Diary Of An ADI

Well, we’ve had a few months of pretty low fuel prices. It went up to £1.20+ a litre at the peak of the last hike, but fell quite quickly to well under 90p. It was funny reading the know-it-alls in the driving instructing industry who predicted “that’s it: it will never fall below £1 ever again “.

Well, there was a delayed tax which went on to the price a few weeks ago and prices have risen a little in their own right – currently around 93p a litre.

But the Daily Mail hasn’t tried to cause problems for while and has now reported that price rises have “[overtaken] last spring’s cost surge”. What idiots these people are – half of the increase was due to a delayed tax increase, so has nothing to do with last year’s rises. It’s also down to oil companies profiteering.

But this is just the Mail trying to cause another scare. And it has the kind of readership which readily drives its 4x4s to the nearest garage the second the Mail tells them to.

Just watching the BBC lunchtime news and saw some demonstrations against job losses in Northern Ireland.

Why are people stupid enough to believe that going on strike, demonstrating, rioting (it’s inevitable, isn’t it?), and so on is somehow enough to drag a company back from the edge of bankruptcy and into a healthy situation?

I mean, these same people are probably the ones who were prepared to strike the last time the company in question (and I’m speaking generally) forgot to replace a toilet roll in the company lavatory, or switched to a cheaper and less luxurious alternative. They’ll be the same ones who never miss a chance to report problems to The Union. Trust me, I’ve been there and witnessed it over many years – it IS the way things operate.

So I wonder why it is they can’t see where one of the biggest causes of the mess the company they’re demonstrating against is in is really located?

We always knew this, really. Men knew it but weren’t allowed to say it. Women knew it but wouldn’t admit to it. But this article tucked away in The Daily Mail (link long since deleted by The Mail) confirms it.

You’ll need to scroll down about halfway (obviously, this could be a problem – especially for women – so here’s the important bit):

Brain scans have shown that between 80 and 85 per cent of women have neural circuits that lack the spatial abilities that are almost universal in men.

This may explain women’s difficulty with any activities that involve the estimation of space, distance and speed.

Daily Mail (before they deleted it due to it not fitting the narrative)

So, there you have it!

To be honest, I’m surprised the scans actually found…… no, no. I jest, I jest.

Another one from The Sun – which seems to have been scouring Germany this week for material.

The story contains CCTV footage (old story, link dead) showing a motorcycle hitting a car at around 60mph. The lucky idiot survived, albeit with serious injuries.

Saw this in several newspapers over the weekend, about a woman in Germany who jumped into the Polar Bear enclosure at a zoo. The Sun story doesn’t really add much, though it has the video – nor does The Telegraph version, except it quotes the Police chief:

“Logic tells us that polar bears will do this type of thing in this situation.”

Quite.

Well, yesterday (Tuesday) really. Well done FB – passed with 7 driver faults. This was her first test with me, though she’d taken it and failed several times before.

The best part about this one was that she didn’t expect to pass and was absolutely elated when she did (I had to force her to take the test otherwise she never would have – she was a much better driver than she gave herself credit for, and I had to make her see this).

It really made my day – even if my last pupil did his level best to screw it up by arguing. We were parked, a car pulled up behind us, and my pupil drove off without looking over his shoulder or indicating. When I pointed it out, what did I get?

“Oh, come on! He isn’t going to pull over and then drive off again.”

“And what about not looking over your shoulder?”

“I did.”

He didn’t – not before he moved off, anyway. And he refused to accept that he should have indicated for the car behind.

If he isn’t careful he’ll be looking for another instructor soon.

I frequent quite a few forums covering things like IT, health & medicine, science, news, and driving instruction. Something which really bugs me is when a conversation goes something like this:

Time: Friday Night

Poster #1: I tried to log into the DSA website and I can’t get on. Has anyone else had the problem or is it me?

This is bad enough. I mean, if you can’t work out that a website is down by checking you can access all others… Come on!

Poster #2: I logged in yesterday and it was OK. Have you run a virus scan on your ‘puter?

Aaargh! I hate it when people pretend they know what they’re talking about and then call their computer a “‘puter”.

Poster #3: I can’t get in either. What software do you use to scan your computer?

Going off at tangents is a favoured pastime on forums, especially those involved with driving instructing.

Poster #4: I can’t get in.

By now you’d think it would click with someone that the website in question just might be down.

Poster #5: Same here. I can’t get in at all.

Poster #2 (reply): You need to download XYZ anti-virus and then Spybot and Ad-Aware.

Yep, the experts know best. Just wait and see what happens if you try and install one anti-virus when you already have another running and something doesn’t stop you. And Spybot or Ad-Aware are quite capable of stopping other software operating if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Poster #6: Me as well. I can’t log in.

This is likely to go on for 6 pages or more. And once it quietens down, no doubt in a few weeks someone will dig it up again:

Time: 6 weeks later, Friday Night again

Poster X: Just saw this. I tried logging in a few minutes ago and I was thrown off. Anyone find a solution?

For God’s sake, THE SITE IS DOWN! It often goes down weekends for maintenance, and if it breaks there’s no one to fix it until Monday usually. Lost of sites go down occasionally.

The DSA website (and others) have been the source of discussions very similar to this across many forums over the years. But the reason I mention it is that there is currently a new Thing To Keep Going On About As If You’ve Had A Frontal Lobotomy being discussed in just the same way.

The DSA has recently launched a new website/portal and it has sent email notifications to those who are registered with it. There is obviously a little bit of a problem with the emailing system, because it seems that around half a dozen are being sent every day at the moment (about 10 minutes apart). This has sent the feeble-minded apoplectic on certain forums.

There is a battle on to boast the most emails (“I’ve received 8”, “Well, I’ve had 10”, “I can beat that – I’ve had 15”, and so on). Then there are those who feel vulnerable (“I’ve not had any. Someone obviously doesn’t like me”). Then there are the dickheads (“Enough is enough. How much is this costing, keep sending out emails like this?”) and the total dickheads (“I’ve replied to every one of them demanding that they stop!” – the actual email address is a ‘no reply’ one). And, of course, there are the über-dickheads (“This is illegal SPAM and I will be contacting my solicitor on Monday morning”).

You’d be surprised how many über-dickheads there are…

When I heard this on the news this morning I thought it was an April Fools Day joke, but Alan Shearer is to take over as Newcastle Utd manager until the end of the season.

What makes me particularly smug is that I predicted this in September last year here and here.

He has a hell of a task on his hands, and I’m surprised he has risked his reputation as God’s bigger brother (as the Geordies see him) on something which is quite likely to end up with Newcastle being relegated. The team isn’t good enough, the board and fans expect too much, and he isn’t tried and tested at this level. The pressure on him and the team will be immense.