In PC World we do not trust…

The following weblog was originally posted on DieselDragon’s Website, and has been restored from backup. My apologies for any bad formatting, code errors or broken links that may exist as a result of conversion to this weblog. 🙂

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About a week ago I was window shopping in my local branch of Currys looking for a new stereo system as my current one is starting to show its age in many respects, and whilst there happened to notice that several models of Netbook (Shrunk-down laptops designed mainly for Internet browsing) have come down in price recently, whilst at the same time the average machine specification has increased. Having wanted a laptop-style system for remote operations, web browsing and watching movies on long journeys for some time now, I decided to look into the various systems available and for what prices they may be had.

After a couple of days spent visiting various product websites and local stores, I’d managed to boil my options down to the following two choices, with superior specifications highlighted in italics:

Make/Model:	Asus Eee-PC 900	Acer Aspire One
Processor:	Intel Celeron – 800MHz	Intel Atom N270 – 1.6GHz
Memory:	1024Mb (1Gb)	512Mb
Storage:	12Gb (4Gb + 8Gb) solid-state HDD	8Gb solid-state HDD
OS choices:	Linux or MS Windows XP	Aspire Linux only
Camera:	1.3 Megapixels (1536×1180 pixel SVGA)	0.3 Megapixels (640×480 pixel VGA)
Battery:	5.20 Ah (3.00 hrs)	2.60 Ah (3.00 hrs) upgradable to 6.60 Ah
BIOS:	Standard AT/x86-compatable	Standard AT/x86-compatable
Other:	Linux edition with 16Gb HDD insted of 8Gb.	1x SD slot mappable to /dev/hdb, 1x combi card slot.
Best price:	£189.99	£179.00

In an attempt to reach a final decision as to which of the above to purchase, I visited my local branch of PC World yesterday to have a look at both machines in detail and see which of the two I preferred. Eventually, I decided to plump for the Eee-PC 900 as – Although it costs about a tenner more and has half the CPU speed of the Aspire One – The greater quantities of RAM and on-board storage in the former, plus the fact that it comes with an end-user licence for Windows XP meant that I was happy to pay an extra £10,- and sacrifice 800MHz clock-speed in exchange…Especially as the reduction in battery life would preclude using such a device for processor intensive applications anyway!

After making my decision, I asked an assistant to check the store’s stock levels on an in-store terminal to see whether or not stock was available. A quick look-up revealed that not only was the Eee-PC 900 in stock, but they actually had six units in store and it was unlikely that they would be sold out for at least another four days. As I was staying with a friend in the locality that night, and didn’t want to bother him with all the clutter of my unpacking and setting up such a system in his flat (As I’m always quite impatient to start playing with new “toys” like that! 🙂 I decided to leave off purchasing the system until I was on the way home later today.

In any case, I returned to my local branch of PC World earlier this evening to finally purchase my new system, and upon finding no units left out on the shop floor for customer selection, I asked an assistant to retrieve one from the stockroom – Returning to the terminal and repeating the inventory search that I and the previous PC World assistant had done yesterday to verify that units were still in stock. According to the stores stock database, there had been no change in stock levels whatsoever.
After a good fifteen or so minutes of waiting around, the assistant returned with an Eee-PC 900 box. However, the security seal had been broken and it was evident to me that it had been handled by someone since it’s arrival in store. I decided to check the contents anyway to see if it was complete, and a brief inspection revealed that not only was the unit in question pre-owned (Easily, going on the layer of dust on the screen!) but it was also the Linux version of the Eee-PC. As I require a system with a Microsoft end-user licence (For legality reasons) as I intend to install Windows XP Professional as my operating system, I asked the assistant to return the unit in question and obtain a Windows one insted.

Unfortunateley – After I was kept waiting around for another ten minutes – The assistant came out empty-handed and told me that she couldn’t find any of the other units anywhere in the stock room. I then spoke to another member of staff who duly passed me on to the duty manager, who double-checked the stockroom and secure areas to no avail. 😦

Another short discussion with the manager suggested that the six systems listed as in stock had probabally been entered into the store’s system prematurely, and – Though they might actually be somewhere in store – They would probabally be located inside sealed cages that couldn’t be accessed at that time due to PC World’s stock handling rules. As I had already set this evening aside for installing and configuring the machine to my liking and didn’t want to endure any delays, I said to the manager that I would be happy to purchase the Linux system that I had first seen – If a discount of some description could be applied in light of the fact that the machine was not only pre-owned, but purchasing the Linux version would also mean I’d have to purchase a seperate Windows end-user licence from Microsoft at additional cost.

Another wait ensued as the manager disappeared to “go and get it”, and after some time of waiting around I began to wonder how on Earth it could take anyone – Let alone a manager who should know the stockroom blindfold – So long to retrieve a computer that only 45 minutes ago had been bought out to me by another member of staff.
Thirty-odd minutes later the manager reappeared empty-handed with some rather infuriating news; The unit that I had previously seen was in a rather atrocious state (It looked cosmetically OK to me when I saw it, although I’d failed to notice that the PSU was missing from the box!) and he would not be able to sell it to anyone in it’s current condition.
As a result of this, he asked me to return tomorrow – By which time he would have been able to get someone to look into the stock situation and ensure that stock would be entered correctly, and placed exactly where it should be placed.

By this time I had easily been inside PC World for an hour and a half plus, it was 18:30 hours (If not later) and the last regular bus home had already departed, so – After a whole 90 minutes of waiting around, checking stock levels, making enquiries, and waiting around some more – I found myself having to walk the several miles home, without even the computer that I had originally gone there to purchase to show for it! 😦

Now first of all I am very greatful to the staff who tried to help me earlier this evening, and I’m not holding any form of blame towards them as they were doing their jobs well and it definitely wasn’t their fault that I’d become the unfortunate victim of an stock-taking error…However I am now understandably vexed at PC World – As a company – For having wasted over an hour of my time this evening, to say nothing of causing me a several mile walk home as a result of the matter causing me to miss the last bus! 😦
One would imagine that any business like PC World – That deals with computers and associated products on a daily basis – Would have an accurate and up-to-date stock management system that wouldn’t cause problems like this to arise. Yet after encountering this problem today, I am starting to question the competancy of PC World when it comes to quality of stock accounting and supply…After all, if a “computer superstore” can’t keep a simple stock database accurate and in check, one does have to ask whether or not they should be in the computer business in the first place!

Oh well…Tomorrow I shall be going back there to see if they’ve managed to find something that should’ve been available for me to collect earlier today. After the inconvenience of the walk and the extra 24 hour wait that I’ve been forced to endure (Especially as I’ll now lose several hours of my weekend setting the thing up properly!) they’d be well advised to offer me a suitable discount on the product – Or sell me the Linux version and throw in a free OEM copy of XP Professional insted. One of the main reasons for visiting yesterday was to check stock levels in advance of purchase, so that if the product that I wanted had been out of stock that night I could’ve placed an order for delivery and collection today…And personally I don’t see why I should have to lose out time/moneywise simply because someone made a data entry c0ck-up!

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Finally…I see that – True to form – This weblog has run to a truly Mammoth 11.5Kb in size (It was supposed to be 2Kb max, damnit!) so I’m going to shut-up before I find something else to make a six-page rant over. If anyone knows any ways that I can get my thoughts down to more managable proportions (I.E: Half a page, or about 1Kb in size) to stop boring literally everyone to Death and make my weblogs more readable, then please let me know. My e-mail address can be found in the source-code of this page. 🙂

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Update – 28th November 2008CE at 21:15:
OK…So today I went back to PC World to try and pick up the netbook that I was told would have been either found (Or sourced from another store for collection today) only to find that not only had no unit been sourced for my collection, but worse still they have tried to cover their tracks by clearing the six pristine units from the stock database that I mentioned above. In any case, I wasted a whole two hours of my time trying to investigate possible solutions to the problem…But at the timne of updating this weblog today, I’ve still got no new netbook and I’m understandably becoming more and more p***ed off with the whole damn thing. 😦

Since yesterday another Eee-PC 900 (Linux) netbook has surfaced which is in pristine condition…But although it’ll be fine at the technical level, I have to say that pink really isn’t my colour! In any case, it turns out that they have the gall to charge GBP 40,- more for the Linux version as well. Even though it has 8Gb of storage more than the Windows version that I’m after, the extra 8Gb of storage is supposed to offset the lower cost of the Linux option as it doesn’t come with a Windows OEM licence…And I’m 100% certain that Asus intended both versions of the system to retail at exactly the same price.
In short: This proves that PC World are trying to rip customers off left, right and centre by charging for extra storage that’s intended to offset the cost of the Windows Licence! >:-@

To be brutally honest, I can’t see how on earth PC World can get away with being so damn incompetant at stock management and accounting practices, and I can easily see myself just deciding to forget about the whole f***ing thing and just steal myself a laptop insted. At least that (And the resulting charge/court appearance for theft) would be quicker and easier for me to deal with! 😦

To to summerise: F*** you very much PC World…Not only for being so damn incompetant at supplying customers with what they need, but also for trying to unreasonably fleece us at every turn. If I do eventually buy this netbook that I’m after, I will be expecting a significant discount in light of the amount of my time that you’ve wasted, and the amount of hassle that I’ve had to endure in the process! :-@

Information OVERload!!!

The following weblog was originally posted on DieselDragon’s Website, and has been restored from backup. My apologies for any bad formatting, code errors or broken links that may exist as a result of conversion to this weblog. 🙂

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Note: This weblog contains important news and information for anyone who knows me via any social networking website. Even if ye don’t have the time to read this weblog in full, please read This section at least…Thanks! 🙂
Those of ye who have a rather sharp eye for file time-stamps may have noticed that I’ve posted this and my previous weblog at the same time. Though I’m not normally one for “turning back the clock” admittedly, I thought it appropriate given that since returning from Norway I’ve found barely enough time to compose even short SMS messages, let alone full-blown weblogs like this one will no doubt become. Anyway, enough of my rambling introductions already…Here’s what’s on my mind at the moment. 🙂

The accelleration of the Internet in recent times:
OK…No-one could have failed to notice the immense number of changes that have been made to the Internet since the later 90’s, and especially over the latter few years. What was once a nice ‘n’ simple one way resource for convenient information on various subjects (Not to mention megabytes and megabytes of pornography! 😉 has now become an unimaginably vast and publicly manipulatable worldwide system that allows people to have their say on virtually every website, and to share whatever information they wish amongst their friends and family with nothing more than a single click. Immense social networking websites – With subscriber numbers running literally into the billions – Flood the internet itself in a tsunami of profiles and assorted media that no user of the internet could possibly have failed to notice. Popular weblogs have many regular readers who – Aside from being able to read the tidings within – Are now able to contribute to, comment on, and generally discuss the article in depth with other readers. Wikis – Websites that can be edited by anyone who visits them (Wikipedia being the classic example) – Allow the entire Internet community to actively contribute to and improve (Or hamper and vandalise) projects that only a few years ago would have been viewed as simply impossible.

Clearly, the Web 2.0 Generation is now well and truly upon us – But alas, this new generation of technology and unfettered communications can bear a most negative aspect as well as a positive one, for reasons that I shall soon make clear…

The popularity of social networking sites:
No less than 70% of the World’s Internet users are registered to at least one social networking website, and a good 60% of those users (If not much more) are subscribed to no less than four. The social networking approach to websites is truly a phenomenon in itself, with long lost friends and family members once again being able to rediscover each other and share photo albums, home videos, calendars, and other such utilities amongst themselves. Large groups of people are able to stay in touch with each other on a daily basis with little effort…And with the sheer availability of this kind of site on the web, it should come as no surprise to find that companies like MySpace, Bebo, and Facebook are turning over multi-million dollar profits generated effortlessly through advertising and premium service revenues.
To cut a long paragraph short; Social networking is popular, social networking is big business, and social networking is definitely here to stay.

And thus I come to a very simple yet most undeniable problem: With social networking websites becoming so popular in recent years, virtually every Internet company worth it’s salt has opened their own form of social networking system in an attempt to cash-in on the craze, resulting in so many different and varied social networking platforms springing up literally everywhere. Now it’s a rather unlikely coincidence that two newly-met friends will happen to be using the same social networking site before they met, and often one will find themselves opening a new account on another social networking site so that they can keep in touch with that new friend.
As a rather contrived example: An American tourist (Who – Like most Americans – Uses Facebook) visiting London for a few days strikes up a rappor with a lass from Camden Town (Like most of the UK, a MySpace user) and they exchange profile URLs so they can keep in touch with each other. Upon returning home, the American finds that to keep in contact with his new friend he has to open an account with MySpace (He tried finding her on Facebook, but 55,000 people share her name and she might not be there anyway!), produce yet another social profile for himself (In addition to his Facebook, Bebo, and Hi5 profiles) and send her a friend request so that they can start chatting.

The major issue of social networking “Glut”:
Unfortunateley…Every social networking website has it’s own user database, it’s own inbox, it’s own photo album, it’s own music and video storage, it’s own weblog page, and it’s own friends list. Anyone with accounts on multiple sites may often find themselves posting the same weblog multiple times in multiple places (I myself normally copy my weblogs here onto my MySpace weblog, for example) just so that they can keep all of their friends abreast with what’s happening in their lives at that time. The same also applies to video and photograph collections, with the eventual result that one single person may unwittingly be occupying 500Mb of Internet space with the same 25Mb video that they’ve reposted 40-odd times. Worse still, every new social networking account means yet another inbox, yet another comments page, yet another “bulletin” area and even more sharing areas for that one user to check on a daily basis.
Even without the usual diversions of electronic mail and instant messaging services: Given the popularity of social networking websites amongst Internet users (Especially teenagers) is it any wonder that more and more people are finding themselves spending entire days in front of their computers? :-O :-S

The biggest problem here from my viewpoint – To coin a term previously used in antivirus research – Is the sheer magnitude of “Glut” that differing social networking sites have created across the Internet over the past few years. To demonstrate this in quick ‘n’ easy terms, I’ll point out that at the time of writing I have accounts on three seperate social networking sites; MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. In short, that means that I have three weblogs to manage, three inboxes to check and deal with, three different profiles to keep an eye on, three different photo albums, three different video areas, and three vastly differing friends lists.
Having more than one account on such a site is easily too much for many people to cope with due to the amount of data always being posted and updated on there. I originally just had a single MySpace profile that was easy enough to manage on it’s own, and – Were all of my friends to use the same profile sites – It would never have progressed beyond that. However in true Murphy’s form, many of my friends can’t/won’t use MySpace for whatever reason, and thus I get badgered and bothered to open an account on yet another site just so they can “link” to me. :-S
Given the amount of time most people normally spend on single social networking sites nowadays, is it any wonder that I’ve not bothered to log-in to any of my social profile site accounts recently? 😐 😦

Possible solutions for social networking “Glut”:
I see that I have already rambled on enough tonight, and I’d rather not spend too long on this weblog anyway…So from this point onwards, I’m going to accellerate my writings a little so I can go out for a smoke. If any spelling errors come up or my words are a little vauge, then I apologise. 🙂

Sadly, the modern social climate and appreciation of free-trade means that it will never be possible for the web to have just a single “one stop shop” social networking site through which everyone can interact with everyone else on the Internet. Even if World organisations (Such as NATO or the G8) were to decree that only one social networking website may exist, there would be major arguments and corporate wars all over the place in a futile attempt to decide who should run the World’s one and only social profile site in the first place!
Therefore, the only way for social networking systems to work for people without leading to mass glut and confusion is for all of the World’s social networking sites to work together, and allow users to keep their friends and family together in a single list, regardless of whatever site they or their friends/family may use. Those who use MySpace for their networking should be able to include their contacts from Bebo and Facebook within their MySpace “friends” lists with nothing more than a click or two, and the interaction between everyone should run in both directions…With everyone being able to reside on their site of choice, yet still be able to interact and keep up-to-date with their friends on other sites.
The technology for such things has been available for many years now, and there’s no excuse whatsoever for any social networking site to deny it’s users the ability to interact with others upon different sites and domains.

As for myself: Once again I have recently been asked by a fairly close friend to join another social networking website so that they can “link” their profile with mine, and to be frankly honest the last thing that I need is yet another inbox and comments area to keep an eye on. As it is, I’ve had about 55 messages sitting in my MySpace inbox for the last few months – All still unread and unreplied to – Simply because I never get the time or the inclination to even login to MySpace nowadays. To be perfectly frank, I just don’t have time for social networking sites and systems…And once my plan outlined below has been executed to fruition, I shouldn’t have to log in to a social networking website ever again! :-O 😀 >:-)

To everyone who knows me on MySpazz, Bebo, Facebook or whatever:
This next bit details how I’m going to manage my social networking practices from now on. If ye want to keep up with what I’m doing, please pay full attention! 🙂

Quite simply, I’m planning to set all of my social networking profiles to a fully automatic mode from now on…This means that all of my pages will have generic profile descriptions upon them, my photo albums and video collections will be erased (Save for one or two generic profile pics), messages/comments/bulletins aimed in my direction will be blocked and won’t get through to me at all (Friend requests will be set to “Accept automatically” for speed), and I won’t be participating in any form of social networking activity whatsoever.
All of my photos, images, videos, weblogs etc. will from this point be posted upon DieselDragon.co.uk only, and to read my latest ramblings and see any latest photos/videos, ye shall have to go there insted. For everyone’s convenience, at some point in the future I hope to be able to add a dynamic display to all of my social networking pages that will show the dates of my last website update, last image uploads, and last weblog posts on there – Meaning that all ye shall need to do to check for updates is to visit my profile page on your respective site.

In the further future, I might be able to improve the dynamic display that I plan to use in such a way that it’d alert ye as soon as possible after a new update had been posted on DieselDragon…Although this is subject to technological limitations. 🙂
FAO MySpace users: Whilst I am doing this, please also note that I am also going to move my MySpace profile over to a friends old account as it’s got a better URL, and will be clearing out my friends list at the same time. Therefore, please keep a careful eye out for this change and replace this profile with my new one as soon as the change has been executed. Thanks! 🙂

Anyhow…I feel that I have rambled on far longer than I initially intended to, and it’s taken me bang on two hours to bash this one out! I’m sorry that I’m having to “neglect” all of the profile websites that I’ve been using over time – It’s nothing against anyone on those sites at all, it’s just that I simply want to cut out the websites and diversions that I truly don’t have the time available for. :-O :-S

A Voyage unto the Ancient Realms of Ultima Thule…

The following weblog was originally posted on DieselDragon’s Website, and has been restored from backup. My apologies for any bad formatting, code errors or broken links that may exist as a result of conversion to this weblog. 🙂

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As some of ye may be aware I recently took my first ever voyage unto the Ancient and Sacred Realms of Norway, and last week returned home having seen with my own eyes the sheer beauty of the Land of our Viking ascendants! Unfortunateley I didn’t really have the time after returning to craft a proper weblog entry for the voyage itself, and the following entry is edited from a post that I made on the Official BAL-SAGOTH Forum a couple of days afterward – Mainly concerning the festival (Or “Ritual” as I normally refer to them!) that I attended whilst there – Along with a few other side-notes. To make reading this immense 13Kb tiding easier, I’ve inserted “bookmarks” for easier navigation. 🙂

1. Screamfest / BAL-SAGOTH,
2. Screamfest / Immortal,
3. Screamfest / Moonsorrow,
4. Screamfest / Grave Digger,
5. Other miscellaneous notes from my Voyage unto Norway.

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First – And most importantly of all – BAL-SAGOTHs set: >:-)
Despite it’s frustratingly short duration (Blame the festival organisers for that!) the Ritual itself was as Metal, unforgettable and ferocious as always! I was lucky enough to be able to get a space right at the front (Well, where else would ye expect to find me at a Ritual? :-P) and very soon I found myself next to two Norwegians whom I had met at the Helsinki and Turku Rituals earlier this year as well. The set itself was of such supreme ferocity that – As is often the case at BAL-SAGOTH Rituals nowadays – I wound up breaking my neck in several places again, but for me such a minor thing mattered not…As long as I could still pay homage unto the Immortal Gods of Black Metal as I have done several times within the past! >:-)

Aye…One thing that riled me greatly – Mainly because BAL-SAGOTH had been given the first set of the whole festival – Was that there were comparitively few people aside from the usual hard-core BAL-SAGOTH fanatics like ourselves in attendance at the Ritual itself. The actual chamber that was part of the venue’s air-raid/nuclear shelter (Tufluktsrom – A legacy of many Norwegen buildings from the Cold War days) barely seemed to be any more than half-full from the few rearward glimpses that I took during the Ritual itself. Irrespective of the relatively small turnout however, those of us who were there still managed to make more noise – And as many Hails to the Gods themselves – Than a capacity crowd at the new Wembley stadium could ever hope to achieve! >:-)

Aside from that lower-than-I-expected turnout however, the Ritual was as perfect and beyond compare as always! I believe Chris may have been experiencing some difficulties with his equipment during the set (Loss of some/all effects, if I remember rightly) but – To myself, at least – The entire Ritual sounded perfect and full of the usual raw ferocity of BAL-SAGOTH live, at least to my ears! 😎 >:-)
(Note to self: Before the next Ritual, buy thyself a decent neck-brace…With my corpse ageing like it is, I’m going to need one! :-O 😀 :-P)

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Immortal:
One of the main draws of the festival for a lot of those in attendance was the fact that Immortal were headlining on the Friday night, and those who wanted to see Immortal’s set as well truly paid the price (An extra NOK 115,- per head, as a matter of fact!) for the right to do so…And the draw of Immortal was more than apparent when I found that all of the Freidag Betong+Immortal tickets had sold out either before or shortly after the festival itself had started! :-O >:-)

However; Things on the Immortal front took a very strange turn when at just after 21:00 the building’s fire alarm sounded and everyone in the venue was evacuated into the car-park. A good half-hour later, the Oslo fire department had verified that the alarm was a false one and that it was safe for us to return into the building. However – Under the orders of both the venue’s owners and the Oslo fire-brigade – The Immortal show had to be cancelled, and understandably a lot of people were very displeased about the fact…In all honesty, I’m very surprised that a full-scale riot didn’t break out that night! :-O :-S

From my own enquiries made on Monday, it would appear that what happened – Despite the venue being warned well in advance that Immortal would be using pyrotechnics and smoke effects en-masse – Was that the main room had been filled full of smoke beforehand, and had not initially posed a problem. However when people had entered that vast chamber, the combined body-heat of the crowd had caused the smoke to rise up a few floors and enter the buildings air-conditioning system. From there, the smoke had drifted into surrounding auxillary rooms on the eighth floor, and therefore – Even though the main halls smoke alarms had presumably been disabled for the performance and fire-wardens put into place – The drifting smoke triggered the smoke alarms in those adjoining rooms, causing the evacuation of the building. 😦

For the benefit of others who were there and planning to see Immortal as well:
The owners of the building have taken responsibility for the whole fiasco, and anyone who held a ticket valid for Immortal will be elegible for a refund of the extra premium paid. At the moment the value of such refunds are still being negotiated (I’ve spoken with Screamfest’s producer, and he suggested that it might be somewhere in the region of NOK 150,-) between Screamfest and the venue itself, and updated information will be posted on http://www.screamfest.no and http://www.studentersamfundet.no along with instructions for how to obtain such a refund if need be. 😎

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Moonsorrow:
Though over twenty-four hours had past since breaking my neck through my somewhat overzealous enjoyment of BAL-SAGOTHs Ritual the previous night, I could not help but worsen that situation when Moonsorrow took to the same stage on Saturday. Having missed them at Wacken 2007CE (Thank ye very much Wacken for putting them, Immortal and Stormwarrior on all at the same time! :-@) this was the first time that I had been able to see them live…And by the Gods did they play a fine set! >:-)

Although not as good as BAL-SAGOTHs in my opinion (Although I am well known for being highly biased in such matters! 😀 😛 😉 this was also Moonsorrow’s first performance in Norway…And both the joy of my Spirit and the immense pain still within my neck even upon this day can testify to how much I enjoyed seeing Moonsorrow for the first time! >:-)

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Grave Digger:
Despite their more than apparent long service to the cause of Metal, Grave Digger managed to put on one hell of a set all the same and certainly enthralled the crowd there with their playing! By this point – Being in excrutiating physical pain and in dire want of a neck-brace – I was pretty much restricted to throwing random bouts of air-guitar alone, but still nothing marred my enjoyment of Grave Digger’s performance! 😀

The only thing that I cannot quite fathom is why Screamfest’s organisers placed a well-known and appreciated band like Grave Digger on the smallest stage in the venue – A room no bigger than two railway carriages – When I believe that they could’ve easily filled the same room that Immortal had been scheduled to play in the day before! Although I managed to squeeze myself in towards the back with some considerable effort, Grave Digger would’ve probabally seen a much bigger crowd that night had the actual hall in which they played not had the crowd spilling out the door into the bar/cloakroom area! :-O :-S 😎

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Other brief notes from my voyage unto that fair and ancient realm:

• When people say that Norway is an expensive country, they’re not kidding! To give a general idea, I spent more on a return ticket for the bus between Sandjeford Lufthavn Torp and Oslo Busterminal – NOK 300 (About £30.00) – than I spent on the flight between Stansted and Torp! :-O
  However, when going to Norway one needs to carry out some adjustment of prices to find what may be considered reasonable over there. After converting the price in Norge Krone to Sterling (Or whatever currency ye use), one needs to halve the result again to find the equivalent price in England. 🙂

  Using my above bus fare as an example: The bus cost NOK 300,- return which is roughly £30.00 in Sterling. A Norwegen would view a NOK 300,- fare in the same light that we would view a £15.00 one. So given that the bus fare was about £15.00 in Norwegen terms, it actually proves to be very good value for money once the price has been adjusted accordingly…And after the conversation I had with the driver of my bus (An ex-pat Englishman from Surrey) on the way back to the airport, my view on this seems to be more or less accurate. 😀

• Although Oslo is a very small city in comparison to London or Berlin, the many hills and meandering routes (Plus the heavy clothing needed for the Winter weather) can make walking around the city very difficult and/or tiresome. I would highly recommend buying a 7 Dages Kort (Transit pass) for the local area upon arrival for stays longer than four days…And at NOK 200,- I’d say that it’s quite reasonably priced, especially as it’s valid to some distance outside of Oslo centre on all forms of public transport except the Flytoget (Airport express train)… 😎
• Once one has left the built-up area of Oslo, there is an immense expanse of ancient Forests and natural realms to be explored! Sadly I only managed to make one short trip up to Kjelsås (Only to find that the Forest I had set out to explore was fenced off as it was part of an old UN base 😦 but even so a lot of these areas are surprisingly accessible on public transport, and at least one of the T-bane lines runs deep into the Forests of Oslo North! >:-)
• If travelling from Sanjeford Lufthavn Torp to Oslo, try and catch the bus during daylight hours as the E-18 offers some stunning glimpses of the Oslo Fjord. If ye get an English ex-pat driver who used to work at Addlestone bus garage, he might take the coach down the old road to Oslo on request for a much better view, conditions permitting! 😎
• Avoid 7-Eleven and Narvesen shops where possible unless ye don’t mind paying convenience markups. The prices in mainstream supermarkets (Rema-1000 and others) are much more reasonable. 🙂
• Apparently, Oslo can hit up to 30°C on average during the summer months, and may make an interesting destination for sun-seekers looking for a pleasant, uncrowded and somewhat unusual summer holiday destination. 😎
• For those seeking the tr00/kvlt Norwegen Metal scene: There are a few Metal bars in Oslo and the surrounding area, but the city’s Metal population is less than one might expect. Apparently, Bergen would be a much better (And Gr1mm3r) destination for this! >:-)

Farewell for now, and my sincere apologies for the looooooooooooong weblog! >:-)