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The complicated junction by the railway bridge at the bottom of West Hill has recently had its traffic lights upgraded. Users will be glad to learn that it was visited by 6 people wearing high visibility tabards who wandered around in clumps looking rather bored for about 15 minutes before climbing back into their transport. One of them told me that this was a safety inspection of the upgrade, although they did not appear to be carrying stop watches, clip boards, cameras or anything like that.

Will they pick up on the fact that the pedestrian crossing part of the junction does not have high visibility lights for pedestrians? By which I mean that at most junctions of this sort, you stand at the kerb side looking ahead, across the road to be crossed, to an illuminated panel something above eye level which either shows a walking man in green or a stationary man in red. All fairly straightforward. At this one, the illuminated men have been relegated to a waist high panel to the side, so instead of keeping an eye on the road to be crossed in the normal way, you have to keep glancing to the left (or to the right as the case may be). What bright spark dreamed this one up? Having spent a hundred thousand or more on the upgrade is it to much to ask for a bit of user interface design?

Picked up an interesting thought on why it was that Stalin was to continue to be allowed to be a thug in the years after the war. The Soviet Union, as it then was, had been badly mauled in the war. Western parts of the country very badly bashed about. A lot of millions of people killed. Massive dislocation all over the country. Millions of people brutalised or otherwise damaged by the war returning to their native provinces. It seems quite likely to me that against this background there would have been lots of crime, drunkenness, unrest and worse. So there would have been plenty of frightened decent people who thought that the answer was to bang up all the anti-social elements in Siberia. That a bit of firmness was needed. Thoughts that would have contributed to a climate in which Stalin could carry on banging up all kinds of people in Siberia.

The other day, being on newspaper duty again, thought to buy an Independent. Not very impressed at all. All I seem to have purchased was a lot of stuff about the extermination of elephants and a pull out about film. Or perhaps film stars. Didn't seem to be much in the way of news at all. I wonder how long they had had the stuff on elephants on the shelf against a slow Sunday night with an empty newspaper? So little news in fact that I was moved to have a go at the elementary Sudoku. Which took me about half an hour - but at least I think I got the right answer. Hate to think how long the more serious one would have taken, assuming, that is, that I could have done it at all. The first Sudoku I have attempted for a few weeks, the last attempt on the Guardian version of elementary having ended in error. Not nearly interested enough to copy the thing onto a scrap of paper - or even a spreadsheet - so that I can back up in the case of error - so error is almost always fatal.

For some reason I then got to thinking that with my, albeit rather elderly, experience of demonstrations, I should perhaps start organising the pensioners on my estate. Agitsencit. Start with a few basic protests with a couple of dozen us marching around in a circle outside a protestable house, banging our placards up and down in a rhythmical fashion. Then move onto a flying squad of activists ready to descend on a protestable location at the drop of a walking stick when alerted by mobile phone or email. I wonder which would give the better result? Annual general meetings with a general secretary. Deputations to the council chamber. Need to think about the sort of things that are protestable. Withdrawal of sherry from the meals on wheels service. Care workers refusing to buys fags along with your fish fingers. Being ejected from the television lounge for snoring with open mouth. Younger people whining about the volume I play the rollen balls.

Which reminds me of another own goal by the FIFA gang. It seems that they are about to select a Somali rapper as chief crooner for the upcoming world cup, a Somali who seems to think that the piracy conducted by his fellow countrymen is OK. Well, it is bad enough that we do not seem to have the collective bottle to sort this business out, but do we have to sink to giving air time to advocates for said piracy? He might just about be entitled to have such views in private but I would not go much further than that.