So I passed my brown sash grading in Lau Gar Kung Fu the other week. It must be coming up to 4 years since I started with Sifu Newby looking to attain my white sash. However, only now that I have achieved this level and know all of the movements am I beginning to actually learn kung fu. It’s like many things (including parkour), people can show you what to do, how to move, how to stand, but there comes a time of realisation when the practicalities of what you’re doing dawn on you and, at that moment, what you’re doing has purpose and with that new found understanding can your learning really begin to develope.

So now, at this new level of enlightenment, over the course of the next year there will be little new material instead I will be “learning” what I already know ready to stand before the critique of the great man himself, Master Yau.

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Early in 2007 I moved house and registered with Tiscali for their 8meg ADSL package. Line tests confirmed that I could get up to around 6-7meg speeds. However, after waiting longer than required for the line to become active, I found that I could only achieve an average of 2mbps. Numerous emails to Tiscali failed to resolve this, each time I was fobbed off with pre-scripted bullshit and excuses.

Then back in September I moved again. I put in a transfer request for Tiscali to transfer my account. This is where it gets fun. Not only did it initially take a month to transfer my account from one phone number to another. Tiscali managed to fail epically at providing me with my account; instead they - somehow - managed to reactivate my Pipex account on a completely different phone line! (Tiscali took over the very reliable Pipex not so long ago :() With this problem in hand, Tiscali then canceled my account transfer and reapplied it, meaning the whole process began from scratch - and now 2 months without the Internet. A point to note: when transferring between ISP’s if you request a MAC (Migration Authorisation Code) transfer code, the whole process should only take a few hours. By law, an ISP must provide a MAC code when requested within 5 days.

Every phone call to Tiscali support was re-routed to India/Pakistan (somewhere in the far East) and Asian phone operators with fake English names, like Troy and Adam, and pre-scripted responses to anything you ask them. Tiscali’s customer service is second to none - none being none at all.

When it was finally resolved and the line active, I began to recieve a steady 2mbps connection on a line that has been tested to support far more. Now, in January 2008, I am currently receiving 0.3mbps. I am still paying for 8mbps.

I urge anyone looking to register broadband in the UK to avoid Tiscali at ALL costs. You may pay a little more to other ISP’s, but it will benefit you greatly in the long run. I also ask you to look up some of the Problems with Tiscali on Google, in particular this message board post about Tiscali connections dropping out.

The Gadget Shows website has a Broadband Speedtest you can run to see what connection speeds you are actually getting. They also have a feed back form on the same page. If you have a Facebook account, you can join the Facebook Group “Broadband Truth Campaign“.

If you are currently a Tiscali customer having problems, please barrage their support service with notices about your dissatisfaction at this email address , the more we complain the more chance something might be done. If you feel that Tiscali are in breech of contract, you can contact Trading Standards here. Also, check out The Great Tiscali Swindle, where you can submit and read some of the problems that Tiscali users are facing.

Edit: 8meg to 0.3 still, all emails and complaints, support requests ignored for the last 4 months or so. Anyway, kudos to Richard Wilson on the Facebook group Tiscali Schmiscali for the following contact details. More higher level contacts to come.

Tiscali head office:
Tiscali UK Limited
20 Broadwick Street
London
W1F 8HT
0207 0872000

You can also register a complaint with the ISP Review website but please note that they are not an official body, but your complaints help to highlight the problems faced when dealing with Tiscali.

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As you probably know by now I created the “Parkour Glyph”, which is being used by the global Parkour/Freerunning community “Urbanfreeflow” and, consequently, appearing all over the media. You’ve probably noticed, also, that I like to make things.

So last night I was playing around with Photoshop and put together a logo that could be used by Urbanfreeflow as the symbol of their Parkour Academy and subsequent Parkour classes.

The new logo obviously incorporates the Parkour Glyph and I worked in the kanji symbol for “The Way”, which has been used by Urbanfreeflow for quite some time. It clearly follows the same kind of style as most martial arts academy badges, thus further pushing the idea of Parkour as a discipline rather than a sport.

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So back in July (evidently), I was invited down to London by Ez from Urbanfreeflow to take part in a short viral video campaign for an anti-landmines charity. As previously reported, we spent the day climbing around various parts of London with the idea that the ground isn’t a place you’d want to be. Anyway, here is one of the finished products. It’s being played across the Internet and in UK cinema’s.

Unfortunately, they cut a large proportion of the second days filming, consequently I only get a couple of seconds screen time :P Better luck next time aye. Spare a thought for HD Bandit though, who was edited out of both days filming :(

Edit: I now have confirmation of my silver screen debut :) Apparently the cinema release gives me quite a bit more exposure :D

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I recently dug out my old acoustic guitar with the idea that I was going to learn a few simple chorded songs. As I hadn’t used it for quite some time it was severely out of tune. Now I don’t know how to tune a guitar manually, but I do know how to use computers. So for any geeks out there looking for a quick, accurate, method of tuning your guitar in, here’s what you do.

Get yourself a mic and an oscilloscope, frequency measuring or sound editing software.

Wire your mic into your PC and position it close to the strings. Then use the software to tune your guitar strings to the following guitar note frequencies;

6th String  82.40hz
5th String  110.00hz
4th String  146.83hz
3rd String  196.00hz
2nd String  246.94hz
1st String   329.63hz

I hope that can be of use to someone :)

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