Are We Losing the Ability to Read and Understand?

Over the past few months, I have been amazed at how many people fail to read and/or understand either written instructions, information or such documents as Terms and Conditions. T & C's are notoriously ignored as they tend to ramble on and on like the Mother-in-Law in a slanging match. But when those T & C's are fairly short, written in layman's terms and dictates what you will get for your money and when, you should go through them before you sign.

Not so apparently. I am coming across more and more people who sign their life away and then proceed on a daily basis to clag up my inbox with questions that are answered in paragraph one of the paperwork that they've already signed. Heaven forbid that I should be out the office with a client or at a meeting and don't reply within three nanoseconds. I even have my auto responder on with the message that I will reply to their email within 48 hours. I then get more emails within three minutes asking why I haven't replied!!

It's the same when you provide their service based on the questionnaire they filled in, "It's not want I wanted" they moan, "It's exactly what you asked for, nay, demanded" I retort. They then can't understand why it's going to cost more because my crystal ball is a little iffy, and my mind reading skills are definitely below par this morning. The fact is, if you can't follow simple instructions and be able to read ten short paragraphs, then you shouldn't be trying to force your business on me, let alone being out by yourself.

Fortunately, I am in the position of choosing whom I do business with to minimise exposure to these kind of people, but now and again, one slips through the net. So, my advice is, if you don't want to appear to have missed the first twelve years of essential schooling, read carefully any paperwork provided to you and just as important, absorb it and if you don't understand anything, for goodness sake ask. This will make the relationship so much more fruitful and you never know, I might just be able to come off my blood pressure tablets!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Give Your Business a Chance

Small Businesses

With more and more businesses going into receivership (Focus DIY and Mesh Computers being two of the latest), there has been a sharp increase in new business start-ups. Undoubtedly, much of this is due to redundant employees spending their redundancy money on “going it alone”.

Unfortunately, the attrition rate of these new businesses over the first 24 months is extremely high. However, the economy needs small businesses as the following statistics provided by The Federation of Small Businesses show.
There are 4.8 million small businesses in the UK (up from 4 million in 2003)

3.6 million Businesses are sole proprietors

1.3 million are companies of which 747,000 have employees

444,000 are partnerships

97 per cent of firms employ less than 20 people

95 per cent employ less than 5 people

Over 500,000 people start up their own business every year

Small and medium-sized firms employ more than 59.8 per cent of the private sector workforce

22.8 million people work in small and medium-sized firms

Small firms contribute more than 49 per cent of the UK turnover

64 per cent of commercial innovations come from small firms

Wholesale, Retail and Repairs was the biggest employer at the start of 2009

The 563,000 enterprises in this sector employed 4,853,000 people (21.3 per cent of all UK private sector employment)

Small firms collect and pay Tax, NICs, VAT and other dues which help pay for public services

Around 1,580,000 of all UK enterprises are in London and the South-East

Marketing

From the above statistics then, you can appreciate how important it is to the UK’s economy for small to medium businesses to succeed. So where do they go wrong? Well, the reason is usually lack of investment, poor cash flow, under estimating their market or poor marketing. Whilst the cash has to be looked after, you need to maximise on what you do spend.

One of the biggest cash vacuums is the humble website. For some reason, budding entrepreneurs either think the best way to save money is to get a school boy to design their new website for £400 or to pay £2000 of their hard earned redundancy on a professional website. To be honest, neither is going to do you any favours. Almost anyone can design a website these days and make it look pretty good, but unless you know, and I mean really know, how a website should work for your business, then forget it. Look at it this way; would you pay a teenager £20k to build you a car just because he works for the local garage?

Websites

Conversely, the opposite is also true; you do not need to spend thousands of pounds on your website anymore. Those days have gone for the small business. If you need a website, and believe me, you need a website, don’t think that the moment it’s online, business will come flying in, because it won’t. With every website there are on-going costs. There has to be. Look at it this way; you wouldn’t stop putting fuel in your car would you? If you did, it would grind to a halt. A website is no different. It needs fuel to operate correctly. It needs constant content so that the search engines do not get bored when they index it. We’ve all heard of the dreaded SEO (Search Engine Optimised), but the fact is, your website needs it like your body needs blood. A well-constructed, well optimised website will bring you new customers.

Free Websites

Free websites. What do you get for free? Well, there are plenty out there, go have a look and see how impressed you are. Would you buy from a business that has a free website? There are other options of course, self-build, or a cheap website from a box. If you think these sites are better than employing a professional to build you a website that works, then go ahead and waste your money and become another statistic.

Rent A Web

Now for the blatant plug (What else did you expect?). At Rent A Web, our whole ethos was to help start-ups and small to medium sized companies market themselves online for a minimum cost. This cost would include a professional website with ongoing SEO for a small monthly fee. This would enable the Newco to compete with the big boys and give them a chance with a website that works. For less than £40 per month with no contract, free hosting and domain, unlimited updates and a free website rebuild every year, it’s a no brainer.

For more details, read about our unique service on our site at Rentaweb. You’ll be glad you did.

Start Up Britain

Start Up Britain

Although It is certain to help many new start up businesses get off the ground, the Government backed “Start Up Britain” campaign doesn't go into much detail on how to promote your products/services effectively and cost efficiently on the Internet. Yes, a website is absolutely essential and constructed and maintained correctly will definitely bring you increased business.

Websites

The downside? Well, websites historically can range from a few hundred pounds to thousands of pounds and if you choose the wrong website designer you may find you lose that investment because very few people are visiting your site. There are free websites available on the Internet so these are obviously the answer aren’t they?

Free Websites

If you commit to a free website you will end up with your site being build around a common template so you may find extremely similar sites on the Internet albeit they will be promoting different products. You need to remember that visitors like to see a professionally designed bespoke site to give them confidence in your services. A free website sends out all the wrong signals and may create more problems than it solves. Neither will it be optimised so that the search engines can find you. It will do your business no good at all if it only appears on page eighteen of Google.

Rent A Website

Rent A Website will design a professional website for you from only £14.99 per month with a set up cost of only £29.98. There is no contract. There is no termination penalty. If you wish to cancel, just stop paying. It’s as simple as that. There are no catches. On top of that, they will keep your website up to date for you and redesign your site annually to keep it fresh for NO EXTRA CHARGE. They have taken the risk and cost out of having a website and added simplicity. In fact, if you rent a website, it’s 100% tax deductible.

To see what else is included as standard, visit the website .www.rentawebuk.com and have a browse. They will even design a logo for you at no extra charge.

Website Health Check

If you have already published a website for your business, why not visit their sister site www.dp-group.co.uk and try out the FREE website health check. It will highlight if your site is working as it should. It may also save you a lot of money.

Facebook

Facebook. Don't you just love it? Well, certainly the youngsters do, but it seems the older generation are a little slower to recognise what this phenomenon has to offer. A majority of the older generation say “I just can't see the point” or “It's just for kids”. Wrong! Facebook is a brilliant business aid if you know how to use it to your advantage. Look! Don't get me wrong, I'm not interested in seeing photographs of Jimmy's latest stool samples or reading about how Kate's husband nearly caught her lover climbing out of the bedroom window and shinning down the drainpipe, (By the way, anybody got a quick cure for friction burns?) no, if you use it to promote and grow a business, then it does this exceptionally well.

 

Big companies are increasingly using social media such as facebook to interact with their clientele and gain helpful insight at the same time. Surveys indicate that 60% of the world’s top retailers have an active presence on facebook. Surveys also show that a growing number of companies are increasingly advertising more on online interactive media than in traditional media.

In using social marketing media, companies report increased earnings at reduced marketing budgets.

Surveys conducted among business persons document that 81% of online marketers use social media such as facebook for increased exposure of their businesses. 62% of business persons credit facebook for increased traffic and sealed business deals. 85% of small business owners claim to reap direct benefit from use of social media.

A whopping 81% of business executives state that social media marketing boosts their bottom line results and enhances their brand and business relationships.

Clearly, the impact of online social media has been phenomenal, especially for business. Social interactive media is here to stay and businesses that tap into it can expect to record improved performance and better results.

So, it's clear that if you ignore Facebook or fail to recognise its potential for your business, then, I'm sorry, you are a dinosaur, and you know what happened to them. 

HOT, HOT, HOT

I’ve recently discovered the UK’s best kept secret. Curries through the post. Now in recent years we’ve had curries in a box from the supermarket, we’ve had microwave curries and even homemade curries. Personally, I never buy a readymade curry. What’s the point? These days I like to know what I’m eating. I need to know that the meat involved doesn’t come from the back end of a donkey which expired of old age in a sanctuary. I like to get up the following day without feeling that the world has fell out of my bottom and that I need to spend the next twenty four hours alternating bum and mouth over the toilet pan.

I love cooking. In fact with so many TV chefs giving their all on the telly, it’s hard not to. Be that as it may, it is relaxing and the feeling of accomplishment when your family tastes your food and no one dies is amazing. But I’ve found that a lot of people will not attempt their own curry because, a. their nervous about it will turn out and b. it’s quicker to have one delivered. Well, forget about that, there’s a new kid on the block.

Diane Prince will send you for a ridiculously small charge, a curry kit. You supply the meat (Stop looking at the donkey), the onions, peppers etc. After all, anyone can cut those up and throw them in a pan. The curry kit consists of all the correct spices, with instructions how much to add and when. Not only that, there is a full recipe to follow to make sure you get it absolutely right. This is a fantastic idea and so simple. Your curries will reach a new level and the donkeys will love you for it. Oh, and there healthy too!

You can contact Diane at allthingsspice@hotmail.com or visit her blog, healthykit-tastic.blogspot.com Give these kits a go and you won’t look back.

Frans LaRoc

Off Road

Off Road

So,the Government are still pushing for GPS speed limits in the UK. For those of you who haven’t heard about this, I’ll highlight the salient points.

All new vehicles in the future are to be equipped with technology that is linked to the GPS network. Briefly, this means that when you drive along any road, the GPS, in association with mapping software, knows exactly where you are and so automatically reduces your speed to within the speed limit. This is supposed to reduce accidents caused by speed. Nice to think that our Parliamentarians are looking after us in our twilight years, how thoughtful. What could be better, there you are waffling down the road in your Ford Escort Estate at a steady 50 mph, when all of a sudden you enter a 30 mph zone. The next thing you know you’re peeling yourself off your windscreen as the very same satellite that used to have its lasers pointing at Russia in the Cold war, sends a signal to your car, thereby applying the brakes. How very useful. All they need to do now is get the bloody car to steer itself and all us drivers become passengers. Even better, in there foresight, the Government have stated that there is a switch that will turn the system off so that you can make your own decisions. How good is that?

Accidents

Just what exactly is going on in these people’s brains? Is it just me, or will it cause more problems than it solves. If you are one of those people who have just had a frontal lobotomy and thinks this is practical thinking at its best, let me run a few things past you. For one thing, if you’re going to fit an override switch, how many people are going to switch it on? Imagine if you had a similar system on your latest AMD computer, if the switch is off, the PC runs at full speed, but to be safe, if you switch it on, the computer runs at half speed. Personally, mine would be welded and superglued (with full counter measures) in the off position as I suspect yours would. No, I know what you’re going to say, but think about it, at the precise time you need a bit of speed to avoid a dangerous situation; you have to go hunting for the bloody OFF switch. By the time you remember where it is, you’ve run over a family of ducks and parallel parked the car in the branches of an elderly oak tree. Road rage will escalate as some people use the system and some don’t, traffic will, more or less, come to a standstill due to sudden deceleration and farmers vehicles blocking the roads trying to encourage cars from oak trees.

Big Brother

I’m not joking; there will be more accidents than ever before. But there’s a more sinister reason for the Government promoting this cock-eyed proposal, Big Brother! Think about it, they will be able to log every journey you make, even when you’ve turned the machine off. Then they will charge you a toll based on your journey time and route, thus adding to their coffers. My God! This gets worse; this will then push all vehicles down rural roads resulting in the extinction of all wildlife and all villagers over the age of 60. Our villages will become rally cross stages with extra points for hitting someone in a wheelchair, nooooooooo.

I’m sorry , it’s not for me, I want to be able to decide what I want to hit and when I want to hit it. You’ll not find me driving alongside country fields; I’ll be driving across them in my dirty great 4 x 4. Anyway, speed doesn’t kill, suddenly becoming stationary, that’s the killer.

Cooking, the Frans LaRoc Way.

I love cooking. I should have been a chef. It's relaxing, fun and you get a real sense of achievement. So, for your enjoyment, I have included a recipe for your enjoyment. I know most of you have heard of Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsey etc. My hero and inspiration comes from the great Keith Floyd. Enjoy.

STUFFED PEPPERS

4 red peppers, halved

Olive oil

1 bottle of red wine, preferably a litre and preferably Australian.

15g (½ oz) butter

1 courgette, finely diced

110g (4oz) pack lemon and coriander couscous

85g (3oz) sunblush tomatoes, chopped

3tbsp chopped fresh basil leaves

125g (4½ oz) pack mozzarella

Green salad, to serve

Method

    Brush the peppers with a little olive oil. Pour a glass of wine and take several large sips. Place on a baking sheet or roasting tray cut side down and grill under a medium heat for 5 mins. Turn and grill for a further 5 mins or until the peppers are tender but not collapsed. Pour another glass of wine.

Meanwhile, melt der butter in a pan and cook the courgette until golden, at the same time check the wine glass and wefill if necessary.. Add the couscous stuff and cook for 1 min. Add 200ml (7fl oz) boiling water, stir and remove from the heat. Cover and  stand for 5 mins. Whilst waiting, pour yet anuther glass of wine and enjoy.

Stir de tomatoes an basil into the funny liddle round fingys, take a ship of vine and use dis stuff to fill the peppery doodahs. Top each  mozzarella wiv a slice of Australia wed.

Put the stuffed wed thingys under the gwill for 2-3 mins until the booze is at woom temperature and hash melted. 

     Wemove corke from anuther gottle of wed and lay on der floor till woom shtops spinning, like yeah man.

Websites

Now, I’ve never been one to turn down a drink as most of you will know. So when my mate George (Publican) invited me around to his place with the promise of a very decent Australian Merlot, I felt duty bound to oblige.

 After two bottles had slipped down very nicely, George announced that he’d finally lashed out on a new PC and would I give him an opinion. “No problem” says I, and to be fair it was a fairly decent set up with a 26” monitor which was essential as George’s glasses looked like the bottom of two milk bottles. I mean, he certainly weren’t going to be top of the leader boards on Call of Duty, but it was OK.

“My website doesn’t seem to be doing a lot though” he said and I quickly realised what had been the real reason for the invite. “Ok, let’s have a look” I said. George’s fingers didn’t exactly dance over the keyboard; they more or less stumbled, fell over and died. We eventually got the site displayed though, and initially, I thought someone had hit me in the face with a hammer! The home page was bright orange with pea green menus and an image of a beer bottle, or bottel, as the web designer had spelt it.

“That’s……err, different” I offered as I fought the desire to regurgitate the Merlot on to the shag pile. “Who did that for you”. “Young Ryan down the road, he did it in between cramming for his A levels”. He replied. “Only cost me £400”. This time the shag pile got a liberal dousing of red wine. “George” I screamed, “it’s a one page site, people will think their monitor has blown up when it displays, it tells visitors nothing other than the fact you need to go to Specsavers, and young Ryan obviously uses your product as it’s affected his spelling ability.” I paused for breath. “On top of that, it’s not SEO optimised, it’s not constructed correctly and more importantly, it will do more harm for your business than good”

George doesn’t talk to me anymore. He doesn’t need to. He sends me six bottles of Merlot a month, free of charge. Why? Well, I got him a totally redesigned website, properly optimised and he can add information about his Guest Beers himself, and all for the princely sum of £9.99 per month.

And what about Ryan, I hear you ask, George persuaded him to hand clean his shag pile carpet which appeared to have a large red wine stain. He managed to do it between visits to the acne clinic. Think I’ll have a drink.

Frans LaRoc

PS Don't make George's mistake, visit www.dp-group.co.uk now.

Supermarkets

If you live in or near a small to medium sized town, have you had a good look around it recently? It's changed. All those little interesting bespoke shops are disappearing only to be replaced with Pound shops and those boring fancy goods shops with I consider to be a contradiction in terms. Our town seems to have replaced these shops with a multitude of Bakery’s. Maybe they're trying to tell us that we're too thin or something. I just can't figure it.

One of the reasons that this is happening is the continued growth and expansion of supermarkets. They are convenient, easy to park at, and you can play dodgems with the trolleys. You can buy a whole range of goods without trampling down the high street calling in at several different shops. We are a captive audience as far as they are concerned. So much so, that sometimes you find you haven't got the bargain you thought you had.

Frans therefore has a prediction for you. Within the next 10/15 years, all those little independent shops will disappear. Supermarkets will expand and expand so that you have most of your needs without going anywhere else. Bespoke goods can be pre-ordered from their on-line catalogue so that you can pick up your purchases next time your in town. Sure, this will suite most people, but what about those independent shopkeepers? If they can't entice customers to their shops, they’re finished.

Not necessarily. There have been several surveys carried out over the last eighteen months, which shows that people are spending more and more online. In fact, internet sales now outstrip any other sales and this includes the construction industry. All in all this is good news for the independent. Another door has opened, another opportunity has presented itself. All they need is a simple web site which is Search Engine Optimised. Clean, cheap, efficient. Lower overheads means greater margins. A well designed web site gives the independent another crack of the whip. “But what about the cost?” I hear them cry, and they're right, you have to speculate to accumulate. You don't have to pay a fortune for a site, www.rentawebuk.com will rent you a website from as little as £9.99 per month. Have a look. It may be just the thing you're looking for. (We were going to call it International Rescue but apparently someone’s already done that).

Frans LaRoc

The Future

As all you Star Trek fans, or trekkers/trekkies to give us our official title know, this franchise has, over the years shown us the future which we have all now adopted. I am talking, of course (Mainly) of computers. Star trek was the first show that showed us proper computers, laptops and even the iPad. Universal translators are used by troops abroad in Afghanistan, communicators (Mobile phones) have touched everyone's life for over 20 years. Laser weapons, communication earpieces (Bluetooth), voice commands such as those used in motor vehicles are used on a daily basis. The only thing that we haven't been any good at yet is the teleportation of organic material such as a human being.

This problem, as well as warp speed is, believe me, being worked on as you read this. With warp speed, I can image that something along these lines of propulsion will indeed materialise (Pun intended), but teleportation? I'm sorry, but I just cannot see how a machine can reduce a living body to sub atomic particles in one location, transport it through the ether and reassemble it perfectly in another location, hundreds, even thousands of miles away. To illustrate this, lets look at the potential problems.

1. Halfway through the teleporting process, the receiving machine breaks down. Where the hell do you go? All your bits are hanging around somewhere, but where? Now imagine that someone is, at the same time, beaming their favourite  poodle to the same broken down transporter. We've now got all it's bits floating around. Who's to say they aren't intermingling with your bits. By the time the AA have repaired the busted transporter (After first towing it to the nearest garage), your atoms have now become one with the poodle. So, when you eventually get to your destination, you have more than a passing resemblance to Russell Brand. Not good.

2. Again, half way through beaming across continents, you lose the signal (Think mobile phones). That would be fun. Will the destination location receive an automated message saying “Sorry, I can't come to the transportation pad at the moment, but please leave a message and Ill get back to you as soon as I land. Oh, and by the way, please make sure there are no dogs wondering about when I get there.

3. Have you seen the film The Fly? Enough said.

The potential for a cock up is immense. It is for this reason that I don't think we will see this technology in my life time. Besides which, the only people who will understand and therefore be able to operate this high tech food mixer will be adolescent zit covered school leavers. 

Beam me up Spotty!

Grumpy Old Man

I must be getting old! In fact, events over the last couple of years have confirmed that I am officially a “Grumpy Old Man”. Whereas I used to have the patience of a Saint, I now have problems holding back in situations which, when I was younger, would not have bothered me. 

Take, for instance, the situation that most of us drivers have been in, where we are trolling down the road in our family hatchback and some Hoody/OAP/Punk Rocker or one of those bloody buggy drivers decide to cross the road right in front of you even after looking you straight in the eye as if to say “Right pal, it’s up to you to stop in time”. I get fed up with standing Mrs LaRoc’s car on its eyelashes as my foot, along with the brake pedal disappears through the bulkhead. When I was younger I would take it in my stride, happily waving to the offender as he avoids meeting his maker by centimetres. Now, I pull up and let loose with a verbal torrent that would make Gordon Ramsay blush

.

It is a sign of the times, I admit, that age does this to a person. I have now turned this to my advantage and made it my new hobby. I like nothing better than walking into well-known computer stores and having a bit of fun with the first spotty oik who approaches me like an exocet whilst one foot is still outside. “Can I help you at all?” is the opening gambit from said oik. It is at this stage that my wife squeezes my hand to the point of cutting off circulation and gives me the “daggers” look. 

Ignoring my blue fingers, I look this….err, Lad straight in the eye and in my best geeky voice I ask, “Could you possibly show me some high end computer systems”? Right now, this lad’s face has lit up like Chernobyl, as his fingers start to work out his commission. Anyway, long story short, we head over to the PC’s and he starts his sales pitch. It’s usually half way through this that his supervisor comes along and interrupts, “Everything all right here Sir?” “Yes fine” I usually answer, “Now bugger off!” I guarantee that this will bring the largest of grins to the young sales assistant’s face and that he will instantly go into Super Helpful Mode.

The trouble is, very few of these sales assistants know what they are talking about. Take the following conversation held with the same assistant.

“So, how big is the hard drive?”

“This one’s 1000 megahertz”

“You mean Gigabite”

“No, 1000 megahertz”

“Ok” I say, smelling blood, “Is it Sata?”

“No, it’s a Toshiba”.

At this stage, it’s very hard not to leave a pool of the amber liquid on his nice clean floor as I bite my lip and try not to laugh.

“This one comes complete with a web package so that you can build your own website. And it’s free”.

“Oh, right” says I. “What software does it provide for this?”

“Err…I think it’s Excel” he replies. I am now howling like a coyote with tears streaming down my face. This poor lad is now looking at me like I’m in the middle of an epileptic fit. “And”, he continues “It provides free SEO for your website when you’ve built it”

Life is so unfair at times, but as it was he who brought it up, “What’s that stand for then? I asked, bracing myself.

“Separate Ethernet Output”

Result, one middle aged adult male screaming, crying and bent over double confirming to the sales assistant that I was indeed having a heart attack. By this time, Mrs LaRoc had run over and was dragging me towards the car park whilst conversing with the assistant in his native language, “Numbnuts, even I know it stands for Search Engine Optimisation” she hisses.

The trouble is, this new hobby does take its toll in the underwear department, but believe me, it is highly satisfying and well worth the extra cost. I now plan to extend this hobby in to the Doctors surgery. Coming soon, stay tuned.

Bloody Buggies

So,the Government are still pushing for GPS speed limits in the UK. For those of you who haven’t heard about this, I’ll highlight the salient points.

All new vehicles in the future are to be equipped with technology that is linked to the GPS network. Briefly, this means that when you drive along any road, the GPS, in association with mapping software, knows exactly where you are and so automatically reduces your speed to within the speed limit. This is supposed to reduce accidents caused by speed. Nice to think that our Parliamentarians are looking after us in our twilight years, how thoughtful. What could be better, there you are waffling down the road in your Ford Escort Estate at a steady 50 mph, when all of a sudden you enter a 30 mph zone. The next thing you know you’re peeling yourself off your windscreen as the very same satellite that used to have its lasers pointing at Russia in the Cold war, sends a signal to your car, thereby applying the brakes. How very useful. All they need to do now is get the bloody car to steer itself and all us drivers become passengers. Even better, in there foresight, the Government have stated that there is a switch that will turn the system off so that you can make your own decisions. How good is that?

Just what exactly is going on in these people’s brains? Is it just me, or will it cause more problems than it solves. If you are one of those people who have just had a frontal lobotomy and thinks this is practical thinking at its best, let me run a few things past you. For one thing, if you’re going to fit an override switch, how many people are going to switch it on? Imagine if you had a similar system on your latest AMD computer, if the switch is off, the PC runs at full speed, but to be safe, if you switch it on, the computer runs at half speed. Personally, mine would be welded and superglued (with full counter measures) in the off position as I suspect yours would. No, I know what you’re going to say, but think about it, at the precise time you need a bit of speed to avoid a dangerous situation; you have to go hunting for the bloody OFF switch. By the time you remember where it is, you’ve run over a family of ducks and parallel parked the car in the branches of an elderly oak tree. Road rage will escalate as some people use the system and some don’t, traffic will, more or less, come to a standstill due to sudden deceleration and farmers vehicles blocking the roads trying to encourage cars from oak trees.

I’m not joking; there will be more accidents than ever before. But there’s a more sinister reason for the Government promoting this cock-eyed proposal, Big Brother! Think about it, they will be able to log every journey you make, even when you’ve turned the machine off. Then they will charge you a toll based on your journey time and route, thus adding to their coffers. My God! This gets worse; this will then push all vehicles down rural roads resulting in the extinction of all wildlife and all villagers over the age of 60. Our villages will become rally cross stages with extra points for hitting someone in a wheelchair, nooooooooo.

I’m sorry , it’s not for me, I want to be able to decide what I want to hit and when I want to hit it. You’ll not find me driving alongside country fields; I’ll be driving across them in my dirty great 4 x 4. Anyway, speed doesn’t kill, suddenly becoming stationary, that’s the killer.