Author: Mike

What is this country coming to? A shop assistant warned about being fined for singing in a shop because they did not have PRS license!

Does that mean that if I start singing while I’m shopping in ASDA then I’ll need a license if I’ve entertained other shoppers? What a load of tosh!

The music industry may be in a state of panic about ongoing missed revenues with piracy and illegal downloads ongoing, but these sorts of actions will not help their cause one bit.

PRS – grow up and go after the real license non-payers, not someone just having a sing song to themselves.

From my last post it was clear that my Aunt was very ill and not going to recover and sadly passed away at the beginning of September.

I wanted to write a number of things relating to her final days in hospital and final passing away, but don’t think I’m ready yet. Perhaps in a week or so I’ll get around to it.

Someone once said to me that you we’re always a child till your last parent passes away!

My own mother passed away four years ago (my father dying many years before) and when that happened, I was lucky that her sister (my Aunt) who had been very much a surrogate mother for much of my life was still there and I suppose whilst very sad at my mothers death, I felt some degree of still having a parent!

Sadly that relationship now seems to be drawing to a close as the last five weeks have been taken up by visiting my Aunt who has suffered a massive stroke at the age of 95!

Six weeks ago, when we last had lunch with her, she was still living in her own home and still looking after herself and although dealing with failing with hearing and sight, she seemed able to go on forever!

Sadly, she is now a very very frail 96 year old (she had her birthday in hospital) with severe left side movement restrictions, memory issues and requiring 24hr intensive care, with absolutely no chance of ever returning to her own home!

What a difference six weeks can bring about!

Can someone enlighten me? Four times in the past week I have used the M42 on journeys to a from Derby, three of those times have been very late at night when some of the signs have indicated 40 and 50 MPH speed restrictions in what seems to me quite a random order.

On those three times there have been no accidents, no workmen at work, no cones (I’m specific here as we all know that cones don’t mean work is actually going on!) and no police (if ever) around. Why then are we told to keep to 40MPH when on one night there were only four other cars within 100 metres of my car?

On the forth time it was a Sunday afternoon and they were again at random speed settings of 40/50/60 MPH. I would agree that perhaps they are needed at some points on the M42 when the traffic on a Sunday can get in my opinion busier than a week day.

However, it seems that there does not seem to be any logic to their use. Perhaps the controllers in their little boxes have nothing better to do than try and set speed traps for the unsuspecting motorists. I can’t think its about safety when its 11:30 at night and the full moon is out and there’s not another car to be seen for some distance. Still it takes all sorts I suppose.

I am travelling up and down to Derby at the moment and using the A38 trunk road as part of my route – it saves me £3.70 for just two junctions of the M6 Toll road – expensive I think.

What on earth is happening to the Vodafone mobile phone coverage on that road. After I had left Derby to return South on Sunday night, it was not until I reached Litchfield that I have a full and uninterrupted mobile phone signal!

It seems to me that something is going on in this country with the way that all mobile phone coverage is failing all over the country, three friends of mine who also travel quite  a lot, report that their Orange, 3, O2 connected phones also suffer massive gaps in reception and it’s funny that it all seems to happen in places that you would think should have full coverage, like motorways and major trunk roads.

Or are the mobile phone network providers in cahoots with the government to stop us trying to use our phone even with hands free sets?

Still I suppose it’s a bit like a lots of things in this country, where you pay your excessive fees and you just get a cr*p service.

Perhaps we need an ombudsman to look after this subject for the consumer! No, we already have one, that’s right, OFCOM.

With the publication last Friday of a secret report, the Australian Government seems bent on using the introduction of health care record systems as a back door ID Card system.

Individual Healthcare Identifiers (IHI’s) is seen as the way to get a National ID for every Australian citizen. With only the old Tax number references and passports currently in existence and previous failed attempts at ID Card introduction, this could be the way that Australia finally gets an ID grip on its own citizens.

Could it happen here? Yes and probably already is! As the UK government continues to received such negative press about the UK National ID Card system – too expensive, too intrusive  and not free. Electronic Medical Health ID numbers seem an ideal solution for the UK government to finally get a UK ID card in place without any additional cost and resultant bad press.

Perhaps the original ID scheme has been just red herring, albeit a very expensive one.

Paranoid? Perhaps this may be what was planned to happen all along!

In a clear breach of European Law, out so called representatives are telling UK Police Chiefs to ignore European legislation to remove People from the UK DNA database where requested to.

The Guardian has the full story here. The sooner we get rid of this Orwellian government the better off we will be.

Here’s a great ‘advert’ from Liberty about the Database Society that we are fast sinking into. makes you think.

I seem to have gotten behind in some posts, here are my speeds graphs for June & July.

Clearly a hiccup in June due to a bad firmware upgrade to my router, there’s always some thing!

However, all seems to be building back up again.

In a previous post about Broadband speed, one of my points was about being persistent when reporting faults.

A friend of mine has had their ISP connection ‘repaired’ after two months of constant phoning, not his own equipment, fault at the exchange. Was 1.5 MB, not 3.5MB!

This incident brings a whole new meaning to ‘Pop-Music’!

What’s more worrying though is Apples attempt to gag the owners of the exploding iPod, so that it was going to suffer and bad publicity.

Not an isolated case it seems and a bit of a black mark against Apple I think.