I've had enough of all this George Best mania

It's like Princess Diana all over again. Total mania for a drunkard.

public void georgeBest(int booze) {
do {
System.out.println("George Best");
booze++
}
while (spareLiverDoners > booze);
}

FIFA play fair

FIFA have now 'fixed' their conditional ticketing site and added the missing 3rd option to pay by back transfer for non German residents. This is now in compliance with the EU finding against them back in April/May this year.

Here is the new text from the the form

You are responsible for paying all bank transfer fees. If your order was successful, you will receive an order confirmation, and the FWCTC will provide you with precise payment information.

The following methods of bank transfer will be available:
a.) Payment by EU standard bank transfer. You must have a bank account in one of the EU member states outside of Germany, in one of the countries which has established the Euro as the national currency, or in one of the EFTA countries - Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland. When you indicate the IBAN and BIC, you can generally process your application at the costs of a domestic bank transfer.
b.) Payment by foreign bank transfer (called a OUR bank transfer). You must have a bank account outside of the following countries: EU member states, countries which have established the Euro as a national currency; or EFTA countries - Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland. In this case, you must assume all bank transfer costs (the sending bank, recipient bank, and any clearing bank costs), and ensure that the amount received by us is the same as the amount we invoiced you, without deductions for any such costs.

I'm personally glad I can now apply, and while I've been able to try for tickets in Cologne and Berlin, all of the quarter and semi-final tickets have gone.

technorati tags: FIFA, EU, anti-trust, MasterCard, World Cup, tickets

A reply from FIFA

I got a stupid reply from FIFA today. Total garbage. See below:

-----OriginalMessage-----
From:noreply@mx.fwctc.com [mailto:noreply@mx.fwctc.com]
Sent:14 November 2005 18:11
To: />Subject:Your message concerning 2006 FIFA World Cup (TM) Ticketing -

+++ Please note that for your new request theintended form on www.fifaworldcup.com needs to be used. Your messageto noreply@mx.fwctc.com won’t be forwarded and/orreprocessed. +++

Dear Mr Matchett,
Thank you very much for your inquiry.
Since MasterCard is the Exclusive Card of the 2006FIFA World Cup Germany (TM),
no other payment card is accepted. Alternatively,you are able to pay by bank transfer, provided you agree to take over bankcharges, and you are not holder of a bank account in Germany. Information on how toapply for a MasterCard card is available either online atwww.mastercard.com/fifaworldcup or at your local bank.

We hope we could be of assistance to you.

Yours sincerely
Your 2006 FIFA World Cup (TM) Ticketing Center

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please note that neither the 2006 FIFA World Cup(TM) Ticketing Center nor the Organisation Committee Germany of the 2006 FIFA World CupGermany (TM) are liable for the correctness of the informationprovided in this email. The provided information is made in all conscience. However,incorrect information might occur by mistake. Authoritative are the Sales Regulationsfor the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany (TM), the Ticketing General Terms andConditions (GTC) for the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany (TM) as well as the DataProtection Rules that apply to the ordering of tickets for the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany, whichcan be seen at FIFAworldcup.com.

Oh don't you just love that stupid disclaimer. "We made up some right where we can lie to you and waste your time".

So here's my reply:

This is incorrect. On your site only MasterCard anddirect-debit FOR GERMAN ACCOUNTS ONLY exist. Even if international money transfer existed that would be illegal under EU law.

You have been found guilty already this year by the EUand you promised to open local bank accounts in each EU member state. This hasnot occurred.

I also do not accept your disclaimer about the correctness of this information. You have had 2 weeks to reply and it is total garbage.

Please escalate this.

There are few tickets left and I am losing my chance toapply. I am already dealing with Which, the consumer association that ran the campaign against you in April. I would prefer you don't encourage me to take this to the national press. I am sure that any hint of discrimination against English football fans would be very bad publicity for your organisation.

Zidane vs Amateurs at 5-a-side

Yes the difference is bigger than Chelsea's lead in the Premiership. Very good natured stuff though and quite funny too.
From CaughtOffside and Google Video.

technorati tags: football, 5-a-side, video, funny, zidane

My 2nd email to FIFA

This World Cup ticket thing is really bugging me and I'm stunned to not find anything else about it on the internet. I've posted on various forums and blogs and nothing. No comments. Not even someone calling my an idiot. You give the internet a chance to call you an idiot and it always takes that option. But not this time. I really don't know why and I still want my meager chance at snapping up a return ticket.

Click this to see a screenshot of the payment section of the site showing the meager and useless payment options.

So I've sent FIFA another email using their Contact Us option on the main site. I really have no idea how much good it will do

This is my 2nd notice to you as the first has gone unreplied for over a week.
Your discrimination against non German EU citizens by only offering Mastercard payment methods is illegal under EU law. You have already been warned by the EU and you persits in your offence.
I don't have a german bank account or a mastercard. German residents have the option of paying by direct debit but nobody else does.
Should I not get a response within one more week I shall take this matter further - to court if neccessary.

Will I really take it to court? I dunno. I probably shouldn't have put that in there but unless I get some explanation or understanding of how this can happen I will take it further.

Further update: According to eubusiness.com from May:

Under the new arrangements, FIFA and the German Football Association (DFB) will open bank accounts in the 16 non-Eurozone countries within the EEA and will accept payments in the local currency.

Well that ain't happening.

technorati tags: FIFA, World Cup, Mastercard, consumer, EU, anti-trust

Panexa

MERD | Panexa (Acidachrome Promanganate)
For patients with coronary heart condition (CHC) or two separate feet (2SF), the dosage of PANEXA should be doubled to ensure that twice the number of pills are being consumed.

technorati tags: humour, spoof, panexa

Cool Lion Photo

009_32
Originally uploaded by deanforbes.

This was taken by a new collegue at work. Apparently this lioness has just eaten so much that she has to lie on her back in the sun to sleep it off.

technorati tags: lion, wildlife, photo, flickr

Trying to pay for FIFA World Cup conditional tickets

Like possibly thousands of other people; I'm trying to order conditional tickets from the FIFA World Cup website. But find myself unable to pay! I'm not German and don't have a Mastercard!

Back in May FIFA fell foul of EU law when customers living outside of Germany were forced to pay expensive bank charges to pay for their tickets using international money transfer. FIFA got a rap on the knuckles and refunded the bank charges to any successful ticket applicants.

Now in the next phase we can apply for return tickets. Like before you have to provide your passport number and payment details up-front. But this time the money transfer option is missing. The only options are Mastercard, and direct-debit for German accounts only. Pretty shoddy really.

The conditional tickets only became available in the last few days and Google hasn't pulled up any outrage since the initial debacle. So I post this here in the hope that other people will share their experiences and FIFA get their knuckles rapped again. And give me a couple of tickets.Int he meantime I've sent an email to FIFA but I don't expect a reply anytime soon.

This never would have happened if they held the World Cup in England...

technorati tags: FIFA, World Cup, Mastercard, consumer, EU, anti-trust

Photos from my Dad's Retirement party

Dad's Retirement and 65th Birthday

A bit late as this was back in July.

Technorati Tags: photo, retirement, party, birthday

Tabloid of The Beast

Technorati Tag: the sun

Well I think we all suspected that. Although by the time this post makes it onto Technorati this will already be out of date so I grabbed a quick snapshot.

I showed it to a colleague and he asked me if the number 666 was based on fact or fiction. This guy follows Islam and I don't follow anything so after a second of silence we both agreed on the answer. ;-)

Technorati Tags: the sun, technorati, tags, media, religion, bible, revelations, 666

More on Ross Kemp

Some more thoughts on my last post. I fully appreciate that it wouldn't be so funny if it had been anyone else than TV 'Tough Guy' Ross 'Grant Mitchell' Kemp. But the thing the media is focussing on right now is his assailant, Rebekah Wade, editor of the ghastly, yet might, The Sun tabloid. Tomorrows front pages are all about this incident. The exception being The Sun who have decided to focus on a very similar event involving Steve 'Phil Mitchel' McFadden.

Ultimately I wonder if Ms. Wade will re-evaluate her career in chasing down z-list celebrities over non-incidents chased by paparazzi while the very same rabid hordes surround her house. Probably not.

Technorati Tags: ross kemp, Rebekah Wade, the sun, media, news

Hardest man in soap had his wife arrested for beating him up.

This has just come up on BBC news. "Sun newspaper editor Rebekah Wade has been released without charge following her arrest for allegedly assaulting her EastEnders actor husband Ross Kemp."

Possibly the funniest story in the UK for 2005. I expect I Am Ross Kemp will be updated to reflect this shortly.

Technorati Tags: news, funny, ross kemp

Choosing which blog engine to use

According to everyone on ::4rthur:: WordPress kicks arse, although most people tend to use the software running off their own server. I want to use it with Flock so I have to decide how badly I want to tweak the appearance of this site.
The alternative is Blogger
However it turns out that I can use Flock to edit posts as well. So this could be hello!

Technorati Tags: blog

My favourites online and tagged

del.icio.us/RichChestmat

Gosh what a spiffing laugh