The backlash continues

In what could be a landmark case, next week, a young barrister will take on Natwest over his £2000 unlawful bank charges. What's different about this case if the fact that Natwest have already offered him a full refund, but he is arguing that as well as the refund, he is due a claim for damages because the bank's actions damaged his credit score. If the judge rules in his favour, this could open the floodgates!!

More details including a link to an audio interview with him here.

It's getting closer!!

We've had confirmation today that we will exchange contracts on the 3rd May with a completion date of the 10th May. And I'll be finishing work on the 11th May. So much to do, so much to do! Don't panic, don't panic!

Major changes ahead?

It's set to be an interesting fortnight in UK politics. Will Labour get the kicking everyone expects in the local elections next Thursday? Will the Conservatives manage to get the magical 40% share of the vote - the target which analysts believe would be needed by the tories at the next General Election if they were to take power outright, avoiding a hung parliament? When will TB formally announce he is stepping down - Will it be immediately after the local elections or will he wait until he can resign on the back of good news as everyone expects? Will the SNP win the vote in Scotland setting the stage for a major debate about the Union and potentially a major battle with Gordon Brown? Will John Reid throw his hat into the ring and declare his candidacy for the labour leadership (I wished they'd stop calling it the Labour Leadership battle and call it what it is - the battle to be Prime Minister)? Will all these questions be answered before we flit to Australia?

Finetune

I've just discovered Finetune. It struck me today that while I've now got quite a large collection of music on my iPod, covering lots of different musical genres, I'd say 90% of the music is what you'd call commercial from well known artists past and present. I'm often reading reviews of great music on independent labels but very rarely take the time to be adventurous and download something that isn't in the Amazon top 50.

With Finetune, much like LastFM, you can explore playlists that other people have created and listen to them online. There's some great stuff out there and it's definitely encouraging me to broaden my musical horizons!

Do My Stuff

Why didn't I think of that? Website DoMyStuff lets you outsource your tedious tasks to people in your area who bid on your to do's. So for instance, you could offer out payment for someone to clean your car, do some painting, gardening, etc and the person who bids the lowest amount gets the job.

There's loads of really good web2.0 sites popping up at the moment. If only I could think of that one killer idea!

St George's Day

Originally uploaded by darylhai.

I took this picture on the way to my hotel after work today. It was pissing it down while I was dragging my case behind me through puddles after a very long hard day at the office. It was good to see nonetheless.

Just as I was thinking how good it was to see that some of us English are finally celebrating St George's Day, they all broke into a chorus of 'Rule Britannia'. Unfortunately, it was subsequently followed by a chorus of 'No Surrender to the IRA'. I despair. How are we ever going to be able to disassociate our national flag from football hooliganism and far-right nationalism when we still have idiots like this. I felt like pointing out the irony to them that due to the Good Friday Agreement we've let the IRA bombers out of prison, which in some people's eyes is a surrender; but I'm writing this from my hotel room not a hospital, so obviously I didn't.

Busy weekend

It's starting to hit home that we're leaving now after a busy weekend inventorying, packing, and selling.

We're not actually shipping that much to Oz in terms of furniture, but our personal items alone equate to half a shipment crate (roughly £1500). For a while now, I've been using www.listal.com to catalogue our DVD's and books - mainly DVD's up until now. But as we're shipping all our books we made the effort to inventory every single book prior to packing them - coming to a grand total of 597! Listal makes it easy though. All you need to do is enter the ISBN number off the book and it fills in all the details for you by interrogating Amazon. It even includes a photo of the book cover.

Rach and Lauren were busy emptying and cleaning the cupboards and choosing what we're going to sell on the car boot sale next Sunday. Rach as introduced a great scheme involving chore charts and stars to motivate Lauren to be good and help out. If she gets the required number of stars in a week we give her £2. She's taken to it with great gusto (see pic below).

We had mixed success with the sale on ebay. The sofa didn't sell during the auction but just after the auction ended someone contacted us making a lower offer. We accepted it. They've got a real bargain there but I'm not too bothered as we got a good 7 years out of it. The table and chairs didn't sell though so we're going to plan B - putting them up for sale in the local paper. Our TV cabinet didn't sell either but I'm quite glad really - what would we put our TV on between now and leaving?? Our book cabinet did sell but I'm still waiting for the buyer to contact me to arrange a pick-up.


The big milestone was that we signed the contract to exchange ownership of the house at the weekend and we've been given an indicative completion date of the 10th May. We're now deliberating whether to hang around until June as previously planned or just go straight away. After all, it's been a long time coming and from the 10th May there will be nothing stopping us.

There's still a million and one things to do though. We've hardly touched the to-do list.

Smoke-free zone

I made the mistake of leaving it late to book my hotel for this week, with the result that I have ended up having to take a smoking room. As a non-smoker with a very sensitive nose, this week has not been a pleasant experience to say the least. The room is clean, but there doesn't seem to be any way of getting rid of the stench of stale smoke, short of re-painting the walls and replacing all the soft furnishings. On the first night I emptied an entire spray can of Oust into the room, covering everything - ceiling, walls, carpet, curtains, bedding, the lot. The effect lasted for about 10 minutes before the stench began to fill my nostrils again. Don't get me wrong, it's not a particularly strong smell, but it is there - it is noticeable, and it is bugging me!

I've tried each night to move rooms but I seem to have chosen a week when everything is booked solid. If I was staying in the UK I'd definitely consider building a business case to open up a new hotel in Manchester as there's clearly a shortage.

Smoking is yet another reason on the long list why I can't wait to move to Australia.

I already new that smoking was banned in pubs in Oz but I wasn't aware of the extent of the smoking ban in Queensland until I read this post by a Brit family in Oz talking about their visit to see Robbie Williams play Brisbane, where he (Robbie) was fined $150 for lighting up on stage.

I'm now extremely pleased to discover that as well as eating and drinking venues, smoking in Queensland is banned in 'outdoor public places where people gather as groups, and particularly where children are present', including:

• Patrolled beaches
• Artificial beaches
• Major sports stadiums
• Children's playground equipment
• Building Entrances

I love the fact that it is illegal to smoke within 4 metres of a non-residential building entrance. So not only do smokers have to go outside, they have to smoke away from the entrance so we don't have to walk through it when entering or leaving the building.

Full details are here

I went on a stag weekend to Dublin shortly after the ban was introduced there and it was so nice to be able to go out on a drinking session and wake up the next morning not smelling of smoke.

The Wetherspoon chain of pubs in the UK has already made 146 of its 673 pubs non-smoking, and many of its other pubs have non-smoking areas inside. I used to think Wetherspoon pubs were crap because they don't play music, but now being a thirty-something I actually find it quite nice to be able to have a pleasant conversation (cringe!).

World's biggest companies

Banking and Oil companies lead the way in this year's top 2000 company list from Forbes

Bargains for sale

We've just started to put a number of items up for sale on ebay - items which we either don't want to ship to Oz or which it wouldn't be economically viable to ship to Oz, like our dining room table.


It breaks my heart to let the dining room table and matching lamp table go for such a low starting price, but it would cost a fortune for the shipping because of the need for special protective packaging for furniture which has glass.

The other items we're selling can be seen here

BBQ weather

We went over to a friend's house in sunny Barnsley yesterday for a BBQ. It was a glorious afternoon sitting out in their ridiculously large garden drinking wine until the sun went down. It's amazing to think that this time last year there was frost on the ground! What a happier place this country is when the sun's shining. People shouldn't underestimate how important a part the weather plays in our life. It just reinforces our decision to move to Oz - it could be barbecues and drinking in the garden every weekend for us!

Underground Skiing

For those few of you who haven't seen this yet..

The bells! The bells!

And another thing.. Is there any need for Manchester Cathedral to have a full hour of bell ringing practice every Wednesday night - it's so bloody loud. It's not as if they play a tune, it's the same constant repeat of what seems like random monotones. It's enough to drive a man crazy. God damn campanologists!

3G rubbish

I've just given up trying to watch the Liverpool v PSV Eindhoven match online via skysports.com using my T-Mobile 3G data card. When I tried the demo earlier to see if my connection speeds would cope it seemed ok, but when I've tried to watch the live match it just keeps stuttering - I reckon I've only managed to watch about 5 minutes from the first 45!

T-Mobile UMTS is supposedly quicker than standard 3G - up to 1.8mbps if their website is to be believed. In reality I'm lucky to get 600k at it's peak, and most of the time hovering around 60kbps and every now and again even dropping to 0 - even when I have a strong signal being in the centre of Manchester. It's fair to say that the service is no good for watching streaming video.

If it was constantly at 600kbps then with buffering, I could probably get decent quality, but the speed just keeps going up and down all the time. It's not like I'm on a train - I'm completely stationary in a hotel room!

I new I should have made the effort to go out to the pub to watch it. However, having to get up at 5:30am this morning to get my train, and with me not being a morning person, I'm cream crackered this evening.

I suppose I better get used to not being able to watch live games. I just hope they've got decent broadband connections in Oz.

The truth emerges

I've just watched the news conference given by the returned sailors and I'm riled to say the least. Not from what the sailors said but from the reaction of some idiots on forums and some newspaper columnists in the papers today. I think people have been watching too many Hollywood war movies. I'd like to see how they'd fare if they were captured, kept in solitary confinement and told they might spend 7 years in an Iranian prison.

It's clear now that their appearances on TV in Iran was heavily manipulated and edited. In my view, and the view of of people like John Nicol who have actually been captured and tortured, they did exactly what they should have done. Even the SAS will tell you that the Name, Rank, Number line that you're supposed to take is useless when you're in the hands of people who don't consider themselves bound by the Geneva Convention. They didn't give out any intelligence or operational information, and they're supposed apologies were edited and taken out of context by the Iranian propaganda machine. No they weren't tortured, but those who have been through torture say that the psychological pressure can be just as bad as physical torture.

I hope those sad little columnists in the papers, who have never served a single day in the armed forces, are thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

One year on..

Must admit, this nearly brought a tear to the eye...

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=425293

Who killed the electric car

In 1996 Electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust, and ran without gasoline. 10 years later these futuristic cars were almost entirely gone. What happened?

This is the question that is addressed in the award winning documentary 'Who Killed the Electric Car' recently released on DVD in the UK.

The website for the film makes interesting reading so I'll definitely be checking out the DVD. It seems the technology is there, has been for a long time, and is fit for purpose, contrary to what the motor industry tells us.

The charge is made that the motor industry, in cahoots with the US federal government and the big oil companies (mainly Exxon Mobil) launched a successful campaign to kill off the electric car. But why?

The oil companies interests were obvious: they wanted to kill off anything that may reduce the need for fossil fuels. As for the US federal government, there links to the oil companies are well documented. But what about the car manufacturers? It seems most of the profit generated by the car manufacturers actually comes from maintaining and replacing the internal combustion engine. A transition to batteries would have been a disaster for the profit/loss sheet.

Yet again another documentary which shows how the world is being killed by the greed of big companies. I personally believe this is systematic of the market capitalist economy we rely on. Some people argue that it's exactly the market capitalist economy which will save the world. As climate change affects us more, the market will act to correct prices which will reduce demand for fossil fuels and put more pressure on companies to develop alternatives, which will in turn lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions.

This is a dangerous assumption. Yesterday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released it's second report of the year which yet again gave a unanimous declaration by the world's leading climatologists that global warming is happening, and is a result of human activity. Scientists also agree that we are quickly approaching the point of no return. Can we afford to wait for market corrections to kick in? I doubt it.

Update Checker

I really like the new Filehippo Update Checker. It scans your installed applications and checks to see if you have the latest versions installed.

This is important because it's not just your operating system that can contain security vulnerabilities that need patching - applications need patching too, and many of your standard installed applications such as Realplayer and Adobe Reader are regularly updated by the vendors to plug security holes.

I also love the fact that this update checker is only 100k and doesn't need installing. You can just run the exe and off it goes - no installation files that adds the app to your Startup folder or makes changes to the registry of system files.

Diplomacy works!

Thank god we're not Americans. If it was yank sailors that had been arrested by the Iranians they would have either fired back, in which case they would have all been shot due to being heavily outnumbered, or Bush would have taken a hard line, in which case it could have led to another war and the sailors would never be seen again.

Green hypocrisy

According to a survey by the Energy Saving Trust, while 80 per cent of the public believe climate change is affecting Britain, almost half are doing nothing to halt its impact.

I predict that I'm like many: I'm concerned about climate change and am willing to do my bit (recycle more, stop leaving electrical appliances on standby, turn lights off when not needed, etc), but I'm reluctant to make major changes to my lifestyle because at the moment I don't believe it will make any difference. As much as I believe it's everyone's responsibility to take action, I don't want to stop taking flights when the opportunities arise, and I would very much like a 50 inch Plasma TV please. The fact is, whatever we do in Britain, it will make no difference unless the attitudes of American and China (and India, Brazil and others) change. Our carbon output is a fraction of theirs.

It seems like the government and the media in this country have finally woken up to the real and present threat of climate change. It's about time! It's even starting to become cool to be a tree hugger. What I hate though, is the amount of hypocrisy involved. The BBC, Guardian and others keep preaching to us every day about green issues, but what are they doing to combat climate change? Same with the Government. They're quick to bring in green taxes but what are the ministers doing personally? I can't see the ministerial car changing to a Toyota Prius. And what are they doing to force industry into making changes? Why aren't they forcing building companies to build more carbon neutral homes? Why aren't they banning the use of traditional light bulbs and forcing everyone to buy energy saving bulbs, like they're starting to do in Australia? Why aren't they putting more pressure on the motor industry to produce more hybrid cars? Why aren't they putting tax on aviation fuel?

For me and Rach, living in Australia will probably reduce our carbon footprint (our heating bill will certainly go down!). Up until we fly back to visit the family in the UK that is, as one long distance flight can apparently blow your entire carbon calories.

Things are looking promising!

The couple who are buying our house came around at the weekend to look at some of the furniture we're offering for sale (heavily discounted). We've been very cautious up to now to not start putting any plans into action until we've exchanged contracts, because we know the house sale could fall through at any moment. However, their visit gave us a lot of confidence that the sale would go through ok; they were clearly very excited about the purchase, frustrated that things weren't moving any quicker, and agreed to purchase a number of items. So I think it's fair to say that we would be very unlucky if things fell through.

With that in mind, and taking into account what could be an extremely short period between exchanging contracts and moving out, we're not going to wait any longer - we're going to start selling items this week and we're going to start packing next weekend. We're still not going to book the flights until we exchange contracts though. It's not that I believe in tempting fate and all that malarkey, I'm just learning to be more risk averse - practising what I preach in my day job.

Where does the time go?

I just thought I'd do a bit of research into the job market in Brisbane, and suddenly it's 3 hours later and I'm even more confused than when I started!

Everything I'm reading tells me that Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra are all better for IT Security jobs than Brisbane. That doesn't mean to say there aren't any IT Security jobs in Brisbane, there are - they're listed on www.seek.com.au and www.jobserve.com.au, there's just not as many as in the other cities.

I'm also getting the picture that the agencies aren't quite as efficient as the ones in the UK. Apparently in Oz many recruitment agents don't see it within their role to keep you updated - you have to chase them - constantly!

The general consensus is you're either lucky, and pick up work straight away, or you'll end up applying for about 100 jobs and have to wait 4 months before landing one. I just hope it's the former, because if it gets to 4 months I'll be starting to twitch and Rach will be in full-blown panic mode!

Contracting doesn't to be as lucrative either, so it looks like I may have to go back to being a permie (heaven forbid!), and permanent rates don't look that attractive either. Oh well, money isn't everything.

No seriously, it is standard of living, not income, that counts. All I'll need in Oz is a bit of petrol money to get down to the Gold Coast every weekend, or up to the Sunshine Coast, or over to North Stradbroke Island. Oh, and the big house with swimming pool, and sailing yacht moored at the bottom of my garden of course. I can but dream!

Brisbane Zombie Walk

The annual Zombie walk has taken place in Brisbane today. I might join in next year. I won't need any make-up - I always look like that first thing in the morning. I'm not a morning person!

April Fools

I completely forgot about April Fools this morning. Pity - as Rach just loves me winding her up, not!

The Sunday papers didn't forget though, here's a few of the April Fools stories in the papers today:

Several events in the 2012 London Olympics - including the opening ceremony - will be "farmed out" to Paris to save money. Eurostar carriages will be adapted so that athletes can continue training and stretching. (Sunday Telegraph)

A legion of tiny clay soldiers has been dug up near Hadrian's Wall, and archeologists have dubbed them the Terracotta "Toon" Army. (Sunday Express)

The world's first "Robot Ethics Charter", to be drafted at a conference next week, will prevent robots from being abused. (Independent on Sunday)

Tony Blair is to become an actor when he leaves Downing Street and has been cast in Arthur Miller's The Crucible by his friend Kevin Spacey. (Observer)

A revolutionary square dart board will be introduced to the sport at this year's World Darts Championship. World champion Phil Taylor said: "I've had a practice on it, and it will take some getting used to." (News of the World)

Councils are to introduce compulsory £5 'carbon offsets' for anyone wishing to have a barbecue in their garden this summer. (Mail on Sunday)

A German company has launched "digital Lederhosen" with a built-in MP3 player and mobile phone. (Independent on Sunday)

Compost bins in a range of Farrow & Ball colours have gone on sale for £150 each. (Observer)

Garden centres are being "besieged" by men after it was discovered that winter-flowering heather has the same properties as Viagra. (Independent on Sunday)

Thirteen plainclothes traffic wardens have already been assaulted after an undercover scheme was launched in Soho. (The First Post)

Courtousy of The First Post