The Rule of the Road

Here in Britain we drive on the left. That isn't new, it has been the rule of the road for over 100 years. It means that if you drive on the wrong side of the road you are breaking the law.
The law is usually interpreted as allowing overtaking, provided it is done safely.
In the last couple of months my wife and I have both been forced to pull off the road to avoid oncoming traffic. That is not driving safely, it is aggressive, dangerous and illegal.

Similarly driving across a mini roundabout with the circle on your left is also dangerous and illegal. Even driving over the central circle is a crime punishable by points on your licence and a fine of up to £1000.

Inland Revenue madness

Yesterday I received two revised tax codes from HMRC. I now have to waste money calling them, on an 0845 number, or on postage.
The two codes are different, but arrived in one envelope. There is nothing to suggest that one supersedes the other, just two different numbers.

East Kent buses

I live in a town called Deal, on the Kent coast. It is served by 4 Stagecoach East Kent bus services, which go to Canterbury. Most meander slowly through the countryside, which is quite enjoyable, but incredibly slow.
None of these services connect with other bus services, whether provided by East Kent of another operator. I classify connections as services that are scheduled to arrive at a common point at about the same time and wait for each other.
This makes travelling very difficult, for example a trip to Ashford and back, 30 miles away, took 8 hours!
I've commented on this to Stagecoach and they replied that the routes I mentioned weren't their 'most popular routes'. I'm not surprised.
The most irritating thing about their timetables is that buses from Dover to Folkestone usually leave 1 minute before the bus from Deal is timetabled to arrive. It's a moot point, because the service between Deal and Dover is notoriously unpunctual. When I had to use it regularly I would leave an hour earlier than I needed to and even then sometimes I had to call and apologise for being late.
Another example is the trip to Westwood Cross shopping centre in Thanet. It's 13 miles away and takes less than 30 minutes by car, but 90 minutes by bus, if the Dover to Ramsgate bus reaches Sandwich on time.
Is it any wonder that most people use their car in preference to Public Transport?

SouthEastern Trains

South Eastern Railways are con artists. Their first action on being granted the franchise to run rail services in Kent was to increase all journey times by three minutes. That was their solution to the poor punctuality record of their predecessors Connex South East.
Rail services in Kent are probably the worst in the country, the network is congested and antique. It suffers from its location in the most populous area of the UK, which makes it extremely difficult and expensive to expand. The Victorians built the railways in Kent as cheaply as possible. Successive governments starved the railways of investment and we suffer the consequences.
The South Eastern timetable hasn't changed for the better in the 50 years since the lines were electrified. Electrification dramatically reduced journey times for everyday travel, from Deal to Charing Cross, from an average of over 3 hours, before 1959, to less than 2 hours by 1967. The improvement has been whittled away until it now takes 2 hours 9 minutes, or more, unless one pays extra and uses the HS1 service.

UK Alternative Vote Referendum

Yesterday I received a leaflet from the Electoral Commission explaining how the proposed alternative voting system would work. The leaflet explains how the process will work in such a way that 99% of people reading it are going to vote against the reform.
The example shows that the candidate who starts with the most votes, though not a clear majority wins the election. There are several more steps than in the current 'first past the post' system, but according to the brochure the result is the same.
In practice in many cases the person who starts with a majority will not end up winning the election. The new system would be fairer, than first past the post and that has to be a good thing.
I dislike the Conservatives, because I think that they are out of touch with reality. Labour aren't much better, they just want to form the government and if that means aping the Tories that's what they'll do, again.
I will vote Green, though I know that they won't win. My other choices will be other minority parties. Each time a candidate is eliminated, the alternatives will be rewarded with more votes.
In some cases this will be enough to tip the balance against the ruling party, even if it doesn't I will feel more satisfied than if my first choice party lost its deposit.

ebook complaints

I'm a great fan of ebooks and have been for about 8 years. My Dell X30 pda had Microsoft Reader on it and I downloaded and read many books on it.
Last November I purchased a Sony Pocket ereader (PRS-350), which is amazing. The screen is electronic ink, so it's clear and uses so little power that a battery charge usually lasts for weeks. The minus points are:-
* the ridiculous stylus, which is so flimsy that it broke after a couple of months;
* Sony's useless Library Software, which only recognises the ereader occasionally;
* and the lack of a backlight. I can manage without the backlight, because it would reduce the battery life.
Kent Library Service has a number of electronic books that one can borrow for 21 days, so I haven't needed to buy any books yet. These include best-sellers soon after they are published, like Lee Childs' 61 Hours.
This brings me to my complaint. The ebooks are full of errors, I can't remember the last time that I read a paper book, which had spelling mistakes and other typographical errors, but most of the ebooks do.
It's almost as if the electronic version of the book is produced before the final version of the manuscript. I recently read a book called Shards of a Broken Crown, by Raymond Feist. This has so many mistakes that it's difficult to follow the plot. Amongst them is the variation in the way one of the characters (Jimmy Jameson) name is spelt. Sometimes it's Jamieson, Jameson, or Jamison.
The other problem with ebooks is DRM (Digital Rights Management), which is supposed to stop piracy. It is a pain in the neck. Adobe Digital Editions software keeps ignoring my ereader, which prevents me downloading ebooks to it. Adobe's solution was to do a hard reset on the ereader, which temporarily cured the problem, but meant that I had to recopy all of my books.
When you consider that most booksellers charge MORE for electronic books than paperbacks, this is wholly unacceptable. Ebooks are the future of publishing, but DRM issues and bad editing will not persuade people to buy.

N.B. These comments only apply to my experience with the blue Sony Pocket Reader (PRS-350). I will happily write a review, if anyone would like to lend me any other sort of ereader.

Advertisements

At the top of his page are some adverts for Amazon. They are supposed to be relevant to what I write, but something isn't working.
If you click on one of them I receive a minuscule amount of money, so it would be better if they were more targeted.
The 2010 World Cup is going to start in South Africa in a few days, which probably explains why one of the ads is for a football video game.
I have absolutely no interest in football. At least not in the so-called game where young louts are paid stupid amounts of money to appear on a patch of Astroturf. I will happily watch a match if I know at least one of the players personally.
Football is not the most popular sport, despite all the media hype it attracts. It is the easiest sport to watch and therefore the most difficult to avoid watching, as it consumes many hours of the TV schedule.
TV is the reason why football is crap. They pump stupid amounts of money into the industry, even when the matches are boring nil-nil draws. Personally I would pay teams a bonus for good behavior and sportsmanship and fine them huge amounts for bad behavior on, or off, the pitch.
I've heard people justify the excessive amounts of money paid to sports people, because they can only work for a few years. That's illogical, because other people can only work for a few years, but they don't receive million pound salaries. I was told by a recruitment agent 20 years ago, that he wouldn't waste his time trying to find me employment in one of Scotland's big banks. He said that they never consider anyone over the age of 35, so why wasn't I paid millions, if my career was brutally terminated at 35 years of age like thousands of other IT staff?

Millets wellington boots

I recently purchase a pair of 'Hunter Lowther' unisex wellies from Millets online store, for my wife. She has genuine Hunters for riding her horse (and obviously to keep her feet dry) but they cost more than double these Hunter Lowthers.
The boots arrived within a few days, so full marks for delivery, but they aren't suitable for riding. Riders need their boots to come up above the saddle flaps to be safe, these boots were too short and would catch under the flaps with disastrous consequences in the event of a fall.
I wrote a review for Millets, which explained exactly why they weren't suitable for riding and also commented that my wife found the boots a bit tight and inflexible. It's strange that the official Hunter boot website has no reference to these 'Hunters'.
My remarks were rejected by Millets, because they breech their 'guidelines'. They obviously don't want people to be able to make an informed purchasing decision.

Rip off

My local paper, like many, is running a photographic competition. There are 6 prizes, £50 for winners in each of the categories, and £25 for 2 runners-up in each category.
The rip-off is that the terms of the competition state that the newspaper can publish any of the photographs, even those that haven't won a prize. Photos may also be used in advertising literature, by the sponsors.
It's about time that competitions recognised that photographs are valuable assets and photographers should be rewarded for their efforts.
If a photograph is good enough to use, it's worth paying for it. This article gives a good explanation why it's better to pay for a decent photograph than to use a free, or cheap.

Not grumpy, really very pleased

As I mentioned earlier, I volunteered to be an observer for the Channel Swimming Association Ltd at the beginning of the year. It sounded like a good way to pass the time, make a few quid and possibly take a few photographs.
For those who don't know, the Sport of Channel Swimming traces its origins to the latter part of the 19th Century when Captain Matthew Webb made the first observed and un-assisted swim across the Strait of Dover - swimming from England to France in 21 hours and 45 minutes.
Over 80 years ago, in 1927, (at a time when less than a dozen swimmers had managed to emulate Captain Matthew Webb’s feat), the Channel Swimming Association (the CSA) was founded to authenticate swimmers’ claims to have swum the English Channel, and to verify crossing times.
It assists and advises swimmers who intend to make a Channel Attempt. It regulates the conduct of such attempts - and aims to further the Sport of Channel Swimming. Over the years it has developed into the internationally recognised controlling authority of Cross Channel Swimming in all its forms throughout the Strait of Dover and is the Governing Body of the Sport.
Accreditation is accorded only to those Swimmers registered with the Association, who agree to be bound by the rules of the Association whose attempt has been observed by Association Officials and who are escorted by Pilots registered with the Association, using Vessels registered with the Association.

CSA OBJECTIVES

1. To establish, supervise, interpret and amend the rules of Cross Channel Swimming in the Strait of Dover.

2. To promote the sport of swimming across the English Channel and to encourage International friendship among the members of the Association.

3. To investigate and authenticate (subject to payment of any fees) claims of persons to have swum the English Channel under the auspices and jurisdiction of the CSA and CM Ltd.

4. To assist with information and advise those intending to make Cross Channel Swims in the Strait of Dover.

For more information go to: www.channelswlmmingassociation.com

Anyway, I observed 8 swims this year and wrote reports about all of them. The Observer's report enables the CSA committee to decide whether the swim should be ratified and entered into the record book, it can also be obtained by the swimmer.
I try to make my reports accurate, but interesting. Nobody wants to read that the same thing happened every hour for 12, or more hours; that would be so boring.
The point is I obviously succeeded in my objective, because the CSA Awarded me their Observer of the Year Shield, for the Best Observer. I'm so proud and happy this blog is going to have to be renamed.

To see my photos go to Photobox

Channel Swimming 1

I've volunteered to be an observer for the Channel Swimming Association (CSA), which is the official body overseeing channel swimmers. The English Channel is one of, if not the most, challenging place for swimmers in the world.

The shortest distance from the UK to Frances is about 21 miles as the crow flies. Nearer 28 miles for a swimmer, because of the strong tidal currents.

This image shows a GPS plot of one of the swims that I observed.
The water is never warm and sometimes very cold. 17°C (62.5°F) is about the warmest it gets. To add to swimmers' problems this is also one of the busiest stretches of water in the world. Up to 500 ships pass through the Straits of Dover every 24 hours. The Ship AIS web site is a brilliant way to see just how busy it is.
The rules of the CSA prohibit anything but the most basic swimming costume and cap, no bouyancy aids and no protection from the cold.

I can do that, give me a job!

Last month I turned 60 and decided that I should sign on at my local JobCentre. For those of my readers who live outside the UK a JobCentre is the place people go to find financial support when they can't find work.
My local JobCentre closed in 2006, so I looked on the Internet for the nearest alternative. The JobCentrePlus website has lots of interesting data, including the fact that one has to register by telephone. Fortunately it's a freephone number, because registering took 75 minutes of ear bending.
A few days later a couple of pounds of paper landed on my hall carpet. This was my 'Jobseekers Statement', together with an appointment at the nearest JobCentre (in Dover 8 miles away) and instructions about the documents they needed to see.
As I have been a bit prudent, I have been able to survive for the last 18 months on savings, ISAs, With Profits Life Insurance maturing and my few stocks and shares. In total my wife and I had just over £16000, so after cursing and tearing my hair out to find evidence for these I loaded a ton of paper into my briefcase and caught the bus to Dover.
The first person I saw looked at my Statement, said I would not receive any assistance, removed half the pages and changed my claim from Earnings Related to Contribution related. Apparently you have to be as near bankrupt as makes no difference to receive 'Earnings Related' benefit.
I was then passed on to a nice man who explained that I could look for work similar to what I had been doing for 3 months, then I would have to take any job I was offered. I have to report to the JobCentrePlus every fortnight and provide evidence that I've done 3 things each week towards finding a job. This effort will result in a payment of £59.15 per week, which is supposed to pay my mortgage, utility bills, and food and drink. Is it any wonder that most people on benefit try to make money on the side?
I really went to the JobCentre primarily for assistance in finding work, as 18 months of my efforts have failed. JobCentres don't provide any real help until 26 weeks after you apply to them, by which time I shall be starving and presumably willing to do anything for a few crumbs. Also at that time, if I still do not have a job, my benefit stops! I can apply again, for a different sort of benefit, but my 40 something years of 'National Insurance' contributions only buy £1537.90 in Job Seeker's Allowance. In the last year that I was able to work I paid £5665.94 in 8 months!!!
That isn't insurance, it's extortion.

More Bad Language

I wonder sometimes how people manage to qualify as TV announcers. One actually said roofless the other day when referring to the Virginia Tech university shootings. He obviously meant ruthless. I have great sympathy for anyone who has a speech impediment, but I don't think that was the case in this instance. The announcer was just lazy. It's called Estuary English and it has taken over most of southern England., since the soap 'East Enders' started. The diversity of dialects that enriched the English language is being lost. I like Cockney, but Estuary English is most definitely not Cockney. There are similarities, but Cockneys really speak well. They may drop their aitches, but in my experience most of their pronunciation is accurate. In fact if you watch some of the films from the fifties, which are admittedly not the best examples, the Cockneys speech is similar to the posh people’s, just peppered with rhyming slang. My point is that the media are not setting a good example and we are all the poorer for it. Manglinq the language leads to misunderstanding; misunderstanding fuels prejudice and bigotry. It is not 'Politically Correct' to criticize, but without criticism how can you improve. Everyone feels that they are right, except me (grin), but nobody is perfect. We can all use a little constructive criticism occasionally.

More bad language

One of the most abused words in the English language is done.
My dictionary says this is the past participle of the verb do. Briefly this means that it should only be used with another verb, to expand on its meaning.
I suppose that the most famous example is the Lord's Prayer 'Thy will be done'.
What it isn't is a verb. It is simply not correct English to say someone done something.
They may do something, or maybe they did something in the past, which they shouldn't have done.
Maybe this is too subtle, that last phrase looks the same as what I object to. The subtlety is that the verb in the phrase is 'have' not done.

I cringe every time I hear someone say things like I done the lottery, or the boy done good.
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Old buses in Folkestone

It's amazing how many people like old buses.
The M & D and East Kent Bus Club have been running a few events every year sponsored by Stagecoach. The latest of these took place on Easter Monday in Folkestone.
In these events the vintage buses take over some of the routes in and around the town and run to the regular Stagecoach schedules. Passengers travel for free.
My brother brought his son (aged 9) and a friend and this was their first experience of travelling on a double-decker bus. They chatted to an old man who told them how he and his friends used to collect bus tickets in their teens.
The youngsters were fascinated to hear that in those days just after the Second World War, tickets were made of card and had every fare stage on the route printed on them. The conductor used a hole punch to indicate which stop the passenger could travel to.
There were six different values colour coded to enable them to be easily identified.
The bus I was on made two trips to Folkestone Harbour, one to Hythe, two to Cheriton and finished up with one to Hawkinge Battle of Britain Museum.
The last one was a bit of a challenge for the old bus as the final hill up to Hawkinge is very steep and she was fully loaded. In total she carried over 300 passengers and the other buses were just as full.
I wore my Garmin Foretrex 201 Wearable Personal Navigator throughout the day and it coped reasonably well with being inside a bus. The last trip was so full that I couldn't sit by a window, so it couldn't see any satellites. The rest of the day provided some useful results.
In total we travelled about 75 miles, the top speed was 45.5 mph although the manufacturer only claimed a top speed of 42mph when the bus was new.
The Dover Transport museum will be running some old buses from Whitfield to Dover on the 29th April and the The M & D and East Kent Bus Club are having another open day in Herne Bay on 5th August 2007.

Bad language

There is a lot of swearing on films and TV, but that’s not what I’m referring to.
I think that the media should set an example. Most writers are highly educated; they have an excellent command of language. The trouble is that they don’t use their knowledge.
I keep seeing abuses of the English language. People who should know better using phrases like: The Romans are... which is stupid.
The Romans no longer exist, so all references to them must be in the past tense.
This may appear pedantic, but language was invented to enable humans to clearly exchange information. Misuse of language leads to misunderstanding and probably explains why the world is in the state it’s in.
Bad language takes many forms, there’s dumbing down and verbal diarrhoea. The former is usually justified by the excuse that it lets the audience understand what’s being said. The latter is just a form of snobbery.
Verbal diarrhoea means using more, or longer words than necessary.
Advertising is another user of bad language. In this case the aim is to persuade us to buy the product, so it can be useful to muddy the waters. For example: Saying that something is a ‘quality product’ leads most people to assume that that is a good thing. Strictly speaking the word quality is a noun, not an adjective. On its own it means some aspect of an item and can be bad, or good.
If it is going to be used to describe something it needs to be part of an adjectival phrase for example low quality, poor quality, or maybe even high quality.
Adverts that don’t mean what they say are a constant source of amusement:
Nothing works better than Anadin; so don’t take anadin, take nothing to cure your headache.
9 out of 10 cats prefer Felix; can I have that it writing? Why are my cats all the 1 in 10 that don’t prefer it, anyway
Heavy plant crossing… I was expecting a Giant Sequoia to walk across the road.
My motto is KISS – keep it simple stupid. If you want to be understood, write as you speak. Don’t use 2 words if 1 will do and don’t use a long word (affirmative) when a short one would be better (yes).

Fireworks

It's Easter again, the daftest festival in the Christian calendar.
I mean, Christians worship Christ as the son of god, but they've adopted this pagan festival to celebrate his death. It's also one of the most commercially exploited times of the year, with cards, eggs and other chocolates, it's almost as bad as Christmas.
Another excuse to overindulge, spend money and let off fireworks. Why do people feel the need to annoy their neighbours in the dead of night by letting off high explosives?
I know that it doesn't compare to the terror of living in a war zone, but it scares the life out of one of my dogs. She shivers in terror as soon as one goes off and takes a good 12 hours to recover. In the UK the madness starts in October and goes on until after New Year, with sporadic outbreaks at random through the rest of the year. Guy Fawkes night on November 5th is the only national occasion for celebration with fireworks, but that doesn't stop the idiots. Sometimes it sounds like world war 3 has erupted.
I used to love fireworks as a kid and even years ago when my son was young. In those days they were all about the spectacle, sparkles and pretty colours. Modern ones are all bang and no flash. People seem to let them off just for the explosion, they obviously can't see anything when low clouds cover the area as they often do in the winter.
A lot of the fireworks on sale are positively lethal, they are designed to be used by trained pyrotechnicians who understand the risk, yet they can be obtained by any idiot with an internet connection.
What do you think?
Should we have a total ban on firework sales to the general public?

True Chivalry is Never Sexist

I hold the door open for everyone, male, or female, who I meet. It becomes a pain in the neck after the fourth, or fifth, ingrate has barged through, but I do it even if I'm in a hurry.
I firmly believe that good manners make me a better person. Chivalry is just an extension of this, it costs nothing and makes the world a better place.
Chivalry is an integral part of civilisation. It isn't some medieval invention by knights, it's deeper than that.
Man developed, because our ancestors shared their good fortune with their neighbours. They cooperated to find food and protect vulnerable members of their community. It would be a shame, if we lost the benefits of chivalry through the mistaken belief that it is sexist.
I've shared most of my life with my wife, some people would consider this to be a sexist remark. 'My wife' to them implies ownership, but she refers to me as 'my husband', is that sexism too?
I would never dream of intentionally letting a door slam in her face and I hope that all of the people who say chivalry is sexist would feel the same about their friends, lovers, partners, colleagues, fellow commuters...
Why not extend this to everyone? It is only a very small step. A stranger is after all only a potential friend. It costs nothing and makes you feel good.
Go on try it.

TV

Television annoys me so much that I've started a new blog for my criticism Unreal TV.
It still uses the old Blogger, so is not as easy to update as this Blog.
My wife has a really interesting Blog where she notes everything she ate. I know you're thinking 'well he would say that they're married' and that is true, but it really is interesting.
Go on have a look, if you don't like it you can always have a moan at me.

Yes, Copyright Pirates have already killed TV

The effects of piracy are already visible.
Piracy reduces the amount of money available to the programme makers, which inexorably leads to a reduction in quality and choice.
The big problem is that a lot of people do not realise that they are committing piracy when they copy a friend's disk. I support PCs and I've lost count of the number of times I have been asked to copy Microsoft Office onto a computer, for free. Most of these people obtain it from a friend who thinks it's alright to give copies away as long as they don't pay for it.
Producing good programmes for TV, software, or films costs a lot of money. Piracy cuts the producer off from some of their earnings, so they either cannot produce more work, or have a smaller budget for it.
Look at the TV guide, there are only about 6 channels that show any decent programmes and even they intersperse them with cheap rubbish. The schedules are flooded with shopping, betting, phone-in and reality shows. Producers love these because they cost a fraction of the amount that a good programme does.