2012 — 29 September: Saturday
It's amazing what you can still not know when you're a chap in your 60s.1 But the sun is shining, the cuppa is fresh, and there's a country walk in prospect assuming we can find a path that hasn't been washed away.
Right. Breakfast? Yep. Packed lunch? Yep. Moleskin? Soon. Time to fling on some clothes and go get me some of that fresh air.
Is the correct...
... term "scam" or "scum"? I got a text message on my mobile last night ordering me to contact 'them' about the £3,850 I was owed for having been mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance. That was all it said. I wouldn't mind, but I have never had PPI on any of my various purchases and occasional loans over the years.
Speaking of which, today I got some snailmail enclosing a Buildings Regulations Compliance Certificate as, since April 2002, "it has been a legal requirement that all domestic windows and/or door installations are registered directly with my Local Authority Building Control, Approved Inspector or (in my case, it seems) via an approved self certification scheme." (Not that — perish the thought — the company administering this can be held responsible, in any way, for the installation failing to comply with the "appropriate regulations".)
This, frankly pathetic, Certificate is legally required for the sale of my house. As is, at some point in the next six weeks, the offer of insurance2 to cover the written guarantee (which I expect is buried somewhere in the small print of the contract). I may yet also have the pleasure of a visit from a quality assurance auditor.
If insurance to cover a guarantee (which apparently is assumed to become worthless if the installer goes bust during the guarantee period) isn't a subtle variation on PPI then, pray tell me, what is it?
It was only...
... while listening to some of the fine "piano season" music played on BBC Radio 3 that I made the connection between composer Thomas Newman and his cousin Randy Newman. The soundtracks to "American beauty" and "Meet Joe Black" are now somewhere in Amazon's delivery system.
Mapping global wealth
I love maps of all sorts. The one linked here is one of the oddest I've encountered. And it also led me to an article about that image ("The height of inequality") I mentioned recently of wealth represented by the height of people marching past a fixed point in a parade. It dates back to 1971, apparently, and a graphic produced by a Dutch chap called Jan Pen. More here.