Tag: family
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Hertz doubled the cost of my car rental. Here’s their process design trick.
This year, during my family holiday, I discovered how Hertz – and many other car hire companies – have crafted a process involving dark patterns to trick stressed travellers into paying far more than necessary for their car hire. I’ve used Hertz several times over the years, particularly in the 2000s, so I expected good…
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Taller buildings let us design better towns
I lived in a range of places as a kid, partly because my father was a bit of an itinerant who didn’t know what he wanted in life, other than that I mustn’t live with my mother. Go figure. Eventually I got to settle down with my grandmother, but in the process I learned a…
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A little change on this website
In the past, this website was sort of my place to keep family and friends in touch. I first set it up in 2005, just before going away to Peru on travels. It was a great. Facebook had been invented but wasn’t generally available or popular yet, other platforms weren’t well thought through or scattered,…
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Are VW in trouble with their electric car strategy?
Could VW really be in trouble, if they’re cancelling a factory and pushing back a car launch? I don’t think so, but they’re not entirely in the clear…
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Steps and missteps on my path out of poverty
At 18 I was skint and got made homeless. It took a lot of graft, patience and mistakes to get out of that and into a moderate middle class lifestyle. Here’s how.
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I broke my heart in five places and got it fixed
A year ago, I was sitting, shorn of all body hair and waiting to go in for a five or six hour operation. I knew the next two weeks would be hell.
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Wealth, income, and why that bloke on Question Time with £80k was wrong (and right)
There’s a bloke who’s been on Question Time who makes £80k a year and claimed he’s not in the top 5%. Which clearly makes him a moron and a subject of derision, right? Sock it to the wealthy! They’re all bastards who need putting in their place! Well actually, he’s not. A lot of people…
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Staleys in the Isle of Man
One of the funny things about children and their memories is just how fallible they are. Full of false memories and forgotten realities. I lived, for a while, somewhere on the outskirts of Douglas on the Isle of Man, when I was about nine years old. The family I stayed in had a boy about…
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Finding a missing person in South America (and elsewhere)
I promised, ages ago, that I’d write up some tips on how to find somebody who’d gone missing in South America. Recently I had an email from somebody in the same situation which has spurred me into action. Since 1997 I’ve found or been found by my mother, my brothers and my sister. Here I’m…