pumpkinstrokemarrow

Quite nice to be up and about a bit earlier. Gets one going a bit. And a change to be back in serious traffic - although I am not sure I would want to do it too soon after a binge. Reactions might be a bit slow. Passed one cyclist who thought nothing of jumping onto the pavement so that he could skip a line of traffic, a practise I do not approve of. Pavement is for pedestrians and carriageway is for carriages. Nor do I approve of jumping lights, cycling the wrong way on one-way streets and other dodges of that sort. In fact, I am all for the police being able to pull cyclists for infringements of that sort and hauling them up before the beak for driving license endorsement - most cyclists will have one and will not want to have it endorsed. So it would be a deterrent.

But I do admit to sliding up more or less stationary lines of traffic, perhaps on the white line and perhaps with an inclination to nip in and out which can be a bit unnerving for car drivers. When I am driving in more or less stationary traffic on a motorway I often fail to notice a motor cycle until it has passed me.

I would also get rid of most of our more or less useless cycle lanes. Much more bother to use than they are worth. Not to mention all the unsightly road markings they need. And I would thin out all the islands in the middle of roads which can make it hard for powered vehicles to overtake one. Not enough room for cycle, reasonable gap, powered vehicle and island.

Now to breakfast where I shall re-read the DT piece on how we are going to lose our special place in the heart of the US if we cut our defence spending. Interesting graphic showing defence spending by the various big spending countries. On the basis that the DT has done its homework and that the figures are reasonable - at a guess it would take a fair amount of homework to produce figures of this sort on a comparable basis - I share some factlets.

So the US spends twice as much of its GDP on defence as most other people, that is to say 4%. And it spends 10 times as much absolutely as its nearest competitor - £450b to China's £46b. We come third with £37b. The bellicose French come seventh with £27b. Presumably it is these crude financial factlets which mean that the US is the only country in the world which is able, more or less at the nod of the president, to pack up an armoured brigade or two and send it across the sea on ships. Complete with escorting, nuclear tipped battle group. Good thing that we can trust the Yanks not to have a pop at us.

Remain unconvinced that we have any business trying to play in this league any more. We just have to wait until the UN or the EC get their act together and subscribe to that - and in the meantime to spend a lot less than we do now. Humanitarian aspirations to interfere in the affairs of others onto the back burner. Might be desirable but not affordable. And hope that the various rogue states do not get roguish enough to be able to bother us.