Good news: as suggested by Anthony I emailed BT's chief executive, Ben Verwaayen, in an attempt to get my phone line installation sorted out some time before the next ice age. He responded within hours and put me in touch with a manager who arranged for an engineer to call the next day. The engineer -- in exchange for only two cups of tea -- very competently installed a new phone line. It'll still take bloody ages to get DSL installed, but whatever.... In any case, I'm impressed.
(I've had other -- much worse -- customer service experiences lately. I won't inflict them on you, but some advice: never, ever, ever buy anything from `Twenty-Four Seven Electrical'. They are incompetent lying scum and deserve... oh, I don't know, all sorts of unpleasant things. Also, if you have the misfortune to have bought something from Dabs Electronics lately, you'll have noticed that they don't have customer service phone numbers any more. However, there is still a phone number in the WHOIS record for their domain name, which puts you through to someone in their technical support department. In case they remove it, the number is +44 (0)1942 853488.)
I don't often read the tabloids, or, rather, I read them when I find a discarded copy on the train. Actually that's quite frequently. Anyway, from today's Sun:
MEMO to the Government: Leave the poor bloody motorist alone.
Now someones had the bright idea of computers linked to satellites to enforce the speed limits.
Once every car, van, lorry and motorbike in the land is linked by satellite to a Big Brother computer, they've got us.
(I've mentioned in-car telemetry systems before; today's Sun did a review piece on a trial that's presently taking place of a system which uses GPS and -- relatively -- nonintrusive user interface features -- bleeping noises and vibrating accelerator pedal -- to warn drivers when they are exceeding the limit.)
Anyway, the Sun today seems to be taking a commendable stance on individual liberty (at least for motorists). Hooray for Australian tycoons and their outmoded morals!
And now let's go back in time to 26th April this year.
IDENTITY cards are an excellent idea but they will be pointless if they're watered down.
[... snip bogstandard Blunkettesque rant in favour of compulsory cards ...]
Update: I bet you thought I'd forgotten the ID cards / holiday photos rule. Well, err, I had. Here it is, anyway:
(And no snide comments about the sort of people with whom I go on holiday.)
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Copyright (c) Chris Lightfoot; available under a Creative Commons License. Comments, if any, copyright (c) contributors and available under the same license.