Where the stalking horse grazes...

Hidden away amongst the Brexit Lectures on BBC Parliament is a long boring speech by John Redwood.  Well, someone’s got to make an argument for Brexit … so he does.  For those of you who don’t remember what John Redwood has ever done he was the stalking horse against John Major in the 1995 leadership election.  This he lost after being parodied by the press as even more boring and wooden than the other John – which let’s face it is quite an achievement.  At one point he was derided as Mr Spock which was rather unfair as Spock is half human.  John R’s catchphrase these days is "People used to call me an extreme Eurosceptic. Now I’m a moderate."  The truth is probably more along the lines of people don't call John anything much because he’s boring.

John tells us how many times we were promised not following the EU would end in disaster and following the EU ended in disaster.  He mentions the Exchange Rate Mechanism debacle and how we were forced out of the ERM.  He does not blame the EU entirely for this … but neither does he place a lot of blame at the door of his own party. 

John tells us being in the EU has been devastating for primary industries like coal and steel.  And for those wondering how far bare faced hypocrisy can be taken John (Mrs Thatcher’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in July for Corporate Affairs at the Department of Trade and Industry) reminds us that the UK hasn’t a single deep coal mine left – as if this, and indeed he, has nothing to do with ‘80s Tory policies.

John tells us confidently that we can deal with the EU on WTO rules because that is how we strike trade deals with other countries – ignoring the fact that those countries are part of other trading blocks.  I suppose we could join CARICOM but that would probably result in a dangerous loss of sovereignty.  John’s main line of attack was to say that even though it was a zero sum gain the EU hadn’t really boosted UK productivity – something that, of course, is very difficult to assess except through complicated statistical modelling without actually leaving the EU.  Oh well, let’s try that then…

John said the UK economy expanded rapidly after the war but went into decline / levelled out after we joined the EU.  Of course it could alternatively be that the UK joined the EEC because its economy was in decline…?  The most powerful argument he pursued was to do with the undemocratic nature of adopting so much EU legislation.  It would be interesting to see how other trading blocks tend to legislative unity and to what degree.  Well, I think it would be interesting.  Normal people would fall asleep…

On a dark Brexit highway...

Last thing I remember, May was
Running for the door
She had to find the way back to the UK she had before
'Brexit' said Jean-Claude Juncker,
'new representations EU won't recieve.
You can vote out any time you like,
but you can never leave!'

Getting pissed with Adrian Chiles

Being a socially gregarious person last night I got in at 2am yesterday and having driven for an hour thought I’d unwind watching a documentary on BBC Iplayer before going to bed...

Adrian Chiles had been given an hour of screentime to address the issue of drinking too much.  Adrian likes a drink and broke through the measly weekly limit of 14 units (reduced recently from 21 in case people have too much fun) virtually every day.  All his friends did too as his life seemed to revolve around “working lunches” and watching football matches.  I thought I used to drink a lot in my 30s but I was not in his league.  He and his mates were terminally in denial of the dangers of their lifestyle despite the obvious warning signs - liver damage / water retention / expanding waist line. 

Don’t know if that’s a pun but terminal was definitively the word as a man with a graph showed us the direct effects on life expectancy without putting any error bars on it or admitting there may be any other factors as health scientists are prone to do.  Even if it were true it’s still possible to be a statistical outlier - as my GP explained once some people are more easily poisoned by alcohol than others.   It was only a matter of time before the words “If alcohol was discovered today it would be banned,” were spoken by a medical potentate.  And never were truer words spoken.  An army of public health officials armed with non-invasive scanning techniques can now tell us with great surety that we will all die if we keep drinking… and show us all the evidence in real time as we do so…

A doctor rubbed some jelly on Adrian’s tummy, looked at his liver and tutted and mentioned scarring.  Even the thought of cutting down to having some non-drinking days in his week seemed to turn Adrian to jelly … then again after years of 20-60 units a day he had arguably become a bit like a huge jelly already with the associated health risks. 

Perhaps he was struggling with the existential pointlessness of a career in football punditry… did being paid very well to do something he enjoyed leave a hole in his life?  Then I wondered if the hole was alcohol shaped… as I looked around his kitchen and tried to back calculate the cost of the installation.  He seemed to have spent a lot on interior décor and I half wondered if he hadn’t made the documentary to show off his home.  Perhaps he was hoping to sell it?

At one point he spoke cryptically about his problems dealing with employment insecurity and said something about being “kicked off” Breakfast television.  At another point he met Frank Skinner who told him he wouldn’t tell him not to drink but to perhaps consider a period of abstinence and see how it went.  Chiles looked like a child who’d been told to give up chocolate for lent.  I read on his Wikipedia that he has now converted to Roman Catholicism (perhaps he caught it off Frank Skinner) and I had to wonder if he took communion under “both kinds”.

I noticed too on this page that he’d been sacked from covering the footy by ITV as well… And then I began to wonder did he all this drinking as he felt the need to schmooze to get on and he had to get drunk to relax himself around other people?  Or had the booze had a detrimental effect on his career?  Or was there a truth somewhere between these too.  Was this a mea culpa to his own industry?  He reminded me of Bob Monkhouse’s quote that “I’d drink less if God ever gave me a hangover”.  God did indeed not give Bob a hangover – he did however give him prostate cancer and it is believed that over-consumption of the demon drink might relate to a greater risk …

...but then again the demon drink seems to be responsible for everything these days.  Still he made 75 …not too bad.  To cheer us Frank Skinner said at one point that his social life had “never recovered” from giving up booze and I didn’t think he was baiting Adrian.

Personally after some periods of complete abstinence followed by relapse followed by being told by my GP that my bad blood tests were probably a “false positive” but to “watch” it I think I am now actually drinking at the recommended 14 units a week (roughly) and I have to say I think my life has improved somewhat as a result.  As to the effect on my social life fortunately there hasn’t been any because I never really had one anyway.  But I sometimes wonder … if booze is as toxic as the public health officials keep telling us will it one day mean the end of pubs?  They’re pretty much disappearing anyway … and what will we all do instead?  Mr Silky once told me that the secret of understanding the comedy industry was just one fact – “we’re here to sell beer” and clearly the economics of most comedy clubs and indeed the Fridge Festival would go well up the spout should everybody suddenly abstain.  Even if everybody just went down to 14 units I’m sure large sections of the economy would collapse to such an extent it’d make Brexit seem like a minor economic tremor…

So what’s the answer?

“’Go on have a drink’ that’s what they used to say to me,” said Frank Skinner before adding ominously, “but I didn’t.”

The trials of returning an HP laptop via Nurnberg

What is the point of spending decent money on a laptop, researching the hard drive, screen capabilities, processing capabilities and paying over the odds for reliability if it just doesn’t work?  Why?  The motherboard is broken.  Recently consumer rights law changed so now we have to give the manufacturer a chance to repair unless the fault manifests its self in the 1^st month.  But how long can you plausibly take to repair something?  Is not two weeks a bit long?  And what if the unit is still faulty?  You’d think then they’d just give you your money back.  But no HP insist you waste all your time ringing them and talk to somebody who can do nothing except refer you to another “team”.  HP have a lot of teams because fobbing off customers is a team sport.  When eventually, through liberal use of legal threats, a section 75 credit card claim and continual harassment on social media their resolve began to crumble someone on another team wrote back to say they would generously agree in the circumstances to “buy back” the box of spare parts that resembled a computer.  I duly returned the computer to the Czech Republic which took another 3 weeks as HP use UPS – a courier service that seems to be trying to match surface mail - sorry I mean “international economy” – for lackadaisicalness.  

Yesterday a lady from another team at HP informed me that they had finally received the machine and that I should be being refunded sometimes next week.  What’s the point of attempting to buy anything of decent spec anymore?  In the future I shall only be buying throwaway rubbish … as it seems to me that these days the more you spend the worse the product is.  The proliferation of meaningless reviews on the internet doesn’t help either in determining if anything is any good to begin with and Which are no better – mysteriously not reviewing entire manufacturers.  They don’t seem either to do manufacturer reliability statistics anymore… so what’s the point in them then?

Honestly, what’s the point in anything?

27/11/2018

Dear Sir or Madam,

REFERENCE: HP-5CG8271TQV

I purchased the HP Laptop 17-by0021na from HP. At the point of purchase I paid £799 to HP directly on the 6^th of August 2018.  It was delivered on the 9^th of August 2018. 

The HP Laptop 17-by0021na is not of satisfactory quality.

I reported it broken on the 7^th of November since it suffered from a continual failure to boot properly which had deteriorated to the point where it would not even start using BIOS keyboard shortcuts.  The BIOS too was faulty.  After sending it for repair on this date HP concluded that errors were due to a faulty motherboard. This problem you claimed to have fixed, returning the item to us on the 20^th of November.  A turnaround time of 13 days (nearly 2 weeks) during which the machine was wiped. 

After re-set up – the machine had been blanked meaning complete user re-set-up was required as well as the reinstallation of software and licences – the computer again showed boot problems within the next two days. 

It then began pronouncing error messages to do with the “PCCE SOLID STATE DRIVE” and “Smart Supporting Driver”.  Other missives from the unit warned us “Internal Disk At Risk” and “Early Warning Signs …” and advised us to “Contact Manufacturer”.  As well as showing errors the product has problems with log on and seems unable to remember the PIN with any sense of reliability meaning yet another complete re-setup may be required.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 makes it an implied term of the contract I have with HP that goods be as described, fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality. 

As you are in breach of contract and I've owned the product for less than 6 months and a previous attempt at repair or replacement has also failed, I am within my statutory rights to ask for a full refund of the original cost paid.

I would remind you of Section 23 section 2

(2)If the consumer requires the trader to repair or replace the goods, the trader must—

(a)do so within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer

It seems to me to be unreasonable to require me to now return the “repaired” product to HP for a repair that may take up to 13 days given that it has already taken HP 13 days to not repair the original product.  I would remind you of section 7 of the act.

(7)A consumer who requires or agrees to the replacement of goods cannot require the trader to repair them, or exercise the short-term right to reject, without giving the trader a reasonable time to replace them (unless giving the trader that time would cause significant inconvenience to the consumer).

It is my view that the inconvenience I am suffering from not having use of this computer is significant and that a downtime period of effectively a whole month is unacceptable. 

Having no usable computer for these extended periods of time is not viable for me and I have therefore passed the point at which necessity requires that I purchase an additional laptop to replace the one that should be working.  This is unreasonable.

I have already generously allowed HP time to attempt to repair the machine and their mistakes but they have failed to fix the machine adequately and I suspect that the original hardware issues have not been addressed. 

I therefore request that HP provide a full refund in return for the return of the goods. 

I await confirmation that you will provide the remedy set out above within 14 days of the date of this letter.

Etc Etc …wait for cows to come home.

I fear I have upset the Chamberlain of London by driving down Mansion House Street

A sternly worded letter ...

...from the Chamberlain of London ...

...informs me that driving from Poultry to Cornhill between 7am and 7pm ...

...is now very naughty...

...still why paint the road or put up a sign when you can just fine?