Double Busing
It is easy for me to get to IKEA at Edmonton, as I just get a 341 from the Balls Pond Road. However lately, when I go that way I get a 141 from a stop closer to my house. I find that the two routes seem to race themselves up through Manor House and if you time it right you can change to a 341 without delay. I cuts a couple of minutes off the journey and avoids a few minutes walking to the stop.
This is the great advantage of very frequent buses.
I believe Transport for london are going to allow bus tracking over the Internet. This will mean, I can choose the route before I leave to meet a bus at the stop.
Naming Buses After Olympic Medal Winners
I am always in favour of naming buses.
Should all Olympic medal winners have a bus named after them?
I think it would be a good gesture, that could have lots of positive benefits.
An Ideal Present For Your NuLabor Friends
I saw this lamp in John Lewis yesterday.
I wonder if Tony Blair did a deal over the naming rights!
P.G. Wodehouse Was A Traitor
My father hated P.G. Wodehouse with a vengeance because of his broadcasts for the Nazis in the Second World War. We didn’t have any of his books in the house.
More has just been released from MI5 files as reported here in the Guardian.
I would follow my father and have nothing to do with any of Wodehouse’s books and can’t even say now, I’d go out of my way to watch a film, play or TV series of any of his books.
Remember my father was very involved with anti-Fascism protests before the war and active on the left wing of the Conservative party. He was also present at the Battle of Cable Street, when the East End stopped Mosley from marching.
My father could also do a mean impersonation of Lord Haw-Haw. But then I’ve never met anybody who didn’t feel that he wasn’t one of the funniest things of the war.
Obesity
A report today says that we must take action to prevent obesity.
The government is just dithering, as it doesn’t want to lose votes.
I am only a bantamweight and I like to think that over the years, I’ve kept myself fit. Even after my stroke, I still exercise appropriately and have started to play real tennis again. I’m the same size as when I left University and got married in 1968. I also wear the same made-to-measure morning suit that I had made in about 1975.
My weight and core strength are just two of the factors that helped me survive the stroke. The most important one was that in Hong Kong, I was put on a clot-busting drip within an hour of the stroke. That now happens in many parts of the UK.
So instead of dithering the government must take drastic action to cut obesity.
Taxes on junk food, alcohol,tobacco and other unhealthy foods must be raised severely.
In addition, I would inspect all food shops, cafes and restaurants. Those that had a too sold a too high proportion of unhealthy foods and drinks, would have to reduce that level or close.
I would also introduce a yearly medical for everybody. If you are outside of certain parameters, then your driving licence would be suspended until you had reformed.
In an ideal world tobacco would be banned, but why not make sure it is only available from specially licenced government-owned shops, as alcohol is in Norway? Remember, I believe that my youngest son died partly because of his smoking. Are smokers selfish enough to wish all of that grief on others, by continuing with their vile habit? Every time I pass an obese smoker partly blocking the street, I make an appropriate rude remark. One day someone will try and hit me, but even in my state, I still feel I could outrun most of my targets.
Much of this post has just been read out on BBC Breakfast. I bet that lost them a few viewers.
But if we don’t take action, more and more of our taxes will go to subsidise those who abuse their bodies.
Is Fred Goodwin a Coeliac?
The reason I ask this question, is that we have one important thing in common; we both hate pink vanilla wafer biscuits. In my case, I’ve avoided them all my life even before I was diagnosed as a coeliac and of course can’t eat the normal ones now. But I’d never write an e-mail about it, as Fred did and I reported here.
But hope is at hand, as Sainsburys are now selling Pink Panther gluten free vanilla wafers.
Who’s to know, if Fred might have liked them? If he had, the train crash that was RBS might not have happened.
Not Big Sellers
If I want to get rid of anything that might be useful to someone, I just put it on the front patio with a note saying it’s alright to take it. But not these lights!
A Box of Useless Lights
They’re obviously too awful for even the grottiest cellar, attic or garden shed. They were of course installed in this house by Jerry, who never missed a chsnce to use crap, where quality was specified.
Although I must say someone did rumage through and take all the tungsten light bulbs.
One Birmingham Is Enough
andrew Green of Migration Watch has just said that if the net migration continues at the current level, we’ll need a new city the size of Birmingham every year or so.
Surely one Birmingham is enough!
Channels I Don’t Want or Need
As I’m moving to BT Broadband, I looked at BT Vision. I was surprised to see that the basic package doesn’t include two channels; CNN and filth. After my experiences in Hong Kong, I can live without the first and earlier this year I saw enough filth to last a lifetime.
But I need the broadband first and for that I need a working phone line.
BIlly Connolly Uses a Bible for a Roll-Up
Billy Connolly has confest to using pages from a Bible to make a roll-up. This is one of several reports.
I always wondered why they went to the expense to put a bible in hotel rooms. Now I know why!
The Anonymous Widower 