However, the forums seem to attract many posts about how it is “suitable for beginner’s” or that “it’s not a beginner’s course”. Apart from being annoying, they are simply incorrect.

Fact: the course, L192, assumes no previous knowledge of French before starting on the course:

Entry

No prior knowledge of French is required to study this course.

This is a Level 1 course. Level 1 courses provide core subject knowledge and study skills needed for both higher education and distance learning. If you have any doubt about the suitability of the course, please contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.

The course is for beginner’s; it just isn’t easy.</rant>

The problem, of course, is that when something is hard or takes a little bit of work or time, some people instantly assume that the problem lies outside of themselves, and therefore, surely the problem is with the course/person/situation. Work harder and/or smarter; stop complaining.

However, they called me today, somewhat randomly, to inform me that the claim was proceeding normally. They called me and then asked me to provide details to ‘prove’ who I was. I said, before I do that, can you prove who you are? And they couldn’t. There’s no information they could give me over the phone to demonstrate that they were who they said they were.

Why am I so cautious? Well, why not. It’s trivially easy to spoof a phone number on ID, and this was ‘withheld’ anyway. I ended the call, looked up their number on my policy document and rang back in – it was the only way to (mostly) ensure that I was talking to who I thought I would be.

So it made me think: if we need to prove who we are when we call them, why shouldn’t they prove who they are when they call us. And the easiest way to do that is to give a piece of information that only they could know, essentially, something that you’ve given them as a password only to be given back to you – not for you to access the account.

Of course, it will never happen … (sigh).

My Dad lives in Ontario, Canada, and is retired.  He has always enjoyed anything to do with water having been a keen sailor in the past, and has two windsurfers which he uses on Lake Ontario during the summer.  During the winter he tends to X-country ski, snow-shoe and generally keep very active.

About two years ago I got an email out of the blue which said that he was thinking of buying a canoe and described the ‘Indian’ style canoe that he was thinking of getting.  I thought, ‘oh, the windsurfing must be getting a bit much’ and emailed back a gentle question to that effect.  I got the following reply:

“No, on some days it isn’t windy.”