My quest for a Northern Ireland driving license continues!

Dear Sir,

Following my letter dated 05/11/2012, I am happy to inform you that I have now received a Northern Ireland driving license (driver no xxxxxxx) from DVA.

Regrettably, upon examination, this license was found to be missing some of my driving entitlements.

I contacted DVA and they examined the D737 from DVLA and informed me that the categories were missing from the D737.

I contacted DVLA and they have confirmed that the D737 issued was in error and they have issued a corrected D737.

For your records, I have enclosed copies of

1) Correspondence to DVA,

2) New D737 entitlement for exchange purposes.

I am now awaiting a corrected license from DVA.

Thank you for your ongoing patience.

Some of the guys I work with just don’t understand why I don’t have a flat screen HDTV (actuallyI did for a while but that’s another story), Blue Ray, sky HD and all these other must have consumer items.

when you explain to someone who has no kids and maybe still lives with their parents that you don’t have time for these things they just don’t get it – but I’m old, and some say, tight.

I’m not the only one though -  a colleague of mine recently announced he was going to pick up a new washing machine.  I say new – he’d found it on gumtree.

So I asked

“Why would you sell your washing machine?”

…

“Maybe it was the wrong colour?”

“Maybe it was not fast enough?”

Came some of the replies.

And it worries me.

Because, I am a capitalist, I am part of “system” (who isn’t?) but my worry seems to be with consumerism.  It just seems strange to me to get rid of something that does your washing fine because its not aesthetically pleasing when there’s so  much else to put to rights – like maybe a relationship with another person.

But I don’t want to be outside my circle of influence spending too much time in my circle of concern here.

So let me try and influence you with a bit of advice from fight club – “things that you own end up owning you.”

When you spend a couple of hours a day on a bike then you get a lot of time to think – which is great.  I think too much and then rant to my friends, family and colleagues.

Yet I don’t tweet much and keep my blogs very factual and non-opinionated.

@exiledderryman says it’s because I’m English.  Maybe he’s right, but maybe it’s because I find twitter is outside my “circle of influence”.

What am I on about?

More...

I recently had a rant against anti-globalisation.  I’m not anti, anti-globalisation per-se but I object strongly when the “it’s exploiting people poorer” argument is used.

I’ve got an ‘O’- level in Economics – and here’s my story as to why trading, and globalisation can make us all better off.

There are two countries in the world.  Let’s call them Ireland and France.

Now everyone in France and Ireland needs wine and Guinness.

Each country has a population of 50 who need a pint of wine and a bottle of beer each.

Each country has 100 acres of land.

Now in France it takes 1 acre of land to grow a bottle of wine but, because their weather is so miserably warm and dry, they need two acres to grow a pint.

In Ireland they have such great amounts of rain that they can can grow pint of Guinness on an acre but need two acres for a bottle of wine.

In France they use 50 acres for wine and and 50 acres for Guinness giving them 50 bottles of wine and 25 pints of Guinness.

In Ireland they use 50 acres for wine and and 50 acres for Guinness giving them 25 bottles of wine and 50  pints of Guinness.

That’s just not to go round so they are generally not happy enough.

Then they start to trade.

France grows just wine (100 bottles) and swaps half its wine for Guinness.

Ireland grows just Guinness (100 pints) and swaps half of it for wine.

So guess what – everyone ends up with more wine and Guinness – a global success!