Why Can’t I Just Make My Phone Go “Ring-Ring”?

My first mobile phone was a People’s Phone PP800, and it was brilliant.  Its 1996 styling, even by today’s standards, is still quite modern and it exists today, even though it no longer works.  My children use it to bash each other about the head with.

Back in 1996, when Vodafone purchased People’s Phone for £77m as they strengthened their grip on the mobile phone market, text messaging wasn’t a thought-about form of communication and, in the event that you had a friend who actually knew your mobile number, all it emitted was a shrill, electronic ringing sound.

Since then, of course, the mobile phone market has bloomed and the PP800 shares about as much DNA with the Sony Ericsson W980 that I use today as a BBC Micro does with the laptop I’m using to write this blog on and, naturally, companies have made a fortune from offering add-on services to meet the needs of every user’s mobile perversions.

Standard ringtones gave way to polyphone ringtones which, in turn, gave way to phones that allow you to use MP3 music as your call alert of choice.  That, unfortunately, gave rise to the Crazy Frog and yesterday a customer’s phone rang in the bar, blaring out Lily Allen’s “F*** You!”

Now, I’m not going to say I haven’t fallen foul of the odd jokey ringtone myself – I have!  My phone used to play the theme to Star Wars, sound like a Ferrari Formula One car and, my personal favourite, whenever a text message arrived it was known to speak like Homer Simpson and say “ooh, the mail’s arrived!”

Some of it was because I found it amusing, and some of it was because I worked in an office with thirty other people and the only way to guarantee it was your phone that was ringing was to put a stupid ringtone on it.  Unfortunately, that just led to a cacophony of polyphonic noise, most sounding like Kevin “Bloody” Wilson or that damned infernal frog.

Today, I don’t work in an office and find amusing ringtones irritating.  I just want my phone to go ‘ring-ring’; retro, I know.  Unfortunately, however, the W980 that I use, despite being fitted with the latest Sony Walkman MP3 player and 8gb of space to put whatever noise on it I want, doesn’t have a standard ringtone that sounds like an ordinary phone.  Or even a shrill version much like my old PP800.

Instead, it comes pre-loaded with a choice of musical tones, all of which serve to do nothing other than make me miss a call while I try to figure out what that stupid noise is.

Why can’t a manufacturer just put a normal ringtone on the phone for those of us who are turning into cantankerous old gits?  I’ve tried visiting the Sony Ericsson ringtone section, but there’s no default sound on there other than their company warble.  A site called Jamster wants to charge me £4.50 A WEEK for one tone and on there the closest I can get to a ringing sound is the voice of somebody who’s just inhaled helium saying “Ring Ring!”  (I’ll admit it did make me smile.)

All I want is for my phone to ring like a phone should ring.  In these days of the Internet and access to just about anything you want, is that too much to ask?

Dumb Blonde Jokes Get Taken To Court

Yesterday's Independent newspaper writes on page 3 about Mark Lowe, a high-powered hedge-fund manager who's got himself in to a spot of bother with a colleague for sending jokes around the office about dumb blondes.

It seems that Jordan Wimmer, quite a pretty 29 year old blonde, has got a bit upset because of e-mails that suggest the best way to find out which one loves you more, your wife or your dog, is to put them both in the boot of the car for an hour and see which one's really pleased to see you when you let them back out.

I think that's quite funny.  And so does my wife, who also happens to be blonde.

Unfortunately for Mark Lowe, however, Ms Wimmer doesn't.  And because of that, she's taken him to court.

Now, I don't agree with sexual harassment in any form.  Touching a female work colleague inappropriately, no matter how invincible you feel or how much she might have wiggled her booty at you, is definitely going to land you in a spot of bother.  As is making lewd comments directly to that individual, or making an illicit pass in the hopes that your wife won't find out.

And suggesting that, in return for a few sexual favours, the promotional ladder might be a bit of an easier climb is clearly going to land you in court with your pants down and your wallet severely lightened.

But sending out e-mails that state a Ferrari is cheaper to run than a woman is not really reason to take somebody to court for a gargantuan sum of money.  And doing so, one can only presume, sort of proves the point of the joke...

Blonde jokes are part and parcel of daily life.  People might not always agree with them or find them funny, but they go hand-in-hand with jokes about Essex girls, Y-shaped  coffins and the roof-lining of a Ford Capri.  Forget the blondes for a second: show me somebody who hasn't laughed at an Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman joke.

Politically correct they might not be, but I'm reasonably certain that the Australians have some pretty mean jokes about the Brits.  And "Sheilas", too...

Mark Lowe has built up a £100m fortune through his business.  He might be a thoroughly loathsome individual with a predilection for peculiar sexual tastes for all I know, or he could be a jolly decent chap who likes to stand in a pub, quaff bitter and make merry with his friends.

I don’t know him, but it does appear that working for him hasn't done Jordan Wimmer any harm.  According to the newspaper, she started out on a basic salary of £50'000 and, by the time she got a bit disgruntled with Lowe's jokes, she was earning in the region of £577'000.

Mark Lowe will probably lose, of course, because that's the way these things work, and these jokes can be described as "objectifying women", something courts frown upon.  But one can't help thinking that Ms Wimmer could be likened to another of his jokes, one that describes women as a hazardous material that reacts well to gold and precious metals.

After all, she is suing him for four million pounds...

Formula One 2009: Jenson Button, Brawn GP, ‘nuff said.

When it comes to summing up the 2009 Formula One season, I believe the subject line covers it well: Formula One 2009: Jenson Button, Brawn GP.  Enough said.

Barely a year ago, Honda announced that they were to pull out of Formula One with immediate effect, leaving the Brackley-based team somewhere up that creek, almost paddleless.  Honda agreed to keep the team running whilst it sought a buyer, but if nobody had stumped up the cash by the opening race of 2009 in Australia, then the team would be shut down.

As 2008 became 2009 the future looked bleak for the team that had started out life amongst much fanfare as British American Racing ten years earlier.

But, with barely days to spare before the start of this season, Ross Brawn put together a deal that saw him buy the team from Honda and turn up in time for the season opener in March this year.  Everybody was glad to see them, everybody congratulated them on making it, everybody was pleased to see Richard Branson leering right behind the team.  Nobody outside of the team thought they would do anything good.

And then they won.

In a two-fingered salute to their former owners, Brawn GP were simply stunning.  Button won all but one of the first seven races and even a hard challenge from Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and the distraction of the diffuser furore failed to put a dent in his confidence.  The middle of the season fell away from the Briton slightly as he struggled for form whilst Barrichello, determined not to be seen as the team’s Number Two, and the Red Bull drivers of Vettel and Mark Webber all vied to bring themselves to the front of the title challenge.

But as the season came to its conclusion, it was all about Jenson.  He would have loved to have had another win, just to put his late-season detractors in their place, but it wasn’t to be.  His drive in Brazil, however, from twelfth to fifth to secure the Driver’s Crown was nothing less than the drive of a World Champion, and although a win eluded him in the final race at Abu Dhabi too, his last gasp effort to try and take second from Webber was simply stunning – probably the most exciting bit of the whole race.  A podium position was enough for Jenson, however.

Between them, Button and Barrichello also secured the Constructor’s Championship for Brawn GP in their first season of trying, an accolade that had eluded British American Racing despite their boasts of winning in their first season all the way back in 1999.

It capped what has been a simply stunning season, complete with drama, intrigue and the magical press frenzy that was generated when everybody thought Michael Schumacher might return to the cockpit to replace Felipe Massa, who had to sit out the remainder of the season after being struck on the head by a broken piece of, ironically, a Brawn GP car.

The Schumacher Story never came to fruition, unfortunately, but it didn’t detract from what a great season it’s been, all covered brilliantly, in Britain at least, by the return of F1 coverage to the BBC.  Jake Humphreys and his bickering cohorts, Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard, complete with their commentary and pitlane teams, put together a wonderful show, and the Red Button alternative viewings rivalled almost anything that Sky Sports, and certainly ITV, could have put together.

And as the season came to a close, both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel strutted their stuff behind the wheel, showing their feathers and letting Jenson and Brawn know that, come 2010, they weren’t going to make it easy for them to defend their titles.

It all changes again next year, too.  It’ll be the last year for Bridgestone tyres, refuelling is banned, new teams are apparently going to be turning up in Bahrain for the start of the season, and the drivers are all shuffling around.  Add to that the news, this morning, that Toyota have announced they are pulling out of Formula One with immediate effect and it leaves one wondering just what next year holds in store for Formula One fans, and all those who now wonder how secure their jobs are in Cologne.  One can only imagine Toyota are hoping to have a similar success to Honda by selling out to an independent whose passion for winning races outweighs all business motives.

Meanwhile, there’s only one thing that can be left to say: Brawn GP, Jenson Button, World Champions 2009.  How I wish I’d put a pound on you both at the start of the season.  Congratulations!

‘Nuff said.

Should Stephen Fry Quit Twitter?

The answer to that question, in short, is no.

That’s not because I follow Stephen and don’t want him to leave the service, but simply because one person branding him as ‘boring’ is not really a reason to leave.  If Stephen himself is becoming bored by the Twitter phenomena that he, himself, helped to accelerate then that’s a different reason but, sadly, when you put yourself in the public spotlight, there will always be a contingent who will have something negative to say.

This week, Paul Daniels also found himself on the receiving end of some pretty mean comments about his height and, in the end, he decided to take a few days break from the service.  Perhaps this tactic would benefit Mr Fry, and would possibly help him while he’s feeling a little low.

Quite frankly, however, it is amazing that this has become the news story that it seems to have become.  Certainly, Stephen has been a huge advocate of Twitter and has helped grow its popularity in the micro-blogging arena, but is his possible departure from the service really worth a discussion group on the BBC’s website?  Before we know it, it’ll be a topic on an upcoming episode of Question Time…

When I was a kid, I was always taught to ignore bullies and they’d eventually go away.  It didn’t always work quite as effectively as my parents had hoped, as kids tend to just become more and more mean when their abuse doesn’t seem to be working, or they store it up for later use, but there is certainly a strong argument for being the ‘bigger’ man and rising above the meanness; and, most of the time, simply walking away from conflict did work.

The rise of the Internet and mobile phone technology, however, has seen “cyber-bullying” become ever-more prevalent, and ignoring abusive text messages can be harder than avoiding the taunts in the classroom.

The reason for Mr Fry’s musings about leaving the service seem to have come from one individual branding his posts on Twitter as “… a bit … boring… (sorry Stephen)”, which to me doesn’t really warrant being branded as “too much aggression and unkindness”, which was Stephen Fry’s initial response.

There are certainly many more users of Twitter out there who post far more boring updates than Stephen Fry does (myself included, probably – I’ve just posted one about how many miles per gallon my Renault did in October, for crying out loud!) but, with 929’686 followers, there are certainly many more people out there who find him interesting than there are who don’t.

Looking at Stephen’s Twitter updates this morning, it looks like he’s making peace with the chap who branded him boring in the first place.  So maybe he’ll stay after all, and that sort of makes this blog a little bit redundant.

And more than a little bit boring…

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Stephen Fry’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenfry
Paul Daniels’ Twitter: http://twitter.com/thepauldaniels
The bloke who didn’t really bully Stephen: http://twitter.com/brumplum

In October The Renault Used…

I can see this new regular feature of my blog quickly becoming known as “What That F***ing Renault Vel Satis Did To Me This Month!”; if only it didn’t make the title line so long, I’d probably do it.

It’s been a pretty traumatic month with the Renault, with it deciding that it’s enduring pain-in-the-arse personality would show up again, this time by breaking down on my mother’s driveway one Friday night when I needed to get back to the pub, having just dropped the children off in the hopes of having a relatively quiet, stress-free weekend.

It got worse when the breakdown guy turned up, announced it was the starter motor and that, at 9pm on a Friday night, there was nothing he could do to help me.  He couldn’t even get me home as, it turns out, my breakdown cover via Churchill Insurance doesn’t include home recovery.

The following morning the car was taken to a local garage who confirmed that, indeed, it was the starter motor – and that, for this particular model, no third-party manufacturer part could be sourced.  Nor could a refurbished part be found.  And it couldn’t simply be fixed, either.

I would have to wait until Monday morning, when I could speak with the garage I purchased it from as, after all, the damned thing is still under warranty.  Except that, when I eventually got hold of my garage, it turns out I was lied to, and no warranty was ever provided as part of the car sale.

That will be a whole different blog, at a whole different time, once the discussions between myself and the garage I bought the Renault Vel Satis from have completed.  In the meantime, suffice it to say, I ended up getting the garage in Buckingham to repair the car, at a whopping price of £428.81 including VAT.  (To be fair £7.92 of that was for a new hazard switch, having discovered – when it broke down – that the one in the dashboard didn’t work.)

Still, it kept the fuel and mileage figures down for this month as it took me a week to get it back.  And on Wednesday the electric windows stopped working…

Renault Vel Satis 3.5V6 Performance Log:

It should come as no surprise that the miles per gallon figure for this month is quite low.  Aside from the one slightly-extended round trip to Buckingham, the car hasn’t been used much this month and most of the journeys it has done were short hop trips of less than four miles.  That’s not really when this engine shines.  Still, it’s returning an average of eight miles per gallon more than the old Jeep ever did, so let’s not think it’s too bad, eh?

• Fuel Used: 23.4 gallons (down from 37.3)
• Economy: 22.4 miles per gallon (down from 22.9)
• Distance: 521.7 miles travelled (down from 853)
• Average Speed: 28.5 miles per hour (down from 37.9)
• Service due in: 14’597 miles
• Odometer reading: 64’353 miles

Ironically, in my last blog on this car’s performance I mentioned that there weren’t any notable incidents during September, save for the one occasion when it refused to start when I pushed the button.  Turns out that was a portent of doom, didn’t it?