Mission Accomplished; my entire life packed up and relocated. For the benefit of anyone who may be thinking about hiring a van, I shall share my learning points.
I hired the van from Thrifty – £35 for 24 hrs (inc 20% discount tues-thurs), and spent about £30 on fuel for ~230 miles of driving. I also opted to spend another £9 on better insurance (excess reduced from £500 to £150).
The van was a current Ford Transit with 30k miles on the clock; the smallest, lightest, and least powerful in the range (short wheelbase, 85PS 2.0L diesel FWD with a low roof). They have the longer wheelbase vans too, but I didn’t need that for my trip. This van/engine is fine for any “normal” tasks – moving house, transporting domestic type things, but I wouldn’t want to be putting industrial palettes in it. The thrifty vans have a fibreboard lining on the payload space, with securing hooks mostly recessed into it, a bulkhead between driver and cargo, three seats in the front, and a radio :-)
Things that are useful to know if you’re considering hiring a van:

• If you’ve never driven a large vehicle, take it easy to begin with. They’re cumbersome buggers. Everything’s different to a car; seating position, view, gears, power, handling.
• They’re wide, but not that wide. I drove through a 7 ft width restriction with this one – needed to fold in the mirrors, but was otherwise fine. Remember your width when you’re driving it.
• They’re long, and you’re sitting over the front axle. You can’t steer in to a corner like you would with a car, you have to take wide turns. You need to compensate for this when you’re parking it in a bay, too. Think about where the rear wheels are, and drive the front to control the rear.
• You have no rear-view mirror. The side mirrors on the latest transits are very good, with excellent blind-spot mirrors underneath. Take the time to set them up properly before you set off. If you’re trying to parallel park, open the window and lean out, or get someone to help.
• They’re all very powerful. Even the 85PS that I had is plenty to spin the wheels if that’s what you’re into. The brakes are similarly powerful, and fitted with ABS by default. If you’re driving an older van you might not have the ABS, so be aware of how much energy the thing is carrying, and how long it’ll take to shed that without skidding.

• Tie your cargo down properly. It’s very disconcerting to hear things bashing around behind you, and dangerous if heavy things are moving.

  So there you go. I think that a total of £75 to shift all my stuff down the M1 is pretty good value. The bigger vans aren’t much more expensive – another tenner for a long wheelbase transit, and £10 more than that for a Merc Sprinter 311. If you’re feeling brave, you can get a Luton for £75/day…

Today, my geekiness reaches new heights. I’m hiring a van to take all my furniture back to mum’s house, so obviously I need a van that will fit all my stuff in. Will a short wheelbase Transit do the job? Only one way to find out…

Writing About: Useless advice, 13/09/05, Autology: John Dale’s blog

I’m pretty sure that I enjoyed myself at university, but that’s really based on a few specific memories of particular occasions. What I did and how I felt for the vast majority of my student time is now largely a closed book for me except in general, hazy outline.

Good idea. Things I don’t want to forget, in as-close-as-possible to chronological order. I expect to add to this list, over time.

• arriving. Alex collecting things aimed at freshers. Chris, Mark, Ryan 007. Discussions of whether that Russian Revolution was a revolution, or a Coup d’etat.
• “Great Physicists make Great Pets”, “We like to strip off and play with our balls” – newspapers
• leatherette Siege Engine 2000
• sitting in thermal physics, reading the prospectus to work out what to change to
• “Chemistry? That’s a bit of a step down, isn’t it?”

• BT, Apsley, Silver

  ——

• Jules. Doughnuts in Kennilworth. Ben (?) the ultimate glassware cleaner.
• Jane, Caroline. Floating Creme Eggs – balloons.
• JC, Si, Dave, Van[aja]
• Bounce
• Trolley Theft
• RAG escape
• Burning Looroll
• Beans With Everything
• Whitefields Crisis.
• The Rain

• FORE Systems. Caroline in Watford. Eclipse in France.

  ——

• Berkeley Rd Sth
• Tin, Jane, Jess, Pavan, Aarti (?), Nick, Bea (?)
• Meningitus
• The Police
• Breaking and Entering
• SyntheticPages
• Bunny Boiler
• IT Trainer
• Training the Trainers
• Careers Service

• 2 Screens

  ——

• Caroline, Tin, Tina, The Mikeopath, Vince, Pokemon (What was his name? I feel it In My Fingers), Jess’ Friend, Kweku
• Emily. Westwood.
• Sweden with Caroline, Emily and Taliah
• Rootes
• Tal & Martin – Canon Park
• Car Crash, Dave & Emily
• Firework Disaster
• HeadHunter
• Graham and Stacey and Emily too
• Wien, München, Wien

• More Careers Service. Purge! Purge! Purge!

  ——

• Taxi from Johannesburg
• Light Infantry
• The Good Lord Provides
• Singing in KZN
• Rourke’s Drift
• JD under the stars
• Big Angry Cows
• The Fish Platter
• In The Calamari Zone – The Pavilion, Durban. SwissCard Saviour.
• 40 Klicks from ‘Nam
• Cape Vidal
• Fortune (Shofune)
• Elephants
• Out of Contact (9/11)
• The Rain
• Bring and Brai
• The Drakensberg – Giant’s Castle. Walking, cave paintings
• “Feed me exotic fruit!”. Car crash – nearly.
• The Midlands Meander
• Howick Falls. Swiss Goats. Wind Chimes and Guard dogs. Bank Holiday in the Arts Centre. Smoky Corridor
• Granny Pad by the Beach – Umhlanga Rocks
• Wurst in Frankfurt

• The End of Innocence

  And I don’t want the world to see me
  Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
  When everything’s made to be broken
  I just want you to know who I am

  ——

• Crash and Burn
• Pavel. Emma, Vince, Jen, Vicky
• Colin, Posh, Kevin, Geez, Rich, Westie, Edd
• Reconciliation
• Sureal – You Take My Breath Away (lange remix)
• Less constrained Constrained Geometry
• Ducks
• Lots of Ben and Jerry’s – 2 for £5
• Graduation.

• $hell. Aberdeen. Anna. Starbucks. Minibus Treasure Hunt. Farmer’s Daughter. Ride me! Ride me! Use me and abuse me!

  This has been a rather interesting exercies. It’s actually made me quite emotional, verging from the edge of tears one minute to a broad grin the next, as I try to systematize and order the random memories from the period of my life where I did my real growing up – the transition from child to Naïve adult. Towards the end, I was starting on the Next Major Transition – from that state to where I am now. I think I’ll write another memorandum for my postgraduate times tomorrow, but now it’s bedtime.

I’ve been offered a job! Kind of.

Small consultancy firm, friendly company, had an interview a couple of weeks ago, went well, spoke to the Big Boss today, who wants to offer me a job.

I’m really excited about this – it’s the first job that I’ve come across since the Fast Stream that has really excited me. I’ve been applying to others, which I’m sure would have been fine, but nothing that really made me excited, like this one did.

We shall see.