 | mike ashcroft on £120 Parking Fine from Lambeth… |
 | Darren Di Lieto on Not sure about tweeting to muc… |
 | Joseph M McGrath on £120 Parking Fine from Lambeth… |
I’m forever trying to improve the system and website we have in place for the ‘Hire an illustrator!’ promotional service we run, and we do so much in the background that people just don’t know about. 
So… we now have a staff blog where we can post about all of the wonderful stuff we get up to!
Please visit: http://hireanillustrator.com/i/blog/
As soon as I get the chance, along with the million other things I need to do, I will be giving Apefluff a make over.
Recently I’ve had to do a lot of house cleaning with regards to the Little Chimp Society website! Specifically the mySQL database and FTP account. It’s had a good run over the last 5 years or so, but during that period it has produced a lot of by-product that should have been deleted before now.
With a little help from Putty(SSH), over the weekend I’ve literally deleted gigabytes and gigabytes of rarely used data and information. The result of the mass clear out is that it has produced a website that runs 10 times faster, and it is now less of a burden on the server that homes it. Yay!
I’m not sure how the server was actually able to cope with it before, but I’ve now added server house cleaning to my weekly work timetable to keep it trim and fighting fit.
There goes £120 down the drain! We were issued a parking fine in London when we had a valid ticket last month. We thought they hadn’t seen our pay and display ticket, but apparently we were in a residents parking permit bay – this was not clear due the to the sign on the same side of the road (the one we saw), next to machine a few meters away saying you could pay to park. There weren’t even any road marking to define the different areas. This was an oversight on our part, and we initially appealed thinking the parking attendant hadn’t seen our ticket in the windscreen. The only response and acknowledgement we had to our appeal was the Notice of Contravention this morning, telling us to pay £120 or face £180 and court.
I phoned them and they said a rejection letter to the appeal had been sent to me, but I never got it! I was then informed that it was a permit holder only bay we had parked in, which I wasn’t aware of up until that point. The first girl on the phone at Lambeth Parking services was very understanding and even looked at Google Street View to confirm what I was saying about the signs and road markings and told me it was very strange that different signs were so close and very odd that they were on the same side of the street. She told me to appeal, but as I didn’t get a response to my first appeal I didn’t want to face going to court due to potentially no fault of my own. If the parking fine notice hadn’t been so vague as to the reasons for the fine we would have probably paid the £60 fine in the first place. I’m not impressed!
I’m not going to bother appealing again against the fine or trying for a £60 fine instead. Apart from the stress and time it takes to do everything in writing and supply evidence (ie going to London to take photos), I’m not a gambling man, and I don’t want to face court if I don’t get a response to my appeal again. The cards are stacked against me in this case.
To get my money’s worth and make me feel better about the whole situation I will be writing an open letter to Mr Boris Johnson (Mayor of London) later today. I don’t expect him to actually read it, but it will allow me to get this and probably a few other things off my chest!
Leave a comment below of on Fb… http://www.facebook.com/lieto
I’m working away frantically at the moment to get the second Mail Me Art book ready for the printers. If anyone wants to help… Please pre-order a copy by making a pledge at the mail me art site. http://mailmeart.com/going-postal/pledge/
Hi Darren,
I’ve only just stumbled across your page and the mail me art project you did, I’d love to get involved next time around if possible? Your probably still recovering from this one but when are you planing to do it again?
Regards
Richard
We’ve not decided yet!
Darren has recently been working on a number of handy new projects for the Hire an illustrator! website. They are neatly collected together in the ‘labs’ section of the site, and include The Wall, Illustrator GeoMapping, and Tweets from the artists. Labs will offer additional resources for both Hai! members and people looking for artists, and as this section will be in continual development you can expect to see new tools and resources added over time.
Why not try out what we got so far at http://hireanillustrator.com/i/labs
Jane and I don’t use this site much as it’s just a sort of personal notepad for us to use when we feel like it! So if you’re reading this please leave a comment and say hello! We were wondering what sort of people read this site as we record absolutely no statistics for it. Thanks and have a great day, Darren.
I guess it’s just me and my keyboard
Hey there! Whats up with the theme change?
I plan to change the theme on this site on a regular basis!
I came across it! Nice work
We love Dani Jones’ fun and fab characters, and would most definitely recommend taking a look at her live webstream, where you can watch her at work. There’s also a live chat facility, so you can talk to other viewers, leave comments for Dani or ask her questions.
Dani works live Tuesdays to Fridays from 10-11am -
The new Hire an illustrator! website finally went public today. The old site was with us for quite a long time, so it was about time things got spruced up a bit
As well as a very different look for the site, the whole system has been updated and improved to make things more efficient and flexible. There are a whole load of other additional new features that we will be adding to the site over the next few months or so, which will provide new resources for both our members and for clients using the site to find an artist, illustrator, designer or animator.
You can check out the new site here.
I finally got round to updating the web hosting site we run called GiMUR Hosting. It’s been a long time coming – the previous incarnation hadn’t been updated since 2007. Go and check it out and maybe consider us next time you want hosting for a new site – http://gimur.net
I wasn’t sure if anyone was interested in how the site was made, what I used, how long it took or even how GiMUR works… So I’ve not done a write-up, but if you’re interested leave a comment on this post.
mike ashcroft, 
Joseph M McGrath, 
Chris Dorey and one other person are discussing. 
Dan Broughton, 
Matti Kemppainen are discussing.
nia 11:49 pm on March 4, 2011 Permalink |
same thing happened to me. had a valid pay and display. i think these people are professional fraudstars…
Chris Dorey 12:46 pm on March 26, 2011 Permalink |
We are in the same situation. I was expecting an apology as our ticket was visible too. They say we were in a residents spot. But there was no indication of this. Like you…and I have this morning got their rejection of our appeal….do I pursue this.
Joseph M McGrath 12:52 am on November 19, 2011 Permalink |
I have some difficult experiences with Lambeth Parking Authority conserning a road named Clapham Park Road where there is a bus lane but no time plates. I have entered the bus lane no less than six times at around the same time between 01.00 and 02.00am (In the Morning) , four have been withdrawn due to clerical errors, administrative errors together with other lenthy apologies, there are two alleged offences still outstanding. have anybody out there experienced the bus lane in Clapham Park Road, Clapham SW4, please email me if you have any familiarities with this bus lane.
With regards
Joe McGrath ~ 07852447249
mike ashcroft 11:05 am on January 10, 2012 Permalink |
Ive just recieved the same Egerly road off Clapham Road I had a pay and display in the windscreen yet a ticket now staning at £142 after going through lease company!!! The sign says resident parking OR pay and display what the hell can I do here I cant afford this I thought I was parked legally this is bull shit?