Halifax, you must be joking!

One year ago I insured my little Peugeot 107 with the Halifax bank. I realize that Halifax were merely agents for another company - in this case Liverpool Victoria - but the deal was a good one. For fully comprehensive insurance, with protected No Claims bonus and me paying the first £350 of any claim (apart from windscreen repairs), the cost was £136.  It even included a 'free' MOT test. Yesterday the renewal notice arrived, and this year they want an astonishing £307!  That's almost double Direct Line's quotation of £161, and they were the most expensive of the rest.

You won't be surprised to learn that I phoned Halifax and cancelled the renewal.  "I presume this is an unethical 'try-on'," I said.  "You're hoping that your customers will simply renew without checking."  The poor guy at the other end of the phone had to agree that their quotation was hardly competitive.  So now I'm insured with the RAC, via the cashback site Quidco.  And the price for the same cover as last year? £154, with £25 cashback from Quidco after 3 months = £129.  Not bad, eh?

Despite the popularity of comparison and cashback websites, all insurers seem to hike their prices after the first year.  They wouldn't try it if it didn't pay them, so it must be true that many folk renew their policies unquestioningly, on the assumption that if a company was cheap last year, they'll continue to be so.  Even so, the Halifax's hike of 125% does take a bit of believing.

In a strange twist of fate, a few weeks ago I moved my home insurance to Halifax. It'll be interesting to see whether they try the same trick in 12 month's time.

Time for a new Smart Thingy

BackCountry with its free
Ordinance Survery maps and GPS
is definitely my favourite app.

I'm reluctant to call it a Smartphone, as phoning is far from being its most useful function. In the two years that Matilda – my Samsung Galaxy Ace – and I have been together, she has become my diary, news reader (BBC and The Guardian), Satnav, Ordinance Survey map, calorie counter, exercise log, emailer, Classic FM radio, photo store, night sky mapper... the list goes on and on.

But Matilda is growing old, poor thing.  She was already technically old when I signed up for her, running Android 2.3.6 (Gingerbread), but at £7.50 per month, including all the calls, text messages and Internet access that I could possibly want, she was a bargain I found hard to refuse.  And when I spotted that Carphone Warehouse (now trading as Talk Mobile) weren't just offering boring white and black versions, but also the girlie La Fleur, the deal was done.

Since she's been such a faithful friend, I could simply switch to a SIM Only contract when this one expires in a few weeks' time. However, Matilda does have her shortcomings:

• Several potentially useful new and upgraded apps won't work on her old version of Android.

• Although I've successfully substituted a nice big SD Card, the internal phone storage is limited. Damn it, I've even had to ditch Angry Birds.

It's hard to get really good photos with Matilda
in poor or unusual light conditions, such as this
snow scene last week.

Most importantly, though, the camera is not great.  I'm really pleased with my Canon 'bridge' camera, but it is rather bulky to take around all the time.  Perhaps I should have spent longer looking for a good compact camera before parting with my money, but that's history. A reasonably good camera on Matilda MkIII would solve the problem.

So the search is on.  At the outset, I'll make it clear that I have no desire to own one of the latest 'must have' models.  Something they were raving about 18 months ago will do me fine.  It'll be a lot cheaper, too.

My first foray onto the TalkTalk website has come up with the Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo @ £11 per month, which is not at all bad.  It's got a 4.8inch screen (compared to Matilda's 3.5 inch) and runs Android 4.4.2  The camera is rated at 8 megapixels, which seems pretty standard these days.  Tempting.

Or perhaps the time has come to move away from Samsung and consider the Sony Experia M2 @ £13 per month.  It's only available in boring black and runs a slightly older Android (4.3), but they make a big thing of its 8 megapixel camera, which may technically be a touch better than Samsung's.  Mmm... tricky.  Perhaps my next move is to chat to someone in a shop.  Yes, definitely.  A trip to Gloucester or Cardiff is called for.

All I gotta do is act naturally

Here's a trivia question for Baby Boomers: Which Beatles album was the first to feature Ringo Star singing Act Naturally? (Answer below *.)  To my shame, I needed two guesses; shame, 'cos it's the first LP I ever bought. Nobody else had a clue, though, so there are advantages in being the old girl of the group.

Yes, ukulele lessons have started again.  This time I'm on the Improvers' Course, though I choose to call it the Survivors' Course, for most of us from last term turned up again yesterday evening.  Once more, we're being expertly tutored by Matt, and the first song he had us playing was... you guessed it, Act Naturally.

Compared to some of the stuff we were tackling at the end of last term, this one's quite easy, with no nasty chord changes.  However, things soon became a lot more complicated as we learned the basics of Rolled Strums, Touch Strums and Chnk-ing, applying them in turn to Act Naturally.  "You'll be singing this one in your sleep," quipped Matt after the umpteenth run through the song.  He was right; I woke up humming it at 5.30 this morning.

I continue to be amazed at the ease with which I've fitted into this group.  It really is close company as we sit round a table, strumming our ukuleles, but there still have been no odd stares or searching questions.  An extra challenge this term is that we break half way though each lesson for hot drinks and chats in the Sixth Form Common Room.  I've never been great at small talk but shall have to work at it, as the scope for polite conversation about "Did you have a good Christmas?" was soon exhausted, and this term I don't have my cousin Jan to support me. Maybe I'll bore them with some photos on my smartphone of the grandchildren.  Though I say it myself, I do play the doting grandparent rather well. 

Or maybe all I gotta do is act naturally.

* The LP was Help.