Longrider

The best times for photography always seem to involve getting up early and getting cold. Winter is the time of year I want to hibernate, yet, paradoxically, it is probably the best time of year for getting good pictures. Oh, well, out of the warmth of a centrally heated house and into the bitter cold of a frosty morning.

Enjoy…

Yesterday I received a letter from my bank referring to a loan that I settled early back in 2001. Apparently I had taken out the optional payment cover. They were writing to inform me that they had subsequently discovered an error. It seems that when settling the loan, the insurance had not been cancelled. They were very sorry for this and were returning the premiums along with interest accrued. Attached to the letter was a cheque for £615. Er, wow, wasn’t expecting that…

I don’t even recall taking out the optional insurance. I don’t usually. I guess the best thing to do is bank it and not complain. Manna from heaven is a rarity, so I’ll make the most of it.

The Identity Cards bill has produced some fascinating insight into the machinations of government. They have shifted from devious avoidance of debate to outright lying and all shades inbetween; everything but a straight answer to a straight question.

Most recently, there is a row currently brewing over their costing of the bill. The London School of Economics is prepared to reassess its original figures (something the government seems unable to do), but as a consequence the overall figure is likely to rise. In among the discussion on the BBC website article is this:

Home Office Minister Andy Burnham, who cannot give a cost estimate, says the LSE now says its figures were wrong.

While it sound innocuous enough, compare it with comments made to me in a letter written by the very same Andy Burnham:

Our assessments to date have indicated that the benefits outweigh the costs of the scheme.

Hands up who can see the contradiction?

Perhaps this genius will explain how, exactly, the home office can conduct a cost/benefits analysis without having access to one of the components in the equation?

The News & Views upgrade was not what I would call smooth, exactly…

Firstly the upgrade itself failed resulting in a call to Technical Support. I hate calling support; I feel such a failure. And, I have this sneaky feeling that I’m being stupid, or that the technicians will see me as just another dumb user. Still, sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and go with it.

24 hours after submitting the ticket, I got a message that everything was sorted. Except I couldn’t see any of the messages. I was told that this was because my skins had not upgraded and they were causing the problem. Only… Why didn’t the standard Invision skin work either? I rebuilt the cache and then it did. Okay, I then upgraded all of the custom skins. I’ve been working on and off for the past 24 hours getting the skins working smoothly and little bits of code - such as the spell checker - back up and running.

I’m still waiting on Invision sorting out the gallery as that failed, too.

Having said that, the upgraded forum is an improvement - I just hope all the work is worth it.

Today my credit card was credited with £196.83 - some £6 short of the amount originally debited by MyDV for the camcorder that never was. I could, I guess get testy about the odd £6 - but I’m not sure I can be bothered. I know, it lets them get away with it, but as it is money that is lost in the exchange rate, it isn’t money they have actually got. I really want to draw a line under the episode. So that’s what I’m going to do.

Okay, I know, cheap joke….

The board has been restored, but I can’t view the threads. I can’t post new ones either. Indeed, I can’t log out, which is really weird. Anyway, the support ticket is still open and Invision support staff are looking at it…

I’ll keep you informed as things progress.

Upgrades… gotta luvvem!

News & Views is back. I am still rebuilding the skin sets, so everything is set to the default skin at the moment. During the next 24 hours, I’ll have rebuilt the skin sets, so check when you log in.

I have still to install the updated gallery - again, sometime within the next 24 - 48 hours.
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News & Views will be offline for a couple of days. I planned a simple upgrade to Invizion version 2.1.3. Unfortunately the upgrade failed halfway through the process. I have no idea why. Until I can get hold of technical support - and that won’t be until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, we are down.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Some while back, I decided to sell my TR1. As it failed to reach the eBay reserve, I tried the more traditional method of advertising in a motorcycle magazine. This elicited an interested buyer who came to see the bike.

Things didn’t exactly get off to a good start because I couldn’t get the bike to run properly. I suspect that the prolonged layoff caused the petrol to gum up the carburettor jets. Certainly I had good fat sparks but it was not firing on the lead cylinder. I was still poking around with this when my potential buyer showed up.

We spent a while talking about the bike and its history. He sat on it and promptly decided that he didn’t like the handlebars. He asked if I had the originals - after 21 years, no, I didn’t. He asked if I had the original shorter cables. I wasn’t sure - I might have, but couldn’t say (as it subsequently turned out, I did). Besides, it’s a niggling little matter and not something I wanted to fuss too much about. As time went on, and we started to get the to the crux of the transaction, he made it clear that I was asking too much. Now, I knew this. I deliberately asked well over my preferred price to allow for the dreaded haggling. I hate haggling, which is why I usually avoid private sales. On this occasion, it was a necessity. I realised that there was a reverse psychology going on. Usually, a buyer will try to find points that he can use to negotiate the price down - new tyres, new brakes, new battery and so on. As all of these didn’t apply, the general condition of the bike became an issue. It does need repainting, and standing for the best part of ten years has caused deterioration. He didn’t like the mileage. At 55,000 miles, it had seen some life, but it isn’t excessive.

Unfortunately, the usual method of knocking the price down with criticism, whether overt or not, has exactly the opposite effect on me to that desired. It puts my hackles up and I feel less inclined to negotiate. I rapidly recognised that whatever price was offered, it wouldn’t be enough. It dawned on me then, that I didn’t want to sell - not to this man and not to anyone else.

I felt sorry for his wasted trip. But, for me, it was a relief to watch him walk away empty handed. That relief made me acknowledge that I just can’t part with this bike. I have lived with it for too long. It has become a part of my life. So, when I have the time and funds, I’ll do what I’ve been planning to do all along. I’ll restore it to its former glory and use it as a Sunday afternoon bike. It’s earned that.