Amazing social history. There is a strong relationship between moving people and data and BTFU did all of this. The guy who filmed the amazing Stainmore through the snow clip went on to film Michael Jackson's Thriller movie. So, whilst in the Uk we lost 800,000 public sector public transport employees (and did awful things like extend MAFF/Defra to give them jobs in the rural areas where they were based), luckily many of them actually got to exercise their talents.
Find more British Transport film unit footage - awesome.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00f3pgc/Nation_on_Film_The_British_Transport_Films/
Tuesday 28 October 2008
Tuesday 1 April 2008
What the hell is Amazon up to?
Amazon have been pushing quite heavily their Booksurge product for quite some time now. It's a print on demand service and for a small publisher it is very expensive. However, I looked at it to do the next couple of books, rather than using Lulu, as it seemed sensible to have the titles inside Amazon as fast as possible. However, there are issues. The Booksurge formats are different to those we currently use, our books cannot be put on Amazon.co.uk only the .com, and we have no guarantee about the quality of the printing.
Today, April 1st, and no it is not an April Fool, there is a furore on the Net as Amazon have said that any POD publishers who use other printers than Booksurge will have their buy buttons on Amazon 'switched off'. Unless we all ship 5 books to Amazon for them to hold in their inventory.
I received an order from Amazon inventory yesterday for 1 book, which I have to ship to me first and then add their shipping labels and then ship to them - hardly an environmentally friendly system. Additionally, Amazon take a 60% discount for our books which with all this extra shipping renders it totally non-profitable to sell through Amazon at all.
So, having just got one of our books to potentially show up as 'in stock'; and be sold through Amazon, we are hit with this announcement. Right now, as we have sold 200 times more books through Lulu than Amazon, I guess none of our titles will be available with Amazon in the future unless they reverse this ridiculous decision. Which is a shame.
Today, April 1st, and no it is not an April Fool, there is a furore on the Net as Amazon have said that any POD publishers who use other printers than Booksurge will have their buy buttons on Amazon 'switched off'. Unless we all ship 5 books to Amazon for them to hold in their inventory.
I received an order from Amazon inventory yesterday for 1 book, which I have to ship to me first and then add their shipping labels and then ship to them - hardly an environmentally friendly system. Additionally, Amazon take a 60% discount for our books which with all this extra shipping renders it totally non-profitable to sell through Amazon at all.
So, having just got one of our books to potentially show up as 'in stock'; and be sold through Amazon, we are hit with this announcement. Right now, as we have sold 200 times more books through Lulu than Amazon, I guess none of our titles will be available with Amazon in the future unless they reverse this ridiculous decision. Which is a shame.
Friday 28 March 2008
Gummint
Bored of trying to get womble porn to the top of Google for this blog. April's task is to get top listing for gummint. If I get political, don't mind me!
Tuesday 11 March 2008
The Audi SW Endurance Experience
What a rally! I thought the Lombard was tough, but this was challenging in whole new, unimaginable on Thursday, ways.
It started off reasonably well with the drive down on Thursday, although it took longer than we expected to get to Totnes and Chez Ballantyne (winning nav of last year's Lombard who had kindly offered accommodation), which wasn't helped by my navigational skills leading us in ever decreasing circles to his house! Didn't bode well for Friday.
Friday morning was a glorious, warm, sunny day. The realisation that we were near as dammit in a different country came with the daffs, primroses etc all in bloom. Far cry from the snow in Cumbria at the beginning of the week. Headed to newton Abbot race course and the kerfuffle around scrutineering, signing in etc. I'm sure it becomes obvious the more you do it, but it all seemed a tad overwhelming to start with.
Lots of known faces though from the Lombard which was great - you start to feel like you belong in the community when people come and ask how you are etc. And then the slow ramping up of adrenalin as you get nearer your start time, and are desperately trying to think of everything you can do to prepare, like plotting onto the maps etc in readiness for the event.
Being able to watch the first selectif from the grandstand helped as you don't feel as you are going into it entirely blind, which is what the Lombard was like - dark, at Gaydon, with not a bloody clue what you have let yourself in for. The first two selectifs were round the race course and eased us in to it all again. 73 starters and we were Car 54 so nearly an hour to wait after the first car, and then we're off.
Round the race course, trying to remember how to read code boards as fast as possible, and call corners, chicanes, etc, and next thing you know, we're out on the main road, navigating to the next one. We didn't do too badly on the first two - 23rd and 36th. Not bad for a diesel on what should have been sprints!!
Then on to farm tracks, with a killer 90 right between cones with the most massive ditch if you overcooked it. I don't think anyone did though but I didn't envy the marshall at the next 90 left where we ahd to stop for a signature. He must have been leaping out the way for more than just us! We didn't do too well there, coming 51st and we did even worse on the next one when we almost got lost in a farm yard and went anticlockwise rather than clockwise round a cone, which got us a 10sec penalty and brought us in 52nd. Without the penalty, we'd have been high 20s so you can tell how competitive it was already.
Then back on the road and off, somewhere or other, to Tom's Hill, which was a forest section. We were trying to work out how to call manouevres on the way there, a skill that we had forgotten slightly, but it must have worked as we were 26th on that selectif. Dave's driving on forest sections is excellent, and as long as I can call easily when we have a complex set of cones to get round, we seem to do OK.
On this road section, there was an almighty clunk and as we drove away from a roundabout something metal vanished away bouncing off the underside of the car. We still don't know what it was! But, shortly after, there was an ominous vibration from the front left, near my feet, and finally Dave pulled over to check. Front wheel had come loose! Quick tighten up and off we went again.
The next selectif was forest again, and we had to queue to get in, then were escorted in groups of 10 to the start, and then did our selectif, and out. I don't know why we didn't too well on this, but there were a couple of stages which had got very soft in some of the areas round cones and the Golf doesn't always do brilliantly out of soft stuff, being so heavy. (And 57bhp isn't much!) So we finished this one 52nd. Hmmm.
Then into more forest. The weather was still good, though it was beginning to cloud over, threatening rain, but it held off. The forests were smooth and fast, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. The only problem was that the first selectifs were quite short, so you are just getting into the swing of it, and then you're out and on to the next one, juggling road books, maps, timecards, helmets, pens, stopwatches etc.
I discovered that remembering to start the stopwatch was easy, but stopping it a whole other ballgame. I didn't remember to stop it once on the selectifs all rally! But it hardly matters as that's what the marshalls do. I can imagine that when you get really good and you start querying a second here or a second there to ensure a placing, then it matters, but for now it really is trivial whether or not our time through a selectif is right or wrong. The fact we have completed the selectif is a great start, and finishing the rally and enjoying it is still our top priority!
Anyway, we did great through there, finishing 20th. Dave was getting into his stride now and we were getting a few moments in the queue before each selectif to check for any potentially difficult calls, which as helping.
It was taking longer to get through the selectifs than our timecard showed it should so I was leaping out at every opportunity to get a delay allowance, which I reckon you should get every time there are 4 or more cars in front of you. You never know when you will need it, and I'm sure it helped us on Friday as things started to run later and later and there was little opportunity to make it up on road sections as my crap map reading came to light!
Having been almost babysat with tulips on the Lombard, this plot and bash stuff was a whole new experience between selectifs and I far too frequently got it wrong. Luckily, Dave has some sort of inbuilt compass which tells him when we might be wrong, so my admissions of "Dave, I'm lost" usually accompanied by howls of frustration were taken quite well.
The next stage was Okehampton Camp which reminded me of the Showground stage on the Lombard to start with. ie I bloody dreaded it! Sharp corners through buildings are not my idea of fun at all, and for some reason my brain freezes. It was also a split and merge selectif so you have cars coming at you from all directions! However, after the first time round, when we finally found the car park we had to 90R then hairpin left into to get a stamp from the marshall, I really began to enjoy it, and apparently our back wheels were nowhere near the ground after the split as we came round again. And then, we got to do it all over again, which was brilliant, and I was laughing my head off as we came round. And we knocked 20 secs off our time the second time. But, so must lots of other people, as we only moved from 31st to 30th there. I don't know what cars 34 and 37 did, as they ramped round the first time in 3.10 and 3.21 to win that selectif, and then took 3.55 the second time.
Then back out to find some more forest. By now it was a very grey day, and everything was running late but we managed to pick up another 14 minutes delay allowance, which is always a relief to me. Although this was a short stage, Dave absolutely hammered it, and we came in 17th - much more like it! Maybe the general hilarity on the previous stage had eased the tension caused by me getting us lost so often?
More forest, and a 2mile section that was fairly closely run, with us ending up 38th. For some rason, I was having minor problems getting what the code boards said from my eyes to brain and thence to pen, as tiredness slowly worked its way in to me. And there were lots of code baords on this rally!!! There was a car off here, think it was 7, the Nova in big ditch on a right hander. Saw them again though on Saturday so they must have got out OK and finished the rally. Bit of a shock seeing a car like that though, and was very relieved we didn't follow them.
Straight back into Assycombe out of that one, another almost 2 miles. We did way better through it the second time and were at least managing not to get lost between selectifs when they were only several yards apart! The forests were beginning to get dark now so nav light on, and we ramped through there in 38th place. There was a problem chipping us as we came in right on the arse of someone else - Dave catching the minuteman up!! But when it came to checking the results that night, it all seemed reasonable enough to me, so no query. As if I would anyway. Once it gets to that point of querying every moment, I think I will have ceased to enjoy it as much.
Then a longer stretch of forest, 2.7 miles. I've decided that ignoring the trees is the best option, and weirdly feel safer in forests than on really open selectifs. Especially ones with bloody great ditches at the side! When I added "Rough for 100 yds" at the Racecourse from the amendments, I had no idea how rough. We were climbing a hill and suddenly came across piles of timber, right next to the track, branches strewn across our route, and cones and tape at the side denoting major potholes. That was quite a stretch and pretty hairy. But, we did OK on that too and came in 28th, only 45 secs behind the lead car, which is good going when there was such a hill in it!
Then it was the Time Control and a chance to grab some food. Dave had a few things to check on the car so I walked up the 1/4mile road to the tea room. Part way there, it dawned on me that it was pitch black so I went back for the torch. Then, a little further up, I realised that we would need meal vouchers, so headed back to get them! Back and forth, passing people in the dark, could have been anyone! Met Dave the second time so walked up with him to get food.
Roast beef which was just what the doctor ordered, though by now I could happily have drunk a gallon of tea and the mug of tea never materialised before we had to leave. Gutted! Debated methods for incorporating a teasmade into my office as the tea deprivation is the hardest part of the Endurance!!
managed to get us lost leaving the bloody control, what an idiot, but we finally made it to Bellever 2 and romped round that, 21st this time. There was one car off, fairly spectacular, high up a track, but they seemed fine, although probably pretty miffed. From what I've read on the forums, they holed the sump on a rock in the middle of the track, so it wasn't an off as much as a breakdown.
Then the nightmare began. Regularities. I am going to have to get more experience with these. I can't quite recall how many turnings we missed but having learnt from Andy Ballantyne that NAM means Not as Mapped, and LWR is Long Way Round, I was so pleased that we'd worked out which way to go round the triangle, we missed a bloody code board. Damn! However, on return to HQ, it turned out we were in good company as 34 cars missed it, and only 31 got it. I'm sure it wasn't there......;o)
The timings went completely out the window just trying to find the route, and I was amazed we apparently finished it and only lost 45 secs. To me, that is bordering on miraculous. We were 35th through that one, and then had another one straight on top of it. There must be a way to do these things, as we then dropped a further 62secs on the next one. My insecurity about whether we are going the right way doesn't help Dave in the slightest, so I need to sort this out and learn to read the whites better. The guys who won dropped 9 secs over the whole of the 4 regularities. How do they do that?!! I tried using the stopwatch to time us to checkpoints, but we seemed to be so far out of it, and I was concentrating so hard on just finding the TCs that the stopwatch times went completely out the window. Another learning curve to climb, another time!
By now, exhaustion was beginning to set in, as well as frustration with myself at my seeming inability to read a map correctly. Two forest stages and it would be over for the night. Short section in Langage, where we came 38th, and then a somewhat exuberant push round Cann1 where we completely failed to stop astride, sliding gracefully over it towards the marshalls, grinning our heads off.
We couldn't find our way out of a paperbag by this time and the route to the hotel was only not as circuitous as it could have been because we had explored the whole area at length earlier, failing to find the road up to the forests. A roundabout turned out not to be a roundabout at all, but a block of houses with a road up each side!
Back to HQ. Park up, drink beer. Drink beer. Looked at interim results and we appeared to be standing 26th before penalties. That was impressive as it means our selectif times at the very least are good. Walk to Ibis hotel up the road. Note to self, always stay in HQ, however much it costs!!
Woke up to find we were 36th. Could have been far worse! So, put in a query about the code baord as 15 mins seemed hellish harsh and everyone was talking about it, so did the sheep thing. It was later reduced to 5mins for all of us as that should have been the penalty for a regularity. Whatever, fairly level playing field if 34 of us had got it!!
Saturday is now quite a blur, so I'm going to have to write that some other time. Suffice to say, more cars off, broke engine mounting, strapped up, bust diesel overflow pipe, filled clutch with fuel, smoked a helluva lot over the squaddies at Portreath, got lost in a field we should never have been in on Polish Farm 2, Polish Farm 1 got canned for many of us as the farmer was doing summat, got 62mph down the 1200 straight at Portreath, others were doing 85! Dave spent lunch break sorting out car and cleaning clutch with coca cola, I thought we were out at that point. Must trust my mechanic and the Golf far more!! Dave Walker went out after the Mini had overheating probs again, so did Jeremy Crook, sadly. Phil Bayliss had had a few probs overnight but seemed to be back in the running, and a co-driver, no names mentioned "cheated" by asking about our time on a previous selectif and looking at my codeboard answers! All in good humour though ;o) Missed an 'island' on Penhale to go round, and hence a code board, but found it on Penhale 2! Amazing beach down there.
By 4pm Saturday, could barely think straight, and just wanted it all to end! Couldn't make head nor tail of the diversion on the A38 even though it was simple as hell. Joe reversed into someone's spots in a garage, they'd had a 16 min off in Quidditch Moor or whatever it was called but were back in the running again after a tow out. Dale Glover (seeded 4)hit a tree, bent both axles and had to retire on Dunmere2. Dunmere2 was probably the most exciting bit of forest ever. Freefalllllll!! Rain, major wind, cold, tired. Dave drove Northcombe like a demon and we came 12th! Fucked up on the night nav again, no great surprise and this time lost 4mins on one but only 35secs on the other. And then into Cann 2 and the final bit of forest. Exhausted. Quick run back to the hotel and stupid idiot booked in 3 mins early at the control. That and the missed code board on night navA cost us 11 mins which would have put us 22nd, so lessons learnt as that would be my dream finish. Beer, beer, beer, sleep. Home.
It started off reasonably well with the drive down on Thursday, although it took longer than we expected to get to Totnes and Chez Ballantyne (winning nav of last year's Lombard who had kindly offered accommodation), which wasn't helped by my navigational skills leading us in ever decreasing circles to his house! Didn't bode well for Friday.
Friday morning was a glorious, warm, sunny day. The realisation that we were near as dammit in a different country came with the daffs, primroses etc all in bloom. Far cry from the snow in Cumbria at the beginning of the week. Headed to newton Abbot race course and the kerfuffle around scrutineering, signing in etc. I'm sure it becomes obvious the more you do it, but it all seemed a tad overwhelming to start with.
Lots of known faces though from the Lombard which was great - you start to feel like you belong in the community when people come and ask how you are etc. And then the slow ramping up of adrenalin as you get nearer your start time, and are desperately trying to think of everything you can do to prepare, like plotting onto the maps etc in readiness for the event.
Being able to watch the first selectif from the grandstand helped as you don't feel as you are going into it entirely blind, which is what the Lombard was like - dark, at Gaydon, with not a bloody clue what you have let yourself in for. The first two selectifs were round the race course and eased us in to it all again. 73 starters and we were Car 54 so nearly an hour to wait after the first car, and then we're off.
Round the race course, trying to remember how to read code boards as fast as possible, and call corners, chicanes, etc, and next thing you know, we're out on the main road, navigating to the next one. We didn't do too badly on the first two - 23rd and 36th. Not bad for a diesel on what should have been sprints!!
Then on to farm tracks, with a killer 90 right between cones with the most massive ditch if you overcooked it. I don't think anyone did though but I didn't envy the marshall at the next 90 left where we ahd to stop for a signature. He must have been leaping out the way for more than just us! We didn't do too well there, coming 51st and we did even worse on the next one when we almost got lost in a farm yard and went anticlockwise rather than clockwise round a cone, which got us a 10sec penalty and brought us in 52nd. Without the penalty, we'd have been high 20s so you can tell how competitive it was already.
Then back on the road and off, somewhere or other, to Tom's Hill, which was a forest section. We were trying to work out how to call manouevres on the way there, a skill that we had forgotten slightly, but it must have worked as we were 26th on that selectif. Dave's driving on forest sections is excellent, and as long as I can call easily when we have a complex set of cones to get round, we seem to do OK.
On this road section, there was an almighty clunk and as we drove away from a roundabout something metal vanished away bouncing off the underside of the car. We still don't know what it was! But, shortly after, there was an ominous vibration from the front left, near my feet, and finally Dave pulled over to check. Front wheel had come loose! Quick tighten up and off we went again.
The next selectif was forest again, and we had to queue to get in, then were escorted in groups of 10 to the start, and then did our selectif, and out. I don't know why we didn't too well on this, but there were a couple of stages which had got very soft in some of the areas round cones and the Golf doesn't always do brilliantly out of soft stuff, being so heavy. (And 57bhp isn't much!) So we finished this one 52nd. Hmmm.
Then into more forest. The weather was still good, though it was beginning to cloud over, threatening rain, but it held off. The forests were smooth and fast, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. The only problem was that the first selectifs were quite short, so you are just getting into the swing of it, and then you're out and on to the next one, juggling road books, maps, timecards, helmets, pens, stopwatches etc.
I discovered that remembering to start the stopwatch was easy, but stopping it a whole other ballgame. I didn't remember to stop it once on the selectifs all rally! But it hardly matters as that's what the marshalls do. I can imagine that when you get really good and you start querying a second here or a second there to ensure a placing, then it matters, but for now it really is trivial whether or not our time through a selectif is right or wrong. The fact we have completed the selectif is a great start, and finishing the rally and enjoying it is still our top priority!
Anyway, we did great through there, finishing 20th. Dave was getting into his stride now and we were getting a few moments in the queue before each selectif to check for any potentially difficult calls, which as helping.
It was taking longer to get through the selectifs than our timecard showed it should so I was leaping out at every opportunity to get a delay allowance, which I reckon you should get every time there are 4 or more cars in front of you. You never know when you will need it, and I'm sure it helped us on Friday as things started to run later and later and there was little opportunity to make it up on road sections as my crap map reading came to light!
Having been almost babysat with tulips on the Lombard, this plot and bash stuff was a whole new experience between selectifs and I far too frequently got it wrong. Luckily, Dave has some sort of inbuilt compass which tells him when we might be wrong, so my admissions of "Dave, I'm lost" usually accompanied by howls of frustration were taken quite well.
The next stage was Okehampton Camp which reminded me of the Showground stage on the Lombard to start with. ie I bloody dreaded it! Sharp corners through buildings are not my idea of fun at all, and for some reason my brain freezes. It was also a split and merge selectif so you have cars coming at you from all directions! However, after the first time round, when we finally found the car park we had to 90R then hairpin left into to get a stamp from the marshall, I really began to enjoy it, and apparently our back wheels were nowhere near the ground after the split as we came round again. And then, we got to do it all over again, which was brilliant, and I was laughing my head off as we came round. And we knocked 20 secs off our time the second time. But, so must lots of other people, as we only moved from 31st to 30th there. I don't know what cars 34 and 37 did, as they ramped round the first time in 3.10 and 3.21 to win that selectif, and then took 3.55 the second time.
Then back out to find some more forest. By now it was a very grey day, and everything was running late but we managed to pick up another 14 minutes delay allowance, which is always a relief to me. Although this was a short stage, Dave absolutely hammered it, and we came in 17th - much more like it! Maybe the general hilarity on the previous stage had eased the tension caused by me getting us lost so often?
More forest, and a 2mile section that was fairly closely run, with us ending up 38th. For some rason, I was having minor problems getting what the code boards said from my eyes to brain and thence to pen, as tiredness slowly worked its way in to me. And there were lots of code baords on this rally!!! There was a car off here, think it was 7, the Nova in big ditch on a right hander. Saw them again though on Saturday so they must have got out OK and finished the rally. Bit of a shock seeing a car like that though, and was very relieved we didn't follow them.
Straight back into Assycombe out of that one, another almost 2 miles. We did way better through it the second time and were at least managing not to get lost between selectifs when they were only several yards apart! The forests were beginning to get dark now so nav light on, and we ramped through there in 38th place. There was a problem chipping us as we came in right on the arse of someone else - Dave catching the minuteman up!! But when it came to checking the results that night, it all seemed reasonable enough to me, so no query. As if I would anyway. Once it gets to that point of querying every moment, I think I will have ceased to enjoy it as much.
Then a longer stretch of forest, 2.7 miles. I've decided that ignoring the trees is the best option, and weirdly feel safer in forests than on really open selectifs. Especially ones with bloody great ditches at the side! When I added "Rough for 100 yds" at the Racecourse from the amendments, I had no idea how rough. We were climbing a hill and suddenly came across piles of timber, right next to the track, branches strewn across our route, and cones and tape at the side denoting major potholes. That was quite a stretch and pretty hairy. But, we did OK on that too and came in 28th, only 45 secs behind the lead car, which is good going when there was such a hill in it!
Then it was the Time Control and a chance to grab some food. Dave had a few things to check on the car so I walked up the 1/4mile road to the tea room. Part way there, it dawned on me that it was pitch black so I went back for the torch. Then, a little further up, I realised that we would need meal vouchers, so headed back to get them! Back and forth, passing people in the dark, could have been anyone! Met Dave the second time so walked up with him to get food.
Roast beef which was just what the doctor ordered, though by now I could happily have drunk a gallon of tea and the mug of tea never materialised before we had to leave. Gutted! Debated methods for incorporating a teasmade into my office as the tea deprivation is the hardest part of the Endurance!!
managed to get us lost leaving the bloody control, what an idiot, but we finally made it to Bellever 2 and romped round that, 21st this time. There was one car off, fairly spectacular, high up a track, but they seemed fine, although probably pretty miffed. From what I've read on the forums, they holed the sump on a rock in the middle of the track, so it wasn't an off as much as a breakdown.
Then the nightmare began. Regularities. I am going to have to get more experience with these. I can't quite recall how many turnings we missed but having learnt from Andy Ballantyne that NAM means Not as Mapped, and LWR is Long Way Round, I was so pleased that we'd worked out which way to go round the triangle, we missed a bloody code board. Damn! However, on return to HQ, it turned out we were in good company as 34 cars missed it, and only 31 got it. I'm sure it wasn't there......;o)
The timings went completely out the window just trying to find the route, and I was amazed we apparently finished it and only lost 45 secs. To me, that is bordering on miraculous. We were 35th through that one, and then had another one straight on top of it. There must be a way to do these things, as we then dropped a further 62secs on the next one. My insecurity about whether we are going the right way doesn't help Dave in the slightest, so I need to sort this out and learn to read the whites better. The guys who won dropped 9 secs over the whole of the 4 regularities. How do they do that?!! I tried using the stopwatch to time us to checkpoints, but we seemed to be so far out of it, and I was concentrating so hard on just finding the TCs that the stopwatch times went completely out the window. Another learning curve to climb, another time!
By now, exhaustion was beginning to set in, as well as frustration with myself at my seeming inability to read a map correctly. Two forest stages and it would be over for the night. Short section in Langage, where we came 38th, and then a somewhat exuberant push round Cann1 where we completely failed to stop astride, sliding gracefully over it towards the marshalls, grinning our heads off.
We couldn't find our way out of a paperbag by this time and the route to the hotel was only not as circuitous as it could have been because we had explored the whole area at length earlier, failing to find the road up to the forests. A roundabout turned out not to be a roundabout at all, but a block of houses with a road up each side!
Back to HQ. Park up, drink beer. Drink beer. Looked at interim results and we appeared to be standing 26th before penalties. That was impressive as it means our selectif times at the very least are good. Walk to Ibis hotel up the road. Note to self, always stay in HQ, however much it costs!!
Woke up to find we were 36th. Could have been far worse! So, put in a query about the code baord as 15 mins seemed hellish harsh and everyone was talking about it, so did the sheep thing. It was later reduced to 5mins for all of us as that should have been the penalty for a regularity. Whatever, fairly level playing field if 34 of us had got it!!
Saturday is now quite a blur, so I'm going to have to write that some other time. Suffice to say, more cars off, broke engine mounting, strapped up, bust diesel overflow pipe, filled clutch with fuel, smoked a helluva lot over the squaddies at Portreath, got lost in a field we should never have been in on Polish Farm 2, Polish Farm 1 got canned for many of us as the farmer was doing summat, got 62mph down the 1200 straight at Portreath, others were doing 85! Dave spent lunch break sorting out car and cleaning clutch with coca cola, I thought we were out at that point. Must trust my mechanic and the Golf far more!! Dave Walker went out after the Mini had overheating probs again, so did Jeremy Crook, sadly. Phil Bayliss had had a few probs overnight but seemed to be back in the running, and a co-driver, no names mentioned "cheated" by asking about our time on a previous selectif and looking at my codeboard answers! All in good humour though ;o) Missed an 'island' on Penhale to go round, and hence a code board, but found it on Penhale 2! Amazing beach down there.
By 4pm Saturday, could barely think straight, and just wanted it all to end! Couldn't make head nor tail of the diversion on the A38 even though it was simple as hell. Joe reversed into someone's spots in a garage, they'd had a 16 min off in Quidditch Moor or whatever it was called but were back in the running again after a tow out. Dale Glover (seeded 4)hit a tree, bent both axles and had to retire on Dunmere2. Dunmere2 was probably the most exciting bit of forest ever. Freefalllllll!! Rain, major wind, cold, tired. Dave drove Northcombe like a demon and we came 12th! Fucked up on the night nav again, no great surprise and this time lost 4mins on one but only 35secs on the other. And then into Cann 2 and the final bit of forest. Exhausted. Quick run back to the hotel and stupid idiot booked in 3 mins early at the control. That and the missed code board on night navA cost us 11 mins which would have put us 22nd, so lessons learnt as that would be my dream finish. Beer, beer, beer, sleep. Home.
The mobile rally office
Well, the Audi South West Endurance Rally has to have a mention because what an event it was!
Having only ever done one rally before, our experience is somewhat limited. My experience of reading maps is minimal, and plotting on the move as we drove through the Dorest, Devon and Cornwall lanes was a task and a half. Yes, we got lost. A lot! But I now feel that mastering plot and bash is a step closer, and am determined to conquer that next now my mobile office running skills are improving substantially. After that, I'm going to learn how to use a stopwatch on the regularities.....!
I was trying to explain to sprog 1 what I have to do in this 'office' and when you talk about it, you realise just what a lot is going on at any one time. And the fact that you are in a 4 point harness so movement is severely restricted, it has taken some working out how to get everything where I can reach it. Let alone climb the very steep learning curve that is endurance rallying.
Aside from the paperwork etc, the most important task has been to work out how to reach behind the driver's seat to get the cheese and onion pasties out in one piece from under the tool rolls, straps, spare parts etc which somehow always end up on top of the grub. Endurance is one thing, but hunger is not permissible.
The pork pies are definitely easier to retrieve in one piece, but you get sick of pork pies for two days solid, and variety in your diet is essential! We always come back with plenty of food that we wish we had remembered during the rally. This time we forgot the grapes and biscuits which had worked their way far under the driver's seat, but we managed to find the bananas. That wasn't so great though as my banana skin ended up in the poti, and once the light was on, it stank of cremated nana!
So, after ensuring we can eat, then there is the paperwork. This includes a road book with pace notes for the each day's selectifs (and sometimes tulips for the routes in between selectifs), a map book given to you by the organisers to try to give you some idea of where you ought to be going, a Philips Navigator atlas which weighs about the same as me, and then the OS maps for the regularity sections or to try and find exactly where you want wrong navigating from the map book or Philips! I can just about fold an OS map in a large room, given half an hour or so. In the front seat of the car, in a harness, it is a skill that is currently avoiding me.
Then there are the time cards which you have to be able to produce at every time control and marshall. All this lot is on your knee, although just occasionally the Philips manages to sneak back into the special shelf built for it under the dash to stop my legs going numb and falling off which would be hellish awkward when I dive out at selectifs to get a delay allowance! On top of that lot is a clipboard, which has on it the results from the previous day, the penalty and timing sections of the regs, our meal tickets, the car papers, and any other info we might need, phone numbers of VW dealers included!
As you can imagine, my legs are getting accustomed to the weight, but finding the right book, card etc at the right moment, when you are also trying to get your helmet off to go back onto a road section and handing your time card out the window to a marshall is taking some practice. The worst thing is when the whole lot ends up on the floor and you lose your pen down the side of the seat as well. And I reckon the Golf has eaten about 10 lighters now as I never seem to have one when a fag break finally presents itself.
Finally, in the paperwork section come the post-it notes, which are used for everything from marking where to open an OS map (but are no use on how to close the damned thing), marking a page in the roadbooks, map books or Philips I need to find easily, and sticking on the dash to mark the next turn off whilst I plot and bash the next stage of the route. They are also useful for reminding me what number we are running that day so I get the right arrival times at selectifs and time control, and which cars should be in front or behind of us so we don't get too much out of synch. By mid-Saturday this time, I could barely have told you my own name so Post-it notes come in very handy as an aide memoir for the very basics too!
Then there are the assortment of pencils, pens, rubbers, marker pens etc which you need. We've solved that with a handy bit of foam from the rollcage, strapped on the vertical roll bar by the door and drilled with holes to stick pens and pencils in - works brilliantly, and has been much admired by several other navigators who have just spent most of a stop searching down the sides of seats trying to retrieve errant pens. However, keeping the pens out of the hands of the sprogs in between rallies seems impossible, so I will have to learn to check that we have a full selection of writing implements before setting off. Marker pens are essential to mark routes as in the dark a thin pencil line on a map can be bordering on impossible to see with tired eyes. It is also hard first thing in the morning after a night in the bar with the Endurance crowd!!
Next we have the trip (a Brantz) which has to be constantly zeroed, checked, frozen (to account for wheel spin), and reversed when we go the wrong way! I can just reach this with my fingertips to zero all settings, and also have a remote button on a cable for zeroing the intermediates. This button however seems to spend most of its time on the floor just out of reach when I need it most! It needs to be where my driver can reach it for when I forget to zero it, which is far too often still so it will probably end up velcroed to the footwell somewhere near the gearstick as it likes it so much down there.
There is the nav light, which is fastened under the trip on the dash, and that constantly, when in use, gets in the way of the maps. But I don't see how that is ever going to change as it is essential and the maps are not going to get any easier to fold. (Although Guy yesterday suggested putting them on a roll like the Torah which bears thinking about!)
And then the poti which is a large, illuminated magnifying 'box' that plugs into the fag lighter, and sits on the maps to try and spot the white road we are supposed to have turned down. That is nearly always on the floor somewhere next to the rally bag, also out of reach!
Then there's the torch to read the code boards in the forest, or to illuminate the way to the marshalls. It is also an essential when trying to go for a pee in some dark forest. I nearly broke my leg on the Lombard as I fell through a hole in a wall and then into a seemingly endlessly deep ditch, which I had to scrabble my way out of, so the torch always comes with me now on those particular excursions!
What else? Some people have helmet nets, but I don't know where those go, so we don't have them yet, despite having acquired an ancient Dryad book on netting to try and make them. So, the helmets live in the chaos known as the back seat with Chas our mascot, and Dave has double jointed arms from being a mechanic and seems to be able to reach those where I can't. I ripped some parcel nets out of a Merc in a scrappie last year to put on the doors to keep stuff in, but we haven't remembered to fit them yet.
On the floor by my feet is the rally bag, which has a plastic folder full of pens etc (unless raided by the kids), travel sickness pills (not this time as they fell out in my car on the way there but luckily I didn't need them), mobile phone, head torch, spare torch, plastic bags to use as bins (or if the pills don't work!), directions to hotels, the way home etc, the full regs for the event, Motorsports licence, Motor Club membership cards, and for some completely unknown reason, a computer dongle.
Round my neck is the stopwatch, which I have never remembered to stop yet, a lanyard with a pen on it, and a lanyard with the entry card, car number, name etc on it.
Above my head is the OK/SOS board, which I have to grab, leap out and display every time we are forced to stop - twice in two rallies for punctures, luckily that is all so far.
In the door are my glasses, which I lose constantly, some crystallised ginger for those iffy moments (it works, I recommend it highly), a duster for cleaning off the door numbers occasionally, a rag for multiple uses, some cable ties, and a few other indefinable bits and bobs that have fallen in there over time, and now live there.
And I think that's pretty much my office. Dave's office is more complicated (and much bigger) as it has all the mechanical stuff in it, but he knows where all that is, and I don't need to. Phew!
Having only ever done one rally before, our experience is somewhat limited. My experience of reading maps is minimal, and plotting on the move as we drove through the Dorest, Devon and Cornwall lanes was a task and a half. Yes, we got lost. A lot! But I now feel that mastering plot and bash is a step closer, and am determined to conquer that next now my mobile office running skills are improving substantially. After that, I'm going to learn how to use a stopwatch on the regularities.....!
I was trying to explain to sprog 1 what I have to do in this 'office' and when you talk about it, you realise just what a lot is going on at any one time. And the fact that you are in a 4 point harness so movement is severely restricted, it has taken some working out how to get everything where I can reach it. Let alone climb the very steep learning curve that is endurance rallying.
Aside from the paperwork etc, the most important task has been to work out how to reach behind the driver's seat to get the cheese and onion pasties out in one piece from under the tool rolls, straps, spare parts etc which somehow always end up on top of the grub. Endurance is one thing, but hunger is not permissible.
The pork pies are definitely easier to retrieve in one piece, but you get sick of pork pies for two days solid, and variety in your diet is essential! We always come back with plenty of food that we wish we had remembered during the rally. This time we forgot the grapes and biscuits which had worked their way far under the driver's seat, but we managed to find the bananas. That wasn't so great though as my banana skin ended up in the poti, and once the light was on, it stank of cremated nana!
So, after ensuring we can eat, then there is the paperwork. This includes a road book with pace notes for the each day's selectifs (and sometimes tulips for the routes in between selectifs), a map book given to you by the organisers to try to give you some idea of where you ought to be going, a Philips Navigator atlas which weighs about the same as me, and then the OS maps for the regularity sections or to try and find exactly where you want wrong navigating from the map book or Philips! I can just about fold an OS map in a large room, given half an hour or so. In the front seat of the car, in a harness, it is a skill that is currently avoiding me.
Then there are the time cards which you have to be able to produce at every time control and marshall. All this lot is on your knee, although just occasionally the Philips manages to sneak back into the special shelf built for it under the dash to stop my legs going numb and falling off which would be hellish awkward when I dive out at selectifs to get a delay allowance! On top of that lot is a clipboard, which has on it the results from the previous day, the penalty and timing sections of the regs, our meal tickets, the car papers, and any other info we might need, phone numbers of VW dealers included!
As you can imagine, my legs are getting accustomed to the weight, but finding the right book, card etc at the right moment, when you are also trying to get your helmet off to go back onto a road section and handing your time card out the window to a marshall is taking some practice. The worst thing is when the whole lot ends up on the floor and you lose your pen down the side of the seat as well. And I reckon the Golf has eaten about 10 lighters now as I never seem to have one when a fag break finally presents itself.
Finally, in the paperwork section come the post-it notes, which are used for everything from marking where to open an OS map (but are no use on how to close the damned thing), marking a page in the roadbooks, map books or Philips I need to find easily, and sticking on the dash to mark the next turn off whilst I plot and bash the next stage of the route. They are also useful for reminding me what number we are running that day so I get the right arrival times at selectifs and time control, and which cars should be in front or behind of us so we don't get too much out of synch. By mid-Saturday this time, I could barely have told you my own name so Post-it notes come in very handy as an aide memoir for the very basics too!
Then there are the assortment of pencils, pens, rubbers, marker pens etc which you need. We've solved that with a handy bit of foam from the rollcage, strapped on the vertical roll bar by the door and drilled with holes to stick pens and pencils in - works brilliantly, and has been much admired by several other navigators who have just spent most of a stop searching down the sides of seats trying to retrieve errant pens. However, keeping the pens out of the hands of the sprogs in between rallies seems impossible, so I will have to learn to check that we have a full selection of writing implements before setting off. Marker pens are essential to mark routes as in the dark a thin pencil line on a map can be bordering on impossible to see with tired eyes. It is also hard first thing in the morning after a night in the bar with the Endurance crowd!!
Next we have the trip (a Brantz) which has to be constantly zeroed, checked, frozen (to account for wheel spin), and reversed when we go the wrong way! I can just reach this with my fingertips to zero all settings, and also have a remote button on a cable for zeroing the intermediates. This button however seems to spend most of its time on the floor just out of reach when I need it most! It needs to be where my driver can reach it for when I forget to zero it, which is far too often still so it will probably end up velcroed to the footwell somewhere near the gearstick as it likes it so much down there.
There is the nav light, which is fastened under the trip on the dash, and that constantly, when in use, gets in the way of the maps. But I don't see how that is ever going to change as it is essential and the maps are not going to get any easier to fold. (Although Guy yesterday suggested putting them on a roll like the Torah which bears thinking about!)
And then the poti which is a large, illuminated magnifying 'box' that plugs into the fag lighter, and sits on the maps to try and spot the white road we are supposed to have turned down. That is nearly always on the floor somewhere next to the rally bag, also out of reach!
Then there's the torch to read the code boards in the forest, or to illuminate the way to the marshalls. It is also an essential when trying to go for a pee in some dark forest. I nearly broke my leg on the Lombard as I fell through a hole in a wall and then into a seemingly endlessly deep ditch, which I had to scrabble my way out of, so the torch always comes with me now on those particular excursions!
What else? Some people have helmet nets, but I don't know where those go, so we don't have them yet, despite having acquired an ancient Dryad book on netting to try and make them. So, the helmets live in the chaos known as the back seat with Chas our mascot, and Dave has double jointed arms from being a mechanic and seems to be able to reach those where I can't. I ripped some parcel nets out of a Merc in a scrappie last year to put on the doors to keep stuff in, but we haven't remembered to fit them yet.
On the floor by my feet is the rally bag, which has a plastic folder full of pens etc (unless raided by the kids), travel sickness pills (not this time as they fell out in my car on the way there but luckily I didn't need them), mobile phone, head torch, spare torch, plastic bags to use as bins (or if the pills don't work!), directions to hotels, the way home etc, the full regs for the event, Motorsports licence, Motor Club membership cards, and for some completely unknown reason, a computer dongle.
Round my neck is the stopwatch, which I have never remembered to stop yet, a lanyard with a pen on it, and a lanyard with the entry card, car number, name etc on it.
Above my head is the OK/SOS board, which I have to grab, leap out and display every time we are forced to stop - twice in two rallies for punctures, luckily that is all so far.
In the door are my glasses, which I lose constantly, some crystallised ginger for those iffy moments (it works, I recommend it highly), a duster for cleaning off the door numbers occasionally, a rag for multiple uses, some cable ties, and a few other indefinable bits and bobs that have fallen in there over time, and now live there.
And I think that's pretty much my office. Dave's office is more complicated (and much bigger) as it has all the mechanical stuff in it, but he knows where all that is, and I don't need to. Phew!
MPs expenses under scrutiny, what about the RDAs???
On the drive back from the Audi SW Endurance, I was listening to File on Four on the radio about RDA expenses.
Stephen Broomhead, who is CEO of the NWDA, was reported to have run up a £51,000 taxi bill last year, which is more than all the MPs put together managed in the same period. I for one object strongly to Mr Broomhead using public funds to pay for a chauffeur driven limo to go to the Rugby Cup Final at Twickenham, in whatever capacity. The fact that he is also vice chairman of Warrington Wolves Rugby League Club and therefore probably wasn't there representing just the NWDA, well, to put it simply, stinks.
There were other examples given of ridiculous sums of money being spent by the RDAs, organisations which seem unfathomably unaccountable to anyone. £191,000 to take 13 RDA bods to Cannes for a property developers 'do' and hold shindigs on yachts was one such use of our money.
Having seen plenty of examples over the years of public money "wastage" by these public bodies, it seems that it is about time they were forced to account for the use of their budgets, not just year on year for the slightly waffy criteria the Govt deems appropriate for them but long term, just as a business needs to. After all, the RDAs are a major part of UK Plc and should be showing 'bang for the buck' in terms of their decisions and actions. Especially as this morning on the news, it is being reported that MPs must now submit receipts for anything over £25. That is as nothing compared to what some civil servants appear to be blowing on fripperies such as attending Rugby Cup Finals at our expense.
The big problem appears to be that the RDAs were 'forced' upon us by the EU. Now, bearing in mind the state of their accounts audits over the last 5 or more years, it is hardly surprising that that culture of unaccountability has spread down into the regions. However, as the money which goes into the coffers of the RDAs is the majority of the spend for the regions, it is time they had to operate in a more business-like manner and PROVE their worth, as well as showing ROI for the spend of this public money.
Claims that x jobs have been generated, or x benefits given to the regional/local economy etc by RDA actions can never shown to be accurate. After all, how can the RDA show how many jobs would have been created/saved/protected/safeguarded if they didn't exist? In some instances, some of their actions have failed abysmally to protect local jobs, in favour of some scheme or other that has then over time been shown to be entirely worthless and often unused.
It is depressing driving through certain towns and seeing large, expensive office blocks with some RDA sign outside proclaiming 'Luxury offices to let' etc which stand empty for months, and occasionally years on end, where perfectly good houses used to stand, or could have stood instead. We see business units empty, or filled with yet more craft shops in rural areas, because the RDA couldn't see fit to encourage high tech industries to locate by putting in high quality, future proofed comms eg a decent leased line or broadband connection. Scotland's incubator units (eg in Crieff) should show them the way....
How anyone can justify yet more small businesses in the craft and tourism industry in rural areas when the leisure economy is floundering, and we need to get into the knowledge economy, I have no idea. Rural areas do not need yet more low paid jobs in crafts, tourism (service jobs) etc at all. I have two kids, who are just beginning to look for work to supplement their meagre pocket money, and waiting on or standing behind a shop counter is not my idea of a valid career or job experience for them. However, it seems it is pretty much all that is on offer in rural Cumbria.
It is beyond me to understand why the RDAs, and Business Link, are given all of this funding for our regions, and yet have to prove to no-one what actual impact they are having over time, in rural economies in particular. If I ever meet someone working for Business Link as a consultant, advising businesses on how to succeed, who is not a failed business person rather than a successful one, I may well eat some item of clothing.
Many of these RDA folks are so lost/entrenched in the civil service culture (and yes, I am one of the many who believe they have entirely forgotten the meaning of the second word in their job description), and are so busy creating jobs for the boys, and spending budgets inefficiently just so they release the following year's funding, that it is no wonder this country is going tits up.
Talking to the RDAs, as we attempted to do on very many occasions over the years about broadband, you learn quite quickly about how this culture operates. And believe me, it is more of a mess than any File on Four programme can even begin to touch upon. The spend of public funds in such an arrogant, disjointed, short-sighted and casual manner, with often little or no reference to those in the regions who will be affected by spending decisions, could almost be called 'obscene'. It is definitely irresponsible.
There is no ombudsman to refer complaints to about RDAs. As one ex-contractor of the NWDA discovered, MPs are on the whole very unwilling to touch complaints about RDAs, and taking it as far as the EU is not just costly, but equally as pointless as they are all lying in the same bed.
The seemingly unshakeable belief of this Government that the RDAs are doing a good job with their budgets is a belief that needs picking up by the tail and rattling so hard that there is a public enquiry into the expenses of RDA officials, just as there has been with MPs. Every single civil servant should be made to account properly for every penny of public funds which passes through their departments, and those accounts should not be attached to some dreamed up criteria, outcomes or anything else intangible that the Govt come up with to justify the continued existence of these quangos.
The Regional Assemblies would have introduced some accountability into the system, but they have been scrapped. After god knows how many millions were spent on setting them up and their continued existence in the abyss they found themselves.
It is little wonder that the electorate of this country holds so little trust in Govt that they cannot be arsed to vote. Instead of seeing themselves implementing change through democracy, many now believe the rot is so inherent in our society, at so many levels, that a vote won't change the culture within, for instance, the civil service. And it is possibly why so many British citizens are planning to move abroad to live and work.
This wastage of, and irresponsiblity with, public money is not being addressed as the tumour that it is, which is causing an haemorraging of public money into pointless and often detrimental projects for our regions. The fact that however crap many of these civil servants' decisions are throughout their careers, they have a guaranteed pension may also be part of the problem.
One of the times when I stood up and spoke out very publicly about the RDAs (to a room of over 400 people, many of whom were civil servants), I managed to piss off someone so entirely within an RDA that he has ever since made sure that I will never ever get any work whatsoever through that RDA, or others he has been able to influence. Nor contribute to projects where they actually could have done with my experience and thinking, and that of my contacts. Sadly, what he missed was that I wasn't interested in earning money from them; I wanted to see implemented the change that would reflect well on the region, and hence his organisation. Had it been about money, maybe the bullying tactics would have forced me to keep my mouth shut in order to earn a crust, as it has with others, but my involvement with broadband was never about money.
And the changes that some of us foresaw for the regions have been well and truly missed because sometimes (not always by any means but often enough to really make an impact), the RDA folk don't have the humility, nous or even intelligence to seek the information they need to make rational decisions. Preferring to keep it all 'in-house' or within the cosy circle of their 'school tie' pals is a distinct part of the culture, and it backfires regularly on them, preventing them from achieving truly beneficial outcomes, outputs etc.
One RDA wasted £20million of public money on supposed broadband connectivity that even in your wildest dreams isn't, others have spent equivalent amounts of money connecting less than 100 people. When are these types of fiascos going to be investigated, and by whom??
Although it may not be politic to speak out, we live in a democracy and are entitled to free speech. The sooner others speak out about the misuse of public funding, and it is addressed, the better. On all issues which the RDAs have, unfortunately, become involved - housing, economic regeneration, communications, training etc etc etc.
Stephen Broomhead, who is CEO of the NWDA, was reported to have run up a £51,000 taxi bill last year, which is more than all the MPs put together managed in the same period. I for one object strongly to Mr Broomhead using public funds to pay for a chauffeur driven limo to go to the Rugby Cup Final at Twickenham, in whatever capacity. The fact that he is also vice chairman of Warrington Wolves Rugby League Club and therefore probably wasn't there representing just the NWDA, well, to put it simply, stinks.
There were other examples given of ridiculous sums of money being spent by the RDAs, organisations which seem unfathomably unaccountable to anyone. £191,000 to take 13 RDA bods to Cannes for a property developers 'do' and hold shindigs on yachts was one such use of our money.
Having seen plenty of examples over the years of public money "wastage" by these public bodies, it seems that it is about time they were forced to account for the use of their budgets, not just year on year for the slightly waffy criteria the Govt deems appropriate for them but long term, just as a business needs to. After all, the RDAs are a major part of UK Plc and should be showing 'bang for the buck' in terms of their decisions and actions. Especially as this morning on the news, it is being reported that MPs must now submit receipts for anything over £25. That is as nothing compared to what some civil servants appear to be blowing on fripperies such as attending Rugby Cup Finals at our expense.
The big problem appears to be that the RDAs were 'forced' upon us by the EU. Now, bearing in mind the state of their accounts audits over the last 5 or more years, it is hardly surprising that that culture of unaccountability has spread down into the regions. However, as the money which goes into the coffers of the RDAs is the majority of the spend for the regions, it is time they had to operate in a more business-like manner and PROVE their worth, as well as showing ROI for the spend of this public money.
Claims that x jobs have been generated, or x benefits given to the regional/local economy etc by RDA actions can never shown to be accurate. After all, how can the RDA show how many jobs would have been created/saved/protected/safeguarded if they didn't exist? In some instances, some of their actions have failed abysmally to protect local jobs, in favour of some scheme or other that has then over time been shown to be entirely worthless and often unused.
It is depressing driving through certain towns and seeing large, expensive office blocks with some RDA sign outside proclaiming 'Luxury offices to let' etc which stand empty for months, and occasionally years on end, where perfectly good houses used to stand, or could have stood instead. We see business units empty, or filled with yet more craft shops in rural areas, because the RDA couldn't see fit to encourage high tech industries to locate by putting in high quality, future proofed comms eg a decent leased line or broadband connection. Scotland's incubator units (eg in Crieff) should show them the way....
How anyone can justify yet more small businesses in the craft and tourism industry in rural areas when the leisure economy is floundering, and we need to get into the knowledge economy, I have no idea. Rural areas do not need yet more low paid jobs in crafts, tourism (service jobs) etc at all. I have two kids, who are just beginning to look for work to supplement their meagre pocket money, and waiting on or standing behind a shop counter is not my idea of a valid career or job experience for them. However, it seems it is pretty much all that is on offer in rural Cumbria.
It is beyond me to understand why the RDAs, and Business Link, are given all of this funding for our regions, and yet have to prove to no-one what actual impact they are having over time, in rural economies in particular. If I ever meet someone working for Business Link as a consultant, advising businesses on how to succeed, who is not a failed business person rather than a successful one, I may well eat some item of clothing.
Many of these RDA folks are so lost/entrenched in the civil service culture (and yes, I am one of the many who believe they have entirely forgotten the meaning of the second word in their job description), and are so busy creating jobs for the boys, and spending budgets inefficiently just so they release the following year's funding, that it is no wonder this country is going tits up.
Talking to the RDAs, as we attempted to do on very many occasions over the years about broadband, you learn quite quickly about how this culture operates. And believe me, it is more of a mess than any File on Four programme can even begin to touch upon. The spend of public funds in such an arrogant, disjointed, short-sighted and casual manner, with often little or no reference to those in the regions who will be affected by spending decisions, could almost be called 'obscene'. It is definitely irresponsible.
There is no ombudsman to refer complaints to about RDAs. As one ex-contractor of the NWDA discovered, MPs are on the whole very unwilling to touch complaints about RDAs, and taking it as far as the EU is not just costly, but equally as pointless as they are all lying in the same bed.
The seemingly unshakeable belief of this Government that the RDAs are doing a good job with their budgets is a belief that needs picking up by the tail and rattling so hard that there is a public enquiry into the expenses of RDA officials, just as there has been with MPs. Every single civil servant should be made to account properly for every penny of public funds which passes through their departments, and those accounts should not be attached to some dreamed up criteria, outcomes or anything else intangible that the Govt come up with to justify the continued existence of these quangos.
The Regional Assemblies would have introduced some accountability into the system, but they have been scrapped. After god knows how many millions were spent on setting them up and their continued existence in the abyss they found themselves.
It is little wonder that the electorate of this country holds so little trust in Govt that they cannot be arsed to vote. Instead of seeing themselves implementing change through democracy, many now believe the rot is so inherent in our society, at so many levels, that a vote won't change the culture within, for instance, the civil service. And it is possibly why so many British citizens are planning to move abroad to live and work.
This wastage of, and irresponsiblity with, public money is not being addressed as the tumour that it is, which is causing an haemorraging of public money into pointless and often detrimental projects for our regions. The fact that however crap many of these civil servants' decisions are throughout their careers, they have a guaranteed pension may also be part of the problem.
One of the times when I stood up and spoke out very publicly about the RDAs (to a room of over 400 people, many of whom were civil servants), I managed to piss off someone so entirely within an RDA that he has ever since made sure that I will never ever get any work whatsoever through that RDA, or others he has been able to influence. Nor contribute to projects where they actually could have done with my experience and thinking, and that of my contacts. Sadly, what he missed was that I wasn't interested in earning money from them; I wanted to see implemented the change that would reflect well on the region, and hence his organisation. Had it been about money, maybe the bullying tactics would have forced me to keep my mouth shut in order to earn a crust, as it has with others, but my involvement with broadband was never about money.
And the changes that some of us foresaw for the regions have been well and truly missed because sometimes (not always by any means but often enough to really make an impact), the RDA folk don't have the humility, nous or even intelligence to seek the information they need to make rational decisions. Preferring to keep it all 'in-house' or within the cosy circle of their 'school tie' pals is a distinct part of the culture, and it backfires regularly on them, preventing them from achieving truly beneficial outcomes, outputs etc.
One RDA wasted £20million of public money on supposed broadband connectivity that even in your wildest dreams isn't, others have spent equivalent amounts of money connecting less than 100 people. When are these types of fiascos going to be investigated, and by whom??
Although it may not be politic to speak out, we live in a democracy and are entitled to free speech. The sooner others speak out about the misuse of public funding, and it is addressed, the better. On all issues which the RDAs have, unfortunately, become involved - housing, economic regeneration, communications, training etc etc etc.
Sunday 24 February 2008
Live a little
Yesterday, in a moment of glory, I nearly threw away all that I am working for with my kids, house etc to get re-involved in broadband. It only took a minor announcement from the DTI (DataBase ERRor as they are now called) about an indie review to think it would be worth getting involved again.
Luckily, my brain has regained some sort of equilibrium and we are back on track.
It's RALLY time.
The VW was here tonight, with my name on the windows, (minus an 'i') and it turns out the first rally of our Endurance Rally Championship is not this weekend but next. YES! This time in a fortnight we will be standing in a bar in Plymouth (with any luck) celebrating the end of the first rally we have partaken in this season. ie the second ever!!!
I cannot wait.
I have even tried to watch the promo Youtube video that South Hams Motor Club have on their site, but of course it must be too far to send it to Cumbria. Can't see it. (Bloody useless thing that they call broadband in this country - still not working. Note to self: do not get distracted.)
It might be a good thing actually, as after my driver has been here tonight, all I can think of is RALLY!
I cannot wait. And having something to live for has actually managed to ram it home that life is for living.
I've wasted well over 10 years of my life pushing for broadband in this god forsaken country, and now I am 40, it really is time to get on with the things in life that pay back. Not financially, obviously, but in FUN. And if there was anything that would ever put a big smile on your face it would be Endurance Rallying.
And I am desperately proud to be involved in the Endurance Rallying World. What a brilliant bunch of people they are.
Live a little. Whatever you want to do, whether it's paragliding - I know a man for that! or rallying, or horse riding or whatever, take the day off work and JFDI!!!
Luckily, my brain has regained some sort of equilibrium and we are back on track.
It's RALLY time.
The VW was here tonight, with my name on the windows, (minus an 'i') and it turns out the first rally of our Endurance Rally Championship is not this weekend but next. YES! This time in a fortnight we will be standing in a bar in Plymouth (with any luck) celebrating the end of the first rally we have partaken in this season. ie the second ever!!!
I cannot wait.
I have even tried to watch the promo Youtube video that South Hams Motor Club have on their site, but of course it must be too far to send it to Cumbria. Can't see it. (Bloody useless thing that they call broadband in this country - still not working. Note to self: do not get distracted.)
It might be a good thing actually, as after my driver has been here tonight, all I can think of is RALLY!
I cannot wait. And having something to live for has actually managed to ram it home that life is for living.
I've wasted well over 10 years of my life pushing for broadband in this god forsaken country, and now I am 40, it really is time to get on with the things in life that pay back. Not financially, obviously, but in FUN. And if there was anything that would ever put a big smile on your face it would be Endurance Rallying.
And I am desperately proud to be involved in the Endurance Rallying World. What a brilliant bunch of people they are.
Live a little. Whatever you want to do, whether it's paragliding - I know a man for that! or rallying, or horse riding or whatever, take the day off work and JFDI!!!
Saturday 23 February 2008
Give and Take
I have to admit to being rather taken with Freecycle. It keeps many useful items away from the national and local landfill lunacy which seems unstoppable, and you get to meet some great people.
However, it is making me wonder whether people are naturally 'givers', 'takers, or whether you can be both?
If you look at the archives, some names never ever occur in Offered, only Wanted, and vice versa.
I had to ask whether anyone had something/ a particular item today, and I had to think about it first. How important is this item that I go public and ask for it? What would I do with it if I get it? Do I really want to put myself out as begging for this item, or loan of it, or should I just bite the bullet and spend over £200 to get one? That was sort of the deciding factor. I couldn't afford one if I wanted, and having looked on Ebay, I am never really going to find one at a price I can afford.
(I know you want to know, so it's an overlocking machine. I bought a jumper from Guru in Darlington, and it doesn't fit. Even if I eat 20 cakes a day for the rest of my life, and grow 4ft taller it is never going to fit, but I love it. It's a South American real wool multi-coloured jumper and all I need to do is take it in with an overlocking machine. This jumper was my annual buy of a new item of clothing for me and it cost £30, which is a bloody fortune, and more than most of the rest of my wardrobe is worth.
The fact it didn't fit was absolutely irrelevant as it was the jumper I wanted, and still want, and will want every day of its life. However, if it fit, it would stop everyone else wingeing about the fact it's too big! And I would actually be happier if it fit me, not some 8ft gorilla in the Andes. Having been there, I can't possibly imagine who they knit it for! And yes, I did try putting it in the washing machine on a hot wash, and through the tumble dryer, and it is still gloriously too big!)
However, my trawl through the Freecycle archives did reveal that there are people on there who (seem to) just want, and people on there who offer. There are very few people who offer and want and give away items better, or better condition, than those they want.
So, tonight, I am wondering. Even in the fab world of Freecycle, is our grabbing, greedy culture still at work? Or do people find when they go to collect an item from a Freecycler that you come away with far more than you expected, and you end up giving these new friends items you don't need but they do?
Is the value of the network hidden?
Because the value I have had from Freecycle so far is far and away beyond what I had expected from an initial advert. The good feeling from giving is actually quadrupled when the person you are giving to suddenly gives something back, unexpectedly. Whether that is a glass of home brew, a promise of some apples later in the year, or 10 mins meeting their kids and a whole new family in your community, that giving from then, unasked for and unexpected, adds the hidden value of the network.
If you could capitalise on it, IMHO, you would break it, because you would break huamn nature. But if you could bottle it, pwoo-ee! I think you'd have something. Watch out for my next ads on Ebay!
Joking aside, I think the real value of networks is in the hidden intricacies of such networks, the little asides that human nature can add. And I think this ties in to my Mechanical Turk post on the Web PR blog yesterday. In a mechanised world, there will always be the 'human touch' that adds a spark, an incandescence, a passion to everything.
And long may it reign!
Let them take, let them give, let me meet the ones who have what I need, and take away what I don't. The trusted and untrustworthy, The friendly, the needy. And Pan, give me an overlocking machine so I can enjoy my jumper to the full!
However, it is making me wonder whether people are naturally 'givers', 'takers, or whether you can be both?
If you look at the archives, some names never ever occur in Offered, only Wanted, and vice versa.
I had to ask whether anyone had something/ a particular item today, and I had to think about it first. How important is this item that I go public and ask for it? What would I do with it if I get it? Do I really want to put myself out as begging for this item, or loan of it, or should I just bite the bullet and spend over £200 to get one? That was sort of the deciding factor. I couldn't afford one if I wanted, and having looked on Ebay, I am never really going to find one at a price I can afford.
(I know you want to know, so it's an overlocking machine. I bought a jumper from Guru in Darlington, and it doesn't fit. Even if I eat 20 cakes a day for the rest of my life, and grow 4ft taller it is never going to fit, but I love it. It's a South American real wool multi-coloured jumper and all I need to do is take it in with an overlocking machine. This jumper was my annual buy of a new item of clothing for me and it cost £30, which is a bloody fortune, and more than most of the rest of my wardrobe is worth.
The fact it didn't fit was absolutely irrelevant as it was the jumper I wanted, and still want, and will want every day of its life. However, if it fit, it would stop everyone else wingeing about the fact it's too big! And I would actually be happier if it fit me, not some 8ft gorilla in the Andes. Having been there, I can't possibly imagine who they knit it for! And yes, I did try putting it in the washing machine on a hot wash, and through the tumble dryer, and it is still gloriously too big!)
However, my trawl through the Freecycle archives did reveal that there are people on there who (seem to) just want, and people on there who offer. There are very few people who offer and want and give away items better, or better condition, than those they want.
So, tonight, I am wondering. Even in the fab world of Freecycle, is our grabbing, greedy culture still at work? Or do people find when they go to collect an item from a Freecycler that you come away with far more than you expected, and you end up giving these new friends items you don't need but they do?
Is the value of the network hidden?
Because the value I have had from Freecycle so far is far and away beyond what I had expected from an initial advert. The good feeling from giving is actually quadrupled when the person you are giving to suddenly gives something back, unexpectedly. Whether that is a glass of home brew, a promise of some apples later in the year, or 10 mins meeting their kids and a whole new family in your community, that giving from then, unasked for and unexpected, adds the hidden value of the network.
If you could capitalise on it, IMHO, you would break it, because you would break huamn nature. But if you could bottle it, pwoo-ee! I think you'd have something. Watch out for my next ads on Ebay!
Joking aside, I think the real value of networks is in the hidden intricacies of such networks, the little asides that human nature can add. And I think this ties in to my Mechanical Turk post on the Web PR blog yesterday. In a mechanised world, there will always be the 'human touch' that adds a spark, an incandescence, a passion to everything.
And long may it reign!
Let them take, let them give, let me meet the ones who have what I need, and take away what I don't. The trusted and untrustworthy, The friendly, the needy. And Pan, give me an overlocking machine so I can enjoy my jumper to the full!
Thursday 21 February 2008
Smart Meters
If you could join up all the dots about me, apart from being one helluva mess, you would notice that the wireless issue crops up over and over again. Not necessarily from a telecoms or technical point of view, but more from a communication point of view.
And smart meters are one area where I just cannot understand what is going on, nor why our utilities etc companies don't get together and get on top of the issues.
What are the issues?
OK, from a utility company POV, there is a need to:
1) Be able to easily access the meters and read them for water, electrickery etc without needing to knock on each house door or business premises
2) Be able to spot leakages or wastage easily - whether this be a burst pipe in a school or a household using more than they can afford to pay for
The easiest way to deal with both of these is to have the meters reporting back in to "HQ". And the easiest way to do that is via wireless, or fibre, or "fiwi". It would not be so great to have a meter plugged in to a telephone line as the amount of spare copper is limited, and the meter does not need to report back constantly so the copper would be underused. As a scarce resource, this is not ideal.
(However, if you were to stop using copper between the street cabs and the homes/businesses for voice and data, it might be a damned good use of the copper rather than pull it out the ground and flog it into a lucrative, profitable marketplace. But that is another discussion!)
For homes and businesses, it would be good if the meter could inform them if they were using above average of the utility compared to say comparable businesses in the region, or their neighbours. This might encourage them to cut down on usage and hence reduce their bills.
There is additionally a major problem in the UKl over this stuff called "broadband". The truth of the matter is that we just don't have it. Not compared to places like Korea, Sweden, Italy, Estonia and even Outer Mongolia. And until someone finds a way of getting the owners of the infrastructure to work together using existing resource eg fibre optics, wireless masts, street cabs and exchanges etc, it is highly likely to stay that way. Particularly for the non honey pot type areas, like most of Britain. Look on a map and see how much green there is? No cities or big urbanisations? That's where there is sod all broadband at all.
And this is where smart meters come in. The EU regulated on smart meters to be introduced in 2007, but it seems the Brits haven't quite noticed that piece of regulation yet. Or those utility companies who can put prices up and annoucne £500 million profits a couple of weeks later are jittery about the potential cost.
Now, imagine if every home and business needed its utility meters replacing. We have electricity and water only, but others have gas too. That would be three new smart meters, all dishing out a wireless signal to be picked up either very locally (eg over Bluetooth or similar) by meter readers who didn't have to get out of their vehicles and just needed to kerb crawl to get a reading, or they would be connected into a larger wireless cloud and feed their data back to a data centre or similar for the utility companies. Latest figures have these costing the consumer, not the utility company, at around £180. Yeah right. I don't think so.
There are however issues with smart meters as they are currently espoused. eg one per utility company.
Firstly, the wireless interference between my three utility metres, next door's, and the rest of my neighbours could be a major issue. Secondly, a ton of people would come out of the woodwork saying they now have a permanent headache, or chilblains year round or something because of the wireless and thirdly, it would cost shedloads of dosh, not just to install said meters but also for the data costs and installing wireless equipment to cover the nation with a wireless cloud.
And therein lies the rub. United Utilities, who deal with our water, also own a telecoms company. It used to be called Your Communications, and is now owned and run by Thus and Kingston Communications. So, these electrickery companies are not foreigners to telco games. Apparently, the top wire on all those enormous pylons you see across the country is a fibre optic telco data cable. Even the water companies have dabbled in the telco markets, and you only need look at the furore around H2) and their plan to stick fibre optic down sewers to see that the water companies are in there too.
The problem with communications infrastructure in our country is that no-one seems to be joining the dots. As wireless needs to become more ubiquitous, the mobile oeprators extend their 3G etc networks to bring data coverage, the telcos faff around, generally, with the likes of The Cloud hotspots, (and stealing the term "wireless broadband" so everyone assumes it is that new box BT has just given them and no more), the utility companies just merge with one another, and the odd telco etc, but no-one is joining the dots.
I am going to try to.
1)The need for broadband speed, accessible and affordable and available to all, everywhere in the UK, and fast as hell. Yes... 1Gbps symmetrical, ta.
2) Supposed scarcity of bandwidth whilst we have unused resource in dark fibre lying all over the country and data costs approaching zero
3) Compliance with EU regulation on smart meters
4)The success of wifi mesh networks
5) The fact that the majority of mobile calls are made in the cell the call orginates from or a neighbouring one
Right, let's put this together.
Into my house, you put a smart meter, that measures electricity, gas and water consumption. On that smart meter is a small wireless antenna. The meter can both transmit and receive information. That meter meshes with the meter in my neighbours' houses, and his with the next house and all others it can see, creating a resilient mesh network throughout our village primarily. In our street cabinet (which I happen to know is one 802.11b 8db antenna hop from most of the houses in the village, and 2 from the top of the village), is another meshbox, and some kit to convert from wireless to fibre.
Every smart meter acts as an access point not just for the utility companies but also to provide internet access. Should you wish to have multiple resilience, the local copper sub-loop can provide back ups. However, should this be needed eg if there was a nuclear magnetic pulse which knocked out the wireless, any survivors of the nuclear bomb could expect reduced internet download and upload speeds for a while over the VDSL link. (If the street cabinet were affected by thermo nuclear activity, they'd be back on ADSL which round here is absolutely appalling. But perhaps that would be the last thing anyone would be concerned about....?)
The upgrade programme on the horizon would then obviously focus on fibre in the core network eg between exchanges, (which is mostly done), and then fibre from the exchanges to the street cabinets. Obviously, this would be best piloted in rural areas first on the principle of disturbing the least amount of people at a time. And on the understanding that the EU or Gummint, or some such body would fund the innovative pilot of FTTcabinet roll out. (Innovative in the UK only, most other countries are already implementing FTTH.) Many of the utility companies may find that they actually own conduit in the vicinity of the proposed rural areas, as well as dark fibre, and decide to avoid the exchanges and street cabs entirely. A simple wayleave payment to impoverished farmers and some backhanders to the planners would no doubt see new utility-owned street cabs replacements and alternative exchanges springing up where cows, sheep and pigs once dwelt. This would no doubt be lucrative for farmers and count as 'farm diversity' and be applauded by the planning authorities too.
There would also have to be subsidies for the smart meters, and a compensation plan for the lunatics who think that wifi (or whichver lump of spectrum was used) is going to damage their health. (There may prove to be some mileage in moving them all up to the Outer Hebrides to live under and work on the windmills needed to power London's exorbitant energy requirements. Potentially the whoomp whoomp of the windmills would drive them truly insane.)
The amount of bandwidth required to transfer data to and from the smart meters
could be charged at exactly the same rate as it currently costs in environmental damage and economics to send out troops of meter readers in vans around the nation. The utility companies would need to buy bandwidth from someone, which presumably will be BT and/or Branson, so that would cut them into the pie and not leave them moaning about their lack of involvement in such an important project - even if it is in rural areas firstly.
However, the local transmission of data would cost the utility companies very little as they own the pipes, and they could retrain a few of the meter readers to maintain the networks. Over the last 20 years or so, it has become apparent that UK Gummint has a policy to keep down the unemployed numbers by taking as many on as possible as civil servants so the Gummint could start a whole new department called "Wireless, Access and Communications Complaints Organisation" - the WACCOs for short who deal with everyone who thinks wireless makes them nauseous or affects their appetite.
Right, so we have a wireless mesh access point smart meter in every home, fibre to at the very least the street cabs and exchanges, a wireless cloud over most of the country, EU regulatory compliance, data being fed from the meters to the utility companies, telcos and utility companies using (up to now) untapped and unused resources such as dark fibre), every home with at the very least a 100Mbps symmetrical wireless connection out to the Net with a VDSL failover on the copper, or the copper being ripped out and flogged on the open market at way more than anyone could ever have dared dream (this also stops it being nicked).
What else? A burgeoning knowledge economy etc in rural areas, geeks from towns travelling out to rural hotspots ie most of the countryside to get a decent connection, which would hopefully encourage the train companies to put on a proper train service, a properly used network infrastructure, a few new people in a new Gummint department, and a lot more people in the Outer Hebrides, which will no doubt get better transport links and services to deal with them. With any luck they will start a campaign against the windmills and force London to switch off a few lights for a change instead of ruining a beautiful (if now somewhat over-populated) area of the British Isles. Plus a bunch of psychiatrists relocating to grab the gummint compensated treatment programmes to treat total eejuts.
Anyway, just a thought. Anyone fancy importaing a few smart meters that are mesh enabled and giving British Gas a call before they spend all that profit?
And smart meters are one area where I just cannot understand what is going on, nor why our utilities etc companies don't get together and get on top of the issues.
What are the issues?
OK, from a utility company POV, there is a need to:
1) Be able to easily access the meters and read them for water, electrickery etc without needing to knock on each house door or business premises
2) Be able to spot leakages or wastage easily - whether this be a burst pipe in a school or a household using more than they can afford to pay for
The easiest way to deal with both of these is to have the meters reporting back in to "HQ". And the easiest way to do that is via wireless, or fibre, or "fiwi". It would not be so great to have a meter plugged in to a telephone line as the amount of spare copper is limited, and the meter does not need to report back constantly so the copper would be underused. As a scarce resource, this is not ideal.
(However, if you were to stop using copper between the street cabs and the homes/businesses for voice and data, it might be a damned good use of the copper rather than pull it out the ground and flog it into a lucrative, profitable marketplace. But that is another discussion!)
For homes and businesses, it would be good if the meter could inform them if they were using above average of the utility compared to say comparable businesses in the region, or their neighbours. This might encourage them to cut down on usage and hence reduce their bills.
There is additionally a major problem in the UKl over this stuff called "broadband". The truth of the matter is that we just don't have it. Not compared to places like Korea, Sweden, Italy, Estonia and even Outer Mongolia. And until someone finds a way of getting the owners of the infrastructure to work together using existing resource eg fibre optics, wireless masts, street cabs and exchanges etc, it is highly likely to stay that way. Particularly for the non honey pot type areas, like most of Britain. Look on a map and see how much green there is? No cities or big urbanisations? That's where there is sod all broadband at all.
And this is where smart meters come in. The EU regulated on smart meters to be introduced in 2007, but it seems the Brits haven't quite noticed that piece of regulation yet. Or those utility companies who can put prices up and annoucne £500 million profits a couple of weeks later are jittery about the potential cost.
Now, imagine if every home and business needed its utility meters replacing. We have electricity and water only, but others have gas too. That would be three new smart meters, all dishing out a wireless signal to be picked up either very locally (eg over Bluetooth or similar) by meter readers who didn't have to get out of their vehicles and just needed to kerb crawl to get a reading, or they would be connected into a larger wireless cloud and feed their data back to a data centre or similar for the utility companies. Latest figures have these costing the consumer, not the utility company, at around £180. Yeah right. I don't think so.
There are however issues with smart meters as they are currently espoused. eg one per utility company.
Firstly, the wireless interference between my three utility metres, next door's, and the rest of my neighbours could be a major issue. Secondly, a ton of people would come out of the woodwork saying they now have a permanent headache, or chilblains year round or something because of the wireless and thirdly, it would cost shedloads of dosh, not just to install said meters but also for the data costs and installing wireless equipment to cover the nation with a wireless cloud.
And therein lies the rub. United Utilities, who deal with our water, also own a telecoms company. It used to be called Your Communications, and is now owned and run by Thus and Kingston Communications. So, these electrickery companies are not foreigners to telco games. Apparently, the top wire on all those enormous pylons you see across the country is a fibre optic telco data cable. Even the water companies have dabbled in the telco markets, and you only need look at the furore around H2) and their plan to stick fibre optic down sewers to see that the water companies are in there too.
The problem with communications infrastructure in our country is that no-one seems to be joining the dots. As wireless needs to become more ubiquitous, the mobile oeprators extend their 3G etc networks to bring data coverage, the telcos faff around, generally, with the likes of The Cloud hotspots, (and stealing the term "wireless broadband" so everyone assumes it is that new box BT has just given them and no more), the utility companies just merge with one another, and the odd telco etc, but no-one is joining the dots.
I am going to try to.
1)The need for broadband speed, accessible and affordable and available to all, everywhere in the UK, and fast as hell. Yes... 1Gbps symmetrical, ta.
2) Supposed scarcity of bandwidth whilst we have unused resource in dark fibre lying all over the country and data costs approaching zero
3) Compliance with EU regulation on smart meters
4)The success of wifi mesh networks
5) The fact that the majority of mobile calls are made in the cell the call orginates from or a neighbouring one
Right, let's put this together.
Into my house, you put a smart meter, that measures electricity, gas and water consumption. On that smart meter is a small wireless antenna. The meter can both transmit and receive information. That meter meshes with the meter in my neighbours' houses, and his with the next house and all others it can see, creating a resilient mesh network throughout our village primarily. In our street cabinet (which I happen to know is one 802.11b 8db antenna hop from most of the houses in the village, and 2 from the top of the village), is another meshbox, and some kit to convert from wireless to fibre.
Every smart meter acts as an access point not just for the utility companies but also to provide internet access. Should you wish to have multiple resilience, the local copper sub-loop can provide back ups. However, should this be needed eg if there was a nuclear magnetic pulse which knocked out the wireless, any survivors of the nuclear bomb could expect reduced internet download and upload speeds for a while over the VDSL link. (If the street cabinet were affected by thermo nuclear activity, they'd be back on ADSL which round here is absolutely appalling. But perhaps that would be the last thing anyone would be concerned about....?)
The upgrade programme on the horizon would then obviously focus on fibre in the core network eg between exchanges, (which is mostly done), and then fibre from the exchanges to the street cabinets. Obviously, this would be best piloted in rural areas first on the principle of disturbing the least amount of people at a time. And on the understanding that the EU or Gummint, or some such body would fund the innovative pilot of FTTcabinet roll out. (Innovative in the UK only, most other countries are already implementing FTTH.) Many of the utility companies may find that they actually own conduit in the vicinity of the proposed rural areas, as well as dark fibre, and decide to avoid the exchanges and street cabs entirely. A simple wayleave payment to impoverished farmers and some backhanders to the planners would no doubt see new utility-owned street cabs replacements and alternative exchanges springing up where cows, sheep and pigs once dwelt. This would no doubt be lucrative for farmers and count as 'farm diversity' and be applauded by the planning authorities too.
There would also have to be subsidies for the smart meters, and a compensation plan for the lunatics who think that wifi (or whichver lump of spectrum was used) is going to damage their health. (There may prove to be some mileage in moving them all up to the Outer Hebrides to live under and work on the windmills needed to power London's exorbitant energy requirements. Potentially the whoomp whoomp of the windmills would drive them truly insane.)
The amount of bandwidth required to transfer data to and from the smart meters
could be charged at exactly the same rate as it currently costs in environmental damage and economics to send out troops of meter readers in vans around the nation. The utility companies would need to buy bandwidth from someone, which presumably will be BT and/or Branson, so that would cut them into the pie and not leave them moaning about their lack of involvement in such an important project - even if it is in rural areas firstly.
However, the local transmission of data would cost the utility companies very little as they own the pipes, and they could retrain a few of the meter readers to maintain the networks. Over the last 20 years or so, it has become apparent that UK Gummint has a policy to keep down the unemployed numbers by taking as many on as possible as civil servants so the Gummint could start a whole new department called "Wireless, Access and Communications Complaints Organisation" - the WACCOs for short who deal with everyone who thinks wireless makes them nauseous or affects their appetite.
Right, so we have a wireless mesh access point smart meter in every home, fibre to at the very least the street cabs and exchanges, a wireless cloud over most of the country, EU regulatory compliance, data being fed from the meters to the utility companies, telcos and utility companies using (up to now) untapped and unused resources such as dark fibre), every home with at the very least a 100Mbps symmetrical wireless connection out to the Net with a VDSL failover on the copper, or the copper being ripped out and flogged on the open market at way more than anyone could ever have dared dream (this also stops it being nicked).
What else? A burgeoning knowledge economy etc in rural areas, geeks from towns travelling out to rural hotspots ie most of the countryside to get a decent connection, which would hopefully encourage the train companies to put on a proper train service, a properly used network infrastructure, a few new people in a new Gummint department, and a lot more people in the Outer Hebrides, which will no doubt get better transport links and services to deal with them. With any luck they will start a campaign against the windmills and force London to switch off a few lights for a change instead of ruining a beautiful (if now somewhat over-populated) area of the British Isles. Plus a bunch of psychiatrists relocating to grab the gummint compensated treatment programmes to treat total eejuts.
Anyway, just a thought. Anyone fancy importaing a few smart meters that are mesh enabled and giving British Gas a call before they spend all that profit?
Pay as you throw vs recycling
Once again, the Gummint's attempts to reduce the amount going to landfill are in the news. This time it is their impoverished and poorly thought out pay as you throw pilot schemes. These would have lasted 3 years, and then been evaluated to decide whther or not to introduce them on a wider, national level.
Talk about too little, too late.
Weirdly, the VT accompanying the story showed diggers etc on a landfill site moving what appeared to be tons of wood amongst the plastic bags etc. One has to wonder what wood is doing making it to a landfill in the 21st century. After all, just because London is a smokeless zone, doesn't mean that the rest of the country is. So, it could be burnt to keep a few OAPs and low income families warm. Or it could be reused, to make MDF or whatever else scrap wood can be used for.
Recently, there was an announcement about how much the blue bags that our council, Eden District, has introduced and the extra tonnage that adds per year to landfill. One would think that the cost of introducing wheelie bins would be substantially less than the cost of producing the blue bags with EDC printed on them, and the fines which are heading their way from the EU for overloading the landfill and making little attempt to reduce the amount going in to landfill.
Eden District Council is a prime example of the gross stupidity being exhibited by our councils, with our money. As I have mentioned before, our local tip used to be run by a guy called Stig. He would keep a keen eye open for what was going into the skips, and make sure that anything that could be potentially reused was rescued and put to one side. Going to the tip inevitably meant you came away with more than you took! But it was generally all useful stuff. Our Belfast sink came from there, as well as many other items that have been reused around the house, and saved us a few quid.
Now, our local tip is run by two 'bouncers' who insist that everything is put into the skips, whether it is potentially useful or not to someone else, and that nothing can be removed. At that point, I was pleased to discover Freecycle, which does allow us to clear the shed of items that are bound to be of some use to someone else and post them on our local Freecycle forum. If only more people knew about Freecycle and groups were in existence across every area of the country. Last week we acquired a washing machine from there (Thanks, Fiona!!) and it's nice to know that 1) we have saved something from landfill that functions brilliantly and 2)we haven't encouraged yet another washing machine to be built by buying a new one.
Our local recycling bank is situated about a mile out of the village, meaning that anyone wishing to dispose of bottles etc has to drive there. Gordon Bennett, how dim are these councillors? How unenvironmentally friendly is having to use petrol every time we want to recycle? Why couldn't they have put it in the village so everyone could easily access it? It's not as if we don't have plenty of places where it could have been put - pick a field!
And I keep hearing stories about recycling banks being closed because they are "too well-used". Arg! Every time I have been to any of our local recycling banks recently, they tend to be overflowing, as more and more people get into recycling as much of their household rubbish as possible. And this is the way it should be. Until the council realise that the people are willing to do all this hard graft for them, and introduce wheelie bins which they empty when they would normally collect the rubbish, we seem to be lumbered with this ludicrous situation. After all, they are going round every household anyway, so why not reduce the amount going to recycling banks by collecting it from our doorsteps in one hit?
And where are the community compost bins? I've noticed that in our blue bags each way, the thing taking up the most space is firstly plastic packaging - we now go to the butcher for most of our meat rather than the supermarket as that is the prime offender - and secondly, food waste. We do have a compost bin, if I could just find it in the chaos of belongings that have resulted from moving house 3 times in 6 months, but how many households don't, and have no garden etc to put the compost on?
Compost generates heat, and I think it is in Nottinghamshire where they have municipal compost heaps which generate heat etc for public buildings. These, as far as I recall, have been in place since the 70s so it's hardly a new idea. Secondly, compost has a resale and reuse value. Considering our local farmers are spreading human shit on the land around the village currently, (and yes, it STINKS!) if the worst came to the worst and it was given to them for free to spread on their land, at least it wouldn't be going in landfill, and it would be putting some good back into the land that grows our food.
As an island, we seem remarkably wasteful of the resources we have. Whether that is overfishing our seas, or ignoring the food that lives wild on our shores, or encouraging a culture where things are obsolete almost before they have been bought, we seem profligate with what we have, and uncaring about what we could have.
The crap attitude in council chambers about dealing with the problems is, I suspect, national. And extends clearly into Westminster. I think that if we dealt with the lights off issue I posted about yesterday, (did I hit publish?!), and the compost and recycling, we'd make far more of an impact than any of the other supposedly good ideas that come out of either Westminster or Brussels to make a difference to waste on this part of our planet.
Why is it so difficult? If some councils can run scrap stores, and give every household and business a wheelie bin (some are divided into 2 or 3 partitions for different recyclable materials), and sort out composting, then why can't that be adopted nationally? It apparently only takes 30 days of doing something each day for it to become a habit, so how long really would it take to retrain this nation to reuse, reduce and recycle??
Talk about too little, too late.
Weirdly, the VT accompanying the story showed diggers etc on a landfill site moving what appeared to be tons of wood amongst the plastic bags etc. One has to wonder what wood is doing making it to a landfill in the 21st century. After all, just because London is a smokeless zone, doesn't mean that the rest of the country is. So, it could be burnt to keep a few OAPs and low income families warm. Or it could be reused, to make MDF or whatever else scrap wood can be used for.
Recently, there was an announcement about how much the blue bags that our council, Eden District, has introduced and the extra tonnage that adds per year to landfill. One would think that the cost of introducing wheelie bins would be substantially less than the cost of producing the blue bags with EDC printed on them, and the fines which are heading their way from the EU for overloading the landfill and making little attempt to reduce the amount going in to landfill.
Eden District Council is a prime example of the gross stupidity being exhibited by our councils, with our money. As I have mentioned before, our local tip used to be run by a guy called Stig. He would keep a keen eye open for what was going into the skips, and make sure that anything that could be potentially reused was rescued and put to one side. Going to the tip inevitably meant you came away with more than you took! But it was generally all useful stuff. Our Belfast sink came from there, as well as many other items that have been reused around the house, and saved us a few quid.
Now, our local tip is run by two 'bouncers' who insist that everything is put into the skips, whether it is potentially useful or not to someone else, and that nothing can be removed. At that point, I was pleased to discover Freecycle, which does allow us to clear the shed of items that are bound to be of some use to someone else and post them on our local Freecycle forum. If only more people knew about Freecycle and groups were in existence across every area of the country. Last week we acquired a washing machine from there (Thanks, Fiona!!) and it's nice to know that 1) we have saved something from landfill that functions brilliantly and 2)we haven't encouraged yet another washing machine to be built by buying a new one.
Our local recycling bank is situated about a mile out of the village, meaning that anyone wishing to dispose of bottles etc has to drive there. Gordon Bennett, how dim are these councillors? How unenvironmentally friendly is having to use petrol every time we want to recycle? Why couldn't they have put it in the village so everyone could easily access it? It's not as if we don't have plenty of places where it could have been put - pick a field!
And I keep hearing stories about recycling banks being closed because they are "too well-used". Arg! Every time I have been to any of our local recycling banks recently, they tend to be overflowing, as more and more people get into recycling as much of their household rubbish as possible. And this is the way it should be. Until the council realise that the people are willing to do all this hard graft for them, and introduce wheelie bins which they empty when they would normally collect the rubbish, we seem to be lumbered with this ludicrous situation. After all, they are going round every household anyway, so why not reduce the amount going to recycling banks by collecting it from our doorsteps in one hit?
And where are the community compost bins? I've noticed that in our blue bags each way, the thing taking up the most space is firstly plastic packaging - we now go to the butcher for most of our meat rather than the supermarket as that is the prime offender - and secondly, food waste. We do have a compost bin, if I could just find it in the chaos of belongings that have resulted from moving house 3 times in 6 months, but how many households don't, and have no garden etc to put the compost on?
Compost generates heat, and I think it is in Nottinghamshire where they have municipal compost heaps which generate heat etc for public buildings. These, as far as I recall, have been in place since the 70s so it's hardly a new idea. Secondly, compost has a resale and reuse value. Considering our local farmers are spreading human shit on the land around the village currently, (and yes, it STINKS!) if the worst came to the worst and it was given to them for free to spread on their land, at least it wouldn't be going in landfill, and it would be putting some good back into the land that grows our food.
As an island, we seem remarkably wasteful of the resources we have. Whether that is overfishing our seas, or ignoring the food that lives wild on our shores, or encouraging a culture where things are obsolete almost before they have been bought, we seem profligate with what we have, and uncaring about what we could have.
The crap attitude in council chambers about dealing with the problems is, I suspect, national. And extends clearly into Westminster. I think that if we dealt with the lights off issue I posted about yesterday, (did I hit publish?!), and the compost and recycling, we'd make far more of an impact than any of the other supposedly good ideas that come out of either Westminster or Brussels to make a difference to waste on this part of our planet.
Why is it so difficult? If some councils can run scrap stores, and give every household and business a wheelie bin (some are divided into 2 or 3 partitions for different recyclable materials), and sort out composting, then why can't that be adopted nationally? It apparently only takes 30 days of doing something each day for it to become a habit, so how long really would it take to retrain this nation to reuse, reduce and recycle??
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