Longrider

Via The Devil’s Kitchen, this story about a couple on the run from a forced marriage. It’s well worth reading and I can’t say anything that adds to DK’s repugnance at the way the couple were hounded and threatened with death by the woman’s family who had arranged an unwanted union for her in Pakistan.

No, it was this almost throw-away comment that caught my eye:

So Jack and Zena began an extraordinary life on the run, pursued by Zena’s family, who stopped at nothing to try to get her back. The brothers got access to secure social security department computers to track them down;

Nothing I have heard from the home office propaganda merchants assures me that their “gold standard” national identity register will be immune from such abuse. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, eh? Tell that to Jack and Zena.

Is it any wonder, then, that those of us who are sufficiently aware of the plans, have no intention whatsoever of allowing sensitive data to find its way onto the database in the first place? Fatally flawed isn’t the half of it. :dry:

I note from the Driving Instructors Association, that ADIs are to be subjected to the pernicious Capita’s criminal records checks.

It’s not that I have a criminal record to hide that worries me. Oh, no, it’s that I don’t.

The iniquitous NHS IT scheme, that plans to include an electronic database of patients’ medical records is hopelessly over budget and behind time:

The government plan to give every patient in the UK an electronic medical record is running late and hopelessly over budget, according to the government minister in charge of the project.

Lord Warner said the scheme was running at least two and a half years behind schedule. He also admitted that the final cost is likely to be closer to £20bn than the £6.2bn originally quoted.

Woah! Hang on a minute there pardner… I seem to recall that the National Identity Register – you know, the Stasi like database that underpins the ID Cards Act (2006) was going to cost around £6bn….

Looks more and more as if the LSE was closer to the truth on costs.

Via Mr Eugenidies and The Devil’s Kitchen, this little gem from our lords and masters – this time, the unelected buffoons in the EU:

Dr Peter Anderson, the report’s lead author, who has a background in the World Health Organisation (WHO) and plays a leading role in Tobacco Free Initiative Europe, tells me that the concept of social harm takes the alcohol debate beyond the traditional limits of individual choice and addiction. ‘You can make the argument that what an individual drinks is up to them, provided they understand what they are doing and bearing in mind that alcohol is a dependency-producing drug…. But when you talk about harm to others then that is a societal concern and justification for doing something about it. I think that is an important argument. If there was not harm to others then the argument gets a little less powerful’

And, naturally, he will go on to point out that there is harm:

‘The total tangible cost of alcohol to EU society in 2003 was estimated to be €125bn (€79bn-€220bn), equivalent to 1.3 per cent GDP, and which is roughly the same value as that found recently for tobacco.’ The report further highlights the broader social cost of drinking, with the proviso that ‘these estimates are subject to a wide margin of error, [and] they are likely to be an underestimate of the true gross social cost of alcohol’.

See? Told you.

Here we go again, the health fascists who, not satisfied that we are given sufficient information with which to make an informed decision about or lives, how we live them and the chemicals we choose to imbibe, feel that the state should decide for us. Dr Anderson goes on to lecture us about the cost of alcohol abuse (never mind the millions who merely drink socially):

‘The intangible costs show the value people place on pain, suffering and lost life that occurs due to the criminal, social and health harms caused by alcohol’, says the report. ‘In 2003 these were estimated to be €270bn, with other ways of valuing the same harms producing estimates between €150bn and €760bn.’

Er, if it is intangible, how did they manage to measure it accurately enough to put a figure to it?

I have some experience with alcohol abuse and it isn’t pretty. It can destroy lives. Certainly, it will make them miserable while the addiction is at its height. As a consequence, I hate alcohol immensely. Not as immensely as I detest interfering busy-body doctors and politicians who try to tell me how to run my life, though. Take away alcohol, however, and the underlying problem will not go away, the addiction will simply feed off something else. Presumably the health Nazis will go after that, then, whatever it may be.

The assumptions in this statement are pretty rich:

Drink is responsible for 2,000 homicides, four out of 10 of Europe’s annual murders. ‘The economic cost of alcohol-attributable crime has been estimated to be €33bn in the EU for 2003….while the intangible cost of the physical and psychological effects of crime has been valued at €9bn - €37bn.’ Children, too, are passive victims of drinking. ‘Many of the harms caused by alcohol are borne by people other than the drinker responsible. This includes 60,000 underweight births, as well as 16 per cent of child abuse and neglect, and five to nine million children in families adversely affected by alcohol’, says the report’s summary.

Wow. But, er, what about all those folk, like Mr Eugenidies (and presumably DK) who simply drink socially without beating their wives/girlfriends et al?

I have never beaten my girlfriend whilst drunk (nor, for the avoidance of doubt, whilst sober). I do not have any children and do not abuse any. I have never got into a fight in a pub. I have never committed a crime drunk. I have never, at the time of writing, killed anyone, drunk, sober, or stoned. Kept neighbours awake? Well, maybe once or twice in my salad days. Fuck them, they were disagreeable old bats.

Quite. It is none of the state’s business whether people drink alcohol or not. Once more we have doctors interfering where they have no business. They are there to cure the sick, not tell us how to run our lives. If we choose to ignore their advice when in the surgery – where they are perfectly entitled to dish out their opinions, well, that’s our concern and we pay the price. So be it.

It seems, though, that not only do we have a problem in the EU with obsessive health Nazis, Australia faces a similar difficulty. Some nincompoop – Senator Nigel Scullion, to be precise – is proposing alcohol cards:

ALL Northern Territorians should be issued an electronic photo ID card to buy takeaway alcohol, a Federal politician said yesterday.

CLP Senator Nigel Scullion said: “It would be a small price to pay to reduce anti-social behaviour.”

He rejected claims that Darwin and Alice Springs were too big for the system to work.

“It wouldn’t hurt to carry an alcohol smartcard,” Senator Scullion said. “We carry several other cards with us all the time.”

The ID card is expected to be tried out in Nhulunbuy later this year.

Ye gods! Where will it end? I suppose, given that politicians have a limited purpose, they feel obliged to manufacture more and convince us that it is for our own good. I’ll go along with a cull – first politicians, then as recommended by The Devil’s Kitchen, the civil service, followed by any doctors who think that politics is a part of their role.

The problem, though, runs somewhat deeper than either Mr Eugenidies or DK mention, as illustrated by this discussion over at the UK Bike Forum:

How the feck an open faced helmet like they all wore restricted their view is beyond me, anyway, I had this argument with one of them who was spouting the freedom of choice bollox and my argument was that if he had the freedom to not wear a helmet then fine. If he wanted to over cook a bend and smash his head open on a 3 foot wide oak tree great. But if he ends up on the wrong side, I have the choice that my children don’t get traumatised when they see someones head split open on my windshield. Seriously, if I was in charge of laws, riding a bike without FULL protective clothing would be an offence and would earn you 3 points.

Any motorcyclist reading this will realise that nickr6 is fairly mainstream in his opinions. Most serious riders are appalled by those who don’t kit up properly (myself included). This is not the first time I’ve heard riders call for legislation to control those who choose to ride without the proper gear. My response was fairly acerbic:

So where do the rules stop? There is a significant proportion of the population who believe riding motorcycles is dangerous, stupid and irresponsible (they probably feel the same about mountaineers, hang gliders and jet skiers) and that they should be banned. There are, doubtless, politicians who would listen favourably to such lobbying.

They don’t want to pay their NI contributions towards people who have had an off whether properly kitted out or not - it makes no difference to the uninitiated.

That, of course, is the rub. There will always be something that the majority will disapprove of and there will always be a vacuous, vote hungry politician ready to pick up the reigns of a bandwagon when it rolls into town. Just stop for a minute and ask yourself how many times does a news item involve some ill-informed idiot trotting out the mantras such as: “the government ought to do something”, “it should be banned” or “there needs to be a law against it”. Well? Sound familiar? How many people are complaining about the tobacco ban? Are there protests in the streets decrying the infringement of liberty that it represents? No, the darkness creeps upon us stealthily. Our liberty dies with barely a whisper. Already the group mind set is impregnated with the hyperbole about binge drinking and anti-social behaviour. Frankly, the likely outcome of a law regarding passive drinking will be welcomed.

And that, ladies and gentlemen is the root of our problem. It isn’t the EU, it isn’t Westminster – it’s our fellow man.

According to Hilary Benn, John Prescott is the right man for his job

John Prescott is “getting on with the job” as deputy prime minister and is the right man for it, International Development Secretary Hilary Benn said.

Mr Benn was defending his colleague as politicians and commentators continued to question his position.

He said Mr Prescott’s role in chairing committees tasked with delivering aid to Indonesia following the earthquake had been ignored by the media.

I see. And Prescott is the right man for all of this? Er, remind me, if he is so good, why did the PM strip him of his department?

Mr Benn went on to blame a bank holiday shortage of news for the media’s decision to keep “going after” Mr Prescott on Monday.

Ah… nothing to do with him being a bombastic, incompetent, bullying sexual predator, then?

Tony Christie has prostituted himself in the name of football. His hit song; (Is This The Way To) Amarillo, has been rewritten to give his flagging career a boost on the back of the dreadful soccer junket that will plague us over the course of the summer. As an aside, a quick exit for the national team may mitigate some of the hyperbole driven misery for those of us who don’t like football (yes, we do exist), but only some. Anyway, back to Christie:

“This has every chance of being number one when England win the World Cup,” Christie said.

Unfortunately he is probably right – about the song, not winning the world cup. Quality and the number one slot are not synonymous. Popular music history is riddled with novelty songs that captured the nation’s imagination despite having no musical merit whatsoever. The Birdie Song, anyone? Or the lamentable Shuddup Your Face? I could list more, but I’d be in danger of slitting my wrists. Despite bastardising Neil Sedaka’s original composition, despite the fact that it is incredibly tacky and doesn’t scan; yes, people will go out and buy (Is This The Way To) The World Cup.

There are some subjects that don’t go well with music and sport is one of them. Quality music tends to be driven by something more sublime; love, relationships, religion. Despite my atheism, I can appreciate and even be moved by religious music. Football songs, though, just make my toes curl. Frankly, the best soccer song ever written goes something like this; “’ere we go, ’ere we go, ’ere we go.” It scans, at least, and has about the most intelligible soccer lyrics that have been put to music without being utterly cringe-worthy.

It could be worse, I guess. They could have asked the England squad to sing it…. :dry:

Britblog 67 is up

I noticed an interesting article in the Grauniad yesterday regarding iPods and out of warranty failures.

Apple iPod owners love their sleek machines. That’s when they work. When they don’t, they enter a twilight world where they discover their prized music player is considered by its manufacturer as nothing more than a throwaway item.

It doesn’t matter that iPod lovers can spend up to £300 on their gizmo. Apple operates on the basis that the iPod life expectancy is a year, and that’s it.

My first reaction to Apple’s attitude is: Ouch! Okay, so electronic goods do get replaced quickly these days, but a virtual  admission that the iPod is a throwaway item surprises me. Not least, because I believed that it was at the upper end of the portable music market. A one year warranty is nothing unusual for electronic goods – my iPAQ had one. What I don’t expect is for it to fail just outside the warranty. When it does, things can get expensive. A new screen on my iPAQ at two and a half years was just over £100 and I had to weigh up the relative cost benefit of a repair or junking it. I decided eventually to stump up for the repair and put off upgrading for a bit longer.

The problem with Apple seems to be its attitude when faced with a significant number of complaints, in this case, the Clickwheel model is the cause of customer ire:

The 40Gb Clickwheel, now discontinued, appears to have suffered more than its fair share of problems. Apple says not. Its response, however, captures the dilemma faced by customers offered an extended warranty. Either the product is robust and the rare failure can be absorbed by the seller, or there is a widespread reliability problem which the manufacturer should deal with.

Apple, like most other manufacturers, refuses to accept responsibility for repairs even when machines break down within weeks of expiry of the one-year warranty.

This will apply to pretty much all manufacturers. You can, if you wish, buy the expensive after-market warranty. I don’t, they are unduly expensive, so I prefer to take the risk myself. Overall, this has been the wise choice.

The problem here seems to be inherent with the Clickwheel model. All of which, reminds me of the Harley Davidson 883 Sportster back in the late eighties and early nineties. The one with the self destructing gearbox. The self-destructing gearbox that, according to Harley, wasn’t. A friend of mine discovered this to her cost as her gearbox self-destructed.

Apple can be persuaded by quoting guidelines from the Sale of Goods and Services Act, which state that goods should last up to six years. Given the built in obsolescence in modern electronic equipment (many people upgrade their mobile phones annually) this seems more than reasonable.

Elizabeth Mitchell of Leicester confronted the staff of Apple’s Birmingham store. “Having read a Guardian Money article on consumer rights, I tried to get my 40Gb clickwheel iPod replaced, despite being three months out of warranty.”

She quoted clauses from the Sale of Goods Act and guidelines from the DTI setting out how goods should last up to six years.

“After a quick and pleasant exchange, the assistant consulted the manager, who offered to replace my iPod with the same model. But I had to return another day as there were none in stock. Five days later, I went to collect my new iPod. I heard three people alongside me complaining of similar issues. One had an extended warranty - no problem. One was in warranty, and one was no longer covered. The latter of the three saw the manager, had a pretty good foot-stamping session and ended up paying half price for a new one. That was their best offer. Thanks to the Guardian for telling me how to get a free replacement.”

There are two messages here. One is that the savvy consumer can persuade a reluctant retailer or manufacturer to replace or refund goods by demonstrating assertively, but politely, their rights in law. I found from experience that politeness here is key to a successful complaint. This is particularly so in this instance as the relevant part being quoted comes from guidelines not regulations, so, Apple could still decline without breaking the law.

The other message is that a reputable manufacturer or retailer, being aware of the potential risk to their good name will sometimes go out of their way to put matters right even if they don’t strictly need to.

An example here is BMW. My R1100RT developed a fault in the gear indicator display. A replacement unit cost around £250 at the time. As the bike was several months outside warranty I didn’t expect them to do anything much about it. My dealer felt that it was worth a “goodwill” claim and made one on my behalf. BMW replaced the unit free of charge – including labour as part of the goodwill gesture. They did not have to; they were perfectly within their rights to insist that I pay for a new unit. When I replaced the bike a year or so later, it was with another BMW. Sometimes taking a short term hit pays off in customer goodwill and a repeat purchase and customer recommendations. In this instance, £250 + labour paid off with a repeat purchase of around £11,000.

By contrast Richard Mair of Southwick in West Sussex battled for a year with Apple, only to be left “with a wonderfully designed but horrifically expensive paperweight”.

His £300 iPod broke inside the warranty period and was replaced. But the second machine broke within four months. To his surprise, it didn’t come with its own one-year warranty and he was asked for £160 for repairs instead.

The question Apple should be asking itself is; will Mr Mair be coming back for a repeat purchase?