Unsalted
Posted: Sat 19 September, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Health, Norfolk, People, Stupidity, Sweary, Thoughts Leave a comment »Sometimes you read a story and your mind boggles right out of its tiny capsule.
In this case, it’s a story about Norfolk’s Trading Standards launching a campaign to get people to reduce their salt intake. “How?”, I hear you cry. Well, like this…
New saltshakers with fewer holes have provided for fish and chip shops in Norfolk to help cut salt consumption. The saltshakers only have five holes and dispense 50% less salt than the usual 17-hole versions.
What ?!?
So this ‘campaign’ is only in the 400-ish fish-and-chip places in Norfolk. If you’re in a chippy, I somehow suspect that the salt in it is far less of a long-term risk than the amount of fat that’s going into that meal. But no, we’ll focus on the salt. Genius.
And what the fuck has it got to do with Trading Standards? Are people no longer judged to have enough personal responsibility to manage their own salt levels on their food?
I despair. I truly do.
Just Why?
Posted: Thu 17 September, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »The Aston Martin Vantage is a beautiful, beautiful car. It’s one of the very few that I’d love to own – I know it’s an utterly unrealistic prospect for a number of reasons (Not least being that it costs somewhere north of £85,000) but there we go. It’s still a thing of beauty, and when one goes past, I’ll always appreciate it.
However.
On my current walk in to work, I get passed two or three times every week by a Vantage. And while I love the shape and design of the car, I really can’t believe that anyone sane would get one painted in what I can only describe as powder blue. (According to Aston Martin, so far as I can tell it’s called ‘Glacial Blue 2’, but it’s nowhere near as dark as in their car-configuration thingy)
The car’s still beautiful. The colour is – frankly – fucking horrific. With so many colours to choose from, why the hell would someone choose powder blue, for chuff’s sake?
Artistic Copyright etc.
Posted: Mon 14 September, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School Leave a comment »I still love Charlie Brooker.
This week’s summation by him of artistic integrity, rights, and copyrights is spot-on.
The arrest may not be Hirst’s fault, but sod it: let’s appropriate any resultant outrage and apply it to him anyway. Cartrain’s almost certainly a self-promoting gump and a poor man’s Banksy – but he’s 19, for heaven’s sake. He’s allowed to be an almost impossible arse.
But you’ll have to read the article to see how the above quote fits in with the one below…
In its heyday, the Radio 1 Sunday evening Top 40 countdown constituted the biggest file-sharing portal in British history, with millions of users hooked up simultaneously, mercilessly downloading content to their tape decks.
Blind teaching the Blind
Posted: Mon 14 September, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Education, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »I noticed this story today while reading over the shoulder of someone on the Tube – and then had to search it out online.
So – how many things can you spot that are wrong with this concept? The headline : “Primary schools bring in bankers to teach the credit crunch children”
Oh yes indeed – get children taught how to be fiscally responsible by the fucksticks responsible for the current situation. Awesome plan.
Although in fairness, I do think it’s a good idea to teach children far more about money, how to calculate interest, understanding APRs, and basic fiscal stuff. I know that I wish I’d had something like that in my education, anyway…
Un-fucking-Believable (Part 4)
Posted: Mon 7 September, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Customer Services, National Express East Anglia, Sweary, Travel Leave a comment »Following on from the rest of the story, today was the day that NEEA put the prices way up for my ticket from Attleborough to London.
The sole explanation of this anywhere on the station platform was one sheet of A4 paper wrapped in plastic sticky-taped to one noticeboard, which explained (and I may be paraphrasing slightly here…)
Because we’re profiteering fuckwit bastards, the line between Norwich and Cambridge has now been deemed a ‘peak-line’ train, which means we’ll rip you the fuck off for a full-price ticket until 10am.
This is to bring this service in line with other services leaving London. In other words, live with it, and we’ll take your money. Suckers.
The excuse of ‘bringing this service in line with others leaving London’ would be almost fine, if it weren’t for one or two very fucking significant points.
Point the First
The line between Cambridge and Norwich doesn’t go anywhere near London. At all. To travel to/from London, you’ve got to change first at Cambridge or Norwich. There is NO direct service.
Point the Second
Off-Peak tickets for leaving london only apply (according to NEEA’s own T&Cs) for trains arriving in London before 10am. The 7.55am service gets in to London Kings Cross at – um – 10.15am. Leaving at 7.55, in fact, there is no fucking way I can get to London before 10am.
In most cases the off peak day travelcard is not available for travel on trains arriving in London* before 1000 or departing from London before 0930. Travel is also not permitted on services departing from London* between 1629 and 1834 Monday to Friday, except for travel to stations between Hatfield Peverel and Braintree inclusive on the 1636 departure from London.
So all told, it just looks like a massive profiteering move on NEEA‘s part to double the prices and grab as much profit as humanly possible.
In the meantime, I’ve complained to NEEA direct, although I’m willing to bet that they don’t even bother responding. I’ll add the complaint letter as a post on D4D™ sometime this week, just for fun. I’m also going to be writing properly, rather than just in email – and I suspect a copy might make it’s way to the local papers etc. too…
10:10 – Buying Yourself Green
Posted: Sat 5 September, 2009 Filed under: 10:10, 1BEM, Cynicism, Green, Thoughts 2 Comments »Looking at the list of the Guardian’s 10:10 suggestions from yesterday’s post, I couldn’t help but think that there was an awfully high number of those pointers that suggested buying/installing something new. Sure, they then (usually) said to recycle the old ones, but still, there was some significant investment involved in reducing that carbon footprint.
So, being a geek, I put the list into a table, and estimated some prices for those items with a cost…
(Click on the more link to see the table – it’s a biggie…)
10:10 – Realistic Chance?
Posted: Fri 4 September, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Domestic, Green, Thoughts 9 Comments »My initial thoughts on the Guardian’s 10:10 Campaign were pretty non-committal, but yesterday I read Charlie Stross’s full-size and well thought-out piece, so I thought I’d do something similar to his post, but based on my own life and/or carbon footprint, which might help fill out my own thoughts and ideas on it.
So, using The Guardian’s own “How to reduce your carbon emissions” list, here we go… (Click on the more link below)