An Age of Magic

Insurance headaches

One thing we did not consider was how we would insure our car once we moved abroad. We bought our Suzuki ‘here’ and will be driving it over the border when we return home. We assumed that it would be uncomplicated…

We always purchase our auto insurance online but ran into problems when we discovered that our make of car is not sold in our home country. Net result is we are having problems finding cover for it. We have narrowed things down to just two companies who may be able to assist us – otherwise we will be looking at selling and repurchasing when we get home.

Talk about a headache!

Popularity: 48% [?]

I was going to buy a Blu-ray but…

It appears that this latest technology might be staring extinction in the face within a very short period of time.Time is running out for Blu-ray discs, the high definition format that are supposed to be replacing the DVD. Despite the launch of new Blu-ray players and talk of rising sales at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, manufacturers know they are in a race to make a real impact on the market before the new kid on the block, downloading or streaming HD films directly from the internet, consigns the format to a footnote in video history.

I liked the look of the format while browsing in an electrical store before Xmas. The quality of the picture looked fantastic on one of those flat screen TV’s.  But the format is not catching on as hoped.

Sales of DVDs are not being dented by sales of Blu-ray discs. In the UK, figures from the British Video Association reveal that the number of DVDs sold last year actually rose slightly by 1.9 per cent to 252.9 million at an average price of £8.97. There were only 3.75 million Blu-ray discs sold in the year at an average price of £19.29. The top-selling DVD Mamma Mia! The Movie shifted more than 5 million copies in just five weeks while Dark Knight sold only about 300,000 copies on Blu-ray.

This reminds me of those ‘laser discs’ from way back in the 1980’s – remember those? they were like a large CD and never caught on basically because they were too expensive and people still liked their videos.

So not all fancy technology is a success.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Bye bye M&S

So it seems that Marks and Spencers will be the next victim of the recession. And it does not surprise me one little bit.

During the Xmas shopping period we noticed how many of the big store were virtually empty almost right up until Xmas Eve – even store selling sports gifts which are usually jammed with people were barely attracting the customers.

M&S happens to be one of my favourite stores and I only hope that they dont close right across the board…they do great sandwiches!

Popularity: 17% [?]