Travel Time
Posted: Thu 13 March, 2014 Filed under: 1BEM, Commuting, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »Over the past year, much has been made of the HS2 train route, and how it’ll improve transport links in the UK. It’s absolute balls, as most common sense would tell you. Mind you, what *would* be useful would be a route going across the country, rather than up-and-down it.
An example…
My current contract is in Cambridge, and I live near Milton Keynes. Road-wise it’s an OK run, takes me 45-60 minutes each way.
But by public transport? Oy, fuck me, what a nightmare. For fun, I had a look.
Milton Keynes -> Cambridge isn’t a direct route (because there’s no ‘across’ rail line) Instead, I’d have to go :
- From Milton Keynes into London Euston
- From Euston to Kings Cross
- From King’s Cross to Cambridge.
Now that is madness – it’d be 3 hours in the morning, and at least two on the way home. (Weirdly, trains seem to run better on the return journey)
And then you get to the real madness. The price. Because it’s a ‘via-London’ route, and at ‘peak time’ the cost was always going to be high. But it turns out that a day return comes to £73.70. Yep, just under seventy five quid. Per day. I don’t pay that for a week’s fuel.
And if you think I’m lying – here’s the screenshot from Trainline.com…
Away Again
Posted: Sun 9 March, 2014 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Green, Hypocrisy, Travel Leave a comment »And of course bear in mind, when I’m wanking on about reducing impact and so on, that I’m actually a hundred-and-odd miles away from home this weekend, and I’ve driven the whole way.
So yeah – trying to reduce the impact, and all that piss. And sometimes failing. But it’s worth it.
Reducing The Impact
Posted: Sat 8 March, 2014 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Green, Thoughts Leave a comment »While – as per yesterday’s minorly ranty post – I’m not epically green, eco, and wanky about ‘saving the planet’, I do believe in lessening one’s impact where possible.
- I’m not the kind of hand-wringing apologist wanker who’ll replace an existing working vehicle with an electric car, or a hybrid. I’d rather use my old one ’til it dies and needs to be scrapped/recycled.
- I recycle what I can, but not obsessively for every separated bit of packaging. Some things just go in the bin. Life’s too fucking short.
- I don’t chuck away loads of unused food, and all that.
- The only reason I use more than one bin-bag a week is because of the cat’s litter tray.
- I’m fucking shit at reducing my annual mileage – mainly due to commuting. Although those longer commutes do (allegedly) help maintain engine efficiency, so *shrug*
- I *try* to use public transport when it’s reasonable/feasible. It’s just that for a lot of things, it’s neither reasonable to do so, nor feasible.
- I don’t leave lights/TVs on etc when I’m not using them.
In short, I try to lessen my impact. I’m not perfect, but nor am I obsessively green.
All told, it seems to be a pretty sensible perspective, and generally pretty well balanced.
Saving The Planet
Posted: Fri 7 March, 2014 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Domestic, Green, Hypocrisy, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »And yes, green eco-wankers who bleat on about how we’re “killing the planet” piss me off too.
The planet is [roughly] 4½ billion years old. It’s doing fine – and did so well before Homo Sapiens made its appearance, and will continue to do so well after we screw ourselves up and die out.
Whatever we do – even nuclear war – won’t destroy the planet. Sure, things might change (nuclear winter, global warming, whatever) but change is part of the planet’s life cycle. Ice ages, global tidal waves, mass extinction events. They’ve all happened before, and they’ll all happen again. The human race might be around to see them, it might not.
In typical human hubris, what we actually mean by “killing the planet” is “fucking up our chances for long-term survival”. Changing the environment won’t destroy the world, it’ll just kick off another evolutionary event, and knock our own race off the globe.
The planet itself will carry on regardless.
So fuck off telling me you’re saving the planet. You’re not – you’re actually taking part in an innately selfish human-centric piece of behaviour. That’s all.
Charging
Posted: Thu 6 March, 2014 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Green, People, Thoughts 2 Comments »On my walks round Milton Keynes, I regularly see electric cars plugged into the provided charging points. Just left there, charging.
Now, is it really childish that every time I see one, I want to either
- Unplug the car and/or
- Move/hide the charging cable/block completely ?
Actually, I know it’s really childish – it’s just I get annoyed by the palpable smugness of these ‘eco’ ballbags who think they’re ‘saving the planet’ by leaving their shitty electric cars plugged in for hours to an inefficient method of energy generation/accumulation…
Own Goals
Posted: Wed 26 February, 2014 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »In the news yesterday, there were a number of stories about the arrest of Moazzam Begg – an ex-detainee of Guantanamo Bay – on suspicion of Syria-related terrorism offences.
Of course, the apologists will say “See, he’s been charged again, that wouldn’t have happened if he’d stayed locked up”, but that is – perhaps – missing a rather relevant point.
Because let’s face it, who else is going to hate a country as much as someone who’s been wrongfully interred by that country?