pumpkinstrokemarrow

On closer inspection not too sure about putting gold sovs under the bed. All looks a bit too volatile for a decent suburban type to bet his shirt on, let alone his sovs. Are they riding for a fall just presently? Another helpful website - http://swanlowpark.co.uk/rpiannual.jsp - tells me that retail prices in this country increased ten fold in the thirty year period 1970-2000. So in very rough and ready terms, gold held its real value over the same period, the end of which was a thirty year low. And has done very well since. But then, the graphs provided at http://goldprice.org/30-year-gold-price-history.html say it all depends on what currency one looks at the price of gold in. They vary a lot more than I would have expected. All far too complicated. And getting the two lots of data onto one spreadsheet - short of typing it in by hand - defeated me.

I also learn that Excel 2003 charts are quite tricky. I could not even manage to use one column to provide the X-axis labels and another column to provide the Y-axis values. Is it me or is it the product? Do I have to move onto the dreaded pivot tables?

At a more mundane level, been trying to renew my insurance with Ford Insure. Quite happy with the quote, but not at all happy with their customer service line. It appears that they have been experiencing a high level of calls (does this equate to post bank holiday absenteeism?) all morning and I cannot get beyond very loud and tiresome music interspersed with announcements about what spiffing companies Ford Insure and Norwich Union are - when all they are doing is transferring some of their costs in providing an insurance renewal service to me. I would happily pay an extra £5 a year to get their phones answered - provided, that is, that that is all that it took. Must see if I can crank it up to five legitmate thats.

I wonder what an enhanced phone which enabled me to get on with something more interesting than listening to their idea of music and which beeped when they deigned to answer to phone would cost? Are such devices available? How much would BT charge me to connect such an exotic device to their copper?

At the road level, was pleasantly surprised by the rarity of speed cameras in rural Devon. On the other hand, the road marking people have been trying to make up, with a particularly innovative road marking scheme on one of the roads between Exminster and Dawlish. Take one narrow road and paint interesting white and yellow lines down both sides of it. Plant clumps of white posts at the side of the road from time to time. One got the impression that all this is something to do with the road being narrow, but not clear what the value add is, apart from keeping the road marking contractors in employment.

Those who work for whoever maintains the roads between Morden and Epsom has been doing quite well too. Strange red lines at the side of the road. Some single, some double. Interspersed with dotted red line enclosures of various sizes, also at the side of the road. One got the impression that all this is something to do with red bus routes, but not clear what. Maybe someone should write a code of practise for the road marking industry which includes the rule that any road marking must be intelligible to a tired motorist with poor eyesight in poor light without having to have recourse to explanatory signs at the side of the road, the highway code or Mr Google. And a rule that the average total length of road marking per metre of road should not exceed one centimetre in any one kilometre stretch of road. And another that at no point in the road should there be more than one road marking. And then, having done with code of practise, one could move onto service delivery performance indicators. Road markings deleted per carriageway kilometre. Maximum number of colours in any one carriageway kilometre. Percentage of carriageway which is road marking free. The whole to be policed by the road marking inspectorate, possibly transferred from the wheelie bin inspectorate.