New Forest Donkeys waiting for bus

Just got back from a brief trip to the New Forest which despite being grey and rainy was still spectacular. I can certainly recommend the New Park Manor Hotel and Spa which - on a Sunday night deal - is great value. But my favourite moment is captured here (trying a new camera incidentally as well) while cycling round the area.

I'll definitely be heading back for a spring visit with hopefully better light.

Funny thing is nobody had told the donkeys that the bus doesn't run on Sundays!

Life Returns to Normal? (humour)

I posted about the devastating floods in Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire a couple of weeks ago. Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected with no electricity and no water for almost two weeks. Thousands of businesses have been devastated through damage or the by-product of the economy as it normally is, just coming to a halt. (Of course, our experiences next to South East Asia are themselves relatively trifling).

So, it was good to see, while on a cycle ride through Herefordshire today, that life has obviously returned to normal as witnessed by THE major news in the Hereford Times which I was able to snap for your benefit. Note that The Hereford Times is THE key local newspaper for one of the areas most affected by these floods.

I continued to suffer fits of laughter for the rest of the bike ride, wondering for instance whether the reporter thought that seagulls should be able to distinguish between guide dogs and ordinary dogs (presumably fair game for seagulls), or whether the reporter felt that SOMEBODY had to act - perhaps by issuing ASBOs to the anti-social seagulls? Or maybe, seagulls have a code for divebombing which awards additional points for getting guide dogs or blind people as in the 70's film Death Race 2000? Unfortunately, I cannot answer these questions as I couldn't bring myself to buy a copy.

But in the end (sadly and humourlessly) the sheer inanity of this headline is just another tiny bit of evidence in my slowly growing dossier on the patheticness of the British press (and perhaps its readership). While a troubling incident to, er, the blind person and indeed the guide dog, after such devastation, and indeed, even without it, are there not more public interest stories in Herefordshire deserving of our attention than this? (Yes, there are, fortunately the BBC has many).

Tags: British Press, Hereford, Hereford Times, July Floods

Government, its (Cycling) Citizens, and the Internet

In my experience of our government's use of the internet to improve services, the scorecard is pretty low so far. Just yesterday I noticed that my favourite rail information site operated (strangely) by Wandsworth council could no longer be found. This site used to be incredibly fast, and give you information on any route in the UK including stops, and including all the stops the train took on each journey, the trains ultimate route etc. It was timetable nirvana. Only missing were prices. Why Network Rail could not take on this brilliant piece of work I don't know.

However, I have a good example finally of how a service can be delivered to everyone's benefit, and on my sample size = 1, appears to do the job.

A curse for cyclists is the state of some roads where subsidence, damage etc can result in a serious jolt and in fact be quite dangerous. We have been powerless to do much about this unless you have mountains of time and inclination to pursue through letters or waiting in phone queues.

Just recently, the CTC introduced FillThatHole.org which allows anyone to create a problem report for any road in the UK, including identifying it on a map and even including images. The report is then filed with the appropriate authority.

I thought I'd give it a try for one I noticed in Kensington and Chelsea, not expecting much. I got a confirmation back that it had been received, and another one that it had been forwarded on (yeh, so what!). But I was genuinely surprised that within 10 days or so, the repair had been made quite thoroughly. Even better, I got an email back within another day telling me that the hazard had been reported as fixed. Very cool.

Now, I have given credit to government for this, when in fact most of the credit goes to the CTC. And, I repeat, my sample size is 1. But, this is a great example of the sorts of things our governments (local and national) COULD be doing across their whole services portfolio to engage with its citizens. I'm sure it's not a huge system, but what I particularly liked was the way it kept you informed throughout the process, and closed it all off at the end.

Three cheers to the CTC, and one and a half cheers to the people in government somewhere who have at least allowed this to work!

UPDATE (9th March): The one thing missing from the system was the ability for the original reporter to re-open the case if the fix had not been made or not made satisfactorily. Within a day of me suggesting this feature, the CTC had added a button to do exactly this. So, that means four cheers for the CTC!

Tags: UK, Fillthathole, CTC, Cycling, Road, Pothole

In praise of cycling MP's

I knew the moment I saw the headlines about politicians' expense claims that I was going to get exasperated.

"From £16,000 on taxis to £230 on a bike: politicans' travel expenses revealed" was the headline in the right-on Guardian. Perhaps I am just a little bit touchy, but that certainly seemed to be a dig at cycling MP's (and by extension, all cyclists). How else to interpret highlighting one of the smallest claims in an article generally criticising excess amongst our elected officials? Other newspapers also devoted column inches to the cycling claims of Jeremy Corbyn MP. Yet, it represents just 5 one thousandths of one percent of the total claimed by all MP's (0.0051%).

And, this weekend, Jasper Gerard, writing in the Observer under the headline "For our tireless MPs, no expenses are spared" sent me suitably over the edge with:

"But my favourite claim is Jeremy Corbyn's, who pocketed £230 - for cycling. Perhaps puncture repair kits are pricey."

Ha, bloody, ha!

Let's get this straight. The only logical and rational comment on Jeremy Corbyn's claims are to point out how much better the public purse would have been if other MP's made use of such transport. Diane Abbott's £2,235 in taxis is a start. And, boy, does she need the exercise. How about Mr Khabra's £3,007 (Ealing) and Mr Khan's £2,153 (Tooting) car expenses. And, perhaps Ms Janet Anderson and Mr Laurence Robertson (£16,612, and £12,015 mileage respectively), could at least get their fat arses out of their leather seats for SOME of their travel?

And, let's just look at Jasper's comment in more detail. The cost of cycling is actually the cost of a puncture repair kit is it? Just like the cost of driving is the cost of his in-car air freshener? Jeremy Corbyn cycled 1,100 miles in a year (on parliamentary business). I suspect his bike would need a good service after that amount of mileage with some new tyres, brake pads etc. That's probably about £100 or so a year based on my experience. Then there's the cost of the bike. And, lets not forget the cost of a decent lock, luggage carriers, waterproofs etc.

Cycling is considerably less costly than most other methods of transport, but it is NOT free. It's considerably beneficial for other road users who don't have their roads clogged up even more (please, this is not China - most cyclists cycle out of choice not economics). It's beneficial to our economy by not clogging up those roads. It's considerably more beneficial to the environment, and it's also beneficial to our health system (and the "health systems" of those cyclists too).

So, to Jeremy Corbyn, and those other cycling MP's: I praise you for your efforts and fortitude. Your £230 is the best value of the £4.5m spent last year.

And, to our unelected journalists who wouldn't know a crank from a cog: STFU!

Tags: UK, MP, Expenses, Jermey Corbyn