Dear My MP,
As a constituent of yours, (and I believe you serve us extremely well) I would be very interested to know your stance on the new High Speed Rail Link being proposed between London and Birmingham.
It is my view that this would be of very little benefit to anyone other than those commissioned to build it, and although I believe that investment is vital to getting the country competitive, and money spent in this country will largely move back into the economy, and back into the public purse, it strikes me as a ridiculous thing so spend such a collosal amount of money on.
Rather than speed up (marginally) the journey times between our major cities, why not pump the money into alternatives to travel which would render these journeys un-necessary or at best unprofitable, such as communications technology and the encouragement to use it?
Britain needs to remove its dependency on the business hubs, and encourage industry to move its operations into other areas. Rather than continue to rely on 5 or so main city centres, the same people could be doing the same jobs from other places with minimal impact on their productivity, and major positive impact on their personal lives and pockets.
So many issues, from season ticket prices to overcrowding to city parking and congestion/pollution would be solved by changing the mentality of business leaders from the 9-5 city centre based routine to a flexible, family oriented, location independent way of working. The technology exists to make this happen.
Yours sincerely,
me
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
The beetles on itunes
This blog will look rubbish as i am writing it on my iPad.
You can see how important the beetles were to apple by the fact that despite the fact that although they will add a capital letter to Reading and White, when i spell beetles correctly it insists on correcting it to beetles. You cant see that i spelled it beetles that time, no autocorrect was needed.
What amazes me is that anyone was bothered about this amazing announcement. Who was waiting for their back catalogue to be released on iTunes, as that was the only way they might hear is band? Obviously someone, as i predict that they will shoot to the top of the iTunes chart.
I decided quite a long time ago that the beetles were ok, obviously important in the grand scheme of things, but not really my bag. I therefore bought the cd of the number ones when it was a fiver, and it has been occasionally on my iPod. And i probably listened to it too. It was a long time ago. Why, after so long being unable to, are people right now downloading this music, in poor quality, being the slaves to a corporation (what happens in 10 years time when your computer has died and apple have lost all records of your transaction?)
I have a pair of shelves stuffed with CDs, and recently threw out the cassette tapes that represented my childhood in dodgy music (fuzzbox anyone?) and I've downloaded thirteen tracks in my whole life. A charity itunes only belle and sebastian album, blur's popscene, and in a futile effort, frank sidebottom's posthumous release. I don't need music that urgently, and i don't want it in a metaphysical form, in poor quality. I'll wait until it arrives, often until it is available at a price i like, and i will enjoy it when i have it.
You can see how important the beetles were to apple by the fact that despite the fact that although they will add a capital letter to Reading and White, when i spell beetles correctly it insists on correcting it to beetles. You cant see that i spelled it beetles that time, no autocorrect was needed.
What amazes me is that anyone was bothered about this amazing announcement. Who was waiting for their back catalogue to be released on iTunes, as that was the only way they might hear is band? Obviously someone, as i predict that they will shoot to the top of the iTunes chart.
I decided quite a long time ago that the beetles were ok, obviously important in the grand scheme of things, but not really my bag. I therefore bought the cd of the number ones when it was a fiver, and it has been occasionally on my iPod. And i probably listened to it too. It was a long time ago. Why, after so long being unable to, are people right now downloading this music, in poor quality, being the slaves to a corporation (what happens in 10 years time when your computer has died and apple have lost all records of your transaction?)
I have a pair of shelves stuffed with CDs, and recently threw out the cassette tapes that represented my childhood in dodgy music (fuzzbox anyone?) and I've downloaded thirteen tracks in my whole life. A charity itunes only belle and sebastian album, blur's popscene, and in a futile effort, frank sidebottom's posthumous release. I don't need music that urgently, and i don't want it in a metaphysical form, in poor quality. I'll wait until it arrives, often until it is available at a price i like, and i will enjoy it when i have it.
Saturday, 16 October 2010
The story of the over-polite 20p piece
So there I was on a train to Edinburgh, found my seat and whipped out my book. I’ve explained to the Japanese couple that yes, their tickets are fine for this train, and it seems that the people who booked the other three seats in the set of four with a table that I’m currently enjoying haven’t shown up, so please do sit with me.
It all starts with the eating. They’ve bought food. (its a three o'clock train – I picked it so I would have time for lunch, and get to Scotland by the time I’m ready for dinner). He starts with noodles from Tupperware, which although very easy to eat messily, he’s an expert, and I need pay little attention. She’s playing with her phone and singing a little ditty.
This is when he pulls open a bag of rotisserie chicken. Just the same as the noodles, he’s an expert at eating chicken, but being a chicken eating expert is quite different from being a noodle eating expert. Eating chicken without the use of cutlery is a tricky business – ask anyone in my office when I’ve been to Waitrose for lunch (30p bread roll, £1.35 chicken quarter (gives me the opportunity to say “breast please” to the nice lady at the counter) and a squirt of the barbeque sauce I keep in my locker – that’s a good value lunch) and they don’t have any plastic knives. The expert chicken eater knows that the best way of extracting as much meat from a chicken is to really get your lips and teeth round it – right in, lots of sucking, and right out again. Having to sit opposite a man with a fiver’s worth of chicken (it was Iceland I think – that’s a lot of chicken) and a wife who wasn’t hungry (she had a few noodles) on a four and a half hour train ride isn’t fun.
I decided to join them (not by stealing some chicken) and have a little something to eat, so I whipped out my wallet and as the trolley man came over, I fumbled with the (ludicrous amount of) coins, and a 20p piece slipped out of my hand, and fell behind the lady sitting next to me. Neither of them seemed to notice at the time, and I was not reliant on this particular 20p to enable me to purchase the bottle of diet coke and packet of crisps I felt would be sufficient to satisfy my need for sustenance, so I didn’t think too much of it.
When the lady got up to go to the toilet (or just to stretch her legs – I didn’t follow her or anything) I reached down and found the 20p, but I noticed that the man saw me reach down and find it, so I didn’t feel able to just pocket it – what if he thought it had fallen out of her pocket? With their limited English, I could hardly explain to them what had happened in any detail, and anyone who’s been to a party with me that ends in any form of parlour game will know that my skills at charades leave a lot to be desired. All I could do is place it on the table, and shrug, as if I didn’t know whose it might be.
He obviously was in no position to confirm or deny ownership of the coin, by the time it was on the table she wasn’t either. There it stayed, mocking me for the final hour and a half of the journey. All of us were far too polite to do or say anything about it. After he packed away ready for our landing north of the border, she spun the coin on its end, oblivious to the awkwardness that it had caused (if only in my own head).
She took it with her I believe, and it was a small sacrifice to pay for ensuring that my, and maybe every Englishman’s reputation of politeness, a lack of greed, and a friendly smile, would remain intact.
It all starts with the eating. They’ve bought food. (its a three o'clock train – I picked it so I would have time for lunch, and get to Scotland by the time I’m ready for dinner). He starts with noodles from Tupperware, which although very easy to eat messily, he’s an expert, and I need pay little attention. She’s playing with her phone and singing a little ditty.
This is when he pulls open a bag of rotisserie chicken. Just the same as the noodles, he’s an expert at eating chicken, but being a chicken eating expert is quite different from being a noodle eating expert. Eating chicken without the use of cutlery is a tricky business – ask anyone in my office when I’ve been to Waitrose for lunch (30p bread roll, £1.35 chicken quarter (gives me the opportunity to say “breast please” to the nice lady at the counter) and a squirt of the barbeque sauce I keep in my locker – that’s a good value lunch) and they don’t have any plastic knives. The expert chicken eater knows that the best way of extracting as much meat from a chicken is to really get your lips and teeth round it – right in, lots of sucking, and right out again. Having to sit opposite a man with a fiver’s worth of chicken (it was Iceland I think – that’s a lot of chicken) and a wife who wasn’t hungry (she had a few noodles) on a four and a half hour train ride isn’t fun.
I decided to join them (not by stealing some chicken) and have a little something to eat, so I whipped out my wallet and as the trolley man came over, I fumbled with the (ludicrous amount of) coins, and a 20p piece slipped out of my hand, and fell behind the lady sitting next to me. Neither of them seemed to notice at the time, and I was not reliant on this particular 20p to enable me to purchase the bottle of diet coke and packet of crisps I felt would be sufficient to satisfy my need for sustenance, so I didn’t think too much of it.
When the lady got up to go to the toilet (or just to stretch her legs – I didn’t follow her or anything) I reached down and found the 20p, but I noticed that the man saw me reach down and find it, so I didn’t feel able to just pocket it – what if he thought it had fallen out of her pocket? With their limited English, I could hardly explain to them what had happened in any detail, and anyone who’s been to a party with me that ends in any form of parlour game will know that my skills at charades leave a lot to be desired. All I could do is place it on the table, and shrug, as if I didn’t know whose it might be.
He obviously was in no position to confirm or deny ownership of the coin, by the time it was on the table she wasn’t either. There it stayed, mocking me for the final hour and a half of the journey. All of us were far too polite to do or say anything about it. After he packed away ready for our landing north of the border, she spun the coin on its end, oblivious to the awkwardness that it had caused (if only in my own head).
She took it with her I believe, and it was a small sacrifice to pay for ensuring that my, and maybe every Englishman’s reputation of politeness, a lack of greed, and a friendly smile, would remain intact.
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