I just received another one. Apparently, I have $12,000,000 now – $24,000,000 if you allow for the fact I got two copies, one to each of two of the various email addresses I use:
—
Dear Sir/Ma,
This is to inform all contractors and business owners whom have done any business in Africa without been paid that, they are free to contact the office of the WORLD BANK COMPENSATION COMMISSION for immediate payment considerations.
The function of the Commission, is to verify and evaluate claims, and in so doing, to determine whether the applicant is entitle to any compensation in the amount not less that $12,000,000:00 (Twelve Million Dollars).
The Commissioners assess the type of compensation due to the claimants and recommended compensation to the Governing Council and intelligible claimant/s is paid within four (4) working days.
This Compensation Commission is headed by the Executive Secretary who is appointed by the board of the World Bank after consultation with the Governing Council. Since the establishment of the Commission in 2014, the staff of the Secretariat comes from approximately 32 different countries and at the height of claims processing, the Secretariat is made up of approximately 30 lawyers, accountants, loss adjusters and information technology specialists.
To begin with the process of this compensation, all eligible persons or come any is require to to send the following to the office of the Commission
A. FULL NAME/ COMPANY NAME
B. CONTACT ADDRESS
C. TELEPHONE/ FAX NUMBER
All information should be sent to:-
Olivia Porter
[removed]@gmail.com
Yours Faithfully,
Sarah Grant.
Not very bright, are they? Mind you, some of the people they send these to aren’t, either.
Quite simply: you tell the truth. Or, rather, you correct falsehoods.
I’m getting sick and tired of the constant attempts to rewrite history and make it sound like women invented everything. It’s bad enough that the BBC has already declared that it wasn’t Charles Babbage, but Ada Lovelace, who invented the first programmable computer, but this latest article, titled “BBC 100 Women: Nine things you didn’t know were invented by women” takes the biscuit.
Let’s take a look at each of the nine entries.
Grace Hopper invented Computer Software
No she didn’t. She created a compiler-like application in 1952. It was not a true compiler – the first serious one was created in Manchester by Alick Glennie, also in 1952. The first fully-fledged compiler came from a team led by John Backus at IBM in 1957. The world has currently convinced itself that Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer program, even though this was precisely what Babbage was trying to do with his work using punched cards, and which never came to fruition – so Lovelace’s “program” never ran anyway.
The first “stored-program” computer was built in Manchester and ran its first program – software – in 1948.
There’s no doubt that Grace Hopper holds an important position in the history of computer programming, but it isn’t anywhere near as far up the ladder as some would have you believe, and it’s definitely not right at the top.
Dr Shirley Ann Jackson invented Caller ID and Call Waiting
No she didn’t. Theodore Paraskevakos developed a caller ID system in 1968 in Greece. He took out 20 patents between 1969 and 1975, and they predate all others.
Famous Black Inventors (Jackson is African-American) says:
Dr. Jackson conducted breakthrough basic scientific research that enabled others to invent the portable fax, touch tone telephone, solar cells, fiber optic cables, and the technology behind caller ID and call waiting.
In other words, she was involved in the theoretical side of what eventually led to the modern system we use. Along with many other people.
Mary Anderson invented the Windscreen Wiper
No she didn’t. The first ideas seem to have come from Jozef Hofmann and Mills Munitions of Birmingham. At least three people patented wiping systems at the same time – Mary Anderson, Robert Douglass, and John Apjohn. Douglass filed his patent three months before Anderson, Apjohn three months after. Anderson’s might have been better, using an arm instead of a moving brush-bar, but she wasn’t the first to come up with the idea of a wiper.
Olga D Gonzalez-Sanabria invented Space Station Batteries
No she didn’t. Wikipedia says:
González-Sanabria played an instrumental role in the power systems area with the development of the “Long Cycle-Life Nickel-Hydrogen Batteries”. Her technical contributions helped to enable the International Space Station power system.
Contributions and involvement are obviously not be sneezed at, but it’s wrong to overstate them.
Josephine Cochrane invented the Dishwasher
No she didn’t. The first dishwasher was patented by Joel Houghton in 1850. A later patent was awarded to L. A. Alexander in 1865. Cochrane’s patent was awarded in 1887, and she was “assisted” by George Butters. The first dishwasher that was anything like today’s modern devices was patented by William Livens in 1924.
Marie Van Brittan Brown invented the Home Security System
No she didn’t. Not on her own, anyway. Wikipedia says:
No she didn’t. She was a “co-patentee” (out of four) of a process to isolate human stem cells.
Stephanie Kwolek invented Kevlar
That one’s correct, though the BBC neglects to mention that is was an accidental discovery and she had little or no involvement in the subsequent development of Kevlar and its uses, and doesn’t seem to have realised its potential.
Elizabeth Magie invented Monopoly
No she didn’t. Magie invented The Landlord’s Game – a game designed to spread the teachings of the 19th Century American economist, Henry George – specifically, his “single tax” theory. She was awarded a patent in 1904. Various similar games came and went between 1903 and the 1930s, and all dealt with the sale and development of land.
Monopoly was sold for the first time in 1935. Parker Brothers purchased the rights from Charles Darrow, but when they realised Darrow was not the sole inventor, and had borrowed ideas from Magie’s game, they also bought rights to Magie’s patent – bearing in mind Monopoly was being sold by Parkers four years before Magie marketed the third version of The Landlord’s Game, in 1939. Monopoly was not the same game.
There is no doubt that these women were major contributors to the fields they were involved in, but it is wrong to talk their involvement up.
Women should have equal opportunities. They should have equal pay for doing the same work as a man. But we have to face the fact that women and men are different, and just as there are things a woman can do better than most men, equally there are things men can do better than most women.
Some questions in life just don’t have a viable answer to them.
North Korea is a pariah state. Every other country on the face of the earth hates it. It has acquired big boys toys – nuclear weapons – primarily because it is run by a Big Boy. Well, a fat, retarded specimen with the mind of a very backward child, anyway, who has spent the better part of two years dividing his time between threatening to destroy America (and a few other people), and firing missiles. He’s also allegedly managed to kill a few dozen of his close associates, some of whom were family, and assassinated a defector (also family). He also allegedly has executions carried out using anti-aircraft guns. I’m sure he went and had one off the wrist after watching that.
The thing is, if he did start any sort of war – nuclear or conventional – although there would obviously be a lot of damage, North Korea would quickly be blown off the face of the planet. Kim Jong Un appears to be too stupid to realise that, as well as being too stupid to understand that you don’t win friends and influence people the way he’s going about it. I’m sure he’s also too stupid to realise he’s gone so far down that path, he’ll NEVER have any friends. HIs people don’t like him. They hate him – but they’re afraid of him.
The man simply has to be insane not to realise what a complete tosser he actually is. No nation is ever inherently evil – only individual people are. Like Kim Jong Un.
This change will only apply to cars – not motorcycles. Only ADIs will be allowed to do motorway lessons – not trainee instructors. Mum and Dad (or best mate) will not be allowed to take anyone on the motorway.
Motorway driving will not be included on the driving test. Motorway lessons will be voluntary.
The exact date hasn’t been decided yet, and until it has, it is still illegal for learners to go on the motorway with anyone.
Now imagine what would happen if the only altered detail was that it was a 37-year old black woman.
Unbelievably, Natalie Saul, the thief in question, was given a two-year suspended sentence, 250 hours unpaid work, and a fine of £360 (and I haven’t missed any 0s off that). She was defended by a woman, Lucie Daniels, whose pathetic mitigating plea included:
This offending is so out of character, she has worked hard and paid her taxes and been a responsible citizen…
The judge, Catherine Newman – yes, that’s right: a woman – said:
It has caused considerable harm to your employer which could ill afford to lose such a substantial sum, but thankfully survived. Your grandmother’s death rocked the stability of your hitherto good citizenship.
You had a steady partner who had no idea of your gambling addiction and stands by you. I’m prepared to take the wholly exceptional course of reducing your sentence and suspend it.
Saul was only caught when she went on maternity leave (sigh) and the new accountant uncovered the fraud. Incidentally, it isn’t made clear what happened to the other £100,000 she ripped off.
Newman also said:
I’m taking a considerable risk that the Crown will think it lenient and appeal, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
Let’s hope the Crown agrees, does appeal, and also kicks Newman out for gross incompetence (not to mention what appears to be overt discrimination). If Saul had been a man, they’d be arguing the upper sentencing limit wasn’t enough, but Newman seems to think that even the lower limit isn’t low enough for a woman. Thank God for equality, eh?
Over the years, I’ve taught many pupils whose ability behind the wheel gave me cause for concern. In some cases, it seemed that they would never learn simple clutch control, gear changing, and steering, let alone roundabouts and complex road junctions, and even when they reached test standard, it was obvious they still had issues. To this day, I sometimes ponder over what I am helping to release on to the roads.
Only one pupil that I know of has ever given up driving – on the grounds of it being too expensive, though the “expense” may have been to do with causing over £1,000 damage to a £1,500 car in three separate incidents involving inanimate objects within two weeks of buying it. She did over 100 hours with me until I finally persuaded her to switch to automatic lessons, whereupon she took another 100+ automatic hours and passed after 7 or 8 attempts.
Another pupil passed on his third attempt after 160 hours. I discovered two years later that he had learning difficulties brought on by an accident when he was younger, and I also now know that he has had numerous small accidents through emerging without checking properly at junctions.
Another was almost a clone of the previous one in terms of how he looked and drove. He passed first time after 80 hours, and his sole ambition was to drive 200 miles with his best mate to see his grandma who lived the south coast on other side of London. I made him promise me he’d do it in 30-minute hops, because of his concentration issues.
And another also passed first time after 60 hours. She put in an almost perfect drive on her test (I was sitting in back), and to my knowledge she has had a problem-free five years or more since. These are probably my worst four.
So, the question is this: if you could push a button at any point, preventing any given pupil from ever being allowed behind the wheel of a car, would you do it?
It might seem an easy question to answer, but consider that by making such a decision you are influencing someone’s entire future. Given the number of young pupils I take on who have emotional issues (including anxiety/depression) requiring medication these days, you may also be influencing someone’s life in a more direct sense.
Of course, in real life there is no actual button to press, so taking it to a more realistic level: if you decided to do it, how would you tell someone they were never going to be able to drive? And at what point?
In only one of the four examples I gave above would I have been right if I had gone ahead and said it. But I would only have been “right” with the benefit of hindsight. All the others had similar control issues which were overcome only with great difficulty, so if I had made the same decision with them I would most certainly have been wrong in at least two cases. When I look at my career overall, I have lost count of those pupils who’ve had major problems to start with, but who have suddenly broken down the wall and turned out to be excellent drivers.
This is the problem with trying to play God. You’re not God. You cannot see into the future, and that means you can make mistakes.
The reason I mention all this is that I noticed someone has raised the issue regarding the suitability of “some” people in becoming driving instructors, suggesting that there should be some barrier beyond the current Criminal Record Check that prevents “certain people” from being allowed to train as ADIs.
The question I would ask is: on what basis you to decide if someone is suitable or not? Is it a retrospective thing, in that they’ve said things you disagree with? Is it that they annoy you? Are they quiet? Loud? Do you dislike their appearance or their tone of voice? The danger is that pressing the metaphorical button I mentioned earlier can take on a very personal slant if you’re not careful. Some people may even use it as a way of achieving something they are frustrated at not being able to achieve using more direct means.
There is already a system in place to check for instructors who cannot teach properly (the initial qualifying process, and the standards check), and it can certainly weed out the seriously bad material. Admittedly, it is somewhat harder to find those who simply don’t teach properly, especially when it appears that a large number of ADIs appear to want to put on a show when they have their standards check, judging by the questions they start asking when they get the dreaded “letter”. But if an ADI has a decent pass rate, is it really any other ADI’s business if they otherwise come across as complete dipsticks? And does being a dipstick before you start training to become an ADI mean you shouldn’t be allowed to become one?
Perhaps these God-wannabes will rely on comments from their pupils before deciding to “push the button” on someone they don’t know? I mean, if I have someone who keeps cancelling lessons at the last moment (or who just doesn’t turn up whenever the weather’s nice, claiming they were “unwell”), and who I’ve spoken to sternly on more than one occasion about their reliability, explaining how much it costs me when they do it (even though it isn’t costing them, because I don’t charge them for it, even though I should), and who I have eventually gotten rid of if they haven’t stopped lessons anyway because of all the talking-tos… if they go to this Glorious God-wannabe and tell them I used to shout at them… well, hey! Push the button, why don’t you?
Remember that “shouting” is in the eye (or the ear) of the beholder, and isn’t always an absolute. Raising your voice to tell someone they just made a mistake is one thing, but raising it to tell someone they just cost you another £25 on top of the previous four times they did it is something else entirely.
When I lost my rat race job, my sole aim was to get back into employment as soon as possible. I needed to earn money to pay my bills. My decision to train as a driving instructor was motivated by that: income from employment. I didn’t experience an epiphany, where the clouds parted, and the Heavenly Host sang while a booming voice told me I had been chosen. And as I recall, getting my green badge when I passed my Part 3 involved paying £300 and waiting several weeks for it to arrive in the post. There was no pulling it out of a stone, or having it handed to me by a mystical female hand rising from a pool of still water by the light of a full moon.
No. It was me that did the choosing, and that choice was based on doing something that sounded enjoyable whilst earning a decent income. In many respects, the fact that the company I chose to train with was probably more interested in my money than my suitability meant there was little chance of my educational background and business experience getting up anyone’s nose. Since qualifying, I’ve had loads of grateful pupils pass, a full diary most of the time, and a lot of fun.
And it seems there would still be someone out there who would happily press the button if they could were I to do it all again.
(Note: The graphic used above refers to judging without possessing all the relevant facts. Sometimes – and in my opinion – judging people is perfectly OK).
I’m starting to get seriously pissed off with some of the prats on the roads these days. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Nottingham City and Country Councils have got road works on virtually every route into and out of the city, you have people like the driver of this white Nissan Qashqai, registration WN15 UXV on Tuesday, 8 August 2017.
I was on a lesson with an already nervous pupil when we hit unexpected traffic. It turned out the imbeciles in charge of the area around the Wheatcroft roundabout (Rushcliffe Borough) had cut it from four lanes to just one sometime before 6pm – so during rush hour. The reasons for the road works are not immediately clear, though it is likely they are to do with the ongoing destruction of greenbelt for the new housing development just there.
We’d been sitting in the queue for around 10 minutes. When we saw that lanes were closed and were merging, we signalled and someone allowed us to move out. Several minutes later, as is usually the case, someone really clever decided to drive further down and jump part of the queue (Silver VW Polo, registration OY57 KHD). We let him in. Then, after several more minutes, when we had reached the actual merge, there was a surge of traffic trying it. The first was a white van/minibus, registration CK03 AYL. He forced his way in right at the level of the cones. He was being tailgated by the Qashqai.
The Qashqai literally barged us out of the way, forcing me to take the controls. To make matters worse, the cross between Jimmy Krankie and the Michelin Man driving it, and Bubbles the Chimp in the passenger seat thought it was funny.
The reason it took so long to get through in the first place was because of openly arrogant and ignorant twats like this. But THEY don’t care as long as THEY get what THEY want.
Just a reminder that all three of those cars mentioned here were breaking the Law. They were overtaking – on the inside – and forcing their way into queues of traffic. The stupid cow in the Qashqai was the worst of the the three (and the monkey she had in the passenger seat was aiding and abetting).
Dashcams are great, by the way, just in case anyone’s recollection of the events are unclear.
And while I’m on this subject, a similar thing happened this afternoon on the A60 heading towards Mansfield. I was on another lesson, and we’d stopped at lights in Daybrook. A white lorry, registration LT62 CDO or CT62 CDO – unmarked, but identified with the container code TTR117 – deliberately tried to run us into oncoming traffic.
It seems that Theresa May – who is no longer in charge of the government – was willing to pay this in order to move along with Brexit negotiations. But Downing Street has dismissed this because:
…leading supporters of leaving the EU said they would not accept handing over such a large sum.
Brexit supporters have caused enough damage already. Someone should just turn round and tell them to f*** off and grow up.
The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (TGTBATU) is the best film of all time. I should say that that’s just my opinion, but I don’t want to water it down. It just is.
It has sentimental value to me as well. An uncle, who died many years ago, was going to take me to see it when it was on at the cinema. I had been captivated by the music, which was being played a lot on the radio, and he said he’d take me. It never came to pass, because about five minutes after he’d said it, my auntie pointed out that it had an ‘X’ rating and they wouldn’t let a 7-year old in.
I digress. A while back, I was playing around with Google Earth, and since TGTBATU was on one of the satellite channels again I looked up the location of Sad Hill cemetery – the setting for the iconic final scene in the movie. The scenery in the film had always impressed me, but the location in Northern Spain turned out to be overgrown. It was an unofficial off-the-beaten-track tourist target, but it was just an overgrown valley – albeit still with great scenery. I’d made a mental note to visit the place if I ever got the chance.
Anyway, it appears from this story that a group of volunteers has renovated the site and put it back to the condition it was in when the movie was shot.
Time to start planning the trip.
Where is Sad Hill on Google Earth?
I can’t believe someone found this story based on that search term!
If you launch Google Earth and type “Sad Hill” into the search box, it takes you straight to it. No choices to make, it just goes there. The address is shown as Sad Hill Cemetery – 09610 Santo Domingo de Silos, Burgos, Spain. Coordinates are 41°59’25.71″N, 3°24’30.77″W.
You have to smile sometimes. I just received this email. It’s just a hunch, but it might be a scam.
From: Charles Koch <email address removed>
Subject: CONTACT ME URGENT
Dear Beneficiary,
How are you today, I hope all is well .Be informed that due to your delay ,YOUR FUND worth of (USD$950,000.00) was converted into ATM-Card which you can use to withdraw in any ATM Cash Point Machine Worldwide and have been programmed by the issuing bank .Note that the issuing bank has packaged the ATM CARD with the secret code and registered it with DHL courier service. Also you can withdraw the sum of US$5,000.00 per day.Therefore, quickly contact DHL COMPANY with below
information:
Your full name……..
Your address……….
Your country……….
Your age …………
Your occupation……..
Your Phone number……
Director :Mr Charles Koch
Email address: (Zimbabwe email address removed)
The only money you have to send to DHL COMPANY is only US$95 only,according to the director of the issuing bank for the smooth delivery of your package to your door step. Also you should reaffirm your full NAME, ADDRESS,TELEPHONE NUMBER AND DRIVER’S LICENSE OR PASSPORT to them to avoid wrong delivery.
Congratulations!
Yours faithfully,
Funds Remittance Department
The really frightening thing is that there will be some prat who responds to him.
Some questions in life just don’t have a viable answer to them.
About bloody time. An email alert from DVSA advises that 
Over the years, I’ve taught many pupils whose ability behind the wheel gave me cause for concern. In some cases, it seemed that they would never learn simple clutch control, gear changing, and steering, let alone roundabouts and complex road junctions, and even when they reached test standard, it was obvious they still had issues. To this day, I sometimes ponder over what I am helping to release on to the roads.
I’m starting to get seriously pissed off with some of the prats on the roads these days. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Nottingham City and Country Councils have got road works on virtually every route into and out of the city, you have people like the driver of this white Nissan Qashqai, registration WN15 UXV on Tuesday, 8 August 2017.
And while I’m on this subject, a similar thing happened this afternoon on the A60 heading towards Mansfield. I was on another lesson, and we’d stopped at lights in Daybrook. A white lorry, registration LT62 CDO or CT62 CDO – unmarked, but identified with the container code TTR117 – deliberately tried to run us into oncoming traffic.
The Brexit fiasco leaps from one incompetent episode to another. The 
I just caught