invacar LightBulbFun's Invacar & general ramble thread, index on page 1, survivors lists on Pages 24/134 & AdgeCutler's Invacar Mk12 Restoration from Page 186 onwards, still harping on...

[egg]

3 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

it is for me an issue that is very serious and quite distressing

I've known you for a while Dez, and perhaps I shouldn't say this publicly....but have you considered you know - the whole neuro-diverse thing? Because if this is causing you actual distress, I find it is consistent with my experience of being around autistic people. 

I'm not going to throw around diagnoses on the internet - but I see that there's an ongoing understanding gap between some folk and yourself that doesn't appear to be able to be reconciled (over literally years). 

There's also quite a lot of us on here who either have a diagnoses, have family members who do - and a good sub-group of forum users do really care about unusual specifics. I mean I collect K reg Mondeo numbers and seem to 'get away' with it!

I bring it up to see if some better mutual understanding could be achieved.

And if that all sounds a bit po-faced, I think 95% of the humour and piss-taking on AS in the right side of the line FWIW. The arguments/thread locks/splinter groups etc on here have tended to be about that final 5%.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

1 minute ago, Nyphur said:

If its life and death then sure, make sure he's shown how to code it properly.

If its so the reports are correct when they're run to avoid "frustration" as you put it, then no, its really not that important. I expect if it was that important and he was fucking it up that regularly then we'd have heard about it on the news by now.

What do you think the reports are for?  Why do you think we hear about clinical malpractice?  Often, it's poor record-keeping and failure to put together a picture as a result.

[LightBulbFun]

31 minutes ago, Nyphur said:

In a similar vein, why is there a 7PM cut-off for when you can do an ownership transfer online?

No doubt this has been covered on here before, but I've always been curious as to the reason if anyone knows?

I cant say with 100% certainty, but from what I know of the system and how similar systems work

a lot of the DVLA is still a mainframe, command line interface programs and the such like, and I believe that overnight is when all the data collected from that day, is uploaded and processed by the "mainframe" 

obviously these days im guessing its all emulated stuff on modern infrastructure, with terminal emulators with regular desktop PCs and the such like, but it still is a "PDP/11"* in the middle so to speak   (and someone like fujitsu or IBM is probably making shit loads of money keeping it "working")

I have noticed over time the DVLA have been bringing their systems slowly up to date, they actually have a blog on this you can follow if your interested in this sort of stuff like I am  

the last major overhaul the DVLA computer system had was in 1999ish, but a fair chunk of it still has roots/systems going back to 1974! which as a vintage computer nerd I fucking love

but I imagines other probably dont LOL

*I am not actually sure what system the DVLA used in 1974, I know the info is out there but its been a while since I looked into it, im just using PDP11 generically here so to speak

 

this FOI request gives a nice little bit of insight into how things used to work also 

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/vehicle_licence_records_held_by

although I think the archiving of vehicle records was just a 1 time thing or certainly did not happen with only 3 years of in activity

from what I have seen it was just anything in-active Pre 1983, got archived off the system in one fell swoop, but I know plenty of vehicles tax due 1984 for example, that still show up, so they obviously never got archived off the system despite being inactive for well over 3 years by the 1990's for example

[GrumpiusMaximus]

5 minutes ago, Nyphur said:

What started as "it created havoc when we tried to run a report" is now our hero preventing medical malpractice  

Behave hahaha

But you haven't at any point acknowledged the fact that poor data can have serious consequences.  Or do you just record everything as 'other' because you can't be fucked?

[GrumpiusMaximus]

2 minutes ago, Nyphur said:

Poor data really can have serious consequences - I acknowledge that m'lord.

Can it have serious consequences in your medical setting when they can pay someone on minimum wage to correct it after the fact, or if an Invacare has an E missing off its DVLA record? Doubt.

The point is that somebody on minimum wage doesn't have the specific knowledge that's required to correct the data after the fact based on free-text notes.  The person best equipped to input the data is the clinical expert.

[LightBulbFun]

1 minute ago, Nyphur said:

Can you link to the blog please? Thanks

https://dvladigital.blog.gov.uk/category/digital-dvla/

a lot of it is modern day fluff so to speak

but there are some interesting tibits here and there, for example

https://dvladigital.blog.gov.uk/2022/08/03/dvlas-it-transformation-our-story-so-far/

[GrumpiusMaximus]

Just now, Nyphur said:

And if it was THAT important, "OTHER" + free text notes wouldn't be allowed in the first place. 

 

It's OK mate, you keep aiming for mediocrity and missing the mark.

[LightBulbFun]

18 minutes ago, Nyphur said:

or if an Invacare has an E missing off its DVLA record? Doubt.

funnily enough  thats is actually another issue/side of the same coin so to speak

that I noticed over time, a fair number of Invacare Mobility scooters have incorrectly been registered as INVACAR, someone at the DVLA when registering them obviously just chose Invacar from the drop down menu, rather then manually typing in Invacare as they should of done (since at that point Invacare had no make code)

and thats why when you go to how many left it says there are 62 Invacar's currently Taxed

but no not the case really, most of those are mobility scooters! only about 10-15 of those are actually Invacars that are taxed and another 10 or 15 that are SORN

you can see just by how few are fuel type Petrol (Invacar never made any Electric machines)

[Rod/b]

24 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

I cant say with 100% certainty, but from what I know of the system and how similar systems work

a lot of the DVLA is still a mainframe, command line interface programs and the such like, and I believe that overnight is when all the data collected from that day, is uploaded and processed by the "mainframe" 

obviously these days im guessing its all emulated stuff on modern infrastructure, with terminal emulators with regular desktop PCs and the such like, but it still is a "PDP/11"* in the middle so to speak   (and someone like fujitsu or IBM is probably making shit loads of money keeping it "working")

I have noticed over time the DVLA have been bringing their systems slowly up to date, they actually have a blog on this you can follow if your interested in this sort of stuff like I am  

the last major overhaul the DVLA computer system had was in 1999ish, but a fair chunk of it still has roots/systems going back to 1974! which as a vintage computer nerd I fucking love

but I imagines other probably dont LOL

*I am not actually sure what system the DVLA used in 1974, I know the info is out there but its been a while since I looked into it, im just using PDP11 generically here so to speak

 

this FOI request gives a nice little bit of insight into how things used to work also 

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/vehicle_licence_records_held_by

although I think the archiving of vehicle records was just a 1 time thing or certainly did not happen with only 3 years of in activity

from what I have seen it was just anything in-active Pre 1983, got archived off the system in one fell swoop, but I know plenty of vehicles tax due 1984 for example, that still show up, so they obviously never got archived off the system despite being inactive for well over 3 years by the 1990's for example

Maybe they should get Fujitsu in to sort them out a new system. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? 

[LightBulbFun]

3 minutes ago, Rod/b said:

Maybe they should get Fujitsu in to sort them out a new system. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? 

exactly! thats kinda my point with all of this

heres a Data error, rather then fix it properly at the root cause, they just patch it up/sweep it under the table and hope no one notices...

and thats part of one of the reasons why I am so worked up about it, is the simple fundamentals of it, sure in this case its "just" an "E" but the connotations could be much bigger/worse

 

hence why I want to nip this in the bud and actually get them to sort it out properly

[chadders]

19 minutes ago, Nyphur said:

And if it was THAT important, "OTHER" + free text notes wouldn't be allowed in the first place. 

 

In my experience professional people haven't studied for x years, had to pass 4x exams and other tests to do data input. That's an office junior's job and if they can't read the notes they go to someone who can, probably a local admin person. 

[chadders]

14 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

exactly! thats kinda my point with all of this

heres a Data error, rather then fix it properly at the root cause, they just patch it up/sweep it under the table and hope no one notices...

and thats part of one of the reasons why I am so worked up about it, is the simple fundamentals of it, sure in this case its "just" an "E" but the connotations could be much bigger/worse

 

hence why I want to nip this in the bud and actually get them to sort it out properly

So what exactly are the potential/actual consequences?

To fix it are you just talking look up tables or is coding required ?

If the latter it might be a world of pain from a testing point of view, especially, as is very likely, it's interfaced with other systems.

By what you say there also might be data clean up exercise which in my experience is neither simple nor cheap.

[LightBulbFun]

2 hours ago, chadders said:

So what exactly are the potential/actual consequences?

To fix it are you just talking look up tables or is coding required ?

If the latter it might be a world of pain from a testing point of view, especially, as is very likely, it's interfaced with other systems.

By what you say there also might be data clean up exercise which in my experience is neither simple nor cheap.

as far as I personally understand it, its just a cockup with the lookup tables, someones taken "INVACAR" and put an E on the end so every vehicle registered under the make code of ZA will display inoccrectly as Invacare, instead of Invacar as they should do

so for example the ULEZ checker 

used to correctly display Invacar

now it incorrectly displays Invacare

and someone espically a Jobsworth could argue "oh you never paid for ULEZ, you only paid for a INVACARE, your vehicle is an INVACAR, thus you never paid a charge for it"

this would be more of an issue if say the DVLA changed all fords to Citroen, but the principle is the same

 

and then the issue with how the DVLA have "Fixed" REV's record by dissosicating her from the coded system and just manually typing in INVACAR

means systems that rely on the coded system may fail

for example my parking permit portal, was able to see REV through the simple registration lookup saving me a lot of faff contacting the council to get a parking permit, it could be all done online

but as you can see when I try a vehicle not on the coded system, it dies a death

so now REV may potential start to fail to show up on these systems also

 

again with TFL for example, heres an Invacar that was never put on the coded system properly, and as you can see it sort of finds it, but note how the vehicle make is completely missing, not a good look is it!

 

the fix is AFAIK pretty simple, someone just needs to go in and fix the look up table, and then for all INVACAR's that are currently taxed or SORN, do a data refresh, there aint many of them! again about 60 (including the incorrectly registered scooters LOL)

(I mean theres about ~7000~ or so on the DVLA but most of those are dormant, tax due 1987 or whatever so those are not affected by this, since they are still using cached data from who knows when and do display correctly still)

 

but regardless of effort to fix, they themselves fucked it up in the first place, they should fix it I feel, and fix it properly

 

hopefully this makes sense  

[sdkrc]

1 hour ago, Nyphur said:

In a similar vein, why is there a 7PM cut-off for when you can do an ownership transfer online?

No doubt this has been covered on here before, but I've always been curious as to the reason if anyone knows?

It's because the man who serves the DVLA's HTML by hand is offline. 

[GrumpiusMaximus]

14 minutes ago, sdkrc said:

It's because the man who serves the DVLA's HTML by hand is offline. 

No, it's because he was on holiday and the office interm found a copy of Dreamweaver from 2003 in a drawer, thinking 'How hard can it be?'.

[chadders]

8 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

as far as I personally understand it, its just a cockup with the lookup tables, someones taken "INVACAR" and put an E on the end so every vehicle registered under the make code of ZA will display inoccrectly as Invacare, instead of Invacar as they should do

so for example the ULEZ checker 

used to correctly display Invacar

now it incorrectly displays Invacare

and someone espically as Jobsworth could argue "oh you never paid for ULEZ, you only paid for a INVACARE, your vehicle is an INVACAR, thus you never paid a charge for it"

this would be more of an issue if say the DVLA changed all fords to Citroen, but the principle is the same

 

and then the issue with how the DVLA have "Fixed" REV's record by dissosicating her from the coded system and just manually typing in INVACAR

means systems that rely on the coded system may fail

for example my parking permit portal, was able to see REV through the simple registration lookup saving me a lot of faff contacting the council to get a parking permit, it could be all done online

but as you can see when I try a vehicle not on the coded system, it dies a death

so now REV may potential start to fail to show up on these systems also

 

again with TFL for example, heres an Invacar that was never put on the coded system properly, and as you can see it sort of finds it, but note how the vehicle make is completely missing, not a good look is it!

 

the fix is AFAIK pretty simple, someone just needs to go in and fix the look up table, and then for all INVACAR's that are currently taxed or SORN, do a data refresh, there aint many of them! again about 60 (including the incorrectly registered scooters LOL)

(I mean theres about ~7000~ or so on the DVLA but most of those are dormant, tax due 1987 or whatever so those are not affected by this, since they are still using cached data from who knows when and do display correctly still)

 

but regardless of effort to fix, they themselves fucked it up in the first place, they should fix it I feel, and fix it properly

 

hopefully this makes sense  

It does.

It might be their fault but everywhere I've worked there's had to be a cost/benefit analysis for any work. Admittedly it's all been private sector apart from the Post Office though.

I've had to review lots of these proposals but I can't see any monetary benefits in this as I understand it. Sometimes work gets approved without these but usually because of legal requirements or so another system will work 'properly', e.g. a change in data format.

If it's just an easy fix to a look up table it could probably be included in another work package. If it can't then someone will probably have to sign the cost off.

In some ways it'd probably be easier to get the work done if it was a massive problem. I've been out of this field for a while now but let me know if you're unsure about what I've said.

 

[LightBulbFun]

2 hours ago, chadders said:

It does.

It might be their fault but everywhere I've worked there's had to be a cost/benefit analysis for any work. Admittedly it's all been private sector apart from the Post Office though.

I've had to review lots of these proposals but I can't see any monetary benefits in this as I understand it. Sometimes work gets approved without these but usually because of legal requirements or so another system will work 'properly', e.g. a change in data format.

If it's just an easy fix to a look up table it could probably be included in another work package. If it can't then someone will probably have to sign the cost off.

In some ways it'd probably be easier to get the work done if it was a massive problem. I've been out of this field for a while now but let me know if you're unsure about what I've said.

 

Yeah I understand what your saying there will be or, should be a whole vetting process behind it, which makes the fact this INVACAR vs INVACARE fuck up happened in the first place, all the more galling 

 

I did fear they might just try and bodge rather then fix it properly, so I did make sure to explain in detail in my letters what I think the issue is, how it might be resolved, and the fact REV is not an isolated case etc

but alas it seems they did just bodge it sadly

 

but that is one of the reasons I am quite eager to see what if anything is said when this new V5 letter arrives, I will reserve full judgement until then.

maybe just maybe they have only just temporarily uncoded REV to get her to show up correctly, while they sort the back end out and then will re-code her once things are sorted?

thats what I would hope to hear/read at least! but obviously remains to be seen, probably not going to be until at least Monday until the V5 arrives, but ill be sure to keep people informed.

 

one of the many  frustating things about this is, this is not even the first time it happened!

you may notice that genuine AC vehicles from AC Cars Ltd, Thames Ditton mostly all show up on the DVLA as "AC (ELECTRIC)"

but they didn't always do that, wind the clock way back to about 1983, they did correctly show up as just "AC", for example if you look up 1940PE, you will see it says "AC (ELECTRIC)" and it shows a V5 last issued 8th December 1983, I have seen that V5 (it still exists with the car) and it does just say "AC" on it as it should because it was printed before the cockup its only the online record thats wrong so to speak,

its just for someone reason at some point in time after that someone added "(ELECTRIC)" to the end of "AC" in the lookup, so suddenly all genuine AC's show up "AC (ELECTRIC)"! I have seen a few owners of AC sports cars try to fix this, and often times it ends up as a bit of a mess like "ACSHELBYCOBRA260DAYTONA" or something along those lines because, they think "AC (ELECTRIC)" must be wrong, not knowing that it is technically "right" that is AC's name on the DVLA! 

 

so with this whole INVACARE thing, its given me a bad case of deja moo (for when you have seen this bullshit before!)

[Sham]

This may seem like a silly question, and I may have missed it in the very many posts, but since this matters so much to you what are you doing to try and get them to fix it?

Apart from complaining on the internet, that is....

[warren t claim]

38 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

Yeah I understand what your saying there will be or, should be a whole vetting process behind it, which makes the fact this INVACAR vs INVACARE fuck up happened in the first place, all the more galling 

 

I did fear they might just try and bodge rather then fix it properly, so I did make sure to explain in detail in my letters what I think the issue is, how it might be resolved, and the fact REV is not an isolated case etc

but alas it seems they did just bodge it sadly

 

but that is one of the reasons I am quite eager to see what if anything is said when this new V5 letter arrives, I will reserve full judgement until then.

maybe just maybe they have only just temporarily uncoded REV to get her to show up correctly, while they sort the back end out and then will re-code her once things are sorted?

thats what I would hope to hear/read at least! but obviously remains to be seen, probably not going to be until at least Monday until the V5 arrives, but ill be sure to keep people informed.

 

one of the many  frustating things about this is, this is not even the first time it happened!

you may notice that genuine AC vehicles from AC Cars Ltd, Thames Ditton mostly all show up on the DVLA as "AC (ELECTRIC)"

but they didn't always do that, wind the clock way back to about 1983, they did correctly show up as just "AC", for example if you look up 1940PE, you will see it says "AC (ELECTRIC)" and it shows a V5 last issued 8th December 1983, I have seen that V5 (it still exists with the car) and it does just say "AC" on it as it should because it was printed before the cockup its only the online record thats wrong so to speak,

its just for someone reason at some point in time after that someone added "(ELECTRIC)" to the end of "AC" in the lookup, so suddenly all genuine AC's show up "AC (ELECTRIC)"! I have seen a few owners of AC sports cars try to fix this, and often times it ends up as a bit of a mess like "ACSHELBYCOBRA260DAYTONA" or something along those lines because, they think "AC (ELECTRIC)" must be wrong, not knowing that it is technically "right" that is AC's name on the DVLA! 

 

so with this whole INVACARE thing, its given me a bad case of deja moo (for when you have seen this bullshit before!)

Why are you sweating the small stuff?

[warren t claim]

On 09/02/2024 at 04:12, LightBulbFun said:

yeah it is quite amusing ill give you that, as @wuvvum says the only reason I have a cheque book is because I had to send off a V62, but I do wonder if theres method to the madness  

(or would that be method to the antiquity in this case? LOL)

 

see in some regards, im kinda glad its so archaic, I mean imagine if a V62 could be done online with a debit/credit card or paypal

the amount of people would probably fuck around with that would probably increase quite a bit, not to mention any potential bots or such

 

but by being a physical form you have to fill out and take to the post office plus get a cheque for, it probably helps just by "natural selection" if thats the right phrase? filter out the people who might try and half heartedly apply for the logbook of a Ford Escort Mexico or something such

 

 

Funny you should mention that. 

An ex of mine was a clinical hypnotherapist and she tried to regress me to the time when a friend and myself rolled and burnt out an Escort RS1800 so I could remember the reg number and apply for the V5 for sentimental reasons.

[LightBulbFun]

3 hours ago, Sham said:

This may seem like a silly question, and I may have missed it in the very many posts, but since this matters so much to you what are you doing to try and get them to fix it?

Apart from complaining on the internet, that is....

Oh I have written an email a letter and had a phone call with them about the issue, they *should* be *well* aware of it  

I started out by writing a letter to the DVLA

the DVLA sent a letter back, but it  *completely* ignored what I said in the letter, (literally all the letter was, was a generic one says "please send your V5 back for amendment" it did not address *anything* I had said in my letter to the DVLA)

where upon I thought ok I need to actually speak to someone at the DVLA of a technical post so I can explain the nuance to them over the phone, but, the specific phone number provided in the letter from the DVLA was bad, I called the general line, and the clerk while she was very kind and understanding, could not do anything from her position, so in the end she basically said "everything you said to me, put that in an email and send it to us using the reference/email address provided on the letter" 

so I did so (and I explicitly explained how I did *not* want to send my V5 back because I knew if I did so there was a fair risk it would* come back as INVACARE).

*I know this from when Adam with GTW614N did an address change for it, on doing so it suddenly changed from INVACAR to INVACARE as the record refreshed and the look up table was queried, and the new V5 came back incorrectly displaying INVACARE, so thus I did not want to take the risk of sending the DVLA REV's V5, as as my 2020 V5 is my physical undisputed proof that it *did* correctly say INVACAR (so no one could try and tell me "oh its always said that")

this is also how I know its not *just* a weird bug with the DVLAs online vehicle look up service, but is an issue with the DVLA's system at large since this issue is showing up on physical paperwork. (REV's V11Z for last years tax renewal also came incorrectly showing INVACARE)

 

and thats where we stand. currently, I am still awaiting a response back from the DVLA on the email I sent a few weeks ago. but in the meantime of course I have been watching REV's record for any changes, and thats how we end up to present time

no ones actually told me to expect a new V5 hence why the post about it being most curious, and then subsequent investigation where I have done my best to try and figure out what they are playing at and if they have done what I feared or not.

[JJ0063]

I suppose now the danger is that your current V5 is now void and if the new one says Invacare or whatever, you’ve got the battle of trying to get the issue fixed and if they then won’t play ball like had been suggested above about if it’s a job that DVLA don’t deem necessary, you have to accept the ‘wrong’ v5 as the valid one?

[warren t claim]

3 minutes ago, JJ0063 said:

I suppose now the danger is that your current V5 is now void and if the new one says Invacare or whatever, you’ve got the battle of trying to get the issue fixed and if they then won’t play ball like had been suggested above about if it’s a job that DVLA don’t deem necessary, you have to accept the ‘wrong’ v5 as the valid one?

Surely the first registered keeper would have been the DHSS?

[LightBulbFun]

1 minute ago, JJ0063 said:

I suppose now the danger is that your current V5 is now void and if the new one says Invacare or whatever, you’ve got the battle of trying to get the issue fixed and if they then won’t play ball like had been suggested above about if it’s a job that DVLA don’t deem necessary, you have to accept the ‘wrong’ v5 as the valid one?

indeed, this exactly why I fear I have got a fair old battle on my hands! and why all eyes are on Monday so to speak

 

I have already verified the 11 digit number has changed...

 

which is fun in its own right, because ATM, if I for example needed to SORN REV, or anything, i'm currently fucked, and no ones gives me the heads up about it either LOL im effectively stuck in Limbo until this new V5 shows up.

its only because I had the due diligence to keep an eye on things that I even know that a new V5 has been issued

 

[JJ0063]

5 hours ago, SmokinWaffle said:

How about because he fucking wants to? Not everything has to have a reason that is okay with everyone? Not everything needs an answer? Enjoy the content rather than the reasoning.

Hopefully you’ve picked all your toys up now and put them back in your pram.

I was genuinely curious and tried to ask in a non ‘nasty’ way - I even added a cute emoji. 

Dez has actually replied since explaining that he’s been keeping an eye because of the other issue he’d reported regarding the invacarE change and making sure his hadn’t changed - a valid answer as to why someone would be so on it with checking in. 
 

Cheers for explaining LBF, I know you didn’t have to, I just wondered if there was more to it than just randomly reg checking your car every day, turns out there is.. that’s all I wanted to know! 🙌

[BorniteIdentity]

8 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

it is for me an issue that is very serious and quite distressing,

Dude - Think yourself lucky that this is the biggest issue in your world right now. You seem to have sufficient awareness to read the room and deduce people are teasing you, but not enough to realise that this ‘issue’ is - at best - trivial. 

Perhaps a couple of days away from the keyboard might bring new perspectives. This isn’t infant mortality, genocide, famine, civil war or anything else dreadful that is happening right now. It’s an administration error on a government system that has literally zero impact on anyone. 

Your enthusiasm for these horrid little things is mostly charming. But, sorry to say it, I think you’re on the outskirts of lunacy atm. 

Maybe take a break - take a breath - you might see it differently. 
 

Peace 

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, warren t claim said:

Surely the first registered keeper would have been the DHSS?

you know how on a V5 it says "this document is not proof of ownership?" Invacars where a prime example of that  

they were *registered* to their users and the users were the "keepers" of the vehicle, but the DHSS of course was the *owner* of the vehicle

(unless the user was a temporary user, so sorry to disappoint but no your not going to find an AC Model 67 with "Graham Hill" as the registered keeper!)

so the first registered keeper on an Invacar would be usually whoever it was first issued to.

 

except for REV (and a handful of others), REV is a private example, bought brand new directly from Invacar Ltd by her first keeper, (anyone could do so, but when you could also get prescribed one for free by your local GP, why would you bother, hence why you very rarely hear of/see private examples)

thats how REV survived the 2000's and the end of the Invalid Vehicle Service.

the Ministry simply had/has no power over her, she was not their property for them to cull and crush, (its also how she landed her movie role, since being a private example there was no way the ministry could object to it being used in any way)

 

the Ministry did however look after her throughout the 1970's-2000's, they would service private machines as if they where their own, I dont know 100% if it was done for free or if the owner had to pay for it, but its how she has Spax shocks and late 1990's Ministry interior trim panels for example  

 

[Dobloseven]

22 minutes ago, BorniteIdentity said:

Dude - Think yourself lucky that this is the biggest issue in your world right now. You seem to have sufficient awareness to read the room and deduce people are teasing you, but not enough to realise that this ‘issue’ is - at best - trivial. 

Perhaps a couple of days away from the keyboard might bring new perspectives. This isn’t infant mortality, genocide, famine, civil war or anything else dreadful that is happening right now. It’s an administration error on a government system that has literally zero impact on anyone. 

Your enthusiasm for these horrid little things is mostly charming. But, sorry to say it, I think you’re on the outskirts of lunacy atm. 

Maybe take a break - take a breath - you might see it differently. 
 

Peace 

Hmm.Think we all have our little obsessions on here.Remember a certain red Ford Sierra for example.OMG it's the last one ever,got to be saved etc.etc.A lot of folk on here including myself and I believe Dez ,even chipped in to help repair it .Just saying...... We're a rum lot.Not as other men(or women)some might say.

[egg]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

indeed, this exactly why I fear I have got a fair old battle on my hands! and why all eyes are on Monday so to speak

As I've mentioned before on government stuff like this, often the only way to get resolution is via the complaint route, where it is actually someone's job to sort stuff out. I would do that seeing as you have already made 'reasonable attempts' to resolve your problem.

The Karen meme is partly because there are people like that, but the truth is they also get what they want!

[chadders]

4 hours ago, egg said:

As I've mentioned before on government stuff like this, often the only way to get resolution is via the complaint route, where it is actually someone's job to sort stuff out. I would do that seeing as you have already made 'reasonable attempts' to resolve your problem.

The Karen meme is partly because there are people like that, but the truth is they also get what they want!

I agree.

To me the key will be how difficult/expensive it is, if it's too much it'll get rejected in my opinion.

I suspect that one of Sheefag's favourite quotes will end up applying:

"Attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, Lutheran theologian (1892–1971) God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."