John Hughes
Posted: Fri 7 August, 2009 Filed under: News, Thoughts 1 Comment »Sad to see that John Hughes died yesterday.
Hughes made some of the definitive “teenager” 80s movies – Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, St Elmo’s Fire, Home Alone and many others. Just some of the ‘definitive moments’ are listed here.
And then this fantastic blog post shows just what kind of person John Hughes could be. (In fact, if Post of the Week were still going, I suspect this would be a hands-down winner)
Funereal
Posted: Thu 6 August, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts 2 Comments »While I do think it’s sad – although hardly unexpected – to know that “the last Tommy” (the last British soldier from World War One) died at the end of July, I can’t help but find the way his funeral has been taken over today to be pretty objectionable.
Harry Patch’s request was for a small funeral party, for just family and friends. No fuss, no pomp – pretty much what one would expect from someone who led as quiet a life as he appears to have done.
Instead, there’s been tickets issued for the funeral, some 1,000-plus people in Wells Cathedral as well as a public parade, and people outside on Cathedral Green to see the proceedings on video screens. It’s turned into some kind of media carnival, with (on one report I heard just now) reporters doing a broadcast from inside the cathedral while the service was going on. (And regardless of everything else, the disrespect of that action just stuns me)
While I don’t really have a problem with people showing their respects to Harry Patch – although how many of them really knew him at all? – I don’t really get why the media et al feel that it’s OK to trample over his last wishes in this way.
Power of Suggestion
Posted: Tue 28 July, 2009 Filed under: Driving, News, Thoughts 3 Comments »Now here‘s something I didn’t know – although bear in mind that the statistic comes from BSM, so shouldn’t be treated as absolute gospel.
According to BSM, about 70% of learners buy the same car model as they pass their test in.
Admittedly, we did the same back when I (finally) passed my test, and ended up with a Ford Focus, as that was what I’d learned in.
All the same, it’s interesting that 70% of new drivers do the same thing.
Electric vs. Diesel
Posted: Thu 23 July, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts, Travel 2 Comments »I have to say that attempting to justify electrifying the main train line between London and South Wales as “cutting the running cost and environmental impact of train services” really is utter, utter bollocks.
Now OK, I’m not an engineer, nor am I a train person in particular, so I don’t know the exact correlation of energy usage/efficiency between a diesel train and an electric one. And maybe the electric trains themselves are more energy-efficient than the diesel-powered ones. Fine.
But when you look at the bigger picture, that’s one fuck of a lot of electricity being chucked down the trainline. And that electricity has to be generated somewhere – which is still generating CO2 (unless it’s a nuclear power station, of course) and thus still having an effect.
So far as I can see, when you look at the entire thing, at least a diesel-powered train is using the energy it creates purely to power the train on demand. The electric line is (to my knowledge) powered constantly, rather than just “on demand”, which simply has to be more of a drain/waste, unless I’m completely mistaken.
This is the future. It’s greener, it’s cleaner, it’s faster, it’s more reliable. It’s making the railways fit for the 21st Century and encouraging more passengers to use the railways”
Aye, right. A £1billion project that’s not greener or cleaner. And I’d be more encouraged to use the railways if the services were a) on-time, b) organised and c) not utterly fucking extortionate.
Overheating
Posted: Tue 21 July, 2009 Filed under: Animals, News, Stupidity, Thoughts Leave a comment »I didn’t comment at the time when the story first broke, but I’m really pleased to see today that the police officer whose dogs died in a car outside the headquarters for Nottinghamshire Police is to be charged with causing unnecessary suffering to the animals.
Obviously no-one outside the situation knows the full story of what happened – yet. Regardless, it’s hard to imagine any dog owner – let alone the owner/trainer of two police dogs – just leaving their dog(s) in a car on a hot day. Personally, I don’t understand how anyone can let it happen.
I don’t care whether you’re in a meeting, or get called into something “important”, if it’s that hot and you know you’ve left dogs out in the car, you say so and then get out to make sure they’re OK. It’s that simple. Of course, ideally you’ve not got dogs in the car on a day like that anyway, but sometimes it does happen.
But whatever happens, if your job is based around animals, you simply don’t let those animals die (or suffer) needlessly.
Ouchy
Posted: Mon 20 July, 2009 Filed under: Driving, News, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Well, it’s nice to see that the UK isn’t the only place for interesting road crashes etc. – I think this 259-car pile-up in Germany is a pretty impressive achievement.
Amazingly, no-one died in the accident, although 10 are apparently in a serious or critical condition in hospital. Even so, ten out of what? At least 259 people – which goes quite a way to showing how much safer cars are now than they used to be.
Howler Sirens
Posted: Sat 4 July, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »While I think the idea of the new “Howler” sirens on emergency vehicles is a good idea, I can’t help but think they won’t actually work to get people out of the way.
After all, if someone is so much of a cock on the roads that a) they can’t hear sirens because their music is too loud and b) not looking in their mirrors, then they’re not going to notice and shift if they feel the car vibrating. In fact, if the music is that loud inside the car, the odds are that the bloody car will be vibrating already.
And if the driver is that much of a cock and they do feel their car vibrating, I’m pretty sure they’re actually more likely to panic, wonder what’s wrong with the car, and probably stall it right in the way of the emergency vehicles.
So it’s a nice idea, but I suspect it’ll fail against the wall of human nature.