I’ve just found out that I’ve won two tickets to see Blade Trinity tonight courtesy of XMF.

This story is on today’s 6music news, and today’s top Health story on the BBC Website is: Hospital cleaners to cut superbug.

If they can’t find a dead body, how can they stop MRSA.

In the office we listen to 6 Music, and between 16:00 – 19:00 the DJ is Andrew Collins.

The great thing about 6 Music, is the lack of listeners, this means the chances of your email being read out are high.

Today Andrew Collins was talking about Panto’s and the z-list celebs that appear in them, and wanted to know who Frankie Fitzgerald was. He knew he appeared in Troy and EastEnders, but had no idea who he was.

After a quick Google search I found this BBC page, and pointed Andrew in to the right direction.

Now he mentioned my name, along with a couple of other listeners, but the best bit was that the script in which the character Ashley Cotton was killed off in, was written by Andrew Collins!

David Davis has said

People deserve to feel safe in their own homes. If a criminal breaks into their home and attacks them, people should be able to use the necessary force required to defend themselves, their families and their property, without the threat of criminal prosecution.

Whilst I understand that we need to protect the victims, the concept of without the threat of criminal prosecution, I surely wrong.
Only a criminal court will know if the actions made, require punishment, and not a Tory government.

and I thought that my accounts were in trouble!

Whilst people are going on about the Yeading v Newcastle and the Man Utd v Exeter, I’ll be looking forward to the Oldham v Man City game.

This game should be a good old local derby, and hopefully one of the 4 TV slots will go to this game, as the chances of me getting tickets (and being bothered to travel there) will be slim.

With yesterdays demo in Wales, and today’s piece on the BBC about how Leeds Met and the University of Bradford might not charge full fees, I though I would post about something that happened around 3 years ago.

Whilst at Warwick University, in 2000, we had a EMG motion on Top-Up Fees, and it was almost my amendment that caused the sit-in in Senate House (SWSS got theirs in first by about 1 second).
After this, the Vice Chancellor agreed to appear in a debate with the President of the Union, one of the Economics lecturers and some other people.
Now the key fact that I remember from this debate, was that Warwick University was only £25 per student short in their funding.

Now clearly in the last 4 years, this can’t have raised to £3000, yet Warwick in it’s effort to seem to be one of the top universities, is refusing to lower the price.

It’s good to see that the variability that the Top-Up fees bill introduced, will be completely ignored, something that I was predicting 4 years ago.

Whilst the news of Apple overcharging is old, it’s good to see that the OFT is asking the European Commission to rule on the matter.

Apple claim that they should be able to sell to different European countries, because they can charge a different amount in the US, but I’m sure that the UK, Germany and France are in the Single Market.

Having spent the last few days tweaking the LDYS Forums, adding sub forums (which meant hours of staring at a screen doing cut, paste, cut paste), and also a festive touch, I’ve added one to my blog.

I’ve also changed the <blockquote> tag.

By changing the style to this

blockquote

{

 margin: 0;

 padding: 0 10px 0 35px;

 background: url(https://blog.artesea.co.uk/images/quote.gif) no-repeat left top;

 color: #ba8247;

 min-height: 24px;

}

I now get the nice quote mark on the left hand side.

Now if only style sheets would let me have a second image in the bottom right corner.

With talk about reforming the Consumer Credit Act, I thought I would highlight an issue with the APR, that was pointed out on News 24 last weekend.

Now say I lent you a tenner last week, and like a good friend you gave it back to me today, and brought a pint to repay the favour.

Now if we say that the pint costs £2.60 (and if you don’t believe me, you try drinking in Westminster!). The total cost of the “loan” is £12.60

Now using this calculator off Lambeth’s Trading Standards website, and playing about with the figures to get it to work. If you enter

Amount of Loan (£) 10

APR (%) 1500

Number of weeks/months

(eg 300 for 25 yr mortgage; 36 for 3yrs) 1

It produces the result of

Total Amount Payable (£) 12.60

That’s right whilst the total interest paid is 26%, the APR is 1500%.

So next time you hear or read on in the local media about a 300% APR loan, don’t just assume that it’s an evil loan.

Please note, I can’t confirm these figures, and am only using what information was available to me on the web.