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 ?!?

Refurbishment

Posted: Sat 21 August, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Driving, Parking, Stupidity | Leave a comment »

Currently, our largest local(ish) Sainsbury’s store is undergoing a major refurbishment – a project which looks like it’s going to roughly double the size of the store.

Not that you’d know it from the Sainsbury’s  information page about the Longwater store.

You’d think that information like “we’re refitting this store” would be useful – and positively easy to add to a webpage, wouldn’t you? But no, no mention of it.

As it is, the improvements mean that the main carpark has been reduced to (at most) half its previous size, along with being completely replanned. But that’s OK, because there’s a big simple overflow carpark over the other side of the access road.

Except – um – there’s not. Because in a fit of total planning genius, they’ve also ripped that up to re-plan it and generally fuck about with it.

So of that 694 spaces listed on the information page ( 647 normal spaces, 22 disabled and 22 ‘parent-and-child’) there’s about 250 left. Of course, all the disabled and ‘parent-and-child’ ones are kept available, it’s just the other ones that’ve been epically reduced.

So fuck you, Sainsburys.

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.

Learning to Read

Posted: Thu 29 July, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Stupidity | 3 Comments »

One of my recent discoveries has been Tropicana‘s “Orange and Lime” juice. It’s really pleasant (if far more expensive than my normal “4 for £2” stuff) so while it’s been on offer at [Local Supermarket] I got a couple in. Three for a fiver, rather than near-as-dammit £2 for one. (£2? For orange juice? They’re having a fucking laugh)

Except it turns out I can’t sodding read. Because one of the three cartons I purchased wasn’t Orange and Lime, but was instead Orange and Watermelon. Which is – well, not rank, but not that nice.

Most annoying. And quite a shock this morning when I finished an Orange and Lime, and topped it up with a new carton. Yep, the Orange and Watermelon one.

Orange Lime and Watermelon is – how shall I put this? – interesting. And not in an overly good way.

New Scam/Phishing Email

Posted: Thu 22 July, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Geeky, People, Security, Stupidity | Leave a comment »

Yesterday I noticed a new spam / scam / phishing email that seems to have appeared.

It purports to come from Amazon, and tells you that your order has been despatched, along with some links that are clickable.  The links actually go off to a russian site, but I’ve no idea what that does, and have no intention of finding out.

The biggest clue that it’s a spam/scam are

  • the prices are all in dollars (which is a bit of a giveaway for us in the UK)
  • you haven’t ordered anything from Amazon
  • it’s got a link to “see the ordered items”, rather than just listing them in the mail
  • the email address it’s been sent to isn’t the one you’ve got listed with Amazon

But all told it’s one of the better spam/scam/phishing-type emails of the moment.  Best to publicise it and be aware of it.

Do as we say, not as we do

Posted: Fri 9 July, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Geeky, Stupidity, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Part of my current work deals heavily with web security, data security and the like. As part of that, I subscribe to a number of information lists, mail services etc.

I signed up to a new one today – one of the better regarded (and indeed recommended by another security auditing agency) ones.

What concerned me during the signup process was this :

You may enter a privacy password below. This provides only mild security, but should prevent others from messing with your subscription. Do not use a valuable password as it will occasionally be emailed back to you in cleartext.

Seriously? Sending – and one assumes storing – a password in clear text is such a bad idea. It’s also a major no-no in every security list – including their own one. D’oh!

Obviously a case of “don’t do what we do, do what we say”.

Missing Pink

Posted: Thu 1 July, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Domestic, Driving, Introspective, Stupidity | 2 Comments »

Following on from yesterday’s post about Pink, Portman Stadium, and signs in general, some extra thoughts…

1) I can be a total arse. I know that’s not really news, but all the same, it’s worth re-iterating.

2) I fucking hate getting lost, being late etc.

3) If I’ve had a crap day, my tolerance for 2) is particularly low, leading to qualifying even more for 1)

Tuesday was, however I look at it, an exceedingly crap day. Stuff had come up at work that had affected me – nothing seriously traumatic of negative, it’d just been one of those days. In all fairness I really wasn’t in the mood for a late night – particularly with the knowledge of an early start in the morning. (For a number of reasons, last working day of the month is a big day in the current job, and requires coming in earlier than usual)

So the afternoon/evening didn’t start off all that well, and my mood wasn’t the best. Not being able to find the stadium just pissed me off a lot, and I didn’t do what I should’ve done, which was either

  1. Stop and think a bit
  2. Call someone else already there and find out how to get there
  3. Use the iPhone to do the same as 2
  4. Stop somewhere and ask someone.

I should have done one or more of those. Instead I got locked in to trying to find the place by driving along the A14.

Admittedly, I also didn’t expect the stadium to be in the town/city centre. All the other stadia (stadiums? I dunno) I know of are on the outskirts, not in the centre. Manchester, Norwich, Oxford, Crewe, Stockport – all on the outskirts. I also kind of expect there to be signs to say where the hell to go – after all, it’s not like a stadium is somewhere that no-one ever goes to.

But anyway, I did get pissed off, and went home. It wasn’t my smartest move, but it was the one I did.

No excuses for it at all, just sometimes an extra explanation is worthwhile.

Hey Ho.

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