Foreign Perspectives

If you’re a young driver then insurance companies are basically going to assume that you’re a bad driver simply because of the statistics.

However, clearly not all young drivers are bad drivers. But if you’re one of the good ones, your problem up to now has been proving it. That’s where technology has finally come in for young drivers car insurance in the form of what’s essentially a consumer version of the device installed in trucks to keep track of the driving habits of the professional drivers.

What this does is to record your driving so it’ll keep track of the length of your journies, your speed, how fast you accelerate and brake, etc. From this the insurance company doesn’t need to assume anything about your driving as they can see exactly how you drive which, hopefully, will lead to lower insurance rates for those young drivers who are good drivers.

We’re not quite fully back into the swing of the school run yet as we have yet to adjust to the different route to the new school though we managed to get there on time today for a change.

The kids are fully into their new school uniform now with the bags properly full of the appropriate things for school rather than the accumulated junk that they had acquired over the course of the previous school year. James seems content enough which I suspect is mainly down to him knowing that he’d have to go to a new school anyway. John still isn’t too happy about the change so it’ll likely be another week or two before he adjusts.

It’s a little strange for me too with the kids going to my old school. Although it’s been 39 years since I was there it hasn’t changed a whole lot. They’ve updated the entrance and the desks aren’t the little school desks any more but the biggest practical changes are that they boys don’t wear short trousers now and there’s a roof on the toilets.

Parking-wise we can’t use the old parking space as my granny’s street was demolished 10 years ago and replaced with a totally different arrangement of housing which has messed up everyone as it’s no longer possible to swing down the street and there’s a bit of dodgy three point turns required every morning and afternoon these days.

In computing you’re constantly on a treadmill to keep up with the latest technologies.

That’s not so bad if your employer has been good enough to keep you on some kind of development programme but, of course, these days fewer employers are willing or able to afford to do that. Not only do they have the perennial problem that you might up sticks and move on right after an expensive training programme but there’s the added problem of financing it in these difficult economic times.

Usually these courses cost an absolute fortune so paying for them yourself isn’t an option. However, there are a number of more affordable versions of some of these around these days including fairly general ones like those on Java and Visual Basic through to rather more specific (and quickly dating) ones like Microsoft server technologies all for around £400 for a course running over nine months. Where you get into bigger bucks is in the networking courses with CISCO networking at £850 (albeit a rather larger course than the earlier ones) and Advanced routing at £1250.

Sadly the best all-rounder, a suite of six courses that make up the Certificate in Web Applications Development is just about to commence its final run. This was one of the experimental formats designed to be easily updated which seemingly wasn’t nearly so easy to update as anticipated (ie they probably lost a fortune on it). What’s interesting about this one is that whilst the later modules received a fair amount of criticism, the websites that the students produced are rather good.

With me changing tack towards biology/chemistry over the next few years I thought I’d see about getting up to speed with at least some of the upcoming courses by way of taking a related short course in advance.

It turns out there are quite a number of courses for which this can be done. So many in fact that I probably won’t be able to fit them all in over the time that’s available. Still, I’ll have a go when it is possible.

So, for the big S204 biology course there’s the S171 Empire of the microbes short course. Whilst it obviously doesn’t cover all the ground that the large course does, it should get me up to speed in some proper biology terminology.

Similarly, for the big S205 chemistry course and S377 there’s SK185 Molecules, medicines and drugs which is reawakening the memories of previous chemistry courses.

For the S366 evolution course a few years down the road there’s S193 Fossils and the history of life. Unfortunately that’s in its final presentation this November so I’m going to have to make a point of squeezing it in.

And so it goes on, with S173 Plants and people having a passing relationship with SXR375, the plants residential.

As well as introducing me to some terminology in advance of the corresponding main course this approach will add 10 points for each of the short courses which is 40 points just for the above and I’m sure more mini pre-courses will turn up over the next few years.

Dad’s sister-in-law died at the end of last week after quite a stay in a nursing home. Her kids have placed the usual type of announcement that you get for such things in the paper, of course:

STEWART, JEAN – August 26, 2010, peacefully, at hospital, dearly-loved mother of Muriel and Jean. Service on Tuesday 31st August 2010 at 2.00 p.m. in Kirkwoods Funeral Home, 150A Kings Road, Knock, Belfast, BT5 7EJ and afterwards to Roselawn Cemetery. Family flowers only please. Donations in lieu may be sent, if desired, for N.I. Chest, Heart and Stroke, c/o Kirkwoods Funeral Directors (address as above). Will be sadly missed by her daughters, sons-in-law Gerald and Colin, grandchildren Simon, Sarah, Jenny and John, great-grandchildren and brother George. The Lord is my Shepherd.

As in all such announcements, a full life is condensed down to just a few words of farewell and, as usual, this means that a great deal about the person is omitted.

For instance, in Jean’s case she was buried with her husband John who she spent decades and Allan, the brother of Muriel and Jean, who died when he was only six months old. Jean’s brother George lives in New Zealand and couldn’t come over to the funeral as he’s getting on a bit himself. Sadly, Jean never made it over to visit him in Auckland as John had a heart attack before he retired so they were never able to manage the months long trip that would have been needed in those days. Still, at least George was able to spend time over here with them several times over the years although perhaps not so much as they both would have liked over their 50 year separation since he emigrated. Jean was the eldest of the two being born on April 14, 1923.

She met John through her employment in a drapers shop on the Crumlin Road and they married in 1951. Between Muriel and Jean she now has four great-grandchildren Josh, Emma, Ben and Sophie as well as the grandchildren mentioned above.

Missing also is mention of the trip taken to Portrush every Easter Monday for decades along with the family above, my Dad and us, Dad’s sister Ena’s family, and their parents (four car loads at the height of it all in the 60s). And, of course, lots of other things besides, many of which I’ve forgotten and some of which were reviewed during the funeral service.

The church itself was a major part of her life and although much of her involvement with the church wasn’t known to me at the time, that she was a person who cared about her religion came across always. She was in the choir and taught in the Sunday school and was one of those relatively rare people who you just know are Christians without being told because of the things that they do and they way that they behave generally.

I can’t say that I’ll miss Jean because with John’s passing 15 years ago we weren’t as involved with her as we had been previously which is sad really. As always, there were so many people at her funeral who I should be seeing now and again but who I rarely see outside of funerals these days which is something that I’m working on changing.