Category: Misc
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Three New Exhibitions
There are some really good exhibitions on at the moment in London. Actually, there are always really good exhibitions on. But over the weekend I went to three new ones, and all three were really good, and well worth visiting in their own rights. I spent a May Sunday visiting the three and using a…
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Rail v Road During Holidays: Compare and Contrast
The above press release dropped into my inbox the other day.* It’s from Highways England, and is of the sort that is regularly published at holiday times of the year. So as we enter the Easter weekend, roadworks all over the country have been temporarily lifted to enable the flow of traffic. They even have…
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Things Annoying Me Right Now
People labelling their Tweets “Breaking” before highlighting a story they believe is more important than others. People you generally respect getting so annoyed that a news organisation doesn’t reflect their personal choices, that the news organisation is suddenly worthless. Left-leaning British commentators weighing in pointlessly against right-leaning US gun advocates on Twitter. It’s not that…
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Digitising My Life in 2018
Life is digital. We’ve known that for a long time. Digital offers lots of convenience, but it brings with it complications. In particular, safe storage. In 2018 I need to try to fix three or four problems/issues I have coming up. 1. Cloud Storage As longtime readers might know, I have a couple of Synology…
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Stuck in Draft
If you follow this blog on a regular basis, you’ll know that my publishing can be a bit hit and miss. Certainly there’ll be something about UK radio ratings at least four times a year (RAJAR), and there’ll be some annotated Radio Times – especially at Christmas. But otherwise, it’s as and when I feel…
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On Uber in London
(Note: This mostly comes from something I wrote on Facebook. So I thought I may as well broaden it out and publish it here.) TFL has decided it will not award an operator licence to Uber from 30 September. In essence, it is saying that Uber must cease operations in London. TfL has today informed…
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Today We Are 15!
Happy Birthday me! This blog is 15 today. This is probably only of academic interest to most people, but who says blogs don’t have legs? Over time this blog has morphed and changed a bit. But I still enjoy using it as an outlet for writing about things that interest me. And yes, for showing…
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Phones in Cars
From today, increased penalties are applicable in the UK for people who use their phones in the car. Infringers will get 6 points on their licence and a £200 fine. Get caught twice and you’ll find yourself in magistrates’ court facing a fine and a ban. If you’re a new driver, then you risk having…
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Misleading Infographics
I find few things more annoying than thoroughly misleading infographics. At the weekend, I was flicking through the latest copy of The New Statesman, and came across an advertorial published by Western Union addressing overseas trade. The most startling part of the two-page spread was an infographic showing the top UK export destinations. Now leaving…
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“A portion of the proceeds”
This may seem unfair with respect to charitable giving, but I wonder if there are any more mealy-mouthed phrases than, “A portion of the proceeds”? You hear this regularly when people are going to be donating something to a charity. The issue is that a “portion” might be anything from $0.01 to 99% of the…
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Tube Strike Day
An all-out London tube strike seems to be quite a rare thing these days. While individual lines can be affected, or a percentage of services disrupted, the full network doesn’t go down all that often. But today is one of those days when nearly the entire network has stopped working. For many it’s a question…
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Editorial Note
Looking at my WordPress dashboard, I see that I have over 100 posts in draft form – saved, but unpublished. This is clearly ridiculous. Now it’s true that many of them are only very slightly sketched out, but others are full pieces that I, for whatever reason, never quite got around to publishing. So I’m…