there goes another paradise

so with the announcement that Fidel Castro is going to retire lots of people are getting excited about the whole thing. The US say that they want to bring democracy to Cuba, when they can't even provide true democracy to their own country I find this hard to believe. If they take their own ideas of democracy to Cuba this will probably mean that some of those beautiful jungles I crossed will become development sites for holiday homes, starbuck and macdonalds as long as they are able to line the pockets of the people making the legislation. While I am on the matter the BBC reporting is getting more and more inaccurate, sensationalizing everything presumably to maintain the interest of 90% of the population that are more interested in which slapper of a celebrity has fallen out of what club wearing what dress!!! for a start the BBC said that the inhabitants of Cuba lived in poverty with barely enough money to live and they all hate Castro. I didn't see much evidence of this really, I mean yes I did see that the general population didn't have a great deal of money due to trade embargo thanks to the US, but in a communist state you shouldn't even need money. Everyone I spoke to liked Fidel except for the richer people of Havana who had property seized by the government, but again the majority of them were on the payroll of the mafia as far as I could make out. There was also another report that said suicides in Wales may be due to kids using chat rooms like beebo and facebook, I am sorry but neither of these are chat rooms and I have completely lost my faith in the reporting from the BBC. In other news they have said that Porsche (girls car makers) are going to contest the fact that drivers of more polluting cars will have to pay a £25 congestion charge in the courts. Heres a thought Porsche why don't you try and make your cars more efficient!! Also if you can afford to run a car like the chayenne monstrosity then a £25 fee wouldn't even be noticed. Maybe they are being clever in launching this action so that they get back more than enough in free publicity to boost their falling sales to warrant them squandering money on an ill conceived legal action.

Whats with 4x4's

I can understand someone having a 4x4 if they need to get across uneven terrain, or if they need to carry bulky equipment e.t.c. but I hardly think the M25 counts as rough terrain and even the round bulbous balding frame of a man driving doesn't really count as heavy machinery. So why is it that everytime I drive into town Iam faced with a carpark stocked with half the number of cars it was built for because people driving these things "need" 1.5 parking spaces!!! Lets face it do you need a 4x4 - No, did you buy it for the added safety - No (don't kid yourself, you didn't). Did you buy it for its fuel economy (ha ha sorry had to add that one) or quite simply did you like so many sheep decide that its fashionable and wanted one, thus proving that independant thought is dead and that you are now simply a consumer automaton. The 4x4 has now taken over from the (ridiculous) sports car as the penis extension only now rather than being a laugh to see on the road these monstrosities are getting in my way and hastening the demise of this planet yet these reverse-porcupine tins just seem to multiply (called reverse-porcupine tins as the pricks are on the inside) The other reason I dislike 4x4 is the arrogant fools that tend to drive them. On my way to work I pass a few schools and if I am running late I always get stuck behind some woman driving a 4x4 whilst trying to keep 2 screaming kids under control during the 700yard drive to the school gate. One time a woman was driving along infront of me a slammed on the anchors, no danger as I was keeping a safe distance as these people tend to weave across the road when their mobile phone starts to play the latest god awful pseudo-rap song that happens to be the chav audio taste de jour. Anyway I couldn't believe this woman as she put on the universal parking lights, or as we norms call them hazard lights, she then proceeded to get out retrieve her hideous balls of blubber from the back of the car, kiss them goodbye then sent their arses off for another 8 hours of picking their nose and farting, whilst in the mean time a queue of traffic was building up and she was oblivious to the whole thing - twat!

Philosophical Outlook on things

It is true to say that every journey starts with a single step, and that great oak trees can spring from the smallest of acorns.

Quite simply put this means that a person is capable of great things but they must first choose to set out on the path to becomming great. I can't help but think that this lesson is lost on a great number of people, the children who play truant and commit crimes through boredom or the stoner that ignores an opportunity in favour of getting high. If these people realised their potential and then realised that is a very easy path as long as you put in the effort we would have a world filled with far happier people.

Virgin Media, what are they thinking about?

I saw an advert that seemed too good to be true (turns out it was but please read on) The advert was for broadband through cable and telephone for about £15 a month, as I am currently with BT and the fastest connection I have is 460kbps as I live so far from the exchange I thought a change to cable would be just what the doctor ordered. So I called up and spoke to a very polite lady who also convinced me that for an extra £5 a month I could get freeview stations too, I decided to take this deal as well because in bad weather I do lose freeview signal sometimes. The advert says order by 12th Dec and we GUARANTEE to beat santa -- cool I'd be able to watch xmas tv on a nice shiny cable system. True to their GUARANTEE a 2 man installation crew comes round and installs all the hardware inside and drills holes in the wall of my house and puts wires in. Then they say sorry the carrier signal is too weak someone else will have to come and install a new drop line (whatever that is), I am assured that someone will call to arrange a suitable date by the end of the day. Hours later I decided to take the initiative and call customer services myself, I explain the situation and am told someone will call me with a date. The next day I call again as noone has called me to arrange a date and I am told someone will install it on 3rd January!!! Hang on the GUARANTEE was to be in for xmas, does Virgin Media celebrate on a different day from everyone else? I raise this fact and they do agree that I shouldn't pay the installation fee as the install hasn't actually taken place yet. Reasoning that if they couldn't get this right that they might be stupid enough to send the same installation crew round that would once again tell me I need a new drop line, I called customer services and explained that "I want to make sure that on the 3rd of January the engineers know they are fitting a new drop cable not just doing an installation". The customer services guy assures me that this has all been added to my profile so there will be no confusion. So the 3rd January comes round and I get a call from an engineer "hello, I believe I am due to do an installation at your property this afternoon". I reply "Well, your due to put a new drop cable in, the wiring inside the house is already done". I then get the response that I dreaded I would get "Oh, well I am a one man crew I don't do that sorry". May I just point out at this point I have already had to take 2 days off work which (a) is difficult at a busy time of year and (b) cuts the number of days I could go to a sunny beach. What is even more infuriating is that my neighbour has a friend who used to work for Virgin Media and he has fitted her out with new cables, has done a much neater job she didn't have to pay this guy and shes probably getting cable for free as well. So if I wasn't a law abiding citizen I could probably have had everything installed myself before xmas yet here I am with nothing installed. If it doesn't get installed today then forget it, I am not going to bother with them, I might use sky if they offer cable broadband!!! It is nice to be able to get through to nice customer support that speak good english and are very polite, but if your issues are NEVER resolved whats the point!!

I've never written a blog before, I've never written a diary before either but thought that maybe it would be a good idea to keep hold of all of those little bits of information that could come in handy at a later date. At the moment I am trying to add some details to a web site regarding flight codes, which ordinarily would be a simple matter, however the way the system was designed means that the airport code in question is not only a nice little display item but is also used in the underlying booking system too. So much for separation of concerns! Anyway this is proving to be quite a pain and I am having to do some hideous shuffling of data in order to change the code, it seems like a lot of development work for very little gain. People that request these changes have no idea what the change involves because all they see is a three letter code changing, that annoys me.