Apprenticed

Posted: Wed 6 October, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Business, Television | 4 Comments »

Oh dear God, the Apprentice is back on.

What always gets me (other than the absolute bollocks that most of these cunts spout) is that all these high-flying business people who are ‘at the top of their game’ are all available for three months of filming.

Yep, that’s high-flying for sure – so essential to their companies, they can take three months out.

Cunts.

WTF

Posted: Fri 17 September, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, News, People, Stupidity, Sweary | Leave a comment »

Every so often a story in the news just makes me say “What. The. Fuck?” – this one is one of those stories.

Children at a school near Selby have had a play break cancelled and hard ball games banned after neighbours complained to the council about noise.

Barlby Community Primary School has also put up a soundproof fence because it fears a noise abatement order.

So people who live near a school – and one assumes, have either a) lived there for a while, or b) moved in thinking it would be nice and quiet (because they’re shit-for-brains morons) – complain that the school is noisy at play time.

You really have to wonder sometimes. In the town where I grew up, a housing estate was built that backed on to the local sewage farm. People who moved into those houses complained about the smell, and tried to get the (pre-existing) sewage farm shut down.  When I was in Manchester people who moved in to one part of the city centre complained about the noise from the bars, and tried to get them shut down.

If you’re that fucking stupid that you move near a school, or a bar, or a sewage farm, and only then complain that there’s a problem, then you don’t deserve to be allowed to complain. Live with it, and shut the fuck up. You moron.

Plugs

Posted: Thu 16 September, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Travel | 3 Comments »

Over the weekend we stayed at the Premier Inn in Watford (easier than parking/driving from Wembley post-gig)

One thing that intrigued me though was the way the plug sockets were fitted in the rooms…

Australian?

Australian ?

Yep – both upside down. No idea why.

Taxing

Posted: Sat 4 September, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Domestic, Politics, Stupidity, Thoughts, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

According to the BBC, Tax through PAYE has been (in some cases) utterly stuffed for the last couple of years.

In the story, about £2bn has been underpaid – but about £1.8bn has been overpaid. Now to me, that’s a case of “Oh sod it, it kind of balances”. But no, in a fit of efficiency (or at least Inland Revenue’s version of efficiency – which isn’t efficient at all) they’re going to send out six million letters telling people that they’ve over- or under-paid, and the differences will be refunded or paid back in the new tax code.

So. Six million letters. Even in second-class post, that’s a minimum of 32p per letter. Which makes a cost of £1,920,000.  Doing the letters first class would be a cost of £2,460,000.

Let’s look at this sensibly.

We’ve underpaid £2bn in tax.

We’ve overpaid £1.8bn.

Which leaves £0.2bn to pay.

And Inland Revenue are going to spend £2 million to get back that £0.2 billion.

Is it just me that sees the idiocy in this? Talk about throwing good money after bad.

And actually, why the flying fuck should the people who have underpaid – through no fault of their own –  be penalised by having to pay extra this year for a mistake made by Inland Revenue itself ?!?

Road Maintenance and Sarcasm

Posted: Mon 16 August, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Norfolk, People, Stupidity, Travel | Leave a comment »

Over the weekend, one of the significant crossroads near us was completely closed for re-surfacing. The problem was that at least one route to get to that crossroads didn’t have any mention of said road closure.

Which means I get to send sarcastic emails to Norfolk County Council. (Again)

To whom it may concern,

I’d just like to congratulate the person(s) involved in sorting out signage for the road closure in Hingham this weekend.

If (as many people did) you took the road from Little Ellingham towards Hingham using Hingham Road->Little Ellingham Road -> Attleborough Road to the crossroads in Hingham, there was not *ONE* sign saying that the road ahead was closed. The signage was in fact before this junction (at roughly the spot of the red circle in this map)

This meant that anyone coming through on the route from Little Ellingham came round the corner to find the entire road closed off, and then had to turn round and go back. This also had the effect of stuffing a significant amount of the newly resurfaced road before the junction.

Of course, the road from Little Ellingham isn’t that heavily used. Except when Little Ellingham has its Vintage Working Weekend event- yes, the weekend just passed.

I look forward to any response Norfolk Council deigns to give in explanation of why there was no thought given to this route, or signage on it.

Sincerely

Lyle

I know it’ll do bugger-all good, but I felt better having written it. And that’s what matters.

Cost Less, Make More

Posted: Wed 11 August, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Business, Cynicism, Own Business, People, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Another work(ish)-related post, but a subject close to my heart, and usually good for some thoughts and rants.

In this case, we’re currently considering buying one of the most-pirated pieces of software in Christendom, Adobe’s Creative Suite. The reason it’s massively pirated is simple – the fucking ridiculous cost of it.

If we look at getting one licenced copy of the full bells-and-whistles CS5 Master Suite, it costs no less than £2,700. For a piece of software that’ll be updated/outdated within a year. What small company (or even medium-sized company) is going to pay nearly three grand for CS5 ? Let alone what little one-man-band web design company.  And yes, you can get a smaller/cheaper CS5 Web Premium for web design. That’s a mere £1,680.

Even more insane, that’s the prices if they send the software in a box. For download purposes, CS5 Master Suite is – um – £2,780. Yep – it costs you more to download the fucking thing than for them to box it up and stick it in the post. What?

Adobe are forever bitching that their software is the most pirated. There’s a reason for that – it’s priced itself out of the “reasonably affordable” market.

I’m pretty sure that if Adobe charged (for argument’s sake) £270 for the CS5 Master – 10% of the current price – the piracy figures for it would drop like a stone. £270 is reasonable for the software – perhaps even a bit more, but 10% was a nice example. Piracy wouldn’t stop completely – there will always be those for who even a pound is “too much” – but it would reduce epically. More people would buy the software – my own suspicion is that they’d actually sell more and make more by having the software at the cheaper price.

Sure, the price has been cut by 90%. But if you get 100 people buying it at £270 instead of one or two at £2,700, you’ve made a shitload more money on your bottom line than you have at £2,700 per copy. Even on the upgrades, people would be more likely to pay again for an upgrade, rather than pirating it.

And that’s the logic that seems to escape these companies. Reduce the price to a sensible/affordable level, more people will buy, less people will evade. Seems logical to me, anyway.

Daily Fail

Posted: Fri 6 August, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Design, Media, News, Pedantry | Leave a comment »

Always nice to see when the Daily Fail gets to screw things up. (again)

In this case, they’ve managed to forget to put two photo captions in on one story. (This may have changed on the page by the time you look at it)

First example

Text with "Caption here" instead of a phone captionSecond example

Way to go, Daily Fail!

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