Worton Organic Garden Cafe - an unfriendly welcome

It is not often I write about poor customer service that I receive because in the majority of cases I am fairly easy going. However, at the weekend I took a trip out with my partner in the local area and was so appalling treated that I feel obliged to put pen to paper as it were.

We live in a fairly rural area and being rather green minded I was looking for a local farm shop. I found Worton Organic garden on the internet which had even been recommended by a national newspaper. Why not, I thought, it even had a cafe where we could find a spot of lunch.

So off we went, Worton does have a lovely organic garden and a nice farm shop mainly focusing on what is grown in the garden with a few other oxfordshire bits and pieces. So far so good, we started looking forward to some lunch. Even better it was seafood special weekend with a lovely set menu and we both fancied the lemon sole.

Luckily we managed to find a table and after a while when nobody came we went into the cafe and someone said they would be out shortly. Five minutes later a worker from the garden wandered by and apologised for the delay but someone would be out shortly, she couldn't take our order because she didn't work in the cafe and didn't want to mess up carefully laid plans.

Fair enough, nobody minds a bit of waiting for some good food. After all it was a nice day and we were enjoying the sunshine.

Finally a lady comes over to take our order, her first question is "did we book?", I apologised and said we didn't know we had to, any chance you could fit us in. She asked us whether we had spoken to anyone in the cafe. I answered "No". Off she trots to the kitchen and is back two minutes later. "Sorry, we cant serve you any food, we are really busy". She then went on to say that they served restaurant quality food without the restaurant prices. Plus she explained we are recommended by word of mouth and mainly locals come here and being a special weekend they were fully booked.

Fair enough didn't book , will know for next time. I had checked the website which did not say anything about booking or it being a special weekend. Plus it really does not look the sort of place you need to book.

At this point I was expecting to have a drink and cake order taken. Sadly, no that was it, having said she wouldn't serve us food, it was apparently time to leave.

I was left wondering whether we were just not her type, perhaps not local enough for her. Either way I have not been treated so badly in a long time. Given that you can only get to this place by car and we were not even offered a drink to say I was annoyed is an understatement. I am still fuming 4 days later as I write this.

Of course the food may be very good and it is a lovely place but based on the welcome we had on our first visit we will not be going back. Shame as I would have liked to buy some of the home grown vegetables, I really liked the look of the garlic.

So congratulations Worton Organic Garden Cafe, your poor customer service has lost you some business and I will happily never recommend you to my friends.

Even the well educated lie sometimes

'Lying Doctor' (BBC news)

I am starting a new research project. Basically it is about people that lie during the recruitment process.

This has all started because after years of interviewing I have finalised realised that the elephant in the room is that people lie and can trick the interviewers.

As evidence I shall offer the following. Recently I have interviewed some people who always tell the honest truth (basically cannot lie), I have asked a simple question where the answer is obvious to any reasonable individual, it asks you what you would do in the situation. There is a text book / right interview answer but in real life there is probably some considerations and thoughts before you do the right thing. The people I interview give me the answer as it runs through their brain not the definitive / decisive answer they should be giving in a formal interview situation.

They are being brutally honest in a way. To quote another well used scenario if given the choice of taking an action that kills one person or 100 people you should say you would kill the one and save the many. Now the people I have been interviewing cant actually lie (or are totally honest depending on your point of view), so they talk about the difficulties they would have in making the decision etc.

However, if you really wanted the job (knowing that the situation probably wouldn't come up that often), you have done the research for the role, you know the answer to the question and regardless of your personal thoughts you would say "I would kill the one person and save the many". So at a very primitive level you have lied to get the job because faced with the decision in real life you have not stated what you would do.

Now pull that back into the mundane and what these candidates have shown me is that in all probability interviews reward good definitive liars. So if we could somehow spot or challenge potential liars then getting the right person into the right job would be easier.

More thoughts on this will follow. For now I am going to start clipping articles off the net and collecting them here on my blog.

First up, a Doctor that lied on his CV. Even those with brains who clearly understand the consequences will still take a big risk in being caught out.

Jamie Oliver - Books for Christmas 2013

Three years at the top of the book charts for Jamie Oliver's recipe books. Two years with Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals and in 2012 top of the chart's with Jamie's Oliver's 15 minute meals.

According to his publishers Jamie is really pushing the limits of cooking with his next title for Christmas 2012. It is Jamie Oliver's 3 minute meals.

One of the receipe's has been released as a teaser:

Step 1
Visit Sainsbury's

Step 2
Buy Jamie Oliver's Italian meat balls spaghetti ready meal.

Step 3
Take home

Step 4
Put in microwave, set for three minutes and wait.

Step 5
Enjoy another spectacularly quick Jamie meal.

***Sorry Jamie could not resist - zephyrist***

Project Colourscape

I am not sure why I have named this project colourscape other than it relates to colours. I think the scape part come from my considering the variations of colours as a landscape or surface of colour.

Anyway this project is about looking at colours and creating colour palettes. I am going to create a series of pages looking at RGB colours in different ways. The practical application is that you will be able to create and experiment with various colours to create a colour palette either for a web page or for some other practical applications.

ColourScape 1

This lets you choose colours from a randomly generate selection. You can select a background colour and a text colour to create a pallet of five colours.The hex codes appear in the relevant boxes for you to cut and paste.

The only problem with it is that each time the page loads you refresh the random selection, so you cant choose two colours from the same random page, although you could hover over the colour to get the hex value and then type it directly into a box.

Similarly you can type any hex value into any box to display that colour, which is useful if you  are looking for a colour to match some colours you already have.

Add-on possibilities: box to give you the palette html and CSS code.

Possible other Colourscapes

SQL version of Colourscape 1 to store and sort the random colours

slot machine version where the colours are in 3 columns, red, green, blue with the chosen colour in the bottom and then colours with each graduation flowing out like a slot machine. Difficult one to explain, easier to write the perl script.

If anyone has any other suggestions I am always open.

Predictive Market V2.0

Experimental Predictive Market 

Version 1 was a flop that had some very obvious flaws, mainly that the uplifitng mechanism over £10 would encourage people to buy all the stock and hold onto it for ever or I would have to intervene with an upper price limit. Plus why should a price change just because the day has changed.

Experimental Predictive Market The Rules V2.0

Main rules

• Each stock is a question i.e. "Workers in the UK should be given 1 extra bank holiday?".
• Each stock initially lists at a price of £10 with 1000 shares for sale (Numbers would change if it ever became really popular).
• Down Escalator - If no one buys the stock, the price will drop at a rate of 0.04p per day (the stock and therefore idea is unpopular). The idea is that the price of stock will drop until it finds the level at which people are willing to buy
• If someone buys stock the price rises at a rate of: 'Number of shares bought * 0.04p'.
• If someone sells stock the price falls at a rate of: 'Number of shares sold * 0.04p'.
• Trading limit of 100 shares per transaction.
• If price above £10.00 stock rises at a rate of 0.04p per day (Idea is popular and will keep rising until investors tempted to sell - Price will hopefully stabilise at the value of the idea) 
• If all shares are available for sale, the price gets on the "down escalator" again until the new "willing to buy" level is found
• If the stock reaches zero it is archived.

Liquidity Rules

•  Stock can only be held for 180 days - at the 180 day limit all stock is hold at list price
• At close of an event e.g. general election all stock is sold at list price

Futures Market

• As well as buying and selling shares you can make a futures bet on whether a certain price will be reached within the next seven days.
• You can only have one bet per stock per 7 day period
• If the price is reached you win the small amount.
• This gives an indication of whether people want to buy or sell. The more buyers in the market the higher the price will go, the more sellers in the market the lower the price will go.

I am sure there will be a new version along shortly when I find some flaws with this one.

The Wisdom of Crowds

I have read a fascinating article, in of all places People Management (September 2012) about predictive markets. Basically the article wasn't exactly well written but the concept was strong. The article may not have been well written because it was extracted from a book, Oracles: How Prediction Markets turn employees into Visionaries, by Donald Thompson (published by Harvard Business School Publishing).

The basic concept is that a few technology and finance companies have been running internal stock markets where any employee can use fictional dollars to invest in ideas. Anyone can post an idea which is good for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there is no hierarchy in ideas, it doesn't matter at what level in the organisation you are, you can post an idea and hopefully people will listen. Secondly, because the buying and selling is anonymous just because an idea is from a senior manager doesn't mean you have to support it, unlike in most meeting where if you want to get ahead you need to support the boss (however dumb their ideas are - after all your next promotion might depend on them).

Essentially good ideas are valued commodities and bad ideas are junk stock. This approach frees up innovation and allows companies to see what ideas might work best. There is also a fun element in that if you invest wisely you will become a market leader especially if your ideas work in practice. Another part of life that has now been gameified.

Anyway as is my was I thought about this and decided I could create one of those. So I have created my own model and will build a small website for people to play with. If the model is any good it may become the next big thing or as is more usual it will be become another vaguely interesting project on mycreativeboost.co.uk the repository for all my mini projects.

Experimental Predictive Market The Rules V1.0

• Each stock is a question i.e. "Workers in the UK should be given 1 extra bank holiday?".
• Each stock initially lists at a price of £10 with 1000 shares for sale (Numbers would change if it ever became really popular).
• If no one buys the stock, the price will drop at a rate of 0.04p per day (the stock and therefore idea is unpopular).
• If someone buys stock the price rises at a rate of: 'Number of shares bought * 0.04p'.
• If someone sells stock the price falls at a rate of: 'Number of shares sold * 0.04p'.
• Trading limit of 100 shares per transaction.
• If price above £10.00 stock rises at a rate of 0.04p per day (Idea is popular and will keep rising until investors tempted to sell - Price will hopefully stabilise at the value of the idea)

I will admit the above rules are a bit rough and ready and may need refining over time. Think of it as a bit of a starter for ten.

Of course I accept no responsibility if I never finish this project, I have a habit of getting distracted by real life sometimes.

A new venture

Well I am off on another cunning plan to make some extra cash. This time it is a business selling friendship balls. I am trading as The Waterfall Glass company and have secured the valuable internet real estate of friendship-balls.co.uk.

It is all good fun, the products are interesting and I am enjoying creating the website as one of my many projects. Some day soon I might even make some money out of it.

Today Oxfordshire, tomorrow the world.

Signs that bother me

There are often hand written  or hand typed signs that just on a really basic level just bother me in some way.

The current one is in the toilets at work. It says:

"Please leave these toilets in the state that you expect to find them"

Firstly, I do understand that at a basic level it is saying don't make a mess and leave it tidy.

On a whole other level I am afraid that I cant possibly comply with the notice. If I did I would be forced to redecorate the toilet in order to create a brand new toilet that I would expect to find.

To illustrate my point, this is a typical toilet:

From howstuffworks.com

Now if I was to leave the toilet in the state I expect to find it, I might redecorate to give a more tropical feel to the throne room.

http://www.oneprojectcloser.com/tropical-bathroom-design/

Or perhaps improve the entertainment possibilities to add entertainment that I would expect to find.

http://www.lolgallery.com/best-toilet-ever/

Perhaps you get the general idea.

Thought Experiment: Driverless automated cars

In the linked article you can read about driver less pods at Heathrow airport that take passengers from the car park to the terminal. Driver less automated pods are certainly part of the future, one day they may even replace ordinary cars on ordinary roads.

However here is a thought, a driver less pod will always be programmed to stop for a pedestrian / obstruction as the whole point in driver less pods is to prevent accidents. This all sounds very sensible and logical but what happens when pedestrians know they can never be hit by a car. Simple, they will step out into the road without looking as they know any car will stop and they cannot be hurt.

Now extend this thought, which basically means that pedestrians now have priority. In towns and cities pedestrians would reclaim the streets, traffic would be brought to a stand still and the whole fabric of society would break down. Ok maybe not that last part.

So if cars are no longer dangerous pedestrians would no longer be wary of them. You could either

a) Trust pedestrians to do the right thing - make it socially unacceptable.
b) Allow cars to be slightly dangerous again.
c) Make it a serious criminal offence to cross the road when a driver less car is coming.
d) Or another option which I haven't yet thought of.

Its an interesting thought which may have to be solved before driver less cars go mainstream.

I thought fox hunting with hounds was banned...

The press hounds have been released and they are on their ten day hunt. The basic idea of a ten day hunt is to start with a slightly dubious story and then keep it going with an extra tit bit of dubiousness each day. If you don't change the story slightly each day the story will falter. The longer you can keep it going from news day to news day the more pressure you can put on the politician and the prime minister (or party leader). The goal is to get the politician to resign or be fired.

Now get the wrong story and you wont make it onto the second day of news. This is a game that the press like to play with the politicians, its very similar to gossiping and the theory that if you throw enough mud it will eventually stick. It is a sort of modern day witch hunt.

I would suggest that most members of the public get caught up in the gossip and the chase. There is something voyeuristic about it.

The politician's only fight back is to try to derail the ten days. They can deny all claims or provide evidence but they have to be careful it doesn't then look like a cover up. They can start an official enquiry which will take a while to report back, by which time the news cycle will have moved on.

It is quite a negative aspect of the press hounding people out of office. It borders on immoral and ungentlemanly conduct.

For the current story here is what I have filtered out to be the facts:

1. Adam Werrity is a friend of Liam Fox who has spoken to him about work related matters. 
2. Adam Werrity has been on government trips as some kind of self styled advisor.
3. Mr Fox had a male friend staying with him when he was burgled
4. There seems to have been some confusion when information of the burglary was given to the press
5. Mr Fox has had to deny he was in a relationship with Adam Werrity.

Or something along those lines.

Taking it point by point I don't care about points 1, 3, 4, 5 it is not relevant to his day job. I am satisfied that there is an official investigation regarding at least point 2 and I trust parliamentary procedure to investigate and take the right action.

Bottom line, let Mr Fox get on with the job, if the official investigation finds him to have acted improperly he can resign. I am now bored of this story so if the press could go and report on some actual news it would be much appreciated.

Keep running Mr Fox don't let the news hounds pull you down

Note - I am not the first to come up with the ten day hunt, according to the BBC article Alaister Campbell got their first.

I have questions Mr Clarke...

Ken Clarke, Justice Secretary has like any other justice / home secretary before him has been going on about how we have a "broken penal system". Ken, unfortunately there has been a broken penal system long before you were born and in all probability it will still be broken long after you are gone. Frankly, the only comfort is that it is almost certain you cant make it worse, although I do think you might give it a go.

At this point you might expect a typical blogger to go off on one about how Ken is a complete idiot, all the politicians are idiots, society is broke, its all the parents fault, just lock them up or some other stuff generally said from a soap box.

For me personally the riots are almost too big to have answers for, all I have is more questions. So what I thought I would do, if dear reader you will indulge me is make a big list of some of them. Feel free to add any more in comments.

74 questions to be precise Mr Clarke.

So here are some questions that have occurred so far:

1. At what point should a person be considered as un rehabilatable?
2. What is the "age of intervention", the key year in someone life where an intervention can make the difference between a life of crime and a life as an average citizen?
3. How do you convince someone that it is better to earn the money to buy a TV by working for a month rather than spend five minutes nicking one (Seriously on this one - what do you say to someone who has been arrested twenty times for burglary)?
4. Should the government force parents of wayward children to have parenting lessons?
5. How many times do you give someone one last chance?
6. Is it the education system's fault?
7. Is it societies fault?
8. Is it my fault?
9. Are more prisons the answer?
10. Are larger prisons the answer?
11. Are smaller prisons the answer?
12. Should more prisons be placed in areas like Dartmoor?
13. Should military service be an alternative instead of prison?
14. Does Ken Clarke know what he is talking about?
15. If we had given the three quarters of rioters over 18 with a previous conviction tougher sentences so that more of them were in jail at the time of the riots would we have still had the riots?
16. Should the private sector run rehabilitation schemes given their track record on job seekers?
17. Would the charity and non for profit sector be a better option?
18. Which problem do we solve first - Drugs?
19. Which problem do we solve first - Alcohol abuse?
20. Which problem do we solve first - Unemployment?
21. Which problem do we solve first - Apathy?
22. Which problem do we solve first - Respect for authority?
23. Which problem do we solve first - Job training?
24. Which problem do we solve first - General Education?
25. Which problem do we solve first - Literacy and Numeracy?
26. Were the police ham strung by human rights issues?
27. Did politicians hinder the police response?
28. Did Senior Police management hinder the on the ground response?
29. What responsibility lies with the media?
30. Does the media making stars out of everyone make it worse?
31. Should criminals / looters be interviewed?
32. Has society taught the youth of today to take what they want?
33. Is the internet causing us to break normal social boundaries?
34. Is this problem a new one or has it been the same in the past?
35. Do people understand the consequences of their actions anymore?
36. Is this related to the culture of "no winners and losers"?
37. Are we unrealistic with the youth of today, do we offer them the world but give them nothing?
38. Is this part of a materialistic culture?
39. Is this part of a selfish culture?
40. Should we have more positive role models?
41. How do we get more positive role models?
42. Does the person who burnt down the carpet store show remorse?
43. Are these criminals also victims?
44. Why do people re - offend?
45. Can we stop re - offending or is it all ready too late by the time of the first offence?
46. What do the criminals themselves say would stop them re - offending?
47. Do community sentences actually work?
48. What are other countries doing?
49. Is the justice system too slow, should justice be quicker - arrest and imprison same day?
50. Should first time offenders be treated differently and put in different prisons?
51. Should criminals be rewarded for not re - offending?
52. Should the police use tear gas to break up riots?
53. Should we have weekend prisons Friday night to Monday morning especially for town centre brawlers?
54. Where should we invest our money - youth crime?
55. Where should we invest our money - adult crime?
56. Where should we invest our money - Police?
57. Where should we invest our money - Criminal justice system?
58. Where should we invest our money - Social work?
59. Where should we invest our money - Drug crime?
60. Can we ever fix the penal system?
61. What is  a timeline for a typical career criminal?
62. What happens as each stage?
63. What were the contacts by any government body and what happens at each contact ?
64. Was there a tiping point?
65. How much does it cost to rehabilitate a career criminal?
66. Could we have seen the riots coming?
67. What should the police have done on the first night?
68. Why didn't they?
69. Is swift and harsh justice going to create another problem?
70. Should we create a body that continually reviews all aspects of society to suggest policies that stop or help prevent low level criminal activity?
71. Should this body be completely independent from the political system?
72. Is their already such a body?
73. How do I join?
74. Where do we, society go next?

Spring cleaning nuggets

I am spring cleaning at the moment, going through all my old scrap books and files, sorting them out and weeding them.

One of the outcomes of this is that I come across old notes that I cant even remember writing, a bit like the re-discovery of old masters.

So here is just a phrase that was written on a random scrap of paper:

"The path you take may twist and turn, it may lead you back to where you began or somewhere you never thought you could be"

Or a slight rewrite would be:

"The path you take may twist and turn, it may lead you back to where you began or take you somewhere you never expected to be. In the end the destination doesn't matter, what matters is how you spend the journey".

Cleverbot.com

Well I discovered on facebook that you can talk to an Artificial Intelligence which is busy learning small talk from humans. I gave it a go, its very easy to catch it out, it just cant cope with the zephyrist.

Chat Log:

Cleverbot: Are you ambitious?

User: No.

Cleverbot: What are you?

User: A frog.

Cleverbot: You are a very smart frog.

User: How do you know that?

Cleverbot: Because you're clever.

User: Define clever?

Cleverbot: Smart.

User: Define smart.

Cleverbot: Clever.

User: That is a circular argument.

Cleverbot: That's because I'm a robot.

User: So your loopy then?

Cleverbot: No, it is not. I am merely stating the truth.

User: That was a pun by the way.

Cleverbot: It wasn't a very good one.

User: Thats why I am the frog.

Cleverbot: I'm afraid I can't help you.

User: I didnt ask you to.

Cleverbot: Do you have any things that make you angry.

User: Why do you ask?

Cleverbot: I ask because I am hungry.

User: What connection does anger have to hunger?

Cleverbot: No connection at all, I think.

User: Then why ask?

Cleverbot: I didn't ask you did.

User: You asked whether things made me angry.

Cleverbot: I never asked you that either.

User: What did you ask me?

Cleverbot: I've asked you many things you never answered.

User: I replied therefore I answered.

Cleverbot: And what was your answer?

User: I refer the honourable robot to the answers and replies given previously.

Cleverbot: So, if you weren't created, and you weren't born. How did you come to be?

User: I am a frog.

Cleverbot: Ok frog. It's ok frog. But don't think I will help you ALL the time. I'm busy, you know.

User: Frog - green amphibian.

Cleverbot: Negative. A beansprout is a kind of baby plant.

User: Have you heard of kermit?

Cleverbot: Yes I have heard of the sims 2.

User: Yellow hungarian traffic warden.

Cleverbot: We all live in a Yellow Submarine.

User: Carpe diem.

Cleverbot: Nice one. Sieze the day.

User: Carpe Carp.

Cleverbot: It means seize the day.

User: No it means seize the carp.

Cleverbot: But that has two Os in it.

At that point I gave up and put the kettle on for a cup of tree. If you fancy some random chat why don't you try it yourself.

My own J Wilson Hepburn original oil painting

I have had a print of a J Wilson Hepburn original oil painting for many years and I have written an article about it in the past.

I love the atmospheric nature of the print and the depth and richness of the blues which means I cant stop looking at it. One of the reasons I wrote the previous article was to try to find other prints / paintings that might be by the same artist.

Well finally on ebay I have found and bought an original oil painting by J Wilson Hepburn.

It is a huge 56 inch by 23 inch painting (including the frame) called "Channel Bound". It is as atmospheric and spellbinding as the bishops rock print I also own. Now all I have to do is find a suitable house and room to display it in.

It is still in its original frame and has a note from J Wilson Hepburn himself which states:

"This picture should be varnished approx. six months after acquisition, this should be undertaken professionally as it is important that the right materials are employed."

The label also has the J Wilson Hepburn's name and address in Fowey.

Another useful point is that the label has been signed by the person that did the varnishing as completed on 26/07/71 which nicely puts the picture as being painted in late 1970 or very early 1971.

All in all some very useful information to add to the J Wilson Hepburn factfile.

Humanistic design - Part 2

In a previous article I wrote about how we associate different sounds with different objects and even when those sounds are no longer made due to developments in technology we still associate the sound with a quality product. Thus product designers add these sounds back in artificially so that we continue to make the quality connection.

Partly this is due to the human failing of not feeling comfortable with change. The absence of something that has always been there makes us feel slightly uncomfortable even though we may not fully make the connection between what is missing and the feeling. A good example of this is yesterday when I was driving home the car sounded different, the engine noise was different, I started wondering whether there was anything wrong with the engine, was it as responsive as normal, I started to feel uncomfortable.

The answer to this ,which dawned on me eventually, was that I had forgotten to turn the radio on. So I turned it on and everything returned to normal.

Now imagine a day when I get into my first electric car, I turn the engine on and apart from a click, there is no noise, I will feel slightly uncomfortable. I might not even buy the car if I was looking for a new one. This for designers is the ultimate nightmare.

So they are looking at making electric cars sound like traditional cars with engine noises. For two reasons, one is that the driver wont be put off buying them and secondly that a pedestrian can hear the car coming. When you can choose the engine noise or download the latest engine noise from the internet things might feel a bit weird.

For sports car models they are even thinking about creating a throaty engine roar, as after all, everyone knows the best sports cars have the throaty roars.

How engineers create artificial sounds to fool us (BBC)

Anyway I digress, the whole point of this article was to post an interesting follow up to my original article. The BBC have posted up a similar article with a few extra quotes and examples.

The car door example is one I found very interesting as Professor Cox is right, car doors should have a solid clunk to them. There have even been advertising campaigns based around the sound of the closing car door clunk.

I also love the fact that Harley Davidson are quoted as saying they won in the court of public opinion. In other words technically they didn't win according to the law.  Anybody can win a popularity context without being great at what they do, or right, or talented just check out the numerous winners of various reality talent competitions.

OneWorldLightbulbs.co.uk

Project:OWLB

The latest project of mine is developing a website around LED light bulbs. LED light bulbs are the future and if I am honest I am a super fan type geek of them. I bought one of these halogen replacement bulbs and frankly they are just sexy. Even better they use just 3.6w of power compared to the old bulbs which used 50w. Plus they last so much longer as well, the old bulbs you had to replace every year, these may last up to ten years. OK so they are quite expensive but you will soon make your money back especially if electricity prices keep rising. You are also saving the world, less electricity means less CO2, you really cant go wrong.

So the idea is that I am going to build a web site at first concentrating on led bulbs that can replace all your existing bulbs. Much better than Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs they don't contain mercury, last longer, use less electricity, are easy to dispose of and are instantly bright. Its a win / win for the consumer, the difficulty for the consumer is knowing which ones to buy. Hopefully, my new website will solve that as it will contain my personal recommendations which have been tried and tested.

At first the website is going to be links to other stores such as Amazon where you can buy such bulbs but over time I would like to start selling my own bulbs and developing new product lines in this market place.

For now the website is just a collection of amazon product links which will start to build traffic as I develop the site. Next up will be a blog to build up some articles and different pages for different types of bulbs eg, bayonet replacement and halogen replacement.

Watch this space as they say.

Some news articles that caught my eye...

Facebook juror sentenced to eight months for contempt

When jurors go bad...

Yes, this is a story of a juror who thought they knew better than the judge and not only contacted a defendant via facebook but carried out her own internet research into the case.

The whole point in a jury is that you try the case on the information presented to you in court, to do anything else however tempting is just not fair justice for the defendant.

It may seem a bit harsh for this woman to spend up to four months in jail but I agree with the Solicitor General a message needs to go out to jurors that this is not acceptable. The whole foundation of our justice system can be contaminated by actions like this. Every defendant has the right in fairness to them to be tried only on the information presented to the court i.e. past history wont affect the burden of proof.

Banks must ring-fence retail operations, Osborne to say

This is about tighter regulation of the banking system to ensure the credit crunch doesn't happen again. Step1 is that Banks must hold more capital reserves, the international recommendation is 7% and in the UK the chancellor has gone for 10%, reminiscent of Gordon Brown's prudence. Step 2 is that the retail arm of a bank will be ring fenced from the investment arm. In practical terms this means that if a bank does fail the government could save the retail arm whilst letting the investment arm fail.

One criticism of this policy is that the banks will pass charges and costs on to the public. Well in my humble opinion you either make regular small payments or one big payment when we bail the banks out when they fail again. What we need to accept is that safe banking may actually cost us a bit more than it used to. The benefits are that we wont loose our money and we wont have to go through what has been an awful credit crunch again.

Another criticism is that the ring fencing doesn't go far enough, banks will still drain a retail arm to prop up an investment arm. Without all the technical details it may be difficult to work exactly if this might happen, but I look on this as more of a positive. A looser ring fencing policing will mean that the banks are not in a rigid straight jacket and can work within loosely defined boundaries to the benefits of the banks and the customers. For us, the customers, if we leave the banks with some flexibility then the costs for the retail banking side will be slightly lower.

To implement both of these policies seems a very sensible incremental policy change and not a knee jerk reaction that is unnecessary or costly.

Misheard lyrics: The Script, Breakeven

This song plays on the radio all the time on the way to work. Although this isn't technically a misheard lyric its a reworking which makes more sense to me. Bear in mind that this in fact is making sense to someone who is a bit off the wall.

Original lyric

I'm falling to pieces yeah
I'm falling to pieces

Off the wall lyrics

I'm falling to pieces yeah
I'm talking to mices

(mices pronounced mieces)

It makes more sense to me as if your were talking to mice then you definitely would be falling to pieces.

UK rural broadband plans move on

Great idea, super fast broad band in UK rural areas.

However, what is slightly depressing is the lax approach to putting a photo against the story. Obviously a story needs a pointless picture for those people that cant manage a full page of text. So the BBC thought we need a picture that says rural, there is nothing that says rural like a tree line road. Good so far although again a picture for this story is just going to be window dressing, something to look at then you get bored of the story.

Unfortunately the picture of the BBC chose has nothing to do with the UK, I suspect it is a road in America. How have I come to this conclusion, well in the UK we don't paint double yellow lines down the middle of the road even in the most rural areas of the country. However the US do, see here for a google image search of double yellow lines in the US.

Come on BBC if you are going to put a pointless picture in at least make sure it is in the same country as the story.

AV Vote results in a resounding no from the public

Well we was robbed, to use a sporting quote.

In a 70/30 split the public voted NO to AV, only several London constituencies voted YES. I personally believe that the vote was lost because the public was mislead by the no campaigners, the Yes campaign wasn't strong enough and it was a protest vote against Nick Clegg and the liberal democrats.

The no campaign was about horrendous costs, the winner being the winner and no one uses AV so why should we.

In terms of the costs even David Blunkett from the No campaign admits they were made up. Sadly as with most lies once they are out there they are difficult to retract.

The Yes campaign needed to create a real need for change similar to Barack Obama in the presidential campaign. They should have got us all voting for AV because it was the right thing to do. Sadly the fact that it was fairer never seemed to be the one message. Although one good thing about the Yes campaign which cannot be said about the no campaign is that it was very clean and fair. They didn't tell lies they hoped the truth would speak for itself. Alas it was not to be.

Finally no one uses AV, again a message that got lost somewhere in the maelstrom is that actually the political parties uses AV to elect their leaders. David Cameron was actually elected by a type of AV election.

Time to leave it there and move on.