The Prime Minister’s website has, since November, a facility that allows members of the public to create online petitions. The assumption being that your views might be heard by someone in a vague position of power within the government. When I first saw this system I thought it was a good idea. I thought that for once the government was using the Internet, and specifically the web, in an innovative and useful way. While a number of petitions are a bit of fun there are also an equal number of quite serious topics being highlighted by the website.

Over the last month or so over 1 million people have, rightly or wrongly, signed a petition asking the government to scrap plans for a proposed road pricing scheme.

Today the London Evening Standard is reporting that:

One high-ranking member of the Government said the idea [of an online petition system] had been dreamt up by a “prat” and was proving to be a public relations disaster.

I would like to point out to the high-ranking member of the Government that you can’t have your cake and eat it. You can’t say you are listening to the views of the public and then get all stroppy when the public don’t go along with the party line.

I hope that the online petition system remains on the website. It will be a shame to see a progressive system die because a high-ranking prat can’t handle a vocal public.

The new flat is starting to look slightly less like someone came along with a dumper truck and deposited a load of furniture and boxes randomly in each room. While waiting for the cable guy to come round, thankfully he was not like Jim Carrey, I managed to hang up all my clothes which had exploded all over the bedroom. The process of going through all your clothes is not only a moment of discovery (I forgot I had that t-shirt, etc.) but also one of great horror (what was I thinking when I bought that…).

I would like to talk briefly about coat hangers. Who the devil invented these things? They are appalling. You can’t pack or store them apart from on a rail, as soon as two touch each other they get tangled up, put several in a pile and you have no hope.

I don’t know how I manage it but whenever I move my computer desk a small bit of wood almost invariably snaps off. Luckily this appears to be the only major damage sustained to any item of furniture this time round. I also have the wood glue that I bought the last time this happened.

I am going to have to replace the comedy shower head that the bathroom features. It sprays water in all directions and is especially good at hitting people in the eyes. In the words of Greg who had the pleasure of using it on Saturday:

<Greg> standing up after turning it on. ARGHBLURGHSPLUTTER
<Norm> I know some girls that go ARGHBLURGHSPLUTTER too

The flat is now hooked up with cable TV, phone, and Internet. This is basically Telewest re-branded as Virgin Media. Home is very much where the Internet is. It was almost a pleasure to delete the 300 spam emails that had accumulated in my inbox over the weekend. I have yet to really have a good look at Cable TV yet, the quality of the picture as I watched BBC Breakfast this morning while eating a bowl of cornflakes looked acceptable and I had a quick play with the Virgin TV on demand service last night.

Tonight I start the long and boring process of cleaning the old flat. It was looking fairly clean when I left so fingers crossed it won’t be too bad. I bought some Mr Muscle oven cleaner from Tesco last night which should help.

Oh, and someone has given me a winter cold. Damn them! At least I think it is just a cold. It might be bird flu. I haven’t eaten any turkey since Christmas so I should be safe. I was in Tesco last night and spotted that they were selling Bernard Matthews on a two for one deal.

Tune in tomorrow for pictures of the view from my bedroom window!

That was an ultra busy weekend. I have finally moved flat. Managed to do the whole move in only two van loads and with lots of work from all of my friends. Special thanks go to Jim, Greg, and James who shifted the two heaviest items I own… the sofa and the TV.

On the Friday night I cooked a random selection of freezer food for Nick, his girlfriend Tiffany, Becky and Dave. I also made the mistake of having a bottle of wine which made me feel not so good on Saturday.

Saturday was moving day. I also got to meet up with Greg, who I haven’t seen for ages, and his new girlfriend Phoebe. Once the moving was over everyone headed off to the pub where James and Rosie were having a birthday party. I drank a little too much Cider and can’t remember various parts of the evening - which is probably for the best. We then went on to a club, Mr Wolf’s, before heading back to my flat via the kebab shop. I think it was a fun evening… I don’t know because as I say, there are bits I can’t remember.

Sunday was a day of hangover, breakfast at Halo, lots of Orange Juice, saying good bye to people as they left, and sorting the flat out a bit. I have a clothes explosion going on in my bedroom and I really need to hang them up. In the evening Rosie sent me a text to say she had a spare ticket to see the Guillemots at the Academy. Since I couldn’t get any TV reception, had no Internet, and was feeling a bit lonely and cut off, not to mention the flat that I had been trying to get tickets on ebay and failed, I decided to go! Had a good, if rather reserved due to being really tired, evening with Rosie and Claire. The Guillemots were fantastic, really energetic stage show and I loved the different kinds of instruments they used - including at one point a megaphone!

No breakfast in the flat this morning. Damn. So hungry!

Thanks again to everyone who helped me move. You are all invited to the housewarming

Most news organisations are reporting that heavy snow is causing travel chaos around the country. My local news, BBC Points West, told me that there was heavy snow in Wiltshire including Chippenham, where I work, and various other towns around the county.

What I want to know is what counts as heavy snow these days? Because last time I checked 1″ of snow is not considered heavy. I wonder what the news would call it if we actually had some proper snow in this country.

The BBC has reported that a letter bomber is targeting motoring related organisations in the uk. So far letter bombs have been sent to:

• DVLA - responsible for licencing and penalty point administration
• Capita - run the London congestion charge scheme
• Vantis - linked to speed check services

As well as a number of animal testing organisations.

I work for a fleet vehicle management company, we provide administration services for over 44,000 company vehicles in the UK. While I am not worried that I am going to be letter bombed, or that my company might be, it is still a bit of a concern. Luckly it is the accounts department who get the fun job of opening all the post.

BOOM.

Yes!

If you are using Firefox or IE7, as well as a number of other modern browsers, you will see the RSS feed icon in your address bar. This means that a page has an RSS feed. Clicking on the icon will open your default RSS reader. If you have the Google Toolbar installed and use Google Reader you can configure your browser to add the RSS feed to Google Reader.

The BBC are reporting that tomorrow’s predicted snow fall will be “the worst snow we’ll have seen this winter“. For me this will not be difficult because if it does actually snow it will be the only snow that I will have seen this winter.

No doubt we will have a cursory dusting of snow which will bring Britain to a standstill as it always does. I really don’t understand how my friend Debra in America copes when she has several foot of snow to contend with.

• Redesigned website
• Moved to Bristol
• Grandad diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
• Became single
• Accident in company car
• Jed and Rose got married
• Went to a Polo match
• Apple trauma
• Accident in own car
• Bought a new car
• Started lift sharing
• New laptop
• Held the best New Year’s Eve party ever

And lots of other small happy things too, but I think these were the major events.

After some talk about birthdays and things I have come up with a way to work out when you will be 10000 days old. I am going to be having a 10000 day old birthday party on the 22nd April!

Calculate your 10000 day birthday with this little script I wrote.

How long does it take to fully settle a car insurance claim where you were the totally innocent party?

1 month?

2 months?

4 months?

6 months?

No. My claim still isn’t settled a full six months after the accident. Here is a quick timeline:

August: Canadian crashes into my car, I get given a hire car, my car written off, cheque from insurance company arrives, I start shopping for a new car

September: Begin uninsured loss recovery process so that I can keep my three years no claims bonus and get my policy excess back, also buy new car

October: Third party (TP) insurance company claims that I crashed into the back of their vehicle. This is odd since the damage was to the rear of my car.

November: TP insurance company finally admits liability but dispute that there was any damage to my vehicle (note: my vehicle written off).

December: TP insurance company want to see my written off car to assess damage. Note that by now it has been scrapped by my insurance company.

January: TP insurance company demand to see the assessors report of damage to vehicle. Finally accept that they are not going to be able to see the vehicle.

February: My insurance company being really really slow.

I am going to have to start chasing this up every day. £150 isn’t a huge amount of money and at this rate I will have spent that in phone calls and time to sort it all out. However it is the principle of it all that bothers me. It really shouldn’t take over six months to sort a rear end shunt out. Secondly I don’t really want to lose my 3 years no claims bonus as that really will cost me a lot of money when I come to renew my insurance.