An Unusual Clock
Piccadilly Circus Tube station has a classic Art Deco interior. It also has this unique World Clock
World Clock at Piccadilly Circus Station
I’ve never seen another like it.
Rear Of The Year 2012
I took this picture of the back of the New Bus for London.
Rear of the Year 2012
I’d just ridden the bus from the Angel. TfL’s Press Officer was on the bus and he said they’d had a lot of positive comments. He said people especially liked the open platform and the conductor.
Incidentally, when I had approached the bus at the Angel, the driver had waved me to the back. So it looks like they’re developing a method of operating the bus to speed it on its way.
Update on May 25th, 2012 – In his talk last night, David Barnett described how New Bus for London had a composite rear end, which gave the whole bus trength, as well as support for the engine/generator and other gubbins inside. So perhaps it could be up for Engineering Rear Of The Year 2012 as well!
Chelmsford Becomes A City
It has just been announced that Chelmsford is to become a city.
It’s funny but the football club has always been Chelmsford City.
The Four Tops and The Temptations
At present both these iconic sets of soul singers are on BBC Breakfast.
I suspect that once the program moves to Manchester, it will be more difficult to get some stars to go up north.
So why did the BBC decide to move its flagship program, which has the largest number of viewers at that time in the UK?
As it was Blair’s government who decided hey would go, was it punishment for something they said?
Buy Your iPad From Tesco
You can get one for £49.99 from Tesco according to this story on the BBC.
But you had better hurry, before they rectify their mistake.
I shall not be buying, as I don’t like apple products or Tesco.
This Landlady Had Better Be Careful
This story on the BBC, shows how the United States seems to go out of its way to get everybody’s back up.
It would appear that the pub has been called the Hobbit for about twenty years.
But then, she had better conform, otherwise she’ll be whisked off to the United States to face unlimited fines and a long sentence in some awful jail.
This case is calling out for some good honest British justice.
I used to know one of JRR Tolkein’s cousins and he did a lot of business in the old Soviet Union, where his cousin’s books were very popular. In those , he always took several with him, as they always opened doors.
So I suspect there are quite a few things named after Tolkein characters in Russia. Why don’t these American lawyers go and annoy Putin?
Stability in Financial Systems
Adverts talk about get the strength of the insurance companies around you and you say that it’s as solid as the Bank of England.
I am a Control Engineer by training and one of the topics that is important is the concept of stability. Since I learned it all in the 1960s, the definitions have increased in scope a lot. I would describe a system as stable, as one that when you displace it, it returns to the same state of rest.
So as an example of a stable system, if you take a ball-bearing or marble in a typical kitchen bowl, it will lie in the bottom. Give it a small push and it will oscillate in and run round the bowl, until what friction there is returns it to the bottom. If however you balance the ball on say a football and give it even the tiniest push it will run off the edge. That is an unstable system.
In everything we do, we always should deal with stable systems.
So let’s look now at a small savings bank with a 100 branches or so.
Rumours are circulating that the bank has made a silly investment on say the 15:30 at Cheltenham and the horse fell at the third fence. Well, not really! But a banking equivalent!
So savers start to panic, as for many, it is the only savings they have. And when they panic, they withdraw their funds and put them under the nearest mattress. Or at least a metaphorical one!
So the problem goes round in circles, from more panic and withdrawals, until the bank has nothing left to pay out and goes bust. We’ve all seen runs like this on banks and hopefully we don’t want to see any more.
So are there any stable financial systems?
Current, deposit and savings accounts in reputable UK banks and building societies, could probably be considered stable up to a government-guaranteed limit of I think £85,000. It’s all laid out here. but then is it worth it for an interest rate of about 3%?
I have a strong feeling that Zopa, the peer-to-peer lender, is also a stable system. Other companies of the same type may well be too! but I am not as familiar with them as I am with Zopa.
Let’s look at an adverse event, that might affect Zopa.
Suppose another peer-to-peer lender gets involved in a mis-selling scandal or suffers a run because of some very bad publicity.
Let’s say this causes a lot of possible borrowers to look elsewhere. Now as demand has dropped, lenders, who are still keen to lend money, will drop their rates to account for the new situation. And then in turn these lower rates will entice more borrowers, thus restoring the system to where it started.
What actually helps the system become stable is that each lender has control of their own little feedback loop and as there are thousands of lenders, the system will adjust very quickly.
In a bank say, there will be one guy taking the decisions and they have a high chance of making a wrong one. All you need for a stable system, is for the average in something like Zopa to get it right. As Zopa uses a computer algorithm, every decision is taken according to the same rules.
You can look at other scenarios with Zopa and I haven’t found one yet, that doesn’t return to a stable position.
This stability could be your guarantee of a safer investment. I haven’t obviously got access to Zopa’s full data, but just like water finds its own level, a balance is probably struck between lenders and borrowers.
FT Says Afghans Want Local Trial
The shooting of Afghans by a rogue US serviceman, is absolutely awful and I dread to think where it will lead. I think if I was a soldier out there now, I’d be watching a few Black Adder Goes Forth videos, to get myself invalided home.
The FT this morning is claiming that the Afghan government want a local trial.
I hope that Afghanistan doesn’t have the death penalty!
Getting The Wife On The Board
We all know that we need more women on the board of both public and private companies. But is Volkswagen Chairman Ferdinand Piech taking this a bit too far, by getting his wife, Ursula, on the board, as reported here on Bloomberg?
I’ve served on committees with board husband and wife on them and they are a nightmare. You spend all the meeting trying to get a concensus and wo-betide you, if the wife has been outvoted by the group including her husband. She will then spend all night changing his mind, so you have to go through the process all over again.
So do Volkswagen know what they are getting themselves into?
Surely, there must be another woman in Germany, who would do a better job than the Chairman’s wife!
The Anonymous Widower 