Random ramblings and ravings of Richy B
I was just looking up the dates of one of my namesakes who committed suicide (don’t ask), so I searched on Google for “richard chiswell suicide” (as you do): and my Twitter page came up as first result!
The word “suicide” doesn’t appear on my twitter feed (Google admits it only “appears in links pointing to this page”), so I want to know just who thinks I’m dead!
Do you remember the 3rd season of the “New Doctor Who” when they brought the previously-thought-deceased Master back to life for the season finale?
Do you remember the 4th season of the “New Doctor Who” when they brought all the “New Doctor’s companions” together, including the “trapped-in-parallel universe Rose Tyler” back for the season finale?
Hmm, two reasonably, but slightly unbelievable ideas both with characters who are “unbring-backable”.
Doctor Who Production Team: “Hey, why not combine BOTH ideas!”.
Yep, it seems the Doctor Who production company have thought that and for the 5th season finale (and David Tennant’s last episode), they are bringing back Billie “Rose Tyle” Piper, Catherine “Donna Noble” Tate, Freema “Martha Jones” Agyeman and The Master (who was shot dead, refused to regenerate and buried last time we saw him: although his ring was picked up by a female hand – but if he didn’t want to regenerate, why “hide his soul/being” in a ring?)
Hello, original ideas calling the Doctor Who production team! (who will still be headed by Russell T. Davis at that point, he leaves at the same time as Tennant).
I’m just relooking at the various Voice Over IP (VoIP) services on offer and I’ve found quite a number offering 056 numbers. Telephone numbers starting 056 are officially classed by Ofcom as “Location Independent Electronic Communications Service” (in the Ofcom National Telephone Numbering Plan) and have been allocated by Ofcom since September 2004 (so they aren’t exactly new!) and are mainly used for VoIP. However, trying to find out how much it costs to actually call these numbers is quite difficult – here’s a list of the call charges I’ve found for UK 056 VoIP numbers: and they vary quite a bit (and sometimes, it’s very difficult to find out how much they actually cost to call from the different telephone networks):
Where the tariff/plan may alter the call costs, I’ve included details:
BT: Call band “g21” (the same band as 03 numbers). 4.784p per minute daytime/1.955p per minute evening/1.150p per minute weekend
o2 iPhone 35 Pay Month: 20p per minute at all times (found via telephone customer services: they had to call back!)
Orange: Pricing unavailable (live chat)
Virgin Media Land Lines: Call band PG21. 7.82p connection fee and 4.79p per minute daytime/1.96p evening Price guide
T-Mobile (Combi plan): 40p per minute t all times (according to telephone customer services)
Tesco Land Line: 6p setup charge, 5p per minute daytime, 2p per minute evening, 1p per minute weekend
Gradwell: 1.36p per minute peak, 0.85p per minute offpeak and weekends
Vonage: 1p per minute at all times
Congratulations to Virgin, Tesco, Gradwell and Vonage for having the most easiest to find price guide (bonus points to Gradwell for having a simple “Telephone number lookup” section), BT next (slightly more difficult) and thumbs down to Orange being unable to find any pricing!
The UK’s “top medical adviser”, Sir Liam Donaldson, has drawn up plans for a minimum price for alcohol of 50pence per unit of alcohol they contain for the purpose of “tackling alcohol misuse” – although it isn’t clear from the BBC’s article how this figure was arrived at (it could be a figure Donaldson just “plucked out the air”).
So how does this affect Richy’s house hold? Well, there’s just the two of us and we like the occasional drink (maybe 2 or 3 a week): sometimes, we have a glass or two of wine at night with our evening meals, occasionally I’d have a “nightcap” of Whisky and very very very occasionally (like once every 6 months), I might have a very small amount of Absinthe. Katy quite likes Port and Sherry. So which items would go up in price – here’s the current contents of our drinks cupboard:
(we do normally have a bottle of champagne in the house as well as that’s Katy’s preferred drink of choice, but we appear to have ran out).
As you can see, we’ll be looking at a £5.30 increase without the Absinthe (which, to be honest, I first of all doubt I’ll finish drinking before I’m 50 and secondly, I probably wouldn’t buy another bottle – it’s just too strong: it’ll be a total increase of £10.33 if we were to include it).
The more pricery drinks, since as the whisky and the Sancerre, seem to avoid the price increase: and those are the sort of drinks I would imagine members of the government quite liking (coincidence maybe?).
I can’t see having a minimum price would actually help avoiding alcohol misuse, as the “easy to drink”/”easy to abuse” stuff, such as Carlsberg Larger which Sainsbury’s are currently selling at £17.49 for 24 cans of 440ml: that’s 3.8%/1056cl=40 units would only go up to a minimum of £20 (a £2.51 increase) and “Alchopop” Bacardi Breezers wouldn’t actually change price from £3.78 for 4x275ml bottles: 4%/110cl= 4.4units as the minimum proposed would be £2.20.
How can we stop or reduce alcohol misuse? Education – encourage adults to teach their children that one glass of wine at a meal is ok (say, start when they are 8-12) and hence they should learn that it is nice in moderation: and they shouldn’t learn to abuse it. Also if they have alcohol “reasonably available” at home (regulated by the parents), then they won’t “sneak down the shop”, illegally buy bottles and drink it unsupervised. The government could also introduce labelling on alcohol such as “Do you think you are drinking too much? Do you feel somebody is abusing alcohol? Then call Drinkline free on 0800 917 82 82 or contact DownYourDrink.org.uk“: along with making it clearer how much alcohol is in a single bottle/can, what a “serving is” (i.e. a glass of wine, a shot of whisky) and how much alcohol is in a serving.
As you may be aware, the boys from the crimson midget are back in Red Dwarf starting Friday the 10th of April at 9pm on Dave (part of the UK TV Network). But what’s going to be in the show on the Red Dwarf Easter weekend? Well, Richy has a couple of spoilers…