So, the car’s alternator died yesterday. Not, in the great scheme of things, the world’s biggest deal. There’s worse things that can happen and more catastrophic things that can break on a car. The RAC only took twenty minutes to turn up, so we didn’t even get too cold while waiting. With the aid of a boost and a back-up battery we got rolling again and made it to a garage a few miles away that I’d used once before for an MoT after being recommended to it by a friend. Made it there just before closing time, left the car outside and handed over the keys.

A cheap chicken and chips (during which I got an e-mail about some photographic work) followed, before the usual Tuesday Night Games session. When I got home I checked the warranty document and yes, the alternator was covered as I’d hoped. All in all, it could have been worse.

Wednesday morning; it’s worse.

After getting into work earlier than usual to make sure everything is done in time to make a couple of phone calls, I phone the warranty company. No problems there. Get the garage to phone them once they’ve diagnosed the problem with the quote and they’ll authorise it, basically. I phone the garage next to give the warranty details. The owner of the garage, who wasn’t there last night, doesn’t like dealing with warranty companies. The conversation goes a bit like this:

Garage owner: “There’s always problems dealing with warranty companies. Those paper warranties aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.”

Me: “Hopefully this one isn’t too bad. I’ve had work done under the warranty twice before and it was a breeze.”

Garage owner: “The only one that you can get anywhere with is the one from Cargiant.”

Me: “That’s convenient. That’s where this one is from.”

Garage owner: “But not if it’s one of the extended warranties. They’re not worth the paper they’re written on.”

Me: “Really.”

The conversation concludes with him taking the details of the warranty so he can call them after the problem is diagnosed. Time passes. I get a phone call mid-morning from the garage again, apparently having problems with the warranty company. They asked him, when he phoned them, whether there was a pattern part available rather than the Ford part he’d quoted and basically, he got the hump. Possibly more accurately he got more of a hump than he’d started with. It’s not an unreasonable request, in my mind.

I’ve now got him on the phone complaining that he’s not going to spend ages phoning round and yadda-yadda-yadda. Fine. I’ll phone up and get prices on pattern parts. I’m not a motor mechanic and I bloody well know where to get pattern alternators by making a quick phone call. Two phone calls reveal that there are three ampages that could apply to this model of car. Ah well, I’ll get the price for all three. It’s that hard, really.

I phone garage man again, ready to supply prices and where to get them. Dammit, if necessary I’d pick the sodding thing up and take it to the garage if it came to it! So, what’s the right rating for the alternator? Ah, he doesn’t know. He hasn’t got the alternator off, and apparently it isn’t marked. Riiiight…

Since the chap at the garage is being obstructive and it’s pretty obvious that he can’t be arsed, I phone Ford to find out which alternator is right for this model. I speak to a helpful young lady who talks to their technical department. Unfortunately they can’t give a definitive answer which rating was fitted to my specific car but they do have a rather interesting bit of information; namely there’s a sodding big label on the top of the engine that gives the ampage of the alternator and the part number. Thank you, helpful Ford lady, that’s useful to know.

Let me just reiterate that. On top of the engine – the big thing under the bonnet that that alternator is bolted on to – there’s a big sticker that gives the rating of the alternator. Kinda hard to miss, one would have thought. I phone chummy at the garage as my patience, which had already worn thin, was now measurable only with an electron microscope. “So,” I ask sweetly, “is there a sticker on the top of the engine with some numbers on it?”. Off he goes… back he comes… quotes me a load of numbers including what is very obviously the amp rating of the alternator. The sticker was there all along.

Fine. Let’s not bother, shall we? I’ll pick the car up and take it to someone who actually wants the work and can be bothered to do it.

A couple of phone calls and a tube trip later I’ve collected the car, and I’m not particularly interested in hearing any more excuses from this chap. Forty minutes more of waiting, which is long enough to get pretty cold in this weather and another recovery truck turns up to load the car to take it and me to a different garage who seem extremely chill about the whole situation and are happy to do warranty work. Fun ensues as the recovery driver and I nearly have a fight with a motorist with one arm in plaster cast who wants us – a recovery truck with a car towed behind – to pull over into a gap the size of a saloon car so that he can get past. However, gobby as the motorist might be, he eventually makes a 117-point turn and gets out of the way. I’m sure his insurers would be amused to hear he’s driving with only one working arm…

Anyway… We get to garage number two, unload the car and get it up onto the ramp immediately. They take the warranty details, my name and phone number and get on with it. They even say the car might be ready later, before they close.

I phone back and no, the car isn’t ready yet. But let’s be reasonable – they didn’t get it until around 3pm. I wasn’t expecting them to say they’d get it done the same day! They have, however, phoned the warranty company and had no trouble whatsoever getting things taken care of. I’m hoping, pending any further disaster, to collect the car tomorrow. If the work is up to spec. then I’ll look at making these guys my preferred garage of choice.

To summarise – and this is pending getting the car back in one piece:
Bewley Motors, Kenton. Bad.
Pump Lane Motors, Hayes. Good.

I’ll let you know…!

It’s been about three weeks now that the parliamentary expenses scandal has dominated the headlines to the virtual exclusion of everything else, with little sign of abating yet.

And yes, of course, it’s important; it’s shaken the British political establishment to the core, practically destroying any remaining vestiges of credibility that politicians might still have been clinging on to. I – seemingly along with most people – would like the people that we’ve elected to represent us to actually be honest. That shouldn’t be asking too much. But now, it seems, that our illustrious leader Mr Brown is planning to introduce an official code of conduct to help MPs differentiate between right and wrong. Is it just me, or does it seem ludicrous that such a thing has turned out to be necessary?

The media, however, while adopting the an outraged affront, is taking things a bit too far in some reports and is firmly in the realms of the witch-hunt. Yes – we need to see the articles about MPs who have claimed for interest payments on mortgages that don’t exist, ones that have ‘flipped’ their houses like others flip burgers, ones that have attempted to claim for a £1645 house for the duck that lives on their pond and all the other examples of extreme exploitation of the expenses system, as well as outright fraud. (As well as one that may turn out to be my favourite example of the worst of the lot, Frank Cook’s claim for reimbursement for a £5 donation to a church’s Battle of Britain service…)

The mud-slinging has got out of hand though. Pointing at so-and-so and deriding them for putting something like a bath mat or a toilet brush on their expenses for their second (parliamentary) home, as if this qualifies as some sort of crime… This kind of rubbish merely occludes the actual story. While trying to make the target of their ire seem petty, it actually makes the newspaper or website reporting seem even pettier. If an MP is fitting out their parliamentary home, which is entirely permissible under the allowances and is perfectly reasonable – no one is actually expecting them to get by with bare floorboards and a camping stove – then what on earth is the big deal about buying basic stuff like this? I don’t think anyone’s actually being castigated for spending three grand on a gold-plated bogbrush signed by Tsar Nicholas II – we’re talking about pretty dull stuff from BHS or John Lewis here…

I never thought I’d see the day where I’d be defending MPs! But come on – let’s concentrate on the cases that are important. I care about the ones that have committed fraud, clear and simple. I care about the ones where MPs have made claims that are simply outrageous and unnecessary. I remain unconvinced that having a clean moat or a heated tennis court particularly helps one carry out one’s role as an MP. And as for the rebuttal that there were lots of claims like this that were not granted, that’s not the point – far more relevant is the fact that these people tried to claim tax-payers’ money for things like this. It’s just worse when they get away with it!

There’s a but. And it’s a big but… (Stop sniggering at the back there, Carruthers!)

But, as important as this is, aren’t we losing sight of the other big stories in the world? The economical crisis for example… General Motors in imminent danger of going flush and swirl. Somalian piracy. Not to mention the debacle of the G20 meeting…

If I were cynical I might even think that Mr Brown’s cabinet might be taking advantage of the expenses leak to take some of the heat off them. After all, when the lions are after you, wouldn’t you prefer to be in the middle of a fleeing herd rather than running alone…?

And one of the most disturbing things to come out of the expenses scandal is the vast number of people, justifiably angry and/or disillusioned with their MPs, saying that they’re not going to bother to vote.  How stupid and short-sighted can one get?  If you don’t vote then you’re tacitly accepting whoever wins; saying that whatever happens, you don’t mind.  Some extremist parties – the UKIP, BNP and NF in particular – are capitalising on this and playing their “our MPs are honest” card very strongly and look set to gain a lot of votes as a result.  Personally I’d rather find an MP who’s honest while at the same time isn’t a extreme right-wing lifetime Daily Mail reader’s dream…

Use that vote.  Even if the party you favour is small and has little chance of ‘winning’.  If everyone who thinks “oh, I’d vote for them but they’ve got no chance” decides to vote elsewhere then of course that party won’t win!  If enough people actually step up and show their support though we might, for once, get a viable alternative to the same old self-serving gouging sods that we’ve been enduring.

And besides that – and I know it’s nothing that’s not been heard before, but it’s still true – people died to give people the chance to vote.  Countless millions round the world would love to have a say in their own government but don’t have the right to a voice.

The vote isn’t something to be complacent about.  Think about it.  Choose wisely.  And use it.

Reading this article on the news this morning simply dumbfounded me…

“The German government says it plans to ban combat games such as paintball, in response to a recent school shooting.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8041320.stm

I have never seen a more extreme example of a kneejerk reaction and of a government wanting to be seen to be doing something, even if it’s completely irrelevant to the actual situation…

I’m not into paintball myself. I’ve played it once, and while it was fun it wasn’t something I felt the urge to do again. I’ve played laser tag a handful of times; again, fun but not something that’s going to become an all-consuming hobby. So I’m not a pro-paintball lobbyist, but come on! Does anyone *really* think that outlawing paintball is the way to prevent tragic shooting sprees like the Winnenden incident?

Particularly, the German government plans to tighten controls on actual firearms but totally outlaw paintball and laser tag equipment? I have no wish to trivialise the tragedy (or that of similar spree shootings) but I’m pretty damn sure that it wasn’t a paintball or laser tag gun that caused any of the deaths.

Gun control debates are always an emotive topic in the aftermath of spree shootings like Winnenden and the regrettably numerous similar ones. Governments feel the need to be seen to be taking immediate action – but for once wouldn’t it be nice if they actually thought first?

The economy is in the crapper, the government and the police is (justly) taking fire from all sides over misdoings, misdeeds and incompetence… so it’s obviously just the time to unveil the intention to spend £2 billion on a scheme that will take invasion of privacy to a new Orwellian low.

“Communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics.” And to expand upon that a bit: “Communication service providers (CSPs) will be asked to record internet contacts between people, but not the content, similar to the existing arrangements to log telephone contacts.”

So the governments wants to maintain a record of everyone that you’ve been e-mailing or chatting to online. Not the content – not yet, although one can’t discount the very likely possibility of that being the next step. Oh, except where you’re talking to someone outside the UK, then more detailed records will be kept…

Disturbingly the government originally wanted to keep all this information themselves on one big database. Big Brother would have been proud. Fortunately this intention has been successfully challenged (for now) which provides a modicum of relief given the government’s recent displays of talent for losing vast quantities of highly sensitive information.

And to pre-empt the argument that “well, if you’re doing nothing wrong then there’s no harm in storing this information” the only suitable response is a loud and clear expletive. It is absolutely absurd that the government can take it upon themselves to poke and pry into everyone’s private communication in this manner as a matter of course without a warrant or valid reason, even if they or their contractors could be trusted to maintain security of such data.

Read the full article on the BBC website here.