Maybe it's just me

But when did ignorance of the law become an excuse?

A teacher working in a foreign country may have a fair point and a relatively short imprisonment seems to reflect that, however the argument is stretched to breaking point when politicians try to weasel their way out of their own rules.

Aaargh.

Maybe it's just because I see more of them more often, and maybe it's just me, but are there more kids with quite heinous attitude problems these days?

Case in point, while walking through the library Kid A calls out to Kid B on the other side of the floor his salutations and starts a conversation. I ask him to keep the noise down. He tells me it's OK as he was leaving anyway.

He does leave, the conversation getting gradually louder as the two conversants move further and further apart.

*shakes head in despair at the state of the future*

*realises is getting prematurely old*

Sorted.

It turns out the Gas people were trying to charge me for everything on the meter from zero through to the current reading, or as the lad on the other end of the phone said, "about enough to heat Wales."

Anyway, they've sorted it all out now, without me having to phone them. I did email them during the weekend and intended to call them this afternoon, but didn't have to as the beat me to it. If they hadn't sorted it out, I probably would have spent this blog naming and shaming, however since they cleared it up in a speedy fashion, were friendly and apologetic, I'll take this space to say Thank you Scottish Power. You may have cocked it up to being with, but at least you have the good grace to sort it out efficiently.

Am slightly disappointed I don't have another Tesco to boycott, however.

That can't be right.

Gas bill, 01/08/2007 - 01/11/2007

£643+VAT

Ubuntu

I haven't blogged for a while, not because there's been nothing to blog about, but because I just haven't needed to share. Selfish? Quite possibly.

There's a suggestion that blogging is a form of therapy - I think everyone who reads the blogroll will agree that this is true to a certain extent. Looking back to last year, to just how stressed I was, and how much this was flowing through into my blogs, I think it is reflective of my new-found (even if fleeting) serenity that I'm not blogging so much anymore. By the way, the kids and I mutually hate each other.

That's not to say I'm not reading... I'm just not participating as I once did.

Anyhoo, since going the full hog with Ubuntu a month back, I've been quite pleasantly surprised at the ease of the transition. Almost everything I've wanted to do has just worked and been just there when I wanted it. I do still have a couple of minor niggles. The first is my wireless connection, which seems to drop from time to time, and won't reconnect without rebooting. It has dropped while I am writing this blog, and I am caught between saving what I have thus far written into TomBoy notes and carrying on later, or forgetting the whole thing and going to have a bath.

The other is the ugliness of the buttons in Firefox. If anyone else is using Ubuntu, try this.

Other than that, I really, really like it. Oh, and three days after I wrote the original version of this article, the connection seems fine again now. Maybe an update fixed it...