Commentary

This is an occasional commentary on cycling and unrelated issues - 'blog' if you must - and will be updated from time to time.

Posted 26 July 2010:
The season ticket is now working again!

Posted 15 July 2010:
My season ticket, for which I paid a non-trivial three figure sum, no longer works the ticket barriers in one station, but works fine in the others that I use.

Posted 27 June 2010:
The cars round here are getting fatter!

Posted 4 June 2010:
What a waste of space the Digital Amnesty is! I decided to trade in an analogue radio for a DAB at a well known electrical store, but not only had the assistant never heard of the promotion (or his two colleagues that he asked), but the range of radios is pathetic! The only radio with the full (and ever so generous) £15 trade-in discount is MONO, and none of the other radios available in the offer are anything more than basic FM/DAB radios. The radio I was trying to trade has an FM/MW radio, a cassette deck (OK, I can cope without a cassette deck), a CD player and a slot for a memory stick for MP3s. All of the DAB radios in the offer were being offered for more than the £25 I paid for the original radio. So I decided it wasn't worth it and left empty-handed. Except I wasn't empty-handed and had to lug the old radio around for the rest of the day. I then nearly got run down by a motorist who didn't stop at a zebra crossing in the retail park, even though other cars had stopped and I was already half way across.

On my way home I intended to renew my season ticket, but since there was only three minutes until my train, decided it was better to wait until I got to my destination. But the ticket office was shut! (I'd got the bus to the retail park on my way out, and done other business in the city centre so couldn't renew on the outward journey.)

Oh, look, there's a driver on his mobile phone. I'd only just finished typing that and a second has now pulled up. First a van driver, now a private hire car driver.

Posted 22 April 2010:
Why does the underground have people checking the tickets of people who've just walked through the ticket barriers? Are the automatic barriers not working and just letting anyone through, valid ticket or not?

Posted 16 April 2010:
Quick way to get your local candidates thinking about cycling - go to Vote Bike and click on take action which allows you to send a customisable message to all candidates standing in your constituency.

Posted 12 April 2010:
Why do people think that they can put their bags on the seats of rush-hour trains? There's a luggage rack right over your head for your bag, or put it on the floor. And the offender had boarded said rush-hour train at a station with a ticket office but never bought a ticket until challenged by the ticket examiner.

Posted 18 February 2010:
Is Justin Bieber old enough to making babies? One of the best pop cover versions in a while has to be from Menya.

Posted 17 February 2010:
Further to the comment posted at the start of this month, I've just heard a radio advert telling me to sweep up any sand I may have put down during snow, otherwise it may block the drains, and to beware of burst pipes! Well, apart from the snow being long gone (although that footbridge over the expressway was icy earlier this week) it wasn't me that put down the sand. It was the council. Now, why is my money being used on a radio advert when an email to the council would have done just as well? Plenty of blocked drains already!

Posted 10 February 2010:
Does Simon Cowell not write his own songs? Every time another one of his artistes crops up they are singing a cover version, and the same goes for his charity song, which even seems to include the original instrumentation. At least Band Aid was an entirely original composition. As for the X-Factor, would that more accurately be titled "Cowell's Karaoke Club"?

So hoorah for Igor Matvienko, whose fiftieth birthday it was at the weekend. Matvey is the producer of many fine acts including Fabrika, and has written dozens of songs. He put on a special concert to celebrate, lasting several hours and ending after midnight! A host of top Russian singers and groups, including his own, performed many of his songs, and much of the concert broadcast on television. There's a huge download of the concert on the internet if you look for it. Matvey can write in many styles, suiting his various artistes, and pleasing old and young alike.

Posted 1 February 2010:
Who has the most grit on their footway? It looks very much like it could be outside the newspaper offices! Although it isn't proper grit (rocksalt, which dissolves into the water), but coarse sand, which doesn't actually melt snow or ice, and just lies on the ground afterwards until someone comes to sweep it up. I rather suspect that this is put down to make it look as if the council is doing something when everyone starts complaining about the ice on the footways when there's none on the roads.

Posted 14 January 2010:
I had cause to change coaches at the Perth Park & Ride site recently, and no sooner had the coach I was alighting from pulled in than two motorists drove in behind it and parked on the bus stop, blocking it for the other two connecting coaches. There was a huge big empty car park there and they still parked on the bus stop!

Talking of car parks, why is it that car parking areas are higher up the priority list for gritting than footways? The parking areas near me got gritted long before the hard-packed ice on the footways got treated, and even today I had to cross an icy footbridge (over a totally free from ice expressway).