Author: Richard

Dear Lazyweb…

| Richard

… I need some help. BlueCo would quite like me to take next week off using my carried-over holidays and frankly, I could do with a break.

Now I would prefer to go to Corralejo yet again and hang out with my friends at the Rock Island Bar but I really want to fly out on Monday and back again on the Friday and sadly flights aren’t looking hopeful for that sort of itinerary.

So I think a city break might be better with flights from London City Airport – a short ride away and a quick and efficient terminal – to either Amsterdam or Barcelona. A nice bit of luxury for my stay, so 5* hotels for a bit of pampering as it won’t add too much to the overall cost.

With Amsterdam, it’s probably the NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky as it’s central for all the museums, canals and sights and I’ve heard of it, but where to stay in Barcelona? TimeOut has some suggestions, but which one would be best for a chic, luxurious and cool base? Preferably close to some great restaurants, bars and cafés.

Recommendations?

Tired and Emotional

| Richard

The RX-8 was beginning to be a bit of a drift monster in the past few weeks in the wet up North despite no ‘advisories’ when I had it serviced.

With the mileage I’ve been doing – its up to 44,000 miles in two years now – I had been getting concerned I hadn’t replaced the tyres in a long while so after a quick visual inspection I rang around and decided on Kwik-Fit this weekend (the tyres had to be ordered in at over £250 a corner).

So I’ve now had a set of four Bridgestone Potenza RE050A 225/40R19 93Y tyres for the princely sum of £1020 including nitrogen filling.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned

| Richard

…but as always that fury bites both parties. Or so it would appear from today’s news that the Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce will both be charged with perverting the course of justice over claims that she took speeding points on his behalf in 2003.

The whole thing blew up when, following an interview she gave, allegations were made that someone had agreed to take his points for him. This was after the pair had become estranged following his affair.

Maybe saying and doing things out of revenge isn’t such a good idea after all.

Serves them both right!

Car Wars: Greater Manchester Police Trash a VW Golf R

| Richard

I was interested by the evolving story of how a policeman from Greater Manchester Police managed to spectacularly wreck a new VW Golf R in the wee small hours of the morning recently.

It started with a report on the BBC News website that told us that:

“The Greater Manchester Police officer crashed the £33,000 VW Golf R on Wharfside Way, Old Trafford, at about 01:50 GMT on 15 December.

The driver was taken to hospital and treated for a back injury.

A Greater Manchester Police spokesman refused to reveal details of how the crash happened.

He said that “as a result of the incident, GMP is reviewing its policy on officers test driving cars”.

The officer, who has recovered from his injuries, is currently suspended from driving duties while an internal investigation takes place.”

The photo of the car shows just how much damage was done: not just a little bit of superficial damage as you might expect from a shunt on an urban road.

Wrecked Golf R

It'll polish out with a bit of T-Cut

Now Section 19 of the Road Safety Act 2006 amends Section 87 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 which grants police an exemption from speed limits when a vehicle is being used for police purposes. “Police purposes” is a pretty wide-ranging description but you do have to wonder what on earth this officer was doing at that time of the morning at the sort of speeds he must have been doing to cause that sort of damage whilst, apparently, testing the car for possible police use.

But the story gets better: apparently the driver was PC Paul Fletcher who was regularly seen on the TV programme “Car Wars” doing high speed chases.

PC Paul Fletcher

PC Paul Fletcher on "Car Wars"

And GMP stated that no other vehicle was involved, despite emerging reports that in fact the whole thing was caught on camera by another high performance car out at the same time on the same piece of road when PC Fletcher – a trained driver, remember - lost control on a roundabout. Hmm. Racing each other, perhaps? That’s surely what the police would say if you or I were doing the same thing?

Greater Manchester Police are, supposedly, reviewing their policies in this regard but surely testing a vehicle would be better done on, say, the MIRA test facilities which are purpose-built for such testing?

Maybe next time I get a pull for speeding – at a significantly lower speed than that which would have led to a car being written off so badly as the Golf – I could just say I was testing its suitability? Ah wait: I don’t have the exemption they’ll be hiding behind whilst driving as dangerously as they do…

Siri Arse Lee

| Richard

So when I first got my iPhone 4S I wrote:

“I see it really being of use to me when I’m in the car and a text message comes through: Siri can read it out and send a dictated reply. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s done through my Mazda RX-8′s Bluetooth sound system or the iPhone’s loudspeaker.”

Well there’s some good news and there’s some bad news.

The good news is that yes, it works through the car’s Bluetooth sound system, so it mutes any music and reads out the text messages.

The bad news includes:

  • “Uh-kay” being said before most things it does.
  • If you haven’t got a web connection it’ll say it can’t do anything right now, like reading something stored locally.
  • The voice recognition at anything other than walking pace is pretty poor, actually, and I’ve now started simply sending bizarre text messages in reply to people rather than spending hours arguing with Siri when it comes up with gobbledegook instead of what I actually said, thinks that I said “danger” rather than “change it” and claims not to understand danger (big, brave Siri!)  and sometimes even picks a track from my music library to play in an attempt at being ‘helpful’.
  • Won’t perform a web search because I’m in the UK and using proper English.
Close, but no cigar.
Oh and another thing: to be fair to Apple, they claim different sets of services from Siri on their US site to those on their UK site.

“It Just Works”

| Richard

Yesterday, I was reminded about just how good technology can be when it all works together. This can, of course, be a rare thing and nothing is more frustrating than kit that doesn’t work as it should.

But two things – OK, three – reminded me of how lucky we are these days.

It started with iTunes Match: I updated the iTunes software on my work laptop and then enabled iTunes Match and watched as it increased the number of songs from simply those I’d previously purchased from the iTunes Store (available since a previous release of iTunes) to all of my music collection currently stored on my iMac back at home but now backed up to iCloud.

I was then able to download a track I wanted on my laptop from my music store back home.

I’m working away from home at the moment and saw that there was nothing much worth watching on the telly. So I fired up my iPad, tethered it to my iPhone – thanks to 3’s All You Can Eat data plan – and did a bit of social networking before starting up Sky Go.

I then watched a couple of films from Sky’s Anytime+ feature: new or classic films that are available to you, depending upon your Sky TV package. Streamed over 3’s network at no additional cost to me.

“It Just Works”…

Thorntons Delivery Fail

| Richard

Another year ordering some expensive chocolates from Thorntons and specifying a delivery date.

Another year when they fail to deliver, due to their using that complete shower, Parcelnet/Hermes/Home Delivery Network/Yodel/Any Other Name We Can Think Of for so-called Premium Delivery.

Last year, they “lost” the packages of chocolates I was having delivered to my London office for the receptionists and Ops Director and Thorntons had to re-order.

This year, I paid for premium, next day delivery, so that delivery was due to take place on Tuesday, 13th to our SE1 offices. Guess what?

Out for delivery 15/12/11 16:30 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
In transit but possible delay 13/12/11 17:30 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
Arrived At Depot 13/12/11 04:33 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
Departed Depot 12/12/11 20:54 WEDNESBURY HUB
Arrived At Depot 12/12/11 20:50 WEDNESBURY HUB
Parcel data received awaiting coll. 12/12/11 SHEFFIELD SERVICE CENTRE

He must be lost.

Here’s the second package’s current tracking details:

In transit but possible delay 13/12/11 17:30 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
Arrived At Depot 13/12/11 04:31 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
Departed Depot 12/12/11 20:58 WEDNESBURY HUB
Arrived At Depot 12/12/11 20:56 WEDNESBURY HUB
Parcel data received awaiting coll. 12/12/11 SHEFFIELD SERVICE CENTRE

Crap, eh?