I saw this in my newsfeeds. It’s the story of someone who wanted to be a driving instructor, handed over £2,000 for his training to Pass N Go, and then couldn’t get his money back when he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes (the severe type, which meant he could no longer drive).
Chris James, from Newcastle, had spent a lot of his working life travelling abroad and wanted to settle back in the UK as an instructor. There was a clause in the contract he signed with Pass N Go which said he only had 14 days during which he could cancel the deal. He says he had had “some issues which delayed… starting training”, but then he was diagnosed and it came as a shock.
On the strength of this, you immediately take sides against Pass N Go… until you hear their side of the story.
Simon Kernohan from Pass N Go says that Mr James initially postponed the commencement of his training because he said his house in Taiwan had been flooded. As a result, his allocated trainer was sitting around “twiddling his thumbs”, and when Mr Kernohan tried to contact Mr James, he was unsuccessful. He added:
He’s a nice enough fella and I feel sorry for him but we have already bent over backwards to help him out.
You can see it from both sides. If Mr James had simply been diagnosed with diabetes then you’d hope that Pass N Go would have been more sympathetic. Of course, the usual cynics out there would disagree – all training companies are bad as far as they’re concerned! However, most instructors will have experienced the pupil who misses ten times more lessons than anyone else, and yet always has a plausible excuse. One of mine some years ago had so many ailing grandparents that I’m sure her father must have been a polygamist, and she cost me a fortune in lost lessons until I told her I couldn’t afford not to teach her anymore.
So you can’t simply rule out the possibility that Mr James had already burnt his bridges somewhat with the flooded Taiwan home story.
Although Florence and the Machine aren’t really my cup of tea, this story – in particular, the YouTube videos – honestly brought a tear to my eye.
The young girl she visited is apparently called Karinya, and she’s in a hospice suffering from a rare form of cancer (and most people will realise what that means as far as life expectancy is concerned). Karinya couldn’t attend a concert the band gave in Austin, Texas, due to her illness – so Florence and the band’s guitarist, Rob Ackroyd, went to her.
He braked repeatedly, causing a police car to hit him on one occasion, took roundabouts the wrong way, drove on the wrong side of the road, and even escaped being corralled by driving at speed along pavements.
He had no insurance and no licence.
When he and his three passengers decided to try and leg it – and in spite of the fact he was seen getting out of the driver’s side of the trainee pratmobile he was in (a Renault Clio) – he claimed:
I wasn’t the driver.
This clearly makes him a front runner for this year’s Darwins. Mind you, when you look at that mug shot you have to wonder if he is eligible, since the Darwin Awards are typically awarded to the higher primates.
The little prick got 15 months for dangerous driving – no doubt to be served concurrently with the 9 months he is in the middle of (and for which he must be out on licence) for assisting an offender. Laughably, his defence lawyer also toyed with the idea of getting himself nominated for a Darwin:
Paul Currer, mitigating, said Lucas had been given valium, with which he was not familiar.
A bit of a mistake, I think. He should have been given something else – something that would do evolution a favour. Valium, on the other hand, appears to make him think he can cut his own hair and nobody will notice.
I’ve been seeing these interminable references to “the celebrity” who has managed to get an injunction, gagging the British media from reporting details of him and his partner’s private lives. Initially, I didn’t give a damn. But when I read that Scottish and American – no, wait, everywhere except England, actually – media had reported it I became inquisitive.
It turned out to be bloody easy to find out who it was about, and when it eventually breaks – which is inevitable, given that the injunction looks like it is going to be lifted anyway – you’ll see what a disgusting, seedy mess it is.
At present, only the initials PJS and YMA can be used to identify the main people involved. Neither set of initials is real. However, other people ARE involved. And when you find out who the story is about, that’s when you’ll realise how tragic this whole thing really is.
Celebrities have every right to be left alone. Unfortunately, just by being a celebrity means that unless you live a squeaky clean life, you’re not going to be left alone. The gutter press will hound you over every crack in the pavement you step on. And when something which is as awkward as this one is – with its many implications concerning those involved (and various taboo subjects) – there is no way it isn’t going to go public. Eventually.
Well, the appeal has been upheld – so far. The Sun isn’t at all happy, and neither is the Mail, which has found a slightly different way of dealing with the issue (albeit, in a way which means when it breaks the fallout will be that much worse). There’s some clever word play in both accounts, which make more sense when you know who it is they’re referring to.
Lord Mance said… there was “no public interest (however much it may be of interest to some members of the public) in publishing kiss-and-tell stories or criticisms of private sexual conduct, simply because the persons involved are well-known”.
Former Lib Dem MP John Hemming… said he was surprised by the ruling.
“The logical conclusion of this is that gossip about anyone with children will become a criminal offence subject to a potential penalty of two years’ imprisonment,” he said.
Trust me, there’s a lot more going on here than just that. It’s a form of enforced propaganda of the kind copiously referenced in Orwell’s 1984.
Seriously, you can find it in dozens of online publications with just a few clicks (and a page scroll or two). And the only reason it is in any way interesting is because of the cack-handed attempts to prevent it becoming known.
Incidentally, if you type “google.com/ncr” in your browser address bar you stay with Google.com – not Google.co.uk, which effectively censors out stuff you aren’t meant to see in the UK. The “ncr” stands for “no country redirect”, and it’s a good way of finding news from other countries. You still get UK stuff, but you get a lot more besides.
In the words of Kent Brockman, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – democracy simply doesn’t work.
The UK has been the laughing stock of the world recently, with the insane decision to invite the public to suggest names for a new Arctic research ship. Far and away the clear winner was “Boaty McBoatface”. Fortunately, intelligence still clings desperately to bits of wreckage in the ocean of stupidity, some of which is still bobbing around among the idiots who decided to let the public get involved in the first place.
The ship will be called the RRS Sir David Attenborough – which is what it should have been called from the start without having involved people who shouldn’t be allowed to vote or breed.
The Australians, who are about to name an ice-breaking ship, have said they want to avoid “a Boaty McBoatface situation.” I mean, the Aussies are looking down at us. How bad is that?
Someone called John Walker – one of those people under the misapprehension that they’re funny – has said he will name any future child he has “Boaty McBoatface” in protest. If only we could be certain that he was joking. I mean, completely certain.
In the UK, people took to their keyboards to say the decision not to pick the name Boaty was anti-democratic.
The imbeciles who let it get this far have even attempted to suggest the affair was “good for science”. What they didn’t make clear was that the sort of science likely to have benefited was the kind you’d find in a play school environment. You know – let’s build a model bridge (out of sparkles and split red lentils). Or, let’s paint a picture of a house (using sparkles and split red lentils). Or, let’s grow some lentils (and add some sparkles).
But it appears that Sainsbury’s is also under the control of the kind of idiots I used to work for, and for whom the end result is irrelevant as long as a lot of people are involved in getting to it. Their Camden Road store placed an ad in the local newspaper asking for an artist to paint their canteen for free.
You can probably already see the precise point at which Sainsbury’s lost the plot and became the target for thousands of retards whose sorry little lives revolve around social media. I mean, the average “artist” in London – especially if he’s out of work, and especially if he’s the kind Sainsbury’s no doubt had in mind – is likely to have already been on the steering committee of the “vote Boaty” party anyway. Then consider that it is Camden we’re talking about, and that ramps things up a few more notches. Then consider that Sainsbury’s most recent profits were declared at £681 million on sales of over £25 billion. The brains of these “artists” will reach meltdown pretty quickly.
Ordinarily, though, it would just be a story about crassness. However, when you get to this bit, you once again see democracy at work:
The advert was placed in the local paper following a colleague discussion around ways to improve the canteen…
A “colleague discussion”, eh? That sounds suspiciously like a team meeting to me. I can see the flipcharts and free doughnuts already. It takes even less effort to imagine how some idiot “colleague” suggested that a Banksy-wannabe monstrosity on the canteen wall while they ate their tofu salad would somehow increase productivity (though not in those words). Trying to get a radical, out of work artist to do it unpaid was probably one of the better ideas.
Actually, it’s quite funny watching people so easily putting their foot in their mouth as a result of social media, these days. I wonder how much longer it will take them to realise that those who use social media as a substitute for a life aren’t worth bothering with. Don’t try to avoid upsetting them, don’t worry if you do, and for God’s sake don’t engage with them unnecessarily – even if they are “a colleague”.
Sainsbury’s, though, has gone all defensive and apologetic, which is absolutely the worst thing they could have done. To start with, they’re now implying that the “colleagues” were wrong. Yet there is no real reason why the store couldn’t (or shouldn’t) have asked someone to work unpaid any more than there’s a reason why they couldn’t (or shouldn’t) have offered a large sum of money. It’s up to them. As I said above, choosing the former option is merely a case of crassness, brought about by an incompetent attempt to be “democratic” and involve the workforce.
Sainsbury’s store management should have told their staff they were getting a couple of coats of magnolia, and that keeping their jobs should be incentive enough to maintain productivity. That would have been the end of the matter.
NOTE: This is an old article and much of what is said is no longer relevant. It was at the time… but the River of Time flows ever on…
Apologies for this crappy link. The Nottingham Post website is an unfortunate collection of annoying and intrusive adverts with poorly written and alarmist news stories secreted amongst them. However, one of my pupils told me that Colwick Test Centre was closing when she arrived for her lesson the other day, but after further investigation it appears that the story she’d read concerned Watnall test centre, and not Colwick. And it isn’t anywhere near as clear-cut as she’d been led to believe.
Updated image (2022)
The title of the Post’s piece is misleading, since the “closure” being referred to is neither confirmed, nor is it connected with the totally separate matter of test waiting times which the Post covered in a similarly unbalanced way a week or two previously, and so brought into this story unnecessarily. The simple truth of the matter is that Watnall testing station is – and has always been – primarily for HGV and public services drivers. Over the years, car tests have been carried out there “in secret” (it didn’t show up as an option when you booked, but you could ask if you booked by phone), temporarily (when Chalfont Drive first closed down), or officially up until the present time (after Clarendon Street closed down). With much HGV testing going private these days, DVSA is considering the future viability of the Watnall site – which is huge (the yellow area in the photo), and must cost a fortune to maintain. Car testing is a very small part of it (the red areas – and I might be wrong about the size and precise location of the parking bit, as I haven’t used Watnall myself during its most recent incarnation as a car testing centre).
My first reaction when I read the article, and extracted the simple facts from the complex cipher used by the Post’s amateur writers, was “if they close it, where will they move car tests to this time?” However, many other ADIs’ initial reaction is along the lines of “we must start a petition… fight them in the air, in the sea, and on the beaches… because test waiting times are already 17 weeks… we can’t afford to lose a test centre while it is like that… the only option if Watnall closes is Lincoln… Purple monkey dishwasher.” The Post quotes some of these comedians.
The simple truth is this: Watnall as a car test centre IS NOT closing. The future of the site is under review, but DVSA has made it clear that if the site closes, then provision will be made for car driving tests to be conducted from an alternative location. The alternative location WILL NOT be 50 miles away in Lincoln, as some of those ADIs are suggesting! Tests around Watnall may move, but they won’t stop. Christ! Even Derby is closer than Lincoln. And Sutton-in-Ashfield, Melton Mowbray, Loughborough, Leicester, and Burton on Trent. Not to mention the other THREE Nottingham test centres. I mean, what kind of idiot do you have to be to start rattling on about Lincoln?
About six years ago, Nottingham had three test centres (Chalfont Drive, West Bridgford, and Gedling), with Watnall always hanging around as a do-they-don’t-they venue. West Bridgford and Gedling were tiny places with little or no parking, and the Labour government’s push to open multi-purpose test centres (MPTCs) saw these closed down and amalgamated into Colwick MPTC (great idea, by the way). All hell broke loose at the time, with ADIs boycotting Colwick and migrating their pupils to Chalfont Drive whether they wanted to go there or not. Many instructors were terrified of having to teach bay parking for the first time in Nottingham (that’s a fact, by the way).
Later, the lease ran out on Chalfont Drive, and DVSA waited until then before even starting to look for alternative venues. Tests were subsequently and variously conducted from DVLA Offices (now closed), Watnall, and finally Clarendon Street. Clarendon was part of a Coalition drive to move tests out of test centres and “into the community” (stupid idea), and Clifton also opened for tests for this reason at the same time. Clifton and Clarendon were experimental and were originally only going to be operated for a limited period. Eventually, Beeston officially replaced Chalfont as the main test centre on the west side of Nottingham, and tests operating out of DVLA Offices and Watnall moved over there.
Finally, and most recently, Clarendon Street (which was also in a stupid location) was closed, though Clifton (which isn’t too bad) is still operating, and Clarendon’s operations moved once and for all to Watnall. At no point during any of this did DVSA (or DSA, as it then was) “close” any test centre without providing alternative venues. In fact, in some cases the number of test slots available increased with the changes.
As far as test capacities go, Clifton only has two tests going out at any time, and I don’t think it operates for the same number of hours as the main centres. It has (or had) the lowest pass rate of all the Nottingham test centres, and I am convinced that this was largely down to the horrendous road works when the A453 was being widened, and the fact that the A453 is one of the busiest roads in the country. Instructors can pontificate as much as they like about how learners “should be able to drive anywhere”, but the simple fact is that any new driver going for their test is statistically much more likely to make a mistake – and for it to be deemed “serious” – around heavy traffic and variable road restrictions than they are on a semi-deserted industrial estate, or running around virtually the same route every test (as was the case with Beeston during the gridlock created by tram works, which resulted in its pass rate being the highest by a huge margin until someone noticed the blip and set things right). I’m not sure how many tests are conducted at a time out of Watnall, but I am certain it is a lot less than the 6-8 maximum at Colwick and Beeston at the time of writing.
One area where I’m not so quick to defend DVSA is on the matter of test waiting times. Not the waiting time per se, but how they think they can reduce it with only a couple of new examiners. Even now, with a capacity for up to 20 tests per time slot (or 100-120 tests per day) throughout Nottingham, the waiting time is going up by approximately one week per month. Simple arithmetic shows that the only way this can ever be brought down – bar a sudden and catastrophic collapse in the numbers of people wanting tests – is to significantly increase the number of tests conducted. An extra 10 tests a day from a couple of new examiners is a drop in the ocean, and it needs ten times that to make a dent in the arrears.
And this is where it gets potentially very messy. From what I understand, DVSA wants its staff to be able to conduct one extra test per working day, and a little more simple arithmetic shows that this would definitely provide the necessary increase in the total number of tests conducted. A time and motion study has been conducted which is looking into that, and it will come as no surprise to discover that examiners are not particularly happy about this. They say it will mean that the latest tests in winter will come back in the dark, which is both dangerous and unfair. Furthermore – and this is one reason I would never want to be an examiner – they already have only a short time between tests to fill in their paperwork, and this will be reduced still further. Tests returning late (not uncommon due to Nottingham’s incompetently managed road works) would cut that time back even further. This extra test will almost certainly add fuel to the already burning fire over civil service pensions and working conditions (i.e. more strikes).
If you try to book a test now (start of May 2016), the first free dates (not including cancellations) turn up in mid- to late-August for all Nottingham test centres – except Watnall. Watnall is completely booked for the entire availability window that DVSA’s booking system allows. All those whingeing ADIs could easily book tests elsewhere and get much better test dates than they are suggesting is possible, and I wonder why they don’t.
DVSA is wholly responsible for not dealing with the test waiting time problem MUCH sooner, and MUCH more effectively than it has done. It has taken them almost two years to do almost nothing, and the problem continues to worsen by the day. It’s got nothing to do with candidates “not being trained properly” and failing their tests, because pass rates are roughly the same as they have always been – 47% every year since 2011, with a 1% increase each year from 44% in 2007. In other words, it has stayed virtually the same for at least a decade (if you ignore the fact that Beeston was passing too many people during the tram works due to the piss-easy test route it was using).
And finally, just a repeat reminder for the stupid ones out there: Watnall isn’t closing. Even if the site does, tests will still be conducted from somewhere fairly close by. You won’t have to go to Lincoln unless you are VERY stupid. Even now, if you drove more than an extra mile or two with your pupils, you could get MUCH better test dates if you were prepared to cover the other test centres (I will do tests at all of them, though Watnall has never appeared on my radar, probably because it is permanently fully booked).
Update: As of 2018, the three test centres in Nottingham are Chilwell, Watnall, and Colwick. Lead times at all of them are at least 6 weeks (not including cancellation dates and sudden Saturday overtime slots). Since I wrote this article, I have started using Watnall quite a lot (and the parking is not quite in the location I gave in the image now).
Some years ago, I was with a company called UKHosts. I ran several websites for myself and other people from their servers. They were not particularly good on the customer service front in the first place, but the final straw came when I found out that they’d been hacked and not told anyone – it was one of my clients who reported that their site was down, and when I checked that’s when I found out they all were. UKHosts didn’t have any backups – or if they did, they were not very quick reinstating their servers from those backups. Oh, and they also reckoned they’d tried to contact people!
I switched hosts immediately, and I’ve been with 1&1 ever since. But the UKHosts hacking affair (there were apparently several more after I left them) appears to have nailed their coffin shut and they were taken over by Media Marmot shortly after.
Times have changed in the ten years or so since then, and many companies run their websites on the servers of these smaller hosting outfits like 123-reg. As one of them is quoted in the BBC article:
This will wreck my business and plenty of others…
It makes you wonder if 123-reg can survive something like this (edit: their parent was bought out by GoDaddy in 2017 – this article dates from 2016). Having something go wrong is one thing, but not being able to recover from it properly is a different matter entirely.
Any decent business should have its own backup – many of them use WordPress as their content management system like this blog, and I have an automatic backup made every night. However, the hosting company really should also have complete backups of all their servers. If not nightly ones, weekly ones at least.
There’s been a bit of a kerfuffle in Nottingham recently following the placement of new posters such as this one:
A true story. Some years ago, I was on my way home from a squash match. I used to use public transport so I could have a few beers afterwards, and this naturally led to the ceremonial purchase of a kebab close to the bus stop where I’d catch my bus. One night a beggar approached me and said “have you got 50p for a cup of tea?”
I’d always been told not to, but for whatever reason I gave him £1 – and I have never seen anyone run off so fast and into a pub about 200 metres away.
Since that day I refuse point-blank to hand over money to anyone. They can dress up as pathetically as they like – dirty blanket, another for the ubiquitous dog, woolly hat, the lot – but they’re not getting a penny. If they can afford to keep a dog and chain smoke roll-ups, then they should not be begging. Even the ones who are genuinely homeless are frequently – and I mean “frequently” – after money to fuel habits, be it Special Brew, roll-ups, or something stronger and which doesn’t go in via their digestive or respiratory systems.
At the London Road roundabout there is a hostel for the homeless. Like most hostels, it has a no-alcohol policy. Yet those waiting for it to open are usually to be seen standing nearby with their cans of Special Brew or Strongbow, and these can be seen strewn around during the day. The police also seem to be in attendance a lot of the time. Any money you handed over directly to these people would go to fuel their drink or disciplinary issues, and don’t let anyone try to persuade you otherwise.
Anyway, the aforementioned kerfuffle is to do with the claim that these posters “demonise” beggars. To me, that’s a bit like saying rain is wet, and then being accused of saying bad things about rain.
All these posters do is state plain facts. Money given to beggars will usually end up going on alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. Sure, there might be some genuine beggars who live clean lives, but you have to walk around with your eyes shut not to see the way the majority of them are. I don’t see how stating the plain truth is in any way “demonising” anyone.
Money should be given to charities – which is what this campaign is all about. But the problem with that is that the beggars then only get what they need – not what they want.
I’m sick to death of the invented word “brexit”. It’s been leapt upon by the ignorant nationalists in this country who haven’t got a clue what leaving he EU would do to Britain. This comment at the bottom of a BBC article is a perfect example:
1960. Posted by Gary Thompson
on 9 minutes ago
The UK the the WORLDS 5th Largest economy.
I think we can stand on our own two feet thank you Dave…
This guy is clearly unable to even consider a likely explanation as to WHY the UK is the world’s 5th largest economy, and how that position has been built during the UK’s membership of the EU these last 40-odd years. Nor does he mention that the same source he no doubt got his information from puts the EU as the largest (or second largest, depending on source figures) economy in the world. Him and his kind want us to withdraw from the largest economy in the world and try to go it alone? Another ignorant individual comments:
Its easier to make up your mind if you look at things from the other direction…if we were not in the EU…would we now join?….not a chance !
Again, he is incapable of asking himself if we would be where we are now if we hadn’t joined the EU. And this one sums everything up to a tee:
(Remember) KEEP BRITAIN BRITISH (as the old adage once said), and lock out the terrorists and illegals – Vote out and lets all try to get back to our proud Empire past.
This is what brexit is really all about. And they’re all idiots.
These flag-waving fossils cannot understand that economic downturns – and especially the one we experienced recently – affected everyone. They were global phenomena, and were not down to our membership of the EU. Nor can they understand that non-membership will not sort out the refugee situation – not unless we start shooting immigrants at the borders, and although some of these cretins might like the sound of that, it just isn’t going to happen.
Leaving the EU would be the biggest mistake in this country’s history. It would push the current biggest – Cameron’s pre-election pledge to allow a referendum on it just so he could get into power – into second place.
I saw this story on the BBC website. Apparently, a BA Airbus A320 flying to London from Geneva collided with what was believed to be a drone as it was coming in to land.
Apparently, it is the first such collision, though there have been numerous close calls.
…pilots have also called for the DoT to fund tests into what would happen if a drone got sucked into an engine or crashed into a plane’s windscreen.
I’m not quite sure what they think this will prove. All I do know is that if I was on a plane, I would much rather it landed without incident instead of having one of these things get sucked into the turbines. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist – or an aviation expert – to realise that the risk of a catastrophic incident goes up, not down, if something gets pulled into an engine, and quite frankly I wouldn’t give a damn about the results of such tests.
One thing that is clear is that people who operate drones are predominately twats. It’s already illegal to fly them near airports, with up to five years in jail being up for grabs, and yet between September and November 2015 there were six reported near misses in the UK near London airports alone. Leeds and Bradford airports have also had near misses, though this is less of a surprise when you consider the general mentality of people who live near those. There were another six incidents recorded in the 12 months up to July 2015. It’s anyone’s guess how many go unreported.
Drones have the potential to be great fun to play with – I have been tempted to get one myself – but the rules surrounding them are understandably restrictive. Apart from what they could do to a jet engine, there are also the documented effects of what they do to people if they hit them. Consequently, if your desire for fun knows no bounds then you have to break the Law. And that’s when you start to understand why Leeds, Bradford, and London have such a problem.
It’s ironic that for something which hasn’t yet been banned, you can’t fly them far away from you (where they might hit planes), you can’t fly them near large groups of people (where they might injure them), and obviously flying them close to you puts you and anyone near you in danger. So, pretty much anywhere – which significantly detracts from their “fun” value.
Drones are not toys. Unfortunately, apart from professional operators, the people who use them use them EXACTLY as toys. It’s what I’d do if I had one – I have no actual need for one – which is the precise reason why I haven’t bothered to get one.
