Masochistic commuters?

This arrived in my Feedreader today:
Half of passengers unhappy with cost of rail travel (The Guardian)

Correct me if I'm wrong but Britain has the most expensive trains in Europe (or the World?) and all that for a poor service. And the situation is not improving, as "regulated fares, which cover season tickets and saver tickets, have risen in price by an average of 3.9%, while unregulated fares, which include cheap day returns, have increased by 4.5%."

Yet, "45% [of passengers] said they were satisfied they were getting good value, while 33% said they thought ticket prices offered poor value."

Have we found the masochistic half of the population?

Link: Rail Passenger Council

Richmond and Twickenham Times: Commuters see red over level crossing

The North Sheen station footbrige issue is catching media's eye in vew residents outrage: read this this article from the Richmond and Twickenham Times by Sara Woods, Commuters see red over level crossing.

Every week we see commuters and school children the jumping level crossing barriers. Will the crossing be improved before a fatality occurs?

Read on Richmond Transits' campaign for a footbridge at North Sheen:

• Campaing for suppressing level crossings
• Susan Kramer's progress on North Sheen Station footbridge
• Time to remind Susan Kramer about the North Sheen Station footbridge

And also :-)

• Preliminary plans for North Sheen footbridge rebuffed

The prejudice map

Great Google Prejudice Map from Google Blogoscoped, showing clichés associated to countries thanks to an automated Google search.

The rest of the blog by Philipp Lenssen covers, well Google, and is one of the most complete I've seen around...

How to search on Google?

Most people are overwhelmed when getting results from a google search and think they simply can't find anything on the internet.

Here's a quick guide on how to search with google (also applies to Yahoo! and other search engines):

1. Using simple boolean operators helps, like with the following example:

• searching for [ludovic windsor] (without the square brackets) returns fourty-thousand and one hundred results
• the same query but for the exact phrase ["ludovic windsor"] (with the quotes but not the square brackets) only returns 98 results, so this filters
• using the boolean operator AND plus another search term, we finally find this blog out of only 3 results: ["ludovic windsor" AND Richmond]

2. A search is like a funnelling process: you need to refine your query to reduce the search results more and more, by iterations. So keep adding relevant keywords, synonyms to get a more specific answers.

3. You can use more advanced functions by simply clicking on "advanced search", exclude terms, etc...

4. Finally, check this great resource: Google Help : Cheat Sheet

You are what you eat: RTFL and go slow

Where should I start? Almost every week we learn of new ways food is tinkered with and trick to deceive the consumer.

Here’s the last one: Fresh apples, only stored for one year... (The Sunday Times, 11/12/05)
The apples are stored in warehouses (I’ve read a few years back that they are in complete darkness and that the air is deprived from oxygen to slow down the ripening) and sprayed with a chemical called 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) and sold by AgroFresh under the SmartFresh brand. It blocks the ripening process by being “a kind of placeholder in the space where ethylene sits”. Versions for bananas and avocados exist. The article doesn’t say what it does to the vitamin contents but I would bet it’s quite low after a year!
So if you ever wondered why when you bought supermarket fruits (Sainsbury has confirmed using SmartFresh) they went from hard to rotten straight-away, here you go… (Check AgroFresh’s FAQ on cold storage apples)

Another article I’ve read recently in the same publication and referenced here explains how the sugar content has doubled in apples in the last 60 years while levels of minerals have decreased between ¼ and ¾.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away? Think twice! This is very deceiving for consumers who want and think they’re buying healthy and natural products.

This freaks me out.

But more insidious is what goes in processed food (Processed foods are to blame for the sharp rise in obesity levels and chronic disease around the globe, according to the World Health Organization, read more here and there). So check the label, the sugar and fat contents.
It’s also better to eat healthy natural products (fruits, vegetables) than “diet products” which are full of chemicals (for instance soft drinks with aspartame still provokes an insulin surge and that may in turn cause a food craving (read here, there and there). So if you’re dieting, try wean yourself from your appetite for sweet.

At a higher level, there’s a link between obesity (especially for the poorest part of the populations) and the fact that in the last three decades fat, processed foods and sugars have steadily declined in price while fruits and vegetables are becoming relatively more expensive (read here, there and there). Just go to your Sainsbury’s and try to shop with two baskets: you’ll load one with vegetables, natural yogurt and fish while the other will be processed foods. Check which one is cheaper and it’s likely it will be the “calorie-dense” one.
For more, read The Economics of Obesity (09/05) on the Center for the Advancement of Health site:

“In the United States, energy-dense foods tend to taste good, are more convenient to buy, store and cook, and are much cheaper than energy-poor foods, Drewnowski says. “There are data from the USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] to the effect that prices for fruits and vegetables jumped by 130 percent or so in the past 20 years, whereas prices for sugar, fat and sweetened beverages increased by no more than 30 percent,” he notes.”

What to do then? Shop locally at farmer’s markets (what is the impact on the environment and local farming to eat New Zealand lamb and South-African apples?), read the label and make sure you keep salt, saturated fat and sugars low, sit down with your kids to eat a meal together.

You are what you eat. Go local, read the freaking label and eat slowly.


Other links:

• The baker who beat McDonald's (The Times, 06/01/06)
• Going Local on a Global Scale: Rethinking Food Trade in the Era of Climate Change, Dumping, and Rural Poverty (Foodfirst, Spring/Summer 2005)
• Italian Law Calls for All Organic Foods in Nation's Schools (Local Food Work, June 2004)

PS: pls drop me a comment if you find other interesting links, especially on the relationship between fat/sugar and vegetables/fruits prices.

Tags: Sainsbury SmartFresh SlowFood Consumerism foodings.blog.uk

Wiki: List of British English words not used in American English

Great resource for fellow UK bloggers or if you work in a multinational company:

• List of British English words not used in American English (in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Preliminary plans for North Sheen footbridge rebuffed

I just received an update from Susan Kramer on why (re-)building the footbridge for North Sheen station is taking so long: apparently the first project plan was not conclusive and Network Rail designers have been sent back to the drawing board (see VR illustration below).



Previous posts on this (serious) subject:

• Campaing for suppressing level crossings
• Susan Kramer's progress on North Sheen Station footbridge
• Time to remind Susan Kramer about the North Sheen Station footbridge

Restaurant review: the Cinnamon Club

I went yesterday night to this exquisite restaurant located in the Old Westminster Library: The Cinnamon Club.

I started with some char grilled king prawns with dill and carom seeds, followed with some roast pheasant with green spices, mint and onion sauce, aubergine crush and finished with a saffron poached pear with cinnamon ice cream. Everything was exquisite, including the side stuffed naans and the curry Rajasthani sangri beans. Words are not enough to describe this fireworks for the senses, very fine cuisine.

The wines matched superbly the food, we had a saint joseph (white côte du Rhône) and although I usually avoid Chapoutier as they're a wine house and not a grower this was a very nice example of the viogner grape. The red was a Seghesio Sonoma Zinfandel, very plummy and nice but as usual with Californian wines I have a (light) headache this morning -I can't prevent myself from thiking that they tinker too with what should be a natural product in the US. We finished nicely with a Baumes de Venise.

A top address!

The Cinnamon Club
The Old Westminster Library
Great Smith Street
London SW1P 3BU
Map
Email: info@cinnamonclub.com
Telephone: 020 7222 2555


Tags: foodings.blog.uk, restaurant, review

Links and more

Worked a bit on the blog after recovering from the festive season and added links to local pubs and restaurants.

Comments welcome!

Cycling in London: it's about time to do something!

With the congestion charge now at £8, Transport for London clearly signalled that only rich people can afford commuting by car to London. Shame if you happen to be working in a profession with night shifts, like for instance hospital nurses... (the charge operates from 0700 till 1830).

So, if you want to avoid both this new hidden tax and overcrowded and unreliable AND expensive public transport, cycling to work seems a good idea. Other options include buying a minibus (or a Land Rover Defender LWB) or an eletric car (I wonder what Sir Clive Sinclair has to say about this?).

The snag is that a cycling culture doesn't seem to be part of the British personality: "proficiency" levels are low and the network is terrible:

• The network is small and presents a lot of discontinuities (the paths stops and starts again after each bus stop, etc...)
• The segregation with motor vehicules and pedestrians is either poor (cycling path being just a terracotta-coloured path onto the street with no delimiters) or non-existent (shared tow paths with pedestrians for instance)
• Road surface is often bumpy and abrasive/high-friction (meaning increased effort from the biker and more damage in case of fall), quite often the cycle path is on the pavement and snakes around lamp posts and other obstacles. I'd like to speak to some borough planning officers...
• The cycle paths rarely have their own traffic lights for junctions, roundabouts are often just ignored
• Schools do not have secure bike sheds (surely cycling to school reduces congestion and helps kids excercising, but for instance at Darrell, our local school, there's no option for leaving bikes while kids are in class).
• Train stations do not either have secure locations where to store bikes, and taking bikes onto trains is restricted and badly signed (we came across one idiotic train SouthWest Trains conductor from Windsor to Richmond that forced us to move up the train into the so-called bike carriage where there was no space as two families with buggies were there). In contrast, every major train station in The Netherlands offers secure storage, bike rental and even a repair shop.
• Little use is made of the vast expanse of green real estate that the Royal Parks offer us: again, paths are shared and the parks are not linked into a network.
• There are little contraflows

Links:

• London Cycle Networks (is there one?)
• Bike safety by Myra VanInwegen
• Cyclehelmets.org (check the safety chart)
• Cycle path safety: summary of research on John Franklin's Cycling Digest
• Camden Cycling Campaign
• BBC: Safer cycling 'needed in London'

Supermarkets 2: labeling

Haven't you noticed how sometimes supermarkets try to con you with labeling?

The other day I was in Tesco and they were selling goldens (apples) either by the bag (of 10) or by kg. Fruits and Vegetables aren't the only case, but the most common offender. Sainsbury does the same (and their fish counter is worse).

By doing this, they prevent consumers to compare, usually between their own brands and cheaper bulk products. This is not only dishonest but also contradicts, at least the intent of, the EU DIRECTIVE 98/6/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
of 16 February 1998 on consumer protection in the indication of the prices of products offered to consumers (wordy?).

I wrote to both Tesco and Sainsbury (after complaining many times verbally about fist at Sainsbury and filling in forms about labeling at Tesco's). Let's see...

Campaing for suppressing level crossings

I was this morning at North Sheen's level crossing, waiting 12 minutes behind the barrier (missed my train as the entry from the station is on the other side) and pondering about the dangers of the level crossing: this week-end two 14-year-old girls got killed in Elsenham, Essex as they crossed to catch their train.

(see coverage on BBC and other sources)

And while I was raging against this level crossing, a schoolboy (probably going to Christ's School) jumped the barrier and crossed the tracks. He probably did not read the news...

Bob Crow from the RMTU (not my usual source but...) is quoted here saying that the cost of an underpass or a bridge is around £1m. Are two girls' lives not worth it?

Susan Kramer's progress on North Sheen Station footbridge

Susan Kramer's press officer finally came back to me with the statement below following my previous post (Time to remind Susan Kramer about the North Sheen Station footbridge).

Thank you for your recent email to Susan Kramer MP, regarding the above issue. During the last few months, Susan has been trying to arrange a meeting with senior representatives from Network Rail in order to discuss this issue.
I am happy to report that Susan has now had two separate such meetings with representatives from Network Rail, who have advised her that they have now launched a consultation as part of their South West London Route Utilisation Strategy - during which this issue will be given due consideration.
However, in an effort to make sure that this issue is given the level of consideration that it deserves, Susan has now written to the Chief Executive of Network Rail, Mr. John Armitt, to raise this matter directly with him.
Additionally, we soon hope to launch a petition to Network Rail, calling upon the company to provide proper footbridge access to North Sheen Station as part of the changes implemented in their South West London Utilisation Strategy mentioned above.

She deserves credit for raising the issue but how long is it going to take?
Do we need a tragic accident at North Sheen before anything changes?

Tags: North, Sheen, footbridge, Susan, Kramer, richmondtransits.blog

Time to remind Susan Kramer about the North Sheen Station footbridge

One of Susan Kramer's (LibDem) electoral pledge was to re-build the South footbridge at North Sheen station. Six month later and nothing has changed, the station is still served by one footbridge accessible from the North side of the level-crossing. This means one cannot reach the platform if the barriers are down which can be for up to over 12 mn with the new timetables.

So what's new? The Richmond and Twickenham Times has printed this article New call for rail bridge at Sheen, probably after a LibDem press release, but how long is this going to take for the works to start?

After mad cow: Iraq anthrax traced back to British cow!

Yet another export produce from good old English farming industry: Anthrax found in Iraq is traced back to a British cow.
We are continuously amazed by British Agricultural exports!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1726745,00.html
August 09, 2005 Saddam's germ war plot is traced back to one Oxford cowBy Dominic Kennedy

I dreamt about doing this!!!!

Hats off to Hacan for doing something I wanted to see for a long time:

BA boss gets early morning plane blasts (Richmond & Twickenham Times, 22/07/05)
THE boss of British Airways was woken up by blasting aircraft noise at 5am at his quiet Berkshire village home this week. The protesters rigged up a sound system outside the chief executives home and blasted out aircraft noise for 15 minutes. "The majority of night flights using Heathrow are operated by British Airways or one of its subsidiary companies. And BA is amongst the strongest supporters of night flights." As you have guessed, we live under the flight path, just like another MILLION of people in London (one of the few cities in London where flight paths go OVER down-town). This means we can get 747's cargos at 3 am or 4am, and then early morning traffic from 6 am. We have experienced it: it really affects kids sleeping patterns....

Cycling in London: it's about time to do something!

With the congestion charge now at £8, Transport for London clearly signalled that only rich people can afford commuting by car to London. Shame if you happen to be working in a profession with night shifts, like for instance hospital nurses... (the charge operates from 0700 till 1830).

So, if you want to avoid both this new hidden tax and overcrowded and unreliable AND expensive public transport, cycling to work seems a good idea. Other options include buying a minibus (or a Land Rover Defender LWB) or an eletric car (I wonder what Sir Clive Sinclair has to say about this?).

The snag is that a cycling culture doesn't seem to be part of the British personality: "proficiency" levels are low and the network is terrible:

• The network is small and presents a lot of discontinuities (the paths stops and starts again after each bus stop, etc...)
• The segregation with motor vehicules and pedestrians is either poor (cycling path being just a terracotta-coloured path onto the street with no delimiters) or non-existent (shared tow paths with pedestrians for instance)
• Road surface is often bumpy and abrasive/high-friction (meaning increased effort from the biker and more damage in case of fall), quite often the cycle path is on the pavement and snakes around lamp posts and other obstacles. I'd like to speak to some borough planning officers...
• The cycle paths rarely have their own traffic lights for junctions, roundabouts are often just ignored
• Schools do not have secure bike sheds (surely cycling to school reduces congestion and helps kids excercising, but for instance at Darrell, our local school, there's no option for leaving bikes while kids are in class).
• Train stations do not either have secure locations where to store bikes, and taking bikes onto trains is restricted and badly signed (we came across one idiotic train SouthWest Trains conductor from Windsor to Richmond that forced us to move up the train into the so-called bike carriage where there was no space as two families with buggies were there). In contrast, every major train station in The Netherlands offers secure storage, bike rental and even a repair shop.
• Little use is made of the vast expanse of green real estate that the Royal Parks offer us: again, paths are shared and the parks are not linked into a network.
• There are little contraflows

Links:

• London Cycle Networks (is there one?)
• Bike safety by Myra VanInwegen
• Cyclehelmets.org (check the safety chart)
• Cycle path safety: summary of research on John Franklin's Cycling Digest
• Camden Cycling Campaign
• BBC: Safer cycling 'needed in London'

Speed cameras: all for the money, litte for safety

Here are a few important facts about speed cameras:

1. Accidents on the motorways account for less than 10% of the total. So why diverting resources to putting speed cameras on motorways, like in France? One could say it's idiotic, but in fact speed cameras have little to do with safety, in particular on motorways. They can actually cause accidents (French news article, Le Nouvel Obs, 18/07/05, explaining that before speed cameras were installed on the A12 between Montigny-le-Bretonneux et Rocquencourt, 30 accidents were registered and 60 after!!!)
2. In fact, Less than 4% of accidents are caused by exceeding the speed limit
3. Again according to Speedcameras.org.uk, £120 million was generated in speeding fines in 2003. That's in the IUK. In France, they plan no less than EUR 375 revenue in 2006!!!

STOP THE HYPOCRISY!

Links:

www.radars-auto.com

www.speedcameras.org

International dates and times

It's sometimes challenging to work internationally, especially given we all use different paper sizes: letter, A4, etc...

We haven't yet found a solution for paper size, but since European countries and most of the commonwealth use the DIN (A4, A3, etc...) we're suggesting that the de facto standard is the one use by over 490m people vs. 290m in the USA...

On the times, here's a useful reference for people working with international colleagues: the International standard date and time notation

This page suggests to use the ISO 8601 (International Standards Organisaion) formats:

* for the dates YYYY-MM-DD
* and for tims hh:mm

The ISO 24h time format is commonly accepted. See this interesting note from the above referenced page:

A remark for readers from the U.S.:

The 24h time notation specified here has already been the de-facto standard all over the world in written language for decades. The only exception are a few English speaking countries, where still notations with hours between 1 and 12 and additions like “a.m.” and “p.m.” are in wide use. The common 24h international standard notation is widely used now even in England (e.g. at airports, cinemas, bus/train timetables, etc.). Most other languages do not even have abbreviations like “a.m.” and “p.m.” and the 12h notation is certainly hardly ever used on Continental Europe to write or display a time. Even in the U.S., the military and computer programmers have been using the 24h notation for a long time.

The old English 12h notation has many disadvantages like:

* It is longer than the normal 24h notation.
* It takes somewhat more time for humans to compare two times in 12h notation.
* It is not clear, how 00:00, 12:00 and 24:00 are represented. Even encyclopedias and style manuals contain contradicting descriptions and a common quick fix seems to be to avoid “12:00 a.m./p.m.” altogether and write “noon”, “midnight”, or “12:01 a.m./p.m.” instead, although the word “midnight” still does not distinguish between 00:00 and 24:00 (midnight at the start or end of a given day).
* It makes people often believe that the next day starts at the overflow from “12:59 a.m.” to “1:00 a.m.”, which is a common problem not only when people try to program the timer of VCRs shortly after midnight.
* It is not easily comparable with a string compare operation.
* It is not immediately clear for the unaware, whether the time between “12:00 a.m./p.m.” and “1:00 a.m./p.m.” starts at 00:00 or at 12:00, i.e. the English 12h notation is more difficult to understand.

Please consider the 12h time to be a relic from the dark ages when Roman numerals were used, the number zero had not yet been invented and analog clocks were the only known form of displaying a time. Please avoid using it today, especially in technical applications! Even in the U.S., the widely respected Chicago Manual of Style now recommends using the international standard time notation in publications.



Most of the world still use now an adapted version of the old German date format, as follows:

* DD/MM/YY or DD/MM/YYYY

(In any case, the US format is both ambiguous and illogical...)

No beer? No lunch, says Belgian parliamentarian (Reuters)

A lunch meeting between a leading parliamentarian in Belgium and counterparts from Iran has been cancelled because the beer-loving Belgian could not stomach a ban on alcohol.

Never mind then!

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2005-06-30T110907Z_01_KWA040141_RTRIDST_0_OUKOE-BELGIUM-IRAN-ALCOHOL.XML