kimmings

Politicians pay and expenses - a complete sham!

08-04-2008

There has been a lot of talk in the news recently about the pay and expenses of our civil servants, and how, in my opinion, they abuse their status and our trust for thier own gain... I heard on Radio 1 on the way home last week that Blair claimed for a great many things during his time as PM, but one thing, among many, that stuck out like a sore thumb was his TV license, something that everyone in the uk must pay if they want to own a TV. Now, i didn't realise it was part of his job description to watch TV!

The 'basic' (basic!) pay for an MP is 60k - that's over twice the average annual income... then they're given an extra allowance of 23k for a second home! According to the BBC they then claim, from what i can gathe, for everything else, including taxi's to go shopping, new kitchens, paying their children money for a job that doesn't exist. the smallest amount (on top of the other, basic pay and home allowance) was a further 44.5k - that's well over 120k a year! While their constituents, the people that pay thier wages struggle to pay basic bills and keep a roof over their heads. I'm not able to claim back living expenses - so why should our civil servants? I have no problem with MP's cliaming legitimate and necessary expenses, but it's fairly obvious that these twats are taking advantage of their position. Surely an MP's wage should reflect the average income, then maybe we would get candidates that actually care about the issues, rather than getting their home refurbished at the tax payers expense.

Rotten Apple - Airport Update Slows My Computer

21-03-2008

Last week I installed an update for Airport on my mac... since then everything 'internet' has been riduculously slow - painfully so. I read on a few mac message boards that this has been happening a lot - I'm just happy I didn't go ranting to my ISP first, and as usual Apple have their stance of 'We know nothing, nothing to do with us'.

Thanks for the great support there guys.

It seems that there are a number of work-arounds including changing the DNS servers in Networking however it would be nice, just for a change, for a company as large as Apple to QA their patches and releases before release - especially when there's no way to uninstall the bastards. And, in the event that a patch is shite as this, come up with a fix, instead of denying everything and leaving it to the disheartened mac cummunity to find a fix.

Now even when I try to download updates from the Apple website, they fail because the connection speed (measured last night at a 9k download on an 8mb line) is too slow and keeps cutting out!

Here's just one of the many posts on the web (apple.com)  

The car insurance fiasco, so far, so bad!

21-02-2008

Well after over a week after the car incident, Fortis insurance, after much um-ing and ah-ing have decided that the car is not fixable (a conclusion which a blind man with absolutely no mechanical aptitude could've come to in a matter on minutes) and thus, they will payout... but first they'll sit on their hands a little more while I struggle to get into work and generally get about. Then, and only then (after making a few brews... chatting inanely to their mates on the phone and picking their nose and wiping it under their desk) will they send out my cheque - probably to the wrong address. I think it's a safer bet that I'll get the tax disk back from the garage and a refund of the tax paid from the DVLA before I'll get my cheque from those half-wits (apologies if it's already in the post)!

I was gonna rant about the ridiculous amounts of chasing I've had to do, but to be honest I couldn't be bothered. There's just one thing I wanted to get off my chest this evening, and it's that Fortis Insurance Services are utterly crap if anything goes wrong! You have been warned!

[amend um]It seems that in the world of insurance, or at least Fortis Insurance, the term 24 hours actually means 36 'Earth' hours. It's like dog years, only for Insurance gits.[/amend um]

A Request to Adobe

10-05-2007

"We, the undersigned, request that Adobe revises their pricing for Europe and apply fair pricing for European countries. If this is not possible, we request avalid explanation of why Adobe sells their products 190% of the US price to its European customers."

Sign the petition.

What is is with beards, bmw's and salmon pink shirts?

15-03-2007

I’d just like to offer my sincere thanks to the driver of the silver BMW license plate W899 MEN for what I can only assume to be an attempt to run me off the M53 (M56) exit slip road this morning – you truly are a complete anus. You’ve served to reinforce my view that BMW drivers (males (especially bearded ones in salmon pink shirts) in saloon cars and females in 4x4’s) are totally void of any driving capability, you must surely be driving without a license, either that or the examiner was high on crack at the time of your driving test.

Not only did you almost hit my front right wing doing 70mph, you then went on to do the same to the Lantra and Fabia drivers further along the M56.