My Personal Soapbox from the UK

Are we still evolving?

2011-03-02T10:41:00.002Z

The recent episode of Horizon on the BBC asked the question "are we (has human beings) still evolving?". Apart from the extremely annoying habit of the presenter to seemingly deliberately confuse evolving to improve the race through natural selection with are we simply changing (for better or worse) as a race, it appeared to come to a conclusion that we are evolving to be shorter and fatter! This begs the question that are these features which will make us better adapted for the future. A question that they failed to answer however applying the logic of one of the most eminent philosophers of the 21st century, Karl Pilkington the answer is obvious and clearly yes. The world's resources in fossil fuels are running out and in particular crude oil. The lack of fuel for cars is driving us towards smaller and smaller cars therefore shorter people will be better suited to smaller cars. Also the diminishing supplies of fossil fuels will mean that we are increasingly unable to heat are homes and buildings meaning that those with increase personal insulation (fatter) will have an advantage.

QED

Final Total - Swimathon 2010

2010-06-21T16:36:00.001+01:00

A huge thanks to all that sponsored me. I have finally collected all the money, totaled it all up and sent it off to the organisers. I have also paid up on line the £1000 that I promised to match. The grand final total (including my donation) is £2281 which I am pretty proud of. Thanks again to all who sponsored me and helped make it happen.

Swimathon 2010 - Final Update

2010-04-19T07:37:00.005Z

Well I did it. Just! After about 30 of the 100 lengths I started to get cramp in both calves. I decided to try and see if I could swim through it which I managed to do until about 70 lengths. Unfortunately at this point both legs ceased up and I was in a lot of pain. I tried swimming on my back which slowed me down considerably (and I was not fast to start with) but this only worked for a couple of lengths before both legs cease from groin to ankle. I was now in so much pain that given a blade (however blunt and rusty) I would have happily sawn off both my legs. After getting advice from the life guard on stretching and a few minutes pause (that seemed like lifetime) I managed to get the pain down to a level that I could just swim. By varying the speed I managed to just keep the legs from ceasing up (but still very painful) to complete the swim. The main think that kept me going was knowing that I could not face the taunting from the landlord of the Red Lion if I did not complete it.

Personally I blame the thong I was wearing as a part of a bet from Reading MAG for cutting off the blood to my legs. Graham who I borrowed it from is considerably slimmer than me.

For those of you now worried about the psychological damage that could have been inflicted on the children in the pool (let alone the adults) I need to point out I agreed to wear a thong for the duration of the swim if sponsorship passed £1000. I never ever agreed NOT to wear my shorts! So I managed to prevent any chance of arrest for indecent exposure by wearing the thong over my shorts!!!

Oh and the sponsorship. Well I am still collecting in the pledges made and still get some aditional sponsors but the current total looks like £1225 in sponsorship plus my match of £1000 making a grand total of £2225 raised.

Swimathon Update

2010-04-12T13:39:00.002Z

Nasty shock today. Apparently attending biker rallies and drinking too much does not qualify as suitable training for a swimathon!?!?!

So after nearly 2 weeks since I last swam today I managed 1.5km in 50 minutes and now I hurt! Still a chance to sponsor me before the event at the weekend. At the moment on-line sponsorship plus old fashion paper sponsorship is currently running at around £600.

To sponsor me go to:-
http://my.artezglobal.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=310801&langPref=en-CA

For more information on the event see:-
http://www.swimathon.org

Swimathon 2010

2010-03-31T14:47:00.003Z

I have decided to enter this event since my father was helped considerably during his last few months by the Marie Curie nurses which enable him to stay at home as long as possible. I am going to undertake the 2.5km (just over 1.5 miles).

To make things more interesting I have decided to match every £1 of sponsorship that I get (up to a maximum of £1000) so with gift aid every £1 that you give in sponsorship we will raise £2.56 for the Swimathon which means £1.792 to Maria Curie Cancer Care and £0.768 to the Swimathon Foundation.

To sponsor me go to:-
http://my.artezglobal.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=310801&langPref=en-CA

For more information on the event see:-
http://www.swimathon.org

To come and offer me support on the day or simply to make sure that I do complete it fairly I will be at the Loddon Valley swimming pool from 3pm on Saturday 17th of April.

Alternative approach to tackling Graffiti

2009-02-27T16:46:00.001Z

This morning on my walk to the station a couple of contract workmen with a van were working under the bypass bridge. As I approached I realised that they were working on the graffiti on the wall under the bridge. One guy was painting something onto the wall while another was using a jet wash on another part of the wall. From the angle that I approached in the low glancing sunlight and the effect of what he was painting on the wall as he painted over each line he caused it to be highlighted which had the visual effect of looking as if he was actually painting the graffiti on the wall. As I got closer I realised that he was painting a clear liquid (I guess some form of detergent or paint remover) over each line of the original graffiti which caused the original fading lines to be highlighted but this got me thinking.

Anybody who knows me will be aware that one of my favorite quotes is Einstein's definition of insanity which is "To repeatedly do the same thing and expect a different result". This leads me to a policy of looking at problems that seem insoluble from the point of view of looking at what has been tried already and turning it on it's head, however insane or counter intuitive that may seem, and presenting that as the only viable solution. So bearing that in mind back to the graffiti. Everything to stop/prevent graffiti seems to have worked to date and contract workmen removing the graffiti just seems to encourage the artists to return to the now clean canvas within days or hours. As a side note on my return journey a new set of graffiti had been applied to the wall. So back to the problem. What if we employed the council workmen to actually paint on the graffiti in the first place. This would make the painting of graffiti so UNCOOL that surely the kids would stop immediately in embarrassment not only that they would probably run around removing the council workers efforts. Mad on the surface but let's face it we have tried everything else and it has not worked so it might be worth a try.

Hiding Places

2008-08-12T17:12:00.001+01:00

I recently heard this one which while not terribly politically correct is none the less close to the truth in many households and very funny.

Where is the best place for a woman to hide something from her husband?

Tape it to the underside of the ironing board!!!

The 4 great mysteries of life

2008-07-23T15:33:00.001+01:00

The following 4 questions I believe remain the 4 great unsolved mysteries of the modern world.

1) If a man makes an assertion and there is not woman present is he still wrong?

2) If you are smoking in your own home and a intruder enters your house are you required to extinguish you cigarette now because it has now become his place of work?

3) When the UK government finally introduces ID cards will schizophrenics be required to carry multiple ID cards?

4) If the human race is so intelligent then how come we were able to put together the technology to put a man on the moon before we worked out that it would be a good idea to put wheels on a suitcase?

The next UK Government or not

2008-02-29T12:09:00.003Z

Maybe Billy Connolly had it right - "Don't vote for them it just encourages them". It seems to be what most people in this country are doing. Since in the last few elections the majority of people have not voted for anyone. Perhaps there is more to this message than simple apathy. Perhaps they are saying we do not want any of them. So my proposal. At the next election we should count unused votes as a positive vote for NO goverment. In those constituencies where the total votes casts falls below 50% or where the number of unused votes exceeds that of the most popular candidate then NO member of parliament should be elected for the next term. If the majority of the house of commons is empty seats then NO government will be formed for the next term. This will then reflect the true feelings of the people. If people are not voting for some other reason than the fact that they do not want a government then they will turn out pro actively to vote to ensure that their vote is not counted as a vote for no government.

Bingo another problem solved.

First Great Western

2008-02-28T18:51:00.005Z

Yesterday First Great Western trains announced that it would be spending an additional £29M to improve services after it was found to be the worst performing rail franchise in Britain. I travel regularly on First Great Western and occasionally on other franchises and I can tell you that they are really bad. The cram the passengers onto trains like animals and each year they reduce then number of services (while passenger numbers are increasing - 10% per annum across the country but faster in the Thames Valley) and increase the prices (this year by around 10% for peak periods). And what do we do? Well nothing because we can't. The thing is there is no competition in the railways. I do not have a choice of rail operators to travel from my home to London. There is only First Great Western and each time it comes up they have been granted a renewal of the franchises despite the fact that they have lied repeatedly to the government and the franchise authorities in order to get it. Last time the franchise came up they promised amongst other things to increase the number of services and secondly to provide an integrated policy between their original franchise and First Great Western Link (formally Thames Trains - their only competition whom they acquired). They lied. Try travelling out on a west coast mainline service from Paddington which is scheduled to connect with a local service at Reading (say to Newbury) when there is a delay. Do they hold the connections. NO. This happens about once a month and on at least 3 occasions I have been able to watch the connecting train being sent out by the station staff from the window of the incoming "connecting" train. Is this an integrated transport system. NO. They have also reduced significantly the number of services running on non mainline routes since removing their only competition.

Is the poor service and bad treatment of the passengers and staff the fault of the management. Well not entirely we have created a model and a market which by it's very nature can ONLY reduce the quality of service, increase prices, increase customer satisfaction and reduce safety. A fairly outlandish statement until you examine the facts. When the rail system was privatised we did not create a free market and we did not introduce competition because we created a series of franchises each of which is a monopoly in it's own region but a monopoly in private and not government hands. We also separated the the running of the track from the running of the trains and set up a pseudo commercial model for the franchises to "buy" space use of the track from Network Rail. Now the management of a private company have a responsibility to maximise the shareholder return for their investors. There are only two ways to increase return on investment and those are to reduce costs and to increase revenues. Increase revenues is simple when there is no competition and the number of consumers is rising - just increase the prices the consumers have no where else to go. Now to reducing costs. Again in a monopoly position one of the best was is to reduce the quality and frequency of service. People have no ware else to go they can only keep cramming onto ever more crowded trains. They have no choice. The second way to reduce costs is to reduce what you pay your keep suppliers (in this case Network Rail). Your suppliers in turn have to reduce their costs which means reducing strategic long term investment and finding ways to cust back on running costs (ie. repairs and safety checks).

So as you can see with the privatisation of the railway we have managed to create a completely artificial market that could never have existed without the intervention of government which is designed to reduce safety, reduce service, reduce customer satisfaction and increase prices - it has been perfectly engineered to do nothing else.

And who was the mastermind of this? Well since the privatisation of the railways occurred under a labour government many people believe that it was a labour policy and design. The Tory party certainly do nothing to dispel this myth. Far from it. The truth? The architecture was designed by the last Tory government and the wheels put in motion long before they were forced out of power. In fact the process was so far gone when they left office that it was difficult if not impossible to stop. A run away train you might say ;-). So when we come to the next election and you think you might want a change of government think if you can stand they same in all our public services.

Mind you what are the current government planning to do about it. Well they announce a plan to invest to increase capacity by 10% by 2014. Some use when the number of travellers is increasing by 10% per annum and the systems is already crumbling.

Links:
Farce Great Western
First Great Western Blog

Introduction

2006-12-09T11:35:00.002Z

I recently started a blog for work and realised that there a a number of issues that I was interested to blog about and discuss with the wider community that did not fall anywhere close to suitable points of discussion in that particular forum. I then began to think more about what I wanted to talk about and why therefore should I open a separate blog. Soon the whole thing started to feel very much like the need for a platform on which to stand to broadcast my views on life and the state of the world to anyone who will listen. This started to sound like a hi-tech equivalent of the Speakers Corner at Hyde Park in London where the boxes that speakers climb onto to be seen above the crowd used to be old shiping boxes for bars of soap. Hence the expression "to get on one's soapbox" being to deliver a monologue passionately (almost in a preaching way) on a particular subject about which the speaker feels particularly strongly about and rarely if ever allowing anyone to interrupt. So this would be the basis of the name for my blog - MySoapBox. Unfortunately like many clever ideas there is more often than not someone smarter or quicker than you that has gotten there first. So MySoapBoxUK seemed an adequate fall back.

Interestingly having been through all of this thought process I thought it might be good to link to a more detailed background of the name/concept of the SoapBox for those non native english speakers or people based outside the UK. So a quick trip to WikiPedia came up with the following definition of a SoapBox which interestingly enough refers to blogging as the modern equivalent of SoapBoxing.

So enough rabbiting. I am based in the UK and have lived most (except for my first 6 months) in the England. I have however travelled extensively around the world for both work and pleasure. This has included Australia, Asia, Europe and the USA. About the only regions I have yet to visit are Africa and the Middle East (unless you count a short visit to Israel).

I make no apologise for the fact that the content of this blog will focus on issues that are UK centric and are viewed from a UK perspective but that are sympathetic to the views, needs and ideals of others. Please feel free to post comment (particularly from outside the UK) so that I might get a broader perspective of life and the world.

I have no religious bias other than to be myself an Agnostic and hold a belief that all organised churches ultimately become corrupt and betray their roots and that religion and the church has been used an excuse by man since the dawn of religion to kill other men, women and children.

More people have been killed in the name of religion than all the other reasons put together.