Given that Viber, Skype et al have produced apps.
And given that there’s WiFi available in most Western high streets
Why hasn’t the sim card been consigned to history?
Where are the contract-free mobiles?
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…because of unfettered Capitalism.
The PIGS & now Italy can’t pay their debts, and no-one can afford to (or has the inclination to it seems – and why should they?) bail them out.
Other countries, including the UK are desperately trying to pay down their deficit by fleecing the Ordinary Guy… (£9 billion trade deficit last month too – that’ll help!)
On the other hand, we’ve now got banks effectively governing Greece with bribary: “Do this or you won’t get your bailout”. That’s not very democratic, is it? It really doesn’t matter who their puppet PM is, does it?
Unelected institutions pronouncing on the credit rating of countries, which does nothing more than instilling fear in the markets, as far as I can see…
And suggestions of an apocolipse happening if the whole thing collapses.
Well. Greece has survived ere long. And I’m sure it’ll continue to do so. In or out of the Euro. In or out of Europe for that matter.
The only people who lose in this apocolipse, so far as I see, are the banks, who, if you remember, got us into this mess in the first place by playing Russian Roulette with money that wasn’t there. They are the ones that should be, litterally, paying the price.
Cambridge University is proposing to build a huge estate on a stretch of farm land North West of the city, 45 hectares of which is green belt land:
The University’s specs. for the development.
Obviously (!) I’m against the development, but rather than just being a nay-sayer, I thought I’d offer up an alternative solution for their forecast growth:
Given that students are now being asked to pay for their degree, (and by so doing will probably be in debt for a considerable length of time) numbers of students applying for a place at University are decreasing. And that’s no bad thing, but the subject of another post.
And given that some universities are therefore going to struggle to keep their roll…
Wouldn’t Cambridge University be better off just buying another university’s campus, and using it as an annex? The University of Cambridge in Bedford or Buckingham or wherever?
That way they’d have purpose-built rooms for lectures, seminars and for boarding and refectory.
And that way they wouldn’t spoil the lovely rural feel of the North West of the city, or infict a huge rise in population on the city.
And perhaps it would enrich the economy in another part of the country too…
Our little Peugeot 205 struggles to reach 60 miles an hour, and at 70 mph seems positively dangerous, so we have often witnessed cars overtaking us on the motorway at speeds in excess of 75 / 80 and more. I suggest therefore that conceding an 80 mph maximum speed limit is an admission of enforcement defeat.
The argument goes that cars are safer and better engineered than they were when the 70 mph limit was imposed. Therefore it must follow that speedometers are more accurate. So, perhaps a moratorium might be tabled: 80 mph and not a click over. And this ought then to be enforced stringently.
As for the 20 mph limit in town, I fully accept that it is highly advantageous around schools, nursing homes and hospitals, and on narrow roads where cars are parked and there are visibility issues. However the police are already refusing to enforce the 20 mph speed limit around Cambridge, and given the width of some of the roads, the volume and type of pedestrian and the amount of traffic, it is easy to understand why.
Now here’s a minority opinion! (nothing new there then)
The headline today was all about reducing the number of MPs and changing the boundaries to make the districts more even.
I think that’s 180º the wrong way round.
We all want an MP
- who lives in our area.
- who knows the issues of the area
- and will defend them
We already have accurate poplulation census numbers for each County.
Divide the voting population by, say, 100,000 (rounded to the nearest number), and it will give you the number of representatives for each county.
This way, all MPs will be taken from the pool of County Councillors. You’ll know which councillors are effective in their work too, and worthy of ‘promotion’ to parliament. And this way, the boundaries quango can be abolished too!
There’s a distinct whiff of NIMBYism about. And I’m probably as bad as the next man.
We’re constantly being told that there’s not enough affordable housing about, in the hope that in repeating the mantra often enough it’ll become true. The end of that statement though, which is never voiced, is – there’s not enough affordable housing about IN PLACES WHERE PEOPLE WANT TO BE: i.e. the South East. I don’t blame people for wanting, indeed needing to be in the South East. It’s where IT is. Look at property in areas “up north”: they’re not unaffordable; they’re undesirable.
Whatever happened to those dark satanic mills being the power house of the UK economy? Of course I’m not suggesting that we go back to the near-slavery conditions of the mill workers, but unless there is an economy in the North East, in the far South West, in Wales and the North West, in fact, unless we develop a way of “getting by” comfortably everywhere else as well as the South East, then the South East is where everyone’ll want to be. In the rush of the 80s towards the service sector (and especially putting far too many eggs in the banking basket), the government laid waste to countless communities and the way they’d made their living. I’m not saying that we should be burning fossil fuels – but you can’t just close the mines, the steel industry, ship building, car manufacture etc and not replace them with something. In response, is it any wonder that Dick Whittington goes to London to see if the streets are paved with gold?
I admit, I don’t want my city, Cambridge, to become just another suburb of London. I don’t want every square inch of land between here and Alexandra Palace – green or brown – developed with the same sort of rabbit hutches they’re building round the corner: built too small, and far too close together for anyone’s well-being.
The South East needs to recognise the value of its green spaces and protect them, and stop itself from becoming one unholy metropolis of London.
Why does recycling have to be so unsightly?
Okay, it’s good that county councils throughout the land have embraced recycling – to varying degrees, and in different ways – but one of the resulting consequences seems to be the proliferation of wheely bins. Where, a generation ago, we all had one aluminium bin, that looked about half the size (though it would be interesting to compare the volumes of the two), which the bin man would pick up over his shoulder, we now have two, if not three rather unsightly thick plastic receptacles with wheels on.
Whilst it goes without saying that the best result would be to not generate as much rubbish in the first place, and whilst it’s good to separate things to diminish as much as possible the stuff that inevitably (and perhaps with a lack of creativity) goes into land fill, can’t we have receptacles with a little more style?
And why do bottle and paper banks only look fitting for hinterlands? Surely, if they were designed to be more attractive, they could be where they really ought to be: at the centre of things.
Do you know, I think we should declare an amnesty on certain words for a while. Especially those colourful words on menus and glossy ads..
How can anyone take a piece seriously, when it uses words such as:
Nestled
Pan-fried
(well how else are you supposed to fry anything?)
Passionate
(as in: at X we’re passionate about coffee/education/wha’eva)
I’ll add to the list as they hit me, but “nestled” tipped the balance this morning.
Conversely, I read an interesting post elsewhere this morning, which used the phrase: I possit (and they weren’t talking about eating a nice pudding either). I looked it up (and will leave you to do the same 
)
Feel free to add your own too!
The brain’s a very contrary organ, don’t you think?
Ask it for a couple of hundred words, and you can sit in front of a blank piece of paper or screen for hours. Other times it’s hard to slow down the thoughts enough to get them all out in some sort of coherent order.
What a nightmare that clean sheet is. Looming large. But put a few constraints on it: a style, a few words, whatever, and suddenly the sluice gate opens.
How do you feed it – inspiration? Is it diet? Do you, like me (and Douglas Adams by all accounts) find inspiration in a warm bath. Or a walk?
And, once you’ve got that spark – do you find that the original good idea turns out not to be funny? Not to work? Or indeed, not original at all.
Do you get ideas by seeing something? Or hearing something? Do you “Stand on the shoulders of giants” by moving things on a notch from something you’ve read?
Worst of all, do you ever have an excellent idea and then can’t work it to fruition. Things stop you?
These are all observations and questions – I’ve not got the answers of course. :/
For the opening credits to our mini road-trip, you should hear John William’s rousing film music to Jurassic Park, but I haven’t quite worked out how to do that yet!
What First seem to have worked out though, is how to run a successful bus route! And I think that’s worth celebrating.
Sure, they’ve got a big advantage – some of the most stunning coastline in the world: the World Heritage Jurassic Coast of Dorset. Tourists are going to want to see that, right? Sure.
But there are all sorts of places there; from pretty little villages, through thriving market towns to larger conurbations. There were a good proportion of people who were using the service to go about their business.
However. First were also doing several things absolutely right:
They were offering a frequent, regular service, when people wanted to travel: hourly, starting early, and going on into the evening.- They used modern, comfortable, clean busses.
- They published exactly where the bus was going to actually on the Bus Stop (one of the most worrying things about using a new service is wondering if you’re going in the right direction, and where the bus is going to end up)
- The drivers, to a man, were all polite and all friendly. I know I’m turning into Mary Portas at this point, but this is so important that you have to wonder why the detail isn’t taken into account everywhere, at all times.
- Courtesy. Not only did the drivers smile and exchange pleasantries, they waited until passengers were seated before taking off – especially important if you’re trying to negotiate stairs with youngsters, or if you aren’t as young or able as you once were.
- But above all, the ticket price was attractive – a one day travel ticket – go anywhere in Dorset – was £7.50. Unbelievably good value. They’ve obviously worked out the economics of balance – a full bus of passengers paying £7.50 pays more than a few passengers paying more.
So okay. Not every service has the advantages that the X53 has. But they could all learn from the things First was getting right.
So we were just out, enjoying a flask of tea and a piece of home-made flapjack on Christ’s Pieces, and observing butterflies for Dave – we saw four great whites in the 15 minute time-frame – when t0-w00 mused on the subject of see-saws. And it has to be said she had a point: why aren’t see-saws designed with an adjustable counterweight, so that adults can see-saw with their children?
Don’t you think boats should use wind-power more… D’oh.
And when are blimps gonna come back into fashion? They’d be great for mid-range journeys, and would surely use a fraction of energy that aeroplanes do…
I’m thinking a viscous liquid passing over a “water wheel” at the centre.
I’m thinking that the wheel could be geared up to turn a generator.
I’m thinking that it’d need to have a very “light” balance to turn it, which might be done mechanically, using clock technology.
I’m thinking: “Use Gravity”
What do you think?
I’ve started coming across a whole other internet world out there. In a Sliding Doors-parallel-universe sort-of way, there are some ethically good alternatives to the big-boys!
I’ve never been one for the multi-nationals anyway. Look at how car manufacturers have bought each other out and now even offer us the same car with different maker’s badge on it:
The Peugeot 107 or even the
That road just leads to less choice, as far as I can see.
So I thought I’d start making a list of alternative ‘Independent’s', as it were, starting with:
the search engine; every click, which donates money to charity for every click (and the ads on there are better too) with give as you live
and
the online dictionary; definition-of
You already know about the hunger site I guess?
I’ll add others as I come across them. Feel free to leave the URL of others you know. 
I dunno why we’re addicted to Power at 240 Volts.
So okay, the oven needs it. So does the iron, the kettle and the washing machine – oh, the things in the kitchen. Well that’s fine. A 12-240V inverter circuit for the kitchen then.
But the hifi, the tele., the laptop, the lights – they could all use 12V DC circuits. Indeed LED light bulbs give a much nicer quality of light than Energy Saving ones anyway – and there’s not the (hushed-up) problem of the use and then disposal of the mercury… So why isn’t a 12V circuit wired as standard in New Builds?
And why oh why do we persist with the huge resistor that is the National Grid – which loses 10% of the power it transfers? Not to mention the effects of large amounts of magnetism on the health of those that live close to them, or the eyesore they are on the landscape.
I s’pose I’m talking about local generation, which is a hot topic (given the government’s financial incentives to generate your own). And I’ve got more than a 2-word vocabulary – wind turbines – though I do find their kinetic aesthetic beautiful.
But however it’s done – water / wind turbines, solar cell, anaerobic digester – the stuff we generate ought to charge batteries and be used in the locality.
Why aren’t anaerobic digesters built at every local water reprocessing plant?
Waste food from Supermarkets could go there.
Waste slurry from farms in return for fertiliser.
And electricity could be generated…
And whilst we’re at it. Why aren’t water turbines placed in rivers that are integral to many of the country’s towns and cities? More free electricity for the local community.
Now that’d be something!
They could run 4 an hour each way – well, maybe 7 every 2.
Forget the high-speed link to Birmingham, they don’t want it anyway.
What’s really needed is a Maglev.
Some guys’ve got no vision!
Strophe
I’ve often thought that properties should have
A sink, with waste disposal unit in
To flush away the residue of food
That normally gets scraped into the bin.
For then the waste might come to be the fuel
For anaerobic burning down the line
(That every water-cleaning plant should have
To make some more green power for our time)
Antistrophe
I had an idea that I thought was good:
To build a self-wind sink disposal thing
Much like the drill my father used to use
Attached to grinders down below the sink.
With Mr. Dyson I did get in touch
But he must be too busy to reply
So now I voice it here for engineers
To take it up – go on give it a try!
Epode
It’s surely up to us to play our part
To use the green resources that we have
To generate the power that we need
And wasted veggies might just be a start.
It really is becoming harder to tell left from right (I’ve always had that problem, actually). Perhaps it’s the occupancy of the middle ground that results in the lack of “clear blue water”. With Ken Clarke actually talking sense over sentencing rather than the more usual right of centre “Lock ‘em up and throw away the key” phrases (and somewhat in contrast to Jack Straw, actually) it’s hard to tell!
But I thought the Conservatives didn’t like the idea of I.D. cards?! And I’m almost sure the Liberal Democrats shouldn’t!? So why’s the Daily Telegraph saying that they’re planning to introduce them?
Ah, but p’r'aps it’s all right, since it’s now going to be privatised! I hadn’t realised that was the only problem with the idea! (please refer to my thoughts re. the NHS database)
We’ve already got an I.D. card. It’s got our photo on it, our contact details, our DoB and even our signature! It’s numbered (the first one I had had a memorable number – shame they’re not transferable). It’s even got a security chip in (though what that holds I don’t know) such that they let us through the barriers when we travel to the States. It’s called a Passport. We’ve been buying them for years…
Having sorted out bus design, I thought I’d go on to tackle the mahusive problem that is the NHS National Database. Well it’s not going to work, is it?! Any eejit could’ve told them that it was a tad ambitious (and a waste of good tax-payer’s… taxes) And the general populous with an ounce of brainpower was never going to rest easy that the information kept there was safe from the prying eyes of those who’d like to get hold of it – insurance companies, newspapers, blackmailers, murderers etc., etc..
But I think I’ve got a solution! 
And it’s not very expensive either.
And the technology’s already there which has a) been proven to work and b) proven to be secure enough.
Okay. So it’d be good in this day-and-age to have our records saved on a computer so that they can be accessed quickly and efficiently, right? We can all agree about that. We just don’t want it to be shared. Fine. So what about storing our personal record on the equivalent of a bank card, as a back up copy of the record that’s on our GP’s non-internet-connected computer? The GP/Specialist/surgeon all have a card reader attached to the computer. Then, whenever we go in to the GP/Specialist/surgeon we simply slip in the card and press our 4 digit code, and bob’s your uncle, they can read and update the information. In case of emergency, our NHS or NI number will be on the front, and A&E can liaise with the practice.
Seems obvious to me.
Busses.
I’ve been thinking. Following on from something I said about there not being nearly as much RnD on public transport.
Rather than these lumbering cubes clogging up the street, the starting point for the remodelling should be the car. Okay, so we need more seats – stretch it then: a limo. What sort of car? Well, as odd as it looks, the people at Fiat did think quite carefully about people moving when they designed their Multipla. It could tow a detachable trailer of another set of seats too – so maybe what, 40-50 seats altogether… Maybe fit it with one of those hybrid engines too – after all, busses do do a lot of starting and stopping.
Whajja think? silly idea?
Well, like most blokes, and more than a few women, I like my gadgets:
I saved up hard for a ZX Spectrum and spent many a late night learning to program basic.
We got a long-play VHS recorder and recorded the whole of Live Aid.
And I waited years for Apple to RnD it’s iPhone, and wanted it badly – really badly – long before most other people had heard they were planning on making one.
But on this one, I’m putting myself firmly in the luddite camp, and would quite happily angrily march on Westminster!
We’ve waited until the reality finally kicked in – losing BBC2 – before we started thinking about getting Freeview. I mean. We have a perfectly good analogue TV – technology that’s worked for getting on for a century now. And we have a perfectly good VHS video. A video that’s capable of recording one channel whilst we’re watching another, or even recording something when we’re not watching anything at all. You’d think these were pretty much prerequisites for recording facilities, wouldn’t you? Think again.
And so, several times now, we’ve wandered down the high street wondering what to get, and all the time being more than a little bit annoyed that we have to go out and buy anything at all, since our system did what we wanted it to do already.
Conversations like this ensued:
“We want to use our existing telly – it’s only a couple of years old” – “All you’ll need is a box with a scart socket” £18.
“We’d like to record using our VHS recorder” – “You need a box with 2 scart sockets” £25.
“Can’t we watch something different whilst we’re recording?” – “You need 2 tuners and 2 scart sockets” mingi shilingy.
“I’d really like a ‘hard-copy’ (DVD or Mpeg4 would do)” – ROTFL wildly “Yeah right”.
And thus we’ve left several shops empty-handed, several times, with that big Charlie-Brown-rain-cloud over our heads.
Basically it boils down to the fact that the government would like us to shell-out £500+ to replace the technology that has absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Yes it makes my blood boil!
On the way down to the oasis of tranquility and beauty that is the Botanic Gardens this afternoon I passed scores of cars clogging up the roads: just sitting there (with their engines running) waiting for a spot in one of the town’s multi-story car parks. The drivers must have seen the electronic displays on the way into town displaying up-to-the-minute information about how many parking spaces were available, and yet they drove in anyway. Drove past the bus stops in their own towns and villages. Drove past the Park and Ride on the outskirts of the town. In order to sit and wait… Why?
Perhaps you’ve seen the film, Wall-E? The Earth’s been trashed – and humankind has been exiled to some Space Station a way off until there’s some sign of life on Earth again. They go around in personal people-carriers, each generation getting ever-more obese and unfit.
What is it with this utter dependency on personal transport? Increasingly public transport (anywhere outside London, that is) seems to be viewed as the preserve of some sub-class. And yet today, the bus transported me and a bus-ful of others swiftly and easily into town. There was no hassle, very little hanging around and no parking problems either! It was the sub-class in their shiny cars, mindlessly waiting… Why?
Aren’t things rather out of kilter? The commuter forced to drive miles to work because they can’t afford to buy a house nearer. The extortionate cost of tickets on public transport for the privilege of (as often as not) standing on a dirty, over-crowded train. Our howls of protest at the price of petrol even though we know it’s a finite and precious resource due to run out within a generation.
How come it cost 12 billion pounds to run the railways last year? And why are busses only better environmentally when there are 8 or more people on them? We need to see the same levels of research and development on public transport that we do on cars and even lorries. We also need services which are a pleasure to use, and running at useful times. And I won’t even start on their pricing systems.
This won’t be received well, but I say that the government needs to subsidise public transport more, not less. It should also be taxing petrol and diesel heavily. However, the bus and train companies really need to get their act together too, and start providing the services that everyone deserves.
But most of all, we need to wean ourselves off our addiction to finite resources.
I suppose I ought to start by laying some cards on the table: when I say I’m a “pacifist” or suggest I’m more “isolationist”, what I probably mean is “anything for a quiet life”: what’s it to do with me what they’re doing? Why should I get involved?
At school we see the big bully flushing the little kid’s head down the loo or extorting dinner money. What do we do? Do we watch and think “Thank God his attention’s not on me”. Do we laugh about it with our mates, but hope teacher will intervene? Do we simply shrug and move on? Or perhaps we have the integrity to intervene. Knowing it’ll cost us. Knowing we might get beaten up too.
Thus “we” take on our role as global policeman. Because it’s the right thing to do. We say that the behaviour of a dictator here or the atrocities that a leader oversees there is not acceptable (even though we seem happy to allow worse atrocities to go unnoticed and unreported on, never mind stood up to elsewhere – that’s the content of another post) and go in, literally all-guns-blazing.
But at what cost? The physical and mental scars of the soldiers? The bereavement of the close relatives – parents, partners and children? The tarnished reputation gained as a war-mongering nation, only after another country’s resources. Yes. All that.
But what about the actual cost? We have a professional army – so we’re paying them anyway. But what about munitions? What about the cost of planes and air-craft carriers and all the other “stuff” that “our boys” (and girls) need to be effective in the theatre?
Who pays?
I suppose the financial train well and truly left the rails during the last government when it was decided that we had to be interventionist. Iraq II – and the ever bigger shopping bill for the kit that the army and airforce needed. But at least our defence industry must have been rubbing their hands together with glee.
Time was we’d just go in and, once in, plunder. Yes we can say we helped civilise Africa (alongside other European nations) – gave them the idea of democracy, of banking, of this, that and the other. And maybe we did. But we also took their resources.
So I guess what I’m asking is “when are we going to send our bill to Iraq? To Afghanistan? To Kuwait?” When are the world’s policemen going to be paid for the role they play in dealing with the world’s bullies?
