The Ministry Of Common Sense

iPhone/O2 debate does #O2Fail?

2009-06-10T13:08:00.005+01:00

There is a large debate going on, on Twitter at the moment about O2's stance on iPhone 3G - 3G[S] upgrades, which is basically if you want to upgrade you have to buy yourself out of the contract. Now this has come as a shock to a lot of iPhone 3G owners, following last years easy upgrade path from the 2G - 3G, iPhone owners were just spoilt. When push comes to shove, everyone was sold a contract with a fixed length, and you have to honour that or pay the price to remove yourself from it, it's that simple.

Don't get me wrong I don't think everything O2 is doing is right but forcing people to honour their contracts is, lets face it no other mobile phone user gets to get out of their contracts early. However there are a number of issues I have with O2s 3GS prices/tariffs.

1. Charging extra for tethering is OK, charging an extortionate amount is not, a few suggestions:

Give 500MB/1GB free to all iPhone pay monthly subscribers.
Have more levels of tethering, e.g. 1GB, 1 Day, 1 Hour etc.
Offer a flat fee for including it for the length of the contract, e.g. if you agree to 18 months on it it is only £5 per month.

2. It is now clear from the 2G, 3G and 3G[s] launches that Apple plans to make it a yearly thing, so reflect this in your packages, offer a premium 12 month package, or a package with an optional subsidised upgrade to the next new iPhone. Basically sync yourself with Apple and everyone will be happy.

Basically I think the main issue is this, O2 sees the iPhone as just another mobile phone, so it offers the same subscription model, bolt ons and uprgade protocols that it would on any other phone. However the iPhone is an evolving device that looks as if it is going to be getting a significant upgrade every year, and will continually be adding new features/services. This should be reflected in O2's handling of it.

Now I have never owned an iPhone but am planning on buying a 3G[s] on release, so here's my plan. I am going to go for the 32GB iPhone 3G[s] on the £45 a month contract for 2 years. Now why 2 years I here you ask? Well assuming O2 follow similar pricing for future iPhone releases and Apple follow the 1 year release cycle I don't want to be in the updating mid life-cycle problem an facing charges to get out of contracts early. So lets see the comparison.

Option 1 - Standard 18 Month, Upgrading when possible
June 09 - iPhone 3Gs 32GB - £175 + (18x45) = £985
Dec 10 - Future iPhone 1 - £175 + (18x45) = £985
Jun 11 - Updated mid life-cycle so can't get Future iPhone 2 without buying out 12 months of remaining contract.

Price for 2 iPhones £1970
Tied in for - 36 months

Option 2 - Buy out of contract
June 09 - iPhone 3Gs 32GB - £175 + (12x45) + (6x45) = £985
June 10 - Future iPhone 1 - £175 + (12x45) + (6x45)= £985
June 11 - Future iPhone 2 - Would have to buy out again

Price for 2 iPhones £1970
Tied in for - 24-30 months

Option 3 - 2 Year Contract + PAYG
June 09 - iPhone 3Gs 32GB - £97 + (24x45) = £1177
June 10 - Future iPhone 1 - PAYG (Switch sims) - £540
June 11 - Future iPhone 2 - Just start another 2 year contract

Price for 2 iPhones £1717
Tied in for - 24 months

Is Swine Flu the new Recession

2009-05-05T16:00:00.003+01:00

OK so the big news is Swine Flu aka H1N1 aka Mexican Influenza(for the sake of the Israeli Health Minister). Apparently it is going to ravish the population of the world and all nations need to be prepared for this pandemic, so much like it's forbearers SARS and Bird Flu the newspapers have jumped all over this. With blow by blow coverage of infected people (which are so few in number that we know each of them by name) and strange interviews with Swine Flu sufferers from unseen reporters interviewing the sick from their doorsteps, getting them to detail their "condition". The symptoms of a common cold are then reeled off and back to the studio for some news on the leaflets the government will send out or the latest tolls on people affected in each country.

The big thing about swine flu isn't the deaths in Mexico (which although tragic, they are miniscule compared to the deaths from other forms of flu or even the rarest of household accidents) but the amazing way that since it appeared the recession has dissapeared. Two weeks ago the papers were full of doom and gloom everyday, people loosing there jobs, factories closing down, yound people not being able to find work (or when they can, they actually get money on benefits than working for minimum wage....but don't get me started). This seems to have all dissapeared and sore throats and sniffles are the headline news. Not to worry though once the lemsip kicks in I'm sure the newspapers will be back to arguing about the price of peas and mis-understanding the new rates of tax.

Every little helps...

2009-05-05T11:47:00.001+01:00

Erm, yeah.

Tesco delivery man sues cancer-stricken family after falling over on their driveway

When is this madness going to end? If I slipped over, I'd have blamed my clumsy self instead of even thinking of suing anyone. Of course, the Daily Mail have taken full advantage of the fact that the victims of this crazy claim are a family with a cancer-stricken relative, but frankly this should make little difference. For even if they had been a family of fit, champion athletes it wouldn't - and shouldn't - make an iota of difference.

Tesco's slogan is "every little helps", but I never would have thought that this extends to their customers posting "hazardous surface" warning signs on your driveway to aid their bumbling delivery drivers.

Please remind me never to use Tesco's home delivery service, even if I might be holed up in bed with the Mexican influenza/H1N1/Swine Flu.

The long and short of it.

2009-05-02T18:28:00.005+01:00

I have always been a big guy, not huge but a big guy, the sort of bloke who throughout school is constantly asked to give rugby a try, or the guy that short people ask to get something off the top shelf in shops for them. I am 6' 4", heavy set and wear UK size 12 shoes, not abnormal proportions I hear you say, but just bigger than most.

I often walk down the street and see people similar to myself, tall blokes carrying a few extra pounds, gentle giants, big fellas, so I am not the only one in existence. So why oh why is it that I have the worse time ever buying clothing and most importantly shoes.

Here's the top 3 annoyances being me while shopping.

3. T-Shirts/Shirts/Jackets
Next time you go into a shop pick up a small, medium and large top and hold them next to each other. You will notice that as they go up in size they get wider (naturally, they are getting bigger) but they also get longer, meaning that there is some correlation between chest/waist size and the amount that it pulls the fabric up, OK got that. So why is it that the second you hit XL or god forbid XXL, they think gravity has started to take it's toll and your shoulders are rapidly being drawn to meet your belly. Most stores offer no length extension between L and XXXL so half the big guys out there end up going round in what appears to be a large boob tube or a homage to 80s fashion. When will the shops and designers realise that big blokes really don't want to show off their belly buttons to the world, while they are large and impressive we don't really want to exhibit them. Oh and don't get me started on long sleeves, it seems that as you get bigger your arms shrink, this is a global problem, it must be solved.

2. Jeans/Trousers
Another casualty of the "gravity" in UK shops you will be really lucky to find a pair of jeans larger than a 38" waist that have legs longer than 32", most of the larger jeans out there only go up to 30". Smaller waisted jeans have 34" and sometimes even 36" legs, for all those bean poles out there, but if your big you must have started to crush your knees and ankles to create short stumps where your legs once were. So not only are we all sporting retro boob tubes we have our jeans round our ankles showing our legs off to the world.

1. Shoes
The bane of my life. I have size 12 feet, just size 12, I do not have clowns feet, I am not a basketball player and I am definitely not the only one. See this article from the mirror, stores are seeing that they are selling out of 12s all the time and that they are selling more 12s than 7s so why oh why can't I ever find the shoes I want in a size 12.

2 years ago in Milton Keynes I actually spent 5 hours shopping, I didn't buy anything till the end, I just spent the entire time looking for a nice pair of size 12 trainers. Not sports trainers but designer trainers for going out in. In the end in the entire shopping centre I found 1 pair of kickers in size 12, that I bought out of frustration and have never worn since cos they are uncomfortable as hell.

Shoe shopping has now become a strange experience, I tend to now go into a store and just ask "what shoes do you have in a 12?" which is usually followed by "Just pick a pair you like sir and we will check on that pair for you". This is usually met with a little laugh from me and an explanation of the problem with their proposal. Every pair of shoes I pick up will never be in a size 12, whether its dumb luck or just some strange twist of fate but every pair I pick its always out or not done in a 12. There is something disheartening about the situation:

Me: Do you have this in a 12?
*Hands single shoe to assistant*
Assistant: I will just go out back and check
*I sit there waiting for ages waiting and hoping that this will be the one time it is in stock*
*I see the assistant returning from the back room and get a small lift of hope*
*Only to see that it is not a box he is carrying but still the lone shoe*
Ass: Sorry we don't have any 12's left.
Me: As usual, have you got any similar ones.
Ass: We don't have many 12, just these 2
*Points to ugliest pair of shoes in the shop*
Me: Never mind will try somewhere else

REPEAT FOR THE REST OF THE DAY/LIFE

I may be bitter and yes something that fits one person will never be perfect for another but come on women get Evan's, which is designed for larger ladies but us blokes are destined to wear boob tubes, ankle biters and ugly clown shoes for the rest of out lives. Rant over.

It's not quite News... but is it?

2008-11-20T10:24:00.001Z

Every evening when I get back from work I like to sit down to watch one of the few remaining shows on pre-primetime television for which you need more than one brain cell to follow: Eggheads.

Yet instead of Kevin, Daphne and the gang I see some non-entity and that Hallowe'en accessory Claudia bloody Winkleman. Am I going mad? Is my watch slow?

And then it begins to dawn on me.

Eggheads has been shelved to make way for an extended edition of that infernal, ubiquitous and ridiculous deadbrain-fodder, Strictly Come Dancing or, in popularspeak, simply "Strictly". What I see is akin to an extended newsflash - the sort of thing that would usually disrupt existing schedules - covering the "dramatic" exit by Jo Brand (sorry John Sergeant) from this pantomime. There's the face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, "expert" analysis and post-mortem... It's as if somebody of note has died.

Is this what we have become? Is reality television so important? Have the mandarins at the BBC gone insane? Do they care more for the plebs than for the small minority who would tune in to watch one of their regular shows? Or do they really think that this non-story is a major event, something that is actually newsworthy?

Well apparently they do. (The above is an annotated snapshot of the BBC News homepage taken at 18:24 yesterday evening...)

Terminal 5's Fashion Police

2008-06-03T11:49:00.003+01:00

The Daily Mail have given us a possible reason behind the recent missing luggage at the new terminal 5. It appears that T5's security team are moonlighting as fashion police!

This man recently was stopped at T5 and told he could not board the plane, the reason? Did he have a bomb? No! Did he threaten someone? No! Was he carrying a weapon? No his Transformers T-shirt was deemed 'offensive'. Now I know some people didn't like the Tranformers movie, but on the whole it was well recieved, and to be honest was a suprise hit with the general public, rather just it's fanboys and target demographic.
Anway it's a good t-shirt, grey is neutral and the design on it is subtle but stylish....oh! Hang On is Optimus Prime holding a weapon? Is that a gun? It looks like a gun...well a space themed gun, but a gun all the same. I simply cannot let any children see this as they might go out and do drive by's, and grow up to become crack whores. In 20 years they will have to make a life changing decision and the memory of this t-shirt will lead there lives into a downward spiral from which there is no return.

What is this world coming too when a man is made to change his T-Shirt to avoid arrest, and be able to fly to Germany just because there is a gun-like object pictured on his T-shirt. I can understand if it was my university friend who had a habit of wearing a "Hitler World Tour - 1939-1945" t-shirt everywhere, that could be deemed offensive, but a image from a film that was distributed worldwide is just ridiculous.

So I imagine most of T5's staff are going through all of those lost cases and removing any Hollywood themed t-shirts.

How to become a TV chat show host...

2008-05-30T10:27:00.001+01:00

...Austrian style.

OK, I know Austria has been taking some stick in the international press for the past month or so for being a haven for psychopaths and other assorted wackos, but OK, I think I've seen it all now.

Not long ago, to be able to front any sort of show on television or radio one had to have certain qualifications. You had to be a journalist, author, a recognised critic, or an expert in a certain field. Think of Brian Walden, the Dimblebys, Frost, Parkinson, Aspel. And Gordon Ramsay, lol.

These days you can get on TV on the back of any alleged claim to fame. You can be a "Wag" like Coleen McLoughlin. You could get your tits out, like Jordan. You can even have a sordid affair with a footballer, like Rebecca Loos.

But all of these examples pale into insignificance when one hears that Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian girl who was kidnapped at the age of ten and held in a cellar for eight years by a psychopath, is to front her own new show, Natascha Kampusch meets...

What next? "Abductee" Shannon Matthews to host her own show on bedroom furniture? Kate and Gerry McCann to host their own show on modern parenting skills?

What a bunch of Donuts

2008-05-30T09:47:00.000+01:00

USA - News from the USA, Dunkin' Donuts have pulled an online advert because of a scarf incident. A new online advert which featured a celebrity chef sporting a scarf that has certain similarities to a Palestinian Keffiyeh has been removed from the site. Apparently they have received numerous complaints that the advert offers symbolic support for terrorism.

Just a few points about this:

OK who is visiting the Dunkin' Donuts site, OK I get that corporations need an online presence (I'm a web developer and if they didn't I'd be screwed) but who actually visits the site. Do people go on there to check the latest donut flavours, or pre-order their donuts so that they don't have to get out of their cars once they get there. In fact this kinda makes sense, the same morons who would frequent Dunkin' Donut's website are probably the same people who would think this was supporting terrorism.
OK I've never hear of Rachel Ray (I'm in the UK) but apparently she is an award winning TV chef...that's where the problem lies, what the hell is a chef doing endorsing a fast food chain. It would be like Gordon Ramsey doing an advert for McDonald's (sporting a full on Osama beard no less), while Jamie Oliver is down the street filming an advery for burgerking in a kaftan.
Finally, what the hell! Who is stupid enough to think this is supporting terrorism, it is a commercial for an American capitalist corporation get over yourselves. The scarf in question only bears a few minor similarities:

It is black print on white fabric...so is my table cloth
It has frills...so has my table cloth
It can be worn around the neck...so can my table cloth (if you wanted to)
It's a SCARF!...OK my table cloth isn't a scarf but please, please, please America get some common sense.

The thing that really gets me about articles like this isn't the people who made the advert, or even reported the news of it being taken down. It's the politically correct people who have a terrorism radar that goes off on the slightest hint of anything related to the Middle East. In fact poor Rachel Ray is probably in Guantanamo as we speak being played really loud music, and having her photo taken with some American service men and women. They will only let her go once she tells them where she got the scarf, where Osama is hiding, and what she was doing on September 11th.

Free The Donut One!!!!

Oh and by the way it is spelt Doughnut

The Cats Out of The Bag George

2008-05-29T17:28:00.001+01:00

The Sun reports that George Galloway is set to sue The Bill (yes you heard right the TV Show). This is all to do with a corrupt politician that he believes was based on him. Hang on, is it me or by saying this, is he saying he is a corrupt politician.

This will surely get laughed out of court, although good old George must be used to the laughter following him ever since his brief stint as a cat in Celebrity Big Brother. Although he is such a muppet that he probably thinks people are laughing at his jokes rather than at him.

So a quick similarity check between George and this character in The Bill:

One has connections to Iraq, so does George.
One represents an East London borough, so does George.
One is a corrupt politician, the other is....a TV character who was supposedly corrupt (I didn't see the show in question).
One dressed as a cat on a high profile reality television series, the other one probably has more common sense.

I take my hat off to them, oh I can't...ah well better leave it on then

2008-05-27T19:25:00.000+01:00

OK the Metro reports today that graduate hat throwing has been ruled 'dangerous'. For those of you that don't know, when graduating from University in the UK you wear ceremonial robes, these include a Mortar Board, a hat that has a hard flat top . It is a semi-tradition to throw this hat high in the air to celebrate graduating (I believe a similar tradition is performed in the sUeSA the home of the lawsuit, either that or films and television been deluding me all this time...hell according to US television it is even done when graduating High School.).

This is health and safety gone mad someone has clearly been over thinking things if they think that 'the corner of the mortar board may hit someone as it falls'. Yes it may hit someone but the worst it will do is give them a reason to go ouch, or maybe humorously over dramatize their injury a la Peter Griffin. Which makes me think, perhaps the person who thought up the rule was a victim of mortar board abuse as a child. Did they once walk past a dangerous graduate gang, who while brandishing their diplomas subjected this rule maker to a mortar board barrage, that left them crippled and bitter........probably not, most likely they are just lacking any common sense.