The London run was a 70 mile drive one-way, so a 140-mile round-trip, plus the 10ish miles on the Tube each way. Amusingly, it took an hour to do the drive, and an hour to do the time on the Tube.

Since then I’ve taken on a new contract, this time working in Luton. The driving time is a bit less – about 2 hours in the morning, 90 minutes in the evening – for a few more miles, about 80 each way all told.

Everybody else insists I must be slightly mad to do the driving I do, but I really don’t mind it. It’s a longer distance sure, but it regularly used to take the same time to travel by bus from home to Oldham when I worked there. It used to take even longer when I was commuting by train between London and Bath, or London and Manchester. (And yeah, those runs were seriously insane)

In general I’m less stressed when it comes to commuting by car than when I’m reliant on public transport – people piss me off too much for me to want to travel with them now when I can avoid them.

I probably still am stupid for driving/commuting as much as I do, but it suits me, so I’m happy with it.

As an example, they probably could have called it ‘Exploited Children’s Online Protection’. Or something.

Mind you, it just goes to show how little thought went into CEOP in the first place, doesn’t it?

Following a request from his legal advisers, I am retracting these comments forthwith, and have deleted the original post(s) to reflect this. I apologise for any harm caused.

(This retraction has been approved by Gore Grimes Solicitors. My personal view hasn’t changed, but legal stuff prevails over personal opinion, it seems. Maybe next time he’ll remember about BCC)

This time next year London will also be hosting the 2012 Olympics – which should make things pretty interesting.  The other day, advice came from the transport minister that Londoners – the people who live and work in London – should ‘try and avoid peak times for travelling in London’

Transport minister Norman Baker urged Londoners to avoid peak times or change their routes to avoid pinch points during the 17 days of the Games, saying: “It’s time to oil the creaking bike, dig out the walking boots, work out how to use the video conferencing equipment, and fire up the laptop,”

Genius.

So the people that use – and pay extortionate amounts to use – the transport services should find alternative methods, while visitors for the olympics are here. In other words “The transport infrastructure can’t handle the extra traffic“. Well there’s a shock. People have been saying it for at least the last ten years, to my knowledge.

So what’s the point of bidding for a huge event like the Olympics, if you already know the infrastructure is knackered and can’t deal with the extra people?

Is it only me who thinks that this might – just maybe – be a bit of a bandwagon jump? Phone hacking has been in the media for most of this year, and even more so over the last month. And it’s only now that Mills (and several others) jump into the ring too. Very odd.

The story’s on the BBC here – and on the scumrag Daily Mail here.

Only one of the two stories manages to also show the image in it’s full “offensive” version.  Guess which one?

Yep, you got it – good old Daily Fail, making sure its readers know precisely what they should be offended by.

[Oh, and if you do want to know what the image is, look below the 'More' link]

Offensive, isn't it? Not.

Organic vs. normal

Yep, in story one organic vegetables “aren’t as good for your health”, yet in story two “pesticides on fruit and veg interfere with male fertility”.

You’ve got to have some kind of admiration – and not necessarily positive admiration – for a ‘newspaper’ that can have two opposing viewpoints in two stories right next to each other.