Corporation Tax: it shouldn’t have to be taxing
In a follow-up to my VAT whinge from the weekend, here’s a follow-up whinge relating to Corporation Tax. Not the government’s fault this time, but my bank’s. Although the two are now somewhat synonymous, given the banks’ funding arrangements.
I tried to pay HMRC my Corporation Tax last weekend, but my online banking interface wouldn’t let me. The amount of the transaction (five figures) surpassed the daily amount that I could transfer. I could keep coming back on a daily basis to pay a bit more, but that’s hardly the point.
I called them up to find out whether I could undertake the transaction over the phone. But I couldn’t. The same rules apply. The lady directed me to pay by cheque or make the transaction in a branch.
I popped into a branch today, and the teller told me (is that why they’re called tellers?) that the only way to pay that amount electronically was to perform a Bacs transfer, costing me £30.
Now I’m not a big fan of paying money to HMRC at the best of times. But paying for this privilege is certainly not something I’m keen to embrace. So I’ll be writing a cheque tonight. And popping it in the post. A transaction that will cost me more to facilitate (in the form of a stamp and an envelope), will likely cost both HMRC and my bank more to process.
FTW.
Tubewhacking
Paul Clarke introduced me today to the pastime of Tubewhacking. Similar to Googlewhacking, it involves finding an English word none of whose letters appears in the name of a Tube station, and for that station to be unique in that quality. The most famous example I know is St. John’s Wood, none of the letters of the word mackerel appearing in its name, a claim that no other station can make.
I wondered whether any stations were themselves Tubewhacks of other stations. So I got to work.
Fortunately, the number of columns in Excel has increased recently—I needed 7,616 columns to complete my logic, along with a tidy 11.8Mb. And below is a summary of the results.
There are 59 stations that have Tubewhacks, although their Tubewhacks come from only 22 unique stations. Bank is the most common, being the Tubewhack of a whopping (not Wapping) nine stations. Each of Vauxhall and Woodford accounts for seven Tubewhacks.
Below is the full list—station on the left, Tubewhack on the right.
Barbican: Temple
Becontree: Vauxhall
Bermondsey: Vauxhall
Bond Street: Vauxhall
Boston Manor: Chigwell
Brent Cross: Vauxhall
Burnt Oak: Chigwell
Camden Town: Ruislip
Canary Wharf: Temple
Canning Town: Shepherd’s Bush
Charing Cross: Temple
Chorleywood: Bank
Colliers Wood: Bank
Dagenham Heathway: Ruislip
East Putney: Woodford
Eastcote: Kilburn
Edgware: Pimlico
Elephant & Castle: Woodford
Elm Park: St. John’s Wood
Farringdon: Temple
Fulham Broadway: Epping
Gants Hill: Woodford
Goldhawk Road: Upney
Green Park: Dollis Hill
Hainault: Woodford
Hampstead: Kilburn
Highgate: Woodford
Holloway Road: Epping
Ickenham: Woodford
Kew Gardens: Pimlico
Knightsbridge: Oval
Leyton: Chiswick Park
Limehouse: Bank
Liverpool Street: Bank
Mill Hill East: Woodford
Mornington Crescent: Vauxhall
Newbury Park: Dollis Hill
Perivale: St. John’s Wood
Piccadilly Circus: Kenton
Plaistow: Debden
Putney Bridge: Oval
Queensway: Pimlico
Richmond: St. Pauls
Rotherhithe: Bank
Royal Victoria: Debden
Shadwell: Brixton
Shoreditch: Bank
Southfields: Bank
St. James’s Park: Hillingdon
Tooting Bec: Vauxhall
Tower Hill: Bank
Upminster Bridge: Oval
Upton Park: Chigwell
Warren Street: Pimlico
West Brompton: Vauxhall
West Finchley: Moor Park
West Ham: Kilburn
West Hampstead: Kilburn
West Ruislip: Bank
Liverpool Street and Bank form the only pairing in the above list that are one stop away from one another.
March 14, 1592
With American pi day fast approaching (this Sunday), I got to thinking that on March 14, 1592, this was a big, big, geeky event. Not that America had been invented by then, of course.
Tax: it doesn’t have to be taxing. But it is
Today, I used the Government Gateway to pay my VAT online for the first time. I believe this will become compulsory from 1 April—April Fools’ Day. The experience wasn’t entirely positive.
There are too many IDs.
I registered my intention to do this by enrolling for the service a few weeks ago. A few days later, a couple of pieces of post popped through my door from the Government Gateway folk. In one, a User ID. In the other, an activation code for the VAT service in one of those PIN-esque styles where you rip off the bit of paper to reveal the code. The former: twelve numerics; the latter: twelve alphanumerics.
On sign-on, I had to give my password. I have no idea when or where I generated this, so I had to answer a few questions about my last VAT submission before my re-issued password was revealed to me. This was a twelve byte alphanumeric, all lowercase. The first half appeared as part of the web page. The second half was sent to me via email. Secure yet annoying.
I then enrolled, I think, for the VAT service. Before doing so, I had to answer a few questions, including:
- Memorable place
- Memorable date
- First school
- Last school
Now get this. None of the above could contain any spaces (although they had minimum and maximum character limits). (Eton wouldn’t be accepted, btw—too short.) Now I will struggle to remember the memorable place, because I chose one that I think is poignant, but it’s one of many. And similarly with dates. There is more than one of great significance in my life. The last two questions were straightforward, but the space embargo will doubtless prompt me to abbreviate in the future where I didn’t today, or else come up with some other whacky way of meeting the crazy rules while not providing the right value. (What did the space do to us that was so bad?)
Finally, I got to do my VAT return, which itself was relatively painless, apart from the deeply hidden guidance about what to do for zero values. (Offline, you write “NONE”. Online, you type “0.00″.)
All in all, painful. It shouldn’t be this hard. Should it?
Journalists: listen up
The following stories are not newsworthy:
- The oldest person in the world has died
- Someone’s found a foodstuff that bears a resemblance to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.
Are there any other stories that need to be added to the list?
Proof by induction: Tube carriages are infinitely large
Take a standard Northern Line Tube carriage.
However many people are on board that carriage, at least one more adult can squeeze on. This step has been proven at every station on the northbound southern leg of the Northern Line for many a year.
The smallest adult weighs 4.5kg, and with the average human having a body density of around one gram per cubic centimetre, that equates to a lower bound of 0.0045 cubic metries occupied by a person.
Therefore the lower bound for the volume taken up by a Northern Line Tube carriage is 0.0045 cubic metres multiplied by the number of occupants.
Given that the number of occupants can always be increased by one, a Northern Line Tube carriage is infinitely large.
QED.
Happiness is…
Everything we do is intended to improve the fulfilment of ourselves or others, either directly or indirectly, either now or at some point in the future.
The key to happiness is striking a perfect balance between the three variables, and being in full control of them: ourselves vs. others; direct vs. indirect influence; and immediate vs. future fulfilment.
The first ever breakfast gov tweet-up?
A few weeks ago, I had the idea of arranging a government tweet-up breakfast: an opportunity for some tweeters who work with and in government to get together for breakfast to chew the fat, in both senses. (I chose breakfast to allow for a greater turnout, what with childcare and people’s hectic and conflicting evening social lives.) It was scheduled for this morning and was, in my eyes, a success.
Our turnout totalled seven, joined as I was by, in order of appearance: Sean Garvin, Stefan Czerniawski, Paul Clarke, Simon Everest, Jenny Brown and Emma Mulqueeny.
The conversation was marginally geeky, which I enjoyed thoroughly, but mostly I loved putting faces to names/avatars and enriching my appreciation of the personas of Paul and Emma. And it was also lovely to add a follower and followee in the form of Jenny.
Paul is legendary in these circles and I warmed to him immediately. We’ve spoken previously on the phone (about musical note separation) but it was good to meet in the flesh and I already see ideas in the offing that bring the opportunity for us to collaborate in the future.
Although the meeting of some was blind, Twitter provided a great prior insight into the characters in attendance—their interests, wit and quirks—and this made the conversation all the more relevant and rewarding. I’m already looking forward to the next meet-up and progressing the ideas that were seeded this morning.
Thanks to all who made the effort, particularly Mr. Everest given his lack of awareness of that part of the day and for trying to get #danosirrahasalottoanswerfor to trend.
Pic here for those interested, courtesy of Paul Clarke.
Why shoot for the Moon when Milton Keynes will do just as well
I once enjoyed a talk from Stuart Moore, the co-founder of Sapient. It was a talk about, among other things, aspirations. It was only to half a dozen people or so, and was fluid and interactive.
In it, he drew up a chart on a whiteboard, asking whether should aim high or aim realistically. I responded, taking something of a devil’s advocate stance, that in some instances you should aim realistically. (Remember, this is a man worth nine, possibly ten digit dollars, excluding decimals.)
I gave my reasoning. In some instances, if you believe too much in your own hype, then that rosy view view will cloud your perspective, and you may remortgage your house a few times to chase what amounts to a dud business idea. In that instance, it would be much better to chase reality, and if you failed, you wouldn’t have lost quite so much. He struggled to deal with the example, instead arguing that if you shot for the Moon, at least if you missed you’d end up in the stars.
The attitude I portrayed is in keeping with me as an individual. I’m risk-averse, although I can have optimism in abundance when the mood strikes. I tend not to shoot for the moon, which will always hold me back while at the same time keeping me steady. I guess that’s just the way my cloth’s cut. And a reason why my bank balance doesn’t have nine digits—with or without the decimals.
Proofreaders: know your game
Proofreading is unique. Unique in the sense that as well as your CV and cover letter/email containing all of the specifics of your career and experience, they also embody the quality of your work. Before you’ve even been invited in for an interview, I’ve had a small taster for how good you are at submitting error-free documents.
Yet it’s frightening how many people have emailed me recently asking for work in this very area—my business specialises in document editing—only for their covering emails to be littered with errors. Admittedly, if I’d received the emails from people outside the field, people not looking for related work, I would have let the mistakes pass me by. But their context has meant that I’ve either responded with some heartfelt, cotton wool-lined guidance, or responded with a pleasantry only to confine the email to the Never hire folder. (Actually, the latter step is a given.)
Paragraphs have lacked closing periods, proofreader has been written as two words (yet as a single word within the same email), the Oxford comma has been used whimsically, appearing in some places but not in others, hyphens have appeared instead of em dashes, and quotation marks have been used in instances where one might not even expect someone to sign them in a bar with their hands.
Some (all?) of these points might sound pedantic. And they are. But then proofreading is all about pedantry, and if you can’t get your covering email right, what hope do I have that you’ll fare any better with a client’s document?
Big isn’t always good
I’m fed up. Specifically, I’m fed up of large organisations, organisations that have lost the concept of accountability. Allow me to explain.
All too often, I will call a company to express my disappointment and displeasure at the service they’re offering, only to be reduced to a heap, rocking backwards and forwards in the corner of my living room, defeated by the interminable bureaucracy.
Below are some recent examples:
British Gas
I have an insurance contract with them (HomeCare) that covers my electrics, drainage, boiler and central heating. I pay a handsome sum for the privilege. I called on a Friday reporting blocked drains. They deemed it a non-emergency so refused a weekend callout, but promised me an 8–10am slot on Monday morning.
No one arrived. At 10.02am, I called asking their whereabouts. I was told that no such slot should have been promised, but that someone would be with me before 6pm, and they would call giving one hour’s notice. At 4.54pm, I called again asking their whereabouts, only to be told that they weren’t coming today.
I arranged for the problem to be sorted privately, and am awaiting their response on reimbursement of the invoice.
Lambeth Council
Last week, I arranged a bulk rubbish collection, of which I’m allowed four per year. The guy arrived today and took away a rug and a bedside table, but couldn’t be arsed with the large carpet. The operator couldn’t do anything about this because the ticket was still “live”.
A man with a van is coming tomorrow morning to take the carpet, costing me £50.
Virgin Media
In October, I signed up to an all-inclusive Virgin Media package for a monthly amount quoted to me over the phone. After the service (including new set-top boxes) was installed, they started billing me 20% more than that agreed monthly amount. On questioning, they apologised for quoting the wrong figure and told me that the correct figure was the higher amount.
I am still working out how this might be resolved.
Many of the people I speak to in these organisations are, in themselves, lovely. They are polite, courteous and seem to want to help. But the bureaucracy that surrounds them, through no fault of their own, prevents them from doing so.
You see, no single person is empowered. Each department exists in isolation, calls passing between them but with no one having a holistic view of the customer experience, nor the power to manage that. And often, as was the case today with Lambeth, the operators blame the process for their inability to resolve the issue.
Smaller companies carry more accountability, don’t blame their colleagues or sister departments and generally give a shit about the customer. The above companies, as organisations in themselves, do not. Even if some of the people therein do.
Agency madness
I’ve been working through, among others, two agencies of late. Recruitment agencies, if you will, although rarely do they seem to recruit me—often they’re merely a means of contracting. I’ve suffered two experienced which to me are unfathomable.
First, on enrolling with an agency, they informed me that they would need to perform a check with Companies House, a process that cost them £1 (one Great British pound). They informed me by letter and by email that the cost of the check would be taken off my first day’s charges. And sure enough, payment against my first month’s invoice was £1 short.
Second, I received a call the other day from someone who I’d never dealt with before in an agency through which I was already working. He asked me whether I was looking for work. I truthfully responded that I wasn’t. He asked when my current contract was due to expire and I suggested he asked his colleague, my contact within the agency.
Both of the above examples showed the value that the companies placed on the individual. My immediate experience of the former agency was one of penny-pinching madness. Yet it probably cost more to process the £1 reduction than they saved by making the reduction in the first place. As for the second, three and a half years of unwavering commission was reduced to my being a commodity, one who had not been de-duped properly from one database to another.
I know I’m a commodity, a dispensable one at that. But it’s nice not to have this pointed out to me, particularly when I’m helping pay your wages.
My violin fingering: is it still right?
I gave up the violin almost 20 years ago. Or over half my life ago. Yet to this day, I often mime the fingering that my left hand would do were it playing the melody of a song I’m listening to, my fingers generally tapping on the pad beneath my thumb.
Or at least I think I am. I have no idea whether the notes that would ring out if a violin were in my hand would bear any resemblance to the song. Maybe so many years of dormancy render the mime talentless and the resulting music similarly tuneless. And doubtless the bow in my right hand would be playing the wrong string anyway.
One day soon, I’ll pick up a violin and see just how true my renditions are to their originals. Until then, you’re safe.
The power of a retweet
I wrote a blog post recently that I delighted in writing, and that people, it seems, delighted in reading. It drew from experiences from 15 years ago, and highlighted the need to treat deadlines with the respect they deserve.
The post drew no comments. But it drew a lot of hits. (The term a lot here is relative to the number of hits drawn by most of my posts.) The bit.ly link that drew people to the post itself via a Twitterfeed URL that adorned my Twitter feed drew 94 clicks. By way of comparison, most of my posts draw fewer than 20 hits via the same route.
The reason: the retweet.
Paul Clarke retweeted my original tweet within four minutes, together with a humbling pleasantry.
RT @danosirra: Blogged: knowing when to stop http://bit.ly/87wyGE < Dan. You are great. Please can we meet soon.
Now Paul is a well-respected figure, with 1,855 followers without, it seems, actively looking to build his following. He just writes interesting stuff and has wide respect and appeal.
Seven minutes later, the lovely Emma Mulqueeny (who I also only know electronically) acknowledged the post.
The snail like snakings of SWTrains means I can read all those blog postings @danosirra loved yrs, brilliant
And five minutes later, Chris Thorpe, who I don’t know, retweeted Paul’s retweet.
RT @paul_clarke: RT @danosirra: Blogged: knowing when to stop http://bit.ly/87wyGE < awesome. may have to frame this
The attention brought a smile to my face. But it also highlighted the power of the retweet. I’d noted that I should write a post about the subject two weeks earlier, but only noted its relevance midway through writing it. It was lovely to receive such compliments, and delightful to see so many clicks as a direct result of some lovely twitterers.
Colonel Mustard in the library with the lead piping: knowing when to stop
While doing my Masters, we were given a project that was to be done in pairs. The aim was to use artificial intelligence (of sorts) to code a computer to act as a player in the game of Cluedo. The language of choice: Prolog. (I say choice in the loosest sense. It was foisted upon us.)
Myself and my good friend Jorge paired up and took the task very seriously. I learnt a huge amount about the strategy of Cluedo—it turned out that as a youngster, I had not used a jot of inference in playing the game, merely capturing in isolation each piece of information that had been given to me. (As a youngster, I was shit at Cluedo.) But once unleashed with this new-found knowledge, we came up with some kick-ass rules, one of which I was particularly proud of but which I couldn’t for the life in me remember some 15 years later.
We coded rule after rule, with multiple layers of logic deciphering any information provided to enhance the knowledge that had been gleaned to date; and yet more intricate logic determining which questions to ask, and who to ask them of.
But our program was shit. We came last as far as I remember. And here’s why.
The information aggregator worked like a dream. But each time it was our turn to ask a fellow player (which was itself a competitor team’s computer) a question, we always selected the same player to ask, and we always asked the same questions.
The reason: it was my fault. I’d come up with the beautiful, competitor-killing logic a couple of hours before the hard deadline, as I remember. We had a brief discussion over whether we had time to code it up. And we decided we would. The discussion probably went something like this:
Jorge: shall we implement it?
Dan: hell, yeah!
So we coded like the wind. And we got the code unit tested. And it kicked proverbial ass. And then, with moments to spare, we did some integration testing. And it borked the whole “asking” logic.
Now if we had any sense at all, we would have grabbed the floppy disk (oh yeah, baby!) containing the version of the program that we’d saved immediately before the killer module had been incorporated, handed it to the professor, and done pretty well in the competition. But in our haste (or speed, as the proverb oddly goes), we didn’t keep any such version. Instead, we had no option but to submit our borked version of the program and watch the result.
It was like watching the words of a particularly annoying parrot flash up on the screen, a parrot that had just been briefed on the basics of Waddingtons’ flagship product. Hell it was funny. (Jorge always helped make light of moments like that.) But at the same time it was so annoying: being so close to wiping the floor with our classmates (for that is what we would have done, natch), yet at the same time, being so far from that goal.
The big lesson I learnt from that experience was that deadlines are there for the client’s purposes, not your own. Define an end time or date for development, either in your head or on a plan, and stick to it. (Development here might mean coding, document production, analytics, basically any client deliverable.) And make sure that this milestone is sufficiently ahead of the formal deadline to allow for all of the necessary post-development activities—be they testing, document review or simply document formatting.
Your boss will often try to push the milestone to the right. In that event, push back strongly. And if this is futile, warn them strongly of the potential ramifications. For in this event 15 years ago, our (my) willingness to take on new requirements at such a time that didn’t allow for them to be fully tested compromised the entire project deliverable. Don’t let that happen to you.
(Sorry, Jorge.)
If you like it and are able, pay for it
I wrote a post recently about the likely demise of certain media. It focused on the proposition that while much media has traditionally been cross-subsidised by other, more lucrative revenue streams, the increasing transparency of non-profitable lines of business means that some of these media will close down.
Media owners are struggling. Bobby Johnson has just announced that he has taken the Guardian up on its offer of voluntary redundancy, and will be leaving at the end of March. The New York Times announced Wednesday that from next year, it will start charging for full access to its website. And whenever I pop along to Wikipedia, I’m faced with a plea from Jimmy Wales for contributions towards the Wikipedia Foundation. (As an aside, that’s no name for an internet entrepreneur. David Filo, Jerry Yang, Sergey Brin: yes. Jimmy Wales: noooo.)
It’s time we started to show our appreciation for what we like about the internet, from apps to content (in its broadest sense), and pay for or make donations towards these things. I like Wikipedia, so I’ll contribute. I like Freshbooks, so I’ve upgraded to the first tier of paid service, partly out of necessity, partly out of respect. Flickr: ditto. (And I happily pay my “TV” licence every year which helps fuel my love of the BBC News website.)
The one I’m struggling with is Google. I pay for Google advertising through AdWords. But I don’t pay for its core apps. offering, which I use heavily. The issue lies in the fact that the charging model is per domain rather than per email account. So the three or four temporary, administrative or lesser-profile accounts that I’ve set up all attract a charge. I’d love to be able to upgrade my own account (and I’d happily pay for this privilege) without having to do so for the wider set of accounts.
So in summary. If you like it, pay for it. Otherwise, you may lose it.
How the BBC might personalise its content
I have a dream.
I’d like to be able to rate my interest in the categories in BBC News. On a scale of 1–10, say.
Upon being published, the BBC will score every single story on an importance/significance scale of 1–10. And articles will automatically be given a recency score, from 10 (breaking news) to 1, a couple of days old.
In putting together my personalised BBC News homepage, the BBC will multiply these three scores together for each article: my interest * importance * recency. So each article gets a score out of 1,000. And articles will be presented to me according to that score.
A similar methodology could be used for the BBC Sport site, with articles about sports I’m not overly interested in only coming to the fore when there’s little else going on, or if they’re sufficiently significant/recent to trump my content of interest.
Sound sensible?
iPhone star gazing
Alan wrote an interesting post about the Directgov Travel News app. for the iPhone, assessing its worth according to, among other things, the star ratings given by users.
The iPhone app. review system is somewhat flawed, in that you’re only prompted to review an app. if you delete it from your iPhone. So the scorings are artificially low as a result.
If I see an app. that has an average of 4 stars, I’ve historically equated this to 80%; 3 to 60%; 2 to 40% and 1 to 20%. But in fact, this is wrong.
When you rate an app., you’re invited to grade it from 1 to 5. So the inability to give an application zero stars suggests that 1 equates to 0%, and 5 equates to 100%. So 2 represents 25%, 3 is 50% and 4 is 75%.
Minor point, but worth documenting. Or not.
Haiti: the need for a trusted charity donations app.
I need not echo the words that so many have already voiced with regard to the sympathy and the need to help Haiti. Perhaps no one has voiced them more clearly than Jay Smooth here.
Soon after the devastating earthquake, there were requests for help, particularly for donations. 90999 was widely publicised on Twitter as a number to text, costing $10 plus the cost of the text. And more recently, 70077 has been publicised similarly, allegedly aligned to the Disasters Emergency Committee, texts costing £5. (I have not previously heard of this committee.)
I would like to donate. But I have no way of understanding the authenticity of the organisations behind these text numbers. And so I’m nervous about donating through them, both because they may screw me for way more money than I thought, and because I have no way of knowing whether the money will indeed go towards the disaster to which I think I’m donating.
Yet my phone is such a well-suited device from which to contribute. It is convenient and it already has a direct debit (to O2, or to Apple) to support any contributions made.
There is a desperate need for an iPhone application released by a trusted body (possibly a charity, possibly the government, possibly Apple, even) within which users can donate to charities that subscribe, charities that are vetted by the trusted body with an independently-written description.
The application would be simple. Click, choose or search for your charity of choice and enter a donation amount. When prompted, enter your iTunes password (if this is indeed the authentication method of choice) after which you’re presented with a confirmation screen. Close the application and then go about your business.
I would happily pay an extra £1 on top of every donation I make to fund the trusted body in its management of the charities on the application. And I’m sure charities would happily pay a subscription to feature in the app.
Does it have legs?
Wessex County Council
I was asked at workto put together a scenario recently of someone in government wanting to do something. (There were more details, but I won’t share them here.)
Within 24 hours, I put the scenario together. I tried to give it a bit of reality so dreamt up a fictional character (Dave Clarke) and gave him a job title, the CIO of Wessex County Council. (For those not in the know, Wessex was disbanded in 1066, its land divided among the followers of William the Conqueror.)
I sent the email to the two people who requested the scenario—from my own account, but all in Dave’s name. Five paragraphs with a moderate amount of flowery detail. I even added a wessex.gov.uk email address to his signature, along with a fictional phone number, using the 846 local code saved by BT for use in films and on TV, much like America’s 555 prefix.
Despite the email coming from my own account, both recipients thought the email was a genuine request for help. Both responded offering services to Dave. (Dave’s chuffed to bits.)
Given my success in duping two people—a 100% success rate thus far, albeit entirely unintended—the next phase of the plan will be to roll out Wessex County Council. Letterhead is currently being printed and we have put out fictional tenders for IT services and office space. I’m expecting healthy levels of response to both.
We will, obviously, need to begin a major recruitment drive as we’re setting up from scratch to provide a wide range of services to a large, if non-existent population.
To do all of this, there will, of course, need to be significant funding provided by HM Treasury. Again, I’m confident that this will be forthcoming. It’s a crazy world, after all.