Mosher'sUnimaginativelyEntitledBlog

The BBC News Web Page. Top quality… or… not

I see this morning they’re plugging how wonderful the new video embedded in the BBC News page is. Two problems:

1) About 1/3 of the content can’t be viewed outside the UK, yet a still image with a message telling you you can’t look at it is included, even in the “International” page. They might has well put “So nya-nya-nya-naanaa” after.

2) The page with some examples on, telling you how great it all is… well. It doesn’t work. All but the Top Gear video just have a still picture with “Sorry this content isn’t available at the moment” on.

Top notch.

[EDIT – Around 8 hours later and it’s finally working… and been laid out differently]

People having sex in private? It shouldn’t be allowed!

Image via WikipediaThe great British public are at it again, making a meal of precisely **** all that’s any of their business. A farmer in Cornwall is trying to make some cash by opening a barn as a swinger’s club. Whoop-de-do. Frankly, good for him. And for the local council who say “it’s legal, so we don’t care and good luck to him in his enterprise”.

On the other hand, a large “**** off” to the idiots nearby who are complaining that it’s “disgusting”, “sleazy” or “wrong for the area”. Five out of ten to the guy who said “I’m not a prude, but if this affects the way I live, then I will be doing something about it.”. Can he explain how it possibly could affect the way he lived? Unless he actually went, or found out that his wife was nipping up their for some anal play instead of going to the bingo?

It’s on a farm. It’s miles from anywhere. People will not be running naked through the village streets. Mrs Miggins will not have to clean cum off her rosebushes in the morning. There will be no watersports performed outside the Dog & Duck. Double penetration and bukkake will not be happened across accidentally should one wander into the corner shop for a packet of Hobnobs.

We have one farmer making the most out of the decline in the industry he began his working life in. Everyone else making a fuss can just **** off. They’ll be demanding that the local B&B is closed down next. After all, I bet someone has had sex in each of the rooms at some point since it opened.

I actually used to know a couple who opened such a place in the North East some years ago. The purchased what used to be a damn rough biker’s bar. One where people left via the windows as often as via the door. Bikes going up and down the main road at all hours. Music blaring. Great fun for those that attended, not so for the locals.

Then along come this couple with a lump of cash and great plans. Redecorate all the rooms, theme it, use a “bring your own” policy to reduce alcohol-related problems. The clientÃ¨le, by their very nature, would be quiet and discrete. Surely a huge boost for the area, and much more pleasant all round?

Nope. The locals got a petition up and the local council forbid them permission to open as a swinger’s club. Instead, they opened as a bed and breakfast. And had a private party every few weeks. The property was their own to do with as they pleased. A friend of theirs “booked it” and took some cash per head to pay for the booking so it was all above board. They rented the rooms out as usual for anyone staying overnight.

Never a problem. No more smashed windows. The local shops started doing a boost in trade (off-license, convenience stores, cafÃ©s) to boot. Never a complaint, because the idiot locals didn’t know what was going on. Which is as it would have been in the first place, only they were too narrow-minded to see this.

[UPDATE: found the story about it on the BBC]

When will we, as a nation, stop giving a **** about people’s private lives? Celebrities… even then I think they deserve their privacy but let the shitty glossy magazines have their fun. But the folk next door… leave them alone. If nobody’s getting hurt (without consent, anyway), where’s the ******* problem?

Ryanair are thieving *****

Image by Ultrastar175g via FlickrOK, so it’s not a huge revelation but Ryanair are, indeed greedy thieving ********. Sneaky, conniving, slippery *****. And that’s just a few of the words I’d use to describe them. Any way they can fiddle you out of more cash, they’ll do it.

I’m booking tickets for some friends for the Graspop trip in June. Three people return from Stansted, one person (me) one-way from Eindhoven to Stansted. All nice and simple. Obviously, there will be credit card fees involved, so I want to book as many flights at once to reduce the fees involved.

OK, so I can’t book three out, 4 in with one transaction. It’s 3 out on one booking, 4 back on another. Or 3 return and then a separate booking for the guy going one-way. Either way, two credit card fees.

Wrong.

Either way it’s SEVEN credit card fees. Ryanair have gone all original and charge per person, per flight segment. So if I were paying on Visa, I could expect a whopping Â£21 in credit card charges. Frankly – ******* ludicrous. Even using a debit card, it’s Â£7.

More sneakiness. If you’re booking a flight from Europe to the UK, there is no choice on currency. You pay in Euros. And the flights are rounded to nice, convenient amounts – which are higher than the cost of the flight when booked as part of a return. Example – sterling price for Eindhoven to Stansted is Â£9.99. Booking it as a single is â‚¬14.40. At the current exchange rate this is Â£11.61. It doesn’t stop there as all the booking fees, card fees, baggage fees, taxes and so on are also lifted. The resultant flight is around a tenner dearer than it would be in Pounds. not to forget that most credit cards / banks charge a fee for dealing in non-sterling.

Add to that their 15kg checked luggage limit – 5kg below that of most other airlines. A 10kg carry-on limit – 2kg below that of others. A baggage check-in fee of Â£6 for the first bag and Â£12 for the next. Which necessitates that you check in at the airport… a further Â£3. Surely if you’re going to check one bag in and therefore have to check in at the airport (as opposed to the free online alternative), they may as well charge you Â£9 for the bag and include the fee? Ah, but then they’d not be able to claim their baggage fees were low…

Also note that every money-making option is selected on the web page unless you turn it off. As if anyone really wants to pay an extra Â£6 to be one of the first onto the plane. And insurance is selected by default.

I still loathe their advertising. My flight – according to their advertising – was Â£9.99. It actually cost me nearer Â£45. And if you want to complain (or check up on a booking you’re not sure has gone through because their website crashed)? 10p/min in the UK (34c/min in France).

I’m currently stuck as I’ve received no confirmation details for the 6 flights I booked for my friends. Have they been booked? I don’t know. I didn’t get an email confirming the details of the flight I do know went through, so the lack of mail for the other one is no indication at all.

Ryanair – the shittest airline on the planet, budget or not. British Airways may be able to decimate an entire airport terminal in 8 hours, but Ryanair are simply just ****. And greedy. Greedy and ****. And sneaky.

For once, some common sense

Image from WikipediaAn interesting story on Mashable! regarding internet safety being taught – by law – in Virginia schools. A couple of other States are set to follow in their footsteps and I think this is a great idea and hopefully not a case of too little too late. It’s certainly more useful than the ridiculous proposals put forward by our government to monitor all the perv’s email addresses.

I do agree with the original author about this being one of those things that children should be taught at home, though it seems that they aren’t. If it ends up treading on a small number of parents’ toes to make up for a handful who aren’t monitoring what their 12 year-old is up to when they’re not fragging soldiers then it’s a small price to pay.

I don’t see how they can complain, though. I assume the US is the same as the UK – and I also assume that things haven’t changed since I was in primary school – where we had a visit from the police for a special assembly or class once a year. A uniformed officer would stand there and warn us about taking sweets from strangers and the like. I certainly doubt that anyone would kick up a fuss about the police and schools interfering in parental rights and so forth as regards that. These internet safety classes are very much along the same lines and I hope the UK considers doing something similar.

Sad state of affairs, but you just can’t trust some parents to teach things like this to children. It’s hardly as if it’s not in the news often enough to warrant teaching kids about the dangers, so there’s no excuse. But, hey, I’m not a parent (yet)!

Awful, awful ideas

Image from WikipediaAnd the slew of Hollywood remake threats continues with two idiotic, but it seems green-lit, suggestions: Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Short Circuit. Both good films in their original forms… OK. Bill & Ted was amazing and had a damn good sequel. Short Circuit wasn’t so bad, but again the sequel wasn’t so bad.

So why the remakes? SC is being worked on by the people who scripted the original. Why not do a third rather than remaking the first one? Same with B&T. Scuttlebut has it that a few years ago Winters and Reeves were considering going back to their best-known characters for a third in the franchise.

I guess it’s cheaper and easier to remake something that’s already been done than to tackle anything with a degree of originality. Look at the insane number of sequels, comic book adaptations, book adaptations, remakes of old films, remakes of foreign-language films and so on that have filled the summer blockbuster spots for the last few years.

In fairness, a lot of these have been superb. The re-awakening of the Batman franchise with Batman Begins. Similarly the long hiatus in the saga of the Man of Steel with Superman Returns. The Harry Potter films. The forthcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The Ring remakes and subsequent sequels unrelated to the original Japanese Ringu series. The excellent Spiderman series.

So there are some good films that result from it, but the superhero films at least have some original scripting. The direct remakes are poor and the shot-for-shot remake of Psycho a couple of years ago must be one of the most pointless uses of celluloid of all time. Is it really so difficult to some up with something original for filming these days? Novelists seem to be able to rattle of original books all the time, so why not scriptwriters?

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