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Rush @ Glasgow SECC 2011

15/05/2011

Well, it was worth the wait. No doubt about it.

This is probably the most polished show I’ve ever seen them do, and the quality of the rear screen images was superb. Although it has been written before that Alex isn’t into guitar solos (and the increasing use of keyboards in the 80s nearly broke them up), he was definitely the centre of attention tonight. As well as deviating from the pure album format – something they stopped doing some years ago – Alex even played keyboards at the start.

I know one thing: I must get a new camera.

They played some unusual songs – ones you wouldn’t expect – and that set some goosebumps off. Time Stand Still was there (from Hold Your Fire), along with Presto (from Presto – one of my favourite songs from one of my favourite albums), Stick It Out (from Counterparts), and Marathon (from Power Windows).

Closer To The Heart made a welcome return (I read some years ago that they were sick of playing that), and favourites like Spirit Of Radio (from Permanent Waves) and Subdivisions (from Signals) were also played. Freewill (also Permanent Waves) was also there – great guitar in that one.

The highlight was the performance of the whole of the Moving Pictures album – and that meant The Camera Eye was played live for the first time (one of my other favourite songs).

The running motif throughout was a sort of Jules Verne type time machine – hence the tour title – and the rear screen was frequently used along with this (see photo above). The intro video at the start of each section (Rush have an intermission these days – as Geddy says, they’re getting old) set the scene and was quite funny – even Neil had a significant part (good to see him becoming more involved in that). Right at the end, after the encore (which featured La Villa Strangiato (from Hemispheres) and Working Man (from their first album in 1974)), there was a short film featuring Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, from the film “I Love You, Man”, where the two characters from the film get into the band’s room backstage.

The show also featured the songs BU2B (Brought Up To Believe) and Caravan, from the forthcoming studio album Clockwork Angels – both of which sounded superb live. I can’t wait for the release of this.

Also, a masterclass of a drum solo by Neil, as always.

Sheer class.

There wasn’t an empty seat I could see, and the crowd went crazy over every song (only that jerk yelling during the drum solo – why is there always someone who doesn’t like drum solos?)

Anyway, I’m off to Sheffield Monday for the second show. And I have bought a new camera as of this afternoon. Let’s see how that one goes (see the results here from the Sheffield gig).

New ADI Knows It All

12/05/2011

DOAADI

ADI

I saw this story in the Mirror yesterday. At first, it was quite heart warming to read it… until I got to the end.

In a nutshell, this guy on Teeside was made redundant and so became a driving instructor at the otherwise virtually unemployable age of 60. Sounds great, so far, and you can forgive him his know-it-all attitude (something ADIs are quite good at, even if they know nothing at all).

However, at the end, he says this:

I charge as little as £10 a lesson for the first five and then blocks of 10 for £15 each, much cheaper than big schools.

In the area he works – Stockton – the going rate for lessons is £20-£22, and yet here you have this complete idiot giving them away for between £10-£15. He’s even got some free advertising worth thousands of pound to advertise the fact from the Mirror, so Heaven knows what impression that will give to those who read it

The simple fact is that in spite of the gushing rhetoric and gooey rags-to-riches crap, people like this guy are effectively destroying the industry for everyone else, and they are not as good as they think they are. There are always prospective pupils who are only interested in money, and who want to pay as little as possible for driving lessons. The fact that they end up taking more lessons than they would with a good instructor – charging a little more – is something they can never know, because everyone only learns to drive once in their lives. Some DO realise, though. That’s when they move elsewhere complaining that they weren’t getting anywhere.

That’s because you cannot make any money at all if you are paying for a car and the fuel to run it on idiotic hourly rates like this. Unless someone owns the car outright (and this guy had to lease a car), it will cost at least £70 for that alone. How much you spend on fuel depends on how many hours you work, but you can easily reckon on somewhere between £100-£200 a week for 30+ hours of tuition.

So, he’s spending around £170 (let’s say) a week to run his car. At £12.50 an hour average, that means he has to work 14 hours just to cover costs. Then – and let’s assume he IS working 30 hours – his before-tax profit is going to be £200 a week!

Yes, his wages are £200 a week!!!

If anyone in the real world can live on that I’d like to meet them.

And when you fiddle with the numbers further, it works out at around £6.70 an hour based on tuition hours alone. Add travelling time, and you’re probably under £5 an hour. He must have been on really poor wages as a salt shifter!

For anyone interested, as of January 2009 McDonald’s was paying up to £5.75 an hour to new staff!.

As I said above, people like the guy in this story are really what’s wrong with the industry. Absolutely no business sense whatsoever. They are prats who see themselves as philanthropists – and the only reason pupils “like” them is that they think they’re getting a good deal.

Still, as long as decent instructors can charge £23 or more an hour and have a full diary then people like this berk are welcome to work for peanuts.

Microsoft to Buy Skype

11/05/2011

DOAADI

Computers & Tech

This one is interesting – Microsoft is apparently buying Skype.

eBay bought it and did nothing with it – just milked it, which is basically what eBay is all about and what it was founded on (not a criticism, just an observation).

Apparently, Google was after Skype big-time, but Microsoft looks to have won.

Skype is extremely useful, and it is a growing application for mobile platforms. It is also extremely stable, and apart from the absence of a decent fax facility – capitalised on by rip-off software like PamFax – it offers everything else you could want.

Better Enforcement and Better Education to Cut Road Deaths

11/05/2011

DOAADI

ADI, DSA

An email alert from the DSA:

Better enforcement and education to cut road deaths

Plans to improve road safety education while taking tough action against the small minority of dangerous drivers were set out by Transport Secretary Philip Hammond today.

Careless driving will be made a fixed penalty offence to allow the police more effectively to tackle reckless driving that puts other road users in danger, while disqualified drivers face having to take a new test before regaining their licence.

There will also be more educational courses that can be offered in place of a fixed penalty and points in appropriate cases as well as a new post-test qualification for novice drivers, under plans set out in the new Strategic Framework for Road Safety.

And as new analysis shows, 3,500 deaths and serious injuries could have been prevented in a year if the successes of better local authorities and police forces had been matched across the country. Local people will be given the information they need to have a real say in road safety priorities on their local roads.

Philip Hammond said:

“This report marks a sea change in how we tackle road safety in this country. We are determined to differentiate between wilfully reckless drivers and the law abiding majority who sometimes make honest mistakes, or who have allowed their skills to deteriorate.

“We will focus relentlessly on cracking down on the really reckless few who are responsible for a disproportionately large number of accidents and deaths on our roads. By allowing the police to focus resources on dealing with these drivers, we can make our roads even safer.

“Our vision is to ensure Britain remains a world leader on road safety. We will only do this is if we bring people with us. This means cracking down on the most dangerous drivers without waging war on the law abiding majority.

The new Strategic Framework for Road Safety sets out the government’s plans to:

Make careless driving a fixed penalty offence to allow the police more effectively to tackle the wilfully reckless driving that puts other road users in danger. Guidance will ensure that that the circumstances in which a fixed penalty notice is appropriate are clearly defined.

Require offenders to pass a test before they regain their licence after a serious disqualification.

Make greater use of powers to seize vehicles to keep the most dangerous drivers off the roads.

Increase the level of fixed penalty notices for traffic offences from £60 to between £80 and £100 and penalty points. Levels have fallen behind those for other fixed penalty offences, which risks trivialising the offences.

Improve enforcement against drink and drug driving, as announced in the response to the North Report in March. Increase the use of police-approved educational courses that can be offered in place of fixed penalty notices to encourage safer driving behaviour.

Launch a new post-test qualification for new drivers, including an assessment process to give insurers confidence that it will create safer drivers who can expect to pay lower insurance costs. This will replace the current Pass Plus scheme.

Continue to improve the driving and motorcycling training processes, including introducing film clips into theory test.

Create a new website to allow local people to easily compare the road safety performance of their local area against similar areas, as well as a new portal to help road safety professionals share information. The framework published today also includes maps which show the recent road safety records and improvements of local authorities.

Launch an annual road safety day.

The framework also sets out the roles and responsibilities of local authorities, road safety professionals and other stakeholders in improving road safety and the increased freedom that is being given to local authorities in assessing and acting on their own priorities.

The government’s long term vision is to ensure that Britain remains a world leader on road safety and the department will monitor its performance against indicators in a new road safety outcomes framework.

This is that earlier story about “on the spot fines” straight from the horse’s mouth. As I said, it isn’t just about fines – it is about much more than that.

This next comment might upset a few people, but frankly the broader issue of road deaths doesn’t bother me. Not road deaths among the little prats who end up killing themselves, anyway – it’s good for society that they’ve been removed from the gene pool. What does concern me, though, is the ones who put MY life in danger and get away with it. That’s why I welcome anything that takes their pratmobile – or their licence to drive one – away.

It’s just a shame we won’t show the guts necessary to take those privileges away for life – like the Chinese have done. Punishment is also a form of education.

Interestingly, I have already had one hit on the search term – and I want to highlight it:

I drive for my living in UK will careless driving charges affect me?

If anyone was offended by my comment above, this is the proof that I am right to have little sympathy for anyone who flaunts what they already know to be the law. It doesn’t matter which country they are from, who they are, or how old they are. If they drive cars they are adults, and we need to stop all the mollycoddling – that’s how it got like this in the first place.

‘On The Spot’ Fines for Bad Drivers

11/05/2011

DOAADI

ADI

This has been on the news this morning, and is covered in many places. This is from the BBC.

The reports say that police will be given powers to issue on the spot fines instead of the usual reporting/court summons method. A fine of at least £80 and 3 points on their licences will also be given.

As usual, there are people condemning it. Some say it is too simplistic. And the forums are showing the usual crop of “experts” rattling on. My favourite so far is:

Here we go again…

Anything which makes driving like a prat less attractive is a good idea, no matter who thought of it.

Under the plans – which involve far more than just on the spot fines - anyone disqualified would have to take further training. Drug-driving will be cracked down on (I regularly smell exotic tobacco fumes coming out of cars in front of me), and there would be more vehicle seizures.

It strikes me that some driving instructors oppose anything which affects their pupils – whether their pupils are at fault or not.

Test Pass: 10/5/2011

10/05/2011

DOAADI

Driving Tests

Well done to Danielle, who passed first time this morning with 10 driver faults.

She was nervous as hell, and still negative even after she’d passed! Almost everyone “thinks” they have failed, but if they haven’t there’s no point pursuing the matter – but they always do! I guess it is the nerves that also make some people seem as if they don’t care that they have passed.

Anyway, a good result. I told you you could do it.

And something I only realised later… she did it in 17½ hours of lessons, never having driven before. She’d managed to do some private practice when she was home from college, but this is still a new record.

Rush Time Machine Tour 2011

09/05/2011

DOAADI

Music

Well, it’s nearly here! After the waiting, the Rush Time Machine Tour is due to hit the UK.

Saturday I’m off to Glasgow for the first Rush gig of their UK tour, then it’s a busy week and a half travelling to Sheffield, Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham, and finally London’s O2.

I’ve deliberately not looked up any footage from the tour – I want it to be new when I see it for the first time.

The tickets have cost me a small fortune (making sure I’m in the first 5 rows at all of them), and I’ll rack up over 1,500 miles travelling! Then there’s the T-shirts and other stuff.

I’ve made sure I have no morning lessons the day after each of Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester, and London - but I have scheduled lessons for the mornings of the days I’m travelling to Sheffield and Birmingham. That’s the drawback to being self-employed: there’s no such thing as paid time off!

But it will all be worth it.

Updates – gig reviews:

Some Things in Life are Certain

08/05/2011

DOAADI

ADI, World

As you go through life, there are some things which are so certain that you can set your watch by them. For example, if you fall out of the 2nd floor window of your house, you get hurt. If you put your hand in a Flymo while it’s plugged in, you can forget learning to play the piano. And if you have too many driving instructors, they’ll all start moaning that there isn’t enough work to go around and the overall quality of instruction will go down.

Someone should explain that to the Irish, as this story makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, so certain is the outcome in a year or two’s time.

A driving school is cynically capitalising on the new Irish driving test by offering “scholarships” to unemployed people. In other words, it is trying to increase its own business by adding more ADIs to the pool. It claims it is to “take people off the dole queue”.

Well, in order to significantly reduce the dole queue it would have to create a lot of ADIs. If it only does a handful, then the effect on the dole queue is negligible. Then, of course, there is the age old issue of whether just anyone can be a good ADI (and Ireland has only just got around to trying to sort its seriously flawed driver training system as it is). In other words, if someone is “unemployed”, are they necessarily automatically “employable” in a job like this?

Seve Ballesteros Dies

07/05/2011

DOAADI

General, World

Sad to hear that golfing legend Seve Ballesteros has died as a result of a brain tumour.

I’m not into golf, but when I was a child I had a Seve golf game which consisted of a golf club with a small character on the end, and when you pulled a small trigger he swung his club and hit the ball. Balls consisted of polystyrene ones for driving and glass ones for putting on the foam putting green. Now that I think about it, it might not have been a Seve game – it might have been Jack Nicklaus – but I’ll always associate Seve with that game, and watching golf on the TV during the long, hot school summer holidays back when TV started late and finished early, and there were only three channels to watch (or sometimes one if the BBC had decided to show golf on its own two – Channel 4 was still a good few years off then).

Seve was one of the most recognisable personalities around, and always a really nice guy. If ever I decided to get into golf (like many of my friends and pupils are these days), it’s people like Seve who would attract me to it.

DSA Warning: Test Booking Rip Off Sites

06/05/2011

DOAADI

ADI, Driving Tests, DSA, DVSA

Old story from 2011. DSA is now DVSA, but the warning is still valid. Go to gov.uk and book your test there.

An email from the DSA:

Unofficial driving test booking websites: advice for customers

~~Directgov~~ is the only official driving test booking website.

Other websites offer driving test booking services, but might charge extra administrative fees on top of the Driving Standards Agency’s (DSA) fee. Those websites are not run by or connected to DSA or ~~Directgov~~.

DSA recommends that all learner drivers book their driving test through the official booking service on ~~Directgov~~ by visiting ~~direct.gov.uk/drivingtest~~

If you have used an unofficial website

DSA gets complaints from customers who have used unofficial booking websites. In most cases these websites are doing nothing illegal. This means that DSA’s powers to respond may be limited.

If you have used an unofficial booking website, you might have seven working days to cancel your order and get all your money back. However, this will depend on the terms and conditions of the website you used.

You can find more information about your consumer rights on ~~Directgov~~. You can also use template letters to complain to businesses. Each letter includes details of the law that you want the trader to follow.

Internet, mail order and telephone shopping

Making a complaint – what to do first

Create a complaint letter from a template

What DSA is doing about unofficial booking websites

DSA takes consumer protection very seriously. So, DSA is:

a) protecting its trademarks to make sure they are not:

used to advertise unofficial booking sites in search engine results

used as part of website addresses for unofficial booking websites

b) asking the Advertising Standards Authority to make sure unofficial booking websites are following the rules in the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing

c) asking local Trading Standards to investigate those unofficial booking websites that appear to be misleading consumers

What DSA is doing to promote the official booking service

DSA makes improvements based on learner drivers’ feedback to promote the official booking service. For example DSA:

made sure that the official ~~Directgov~~ website pages appear at the top of search engine results where possible

created videos showing how to use the practical test booking service – videos are being developed for the theory test booking service too

reminded learner drivers on Twitter and Facebook about using the official booking service on ~~Directgov~~

What approved driving instructors (ADIs) can do

DSA is encouraging ADIs to remind their trainees to use the official booking service by visiting ~~direct.gov.uk/drivingtest~~.

If ADIs run their own websites they can also link to the official booking service. The best links to put on your website are:

~~direct.gov.uk/booktheorytest~~ – Book an official DSA driving theory test

~~direct.gov.uk/bookpracticaltest~~ – Book an official DSA practical driving test

There is also a Facebook page about it.

I’ve had the proper links on here for some time on my Information Page, along with a lot of other useful stuff.

I was talking to a pupil the other day – one who had taken their theory test before coming to me – and he reckoned he’d paid £70 for his test! It costs £31 through DSA – and I charge £6.50 for a copy of Driving Test Success (DVD ROM), which is the ONLY thing you need in order to revise for the test. if you pay any more than that you’ve been had.