Car Insurance Woes

It's that time of year again, we received the insurance renewal letter from Budget (who's tag-line is apparently "We'll renew it automatically, so your always covered"). I normally run a comparison site check to see whether the renewal offer is value for money, and the fact they were going to renew it for me made me a little suspicious.
Sure enough, a quick run through Tesco Compare showed a quote of £153 - nearly forty spuds cheaper than Budget's £191.78.
OK, I know insurance companies do their level best to keep our money, but Budget say on their renewal letter "the best price from our panel of insurers".
Funny then, that the next cheapest at £157 was none other than - yeah, that's right - Budget!

Not happy with this - just because it's common practice amongst insurers doesn't mean it's right - I phoned up Budget to tell them I would not be renewing
"Is it because of price?" says the [initially] friendly Australian chap at the other end.
"Mostly," says I.
"In that case we can do it for £169," says my new Aussie friend.
"I'm sorry," says I, drawing my new buddy ever deeper into the trap, "I've already had a quote for £157!" Which of course, was their own quote from Tesco Compare.
"Can I try to price-match that quote for you?" Obviously now we are best pals, and pals stick together.
"I should hope so," says I, revealing my trump card with a magician's flourish, "It was your quote!" Game, set and price-match, vaults over net to graciously shake said Antipodean gentleman's hand.
This is where things started to get a little ugly: I said the reason why I was not renewing was because I don't like to be conned, and why didn't they offer me the best quote like their letter said, and he tried to tell me the reason was something to do with using the same insurer as before. Or something, I was too busy crowing over my delightfully witty, verbal "legerdemain" to hear the full explanation. Anyway, despite the fact that he'd asked me every possible question to ascertain that I did indeed have the permission of the insured - my partner (you know, name, DOB, postcode, mother's maiden name, whether the moon landings were genuine or faked etc.) - he then got all shirty and declared that only the insured could cancel their insurance, I pointed out the fact that we were not cancelling, but merely not renewing, and that the money would have been coming from my bank account, but my now slightly less friendly friend was having none of it.

Enter Tracey, the partner; not by nature an aggressive person, but she has been known to savage the odd Jehovah's witness at the door.
On phoning, she discovered that relations between us and Budget were now decidedly frosty.
"In that case we must ask you some embarrassing and unnecessary questions to imply that you are acting fraudulently," paraphrased the irate lady after Tracey restated our intentions, no doubt a little testy due to Trace's reiteration that sharp practice would not be tolerated in our household.
"I have nothing to declare except my wish for you to expedite delivery of our 'proof of no claims bonus', avail me of your supervisor forthwith, young lady".
That last call was obviously peppered with dramatic licence, but you get the drift!

So now we're with Sheila's Wheels; I am assured I am not legally contracted to walk round in a pink, sequined ballgown and high heels, or put my hair up in a beehive, I just like doing it!

Heard the one about the......?

Heard the one about the guy who had an eel up his arse? Funny as it sounds this is no joke:- a Hong Kong man was admitted to A&E suffering from abdominal pain. Doctors diagnosed peritonitis and sent him for an X-Ray. To their surprise the X-Ray revealed the presence of a live eel in the mans rectum. The man claimed the eel had been inserted to relieve constipation!
The journal Surgery wrote:

"Emergency laparotomy found a 50cm eel biting the splenic flexure of the colon, and a 3cm perforation was found over the anterior wall of the rectum.

"Insertion of a live animal into the rectum causing rectal perforation has never been previously reported.

"This may be related to a bizarre healthcare belief, inadvertent sexual behaviour, or criminal assault. However, the true reason may never be known."

It reminds me of The Mighty Boosh song, "Eels", which included the disturbing lyric "Eels up inside you, finding an entrance where they can, boring through your mind, through your tummy, through your anus", check out the song here

Who would've thought The Boosh would come true, eh?

windy day on Cleeve Hill

So I've been flying in some fairly big winds recently: I find that if I'm on my own I tend to be a bit of a wimp, but when I've got company my bravery gland pumps out stupidity and I often push the envelope or whatever people say.
For example: last Friday I was flying in fairly dirty wind with turbulence (or wind shadows as we call them) coming from the radio masts as the wind swirled through them. Despite this, and because I had someone to fly with, I achieved 32mph. Pretty good speed for a bumpy field.
Today though, my courage abandoned me, in the worst wind I've experienced in many months, my sensible gland won out and I decided to live to fly another day.

I guess that's one of the aspects of flying that makes it so interesting, since you're reliant on the wind, every day is different. In fact, some days the weather - and therefore the wind - can change several times in a day with small weather systems like a bunch of cloud bringing faster and sometimes gustier wind, and fronts can cause the direction of the wind to change, and the direction has a lot to do with how smooth our wind is.

Then there are the kites: slow "learner" kites have a low aspect ratio (AR), meaning they are "squarer" and often thicker in section, are the best fixed foil kites to fly in gusty winds ,while race kites, having a high AR and thinner section, are much less gust resistant and tend to "bowtie" (twist inside themselves) in a nasty wind. And then there's the depowerable foils that fly on a bar. These kites can be trimmed by pulling or pushing the bar which changes the "angle of attack" (AoA) of the kite, which simply put means they can not only fly in a bigger wind range than fixed foils, but also can soak up some of the gusts by depowering the kite as the gusts hit.