The art of cheap holidays: Part 3

In my previous posts I explained how I saved money (and how you can too) by looking around for cheap flights and accommodation. Using cashback sites like TopCashBack and Quidco also saves further on hotels and car hire.

Further savings can be made on car hire.

I previously touched on fuel policy options. These ‘unforeseen extras’ can cost significantly. Other things to watch out for are:

  • GPS/SatNav: do you need this? Are you going to get hopelessly lost? Driving abroad and navigating on the ‘wrong’ side of the road can be tricky and often stressful – especially if you’ve got kids in the back yelling ‘are we there yet‘ and ‘Daaaaad, I need to go to the toilet‘. Places are often not as well signed posted as in the UK. If you arrive at night/early hours of the morning and it’s dark, navigation is further complicated. But SatNav systems are often charged out at extortionate per-day prices. If you have a standalone unit at home, take it with you! Just make sure that the relevant maps are downloaded on the unit before you go. Or purchase a data package for your phone for your holiday period, and use Google maps or a similar mapping/GPS app.
  • Children’s car seat/booster: A legal requirement if you have kids, these can be charged out at ludicrous prices: frustrating when you can buy a basic booster for a tenner back home. I think I had to pay about £40 extra on a recent car hire for a week in Spain. Look around; some car hire companies include these free of charge. If not, could you squeeze yours in your luggage and take it with you? Do you even need a hire car? With the child seat costs factored in, might it be cheaper to get a taxi/transfer/bus?
  • Insurance: Do you really need the extra cover? Basic insurance cover is usually sufficient, depending on your driving skills that is! Most car hire companies will try and sell you extra cover when you arrive at their office to collect the car, usually scaring you into it by ‘blocking’ a huge amount on your credit card as a deposit, or quoting a massive excess in the case of any claim. Make sure you check what is covered before you get there and decide whether you really need any extra cover. Look around; some companies offer significantly more cover as standard. Check local road conditions: for example, on a recent trip to Iceland, I was advised that there’s lots of gravel roads and you should consider the extra gravel damage cover. As it was, we only went for 2 days and stuck to main roads (apart from once or twice, where I drove carefully) so opted for the cheaper basic cover.

Also note that if you do have an accident and have to pay for car repairs, your holiday insurance may cover this.

Another money saving aspect to consider is baggage costs, especially where the cheap airlines are involved. Hold baggage on Ryanair and Easyjet can be considerably expensive, but they do allow a reasonably large bag on board for free – and Ryanair now even allow an additional smaller bag to be taken onboard. Do you really need to pay for a suitcase to go in the hold? If it’s a 5 day holiday, can you fit enough clothes in the onboard baggage?

I can.

In fact, I managed a 10 day trip once (post coming soon!), although admittedly I did wash and dry (on the balcony) a few clothes whilst there.

Which I’m sure those with sensitive noses would be relieved to hear 🙂

Mind you, I don’t exactly have to pack shampoo or a hairdryer…

Wizzair does some excellent cheap flights, particularly to Central and Eastern Europe, but watch out – they’ve recently reduced their onboard baggage allowance to much less than the other budget airlines such as Ryanair and Easyjet. I still would recommend them though for their excellent service; their inflight food has recently been upgraded too and offers a more premium menu. They also have some incredibly cheap options to more exotic locations such as Dubai and Tel Aviv if you are willing to go indirect, via Budapest, Bucharest or Sofia.

Airport car parking if also something to take into account when planning your holiday expenditure.

If you are only away for a short break, driving and paying airport car parking fees can often be cheaper than paying for taxis or trains fares to the airport – especially if you look around and use the cash back sites.

I usually google ‘airport car parking‘ and the destination airport name and make a note of the first four or five companies that come up. I then open up my old friend TopCashBack and search for those merchants, and check which ones are offering the most cash-back. I’ll then open their sites via the TopCashBack links, enter the necessary details for a quote, and compare prices. Often they are very similar but one site may have as much as 20% cashback compared to another’s 4%, so I know which one I’ll go for…

If you’re in no rush then you can usually get the cheaper car parking that’s off site and requires a transfer. Just bear in mind though that you often have to wait 10-15 mins for the transfer, and the transfer can take 10-15 mins depending on traffic, so leave enough time for airport check-in/security. There seems to be more and more on site or “meet and greet” services these days; if you can get a decent cashback offer and bring the price down then these may be worth considering.

I’ve not covered hostels or backpacking or hitchhiking in any of my posts.

Why?

I have no personal experience of them. I’m not going to blog about something I know nothing about; I will only write about things that I have a particular interest in and have done the research or have some experience in. Of course you can save money hitchhiking. Of course you can save money sleeping in a shared hostel. But there are pros and cons of each which I’m not experienced to advise on.

All I can advise is on my own travel experiences in the last few years and that I’ve managed to travel far and wide, frequently and relatively cheap, based on these money saving tips.

Hopefully you’ll be able to save some cash too 🙂

Happy Holidays!

 

 

My car history part 7: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

The MX-5 wasn’t quite perfect: Yet.

I’d bought it because I knew that the BBR turbo was perfect for me in terms of power, reliability and insurance cost. But they were few and far between (only 800 made, between 1992 and 1994), and only available in white, red or black.

I found red a tad boring (although these days, with black alloys, I like them) and they tended to fade badly; I went to see a white one but the early white cars were more of an off-white cream that just looked dirty and old compared to the frozen white paint job of Maggy the 3rd (when she wasn’t stained with smoke, that is!). So a black one it was then – I could always wrap her or respray her later anyway.

I did look at one red one, with a respray in mind, but with the BBR cars being UK rather than Japanese models, they’d had 20 odd years to rust in the UK weather (Jap cars don’t seem to rust), and this one was absolutely riddled with it.

After much searching I’d found the black one, and it had been garaged daily for 14 years of it’s life. Hence there wasn’t a patch of rust on her.

Tan leather interior of Maggy the 5th - my 5th MX-5
Tan leather interior of Maggy the 5th – my 5th MX-5

I didn’t like the interior – browny tan coloured panels, carpet and leather seats. True, Maggy the 1st, my British Racing Green Roadster/MX-5 had had the same interior, but it suited the BRG colour scheme better and had a more traditional classic sports car look – think Triumph Spitfire and MG-F.

I decided to replace the interior.

Bad move.

The MX-5's tan interior being removed
The MX-5’s tan interior being removed

This was a huge job. First, I sourced a black interior from a scrapped car, from ‘Junk Yard Dog’ off the MX5Nutz forum. Then one sunny weekend, I ripped the entire interior out. Not an easy job, especially getting the wheel off and taking the whole dashboard out.

I managed it, but made a few mistakes.

The MX-5's carpet and dashboard removed
The MX-5’s carpet and dashboard removed

I’d taken a few pictures of the wiring looms I’d disconnected, to make sure I didn’t have any problems plugging things back in. But I got lazy towards the end and didn’t bother to take some essential snaps, assuming it was pretty obvious what plugged in where.

It wasn’t.

I’d also had to cut one cable, assuming it was easy to fix when I put it back together.

It wasn’t.

And then there’s the cable I snapped accidentally during the removal but didn’t notice until later.

Much later.

Eventually I got her all back together. Almost predictably, the car didn’t start.

Most of the new black interior fitted to my MX-5
Most of the new black interior fitted to my MX-5

Much pfaffing around over the next few days ensued. After much cursing and my Dad asking why I hadn’t taken enough photos of what went where, and him quoting the ever famous “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” saying, I managed to get her running!!

Yay!

Re-upholstered leather seats for the MX-5
Re-upholstered leather seats for the MX-5

Meanwhile I’d got hold of a pair of old cloth seats and had them recovered in black leather and suede with red stitching and the Roadster logo much like the seats I’d had in Maggy the 3rd. I sold the tan leather seats on eBay.

 

Annie enjoying my old seats
Annie enjoying my old seats

However, all was not well.

A week or so later, all electrical power was lost half way down the road. I pulled up and tried to start her. No joy. Panic. Try again – she started!

Odd.

A few more days pass, I park the car up one night, try and start her the next day – no joy. She just wouldn’t start!!

I had to call out roadside recovery.

It seemed that although turning the key fired the starter motor, there was no spark generated at the spark plugs – or an incredibly weak one. Occasionally, she would start.

So what was the problem? Well, that was the question on my lips for the next 6 months. After speaking to friends, colleagues, family, my 5 year old daughter, the local cat, anyone who could possibly have any ideas, reading hundreds of articles and forum posts, speaking to my MX-5 Guru friend James, replacing many, many electrically related components (good old eBay again) and spending a small fortune at garages: we found it.

A bad connection on the battery.

Was that all?!?!

Hard to say. When I’d first had problems starting her up after switching the interior I’d tightend the battery well – recalling a similar problem I’d had with Smokey Disaster AKA Maggy the 3rd. But back then it had been a problem with the old immobilser that hadn’t been fully removed and me breaking a connection – possibly.

I didn’t care: Finally, Maggy the 5th was back on the road and running well!!!

But not for long…

Next part of the story: Gremlins return

My car history part 6: Love of my life

In September 2012 I purchased my fifth (and possibly final!) MX-5!

Maggy the 5th - the 'perfect' MX-5, a BBR Turbo
Maggy the 5th – the ‘perfect’ MX-5, a BBR Turbo

Maggy the 5th‘ was a black 1993 1.6 Mazda MX-5 BBR Turbo. In theory this was the perfect MX-5 for me – not modified as such – the BBR turbo kit was approved and factory fitted by Mazda, and in insurance terms, wasn’t modified either – so the insurance dropped from £700 to a mere £200 a year!

True, the turbo kit wasn’t up to modern standards and the 220bhp+ turbo set ups; it only upped the 1.6 litre engines power from 114bhp to a little over 150bhp; but in a car that light and nimble, it’s plenty. And I’d rather have reliability that going down the modified route and the disaster that was Maggy the 3rd.

At this point though I still had 3 other cars:

  • The Blue MX-5 AKA Maggy the 4th
  • Nissan 300ZX
  • Toyota Celica
4 cars: A little excessive
4 cars: A little excessive

Having 4 cars for one person was somewhat ridiculous (and costly) so I sold Maggy the 4th Oct 2012 to a pleasant chap called Dan who I’ve remained in touch with on Facebook and I’m pleased to say he’s given her a great overhaul and it’s great to see he’s enjoying her as much as I did.

I was still trying to fix the various issues with the Nissan (and buying, an ever, a variety of used car parts from eBay), so was struggling to sell her. I also put the Celica up for sale and scraped a mere £900 back in December.

A day before Christmas, I decided to treat myself, and bought a ‘sensible’ diesel.

Only it wasn’t that sensible – it was a 2008 Alfa Romeo Brera.

'Alfie' - my Alfa Romeo Brera
‘Alfie’ – my Alfa Romeo Brera

Oh, it was beautiful though – sumptuous ribbed leather seats, stainless steel everywhere and dials that were angled towards the driver – I could sit and look at both interior and exterior all day long.

The luxurious Alfa interior
The luxurious Alfa interior

So, on Christmas day 2012, I had the Nissan 300ZX, the new Brera, and the MX-5 BBR turbo on the drive way. All I needed to do was get rid of the rusty Nissan, and I’d have the perfect set up – in theory!

The revised driveway line-up
The revised driveway line-up

I couldn’t bring myself to hide the rust issue on the Nissan – it could have been pretty dangerous if the radiator had dropped out at speed! – so offered it as a project car on the specialist forums to someone who could do the work themselves cheap. In the end some chap from the Ukraine (or thereabouts) had a look and said:

It good. Not problem. I know good guy at MOT place, yes? We take.”

– and I managed to get a poultry £1500 back for her.

So by February 2013 I had a gorgeous but practical(ish) diesel, and the perfect MX-5, things couldn’t be better, right?

I had go and mess it up…

Next part of the story: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

The art of cheap holidays: Part 2

In my previous post about the art of cheap holidays I mentioned taking my daughter away in the peak holiday season.

Package holidays, and indeed, flights and hotel prices, are significantly inflated at this time of year. Finding a cheap holiday is not easy.

Yet I managed to save significantly, and still have a fabulous holiday.

I had an available date range of several weeks. I knew we wanted somewhere warm. I knew that we wanted a pool, and to be near a beach.

I also knew that we should find something self catering. Previous experience has taught me that my daughter is quite happy to wake up and play/draw for an hour or two before eating breakfast and wanting to go out to the pool/beach etc. I’m also no longer hungry first thing in the morning, so there’s absolutely no point having to get up early and rush to get to breakfast in a hotel serving at limited times. Similarly, hotel food is at best average, and I prefer the holiday atmosphere of going out in the evening for a meal. Having self catering facilities means we can save ourselves money on breakfast and lunch and eat when we want. If the evening eating out options also prove to be poor or expensive, we can also eat in on the occasional evening.

Think about what you really want for your holiday. Do you really need a pool? Are you going to eat out? Do you need to be on the beach? If you’re only going for a day or two, and staying in the town, do you need a car? Don’t spend extra money on a hotel with a pool if you’re going to be at the beach all day and not use it.

After scouring the web for flights, mainly using Skyscanner and checking the cheap airlines such as Ryanair, Flybe and Easyjet, I had found quite a few reasonably priced flights to various destinations in Portugal, Spain, the south of France, Italy, Turkey and Greece. Some I ruled out due to the flights out being from tricky to reach airports, or flying to destinations where I’d then have to travel for hours to get to the final destination. Others were ticked off because of inconvenient flight times; travelling with a six year old at 4am is a pain. Similarly the longer flights (4 hours to some Greek islands, Canaries etc) weren’t ideal, especially if they weren’t flying from a local airport.

Eventually I had a choice of 5 Spainish destinations, a Greek and a Turkish destination.

I started looking for hotels.

The Greek island hotels were few and far between; anything any good had already been booked up, long in advance (school holiday period remember!). The remaining hotels were shabby, miles from anywhere, or extortionately priced.

Next stop, Turkey. Hotels seemed to be very well priced. But I didn’t know much about the resorts and it wasn’t clear if there were in a reasonable location and easy to reach from the airport. More research would be required, but the flight times and flight prices weren’t great and I decided to put this on the back burner.

I decided to look at the Spanish options. This had the cheapest flight prices by far, but I soon discovered hotel prices were significantly more than in Turkey. However, I knew more about the region and where to look and with the cheaper flights managed to find something suitable at a similar total price.

There were 3 good flight options available to the Barcelona area; Barcelona’s direct airport; El Prat, Girona to the north, and Reus to the south. I didn’t know so much about the other airport options/areas, and a quick search didn’t yield many hotel options.

I decided to focus my hotel search on the Costa Brava, reachable from the 3 airports around Barcelona.

Normally I would book a minimum of a 3 star hotel and wouldn’t even consider a 1 or 2 star. When I travel with my girlfriend we tend to look for 4 stars to ensure we have the comfort of a double bed – there’s not many 3 stars with a ‘proper’ double bed we’ve found. With my daughter though obviously we were after two singles so I started checking the 3 stars and above hotels.

Due to the 3 airport options, I had a broad search area, but the summer holiday popularity had taken it’s toll on the accommodation available. Particularly as I was adamant on the self catering option.

There were plenty of hotels in Barcelona itself available for a good price. But most didn’t have a pool – essential for my daughter – or a balcony – essential for me in the evenings to escape to with a book and a glass of wine after she’d gone to bed. Nor were any self catering.

I found a few options in the coastal resorts but they were considerably expensive. I then found a handful of B&B or even half board hotel options that were a similar price, or not much more – especially when you considered the cost of the food.

I was tempted to book one of these, but I always like to check the reviews online first, such as via TripAdvisor.

Now, you have to read between the lines sometimes with these reviews. There’s always going to be some miserable sod that moans about everything. Or someone that sets their expectations too high, or complains for some reason that’s not relevant to yourself. But on reading these reviews, I was not convinced at all by the food offered at the hotels.

I did some more digging and tried a few more hotel websites. My favourites are Hotels.comVenere.comLastMinute.com, Expedia.com and LateRooms.com. You can usually get between 5 and 13 percent cashback from TopCashBack; Venere being one of the best recently.

Booking.com is also good but doesn’t tend to be on the cashback sites anymore, although you can sometimes found vouchers – another money saving tip; google ‘vouchers’ or ‘coupons’ for hotels (or any product you are planning to buy online) and you can often get a significant discount at the checkout.

Other popular sites are Expedia, ebookers, Hotels4U – most of which have cash-back offers on TopCashBack.

On one of my searches I forgot to tick the star rating.

A self catering hotel in Tossa De Mar, the GHT Tossa Apartments, showed up, at a reasonable price.

Why hadn’t I seen this one before?

Oh – because it’s a 2 star hotel.

But it looked nice… I read a little more.

It sounded ideal.

  • Nice town: check (I would definitely visit Tossa De Mar again; great restaurants, beach, castle etc)
  • Pool: check
  • Close to airport: check (35 min drive from Girona airport)
  • Close to beach: check (15 min walk, more or less flat)
  • Self catering: check
  • Balcony: check

Ok, so it’s only a 2 star hotel. What does that mean?

Often it means no pool, or no balcony, or a lack of facilities – for example, no ensuite bathroom.

This seemed to have everything. So perhaps it was tiny, or falling apart, or cockroach infested?

Nope.

According to the reviews, the vast majority of which were positive, it was a very good hotel, with a great pool and good facilities, and several people said they couldn’t understand why it wasn’t a 3 star. The main reason seemed to be the room cleaning service.

There wasn’t one.

Well, not as standard. If you stayed a week, the cleaners visited once – to replace the towels.

But not the bedding. Nor did they clean.

If you wanted the room cleaned, you had to pay extra.

Well… that’s fair enough. You don’t need new towels everyday, nor do you require the room cleaning so regularly. I was sure the bedding could last us one week. If we needed the service, we could pay for it; I can’t recall the cost exact now, but I do recall it being very reasonable.

I also find it quite annoying when the cleaners turn up and you’re still in your room, or when you come back from somewhere to find the cleaners half way through and you have to hang around.

So I could handle not having cleaners. Was that the only negative?

From the info I could find, yes.

I decided to book a week at the GHT Tossa Apartments.

And didn’t regret it! We had a great holiday. Ok, the room wasn’t huge – it was a studio rather than an apartment, so it was just two sofa beds – and a third could be pulled out from under one of them – but that was all we needed. There was a good size balcony with three chairs and a table and a nice pool view. The bathroom was nothing special but it was large enough with a decent bath, there was even a bidet. There was a brush and dustpan and mop and bucket so we were able to keep the room clean ourselves.

The room also had aircon!

I was expecting the kitchen facilities to be basic. They were; but better than some 3 or even 4 star self catering hotels I’ve stayed in. There was the usual basic two hob electric cooker; which took ages to warm up. Fair enough. But there was a full sized and well chilled fridge, a microwave, plenty of plates and cutlery including a chopping board and a juicer/squeezer. There was even a kettle in the cupboard!

There was no bottle opener, which was a shame, but I certainly hadn’t expected one.

The staff were friendly and helpful, the lifts worked, the place was clean and bright, the wi-fi connection was reasonable and at no extra charge, the pool was large and just about warm enough, and had a life guard on duty… perfect!

Ok, car parking was awful, I have to admit that. The whole of Tossa De Mar was just crammed with parked cars. The hotel did apparently offer car parking but I believe it was 15 Euro a day… no thanks. We spotted a car park down the road for 5 Euros a day. In the end we just drove around for 10 mins until we finally found somewhere; it was a good 20 mins walk back though! Still, can’t really blame the hotel for that.

So, my new money saving tip, which I hadn’t considered before: look at 2 star hotels too. You might just be pleasantly surprised.

Top money saving tip: Once you’ve found the ideal hotel to stay in, check it’s price on a few different websites; it can vary a lot. Even try the official hotel site – sometimes they have special offers. Don’t forget to check the cashback sites too such as TopCashBack or Quidco – you may find a hotel for £80 on one site but the more expensive site charging £85 is offering 15% cashback via TopCashBack, so it’s actually cheaper at just over £72.

Over time this can add up significantly – I’ve literally saved over a £1000 with TopCashBack over the years.

In my next post I will talk about airport car parking and other ways to save money on your holiday cost.

The art of cheap holidays: Part 1

My work colleagues, friends and family often joke that I always seem to be on holiday. Do I ever do any work? they ask.

Yes I do. I just choose to take more frequent, short holidays, rather than one or two long ones.

Most people will take a couple of main holidays a year; maybe a two week break in summer and a one to two week break in spring or autumn. They’ll squeeze in a long weekend or two. Perhaps they’ll take off a few days around Christmas. Most UK employees have a holiday allowance of around 22-26 days a year, and won’t have any issues using these up.

These can often be very expensive holidays, especially where families are involved and holidays are taken during the school holiday period. Most people just shrug their shoulders at the expense and justify their 2 week holiday as being a ‘once a year treat’.

The same people ask me how I can afford to go away 10 times a year.

In my case, the holidays are usually only 4 or 5 days long; or just extended weekends. And they are carefully chosen, with much research and planning in advance.

Admittedly these holidays do often add up to more days off per year than the average family, maybe adding up to more like 30, 35 days, but I make the most of weekends and bank holidays. I also usually work on the days around Christmas & New Years (not on the actual holiday days though) as it’s usually quiet in the office, the traffic on the roads is reduced, and I don’t see the point wasting those days to sit around at home (as most do at that time of year) when I can save my holidays for a better time.

Cost wise my 35 odd days are probably similar too to the average holiday maker, if not less.

For a start, I tend to avoid package holidays, and look for cheap flights and find the accomodation and transfers separately. Yes, package holidays can sometimes be cheaper, but they are normally 7 or 14 day holidays, and somewhat restrictive on flight times/destinations. When you look for 4-5 day long holidays, there’s very little package options, and what you do find isn’t cheap.

Looking for individual flights means you can match your availability better and make the most of the time you have available. In my case, for many years I’ve worked as an IT Contractor. This has meant that days I don’t work – I don’t get paid. For example, say there’s a bank holiday Monday, on which I’m not expected to work. To not loose out on any days pay, I want to take the holiday Sat, Sun and Mon. Flights are more expensive on the Saturday and Bank Holiday though. I accept that I will loose one days pay, and find flights that fly locally approximately 2 hours after I finish work (and try and arrange to leave early that day) on the Friday, and that come back Tuesday evening or even early hours of Wednesday. Therefore I get a 4 day holiday and I’ve only had to have 1 unpaid day off work. If I’d chose a package holiday I would have struggled to find such specific time requirements and it would have cost me more through lost work days.

Another trick is to not even have a specific destination in mind. Be open to all travel possibilities!

The cheap airlines are the first place to start – Ryanair, Easyjet, Flybe, Jet2 and WizzAir. Open up their destination maps and see what they have to offer. Where do you want to fly from? If you are limited on time, consider local airports only. However, don’t just dimiss an airport because it’s not nearby; it’s worth checking if there’s a convenient train or bus. I for example generally avoid the London airports as they are a pain to get to from the Midlands, especially in terms of unpredicatable traffic – you don’t want to miss your flight! EMA is the closest for me from Nottingham, but Birmingham can be reached in around 45 minutes too. The train isn’t great though as you have to go into New Street first before going back out to the airport; neither is Luton great on the train as you don’t actually get a train to the airport, but Luton Parkway – you then have to wait for a shuttle  bus that takes 10-15 minutes to transfer you to the airport – and it runs every 10-15 minutes, which adds up the travel time. I can drive there in under 2 hours, although it’s not a fun slog down the roadwork strewn M1 to be honest.

If it’s a short weekend away, there’s no point travelling for hours to an airport; you’re loosing out on valuable holiday time. Similarly, check how far it is on the other side to your final destination. Malaga is one of my favourite destinations; you can easily get a train or a bus directly to Torremilinos/Benalmadena, or even a taxi for a not too extortionate price. Take care when flying to Tenerife – most resorts are on the south of the island so make sure you choose the right airport; the one of the north of the island is a considerable distance from those southern resorts!

I often get a hire car from the airport if I’m going away for more than 3 days; the cost of car rental for three plus days is often the same as or sometimes even less than taxi costs or transfers. Taxi prices from airports are always horrendous. If you don’t want to hire a car, check out the various transfer offers available. You can cut costs by having a shared transfer (usually in the form of a mini bus), but beware: there may be delays at the airport whilst waiting for other passengers to arrive, as well as delays in being delivered to your hotel due to an indirect route to drop off those other holiday makers.

Also check your hotel; they sometimes offer a free transfer service from the airport.

Going back to car hire, be particularly careful in Spain (other countries may also operate in a similar manner); lots of hire cars tend to have a ‘return empty’/’full-empty’ fuel policy. The idea is that they give you a car full of petrol – and you pay for this when you collect your car – and you return it empty. Note that this is charged at an inflated cost to cover their refilling ‘service’. The worst part is though that if you don’t use all the petrol in the tank – and no-one’s ever going to return it completely empty for risk of running out of fuel, and most people simply won’t use that much fuel anyway – then you’ve paid for all that fuel for nothing; there’s no refund. I got caught out once on a 5 day trip in the Canaries. I got stung with a charge of something like 76 Euros for a full tank of fuel on arrival (it probably would have cost closer to 60 Euros if I’d purchased it myself); and I had no intention of using it. I only used the car to drive from the airport to my hotel, and back again 5 days later – it was much more convenient than a transfer and cheaper than a taxi; at least I’d thought it was, but with the fuel charges, it wasn’t.

Now I look for ‘full-full’ policies; the idea being that you don’t pay for the fuel but make sure you return it full, therefore only paying for any fuel you’ve actually used – topping up just before returning. Most car hire companies offer this fuel policy when the car hire is for 3 days or less, just watch out if you want the car for longer. I recently hired a car with FireFly in Spain via Arguscarhire.com with a slightly different fuel policy; the car was supplied with a full tank of fuel which I paid for (which of course came with an inflated price), and when I returned the car they supposedly refunded any petrol left in the tank back to me – minus a service charge, of course.

They didn’t say what the charge is and I’ve only just returned so I’m still waiting to see what I’ll get back… However, this was one of the better deals at the time for a week long hire and there was also a great cashback offer via TopCashBack so I decided to risk it.

You might find some great prices for hire cars with the ‘full-empty’ fuel policy, but if you’re not planning to use all that fuel, then the initially more expensive seeming hire cars with the ‘full-full’ fuel policy might work out cheaper.

Returning to flights, it’s also worth checking SkyScanner (http://www.skyscanner.net)- especially if you have a specific flight destination or dates in mind. We have had a few short (4 day) breaks recently with tight deadlines to get out & return in, but with open minds as to where we wanted to go; so we entered the dates, chose all UK airports, any destination, ticked the ‘prefer directs’, and waited for the results. We then opened a new browser tab for each of the UK airports that were accessible for us, and then looked at the destinations. It took some time and narrowing down but we eventually found some perfect flights to Ibiza and had one of the most enjoyable breaks we have had for some time.

Don’t be afraid to fly out with one airline and back with another – why not? Just be careful of baggage policies; Ryanair allows a large bag onboard (and now a second small bag) but Wizzair only a allow a tiny bag onboard, so don’t get caught out!

Also, don’t restrict yourself to flying out from and back to the same airport – if it’s convenient or cheaper to return to a different airport, why not? Although if you are planning to travel by car to the airport don’t leave it at one airport and leave yourself stranded on the way home! Check transport options to see if it’s viable. There’s no point flying out from Plymouth and opting for the £30 cheaper flight home to Edinburgh when it’s going to cost you £100 in train fares (and not to mention time) to get home.

Alternate airports & airlines can be a good option though. For example, recently my girlfriend flew out to Krakow directly from East Midlands (having got there via a taxi) with Ryanair a day before me to sort out some business; I flew the next day after work from Luton (having drove there) to Katowice with Wizzair. She picked me up from the airport and drove me to Krakow (just over an hours drive) and we had a nice weekend there at a friend wedding, then had a friend drive us back to Katowice and we flew back to Luton and drove home together. The times and prices of these flights, not to mention the fact that I would have lost paid days work, were much better options than if we’d flown direct at the same time.

I also try to avoid school holidays to save on the price of holidays, but having a six year old daughter, it’s not always possible. I try and take her away for long weekends when I can and away in the UK during summer holidays, but did take her to Spain for a week this summer break. It wasn’t cheap, but I still managed to save a lot of money by looking around. I had a choice of several weeks, and was happy to go anywhere warm. More on this in my next post.

Yes it’s time consuming doing all this research and planning. But I enjoy it. It’s become almost a hobby. And as I’ve been doing it for so long now, I know where to look, and what I like.

In the next post I will advise on finding the perfect hotel.

My car history part 5: The Power Years

Although I loved the MX-5 (Maggy 2), I’d had a bit of a power fixation since the Elise. Browsing the web at the end of 2010 I realised that you could relatively easily supercharge or turbocharge your MX-5. I ended up buying a second hand supercharger for £1500 which would take my 138bhp MX-6 up to about 190bhp. In a car that light (970kg) that would be damn impressive.

I decided to do some interior mods too. I found heated seat inserts and was all set to buy, but then found some second hand heated leather seats from a MK2 MX-5 and went for those instead. I was all set to transform her – but I was getting scared by the scaling cost and complexities of the supercharging process. Then in April 2011 a turbocharged white MX-5 came on the market for £6000 and I snapped her up, trading in my black (2nd) MX-5 in the process.

This was a huge mistake.

White Lightning” (Maggy the 3rd) was, quite literally, a disaster. The Gremlins got in this car and didn’t leave it, until 2 and a half years later.

White Lightning - The Turbo Charged MX-5
White Lightning – The Turbo Charged MX-5
The beautiful interior of the MX-5
The beautiful interior of the MX-5

£6K may seem like a lot to spend on a 20 year old 1.6l car. But ‘Painter Dave’ (as he was known on the experts forums) had spent about 10k on her and she was a masterpiece. Beautifully repainted in Ford Frozen White, the whole interior had been upgraded with leather and red stitching and suede and chrome and drool inducing aftermarket parts. It SMELT like a new car. Under the bonnet, the turbo charged engine offered up a promise of 220bhp. At that weight to power ratio, that was better than the 252bhp Porsche Boxster S my Uni friend had bought.

She drove like a rocket!

I was sold. But Dave hadn’t quite finished it off and I was impatient… I ended up buying it with a ‘minor smoking’ issue. He assured me the turbo was leaking oil and needed re-conditioning and would cost about £300, so knocked that off the bill.

The smoke was quite significant and stained the back of the car. I took it to a company near work that re-conditioned the turbo for me (unfortunely it was a lot more than the £300 expected). I got the car back, blasted down the motorway – and BOOM.

Melted the engine.

To cut a very (very) long story short, with the car having so many modifications, the aftermarket ECU was tuned to handle a set amount of boost from the turbo and fuel accordingly. As far as we (the garage, Dave, my new found MX-5 guru friend James and others from the forums) could determine, the re-conditioned (i.e. fixed) turbo had essentially put out more boost/power – or something else had changed from the removal, re-conditioning and re-fitting – that had put the car out of balance, and the ECU didn’t know how to handle this – no safe tuning had been built in – and the engine cooked itself.

Who was to blame? Difficult one… too many factors involved. I then had several months of pain as she was rebuilt by the garage. They didn’t admit fault as such (but they should have known/warned me, with it being a modified car) but they cut about £400 off the final bill, but I was still about £800 out of pocket…

I hoped then that my troubles would be over. But no. I experienced problem after problem with the car, and it still smoked badly. It did it the most at traffic lights; I’d stop, and a cloud of stinking smoke would drift by me. Not pleasant. Then I had about a years worth of electric/starting issues… I won’t detail everything else, the list is endless.

My MX-5 master friend James helped me as often as he could, but for weeks/months at a time, the newly renamed “Smokey Disaster” was off the road. During this time I was using the reliable and fun Celica. But spring (2012) was on her way and it was getting sunny… and I was without a working softtop!!!

How was I going to tan my bold bonce?

Maggy The 4th - my fourth MX-5!
Maggy The 4th – my fourth MX-5!

So… I went out and bought my 4th MX-5, a bright blue (non-standard paint job) 1.6l Roadster for £1400. Again, great fun. And very reliable – I fixed a dodgy zip on the soft top and fixed the electric windows (one of the few things that eventually break on a 20 year old MX-5) but otherwise a cracking, solid car, that had no other issues with in my ownership.

This was around the time I decided to paint the Celica Matt Black.

With orange highlights.

Myself.

Why?

Painting the Celica with Rustoleum paint - using a roller!
Painting the Celica with Rustoleum paint – using a roller!

Good question. I didn’t like silver?? I like a challenge? Anyway – read about the 99 dollar paint job for more information if you fancy doing this yourself with a tin of Rustoleum and a roller!

My Celica in Matt black and Orange
My Celica in Matt black and Orange

Eventually “Smokey Disaster” pushed my patience too far and I wanted rid. The best option financially was for James to strip her of the turbo and return it to a bog standard car (thank god for James, not sure what I would have done without him – need to buy him more beer!), and sell the parts and car separately. He fitted another engine, as this one had never been great after the rebuild. Once this was done, she drove beautifully, and I consider keeping her – but I was never over keen on the fancy body kit and had decided to get a 5th ‘perfect’ MX-5, so put her up for sale.

The driveway with Smokey Disaster...
The driveway with Smokey Disaster…
... Smokey Disaster swapping for a Nissan 300ZX - 'Nelly'!
… Smokey Disaster swapping for a Nissan 300ZX – ‘Nelly’!

By September 2012, I’d had the Celica for 18 months and still really liked her, but I was slightly regretting my paint job (and all the sarcastic comments that came with it; except for small boys/teenagers who loved it) and after making it a tad subtler (painting the orange bits black!) started to look for a replacement. I was looking at Mitsubishi GTO’s and Nissan 300ZX’s as they were a similar ‘shape’ and style; Jap coupe/hatchbacks with rear seats – but with OODLES of power. I test drove a 300ZX and was absolutely stunned by the acceleration; that one was as rusty as hell and had a leaky sunroof, but then I spotted a nice red one… got chatting to the guy and turned out he wanted an MX-5… he turned up, and we did a swap!

White Lightning AKA Smokey Disaster AKA Maggy the 3rd was gone!

I thought I’d got a pretty good deal. I’d been trying to sell the MX-5 for around £3k, due to her paint job/interior etc, but a mate thought I’d be lucky to get £2k. The ZX was for sale at £2700 and we did a straight swap – brill.

'Nelly', my modified Nissan 300ZX
‘Nelly’, my modified Nissan 300ZX

It was slightly modified, so it’s twin turbo 3l engine power was up from 300bhp to between 350 and 370bhp! It FLEW. Problem was, it had a few rust issues (I had to replace the pipe from the fuel filler to the tank as it rotted through!) and a intermittent ‘hesitation’ or ‘stumble’ when accelerating, which got worse as the weather got colder…

I managed to eventually get that sorted out, but a major rust issue on a support beam (MOT failure) was discovered – £800’s worth of work. I decided that fun as she was, she was too old/rusty and ‘heavy’ – I felt terrified going round corners – and made my mind up to sell her.

I’d kept the Celica during this time ‘just in case’… and had been looking out for the ‘perfect’ MX-5; basically, a turbo-charged one, but not a modified one (after the last disaster!) – rather the rare BBR Turbo model.

And eventually found her…

Next part of the story: Love of my life

From HTC/Android to the Dark Side: Part 2

In my previous post  I discussed my reluctance to leave the trusted HTC mobile phone and Android platform by switching to the ‘Dark side‘ – i.e. Apple products.

My main concerns were the restrictions imposed by Apple compared to the openness of an Android operating system, but these were
overruled by the attractions of reliability, battery life and compatibility with other Apple devices.

So I got myself a 32GB iPhone5c in white.

The iPhone5c in white
The iPhone5c in white

First impressions – it looks and feels nice in my hand. It’s thicker than my HTC One S; but the slightly curved back actually fits the shape of my palm better. The screen is also slightly smaller – but the resolution and crispness of the new technology more than compensates for this.

Using the phone, I’ve found it nippy and responsive – unlike my aging HTC. Whether it will continue to be so as I clog it up with data and apps over time, remains to be seen.

Having used Android for so long though, I found a few GUI (Graphical User Interface) aspects somewhat irritating, such as:

  • The lack of a ‘back‘ button. This is such a useful button that I can’t believe Apple haven’t fitted one by now. My thumb keeps waving in the air over where it should be, desperately seeking what it won’t find! Ok, so there’s onscreen equivalents. But there’s not even a common interface design – sometimes it will be a ‘Done‘ icon in the top right hand corner, other times it’s an arrow or ‘Back‘ link in the top left hand corner; with Safari, it’s an arrow in the bottom left hand corner. Come on Apple! It’s common knowledge that in good GUI design you keep the interface design consistent. Having 3 different ways to go back a screen is just silly and annoying. On the HTC going back a screen was a doddle and it could also be used to close an app. With the iPhone, I’m tending to leave apps open. Yes, it’s coping nicely running plenty of concurrent apps, but one day it’s going to start slowing down, and it’s a pain to have to go into the apps overview screen (double-tap the main button) to kill off all those unnecessary apps. Although admittedly, that is a neat way of managing the current apps running – on Android I would have had to go to each to manually close rather than being able to ‘flick’ away. Although I probably would have just closed them with the back button when I’d done with them in the first place 🙂
  • The ‘hold down’ for a menu option. This was essential to Android operation and gave you a nice pop up menu with all the options you could possible want. This doesn’t seem to be the case with the iPhone. Some apps and screens DO have it, but not many – otherwise it brings up just the cut and paste screen. You have to double tap, but again, it’s inconsistent – it doesn’t seem to work in all screens; sometimes you have to find the menu at the top. Or the bottom. Again, inconsistent GUI design, poor Apple, poor!
  • Sharing. On the HTC I could hold down on a picture, or a link, be it in Facebook, mail, or another app, and I would get the same, consistent menu, and be able to share it to the full list of applications that were installed. On the iPhone? No. Different apps mean different menus, and a limited amount of options. I keep wanting to share posts on Facebook with one person via either a Facebook message or email. But those options simply aren’t there; I can only post it on my wall, or post it on their wall. If it’s a video then then iPhone generously decides to give me a further option to send a link via Facebook messenger. But that’s all. I use the Whatsapp application with several friends and I’m no longer able to send them pictures in one simple ‘hold down – share – whatsapp‘ action. Instead it’s a convoluted system of opening multiple apps and navigating multiple, inconsistent, menus. Joy. I can’t be bothered to share now!
  • Copying & pasting. Yes the iPhone has that nice ‘zoom’ magnifying feature to be able to move the cursor to the exact place you want, but it’s still fiddly to use, and where’s the damn cursors gone from the keyboard? And can’t I just poke where I want the cursor? Nope, the magnifying glass usually pops up. In the wrong place. The whole copy and paste functionality feels clunky to me after Android’s simple system.
  • The keypad/keyboard. It’s a little niggle, but still annoying – it’s not very clear that you have shift on or not – the coloured in shift key isn’t very visible – on the Android, the letters of the keyboard were clearly in upper case when shift was on, or lower case when it’s off. Much easier to use.

After reading this, you may think I hate the phone.

I don’t. It has some nice features and apps, and is overall pretty usable – and running much faster than my HTC did; lets hope it
stays that way. Battery life seems to be promising too – but again, let’s see how it is after a years use.

It’s still too early to comment in terms of reliability. My HTC had a few annoying habits. Whenever I went abroad – it seemed to
be when I’d disabled roaming data (wifi could be on or off) – it would have occasional ‘seizures’ where it would vibrate like crazy, jump from screen to screen and automatically take several screenshots.

During this time – it could last 2 seconds to 30 seconds – the phone was unusable, and would have interrupted whatever you were doing, sometimes with data loss. Highly annoying.

The phone also occasionally came confused as to whether there was a data signal or not; sometimes you had to reboot it to re-establish a data signal, or quicker, put it in airplane mode (data off) and back out again to ‘look’ for a data signal again.

Hopefully I won’t experience any of these problems with the more robust Apple operating system. But I have noticed one problem so
far.

Several times I’ve gone to make a call and it’s instantly hummed and said ‘unable to connect’. I’ve tried immediately after and it’s worked.

Mind you, the HTC used to do that regularly too!

I’ve now used up the 14 days I had to make up my mind and return it – too much hassle for one. Perhaps I should have tried a newer HTC model, or the very popular Samsung Android phones.

It’s too late now – but I have no regrets. It’s still better than my dying HTC, so I’m happy for now.

Will I be happy in 6 months time? Watch this space…

My car history part 4: Exotic car threesome

In the autumn of 2009, 6 months into driving her, the MR2 tried to kill me.

Several times.

In the wet, she was a devil. If you lost grip, she was very unpredictable and hard to control. I was now driving 110 miles to Chester/North Wales regularly, and I felt like I was going to die soon, and at the tender age of 31 and recently single again, decided I wanted to live a little longer.

I traded her in for a 2003 Honda Civic Type-R in red (believe it was around £7500 and they gave me £3500 for the MR2). Now, I’ve never been keen on red cars, but in this sporty guise with white alloys, it worked. This was a pretty damn awesome car. The 2 litre VTEC engine felt more powerful than the 197bhp official figure; whether the aftermarket huge and noisy exhaust (sounded amazing through tunnels – Annie loved this at the age of 3 and STILL asks me why I got rid of the “noisy red car” now at the age of 6) helped I don’t know, or whether it was just that VTEC surge – you got a lovely kick in the back at high revs, similar to the Elise. I loved the power, and the comfort and colour of the interior with the red stitching and white dials was lovely.

However, she was a pig to park. The turning circle was pathetic, the steering incredibly heavy, and visibility was awful – where I was stopping overnight a few nights a week in Chester I had to parallel park her in tiny spaces with high curbs, and I made a right mess of the alloys. The constant noise of the exhaust gave me a headache on the regular 2 hour journey.

Overall though, I was still enjoying the Type-R at this point but I was missing the ‘feel of the wind in my hair’ (theoretically – I have no hair) that I got from a convertible. It was the summer of 2009 and I needed that sunshine back in my life…

'Holly' - the Honda Civic, and 'Maggy 2' - my 2nd MX-5
‘Holly’ – the Honda Civic, and ‘Maggy 2’ – my 2nd MX-5
'Maggy 2' - my second MX-5, with BBS alloys
‘Maggy 2’ – my second MX-5, with BBS alloys

I remembered how much I’d enjoyed my MX-5, but I still needed a sensible family car. I checked and realised I could get an MX-5 for around £1500 but wasn’t sure how I’d be able to insure both… however, my friend Stan at work has a car obsession worse than me and owns multiple cars, and he was able to recommend a few insurance companies that specialised in multi-car insurance (before it was a common thing). Next thing you know, I’d bought ‘Maggy 2‘ – another Eunos Roadster AKA Jap Import Mazda MX-5 in black with BBS alloys – great. This was a 1.8 as opposed to my previous 1.6 but they are slightly heavier and less torquey; I couldn’t really tell the difference to be honest – I just loved its nippy smallness and having the roof down gave me an enormous sense of freedom. You couldn’t help but smile driving this car.

I’d had enough of the Type-R by January 2011 – 18 months ownership not being a bad effort though with the cars I’d owned recently! I’d also wanted a Porsche Boxster for many years (had test drove a few before buying the Elise) and realised that they’d come down significantly in price over the years. I didn’t really want to get rid of the MX-5, but having two 2-seater cars wasn’t practical. However, I’d managed to get a very good ‘cherished’ car insurance on the MX-5 and checking around the insurance realised I could get a third cheap ‘practical’ car, at least in the short term…

So I could have 3 cars! A Porsche Boxster, an MX-5, and a cheap hatchback – why not?!?

'Cecilia' - the Toyota Celica
‘Cecilia’ – the Toyota Celica

I test drove both a 2001 Toyota Celica 1.8 VVTI (140bhp) and a 2003 Hyundai Coupe 2.0 (S3 – I’d owned an S1 before). I much prefered the former, and purchased one for £2000. Ok, it’s a small coupe, rather than a more practical hatchback, but it had a decent hatchback style boot anyway, and back seats, so met my needs! It felt a bit ‘basic’ in some ways but was very chuckable and enjoyable to drive; had a happy pull to it and a great character.

I managed to get £6000 in a private sale of the Type-R and then found a year 2000 2.5l Silver Boxster in London that I liked the look of for the same price, and went down on the train and purchased it and drove back in her (Polly).

'Polly', my Porsche Boxster 2.5
‘Polly’, my Porsche Boxster 2.5

I was disappointed. I’d drove both the 3.2 and 2.5’s before and had enjoyed both, but it had been a newer 2.5, and I think this one was just a little old/worn out – it just didn’t feel very quick at all. It was also rather dull inside with grey leather seats that were surprisingly uncomfortable. It felt significantly slower than the Type-R. Technically, it was slightly more powerful (204bhp vs 197bhp) although a tiny bit heavier; pretty much the same power per weight ratio – but the ‘flat’ power delivery (as opposed to the Type-R’s ‘snappy’ VTEC) and the ‘civilised’ ride just meant it was no fun!

Plus driving a Porsche means that everything thinks you’re a twat. Nobody would let me in at junctions. I lived in fear of my car being keyed.

Every time I stepped out of the Porsche I had a gloomy expression; I got in the MX-5 and started to grin like a village idiot – a quarter of the price, 2/3s of the power, but 10 times the fun factor.

3 months later, the Porsche was sold.

Busy driveway - the Celica, Porsche and MX-5
Busy driveway – the Celica, Porsche and MX-5

Next part of the story: The power years

The modern day office pain: Teleconferences

In the modern office environment, individuals have many ways of communicating with one another.

  • Face to face, 1-1.
  • Getting together for a meeting in a dedicated room or an informal chat in the canteen, whether it’s 3 of you or 30.
  • Email.
  • Instant messaging.
  • Telephone 1-1.
  • Fax.

Written letters and memos aren’t really used any more, but sometimes you might print some details or notes off and put it on your colleagues desk for them to read.

Or occasionally you may throw a paper plane at a colleague. Air mail!

In the last few years, the practice of teleconferencing (or videoconferencing) has become more and more popular.

The idea is that you dial a teleconferencing facilty number, enter a pin code for that meeting, and then everyone can talk to each other.

Great idea, eh?

No.

It doesn’t work.

There are numerous problems. For a start, if everyone is in the same office, then there’s no point using it – you may as well just all meet up somewhere. So it’s more for cross office use. That’s when things go wrong. It’s usually x amount of people from one office, and maybe one person or a small group from other office or company. The first group will normally sit in a meeting room huddled around a desk with a teleconference device in the middle of the room. The device has multiple microphones to pick up everyones voice.

And sniffles. And coughs. And grunts.

Not to mention the general background interference.

If just an individual is calling in from other office on a single telephone line, then they can be heard reasonably well over the teleconferencing devices speaker.

The caller won’t be able to hear the group of people in the meeting room very well though. Especially if they start debating things between themselves and they forget to lean forward into the device.

If two groups of people are using teleconferencing devices then it’s far worse. The background interference makes it very difficult to hear, even with modern VOIP technology.

Get more than two groups together – and it’s hopeless.

Then there’s the lack of eye contact.

In a normal face to face meeting, you make eye contact, or pick up on other visual clues, that someone is about to finish talking, or someone else is about to respond.

The conversation flows nicely.

Email and IM (instant messaging) have their own rules too; questions are asked and responses recieved, information flows.

Teleconferences, unless well managed by a chairman, are a mess.

Without visual contact, it’s hard to tell when someone is about to finish speaking, or someone is about to respond. People usually end up interupting each other. Often someone will start talking, not realising that the previous speaker hasn’t finished or that someone else has started talking, the poor sound quality often not helping. Then follows a muddle of apologies and ‘oh, sorry, no, you talk‘ and ‘no, you talk‘ – resulting in a stall – without visual contact, the usual conversational cues are gone.

Videoconferencing may solve some of these visual issues but in practice is rarely used; many individuals may be travelling, working from home or in some other way are without video conferencing facilities.

There are further problems.

There’s the speakers that forget to turn off the mute and everyone listens to their silence.

And the ones that speak in a weary monotone and send you to sleep.

There’s the one who shouts down the phone deafeningly, or the quiet mumbling girl you can’t quite hear.

Or the guy calling in from the busy train station, and all you can really hear is that the 3.29 from Colchester has arrived.

And how do you know who’s talking? In larger organisations you often haven’t met the speaker, let alone know what his voice sounds like. In well organised conference calls, the speaker, or chairman, will announce who is who but this only tends to be in the first few minutes; after a while it becomes quite unclear who is speaking, and to whom, especially if individual speakers are from a similar region and don’t have distinguishable accents.

On the subject of accents lies yet another problem. I’ve endured many tiresome conference calls listening to delegates from various parts of the UK struggling to interpret their different accents over the airwaves, mingled with participants from India, Spain, Malaysia and Hungary.
Many of those international individuals speak excellent English.

Many don’t.

And even those that do tend to have strong accents. Face to face, you can often understand.

Over a telephone?

Not so much.

Technical conference calls in particular make no sense. When you’re talking about technical terms, parameter values, table or program names, you need very precise information. Surely a written exchange of information would be more appropriate – anyone heard of email?

Teleconferences also tend to descend into arguments. If the topic is somewhat debated, and there are defensive arguments, things can be misheard, and the regular interruptions due to the lack of usual conversational cues lead to irritation. Most teleconferences I’ve been on with more than five or six people and multiple teams descend into shouting matches.

Then there’s the dozers. Those that only need to be in on the call to comment on one or two things, or if a particular subject arises. They wait patiently in the hour long call, with the droning of others on topics of no relevance or interest to them causing them to enter a sleepy doze. When they are finally called upon they have to snap out of their doze and there’s the inevitable delay whilst they ask for the question to be repeated and then awkwardly ask leading questions to try and obtain the important information they missed over the last 10 minutes.

That’s the other issue with teleconferences – the attendees. Quite often it seems that every man and his dog has been invited.

On a large project, there may be two or three separate companies involved, with several different teams each. Teleconferences often have more than twenty attendees or more, with half of them not really required. I have sat in several two hour long conference calls where 95% of the call has been completely irrelevant and meaningless to me, with me called on to answer only one related technical question.

Which could have been emailed to me after the conference call, or, more often than not, even beforehand.

What a waste of time and resource.

I thought these meetings were supposed to save time?

I can quite understand the benefits of a large group of people from multiple locations meeting over the airwaves rather than in person.

The logistics, travel, fuel and potentially accommodation costs of getting together multinational attendees can be huge.

The question that needs to be asked though, and never seems to be these days is: do we really need to get all these people on one call together for 2 hours?

Could we just get the project manager and the three head technical guys from each team on a call together perhaps for 10 minutes to establish what is really required, and then set up another call instead, or perhaps the technical information can be established via a quick email to the relevant parties?

There seems to be a habit these days of having long teleconference calls with someone from every team involved just for the sake of it.

These often seem to be organised by so called Project Managers and hilariously titled Service Delivery Managers (okay, I won’t pick on every PM and SDM but some of them – really? What do they actually DO?) who often don’t understand a technical project from even a basic technical level – so don’t actually know who to invite. So I can’t blame them, but I think that they should consider contacting just a handful of individuals first to establish what actually is required and who needs to be involved, rather than lazily inviting everyone.

Another even more annoying use of teleconferences is to manage a crisis.

In the wonderful world of IT, things break. Most problems occur because someone changed something, somewhere, without telling someone.

Management’s approach is to get everyone together immediately on a call so that the relevant teams are involved and can engage collaboratively.

It doesn’t work like that.

If there’s an urgent IT problem, the relevant teams need to spend their time looking at the problem urgently. Those teams know if they are the relevant team for that particular problem – it’s their job to do so.

They don’t need to waste their time dialing into a conference call with PMs, SDMs and other random management teams with nothing better to do asking them for updates and the ‘root cause’.

Let the technical teams get on with it. It it’s not clear which team the problem lies with, get the other teams to investigate too. If the issue lies somewhere between the two teams, they can communicate with each other – they don’t need the SDMs “help”, and they certainly don’t need a teleconference call. How can they spend their time technically investigating a problem if they are on a phone call? They need to concentrate on the issue at hand.

So, if you’re about to schedule a teleconference call – please, think about the alternative options first.

The farce of the conference call
The farce of the conference call

From HTC/Android to the Dark Side: Part 1

Yes – I’ve finally joined the ‘wonderful’ world of Apple.

I’ve been using HTC phones for years, before it was commonly known they were even made by the then small HTC – they were simply
branded by Orange as the SPV – Sounds, Pictures, Video – one of the first ‘Smartphones’.

This was before Android was even an itch in Google’s underwear, and HTC devices were running Windows Mobile. It was a slow, flaky
& unreliable operating system, and the phone would frequently crash – but I loved it. The technology and functionality was way
beyond what was currently offered by anyone else – remember early Nokias?

The ability to simply copy files from your PC to your phone, such as text documents, spreadsheets, music and even (initially,
short) videos, was revolutionary, and I fell in love with the brand.

4 or 5 years and 3 SPVs later I was getting a bit sick of the sub-standard operating system provided by our friends at Microsoft.
Fortunately for me, Android came along.

The Android OS gave me more flexibility and reliabilty. I could play entire movies on the high quality screen – great for holidays & travelling or even in waiting rooms. I copied episodes of the series ‘24‘ and ‘Alias‘ onto my phone and would watch them at lunch time at the gym on the running machine!

The first iPhone came out but I believed it to be over priced and over hyped; I didn’t like the restrictions that ‘Mother Apple’ placed on you – I prefered the openness and freedom an Android phone gave you. I considered other Android phones made by manufacturers such as Samsung, but always prefered the looks, price, and features of what seemed to be superior HTC models.

My last HTC phone, the One S, was a slim, impressive device. But only a year into my two year contract I started to get frustrated. The battery life was poor. If I spent more than 30 mins watching films/playing games/surfing the web then the battery would die before bed time. The lack of expandable memory on this device and my desire to load it with music and entertainment meant it had soon expired, and I was in a constant battle to keep space clear.

Then there was the reliability. It started getting slow, and regularly crashing.

At this point I would be grumbling and my girlfriend would helpfully interject with a sweet comment such as “on my iPhone, that
doesn’t happen” or “oh, on the iPhone you can do suchandsuch instead, isn’t that better?“.

Around this point I was having some problems with my laptop too. Ok, I was always having problems with my laptop – it’s running a
Microsoft operating system, hello! – but the damn thing was grinding to a halt and having problems recognising USB devices, including the mouse. After a memory upgrade and a repair of Windows it was better, but still running slowly.

Enter the ever helpful girlfriend.

Look how many tabs I’ve got open“, showing me the 40+ tabs she has open on her (relatively old) iMac. I had 15 and it was running at a snails pace.

Look what soandso piece of software can do” – etc.

Then there’s my brother, friends, family, colleagues, all talking about how wonderful their iPad/iPhone/iMac is – especially about how nicely they all interact together.

I started seriously considering getting an iMac. I’ve always stuck by the idiom ‘why make life hard for yourself’ – and my Windows laptop was making life hard for me.

But they’re not cheap, and it’s a big jump, changing all the software I’m used to etc etc.

Then came the ideal opportunity to test the waters of the dark side… my phone contract was finally coming up for renewal.

I ordered a shiny new iPhone5c in white. Having been frustrated by the lack of expandable storage space on my 16GB HTC, I was
disappointed that you couldn’t expand the iPhone’s either, and opted for a large 32GB model.

I’ve now been a member of ‘the Apple family’ for a couple of weeks.

Have I turned towards the dark side??

Find out in my next post as I compare the iPhone5c to my HTC One S.