Author Archive for RHM

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned

Published on 3 February 2012 in doh, driving, government, speed and Stupidity. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

…but as always that fury bites both parties. Or so it would appear from today’s news that the Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce will both be charged with perverting the course of justice over claims that she took speeding points on his behalf in 2003.

The whole thing blew up when, following an interview she gave, allegations were made that someone had agreed to take his points for him. This was after the pair had become estranged following his affair.

Maybe saying and doing things out of revenge isn’t such a good idea after all.

Serves them both right!

HSBC Not-So-Secure Key

Published on 3 February 2012 in HSBC and Syndicated. Closed

So it turns out that after all the palaver involved in using HSBC’s “Secure Key” gadget, it isn’t any less prone to fraud after all.

Quelle surprise…

Car Wars: Greater Manchester Police Trash a VW Golf R

Published on 27 January 2012 in News, police, Stupidity, Syndicated and Vehicles. Closed

I was interested by the evolving story of how a policeman from Greater Manchester Police managed to spectacularly wreck a new VW Golf R in the wee small hours of the morning recently.

It started with a report on the BBC News website that told us that:

“The Greater Manchester Police officer crashed the £33,000 VW Golf R on Wharfside Way, Old Trafford, at about 01:50 GMT on 15 December.

The driver was taken to hospital and treated for a back injury.

A Greater Manchester Police spokesman refused to reveal details of how the crash happened.

He said that “as a result of the incident, GMP is reviewing its policy on officers test driving cars”.

The officer, who has recovered from his injuries, is currently suspended from driving duties while an internal investigation takes place.”

The photo of the car shows just how much damage was done: not just a little bit of superficial damage as you might expect from a shunt on an urban road.

Wrecked Golf R

It'll polish out with a bit of T-Cut

Now Section 19 of the Road Safety Act 2006 amends Section 87 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 which grants police an exemption from speed limits when a vehicle is being used for police purposes. “Police purposes” is a pretty wide-ranging description but you do have to wonder what on earth this officer was doing at that time of the morning at the sort of speeds he must have been doing to cause that sort of damage whilst, apparently, testing the car for possible police use.

But the story gets better: apparently the driver was PC Paul Fletcher who was regularly seen on the TV programme “Car Wars” doing high speed chases.

PC Paul Fletcher

PC Paul Fletcher on "Car Wars"

And GMP stated that no other vehicle was involved, despite emerging reports that in fact the whole thing was caught on camera by another high performance car out at the same time on the same piece of road when PC Fletcher – a trained driver, remember - lost control on a roundabout. Hmm. Racing each other, perhaps? That’s surely what the police would say if you or I were doing the same thing?

Greater Manchester Police are, supposedly, reviewing their policies in this regard but surely testing a vehicle would be better done on, say, the MIRA test facilities which are purpose-built for such testing?

Maybe next time I get a pull for speeding – at a significantly lower speed than that which would have led to a car being written off so badly as the Golf – I could just say I was testing its suitability? Ah wait: I don’t have the exemption they’ll be hiding behind whilst driving as dangerously as they do…

Goodbye Dad

Published on 31 December 2011 in Family. 0 Comments Tags: .

RIP David Elved Morris

Dad and Me

RIP Dad

18 August 1928 to 31 December 2011

Siri Arse Lee

Published on 22 December 2011 in Apple, Bluetooth, iPhone, RX-8R3 and stoopid Americans. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

So when I first got my iPhone 4S I wrote:

“I see it really being of use to me when I’m in the car and a text message comes through: Siri can read it out and send a dictated reply. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s done through my Mazda RX-8′s Bluetooth sound system or the iPhone’s loudspeaker.”

Well there’s some good news and there’s some bad news.

The good news is that yes, it works through the car’s Bluetooth sound system, so it mutes any music and reads out the text messages.

The bad news includes:

  • “Uh-kay” being said before most things it does.
  • If you haven’t got a web connection it’ll say it can’t do anything right now, like reading something stored locally.
  • The voice recognition at anything other than walking pace is pretty poor, actually, and I’ve now started simply sending bizarre text messages in reply to people rather than spending hours arguing with Siri when it comes up with gobbledegook instead of what I actually said, thinks that I said “danger” rather than “change it” and claims not to understand danger (big, brave Siri!)  and sometimes even picks a track from my music library to play in an attempt at being ‘helpful’.
  • Won’t perform a web search because I’m in the UK and using proper English.
Close, but no cigar.
Oh and another thing: to be fair to Apple, they claim different sets of services from Siri on their US site to those on their UK site.

“It Just Works”

Published on 21 December 2011 in 3, Apple, iPad, iPhone, Kewl, Sky, TV and Work. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Yesterday, I was reminded about just how good technology can be when it all works together. This can, of course, be a rare thing and nothing is more frustrating than kit that doesn’t work as it should.

But two things – OK, three – reminded me of how lucky we are these days.

It started with iTunes Match: I updated the iTunes software on my work laptop and then enabled iTunes Match and watched as it increased the number of songs from simply those I’d previously purchased from the iTunes Store (available since a previous release of iTunes) to all of my music collection currently stored on my iMac back at home but now backed up to iCloud.

I was then able to download a track I wanted on my laptop from my music store back home.

I’m working away from home at the moment and saw that there was nothing much worth watching on the telly. So I fired up my iPad, tethered it to my iPhone – thanks to 3′s All You Can Eat data plan – and did a bit of social networking before starting up Sky Go.

I then watched a couple of films from Sky’s Anytime+ feature: new or classic films that are available to you, depending upon your Sky TV package. Streamed over 3′s network at no additional cost to me.

“It Just Works”…

Thorntons Delivery Fail

Published on 16 December 2011 in Stupidity, Syndicated and Work. Closed Tags: , , , .

Another year ordering some expensive chocolates from Thorntons and specifying a delivery date.

Another year when they fail to deliver, due to their using that complete shower, Parcelnet/Hermes/Home Delivery Network/Yodel/Any Other Name We Can Think Of for so-called Premium Delivery.

Last year, they “lost” the packages of chocolates I was having delivered to my London office for the receptionists and Ops Director and Thorntons had to re-order.

This year, I paid for premium, next day delivery, so that delivery was due to take place on Tuesday, 13th to our SE1 offices. Guess what?

Out for delivery 15/12/11 16:30 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
In transit but possible delay 13/12/11 17:30 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
Arrived At Depot 13/12/11 04:33 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
Departed Depot 12/12/11 20:54 WEDNESBURY HUB
Arrived At Depot 12/12/11 20:50 WEDNESBURY HUB
Parcel data received awaiting coll. 12/12/11 SHEFFIELD SERVICE CENTRE

He must be lost.

Here’s the second package’s current tracking details:

In transit but possible delay 13/12/11 17:30 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
Arrived At Depot 13/12/11 04:31 VAUXHALL SERVICE CENTRE
Departed Depot 12/12/11 20:58 WEDNESBURY HUB
Arrived At Depot 12/12/11 20:56 WEDNESBURY HUB
Parcel data received awaiting coll. 12/12/11 SHEFFIELD SERVICE CENTRE

Crap, eh?

A Year Is A Long Time In Politics

Published on 16 December 2011 in Diary. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

A year ago today, I moved my stuff out of my ex-girlfriend’s place knowing I would never be going back.

And I’ve not looked back since.

My life is great: work, family and relationships are all going from strength to strength and I’m doing stuff I enjoy doing without compromise and usually without fear. I have great plans for 2012 and beyond too, which is always good.

Of course I miss my Fireblade which was stolen from London a week later but every freedom has its price and I ploughed the insurance money back into my ZRX1200R so all’s well that ends well.

Apple iPhone 4S

Published on 16 November 2011 in Apple, iPhone and Syndicated. Closed Tags: .

I decided that I wanted another phone to replace the aging Sony Ericsson W595 I use for my photography admininstration – to use as a mini iPad – and also to refresh my present iPhone 4 (and yes, I also have another iPhone 4 from my day job!).

More or less in line with the normal product evolution for the iPhone, Apple had recently released its iPhone 4S.

iPhone 4S

iPhone 4S

As you can see, the form factor’s not really changed too much: the volume controls have been shifted a little downwards but other than that, it’s more or less the same size (I’ve not got the micrometer out to check).

What has changed is the processor and it does feel much snappier, a feeling borne out by the benchmarking on CNET UK’s iPhone 4S Review.

The camera is supposed to be much improved with a few new gizmos: we’ll see.

The killer app or at least the headliner is Siri: a more intelligent voice recognition and command app. At first, it looked as though this was somehow missing and I initially thought that the way I’d set it up (see below) was to blame. It wasn’t: it just needed enabling in the phone’s settings. First impressions were good, but other than the novelty factor I won’t be using it at the office, for instance, though I see it really being of use to me when I’m in the car and a text message comes through: Siri can read it out and send a dictated reply. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s done through my Mazda RX-8′s Bluetooth sound system or the iPhone’s loudspeaker.

Setting it all up was something I thought would be a nightmare, but I followed Apple’s instructions, backing up my ‘old’ iPhone 4 and then when setting up the iPhone 4S, restored from that backup. I just needed to enter all my passwords again – good security touch that – and then sync the songs, films and photos, etc. One last step was to reorder all my Apps the way I like them and resync and I was there. A couple of hours tops.

What took longer was the download of the IOS 5.0.1 update, but that was a necessary evil. I left that downloading whilst I went out for the evening and when I got back I did a quick update and was there.

So was upgrading worth it? For me, yes: I now have the ‘old’ iPhone 4 working for my photography side and everything sync’d with the iCloud. I was running out of space on my iPhone 4 32GB and so the increased storage – I went for the 64GB version – is welcome, even though you only get around 58GB available for some reason. The feeling of a speedier interface is nice too. There’s not so much of the wow! factor I got from moving from IOS 4 to IOS 5, though, but it is a nicer phone overall.

What next? Well what can they do with the iPhone 5? It can’t get smaller or screen size will be reduced. If it’s thinner, it would surely be easier to break as it became a wafer in your pocket. Maybe they’ll just cram more features and storage and speed into it?

As for battery life, I discovered this little tip:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/29/iphone-4s-battery-location-services-bug

Worth reading and acting on? We’ll see. I like the way the time zone is updated when you’re abroad, but I suspect that’s overridden anyway with your cellular provider – Vodafone seems particularly dodgy in this regard from my experience.

Pretty in Pink

Published on 13 November 2011 in photos and Syndicated. Closed


Pretty in Pink, originally uploaded by Captain Blue.

Holly Locket

overtone