Nicola’s notes on cheap flights

and
in most of hosting reviews sites fatcow is the first of the list

I’ve noticed this happen too in the last 6-9
months or so. That ranking has usually nothing to do with how good or bad the
host is (you’ll see nothing to backup the “independent reviewer”’s claims), and
everything to do with Fatcow renewing its affiliate marketing efforts with a
$100+ per sale commission.

Well I am again looking for hosting to accomodate a much larger flights guide. All good and exiting but this comment so completely sums up how things are with info on the web in general, I can’t resist adding it here.

It applies equally to looking at reviews for hotel rooms.

The general principle of the only solution is qualitative over quantitative.

Quantitative (a number, a ranking, stars - gold or not) is just too easy to fix. And the $$$ world we operate in means this is almost always fixed in favour of wherever the publisher thinks they will make most money. It’s therefore become mostly completely useless.

Qualitative involves you as an intelligent [we hope] individual reading a whole bunch of comments, FEELING - gut-feeling which ones are written by someone who is selling something and taking a judgement.

On web hosts where I have almost 10 years experience as a customer with 5 or 6 providers, you will almost always find complaints about any provider. You need to distinguish between complaints that are by some nut-job who expected personal suited-and-booted 24-7 butler service for 63 cents and those who have genuinely been screwed over by a bad host.

The single comment that will cause a host to go straight off my possibles list are reports that they suspended hosting with no notice and no consultation. Seems to be common practice and I see it part of the current decades abondonment of the cultural norm “innocent until proven guilty”. Could even say reversal of that norm. Probably a whole new topic thread there.

Of course the bottom line is that qualitive costs time. Lots of it. And the cultural norm that seems not to have lost power this decade is that time is money.

Comment By Nicola Lowe [Discount flights ]

Quote from / Comment posted at www.webhostingtalk.com
[ Looking for web host - Page 3 - Web Hosting Talk ]

So senior ministers are now falling.

the BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson commented yesterday on Radio 4’s PM:
“People are worrying about themselves and not their party.”

Sounds about right doesn’t it.

Not sure whether The Telegraph had an agenda with the choice of both method and content but the effect is now becoming clear.

The drip drip drip method has no doubt worn down the psyche of people concerned such that for better or worse they’ve had enough.

The choice of some of the content released by the telegraph is bizarre. There are clear cases of invalid claims for large amounts of dosh. There is also a systematic abuse of the system to allow some MPs to make a pile from property development. Both of these are serious issues which deserved attention.

However in addition to emphasizing spurious minor admin errors, there seems to be a News of the World journalist working on the story seeking out every minor mistake that might embarrass anyone. Frankly this was undesirable as it has watered down the case for action on the serious issues. The MPs guilty of serious trough-snouting should be looked at very very closely with a push for prosecutions and sackings where possible. All who transgressed should be made an example of. That’s one of the things leaders are for.

So the choice of content has it seems been concentrated on embarrassing people rather than prosecuting them.

Little surprise then that ministers are choosing to go. It’s clear that troughinng will be severely restricted for the remainder of this parliament. It’s very unlikely they will have a ministers job after the electorate has judged them. When the method and content of Telegraph stories on expenses are such that it makes their life so uncomfortable, people choose for themselves and choose to step out of the limelight to enjoy their misappropriated booty.

My wish on the whole thing would be that the Telegraph pushes a little harder to have some of these people dealt with by the justice system as well as the House of Commons own system for removing MPs whose behaviour is unacceptavble.

In the case of Jaqui Smith and claiming for someones spare room, for example, get rid of the news of the world guy and get some lawyers on the case. If it wasn’t illegal it should be. As a senior public figure an example should be made.

Comment By Nicola Lowe [Tehran Chat Forum ]

Quote from / Comment posted at telegraph.co.uk
[Blog. London - Bangkok - Amsterdam - Lima - The World ]

two sales assistants were fined RM1.04m (£190,000) each for possession of 520 pirate
DVDs and VCDs.

As in many other countries in Southeast Asia, illegally copied films are sold
openly across Malaysia so it’s surprising to see two individuals paying such a
high price (the fine equated to RM2000 - or £380 - per DVD) for this minor crime
- particularly as they were apparently just shops assistants rather than the
ultimate beneficiaries of the profits from the sale of the counterfeit
goods.

There is so much wrong with this.

The punishment being dished out to shop assistants rather than shop owners is clearly wrong as you suggest.

However the crime was being “in possession of” DVDs on which copyright had not been correctly paid. That suggests that police who found an individual on the street with 10 DVDs could charge them with a similar crime and demand the court apply a fine of 4.000 pounds. But how are individuals expected to know that the copyright on a DVD has been paid?

Surely it is the duty of authorities to ensure that DVDs produced and sold in their country are sold with the permission of the copyright owner. To expect a consumer to determine what is legal and what is not is ridiculous.

This argument can also be extended to the shop assistants. Since when has the duty been on the unskilled staff of a business to ensure that what the business owner asks them is legal?

And finally why is this a crime at all? That violence against people or physical property should be a crime is widely accepted. Do we now want to pay for a police and crime system that protects the assets of major mostly international corporations who even do their best not to pay any significant amount of tax and therefore not even contribute their fair share to that system.

Would it not be better to require the companies to take such cases to court themselves? In any case company-being-greedy vs shop assistant might cause more outrage than police-doing-their-job vs shop assistant.

Comment By Nicola Lowe [Delhi Chat Forum ]

Quote from / Comment posted at blogs.telegraph.co.uk
[ Cost of a pirate DVD? £380, says Malaysian judge :: The Asia File ]

There is no looking back when you get into bed with one of the big boys in
any industry. But that doesn’t mean that the Innocent team have sold out.

They’ve built up a great business and brand and now they are taking it onto
the next stage of its development.

Innocent have majored on their ethical approach to business - and they
have been sincere, sourcing their products properly, treating staff well and
always donating a percentage of the profits to their charitable foundation and
outside charities.

But they have always been clear that they are running a business.

Of course they have sold out. They have taken the slow painful route and will no doubt continue to exploit the term ethical for some time.

If as your article suggests, each of these indivuals have taken 4m+ from the business, why not simply sell the whole to coca cola and start a new ethical venture? At least they peronally could claim to have morals intact.

Ethical is broadly a marketing strategy these days. It’s likely to remain so. After all consumers are simply not interested enough to look behind the glossy lines they are spun by marketing pros.

Comment By Nicola Lowe [Cheap Flights ]

Quote from / Comment posted at blogs.telegraph.co.uk
[ The end of Innocence :: Richard Tyler ]

On that basis which of these two scenarios would you feel more uncomfortable
with:

1. That a shadowy sect of global leaders are conspiring together to set up
this new world currency; or that,

2. Instead, clueless politicians are sleepwalking into this, not knowing
precisely what they are doing.

If in fact the plan is simply to replace the dollar as reserve currency with a basket of currencies, do we care about being comfortable with how it happenned?

Your post concludes that this is the only reasonable way to create SDRs and indeed it is the only concrete proposal I have seen reported as under consideration by the figures at the top. Whether they are shadowy figures or not.

Replacing the dollar is inevitable as the US declines. Replacing it with a basket of currencies will surely be more stable than any one currency. The only losers would seem to be speculators. Stability is generally a good thing for ordinary hardworking people.

By the way the last time I saw this mentioned the GBP was in the basket as a fourth component currency. Perhaps the British media should be pushing for the SDR basket to contain a broader range of currencies (in part out of national interest) rather than the ongoing opposition to any form of integration. An opposition that I fear has eu-phobia in the background.

Comment By Nicola Lowe [Discount flights ]

Quote from / Comment posted at blogs.telegraph.co.uk
[ Sleepwalking our way towards a world currency :: Edmund Conway ]

If Germany bailed out Austria and Central Europe, it could scarcely deny
support to the Irish, Greek and Portuguese governments - or later Spain and the
true colossus of European sovereign borrowing, the Italian Government.

With German unemployment and budget deficits rising to previously unimagined
levels, political support for a pan-European financial bailout might be hard to
muster, especially in a bitterly contested election.

Despite this, an existential crisis of the eurozone remains unlikely. In
extremis, Germany would almost certainly offer support. But suppose an emergency
package had to be organised over a single weekend in response to a European
crisis. Is it obvious that the EU and Germany would cope any better than the US
Government did in the Lehman collapse last September?

The article refers to bailouts of nations but applying the same logic to bailout of banks suggests that a non bailout could leave a stronger situation as it’s result.

Suppose that a crisis in a eurozone bank were to be in trouble and Germany did NOT bail out the bank. Suppose that the result is a bank in administration with the administrators able only to sell off and retain the viable savings and loans and other consumer services business. What remains are derivative commitments to UK, US and other globals banks all of which will be defaulted.

My more interesting questions are who has the stronger banking sector now and who is paying the bill?
Perhaps more pertinent, which taxpayers are NOT paying for the mistakes and excesses of last decades fat cat bankers?

Comment By Nicola Lowe [Low Cost flights ]

Quote from / Comment posted at www.timesonline.co.uk
[ Eurozone braces itself for the perfect storm | Anatole Kaletsky - Times Online ]

Brown’s illusory G20 deal Fraser Nelson 7:47pm

Britain has as its Prime Minister a master of political illusion. He
may not be much of an orator, but there is no one better at dressing up old
money as new.

That was the introduction to an excellent summary of all that happenned (did not happen) from the Spectator. Their conclusions were:

On What Merkel-Sarkozy wanted:

9) “For the first time, we have come together to set principles for the global finance system.” As far as I can determine, all they have agreed is that banks and hedge funds should be regulated - but don’t say how. Ergo, it’s meaningless.

On what Brown-Obama wanted:

10) No fiscal stimulus. It’s mentioned twice in the 3,080 word document - there wasn’t one. Both Brown and Obama wanted the world to contribute new money. They failed. There was none of the big agreement that Brown led us to believe. There was a split, as evidenced by the Franco-German minority report yesterday. But still it’s a big summit, a deal was done (albeit a fairly nebulous one) and the threatre was fine.

And the overall conclusion:

On a presentational basis, this his has worked out well for Brown. I suspect the G20 will be written up well tomorrow, just as his Budgets are always written up well - “2p tax reduction!” - before we all realise we’ve been swindled.

Now why could the venerable BBC not have condensed that into their news report by last night?

My first action this morning (morning in asia) was to listen to the whole of Robin Lustig - the world tonight - wanting to know if they decided/changed anything at all.

After that wasted hour, I was completely no wiser.

My conclusion in my words & in one line:
It was a photo op and olde english tea party for the ruling chimpanzees. Party over, go home now.

Comment By Nicola Lowe [London - Lima]

Quote from / Comment posted at www.spectator.co.uk
[ Brown's illusory G20 deal | Coffee House ]

30 Mar 2009, Keefies wrote:
An awful lot of sanctimonious humbug is being talked about
the viewing of soft porn at taxpayers expense. Of course it is wrong to claim
that on expenses. But how many BBC journalists, finding themselves alone in
hotels while working, have viewed 18R material and then claimed it on expenses
as ‘Room Service’ (believe it or not some hotels disguise it deliberately as
such on their bills). That too is misusing taxpayers money. Can we look at BBC
employees’ expenses under Freedom of Information?

Next time you want to mention that ‘additional services’ was a euphemism for ‘adult movies’ … please could you create a scetch along the lines of

Hello, I’d like some additional services please.

No no I mean additional services.

No not that sort of additional services.

the other sort of additional services
etc etc etc.

….
Oh ok you want the extra special jacqui smith additional services.

Employing John Cleese for such a sketch would of course be a scandalously good waste of public money. Call it Jacquis remorse payment and deduct her from her wodge.

Comment By Nicola Lowe [Delhi Hotel ]

Quote from / Comment posted at www.bbc.co.uk
[ BBC - Radio 4 - PM ]

the health minister, Khaw Boon Wan, has urged overweight Singaporeans to get
fit if they want to improve their job prospects in these tough times.

“If you are a little bit overweight, please think about slimming down,” he
was quoted as saying by the Straits Times.

Interesting that Singapore still retains it’s reputation as ultimate authoritarian nanny-state.

In Singapore, the minister politely requests that citizens think of slimming down. How wonderfully quaint and civilised.

In UK 2009, I would be unsurprised to hear a minister intruduce a yearly tax of ten guineas on every kilo over 80, lets call it “The Blobby Tax”.

Comment By Nicola Lowe [ on booking a hotel]

Quote from / Comment posted at blogs.telegraph.co.uk
[ Singapore urges obese workers to trim the fat :: The Asia File ]

“And so the bottom line is that I think the president looks very much forward
to going to London,” he concluded. “He has a great affinity for that city, for
the people there, and great appreciation for the historic relationship that we
maintain.”

So there you have it. Partnership out, relationship back in. But is it
special or historic or both? The Obama team don’t seem entirely clear. Expect
this one to run..and run…in London this week.

Charismatic and still popular leader considers relationship with bumbling incompetent discredited and inarticulate leader.

Hmm when did that situation happen before?

Comment By Nicola Lowe [Istanbul Chat Forum ]

Quote from / Comment posted at blogs.telegraph.co.uk
[ The special relationship is back. Maybe.... :: Philip Sherwell ]