What made your day a good one

It's not something that made my day a crap one, but something that irked me nevertheless ... and when I'm irked, I always try to look on the bright side. So, today, I personally funded an overworked and underfunded Government department - the DVLA.

I applied to renew my driving license and got to the payment part, popped in my details and paid. Then, the site crashed. End of ... I tried again and when I got to the bit where I put in my old license details, the website said that it could not lookup my details and to try again later. So, I guessed that it hadn't worked and there was a general fault with the web process. But, I'd paid! My bank pinged me a notification on my phone.

No web chat, the message on the phone basically says "go away" and so I sent an email to clarify whether my application was successful. The email replied: "Due to the volume of mail received here each day, it is not possible for us to confirm receipt of your application". Grrr!

I've just re-done the application, gingerly paid ... and it returned to the confirmation screen where I could (now) finished the process. But I've paid twice now, with absolutely no method of talking to anyone at the DVLA about it.

So, what made my day a good one? I got my pants pulled down and paid for the privilege. But at least it wasn't a speeding fine!
 
It's not something that made my day a crap one, but something that irked me nevertheless ... and when I'm irked, I always try to look on the bright side. So, today, I personally funded an overworked and underfunded Government department - the DVLA.

I applied to renew my driving license and got to the payment part, popped in my details and paid. Then, the site crashed. End of ... I tried again and when I got to the bit where I put in my old license details, the website said that it could not lookup my details and to try again later. So, I guessed that it hadn't worked and there was a general fault with the web process. But, I'd paid! My bank pinged me a notification on my phone.

No web chat, the message on the phone basically says "go away" and so I sent an email to clarify whether my application was successful. The email replied: "Due to the volume of mail received here each day, it is not possible for us to confirm receipt of your application". Grrr!

I've just re-done the application, gingerly paid ... and it returned to the confirmation screen where I could (now) finished the process. But I've paid twice now, with absolutely no method of talking to anyone at the DVLA about it.

So, what made my day a good one? I got my pants pulled down and paid for the privilege. But at least it wasn't a speeding fine!
It's a brave new world. The idea of everything electronic and at your fingertips is great, but the reality is disappointing.
 
It's a brave new world. The idea of everything electronic and at your fingertips is great, but the reality is disappointing.
I do have be honest here and say that if paying twice was the cost of not having to fill in a paper form, troop down to some shopping mall where there's a photo booth, buy photos, attach to form and post ... it was money well spent! Mrs renewed hers a couple of months ago and it went without a hitch, new license arrived within the week! What I am reading is, the DVLA (that's our DMV) is simply not even processing paper applications at the moment.

As a webflow process, taking payment before confirmation is open to problems. It might actually be that there are now two applications in the system but since I have no idea what the 9 digit length application number is, I can't track it. Nor can I talk to anyone about it. That niggles me ... and we're not even talking about a lot of money. It's £14 to renew, so £28 with a generous tip.

... but yes, these problems are never in our favour.
 
They can just mail it to you. Or just put it on your record and keep your pesos.

I didn't get a speeding ticket ... I'm a good boy!

The way they do it here is ... here's your fine, or you can pay half and apply for a re-education class. I have had such state-sanctioned re-education before and actually, it was very good! I went in with the mind that if I'm spending the money, I'm damn well not going to come away empty-handed.

On the subject of speeding, this tickled me (if not "made my day") yesterday: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-gets-parking-ticket-just-24-hours-apart.html
 
Well, off the back of the conversation with @CjH the other day I finally got round to having a go with the Miniog slate for my own first attempt at honing. Admittedly not today, it was Monday. Actually went fairly well. I first lapped the slate on a 400/1000 diamond plate. Likewise my 2000/5000 combi stone. Then killed the edge on my "J&Wm Ragg" (which seems to be brand new, hmmm, not a real vintage Ragg!)
Set the bevel on the 1000 diamond plate then took it through 2k, 5k and finished on the Miniog which is said to be between 8-10k. 25 laps on cotton canvas and 100 on bare bovine shoulder.

I don't much like that razor anyway, it's not a vintage Ragg and it's too small for my liking at 4/8. Too twitchy. This is why I used it to practice honing. To be fair, it shaves pretty much as well after I killed it, set the bevel and honed it as it did when I got it, which is a result in my book, although not as good as my other straights. I'm fairly pleased with my first go on the stones. I compared it with a Stiz also finished on the Miniog by a pro and my effort was not quite as good but not far behind, and neither were as good as my others, so it may be that the 'cooking' slate is not quite fine enough for finishing, I mean it shaves effectively but not that refined. There is a 'premium' Miniog that takes it to the next level. I still vaguely live in hope that I'll get my 12k Naniwa one day, but all in all I'll chalk it up as a success, or at least a good start.
 
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