Month: April 2002

What a pleasant evening. The weather was fine, with a bit of a breeze and so we decided to go and attend our first Brighton Kite Flyers Fly-in at Stanmer Park. Our first mission was to untangle the lines for the Janus which we did with a little help from Simon, one of the BKF members. Then we got the kite up for it’s first flight this year, and fun it was too. Most of the other kites flying were big single line affairs, and Simon mentioned that we might grow into these kites as they are far more sociable than these complicated multi-line jobs.

When the light failed, we decided to head off in search of a pub serving food, and ended up doing quite a few miles to get to the Shepherd and Dog in Fulking. I’d been here with the guys from work a month or so ago and so knew that it was pretty good. It seems to have had some poor reviews in the past, but we have no complaints. It’s not cheap as pub food goes, but the portions were generous, and the food was tasty.

As we were driving home in the dark along the country lanes Rich realised that it was a clear night and there were lots of stars to be seen, so we did a quick detour via Devil’s Dyke and had a look at them – it was too cold to study them in too much detail.

I got an email today through BNM (a Brighton based new media mailing list) telling me how to fight telemarketers. I thought it was quite clever and amusing, so here’s the link.

Technology. Progress. I’m told that if I press the red button on my digital TV handset and then select “option 5” I can watch and rewatch the funeral of the Queen Mother. Hmm.

The NSPCC are running a Donate-4-Free service on their website. All you have to do is Click on the big green button that says “Click Here” and 4p will be donated to the NSPCC on your behalf. There is a Terms and Conditions notice which says that it will only work if you’re within the EU.

We buy quite a lot of stuff online these days. You still have to be careful. Here are two recent experiences…

One. For some years we’ve been buying travel insurance on-line from Worldcover direct. It’s not the cheapest, but it’s easy enough: fill in a form, get a quote, hand over your credit card details, print out a confirmation that you’re insured and also a few weeks later stuff arrives in the post. For our trip to Malta, we renewed our annual insurance as usual. A few months after the trip, Jane noticed that we’d not received anything through the post. Odd. Our credit card had been charged, so I emailed Worldcover and discovered that they had no record of our policy. Sure they were polite and helpful on the phone, but it did take a fist full of emails, and three or four calls over two or three weeks to get to the bottom of it. In the end I had to send them a photocopy of our credit card statement (they’d found records of all our previous policies, so they knew we’re loyal customers, but still wanted proof). It later turned out that “some files hadn’t been transferred from their web site” (or something like that). So… what would have happened if we needed some help while we were in Malta? Don’t know, but it probably would have been long and messy. Will I ever use this company again? Maybe if they half their prices.

And in contrast…

Two. A while ago we ordered a stack of DVDs from Splash DVD. One of the items, Moulin Rouge!, wasn’t out yet, so they shipped it a couple of months later and only then charged us. Checking the credit card statement, we spotted that they’d charged us twice. So, oh no, another email battle… I emailed Splash DVD asking them to sort this out. Less than 24 hours later I got this reply: “I have checked our records and you are correct. Apologies for the error. I have refunded your card £14.49 today and this should appear back on your statement within 2 working days.”. Now, that kind of mistake I can accept, and I’ve got no hesitation in shopping with them again.

And in other news, the Center Parcs complex that we are meant to be going to for a long weekend in June has been on fire today. It sounds quite serious. From the BBC report

Graham Smith, assistant chief fire officer for Suffolk, said: “It’s a particularly difficult fire to tackle due to the early collapse of some of the structure which has created dangerous conditions for the firefighters.”

Not sure I like the “early collapse of some of the structure” bit at all…