Yet another company that insists on hiding their contact telephone number unless you're logged in. Coupled with a contact form that errors when you submit it and live chat that won't load, log in problems become difficult to resolve...

Links: cheap oakley sale.

The 24/7 phone support number for Poker Room ( pokerroom.com ) is 0207 026 4217

Show the Irish some love and thank them for voting against the Lisbon Treaty. Perhaps now our Government and other EU leaders will start listening to the people.

Thank You Ireland

As the UK house price crash is now in full swing, you can track the full extent of the falls in asking prices on rightmove.co.uk, daft.ie, propertynews.com and sspc.co.uk. You'll need two things installed on your PC:

1) Mozilla's Firefox web browser. It's a free download and can be run along side Internet Explorer, although personally I'd recommend using it all the time.

2) The Property-Bee toolbar. Property-Bee keeps track of the asking price and description of the properties you view so you can see how long they've been on for and the price history. Even better, the data is shared, so if a Property-Bee user has already viewed a property on the site you will see the price it was then.

In the areas I'm tracking I'm already seeing falls in asking prices of 15%+, although I have a feeling that's only the start of it.

I received an email tonight with details of a new book about Humphrey Lyttelton, presumably because of the ISIHAC quotes I have on this site. The book, Plenty of Lip, is purported to be published in December 2008 by Elius Books, and will (I quote), 'be made up of contributors who admired him and tell stories and anecdotes about his work as a trumpeter and broadcaster.'

The person behind this book, Donald Knox-Richards, published a book shortly after John Thaw's death based on the same idea, except he forgot to tell the contributors he was bankrupt and wouldn't be able to pay them. He was subsequently sentenced to 15 months in prison for fraud. He also solicited contributions for a book about John Peel shortly after his death (are you noticing a pattern here?), but it's not clear whether it was ever published.

If you're looking for a book about Humphrey Lyttelton, do yourself a favour and read his memoirs instead of an attempt to cash in on his death; if you're approached about contributing to the book then bear in mind Knox-Richards' previous.

Further information:
BBC Website reports his fraud conviction
Knox-Richards' request for John Peel contributors (4th comment)
John Thaw site (scroll halfway down the page)
A request for Humphrey Lyttelton contributors

After the last couple of weeks, I couldn't resist. That's another fine mess...

Bad news if you're a Vodafone shareholder, they've decided they already make enough profit and don't want to take any extra money from customers. Well, it least that's my experience.

I've finally upgraded to a 3G handset - a Nokia E51 since you ask - so rang up Vodafone to add a data package to my account. £7.50/month gets me 120MB, with the first month free. Within a few days it was obvious that 120MB doesn't go very far when you're using mobile apps and emails with attachments, so I looked on their website to see what else was available. £15/month for 3GB, that's more like it, so I rang them up:

V: Sorry, that can't be added to a phone contract, it is only available with a USB modem and as a seperate contract.
Me: But I don't need a USB modem, my phone is perfectly able to act as a modem.
V: A USB modem will be quicker than your phone.
Me: No it won't. (I checked afterwards, it won't.)
V: You won't need more than 120MB on your phone.
Me: I've been using it for 6 days and I've used 80MB, I'm guessing I probably will.
V: A USB modem would be better. Why wouldn't you use a laptop?
Me: Because I don't have a laptop with me all the time.

-- we went round in circles like this for a bit --

Me: Look, I want to give Vodafone an extra £90 a year, but it seems you don't want it.
V: We haven't got a tariff that lets us add the mobile data to a phone contract.
Me: [gives up]

So there we go, they're happy to turn down £90 a year from an existing customer because their system can't handle it. If I'm going to be forced down the route of taking out a seperate 3G contract, I'm as likely to go with another provider as I am Vodafone. If I'm not able to add the 3GB to my phone contract when it comes up for renewal in July I'll be moving to T-Mobile, who offer exactly what I'm after - a reasonable data allowance that I can use as I need it.