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UK edging towards 1984

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.

RSS feeds from the BBC

I subscribe to an RSS feed from the BBC about Manchester United.

This feed contains match reports, previews and general news about Manchester United.

However, the BBC has an infuriating habit of throwing in content from the Message Boards which are a forum for ‘fans’. Think 5 Live’s 606 radio phone-in but worse.

Worse, this article appears in the feed as a new article on 15 December. This is a thread from the ‘606 message boards - Liverpool’. Newsgator displays the title as ‘If Liverpool don’t give Chelsea a run for their money this season, then we certainly will soon - DG’ and the Web page thread is named ‘well played today’ referring to Liverpool versus Chelsea.

so farewell then, Pete and Geoff

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.

British Airways - making travel easier

Once upon a time, I flew back from Lausanne in Switzerland to London. Although the skies were clear, there had been heavy thunderstorms earlier in the day so the plane was forced to hold above Heathrow. We flew around and around in circles for so long that we eventually had to divert to Bournemouth to refuel.

This impromptu diversion confused the trio of Swiss people sitting behind me who thought London was ‘quite small’ and ‘very green’ and why ‘is no-one getting off’ after we had landed and sat around for 15 minutes on the runway at this small, provincial airport.

comparison of RSS readers

More recently, as I have started to scan more blogs and newsfeeds, I wanted a quicker, more efficient way of scanning through my growing list of RSS sources so I investigated a few alternative RSS readers or aggregators.

It was quite interesting to see how your own blog looks displayed in a variety of different formats. All that self inflicted torture over the templates, the CSS stylesheets, the sidebars, the fonts, the bulleted lists is potentially meaningless when your reader might be reading a simple text feed with more control over the presentation than you, dear author.

circular discussions (#2)

A couple of years ago, I was staying at a posh hotel in Oslo. I returned to my room after a hard day’s work, looking forward to a very expensive glass of beer.

I swiped my card and entered room 216. To my surprise, I found a strange man in there. He was emerging from the bathroom but thankfully, he was fully clothed and alone.

My immediate reaction was to rapidly withdraw, apologising profusely. ‘Oh I am awfully sorry. I appear to have the wrong room’. As the layout and decor of the hotel was identical on each floor, I just assumed that I had mistakenly entered room 316 (instead of 216).

circular discussions

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’

thoughts on digital radio

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 can’t 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.

probably the best phish in the world

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.

WordPress.com business model

I am worried about those developers at WordPress. They have to eat food, drink coffee and wear clothes but how are they ever going to make any money ? There isn’t even a ‘Donate’ button anywhere on the site.

WordPress.com provide me with a hosted blogging platform which I think it is very good; better than Blogger, better than Bloglines, better than Yahoo 360’, better than most of the competition.