scrutinised an advert for London South Bank University.

The lady said, to no-one in particular, in quite a loud and very un-British voice:

'For God's sake, who the f**k keeps pressing that damned bell ?'

The bus stopped. The bell stopped. We all looked inwardly into our free copies of 'The London Paper'. The bus set off again and so did the bell. This time, the South African lady unlinked hands from her loving partner and erupted:

Oh, for f**k's sake, the bus is stopping ! Will you stop pressing that bloody bell, already !'

As I was sitting directly opposite the disgruntled lady, I was forced to avert my gaze in a very British way and, to my horror, immediately identified the root cause of the problem. I don't have the word 'consultant' on my business card for nothing.

A young man was standing in the aisle chatting to his friend. He was leaning on a pole. Every time he leaned back, the bell rang. When he stood upright, the bell stopped. When he rested on the pole, the bell rang. Continuously.

I averted my gaze. Again. By now, I was nervously staring at my feet.

Thankfully, an Australian woman ended my discomfort by politely interjecting

'Excuse me, mate. You keep leaning on the buzzer and it's actually quite irritating.'

The South African lady looked around with a look of disbelief and complete disdain - if looks could kill, the young man would have spontaneously combusted there and then.

My immediate neighbour started smiling inanely and the gentleman concerned reddened and immediately apologised to the front half of the bus:

'Oh I am awfully sorry and thank you. I was just starting to wonder what that irritating noise was.'

And with that, normal service (and near silence) on the 521 was resumed.

I have written before about the consolidation of my various pension pots into a self-invested pension plan (SIPP).

One slight irritation was that the Protected Rights elements could not be transferred so I was forced to hold these funds in a stakeholder pension.

However, today I received an email from Sippdeal stating that the Government is lifting these restrictions and that, from October 1, protected rights contributions can be transferred into my SIPP.

So now the whole world knows what living in London is really like.

Clamouring with a crowd of 15 cosmopolitan, wackily dressed people, pushing and shoving trying to get on a red, double decker bus having waited 45 minutes. With some idiot playing Led Zep too loud on his iPod.

Then David Beckham comes along, takes your brand new football and smashes it into the adjacent park and some bastard nicks it.

This commercial free Bank Holiday Monday is brought to you by Magners. - Virgin Radio (25 August 2008)

Well it may have fooled some of the listeners but it certainly didnt fool me.