Also since then, she has nearly killed me.

On 3rd March, as we were attempting to take Random Cat to the vet to have his abscess seen to, the car refused to start. Phil rocked her a bit and then she did start. There was no obvious reason for a problem but the engine management light was on. We had to get to the vet and the cat was screaming on the back seat, so I proceeded to drive the 4.5 miles to Windsor. By the time I got there, the light had gone out and all was well.

On 5th March, I had to go into the office, so I drove the 30 miles to Basingstoke, without any problems, and parked in the office carpark. When the time came to go home, my lovely Pandora would not start. I called the AA (this is a breakdown service, for Americans and other aliens). The man arrived within 10 minutes and started her up again. She was very grumbly and had 8 fault codes showing, so he cleared the codes so I could get home.

The next day, I ring Thames Fiat, in Slough, to get them to look at the car, as the AA man had recommended that she return to Fiat as soon as possible. Thames were not interested, as the AA man had cleared the fault codes; I was to carry on driving the car until problems happened. Then, they would be interested.

I drove to work again on 11th March. I drove halfway home and the engine died, in the middle of a junction, with no warning. Luckily I was only doing 30mph and had not yet made it onto the M4 where I would have stopped dead at 70mph. In rush hour traffic that would definitely have lead to a major accident. It has only been 6 weeks since I passed my test, I’m not what you’d call an experienced driver.

I called the AA, who rescued me again and got the car started. This time there would be no messing about: we would dump the car at a Fiat service place and demand that it be looked at. The nearest dealer turned out to be back in Basingstoke, so, with the AA man in his nice van, with the flashing lights on it, driving behind me as a big yellow shield, I tentatively started to drive back the way I had come, hoping that the engine would manage to stay alive. It didn’t. This time, however, I was ready for it, and although it died at 50mph, I got the clutch down in time and was able to preserve enough momentum to drift out of everyone’s way.

The AA man attempted, for about an hour, to revive the car, but she wasn’t having it. So I was towed the remaining distance (probably about 9-10 miles) and we dumped the car at Alan Gibson in Basingstoke. They had a special letterbox to put the car keys in and everything.

The next day (yesterday) we waited til about lunchtime before ringing the place to find out what was going on. To my utter amazement, they denied all knowledge of the car. After some scurrying around, they managed to spot her and said they would take a look later that afternoon. I rang them this morning, they are very busy and try to deal with breakdowns within 48 hours and would take a look later this afternoon. It’s now gone 6pm and they haven’t rung.

I’m not at all happy. That’s three Fiat dealerships that have given us poor service. I adore my car, but it seems, like with so many other things, once they’ve sold it to you, they no longer wish to participate in a relationship.

I’m finding it quite interesting adjusting to being car-less again. I’ve only had the car a few weeks, but the inconvenience of *not* having a car is greater than I’d expected. Normally, you get a courtesy car, but because I’m a new driver, I don’t qualify.

Two weeks ago, we contacted them to indicate that we would like to buy a new Fiat Panda from their good selves. A discussion was had about options, and a deposit paid.

Having not heard anything back from them re the registration plate (required to get insurance), we chased them up last Saturday. Their paperwork states that we have to get the insurance cover note to them 24 hours before we can pick the car up, so they can arrange the road tax. At this point, the contract we signed says estimated delivery date of 29th January 13:30. Which is in roughly an hour from now.

Still no registration by Monday  26th – we ring and chase – and by Tuesday morning, we are starting to worry and ring again. The Perry’s salesman starts muttering about a free 7 day insurance from Norwich Union aka Aviva. Warning bells start going off. If I were cynical, I’d think the man is delaying the registration so that we are forced to use this 7-day insurance. I have had a quote from an insurer sitting around for at least a week, just awaiting this registration number. We decline his very kind offer, in no uncertain terms. He then mentions that actually, the 29th is his day off, and could we pick the car up on 31st, so that he gets his commission, otherwise he’d have to come in specially. We decline that offer also, as I will be out all day, and Friday 30th is settled on. We don’t appear to have much choice.

We get the registration number that afternoon (Tues 27th) and I immediately arrange the insurance. It’s now 29th and the cover note has not arrived. I phone the insurer who swears it has been posted yesterday, and they tell me actually the garage do not need the certificate, it can all be done over the phone. Which, for the sake of £35 I may just do, once I have all the documents, if they are even slightly difficult about it all.

We ring the garage. They need the certificate. Hopefully this will arrive tomorrow so that we can collect the car. I wonder what other things will go wrong in the meantime. If there is a black and white bear sitting there waiting for us, instead of a car, I will not be surprised.

I guess they haven’t heard that there’s a recession on, and that they should probably be grateful for custom, rather than fighting us off with a stick.

But I’m realising that just isn’t the case. I’ve just had a long conversation with my younger brother, who, admittedly is smarter than me and has a maths degree from a good university, but, is fundamentally lazy. He is proud of this, so it’s not an insult to recognise it. He acknowledges that he doesn’t have to work particularly hard, and when he goes home, work ends.

Okay, so he does a job I probably wouldn’t do, working for a company I probably wouldn’t work for, on principle. But he is appreciated and paid handsomely for his contribution, such as it is. He doesn’t work in IT.

I’m doing something wrong somewhere, and I’m not sure I like the suspicion that is dawning on me. IT is complicated, right? Thats why you have to be quite smart to do it, right? Except not. Because those that manage IT mostly have a fear of it, just like the users. In fact, at my previous employer, the IT manager is probably much less IT-literate that the majority of the users. It made me sad.

When you don’t have the ability to measure the worth of the tasks that you are asking someone to perform, how do you know what to pay them for doing it? And how do you know when they’ve done it right? It’s a difficult position to be in.

I’ve lumbered myself with a project that would be, in the words of a contractor reviewing my initial design, ‘a job for a team of 20 with a budget of £1 million’. And that was only the first draft; each iteration gets more detailed and more complex as more problems are brought to me. The husband keeps asking me why I took it on. Because I could see they needed it. Because it’s my job. And because I want to make things better. Because I believe there’s a better way. Because I’ll never have an opportunity to do so much good again. If I can only make it to the end, it will make so many things possible.

There’s so much code to write that I’ve got my husband helping me three days a week, and still it’s daunting.

But when I look at what other people do for a similar salary, I can’t helping wondering if I’m just a bit crazy. If money per difficulty of job is a way of keeping score, I lose big-time. And to my baby brother! Damn, that smarts.

I found myself a tad angered at this, not necessarily on behalf of the classified ads site – they are too apathetic to do anything about it – but because there is no realistic way of preventing this blatant lie from existing.

I have quite a well-developed ‘offense against rightness’ sensitivity, and it agitates me no end to discover that people lie bare-facedly and unashamedly. Admittedly, the Internet makes it very easy to do this in a quasi-anonymous way and not have to face the people you are lying to, but there should be *something* done to defend truth and integrity as valuable character traits. It should most emphatically *not* be rewarding to be a weasel.

Full of righteous rage, I was all set to start up a new blog for outing blatant lies like this, but Phil pointed out, admittedly correctly, that I would, as they say in the vernacular, ‘get my arse sued off’. I could do with less arse, but I need to hold onto the pennies for that house on Mull.. So it stands uncontested, and it riles me.

What would be a more constructive (and less legally risky) way of Putting The World To Rights? People shouldn’t be able to get away with blatant lies like this.

This guy is going to use that ‘achievement’ to blag his way into yet another job where he can provide miniscule input but have another site to put on his portfolio page, repeat ad nauseum.

He’s the kind of person that gives ‘IT people’ a bad name – overstating achievements and underperforming. I remember when you used to have to have some kind of talent to work in IT. Now they let me do it. No, seriously, it used to be a skilled job. Now you just have to know the right words and claim other people’s work and you can get paid silly money as the people employing you haven’t a clue.

The IT infrastructure of just about everywhere is degrading at a frightening rate as we’re all in the hands of people who got ‘into IT’ because it was an easy way to make money as no-one knew if you were making it all up or not.

Large government IT projects are in the hands of muppets (no offense, my puppety friends) because the majority of people don’t understand technical things and are now in charge of them.

Oh it’s all doom, and it’s all caused by bloody liars.

“Ray Markham said footballs had been flying into his garden for years but when one smashed into his greenhouse last month he refused to return it.

The 68-year-old, who lives next to a policeman in Cubbington, said he was then arrested by four Warwickshire Police officers for theft of the ball.”

Legally the man was probably on shaky ground, for refusing to return the ball. By demonstrating intent to permanently deprive, I guess it was technically stealing. (I sure wish I’d known this as a kid – would’ve saved me a fortune!) I would argue though, that breaking his greenhouse was criminal damage and the ball was evidence. The fact that the ball had been kicked into his garden several times previously showed a certain recklessness as to whether damage to Mr Markham’s property might occur.

Regardless of the legal aspects of this, which I suspect can be argued either way by lawyers, the fact remains that a moral wrong has been committed here. If someone accidentally kicked something through my window and broke it, I would have to cheerfully thank them for doing so and return the item that was accidentally launched through my window. I don’t think so!

As a child, I had a very clear idea that if I broke something, I would have to pay for the damage to be fixed, not go and demand the ball back! Ye gods, what chutzpah that would have demanded!

This example of police heavy-handedness, and, dare I say it, misuse of police time – which is, I believe, an offence in itself, has not endeared the Police to me.

This story would have been equally of note, however, had the neighbour not been a Police officer and simply been an ordinary citizen who called the Police. I suspect though that an ordinary citizen would have been ignored, and not received the attention of four Police officers.

]]> http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/blog/2006/06/25/state-of-police/feed/ 0 http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/blog/2006/05/09/unhappy-day/ http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/blog/2006/05/09/unhappy-day/#comments Tue, 09 May 2006 11:42:33 +0000 Kathy Bragg http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/blog/2006/05/09/unhappy-day/ I wish more than anything that I hadn’t tried to take Random Cat to the vet. He escaped from the cat box in the car park, and is now lost and alone in a strange town. Words cannot describe how awful I feel. He’s such a timid cat that even if anyone sees him, he won’t let them near. We have been scouring around the area for the last two hours. The very worst thing is that we didn’t know for sure if he was a stray or not, so I may have just lost someone’s cat.

I wish life came with an ‘undo’ button.

]]> http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/blog/2006/05/09/unhappy-day/feed/ 1 http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/blog/2006/04/14/this-kitten-doesnt-like-phish/ http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/blog/2006/04/14/this-kitten-doesnt-like-phish/#comments Fri, 14 Apr 2006 16:35:08 +0000 Kathy Bragg http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/blog/2006/04/14/this-kitten-doesnt-like-phish/ Today, along with most people with email addresses, I received yet another phishing email. It wasn’t a particularly fancy looking email, and it was purportedly from a bank that I don’t even bank with. That’s reassuring in a way, because if I receive spookily targetted phishing emails, I will start to worry. A lot.

It makes me very angry that the banks of this world sit back and let this happen. For example, most of the content of this phishing site was linked directly from the real bank site. Why on earth do the bank sites not validate their referrers? The javascript and stylesheets were both links to the secure site that is actually run by the bank. The banks are making it easy.
Now, what I know and understand about computer security could be written on a whisker, but looking at my webserver logs, my javascript files and css files get called with a referrer of the page that requested them. Surely the banking server could do a simple ‘is this called by me’ thing before serving up the javascript etc?

Okay, so you can reauthor Javascript and CSS, but that involves more of an effort than simply linking them in. Plus, if you host your own javascript/css, you are no longer linking to a nice https site and getting the benefit of the padlock appearing on your own phishy site. Not that it is difficult for scammers to get a valid SSL cert these days..
There are probably darned good reasons why banks don’t do this – I admit I don’t know anything about security. But it angers me that these phishing sites are allowed to piggyback off genuine sites in order to steal money/information.

This particular site actually labels the images shown with the stolen customer details, so the bank will have an exact record in its server logs of the people that were scammed. Which just shows how confident the phishers are that the banks can do nothing to stop it.
It’s all very sophisticated, and all very scary. I feel genuinely sorry for the people that do fall for this evil trick, but hopefully there is enough publicity about Bad People, that even the terminally stupid might think twice before clicking on random links.

I shudder to think what this site would have done to my poor (Windows) computer, had I opened it in a web browser, instead of just inspecting the html – there were some Very Scary Things in it.

]]> http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/blog/2006/04/14/this-kitten-doesnt-like-phish/feed/ 0 http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/blog/2006/02/05/someone-likes-my-husband-too-much/ http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/blog/2006/02/05/someone-likes-my-husband-too-much/#comments Sun, 05 Feb 2006 12:03:16 +0000 Kathy Bragg http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/blog/2006/02/05/someone-likes-my-husband-too-much/

From: Kathy Bragg [mailto:kathy@purplekitten.co.uk]
Sent: 05 February 2006 11:37
To: ‘webmaster@********* – better now?’
Subject: From purplekitten.co.uk
Importance: High

Hi *,

Whilst I appreciate your interest in the photographs of my husband, I would appreciate it if you would cease your DoS on my webserver. Your spider is requesting the photographs so fast that our DSL connection is being overwhelmed, resulting in a severe degradation of our service.

You might not have noticed but your requests are now being met with a 403, and will continue to do so, so that we remain connected to the internet. Yes, it was that bad.

I have no objections to people looking at my site, that is what it is there for. But I do object when we get knocked off the internet because some thoughtless spider is downloaded every single picture with barely a space for breath.

I’m sure you understand our point of view on this matter, as you are a Network Manager. I’m sure you wouldn’t like the same thing to be happening to your network.

Please cease and desist this inconsiderate spidering of my site.

Many thanks

Kathy Bragg
Webmistress of purplekitten.co.uk

Sample log provided below:
*.*.*.*- – [05/Feb/2006:11:31:30 +0000] “GET /pictures/phil/2004-06-15%20029.AVI HTTP/1.1″ 403 351 “http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/pictures/phil/” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98)”
*.*.*.*- – [05/Feb/2006:11:31:31 +0000] “GET /pictures/phil/2004-06-15%20030.AVI HTTP/1.1″ 403 351 “http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/pictures/phil/” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98)”
*.*.*.*- – [05/Feb/2006:11:31:31 +0000] “GET /pictures/phil/imgp0238.jpg HTTP/1.1″ 403 345 “http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/pictures/phil/” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98)”
*.*.*.*- – [05/Feb/2006:11:31:32 +0000] “GET /pictures/phil/imgp0239.jpg HTTP/1.1″ 403 345 “http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/pictures/phil/” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98)”

Attempts to get her to rectify this have so far failed. After I grew exasperated and defaced her journal (only mildly, I hasten to add) and left a blog post for her expressing my dissatisfaction, she attempted to change the email address used by the account.

Sure enough, I got yet another email from myspace, this time telling me that I needed to confirm the email address. Unfortunately, when I did so, it told me it was assigned to another user’s account. Gah. By this time, my gmail inbox is literally brimming with the foul excrement of emo teenagerhood.

So, I reasoned thusly: we need another email address here, her AOL (says it all really) address is unsuitable, my email address is MINE, so, I merrily signed her up with a new hotmail address.

Actually I’m reluctant to let this address go..

I’ve left her a blog post to tell her what her new email address is (using the alarmingly-named ‘post new blog’ control), but seeing as myspace uses your email address to log in with…I guess I had better email her aol account as well.

Let this be an end to it, I cry.

For posterity, the (hopefully) final myspace blog post is here

Edit: my inbox in case anyone thinks this may have been extreme