A Titantic Waste of Money
There seems to be so much fuss about a ship, the Titanic, which had the most disastrous maiden voyage in history.
We’ve now got the original film being rereleased in 3D, which I will not be seeing.
And how much of my tax money went to produce the morbid exhibition in Belfast.
Remember that Titanic was one of three sister ships in the Olympic Class. Only one lived long enough to be scrapped, but the third, the Britannic hit a mine and sunk in World War 1.
All this is well-documented in the Liverpool Maritime Museum. Currently, they are holding an exhibition called Titanic and Liverpool: the untold story.
I know where I would prefer to spend an afternoon.
L’ve Got Petrol
My son has parked his car in my garage, so if I needed some petrol, L suspect I could syphon some out.
But as I don’t, the petrol in his car is safe.
And as it’s only one of the last proper Minis, I would probably only get a couple of mouthfuls!
I’ll just walk to the bus as normal.
Apple Have Problems With iPads in Australia
According to this report on the BBC, Apple is having to give refunds on iPads in Australia.
Perhaps they don’t work upside down! Or is it all those kangaroos jumping about, setting up odd vibrations at the wrong frequencies!
Decimalisation
On Drive on BBC Radio 5 Live, they got talking about decimalisation. I sent them my four pennies-worth
My eldest son was in the births in The Times for the 20th July 1969, the day Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Incidentally, that day the paper carried a report on decimalisation, which would happen on February 15th 1971 and metrication, which was to be completed by 1984. The first happened on time and I’m still waiting for the second.
I suspect I’ll be long dead before we do the sane and sensible thing and metricate.
Zopa Mentioned in the Guardian
My Google Alert for Zopa found this report in the Guardian. It’s not particularly relevant to Zopa or peer-to-peer lending as this extract shows.
Not all hairdressers are on one giant VAT dodge, otherwise there would have been some public outcry and we would all, by now, be doing each other’s hair (we would call it peer-to-peer grooming, it would be somewhere between Zopa and a zoo, and it wouldn’t matter what we looked like, because we’d all look the same).
But it does show that you should choose a unique name for your company.
The Queen Gets Light-Hearted
I don’t know whether it’s because of the Jubilee, but the Queen seems to be treating life much more light-heartedly. A couple of weeks ago she went to the theatre and sat with the plebs in the Circle, rather than the Royal Box. And then yesterday after a clash of venues in Manchester, she turned up to wish a couple getting married good luck. That is reported here. I don’t think Queen Victoria would have done that on her Diamond Jubilee.
A Government Income and Expenditure Statement
I proposed one of these years ago. It has been reported that they might bring in an Expenditure statement for taxpayers.
You’d be surprised about how much and how little some taxes raise.
An Expenditure statement is useless without an Income one.
Effect Of Freight on Rail
A few years ago there were only three freight trains a day out of Felixstowe. Now because of new infrastructure in the docks, there are over thirty.
One side effect of this, has been a very large reduction of trucks on the A14.
Before we build large numbers of new roads, we should make sure that the rail freight network is as efficient as possible.
One trouble with rail freight is that it needs terminals for local distribution near major conurbations and these developments tend to bring out the nimbys in large numbers.
But you can’t have truck-free main roads, without interfaces between long-distance freight trains and local deliveries.
Dame Edna Retires
It is being reported that Dame Edna Everage is being retired by Barry Humphries.
Some will think it sad, but then we have a lot of audio and video records to keep us rolling in the aisles.
in fact, these days great acts, never really retire because of this.
Horse Racing Leaves the BBC
A sad day!
I enjoy my horse-racing, especially as my late wife and I bred and owned race-horses for nearly thirty years.
I shall still go occasionally, but I doubt I’ll watch it on the television any more. The reason is adverts. I find them so annoying.
That’s why I must be one of the few people, who has never seen any of Downton Abbey.
I did enjoy the Cheltenham Festival though on Radio 5.
Millions of us are paying for the very silly move to Salford.
The Anonymous Widower 