Rail, rain, ran

Picked a stupid day for my first attempt at riding my government-subsidised bicycle to work. I rode it to Woking in the rain, when I was late, locked it up in the town centre (where I saw a CCTV camera, so I assumed that was the best place to leave it) and then ran (well, jogged) up to the station to get on a train into London. I didn't realise that the good people of South West Trains have thoughtfully provided a bike rack inside the station itself, so next time I'll bring the bike in and lock it up there. Once again, I couldn't help noticing that it was less effort than I had been imagining: Taxpayer's money is clearly powering my pedalling.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Take a butcher's

A lovely meal -- very meat-centric -- out at the Butcher's Shop Grill in Nelson Mandela Square in Johannesburg.

Everyone is complaining about how high the prices are here, but that's probably because they haven't been to London recently. I noticed there's a lot of construction going in, including a new train line from the airport, through the townships and Johannesburg and on to Pretoria, which I guess must be related to the impending World Cup. If England don't make it down to South Africa in 2010, I will swear off of football for good. Mind you, my taxi driver was more pessimistic about the host's chances than I was about England's.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Miles and less

While sitting in a coffee shop in Singapore, I picked up a local business magazine that was reporting on some survey of airline passengers. It made the news because Singapore Airlines came top of the poll in most categories (as it usually does) and Changi airport came top of the airport poll in most categories (as it usually does). But I couldn't help noticing that our national flag bearer wasn't doing too well. It came second bottom (to Garuda) in amenities, which is pretty spectacular, and came rock bottom in frequent flier programmes. I think this is an accurate result. BA Miles is a rubbish scheme, which no longer serves as any form of incentive. I have thousands upon thousands of BA Miles and find it impossible to redeem them. Want to take the kids to the States? No chance: there's not a single BA Miles seat to San Francisco in the school holiday. Want to visit friends in India at Christmas? No chance: no seats to Mumbai or Delhi. The only places you can get to with BA Miles are places that you don't want to visit at times when you can't go. As soon as my BA Executive Gold card arrives in a couple of weeks, I'm going to complain -- I figure it will carry more weight once I've got the gold card -- and then start looking for airlines with better frequent flier miles. Any suggestions?

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Surveillance and stupidity

Searching for something else, I came across Camilla Cavendish, writing on Times Online. She is right to say that

The latest proposal by Home Office officials, to hold every telephone call and e-mail in the UK, described as a “crucial tool” for protecting national security and preventing crime, is wholly disproportionate.

[From We're a nation of interfering traffic wardens | Camilla Cavendish - Times Online]

But it's more than merely disproportionate: Delivering that kind of power to petty bureaucrats, especially British petty bureaucrats, actually stimulates, encourages and invites the kind of distressing behaviour that we imagine to be the torment of the hapless inhabitants of Burma or North Korea. Just as the Regulation of Invesitgatory Powers Act (RIPA) ended up being used by councils -- at great expense -- to stop parents from sneaking their children into State Education Camp No.913 when they should be going to State Education Camp No. 914, I firmly expect the government's great e-mail database to be utterly useless in finding Osama bin Laden but invaluable to Woking Borough Council when investigating important cases of people not shutting their rubbish bins properly. By matching the e-mail trail to the DNA database to the CCTV photos, they'll have you bang to rights if you put too much in your bin (too much being now defined as more than a binman, sorry binperson, can easily move with two fingers.

I know which way my two fingers are pointing. One of the reasons why I'm beginning to think it unlikely that my children will ever decide to stay and seek their fortune in this green and pleasant land is that the steady erosion of fundamental liberties -- for no good purpose -- is becoming so commonplace that it is scarcely remarked on.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.

[posted with ecto]

The world's least favourite credit card scheme

I was in the Far East and I needed a software package on my Mac because I wanted to muck about with some graphics for a presentation. I logged on to the (UK) software company and attempted to purchase. Both of my Visa cards were declined and the store doesn't take American Express (or anything else useful such as PayPal). Aaarrgh! How crap is this. Presumably, Barclays' systems were rejecting the transaction because it's CNP coming in from outside the UK and presumably the store doesn't really want any business from international travellers with Amex cards. So stuff them: I will buy the software from somewhere on the street next time I'm in Hong Kong and, frankly, I hope it's a bootleg since I'd done everything I might reasonably do to pay them when I needed the software. Wait a moment, there's always PirateBay...

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Fuel for thought

I'm very torn on the whole fuel tax / car duty thing. On the one hand, I resent paying a penny to the government since they will almost certainly waste it on something dumb, but on the other hand, if you're going to tax things then it may as well be fuel. No-one can avoid the tax -- unless they are farmers -- and it's easy to collect. In fact, I'm sure that car tax should be scrapped and rolled into fuel duty as well. I think that car discs should display insurance, not car tax.

If the current trend continues, however, and travel by car becomes too expensive for ordinary people, then the total tax take will surely start to fall, won't it? Fortunately, now that I've joined the ridiculous government "let poor taxpayers fund a nice bike for middle class people" scheme, I'm hoping to reduce the government's tax take even further by leaving the car at home once or twice a week. Let's see how it goes...

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.

[posted with ecto]

This is the life

French air traffic control are on strike, so I'm stuck on the tarmac, sitting in airless 737 with a bunch of other tired, bored, angry people who want to go home as much as I do. British Airways don't tell us there's going to be at least an hour delay, naturally, until we're all sitting on the plane. Since I'm being forced to traveller cattle-class by a mean and joyless conference producer, there's nothing to eat or drink either. What a total waste of time, especially when I have so much to do. I can just about type, with my laptop jammed up against the seat in front, but it's at an angle that is making my wrist ache: I can feel the pins and needles starting already, so I'm not going to get much work done. If I were a veal calf, aggrieved campaigners such as Carla "it's the people who are the problem" Lane would be waiting to for me at Gatwick.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.

[posted with ecto]