Claiming Winter Fuel Payment Without a Birth Certificate.
I’m 63 and have never claimed the Winter Fuel Payment. In 2007, when I was first eligible, I had many other things to do with C’s illness an eventual death. I should have claimed in 2008, but I was after the cut-off date. Last year my son was dying with pancreatic cancer, so again it was the last thing in my mind.
So this year I decided that I’d better do it. I phoned the help line number, 08459-151515, who said they’d sent me a form in 2007. As I was claiming Widow’s Benefit at the time, I suppose I ignored it. They said they’d send another, but it never arrived. Or at least I never saw it.
So yesterday, whilst the weather was so cold, I decided to have a go. At least I was in front of the cut-off day in March, so I should get it this year.
I updated the form on the Internet and printed it off. But it needed birth certificate for proof of age! My birth certificate was unique in that it had the wrong date on it, which had been officially changed a few weeks after I was born. But I have not seen it since we last moved in 1991. I paniced a bit and ordered a copy on-line, but that won’t be here until mid-January.
So again I phoned the help line ans told I could take two of my passport, driving licence and medical card to the nearest JobCentre Plus to get them verified. I searched the JobCentre Plus website and there is no office finder as you get on any chain of shops website. After perhaps twenty minutes of searching, I found that the nearest one was at the other end of the road on which I live. Within ten minutes my passport and medical card had been copied and certified.
Everything was in the post by lunchtime.
So it was fairly easy in the end, but why can’t it be like how you purchase a Senior Railcard. That is totally on-line and must be a much cheaper system than the one they have for the Winter Fuel Payment.
I know not everybody has a passport or a driving licence, but these people could just take everything they have got straight to the JobCentrePlus? And why is there no list of JobCentrePlus offices on the Internet?
Perhaps, the whole system is designed to employ more bureaucrats and reduce the take-up of the benefit? Or am I being too cynical?
What is it with me and Networking?
I always find it totally impossible to set up a computer network. This one is no exception. I have put the Netgear AV 200 Powerline device in a socket and connected it to the router, just like it says in the picture with the documentation.
I’ve installed software on my computer and can it find the device. Of course it can’t! But it was early yesterday, as I was able to print a test page. It can find the device if I put the cable in my computer rather than the modem.
So my hoodoo with hardware strikes again.
I can’t get on-line support as the serial number on the device is too small for me to read. And I can’t find one of my two magnifying glasses.
Computer Networking
I have had some very bad experiences trying to network computers. Today though I used a pair of Netgear Powerline AV200 adapters to connect my laptop computer upstairs to one of my printers downstairs. They seem to allow me to print without any changes to the settings on my laptop at all.
This is very much a first for me, as normally linking a printer to a computer remotely takes me a couple of days. Either networking is getting better or I’m learning how to do it better. I’d put it down to the networking.
All I need to do now is get my main computer attached to the Internet. Here’s hoping!
Cooking is Easy
I finally cooked something properly last night. It was one of my version of a Jamie Oliver fish pie.
It was actually easier than in my previous house, but mainly because the work surfaces were laid out better with respect to the sink and the cooker.
The only problem I had was getting the oven to work, as I have no instruction manual and I couldn’t find the type of Baumatic cooker, I have on their web site. There is no indication on the front of the cooker what model it is either. Incidentally, I have the same problem with an old television. It should be law that the model number is easily found and that manuals are on the Internet. It perhaps in one thing with a television, but cookers can be dangerous things, so perhaps they are a totally different matter.
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Dissappointed with the Virgins
I say virgins, as all of the services are not really up to scratch. Or at least what I expect.
- The broadband has now failed five times and I have to switch off the modem and reboot every time. As it improved when I undid all the connections and reconnected them, I think it’s all down to a bad joint. But it’s annoying.
- They still haven’t transferred my previous landline number to the new connection.
- But the biggest problem is the design of the box that provides television. I give it about four out of ten, whereas I’d give my previous Sky-Plus nine. The reason it would only get that, is that it lacks the back button, which the virgin has.
- I’m also paying for ESPN and it’s not being delivered.
They will be getting an ear-wigging today.
Long Live Visual Basic
I program in Visual Basic 6, which is a language that Microsoft dropped in 2008 for customers. But not as I understand it for themselves as VB6 still works in all versions of Windows and they’re going to keep it way. A man high-up in the company, told me that if they have serious problem, then often VB6 is the way they solve it, as they have so much expertise there. It’s a bit like the plumber, who uses a hammer for everything! But, hey, as someone said to Dan Dare after fixing his spacecraft, “it’s not very pretty, but it works!”
So in the turnout, I’ve found complete sets of Visual Basic 3 and 4, discs and documentation and already after posting to a forum, I’ve had requests for them. I’ll probably copy the discs to my server, so that if anybody wants the software to fix aegacy problem, they’ll be able to do it.
So just like the High Speed Train, Visual Basic appears to be one of those technologies that refuses to die.
Installing the Virgins
Men living alone have curious habits. But two things they need are decent broadband for the Internet and football on the television.
As the new house is in a cable area, one of the reasons, I visited yesterday was to get the cable connected.
By twelve and ahead of schedule, they were both working, after installation by a competent and charming young lad, who didn’t seem to make any mistakes, except leave a cable in his van and go back to retrieve it.
I also got a speed of 54 Mbps, when I’m only paying for 20!
So virgins aren’t as expensive as they used to be!
Wikileaks Gets Nasty
I’m not sure about Wikileaks. I’m all for it, when it exposes injustice and cruel regimes around the world. On the other hand, if the founder has commited sex crimes in Sweden, then I would of course not condone that! But that has nothing to do with Wikileaks.
But now that their supporters are supposedly attacking the likes of Mastercard and PayPal, I’m not sure.
I’m also very much against people leaking information they have been given in confidence. Unless of course, that information exposes crime, injustice or incompetence. But a lot of the Wikileaks disclosures would appear to be diplomatic or political tittle-tattle, available in many autobiographies of the supposedly great and good. So have Wikileaks ruined the value of these memoires, which no one buys anyway?
The Day I Met the Queen
Turning out and weeding the files is mainly a depressing occupation. But then occasionally, you come across a little gem. I thought I’d lost this card, which was the invitation from the Palace to attend a Queen’s Award Reception.
Invitation to a Reception
Let’s say it was one of the best parties, I’ve ever been to!
The setting was msgnificent, the staff were attentive and welcoming and all in all you couldn’t have wanted for anything.
Three of us went, myself, Richard and John.
We met the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and actually talked for quite a time with the Duke of Kent. It was also one of the first receptions, that Diana Spencer attended and most of the guests seemed to spend their time trying to talk to her. It wasn’t the most edifying of spectacles and we just enjoyed the setting, the food and the wine. But not too much, as would you believe some captains of industry, did over indulge on the hospitality.
Metier won two Queen’s Awards, but you won’t find them on the Internet. If I have one secret ambition it would be to win one for technology, but I’m a bit long in the tooth and too much of a wreck now!
But then everybody who has had a stroke should look to Louis Pasteur, who did some of his best work many years after he had had several.
Spammer Responsible for a third of all Spam in Court
I like this story from The Register. Here’s the first few paragraphs.
A Russian who allegedly at one time ran a network of compromised machines responsible for a third of global spam appeared in federal court in Wisconsin on Friday to deny the charges.
Oleg Y Nikolaenko, 23, a resident of Moscow, faces charges that he forged email spam messages in violation of the US CAN-SPAM Act, following his arrest in Las Vegas’ Bellagio Hotel last month.
Prosecutors allege that the Russian was responsible for pumping out a staggering 10 billion spam messages per day, touting penis pills and counterfeit goods using the infamous Mega-D botnet network.
I wonder how many spam e-mails we’re going to see from Russia selling tickets, hotels and flights to the World Cup in 2018? Probably none, as Putin has given Sepp Blatter his word!
The Anonymous Widower 