Day: June 9, 2004

As mentioned a couple of week’s ago, I’ve been able to acquire a gmail account for myself, and have been using the service for a couple of weeks. It’s pretty good, mainly because you get a GB of email storage and all, and also because (unlike hotmail) the best account names aren’t all taken… yet (because it’s not available to the general public).

Anyway, I’ve just been given two gmail invites. I could sell/swap em here, but I won’t. I’m offering them to you lucky people instead.

So, anyone want a gmail account? Leave a comment explaining why you deserve it and I’ll invite you into the special geek club.

EDIT: apparently it’s not that special anymore–gmail just quadrupled in size, everyone got invites and word has already got to ebay where the invites for sale are rapidly dropping in value. Still, the offer stands if anyone apart from Pete (see comments) wants the other invite. I actually got three, but I’m keeping one for the missus…

EDIT(2): I got given even more invites, and after giving a few away I still have one left, if anyone wants it.

Apologies for the public service announcement-esque nature of this post, but I’d just like to urge you all (if you’re in the UK or Europe) to go out and put a couple of small crosses on a piece of paper between 7am and 10pm tomorrow. It’s not much to ask, is it?

If ever there was a case for arguing against the tired assertions that voting doesn’t make a difference, or that politicans are all the same, it would be this week’s elections. In London, we’re voting for a new Mayor, local councils, and the European elections, and judging by the voting information booklet that dropped through my door the other day, there’s some scary f*ckers out there, and I don’t just mean Steven Norris–look at how many candidates the BNP are fielding and then tell me that all politicians are the same. Even worse, because the European elections, and the elections for the London Assembly, use proportional represention (to a greater or lesser extent), there is a very real chance that some of these people might win seats.

So do me a favour and go out and vote. Cheers.

Oh, and if anyone can explain to me how you “turn out” for a postal vote, I’d be very grateful…

(normal service will be resumed shortly)

As if, at this stage, you could have expected anything any different, following the complete mess that Glastonbury Festivals Limited, Aloud, and the Wayahead box office (See tickets) managed to make of selling tickets to this year’s Glastonbury festival, dealing with the aftermath of their inadequate ticketing system, and making coherent, sensible announcements to the ticket buying public, it now looks rather like they have managed to completely stuff up the whole ticket ID system as well.

I received my tickets this morning, and found them accompanied by the following letter:

Ticket holders will require one of the following forms of official identification, which should match your name on the ticket. This will be checked at the wrist band exchange.

– Original Bank Statement
– Bank Debit Card
– Original Photo Driving Licence

Ignoring for a second the unfortunately ambiguous use of “should”, when I presume they actually mean “must” (it should match the name on the ticket, but if it doesn’t oh well, never mind, you can come in anyway…), there has been something of a breakdown in communication between GFL and Seetickets, at least according to this post (and the many, many other posts from both confused punters and supposedly informed message board moderators). What they meant to say was that the bank statement/debit card should be the one used to purchase the tickets, not the one of the person named on the ticket. (“It is the bank statement of the ticket purchaser even if that is different from the person carrying the ticket.”)

GFL seem rather surprised that some people might have interpreted “match your name on the ticket” as meaning that the named ticket holder should bring his or her bank statement.

And quite apart from anything, this system is ludicrously easy to circumvent. So what was the point, exactly?