one to watch

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project is about to publish it's findings. Coordinated by Richard Muller this project differs from many other investigations because they are promising to publish all of their raw data, their calculations, and their evaluation online so that anyone can study them.

It might be quite interesting.

A £250 moment

As I was walking home yesterday I had one of those moments that would have looked great on a TV video clip show. It may not translate well into text but here goes anyway .......

Imagine the scene in a quiet suburban street where the pavements are slightly damp from rain earlier in the day. The sun is out now and it is relatively warm and pleasant but there are still puddles on the pavement. A father is out with his young daughter, somewhere between the ages of two and five. They are both well dressed and she is riding one of those new scooter things with two front wheels for extra stability about 10 meters in front of him. He calls to her to stop as she is about to ride into the large puddle in front of her. Being a good daughter she stops and carefully dismounts from her scooter ensuring that it remains upright. Then she jumps two-footed into the middle of the puddle again and again and again!

Big smile on my face as I walked past.

An open letter to British Gas

Dear British Gas,

When I sold my business back in October I made absolutely certain with all my suppliers that my accounts were up to date. I phoned your advisers twice to confirm that once you had collected the final direct debit payment from my bank account that we would be all square and have no need to have any further dealings with each other about that particular account. You've always been reasonable as a supplier, maybe not the absolute cheapest but close enough, and your staff have always been polite and friendly.

I've just got off the phone with Kerry, one of your call centre team, and it appears that you failed to take the money for an invoice from Feb 09 - Apr 09. Even though you've had at least 2 separate opportunities to correct this above and beyond the normal direct debit billing process you've waited for 4 months after I've ceased trading to seek payment.

I think the news today that you've made record profits this year is fuelling my despair at your incompetent billing methods. Then again given the timeframe, the opportunities you've had to correct your oversight, your staff telling me my account was up to date, I think you can probably afford to write this one off, don't you?

Yours rather pissed of and mystified

manwiddicombe

within one point

Orly?

and the fourth goal is?

The Initiatives of the Designers Accord are a diverse set of activities, events, and programs that work towards achieving our four primary goals

See if you can spot Goal 4: on their site because I can't.

voluntary, but for how much longer?

I've not noticed this widely reported in the media but

People who want to declare their religion as "Jedi" or call themselves witches will still be able to do so in the 2011 Census, its director has said.

Will still be able to do so? That's strange wording don't you think?

Glen Watson, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Census Director, said although putting joke responses on the national survey form was "not an acceptable thing to do", it could not be stopped. "As I say, it's a voluntary question. I'm not really saying that we can stop it."

Is it just me or does that feel like he wanted to add the word "yet" at the end of that sentence?

Having seen the government's pronouncement this week about forcing businesses to voluntarily add calorie information to their menus you have to wonder how long it will take before one of them calls for the religion question to be compulsory.

the finest brains of a generation

From The Argus

A halls of residence had to be evacuated after a student smoked a cigarette under a smoke detector.

More than 70 people were had to leave Lancaster House in the University of Sussex about 3am today when the fire alarm sounded.

Crews from Preston Circus fire station said the matter would be dealt with by university staff.

I know it was cold last night but YOU SHOULD HAVE LEANED OUT OF THE FUCKING WINDOW.

plastic

An interesting story in the Telegraph this morning

A draft report for the Environment Agency showed that the production of high density polythene (HDPE) bags used by shops had less impact on the climate than cotton or paper bags. The report was commissioned in 2005 and due to be published in 2007, but has still not been released.

Three years on and the report has not been published? Why ever could that be?

oh the irony

I took the kids into Brighton today and as we went in by train I thought I'd show them the 'famous' graffiti by Banksy just down from the station. My how we laughed when we got there because there is a frame with a perspex screen protecting the graffiti from graffiti!

voluntary

Watch out fatties they're after you now.

Restaurants and work canteens will put calorie counts on menus and food manufacturers will promise to cut down on salt and artificial fats under a set of agreements to be announced today.

Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, believes that firms will be more likely to set ambitious targets for themselves if they are negotiated on a voluntary basis.

Don't worry though because this is only a voluntary thing and therefore not backed up by threats of punishment from the government.

If firms break their promises, the Government will however consider taking compulsory measures.

So the scheme which will hit small businesses hardest is voluntary unless it's not followed then it will become compulsory? That hardly sounds voluntary to me. And given that an earlier trial of this idea, in 2009 while Labour ran the government, didn't go down too well

Firms including KFC, Burger King and Pizza Hut quietly abandoned the project, and of the of the 18 companies involved in the trial, only Pret A Manger continues to display calories next to all products.

you can guess what's going to happen can't you? But don't for one minute think it will stop there.

“This is just the beginning, we have ambitious plans to do much more and hope that other companies will also get involved.”

Ambitious plans to do more? No doubt they will all be voluntary just like this scheme.

Sir Ian Gilmore

You would think that one of the most vociferous anti-alcohol campaigners would be able to defend their stance with a body of evidence that proved beyond doubt their positioning but not so

Sir Ian Gilmore, chairman of the Alcohol Alliance of concerned health bodies, said it was probably true that alcohol consumption had dropped slightly in the last few years, "but those who are drinking are probably drinking more".

Probably true that alcohol consumption has dropped? The statistics look fairly fucking compelling to me. Individuals are probably drinking more? Why don't you actually find out before giving quotes to the national media?

in which I nearly agree with the Tories

Plans to remove cycle lanes brought in three years ago in Hove have been criticised by Labour and Green Party councillors. Under the £1.1m scheme, cycle lanes in Grand Avenue and The Drive would go.

This story from the BBC caught my eye not least of all because I have a connection to the area in question. I was shocked when the cycle lanes were put in. A wonderfully free flowing two lane road became a congested single lane as soon as the work began. It still is now and that's before the buses stop. Yes, they really have turned two lanes into one (the cars on the right of the shot are parked as they always could do) and then put the bus stop in the middle of that lane.



That's not to say that I think some kind of provision for a cyclists would be a bad thing. The pavements in the area were wide enough before all the alterations that they could easily have accommodated a cycle lane and left the traffic freely flowing. I wonder if the location of Kings House, a council office that overlooks this traffic nightmare, in any way influenced the original decision?

So what has been said about the cost?

Councillor Gill Mitchell, Labour group leader, said removing the cycle lanes was a "terrible waste of taxpayers' money at a time of unprecedented cuts".

So how much did creating this massive bottleneck cost?

Green Party transport spokesman, councillor Ian Davey, said the cycle lanes cost more than half a million pounds

Which begs the question why the fuck was it done in the first place? I'm in favour of cycling, I am a cyclist (not as frequently as in the past), but this scheme was designed not only to aid cycling but also to hinder car drivers. Had it been less aggressive towards motor vehicles then I might think twice about supporting its removal.

What I would really like to see is a layout that is sympathetic to all road users. Is that really too much to ask?

fake alcohol

On reading the BBC story about fake alcohol you might be filled with fear and disgust. The article is, after all, written in that way. Fear that the cheeky Chateauneuf du pape you've opened for the evening may not be precisely what you thought it was and disgust that criminals are costing the country around £1 billion a year in lost revenue.

Or you could think "well if the government hadn't taxed it so highly in the first place it wouldn't be so fucking profitable to fake would it?"

I'm no expert on matters technological but

[click for bigger]

..... surely if you're a government department and you don't want to advertise something on the internet then including a chunk of the content in your RSS feed that gives out a substantial amount of information is a bit, well, silly?

smoking is dangerous*

Or so BBC Lancashire and local councillor Arshid Mahmood would have you believe.









*Personally I think that lighting a blowtorch near to a leaking gas cylinder probably carries a greater risk ........

you could hear the hair swoosh after .......

Spotted over at Theo Spark's place

something for the ladies?

increasing

The Chancellor has announced today an increase in the rate of the bank levy to be charged in 2011. This change will increase the revenue from the levy in 2011 by £800m to £2.5 billion.

The Government initially announced that a reduced rate of 0.05 per cent would apply in 2011, recognising the uncertain market conditions prevailing at the time. The Government no longer considers this necessary. Therefore, from 1 March the rate of the levy will be 0.1 per cent for 2 months, to offset the lower rate of 0.05 per cent charged in January and February, before moving to 0.075 per cent.

source

The bank levy came into force last month, 6 weeks ago, and already the government has raised the rate of the tax by 50% of its original level.

Looking around I see that the chancellor has decided that this tax, originally mooted as a temporary emergency measure, is to be a permanent charge.

that xenophobic top gear episode

Did anyone notice all of the xenophobic rhetoric on last week's Top Gear describing a whole nation in a derogatory manner? Or did you miss the film about the competition with Top Gear Australia?

I'm amazed that not a single mention in the news about the way the team talked about the Aussies while the firestorm about the 'Mexican' comments rages. Could it be that there is a double standard in play here or that many of the complaints have come from people that didn't actually watch the whole show?

Either way the viewing figures this week will probably be a lot higher than last week as people tune in braced and ready to be offended.

caption required

Not my photo (I saw it in my news feed) but it needs lolcatting immediately please .....

lifted

I may have a particularly warped sense of humour but this story

Police on their way to a flat raid got stuck in a lift. Seven officers were forced to wait 20 minutes while firefighters tried to reach them.

made me giggle.