It costs how much for the insurance!

I haven’t blogged much recently. The end of the snow and ice has made the garden a more attractive option, and to be honest I’m getting totally fed up with current affairs. So much of it is total bollocks and it’s all inter-related, that I have lost the sense of where to even start! 

You can’t believe a word that the media spout, they are either inept or dishonest, the number of intelligent politicians with any sense of integrity and morality and not in thrall to commerce or pressure groups is now at an all time low and the EU debacle is a running sore serving only to raise my blood pressure.

But I suppose it’s worth raising a metaphorical flag to a couple of good news items over the past week.

The surge in support for UKIP has to be good. Not that I particularly want them as a government, but as a sign of better things and as an agent of change they at least hold out a ray of hope that people are waking up. So what if a vote for UKIP means ‘none of the above’? Any such sign is a good start.

Returning to real life however I had quite a pleasant surprise. Now that I’m too old to gallivant around the country or paint the town red drinking and chasing mini-skirted girls around the town at weekends I enjoy amusing myself playing with old (ish) cars. I have a mini fleet of two old dears now, a Morris and a Triumph, neither being exotic or expensive, but I like them. Being a similar age to me I understand them and have sympathy for their occasional wrinkles, ageing joints and difficulty getting started in the mornings.

To keep them on the road of course they have to be insured (mutters about the bloody insanity of continuous insurance, MOTs and SORN regulations when the poor dears only travel a few hundred miles a year on local roads, barely reach 50mph and have free road tax anyhow). The insurance is a specialist one for historic vehicles that allows me to have both cars covered on the same policy, the aim is that it will be cheaper than ordinary insurance because I have to also run a main car on a standard policy for daily use, the specialist one doesn’t carry a no claims discount.  

Some years ago the cost of the historic policy started to rocket. From under £100 per year it jumped to £130, then £160, then £200, and last year, to over £230. This year I was bracing myself for a job of trailing around brokers and web sites to get a better deal.

When the renewal notice came I almost fell over, it’s down £100 from last year and back to under £130. I think it’s the only bill I have received in the past year that has reduced, and it’s not far off halved. Well done Footman James.

Now all we need is for the councils, utilities and government contractors to make similar reductions – no I don’t expect it will happen.

Loonies, fruitcakes and closet racists – Bring them on!

It’s my opinion that democracy in this country is completely broken. 

In a healthy democracy we should vote for a representative who takes our opinions and directives and then works on our behalf to present and champion those views to government.  

Sadly, in practice, the opposite happens: We vote for a representative, but that person has a primary allegiance to a political party. Our representative then becomes lobby fodder for that party and spends their time representing the party line irrespective of what the voters asked for or what the representative promised the voter. The political party has become the dominant element, and worse than that has simply become a tool of corporate and vested interests.

So along come UKIP. I know perfectly well that some of their policies are a mess but unlike most political experts I see this not as a problem but a sign of strength.  It's not as though they will be running the country next week however well they do so there isn't much of a downside. But importantly they are a party of independence, and we should celebrate the fact that their candidates also have independent ideas and independent views. They coalesce around a set of ideas and attitudes rather than a set of policies dictated from on high, and to my mind that is exactly as it should be, definitely it’s enough to be going along with at this stage of the game. 

Maybe some of their candidates are a bit dodgy, but hands up which party doesn’t have a share of criminals and fraudsters! In UKIP’s case it’s to be expected in the rushed circumstances, the other parties have far less excuse.

Until recently this country has always celebrated the eccentrics and outsiders in society, it’s an attitude that is quintessentially English. True, eccentrics often tend to be some of the most annoying people around, but they can also be some of the most creative and preceptive. The past decades have increasingly marginalised and denigrated outside ideas, by always defending the ‘consensus’ and the mainstream ideas against anyone who dares to disagree. 

UKIP are determined to disagree with the consensus, discuss the otherwise unmentionable without being hamstrung by political correctness and in the process kick the 3 old main parties where it hurts.  For that reason alone I wish them well tomorrow.

Open Honest Government?

Up north of me is the town of Crewe, it sits in Cheshire very close to the North Staffordshire border. Over the past 20 years there have been considerable infrastructure developments and growth in the area.

In particular the development of a whole new national east west road route that passes just south of Crewe, comprising various existing roads, some improved bits of road and some completely new road links. They have been built piecemeal but now have created a complete through route connecting Hollyhead, and the Irish ferries, back along the North Wales coast, around Chester, across to Crewe crossing the M6 at junction 16, the route then extends east around Stoke on Trent and along the new A50 to Derby and the M1 motorway, from which the A14 runs to Felixtowe

It’s obvious to a child that this is the western end of a planned route to connect cities and trade routes in the EU. I know David over at WitteringsfromWitney has been on about the semi-covert European transport initiative for some years. This route provides a superb example of grand planning on a piecemeal stealth basis.

The other thing that has been going on for the past decade is a significant concentration of housing and business development in and around Crewe, with plenty more in the pipeline that will be taking up huge areas of currently green field sites in south Cheshire. For some years it has been obvious the area was being deliberately overdeveloped, but much less obvious as to why.

The final pieces of the puzzle are the improvements to some local roads that were pinch points on the grand east west route. Originally there were a number of by-passes planned to improve the existing road to the west of the M6 motorway, some preliminary work was done. Then about 10 years ago all these were abandoned in favour of a whole new stretch of high quality dual carriageway. The oddity of this new road was that it contained a huge raised section and bridge where it crosses the existing west coast main railway line just as the line enters the old area of sidings and shunting yards south of Crewe station.

Now we have the final piece and all becomes clear. The northern extension of HS2! Not published until recently, wasn’t going to have any stops except Birmingham and Manchester, but apparently is now to run into Crewe alongside the existing west coast line and will have a station. So 20 years of development, large bridges, road improvements that made little sense, all is suddenly explained.

What is not explained is how all this development started years ago when HS2 wasn’t even officially mentioned and yet fits so well together.  It’s not as though we have a ruling elite or government that plans ahead in secrecy behind the scenes then release details to the public only as and when expedient, or is it?

Why are garages allowed to use tenths of a penny?

Go into any modern petrol station to fill up and you will pass a board with today’s prices in pence per litre. Cunningly concealed at the end of each number is a dot and a smaller number, almost always “.9”. Thus in effect the price is always point nine of a penny per litre more than shown by the large displayed price. It has been this way for many years and we are all well used to it.

However pumps themselves usually carry a notice to the effect that the minimum purchase is 5 litres. So if you purchase 5 litres of petrol at 140.9 pence per litre how can you pay them 704.5 pence? The half penny was withdrawn years ago. If you wanted 6 litres the cost would be 745.4 pence? Again, how can you pay .4  pence? The banks won’t recognise a fraction of a penny, there is no coin smaller than one penny, so it’s an impossible price.

Of course bits of a penny will always happen with anything bought loose. Half a pound of apples at 99p per pound will create a half pence, but those traders are not advertising the price in fractions of a penny.

In the case of petrol however the companies are quite deliberately displaying and advertising a price which cannot be paid. Can it be legal to advertise and sell something at a price that doesn’t exist in the real financial world? I know of no other products that do this, so wonder why petrol companies do it? 

I also wonder if the companies realise what a public relations disaster they have created because every time we see this pricing tactic it confirms our belief that they are out to deceive us?

Policewomen and kerbstones. Missing the point

The media last week were full of the story about the policewoman who was setting out to sue a garage owner for damages after she tripped on a kerbstone during a callout. As far as I can tell absolutely every commentator was saying how appalling it was that a member of a ‘risk’ profession like the police should be able to sue a member of the public in this way

I think all those commentators missed the point.The media so often does nowadays, there is no logic applied. There is surely nothing wrong in a policeman, or any other member of the services suing a member of the public if that person has done something really stupid and dangerous. Leaving , for example, a large unmarked and unfenced  trench across a dark area of garden then expecting someone in the emergency services to run across the garden might be construed, quite correctly, as the fault of the owner.

To me therefore the point isn’t about the right of someone to sue. The point is the issue over which this particular police woman is suing.  

The kerb wasn’t of an odd size, nor was it placed in a peculiar or unusual position where nobody would expect it to be. It was an ordinary kerb, exactly as used alongside most of our roads. They are also commonplace in any areas such as garage forecourts, motorway services, car parks and the like where they are deliberately placed to separate vehicle areas and parking bays from pedestrian areas. They help prevent vehicles running onto pedestrian areas and help drainage, preventing water from the large vehicle areas flooding onto paths. 

Almost every garage around here has similar kerb edging around the parking areas, tyre and vacuum bays and along the forecourt edges. They are not even specified by the owner. They are part of the ordinary and commonplace design and architecture specifications, drawn up by the architect and passed by the council. Any ordinary person would expect to find such kerb edging in exactly the place and of exactly the type this police woman found it!

Personally, if I fell over something like that I would be very annoyed with myself for my own stupidity! If she can get away with this then I can only suggest that everyone who has ever tripped on car parks, motorway services or just crossing the street gets to a solicitor immediately. It’ll be ‘win the lottery’ day for most of the population. I wonder if any other commonplace architectural item is also fair game?  Walk into a building, well sue the person who put it in your way.

Some years ago I was walking down the street talking to a friend when I walked straight into a lamp post. It really hurt! I suppose I better go find a good ambulance chaser to sue the council for putting such an unexpected item in such an unusual place without a barrier or warning notice.