Archive for the ‘Ridiculous’ Category
Thursday, March 6th, 2008
So just after receiving an email asking why a complicated HTML email didn’t work in Outlook 2007 and explaining that since it uses Word to render HTML it was never going to display everything right. Obviously some people just don’t understand this.
However with almost perfect timing I got an email from xBox Live (Microsoft run) with the disclaimer above shown right at the top! Yes, Microsoft themselves are suggesting you read the HTML email in a browser rather than their own email client!
“Read this issue online if you can’t see the images or are using Outlook 2007″
Now I accept that Microsoft may be correct in that HTML should not have been used for emails at all, emails should be plain text, end of. However if you are then going to support HTML partially, whilst using HTML emails in your own marketing, with a disclaimer against your own product, something is very wrong somewhere! Anyway, all the clients I work for won’t pay for plain text emails, therefore HTML emails kind of keep me in a job!
Anyway, I found this amusing, hope you do too.
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
I’m in!
My GP has signed me as fit to participate so on the 6th-9th June 2008 I will be cycling from London to Amsterdam and onto Brussels. That’s about 320 miles, approximately 100 miles a day 3 days running.
Starting at St Pancras in North London, we move straight onto Harwich, Essex (East coast, East of Colchester) where we will jump on an overnight ferry to Hoek Van Holland. Once in the land of windmills and clogs, the 59 miles to Amsterdam are tackled. Since that is only given 4 hours to be completed in, I think the 3 hours spare in Amsterdam will probably be a little rest for my body. But once 3pm hits we are straight back to the business of 60 miles on to Kinderdijk, near Rotterdam. Now by this point I expect my legs to either be the size of tree trunks or ready to fall off, so naturally the longest stint of the weekend is welcomed. 120 miles from Kinderdijk to Brussels where I assume there will be a huge party and I will be allowed to get extremely drunk and not move my legs for 21 hours until the 1556 Eurostar to St Pancras.
Here’s a rough map of the route to give you an idea of the scale of the task (click to enlarge):
Then I’ll probably have to cycle home.
So that’s the itinerary, which I hope I will be able to keep up with – training better start now, but of course there is also the matter of the sponsorship of £1350 I have to raise by then for The Mines Advisory Group. So keep your eyes peeled for the fund raising site and blogs demanding your money that will be starting very very soon.
Please send me any possible fund raising ideas you might have as soon as possible!
Saturday, November 3rd, 2007
After watching SiCKO by Michael Moore I feel very lucky to be British and have the NHS. Should I have been American, 4 major operations wouldn’t have been cheap and after this who even knows if I would be accepted for insurance followowing my pneumothorax in 2005. Obviously I don’t know all the facts, but based on what I saw and read lately this is what I think.
People often complain about the NHS and , and I know people have, even those I know criticise the treatment I received after getting an infection at a chest drain site, but I think it’s excellent from first hand knowledge. I found a cockroach in hospital after my leg break – so maybe that’s worth criticising – but at least I didn’t have to pay for the priviledge!
Now I know there will be elements of bias and fights for both sides of the story, as Moorewatch.com points out – but I think that I have grasped the fundamentals.
Both systems may need work – but I think that I am better off for being ill in England. You shouldn’t have to pay for healthcare in my opinion, nor insurance in case of illness, nor should the decision of allowing treatment be based on money or decided by anyone that isn’t the doctor treating you.
Saturday, October 27th, 2007
I am sorry, but when I read in the Evening Standard that The Science Museum are in going to be short of funding following their elimination from the ITV show Big Lottery Fund’s People’s Millions I was absolutely fuming. The problems I have with this are that firstly, the Science Museum should not be in danger of being short of funding. It is an amazing place and needs somewhere to keep additional exhibits. More should be done by the government to support them if they are that short of public and private funding. How about starting by not claiming £9 million in expenses?
Secondly, what kind of idiot decides that the type of people that watch a teatime phone in vote show (especially following recent phone in revelations) are educated enough to decide which projects deserve funding. I would put money on a Simon Cowell fund for retired karaoke singers getting more votes that a project with a genuine ability to help educate and inspire future (and current) generations.
I have to say I think it is a ridiculous idea, already proved to fail at the most basic level. I can only hope that the claims for cash that resulting in this source of funding to the Science Museum being a failure are absolutely worthwhile. Somehow I doubt it.
