i hate to go on.....

actually, that's a lie; i like to complain, and moan, and generally point out how shit the UK is at a lot of stuff; and this will be no exception. but i digress......

cycling came to the news again today as a "fuel free" form of transport because those i like to call "fucking idiots" have been panic buying petrol and diesel (all because 2 haulage companies that service i petrol station chain that runs 10% of the petrol stations in the country are on strike. ZOMG!!!!!11! WTF!!111!! we'd better buy all the petrol; and all the bread and milk while we're at it.) Unfortunately people still aren't getting it, cycling still has a bad rap.

1. cycling is still seen as "poor mans" transport; conjuring up wartime images of factory workers leaving heading home on their bicycles. factory = working class = poor = "i'm not riding a fucking bike, what do you think i am? poor or sommit?"

here was me thinking everybody likes a bargain. we're always being told that shopping around is smart and "why pay more" why does this not translate to transport? or if you're really worried about looking poor you can easily spend £3k on a bike and tell everybody how much it cost.


2. bikes are too expensive.

nonsense. give me £50 and i'll get you a bike that will get you anywhere. if you're lucky you can even get them for nothing.


3. the weather here is too nasty for cycling. it's always raining etc:

copenhagen is the cyclingist city in the western world (i couldn't find details for china... strange that) a third of all trips are made by bicycle (a third by car, and the last third by train or bus), but the climate there

is pretty similar to london, but london has less rain in the summer

linky has more uk graphs

where around 3-4% of journeys are made by bicycle.


4. i'll get all dirty and sweaty if i ride a bike to work, and cycling gear looks stupid.

depends how you ride... i go flat out whenever possible; but i can shower and change when i get to the office. if i'm going somewhere i can't get washed up then i just ride slower. and tell me, do these people look stupid?





and did you notice their bikes... no? that's because people don't notice your bike. just ride one.

5. it's not safe, i'll end up under a car/bus/cement mixer.

sadly, motorists are blind to cyclists most of the time; but the only way to change this is to make them more aware, and the best way to make them more aware is to get more people cycling. it would be a help if the pitiful managers of the uk actually put their hands in the coffers once in a while and added some infrastructure.. but that's a whole other rant. it's a bit of a catch 22: cycling isn't as safe as it could be, but to make it safe more people need to be cycling.... i'm sure i don't need to point out the long term health benefits outweighing the short term chance of being squished; i'd rather be in fine health until i get squished than fat, lazy, poor and unsquished.

92, not squished.


so if you're able bodied, and traveling less than 10 miles (for a start) just leave the car at home. it's easy; and you'll feel better.

i'll leave you with this zen proverb:

A Zen teacher saw five of his students returning from the market, riding their bicycles. When they arrived at the monastery and had dismounted, the teacher asked the students, "Why are you riding your bicycles?"

The first student replied, "The bicycle is carrying this sack of potatoes. I am glad that I do not have to carry them on my back!"
The teacher praised the first student. "You are a smart boy! When you grow old, you will not walk hunched over like I do."

The second student replied, "I love to watch the trees and fields pass by as I roll down the path!"
The teacher commended the second student, "Your eyes are open, and you see the world."

The third student replied,
"When I ride my bicycle, I am content to chant nam myoho renge kyo."
The teacher gave his praise to the third student, "Your mind will roll with the ease of a newly trued wheel."

The fourth student replied, "Riding my bicycle, I live in harmony with all sentient beings."
The teacher was pleased and said to the fourth student, "You are riding on the golden path of non-harming."

The fifth student replied, "I ride my bicycle to ride my bicycle."
The teacher sat at the feet of the fifth student and said, "I am your student."
more quotes

i really hate being a barclays customer

i am (not by choice) a customer of barclays bank; i used to be a woolwich customer. i liked woolwich, they just happed to be bought by the bunch of fascists that are bastard bank.

the 2 biggest bugbears i have with them are:

their cash machines don't let you make deposits, meaning you have to go there during opening hours, which is difficult when you have to work
their internet banking is shit on every level.. and it just got worse.

like most people, i don't ever want to have to go to an actual branch. there is no need. ever. i want to conduct all of my banking needs from the comfort of my own internet. up until about 10 minutes ago they just about managed that. but no more.

they obviously subscribe to the scare stories waved about in the daily mail that some illegal immigrant is going to manage to steal my 12 digit online banking membership number, and be able to guess my 5 digit passcode and memorable word (perhaps immigrants live in the internets now too). because of the likelyhood of this happening they have introduced "pinsentry" (for my protection apparently). this effectivly renders the freedom to bank wherever you are.. gone.

apparently:

" *
PINsentry is an improved protection system for Online Banking, using Chip and PIN technology.
*
It uses your Barclays Bank card and a PINsentry card reader to create unique eight-digit codes that you use as you bank online. You will need to use the card reader when you log-in to Online Banking and when you set up a payment to someone new for the first time."

"it uses a pinsentry card reader" which looks like this



to authenticate me.

which includes logging in to internet banking and being able to make transactions.

which means i have to carry the fucking thing around with me if i might want to do something with my account on line.

it also means that if want to transfer money to somebody now, to make sure they get money tomorrow tomorrow, to make sure i have something delivered the following day. and it is not somebody who i have paid before, and i don't have a "pinsentry" card reader I CAN'T PAY THEM!

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING YOU BUNCH OF MORONS. DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT INTERNET BANKING IS ABOUT?

with all the other stuff i fill my pockets with i don't want to be lugging this piece of shit about as well.

even playing devils advocate and looking at it entirely from a security point of view you still a total bunch of fuckwits. yes it protects me and barclays all well and good, but i am sat here typing away on a machine with a built in card reader.. do you offer any software that will do the same job and mean i dont have to use your reader.... do you fuck.

i don't care if it is possible (by way of jumping through hoops with your call centre) to change they way i log in once i am registered with pinsentry. you have just made something that should be easy the exact opposite.

cretins.

absolute total fucking wankers. i shall be removing my custom and going to a real bank ASAP

we're all doomed.... even me

the world cancer research fund has decided that we're all going to rot from the inside out if we eat too much bacon (i'm paraphrasing slightly there. the bbc news story is here with all the usual recommendations of not drinking too much, not eating processed foods blah blah etc stuff we already know.

the interesting thing is the BMI calculator it links too. the report states "everyone should try to be as close to the lower end (of the ideal BMI range) as possible". that's a BMI score of 18.5. i'm 26.3 which makes me "overweight".

now i'm fairly fit, i lead a healthy lifestyle in most aspects; but to get to the lower end of the BMI scale i would have to lose 20kg. more than a 1/4 of my body mass. i'm trying to contain my swearing but that can fuck right off. where do they suggest i lose the weight from. perhaps lose a leg here, an arm there.... do they want me to look like some sticks in a bag? at 55kg i'd be put on a drip for being malntritionalised (is that a word?)

the report then goes on to say

"However, two-thirds of cancer cases are not thought to be related to lifestyle, and there is little people can do to prevent the disease in these circumstances."

so there's a good chance i could lose 20kg, be put on a drip for being dangerously underweight and dying from cancer anyway. w00t!



alternatively i could grow a foot taller.

i must be poor

actually, while we're on the subject of transport. why is it when you're walking somewhere people see you as somebody walking somewhere; when you're running you're obviously getting fit so well done you; driving is driving... but when you're on a bike you are little more than a target for ridicule "haven't you grown out of that" (no, i grew into it); pity "can't you afford a car" (umm, actually this bike cost more than your car)or general amazement "you ride to work?? why is that?" (roll out standard why i ride to work speech) or in some cases a target to have things thrown at you or for people to drive into you.

it just baffles me sometimes.

cars cars everywhere

it seems the brats are back to school this week.. i know this because the roads are once again a static line of single occupancy cars all the way from my house to my office. every morning i pass about 7 miles of queueing cars; about 90% of them with only the driver. A good proportion of the remainder are just on the school run.

this really makes me dispair for peple now and in the future. have we really become so lazy that we have to drive everywhere? are we really so scared that our children will be abducted that we cannot let them out of our sight? are we really so snobbish that we refuse to take public transport?

sadly it's not so easy to solve. i wrote this piece a while ago:

we hear more and more about this governments pitiful attempts at an "integrated transport policy" (integrated?! ever tried getting a bike on a train?) and trying to get the fat lazy proles out of their tin kingdoms and onto something slightly more physically and environmentally friendly. this however will never happen for many reasons; the overriding of which i will mention thusly:

1. cars are cool. they go where you want, when you want, door to door; and you don't have to put up with sharing your space with the general public.
2. other forms of transport are not.

now.... i could leave it there, most people would agree with what i've said, but "leaving things there" just aint my bag baby. so lets look into it in a bit more detail.

cars are something that heralds the onset of adulthood. they make you feel like a man (or whatever the politically correct female equivalent is these days. i hear biatch is not acceptable anymore). when a boy gets to 16 he can zoom about like he owns the world on some irritating pathetic chicken chaser gay scooter mobile; but when he gets to 17 that's it. he becomes nothing short of a GOD! no longer reliant on public transport or tapping your old man for a lift and that seems to continue throughout some peoples lives. a car is how you get from a to b, even if b is within sight of a. a car is a status symbol, a nice car means more than manners and upbringing, no matter how deeply in debt it gets you. it doesn't seem to matter that in a lot of cases a car is not the quickest way to get about as long as they are in their metal box that's just fine.
this has led to other transport methods to get a bad name.
the bus is for poor people and OAPs.
the train is late, dirty and doesn't go anywhere near where you want to go so you have to get a bus as well. you might as well hire a car or people will think you're poor.
bike. are you fucking mad. that's for hippies, green freaks and poor people.
walking is fine to get to the freezer to dig out a ready meal but that's just about it, it's no good for more than 10yards, you'll probably get cancer or something.

now, that grinning idiot* you lot voted in can bang on and on as much as he likes about "green taxes" and "sustainable transport" but until the masses have a change of attitude towards the mighty motorcar nothing is going to change; and with this country loves being american, that just won't happen.

strangely enough i own 2 cars. i don't use them much though. i'll walk, run or cycle in preference. this makes me better than you.


*former pm tony "grinning idiot" blair

journalism for the masses

tabloid's are great*

on a sunday i generally buy the observer and one of the redtops. the observer is a real newspaper and there's normally at least an hours worth of reading in it; generally well written and not blatantly biased. there's also very little in the way of celebrity bullshit (the colour supplement is a different kettle of fish though). this week was no different. while mia was working hard making a top birthday cake (possibly the nicest cake ever) i was drinking coffee and finding out what had been going on in the world

my redtop of choice this week was the news of the world. once i had filtered out the 60! pages of football, the dozen or so pages of other sport i was left with about 30 pages of news. of this 12 were of sharon osbourne and why she is a bitch.. that's 12 pages of utter uselessness, 3 of royal nonsense in including the revelation that diana publicclotheshorse somebodyorother was putting it about before she snuffed it; some slapper from big brother showing her arse to the world (nice arse, shame about what it's attached to); and various other non news stories (the spice girls are reforming. yay). as far as real news goes there was 1/3 page dedicated to what had been going on in basra and 1/3 page on gordon brown jigging about with election dates. best of all though was the tabloid's favourite right wing, fop haired mp and possible future mayor of toilet town boris johnson. he's had 7 bikes nicked in london in 7 years you know. shocking!

what gets me is this is what some people read as "news". it actually scares me. i only really buy the tabloids to complain about them; which i just have done.

if only all my aspirations we so easy to achieve

*actually, they're not.

l'orange

if the future is orange it's not very bright

i know ntl/virgin are generally regarded and a bunch of useless wasters and not fit to feel the same sun as the rest of humanity but i get my cable broadband service from them and it has been fast and faultless. i've never had to call their hlpline, which is probably why they have never pissed me off.

orange/wannado (wannadont) however have very hacked me off... and it's only 20 past 9.

i shall surmise thusly

They force you to use their own SMTP server for sending any outgoing mail. Any attempt to connect to port 25 of another machine is met with an SMTP server that just gives you an error telling you to use smtp.orangehome.co.uk. Presumably this is a roadblock to make it harder for botted machines to send spam. Unfortunately it has the side effect of breaking perfectly legitimate (and fairly common) uses as well. Like most people I have my mail client set up to use my perfectly reliable, predictable and controlable SMTP server.. it works, it always works and if it doesn't; then I well, doug really) can fix it. orange's SMTP is not so... and to top it off is blocked by many other servers and known for sending spam, and if it thinks the message you're sending is spam, it won't send it. this means if i want to discuss viagra or the purchase of cheap watches then i can't do it over email on an orange connection.

but then what can you expect from a shit mobile phone company.