The good doctor

I know it's a bit childish, but I actually laughed out loud during a tube ride in London today. I picked up a copy of Metro, the free newspaper they have at tube stations. On page nine is a story "Circumcision halves the HIV infection rate" which quotes a World Health Organisation spokesman on the benefits of circumcision. The spokesman's name is (seriously) Dr. Cock.

iPlot

So I was on a British Airways flight the other day... I was testing out my current theory of travel, which is that the only way to make public transport of any form tolerable is by playing The Ramones over and and over again on my iPod. I was tired and bored and half nodding off as the plane was taxiing out towards the runway for take-off... pa pa pa-pa pa-pa pa pa-pa I wanna be sedated... pa pa pa-pa pa-pa pa pa-pa I wanna be sedated... when there's a tap on my shoulder. I look over and the male airhostess (airhoster?) is saying something so I take my Shure E3C in-ears out and he's telling me that I have to turn off my iPod for take off. "Why?" I said. "Because it could interfere with the plane's systems", he told me. I looked as bored and disdainful as I possibly good and told him that if I for one moment believed that that was true, then I wanted to get off now. Actually, I didn't. He's only following some dumb memo and it's not his fault. But think about it for a moment: if the miniscule electromagnetic emmnations from my Nano are really enough to send a 767 crashing to the ground, then someone should sue Boeing for building such an unsafe vehicle. If it were even faintly true, then should British Airways want to fly anywhere where there might be any significant electromagnetic emissions (eg, Earth) they would soon find themselves running short of planes and crewmembers. It did give, however, me the best ever title for a novel: iPlot, which I intend to start working on shortly. It will be the most inventive, most plausible and only British Airways fact-checked novel debut novel in history. The plot is this: a gang of dastardly suicide terrorists make their way through security at Heathrow with not so much as a 100ml of Colgate between them. Beyond suspicion, they make their way to Dixons tax free and purchase half a dozen iPods. They hide them under an innocent girlfriend's burkha (she gets to be the tragic lead, of course, and the burkha means that you don't have to pay anyone famous for the TV adaptation that will surely follow) and get on to the plane. It powers down the runaway. At 1000 feet, just at it heaves itself in a slow circle over Hounslow, the criminal masterminds simultaneously switch on their devil machines and to the strains of (and I haven't decided on this yet: obviously it depends on the narrative flow at this point) the live version of the ponderous Emerson Lake and Palmer "Touch and Go" ("come without a warning like a UFO... you're running with the devil... it's touch and go") it corkscrews into the ground taking all souls on board with it. At this moment, the camera pans out to show that planes are falling out of the sky all across London (in fact, all across the Western world) as the MP3 Mullahs hit play on one flight after another. Can't fail. Rock, rock, Rockaway Beach... rock, rock, Rockaway Beach...

Technorati Tags: travel

Christmas time, something and wine

I can't remember the words to the magnificent Cliff Richard Christmas no. 1, but that's because I've been drinking mulled wine at the Christmas fair in the Marianplatz in Munich... It was a really pleasant evening. The market goes back to the 14th century so it's obviously a well-established tradition. We ambled around in the market -- and even bought a couple of nice mitteleuropan (is that the word?) things there -- and then went to very pork-oriented restaurant for dinner. I don't know if there's going to be a Christmas market in the middle of Woking, but if there is I'll report back.

Technorati Tags: festivals, travel

Train rage

The organisation I loathe the most is South West Trains. Their appalling service, which is going to become even more expensive in less than a month, is plumbing new depths. In the last few days I've found myself trying to get on trains which didn't even have standing room. This morning, one of the trains I couldn't get on at Woking was full to standing capacity in first class, let alone cattle class. Those people must have been really pissed off. UPDATE: Here's a picture proving that (not even at rush hour, this way 9:45) people couldn't physically fit on the train from Woking to Waterloo... I managed to find a place to stand on the second train the arrived, and decided to spend the journey (since I couldn't do any work) devising vile tortures for the executive officers of the company. Correct: I was literally driven mad by South West Trains. Fortunately, due to my wise policy of refusing to go anywhere near public transport without an iPod, I was able to turn up the Ramone's End of the Century loud enough to drown out the voices in my head.

Technorati Tags: travel

(Don't) read all about it

I don’t really understand where newspapers are going. I mean, I understand that circulations are falling and that young persons don’t read them any more, but their solutions to this problem seem so 20th century. Apparently newspapers gave away more DVDs this year than were sold in shops. I can well believe it, since I have several. I’ve not watched any of them yet, but there you go. Is this really helping the circulation war? Why not try making the newspapers smaller and more focused rather than bigger.

If I buy a newspaper at all, it’s the Telegraph on a Saturday. Here’s the approxmate process:

1. Buy Saturday Telegraph

2. Throw gardening, travel, property and motoring supplements in the bin.

I don’t do gardening, if we do take the kids on holiday it won’t be mountain trekking in Peru, I’m not thinking of buying a country house or a new car.

3. Throw “weekend” supplement in the bin but keep the crossword.

I couldn’t care less about the problems some woman is having with her nanny or how to knit jumpers for labradors.

4. Have a cursory glance at money supplement then throw it in the bin.

I haven’t got any money to invest but I do like reading the readers problems page.

5. Read the football part of the sports supplement then throw it in the bin.

I like the football bit, which always has interesting feature, but don’t really care enough about golf or rugby or cricket to actually read about them.

6. Unwrap plastic package with: keep the TV guide and throw the rest in the bin.

The glossy magazine is ludicrous, even when it does have a pull out supplement about how competitive Greece has become for business (as it did last week). I don’t care about fashion, celebrities, gossip, horoscope or luvvie interviews.

7. Put review supplement in the downstairs loo for later perusal.

My Amazon wish list is often guided by the Telegraph reviews or the Spectator reviews when someone has left a copy on the train. I never buy it any more.

8. Read newspaper.

So almost everything I’ve paid for goes into the bin unread. I think it might buy it more often if it had less in it. UPDATE: I just bought it again this weekend and threw even more than usual in the bin because there were more catalogues inside it.

I just saw Douglas Hurd walk past me on lower Regent Street. No limos anymore I guess! [Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

Cam and get it

I've decided that I'm never going to buy anything from JVC again, which is a shame because I've had some JVC stuff in the past and it's been fine. But my JVC camcorder, which I hardly ever use, has now gone wrong for the second time and it's a waste of money to get it fixed. Anyway, since I potter through Heathrow duty free from time to time, I picked up the Dixons Tax Free catalogue and decided to have a browse at home and choose a new one. But guess what? I've discovered that Dixons Tax Free shopping may not be the bargain you'd think. Take for example the Sony HC3 -- one of the new High Definition camcorders and by all accounts a great piece of kit -- which Dixons have for (all figures in Sterling) 850.97 (page 19 of catalogue) and claim a high street price of 999.989 ("Save over 145"). Amazon UK have it for 749.94 (free delivery). Or what about the the Sony DCR SR30 hard disk camcorder? Dixons tax free price is 408.42, Amazon UK have it for 346.00 (free delivery). Or perhaps the JVC MG26, which I was thinking of buying before my other JVC went up the Swanee? Dixons tax free price is 340.33, Amazon UK have it for 287.90. Just for an experiment while waiting for a backup to complete, I opened a random page in the Dixons catalogue and closed my eyes and put my finger on it. When I opened my eyes I was pointing at the Altec Lansing In Motion M602 speakers (to plug your iPod into). Dixons tax free price is 161.69, Amazon UK have them for 139.99. The moral of this story is that "tax free" does not mean "worth buying tax free". But I guess you all knew that anyway.