Failure is the Key to Success

On Thursday 24th April, the school is having to close to pupils. This is because the teachers, who are members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), are going on strike for more pay. The senior management team and the teaching assistants, who are not in the NUT, will be in school but are advised by their unions not to cover the striking teachers.

It is obvious with the timing of the strike, just as children are about to start their annual tests and exams, that the union do not care about the education of our children, they are only interested in lining their members’ pockets and causing the maximum disruption. The strike was called following a ballot of members, in which a majority of those who voted agreed with the strike, however this majority was less than one quarter of NUT members, so it is apparent most teachers didn’t want to strike.

Continue reading » Teachers to strike over pay

Tags:NUT,teachers' strike

Rant alert!

Jo took her car in today for the oxygen sensor to be replaced. This is the follow up to the last visit, a couple of weeks ago. OK, so Steven Eagell Toyota didn’t manage to resolve it before the end of the summer holidays, but they did provide a courtesy car.

On the way home this evening, the engine management light came back on. Wow, that £300 resolution lasted a long time.

I rang the dealer to let them know that the light had come back on. Jo can take it back in tomorrow for them to reset the sensor and check that one of the other sensors hasn’t failed. Evidently once a sensor has failed, it puts additional strain on the remaining sensors which could cause them to fail.

Now, I know I’m not a car mechanic, but a sensor is just a measuring device and it either returns a signal or it doesn’t. If it were some kind of filter that had failed, I could understand the sensors behind it becoming overloaded, but with a sensor, the others will measure what is there regardless of if the first is working or not. If however, contrary to what Jo was told, there is a detrimental effect from driving the car while the sensor has failed, then its a whole different matter.

Jo is fuming. It’s not just the cost, but the inconvenience of having to take it back and wondering what will have ‘failed’ this time.

Tags:engine management light,toyota dealer

Our internet connection has been extremely intermittant this evening.

Pinging the next VirginMedia router on our route out has given awful results all evening. You get a batch of low latency 7ms pings then it goes up into the 200ms and 300ms. Then you get a time out, or maybe 5 minutes of time outs. Then it comes back and you start all over again.

Checking on the service status page, I see issues with TV/Internet all over their network this evening. I hope they hurry up and get this fixed because it’s a nightmare to surf when the connection drops between pages.

It’s a while since I have had a rant about car dealerships. I had my Volvo MOT’d a couple of weeks ago. It went so smoothly, that I forget to even put a post up about it.

Jo’s Toyota Avensis had an engine management warning light come on, so she contacted Steven Eagell Toyota in Luton to get them to check it out and resolve it. Although the next service wasn’t due until October, she asked them to do the service now, as being school holidays it is easier to have them collect the car and return it when finished. Otherwise, it would mean me taking it to work and having the fun with the Milton Keynes branch of Steven Eagell Toyota that I have previously had with MOTs and garages , Car Window 2 and Car Window 3. She also asked them to get a replacement drivers side sunvisor as the plastic hinge/mounting bracket had broken.

So, anyway they evidently collected it this morning without any issues and called her this afternoon to say that all the work was done and to get her to pay for it. When she asked what the story with the engine management light was, she was told that it was the oxygen sensor. After the car had been returned, she was looking at the paperwork and noticed that she hadn’t been charged for the oxygen sensor. This was the first she knew that the fault hadn’t been repaired. She rang the garage and spoke to the deputy service manager who explained that the car is safe to drive and that they will get the part in, but it will be the other side of the Bank holiday. Jo has impressed upon them the need to get this resolved before the end of the school holidays. They did confirm that the sunvisor was broken, and I thought it was supposed to separate into two parts and fall off the car , that is also on order. They seem to have grasped the concept of investigate fault, but the final part of communicate the findings to customer is lacking.

Jo did agree tonight that when it comes time to replace the Avensis, it is unlikely to be another Toyota; not because the car is bad, she loves the car, but because the dealer network is appalling.

Tags:poor communication,toyota dealer

Why can’t people just blog nicely? I don’t know where to start with this. In the last couple of weeks the authors of a few of the blogs that I have been reading have been upset or verbally attacked in posts and comments.

The first was at the end of July when Marzie at Mariuca - Wishing On A Falling Star was belittled for her success at becoming a very popular blog by someone not as successful. His comments were just plain rude. One comment he made was that in a particular 7 day period there were no new posts. Big deal, maybe she has a life outside of the internet and had other priorities those days.

Earlier this week, Becky from Just a Girl In Short Shorts Talking About Whatever had a particularly nasty episode with another blogger who on Monday proceeded to list all the reasons why her blog was so bad, he didn’t want his site linked to from it. This has very quickly got extremely nasty with comments being posted in blogs and on blog communities. I’m not sure if, as Becky says, this guy is evil and a woman hater. After checking out his blog, my personal opinion was that his post on Monday was totally unnecessary and rude. I don’t know what communication was made asking for the link to be removed, I’m guessing it was as offensive. If you don’t like someones blog, just stop visiting. I can see why if it was a particularly offensive site you might want a link removed, Becky’s site isn’t that, well at least not to me. During the posts relating to this, Becky linked to an earlier post that she had written about Mia Zapata who was raped and murdered in 1993. I think the point that Becky is making is that people and specifically women need to learn to fight back and not get verbally or physically abused.

On Friday Polliwog, a friend of Becky, at Polliwog’s Pond posted about the problems with the same blogger. A couple of days ago he had threatening comments left in her MyBlogLog profile by the same blogger as was being abusive to Becky. As fast as she deleted the comments he left another. Polli had not even commented on this until this started, so the attack on her was totally unjust.

So, taken from what I found on Becky’s site and in the comments, this guy seems just rude, but after reading Polli’s post, it looks like Becky’s description of woman hater may turn out to have grounds I don’t normally make these sort of comments, but this time I just needed to rant.

Another type of inhabitant of blog comments is the ‘troll‘. You can recognise them by their comments, they are the one who will always post the argumentative comments designed to get a reaction from others. Usually, if it is a subject that people feel strongly about themselves, they will react quickly and defend their point. This suits the troll, who’s only goal is the infuriate the prey. All they are after is attention, so ‘Don’t Feed The Troll’

I don’t know if I am just getting older and more aware of it, or have driving standards really have dropped.

I don’t have a particularly long drive to work, about 30 minutes, but in the last few weeks, the sheer stupidity and lack of respect by some drivers for other road users has amazed me.

This morning was a prime example: leaving town, I travel through a cutting with a 40mph speed limit and I had a little white Renault van impatiently sat behind me, obviously annoyed because I was driving at the speed limit. After the speed limit is lifted, there is a roundabout which you take the right lane to go straight over on the A5 or the left lane to turn off on the Leighton Buzzard bypass. I take right lane as I follow the A5 for most of my route to work and wasn’t surprised to see the Renualt come up the inside of me, however when I stopped to allow the traffic on the roundabout, which has priority, to continue round, I didn’t expect the Renault to carry on onto the roundabout forcing the traffic to stop. Once they had stopped, he then pushed through the gap he had caused and continued on up the A5. Once the traffic had cleared, I continued on the A5 only 2 cars behind him all the way to Hockliffe, where he left it very late going through the lights as they went red as he turned off to Woburn.

I sat at the lights in Hockliffe at the front of the queue today, but quite often I am further back, where on most days I witness another dangerous annoyance. When approaching the lights from the south, the road is a single lane splitting to two for maybe 20 yards. When traffic is queuing in the right hand lane to go straight over (or right) the queue will stretch back beyond the split of the lanes. Almost every day everything from cars to vans and minibuses will mount the pavement and drive half on the road, half on the pavement down the inside of the queue just so that they can wait at the red light a few yards further ahead.

Overtaking is another area that seems worse than it used to be. When I learnt to drive I was taught that you only overtook when you could do so safely without danger to other road users. Last night while driving home, an oncoming motorist, couldn’t wait until I was past; the road behind me was clear. He just indicated and pulled out and then proceeded to force me to take avoiding action. All he had to do was wait another 10 seconds and it would have avoided the issue.

Drivers just seem so much more impatient and don’t look ahead the see oncoming dangers and obstructions. Drivers seem so intent on there own goals that they lose awareness of the needs and rights of other road users. Others like the Parcelforce driver a couple of weeks ago who in a traffic queue, deliberately moved over into the cycle lane to block the way for the cyclist who was riding up, are just agressive.

Is it just me or do you have similar stories?

Tags:bad driving,driving standards