eye candy

Over the weekend I saw a few buggies around from the iCandy range. Apparently they are the cool, new, 'must have' trendy, new mum and baby, buggy product company.

Why would you want to have the word eyecandy plastered across your offspring's transport? It's almost an invitation for perverts.

sunday morning quiz

To be able to keep the number plate when you use another car as a base for a kit car you have to keep 70% of the original parts. So what car was used as a base for this?

Bonus points if you can name the end result (hint: the man leaning over in the blue t-shirt is the head of the owner's club for the genuine article)

headline of the day

Am I the only one thinking that those students must be playing doctors and nurses a lot?


I am?


I'll get my coat .......


and stethoscope ........

more anti-car decisions in Brighton

The Argus reports



So I went to the council's website and read their press release that was issued before yesterday's meeting to see if it had any more information.

A safe cycle route could now be built along part of one of Brighton & Hove’s busiest roads.

I know the road well and yes it is very busy and also a bus route in both directions (we'll come back to this point later).

It marks another green travel coup for the council

green travel rather than efficient travel

Lanes on either side of the road will have low kerbs to physically separate motor vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians.

This sentence set alarm bells ringing in my head because I've seen what this means in The Drive. It greatly reduces the width of the road and has caused a number of accidents where cyclists have mis-judged the kerb.

No parking spaces will be lost under the plan.

If you know the road you will be belly laughing at that statement. The majority of the stretch is painted with double yellow lines so there are no parking spaces to lose! Also in one section of the road almost every house has off-road parking which will mean that the cycle lane will have to have a constantly undulating kerb to allow those people access to their properties.

Councillors believe the new lanes would fill a vital missing link in the local cycle network, particularly from the seafront in Hove to the Seven Dials area.

There are quicker, easier, more direct, quieter, non-bus route ways to ride from Hove seafront to Seven Dials. Encouraging people to cycle along "one of Brighton & Hove’s busiest roads" is insane.

Cabinet councillor for Transport and Public Realm Ian Davey said: “This shows the council meeting manifesto commitments to improve cycling facilities. Where we build cycle lanes we want them to be excellent, user-friendly and safe lanes which link to existing routes and facilities and really improve everyone’s experience of moving around the city by bike.

Irrespective of the impact that has on everyone else trying to move around the city using other modes of transport. The only way to create this cycle lane is to narrow the road as there are mature trees lining the whole route. This is not a pro-bike decision, it's an anti-motor vehicle decision.


To illustrate the point I took some images from google maps. In the first one the road could accommodate being narrowed but the "low kerb" will need to have many gaps in it.



The section of road in this second image is substantially narrower. Traffic is already held up when buses use this stop and decreasing the width of the road here will only add to congestion in this area. Especially if they follow previous form with the bus stop.



But who am I to question the City's Green masters?

'socially responsible' design

What happens when you allow a designer to project their personal prejudices into their design brief?

Designed to Annoy: A theoretical look at designing inefficient packaging

The main aim was to change the structure of the pack making it less ergonomic. The pack was developed to be difficult to use and carry.

Remember children this is for your own good ........

an easy way to save £84.3 million per year

The Mirror reports

The number of people trying to quit smoking via NHS services has roughly trebled in the last decade but success rates have fallen, figures show.

In 2010/11, there were almost 788,000 "quit dates" set with NHS stop smoking services, with almost 384,000 successful attempts. In 2001/02, there were just 227,000 quit dates set and fewer than 120,000 successful attempts.

Over a 10 year period the number of people successfully quitting by using the service has trebled. With that level of knowledge and experience they must have found ways to make it hugely efficient?

the total amount spent on England's NHS stop smoking services in 2010/11 was £84.3 million, almost £60 million more than a decade ago.

So the cost has quadrupled while the success rates have only tripled. Inflation has probably affected the efficiency but I bet spending all of our money on this service has reduced the overall percentage of smokers in the population?

"The latest figures show that the percentage of adults who smoke has not changed since 2007"

Ah, so throwing money at a personal health choice isn't changing the number of smokers. Surely the NHS will stop wasting cash in these austere times?

"So we must go further to reduce smoking rates. That's why in March we published our plans to help drive down smoking rates and reduce the harms from tobacco over the next five years."

Ah, no. They want to throw even more money at making people quit smoking when the money they've already thrown hasn't changed the situation. I guess that's because

A spokesman for the Department of Health said smoking was one of the biggest challenges in public health.

there is still this assumption that the risks that individuals choose to take with their own health are somehow a public issue.

Why are we paying £84 million per year for a service that is not even having the desired impact that its supporters think they want? It's insane.

goodbye google plus

I've deleted my google+ account because of their "real names only" policy. I've no interest in using their bookface alternative if they are intent on such control freakery at this early stage of its life.

Yes, I could have called myself Mary Hinge to get around their rule but I didn't want all of my linked accounts to display a name other than the one I use for blogging.

And yes, I could set up another google account purely for google+ but, you know, I can't be bothered.

jill

Photo taken using my mobile phone from the car park on Clayton Hill

I love this view. It means that the majority of the hard climbing is over and the rest of the ride is a lot easier on the legs.

saturday night with the kids

Over a year ago I wrote some fairly dark posts about my journey across the abyss. At the time that I wrote them I didn't realise that my guide was lying to me constantly about the state of the bridge I was traversing. Sadly, when someone external shone a spotlight down into the pit, more of the deception was exposed. The lies continue even today but I'm no longer bothered by them in the same way. It's as if the truth is something she's afraid to confront (e.g. Both her and the Angel of Death are smokers but adamantly insist to each other that they are not).

The divorce is in motion. Apparently I've been behaving unreasonably and that's why she wants a divorce and it's got absolutely nothing to do with the friend of ours (who came to me and cried on my shoulder about 5 years ago when he found out his wife wanted a divorce because she was having an affair) that she's been sleeping with for the last 30 months, often while I was out working 15 hour days on a broken ankle to pay off our debts and keep the roof over our heads. Part of me wishes him good luck because his current girlfriend clearly has no problem with sleeping around behind her partner's back while he's out working ........

At the moment I'm still living in the marital home (me, her and the kids. He's not stupid enough to come within sight of me). Luckily it has enough rooms so we each have our own space. That's about to change as she has demanded that we sell up as she cannot afford to continue paying half of the bills. I'm excited about having my own space, getting my life back, having freedom again. Of course this will be wrong in her eyes when she finds out (everything I do is wrong in her eyes) but I just don't care. All that matters to me now is the kids.

The kids and I have some great times together though and I feel closer to my daughter than I have done for years. I think that the removal of their mother from the equation, even though it's only the alternate weekends she offered in the petition, has allowed us to strengthen the bonds that tie us. The boys ..... well ..... contrary to what their mother believes we've always had strong emotional ties.

This weekend is a perfect example of that. While we sat playing cards, hoping that the clouds would break so we could go out to a dark spot and watch the Perseid shower, we noticed that the weekly planner (bought, like so many things, by their mother then used for about 3 weeks before being forgotten) was woefully out of date. What started as a few minor alterations ended with a full-scale vandalisation of the board. By them. Our collective relationship, me and the kids, is so much easier, so less stressful, without their mother around. It's as if we can just be ourselves without her there. It's weird that it feels like she was such a negative influence around us but that's exactly how it feels.

I've looked back through the drafts that I wrote over the last year detailing how I felt about the situation and all of them were really dark and depressing. Now, finally, I'm coming through the worst of it and feel so much more positive about the whole thing. It's as if a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I can finally breathe again. Sure I'm still bitter at the betrayal they committed but fuck 'em, they deserve each other. Someone asked me this week would I ever go back to her if she changed her mind and I didn't even have to think before I said "No".


The future? Bring it on!!

kneejerk

The BBC reports that David Cameron has, as part of a statement to MPs, announced

a crackdown on facemasks

to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via social media

If our government acts to stop citizens using social media will Google and Twitter work together to provide us with an alternative service like they did when another authoritarian government did the same thing?

non-identical twins

You can't tell them apart just by looking at them - you have to taste them to work out which one is which.



I dropped in to the Shepherd and Dog at Fulking because I knew that they had two Kent Brewery beers on their bar. On the left is Pale (4.0% ABV) and on the right is Zingiber (4.1% ABV). Both are light and hoppy, both are far too easy to drink, the difference between them is the Zingiber is infused with ginger.

Now, before you get all excitable, let's clear one thing up. All too often when brewers experiment with ginger infused beers they go over the top to produce a brew that is far too sharp, far too overpowering. Not so the Zingiber which has a wonderfully rounded ginger flavour that complements, rather than contradicts, the hops used.

It's the third time I've managed to find Pale and every time I'm impressed by it. Light hoppy beers are my preferred choice and this beatifully balanced brew is one of the best I've drunk. It's absolutely perfect for a warm summer day.

Now all we need is some more warm summer days ......

correction

I now realise that my previous post was over-simplistic and that this is a more accurate representation of how men view the world.

how men view the world

The Outrage Bus visits Top Gear

It seems that the presenters of Top Gear cannot win. In Sunday's show they did a fairly sensible piece about electric cars which has caused some people to get very upset. Very upset indeed.

Not only did they park in disabled bays to film part of the segment (after agreeing with the landowner where they could cordon off for filming) but The Telegraph has gone one further in the ridiculousness stakes. It says

They also joked about the luggage space and how electric cars had to be fitted with special windscreen wipers which make barely any noise.

I actually watched the episode and I'm wondering if the journalist who wrote that sentence did. Clarkson was talking about the build quality of the Nissan Leaf in very positive language. He was impressed with the level of detail and finish including the way that Nissan had developed a new motor for the wiper blades as the one fitted to standard cars was too noisy.

And the way that Nissan had sculpted the headlights to reduce wind noise on the side mirrors.

And the amount of boot space it had as it didn't need to accommodate a fuel tank.

And it, unlike the Peugot alternative that May drove, had a sat nav.

But then, as we all know, Top Gear is only for total petrolheads and anything else they talk about must be with an air of derision*








*Admittedly they did also point out the downsides of electric vehicles such as stupidly short range and stupidly long charge times but, nonetheless, Clarkson was very positive about the design and feel of the Leaf

I don't think it's supposed to do that .......