leyton.org

A new iPhone release is a good thing, on the whole. New shiny features aplenty

But a small request to Apple: make SMS reminder notifications optional!

Like many geeks, my phone has replaced my pager. So I get notifications and warnings aplenty. And the preview is usually enough to see what it’s about so I don’t ‘acknowledge’ them. This new release insists on doing just that, and insessently (well, twice) notifies me. And gets very annoying very quickly, as I can’t distinguish a new message from a reminder.

So, Steve, an option to disable this would be very welcome. Mmmmok?

Oh for the day when milk bottle tops were silver things you pressed with your thumb, presuming of course that the blue-tits hadn’t got at it first, or the cream had frozen up and pushed it off from inside. I took particular and perverse pleasure as a child at pushing the tops down almost to the point of breaking, to admire the indentation. Yes, it’s strange to me too, reading that back.

What is it with supermarkets and their ridiculous milk bottle/carton/plastic container tops these days? The ones that really do my head in are those with a really very small oval tab just on the edge of the main top. It’s far too small to get at, and invariably snaps off, requiring me to get out a knife or somesuch to pierce the top and rip the whole top off. All presuming it hasn’t snapped off on opening the screw top lid…

Some supermarkets are better than others. Morrisons, for all their excellence in making sturdy plastic bags, just can’t do a decent bottle top at all. Sainsbury’s and Asda don’t do too badly. M&S have the heavy duty half-circle piece of plastic that covers most of the plastic top. It feels sturdy, it doesn’t snap off, but sadly it’s rare we have milk from them.

Come the revolution (and it’s coming, don’t you worry), I plan to appoint a special commissioner for such matters. And not a Tsar. I should remind you that the use of the term “Tsar”, or “Csar”, will be banned within the first 100 days of my government. And we won’t be “learning lessons” from this either. Oh no. That’s “not fit for purpose”, you see. All such phrases will be banned, on pain of having to use these irritating milk bottle tops for the rest of your life. A modern day task for a modern day Sisyphus, you could say.

I’ve previously confessed that I have a bit of a thing about small print. The radio equivalent ‘advert post script’ is particularly enjoyable, as the actor doing the reading has to rattle through the ’small print’ in double quick time, and anybody who’s even paying half a bit of attention will probably pick up it’s not quite an attractive offer as the main body of the advert makes out.

But take any newspaper or magazine advert that reads “Bloody good offer” in large bold type and if there’s not an asterix saying something akin to “Real offer is a bit crap, we just don’t like to say it in a large font size” at the bottom something is probably wrong. You should probably think about complaining. Stick with it though, the real nasty stuff is usually buried deep inside the large paragraph I’m sure they bolster with irrelevancies. “Offer is not suitable for aliens, pianists or people who like jam” etc. They really do hope people don’t read these things. So, of course, I like to*.

Anyway, I digress… Earlier I tucked in to my first Cherry Bakewell in quite a time. Some readers may recall from back in 2004 that I, along with my esteemed co-author Paul, wrote the definitive comparative study of Cherry Bakewells. For reasons I’ll not dwell on, I’ve not had a Cherry Bakewell in a long while. But I saw them in the supermarket last night and decided it was time to revisit this trusty friend. I went for Mr Kipling, as I correctly recalled the Asda ones were “a bit shit” (That’s a technical term).

Opening the box, my secret passion for small print and cherry bakewell tarts collided in a way I’d never thought it would. There was that infamous small print on the front of every piece of food packaging:

Serving Suggestion

Is it just me or are they always statements of the utterly blindingly bloody obvious? Here is some food, and this is how you eat it. One of the oh-so-perfect tarts on the front of Mr Kiplings packaging helpfully has a bite taken out of it, just in case their was any doubt in the matter (to counter the thought that these were a suppository, perhaps?). Sorry about the image, but what else are you supposed to do? Not serve it like that, I hope. Maybe that should be “Eating suggestion”?

The Mr Kipling Cherry Bakewells helpfully have a reinforcing Cherry on the front too, just in case you’re a complete numpty. But complete numpty’s may not know what a Cherry is I suppose… Food packaging as education? It’s been the case with cereals for a long time.

The pictures they use are an art form of course, as has been the case with cover models for a long time. Always perfectly formed, and for many products made to look fresh by being sprayed with water, if not plasticised.

As I think about this (somebody has to; it’s the law), I realise that the supermarkets own ‘Value’ ranges rarely actually feature pictures of the food inside. I’m beginning to wonder if we should be drawing a conclusion from this.

I’ve a tin of Christmas pringles here by me as I type. We got given more party food than we could deal with at New Year, and I’ve remembered why I dislike the homogenised bland and uniform pringle. Or maybe they’re just stale, even though I only opened them yesterday. I’m certainly very disappointed to report that levitating and glowing pringles, as they seem to be on the front of the tin, is not considered a ’serving suggestion’. Maybe they should err on the side of caution and advise such literally? Oh, and more news: “Christmas time is Pringles time!”. Mmmmm.

Ironically, I am actually in a good mood at the moment

* – Well done! Now, keep at it.

Breaking news about a horrific breach of process that has led to 25 million records going astray between the Revenue and Customs, and the National Audit Office. Clearly somebody in the organisation screwed up horrifically, and is probably nursing a P45 and watching our most senior politicians defend themselves with a very very bad sinking feeling.

Clearly a flaw with individual judgement, and organisation process and management, but also with regards what it says about the IT systems in place at these public organisations.

Firstly that they enable data to be written to removable media AT ALL in such a trivial fashion (ie. without people having had it beaten in to them how it’s done). Disabling devices should be standard practice in places dealing with sensitive personal data: Removable USB drives/pens are easily secreted in to and out of organisations, it’s reasonably easy – as well as sensible – to disable the USB interfaces on corporate systems. Similarly, writeable removable media (DVD/CD drives) shouldn’t be installed at all, and access to the media itself controlled. E-mail can be monitored and restrictions placed on likely content. Even basic attachment size restrictions, even before content checking/policy systems that can easily be use to catch simple/accidental screw ups by foolish staff.

More fundamentally, and dealing with the ‘lost laptop’ issue that has popped up occasionally, why is sensitive data being pulled off of restricted/fixed systems? Remote desktop systems (Citrix and the like) easily enable remote workers access to sensitive data in appropriate ways, but don’t expose laptops unnecessarily. There are also heavy encryption products that can protect entire accounts, and with a strong password policy and secure id systems, protect data from such loss.

But data needs to be exchanged at times. So this is where they have processes that are normally used ensure these issues are covered. However, in this rogue case it was mentioned that the disks were “password protected”. This is not an assurance: It’s important to emphasise that password protected is very distinct and different from encrypted. They are NOT the same thing. Thankfully the BBC appears to have picked up this, although Jane Kennedy MP (Financial secretary to the Treasury, and presumably one of the chancellors minions offered up to the baying media), seems dangerously keen to brush over this vital difference.

In itself, password protection is no assurance at all. Exchange of data in many organisations is frequently (in my sad experience) unencrypted: There’s a huge lack of understanding of the basics of protecting data, and people frequently don’t realise that a simple password on a file does not protect data at all from a determined individual with access to the file. But heavy duty encryption does. Look at PGP/GPG type technologies that enable data to be encrypted such that only a designated recipient can view it.

Finally there was Darlings atrocious defence of the Conservative well placed charge that it undermines the Governments entire ID Card policy. To that, Darling said the national Identity Register was “protected by biometrics”, he said, and “therefore more secure”. I’m afraid I find that derisory in the extreme. Back-end data is not going to be protected by such from internal staff.

It is all extremely concerning, and I’m beginning to wonder (perhaps a little affected by the BBC coverage vernacular that seems to be building to a hyperbole crescendo) whether this, along with Northern Rock, could build into a resigning matter and threaten public confidence in this government.

We’ve all done it on occasion; some people do it almost without thinking. It’s the office equivalent of a school child raising his hand and crying “Miss! Miiiissssss! I’m worried Richard’s probably not going to deal with what I’ve got to saaaay!“.

I refer of course to the “power CC”. The habit of CC’ing a senior member of staff (relative to the sender or, worse still, the receiver) in an otherwise hum drum conversation, primarily as a means of elevating its importance, and also demonstrating a lack of trust in the recipient as somebody who is capable of properly prioritising their work.

It’s closely related to the Reply-All e-mail which seems to only ever grow. More people are added to the distribution list, even as the subject drifts further away from the original point, or has settled to one liner responses or, worse still, jokes.

But the Power CC remains my irritant. I’ve certainly had to use it, but like to think it’s as a matter of last resort. When a colleague remains unaffected by your repeated requests to complete a key task that, in not being completed, is holding up your plans. Ensuring “The Manager” is aware of your polite request (despite having asked politely) can certainly help. But of course, it risks becoming a nuclear arms race as a defensive reply is required to explain all the other things that need to be done. Invariably the managerteacher just lets the kids get on with it and work it out for themselves.

But an occasional prod-in-the-back with a Power CC, or CC’ing them at the managers request (so they’re “in the loop”) is one thing. CC’ing, on your own volition, when it’s a simple query (”could you look at this please”) is (to me) the e-mail etiquette equivalent of shouting loudly and repeatedly, and stamping your feet.

It’s not so much “can you please take a look at this” as “you will drop everything you are doing and help me“. As time passes and conversations grow, it just feels more and more petulant.

Which is why I invariably delete names from CC lists when I presume most people are not largely going to care very much about the subject, just so long as it gets sorted. And they don’t need to see every technical detail being discussed via their inbox.

So there. I hate the Power CC. And I’m going to tell teacher on you if you use it on me.

Pre-amble: This is a post that’s likely to be revisited somewhat. It was originally titled “lastminute.com considered harmful?“, but it’s clear to me now that lastminute.com were not to blame, so I’ve amended it accordingly. The hotel in question was the “Harrington Court Hotel” in South Kensington, and lastminute.com were merely the agents we used.

Original Post

Oh joy. We’re on a trip to London, and Frances has just discovered that lastminute.com and the hotel we’d booked/paid/confirmed with for tonight have managed to screw up our bookings. Cue a last minute (aha; not) rush to find a hotel in a city that’s already booked up to the hilt.

Not impressed. A wasted afternoon for Frances, and a badly interrupted afternoon for me.

As usual, getting through to the behemoth is difficult, but the people you speak to try their best. Rage against the machine indeed.

Update 17:00 : Ok, sorted. Sounds like it may be more to do with the hotel than lastminute.com, but I’m reserving judgement at this point. I’ve had problems with them previously, and I’m left with a sour taste in my mouth. Some fiddling appears to have been done, and we’re actually in the hotel we booked. I’m in no mood to find out how they swung it, but Frances is in urgent need of a stiff drink after unnecessary stress. Stiff letters will result.

Update 5/Nov/07 : So as you can see from the comments, I was contacted by customer services at lastminute.com. The joys of a weblog. We’ve since been offered a 30% refund on the cost we paid, but that’s been initiated by lastminute.com. So far the hotel has not – as far as I know – expressed much in the way of an apology, much less compensation. I’m making it clear that the offer, whilst appreciated, is not in my view enough in way of compensation given the two hours it took to resolve the matter. Whether much more will be forthcoming is, I suspect, doubtful. However, sometimes I’m simply happy to be able to shout my annoyances out aloud on a website that has over 18,000 visitors a month. Yes, really. That many. Scary, isn’t it.

Update 15/Nov/07

E-mailed lastminute to thank them for their efforts, and also to enquire about the hotel: I presume there’s been no further response from the hotel. I really can’t say I’m surprised: They didn’t offer anything resembling a sincere apology on the day itself, so I don’t expect we’ll receive one after the event. We may simply have been unfortunate, but I strongly suspect that based on our experience – and lack of any apology from the hotel – it represents a wider malaise and disregard for customer satisfaction at the hotel. I hope you keep the hotel under close scrutiny in the future, and very much wish you had a review/rating facility so that other potential customers had a customer-experience view.

I had this response (emphasis mine): I regret to advise that I have had no response from the hotel despite numerous attempts to contact them via email. I would like to assure you however that your experience has been noted in relation to this hotel. I would like to advise also that yours is the first such complaint we have received in relation to this hotel however, it has been reported to the relevant department within our company.

So we were ‘unlucky’, but I’m satisfied from their lack of response and the “numerous attempts” of lastminute, that my conclusion is sound. However, lastminute’s response to our complaint has at least ensured I’ll consider using them again, and feel they (at least) have good customer service sense. Unlike the hotel.

Given my father worked for the Royal Mail for over thirty years, and that I spent 3-4 months in the summer of 1992 delivering post to the residents of Wells, you might think I feel a soft spot for the Post Office/Royal Mail (I use the term interchangeably, but am referring to the public postal service) , but the last few years has seen my sympathy slowly evaporate. The events of the last few days have left me feeling incredibly frustrated.

I’ve been following Roger Darlingtons experiences as a member of PostWatch with interest, because his experiences seem to well reflect the problems with the Post Office. On the one hand, costs are spiralling and Something Needs To Be Done. But nobody – especially the (local) media driven scrum that is public opinion seems to object to the only realistic options on the table: Close post offices because people aren’t using them, and when they do, they’re low-value transactions that don’t make for a viable business, so need subsidies… But we’re (rightly) no longer prepared to support them from the public purse. That PostWatch takes a pragmatic view is a Very Good Thing (in my view), but it’s a thankless task.

Here’s where the polemic kicks in: Plus the customer experience is very much at the bottom of the heap of priorities in every encounter I’ve had with the Post Office in the last year, and frankly, I’ve had enough.

My most recent experience is that I ordered some more memory for my computer from Crucial, who incidentally are based just down the road in East Kilbride. Delays in their dispatching meant the package didn’t “dispatch” until late on Thursday evening (which meant it was ready to be collected by the postman). But there was a national postal strike on Friday. Workers are clearly entitled to strike, but I can’t sympathise with them in this case. The impression (no doubt simplistic, but it fits with my wider experiences) is that there is a refusal to modernise within the workforce, so they are striking. Linking pay to modernisation steps seems (to me) a sensible move, but the unions seem to take the view it is a threat to jobs. Why is ‘Modernise’ now seen as a synonym for ‘Redundancies’?

Back to my package. So it got picked up on Saturday, and delivered to me yesterday. By the regular postman. In all of this, the regular local postman here is the one part of the Royal Mail that I can’t complain about. He’s prompt, cheerful, polite. I like him. I try to chat to him when I can, so I like to think he likes me. It’s a picture of civility. At least I don’t have dogs or geese or an overgrown garden, rude children or a small/dangerous letterbox – all things I know postmen have good reason to hate.

So my package was delayed a day by the strike. Not a hugely big deal, and more a problem with Crucial who took 36 hours to process my order when they had it in stock and could have turned it around sooner. But that snapping sound in my head, that was my patience snapping, occurred yesterday when I went to post some letters. “Bank Holiday” read the tag in the postbox (Oh, they’ve changed it, I thought first of all). Then, Eh? Of course, yesterday was Glasgow Fair Monday, so it seems there was no normal collection. Grrr. So I’d posted the items and they’re still (as of writing) sat there.

But here I realised that of course there was no collection on Sunday, a limited early collection on Saturday, a strike on Friday. So the last ‘proper’ collection was Thursday last week. And here it was that I came to the realisation that customer service is right at the bottom of the pile, for the holidays and time-off seem to be higher up the priority list than customer service. Strikes conveniently close to weekends, much less bank holiday weekends in Glasgow, and running limited collection services over a protracted period of time. Throw in the inconsistency of actually had a full delivery service on a bank holiday, plus the usual delays, limited staff at counters, and it all really gets to me.

Until the Post Office/Royal Mail staff realise that they have to start put customers first (and certainly stop treating them as cattle who can be held to ransom when they strike: It is us that feel the brunt), I’m afraid I’m past caring about their cause – most certainly pay related issues. Inflation and low wages are certainly problems, but their seeming recalcitrance against improvements in both business efficiency and customer service won’t win them friends with the wider public.

Quite literally, if I had a choice of who would process and post my mail, I’d have taken my business elsewhere long ago. But I would like to keep my local postman please.

Once more unto the breach!, and once more we do battle with Glasgow council and associated hole-digging/cone-placing cohorts.

We returned from our 2 week holiday to find some of those flimsy barricades around a shallow hole in the ground right outside our house, carefully positioned to cause us great difficulty in getting our car in and out of the driveway. In all fairness, they appear to have removed a stop-cock of some sort which was badly exposed due to wear and tear, so not all bad.

We figured it had just appeared, and it’d be gone within a short while. Three weeks later, and it’s still there. Plus there seem to be other ones located around the area that I’ve noticed when going on runs. But the filling in part is clearly more complicated than the “Doing the work” bit, and is taking weeks to fit in to their schedule. So yesterday Frances phoned up the council to enquire/complain/cajole. Three people later, and it transpires it’s “Scottish Water’s hole”.

Council official said they’d report it, and that we should contact Scottish Water ourselves if nothing happened within a few days. Mmmm, we thought.

Well, I’m pleased to report something happened today! Oh the joys of a window overlooking the street.

Yes, somebody drove up in a van, complete with trailer containing something very grimy and probably heavy and noisy. There were piles of tarmac in the back. He even had shovels, a wheelbarrow and brushes. All very technical, but to my untutored eye – everything I figured you could reasonably need to fill in the hole and tidy up afterwards.

So, after he’d finished his phone call I think he’d been on when he arrived (although that’d be illegal, but I’m sure he’s a good chap), he, well… Walked over to the hole and looked at it. At least once.

Comforted that he’d no doubt completed another fine job, he got back in to the van and drove off. I’m sure he put his seatbelt on when he got around the corner, after all, he’s driving a van…

Progress indeed.

I’m going to deliberately put on my contentious shoes and clomp about a bit. Not something I do that frequently. I like to be considerate of others, and sometimes pursue that to it’s wooly conclusions and just get myself worked up to no good end. But I’m getting increasingly grumpy and, perhaps ever so slightly misanthropic as I get older (You can tell my birthday is looming). So one area that really irks me is unnecessary waste, especially when it affects others.

So, what’s the sign that petrol prices can go a whole lot higher without really hurting people’s pockets? Idling, that’s what. Walk through any car park – in particular a supermarket’s – and I’d put good money down to say you’ll find a lot of people (mainly men) sat in their cars, with the engines running presumably to keep them warm and/or the radio on.

It’s an extraordinarily selfish and unnecessary thing to do: Not only is it wasting a finite resource, it’s polluting the air around unnecessarily. Now, I’m not saying it’s not necessary sometimes to run an engine without moving. Being stuck in a traffic jam in freezing weather is a prime example. Defrosting a frozen over car before driving is sensible too, given the danger of not being able to see. But sat in a car, outside a supermarket, running the engine constantly when there are other options it’s warm inside, you’d be helping (ok, supermarkets are horrific places), and you’d save money from not running said engine.

It’s not purely car parks with bored husbands. White-van man is another offender (as well as invariably not wearing seat belts; Still at least it’s only something that’s likely to affect/kill them when they have an accident) no matter where they are. Sat outside the ‘job’ munching a takeaway meal. It’s the constant running of the engine, even after the car is warmed up, that irks me.

Council workers taking their coffee/tea/cigarette/raining break are particular ironic up here. Glasgow council last year introduced a £20 fine for illegal idling. So, if their own employees are ignoring the rule, I’ve little hope it’s going to be taken up by the wider public. I suppose you wonder who they’d fine? Although a council suing itself isn’t new.

An idling car or van runs at 1-2,000 RPM, which consumes a fair amount of petrol over time. At 85p a litre (or more), that adds up to a fair amount of cash. But as a proportion of take home pay, it’s clearly still cheap enough to fill a car that people don’t think it’s too expensive to run their engine when they’ve no need.

Until it is too expensive to do run a car for no good reason, perhaps there’s still plenty of room to increase fuel taxes.

Ah, the old chestnuts of Religion and Politics. Don’t ever bring them up in the pub, so the saying goes. The reason is you’re probably going to upset, annoy or become enemies-for-life with your former friends and drinking buddies, and that’s no way to behave. In a pub of all places.

Personally, I’m all for a bit more discussion about politics – there’s just not enough talking about the subject, and lets face it football and rugby do get a bit boring after a while. We’re also becoming too reliant on newspapers for our opinions. For me, argumentative atheist that I am (or at least like to think I am), there’s just not enough talking about religion. That old chestnut of ‘proof’ and ‘no self-referential arguments’ is a simple request on my part, but I’m yet to get much more than that that when religion comes up in conversation. I fear, however, that many friends are well versed with my view point and have developed subtle tactics to change the subject (”Isn’t Vista great”, or “I’m thinking of getting an iMac”, or “look at my new phone), or at least haven’t visited this website and/or we’ve not seen each other in ages, so we have plenty of other stuff to go on about…

But I digress. If ‘religion’ and ‘politics’ are considered inappropriate for pub conversation, how come religion and politics are considered appropriate for mixing in our second, revising, chamber of parliament? Our beloved government has today unveiled their proposals for the reform of the House of Lords. In itself a good thing, but the glaring horrendous exemption is that bishops from the Church of England are to keep their seats.

So much for this country being secular in it’s central establishments.

So much for this country being fully democratic in it’s central establishments.

Just so it’s clear, I’ve no problem with men or women running around on Sunday morning wearing silly outfits and even sillier hats, muttering to themselves and a few others about imaginary friends. What folk do in their own time is their business. I just get upset when they start trying to get special treatment, seek exemption from laws and to (try and) push their strange views of the world on others, in particular me, or the vulnerable, or trusting. Like children, in schools, with state money.

But when it comes to the religious professional getting involved in politics, I get rather concerned. So much so in fact, I start coming up with very very simple requests: That if you espouse to speak on behalf of people in our democratic establishments, you demonstrate that by seeking election. Some bright spark many years ago realised that quite a few people seek to speak on behalf of many other people, and that a great way of filtering out the genuine was to ask everybody to say who they wanted to speak on their behalf. Voila! Democracy.

So, by that simple argument and – dare I suggest – egalitarian approach – we get a representative democracy in which views can be expressed fairly. So on that note it’s fair to say I want a fully elected second house. The religious should feel free to apply, and I’d welcome their voice in parliamentary debates if they had such a mandate. Anything less – especially of one particular religion getting preferential treatment over others – is really asking for trouble, either to charges of illegitimacy, corruption, protected interests, or favouritism. As it is, with the Bishops and their silly hats and ermine gowns ensconced in our democracy every other religion will demand equal treatment, and then I fear we’d have no room left for anybody who actually has a democratic mandate!

It’s simple: They all get equal treatment, and – if you actually do “represent” a large enough body of people – you really shouldn’t have trouble getting in. Right?