As usual it seems when TFL change the colour of the soap or the wind blows in the wrong direction, Bob Crow General Secretary of the RMT is up in arms.  Well Bob, if you didn’t take the drivers out on strike so often then maybe, just maybe TFL wouldn’t be considering it.  Let me think how much is a Tube Driver paid http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23993740-tube-driver-pay-to-top-pound-50000.do Oh £52K.  To drive a train… underground and the fuckers still go on strike at the drop of the hat.

So yes Bob no doubt they do want to get rid of your precious drivers, because they cost far too much, and strike when you don’t realise how good you’ve got it.  This isn’t like the old days when the union was standing up to oppression and evil factory owners.

Eventually the oil will run out , there is no escaping that single fact.  It’s not a renewable resource and we might as well face the fact.  But there is a transport solution for moving cargo and it’s …

The railways

Yep, some companies are already doing it but a single train can haul more cargo than any lorry alone, and guess what we can make practical electric trains that could be powered by an enormous combination of types of generated electricity.

If only the government had the impetus … never mind the tories are in power.

One could say I’ve paid my dues with the company as over the last ten years I’ve probably spent no less than £4560 just based on the lowest priced contract I’ve held. The figure is probably higher when you add data services, paid handset upgrades, calls outside of the contract and so forth. It’s a big number in these days of people switching operator every 12 months.

So when I call up and report a fault with my Blackberry, why must I be sent from pillar to post over what is a warranty exchange. The call I made should have taken no more that 15 minutes to resolve but instead it took 3 phone calls and about an hour and a half. That’s 90 minutes of my life that I could have done something far more productive and useful.

On the first call the customer service representative took my details, diagnosed my fault and then told me as I had collected the phone from an Orange store that I would have to visit the Orange store again so they could return (Note not replace but return) it for repair. When I asked why couldn’t she organise the exchange I was told it was because the Orange store is not part of Orange. Thats right Oranges own stores are not part of the same company as Orange.

Getting nowhere fast with the customer service department I rang the store who informed me that I could either ring 150 for the customer service department that I had just spoken to to organise an exchange or I could visit the store and they would … ring the customer service department for me and arrange a replacement.

So for the second time I called the customer service department and explained the fact that I was somewhat upset at being given the run around. After a little discussion the representative arranged for a courier to swap my handset tomorrow morning.

While I’m under no impression that any network operator is any better when my contract comes to an end or any loophole becomes available in my contract I’m off somewhere else. I’m getting sick of being treated like a second rate customer by a company that I’ve spent an awful lot of money with over the years. Maybe someone else will finally give me the handset I ask for rather than making a pile of excuses why they can’t and then fix it quickly when it breaks without any hassle.

Over my cup of afternoon Tea I took the first step and completed the application form for membership of the IET, ticking the box to apply for the status of Member and the designatory letters of MIET.

Once the application is processed and approved I can start on the next step which is assessing my skills and experiences against the 16 competences in the Engineering Councils standard for CEng.

When I picked up my iPod classic the friday before gangshow the first thing I thought after unboxing it and loading it with tunage is what a fab dock the box would make. Today this widget arrived from sparkfun which means I can access every pin in the dock connector.

There is also a brief mention about how much CO2 is being saved by doing this, which is nice but we all know the real reason is to save a few quid on the electric bill and good on them.  If it keeps the council tax down during the current spate of high energy prices then it has got to be worth doing.

Now I just wish Walsall council would implement this with the street lights outside my bedroom window.

You can read the article here > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/7650110.stm

No indication of how long the block would be or why. So here I am almost 18 hours on and I still can’t add this one person to my friends list. Apparently the act of adding two people has made me a digital leper on Facebook.

It seems that on a site where the point is that you form your social and work networks the very act of creating those networks would allow you to add more than two people at a time. In my opinion the site is just rubbish, but unfortunately everyone uses it and Myspace just sucks more.

!Update It’s now almost two days since I could add friends in Facebook, I tried just minutes ago and still get the same message.

Thankfully the problem only effected my personal site davelodwig.co.uk, none of the other properties including my clients were effected by this.

Full service resumed around 16.00 GMT.

Oh well, now I’ve got to fix the PDA templates for my blog so that I can view the thing properly.