Once I had started to earn enough money to cross the threshold, which was £16,000 per annum for students but is now just £10,000, repayments were automatically deducted from my salary. 6% of anything I earned over the threshold was taken by HM Revenue and Customs and passed to the SLC. During these years I received annual statements from the SLC informing me how my repayments were progressing and what the remaining balance was. For some reason these statements were always wildly out of date: One issued in September 2008 detailed repayments between Aprils in 2006 and April 2007. I dismissed this as a quirk of public sector computer systems and accounting.

Having graduated a fair while ago with a relatively small amount of debt and having gained various promotions over the years, I had paid off most of my loan and was expecting to pay it off entirely during the course of this year. In June, I received a letter from the SLC, which started

We have recently received your Student Loan PAYE repayments

Well, one would hope so as they had been being deducted monthly for almost a decade. It continued

[We] estimate that you may be due to complete repayment of your Income Contingent Loan(s) within the next two years.

Indeed, my quick calculation showed that it should be completed within two months, rather than years.

We can now offer you the option of repaying your remaining balance by Direct Debit … to reduce the possibility of paying back more than you need to.

Well, that sounded good to me. After some faff with the security details for the website (which I couldn’t recall receiving) I was able to set up the Direct Debit. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any way to request PAYE deductions be stopped. The letter had informed me that I needed to make this request as well as setting up the Direct Debit. So I tried calling the telephone number on the letter. That was not in service, an abrupt error message disconnecting me without indicating which digits I should dial next. I found another number on the website and called that, and got through.

I explained to the guy at the other end that I had set up a Direct Debit and wished my employer to cease PAYE deductions. He spent a few minutes calculating when my final repayment would be (August) and then told me that I couldn’t switch to Direct Debit because I was too close to completing my repayments via PAYE. Apparently the PAYE deductions couldn’t be stopped that quickly. So, despite sending me a letter telling me to set up a Direct Debit within the last few months of my loan repayments, I shouldn’t have set up that Direct Debit. He said he would cancel it for me (but didn’t, and I ended up blocking it at my bank account). He also said he would set up an automated “stop notification” for the PAYE deductions to be sent out in the middle of August. Foolishly I didn’t question why a stop notification could be scheduled for mid-August to stop repayments after the end of August, but one couldn’t be sent out in mid-June and stop repayments in a similar time-frame. I was also going to overpay my loan by the grand total of £40, because the SLC couldn’t stop the repayments before August, and would have to reclaim the overpaid amount somehow.

Last week I received another letter from the SLC saying

A notification has been issued to HM Revenue & Customs to advise them to cease collection of Student Loan repayments. Please note that HM Revenue & Customs cannot guarantee an exact date on which your employer should cease making deductions from your wages, therefore repayments may not stop precisely on the date we have estimated. If your repayments have not stopped within 2 months of receiving this letter, please contact us using the telephone number below.

The telephone number is the same non-functioning one included on the letter in June. The notification is presumably the one that was set up for me in June, but contrary to what I was told at the time, it appears that it may take another couple of months to stop the deductions from my wages. One might wonder what the point of setting up a scheduled notification was if it wasn’t actually going to stop the repayments in any short order. One might also wonder what the harm would have been in sending the notification on June and letting me make any necessary remaining repayments via cheque or BACS. But it seems my over-payments may run for the next couple of months and into the hundreds of pounds.

Finally, there was this.

The Student Loans Company cannot confirm that the balance of your loan has been fully repaid until we have received confirmation of the repayments from HM Revenue & Customs following the end of the relevant tax year. At this time we will contact you, and in the case of any overpayment provide a refund.

So, not only have I overpaid because of the bizarre and seemingly random nature of the PAYE notification system, I could well do so until Christmas. And then I’ll have to wait till some time after April 2011 to be told how much I’ve overpaid and, presumably, to get it back. I am willing to bet that I won’t receive it on the 7th April either.

One of the problems I’ve been mulling over is that of originality. Our Ubuntu Podcast is a successful show by most metrics, but we’re not the only Ubuntu/Linux/FLOSS podcast, not by a long stretch. Some are very different, stylistically, from our own. Others are more similar and I have found myself wondering if there’s any point in having several shows that share similarities. If podcasting really is radio that anyone can do, then what is the point of you doing it? If you’re not doing anything original, anything different, if other people can do it, why continue? Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

The same thing applies to photography. I’m not a professional photographer, but I’ve enjoyed developing my skills over the last few years. I went on my first photo walk at the weekend, and couldn’t help feeling that twenty photographers walking them same route would come out with pretty much the same photos. Similarly, taking photos of well-known views or places seems pointless when you can find high quality images of the same thing on Flickr. There seems little point or challenge in taking photos which others can easily take too. If there are people making better photos of the same subject than you, why carry on making them?

Is this just trying to avoid being judged and found a failure? To compare your photographic efforts with those of someone who had access to the same scene and come out second best can’t be a nice feeling. If someone starts an Ubuntu or Linux-related podcast, rather than seeing them as a kindred spirit, I can’t help but feel it is a threat or increased competition; that they might do what we do better than us, that our listeners prefer the newcomer.

All this leads me towards the question of motivation. Why do I continue to work on the podcast and spend my time trying to take better photographs? If one can’t make something original, why make anything at all? A lot of my interest in learning how to do something new. The idea of doing a live podcast appeals because it’s a new experience. I’d like to photograph more and varied subjects; to feel I have acquired some new skills. If one finds the process rewarding or fun, or it serves a bigger, grander purpose then that on its own should be enough. Like anything worth doing, it’s difficult to be good at it. If you happen to strike on an original idea on the way, you’re very lucky.

What do you think? Please leave your comments below.

I posted a short message on my Facebook status when I found out he had died and soon a collection of comments amassed from ex-classmates, each of whom had their own memory of Geoff to share. Although there is a memorial service is being held at the school in September, getting together for an evening of memorial drinks felt like a fitting tribute for the man who treated his students like his cast, who was always a teacher but felt like a friend. So on Saturday 7th August we’ll be getting together in Reigate for some drinks and, I’m sure, a fair bit of reminiscing. There is a Facebook event page, but it would be great to see anyone who remembers Geoff with affection come along. Please pass the details on to those others who knew Geoff too.

It’s the first proper comedy gig I’ve been to in a long time (apart from Eddie Izzard at the Wembley Arena – a great gig but more akin to watching a DVD on a giant screen). That I was there is a testament to the ability of twitter to engage very directly with a (potential) audience, as the Scotsman noted. Plenty of people were tweeting during the interval. Would I have been there had it not been for twitter or AIOTM? Probably not.

The venue was pretty much what I was expecting; small and warm. It seated about 120 people in unreserved seating. We ended up in the second row. That can be foolish at a comedy gig; you’re in the firing line for being picked on. However, I thought that it wouldn’t be that kind of show, and by and large it wasn’t.

My first thought was, rather predictably, that Richard was shorter than I expected. I wonder if performers go around thinking that “normal people” are all taller than they expect. Wearing a crumpled suit and sporting a masscara-darkened toothbrush moustache, he launched into a show which was funny and thought provoking, inventive and full of invective.

The venue was so small, it would have been hard to have felt more involved without being on the stage. You could notice tiny nuances which would otherwise be lost; his almost obsessive kicking of the microphone lead, the occasional subconscious check that his flies were done up and the mostly suppressed smile when he amused himself. Like all good performers he was making eye contact with the audience, particularly those in the first few rows. At first this rather put me off: I felt under pressure to look like I was enjoying myself, to laugh louder because I was being talked to. But it wore off and even added to my enjoyment.

The only downside to the gig was the hideously drunk woman sat two rows behind and across the aisle. She was clearly plastered before she came in and got worse as she tipped more drink down her throat. Her accompanying male friend seemed similarly inebriated. He didn’t display the same overly loud laugh that she unleashed at any opportunity, although he did manage to match her efforts at talking throughout most of the first half. It was as if they thought they were watching a DVD and were oblivious to the presence of the rest of the audience, who where tutting and glaring at them.

Richard used a range of put-downs to try and get the couple to shut up, but to no avail. Although she shouted out a few things, she wasn’t trying to be a “proper” heckler, she was just pissed and either didn’t realise or didn’t care that she was spoiling the show for others and disrupting the pace of the performance. So the heckler put-downs didn’t really work. In the second half he made clever use of a comic character to be incredibly rude to her. If I had been the target, I would have been mortified and left. However she was almost oblivious, despite the round of applause that the tirade received. It was only when, during the start of the climax of the show, Richard stopped and very quietly told her she was spoling the show for everyone else that she quietened down, almost until the end. He couldn’t have done anything else by that point: To have gone on a typical comedian’s rant at her would have spoiled the build-up to the end of the show.

If it had been a gig consisting of 90 minutes of assorted knob gags and swearing, I wouldn’t have minded a few heckles distracting the comedian and the heckler receiving some abuse as recompense. But this show wasn’t like that. It had a clear objective and serious topics to laugh about. The drunken women almost de-railed the denouement. It was a great show with a real structure but that structure was undermined by the simple, thoughtless act of someone blithering away a couple of rows behind.

At the end, Richard stayed around afterwards to sign programmes and flog a few DVDs. We were at the end of the queue and witnessed the hideously drunk woman having the gall to ask him for a hug. He declined. He was out packing his car by the time we reached ours and left the venue as we did.

I can thoroughly recommend the show – go and see it. Just hope there aren’t drunken, thoughtless idiots in the audience.

Laura, Richard Herring and me.

Richard also blogged about the gig. Pleasingly we agree about the impact of the drunken woman on the flow of the show.

By day she is a technical writer, user experience advocate, and geek, but by night she joins the other reprobates on the rather excellent ubuntu-uk Podcast and she was heavily involved in the planning of the hugely successful OggCamp. Laura is not only accomplished in both her work and Open Source activities, but she always brings an incredibly warming atmosphere to the projects she is involved in, including many LugRadio Live events both in the UK and the USA.

Sometimes people assume that Laura has been dragged along to some geeky event or other, suffering quietly while I run around having fun. But she says that she would have ended up in the FLOSS community even if we hadn’t met. Laura is genuinely enthusiastic about FLOSS and the community around it. When things don’t Just Work she perseveres, raising bugs and trying workarounds, rather than reaching for the Windows CD. We have spent many long car journeys talking techie – usability, engineering, networking and more. Laura has also been incredibly supportive of my FLOSS antics, for which I am very grateful.

As I type she is playing with her Arduino, looking very pleased that she has made an LED flash. Yup, she’s definitely a geek. And I like that.

It is preposterous, of course, that someone trying to carry out covert surveillance would choose to use a big camera, tripod, and a variety of lenses to do so. But it seems that if you have an SLR with you, you are more likely to get stopped than shooting with a compact camera in the same place.

Find out more at http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=871683 and http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/news/bbc_photographer_terror_stop_former_officer_blasts_met_news_292330.html

I went on a photo trip around London a couple of weekends ago with a friend and honestly expected at some point to be stopped and asked what we were doing, even though we were taking photographs in public spaces. It is a sad indictment of the misuse of anti-terror laws when people doing nothing wrong are made to feel as if they are acting like criminals.

But I am looking forward to starting at Fareham, not least because there are new bits of technology for me to learn and a new team to get to know.

More recently I have enjoyed reading his tweets and blog posts as he continued to ridicule and rail against everything he found hypocritical, invasive or offensive in the UK.

Richard is in the centre of the above photo, in the red tie. There are more tributes to Richard at http://tributestorichardrothwell.net/

The Teechers cast

The programme for the play was also special, as I had taken the cast photos for it. It was, pretty much, my first commission, albeit not a paid one! The session, which was a couple of months ago now, was fast and fun, but I learnt the same lessons as Graham “codedragon” Binns did recently shooting outside in strong direct sunlight. Although I did have a reflector, there wasn’t time to use it as effectively as it could have been. This was because I was rushing. (To be fair, there wasn’t much time, we all had other appointments to make.) I shot lots and hoped they would be OK, rather than taking a bit longer to ensure the shots were set up properly. So I learnt some important lessons and am looking forward to the next time a similar opportunity arises.

I gave a CD with the JPEG versions of all the image to the cast with a list of of images I recommended, although I was doing so without knowing the context of the play. It was therefore quite interesting to see the ones that they selected for use; on the programme covers, a centre-page scrapbook montage and for each character (not cast) biography. (The image above is the one they picked for the poster.) It was surprisingly gratifiying to see photos I had taken all over the programme.

I also won a bottle of wine in the raffle. Having previously scoffed at the auction of cakes and comestibles at other AmDram productions, I am now convinced by this activity and will petition the National Theatre to follow suit. I want to see Trevor Nunn giving away Blue Nun forthwith!

Episode 7 of Season 2 of our little podcast has hit the (community donated) mirrors this evening and is already sneaking its way onto all manner of computers and portable media playing devices around the world.This episode features an interview with the executive director of the Open Rights Group, an organisation of which I am a supporter, Jim Killock. Unfortunately the output from the phone interface was very low during the interview, which I didn’t really notice at the time. (We use a digital output from the desk into the laptop which records the show, so I should have just brought everyone else down to the same level then boosted the whole lot in the mix.) But despite a shed-load of compression, I wasn’t able to iron out the difference satisfatorily. At least for me. Technicalities aside it was good to catch up with all the latest campaigns that ORG is working on.

It is always exciting when we release an episode to see the first few hundred downloads hit the logs in a couple of hours. It feels to me that we’re hitting our stride with the new series and format now. We regularly record over an hour of material in two hours. The secret is in the preparation. It’s also in the concentration; our biggest slips have happened when someone has drifted off for a bit. The downside of hitting some kind of stride is that is feels like we’ve been doing it for a while. I feel like we’re half way through the season already, when realistically we’re only one third of the way in. Podcasting is a marathon, not a sprint, maintaining pace without burning out is the key. That’s one of the good things about doing a fornightly show; you get almost an entire week off between episodes. (We keep and eye on the website and news stories betweentimes of course.) At the moment we’re using that “time off” to tweak some of the systems behind the scenes. This has involved upgrading WordPress and various plugins, patching podcoder and so on.

So, please download the show and listen. A lot of work goes into it. If you like it, or dislike it, please send us feedback through the various routes given on the website.