Clairol nice'n difficult

Shhh... don't tell anyone but my wife uses hair colourant.

Clairol have been advertising on TV a product called nice'n easy colour blend foam. The advert made it look easy to use and I'm the one who gets to apply it so we gave it a go. Here's my opinion and you can probably tell from the title what it's going to be like.

First - it's NOT a foam. A foam is defined as a colloidal suspension of gas in a liquid. In other words it's thick and creamy with very small bubbles. Think shaving cream or spray cream - they are foams but Clairol nice'n easy is a FROTH - much bigger bubbles, think of the froth you see sometimes under a waterfall or the froth on top of a bubble bath.

Second - it's NOT easy. In fact it's the hardest colourant to apply I ever used. It runs. It fails to wet long hair. it's far too easy to get on skin and clothes.

Third - the results are poor. There's not enough 'froth' to cover hair as long as that in the picture on the box. Added to that the colour isn't as deep as it's made out to be.

Maybe if you have very short hair this stuff might be OK but we will NEVER buy this rubbish again. Back to the drawing board Clairol!

Well done Number 10!

Today I went to the 'Number 10' website to find out if anyone had created a petition about one of my pet hates - VAT on ebooks.

It took a while to find what has to have been the last government's better ideas the e-petition site but when I did find it I discovered that it had been closed down in the run-up to the general election (6th May 2010) and hasn't re-opened for new petitions.

Just after the election we were told that it would reopen later in 2010 but now here's what you get if you go through the process:

Notice that the date is now 2011 and that no date other than the year is given!

So well done UK Government! You've taken a valuable method of the UK public making their feelings known to government and squashed it! Maybe those petitions were just too inconvenient? So much for your 'big society' policy!

So I can't voice my opinion on the Number 10 petition site. I can however put the details here and the public can voice their opinion by adding comments.

Petition to the UK prime Minister

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to remove the VAT charge on the sale of electronic books and magazines.

More details from the petition creator

Paper copies of books, newspapers and magazines are subject to a VAT rate of 0%. It is anomalous that electronic copies of these same items are subject to the current standard rate of VAT (20%). The effect of this tax is to make, in many cases, the e-book version of literature more expensive than the paper copy despite being less expensive to produce and requiring almost zero shipping costs.

The manufacture of printed paper products requires thousands of tons of raw materials and an enormous amount of energy in production and transport each year. The public is reluctant to pay more for an electronic copy than for a paper copy. Many look for a less expensive and often 'pirate' source.

By charging VAT on e-publications the government is encouraging piracy, squandering raw materials and adding to fossil fuel use.

That darn cat...

...decided to have a lazy afternoon.

...decided that it wasn't a good idea to jump from the fence onto the surface of the neighbor's algae-covered pond.

...is convinced that if it's raining at the back door then it will be just fine at the front door.

...decided not to play with the goldfish.

...decided that the Christmas tree was a new toy for him to climb.

...somehow decided we were moving and made sure she wouldn't be left behind.

...decided to sing to us every inch of the 300 miles to our new house.

...decided to wait and see if anything came along.

...decided earphone cables and broadband telephone lines make a great teething ring but power cables don't taste nice.

...decided that baby rabbits should be carried over the rabbit-proof fence round our garden so that they could play with them. Since they proved pretty boring playmates they were left to munch on our flowers.

...decided to jup onto y laptop and in doing so hooked a claw under a key on it. As a result y '' key no longer works!

Installing MS Office 2010 - What a palaver!

Having finally bought Microsoft Office 2010 to replace the pre-release version I've being using for the last year I sat down to install it at 11:00am this morning. I finally completed the process at 3:30pm; a four and a half hour marathon!

Now if you just bought Office 2010 when it was released you probably were able to install it without problem completing the whole process within 20 minutes. Some of us tested the beta product and then the pre-release version. Now, however these are about to expire and it's tie to install the full product. That's where the problem started.

As soon as I tried to install Office 2010 I got this error message:

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version of

Microsoft Office 2010. You must first uninstall any prerelease versions of

Microsoft Office 2010 products and associated technologies.

Correct the issue(s) listed above and re-run setup.

Oh well - that meant a trip to the control panel and 'Uninstall a program'. I selected the Office 2010 pre-release version and uninstalled it. Back to the installation DVD and I got:

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version of

Microsoft Office 2010. You must first uninstall any prerelease versions of

Microsoft Office 2010 products and associated technologies.

Correct the issue(s) listed above and re-run setup.

Huh? I just uninstalled it! Maybe I needed to do a restart first? One restart later I inserted the installation DVD and got:

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...

OK. Now let me just check I actually uninstalled the right version - Yep - it's gone and I remember that I had to remove Office 2007 before I could install the prerelease of 2010. Time to go visit Microsoft's site to see if there's a fix!

As usual, finding what I wanted on the MS site was a torturous business but at least their introduction of using Bing to search the site makes things a little easier. Eventually I copied out the error message and searched for that.

I found quite a few people were having the same problem and I eventually found a post on http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/officeinstall/thread/52c744aa-d1c5-4aec-9c52-d76bc05eea40 where a Microsoft Support Moderator suggested I run a tool called cleanc2r to fix the issue. I followed the link provided to get the tool and of course discovered it had been replaced by a different tool. Fortunately the link took me to the new location of this 'Fixit' tool and of course when I got there it referred to removing Office 2007 from Windows XP and not to Windows 7. back to Google search engine where I entered the error message AND "Windows 7"

This time I found another Microsoft Support Moderator who pointed at a page http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301 This time the link actually worked!

The new page told me to do exactly what I had already done but if that didn't work I should use the 'Fix it' link below to remove the problem. This time there were three of them and I chose the one for Office 2010; Microsoft Fix it 50450.

Running it gave me a brief flash of a command window followed by the usual confirmation window to confirm I really wanted to use the program. A licence agreement window followed next followed by a window making a backup of the registry. Finally I got another brief flash of the command window and - nothing! 'A bit unsatisfactory' I thought ' I would have expected the program to tell me it was finished'.

Back to the Installation DVD and I got:

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...

This was beginning to get tiresome! Back to the search engine and I followed a few more of the 29 results to find that all of them eventually pointed me back to the same page which I'd just tried. Eventually I found one saying the 'Fix it' link didn't always work first time and I should try it again!

Back to 'Fix it', the same procedure but this time the second command window stayed open and took ages to run through. Once it finished it was back to the installation DVD and I got:

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...

More searching on Internet eventually found Microsoft instructions to delete a couple of registry entries, to clear temporary files from the computer and to empty the recycle bin. 5Gb of temporary files deletion later it was back to the installation DVD and:

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...

At this point I began to wonder how someone who is not quite as computer literate as I would be coping. Back to the search engine.

Looking on the forums I found lots of people with the same issue who had all followed the Microsoft advice and still couldn't install Office 2010. Eventually I read something about making sure all Office ad-ons had been deleted including the 'Add a smile' feature installed with the pre-release version. Mine was still there and promptly got deleted and...

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...

Out went the Windows Live Office stuff...

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...

Out went 'Outlook Hotmail Connector (Funny! I never use Hotmail so I definitely didn't install that!) and...

SUCCESS! I was now the proud owner of an Office 2010 installation.

It only took me four and a half hours. Simple huh?

Finally I could get back to editing my book 'A Vested Interest.'

US Version	UK Version

Facebook Games

I wonder how many Facebook users have stopped to consider just how much money the writers of the more popular Facebook applications - especially games - are making?

• Let's assume that just 5% of users occasionally buy 'extras' for their game.
• Lets assume that they spend just £10 on this per year.
• Lets assume that the figure of 'monthly active users' you get from the games Facebook website is wildly inaccurate and the true figure is 50% of what is stated.

So here's a list of how much the top 30 Facebook games are making based on those rather conservative assumptions:

Game	Users	£ Earned
1 Farmville	60,343,013	15,085,753
2 Frontierville	31,031,304	4,654,696
3 Café World	22,180,662	3,327,099
4 Mafia Wars	21,793,134	3,268,970
5 Treasure Isle	15,509,210	2,326,382
6 Happy Aquarium	13,052,368	1,957,855
7 Bejeweled Blitz	11,995,628	1,799,344
8 Petville	11,628,197	1,744,230
9 Restaurant City	9,696,574	1,454,486
10 Happy Pets	9135056	1,370,258
11 City of Wonder	8,840,339	1,326,051
12 YoVille	7,579,517	1,136,928
13 Zoo World	7,036,293	1,055,444
14 Fishville	6,873,782	1,031,067
15 Happy Island	6,286,697	943,005
16 Kingdoms of Camelot	5,891,589	883,738
17 Social City	5,575,999	836,400
18 Hotel City	5,246,913	787,037
19 Baking Life	4,904,453	735,668
20 Country Life	4,412,287	661,843
21 Farm Town	4,065,029	609,754
22 Monster World	3,905,525	585,829
23 My Empire	2,819,505	422,926
24 Island Paradise	2,422,170	363,326
25 Tiki Resort	2,364,724	354,709
26 Tiki Farm	1,278,580	191,787
27 My Vineyard	919,963	137,994
28 Zoo Kingdom	727,327	109,099
29 Crime City	628,109	94,216
30 Middle Kingdom	378,463	56,769

It seems to me some of these games are making a fortune! While they are considered 'free' games, sooner or later the majority of users will buy an item for their game and these repeated purchases quickly mount up until they exceed the value of a game purchased on CD/DVD. Unlike the CD/DVD game Facebook games are in a constant state of development too so there is something new to keep the players coming back.

The question is are we, the users, getting value for money from our games? A quick trip to the user forums of many of these quickly lets you know just how many people are unhappy with them. What amazes me is that people keep playing them! Especially the people who are spending real money. I guess it's a matter of not wanting to waste the money spent already.

Let's look at two examples from these games; both zoos. Zoo World and Zoo Kingdom.

Zoo World is making millions yet go to it's discussion board and you'll find complaint after complaint. The only people answering these complaints, however, are the other game players.

Zoo Kingdom's discussion board is the opposite however. There are few complaints and those that appear are quickly answered by the game developers. Read the comments there and you'll find many end with praise for Blue Fang who developed the game.

So why is it that the positions of these two games are not reversed? It beats me! I do know though that I like the community spirit there so much that I host a Zoo Kingdom Hints & Tips website for it.

It seems to me that those game firms who have not yet caught on to the potential of social media websites for earning money are missing out and if you are looking for a profitable investment a small business just starting the climb up the Facebook games league is worth looking at.

The Election. What went wrong?

The UK held a general election on 6th May 2010 but things didn't quite go as smoothly as expected.

here in the UK we've grown accustomed to feeling smug about how 'we hold elections properly' and smile at the feeble efforts of other countries where there are complaints about vote rigging and people being denied their right to vote. "It could never happen here," we say. Except it did!

Today's news is full of stories about people who went to vote, stood in a queue for an hour or more only to be denied their right to vote when the polling stations closed at 10:00pm. Some people were even in the building but because they hadn't been given a ballot paper by 10:00pm they didn't get to vote.

That wasn't my problem though. I arrived earlier at 18:45 and passed the clerk my voting card only to be told that it's number had already been marked off the lists as having already voted.

The clerk phoned someone to ask procedure and after about 15 minutes got a call back to say I was to be given a pink voting slip and that it and my electors card were to be sent in in a sealed envelope rather than put in the ballot box. Hardly a secret ballot.

I asked the clerk that I be informed of the result of the enquiry that would be made about this.

I told the clerk that I had lived at my address for two years but this was the first time I had voted in an election there (I was away in previous council elections).

It seems to me there are three possibilities:
1. That the clerks made an error and both crossed off the wrong number on their lists.
2. That the number on my electors card for some reason was duplicated
3. That someone had given in my name and address and had 'stolen' the vote.

Let's assume that the first scenario happened. There were two clerks checking the electors lists for each voter. Is it likely they both got it wrong? Only if they were copying each other's work - surely that would be poor procedure.

How about the second scenario? I've seen the electors list used and didn't spot a duplicate - neither did the two clerks.

What about the third possibility? I asked the clerks what happened to the lists they marked the voters off on and got an evasive answer. It seems to me that these lists should NOT be allowed to fall into anyone's hands since knowing who did not vote in elections would allow someone to impersonate that person in a new election. I was surprised to see the clerks giving back electors cards to voters. That hadn't happened in previous elections and I can imagine quite a few being added to street litter or deposited in bins outside the polling station from which they could be retrieved.

It seems to me that apart from a need to get more people through the system quickly there is also a need to tighten up security. I suggest at a minimum voters should be asked for proof of identity if they turn up at polling stations without their poll card.

On a lighter note I received an e-mail from David Cameron. Here it is:
You'll notice that the e-mail was sent to me at 12:24 am on Friday 7th May.
No wonder David didn't get a majority in parliament. He's been telling his supporters to go vote 2½ hours AFTER the polls closed!

Climate Folly

On the one hand we have the global warming alarmists who tell us we are heading for disaster due to carbon emissions. On the other hand we have the climate sceptics who tell us that Man's impact on the climate is relatively minor and that carbon taxation is just another excuse to raise more money and that it will ham the economy.

There are some good and bad points made by both sides and as a result confusion reigns for many. What is certain, however, is that if we do nothing about the fossil fuels we are burning then we are heading for disaster.

The trouble is that we are burning vital and finite natural resources. We will run out of these - or at least get to the point where it costs more in energy to extract these fuels than we get in energy using them.

At the moment we are like the man who fell off the top of the Empire State Building who was heard to say as he passed the fifth floor "Well I've fallen 97 stories and I'm all right so far!"

We have to stop using these resources other than as chemical feedstock. We must put all our effort into developing renewable energy resources and we have to start doing it now! OK we can devote some resources to nuclear energy but the horrendous problems we are passing on to future generations means that we should concentrate on developing nuclear fusion not nuclear fission.

I hear much of people saying "We'll stop burning oil and natural gas in our cars and use electricity instead." Duh! Where do these people think most of our electricity comes from?

So there is a case for cutting carbon emissions and 'going green' is a good idea. Just don't let yourself be fooled by many of the green claims such as 'Save oil by using paper or reusable bags instead of plastic ones' (See the great plastic bag con) and buy white recycled paper (See Don't print this). As to government vehicle scrappage schemes - they are an environmental disaster for a car less than 15 years old.

NPower Still Doesn't Listen!

You could read my previous blogs NPower doesn't listen and Maybe NPower does listen but let me save you a little time and summarise the story so far:

1. I move to a new address in April 2008 and buy my electricity from Npower, the previous occupant's supplier. I pay my bill by direct debit straight from my bank.
   
2. June 2008 I get a bill for a Mr & Mrs D Maylor from NPower. I take it round to my neighbours thinking it might have been delivered wrongly. No-one has ever heard of the Maylors so I return the bill to NPower marked 'Not known at this address'
3. A week later the bill comes back to me and is returned again.
4. The 'red bill' arrives for Mr Maylor and this time I phone NPower and explain they are sending the bills to the wrong address. 'I don't understand it' the guy says. 'We've been sending bills to Mr Maylor at that address for the last eight years and they have always been paid!' He assures me NPower will sort it out.
   
5. Two months later NPower send disconnection notices to my house - two of them - despite the fact that my bill is being paid every month. They tell me that if I'm not in they will break in, disconnect me for a bill I don't owe and then lock me out of my own house making me travel 60 miles to collect keys. Again I phone them and am assured 'everything will be sorted out.'
6. Two months later NPower send me a reply to a letter Mr Maylor had written expressing concern that he wasn't being sent bills. I get a letter about my own account telling me I was paying too much and reducing my monthly payments to £42. I phone them and tell them they are wrong and ask them to set the monthly payment to £65. They don't.
   
7. Five months later NPower send another bill this time for £1,476.86 threatening legal action if it wasn't paid. This time I write to NPower's retail CEO, Kevin Miles.
   
8. A week later NPower send out a meter reader to check the number of my meter. 'At last!' I think, 'They are finally going to get this sorted out.' The next day they send another one.
9. NPower continue to send Mr Maylor's bills to my address.
10. August 2009. After getting more letters threatening court action I change electricity suppliers to EDF. I write to customer services telling them exactly why I'm changing suppliers.
11. NPower tell me that there's a £600 balance owing on my account.
12. September 2009. NPower customer services contact me and apologise for their errors. They offer me £100 compensation for the repeated failure to sort out why they were sending letters to my address for Mr Maylor and repeated threats to cut off my supply. They offer a further £100 as compensation for ignoring my letters regarding the amount I should pay them each month. They assure me I will NEVER get another bill for Mr Maylor at my address.

So today, on 16th April 2010, I get another letter addressed to Mr & Mrs Maylor / Occupier. Here it is:


So yet again NPower are sending me bills for someone I don't know for an account I don't owe and are threatening to break into my house and disconnect me or fit a prepayment meter. And they don't even supply my electricity!

Back in August I told them I no longer intended to answer their letters, return Mr Maylor's bills or telephone them about their mistakes. The question is should I do that and allow them to embarrass themselves in court or should I telephone them yet again and seek another £100 compensation?

Although I would love to have the day in court I think I'll phone them :)

Update 11 April 2011

Well I haven't heard from NPower for almost a year and I was beginning to think it was all over. Today however, a guy rang my doorbell.

"Mr. Maylor?" he said as I spotted the NPower logo on his sweatshirt.

Update 12 July 2011

Npower woke me up this morning at 8:30am with a meter reader. Funny thing was he couldn't seem to find the meter he wanted - mine had the wrong number.

The most informative politics survey ever!

I just came across an astonishing survey about the UK election campaign. Apparently some genius at the Daily Star decided to ask women aged 20 - 30 which of the three party leaders they would prefer to kiss. Predictably just 3% chose Gordon Brown (left) 14.9% said they would choose to kiss David Cameron (right) and 16.9% chose Nick Clegg (centre).

Now doing a little math that adds up to just 34.8% meaning 65.2% would choose NOT to kiss any of them. Considering that each of them has about as much sex appeal as a home made bar of soap I'm not surprised. It did however make me curious so I did my own survey and offered an alternative choice.




You've guessed it 60% chose to kiss the donkey!


Girl & donkey image by Délirante Bestiole & used under the creative commons licence.

Postscript A Year Later
Remarkably the Daily Star came up with a formula for determining the eventual outcome. Together David and Nick proved much more popular than poor Gordon and as a result formed a coalition government.

I gave some thought to putting up a donkey candidate who would undoubtedly have been a clear winner but in the end decided that I would probably be wasting my money on the basis that parliament has enough donkeys there already.

Is our new parliament any better? Not a jot, still the same old braying. Of course there is a logical solution to the country's woes

Annoyances

Has anything changed since 2010? We are now approaching 2018 and not much has changed.

The world is full of minor irritations; things which could have been much nicer had a little bit of extra thought thought been put in at the design stage. Here's my list of them, starting with laptop computers.

Laptop Computers

• Why isn't there a switch or light sensor to turn off or dim those flashing LED lights for power, hard drive,networks etc. at night? Ever slept in a room with a laptop which has been left on to run a malware scan?
• Laptops are named as such because they can be used on your lap. So it isn't a good idea to put sockets, buttons and DVD drives at the front edge where they will dig into you when you do use them on your lap.
• Why aren't ALL laptops made with the ability to switch off the screen quickly?
• There are now Terrabyte hard drives available for laptops so it takes a special kind of idiot to design one with a 256GB hard drive.
• Painting a laptop? It may look nice for a while but paint wears off and black plastic showing through a silver 'Paint job' makes a laptop look really scruffy. (HP please note!)
• Cordless mice WILL be dropped - lots of times. Build them so that they can take it and so that they don't burst open and spill the batteries. (Microsoft please note!) Put buttons where you can use them but not where you constantly press them accidentally.
• No-one in their right mind carries a 17" laptop around with the lid closed and using it as an mp3 player. (Dell please note!)
• Air vents should NOT be placed where they will be blocked if a laptop is used on a lap. (Dell got it right but HP and others are as bad as ever)
• Why aren't instructions provided which tell people how to clean out air vents and why it's desirable to do so? Why is it necessary to completely dismantle some to do so?
• Why aren't all laptop screws inserted using an anti-shake fluid such as Locktight so that they don't work loose and drop out?
• It's NOT a good idea to lightly solder a power socket directly to the motherboard of a laptop so that if the power plug is knocked it breaks the socket away from the motherboard. (Toshiba please note! Microsoft got it right in the Surface Pros.)
• Which clot is it who thinks mice, USB hubs and the like MUST have multi-colour LEDs built into them? What exactly does this achieve?

Websites

• OK I'm unusual in that I have a laptop with a 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution screen. I HATE websites which don't cater for this screen size and which display everything in a narrow band down the middle of the screen. Take for instance the .net magazine website (which really aught to know better) Here it is displayed full screen on my computer:
  
  Hey guys - elastic websites have been available for years!
• Now at least if you magnify the text you can still read the site but look what happens if you display the HP website full screen on my computer and magnify the text:
  
  ...and they pay people to produce a mess like this?
• Again I'm unusual because I live out in the country away from any towns or villages. This means my house has a name not a number and does not have a street or district. It does however have a UK postcode not a five number zip code. You wouldn't believe the number of websites I go to where if you fill out an address form to buy something they can't cope with an address like mine. I get:
  Please insert house number
  Please enter street
  Please enter a valid zip code
• Even worse are the sites with incomplete postcode data. For some reason about 20% of the sites I visit insist my postcode isn't real. When eventually I give up and ring them they usually ask "Is it a new house?"
  "Fairly new. " I respond, "It was built in 1860."

Domestic appliances

• People WILL hang on the doors of tumble driers so why are the hinges not made stronger?
• The light bulb lighting the inside of a microwave will eventually burn out and you shouldn't have to dismantle the whole thing to replace it.
• Hotplates on stoves don't look hot. Would it be too difficult to fit a warning light which will only go out when they are cool enough to touch?
• What idiot designed a plastic bottle shelf for a fridge which isn't strong enough to take the weight of the bottles it contains. (Whirlpool please note!)
• When you open a dishwasher the handle shouldn't be fragile enough to break off in your hand (Zanussi please note.)
• Painting instructions in the outside of a deep fat fryer where they get greasy and can only be cleaned with an abrasive cleaner is a rotten idea. (Breville please note!)
• Can no-one invent an automatic toaster which toasts the first slice as well as the rest?
• Vacuum cleaners which sound like a jet engine taking off should not be made without ear defenders being provided. (Dyson please note!) Have you ever noticed you don't hear them in the adverts?
• The person who came up with the idea of region codes for DVDs needs to be 2nd in line for shooting come the revolution. First place should be reserved for the designer of DVD players which lock to a region but claim to be 'multi-region'.
• PLEASE will someone produce a remote control for TVs, DVD players, satellite receivers etc. which is programmable and has an LCD display to tell you what the functions are. It shouldn't cost £30 or more! How about one which beeps to help you find it in the same way you can find the portable phone.

Computer software

• Computer games which contain anti-piracy (drm) software such as Securom should have this clearly labelled on the OUTSIDE of the case. Come to think of it, let's make Securom's designers first in line for shooting.
• If you are having network problems and can't get on Internet it is a little pointless for Windows to ask you to report the issue. I seem to remember a similar issue with a message 'Keyboard not detected. Press any key to continue.'

Politics

• I will probably vote for any politician who can answer any question with a simple 'yes' or 'no'.
• We have democracy all wrong. The last person we need as President or Prime Minister is the megalomaniac who wants to be President or Prime Minister! Presidents and Prime Ministers should be dragged kicking and screaming to the job.
• I will definitely vote for any politician who suggests hanging as a suitable punishment for spammers. After all, annoying 2 billion people has to be a good reason for this punishment.

Sticky Labels

• I just bought a cyclists water bottle from my local branch of Tesco. Nice bottle design but some idiot felt it needed to have a large, ugly, self-adhesive label which proved impossible to remove easily and which left the bottle so sticky that it would stay stuck to a hand which had gripped it. Now I know I can remove the stickyness with iso-propyl alcohol or methylated spirits but that would be absorbed by the plastic bottle and add an unpleasant flavour to the bottle's contents and in any case should I be forced to do that? All this person has done is to ensure I NEVER buy a second one! Listen morons - put the non-adhesive label, along with the bottle in one of those mesh nets Tesco sell onions in.

I'm sure you can think of lots of other annoyances. Why not add them here.

NPower - How to shoot yourself in the foot

A while ago I watched an advert for NPower in a survey. I hope that it's not one they are using on TV because it re-enforced my opinion of how the energy provider just doesn't care about it's customers.

A 'Wallice and Grommet' style NPower worker walked in from the pouring rain, leaving the garden gate and front door wide open. Then, with a stupid grin on his face, he marched down the hall without wiping his feet.

"He might get in but he wouldn't get out in one piece" said my wife. "So much for saving energy" I thought.

Who thought up this rubbish? Did they imagine it would succeed in making the public think well of NPower? It certainly makes me remember the name but NOT in a positive way... but then NPower are good at doing that.

Driving in snow and ice

1st January 2010 saw what is considered 'heavy' snowfalls in most of the UK. In my own area of Northumberland six inches had fallen by lunchtime. As usual it brought chaos on the roads since snow has been a rarity in the UK for some time and most drivers just don't have a clue about how to drive on snow and ice. A few, who live high enough and are old enough or have lived elsewhere where snow is common have the skill but still become stuck behind those who slide and skid.

I was one of them on New Year's Eve in Newcastle when I spent 30 minutes making a 2 mile journey up Dunston Bank. It was covered in ice and although I didn't get stuck I had to dodge around other cars which were sliding all over the place.

So what is the secret? It's easy - you slow down. Although it is counter intuitive, if you start to get wheel-spin you ease off on the accelerator (gas pedal) and run your engine just a little faster than you need to prevent the engine stalling. Keep in the highest gear possible and if you start to slide, DON'T add power. That's harder in a car with an automatic gearbox - might be a good time to remind yourself how to use it's manual mode.

When going downhill leave a large gap in front. ABS brakes will help but if your car isn't fitted with them then brake very gently. If you start to slide, take your foot off the brake and let the wheels start turning and tyres start gripping before trying to brake again. This is vital since you have no control over your car's direction once the wheels have locked. If it's really icy then pulse the brake gently rather than braking steadily.

Obviously this is no time to have to do an emergency stop so LEAVE THAT GAP and think well ahead. Assume the worst. That driver at the junction ahead will try to pull out in front of you, the guy you are about to overtake will slide sideways across your path and the guy coming down the hill towards you thinks he can control his skid by braking hard and sliding into you.

If you do get stuck there are three things you should be carrying in your boot which can help.

1. a shovel


2. a large piece of a cardboard box


3. a bag of cat litter

Use the shovel to dig a path clear.
Place the cardboard under the wheel which is slipping.
Cat litter makes good grit to get you traction and is a lot lighter than grit or salt.

You might also want to plan for the worst and carry some tea light candles. They don't take up much space but if you get stranded will provide light and a surprising amount of warmth.

So where did I pick up the skill? I was raised on a hill farm 1,700 feet up in the Pennine Hills and have also spent 3 winters in Canada. I'm old enough to remember the 1963 winter too so 6 inches of snow is nothing!

By the way - if you think winter is bad this year - 'you ain't seen nuthin yet!'

Climate conference/disaster/damp squib (COP15)

Well the Copenhagen Climate Conference is over with nothing achieved. Lots of people attended and all that was achieved was a substantial contribution to 'global warming' in the form of jet fuel wasted by 150 planes travelling there from all over the world and a probably equal quantity of 'hot air' spouted by media, activists and politicians who obviously didn't know what they were talking about. So here is my summary of the event, trivia and all. If you want more, I've put it in detail here.

First of all you have to admire the timing of holding a conference on global warming during a time when people were freezing to death during the coldest snap Europe has experienced for several years. That really makes people begin to think 'Maybe a little warming wouldn't be such a bad idea'. Obviously the organisers need to take lessons from the organisers of the first international conference on global warming who held their conference during a heat wave in August 2001.

I was impressed by the impassioned plea of Leah Wickham, a Fijian who tearfully told the conference 'Fifty years from now, my children will be raising their own families. It is my hope that they will still be able to call our beautiful islands home.' I don't doubt her sincerity but since the oceans are rising at 1.8mm per year (as they have been doing for the last 12,000 years) and Fiji is a mountainous set of islands with peaks of 1,300 metres I calculate she won't need to worry for at least 70,000 years - assuming an unlimited supply of polar ice to melt. She may find it a little cramped though if all the world's ice were to melt (around 3,500 years in the future at the current rate) and the sea level rises by 70 metres. There's a web page at www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Special:SeaLevel which will allow you to see how any area in the world would be affected.

It's estimated the conference caused an additional 40,000 tonnes of carbon (146,000 tonnes of CO₂) released by the 13,000 visitors many of whom were delivered in a fleet of 1,200 gas guzzling limos. Just 5 of the limos were hybrids.

Does that 146,000 tonne figure include the carbon cost of the 40 ministers who met in Copenhagen November 16-17; the 12 who met in the Maldives 9-10 November; the 19 who met in Singapore 14-15 November; the leaders who met in Singapore on 19 Nov. or the British Commonwealth leaders who met in Trinidad with the UN Secretary-General, French and Danish presidents, to discuss the climate conference?
Rumour has it that there were plans for President Obama to ride a bicycle to the conference but that idea was squashed due to the fleet of extra cars which would be needed to surround him. They would have used even more carbon (and maybe due to the cold).

Full marks have to go to University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) for supposedly sending emails suggesting conflicting data should be suppressed and then having that email released to the media just before the conference. If ever an action could be taken to throw doubt about the IPCC and it's data sources then that was it. Of course reading the emails is one thing but understanding the context in which they were written is another. It certainly seems to me that climate scientists need to be more careful when writing emails. Funny how the investigation of this has gone quiet now.

The conference seems to have been taken seriously - at least that's the impression you would get from looking at the conference photographs. Everyone has a straight face apart from President Obama and a few others. (The last picture of smiling media services excluded)

All that effort and what did they achieve? Nothing!

Now don't get the idea that I'm a climate sceptic who thinks we can freely continue to burn fossil fuels. My personal belief is that we should take every step possible to minimise our use of fossil fuels. However I don't hold that opinion because of 'global warming'; I hold that opinion because these are precious and finite resources which we will need as chemical feedstock later rather than burning them now. As to 'Climate Warming' - well it's been going on for 12,000 years and there's not a lot we can do about it.

Toshiba Nano Mouse

I just bought a new wireless mouse for my son's computer, a Toshiba Nano Wireless Laser mouse. I chose it because of the tiny USB dongle it comes with and because I didn't want it to interfere with my wife's Logitech wireless mouse.

It's 25 miles to my nearest computer store so we went while shopping for other items.

My son thought it was cool at first but had problems installing the software and configuring the buttons.

After just four days it stopped working. I took a look and installed the software properly. No effect. I changed the battery, no effect. I reset the connection (not explained in the manual), no effect. I could right click and left click but no matter what I did the pointer wouldn't move.

"Maybe I'm doing something wrong" I thought and went to the Toshiba website to check. I wish I had gone there first because eventually I found 12 customer reviews on the US site all telling the same story. It works at first but stops working within 5 months. Examining the 'Full specification' I found:
Benefit
Cordless YES
Opitical NO
Laser NO Huh! It says a laser mouse on the box
Scroll button YES
Ergonomic NO
Interchangeable Cover NO
Mac Compatible NO
USB Connection YES These cameras plug directly into a port on your PC with an appropriate USB cable Huh! Its a mouse not a camera!
Shortcut button NO

Seems Toshiba doesn't know their own product and PC World & other stores copy this blindly.

So I'm going to have to make a 50 mile round trip to PC World to take it back. I went on New Year's Eve after first making sure the store was open. I got there 21 minutes before the store's closing time only to find that they had closed early due to the bad weather (See Driving in snow and ice). Great - another 50 mile trip!

So that makes me award the Toshina Nano Mouse my award for being the biggest load of c*#p ever sold for £19.99!

Remembering the Winter of 1963

Looking outside (in-between downpours) I can't help noticing that this year we have had a bumper crop of berries, a greater fall of pine needles than usual and we had lots of morning fog in August. According to tradition these are all signs of a bad winter to come.

I'm not convinced of any of the 'Lore', it reminds me of the story of Indians who rang up the weather service to find out about the coming winter and were told it would be cold so they started gathering wood. When they checked again later they were told it would be very cold so they gathered more wood. Later still they were told it would be extremely cold so they gathered yet more wood. When they checked next they were told it would be the worst winter for years. 'How do you know?' they asked and got the reply 'Well the Indians are gathering wood like crazy.'

I do however remember an extremely bad winter. That of 1963. It was bitterly cold, the coldest on record, and it snowed in a big way!

That year I was living on a hill farm in the North Pennines. The first I remember of that winter was when my father opened the front door and was met by a solid wall of snow. The previous five winters at the farm had taught us to keep a shovel inside the house so a few minutes digging got us outside. There had been a heavy snowfall but the howling wind had picked up most of the snow on the fells above us and blown it all into drifts in the valley where we lived, one of them burying our front door and the window of our sitting room. The picture shows our family standing outside that door and window later that summer.

We had to dig our way across the farmyard to the cow byre to feed the cows and while we were doing that the postman arrived. He had made it as far as our lane but had then given up. He left the mail for the village of Carrshield at the Chapel below our house saying 'If anyone gets here from there or goes there - ask them to take it'. Carrshield was a mere 2 miles from our house, further up the valley so to a 14 year old boy that was a challenge. I got prepared. By then we had learnt to wear two pairs of jeans, one inside our wellingtons and one outside. Not only did that keep out the bitter wind but it also prevented snow from getting inside wellingtons. I put on a thick pullover, mits, Woolen hat and two jackets, one with a hood. Looking like the Michelin man I made my way down the lane to the chapel, struggled to put the post bag over my shoulder and marched off into the blizzard.

About 200 yards further the road went through a series of bends, through a small wood and over a small stream. It was there I met one of our neighbours, Roland Johnson, trying to dig out his Landrover which had got stuck in the snow. I gave him a hand and he turned back towards his home. I continued up the road - or at least what I thought was the road since the snow had completely covered it, the wall at the left and the fence at my right. It was hard going since the snow was soft and deep. I sank up to my thighs in it and began to think plans for making a set of snow shoes out of old tennis rackets.

About another 20 yards and I got tangled up in something buried in the snow. Fence wires? Nope it was telephone wires still attached and normally 20 feet in the air. That's when I gave up! Carrshield's mail could wait.

The snow there turned out to be 22 feet deep after it had packed down and dug out. One of the pictures I have of it shows my brother-in-law, Colin Graham, standing on the shoulders of a friend, Brian Myers, next to the drift. As you can see the snow still towers above them.

It took gangs of men three weeks to dig their way to Carrshield. Even then there was one road which remained closed even longer where it went through a cutting which had been completely filled with a 44 foot deep snow drift.


As to that 44 foot drift; 1963 was the first year the council tried out snow blowers. They imported one from Switzerland, brought it by low loader to Hexham then drove it from there towards that drift. About 200 yards from it it broke down and the drift had to be cut out by men with shovels and mechanical diggers.

It took a long time for the snow to melt that year. In June, when I came home at half tern for a holiday there was still snow in places.

UK Education?

Today the BBC news wrote that truancy in UK schools was at a record high, 1.03% of school sessions being missed without permission.

"Missing school for no good reason is totally unacceptable," Schools Minister Vernon Coaker commented.

A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesperson commented "The rise in unauthorised absence is not what we want to see, but as schools are cracking down on absence it's inevitable that they will be stricter about authorising it - meaning that unauthorised absence will rise,".

Who are they trying to kid? These children are absent from school because they don't like the courses which have been forced upon them! Parents too often fail to see the point of a child following a particular course.

The trouble is that those in parliament and government don't live in the real world. Their social circle does not include those of average or below average ability and by definition that makes up 50% of the population. As someone who was at the sharp end of education for 35 years I was constantly frustrated by governments who decided they knew best and would 'improve' education.

First as a chemistry teacher I was dismayed when the then government said 'We're not producing enough scientists - solution - make all children take a GCE (now GCSE) in science. Unfortunately they failed to realise that 'Scientists' are bred from the top 5-10% of the ability range and no amount of science courses will ever produce more 'scientists' from the remaining 90%. In the past most of the bottom 50% dropped science courses allowing the remaining 50% to have more time and money spent on them. That bottom 50% broke most of the equipment too!

By all means provide the lower ability groups with a science course. Give them a general awareness course which should be fun and interesting but not too demanding and not requiring pupils to learn about things totally beyond them. Let me ask Mps this:
"How many of you understand why relativity says you can't travel beyond the speed of light? How many of you understand about adenosine triphosphate's role in providing energy? Can you explain why the outer electron shell makes the chemistry of sodium similar to the chemistry of potassium?"
If you don't know the answers then you have no right to expect the majority of the population to know it either!

For years too, all pupils must follow a 'religious education' course in UK schools and each school must have a regular collective Christian worship. I always found 80% of pupils hated this as a total waste of time. Now I can see why it's still in the curriculum. Our MPs are afraid that saying they don't personally believe it has relevance in today's society will cost them votes. I found it interesting that, when MPs were recently asked if they believed in 'God', each paused awkwardly before saying 'yes'.

PHSE (Personal, Social and Health Education) This was a course introduced a few years ago. In some schools it's taught by a specialist teacher but in the majority it's taught, often poorly, by non-specialists. In schools where PSHE is taught by non-specialists on a particular day the absence rate is higher on that day. Now I can see the point of having this subject but if schools want it to be taken seriously then get a specialist teacher to teach it properly and concentrate the maths, science and other specialists on teaching the subject they know best. I would suggest merging it with the RE program too.

OFSTED - Few people know that this stands for 'Office for Standards in Education'. Its function seems to be to terrorise teachers and make them jump through hoops. Does it really do anything useful? How much does it cost?

SATs (Subject Attainment Tests) A great idea in theory - or are they? Do we really need to make our children jump through hoops several times in the course of their education? Remember the 11+ examination which regularly sent 40% of pupils to the wrong school? Do SATs allow us to tell which schools are best? Does knowing that 'information' help or does it mean that everyone tries to get into 'the best' school and the majority then arrive at a lesser school already disaffected because they didn't get into the oversubscribed school of their choice. Do the SATs results tell the teachers anything they don't already know?

So if I were the Schools Minister what would I do?

• Scrap the SATs - a waste of time and money.


• Scrap OFSTED - I can find a better use for £200 million and getting rid of it will reduce stress absence in schools which costs even more.


• Forget compulsory science GCSEs. Instead introduce a science appreciation course for those who don't opt to follow sciences at GCSE level. Let's face it an average GCSE grade in science is a grade F which as far as employers are concerned is a certificate proving the person is incompetent at science. Certainly steer that top ability group towards the sciences though and concentrate the expensive resources on those with the ability to use them.


• Merge the RE and PHSE courses. Make them non-examinable (although with the option of opting for a GCSE RE subject for those who want it) and have it taught by specialist teachers. Do away with the dictate that each school should have a compulsory Christian collective worship. Keep assemblies though.


• See my job as being to provide schools with the funding they need to maintain and create new buildings, purchase resources, reduce class sizes and NOT to interfere.

Original cartoon Matt of the Daily Telegraph

Choosing Genealogy Software

For the past few months I've been trying out genealogy software to see how they compare against each other.

According to some sources tracing your family history is now the third most popular hobby in the US. Something you've possibly noticed if you count the number of magazines devoted to the subject. I got bitten by the genealogy bug back in my early 20s (a long time ago) and if anything, my interest has increased.

In the past I've kept records:

• on separate cards - which constantly get out of order


• in loose leaf folders - a disaster once you drop it once


• in hard backed notebooks - which drop to bits over time and need re-transcribing

...but then along came computers and Internet offering a much easier (and possibly safer) method of storing information.

For a while I experimented with creating my own database program but it quickly became apparent to me that I was attempting to re-invent the wheel. There are lots of pre-made genealogy programs out there, some of which, e.g.Personal Ancestral File. are excellent and FREE!

I used Personal Ancestral File (PAF) for years but began to wonder if I was perhaps missing out on something. Could it be that there were much better programs available which might suit me better - even if I did have to pay for them?

Of course if you read the reviews of software you'll get as many different 'best buy's as there are reviews. Family history magazines tend to promote the one they offer for sale or are supported by and computer magazines tend not to be written by genealogists (Computer Shopper has reviewed genealogy programs twice in the last 8 years and made glaring omissions). There was only one thing for it. I got hold of each of the programs and tried them out myself.

The full results can be seen on my Genlinks website but here's a short summary of what I found:

• The most expensive programs are NOT the best programs


• All of them are rubbish at producing websites


• The use of information from Internet has increased the number of errors in family trees. Lots of software packages allow you to make errors such as a 69 year old woman having children two years after her death


• You'll need to read manuals to get the best out of most of the software and sometimes there's an extra charge for that. Something I find objectionable - (Legacy please note!)


• None of the programs integrate with e-mail clients - a surprising omission since much information will come via that route


• Few of the programs allow you to add clickable web page links. Presumably the software publishers will say 'Web pages may disappear' (obviously never having heard of the Internet Archive)


• A surprising number of the programs offer few facilities for keeping contact information


• Adding map information is a great idea but few software programs do it well and none of them offer old maps


• DNA information has left most of the programs far behind


• Some programs are excellent if you want to write a book about your family. Others are useless at this because you can't edit the result


• Most of the programs will run with Windows 7 but some may have slight problems if text and icons are set at 125% or more scale on a large high resolution display. One expensive program does not use standard file windows.

So which one would I choose?

• I'm going to keep PAF because despite being the oldest and free program it's the best at providing the text for my website.


• I'm going to buy RootsMagic 4 because with a score of 158 points it's the outright winner. It's just a shame that it's so rubbish at making web pages and warning you about errors.


• I'm probably going to buy Legacy 7 since I like it's warnings and can read and interpret manuals. I may eventually understand it's awful merge individuals feature. I look forward to Legacy 8

So I'll be using not one but three programs - and that will be a real pain!

I'm never going to win the lottery...

Don't get me wrong. I never really expected to win because I only buy one ticket for each of the Saturday and Wednesday draws so my odds of winning are not very high. In fact I look on it as more of a charitable donation. It does allow me one thing though - hope.

Hope that against all odds, my numbers come up and I'll suddenly be rich!

I buy my tickets online since I hate standing in queues and there isn't a shop selling the tickets within three miles. Usually I pay in £10 and that covers me for the next five weeks. (As you can see, I'm not exactly addicted to gambling) The trouble is that every now and then I forget to buy my tickets (despite the reminder the lottery sends me).

Eleven weeks ago I forgot and missed a Saturday draw. Three numbers came up and I missed out on £10. Oh well that's unfortunate but I wouldn't miss it. Five weeks later I forgot again and last Saturday, didn't have a ticket. Four of my numbers came up.

Ahgggh! That not won £87 would have paid for almost a years worth of new tickets! I've had three number £10 wins before (not very often) but never a four number win.

I bought a fresh 5 week supply and yesterday - as usual not a single number. I guess fate is telling me I'm never going to get those six numbers.

Advice to spammers and scammers

No - I'm not going to tell you to see if you can head butt a 5 ton truck travelling at 70mph; (well you can if you want); this blog is about spams and scams which won't work on me!

1. - I turn on the 'To' field in my e-mail program so that I can see who the e-mail is being sent to. I won't read or even bother looking at the subject of any e-mail which:
   
   
   • does not have a completed 'to' field
   • is apparently sent from my e-mail address to me
   • is sent to an e-mail address I do not recognise
   • is sent to any of my 'spam trap' e-mail addresses (for information dummy they are all anagrams of 'you are a fool' e.g. louafeaoroy@...)
   • is sent to 'undisclosed recipients'
   
   
2. I examine the 'From' field and don't bother with:
   
   • any e-mail with a blank 'from' field
   • from anyone with an e-mail address with a random combination of letters e.g. I will accept as possibly genuine david4387@... but not jwp5tzphw@...
   • anyone with pharmacy, casino or a drug name or company in the e-mail address
   
   
3. After all of the above are automatically permanently deleted by my e-mail filters they then examine the subject field:
   
   • No subject - deleted unless the sender is on my contact list
   • If the subject is 'Hi', 'Hello', 'Urgent', 'ATTENTION!' or any other meaningless phrase - deleted unless the sender is in my contact list.
   • I get offended by swearwords and vulgarity so my filters will permanently delete any e-mails which contain either. I will never see them
   • there are keywords my filters look for. If these are found in a subject then the e-mail is permanently deleted unless the sender is in my contact list. I will never see e-mails about fake watches, drugs, dieting, banks I don't belong to, parcel services I don't use, lotteries, corporate offers or anything mentioning 'girlfriend', 'sweetheart', 'her', 'super' etc.
   • If your spam refers to any body part in any way I won't ever see it unless you are on my contact list.
   
   
4. I will look at the subjects of what is left:
   
   
   
   • if it's not in my language - I delete it
   • if the subject contains words which contain spaces - V I A G R A or numbers/symbols replacing letters - Cia1;s then you know I don't want to receive it so why bother sending it?
   • I will NEVER follow a link in an e-mail from a bank
   • While the tax authorities may owe me money I know they never contact people by e-mail to tell them about it. Neither do they e-mail messages to say you owe money, and they certainly don't have a domain such as hmrc.gov.uk.tv
   • Only a fool would buy a watch from a spammer without being able to see it - it's merely a good way to receive nothing and lose your credit card details - so I won't read it.
   • The same is true for drugs or anything taken by mouth
   • No matter how embarrassed a person is they would have to be a complete moron to trust any part of their anatomy to a surgeon promoted by spam. Good candidates for Darwin awards.
   • Someone I don't know sends me details of a stock which is going to make my fortune? Yeah. Right - of course I believe it and will invest heavily
   • Someone offers me a job working for 'just a few hours each day' - bin it
   • Is there really anyone left on Internet who will fall for the Nigerian style money transfer scam? No I'm not going to give any stranger, no matter what he/she promises, my bank details and then wire funds which haven't cleared anywhere.
   • Begging letters? No - I'm too mean to respond to genuine ones and too wise to fall for the sob stories
   • Online casino promoted by spam? Of course I believe they will pay out and not steal my credit card details if I'm daft enough to bet any of my own money - deleted!
   
   
   
   
5. Now what about the rest?
   • If a subject seems genuine my e-mail filters will still scan the content and delete any which contain content which had it appeared in the subject line, would have been deleted
   • If something seems too good to be true I naturally suspect it isn't and delete it
   • If the content is a graphic attachment only - deleted
   • If the content contains a 'nasty' - My anti-malware program will get rid of it
   • If the content contains lots of downloadable graphics, my e-mail program won't download them - and neither will I
   
   
6. I will open the rest of my e-mail BUT if I find a content unrelated to the subject I will:
   • add the sender to spam blacklists
   • complain to the ISP of the sender about spam and I will use the IP address of the sender, not the forged e-mail address. If that means complaining about someone who has unwittingly become part of a botnet - tough. Tearn to protect your computer with anti-malware software and stop inflicting pain on the rest of us.
   • add the domain of any web host who fails to respond to my complaint about spam to blacklists
   • complain to the web host of any URL promoted about the site being promoted by spam
   
   
   • If you use a spambot to search my website for e-mail addresses it will find LOADS of totally useless e-mail addresses, links to spam blacklists and a very useful link to a site called WPOISON which will provide more useless dummy e-mail addresses to fill up your spam lists.
   
   

As you can see I have a thing about spam so my final bit of advise is:

Don't send it to me!

Maybe NPower does listen - eventually!

If you've followed this blog you might have seen my post 'NPower doesn't listen' in which I related the tale of how Npower had been sending me bills for someone else since April 2008. I had returned bills marked 'Not known at this address' only to have them come straight back to me. I phoned them many times but still the bills kept coming.

Things came to a head when I got 'Disconnection Notices' which threatened to break in, disconnect me for a bill I didn't own and then lock me out of my own house by replacing the locks making me travel 60 miles and pay £150 to collect keys.

More phone calls, letters and complaints to NPower's Retail CEO had no effect. The bills kept coming and when I accidentally opened one in June 2009 I found they had risen to £1,476.86.

When NPower reduced my monthly direct debit payments, despite my objections, causing me to go £400 in debit on my real electricity account that was enough for me and I switched electricity suppliers to EDF and wrote a note to NPower explaining my reasons for doing so.

Finally, too late for them, Npower got their act in gear and wrote to me apologising and telling me they had finally corrected the address of the unfortunate individual with the £1,476.86 bill and I would no longer be sent his letters. As compensation for my trouble, today a £100.00 cheque arrived! They also knocked £100 off the final bill I got (Now £600).

Now I wonder how they plan to treat the other NPower customer - the one who's had free electricity for 18 months and now finds himself with a huge bill?