The Red Sock Code
This article is both tragic and sad, but funny and gives a good feeling.
So what’s wrong about bring ladies, or men for that matter, of easy virtue, into a care home to help with the caring?
A Mouse In The Studio
Shelagh Fogarty has just been interrupted on BBC Radio 5 Live, by a mouse running around the studio.
What a bimbo! Judging by her reaction!
It’s what you get when you move the BBC to a rodent-infested part of the North.
Hedgehog Decline
A few years ago, when we owned the stud, I remarked that I hadn’t seen a hedgehog in years. when I lived in London as a child, they were always about and you used to see quite a few squashed ones on the road.
Now it would appear they are in serious decline according to this article in the Mail.
I’ve never seen one here in Hackney, although given the number of gardens, parks and cemeteries, there must be a few. On the other hand, we do have lots of foxes.
I did type “Hackney hedgehog” into Google and found this article. The writer suggests that foxes could have predated on the dead hedgehogs found.
So is Basil Brush one of the reasons for the decline.
Let’s Tax Fizzy Drinks!
There has been a call this morning, for a tax to be put on fizzy sugary drinks. It’s reported here on the BBC.
I would not be affected by such a tax, as I suppose the only high sugar drink, I take is the odd smoothie, when I need to take my pills out.
I did however chat to someone yesterday, who has retired from a job, where they looked after obesity and diabetes in the community. Judging by that pair of jobs, there is a serious connection between being overweight and getting diabetes.
So perhaps, it would be a good idea to try to cut down on all that sugar! On the other hand, we perhaps shouldn’t go for artificial sweeteners, as many like the outspoken, DogtorJ, believe them to be a problem. He incidentally is a vet, who is a coeliac, and has come to some interesting research-based conclusions.
I doubt we’ll ever see a tax on fizzy drinks, as the industry wouldn’t allow it and I suspect, it would be a vote loser.
A Cautionary Tale
I don’t mess about with hardware and although, I could probably do quite complicated work on PCs at one time, I couldn’t now, as my knowledge is way out of date.
But this tale from the BBCs web site, shows how you might fall into all sorts of security holes if you do.
Their technology correspondent changed the motherboard on his home PC and consequently, the various security systems thought he was committing credit card fraud, as the computer address had changed.
Now he, thought he knew what he was doing. He did hardware-wise, but he got caught out, by intelligent checking software on the Internet.
when I feel, one of machines is getting to the end of it’s life, I buy another machine and gradually swap everything over, still doing most of the work on the old machine.
So whhen it dies, I just move the last update over and put the old machine in the bin.
A Beer Called Celia
I just had to try a gluten-free beer called Celia, as that was my late wife’s name. I found that they served it in a pub called The Regent in Liverpool Road, Islington. It just happened to be Liverpool Road, didn’t it? As of course we met in Liverpool in 1966!
A Beer Called Celia
It wasn’t a bad beer at all and I shall be drinking more of it.
But how long will it be, before we see a proper gluten-free real ale on draught in pubs. I suspect it’ll be there by the end of this decade.
Transport For London Lowers Emission Limits
Transport for London is lowering the emission limits for cars in the Congestion Charge Zone and it’s all reported here.
As a pedestrian and non-car owner and driver, I must say that I am in favour. In fact after experiencing Chelsea recently, I can’t see why they bothered to reduce the size of the zone. All it seemed to do, was increase the jams.
I’d also like to see a higher Congestion Charge for larger vehicles, such as big 4×4’s. After all, how many people need such a vehicle in Central London?
The New Bus For London In Singapore
I just picked up this article about the New Bus for London in the Straits Times in Singapore.
Their slant on the bus, is that Metroline, who will be running the bus on route 24 by the summer, is owned by ComfortDelgro, who are a Singaporean company.
In Singapore they actually operate 1200 Wright buses, most of which were assembled locally.
So it will be interesting to see, if this all leads to a New Bus for Singapore!
The Real Arguments For HS2 Start Now!
The government has announced the route of HS2 this morning, as is detailed in this article on the BBC.
There is going to be masses of opposition.
In fact, I think that the amount of opposition is such, that the line will not get built. certainly, as I look forward at 65, I doubt I’ll ever see it.
Let’s face it, if you had a referendum, which asked if we wanted a high speed rail or more motorways, the man stuck in the jam on the M1 would vote for the roads.
HS2 also doesn’t help our biggest transport problem of the next twenty years. Or at least not directly! How do we get all the freight containers, to and from the major ports like Southampton, Felixstowe and Thames Haven? It deals with them indirectly, by making more paths available on the classic lines to the North and Scotland, especially if a few strategic freight by-passes are built and lines like Ipswich to Nuneaton are electrified.
There also seems to be a lots of opponents saying that London and the South East will be the biggest beneficiary. So perhaps we should built it from Birmingham to Scotland? Or at least that should be the first phase to open!
There is the classic opportunity here for a political party to fight an election on an anti-HS2 platform. I don’t think, any of the three major parties would do this, but who’s to say, some smaller party wouldn’t? After all, UKIP has said no to the project in this article on its web site.
Booking A Train From London To The Hague
Just out of curiosity, I looked at how much it would cost me to go from St. Pancras to The Hague next Wednesday, the 30th of January.
So I looked up on the Belgian Rail web site called b-europe.co.uk. They offer two routes.
You can go to Brussels Midi, where you take a train to Essen in Germany and then another one to Rosendaal in The Netherlands, from where you get a Dutch train to The Hague. For this Grand Tour of the Low Countries you will pay £114.42.
Alternatively, you can take the Thalys from Brussels to Rotterdam and then take the train to The Hague. It will be 17 minutes quicker, but you can’t book it in Second Class, so it’ll cost you £188.75 in First.
I have done the single leg in the past for under £100 and I can book it for about £60 by means of easyJet.
So who would use the train from London to The Hague?
Not this enthusiast for rail travel, for a start!
It’s all double-Dutch to me!
The Anonymous Widower 