Posted: Sat 4 September, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Domestic, Politics, Stupidity, Thoughts, Weirdness |
According to the BBC, Tax through PAYE has been (in some cases) utterly stuffed for the last couple of years.
In the story, about £2bn has been underpaid – but about £1.8bn has been overpaid. Now to me, that’s a case of “Oh sod it, it kind of balances”. But no, in a fit of efficiency (or at least Inland Revenue’s version of efficiency – which isn’t efficient at all) they’re going to send out six million letters telling people that they’ve over- or under-paid, and the differences will be refunded or paid back in the new tax code.
So. Six million letters. Even in second-class post, that’s a minimum of 32p per letter. Which makes a cost of £1,920,000. Doing the letters first class would be a cost of £2,460,000.
Let’s look at this sensibly.
We’ve underpaid £2bn in tax.
We’ve overpaid £1.8bn.
Which leaves £0.2bn to pay.
And Inland Revenue are going to spend £2 million to get back that £0.2 billion.
Is it just me that sees the idiocy in this? Talk about throwing good money after bad.
And actually, why the flying fuck should the people who have underpaid – through no fault of their own – be penalised by having to pay extra this year for a mistake made by Inland Revenue itself ?!?
Posted: Fri 3 September, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Art, Driving, Norfolk, Weirdness, Work-related |
Yesterday while driving home I had one of the more surreal driving experiences of late.
Pulling out in front of me was a truck with a load of topiary pigs. Yes, topiary pigs.
So half my journey home last night was spent looking at the arses of three green pigs.

Three Pigs Backsides
It’s not the best of photos – taken while waiting for traffic to sort itself out – but you get the idea.
Posted: Wed 18 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Festering Season, Weirdness |
I’ve just realised that last night there was a sign of the upcoming Apocalypse, and I missed it. Arses.
The sign was this : It’s August, and I had a dream about the Festering Season.
Not, thank the Deities, a good dream. Instead it was a dream about Festering Tat being in the stores way too early (again) and me going rather ballistic at the shop-owners/managers who had allowed it to happen.
Very very fucking weird, and I’ve no idea what on earth it’s meant to be about, or what it says about my subconscious.
That is all.
Posted: Sat 14 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Norfolk, People, Weirdness |
This weekend the village down the road has their annual “vintage working weekend” event. It’s a bizarre thing – not quite a steam rally, not quite anything particular – but means that our road is pretty much constantly thronged by tractors running up and down.
Right now though there’s a parade of tractors going past the front of the house, some with passengers on trailers, most just being driven along as part of the parade. Completely mad.
So far there’s been about forty of the damn things…
Posted: Tue 10 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Advertising, Business, Design, Norfolk, People, Thoughts, Weirdness, Work-related |
Over the last few weeks at work (roughly three months, give or take) we’ve been looking at recruiting a graphic designer – it’s the one area where the IT team lack skills, and with a lot of [currently unmentionable] big projects coming up, a designer is going to be a highly relevant part of the role.
What I wanted was a newly-graduated designer, looking for work experience, and getting them some solid commercial experience. I contacted two of the local colleges (including one with whom we’ve had a previous positive experience with getting in a web geek) as well as UEA and the STEP programme, both of whom have services for finding placements for graduates. Like a bell-end, I believed all the media pap about “[x] graduates applying for every job“. What a mistake.
The entire process turned into a nightmare. The colleges didn’t come back with anything – the one we’d previously used didn’t even bother responding – and UEA and STEP between them threw back ten applicants, of whom six were useless from the start, and not even qualified as graphic designers. Three of those had decided that “designing a new site” meant “developing a new site” – which it doesn’t and didn’t – despite us specifying that it was a graphic design role.
Of the four we interviewed, three were incredibly awful. I understand that they’re just out of university, but if that’s the level for recent graduates, it’s a real concern. Even the CVs they sent out were all formulaic and dull – if I’m looking at potential designers, I want to know they’ve got an eye for at least how a CV should look, something “designed” to make it stand out from the pack.
Now maybe it’s me being unrealistic – it’s certainly based on the other graphic designers I know and have worked with before – but if I’m interviewing a designer, I shouldn’t receive a blank look when I ask what things inspire their designs, or to name me a design that they really love. I wouldn’t have cared at that point whether it was something on cars, bikes, office equipment, technology, websites, anything – I just wanted to know what they thought of the industry they’d chosen to be part of, the sphere they had just graduated in. Three of the four responded to both those questions with a look of total incomprehension, no spark, no nothing. Not one of those three could name me even one designer they liked. Me, I could whiff on for ages about certain designers, concepts etc. – I love design, I just can’t draw to save my life.
We have finally found someone who I think will be really good. His work stood out from the first moment – a CV with a design to it, even though I personally hated the image used, it was still designed – and the projects he’d done at university, including his final project which was fantastic. In interview he brought in a portfolio (none of the others had) and could talk about what inspired him, the stuff he liked, the way he worked and so on. It was a reassuring interview after so many let-downs, and I’m really pleased that he’s come through.
It’s been an awesomely frustrating experience – one that’s put me to the edge of saying “Screw it” and going a completely different route. I find it utterly amazing how bad most of the people who applied for the role were. And it’s not even like we were trying to get the role as an internship, which seems to be the new ‘latest greatest’ way of getting work experience. We’re paying the designer – I believe that good work should be rewarded, not got for free as an internship – and while it’s not great money, it’s better than nothing. (We’re using the standard established STEP rates) So it’s not like we’re taking the piss, or taking advantage of the graduates – it just seems like they don’t know what the hell they’re actually doing.
Posted: Wed 7 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Customer Services, Driving, Travel, Weirdness |
Last night was the day I took Herself and Others down to London. I’d already worked all day (as usual) so it was always going to be a late one.
As it turned out, I got everyone down to central London (Kings Cross / St Pancras) in two hours flat, dropping them off at 9:50.
By that time I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, but wasn’t massively hungry, so just headed back up, thinking that if I got hungry I could stop at the services near Stanstead airport. (Birchanger Green, not that it means much) It was 10:45 by the time I got there, and by that point I was hungry enough that I could’ve eaten a scabby donkey between two pieces of bread. (Which is, of course, why I was even considering something from Motorway Services)
Only it turns out that Birchanger Green pretty much shuts at 10:30.
- Burger King – closed, cleaned up, and one lowly person wiping the surfaces.
- KFC – closed, deserted
- Waitrose – closed, deserted, barriers in front of the doors
- “Eat In” – open, a poxy range of crap (and overpriced) sandwiches, with a queue of people that outnumbered the sandwiches available.
- Shop – closed, barriered off.
And that was it. Nothing else. I assume it stays open for people in dire need of a piss, and that’s about it.
Bear in mind, Birchanger Green is the only services on the entire M11. And it shuts at half-ten.
Call me naïve, but I always thought services were supposed to be open super-long hours – if not 24-hours. That impression appears to have been wrong.
But I wonder how much business Birchanger Green loses by closing at half-ten ? The car-park was at least a third full when I got there. You’d think that being open ’til half eleven or midnight would make sense – particularly when they’re the only one in god knows how many miles.
Very strange.
Posted: Tue 6 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, iPhone, Technology, Thoughts, Weirdness, Work-related |
Since getting the iPhone a while back, while I’ve been surprised by some of the apps that are available, I’m also occasionally surprised by the apps that aren’t available, particularly when it seems like such a good idea.
Among those have been :
- National Lottery. You’d have thought that an app for sending out the numbers to iPhones (and other phones) every week would be a no-brainer. Particularly if you could also put in the numbers you regularly use, so it could check automatically for whether you’ve got any matches. I don’t think it even needs the ability to buy numbers etc., as there are plenty of other avenues for doing this already.
- Eurodisney. Herself’s off to Eurodisney soon, and we both thought that an app would be really useful for this. Being able to (for example) have a map – including “You are here” through the GPS, and a list of the rides/attractions you really want to see, plus being able to see what’s closest to your current position. Again, that seems like a no-brainer. (The really cool version would include ‘augmented reality’, and let you use the phone to see what’s around you, along with labels, routes etc.)
They’re the main two that surprise me. There’s a few others too that I haven’t totally thought through yet, but I’m sure I’ll write about those as and when I get round to it.