A Real Pub Sign
I like to see a real pub sign.
A Real Pub Sign
This one is on the Cat and the Canary at Canary Wharf.
Canary Wharf Station’s Pedestrian Tube
The Pedestrian walkway (Or is it a tube?) to Canary Wharf Crossrail station is getting to be recognisable as to what it will be.
It does appear that we will see some spectacular stations on Crossrail.
I Meet The Underground Harpist Again
I met this harpist for the second time yesterday, in Oxford Circus Underground station.
The Underground Harpist
The guy in the poster is showing an interesting expression!
It’s good to hear music, of any type of decent quality wafting through the tunnels. In fact, I don’t think, I’ve heard anything underground, that anybody would complain about.
Welcome To Islington
I like this sign.
Welcome To Islington
Let’s hope it cuts road accidents and keeps more drivers out of the streets near me.
Are Cyclists Becoming The New Vegetarians?
I’ve nothing against either group, but although I hope one day to be part of the first, I doubt I’ll ever be vegetarian. I couldn’t be that today, as I’ve just had some delicious meat pate.
But in my view, there are a lot of vegetarians, who are overly touchy. I remember once being served a meal in a five-star boutique hotel with organic wholemeal bread and the vegetarian owner couldn’t get it, that wheat was bad for me. As it was organic, surely that wouldn’t cause me any harm, as animals were the problem. So C gave her both barrels as only a barrister could and we never ate in the hotel again.
Change a recipe for a chocolate bar and the veggies will get you, as Mars found out a couple of years ago.
it now appears that cyclists in London can get just as touchy about changing road layouts, as this story shows. The article even has a go at Crossrail, saying that it will bring lots of shoppers into Central London.
I regularly go to that area and it is a nightmare for everybody and especially pedestrians and cyclists. I found this out a few days ago and posted this.
The question i asked in that post is probably the correct one and the sooner we get New Buses for London in those routes around Piccadilly Circus and down the Haymarket the better, as I’m certain they would get a lot of the pedestrians out of the way. Some pedestrians might even say they’d had enough and see an open platform on a bus and go for it!
What’s the betting though, that in a few months as more and more New Buses for London appear, we will read an article about cyclists complaining about them?
Perhaps to create more road-space in Central London, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to put restrictions on taxis. Now taxi-drivers are another group, who act like vegetarians and get touchy at the least provocation.
How about banning rickshaws too?
But the main thing that is needed is some good British design, followed up with a good helping of compromise!
Aren’t Brains Wonderful!
For the first time, since I had my stroke in Hong Kong, I’ve switched back to the way I used to live my life twenty years ago.
I’ve gone back to wearing short-sleeved shirts, with a jumper over the top if it’s chilly. For years I wore a simple windcheater type jacket with a large pocket, but no-one makes one now. If I needed to carry more, then I carried by Dunhill briefcase loosely in my left hand.
It’s as though my brain has switched back and put me into this lifestyle that works for me.
It’s so practical. For example, I don’t use a dish-washer, as the previous tenants gave it a good fucking and I do the job so much better. So I just take off the jumper and get started.
I just went to get my newspaper. Coming back, if I’m not reading the front page, I fold it up and hold it in my left hand.
All I need to do, is get my eyesight and left hand working correctly and I’m a new man.
The eyesight is pretty good now and I can even take my glasses off, whilst watching films and sporting events. But as my eyes get less dry from the better weather, they seem to be improving.
As to my left hand, it seems to work very well, but its measurement of temperature is bad. I’m still typing mostly one-handed, but then it was always thus!
I notice too, when I put on a shirt, it isn’t the left hand that’s a problem, it’s the right. It could be just down to dry skin. I know for instance, that my nails aren’t back to their best. Incidentally, whilst living in Suffolk after the stroke in 2010, by the autumn they were tip-top. So let’s put their state down to the cold and very dry weather of the last few months.
But I think my brain and its superb memory will pull me through. Although last night, I got annoyed when I couldn’t remember the name of the Adiran Lyne film, when Glenn Close boiled the bunny. But we have the Internet to solve those problems. It was, of course, Ben Hur! I can remember vividly sitting with Adrian Lyne by a pool in the South of France, watching our respective wives swimming.
One memory that thinks, I’m on the right track, is that my nails taste and feel exactly the same, as when I was a child, when I was a terrible nail-biter. I have this great desire, which I’m resisting, to bite them again.
I just don’t think I’m in any way unique, it’s just that I let my brain do its best!
Santander Make A Mistake
Paul Lewis, the BBC’s respected personal finance expert, has just flagged up this story on BBC Breakfast. Although, it’s not a big financial failure like PPI, it could have been inconvenient for some former Abbey customers. This is the first three paragraphs of the story.
Santander, the country’s second biggest mortgage provider, says 30,000 of its customers may be due compensation, after errors made in 2008.
All were former Abbey customers, who were put on standard variable rate (SVR) mortgages after coming off fixed-rate deals.
But they were not told clearly enough that they could have transferred their accounts elsewhere.
He also flagged up that there is no central way to notify customers that there might be a problem with their bank or insurance company’s systems and said there was a business opportunity.
He’s right on that last point!
What is needed is a site, where you register with just e-mail address and short post code, like N14 or IP4. You then enter your bank, insurance company, supermarket, broadband and energy suppliers, phone and mobile companies and perhaps your make of car.
Then when anything turns up like this Santander problem or the Virgin broadband failure, the site would send you an automatic e-mail.
All warnings would of course be available for any registered member to view.
Unlike the price comparison sites, the site would never sell or give your details to any third party.
Paul Lewis said it was a business opportunity! It certainly is!
Man Attacked By Rogue Beach Hut
The title of this post is my take on this story.
It’s definitely something that could end up on Have I Got News for You.
How Not To Deal With Deceased Customers
Virgin Media is called over the coals in this article on the BBC web site, where they messed up over the account of someone who’d died.
When C died, I didn’t have anything similar although dealing with some organisations was more difficult than others. I actually had a letter published in The Times about it.
I was widowed last year, and it is only now that I’m starting to get my life together. The response of the various government and local authority departments in handling all the paperwork involved has been very patchy.
Registrars: excellent, very sympathetic and efficient; Work and Pensions: bereavement allowance came through with a few hiccups, but not too difficult; Premium Bonds: system worked but could have been better; council tax: this was reduced automatically on signing a form by St Edmundsbury — totally painless; DVLA: its online systems worked well; winter fuel payment: found difficult to claim and missed it for last year.
The private sector wasn’t that much better, with some companies having people whose sole job appeared to be to deal with bereavement faring much better than those that didn’t. Some wanted death certificates, some accepted faxed copies and others took my word.
We need a lot more joined-up thinking in this important area, as, with nearly a million deaths in the UK every year, it would surely help the bereavement process for those left behind if every company, organisation, government department and authority were automatically notified. After all, if St Edmundsbury can do it here in supposedly sleepy Suffolk, then surely everyone else can.
The best private company was undoubtedly Carphone Warehouse, who had a dedicated person dealing with the accounts of customers who’d died. They even sent me a refund, which I spent on a good bottle of wine.
The Co-Op Gives Up On The Lloyds Branches
Buying bank branches, is a bit like going down Covent Garden Market at the close of business and buying all the fruit and vegetables that has not been sold.
So in some ways the news this morning as reported on the BBC, that the Co-Op Bank isn’t buying the branches Lloyds must divest itself of, is no surprise to me.
Let’s face it branch banking is dead and those that still need a branch, use one that is convenient to them and won’t like being transferred. So perhaps, many have already put their business elsewhere and the Co-op would be buying a few worthless empty shells.
The Co-op’s Chief Executive has said this.
After detailed and thorough consideration of all aspects of the Verde transaction, we have decided, at this time, that it is not in the best interests of our members to proceed with the transaction.
Against the backdrop of the current economic environment, the worsened outlook for economic growth and the increasing regulatory requirements on the financial services sector in general, the Verde transaction would not currently deliver a suitable return for our members within a reasonable timeframe and with an acceptable level of risk.
So although he’s saying it’s not for the Co-op and giving reasoned views, it would be interesting to see the figures underneath it all.
I also wonder with all the publicity that this proposed deal has generated, if it has sent a message to many bank customers, that the Co-op Bank is a serious alternative and people have moved their accounts accordingly.
So has the deal got the Co-op what it wanted, without any risk whatsoever?
Let’s hope the fallout from this deal, gives us a few new iconic bars and restaurants in those redundant prime locations!
The Anonymous Widower 