Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Blusters
Windy ride to Cheam today. Gusting sort of wind which catches one unawares as one comes round a corner or over the brow of a hill. But did discover that it is about time that I renewed my brakes. I wonder how long it will be before I actually get around to it? I dare say on my smart newish bike they will cost a good bit more than they did on my ancient Dawes. But one has to allow that they do work a good deal better.
Reminded when overtaken by a flashing blue ambulance when coming down to the Ewell by-pass, of being overtaken by a flashing blue fire engine - the tender sort - on the M25 recently. One of those Dennis things (http://www.johndennisfire.co.uk/). The point being that it only seemed to be able to do 70mph on a reasonably open road - or there is an understanding that large emergency vehicles do not break the speed limits.
Reminded again of the curious way in which our world is organised. The DT is bleating about economic meltdown because of collapsing retail sales. On closer inspection below the headline, it turns out that the collapse is the fact that February sales were only 1.5% more by volume than those of the previous February. First thought on seeing this was that we are in a bad way if we need to grow in that way to stay in a good way. A thought which contains sense of a sort. But on mature reflection, maybe the population is growing at 5% - what with all our friends from parts East - and a 1.5% increase by volume is actually something like 3.5% decrease per capita, which one might reasonably be unhappy about. I think not exactly because of a denominator problem which I can't quite rise to at the moment.
And intrigued by the case of the civil servant being hunted down for inappropriate blogging. First point, the DT claims that the blog has been taken down. So why would the provider do that? Maybe, in the case that the law was being broken, but that seems unlikely in this case. So not any of their business. Second point, while one might think that the civil service blog police are being a bit stuffy, I guess it is reasonable for an employer to get a bit stuffy if they are being slagged off, vaguely in public, by one of their own employees. Not so reasonable in the case (my own) of an ex-employee, provided one sticks to comment on things in the public domain.
Reminded when overtaken by a flashing blue ambulance when coming down to the Ewell by-pass, of being overtaken by a flashing blue fire engine - the tender sort - on the M25 recently. One of those Dennis things (http://www.johndennisfire.co.uk/). The point being that it only seemed to be able to do 70mph on a reasonably open road - or there is an understanding that large emergency vehicles do not break the speed limits.
Reminded again of the curious way in which our world is organised. The DT is bleating about economic meltdown because of collapsing retail sales. On closer inspection below the headline, it turns out that the collapse is the fact that February sales were only 1.5% more by volume than those of the previous February. First thought on seeing this was that we are in a bad way if we need to grow in that way to stay in a good way. A thought which contains sense of a sort. But on mature reflection, maybe the population is growing at 5% - what with all our friends from parts East - and a 1.5% increase by volume is actually something like 3.5% decrease per capita, which one might reasonably be unhappy about. I think not exactly because of a denominator problem which I can't quite rise to at the moment.
And intrigued by the case of the civil servant being hunted down for inappropriate blogging. First point, the DT claims that the blog has been taken down. So why would the provider do that? Maybe, in the case that the law was being broken, but that seems unlikely in this case. So not any of their business. Second point, while one might think that the civil service blog police are being a bit stuffy, I guess it is reasonable for an employer to get a bit stuffy if they are being slagged off, vaguely in public, by one of their own employees. Not so reasonable in the case (my own) of an ex-employee, provided one sticks to comment on things in the public domain.
# posted by Jim @ 4:57 AM 
