* Posts by Ian

14 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Jul 2007

Vodafone presents punter with £500k phone bill

Ian

Ha! Here's my take on it from a few years ago

http://www.b3ta.com/board/4553339

Comedy UK social network berates moaning users

Ian

Surely

they'd have had fewer moaning wankers if they'd thrown off people the other side of 36?

eBay slams UK.gov touting ban

Ian
Alert

Hmm

Surely event tickets are a scarce commodity, and so will be priced according to demand on an open market? If people are willing and able to pay hundreds of pounds for rare tickets, then why not?

It doesn't make sense to say "fans feel they are being priced out of the market for seats at events" -- I feel priced out of the market for owning a Learjet, but I don't expect the government to do anything about it.

Ultimately, we have a more-or-less free market on most goods and if things like company shares and houses can be bought and sold at prices vastly over their real worth, why not concert tickets?

London teen orders 'cab, innit'

Ian
Unhappy

I question the veracity of this!

If you're based in London, surrounded by major airports offering cheap flights to everywhere, why on earth would you need to fly from Bristol? Bristol only offers a small selection of destinations and is far more expensive than Lahndun airports, as we West Country folk know only too well...

Plugs pulled on satellite paedo tracking after pilot flops

Ian

Except of course

lie detectors don't really work very well, and can usually be beaten by anybody with half a brain.

Aussie laser-pointer dazzle attacks on airliners: Bad

Ian

It's amazing

That the public might prefer lethal force to non-lethal...

Doctors back more tax on booze

Ian
Stop

SIGH

Has no UK politician or doctor ever heard of Scandinavia? They've been trying this approach in Iceland, Finland Norway and so on for decades and have massive drinking problems. In fact it's worse, as you end up with poorer people brewing their own lethal potions out of all sorts of unhealthy dross.

Let's grow up a bit and look to the south of Europe for our answers rather than the north, as their approach demonstrably *has not worked*

Points mean passports: Citizenship Smith unveils 'like us' plan

Ian
Go

This is the second time today...

...I've commented on a Reg article with the phrase "...the logical extension of this...", but if we have a plan to withhold citizenship from people who commit crimes and don't contribute to society, surely the logical extension would be also to start withdrawing the citizenship of people who commit crimes and don't contribute to society -- or Transportation as it used to be known.

I do hope so, because any sort of pikey-reduction policy is sure going to win my vote.

Ban booze in supermarkets, says health adviser

Ian

And the same principle for everything else we don't like?

If we follow this to its logical conclusion, surely you'd have to visit a different shop for your unhealthy food as well, given that this is also a public health menace.

So that's what Iceland is for!

How HMRC gave away the UK's national identity

Ian

They'll cover the cost

I see they've given us an 0845 number to call if we're worried. Given that this costs me 55p a minute from my mobile, I suspect they'll soon make back the costs of dealing with the problem.

Bike bonk bloke cops three years' probation

Ian

Had to move three times?

Who on earth has been so offended by this that he's been hounded out of his house three times? I own several bicycles, but I wouldn't start lighting the torches and sharpening the pitchfork even if this guy moved in next door. I mean, the very worst I'd have to deal with was wiping the bike down before getting on - it's not like the bike's going to be traumatized by the experience.

BT Vision misses customer targets (by a shedload)

Ian
Coat

Well...

...138,000 is sort of "hundreds of thousands" - it's 1.38 hundreds of thousands, and as that's more than one, it's appropriate to use a plural term.

Of course I doubt this is the claim BT are making...

Ofcom's 0870 rip-off reforms stumble at the final hurdle

Ian

Pittance per minute?

only if you use a landline. Like many people here in the 21st Century, I almost exclusively use a mobile, and calls to 0870 numbers from these are hardly a pittance. In fact they are downright expensive.

Most frequently, I am affected by this when I need to call National Rail Enquiries when I am on the move. How can there be any justification for their forcing me to pay a premium to get information about our nation's trains just because I don't have a landline handy?

Half of European calls to be mobile by 2008

Ian

So we need to rethink 0870 numbers quite urgently

I've not used a landline for years - why would I with the all-inclusive mobile packages that exist these days? - with one exception: I have to use one whenever I need to contact any sort of large organization, since these all have 0870 numbers which still, for some unknown reason, cost a lot to call from mobiles. This new evidence that the landline is a disappearing entity should be a spur to action on this issue - no longer can OFCOM and the organizations themselves sell us the fiction that we are a nation of landline users for whom the high call charges associated with 0870 numbers aren't a major issue.

I'd mind less if government (yes, I'm looking at you, Revenue and Customs) didn't use these pointless and irritating numbers too.

NEWS FLASH: Nobody minds calling an organization with a geographical dialling code. Can the person who decided we *do* mind this please make themselves known?