20 February - Déjà vu : Illegal Council spy cameras again
Very
long term readers may remember when NoToMob members were
frequent visitors to Bexley.
NoToMob is a group of parking experts who had discovered that Bexley did not have the necessary
certifications for its CCTV spy cars and there are dozens of references on
Bonkers to their activities within the borough.
Needless to say Bexley Council lied their socks off but eventually did get their cars licenced correctly so
that they could legitimately issue fines.
I am rather late to this particular party but it would appear that the same
applies to bus lane cameras in London and everyone who has appealed to the
Adjudicator has had their bus lane fine overturned. A 100% success rate because the
cameras are illegal.
There is a debate on their website
as to whether NoToMob should go public on the issue or continue to quietly appeal individual cases. The former would probably see
Councils scrambling to close the legal loophole to the detriment of even more drivers.
If one went down the Appeal route it would be necessary to gather all the
relevant legal issues from the forum discussion. Several Councils admit to not
enforcing bus lane cameras. Have Bexley even got any?
Probably I should create an Index to the innumerable NoToMob blogs
but where does one find the time? My three days of absence from BiB was caused
by modern technology. Friday and Sunday playing with it, Saturday buying more! I enjoy
it but the friend I was helping did not have much of a clue about what I was doing.
When my Dad bought a TV in 1950 or 1951, I forget which, you just plugged it in,
waited for it to warm up and Muffin the Mule flickered into life. It was
pre-tuned to Alexandra Palace and needed nothing
other than an aerial and a power socket.
When he updated it in 1960 it was much the same except that it had a
rotary switch which had to be set to either Channel 1 (BBC) or Channel 9 (ITV). Now we have Smart TVs.
Stick it on the wall, connect it to the internet and accept the Terms and Conditions. Autotune Freeview, Freesat
and generic satellite. The latter takes ages and finds about 1,000 channels,
Set up BBCi Player and ITVX both requiring registration and acknowledgment of an
email which was never received by gmail. Set up a dedicated email address on my
own server and try again. Then type the address and password into the TV using
an onscreen keyboard and the TV remote. Several mistakes later it all works.
Same for YouTube and Netflix which were both trouble free.
Prime Video required a phone call so didn’t bother.
Install another Ethernet link to accommodate the new TV, the old one was too
old to need the internet and the wi-fi is slightly dodgy.
Install USB hard drive to act as a recorder. Didn’t work, serves me right for
buying a Chinese USB3 device for under £40 instead of a Western Digital unit for
£59. Probably that is made in China too but at least it has a proper USB3
connector instead of something you might find on a phone.
Successfully paired Bluetooth devices after replacing their flat batteries but
the hearing loop for a deaf member of the household was more of a problem. The
TV has no analogue outputs and the hearing loop has never heard of digital, hence
the Saturday off hunting down an adapter.
Replace all HDMI cables because they were Version 1 and the latest is version
2.1. Check, using my own UHD Blu-ray player, that the
system will pass 4k signals rather than only basic HD. All OK.
I think it is all done now but the owner is old enough to be aware of John
Logie-Baird’s madcap experiments. (Revolving mirrors
no less!) How are such people supposed to cope with modern life? However Santander
recognised the problem and tried to keep him on the straight and narrow. They declined his Debit Card even
though there was enough money in his current account to buy 30 televisions. When
he got home and phoned them they were unapologetic. I think they may have learned a few new rude words.
Santander. UK’s worst bank.