Not even artificial intelligence

I had to go to Oxford, and since I have a lot of work to do at the moment, I took the train (nearly sixty quid return). So, I went to the train times web site and searched for a train journey that would get me in to Oxford around 8.30am. Computer says yes: there's a train from Woking that wil get me to Guildford for the 7.04 to Reading. That gets in to reading around 7.50, then there's an 8.10 to Oxford. I decided to drive to Guildford and get the train from there, since there's wouldn't be much traffic. I got there early in fact, to discover that there was a 6.51 fast service direct to Oxford (only stop: Reading). The (Virgin) train was on time, half-empty and therefore comfortable and convenient and I got plenty of work done. Why can't the train time system have a modicum of artificial intelligence: it must know that direct, fast services are infinitely preferable to slow, indirect services, so even if you are going to get in a few minutes early, you'd rather the former.

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

Technorati Tags: moaning, travel

Etiquette lesson

I don't often answer my mobile phone. There are a few rerasons for this. For one thing, I don't have millions of phone numbers stored in my phone and I won't answer the phone at all unless it displays the caller name rather than a number.

My phone is set to silent/vibrate most of the time anyway. I can see who has been calling, I can read text messages and, since I can read my e-mail on my phone as well, check mail every hour or so when I'm around and about during the day. I did have the phone set to work like a Blackberry and but it was a waste of time since I can't be bothered to look at e-mail every five minutes.

This may sound like a Vodafone Victor Meldrew in the making, but I think it's modern etiquette and I'm a trailblazer. I don't ring someone unless a I really need to talk to them: phoning people is impolite, because you are disturbing them when they are doing something else -- thinking about something or maybe talking to someone -- but most of the people I talk to work in the same field as me: there are never any truly important messages (the liver is ready for transplant, that sort of thing). If I have a tolerably urgent message for someone or need a quick yes/no response on something, then I text them. I found out how to create text templates on my phone so I can do this quickly, and I if someone whose number I don't recognise phones me, then I can quickly send back a text asking them to leave a message or e-mail or whatever.

And the most golden rule of all: never, ever, answer the phone when you are sitting on a train. No-one is impressed by mobile phones anymore so they will all think that you are a tosser. Is that how you want to be remembered? I'm going to start a YouTube album called "SWTossers" where people can send pictures (taken with their camera phones) of people talking on the phone in South West Trains carriages so that they can be universally reviled and abused on a grand scale and henceforth excluded from polite society.

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning

Has the revolution started?

When I heard this terrible story on the radio, it immediately made me think of J. G. Ballard's Millennium People, which is set in Chelsea. I won't give the plot away, but an idea in the book is that the next revolution will be lead by the middle classes rather than the working classes (I suppose political theorists would argue that all the others were too). Anyway, if memory serves the book contains a line to the effect "When the revolution comes, it will be about parking".

But then I thought, is it a very English thing? Is that why Ballard went down that route? I mean, people don't shoot each other over parking spaces anywhere else, do they? Well, apparently they do: 10 seconds on google found the same in Los Angeles, New York and Oakland. It was too depressing to scroll down further.

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: english, moaning

All's well with the realm

There are seven ravens are in permanent residence in the Tower of London; their wings have been clipped so that they can't fly away. A superstition dating back to the time of Charles II claims that when there are no longer ravens in the Tower, both the White Tower and the kingdom will fall. The Ravenmaster -- one of the Yeoman Warders -- tends the birds; they even have their own pens. Well, the good news is that I was at the tower on Tuesday and they were still there....

Aren't you comforted?

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: travel

Royal visit

I was wondering what was going on as I pottered down to Woking station this morning. There was a police helicopter overhead and I saw a bunch of policemen wandering around and a policeman with a sniffer dog on the other platform. At first I just assumed that someone hadn't paid their fare and South West Trains were going to make an example of them. But then I thought that because of the sniffer dog some exciting anti-terrorist action was in progress, or that a drug lord had been cornered on Platform 1, trapped by the late running of the 09.58 to Waterloo. Turns out that Prince Charles was visiting and he came by train from Waterloo. How exciting. It turns out that some people had turned up to watch Al Gore's movie and the Prince was giving a talk about it. Anyway, I hope that he found time in his busy schedule to ask what on Earth is going on with the stupid canopy that the council is still building outside the station. Because of this, buses can't stop outside the station. Normally, I'll wait near home and take the bus, because the bus stops right outside the station. Since it can't, it takes as long to walk from the bus stop to the station as it does from the car park. The inconvenient truth is that because of this, I've been driving instead of taking the bus.

Apologies for posting this a month late, but I didn't realise that I hadn't posted it at the time.

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, travel, woking

Amsterdam in the morning

A relaxing breakfast in the splendid dining room at the Hotel Krasnapolsky on Dam square. I like Amsterdam -- I used to live in the Netherlands -- and find it very pleasant to stroll around on a mild Spring day like today.

It sets you up for the day, breakfast in grand style like this. I always regard a massive cooked breakfast as my compensation for being away from the family, not sleeping well and (in this case) missing watching the F.A. Cup quarter-final live on TV.

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: travel

A random act of kindness

Not by me, obviously, but I did witness one with my very own eyes. Outside a Starbucks in London this morning. There was an old tramp -- although it's hard to tell how old he actually was, he was probably 30 or something -- who was filthy and decrepit. He was mumbling incoherently about not having had anything to eat for days while people were wandering past ignoring him. As I did. But as I walked past, a guy dressed in a smart suit (this was in the City) came out. He walked past the tramp for a few paces, then stopped and turned back. He took out of his wallet what looked like a £20 note gave it to the tramp. All day, I have been wondering if this was simple charity, part of some wider philanthropic exercise, a means of assuaging guilt over city bonuses, bizarre performance art, or what? I have a firm policy of never giving "beggars" anything...

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning