back to article Reg readers! You've got 100 MILLION QUID - what would you BLOW it on?

Telecoms regulator Ofcom is drawing up its plans for 2014/15, and is looking for suggestions about how it might direct its considerable resources during the period. Last year, those resources ran up a bill a shade over a hundred million pounds, some of which comes from radio spectrum licensing and fines but most of it came …

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  1. Eponymous Cowherd
    Thumb Up

    Simple:

    My own secret underground base complete with monorail and personal ninja army.

    1. Babbit55

      Re: Simple:

      While a fantastic idea, would 100 mil be enough for even the underground base (never mind the monorail+ninjas!)

      1. Francis Boyle

        Re: Simple:

        I have a problem with the ninja outfit. My personal army would be required to wear something more flattering.

        1. BongoJoe

          Re: Simple:

          Would your particular lair be populated by Benny Hill nurses and that theme tune piped in?

        2. Dave Bell

          Re: Simple:

          The problem with a ninja outfit is that everyone knows you are a ninja. (I once had a girlfriend who claimed to be studying ninjutsu: the outfit is apparently from Japanese theatre.)

          There's enough there for a tropical island, but, even with the internet, there are so many more options with a London flat.

          1. Don Jefe

            Re: Simple:

            If you are an effective ninja you can wear whatever you like. Nobody can see you anyway, you're invisible.

            1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

              Re: Simple:

              Wouldn't invisible ninjas in combination with a monorail lead to a large number of industrial accidents ?

              Evil super-villian workplace safety regulations would require your ninjas to wear hi-vis jackets

              1. Don Jefe

                Re: Simple:

                I suppose you're right... Sigh... Foiled. Again.

      2. Don Jefe
        Happy

        Re: Simple:

        Fools. You don't pay for the monorail or the underground base or anything other than the ninjas. They get the other things for you. It says so in their contract. There's a lesson there: Invest in people first! Take care of them and they'll bring you the world on whatever kind of platter you like.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Simple:

      Lock myself in a Bangkok brothel with 100 ladies of leisure and sh*g my way through the money.

      If I survive the physical exhaustion then so be it, if I die it will be with a smile on my face and Rigor Mortice in my regions that will keep them happy for another few days.

      Hell, those ladies will remember me for the rest of their lives they will want to retire.

  2. Moktu

    I'd treat my best mate Moktu to a slap-up dinner and some serious Friday pints if I were Ofcom.

  3. Smallbrainfield
    Joke

    A Solid Gold House

    and a rocket car.

  4. RonWheeler

    Two options

    1: Give it back to the taxpayer

    2 Get the lawyers onto the mobile companies and force them to remove the paywall blocking landlines and SIP providers making cheap calls to mobile (i.e. there is a mobile provider cartel in operation).

  5. graeme leggett Silver badge

    museum ship

    As we, the Australians, the Canadians, Argentinians, etc scrapped all of ours, any chance of buying the Colossus-class aircraft carrier HMS Hercules back from India.

    I read that despite intending to save it as a museum ship they are going to scrap her.

    1. Don Jefe
      Unhappy

      Re: museum ship

      You know what the biggest expense is with museum ships? Harbor space. Most places that have deep enough harbors to float a large ship ascribe a lot of value to that space for commercial shipping.

      Finding outdated port areas that have been converted into safe public space is difficult to do. Find an affordable spot to park old ships and you can buy them for a song. Without that affordable space the harbor fees alone probably exceed any funds raised by admission. There are ships aplenty, but not much in the way of parking, unfortunately.

  6. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Sack the lot of them

    > Ofcom is ... looking for suggestions about how it might direct its considerable resources

    Hmmm, £100 Mil.

    Well, they've got all the policies they need to give us an excellent communications structure, they're just absolutely useless at implementing and enforcing them. So how about sacking all of its existing management and replacing them with effective individuals, instead?

    I'm sure the redundancy payments (even at the civil service's vastly inflated, self-serving rates) wouldn't consume all the money. Even if it did, it would be money well spent.

    With the remainder they could buy a dictionary, so they could look up the real meaning of the word "unlimiited".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sack the lot of them

      "I'm sure the redundancy payments (even at the civil service's vastly inflated, self-serving rates) wouldn't consume all the money. Even if it did, it would be money well spent."

      What redundancy payments? If you're sacking them because they are useless, that's not redundancy, that's sacking them for a perfectly understandable reason. If anything, those who are removed because they are useless should be handing back the pay they've had while being useless?

  7. Atonnis

    Boobs...

    ....and if you need to ask why I'm not talking to you...

    1. Velv

      Re: Boobs...

      Yeah, but if you charge them to your American Express card then you don't actually need to pay for them.

  8. Pen-y-gors

    Enforcement

    1) How about an effective system of fining the scum who phone up even when you're registered with TPS?

    2) get land line operators to insist on Caller ID for international calls

    1. BenR

      Re: Enforcement

      Upvoted, but i'd take it further still.

      How about a general "Become effective at what you're actually supposed to be doing?"

      1. Dave Bell

        Re: Enforcement

        I( am not 100% sure that the TPS are adequately maintaining their database.

  9. PipV

    Baldrick inspired

    A large turnip

    1. Ted Treen
      Thumb Up

      Re: Baldrick inspired

      I'd sell you two for that price...

      1. Frederic Bloggs

        Re: Baldrick inspired

        Ten turnips and, as I like you, a FREE leek.

        1. Turtle

          @ Frederic Bloggs

          "Ten turnips and, as I like you, a FREE leek."

          Big friggin' deal. Where *I* am, anyone can take a leek for free.

  10. Trollslayer
    Pint

    Rock club

    Big space (warehouse?), massive fully sprung ballroom grade floor, bars right along one wall, 15 metre ceiling for good sound, DJ booth at one end (ones who don't talk), side rooms for rap etc. and a good chippy outside.

    Oh, and mini buses so people don't have to drive or pay for taxis.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Rock club

      Adequately staffed bars, where their idea of a pint doesn't leave me thinking "if my girlfriend gave me that much head, I'd be a happy man".

  11. Ted Treen
    Pint

    I don't know...

    But first I'd have it changed into £1 coins, delivered, and I'd run barefoot through it, romp naked in it, and then decide;- having engaged the sleaziest of beancounters (who else) to enable me to keep as much of it as I could away from the larcenous sticky-fingered bar stewards at HMRC...

    Beer? - well it wouldn't be in short supply any more...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about broadband for those that most need it, rather than the most profitable locations.

    As right now, the money seems to be pissed away in areas that already have ample broadband options.

  13. Longrod_von_Hugendong

    Jet packs...

    Oh, how about a transgender operation for itself - so it has some Balls? Or a reverse invertebratamy, so its a has a spine. I am sure there are many others.

  14. ukgnome

    Like most posters

    http://www.firebox.com/product/4893/Project-Utopia

    Tank full of sharks, fricken laser head mounts as standard

    http://www.firebox.com/product/5440/World-rsquos-Most-Expensive-Vacuum-Cleaner

    http://www.firebox.com/product/5435/Hoverwing-Flying-Hovercraft?via=related

    http://www.firebox.com/product/4907/Electric-DeLorean-DMCEV?via=related

    And a big fridge - any change to be stored as bullion

  15. Captain Scarlet
    Mushroom

    Tea and Sandwich Lady

    This used to be Bacon Sandwich Friday, I demand the money be spent on that!

  16. MJI Silver badge

    OK here goes

    Buy back the 4G space for digital TV in the form of extra HD channels

    Use rest to bribe government to introduce the death sentence for marketing people who insist TV channels have on screen logos.

    Even bloody shITV does it now, and I already watch anything on C4 is SD rather than suffer the HD logo.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hookers and Blow

    Next question.

  18. Robin Bradshaw

    Hit squad

    Ban powerline networking equipment, and engage roaming black ops hit squad to locate and remove it with extreme prejudice, then once they have done that send them round to the ISP's to have a word about the usage of the word unlimited, with even more prejudice. If time allows send them on a jolly to India to sort out the sales calls, but that could also be done with cruise missiles.

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: Hit squad

      Absolfeckinglutely.

      And while they are sorting out powerline interference, sort out other interference sources as well. TV signal round here has been going mental over the last few days, dropping and and wrecking the freeview reception. Someone is interfering, and I don't know how to find out who (might even be me!). Anyone know how I report this?

  19. Jelliphiish

    buy

    a paperclip through government procurement channels.

  20. Graham Jordan

    Magic mushrooms

    And a BIll Hicks marathon.

    I didn't read the article. I just like the sound of blowing £100 on drugs.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Magic mushrooms

      Change it for Bitcoin and have a look at the Silk Road.

    2. Don Jefe

      Re: Magic mushrooms

      Buy an acre of pasture and two cows. Then you'll have magic shrooms forever. Plus milk.

  21. Valerion

    Bestie

    Booze, women and fast cars.

    The rest I'd just squander.

  22. Tweetiepooh

    Doesn't matter what you WANT to spend it on

    Most of the money would end up in the hands of lawyers, consultants, bureaucrats, quangos, politicians, tax men and the like. So might as well have a nice bonfire and burn it.

  23. This post has been deleted by its author

  24. poopypants

    Archive the internet

    on a continual basis, to a secure underground facility in the Antarctic, kitted out with storage media guaranteed to last 1,000 years. Gotta preserve those cat videos.

    1. Anonymous C0ward

      Re: Archive the internet

      Guarded by sharks with frickin' lasers.

  25. Thomas Steven 1

    Pah 100 million

    If I had 100 billion I would have Antarctica sawn off at the bottom and towed into the Pacific ocean. All the ice would melt and the seas would rise, wiping out Manhattan, coastal China and low-lying European states economically crippling the only powers that could take me on. I would then build my clone army and start kidnapping scientists to build my laser shield and shark mounted laser technology. While they're at it, some late Cretaceous land/sea animals wouldn't go amiss.

  26. s. pam
    Angel

    Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

    What to do with £100M you ask!

    Easy-as: Pay off the BBC management (should be good to cover 5-6 of them) and don't replace.

    Then lower TV license fees to 1994 levels.

  27. rurwin

    Doing their job would be a start

    Some investigation and enforcement actions against unlicensed transmissions would be good. Let's start with power-line networking.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Doing their job would be a start

      yes, but with sharks with lasers?

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lest it happen again

    They could completely ban X-Factor and its ilk.

    Please.

    Wait, I don't watch it anyway. Live and let live I say. Make it a pint instead!

  29. ubergeek
    FAIL

    Pay back (£29m) to the EU for Digital Region South Yorkshire, then I won't lose my current FTTC broadband.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Buy (£29) South Yorkshire

  30. Frankee Llonnygog

    DAB+

    <eom>

  31. ToggleMaudlin

    A simple request

    Two laser-equipped sharks, four hundred pints of Ubu and a tonne of pork scratchings. Please.

  32. Pete ThSplendiferous

    More than enough cash

    To make series 3 of Firefly.

  33. Martin an gof Silver badge

    700MHz

    Having just spent *thousands* buying new radio microphones and having old ones retuned to move out of the 800MHz band, I would be utterly narked if the 700MHz band were cleared anytime in the next 10 years.

    And leaving aside the problem of having them retuned *again*, if they clear channels down to 52 or 51 or wherever, things are going to be rather congested. Where am I going to find 24MHz for my microphones *then*?

    M.

  34. Christian Berger

    Build free distributed networking infrastructure belonging to everyone

    They could start building a truly distributed networking infrastructure, or perhaps at least a backbone for it. From that communities could go on extending this network to every ones home.

  35. Jim Wilkinson

    DAB coverage improvement

    Get DAB rolled out to all parts of the country that have FM reception.

  36. Random Yayhoo
    Mushroom

    Grand Old Putsch

    I would donate it all to Tea Party Republicans, who would thence commence to destroy the world's economy. In glorious tatters I would then declare myself the last multi-millionaire on Planet Earth!

  37. Atonnis

    A Casino!

    With Blackjack! And Hookers!

  38. Imsimil Berati-Lahn

    £100 million?

    I'd buy 20 billion Mojos

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nothing but

    Marzipan...

  40. Sheep!

    Well I think they should...

    Just renationalise BT and then roll out FTTP at cost and and for free to the consumer and make enough to cover the costs from business and overseas users.

    "Won't somebody think of the shareholders!!"

    No.

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