With 26 pages of advice on diet and providing somewhere suitable to go to the toilet, you could be forgiven that the Department for Stating the Blindingly Obvious (DeSBO) were also involved.

In all seriousness though, it is a shocking state of affairs when people need to be told about the responsibilities of looking after a pet. But while we are accusing the government of setting up a ‘Nanny State’, the 137,245 cases of animal cruelty recorded by the RSPCA in 2007 show that some people really do need to be told how to look after an animal.

We should really ask why DEFRA are getting in on this, as the code of practice will not hold any real weight, and owners could not be fined for not following the guidelines. DEFRA are really only pointing out pet owner’s responsibilities under the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Having been a dog owner for over 3 years, I was not even aware of such an act. However, surely promoting awareness of this act is the responsibility of organisations such as the RSPCA and the Police, not the UK Government.

I am an existing, very happy iPhone customer, having bought one on the afternoon the original was launched last November. It is truly a fantastic device (calling it a ‘phone’ does not really do justice to it, but it is not really a ‘smartphone’ either – despite being branded as one). When the 3G model was announced, I put my name down for further information, but was not too impressed with the features – I was waiting to see what O2 would offer existing customers.

The truth is that all existing customers of O2 get is the ability to end their 18 month tie-in to start a new 18-month contract. The cost of the phone is the same for new and upgrading customers.

Based on this, I decided it was not worth upgrading. I was perfectly happy with my iPhone, and while 3G is nice, I’m happy to wait for the few websites I do visit on the phone to download over EDGE. 16 gigabytes of storage would be nice, but I’m reasonably frugal with what I put on my iPhone anyway – I’ve yet to fill it even with 341 songs, 831 photos and 18 videos (two of the videos being over 30 mins long).

Where Apple and O2 have really messed up is that once again they have underestimated demand. O2 stores have been given a small amount of the stock, and their online store is still not selling them after it crashed following the first hour of sales. Existing customers can only upgrade through O2, while Apple stores have the greater amount of stock.

The problem is that as you can only upgrade through O2 stores, you are forced down the route with the lower availability. This leads to O2 having to serve both new and existing customers. Once the stock is gone for new customers, then customers are redirected to the Apple shop.

This leads to the second biggest problem: the apple shop does not have the capacity to handle the amount of new customers with the in-store activation policy.

I visited there last night in order to make an enquiry about purchasing a new iMac, and all the advisors were busy activating iPhones and couldn’t help me. From a business perspective, what is more important to Apple – a £89 sale, or a £1,200 sale?

I appreciate that Apple and O2 want to cut down on the black market for iPhones, but I’m sure their advisors and managers would rather be spending their time serving customers as opposed to waiting for the O2 website to perform credit checks.

The original iPhone launch was incredibly smooth, mainly due to the fact that customers simply purchased their phone and activated at home. Granted, there were some people who encountered a problem activating on launch night, but the majority of customers were able to activate on the night, and within a couple of days those who couldn’t activate were sorted.

Unfortunately for Apple and O2, those people who were able to order a 3G iPhone on the internet have already put them up for sale on eBay, with prices currently around the £400 mark. While the in-store activation policy might have ensured more customers get tied into their contracts, those who always intended to put the phones on eBay have already done it, so has the in-store activation worked? ‘Honest’ customers (those who are activating in-store) were always intending to activate their phones, those who didn’t want to activate are still buying on the black market, and those Apple customers who have no real interest in buying the iPhone are being neglected in store.

Apple stores should go back to the core of the business, being computer and entertainment stores, and leave the mobile phone contract activations to the mobile phone stores.

Now Madonna has jumped on the bandwagon. Are we supposed to celebrate her compassion by taking one child out of his environment and bringing him into her world, which is frankly so far removed from ours that she believed that Swept Away was a great script.

I’m not denying that she is doing it out of compassion for the child. Having visited a school in the Dominican Republic and meeting some of the children there, you get a real sense of how lucky you are. However, if Madonna really cared, she would take the money she would spend bringing up the child and donate it to the orphanage. She could use the money to improve the living conditions there, or even set up a school, or training college herself to help these children get a better life.

If she were a real philanthropist, she could cement her legacy in history by helping the wider community, as opposed to selfishly taking a single child out of a world where wealth is measured in grain, and into one where wealth is measured by how many magazines you can sell.

And what of the child?

Granted, he will get a life that many of us dream of – never having to struggle, driving lessons in a Ferrari, one-on-one tuition with the best music teachers money can buy… But what happens when he grows old enough to understand where he came from?

Will he look down on his former countrymen, thankful that he didn’t have to grow up in that hardship? Will he be proud of his heritage, or feel a traitor to his roots? Will he ever go back to the country of his birth?

Only time will tell, and his upbringing will have a lot to do with his attitudes.

I really hope for everyones sake that Madonna is adopting for the right reasons, but why Africa? I am sure that there are just as many Orphans in America or the UK (where she lives) that would benefit just as well from her charity.

Geldof looked to help Africa for the greater good of the country, he did not look to help individuals, and that is what makes him a greater person.

In the book, Wonko builds the Asylum: an inside-out house where the brick is on the ‘inside’ and the wallpaper on the ‘outside’. He explains that the world has finally gone totally mad, so he has built the Asylum to put it in until it got better.

I have just attempted to buy a new mobile phone from the Orange shop. I was told that I needed to bring two forms of identification, for example a bill and a credit card. Thinking that it would make life easier, I picked up my Orange mobile phone bill from my existing phone. it has my account number, my phone number and my address on it.

Apparently, they don’t accept their own phone bill as proof of identity.

Apparenlty this is because I could print one off myself.

Apparently I could bring in any other bill, even though I can print that off for myself as well.

This is preposterous, as they would not be able to do any background check based on that bill because of the Data Protection Act. However, given my Orange bill, they have all my information, and I would be happy to answer any questions based on that account to them in order to prove who I am.

They did ask if I had my driving licence on me.

Of course I don’t! It’s not a legal requirement to carry your driving licence, and I don’t carry it because I don’t want to lose it.

Looking through my wallet, I was seeing how many ways I could prove my identity. I currently have:

• Debit Card
• Tesco Clubcard
• Sainsbury’s Nectar Card
• WHSmith Clubcard
• Boots Advantage Card
• Blood Donor Card
• Library Card
• RAC Membership Card
• Gym Membership Card
• Blockbuster Video Card
• Game Reward Card
• National Insurance Numbercard

Despite an alarming number of ‘loyalty’ cards, there is precious little that prove my identity – they all have my name on them, and to each individual company, I could prove who I was to them by answering a few questions.

I’m dead against the introduction of identity cards, but I wonder how much the government is paying Orange to make it increasingly awkward to prove your identity so that when they force Identity cards upon us it will seem like the solution to the problem.

However, it is still daft that a company like Orange will happily accept a bill from another company, but not one of their own as proof of my address.

Just a note to anyone trying to spam this blog:

It’s powered by wordpress, meaning that I have to approve each comment before it’s seen. therefore I am unlikely to approve any comment offering viagra, porn, or anything else!

(I know that most spammers don’t actually read this blog and the comments are added by a spider, but I’m just getting a bit fed up of these spammers…)

My car is in for some service work, so I was forced to look to public transport to get home. After agreeing with my boss that I could leave early to try and catch the 4:55 train, I set off for the station. Full of enthusiasm for the adventure that lay ahead. I arrived at the station at 4:53 and purchased my ticket. Arriving at the platform, there was a reasonably-sized crowd, that gave me hope that I had not missed the 4:55. However, 5pm came and went, and I was relaxed, safe in the knowledge that I may have missed the 4:55 train, but there was another at 5:15. Time passes, more people arrive.

There is no announcement on the tannoy, and the computer screens showing train status are not working. by 5:30, there must be at least 100 people on the platform. Still no announcements. I hold my ground, knowing that the moment I leave the platform, a train will arrive.

5:45, and many passengers are starting to get agitated (myself included). So I bite the bullet and head back down to the booking office. “Temporarily Closed”. Again, the screens are blank. I return to the platform, still no news. I then decide to see if I can find any information on my WAP phone. Nothing. The Rail information website is entirely graphical driven, and unsuitable for a mobile device (probably unsuitable for blind/disabled viewers, but that’s another story).

6:15 and there is finally a tannoy announcement that there are no trains. Heading back down to the ticket office, hoping for more information, there is a member of staff there, but he is chatting on his mobile phone. He then leaves the building to talk to some taxi drivers. The crowd follow like sheep, hoping for some information, but still nothing.

Resolving to take the bus, I phone the information line and ask about the ticket that I bought, under the pretence of there being a train available (after all, there was no notification otherwise…) I was told that it is not policy to issue refunds for single tickets.

I then had to take a 45 minute bus journey to Birmingham, followed by a train to Wolverhampton. 3 hours after leaving work, I finally arrived home.

With public transport this reliable, how can we even consider ditching the cars?

It was with great dismay that I read in this article that you are indeed planning to make a sixth installment in the Rocky saga.

As a lifelong fan of the series, I implore you to reconsider.

From a story arc point of view, a sixth installment makes no sense. Rocky rose from nothing to the top, lost it all, regained it again, lost his mentor, his former enemy turned ally and eventually loses all his fortunes and discovers that it is all for nothing if not the love of his family.

If the rumours of the storyline are to be believed, he will come out of retirement to try and earn money.

If he is that desperate for money, then perhaps he should consider embarking on the book and celebrity circuit (however, after-dinner speeches may not be his forte) As the legendary Mohammad Ali has shown, there is a lot of money to be made in TV appearences and book signing sessions. I’m sure his autobiography would become a best seller, although perhaps a ghost-writer should be used. However, I understand that “Rocky VI – The Book Store Tour” would not make a particularly thrilling film.

There is also the realism factor. Granted the Rocky movies have not always been the most realistic, but I have always seen Rocky as being more or less the same age as you. If the production scedule is correct, you (and Rocky) will turn 60 during the film. From a quick search on the Internet, I’ve found that the oldest profesisonal boxer to win the world title was George Foreman at 46 years old. In Rocky V, Rocky would probably be about that age, being as he had a teenage son. Of course, makeup can make a man younger, and there is no suggestion of how much time has passed between Rocky V and VI, but from a realism stance, Rocky would be too old.

In Rocky V, it is revealed that Rocky has suffered severe brain damage, and that another fight could kill him. Adrienne would never support Rocky getting back in the ring, and in his son, he has too much to live for – why would he get back in the ring? The character of Adrienne grows in strength through the films, to the point where she even stands up to Rocky and tells him that he can’t win against Ivan Drago. She is certainally strong enough to divorce Rocky.

Rocky is an “All-American Hero”, a cultural icon. His inspirational story, as I have already alluded to, highlights that with the love of his family, he doesn’t need anything else. However, should he come out of retirement again, with the probability of his marriage breaking up, he would become a washed-up has been. He was strong enough in Rocky V to walk away, and that, in the words of the Elton John song in the end titles is “The Measure of a Man”.

So again, I implore you to look at what you are doing, and look at the parallels that your life has with Rocky, and be the bigger man and walk away.

Yours faithfully,

sparetomato.com