Promatic International Ltd (Claymate Division)
Tel: +44(0) 151 203 8212
Fax: +44(0) 1787-227503
sales@claymate.co.uk

This page will contain various blurtings and self opinionated rantings from yours truly.

Stuff I Like. A new concept
Follow the link above to see sites I like and would recommend you look at.

Until I learn how to make a link jump to a paragraph in the same HTML file, you will have to scroll down. Dreamweaver is a wonderful program but intuitive it isn't!

These thoughts are mine and may not necessarily be shared by my distributors, friends, relatives or other persons associated with me.
If you want a civilised discussion about anything, feel free to mail me.

Some rants will appeal to all, like why there are more "Warning, Speed Camera" signs than cameras?
Because signs are cheap, cameras are not, especially when there are teams of camera destruction squads doing the rounds.

Sadly, the Tuff Tuff site that posted pictures of burnt out cameras and sinister ways to destroy them has been removed.
If I say much more then I could potentially be had up for inciting violence against Gatso Cameras and might get arrested under the Anti-terrorism Laws.

There are some links you might find amusing to read on the Stuff I Like page including some stuff on Fuel prices.

I am officially a Jedi Knight.

I am grateful to the editor of Private Eye Magazine, Ian Hisplop, who mentioned on TV's Have I Got News For You that if 10,000 or more people state their religion as Jedi Knight, then that is sufficient for it to become a valid religion recogniseable in law.

In the two Thousand and something census I, and 10,000+ more of us stated our religion as Jedi Knight hence we can make that claim quite legitimately in all documentation that ask AND we can get really pissy if the recipient of this information doesn't want to believe.

Now I can stand up and say in a loud voice "That is offensive to my religion" and buy, can you get some results.
If you can't beat them, join them and beat them from the inside.

Link 4 is an American site but if you want a UK one, try the search engine approach.

What makes me laugh about fuel prices, the cost of alcohol and ciggies (I don't partake of either the "Falling down Water" or the "Demon Weed") is our governments "Both sides of the fence" attitude.

If alcohol and ciggies are so BAD for us, why are they legal?
Sadly, take the HM Customs & Excise cut out of the profits and you have a lucrative source of unearned income, so on the one hand HM Gov takes a massive whack in TAX and then has the cheek to tell us to cut down!

My old web site ran a piece in which I suggested increasing the cost of ciggies ten times.
I suggested that 90% of the smoking population would cut it out altogether (at least BUYING the stuff) leaving the remaining, obviously able to afford the hike, to carry on at the same time, keeping the HM Gov's income from TAX unchanged.
As smoking related illnesses in the National 'health' service must by definition drop by 90%, the 400 million UK pounds spent on related care would drop by 360 million. Thus, in one stroke, the raising of the cost of a packet of smokes by ten times reduces the smoker to 105 of their original figure, maintains tax income and SAVES a further 360 million in health care.

The same with drink. Most of our Fly on the Wall TV cop shoes contain a fair number of drink related "Failures To Act Like Human Being", typically aged between 12 and 25.
If booze is so evil, rack up the cost by a factor of ten and wait for clubs to close, people employed in same go on the dole, breweries go out of business and the channel ferries to do a roaring trade in "Buying for personal consumption" trips to France to stock up at the port side super markets. Plus those who would distill liqueur from potato peeling and sprouts.
It's all bollocks.

Fortunately, I only use road fuel and have a diesel vehicle.
Remember when diesel was a quarter and less than the cost of petrol?

So, on our UK tellies we have a TV ad suggesting that we should cut our fuel use by 20%.
Really? For what reason? Global warming?
Why of course, If we in the UK cut OUR consumption down then all will be well and the likes of other countries who pollute like buggery can carry on because we in the UK have cut OUR consumption, saving the planet for all man kind. Bollocks.

Why has OUR fuel gone up again? because China, being a fast growing economy, wants cars and stuff so what part of that sounds like someone making fast buck?
You can try to blame the oil companies but they get a tiny fraction of the cost of a gallon of fuel. The UK tax on fuel approximates to some 80% of the cost.
So tell me, why is it in the interest of TAX Income to persuade us to use less fuel?
Can you imagine what would happen if ALL out cars did 300 miles to a gallon?
With the average vehicle leaping from 30 to 300 MPG, the tax income drops by 90%. How does the Government reward us for all out efforts in fuel and vehicle technology. They put the bloody price up, so we are not doing ourselves any favours at all.

Of course, the trick is to run your car on heating oil.
Add a couple of pints of SAE 30 oil to a tank to get the engine lubrication factor back up and apart from running a bit smokey with a tad less power, you can go for less.
Oh.. Sorry, that's illegal of course because there is no ROAD TAX on heating oil.
So you think your fuel duty and road fund licence taxes actually go to pay for roads?
Like hell.

If there was no more alcohol, tobacco or road vehicle tax income to be had, once we are all non amokers, teetotal and all gad about by pedal power, what do YOU think would be a good way to raise tax revenue. A Window Tax perhaps? VAT on food and water?
Electricity and gas and don't forget heating oil.

When I buy a book or a CD, I do not expect to either be forced to read the prefix of the book or listen to a lecture about copyright off the CD.
Why is it that when I load up a DVD which I have purchased legitimately, I am forced to watch and listen to copyright messages, "IF you have rented this DVD," etc and in some cases, Disney are good at this one, be FORCED to play through shed loads of advertisements for other video titles available from (Disney etc) EVERY TIME I load up the DVD?

The technical guys out there will know that some parts of the DVD can be flagged as PLAY ONLY in that you can't skip or fast forward through them.

This feature was put there after pressure from the film companies who wanted to ensure that you couldn't ignore any presentation they deemed to be so important that you simply HAD to watch it.

One American congressman failed (thankfully) to get a law passed to make it illegal to wind past adverts in recorded shows you recorded AT HOME!
That is taking it a bit far.

It does hack me off to be forced to view time and time again, the same piece of visual brainwashing that film companies insist on placing at the front of a DVD and out of our control.

Surely buying the DVD gives me the right to watch it as many times as I want?
If I can turn to any page I want in a book, why should a DVD be any different?

Consider the logical next step in our brainwashing phase involving the Motor Industry..

"This vehicle is made by Inufaceo.
You may not break the speed limit neither can you drive if you are intoxicated.
We at Inufaceo cannot be held responsible if you hurt yourself or anyone else with this vehicle.
In turning the ignition key, you accept the terms and conditions laid out here and totally absolve Inufaceo from any legal action for death or damages howsoever caused in the use of this vehicle"

Would YOU own a car that preached that Bull every time you closed the door?
I rest my case.

This is technical, so if you want to laugh, scroll down.
I also desperately need super scripting.

Consider the term "5 Million". How would you write that down?

5,000,000 seems almost universally recognised as a fair representation.
what about. ...
50,000,000... 50 Million sound fair?
500,000,000... 500 million... still with me?
5,000,000,000... That's Five Thousand Million in words so where does 5 BILLION come from... because it is wrong, wrong, wrong!

We already have a convention for 5,000 (5 thousand) and we have a convention for 1,000,000... One Million, so 5 Thousand Million is technically and mathematically correct.

We don't shorten 5,000 to say, "5 Quipp". If we did then 5 Quipp Million would be again, mathematically acceptable as 5 Thousand Million.
But let me continue.
Consider 50,000,000,000 Fifty Thousand Million.
How about 500,000,000,000 which is Five Hundred Thousand Million.
And now 5,000,000,000,000 ? Well actually THAT is 5 BILLION or 5 Bi (Meaning 2)-Million Count them.. 5 000,000 (that's one) 000,000 (That's the other one).
5 Billion is actually 5 times 10 to the power 12 or 5 with 12 zero's following. It is most certainly NOT 5 TRILLION which is an accepted but completely wrong use of the terminology.

What we have is an artifact of lazy journalism and/or accountants.
Take your pick.

Sadly, the error has been left to stand uncorrected for so long that using the terms unwisely in technical circles, could get you 1 000 times more or less than you expected depending on your expectations and your listeners understanding.

Using true SI units, we already have a term for 1,000,000,000. It is given the letter G (Upper case note) and the name Giga.
If this was a data storage device for a computer, you would accept the term 5 Giga Bytes of storage quite happily and you would wonder what 5 Billion Bytes meant.

Why do we have two ways of referring to the same number?

I was listening to a lecture from the California Institute of Technology CALTEC given by a Brit who referred to the amount of powers available from some source or other as 25 Giga watts. No one batted an eye.
He then mentioned the money spent on some alternative energy project as being 300 Giga Pounds (English money) which surprised me.

Of course he meant 300,Thousand Million Pounds and used the correct prefix Giga. 300 times 10 to the 9 (or 3 times 10 to the 11).

We all know about Giga watts, Giga Hertz & Giga Bytes but this guy was smart in that he could have been 1000 times out if he has said 300 Billion pounds depending on his audiences understanding, or not, of the term 'Billion'.

We know about TeraByte Drives now. That's a Hard Drive with one or more Terabyte of data storage. So how many zeros are there?

Well, 1,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes or 1 Thousand BILLION Bytes is called 1 Terabyte.
Some of you might expect the answer to be 1 QUADRILLION but that's bollocks and you should be ashamed of yourself.
If 'Quad' means FOUR, what are there 4 of in the above number as written?
Bicycle is 2 wheels, Triangle is 3 angles, quadruped is 4 legs and Quintet means 5 playing an instrument.

So, to recap in true SI units.

1 is 10 to the power 0 (Zero) = "One"
10 is 10 to the power 1 = "Ten"
100 is 10 to the power 2 = "One Hundred"
1,000 is 10 to the power 3 = "One Thousand" also 1K (Kilo meaning thousand)
10,000 is 10 to the power 4 = "Ten Thousand" also 10K
100,000 is 10 to the power 5 = "One Hundred Thousand" also 100K
1,000,000 is 10 to the power 6 = " One MILLION" also 1M (Mega for Million)
10,000,000,000 is 10 to the power 7 = "Ten Million " also 10M
100,000,000,000 is 10 to the power 8 = "One Hundred Million" also 100M
1,000,000,000,000 is 10 to the power 9 = "One Billion" also G for Giga.
We carry on up to 1 Thousand Billion or 1 TRILLION also T for Tera

Now I know that 1 Billion Dollars sounds sweeter on the tongue than 1 Giga Dollars and a Trillion Dollars sounds better than a Tera Dollars but Giga and Tera are mathematically correct.
If you want mathematics to degrade in to 'street speak' where no-one understands you unless you are in the right gang, then carry on.
I can almost understand a confusion between metric and Imperial measurements. The US have lost more than one space launch because two bits of software, one speaking in inches and the other in millimetres, get the numbers right but the units wrong.

Lastly... Going down in scale, I get really annoyed by some (sadly) technical sales catalogues that misuse"m" when they actually should use "M"
For instance, a volt meter with an input impedance of 100 m Ohms when they should print 100 M Ohms.
'M' being Mega or 10 to the power 6 and 'm' being milli for 10 to the power MINUS 3. The difference between one and the other being a factor of 1 Thousand Million out.

Other printed errors being...

100M used in measurement for say 100 metres but 100M in context means 100 MILES.
100K instead of 100k where 100K is a resistance and 100k is a distance.
I could go on.

There is the old joke about a certain leader of men being told that 5 Brazilian soldiers were killed in an explosion. The leader turned to an aide and asked "How many is a Brazilian"?

Any printable comments, mail me at rick@claymate.co.uk

Authorities claim a new camera is £ 33,000 and then claim that to replace a burnt out camera is £ 33,000 as well.

Considering that a new camera requires planning permission, ground works, mains power, the pole to hold it up (and now the CCTV to watch the camera to try to catch the anti camera squads), all of which requires considerable palm greasing, it follows that replacing a metal box and a camera is hardly likely to be as expensive as creating a new installation. Maybe a grand at the most.But you know that councils and the police like to exaggerate.

I wonder when the plea "I was watching for speed cameras when I ran over the pedestrian" will make a court appearance?

Apparently, a camera now must photograph the drivers face as some individuals have been let off because the driver could not be identified or the vehicle may have been driven by one of several users and it not yet a legal requirement to force a registered owner to shop the actual driver. This is made even harder if there is a genuine uncertainty of who was driving.

The police can only prosecute the guilty party and cannot prosecute someone because they possibly might be.

I wonder when it will be illegal to wear a gorilla mask whilst driving on the basis that your face would be obscured from a camera, ignoring any potential visual impairments the mask may create?

If you want more about Speed Cameras, you can put "hate speed cameras" in to any search engine and get some more stuff... including a reference to this very page!
Alternatively, look in my Stuff I Like page and find some links there.

My questions to the newspaper which failed to offer a reply was, what is a failed asylum seeker doing with a car and a rifle presumably with ammunition?

The school reference is irrelevant unless the paper wishes to imply that school children were in danger, which, even if they were, brings us back to a deeper fundamental point. Where does an asylum seeker get a rifle and ammunition when there are no guns in the UK now thanks to the governments knee jerk reaction to Dunblane, the enquiry for which will remain secret for 100 years because to release the truth would reveal just how much of a cock up it all was.

Oh, but how silly of me. There are no LEGALLY held guns in the UK now thanks to our leaders, so the handguns being traded in the UK, brought it through our non existent customs and immigration checkpoints from France must be a figment of some persons imagination?

So, where does a failed asylum seeker get a rifle and ammunition from? Shhhh if we ask that question some government shiny suit may actually have to answer some tricky questions and own up to the fact that the handgun ban has done nothing for gun crime, has cost the tax payer millions and cost many people their jobs and livelihoods, but that's OK because another target for government meddling has been forced through to divert us from the trickier questions. Hunting with dogs!. You know I feel safer in my bed already.

No doubt the ex chief constable of a certain place in the UK also feels safer having been given a new identity and a new life on another continent at the tax payers expense. Allegedly!

I laugh aloud when I hear these new beauty care adverts on the telly.

Active liposomes, micro fruit oils, nano particles, formulation Z activated oxygen (Though that may be a washing powder), and the one that makes me hoot is the need for a 'live yeast' yogurt slop maker to refer to the digestive tract as a digestive TRANSIT.

Advertisers find a technical sounding word, like "micro" and then try to make something bog standard better by adding the techno additive as a prefix to amaze us. What exactly is a "Micro Fruit Oil"?

Is it the oil from a particularly small fruit? Not at all, It is not small oil either. It's bollocks is what it is and the ladies lap it up.

I once telephoned the UK Advertising Standards Orifice and complained about an advert for a steam cleaning widget that claimed to "Use the power of dry steam". What exactly is dry steam?

Well, steam is water vapour at an elevated temperature. The latent heat of water is defined (roughly) as the energy required to raise a given volume of water from its boiling point, to a vapour, which is why a steam burn is so viscous because when the steam condenses on your skin, back to water, the energy required to get it to become steam in the first place is released back as heat.

So, steam is very hot water vapour. So what is DRY STEAM? Hot Air is what it is. Steam without water is hot air which is what the advert was full of.

Did the Advertising Complaints Department agree with me? Well, despite giving them the time of the advert to the second and the TV channel, they could not locate the advertiser which would have appeared on the TV stations running order if they could be arsed to look.

I recently had the need of a dentist due to a broken tooth of some time past that decided to cause me some pain.

I am not fond of dentists having being butchered in my school youth by ex Nazi Concentration Camp Trainees so I tend to use dentists like a sex consultant; When I want their ****** advice, I will ask for it.

Sadly, because my current dentist had not seen me often enough, presumably to keep them paid by the National Health 'service', I was told to go away.

I located a private dentist and am in receipt of some very fine treatment but the thought occurs to me. Consider any other profession that can say "If you do not see me regularly, I will drop you from my books and you will have to find help elsewhere"

DOCTOR "I cannot treat this heart attack patient as he has failed to see me within the last 6 months".
PAINTER "I cannot paint your house because."
UNDERTAKER "I cannot." You get the idea.
I wish that someday a dentist will call up his road side recover service and be told that he cannot be helped as he has not broken down in the last 6 months.

I rail at the verbal platitudes we are bombarded with solely to make us feel 'valued'
When I telephone a supplier of services, whoever they may be, I HATE with a passion is..."Thank you for calling xyz", especially when I have just roasted that new arse hole I have just ripped in the hapless individual.
"Have a nice day" comes close, though why they simply don't follow through and say what they actually mean, "Have a nice day, fish face" or similar, I'll never know.

When I visit my local KFC Drive through the conversation goes something like this...

Hello my name is Julie and I am your server today, how may I help you?
A ten piece bargain bucket please. I do not want anything else.
A ten piece bargain bucket, do you want corn on the cob and a drink for an extra 2 pounds?
No thanks, I don't want anything else.
Will there be anything else?
No, and I draw your attention to the comment I made some moments ago.
OK, will there be anything else?
"!!!!!"

Some year and a bit ago I was telephoned and asked if I wanted cheap telephone calls.
It sounded like a good idea so I agreed, on the 'phone, and it all happened without any other action from me.

The honeymoon period lasted a very short while, (3 months to be exact) when I found out that calls to UK 0845 numbers, which are national rate calls, are charged at a considerable higher rate than with my original BT (British Telecom) supplier.

I complained and was fobbed off with some platitude and when I asked why it cost more to call my own cell phone that it did to call one of my guys in the USA, I was informed that I must be receiving a good deal on my overseas calls.

In pressing the wrong buttons and getting my gander up, this company excels.

I suggested I would leave their club and go back to BT but that was ruled out as I had 'signed' a years contract, verbally and they insisted on their year.
Anyway, I made my feelings known and at the same time I was reminded of their terms & Conditions (which I had not received) AND I was also reminded that as I was a company, I was NOT allowed any 'cooling off period'.

Considering that I never received the terms and conditions, I was therefore NOT in a position to return the form saying I did NOT want to commit to a years 'contract' which, because I was a company, I wasn't allowed anyway.

When questioned about this, I was told that any company should have a legal department who would know company law and the like... What a joke.

So... dialing 1280 before the rest of the telephone number bypasses UNICOM and any other billing service so I am only billed by BT, and that is what I did for the rest of my time with UNICOM.

Before the anniversary of my sentence with UNICOM, I wrote to them saying I was terminating my contract and they should hand my billing back to BT as soon as possible.

Some while later I was telephoned by the most obnoxious individual on the planet to be told that I couldn't leave UNICOM as I had 'signed' a contract and any attempt to leave would be regarded as a breach of contract and I would therefore be sued as well as being charged £ 300 for early termination.
I was incandescent with rage.
I pointed out that I had waited until the anniversary and had written as laid down the terms and conditions (I had still not received) and that I had fully complied with their requirements.

My tormentor could be heard smiling as he proudly told me that my letter was received 9 days too late and I was therefore stuck for another year!

I pointed out that I was NOT 9 days late but 9 MONTHS early as they had on record that I wanted to leave as they had entered that on their database of customer conversations.
He was not moved and threatened me with legal action for early termination of the contract and a £ 300 termination fee (fine).

I told the little shit that I had been dialing 1280 bypassing the company and he could go forth.
This seemed to excite him to orgasm and he suggested he would sue me because that is also breach of contract (dialing a number specifically to deny UNICOM their income)... So, I told him to sue me and die but not before I had taken his name and the name of the MD to whom I was to write later.

When I wrote to the MD I enclosed a cheque for 9/365th of the £ 300 fine and informed him that this was in full and final settlement.
As has been typical with UNICOM, they only ever telephoned me but insisted that everything I did had to be in writing.
When I received the latest bill from them and they had indeed cashed the cheque using it to pay off part of my outstanding bill though I had made it clear that the cheque was for full and final settlement.
I wrote again suggesting that they had accepted my offer and had therefore agreed to terminate the contract as they had accepted the cheque in the spirit it was intended and therefore accepted the cheque as such.

In the mean time, I still haven't received a copy of the terms and conditions after asking, in total, no less than THIRTEEN TIMES the various employees who telephoned me with threats of legal action and the like.

I did however win a small victory as I received a letter, confirming that at least one of the employees of UNICOM can read and write.
I was being 'allowed' to terminate the contract and the agreed termination date was to be the 15th April or very close.

I was overjoyed and continued using the bypass number until after the agreed date and then began using my telephone as before in the knowledge that BT would be billing me for my calls.

Sadly... this was not the case.

A month later, I received a bill from UNICOM for calls on the business line but with no mention of the FAX line which, it appeared had been handed back to BT.

I telephoned the morons at UNICOM's customer hindrance line and was informed that they cannot simply 'release' lines as I would lose some of my telephone services but they wouldn't tell me WHAT services I would lose.
When I pointed out that they were a BILLING service and had no power to suspend services they seemed rather hurt. I also pointed out that ONE of my two lines HAD in fact been released and asked why one and not the other as they had clearly stated they could NOT simply release a line but in fact they must have otherwise I would not have my FAX line back with BT.

The reply was that the fax line was different to a telephone line (!) but again, when asked what the difference was, they couldn't tell me saying it was technical.. Always a bad idea to try to blind ME with technicalities.. and so I asked for a technical explanation.. which was not forthcoming.

I was later informed in a following conversation with yet another person who fancied sparring with me that it is my responsibility to tell BT that they have to take the line back. BUT, when I called BT, I was told that they could NOT take a line back, it had to be released involving paperwork and the like between the 2 companies.

When I asked BT how it was that my line could be taken away by UNICOM without my direct action yet I somehow had to know that I must inform BT of the reverse situation, I was told it was UNICOM spouting rubbish and I needed to do nothing, it was between BT and UNICOM.

Another call from UNICOM. You see now that they always call me on the phone but insist on my writing to them, right?
I asked about the line releasing problem and was told the same bull about it being my responsibility to inform BT.
I pointed out that were I only blessed with ONE line, I might accept the lie BUT as I had TWO lines and one line was released and the other not, someone at UNICOM had cocked up, again.
I was told that it was BT's fault... but I had heard from BT that I needn't get involved at all.
UNICOM were just being dumb,stupid and arrogant as always.

I wrote to them again, enclosing a bill for 6 hours loss of earnings, letter writing and time on the phone which, I argued, they were bound to pay as my own terms and conditions, which they had not received and hence by NOT returning the form with a refusal, they were bound by company law as well as I was bound by theirs.

My invoice has been returned. I have still to receive a copy of their terms and conditions and I have yet to receive a letter from them explaining exactly why one of my two telephone lines were released and the other wasn't.

I also have not received a reply to my question as to where is it written in any of their few letters to me that it was my responsibility to somehow 'know' that I had to tell BT to take back my lines... which BT can't do anyway without a release..

In short.. Don't deal with UNICOM or better still do NOT use cheap telephone call companies.
The final price is too much. Get a calling card, which I now carry.