Insurance

In my junk mail this morning I got a letter from Lloyds Bank’s home insurance people. They were offering me up to £100 if their quote couldn’t beat my current insurance premium. “Aye right”, thought I. And gave them a call.

For one third of the cover, the best that they could come up with was £700. At that point, they explained the small print – to get the £100 back, I’d have to sign up for their insurance first. Frankly, keff that – far more hassle than it’s worth, even neglecting the fact it’d be costing me more than twice as much. Pure comedy.

I hear you called back

The useless bugger called back – maybe he’s not so useless after all. Oh no, he’s telling me that Zero7 have postponed their tour from October this year to March 2004, due to “recording schedule problems”. With luck that means there’ll be a new album sometime in 2004 too. Still, it’s all OK, because the tickets will be valid for the new date anyway.

However he couldn’t provide me with any decent reasons for a) why he didn’t leave a message on the voice-mail and save himself a second call, and b) why it’s taken four weeks since the date was advertised as changing before they’ve started calling the people who’d bought tickets.

I hear you calling

Why is it that so many companies (and individuals, I should add) are completely fucking useless at leaving a message on an answerphone?

I had a call while in a meeting today – obviously couldn’t pick it up, but after four rings it goes automatically to the voice messaging anyway, so no worries. I’ve got Caller ID, so I can call them back, find out what’s going on. Only it turns out it’s the company I use for booking concert tickets, and they’ve feck all idea what anyone within the call-centre might have been calling to tell me. And I’ve no idea, because the gormless cunt couldn’t be bothered to leave a message. Frustrating, to say the least.

Red Sky at Night

I couldn’t resist it – had to take photos of the sky tonight, it was such a stunning colour.

  

And so it starts

Following on from the post below about DNA Testing, the Guardian also reveals that the Government has now announced that it wants to give children ID numbers from birth. (UPDATED : I’ve changed the link on the story (the old one is here if anyone cares) to a better piece by the Grauniad) Seems to me that it’s yet another way – admittedly a long-term plan, but still – to end up with everyone in the country given an identity number.

I wonder how they’ll end up making sure people (particularly children) keep their ID numbers. Tattooed barcodes at birth?

DNA Testing for all

Both the BBC and the Guardian have features on the story about every inhabitant of the UK potentially being required to give a DNA sample. In honesty, I’m not sure how I feel about this. The first reaction is a knee-jerk “No way do I want that” – there are lots of privacy issues to look at, for instance. But if I’m not going to be breaking any laws (by which I’m referring to ones where DNA would be left at the scene) then why would I worry?

I suppose that it’s the extrapolations that are the real concern – if there’s a record of every person’s DNA on record, what’s to stop analysis on that DNA, trying to find “genes of criminality” (for example) and then flagging up the new DNA records that contain those genes? Philip Kerr envisaged a similar scenario in his novel “A Philosophical Investigation“. What else could be done? Would it increase the capture rate for rapists, murderers and the like, or would it spawn a new criminal activity, messign with genetics and genetic records in order to obfuscate identities again?

My first reaction is that if such a scheme came into law, I’d probably leave the country. Not because I’ve anything to hide, but because I don’t like the idea of an omnipresent State, and I like even less the idea of politicians being in charge of such a scheme.

But then I also find myself looking at the potential benefits – the same thing, more murderers, rapists etc would be caught. Also, it would enable (in theory) more genetic research, looking for the genes that are related to cancer, birth defects of all types, and diseases such as Polio and other gene-based complaints. Of course, the flip-side of that is the concept (and I hesitate to use the word, after last time’s furore) of Eugenics, of controlling what type of child is born through genetic manipulation – a scheme which is much in keeping with the kind of totalitarian state that would encourage such a wholesale thing as a genetic database for all in the first place. Such a database would also mean that when bodies are found, beyond all recognition (and also in disaster scenarios) there would be a higher rate of identification.

So – good or bad? As with all things, both options are open. Personally, even with the extra thought, I think it would be a bad thing – the cons far outweight the pros.

That plant is proscribed

Ah, the joys of bureaucracy. Those pen-pushing self-justifying bean-counters lovely essential people at the DTI have now released a 2,000 word set of guidelines on office plants. In older offices, such as the one I currently work in, staff would be entitled to “one display of plants per 120 square metres of ‘useable floor space'”. Who the hell cares?

It also doesn’t seem to take into account things like Sick Building Syndrome, although as it says there is still a provision that

“Staff may continue to provide their own plants, providing they are maintained by their owners and disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner and not a) intrusive or b) a nuisance to others.”

I despair. Are we now really so nannified that we need guidelines on office plants? God help me if the DTI ever look at my “home office” set-up. There’s plants everywhere, and always will be.