For a couple of years now, residents in Stoke Bardolph have been campaigning against the proposed installation of wind turbines in their picturesque village alongside the River Trent. The slogan “Too Big. Too Close” has been used on signs erected by almost all those living there – and by many in Burton Joyce.
Severn Trent is also involved in this. To those who don’t know, they are the people who cannot handle a phone call to report a water leak – behaving as though they’ve never had one before – and who, even when the leak is acknowledged and identified, will ignore it for weeks or months. After that, standard procedure is to dig a hole, erect temporary traffic lights, and then do sod all for at least a fortnight.
Still, being part of Nottinghamshire’s councils, I suppose Gedling Borough Council has to find some way of ruining the countryside. Being so close to the river means that approving plans to build thousands of houses is always going to be a non-starter. So it will just have to be wind turbines.
It is difficult to separate these companies. They all use similar names, though some display their exceedingly poor command of English in the names they choose. But having noted that, it appears that the second company involved in the stories above is at it again – and once more the ASA has found them in breach of just about every rule going.
Waqar Ashraf has already been identified as a liar and thief in the earlier article, where the small print for his “pass protection guarantee” revealed that it only applied if you failed the theory test by one mark. Fail by two and you were screwed. It would be like your car insurance putting in the small print that you were only covered in the event of an accident if you were wearing turquoise socks!
Bearing in mind that the scumbag didn’t even reply to the ASA when it sought his defence arguments, this time he has been pulled up for lying about providing instant booking confirmations, pretending to be an official DSA site, and lying about the cost.
Due to his lack of response, the affair has been referred to the CAP Compliance Team. Hopefully, they can work with the authorities to put this parasite away for good. He is just lying and stealing and laughing as he does.
Thanks to a reader who gave me the heads up on this story. Details are sketchy at the moment, but it seems that an 84-year old woman managed to get on the wrong carriageway of the A1 up in Northumberland, and this led to several collisions, one of which resulted in serious injuries to two of the occupants. The elderly woman herself was killed.
If you search for “elderly drivers” on this site, you’ll find numerous stories regarding accidents they have caused (and related topics). As far as my interest goes, it all began with the tragic case of Cassie McCord, who was killed in 2011 by an elderly maniac who shouldn’t have been on the road in the first place, but who was allowed to be so (the Law had no power to stop him back then).
If you didn’t already realise it, I have a very low opinion of people who continue to drive even after age has caught up with them – even lower than my opinion of people who continue to drive after evolution has indicated they shouldn’t.
EDIT:More details in this local article. The incident happened near to Morpeth at around 3.50pm on Saturday. One of those injured is in a serious condition, and another is also serious – but not with life-threatening injuries. The story is also covered by the Express. Details remain sketchy as police continue their enquiries, and are appealing for witnesses.
Last year I wrote about Alcopal – an internet snake oil medicine that claimed to be able to make people pass the breathalyser test even if they’d drunk around five pints of beer. The posts relating to it are listed below:
The articles remain popular – with an inordinate number of people finding it on search terms indicating that they are looking to use Alcopal rather than read about it, and many of those originating from Poland (make of that what you will).
Another blogger, JosephineJones, has picked up on it. As a result of that I discovered a news story I hadn’t seen before. It dates from January this year, and is mainly concerned with an alleged gun incident involving Arthur Kibble – the “entrepreneur” with the dubious distinction of being the man who introduced Alcopal to the UK. However, a few more titbits can be gleaned from the story.
I didn’t realise that Kibble was an ex-policeman. But even more entertaining are his latest comments.
He now states that Alcopal…
…stops alcohol entering the blood stream, re-directing it to the kidneys.
This is bollocks. To get to the kidneys it would HAVE to get into the blood stream. And if neat alcohol got anywhere near your kidneys, it would destroy them! He goes on…
I am not advocating that motorists get blind drunk and then try to drive…
So why are you bloody selling it? And he continues…
And I must stress that these tablets do nothing to improve the performance of a driver who has been drinking…
So the only thing they do is MASK alcohol, otherwise they WOULD lead to an improvement in performance.
But the best part is that Kibble was selling these things at £35 for 5 tablets. The actual cost price for that number of tablets, containing “herbal” ingredients and carbon, would be infinitesimally small. Even Viagra only costs about £1-£2 per tablet from dodgy online retailers – the cost price to pharmacies is much less. Kibble somehow rated Alcopal at £7 a pop!
But better still is the fact that for Alcopal to “work”, you need to take three tablets before you drink, and two after. So it will cost you £35 on top of the £10 you spent on booze.
It would be far simpler either to not drink – or not drive. A taxi or the bus would be a lot cheaper.
Apparently, the Reservoir Road Test Centre in Hull has been closed on Health & Safety grounds after a neighbouring factory apparently experienced “a series of explosions” and “smoke from a shredding machine” caused an examiner to experience an asthma attack.
The article is in one of those “This is…” local publications and the emotive headline and reference to “explosions” is pretty vague. Even when they quote the owner of the factory where these explosions are taking place you’re still not much wiser. However, the owner explains that explosions occur inside a machine used for crushing cars a couple of times a week and are no hazard to anyone – which is at odds with the story’s initial reference to “shock waves” shaking the test centre and setting vertical blinds swinging.
Anyway, let’s leave the issue of alleged nuclear explosions in a breaker’s yard next door to the Hull test centre and look at the various responses to the temporary closure.
The story is dated today – the 11th – and yet tests appear to be going ahead until 23rd (so the whole issue can’t be that serious), after which time they will be run out of Beverley and Bridlington. Beverley is a 24 minute drive away from Hull, whilst Bridlington is 50 minutes away. Even Scunthorpe is only a 40 minute drive.
I ought to point out that I often take pupils who live in Long Eaton, for example, to tests in Colwick – a 25 minute drive at best, and often 40 minutes or more depending on the route I take. I carry out manoeuvres at various locations along whatever route we’re using, and that pushes the total travel time to anything up to 90 minutes – the warm-up time I include prior to test for all pupils..
One instructor reckons that pupils will now need two hour lessons because they will need experience of the roads they’ll be taking their tests on. He asks if they will be able to afford that. Well, the simple answer is yes, because all you do is let them miss a week and then do a two hour lesson the following week. I do that all the time with those who are strapped for cash. And he refers to a “huge fireball” erupting from the machine in the breaker’s yard – the BBC version of the story is somewhat less dramatic.
A DSA spokeswoman says:
…there is more to a test than learning test routes and it is expected that any candidate who considers themselves to be ready for test should be able to drive in any area.
That was exactly what I was thinking. Fair enough, there are certain features that it is useful to cover on lessons around any test centre, but you don’t spend all lesson, every lesson just covering test routes, test roads, test corners, and so on. Unfortunately, some ADIs do just that.
Another instructor thinks that Beverley will be “swamped by learners” and she adds:
They already have to put up with the Leconfield lorries going through their town.
The point she’s trying to make here escapes me. I’m not sure what lorries have to do with it, but I would very much doubt that even if every Hull examiner moved to Beverley and conducted all the planned Hull tests that there would be a significant increase in traffic. It would amount to a few dozen extra cars spread out over a whole day.
I wish people wouldn’t try to dramatise things so much.
Edit 10/10/2013: The latest news is that a temporary centre could open shortly – less than a month after the original office was shut.
I came across this on the BBC website. It tells how a university graduate, Alan Bacon, applied for a job with Currys. Instead of being able to demonstrate why he’d be good in the photographic department in the interview, he was made to dance to a pop song.
Currys has apologised, and claims that it was not part of its official interview procedure.
Of course it wasn’t. But as the article points out – and many readers will probably have seen it anyway – this kind of idiotic “interviewing” was used in the recent fly-on-the-wall documentary series, The Call Centre.
Something frighteningly similar even happened to me once. It was part of the big Teamworking rollout in the early 90s, and the managers and team leaders were on a compulsory week-long residential course at a hotel in Sherwood Forest. The course facilitators were the usual bunch of extrovert prats, and one day we were told that there was “a forfeit” for something we were supposed to be doing that day – which was to put on a play for the hotel staff. It was no surprise to discover that we subsequently had to pay the forfeit.
I remember saying calmly: “Let me explain something. I have a phobia of acting, so I’m telling you now I’m not doing it. I’ll do stuff backstage, I’ll help to organise it, but I am NOT going to perform in front of people. And that’s final.”
This opened the flood gates. One of my team leaders was nearly in tears over the possibility of having to do it – and was ready to punch one of the facilitators (I had to restrain him). None of the others were keen, either. Only my opposite number on the other shift was almost wetting himself over the prospect, but he was a recent graduate, and dressing up (ideally in drag) was something he missed desperately. The play never went ahead.
Even as long ago as the mid-80s the typical management course would involve “ice-breaking exercises”. Indeed, the very first graduate course I went on involved such an exercise, where we had to lie on the floor and others drew around our heads to get a profile. These were then hung on the wall (using Blu-tac, of course) for the duration. But there were dozens of others over the years. Even my time in technical support for another division of the same group Currys is part of – while I was training as an ADI – required throwing sponge balls around. And First Aid training also involved similar stunts.
In the case of Alan Bacon, Currys offered him another interview with the apology. He wisely turned them down – but I think he still might have a few unpleasant surprises coming his way as he embarks upon his working life.
Currys reckons it is dealing with the idiot staff responsible. I’ll bet they still have jobs at the end of it.
This snippet from the Southend Standard is interesting. It says that in an “unprecedented” move, police arrested 80 boy racers for illegal street racing in Thurrock. They are due to appear in court later this month.
It is such a large operation that Basildon Magistrates’ court has been set aside to just deal with this one issue for an entire day!
Although it’s unlikely, one would hope that every one of them is banned from driving, ordered to take an extended retest, and to have their cars crushed. Because let’s face it: this will be a badge of honour for most of them, and as soon as Friday night comes around again they’ll be back out there doing whatever it is they do, for whatever reasons they do it.
I’ve seen them in Nottingham at the Victoria Retail Park. Even late in the evening, when the roads down there are fairly quiet, they would much rather park right on a roundabout and then stand there trying to look cool than go and park somewhere sensible. It’s just so they can be seen (and possibly for some shady sexual reason best known to themselves).
I know this is terribly politically incorrect of me, but I just saw this story on the newsfeeds, and the one question that keeps dancing in front of me is: WHY?
A special off-road driving day was set up to allow “young drivers with sight problems” to have a go at driving a car. The story makes it clear that those involved are unable to apply for licences – or have had licences revoked when they started to experience issues with their sight. One driver is quoted:
I am on cloud nine.
It is now my dream to be a driver one day.
How? It can’t possibly ever be possible in a manually operated vehicle (and by “manual” I mean one that is actually controlled by the driver). If you can’t see, then there’s no way to circumvent that problem in any vehicle which depends on the driver being able to observe what is around them. Fair enough, if you put on your H G Wells hat and start imagining what might be possible then there is some hope. But realistically the best that can be expected is that self-driving cars become common – but that would be no different to riding in a taxi or bus, and would not constitute real “driving”.
There’s nothing wrong with running these sessions, of course. But someone somewhere needs to be a little more honest and realistic about the expectations they are creating in the minds of young people with eyesight problems. Being young and visually-impaired doesn’t mean you are any less susceptible to the issues that afflict other young people. In that case, let’s hope that these falsely-inspired youngsters don’t get it into their heads that they can joyride like some of their peers are wont to do.
Solomon Tweneboah, 34, has been jailed for 3 years for taking driving tests for other people. He charged £600 a time for the Theory Test and £1,000 for the Practical Test. All driving licences gained via Tweneboah have been revoked.
Tweneboah doesn’t appear to have been one of the brightest sparks in the fire. He failed to complete three attempts at bogus Theory Tests when staff became suspicious each time of the fact that he looked nothing like the photo on the provisional licences he presented. In the case of the Practical Tests, he was sussed immediately and an investigation started.
Met Office experts who got together to discuss recent unusual weather patterns predicted yesterday that Britain faces a decade of wet summers.
Of course, everyone knows what this summer has really been like – after all, when one is classed as “the 16th driest” it can hardly be simultaneously classed as a wet one. It’s still going on even now, as we enter autumn, and it looks likely to continue for a while yet if the Jetstream forecasts are anything to go by.
But I’m surprised that no one has hit on the Met Office over this. They haven’t successfully forecast any single part of this summer – when you look at the original stories, it was like them betting their entire pile of chips on red, but having it come up black. They were 180° degrees wrong!
Mind you, this year has thankfully been free of any involvement by Exacta or Jonathan Powell.
series of explosions” and “smoke from a shredding machine” caused an examiner to experience an asthma attack.
why he’d be good in the photographic department in the interview, he was made to dance to a pop song.
wet one. It’s still going on even now, as we enter autumn, and it looks likely to continue for a while yet if the Jetstream forecasts are anything to go by.