Oh dear

I very nearly broke my rule on trying to avoid writing in this blog about my work. Well actually I did, then thought better of it. This replaces the previous attempt.

Hmmm.

Maybe I should write about puppies instead. Puppies are nice.

Yes.

LCD information screens, or is it garbage?

So here I boringly am having a boring wait for an outpatient clinic at the Whitt. Did I mention that it's boring? Ah yes, good, because it is.

Hurrah! The National Health service has provided a lovely big screen to provide information and stave off boredom. Ahem, yes indeed.

On the screen are lots of adverts. These cover a range of topics - some are straight NHS information, for example smoking and depression services, infection control in hospitals, welcome to this department, and so on. Others are just ads, but with I guess the intention that they're at least potentially relevant to people sitting here bored off their skulls (did I mention the boredom?) so there are dentists, hotels, estate agents and quite a few minicab firms.

The NHS stuff is mostly well-made and coherent. The commercial stuff is more variable - some of it's good, some is poorly designed and/or illiterate.

So far so good - it's mostly not a bad service, though I note that there really are are quite a lot of screens … if you were to watch it because you were looking for a particular piece of information, you might get to wait quite a long time for it to come round. I think this limits the usefulness if the service; indeed, if you can't use it easily to find out information then why is it there? Maybe it could just be pictures of flowers and bunnies instead, if its main function is really to be wallpaper? But them you couldn't charge businesses - other perhaps than flower suppliers and bunny breeders? - to put their ads up here. Hmmmm.

Here, though, is the real showstopper. Well it's two of them, really, but they are not unrelated.

There are two menu-like bands top and bottom of the screen. They are independent of the main screen content. The top one has, prominently, the time and date, and the lower one has a short scrolling message.

The message says:

"Welcome to the department. Watch this screen to see up to date waiting times."

This is an excellent idea - indeed if I were given the choice I'd prefer some information on waiting times to more minicab adverts. And you certainly see this message plenty, as it's the only item in its own little scrolling section so it repeats every 16s or so. Sadly it doesn't seem to have got past the "excellent idea" phase as the promised waiting times never actually appear. You can watch all their lovely ads as long as you like, but you don't see any waiting times. I could do with this as it's now 35 minutes after my appointment time and still not a squeak. So, without wishing to be horrible, I do feel that this part of the service is a complete failure, as it makes a promise on which it does not deliver.

The other problem is simple, amusing and really quite pathetic. Remember the top band with the date and time in? Well, the clock is half an hour slow. If it's now 1220 then the clock claims it's 1150. Like, connected, man. That says it all, really: once we've seen that we don't really need to know much more about how this service is used and valued, because it isn't. It is mostly a waste of space, a nice little earner wearing the stolen clothing of an information system. I diskard it.

Location:The Whittington Hospital

More on Attlee and how to spell him correctly if you are, erm, 10 Downing Street

It has been pointed out to me by a delicate but usually reliable source that it may be construed as unhelpful to moan at 10 Downing Street (about their continued inability to purge the embarrassing misspelling “Atlee” from their webbity website) without actually explaining just what the current, ah, ishoos are.

I’m not sure about this (is it really a bit too spoon-feedy?) but the delicate but usually reliable source is someone I hate to argue with (and I never win) and maybe it will be useful or amusing or something, so here goes:

1. Parliamentary statement on Trident (4 December 2006) at http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page10532 – last paragraph contains “the Atlee Government” as illustrated above. Doh! indeed, Tamsin.
2. History Audio at http://www.number10.gov.uk/history-and-tour/prime-ministers-in-history/history-audio – under the header “Welcoming the United Nations”, the Attlee graphic has a bad filename and bad alt text too – two instances of “Atlee”. The bad spelling is not visible on the main page, but still needs fixed.
3. Clement Attlee (in Welsh) at http://www.number10.gov.uk/history-and-tour/welsh-history/welsh-pms-in-history/clement-attlee – main photo at the page top. Unsurprisingly it has the same problems as the page mentioned above – the graphic has a bad filename and bad alt text.
4. Syr Winston Churchill (in Welsh) at http://www.number10.gov.uk/history-and-tour/welsh-history/welsh-pms-in-history/winston-churchill – visible on the page, under the second-to-last subhead “Y Prif Weinidog nesaf” we have this: “Clement Richard Atlee 1945-51 Llafur.” I’m like no way man.
5. Italian Attlee at http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page12769 – same problems as the second and third examples above – bad filename and bad alt text for the graphic.

These were found on a quick Google search but I am sure that if you worked there you could do better than this when you were on a search-and-destroy mission for “Atlee”. Also please note that this Google search finds a couple of instances which no longer have the problem, so presumably the pages were corrected after the last time Google indexed them.  These are “Spanish Attlee” and the main Attlee page in Prime Ministers in History – so that’s good, and well done No. 10 because these are fixed already – hurrah!

And that concludes the voting of the Belgian jury.

Open letter to the web managers at 10 Downing Street

Hey guys,

Here’s a suggestion.

Learn to spell “Attlee”.

Come on, it’s not rocket science. Make a big notice and put it on the office wall or something. Make the next person to misspell it buy doughnuts for the whole office. Work out a strategy for checking and correcting (ermmm, quality control anyone?). Just do something.

Having it still spelt wrongly now is, frankly, pathetic and shameful. He’s been dead since 1967 – it’s not some novel new name of whoever won X Factor last week! I mean, dammit, I’ve been writing to you about it for years. You haven’t really taken any notice, and I must, sadly, conclude that you’re a bit incompetent. Is that unfair? If so, I’m sorry, and do please explain how so.

Here are a few Handy Hints on getting it right:

1. Do a site search for the spelling “Atlee”. Use Google, use your own web software, whatever. If you don’t know how to do this, please write for instructions (and send money).
2. Search again, more carefully, because, to be honest, you’re not very good at this, are you?
3. Have another go. This time check source code, look at the names of graphics, check in your alt text. Check carefully.
4. I know it’s pretty tough but you’re 10 Downing Street, you can do this.
5. Do it again and again until it is impossible for me or anyone else to find Attlee spelt incorrectly anywhere, in no matter how obscure and trivial a place, on your site. Don't guess that you might have done it right: know that you have.
   
6. Hurrah! You’re done. Have a nice cup of tea.

There you go. Have a great day.

With best wishes

Vogel von Neustadt
Concerned Citizen

Oopsie-Beebs-a-blog™: Also submerged underwater too? (fixed)

(inarticulate howls of protest fading out into sobbing …)

Look, is it just me or is there something horribly wrong with this sentence?

A car was also submerged underwater too, he added

It comes from the Beeb’s news story Canal leak floods family's home. I mean, if that’s good writing, then is this one better?

Additionally, a car was also submerged underwater by immersion too, he added

- (three-all, yes!) and presumably this is even nicer – nicer, indeed, than bunny-wunnies:

Additionally, a car furthermore was also submerged underwater by immersion in the flood too, he added

- and so on. 4-4! Why stop there? I could go for 5-5 you know …

Go on, then, answer the question – is it just me? I mean, I think it’s terrible writing and it troubles me that no-one looked at it before announcing it to a squillion people, because I think the Beeb should be a champion of good writing and careful editing. But hey: YMMV.

Oopsie-Beebs-a-blog™ – Cymbals are grand; or not. (fixed)

NYYYYYAAAAAAAAAARRRRGHHHHHH. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. THNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

I’m sorry but sometimes a really good session of News Rage™ is helped along with a little scream.

Right, so Boris opened a new version of How to Cross Oxford Circus today, which is good.

The BBC reported it, which is good, with a bit of video, which is also good. And they gave us a nice set of photos, which is good too. All good so far.

In the BBC report they said this:

London Mayor Boris Johnson unveiled the crossing by striking a cymbal.

… which is not good. It’s even right up at the top, where many people are still reading.

They perhaps got it from the Mayor’s press release, which said this:

… the road was officially opened by the Mayor who struck a two metre high cymbal …

No, no, no, no, no Auntie, that is NOT a cymbal. Really really not. Please do some research.

No, no, no, no, no Boris’s press people, that is NOT a cymbal. Really really not. Please do some research.

I have, as usual, because I am such a sad git, wroted to them. It was, I hope, a humorous and pleasant email message, which may with luck have made someone smile. (Or possibly want to hit me … hmmm occupational hazard I guess.) It even suggested (to the Beeb anyway) a number of starting points for finding out what it really is. (For example, do you think, Tamsin, that the word “Paiste” could perhaps be a manufacturer’s name? Yes, good girl, you may indeed use the telephonic device to contact them and politely enquire just what that large instrument might be. Well done, you shall have a shilling.)

I mean, really.

And yes, I know, I know. Usual disclaimers apply. Thames not set on fire, no lives endangered, income tax rate remains unchanged. The Beeb were just copying the press release (because that’s how you do reporting, right?) and Boris’s press people were told something, or guessed it, and were too busy to get it right. And it’s trivial, and London’s children will probably not fail GCSE Music just because that’s what they think a cymbal looks like. Fine … It’s just sloppy, is all, and makes me sad. And fat, but that’s another story. (Do you think I can sue?)

Update (some time later): I had a nice reply from Paiste, who said:

“This is [a] Paiste Symphonic Gong. We assume it's a 60".”

So there you go. Would it really have been so hard for someone (that is, someone other than me) to check, instead of just assuming that they “knew”? Sigh. But, like I say, no actual harm done … unless of course you think ignorance is bad (oops).

Well that’s just ignorant that is

I have been having a lovely time on the Dutch high-speed rail website trying to book some train tickets.

Even before this, it’s been a long and frustrating story of nearly getting what I wanted and then being thwarted at the last minute. When, however, I got onto this site it all seemed to be going terribly well and I really thought I’d cracked it. Yeah man.

But how absolutely idiotic of me not to realise that:

“The specified order cannot be found, or the order is already paid.”

- actually means:

“You need to enable third-party cookies in your browser.”

… as any fule kno.

If only I were clever enough to have realised the true meaning of this perfectly sensible, ordinary, customer-friendly bit of IT Talk™ I could have saved myself much anxiety during the entirely fun and wacky process of trying to buy rail tickets from Brussels-Midi to Bergen op Zoom (as you do). I could have avoided the time spent trying to phone their helpline (you can’t); trying to get their guess-the-question system to give me some help or a valid-from-the-UK phone number (haha forget it buddy boy); the multiple retries, the gibbering, the swearing … the whole thing really. Thanks Hispeed and Worldpay for a very annoying experience.

Marvellous. And yes, I did (with the help of my friend Dr Google) suss it in the end, and yes I have got the tickets. Woo yeah. It’s just that I feel a touch resentful over spending a chunk, however small, of my life trying to sort out something they could and should have told me in one pithy and pungent sentence. (No, Tamsin, not that one.)

I could do with a nice cup of tea now.

Horrible crap disaster reporting

Distraught relatives prepare for the worst as they wait for news of Air France flight 447, which disappeared off the radar between Brazil and France early on Monday.

Well thank goodness they were allowed to do so in the calm and privacy of, er, having 63 cameras shoved up their noses. I should think that that will have made them feel much better, plus we the public really needed to see those photos. Come to think of it, maybe they could be asked to pose again, looking a touch more photogenic, and with more tears visible please? And get that woman to move her hand so we can see her grief-stricken face better? That would be nice.

I know I sound like a retired colonel, more and more so, but really, is there no room for restraint at all in a story like this? Hmph.

The Sage Gateshead is not in Newcastle

Look. The Sage Gateshead is not in Newcastle. It just isn’t. If it were, it would need to be a bit further North and then they could have called it The Sage Newcastle, and its website could be at thesagenewcastle.org. But it isn’t, and they didn’t, and it isn’t … because it is not in Newcastle.

I know people like to weeble on about the mighty river-spanning conurbation of, ahem, NewcastleGateshead as if it were Buda and Pest or Ankh and Morpork but I feel this is mostly a marketing term – I have yet to see an example of its use by a normal human being. And even so I might be smacking my head on my desk a little less if I were complaining about someone saying, or at least implying, that the Sage is in (akk!) NewcastleGateshead: but I am not.

Let’s get this right:

• The Sage Gateshead is not in Newcastle
• The Sage Gateshead is in Gateshead
• Gateshead is not Newcastle
• Newcastle is not Gateshead
• Bessie Surtees House, for a further example, is not in Gateshead
• … and while I’m at it, the Baltic isn’t in Newcastle either. No Tamsin it is jolly well not.
• Newcastle and Gateshead are close together but two different places. Say it with me:
• “Newcastle and Gateshead are close together but two different places.” Good, good.
• Gah!!!

Thank you for your attention.

Oopsie-Beebs-a-blog™ - deliberately tasteless, or just stupid? (fixed)

Oh dear, I hate coming over all disapproving but I really thought this was a bit much: on the BBC News UK page, the little header thingy for the little taster thingy for a story about the possible consequences of the Antrim shootings read, for a while this afternoon, "Domino effect". In case you didn't realize, the soldiers killed were taking delivery of a delivery from a Domino's pizza, and the delivery drivers were also shot and injured.

On the other hand, the story to which the header referred, Fears for Army killings fall-out, does genuinely describe a concern about a possible domino effect or, perhaps better in this instance, chain reaction in which the shootings could lead eventually to the collapse of the Stormont government.

So the question really is whether it was a very stupid, tasteless attempt to be clever by pulling the Domino's name into it, or just a very stupid, clueless failure to think, by someone who had composed the line without knowing or remembering enough about the story to be safe in doing so. Either way, it seems a bit of a naff, tabloid-smelling performance from an organization which usually has much higher standards. 4/10 see me.

I should add that either lots of people (including me) moaned, or someone with more clue at the Beeb has had a look, as it has been changed. It now reads "Uncertain days" which is about ten million percent more acceptable, thank you Auntie.

Boo!

The pedestrian traffic lights at the junction of Colney Hatch Lane and Alexandra Park Road, N10, have been "fixed". That is, they have been put back to their previous dangerous state.

What now happens is that a pedestrian waiting to cross the northbound side of Colney Hatch Lane gets a green to cross. Sadly, the cars waiting in Alexandra Park Road to turn right into CHL-Northbound also get their own green just a couple of seconds later. A small proportion of car drivers understands that the pedestrian lights are separate and that the red light immediately after they turn is telling them to stop. The rest just drive straight through on this red light, which is supposed to be protecting the CHL-crossing pedestrians. These drivers either do not see the red or think it is not for them.

This is bad, dangerous and (in my personal opinion only of course) negligent and stupid too. Since it cannot be that the roads people actually want to kill pedestrians, can it be that they are just too thick to understand this problem? Who knows? My personal opinion is that they must be intelligent and conscientious people. Er. Yes.

Sad point: it isn't the likes of me that this crossing will kill. It will be foreigners, children, people with disabilities, old people, people who are too trusting of officialdom. These people risk their lives if they take the green light on trust: the rest of us treat it with grave scepticism, and look all round very carefully.

Sad point: it was definitely safer when it was stuck on permanent red for the pedestrians. Honestly.

Positive point: even if they won't sort it out properly, how about a sign at the lights warning drivers that the lights after the turn are separate? There's one of these on or near Falloden Way and I think it helps. For goodness' sake, it certainly might at least help with the road managers' liability if someone gets squished... I'd do it for that reason alone! Go on Haringey/TfL - give us a sign!

I submitted this as a street fault report, editing slightly and adding "If you think I am wrong about this, contact me and tell me why." Do you think they will?

Memo to Self, concerning Repulsive Yobs on the Underground Railway System of our Fair Capital, and your Demeanour and Behaviour regarding the Said Yobs

Dear Self,

Please don't cheek horrid yobs on the Tube. Especially not those who look able, nay willing, to beat you to a pulp in five seconds (on a slow day).

Although their obnoxious behaviour might seem to give you the moral high ground, this would be of limited use to you in hospital or indeed some place more worser. High ground to six feet under, kinda sortafing.

Or did you really enjoy the next few minutes at Euston, wondering if Mr Knuckledragger could be bothered to come after you? Or wondering, indeed, how much it would be possible for you rapidly to alter your appearance, as a precaution against him kindly offering to do so for you? Or do you want to have to carry a nice selection of wigs and glasses against a similar circumstance in future? No, I thought not.

Did you consider at the time the possibility that this was not only a Nasty-Piece-Of-Work™ but perhaps an easily-offended, spiteful, persistent and clever Nasty-Piece-Of-Work™? Sure, the Blessed Ian Dury sang, "you know if it came to a brainy game / you could baffle a blockhead with ease" ... but you don't know that this applies here, and if not you could, even more, be in trouble. Suppose the yob is cleverer than you, and knows Euston better? He's certainly faster ... think on, chuck. Or suppose he's a copper??

Is it worth it? No-one was in danger and no-one else was being oppressed. You could have swallowed your stupid pride, ignored him, cursed him lightly and pianissimo from at least 200m away (having first checked the wind direction) and enjoyed your coffee and croissant very much more without the encumbrance of the big orange fright wig and the diamante Elton John glasses. (In which, to be honest, you didn't look that great.) Think on.

Another thing to consider might be the advisibility of anticoagulated persons standing up to Yob Britain (©Daily Mail thank you so much). It could be a touch tricky trying to explain your bruisy-bleedy tendencies to a person on such a mission and in the full flow of demonstrating their commitment to their, uh, personal ideals. Your high INR might well whisper "not today matey boy" to the cautious listener, but you'd better decide who this listener is going to be ... and just imagine the reaction of the rest of the family if you got bashed around by Mr Tubeyob. Yes, quite. Think on.

Further, someone who gets paranoiac anxiety attacks if looked at strangely by, say, a poodle is probably not quite the right person single-handedly to tackle London's er er moral blight (©Daily Mail thank you so much). Not, at least, without tights, a cape, and some rather good Powers. Voosh.

Face it, self-righteousness is often in any case a bit nauseating, even if the person being self-righteous is actually, er, right. I'm actually a bit annoyed and irritated with you right now, and if you wrote out a profit and loss statement for the whole yob-interaction episode it would be hard to see how it would come out as a net gain compared with the wiser choice of completely ignoring the creep. Think on.

And how about this: if that young man goes off and kicks the dog or thumps someone today, is that your fault? Not at all, a bit, a lot, entirely? Think on ...

Certainly it is most unfortunate that you accidentally stood on his toe, even though it really was the purest of accidents. Yes. But what, precisely, do you think would be your chances of persuading him, in a hurry, of this important fact? Yup, me too.

So now ... first you got unhappy about the yob and then you got unhappy - and anxious - because you got unhappy about the yob. And now you're wasting your life blogging about it. Feedback loop red alert. Red alert feedback loop. On balance you're probably in a less good happiness-state right now than he is. (But shall we write something spiteful about his toe maybe hurting? Ah, perhaps not.)

You need to give up doing this stuff: this is a type of behaviour which you need to abandon, right now. Indignation engenders idiocy. Think on.

And please don't get me started on your driving. Oy veh!

Bottom line: learn anger management. You should, because they won't.

Thank you for reading. Think on.

Yours sincerely,

You.

Blogular management note: I feel that I have abased and embarrassed myself quite enough already in this blogological entity and, as a result, questions along the lines of "but what actually happened?" will not, I am afraid, receive any satisfactory response. Dear reader, it would take more chocolate and red wine than you currently have. Instead, do please feel free to imagine your own little playlet, casting me as a chubby, red-faced, indignant demicentenarian, with perhaps just a hint of Retired Colonel, and casting the yob as, well, a yob, with perhaps just a hint of Yob. (Though ahem of course I am sure that he actually has a most interesting hinterland and is a pillar of his community and loves his Mum.) Put these two uncharming characters (both of whom would appear to have got out of the wrong side of bed this lovely morning) together in neighbouring seats and observe their unlovely interaction. That should pretty much cover it, thank you.

Vogel Blows His Top, or, The Pedestrian Traffic Lights on Colney Hatch Lane are (in my personal opinion) Very Dangerous and Will Kill Someone (in my personal opinion) One Day and I Did Try To Tell You. (In my personal opinion.)

Of course all below is merely my personal opinion and should not possibly be taken as a statement of fact. Dearie me no.

This is a fault report I've just filled in on the TfL web site.

If you are wondering if I have blown my top and gone a bit nuts, then yes, I have. I have a long history with this issue. The medication does not help, doctor.

If you are a Haringey or TfL roads person, and you are wondering if I have put this here with a sort-of malicious intent, that is, starting a historical record of my attempts to counter your (in my personal opinion) stupid (in my personal opinion) horrible (in my personal opinion) dangerous (in my personal opinion) negligence, so that if/when someone is killed or seriously injured there I have a public record of the fact that you were told ... hmmmmm well chaps what do you think? I'd be quite worried, myself. Seriously.

If you are a Haringey or TfL roads person, and you want to argue with me about this, the comments are below. Please join in. Seriously.

If you are a Haringey or TfL roads person, and you are actually going to fix it and make it safe, because you've actually understood the issue, then woo woo woo and please let me bake you a cake. Seriously.

Right, off we go.

 

Borough: Haringey

Fault type: Traffic light

Location: Colney Hatch La/Alexandra Park Rd N10. Pedestrian light for people crossing NORTHBOUND side of CHL a metre or two north of the road junction.

Description: This particular part of the system currently has NO green light phase for pedestrians. The pedestrian WAIT light is permanently on and the red man is permanently displayed. I have watched the lights right through a cycle to check this.

Please note:

1. I do NOT mean the light for pedestrians crossing the southbound side of CHL. It's fine. I mean only the one which I describe exactly above.
2. In many ways, your current mess is safer and more honest than when it was nominally working. Why? Because your previous setup, designed I assume by an (in my personal opinion) idiot and/or (in my personal opinion) would-be murderer, gave pedestrians a green and then gave the cars waiting in APR to turn right into CHL-Northbound their own green just a couple of seconds later. Since only about 5% of car drivers seem to have the brains to realize that the pedestrian lights are separate, the other 95% just drive straight through on the red light that is supposed to protect the CHL-crossing pedestrians. They either do not see the red or think it is not for them. Now, none of you has ever (in my personal opinion) had the understanding to get anywhere (in my personal opinion) near this problem, but it would be nice, in a perfect world, to think that someone with a bit (in my personal opinion) more sense could actually VISIT the junction, watch driver behaviour, see what I mean, and do something.

Summary:

a. It's currently broken
b. If you "fix" it by putting it back to how it was before, you will be (in my personal opinion) knowingly endangering lives. If you did this then someone was killed or injured there, I'd very much hope that your (in my personal opinion) negligence would become public knowledge.
c. If you fix it by actually listening to what I have said and acting on it, you will be (in my personal opinion) taking an opportunity to enhance pedestrian safety and should probably (in my personal opinion) get the OBE. And a nice (in my personal opinion) chocolate (in my personal opinion) cake.

Cheers

Vogel (in my personal opinion)

And the response so far:

Street fault reported

Thank you. Your fault has been successfully recorded.

I'm sorry, I know this is a terrible terrible rant. But I have, honestly, had it with this issue. I have tried and tried, given up, retried - and, essentially, got pretty much nowhere. So my instinct to report the broken light came crunching up against my pre-existing, er, condition and the above rant is the result. Will it do any good? Quite possibly not: I am up against (in my personal opinion) intransigent people who know that they know better than me and have rarely shown signs of paying attention to what I've said. But maybe it will make me feel a touch better that I have at least tried.

In the meantime, if you cross the road there, please treat that traffic light, whatever it is telling you, with the very deepest suspicion: make sure you are safe by applying your own judgement and careful observation. I am not kidding.

If any of this has any impact, I will let you know. I do not advise holding your breath but, if it does have a beneficial effect - just imagine!

Warning - Train Weasel Alert; or, the Ethics of Some People Defy Belief

This train is overfull: people are standing at the ends of the carriages.

I've just watched a deeply loathsome weasel of a business type doing the most incredibly unethical thing of trying to keep the seat next to him empty. He's at a four-person table - all unreserved - where three seats were taken: he was in the aisle seat and "guarding" the empty window seat. Nice.

This creep lied to the first person, a black woman, who asked him about it. Then he initially lied again, but backed down gracelessly, when someone a bit more assertive (and whiter, but I am sure this was not a factor, yeah right) tried some time later. He had a very lame story about how someone had been sitting there and he thought they were coming back, but I am absolutely 100% certain that this was the purest b*ll*cks. The stuff spread out on the seat and table, making it look occupied, was all his as became clear when he had to shift it all to let the second lady sit down. Indeed, just from my memory of comings and goings as people boarded - as it happens, I was on first - I'm very clear that no-one had sat there at all on this service. Which is how Mr Weasel planned to keep it.

What a weasel, what an utter creep. Of course you'll never read this, oh weasel of seat D31 on the 1545 Piccadilly to Euston train, and even if you did you probably wouldn't care anyway, since you've obviously already decided that your desire for space for your weasel laptop and your unethical business weasel papers is far more important than anyone else's need to sit down on this ghastly overcrowded train. You horrible, horrible creep.

I don't like to be vindictive but I confess I am tempted to hope that your hard disk fails, soon, and badly, and that your last good backup was made on or before 28th August 2006. You weasel, you miserable miserable weasel. I've never met you but I really don't like you.

Update: you have been saved by the delete key from a looooong piece debating the rights and wrongs of this in more detail: my tendency to be ridiculously judgemental; the nature of Cosmic Justice; the question of in what scenarios the Train Weasel's behaviour might have been reasonable; an ting.

I spent hours on this but, on the final re-reading, came to realize that it contained nothing of merit.

Woo yay let's hear it for the delete key!

Another Virgin Trains triumph

I should probably give this up one of these days. It's too easy to take the you-know-what out of the people who run the Virgin Trains website, because they make themselves such fabulously easy targets. And why, you ask, does it matter? Because things like this, which are easy to see and rant about, are, I feel, symptomatic of the deeper, sometimes more concealed malaise which afflicts the whole site, which is acute carelessness. I've just spent a few more happy minutes trying to make it work properly, understand the engineering works, buy yet more tickets, and sure, the spellings don't stop it, but the rubbishy untested thinking does. And orft we jolly well go ...

Please see the attached timetable links below, giving details of the revised service that will be operating on Saturday 14 & Sunday 15 June.
14 June Nouthbound
14 June Southbound
15 June Nouthbound
15 June Southbound

And a woo wah yippee-aye-yay!

I wonder who proofread this.

Virgin Trains' putrescent, vile, dreadful, amateurish website will be the death of me

I leave it to you, dear reader, to figure out whether the title is meant figuratively. With my blood pressure where it probably is right now, I wouldn't bank on anything.

The trains are quite nice, it's a very useful service, and the people who work on them are lovely. So why has the website been designed by incompetent hyenas? They shouldn't be allowed anywhere near anything with money involved. Ever.

At this point I could write down a blow-by-blow account of why the above opinion has just been strongly reinforced by yet another encounter with the uselessness that is Mr Branson's personal vacuum-tube interface to your wallet. But why should I bother? Who cares? The website is rubbish; it does not work properly; you can upset it, apparently to a terminal extent, by simply using it as it claims to be usable; they do not maintain it properly (hint: it is now June). They are fools. I am currently quite dependent on this train service and its smelly, useless booking system but honestly it is enough to make me want to fly, and damn the expense and the ozone layer because the airline's booking system has GOT to be better than Virgin's wheezing, fragile, sensitive, pathetic, wilting little flower of an offering. Thanks Rich: you da man.

NB No smiley faces. None of this blog entry has cheerful lighthearted intent. I am not happy.

PS BUT ... two staff at the much-maligned offshore call-centre were nice and helpful and spoke excellent English, and strove to sort out what the website couldn't, as it was just sitting weeping quietly in a corner by then while still trying to steal my money. There you go, one nice thing.

Mmmm yeah I got those mean old travel insurance blues

Aargh! I have had a horrible horrible horrible time on the telephonic speaking apparatus and the Interwebs trying to sort out travel insurance.

Ever since I got ill this has, of course, been a pain. But I thought I had cracked it when for 2006-7's busy travel year I got a full-year policy - at fairly huge expense - from Axa. It was a bit of a pain because they had moved their medical vetting overseas thereby making some complicated stuff even more difficult to discuss, where formerly they'd used UK-based staff who actually knew what I was saying when I mumbled "antiphospholipid syndrome". Nevertheless I struggled through their screening process a few times, explaining every other word as I went, and got this annual policy and that was fine. 

So today, in a pre-travel flap about Banff, I went to renew this policy, and despite the mercy of it all being online now, was horrified to find that I could not. Why? Dunno. Snotty little message didn't put on its white coat and stethoscope and go into details but merely said "bog off".

Great. I am now in a flat spin. Axa's snotty "Bog Off Mate" page recommends Freedom, "Travel Insurers to the Already-Screwed" (yeah, I made that bit up, sue me.) I ring them, they are lovely, they and I have a first language in common, I can do business here I think. No they won't do me an annual policy (why not, dammit?), but they'll quote me for just the Canada trip. How much? They ring back after a decent gap (they probably do this to give heart patients time to check where the pills are) and say Three Hundred and Thirty Pounds! Voop! Red Alert!! Exploding Pants!!! Batten Down The Hatches!!!!

This is not good. I am not happy. I am starting to wonder how on earth I am meant to travel anywhere. Also just how confident the insurance companies are that I am going to drop dead or, more expensively, fall ill while away ... am I really that bad a risk? I'm as fit as a (rather portly) fiddle! I go orienteering!!

In desperation I try Saga. Motto: If You Have to Ask How Old, You're Too Young. (Yeah, I made that up too. Sue me some more.)  I am not sure if you have to have pipe in mouth and cardie and slippers on before you attempt it, but hey. I find this all somewhere between comical and humiliating but, hell, I can't travel without some kind of insurance and I am starting to get "a bit concerned". (Yes, that is code for something more extreme.) Saga's online system ("press the mouse button NOW dear, press it NOW. THE MOUSE BUTTON PET, JUST PRESS IT. No dear I don't know where Tiddles is, just press the MOUSE BUTTON") went through the same kind of thing, told me to bog off with regard to annual cover (of course, I was getting used to it by then) but quoted me a much-more acceptable price of around £170 for just the Canada trip. More or less weeping with gratitude I coughed up, prontissimo.

So, great, I have travel cover, I can go, it's a terrible price but it's cheaper than Freedom (there's a song title in there somewhere) and by now I don't care, I am so relieved. Phew.

Want to know the really annoying bit? After all that I went back and out of curiosity did what I should have done before on the Axa site, which is to ask it for a quote for just the Banff trip. Stupidly I had not done this - I was so shocked at them turning me down for the annual policy that I went off in a tizz. Twit. Guess what? Seventy quid! Same screening questions, same answers - seventy quid at Axa, a hundred more at Saga, another hundred and fifty at Freedom. Gah! Life was a lot easier and cheaper when I was the model of good heath (hem hem).

So, I'm stuck. I am paying out £100 more than I needed to, but I do have a policy, which is the main thing. I dare not try to change anything again now. I am very cheesed off. It appears that I will no longer be able to get annual policies, which is a massive drag. Why not?? Nothing has changed in my er er er glowing good health, but the algorithms must have been tweaked so I am no longer acceptable. B*st*rds. It's these little annoyances that just make you so ... so ... GAH!!!! I discard them. Chiz. I diskard them too, in fact.

Mr Thompson, the single malts if you please: I rather think that I will select, with your assistance, from the better end of the collection this evening. Thank you so much.

Cyclying? Yer what yer what yer what?

Additional thought required - please see also the Updates below in which I do some more thinking about this entry: please don't just read the main bit.

I was surprised by a new poster on the Tube. It is part of a campaign extolling the virtues of green travel, notably cycling and walking, and seems to be promoted by Islington Council (my old employers, aaah love'em), and their arty and environmenty partners. It's all very pretty and artistic. Mostly images, few words.

Among those few words it has "cycling", perhaps rather a key thing for this particular poster you might think, spelt "cyclying".

Sooo ... lets's just do the maths, shall we? It's pretty high-precision work so please bear with me a moment:

Design costs:

oooo about eight million pounds I should think

Print:

oooo about eight million pounds I should think

Tube poster sites:

oooo about eight million pounds I should think

Nice lunches for senior people on the project:

oooo about eight million pounds I should think

Proofreading (missed opportunity) costs:

ermmm ahem fourteeen pee or thereabouts.

So there we have it. Almost exactly thirty-two million pounds to get up on the wall something which says "we are jolly arty and good at lunching, but also careless and clueless", a highly avoidable state which it would have cost 14p to detect and correct.

At the risk of sounding even older and more curmudgeonly than I actually am (a difficult challenge), this seems to be getting more and more common. Whack the design out, it looks nice, that's fine, approved, gone. No-one with any care for text and its meaning and structure has ever looked at it because the management has ceded all its responsibilities to illiterate design wonks who can't spell and have the uneasy feeling that an apostrophe is some kind of green vegetable they don't like (they tried it at their Nan's once).

GGGAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Update: 27th May. I'm now a little worried by this entry and I'm not sure whether it's better to take it down or edit heavily (are those revisionist?) or leave it with an additional comment, or what. For the time being, it's the latter, so ... my concern is that I've possibly done them an injustice. I didn't see the same poster again but I did see others in the same campaign, all at Finsbury Park station. At least one of these others had been inaccurately glued up, so that not all its edges were well-aligned. I'm now wondering whether this is what happened to the poster lambasted here, and therefore whether I owe lots of people an apology. I hate to think that in my haste to rant I may have been so unfair. I must say (a) that I'd have hoped I might notice the joins if that were the problem and (b) that I'm not sure how the join problem could have caused that particular spelling, but I really wish I had checked and was now sure. If you try it with paper (I did, believe me) then the closest you can easily get is "cycycling". But then maybe I remembered it wrongly, or some other subtle process (accidental folding perhaps?) had taken place. So, at worst I have lots of egg on my face and at best the doubt that I am currently experiencing is perhaps a salutary reminder to be a bit less mouthy and snotty (can you be both simultaneously? yuk!) when ranting about stuff, or at least to be 100% sure of my facts before indulging in such a rant. I am not sure how to resolve this - you could watch this space, but I'm not sure that you should.

Update the Second: 27th May. Right. I've looked at and thought about it a bit more. I've also edited - for factual accuracy only - the main entry, having found the right websites. I've added a picture too, but only till someone asks me to take it down.

Here are my conclusions:

1. I shouldn't have been so rude about the spelling error. It's not a fantastically balanced approach. It would have been wiser to look at the whole project and try to understand it more first.
   
2. It's a local project using local artists and has produced some beautiful work - if it's still up, visit a preview and see for yourself. The ones you're looking for are labelled "Islington DIY".
   
3. The spelling error I mentioned is real (though ironically I misrepresented it - the error! - myself at first) and should not have been allowed to happen. It really is on the poster, and is not a glueing or folding issue.
   
4. Several of the other posters have punctuation errors on also. I still feel quite strongly that public bodies should proofread text and correct it before it is displayed like this. Islington runs the borough's schools, for goodness' sake, yet manages to give the impression that it does not know the difference between "its" and "it's". No matter how local and community-ish a project is, you can and should get this stuff right. Otherwise you are offsetting the nice artwork with bad text, and you owe it to people not to do this.
   
5. But I shouldn't rant so much, or at least not without knowing my facts a bit better.
   

Vogel sues yoghurt manufacturer

Important note: Estate agents, narrowboat designers, Mitsubishi salespeople and trumpet and camera manufacturers please form an orderly (but expectant) queue. You will all get your turn and there will be plenty to go round.

I have decided to identify and sue the unspeakable b*st*rds who some time during, I don't know, the 70s or 80s or some other ridiculous decade, brought out this TV jingle:

We're the Yogga
The Yogga
The Yogga Kids
Got our pictures
On the lids

This bl**dy awful drivel is permanently occupying space in my brain that should be used for telephone numbers, what I am supposed to be doing next, the name of some nice person that I've known for ten years but who is temporarily just a friendly face, German noun genders, and so on. I did not invite this horrible doggerel in but now it has taken up residence behind some kind of mental wardrobe and pops up at inconvenient times and stops me knowing the number of that useful bus that (eventually) goes to Brent Cross.

I mean, this appalling tripe is not even as good as its brain-squatting space-sharer, the Muppets doing Muh Nuh Muh Nuh which at least makes me laugh: thank you Viv Goldberg, for that bit is all your fault. (Actually, the solos from the guy in the green top sound just like me trying to improvise - maybe that's where I acquired my "style"?)

Someone has to pay for this outrage. Join me in my class action. The Yogga Kids will suffer for what they have done to me, to society. It must be worth millions.

PS No Tamsin, it is not even a very good song, that is correct. The Yogga Kids is not listed in the better dictionaries of music, nor in Barlow and Morgenstern's fine work of melodic indexing. Neither Bach nor Schubert would be very likely to weep with envy at the sheer beauty of its lines.

PPS Please do NOT ask me to sing you this if you do not already know it. I fear that it has the power, virus-like, to install itself in your brain and continue to try to propagate from there. Look what it's done to me. Don't let it ruin your life too!

PPS Ob-yoghurt comment: I never tried this product but I can tell you quite confidently, extrapolating from the ad campaign, that it was utterly disgusting and probably full of aspartame or whatever repulsive equivalent they had in them t'days eee aye.

Update: posting this has made it much much worse. Now I get this horrid horrid horrid song on the brain every time I look at my own blog. Gak! What a great idea that was...

All your base are far you live ...

...or something.

Virgin Media (I know, I shouldn’t, I really shouldn’t) have a lovely thing at HateToWait to help you find out whether your street can get 20mb broadband over fibre, which I agree is a jolly good idea. When you put in your postcode and confirm your address, if you are a Lucky Winner then you get a nice page which says, inter alia:

It's reliable, unaffected by the weather and the quality of service is not base on far you live from the telephone exchange - unlike all other broadband providers.

I really can’t go on - it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Gah!

But yes, in case you are wondering, I have indeed written to them. I reckon it was 95% polite and pleasant but I’m slightly shamefaced about the other 5%. I’d have been in less of a grump if there were an obvious way to leave this kind of site feedback but, guess what, there isn’t: oh my, what a surprise. I’ve had their autoreply to say they got it, and if/when I get an actual response, you will be the first to hear. On their general performance recently I would say don’t hold your breath, but you never know – they may yet surprise and delight me.

Update (11th February): lovely boilerplate email from Virgin Media saying:

Thanks for your email to Virgin Media letting us know your comments on our website. We're always looking for ways to improve our services - including our website - to make sure they give you exactly what you need. We're really grateful for your feedback as it lets us know exactly what you think. We promise to do everything we can to use your feedback when we next make changes to our website.

Riiiiiight ... erm, good so far. Just a touch nauseating and twee, but hey. And do you think this is perhaps the exact equivalent of saying "ooh yes, silly of us, thanks, we'll fix it right now"? I mean, they haven't fixed it yet ... and you might think that a horrible, embarrassing blooper like that would be worth fixing immediately ... but what do I know? After all, the only problem is that this makes them look illiterate and careless in front of everyone to whom they want to sell this service - so where's the urgency? I'd take it easy myself. Suggested new slogan (free for first six months, thereafter union rates):

Only silly words not matter don't not much lol !

Yes, I should probably get a life. Sigh.

Update (14th February): very nice lady from VM rings my mobile. She is responding to a complaint I made, so can I please tell her my password, for identification? No, sorry, I can't, because that's what I am trained by my work to not do and although she is clearly a nice lady that is what she would do if she were a bad person trying to socially engineer me and gain unauthorized access to my account. I ask if I can ring her back: nope. I ask if she can ask me some letters from it, like the bank does: nope. I ask if we can discuss it by email: nope. Impasse. I am a bit embarrassed and flustered because at one level I feel I am behaving like a jerk and at the other level I feel that this rather sloppy security practice should be resisted. I am reminded of AOL's statement that "AOL staff will NEVER ask you for your password online or over the telephone" which seems a bit more like it to me and certainly offers commendable clarity.

Suddenly the lady on the phone has an attack of practicality and announces that as she does not need to do anything with my account in order to respond, she won't need the security check. (Correct, though really it would have been better to decide this earlier in the conversation.) She then, really very nicely, says All The Right Things about my initial complaint, which makes a very nice change. She is unable to say when they will fix it but she acknowledges the problem, has actioned it, thanks me for my trouble, apologizes for the previous stupid reply, and so on. Couldn't be better.

This is much more like it. I will look forward to finding that it has actually been fixed one day. I cannot, however, for the life of me see how it makes good security practice for them to ring and ask me my password. With no get-outs and no workarounds: I'm just supposed to tell them it on the phone. However unlikely the scenario you'd have to construct to make this a real threat, I do still feel that it is terribly bad practice when you look at the matter of principle involved. It's very nice that she had the sense to proceed with the call anyway but if my complaint had been something account-specific it's hard to see how we'd have made any progress. Ah well, the web page that annoyed me is to be sorted and that's good: onwards and upwards!

Update (21st February): no change. Dum de dum de dum. It's only a week. It must be very difficult for them.

Update (23rd February): I am glad to see that it is not just I who think that it is foolish for Virgin Media to ring customers up and demand their passwords. In a rather good Guardian Technology article, Scott Colvey asks, "Why is Virgin Media asking customers for their passwords?" and answers his own question: "Because either it is stupid, or thinks its customers are, or both." There's a little more to it than that, which is why you should read the linked article, but that's his essential point. He's right of course - it is an appalling practice, amateurish and sloppy. That a company of that size can do no better is an astonishing admission of failure. (No, they have not yet fixed the page I was moaning about. It's only fifteen days since I first attempted to report it, after all ...)

Update (28th February): dum de dum ... time passes ... [yawn] ... just twenty days since I told them and a mere fortnight since nice Mrs Apologetic (Stupid Password Request) Lady rang me and apologized and said they'd fix it. Naturally they haven't fixed it. What a very sad performance.

Update (15th March): tum te tum te tiddle-eye-o ... more time passes ... [big yawn] ... maybe they never actually will fix it. Was the lady who spoke to me actually a liar, or just incompetent, I wonder? Trying to be charitable, I look for a Third Way along the lines of "trying to help but actually unable to because of the way the company operates" but in a sense you perhaps end up back with lying (she can't help and she knew it) or incompetent (she can't help and she didn't know it) and none of it is that comforting. I probably ought to just let it go, I know, but it's precisely the sort of thing that makes me grind my teeth and want to kick someone.

Update (18th April): The lady who spoke to me has presumably been sacked for being nice and helpful on the phone without permission. The site is unchanged. It's seventy days since I first pointed out their error. Dum, de dum, de daaah daah dum. And a tiddle-eye-o!

Update (18th April part 2): It's time to move on. Although I am offended by their stupidity and rudeness I've got better things to do. In a last-ditch effort I have written them an actual letter, on actual paper and signed it with an actual pen: perhaps this will receive more attention than mere email. I'll let you know when I hear back from them, but, as I said before, please do not hold your breath.

Update (30th April): they've actually fixed it! Hurrah. Maybe writing an actual letter (etc) did some good where mere electronic protest could not. Who knows? Ah well, end of an era really - I hadn't checked the page for some time (even I have my limits of nerdy-sadness) so all we can say with certainty is that it took between seventy and eighty-two days for them to fix it from my first attempt to tell them.

It looks quite strange now, worded correctly: "... is not based on how far you live ...". In years to come perhaps I will miss its little unEnglish cousin, "... is not base on far you live ...". But not now.