Monthly Archives: March 2010
Temporary Car Insurance – A Cautionary Tale
Here’s a cautionary tale regarding temporary car insurance that all drivers should take into account.
A couple of weeks ago my brother, who has been out working in Canada for the past year, came back to visit. To keep him mobile I rustled up some temporary car insurance so he would be covered for the duration of his stay.
Being something of a frugal monkey I kept it to the basics and used only the minimum required by the law. Big mistake.
Sod’s law kicked seamless into effect. Sure enough the young lad had an accident. While stopped at a red light he was hit by an uninsured driver. He was fine, but the car was looking distinctly poorly.
Never mind, I thought, a bit of paper work and Bob would indeed be my uncle. How wrong can one man be? After months of delay they finally came back with this disappointing reply: because I kept costs to the minimum I was not covered in this particular instance.
I’m still fighting my corner, but a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach makes me think they’ve covered themselves somewhere down the line. It looks like I’m going to be in for a hefty repairs bill soon enough.
The moral of the story? Well, that’s obvious. Sometimes the cheapest temporary car insurance isn’t the best.
Storage, Ipswich – the Perfect Revenge
Breakups can be rough on all involved, especially on the person who gets broken up with. This happened to a friend of mine not too long ago; he moved this girl in with him, they were going to get married, they’d even bought a cat, and what happens? She dumps him – not just dumps him, but dumps him for his best friend. This ‘best friend’ wasn’t me, I hasten to add, but you get the idea – it was a serious ‘dude, your life sucks’ moment. What do you do in a situation like that? Revenge, obviously. In this case, storage Ipswich featured heavily.
See, there are loads of ways to handle a breakup: there’s pining for the girl, there’s getting drunk all the time and walking through town at 3am with a bunch of people you don’t know (but who all have really cool hair) and singing ‘The Passenger’ at the top of your voice, there’s fighting her new beau, there’s sleeping with her friends, there’s loads of things. When it came to my friends’ situation though, we decided that we had to get a little meaner than that.
Their place was quite expensive and he doesn’t have the greatest job in the world, and she left in a hurry, leaving a load of her stuff behind. Do you sell everything of hers in a situation like that before she comes back? No, but there’s nothing wrong with making her think that, or, more accurately, think the place was burgled. The day before she came back to the old flat to pick her stuff up, we hired some storage in Ipswich (it’s a flippin’ huge room) and loaded everything into it.
When I say everything, I mean everything. Every. Single. Thing in that flat went into the van (it took three trips) and went into storage in Ipswich. The look on her face when she turned up was priceless; probably as good as my friends’ was when she dumped him for his mate.
The ultimate plan isn’t certain – maybe we’ll take it out of storage; Ipswich has plenty of places we could sell her stuff – or maybe we’ll just gradually post it back to her. The possibilities are endless.
Ultimately, nothing was resolved by this, but it made him feel better and in a situation like this, that’s the most important thing.
A New Challenge For Exhibition Stand Designers
I wonder what exhibition stand designers might think of a new website that aims to help companies make a real impact on the trade show floor. The site has a host of ideas, tips and advice to producing the best stand possible.
It all adds to the impression that you can find a short cut to literally any expertise just by typing a few words into a search engine. It prevails in all walks of life. Even leading MPs have been known to find their information on Wikipedia.
So exhibition stand designers might feel a trifle miffed to hear that companies believe they can simply learn the tricks of the trade on the web and who can blame them? If their clients start to think they can do the work themselves, life will get ever so difficult.
In a world in which we’re all looking to cut costs, it can be tempting to complete the project in-house, but be warned – you do so at your own risk. Make a bad impression now and future business could slip through your fingers.
Professional exhibition stand designers give you that x-factor that could prove vital in clinching a deal. It might cost a bit more but if they do their job correctly your business can reap the rewards.
