Cat and Chips

First off, a quick update. You may remember I mentioned in an earlier post the large cat that’s apparently been spotted in the local area. For the last few weeks there’s been a debate raging in the local rag as to whether it exists or not (really, some people have nothing better to do – you’re reading this aren’t you?) and in this weeks edition they’ve printed a photo of the thing. Hopefully now people will accept there’s a fucking big cat roaming the area, but somehow I suspect the debate will continue for some time to come.

Right, that’s beast watch over. Let’s move on to something else that’s been in the news this week, albeit on a different scale, chip and PIN cards. According to one national newspaper the country is about to be thrown in to a state of confusion as shops start to insist on shoppers using their PIN instead of signing for their purchases. The paper in confusion actually said, and I kid you not, that the introduction of PINs has caused an “information overload”, and that because of this people can’t remember their codes. Now, I’m not being funny here, but I fail to see how having to remember a four digit number (which in a lot of cases is the same as the code these people use at the cash point) is information overload. Maybe peoples’ brains are getting smaller. I shall find out and report on my findings in a future post.

The worst thing (as far as I can see) about chip and PIN cards is that I’ll now be forced to listen to an increased number of morons asking me for my “PIN number”. Do people not know that PIN is an acronym for Personal Identification NUMBER? It’s a PIN, or at a push a PI number (which could lead to confusion unless your PIN happens to be 3.142).