Posts by Gordon

Not just car tax discs

I got a duplicate for my motorbike too.

I wonder if we've had two entries in the DVLA's car prize draw too?

Bit awkward for DVLA, especially after saying on BBC's Watchdog that they don't make mistakes!

Paper bag sellers' opportunity

Are people really so vain as to think people are remotely interested in them to the point of stalking them? Presumably all these people who are complaining about the invasion of thier privacy walk around with a paper bag over their head in case anyone should recognise them in the street, and have twelve foot walls around their houses so nobody knows what it looks like.

The simple fact is that nobody's interested in you. Sorry.

Paris, because nobody's interested in her either.

Details matter

"...THE ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND, ENGLAND."

Fail! The clue is in the name...

The Opposite

We've got the opposite problem where I live - stray full-stops.

Obviously whoever orders the signs doesn't know the difference between a contraction and an abbreviation.

Perhaps the residents of Birmingham could recycle our full-stops in to apostrophes?

Beware the feral apostrophe

The inadvertent inclusion of an apostrophe is not always the fault of the writer. Apostrophes are devious, and will infiltrate your writing without you even noticing. A sort of grammatical trojan.

As for CV's / CVs, the apostrophe there is pointing out that the letters i t a & e are missing between the V and the s.

For another contentious issue, also look at the feral full stop [period] that often appears at the end of contractions, when it only belongs at the end of abbreviations.

@Fraser (Freakin' Sweet)

I very much doubt that the fingerprints will be printed on to the ID card - they'll be encoded on the chip, along with other biometric data.

The photo? Well yes, that'll be printed on the card.

And yes, I know it's possible to clone the data on the chip - but unless you are the identical twin of the card holder it isn't going to help much.

PS: Isn't "biometric data" a great term to instill fear? The phrase "facial measurements and eye colour" just isn't as exciting...

Not just BT

My Netgear router keeps falling over whenever I try to watch a BBC News Online embedded video. Wasn't sure if it was Netgear, BBC or Firefox to blame, but my iPod Touch plays back fine.

I've upgraded the router to the latest firmware and that's made no difference.

I'll wait and see if BBC's "adjustments" solve the problem.

[cue 9000 Reg. readers saying they have no problems with their Netgear DG834s]

Bed of nails

Whilst I appreciate that we motorcyclists are the spawn of Santa and deserve anything nothing short of hanging, but I dread to think of the consequences of a motorcycle being impaled on the spikes and unseating the rider. Falling on to them is going to hurt - and where is that ID tag going to end up being inserted?

Of course we two-wheeled villans with 15 to 20 litre fuel tanks are far more of a problem than cars with 60 litre tanks - so much so that one station has admitted to not wanting to serve fuel to bikes.

Or what about:

Whoops, sorry! Pressed the wrong button there...

Or

Oh dear - wrong car... Sorry about that. That'll be 50p to use the air pump please.

Apple TV

"So pray tell, how come the Apple TV "Take 2" firmware is a *FREE* download for *all existing customers*?"

How long has Apple TV been around? Less than 2 years? No SarBox problem.