It was a fantastic race today, and Lewis deservedly won.

There was obviously a lot of talk about the fact that the race is moving away from Silverstone in two years - in fact moving it to Donnington was the only way to secure it in this country, due to the poor facilities we have to offer. In fact, Donnington don’t even have them but promise to be ready by 2010. We hope.

It’s a real shame that we really don’t do enough. And I think there was proof of that today.

Here was an annual British sporting event that we could all get behind. Like Wimbledon. So who presented Lewis Hamilton - a British winner at the British Grand Pix - with his trophy? Paul Murphy, Secretary of State for Wales. Wales is in Britain but that’s where any kind of obvious link ends.

Next up, presenting the second place trophy was… Gerry Sutcliffe, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Sport. Well, it’s sport related. About as far down the ladder as you can go.

So, that was our government contingent to help support this event? A Parliamentary Under-Secretary and a Secretary of State for a country that the event didn’t take place in.

Nice.

Sorry to go on about Google, but I have another head-scratching query.

I did search earlier for a post of mine.. Google found it, but also said:

Did you mean to search for: http://www.artis.co.uk/2008/03/website-performance

Now I knew what would happen if I clicked on this. Sure enough:

No results found for http://www.artis.co.uk/2008/03/website-performance.

So… so… why suggest to me, when an exact match had been found already, a link that didn’t actually exist?

Worst of all, Google then proceeds to state “However, there are results from websites with similar addresses” and, yes, then lists my original URL.

Does anybody understand this crazy logic?

I use Googles Adsense for some of my websites to generate a little revenue. For reasons that are now lost on me, I signed up with a non-Google email address. I then tried to use my Google account later only for it to turned down because, well, I already had an Adsense account. All very true.

Now, Google are desperately trying to get Adsense users to sign in with a Google email address. Fine, they even get you a nice wizard to transfer it over. Except it won’t let me as my Google Mail account is associated with a turned down Adsense account. Which it is.

And I’ve sent various mails to Google asking them how I can get around this. Their only solution is for me to set up ANOTHER Google mail account. Which I don’t want to do. And I know that, given time, they’ll force me into using Google mail for Adsense.

How can they not disassociate my account with my previous Adsense attempt? They’re Google. It’s their software. How can that be difficult?

I love Google but sometimes…

It’s that time of year again - car insurance renewal. I’ve been with The Post Office for the last couple of years as they’ve given me a competitive quote each time.

For the last year I’ve been paying about £17 a month with a £200 excess. I had a speeding offence but that has now expired. I was therefore expecting the cost to come down this year. So imagine my surprise to receive a renewal of £27 a month with a £250 excess. This was, according to the letter, the best they could get and was with Fortis Insurance.

So I rang them about this to see if they could explain the huge hike in price. They couldn’t. But they could - miraculously - find me a better price and with the same insurer. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much better.

I came across an article which listed a number of online car insurance search sites that you should use as these specific ones ensured you covered the entire market. By the end of it I’d found a deal, via Tesco, with M&S. It works out at under £17 a month and is just £100 excess. In fact, so save more money, I’ve decided to pay for it as a lump sum - this works out at about £190. I also get £5 in Clubcard points from Tesco.

The annoying thing is, the insurance, although via Tesco and M&S, is with…. Fortis.

Well. Yesterdays Panorama was a real eye-opener with regard to the exploitation that goes on to provide Primark with cheap clothing.

Personally, I don’t shop there but I’m not one of those who agree with blaming customers. I truly don’t believe that most people would believe - nay expect - that this would happen with a big UK retailer. For Primark to say they didn’t realise themselves in unbelievable. Either they are rubbish and don’t bother checking up on their providers, or are simply lying.

However, I equally don’t think it is too much for consumers to expect that all cheap clothing is due to exploitation. In a world of mass, and automated manufacturer, with cheaper materials being and methods of manufacturer being created all the time, I don’t think it is wrong for people to buy cheap clothes and expect them to have a dubious history.

Having said that, if I was a Primark shopper I wouldn’t be now. Primark should not be engaged in this kind of thing and even saying that they’ve now sacked the relevant suppliers is really not good enough. Never-the-less the real eye-opener can be found on Facebook. Namely the Facebook group named “PRIMARK APPRECIATION SOCIETY“.

Some initial comments include (and these are not my spellings)…

the goverments say its illegal for under 14s to work but the clearly do not enforce it well enough and provide a better life for its children and this is were the problem seems to be, i also agree that the children in tonights documentary did not look ill and as unhappy as i expected before all the hype of the programme. i will still shop at primark like im sure a lot of people will, at the end of the day they must create millions of jobs that are essentail to peoples lives

I always knew that child labour was involved in the making of primark clothing and sorry but I will still shop there. Hey, I don’t have that much money either, so I’m afraid I’ll still be purchasing my ‘bargains’ there.

Child labour always has and always will be around…. Children making clothes in the bbc documentary looked quite happy and healthy… their are more pressing issues goin on the world that desrve our attention ie our yob culture, teen pregnancy, drug issues.

What can I say to that? I feel equally ashamed of my fellow countrymen. I can only hope these are a minority.

I’m off work today and managed to catch The Wright Stuff - always a good laugh. Today they were briefly talking about a Heinz Adverts that’s been pulled after 200 complaints because it had two men kissing in it. And by this I mean a quick peck, in what is a humorous advert (you can still see it on YouTube). They only had time for a few callers on this subject but, sure enough, they had someone ring who was offended by this advert in cast their 4 year old saw it. They stated categorically that they were not homophobic, but then admitted that they thought that an advert with a man and a woman kissing was acceptable, but not when it’s two men.

So you ARE homophobic then. She thought not, and I think a lot of people think the same way as her.

What both these stories have in common is how blinkered we have become as a society - where we are quite obviously not prepared to change our views, or meerly to accept what our views mean, no matter what logic is put in front of us.