musings

Manchester, England looks likely to get a congestion charging scheme to penalise motorists using the roads when they are most needed. As a sweetener, some of the revenue raised will be spent on local public transport.

It’s a hotly debated topic, and whilst the basic purpose - to reduce rush hour traffic - is a Good Thing it has many implications which need to be thought through. These incude the effect on Manchester businesses, house prices, the cost of deliveries, disadvantaging the less well off, increased pressure on public transport and so on.

Quite separately, I want to know why increasingly, the solution to social questions appears to be the installation of more cameras to snoop on law abiding citizens. (more…)

I went to the local shops yesterday. Has an email recently gone out instructing all retailers to hustle for extra business?

First, to the post office to send a parcel. “Whatever is the cheapest way, please.” Would I like to insure the parcel? No thanks. Would I like proof of delivery? No thanks. Do I have a credit card? Er, yes. Do I go abroad? Hmm. Yes. Would I be interested in the post office’s own credit card which is the only one not to charge for foreign transactions? Nope. I use the Nationwide credit card which also doesn’t charge for foreign transactions, thanks. Bye.
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Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti was the victim of joke binoculars yesterday, and had to hold her chin up with her fist to stop herself suing the prankster.

This blow came on the same day she wasted time threatening the culture secretary, Andy Burnham with legal action when she should be out there campaigning for the protection of civil liberties.

Someone should tell Ms Chakrabarti to behave a bit more like RMT leader Bob Crow, and to get over herself.

Yesterday the British government won - by a majority of only nine - its proposal to extend the time a suspect could be held without charge from 28 days to 42 days.

An overhaul of counter-terrorism laws in 2000 introduced the basic 48-hour detention, extendable to seven days with the permission of the courts. In 2003 that was doubled to 14 days - and the Terrorism Act 2006 took it to 28 days. Can you see a pattern here?
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I heard this admonishment in my head this morning - a sound bite from my childhood, triggered by the sight of someone sitting waiting for a bus with her feet in the gutter.

I think it says something about a person’s self-respect; if you don’t mind being on the pavement amongst the litter, chewing gum and dog shit then you don’t really care much about yourself. If you prefer getting your clothes damp and dirty instead of enduring a few minutes standing up then you must be quite lazy.
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Did you know that looking at a Giacometti sculpture can make you anorexic? There’s a claim that thin fashion models put women under extreme pressure to diet. A glance around the local shopping centre confirms that most people are withstanding this exreme pressure pretty well. In fact they must have been staring at space hoppers or something.

It’s true that fashion models are particularly thin. Women’s magazines are full of them. They have got skinnier over the years too. But why does that equate to extereme pressure? There are plenty of other female role models - politicians, business leaders, TV personalities, film stars, athletes, artists, musicians and so forth. They aren’t all painfully thin. Or take a look at the models featured in lads’ mags and pornographic magazines. Do they all look under-fed?

Many women’s magazines also feature the blemishes of the rich and famous. Double chins, cellulite, wrinkles and rolls of fat in abundance. They even delight in printing pictures of celebrities who have become too thin.

We are surrounded by real people who aren’t thin, and the media presents images of all sorts of women, not just the scrawny. So why do thin fashion models get the blame for women’s discontentment with their own appearance?

Smoking in public places is becoming outlawed in more and more countries around the world. My first experience of this sea-change was in 2001 when I visited California. I hadn’t known about the law there, and at first I just couldn’t understand why people in a hotel bar were leaving their drinks to go outside!

England went smoke-free rather late, in 2007. It’s still a pleasant surprise to go into a cafe, pub or restaurant and not be enveloped in a fug that permeates your hair and clothes. Pushing your way through a small crowd of rather sad looking smokers to get into the premises is the small price we now have to pay for being able to enjoy clean, healthy air indoors.

Interestingly, as cigarette smoking is being marginalised like this, it becomes more and more prominent in popular TV dramas. (more…)

The British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has the unenviable job of foisting identity cards on us. She knows that forcing us all to pay for one right from the start would not work. So she has announced that airport workers, immigrants and students are to get them first.

You may think that airport security is a Good Idea (that’s why workers already undergo police checks and wear ID badges), immigration needs to be controlled, and anything which makes student life easier is to be welcomed (showing two pieces of identification when opening a bank account is a major hassle). But make no mistake - you will be next.

When your personal data is on a vast government database (or a laptop left in a taxi), and you need an identity card just to take the dog for a walk, don’t say you didn’t realise how far the State planned to take this scheme.

Whenever you see mothers driving their kids around in 4×4’s you may be tempted to blame them for imminent world destruction. Not only have they contributed to the swelling population of planet earth, but they are moving their progeny about on its surface in a way which simply fills the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. You may view this as irresponsible, short-sighted, and not in anyone’s interest but their own. You may explain their decision to reproduce as unthinking fulfilment of some narcissistic need.

However, I would ask you to pause before leaping to judgment. (more…)

With acknowledgements to Dr John, who was singing about an entirely different moral dilemma. There is a finite amount of oil on (in?) planet earth, right? I mean, they may not have discovered it all, and some oil may be very difficult to extract but whatever, there is only so much of it.

Okay, we all know now that burning oil is bad, but we are going to burn it. Until it is all gone. So what we’re talking about is how fast, and who is going to do it. My point is this: somebody, somewhere is going to burn every litre of oil there is. Why shouldn’t we be the ones to drive around in cars and fly all over the place? Reducing our rate of consumption simply ekes it out for future generations. It doesn’t reduce the amount of CO₂ that will eventually go into the atmosphere.

Or am I wrong?