Trip to Marazion and St Michael's Mount

Marazion is said to be the oldest town in Britain and called Ictis during Roman times. Driving through the narrow roads was interesting. The sloping roads are too narrow to allow two cars to pass and cars have to give way to those coming from opposite directions at designated points. We had wanted to visit St Michael’s Mount. Unfortunately we were too late as the castle and gardens are only open till 5pm. However we were able to take some pictures of the island from the shore.






You can apparently walk to the island during low tide using the causeway.




Marazion


The plaque says:

HIS MAJESTY KING EDWARD
Landed near this spot
April 19 1902

Greetings from Cornwall

I am blogging this from Hayle, Cormwall Cornwall (thanks Ummi) right at the South of Britain (well almost). The journey which was supposed to take around five hours took nearly eight hours due to heavy traffic and road repairs. By the time we reached our destination, it was around 9 pm. Thankfully the days are long and there was still light when we reached the site.

BBC weather predicted a sunny day today. However it was overcast almost the whole day.



Today was the first time my son has ever seen the sea. He was really excited and ran towards the water but when the waves rushed in and soaked his feet with cold water, he rushed back towards me and hung on for dear life on legs.

I am able to access the net here, thanks to the 3 mobile broadband service and of course the guys from 3 mobile buzz. I am still testing out the 3 mobile broadband USB modem. Uploading pictures take a while but the surfing speeds are quite satisfactory. Having connection to the net has proven invaluable while checking for tourist attractions nearby.

More updates and pictures tomorrow.

Teachers on strike

Saw a number of kids on the street today and was wondering about it. Later learnt that the teachers are on strike. The one -day strike was called by the National Union of teachers to protest against low wages. A number of working parents are fuming mad as they have to take off from work to look after their kids. I wonder what would happen to the kids whose parents are unable to get the day off.

I don't know why but I suddenly felt like listening to one of my old favourite songs - that we used to sing in school.



Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall

TalkTalk broadband not so bad after all

Just a few posts back I ranted about TalkTalk being the worst broadband provider in the UK. Well, I might be wrong after all.

Last Sunday, at our friend's house in Birmingham, the topic of broadband speeds suddenly came up. My friend is on Virgin broadband. On checking the speed, we found out that their speeds were slightly lower than ours. However, I should point out that their promised maximum speed was only "up to 4 Mb" unlike our "Up to 8 Meg download speeds".

Have any of you guys been able to get up to at least 50% or more of the download speeds promised by your broadband provider?

TalkTalk the worst broadband provider in the UK

It's been nearly 3 months since got reconnected to the Internet via internet service provider, TalkTalk after my AOL broadband connect got cut off without any warning.

I was quite happy initially until I realised that our connections speeds were really slow. I complained a few times but the TalkTalk customer service people kept making excuses.

Really regret signing up with this broadband service provider (or should I say Narrowband service provider). I ignored the warning signals - low ratings on various consumer forums, delay in sending me the broadband router, etc. A guy who came to fix our gas even told me "they are crap mate".

I ignored all of them because I was blinded by their amazing offer of "Free Broadband with our Talk2 International Call Plan". Should have remembered the old saying "pay peanuts and you get monkeys".

Really ashamed that I promoted this "free broadband" thing to a few other friends as well as I thought it was a wonderful deal in the beginning. I just hope that they didn't sign up. And I simply don't want to ask lest they blame me.

Just proves my earlier observation that a lot of companies here in the UK are really bad when it comes to customer retention even though they are really good in attracting first time users.

Here are the results of two different broadband speed tests I carried out a few minutes ago:

1.
- Speedtest.net


2.
- Broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk

A little difference there but the fact remains that our broadband speed is not even half of the promised "Up to 8 Meg download speeds".

Really annoyed that I am stuck on a 18 months contract. Wonder whether there is any way I can move to another service provider without getting penalised in any way?

Stealing from Charity

My wife was working late today and I went to pick here up from the campus in the evening. On the way back she wanted to drop by the Tesco nearby and grab a few things. Fortunately I was able to find parking right in front of the store.

Anyway, while I was waited for her in the car, I noticed a suspicious looking fellow in the shadows near a charity shop. There are a couple of charity shops in the vicinity but the one near the Tesco store was a PDSA store.

The guy looked suspicious because he was hanging in the shadows and was looking left and right all the time. Suddenly a small car pulled up right in front. In one fast move the guy quickly grabbed a big plastic bag filled with stuff left by charitable people in front of the shop, jumped into the car and it quickly drove away.

There are a lot of charitable people around and they usually take their used as well as unwanted stuff and leave them outside the charity shops.

Sometime back there was a documentary on TV about some people who go around in a van pinching bags left outside residential homes meant for various charities. I know they are unwanted stuff but it's not right to pinch the stuff as they were meant for the charities. It's totally wrong.

How National Express let us down.

Almost forgot to blog about a disappointing incident that happened two weeks back. My wife was in Nottingham for two days for a workshop at the University of Nottingham. She had booked a bus ticket with National Express for her return journey. The bus was supposed to leave Broadmarsh bus station, Nottingham at 10:05pm.

I was home with the kids and had just put them to bed when my wife rang me up around 10:30pm. She told me that there was no bus to Coventry around and asked me to check her email - just in case there had been any cancellations. I opened up her account and didn't find any emails from the company. However, I did find a number on the e-Ticket which was meant to be for "emergency situations only". My wife called the number and found out that the particular bus had been cancelled because she was the only passenger to Coventry. As you can very well image we were really pissed off. Instead of apologising, the person on the line actually made it seem like it was our fault. According to the person, they had sent an email to my wife informing about the cancellation. We have yet to receive that email. At first I thought that it might have ended up in the spam box. No! It wasn't.

Our money was refunded promptly but that is not the point. This could happen to anyone. What if you didn't have enough money to stay in a hotel for the night? What if you couldn't call anyone?

Fortunately my wife was able to call up a friend who lived in Nottingham and the friend kindly picked her up and my wife waited at their house for me. I had to wake up my sleeping kids, bundle them in the car and drove up to Nottingham. The journey took about an hour and I was lucky that there was a can of Nescafe around. The journey back and forth took about 2 hours and by the time we got back, it was nearly 1 am. We have travelled with National Express an number of time but this incident really left a bad taste in the mouth.

A few lessons we learnt:
- have enough money in the pocket always
- have enough credit in the mobile and enough juice in the batteries (recharged) always
- have some loose coins just in case
- call the transport company at least a day before to make sure that there were no cancellations.

Online grocery shopping - Tesco vs Sainsbury's

Both my wife and I shop a lot online. I guess we are what marketers refer to as a "innovator" especially in relation to stuff online. However, I never imagined that I would be shopping for groceries online one day.

As compared to books, software, electronics or even clothes, shopping for groceries is totally different. I like to look, feel and sometimes smell the food I buy. My wife wanted to try out some of the online grocery stores here. She gave a couple of resasons why buying groceries online was a good idea. According to her:
1. These stores would ensure the quality of stuff sold online.
2. We could shop at leisure.
3. We could avoid the crowd at the stores.
4. We could save on petrol.
5. We could avoid the temptations of the "spur-of-the-moment" buys.
6. It would give her a better insight into service quality of online stores, which is somewhat related to her PhD research.

We tried out Sainsbury's Online Groceries first of all. We bought products worth £77.41 - mostly organic food. I also earned two Nectar points for every £1 spent online.

The groceries were delivered on the appointed date and we were satisfied with the quality of the products.

A few days later we decided to take a look at Tesco's online grocery store. We had one coupon which enabled us to get a discount of £10 on orders over £50. The final amount came to £64.32. The stuff will be delivered to our house this Monday.

Here are some of our observations:

Website Navigation: We found Sainsbury's store to be more user friendly. Easier to find items.

Product Choice: We were looking for organic food and Tesco definitely has a wider choice.

Pricing: Tesco products were cheaper. As for delivery charges, Sainsbury's was comparatively cheaper but as I mentioned earlier, we had a discount coupon for Tesco.

Conclusion: I would have to give a thumbs up to Tesco's online grocery store because of the overall savings. Plus I get points on my Tesco card.

The British too wants to probe the moon

A few weeks back I wrote that 'India plans to probe the moon'. Today I read that the British too are planning to send an astronaut to space and probably send probes to the Moon as well. These were some of the proposals in the The British National Space Centre (BNSC) document, "The UK Civil Space Strategy: 2008 - 2012 and beyond".

This means that the Thatcher Government's decision in 1986, to stop space exploration will be reviewed.


Helen Sharman (from the BBC site)

I initially assumed that Britain was the only developed nation that doesn't have an astronaut. However, I was wrong and later found out that Helen Sharman was the first Brit in space. She was part of Project Juno, which was funded by the Soviet Union and a few British companies.

Overpriced rentals in Coventry

Last Saturday, I went to pick up my wife from her friend's house in Nottingham. They live in a 4 bedroom terrace house. It even has a basement. I was so shocked when I learnt that they paid the same monthly rental like us - only£400/ pcm. It's a great location - just opposite a play ground and walking distance from a school and shops.

For the same amount, our friends Mozard and Nana's were able to rent a much bigger house in Birmingham.

Our house is a 3 bedroom house, but now after we have converted one of the small rooms into a walk-in closet and another into a study/ guest room, so in the end, we technically only have one bedroom we use. Yes! The kids sleep with us. I guess the only plus point of our house is the huge backyard at the back - the biggest among all our friends.

Our backyard last Winter.

Of course house rentals depends on the furnishings, presence of garden, parking facilities and of course the location. The thing is that here in Coventry, our house rent is considered cheap. The average for a 3 bedroom fully furnished house is £500 upwards depending on location. All our colleagues tell us that we got ours cheap. However, I should point out that most of them live either in Leamington Spa where rental for a single room is around £300.

I simply can't understand why house rentals are so high here in Coventry. Logically, it should be lower than in Birmingham, which is the 2nd largest city in the UK. Nottingham, even though Coventry has a slightly higher population, is far more prosperous. Probably the population has something to do with it. Going back to basic economics principle of demand and supply and their relation to price.

Of course there are exceptions and some guys did get lucky, like one of our friends who was able to get a 3 bedroom, newly renovated fully furnished house in Foleshill for only £380/ pcm.

Anyone here from Coventry who thinks that house rentals are overpriced?

Pregnant schoolgirls

I was quite shocked to read a report in the newspapers today which stated that one in 50 schoolgirls (aged between 13 and 15) in some parts of England and Wales, fall pregnant.

According to critics, this indicates that instead of helping, "more sex education and freely available contraception was backfiring".

I don't think that it's that simple. There are a number of possible other reasons I can think of including the breakdown of the family system, binge drinking, peer pressure, etc.

Guess this is something that the authorities in Malaysia and other countries should think about before they implement "enhanced" sex education and distribution of contraceptives to school children.

Read the Metro report: Schools where 1 in 50 girls fall pregnant

Place to shop for cheap printer inks

If you are like me and print out a lot of stuff, the printer seems to run out of ink so fast. A replacement cartridge doesn't come cheap especially if it's for your colour inkjet. In my case, it's worse because I am using a laser printer.

Well if you are looking for the Lowest prices for inkjet cartridges go on over to Ink and Stuff. The online stores has a great range of inkjet and laser printer cartridges as well other stuff.

All customers get 10% off on their first order. Remember to use the voucher code BZZ11Z at checkout.

Are foreigners taking away British jobs?

The Labour government is beginning to sound more and more like the Conservatives.

Previously they claimed that 54% of the total 2.1 million jobs created in the last 10 years since 1997, had gone to foreigners. However, there was a lot of commotion when the Statistics Commission revealed that results of a study that showed that in fact, the proportion of new jobs going to foreigners was as high as 81% out of a lower estimated total jobs created (1.7 million).

Now they are thinking of putting up a number of restrictions on immigrants entering the UK including limiting the number of months you can stay on in the UK on a tourist visa from 6 to 3 months. They are also planning to charge a flat levy on "non-domiciled'' residents.

The trouble is that when you say "foreigners", most locals automatically assume this to mean Africans and Asians.

I am not implying that the results of the study is wrong but I won't be surprised if majority of the "foreigners" were actually from EU countries and the East European countries in particular. A solution would be withdrawing from the EU and that is one possibility that is definitely not going to happen.

Another thing that is not clarified are the nature of the jobs created. One of my friends mentioned that the jobs that were taken over by foreigners were probably the menial and hard labour jobs like cleaners and jobs at odd hours, that locals are hesitant to take up. For professional positions, I know that for a foreigner to get a job here in the UK you would either have to be extremely highly qualified or work in a foreign owned company including the MNCs, which usually have a fair employment policy based on merit.

Of course the locals are concerned with the news and this in turn may have led to a negative perception towards foreigners.

One of our friends who's doing a PhD in Birmingham was recalling an incident where a colleague joked about "foreigners like you are taking my jobs".

"It's the opposite. I am actually subsidising your studies here", my friend retorted, which is kind of true in a way as British and EU students pay only about one third of what we foreign students pay for our studies.

Talking about employment, it not all that bad here in the UK as compared to some other countries around the World. In fact the total unemployment has fallen to 1.64 million, the lowest since 1975 (32 years).

Monday morning blues

Or should I say red?

Woke up this morning to find this...


(that's frost on the windows)

Like a lot of people in the UK, we usually park our car by the pavement or the sidewalk, as it is known in the US. Well, someone broke the side view mirror on the left of our car.

Must be one of those B"£$%^& kids on the way to school.

Later went to my favourite garage here in Coventry - Taxi & car repairs on Stony Stanton road. Isfaq, the owner of the garage, fixed it for free. Thanks a lot.

Financing a car

One of our friends was recounting how they bought a car and to finance it, took out a loan. The interesting thing was that their decision was based on the advise of the salesman at the dealer where they bought the car. According to them, the salesman made it sound so attractive and that they were the best deal around. However, as they later found out, that was really not the case.

It's not surprising as I also financed my previous car - Proton, with a bank recommended by the dealership. Talking to a few other friends also confirmed the same thing. That is apart from a few other guys who were wiser because of prior experience. They had done their research and went with a lender that gave them the best deal.

It's amazing with a wealth of information at our fingertips on the web we still depend on the salespeople at dealerships for our financing. There are numerous sources on the web that can provide comparisons between the various offers available.

If you are looking to finance car purchases, do check out the the car finance section of the Motors Today (http://www.motorstoday.co.uk) website. They have links and information relating to loans, insurance and a link to HPI, a UK Company specialised in checking the histories of used cars.

They also a car tax calculator that will show the tax payable for the next three years. As for insurance, the company has paired up with Money Supermarket so that you can instantly compare quotes from leading UK motor insurers.

TalkTalk Broadband update

I don't like to beg but if anybody from TalkTalk is reading this ... Please, Please, can you help me get connected to the net.

We were supposed to be connected by last week. "You will receive your modem and installation CD within 5 working days". That was what the lady on the line said, when we called them on the 30th of November. A lady called Aparna confirmed it when we called them again on the 3rd of December. It's almost Monday and I am fuming - you probably know why.

Technically we are connected and as I mentioned in my last post, TalkTalk switched us to the new TalkTalk plan and started billing us since the 21st of November. However, we can't "go live" unless I get their stupid Connect & Go installation CD.

Called them up today and Stephanie, the lady on the line intially told us that the stuff had already been posted but then later said that we should receive it within 7 days.

I hope so because if we are not able to get a broadband connection by next Sunday (16th), I am going to move to another provider and ask for a refund for non-delivery of service.

Selling is not marketing

Warning: Ranting ahead.

The past two weeks has been very frustrating time for us. As some of you may be aware, AOL cut off our broadband connection without any warning (but still billed us) and we have already signed up for the 'TalkTalk 2 International' plan, which comes with a free broadband connection.

The upgrade was quite smooth and the new plan came into effect on the 21st of November. The guy we talked to, promised us that we would have the installation CD and new modem by the 30th of November. Today's it's already the 2nd of December. We are hopping mad because we have already received the bill for last month WITH the new plan, which happens to be costlier, even though we still don't have any CD or modem in sight - meaning no broadband connection.

I am really pissed off because I missed a meeting with my supervisor yesterday because I only got to read her email quite late YESTERDAY. And then there is the loss of earnings from my blogs. It's only when we get cut off from the net, that we realise how dependent we are on it.

After a year here in the UK, I have come to realise that a lot of British companies are really good at "Selling" their products and services but very poor at retaining their customers. Take broadband service providers as an example. There are so many of them to choose from but according to what we have experienced and what our friends who have been staying here for several years, almost all of them are equally bad in their after sales service if not worse. They keep on changing service providers every year in the hope that the next might be better. Some of them have accepted it as a fact of life here in the UK which is wrong. We might accept this in some third World country with no infrastructure or the communications network is controlled by the Government but this is the UK.

It's no wonder because most of their marketing departments here are actually filled with sales people while technical complaints are handled by call centres in India. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't know of any which has a customer retention plan in place. And I am not only talking about the broadband providers but the entire private sector.

I sometimes can't believe I am learning marketing here. I pointed this out to one academic and according to her, that is one of the reason why a lot of British companies apart from a few, have not been able to compete globally.

On the other hand the Government offices are really efficient. That's quite funny because a lot of the former colonies of Britain, blame the British tradition for their own paperwork laden sluggish bureaucracies.

I remember an old post I made sometime back, "Malaysian Companies and Marketing". I think it applies here in the UK as well.

It's snowing

Just wanted to be the first guy in Coventry to blog about it.

Autumn is not even over yet but it's snowing outside. At first we thought it was sleet - due to the fact that BBC weather site told us so. My car already has a thin layer of snow on it.

Cheaper broadband deals with BT

Regular visitors to my blog might recall that a few days back, I had blogged about BT broadband with wifi. One of my friends commented that even though the features listed were amazing, the prices were a bit too steep for his liking. What I forgot to mention was that they have cheap broadband deals as well.

The lowest is option 1, which still comes with 8Mb download speeds. With this, you get a standard wired router, 250 Wi-Fi minutes per month and 5GB of free secure online storage with BT Digital Vault. All this for £8.95 per month for 6 months followed by £17.99 thereafter on an 18 month contract.

I am on a budget as well and this deal looks quite attractive.

Just engraving a pen

We wanted to have two pens we bought for a friend, engraved with her name. So yesterday I drove down to a shop near the university offering engraving services.

Found out that engraving four letters on each pen would cost me around five pounds. I agreed but the guy (the engraver) told me that it won't show up that well on the metallic silver surface of the pen. I was OK with that as well. He then told me that it would take around an hour to do it.

One bloody hour to engrave 8 letters. "Shakes head"

That was it. I told him I couldn't wait that long and left the shop.

As I was walking to my car, I was thinking about the numerous places in Kuala Lumpur, where I could have a whole sentence engraved on almost ANYTHING (including metallic silver surfaces) for less than RM 20 (FYI, £1 = RM6.94 approx.) and it would take them less than 10 minutes.