Roland Perry wrote:
In message 485aa265@qaanaaq, at 19:16:04 on Thu, 19 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

The issue is really one of why is the NHS involved in the delivery
of dentistry at all.
Because it's part of your healthcare.

Except that the government is not delivering on its commitments. It
isn't possible to get good quality dentistry via th NHS.

It's entirely possible to get the same quality work as the same dentist
would charge you private rates for. Whether getting "even better" is
value for money is something only an individual can decide.

No, it isn't. A lot of the best quality stuff - like non amalgam
fillings etc - are not part of what teh ~NHS will pay for. Also, teh
time for a job which is done at 'fixed price' i terms of what teh NHS
patys, has to be done super fast to make any money at all. I dont WANT a
dentist rushing root canal work, an ending up with a bit of rotten root
abcessing away below my tooth. Been there, done that.


The same is true of almost all NHS services, the only difference with
dentistry is that it's harder to track down the good NHS dentists,
compared to good NHS GPs - but there are still a large number of NHS GPs
who can be easily bettered by going private, and yet few people bother.


The doctors in the NHS get paid better than te dentists dfor less work.

Indeed. The government should not be in service delivery except in a
very small number of examples such as the military. It should
restrict itself to funding only of a basic payment insurance scheme
and allow people to make their own service provider choices.

I've seen something like that in the USA, and it's appalling. From
almost every possible point of view.

I've seen something like that in e.g. Germany, and it works bloody well.

Mary Fisher wrote:
"Jules" wrote in message
news
...

Combine a post office with a few local shops, and it's a good
reason for anyone (regardless of age) to get off their backside.

What makes you think we ARE on our backsides?
Of course, all of this is the situation *now* - give it 20 years and the
old-timers will have grown up in the computer age; they're unlikely to
remember that there ever *was* a different way of doing things.

You are obviously young.

I've been working with computers for twenty years. How long have you had?

Mary


Around 39 sadly, though really seriously only 28.

geoff wrote:
In message op.uc0k3mzh0v1caa@thedell, Brian L Johnson
writes
Although the images seem to have vanished. sigh

Okay, let's upload http://www.thejohnsons.co.uk/WITCH-Computer.gif

Time for a caption competition


"er, is that '********' in EBDIC? or have I misplaced a binary point?"

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-20 14:45:16 +0100, "Bob Eager" said:

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:44:22 UTC, Jules
wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:00:09 +0100, Andy Hall wrote:
Probably compiler writing...

That's a long lost trade these days "-)

It'd be interesting to compare some of the standard courses back then to
typical ones at modern universities.

I often wonder what modern courses actually involve - I mean do they
still
do all the assembler, distributed computing, functional programming etc.
that we used to do way back when? Whilst not always directly useful,
such
things were vital to teaching basic computing skills that could be
applied to all kinds of situations...

Assembler per se has gone. But functional programming still has a module
in the first year, and distributed computing in the second. They get
TCP/IP in the first year (from me!)

So there's hope yet. They're not all becoming CCIEs, able to
regurgitate the IOS manuals but not understanding about networks.


You probably find Assembler in a software engineering, rather than
computing course.

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:35:47 UTC, Andy Hall wrote:

On 2008-06-20 19:09:00 +0100, "Bob Eager" said:

I agree...although I did buy somethign recently that I doubt I'd have
found elsewhere.

A microfiche reader, in good condition, *with printer*. 77 quid!

Was that to read the VMS sources? At one time, that was the only way
that DEC would supply them to customers where they couldn't get away
with escrow. I suppose that they thought that it would take someone
a very long time to type it all in.

Among other things, yes. But not exclusively. I have some hardware
manuals too.

I got to know them very well when writing device drivers...

The VMS sources were later supplied on CD.
--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-20 03:19:32 +0100, Jules
said:

Seriously though, Andy seemed to be implying that going to the post
office
was a waste of time (when compared to doing "post officey things" online)
- I only see it that way if I'm going to the post office to do a single
chore.

There are only four things that I have done at the post office in the
last year:

- Send a package of information by Special Delivery to my accountant.
This happens every couple of months. Considering the time taken waiting
to be served, it would be cheaper to send it with a courier who will
collect.


So you need MORE post offices, not less, to shorten the queues.

I probably post a package or parcel every week or so.


- Renewed vehicle excise duty for the car. That took 45 minutes of
waiting in line while people who didn't have the right or complete set
of information argued with the counter staff or chatted about the
weather. Last time, it was renewed on line - a time saving of an hour
overall. I won't be using the Post Office for that again


Online.

- Collection of an imported parcel and payment of VAT. That involved a
wait in the rain of 30 mins and surly service. Royal Mail is still out
of touch with customer service. I now mandate that professional
private courier services are used and don't place business with anybody
using Royal Mail

Never done that.

- Return of goods purchased on line. I now favour suppliers who a
have a return arrangement where the goods are collected.


OK, but most of those come by courier and go back the same way.


If I combine it with several jobs, and get to catch up with a few
people that I know in the process, then it's not a waste of time at all,
and much more rewarding than sitting in front of a screen to do things.


Post Offices suffer from the same disease as building society branches -
behaving and being seen as some kind of social service. Attempting
to make business transactions in these places is appallingly slow
because people don't come with the right information, waste time
nattering with counter staff and so on.


That's big post offices. Our little village one is great. It acts as a
bank to withdraw cash, a place to post stuff and to buy stamps.

Its a sideline on a village store and petrol station, not hugely
profitable, but worth its weight in gold, since the nearest alternatives
are about 5 miles further away.

The odd thing is, I use the post office far more than you do, but for
far less things.

It's where I go to post things that don't fit through letter boxes, and
its where I get cash from.

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-19 22:14:39 +0100, geoff said:

In message 485a3c5d@qaanaaq, Andy Hall writes
On 2008-06-19 11:18:34 +0100, Richard Torrens
said:

In article 48592359@qaanaaq,
Andy Hall wrote:
Cheques are a deprecated means of payment that should have been
dropped
20 years ago. There's certainly no reason for cheques to be used at
all in the 21st century. Last year I wrote one cheque. This year
I am aiming not to write any. In general anybody expecting payment
by cheque does not get repeat business from me.
Cheques are still useful for mail payment.
Many people do not have computers and still rely on sending cheques
through the post.

That is the wrong solution.

The correct one would be to enable them to have computer access of some
kind.

I'll take your total confidence in the above to mean that you'll sit
for hours on end showing my mother how to use hers.

I've given up trying

Have you tried a Mac?

OS/X has about 4-5 icons in the dock after loading and most common
things can be done from these. It's very stable and simple to use if
you don't want sophistication. It doesn't break or deteriorate
like Windows either.


But it hs its own annoyances. Like the help key being bang next door to
the delete key.

And a bloody irritating way of handling menus and focus. Like the window
you want is hidden..half the things you try and click and drag take two
clicks..or suddenly explodes a family of windows and cover up what you
are trying to reveal..it takes three clicks to rename a file..click on
it, right click get info, type name in box, and click again..in windows
its right click, type and return. Menus are never where yu expet them to
be..they are scattered all over the place or in a menu bar at the top.
so you need to FIRST click on the app you want to bring the menu bar up
THEN click on the menu item..so all in all its actually far more
keystrokes and mouse moves to drive a mac.

On 2008-06-20 20:03:21 +0100, magwitch said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-20 14:07:35 +0100, Roland Perry said:

In message 485b53c4@qaanaaq, at 07:52:52 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

Seriously though, Andy seemed to be implying that going to the post office
was a waste of time (when compared to doing "post officey things" online)
- I only see it that way if I'm going to the post office to do a single
chore.

There are only four things that I have done at the post office in the
last year:

- Send a package of information by Special Delivery to my accountant.
This happens every couple of months. Considering the time taken
waiting to be served, it would be cheaper to send it with a courier who
will collect.

Example: 3 years ago renewed my passport and driving licence (due to a
change of surname) got the driving licence back within the week and the
passport took about 10 days, both safely delivered by Royal Mail.

My husband renewed his passport about 6 months later when they'd
switched to using a courier €” took about a month, because the special
courier aborted delivery 3 times.

Better example. Called consular agency who collected documents in
the morning and delivered the renewed passport in the afternoon of the
same day.




Pick the right time of day and the queue will be shorter. It's
frustrating to wait for more than ten minutes I agree. If you are
sending things as a business then paying for a courier will make more
sense than if it was a personal item being shipped.

Whether it's my business or my personal time it's expensive. Either
way I can be much more productive by not having to wait around in
queues at the Post Office.

Even worse having to wait in all day for a courier... at least if it's
not in that day's post you know it won't be there until the next
delivery and do other things.

I never wait in all day for couriers. The simple solution is to
arrange for before 0900 deliveries. Royal Mail delivers at whatever
time it chooses at the whim of the postman.



- Renewed vehicle excise duty for the car. That took 45 minutes of
waiting in line while people who didn't have the right or complete set
of information argued with the counter staff or chatted about the
weather. Last time, it was renewed on line - a time saving of an hour
overall. I won't be using the Post Office for that again


Only because they've closed about half the post offices, as people
still need the service, the ones that still exist will be busier.

It's a PITA anyway. Even if there is no queue I can complete the
entire exercise in under 5 minutes. It would take that to get part
way to the post office.


The sorting office is at the Post Office. They may be seaparate
organisations but have the same bad public sector culture of the past.
Hopeless.

In 'the past' when we were snowed in, the postman brought us our milk
and butter as well as the mail. The past was better.

Strains of Dvorak Symphony No. 9..........






- Return of goods purchased on line. I now favour suppliers who a
have a return arrangement where the goods are collected.

Which they charge you for in the general price of their goods. But if
that's affordable for you, then who are we to criticise how you spend
your money.

This isn't the issue. If they sell defective goods, then they should
be dealing with that problem.

Most on-line suppliers I use include a pre-paid returns label. Repack
item stick label on and post getting proof of postage. Simple.

Time taken to go to post office wasted.



Clearly the Post Office has lost all touch with reality since it
launched its "People's Post Office" marketing. What kind of sh*t is
that? It demonstrates that they have lost the plot completely.


You ought to visit some of the villages where their POs are under
threat of closure... the people seem to want to keep them and even
their local parish councils are thinking of subsidising them to keep
them open.

Then let them pay for it as a social service if that's what they want.
This has nothing to do with its primary business and should not be
subsidised by ots other customers

On 2008-06-20 20:11:40 +0100, magwitch said:

Like DHL? Delivered a pair of £70 pair of Ugg boots to the wrong
address, who honestly returned them to the PO who asked me to come and
collect them.

Well if you *will* buy Ugg boots it's probably for the best.



Like UPS? Kept a box china air-freighted from North Carolina for *6
weeks* at their depot 10 miles away and never let me know it was there.

Both these incidents took place within 3 months.

So why didn't you get the tracking numbers from the shippers? It
would have been quite simple to resolve.

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-20 20:11:40 +0100, magwitch said:

Like DHL? Delivered a pair of £70 pair of Ugg boots to the wrong
address, who honestly returned them to the PO who asked me to come and
collect them.

Well if you *will* buy Ugg boots it's probably for the best.



None of your business but they were a birthday present for my 12 y/o
niece and I missed (or rather DHL) missed her birthday. I found the
whole thing very worrying and the Australian supplier refunded my
shipping charges.

Like UPS? Kept a box china air-freighted from North Carolina for *6
weeks* at their depot 10 miles away and never let me know it was there.

Both these incidents took place within 3 months.

So why didn't you get the tracking numbers from the shippers? It would
have been quite simple to resolve.


I did... For 3 weeks DHL's track said 'in transit' (I didn't know the
supplier had air-freighted the china). After 3 weeks the track changed
to having landed at Stansted (when actually, it only took 3 days from
USA to UK) then after another 2 weeks to say Bury St Edmunds depot, but
they couldn't compute or use our post code and there was further delay.

Total nightmare.

On 2008-06-20 21:39:10 +0100, magwitch said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-20 20:11:40 +0100, magwitch said:

Like DHL? Delivered a pair of £70 pair of Ugg boots to the wrong
address, who honestly returned them to the PO who asked me to come and
collect them.

Well if you *will* buy Ugg boots it's probably for the best.



None of your business but they were a birthday present for my 12 y/o
niece and I missed (or rather DHL) missed her birthday. I found the
whole thing very worrying and the Australian supplier refunded my
shipping charges.

Why didn't you ask DHL for a PoD?

BTW, apparently you can buy Ugh boots here....



Like UPS? Kept a box china air-freighted from North Carolina for *6
weeks* at their depot 10 miles away and never let me know it was there.

Both these incidents took place within 3 months.

So why didn't you get the tracking numbers from the shippers? It
would have been quite simple to resolve.


I did... For 3 weeks DHL's track said 'in transit' (I didn't know the
supplier had air-freighted the china). After 3 weeks the track changed
to having landed at Stansted (when actually, it only took 3 days from
USA to UK) then after another 2 weeks to say Bury St Edmunds depot, but
they couldn't compute or use our post code and there was further delay.

Total nightmare.

I thought that you said it was UPS....

If the supplier air freighted the china, how can you blame UPS or DHL?

In message 485bbfe1@qaanaaq, at 15:34:09 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

It's entirely possible to get the same quality work as the same
dentist would charge you private rates for.

I don't see how. There are two major factors involved - the materials
chosen and more importantly the time taken. The NHS fees don't allow
for enough time for a proper job to be done so unless the dentist is
willing to cut corners, he's going to lose money.

It all depends what hourly rate the dentist needs to earn where he
lives.

there are still a large number of NHS GPs who can be easily bettered
by going private, and yet few people bother.

Quite. Most that I have spoken to are fed up with the marketing,
interference and politicisation by the current government that they are
seriously considering their options for private work.

Are you speaking to GPs or to their patients?

The point is that because the NHS is paying well below the economic
rate for dentists it will have three choices:

- Raise the fees
- Get out of the business
- Outsource to lower cost places.

I'm still not sure how that's an answer to my question about you getting
your NHS contributions back, having decided to go private.

What is wrong with living in an area that doesn't have cheap property

Maybe a flat fee system doesn't provide enough income.

and where one can have a current model Merc?

Not "can have", but "pressured to have by the 'keep up with the Jones'
mentality"

Why should dentists operate as a charity?

I'm not asking them to.

If you would like to run that argument, then the choice would be to
have a regionalised healthcare system where dentistry is funded in
lower cost areas and not in higher cost ones.

You'd need a system where the fees the dentist got (which are not tied
to the fees the patients pay) had a local cost of living element.

The government should not be in service delivery except in a very
small number of examples such as the military. It should restrict
itself to funding only of a basic payment insurance scheme and allow
people to make their own service provider choices.
I've seen something like that in the USA, and it's appalling. From
almost every possible point of view.

That's because it isn't operated properly.

An awful lot of the "operating" issues are precisely because you end up
in three-way fights between patient, doctor and insurance company over
what will get paid for.

The blessing of the NHS is that it's largely "no quibble", and very
little form-filling and processing just to extract the money from the
funders.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 20:13:05 on
Fri, 20 Jun 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:

A lot of the best quality stuff - like non amalgam fillings etc - are
not part of what teh ~NHS will pay for.

Doesn't seem to be true at my NHS dentist.

Also, teh time for a job which is done at 'fixed price' i terms of what
teh NHS patys, has to be done super fast to make any money at all.

Depends on the local cost of living.

I dont WANT a dentist rushing root canal work, an ending up with a bit
of rotten root abcessing away below my tooth. Been there, done that.

That's more a symptom of a bad dentist.
--
Roland Perry

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-20 20:03:21 +0100, magwitch said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-20 14:07:35 +0100, Roland Perry said:

In message 485b53c4@qaanaaq, at 07:52:52 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

Seriously though, Andy seemed to be implying that going to the
post office
was a waste of time (when compared to doing "post officey things"
online)
- I only see it that way if I'm going to the post office to do a
single
chore.

There are only four things that I have done at the post office in
the last year:

- Send a package of information by Special Delivery to my
accountant. This happens every couple of months. Considering the
time taken waiting to be served, it would be cheaper to send it
with a courier who will collect.

Example: 3 years ago renewed my passport and driving licence (due to a
change of surname) got the driving licence back within the week and
the passport took about 10 days, both safely delivered by Royal Mail.

My husband renewed his passport about 6 months later when they'd
switched to using a courier €” took about a month, because the
special courier aborted delivery 3 times.

Better example. Called consular agency who collected documents in the

In 'the past' when we were snowed in, the postman brought us our milk
and butter as well as the mail. The past was better.

Strains of Dvorak Symphony No. 9..........


Dvorak or not... it happened.

Not today of course, now we are customer-driven, and efficiently
business-like and everyone's lives run like clockwork, that is, have run
like clockwork. However, I think quite a lot of people are going to find
out in the quite near future that this is a total illusion.

You either are very young or have led a very sheltered life. Things go
wrong.

snip

Most on-line suppliers I use include a pre-paid returns label. Repack
item stick label on and post getting proof of postage. Simple.

Time taken to go to post office wasted.

What do you mean? You seriously think I make a special trip? Of course
not, I get the paper, some dog/cat food more milk stuff I'd be doing
anyway in the village shop/PO... you are being ridiculous.

Clearly the Post Office has lost all touch with reality since it
launched its "People's Post Office" marketing. What kind of sh*t
is that? It demonstrates that they have lost the plot completely.


You ought to visit some of the villages where their POs are under
threat of closure... the people seem to want to keep them and even
their local parish councils are thinking of subsidising them to keep
them open.

Then let them pay for it as a social service if that's what they want.
This has nothing to do with its primary business and should not be
subsidised by ots other customers


So you are saying that only large towns should have facilites such as
POs so everyone has to make a 10 mile trip into their nearest PO... once
again you are being ridiculous.

In message 485bc8b7@qaanaaq, at 16:11:51 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
I am not frequently at home and when I am, it certainly isn't waiting
for anything.

Not a tea drinker then?
--
Roland Perry

In message 485bc5a3@qaanaaq, at 15:58:43 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

Whether it's my business or my personal time it's expensive. Either
way I can be much more productive by not having to wait around in
queues at the Post Office.

How much do you charge for watching TV at home?

- Collection of an imported parcel and payment of VAT. That
involved a wait in the rain of 30 mins and surly service. Royal
Mail is still out of touch with customer service. I now mandate
that professional private courier services are used and don't place
business with anybody using Royal Mail
At a Post Office? How odd. Everywhere I've lived you do that (and
other similar transactions) at the sorting office. And there are
rarely any queues, albeit they have rather restricted opening hours.

The sorting office is at the Post Office.

That's fairly unusual, but I do know of a few like that.

They may be seaparate organisations but have the same bad public sector
culture of the past.

Don't they have a separate queue for the sorting-office stuff?

- Return of goods purchased on line. I now favour suppliers who
a have a return arrangement where the goods are collected.
Which they charge you for in the general price of their goods. But
if that's affordable for you, then who are we to criticise how you
spend your money.

This isn't the issue. If they sell defective goods, then they should
be dealing with that problem.

A lot of the time, so-called "defective" goods are people buying the
wrong thing, not being able to find out how it works etc. The cost of
sending all those back by super-courier affects all buyers.

Clearly the Post Office has lost all touch with reality since it
launched its "People's Post Office" marketing. What kind of sh*t
is that? It demonstrates that they have lost the plot completely.
It demonstrates you are not really within their target market,
that's for sure.

I am so pleased to know that. I wonder who is though. Are there
really people who would be suckered by that nonsense? It has no
actual value other than trying to pretend that they are providing
something for "the common good". The product offerings are presented
as something suitable for people who haven't used them before -
somewhat insulting to their intelligence.

Not everyone is as clever as you.
--
Roland Perry

In message 485c0c20@qaanaaq, at 20:59:28 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
Called consular agency who collected documents in the morning and
delivered the renewed passport in the afternoon of the same day.

This is just a "I can afford lots of dosh to get people to do things at
my beck and call" competition, isn't it?
--
Roland Perry

In message 485bca67@qaanaaq, at 16:19:03 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
I'm not a nut about anything, let alone freedom of choice.

Do you have an identical twin who also posts to Usenet?

By definition, people need to discover that themselves.

People can't discover things unless given the choice to.

As far as Ebay is concerned, I really don't care whether people use
them or not. However, if one does use an organisation to buy and sell
and it doesn't work properly, it's an equivalent to banging one's head
on a brick wall. Stop doing it or don't whinge about the pain.

If it's the best place to buy a particular thing, then the pain is a
necessary element.

People seem to think it's a be all and end all. It isn't.
It's better than anything else, a lot of the time. But it's not
immune from drawbacks.

Bettter than.... A lot of the time....?? What's that all about?
Either it works properly or it doesn't work properly. If it works
properly, then great. If it doesn't then don't use it.

It's a market place. There are things for sale that simply can't be
found as easily elsewhere. Or as cheap elsewhere (where "cheap" doesn't
imply 'nasty' but is merely a reflection of disintermediation).

It's an unregulated E Commerce organisation. That's all.
It's regulated in many ways, although lots of folk don't realise it.

All the more foolish for not understanding the rules of the game.

So you admit it's regulated, then?
--
Roland Perry

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-20 21:39:10 +0100, magwitch said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-20 20:11:40 +0100, magwitch said:

Like DHL? Delivered a pair of £70 pair of Ugg boots to the wrong
address, who honestly returned them to the PO who asked me to come
and collect them.

Well if you *will* buy Ugg boots it's probably for the best.



None of your business but they were a birthday present for my 12 y/o
niece and I missed (or rather DHL) missed her birthday. I found the
whole thing very worrying and the Australian supplier refunded my
shipping charges.

Why didn't you ask DHL for a PoD?

Because the Ugg website adds on the shipping fee (appropriate to
location) automatically as part of the online order and chooses the
company that ships their product, like 99.9% of other online suppliers.
If you could point out the pull down menu that says "Preferred courier"
to me on *any* online merchant's site, then you might have a point, but
I've never seen one.

BTW, apparently you can buy Ugh boots here....

Yeah for double the price at the time (4 years ago) it may be different
now as they aren't so trendy.



Like UPS? Kept a box china air-freighted from North Carolina for *6
weeks* at their depot 10 miles away and never let me know it was there.

Both these incidents took place within 3 months.

So why didn't you get the tracking numbers from the shippers? It
would have been quite simple to resolve.


I did... For 3 weeks DHL's track said 'in transit' (I didn't know the
supplier had air-freighted the china). After 3 weeks the track changed
to having landed at Stansted (when actually, it only took 3 days from
USA to UK) then after another 2 weeks to say Bury St Edmunds depot,
but they couldn't compute or use our post code and there was further
delay.

Total nightmare.

I thought that you said it was UPS....

UPS handled the china — though the difference in service is very hard to
quantify. Both cocked up. And both I will never entrust anything to again.

If the supplier air freighted the china, how can you blame UPS or DHL?


Because once it left the supplier, the UPS site provided the track no.
information, the UPS airfreight service and the UPS warehouse where it
languished for more than a month without letting me know.

In message . com, at
12:40:09 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Jules
remarked:
I can't stand ebay, and I'm yet to find anything that I need and
can't obtain in a way that's somehow better (cheaper / faster / less
risky etc.) elsewhere. Maybe I'll buy something on there one day, but I
probably don't have any business grumbling about it when I do

Well, I bought a car that was better value than anything I found in the
garages within 50 miles. It was a specialist dealer who sells cars that
are unwanted after trade-in. So an alternative to sending them to one of
the big "shed" auctions, and for buyers a chance to meaningfully inspect
the vehicles a little before buying.

If I hadn't found that dealer on eBay I don't think I'd have found him
any other way. And with a business to run, and plenty of happy customers
in the past, it's probably less risky than buying privately. I expect he
sends the real lemons off to that auction shed.

eBay's also very good for finding "obsolete" spares, something I would
have thought you would appreciate (in both sense of the word). There are
people selling stuff that I've never seen in any outlet, either online
or offline.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message 485c0c20@qaanaaq, at 20:59:28 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
Called consular agency who collected documents in the morning and
delivered the renewed passport in the afternoon of the same day.

This is just a "I can afford lots of dosh to get people to do things at
my beck and call" competition, isn't it?

One does wonder exactly how valuable this one man's time is to humanity,
perhaps he's a transplant surgeon or is closing on cracking cold fusion
or something.

In message 485bcb8f@qaanaaq, at 16:23:59 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

Online banking shows on-screen statements of exactly when the
direct debit was collected.
All that shows is they collected the money. It doesn't prove it
was applied to *my* CT debt.
That is then their problem. You have the proof that they collected
payment.
Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. Some people, for example,
have two properties, so showing *a* payment to the council doesn't
prove *both* sets of CT have been paid. As a result they make it
*your* problem if the CT account for any property hasn't received the
incoming funds.

Even if the payments were precisely the same, it would be possible to
look over a period of time and see that the total amount of money paid
was the correct amount for two properties.

But we are dealing with a clueless organisation, or they wouldn't have
lost the money (misallocated it) in the first place. They have no
incentive to try to work it pout unless you can bash them over the head
with something concrete like a cheque stub or bank statement.

As far as I'm concerned, they can do what they like and can make
representations for the money. Should they wish to do that through
the courts they can do so.

That'll take a lot of your precious time.

Bits of paper are superfluous to being able to prove or not that
money was transferred to the recipient.
So I can go down the council office with my laptop and mobile data
card, and point at the screen? And they'd take that as *proof*?
Why on earth would you do that? What a waste of time. Let them
make representations for the money.
The 'representations' are letters saying "see you in court".

That's fine. Their solicitors will receive a string of very lengthy
letters by FAX demonstrating that monies have been paid and when. That
doesn't require the use of cheques or any other form of treeware.

That'll take a lot of your precious time.

--
Roland Perry

In message 485bcbb6@qaanaaq, at 16:24:38 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
An echeque is issued if the funds to make the payment have to be
taken from a bank account; when that PayPal account does not have a
currently valid Credit Card associated with it, or the transaction
involves certain "high risk" items.

What a lot of unnecessary complexity and crap just to buy and sell something.

Unfortunately they attract a number of dishonest buyers and sellers, so
need to introduce "clearance" delays to match what's happening in the
banking system, for some of the transactions anyway.

The bulk of transactions take a couple of second to send funds
electronically, but it's no longer possible to say that everything that
used to be "instant" still is "instant".
--
Roland Perry

On 2008-06-20 22:22:33 +0100, Roland Perry said:

In message 485bbfe1@qaanaaq, at 15:34:09 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

It's entirely possible to get the same quality work as the same
dentist would charge you private rates for.

I don't see how. There are two major factors involved - the materials
chosen and more importantly the time taken. The NHS fees don't allow
for enough time for a proper job to be done so unless the dentist is
willing to cut corners, he's going to lose money.

It all depends what hourly rate the dentist needs to earn where he lives.

That would only set the bare minimum.



there are still a large number of NHS GPs who can be easily bettered
by going private, and yet few people bother.

Quite. Most that I have spoken to are fed up with the marketing,
interference and politicisation by the current government that they are
seriously considering their options for private work.

Are you speaking to GPs or to their patients?

Both.



The point is that because the NHS is paying well below the economic
rate for dentists it will have three choices:

- Raise the fees
- Get out of the business
- Outsource to lower cost places.

I'm still not sure how that's an answer to my question about you
getting your NHS contributions back, having decided to go private.

The point being that the NHS is not providing viable dentistry over
much of the country as witnessed by it being difficult to find one.
There is no justification for paying for a service that not only is one
not receiving but which to a large extent isn't being delivered.
This leaves the NHS with the three choices mentioned above.
Dismantling of NHS dentistry would be a good place to begin as a way to
dismantle the rest of it.




What is wrong with living in an area that doesn't have cheap property

Maybe a flat fee system doesn't provide enough income.

Clearly not.


and where one can have a current model Merc?

Not "can have", but "pressured to have by the 'keep up with the Jones'
mentality"

One can respond to pressure or not, but it's completely irrelevant



Why should dentists operate as a charity?

I'm not asking them to.

But they can break even as long as they don't have Mercs?


If you would like to run that argument, then the choice would be to
have a regionalised healthcare system where dentistry is funded in
lower cost areas and not in higher cost ones.

You'd need a system where the fees the dentist got (which are not tied
to the fees the patients pay) had a local cost of living element.

This is why the whole thing is silly. It would be far better for the
NHS to give up the pretence and for patients to pay dentists directly.
In that way, cost of treatment would, as is quite reasonable, be
linked to the local cost of living. It is for virtually everything
else that we buy.



The government should not be in service delivery except in a very
small number of examples such as the military. It should restrict
itself to funding only of a basic payment insurance scheme and allow
people to make their own service provider choices.
I've seen something like that in the USA, and it's appalling. From
almost every possible point of view.

That's because it isn't operated properly.

An awful lot of the "operating" issues are precisely because you end up
in three-way fights between patient, doctor and insurance company over
what will get paid for.

Actually it's very simple in the UK.

Each treatment and procedure has a nationally recognised procedure
code. The patient can ask what the insurer will pay for (e.g.) the
consultant, the anaesthetist as well as the hospital facilities.
They can ask the clinical practitioners what their fees are, which will
typically be covered or top them up if they so choose.

I recently consulted in relation to a relatively new procedure with two
of the leading specialists on it in the country. It wasn't that I
didn't trust the first but rather that I wanted more data from a second
opinion. Had I attempted this through the NHS, it would have taken
many months. As it was, I saw one during one week and the other
during the following week at times that worked for me. The insurer
paid for all of it with no discussion at all.




The blessing of the NHS is that it's largely "no quibble", and very
little form-filling and processing just to extract the money from the
funders.

It's only a blessing for the blissfully ignorant. The reality is
that this organisation is the third largest employer in the world and
is still incapable of delivering quality healthcare. They have hidden
bureaucrats making policy decisions over whether particular individuals
should receive certain treatments. Clearly that is unacceptable.

It's only "no quibble" because it's too difficult to quibble, so most
patients are reduced to laying back and thinking of England.

Roland Perry wrote:
In message . com, at
12:40:09 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Jules
remarked:
I can't stand ebay, and I'm yet to find anything that I need and
can't obtain in a way that's somehow better (cheaper / faster / less
risky etc.) elsewhere. Maybe I'll buy something on there one day, but I
probably don't have any business grumbling about it when I do

Well, I bought a car that was better value than anything I found in the
garages within 50 miles. It was a specialist dealer who sells cars that
are unwanted after trade-in. So an alternative to sending them to one of
the big "shed" auctions, and for buyers a chance to meaningfully inspect
the vehicles a little before buying.

If I hadn't found that dealer on eBay I don't think I'd have found him
any other way. And with a business to run, and plenty of happy customers
in the past, it's probably less risky than buying privately. I expect he
sends the real lemons off to that auction shed.

eBay's also very good for finding "obsolete" spares, something I would
have thought you would appreciate (in both sense of the word). There are
people selling stuff that I've never seen in any outlet, either online
or offline.


It WAS, Roland It isn't now. That's the problem.

Because you have to go through all the Paypal rigmarole to sell.

On 2008-06-20 22:24:20 +0100, Roland Perry said:

In message , at 20:13:05 on
Fri, 20 Jun 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:

A lot of the best quality stuff - like non amalgam fillings etc - are
not part of what teh ~NHS will pay for.

Doesn't seem to be true at my NHS dentist.

Also, teh time for a job which is done at 'fixed price' i terms of what
teh NHS patys, has to be done super fast to make any money at all.

Depends on the local cost of living.

I dont WANT a dentist rushing root canal work, an ending up with a bit
of rotten root abcessing away below my tooth. Been there, done that.

That's more a symptom of a bad dentist.

It takes a great deal of time to do a root canal treatment properly.
This should not be governed by time and cost but by doing a proper job.

On 2008-06-20 22:28:51 +0100, magwitch said:

Dvorak or not... it happened.

I'm sure it did.



Not today of course, now we are customer-driven, and efficiently
business-like and everyone's lives run like clockwork, that is, have
run like clockwork. However, I think quite a lot of people are going to
find out in the quite near future that this is a total illusion.

You either are very young or have led a very sheltered life. Things go wrong.

Actually neither. One can prepare to a very large degree for things
going wrong.




snip

Most on-line suppliers I use include a pre-paid returns label. Repack
item stick label on and post getting proof of postage. Simple.

Time taken to go to post office wasted.

What do you mean? You seriously think I make a special trip? Of course
not, I get the paper, some dog/cat food more milk stuff I'd be doing
anyway in the village shop/PO... you are being ridiculous.

It's far quicker and cheaper to get the provisions delivered and to do
the financial work on line.




So you are saying that only large towns should have facilites such as
POs so everyone has to make a 10 mile trip into their nearest PO...
once again you are being ridiculous.

Not at all. I don't see any value in post offices as a place to go
to do business transactions. It takes too long and the service is
poor. Virtually everything that they do can be accomplished without
a need to visit such a place so I see no need to keep them in either
rural or urban settings in the medium to long term.

On 2008-06-20 22:39:36 +0100, Roland Perry said:

In message 485c0c20@qaanaaq, at 20:59:28 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
Called consular agency who collected documents in the morning and
delivered the renewed passport in the afternoon of the same day.

This is just a "I can afford lots of dosh to get people to do things at
my beck and call" competition, isn't it?

Not really. It's a straightforward cost comparison between writing
off a day visiting the Passport Office and paying someone else to do so
along with a dozen other applications. I'm happy because I've
sent the day more profitably and not having to deal with civil
servants. The Passport Office is happy because the consular agency
has screened and checked the documents and won't have its time wasted.
The consular agency is happy because they've made a reasonable margin
doing the job.

On 2008-06-20 22:39:00 +0100, Roland Perry said:

In message 485bc5a3@qaanaaq, at 15:58:43 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

Whether it's my business or my personal time it's expensive. Either
way I can be much more productive by not having to wait around in
queues at the Post Office.

How much do you charge for watching TV at home?

Nothing. I am very selective about watching of TV programs.


The sorting office is at the Post Office.

That's fairly unusual, but I do know of a few like that.

They may be seaparate organisations but have the same bad public sector
culture of the past.

Don't they have a separate queue for the sorting-office stuff?


Yes. Outside and wih no shelter or nearby parking.




- Return of goods purchased on line. I now favour suppliers who a
have a return arrangement where the goods are collected.
Which they charge you for in the general price of their goods. But if
that's affordable for you, then who are we to criticise how you spend
your money.

This isn't the issue. If they sell defective goods, then they should
be dealing with that problem.

A lot of the time, so-called "defective" goods are people buying the
wrong thing, not being able to find out how it works etc. The cost of
sending all those back by super-courier affects all buyers.

So make a charge for such collections. It isn't hard.




Clearly the Post Office has lost all touch with reality since it
launched its "People's Post Office" marketing. What kind of sh*t is
that? It demonstrates that they have lost the plot completely.
It demonstrates you are not really within their target market, that's
for sure.

I am so pleased to know that. I wonder who is though. Are there
really people who would be suckered by that nonsense? It has no
actual value other than trying to pretend that they are providing
something for "the common good". The product offerings are presented
as something suitable for people who haven't used them before -
somewhat insulting to their intelligence.

Not everyone is as clever as you.

I don't think it's a matter of being clever, simply avoiding being taken in.

I read some while ago that something like 95% of the population have
bought a Lottery ticket at least once. I was shocked. Why on earth
would people want to pay tax voluntarily?

On 2008-06-20 22:37:48 +0100, Roland Perry said:

In message 485bc8b7@qaanaaq, at 16:11:51 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
I am not frequently at home and when I am, it certainly isn't waiting
for anything.

Not a tea drinker then?

Of course. This doesn't imply waiting, however.....

While it does take time for tea to brew, this does not imply waiting.

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-20 22:28:51 +0100, magwitch said:


So you are saying that only large towns should have facilites such as
POs so everyone has to make a 10 mile trip into their nearest PO...
once again you are being ridiculous.

Not at all. I don't see any value in post offices as a place to go to
do business transactions. It takes too long and the service is
poor. Virtually everything that they do can be accomplished without
a need to visit such a place so I see no need to keep them in either
rural or urban settings in the medium to long term.


Try to get your head around the fact that not everyone is 'in business'.

When a courier company sets up a reliable service where letters and
parcels are collected and delivered at a certain hour each day for an
equivalent cost (from 20p to less than a fiver) maybe I'll start using it.

On 2008-06-20 22:49:20 +0100, magwitch said:

Andy Hall wrote:

Why didn't you ask DHL for a PoD?

Because the Ugg website adds on the shipping fee (appropriate to
location) automatically as part of the online order and chooses the
company that ships their product, like 99.9% of other online suppliers.
If you could point out the pull down menu that says "Preferred courier"
to me on *any* online merchant's site, then you might have a point, but
I've never seen one.

I don't take any notice of what is offered on the web sites. If they
have one of my preferred couriers I will use them. If they don't,
and I still want to buy from the supplier then I contact them and tell
them that I want them to use my choice of courier, and I will provide
them the account number to do so. Almost all will accept this. It has
the additional advantage that the customer can expose unreasonable
"shipping" charges.





BTW, apparently you can buy Ugh boots here....

Yeah for double the price at the time (4 years ago) it may be different
now as they aren't so trendy.

Since you had such a bad experience, it might have been worth the cost.






Like UPS? Kept a box china air-freighted from North Carolina for *6
weeks* at their depot 10 miles away and never let me know it was there.

Both these incidents took place within 3 months.

So why didn't you get the tracking numbers from the shippers? It
would have been quite simple to resolve.


I did... For 3 weeks DHL's track said 'in transit' (I didn't know the
supplier had air-freighted the china). After 3 weeks the track changed
to having landed at Stansted (when actually, it only took 3 days from
USA to UK) then after another 2 weeks to say Bury St Edmunds depot, but
they couldn't compute or use our post code and there was further delay.

Total nightmare.

I thought that you said it was UPS....

UPS handled the china €” though the difference in service is very hard
to quantify. Both cocked up.

So where did DHL come into this?



And both I will never entrust anything to again.

That was the mistake. Trust is an analogue thing. I would set it
to zero for anything involving the public sector and a little more for
the private sector. I always ask for a commitment in terms of time
for a service and keep a close eye on it. Once they step outside of
the commitment for whatever reason they are chased.



If the supplier air freighted the china, how can you blame UPS or DHL?


Because once it left the supplier, the UPS site provided the track no.
information, the UPS airfreight service and the UPS warehouse where it
languished for more than a month without letting me know.

It amazes me that you would *allow* it to languish for a month.

It's pointless complaining about something if you haven't done much
once the agreed time was exceeded.

Man at B&Q wrote:
On Jun 20, 1:58 am, John Rumm wrote:
Brian Morrison wrote:
Man at B&Q wrote:
On Jun 16, 4:59 pm, Brian Morrison wrote:
Man at B&Q wrote:
Even if they had refunded
money they would have done so via PayPal who would have deducted
"administration charges" from the refund.
There are no "admistration charges" on refunds within 28 (IIRC) days.
Except that to then transfer the money out of your Paypal account you
get docked an admin charge, so unless you want to pay for something else
immediately you will lose out.
If you transfer less than £50, but that's a general condition and has
nothing to do with refunds. It's also easy to work around.
It is? If you use eBay very little and don't sell much it's quite an
annoyance. How do you suggest working around that?
Not tried this, but can you not transfer an additional £50 in there from
your bank, and then transfer £50+Paypal balance back out to your bank.

Do try and keep up there at the back!

I think you will find I am ahead of the back - I posted that before I
read the other suggestions! ;-)

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 2008-06-20 22:55:21 +0100, magwitch said:

Roland Perry wrote:
In message 485c0c20@qaanaaq, at 20:59:28 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
Called consular agency who collected documents in the morning and
delivered the renewed passport in the afternoon of the same day.

This is just a "I can afford lots of dosh to get people to do things at
my beck and call" competition, isn't it?

One does wonder exactly how valuable this one man's time is to
humanity, perhaps he's a transplant surgeon or is closing on cracking
cold fusion or something.

Humanity doesn't come into it. Just simple economics.

If my time costs £X per hour, and I can pay somebody to do a job that I
don't want to do at £X/4 per hour, where would be the sense in doing
the exercise myself?

This doesn't mean to say that I might not *choose* to do something that
interests me rather than paying someone.

However, it would be surpring to hear of anyone wanting to go to London
willingly and spend most of the day hanging around while civil servants
do their stuff.

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:23:43 +0100, Andy Hall
wrote:

I don't see any value in post offices as a place to go to do business transactions. It takes too long and the service is
poor.

You might be unlucky. My local post office is about a 5 minute walk
from here, so I can make it part of my dog-walking route.
I've only once been kept waiting (about 2 minutes) for service, so you
can't generalise about the quality of service.

YMOV.

Virtually everything that they do can be accomplished without a need to visit such a place so I see no need to keep them in either
rural or urban settings in the medium to long term.

You may not see a need. Others clearly do.

--
Frank Erskine

On 2008-06-20 22:44:21 +0100, Roland Perry said:

People can't discover things unless given the choice to.

Nobody said that there wasn't a choice.


As far as Ebay is concerned, I really don't care whether people use
them or not. However, if one does use an organisation to buy and sell
and it doesn't work properly, it's an equivalent to banging one's head
on a brick wall. Stop doing it or don't whinge about the pain.

If it's the best place to buy a particular thing, then the pain is a
necessary element.

Fine, but then don't complain about the pain. Either take the
aspirin or stop banging head on wall.



People seem to think it's a be all and end all. It isn't.
It's better than anything else, a lot of the time. But it's not immune
from drawbacks.

Bettter than.... A lot of the time....?? What's that all about?
Either it works properly or it doesn't work properly. If it works
properly, then great. If it doesn't then don't use it.

It's a market place. There are things for sale that simply can't be
found as easily elsewhere. Or as cheap elsewhere (where "cheap" doesn't
imply 'nasty' but is merely a reflection of disintermediation).

.... and like in all marketplaces there is the good and the bad. If
you want to play then you take the rough with the smooth.



It's an unregulated E Commerce organisation. That's all.
It's regulated in many ways, although lots of folk don't realise it.

All the more foolish for not understanding the rules of the game.

So you admit it's regulated, then?

largely self regulated, which is tantamount to no regulation.

On 2008-06-20 22:56:21 +0100, Roland Perry said:

But we are dealing with a clueless organisation, or they wouldn't have
lost the money (misallocated it) in the first place.

Of course.

They have no incentive to try to work it pout unless you can bash them
over the head with something concrete like a cheque stub or bank
statement.

A cheque stub has zero value. I can write a cheque and it's stub (I
can just about remember how) and drop the cheque in the shredder. It
is not a proof of payment or of allocation of funds.

I am certainly not going to provide a copy of bank statements to local
authority bureaucrats. It isn't their business how I spend my money.



As far as I'm concerned, they can do what they like and can make
representations for the money. Should they wish to do that through
the courts they can do so.

That'll take a lot of your precious time.

Not really. I would simply pickup the phone, call my bank manager
and ask him to write a letter confirming payments made to the local
authority for the time in question.



Bits of paper are superfluous to being able to prove or not that money
was transferred to the recipient.
So I can go down the council office with my laptop and mobile data
card, and point at the screen? And they'd take that as *proof*?
Why on earth would you do that? What a waste of time. Let them
make representations for the money.
The 'representations' are letters saying "see you in court".

That's fine. Their solicitors will receive a string of very lengthy
letters by FAX demonstrating that monies have been paid and when. That
doesn't require the use of cheques or any other form of treeware.

That'll take a lot of your precious time.

Ah but now it becomes a worthwhile sport. Generating letters from
standard paragraphs is very easy to do. I have a catalogue of them
accumulated over the years All of that would go in, taking me very
little time at all and including confirmation of transfer of funds.

The exposure of local government incompetence is a worthwhile
contribution to the community.

On 2008-06-20 22:59:09 +0100, Roland Perry said:

In message 485bcbb6@qaanaaq, at 16:24:38 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
An echeque is issued if the funds to make the payment have to be taken
from a bank account; when that PayPal account does not have a
currently valid Credit Card associated with it, or the transaction
involves certain "high risk" items.

What a lot of unnecessary complexity and crap just to buy and sell something.

Unfortunately they attract a number of dishonest buyers and sellers, so
need to introduce "clearance" delays to match what's happening in the
banking system, for some of the transactions anyway.

The bulk of transactions take a couple of second to send funds
electronically, but it's no longer possible to say that everything that
used to be "instant" still is "instant".

So just like an electronic car boot sale.......

On 2008-06-20 23:41:03 +0100, magwitch said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-20 22:28:51 +0100, magwitch said:


So you are saying that only large towns should have facilites such as
POs so everyone has to make a 10 mile trip into their nearest PO...
once again you are being ridiculous.

Not at all. I don't see any value in post offices as a place to go
to do business transactions. It takes too long and the service is
poor. Virtually everything that they do can be accomplished without
a need to visit such a place so I see no need to keep them in either
rural or urban settings in the medium to long term.


Try to get your head around the fact that not everyone is 'in business'.

That's true, but everybody should value their time.


When a courier company sets up a reliable service where letters and
parcels are collected and delivered at a certain hour each day for an
equivalent cost (from 20p to less than a fiver) maybe I'll start using
it.

Do you value your time at 20p to a fiver per hour or part thereof?

Leaving aside the financial aspect, there are much better uses of time
than trips to the post office to spend 20p posting a letter.

On 2008-06-20 23:54:51 +0100, Frank Erskine
said:

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:23:43 +0100, Andy Hall
wrote:

I don't see any value in post offices as a place to go to do business
transactions. It takes too long and the service is
poor.

You might be unlucky. My local post office is about a 5 minute walk
from here, so I can make it part of my dog-walking route.
I've only once been kept waiting (about 2 minutes) for service, so you
can't generalise about the quality of service.

YMOV.

Virtually everything that they do can be accomplished without a need to
visit such a place so I see no need to keep them in either
rural or urban settings in the medium to long term.

You may not see a need. Others clearly do.

This is all fine, but who is going to pay for it?


If this is going to be a social service then it should be recognised as
such, although it has to be said that there are higher priorities.

If it's going to be a meeting place then make it one and fund it properly.

If it's going to be a place to carry out business transactions then
make sure it does that properly.

As it is, this is an arrangement that falls between all of these
stools. We have marginally profitable poorly run businesses trying
to keep out of trouble by pretending to be something they are not and a
central marketing organisation trying to pretend that it's all
wonderful.

The acid test is whether the customers are willing to pay the economc
rate for the postal and other services provided in sufficient numbers.
I suspect that they are not.