the ubiquitous blog

Two weeks ago I was looking forward to taking part in the annual Edinburgh to St. Andrews bicycle ride, as you will know from reading the cycling post in this blog I was well prepared for this. However, as The Bard has it, best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men Gang aft agley. On the Friday I had developed a wee bit of cough, by the evening I was beginning to feel rough and started to wonder if I was going to be able to do the ride. Come the morning the alarm went off at 06:30 and I found that I couldn’t get out of bed. Later in the day I tried walking to the shops in Argyle Place, something I do fairly often and think nothing of, and was so tried I had to stop and rest. Over the next few days I suffered repeated bouts of fever, I was too weak to leave the flat and spent much of my time in bed, I also lost five kilos in weight. After ten days, managed to get out to see my GP, who confirmed it was indeed flu and that all I could do about it was to take plenty of bed rest and avoid strenuous exercise for at lease another week. This is something new to me, normally I think of Flu as something that makes me feel a wee bit rough, but not something which really lays me out, it is something which I can shake off after a couple of days. Now, after two weeks of it I am really fed up with it and starting to look forward to having the strength to carry the bike down stairs and get some riding in, which has to be a sign that I am getting better.

One of the good things about using WordPress as a blogging platform is the range of fun plugins available to you to add to your blog. One which I have just found is Utech Spinning Earth. It doesn’t have a serious purpose, at least not one I can think of now, it is just fun to have.

Despite being signed up to the Mailing Preference Service I still get some junk mail. One such item arrived in today’s post from the Domain Renewal Group, helpfully pointing out that one of the domain names which I own expires later this year. It is worth noting that this event is a good six months away. The letter informs me that I must renew my domain name “to retain exclusive rights to it on the Web” so far so good. It then goes on to say “now is the time to transfer and renew your name from your current Registrar to the Domain Renewal Group. Failure to renew your domain name by the expiration date may result in a loss of your online identity” Well yes, but my current Registrar will contact me in good time, usually a month before. So I really don’t need to be told six months ahead by the Domain Renewal Group, and they give no good reason why I should change to their more expensive service. The Domain Renewal Group is of course just a scam, they aren’t acting in my interests, they just trying to rip me off.

So what to do? I could take the advice of domainscams.co.uk which mainly seems to be to return the addressed envelope, enclosed with the letter, without a stamp and with a short message, but none too polite telling them where to go. While this maybe briefly satisfying, I doubt it will have much real effect as they have probably taken this cost into account in their “business model”. No, what is really need is a heavy fine, so I think it better to take the MPS advice and send them a full copy of the mailing including the envelope. I am also thinking of taking it up with Trading Standards, but I suspect they will just tell me to take it up with the MPS in the first instance. What ever I do, this time I am not just going to shred it, I am going to fight back.

Here is wishing you all a Happy New Year!!!
Prosit Neujahr!
Blianadh Bha Ur!
Glückliches neues Jahr!!
All the best for 2010 and the coming decade.

Apparently <whisper>Christmas</whisper> is coming around again, well if any of my family or friends (or anybody else for that matter) are reading this and are interested in what I would like for Christmas, well here is a wish list…